Today is the senior grad walk at our school. Seniors are going to go through a rehearsal graduation, and then they’re going to walk through the halls of all of the buildings. All of our classes are going to be in the hallways cheering them on.

Couple of days ago, graduating students who were in my freshmen class started looking for their “freshmen letter” which I kind of did, but not really. It was optional, but this was also the last year we did blogs and then was an introduction post, so there are those words of wisdom.

All around it’s just a heightened sense of nostalgia, looking back, and reflection.

Typically around this time of year my emotions are in overdrive. I’m so very angry all of the time. I don’t think I take it out on anyone, but my showers are longer and I’m seething with fake conversations in my head with people who have wronged me or people I care about or ideas I care about.

There’s a huge focus on reading and math (but, I’ll stick to my speciality, thank you very much). But the methods, rationale, and the assessment don’t mix. The people in charge of education policy at the school district are very much removed from the classroom, and the research that they use to make their decisions is shaky at best. There’s also a continuous tendency for school districts to always be chasing the next big thing. What’s the next big program that will help us achieve our results?

And of course if you wanted to make a guess, you would probably say they’re going to use some form of AI to inform the data and the instruction. And of course, you’d definitely be correct.

I haven’t heard it directly from any sources because news reaches the people on the frontlines last, and there’s a possibility that as a high school educator, I won’t be hit by this. BUT, it looks like the next big thing in CCSD for reading intervention is going to be I-Ready. Now, I-Ready is not a new program, but the direction it’s going like, most other programs, is going to heavily use AI to make decisions about what is most appropriate for students of a given need for intervention.

I have a student teacher this semester, and this post certainly isn’t about how great she is. She’s great. And that’s my last student teacher was great. I was great as a student teacher, and then every now and then, we get a Karen who is not so great. All of these points are not at all the point.

Out of the classes that a teacher-in-training takes in their three and a half years of traditional classes, the only ones that are actually really useful are the classes that they take for their subject matter. Okay, maybe, I’m exaggerating. The first class you take in the field of education is definitely valuable. Notice, I didn’t specify which class that is? Because it doesn’t matter. The other 6-10 classes are generally rehashes of whichever class you take first. But there is one “class” that does matter, and it’s the bane and the jewel of the program.

I mean once your in a classroom. It actually does kind of make sense because when we have in-service days of training, the key is: can you find one thing of value to keep? And if you can find one thing of value in the six to seven hour training day, it wasn’t a waste. So as long as we apply that rule to the entirety of the teacher training curriculum, it’s all good! Right? Right. Kinda. Not really.