Probably one of the many challenges that I am currently facing. I plan my entire week during the weekend and I get this feeling of accomplishment. I feel that I am prepared to teach these kids anything and everything. Then I go to meetings and professional developments and leave them felling as if I were hit by a bus. So I go back and think over my entire plan all over again. Happens every week.
The worst.
They tell me I'm not teaching the right the thing. I'm not teaching the right way. I don't have time to teach my students grammar because it isn't in the standards. I don't have time to read the entire novel with my students. I shouldn't teach my students narrative writing the way I have planned to teach it because that isn't how it is going to look like on the state test. The test. It's not going to be on the TEST. We need to teach the TEST.
But I tell them half my students don't know the difference between a subject and predicate. They don't know that paragraphs should be indented. They don't know what they need to capitalize and what not to capitalize.
But...I'm not allowed to teach it because it's not in the standards and most importantly its not on the test. So what do I do in a school that is constantly watching my every move in the classroom. In a school where strangers walk in to look through my lesson plans and make sure I'm teaching what they want me to. What do I do with these kids? How do I teach them? More importantly how do I discretely teach them what they need to know? What they need to know to become great readers, writers, high school and college ready individuals.
Isn't it more important to teach my kids than to teach the test?
Yes it is...But how come no one understands that?
Teaching the kids is what I'm struggling with. Teaching the test is easy.
-Ms. P
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