Welcome to this site and thank you for dropping in. If I know myself as well as I think I do, this site may not be for the faint of heart. I do sometimes get a bit "miffed" when I'm on one of my soapboxes. At the moment, my soapbox is Standardized Testing and NCLB.
My background: B.A. in Elementary Education, M.A. in Varying Exceptionalities (K-12 Cross-Categorical Special Education), 12 years teaching primarily middle and high school resource, inclusion, and self-contained special education, and 3 years teaching Early Childhood Education and Teacher Assistant Training at Central Carolina Community College. I'm also the mother of a 20 year old daughter, a 9 year old daughter, and I'm the grandmother of a 3 year old granddaughter. My experiences with children, public education, testing, NCLB, and Closing the Gap are myriad and vast. This is what I will be drawing on as I proceed further on my soapbox(es).
--Tracy Stroud, M.A.
For later discussion:
I once had an administrator tell me, "You won't be successful in education because you're not political enough." What he meant was that I don't suck up, beat around the bush, or play games, which are, obviously, the prerequisites needed to "be successful in education." I asked him if my students were achieving. He said yes. Ok?? As far as I'm concerned, I was being very successful in education because I was teaching and my students were learning. Pretty much the job.
My background: B.A. in Elementary Education, M.A. in Varying Exceptionalities (K-12 Cross-Categorical Special Education), 12 years teaching primarily middle and high school resource, inclusion, and self-contained special education, and 3 years teaching Early Childhood Education and Teacher Assistant Training at Central Carolina Community College. I'm also the mother of a 20 year old daughter, a 9 year old daughter, and I'm the grandmother of a 3 year old granddaughter. My experiences with children, public education, testing, NCLB, and Closing the Gap are myriad and vast. This is what I will be drawing on as I proceed further on my soapbox(es).
--Tracy Stroud, M.A.
For later discussion:
I once had an administrator tell me, "You won't be successful in education because you're not political enough." What he meant was that I don't suck up, beat around the bush, or play games, which are, obviously, the prerequisites needed to "be successful in education." I asked him if my students were achieving. He said yes. Ok?? As far as I'm concerned, I was being very successful in education because I was teaching and my students were learning. Pretty much the job.