Yowling from the Library.
Been gone so long, I forgot to check my blog's host server to see if I was paid up. Never fear, Yowling is still here.
So, what's been going on? I've spent the summer working for the middle school I joined back in February. It's been a little bit of summer program workshops here, move computer labs there (and there and there and there), and equipment maintenance, class preparation for the fall and all the rest.
I'll share some more details of all the fun stuff I did over the next month. You cannot imagine what it is like to work a job you love wholeheartedly while knowing that the possibility of remaining here is up in the air, even at this very late date.
I don't know what the conservatives and right-wing Republicans are complaining about. I still stand by my claim that this school got a really great deal hiring me, since tech support -- just one part of my job description -- runs about fifty to one-hundred and fifty bucks in the so-called real world. I believe I provide the same service for about ten dollars per hour at this rate (that's working my normal hours plus the extra unpaid hours I put in on top of that).
Yeah, yeah, so the pay ain't all that great. Still, I can't complain in so many other ways. Each day I go home with my soul intact (unlike my years in the part of the corporate world where dog-eat-dog was more like Kong-beats-T-Rex-to-a-bloody-pulp). I have a good rapport with my colleagues and co-workers, which can be difficult when juggling so many different priorities at once -- I may have turned that juggling into an art form. I also have a good reputation among the students, as was demonstrated near the end of the last quarter. A student told another student I had just asked where his classroom was and why he wasn't there, "That's Mr. Moses. You don't want to mess with him." Hee-hee-hee. I don't do anything nasty or intimidating. I just don't let go of the subject until its has been resolved. If that means calling in behavior support, assistant principal, parents, and teachers, that's quite alright with me. Amazingly, most students don't figure out that just giving me (or other teachers, administrators, and staff) a straight answer is the path of least resistance, but a good number of them figured that out over the last semester.
Add to that rep that my students' only complaint in my technology class each quarter was that I didn't give them enough free time. Any time that came up, I'd simply look at them and say in my worst fake-German accent, "Vat iz dis 'free-ee time' you spee-eek ov?" Nobody has answered that one yet.
Duty calls, so ciao for now.
-- Moses
Labels: education, employment, middle school, school, teaching
6 comment(s):
s'bout time!
By Wege, at Tuesday, August 14, 2007 5:35:00 PM
Shorter Moses: "So yes, I'm still underpaid and overworked. Nobody can see how lucky they are to have me around,so I will whine and stamp my little feet until someone takes me seriously."
"Hee-hee-hee"...OK sport; I seriously think that you need to find yourself a job that pays you what you're worth.
I hear WalMart is hiring.
By swiftee, at Wednesday, August 15, 2007 9:51:00 AM
Thank's, Wege.
What-ev-ah, Swiffer. You just don't get it. Worse, you don't care to understand it. That attitude you and every other right-winger of your kind share is why our physical and social infrastructure in in the sorry state it is in. It's not "government" that's the problem. It's people who seek to destroy the integrity of civil society through narrow-minded, selfishly self-interested critiques .
By Moses, at Wednesday, August 15, 2007 10:36:00 AM
" It's people who seek to destroy the integrity of civil society...blah, blah and blah.."
So, what does any of that have to do with a whiny wanna-be teacher who is stuck in a job he hates because he doesn't have enough confidence to go out and get one he does?
I'm guessing you have a degree in some liberal arts major..you know, the type of credentials that the government schools are brimming full of.
I make that assumption with confidence because if you were a mathmatics or science major, you'd be writing your own ticket right now.
If you wish to stay in education, you are going to have to play by the rules your pals in EdMN have set up for you.
Skill, or lack of it has nothing to do with where your career goes; your future is only as good as the contract your union mouthpiece hangs around your neck.
And yet you defend that system tooth and nail...
You're right, I just don't get it.
Go ahead and stick with your union masters, and some day you too can end up a fat, middle aged man with no marketable skills and no prospect of aquiring any...like your pal "Da Wedge".
By Swiftee, at Thursday, August 16, 2007 3:49:00 PM
"Hate" my job? Heck no! I love it, wholeheartedly.
I get to leave at the end of the day with my soul intact.
I actually do some good in the world. (That is far more than you can say, IMHO).
Why, every once in awhile, I receive a paycheck for the work I do. (No, it sure ain't the "big bucks," but then again, I'm in this profession more for those first and second points).
I really don't know where you are getting your strange ideas from, Swiftee. Maybe your reading comprehension is the problem? I can recommend some excellent, extremely patient, remedial reading teachers for you, if you like.
By Moses, at Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:51:00 PM
"Why, every once in awhile, I receive a paycheck for the work I do. (No, it sure ain't the "big bucks," but then again, I'm in this profession more for those first and second points)."
Yeah, you've said that again, and again, and again, and again, and again..so do your work and stop complaining about what a "great deal" the school is getting out of you.
"I actually do some good in the world. (That is far more than you can say, IMHO)."
The next time you turn on your water faucet and clean water comes out, think of me.
By Swiftee, at Friday, August 17, 2007 6:53:00 PM
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