summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2006-09-25 11:08 pm
summercomfort) wrote2006-09-25 11:08 pm
My new school is filled with youth and vitality. Namely, money
The campus looks like an offshoot of Stanford, with its sandstone-colored buildings and mission style rooftops. Centrally located amphitheatre, library with arches and eaves. Green. Lots of green grass. The only hallways are the carpetted ones in the main office. Someone scored in the district-wide remodelling project 3 years ago.
Materials are abundant here. The classrooms ample, the teacher's lounge just the right size for a cozy discussion (not the chill emptiness of a classroom, nor the 5x6 horror that is the Santa Clara department room, with its moldy couch and moldier fridge). They have laptops on carts. They have a staff person who does your copies for you. They can afford to give me a desk and a box in the office. And they have the coolest "do not duplicate" keys (extra set of rrrridges in the middle)
The people here are happy. Sue the Principal's secretary gave me a school shirt. My new CT (Kristine) sent me a bunch of classroom materials via the internet. (Did I mention that there's wireless? That on Wednesday the "tech person" will come and hook me up with a school account?) My CT's a STEPpie from 3 years ago, so not-yet-jaded. She teaches from 7:30-9:10, and then from 11:50-1:30. Two classes. Sharing material at Fremont is sending files around. At Santa Clara, it's stealing and copying binders of handouts. Flexibility, anyone?
It's amazing what money can do. Teachers can't collaborate if you don't give them enough prep periods, and they can't collaborate if you don't give them a quiet room to collaborate in. Add to that 5 classes a day of 35+ kids, you're too pooped to think of anything else. Well, they can, but it's that much harder. I'm not saying money solves everything, but it does make some things that much easier.
Example: Of the 8 teachers in the Santa Clara Social Studies department, there's two who are running 10+ years old computers. (Jenny's computer runs OS9, and only take floppy disks. Pietro's still running Win95, which is a perfectly respectable OS, but still. At least he has a USB port.) In order to get funding for technology upgrades, they proposed going to the principal for money. Then Jenny raised the point that the school probably didn't have any either. What they finally decided on is for a more-affluent teacher to donate $5000 to the school so that the school can give that money to them.
The glowy-happiness of Fremont is still disconcerting. In the same way that the glowy-happiness of Stanford is disconcerting after UChicago. I don't wear it well, yo
Materials are abundant here. The classrooms ample, the teacher's lounge just the right size for a cozy discussion (not the chill emptiness of a classroom, nor the 5x6 horror that is the Santa Clara department room, with its moldy couch and moldier fridge). They have laptops on carts. They have a staff person who does your copies for you. They can afford to give me a desk and a box in the office. And they have the coolest "do not duplicate" keys (extra set of rrrridges in the middle)
The people here are happy. Sue the Principal's secretary gave me a school shirt. My new CT (Kristine) sent me a bunch of classroom materials via the internet. (Did I mention that there's wireless? That on Wednesday the "tech person" will come and hook me up with a school account?) My CT's a STEPpie from 3 years ago, so not-yet-jaded. She teaches from 7:30-9:10, and then from 11:50-1:30. Two classes. Sharing material at Fremont is sending files around. At Santa Clara, it's stealing and copying binders of handouts. Flexibility, anyone?
It's amazing what money can do. Teachers can't collaborate if you don't give them enough prep periods, and they can't collaborate if you don't give them a quiet room to collaborate in. Add to that 5 classes a day of 35+ kids, you're too pooped to think of anything else. Well, they can, but it's that much harder. I'm not saying money solves everything, but it does make some things that much easier.
Example: Of the 8 teachers in the Santa Clara Social Studies department, there's two who are running 10+ years old computers. (Jenny's computer runs OS9, and only take floppy disks. Pietro's still running Win95, which is a perfectly respectable OS, but still. At least he has a USB port.) In order to get funding for technology upgrades, they proposed going to the principal for money. Then Jenny raised the point that the school probably didn't have any either. What they finally decided on is for a more-affluent teacher to donate $5000 to the school so that the school can give that money to them.
The glowy-happiness of Fremont is still disconcerting. In the same way that the glowy-happiness of Stanford is disconcerting after UChicago. I don't wear it well, yo
no subject
damn straight