I was driving home with my family last night. We were on our way back from the last big fun activity in a long Memorial Day weekend full of them. My wife’s mood suddenly darkened as she remembered that it was Monday night and she was going back to work in the morning. Millions of Americans were experiencing this same realization and mood shift at about the same time.
Then I suddenly remembered how much more intense and dreadful and panicky that feeling was when I was a teacher. A wave of it came Read more […]
I need help. Closely examine the two images below and vote. Which of these original Teachbad designs would you rather see on a coffee mug sometime in the near future?
Have a very Happy Memorial Day. You deserve it. Smell that sweet June air right around the corner…
Teachbad
ps — If you haven’t already, please respond to the One Question Teacher Annoyance Survey. Results will be tallied next week.
pss — You should also get on the mailing list, follow me on Twitter and Read more […]
Looking back it’s clear to see how Dr. Todd Whitaker’s management techniques were used at my school. I’ll illustrate a couple of examples and I encourage you to send in your own.
Recall the last post in which Dr. Whitaker’s path-breaking book Dealing With Difficult Teachers was viciously skewered in an evenhanded review. Dr. Whitaker encourages principals to use misdirection and dis-ingenuousness in their treatment of the vile subhumans they have deemed difficult teachers. Many readers think it Read more […]
There is a terrible little book called Dealing With Difficult Teachers (2002) by Todd Whitaker. I’d been curious about this book since I saw it on my assistant principal’s Amazon wish list three years ago. I finally read it this week. It was even worse than I had imagined, both in terms of ideas and prose.
So, let’s get started!
What do you do with a difficult teacher?
And what is a difficult teacher anyway?
Difficult teachers are defined entirely by how the principal feels about Read more […]
There are two distinct categories of adverse job conditions in teaching or any other profession. The first category is necessary or unavoidable things. You can’t get away from them. The second category is nasty things that don’t really need to be that way but somebody is making it that way on purpose. It’s much more variable and dependent on where you are teaching, not just that you are teaching.
For now, I want to ask you about the first category. These are fundamental conditions of teaching. Read more […]
Isn’t that the truth?
I was talking to a friend from my old school the other day. They had to read the article from the last post about the kid who went to DC public charter schools and then was unprepared for his freshman year at Georgetown.
Surprise!
You weren’t prepared because your teachers had to spend most of their time coddling and cajoling the way-behind, the lazy and the disruptive in your midst. (If you are poor and your mom is a drunk, that’s sad. But it is secondary. The teacher Read more […]
(I’m a bit rushed…driving to Indiana in…36 minutes. More on that in a minute.)
Churn ‘n’ Burn and Spin Me to the Door
There are two short things I read this week that I believe are connected. The first was an article in Education Week from early in April called When Teachers Are Treated Like Widgets, Education Suffers. It was written by academics who are tired of all their studies getting messed up because they can’t get stable control and experimental groups of teachers to measure anything Read more […]
The principal holds the welcome back meeting after spring break and tries to get to know his teachers.
I’m mulling over the book club options. Maybe unhappy teachers don’t want to read about how teaching sucks. (But then, why would you be here in the first place?) Preaching to the choir, as is were…It might be a little like a comedian I’m thinking of right now. (Maybe Lewis Black? I don’t remember.) The gist of it was that Christians are crazy to wear crosses around their necks. What is the last thing that Jesus might want to be reminded of as he decides whether or not to come back to Earth?
It Read more […]
FAKE EDUCATION NEWS
–Washington, DC
Mr. Teachbad, author and creator of the wildly popular Mr. Teachbad’s Blog of Teacher Disgruntlement, says he is “less than giddy” about his first venture into the cutthroat world of online teacher book clubs and adds that the “whole thing is going pretty badly.” Mr. Teachbad’s audience of unhappy, disgruntled, angry, saddened, forlorn, castigated and otherwise disenfranchised, disaffected, downtrodden teachers has responded poorly to the first discussion Read more […]
