Worst blogger ever... and still no curriculum

That's me.  I really am the worst.  I'm great at reading blogs, but terrible at keeping my own up-to-date.  Also terrible about commenting on blogs that I follow regularly.  I often compose blog posts in my head, but by the time I get to the computer, I'm either blank or too exhausted to put my thoughts into words.

Our department is still pretty much a train wreck.  Still no curriculum.  That's right.  It's almost June, and we still have no curriculum.  Most of us have barely made it through 4 chapters of our new textbooks  On the one hand that sounds pretty terrible, but on the other hand, our next textbook covers so much more than our old, so four chapters is almost about seven of our old textbook.  Not so horrible when you think of it in those terms.

The problem remains that there's no real curriculum.  Those of us teaching the same prep have basically been checking in with one another during our rushed lunch.  "Where are you with the ___ (insert prep here)?" "Chapter 3 Section 3.2."  "Oh, I'm on the introduction to Chapter 3.  I guess I should pick up the pace."  "Maybe I'll slow down."  And that's how it goes.  For the final exams, we each decided who was going to make the exam for the prep and have agreed to ignore anything that we personally haven't covered when grading the exam.  Not really a great plan when you think of it, but when we're stuck to try to figure things out on our own with absolutely no collaboration time (except our lunch), that's how things work.

I would say things may get better next year, but our department director is retiring, so we really don't even know if we'll get another or if we do, we have no idea what that person will have in mind.

This whole situation is so frustrating.  We all have discussed how we feel like terrible teachers this year.  We have no idea what we're supposed to be covering, so we're just rushing through material, and it's SO BORING!   And I'm sure you can imagine that if the teachers are bored, the students must want to poke their eyes out.  Cool, useful projects?  Mostly out the window because we just don't have time.  Those speaking tests we'd like to do?  Also out.  Our brand new language lab?  Temperamental at best, which just ends up annoying both teachers and students when it's lab day.

To add icing to the cake, we were informed last week that it's highly likely that several full-time teachers will be let go due to budgetary issues.  Here's an idea: Get rid of the over-paid administrators who do so very little work (and get mad when you ask them to do their jobs), and you'd have enough money to keep two teachers on (per administrator cut).  But alas, no one wants my opinion on the subject.

I can't say I think it'll get better.  But as long as I have a little bit of job security in this harsh economic time, I'll keep my chin up and keep on trucking.