Being a Texan, though long removed from my native soil, I always react with a start and with more than a bit of pleasure when I hear the authentic voice of a fellow Texan. We Texans don’t like to be pushed around. We like to express ourselves with vigor. Some of us care a lot about learning. Here is a Texas teacher who is fed up with the bullies who want to fence her in:

The exact same thing is happening in Texas. The scripted lesson plans actually cause me anxiety. Teaching is an ART! How dare they try to tell me to throw away all my lessons that facilitate my kids’ learning, so I can follow their “teacher” proofed script. Never!! Nev-uh!! I shut my door, and when they walk in, I fake it if I have to. My kids are so sweet; they just play along. Once the devils leave, I teach REAL reading and writing–no multiple choice for my kids! Never!!The full parking lots at schools every Saturday is just sickening. What is that? We sent men to the MOON, and we never took these horrible low-level tests! All this tutoring is ridiculous. Our kids are simply bored and tested to death! They do just enough to make it through the day!Instead of attacking the real educational issues that stop instruction, the issues that de-motivate students, education prescribes the same old thing, tutoring and scouring “data.” You’d think they’d realize it isn’t working. It’s not about the kids!It’s not about the kids. A colleague has been telling me, “It’s not about the kids!” I am finally starting to believe her. I just could not wrap my head around it, but it must be true.

Not to mention, I’ve literally heard and seen the extreme bullying of many teachers by these ex-three year teachers turned administrators. It is shocking. I understand we all need our jobs, but to take abuse. I just don’t get it. To take abuse from ex-teachers who did all they could to RUN out of the classroom as soon as they fulfilled their “in-class” requirement. Disgusting. Those that SHOULD be principals can’t bear to leave the kids behind. How ironic.

If I were some of these administrators, I would be afraid. How can they treat people so abysmally and feel safe. Dress code for the kids? I’m more worried about a teacher going Koo Koo for Cocoa Puffs. Goodness forbid, but these fool administrators consciously and unconsciously make many of our schools an UNSAFE environment.

Women need to stand up; we have the power to change the world; this field is abdicating its responsibility.

At times, anger is useless, a wasted emotion. But when it comes to education, ANGER is desperately needed, anger that fuels a change.

 I teach MY way. I have been looking too, but I RESENT being pushed out of a job I absolutely LOVE!!Yes, I plan, but I am an artist, I sketch out my plan (sometimes I am inspired by NPR on the drive in, and my sketch is in my head…and that is OK!!!). But really, do you think I actually write those lesson plan NOVELS. Do you think they they are “legit.” Laugh out LOUD as they SAY: NOPE. ALL FAKE! I print them out and pop them on the WALL. They walk in, it makes them happy (incompetence!). Basically, I shut my door, and I teach. Many times I don’t shut my door, and I TEACH.Hence, my Title I “low” performing students can write better than most American college students! Guaranteed! They probably write better than President Bush’s grandkids and President Obama’s little girls! I TEACH! I WILL NEVER FOLLOW A SCRIPT. I will never become a slave to a system that is hurting our kids in the name of PROFIT! Let them pull their bullying on me (they dare not), and I will make a SCENE!!

Our kids can read and write well enough to be inspired, and once inspired, they take OFF. And yes, on test day, they remember the teacher that did NOT torture them with worksheets, and they will pass that piece of crap for us if not for themselves. They know. Like us, they are just trying to make it through, and we should not let fear stop us. We need to get them reading and writing and speaking.

TIP: You know what I do as far as grades for my HIGH performing students at my “low” performing school….So I can give them feedback on their papers, I AUTO FILL GRADES!! YEP…tweak them a bit to cue me in to what they individually need help with, and we simply get to learning!! I ask them, “Is it all about the grade?” And they smile and they say, “Nooo, it’s about the learning!!” ha ha… adorable.

Once we show kids how to create what we expect them to know, they never forget it. Once we show kids how to create, they can apply, and they will remember it.

I tell them: “I did not come in to teaching to teach you how to bubble.” In return, they just smile and shake their heads in agreement.

As you know. Multiple choice=meaningless.

–Talk to the kids; they know.
–Walk down the hallways; you can “FEEL” good teaching. You don’t even have to
come into the room. All of us that work in schools, all of the students in our schools,
know who the FEW teachers in need of serious development are…
–Administrators need to get out of their offices. Stop spending hours documenting
dress code violations, documenting student not wearing belts! Get INTO the
classrooms. Teach some lessons!
–Evaluate students (we have our degrees) on PRODUCT not worksheets.
–Evaluate students through portfolios, through their CREATIONS, not their ability to bubble. Students will continue to suffer, and the testing and textbook gurus will become wealthier if we keep blaming teachers. Teachers are a SCAPEGOAT. I’ve seen it, and it sickens me.My country, this country, sent men to the MOON without weeks of testing torture, without daily torture of teachers. How did we do it? How did we become a world leader, a superpower without weeks of testing and benchmarking? How did we ever make it without multiple choice tests?

Let’s put the “training” focus back on the kids: Teachers have degrees. Teachers actually enjoy productive professional development that is NOT held on Saturdays by bully administrators (I DON’T go when I am being bullied).

I recommend a moratorium, an executive ORDER, on TESTING and a moratorium on teacher evaluations. Those of you who think all is the fault of the teacher, you have been BAMBOOZLED. Ask yourself, who MAKES THE MONEY by blaming the passive teacher? Follow the money folks, and you will find the answer.

Let’s put our money towards paying independent evaluators to peruse student portfolios. This will immediately stop all the teaching to a test. Out of fear, many teachers are teaching to a test. I have heard countless teachers say they DON’T teach writing because they are tested in READING. What the heck? How can leave out writing. Reading is invisible. Unless a kid writes or speaks, the OUTPUT, how do you know they GET it!? You don’t! And you never will with a multiple choice TEST!!! It’s about CREATION America! When you do, you remember. When you create, you use imagination. When you use imagination, you are thinking. There is no thinking or creating going on with a multiple choice TEST and being all consumed with a teacher’s evaluation!

It’s a double edged sword–teacher performance is being based on kids’ test scores. How dare you place a test score on my teaching for some of my students who only come to school ONCE a week! How DARE the SYSTEM do that!

If teachers were FREE to teach on the foundation of a LITERATE society (it’s all about the reading and the writing folks!), you would kick yourselves for being so worried about all the “HORRIBLE” teachers who come into this field to hurt children and take abuse and have to listen to the rants of administrators who ran out of the classroom at the first opportunity.

Leave us alone! Evaluate administrators on their leadership, on their ability to retain teachers, on their ability to coach, on their ability keep their teachers happy. Hello? If teachers are happy, then the kids will get the best of us. Help administrators who are afraid of the “hard” conversations. They are so weak; we get mass emails over the silliest things because they don’t want to confront the “few” below mediocre teachers.

I don’t have time to proofread, but I have never been more disgusted in my life, and I don’t have TIME…school is about to start… But, all of you who are NOT teachers…all of you who are teachers that have been lucky enough (I was for three years) to have a good administrator…all of you who have never taught, just give it a try before you delude yourself into thinking you have a clue.

Oh, and by the way. Just because YOUR KID CAN PASS a multiple choice test, JUST BECAUSE YOUR school district has “TOP” performing schools, your kids and your district and your school are simply MEDIOCRE.

It’s called dumbing down the curriculum!! The curriculum is too shallow! Instead of depth, our kids will not be the orcas of the ocean, will not be the sharks…we are a becoming a nation of guppies, hanging out in the shallow end.

ALL OF YOUR KIDS ARE BEING UNDER-SERVED, regardless of economic level. I know several brave teachers that SHUT THEIR doors and SIT on all the curriculum BS, teachers who draft bogus lesson plans and continue to sketch out their lessons, differentiating instruction instead of following a SCRIPT, but you can’t blame those wonderful, amazing teachers who are afraid. They want to make sure their kids can pass that TEST or their EVALUATION will be TRASHED.

Woo hoo, your community has a 100% pass RATE on a multiple choice test (I’m so angry, I am laughing out loud, scaring my poodle)!!!!

I am afraid for my country, a country that sent men to the moon with NO standardized testing!!!

SHAME on all of you who have fallen for the HYPE.