Category: students

Be the change, reflection, students, testing

Testing Makes Me Feel Like a Bad Teacher

Pernille Ripp
image from icanread

I know I should not care, I should go on my day like it is nothing, but the truth is; standardized testing makes me feel like a bad teacher.  It shouldn’t be a big deal but anyone who has had their students sit through a MAP test will tell you; printing out that report and seeing whether the students met their projected growth score is downright anxiety producing.

Once the test is over then we stand with the repercussions; scores that were not met because the kid was having a bad day, scores that were not met because they rushed, scores that were not met because they didn’t get that one question.  And yes, scores that were not met because I didn’t do my job well enough.  The problem is; I don’t know which category a score fits into.  I can certainly take a guess but that is all it would be; a guess.  So I base my teacher performance on a score that supposedly tells me everything without really teling me much.

I take their scores and try to let them be a guide merely, forget that they will go on with the students to middle school, forget that these scores will determine where on the data wall they sit.  Forget that as much as we pretend they don’t matter, that these scores will usually mean more to their future education than any of my feedback or summative assessment ever will.  And it makes me feel like a bad teacher.
I cannot protect my students from what I fight against; the standardization of their intellect.  The standardization of their knowledge, their creativity  and their aptitude.  I cannot protect them from being labeled due to test scores.  I can only do so much within my classroom to shield them from the test obsessed education policy that seems to be driving us.  I can downplay the test but the educational system does not let me downplay the result anymore.  So I feel like a bad teacher.
I became a teacher to make a difference, not to feel bad about the tests I have to put my students through in order that someone will believe me when I say that they grew as a reader, that they grew in their math knowledge, that they grew in their intellect.  Apparently my word is not enough anymore, perhaps it never has been, now the data is what guides us.  And the data makes me feel like a bad teacher.
reflection, students

What These Kids Don’t Know

Pernille Ripp
He stands to the side of me, waiting his turn, I look up and there he is, “Do you remember me?”  “Of course!”  I say and I mean it because this kid, how could anyone ever forget this kid?  A quick hug and of he goes, he is a middle schooler now after all, and I stand there with a huge smile, happy to have been remembered.  Happy that he took the time to come back to his old teacher, even if just for a moment.  And in that short moment of time there is so much I wish I could say to this kid, and to the others before him; there is so much they don’t know.

What these kids don’t know is how we hope they will remember us with a smile but we never take it for granted.

What these kids don’t know is how we still have all of those notes and letters they wrote to us back then.  And the drawings, yup, we have those too.

What these kids don’t know is how one little hi can make me smile for days.

What these kids don’t know is that we still carry them in our hearts wherever we go.

What these kids don’t know is how I still worry and wonder how life is treating them and if they know how much they are worth.

What these kids don’t know is that they never stop being our kids.

What all my kids don’t know is that I do it for them, every single day, no matter how little sleep I got, no matter what standards are pressing on me.  Every day I come to school to teach for them, every day I cannot wait to get here to be with them.  That’s what these kids don’t know.

Be the change, reflection, students

We Cannot Measure

Pernille Ripp
…This is my most precious moment…and he places a picture of a person who has passed away under the document camera and takes my breath away.  Tears and stammered out questions about the picture.  He asks if he may sit down…and the tears keep coming from me, from him, from everyone.

We cannot measure student trust on a test.

We cannot measure the community that allows a kid to share their most precious moment and then show the emotions that accompany it.

We cannot measure the bravery that comes from knowing how vulnerable that child made themselves.

We cannot measure the tears the other kids got when they saw how much this meant to him.

None of that gets measured on a test.

None of that will ever be a part of my educator effectiveness evaluation.

Not the tears.  Not the moments.  Not the trust or the care we have in each other.  Because no one would ever know how to measure it.  And so they don’t.

And yet, those moments, are the ones that make my classroom a community.  Those moments are the reasons the students thrive, grow, and love school.  Those are the very moments that should count the most.

Yet instead they focus on math, reading, bubbles filled in correctly and then pretend that it gives them a full picture of that child.  Pretends that they know the strengths and weakness of that kid.

We know it doesn’t.

When will the outside world learn?

Reading, students, summer

Help Us Create the Best Summer Reading List Ever!

Pernille Ripp
This year has been the year of reading; I don’t think I have ever read so many fantastic books, I don’t think I have ever spent so much money on books, and I couldn’t be happier.  Except now I am faced with a problem; my 5th graders are starting to seriously ponder what they should read over the summer and I running out of ideas.  I have about 30 books to read myself and I have been piling books on their desks but we need a seriously massive list to get us through the summer.  So please help us by filling out any of these boxes on our form.  Pass it around; ask your students, your colleagues  your favorite librarians, and we promise to share all of the results.

Please help us make the best summer reading list ever!

reflection, students

Teachers Have Feelings Too

Pernille Ripp
He clears his throat, 41 sets of eyes on him.  “My poem has no title…”

It goes something like this….

Wake up, breakfast, school bus
Torture, torture, torture
Recess
Torture, torture, torture
Lunch
Torture, torture, torture
Bus

Snickers, glances at me, back to him, I make a funny joke out of it, but inside I am reeling.

At the end of the day, I pull him aside and I ask what the purpose was to share that poem?  Do I torture him all day?  Is that what I do?  He says no, he was trying to be funnymaybe but has no real explanation and I get tears in my eyes and tell him, “Teachers have feelings too.  And words have power…”

So I leave school feeling like a failure, feeling like I was made a fool just for fun, wondering if he felt  the need to share it with 2 classes to see what my reaction was?  I don’t think I gave him the reaction he wanted, I am pretty sure he wanted anger, but I don’t get angry when students share how they feel, I only reflect.  And yet, the way in which he shared these feelings, whether accurate or just for laughs, haunts me throughout my weekend.

As teachers we are expected to be bulletproof.  We are expected to stand with our shoulders back, willing to take on any criticism anyone may have.  We are expected to take it in stride.  To grow from the words ladled our way.

Yet teachers have feelings too.

We are supposed to continue fighting when seemingly the whole world wants to beat us down for things that are out of our control.

We are supposed to smile through our tears, laugh through our personal pains, and teach, teach, teach no matter what.

Yet teachers have feelings too.

We are expected to make it engaging, interesting, new, and informative.  We are expected to help students grow, become the people we hope they become, and create lasting bonds all while taking whatever words are thrown at us and ducking them.

We tell students that words have power and yet sometimes we wish they didn’t.  We suppress our feelings whenever a parent gets angry, a child fails to understand a concept, and we take full responsibility even when it is not all ours to take.  But sometimes the weight of all those words cracks us just a little.

We try every day to make school a place that children want to come even though some politicians are trying to turn it into a place where students are numbers and we are too.  When we are told how we fail as teachers we are supposed to agree, learn from it, and return to class as if nothing has happened.  But we are human, we take pride in what we do, we invest not just our time but our essence, and so when someone tells me that what I do is torture, it leaves me with the wind knocked out of me, unsure of what to do next.

I am teacher and I have feelings too, even if I try to hide them behind jokes, squared shoulders, mand determined strides.  So do I teach my students that?