Queen of Rambles

It may just be a miracle, but I think I am feeling calm today. I only had to work half a day, and it was a very nice day. I got to watch the teacher teach for about fifteen minutes and I totally dig her style–firm and fair with high expectations. She reminds me a lot of my own first grade teacher. She is probably in her fifties and has obviously been a teacher for many years, but isn’t burned out by it. Her classroom is a delight to behold, with all sorts of wonderful things to engage a child’s curiosity and learning. She was trained before Dubya and others decided to leach all creativity out of education in the name of making sure children learn. Or something.

Honestly, though, I think Virginia has gone crazy with the No Child Left Behind thing. I worked in Oregon all last year and their tests and objectives were not fun, but they weren’t as just plain STUPID as the Virginia tests. Do I really care if my third grader can name all the parts of a lever? Not particularly. Do I care if he can recite a bunch of facts about ancient Roman culture. Not at all. I want my child to be curious and able to solve problems. I want my child to be able to be able to read a map and a graph. I want him to be able to read an index and glossary. I understand that some things simply must be learned by rote (times tables for instance) but everything else? Why does it have to be completely regimented? I want my child to go to a school where the teachers are allowed to explore their own passions when making units and lesson plans. If a teacher loves studying Roman culture, great. She can teach it to her heart’s content. Her passion for learning will inspire the kids and they will love it and learn. If the teacher doesn’t like ancient Rome and doesn’t have a single spark of passion for it, let her teach about ancient China (or whatever her passion may be). Kids become life long learners by seeing the adults around them act as life long learners. When teacher’s show passion they are showing they are life long learners.

I know on the surface the tests seem to make sense. It sounds reasonable that all kids should learn the same things. It seems reasonable that you should test the kids to make sure they know something. But that is all smoke and mirrors. The extremely detailed and regimented lesson plans that the teachers of Virginia must follow only serve to show a complete lack of trust in every teacher in the state. Teachers are trained to teach. If they don’t do a good job, they shouldn’t be teachers. It’s that simple.

Someone in the state of Virginia is making a LOT of money off their Standards of Learning. All the schools have to buy classroom sets of these regimented workbooks and curriculum guides. There’s a workbook for everything you can imagine–Abe Lincoln’s life, simple machines, Ancient Rome. The schools actually have the same reading books the schools in Oregon did, with one key difference–they are special edition Virginia books. It’s utterly insane.

Wow. That was totally not what I intended to talk about tonight. I intended to tell you that I wasn’t as stressed today. In fact I am feeling down right calm. The pregnancy symptoms are getting strong. That whole “pregnant women are forgetful” thing is proving true. I forgot that I made pizza dough this morning and went off to work with it rising. Good thing I had it in a much bigger bowl than necessary. Actually, it turned out to be the best pizza crust I’ve ever made, so maybe I learned something. I am also extremely emotional (Duh! I hear you say). I was listening to country music this afternoon and had tears streaming down my face–someone’s parent died, there was a victim of child abuse, someone’s spouse cheated on him, someone sent her parents money as a gesture of love. I didn’t realize country music was so melancholy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2005 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.