lazy writing, lazy teaching

"Black man with a scruffy face," my friend wrote, "what kind of description is that?" Even though I don't know the pop cultural reference, I understand her dismay. What in the world are writers thinking with that kind of lazy writing.

What are some teachers thinking with lazy teaching. Although I was nostalgic about my teaching experience with the small school housed in a nightmarishly chaotic middle school in my last posting, I did not bring up Ms. X. Let's just say, she was not exactly organized.

After my son was born, I began teaching as a native language reading intervention teacher. I started it as a program from scratch. That is, after helping all the teachers start all their assessments. And one other thing, half the time I was subbing for Ms. X. She was a special ed teacher who shared a room and had a penchant for plastic surgery. She was a little nutty, and she kept no plans that I ever saw. Luckily, her assistant, Mr. G, was a grounded if young and fairly inexperienced teacher. He was wonderful with the students. Together we always managed to throw something together. But these students deserved so much more. When I went to the principal to complain, she silenced me. She used everything in her power to keep me from voicing anything about what was happening in that classroom. Ms. X had a dispute with her and the union was involved. It was so sensitive that she wanted to show me that I had no right to speak up for my program and the children that I was supposed to be serving nor the children in that ill positioned class.

That's not even that bad of a story, but imagine year after year of being told to copy the board and that's "writing." Imagine worksheet after worksheet and that's "learning." I think the best things I did was bring them authentic and beautiful children's literature and let them tell stories (about movies or whatever) that they could then write about.