I still consider myself a teacher, even though I'm not teaching in a public school now, and even though I'm not teaching at all. It is still my passion and what I want to do, just not in our current system.
I read this tweet the other day by Joe Bower: "You're either an accomplice to standardized testing or you are a teacher. You can't be both." In my case, this is true. I can't give students a test I don't believe it, nor devote so much time to practicing and preparing for that test. Not only do teachers have to administer this test, they have to put on a happy face and attempt to convince students that this test is important. My former school resorted to telling students that the benchmark tests would be graded, just to make them take it seriously. Of course they weren't graded. I don't blame those kids one bit. After all, it's hard to take a test seriously when you took a very similar test last month or two months ago. There is no reward for doing well on it. So my former school starting offering rewards: pizza parties, free time, candy.
Learning should never be about bribing kids to try on a test.
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