Three at last!!

Okay, well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't leave until 3:15, but STILL!! That marks only the 5th day since school started that I put in less than 9 hours (not counting weekends or days I was trying to pass kidney stones,) AND one of my earliest times leaving.

That was yesterday. Today I left at 3:30 again--that makes two days IN A ROW! But today couldn't be helped. My brain had been turned to jelly by an inservice that was frustrating, confusing, irritating and really quite wasteful.

A friend of mine called things like this "the church of what's happening now" meaning full-scale belief of and preaching about a "miracle" solution for a district with many schools in AYP jail.

Thanks to No Child Left Behind, the measure of a good school now comes down to test scores on impossibly difficult state assessments. Doesn't matter what their background is, what their native language is, or what disability they might have--and not even mentioning learning styles or test-taking skills--all students must take and pass the same test, or the whole school fails to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). If a school fails to make AYP for two years in a row, it goes into a state of intense scrutiny and general overhaul called "AYP jail."

As a result, the teachers are subjected to regular trainings on "new" and "innovative" programs and teaching styles that, according to numerous vague studies, are proven to raise test scores when used with fidelity.

While relatively new teachers might look at these programs with genuine wonder and optimism, anyone who has been in the biz for around 10 years or so raises a skeptical eyebrow. That is because, in their 10+ years of service to public schools, they've seen "new" and "innovative" programs introduced EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Each one throws the veteran educator into an extreme sense of deja vu, as being quite similar to one of it's predecessors, but with a new twist or flair. The veteran educator can, by now, quite accurately identify a flash-in-the-pan, or church-of-what-is-happeing-now program. The mutterings are similar--"well this is different. Wonder what we'll get next year." No program is allowed to mature or be implemented with fidelity because, of course, AYP must be made or interventions must adapt and continue each year. Is it November yet?

But today's "training" didn't cover much that was new, or anything that was particularly useful. It began at 8:00, and by 8:20 I'd pretty much shut down. Unfortunately, ex-teacher administrators almost NEVER teach adults the way they tell us to teach children. They lecture. They point fingers. They walk around waving their arms. No visuals, no clear objectives, no fun activities to tie in the instruction to something meaningful.

I hope I'm not quizzed on it later, because I heard maybe 20% of the litany.

But hey! I was so exhausted by my lack of brain useage that I left school in time to throw a few things in overnight mail to my parents, stop at the store and make it back to the house while it was still light out!

Hitting the wall appears to have been a good thing. I've had to stop, look around, pick myself back up and start all over again. But this time, I ran in the direction of the mall, bought a game FOR MYSELF and shopped around for wacky-coloured shoes.

And tomorrow, I think I'll COOK!! I haven't done that in MONTHS! It would be so nice to eat a meal that wasn't frozen, freeze-dried or canned!

PLEASE VOTE THIS NOVEMBER!