Friday post-review

It wasn't as bad as I expected. Which is not to say it was actually a good day. Read Across America took over the school, so I had a guest reader in one class. For the others, I read a book to them, which mainly went well, except for a few kids that take the opportunity to talk while I am reading. We all have those. No movement on the troubled kid front - he continues to act out. Principal thanked me for getting him my statement so quickly (from home, the night of the incident), and the Asst. Principal asked what time the event took place, so I assume there is a review of hallway video to back me up.

I gave in to the pressure today. I gave each student a manila folder and a checklist on a sheet of yellow paper. The checklist has every State Performance Indicator for sixth grade, and I have a one-sheet test for each one of them. They are all in TCAP style and language, none is over 6 questions. For the foreseeable future, I will be teaching to the test. Not exclusively, but all assessments will be toward mastery of concepts on the TCAP, using calculators correctly, covering ideas that haven't come up in the textbook pacing, etc. Life will be simpler, I guess, but I still feel like I am selling out, and in the long-run it won't move the needle, so I will compromise myself for basically nothing.

Good things - some kids still respect and even like me, even some who are difficult in class. Those morning greetings are a nice reminder that they care, even if they can't always control their behavior in class. I got a database up for my classes so we can use the "clickers" with the smartboard. Side story - I discovered a massive bug in the application. You can enter a database, but counterintuitively, but to create a new one, it prompts you to save the old one. But there is no function to retrieve the old one, nor can it be found or accessed anywhere on the computer. Fun fun.

Best thing - one week to Spring Break, and Wednesday I won't be in school due to jury duty. Crazy that it feels like a good thing.