Creativity in paper work

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Home : 2002 : February : 28

Creativity in paper work
By Pam

Well first off you made the most important point in your post above THE EXPECTATIONS ARE UNREALISTIC. Once you face that fact and accept it and prioritize what you feel is most important in how you approach your class, My
rule of thumb is those children come first. I am a special ed teacher and yes I have a lot of paperwork and tracking to do. I will also not deny that just preparing for the next year (not getting my room organized, just getting organized takes about a week of good hard work). I make a chart up of each students demographic info I will call it, to include dates of re-evals and such.

As far as checklists to be given to regular ed teachers they are cruel in my opinion, I make it a point to verbally talk to my teachers biweekly about my kids progress, they appreciate this so much more than another piece of paperwork and I have my own quick check that I fill out during that conversation. As far as grading papers I feel it is very important to go over the students work but every paper does not need to be graded (I heard that at a workshop). In my case I chart the students progress usually biweekly, in regular ed tests are probably more appropriate. Writing IEPs I still hate but I guess I am lucky because I can make things look good on paper and over the years I have learned what is physically possible to do in my class and what is not. I write absolutely what I know I can accomplish and what any other teacher can accomplish knowing these are legal documents every now and then you do get a special request that needs to be fulfilled and I don't need to go there and in those cases you do do what you have to do. Our jobs are hard, the paperwork is ridiculous, I do what I have to do as far as paper work and try not to make it harder than what it is. It has taken a lot of work to organize checklists that I can show student achievement and growth and make them as easy to use as possible. They are though time consuming in the beginning of the year to organize but once you have a few years of getting those baselines down it gets easier. Hope this helps and stop and accept that some expectations are UNREALISTIC. They are there to keep us striving to be better but who ever wrote them obviously never taught in a classroom a real one that is.