Laura Lee

From a few years ago:

This week was tough–the students are edgy, chatty (to the nth degree), and I have found my normally limitless patience–limited. Hmmm… the older I get, the less I know.

Students seem to be falling apart this time of year. Stress is upon us as standardized testing looms. And all the while, our kids need us, the teacher, the mentor, the caring adult.

I can only pray–and could use others prayers as well–for enlightened compassionate administrators who understand this.

Kids are more than test scores.

Teachers are being judged by kids test scores.

This pits teachers against kids.

Only those who don’t need a paycheck can ignore this fact.

This fact is heart breaking.

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Why?

Every teacher I respect went into teaching to serve society or help kids. A few went into teacher since they loved their subject area, then grew to love the kids.

I have not respected a teacher who loved content, but not kids. I cannot relate to that type of person.

We who chose to work with at risk kids are at a dangerous time in our careers; sometimes our kids can endanger our actual ability to support ourselves, to make a living.

A student fell apart a few weeks ago, on the date of an important (to the school) test. His scores plummeted 8 grade levels.

Did they really? No, they did not. This young man was gone for weeks after this, due to the major life problems he was dealing with.

How does this translate?

Bad teacher?

Click. Kid vs. teacher.

This same student has the respect to wake up, try the test, but it just wasn’t in him that day.

I defy anyone, any adult with all sorts of success in life, to deal with homelessness and major legal issues and do well on a standardized test that day. We, with our educations and coping skills would feel the strain.

I had an enlightened and compassionate evaluator this year, and for that I am very grateful. He was in the room another time a student had a crisis, and understood what was going on.

Click.

I cannot count on always being so lucky.

Click.

Legislation pending to tie teacher ratings with student test scores.

Click.

Good teachers can become bad teachers. Or, “bad” teachers.

Click.

I must learn to live with this, or I will become a jaded, cynical, bitter teacher, and that is not a good teacher.

I’ve already changed and feel the stress greatly.

I do think about kids test scores and scream inside sometimes.


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I remember a time and place where we teachers were trusted, valued, thanked. We worked a tough job, but we knew we had the support of the administration and the community. We felt that we could go on, even though the kids lives were so hard, and try to help them the best we could.

Then came the change, IT, the relentless and cruel push to test and punish, test and punish.

And now kids become test scores?


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Of course not. I had to discipline a student this week who is truly dealing with life changing issues, and could barely sleep. I had sent him to the Deans office, and felt cruel and worried about him. It had to be done, for the rest of the class had to continue, but still…he’s a kid. A kid who had another adult be mean to him.

Click.

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The moments of joy and grace get fewer as the pressure increases on everyone. I see it in the faces of administration.

And yet I see glimpses of their caring as well as their exhaustion. They have a job to do. They are not the enemy. I see them in the halls helping kids. I read their memos thanking us for doing a good job in tough times. I know they try so hard to keep our school people focused, but they must also make a living and they are on the firing line due to test scores.

Click.

Admin vs. teachers?


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And yet, the public deserves our very best and our children should be demanding the best from us. The best would be hard work to provide a quality education for each child.

How to translate that into a test score is the awful issue: it cannot be done.


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As a reading specialist, I will spend much of the rest of the year testing, analyzing data, and writing reports, on top of teaching my classes.

So testing is big in my mind right now.

I feel angry that I cannot focus all my attention on the best lessons I can create, on making all the calls home to parents, on writing longer notes on the kids work. So much else to do prevents this.

Although I try at times.

Click.

There are not enough hours in the day but I try to create more by not living a life during the school year sometimes.

Click.

6:30 am at school. 10:30 pm still at school.

Click.

I wanted to cry, to rush to a window, to smell the air, read a book, something.

Sick the next day.

Click.

My body is human. Just because I have a tremendous drive to do it all well does not mean I can ignore the need for sleep or relaxation.

The other day, my doctor took out notes and read word for word how long I’ve been telling her that long hours of work are affecting my sleep, my mood, my energy.

I feel I have been crabby for over a year now, at the best place I’ve worked. At a wonderful place with so many support systems in line and I wonder:

How are my colleagues at less fortunate schools coping?

Click.

Don’t judge others until you’ve been there. I used to do that–judge other teachers harshly who left when the going got tough.

I never, ever, ever thought I could feel so annoyed that I cannot just teach.

Just teach? That alone is a never ending job.

All this testing? I understand the need for accountability, but some of it makes no sense–is mathematically impossible for all children to be above average or average in scores.

We know that. Everyone knows that. Yet we have to jump through hoops trying to get all kids average or above in narrow tests that don’t look at the whole child.

Child as test score?

Click.

The whole child. The child is not a thing.

The day I forget that must be the day I leave.

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For now, I am so grateful to my caring administrators and evaluators who encourage me to keep on helping kids, trying to mentor them, encourage them.

For now, I can pay the bills and then some, so I am very lucky indeed.

I fear for the day when a boy who is in crisis takes a test and those scores cost me my job. I fear that might be the day I fight to teach “higher” kids. I fear that might be the day when no one will want to teach our at risk kids, except for those who don’t need a paycheck.

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For now, I am lucky and grateful.

And seriously crabby and annoyed too often.

Click.

Get it together. Toughen up. Teach them well. Do your best. Be yourself–you are no good at being another person.

I live for and by my values towards others. I could not be a dispassionate teacher. I tell bad jokes, make weird faces, have earnest talks with kids who are tired, worried, bored.

And hopeful. Where do they get the hope? I see resilience and joy in many of my students, even the most challenging ones (at times).

I am not the naive new teacher.

I am the rebellious but realistic teacher who knows we can and should do better and limit the relentless testing before it harms a nation of kids, before it limits creativity and compassion.

I am the relentlessly hard working teacher who creates very time consuming lesson plans to try to teach the kids the best I can. I am not the type of person who needs to be checked up on, for I do it as part of who I am.

I don’t know if I can work any harder.

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But for now, it is what is is. I am lucky and grateful, but guarded, knowing things could change quickly. The climate is tense in education in many ways right now. Tense for the teachers, administrators, and the kids.

We can do better.

Thanks for reading.

Laura