Painting the Roses Red

A busy afternoon today, the Queen of Hearts has got everyone busy painting the roses red in anticipation of this week’s visit by the Superintendent. We were busily changing bulleting boards, preparing legible lesson plans, and posting rubrics and discipline plans to create the rooms that the Queen wants the Superintendent to see. And, I assume, to disguise the rooms we actually teach in?

I trust my teaching and I know what I’m doing. I teach the standards, I do things in a developmentally appropriate way, I assess my students’ progress, I plan, prepare and collaborate. But if I don’t have the same posters on my wall as every other teacher in my grade level I am assumed to be a poor teacher.

Too bad this wallpapering holds minimal benefit for my students since, being in Kindergarten, they can’t read. I was planning to spend this afternoon making sight word flash cards for my kids but I didn’t have the time. I hope that these visits aren’t belived to be authentic experiences of what is happening in classrooms around the country. It hurts my feelings just a little that I have to use my wall space as a reference for adults rather than a resource for my students.

The Queen might develop an appreciation for these white roses if she took the time to stop and smell them – she hasn’t been in my room once this year.

–guestblogger Alice in Eduland

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