Day 23: What aspects about education are you currently excited for? #sbar

There is a lot to get excited about in the area of education!!  But the thing that I'm most excited about and the one thing that gets my blood boiling the most is...

Standards Based Reporting (sbar) - Face it, people...grades can be manipulated and they have been for a long time. Heck, when I was in high school, you could do enough extra credit to get a B even though you didn't know ANYTHING about the subject you were attempting to learn.

So let me ask you,  what does that grade tell you about what your child knows?  Does an "B" tell you what they can do in English?

Right now, list the skills your child is able to perform around writing.  Can they write a sentence?  Paragraph?  Correct subject/verb pairing?  Can they write a five paragraph paper with a common theme?  Can they properly support a topic?

If I gave your child an "B" in English - how do you know they can do all those writing skills?  What if I told you that they are such an accomplished reader that their reading skills averaged out their poor (below grade level) writing skills to a B?

The point is - you don't.  With standards based reporting - you DO! (And so do next year's teachers...and college entrance boards...and...)

And guess what else happens?  Teachers are held accountable to get your child secure in those writing skills during the course of the year - we don't get to hide behind the grade and neither does your child.

And I'm just going to say it because this is my blog - I can't think of any reason why a parent would fight this unless they just want to brag that their child is a straight A student.  Well, Christmas brag letters be damned...when did education become about the adults?  I thought it was what was best for students.

And yes, I really said that.

Day 22: What did you encounter in your career which you did not expect?

Apparently, I thought there was a tattoo on my forehead that said, "WARNING: New Teacher" when I started my teaching career six years ago - or at least that's was the image of myself and what I based my initial expectations on.  These expectations were based on how I THOUGHT I would be treated by my experienced colleagues, administration and parents - and somehow ended up being very different that what actually transpired.

I did not expect that I would be treated as someone who was knowledgable, but my colleagues sought me out for opinions and review on communication, curriculum, student achievement and organization.

I did not expect that parents would respect me as their child's teacher and take me seriously - and yet they did.

I did expect my administration to micro-manage me and tell me how to teach my classes.  However, I was treated as an adult who could make decisions about how the learning needed to happen for each student...and I was supported.

I am very grateful that I started my career working with people who did NOT meet my expectations - they exceeded them.  This was completely unexpected.

How are you exceeding expectations in your career?

Make it a great day!

Day 21: What was your most enjoyable moment as a teacher?

I was on vacation from blogging...not intentionally, just fell out of the habit.  Funny thing is that I've started dreaming about blogging in the last week, so apparently my sub-conscious is telling me to get back on the bandwagon.

Here we go...

Still working on my 30 day challenge which seems to be expanding into an entire year challenge!!

Today:  My most enjoyable moment as a teacher...hmmm...I have so many, but this one stands out:

Four years ago, I had a student in 8th grade science.  She was a great kid - friendly, smart, rule-follower - you know, your dream student.  Except for one thing - she HATED science.  She never told me this...until the last day of school that year.  She handed me a card which proceeded to explain how she hated science until that year - and THANKED me for making science fun and understandable and how she learned and found out she liked science.

It blew me away.

I wanted to become a teacher to make an impact, but even I was bowled over by this impact.  When you can influence and impact a student like this - it makes the job so worthwhile.

Let those people who have influenced and impacted YOU know about it!  Write them a thank you note, email them or tell them.

Make it a great day!