Schooling Magazine

What's the Gain?

By Mrsebiology @mrsebiology
So you're a teacher who hates standardized testing. Or you hate the Common Core.  Or the math series the district has adopted.  Or the new assessment literacy initiative.  Or the new district benchmark testing system.  
Or maybe you just hate them all.  And you know what?  That's OK.  The beauty of this country is that you are allowed to dislike, hate, and/or loathe whatever you please, for whatever reason it is and with whatever evidence you have. 
But you know what's not OK?  Transmitting that hatred and negativity to students.
What's the gain in asking students how much they're sick of testing as a question of the day?  What's the gain in rolling eyes when students are told that they have to learn it because it's Common Core?  What's the gain in making sarcastic remarks about district initiatives to the entire class?
There is no gain.  Unless you count getting around 30 younger humans to hate something for pretty much no reason other than the teacher hates it so it must be the right way to feel about it as a personal win. Transmitting that negativity isn't going to stop the crazy standardized testing train we're on, and it won't change the fact that we are held accountable for teaching the CCSS. And it won't change anything else that people hate about what's mandated these days to go on in schools.
If it won't change any of the things that are hated so much, then what's the gain?
There is no gain.

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