The night before my very first day of teaching, I was incredibly excited! It was like an adult's version of a kid's Christmas Eve. I was also terribly frightened.
I wasn't frightened because I lacked the necessary knowledge to pass on to my students; college and life gave me that. I wasn't afraid of the responsibilities that come with the job. I knew...even then...that the "Teaching" aspect of my vocation was the easy part. The lesson planning and implementation of lessons, the time frames for each subject maintained, the curriculum pacing, the grade recording, the filing, the classwork and testing applications, the multitude of copies made...all of this is simply busy work. To the lay-people of the world this (And a great deal more) is all that constitutes a teacher's job. Of all of this...I was not scared. Not one bit. What frightened me...what scared the hell out of me were the questions my evil subconscious kept bringing to the surface of my mind on the night before my first day as an educator. Would I be an effective educator? Will I be able to make a difference in a child's life? Will I just be a teacher, pumping out and putting forth only the busy-work...OR...will I be an educator of young minds?
After that first week...after incorporating the busy-work with what would become my classroom atmosphere...I realized that I loved being an educator, that each of my kids was unique and awesome, and that classroom management was the KEY to success.
I have always had the mindset to teach my kids first, and the curriculum second. Unteaching is also a part...curbing bad behaviors, lifting low self-esteem, changing a hate for school into at least the tolerance of it...are all factors in this. Over the last twelve years so much has changed. Unlike evolution...taking millions of years for change to occur...our curriculum, the testing regiments, and mandated NCLB, and RTTT regulations have caused almost overnight mutations, ripping at the very soul of what it was to be an effective educator.
This has been debated to death...here it goes again. Educators have been placed under microscopes, and have been forced to fill every school day with more busy work than any factory or sweat-shop has ever had to endure. The kids have been forced to DSTP, DAZE, and DCAS...not to mention STAR Test, and fit into slots for RTI. Finding the time JUST to get our kids ready for all of this is overwhelming...teaching to the test comes into play at times...even with the best of us.
All of this being said...here is the meat of what I have a beef about tonight. Our third round of DCAS testing was to begin last week. We (The teachers) were informed that DCAS would be pushed back a week. Evidently the cause for this postponement stemmed from the calculators that had been used since last year by the students during the Math portion of the test were NOT regulation. It was determined that because these calculators had the square-root button, and percentage key...they could not be used by the students during the Math DCAS (Even though these were the same calculators ok'd, and used since last year AND the same calculators used this year for the first 2 testing sessions). New calculators had to be ordered...calculators that only had the four operations' keys.
I am devoting an entire paragraph to this one! This past Monday we just found out that flagging a question during DCAS testing will result in a lower score! Every time a kid flags a question...so he/she can come back to it later...the test re-calibrates itself, and begins popping up questions of a lower caliber, fetching an overall lower score. My reaction was...ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? I have always taught my kids...on Math, Reading, Social Studies, Science, etc...if you come across a question or problem that feels like it needs more time dedicated to it, or if you are not sure about it...circle it, and come back to it later. This has always been successful. I did it myself...on tests especially. If I came across a problem (s) that was multi-stepped...I circled it and moved on THEN I went back and devoted my time to the circled problems. I have also taught that speed is not an issue while testing. One kid takes 15 minutes while another takes one hour to complete the same test. If the score for both is an ACE...Bully for both kids! This, to me, is Common Sense Test-taking 101! Now...at the last minute...the week before the last DCAS of the year we find out that flagging questions dummy's-up the test, resulting in a lower test score! Flagging questions quelled a good deal of test-anxiety for many students, as most kids need to get the juices flowing during a session to tackle the challenging questions on standardized tests. DOE...this last minute crap...burns my butter big time!
Well...I am sure that many of you feel as I do...I hope that isn't presumptuous of me? I told my kids the whole deal, and I also told them not to flag. I told them...reassured them...to trust in themselves, and to do their own personal best. I told them I was already incredibly proud of their accomplishments this year, and I also told them that I was not worried about next week's DCAS. If I am not worried, you shouldn't be worried! I told them...if you come across a question where you are unsure...take the time to work it out then and there. If you are still unsure...make your best guess, move on and don't look back!
Alright...time to end this. Regarding the fear I had the night before my first day of teaching? I am just as afraid today as I was then, but now it is two-fold! Not only is it...will I make a difference? It is also HAVE I MADE a difference? I work hard everyday to become effective at what I do...I hope I have? Goodnight.
