I have been retired now for a little over two months. In fact, I did not actually feel retired until August 7, when my colleagues had to return to work. They worked three days, and then the students started. I thought I would be sadder than I am. I thought I would have pangs of regret once the school year started and I was not a part of it. However, that has just not happened.
On Wednesday, August 12, 2009, the students started back to school. I had promised my kindergarten colleagues that I would come that day to help out with the typical first-day chaos. It was nice to be back among the kids. It was nice to see my colleagues. It was not nice to have to contemplate the cruel reality that these precious five-year-olds will have to face.
Gone are the days when a future architect can build a block tower just to delightedly crash it down. Gone are the days when a future graphic designer can experiment with paint and create a whole new color. Gone are the days when a future civil engineer can design a road for the car on the floor. Gone are the days when a future mother can lovingly rock the baby doll while crooning her to sleep. Gone are the days when five-year-olds can spend time just conversing with each other, working out how this getting along thing works.
It breaks my heart to see the soul sucked out of a place that used to be a bubbling spring of juvenile joy and enthusiasm. As a result, I have decided that my volunteering at my former school will be limited to helping with the choir. At least there, the joy still can be heard.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Release and Relinquish
I’ve been officially retired now for almost three weeks. However, it really does not feel like retirement yet; it feels like summer vacation. Of course, that’s what it is to my still-working colleagues. I keep reminding myself that this wonderful schedule of getting up around seven a.m., leisurely preparing for the day, having opportunities to make business calls during the business day (rather than trying to remember to make those calls between 3:30 and 5:00 p.m., or before 8 a.m. if the business is in the eastern US), and actually having sovereignty over my own day will continue for the rest of my life.
But, when my colleagues have to return to work, will I still feel the same bliss? I have given this some real thought. I taught kindergarten in the same school for all of the twenty years it has been in existence. I feel very much as if that kindergarten is “mine.” I was very instrumental in giving it the structure it has now. My kindergarten colleagues who will continue to teach there have every right to re-structure things (within the confines of No Child Left Behind, of course). And I have an obligation to keep my opinions to myself – an accomplishment that my family and close friends know does not come very naturally to me. It is not at all unlike raising one’s children to adulthood, then letting them go out into the world to live their own lives, making their own mistakes, and suffering the consequences of, or reaping the rewards of their own choices. I must release. I must relinquish.
The releasing and relinquishing will be easier because of my plans to keep working with children and literacy. It might be volunteering at the public library. It might be “hanging a shingle” and beginning a tutoring service. It might be volunteering as an “intervention tutor” at the school from which I just retired. It might be a combination of all three things, or something as yet undiscovered. Whatever the future holds, I intend to grab on and enjoy the ride. In the process, I intend to help enrich the lives of children and their families. Bring it on!
But, when my colleagues have to return to work, will I still feel the same bliss? I have given this some real thought. I taught kindergarten in the same school for all of the twenty years it has been in existence. I feel very much as if that kindergarten is “mine.” I was very instrumental in giving it the structure it has now. My kindergarten colleagues who will continue to teach there have every right to re-structure things (within the confines of No Child Left Behind, of course). And I have an obligation to keep my opinions to myself – an accomplishment that my family and close friends know does not come very naturally to me. It is not at all unlike raising one’s children to adulthood, then letting them go out into the world to live their own lives, making their own mistakes, and suffering the consequences of, or reaping the rewards of their own choices. I must release. I must relinquish.
The releasing and relinquishing will be easier because of my plans to keep working with children and literacy. It might be volunteering at the public library. It might be “hanging a shingle” and beginning a tutoring service. It might be volunteering as an “intervention tutor” at the school from which I just retired. It might be a combination of all three things, or something as yet undiscovered. Whatever the future holds, I intend to grab on and enjoy the ride. In the process, I intend to help enrich the lives of children and their families. Bring it on!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Whew!
Well, it’s officially done. I am a retired teacher now. My last work day was Thursday, June 11, 2009, a day without students. The students’ last day was Wednesday, June 10, 2009.
My decision to retire this year was made easier by at least two factors: first, as my previous blogs have indicated, I have become fed up with the way public education is being conducted now. Second, due to the dismal economy, my school district offered a generous Supplemental Employees’ Retirement Program (SERP) as a way to entice us expensive long-term teachers to retire.
As this school year progressed, I became more and more uncomfortable with the things I was expected to be doing in my classroom. A new, one-size-fits-extremely-few teaching strategy was being forced upon us. Not only were we expected to eagerly participate in two-hour planning sessions – for one lesson, with our students being taught by a substitute teacher – but a few days after the planning session, we were observed by no less than two clipboard-holding, note-taking people while we taught the afore-planned lesson. We were being observed to see if we were following all the prescribed steps, in the prescribed manner, without any unnecessary side trips or taking advantage of “teachable moments.”
I feel as if all my individuality and creativity was not only undesired, but downright discouraged. For example, we were required to use some sort of device on which the students’ names could be written, such as craft sticks, key tags, etc. for the purpose of randomly selecting students to respond to questions. We were not allowed to use our best teacher judgment and call on the students whom we felt would need to be brought back from their apparent day dream, or a student whose answer we felt would benefit the responder as well as the class.
Here is where the frustration began: I was progressing through the ever-so-scripted lesson, teaching, asking, pausing, and picking responders. At one point, I had only asked two randomly-selected students and proceeded with the next question whereupon the coach interrupted me to tell me that I must select a third student to respond to the question. It could not be just two, it had to be three. It seems like such a minor thing, but it is an indication of the absurdity of it all.
The idea behind all this is the theory that, with all this somewhat-scripted lesson delivery, the students will make bigger gains in learning, which would raise their scores on the standardized tests, and therefore make the school look good. Students have become nothing more than data generators.
This is just one thread in the fabric of reasons why I can no longer, in good conscience, continue to teach in the public school. Thankfully, I am at an age, and have the years necessary to be able to retire without losing too much.
I may not be a public school teacher anymore, but I fully intend to keep my hand in education by volunteering. I also would be very good at tutoring children who are struggling to become emergent readers. I have so many wonderful, creative ideas! I cannot wait to put some of them to good use.
My decision to retire this year was made easier by at least two factors: first, as my previous blogs have indicated, I have become fed up with the way public education is being conducted now. Second, due to the dismal economy, my school district offered a generous Supplemental Employees’ Retirement Program (SERP) as a way to entice us expensive long-term teachers to retire.
As this school year progressed, I became more and more uncomfortable with the things I was expected to be doing in my classroom. A new, one-size-fits-extremely-few teaching strategy was being forced upon us. Not only were we expected to eagerly participate in two-hour planning sessions – for one lesson, with our students being taught by a substitute teacher – but a few days after the planning session, we were observed by no less than two clipboard-holding, note-taking people while we taught the afore-planned lesson. We were being observed to see if we were following all the prescribed steps, in the prescribed manner, without any unnecessary side trips or taking advantage of “teachable moments.”
I feel as if all my individuality and creativity was not only undesired, but downright discouraged. For example, we were required to use some sort of device on which the students’ names could be written, such as craft sticks, key tags, etc. for the purpose of randomly selecting students to respond to questions. We were not allowed to use our best teacher judgment and call on the students whom we felt would need to be brought back from their apparent day dream, or a student whose answer we felt would benefit the responder as well as the class.
Here is where the frustration began: I was progressing through the ever-so-scripted lesson, teaching, asking, pausing, and picking responders. At one point, I had only asked two randomly-selected students and proceeded with the next question whereupon the coach interrupted me to tell me that I must select a third student to respond to the question. It could not be just two, it had to be three. It seems like such a minor thing, but it is an indication of the absurdity of it all.
The idea behind all this is the theory that, with all this somewhat-scripted lesson delivery, the students will make bigger gains in learning, which would raise their scores on the standardized tests, and therefore make the school look good. Students have become nothing more than data generators.
This is just one thread in the fabric of reasons why I can no longer, in good conscience, continue to teach in the public school. Thankfully, I am at an age, and have the years necessary to be able to retire without losing too much.
I may not be a public school teacher anymore, but I fully intend to keep my hand in education by volunteering. I also would be very good at tutoring children who are struggling to become emergent readers. I have so many wonderful, creative ideas! I cannot wait to put some of them to good use.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
More Musings on Education
It’s been six months since I last posted to this blog. One of the reasons I have not posted in the past six months is that, as far as my job is concerned, not that much has changed, and almost all of this monotony is due to No Child Left Behind. I actually had hoped that, when Barack Obama took office, being the Democrat that he is, NCLB would be dismantled. No such luck.
I continue to be required to participate in meeting after meeting, all designed around data in some way, and usually scheduled during the teaching day, resulting in a substitute teaching my students. Sigh! As I have often said to my colleague, our students are not children anymore, they are merely data generators.
I am being required to teach in a manner that I strongly feel is not good for children. So, since I am old enough, and have taught long enough, and got my Master’s degree so that I could have my retirement allotment be based on the higher salary, I am retiring in June. The primary reason for my retiring is because I can no longer teach with a clear conscience.
I know that many of my colleagues agree with me. However, for their own reasons, they are choosing not to stand up and collectively say, “We refuse to go along with all this. It’s not good for the children!” There is strength in numbers. If the tenured teachers refused, as a group to do what they all know is not good for the children, the “powers that be” would be disenfranchised.
It is time that public school teachers put their collective foot down and refused to go along with the straight jacket known as No Child Left Behind. It is time for the school districts to refuse funds that come from NCLB. I realize that these words are almost heretical in today’s economy, but the price of participation just so the districts can have more money to spend is just too high! The price is the well being of our children, and the future they will make for us. Now that’s scary!
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