The principal brought a science teacher from another school through our classroom today to see our totally lame (but kinda cool looking) aquaculture / hydroponics set-up. I don't know who this person was, or why "the boss" brought her in; but at our school it's all about putting on a show, and we in the "resource room" (euphemism for Special Ed) are pretty much the ones who put on the best show.
It's largely a defense mechanism. Whenever anything goes wrong at our school, somehow it always gets pinned on one or more of the special ed staff. We're considered "less capable" than our regular education peers. Nevertheless, we're the ones who become the "stars" whenever the boss wants to impress someone.
I was able to talk semi-coherently about the rationale behind our little tanks, and the visiting teacher was pleased -- mostly because, and gawd teachers are so f9cking lame, her own daughter has been working on a similar project in school. You'd think she'd have been interested because she's a science teacher, but no, she liked it because he own kid is working on a similar project.
Anyway, it makes my boss happy when people she brings around appear to be impressed with our projects. I made a point of mentioning that we have students from grades 3 through 6 participating in our project, and both general ed and resource room kids. Quite frankly, student involvement has been minimal, because most of the kids don't care, and the pace is not fast enough. Plants take weeks to grow. They're not like video games.
I took the opportunity totake a shot or two at the boss explain that the project is a work in project, and that not all aspects of it are performing as well as we had hoped, so we are constantly making adjustments and trying to trouble-shoot the system. The science teacher understood this, and made some appreciative remarks. I brought this up because we have come under fire from the principal in the past for not getting perfect results the first time, every time in our projects. She stated, about a previous hydroponics attempt, that "it's beyond you."
The pretty school librarian has been impressed enough with our project that she brought in some petunia seeds earlier in the week to plant in the little hydroponics box (a plastic container with an aquarium light bar sitting on top). So there ya go -- can't complain about results like that!
It's largely a defense mechanism. Whenever anything goes wrong at our school, somehow it always gets pinned on one or more of the special ed staff. We're considered "less capable" than our regular education peers. Nevertheless, we're the ones who become the "stars" whenever the boss wants to impress someone.
I was able to talk semi-coherently about the rationale behind our little tanks, and the visiting teacher was pleased -- mostly because, and gawd teachers are so f9cking lame, her own daughter has been working on a similar project in school. You'd think she'd have been interested because she's a science teacher, but no, she liked it because he own kid is working on a similar project.
Anyway, it makes my boss happy when people she brings around appear to be impressed with our projects. I made a point of mentioning that we have students from grades 3 through 6 participating in our project, and both general ed and resource room kids. Quite frankly, student involvement has been minimal, because most of the kids don't care, and the pace is not fast enough. Plants take weeks to grow. They're not like video games.
I took the opportunity to
The pretty school librarian has been impressed enough with our project that she brought in some petunia seeds earlier in the week to plant in the little hydroponics box (a plastic container with an aquarium light bar sitting on top). So there ya go -- can't complain about results like that!
Comments
I gave the rest of what I had to other teachers, so they could toss them in a drawer and forget about them, saving me the guilt.