first week of new year

Soooo what a week.. all in all i'd say it actually went well.. Kids learned, kids paid attention, kids didn't talk too much, lessons went smoothly, was observed and all was good.

I mean i did have to call 911 one day b/c a girl thought it was a great idea to stick her finger in her desk in a little hole.. and let it get stuck. Only took, the principal, vice principal, art teacher, other third grade teacher, 2 custodians, vaseline, lotion, dishwashing liquid, 10 firefighters and a HUGE saw thingy to get her out.... haha no teaching went on THAT afternoon!

i did find some kinda scary news out today though. So thanks to president Bush all public schools are requiered to make no child left behind laws, which means basically that children are screwed, but every public school has to make something called AYP... what it stands for.. i don't really know, annoying yucky problems? awful yearly prognostics? i'm not really sure. But every school in KC has to take a test called hte MAP at the end of the year and score "proficient" to meet ayp. At the beginning of this year i was assured by my principal there was NO pressure for me and my other third grade teacher to make AYP b/c our kids were "too low to make it"

Fastforward to january.. principal meeting with me, other third grade teacher, principal, vice principal, and instructional coach... "So our only hope of making AYP this year is with third grade. They have made the most improvement throughout the year. They are the closest to getting AYP and if you really push kids a, b, c, d, e, f, and g you will make it.

WHICH A.
Is great.. our kids are learning! means something for us as teachers to see kids excel!
b. They only think some kids will excel and so we should forget about the rest
c. the next 3 months will consist of nothing but prepping my kids for a stupid standardized test taht in the long run will not teach them as much as my other plans would have
d. THE CLOSING OF MY SCHOOl rests on me and the other third grade teachers hands.....
e. DID I MENTION I"M A FIRST YEAR TEACHER!??

so that's a little overwhelming.. and honestly this public school system really goes against mine (and many people's) grain b/c it's teaching for a test.... which i'm going to try and not do the most i can.. while still doing, b/c if i don't... my kids wont have a school, and they will be sent to a much more dangerous /inconvenient school, and that would break my heart...


so that is all for now.. loong post, i do apologize.

no time to teach

So it's the first week back since break (thanks to our 1 week snow week! Snow week 2010! :)

And yesterday went well! the kids remembered things, they knew their spanish, behaved well and things went smoothly.

This morning i find out taht i have to teach "Map Prep" AKA get those kids to get higher scores on a stupid fing test. I HAVE TO TEACH TWO 45 MINUTE BLOCKS. Which means out of the 4 hrs i actually have to teach my kids i will only have them for 2.5 hrs now... HOW IN THE WORLD AM I GOING TO TEACH THEM ANYTHING!?!?!? Not to mention map prep is in ENGLISH.... and i'm trying to teach my kids spanish.. HOW IN THE WORLD ARE THEY GOING TO LEARN SPANISH.... OOOOOO this district/countries education system REALLY frustrates me