Saturday, September 14, 2013
Our belief in our students and the future of our city has been a part of who we are for all of our lives. NO ONE is more invested than us....submitted by a member
Our reality, and its negative impact on the future of our student’s education, has been clear to those of us that have taught in New Bedford, for quite a few years. However, this seems to have escaped the people who dictate to us, how to increase the “measure” of our success. These people have been a fleeting group who seem to have all the answers. We are the consistent resource available to this city and the students we serve each and every year of our careers. Yet, we have been viewed as “negative”, when we have pleaded to be heard. The reality is, we knew "Where are you headed?”, and we are there now! We have known how to change a system, others have designed for failure. They would and still will not listen.
The policies on education, which have increased our work load with ineffective paper trails and the micromanagement of our classrooms, are preventative at best. Stop crippling us with paperwork that documents and prevents our every effort to teach! Treat us with respect. We know how to teach our children to be successful, on more than just a standardized test. Our goal is to teach our children to be successful in life! Support our efforts, with meaningful training. Encourage our professional growth, with realistic goals. Put our greatest resources at the foundational level. Give us a developmentally appropriate curriculum, the ability to use it effectively, and the resources do it with. Allow us to spend our time focusing on the things that matter most. Let us do what we do best and support our efforts in meaningful ways that will allow us to meet our districts goals. Trust and respect the professionals that we are!
You will not find a harder working, more knowledgeable group of professional educators anywhere, than in New Bedford. Most of us have lived in this city all of our lives. We have been educated here, and raised our families here. Our belief in our students and the future of our city has been a part of who we are for all of our lives. NO ONE is more invested than us. Please allow us as educators to give our children the foundational tools for success, that we know how to. Then and only then will we succeed. The answer to our success is really elementary!
“Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that is measured matters.”~Elliot Eisner
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8 comments:
Last week the superintendent visited my school and criticized every teacher she came across. She had nothing positive to say about any of us. In fact, she went out of her way to be critical. One of us was even criticized for taking our students to the bathroom. I don't understand it. Is this happening at any other school or did this just happen at mine? I really need to know.
Very well said. How can an educated person honestly believe that the best way to have positive education is to have everyone of us speak, look, walk, talk, and teach the exact same way! Better yet their desired way RIGOROUSLY!
Be honest aren't your fondest memories of an empowering teacher the one who was a little different!
Allow us to do what we do best PLEASE, and if some educators are proving to be ineffective than lets guide them down a better path. Why are we becoming KENTUCKY FRIED TEACHERS!??
I think there are some assumptions being made by some people, that they care more about our student’s success then we do. The truth is, the reason we are all stressed to the point of ill health, is we DO care. These are OUR students. Their successes are OUR goals and the reason, despite all odds against us; we strive for the best possible outcomes every day.
There are many reasons why our “measure” of success is not what we would like it to be. Perhaps, the tool with which we “measure” our success, by design, is unobtainable. Despite this knowledge, we persevere. We persevere, with the knowledge that our every effort will be met with negative criticism. Reality will not change with rigor. Can we strive to improve? Yes! As responsible professionals, that is exactly what we have done throughout our careers, and will continue to do through every deterrent placed before us. Unfortunately, teaching in New Bedford, has robbed of me of the necessary tools for success on many levels. My professionalism has been absconded, and replaced with a “script”. A “script” I am evaluated on!
I wonder how many administrators and designers of the Common Core, No Child Left Behind, and Bloom’s Taxonomy, have REAL teaching experience at the lower elementary level. Their policies and theories tell me, none of them. Nor do they have any understanding of Early Childhood Development, Piaget’s Stages on Cognitive Development and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Our educational system has become void of any of these basic principles for a healthy learning environment. The requirements of children, in public schools should be considered abuse by any civilized society. Our children are being treated as if they are a product. Our students are much more than a score! They are children with thoughts, feelings, interests, hopes, dreams and a natural interest for learning that is being squelched.It appears, as these are not “measured” on standardized tests, they no longer matter. What has happened to a little fun?
New Bedford Public School’s administration, school committee and city politicians breeze in, take a look around and go to work telling educators what is wrong, and how they will force a change on a failing system, believing somehow that they have the answers. We have been here before. We are the only ones who have been here, through thick and thin. We again are the victims of the endless changes that appear never ending. The never ending changes of more and more paperwork with a promise for a “turn around”. Perhaps, like in a fairy tale we will have a happy ending. Excuse me if I am optimistic but, doubtful. Something so good cannot possibly come from something that feels so bad.
Administrators and politicians are trying to “close the barn door after the horse is out”. If our students are not prepared. If they are not able to read fluently with comprehension and lack foundational math skills, then our and their efforts, will be less and less successful as they move through our public school system. Scare tactics, pressure, rigor, blame, core curriculum, learning objectives, time on learning and/ or the like, will not achieving our goals. Students, who are not able to read at grade level and lack foundational math skills, will struggle to be successful at every level. Our efforts, no matter how they are delivered or designed will be futile, if our students have an unstable foundation. We have been required to teach children more each year with less and less resources. Our curriculum has been broadened and changed every year, leading to increasingly less time on the skills that truly matter. We are required to move through a curriculum at a developmentally inappropriate pace, with a “script” of state stands and curriculum maps. We have been discouraged from seeking special education assistance and from retain students who have not built a solid foundation for their future education.
Are we stuck in "Oz" with the Wicked Witch of the west and her flying monkeys? I pray I will wake up to find the NBPS demise was just a nightmare. This is killing by soul!
To prepare Americans for the jobs of the future and help restore middle-class security, we have to out-educate the world and that starts with a strong school system.
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