Have you heard about this new movie, "Waiting for Superman?" I'm kinda lit up about the whole topic. Oprah's had a couple episodes focused on the topic. I just can't believe that someone is just NOW speaking up about the whole thing. Here's the gist..... teachers are tenured, it's impossible to get rid of the crappy ones. They get shuffled from class to class, school to school, and there's nothing the district can do about it bc of teacher contract. On another note people are bashing the public school system- saying that because of these contracts teachers are under, the schools perform poorly. In order for kids to get a good education you have to pay for it or get into a charter school.
Now, there are some things here which are entirely TRUE in my district. Some which are false. I suppose it depends on where you work. Personally I think my school is fantastic. We're public and we have a good deal of parent support which is part of the reason why we're as successful as we are. I will say however, from my perspective there are definitely some teachers who make me wonder why they bother. It's apparent that these teachers are miserable. They obviously don't take their job as seriously as others. I'm not trying to toot my own horn but I try to do my best, and when I see people taking advantage of the system it's incredibly frustrating.
So here's the low-down at my school right now. We've been asked this school year to make sure we have a 2-hour reading block. This is excellent and highly necessary! However, we were told to make it work with our normal 8-215 day. So once numbers are crunched we're essentially asked to fit 7 hours of required teaching into a 6 hour and 15 min day. So how have they solved this??? They tell us that the 30 mins a day required for social studies will only be utilized on our days we have pe (ahem, that's 2 days a week)...all other days the SS block is used for recess. (And yes, I did the math, I'm still short 15 mins.) Does this make sense to you??? No? Me neither!
Let's really focus on Social Studies for a minute..... this is where kids learn about communities, geography, government, economics, etc..... apparently that's not important??? If you ask me, I'd say it should be up there in our core subjects. How are these kids going to make an educated decision about voting in the future when they don't even know what state they live in....let alone their address and phone number??? Incredible.
So I'm ranting about all this and what is my solution??? GIVE US AN EXTENDED SCHOOL DAY INSTEAD OF GIVING US 1/2 DAYS TWICE A MONTH. Instead of our district giving us more time to teach the required subjects, they take away our time with our kids to give us planning time. Don't get me wrong, I need the planning time....but what's more important???? I say the kids are our top priority. I'm on their side.
