Time on Things Not Tested

You'd have to be living under a rock to not know that Testing is King in public education.  That means a lot of things and its ramifications are far reaching and I hope to expose you to the situation, which is impossible to tackle in a year of blogs. I'll just pick one question I'm pondering.

In my imagination, in lore or truly in the past, it seems that teachers worked with kids on things which we believe will produce success.  In the age of standards based results, it is my impression that we are to care less about the overall propensity to success for a student and more about their ability to show mastery of a subject, which is a fancy way to say "do well on a test."  But the parent in me finds myself noticing more and more what I can do to help a child find success in general, regardless of academic performance.

For instance, last week I spent part of my planning period going through a child's book bag helping this student realize that folding up papers and shoving each subject's assignments/notes/handouts might not be the best way to start out the year.  I've made a deal with her that when I randomly check her bookbag if I see all her work in the appropriate notebook/binder/spiral/folder, I'll give her a piece of candy.  This student doesn't want to come to school and seemed to be overwhelmed already in the beginning of the year and I wanted to help even though my generously sharing part of my planning time was not met with gratitude from said 13 year old.

But, you should know that I have ADD. I struggle with organization, time management, keeping up with stuff and often find myself overwhelmed and thought some tough love (throwing out her back pack and all of its wadded up, crinkled, unkempt contents on a desk) might help her start the year off on the right foot.  By the end of our session, the student seemed to be happy. Well, happy might be pushing it -- there was less mumbling and I received eye contact.

This session on organization pressed me for time during my planning period, though, but I did put together a good lesson with varied activities. I am lucky that I've taught my subject for 6 years. The point here is this -- was this a good use of my time?  Do taxpayers want teachers to spend our time doing such endeavors? Because it seems to me that the priorities establish the only thing y'all want from teachers is the data....the academic achievement...the acceptable test scores. Helping a child get organized might not relate to achievement so was I wasting my time on the tax payer dime?

Speaking of time, let me make this clear: I work when I'm at school. I do not bring work home. NOTHING. I do not grade from home, I do not lesson plan from home, I do not call parents from home. I may send the occasional email, but I work while I am there. That is my shift; my family and my personal life get the other 16 hours of my day.  Therefor, my planning time is precious. So was I wasteful of myself? Am I wrapped up in the paradigm of school sucess that I think the organization of a student matters. Maybe it doesn't matter at all as long as a child can do well on a test.  I honestly don't know the answer to these questions; I just know that in my world, I've felt less overwhelmed and more successful when I was organized. Problem is you can't qualify or quantify that. It is a feeling, just like being a good teacher or a good mother goes a lot on feeling. Do we want teachers with feelings in our classrooms or do we want proven success with academic achievement?

I wish I had a nice little vignette on how to close this out, but I don't.  These are the decisions and questions teachers make every day. Where do we spend our time? With whom do we give individual attention? What exactly is it that you want me to teach the next generation?