I Need to Vent...

I just need to express my feelings on a recent news headline. If you would rather not listen to me vent, then just check back another day when I have adorable pictures of my beautiful baby to post.

Last night I heard about Obama's "longer school days" plan. I couldn't even fall asleep. I was just burning up. I just have so many thoughts on this that I would like to share.

First of all, the facts were WRONG. We go to school more hours than most other countries who are performing better than us. Second, comparing us to other countries is not comparing apples to apples. Some countries do not educate EVERY person. Not only do we educate EVERY child (and we should), our test scores are based on the test scores of EVERY child. Since "No Child Left Behind", we have to include the scores of students with special needs and students who do not speak English.

I wanted to go into teaching because I wanted to make a difference. Now that is my least favorite thing about my job. I make a difference in every child's life, whether it is a good difference or a bad difference. I always hope it is a good difference. But lately, I just feel like there is not enough "me" to spread around.

My class has challenged me this year. I have about 7 children that require A LOT of extra academic help. 3 of those are almost more than I can handle. They are not behavior problems- just struggling academically. Besides those 7 children that need a lot of extra help, I have 11 other children who are just as important. I want my children who are doing well to continue to do well. I want to challenge them so they can reach their potential. So how is one "me" supposed to do all this in one day?

Yes, I have said we need more hours in a day. But I would NEVER support a longer school day. How do we get extra hours? HELLO????? Eliminate all the worthless "tests" that we are giving our children! Then we can stop teaching them how to take tests and use that time to teach them things that will actually help them in life. I would probably sit down and cry my eyes out if I actually added up the number of hours we spend "progress monitoring" our children in DIBELS. I can tell if a child knows how to find a word's beginning sound without DIBELS. So when it comes down to sitting at my table and having a child that is a good reader practice something I KNOW he/she can do or helping the 7 children who do not even know the letters in their name...what should be the choice? Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) says DIBELS. That makes me a good teacher in the eyes of ARI. But am I really a good teacher if every child makes the score on DIBELS? What are some of those kids going to think about me when they are back in Kindergarten next year because they didn't learn their letters? What about in 10 years when they still aren't good readers because I couldn't work with them one-on-one as much as I wanted to? Children are more than test scores. This is their LIVES we are talking about.

Are longer days going to fix this? What about summer school? Week-end school?

None of these things are going to fix the problems in our education system. Here's an idea: What if we took ALL the money that we would spend moving to longer school days and used it to give schools extra money to buy things like MORE TEACHERS! I would have a lot more time in my day to teach if I didn't have 18 kids. Do you know how long it takes to take 18 5-year-olds to the bathroom??? Through the lunchline? Oh wait, I forgot these "law-makers" have NEVER taught in a school. So I guess they wouldn't know.

And I have some questions. Where is this money to make this happen going to come from? I don't even want to admit how much money came out of my pocket to buy back-to-school items for my classroom. When a group of us "won" a ream of paper at our faculty meeting, you would have thought by the applause that we had won the 10 million dollar lottery. Why? Because we have no money for ANY classroom supplies this year- including paper. Our state saved jobs and eliminated instructional money. I think it was wonderful to be able to save the jobs, so I definitely am not criticizing that descision. But if our federal government has all this money that can be used for longer days- you would think they would send us a little to buy copy paper with. It's hard to teach with no supplies.

I realize that not everyone is a teacher, but I hope that everyone cares about our children's education. I personally do not feel that people, whether it be a state leader or the leader of our country, should be coming up with ideas about our children's education if they have never taught in a classroom.

Futhermore, I would like to extend a personal invitation to any lawmaker- including President Obama- to come down here to South Alabama and spend a few days in my classroom. I would love to show them what we do all day.

I am sorry about my venting and this is not all directed at Obama. I am sure he wasn't the only mind behind this "plan". But I take my job to heart. I love every child in my classroom and I want to give them the best education possible. If the government would just let us teach- we would see a big difference in our education system.

I have just felt a lot of pressure on me this year as our standards keep being raised. No matter what choice I make- I feel that I am leaving some children behind. Teaching is not easy. It's one of those jobs where you put your heart and soul in but it is never enough. I love what I do and I love my students. And that is why I will defend our education system as long as I am here to defend it. I don't tell the members of our government how to get elected for office, run our military, or how to pass bills. So I ask them to please stop telling me how to teach.

Please say a prayer for our education system tonight before you go to bed.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be back with more of those adorable pictures of my baby, a positive attitude, and good things to talk about instead of complaining about things that I probably cannot change.