Twilight Zone at School

At my school one grade level is departmentalized - so I only have to work with one teacher in that grade level.  That sounds good, right?  Last year, this one teacher failed to teach all of the objectives for the first marking period.  We discussed the harm to the students' academic achievement when you omit teaching the required curriculum.

This year, I was proactive and created a 9-weeks calendar for this teacher, and had the teacher write down when each objective would be taught.  He didn't turn in lesson plans, but that is administration's responsibility (or so I tell myself).  I go into his room 3 times a week, but there is usually a whole group lesson - why would he do that with the special ed teacher and I in the room.  Sometimes I would take small groups of students to my office to work on their math skills.

Guess what?!  He still didn't teach all of the objectives.  He never touched the distributive property or orders of operations.  His scores are in the toilet.  Someone from the central office came and talked with him.  He was told that 1) he needed to teach and remediate all of the objectives, and  2) he needs to do small group instruction so he can differentiate the instruction.

You are now entering the Twilight Zone . . . 

I started the day in 4th grade.  This new teacher does so much cutting and pasting of notes into interactive notebooks.  Everyday!!!  She says she doesn't like doing it, but some how feels obligated to do it.  

Then I went into 3rd grade.  They were also cutting and pasting notes into interactive notebooks.  The (new) teacher didn't know how to pronounce "commutative" property, and there was very little instruction on what the commutative property was.  The students were just cutting and gluing.  I must add that there is a special education teacher (who was on the computer), a one on one (who was on her phone), the teacher, and me in this room where we are cutting and pasting during math.

But THEN the teacher pulled out the next cut and paste for the interactive notes - on the DISTRIBUTIVE PROPERTY (5th grade objective) instead of teaching 2-digit by 1-digit multiplication. I stopped him.  I told him that he should not be giving this to his class because it was a 5th grade objective.  He looked at me like a deer in the headlights and said, "but it was in the packet!"

I took the sheets to the grade level chair and asked her about it.  She has a student teacher who had written the lesson for the day.  Students were in small groups, no one was cutting and pasting, and they were all working on multiplication of 2-digit by 1-digit.  They were even using base-ten blocks to model the problems.  The grade chair said that she didn't know anything about the worksheets, but that I should check out another teacher on the team. 

I went to that classroom where the 3rd grade teacher had distributive property written across the board.  I told her (yes, in front of her students) that she should NOT be teaching this.  She said show me, so I showed the students how to multiply the bigger numbers.  She said that the strategy that I showed them was what they were going to do on Thursday - obviously I messed up their plans.

I didn't even bother going to the fourth 3rd grade teacher, but she told me at the end of the day that she had also followed the packet and taught the distributive property, although she said she didn't understand WHY she was teaching it.  My question is that if the teacher doesn't understand why she is teaching something, how are the students possibly making connections and learning???

What is this magic packet???  Why are they following it instead of the curriculum????

How can a student teacher make a better lesson plan than three teachers with their teaching license?

But the Twilight Zone doesn't stop there . . .

Later I entered into the 5th grade classroom - remember the day before a person from central office and the principal told him he needed to catch up on the objectives and teach in small groups?  Well, he was doing a WHOLE group review lesson of adding and subtraction of decimals and fractions.  I sat there in disbelief!!!

My Take Aways

I have discussed this with my principal, so now meeting with me once a week for planning is mandatory. 

Using so-called interactive notes where they use the math time to cut and paste has got to stop.  The students need to be using manipulatives and there must be small group instruction.  

What else???

I need to monitor more closely what and how the math is being taught, and stop taking for granted that the teachers know what they are doing (that sounds harsh!)  I hate confronting adults!

Our children are great!  They deserve much better!