Why?

Why when you do anything in education today do you have to do a portfolio? Undergraduates, National Board, Master's; crazy. From what I understand, no one ever wants to see your portfolio except people who need to see yours to get an idea of how to do theirs. I can assure you in the eight years since I received my National Certification, no one has wanted to see the portfolio that I spent hours and hours on. Now I am digging through old papers to prepare my Master's portfolio. I don't understand why I did all these assignments and now I have to reflect on them. Some of these assignments were done in January of 2008, so I am having to re-read the article and my review to remember enough to reflect. What a waste of time. I am going to make mine look like a typical secondary educator. No art, no color, nothing special. That is the difference between elementary and secondary. Elementary teachers make everything cute and colorful. Not me. I just do it. One superintendent said you can tell the difference between an elementary applicant and a secondary one when they walk into your office. The elementary applicant carries in a huge portfolio that no one ever looks at.
I have to take my partial portfolio to Ada with me Thursday for a meeting with the other women who are doing theirs too. Guess what? They are all emementary, so they will have cute, colorful, pages. They're going to think I'm a slacker. Whatever, I'll jump through whatever hoops they want me too, so if I have to color some pictures, I will. I'm getting cynical. I'm really tired of jumping through hoops. That's what my students probably think they are doing in my classes. Maybe that is what all of life is, jumping through hoops.