A Snapshot Is (Not) Worth a Thousand Words

I hate "walkthroughs," "snapshots," "learning walks" or whatever you want to call them. Well, I don't hate them all by themselves. I don't mind if an administrator wants to come by my classroom and look around and see what we're doing--I have nothing to hide. What I DO hate is when they come around in a pack with someone or several someones from outside the school, look around the whole room, take a bunch of notes, and leave without talking to me. Tell me that's not enough to rattle anyone!

I especially hate that it happened early in my day today and just left me anxious and cranky all day. I worked very hard to hide it, and I let the kids cheer me up this afternoon, not caring if social studies was perhaps more lively and freewheeling than it should have been. It helped me forget about it for a while.

As I said to a colleague yesterday, the children are always the least of my problems.