swing of the hatchet

Trying to think of an apt word of the day... frustration? inefficacy? impotence?

Frustration like putting down the papers somewhere in the classroom and being unable to find them (or do anything else) for a full twenty minutes.

Inefficacy like staying until six and being unable to account for that time other than a few dozen photocopies, an empty bag of Cheet-os and some fuzzy mental notes on the week ahead.

Impotence like the school-wide memo, landed in our mailboxes today from out of nowhere, about the complete reorganization of AIS (extra help programs during the day) that will change everyone's schedule in the school and disrupt any routine anyone might've managed to establish so far and be basically a big pain in the neck for everyone involved. Clearly based on the last round of reading test results.

Not enough progress in those January scores? Not fast enough or steep enough curves on that fancy-looking data graph? Down comes the hatchet and reading programs in place for almost half the year now are slashed and burned, replaced with other new ones, different ones. Perhaps THIS will be the magic one, the panacea that will teach all the kids to read "On Grade Level" instantaneously; yes perhaps THIS one will be the one that will make all the difference. THIS must be the one with the right formula that will permanently eliminate the sub-category of below average kids, the one that will get those struggling readers not to struggle anymore...

Find me a reading program that gets S--- a full 8 hours of sleep at night, or his own bed maybe. Find me one that makes K--- more interested in writing than she is in making eyes at boys from across the room. Find me one that makes A--- do his homework or makes Sh--- able to sit down in his seat for more than thirty seconds at a time. Find me one that keeps N---'s fists away from other kids, or one that can make the class be quiet all at once so the B---'s and the P---'s and the J---'s can just do their work and learn something, which is all they want to do anyway. Find one that will write my conference notes for me so I could spend that time with the kids, listening to them, talking to them, being with them, like humans do. THAT would be a reading program I could get behind.

Let me know when you hear of one like that.

I just can't help feeling like they, the administration, are trying to wring out percentage points and test scores from the students as if the kids were so many wet rags or dry lemons. Rather than cultivating an environment where students might grow and be nourished, they prefer these knee-jerk, out-of-the-blue, no-questions-asked mandates with no warning... And to what end? To improve our ratings? To convince the Chancellor we are more effective than we are? To bump their salaries into the next bracket?

it's push push push but don't they know our backs are already up against the wall?

The problem is not the reading program we use, it's not the number of minutes of literacy instruction per day, it's not the students or even the teachers. It's nothing so simple as that. I wish I could say exactly what it is... the problem is the paradigm. The problem is the mind-closing of America, the mashing of brilliant young brains and limitless potential into undersized molds; the transformation of individual humans into mass-market performance machines, trained to fill in bubbles and follow the flow-chart of probabilities. It has to do with underestimating what people are capable of (both students and teachers) and insisting on conformity and sameness while willfully disregarding everything we know about the way we learn and the diversity and elasticity of the human mind.

I blame it on short-sightedness, small-mindedness and capitalism.