Cool idea your district has Samothrace! a get out claus or redo
observation is great thinking because there are bad days for sure.
Here in this part of Tennessee we aren't that far on the learning
curve, and the observation goes in the books regardless.

Does the principal has it out for me? Its hard to find art teachers
for this region and if he can find better then more power to him.
He has been filling all sorts of vacated teaching positions with
football coaches recently. The tenure process here is a 3 year
window and I made it past 2 so why would they fail me at the finish
line at the end of the 3rd year? Then my teaching career is
finished in this state basically. Anyways I've taught in 3 states,
I haven't had a good principal in 9 years just average at best types
or "rah rah" sports fanatics who are totally engrossed thinking
about the football game for Friday night. But I have witnessed some
good assistant principals but they are stuck behind the static
principal who is the marketing glitz guru with little or no
substance.

My principal also mentioned that my kids stood by the door inside my
class with 2/3 minutes to go in school (which is a no no). And
I've been told by an assistant that students leave my class early
but they aren't mine, the 2-3 students in the room are drivers ed
students who stay with me, and 3 more are cosmotology girls who are
bused back from our sister school a half hour before school is out,
and there is no where for them to stay before school is out.

So after my morning review I walked around school during my planning
just before the 1st/2nd period bell would ring and noticed that 50%
of the classes had students standing by the door inside the
classroom, one whole class was standing in the hallway!

So I'm at a crossroads the kids are happy about what we do in art,
but the administration is always getting weird about picky-uni
stuff. I get yelled at for student visitors being in my room I have
drivers ed and cosmo students who would rather stay with me than
skip school and want to be in my artroom for the entertainment and
atmosphere. I also have many student visitors during the day, my
door knob was chrome is starting to wear and turn brass color.

On 10/31/09, Dan wrote:
> And on the point of "valuing what you do" ask, "Should I spend my
> preparation time cleaning up after kids or preparing dynamic lessons?"
>
> On 10/31/09, Renee G wrote:
>> On 10/30/09, Paul wrote:
>>> Been told to use ALL time for class and the even the last 5
>>> minutes are instructional time, no more down time before
>>> class is over ANYMORE.
>>
>> Cleanup time, for me, IS instructional time, because part of
>> my instruction is taking care of materials. But.... unlike
>> many who post here, I put all materials used for the lesson
>> on the tables in the morning, so cleanup is basically putting
>> everything back in the correct containers, straightening up
>> the table, etc.
>>
>> Part of my lesson, every class, is discussing what we've done.
>> My classes are one hour long, so I have about a 10-15 minute
>> introduction (sometimes more, depending on how well they are
>> listening) for giving directions, any demonstrations that I
>> might want to do, and sometimes reading a story that segues
>> into the lesson. They have 30-40 minutes of art-making time,
>> then about 5 minutes for cleanup and about 10 minutes to look
>> at everyone's work and discuss their work.
>>
>> I also have "one hour, self-contained" lessons. If they don't
>> finish in the hour, they don't finish. I do not see students
>> every week; in fact, I only see them about once every three
>> weeks, for one hour, and it's too weird of a schedule to carry
>> things over.
>>
>> Your principal obviously doesn't value what you do.
>>
>>

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