My classroom has windows, and the students make sure to let me know if it's snowing-- "Aww, you gotta be kidding me! NOOOO!!!"
The other night Dirk and I braved the rain for our nightly walk. We both had umbrellas. Hendrik was in the stroller with a rain cover (which didn't actually cover his feet, and despite his blanket he still got some chilly toes, poor guy), and Shelby came along in her new head collar. It's fantastic. We laughed about how we must look and wondered if anyone was going to stop and offer to help us. But no one did, thank goodness.
Sure seems like a great way to whip lazy public school teachers into shape, huh. And if they teach a subject like mine, where students by definition do badly on tests, well, some improvement still has to be there.
At the same time that the laws are being passed about student test data for teacher evaluations, additional laws are being passed lowering the bar to become a teacher and administrator. Starting a year or two ago, there is no financial incentive for teachers to go on for additional training. Getting a masters' degree really helps you build knowledge in a content area, but it counts for squat now. They are also making it much easier to get licenses, and there's talk that in the future all you'll need to do to get a teacher's license is to pass the Praxis test in the subject area. (Not to toot my own horn, but I could have passed the English one in high school. It's not super difficult.) The Indiana legislature has sent this message to teachers: Your "profession" is nothing special-- anyone with half a brain can do it, and by the way, your success at it is largely out of your hands, because it depends on how well your students pass a test.
It's not quite as bleak as that sounds-- less than half of our evaluation is based on student test data, and our administrators are encouraging us to submit documents to show that we meet the criteria they evaluate us on. But still, it has been a stressful year. I'm hoping that I get an ok evaluation (you are either "effective" and get a raise or "not effective" and get put on probation), but I have zero control over the testing outcome, since it's a standard test that all English Language Learners take once a year. Hopefully next year we will all come to our senses and use a model that is a little less ulcer-inducing.
On top of that, we've had to line up alternate childcare for Hendrik. His regular baby-sitter, who I love (purposely didn't use whom there, but I still would've passed that test!), has been away in Mexico on a family medical emergency for 2 months. It just got to be too much for the friend I had been taking him to. I have found people to watch him until the end of the school year, but I don't know what will happen after that. Trying not to fixate on it.
Ready for some spring weather and sunshine and a break from school!