notes on Chalk

The "Super Size Me" guy!
family tells war stories about students, admin, faculty....
but they never quit because they loved being teachers.
The teachrs r so important!


Chalk:
YIKES! half of the Ts quit within the 1st 3 years of T-ing
making jokes to make students comfortable.
the history T is so uncomfortable. well now i know why! He has NEVER taught before!!

Teachers in the lounge talking about their school experience...Ridiculous! they all had problems.

These Ts and the AP are all new in so inexperienced and untrained.

The Ts are more like monkeys, performers for the evaluators, they can't focus on teaching...not really.

The AP has to heavy of a work load, she doesn't get home until after 10pm.
The students are out of control and don't listen to the T, the Ts have not been educated in ways to diffuse tough situations between students.

Other Ts like the coach are taking over the way the other Ts run their classroom.
Not only do Ts have to worry and  deal with students and their poor behaviours, but they also have to deal with workplace issues like working well with other Ts there.

Coach has an idea that if you make students believe that you think they have a lot of potential then they will live up to that and try harder.

the T is looking for books on classroom management...did he not take any course on that in college?!

The AP is overworked and stressed out, she has no time to unwind.

a T, tells the student to "use words that he can understand" he tells his students to tone down their knowledge. Obviously the Ts have not been well educated at all!

Students are uncomfortable and miserable.
The T thats the newest is experimenting with ways to teach.

The whole theme of this movie seems to be the lack of qualifications that the teachers have!

The administration treats the teachers and faculty worse than they treat the students, they treat them like the Ts are children!

I wonder how much of this mockumentary is accurate.
Most of the Ts are too preoccupied with whats goig on in their lives that they do not really focus on teaching.

The new T says that teaching takes up all of his life and he has no time for a personal life. thats sad.

I feel bad for the history T. He wants to make a diff. He wants to be a good teachers and do what he feels is right, but the students don't care, the administration doesn't care....he has a vision of what teaching should be like and it is not turning out the way he thought it would.

The teachers are discussing bad experiences they've had, like horror stories about being teachers, they are afraid of their students and afraid of the administration that observes them and rules over them.

The Social studies teacher just wants to win some award from the school. he goes "over the top" only to be seen and looked at by his superiors.

the coach says "i had a feeling that she would bridge the gap between teaching and administration"...

The social studies teacher is so focused on winning the teacher award that he is not even teaching his class. He used his students to try to win and when he didn't win he reacted crazy in the classroom.

The ap goes in to cover for substitute teachers when they can't make it. she was happiest in the classroom. she misses the students that care and put forth effort.

The history teacher is becoming comfortable in the classroom, it only too him all year, congrats sir.
in college he should've had classroom time so that he wouldn't have gone through all of the awkward and poor teaching.

I think this film is meant to show that it is not only the high school level of education that is suffering but also the college level. how poor is the education of the educators?! and what about the professors that educate the teachers?....and so on...?

I guess we go to high school and learn from people who don't know what they're doing, but they went to college to learn from people who don't know what they're doing, and those people went to university and were taught by people who have been through the same system! its a vicious cycle.
the history professor says "being a teacher is a gift, maybe it's something you can learn, but no one's taught me.".....well thats what he should've been in school for, to learn how to be a teacher....guess not huh?