when schools focus on the wrong things (from a teacher)

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12/19/2017 22:13

Subject: when schools focus on the wrong things (from a teacher)

quote

Anonymous

I have been teaching for 15 years and I've seen ideas and practices come and go during that time. What I really don't understand is why the people who haven't actually stepped foot in a classroom in years, or have never actually taught core academic subjects are the ones coming up with the ideas that suck up the time.

Why don't they understand that spending time doing an exercise where we are asked to create questions we can ask each other about our data (after we've spent the time collecting and transferring it to their preferred format) is very low on the list of priorities of how we could best use our planning time? Being asked to meet with your team and create a list of ways to quantify feedback when you still need to pee and scarf down lunch before you have to get your kids from recess is not the way to ensure that the afternoon lessons will run smoothly because you didn't end up having time to provision supplies needed for your engaging math lesson you had planned. Instead you were trying to figure out what they wanted you to say so you could just get it done and sent to admin.

I feel like most of the time spent in these meetings is just trying to figure out what they want to hear so you can put it on an exit card or shared Google doc and get the hell out of there. Whatever point they might have been trying to make is lost because all teachers are thinking about is the "real" work they have to get done after the meeting is finally over. Sitting in those meetings doesn't help engaging lessons get planned. What they do is ensure that there won't be enough time to spend on planning lessons or prepping materials, so that has to take a seat on the back burner.

Why do meetings and endless exercises in futility take precedence over working with students, creating and prepping materials, planning engaging lessons, having time to provide meaningful feedback to students and collaborating in a meaningful way with colleagues (not just covering what's on admin's collaborative planning template that they force you to use so they can send it to their boss and show evidence of collaboration)?

Then they have the audacity to tell you that you're responsible for not meeting students' needs when they've wasted so much of your time with bullshit.

Every day is like triage--what is the most pressing need at this moment? Sending a list of ways that feedback can be quantified is not the most pressing need today, or likely any day.

Just let me use my planning time to, you know, actually plan. Do they really believe this stuff is of utmost importance? How out of touch can they be? How is it that people can work in a school and not realize what teaching actually entails on a day to day basis, so they think that you have time to sit with your team and create bullshit lists and questions that most likely will never be seen or heard about again? How are people who have never taught math, reading, writing, science and social students the ones making these decisions when they're related to teaching content areas? And if it's coming from their bosses in central office, how have they lost touch so badly with the reality of what's going on in our schools and what students and teachers need in order to be successful? Hint--it's not spending time pontificating about ways to quantify feedback.

Can you tell what kind of week it's been already?

This is really obviously mostly a vent, but if anyone has legitimate answers I would love to hear them.