It has been some time since I posted to this blog, but I have been busy. Transitioning to married life, getting settled in as a Special Education teacher, having to take classes to become certified to teach Special Education. It has been a whirlwind of a year, and yes, I am actually happy it is ending.
Not only am I getting my first year of teaching under my belt, but I will also be given some time to reflect on my successes and failures from this past year and work on making myself better for my students and for me.
I come back to this blog with a very specific topic to write about. As some of you who read this blog may know, there has been recent legislation pushed through the Louisiana State legislative houses at the behest of our Governor Bobby Jindal. I will make no political commentary, as I am not a politician or a political junky. If you would like to read up on the bills, here is a link.
Not long after the hullabaloo regarding Governor Jindal's education plans, there was an election held in my district for use of bonds. Three separate pieces of legislation actually. One to allocate funds to renovate and build new schools in the district, one to upgrade the technology of our district and one for a 5% teacher raise. The only of the three to pass was the first which is to be used to help our schools. I will not complain about not getting a raise, but I do wish the technology issue had passed.
Well, the reason I am writing this post is, because as I am sure you can imagine, there was a lot of heated discussion among people who lived in the district about whether this is an appropriate use of funding. One comment in particular on a friends Facebook is what struck me through this entire ordeal. The friend posted an eloquent rebuttal to the fact we did not receive our raises, stating that we as teachers will continue to provide for your students who do not have. We will continue to use our own money and resources to ensure that your students' needs are met while they are at school. To this, someone replied (in not so few words): No one asked you to.
It was this comment that struck me. No one asked you to. Our students tell this to us as well. If for instance, we prepare a arduously detailed review for an upcoming test and a particularly rowdy student is trying to win attention, we would say something like, "I worked on this for you to make sure you are ready to pass the test." and the student would simply reply, "No one asked you to."
I see this often with regard to game publishers and designers. There will be a hype train about some new feature that designers have plugged into a known franchise (or for my example, the routine of classroom activity) and then when the product is released, people will downplay it, saying it isn't anything special. They will criticize it, and encourage others not to worry with it. The designers or publishers may then become disheartened and defensive. They wills say things like, "Well, we believed that by adding this feature, it increased the enjoyability and replayability of the game. We spent several months perfecting it to get it out there to all of YOU!"
I'm sure you know where I am going with this. The public that the developers worked so hard to please, will then say, "No one asked you to." And on the flip side, say the developers and public alike believed a certain franchise is becoming stale, but still believe they have a winning formula (or in the case I'm trying to make, test results don't necessarily increase, but they also don't decrease), the developers will do nothing. And then comes the tidal wave of disgruntled public who are tired of the same old- same old and want something new or revitalizing to liven up said franchise. We come back to the previous example.
There's no way to win. There's no right or wrong, but only a delicate balance that if it teeters too far either way, you end up with dissatisfied people. And what good is that, from either a business or educational point of view? Aren't we trying to invigorate our students to strive to learn? To work better? And isn't the point of every business model to make more money?
Musings of a teacher who games, or a gamer who teaches.
