This happens to be the end of week in school in which we administered Maryland's High School Assessments, and also 3 days before the end of my 65th year.
I was in a computer lab for most of the day, yet I myself was not online, except when we needed to help a student who somehow had been knocked off testing and need to his exam restarted for him. Thus I feel very unconnected with the outside world, even more so than on a normal school day.
This was also a week in which my role as lead union rep consumed an inordinate amount of time. I had hoped to step down from that post for next year, but the person I had hoped would replace me is (a) doing his masters, and (b) about to become a new father. Somehow I know that I will have to continue this additional responsibility for one more year.
The additional hat I wear as an adviser to some on the Hill about educational policy also ramped up. Yesterday late afternoon I spent an hour with the LA now responsible for Education and Chief of Staff of a friend in the House, first going through the items in the bill already introduced by Duncan Hunter to eliminate programs - most of these items were proposed for elimination by the Obama administration - and then to anticipate what information would be need as additional bills are forthcoming towards reauthorization, albeit a piece at a time, of the major education act.
So let me offer random thoughts primarily about education.
About the testing - there were three sections, each with approximately 36 questions. Students were allowed 45 minutes for each section. Even if everyone was complete, we could not advance. Most finished in 30 minutes or less, then sat drawing pictures on their screen with the highlighting tool or doodling on scratch paper, because they were bored.
I looked at questions as students answered them. I cannot disclose actual contents. I saw perhaps 1/2 of the total questions. I saw the same thing being asked in multiple questions. I saw a question which incorrectly stated what a certain Supreme Court decision actually did. I saw a question with a truly poor phrasing of a basic economic concept. In short, the quality of the test was as expected and as previously experienced - not of particularly good quality. Fortunately this test is being eliminated, so students do not actually have to pass it to graduate from high school.
Checking with my students, they found it relatively easy, but then they were pretty well prepared. Of course, we have 4 more weeks of school for the students, and having now taken the state test, they want to shut down. They have two more deliverables for me, a a set of open book untimed essays to be handwritten at home, and a project that cannot be an essay or a research paper. They have no other work to do for me.
On Monday I will show them sample projects. On Tuesday and Wednesday we will watch a movie, either 12 Angry Men or Gideon's Trumpet. I will be out June 1-9 grading AP exams, during which they will have 6 days of classes where they can work on their remaining assignments. Perhaps that will keep them somewhat motivated, but who knows?
The position of the state superintendent is open in Louisiana. Believe it or not, Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education, has gotten involved. Governor Jindal has proposed the name of John White to the state board of education. White is a former Teach for America teacher who served in a high level position under Joel Klein in New York. He has never been an administrator within a school building, either assistant principal or principal. His track record in New York was one of being the person who closed down schools. That Duncan is intervening on his behalf is troubling merely because of the nature of Duncan's position. It also seems contrary to his nice words about teachers, to which so many of us responded negatively, as I did here. Mine is one of several pieces in response to Duncan that have received wider distribution as others have focused on what we wrote. Not that it matters. Those of us who are still teaching are trying to have our voices heard, but it is difficult.
Still, occasionally what we write apparently strikes a chord. When I wrote my reaction to the proposed endorsement by the National Education Association of Obama's reelection this summer, it apparently struck some nerves. First I was contacted by one of the people agreeing to pass on the recommendation to the Representative Assembly this June. Then I was contacted by NEA headquarters and asked if I would be willing to speak with Dennis van Roekel, the President of the NEA. That conversation is now scheduled for next week. We'll see (a) if it happens, and (b) if so, what the results may be.
Meanwhile, the Valerie Strauss's Washington Post Blog, the Answer Sheet. The link to that piece was widely distributed through various email lists that go to educators.
Meanwhile, we are now up to FIVE statewide teachers' unions which have endorsed. Some local unions are not only endorsing, but hiring buses to bring people to the event.
What we are doing is striking a chord - teachers and parents are tired of the hijacking of the public discourse on education by those with a narrow view of what education is. Whether we can make a difference we do not yet know, but we feel we must try, and remain encouraged at the response we are getting. That is, most of it. We are now experiencing some attacks. Apparently we represent enough of a threat to draw that kind of negative attention.
Teachers and their supporters are organizing through social media. That includes pushing back at the Department of Education, as the Press Secretary, Justin Hamilton, has experienced this week.
It is Friday evening. I am tired. I wonder if any of what we do will make a difference. A part of me feels as if we have already lost the war to save public education. Yet if I accept that, I would be very depressed as well as angry. I would find it hard to pour my heart and soul into teaching, into trying to make a difference for the students who pass through my care.
There is so much to do. I tire, I cannot do all I want, even now when I do not have to worry about additional instruction, about preparing students for tests. Now we can explore topics that interest the students in ways that appeal to them - the projects they will do in the next few weeks is one of the most positive parts of the year. On Monday, which also happens to be me 65th birthday, when they come in I will introduce the project to them. I spent what free time I had today, when not in the computer lab, taking out and setting up projects from previous years - mobiles, scrapbooks, board games, trivia games, artistic drawings, children's books, raps, poems, video tapes, power points, a set of matryoshka nesting dolls, plays . . . Reexperiencing what my students have done in previous years reminds me of why I keep teaching.
A rambling set of random thoughts, mainly on education.
Being posted at a time when the diaries scroll by quickly.
While I will tweet and post on my Facebook page, but no more.
A few thoughts, barely scratching the surface of the educational issues with which I am involved.
And now?
Don't know, but isn't that part of the fun?
Peace.