A working comparison: industry vs. the small, private elementary school

[ulysses]

Industry: worry that the sysadmin might some day block your access to leftwing news and opinion sites.

School: computer? what computer?

Industry: no more free breakfast?

School: I have to buy my own copy paper?

Industry: how can I explain user interface issues across a range of browsers, screen resolutions and operating systems?

School: how can I explain addition to the kid that can't make sense of '1 + 1 =' on the printed page?

Industry: how can I get more server space for these files?

School: how can I make a quarter-inch chunk of chalk last for six periods?

Industry: no copy of the latest JBuilder?

School: no books for the new kids? and I have to buy my own copy paper?

Industry: the guy in the next cube hums out of key to the music in his headphones.

School: the kid in fifth period sings out of key to the music in his head.

Industry: the lady in human resources has a temper.

School: the girl in second period will hide, howling, under her desk if you insist too strenuously that her pet crab not be given its own problem to solve at the board.

Industry: $40k a year? Are you insane?

School: don't even talk to me.

Industry: 45 hours/week minimum with no overtime.

School: don't even talk to me.

Industry: answer to boss.

School: answer to boss, parents and children simultaneously.

Industry: check out the new Chinese buffet at lunch.

School: gnaw at dry sandwich while watching children at lunch.

:) Anyway...

[cmd]

1. I can relate

Industry: The AC has been off for 15 minutes.

School: If you want a screen for your window, buy it yourself.

Industry: Here is your cubicle.

School: You get the big desk in the cubicle.

Industry: Dial 9 to get an outside line.

School: Go to the office and wait in line to use the phone.

Industry: The restroom is down the hall.

School: The teacher's restroom is on the second floor at the opposite end of the building. You can use it during your planning period - if you don't have duty.

[LWolf]

2. Deadly accurate.

And, humor aside, what a coincidence. Why was it so important to run our schools like a business again?

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

Quick, post a funny comeback before I'm :nuke:

[ulysses]

4. wish I did have a funny comeback

But I am holding on to the high-quality ping-pong paddle I got back before the first IT company that laid me off folded. Just in case I get the chance to be underutilized again while I'm teaching. :)

Found out the other day that, come September, being the only male on the staff, I get to explain puberty to the male students. Always good to be useful, I suppose...

[LWolf]

5. Oh, boy.

Welcome to teaching, Uly.

[baldguy]

23. So the administrators can sell test scores as stock futures.

[SOteric]

3. This is the point

where we remind you that you're engaged in some of the most noble and important work in our society.

Have you considered setting up an Amazon wish-list so that friends, family, kind-hearted philanthropists and random loons can help keep your class supplied with books, chalk and copy paper?

[ulysses]

"in times like these you give and give again"

:)

Christa McAuliffe - "I touch the future. I teach." Would Challenger mean anything to my kids? I should find out - I discovered the other day that I'm older than some of their parents.

:0

Have you considered setting up an Amazon wish-list so that friends, family, kind-hearted philanthropists and random loons can help keep your class supplied with books, chalk and copy paper?

Excellent idea, actually...although the new books arrived this afternoon as the kids were all being picked up, so I'm hoping to get to school tomorrow at 6:30 instead of 7 in order to try to impose some sort of order and get everyone tracked to the curriculum. Did I mention that the owner/headmistress/principal drives a Jag? reads email on a 15-inch flat screen?

it's times like these time and time again...

Over the last two days, I've done a project with the youngest kids (6-7, mostly 6) where they have a sheet adding or subtracting ones, twos, etc, and they have to find the number that answers the problem from a pile of multicolored number cutouts and glue it on the page. I'm in the process of wallpapering my room with all the rainbow glories of basic math. My clients are wont to plant themselves on my knee if I kneel to help another client with a problem, or to hug me spontaneously. I play goalie when the soccer teams are uneven at recess. We count on small plastic stegosaurii.

God help me, but I genuinely love this, administrivia bullshit aside. I should never have left teaching in the first place. :)

[SOteric]

14. Yeah, I'm not knockin' hefty paychecks

but nothing beats having a bright, confident young woman look you up to tell you how much your teaching meant to her.

[ulysses]

15. truly said

I don't expect to be in contact with these kids when they're of an age to have it occur to them to thank a teacher in so many words, but I'll take the hugs while I'm here. Meantime, I get to look at squeezing certification/masters classes in where little time exists...

[Armstead]

6. A question

This has nothing to do with your post, but what is PM? I can't figure that out.

[SOteric]

7. Either he really like private messages

Or he's associating himself with the Progressive Movement...

I can't decide. :shrug:

[Armstead]

8. Or he has delusions of grandeur

and has decided that he's Prime Minister Ulysses

[SOteric]

10. *LOL*

Pip, pip -Cheerio!

That would be cool. Instead of an inaugural bbq on the White House lawn, Sloth & Indolence could take up residence at Number 10. We could come for tea.

[GOPisEvil]

9. Maybe after spending all day with kids, he'd like a private moment!

:7

[SOteric]

11. I believe that.

In fact it seems more probable than all these guesses, even if it's not the original idea.

[ulysses]

12. come now, Armstead

http://progressivemajority.org/

;-)

[Armstead]

13. Oh silly me

I shoulda known.

[ulysses]

16. test

the GD lobby says #16 has been posted to this thread, just checking to see what number this is...

[KG]

17. you need a bop on the head!

ulysses: I got a real job.

KG: I did some landscaping to make a few bucks.

ulysses: I got a real job and I'm whining.

KG: don't even talk to me.

oy!

:)

[ulysses]

18. ROFL

A fair point, Kirk. Still, do your clients make you pay for the plants yourself...then blame you if they don't water them?

edit: It's easy for me to be flip. You know you have my best wishes, man. :)

[KG]

19. heh

well, it wasn't long ago you were going crazy looking for work.

if i ever get a real job again, wonder how long before i start to piss and moan?

[ulysses]

20. that's true

and it's not as if I'm about to walk out on this. It pays more than unemployment, if only by a little more than what I spend on my own supplies, and it's steady, as long as I don't run afoul of the educational/religious views of my boss.

if i ever get a real job again, wonder how long before i start to piss and moan?

Depends on the situation. :)

[KG]

21. hey, did you notice one of your posts doesn't have a number?

[ulysses]

22. I did, yeah

I intend to leave DU over it forthwith if the issue is not resolved.

:silly:

I think there's a bug about...