#blog4nwp – The importance of writing and learning

This #blog4nwp post comes to us from Nancy Reece.

I firmly believe in the importance of writing and learning.

I am a retired teacher that went through the Louisville Writing Project and had the opportunity to be a director one summer. I also had the honor of being a resource writing teacher through grants in my state.

Now what are we doing? We are focusing not on writing, but on TEST SCORES alone. I taught for a total of 36 years. I was good at my job. My kids learned how to read and write. Their scores were always above average in my school. When I left I told my principal that the scores would go down because they were too focused on core content and not the child.

Schools were not allowing teachers like me the freedom to teach writing and reading the best way I knew how. I had to hide behind closed doors to accomplish what I did.

When I left the scores did fall a little. This will be my second year into retirement and I am anxious to see what this year’s results will be. I predict they will be lower.

You have to have teachers like me that are willing to spend that extra time in the summer to learn and enrich themselves in Writing Projects so our children can learn better.