All Over the Place in Just in Case

This weekend was the Environmental Education Symposium, which is usually wonderful. Friday was great. I spent some time with some great friends during the day and we ended the day at the hotel bar/restaurant eating a very late supper and we were there around 3 hours just visiting, talking, and laughing. Saturday started well, I went to a great session, manned the booth for a while, listened to a speaker (General Russell Honore who was AMAZING!) Saturday went downhill fast, though. One of my friends who was there (she works for Wildlife and Fisheries) got sick. I ended up taking her to the urgent care and spending a little over 3 hours there. She ended up with a viral stomach ...something. They gave her a shot and an IV. Lots of sitting and watching her IV drip in. She's better, though, that's what matters. I'd do it again in a heart beat. What has me still in a tail spin, though...the state science coordinator was there (she's one of the ones I spent the 3 hours with Friday night - great lady). She and I spent about an hour or so alone on Saturday morning talking. She "let slip" something that's not really a secret, but they aren't advertising either. To make you understand the issue, first let me explain that each year we have a form that documents the required number of minutes for each subject that we teach. We create our schedule around it. For 4th grade it breaks a day down to: ELA (reading, spelling, writing, grammar) 120 minutes, math (60 minutes), science (45 minutes), and social studies (45 minutes). There's also required minutes for PE. Well, the state, with it's infinit wisdom (driping sarcasm there) changed it, but never really announced it. There are no more minutes required for science and social studies until 8th grade. As far as the state is concerned - we should just teach ELA and math until 8th grade. What the freaking hell???????: Actually, someone other than the coordiantor told me (the chair of the state environmental education commission). I blew up on her. Then she made the state coordiantor confirm. She did. I blew up on her. I've blown up several times since. I just don't get it. It doesn't make since. Now mind you. We're still going to test science and social studies....but you don't have to teach it. Or rather, you can read a nice book about electricity. That's the same as actually building a circiut and testing conductors and insulators...right? I mean come on. Your doctor can just read about how to do a surgery instead of practiing. You're comfortable with that, aren't you? As for technologies and research - what hell, let's just sit on our thumbs and let the rest of the world pass us by. Finding cures for diseases? Pshaw - that's not as important as writing a poem. Learning how the government of our country works? Who cares!!!! Understanding how the history of our country shaped us and continues to shape us? Not important. Learning from the mistakes of our past? Who cares - we'll just make the same mistakes again. I'm livid. I don't understand. I'm going to try and talk to my principal tomorrow and get a feel for what our parish will do (by the way - parish is the same as county - we were established by the French and they used parishes to denote the areas that the rest of the country calls counties - that's not important though - so we won't teach that any more. ) Anyway, I'm going to talk to her to see where we are headed. Seriously, I'm ready to walk away from the classroom. I don't...I can't... I just don't get it.