“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
― Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Let's imagine the following scenario: It's 7:46 and Mrs. Smith is in a massive battle with the copy machine - which is all too familiar because the dang machine is a dinosaur. She checks her watch and sees that she has six minutes to get to her class before the bell rings. It's time to give up the battle and accept defeat for the nine billionth time. Mrs. Smith keeps calm and positive and reminds herself she doesn't need the papers until fourth period which starts at 10:45 and that she can make them during her conference period which is third. While no one is looking she kicks the machine and starts her trek to her class. On her way back to her classroom she starts making a mental note of all the things she needs to accomplish during her conference period: submit lesson plans for next week, continue grading Monday's test, run off copies, reply to her department head's email, run to her car to get the checkbook to buy something out of the outrageoulsy expensive band's fundraiser catalog, check her box and there just might be enough time to go to the bathroom and ALL of this must be done in 45 minutes. Mrs. Smith makes it back to her clasroom in just the knick of time. She's ready to battle her first two classes of the day. How they have so much energy this early in the morning, she doesn't know, but she manages to get through these two classes without any incidents. As she sits down at her desk to begin her list of things to do, Ms. Lu, the school secretary, comes over the intercom and asks Mrs. Smith if she's avaible for a parent conference. Mrs. Smith thinks to herself, "Am I available? Physically, yes? Do I have time ? N- " Ms. Lu comes back over and says that Dillion Scott's mom is here to talk to her. Mrs. Smith thinks, "SOS. Where's the fire alarm? Not this parent's student. Not today of all days. My list needs to be tackled and oh my!" Mrs. Smith lets Mrs. Lu know she's on her way to the office and will be there shortly. Before Mrs. Smith heads out, she grabs her classroom bible that contains her grades, attendance, behavior, restroom pass, and anything else a teacher keeps track of. As Mrs. Smith heads to the office she prays to God that the parent isn't near as bad as her child is. Sad to say this scenario isn't imaginary. This quite often happens to teachers. Now what am I trying to get at here? Is it that teachers only get forty-five minutes for a confernece period ? No, I'll save that for a later date. Is it that kids have all this new technology for the classroom but the copy machine is jank ? No. Notice the last sentence in our scenario: As Mrs. Smith heads to the office she prays to God that the parent isn't near as bad as her child is. Too often parents want to talk to teachers about why they (the teacher) is failing their perfect son/ daughter who has never made a bad grade before. Alright this is for all you middle and high school parents and/or soon to be middle and high school parents. Are you ready? 1. Your child is no longer in elementary school and they are no longer as sweet and innocent as they once were. They're beginning to lie and manipulate and they will do anything it takes to stay on mommy and daddy's good side. 2. When your child comes home to you and says, "Mrs. Cindy hates me and she's failing me😩," chances are that's a straight up lie. Your child is probably not Mrs. Cindy's favorite but that's probably because everyday they ask to go to the bathroom, show up late, don't turn in work, refuse to do work, talk back, are distracted in class, or my favorite - disrupting class. 3. Your child is using that nice little handy dandy cell phone during class. They're texting, listening to music, looking up answers, and cheating on tests. Cell phones are a teacher's worst nightmare. A little off topic - in recent news there was an incident about a girl refusing to leave the classroom as she was asked to do and it led to her being drugged out of her chair. This supposedly started over a cell phone! As she continued to disrupt class, an administrator and then a security officer was called to escort her out and when she refused (big shocker that she refused) things got rough. Parents you are allowing your child to control you when you believe EVERYTHING that he or she says. When you came home from school with a bad grade did your parents assume it was your fault or did they automatically drive down to the school and demand to talk to the teacher? Your child chooses to do homework, chooses to not pay attention, chooses to not study, chooses to sleep in class and chooses to be disrespectful. When your child chooses to do those actions s/he is not giving the teacher much to work with. Teachers hate failing students...a part of them dies. They want all of their students to be successful. So parents, next time before you go down and demand to know why Mrs. Cindy is failing your child, turn around and ask your student to show you their COMPLETED homework, their class assignments, the notes they took in class and ask them when their next test is. It's not the teachers fault that your child is failing. It's your child's fault. Here's a little something for all you teachers out there. Is this relatable? XOXO,
A Future Gearle In Education
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Unruly Heathens Mommy I have a question. Andrea likes purple and Abby likes pink!
So we're new to this whole blog thing so bear with us. We debated long and hard on what our first post should be about. We read different websites about what your first post should be about and then read different blogs' first posts. We finally decided to just dive right in and get straight to the nitty gritty - education politics. The subject? The State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness or better known as the STAAR test - Texas's state mandated standardized test. In 2007 Texas Senate Bill 1031 announced a new wave of state tests. This bill called for secondary students to take end of course tests to be taken when a student finished a course, instead of TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) which was a test over the general core subject given during their sophomore and junior years. STAAR was implemented in Spring 2012. Since 2012 the number of exams that students are required to take and pass to graduate has quickly decreased. When it first came out a student had to pass fifteen EOCs. Then the required numbered of tests to be taken was lowered in 2013 to take and pass five. And now here in 2015, our all-knowing Texas legislature has decided that students only have to pass three of the five tests. This now gives students "permission" to choose which tests they want to pass - Math, English 1 and 2, U.S. History, or Science, and guess which one they are going to choose to fail! Math!! Thanks a lot guys...you just made my job even harder! Schools are judged on their pass rates for these tests and now you just gave our students the okay to fail them. Motivation was already difficult enough! I am sure that English 2 and US History teachers are also thrilled with this new law because now if a student passes the three freshman tests - English 1, Algebra 1 and Biology 1- they have no motivation to pass the next two tests which happen to be English 2 and US History! Don't get me wrong. I believe that schools, teachers and students need to be held accountable for learning. However, I do not believe that state testing is the answer. By the time we get students in high school, many of them have been passed along several times and they are totally unprepared for the courses they are required to take. We as a nation need to look at other countries and look to teachers (the real experts) for input and figure out how to educate our students. I think there are enough smart people in this country that real change can be made. After all, getting a good education is the best thing anyone can do for themselves! As a recent high school graduate and as someone who observes my mom in her classroom, I see and hear many students complain about why they have to learn all this math. At least if the EOCs were required for each subject and students knew they had to pass them, that would give teachers an answer to the age old question, "Why do we have to learn this?" Now however, students don't even have to pass the EOC much less even take one in most math classes. Of course her answer now becomes because you have to pass this class to graduate. Can we please have some better choices for students in math? Does everyone really need all this higher level math that teachers are forced to teach? If you're bored check out my final exam about what my expectations are for school and changes I would like to see happen one day. Feel free to leave us comments and share your thoughts on testing and education in general. I am sure this will be a topic that we end up visiting numerous times! That's it for now y'all. XOXO - The Gearles |
Abby & AndreaA college student trying to figure out the world with her mom by herside. Life through my lens (Abby). We all have different stories and these are only some of mine. Some funny, some adventurous, some hard. Sit back and relax. Enjoy. Archives
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