This comment-turned-article from Susan Bowman is an important read. We are not all in a position to take or leave a job, I realize, but the overall tenor of what she says below carries a lot of healthy ideas in it that can help us keep our thinking healthy at a time of year when clear thinking about our jobs is not always readily available, because of stank*:
In 1993 or so, I was desperate to be a better Spanish teacher. I had spent 4 years creating conjugating idiots out of very bright, hardworking students. I read TPR by Asher and started trying it. I saw a conference with Blaine Ray and Asher advertised and persuaded the district to pay for it if I’d pay transportation. I was sold instantly. I knew it would work and I kept trying TPRS in my classes and got better and better. Kids who hated the idea of Spanish were volunteering to take new vocabulary and make up a story while classmates acted it out by the end of the first year. Then I stopped to have and raise my kids. While I was out, the split happened among FL teachers. Traditional teachers started hating the CI teachers and their anger caused the response that we all feel. Before it was generally up to us to determine how best to teach our students and we were judged on student and parent satisfaction. Now everyone tries to control everyone else. My daughters have had TPRS teachers who got them interested in talking and other teachers who suppressed that desire to communicate. I want CI all the time for my kids and my students and will not accept a job that asks me to teach grammatically. Pop-up grammar is good. Meaning is good. Conjugations divorced from communication are not for me or my students. I will hold out for a job that allows me to use CI or I will indulge myself volunteering to teach. I am lucky to be in the position of supplemental income instead of primary income. I love teaching because of TPRS. It saved my career and I won’t turn my back on it.
*stank (n.) – what happens when teachers are the only ones in the building trying to be cheerful, usually in May. (The teachers all felt like baby sitters. The spring stank had taken over the building in a palpable way.)