Marseeya
<font color=blue>Drama Magnet<br><font color=deepp
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 5,209
I've mentioned on here before, but a little background: I'm currently working on my masters in secondary ed in language arts. I go to school full time and I also try to stay as involved as possible with my kids' schools. Anyway, this semester's in its third week and I'm tearing my hair out ready to go totally insane!
First of all, I normally take 9 credit hours as a full-time load -- that's 3 classes. Any less and I wouldn't get the amount of financial aid I need. This semester I had to take a 2-credit course, which means I had to take 4 classes in order to be at full time. That 2-credit class is every bit as much work as a 3-credit class! Plus, I have one class -- a children's lit class -- that the teacher has piled an impossible amount of work on us. For me to complain like that, you have to know, it's pretty bad. I'm 38 years old and a straight A student, so I'm definitely not afraid of a little work !!! On Monday, I worked for seven hours on school work, and yesterday I worked six. It's not hard work, it's just a whole lot of time consuming BS busy work. I am facing the same amount of work both today and tomorrow before I can actually take a breather on Friday. Here's what I had to do in a week for this one class... oh, and by the way, it's not actually a graduate level course!!!!!!
That's all for one class, and I still have a considerable amount of work (reasonable amount) in my other classes! Plus, since I and a few others are in secondary ed, she wants us to read more advanced chapter books... well, that's not the point of us taking the class! We already took a young adult lit class and we want to know about children's books to be able to incorporate them into our secondary classes to perhaps help with slower readers. So, we'll end up having to read the same amount of books as the rest of the class, only novel length books!
Here's another thing that's really frustrating me this semester. I have a couple of classes that mixes grad students with undergrads. The undergrads are actually in a 5-year program where after five years of study, they'll get a bachelors in their subject area, plus a masters in education. Only problem with that is, in PA where I live (I go to school in WV), they don't recognize that as a real masters degree, so I'm actually going for the full 2-3 year masters degree (I already have my bachelors in English). It's nothing against them, but there can sometimes be a pretty huge intellectual divide between us and some of them (certainly not all). Plus there's usually an age difference. They're normally between the ages of 20-22 and most of us are over the age of 25.
In one of my classes, we've been talking a lot about multiculturalism and diversity in the classroom and these kids just don't get it! You should hear the prejudiced BS they spout off about "those kids" (black, poor, foreign, you name it). And for whatever reason, they already have this "us vs them" mentality about parents! OMG (insert cuss words here), if this is their attitude now, imagine them in the classroom. I truly wouldn't want these people teaching my kids and they're going to be out there very very soon! Sooner than me, even.
On top of all this, we had a mono scare with my son his first week of high school, so he missed 4 days of his first week in school. It ended up not being mono, but he was still extremely sick. On top of my own work, I've got to sit and help him do some major catching up. The school was calling every day wanting to know where he was and I can understand that, but one hand never knew what the other was doing, so in one day I spoke with 1) the front office staff, 2) the guidance secretary, 3) the school nurse, and 4) the guidance counselor. Oh, and the school nurse called my DH's cell phone for good measure, pulling him out of a business meeting and royally teeing him off (he's the stepparent and I really only want him called in an emergency... but even with our dd who's his, I don't want him called unless it's urgent!).
AND, my son has a different last name as me (he has my maiden name). This last name is rather, shall I say, notorious. I'm so sick and tired of teachers and administrators ASSuming that my son is related to that group of troublemakers and me having to explain that he's not (this is a small town with a small town attitude). Number one, I shouldn't have to explain -- they should judge him on his own merit. And number two, I'm sick of being treated like a complete moron before they realize they're talking to someone with a brain. I have to bite my tongue on a constant basis because I'm actually hoping to work for this school district in a year and a half. ARGH!!!
If you made it this far, thanks so much for listening while I got all that off my chest. Want a cookie?
First of all, I normally take 9 credit hours as a full-time load -- that's 3 classes. Any less and I wouldn't get the amount of financial aid I need. This semester I had to take a 2-credit course, which means I had to take 4 classes in order to be at full time. That 2-credit class is every bit as much work as a 3-credit class! Plus, I have one class -- a children's lit class -- that the teacher has piled an impossible amount of work on us. For me to complain like that, you have to know, it's pretty bad. I'm 38 years old and a straight A student, so I'm definitely not afraid of a little work !!! On Monday, I worked for seven hours on school work, and yesterday I worked six. It's not hard work, it's just a whole lot of time consuming BS busy work. I am facing the same amount of work both today and tomorrow before I can actually take a breather on Friday. Here's what I had to do in a week for this one class... oh, and by the way, it's not actually a graduate level course!!!!!!
- Read 3 chapters in our main textbook (around 75 pages)
- Write chapter outlines for those three chapters
- Read one Newbery award winning book
- Read one Caldecott award winning book
- Read 4 "developmentally related" books (age related, picture books or chapter books)
- Complete a 5x8" index card for each book with info on the book, summary, & analysis
- Complete 10 5x8" index cards with author biographies
- Read Charlotte's Web
- Choose two books for a read aloud
That's all for one class, and I still have a considerable amount of work (reasonable amount) in my other classes! Plus, since I and a few others are in secondary ed, she wants us to read more advanced chapter books... well, that's not the point of us taking the class! We already took a young adult lit class and we want to know about children's books to be able to incorporate them into our secondary classes to perhaps help with slower readers. So, we'll end up having to read the same amount of books as the rest of the class, only novel length books!
Here's another thing that's really frustrating me this semester. I have a couple of classes that mixes grad students with undergrads. The undergrads are actually in a 5-year program where after five years of study, they'll get a bachelors in their subject area, plus a masters in education. Only problem with that is, in PA where I live (I go to school in WV), they don't recognize that as a real masters degree, so I'm actually going for the full 2-3 year masters degree (I already have my bachelors in English). It's nothing against them, but there can sometimes be a pretty huge intellectual divide between us and some of them (certainly not all). Plus there's usually an age difference. They're normally between the ages of 20-22 and most of us are over the age of 25.
In one of my classes, we've been talking a lot about multiculturalism and diversity in the classroom and these kids just don't get it! You should hear the prejudiced BS they spout off about "those kids" (black, poor, foreign, you name it). And for whatever reason, they already have this "us vs them" mentality about parents! OMG (insert cuss words here), if this is their attitude now, imagine them in the classroom. I truly wouldn't want these people teaching my kids and they're going to be out there very very soon! Sooner than me, even.
On top of all this, we had a mono scare with my son his first week of high school, so he missed 4 days of his first week in school. It ended up not being mono, but he was still extremely sick. On top of my own work, I've got to sit and help him do some major catching up. The school was calling every day wanting to know where he was and I can understand that, but one hand never knew what the other was doing, so in one day I spoke with 1) the front office staff, 2) the guidance secretary, 3) the school nurse, and 4) the guidance counselor. Oh, and the school nurse called my DH's cell phone for good measure, pulling him out of a business meeting and royally teeing him off (he's the stepparent and I really only want him called in an emergency... but even with our dd who's his, I don't want him called unless it's urgent!).
AND, my son has a different last name as me (he has my maiden name). This last name is rather, shall I say, notorious. I'm so sick and tired of teachers and administrators ASSuming that my son is related to that group of troublemakers and me having to explain that he's not (this is a small town with a small town attitude). Number one, I shouldn't have to explain -- they should judge him on his own merit. And number two, I'm sick of being treated like a complete moron before they realize they're talking to someone with a brain. I have to bite my tongue on a constant basis because I'm actually hoping to work for this school district in a year and a half. ARGH!!!
If you made it this far, thanks so much for listening while I got all that off my chest. Want a cookie?
She does describe some rather frightening new teachers at her school occasionally, but she hasn't seemed to complain as much about this in recent years. Hopefully those people lose their attitudes when they enter the classroom, because I agree that I wouldn't want people like that teaching my future kids either!
Will you be taking German this term? I think taking a language in college is so difficult. I could focus on that all week long and still not feel like I caught on!
But what a great foundation.
