Today was a professional development/inservice day at school. These days are the most stressful, anxiety-ridden, mentally-challenging days I have. We get bombarded with information: rank all the students using this new software; plan your schedule based on achievement/test scores/disabilities/content/strategies; find materials to teach that are appropriate for each student (which is a challenge in any elementary classroom, but I've got 40 students, some special ed., some non-reading in their native language, some who need help in math as well); learn a new teaching method; and receive tens of handouts with new methodology. Now have a good weekend! Yeah, right. I know that just sorting through this information and cross-referencing every piece of assessment, etc. that I have on each student will take me at least a day- and that's not even applying it! I almost, almost, lost it when I learned that some of my students are pulled-out during the beginning of reading, so they never get to listen to the story, and yet have to answer all the questions with the class, and are eventually accountable for the information. And these are my students who are at lower levels! I've been teaching them with the assumption that they have already read the story, no wonder they're lost/confused/frustrated/acting out. (Anger makes me use the / a lot). Everything comes back to us teachers on a weekly basis as results: how are we preparing our students to achieve the standards, to progress to the next level, and to receive high test scores (which, thankfully, my school never talks about when mentioning explicit goals)? How can I do those things? I am set to spend my break preparing, which I really want to, but at the same time I'm scared that there may not be a solution. And that's not fair to these little children who are trying so hard to catch up to their peers. Maybe I'll erect a little tent in my small classroom and just live here. There are soda machines, tvs, and microwaves, which are basically all of the appliances I need. That way I'll know I'm doing everything I can possible do to stop my students from being left behind. And there is something oddly comforting about being in the school. The incredible anxiety of being a teacher is somewhat countered by the nostalgia of being in a cute, little elementary school and reading all of the motivational posters on the walls.