The Grinch Comes to Chets

I have often been called a Pollyanna, because I usually see the glass half full.   It's true that I have spent most of my professional life climbing mountains and basking in the view on the mountaintop, but this week I seem to be spending my days walking in the Valley of Discontent.  I haven't spent much of my time here over the past fifteen years because I teach at a school where teachers are mostly sheltered from politics, and the focus at Chets has been on living in a state of gratitude, striving for continual self-improvement with a mantra of children first.  It's not just an idea.  It's the culture.  It's a lifestyle.

After Thanksgiving we come back to three weeks before the winter holiday.  I usually love December's short month.  It is usually a time of holiday joy and good cheer.  We have a hilariously fun Book Exchange and enjoy the "Twelve Days of Cookies." Classes prepare a "Season of Giving" project so they can practice giving instead of just getting.   Holiday music can be heard in the hallways and 2nd graders prepare a holiday play for all to enjoy. Teachers finish up units of study and make sure they have a handle on where the children are before they leave and make goals for what they want to accomplish in the new year.  You can watch the children's hearts leap with excitement as we move closer to the break and their eyes begin to twinkle... except this year...   This year is different.  This year the Grinch came to Chets Creek... in the form of TESTING!

This type of mandated over testing (in Reading, Writing, Math AND Science!)  is like a suffocating fog that so masks the view that it is hard to see anything clearly.  It's just too much for the children.  Even Rudolph's bright red nose couldn't light the way through this clog of frustration.  Changing the name to "scrimmages"  is just putting a wolf in sheep's clothing!  It's still TESTING and in its worst form!  The idea to get some data so that we are ready to hit the ground running when we come back in the new year seems like such a good idea... In fact, it's one we have embraced for years.  It's one we prepare for way in advance at the school level,  but this year the county's new mandated implementation has been short sighted, last minute and disorganized. A perfect dream may start at the top but as it reaches the reality at the bottom, it's more like the perfect storm. I could go on and on and on and on... about all the problems, but it wouldn't solve anything now.  The worst part is that we have wasted one of the most beautiful times of the year with our children and this time can't be made up. It's gone forever...

We will continue testing through early next week, because we have no choice.  Wonder how many children are really going to have writing prompts, numbers and science experiments in their heads next week instead of the sugarplums that are usually dancing this time of year? We will NOT let the Grinch steal the joy of this Christmas season! Of course,  we have to work with that which we cannot change, but some way, some how we still have to make these last days special for the children we care about so much.  Maybe it's the rigor of our commitment to children and the accountability of our love that is really being tested... Hmmmmmm...

P.S. - A few days after this blog was posted, second grade teacher Christy Constande pulled some of the K-1-2 teachers together.  Since they had not been effected by the testing, she suggested that they each take a 3-4-5 class and do something holiday-ish for our students that had missed so much of the holiday joy because of testing... Every single primary class adopted an intermediate class!  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why this IS the greatest school on earth!