A Superintendent Submits... Why We have to Keep Coaching

A LYS Superintendent submits the following:

SC,

This is why the work of LYS’ers is nowhere near being complete. I recently was sharing with my staff that based on the early released STAAR test questions, business as usual will not prepare our students to be successful. I pointed out that we are going to have to better implement the Foundation Trinity to identify what we need to let go of. Based on the following comment that a teacher sent me, we have to get more teachers reading the LYS blog.

“It’s a pity that our students no longer have opportunities to cut, color, and glue simply because it is not in the scope and sequence. Whatever happened to practicing those fine motor skills for those kids who might need them someday to be something other than a pencil pusher? The wrong people are making these accountability tests.”

SC Response

Two things about the comment you shared. First, as you briefly touched on, we have to train ourselves to let go of the practices and routines that merely sponge time. Just because students are doing something doesn’t mean that they are doing something instructionally valuable. It is not just the “Crayola Curriculum” that passes for acceptable instructional activities. It is also the copying directly from the overhead, whole classroom turn reading, spelling and vocabulary assignments in isolation, multi-period benchmark testing, etc. We complain that we don’t have enough to time to teach students the scope of the curriculum at the appropriate depth. Yet if we were to add it up, we voluntarily waste weeks of instructional time each year. Like it or not, many of the causes of poor school performance are self-inflicted.

Second, I would like to point out that schools still create ample opportunities for students to cut, color and paste. That’s why it is standard practice to schedule art periods in elementary school.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

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