George Wood, “principal of Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, Ohio, and executive director of the non-profit Forum for Education and Democracy, a collaboration of educators from around the country,” pens an excellent review of the Joyce Irvine story.

Irvine was principal of Wheeler Elementary School in Burlington, VT; she was described in the New York Times thusly: “Parents are grateful for her leadership, she knows all of her students, she launched innovative programs, her teachers and her superintendent give her high marks, and even her U.S. senator has praised her work.”

But Irvine was removed from position because, as Wood puts it, “… the children in her school, overwhelmingly poor and immigrant, did not get the test scores the federal government says they should have.”

He further writes:

“… current federal policy has created at the local level all the wrong incentives. When rewarded or punished solely on test scores schools are encouraged to push out or not take students who will not score well, narrow the curriculum to basic skills, cut out enrichment and engagement activities, and narrow teaching to rote memorization drills.
“Joyce Irvine would not do any of that, and she is paying the price for it.
“Federal policy works by creating incentives for particular actions. Funds are dangled before states or other entities if they will do what the feds want. We know this strategy can work—it desegregated schools and has opened up educational opportunities for groups of students excluded from public education.
“The problem with the current set of incentives is that they have things backwards. Rather than reward principals like Irvine for taking on students who are the least likely to do well on standardized tests, it punishes her for the work we all want to have done.
“Meanwhile, schools that work with the easiest to teach—through district boundaries or admission policies in some charter or similar schools that skim off the most motivated students and parents—get all the praise and rewards.”
The Answer Sheet, Washington Post

Which is about as excellent a summary of the current state of the politics surrounding public education as you’ll find. Too bad it’s buried deep in an obscure blog on a website owned by a for-profit “education” company which is dedicated to fostering the exact same climate in schools that ended with Joyce Irvine’s … “reassignment.”

The parenting (and subsequent socioeconomic impact) part of our education problem is usually ignored or turned into trite, stupid arguments and cliches. But how parents feel about their children, and, more importantly, the socioeconomic aspects of child raising, is big part of the problem we face. I’ve met parents of my students from time to time who seem to really … dislike their children. And I mean REALLY dislike their children. And it always has an impact in the classroom, in everything from behavior to dress to lunch to relations with others on the playground. And in those situations, I always wonder why these people had their children in the first place, and also why they expect me and other teachers to raise them.

In a New York Magazine piece, «“All Joy and No Fun“», Jennifer Senior writes about why people have children and the effect it has on their emotional lives. It’s an interesting six-page read. For example, she writes:

“From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the perspective of the individual, however, it’s more of a mystery than one might think. Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines. Perhaps the most oft-cited datum comes from a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize–winning behavioral economist, who surveyed 909 working Texas women and found that child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities. (Among the endeavors they preferred: preparing food, watching TV, exercising, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, housework.)”
New Yorker Magazine

I suppose that’s my answer; they have kids thinking it’ll make them happy, but the reality of it makes them realize they’d rather fold laundry and watch old reruns of Monk. And thank god the little monsters are in school at least six hours a day! Lengthen the school day! Make it 10 or 12!

I digress.

It’s interesting stuff, but it neglects two facets of the parenting situation: the impact this kind of ambivalence has on others in society, especially in school, as well as one of the most important root causes of unhappiness — the economic stacked-deck most parents (or at least those of public-schooled children at least) have to deal with.

Fortunately, Ed of Gin and Tacos writes up some «excellent analysis» of the economic realities parents face:

Parenting is miserable in part because we make it miserable. Other countries have a year of paid maternity leave; Clinton had to fight tooth-and-nail to get the FMLA passed, granting a generous 6 months of unpaid leave. Parents also have to panic about how they are going to pay for their child’s health care, because family plans are pricey and are getting more pricey in a hurry. Then they fret about affording college, because while college is free in most of the western world even the public schools are expensive here. Then they panic about paying for private K-12, because of course no one can send their kids to public school given the systematic dismantling of public education in this country since the seventies. Then they have to find affordable child care, because Mommy (or Daddy, depending on who takes the unpaid leave) needs to get that ass back to the office and start bringing home a paycheck ASAP to afford all of this stuff. And of course because of our idiotic urban planning and absence of workers’ rights we have long commutes and 9+ hour workdays that guarantee we’ll spend precious little time with our kids before we collapse in bed at an embarrassingly early hour.
Gin and Tacos

All of which is true. And none of which will be addressed any time soon given the current state of American society and its political discourse. Changing the emotional, and especially socioeconomic reality of what parents (and subsequently teachers) face is the foundation of proper, non-corporate, lasting and rewarding education reform. Placing the success or failure on the backs of seven-year-olds filling out bubbles on for-profit tests so corporate investors can feed the greed? Not so much.

The Local: In the Mission blog contains the «full story» behind what I quote in the Tweet at right:

“‘We’re trying to respond to the new information and the new requirements in the most meaningful way,’ said Dee Dee Desmond, the executive director for Reform & Accountability for the San Francisco Unified School District. Desmond said that in the past, San Francisco has developed a reform strategy that encouraged stability. ‘In helping these schools to be the best that they can be’ the changes needed ‘are not the things that are most draconian,’ she said. A shift in principals, and teacher turnover already happens frequently at struggling schools and creates instability that is part of the problem, she added.”

Exactly. And so just adding more chaos and less stability, continuing to misapply money, AND leaving kids in the maelstrom longer each day is the “remedy” we’ve decided to apply from coast to coast, from Central Falls to Kansas City to San Francisco.

I’m at the point where I’m wondering: Why go through all the contortions and drama and trouble? Why don’t they just go ahead and completely dismantle all public education now?

Education news for the week of 8-Mar-10:

• “Reinvigorated” Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights «targets L.A. Unified» for first major investigation; probe will focus on English Language Learner services.

• Epic «26-year lawsuit settled» in Baltimore after federal judge agrees to end oversight; push for equality for special education students spurred change in district.

• As professional media claws back education coverage to a dismal 1%, «student press takes up the mantle», especially with regards to higher education reporting.

• After brutal assault, North Carolina Board of Education member «Kathy Taft dies». Family has offered a $25,000 reward for information about the crime. Hopefully, the attack was not related to her board service.

• After years of championing standardized testing, charter schools and free markets (which she now calls “faddish trends,” «Diane Ravitch makes slow-motion about-face» “on almost every stand she once took on American schooling.” Money quote: “School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’”

• Noting Ravitch’s turnaround, «Katrina vanden Heuvel notes the obvious:» “Ravitch’s reversal represents a tacit acknowledgment that no kind of educational reform will work without a fundamental change in the way America’s poor are treated in every aspect of their lives.”

• While some like Ravitch are coming around and realizing what they unleashed, the «Florida legislature hurtles full-steam down the track», heading, like Ravitch says, in the wrong way. Senate Bill 6 would base teacher salaries on “performance” (read: test scores), rather than seniority, as the Obama education department has demanded in the “Race to the Top” program.

Esther A. Jantzen is a writer and children’s literacy advocate living in Pomona. She has words of wisdom which should be obvious, but are seriously lacking in our society:

What parents need to be taught specifically is how to support the linguistic, cognitive, social and emotional development of their children. That means no-cost activities such as conversing with kids, asking thoughtful questions, reading aloud, modeling reading and writing, exposing them to the larger world, showing them how to find and use resources, loving them, hugging them and speaking kindly to them.

Amen!

I need to find out more about ProComp, the merit-pay plan. But a mere $150 or so a month after taxes for teaching in quote-unquote ‘high poverty schools’ (warning, code words!) is pretty sad.

‘Denver teachers voted 3-1 to approve a three-year contract with the Denver Public Schools Tuesday. “It was the best deal we could get for our members,” said Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association of the contract. … The vote was 77.5 percent to accept the agreement and 22.5 percent to reject it. A total of 1,877 votes were cast. The DPS board has already approved the contract, which is the first multiple-year deal in 20 years. It goes into effect immediately and runs through Aug. 31, 2011. Under its provisions, all teachers will get a cost of living increase of 3 percent, and in each of the next two years, salary will increase by an amount equal to the Consumer Price Index plus .25 percent.
‘… If DPS is able to merge its retirement system with the state, another increase of .4 percent above the index will be added. The new agreement calls for teachers getting more time for training and planning with five “late start” days in 2008-2009. If DPS completes its retirement merger before June 30, 2009, teachers will get an extra school day in 2010-2011. The contract also provides for some changes to ProComp, Denver’s groundbreaking pay-for-performance plan. Starting in 2008-2009, bonuses such as teaching in high poverty schools will be increased to $2,345 each year.’
—Rocky Mountain News

An immediate three percent at my current salary here in California is about $100 a month … before taxes. In other words, a tank of gas. Whoop-de-doop.

Of course, even that would actually be great. We’ve been working without a contract since June and go to fact-finding in October. It’s going to be a rough fall. So even a couple hundred extra sounds good to us in PUSD.

My new digs at the elementary school are really nice and I’m very happy with the room (and everything else). The staff is wonderful, the administration/office is great, and the atmosphere is a breath of fresh air.

I’ve spent a week working on the room. I was delayed getting started a day, when a broken pipe flooded our three fifth grade classrooms. Mine was furthest away from the water, and it was cleaned and dried over night, but my partner teacher had to have entirely new flooring and won’t be able to get started on her classroom until Friday, giving her basically one day to get her room ready for the first day of school. A nightmare for her.

Me? I’m ready to go! Let’s get it going! You guys like my new social studies bulletin board? I worked very hard on it!

More photos later.

We were shown the ins and outs of the new math adoption this morning and went over our students’ achievement data this afternoon. More staff development and putting final touches on the room tomorrow and we’re ready for prime time. Gonna be a fabulous new year!

The Big Read is ‘an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.’

The Big Read ‘answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The concerned citizen in search of good news about American literary culture would study the pages of this report in vain.’

The Big Read ‘reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.’ I guess I’m above average, according to their list.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (4 of them)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible (some of it)
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (90% done)
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Great stuff, even with many obvious omissions. Pass it on!

‘The public schools have always been the friends of the people, and no other system has ever accomplished the good that they have. The different legislatures in the several states have long since decided this, in establishing public schools, that the rich and the poor, side by side, might attend, and receive the self-same instruction, which is for the betterment of each generation. In a republican form of government, general education is considered of paramount importance, hence the public schools. Cite me in a community, a town, or a city that has an excellent public school system, and I will point to one that is alive to its needs and requirements. A man who is unfriendly to public schools is an enemy to his country.’ [Emphasis added]
—Las Cruces Public Schools Catalogue, 1900-01

I haven’t written in quite awhile. I went back to work on 7-Jan (the day before my last entry here) and was immediately absorbed in all the dramas and problems of teaching math and science to 65 … shall we say, socioeconomically challenged sixth graders.

Two big things have happened in the interim: First, thanks to the governor, I and some 75 other teachers were notified that we don’t have jobs next year; and second, thanks to the ongoing adrenal adenoma issue, I was forced to take my second medical leave of absence for the remainder of the school year after spring break.

Issue number one. Well, what can you say? These are hard times in California. Not as bad as Michigan, perhaps, but bad enough. California has, however, incredibly Byzantine budgetary processes. Where education funding is concerned, I have the impression it’s somehow tied to Proposition 13 back in 1978. Whatever it is, the end result is I have no California teaching job after 13-Jun-08. And with so many of us on the market, and with only one year of contracted classroom teaching experience under my belt, the prospects are looking a bit slim.

Personally, I think this is the usual grandstanding and ‘let’s see who blinks first’ political game, and that all will be resolved and forgiven and smiles all around and aren’t the children our future and see how we’ve taken care of them? In other words, the district will probably call me and ask if I want to come back shortly after the Governator does his thing to/with the legislature.

Which brings up issue two. If they do call, I won’t be accepting the offer. My health won’t stand another month of what I’ve just been through, let alone another year.

I post the following with some trepidation, hoping that a future employer won’t hold it against me and will understand what I’m saying and why I’m posting it. Hopefully, said future employer will see it as evidence of hard-won and valuable experience. But this is for the record, and this stuff really did happen, and I do have a commitment to EduBlogging … so here we go:

In the last three short months alone:
• I’ve arrived at school at 7:15 a.m. and been confronted by the sight of police arresting a gun-wielding high school student. We had to lock down and delay school for 30 minutes. Turned out to be an air pellet pistol, but …
• 110 of our 1,100 students claim they or someone they know have brought guns to our school.
• I was threatened with attack by one of my students who had to be held back by friends; it was my fault though, because I didn’t call her mother before the attack to say the student was going to attack me (!).
• We’ve had no budget for supplies and I’ve spent several hundred dollars for them (yes, I know every other teacher in America does the same).
• Our textbooks are torn and ripped and covered with swear words and pornographic drawings. Because they will be replaced with new ones next year, there’s little we can do, and since two classes share the same text books, it’s pretty impossible to finger the culprit, or keep on top of even when the drawings appear; only one or two students will actually report them.
• I had to bring the two pet rats home because students mistreated and almost killed them one day.
• The district reneged on paying for our health care halfway through the school year, meaning, effectively, most of us got a $300-a-month pay cut in December at Christmas.
• Although our school is supposedly guaranteed (due to test scores and demographics) small class sizes of 22-24, I have 34 in one class and 37 in the other; almost half are English language learners of varying language abilities.
• I have students who are losing homes in foreclosure and trying to get to school after spending the night in their cars.
• I’ve been called a redneck faggot more times than I can count; my last name has been intentionally mispronounced ever since some students discovered the mispronunciation is an ethnic slur against Polish people (even though I’m not Polish). The phrase ‘Mrs. Pollock is a faggot’ was written in marker on the chalk rail for a month or two until a custodian finally removed it.
• Female colleagues have been repeatedly called ‘b——’ (and that’s the nicest name) and ‘white b——.’ One of them teaches everyday with “Mrs. ———- is a b——!” scrawled in permanent marker on the wood on the front of her desk. Administration has made no attempt to try to remove it. “They don’t respect you,” they tell her.
• We discovered spent 9mm shell casings near our classrooms several mornings in a row.
• I have been told not to bother calling the grandmother of one of my students (mom lives in Texas, father is unknown), because ‘she don’t like white people.’
• As noted above, I supply my own paper for anything we do in class, from tests to worksheets. Because of this, we don’t do worksheets very often. On a related note, when asked by the principal to bring empty three-ring binders to school for science logs, the students refused, saying they weren’t spending anything on more school supplies than paper and pencils. We have subsequently never used science logs.
• Speaking of refusals, several students initially refused to sign papers acknowledging that we have classroom rules and behavior expectations and consequences, saying they have no intention of behaving properly in class, because ‘that’s just the way we be.’ They eventually capitulated, but their behavior wasn’t affected.
• Oh, and that classroom blogging thing I always harped on during grad school and here on this website? HA! Hahahahahahahahhahaha! What a rube I was! Let’s not go there!

There’s more, of course. Much more. Those are just highlights of the bad stuff.

Still, I believe. My core beliefs are still intact, as noted in the ‘Experience’ section of this site. I can deal with all of this, chalk it up to a bad situation that is actually good experience. I’m shaken AND stirred, but still rarin’ to go. There have been good things too; kids getting perfect scores on academic vocabulary tests; kids saying they finally ‘get it’ in math class thanks to me; kids showing some empathy and asking how I’m feeling (yes, this is a very big deal; most of these students are vicious towards others and empathy is extremely underdeveloped); kids actually altering their behavior and learning something; kids going from no mastery to double mastery of certain math concepts, and so on.

But my health just won’t permit me to both continue in this situation and profit from the experience. The day spring break began, when I got home after school, my blood pressure was 164 over 114, a new record. After a couple of weeks at home, with stronger medications keeping the blood pressure and the adrenal adenoma in check, I’m feeling mostly better, although my arthritis has me moving slow. If there were just 20 first or second graders, I would have been fine to go back after spring break.

So at the end of this year, all things considered, we’re planning to move somewhere. Today, Frank finished interviewing for a position in Las Cruces. Should he be chosen, we get to go home, and I will get my New Mexico certification and start applying for teaching jobs. If he doesn’t get an offer, well, we’ll keep trying. If we stay here, I will be subbing, most likely, although I probably will only accept K-2 subbing gigs here while we wait for something better to happen outside the very, very stressful Bay Area.

There is just no question in my mind on this issue; after the better part of two years spent dealing with sixth grade and middle school drama, I have to draw a firm line in the sand and not be pulled back into middle school because that’s the highest need area and that’s where male teachers are ‘supposed’ to go. I refuse to interview for or accept any teaching assignment above fifth grade/elementary school. It’s too intense and there are too many kids who are at too critical a moment in their lives for me to handle at this time in my life.

I’m totally all about, as I have always been, teaching lower elementary, hopefully second grade again. Second graders and I get along beautifully; I just love that age group. I’ll also roll with kindergarten, first or third, but second is where it’s at for me. I’m more interested in that stage of learning development. It’s calmer, you have 20 or less kids to worry about instead of 60-70, so you can build better relationships and have a greater impact. And that’s what I’m looking for at this point. Lower El totally rocks my world!

The last couple of years have been valuable, and I wish my health had been in a better position during it. But it was what it was. Time to make some lemonade, put some distance between it and me, and laugh about it (not yet maybe, but sometime soon).

Wow.

I stumbled across Eric Zorn’s «50 things learned in 50 years» via «MetaFilter» and I may try to transmit some of the more important lessons to my students soon. My favorites:

‘2. Promptness shows respect.
3. You can’t avoid offending people from time to time. When you don’t mean it, apologize. When you do mean it, accept the consequences.
6. The most valuable thing to have is a good reputation, and it’s neither hard nor expensive to acquire one: Be fair. Be honest. Be trustworthy. Be generous. Respect others.
7. Prejudice and bigotry is hard-wired into us. You can’t overcome it until you acknowledge it.
10. Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act.
11. The Golden Rule is the greatest moral truth. If you don’t believe in it, at least try to fake it.
13. You can’t win arguing with police officers or referees, but every so often you can fight City Hall.
14. It’s not “political correctness” that dictates that we try not to insult others’ beliefs and identities. It’s common decency.
19. It’s never a shame when you admit you don’t know something, and often a shame when you assume that you do.
21. Fear of failure is a ticket to mediocrity. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not pushing yourself. And if you’re not pushing yourself, you’re coasting.
22. Anyone who judges you by the kind of car you drive or shoes you wear isn’t someone worth impressing.
23. Grudges are poison. The only antidote is to let them go.
24. If you’re in a conversation and you’re not asking questions, then it’s not a conversation, it’s a monologue.
26. Great parents can have rotten kids and rotten parents can have great kids. But even though biology plays a huge role in destiny, that’s no excuse to give up or stop trying.
31. Physical attraction is nice, but shared values and a shared sense of humor are the real keys to lasting love.
33. The 10-minute jump start is the best way to get going on a big task you’ve been avoiding. Set a timer and begin, promising yourself that you’ll quit after 10 minutes and do something else. The momentum will carry you forward.
36. Goals that you keep to yourself are just castles on the beach. If you’re determined to achieve something, tell people about it and ask them to help you stick with it.
44. When you mess up, ’fess up. It’s the fastest way, if there is one, to forgiveness.
46. Be truthful or be quiet. Lies are hard to keep track of.
47. Your education isn’t complete until you’ve learned to take a hint.
49. Whatever your passion, pursue it as though your days were numbered. Because they are.’
—Chicago Tribune

Excellent stuff.

The Boston Globe «weighs in» on closing the achievement gap between socioeconomic haves and have-nots. Their conclusion:

‘“Teach everything” should be a motto: academics, time management, study skills, and the value of a positive attitude. Instead of laboring for hours over opaque material, students should be trained to ask for help early and often. … Achievement isn’t about genes or race. It’s just making a choice to work hard. Good schools give students a personal map and the tools to do that work.’
—Boston Globe

Would that it were so pat and easy.

The editorial cites a New York Times article written by Paul Tough, in which Tough writes:

‘The evidence is now overwhelming that if you take an average low-income child and put him into an average American public school, he will almost certainly come out poorly educated.’
—New York Times

Who is Paul Tough?

‘Paul Tough is a print and broadcast journalist, originally from Toronto, now residing in New York City. He is a features editor at the New York Times Magazine, the author of a forthcoming book on poverty, race and education, and the son of Invitation to ETI founder and chief scientist Dr. Allen Tough. He recently produced a radio story on the Invitation to ETI, the history of human attempts to contact extraterrestrials, and the ways in which the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has affected his relationship with his father. The story aired in 2005 on “This American Life.”’
—IETI.Org

And what is ETI?

‘The mission of the Invitation to ETI is to establish communication with any form of extraterrestrial intelligence able to monitor our World Wide Web.’
—IETI.Org

Hmmmmm. What was that about ‘poorly educated’?

I accepted a job today in a district a couple of cities away. It came out of the blue, all of a sudden. Starting 21-Aug, I’ll be a sixth grade math and science teacher at a junior high school. It’s an interesting, unique, and potentially very beneficial opportunity, and I’m grateful to have a chance at it.

The principal called this morning as I was getting ready for yet another doctor’s appointment and asked if I were still available. We arranged an interview for 13:00. The interview last about 30 minutes or so and then he went and called a couple of my references, which were very positive (he said). He offered the job to me on the spot. We then went over and he let me pick out a classroom. I then found myself driving to the district office and going over all the necessary paperwork with a very nice HR lady.

The district is much friendlier and less closed off than my last one. I am cautiously optimistic about it. The assignment itself won’t be easy; but for various reasons I won’t go into, I think it will be much easier than my sixth grade long-term sub stint this spring, which was a real blow to my self-image and self-confidence.

So, the horse is back in the gate, and I’m about to get back in the saddle. Wish me luck.

In a post titled, «Time for Regime Change in Education», Dan Brown says there is a single question to be asked:

‘A single question cuts to the heart of America’s education dilemma:
’1. spend all of their class time on only reading and math test preparation?
’2. study a balanced diet of subjects including reading, writing, math, science, social studies and civics, music, the arts, health, and physical education?’
—The Huffington Post

He further writes, ‘Unfortunately where we stand now, No Child Left Behind and its attendant logic of fixating on standardized test scores have sucked the marrow and quality time out of school days.‘

I’d have to agree … to a point. As a teacher, NCLB and the mentality surrounding it threaten to suck the life and joy and quality out of teaching as well.

Janet Ewell, a high school teacher in Orange County, wrote a wonderful opinion piece called «Test-Takers, Not Students» in the L.A. Times on May 26. I almost missed it. It certainly deserves wider exposure:

Test madness and centralized curriculum control squeeze creativity out of the classroom
‘It is popular to blame the federal No Child Left Behind Act for California’s educational woes, but our misery is largely homegrown and predates the 2001 law. A friend who teaches at a prestigious suburban school recently told me that she was on leave and didn’t think she was going back. “I can’t stand giving kindergartners timed standards tests and watching tears trickle down their cheeks,” she said. “It’s just not right.”
‘I know how she feels. This fall, we were at first forbidden to teach novels — any novels — in the college preparatory English classes at our high school. We must teach from the textbook because “the Holt textbook is aligned to the California content standards,” the principal said. No “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” No “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The good news is the administration at my award-winning urban district relented and is allowing us to teach one novel, now that we are done with 18 hours of California Standards Tests.
‘The bad news is the district tells us we can do so only if we use the novel to “reinforce content standards” and not “teach it cover to cover,” and the novel must “not supplant Holt’s minimum course of study.” The district allows me seven hours to teach To Kill a Mockingbird to my students, a third of whom are English learners and two-thirds of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.’
LA Times

Best indictment I’ve read lately.

I started a new teaching assignment last week [January 2007]: 60 sixth graders in two classes. They’re an energetic, fun, and talented group and I like them all very much. I’m happy to have the job and finally feel up to being an actual teacher in charge.

It’s had its rough moments, of course, behavior-wise; this is a talky group and they are also pretty snarky with each other. It’s stuff we’re working on. But all-in-all, I’m enjoying it and making the transition pretty well (from an emotional perspective).

There was one moment, however, this morning that took the wind out of my sails. While signing the weekly attendance verification forms in the office, one of the assistant principals asked to speak with me. The upshot was that a parent had called to complain that I had told the kids about having a partner. The offending phrase was uttered during the day last week when I took time out to introduce myself and have them introduce themselves to me. The phrase was, “My partner F——- and I have been together seven years and we have a 12-year-old beagle.” No other information related to this was given; I didn’t use any other words than “partner;” certainly not “gay” or anything like that. There was no advertorial/recruitment for the impressionable little 12-year-olds to come over to the dark side.

Nonetheless, this single phrase generated a hot call to the assistant principal, who was then put in the difficult position of having to promise to talk to me and then having to talk to me. She is very good at what she does and we had a good conversation, agreed on several things, and left it at that. Beyond that, I won’t say anything else about the conversation, except that it was pleasant and not a problem.

But.

It still takes the wind out of my sails. Our relationship is recognized by the state (mostly) and we’ll file a joint state tax return in 2008. Yet here comes the harassment. I’m glad there was no demand for my head or resignation or firing or “get my daughter out of his class” or any of that. But parents talk to each other. As do the kids. I know that at least two of my students now know what a “partner” is, and I know there is the potential that the parents do as well. By this one phone call about a single, honest, two-second statement, there is now a sword of Damocles over my head. While the administrators would back me up, well, when parents get angry and then say the magic word, “lawsuit,” well, let’s just say school districts don’t go to bat for their homos. I’m not paranoid, but I don’t like this.

Still, I told the truth to my students when asked an honest question. It’s a principle that I teach and expect my students to uphold; I can’t be bullied or scared into abandoning when things get unpleasant. We’ll see how this shakes out. Most probably, nothing will happen. But my wind is up, as the Brits say.

I love «this letter» in the Rocky Mountain News Letters to the Editor section:

‘Teachers not well-paid
‘Where does Betsy Hart get her information? In her column of Dec. 11, “This year, I’ll be celebrating a low- key Christmas,” she stated, “I really like my kids’ teachers, but they are well-compensated and I’m just not going to add to the 25 gift cards they’ll have trouble using anyway.”
‘I can assure Hart that teachers are not well-compensated and will most likely use those “25 gift cards” to purchase classroom supplies not furnished by the school district. As a retired educator of 34 years, I speak from experience.
‘Get your facts straight, Ms. Hart.
‘Fran Dismukes
‘Aurora’
—Denver Rocky Mountain News

Let’s see, with my master’s degree on Aurora Public Schools’ licensed salary schedule, I would make $38,182. Frankly, I don’t think one could live very comfortably alone in the Denver metro area on that.

Ms. Dismukes is absolutely right. Way to go, Ms. Dismukes!

«Excellent visual for the classroom!»

Overheard in a third grade classroom two weeks before Christmas:

‘Mr. Pollock, is Santa Claus real?’

Uh, go home and ask your parents, kid!

«Happy» «Beethoven’s Birthday!»

While it’s true that there is plenty of controversy that can crop up in teaching language arts and social studies, I’m really glad I don’t teach science at times like «this»:

‘The scandal at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) just keeps getting worse. Since the Washington Post published an op-ed I wrote asking if NSTA’s puzzling decision to reject 50,000 free DVDs of Al Gore’s global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth might – just might – have had anything to do with more than six million dollars the organization has accepted from ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, ConocoPhillips and the American Petroleum Institute, the muck keeps piling up. ExxonMobil, of course, remains the standout among a large group of fossil fuel companies that have done everything in their considerable power to delay, deflect, and derail any serious effort to cut global warming emissions. Funding scientific disinformation has long been one of their favorite tactics.
‘New evidence flatly contradicts statements NSTA has made in defense of its suspect partnerships, and efforts appear to be underway to wipe out online evidence showing that what the oil industry got in exchange was the group’s imprimatur on classroom videos, teaching guides, and other “educational” materials that play down threats like global warming and play up the glories of continued oil dependence. We also learned that NSTA is willing to sell direct access to America’s schoolteachers to any Tom, Dick or Exxon that shows up with a checkbook. And here’s the icing on the cake: NSTA Executive Director Dr. Gerry Wheeler—a top figure in the world of science education, remember—confessed to at least one reporter this week that he hadn’t actually bothered to see the acclaimed film before he turned it down.’
—Huffington Post

What a mess!

Are your children or the students in your classroom writing to Santa this year? Be sure it’s addressed correctly to:

Santa Claus
North Polo H0H 0H0
Canada

And be sure and include your return address so he can write you back. (He does, you know, and in your native language, inlcuding Esperanto.)

Or you could just go online; «Canada Post» has a handy page that lets you get Kris Kringle’s immediate attention.

Happy Holidays!

A whisper overheard in a classroom before Thanksgiving:

‘He’s a wrinkled old man!’

 

This has been another edition of Things I Already Knew Thank You Very Much (TIAKTYVM).

«More of the same» in Wisconsin:

‘Some Fond du Lac parents have asked school officials to remove former U.S. poet laureate Maya Angelou’s autobiography from the high school curriculum.
‘Students at Fond du Lac High School read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” in sophomore advanced English classes.
‘But some parents have objected to passages that describe Angelou’s rape and subsequent unwanted pregnancy. About 80 people attended a meeting at the school this week to discuss the book and the request to remove it.
‘School Superintendent Gregory Maass said the initial complaint came from one family.
‘“We had a mother and father and student who questioned the book,” he said. “The high school provided the student with an alternative book.”
‘The parents were not satisfied and asked for the book to be removed from the curriculum, Maass said.’
—WFRV.com

Which century do we live in, again?

To sanitize Thanksgiving in the classroom, or not to sanitize Thanksgiving in the classroom … «that is the question»:

‘… an Associated Press story focusing on how teachers like Morgan (who teaches at Cleveland Elementary School in San Francisco) are “trying to portray is a different point of view” about Thanksgiving — i.e., a far less fun one.
‘Some think that’s akin to being the grinch who stole Christmas, or a rehash of Indigenous Peoples Day.
‘“He is teaching his students to hate their country,” said Janice Shaw Crouse, a former college dean and high school teacher who is now a spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America. “That is a very distorted view of history, a distorted view of Thanksgiving.”
‘Even if it’s not entirely distorted, is it a good idea?
…
‘According to James Loewen, author of ‘Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong,’ said that during the first Thanksgiving, got along relatively well, even though the settlers were suspected of robbing Native American graves to steal food buried with the dead.
‘“Relations were strained, but yet the holiday worked. Folks got along.”
‘Not long after that, as we know, things definitely went downhill.’
—SFGate.com

Ah. The Great American Culture War. Always fun when it spills into the classroom.

A reminder of why I love the web so much: «the 25 Funniest Analogies» collected by English teachers:

Some of my favorites:

‘3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. …
’5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
’6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. …
’14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
’15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth. …
’17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River. …
’19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
’20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.’
—Writing English Blog

Priceless.

This is an AWESOME site for us social studies geeks: «Fantasy Congress».

It’s just like those fantasy/rotisserie baseball leagues, but with congressmen and senators and legislation instead of short stops, home runs and ERA’s.

Would love to try this with a class of students!

I’m still trying to figure this one out:

From an elementary school’s list of Red Ribbon Week activities:

‘Thursday: Discuss grade-appropriate healthy choices. (Lollipops can be given out this day.)’

Ummmmmm …

Via «MetaFilter», comes «this rather interesting take on grades» from a syllabus of Professor John P. Staeck of the College of DuPage Czech American Archaelogical Field School. The professor includes the obligatory disclaimer that this is his opinion and his alone, of course:

‘I hate grades. Letters do not make us who we are and do not, usually, reflect what we know or are capable of. Nonetheless, our society has adopted the use of grades as a measure of success and capability in academic environments. I work in this society and I am obliged to follow the rules set forth by my employer and the larger education industry in general. Consequently, I assign grades.’

I personally like his final paragraph:

‘I realize this makes me a villain in the eyes of some. After all, I am not willing to “cut someone a break” for attending most of the classes or “needing to get an “A” in my class.” I do not believe my courses are particularly difficult to pass, nor is it difficult to achieve high grades in these courses. Consequently I see no good reason to pass someone solely on effort, good intentions, or even desperation to keep a scholarship or some sort of academic membership. Think of it this way, if you were having open heart surgery would you want your surgeon to be the person who mastered that course of study or the one who really tried, didn’t get it, but was passed anyway?’

I may adapt this to my middle school syllabus in the future.

Big interview tomorrow for a nice juicy new job. Very excited about the opportunity, hope I do well in the interview, and that they choose me. I need to get back in the real game and have a classroom of my own.

Fingers crossed!

‘Brilliance comes in all colors, strengths in many forms. When we learn to honor the differences and appreciate the mix, we’re on our way.’
—Kelly Ann Rothaus

It appears to be a one-post blog, and that’s too bad, because the Concerned Professor had an interesting and thought-provoking beginning that deserves to be continued. In his one and only post, the Professor «wrote about academic cheating», and I’m not sure if the post itself or the comments it generated are the most interesting and revealing:

‘If collaboration and the open-source methodology are truly the future of the web, how can professors and universities deal with this? While the media and popular culture have spent countless hours extolling the virtues (and there are many) of these sorts of communities, I can’t help but wonder: How can we, the teachers and professors of the “interent generation” weed out the cheaters and liars from the honest students? How can we compete with the expectation for guiltless and effortless cheating the internet has instilled on our country’s children? I, for one, am running out of ideas.’
—The Concerned Professor

Commenters proceeded to let the professor have it up one side and down another, which is quite revealing:

‘Lastly, why do you care? Perhaps you’re one of the few professors that do, but you’re a dying breed. The only reason us student go to college is to get a piece of paper, and honestly the most helpful things we learn apply to social engineering anyways.’
—PixelBender.Junk
‘It sounds like you are a lazy professor, resistant to change, and prone to whining. Many approaches are available to deal with cheating. They are actions that raise the level of expected performance and personalize the learning experience. They include things like: writing or problem solving exercises in class—with high impact on final grade, pop quizes, feedback and grades on class participation / discussion, individual or small group projects with the requirement to turn in research notes along with the final discussion paper, projects that end with a verbal presentation and discussion—not just a paper, etc. Quit whining, change, and get to work.’
—Virchull

Wow. What an interesting society we’ve become.

I’m in the middle of two days of subbing for a sixth grade class in a different middle school. My first experience with sixth grade confirms what I’ve long suspected: something happens to middle schoolers increasingly as they progress through the three-year period that turns them from sweet and reasonable and cooperative to smart-assed and ridiculous and sullen.

Sixth grade subbing is a joy, eighth grade involves not a small amount of pain.

So what happens? The usual suspects … puberty, top-dog/upper classman cockiness, height/weight gains that put them on par with adults, discovery of wider dating and social and networking worlds, realization that they’re not as special and individually treated as they were in elementary school, but increasingly are one of a herd of 180 moving through a teacher’s day, hence a loss of individuality and identity, and bullying/roughness that comes along increasingly at that age.

That’s my guess. We pretty much know why this happens. But the more important question is what to do about it … how to mitigate it.

Interesting stuff to ponder at midnight.

My words about things working out and being manageable were spoken too soon.

The weather cooled off, but my joints heated up and things got all higgledy-piggledy. I wrote the following paragraphs in an e-mail to Michigan friends, who will have to forgive me for re-posting parts of it here on the Te[a]ch blog and on our Brentwood blog (airbeagle.net). But I’m rather limited on my ability to type …

So, about that first week of teaching … yeah.

First three days of school were good. Besides one little incident, things went well. My students did great on a reading assessment I gave them on Wednesday. I thought everything was going to be fine, just had to adjust to the school, city and grade level. Would take some time, all that.

But.

Increasingly through Wednesday (2-Aug-06), I had been having more and more arthritis pain, all over. By Wednesday morning, I was waking up bawling my eyes out and barely moving. After consultation with my principal that morning, we talked about ways to ease up and not kill myself keeping up with 179 kids and he told me to take Thursday and Friday off so I could find a doctor/rheumatologist and get things under control.

It has totally trashed my emotional health at the same time and I was simply losing it. Thought I was gonna lose my mind. Not in front of the kids, but it was only a matter of time. So, I went to local urgent care, got some percoset and xanax and a referral to a rheumatologist. On Friday, I saw the rheumatologist in Walnut Creek and she was great, much better than the one I was using in Ann Arbor, and she ordered tests and x-rays and gave me vicodin and increased anti-depressants. She suspects that I have spondylosis, which is basically spinal osteoarthritis, which involves deteriorating discs and vertebrae in my back, which are causing nerve problems in the rest of me. My sister and mother have the same thing. Mom’s is especially bad. So, the x-rays will be read and next week we’ll figure out where to go from there.

She also insisted that I take the next week off of work. Since I had 11 days of sick leave, it wasn’t a problem, but it was hugely embarrassing and frustrating and I felt failure and anger and all that. Just when I needed to be on the game the most, my body failed me. But the principal was great; they had a sub that the kids love who knew what to do, I had lesson plans ready to go, and I’m stayed home, kept immobilized and let the swelling go down. Doc also pumped me full of steroids. I’m a walking pharmacy. In other words, out of the first two weeks of school, I was there only three days. Not exactly a sterling start to the year.

Over the next two weeks, the following happened: We found an unrolled condom on the sidewalk in front of my class right after school yesterday. Some drug dealing, MySpace nonsense, and anorexia (in separate incidents) had to be dealt with. I turned over a page of homework from one of my Metallica-loving students to the principal because the student had drawn swastikas and SS symbols on it; he claims that he draws such symbols because he “hates authority.” (The irony of drawing Nazi symbols in order to defy authority is just too rich to be believed; the kid needs a history lesson. Oh, yeah, that’s my job). A female student tried to get me to pronounce a word from the internet underground which means “to dominate sexually.” She was shocked when I knew what it was and what it meant and told her to never say it again. I didn’t have computer access to my gradebook until three weeks into the term, so I had to race to enter grades from three weeks of homework and quizzes for 180 kids into EasyGradeBookPro. And that’s just the stuff I can mention publically.

Okay, so yeah, that’s some bad/negative stuff, but it’s only a part of the picture. There IS lots of good stuff, every day: These kids can write, and if we didn’t spend so much time on behavior management (or if we worked with just 90 of them instead of 180), could be absolutely incredible. Most of them are bored by rigid curriculum and need to be freed from worksheets and unchallenging, 19th-century education methods. The staff and administration is wonderful and unbelievably supportive. I love the other staff members and teachers. The parents I have met so far are terrific. The principal reports that the kids love me. It hasn’t been cloudy a day since we got here from Michigan. The hot tub is fabulous (at least it was until we got the $615 utility bill for the first month and had to turn it off). And the beagle LOVES his own backyard and takes a walk to the park every morning. Vicodin is an awesome painkiller and I thank god everyday for its invention.

However, due to my recent osteoarthritis drama as noted above, which I was told had indeed spread to the spine, I left regular teaching at Edna Hill at the end of August and began subbing again. There’s just no way I can physically keep up with the demands of teaching 180 middle schoolers. So, I’m subbing temporarily and then the district will slot me into a K-2 position or a tech teacher-of-teachers position by the end of September. The district has been wonderful and gracious about it all and say they don’t want me to lose me entirely. I’m sad/disappointed about it not working out at Edna Hill, but I’ll be happier and the kids better served if I go down to K-2 and only have 22 kids to take care of. I know there are better days ahead. It just sucks when your body fails you just when you need it most. Good news is that the doc signed me up for a handicapped parking tag so now grampa gets to park up front everywhere he goes.

And so it goes.

Finally, here comes the moment that I’ve planned and worked for for over two-and-a-half years. Tomorrow is back to school day and 179 energetic adolescents in the 7th and 8th grades will be pounding down my door for instruction.

Not exaclty what I had envisioned my job search producing, but I’m very, very happy with the situation, and the age group situtation will resolve itself quickly.

I have the usual pre-back-to-school anxieties going; same old thing I’ve dealt with for 42 years. I’ve had much, much worse in past years, so this one is looking like it’s manageable.

In fact, I’m ready to get going. It’s going to be quite a day.

In the space of two weeks, I completed a master’s degree in educational studies with K-8 certification and accepted a position teaching 7th and 8th grade language arts at a California middle school.

Whew.

What I thought would be a fairly low-key summer has turned into a break-neck-paced couple of months.

The school begins early; 24-Jul is new teacher orientation and 31-Jul will see the kids hitting the classroom. The compensation for the early start is three, two-week vacations, in October, December, and March. So I’m not complaining, in other words.

Still, it leaves me a bit breathless. In the space of just five weeks, I have to adjust from living in Michigan and being a graduate student to living in California and being a professional middle school teacher. I’m sure I can handle it, but it’s a tall order.

First order of business: figuring out exactly what I want to do in the first days. There are plenty of options, and I know what I want to accomplish, but there are many questions to be answered first: How many kids? How big is the classroom? Do I have money to spend on supplies? Will there really be enough time in the week before the students arrive to get truly prepared?

Lots of questions, very little time to figure out answers. Such is life. I will have some time on the cross-country trip to figure out some of them. We leave Ann Arbor on 11-Jul and don’t get to Brentwood until 17-Jul, which gives me about 7 days to do some thinking and writing.

It’s going to be an exciting summer.

«Here» is how teachers should NOT use blog technology:

‘Typing rambling screeds in an anonymous blog he called “Fast Times at Regnef High,” a Fenger High School teacher unleashed his frustration over the chaos he saw around him. He labeled his Chicago students “criminals,” saying they stole from teachers, dealt drugs in the hallways, had sex in the stairwells, flaunted their pregnant bellies and tossed books out windows. He dismissed their parents as unemployed “project” dwellers who subsist on food stamps, refuse to support their “baby mommas” and bad-mouth teachers because their no-show teens are flunking. He took swipes at his colleagues, too — “union-minimum” teachers, literacy specialists who “decorate their office door with pro-black propaganda,” and security officers whose “loyalty is to the hood, not the school.” In his blog, the teacher did not identify himself or his students, the exact name of his school or even the city where he taught. But like all bloggers, he wanted an audience, so he wrote in his blog that he had leaked news of his site to a few coworkers. Soon enough, the 30-year-old teacher’s name was the talk of the school.
‘This week, after returning from Spring Break, the students read how they were depicted and flamed the blog with profane threats and righteous indignation toward the teacher. By Thursday, the reaction grew so vitriolic that the blogger took down his site from Blogger.com. Also that day, a Fenger High teacher e-mailed his principal that he wasn’t coming to school because he “feared for his safety.” The teacher was the same one widely believed to have authored the blog because he told two colleagues that it was his, Fenger Principal William Johnson said.’
—Chicago Tribune/AP

Sometimes … I wonder how some people become teachers in the first place. And why.

I’ve spent a long holiday break just resting and then starting back for the downhill half of grad school. It’s intense, but manageable. We’re collapsing four months of coursework into one month to clear the decks for lead teaching in March and April. It’ll be worth it when it’s done, but it’s a bit tedious right now.

Looking at education news that’s been happening since I’ve been on break: «Houston has decided to pay teachers by how well they teach to tests»:

‘Over the objections of the teachers’ union, the Board of Education here on Thursday unanimously approved the nation’s largest merit pay program, which calls for rewarding teachers based on how well their students perform on standardized tests. The $14.5 million program, which immediately replaces a model with lower incentives, would distribute up to $3,000 annually per teacher and up to $25,000 for senior administrators. …
‘The pay incentives are to be based on three components, or “strands.” One will reward teachers based on how much their school’s test scores have improved compared with the scores of 40 other schools with similar demographics around the state. Another will compare student progress on the Stanford 10 Achievement test and its Spanish-language equivalent to that of students in similar classrooms in the Houston district. The third measure will be student progress on the statewide Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, as compared with that in similar Houston classrooms. …
‘Rigorous statewide testing to gauge student achievement has been an article of faith in Texas for years. But in 1999 the Texas Education Agency began investigating Houston and other districts because of suspicious results on the statewide test. Last year, the Houston school board said it had found evidence of cheating at four schools and testing irregularities at seven more. A half-dozen teachers were fired, and several principals were demoted or reprimanded.’
—New York Times

Lovely.

And now another episode of Classic Classroom Vignettes:

[Male student reading a story he had written about his brother during Writing Workshop] ‘And then he gave me a big ol’ wedgie!’
Female student: ‘Mr. Pollock, what’s a wedgie?’

This has been another episode of Classic Classroom Vignettes.

From the I’m-Not-Creative-Enough-To-Make-This-Stuff-Up Department:

Kid 1: ‘Santa Claus ain’t real, it’s just your parents!’
Kid 2: ‘Santa Claus is too real, ‘cause my parents can’t afford all that stuff!’

Muslim Kid: Mr. Pollock, what does this graffiti mean?

Graffiti underneath slide says the Bible equals ignorance.

Jewish Kid: Mr. Pollock, what’s the Bible?

I have what has been described as ‘Lower El Laryngitis,’ an affliction which seems to hit teachers in the lower grades their first year or two out. In came on inexplicably, with barely a sore throat and no fever or other complaints and has left me without a voice for a week now.

I was supposed to teach a Writing Workshop session Monday morning, but that will have to be cancelled, because my speech is completely unreliable at this point. The long five-day Thanksgiving holiday was a blessing; I caught the dreaded Lower El Laryngitis at the right time. But if it doesn’t go away soon, it’s going to really screw up my last three weeks of the term when I need my voice the most.

Otherwise, grad school is … going. It has its moments of high stress/high anxiety and its moments of ‘this isn’t such a big deal.’ There has been high drama, a few celebrations, some hilarity, some hijinks, some ‘awwww’ moments, a couple of scares … in other words, pretty much what I expected.

I was reading back over my postings from last spring and noticed these two:

‘Posted @ 21:06 | 21-Apr-05
‘I finally returned my ELMAC preferences form to the School of Ed today. The week’s delay reflects my … internal ambivalence, shall we say, about the program and whether going upwards of $60,000 in debt is worth it.
‘I’m not sure these doubts will ever go away, at least not before June ‘06. But lord knows I’ve been wrong about these things before.’

and

‘Posted @ 21:04 | 13-Apr-05
‘Received the kick-off communique for ELMAC 8 today: an e-mail from Dr. Reischl with all the little details and things that have to be done by June 28, which is orientation day.
‘I’m still a bit unsure about whether I should do the program or not and why I’m doing it and all that. But I have no really compelling reason not to move forward, so here we go.’

Such ambivalence! And now, as we’re a mere three weeks away from the halfway point, it’s almost time to pause and reflect (there’s that grad school word yet again!) and try to decide if I’m still ambivalent … if the $60,000 in debt is still worth it … if my doubts have gone away … why I’m doing it … and have any compelling reasons to NOT be doing this reared their ugly heads?

My answers at this point:

1. Still ambivalent for very complex reasons having to do with just how well prepared in practical teaching the program is making me (as opposed to theoretical teaching).

2. Is debt ever really worth it? Still very, very scary and very, very expensive to be so ambivalent about (see #1).

3. Doubts? See the previous 2 answers.

4. Why? I know why. And I am committed to public education and to making life better for kids. No qualms there.

5. What else would I be doing if not this? Subbing? Being utterly miserable in a cubicle farm somewhere? Lord no.

More reflection at the halfway point will be forthcoming as I get two-and-a-half weeks off for Christmas. In the meantime, there’s the monstrous literacy unit plan, the ridiculous final math methods requirements and exam and all the Michigan Matters munchkins to mentor, as well as three weeks of read alouds, writing workshops, math enrichment and guided reading groups with the second graders to get through.

I will say this: We have the brightest, most wonderful second graders anywhere. I am truly blessed with my cooperating teacher and the 23 students in our class. And that makes this Thanksgiving meaningful this year.

In other Digital Divide news, comes success stories about «Computer C.O.R.E.»:

‘When Abdul Agermoune came to America in 1999, he had never used a computer. He had never sent an e-mail or even seen a mouse. None of his friends or relatives in Morocco had ever owned a computer — and although he had been accepted to George Mason University to study Economics, he was ill equipped to handle the technological challenge of being a modern student. “Computer C.O.R.E. opened the door,” he said. “I now have the skills that are needed to enter the job force.” Now, Agermoune has a job at Wright Pattman Congressional Federal Credit Union — a job he got on the condition that he complete the Computer C.O.R.E. program. In April, he became a financial analyst. He credits much of his success to the nonprofit organization that taught him how to use a computer. “I told myself that I was going to start coming every day because I didn’t want to disappoint the manager who hired me,” Agermoune said. “I even learned how to type.”’
—The Connection

‘Ill-equipped to handle the technological challenge of being a modern student.’ Key phrase. Schools must equip students in technological ways or students will fail. It’s that simple.

A little known portion of NCLB states that all students in the eighth grade must be technologically proficient by June 2006, some 6+ months from now.

In Oshkosh, WI, «teachers are finding enthusiasm for blogging», as well as general technology in the classroom:

‘The technology lessons are part of an effort to make sure all Oshkosh teachers are technologically proficient and able to help their students meet one of the lesser-known provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind education reform law. The NCLB law, which increased testing in reading and math for students in third- through eighth-grade, also includes a provision requiring all eighth-graders to be technology literate by June 2006. But as Oshkosh Technology Director Scott Colantonio works to help the district meet the new standards, it’s not the students he’s worried about. “They are so quick to do all this stuff. What I get concerned about is bringing the staff up to speed,’ Colantonio said.’
—The Northwestern

And that’s the interesting twist; ed tech represents a flip-flop in traditional roles since most students are very tech-savvy and most teachers are not. Teachers have to get tech proficient and districts have to make tech investments. And it’s the law.

In Digital Divide news, the Wall Street Journal reports that the «$100 laptop is closer to reality»:

‘A novel plan to develop a $100 laptop computer for distribution to millions of schoolchildren in developing countries has caught the interest of governments and the attention of computer-industry heavyweights. First announced in January by Nicholas Negroponte, the founding chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, the initiative appears to be gaining steam. Mr. Negroponte is scheduled to demonstrate a working prototype of the device with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday at a U.N. technology conference in Tunisia. Mr. Negroponte and other backers say they have held discussions with at least two dozen countries about purchasing the laptops and that Brazil and Thailand have expressed the most interest so far. In addition, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney recently proposed spending $54 million to buy one of the laptops for every student in middle school and high school in his state. Although no contracts with governments have been signed, Negroponte says current plans call for producing five to ten million units beginning in late 2006 or early 2007, with tens of millions more a year later. Five companies — Google Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Red Hat Inc., News Corp. and Brightstar Corp. — have each provided $2 million to fund a nonprofit organization called One Laptop Per Child that was set up to oversee the project. Mr. Negroponte says five companies are bidding to make the laptop, although he declined to name them.’
—<em>Wall Street Journal</em>

This will bear watching, as it would be a godsend to schools.

Technology is moving so fast that public education, always hard-pressed to keep up, is getting further behind. The relatively recent advent of podcasting is a perfect example; most schools and teachers don’t even recognize the value of websites, let alone blogging, let alone podcasting.

But fortunately, there are some tech-minded people in education who are showing how public education and cutting edge technology can come together in positive ways. In Virginia, «Camilla Gagliolo uses podcasts to re-imagine the iPod as a learning tool»:

‘At some schools, the rules are clear: Kids can chill out to downloaded music on portable players, but once they’re inside, iPods and other learning distractions must be stowed in backpacks or lockers and kept there. At Jamestown Elementary School in Arlington, Camilla Gagliolo took another approach. Rather than fighting the fad, she’s capitalizing on it by giving students iPods and re-imagining them as a learning tool. “It just makes so much sense. They are so drawn to this technology. They are so excited by it. They’re comfortable with it,” said Gagliolo, the school’s technology coordinator. Using little more than an iPod and a school computer, Gagliolo and her students have been making podcasts — online radio shows that can be downloaded to an iPod or other portable MP3 player. Avidly discussing their favorite iPod colors and models while they made recordings of their poems and book reports the other day, the fifth-graders bubbled with ideas for future subjects. “We could read parts of books, to show why we like them. We could do interviews. If there’s a field trip, we could make a recording of it and post it,” said Mohamed El Sayed, 10. “Kids anywhere will like to hear about us.” … Teachers say the benefits of making podcasts are clear: The trendy technology and the possibility of a wider audience motivate students. “My students research better, read more, write better and understand the material,” said Beth Sanborn, a fifth-grade teacher at Willowdale Elementary School, near Omaha, where students have been making podcasts since last spring.’
—MSNBC.com

There’s an emphasis on researching and shaping facts into scripts before making the podcasts. And parents seem to love the idea of hearing what their children are doing in school. It could solve the age-old parent-kid conversational problem, ‘How was school today?’ ‘Fine.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘Stuff.’

Overcoming the inherent bureaucratic inertia and bias is a crucial problem, which the article doesn’t address. Nor does it address the need for ‘rules of the road;’ blogging and podcasting in schools need structure and authentic pedagogy underlying them. They should be seen, like all technology, as useful tools, a means to an end, not the end itself. But this article provides a hopeful sign at least.

Schools better get used to it: Teens have moved «from locked diaries to open blogs»:

‘According to the Pew survey, 57 percent of all teenagers between 12 and 17 who are active online — about 12 million — create digital content, from building Web pages to sharing original artwork, photos and stories to remixing content found elsewhere on the Web. Some 20 percent publish their own Web logs.’
—New York Times

The implications are huge. And if schools don’t get ahead of the curve, the chaos will be huge as well.

There’s always some interesting reading over at Web-logged, which is a blog about the ‘Read-Write Web in the Classroom.’ «This particular post about the Digital Divide», which is something we worked on at NorthPoint way back in 1999-2000, is particularly sobering, especially about the following facts:

‘• Two-thirds of America’s poor do not have access.
• More than 80 percent of non high school grads are offline.
• Because the middle class has gotten connected, Internet access is generally assumed in this country, meaning the digital divide is more problematic than ever.
• With more an more government services going online, the result is only the priveleged can take part.
• Most bloggers and blog readers are white and well off which squeezes many out of the public discourse.’
—Andy Carvin, via Web-logged

And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. We need to address this in K-12 education immediately, and teachers seem way too afraid of the technology to do so right now.

We’ve been scratching the surface of the role of race in education during our literacy methods class this fall, mainly by reading «Lisa Delpit’s The Silenced Dialogue» and «Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack»“, which mostly concern black students. Now comes a new angle on the issue: «White flight in the face of over-achieving Asian students in Silicon Valley»:

‘Over the past 10 years, the proportion of white students at Lynbrook has fallen by nearly half, to 25% of the student body. At Monta Vista, white students make up less than one-third of the population, down from 45% — this in a town that’s half white. Some white Cupertino parents are instead sending their children to private schools or moving them to other, whiter public schools. More commonly, young white families in Silicon Valley say they are avoiding Cupertino altogether. White students are far outnumbered by Asians at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Calif. Whites aren’t quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they’re leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests. The two schools, put another way that parents rarely articulate so bluntly, are too Asian. …
‘Some students struggle in Cupertino’s high schools who might not elsewhere. Monta Vista’s Academic Performance Index, which compares the academic performance of California’s schools, reached an all-time high of 924 out of 1,000 this year, making it one of the highest-scoring high schools in Northern California. Grades are so high that a ‘B’ average puts a student in the bottom third of a class. “We have great students, which has a lot of upsides,” says April Scott, Monta Vista’s principal. “The downside is what the kids with a 3.0 GPA think of themselves.” Ms. Scott and her counterpart at Lynbrook know what’s said about their schools being too competitive and dominated by Asians. “It’s easy to buy into those kinds of comments because they’re loaded and powerful,” says Ms. Scott, who adds that they paint an inaccurate picture of Monta Vista. Ms. Scott says many athletic programs are thriving and points to the school’s many extracurricular activities. She also points out that white students represented 20% of the school’s 29 National Merit Semifinalists this year.’
—Wall Street Journal

Interesting reading.

Something to keep in mind for Science Methods class in January:

‘Darwin did not use evolution to promote atheism, or to maintain that no concept of God could ever be squared with the structure of nature. Rather, he argued that nature’s factuality, as read within the magisterium of science, cannot resolve, or even specify, the existence or character of God, the ultimate meaning of life, the proper foundations of morality, or any other question within the different magisterium of religion.’
—Stephen Jay Gould