We're half way there but we're not prepared

It hit me the other day in our faculty meeting that we were half way through the year. Actually, Annie said it and it was like, "Bam." Wow. We are. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is around the corner then 3 weeks till Christmas. Seriously? This year has gone by so fast so far.

But this fast movement is freaking me out. We have the writing part of PASS (the "new" PACT) in March and my students' writing is awful. I hate teaching writing. Can I say that? Yes I can because every teacher is entitled to having a subject they hate teaching. I have found that the subjects that I excelled in while I was in school I hate teaching. I hate it because I don't know how to teach it--it just clicks with me. The subjects that I sucked horribly at in school I love teaching. I love teaching those subjects because I know what it's like not to understand and I know how to explain it because I too once didn't explain it.

Anyways, on to PASS. Some of my students' writing isn't half that bad--just need a few tweaks. Then others--I have to ask them to read their writing responses to me on an assignment. Their spelling isn't there and neither is their phonemic recognition (that means they can't recognize letter sounds). I am so worried we're going to get that test in March, my kids are going to freak out. Then I'll lock myself in my closet.

So this week we have been hitting writing pretty hard. We've been reading paragraphs, correcting them, re-writing them, etc. It's gotten so bad that today when we started language/writing I heard someone say, "Oh gosh, here we go again."

Another thing that freaks me out is that we can't read the test to them this year. Now in the past we always complained about reading the test because those tests take FOREVER to read. But it helped our students comprehend the questions (this came especially handy in Social Studies and Science). But nope. Not this year. WE can't read it. Now this does make me mad. Over the last 3 or 4 years, 3rd grade scores have steadily been improving, especially in the last year. But after this year, we're going to see a decrease. It's not that I don't believe in my students and that they can't do it (because they very well can). It's just that they are not going to realize how serious this is, read each little part and break it down as if I was reading it to them.

So here is my final question: How do we prepare to pass PASS? How do I, a 2nd year teacher with ADEPT hanging over my head determining if I should teach or not in the future, prepare to prepare my kids? Does that make any sense?

I hate telling my students "I cannot help you on that" but I always follow up with "I am preparing you for the end of the year test. Read it, try it, I'll check it." What else can I do? Am I doing enough? Am I missing something?

This is a big reason why beginning teachers burn out. We have pressure on us to MAKE our student succeed when we're still learning our best practice strategies to teach. The content is constantly changing, our students are constantly changing along with society, the requirements are always raise a little bit higher and I'm about to fall over because I'm tired of standing on the tip of my toes to reach that bar of requirements.

Am I crazy? Does any other teacher feel this way?

And people wonder why I go to wine tastings in the middle of the week or completely crash at 7:30 at night.