High Stakes Testing- High Stakes Goodies!

I know teachers are just as stressed as the kiddos this time of year! A lot of us teachers try to make life better for our little ones when they are under the pressure of taking the state tests.

Our tests start Monday.  I've barely slept all week! My little guys are as ready as their gonna be- we've been reading, writing and doing math all year.  I just hope they're ready enough!

To help them feel better on the testing days, I prepared a little treat for each day of the week.  I made this poster so they have something to look forward to each day!

I bought a big Costco sized box of Redbulls, 5 Hour Energy shots, and brownie mix.  The kids will be ready if I can help it!!

On Monday, the Redbulls will energize them and help them focus on the reading test.  On Tuesday, the 5 Hour Energy will keep them working through the writing test, and on Wednesday, the brownies I made (with extra special butter) will keep them working away on their math test.  I think my class results this year are gonna be stellar!!!

When are they making that teacher reality show again?

I would love to sign up, if they ever really have one.  I always hear "rumors" on the internet about teacher reality shows.  It occurs to me, that they are all written in jest, as no one would actually make a reality show about teaching.

Here's how I know it would never make it past the pilot.  This week, I spent a professional development day in another classroom.  It was hella boring.  I was yawning.  I was trying to take notes.  I was yawning some more.  This was a great teacher, with interesting lessons and even some excitement (a finger slammed in the door!)  The kids were sweet and adorable, and they even sung a cute song that I had in my head all evening.  However, it was still boring as fuck.

Somehow, when you're the one teaching the lesson, managing the owies, and singing the songs, it flies by quickly and suddenly you're at lunch, slumped over a stale cup of coffee and trying to get into the bathroom before that one teacher who stinks it up every lunch period.

Now, if there ever was a reality show, I think it should be like WifeSwap.  A business professional with children would switch jobs for a week with a teacher.  The reason that business professional must have children, is because generally people with children think they know how to teach.  It's more entertaining to see someone proven wrong than watch them simply fumble about.

So, on day 1, the teacher gets placed in the nice little business office.  She has to do all the things business people do.  File, answer emails, create forms, fill in forms, look stuff up online, make phone calls, answer phone calls, keep records.  Should be a snap. We do all that stuff every day.  And, it should feel like a vacation, because the teacher would get a business lunch, time to play online games, and do a little shopping on Amazon.com.

The business person would start day 1 on Monday morning, around 7:00 am, entering a classroom.  The business person would have to follow the first day's lesson plans (we wouldn't be too mean! They'd at least have one day of plans). However, they'd have to make copies, set out materials, gather materials, and be ready for the kids to arrive all before 8:15.  The fun would start when the kids show up.  Will the business person be able to keep them seated, listening, meeting standards, completing work?

Day 2, would be much the same for the teacher, as she continues to answer emails, go shoe shopping during lunch, and work on whatever work a business person does.  For the business person, they would be required to plan 6 hours worth of lesson plans, meanwhile, meeting the state standards and creating material that's just right for the ELL students, the learning disabled students, the low group, the high group, the middle group, and the gifted students.  They would have to a behavior plan in place for the children with behavior problems.

As the week goes on, the stakes get higher... formal observations, a visit from the superintendent's office, a class performance in front of the whole school, integrating technology when the technology is practically all broken, and dealing with the unfortunate experience of having to call CPS, have an emergency parent meeting, and having the class pet die.

The show would conclude with the teacher and the business person meeting one another.  The business person "wins" when they realize that the teacher deserves double her salary!!

I'm reserving all rights to this show.  If anyone wants to produce it, I get a fair share of the royalties!

When's next year?

Around this time of year, I start to think about next year.  I don't know about you, but it only takes me about 5 months to start wanting a new class. I'm someone who LOVES the romance phase... I love when things and fresh and shiny and new.  I love getting to know the kids, getting to see my routines come in to place, getting through the first big events of the new year.  This is why I have had more short term relationships than long ones.  He who must not be named only sticks with me because we spend the majority of our time in complete silence, in opposite rooms, doing our own things, and then suddenly and spontaneously finding each other again and jumping in the sack!

As we approach our hundredth day, state testing, parent conferences (again) and report cards, I begin to think of all of the other careers I coulda, woulda, shoulda had.

For example, I see those kids on the street collecting signatures for GreenPeace.  That seems like a fun job. And I know girls who make a lot waiting tables- make even more when they dance on top of them.  I think of all the girls in their cute designer business suits working in office buildings. The front desk girls in my dentist office wear matching outfits.  And they aren't scrubs.  They actually must go shopping together and buy matching little business outfits.  I think about how nice it would be to have a job that afforded me that kind of luxury.  Instead, even though I try to look cute, I know deep-down everything I wear to work inevitably ends up with glue, paint or snot on it.

And around this time of year, I get tired of writing parent emails, and I get tired of planning lessons,  get tired of being tired.  I also stress because our district is so small.  People get RIFed every year.  It hasn't been me yet, but I am actually one of only two teachers at my school who haven't been teaching there for like, forty-five years.  If they RIF anyone, it could be me.  And then, I worry non-stop about that.  I worry about being fired, of pissing someone off with my radical ways, of getting a new, less understanding, less cool principal who hates me, of losing my job, or getting fired, and going broke.

And part of me thinks, "eh, might not be so bad! I could go to massage school."

But part of me would really miss hearing, "teacher! teacher!" and would miss scraped knees, and tattle tails, and sharing time, and lunch count.

In case you didn't see this on Facebook...

You all know I believe in complete honesty with kids...