Into the Strenuous Briefness

This one definitely calls for bullets:

• Managed to get the entire faculty meeting to use a public GoogleDoc this morning. I think some of them are under the impression that GoogleDocs = witchcraft, but you can’t win them all.
• Delivered a presentation to the faculty about STEM education. My presentation was good—I’m a good public speaker and I had a snazzy Prezi and it’s a topic I’m passionate about. I was, however, heckled by some arts and humanities teachers who seem to be taking this whole STEM thing as a personal attack. I sort of get it from the Fine Arts folks, who are constantly marginalized and having to defend what they teach (but not really at my school, which has a vibrant and well-supported fine arts dept…), but I have very little patience for English teachers who feel victimized. Ultimately what annoyed me most was that the entire point of the presentation was interdisciplinary work, I’m a certified English teacher myself, and you’d be hard pressed to find a science teacher who’s more of an arts & humanities geek than I am. But whatevs. Haters gon’ hate. I kept my cool and came out looking poised and professional and knowledgeable.
• Speaking of which: put out my Shakespearean magnetic poetry set in my classroom. That’s right, I have magnetic poetry in my biology classroom. (Take that, Disgruntled English Teacher—I know as much about literature as you do and more about science.)
• First department meeting was mostly OK. Fewer fireworks than I expected, but there’s plenty of time for the older teachers to get good and angry about the new stuff.
• Was told that I am part of the “trifecta” in the science department that’s bringing “energy and enthusiasm.” It’s true, but three people do not a department make in a school my size. We can’t do everything, and we can’t teach all of the children. These other people need to start doing stuff or GTFO, as far as I’m concerned, because…
• They just transferred another student into my biology class directly from Old Biology Teacher’s class. Our numbers are now 30 (me) and 18 (her). For the same period. I’m going to raise hell as soon as I figure out who to raise hell to.
• I had to teach someone how to attach a file to an e-mail. For real. The same teacher who insists on printing every e-mail she receives. 
• My new mantra: “I’ll figure something out.”