![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's Wednesday
Oct. 25th, 2017 06:41 pmEver seen 15 full grown adults squeeze themselves into first grade chairs? I got to today. I was one of those adults and, man, those chairs are bad enough for second graders, but adults? It was torture. And it was my room, too. See, we had a district wide grade level meeting at our school and since I’m the grade level lead, it was held in my room. Many years ago, the room was a first grade room and when I moved up grades, the desks and seats weren’t upgraded. So now, I’ve got kids who can walk over the chairs and desks that are breaking from old age. I really did not want to have the meeting in my room, but I had no choice. There was some grumbling, but what could we do?
Most of the meeting was focused on testing and how much testing was appropriate for second grade. What we have been doing is testing the kids weekly on comprehension, vocabulary, phonics and grammar and then, at the end of five weeks (which is how long each theme is) given a huge benchmark test. Most of the kids, no matter how high they are and how well they do on the weekly tests, fail the benchmark. (Although, this year, I had a lot better scores than I did last year). A teacher from my school suggested we not do the benchmark test and instead just focus on the weekly. Another teacher said the district admins would never let us do that and, beside, we need the benchmark for various reasons. Other teachers felt we had enough information without it, while still others felt that we need to test because they need training to take state tests in third grade. And around and around we went for almost an hour.
I’m not exactly sure where I stand on the issue. I do hate the benchmarks and think at the very least, they need to be revised. But I see the value of giving a benchmark to see if the skills we taught “sank in” and they can do them still a few weeks after they’ve been taught. But a 50+ question test is not the way to do that.
This was all coming to a head because next week, we start report cards. However, we are not done with the theme yet, so either we taught and tested at the same time, or we dropped the benchmark from this report card. I (and about half the teachers) thought we’d already decided not to put this theme on the report card, but the other half said that we’d decided that for net year, not this year.
In the end, it was decided that we just go with what we had. So, at my school, that means we’re not worrying about theme 2 for report cards because we’re not done and it’d be too much, especially since Halloween is next week. That’s already a day of Language Arts instruction that I won’t get to because we’ve got the costume parade in the morning, library, and then (presumably) a party in the afternoon (if we don’t have to do RTI). So, I’ll be a day behind and don’t need to worry about cramming a huge test into my week on top of it.
In other news, guess whose lesson got chosen for the Maker’s Fair? I found out today by doing to the website where teachers can sign up to go to the Maker’s Fair and there was our lesson. So, I need to put on my big girl pants and present to a bunch of teachers. But, it will be fine. It’s a good lesson and I’m a good teacher. I can do this.
Most of the meeting was focused on testing and how much testing was appropriate for second grade. What we have been doing is testing the kids weekly on comprehension, vocabulary, phonics and grammar and then, at the end of five weeks (which is how long each theme is) given a huge benchmark test. Most of the kids, no matter how high they are and how well they do on the weekly tests, fail the benchmark. (Although, this year, I had a lot better scores than I did last year). A teacher from my school suggested we not do the benchmark test and instead just focus on the weekly. Another teacher said the district admins would never let us do that and, beside, we need the benchmark for various reasons. Other teachers felt we had enough information without it, while still others felt that we need to test because they need training to take state tests in third grade. And around and around we went for almost an hour.
I’m not exactly sure where I stand on the issue. I do hate the benchmarks and think at the very least, they need to be revised. But I see the value of giving a benchmark to see if the skills we taught “sank in” and they can do them still a few weeks after they’ve been taught. But a 50+ question test is not the way to do that.
This was all coming to a head because next week, we start report cards. However, we are not done with the theme yet, so either we taught and tested at the same time, or we dropped the benchmark from this report card. I (and about half the teachers) thought we’d already decided not to put this theme on the report card, but the other half said that we’d decided that for net year, not this year.
In the end, it was decided that we just go with what we had. So, at my school, that means we’re not worrying about theme 2 for report cards because we’re not done and it’d be too much, especially since Halloween is next week. That’s already a day of Language Arts instruction that I won’t get to because we’ve got the costume parade in the morning, library, and then (presumably) a party in the afternoon (if we don’t have to do RTI). So, I’ll be a day behind and don’t need to worry about cramming a huge test into my week on top of it.
In other news, guess whose lesson got chosen for the Maker’s Fair? I found out today by doing to the website where teachers can sign up to go to the Maker’s Fair and there was our lesson. So, I need to put on my big girl pants and present to a bunch of teachers. But, it will be fine. It’s a good lesson and I’m a good teacher. I can do this.
