Let me first start by saying disciplinary literacy is a very good thing. I honestly think students will be better students if taught to read, write, and be able to comprehend different subjects. However; doing this is very time consuming. It takes a lot of planning and cooperation. This is something county office employees and administrators do not realize. Burdening teachers with standards, testing, data, pacing guides, and many other things that just do not come to mind right now is not going to help better students’ knowledge. The government does not care about the education of young people, they want results! As long as it looks as if children are learning progressively, schools are rewarded by getting money and being left alone. As soon as a school does not show improvement on testing, the government bombards the school with “teacher workshops” in order to teach the teacher how to get students to do better on test. With this being said, since disciplinary literacy needs to be done, teachers need more slack! They are NOT magicians!!! They cannot wave their magic wands to make students understand how to read and write. If teachers on all subjects have to bear the burden of literacy instruction, they will need to be given the kinds of professional development that will enable them to succeed. Not just the “teacher workshops” that are held maybe twice during a teacher workday, but an actual content session that will teach the teachers how to do their job better. Normally, teachers have to sit in sessions discussing how to use tons of pacing guides, standards, and so forth. These things do not help teachers!! Pacing guides are not on the pace of students!! Administrators and county personnel have to be sensitive to teachers concerning pacing guides. County personnel need to know that teaching things on pace will be impossible, and that teachers can only teach on the pace of their students.
I am for disciplinary literacy; however, PLEASE I BEG OF YOU, DO NOT GIVE TEACHERS MORE WORK TO DO WITH THE SAME SPEEDY DEADLINES!!! GIVE TEACHERS A BREAK!!!
