I.M.C. Guy

Okay, I'm over my previously mentioned addiction. For those of you who may suffer from the same addiction, here's a clue to get out of it - have kids and live in an area with nice weather (atleast the weather's starting to get nice). Our school district is also just wrapping up a Fitness Challenge put on by our Wellness Committee. I got a great deal on a temporary membership at a fitness club for the month of February and have actually be working out a little bit, taking up some of my blogging time since I've been going late at night instead of sitting on my butt typing away. Also, find something you like to do other than blog, and do a lot of of it. For me, that's been the NCAA Tournament. However, since my favorite team went down today, my interest in the Final Four is much less and my blogging just might increase. Those are my excuses for being a relative slacker over the past couple of weeks. I've taken time to read some of the posts my blog pals have written, but have failed miserably in blogging myself. So there, a bunch of excuses for my lack of blogging/laziness!

I'd also like to throw a question out regarding teacher effort in your schools. We are in the process of selecting a new elementary math series for our district. There is a committee (surprise-surprise) composed of teachers from all schools and each school has had the opportunity to take a look at the new books and materials, teach a couple of lessons, and give their feedback. There are three different options available, Everyday Math, something similar, but updated, to the series we have, and some other company - Houghton Mifflin, McDougal, etc. Now, I'm not involved in this decision because I'm not in the classroom anymore and I could care less what the final choice turns out to be. However, my big question is this - what's wrong with our current textbook? We've had it for a while and it must have been great when we chose it years ago. Did the book change to now make it suck? I don't think so. I guess the district feels we need to spend money on this instead of keeping more teachers or a program. Remember that question I'm going to toss out?? It's coming...

I've heard some of the teachers talking at lunch about the math committee meetings and why some teachers like one series over the other. Everyday Math was the first one tossed out. From what I've heard, this is a pretty good math series. The school and district my first grade daughter is in uses this and she's doing some pretty amazing stuff in first grade and seems to be well ahead of many of the second graders at my school (maybe it's the genes -haha). Anyway, one of the complaints I heard about this program is that it's a lot of work for the teachers and it's very different from what they've been doing for years. This made some of our teachers a little mad because some don't want to learn something new or work harder simply because the series is "different." They were very vocal about not moving in the direction of this series. They want to do the same thing they've been doing for years. They want to start at chapter 1 in the book in September and work their way to the end in June. WTF?? Let's do what's going to be best for the kids, not the teachers. It's our job to work hard and keep learning and if it means getting used to a new series, then that's what needs to be done.

So, here's my big question, have any of you experienced similar attitudes towards new textbook adoptions where you teach? Are these the attitudes of someone in just about every school across the board? Or, is this happening in my own little world.