Is Tenure totally worth it?

I was thinking about Tenure yesterday and how I probably won't get that for many years, which is scary! At the same time, is tenure all it's cracked up to be? I consider myself a great teacher, I take pride in my career, I care about my students, I go above and beyond the job description, and I always get my stuff accomplished. I have worked at a low income school under Program Improvement this past year and have had a real awakening to the world of tenure. As I received my pink-slip for the upcoming year I realized that there were other teachers at my school whose jobs were safe. And I know I shouldn't judge, but come on! A lot of the teachers at my school are jaded and take no pride in their job. There is one in particular who has no control over her class and hardly shows up to work, but she's safe. How is this possible, and how is this beneficial to our students? I understand the usefulness of tenure, but it does make it hard for us new teachers who are eager to get in, and stay in, a classroom for good reasons to get jobs. Any other industry, if an employee does not perform, they are terminated. How is it that a teacher can miss over 50 days of school, have nothing but complaints by students and parents, show no results on standardized tests still get to keep her job? This is a frustrating topic for me because I am now for the second summer in a row looking for a new job. It is scary not having job security, but at the same time those teachers that do have jobs should still be forced to perform. I'm not saying it should be based solely on standardized tests, because there are extenuating circumstances, but we give assessments, why shouldn't we be assessed?

Is it really possible to give intrinsic motivation to students?

So I was sitting at UCI and it was approaching 10 pm on a Thursday night while I worked on an assignment for one of my MAT II classes and I was thinking what makes me motivated to take the initiative to stay this late at school just so I can finish an assignment when I didn't need to be there doing it at that very moment. I have intrinsic motivation to learn, but how do my students who have no motivation to learn gain this same type of intrinsic motivation? I can't give it to them, that would be an oxymoron. I have mentored, I have tried extrinsic motivators that don't seem to last once the incentive is taken away. I am at a loss. I understand that there are strategies that work with some students, I just haven't been successful with my students this past year. During my student teaching I was successful at motivating my students using the strategies above, but this year in Inglewood I came across almost 80% of my students who had absolutely no motivation what-so-ever. This could be an anomaly, but I think it is a majority of factors that cause students to be unmotivated. I just am looking for answers on how to change that. I understand that people have different wants out of life, but I do not understand how refusing to learn can solve anything in life. All I want to do is help my students, and it is very frustrating to see them make choices that will not allow them opportunities later on in life. This is a dilemma that I face as a teacher, but it is certainly something that I will work on and try to change.

Growing up with (or without) Technology

So my experience with technology growing up seems very limited to the amount of technology that is out there for students now-a-days. In school I didn't have a cell phone, until my junior year of high school, and it was the size of a brick without color or internet. That was the day when cell phones were actually used as cell phones. This was when there were no signs posted to silence your cell phones, movies only asked you to be quiet, not to text or make calls during the movie. Teachers didn't have to threaten students to put ipods, ipads, or cell phones away before class started. In school we had computers, we played Oregon Trail as a way to learn about people coming west. I learned how to type on a type writer in my typing class in 6th grade. I remember we were typing a paper in middle school and a girl accidentally highlighted her paper and deleted it, the teacher didn't even know what to do. The undo button was created, but seemed out of reach of the limits of our knowledge at that time. The simplist things that I take for granted now when it comes to technology we so far fetched when I was in Middle School and High School.

It is amazing to me how much students, even if they are underprivlidged, have access and understand how to use, sometimes better than me, these days. Just the fact that they are able to use their cell phones to text answers to questions, or interact on live websites instantaneously creates unlimited access to the world of academics.