(Re-posted from June10, 2011. Still waiting.)
I wait.
I wait for the tinsel, aluminum, flocked and fluffed trees to come down,
and the bulbs on the rotating lights to burn out.
I wait for the evergreen to grow brown on the tips
and the holly berries to fall with the stale popcorn on the sheeted carpet.
And I wait for the paper and ribbon and tape
to decorate the interior of 400 million American trash cans.
and I am dreaming of a re-birth of caring.
I wait for the 2,000 cards to fall off the wall
and the divinity to dry out and be thrown away
with the five unopened fruit cakes.
And I wait for the dissonant amen of the shaky rendition of Messiah
to finally echo off the wreath-strewn, candle-lit walls of the church.
I wait for the bell-ringing Santa to count up his pennies
and go home and take down his $500 dollar multi-colored
wall-to-wall house lights.
and I am constantly dreaming of a re-birth of caring.
I wait for the wassail to grow ferment
and the piped-in Bing Crosby carols to get scratched
and stuck in a groove.
And I wait for a time when Sears and Dillard's and Macy's deliver the bills
and we pay our penance for commercialized love.
I wait for the batteries to burn out on technocracy's toys
and children learn
to be bored and bitter and spoiled with the season of playing.
and I am constantly waiting and dreaming of a re-birth of caring.
I wait for the brightest of stars
to be unseen behind the colored floodlights on our buildings and trees.
And I wait for the chorus of angels
to be unheard outside our insulated, air conditioned, amplified
midnight church service.
And I wait for a group of lower class shepherds
to catch all our fathers assembling bicycles, tricycles, swing sets and trains.
And I wait for three intellectuals
to barge in on our turkey dinners with news we don't want to hear.
And I wait for some anonymous Mary
to bear a savior
who will lead us away from institutionalized giving
and into a world where Christmas is not what it is,
But a constant re-birth of caring.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Iraq War Casualty
The news today that we are now officially militarily disengaged from Iraq hits me with mixed feelings, and whilst pundits ponder the meaning, purpose and success or failure of that endeavor over the years since March of 2003 I lament an unidentified casualty of the war.
Clearly 9/11 hit us hard, emotionally, psychologically and economically. We lost a lot of folks on that day when terrorists commandeered civilian airliners and used them as weapons against us. George Bush had not been President for a year when that happened. His leadership at ground zero was inspirational, and as a nation we rallied, supportive and grieving. We moved quickly from denial and shock to anger. When President Bush announced on national TV that Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to vacate Iraq or we were going in, I was shocked. I do not know how many Americans felt that this was a knee-jerk reaction to focus the national anger at terrorists, but I did. I could not recall a time when a sitting President declared war on another nation for ambiguous causes such as weapons of mass destruction and hosting terrorists’ camps. Regardless, we went in. “Shock and Awe” held totally different meanings for me.
By the fall of 2008, we had been in Iraq and now Afghanistan for over 5 years. The surplus budget Bush inherited from Clinton had become a $12 trillion dollar deficit. No one was talking national debt then. We were fighting wars. But, when the housing and banking industries collapsed that fall, we suddenly saw our economic predicament. We were deeply in debt from our war effort, and now our economy was not generating money. It was a classic time for increased federal spending to get the economy going again, but we already had a huge debt after all those years of war. Obama initiated stimulus programs, but they were frankly too little too late. We needed massive infusions of money to generate demand, but we were already in the hole. The Obama debt grew the total national debt from the $12 trillion he inherited to $15 trillion.
Now the political tide turned. Now we are worried about our debt. Be clear, 80% of our current national debt came from the deficit spending on the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, in 2010, conservatives rallied a reeling nation to re-take control of the House and the new battle cry was balance the budget, shrink government, cut taxes. This battle cry was not heard during the 8 years of the Bush administration. It was heard in the first two years of the Obama administration. The debt came from the war and the sagging economy. The economy sagged during the Bush Presidency and has been slowly growing ever since. That did not matter. Now we must shrink government and cut spending.
Public education has become a major casualty of this philosophy. States have made dramatic cuts in the funding of public education. The feds, though providing stimulus packages early on to keep public education going, did so with strings attached. The federal stimulus dollars for public ed. are now gone, and states which used those dollars to shore up education are cutting.
Unlike military spending where cuts equal decreases in deployment, cuts in public education have also coincided with increased demands. Accountability is increasing. High stakes testing is even more high stakes. Teacher salaries tied to student performance is the rage. We took money away from public schools to fund charter schools. We hold systems accountable for dropouts when funding has decreased. We implement new and more rigorous curriculum standards. It is the equivalent of cutting military spending while we enter a new war and hold the troops more accountable for winning.
We could not continue to fund public education because of our debt. We got in debt because we spent so much on the wars. Public education is a casualty of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are a casualty, and yet we are asked to do more. We are not just the walking wounded; we are to become the high performing walking wounded.
As I read thoughtful commentators on public education I sense a deep, abiding sadness, shock, and anger. We have PTSD and it is time we admit it.
Bless each and every public school employee. Care for them. Support them. Be there for them. They are charged with the care and nurture of our future and our most precious asset: our children. Please wish to each and every one of them joy and peace this Christmas.
Good will to all and peace on earth.
Clearly 9/11 hit us hard, emotionally, psychologically and economically. We lost a lot of folks on that day when terrorists commandeered civilian airliners and used them as weapons against us. George Bush had not been President for a year when that happened. His leadership at ground zero was inspirational, and as a nation we rallied, supportive and grieving. We moved quickly from denial and shock to anger. When President Bush announced on national TV that Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to vacate Iraq or we were going in, I was shocked. I do not know how many Americans felt that this was a knee-jerk reaction to focus the national anger at terrorists, but I did. I could not recall a time when a sitting President declared war on another nation for ambiguous causes such as weapons of mass destruction and hosting terrorists’ camps. Regardless, we went in. “Shock and Awe” held totally different meanings for me.
By the fall of 2008, we had been in Iraq and now Afghanistan for over 5 years. The surplus budget Bush inherited from Clinton had become a $12 trillion dollar deficit. No one was talking national debt then. We were fighting wars. But, when the housing and banking industries collapsed that fall, we suddenly saw our economic predicament. We were deeply in debt from our war effort, and now our economy was not generating money. It was a classic time for increased federal spending to get the economy going again, but we already had a huge debt after all those years of war. Obama initiated stimulus programs, but they were frankly too little too late. We needed massive infusions of money to generate demand, but we were already in the hole. The Obama debt grew the total national debt from the $12 trillion he inherited to $15 trillion.
Now the political tide turned. Now we are worried about our debt. Be clear, 80% of our current national debt came from the deficit spending on the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, in 2010, conservatives rallied a reeling nation to re-take control of the House and the new battle cry was balance the budget, shrink government, cut taxes. This battle cry was not heard during the 8 years of the Bush administration. It was heard in the first two years of the Obama administration. The debt came from the war and the sagging economy. The economy sagged during the Bush Presidency and has been slowly growing ever since. That did not matter. Now we must shrink government and cut spending.
Public education has become a major casualty of this philosophy. States have made dramatic cuts in the funding of public education. The feds, though providing stimulus packages early on to keep public education going, did so with strings attached. The federal stimulus dollars for public ed. are now gone, and states which used those dollars to shore up education are cutting.
Unlike military spending where cuts equal decreases in deployment, cuts in public education have also coincided with increased demands. Accountability is increasing. High stakes testing is even more high stakes. Teacher salaries tied to student performance is the rage. We took money away from public schools to fund charter schools. We hold systems accountable for dropouts when funding has decreased. We implement new and more rigorous curriculum standards. It is the equivalent of cutting military spending while we enter a new war and hold the troops more accountable for winning.
We could not continue to fund public education because of our debt. We got in debt because we spent so much on the wars. Public education is a casualty of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are a casualty, and yet we are asked to do more. We are not just the walking wounded; we are to become the high performing walking wounded.
As I read thoughtful commentators on public education I sense a deep, abiding sadness, shock, and anger. We have PTSD and it is time we admit it.
Bless each and every public school employee. Care for them. Support them. Be there for them. They are charged with the care and nurture of our future and our most precious asset: our children. Please wish to each and every one of them joy and peace this Christmas.
Good will to all and peace on earth.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
First Stones
Are you amazed that Herman Cain is accused of sexual harassment and of having an affair? I'm not. I do not know the man, but I know the type. He is a male of the homo sapien species, the last of the genus homo. Whether you are a creationist or are literate surely you know that no perfect human walks this earth. Headlines: a Presidential candidate sinned! Wake me up for the 10:00 news.
In fact, the news could really get interesting. I suggest that every reporter who intends to write or broadcast a story that reveals the sins of public figures should first confess their sins using the same medium. Wouldn't that be interesting? At least more entertaining. I am willing to wager my teacher retirement that we have never had a perfect President, a perfect Congressman, or a perfect journalist. Even Bill Clinton sinned, though it still appears he is confused by the difference in oral sex and intercourse. And yes, I am willing to admit that I have sinned, but I will spare you the details as this is a blog, not a Tolstoy novel.
Is the nature of the sin relevant? Perhaps. Shall we weigh sin? Perhaps. Is murder worse than adultery? Is rape worse than drug addiction? Is embezzlement worse than lust? I resist judging, but as a human both flawed and precious I will do so: (see, publicly giving into temptation!) I lean toward a "yes" for each of the above questions for a variety of reasons. For me, the issue is about doing unto others..... If I harm someone else that is worse than if I pleasure myself inappropriately. But, rest assured, I will not be sitting at the Pearly Gates to pass judgement when you get there.
I don't like Herman Cain because of his politics. Of course he sinned, as has everyone else. That is not the question. I am not as fond of Obama as I used to be because he has moved so far to the right, but I have never had any delusions that he was perfect.
"He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." Sound advice. Evidently the only perfect people in the USA are journalists. They always cast the first stones.
In fact, the news could really get interesting. I suggest that every reporter who intends to write or broadcast a story that reveals the sins of public figures should first confess their sins using the same medium. Wouldn't that be interesting? At least more entertaining. I am willing to wager my teacher retirement that we have never had a perfect President, a perfect Congressman, or a perfect journalist. Even Bill Clinton sinned, though it still appears he is confused by the difference in oral sex and intercourse. And yes, I am willing to admit that I have sinned, but I will spare you the details as this is a blog, not a Tolstoy novel.
Is the nature of the sin relevant? Perhaps. Shall we weigh sin? Perhaps. Is murder worse than adultery? Is rape worse than drug addiction? Is embezzlement worse than lust? I resist judging, but as a human both flawed and precious I will do so: (see, publicly giving into temptation!) I lean toward a "yes" for each of the above questions for a variety of reasons. For me, the issue is about doing unto others..... If I harm someone else that is worse than if I pleasure myself inappropriately. But, rest assured, I will not be sitting at the Pearly Gates to pass judgement when you get there.
I don't like Herman Cain because of his politics. Of course he sinned, as has everyone else. That is not the question. I am not as fond of Obama as I used to be because he has moved so far to the right, but I have never had any delusions that he was perfect.
"He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." Sound advice. Evidently the only perfect people in the USA are journalists. They always cast the first stones.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Thanks Giving
I am giving thanks:
I do not have to hunt or gather to eat.
I do not have to build a fire to stay warm.
I do not have to build a shelter to stay dry.
I do not have to boil water to safely drink.
I do not fear the strangers I meet on the street and craft weapons and defenses against them.
I am free to believe or not believe in the supernatural.
I am comfortable, surrounded by those I love and those who love me.
I have lived a long and full life.
I have it better than almost everyone in the history of the planet, and the vast majority of the 7 billion others with whom I share this planet.
I am lucky.
I chose my place in time well, my parents well, my country well, my genes well.
I wish for all such luck, and am humbled and grateful for my own.
And, I wish for all your very own Happy Thanks Givings.
I do not have to hunt or gather to eat.
I do not have to build a fire to stay warm.
I do not have to build a shelter to stay dry.
I do not have to boil water to safely drink.
I do not fear the strangers I meet on the street and craft weapons and defenses against them.
I am free to believe or not believe in the supernatural.
I am comfortable, surrounded by those I love and those who love me.
I have lived a long and full life.
I have it better than almost everyone in the history of the planet, and the vast majority of the 7 billion others with whom I share this planet.
I am lucky.
I chose my place in time well, my parents well, my country well, my genes well.
I wish for all such luck, and am humbled and grateful for my own.
And, I wish for all your very own Happy Thanks Givings.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
B Team
As high school football narrows down to a few remaining playoff bound teams, as college football heats up with both competition and scandal, and as pro basketball follows a plan to self-destruct, it appears to me it is the time of year to use a sports metaphor to think about public schools and teaching kids.
Given the demands of rearing and educating children we in public schools are the B Team. A kid born in 2011 will graduate from high school in 2029 and in those coming 18 years the knowledge, skills, and processes that the child must master to successfully leave home and enter the world are beyond what we can comprehend today. What is clear is that when it comes to preparing that child, parents are the A Team and public schools are the B Team.
Parents are the starting Team and the fundamentals they teach are virtually impossible for the B Team to overcome, undo, or alter significantly even if we wanted to. By the time the child gets to the B Team they have already mastered much of the value structure that will stay with them through life. For instance:
If they A Team teaches the child right from wrong, good from bad, a sense of philosophical and theological morality as well as respect for others, then the child will do great with the B Team.
If the A Team insists on both a healthy respect for authority as well as a willingness to stand up, question and speak the truth they will raise a child who will do great while working with the B Team.
If the A Team raises their child to believe they are special, above the rules, and for whom whining results in rewards they will raise a child who not only does poorly in school, but will await the A Team to run to the school house door to complain about the B Team.
If the A Team raises a child who understands that there is a time for hard work and a time for play, then they will raise a child who is likely to do well when that child matriculates to B Team supervision. Learning requires hard work.
If the A Team raises a child who believes that they are owed something rather than working for something, then they will raise a child who is likely to do poorly when in the hands of the B Team.
If the A Team allows a child to grow lazy and fat, the B Team will not be able to undo that.
If the A Team assumes the poor performance of their child is the fault of the B Team, then the B Team will have a real challenge to undo that.
So, let us be very clear: The A Team counts tremendously. Those of us on the B Team count on the A Team to do their job first, then stick with us and back us up when we are in the game. The A Team must never let their child doubt that you love them, but teach them what they need to know and do when in the hands of the B Team. We'll work them hard for their own good. Each of us on the B Team is likely to have 30+ kids to raise per day, and as many as 170!. We may never love them like you do, we may never know them like you do, but we do love them and we do know them, and we are in the business of promoting student success for every child of the A Team.
But, we remain the B Team.
Given the demands of rearing and educating children we in public schools are the B Team. A kid born in 2011 will graduate from high school in 2029 and in those coming 18 years the knowledge, skills, and processes that the child must master to successfully leave home and enter the world are beyond what we can comprehend today. What is clear is that when it comes to preparing that child, parents are the A Team and public schools are the B Team.
Parents are the starting Team and the fundamentals they teach are virtually impossible for the B Team to overcome, undo, or alter significantly even if we wanted to. By the time the child gets to the B Team they have already mastered much of the value structure that will stay with them through life. For instance:
If they A Team teaches the child right from wrong, good from bad, a sense of philosophical and theological morality as well as respect for others, then the child will do great with the B Team.
If the A Team insists on both a healthy respect for authority as well as a willingness to stand up, question and speak the truth they will raise a child who will do great while working with the B Team.
If the A Team raises their child to believe they are special, above the rules, and for whom whining results in rewards they will raise a child who not only does poorly in school, but will await the A Team to run to the school house door to complain about the B Team.
If the A Team raises a child who understands that there is a time for hard work and a time for play, then they will raise a child who is likely to do well when that child matriculates to B Team supervision. Learning requires hard work.
If the A Team raises a child who believes that they are owed something rather than working for something, then they will raise a child who is likely to do poorly when in the hands of the B Team.
If the A Team allows a child to grow lazy and fat, the B Team will not be able to undo that.
If the A Team assumes the poor performance of their child is the fault of the B Team, then the B Team will have a real challenge to undo that.
So, let us be very clear: The A Team counts tremendously. Those of us on the B Team count on the A Team to do their job first, then stick with us and back us up when we are in the game. The A Team must never let their child doubt that you love them, but teach them what they need to know and do when in the hands of the B Team. We'll work them hard for their own good. Each of us on the B Team is likely to have 30+ kids to raise per day, and as many as 170!. We may never love them like you do, we may never know them like you do, but we do love them and we do know them, and we are in the business of promoting student success for every child of the A Team.
But, we remain the B Team.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
I'm Special
As I puttered to my neighborhood grocery store to re-stock all my low carb, high fiber, tasteless pantry inventory, I was confronted with a technical driving dilemma. Entering the store parking lot I am accustomed to waiting at the yellow-striped cross-walk for folks pushing carts adorned with full plastic bags and whiney kids from the store to their vehicles, but that wait is usually short and entertaining. This time I stopped four cars back, the rear end of my mini van still street exposed. An HEB jam unlike what is available at eye level on their shelves. This was a full-blown traffic jam with cars stuck in both directions. I feared a catastrophe. But no, it was a red box jam. The store installed a commercial video dispenser right on the front curb, and though the curbs are painted in bright red and clearly marked, "No Parking - Fire Lane," there were several cars parallel parked right in front of the video dispenser machine reducing the two way traffic to one lane, and with the added stoppage normally caused by successful shoppers exiting the store, all new arrivals and hopeful escapers were simply parked, nose to tail, in a bottleneck. There was a line at the video dispenser, and the current customer was not gifted with quick decision making skills nor acuity with the check-out system. We waited. I counted 10 cars stuck, 22 people, awaiting the red box customer. I knew at that moment that she was special, as were the others waiting in line behind her. 22 minutes later the line cleared, the curb-parkers re-entered the designed traffic flow, and I moved into the parking lot to begin my food foray.
Despite my rants against what I perceive as a total over-emphasis on athletics, I purchase season tickets to the local high school football games. I do love sitting with my neighbors cheering the local boys on, watching the band and dance team and cheerleaders. There is, I admit, something very communal about Friday nights, especially now that the temperatures have dropped. The reserved seat section of our local stadium is clearly marked and my tickets assure me of the same spot on the cold aluminum bench for each home game. I arrived at my purchased and assigned seat Friday night for the last home game of the season, only to discover an entire family sitting on the row where I nest. I pulled my stub, double-checked the row and seat, looked at them and they looked back at me. "You are in my seat," I said. Rather than exit, they scooched to the right allowing me access. These folks had general admission tickets, but sat in the reserved seat section hoping no one would arrive to claim the spot. I knew they were special.
I traversed the 4 lane freeway to a nearby town, signs clearly posted, "Slower Traffic Stay Right." That's a law in Texas. If you are not passing someone, you should drive in the right lane. You guessed it. There ahead was an 18 wheeler in the right lane where he belonged, but next to him in the left lane was a pick-up truck driving the same speed blocking all other cars. We drove in a multi-car formation for 10 miles before the pick-up finally inched ahead of the 18 wheeler and cars began a dance of sorts, moving ahead of the big truck, moving to the right lane, passing the pick-up on the right and continuing on their journey at the posted speed. I knew the driver of the pick-up was special as he stubbornly refused to leave the left lane.
We claim to be a civilized society, grounded in rational thought, respect for the rights of others, and adherence to our laws. Not so true anymore, it appears to me. It appears that most everyone has a reason at certain times and places to consider themselves special, above the law, above common courtesy, and empowered to do what works best for them, rather than consider the impact their behavior has on the larger group.
That frightens me. Can I trust you with my life when I approach a green light at an intersection? Can I be assured that if I wait patiently in a line you will not cut in front of me? Can I trust that if we all agree the following rules promote the safety and common welfare of all of us, that you will adhere? Or, must I assume as I more and more frequently observe, that you might consider yourself special, above the law, above the rules of our society, and given whatever rationale you have developed for such a position, act on it in your own self interest placing me and all the others at risk?
The real problem with assuming the position, "I'm Special" is that the message is "You're Not."
We can ill afford a policemen on every corner to enforce the laws, nor can the local high school afford to hire ushers to ensure that folks in reserved seats purchased the right to be there. We can ill afford a teacher for every student, a menu for every palate (thanks BG!), a starting position on every team, enough lines so that everyone is first. Our basic societal glue is our willingness and self-discipline to follow the laws, even when no one is looking or monitoring. Self-control and self-sacrifice is necessary for a large group to avoid war. If we do not like the law, we can work to change it, we can organize a protest to speak up against it, but we cannot simply choose to ignore it because it is more convenient for us. We cannot all be that kind of special. If we are all above the law, there is no law.
I know and deeply believe that each human being is special, unique, gifted, precious and flawed. Each person on this planet, all 7 billion of us, should, in my humble opinion, have freedom from tyranny, freedom to vote, freedom to aspire to an education. Perhaps more basic, each person should be able to eat and drink enough to survive, sheltered from the elements. I also believe that when my brother or my neighbor is at risk from losing any of the above, those of us who "have" should come to the aid of those of us who "have not." I believe that because I picture human beings as part of one large group. I ask no more of my neighbor than I am willing and able to give. Unless we wish to return to the days where the strong survive and might makes right, we must all agree to abide by certain ground rules.
If I have and you do not, I will share. If I do not have and you do, I will not seek to steal it from you, but might ask you to share. I will stay to the right, stand in line, and park where designated for your benefit and mine.
I am special in my own way, but I am not more special than you.
Despite my rants against what I perceive as a total over-emphasis on athletics, I purchase season tickets to the local high school football games. I do love sitting with my neighbors cheering the local boys on, watching the band and dance team and cheerleaders. There is, I admit, something very communal about Friday nights, especially now that the temperatures have dropped. The reserved seat section of our local stadium is clearly marked and my tickets assure me of the same spot on the cold aluminum bench for each home game. I arrived at my purchased and assigned seat Friday night for the last home game of the season, only to discover an entire family sitting on the row where I nest. I pulled my stub, double-checked the row and seat, looked at them and they looked back at me. "You are in my seat," I said. Rather than exit, they scooched to the right allowing me access. These folks had general admission tickets, but sat in the reserved seat section hoping no one would arrive to claim the spot. I knew they were special.
I traversed the 4 lane freeway to a nearby town, signs clearly posted, "Slower Traffic Stay Right." That's a law in Texas. If you are not passing someone, you should drive in the right lane. You guessed it. There ahead was an 18 wheeler in the right lane where he belonged, but next to him in the left lane was a pick-up truck driving the same speed blocking all other cars. We drove in a multi-car formation for 10 miles before the pick-up finally inched ahead of the 18 wheeler and cars began a dance of sorts, moving ahead of the big truck, moving to the right lane, passing the pick-up on the right and continuing on their journey at the posted speed. I knew the driver of the pick-up was special as he stubbornly refused to leave the left lane.
We claim to be a civilized society, grounded in rational thought, respect for the rights of others, and adherence to our laws. Not so true anymore, it appears to me. It appears that most everyone has a reason at certain times and places to consider themselves special, above the law, above common courtesy, and empowered to do what works best for them, rather than consider the impact their behavior has on the larger group.
That frightens me. Can I trust you with my life when I approach a green light at an intersection? Can I be assured that if I wait patiently in a line you will not cut in front of me? Can I trust that if we all agree the following rules promote the safety and common welfare of all of us, that you will adhere? Or, must I assume as I more and more frequently observe, that you might consider yourself special, above the law, above the rules of our society, and given whatever rationale you have developed for such a position, act on it in your own self interest placing me and all the others at risk?
The real problem with assuming the position, "I'm Special" is that the message is "You're Not."
We can ill afford a policemen on every corner to enforce the laws, nor can the local high school afford to hire ushers to ensure that folks in reserved seats purchased the right to be there. We can ill afford a teacher for every student, a menu for every palate (thanks BG!), a starting position on every team, enough lines so that everyone is first. Our basic societal glue is our willingness and self-discipline to follow the laws, even when no one is looking or monitoring. Self-control and self-sacrifice is necessary for a large group to avoid war. If we do not like the law, we can work to change it, we can organize a protest to speak up against it, but we cannot simply choose to ignore it because it is more convenient for us. We cannot all be that kind of special. If we are all above the law, there is no law.
I know and deeply believe that each human being is special, unique, gifted, precious and flawed. Each person on this planet, all 7 billion of us, should, in my humble opinion, have freedom from tyranny, freedom to vote, freedom to aspire to an education. Perhaps more basic, each person should be able to eat and drink enough to survive, sheltered from the elements. I also believe that when my brother or my neighbor is at risk from losing any of the above, those of us who "have" should come to the aid of those of us who "have not." I believe that because I picture human beings as part of one large group. I ask no more of my neighbor than I am willing and able to give. Unless we wish to return to the days where the strong survive and might makes right, we must all agree to abide by certain ground rules.
If I have and you do not, I will share. If I do not have and you do, I will not seek to steal it from you, but might ask you to share. I will stay to the right, stand in line, and park where designated for your benefit and mine.
I am special in my own way, but I am not more special than you.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Pull Up!
When the local high school football team scores the cheerleaders throw T-shirts, towels and little rubber footballs up in the stands to the eager souvenir hunting fans. Kids run and scramble for the airborne goodies. I duck and cover. My reflexes and vision are not what they used to be and it is a frightening prospect to be struck in the face with a little rubber football, flying bullet-like from the track below, launched by the strong arm of a 17 year old girl into a sea of waving arms. Time has delivered enough damage to my facade without the assistance of a flying rubber football. I think about this as I arrive at the game and know what I will do when the team scores. Duck and cover. A rational response in a mob with the exact opposite response.
The release of the cockpit transcript of the doomed Air France flight #447 gives me chills. On July 1, 2009, 228 human souls boarded this plane to fly from Brazil to France and never arrived. They crashed in the Atlantic, all souls lost. The cockpit transcripts describe the last horrifying minutes as the cockpit crew attempted to right the plane and save the flight.
The airliner stalled during its climb over the Atlantic. The pilot was asleep, a younger officer with less experience at the controls. Data poured into the cockpit at the same time the autopilot turned itself off. We now know that some of the sensors delivering the data to the flight crew were iced, giving faulty data. One thing was for sure, the plane lost power and headed down.
Years later and in safety and comfort, pilots tells us that when a plane stalls and begins to descend, the appropriate response is to push the yoke forward, accelerating the fall and gaining air speed so that power can be restored and the plane recovered. The young pilot at the controls responded by pulling back on the yoke, ordering the descending plane to climb. It could not. In the final minutes, the voices in the cockpit were arguing, some yelling, "Go down," some yelling, "Level your wings," and some yelling, "Pull Up!" The pilot pulled up. The plane crashed.
It is hard to imagine sitting at those controls knowing the plane is in a steep decline and not pulling up. And yet, that is what they should have done. Training, experience, rational forethought must balance our reflexive, intuitive response. Without that rational, calm, experienced, and informed decision making, we are likely doomed in any given emergency. Car begins to skid, turn into the skid not against it. Clothes catch on fire, hit the ground rather than run. Caught in a rip tide, swim with it, not against it. On and on, we must learn counterintuitive acts in times of fear that may save us despite our instincts, despite our emotions.
As public school folks collect then receive more and more data regarding student performance, we too can be overwhelmed. Our elected leaders are. The scariest of all thoughts to me is that the pilots of public ed are not educators. Those of us trained and experienced, know what to do. We know what matters. We know how to promote student learning, and it is not by collecting more data.
In fact, the data we are collecting is flawed. Standardized tests do not measure what we teach even when we attempt to teach to the standardized measure. Unlike the driving license tests, standardized tests for schools are designed to discriminate among students, not demonstrate student mastery. When the high stakes tests are field tested, the test developers automatically throw out all questions that every student answered correctly. Why? Because such a question does not help distribute outcomes along a curve. No standardized test maker wants most of the kids to do well. If so, they will be fired. No, what the policy makers want is a test that can distribute outcomes, not result in a J-Curve, or skewed results to the positive. And since the tests are designed that way, we should, as professionals, give them little credence. We know the sensors are iced.
But in the cockpit of public education sits a powerful group of untrained, non-professionals, who continually read the data and demand more data, data from harder tests based on more rigorous standards. "Pull Up!" they yell. We do as we are told, and crash. Our students fare worse when compared to others, so we try more tests, higher stakes, higher standards. "Pull Up!" they yell. We do as we are told, and crash again.
For each of you in public ed who are experiencing one of those "years from hell" when budgets are tight, parents are on your case, the standards have gone up, the scrutiny has increased, the high stakes tests have become more so, and the support has gone down, you constantly hear it. "Pull Up!"
Hang in and you will crash. Stand up, and maybe we can change some things. Your state's primary election will determine the next crew of pilots. Pick some who can learn and support public education. Step in the voting booth, level your wings.
Don't pull up.
The release of the cockpit transcript of the doomed Air France flight #447 gives me chills. On July 1, 2009, 228 human souls boarded this plane to fly from Brazil to France and never arrived. They crashed in the Atlantic, all souls lost. The cockpit transcripts describe the last horrifying minutes as the cockpit crew attempted to right the plane and save the flight.
The airliner stalled during its climb over the Atlantic. The pilot was asleep, a younger officer with less experience at the controls. Data poured into the cockpit at the same time the autopilot turned itself off. We now know that some of the sensors delivering the data to the flight crew were iced, giving faulty data. One thing was for sure, the plane lost power and headed down.
Years later and in safety and comfort, pilots tells us that when a plane stalls and begins to descend, the appropriate response is to push the yoke forward, accelerating the fall and gaining air speed so that power can be restored and the plane recovered. The young pilot at the controls responded by pulling back on the yoke, ordering the descending plane to climb. It could not. In the final minutes, the voices in the cockpit were arguing, some yelling, "Go down," some yelling, "Level your wings," and some yelling, "Pull Up!" The pilot pulled up. The plane crashed.
It is hard to imagine sitting at those controls knowing the plane is in a steep decline and not pulling up. And yet, that is what they should have done. Training, experience, rational forethought must balance our reflexive, intuitive response. Without that rational, calm, experienced, and informed decision making, we are likely doomed in any given emergency. Car begins to skid, turn into the skid not against it. Clothes catch on fire, hit the ground rather than run. Caught in a rip tide, swim with it, not against it. On and on, we must learn counterintuitive acts in times of fear that may save us despite our instincts, despite our emotions.
As public school folks collect then receive more and more data regarding student performance, we too can be overwhelmed. Our elected leaders are. The scariest of all thoughts to me is that the pilots of public ed are not educators. Those of us trained and experienced, know what to do. We know what matters. We know how to promote student learning, and it is not by collecting more data.
In fact, the data we are collecting is flawed. Standardized tests do not measure what we teach even when we attempt to teach to the standardized measure. Unlike the driving license tests, standardized tests for schools are designed to discriminate among students, not demonstrate student mastery. When the high stakes tests are field tested, the test developers automatically throw out all questions that every student answered correctly. Why? Because such a question does not help distribute outcomes along a curve. No standardized test maker wants most of the kids to do well. If so, they will be fired. No, what the policy makers want is a test that can distribute outcomes, not result in a J-Curve, or skewed results to the positive. And since the tests are designed that way, we should, as professionals, give them little credence. We know the sensors are iced.
But in the cockpit of public education sits a powerful group of untrained, non-professionals, who continually read the data and demand more data, data from harder tests based on more rigorous standards. "Pull Up!" they yell. We do as we are told, and crash. Our students fare worse when compared to others, so we try more tests, higher stakes, higher standards. "Pull Up!" they yell. We do as we are told, and crash again.
For each of you in public ed who are experiencing one of those "years from hell" when budgets are tight, parents are on your case, the standards have gone up, the scrutiny has increased, the high stakes tests have become more so, and the support has gone down, you constantly hear it. "Pull Up!"
Hang in and you will crash. Stand up, and maybe we can change some things. Your state's primary election will determine the next crew of pilots. Pick some who can learn and support public education. Step in the voting booth, level your wings.
Don't pull up.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Steve Jobs, RIP
You touched me and never knew it. From my first Apple IIe to my iPad I have been with you and you with me. I somehow feel guilty today for having a Dell and a Blackberry, but I think you would understand. I am older than you, but morphed through the technology as it became available because the first computer I ever touched was yours.
For all the schools that had rows and rows of Apple IIe's, Macs, iMacs, and now iPads; for all the apps and software, for green screens and mice, I thank you and all your widgets and gadgets for helping teachers teach kids and helping kids learn. You did good stuff for schools. Your inventions mothered necessity.
What a gift. You will be missed. Thanks.
For all the schools that had rows and rows of Apple IIe's, Macs, iMacs, and now iPads; for all the apps and software, for green screens and mice, I thank you and all your widgets and gadgets for helping teachers teach kids and helping kids learn. You did good stuff for schools. Your inventions mothered necessity.
What a gift. You will be missed. Thanks.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
TO: God, FROM: Eileen
I am so confused and need your help, as always. A sign would be nice, and it does not have to be a burning bush, the parting of a sea, or chiseled stone tablets. (Water into wine would be nice, but that's just selfish on my part.) A memo would be great!
I believe I get it that you are all about love, love for each other and love for you. I believe I get it that after giving us a bunch of rules to live by and our consistent failure to be able to meet those rules, you sent your son to love us, to model human life for us, to die for us and our sins, to be resurrected to an eternal life, and to offer us grace and forgiveness. I believe that what we need to be doing is loving each other, helping each other, supporting each other, seeking your will, worshipping you, loving you and thanking you, plus believing in you. OK? That's what I'm doing now, seeking your will. Again, a memo would be great!
First, have I got it right, that is, as summarized above? Is that what you want?
Second, if I have it right, how come so many others don't? How can people call on your name and work so very hard to increase their own tangible wealth on this planet at the expense of the poor, the ill, the elderly, the planet itself? Or, do they see something I cannot see, understand something I cannot? I would understand someone announcing they are both an atheist and a conservative, here on the planet to get what they can for themselves, to fight any infringement on their freedom to accumulate wealth and share it. I would get that, but I don't get the other. Come on, just give me a hint and I will try really hard to get it. In other words, if you want me to be a conservative and a Christian, just tell me because I cannot get it.
And third, because I think you like things in 3's, if the answer to my first question is "yes" and the answer to my second question is "they just don't get it," then would you please just make whatever answers you give me available to the public? Would you please do so whether I am on the right track or not?
I humbly thank you, Lord.
I believe I get it that you are all about love, love for each other and love for you. I believe I get it that after giving us a bunch of rules to live by and our consistent failure to be able to meet those rules, you sent your son to love us, to model human life for us, to die for us and our sins, to be resurrected to an eternal life, and to offer us grace and forgiveness. I believe that what we need to be doing is loving each other, helping each other, supporting each other, seeking your will, worshipping you, loving you and thanking you, plus believing in you. OK? That's what I'm doing now, seeking your will. Again, a memo would be great!
First, have I got it right, that is, as summarized above? Is that what you want?
Second, if I have it right, how come so many others don't? How can people call on your name and work so very hard to increase their own tangible wealth on this planet at the expense of the poor, the ill, the elderly, the planet itself? Or, do they see something I cannot see, understand something I cannot? I would understand someone announcing they are both an atheist and a conservative, here on the planet to get what they can for themselves, to fight any infringement on their freedom to accumulate wealth and share it. I would get that, but I don't get the other. Come on, just give me a hint and I will try really hard to get it. In other words, if you want me to be a conservative and a Christian, just tell me because I cannot get it.
And third, because I think you like things in 3's, if the answer to my first question is "yes" and the answer to my second question is "they just don't get it," then would you please just make whatever answers you give me available to the public? Would you please do so whether I am on the right track or not?
I humbly thank you, Lord.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Expertise and Attitude
I now sit and have sat on a number of boards. By "board" I mean a group of folks who hold some measure of respect in a given community and who are charged with the oversight of some program, some fund, some process, some enterprise. Many boards are elected, most are appointed. I include in the notion of boards groups such as church committees, councils, elders, deacons and sessions. I also include Little League, Boy Scouts, County Fairs, Red Cross, charitable foundations, beauty queen pageants, river authorities, art councils, and corporate boards.
If you think about it, school boards, city councils, legislatures and congress are also boards. These are elected boards, asked to oversee something in which they have no real measure of expertise, but are purported to have good hearts, wisdom, and a vision. Sometimes these elected boards form sub-boards by appointment of the elected board. Sub-boards, or sub-committees, or standing committees, or whatever title is assigned, begin to develop a feeling of self importance, perchance expertise, in the domain of the sub-whatever. And they do gain additional insight and experience, but lack real expertise. The Worship Committee members at church who have served over time begin to understand why the worship service is conducted the way it is, why the flow evolved, why the components are included. But, they also understand that they simply have a historical view, they are not the experts. That would be the pastor who has additional degrees, training and experience in the Order of Worship. But, I digress.
Historically, boards, councils, lay committees listened to and relied on professional expertise. Not now. Expertise appears to mean little.
We are in the middle of a communication revolution. Not only can those who make decisions, or develop and create a message have a much wider audience, but the audience can respond. In fact, the audience can talk to each other. I watch CNN and at first was really irritated when they began their "Question of the Day" whereby they invite views to email, tweet, or Facebook responses to CNN on whatever issue is brewing out there. They dutifully report many of the responses. My first thought was, "Who cares what Jack in North Carolina thinks about this heavy topic?" I was wrong. What Jack thinks is important to Jack and to everyone else who listens or responds to Jack. So, CNN produces and broadcasts and viewers interact. That hasn't happened before. The same thing is going on in so called reality TV where viewers cast votes. Amazing. So much for a panel of experts with long resumes and years of experience. Joe Blow gets to decide which couple goes home.
I know it is happening, and I wonder how much impact it is having on public education? I have ranted before about lay people intervening in the decision making process and overturning rules, processes and procedures that wisdom, training and experience dictate. It appears we cannot maintain that position any longer. How do we jump into a Facebook furor over dress code and say, "this is why we do what we do." How can we say to our constituencies that competition for pay and programs is a bad thing when everyone seems to think it is good thing? How can we argue against standardized testing when "everyone" thinks the scores matter? How do we communicate that the implementation of new research regarding the teaching of math informs us that our methodology in the classroom is different than when our parents went to school? Does expertise exist or is it merely based on the number of tweets, posts, and texts?
That seems to be the case with our legislature and Congress. That seems to be the case with our local school board. That seems to be the case with almost every issue I can think of. I tweet. I blog. I text. Am I guilty of the very crime I propose to end? Has leadership and expertise become tweet counting?
Or, should we just punt and take the combined social attitude over our accumulated expertise? Is it an either/or question?
Will Rogers defined leadership as the ability to get the herd moving roughly West. I love that notion. Is it obsolete? Is leadership now figuring out which way the herd is going and then racing full speed to get ahed of the thundering hooves? Am I the only one left who person-cotts reality TV in favor of reading a good book?
Help me. I'll count the posts.
If you think about it, school boards, city councils, legislatures and congress are also boards. These are elected boards, asked to oversee something in which they have no real measure of expertise, but are purported to have good hearts, wisdom, and a vision. Sometimes these elected boards form sub-boards by appointment of the elected board. Sub-boards, or sub-committees, or standing committees, or whatever title is assigned, begin to develop a feeling of self importance, perchance expertise, in the domain of the sub-whatever. And they do gain additional insight and experience, but lack real expertise. The Worship Committee members at church who have served over time begin to understand why the worship service is conducted the way it is, why the flow evolved, why the components are included. But, they also understand that they simply have a historical view, they are not the experts. That would be the pastor who has additional degrees, training and experience in the Order of Worship. But, I digress.
Historically, boards, councils, lay committees listened to and relied on professional expertise. Not now. Expertise appears to mean little.
We are in the middle of a communication revolution. Not only can those who make decisions, or develop and create a message have a much wider audience, but the audience can respond. In fact, the audience can talk to each other. I watch CNN and at first was really irritated when they began their "Question of the Day" whereby they invite views to email, tweet, or Facebook responses to CNN on whatever issue is brewing out there. They dutifully report many of the responses. My first thought was, "Who cares what Jack in North Carolina thinks about this heavy topic?" I was wrong. What Jack thinks is important to Jack and to everyone else who listens or responds to Jack. So, CNN produces and broadcasts and viewers interact. That hasn't happened before. The same thing is going on in so called reality TV where viewers cast votes. Amazing. So much for a panel of experts with long resumes and years of experience. Joe Blow gets to decide which couple goes home.
I know it is happening, and I wonder how much impact it is having on public education? I have ranted before about lay people intervening in the decision making process and overturning rules, processes and procedures that wisdom, training and experience dictate. It appears we cannot maintain that position any longer. How do we jump into a Facebook furor over dress code and say, "this is why we do what we do." How can we say to our constituencies that competition for pay and programs is a bad thing when everyone seems to think it is good thing? How can we argue against standardized testing when "everyone" thinks the scores matter? How do we communicate that the implementation of new research regarding the teaching of math informs us that our methodology in the classroom is different than when our parents went to school? Does expertise exist or is it merely based on the number of tweets, posts, and texts?
That seems to be the case with our legislature and Congress. That seems to be the case with our local school board. That seems to be the case with almost every issue I can think of. I tweet. I blog. I text. Am I guilty of the very crime I propose to end? Has leadership and expertise become tweet counting?
Or, should we just punt and take the combined social attitude over our accumulated expertise? Is it an either/or question?
Will Rogers defined leadership as the ability to get the herd moving roughly West. I love that notion. Is it obsolete? Is leadership now figuring out which way the herd is going and then racing full speed to get ahed of the thundering hooves? Am I the only one left who person-cotts reality TV in favor of reading a good book?
Help me. I'll count the posts.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
How Morph #1
If you are still with me and have been tempted to sign up for the School of Morph, then a valid question would be, "How the heck do we get there from here?" Ah, the "How Morph" question. A series of simultaneous events must happen in a way that coincides with a series of professional realizations to get the ball rolling. So, there are two sets of responses, one based on the current education institution and those of us within and without pushing and pulling, and the other grounded in political and economic reality. Education first I always say, so this post will address the professional realization piece, and "How Morph #2" will address the political/economic realm.
Though I believe many in public education sense the coming morph, they have yet to congeal around a picture of what is coming and how to help make it happen. By the phrase "in public education" I mean teachers, aides, administrators, superintendents, school boards and professors of education as well as the wide array of vendors, consultants and others who make their living off public education dollars but are not actually employed by a public school. As a matter of disclosure, I include myself in this group of "in public education," not as a vendor, but as a practitioner.
The current model of public education is not working and is on the verge of implosion. That realization led me to "Why Morph?" As more and more of us in this profession take a deep breath and review our practices and policies and procedures from aloft and with good hearts devoted to the mission of educating the youth of this country as an essential process of preserving and improving our future on this planet, then more and more of us must stand up and say, what we are doing is not working. It is working for some, but not for nearly enough. That is realization #1 and it is critical. If we believe that what we are doing is working, is good for kids and is good for this country, then we will never morph, and we will simply accelerate down the road we currently travel. That is the path set by folks who are not in this profession. I find that thought frightful.
I started this post on the first day for Texas school children to return to school. That was a really appropriate time to discuss realization #2: Schools must operate year round. The incredible stress of starting up each year is unbearable. The amount of time spent in classrooms putting up the bulletin boards that were just taken down in June is absolutely ridiculous. Developing schedules, assigning classrooms, conducting the mandatory faculty meetings, attending the mandatory staff development, leveling classes and printing student handbooks and forms for parents to fill out would all be moot if we simply never shut down. Add to that what happens in classrooms across this state, (and I suspect most others), after the administration of the high stakes standardized tests and one wonders why we even require kids to attend class after the tests. Field trips, assemblies, carnivals, etc., etc., dot the lesson plan landscape as teachers and administrators intuitively know that once the bubble sheets are shipped, school is over for the year. That can be as early as March or as late as May, but school is out when the scantrons are in. We keep running buses and we keep taking roll, but little instruction is actually happening. For schools to be effective and for teachers to be taken seriously, school must be an option for kids year round. We must stop the incredible waste of resources at both the end and beginning of each school year. Until teachers begin to lobby for that it won't happen, and as long as we are a "profession" that is only on call August to May, or September to June, we are part-timers and also-rans. No one who gets ten to twelve weeks a year vacation plus 2 weeks at Christmas, a spring break and at least 5 other random days per year is ever going to be seen as a real professional, much less listened to when the salary moaning begins. Teachers must work year round and schools should be open year round.
(Businesses close to remodel and then have a grand re-opening. If we remodel we do it on the fly during the school year whether we are talking new curriculum, newly purchased gizmos or software, or whether we are talking facilities. If summers were used for nothing else other than to further the professional practice of teachers with kids not present, we would be light-years ahead. Good Lord, our communities did not spend millions of dollars on facilities to sit idle ¼ of the year! Custodians do not need that much time to wax the floors and get cobwebs off the light fixtures.)
If you say, “We can’t afford that,” then I say, “Read part 2, coming soon to a blog near you.” If you say, “I don’t want to work year round,” then I say, “Re-evaluate your vision of teaching as a profession.”
Realization #3 is already out there, but it hasn't really sunk in. The most critical variable in any student's successful learning, demographics and DNA included, is the teacher. One of the most powerful subtexts in the whole high-stakes testing movement is the realization that who teaches the kids makes a difference. Hence the tests: let's find the good ones and fire the rest and use a test to separate the cream from the skim milk. The kid makes a difference too, but who teaches the kid makes a big difference. Parents know that on "meet the teacher night" and on "back to school night." Parents with efficacy make sure their kids get the “right” teacher. Schools go through incredible policy gymnastics to proclaim that classes are balanced by gender, ethnicity and heterogeneous performance history to justify spreading the kids out among the available pros. All the insiders really know the best teachers get both the toughest kids to teach and the kids of the most politically connected parents. The charter school movement appeals to parents in part because they have some choice in who the teacher is. Private schools, for those who can pay, settle the selection process once and for all. You too can buy your teacher, not to mention your child's peers. (It has always been amusing to me that every teacher I ever fired for incompetence either ended up making more money doing something else, or got hired by a private school. Go figure.) The teacher, the pro, makes a difference. Until teachers own up to this revelation, the chances of further realizations are slim.
Own up to realization #3 and you are ready for realization #4: teacher preparation and practice is critical to the future success not only of the teacher but of the students. How many reports do we have to see regarding the rapid exodus of young teachers from the profession before we say, you know, we are probably not setting them up for success. Duh. And, the preparation issue is not necessarily content area mastery! There is a reason doctors spend years in paid apprenticeships as do plumbers, welders, electricians, etc. One must learn one's craft. If the craft is teaching, then content knowledge at the university level is just about as critical to successful teaching as college level biology courses are to surgeons: nice to have, but not nearly enough. Teachers must be taught by other teachers. (I know. I can hear the universities grumbling already. But frankly, I have more degrees and graduate hours than I am willing to claim, and if I sit through one more lecture on why it is important to vary instructional strategies and differentiate instruction I am likely to commit mayhem.) We need to ensure that prospective teachers get the university content prep necessary to teach subject matter, then pay them for a one to three year internship wherein they learn to teach kids the subject matter, not just teach the subject matter. And this cannot be done by dropping the future teacher in an isolated classroom, or asking them to student teach for 6 weeks. This must be done in the ongoing company of real professional teachers.
Hence, realization #5: teachers must collaborate and should not be allowed to isolate. Neither an ill-prepared college grad nor an exhausted 20 year pro is likely to work well in a room alone with 20+ little humans. The structure for success is all wrong. No one else works alone, much less practices a high-stakes profession alone. Doctors don’t, engineers don’t, lawyers don’t. Teachers do. And when they get together, their clients and patients are not present and the temptation is simply to play, “Ain’t it awful.” To make real collaboration happen, schedules must be radically changed, the way we build schools must be changed, and the way we picture the school day must be changed. That will take community and parent involvement, professional support from teachers and administrators, and, surprisingly less money! We just have to paint the picture of what a group of pros can accomplish with a group of kids, working together for the purpose of learning, and working year-round. (OK, I guess that requires another post!)
So, how do we morph?
First, a large number of us (though research on meaningful change points to a critical mass of 10 to 20%) must say that what we are doing is not working, schools must operate year-round, teachers really do make the difference in a kid’s learning, we must change the way we prepare and support teachers, and teachers must work collaboratively rather than in small rectangular rooms all alone with kids. If the profession took this stand, modeled it, piloted it, demonstrated it, and showed that not only does it work better, it costs less while retaining the best, then we will get the parent, community, board and legislative support to do it.
We must create a model. A model morph: A vivid picture of a school serving a diverse group of kids who are achieving high academic success in a new setting with new behaviors on the part of the adults in the building.
Looks like I have more posting to do after Part 2 of “How Morph”, but you can start thinking about it right now! Break down the walls!
Though I believe many in public education sense the coming morph, they have yet to congeal around a picture of what is coming and how to help make it happen. By the phrase "in public education" I mean teachers, aides, administrators, superintendents, school boards and professors of education as well as the wide array of vendors, consultants and others who make their living off public education dollars but are not actually employed by a public school. As a matter of disclosure, I include myself in this group of "in public education," not as a vendor, but as a practitioner.
The current model of public education is not working and is on the verge of implosion. That realization led me to "Why Morph?" As more and more of us in this profession take a deep breath and review our practices and policies and procedures from aloft and with good hearts devoted to the mission of educating the youth of this country as an essential process of preserving and improving our future on this planet, then more and more of us must stand up and say, what we are doing is not working. It is working for some, but not for nearly enough. That is realization #1 and it is critical. If we believe that what we are doing is working, is good for kids and is good for this country, then we will never morph, and we will simply accelerate down the road we currently travel. That is the path set by folks who are not in this profession. I find that thought frightful.
I started this post on the first day for Texas school children to return to school. That was a really appropriate time to discuss realization #2: Schools must operate year round. The incredible stress of starting up each year is unbearable. The amount of time spent in classrooms putting up the bulletin boards that were just taken down in June is absolutely ridiculous. Developing schedules, assigning classrooms, conducting the mandatory faculty meetings, attending the mandatory staff development, leveling classes and printing student handbooks and forms for parents to fill out would all be moot if we simply never shut down. Add to that what happens in classrooms across this state, (and I suspect most others), after the administration of the high stakes standardized tests and one wonders why we even require kids to attend class after the tests. Field trips, assemblies, carnivals, etc., etc., dot the lesson plan landscape as teachers and administrators intuitively know that once the bubble sheets are shipped, school is over for the year. That can be as early as March or as late as May, but school is out when the scantrons are in. We keep running buses and we keep taking roll, but little instruction is actually happening. For schools to be effective and for teachers to be taken seriously, school must be an option for kids year round. We must stop the incredible waste of resources at both the end and beginning of each school year. Until teachers begin to lobby for that it won't happen, and as long as we are a "profession" that is only on call August to May, or September to June, we are part-timers and also-rans. No one who gets ten to twelve weeks a year vacation plus 2 weeks at Christmas, a spring break and at least 5 other random days per year is ever going to be seen as a real professional, much less listened to when the salary moaning begins. Teachers must work year round and schools should be open year round.
(Businesses close to remodel and then have a grand re-opening. If we remodel we do it on the fly during the school year whether we are talking new curriculum, newly purchased gizmos or software, or whether we are talking facilities. If summers were used for nothing else other than to further the professional practice of teachers with kids not present, we would be light-years ahead. Good Lord, our communities did not spend millions of dollars on facilities to sit idle ¼ of the year! Custodians do not need that much time to wax the floors and get cobwebs off the light fixtures.)
If you say, “We can’t afford that,” then I say, “Read part 2, coming soon to a blog near you.” If you say, “I don’t want to work year round,” then I say, “Re-evaluate your vision of teaching as a profession.”
Realization #3 is already out there, but it hasn't really sunk in. The most critical variable in any student's successful learning, demographics and DNA included, is the teacher. One of the most powerful subtexts in the whole high-stakes testing movement is the realization that who teaches the kids makes a difference. Hence the tests: let's find the good ones and fire the rest and use a test to separate the cream from the skim milk. The kid makes a difference too, but who teaches the kid makes a big difference. Parents know that on "meet the teacher night" and on "back to school night." Parents with efficacy make sure their kids get the “right” teacher. Schools go through incredible policy gymnastics to proclaim that classes are balanced by gender, ethnicity and heterogeneous performance history to justify spreading the kids out among the available pros. All the insiders really know the best teachers get both the toughest kids to teach and the kids of the most politically connected parents. The charter school movement appeals to parents in part because they have some choice in who the teacher is. Private schools, for those who can pay, settle the selection process once and for all. You too can buy your teacher, not to mention your child's peers. (It has always been amusing to me that every teacher I ever fired for incompetence either ended up making more money doing something else, or got hired by a private school. Go figure.) The teacher, the pro, makes a difference. Until teachers own up to this revelation, the chances of further realizations are slim.
Own up to realization #3 and you are ready for realization #4: teacher preparation and practice is critical to the future success not only of the teacher but of the students. How many reports do we have to see regarding the rapid exodus of young teachers from the profession before we say, you know, we are probably not setting them up for success. Duh. And, the preparation issue is not necessarily content area mastery! There is a reason doctors spend years in paid apprenticeships as do plumbers, welders, electricians, etc. One must learn one's craft. If the craft is teaching, then content knowledge at the university level is just about as critical to successful teaching as college level biology courses are to surgeons: nice to have, but not nearly enough. Teachers must be taught by other teachers. (I know. I can hear the universities grumbling already. But frankly, I have more degrees and graduate hours than I am willing to claim, and if I sit through one more lecture on why it is important to vary instructional strategies and differentiate instruction I am likely to commit mayhem.) We need to ensure that prospective teachers get the university content prep necessary to teach subject matter, then pay them for a one to three year internship wherein they learn to teach kids the subject matter, not just teach the subject matter. And this cannot be done by dropping the future teacher in an isolated classroom, or asking them to student teach for 6 weeks. This must be done in the ongoing company of real professional teachers.
Hence, realization #5: teachers must collaborate and should not be allowed to isolate. Neither an ill-prepared college grad nor an exhausted 20 year pro is likely to work well in a room alone with 20+ little humans. The structure for success is all wrong. No one else works alone, much less practices a high-stakes profession alone. Doctors don’t, engineers don’t, lawyers don’t. Teachers do. And when they get together, their clients and patients are not present and the temptation is simply to play, “Ain’t it awful.” To make real collaboration happen, schedules must be radically changed, the way we build schools must be changed, and the way we picture the school day must be changed. That will take community and parent involvement, professional support from teachers and administrators, and, surprisingly less money! We just have to paint the picture of what a group of pros can accomplish with a group of kids, working together for the purpose of learning, and working year-round. (OK, I guess that requires another post!)
So, how do we morph?
First, a large number of us (though research on meaningful change points to a critical mass of 10 to 20%) must say that what we are doing is not working, schools must operate year-round, teachers really do make the difference in a kid’s learning, we must change the way we prepare and support teachers, and teachers must work collaboratively rather than in small rectangular rooms all alone with kids. If the profession took this stand, modeled it, piloted it, demonstrated it, and showed that not only does it work better, it costs less while retaining the best, then we will get the parent, community, board and legislative support to do it.
We must create a model. A model morph: A vivid picture of a school serving a diverse group of kids who are achieving high academic success in a new setting with new behaviors on the part of the adults in the building.
Looks like I have more posting to do after Part 2 of “How Morph”, but you can start thinking about it right now! Break down the walls!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
TOYs for Tots
OK, so a Texas teacher association gathered all the regional teachers of the year (TOYs) together at a posh hotel in Austin for a focus group session on how to improve education. You can read the full report here: http://www.atpefoundation.org/images/2011RTOYFullReport.pdf. They developed four recommendations in the areas of accountability, professionalism, rebranding, and community. Interesting.
I agree with much of what they said. Everyone should be held accountable. Professional development should be focused and be campus-based, teacher influenced, relevant and useful. Accountability for quality performance must be systemic. Our profession is in trouble and in need of "rebranding." We all need to work on this together, administrators, teachers, community, legislators.
But, sadly, my sense is that they missed the big picture. They could not see outside the walls of their classrooms. There are comments about teaching to the test, inadequate administrator evaluations, failure to weed out the incompetents.
Where do school administrators come from? Do you think current administrators go to incompetent, non-motivated teachers and suggest that they consider becoming a principal? Nope. I was a teacher of the year before I became an administrator. I was president of my local teacher association. I lobbied hard to increase teacher input into decision-making. I was wrong.
Had someone asked me back then how the school finance system worked, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how the curriculum standards were set, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how the accountability system really worked at both the state and federal levels, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how administrators were evaluated, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how the local budget and tax rate were developed and set, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how, based on all the above we were doing as a school, as a district and as a state, I could not tell them.
One of the key provisions of professionalism is to know your profession. Not just your practice, your profession. Not just your subject and grade level, but your profession. I get it that teachers do not want to attend all day, big group workshops on a topic suggested by an administrator. I get it that they want incompetent teachers rooted out. I get it that we are all in this together. And, I get it that teachers, good teachers, are entrepreneurial and want to be left alone in their rooms to do their jobs without interference from administrators.
Most amazing to me is the notion that weak teachers are not weeded out. The only reason administrators do not weed them out faster is that teacher associations have fought to legislate provisions so that it is very difficult to fire a teacher. Can fire an administrator at the drop of a hat, but not teachers. And, ours is the only organization going where criticism of the boss does not result in termination, it is lauded as a professional right and duty!
I return to the notion that our biggest challenge is the isolation of the profession. Teachers rarely see other teachers teach. The impression they have of the quality of the work done by their peers comes from lounge gossip. I was amazed when I left the classroom and saw other teachers teach and observed what went on in classrooms.
Teachers can bond with a common enemy. It is easy to make that enemy an administrator. It is easy to say we are here for the kids, and let's get the incompetent administrators out of here. (And, incompetent administrators ought to be fired, but not based on test scores!)
Woe is me. The Texas Teachers of the Year are playing the same old tune. Let's have some vision, folks! Why not talk about politics since that is now driving all instructional and institutional decision making? Why not attack standardized testing rather than teaching to the test? Why not promote a different kind of accountability? Why not promote a different kind of professional development beyond make-it and take-it labs. Why not take a day and spend it observing your peers?
I expected more than TOYS for Tots.
And yes, I'm back.
I agree with much of what they said. Everyone should be held accountable. Professional development should be focused and be campus-based, teacher influenced, relevant and useful. Accountability for quality performance must be systemic. Our profession is in trouble and in need of "rebranding." We all need to work on this together, administrators, teachers, community, legislators.
But, sadly, my sense is that they missed the big picture. They could not see outside the walls of their classrooms. There are comments about teaching to the test, inadequate administrator evaluations, failure to weed out the incompetents.
Where do school administrators come from? Do you think current administrators go to incompetent, non-motivated teachers and suggest that they consider becoming a principal? Nope. I was a teacher of the year before I became an administrator. I was president of my local teacher association. I lobbied hard to increase teacher input into decision-making. I was wrong.
Had someone asked me back then how the school finance system worked, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how the curriculum standards were set, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how the accountability system really worked at both the state and federal levels, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how administrators were evaluated, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how the local budget and tax rate were developed and set, I could not tell them. Had they asked me how, based on all the above we were doing as a school, as a district and as a state, I could not tell them.
One of the key provisions of professionalism is to know your profession. Not just your practice, your profession. Not just your subject and grade level, but your profession. I get it that teachers do not want to attend all day, big group workshops on a topic suggested by an administrator. I get it that they want incompetent teachers rooted out. I get it that we are all in this together. And, I get it that teachers, good teachers, are entrepreneurial and want to be left alone in their rooms to do their jobs without interference from administrators.
Most amazing to me is the notion that weak teachers are not weeded out. The only reason administrators do not weed them out faster is that teacher associations have fought to legislate provisions so that it is very difficult to fire a teacher. Can fire an administrator at the drop of a hat, but not teachers. And, ours is the only organization going where criticism of the boss does not result in termination, it is lauded as a professional right and duty!
I return to the notion that our biggest challenge is the isolation of the profession. Teachers rarely see other teachers teach. The impression they have of the quality of the work done by their peers comes from lounge gossip. I was amazed when I left the classroom and saw other teachers teach and observed what went on in classrooms.
Teachers can bond with a common enemy. It is easy to make that enemy an administrator. It is easy to say we are here for the kids, and let's get the incompetent administrators out of here. (And, incompetent administrators ought to be fired, but not based on test scores!)
Woe is me. The Texas Teachers of the Year are playing the same old tune. Let's have some vision, folks! Why not talk about politics since that is now driving all instructional and institutional decision making? Why not attack standardized testing rather than teaching to the test? Why not promote a different kind of accountability? Why not promote a different kind of professional development beyond make-it and take-it labs. Why not take a day and spend it observing your peers?
I expected more than TOYS for Tots.
And yes, I'm back.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Re-Booted
I awoke last week in fear and took down all the postings. Took me hours. I awoke this morning, 9/11/2011 and realized now is not the time to act from fear. Now is the time to act with courage. I'm back. I re-posted everything I took down, though you will notice that all previous posts are dated today. Open them and you will see the date I originally wrote them, and all your wonderful comments.
Today is a day to mourn and remember, and try to recapture the united spirit we felt 10 years ago.
Yes, even liberals can say, "God, please bless America."
(I did not re-post the poetry. OK, I'm not a poet.)
Thank you for your kind comments and emails. More, thank you for sticking with me.
I'm back!
Today is a day to mourn and remember, and try to recapture the united spirit we felt 10 years ago.
Yes, even liberals can say, "God, please bless America."
(I did not re-post the poetry. OK, I'm not a poet.)
Thank you for your kind comments and emails. More, thank you for sticking with me.
I'm back!
Mrs. Minowpee
TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2011
I was so blessed in my youth. My disabled grandmother lived with my family, and one of my most wonderful memories of early childhood was sitting in her lap in her wheelchair while she read to me. I sat with my back to her chest, her arms around me holding a book so that she could look over my head and read. I could see the book too. She read children's books to me, but she also read big books, what some elementary folks call chapter books. I loved the bonding, the experience, the sound of her voice as she read and read. She had grown up in a time when radio became common and most folks gathered around the large tube-filled RCA to listen to news, commentary, variety shows, drama and comedy performed by actors whose skill was the spoken word, emphasis, mood, enunciation and characterization, all broadcast for free. That influence was clear in my grandmother's reading. Books became alive; I could picture each character, each scene as she changed the pitch of her voice and the tempo of her reading to fit the text.
I do not remember exactly when it happened, but I clearly remember that it happened. Gran was reading Through the Looking Glass to me and I was enthralled by the travails of poor Alice. I could see the text. I could hear her voice. Suddenly, as though a light went on, I knew where she was in the text. I could follow the words and knew what they were and what she was going to say. I do not know how, but I was suddenly reading. I was so excited! It was an "a hah!" moment like I had never experienced. I was reading!
After that, I could not get enough to read. I was voracious. Children's books flew by, then Peter Pan, then Gulliver's Travels, then on to all of the Robert Louis Stevenson books. I continued to sit in Gran's lap, but we took turns reading now. It was wonderful.
Then, I entered kindergarten. My excitement about school ended before lunch the first day. We were going to learn the alphabet, and colors, and numbers. OK, I needed help with numbers, but not colors. I did not know the alphabet, though I clearly remember large letters on skinny poster board displayed around the upper walls of the room. Our first week was the letter "A". I really did not get "A". I got the sound and really understood the letter as a mere bit of a word, sometimes a word all by itself, but out of context it made no sense to me. "B" was worse. By the 3rd week of school I was becoming a behavior problem. I wanted to read, I did not want to memorize symbols that were mere pieces of reading. I wanted words. I wanted context. I wanted to visit other places, know other people, have vicarious adventures. I did not want to learn "C." or D, or E. And somehow the rumor that Here Tip Run was around the corner was not enough to keep me out of the corner.
Gran tried to save me. She taught me the song that many already knew and we sang in class. The alphabet song. I bet you know it. But, you probably understood it better than I did. I was pretty good in the song until we got to Mrs. Minowpee. Mrs. Ella Minowpee. I got all the way through "K" then got hung up on Ella Minowpee. Q was OK, but rare, S and the rest were OK. But Ella Minowpee always threw me.
To this day I do not really know my alphabet. I can sing the song and fake it, but dearest friends and family know that if you hand me a phone book to look up a number, I am again singing the dirge to Mrs. Minowpee trying to make sense of all this. Once I became a teacher and had reasons to file stuff, I never could organize things alphabetically. I could spell "alphabet" and I could use it in a sentence, but I never mastered it. My files were organized by concept or due date.
So here is what I know about kids because of Mrs. Ella Minowpee. Each one learns differently. Some in bursts. Some very slowly. Some are already ready for more, and others have not caught up with yesterday. I was such a child, and maybe you were too. I got in trouble because I wanted to read and did not want to waste my time memorizing what appeared to me to be nonsense. I stand my ground. At my ripe old age, a successful career as an educator all but behind me, and I still stubbornly have refused to learn the alphabet, though I remain both fond of and curious about Mrs. Minowpee and the fact that generations of children have sung her name knowing virtually nothing about her.
Teach kids both where they are and where they could go. Adult de-construction of knowledge is not always necessarily the correct learning sequence. To know that, all you have to do is ask the kid. If they are curious about Ella Minowpee, then be prepared to either introduce her or demystify her so you and the kid can go on. Psychometricians and standardized test manufacturers don't get that, do they? They operate in a world where every 6 year old must know Ella Minowpee before they get to see real words, in real sentences, in real contexts and actually read.
Perhaps we should finally organize a memorial service for Mrs. Minowpee, and all the other little knowledge bits that are somehow irrelevant but required as subsets to real learning. If so, I will be there to eulogize and say "Amen."
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 9:41 PM
6 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
It is 5 in the morning and I am laughing! A rarity at this hour! Wonderful insight! I do not teach elementary students, its middle school for me. Today, we are making an Alphabet Book (middle school and an Alphabet Book sounds maybe a bit juvenile, trust me its not)! Maybe Ella Minowpee will be visiting. I hope so, we will create and include her in our book!! Really, what you did was to make me think about some of the questions my kids ask or wonder about or that cause them to disconnect. It is time for me to reevaluate and look into their questions and make sure I make to proper introductions or demystifications! Thanks! I am ready for Ella, bring her on!
AUGUST 31, 2011 4:20 AM
Anonymous said...
Ella is famous. She even has a book written about her.
http://www.amazon.com/Ella-Minnow-Pea-Novel-Letters/dp/0385722435/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314790822&sr=8-1
Thanks for the laugh.
AUGUST 31, 2011 6:42 AM
Mrs. G. said...
Einstein kept the multiplication tables taped to his wall. He was too busy doing interesting math to memorize them. By today's standards, he'd still be in third grade trying to pass a timed math fact test.
AUGUST 31, 2011 8:00 AM
Anonymous said...
I find it amazing that we are still spending very much time on alphabetizing when most of us look up our references on the computer. Type in the search box and it finds it for you ... do we really use 'guide words' all that much?
Granted, it can be helpful to know how to use an index in a book ... but other than that ... tell me when you use the skill ....
AUGUST 31, 2011 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...
Ok...did the alphabet book with my math class and used Ella to introduce it....what a hoot! Kids laughed the entire day while working...my room was filled with song! As awful as the state of education can be....these are the moments that make you forget all funding, testing, accountability issues! These moments are why I love teaching!
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 6:44 PM
Anonymous said...
a lift for educators everywhere ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/opinion/blow-an-ode-to-teachers.html?smid=fb-share
I was so blessed in my youth. My disabled grandmother lived with my family, and one of my most wonderful memories of early childhood was sitting in her lap in her wheelchair while she read to me. I sat with my back to her chest, her arms around me holding a book so that she could look over my head and read. I could see the book too. She read children's books to me, but she also read big books, what some elementary folks call chapter books. I loved the bonding, the experience, the sound of her voice as she read and read. She had grown up in a time when radio became common and most folks gathered around the large tube-filled RCA to listen to news, commentary, variety shows, drama and comedy performed by actors whose skill was the spoken word, emphasis, mood, enunciation and characterization, all broadcast for free. That influence was clear in my grandmother's reading. Books became alive; I could picture each character, each scene as she changed the pitch of her voice and the tempo of her reading to fit the text.
I do not remember exactly when it happened, but I clearly remember that it happened. Gran was reading Through the Looking Glass to me and I was enthralled by the travails of poor Alice. I could see the text. I could hear her voice. Suddenly, as though a light went on, I knew where she was in the text. I could follow the words and knew what they were and what she was going to say. I do not know how, but I was suddenly reading. I was so excited! It was an "a hah!" moment like I had never experienced. I was reading!
After that, I could not get enough to read. I was voracious. Children's books flew by, then Peter Pan, then Gulliver's Travels, then on to all of the Robert Louis Stevenson books. I continued to sit in Gran's lap, but we took turns reading now. It was wonderful.
Then, I entered kindergarten. My excitement about school ended before lunch the first day. We were going to learn the alphabet, and colors, and numbers. OK, I needed help with numbers, but not colors. I did not know the alphabet, though I clearly remember large letters on skinny poster board displayed around the upper walls of the room. Our first week was the letter "A". I really did not get "A". I got the sound and really understood the letter as a mere bit of a word, sometimes a word all by itself, but out of context it made no sense to me. "B" was worse. By the 3rd week of school I was becoming a behavior problem. I wanted to read, I did not want to memorize symbols that were mere pieces of reading. I wanted words. I wanted context. I wanted to visit other places, know other people, have vicarious adventures. I did not want to learn "C." or D, or E. And somehow the rumor that Here Tip Run was around the corner was not enough to keep me out of the corner.
Gran tried to save me. She taught me the song that many already knew and we sang in class. The alphabet song. I bet you know it. But, you probably understood it better than I did. I was pretty good in the song until we got to Mrs. Minowpee. Mrs. Ella Minowpee. I got all the way through "K" then got hung up on Ella Minowpee. Q was OK, but rare, S and the rest were OK. But Ella Minowpee always threw me.
To this day I do not really know my alphabet. I can sing the song and fake it, but dearest friends and family know that if you hand me a phone book to look up a number, I am again singing the dirge to Mrs. Minowpee trying to make sense of all this. Once I became a teacher and had reasons to file stuff, I never could organize things alphabetically. I could spell "alphabet" and I could use it in a sentence, but I never mastered it. My files were organized by concept or due date.
So here is what I know about kids because of Mrs. Ella Minowpee. Each one learns differently. Some in bursts. Some very slowly. Some are already ready for more, and others have not caught up with yesterday. I was such a child, and maybe you were too. I got in trouble because I wanted to read and did not want to waste my time memorizing what appeared to me to be nonsense. I stand my ground. At my ripe old age, a successful career as an educator all but behind me, and I still stubbornly have refused to learn the alphabet, though I remain both fond of and curious about Mrs. Minowpee and the fact that generations of children have sung her name knowing virtually nothing about her.
Teach kids both where they are and where they could go. Adult de-construction of knowledge is not always necessarily the correct learning sequence. To know that, all you have to do is ask the kid. If they are curious about Ella Minowpee, then be prepared to either introduce her or demystify her so you and the kid can go on. Psychometricians and standardized test manufacturers don't get that, do they? They operate in a world where every 6 year old must know Ella Minowpee before they get to see real words, in real sentences, in real contexts and actually read.
Perhaps we should finally organize a memorial service for Mrs. Minowpee, and all the other little knowledge bits that are somehow irrelevant but required as subsets to real learning. If so, I will be there to eulogize and say "Amen."
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 9:41 PM
6 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
It is 5 in the morning and I am laughing! A rarity at this hour! Wonderful insight! I do not teach elementary students, its middle school for me. Today, we are making an Alphabet Book (middle school and an Alphabet Book sounds maybe a bit juvenile, trust me its not)! Maybe Ella Minowpee will be visiting. I hope so, we will create and include her in our book!! Really, what you did was to make me think about some of the questions my kids ask or wonder about or that cause them to disconnect. It is time for me to reevaluate and look into their questions and make sure I make to proper introductions or demystifications! Thanks! I am ready for Ella, bring her on!
AUGUST 31, 2011 4:20 AM
Anonymous said...
Ella is famous. She even has a book written about her.
http://www.amazon.com/Ella-Minnow-Pea-Novel-Letters/dp/0385722435/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314790822&sr=8-1
Thanks for the laugh.
AUGUST 31, 2011 6:42 AM
Mrs. G. said...
Einstein kept the multiplication tables taped to his wall. He was too busy doing interesting math to memorize them. By today's standards, he'd still be in third grade trying to pass a timed math fact test.
AUGUST 31, 2011 8:00 AM
Anonymous said...
I find it amazing that we are still spending very much time on alphabetizing when most of us look up our references on the computer. Type in the search box and it finds it for you ... do we really use 'guide words' all that much?
Granted, it can be helpful to know how to use an index in a book ... but other than that ... tell me when you use the skill ....
AUGUST 31, 2011 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...
Ok...did the alphabet book with my math class and used Ella to introduce it....what a hoot! Kids laughed the entire day while working...my room was filled with song! As awful as the state of education can be....these are the moments that make you forget all funding, testing, accountability issues! These moments are why I love teaching!
SEPTEMBER 1, 2011 6:44 PM
Anonymous said...
a lift for educators everywhere ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/opinion/blow-an-ode-to-teachers.html?smid=fb-share
Coffee Cup Half Full
MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2011
I awoke at 5:45 this morning to the sound of school buses headed out on their routes. You know, despite all that is wrong with the current educational reforms, despite all the voucher, charter, accountability, funding, high stakes testing, etc., etc., issues in public schools, amazing things continue to happen each and every day. Buses head out to pick up kids, teachers and aides stand dutifully welcoming kids and parents to our facilities. Bells ring, teachers teach, lunches are served, extra-curricular activities draw crowds, and a myriad of good hearted, hard working people are doing their darndest every day to make a positive change in the future of our children. I get angry that we do not provide the political environment and necessary resources to support us in doing what we know is right for kids. But, we continue to do it anyway.
Bless you all for serving our kids, our nation, and our future! Keep it up!
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 9:44 AM
2 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Even if the current political climate does not promote teachers, teaching and in general public education, when I get up every day head out for another day in the trenches, I do because I believe it is where I am needed. I believe in the 145 faces I see each day, and I believe that each and every one of them is important and special. If I did not believe that, this might not be the job for me. Never have I been interested in being an administrator, thank goodness for those of you that do. To me, teaching is the best job ever! I fight each and every day to be given that pleasure and believe it is not about the test, but rather about the child.
AUGUST 29, 2011 7:29 PM
Mrs. G. said...
Yes, good things continue to happen in schools and always will, although it may become less frequent. I fear the true impact of the current climate is yet to come. My daughter is twelve and has been teaching her stuffed animals since she was two. I'm talking whole classes with sticker charts, take-home folders, etc. I always thought she'd be a teacher, but now she's completely against it. She sees the layoffs, pension changes, class size increases, etc. "Who needs the hassle?" she says. I am certain she's not the only prospective teacher coming to that conclusion.
I awoke at 5:45 this morning to the sound of school buses headed out on their routes. You know, despite all that is wrong with the current educational reforms, despite all the voucher, charter, accountability, funding, high stakes testing, etc., etc., issues in public schools, amazing things continue to happen each and every day. Buses head out to pick up kids, teachers and aides stand dutifully welcoming kids and parents to our facilities. Bells ring, teachers teach, lunches are served, extra-curricular activities draw crowds, and a myriad of good hearted, hard working people are doing their darndest every day to make a positive change in the future of our children. I get angry that we do not provide the political environment and necessary resources to support us in doing what we know is right for kids. But, we continue to do it anyway.
Bless you all for serving our kids, our nation, and our future! Keep it up!
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 9:44 AM
2 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Even if the current political climate does not promote teachers, teaching and in general public education, when I get up every day head out for another day in the trenches, I do because I believe it is where I am needed. I believe in the 145 faces I see each day, and I believe that each and every one of them is important and special. If I did not believe that, this might not be the job for me. Never have I been interested in being an administrator, thank goodness for those of you that do. To me, teaching is the best job ever! I fight each and every day to be given that pleasure and believe it is not about the test, but rather about the child.
AUGUST 29, 2011 7:29 PM
Mrs. G. said...
Yes, good things continue to happen in schools and always will, although it may become less frequent. I fear the true impact of the current climate is yet to come. My daughter is twelve and has been teaching her stuffed animals since she was two. I'm talking whole classes with sticker charts, take-home folders, etc. I always thought she'd be a teacher, but now she's completely against it. She sees the layoffs, pension changes, class size increases, etc. "Who needs the hassle?" she says. I am certain she's not the only prospective teacher coming to that conclusion.
Correlates of Defective Schools
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 2011
It rained this week in drought-ridden Texas, and that is good! We called it a 6 inch rain - one drop every 6 inches. Didn't make national news because New York is threatened by Hurricane Irene. I guess even the pundits can be myopic. I do pray for those in harm's way, but Texas sure could have used some rain. Enough intro.
I remember working in the central office of a large school system and dreading every time the supe went to a conference or read a book. No doubt we would be implementing some new theme, some new program, or loading our guns with some new silver bullet. I went to a few myself, and one of the themes in those days resides with us today. How do we become an effective school, that is, a school that generates great student learning and outcomes, however we measure those outcomes, regardless of the characteristics of the students in the school? An ineffective school is, by definition, a school that simply replicates expectations. Rich kids do well; poor kids do poorly, etc. I sense that legislators everywhere read the book and drank the Kool-Aid of effective schools, because as I review those correlates, or characteristics, of effective schools it appears to me that we have taken good sound reasoning and run amuck. Time to revisit those correlates and the way they have been implemented to nurture defective schools:
“Instructional leadership” has become instructional management. Principals are hired now and expected now to comply with a wide array of mandates. To innovate implies that the principal may know something the legislature or parents or community does not know, and we cannot have that at all. There are so many compliance measures that principals spend most of their time just making sure that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. Lawyers, as the bane of education, have been replaced by auditors. Mess up and you get to post it on your website and send a letter home. Leaders do the right thing, and managers do things right. The list of things that must be done right is so long, no one can master it, and that fits with the model of making public schools look badly.
“Monitoring academic progress” has become high stakes testing. Frankly, my dear, we do not give a damn if your kid actually learns something as long as he or she scores well on the standardized test. There were days in this profession when educators developed tests and assessments to determine if kids were learning. Teachers took the data, and sometimes principals, and used them for the purpose of improving instruction. Now, all those tests are used to see if we are on track to do well on the high stakes standardized test. And, the high stakes standardized test is used to punish staff and schools. There is no pretense that those data will be used to improve instruction as we do not even receive the scores until school is out.
“Positive school climate” has been replaced by high stakes accountability. There remain efforts by many schools to promote positive climate, encourage adults to assume responsibility for all the kids, all the time, everywhere, but more often than not, upset kids and parents simply bolt from the school, or show up at a school board meeting to complain. The more accountable the staff for test outcomes, the less likely they are to be sympathetic to individual needs.
"High expectations for student success" has been replaced with high standards for student success. I did two entire pieces on the difference in standards and expectations (Promoting Failure#1 and #2), and I won't repeat them here. Simply put, raise expectations and students do better. Raise standards and more fail. Texas' outcomes this spring prove that hypothesis to be true.
“Parental involvement” has been replaced with, "Lay people know more about education than professional educators." Everyone I meet has a theory about how to improve schools, and educators are beat up using the felonious data of high stakes tests and ever rising standards. Clearly, teachers do not know as much as principals, who do not know as much as superintendents, who do not know as much as school boards and parents, who do not know as much as Texas Legislators, who do not know as much as the federal government, who does not know as much about schools as Bill Gates. The degrees, the experience, and the hours of professional development mean nothing. To be an educational expert you either need to make a billion dollars or receive a majority vote.
So, these then, with apologies to Larry and Ron, are the new Correlates of Defective Schools:
• Instructional Management
• High Stakes Student Testing
• High Stakes Staff Accountability
• High Standards, frequently raised
• Non Educators Get to Make all the Rules
Have a great school year, and good luck!
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 4:47 PM
2 COMMENTS:
Eileen Good said...
You may think I forgot "Clear Instructional Focus." Nope. It is now "Clear Focus on Test Scores." Buy the curriculum, read what has been handed to you and teach it!
AUGUST 28, 2011 4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
Don't ask questions, don't think outside the box and don't allow students to tell you what they need.....so right Ms. Good read it and teach it!
It rained this week in drought-ridden Texas, and that is good! We called it a 6 inch rain - one drop every 6 inches. Didn't make national news because New York is threatened by Hurricane Irene. I guess even the pundits can be myopic. I do pray for those in harm's way, but Texas sure could have used some rain. Enough intro.
I remember working in the central office of a large school system and dreading every time the supe went to a conference or read a book. No doubt we would be implementing some new theme, some new program, or loading our guns with some new silver bullet. I went to a few myself, and one of the themes in those days resides with us today. How do we become an effective school, that is, a school that generates great student learning and outcomes, however we measure those outcomes, regardless of the characteristics of the students in the school? An ineffective school is, by definition, a school that simply replicates expectations. Rich kids do well; poor kids do poorly, etc. I sense that legislators everywhere read the book and drank the Kool-Aid of effective schools, because as I review those correlates, or characteristics, of effective schools it appears to me that we have taken good sound reasoning and run amuck. Time to revisit those correlates and the way they have been implemented to nurture defective schools:
“Instructional leadership” has become instructional management. Principals are hired now and expected now to comply with a wide array of mandates. To innovate implies that the principal may know something the legislature or parents or community does not know, and we cannot have that at all. There are so many compliance measures that principals spend most of their time just making sure that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. Lawyers, as the bane of education, have been replaced by auditors. Mess up and you get to post it on your website and send a letter home. Leaders do the right thing, and managers do things right. The list of things that must be done right is so long, no one can master it, and that fits with the model of making public schools look badly.
“Monitoring academic progress” has become high stakes testing. Frankly, my dear, we do not give a damn if your kid actually learns something as long as he or she scores well on the standardized test. There were days in this profession when educators developed tests and assessments to determine if kids were learning. Teachers took the data, and sometimes principals, and used them for the purpose of improving instruction. Now, all those tests are used to see if we are on track to do well on the high stakes standardized test. And, the high stakes standardized test is used to punish staff and schools. There is no pretense that those data will be used to improve instruction as we do not even receive the scores until school is out.
“Positive school climate” has been replaced by high stakes accountability. There remain efforts by many schools to promote positive climate, encourage adults to assume responsibility for all the kids, all the time, everywhere, but more often than not, upset kids and parents simply bolt from the school, or show up at a school board meeting to complain. The more accountable the staff for test outcomes, the less likely they are to be sympathetic to individual needs.
"High expectations for student success" has been replaced with high standards for student success. I did two entire pieces on the difference in standards and expectations (Promoting Failure#1 and #2), and I won't repeat them here. Simply put, raise expectations and students do better. Raise standards and more fail. Texas' outcomes this spring prove that hypothesis to be true.
“Parental involvement” has been replaced with, "Lay people know more about education than professional educators." Everyone I meet has a theory about how to improve schools, and educators are beat up using the felonious data of high stakes tests and ever rising standards. Clearly, teachers do not know as much as principals, who do not know as much as superintendents, who do not know as much as school boards and parents, who do not know as much as Texas Legislators, who do not know as much as the federal government, who does not know as much about schools as Bill Gates. The degrees, the experience, and the hours of professional development mean nothing. To be an educational expert you either need to make a billion dollars or receive a majority vote.
So, these then, with apologies to Larry and Ron, are the new Correlates of Defective Schools:
• Instructional Management
• High Stakes Student Testing
• High Stakes Staff Accountability
• High Standards, frequently raised
• Non Educators Get to Make all the Rules
Have a great school year, and good luck!
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 4:47 PM
2 COMMENTS:
Eileen Good said...
You may think I forgot "Clear Instructional Focus." Nope. It is now "Clear Focus on Test Scores." Buy the curriculum, read what has been handed to you and teach it!
AUGUST 28, 2011 4:58 PM
Anonymous said...
Don't ask questions, don't think outside the box and don't allow students to tell you what they need.....so right Ms. Good read it and teach it!
What Morph?
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 2011
Dearest readers, if you made it through "Why Morph?" you may be thinking, "So, we need to change. But change what?" Ah, the "What Morph?" question. Glad you asked!
There are things we cannot change, at least not at this point in our science. We cannot change the DNA or IQ or ethnicity of our kids. Some kids do a great job of choosing their parents, others not so much. And, we cannot change the DNA or IQ or ethnicity of the parents either. We continue to see high outcomes as measured by standardized tests in the zip codes with the same DNA, IQ and ethnicities of most of us in the school system, and we continue to see low outcomes in the zip codes where kids did a terrible job of picking their parents. We do not get to choose, design, place an order for, or import the children of America; and the parents in each community send us the very best kids they have. We take what we get, each child precious and flawed, each parent or guardian precious and flawed, and each and every one of us in the system precious and flawed. We cannot change that. (Well, OK, I do know folks who have migrated to the posh zip codes for safety, wealth and easy pick'ns of high performing kids. But most of us deal on a daily basis with kids whose best time in the day is at school.) We can change how we respond to all of the above. And not with another silver bullet program.
Apparently, we cannot change the notion on the part of most folks that schools should be run like a business and teachers and principals should be judged on the quality of the product, i.e., standardized test scores. We know better, and we keep trying, but, it just doesn't fit public education.
So, we can start changing the things we have some control of and we can do it each and every day via our attitudes and expectations, and our ability to get to the polls and vote.
(Before I begin seriously suggesting transformational changes, I would like to toss out just a few for fun. Would one of the billionaires who currently throws money at schools to implement their educational theories please throw some money into two simple research topics. The first one I would test is the answer to the question, "Can schools make kids fat?" My hypothesis is that schools are unable to impact the body mass index of students based on the meals we serve. The second one is, is there a homogeneous, wealthy school system of all Anglo kids who are poor performers on standardized tests? My hypothesis is no such school exists. The results of these two topics alone could transform what we do in lunch rooms and classrooms across the country.)
#1. First thing I'd change is to end compulsory attendance. Yep. The research that shows charter schools and private schools outperforming public schools is basically a wash, and where it appears that those schools do actually outperform public schools is not because parents have choice, but because parents know that if the kids mess up or perform poorly, he or she gets his or her little butt kicked out of the school where they had to audition to get in. Instant parent support! OK, let's give public schools the same tool. If this country really believes in public education, and really believes that every single child should get a high school diploma and be prepared to enter college, then let's set up a system where parents, business, law enforcement, community leaders, and billionaires have some skin in the game other than their annual tax bill. Eliminate compulsory attendance. Kids who actually show up are there because their parents want them there or they want to be there and all will profoundly recognize that public education is a gift, an honor, a privilege. (OK, we know that a great many young children miss school because of their parents, not because the kid wants to miss school. So, when we wipe compulsory attendance off the books, we add perks for going to school beyond the intrinsic value of getting an education. Want welfare? Kids must be in school. Want a driver's license? Kids must be in school. Want a tax exemption for dependent children? Kids must be in school. But, the school no longer has to take them in and keep them.) We eliminate the drop-out rate as a statistic used to beat up schools. We fund schools based on enrollment, not attendance. We do all that and we will dramatically change the culture of the school, the parents, the kids, and the country. Now, rather than public school bashing, parents will be eager to support and enforce the efforts of their kids. Private sector motivators do not work well in school, but clearly a host of folks think they work well outside of school. So, let attending school be the motivator not the punishment!
#2. Second thing I'd change is the structure of the school day. We organize schools in the way adults have deconstructed knowledge, not in the ways kids actually learn. No one outside of school faces 90 minutes of English Language Arts followed by 30 minutes of exercise. Reality comes at us in a rush, and in any given hour I need math skills, reading comprehension, history, physical ability, a solid sense of the sciences, problem solving abilities, conflict resolution skills, information processing skills, and probably most of all, interpersonal people skills. Life is a lab and a field trip all rolled into one, not a sojourn once each nine weeks. Students regardless of age should float from large group to small group to individual instruction based on the student's needs and interests.
#3. Third thing I'd change is the school year. Until teachers work a regular work year they will continue to be attacked. OK, let's make teaching a "real" job with real salaries and real benefits and work year round.
#4. Fourth thing I'd change is the staffing plan of schools. Our mental image of kids in a rectangular room on a hallway with one certified adult in the room in no way matches the reality and the future we are theoretically preparing our kids to enter. Professionals collaborate, they do not isolate. Groups of kids should be served by groups of adults who have time structured in their day to meet and review how the kids are doing and which adult should spend additional time with which kid based on the attributes of the adult and the progress of the kids. We should include paraprofessionals in this discourse as well. In fact it will take fewer teachers to teach kids in this manner if the teachers are diagnosing and prescribing while other teachers and aides are delivering the prescription. This means abolishing the teacher pupil ratio altogether because groups of adults will serve groups of kids. How many adults with what level of training and education will be dependent upon the attributes of the kids, not a one-size fits all formula implemented via the wisdom of legislators. We will have to maintain quality professional development, but it will become focused when a group of teachers realize a group of kids are not making progress and seek those who can assist them in their efforts. This will work. The medical profession and universities and plumbers and electricians, etc., have been doing it for years.
#5. I'd stop grouping kids by age. Ludicrous, especially when they are young. If we re-structure the school day and the staffing as proposed above we can accelerate the instruction of those who are ready, and supplement the instruction of those who are not. Obviously, this will require the elimination of the horrific standardized high stakes test by grade and subject. We could still give tests, but the data will be used for diagnostic planning, not to flail failures. Out with the 8th grade math standardized high stakes test and in with a math test that is in fact norm-referenced and will give teachers an idea about which kid is really ready to move on to algebra, statistics, probability, etc., and which kid still needs work with number sense and basic operations. Kids could graduate from high school whenever they master the curriculum goals needed to demonstrate that they have done so. Some kids may get a high school diploma when they are 10 years old and choose to hang around until they are 18 to get post-diploma hours. That should be OK.
#6. I'd bump all extra-curricular activities to the private sector or to a county-wide parks and recreation program. It's headed there anyway. College scouts are spending more time looking at "select" team participants than high school athletes anyway. Co-curricular activities in the areas of the arts should increase. School returns to its fundamental mission and operates much more economically.
There is more, much more. But I shall stop here for fear of moving from a post to a treatise. Just imagine, a school where children and young adults want to attend, where parents want their kids to be successful, where the adults are motivated to conspire together to support student success, and where all will eventually get a high school diploma with emphasis in the areas they select, all for less taxpayer money and greater educator support!
Way too cool to be easy to achieve. Way too rational to be implemented. Perhaps way too threatening to the herd of sacred cows. No bull!
I still think it is possible.
How we get from where we are to where we could be merits at least one more installment in this series.
Until then, bless all of you in public education as youngsters from across this great land prepare to begin yet another school year. Help them to the best of your potential!
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 11:48 AM
1 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
I want to work at that school!
Dearest readers, if you made it through "Why Morph?" you may be thinking, "So, we need to change. But change what?" Ah, the "What Morph?" question. Glad you asked!
There are things we cannot change, at least not at this point in our science. We cannot change the DNA or IQ or ethnicity of our kids. Some kids do a great job of choosing their parents, others not so much. And, we cannot change the DNA or IQ or ethnicity of the parents either. We continue to see high outcomes as measured by standardized tests in the zip codes with the same DNA, IQ and ethnicities of most of us in the school system, and we continue to see low outcomes in the zip codes where kids did a terrible job of picking their parents. We do not get to choose, design, place an order for, or import the children of America; and the parents in each community send us the very best kids they have. We take what we get, each child precious and flawed, each parent or guardian precious and flawed, and each and every one of us in the system precious and flawed. We cannot change that. (Well, OK, I do know folks who have migrated to the posh zip codes for safety, wealth and easy pick'ns of high performing kids. But most of us deal on a daily basis with kids whose best time in the day is at school.) We can change how we respond to all of the above. And not with another silver bullet program.
Apparently, we cannot change the notion on the part of most folks that schools should be run like a business and teachers and principals should be judged on the quality of the product, i.e., standardized test scores. We know better, and we keep trying, but, it just doesn't fit public education.
So, we can start changing the things we have some control of and we can do it each and every day via our attitudes and expectations, and our ability to get to the polls and vote.
(Before I begin seriously suggesting transformational changes, I would like to toss out just a few for fun. Would one of the billionaires who currently throws money at schools to implement their educational theories please throw some money into two simple research topics. The first one I would test is the answer to the question, "Can schools make kids fat?" My hypothesis is that schools are unable to impact the body mass index of students based on the meals we serve. The second one is, is there a homogeneous, wealthy school system of all Anglo kids who are poor performers on standardized tests? My hypothesis is no such school exists. The results of these two topics alone could transform what we do in lunch rooms and classrooms across the country.)
#1. First thing I'd change is to end compulsory attendance. Yep. The research that shows charter schools and private schools outperforming public schools is basically a wash, and where it appears that those schools do actually outperform public schools is not because parents have choice, but because parents know that if the kids mess up or perform poorly, he or she gets his or her little butt kicked out of the school where they had to audition to get in. Instant parent support! OK, let's give public schools the same tool. If this country really believes in public education, and really believes that every single child should get a high school diploma and be prepared to enter college, then let's set up a system where parents, business, law enforcement, community leaders, and billionaires have some skin in the game other than their annual tax bill. Eliminate compulsory attendance. Kids who actually show up are there because their parents want them there or they want to be there and all will profoundly recognize that public education is a gift, an honor, a privilege. (OK, we know that a great many young children miss school because of their parents, not because the kid wants to miss school. So, when we wipe compulsory attendance off the books, we add perks for going to school beyond the intrinsic value of getting an education. Want welfare? Kids must be in school. Want a driver's license? Kids must be in school. Want a tax exemption for dependent children? Kids must be in school. But, the school no longer has to take them in and keep them.) We eliminate the drop-out rate as a statistic used to beat up schools. We fund schools based on enrollment, not attendance. We do all that and we will dramatically change the culture of the school, the parents, the kids, and the country. Now, rather than public school bashing, parents will be eager to support and enforce the efforts of their kids. Private sector motivators do not work well in school, but clearly a host of folks think they work well outside of school. So, let attending school be the motivator not the punishment!
#2. Second thing I'd change is the structure of the school day. We organize schools in the way adults have deconstructed knowledge, not in the ways kids actually learn. No one outside of school faces 90 minutes of English Language Arts followed by 30 minutes of exercise. Reality comes at us in a rush, and in any given hour I need math skills, reading comprehension, history, physical ability, a solid sense of the sciences, problem solving abilities, conflict resolution skills, information processing skills, and probably most of all, interpersonal people skills. Life is a lab and a field trip all rolled into one, not a sojourn once each nine weeks. Students regardless of age should float from large group to small group to individual instruction based on the student's needs and interests.
#3. Third thing I'd change is the school year. Until teachers work a regular work year they will continue to be attacked. OK, let's make teaching a "real" job with real salaries and real benefits and work year round.
#4. Fourth thing I'd change is the staffing plan of schools. Our mental image of kids in a rectangular room on a hallway with one certified adult in the room in no way matches the reality and the future we are theoretically preparing our kids to enter. Professionals collaborate, they do not isolate. Groups of kids should be served by groups of adults who have time structured in their day to meet and review how the kids are doing and which adult should spend additional time with which kid based on the attributes of the adult and the progress of the kids. We should include paraprofessionals in this discourse as well. In fact it will take fewer teachers to teach kids in this manner if the teachers are diagnosing and prescribing while other teachers and aides are delivering the prescription. This means abolishing the teacher pupil ratio altogether because groups of adults will serve groups of kids. How many adults with what level of training and education will be dependent upon the attributes of the kids, not a one-size fits all formula implemented via the wisdom of legislators. We will have to maintain quality professional development, but it will become focused when a group of teachers realize a group of kids are not making progress and seek those who can assist them in their efforts. This will work. The medical profession and universities and plumbers and electricians, etc., have been doing it for years.
#5. I'd stop grouping kids by age. Ludicrous, especially when they are young. If we re-structure the school day and the staffing as proposed above we can accelerate the instruction of those who are ready, and supplement the instruction of those who are not. Obviously, this will require the elimination of the horrific standardized high stakes test by grade and subject. We could still give tests, but the data will be used for diagnostic planning, not to flail failures. Out with the 8th grade math standardized high stakes test and in with a math test that is in fact norm-referenced and will give teachers an idea about which kid is really ready to move on to algebra, statistics, probability, etc., and which kid still needs work with number sense and basic operations. Kids could graduate from high school whenever they master the curriculum goals needed to demonstrate that they have done so. Some kids may get a high school diploma when they are 10 years old and choose to hang around until they are 18 to get post-diploma hours. That should be OK.
#6. I'd bump all extra-curricular activities to the private sector or to a county-wide parks and recreation program. It's headed there anyway. College scouts are spending more time looking at "select" team participants than high school athletes anyway. Co-curricular activities in the areas of the arts should increase. School returns to its fundamental mission and operates much more economically.
There is more, much more. But I shall stop here for fear of moving from a post to a treatise. Just imagine, a school where children and young adults want to attend, where parents want their kids to be successful, where the adults are motivated to conspire together to support student success, and where all will eventually get a high school diploma with emphasis in the areas they select, all for less taxpayer money and greater educator support!
Way too cool to be easy to achieve. Way too rational to be implemented. Perhaps way too threatening to the herd of sacred cows. No bull!
I still think it is possible.
How we get from where we are to where we could be merits at least one more installment in this series.
Until then, bless all of you in public education as youngsters from across this great land prepare to begin yet another school year. Help them to the best of your potential!
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 11:48 AM
1 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
I want to work at that school!
Rolling Stones, Drugs and Standardized Tests
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2011
Hello, faithful readers. As one of you recently noted it may appear I have hit a dry spell. Far from true. Nearly ready to share is a sequel to "Why Morph?" However, I have been otherwise pre-occupied with a personal in-depth study of standardized tests that upon sharing will make this whimsical title perchance make more sense. Further, I am inspired today at our continued foolhardiness by both the announcement of Texas' own Governor Perry to pursue the presidency, and the straw poll victory of Michele Bachmann in Iowa. Both events would leave a lesser broad weakened and devastated. I, however, am more inspired than ever to wage verbal war on the side of thinkers everywhere against a large army of anti-intellectuals sipping tea. But, back to my story, shared not to illicit sympathy, but to shed additional light on the current prescriptions to cure the ills of public education.
While out of town on a family trip on the last Wednesday of July I suddenly experienced excruciating pain. A rapid trip to the emergency room inclusive of an X-ray, blood work, urinalysis, height, weight, blood pressure, pulse and CT scan revealed I was passing, painfully I will add, a kidney stone from kidney to bladder. There it was on the scan. White against mostly blacks and grays. I was drugged while the stone rolled on, and once passed, relieved, soar and amazed. I agreed with the female radiology technician: As a mother of 4 I would prefer to bear another child than pass another stone. The CT scan was sophisticated, and I left with a DVD copy which I could play at home on my computer. Amazing. Clear as a bell. I trust airport scanners are not nearly so clear.
Once home I went to see an Urologist. He reviewed the scan, the ER procedures, the blood work, and the various lab tests and data collected on my ER sojourn, and pronounced me fit to proceed with life. Hurray! I had sophisticated standardized tests including lab work, X-rays, and CT Scans all confirming all was well with me. I was deemed "acceptable", (but my sharp tongue and ready wit prohibited the medical profession from awarding me the label "exemplary." "May I see your license?" the intake nurse asked. "Driver's or fishing?” I responded. "Madam, this is no time to get smart with me!" intake nurse said. "I fear I cannot help it. When perhaps, my dear, would be a better time?" I asked.) I apparently met the federal AYP.
Imagine my surprise when on the first Saturday in August I was once again stricken with the same pain, the same trip to the ER, the same standardized tests and the same conclusions, the same prescriptions. More amazing was the pronouncement that I had no more stones and this was it. Thank God, and pass the pee strainer and pain killers!
Alas, the second Tuesday in August we began Act 3 of the same play. Identical. Pain, ER, scans, tests, same diagnoses, same conclusions, and the same comforting remarks from humans hiding behind standardized data that frankly they were amazed that I had 3 such incidents in the span of mere days. Nothing in the hard data from the blood work, lab work, or scans of my very insides led them to believe anything was contraire. And yet, here I was, trip 3 to the ER. That is life. That is biology.
So the simple question is, in which of the following measures of human beings would you be willing to put the most faith? A CT Scan or a 10 year-old's pencil and paper bubble sheet standardized test score? Lab reports on blood analysis or a 16 year-old's pencil and paper bubble sheet standardized test score? A medical doctor's review of all the medical data, or a grading summary from a standardized test company?
And, no medical doctor worth his or her salt will stand behind the medical data as a source of judgment regarding the health of a person beyond a day or two from the instant the data was collected. Else wise, why do they keep having us come back for more tests? If they take my blood pressure in March, shouldn't that be good at least until April? How in the world, how for the love of God, are we willing to give pencil and paper standardized tests that pass judgment on children, teachers, schools and school districts that last for at least one and up to three years? Which do you believe changes faster, our biology or our minds? Can we learn faster than we metabolize? Of course! I learned a tremendous amount in the hours before the pain pills kicked in. (I was much more pliable afterward, though. Further indication that actively engaged students learn better than those who merely comply or are doped-up.)
Standardized tests used as a projected judgment of children and schools are the most inhuman thing humans have concocted to inflict on the youth and schools of this country. For most, given the high stakes of the test, they are not even valid on the day the data is collected. Perhaps informative, perhaps diagnostic, but not valid. Ask your MD.
Until we stop high stakes standardized testing I can't get no satisfaction. (Sorry, Mick.) And pass the strainer and the drugs.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 10:39 PM
1 COMMENTS:
Mrs. G. said...
I hope you're feeling better. Interesting comparison. Tests are informative, not definitive. I'm not sure why that's so hard for some to understand.
Hello, faithful readers. As one of you recently noted it may appear I have hit a dry spell. Far from true. Nearly ready to share is a sequel to "Why Morph?" However, I have been otherwise pre-occupied with a personal in-depth study of standardized tests that upon sharing will make this whimsical title perchance make more sense. Further, I am inspired today at our continued foolhardiness by both the announcement of Texas' own Governor Perry to pursue the presidency, and the straw poll victory of Michele Bachmann in Iowa. Both events would leave a lesser broad weakened and devastated. I, however, am more inspired than ever to wage verbal war on the side of thinkers everywhere against a large army of anti-intellectuals sipping tea. But, back to my story, shared not to illicit sympathy, but to shed additional light on the current prescriptions to cure the ills of public education.
While out of town on a family trip on the last Wednesday of July I suddenly experienced excruciating pain. A rapid trip to the emergency room inclusive of an X-ray, blood work, urinalysis, height, weight, blood pressure, pulse and CT scan revealed I was passing, painfully I will add, a kidney stone from kidney to bladder. There it was on the scan. White against mostly blacks and grays. I was drugged while the stone rolled on, and once passed, relieved, soar and amazed. I agreed with the female radiology technician: As a mother of 4 I would prefer to bear another child than pass another stone. The CT scan was sophisticated, and I left with a DVD copy which I could play at home on my computer. Amazing. Clear as a bell. I trust airport scanners are not nearly so clear.
Once home I went to see an Urologist. He reviewed the scan, the ER procedures, the blood work, and the various lab tests and data collected on my ER sojourn, and pronounced me fit to proceed with life. Hurray! I had sophisticated standardized tests including lab work, X-rays, and CT Scans all confirming all was well with me. I was deemed "acceptable", (but my sharp tongue and ready wit prohibited the medical profession from awarding me the label "exemplary." "May I see your license?" the intake nurse asked. "Driver's or fishing?” I responded. "Madam, this is no time to get smart with me!" intake nurse said. "I fear I cannot help it. When perhaps, my dear, would be a better time?" I asked.) I apparently met the federal AYP.
Imagine my surprise when on the first Saturday in August I was once again stricken with the same pain, the same trip to the ER, the same standardized tests and the same conclusions, the same prescriptions. More amazing was the pronouncement that I had no more stones and this was it. Thank God, and pass the pee strainer and pain killers!
Alas, the second Tuesday in August we began Act 3 of the same play. Identical. Pain, ER, scans, tests, same diagnoses, same conclusions, and the same comforting remarks from humans hiding behind standardized data that frankly they were amazed that I had 3 such incidents in the span of mere days. Nothing in the hard data from the blood work, lab work, or scans of my very insides led them to believe anything was contraire. And yet, here I was, trip 3 to the ER. That is life. That is biology.
So the simple question is, in which of the following measures of human beings would you be willing to put the most faith? A CT Scan or a 10 year-old's pencil and paper bubble sheet standardized test score? Lab reports on blood analysis or a 16 year-old's pencil and paper bubble sheet standardized test score? A medical doctor's review of all the medical data, or a grading summary from a standardized test company?
And, no medical doctor worth his or her salt will stand behind the medical data as a source of judgment regarding the health of a person beyond a day or two from the instant the data was collected. Else wise, why do they keep having us come back for more tests? If they take my blood pressure in March, shouldn't that be good at least until April? How in the world, how for the love of God, are we willing to give pencil and paper standardized tests that pass judgment on children, teachers, schools and school districts that last for at least one and up to three years? Which do you believe changes faster, our biology or our minds? Can we learn faster than we metabolize? Of course! I learned a tremendous amount in the hours before the pain pills kicked in. (I was much more pliable afterward, though. Further indication that actively engaged students learn better than those who merely comply or are doped-up.)
Standardized tests used as a projected judgment of children and schools are the most inhuman thing humans have concocted to inflict on the youth and schools of this country. For most, given the high stakes of the test, they are not even valid on the day the data is collected. Perhaps informative, perhaps diagnostic, but not valid. Ask your MD.
Until we stop high stakes standardized testing I can't get no satisfaction. (Sorry, Mick.) And pass the strainer and the drugs.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 10:39 PM
1 COMMENTS:
Mrs. G. said...
I hope you're feeling better. Interesting comparison. Tests are informative, not definitive. I'm not sure why that's so hard for some to understand.
Cowboys and Aliens
MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 201
Saw the movie Sunday. (Spoiler alert!) Amazing how a very diverse group of humans came together in a crisis. Very unlike the reactionary entrenched in DC and Austin. Nearby school district has "Cowboys" as a mascot and surely they must feel that Austin and Washington have been taken over by aliens. It's rational coalition time for the common good!
Saw the movie Sunday. (Spoiler alert!) Amazing how a very diverse group of humans came together in a crisis. Very unlike the reactionary entrenched in DC and Austin. Nearby school district has "Cowboys" as a mascot and surely they must feel that Austin and Washington have been taken over by aliens. It's rational coalition time for the common good!
Kwai Me a River
MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2011
I loved the movie Bridge on the River Kwai when I first saw it as a young woman in 1957 on the big screen. Great epic about war and pride. (Still can get the whistling theme song stuck in my head!) Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson stubbornly insisted on building this great railroad bridge over the Kwai River in Cambodia with his fellow Allied troops interred in a Japanese POW camp. His pride and drive forced confrontations with the POW commandant, but Nicholson thought he had won because he built the bridge his way.
The scene at the end when the Allies attack the bridge and Nicholson realizes that his prideful stubbornness has in fact helped the enemy and hurt his cause is very powerful. "What have I done?" he asks, as he dies and blows up the bridge.
I keep waiting for the Tea Party to have the same "Ah-Ha" moment. They have stubbornly refused to negotiate rational resolution to a self-imposed crisis resulting in S and P lowering our ratings. No foreign country could have imposed such damage on us without a military response, and S and P is candid that the rating was lowered because of a lack of confidence in Congress to resolve the so-called crisis. (Can you tell that I am not worried about our debt? I am worried about jobs creation, but not about the debt. A mix of spending restraint, more folks working, and new taxes will resolve our problems. Not to mention the fact that those same conservatives were oh so quiet when President Bush went from surplus to an $11.9 trillion debt in 8 years. This is his debt, not Obama's!) If they remain so stubbornly fixated, we will implode. Perhaps then they will have their, "What have I done?" moment.
Until then, Kwai me a river.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 4:36 PM
1 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Thank-you. What a picture you created of our current politics using a more than 50 year old movie. I hope more people read your postings!
I loved the movie Bridge on the River Kwai when I first saw it as a young woman in 1957 on the big screen. Great epic about war and pride. (Still can get the whistling theme song stuck in my head!) Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson stubbornly insisted on building this great railroad bridge over the Kwai River in Cambodia with his fellow Allied troops interred in a Japanese POW camp. His pride and drive forced confrontations with the POW commandant, but Nicholson thought he had won because he built the bridge his way.
The scene at the end when the Allies attack the bridge and Nicholson realizes that his prideful stubbornness has in fact helped the enemy and hurt his cause is very powerful. "What have I done?" he asks, as he dies and blows up the bridge.
I keep waiting for the Tea Party to have the same "Ah-Ha" moment. They have stubbornly refused to negotiate rational resolution to a self-imposed crisis resulting in S and P lowering our ratings. No foreign country could have imposed such damage on us without a military response, and S and P is candid that the rating was lowered because of a lack of confidence in Congress to resolve the so-called crisis. (Can you tell that I am not worried about our debt? I am worried about jobs creation, but not about the debt. A mix of spending restraint, more folks working, and new taxes will resolve our problems. Not to mention the fact that those same conservatives were oh so quiet when President Bush went from surplus to an $11.9 trillion debt in 8 years. This is his debt, not Obama's!) If they remain so stubbornly fixated, we will implode. Perhaps then they will have their, "What have I done?" moment.
Until then, Kwai me a river.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 4:36 PM
1 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Thank-you. What a picture you created of our current politics using a more than 50 year old movie. I hope more people read your postings!
Why Morph?
SUNDAY, JULY 17, 2011
There is no static state. Public schools are very different today than they were in the last century, and have tended to be very different each decade since for a variety of reasons and as the result of a variety of factors both internal and external. External forces under the rubric of reform and driven by money and accountability have been slowly re-shaping not only the day-to-day operation of our schools, but the actual focus and mission of the institution. Internal forces driven by the complex mix of parental wants, employee wants and generational and cultural differences in the childhood experience have moved the operation and mission of our schools in another direction. The institution is literally being ripped apart by forces from without pulling or mandating one way and by forces from within pulling and demanding in another way, and the tensile torque on schools escalates with each new push for reform from outside and each newly identified pull from inside. Prior to totally ripping the institution into pieces, (and, my friends, we are close to that, I think, as is evidenced by the growth in the number of charter schools, high stakes tests, voucher programs, increased need for technology, increased outcome standards, cheating, childhood obesity, union busting, etc., all with less and less funding), I believe it is time to shift the national and state discussion away from promoting one reform or another and/or defending or attacking one current practice or another, and have a very candid discourse about why we even bother spending the billions we spend to send the youth of our country into brick and mortar structures for about 180 days each year. If we can agree on the "why" perhaps we can agree on the "how."
Schools have always had multiple missions, though they have now changed in some subtle and some brutal ways. Schools have always been asked to occupy the time and provide custodial care of the youth of our communities during the adult work day and when they are not needed to provide familial labor. We still follow an agrarian calendar born in the days when 75% of our population was rural and our economy was based on agriculture. We are now down to about 3% of our population devoted to agriculture and we follow the same calendar. And, the nature of the custodial care of our kids has morphed during this time from simply providing safe shelter under adult supervision to the monumental task of checking inoculations, teeth, eyes, ears, spines, learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, and body mass index all in a setting that is disabled-friendly. We are further charged with actually improving the health and well-being of the children who come to us, a very different mission from maintaining the health and well-being of the children at the levels exhibited when they arrive. Apparently since it happens nowhere else, we must provide 30 minutes of physical exercise each day while serving food that would have starved Tom Hanks while a Castaway.
Schools have always been asked to teach kids stuff. The stuff used to be commonly understood as reading, writing and arithmetic, but that too has dramatically changed. We now teach the classic three "R's" plus a wide range of social sciences including history, promotion of the free enterprise system, health, all the sciences, all the fine arts, all the psycho-motor arts, all the skilled craft non-college bound preparation courses, and courses targeted at preventing dating violence, promoting bus safety, fighting drug and tobacco use, and discouraging pre-marital sex. We have moved from subtle acculturation into a commonly understand "American" culture, to efforts to communicate the value, history and heritage of all cultures. We have moved from an assumed understanding of gender roles to the promotion of gender equity. We have moved from teacher determined curriculum to school determined, school district determined, state determined and are on the verge of nationally determined curriculum. We still teach stuff, but the stuff we teach grows both wider and deeper each year.
Schools have always been staffed by teachers to teach kids the stuff. Women, for the most part, assumed this honorable role as a main career choice. The very best and brightest women entered teaching or nursing if they were able to pursue learning beyond high school. That has changed and all career fields are open to women (Say "Amen," "Hallelujah" and pass the plate!), but there remains the notion that those who can, "do" and those who cannot, "teach." Frankly, that is poppycock and balderdash. Teaching remains an incredibly challenging career. If you want to strike fear in the heart of Bill Gates, give him the Texas 3rd grade curriculum standards and a room of 20 3rd graders for a week, and let him know we will test his success, not his students, at the end of that week. Bring Depends. This career still attracts many of the best and brightest, but it appears to me it is also attracting more of the part-timers, the "June, July and Augusters". The road toward getting a professional license to teach is also fraught with an amazing array of IEDs from fingerprinting, background checks, collegiate hours clocked by subject and renewal every five years. It has never been so difficult to become a teacher and the practice of teaching has never been so difficult.
Schools have always monitored the success of their children. First by teacher made tests and a paddle or ruler. Now, with standardized tests and in a principal's office. Each community used to know who the "good" kids were and who the "bad" kids were and expected the good to do well, and the bad to drop out. We no longer look to dropping out of school as a solution, it is now a problem. As the rigor of the testing has increased the number of students unable to pass and thereby get a diploma increases, and schools and teachers are held accountable for their failures, unlike any other profession.
Schools have always provided learning tools to support teachers and kids. Books, blackboards, chalk, pencils the size of small trees and paper produced with bark chips used to be enough. It took 30 years for the overhead projector to make its way from bowling alleys to classrooms, but the pace after the personal computer arrived in the late 1970's and early '80's has been phenomenal. And expensive! Equipping kids with the devices and connectivity they will need to enter our colleges or economy has issued in an entirely new set of school employees: the IT departments. I remember hearing that technology would be labor-saving, and that may be true in the private sector. In public schools, it has added to the labor intensity of the work just to keep all the needed tools up and going. Districts are now required to post information on websites and provide email addresses for employees. No staffing plan in the 1970's allowed for people who could accomplish these feats. Add to that a rash of accountability standards, and few districts can afford to go without new departments of "Human Resources" and "Information Officers" just to keep the rules straight, the district out of court, and to seek ways to put a positive spin on whatever the new story is degrading public schools and crying for improvement. The technology revolution has in fact made schooling much more expensive. And, we still buy textbooks and still put up marker boards with pens in every classroom and some libraries still have encyclopedias.
In the 1980's I had the distinct professional privilege and honor to work with Larry Lezotte. Lezotte taught me a lot. One of my favorite lessons was the concept of "organized abandonment". Legislators, communities and school people do not practice this in public schools. We are still doing very much what we have been doing since the turn of the previous century, and we have added so much more! I don't know about you, but when I buy a new couch, I give the old one away. Not schools. We get the new stuff and keep the old and we are choking to death.
We must change what it is we expect of public schools. We must change it first and foremost for our kids and for the future of our nation. We must change it for the adults who choose this future-oriented profession lest we have no one left who will volunteer. If Legislators keep expecting more while taking nothing away except the funds, and parents keep expecting that we teach home economics and give 4 full credits for football and Ag, we will die trying to do both in an environment that publishes the success of the school on high stakes tests in the local paper. Schools are not now and have never been the panacea for all that ails us. They are not to blame, and they should be lauded. Schools have not failed, communities and legislators have failed. Those good folks on the payroll of your local school system will show up again in August to teach kids to the very best of their own professional potential, and they will do it in a setting with higher standards, higher expectations, more stuff to teach, more accountability and fewer dollars.
So, let's morph before we self-destruct!
Why do we have schools? It seems to me that a common core of cultural beliefs and standards must be shared and learned for forthcoming generations. We can argue all day about what should be included and what should be excluded, but basic human rights, basic human dignities and basic democratic principles should be taught, albeit in a dictatorial setting. We should not promote one religion or any religion over another as part of this process, but should impart that any belief system that answers eternal questions will be honored and respected.
We should teach the knowledge and skills necessary for the next generation, not the knowledge and skills used by previous generations. If we continue to offer courses that train our kids to memorize information rather than process information we are doing them and ourselves a huge disservice. Every student who exits a public high school with a diploma should have a core set of knowledge and experience, but must have a huge toolbox of information processing skills and a deep appreciation of the arts, sciences, languages, communication, problem solving and creative thinking skills.
The strategies we use to teach the identified knowledge and skills must be based in the latest and greatest tools and research. Kids must be challenged and must master the tools needed to answer those challenges.
We must re-think the non-curricular programs we offer. Does it in fact make sense for any reason other than historical or sentimental to offer Agricultural Science anywhere other than rural settings? Does it make sense to have a bevy of secondary teachers on board to coach competitive sports? Does it make sense to offer home economics, sewing, and cosmetology when we need nurses, welders, electricians, computer technicians and robotic repair specialists?
And we must re-think the basic organization of the school. Does it make sense to assume that today's children will learn best in groups of 20 to 30, gathered in a room for an hour or so with a college degreed, professionally certified educator? Does it make sense to continue building schools that are no more than a series of rectangular rooms along a hall? Does it make sense to devote an inordinate amount of space to a library that holds fewer volumes than a Kindle? Does it make sense to build large sporting arenas? Does it make sense to simply keep kids off the street for 180 days from 8:00 to 3:30 to serve merely as custodial care givers, weight reducers, meal providers, and test preparation specialists? We must ask these questions. The answers do not lie in our old yearbooks or the sacred text of any one religion. They lie in crystal balls and our vision of the future.
If students who exit from our schools are to be prepared for advanced academic work at universities or to enter our economy at a highly skilled level, then we are doing them an injustice. If that is what we want, then parents must be ready willing and able to communicate to their children that academic rigor means more than private leagues of volleyball and basketball, means more than cheerleading tryouts, and means more than the incredibly remote chance of an athletic scholarship. It means book time, study time, reading, writing, thinking, exploring, challenging, processing tons of information, etc., etc.
Simply put, schools cannot accomplish the incredibly varied and complex missions they are currently assigned while they are held so accountable for outcomes in only one major area, and are provided fewer and fewer resources. Can’t be done. We must change what we expect of schools and schools themselves and the good folks in them must change as well. Or, millions of children will be loose on the streets for most of their childhoods because their schools have been closed, or millions of children will attend schools that are labeled failures.
(I am frequently both amused and terrified by the notion of closing schools and replacing the adults with other adults to teach the same kids, the same stuff in the same communities. If there is a group of adults with a panacea and they are keeping it a secret until the public school fails, why don't they simply tell us? I think I know the answer, and it is posted as "Schools of Choice.")
In other words, we must morph or die.
What we morph to merits another post.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 8:49 AM
2 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Change is necessary! How do we motivate many of the old timers to understand, step to the plate, and embrace the change?
JULY 17, 2011 4:33 PM
Eileen Good said...
Not just the old timers, Dearest Anonymous. I'm an old-timer! Any one of us who does the same thing more than one year with different students could be stuck!
There is no static state. Public schools are very different today than they were in the last century, and have tended to be very different each decade since for a variety of reasons and as the result of a variety of factors both internal and external. External forces under the rubric of reform and driven by money and accountability have been slowly re-shaping not only the day-to-day operation of our schools, but the actual focus and mission of the institution. Internal forces driven by the complex mix of parental wants, employee wants and generational and cultural differences in the childhood experience have moved the operation and mission of our schools in another direction. The institution is literally being ripped apart by forces from without pulling or mandating one way and by forces from within pulling and demanding in another way, and the tensile torque on schools escalates with each new push for reform from outside and each newly identified pull from inside. Prior to totally ripping the institution into pieces, (and, my friends, we are close to that, I think, as is evidenced by the growth in the number of charter schools, high stakes tests, voucher programs, increased need for technology, increased outcome standards, cheating, childhood obesity, union busting, etc., all with less and less funding), I believe it is time to shift the national and state discussion away from promoting one reform or another and/or defending or attacking one current practice or another, and have a very candid discourse about why we even bother spending the billions we spend to send the youth of our country into brick and mortar structures for about 180 days each year. If we can agree on the "why" perhaps we can agree on the "how."
Schools have always had multiple missions, though they have now changed in some subtle and some brutal ways. Schools have always been asked to occupy the time and provide custodial care of the youth of our communities during the adult work day and when they are not needed to provide familial labor. We still follow an agrarian calendar born in the days when 75% of our population was rural and our economy was based on agriculture. We are now down to about 3% of our population devoted to agriculture and we follow the same calendar. And, the nature of the custodial care of our kids has morphed during this time from simply providing safe shelter under adult supervision to the monumental task of checking inoculations, teeth, eyes, ears, spines, learning disabilities, emotional disabilities, and body mass index all in a setting that is disabled-friendly. We are further charged with actually improving the health and well-being of the children who come to us, a very different mission from maintaining the health and well-being of the children at the levels exhibited when they arrive. Apparently since it happens nowhere else, we must provide 30 minutes of physical exercise each day while serving food that would have starved Tom Hanks while a Castaway.
Schools have always been asked to teach kids stuff. The stuff used to be commonly understood as reading, writing and arithmetic, but that too has dramatically changed. We now teach the classic three "R's" plus a wide range of social sciences including history, promotion of the free enterprise system, health, all the sciences, all the fine arts, all the psycho-motor arts, all the skilled craft non-college bound preparation courses, and courses targeted at preventing dating violence, promoting bus safety, fighting drug and tobacco use, and discouraging pre-marital sex. We have moved from subtle acculturation into a commonly understand "American" culture, to efforts to communicate the value, history and heritage of all cultures. We have moved from an assumed understanding of gender roles to the promotion of gender equity. We have moved from teacher determined curriculum to school determined, school district determined, state determined and are on the verge of nationally determined curriculum. We still teach stuff, but the stuff we teach grows both wider and deeper each year.
Schools have always been staffed by teachers to teach kids the stuff. Women, for the most part, assumed this honorable role as a main career choice. The very best and brightest women entered teaching or nursing if they were able to pursue learning beyond high school. That has changed and all career fields are open to women (Say "Amen," "Hallelujah" and pass the plate!), but there remains the notion that those who can, "do" and those who cannot, "teach." Frankly, that is poppycock and balderdash. Teaching remains an incredibly challenging career. If you want to strike fear in the heart of Bill Gates, give him the Texas 3rd grade curriculum standards and a room of 20 3rd graders for a week, and let him know we will test his success, not his students, at the end of that week. Bring Depends. This career still attracts many of the best and brightest, but it appears to me it is also attracting more of the part-timers, the "June, July and Augusters". The road toward getting a professional license to teach is also fraught with an amazing array of IEDs from fingerprinting, background checks, collegiate hours clocked by subject and renewal every five years. It has never been so difficult to become a teacher and the practice of teaching has never been so difficult.
Schools have always monitored the success of their children. First by teacher made tests and a paddle or ruler. Now, with standardized tests and in a principal's office. Each community used to know who the "good" kids were and who the "bad" kids were and expected the good to do well, and the bad to drop out. We no longer look to dropping out of school as a solution, it is now a problem. As the rigor of the testing has increased the number of students unable to pass and thereby get a diploma increases, and schools and teachers are held accountable for their failures, unlike any other profession.
Schools have always provided learning tools to support teachers and kids. Books, blackboards, chalk, pencils the size of small trees and paper produced with bark chips used to be enough. It took 30 years for the overhead projector to make its way from bowling alleys to classrooms, but the pace after the personal computer arrived in the late 1970's and early '80's has been phenomenal. And expensive! Equipping kids with the devices and connectivity they will need to enter our colleges or economy has issued in an entirely new set of school employees: the IT departments. I remember hearing that technology would be labor-saving, and that may be true in the private sector. In public schools, it has added to the labor intensity of the work just to keep all the needed tools up and going. Districts are now required to post information on websites and provide email addresses for employees. No staffing plan in the 1970's allowed for people who could accomplish these feats. Add to that a rash of accountability standards, and few districts can afford to go without new departments of "Human Resources" and "Information Officers" just to keep the rules straight, the district out of court, and to seek ways to put a positive spin on whatever the new story is degrading public schools and crying for improvement. The technology revolution has in fact made schooling much more expensive. And, we still buy textbooks and still put up marker boards with pens in every classroom and some libraries still have encyclopedias.
In the 1980's I had the distinct professional privilege and honor to work with Larry Lezotte. Lezotte taught me a lot. One of my favorite lessons was the concept of "organized abandonment". Legislators, communities and school people do not practice this in public schools. We are still doing very much what we have been doing since the turn of the previous century, and we have added so much more! I don't know about you, but when I buy a new couch, I give the old one away. Not schools. We get the new stuff and keep the old and we are choking to death.
We must change what it is we expect of public schools. We must change it first and foremost for our kids and for the future of our nation. We must change it for the adults who choose this future-oriented profession lest we have no one left who will volunteer. If Legislators keep expecting more while taking nothing away except the funds, and parents keep expecting that we teach home economics and give 4 full credits for football and Ag, we will die trying to do both in an environment that publishes the success of the school on high stakes tests in the local paper. Schools are not now and have never been the panacea for all that ails us. They are not to blame, and they should be lauded. Schools have not failed, communities and legislators have failed. Those good folks on the payroll of your local school system will show up again in August to teach kids to the very best of their own professional potential, and they will do it in a setting with higher standards, higher expectations, more stuff to teach, more accountability and fewer dollars.
So, let's morph before we self-destruct!
Why do we have schools? It seems to me that a common core of cultural beliefs and standards must be shared and learned for forthcoming generations. We can argue all day about what should be included and what should be excluded, but basic human rights, basic human dignities and basic democratic principles should be taught, albeit in a dictatorial setting. We should not promote one religion or any religion over another as part of this process, but should impart that any belief system that answers eternal questions will be honored and respected.
We should teach the knowledge and skills necessary for the next generation, not the knowledge and skills used by previous generations. If we continue to offer courses that train our kids to memorize information rather than process information we are doing them and ourselves a huge disservice. Every student who exits a public high school with a diploma should have a core set of knowledge and experience, but must have a huge toolbox of information processing skills and a deep appreciation of the arts, sciences, languages, communication, problem solving and creative thinking skills.
The strategies we use to teach the identified knowledge and skills must be based in the latest and greatest tools and research. Kids must be challenged and must master the tools needed to answer those challenges.
We must re-think the non-curricular programs we offer. Does it in fact make sense for any reason other than historical or sentimental to offer Agricultural Science anywhere other than rural settings? Does it make sense to have a bevy of secondary teachers on board to coach competitive sports? Does it make sense to offer home economics, sewing, and cosmetology when we need nurses, welders, electricians, computer technicians and robotic repair specialists?
And we must re-think the basic organization of the school. Does it make sense to assume that today's children will learn best in groups of 20 to 30, gathered in a room for an hour or so with a college degreed, professionally certified educator? Does it make sense to continue building schools that are no more than a series of rectangular rooms along a hall? Does it make sense to devote an inordinate amount of space to a library that holds fewer volumes than a Kindle? Does it make sense to build large sporting arenas? Does it make sense to simply keep kids off the street for 180 days from 8:00 to 3:30 to serve merely as custodial care givers, weight reducers, meal providers, and test preparation specialists? We must ask these questions. The answers do not lie in our old yearbooks or the sacred text of any one religion. They lie in crystal balls and our vision of the future.
If students who exit from our schools are to be prepared for advanced academic work at universities or to enter our economy at a highly skilled level, then we are doing them an injustice. If that is what we want, then parents must be ready willing and able to communicate to their children that academic rigor means more than private leagues of volleyball and basketball, means more than cheerleading tryouts, and means more than the incredibly remote chance of an athletic scholarship. It means book time, study time, reading, writing, thinking, exploring, challenging, processing tons of information, etc., etc.
Simply put, schools cannot accomplish the incredibly varied and complex missions they are currently assigned while they are held so accountable for outcomes in only one major area, and are provided fewer and fewer resources. Can’t be done. We must change what we expect of schools and schools themselves and the good folks in them must change as well. Or, millions of children will be loose on the streets for most of their childhoods because their schools have been closed, or millions of children will attend schools that are labeled failures.
(I am frequently both amused and terrified by the notion of closing schools and replacing the adults with other adults to teach the same kids, the same stuff in the same communities. If there is a group of adults with a panacea and they are keeping it a secret until the public school fails, why don't they simply tell us? I think I know the answer, and it is posted as "Schools of Choice.")
In other words, we must morph or die.
What we morph to merits another post.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 8:49 AM
2 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Change is necessary! How do we motivate many of the old timers to understand, step to the plate, and embrace the change?
JULY 17, 2011 4:33 PM
Eileen Good said...
Not just the old timers, Dearest Anonymous. I'm an old-timer! Any one of us who does the same thing more than one year with different students could be stuck!
Surprise, Surprise
TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2011
Headlines today, the Anthony debacle aside, focus on a report that investigators in Atlanta found professional educators guilty of cheating on the state standardized test. Seems that about 80% of the 54 schools they looked at engaged in some effort on the part of the adults in the school to help students in the school score better on a state test.
Teachers abhor cheating. Teachers abhor standardized, high-stakes tests. Which do you abhor more? If your job was on the line based on the performance of kids, what would you do? Moral dilemma.
I do not think what the teachers and principals did was right. I do not think administering a multiple choice high stakes standardized test on any given day to a bunch of 10 to 18 year-olds, the results of which are labels used to judge the kids, the staff, the school and school district is right either. The imposed culture destroys schools and what they value most. If we ever needed evidence that high-stakes tests destroy the good people who gravitate to public schools to help kids learn, then look at Atlanta, or Houston, or Baltimore, or anywhere where teachers really want their kids to do well and are scared to death they won't.
That's likely not what the pundits will say. They will add this to the burning fire of school reform, more evidence of the downfall of public schools. This will serve as motivation to hire more auditors, more test manufacturers, implement more security procedures - make the high stakes testing more high stakes - rather than looking at the real problem: high stakes testing in a culture that can end careers, close neighborhood schools, and drain everything out of the educational experience save test taking skills is immoral. Pathetic.
But, I am not surprised. Someone needs to tell the Emperor he is naked rather than punishing the kid who points it out and the adults who stand by him or her. If one works in an immorally imposed climate, is there really such a thing as immoral behavior?
If so, don't be surprised when you see it.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 6:47 PM
1 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Stress on students, stress on teachers, stress on schools, stress on districts.....who and what does all of this testing benefit? Morality forces touch decisions, obviously so does accountability!
Headlines today, the Anthony debacle aside, focus on a report that investigators in Atlanta found professional educators guilty of cheating on the state standardized test. Seems that about 80% of the 54 schools they looked at engaged in some effort on the part of the adults in the school to help students in the school score better on a state test.
Teachers abhor cheating. Teachers abhor standardized, high-stakes tests. Which do you abhor more? If your job was on the line based on the performance of kids, what would you do? Moral dilemma.
I do not think what the teachers and principals did was right. I do not think administering a multiple choice high stakes standardized test on any given day to a bunch of 10 to 18 year-olds, the results of which are labels used to judge the kids, the staff, the school and school district is right either. The imposed culture destroys schools and what they value most. If we ever needed evidence that high-stakes tests destroy the good people who gravitate to public schools to help kids learn, then look at Atlanta, or Houston, or Baltimore, or anywhere where teachers really want their kids to do well and are scared to death they won't.
That's likely not what the pundits will say. They will add this to the burning fire of school reform, more evidence of the downfall of public schools. This will serve as motivation to hire more auditors, more test manufacturers, implement more security procedures - make the high stakes testing more high stakes - rather than looking at the real problem: high stakes testing in a culture that can end careers, close neighborhood schools, and drain everything out of the educational experience save test taking skills is immoral. Pathetic.
But, I am not surprised. Someone needs to tell the Emperor he is naked rather than punishing the kid who points it out and the adults who stand by him or her. If one works in an immorally imposed climate, is there really such a thing as immoral behavior?
If so, don't be surprised when you see it.
POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 6:47 PM
1 COMMENTS:
Anonymous said...
Stress on students, stress on teachers, stress on schools, stress on districts.....who and what does all of this testing benefit? Morality forces touch decisions, obviously so does accountability!
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