Friday, October 12, 2007

The more you become involved

the more you get pissed off. I was at a dinner during the week with educators and parents. I said I would not become involved in a higher level again but well my inner voice was screaming to come out. So back to the topic I was at this dinner and I was listening to questions from parents and most of them had to do with this underlining theme. I can't get my Principal to give me an answer. We ask them questions but they just tell us that is the way it is, and no answer comes. So Klein decided that is would be all dandy to give Principals all the power, but he forgot one important thing. Principals are not the only people in the building. Principals do not teach the class, teachers do. Teachers know what is happening in the classrooms, Parents know what is specifically happening with their child. You just can not leave the two out of the equation with what is occurring with our children.
So the majority of Principals are now dictating policy and changing the dynamics of a classroom without really knowing what has been happening in the classroom.
During the dinner as I sat across from two teachers I asked them a few questions. I asked them how they felt about the new testing regiments? If they felt that they were being graded unfairly if the student does not show any marked improvement, and if I child in the class was already scoring a 4 how much more do they think that that said child could improve?
They said that yes, they did feel that it was unfair for the teacher to be graded, that their curriculum has not changed, but that the if the class is larger it is difficult to help the child that is falling behind to get their individual attention.
Wow back to that large class size.
It was mentioned that their is teaching to the test, and everyone shook their head yes, teachers and parents.
In five years time after this little experiment fails, I wonder what the new position in education will be?

1 comment:

Pissedoffteacher said...

The problem is that there have always been kids who could not do the work and their always will be. No matter what method is used, I will never be able to carry a tune and some of these kids will never master mathematics. It is a fact of life, no matter how sad that fact is.