Is anyone else stressed out over SLOs? I'm not, but yesterday I nearly had my head ripped off by two teachers that flipped their ever loving s$*t on me because of their respective SLO related stress.
What's an SLO? For those of you lucky enough to have no idea what an SLO is, it stands for Student Learning Objective. It functions as a benchmark for students to grow from that is set at the beginning of the year, then everyone forgets about it until now when people decide that it's important.
Is it a good idea in theory? Sure! I track data almost daily and have no problem producing it on command, but the problem with things like this is that we do it, then everyone in the administration forgets about it. Why is this a problem? Because if it was important, we'd be talking about it all year. It comes off as high stakes busy work when the principals pop up at the end of the year and start demanding it be completed immediately, calling meetings, and having random trainings for people that have forgotten it existed and/or can't figure it out. What you end up getting is BS data that gives a false sense of progress in the classroom.
Again, I have no problem doing it if it's purposeful, but if you don't care, then I certainly don't care. I have 140 kids who demand my constant attention, a puppy who demands it when I'm out of school, and a whole separate life that needs some dedication too to keep me happy and not getting yelled at.
My message to the higher ups? If you're going to give us busy work, keep it brief and keep it simple. You don't need teachers more stressed out and threatening to murder each other over paper shortages and paperclips because of SLO stress.
What's an SLO? For those of you lucky enough to have no idea what an SLO is, it stands for Student Learning Objective. It functions as a benchmark for students to grow from that is set at the beginning of the year, then everyone forgets about it until now when people decide that it's important.
Is it a good idea in theory? Sure! I track data almost daily and have no problem producing it on command, but the problem with things like this is that we do it, then everyone in the administration forgets about it. Why is this a problem? Because if it was important, we'd be talking about it all year. It comes off as high stakes busy work when the principals pop up at the end of the year and start demanding it be completed immediately, calling meetings, and having random trainings for people that have forgotten it existed and/or can't figure it out. What you end up getting is BS data that gives a false sense of progress in the classroom.
Again, I have no problem doing it if it's purposeful, but if you don't care, then I certainly don't care. I have 140 kids who demand my constant attention, a puppy who demands it when I'm out of school, and a whole separate life that needs some dedication too to keep me happy and not getting yelled at.
My message to the higher ups? If you're going to give us busy work, keep it brief and keep it simple. You don't need teachers more stressed out and threatening to murder each other over paper shortages and paperclips because of SLO stress.
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