Monday, March 2, 2009

School versus gaming

Goal of the week: I've decided that my goal of the week should be getting my filing system under control. The sheer amount of papers that I need to keep track of for my students is mind boggling. I need to get a better system underway than the one that I currently have because I spend hours of my week just trying to file and grade. I mean - literally hours into the night. It's not an efficient use of my time when I need to be coming up with lesson plans. I've decided that I need to figure out how to make this more streamlined.

This week we have standardized testing for the state going on. The whole school is under lockdown. I'm not that happy about it but there's nothing I can do. The kids aren't that happy either, but I need tos how them that sometimes in life there are things that you have to deal with that are less than you want. Sometimes, you have to deal with the crud in order to get what you want. Basically... life isn't always fun or we'd all be happy all the time. Tuff nuggies. All of that.

My kids seem to think that they are entitled to a life where things are easy and tame. They seem to think that school should always be fun and easy, that there should never be homework unless it's over PS2 or another such gaming system, that teachers should let them listen to iPods in class instead of lecture, that they shoudl text in class instead of take notes, and that every day should be movie day. I don't know where they get these ideas from. They won't help them in life. There isn't a job on Earth that is like that, and they all know that or should know that. I need to ask them what they think school is preparing them for. I think there's some sort of disconnect where they don't seem to realize that school is supposed to be preparing them for life and for a job. I think they just consider it to be an annoyance that gets in they way of their gaming.

It's one of my goals to fix that.

No comments:

Post a Comment