Issues in the Media

There have been a lot of relevant stories in the news. In today's New York Times, the chancellor of public schools in D.C. is resigning. Michelle Rhee is calling it quits. I didn't agree with her tactics, but it would have been interesting to see if they were effective. she battled the teachers' union. She abolished tenure and supported merit pay. With her absence, I'm not sure we will get a clear picture of the results of her efforts.

The recent story about the Rutgers student that committed suicide has everyone talking about digital media, social networking, and cyberbullying. My principal has been subtly pushing me to address bullying schoolwide. I think we have done a decent job of handling any bullying situations. My social worker went to a workshop that de-emphasized the use of the term "bullying". The rationale is that it can be vague and it often requires prolonged abuse. She proposed that we work on abolishing meanness. Even kids in kindergarten can identify something that's mean. They don't always understand bullying.

"Waiting for Superman" is taking the nation by storm. I haven't seen it yet, but I would like to. I'm not as defensive about the teaching profession as some of my colleagues. However, I do think that most people that bash teaching have no earthly idea what they are talking about. And they wouldn't last 5 minutes in front of a typical classroom.

Teachers Are Made, Not Born

Recent article in the New York Times Magazine examines the training that teachers receive before they are employed. Lately, there seems to be a lot of stories in the media about teachers. My latest Newsweek has a cover story about bad teaching. I'll have something to say about that article once I read it. The article in the Times Magazine focused on teacher-training programs. I was disappointed to read that those that were examined are designed for teachers in charter schools and Teach for America. The author mentions that university training programs are lacking, and that most first-year teachers do not feel ready to teach once they enter the classroom, but there wasn't a lot of info in the article about how universities are working to improve their education programs. One of the researchers, Deborah Loewenberg Ball, created a curriculum for teaching teachers called Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching, or M.K.T. M.K.T. gets teachers to consider how others think about math, not what they themselves know about math. If you can understand how someone can think and misunderstand math, then you can teach it effectively. That makes so much sense. The one takeaway for me in the article was the idea of cold-calling: instead of having students raise their hands, whenever I ask a question anyone can be called upon, therefore everyone has to pay attention and think of the answer. I like that one. I think I'll use it next time I do a Second Step lesson.

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Teach for America

Recent article in the New York Times looks at a study that focused on the level of civic participation of those involved in Teach for America. Growing up, I remember the disdain that teachers had for Teach for America members. They felt as if they didn't really pay their dues and they weren't dedicated to being teachers. They felt as if the TforA members considered it to be domestic peace corps. They go in for 2 years, teach some underprivileged kids, then go back to their "real" lives. I guess this article shows that these people aren't any more civically engaged than the rest of us.

My gripe with Teach for America and other programs of their ilk is that it operates under the premise that anyone can be a teacher. Why is it that one of the most important professions in the world is treated as if it doesn't take any particular skill or talent to do it? This is a difficult profession and only those who are dedicated to the profession should join. If I want to be a doctor, lawyer, mechanic, appliance repairman, I have to go to some sort of specialized program. But apparently, if I want to be a teacher, I can just join an organization. And teach in some of the neediest areas of the country. How does this fit with NCLB and "highly qualified teachers"?

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Corporal Punishment

There are 20 states that still allow corporal punishment in schools. Click the link for the New York Times article http://bit.ly/NAKlJ I grew up in one of those states, and luckily live in a state that doesn't allow this practice. One would think that special ed students would be exempt from this form of punishment, but that would make too much sense. I hoped in 2009 that most states had moved away from this and it would be an interesting, antiquated story from my childhood. Unfortunately, more people will be able to share stories of paddlings for years to come.

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Genius

David Brooks' op-ed piece in the NY Times was interesting. Click here http://tinyurl.com/coepo4
I remember reading about Tiger Woods' work ethic and how he would practice religiously. He practiced so much that other competitors failed in comparison. I don't think it's a coincidence that he's selling Tiger Focus Gatorade: Hydration for Concentration. He knows what it's all about.

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IQ and Older Fathers

Today's New York Times had an article about the IQs of children of older fathers. Older fathers have children with lower IQs when tested in different cognitive areas, including fluid reasoning, memory, and motor skills. When I see studies like that I often wonder who did the testing and what test did they use. According to the news article, the information was gathered from 50,000 mothers who attended 12 clinics from the years 1959 to 1965. Whatever test was used, it must have been the earliest edition. Interestingly, an older father's detriment to IQ seems to be biological, while an older mother's asset to IQ seems to be environmental. Older mothers are more nurturing and have the economic means to provide more enrichment. The article mentioned the age range of the the fathers and mothers in the story. They had participants as young as 12 and 14! A teenage birth in the 60's had to be controversial.

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In the News

A couple of news stories that caught my attention.

Obama named his nominee for Secretary of Education.

I don't have an opinion at this point. Until recently the Secretary of Education job was a thankless job that didn't seem to have a real impact on education. If you think about it, was it the Secretary of Education that played a major role in Brown v. Board of Ed? IDEA? It seems to me that until No Child Left Behind (NCLB) no one really knew what the Education Secretary actually did. Now the cabinet position is more important than ever. We'll have to see what Arne Duncan will do in his position.

A district in Maryland is getting rid of the "Gifted" label.

All I have to say is unless you have a school for the gifted, the percentage of your student body that is gifted should reflect society, about 2%. That's it. A school with 36% gifted students is either too lenient in their criteria or there's something in the water. I need to move to Montgomery County if there's a good chance of creating a gifted child just by living there. Regardless, people want their children to be in gifted programs, but not all are created equal. I would look to see what kind of enrichment these programs had to offer. Is it something I could replicate on my own? Like special education, sometimes the label doesn't matter, the level of service does.

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Family Dynamics in the Workplace.

Sometimes a school's faculty can feel like a dysfunctional family. I guess I wasn't far off by the looks of this article in the New York Times.

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Genetics and Mental Illness

Today's New York Times featured an article(click here) on genetics and mental illness. The article focused on the research of Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock. These scientists have developed a theory on brain development that says that the father's and mother's genes compete and the victor sways development along a spectrum. When the father's gene is dominant, the brain develops towards an autism spectrum. When the mother's gene is dominant, the brain develops toward a psychotic spectrum. The article goes on to say that this is a new direction for neural and genetic research. I'm suspicious because this seems to revert us to the days when mothers were blamed for their children's mental illnesses. It's like Freud with ten times the science. Since we know that schizophrenic parents make their children predisposed to the illness, what do the scientists think about the children of schizophrenic men. Who has more influence over the genes then, the schizophrenic father or the mother whose genes may cause a sway towards the psychotic spectrum? I hope they find an answer in their research.

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Bullying Article

I only work with elementary school-aged children so the level of bullying that I deal with is minimal for now, but this article from the New York Times sickened me. You want to know what happens to a young man that would make him snap? Try being the kid in this article for a couple of hours. It's a wonder that something disastrous hasn't happened yet. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

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Rubber Room

I was listening to "This American Life" on NPR over the weekend and heard an interesting story about what happens to teachers who are removed from their classrooms in New York City Public Schools. Here's an archived version from The New York Times. When teachers are put on suspension because of some inappropriate action they are sent to the reassignment center, or as the teachers call it, the rubber room. Teachers report to the rubber room each and every morning until their cases are tried. Some of these teachers have been in the rubber room for months, even years. Some end a school year and start another school year in the rubber room. Meanwhile all of these teachers are earning a full salary. A full salary for doing 0% of work. 0.0%!!!! It would seem that the school district would want to hear these cases so that these teachers could be immediately terminated, if warranted. It is also peculiar that the teachers' union hasn't stepped in and stopped this mockery of the public school system. Any given day 750 teachers are attending these rubber rooms where they sit around, read books, play cards, sleep and do other frivolous things while substitute teachers teach their classes for them.

I know that some of these teachers get what they deserved. I'm sure there were more than a few that did things that I would not want a child to be subjected to, but why keep these people in limbo? This is reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay. Speaking of which, some of the teachers had been in the limbo room so long, that a prison culture has developed. There are racial cliques, people are hyper-territorial, and there is a pecking order. It's amazing how people respond to different situations. Educators reduced to hardened criminals.

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It's Been A While

It's been a while, I know. I've been trying to survive the end of the semester. I need to write several entries about what has gone on for the past 6 weeks, but I'll get to that at some point. Anyway, the NY Times had an article about a recent ruling in favor of parents of children with disabilities. Basically, if a parent wants to take a school district to court over to challenge the services offered in the child's IEP, the parents do not have to use a lawyer, they can represent themselves. We'll see how this plays out.

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Article on Middle School

I read and article today in the NY Times about middle school teachers. It' worth a read, and it really opened my eyes to the unique psychology of the middle school teacher. It does take a special person to deal with the turmoil of adolescence.

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