Pushing myself
May 28, 2008 — Ms. BeauchampComing off of a horrible week (my youngest son was hospitalized with a stomach virus) and 5 days out of school, it is day 2. Day 1 did not go so well. I am trying to put all the popcorn thoughts I have about education into some sort of manageable plan of action. I wrote in an email to a friend last night that my passion often turns to obsession and manifests itself as stubborn obstinence if I can’t get others to see my vision (do it my way). Right now I am trying to figure out how to balance a job (special education teacher) that has slowly evolved to be all about paperwork and not about teaching ,with a vision of education, technology, learning and the change that we are experiencing. As part of my job I support the general curriculum teachers so that students with learning disabilities can be successful within that general curriculum. A result of that is a viewpoint that is unique to special education teachers. We see it all. We have access to tests, quizzes, teaching styles, discipline techniques, classroom management, projects and use of technology in a variety of classrooms across the curriculum. On one hand it is an amazing experience and one that I learn from each and every day…on the other? It is the most frustrating position to be in…
The bottom line is we are not making the progress we need to make in order to see real change in education. Students are still reading books, doing worksheets, listening to lectures and taking multiple choice, true/false, token essay tests. To be fair we have a handful of wonderful projects that are going on…but not nearly enough. The focus is on the content, memorization and regurgitation. Do you know what is even more frustrating? We have fabulous teachers-young, passionate–they love their subject matter and teaching. I’m not sure where the disconnect is…administration? Lack of leadership in the right direction? I am stuck…and feel defeated today. We are on the verge of the final exams…yeah-more content, more paper and pencil pushing…more memorization. I want to apologize to my students for the lack of creativity in assessment…but I won’t–not this year.
We are nearing the end…and my plan for the summer is to recharge, review and revisit all the places in my personal learning community that give me the energy to push forward to stay current and passionate…
June 2, 2008 at 12:42 am
I had no idea – it’s good to hear that your little guy is doing better. Illnesses amongst family members can be so stressful, particularly when there isn’t much you can do that will directly affect what is happening.
In relation to young teachers…I will be able to provide more outlook once I’ve completed this next year. However, at the moment I can say that part of the problem is that although we are told that we should embrace all these wonderful things, they are very rarely modeled for us. Therefore what we are told are excellent ideas are in fact lacking a certain sense of concreteness (is that really a word?) and thus becomes intangible. Of course, that isn’t the entire issue…but I believe that adds to it.