Thursday, October 16, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Why We Don't Protest....
I know about the rigorous preparation a teacher endures in order to get her students, of all levels, to pass the state tests, a task that is impossible to accomplish. Despite this reality, more and more changes continue to come in the way of making that task even more impossible.
Why are we teachers and parents allowing this to continue? I'm not sure all this can be answered in one post. If you knew the reality of all that goes on behind the scenes, your mind would probably race, like mine does, when it comes to finding possible answers to this question, especially without sounding like a whiny victim who is just incapable of rising to the ever-rising challenges I'm faced with as an educator. Believe me, if I possessed the same attributes as that of a Biblical miracle-producing individual, like Jesus, I wouldn't even be blinking both eyes like a person who's getting blinded by disbelief. Sometimes I even think my inability to give a sound answer comes from the fact that the rapid changes on the road that are constantly in motion and that are supposed to be embraced by teachers as quickly as a race car driver are beyond my comprehension. A better analogy to describe my shock and disbelief might also be like that of an involuntary contestant in the Hunger Games where the Game Makers are constantly adding some new horrifying element to an ever-changing obstacle course where only one contestant is meant to be standing at the end.
The answer to that question for me as a teacher is that, plain and simple, I want to keep my job, and I've somehow fallen under the delusion that I can't do anything else in life with a teaching degree. I'm still paying student loans that I eagerly took because I was interested in creating a bright future where I actually could inspire students to think, which is NOT what I'm doing now. I've now become like the factory-workers in the 70's and early '80's who stand on an assembly line making sure the same exact product comes off the line correctly and efficiently. Since big business has sent all their companies overseas in order to make more money, they've turned their sites towards making money in the very same way their making money from their factories.
I suspect that students and their parents not being accountable in any way may be one reason parents continue to turn a blind eye. Why would the state make them be accountable though? It would be the same as cutting off one's nose to spite his/her face. The state knows that the burden of funding these tests falls on the taxpayers' backs. If they made students and parents accountable, instead of just the pain parents feel when it comes to helping their children with loads of homework assigned in order to keep up with preparation for the tests, they would have protests occurring that might be worse than any race riot in history. The states' buddies, like ACT and Bill Gates, in turn, wouldn't be able to profit like they are right now, which if taxpayers think this is anything but about money, then they've drank the Kool-aid, and I should just stop writing right now. The delusion they're buying into, I get, because what will happen to their children if they can't go to college? Sad thing is that parents just want their children to be "college-ready" since they know the days of being able to make a good living working in a factory are over. For good, thanks to greedy corporations.
Another added insult is that taxpayers are led to believe that Ohio, at least, is falling more and more behind in "making the grade," something that then leads people to believe that somehow teachers are not doing their jobs. This then conveniently makes teachers and administrators the scapegoats or "the bad guys." Probably, if you ever studied the Holocaust, you'd understand a little better what's going on here. I haven't been forced into a ghetto with other teachers, yet, but oh wait, those already exist, only the teachers weren't forced there. They took those inner-city jobs because they wanted to make a DIFFERENCE. That part of a teacher's job doesn't exist though. We've just become like lower-ranking Nazis who have been forced into being part of a system's way of keeping people "where they belong." "No Child Left Behind"? Give me a break. It's more like "Most Children Left Behind."
My goal is to inform people about the tests, the rationale for them, the reality that exists when it comes to preparing for and being successful at getting ALL students to pass them, the reality of how are scores CAN'T measure up against other countries and, of course, how to change laws that seem to change constantly without any well-informed person's input/approval. Maybe then people, teachers, parents and citizens alike, will join together to fight the grave injustices that are adversely affecting their children's education and that will eventually cause ALL our children to be left behind. If not, I hate to be around when the consequences of what the current educational system's is really creating fully hit this society.
Read the links below to find out about the PARCC tests, how it's affecting teachers and students, and then, of course, a link, as elementary as it seems, about how to change the law.
http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc (Many links that are supposedly available for teachers and parents to use for resources are dead links, yet the test is in full swing.)
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/on-statewide-level-ohio-earns-ds-in-school/nhjJn/
http://www.twinsburgbulletin.com/news%20local/2014/10/09/twinsburg-superintendent-pitches-concern-over-changing-state-education-mandates-to-senate
http://www.wikihow.com/Change-a-Law-Through-the-Democratic-Process
Why are we teachers and parents allowing this to continue? I'm not sure all this can be answered in one post. If you knew the reality of all that goes on behind the scenes, your mind would probably race, like mine does, when it comes to finding possible answers to this question, especially without sounding like a whiny victim who is just incapable of rising to the ever-rising challenges I'm faced with as an educator. Believe me, if I possessed the same attributes as that of a Biblical miracle-producing individual, like Jesus, I wouldn't even be blinking both eyes like a person who's getting blinded by disbelief. Sometimes I even think my inability to give a sound answer comes from the fact that the rapid changes on the road that are constantly in motion and that are supposed to be embraced by teachers as quickly as a race car driver are beyond my comprehension. A better analogy to describe my shock and disbelief might also be like that of an involuntary contestant in the Hunger Games where the Game Makers are constantly adding some new horrifying element to an ever-changing obstacle course where only one contestant is meant to be standing at the end.
The answer to that question for me as a teacher is that, plain and simple, I want to keep my job, and I've somehow fallen under the delusion that I can't do anything else in life with a teaching degree. I'm still paying student loans that I eagerly took because I was interested in creating a bright future where I actually could inspire students to think, which is NOT what I'm doing now. I've now become like the factory-workers in the 70's and early '80's who stand on an assembly line making sure the same exact product comes off the line correctly and efficiently. Since big business has sent all their companies overseas in order to make more money, they've turned their sites towards making money in the very same way their making money from their factories.
I suspect that students and their parents not being accountable in any way may be one reason parents continue to turn a blind eye. Why would the state make them be accountable though? It would be the same as cutting off one's nose to spite his/her face. The state knows that the burden of funding these tests falls on the taxpayers' backs. If they made students and parents accountable, instead of just the pain parents feel when it comes to helping their children with loads of homework assigned in order to keep up with preparation for the tests, they would have protests occurring that might be worse than any race riot in history. The states' buddies, like ACT and Bill Gates, in turn, wouldn't be able to profit like they are right now, which if taxpayers think this is anything but about money, then they've drank the Kool-aid, and I should just stop writing right now. The delusion they're buying into, I get, because what will happen to their children if they can't go to college? Sad thing is that parents just want their children to be "college-ready" since they know the days of being able to make a good living working in a factory are over. For good, thanks to greedy corporations.
Another added insult is that taxpayers are led to believe that Ohio, at least, is falling more and more behind in "making the grade," something that then leads people to believe that somehow teachers are not doing their jobs. This then conveniently makes teachers and administrators the scapegoats or "the bad guys." Probably, if you ever studied the Holocaust, you'd understand a little better what's going on here. I haven't been forced into a ghetto with other teachers, yet, but oh wait, those already exist, only the teachers weren't forced there. They took those inner-city jobs because they wanted to make a DIFFERENCE. That part of a teacher's job doesn't exist though. We've just become like lower-ranking Nazis who have been forced into being part of a system's way of keeping people "where they belong." "No Child Left Behind"? Give me a break. It's more like "Most Children Left Behind."
My goal is to inform people about the tests, the rationale for them, the reality that exists when it comes to preparing for and being successful at getting ALL students to pass them, the reality of how are scores CAN'T measure up against other countries and, of course, how to change laws that seem to change constantly without any well-informed person's input/approval. Maybe then people, teachers, parents and citizens alike, will join together to fight the grave injustices that are adversely affecting their children's education and that will eventually cause ALL our children to be left behind. If not, I hate to be around when the consequences of what the current educational system's is really creating fully hit this society.
Read the links below to find out about the PARCC tests, how it's affecting teachers and students, and then, of course, a link, as elementary as it seems, about how to change the law.
http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc (Many links that are supposedly available for teachers and parents to use for resources are dead links, yet the test is in full swing.)
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/on-statewide-level-ohio-earns-ds-in-school/nhjJn/
http://www.twinsburgbulletin.com/news%20local/2014/10/09/twinsburg-superintendent-pitches-concern-over-changing-state-education-mandates-to-senate
http://www.wikihow.com/Change-a-Law-Through-the-Democratic-Process
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