If I've noticed anything lately, it's how the concept of TIME is abused, mishandled, or simply ignored by everyone around me at work. Students have schedules, students and teachers have deadlines, parents have meetings . . . and only a few seem to care. The students have six minutes to get from one class to another (me, I could walk from one side of the campus to the other and back backwards in under six minutes) and they still don't make it on time. Moreover, they're most often tardy to their first, third, and fifth period classes (break is right before third, and lunch is right before fifth--naturally). So you can only imagine the idoitic looks on their faces when I ask them, "So you can't get to third period in twenty minutes? Fifth period in forty minutes? So you have SEVENTEEN HOURS to get to period one on time and you can't pull it off?" It further slays me when they protest that they're late by only a fraction of a minute--"I agree," I reply, "it's such a short period of time that there's no reason you shouldn't be able to get to class twenty seconds sooner."
The teachers (some of them, anyway) aren't much better. I've got two teachers on my evaluation list who missed their initial conferences with me (one of them missed it three times). Others have been given paperwork deadlines and missed them repeatedly, one had to be reminded what time he's supposed to come in every morning, and others seem to think that the closing time of the front office is more of a suggestion than an actual policy.
What happened to the concept of punctuality? Of an honest-to-God deadline? I was once asked in a job interview, "If you're supposed to start at 7am, what time should you get to work?" I replied that I should be at my desk and ready to go at 6:55am. My mother taught me well--being on time became automatic. What I'd really love to see is one of these kids get turned away from a job interview because they showed up two minutes late. I just picture a guy at the half-closed conference room door: "Yes, well, the interview was to start at 2:00; you weren't here, and I think that tells us everything we need to know." Click.
My son and my daughter are often amazed that when we go somewhere, I'll have it timed perfectly . . . I mean, we'll pull in to the parking lot right when I said I wanted to be there (my son even checks his watch and asks, "How do you do that?" every single time). I'll leave the office for district meetings before others at my site, and I'll be the only one from my site who doesn't walk in late.
*SIGH* Maybe it's just me. I'm punctual, but I'm outnumbered.
Helpful hints, position essays, and useless blather from the Assistant Principal of a high school in Southern California. Posts here do not necessarily reflect the positions or views of the school or district with which he is employed.
So there.
So there.
I'm as bad as the kids. I miss paperwork deadlines a lot (that one batch I got to you was a fluke). I turn in bus and sub forms late. And still I get the feeling that I'm one of the better ones on campus.
At least I can boast my arrival time... usually a full hour before 0 period starts. (I stopped trusting myself years ago.)
If I could cash in the extra hours before, after school and on weekends, I could probably afford to live in this town.