~Sometimes I feel like I will never find a profession where I will be happy (most) of the time. I really thought I had found that with school counseling... until this morning.~I am in the process of doing a "needs assessment" at a local high school as part of a class project. The surveys were given to the staff school counselor who took care of distributing them to the teachers/students and the results of the assessment will be provided to her for use at that school.
~The assessment had 17 statements (one line only) and the instructions were simply to mark the ones the individual felt were important to them and then rank order the top 5 by level of importance.
~I picked up the completed surveys yesterday and was looking at them briefly this morning. That is when I noticed this-->a statement from a teacher "need to work on your lack of courtesy, especially if you're going to ask practicing teachers to do you a favor"
~Um ok.
~then it got worse...the student surveys attached to this teacher survey were IDENTICAL. This teacher instructed his/her students to write on theirs "I feel like I can cope with high school without the intervention of pointless surveys from self importance of the state land grant institution. This is a waste of my time". The teacher also clearly instructed them to check every item as important and than rank order 1-2-3-4-5 so ultimately the surveys are of no value.
~the courtesy piece this teacher is referencing is an introductory paragraph telling them we are UT graduate students and asking for their help in completing the survey. I did NOT write this part NOR did I feel it was rude or discourteous. At the end, there was a statement to THANK them...so I'm not sure what the hell this crabby person wanted.
~Now I realize that teachers are under the gun and all nowadays with the whole NCLB crapola...but this survey was reviewed and APPROVED by their principal and would take no more than 5 minutes.
~What is MOST disturbing is that this teacher did not allow his/her students to think for THEMSELVES as it was clear he/she wrote the statement on the board for all the students to copy. Ridiculous.
~I have notified the counselor at this high school to see whether she noticed this or not. I also mentioned it to a counselor at the high school I am currently working at...she said the teacher who did this should be written up. Ha! I think so too!
~All that to say...I need thicker skin. This gave me a stomach ache this morning and I didn't even write that introductory paragraph. Also many people had proof read this document and NO ONE mentioned changing anything there or that it wasn't courteous. This whole situation (small, I know) has made me feel like I really don't want to work in this profession EITHER as I don't want to deal with such ridiculous & petty issues.
~Oh I know I'll encounter crap like this everywhere, but with the way my week has gone, this was truly the icing on the cake.
~TGIF!!
6 comments:
I'm soooo sorry that a teacher did that to you! Perhaps you should give that teacher's car a courteous egg bath. :)
Hope your weekend makes up for the crappy week.
Emily-I would love to however the surveys are anonymous, even the counselor who works at that HS doesn't know who turned it in.
My mom worked in education as both a teacher and a counselor for nearly 30 years. There is always stupid crap like that going on, even at the "good" schools.
That is horrible. I'm bitter and angry just reading about it. The teacher has the nerve to talk of "self importance" when his/her own "self importance" (not to mention ignorance) is a complete waste of the time and money it took to put out those surveys. Why are some people so stupid?
As a teacher myself, I am offended by the way that particular teacher handled himself/herself. What an immature response! And to model and encourage that kind of behavior to the entire class is inexcusable. Even if the teacher had a legitimate concern with the surveys or the way they were presented, the mature response would have been to have a face-to-face, genuine conversation, rather than the passive-aggressive nonsense that happened. So sorry you had to deal with that!
Sorry, for the late post, I'm playing catch up....:) I know exactly where you are coming from. My degree is in SC and with my internship I encountered some very petty teachers and staff. Yes, I think at some point some of them start to act worse than the students!!! You don't need a thick skin. This teacher was the rude and unprofessional one. I hope you were able to get support from the school counselor. My site supervisor was an ANGEL and helped me manage to get through it. Good luck!
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