Standardized Tests Dictate What Teachers Can Teach

“This may be a bit off topic and I dont know your opinion on the topic either way but what would your answer be to someone who asks "How would more funding to schools get the test scores higher"?”

“4th G ELA teacher. At this point the "why" doesn't matter. Parents, cell phones, curriculum - I just don't want to hear the blame game anymore. What matters is what happens when they get to my classroom. Reading teachers need very strong class management to even begin to address reading issues. There's no app or single strategy that can compensate for not creating a calm and safe environment for students and reading. Once order and calm is established then I feel it is impo”

“Things are too complex and trying to force kids to be friends doesn't really work in middle school and high school.”

“Some things that have been useful in my middle school classroom 1. Area to organize graded work before filing = Construction Paper Storage, Classroom Mailboxes, 2. For students to submit work = 6 Durable Book and Binder Holder 3. For extra copies of assignments and late work forms = 7 Pocket File Pocket Chart 4. A document camera!!! 5. Something that reminds you of your why. I have photos of my favorite people as kids my students age. Hope this helps!”

“I ignored the recommended readers for my class this year. I had my strong readers do pair up with mid range readers and do the readers buddy reading style while I did a phonics/catch up reading intervention with the non-readers. The improvement in the non/weak readers was two fold on previous years and the middle to high readers maintained typical growth. I use the PM Benchmark kits to assess my students (grade 5) every year and for the first time this year, every single student grew at least 1”

“All the programs, interventions, and incentives will not overcome to major issue-kids (and adults) are not reading. Kids need to read I order to build reading stamina and vocabulary knowledge to assist in reading comprehension.”

“Unfortunately true, as someone with a BA in theatre education who has been teaching English for 3 years.”

“Standardized testing in schools where you aren’t allowed to fail underperforming students, and are forced to pad their grades in a variety of ways, is oxymoronic. When it became more about please parents and government money tied to performance rather than what the kids know and don’t know, that’s where we started to fall off the cliff.”

“ha i wish i could help you but this 9-12 esol teacher feels the same way as you. nothing works and its total chaos and survival by the end of the year. going to year 10 here. happy to read what works for others tho!!!”

“At my school it’s the same way with Desmos and state testing. It’s sad but admin wants their good scores.”

“PD is mid-August, and school starts at the end of August. Usually I spend July going through my curriculum and brainstorming refinements for next year (I'm under 10 years of teaching) but I'm frozen. I teach middle school, and last year was very frustrating and disillusioning for a variety of reasons, especially when it came to some student behavior issues and incidents. I want to want to get ready ASAP so I can soar next year, but I'm pretty discouraged, anxious, and pessimistic abo”

“I know that, but these resources aren’t available for him. We’re working with what we have here, and to be honest, it isn’t much.”

“Thank you so much. After some of the comments I’ve received in this thread, I felt hopeless. I wouldn’t be the one teaching these kids if there was better help for them around here, help that they could afford. I know I’m not the best to help them, but if I don’t do it, then they get no help.”

“6 year old can’t read CVC words? I have 8th graders who can barely read CVC words…. 6 year olds can easily catch up.”

“Looking for insight from anyone that has hired a private educator to *share* with other families. My family and 3 other families are looking in to potentially creating a sort of micro school system for our children. It would be split between 2 educators. One would have 3 boys(9, 8, and 7). The other would have 3 girls(all 6 years old). What’s really up in the air for us is location. 3/4 families live within the same neighborhood. We are all open to juggling things around to see what’s the best f”

“I mean to me, I feel as though something is wrong with that, especially in middle and high school. I live in a state where no incentives can be given for students to do well. If they perform poorly on the math and English, there are no lower of grades, no being held back, or no chance they won't graduate. It's like it's all on the teacher. A student could make straight A's and just push random choices on these exams and nothing happens except the teachers are told they aren't”

“So I have been teaching HS math for 12 years in my building and the last two years the test scores on STAR/PSAT have been falling. This will be the third year we have had lower scores each year. There are no incentives whatsoever allowed in our district to be put on students to do well. If they perform poorly, they can't be held back or have their grades lowered. Our dept has done changes suggested by upper leaders like new curriculum and new strategies in the classroom. The other math teach”

“I know it sucks and it is going to be painful, but if you continue doing what you're doing, she is going to adapt at some point. Kids are smart, they know that they can get away with everything at home, but not in class. I've seen some pretty tough kids becoming accustomed to the teacher's ways, but it will take a longer time than for other students.”

“No, you can read thousands of books to your child but if he/she is dyslexic, it won’t matter (other than maybe giving them a love of literature. Their brains process language differently so they need a different method of instruction.”

“Look look into UFLI, free systemic phonics from the university of Florida or refer him to someone certified in Wilson or Orton-Gillingham.”

“Has anyone here been to the Get Your Teach On conference? If so, can you share your thoughts/experience with this? I’m genuinely curious to know what it’s like and if you genuinely found it useful and enjoyable. I’ve seen some strange posts about the conference being gimmicky. submitted by /u/TransportationNo7309 [link] [comments]”

“Sorry in advance for the long post. Feeling like a bad teacher rn and could use some advice. I’m teaching English 12 in summer school (BC, Canada) and my students were working on a 5 paragraph in-class essay assignment this week. I originally planned to give them one day (about 3.5 hours) to plan and draft the essay, and 2 hours of the next day’s class to edit and type up their good copy. They did not know the exact essay question in advance to prevent AI use, but I gave them MANY hints, we talk”

“Yeah… I’m 29 and all we had to supply “for everyone” was tissues and germ-x.. Everything else was ours . Pencils, paper, crayons, etc. we kept it all in our desk. Now I’m seeing parents buying kids the folder they picked out and the kid being upset their bluey folder got handed to someone else right in front of them. Might as well not sell branded folders and just make them all solid colors at this point..”

“My district was paying something like 75 cents per scantron sheet for at least one if the first.”

“No idea how it’s going to be scheduled for the elementary students. There isn’t a common time during the day where everyone is at recess or lunch, so I suppose some kids will miss instructional time.”

“I am a high school teacher wrapping up a M.Ed, so I suspect my experience is a bit different than most people’s in this sub. The major project was conducting action research in our classroom and then creating a portfolio of our best work from our time in the program. My defense is right around the corner and we are told it’s not really a defense, but more so a professional conversation about how we’ve grown. I asked my advisor about preparation, but just got a brief answer stating that I don’t r”

“It's all part of the same ideology: Make the pass numbers look good or risk being labeled a "failing school" and risk losing funding.”

“But the same attitude prevails. And that has everything to do with not failing kids or holding them back.”

“It really sets up a future of continuing to undermine the value of education and penalizing future generations by limiting every students ability to achieve because the average is as high as we expect them to go. Then we keep lowering that bar, so statistics are skewed. The DoE is doing everything to undermine school funding and push to free market monetize the kids education, so trusting the current administration is dubious.”

“There’s some good icebreakers. I did this one: https://www.britannica.com/science/aphantasia What do you all see? Ask them by subject. Be mindful of what we ask kids to “visualize”. Or https://m.youtube.com/shorts/zeL5LOwHVNA?ra=m Auditory processing disorder Or For one I told a plausible story of laughter. But I made it more “interactive”. But then again, I don’t do the job any more. Perhaps I sucked.”

It’s fine. Plan a review unit and practice test the sub can do.

“I think it depends! If you are able to keep teaching the same classes every year it'll get easier but new classes are always a challenge.”

But does it have the background??

“How involved is a kids family in their learning? Are adults in the kids life reinforcing expectations and learning at home? Is there 1:1 help? Are the adults reading, writing, and cognitively performing at age appropriate levels? As a teacher, I see kids for a total of a few hours a week. In contrast, that kids family will more than often see that same kid significantly more; who will have the bigger influence on that kid day-to-day, year-to-year? Virtually every kid I have ever taught in the la”

electronic device addiction

“Oh man. So I teach from grade 3-8 math. And I absolutely loathe the rush that every curriculum takes to get to abstraction. They spend hardly any time in concrete and than maybe a day in representational and then right to symbolic. Hate it. Kids right up to grade 8 need to be engaging with manipulatives regularly.”

“Among other things, g raduation rates became the metric by which we measured schools and directed funding, so schools optimized for graduation rates instead of learning. Schools do everything they can to move students along and make sure they pass rather than that they learn. And even if they don't learn, they still pass anyway because the number of passing students is more important than the knowledge they gain at this point. And when you tie school funding to those numbers, it means school”

“let sick kids stay home!! Teachers too! That's not really what I'm on about. I have AP students that rack up 50+ absences over the school year. They don't all have serious illnesses or chronic conditions. Last year's valedictorian had 45 absences in BC Calculus. Sick = stay home, for sure. But that's not what I'm referring to as truancy.”

“I’m starting year 16 and I’m teaching my fifth different grade level. Some of my most loved books are falling apart, so I need to replace those. I also don’t have storage to keep a huge classroom library at home, so since I’m moving down, I need to bulk up my library some more. I’ve had my laminator for 7 years and it needs to be replaced. Same with my paper cutter. My wishlist is mainly for my parents and family who love to contribute to my classroom every year. Does every single thing get boug”

“I'm about to start my first year of teaching and I need to get things for my classroom but I have no idea how to do it. I know the common sentiment is "don't spend your own money" but my district only gives a $200 stipend, and my classroom has literally nothing in it. I need everything from regular markers and dry erase markers, to bins for students to hand in work, and everything in between (including paper)! Does anyone have any kind of practical solution for not spending (a”

“Grading is by far the bane of my existence. The rest is pretty ADHD friendly because every day is different, very dynamic, and requires mental flexibility. For grading, I use TAs where I can. I try to use fear of overwhelm to keep me ahead of things. But it’s not unusual to end up procrastinating and relying on urgency.”

“Yes, multiplication facts and getting them to understand how to write complete sentences. Thise were the major gaps I saw last year. Yeah, I definitely don't mind being flexible. I just thought I'd be safe for one more year since I was a newb! I just don't think I'd want to go lower than third, but I like having a job lol so I will do whatever is asked.”

“What? Understanding comes first. Then that crystalizes into Knowledge. A child understands its surroundings before it starts naming and labelling things. You can't name what you don't understand. This knowledge first thing is the problem with the literacy minded structures of education of modern day. The reason people use AI is becuase systems rely on codified nuggets of knowledge thst we give eachother to hold rather than to learn to generate it ourselves. Filling ppl up with facts gets”

“I get all that, but from a day to day standpoint, how did that impact you personally?”

“Same here. We have a lot of absent students and we live in a state where there is no incentive for student's to do well.”

“Literacy crisis is definitely a nation wide problem for sure. That’s not going anywhere in the foreseeable future Believe it or not Florida actually stacks up very well statistically with other top states as far as on/above grade level reading. We have a lot of incredible teachers here who pour their hearts out into the job despite the state being at war with us constantly.”

“Having the goal to bring every single student up to grade level is unrealistic, but do you think having a goal, for example, of having 90% students show growth unreasonable? What would be reasonable expectations for your population? I truly believe in the power of social-emotional learning and restorative practices being foundational to any academic learning. The neuroscience supports humans remarkable ability to rise to high expectations and overcome significant external challenges with the rig”

“Writing is extremely hard to teach. Don't beat yourself up. When I got done with my student teaching I felt unmotivated to teach in classrooms so I found work at tutoring centers doing SAT/ACT prep and that helped even though the pay wasn't that great. There's lots of options with an english degree with a teaching cert whether its in a classroom or not. I recommend The Writing Rope by joan sedita or From talking to writing by haynes and jennings (this book has practical classroom str”

“Assessing deeply to try and measure genuine understanding is time consuming. If I could sit down with each of my students for an hour a week one-on-one, I'd have an excellent measure of their understanding. Unfortunately, there are not 180 hours in a school week.”

“That is some incredible modeling and scaffolding of inefficiency. In my district, we always have 3 PD days before school starts, and even that feels like a lot of time for not much accomplished. I will start feeling grateful it's not 6-9 days I guess!”

“I am an 11th grade Modern U.S. History teacher and an American Lit teacher. What can I do to build my students critical thinking skills and not believe the first thing they see on Tik Tok? submitted by /u/Technical-Vanilla-47 [link] [comments]”

“More than half the U.S. population can’t read beyond the 6th grade level. And it is very evident. I have a masters degree, and I find it difficult to dumb my language down sometimes so kids can understand it, because they’re just not where they need to be grade wise. In addition to reading, kids sensory and fine motor skills are also decreasing at a rapid rate.”

“I was wondering, do you keep teaching over summer holidays or you take a total break from work? I work at elementary but I have some private students (tutoring) and I agree to 4-5 lessons per week even during summer so I am curious do you treat summer as this time of pure relax and not even think of work or maybe you do give some lessons or maybe even part time jobs? Some teachers in my school go for 1-2 weeks of summer camp to take care of kids there as a part time job but I rarely hear that th”

“Love the balance for teachers. But some people with 50 weeks/9-5, they don’t work all day, many of them. When you are in front of kids, you’re working. Planning isn’t enough t grade all the things. But some 9-5, I’ve heard they actually only work like 4 hours of an 8 hour shift, depending what the job is. I’m thinking office type jobs. And of course this isn’t a hard rule, but I know some jobs have built in goof off time.”

“I just saw a video of a lady saying that parents having access to grades 24/7 is terrible for everyone involved. And I started thinking about what it was like when I was a kid in school (2004? 5?-2017) and I didn’t have access to my grades online until middle and high school. But even then, I only got to check them when we had computer lab time because Chromebooks weren’t a thing in my school until my sophomore year and EVEN THEN it was one roaming cart that teachers had to sign up to use. So ch”

“This year was my first year of teaching AP Lang. My students had a pass rate of 73.6%, which I know is close to the national average, but I still feel bad. I mostly feel bad because I had six kids get a 2, whereas three of them earned a 2, but the rest of them really tried in class. That is where I feel the most guilt honestly. I am happy that they performed above average on MCQs, on the RA thesis, and on Synthesis. It makes sense that my kids did above average on the MCQ because I have an amazi”

“I am a 2nd grade public school teacher in Texas and my school hasn’t had a yearbook in over 5 years. My district is going through a hard time so there has been A LOT of cuts throughout the district. I would love to get a yearbook started back at my school because they are so special (I have every yearbook 1st-12 and I loved working on the yearbook staff in middle and high school). When I brought it up towards the end of the school year there was a lot of enthusiasm but due to all the district ha”

“I am very careful about what kinds of books are in my classroom, so I’m planning on getting a lot of the books I read as a kid (I was a kid in the early 2000’s) but I also want to get some newer stuff that kids these days love. What kinds of age-appropriate books do your students love to read? submitted by /u/Asking-Traveler-19 [link] [comments]”

“Hi all, I’m in my 8th year as a history teacher and am looking to switch up my note taking practice for my freshman. Usually on my lecture slides I have them copy down verbatim what I have highlighted, by hand in their notebooks. Is this too much? Do I need to switch it up to a main idea type note catcher? Or for those notes where they NEED to write it down, say research strategies, I say you need to write this down as is. Looking for advice! Thanks 😊 submitted by /u/dingobabez [lin”