Staff Meetings

Total days of student teaching: 2
Total hours of staff meetings incurred therein: 5.5

Okay. Call me crazy, but so far it seems like the most horrid part about teaching is enduring staff meetings.

What I've witnessed so far is worse than any sorority meeting, worse than any prom committee meeting, worse than any parent-teaching meeting, worse than any restaurant pre-shift I've ever been party to. Each day so far, I've watched grown, professional adults sit in a room and bicker. And I don't even mean bickering about important things, like yearly goals or standardized testing or disciplinary plans. I'm talking bickering about stuff like who's in charge of large group, or whether or not a team building activity involving water balloons is a good idea or not.

About 2 hours into a 2.5 hour meeting today, I felt like standing up and saying, "Shut up! Just SHUT UP! Let's have the varying sides in this discussion make their point in a minute or less per person, and then let's take a vote and be done with it!"

THE MOST IRRITATING PART OF ALL is that every single teacher in the meeting, by the end of the meeting, was grumbling about not having time for lesson plans or working on the new teaching initiative. Do you know why there isn't time for lesson planning or working on the new teaching initiative, and why there potentially won't be time for grading or eating or showering or going to the gym or watching movies or going to the park?

BECAUSE OF ALL THE BICKERING, THAT'S WHY. Part of me wants to drive to Ohio, sneak into any Greek house, steal the gavels that everyone inevitably uses during their meetings, drive back home, go to school, and thrust the gavel at someone and say, "For the love of GOD--USE THIS TO KEEP US IN LINE."

*insert deep breath*

Good things about today:
--This glass of wine I'm currently enjoying
--I have a rocking framework for my unit on The Autobiography of Malcolm X
--Tomorrow is Wednesday
and, best of all:
--Tomorrow I am in charge of teaching a mini-lesson on note-taking strategies with a focus on the Cornell Notes style of note-taking. I made a demo sheet to pass out to students to show what Cornell Notes look like when done correctly. And all of the examples are about Lil Wayne.