Monday, June 13, 2005
Building a bridge back to the 20th century
The weather is sweltering and miserable, the freshmen continue to show up to school, and we all have places we'd rather be. So of course the school district decides to schedule not one, not two, but three days of professional development during the last week of the school year. Granted, at least we only have to put up with the madness for a few half-days, but still, I wonder why oh why we are being forced to consider vision statements and codify the Underwood high school mission at this late juncture in the year.
They piled us all into the school library, one of the few rooms with working air conditioning, and then began the meeting around 1:00. The whole affair provided a whole new meaning for "a cold day in hell." All of the jargon-laden strategic planning lampooned so successfully in The Office or Dilbert was out in full force this afternoon as our vice-principals put forth a new plan with the "dynamic" new name: Reengineered for Excellence! (exclamation point added for dramatic effect!)
The idea was to brainstorm where we want Underwood to be in the future so that we could then move towards creating a concrete strategic plan to get there. The problem I had was that they presented this, providing us with an idealistic article from a teaching journal about a utopian school where "everything we do reflects [a] redefinition of learning and helps us sustain a school culture in which we are more than a school--we are a community of learners." Now I would love for Underwood to reach such a position, but let's start off by convincing the kids who walk these halls that they are students! Our vision statement had to be built with a foundation in reality. Don't get me wrong, I understand the whole "aim for the stars so we can jump over these track hurdles" mentality...but, I think we should focus on things within our zone of control. I even expressed this idea at the meeting, but was basically brushed off by my vice-principal.
But to give you some idea of how this meeting worked, consider this little snippet of dialogue from that same meeting.
We have to focus on this school improvement plan, my vice-principal said at the beginning of the meetingm and anticipating our responses, he immediately continued with the reason why.
Because... "this year has to be better than next year."
Yeah. You read that correctly. I copied it down verbatim the second time he repeated it.
It's going to be even hotter tomorrow. Hopefully, there won't be another vision-themed meeting. Unless those visions are hallucinations induced by the heat. That would be entertaining.
The weather is sweltering and miserable, the freshmen continue to show up to school, and we all have places we'd rather be. So of course the school district decides to schedule not one, not two, but three days of professional development during the last week of the school year. Granted, at least we only have to put up with the madness for a few half-days, but still, I wonder why oh why we are being forced to consider vision statements and codify the Underwood high school mission at this late juncture in the year.
They piled us all into the school library, one of the few rooms with working air conditioning, and then began the meeting around 1:00. The whole affair provided a whole new meaning for "a cold day in hell." All of the jargon-laden strategic planning lampooned so successfully in The Office or Dilbert was out in full force this afternoon as our vice-principals put forth a new plan with the "dynamic" new name: Reengineered for Excellence! (exclamation point added for dramatic effect!)
The idea was to brainstorm where we want Underwood to be in the future so that we could then move towards creating a concrete strategic plan to get there. The problem I had was that they presented this, providing us with an idealistic article from a teaching journal about a utopian school where "everything we do reflects [a] redefinition of learning and helps us sustain a school culture in which we are more than a school--we are a community of learners." Now I would love for Underwood to reach such a position, but let's start off by convincing the kids who walk these halls that they are students! Our vision statement had to be built with a foundation in reality. Don't get me wrong, I understand the whole "aim for the stars so we can jump over these track hurdles" mentality...but, I think we should focus on things within our zone of control. I even expressed this idea at the meeting, but was basically brushed off by my vice-principal.
But to give you some idea of how this meeting worked, consider this little snippet of dialogue from that same meeting.
We have to focus on this school improvement plan, my vice-principal said at the beginning of the meetingm and anticipating our responses, he immediately continued with the reason why.
Because... "this year has to be better than next year."
Yeah. You read that correctly. I copied it down verbatim the second time he repeated it.
It's going to be even hotter tomorrow. Hopefully, there won't be another vision-themed meeting. Unless those visions are hallucinations induced by the heat. That would be entertaining.
