Blogboard

Barnett Berry of "Building the Teaching Profession" says although the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' teacher certification is not a sure-fire way to ensure student achievement, many ideas advocated by the teacher network ring true.

One message in particular, Berry says, is of rethinking education in light of the "technologically-infused, knowledge-intensive global economy," adding that "new demands are placed on the 21st century worker and citizen and the schools that prepare them."

In addition, Berry suggests teachers need to re-assess students based on a new, more appropriate skill set as encouraged by the NBPTS.

One NBPTS certified teacher agrees:

I had to refocus not on what I wanted the students to learn, but rather what the students needed to know […] I also noticed that while my lessons were well-planned, my assessments were not. I lacked authentic student self-assessment and consistent evaluation measures.

The merit of board certification for teachers fuels a hot debate. Let’s, for a moment, look beyond this debate and turn our attention toward the philosophies championed by this certification board. Maybe that should be the real focus?

Posted by Brian Freedman at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You have the right to remain ignorant, but why would you want to? A high school teacher caught up in The Daily Grind struggles with how to motivate students who don’t seem to care about education:

The other response, coming from a teacher who is agonizing over ways to convince his seniors that the ability to write a paragraph is necessary, said to inform them of their right to fail. I mean, if the police are required [to inform us] of our right to remain silent so that we don't say anything stupid--thus getting us into trouble, we should also be required to inform our students of their right to remain ignorant--thus relegating them to a life of poverty.

How do you motivate the unmotivated?

Posted by Danielle Woods at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Blog of proximal development wants his students to get to know him as he tries to express himself as more than a teacher:

What I am really concerned about, however, is my own voice. For the past three years, my three successive grade eight classes enjoyed blogging and created successful and engaging blogging communities. Most of the time, this development took place without me. While I certainly encouraged my bloggers, discussed their work in class, and posted comments to involve my students in instructional conversations, I have always been absent as a person. This year, I want things to be different.

He discusses how the classroom blog helps him to express himself, and helps his students see that he is not just Mr. Glogowski.

Posted by Danielle Woods at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In a long and fervent post, Mamacita of Scheiss Weekly argues that the reason so many teachers leave the profession is no mystery: Schools' coddling of "disruptive bratty obnoxious kids" makes their jobs impossible:

Until the bullies and the disrupters and the violent and the kids who have no respect for learning are removed from our schools, our schools cannot be what the free public schools were meant to be: places where all who wish to learn, may learn all they wish.

TMAO of the Teaching at the 408, however, doesn't appeciate the sentiment and responds harshly:

Generally, the flight of teachers concerns me, but if the teachers that leave schools are the ones who think it is not their job to motivate, not their job to convince, not their job to get their hands dirty, I got a couple of inches of Bushmills I'll raise in their honor, and applaud the decision to go sell insurance.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 2:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

NYC educator offers advice for beginning teachers. Getting control of the class, he says, is the first order of business:

The standing platitude [when I started in teaching] was “A good lesson plan is the best way to control a class,” but I no longer believe that. I think a good lesson plan is the best thing to have after you control the class.

And he's got a trick to help you do that.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friends of Dave charges that people shouldn't be feeling sorry for reputable schools that fail to meet NCLB requirements. On the contrary, he suggests, we should be outraged by them:

[T]he critical fact [is] that these schools have huge achievement gaps between their white and Asian students and their poor, African American or Hispanic counterparts. Despite all of the wonderful feelings that they might be giving their students, what they're not giving their poor or minority students is the ability to read, write and do basic math.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Classroom tech expert Will Richardson posts a dispatch from the Learning 2.0 conference held this weekend in Shanghai, China. More on the conference happenings is available here. Or should we have said unconference?

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tired of hearing students answer your questions with the infamous "I don't know?" CaliforniaTeacherGuy is -- and he thinks it stems from the students' fear of making a mistake, not because they don't know.

It’s OK to make mistakes. That’s how we learn. Some of my biggest mistakes have proved to be some of my most important learning experiences.

To combat this problem, CaliforniaTeacherGuy has outlawed the phrase "I don't know" and replaced it with "I'm not sure but I think..." to challenge his students to voice their opinion.

It's OK not to be sure, but it is not OK not to think.

Posted by Brian Freedman at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sherry Technically Speaking, a former computer teacher, wants to integrate high-tech resources into her classroom, but her technologically-impaired school is not making it easy. Sherry, who now teaches English and social studies, fights with insufficient space on her hard drive, a lack of computers, and a Web filter that blocks her every move:

I switched teaching positions so that I could lead by example and show teachers how to integrate technology into the curriculum. Fat chance! My hands are tied.

In response to Sherry’s cry for help, fellow blogger and educator Carolyn Foote writes:

Make a proposal, a list, ask if the administrators could meet with a group of teachers from different departments, and share your concerns. Share some of the fabulous things your students could do if they had access and storage.

Posted by Brian Freedman at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

They say that teachers don’t really get comfortable in the classroom until their 3rd year. Having reached that milestone, clean up on aisle life notices the change:

Today was the first day of school, and last night was the first time I ever slept soundly the night before the first day of school. I can't believe how little anxiety I have about this school year. I'm still shocked by the amount of work that is to be done, but I feel completely capable of handling it. And it only took three years!!

(But should we be worried that she posted this at 11:25 p.m.?)

Meanwhile, Ms. Cornelius of A Shrewdness of Apes reminds us that, even if they do sleep, educators this time of year may be prone to “teaching nightmares.” She lists a few of the classics.

Posted by Anthony Rebora, teachermagazine.org at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although Baltimore schools have just started, negotiations have stalled over planning time for teachers and a recent union letter urged educators to avoid doing tasks not stated in their contracts. But Epiphany in Baltimore doesn’t want school bells, academic calendars, and contract agreements to define his teaching responsibilities—not if he wants to be a successful teacher. He lists their demands:

No hall duty, no lunch duty, no staying past 3:25 and no arriving before 8:05. No advising any organizations. No writing any letters of recommendation. No grading or planning anything outside of the prescribed time. No buying any school supplies. No grading any work at home.

It's all pretty laughable.

...It's impossible to be an effective teacher working only 7.5 hours a day, and, thus, it's just impossible for me engage in something like this.

Posted by Danielle Woods at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)