TEAMing
I’ve got another TEAM meeting tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve shared what one of those is like before. It’s another acronym we have around here and stands for something like Teachers Engaging Blah Blah or something.
It’s a meeting held before school involving the teachers of a particular student. The particular student is never the class valedictorian or a member the National Honor Society. No, the student is one who is struggling academically. Of course, the student is struggling; these meetings are opportunities for their teachers to get together and strategize for getting them back on track. I teach 11th graders. How do you get a seventeen-year-old back on track?
Administrators have particular guidelines for teachers to follow. First, the meetings are mandatory. Not even students who come in for tutoring in the mornings is enough of a reason to be absent. How dare they interfere with public education bureaucracy with their interests in improving themselves, anyway?
We are also expected to provide valuable comments and suggestions, and get this, “either positive or negative” in order to help the student. For reals? We can give negative suggestions? That’s kind of cool. I’m going to go with a swift kick in the ass.
Even though these meetings give me the liberty to blow off some steam by coming up with some crazy suggestions, this whole thing bothers me. Why? Well, I’ve had this idea that the student was responsible for his education.
Why are the teachers holding another meeting on top of everything else they try to do (call home, offer tutoring, already talking to other teachers) and nothing extra is expected of the kid? If there needs to be an ARD, then get an ARD rolling. If we’re just getting together to try to get the bump on the log to stop texting long enough to graduate, which by the way isn’t that hard, then no thanks. It’s okay if they do something for themselves.
It’s a meeting held before school involving the teachers of a particular student. The particular student is never the class valedictorian or a member the National Honor Society. No, the student is one who is struggling academically. Of course, the student is struggling; these meetings are opportunities for their teachers to get together and strategize for getting them back on track. I teach 11th graders. How do you get a seventeen-year-old back on track?
Administrators have particular guidelines for teachers to follow. First, the meetings are mandatory. Not even students who come in for tutoring in the mornings is enough of a reason to be absent. How dare they interfere with public education bureaucracy with their interests in improving themselves, anyway?
We are also expected to provide valuable comments and suggestions, and get this, “either positive or negative” in order to help the student. For reals? We can give negative suggestions? That’s kind of cool. I’m going to go with a swift kick in the ass.
Even though these meetings give me the liberty to blow off some steam by coming up with some crazy suggestions, this whole thing bothers me. Why? Well, I’ve had this idea that the student was responsible for his education.
Why are the teachers holding another meeting on top of everything else they try to do (call home, offer tutoring, already talking to other teachers) and nothing extra is expected of the kid? If there needs to be an ARD, then get an ARD rolling. If we’re just getting together to try to get the bump on the log to stop texting long enough to graduate, which by the way isn’t that hard, then no thanks. It’s okay if they do something for themselves.
- H.T. at 7:00 AM
