auditors

I don't think I've ever heard the word "auditors" used in a sentence with any kind of positive connotations.  Auditors must be like tax collectors in the Bible.  So now in the education profession, we have "academic auditors" that come to observe tell us if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing.  And one day last week was audit day.  (Last spring when they came, I did not need the stress, and simply took the day off.) 

To start the day off, we had to be at school at the crack of dawn to fill out a survey that maybe took 5 minutes.  That was followed by a lengthy interview of the leadership team, of which I am a member (for some reason that is still not completely clear to me.)  This all-important interview had to be redone the following week, because we had an "ineligible" participant.  My assistant was out this particular day.  She hardly ever misses school, but this day she was at a special ed conference.  You don't realize how much you miss someone until they are not there.

Anyway, the auditor came in during my 2nd block.  This is normally a good class. Four eighth graders who have some sense of how to conduct themselves in a classroom.  My assistant's substitute was out of the room on lunch duty.  First we had to find a spot for the audtior that was clutter-free and close to an outlet so he could plug in.

One student was doing some make-up work for social studies.  Not a big issue in the scheme of things for me - at least he's doing something constructive, but I would have hoped for purposes of the audit he was doing Math.  Another decides to start dropping these oh-so-subtle hints about who the "good" teachers are and who the "teachers who are not doing their jobs" are.  Not really too subtle, and disruptive to the math lesson that I was trying to present.  Another - who is always on her own wavelength - asks in the middle of class if she can use the printer to print something for chorus.  Uhhh.....no....this is math.  And another decides it would be a good time to stick his pick in the back of his hair and sit there looking like a rooster.

I just wanted to crawl under a desk somewhere.  When my assistant's sub came back from duty, she failed to see the auditor sitting at the table in the front of my room, and proceeded to oooh and ahhh over the very cool technology (Promethean Board and ActivExpressions) that we were using.  She is a wonderful, enthusiastic person, but it didn't really help the whole state of the room at this point in time. 

And so life goes on.  After he left, I mentioned to the little darlings that MOST people decide to act better when there is a visitor in the classroom.  Unfortunately, this was NOT the case with them.  Perhaps at some point, I will look back on it and laugh.  Or not.