May 7 - 14 is Teacher Appreciation Week ~ big flipping deal! We received our results from the 'almighty' TAKS. Our campus was fine except for math.. won't go into details. Anyway, our fearless leader asked us to reflect and see if we could come up with suggestions/solutions to help improve our ratings. My colleague had done his data analysis and noticed that his afternoon classes had done poorly not only in his subject but in other subjects too. He felt there was a direct correlation to late classes and low scores. Taking any core class at the end of the day does not bode well for learning. In our professional opinion, core/content classes should be given in the morning. Our fl did not see it that the kids might be tired ~ he said it was the TEACHER teaching poorly and didn't want excuses. Oh by the way, today is National Teacher Day, thank you so much for your support, fl! Never are students held accountable...it's always the fault of the teacher. Granted there are teachers that do NOT teach well but today was not the day to tell us it was our fault. Let us "reflect" as you say and maybe we might have come to that very conclusion on our own. In my humble opinion, standardized testing is just one facet of gauging learning ~ it should not be the only one. Interesting side note, we now do data analysis after any major testing. Funny, I left accounting and finance to teach. The pay was better there but I love my students.
Any feed back would be greatly appreciated!
~butterfly angel~
2 comments:
There is an expression that explains this phenomenon, one that usually involves switching a colorful metaphor or slogan in lieu of the word "snowball." It goes something like this...
If the head boss is on top of a mountain and is ticked off about something, they chuck a pebble down the side of the mountain. As this pebble passes all the bosses who live on various lower levels along the slope, it collects more and more snow. Down and down, larger and larger, this snowball grows until it splats an avalanche of snow upon the worker bees at the base of the hill.
Sorry to hear about the avalanche that hit you today.
It's always so easy for people to point the fingers at the teacher instead of realizing that an education also requires students willing to learn and parents who support their kids' education.
Sadly, teachers are the easy scapegoat. It sounds like you are in the profession for the right reason: the kids. It's easy for others either outside of the profession or some of those in administration to lose sight of that...
To teach is to reach out and touch the lives of children...
While this statement is true, what they don't tell you is that you are going to deal with garbage that consumes most of your time while on the job.
If people who have no clue on the subject of teaching would stay out of education (ie the Texas legislature) and allow educators to do our job, life would be good.
It is strange to hear of tales from other countries that teachers are held on high. To be a teacher is an honor. Slowly, we are being turned into robots who are one step away from being on the same tier as "Do you want fries with that."
Stick whereyour passion is and never mind the boggarts...
-WTS
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