A Post, Just For The Hell Of It

My new reward system went into effect today. It worked better with my morning class than my afternoon class, but that's typical. Teaching in the afternoon is nearly impossible.

I had fewer late students this morning, which was also a positive, but it's also occured to me that it's ridiculous that I have to jump through all these hoops to get the kids to do the things that they are supposed to do.

I've been a good little soldier and have been attempting to use more data. Of course, it took me about three weeks to be able to log on to Acuity. No one could figure out why, but then I realized that my old DOE e-mail account is somehow lost in cyberspace, replaced with a newer one I had no idea about with both my maiden and married names. In the meantime, I still haven't been able to log on to ARIS.

I suppose that the millions the Tweedians coughed up for these programs wasn't enough.

More importantly, I wish I knew when I was supposed to have time to look at all this data. While I don't think it's the be-all, end-all that the brainwashed educrats think it is, I do think it can be useful. But we get no time to look at it, or think about what it says, other than the fact that Johnny can't read because he doesn't come to school have the time and does nothing when he's there.

Each week I'm tempted to boycott our weekly common conferences. It's wasted time, really. There hasn't been a concrete agenda in weeks. And the programs were done in such a way that not all the teachers on a grade are at the meetings, because many of them are teaching. Last year, as difficult as it was, I found solace in the other teachers on my team. We all taught the same kids, and while a focus on instruction would have been more beneficial, at least we were able to discuss the kids who were challenging us the most and come up with ideas and solutions. We were truly a team. I don't have that this year, even though I am fortunate to have a great working relationship with the math teacher for the grade. We're a team of two, at least.

Otherwise, I feel like I am totally on my own. The curriculum guidance is non-existent, and we're always being hammered on using the data and using technology without any real conversations about how to implement these things.

Today I started my full-blown, hard-core test prep. It bores the shit out of me, but at least I don't have to think quite so much. So maybe this month I will be able to figure out ARIS. If, of course, I'm able to log on.