I am a huge advocate for public education. I taught in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and Katy Independent School District for eight years. If I could send my kids to a public school that looked like the public elementary I attended as a child, I would in a heart beat. It doesn't exist today.
In Nashville I taught children that had been placed with aunts due to their parents being incarcerated, visited their homes in the projects, had fourth graders that could not read. It was a first-year teacher's drive to help those students that did not have the support at home but loved coming to school. School was safe, fun, and encouraging. They felt successful at school. They felt loved at school. I knew in Nashville that I was making a huge difference in the future of those children. Patria, Eric, Matthew...they were my first students, and I had the freedom from the school district and the respect of my principal to teach as I saw fit to their needs. I taught fourth grade Language Arts that year, and the growth in reading skills was amazing for these children. It was what every education major in college hopes to accomplish. Shape the future of our society with your ability to teach today's youth.
In Katy ISD I started off with similar freedoms. I would do word walls and book studies with my fourth and fifth graders at Wolfe Elementary. My principal had worked in Houston ISD with low-income students and found a connection with me when I interviewed due to my Nashville experience. She would love to come by my classroom and see all of the discussions and excitement over the various novel studies going on. I was actually able to do more of my college work with these Katy kids. They were on pace, further along, and excited about learning. I had so much control over what happened in my classroom. I was able to differentiate for the various levels of learning.
I decided to make the change to junior high because I loved Biology, and I found that my personality worked well with older students. Seventh graders asked more questions, wanted justifications, and demanded explanations. Some might find this incredibly annoying, but I found it simply as a thirst for knowledge. Essentially in the 12-year old mind, when they are told something is the way it is, they want to know why. I see no harm in that. I was the same way. Sorry Mom!
At first teaching 7th grade science was great. We did labs, explored, wrote lab reports, and asked a million questions. In my second to last year teaching, co-teaching began. This was where special education teachers were with you the entire period to co-teach their students that were being main streamed. It was fabulous! It was a partnership that worked so well that year.
My last year however, was a mess. On the first day of school, sixth period, 42 children came into that classroom. As the chairs were filling up and students were beginning to sit on the lab counters around the edge of the room, in came my co-teacher. Not only was my classroom over capacity, but they had made a co-teach classroom over capacity. A class with special education students should be under capacity. It was appalling. When I discussed it with my principal, he said they were working on it, and most other schools in the district were worse off. I knew it was my last year. I sucked it up and moved on. I even found a renewed faith in the public education system when I switched to math half way through. I loved working with my best friend and had one of the most rewarding semesters ever.
Jump ahead three years - Allison is ready to go to Kinder. We bought our house specifically for Pattison Elementary. We knew parents there, read up on the statistics, and were excited to attend. Allison loved Kindergarten and 1st grade. She jumped out of bed each morning and was ready before it was time to leave. This little elementary was perfect, and boy had we struck gold!
This past year she was in second grade. All of the sudden our little learner didn't want to go school in the mornings. She asked if she had to go. She said it was boring and all they did was worksheets. When the math worksheets started to look like dots, boxes, and drawings we really took notice. Allison was missing questions that she had gotten correct.
After questioning this problem, it was counted correct. I was told the students were taught to count across then up, hence the marking incorrect. This was a private conversation between the teacher and myself. I always speak to the teacher before including Allison in on something I feel is unjust.
She was drawing five flower pots full of a dozen roses for a multiplication problem of 5 x 12 and getting it incorrect because she had drawn six petals on each flower. Imagine the margin of error when you have an inch-high space to draw this. Her teacher did say she didn't have to draw flower pots, it could have all been done with dots and circles. I'm sorry, but if a kid can multiply 5 x 12 using straight multiplication, what is the harm?
Common Core is the harm. As a state Texas has not officially adopted it. I call BS. Singapore Math is Common Core. Question stems for reading critical thinking is Common Core. What is so wrong with Common Core? It is a one-size-fits-all approach in an effort to raise the standard of education in the US. It is against how the young mind works.
Here is the sick part. Teachers, administrators, school districts... have no choice. They must adhere to state standards. Regardless of what comes out as a state-wide assessment, they have to do their best to make the highest scores possible. What it boils down to is teach to the test, and that reality is much uglier than when I was teaching. Allison's homework in second grade looked like standardized test questions, and the method by which she was expected to answer those questions was against anything I had ever been taught. In a drive to develop more critical, higher-level thinkers, public education is losing the basics and obvious lessons we have all succeeded with for years. They are losing the individuality and differentiated learning. They lost field trips! Read up on childhood brain development, and you will see how experiences build synapses. The experiences are being taken away.
So, here we are. I realize these new ways have a 5-10 year shelf life. I know something new will come along that some self-proclaimed educational guru will sell and make hundreds of thousands on their "cure". I sat in those trainings. Thank you Margaret Kilgo. Politicians will jump on board, and then there will be a new "standard of excellence". We have simply opted out. Our kids will not be guinea pigs for this wave. And, here's the honest truth. We might be right back in public school next year. We don't know how this year will turn out. We don't know if private will be better. We just feel we have to see if there's an alternative to the status quo that goes against what we want for our children.
Our driving factor - We want our children to grow to love learning, not resent it.
