End of Year Reflections

Being the end of the school year, I find myself thinking a lot about this past year.  So much has happened and I have learned so much about the field I am happy to call my profession.  This year, the new teaching reforms have so many people worried about their futures.  Of course I am not happy about Cuomo's reforms, but like all trends, this too shall pass.  Teaching is such an important profession and teachers are (mostly) so dedicated to their craft that the nation will start to see the truth.  Teachers typically did not get into the field for the summers off (especially because many do not actually have this time off and with working 15 hour days plus weekends, the summer is necessary for teachers to not burn out).  Most teachers chose the field to make a difference.  Are there teachers with less than noble intentions?  Of course.  But there are bad apples in every bunch.  Contrary to popular belief, they do not necessarily spoil the rest.  

This is also a great time to start thinking about plans for next school year.  As I've blogged about before, I plan to really revisit my HW policy and grading as a whole.  I want my grading to be as authentic as possible and I don't believe that grading each and every tasks leads to an genuine grade.  This is mostly due to those students who just need a little more time to get things done.  Just because they didn't get a homework done in my time frame and they took a little longer, did they learn less of the material?  Grades should reflect the amount of information learned and retained.  This needs to be truly reflected on and a new grading system developed.  I plan to also change the way I communicate with parents.  Mostly, I plan to do this by updating my site regularly and inviting parents to view the daily updates and calendar.  Other than that, I believe that my students are at an age where they need to be held more responsible for their work.  This means talking to students about missing work etc instead of their parents so all students will be cced on emails from parents about their performance in class.  I believe that through reflection of past practices, and the adaptation of future ones, we should all be improving what we do and how we help students to learn.