When I was in high school, I used to walk by the faculty lounge everyday on the way to English class. I used to always wonder what happened behind closed doors. Every once in a while, a teacher would exit/enter when I walked by, and I would catch a glimpse of teachers lounging on comfy looking couches and chairs, clean tables, coffee makers, and tacky art hanging on the wall.
So what really happens when two or more teachers are in the same room together for an extended period of time? Complaining. Lots and lots of complaining. Surely I would never claim to be exempt from this behavior since complaining is in my top three hobbies (right up there with eating and sleeping).
Last Wednesday, I had to hurry and eat before running to the first of two meetings that overlapped into my lunch hour and forced me out of my last two classes of the day. During my shoveling session, I was joined at my table by two teachers. At first the conversation started out about all the hubbub regarding the two graduates of our school playing in the Super Bowl. Soon the topic switched to where we live. One of the teachers mentioned that he had recently moved with his wife; the other teacher asked what the wife did. Nursing. Then BOOM! "They [the nurses] have so much better negotiators than our union. Last year they successfully negotiated new contracts, but ours are still haggling over the drug testing." On and on they droned about poor working conditions -- short lunch breaks, heavy class loads, not enough money, blah blah blah.
I rushed off to my first meeting. We started discussing how to incorporate education standards and test data into our official documents (IEPs for those of you keeping score). We were doing pretty well at staying on topic (in other words: putting me to sleep) when a teacher asked, "So when are we supposed to find the time to compile all of this data and plan for our classes? I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, but I seem to be spending so much time making calls to parents to coordinate meetings, typing these documents and creating goals that I don't have time to prepare standards based lessons for my students." The sentiment spread around the room and soon teachers were pouncing on the presenter with all kinds of complaints about short prep periods, heavy work loads, not enough support, blah blah blah.
Now I know why they kept the faculty lounge door closed at my high school; it's not because the teachers didn't want their complaints to be heard, but because everyone else was sick of hearing them.
So what really happens when two or more teachers are in the same room together for an extended period of time? Complaining. Lots and lots of complaining. Surely I would never claim to be exempt from this behavior since complaining is in my top three hobbies (right up there with eating and sleeping).
Last Wednesday, I had to hurry and eat before running to the first of two meetings that overlapped into my lunch hour and forced me out of my last two classes of the day. During my shoveling session, I was joined at my table by two teachers. At first the conversation started out about all the hubbub regarding the two graduates of our school playing in the Super Bowl. Soon the topic switched to where we live. One of the teachers mentioned that he had recently moved with his wife; the other teacher asked what the wife did. Nursing. Then BOOM! "They [the nurses] have so much better negotiators than our union. Last year they successfully negotiated new contracts, but ours are still haggling over the drug testing." On and on they droned about poor working conditions -- short lunch breaks, heavy class loads, not enough money, blah blah blah.
I rushed off to my first meeting. We started discussing how to incorporate education standards and test data into our official documents (IEPs for those of you keeping score). We were doing pretty well at staying on topic (in other words: putting me to sleep) when a teacher asked, "So when are we supposed to find the time to compile all of this data and plan for our classes? I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, but I seem to be spending so much time making calls to parents to coordinate meetings, typing these documents and creating goals that I don't have time to prepare standards based lessons for my students." The sentiment spread around the room and soon teachers were pouncing on the presenter with all kinds of complaints about short prep periods, heavy work loads, not enough support, blah blah blah.
Now I know why they kept the faculty lounge door closed at my high school; it's not because the teachers didn't want their complaints to be heard, but because everyone else was sick of hearing them.
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