Another day, another outrage

That Organization has come out with another video, one that is apparently as suck-tastic as the last one. I haven't seen it, but I read the transcript. Apparently, they're very creepy, but that's no surprise.

I am mean :(

Today we had special curriculum conferences (I found out why Meghan's mom wants to change schools, Jenn, btw - apparently everybody else in her kindergarten class got a different teacher this year) for first grade. Tomorrow I get to do the whole thing again for pre-k (where they sent me a very nice thank-you card for giving them lots of stuff. Aw.)

So we sat in cramped chairs and read a cramped handout about how the class is taught (and I stared for several minutes at a printed book - aka not something the teacher wrote herself) that contains the word "layed". I'm gonna have to write a note about that one), and I had just one thought - where the heck is the blackboard? Or the whiteboard, for that matter? I eventually asked, acknowledging it as a silly question - apparently they work without one in small groups. Okay, so far, so good, that makes sense to me.

And then another person brought up discipline, apparently there was some controversy last year over the rewards assemblies and all (this is a schoolwide thing, so no use bitching to the teacher about how catching children being good isn't good in the long run), and the teacher gave an example of how, you know, the first table to clean up during clean up time gets a star and a small prize. And she's got the word on the tip of her tongue... "This promotes... uh..."

Well, you know, let's digress a little. The other day in P101 somebody posted for warm fuzzies, and no less than three (3!) people commented that I, personally, used to annoy them, but I "grew on them". Three! Maybe more. I may very well decide to adopt that as my own personal motto: "I know I'm annoying now, but just wait, I'll grow on you." Think about it.

Back when I was a snarky, smart-aleck kid, I found a certain perverse pleasure in mildly disrupting things. (This is separate from the times I unintentionally mildly disrupted things and had no idea how it happened, but I'm not sure my teachers ever saw the distinction.) And now, sitting in the classroom, listening to the teacher grope for a word... I... I saw my chance and I jumped for it.

Teacher: And this promotes... uh...
Me: Competition?
Teacher: Right, competi- NO! NOT competition! NOoooooo. It doesn't.
Me: But it does!
Teacher: No, we say it promotes teamwork.
Me: Right, through competition.
Behind me: *muffled snickers*

Well, she may say it promotes teamwork, but if you can look at a situation where one group of kids gets a prize and all the rest of them don't, and say to me with a straight face that this isn't competition, we're clearly not reading the same dictionary.

And since I'd already done that, I decided to forge ahead and bring up the grape-scented marker thing anyway, because I doubt we're bestest buds now. *headdesk* But just wait - I'll grow on her! (In fairness, she's a perfectly nice person, and I'm sure a perfectly competent teacher. I really wasn't acting very nicely at all, but by the time I realized that I'd already opened my mouth.)