KATE Conference: Thoughts and Contemplations

I attended the KATE conference this week, an annual get-together where English teachers from all over the state gather to share different teaching strategies and communicate valuable thoughts on curriculum. This was my first year ever going and I think that the conference was a wonderful aspect within my professional development.  I got to talk to several experienced English teachers and I gained several new ideas for my future classroom. However, I also learned the value of gritting my teeth into a forced smile as I listened to the toxic words that spilled from the mouths of teachers. Snarky comments about the ideas that other educators were presenting in their sessions and rude commentary over the presence of unlicensed education majors like myself: 
"This will NEVER work.  How completely UNREALISTIC..."
"This is stupid, a complete pie-in-the-sky idea.  I mean... really?!?"
"How about giving handouts to those of us who ACTUALLY teach?"
I remember Dr. M telling us that this conference was a great opportunity to network with other teachers from various districts. She encouraged us to tell people that we are pre-student teachers set to graduate in May... I happily did so because I am proud to be a part of my school's education program and I am excited about the career that I have CHOSEN to pursue. -- I quickly realized that my PST status made me somehow less worthy in the eyes of some of the seasoned/tenured/well-established educators....  I actually had one woman who I sat next to in a session, completely blow me off as soon as she figured out that I am a TEC. She literally turned her body [shoulders,head, and torso] AWAY from me.  When she passed papers to me, she waved them in my general direction without turning towards me and kept her eyes glued to the left of her. I was sitting to her immediate right. I felt like an outsider and I think that she set the tone for my general experience. There was nothing wrong with the conference itself:  I found it to be very enriching. I was just saddened by how cold and distant some educators are.  Aren't we all a part of the same team? Our skills and levels of experience certainly vary, but we are all a part of the same overall mission.  Or are we?  I wish that I could see how some of these people teach WITHOUT them realizing that they have an audience.  I wish that I could be a fly on the wall of their classroom to witness their instructional strategies.  Are they only teaching to the 70% who "get it" without a need for additional scaffolding, leaving the 30% to flounder in a land of confusion? Are they genuinely involved or are they dispassionate? Do they love to teach or are they just rolling through a daily grind? I WANT to know these things!  I want to get inside their minds, their classrooms, their souls... so that I can take a look from the inside and maybe understand who they really are.  You know, sometimes... I just want to run through the corridors of schools across the nation, thrust open the classroom doors, and scream and scream and SCREAM until I permeate the apathy and find the passion that has been lost beneath the bureaucracy.  CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!?! Or am I just screaming alone and to no one in particular? I know that there is life out there, I see it in you: the other PSTs who learn and teach and struggle and blog along-side me.  Please, let us be the new blood that will keep education alive because (to borrow a simile from T.S. Eliot) sometimes I feel that the realm of education is "like a patient etherized upon a table." A scary thought, but an honest one.

Forgive me for this "soap-box" post. I just had to unleash the thoughts that were banging against the inside of my skull, persistent in their desire to be shared. It is not like me to take on such a somber tone, but sometimes tough feelings mess with my happy mojo.  Gotta unleash these frustrations so they don't poison me.

On a lighter note, I am having a great semester! I have finally begun to connect more with the sophomores at Redken and my unit has gone well!  I have been able to teach them for the past month! My experiences have been akin to a roller-coaster with ups and downs and crazy loops, exhilarating.  This semester has enabled me to learn a great deal about lesson planning, time management, and classroom management.  Things were a little rocky at first, but I have found a deeper sense of confidence in my abilities as an educator. I may have found my "brighter day".