Are we robots or teachers

It seems that the movement in education is to get everyone to do the same thing.  My boss this morning sent me an e-mail detailing the preparation needed as the assistant area superintendent was coming to visit.  So many things cross my mind with this e-mail and I will share a few.

Why would we teach any different on a day that the superintendent came to visit?  It would seem to me that the most important visitors to my classroom are the students who are there each and everyday.  Should I not being doing my best for them and not the area superintendent?

Which leads me to the first thing on the list which is to clean our rooms.  Okay, our custodial staff has been cut back in recent years, our school is old, so there is really no way to make it look clean.  Is it my job to clean the rooms for the area supt?  It should be clean for her but who cares the rest of the year when just teachers and students are in the room?  Um, there also seems no concern about when it is 90 degrees and we are given no fans or air conditioning.  That is okay the area super. is in her air conditioned office on those days.

Secondly, was to put the objective on the board.  I have probably received 3500 student feedback forms over the last ten years and never once has a student asked me to post the objective on the board.  Who again cares what students want we are here to please the area supt.  The crazy thing is lately I have been suing the objective to start class off.  As a starting place I have been asking students is the objective worth learning and will it be relevant to their lives?  Even so to mandate we all have to do something that kids do not care about seems absurd to me.

Thirdly, we have to post student work.  I am a big fan of this concept even though I do not use it in my classroom.  I tend to post the names of students who excel as well as improve on the board that stays up until the next class.  Again there are teachers who post the work and get a lot out of it.  My point is that we should be able to do things that fit our style and are not dictated by those above.

In reality, I know they are just testing my GRIT.