Sunday, March 8, 2009

Teachers in the Family


My plan is to feature teachers in the family. These first photos are of Dick and Sylvia Wallen who teach in Gig Harbor, Washington and across the River in Tacoma, Washington. They teach Elementary School. Ann Meacham teaches middle school. She teaches P.E. and Health and one period of reading and golf. The picture is with Skip and Bud. Sylvia and Ann are daughters of Gordon and Billie Meacham and Granddaughters of Sylvia Doak Meacham


Doug Meacham sent this. I also appreciate teachers. God loves you! You teach His children a good part of the day! What an important job but also very demanding.

For all you underappreciated educators out there.
Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show? Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 6 weeks.
Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 28 students. Each class will have five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three will be labeled with severe behavior problems. (If it were only 3 in real life!)Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also supervise recess and monitor the hallways. In addition, they will complete drills for fire, tornadoes, and shooting attacks. They must attend workshops, (100 hours), faculty meetings, union meetings, and curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor those students who are behind, and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the Terra Nova, NWEA, ISTEP and EPA tests. If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.
Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment at all times. The business people will only have access to the golf course on the weekends, but on their new salary they will not be able to afford it anyway. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to 30 minutes. The business people will be permitted to use the staff restroom as long as another survival candidate is supervising their class. They will be provided with two 40-minute planning periods per week while their students are at specials. If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials at this time. The business people must continually advance their education on their own time and pay for this advanced training themselves. This can be accomplished by moonlighting at a second job or marrying someone with money. The winner of this Survivor show will be allowed to return to his or her job. Pass this to your friends who think teaching is easy and to the ones that know it is hard. They will both benefit. "The object of education is to help prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."