The Countdown Begins

Each year standardized tests are earlier and earlier. Sadly, as soon as the students take the test, they check out... literally. Teachers, club advisors, school guidance all have mandates with little time left to do everything so the school calendar is overloaded with a little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing.

Consequently, we have money being collected for Field trips, Relay for Life, Cystic Fibrosis, Pennies for Who knows what? There are Field Trips; Take Your Kid to Work Day, Everglade Slogging, Museum Day, Talent Show rehearsals, Fifth grade articulation, Band Spring concerts, Micro Day, Spring Bling and the list goes on and on and on... I am exhausted thinking about everything.

My frustration lies in the fact that while reading, science, math may have a break after the FCAT, social studies does not. In sixth grade we are mandated to teach from Paleolithic Man to World War II in the same amount of time that we used to teach up to Renaissance. We have Black History, Women in History, Florida History, Hispanic History, Holocaust Awareness all infused within our curriculum. To make matters worse we have shorter class periods than the rest of the county; yet we have to cover the same amount of material.

How does this play out? Simply put, the kids suffer. The only way a teacher can keep the pace is to assign reading pages for homework or more written work. Parents complain we are too tough on our students; kids need a life.

Lyons Creek needs to look at the Micro Society component. It is not working the way it was conceptualized. Our postal system, banking, courts, and police ... nothing is working. It actually was the best the first year when the kids used computers to order from micro stores and goods were delivered. It is time to throw in the towel. If we don’t operate real world then we need to void out of the program. As much as I love my puppets, I am throwing in the towel for a six period day and five more minutes per class, thirty plus minutes per week.