Beyond Caring

Beyond Caring is one of my passions in this life. It seems as though because of this passion, I tend to get in trouble or judged with it.

At school, I have a type of class that is challenging, but fun to be with this year. I really enjoy my class, but it takes a lot of energy to keep them down and learning. I have two students who are not on medications, although would benefit greatly from it. I have 7 students who have special needs in the academic areas. Now, I requested to have the special needs children because my heart is with them. But....I am being compared to other "normal type" classrooms. The way I am being compared is with test scores. If my special 7 were taken out of the equation, then that would be a fair comparison (which I am right there with everyone else).

When is evaluating the growth of a child (with or without special needs) going to become important. At regular jobs, it seems that people are evaluated based on your improvement and growth. So why can't the government see that what we are doing to children, with focusing so much on test scores, is more harmful then successful. This type of focus is causing teachers to teach to the test, rather than teaching children to THINK and problem solve.

Have you really looked at the test questions on any standardized test? All of them are written at a "Knowledge or Comprehension" level. For you that don't know "teacher talk" then you can google "Higher Level Thinking". It will give you the levels of higher thinking. Knowledge and Comprehension are the lowest levels of thinking skills. So basically, we are "dumbing" our students. It's hard when you teach the children to be "thinkers" because when it comes to the test, then they second guess themselves. Students say to me, "It's to easy, what is the trick". It floors me everytime I am required to give a test. Why does someone come to each student and test the student's thinking?

I have seen the ecomonic situations affect the classroom (students). I see parents who have to work more hours and are more stressed that their children feel it also. What is going to happen when all day kindergarden is taken away? These poor kiddos are going to have a rougher start to their education, due to the fact of less education daily. All of this blows me away. This is where my beyond caring passion comes to play.

I really need to turn this passion into my own family. I need to become a teacher who works 8 hours a day and not 11-12 hours a day. This would help me to be a better mom and wife. I need to NO more sacrifice my family for a JOB! I don't think God is happy that I have done this. I can be a great teacher during the 8 hours at school, but be an even better mom after the 8 hours. I am going to continue to teach children to be "thinkers" and I am refusing to "dumby" them, just for test scores. I am taking a stand - no more! :)