So I feel like my job stinks, my students seem to lack the abilitiy to do any higher thinking skills. They are the champions of the stupid question. Yes there are stupid questions. And how many times must I answer the same question because they don't listen to each other...

Last year's group was much the same way. But I got my state testing results today from last year. In the 5 different Language Arts areas my class last year scored 5 - 9% higher than the state average in all areas. I know that's not an important statistical deviation - but they were all higher! And I don't think of Language Arts as my area of strength. And I did more of my own thing and not so much of the state adopted text. (BORING!) My boss is often on me to do more of the state adopted text.

Math which I consider my area of strength was not so good overall. I was -1% in one area, over by 2% in two. But the other two areas were +10% and + 15%.

So, well testing isn't everything - it's nice to see I don't actually suck at this and my kids did learn something. Or they are just really good guessers.

Maybe there's hope for this year's group.


V.