Stupid time is upon us here in the state of Indiana. Once again, time and resources are going to be wasted going through this exercise in stupidity. Why are we going through this exercise in stupidity? The state of Indiana will make the lives of school corporations leadership miserable if the scholars don't participate in the Indiana STUPID Testing for Education Progress (ISTEP) test.
About a week and a half ago the process of practicing to pass the Stupid test began in earnest as practice Stupid tests were distributed to all of the teachers. The practice Stupid tests are tests put together to practice what experts 'think' will be on the official Stupid test. So what is going on is pretty simple, we are practicing to pass a test and any lesson plans previously established are put on the back burner.
My first encounter with practicing for this Stupid test came during a math block lesson. The teacher addressed the students by stating that half of the class can't multiply two digit numbers so we will practice multiplication. Sadly, you just can't practice multiplication the way that generations before us did. No, you have to give the scholar three options on how to multiply two digit numbers; standard algorithm, lattice math, and the area model that multiplies by place value. So instead of having one solid block of math time dedicated to standard algorithm multiplication you have three small segments on multiplication. If you want to improve the scholars ability to multiply would it be better to have one solid block of math time or three shorter blocks of math time? The answer seems obvious to me but what do I know, I'm just a volunteer.
Alright, back to the classroom. With the addition of Fruit and Blank the dynamics of the classroom changed and changed a lot. Over the past couple weeks Fruit, Blank, and Tourette have been suspended. Prior to the arrival of Fruit and Blank I can't recall any suspensions dating back to mid-September when I arrived back in the classroom. All three suspensions were for a combination of verbal aggression and extremely offensive language directed at the female adults in the classroom. It's the offensive language that is directed at Knewer and Low that always causes me to pause and think because this language rarely is directed at me or even FBG. It also makes me pause and think about what type of home life these scholars have that they would even hear such offensive language.
Enough with the dark side of the classroom. Let's move on to something a little more upbeat.
Huey and Cue have been spending a good part of their day in a general education classroom. When they first started attending the general education classroom there was always a hesitation on their part, if not a down right refusal, to go. With time the attitude about attending the general education classroom has changed. Huey still resists going but the resistance is getting rarer. Cue, on the other hand, shows no resistance to going and in fact asks to leave early for the general education classroom. When you think back to the fact that when Cue first arrived in Knewer's classroom she arrived with an adult that sat right next to her in the classroom to keep her on task so she has come a long way. In fact, her progress has been so good that it appears that Cue will transition to the general education classroom on a full time basis right after spring break. So, will we have a second success story (EM was the first one) about one of our scholars successfully transitioning back into a general education classroom, maybe.
Here are some interesting conversations that I had over the past few weeks that took place outside the confines of the classroom where I have a view from the back of the room. There are all school related but not my school. Am I going to tell you the name of the schools involved in these incidents? No!
Here is the first one. A third grade scholar dropped his pencil on the floor. When asked to pick up the pencil the third grade scholar said, "no." When asked a second and third time to pick up the pencil the third grade scholar showed not even the slightest inclination to pick up the pencil. I informed the adult that was telling me this story how I would have addressed this matter. It's pretty simple and every scholar in my classroom knows what I will do. I will pick up the pencil, or any other object that is on the floor, and walk over to the 'pit of no return' and drop it inside it. It's amazing how quickly a defiant, stubborn, bullheaded little shit will run to the wastebasket to retrieve his or her possession. Here is my second conversation. This individual is telling me about a scholar that is taking the language arts portion of the Stupid test. When the test started this defiant, stubborn, bullheaded little shit refused to participate. Each time this individual walked past this little shit, this individual pointed at the paper where the little shit was to put down a written response to the question. So, what happened after this individual pointed at the paper? The little shit wrote one word and the word had nothing to do with the question. Here is the last one, another Stupid incident. This incident took place during the math portion of the Stupid test. This scholar, unlike to two defiant little shits that I mentioned previously, was actually trying to pass the test. Sadly, despite doing the best work possible, this scholar ended up in tears. Why? This scholar was taking the test on-line and again, like it has happened countless times before, the software failed. This scholar had to click on a tool box icon to complete the problem. Time after time, the tool box failed to do what it was supposed to do. When this scholar completed the math portion of this Stupid test the scholar told the teacher what happened. Paraphrasing. "I knew how to solve the problem, I knew the correct answer, but I couldn't do the problem correctly because I couldn't get the tool box item to do what I wanted it to do."
I know how to solve this Stupid problem and I'm sure some of you already know what I'm going to say. If you want to take away the stress, anger, and scholars breaking down in tears when taking this Stupid test you need to do this. Collect all of Stupid related hardware and take it to the highest point in the school. Open the window and toss all the hardware out the window and watch it break into pieces when it hits the ground. Then walk down the stairway, exit the side of the school where the hardware hit the ground, dig a deep hole and bury the hardware. Now you can walk back into the school and pass out the paper and pencil version of the Stupid test. Pretty simple.
I'm certain that some of you have already figured this out but I'm really struggling when it comes to the classroom and this blog. With the addition of Fruit and Blank, academics has taken a serious hit and my greatest enjoyment in doing what I do is the academics. To further add to my struggles, we just got another scholar and that puts us up to eight. I mentioned my struggles to my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse and she respond, "you don't have to tell me you're struggling, I can tell it when you come home. I can tell that something that you loved to do for all of these years is no longer enjoyable for you."
As we talked she said this to me. "If you walk away now what will the classroom be like?" I thought about it for a minute and then said. "I do more crowd control now than I do academics and if I walked out Knewer and Low would be faced with a potential nightmare situation." I continued, "we have two scholars; Fruit and Blank that have little respect for Knewer and Low. They can be defiant, disrespectful, refused to follow instructions, and don't have any hesitancy to direct an F-bomb in their direction. If I sit quietly in the back of the room when these two scholars exhibit this behavior it will continue to escalate. All the time they are escalating I can see them look in my direction to see what I am doing. If I do nothing, they continue. If I stand up and walk in their direction their behavior stops immediately." When I finished talking my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse looked and me and said, "so, leaving right now will only add to the classroom problem." "Yes."
I have one more week of school before the two week spring break. When my spring break ends my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse goes on spring break and I will be joining her. That gives me a three week break from the classroom. Maybe all I need is a break to regroup and then finish the school year. I know I can go one more week. As far as finishing the school year, I'll have to think about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment