That's Good, I Guess

It looks like I passed my course. I got an email today from my instructor which read:

Congratulations on the successful completion of your Teacher Inquiry
Project! 

Your inquiry took me on a virtual journey in the area of blogging with
your two students. You demonstrated the relevance of blogging in an
English classroom as an alternative to journal writing. 

Your research of valuable literacy resources embedded the practicum into
relevant theory and lent credence to the inquiry. You used a good number
and variety of resources to frame your inquiry. Considering that this is
a fairly new concept, you were able to provide substantial anecdotal
data indicating that it is workable. You were able to guide their
responses through subject specific questioning. If these students had
been your current students, you would have had more thought out
responses. Kudos to your students for doing this for you! 

Your inquiry process shows visible and significant benefits to teaching
and a commitment to ongoing reflection and learning. For the purposes of
this Inquiry, you have certainly made some exciting discoveries. 

That was outstanding work. Well done! 

Now I appreciate the nice comments, but from what is written I can't tell if my instructor read my assignment. I was brutally honest in my self-criticism during my assignment, and my project, in reality, was a complete failure. I didn't deny that in my essay; in fact, I was quite overt about it. I guess I was able to "reflect" enough to make it sound like I was really asking myself hard questions and growing as a practitioner.

What a load of crap. While I am glad to have my little piece of paper, I just can't believe that the response was a cut-and-paste job. (I cannot prove this, but I do suspect it. Read it over again and tell me if you couldn't just change a few words to make it fit anyone's project.) What a waste of time and money. That's pretty much the worst Christmas present I've ever received.

All I can say is that I am glad it's finished and I'm glad that I can bitch and complain about it publicly. If anyone from the Ministry of Education is reading this, please do something about teacher training, because it really is terrible.