Once again, UIS has found a new way to kill my brain cells with their bureaucratic stupidity. I was informed yesterday that I have two weeks to submit the 50 some odd forms, applications, certificates, and other jazz I need to sign up and qualify for student teaching in the Spring of 2012. Most of these things I could have completed months, even years ago, and yet they withhold this info until two weeks before I have to have it submitted, after which there is absolutely no way they will consider me for teaching in the spring. So, in the next two weeks I have to fill out three applications, without errors of any kind-- can't even cross out or whiteout--, obtain signatures from department chairs and advisers in triplicate graduation application forms, write a new resume and teaching philosophy --has to be new, can't be any of the 1000 I have had make of either in all my education classes-- and print them in quintuple -- yes, that's right, five copies--, take two online courses for mandated reporting and health and safety, and pass tests for both for which I have to submit two forms for each, meet with my TEP advisor twice for more approvals and signatures, and a whole bunch of other forms and documents and bullshit and run around.
To say I am unhappy, angry, annoyed, would be an understatement. I wish I could re-organize this department on an epic level. The complete and utter lack of sensibility or communication skills by this department is staggering. I know I am a good teacher, and all the proof comes from my reviews and evaluations from my students and sponsor teachers. But, this department refuses to equip us with the practical knowledge one will need to become a competent teacher in a real world setting...
NO! Instead, I have been forced to take my umpteenth online class where for my first fucking assignment I must write an autobiographical paper about why I want to be a teacher, my experiences with teaching, and how I think these experiences will make me a better teacher! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I FUCKING WRITTEN THIS PAPER! Seriously? No... SERIOUSLY!?
[Excuse the brief interruption in your regularly schedule blog post while the writer puts a gun in her mouth.]
This is not going to make me a better teacher. Making me take bullshit online courses where I do not actually get to function in a real classroom setting will not make me a better teacher. Waxing poetic bullshit about how great of a teacher I'll imagine I'll be will not make me a better teacher. Do you know what will make me a better teacher?
PUT ME IN A FUCKING CLASSROOM!
I understand there are methods and lessons I have to learn beforehand, but how will I ever learn to put them into actual practice if all my classes are online and I only get 40 hours of in classroom time with actual living, breathing, spit ball shooting, sarcastic, intelligent, learning disabled, black, white, hispanic, impoverished, wealthy, athletic, awkward, and any other combination of diverse students! This is why the level of education in this country is so unbelievably, terrifyingly dismal. If we can't even properly educate future educators, what hope do the poor students have without qualified, competent teachers, without funding for resources for those teachers, and with NCLB dictating what subjects are important and unimportant based on whether we can standardize a test for it?
I'm terrified to get up in front of a classroom and claim myself to be a teacher. I do not in any way feel prepared for this. I feel cheated. I feel like I got a sub-standard education, and if I don't feel like I'll be ready to teach these students on the level they deserve, how is that fair to them? I love teaching, and I know how to relate to students, how to present material to them, how to make school fun, how to make it come alive, how to interact with them-- when I get up there, I now how to be a good teacher-- but UIS wants me to be a good clinical teacher, all sterilized and generic, all touchy-feely and not gritty and realistically.
Dear mystical and complex universe, please don't let me fall flat on my unprepared face. Please, I have been sacrificing and busting my ass for this moment for six years-- please, please, let me get all my paperwork in on time, and let next semester go as smoothly and brilliantly as possible--
Because if it doesn't... the gun is going back in my mouth.
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