I bet you were wondering if I was ever going to write one of these things again. I am. Here it is.

Maybe it's old(er) age, but it seems that some aspects of my career have become more demanding than they used to be.

I used to be able to sail through a mountain of paper with minimal distress, but my recent sessions of paper processing have been very difficult...even when I am very consciously not grading them but only commenting. Maybe it's tougher then. I read a paper and find mistake mistake irrelevant detail mistake lack of support fuzzy logic mistake. I am able to see only the problems. So I try reading without a pen in hand...just read. Then what? Comment only at the end? I know it is disheartening to a student to get back a paper that appears to have been bled upon by the teacher. I want to note good things I see in the paper...but often I have to work twice as hard to find those things - not because they aren't there but because I am too dense to see them, conditioned to find only fault.

Another recent feature of my teacherly life is the in-house requirement that each of us will keep a Professional Portfolio. We have been presented with a list of four Domains, each of which contains five or six Components. Last year we were evaluated for six of these Components. This year it will be eight:

1b: Demonstrating Knowledge of Students
1c: Selecting Instructional Goals
1d: Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources
1e: Designing Coherent Instruction
1f: Assessing Student Learning

2a: Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport
2d: Managing Student Behavior

3e: Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness

Last year many of my components were evaluated through a administrator's supervisory visit to my classroom. This year they must all be made evident within the Professional Portfolio.

Some teachers are going publicly mad over this. I have (until now apparently) been keeping my own counsel. We are regularly told that this is no big deal - and it probably is not. But it certainly feels like a big deal. Administration is very understanding of this. Last year when I realized that I would not have the PP completed by deadline I received a very generous extension. And the same has been true this year (it was due last week). But on some level I feel like that guilty child who just couldn't do the right thing at the right time, a failure and a shame. My problem, I know. But do I need this? And then there is...

The Illinois State Teacher Re-Certification Process, whose delightfully Kafkaesque labyrinths are documented at www.isbe.state.il.us/

I have heard that some teachers (not necessarily the weakest or the slackers) are choosing retirement or change of career as they are confronted by these new hoops of - not fire but horseshit. Oh well. I am currently holding my nose and leaping.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure a meaningful start for the juniors' work with Lord of the Flies. (This novel is not my favorite, but it seems to work with some adolescents. And there is a serious lack of British titles that connect with teens.) And the sophomores and I are up to chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby. (Most seem cautiously positive about it, but I'm hearing a bit of grumbling around the edges.) And the apes ... it's hard to figure ... we/they did some poetry exploration today by rumbling through some books I brought in and marking likely poems. Where are we headed?

Sorry that you've read this far and haven't had much of a payoff. This is my life. This is the matter that has consumed my days. Not long ago I found myself behind the wheel of my very dirty white car; I noted that I had not been in this car for over two weeks. I had not been out of the house for at least that same length of time. This is a rut. This is not healthy. A change is gonna come.