I cannot remember what I preferred when it came to classroom observations. Sometimes I knew my principal was coming; other times she just walked right in through the open door and took a seat at the back. Without a doubt, I know my students’ demeanor changed within the space of one-millionth of a nanosecond. It was as if each student exchanged a spongy, underwhelmed old celery stick of a spine for a titanium rod fresh out of a molten blast furnace.
As for me? Well, I just tried to keep right on going. If the principal was joining Mr. Savelle’s class for an impromptu observation, a corner of my brain erupted to make numerous calculations regarding the list of ad-libbed jokes that were sure to come up in the next fourteen seconds. Use them or not? If the principal’s visit was preplanned, I simply dug in my heels and kept chugging right along. That meant embracing my most professional side while making sure that the lesson was as rollicking and effective as I would normally make it.
Today, teacher observations are under the microscope as part of the broad sweep of the education reform movement. In places such as Tennessee, even education professionals outside the classroom—such as media and technology specialists, librarians, and counselors—are being observed teaching in a standard classroom as part of the evaluation process for their jobs. Teachers in some parts of the country find themselves being observed monthly. And in the articles I have been reading, many principals report spending fivefold the number of hours observing their teachers than they had in the past.
What’s it like where you teach? Are you being observed more than in years past? How do you respond to being observed? Do you prepare differently?
Let us know!
We are being observed more now than ever. Tenure no longer holds. We have been warned about be absent moe than the alloted 5 days. We teach to the standards, all papers that are hung up must show the standard. Every three weeks the kids are tested on the standards we taught, we have perdictive test that tell us if they will pass the ISTEP test, we have dibles, acuity, and oher test that the kids are tired of. All of this is in our observation mode. Every teacher in the Indianapolis Public School System is evaluated this year. It is not teching to increase knowledge, but to take a test. It is a mess.
We are observed weekly where I teach by both the principal and superintendent. I’m quite used to it, but have yet to recover from the last announced visit. My students were bouncing off the walls and then some!