It seems that all of the quick pace is geared toward trying to
artificially raise some scores on a narrowly written test which will
not make a hill-of-beans difference in the child's life. A young
child does indeed need the nurturing and caring touch from a sweet
and sensitive teacher who has gone to school for years to understand
how to the reach the child. But, in public education, we are in a
1970s-type of top-down, heavy-handed management style that the
business world has long since realized does not work. But, in
education, we are always about 30 years behind the times when it
comes to management styles. MACE (the Metro Association of Classroom
Educators out of Georgia) has, as its mantra statement, the
following: "You can't have good learning conditions until you first
have good teaching conditions." These two are inextricably linked.
You can't have the former until you first establish the latter.
Blossom, I wish you well. It sounds like you have a strong heart for
your children. I wish the administrators would trust the wisdom,
judgment, and discretion of the professional classroom educators, but
they are so busy climbing the corporate ladder. You and your
colleagues need advocates fighting for you. Check out:
TheTeachersAdvocate.Com

On 10/15/08, Blossom wrote:
> On 10/15/08, Blossom wrote:
> I couldn't help but smile to hear your remarks! We are feeling the
> same as veteran teachers! I often ask my coworkers WHY it is that
> having a Master's Degree is such a BIG deal??? We are not allowed
> any flexibilty to think as professionals much less create and use
> the special gifts that each of us have to offer our students. Yes
> indeed...our reading coaches are always speaking of
> management...and when they come in to MODEL a lesson they are
> going so FAST to beat the clock that management is not even a
> focus! We too are required to present a Daily Question and I was
> enjoying listening to all responses...UNTIL...they began to
> chizzle the warmup session down to doing it as FAST as possible! I
> use to stop and sing If You're Happy & You Know It....when we
> would read a poem during the warmup...and oh the smiles on those
> faces...but not anymore...that takes up too much time! Again...I
> was not only reading the high frequency words but we were clapping
> and cheering for the words each day...but no longer...it all has
> to be done so fast...so CRAZY...so OBSURD!!! By lunch I am
> frazzled and almost unwilling to speak and smile any longer...so
> against my upbeat nature.
> I find myself raising my voice in frustration to my students...and
> apologizing when I do...this again is against my nature and I am
> so ashamed when I let it all get the best of me.
> Thank you for responding. I'm not happy that you are feeling my
> pain but it is nice to hear someone who I am certain is a fabulous
> teacher expressing the same feelings.
> Have a great day and let's try to remember how much those sweet
> children depend on us to give them the BEST year they've ever had!
>
>> On 10/14/08, 1st grade teacher wrote:
>>> I feel your pain! I have the same song, just a different
>>> verse. LOL Only difference is we adopted Scott Foresman
>>> Reading Street and do TEAM Math (another initiative, just
>>> specific to East Alabama and rooted to Auburn University)
>>> using Scott Foreman math and Investigations. Yeah, when our
>>> reading coach is telling a veteran teacher that they need to
>>> learn better time management, then something is very wrong
>>> with the picture! For the first time, I dread walking into
>>> the school each morning. We are expected to do these daily
>>> messages and ask questions relavent to the theme of the
>>> week, but are only suppose to allow one or two students to
>>> respond due to time restraints. Um, they are first graders
>>> and they ALL want to share! Then we are given ridiculous
>>> tasks to do that are of no benefit to the classroom teacher
>>> just so the reading coach and principal can do a walk
>>> through and check up on what we are doing. It has started
>>> off as a VERY frustrating year!

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