I am SO not perfect.

Ok, here's something that bothers me. Not majorly, just... well... I'm not sure I like it.

So far, I've gotten perfect scores on all my evaluations. The thing is, though, I'm not THAT GOOD of a teacher. I'm good. In fact, I may be REALLY good. But I'm certainly not perfect!! The only reason that I've done so well is that for each criterion, the score will either be "Satisfactory" or "Needs Improvement." It's kind of a pass/fail thing. And for the most part, like I said, I'm a pretty good teacher, so when I get observed, they pass me.

Well guess what. I'm still not THAT GOOD of a teacher. I mean, what the heck kind of message does this send, that "satisfactory" is what you should be aiming for? Wouldn't it be nice if we had an "Exceptional" mark, maybe even it didn't affect our pay or anything at all, just... SOMETHING to say, hey, here is what you're doing really well, your area(s) of strength.

And another guess what. This helps me, oh, NOT AT ALL. I know I can improve. I desperately want to be a better teacher than I was this year. And hopefully, I'll continue to feel the same every year I teach. That's not to say that I'm not happy with the progress I've made so far or with the job I've done this year. I just - God help me - I don't want to stagnate. I want to continue to get better. EVERY year.

But I feel like I'm totally on my own on this. And I've gotta admit it: I'm a coward. I don't want to suggest to my department that we try to find out about XYZ management or instructional technique, because I'm petrified that it'll out me as a complete neophyte. Yeah. I'm intimidated by them, because they're all SO darn GREAT. (This is not totally a bad thing - it completely RULES to be part of a group of stellar teachers; I learn lots and I feel Special.)

So I've kind of started pestering people online for help. This way, if they say, "buzz off, you annoying little mooch!" I don't care as much, because I don't know them. Plus they can't rat me out for being a fraud masquerading as a stellar teacher.

But one day, I WILL be a stellar teacher. So there!

Innyhoo... back to scrounging through my books for ideas. TTFN!