Dearly Devoted Rubie

Estuve dando clases en el CELEX de la Voca 2 por casi dos y medio años. Al principio era muy divertido porque mis amigos estaban ahí y dar clases en realidad era un placer. Después, la coordinadora botó a Federico, uno de los maestros más populares y después Eric, se fué por encontrar mejores cosas que hacer.

Así que en los últimos cursos estuve solo y la coordinadora cuyo trabajo había sido bueno (no grandioso) empezó a declinar como persona y como jefe, al punto de buscar a quién culpar por sus errores con tal de resolver los problemas en que se mete.

Tengo correos de la co-responsable del centro alabando mi trabajo y cito textual:

I want to congratulate for your successful job and the implementation of new technology as a tool in your ELT lessons. I´m pretty sure that your students are very motivated with their
achieved project.

Y justo la última clase se acercó a decirme de que "corre el rumor" de que utilizo material alternativo con mis estudantes y que debía usar el propuesto por la institución.

"Corre el rumor"... POR FAVOR!! Lo esperaba de cualquiera, menos de ella.

Así que antes de que se les ocurra demeritar mi trabajo o hacerme responsable de sus errores, presenté mi renuncia, aunado a los calendarios irregulares (cursos bimestrales que duran tres meses) y a que rara vez pagan a tiempo.

Hablan de que como profesores debemos innovar y motivar, pero si nuestras innovaciones se quedan en el papel mejor. Por eso prefieren contratar maestras de más de cuarenta años (o cuyo perfil sea similar al de la coordinación) que profesores jóvenes que realmente propongan y además, tengan el atrevimiento de aplicar sus propuestas en el aula.

En fin, tal vez algún día el IPN se crea su discurso del nuevo modelo educativo y que sus administrativos DESPIERTEN y dejen de bloquear el camino del progreso y el desarrollo profesional de las personas.



This post was written in Spanish so it can be understood by nosy parents who didn't read this blog's disclaimer (also written in Spanish).

Right after I got back from Playa, I started grading my CELEX exams and uploaded the grades to the internet, I also had to send all my paperwork by mail. It's funny that, for a long time, I have been trying to make such process paperless and finally, because of need, we did it that way, at least this once.

The Internet is helping us to share information and memories without the use of any papers or media, take for instance the photos posted in Fede's album, they're there and his kids back at Playa can check them out without having to wait. We also have some videos at my YouTube channel

Anyway, it's quite fun to officially finish the trip by sharing this digital memories with the kids and the rest of the world.

For the past two weeks, the English Lab has been under maintenance. This maintenance included the replacement of the switch, keyboards, mice, headphones and server. One thing noteworthy is that all the hard drives were formatted and that means having to install and configure everything again, Internet sharing and intranet weblog included.

On Wednesday, the maintenance was completed and today I signed the releasing papers. I took my free hour to quickly install the Antivirus and of course Opera, cuz I joined Campus Crew and accepted the Lab Challenge!

I downloaded the English version so the browser can be a learning experience by itself by helping students to aquire the competence of using software presented in English. I'm also planning to install OpenOffice.org, also in English (as in the server).

There's still a lot of work that has to be redone on the lab, but I'm only doing it after receiving notice of my next internship

But at least, the lab now has Opera installed in "all 40 positions plus a teacher's station" and has a sticker on the front door

I'm not talking about the Taiwanese brand of computer supplies. I'm talking about iTunes 8 newest feature. Genius scans your library and compares it to the iTunes Store catalogue. This is intended to let you create coherent playlists, not based on search terms but in "songs that sound great together".

I must say that I didn't have much faith in this, but after several tries and some dumped lists, I got a couple of nice playlists that I thought were actually good.

Talking about upgrades, the lab at work finally was upgraded in RAM and we even got our own IP address where a weblog created using ThinkJot can be accessed from the internet when the server is up (not the case right now, but if you're curious, PM me and I'll give you the address). The interesting point is that we were using (for tests) 40 IP's and after I figured out the correct configuration, we dropped 39 and kept one, the other 39 are subnetted within the intranet!

Tomorrow I'll install SP3 on the XP boxes that -believe it or not- don't even have SP1 installed!

Today, some students began their social service at the school's civilian protection department. However, they have to be trained. In their first day, they failed to evacuate a hurt person in time so I was asked to pronounce her dead at 2:55 pm.

After watching them perform, in case of accident, I'd rather save myself than waiting for those guys to assist me!