Friday, April 18, 2008

Volunteers!


Yes! We had volunteers in our classrooms recently. It pretty much became time to complain about uniforms and other concerns. It was, from my point of view, totally unproductive. Then, today-- we have system wide parent meetings this afternoon, and out of 150 kids, I see FOUR parents. Again, largely unproductive. I could not even get anything done beyond grading some quizzes. Now those were productive because I could then pull it for any unexpected parental challenge with the student present, and totally read and critique them on written responses. Fun!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Busy, too Busy


Okay— my resolution is to post more in 2008. So, not almost February...

I am always as busy as I make life for my students. When I make them work, I have to work hard to keep up and feed-back to them. This is the greatest thing about teaching. It's active, dynamic, and draining. This is also the danger, because the natural human tendency is for a body to come to rest. The temptation to slow down and do less is huge. This is what happens (I think) to a lot of teachers.

Sometimes I think the big problem for teachers becomes when they feel like they are working harder than students are (or change...working harder to "care more", or whatever comes to mind).

For many (especially younger) they enter the field thinking that at some point it will get easier— that things will somehow get easier as the "tricks" are learned, and while this can be true in terms of certain strategies, the kids are always changing.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Suspensions/Truancy

Posted on Inside Ed in Response to Sun Article


There are many factors that go into making a good school, and I'm not sure I understand all of them with the limited experience I have. But some of them are pretty evident:

  • Kids WANT to come to school when it is good. It becomes a more powerful voice than the many other factors that are pushing their sense of self-definition. At a good school, there is a powerful ("magnetic") influence— one that makes kids feel good about themselves, believe in themselves, strive to develop their mind and spirit.
  • As I've said elsewhere before, good schools are not accidental: they are works of art by master painters who all craft together. They know what they're working towards, have a clear vision of the end result and the brush strokes, pigmentation, shading, etc, needed to get there. They have a sketch of what it will look like that forms the backdrop of the canvas. And they've studied with the masters. There is a "chief artist" on board directing and guiding.
  • The best form of classroom management is a good lesson. Fast paced, differentiated and scaffolded according to the needs of the learner. Kids get caught up in exploring new worlds, asking and answering significant questions that matter. I'm really coming to the place in my teaching career where I'm less concerned about students "mastering" a set of well defined materials. I feel more successful when the students leave my room with more questions, and I have modeled strategies and helped them acquire skills that they can use for the whole life.

This is all a vicious cycle: education is the path out of poverty...an empowerment. Yet poverty is what drags education down. How do we get out?


By the way, why do Elementary Schools even get on the list? I hear sometimes of how the kids are running the asylums, but come one people— if we can't get 5-11 years olds under control....wondering!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Bridget Banks #2

Thanks to Sara Neufeld for her story on Bridget Banks and the debacle of how the school system handled the sexual assault on her daughter while a teacher watched. The article is on the Sun's website: Bridget Banks (Nov 25).

Let's hope that nothing like this happens again!

Original Post

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Corporate Culture

Employees feel that they should compete and out-perform one another. In a culture like BCPSS’, many organizational members usually do not “fit in” to meet the expectations of corporate constituencies. The system’s employees are rather high on dogmatism and authoritarian. Subordinates see the world as a threatening place and regard authority as absolute....
This comes from the Sun's repost of an article from Richard S. Donald (see: this article). This is one of the overwhelming issues, and as I've said before, and has been said by others, the "backs" of the sorority that ran the school system has finally been broken, and in place is now (largely) BTU's influence, protecting ineptitude (how I want to quit this damn union).

The fear in the system is palpitable. Positively. And what is so incongruous is that (as usual) everything is top down. There is a lot of open disrespect for Alonso within the rank and file, and so little openness to change. I try not to take this seriously, and ignore the Urban Myths circulating, but I see so many moves being taken by administrators for fear of being "caught" doing the wrong thing. I could give some real examples, but I find that I'm afraid that if I give specifics, the school I teach will be identified, they will know it comes from me, and that I will be penalized. I've even had a number of supportive emails directly from Alonso: he has me hoping, but I do see the culture trying to spit him out like a fish (it has happened before!)...

People-- I hope we can stay on mission, and keep doing this for the kids. But realistically for me, as a possibility, and for others as a more active option, there are other places that need good teachers.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Bridget Banks vs. BCPSS

Maryland Court Cases (see this link)

Anyone know why, in September 2007, BCPSS was ordered to pay $100,000 damages in the above reference lawsuit?

Seems like...
  1. a waste of money that
  2. has been pretty well swept under the rug


Update: 11/27/2007

Friday, October 19, 2007

Telling the Truth without Being Racist...

Interesting for me to juxtapose the issues being raised by Bill Cosby and James Watson. Cosby has been largely accepted-- his message? The Black community is killing itself by not fathering successive generations.

Now, enter the comments of James Watson: (see CNN-- http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/19/uk.race/index.html) Now I cannot agree with his arguments, but I wonder if they were stated differently, and by Bill Cosby, whether they would be accepted more (or credible).

If we admit that Africa and Africans were systematically exploited for 100s of years, is it any wonder there is a gap? Many very smart scientists have documented (not necessarily in a genetic, biological defensible way) cycles of extinction and adaptation. The distinctive thing about humans is that we've been enjoying a hugely successful positive feedback loop of technology and information ("collective learning") for thousands of years, leading to larger brain sizes and utter dominance of the planet-- exploiting ever greater levels of energy to feed our brains and culture. Unfortunately for us post-moderns, we're living with the impact of choices made by Europeans (and others) who exploited other ethnic-racial people groups (not just Africans), but the net impact is that in many cases (Africa, decolonized America, etc.), these people groups have not been as fully assimilated into access to the growth cycle. Differentiation by skin color, we've perpetuated a new, negative feedback cycle. Now this does not seem to be racist, because for one, some of the smartest people I know now are Blacks, and some of the most ignorant are White. But in general, the smart ones have things in common (not necessarily race) and the ignorant ones (or, lets call them not interested, or not good students, or whatever else) also have things in common.

Smart kids have lucked out and had good school experiences. Good teachers, good, clean, well funded schools. Rich media, books, computers. And not only that, but their health has generally been better-- more access to health care because of better insurance arrangements, so less sick time, less absenteeism. They generally have at least one very involved parent who has replicated a learning environment at home and has high expectations. By the time they get to high school, they have already developed certain habits: respect for adults, cooperation with others, promptness, and ownership of their own choices, including their choice of friends. Kids who are not as successful (or not as "smart") haven't had the above opportunities as much, or are from families that are caught in a negative feedback cycle of poverty and low expectations. They are not organized, are not curious, cannot commit to learning as a lifestyle because they may not see any direct benefit, trapped as it were in a culture of low expectations and the expectation of failure. They may have already been labeled, and may have already lost the opportunity for good.

Now, I don't think this has much to do with race. But given that this culture of Poverty, in Baltimore, or any other urban center in America, is not getting any better, it is ridiculous to blame it all on teachers. Cosby, I think is right, in shifting-- not blame-- but accountability to families. This makes more sense. But as Alonso has indicated, it is important for schools to have partnerships with families. Every time we have back to school night (or conferences), it is always the parents I don't need to see who show up. The rest are too busy working or partying, or in many cases are pretty intimidated by school and their own past failure.

So-- why can't we come together for 45 minutes a week and discuss and work on solutions? If we can do it, maybe the rest of our society will do the same? It says something that a school board would feel so compelled to protect pre-teens from pregnancy by substituting themselves into the role of parent to hand out birth control.