painting a picture

A colleague sent me this article from a few months back, specifically noting that I might want to share it here. In the article, the author addresses the recent suicide of a CPS teacher. An excerpt:

Imagine you've had one of the worst weeks of your life. You haven't slept in months, you have money troubles building, your relationships are failing, you feel unheard and unappreciated at home and at work, you worry daily about your future and whether or not you will have a job next year or even next week, and the idea of getting up to go to work the next day is practically unbearable. You need a moment to catch your breath, a moment to clear the clutter of worry, failure and fear from your clouded mind. But you don't get it. There is too much to get done. And all the while, you think, if I don't get it done, I am failing these kids. I have no choice but to keep pushing.

If you do have a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it. However, you must also be aware that there are two camps in education reform (as I see it) and this article quite definitely comes from one of them. I agree with the article that corporate reform is taking over the teaching profession, because there are a lot of wealthy people who buy into the corporate mindset. On the other hand, I believe that there must be a middle ground. A place where it doesn't take accountability and fear to get teachers invested in their students' success and there are no excuses.

Sidenote: I got an email about my curriculum maps for next year. Something to the effect of, "You worked really hard on these. They're awesome. However, you forgot standards numbers x, y, and z. Please redo it." I find it absolutely laughable that we are more concerned with standards numbers than anything else. As if that will solve the achievement gap.