As many of you know, testing is a huge part of the way we measure teachers' ability to perform their jobs and students' ability to show what they learned. Being a 4th grade teacher, I am not new to testing and the importance of student performance. Therefore, receiving test results is always nerve wracking. Students at the school where I work took their mid year benchmarks a few weeks ago and I knew how my class did, but it didn't hit me truly until seeing those results printed. I don't know what it is , but somehow everything is more real on paper.
After my kids went to bed, I started preparing for the next school day and I just froze up. I couldn't get past my benchmark scores. My students grew 7.5% in math and 2.8% in Language Arts. I sat there starring at the numbers, feeling numb, feeling at an absolute, complete loss and there it was- I broke down. I just sat there and cried. As a teacher, I know I put 100 and 10 percent into my work. I make sure to get to know my students, plan my lessons, use data. I stay up late at night to make sure I know what I'm teaching. I work hard to meet my students' needs and here it was the dreaded 7.5% in math and 2.8% in Language Arts.
For a while there the thought crossed my mind, maybe this isn't the right profession for me if this is all the impact I made having worked with these kids for half of a school year. I felt heart-broken, I felt at a loss. I didn't sit there and think about the fact that it was computer based test and it took my students over 30 minutes to get on the correct website or the fact that several of them had to restart due to poor connection or the fact that 10 year olds and very long tests don't always go well together. I didn't think of any of this-all I thought was that I failed as a teacher. That night I felt defeated.
The next morning, I got ready for work, made it there, walked into my classroom and I didn't know what to think. Then smiling faces started to pour into my room full of excitement to tell me about their morning, asking what we are doing today, full of stories. And there it was, the realization that should have been there the night before- they are not a test score and neither am I . I know I make a difference because they don't want to be absent even when we have Saturday school due to make up days. I know I make a difference because I see them learn and grow every day. I know I make a difference because I don't just teach math, language arts, science, social studies, and health. I teach how to think, analyze , work with others, make friends, take on difficult situations and conversations, how to properly play basketball or hold a football, when you need a band aid and when you don't and so much more. I teach so much more than what I see results of based on a test score and I know I teach. I teach with all the resources and skills I have and I teach with all my heart so a benchmark score of what may seem like insignificant growth is not a measurement of my ability to teach and it is not a true measure of what they learned in the past several months in my class.
My test scores broke me down on Thursday and my students built me up on Friday just like I help build them up every day through building home-school partnerships, through teaching with integrity , through making learning fun and no I am not going to lie I will continue working hard to make sure my students perform their best on standardized test. My evaluations matter to me. Their test scores matter to them and to me, but I am not a test score and neither are they and thus a test score can't break who I am and should never define or break who they are.
Sincerely,
A hard working, motivated, inspired teacher.
No comments:
Post a Comment