Thursday, August 16, 2012

You've Wasted My Time.

Usually, the last couple of weeks in August are spent casually getting ready for a new year in the classroom.  As a computer teacher my curriculum and projects were pretty much up to me as long as I was in alignment with the goals of the core subjects.  Granted, this afforded me a degree of freedom currently not offered in most other subject areas and as such, I have been "allowed" to follow the progressive development of my skills as a teacher.  I have taken advantage of the professional development (P) courses mandated (but now totally irrelevant) and have implemented what I considered the best practices into my classroom. I know I have grown as an educator and even some of my third-round 7th graders would agree.  I am not blowing my own horn, every teacher worthy of that title, has to grow by being critical of their own skills and practices.  We, as teachers, do learn from our mistakes and by doing so increase the value of our pedagogy.  One would think that such a statement was a reasonable assessment but...not. Classify this under the heading of DEVALUATION OF EXPERIENCE  because the majority of excessed teachers are experienced, and somehow and for some reason beyond our understanding, experience has become a liability in the DOE.
And so, here we are, and I am sure the pool will be filled with hundreds of teachers with five plus years of hard work, loyalty and purpose, wading and waiting for the pointless ending of their career.  It is not going to be easy to switch from your classroom (I was going to say assignment but that's their speak), ...the one you have been preparing for as long as you've been teaching, to a series of unconnected classrooms none of them at all familiar. Forget what you have learned and the hands-on projects you've developed for students that show how simple machines work as you'll very likely not even step into a science lab nor would you even know what is being taught in that class. It is a sad time for teachers in the ATR.  However, we need to keep in mind that this is indeed a fight and though the current is dragging us out to sea, we need to stand tall and tough it out even though the sand is shifting beneath our feet..  Perhaps we will also need to change ATR to Angry Teachers Revolt.
Well, anyway it seems that being a teacher in NYC is kind of like being in the Twilight Zone...the more you  learn and work and are bold enough to think you are increasing your value as a teacher, the less you are  valued in your endeavor because you have become more expensive and now, despite all good efforts and sacrifice, you find yourself, quite frankly, expendable. 

5 comments:

  1. I think about the ATR situation...all the time...wouldn't it make sense for someone to do this: get a list of all the ATR's, find out their lic. Areas, where they live....and then cross reference it with DOE (of course...they should be mandated to report these positions to the union) vacancy list/Open Market (know that's a sham too) and presto magic...the ATRs would be doing what they were meant to..I guess this plan actually makes sense..but don't think the DOE ever MAKES SENSE.

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    1. Absolutely, the DOE never makes decisions that creatively solve problems...they are only promoting their agenda and laying blame. There are many ways to make good use of the ATR - just as you show...but the way it is done now makes the ATR the guy with the black hat...the public must know the truth and we as ATRs need to get our act together to fight this absurdity.
      zeno

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    2. making sense and the DOE go together like peanut butter and marinara sauce. it doesn't happen. the DOE only cares about dollars and cents. the more money you make, the more pension you will get, the more years they pay your benefits and the more possibility you will get married, have kids, take time off and cost them money.

      They want the 22 year old kid who lasts 3 years, gets burnt out and quits.

      Anyone who thinks the DOE cares about kids learning is just plaine naive.

      I am in my 3rd year as an ATR and still scratch my head as to why I wake up each day and go to work. If I find a parking space and a toilet bowl, I consider it a good day.

      My advice to ATRs is get one of those lunch bags you can put a cold pack in b/c half the time, you will be sitting in an auditorium twiddling your thumbs.

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  2. I am a second career teacher and i worked in a corporate environment as a manager for many, many years. Yes, most of the time I had discretion when I hired. There were sometimes when my manager or the HR recruiter who worked closely with my manager called and said, we closed some branches, I am sending over a few candidates from these closed branches and pick the best fit for your vacancy. Naturally, these were all people who were qualified and had satisfactory ratings, attendance and punctuality. This was a corporation!!! How can the DOE continue to allow principals to hire outside at all until every ATR has been placed when it costs taxpayers so much. The DOE is not showing the respect and care for the livelihood, experience and loyalty of their teachers. The union is not doing its job to protect their members. It is such a waste of the taxpayers money. The new teachers are not really cheap if you add on the money you continue to pay for an ATR . The time, money and effort that is spent to train these new hires is at the expense of the students and the taxpayers, especially with the low retention rate. The DOE policy on this is akin to McDonald's and I can't understand why the union is not taking ads out about the waste of money, the fact that these are teachers who for the most part have done their job satisfactorily have their students interviewed as well as parents and harp on their experience!!!! This is a clearly politically motivated and expensive strategy that is obvious to all of us and we need to make sure the public becomes well educated about!!!

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    1. All too true. And we need to get ahead on this before it too late and the ATR will be portrayed as lingering losers taking advantage of the system when it is the system that has and is taking advantage of us. The union sold us out with the June 27th 2011 memorandum.

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