Four Feet More

Across the state of California tomorrow it will be "Pink Friday," a day to protest the tens of thousands of pink slips being issued to teachers. Everyone is encouraged to wear pink to show support for California's education system - which is kind of hard for me since I'm not really a pink person. But I imagine it's much harder for all the male teachers out there, who don't ever wear pink at all.

Over the past few months, and especially this last week, I've been exploring my options for next year. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't burnt out of teaching, because I am. I love working with the kids and seeing their eyes light up when they understand the curriculum and make connections to their own lives. Just this week, we did a class play about the Boston Tea Party, in which half the class acted out the roles and the rest of the class served as "techies," making costumes and sets out of whatever paper and supplies we had on hand. Orange and purple tricorn hats, made of construction paper held together with staples graced many a "patriot's" head. The kids had a fun time, and maybe learned a little more about the Boston Tea Party than they would have if they had only read of the event in a book.

However, with the state of teaching today, it is often hard to find the time to do such activities. Language arts is the main priority, and we conduct standardized testing in this area nearly every 6 weeks. Then we spend a day looking at the test scores, evaluating the data and seeing what skills we need to focus on for the next test. This practice is referred to as "backwards planning," but I suspect what it really is is "teaching to the test." One colleague has off the chart spelling scores and is given praise every testing period for those scores. Unfortunately, this teacher gives all the spelling words on the standardized test to the students early so that they can study them. This is not really what we are supposed to do - a teacher should be teaching the spelling patterns and the words throughout the unit, not feeding the words that are on the test. However, with things like merit pay and competition among teachers, such practices are going to become all the more common. Then, I wonder, how valuable and accurate are our assessments? I could teach the exact test to my kids too and I bet they would score really well. But then what happens to the actual curriculum? How well-rounded and well-educated will our students truly be when they graduate if all that is focused on is test scores?

This is the thing about education that is burning me out. Next year, with increased class size, less pay and no prep or janitorial services, I suspect the profession is going to be much more stressful. I am "on the cusp" with regards to my chances for rehire. But I'm not sure I want to work in the public education system when it is headed in this direction. So now I'm looking at jobs in the field of education where I can work with kids in a non-public-classroom environment. Jobs whose goal is not to achieve the highest test scores, but to make education and learning fun. There's a good chance that if I get rehired, I will wind up going back into the classroom - with the current state of the economy, I'm not sure I could afford to pass up a paying job. But it would be nice if I had some other options to choose from.