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
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