You know I have been doing this a very long time now.  I know the ins and outs of teaching.  I have taught children to speak English and read and write in the language.  I have done multiplication and division in Spanish (God knows what I was actually saying the them, but they sure thought it was funny at the time.)  I have been inserviced until my butt resembles the seat of a chair.  But is that enough?  Heck NO!!!

I went to our monthly team meeting with the curriculum leader.  She talked about the paperwork we were supposed to have done. About our reading groups and how were they going and on and on...  We just sat there.  Oops...we dumped reading groups several weeks ago in favor of old fashioned whole class teaching.  I guess we have to un-dump them.  I still haven't figured out what the heck we are supposed to be doing in these groups.  It isn't like the old days when I taught groups.  We tested them and divided our classes into groups with an assigned book at each level.  It wasn't hard to do.  In fact, it was fun.  Our classes switched and were regrouped.  It was nice.

Now, I am supposed to level my own class, differenciate instruction with the same textbook and keep the classroom under control while I have my back turned and am concentrating on a small group instruction.  (Are you kidding?  Turn my back on 30 kids even though they are mostly nice???  I don't think so!)  How do others of you deal with that?  If I had fewer students or less talktative students, it might be easier.  I also would like motivated students.  Mine are a little lazy.  They want to talk instead of doing their work.

Personally, I am headed for the 50% idea that new guy suggested.  I was reminded to bring this report and that report and etc. to the meeting tomorrow.  I went back and down loaded every single report she sent in the last 6 months and I hope I got them all.  I organized them and punched holes in them and placed them in my Data Notebook.  Maybe that will make her think I have been using it to plan my lessons.

Data driven instruction?  Are you kidding me??/  Do you know how many workshops I have been to explaining what it is?  Not one of them has showed me HOW to do it.  I haven't got a clue how to plan a lesson on data that some test has given me.  If this is true...why do my kids outscore all the other same grades in the district most of the years?  I didn't use data,  I just used common sense.  AND with 30 little darlings in my room, am I supposed to plan interventions for every single one of them?  Where the heck is the time for that?  This is getting very confusing. 

What they should do is hire a separate teacher for every kid and then we wouldn't have to go through this.