I wasn’t going to post about teachers as my first post back after recovering from being really sick. However, it seems a day doesn’t go by without some asinine thing that is said about or done to the teachers. Today was no exception, and I can’t help but comment.
This afternoon we received an email from the California Teachers’ Association. This email was sent to inform us about a couple of bills that CTA is opposed to. Now I know some people out there are thinking, “Oh, here we go again. A bunch of teachers complaining about something new they are being asked to do. They only work part time and make a bazillion dollars…what are they complaining about?”
Here is what is being brought to the table…
The bill would allow non-medical school personnel to administer Diastat by injecting the medicine into the rectal cavity of a student. The drug is designed to treat epileptic seizures, and the bill could result in teachers and other non-medical school personnel administering Diastat in their classrooms during instructional hours.
CTA believes this is a way for government to get around funding school nurses who are the ones actually trained for this type of medical assistance.
Currently, in addition to the core curriculum teachers teach (reading, writing, math, social studies, science, art, PE, computers), and the “raising the kids because so many parents don’t do it” instruction (drug education, anti-bullying, social skills classes, etc), which by the way the number of hours we are required to teach these things now add up to more hours than the actual hours we are in school. So in addition to that, we classroom teachers often deal with minor medical issues (paper cuts, vomiting, wetting the pants, nose bleeds, slivers, and other small things that a band aid or wet rag and disinfectant can take care of). Injecting a dose of medicine into a student’s rectal cavity is crossing that line of minor medical issues. Ummm, that’s pretty major! Teachers seem to be blamed for everything these days….can you even imagine if we are responsible for this and something goes wrong?
Of course, a child in need of medical assistance, needs to be treated immediately, and if that were the reason behind this bill, it might be received better. As of now, teachers are not allowed to keep medicine in their rooms, and school nurses and their assistants are responsible for keeping track and dosing this medication. This hasn’t caused treatment to suffer, but all of a sudden, when the state is broke, they decide to put this medical responsibility onto the teachers.
I promise, my next teacher post will be what I don’t like about teacher unions, but in this case I do tend to agree with ours.
Instead of a sketchbook, this time the Co-op sends out disposable cameras. These cameras are equipped with a flash and 27 frames of film. Upon choosing a theme, participants can interpret that theme using photographs and, after sending them back to the Co-op, watch them travel the country on the Photomobile tour. Afterwards those photos are housed in the Art House Co-op's permanent collection in Brooklyn, NY. As if I weren't busy enough and didn't have a billion other art projects started, but I've been on vacation for 4 days and had an itch to start something new! Actually, these projects are fun and pretty low-key while still being part of an international art community. Can't wait for my camera to arrive! My theme is "Creating a World". There's still a little time left to sign up. Go check it out! Here are some photos from last year's project. 
