It's sad, really. I often see newbie teachers doing things that suck away their time but have no educational benefit whatsoever. They do these things because they are told to by admins, who are told to tell them to by quality review or whatever other Powers That Be. Sadder still, the newbies often actually believe that these things have value because it is drilled into their heads. A case in point: the TAN.It doesn't matter what you teach these days. Pretty much everyone is required to keep a Teacher Assessment Notebook on their students. The purpose, allegedly, is to keep data on students so that you may individualize instruction. The real purpose, of course, is to keep teachers so busy that we can't do things like relax or talk to our colleagues about how stupid TANs are.
In truth, TANs are useless. Any teacher worth her salt knows the strengths and weaknesses of her students within the first couple of weeks. Collecting data every time a student passes wind only serves to make your TAN larger, which may benefit you in terms of muscle tone and stronger bones from lugging the damn thing around, but has zero effect on your teaching. In fact, every minute you spend on your TAN has a negative effect on your teaching, because that's a minute you could have spent writing effective lesson plans or working directly with kids.
So, newbie teachers, I advise you to do what most savvy veteran teachers do: fake your TAN. The trick is to stuff your TAN with so much information that no admin in their right mind would want to look at it or question what you are doing. I learned this technique, oddly enough, from my accountant one year. I had a simple tax year, yet she produced about 40 pages of forms to submit to the IRS. When I asked her why, she simply stated, "Would any IRS agent in their right mind audit this?" She is a genius.
Following her model, here is how you can fake your TAN:
- Get a huge ass binder. I mean huge.
- Print out every single thing on ARIS for every single student. Print it on 3 hole punch paper and put in your TAN. This alone adds a pound to your data, and poundage counts.
- Whenever you talk to a student, even if it's about the need for a bathroom pass, announce in a loud, clear voice, "WE ARE CONFERENCING NOW". When admins ask your kids whether you conference with them, they'll know what to say.
- Keep a lot of rosters handy. Whenever you are about to teach anything, write it on a roster and check off most of the names to indicate which students need to learn this. Date it two days before you teach that lesson. Three hole punch it and put it in your TAN. If an admin asks how your data drives your instruction, show them the rosters. They will love you and offer to have your children.
- Labels are your friend. If you teach math, for example, print a page of labels that say "Understands multiplication of fractions" and a page that says "Does not understand multiplication of fractions." Affix a label to each student's page in your TAN. If you do this once every two weeks, you'll have 20 labels for each child by year's end. Your TAN will be shown to others as an example to be followed. Try not to snicker.
