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The Pressure is Real

If you are in the classroom, you know what the pressure is like.  It is like a four-letter word pressure.  It is constant, every three weeks Test and Test, over and over.  The questions fly at you.  Do your students get it?  Are they ready, will they know?  How can you help them more, how can you work more to help them score higher?  What are you doing that helps them score higher?   It's all about Testing, must have extreme instructional time higher scores and banners.  

 This is the biggest obstacle - Time to read, principal buy-in to support students actually reading.  This is like concentrating on one smart student  instead of the whole school.  It is like working out one muscle group and ignoring the others.  We are looking at ONE score, one passing, one banner to fulfill our feelings of success.  To stop the pressure, of failure, we think we must work harder, and find better ways to help students pass a test.

 I am asking you to step back, look at the whole student.   The student three years from now.  Will they remember the packet you handed them, or will they remember the novel you read together where they connected to the main character and loved knowing that you, their teacher, understood them?  Will they want to read?  Will students remember a literate room, or a story you told, or will they hate reading?  Will they be able to pass the next hurdle given to them?  Will they be prepared enough by you in the 52 minutes you are allowed to spend with them?   

 I am asking you, what do you do, that is proven over and over again to help them all? 

This article from Scholastic flipped across my Twitter today and it made me think, yep, this is the battle.   The biggest obstacle is time in class which administrators think teachers, should be teaching, (instructing, planning from bell to bell to be constant.)

Turning Independent Reading Obstacles Into Opportunities
By Jennifer Serravallo - from Scholastic today:   “We don’t have time in the day. I have so many needs in my classroom and my administrator thinks I should be teaching, not just letting kids read. I agree with Miller and Moss (2013) who recently advised us all to take a critical look at our daily schedules to see what we can cut. Believe me, it will feel as good as time spent spring cleaning your garage! Ask yourself what you are currently doing that isn’t research-based, engaging for kids, or fostering joy. Then cut it." 


The makes me think: How to make those changes, how to cut something that isn’t research-based but is planned for all and approved by department heads, and administrators?  That is the question.  How can we get back to reading, really reading with the approval of administrators that students are reading? How can we know we are building a bigger person, more prepared for the world they will leave us to enter. 


 To read full article:
http://www.scholastic.com/bookfairs/readerleader/turning-independent-reading-obstacles-opportunities

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