you're not better

Sometimes I'm utterly amazed at the amount of stupidity it takes to run things. I realize that sentence is a complete oxymoron. The amount of people who are my superiors and that I have to answer to in some way whether it be direct or indirect is ridiculous. The number of people it takes to think up the "wonderful" ideas (and I use that term loosely), to make our kids "more competitive" is ridiculous. The number of people it takes to take those "wonderful" ideas and tweak them every other day is ridiculous.

See this is part they so thoughtfully left out when I sitting in the College of Ed. learning how to be teacher. The political part. And the part on how to play the game. I have to say that I'm exhausted from playing the game. I'm so tired of people who have never been in a classroom, other than to the smile and wave and act interested in what I do, or the people who were in the classroom but for a few short years before they jumped into the pond they really wanted to swim in, dictating what in their minds is "best practice". I don't want to play the game. The game has no business being in my business. I signed on to teach and better kids--not listen to you tell me what you think I should do based on what another district does that has nothing in common with mine other than the fact that they have schools. I didn't sign on to read a script all day. I did not sign on to sit in meeting after meeting just to be told I need to go to another meeting to discuss another meeting. I didn't sign on to follow behind people with questions that should've been answered from the get go and ideas that they should be thinking up on their own.

I find it amazing that while I'm expected to have my ducks in a row and have my crap together, it's completely acceptable for people who are in charge of "managing" me to not have there's together. It makes it very frustrating and disheartening to go to work every day. It makes me wonder what my job will look like in 5 or 10 years. Will I even be needed or will everything be done on a computer or via a robot who can pick up a script and read it? It makes me wonder if this is something I really want to do for the next 27 years before I can even think about retirement. I love what I do. I really do. I get such a joy from working with kids although some days I have to count to 10 in my head and take a lot of deep breaths. It's not the kids or typical stuff that comes from a working in such close quarters with other people. It's the people who really don't get it and think that the only important thing is to be competitive in the time of charter schools and standards that come from state departments who really don't understand what kids need.

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