Friday, October 29, 2010
My Hard Earned Gift
Yesterday was parent conference day. The parent of an 8th grader said her child told her that I had a "don" - Spanish for a gift. According to the 8th grader my 'don' is that I don't have to raise my voice to get the class's silent attention. It was very nice for the mom to tell me this and I remain very flattered. If it is a gift, it is not a natural gift. I remember raising my voice often to get attention when I started teaching 5th grade self-contained 35 years ago . Over the intervening years I've used raised voice, clapping, lights off, group chants, various verbal cues, names on the board, ... and have evolved into 3 rules when I need the class's attention for whole group instruction: 1) seated at your place, 2) raise your hand and wait until called on to speak, and 3) pay attention. Anyone breaking a rule loses points for their team until they are incompliance with the rules. I give the following verbal cue very softly, "Instruction Rules, 3-2-1-0" and at 0 I am at my point board ready to take points off anyone not in compliance. The team member who has the job of being 'language and safety monitor' can save the team from losing points if they have a finger to their lips and are gently touching the arm of anyone not in compliance with instruction rules; otherwise, I just start marking off team points until I have silent attention. I am flattered that it is seen as a gift, but it is a gift that took me years to earn.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Calculating Daylight Hours & Be Careful What You Model
Yesterday 6th graders had their double lab period. They were moving through 5 stations. One of the stations was to calculate the length of day when given time of sunrise and sunset. At first there were some language issues. Apparently in Spanish a day (dia) is always 24 hours long. Once we clarified the concept of calculating the hours of daylight I thought we were set. I gave an example. If the sun rises at 6a.m. and sets at 6 p.m., how long was the day? Each team easily got the answer - 12 hours, and away we went rotating through the stations with enough time for about 10 minutes at each station. I'm walking around and checking each group's activity at the first rotation and notice the daylight hour calculating group have 10 hours of daylight when the sun rises at 5 a.m. and sets at 5 p.m. It hits me. They are adding the 2 numbers. I look at the problem sunrises at 4 a.m. and sets at 3 p.m.. Their answer is 7 hours of daylight. I ask them to imagine a clock. (The one in the classroom fell of the wall at the beginning of the year.) I ask them how many hours from 4 a.m. to 12 noon. They can't do it. They are thinking with digital minds and the minute hand sweeping around and moving the hour hand 8 times until it reaches 12 and then 3 more times until 3 p.m. is not making sense. It was the same with every group except for one 6th grader instinctively got it. He is not the brightest and doesn't always pay the best attention, but he is a little older and more mature than the other. Is it a concept that needs a mind that has fully achieved concrete operations?
Anyway, I'm borrowing the manipulative clocks from my wife who teaches 3rd grade and I'll have another go at the concept on Friday.
Today is Parent Conference Day!
Anyway, I'm borrowing the manipulative clocks from my wife who teaches 3rd grade and I'll have another go at the concept on Friday.
Today is Parent Conference Day!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
SuperMemo & the Question of What to Learn
This weekend I read an article by Gary Wolf in the book The Best American Science Writing 2009. The article was about how we remember things and Piotr Wozniak, the inventor of the computer program SuperMemo. Wolf takes us back to memory research of the late 1800s when clinical psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus drew the first learning curve and discovered the spacing effect. The spacing effect is the theory that key to remembering anything is spacing the repetition and presentation of the material to be learned at just the right time intervals. Over the intervening 130 years many psychologists have done research that support the theory of proper spacing. They discovered the optimal time to repeat material is right before it will be forgotten. For a while this seemed like a relatively useless discovery since identifying just when something is going to be forgotten was close to impossible, but apparently Wozniak’s program (SuperMemo) can do this.
The article discusses in a few paragraphs how clinical psychologists (proud of this discovery of spacing effect) were very disappointed that it was never applied in education. They must have never looked at a textbook series that repeats material every year. But then the material would have already been forgotten by the new school year, so I guess the textbook companies weren’t applying spacing effect properly.
I’m not familiar with the computer program, so I won’t try to explain how it works. The author writes about the regimen and discipline that Wozniak follows in setting goals and prioritizing what he wants to learn, so his computer presents the material to be learned at his optimal learning moment. I’ve spent a bit of time this weekend thinking of what I want to learn and what are the key bits of knowledge that I should impart to my middle school students this year. I fear some to them might need repetition at less than 24 hour intervals. I only see them for 45 minutes 5 days a week, so I might already be fighting a losing battle. Maybe I could talk to some of the other teachers to see if I could pop into their classes just to shout out a few things I want to remind the kids of before they go home or out to P.E. I’m still pondering what those shout-out bits might be.
I haven’t come up with anything about which I’m particularly interested in organizing my own learning. I’m relatively happy with my random approach to what happens to stick in my memory. I did set up 3 lists of ten Spanish verbs to explore my spacing effect. One list I’m going to study every day, one every 2 days, and one every 3 days. Amazingly I remembered 7 out of 10 of my one day list the next day. I think when I began studying the second list, though, it caused me to forget the 1st list. When I started thinking that I was forgetting the 1st list and tried to recall some of it, I feel like I forgot the 2nd list. Tomorrow I start on my 3 day list.
In the words of Edward Spencer (I think that is his name) , “What knowledge is of most worth?”
Possibly not the Spanish verb for mixed-up – triscar?
The article discusses in a few paragraphs how clinical psychologists (proud of this discovery of spacing effect) were very disappointed that it was never applied in education. They must have never looked at a textbook series that repeats material every year. But then the material would have already been forgotten by the new school year, so I guess the textbook companies weren’t applying spacing effect properly.
I’m not familiar with the computer program, so I won’t try to explain how it works. The author writes about the regimen and discipline that Wozniak follows in setting goals and prioritizing what he wants to learn, so his computer presents the material to be learned at his optimal learning moment. I’ve spent a bit of time this weekend thinking of what I want to learn and what are the key bits of knowledge that I should impart to my middle school students this year. I fear some to them might need repetition at less than 24 hour intervals. I only see them for 45 minutes 5 days a week, so I might already be fighting a losing battle. Maybe I could talk to some of the other teachers to see if I could pop into their classes just to shout out a few things I want to remind the kids of before they go home or out to P.E. I’m still pondering what those shout-out bits might be.
I haven’t come up with anything about which I’m particularly interested in organizing my own learning. I’m relatively happy with my random approach to what happens to stick in my memory. I did set up 3 lists of ten Spanish verbs to explore my spacing effect. One list I’m going to study every day, one every 2 days, and one every 3 days. Amazingly I remembered 7 out of 10 of my one day list the next day. I think when I began studying the second list, though, it caused me to forget the 1st list. When I started thinking that I was forgetting the 1st list and tried to recall some of it, I feel like I forgot the 2nd list. Tomorrow I start on my 3 day list.
In the words of Edward Spencer (I think that is his name) , “What knowledge is of most worth?”
Possibly not the Spanish verb for mixed-up – triscar?
Friday, October 22, 2010
The Small Things That Make Your Week
The seventh grade was doing a lab on heat conduction today. I had a data table on the board and asked them to come up with the experimental question that would be the basis for creation of a data table like the one on the board. Four out of four teams came up with the spot-on, 100% correct question. They had gone the other way (question to data table) several times before, but never from data table to question.
What a wonderful feeling when something seems to have gotten through!!!
On the other side of the coin the principal informed me yesterday afternoon that he was sorry for the misunderstanding, but the 4 sixth graders whom I had been instructed to tutor every lunch period this week because they failed the bimester exam were not going to have to retake the exam. I felt a little sorry for the 6th graders, so I asked if they could take it anyway if they wanted. I was told they could retake, but it had to be this morning, so report cards could go out today. They all voluntarily came in and took the exam retake. Unfortunately none of them improved their score. To the good, I lost a little weight this week not having a lunch period.
What a wonderful feeling when something seems to have gotten through!!!
On the other side of the coin the principal informed me yesterday afternoon that he was sorry for the misunderstanding, but the 4 sixth graders whom I had been instructed to tutor every lunch period this week because they failed the bimester exam were not going to have to retake the exam. I felt a little sorry for the 6th graders, so I asked if they could take it anyway if they wanted. I was told they could retake, but it had to be this morning, so report cards could go out today. They all voluntarily came in and took the exam retake. Unfortunately none of them improved their score. To the good, I lost a little weight this week not having a lunch period.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Rumblings of Richard & SACS Committees
Yesterday (Wednesday) is usually my busy day (6 classes), but yesterday I had the added activity of students doing make-up work at morning recess, 6th graders reviewing for the retake of their bimester exam at lunch, and a faculty meeting after school.
The 6th graders are studying weather. Early in the week we looked at the weather channels radar of the Caribbean and watched the movement of the depression that has now turned into tropical storm Richard. They are writing a position paper on the which was the worst hurricane ever. Although most of them have no direct memory of Mitch, they have heard the stories. We looked at the Weather Channel's website information on where hurricanes start this time of year and almost proudly identified the Western Caribbean (right off the coast of Honduras) as the place where a good number of hurricanes spring to the wind speeds that entitle them to a proper name. I pointed out that we might be watching the birth of another Mitch as the depression wandered off toward Cuba. Today it has looped around and the western side of the projected path has it coming over us with 90 mph winds on Saturday. Maybe the 6th graders will have Richard to compare with Mitch by next week.
The faculty meeting had a few agenda items, but the major part was the introduction of the SACS committees that we will be placed on in the coming days. Our school is up for 5 year review next year. I worked on a SACS committee at a school in New Orleans a couple years back and then moved on before the review committee showed up. I think the most unpleasant part were the belabored meetings about getting some answer to a focus question just right for the review committee instead of briefly giving a direct data supported answer to the question.
I'm going to try to relate this SACS committee idea to waiting for a hurricane to either come your way or go to someone else now. I'm not really coming up with much. They are both out there - rumbling around and either going to be a flood of devastation or a light breeze with a shower or 2 - but best to be prepared.
I'm not sure if I like that. I'll read it over and might come back to edit that analogy.
The 6th graders are studying weather. Early in the week we looked at the weather channels radar of the Caribbean and watched the movement of the depression that has now turned into tropical storm Richard. They are writing a position paper on the which was the worst hurricane ever. Although most of them have no direct memory of Mitch, they have heard the stories. We looked at the Weather Channel's website information on where hurricanes start this time of year and almost proudly identified the Western Caribbean (right off the coast of Honduras) as the place where a good number of hurricanes spring to the wind speeds that entitle them to a proper name. I pointed out that we might be watching the birth of another Mitch as the depression wandered off toward Cuba. Today it has looped around and the western side of the projected path has it coming over us with 90 mph winds on Saturday. Maybe the 6th graders will have Richard to compare with Mitch by next week.
The faculty meeting had a few agenda items, but the major part was the introduction of the SACS committees that we will be placed on in the coming days. Our school is up for 5 year review next year. I worked on a SACS committee at a school in New Orleans a couple years back and then moved on before the review committee showed up. I think the most unpleasant part were the belabored meetings about getting some answer to a focus question just right for the review committee instead of briefly giving a direct data supported answer to the question.
I'm going to try to relate this SACS committee idea to waiting for a hurricane to either come your way or go to someone else now. I'm not really coming up with much. They are both out there - rumbling around and either going to be a flood of devastation or a light breeze with a shower or 2 - but best to be prepared.
I'm not sure if I like that. I'll read it over and might come back to edit that analogy.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Talking to a Whiteboard
Today we returned to school after a long weekend in celebration of "Dia de la Raza" (Columbus Day). )I celebrated the arrival of Columbus and the subsequent Spanish colonial conquest of the area by visiting nearby Mayan ruins. ) A handful of 7th graders had their PowerPoints on an endangered species to present. Of the 5 presentations today, 4 turned their back to the audience and struggled to read (for what seemed like the first time) the mostly cut and pasted text - often in a dark font on a dark background.
They had a rubric explaining that they were being graded on: eye contact with audience, making a good intro/middle/conclusion to their presentation, having readable font colors, showing enthusiasm and awareness of their audience, ... . I had modelled what I would be looking for. A student did a practice presentation and the class graded that student on the model. Then performance day comes and it's 45 minute class period of tedium. You would think a 7th grader would not want to seem so unprepared in front of peers, but perhaps it is less ego threatening to not try and fail than the risk of trying and failing. Or perhaps it is as simple as they just didn't care and couldn't be bothered to take the time to read and organize their presentation.
They had a rubric explaining that they were being graded on: eye contact with audience, making a good intro/middle/conclusion to their presentation, having readable font colors, showing enthusiasm and awareness of their audience, ... . I had modelled what I would be looking for. A student did a practice presentation and the class graded that student on the model. Then performance day comes and it's 45 minute class period of tedium. You would think a 7th grader would not want to seem so unprepared in front of peers, but perhaps it is less ego threatening to not try and fail than the risk of trying and failing. Or perhaps it is as simple as they just didn't care and couldn't be bothered to take the time to read and organize their presentation.
Friday, October 15, 2010
National Academic Achievement, Happiness, & Alcohol Consumption
After my last posting which suggested a relationship between nations that rate high on the Global Peace Index and also rank high on student acheivement on reading, math, and science tests, I had a comment from someone suggesting I check out the National Happiness Index. I did and found that of the top 16 ranked countries for performance on the science part of the national academic tests 8 showed up in the top 16 on the "National Happiness Index".
Iceland was the #1 happiest place. I have a friend staying with us who had been living in Iceland for the past couple of years. He told stories of how the Icelandic people really like to drink, so I checked the ranking of nations based on their per capita consumption of alcohol. Of the top 16 countries on the science test 12 rank in the top 16 for per capita alcohol consumption. The other 4 countries (Canada, Japan, New Zealand, & Sweden) all finished within the top 26 nations ranked on per capita alcohol consumption with 7 liters or more consumed per person per year.
I'm not quite sure what this says about education or academic achievement, but it is certainly something to put in your shot glass and sip on.
Iceland was the #1 happiest place. I have a friend staying with us who had been living in Iceland for the past couple of years. He told stories of how the Icelandic people really like to drink, so I checked the ranking of nations based on their per capita consumption of alcohol. Of the top 16 countries on the science test 12 rank in the top 16 for per capita alcohol consumption. The other 4 countries (Canada, Japan, New Zealand, & Sweden) all finished within the top 26 nations ranked on per capita alcohol consumption with 7 liters or more consumed per person per year.
I'm not quite sure what this says about education or academic achievement, but it is certainly something to put in your shot glass and sip on.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
1 Bimester Down & Here's to Kinder, Gentler Education
All tests are graded, recorded, and ready to pass back. All that's left is some recuperation (that is what they call it here) of a few students who scored below 70% on the exam. The principal was talking to me about how the recuperation would go. I suggested I pull out some of the questions I considered most valuable in terms of the concept behind them and ones the kids seemed to have more trouble with. I whittled that exam down by two thirds of its content in a matter of minutes. And at a quick glance I don't think there is a lot I am tossing away that would be of much service to the kids in the future if they had it stored in their cerebral cortex.
I read the following on the Center for Education Reform Newswire today:
"A TROPHY FOR EVERYONE. For every action, a reaction. For every yin, a yang. For every Waiting for Superman, a Race to Nowhere. Are our kids facing too much pressure in schools today? The producers of Race to Nowhere sure think so. Too much competition? Too much achievement-based focus? But what does the rest of the world think? If we were a foreign government, we might push this movie into every theater in the US with the hope that the message would stick and we could keep gobbling up formerly American jobs by the millions. The data certainly doesn't bear out the premise of the "film". If anything, the US is far from putting its best foot forward. The powers behind the documentary are scared, and they should be, but not because our kids risk a life of too much pressure. They should be scared because jobs are hemorrhaging to India and China and we are on the verge of a becoming a second-rate country when our kids can barely beat Latvia in science. In the real world, not everyone gets a trophy."
I haven't seen either movie and generally I am a big supporter of Jeanne Allen and the Center for Education Reform, but I think they have grabbed the wrong end of the bloody job hemorrhaging stick. If we could get some guarantees from several million Americans that they are willing to work for the same pay and conditions that the Indians and Chinese are working for, I think we would see a real turn around in the loss of jobs.
I just looked through several of the world rankings of countries for various things on http://www.photius.com/ (country rankings). I didn't see India or China ahead of us in many academic areas. China does far surpass everyone in GDP (gross domestic product), but they have over 4 times our population. India has about 3 times our population and our GDP is 1.5 times theirs. There was an interesting ranking of counties' Global Peace Index. Countries are ranked based on several (I counted 23) criteria - everything from perceived criminality in society to deaths from conflict outside the country. If you compare the list of the top performing 'academic' countries with the top countries in the Global Peace Index, they are very similar. Maybe there is something to a kinder, gentler education system.
I read the following on the Center for Education Reform Newswire today:
"A TROPHY FOR EVERYONE. For every action, a reaction. For every yin, a yang. For every Waiting for Superman, a Race to Nowhere. Are our kids facing too much pressure in schools today? The producers of Race to Nowhere sure think so. Too much competition? Too much achievement-based focus? But what does the rest of the world think? If we were a foreign government, we might push this movie into every theater in the US with the hope that the message would stick and we could keep gobbling up formerly American jobs by the millions. The data certainly doesn't bear out the premise of the "film". If anything, the US is far from putting its best foot forward. The powers behind the documentary are scared, and they should be, but not because our kids risk a life of too much pressure. They should be scared because jobs are hemorrhaging to India and China and we are on the verge of a becoming a second-rate country when our kids can barely beat Latvia in science. In the real world, not everyone gets a trophy."
I haven't seen either movie and generally I am a big supporter of Jeanne Allen and the Center for Education Reform, but I think they have grabbed the wrong end of the bloody job hemorrhaging stick. If we could get some guarantees from several million Americans that they are willing to work for the same pay and conditions that the Indians and Chinese are working for, I think we would see a real turn around in the loss of jobs.
I just looked through several of the world rankings of countries for various things on http://www.photius.com/ (country rankings). I didn't see India or China ahead of us in many academic areas. China does far surpass everyone in GDP (gross domestic product), but they have over 4 times our population. India has about 3 times our population and our GDP is 1.5 times theirs. There was an interesting ranking of counties' Global Peace Index. Countries are ranked based on several (I counted 23) criteria - everything from perceived criminality in society to deaths from conflict outside the country. If you compare the list of the top performing 'academic' countries with the top countries in the Global Peace Index, they are very similar. Maybe there is something to a kinder, gentler education system.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
I Am an Exam Grading Machine
I gave 50 exams yesterday and have graded them all and entered the grades in the computer grading system. At no other time do I realize quite what a task oriented person I am than at exam grading time. I got them all lined up at about 11:30 a.m. with the keys ready and food by my side and away I went - grading all of one page at a time and then turning them all to the next page. There were a couple of interruptions to sort out grades on an inegrated project I'm doing with the social studies teacher, to help the music teacher adjust his computer grading system to include the exam weighting, to help a practicing teacher who is presenting a lesson to my sixth grade tomorrow, and to clean the chocolate brownie I had for dessert off a few exams. At quarter to four they were all done and entered and I was on my way to the golf course. I'm only givign 23 exams today so it should be a piece of cake - and I will be much more careful with my chocolate brownie.
When I was a professor of science education at a university in London I would have a huge student exam to check. The exam was monitored by an outside inspector and the scoring was vital for the level of degree the student received, so they took around 30 minutes each to mark. I would take a stack of about 10 with me on a walk. I would have a route of nice parks I would follow. I'd start at the first park and sit there until I finished 4. Then I would move to another park and do 4 more. Then move to another park for the last 2 and that would be my quota for the day. The system worked very well until I had a rainy day. Then it was the torture of sitting home and trudging through them as the drizzle came down. The students who got marked on a rainy day proably had a lsight disadvantage over those who were marked in the parks.
When I was a professor of science education at a university in London I would have a huge student exam to check. The exam was monitored by an outside inspector and the scoring was vital for the level of degree the student received, so they took around 30 minutes each to mark. I would take a stack of about 10 with me on a walk. I would have a route of nice parks I would follow. I'd start at the first park and sit there until I finished 4. Then I would move to another park and do 4 more. Then move to another park for the last 2 and that would be my quota for the day. The system worked very well until I had a rainy day. Then it was the torture of sitting home and trudging through them as the drizzle came down. The students who got marked on a rainy day proably had a lsight disadvantage over those who were marked in the parks.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Yippee It's Friday & a Fiesta at the Boss's Casa
All the kids have just been sent home with their handfull of study guides for bimester tests next week. The principal is hosting a wine and cheese event for staff this afternoon. Only four more PowerPoint projects to grade this weekend before the bimester exam grading starts next week. Yippee! Some time to work on my golf game this weekend.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Honest Reponse & Things Sometime Just Work-Out
I have a student who has an IEP for math. I teach her alone everyday except one day a week we go into her regular pre-Algebra class. She follows along and gives me a signal if there is something she doesn't understand, and I write it down.We talk about it later. Part of her IEP is that she is mainstreamed full-time by the 4th quarter.
The regular math teacher is a new teacher. He allows the kids to shout out answers and questions and an atmosphere somewhere between student control and chaos develops. The new teacher and I usually talk about how my student is doing and if she is following along. I am comfortable with those conversations. Today he asked if I had any suggestions about his teaching. I was the director of elementary science education in a university for 3 years. Each semester I had a load of student teachers to supervise and had no problem giving them feedback to the point of occasionally having to say, "You have got to change this, now!" I was uncomfortable with my colleagues question, though. I asked him a question about what he covered before the test and let his question fade away.
I suppose I will address this with him later. I don't want him worrying that I am thinking he is a bad teacher everytime I am sitting in his room.
Earlier in this blog I wrote an article about adolescent insolence. The student who stimulated that article started being left at school 30-45 minutes early each day. My wife and I are usually the first faculty to arrive. The maintenance folks talked to me about how early this kid was being left and that they couldn't do their jobs and watch him. I spoke with the kid and said I would have to speak with the principal, but if it was o.k. with the principal, he could come and wait in my room until it was time for students to arrive at school. This has turned him around. He is helpful in the morning and much more cooperative in class. His whole class seems to have improved. Sometimes there is great opportunity lurking behind what at first seems an unpleasant responsibility and things will just work-out. Maybe such an opportunity will pop-up with the new math teacher.
The regular math teacher is a new teacher. He allows the kids to shout out answers and questions and an atmosphere somewhere between student control and chaos develops. The new teacher and I usually talk about how my student is doing and if she is following along. I am comfortable with those conversations. Today he asked if I had any suggestions about his teaching. I was the director of elementary science education in a university for 3 years. Each semester I had a load of student teachers to supervise and had no problem giving them feedback to the point of occasionally having to say, "You have got to change this, now!" I was uncomfortable with my colleagues question, though. I asked him a question about what he covered before the test and let his question fade away.
I suppose I will address this with him later. I don't want him worrying that I am thinking he is a bad teacher everytime I am sitting in his room.
Earlier in this blog I wrote an article about adolescent insolence. The student who stimulated that article started being left at school 30-45 minutes early each day. My wife and I are usually the first faculty to arrive. The maintenance folks talked to me about how early this kid was being left and that they couldn't do their jobs and watch him. I spoke with the kid and said I would have to speak with the principal, but if it was o.k. with the principal, he could come and wait in my room until it was time for students to arrive at school. This has turned him around. He is helpful in the morning and much more cooperative in class. His whole class seems to have improved. Sometimes there is great opportunity lurking behind what at first seems an unpleasant responsibility and things will just work-out. Maybe such an opportunity will pop-up with the new math teacher.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Fear of Power
Monday I posted an email from a teacher friend. She was afraid of repercussions, so I took it down.
Yesterday we had a teacher meeting where we were handed an evaluation sheet to fill-out on our principals. Soon I will be asking these folks for a letter of reference. (I'm not sure why as this is my last year teaching, but just nice to have in the career file especially since mine was severely destroyed during Katrina.) Will I be honest? They certainly have their good qualities, but there are some big holes. They hire first year teachers and throw them in a classroom with no support. One (assistant principal) is hardly ever visible (unless you go to her office or the teacher's lounge). When she was in charge of the school last year, because the regular principal was recovering from a gun shot, she was rarely in the school even 15 minutes before school started. When she arrived it seemed she began to think, "What do I need to do today." Communication and planning were terrible. (But that was last year, right?) Neither one leads team meetings or necessarily demonstrates a presence as a strong instructional leader.
The good points are they are generally supportive and responsive and the principal is one of the best I've ever worked for at recognizing and praising teacher efforts.
So to be honest or not? Ummmh?
At the meeting yesterday they had the list of teachers who had had perfect attendance for August and September. This includes being on time. My wife and I were pretty sure we were here on time every day in August, but we weren't on the list. The school has a fingerprint check-in system. We had been told that if we came in on Saturdays we should fingerprint in. It turned out that the secretary had read the machine print-out and registered us as coming in late on a Saturday. We almost lost our $7 bonus for August perfect attendance because we didn't show up to work on time on our day off.
I finished reading Zeitoun last night. It is a story about Katrina and abuse of power. To me it is clear that it is very hard to trust people who have power over you.
Yesterday we had a teacher meeting where we were handed an evaluation sheet to fill-out on our principals. Soon I will be asking these folks for a letter of reference. (I'm not sure why as this is my last year teaching, but just nice to have in the career file especially since mine was severely destroyed during Katrina.) Will I be honest? They certainly have their good qualities, but there are some big holes. They hire first year teachers and throw them in a classroom with no support. One (assistant principal) is hardly ever visible (unless you go to her office or the teacher's lounge). When she was in charge of the school last year, because the regular principal was recovering from a gun shot, she was rarely in the school even 15 minutes before school started. When she arrived it seemed she began to think, "What do I need to do today." Communication and planning were terrible. (But that was last year, right?) Neither one leads team meetings or necessarily demonstrates a presence as a strong instructional leader.
The good points are they are generally supportive and responsive and the principal is one of the best I've ever worked for at recognizing and praising teacher efforts.
So to be honest or not? Ummmh?
At the meeting yesterday they had the list of teachers who had had perfect attendance for August and September. This includes being on time. My wife and I were pretty sure we were here on time every day in August, but we weren't on the list. The school has a fingerprint check-in system. We had been told that if we came in on Saturdays we should fingerprint in. It turned out that the secretary had read the machine print-out and registered us as coming in late on a Saturday. We almost lost our $7 bonus for August perfect attendance because we didn't show up to work on time on our day off.
I finished reading Zeitoun last night. It is a story about Katrina and abuse of power. To me it is clear that it is very hard to trust people who have power over you.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Searching for Superman Amid Clanging, Rattling, & Smell of Hot Tar
I had an email on Monday from a friend you teaches in a public school in the USA. It was an intersting account of the struggles she is currently facing which (I'm sure) is typical of what 10s of thousands of teachers are facing across the country. Currently she is teaching in a room while roof repair goes on overhead and hot roofing tar bubbles outside her windows. Her 120 students span a range of abilities and attitudes towards learning and many of the more troubled are often not in school. Her performance will ultimartely be measured by how these kids do on some standardized test.
Today in the middle of a review lesson for the bimester exams that the school requires me to give the guidance counselor walks in to take out the 3 lowest performing kids in the class for their MAPS test. The assistant principal had asked if this was o.k. at the end of last week and I said, "NO!!! These are the kids who really need this." Anyway away they went. I wished them good luck on their bimester exam and told them I was available recesses and after school to go over what they were going to miss. Maybe I can send them to the guidance counselor to do their required remediation after they fail their first attempt at the bimester exam - but somehow I think she'll be involved with pulling other weak students out of class for more standardized testing.
In 2006 the Center for Education Reform awarded my wife and I an award for our efforts with the school where we were working during and after Hurricane Katrina. Even if they hadn't given us an award and flown us to Washington to receive it I think we would support the organization. I certainly believe in their philosophy of educational choice within the separation of church and state requirements of the Constitution. a good organization and I am on their email list. I've had a few of their emails touting the video "Searching for Superman". I've heard it is a documentary about 5 families searching for the right school for their kids. Without knowing much more about the film than that I wonder how much variance there are in school choices. The school I was at in New Orleans had a language immersion progam and kids went into a classroom where they theoretically heard either French or Spanish all day starting in kindergarten, but we still had to measure our success based on how well the kids did on standardized state achievement tests. There was no credit given to the fact that the kids could have taken the tests in 2 languages.
Hopefully someday there will be a "Superman" who will stand-up and say "Hey. Leave these kids alone! We are not giving any standardized tests. Our measure of success is based on how well the students perform on objectives related to the mission and goals of our school."
Today in the middle of a review lesson for the bimester exams that the school requires me to give the guidance counselor walks in to take out the 3 lowest performing kids in the class for their MAPS test. The assistant principal had asked if this was o.k. at the end of last week and I said, "NO!!! These are the kids who really need this." Anyway away they went. I wished them good luck on their bimester exam and told them I was available recesses and after school to go over what they were going to miss. Maybe I can send them to the guidance counselor to do their required remediation after they fail their first attempt at the bimester exam - but somehow I think she'll be involved with pulling other weak students out of class for more standardized testing.
In 2006 the Center for Education Reform awarded my wife and I an award for our efforts with the school where we were working during and after Hurricane Katrina. Even if they hadn't given us an award and flown us to Washington to receive it I think we would support the organization. I certainly believe in their philosophy of educational choice within the separation of church and state requirements of the Constitution. a good organization and I am on their email list. I've had a few of their emails touting the video "Searching for Superman". I've heard it is a documentary about 5 families searching for the right school for their kids. Without knowing much more about the film than that I wonder how much variance there are in school choices. The school I was at in New Orleans had a language immersion progam and kids went into a classroom where they theoretically heard either French or Spanish all day starting in kindergarten, but we still had to measure our success based on how well the kids did on standardized state achievement tests. There was no credit given to the fact that the kids could have taken the tests in 2 languages.
Hopefully someday there will be a "Superman" who will stand-up and say "Hey. Leave these kids alone! We are not giving any standardized tests. Our measure of success is based on how well the students perform on objectives related to the mission and goals of our school."
Friday, October 1, 2010
A Mountain of Marking Amid a Sea of Education Experts
Hooray it's Friday!! Seven weeks down and only 29 weeks as a teacher left.
Sixth grade has just packed up and left with the assignment to work on a postion paper due Monday on if they think viruses are alive or not. I am packing up thirty 7th grade lab notebooks with 3 weeks of labs to grade and 23 eighth grade lesson plans on a disease they will be teaching about to check at home this weekend. If I can get in a groove, I'll grade one piece of work every 5-6 minutes. That is about 6 hours of marking to do this weekend. Oh yeah, I still have a bimester exam to make for a student I teach math. Marking is certainly an understood part of being a teacher and I believe it is important to turn work around quickly and let kids see that you took time to check if they followed rubrics and applied themselves to an assignment. But I will definitely be happy when it is all behind me.
When I think about the effort I am about to put into my profession this weekend and the rhetoric that flows from non-educators (politicians and special interests) and semi-educators (bureaucrats and adminisrators) about what makes a good teacher or good education, I become very discouraged. After all this marking, returning it Monday, and reviewing the objectives of the assignments, I know the cognitive connections for many of the middle schoolers about what they have intellectually gained from these academic exercises will be minimal and for some nada. Hard to compete with the world of tv, peers, movies, emailing and texting, personal image and popularity, teen-magazines, Justin Bieber, sport, ...
Those who often speak the loudest and longest and most emphatically about what education needs, I feel, are those most in need of a good dose of weekend marking followed by a week in front of a class trying to get across one significant concept. The 'education nation' needs a vaccine against taking themselves too seriously and a shot to cure testing mania.
Fortunately I have not been given (yet) the bizarre set of self-assessment activities that have fallen on the elementary teachers in the school. My wife (3rd grade teacher) has a booklet with questions on the "atmosphere" in her classroom to answer this week. Apparently there are different areas of self-assessment she will be going through as the year progresses.
Sixth grade has just packed up and left with the assignment to work on a postion paper due Monday on if they think viruses are alive or not. I am packing up thirty 7th grade lab notebooks with 3 weeks of labs to grade and 23 eighth grade lesson plans on a disease they will be teaching about to check at home this weekend. If I can get in a groove, I'll grade one piece of work every 5-6 minutes. That is about 6 hours of marking to do this weekend. Oh yeah, I still have a bimester exam to make for a student I teach math. Marking is certainly an understood part of being a teacher and I believe it is important to turn work around quickly and let kids see that you took time to check if they followed rubrics and applied themselves to an assignment. But I will definitely be happy when it is all behind me.
When I think about the effort I am about to put into my profession this weekend and the rhetoric that flows from non-educators (politicians and special interests) and semi-educators (bureaucrats and adminisrators) about what makes a good teacher or good education, I become very discouraged. After all this marking, returning it Monday, and reviewing the objectives of the assignments, I know the cognitive connections for many of the middle schoolers about what they have intellectually gained from these academic exercises will be minimal and for some nada. Hard to compete with the world of tv, peers, movies, emailing and texting, personal image and popularity, teen-magazines, Justin Bieber, sport, ...
Those who often speak the loudest and longest and most emphatically about what education needs, I feel, are those most in need of a good dose of weekend marking followed by a week in front of a class trying to get across one significant concept. The 'education nation' needs a vaccine against taking themselves too seriously and a shot to cure testing mania.
Fortunately I have not been given (yet) the bizarre set of self-assessment activities that have fallen on the elementary teachers in the school. My wife (3rd grade teacher) has a booklet with questions on the "atmosphere" in her classroom to answer this week. Apparently there are different areas of self-assessment she will be going through as the year progresses.
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