Absurdities

Ms. M. learned in a PD session that "bullet points" is no longer the term for those little dots that come before ideas in a list, due to the negative connotations of the words.

Jules has to write out "instructional objective" and her former "Do Now" has been renamed a "Motivation."

If I ran the schools, or the regions in which these teachers work, I would find out which asinine middle-level bureaucrat was responsible for these mandates. I don't think they come from the top, for two reasons:

1. Call me an apologist, but I've heard Carmen Farina speak more than once, and I don't think she's this stupid, and I don't think Joel Klein is this stupid, either. Nor do I believe they have the time to worry about pen color, post-its, bullet points, bulletin board checklists, or the name of the starting exercise in a lesson. (That said, as leaders of a system, they are held responsible for the implementation of their ideas by the people who work for them - which is why, if I ran the schools, I'd be looking for the people responsible for this...).

2. We have not been told these things at my school. If they truly came from the top and were considered important, I'm pretty sure the bad news would have been broken to me by now.

And guess what? Stupid people in the middle tend to survive elections & changes in chancellors.