You know you work in a bureaucracy when. . .

[velvetpage]

The most important report(s) you write all year require accurate use of copy and paste more than any other single skill.

I just spent half an hour developing a comment bank for math and French. The comments are cookie-cutter-like; I choose the expectation from the list, modify it to reflect what I actually taught, and add words to indicate which level the child is working at (like "accurately" or "imprecisely"). The math ones aren't too bad, because I teach to the expectations. But my French program is so far beyond what the curriculum expects, it's just unreal trying to bring it down to that level. In my last school, I ignored the curriculum expectations entirely while doing French comments, but my principal won't let me do that here, so the comments are doomed to inaccuracy and bureaucratic mumbling.

Have I mentioned before that I hate report cards?

Comments

[anidada.livejournal.com]

The parents wouldn't be able to read them. :)

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Do they ever read them anyway?

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Well, my parents did... as did I (I can still remember some of them). So yeah. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Quite honestly, most of the parents around here are barely literate themselves. We have a significant ESL population, of whom most have parents illiterate in English and about 30% have parents illiterate in any language. That's one of the reasons I think report card comments are a waste of time, especially when they use the kind of jargon I'm expected to use. Parents would find it much more helpful if we would tell them that their child got a D because he didn't hand in a book report, but I'm not allowed to say that. No, I have to say that he has not demonstrated that he can read a novel-length text, connecting widely separated events to form cohesive meaning. ?????? I barely understand that myself!!