Standardi-Nation: When Enough is Enough

Standardization. Enough is enough.

This is a personal tale about my life as a high school teacher in Central Florida. It is based on a true story.

Recently, our administrative team came to my department with another "hand-me-down" from the school district personnel and the state DOE. This time the topic was: board configuration. Yes, as in whiteboard... the standardization of whiteboard configuration. (Whew! That was a mouthful.)

The district and DOE now want the educators in our school to configure their boards in exactly the same way. They have outlined in a nifty PowerPoint exactly how this is to be done. The reasoning I am guessing is to ensure that inadequate educators do what quality educators do in their own way. The problem is that they are sucking the education and creativity right out the door. I can only take so much, as I mentioned in my post titled, I Have a Dream.

The DOE has outlined nine criteria that are supposed to be on our boards in their configuration for the secondary level. The worst part is that I teach in a classroom that has an LCD, SmartBoard, SmartReview clickers, I blog, use Twitter and yet the DOE is obsessed with me delivering content through the good ole' fashioned... whiteboard. So much for classroom 2.0!

Thanks for letting me vent.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue and what you are encountering in your classroom.

More to come...

Mike Meechin

www.innovateeducation.com

mike.meechin@gmail.com