irritation, thy name be report card

There's a week left in this school year.

I need it to be done now.

It isn't just me feeling selfish or lazy - as soon as summer begins I know that I'll be farming full tilt and will look forward to the relative relaxation of the next school year.

No, the reason I need school to be done is because the students need school to be done.

Having neared the end of ten months of being disciplined, lectured, taught, and assessed the kids have officially had enough.

And who can blame them: once June hits they all know that there's really very little left for us to teach them. The curriculum has, in large part, been covered. All that June really holds for students is the chance to relive the previous nine months all over again.

As a teacher, of course, June couldn't be long enough - between marking, creating exams, guiding review, giving extra help, inventory, completing report cards, and all the bureaucratic crap that gets foisted on us there is very little time to sit back and breathe.

But when you sit back and take a good hard look at it all it's difficult to tell why it all really matters.

I'm a teacher. As such I tend to feel that education is important. I am of the opinion that learning for learning's sake is an admirable goal.

But it's that very idea makes me question the validity of forcing students from the age of twelve upwards to sit in rows and complete a two-hour exam. Is it actually important for a boy in grade seven to recall the correct conjugation pattern for the French verb ETRE? Does it serve any great purpose if a fifteen year old girl can select, on a multiple choice test, the most common STDs in Alberta? Will calamity befall our society if a child in grade eight forgets the proper usage of a semi-colon?

My suspicion is that it will not. But what does that matter? - the powers that be aren't exactly phoning me up to ask my opinion on the subject.

And so I do my job. I do my job well. I dutifully draw up exams. I faithfully record the marks. I contemplatively calculate the grades.

Truth to be told I have no idea what the grades mean. You got a 75 percent in English, eh? Well, that's nice. 75 percent of what?

I seriously doubt you can find anyone who knows the answer. I certainly don't.

Because a lot of education is smoke and mirrors. A lot of the learning that happens in a school happens despite the teachers, the curriculums, the tests.

That isn't to say that we teachers don't do a good job or that schools are ineffective. It's just that maybe we haven't got it right yet.

But then again, nobody asked me.

And so, dear reader, I bid you adieu.

If you need me I'll be around back grading assignments and looking confused.