Classroom Research and EV the evil voice

I try to enjoy my weekend and in this case it's a three day weekend but at the back of my head there's this nagging and intrusive tiny voice that keeps whispering evil stuffs in my head, which, if I do not suppress ruins the short, short vacation. No, I'm not a schizophrenic, well, on self diagnosis at least, bipolar? I don't know, But I guess most, if not all, teachers experience the same kind of phenomenon.

Here's how the conversation usually progresses.  

Evil Voice  (which from now I would call EV): Have you updated your LIS.

Me: Oh my God, I promised to do it last week but I need to have a break! I promise I'll do it tomorrow. 

EV: There you go again making up excuses!

Me:   Don't I deserve a break, The stress of teaching is killing me.

EV: All jobs are stressful you dimwit. Here are other stuffs that you should not forget. DLL, Form 137, Form 8, Action Plan, Physical fitness report, grade level and school wide test result consolidation, 16 pieces of rating sheets, and remember classroom research, sf's. Don't forget the collectibles: pta collection, another pta collection, bsp, gsp, anti tb...drowning already? More will be coming! The God of Education is still not done with you sinners!

This conversation usually occurs at the end of the quarter. I guess the voice will never stop until the paper works are accomplished. 

Anyway, all these stuffs are routine except for classroom research which was added to our mountainous paper works about a year ago. I know the objective behind research is to discover classroom problems and how they can be solved in the classroom setting using the teacher/researcher's observations and the solutions that arise from the study, the scientific method thing.

Well, I'm not blaming or insulting any teacher. I guess with the amount of work teacher's do, the thinking would be to meet the research requirements with the minimal effort. The reason behind this theory is not because teachers are lazy or incompetent, its just research takes a backseat behind the classroom and school records keeping, it's prioritization.

I read some of the research titles done in the school and they are good but many are redundant and the topic is so obvious that research seemed superfluous. The thing is, there will come a time when teachers run out of problems or challenges to study, at least in the learner and the classroom setting. And since research is another requirement included in the RPMS, the teacher may end killing themselves racking up their brains to come up with titles. Also most teachers are trained to teach, to facilitate learning, to captain the classroom. research which requires another set of skills from writing to stats, is something most are not trained to do. Another is inclination, speaking for myself, I do not have the inclination to conduct research for reasons one being it's tedious and boring as hell. Of course, this is me, but I also get the impression from most teachers that research is one thine they do not enjoy doing. That's just my impression, the truth could very well be the opposite, they love doing research.

I have this very simple but not original idea about education and work. It's all about interest and motivation, the intrinsic and extrinsic thing. There should an equilibrium between the two. If the work is done on the motivation of promotion and demotion, the project will be accomplished but not enjoyed and expect shitty titles worthy of being used as a toilet paper. But if the motivation is done out of interest and the aim of helping out, expect quality research, expect rarity.

Thinking and conceptualizing requires a creative mind. Creative minds requires room for exploration of ideas. Think of a computer with a powerful processor and a large memory. But like anything and everything, cramped those memories with stuffs and the processor slows down. Another analogy is the stomach, eat small meals at the correct intervals and you get good poop but if you cram the stomach with stuffs edible and inedible, potable and not potable, it will produce...well...do the science. So goes with the mind.

What am I saying? Less is more. Why? Do the the Superior, minor and demi Gods' in the department read and evaluate the research? With the amount of research being submitted, do they really study them and apply the recommendations. Or the papers are  just stacked up in cabinets and storage to be used as mediums for molds and fungi culture. Less is more because it will be difficult to find a manuscript lost in the tons of scratch papers. One, two, or three well done research is better than...