I am the teacher who went into teaching in the late 70s when it was possible to teach passionately. I am the teacher who was duped into initially believing that common goals across the curriculum would benefit students in our mobile society. I am the teacher who spent hours during the summers of the mid 80s sitting in the basement of the district office constructing goals, objectives, standards, and benchmarks to determine what students needed to know before graduation. AND we were told to think “In a perfect world, what do we believe ALL students should know.” I am the teacher who saw all this work shelved for years. I am the teacher who delighted in teaching the card game “Beggar Your Neighbor” when I taught “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens, but was finally told that I shouldn’t teach a card game in an English classroom. I’m the teacher who organized Aunt Alexandria’s tea party only to be told to cancel it. I’m the teacher who cheered when one of my students told me they that a particular story was stupid. When I pressed for why, they explained that the character made stupid choices. Yeah, Student. I’m the teacher who challenged the student to prove his opinion that the main character of The Red Badge of Courage was a closet homosexual. Go Student for taking present experience and seeing the changes in literature.

When I retired in 2014, teaching to the test had taken over my career. I had become labeled a needs improvement teacher after an evaluation observation where I had my students working in groups to map the island in Lord of the Flies. Go Administration for killing education.

The year after I retired, I brought lunch to a buddy about 3 months into the year.

“How goes it?”

“Be glad you retired. Of the 12 weeks we’ve been in school, 9 of those weeks have been spent in test prep or testing.”