'ello! I'm back!

Well hi there...it's been a while. Many years actually. Doesn't seem I was missed much. That's okay. Maybe that will change one day. Whether I come back here and use this as a personal therapeutic tool, or if some poor soul comes along and actually decides to dedicate any ounce of their time reading it, it's here.

Where have I been since 2012??? (date of my last blog post)

I've been many places, but I can't say education has changed much. Actually, it has changed. Not for the better. But one thing remains the same: NO ONE IS LISTENING! Or if they are, they are ignoring it. What's not happening is positive change.

I really need to know why we have thousands and thousands of educators screaming from the tops of their lungs, crying out for help and pleading for change...but nothing is happening. Unless you consider politicians calling them thugs and the public ridiculing teachers as whiny babies as "something happening."

There's so much to talk about and cover, I'll save it for multiple posts. What is in the the forefront of my mind is how I spent my last work day this past school year. Our school invited our local law enforcement into our school to demonstrate an active shooter scenario 😔Before your brain goes bonkers, there were NO students present. Nonetheless, it was not a pleasant day.

I knew about this demonstration days in advance. The biggest problem for me is that I have such a torrential fear of an active shooter entering our school. I don't fear for my own life as much as I fear for the lives of our students...and I fear their fear. Anytime I hear of any shooting, but more so a school shooting, I break down into tears imagining the fear the victims experienced and witnessing the carnage and aftermath. I knew about the demonstration and had much anxiety throughout the days leading up to it, but decided the morning of that I was overreacting. I told myself to put my "big girl panties" on and just deal with it.

Our local officers facilitating the demonstration apparently are members of a particular unit that was created for this soul purpose - responding to an active shooter. The speaker was very dry and desensitized. Before I go any further, make no mistake that I have the utmost respect for our law enforcement. I can't even fathom what it's like to be in law enforcement, putting their lives on the line every second of every day to serve the community. I personally know an officer and his demeanor is much like the one who was presenting this day: very methodical, serious, straightforward, and all business. However, it was unnerving listening to him talk through the process of how they would deal with an active shooter and what our steps should be if it were to happen...

Such as - if a child is left in the hallway, leave that child there. Our job is to protect the multiple children in the room and not compromise their safety for one.

Such as - if we are evacuating and see an injured (or worse, deceased) child in the hallway, we must leave that child there. Our job is to evacuate to safety.

I shutter.

I would think that's the worst. Listening to scenarios of our children in imminent danger and how they/we would deal with it. But then one of the officers loaded his handgun with blanks. I heard the ...what is it, the magazine?...in the handgun *click*. And there I go. My heart started to race and pound through my chest, and I wanted to cry. My colleague looked at my distress and asked if I was okay. "Yep! I'll be fine. Just having a moment."

Then. Then...

An "active shooter" started to come down the hall towards us, shooting his semi-automatic rifle (blanks) so that we would know what it "sounds like" to hear gunfire in the hallways.

Speaking officer: "Do you hear that? What does that sound like to you? Fireworks? Some people might hear gunfire and mistake it for fire crackers, a prank."

But IIIIIIII LLLLLLLOSTTTTTTT IIIITTTTT. I lost it. I flat out had an emotional breakdown right there in that room. I felt embarrassed. I did NOT want to be one of those teachers making a scene. Fanning the tears from my eyes and holding my breath, I ran to the closest bathroom to hide my hysterics. I was in the bathroom through most of the remainder of the "presentation", and when I felt like I had myself composed, I left the bathroom and joined my colleagues in the audience. I did not hear one other word of that presentation. I was completely zoned out.

This is not my school, and this video is a little more dramatic than what I experienced, but the gunfire is the same:

Next came the "fun" part. Anyone who was willing could volunteer to put on a protective face mask and vest, arm themselves with loaded guns (again, blanks), and "take out" the active shooter while the rest of us stood on the sidelines as onlookers. I'd say there were about 3 runs in which the pretend active shooter approached from the opposite end of the hall, while my colleagues rushed him and shot him with blanks. "YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!" the onlookers would shout after they took him down. I was no more amused by this than us listening to the sounds of gunfire in the halls during the presentation.

Sorry. I don't think death is something to cheer about, regardless of the circumstances. 

Am I willing to do whatever it takes to protect the lives of our children? Yes.
Am I willing to shoot the person who is trying to do them harm? Yes.
Am I willing to kill that person to keep that shooter from hurting our kids? Yes.
Would I cheer about it? No.

And that is how I ended my school year this year. 
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Now someone chimes in with a condescending tone - "Imagine what it's like for those victims of an actual active shooter crisis. You had it easy. Maybe that demonstration will save your life and the lives of your students one day." Yes. I know. If I had it my way, NO ONE would ever have to experience this or be a victim of a real-life active shooter. No one. Ever. 

Yes. My experience was nothing compared to an actual active shooter situation. But truth be told, God forbid if that were to ever happen, there is no demonstration that would ever prepare us for it. None. And we shouldn't have to. End of story.

Another chapter of this journey

What a contrast this is from my last post. I waited for so long to leave the career of teaching, only to return a short 6 weeks later. I am in another Title I school, now teaching 4th grade. Why did I return to teaching when I obviously hated it so much? Well, it didn't take long for me to remember why I became a teacher in the first place. As I piddled in flowers and balloons in my alternate career (a florist), I couldn't help but feel a sense of emptiness. I thought about my children who needed me and who would be left for them if all the teachers felt like me and quit.

I'll share more about my experiences since returning. Nothing has changed. We still test, test, test. And then the teachers are required to sit around during "planning" to talk about the tests and data (rather than planning for what we should be teaching).

What's different? I have a little more patience for the obnoxious amount of work the school system requires me to do...little of which actually helps my students in any way.

More to come...

I am free

It's been a while. I finally resigned. My last day was yesterday. I left my classroom of four years behind with my 16 children in the hands of another teacher. Good luck. Monday I will begin my new job (old job) as a Florist. I am finally free :)

*sigh* It's December

Thankfully I only have 9 days until Christmas break. I would say I'm hanging in there, but I'm really not. Everyday is a struggle. I actually called in sick one day this week because I'm just so physically & mentally exhausted, along with the fact that I am completely unmotivated. I have no spark in me, no drive, no ambition. Being a teacher has definitely become "just a job" to me. Sad, but true. I hate that it came to this point. The only reason I make myself go to work everyday is because I have to get a paycheck.

I'm still sending out resumes. I had a few close calls, but nothing definite yet. I applied to a job of a lifetime at a very large greenhouse. The salary would double what I earn now and I would be working in an industry that I realize is truly my passion. I called them to make sure they received my resume and they said they planned to call me in the near future to set up an interview. I pray everyday and keep my fingers crossed that they'll call me soon.

Until then, I will continue to do what the public school system has trained me to do best - be a classroom manager. I really just supervise kids everyday. It's a little more than babysitting, but really, most of my time is spent testing the kids and then analyzing how they performed on the test.

I am a crashed computer

So here it is, November. I went into this school year with a GREAT attitude. After working with my colleague all summer long, planning our curriculum for this school year, I was ready to face this year head-on and headstrong. I was determined to do everything in my power to not only get my kids to learn enough to pass this stinkin' state test, but also help our school get out of "school improvement" status...otherwise, the state will take control of our school next year.

Everything came crashing down since then. After all the stress, and the endless paperwork, and all the new mandates by our administration, I had one final breaking point. Within a 30 minute period, I went from 110% to 25%. All of my passion, all of my motivation, all of my drive - gone.

Our state has adopted this new teacher evaluation program that is being implemented in our school this year. It's bad enough that I can't transfer, I haven't received a raise in two years, my workload has actually increased due to budget cuts and our school status, but now I actually have to be subjected to this rigorous evaluation system that nit-picks at every single aspect of me as a teacher. You can view it here: http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/profdev/training/teacher/teacher-eval.pdf Pay close attention to pages starting at #25.

My principal decided we needed to be trained on this, which is a good thing, because it's really wordy. Pretty overwhelming from our perspective. The problem with this is: when exactly is he going to train us? We are already swamped in after school meetings, and he would be slaughtered if he suggested we come in on the weekend. So, he decides he would pull us out of class during the school day. No, no, no. It's okay. He sent assistants to cover our classes. Because I don't actually do anything in the classroom. I just give my kids some activities to do and anyone can come in and take over for me. (please notice that this is drenched with sarcasm)

Well, when it was time for our meeting, no one came to cover my class. They continued the meeting without me (the meeting included 3rd and 5th grade teachers). After 15-20, the Assistant Principal came to my room looking for me. I just shrugged my shoulders, knowing I had no control over the situation. Someone finally arrived and I went to the meeting place. My principal tried to recap what had already been discussed, but I was already tuning him out. I was frustrated. After 15 minutes (hardly enough time to teach us how the new evaluation would be used on us), we had to stop because it was time for us to take our kids to lunch. Our principal asked if we would like to continue our meeting during our lunch so we didn't have to stay after school. Three of us very clearly stated "NO", we would prefer NOT to meet during our lunch - that is our only break! Well, they decided they would continue the meeting during our lunch anyway.

This is when you would have seen that "blue screen of death" if I were a computer. I went blank, crash, system failure.

The incident that made everything crash was not really that significant. I am like a computer - I just got overloaded with "applications". My brain couldn't take it anymore. My husband likes to fuss at me when I have too many programs activated on the toolbar on our home computer, and if you look at the "CPU usage" you might see that it is operating at 90% or so. Well, you keep pushing your computer and constantly opening programs asking it to do more than it is capable, then it will crash. That's what happened to me.

So, I'm done. Again, for the fourth year in a row, I'm starting to submit my resumes to anything I think I am qualified to do, hoping I can find a job that matches my salary - which shouldn't be too hard considering I only make $31,000/yr.

State Testing Scores

State Testing Scores mean jack crap, just in case you didn't know. Many parents decide which schools are the "better" schools by examining state test scores. This is VERY misleading and a grossly inaccurate way to assess the quality of the public school and its teachers. Here's two scenarios:

HIGH PERFORMING SCHOOL
My very first teaching position was in an elementary school on the wealthier side of a big city. Most of the children came from two-parent homes, where the majority of those parents were both college graduates. I had 28 students and all but ONE had computers at home. ALL of the parents came to the parent-teacher conferences, or at least made contact by letter or phone. Every child except two were reading at or above grade level - and the two who weren't: one was from a low-income single parent home from the very small pocket of "lower-end" apartment homes on the edge of our school zoning; the other was a hispanic boy whose parents didn't speak any English and he had lived in the U.S. for maybe a year. I had parents visiting daily, volunteering for EVERYTHING, and not only everpresent in their children's lives, but in mine as well!
The teachers in this school weren't spectacular. I don't think they were necessarily horrible, but I didn't see any fabulous teaching going on. For the most part, we taught straight from the text book - absolutely nothing creative or innovative about that. ALL students who took the state test passed. I mean they should have, that school has a 99% pass rate (I'm surprised it's not 100%).

LOW PERFORMING SCHOOL
My second school (and my current school) is once again in the "inner-city" of our county. It a very low-income population where the majority of families are on welfare. I would say about 3 students in my classroom have computers at home. The majority of the students come from single parent homes, multi-family homes, or both. Most parents did not finish high school, much less go to college. Many residences in our area are rental homes (average $400/mo) or government housing. It is also a very high-transient area because families move from place to place due to jobs, eviction, etc. Therefore, out of 20 students in a class, an average of 5 students will leave and 5 new students will come in throughout the course of the school year. In our K-5 school, only 50% of our students have been there since Kindergarten, maybe even less. Many students have been to a different school every year, some have moved to three or four during one school year. I might have 5 or 6 parents show up to parent-teacher conferences, maybe more if I harrass them. At least half of my class will be below grade level in reading, one fourth of them will be at least two grade levels below. Many students do not have basic Math skills and some still count on their fingers by the time they get to 5th grade. Most of the parents do not make their children complete their homework, and if they bring home failing grades on their tests, the children are not given any consequences or reprimands at home. There were rarely phone calls to me or notes requesting conferences.
Now the teachers in our school are pretty miraculous - not all of them, but the majority of the staff in this school are very intelligent, creative, hard-working, & dedicated teachers. You won't walk into many of the classrooms and see students working out of textbooks or on worksheets. They are working in centers and in small groups, they are participating in hands-on activities and using technology (side note: even with massive budget cuts last year, we still managed to each get a fabulous SmartBoard in our classrooms. Apparantly, that stimulus money sent down to our state was earmarked for technology. Thanks Obama!) There's all sorts of creative things happening in the classroom. I had TWO students out of 21 pass the state test, six students after retesting. We have about a 33% passing rate in our school. We are currently in our third year of School Improvement - if we don't make fantastic improvements this coming year, the state will come in and intervene...and that could mean anything :(

So, do you see? Obviously there is a direct correlation between parenting/homelife and school performance. But from the outside looking in, our society is ready to judge the school and the staff when students are not passing these state tests.

I would say the ONLY reason I would not want my own child to attend my school is for this reason: unfortunately, there is also a direct correclation between parenting/homelife and behavior. Many of my students come in using words I didn't even know existed until I was in high school. One of our third graders was suspended three times for sexual harrassment (touching girls inapproprately in private places). Our children do not get much discipline at home, if any. On top of working to get our children on grade level (yes, even those two grade levels below in reading and not able to add or subtract), we are also their primary disciplinarians...yay. I wouldn't want my own child exposed to the behaviors I have seen and dealt with.

So the next time you hear someone compare the quality of the school and its teachers because of test scores, you know what to tell them.

WHAT?!?!

I was in Wal-Mart today with my husband looking at external hard-drives in the electronics department. For some reason, I can spot a teacher a mile away (my mom was a real estate agent and we could do the same with them). I look over my shoulder and I see an older lady with a younger one looking at some computer accessories. I thought, "Hey, there's a teacher," and sure enough, one of them was wearing a school district nametag. As I'm passing by, the older lady with the nametag introduces the younger asian woman to the Wal-Mart employee - "Hi, this is (so-and-so) from our teacher exchange program." Instantly, I look at my husband and say, "WHAT!?!?" plus some other expletives.

Everyone in school systems across the entire country is suffering one way or another from the economy and BUDGET CUTS. How in the hell can our school district afford a teacher exchange program?!?! Not only that! WHY are we hiring teachers from outside of our country but cutting teachers in our own schools! I AM LIVID!

Two years ago when all you-know-what was about to hit the fan with these massive budget cuts, salary freezes, and teacher cuts, one of the first teachers in our school let go was from Jamaica. She was teaching in our school under a similar (if not the same) teacher exchange program. We were told that the program was terminated because of budget cuts and she would have to move back home as soon as the school year was over.

I just don't get it. PLEASE someone help me understand!