We were just told our quality review is next week. I understand why the administrators are uptight, their jobs and their bonuses might be at stake. Why teachers like me worry, I have no idea. I hope the quality review team comes no where near me. I have no respect for the jobs they do or the opinions they form. I am willing to bet that their classroom experience is not equal to mine and I am sure they cannot be experts in every subject they are seeing. They have no right to judge me based on a short observation. I am not a trained seal and I do not perform on command. I will not make my students nervous in anticipation of their arrival.
That being said, there are things I will do should these people come in contact with me.
I will be the best teacher I can be, as I try to be every day. I will continue with my goals of trying to reach every student. I will continue trying to get my kids to think and to learn to tackle difficult problems. And, in spite of what I write, I will do my best to help Principal Hula and his staff look good. In spite of being a suit, Principal Hula is the best principal I have ever worked with. Under his leadership I see hope for the future of our school and for the education of our students. I would not want any of my actions or words to cause him any stress or to give the Quality Review people cause to lower our ratings.
6 comments:
these reviews just keep teachers on edge, when teachers have nothing at stake.
I have to speak with them, but I hold it to a minimum.
Are these the Brits??? From what I remember, the principal chooses the classrooms, teachers and students who will speak to them.
Schoolgal
I heard that they are going to be picking random teachers as well as the ones the principal picks.
I know Suit steered them away from me. Who knows what will happen now that a new person is in charge.
We had our equivalent. My students asked if I were nervous. My reply was "no." The principal has the real challenge arranging files of paperwork. My husband has a book for business entitled "never confuse a memo with doing something". Do not confuse paperwork with actually getting the job done.
Too bad that "dog and pony shows" get in the way of teaching and learning.
Our dog and our pony did great last week. Like you said, everyone gets uptight, and in spite of my not giving a snot what they thought of me, I could feel it in my head that week as well. Like you also, I have a good principal who really looks out for us in spite of all the crap he has to do and pretend he loves it, just to keep the big guys off his back so he can run the school like he wants to and they will leave him alone for the most part. So I didn't want to be that guy who let him down.
We had all the right stuff on the boards, did all the right things,said all the right words.
And wouldn't you know it, I was one of only three in the school who didn't get observed.
Works for me.
tom at tomsboomertimes.blogspot.com (check out the first chapter of my new novel soon to be published about life in a middle school)
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