Thank goodness for voices of reason from those we admire and trust. "Like" Patricia Polacco for helping us through the tough days of teaching-to-tests and rules that often just deteriorate real learning.

When the system is getting you down think of yourself as a teacher who is able to resist all this nonsense. Nevertheless, I feel your pain acutely. Somehow the system chips away at you year after year, until you are left with this feeling of hopelessness. It is when I feel this way that I would go into my classroom, shut the door, and teach passionately for an hour, teach something that isn't necessarily on the standards or in the lesson plans. It rebuilds my zest and reignites the love of learning that is, on any other day, being beaten out of our children. Keep the passion for as long as you can and ignore all the rest of the bull that you know means nothing. YOU can do that.