The One with the A-B-C
It is such a brutal exercise, trying to pigeonhole the teachers in levels and then finally trying put a number beside their names and eventually a letter which will not just determine the fatness of their pockets come next year, but eventually how you are going to move on - to continue to excel, to try to excel or not to excel and wallop in self pity.
It is such an ironic thing, you hear about it, you read about it, but when you are actually doing it, the experience turn out to be so unnerving. Well at least for me... Point for Point, achievement for achievement, contribution vs contribution, impact vs impact; it is the issue of realism at play, it is reality at work, and it is real to the core.
I sat inside my cubicle, swore to secrecy the verdicts. I sat in isolation as I tried to clear my mind bout the things that happens in that snap 4 hour marathon meeting.
maybe it is just the virginal experience... maybe i will get used of it. Maybe I will just be as I say Always Bo Chup about it. But then I asked, can I really do that, when I have the career of a person in my hands.
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5 comments:
You must be a Head of Department.
Personally, I don't give a crap about the ranking system, even though for political reasons, I have to pretend that I do care.
The more I care about the ranking, the tighter the grip my superiors have on my manhood. I decided to let go, and for the first time, I felt that I was calling the shots at my work review, instead of the other way around, as described in one of my recent blog entries.
I guess in a way, it does pay for certain teachers like myself to teach Math and Science subjects. We are able to make up for the loss of bonuses with 'outside income'. For that, I am deeply grateful. I think I am earning more than my colleagues who busted a couple of arterties trying to fight for that higher ranking.
Oh well, happy ranking your surbodinates.
Just my two cents worth...
I've always wondered what it's like to participate in an event that is so fundamentally flawed. Performance appraisal in the private sector is so much more elegant, simpler and not so anal.
I've grown to be bo-chup about my ranking and I've realised it helps to make me do my job without busting my artery. If you really believe in your job, you will do it well, regardless of the ranking. After all, the difference between a C and a B is about $1-$2k in performance bonus. definitely not an amount I would lose sleep over.
Hi Stressed_teacher and trisha,
I have to say that the performance ranking is not really "judgemental" and there is a conscious attempt to recognise the contributions that a teacher have made to the department, CCA, committee and to the school. It is just that we are constantly involved in a rat chase - from the time, we are ranked in ability and class results when we were students to the point of ranking in the working sector. The distinction of how to rank get blurrer.
Many teachers in my school are distressed over the ranking system. We are urged to contribute more and more and more. And just when you think you had done alot, your HOD will mention that so-and-so did even more. It is a never-ending cycle. So, I choose to put myself out of this system. I am in the ranking system, but not of it. Ultimately, I care for the ranking only to the extent of how much it affects my performance bonus. If I can make up for it elsewhere, then I no longer feel threatened.
Once, my school principal came up with an idea to make the ranking system transparent. She took a teacher's EPMS, blanko-ed out the name, and went thru' it in detail with the entire staff, trying to explain to us how this particular teacher was given her ranking grade.
From the principal's point of view, she was trying to be fair and transparent. From the teachers' point of view, we felt it was a massive leak of confidential info, even if there was no intent to cause hurt.
It also made us more pressured to work harder and to compete against our own friends.
As a HOD, I guess you have your job to do. But from many rank-and-file teachers' point of view, the ranking system serves more to pressurize and divide us.
Hi Stressed_teacher
I am not a HOD but just a subject head. which mean that I have lesser teachers reporting to me. I agree that there is a fine line of being offical/ professional and being sypathetic to situations that may affect/accentuate the ranking.
I accept your take on your p's diagnosis of the EPMS as somewhat insensitive to staff morale (if I get you correctly) It is never nice to put something so judgemental and spell it out in points and guidelines.
But as I say, this is the best system ( however flawed as claimed it might be) that we can use to assess a teacher performance. The fact that teachers keep doing more and more and raising the bar is what the management wants - to make sure that it will ultimately translate to results and personal development of the teachers.
It is brutal to assess teachers, I agree and it is sometimes painful for some to see people who apparently do less than other getting what others who do more get.
Sad to say this age-old problem will infact never see a foolproof solution just maybe feasible solution.
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