Okay, this may be a bit much, but if one were to have observed my class the last seven days, he would have seen this “training” in real time. And, we still have two days to go. Why so long? One word. Kids. It is a kid-centered decision. We have decided to give kids the time they need to perform to the best of their abilities. It is the least that we can do for them. Yes, it rankles me that I am losing nine days of instructional time. It pisses me off. But I am not pissed at the kids. I am pissed at the system, a system that’s stuck in a rut. I used to think it routine, part of the deal, but I now think it’s a rut, an expensive, misguided, ineffective rut that we cling to out of stubborn insistence that we have to measure everything, even if the measurements yield no real progress or movement in the system.  And what’s most unsettling is that I think on some level we all know this. But we persist. And it makes me wonder if we persist because we don’t know how to write the next chapter, or if it’s because we have been repeating the same story for so long that we’ve actually begun to believe it. Either way. We are here. The kids are here. Big rut. Stuck.

Happy Wednesday, all. Grumble.