If you knew all the things teachers have to do, your head would spin.
We teachers in the United States are in the midst of a massive education reform. Is it needed? Yes! Is it easy? No, not at all. Not for anyone. Not even close to easy.
Let’s examine what we are doing. If I can even think of all the bits. And this is just the new stuff, not anything to do with grading, parents, workshops, etc!
1. Newish standards. While the Common Core standards have been available for a couple of years, this year the state tests are aligned to them. We are full on Common Core. Makes sense, except we don’t have the Common Core curriculum yet…
2. New reading and math curricula. Awesome idea. I’m extremely excited about this, but it would be great of we had all the pieces so we could dig in.
3. NYC instructional shifts. These shifts are tied to the standards and the curriculum. I call the shifts new old ways to teach. good ways to teach too. Makes sense. Lots of info on the DOE website, not sure how much it gets used outside of PDs.
4. New teacher evaluation system. Again, an idea that make sense. Teaching is a profession just like medicine and law and the standards for who can teach should be high. After all, teachers are the foundation for every other profession. Tons of paper work? You bet. Do I like it? Not particularly, but it’s necessary.
5. New mayor for NYC. Monumental event for the teaching profession. A mayor who supports teacher may be elected! Imagine that!
Oh my gaud! This little snapshot makes me crazy! Why am I a teacher!
Why am I a teacher?
A lot of days I forget, but then I remember when I hear the kids talk about how someone needs to “improve their conventions”. Or I have kids staying back from gym to quiz on math literature by choice. Or the parents tell me that their child is excited to go to school.
Oh ya, that’s why. Forget all the other stuff.
Jibber Jabber & Happenstance 
Tammy you are awesome. Teachers are or should be the foundation of the beginning of a child’s future.
there are some teachers who are not meant to be. It seems to me that you are, The government needs to supply teachers with the extra help with trained teacher aides. Most important teachers and the aides need to be paid a fair wage and not peanuts. They need the incentive to to do their jobs and also continue to have upgrade in what the government wants them to teach. Not at a moment notice but at least at one year time so that the subjects can be learned by the teachers and their aides in orders that the students will be taught the subject correctly. One year in Alberta Canada they did a test study on High school Math that they wanted to change. And the test study failed because the teachers did not understand it so therefore could not teach it. The government went ahead and change the system anyway, The Pure Math was like first year engineer math at university.What happened out the the whole mess was that not many students could take Pure math (besides it was useless to most unless you were going into engineering), the other 2 maths I forget the name of them were of lower standard. A lot of students dropped math completely, It was a real mess. My son was lucky because he could just see math in his brain some how. A lot of students suffered and even those who took math the teachers could not teach it,I am not sure what is going on now!! The government likes change but does not always knows what is good for the students and teachers. My daughter was working as a teachers aide for extremely handy disabled children and was hire on as a 0.8 and within a few days of working all these special aides were told their hours had been dropped to 0.5. and the wages were not what they were what they were expecting!! That’s the government for you!!! Does not matter how much work it is or hard it is.. It just about money but they sure can spend their money on silly sculptures etc. Good luck Tammy
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Changes should be made by teachers, not politicians who’ve never been educators. It just doesn’t make sense. If you’ve never worked in a school, people really don’t understand, just like many jobs/careers.
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