To Hell with Your Teacher Review

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   It was late on a Tuesday afternoon. The clouds were rolling across the sky and I was sitting at my desk working. I wasn’t grading papers. I wasn’t preparing an engaging lesson to deliver to my students the when the arrived the next morning. Instead I was making signs with objectives, writing out questions that I HAD to ask the kids the next day and planned a few activities that I would normally never do, but that was considered by the rubric to be necessary. Yes, I was planning for the dog-and-pony show that we call scheduled observations. All teachers know these days and most of us dread them. It’s the day that we put what we really do aside and make sure we hit all the check marks that we know will be on the review. Written objectives, specific praise, certain kind of questions and specific order to how you do it all. Some places are worse than others. I was in Florida. It was worse. The things I had to do were so specific, that it actually made me ineffective as a teacher because I was so worried about the review, that my teaching wasn’t authentic anymore. So after that miserable day, which I got highly affective I might add, I decided I didn’t give a damn about my observations or review anymore. To hell with it.
   I mean this in a very blunt way. To hell with it. You need to have that attitude right off the bat if you want to get back control of teaching and how you feel towards being in the classroom. Now I know that poor reviews can be the ticket to a pink slip or a lower paycheck in some places. I could even mean non-renewal of a contract or placement on an improvement plan. I am not suggesting you get a review worth being fired over. And I don’t mean throw in the towel and fire up a movie.
   You know you’re a good teacher. Your kids know it and your families know it. That should be the best review, and the only one that really matters. The “official review” is just a way to try to standardize teaching and even punish teachers by forcing us to teach inside a box and not let us do what we do best; teach. One of my very good friends and probably the best teacher I know used to fret and anguish over the minute details of her review each year. If there was any part of it where she wasn’t considered stellar(innovating it was called in her district), she would take it so personally. It mattered to her until one year she got an overall above average review. She got it, not because her kids weren’t learning or that she was slacking in her classroom management, but because she didn’t follow her lesson plans to the letter and one of her objectives didn’t align with the lesson. She tried to explain that she had to change the lesson in the moment when she realized that her kids weren’t remembering the previous days math lesson. When she began the lesson, she asked review questions and realized her kids hadn’t gotten it, so she re-taught the lesson from the day before, which wasn’t on the lesson plan, or God forbid, the pacing guide. It didn’t matter. The principal was a stickler for the “rules” and she was labeledabove average. She took the paper out of her mailbox, crumpled it, threw it across the mail room and yelled, “To hell with it.” 
  She knew she was much more than an average teacher and her kids knew she was too. To be a happy teacher in today’s climate, you need to be okay with the “Powers That Be”calling you average.  I’d even argue that for many teachers in a lot of schools, getting an average review might actually mean you are being a great teacher. There are other factors at play as well. As more and more districts consider tying pay to reviews, those districts get strict on how many teachers can actually reach the highest level of teaching effectiveness. Think about that. There’s a cap to how many teachers are at the top. So if you happen to be an amazing teacher, but the cap has been reached already, you won’t hit the highest level. You can’t. Sad isn’t it?
  So, we should teach how we want to teach and inspire our students. We shouldn’t teach to fit a mold created by a teacher evaluation system. No one has ever stood out when they had to stay in the box. Teachers teach based on their personalities, their strengths and weakness. They teach based on their kids needs and those needs change from year to year and even month to month. It’s what makes us unique in our classrooms and helps define those connections with kids. If we follow the script, teach exactly the same way as everyone else and never deviate, we will lose what makes us great and unique. Have the guts to say, “Screw my Review.” Teach the standards, prepare your kids for the future and inspire them. If that makes you average, then I’ll strive to be average.

JC

Surviving in Education Today

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  I know how you feel. I’ve been there. I am there. You wake up one morning and wonder how you got to this point.  You’re thinking about how yesterday's multiplication lesson didn’t go how you wanted and how you really need to re-teach it.  But then the punch in the gut hits you. Your required to move on tomorrow. I have to teach the next lesson. That’s what my planner says and that’s what the district/school pacing guide states and GOD FORBID you are teaching lesson 12.1 when you’re supposed to be teaching 12.2. It’s like you have been given the ultimate choice. What you know as a teacher is right thing and what the district/school SAYS is right.



  We all know that feeling. We see it on the faces in the halls as we pass our colleagues on the way to the copier. We hear the grumblings in the teacher lounge during lunch. Teachers are looking around and wondering where their ability to truly TEACH has gone.  I realize that everyone’s level of frustration varies depending on your state, district, school and principal, but in many places across the country, teachers feel less like teachers and more like drones. I often wonder if we'll become so forced to recite out of the book that they'll just replace us with cheap labor who can read.

 I could spend paragraphs and paragraphs talking about why this has happened and bemoan policies for trying to destroy public education, but that’s beating a dead horse. What I want to do is help you get through your year. Hell, sometimes it’s simply about getting through your day or even your afternoon.  There’s a danger that teaching will turn into a 180 day countdown to summer and while I too appreciate my 9 week hiatus, I can’t live a normal life counting down to June in early September. So how can we fix it?

  The very first thing is to accept that certain things in our profession are what they are right now and there is NO WAY to change them in the short term.  If you walk into your classroom with fingers crossed, praying that any day it will all change, you’re in for a long and miserable journey.  New curriculum, standards, schedules, testing, reviews, evaluations and principals are all things we can’t control. So don’t even try. Just remember one very important thing. The most important thing in fact. Restate it over and over each morning as you fret over the days upcoming lessons. Restate it when things seem most frustrating.


  “All that matters are my students and the impact I make on their lives”

 When we close our doors and block out the external crap, we can focus on why we're here. For the kids. To make them better people. To see them grow.

I hope that my unfiltered opinions and ideas can help you. If even just a little as you enter the steel-cage-death-match we call a classroom.

JC

I welcome all comments and discussion on this blog. The more we can talk, the more productive we can be to elicit change.
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