Yeah I know

So it's been a while, again. Sorry... sue me. But it's not like anyone really noticed.

What have we been up to?
Just pretty much day to day things. Keith has been working on the house by fine tuning some things on the "hunny do list". He is still out of work. I have been teaching my classes. And I started my new class... Geometry. My professor asked me to teach the class in a few weeks. Still working without a contract so I have been home by 2:45 which is really sweet. Besides, all the kids stand you up anyway when they ask for extra help or to retake a class. Which leads me to my rant.

I really have been thinking about our education system. Or maybe just the methods my school runs. I feel my students are getting too many chances to fail. For example I give my students a hands on lesson with triangles, do it again in traditional format, assign CW, then HW, then a quiz, then a test review, then a test. Pretty much how it was when I was in school except with the hands on stuff. Now, when the kid fails the test, they can retake it again to get a better score. Here's the kicker... it has to be after school with you, which means you donate your time (without a contract). Then they fail the test again. Ok... so they are put into a 9th period tutoring class where they learn the material again. They are given another test, much easier and basic this time, and then they fail again. They end up failing the year, get put into summer school, and the teacher is told "Do whatever you can to get these kids to pass." Guess what... they pass. Then the kids take the state test and fail. They take it again and fail again. Then they take special tests to see if they know the concepts and while waiting for their scores, they take the state test for a 3rd time. How many times is it going to take for them to pass? I asked some of my kids this and they had a good philosophy about it. Why should they worry about it once, when they can do it again? Why should they worry about the second time, when they can take it a third? My big question... when is the responsibility going to be put onto the students again? It has not been that long since I was in school. However, if a student decided not to do the work, then they earned a failing score. They did not earn the chance for do-overs. Can you believe that in meetings, we are told kids aren't doing their projects so that means we shouldn't do projects. Recently, we were told they are not doing their HW. So no HW? Really? What's next? Quizzes? Tests? Good grief.