OK, so I am not a curser by nature. In fact, those closest to me make fun of me and relish in the moment I get so wound up that something less-than-polite slips out. But OH MY LORD!!!! Who the hell are these people???? Did you see this?
Education Secretary Cardona stands firm on standardized testing mandate amid criticism
Oh yes...the Washington Post...and if this was their headline, I can only imagine the headlines in the more conservative publications. We got rid of one to welcome another bureaucratic fool who has no clue what our children are enduring.
Please help me to understand. Everything I read says that he cares deeply about our children, especially those in low economic circumstances. After being selected by Biden, he was welcomed and approved by senators on both sides of the political aisle. So I see this as a good sign. But then I have to think, what the royal !$%#&??? Sorry, did I just (not really) say that? I know I didn't, haha! But that is really what my mind is thinking.
What the #@!$ is someone thinking if they even remotely consider exposing our children to standardized testing in the midst of a pandemic? Really? What?????? Please tell me. Because here is what I see....
My daughter Rebecca, will be trying out for Lacrosse as a sophomore without ever having any experience playing the game. Know why? Do I really need to tell you? BECAUSE WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC!!! Yep, they never had a season last year. And so as a 2nd year high schooler, she will be trying out and playing as a first year athlete. Because as a freshman, she was sidetracked and focused on figuring out how to live through a pandemic.
A colleague of mine is enjoying her first year of teaching. In conversation it becomes apparent that she realizes that this first year is not really a first year at all...in fact she knows that it does not compute in the grand scheme of teaching. She has never seen a full class in person. She has never witnessed the cafeteria nonsense at lunchtime (that just made me tear up with a sense of loss), she has never been to a full faculty meeting sharing the collective exhaustion after enduring a full day of teaching. She has missed out on so much of the typical teaching experience in her first year. Know why? Do I really need to tell you? Apparently I do because our US Senators don't seem to know it...WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC!!!
My daughter Anna, a senior, will not have a typical prom, graduation ceremony or yearbook adorned with pictures of friends hanging with each other at schoolwide events. She is silently and gracefully mourning the loss of what she thought life would look like in her last year of this chapter called school. Inside she and her classmates are wondering what the heck just happened, as are the rest of us, or at least those of us paying attention. Know why? Do I really need to tell you again? Probably not because you have a #@#!# clue! WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC!!!
So what is it about these folks in government that has helped them to avoid the pitfalls of living in the midst of a pandemic that the rest of us reading this have managed to survive? How the hell have they managed to avoid knowing that putting kids into standardized testing will be detrimental to every child???
Oh wait, Cordona, you need your statistics? Oh, I'm so sorry! Let me please vandalize and sacrifice the well-being of my children and my students so that their standardized test results, where they all are made out to be failures, can prove what we already know. Please, use my children to fund your next endeavor. I think they should all be made to suffer through the stupid #$@! tests that will do nothing more than illustrate to them, and their teachers who love them dearly and are trying to do everything to keep it all afloat, how much they have not been able to learn academic standards of math and reading and science IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC.
Just disgusting. I am sorry for those of you who come here to be built up. Please accept my sincerest apologies. I have nothing positive to say today. This just sucks.
***** I stepped away from the keyboard for a moment and well, I guess not having anything positive to say is not possible for me. How could it be if I am here with you?? Here is the positive. If there is any group of people who can get through this, it us...educators. Let us collectively prove again to Cordona and all those with the luxury of being clueless fools that we've got this. Our students will be whole. They will know we love them. They will get through this. Not because of politics and policies and all the government bullshit. Nope. They will persevere because we believe in them and will, as we have done all pandemic-year long, get them through this next tough time. Thank you, Cordona, for the opportunity to prove once again, that we love our students and can do anything put in our path to demonstrate to them that we believe in all that they can achieve.
