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I hate workshop days, especially those which start with three hours of sitting on my ass. To be fair, we had renowned speaker Thomas R. Guskey. He, however, was not as captivating as I would have appreciated on this freezing cold morning. Guskey spoke to us about grading. While I was listening to him, I realized that I am getting old and crabby. Although I agree with a lot of Guskey's ideas, I sat in the back and wondered how much it cost to bring him to our district. My questioning continued because that's what I do. Since the district has already made the decision to go to 70-30 (70 summative/30 formative), why spend money to bring in someone to tell us its merits (not his exact message)? Maybe spending money on letting teachers work together and figure out the system would be a better option. This poses a problem because the administration in my school does not want to listen to everyone. After our afternoon session (supposed Socratic Seminar), I came up with a hypothesis of the recent changes. It is my belief that the administration has surrounded itself with people who don't ask questions. Those of us who do ask questions have given up and/or been ignored. My experience does not make me a better teacher, but it does give me some knowledge. Unfortunately, I feel devalued as administration and colleagues ignore my thoughts and questions while they look at me as the old and crabby teacher. Heck, maybe I am.
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