It's crazy living your life in deja vu, being able to predict what happens next, realizing what is happening while it's happening. I am reverting back to our life of broken schools, broken children, broken teachers, in exchange for excessive testing and mediocrity. Essentially just MORE, MORE, MORE, distractions, MORE programs, MORE is not always better.
In fact, I see how less is actually more!! Our school in just ONE YEAR has more.....more hustle & bustle, more programs, more quantity and yet a whole lot less impactful/meaningful quality. It used to be the student of the month was able to go up on stage and eat lunch with the principal...and my kids still talk about that! But common core wants everything to be "common," NO individuality and NO exceptionalism. Just average, mediocre, doing enough are too much to make people just get by.
What people do not realize is that these types of exceptional rewards are the first indirect, but yet very purposeful and meaningful programs that get replaced with busyness. Student of the month has changed, what once was a very meaningful reward and truly a "special moment" and lifelong experience for a student has now essentially become a piece of paper. I can see the same things happening at our amazing school, which we have already lived through. Getting rid of the programs that MATTER for more. Not more meaningful just more.
What was once structured, becomes more chaotic, where there were once clear boundaries become MORE freedom...A/R reading is replaced with teachers/leaders instead being expected to constantly talk about reading, "What book are you reading?" Finger scans to even check out the books, and collect data, but yet the reason A/R was eliminated was due to cost?! Just wait here are some other things I am certain are likley to come in the fall with FULL implementation of common core:
1. Less recess
2. Less time to eat lunch
3. Writing assignments in specials, inlcuding gym
4. Free (meaning the student can get up and walk out of class anytime) for bathroom breaks
5. More hand salutes, gestures, and kids expected to sit perfectly still, quiet MORE, for longer periods of time, even the 5 year olds
6. More rituals, more "stuff" and less worth
7. no more spelling lists and/or tests
8. DOUBLE the hours of high-stakes testing
9. More new teachers and constant turnover
10. Less smiling and more unhappy faces, especially the students because the fun stuff gets taken away, there is no time for it!
11. More talk about emotions/feelings, opinions and less talk about the facts.
12. More talking PERIOD and way less doing!!!
13. BURN OUT, BURN OUT, BURN OUT
14. More top down rules to uphold
Reward charts have already been removed in order to be fair, and promote equality. Mediocrity fully sets in, again A/R has already been replaced with more chaotic reading charts, less consistency, more work for the teachers, and therefore it gets lost in the shuffle. I have to beg my kids to read now, their incentive and reward is gone! More is not always better! Bring on the participation trophies. :-(
Teachers have more meetings, principals have more meetings, ALL have more paperwork, and students in return suffer with MORE testing! Quanitifiable data....our children have now become statistics! I try my best to share my story to warn people of what is coming, but it's very easy to ignore if you can't see the big picture. One day you will understand, then in that moment you will look back and realize that this AMAZING school district has now become just another building full of rituals with more programs that simply "go through the motions!" It's hard to sit back and watch...depressing to see amazing staff get caught up in a churn and burn environment, the students going through drill & kill in order to do well on a test. I beg you to stop and smell the roses...stop going through the motions!!!
A little at a time, bit by bit, the special and important individual expectations, incentives and rewards that REALLY count, the ones that create REAL leaders are removed....think about it!
No comments:
Post a Comment