On My Mind

I cannot post on the Youtube vidoes yet. I currently don't have internet in my house, and my local library doesn't like it when I watch Youtube videos on their server (even if they are educational). Instead, I wanted to take this time to rant a little.
I hope the rest of you are having an absolutely awesome J-term Ed 115/185 experience. I am not. I was ready to quit after my first day. There's something about entering a war zone that wears a person out. Let me back up and explain.
At the school where I'm observing, education is viewed as a war between teachers and students. Their are constant undercurrents of frustration and anger, and battles are fought daily. Currently, they are revising their cell phone policy, and my cooperating teacher explained it to me in battle terms: By the current policy, cell phones are supposed to be off during the day. If a student has their cell phone on with the ringer off and a teacher never catches them, the student wins. Fine. Whatever. But if they take it out, they are in big trouble.
Excuse my slang but that sucks. I understand the frustration with cell phones in school, but I do not understand the battle mentality. This whole us vs. them thing has me supremely frustrated. I do not like the tension rising in the atmosphere. As of now, I have done very little during the day other than watch, but I'm already exhausted. I cannot imagine how the teachers feel. In my opinion, this exhaustion isn't necessary. I never viewed education as a battle until now. Since when are teachers working against students instead of for them? Why do teachers have to be constantly on their guard to catch students doing bad things?

Part of my problem is that I'm in a school which holds an educational philosophy opposite my own. My teacher and I were talking about teaching, and I mentioned my own AP US history teacher who had incorporated several fun projects into the course. My teacher said she had thought about incorporating projects but didn't have time. In her words: My students may be bored every day, but when they sit down to take the AP test, it will have been worth it.
I disagree. I believe in a fun learning environment involving interaction between students and teachers, and I believe that there is always time for more. Case in point: my teacher ended her AP class five minutes early both days I've been there, and her regular class was given twenty minutes in class to work on a worksheet today. I don't think that a teacher always has to take up every single second of class time down to the bell, but if they are going to cite lack of time, they should actually lack time. In addition, I don't believe that when the AP students sit down to take that test, that it will have been worth it. For one thing, how much will they remember or even absorb in the first place if they are bored out of their mind. In addition, tests aren't everything. Whether they walk away with a good test score or not, they still will have been bored out of their minds by the class. I believe that bad test score or not, a student should walk away liking what they learned. I believe that a good educator instills a love of learning in a students, not just a bunch of facts to recite on a test.