Have you ever been to the aquarium or the reptile house at the zoo and you see the little sign politely asking you to "please don't tap the glass"? But you think to yourself, "well, if I run my finger over the glass and 'accidentally' tap it, it's not like it'll matter..." So you do, you tap the glass and the adorable (or frightening) creature inside tries to pretend you're not there. That little creature does a pretty good job ignoring you...when it's just you. But when the 10 other people in your group come over and do the same thing, well that's just plain mean.
Perhaps you're thinking, oh she must have gone on a field trip today... nope, quite the opposite, I was at school all day. So now you're thinking, where is she going with this?
Teaching at a pilot school, we always have visitors who look in on classes to see how we teach and what the students are doing. I'm all for that.... But today was ridiculous. About 10 minutes into second period, a swarm of wide-eyed out of town educators, draped in visitor badges and toting clipboards filed, unannouced, into my class. When I asked if there was anything I could help them with, they responded, as if I were a pushy departments sales clerk, by saying, "no, we're just looking." If the purpose of the visit is to see how the class runs, wouldn't it be better if there were more students in the class than adults? And wouldn't it help to give an accurate portrayl of the class if the people observing didn't wander around and distract the students (and the teacher)?
So to that end, I offer a very sincere apology to any animal whose tank I may have 'accidentally' tapped on the glass.
1 comment:
Hi Ilana,
Your mom turned me on to your blog. Hope that's OK. You know how you're always censoring yourself (not) ;)
You should be flattered, of course, that they came to see your class, but I love the glass case analogy. Maybe a panel of one way glass would be appropriate.
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