If McPherson school district was one of the chosen schools under the new innovative bill it would lead to many changes in our district. I feel that each teacher will have their own outlook on whether or not those changes are positive or negative. My thought is that it will bring about many positive changes.
I hear teachings talking about what it was like to teach before No Child Left Behind and all of the assessments. I don't have that background but I do have a desire to do what is best for children and I know that preparing them for a test is not what we need to be doing. If we are able to have this waiver from many of the current regulations it will hopefully create a classroom of unique, student driven learning.
I'm learning that I have a passion for the development of young children in our community and their education. I wonder what receiving this waiver would allow us to do for the 3 and 4 year olds in our community. If it helped us provide an enriched learning environment for any 3 or 4 year old whose family chose to send them that would be very exciting.
Since I do not teach at the grades where state tests are given I don't know if many teachers are still spending a lot of time teaching to the test. I know that our district has said not to do this but I also think many teachers worry about what will happen if their students do not do well. When I did teach 3-5 special education I was able to distance myself from that pressure because I knew that the test did not show what the students could do or anything that I didn't already know. With that said, there was still a lot of wasted learning time.
I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher and what my philosophy is. I think that it would be important for the district to somehow get all teachers to remember/figure out their philosophy and use that to help guide us through the changes that will occur if we get the waiver.
Change can be exciting and difficult all at the same time. It will take a lot of collaboration and thinking outside the box to make positive changes throughout the district. It's something to look forward to so that we can start to change the system of public education.
I would also be excited to see how this could affect out pre-k program as it stands now.
ReplyDeleteI think something that might be interesting as far as the individual philosophies go would be to see how they group across the district and how working all the philosophies together what ideas could come out from our core beliefs.
Would it surprise you to know that some teachers are teaching to the tests when it is not required? :)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately no. I don't know if they are doing so because they got in that habit and now it is just what they do or if they just feel (tell themselves) that if they do that they will teach what they are supposed to. I do think that some of it comes down to this-until we have a different way that we can assess students teachers are going to still teach to the test.
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