The first full week - still no kids

[wiseheart]

Which means we can't even do anything of use. I don't consider sitting through endless and pointless meetings useful. At least I took my sewing kit with me and so didn't completely waste the day; and since I've announced that I make these things for the charity fair (which is true), no-one bothers me about it.


Which means, for the non-Tolkienites among us, that our educational system is situated in the arse of the Dark Lord and isn't likely to climb out of it any time soon.

Just a shining example:
It has been pressed during the last couple of years that we use computers, projectors, interactive touch-boards and the likes in the lessons, since that's supposed be the future. Perhaps it is; I can't really tell. I'd still be able to give perfectly good lessons with the help of a backboard and a piece of chalk, if they'd only let me.

Anyway, people rearranged their teaching habits, becoming fairly dependent on IT equipment. Now our central education office got into a clinch with SMART, the firm that provided both the hardware and the software for those things and they broke the contract. As a result, the firm simply appeared in the school and took away all the computers, tablets and whatnot.

Last term, every single classroom had a computer and a projector or an interactive touch-board. We had four computers in the teachers' room, though one of them didn't always work. Now we have got one computer in the staff room (for almost 60 people, mind you), none in the classrooms, and not even the two computer rooms have any. Adding the fact that we've been using virtual class books for years, the next couple of weeks promise to be... interesting.

We do have some computers in storage, sure, so at least the classrooms can be equipped again. But it means that F., our IT guy, has to upload all the necessary programs one by one again (that means some 30 classrooms), and the actual computer rooms won't be re-equipped for quite some time. IT lessons will happen completely on the theoretical level for the near future.

I told the younger colleagues that they should consider themselves lucky to have a few of us dinosaurs among them who still remember how blackboard and chalk work. God, I'm happy to be out of here in 101 days!

Comments

[artemis10002000]

Oh man, what a mess... At least you're close enough now that you can count the days.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mostly feel sorry for the others.

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

Oh dang.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Dang indeed.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

What a crazy situation!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

It mirrors the situation in the entire country quite adequately, I'm afraid. Things like that happen all the time.

[meathiel]

Good thing you won't have to deal with this sh** much longer.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

One should count one's blessings, I guess. *sigh*

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I do better with a chalkboard and a piece of chalk. Wow, talk about a major FU on the part of the central office.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I prefer the chalkboard and piece of chalk myself. But I'm of the dinosaur generation that has learned how to write legibly on a chalkboard. For me, the annoying part is that I'll have to use my home PC for dealing with school stuff and that's something I usually wouldn't do. I like to separate private life and slave labour.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Same here. We have a whiteboard in the office and everything important is written on it. People tend to 'not see' anything you put in an e mail.