My starry-eyed student teacher joined us today. She's only here for eight weeks, and only three days a week at that. Oh, except for the two weeks she's going to take over the class between the Thanksgiving and Winter holidays.
Oh dear. She already has big dreams about how class is going to run while she's here. She doesn't understand that we have to have "common assessments" and that Mr. Principal doesn't give a shit how creative and engaging her lesson plan is if progress can't be measured with the same exact stinking tool that everyone else uses.
She'll learn.
Tomorrow I have a half day of training, so a half day of substitute teacher. Of course writing a sub plan for two classes takes just as much time as five classes. Wednesday is a minimum day, which ends up being rather pointless; the classes are all 26 minutes long, and we end up with just an extra hour and a half for in-service. This time we're supposed to be meeting with the other teachers in the district in our respective departments to "align curriculum." Should be easy since we all use the Holt textbook now. And the Holt support materials. And the Holt tests and assessments. And the Holt spelling materials. And the Holt language and sentence structure materials.
Actually Holt isn't so bad. I'm just nervous about the mentality that has finally hit our school.
Thursday it's Late Start day, which always makes the parents so happy after a minimum day, and then Friday, I'm off to San Francisco. I can't wait.
Well, I can. I have more sub plans to write.
Cheers.
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3 comments:
I've been enjoying your voice from the classroom. We'll be adding your place to the EduSphere over at our site. If this isn't OK, please let us know.
I'm adding you as soon as I get home tonight.
You are saying what I said for over twenty years, but didn't have the technology or the courage to say it out loud.
And you say it perfectly.
"Common assessment," I love that word. It makes me laugh every time, kind of like "booger."
We give common assessments on a quarterly basis, to every freshmen and sophomore. We prepare our student teachers by having them help with the scoring! We teach them early that teaching is not about connecting with the students or engaging their minds, it is about whether or not they can answer a WASL stem question. The truly finer points of life!
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