Why I hate technology

Reason 352, 247: I have received more reports of kids doing things on the Internet than we have kids in the building--and I'm not exaggerating too far. Today, I caught a young lady on the 'Net after she'd been cited for bypassing the proxy. I know she thought I didn't know she'd lost her privileges. That will make the referral all the more sweet Monday. I have no sympathy for the little twerps.


Reason 352, 248: I had orders to place and other things to take care of in the library today, but a teacher called me to ask me to help her class put music onto their PowerPoint presentations. forty-five minutes later, we had no music and I had nothing done. (Someone please explain how spending two hours--literally--trying to put a few seconds of music on a PowerPoint will help a student learn psychology. I can't figure it out.)

Reason 352,249: When I returned from Round 1 of attempting the impossible music enhancement, I was met by our CIO. "We need to know what rooms we want all these computers in. We need a room for each major discipline. I need this before you leave today." What little time I had to order books and take care of the library was now planned for other things.

Reason 352, 250: After school, I went to a new ATM at the bank in Alexandria. I swear it was designed for truckers with major carpal tunnel or something, because this thing was hung about three feet over my head as I sat in my Taurus; anyway, I inserted my card and got the choices: English, Espaniol. As I reached up to touch the screen for the upper choice, "English," I must have lightly brushed the lower choice, "Espaniol," because I got a question that I recognized, but could not fluently read. (Thanks to Mrs. Woofter, I probably could have read it if I tried.) No problem. I canceled the transaction, reinserted my card, and started over again, being careful not to touch the screen until I got to "English." Or so I thought. Once again, I received a message in "Espaniol." This time, I proceeded with the transaction, taking the "Fast Cash" option. I drove away, cursing the fact that I was born a century or so late.

Decision time

Decisions never come easily to me. I seem to be the one who second-guesses every move and motivation. Fear, maybe, is the biggest culprit; however, I believe that my hunches aren't always valid and that common sense is not my strong point, so I consider and think and try to pray before making any final decisions. (Prayer isn't my strong point, either.) This time, though, I've made a decision fairly easily and I'm not second-guessing myself; nor do I seem to have much fear.

Actually, I think this decision was in the making five years ago, if not more. Maybe it was in the making long before that--in 1994, when, as a former colleague laughs, I opened my closet and said to myself, "I'm going to do this for the next 27 years??!!" I'd been teaching all of a few months at that point. I should have known then that teaching wasn't in my soul--or at least not public school teaching.

I became disenchanted early on with the public school. It's desire to socialize kids more than TEACH kids (after all, we should teach kids and not subjects, right?) got me down early on. As for my parenthetical comment, yes, we should teach KIDS, but we should teach kids SUBJECTS--not how to behave in the fifth assembly this month or during the third movie this grading period or how to play ball or participate in a club...It's not that these things aren't important, but the main thing should be the main thing, and it hasn't been for quite a while in Kentucky, as our national scores, and, moreover, our college success rates (not) show. As a result of this philosophy, not only do our kids not live up to their potentials in school and beyond, by-and-large, but they also do not understand the social expectations, largely because, even with all our talk, we do not expect any more from them socially than we do academically. And who cares how he behaves if his grades "suck" anyway? What's the point when you can't find your purpose in life--when what you thought you could be is eaten up by poor grades and more attention is given to a test that judges your school rather than who you are and what you need?

I go through all this to say that I've come to a decision--and Brian agrees. I will, with God's help, teach one more year. During that time, we will prepare ourselves to go on one income. (A dear friend of mine reminded me of the 40 years in the wilderness, during which clothes and shoes never wore out and food was never in short supply. "God is the God of provision," she reminded me, so if He gives me the signal, I may bail before then--but I don't feel I can for another reason, so who knows?) Anyway, after I leave public school, I plan to teach our daughter at home. That was the last thing I expected to do...no, GETTING HER was the last thing I ever expected to do, so nothing should surprise me now. And honestly, when Rich planted the idea in my head, I was kind of surprised to find that it was already there, so I don't guess it was a surprise at all...