Mon Cri De Coeur

My rating for the Midyear Evaluation is INEFFECTIVE. I am a moron who can barely tie my shoes....
The two most challenging aspects of the demise of my so called career are the humiliation and the concomitant anxiety. I generally awake twice each night and my entire being is affected by the unremitting criticism. I look forward to life after elementary school teaching. I hope and I pray that my district in their infinite wisdom will discover teachers more dedicated and better prepared than I to guide our children into productive adult lives.... Newark teacher

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Mon Cri De Coeur

It has been confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that I am not only an incompetent teacher, but an idiot to boot. Yesterday afternoon I met with my administrator for my Midyear Review. My areas of insufficiency include the following. It is unfortunately not a complete list because I do admit to experiencing brain freeze at certain crucial moments of the presentation.

First and foremost, my lessons lack direct instruction, which I was informed refers to my lack of modeling. My kindergarten and first grade ESL (English as a Second Language) student work folders, which I proudly shared, reflect a variety of assignments and rubric scores, but sadly they lack comments and evidence of revisions.

My administrator freely admitted that my charges would most likely not be able to read my comments so they would serve as reminders for me of what skills I need to target next. At present, I have forty four students. Although I was able to describe my students’ progress on the high end, I was unable to articulate an accurate portrayal of the low end of my groups. I am not to make critical remarks about my students such as, “He cannot do much.” Unbeknownst to me, the student work needs to be analyzed in reference to the Common Core Standards. Despite the fact that I am administering pre and post tests for each curricular unit, I am not utilizing the data to drive instruction. The next step will be instruction on planning lessons to reteach the skills in accordance with the data I am collecting. In my numerous conferences with parents, I am not sharing the data. My most egregious sin is I am not implementing a Balanced Literacy Program of Readers Workshop and Writers Workshop as developed by the infamous Lucy Calkins.

The coup de grace is my areas of proficiency. I am never tardy and my attendance record is satisfactory. I have built a good classroom culture with rules in place for my students. My lesson plan objectives are aligned with the appropriate Common Core Standards. I can hold the students’ attention and they exhibit enthusiasm for my lessons. I have attended numerous professional development workshops. I participate in grade level meetings and I collaborate with my grade level cohort to plan units. I cooperate with my ESL colleagues to screen students and provide information for district reports. I have completed my assigned readings of the acclaimed Teach Like a Champion (Lemov) and Launching the Writers Workshop (Calkins). Best of all, I do not give my administrator “attitude.” I attend the sessions as required by my CAP (Corrective Action Plan) and I am respectful. An illustration of my lack of “attitude” would be how I sit in the meetings like a good little girl, dutifully record everything in my trusty little notebook and ask pertinent questions.

My rating for the Midyear Evaluation is INEFFECTIVE. I am a moron who can barely tie my shoes. I am three quarters of the way down the road to being brought up on tenure charges. As I reflect on my practice, I have to entertain the possibility that this is the first time in my life that I have been accused of being inarticulate.

When I was about four years old, my older cousin David challenged me to shut up for a complete timed minute and I was unsuccessful. I was given the opportunity to observe two fellow teachers whose combined ages are roughly equivalent to my own. It is my role to emulate their practice. In my upbringing, respect for my elders was encouraged with the expectation that when I would be older, younger people would respect me. As a teacher, I was advised to seek out best practices that are evidence based. Lemov asserts that his methods were formulated by observing teachers primarily in charter schools. As for Calkins, I have yet to read any research on her recommendations. She does disparage ESL instruction nicely in one of her numerous volumes as Second Language Learners sitting around looking at flashcards when they would be better off participating in Writers Workshop.

My administrator held out hope of redemption to be accomplished by investing a lot more time. I responded that I am spending on average six hours every two weeks planning the lessons that are considered to be crappy and often in need of revision. In my view, it is unrealistic to expect that I could climb the mountain of proficiency in the little time remaining in the school year. The two most challenging aspects of the demise of my so called career are the humiliation and the concomitant anxiety. I generally awake twice each night and my entire being is affected by the unremitting criticism. I look forward to life after elementary school teaching. I hope and I pray that my district in their infinite wisdom will discover teachers more dedicated and better prepared than I to guide our children into productive adult lives.

Abigail Shure