DC Elementary Teacher

DC Elementary Teacher is on a much needed break from all things "school". Post you again in January.

Live and Learn
(and get plenty of sleep!)

I've been teaching in an elementary school for 17 months and my head still reels around lesson and unit planning. There is so much contradictory "advice" and information. For example, I've been told that students in our system are highly transient--moving from one school to another within the same district. The Content Standards were divvied up into Pacing Charts for each subject and the idea is that if student A moves from one school in the district to another, that they will not be repeating content already covered. The discrepancy I’m finding is that parsing out the standards to be completed by certain deadlines wrecks havoc with teaching and learning. I’ve been told of the benefits of integrating curriculum across subject areas. At the same time, I’ve been drilled to use the inductive unit planning approach. The two are not mutually exclusive, but if you read the Performance Standards you would be hard pressed to find ways to accomplish them with multi-subject unit themes (http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/curriculum/content/elem-stl.htm). I quote from one of the guidebooks I’ve been supplied with “Teachers new to standards-based instruction often find this process cumbersome and frustrating…” How about nearly impossible? The feeling I have as a new teacher is that I’m spinning too many wheels catering to the different stakeholders, and the individual approaches they tout. On the one hand, we teachers are told to integrate curriculum, and then we are charged with providing evidence that we teach two discrete blocks of reading (120 mins.) and math (90 mins.) each day. How messed up is that? This type of dissonance is par for the course in my experience of elementary education. Ugh!

Live and Learn

Luckily, our school is giving standardized tests tomorrow so I might actually make it to bed by midnight. I read recently in one of those "guides for new teachers" type books that "its OKAY if you only have a few days of lessons planned". A few DAYS?!!! Ha! I can barely stay 10 hours ahead of the game. Planning time during the day is non-existent. A bathroom break, a trip to the office mailbox, and a form or two to be completed (or a behavior write-up or call to parent), and the 45 minute planning session is over. Oh, well, there are two more session to try and "make" this week if some little Johnny doesn't knock the head of little Janey during recess again. So if time's so short, why am I writing this blog? To vent for 10 minutes a day and then move on, I guess. Join me for short bursts from the inside of one really wild ride--teaching.