Everybody Promenade!

This is the image that sticks with me: I'm surrounded by kids, and we're all standing in a vast sea of rolling sand dunes. Every step forward is a struggle. What are we doing out in the middle of white sand nowhere? I'm teaching them how to square dance. We're doing the Virginia Reel, or making our best attempt at it, and the kids are learning to do-si-do. We try an allemande left, then a promenade. I can see that the circles and lines are not perfect, but the idea is starting to come through. I can see that they are learning and they are laughing - in the middle of the desert.
That's when I woke up, because I was getting very tired. Next week I start my ninth year teaching in the Oakland Unified School District. I will be one of five returning faculty to my school - at last check there were ten openings for teachers at our site. I'm going to gather my books and Schoolhouse Rock CD's and get back to work knowing that last year our test scores went up.
Are test scores the way I measure myself as a teacher? Not any more than I use one test score to measure a student's progress. I get my six hours a day with the kids in my class, then their world returns to its more natural state. Being in school is not the real world for the students I teach - for most of them it is very much the exception to the rules of their lives. So I give it all I've got, but I've got to play by the rules that are set up for me. These days if you don't play by the rules, you could be told not to come back. There are times that seems like a reasonable alternative. The truth is, I never much cared for square dancing, and I think there are better places to teach kids than the middle of a sand dune. But that's where I'm heading next Monday morning. Go figure.