A fumbletoofed garsnaggle if I ever saw one
I recently did a cartoon for Lake Magazine that included a poem, which I mercifully will not repeat here… except for the last couple of lines, which I am only approximating.
“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea and I don’t want to create a fuss….
But if you won’t allow kids to pray in school, could you please let the teachers cuss?!”
Of course I wouldn’t want that permission and wouldn’t use it if I had it. This was a joke. But sometimes you really do feel like cutting loose with some colorful language. So, in our class we borrow some of the style of Roald Dahl’s giants and use words like “fumbletoofed garsnaggle” instead of *&^%ing pile of *&%$*&!
From what I have seen, heard, read, been told, heard rumored and experienced through osmosis, the current educational reform effort is something of a fumbletoofed garsnaggle.
Because it is put together by people who don’t actually believe in their own jobs, it assumes that money will be the answer. That is reasonable. That is what they work for. That is the only thing that keeps them going. Why wouldn’t it work for us teachers?
It is not just the Legislature, either. I sat in a meeting recently with some wonk from some office that has the term “education” misapplied to it. She who doesn’t teach was evaluating my efforts, using charts and acronyms. She never smiled. She expected, essentially, that we all jump equal, research-based distances off our seats every time she uttered the word frog.
And she sneered a lot.
The woman was a rubber hole. (I don’t know what that means but I heard it one time and it seems to apply here almost as well as the word I would like to use.)
At one point during the meeting, this specimen says, in front of two hard-working teachers: “There aren’t any good math teachers. All the good ones get into administration so they can earn more money.” Then she looked right at me and did something that appeared to be an attempt at a smile.
It was a scary concept…her thinking that there might be some amount of money on this planet that would make me want to be like her. But beyond that, it was the idea that money is the prime mover of those who work in the classroom.
I quit a job making a lot more than I ever will make under any kind of merit pay system so I could teach fourth-graders. My kids learn the heck out of math. We go beyond the Grade Level Expectations, we compete with each other, we have competitions and we have fun. We are capable of smiling without sneering.
During Christmas break, I spent several hours of each day creating a Holiday Challenge and several hours grading the answers. Fourteen of my 21 kids went online on their own time and answered math questions. During this current Spring Break, I am working on evaluating science projects and setting type for display boards. When I finish this blog, I am going shopping at Goodwill for some figurines to complete our model city….we built apartment buildings to represent Safety, Trustworthiness, Accountability, Respectfulness and Success. While there, I will look for baseball gloves.
None of this counts toward my compensation. There may be some way they can figure out that it will count toward my future compensation, but I doubt it. My guess is that it will hinge on some research-based set of acronyms that were created by consultants who really are in it for the money and that can be charted and administered by a woman who thinks I work for money and who thinks a sneer is the equivalent of a smile.
That won’t matter. If they double my pay, I will still do things like this. If they cut my pay in half, I will still do things like this. If I don’t get fired, I intend to do the same thing next year that I did this year and last year and the year before. That would be everything I can. I will do that regardless of whether or not it is compensated for the merits that can be perceived through charts and research-based acronyms.
I do what I do for the kids, for myself, for the feeling I get out of accomplishing something…and, in a lot of cases, for the fun of it.
What I think will happen is that we will get another gigantic system that will create a tremendous amount of paper to replace a tremendous amount of paper of another gigantic system. And the teachers who are trying their best will continue to try their best and will be largely overlooked for their best efforts. I think that regardless of the good intentions, the merit money will fall into the hands of people who work harder on their paperwork than they work on their kids.
The same kids who are succeeding now, will succeed under the new system. The same ones who struggle, will struggle for the same reasons. Frogs will continue to jump and bees will continue to sting and the Legislature will continue to award itself regular increases in compensation.
And money won’t fix it, either.
And neither will sneering.
And since neither praying nor cussing is allowed, I will close by saying that I know a fumbletoofed garsnaggle when I see one.
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May 25th, 2010 at 7:17 am
I have never conducted a scientific survey, but I’d be willing to bet close to 99% of parents would agree with your longing to bring common sense back into schools! Teach them what they really need to know, rather than a collection of facts that are useful only if you take Department of Education exams.
Here’s an idea: make teacher merit pay partially based on student and parent feedback!