Blogboard

Commenting on a recent study showing a disturbing drop in basic reading proficiency among college graduates, Assorted Stuff allows that schools may be partly to blame for failing to teach real-world literacy, but speculates that the larger culture may play a more decisive role:

Our society does very little to encourage adult literacy. Our leaders don’t read and are proud of it. The popular media glorifies people who spout unqualified opinion and denigrates anyone who’s actually done the work necessary to become an expert in a particular field.

We also make it possible, if not easy, to go through life without having to read anything longer than the crawl at the bottom of the “news” channel screen. We certainly don’t expect anyone to read about and understand the complex scientific and social problems we face.

Perhaps, in other words, schoolchildren shouldn’t be the only ones facing higher expectations these days.

(Assorted Stuff.)

Posted by at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Like many educators, Wockerjabby teaches in four different classrooms each day. But for the first time in her career, she's in a classroom that stays empty after her last period teaching.

so now, one of the most reliable small pleasures of my teaching day is that empty classroom. I can chat with the kids who want to stay a few minutes extra to ask for help or talk about their birthday parties (this was not the case in my cohort, but apparently when you are a girl your sixteenth birthday is a huge deal. like it might as well be your wedding). I can stare out the window if I want to. every day I savor the process of cleaning up the front desk, washing out beakers or peeling apart bits of different-colored clay, separating homework and classwork into neat piles secured with copper paper clips, packing my bins neatly so that everything is in its place. sometimes I sit on top of the slate lab table and just admire the classroom in its state of quiet, half-ordered exhalation.

sanity comes in small helpings, I guess.

(From Wockerjabby.)

Posted by at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Pigs shares a story about her school's holiday party and a couple of odd teacher gifts.

My aunt works in an elementary school also, and each Christmas we exchange the worst teacher gift that we receive as a part of our mean little tradition. Well, last year my aunt won the contest hands down. She bestowed upon me a frock. My frock is black and features faux fur trim about the neck and above the pockets.

That's not the scary part. The scary part was what happened when she regifted the frock at the white elephant gift exchange at the aforementioned holiday party:

You can imagine my alarm, but not really my surprise I have to say, when one teacher actually stole it from another because she LIKED it and wanted to WEAR it. For real. I pray that I never adopt that mentality. If you ever see me wearing apple-laden attire or a holiday sweater, please slap me.

Pigs' new gift simply has to be seen to be believed. As one commenter on her site suggested, it'll make one heck of a hall pass.

(From The Pig's Tales.)

Posted by at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While some teachers have taken to embracing the iPods and other handheld gadgets to which they find more and more kids tethered, Mr. Lawrence is no longer one of them.

There is a very good reason why, the other day, the principal of a local high school came on over the intercom and barked about the obscene amount of electronic equipment floating around the school. He's not just talking about those ubiquitous iPods, he also means digital cameras, Palm Pilots, camcorders, cell phones and hand-held video game systems. He wants them gone and I want them gone.

At first, I foolishly thought the prevalence of iPods and CD Players, in some cases, were actually good things. Say a student doesn't want to do the work I assign, well I thought, "if they're not inclined to work, maybe they'll sit there and listen to their music and shut up." But stupid me, that hasn't happened. They play their music loud - with the noise screaming out of the headphones - and talk over them so their voices are doubly loud. And then there are those "gotcha" photo moments where they decide it's funny to photograph me when I'm not looking (I can only hope the nude body they Photoshop my head on is a model, but somehow I doubt it).

What, you might wonder, does Mr. Lawrence want for Christmas? You guessed it--a shiny black iPod.

(From Get Lost, Mr. Chips.)

Posted by at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hobo Teacher says he is morally opposed to dropping students’ lowest grades of the term since, after all, he put in a lot of work grading all those assignments. But he does—jokingly—speculate about making a possible deal with students on the pass/fail bubble:

Let's say I'll drop the [lowest] grade, if and only if—I get to slap them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about anything "violent-violent," but, you know, "Three Stooges violent." You know, I could stick my fist out and tell the student to hit it to where I do that windmill punch to the top of their noggin. Throw in a bit of eye poking and put a few wrenches to some noses, then I'll be aces. … Grades would be dropping left and right.

Word of advice: Unless you’re really good at Three Stooges impressions, we wouldn’t try to this at home, etc.

(Hobo Teacher)

Posted by at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Erica Jacobs loves her job. But like most teachers, she's also ambivalent about almost every part of it.

I have a similar dialogue with myself nearly every day. This past week it ran: “I hate this job. Will I ever be able to wake up after 5 a.m.? Yeah---in retirement. But Lucy just won first place in a writing contest with an essay that helped make her a stronger person. If I didn’t force students to write, their lives might be different. I love this job.”

We’re paid too little money. Yet we get snow days off, and a week around Christmas and Easter, and two months in the summer. We work too hard, but can come home in the afternoon. We bring our jobs home with us in the form of papers to correct and recommendations to write; yet sometimes that job reveals, hidden at the bottom of the stack, transcendent student work that keeps us awake, it’s so revelatory.

We whine in teacher workrooms---trading stories of student excuses (“the dog ate my homework” has been replaced by ”printer failure.”) Yet we also can’t wait to share with others a lesson that worked well, or news of our students’ admissions to the colleges of their choice.

(From Teacher Talk.)

Posted by at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Groovygrrl says she had a dream recently that's all too easy to interpret:

I dreamed that my colleagues and I were in staff development. The assistant principal kicked me in the stomach, in front of everyone. She then proceeded to get angry with ME when I protested.

We’re just glad this was only a dream. Considering some of the things we've seen about staff-development workshops, it seems almost plausible as a real-life example.

(groovygrrl's weblog.)

Posted by at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NYC Educator shares a story about turning in a chronic class-cutter.

So, what do you do about a kid who cuts almost three months of school, whose mother can't be bothered discussing it?

In my school, apparently, you suspend the kid for a week.

(From NYC Educator.)

Posted by at 5:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Polski3 points out an interesting disparity between classroom grading scales and those used for standardized tests.

This scale for the standardized test was about 85-70-55-45-35 percent. This scale that my district told me to use was much different from the A-B-C-D-F scale (90-80-70-60-....) we are told to use as a guide for their academic grades. What If I assigned letter grades to my students using the scale employed for the standardized tests?

There would sure be a lot fewer "F's" if a student had to be at 35% or below to earn an F grade. And, except for a few exceptions, most of those who will earn an F in my class are, for whatever reasons, "Far Below Basic". They cannot read anywhere close to grade level. They are not organized. They often make little attempt to work in class or complete homework. They have been socially promoted. They have never been held accountable or responsible for anything. In short, they are Far Below Basic.

Sounds like another F is the least of these kids' worries.

(From Polski3's View From Here.)

Posted by at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

First-year educator BXMSTeacher says he doesn’t mind being the only black literacy teacher at his school. But he does mind when other teachers assume that his race gives him an advantage:

Specifically, it bothers me because some of my white colleagues tend to use that as a kind of "fall back" when trying to explain to me how I have such an easy time teaching. ... I have been trying to tell people that I have been struggling and screwing up left and right.

It's safe to say we've reached an unconstructive level of racial consciousness when a teacher has to beg to get his faults noticed.

(Edwize.)

Posted by at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

High school teacher Ms. Cornelius discusses what happened when a military recruiter asked her to fill out some paperwork involving a former student.

He said that one of my former students, let's call him Elvis, was interested in joining the Reserves after having made a previous commitment to the Navy, and he wondered if I "could just fill out this recommendation form?" ... So I very quietly said, "Sure, can I see your release form?"

He looked at me. "What release form?"

"The one that I need to see in order to release confidential information about a student, including a recommendation in which I would be providing frank assessments of his character and intellectual capability," I said. "Since Elvis isn't here to ask me to write the recommendation, I need a release. You can't be too careful about releasing private information about students in this litigious time..." I smiled encouragingly at him.

He shuffled some stuff around, but no form. I responded that I would fill it out when I saw the form, and we parted ways.... I later was talking to a colleague, and he had just blithely filled out the info with no qualms. I dunno. Was I too ... cynical? sensitive? cautious? I was not trying to be obstructionist, but our school district really goes whole hog on the student privacy issue, as I've mentioned previously.

It's an interesting question, particularly since NCLB requires schools to release student information to recruiters. Though, for the record, the real Elvis was in the Army, not the Navy.

(From A Shrewdness of Apes.)

Posted by at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Minnesota school technology director (and former Teacher columnist) Doug Johnson reacts to an essay written by a fellow school technologist entitled "When Teachers Don't Get It." In reality, Johnson writes, it's the techies that don't get it--"it" being what teachers have to do these days:

The name of the game today is accountability. I have state standards to which I must teach. There are state tests that students must pass. Technology is not mentioned in either of these. My goals as a teacher are to make sure my students master the curriculum and pass state tests. My job depends on me meeting these goals. Until technology skills are either a part of our standards or are tested, they will remain a means to an end, not the end itself, as much as this may disappoint you. And until technology proves more efficient or effective than traditional methods in helping me meet these goals, it will be a method I may in good conscience choose not to employ.

Johnson also offers a bit of advice to other well-intentioned techies: "Teachers are not overly fond of being compared to children. It's not a way to win teacher friends... when two people have different educational priorities or opinions, it does not make one an adult and the other a child."

(From Blue Skunk.)

Posted by at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recent postings by special education teacher Ms. Riz offer a unique and articulate glimpse into the emotional life of a dedicated educator. Last week, after one of her colleagues had been hit with a chair by a student, she reflected on the hidden toll of her profession:

The reality of the dangers involved with working with emotionally unstable students hovers over us, ignored, unrecognized, dismissed ... until something like this happens. Then we are pulled into a swirling frenzy of emotion: worry, resentment, then angry resignation.

What toll does this silent, pulsating sense of dread have on us? How does it affect our professional lives? What impact does this heightened stress have on our personal relationships? No doubt, our bodies feel the burden.

Then, in a follow-up posted five days later, she stiffens her resolve:

We need to be tough. We can't complain too loudly when we are exhausted from the physical and emotional abuse we take each day. We know getting hurt is quite likely, which is why feeling worried or overly cautious feels like a betrayal to our chosen profession. (See previous post.) It's part of the job. Don't like it? You don't belong here.

Strong words.

(Mentor Matters.)

Posted by at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)