Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Fight or Flight

So last week I had a discussion with Liesl and Laura at Caribou and I walked away in a pretty deep state of discontent. Laura had talked about some of the new programs that are coming in affecting (read harming) the smaller language programs. This was shortly after I had heard that the new high school would only be offering Spanish (of the currently offered languages).

I had two factions warring inside myself and until I named them, I was simply restless and unhappy. These warring brothers were the instincts of fight or flight. Do I accept it, read the (possible) writing on the wall and prepare for landing... or do I begin fighting it now... pushing further and harder into the space of education?

I had a discussion with Shawn who (wisely) told me to talk to the Doctor about it. I haven't done that yet for a number of reasons but plan on doing so...

And then today it happened again.

This morning at our meetings, we were told that, in fact, they were only offering Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish and (probably) French: clearly leaving out German. My question is what effect this will have on the program as a whole... and what meaning this has as we look at adding another German teacher in the district.

So what do I do?

Prepare for a fight or a flight...
I vacillate with every breath.

1 comment:

Meanwhile, I keep dancing said...

Gird your loins, teacher leader. I think the fight's on.