Guess what? My students tests scores went down last year. It made me pretty sad, and a little mad. Now, they didn't go down very much a all, but no one likes to see their name next to a downward trending line.
Do you want to know why my stats went down? Your guess is as good as mine, but here is mine:
I'm working hard to finish my masters degree in education. I am still working full-time teaching 200 + students including the English Language Learners at my school. I chaperon events, run the school newspaper, mentor little teens who have real needs, and had a student teacher teaching my class for three and a half months last year. Aside from that I've been dating a lot of over the last year. I kinda want to have a spouse instead of lose one like all those heroic teachers seems to do in teaching movies like Freedom Writers and Mr. Holland's Opus.
I guess what I am saying is I am a real person, with a real life. You can't squeeze blood from stone, and you can't kill off your hard-working teachers in the name of the numbers game. Because you know what? If you have never been a teacher you have no idea how difficult and time consuming and even emotionally taxing it can be. We love your children, but we also have to love ourselves.
You can't reduce good teaching to numbers.
4 comments:
Go read this article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-kirk-edgerton/teachers-unions-issues_b_1856371.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=1214636,b=facebook
I know you're a great teacher! Don't let those obnoxious test scores get you down!
Test scores do leave out a lot of information. You are a great teacher and I know I dont even know the half of what teachers put into their work. I appreciate all the wonderful teachers out there...especially so I don't have to homeschool. :)
I'm sure you are doing great. Keep up the good work!!! Those darn tests can be really frustrating for kids, parents, and teachers. So hard to tell what tests are accurate and what tests aren't. The real test is if those kids love you and are excited about learning because of your excitement for learning - and I'm sure they would all say YES to that!
Amen.
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