No Child Left Behind..really!

After a nice, long enough, 3 week break from my beloved work spent away from my work at home, I went in an almost an hour late to my elementary school. I have a cold that needed extra time in bed and the rainy cold weather slowed down my fellow road companions, thus slowing me down. I work part-time, and I could have easily stayed at home and made up the day easily later this week or another week. But, my cold was not enough to slow me down today. I was itching to see my students, the teachers I support and quite selfishly, even the lunch break I get to have with my WONDERFUL colleagues. I usually spend half my time with students and the other half with teachers, today, it was mostly teachers. I was involved in a heavy planning session with my 5th grade teachers (tomorrow will be 4th grade). You see, with our President's lovely No Child Left Behind Plan, there is so much testing and then even testing for the testing. So, right before the holiday break, we tested the kids with a mock standardized test to see how prepared they are at this point. We looked at all the data today to determine what intervention is necessary to help the students be successful AND what other "testing" we should proceed with..ergh! Anyhow, the reason I am writing is because, I was again reminded today in that meeting just how awesome public school teachers are!! I work with phenomenal teachers who take a lot of work home, hold their students' best interests at heart and who kill themselves thinking they are not doing enough, but really are. It makes me angry sometimes when our public school system is not respected as it should be. What I have learned in my 10 years as an educator is that not all public school are created the same. It is especially difficult to work at a Title 1 school that services mostly economically disadvantaged children...so very difficult. There is little to NO parent support and the children have so much more to worry about at home than they can care about school. I get that. I have worked at several schools and even worked at a private Christian school one year. I have learned that I am only cut out for Title 1...just as many of my colleagues are. There'e more than just teaching to the curriculum at our school. We essentially have to be mothers (or fathers) to our students. There are more issues with bad behavior, lack of motivation, and even little regard for their own academic success. But, my teachers rock, coming up with ways to solve those problems...and I am so glad our children get to have them on their side. I am so grateful for my Justin..my Maria..my Gerald..and all of my other students who make those 2-3 days I work a week so profoundly rewarding.
Picture taken mid December this year with a student I invited over to my old house for cookies. I adore him and the hot chocolate he brought over!