As a retired teacher (15 years now) within a 24 year career, my heart breaks at the current changes and stresses of education, youth and society. We had standard learning objectives, diversified classrooms with frequent report cards and parent meetings to discuss content and evaluation....often times when students set their own criteria. We had so much pride in our community. Are these days really over or just overwhelmed by the virtual world where tweets are more important than paragraphs?