Having lost much of the last week to one standardized test, I lost this afternoon to another standardized test. A few students will lose a portion of Monday. Absences will not save them.

My colleague from yesterday seemed much more cheerful. On the other hand, I found another member of another of my teams to hug this morning. I spent my extremely precious “planning” time minutes (possible total of maybe 25 today if I had not decided to help yet another colleague) reassuring this experienced and very capable teacher that everything was going to be OK. We went over strategies that might get my colleague one more year in the system before “retiring” early since that extra year will be financially advantageous — one more early retirement if retirement is the right word. I’m not sure it is. In another less crazy time, this woman might easily have put in another decade in the classroom. She’s very knowledgeable and she loves teaching and her students.

She’s not even sure about next year. The stress is making her cry. She’s beginning to fear for her health. I suggested some strategies, but also said that health comes first. Quit if you need to quit, I said, pointing out she could probably sell textbooks.

Eduhonesty: Today’s colleague crisis has nothing to do with teaching. As I noted, this teacher loves teaching. The crisis is all about demands for data, requiring full evenings to be devoted to spreadsheet creation rather than lesson preparation, endless testing that interrupts and compromises teaching, evaluations that are based on student enthusiasm in a district of poor and broken families where student enthusiasm may be diminished by lack of food, housing and hope. If an exhausted student puts his head down to sleep during class, a critical evaluation may be lowered unless the teacher can promptly wake him up in a cheery and academically receptive mood. But if that student got no sleep the night before, as can happen when 10 family members are stuffed into a two-bedroom apartment, sometimes that cheery awakening simply may not be in the cards.

Chairs pushed into desks, a jacket flung onto the floor, papers slammed onto a desk, the whole energetic performance punctuated by curses… I watched the tantrum unfold after school ended. I’d have called security on a student. It’s harder to figure out what to do with a colleague. I decided to hug my colleague and offer reassurances. I tried to be upbeat, as upbeat as the beaten-down can be. I threw in a bit of silliness. In the end, though, I mostly just listened because there wasn’t much to say.

“If they want fucking lessons, then they should give you time to plan fucking lessons,” my colleague (normally an extremely well-spoken person) almost shouted.

As noted earlier, testing demands along with other lengthy bureaucratic demands have eaten the time that might have gone into lesson planning. Creative lesson-planning disappears when no time remains after demands for parent calls, daily (sometimes twice-daily) meetings, mandatory tests, subsequent mandatory grading, and other job requirements. “Not optional,” admin says, and one more item such as monitoring the stairwells gets bumped to the front of the list. Administrative demands suck up time in the foreground, time in the background and sometimes time in the dead of the night.

Eduhonesty: I find it scary that so many colleagues are cutting sleep and bolting down food in working lunches without finding the minutes necessary to plan fun lessons, especially since these colleagues will be held accountable for a lack of fun lessons come evaluation time.

News flash for my administration and many other administrations in these test-driven times: No one has repealed the 24 hour day. No one has built any teacher-cyborgs that are classroom ready, either.

I spent the last few days after school grading a standardized benchmark test we gave to all our students. I ate various soups at Panera in the evening, long after my usual dinner time, because I could not get out of school sooner. As soon as this was done, I got the email telling me that MAP testing will begin shortly for all students. In addition, all my students are to take another specialized, standardized test in the next week if possible. This does not include all the tests given in classes; one common test or assessment is expected weekly. This does not include homework grading.

Eduhonesty: The upshot is that I have begun the “atom” unit but we never built that atom with marshmallows, gumdrops, toothpicks, or whatever. We may never get a chance to build it. I can barely get my sleep. I can’t get to Walmart. I talked to other science teachers. We are all in the same Titanic lifeboat in the same Northern Atlantic waters. Experiments and activities are being sacrificed for lack of time.

I hope there are not too many typos in this post. I don’t have time to post. But I batted this out as quickly as I could because I want to chronicle what is happening.

This is too much testing. Period.

The idea of evaluating teachers by looking at students makes a certain amount of sense. If all the students are looking out the window during a lesson, clearly something’s quite wrong. Enthusiasm matters.

That said, I need to make an observation: You can always find something wrong, especially in an academically-challenged, poor district. These districts are the toughest places to work, the areas with the most need and the areas with the most turnover. That turnover creates instability and interferes with many long-term strategies struggling districts attempt to implement.

Eduhonesty: I strongly advised a younger colleague this week to move up the socioeconomic ladder or move out of education. You want attentive students? Go someplace where upwards of 90% of the kids will go to college. Working in a district where only a tiny percentage of students successfully complete four-year college stints is playing a losing game, especially when student test scores determine a significant portion of your evaluation.

The best teachers are beginning to flee districts to which they have given their lives. I know three who decided in the last year to retire sooner than they had intended. I know two others who were on the fence about staying and decided to quit. My young colleague — and a number of his peers — will be looking for new positions come spring and some of them will find their way up the socioeconomic ladder.

Unintended consequences abound in today’s educational climate. If you are going to be graded on your students, you obviously should choose to teach the strongest group of students possible. Idealists will still start in our lower districts, but after a few negative evaluations based on lack of test-score improvement and stubborn student misbehaviors, the best and brightest are likely to jump to more privileged districts. As for me, I will help engineer exits for a few favorite colleagues. I will write more recommendation letters.

I will watch the exodus.

Somebody in administrator classes has been teaching a technique for teacher management. Administrators come in and observe class. They then leave a note or write an email that praises some aspect of the class:

Wow: “Your students (the majority) demonstrated respect and rapport when a student volunteered to pass out the calculators and were attentive to the lesson. I wonder… why students were allowed to sit together who were unable to do so and why their behavior was not addressed when it disrupted the lesson.”

That last would be two boys talking and not paying attention. I didn’t feel the lesson was “disrupted.” The idea “disrupted” seems a bit bigger than those two, although I disrupted the lesson when one was forced to move, I guess. I’m not going to complain about the comment. The desire to improve staff performance makes sense. I’m not above learning new tricks, either.

Eduhonesty: The problem is that pretty much all the feedback we get nowadays is in the form of “I liked this but not that.” When the behavior of students becomes a major factor in evaluating teachers, you end up with today’s situation. Positive feedback always becomes qualified. An occasional “good job, well done” without caveats might go a long way toward engendering more enthusiasm in me for my job.

We are certainly busy. I spent the whole last evening creating data to document where my students stand with regard to different Common Core and other standards. I ran out of time. I’m short of sleep. I should not be writing this. I don’t have time.

But I am afraid that, as we work to achieve our many goals, we are losing sight of the big picture. All children are different. We are required to give them almost exactly the same instruction nevertheless. Will this benefit the kids? Possibly. In special education and bilingual classes, none of them are close to knowing the math they are being taught. If they learn that math, we will all win.

Eduhonesty: I come back to a long-standing concern: What is the effect of regularly — in our new data-driven climate I think could say ‘almost constantly’ — being forced to take tests you fail? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? I’m supposed to work hard to develop my students’ self-esteem. But “You’re improving!” may not be much solace to a kid who went from getting 4 out of 20 right to getting 10 out of 20 right. When the material you are forced to teach is positioned five grades above where your own data shows that kid has been operating, much better results are unlikely.

Our approach will likely benefit a number of underachievers who needed to work harder, especially those who have not fallen too far behind already. I expect to see score gains. What will happen to those kids who can’t understand the new material, though, especially at the rapid and inflexible speed at which we are presenting that material? I am afraid that afterschool tutoring will prove about as effective as a Band-Aid on a third-degree burn.

P.S. Need to be positive. Need to work on being positive. It’s hard sometimes, but I have to believe in this particular field of dreams. I am going to be living in it.

I ate the students’ lunch since I had forgotten my own:

One tiny turkey sausage link,
3 baked French toast sticks and
about 2 heaping tablespoons of unseasoned corn.
Estimated calories: Under 300 anyway.

Lunch represented a total win for my diet. The teacher’s lounge talked about my lunch for awhile, though, basically appalled. No one eats the school lunch anymore so no one sees what the students are eating. Teachers used to stand in the cafeteria lunch line to buy a hot lunch before all the new guidelines came down. Food service gave teachers a break and the cost ran around $2.50 – $3.50 depending on location. The lasagna might have been mushy, but the price was right.

Last year, my district high school closed the lunch line for teachers, a fixture of many years. Too few people were using that line. The lunch lady liked her job and kept encouraging people to come back, but Lean Cuisines were tastier, cheaper and at least as filling. Homemade sandwiches became a common staple.

Eduhonesty:

1) These lunches don’t have enough calories for an active, growing adolescent. They don’t have enough calories for a sedentary gamer, either.
2) My school is near a 90% poverty rate. One teacher observed that lunch might be the only meal some of these kids get. They should also get a meager breakfast, but the fact is that she’s right. At the end of the month when the money runs out, there may be little food in the home pantry.
3) One person’s understandable crusade should not be able to put the whole country on a diet.

“Perhaps you only failed in your definition of success.”

~ Rabbi David Aaron

If our definition of success is higher test scores, we are making little progress. If our definition of success includes breadth of learning and knowledge, we are regressing. My district’s high school has eliminated almost all electives in favor of courses expected to raise test scores. Even French is on the way out. Students will still have the Spanish option since foreign language study is expected on many college applications. Woodworking has gone, though, as has home ec. Lessons that don’t contribute to scores are vanishing, too. Pity any experts on the First World War. They may only have a few days at most to share this “useless” knowledge.

Eduhonesty: What does chasing scores have in common with chasing tornados? Both leave a blighted landscape behind.

I need to start on my preparation for next week. That includes grading, moving grading from Excel to the real grading program now that schedules are finalized, and preparing next week’s materials, not to mention other little tasks such as updating folders and calling parents. I need to investigate a program I am to start using as well as review for a test I am supposed to give. There’s at least twelve hours work here, I’m pretty sure considerably more, except I’ll triage. Some of the list will not get done, although it won’t go away. I may time this weekend’s work.

Eduhonesty: The paperwork comes with the territory. For any aspiring teachers, elementary is much easier in terms of these demands than middle school or high school. Ironically, wealthier districts may be less work as well since they often have their systems in place. My district is changing/adding systems and software every year in desperate bids to up state test scores.

If I had it to do over, klutz though I am, I think I might teach gym.

Yesterday I called homes and talked to various parents. One call involved a girl I’ll call “Mimi.” Mimi may need glasses. I’m not positive. She said she did, but maybe she just wanted to sit next to a friend. It’s early in the year and I haven’t identified all the nearsighted bodies out in my room. I nevertheless called home and suggested to her parents they make an appointment to see if she needs glasses.

Mimi has always been a quiet, attentive girl. Today, she decided to toss wrenches into the classroom works. She talked so much I had to write her up and send her briefly to the Dean. She kept ignoring directions, occasionally darting angry glances in my direction. I’m pretty sure I know exactly what is happening: Middle school girls hate glasses. Parents buy them. The girls lose them, step on them, or whatever else will ensure that the foul, plastic appurtenances never again cross the bridge of a nose. Mimi’s mad at me alright.

Eduhonesty: I hope this situation doesn’t continue too long. I don’t know yet if Mimi’s the type to hold a grudge. If she gets glasses, I’ll get the blame.

Still, the truth is that I’m smiling ever so slightly out here. That’s part of being a teacher (or a mom) that comes with the territory. Yes, you don’t like it. I understand. You need to be able to see the board, however, and your life prospects will not be dashed because you are wearing spectacles. You might even like being able to see.

One of the great mysteries of middle school has to be the many, many girls who lose those glasses, preferring to muddle their way through a blur in order to be pretty.