I found the article that I am now going to post fascinating in that it is old school. The focus on education back in the day was to read. To do that you needed to have a strong focus. I often wonder and may try an experiment, how many students read at home with no interruptions? If you did not use any of your electronics but instead took plan breaks would that help both your retention and shorten your total workload.
Anyhow here is the link to the article. Read and please post a comment back on my blog. Interested in your viewpoint on this educational piece.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/09/paying_attention_is_a_skill_schools_need_to_teach_it.2.html
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
When I think I can not be surprised I am
This past Friday I arrived home at 4:30 after attending an after school meeting. I had three e-mails in my box from our Assistant Principal. As I read each one it seemed to get me in a worse mood. One of them was about not turning in paperwork which I did. He acknoledged that it his return e-mail.
However, what really bothered me was that we were mandated to have a committee meeting on Monday when in the past the times have been left up to the chairs. I was purposely not having a meeting since I wanted to give our people a chance to grade with interims due on Weds. When I asked can we hold them whenever we want like the past, I did not get a nice reply. After that response I told him that I would have the meeting on Monday and sent out a letter to the team members.
I was then asked to meet with him at 6:30AM on Monday. During this conference he told me that only three people complained about the e-mails, one of them was me. He then told me when he asked two of the younger people to do things they just jumped with enthusiasm at his requests. He also mentioned that I was contractually obligated to attend these meetings every week.
During the day, I was amazed at how many people were really upset about the e-mails. There were literally teachers cussing in the halls, resenting the meetings and appalled by his e-mails. What was once only me now turn into a nice portion of the staff. So instead of using our responses as a gauge of the staff, reflecting upon his own poor judgement, he decided that I was the problem.
In a prior life, I dealt with customer relations. When you received one customer concern you realized that 11 people had the same concern but for whatever reason they did not bother to call. We were trained to trip over ourselves to make sure that this customer was appreciated, and won over. In education, I guess we do the opposite, we shoot the messenger.
So we spent the weekend, totally killing morale in the building.
However, what really bothered me was that we were mandated to have a committee meeting on Monday when in the past the times have been left up to the chairs. I was purposely not having a meeting since I wanted to give our people a chance to grade with interims due on Weds. When I asked can we hold them whenever we want like the past, I did not get a nice reply. After that response I told him that I would have the meeting on Monday and sent out a letter to the team members.
I was then asked to meet with him at 6:30AM on Monday. During this conference he told me that only three people complained about the e-mails, one of them was me. He then told me when he asked two of the younger people to do things they just jumped with enthusiasm at his requests. He also mentioned that I was contractually obligated to attend these meetings every week.
During the day, I was amazed at how many people were really upset about the e-mails. There were literally teachers cussing in the halls, resenting the meetings and appalled by his e-mails. What was once only me now turn into a nice portion of the staff. So instead of using our responses as a gauge of the staff, reflecting upon his own poor judgement, he decided that I was the problem.
In a prior life, I dealt with customer relations. When you received one customer concern you realized that 11 people had the same concern but for whatever reason they did not bother to call. We were trained to trip over ourselves to make sure that this customer was appreciated, and won over. In education, I guess we do the opposite, we shoot the messenger.
So we spent the weekend, totally killing morale in the building.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Mindset
One of the things that we need to change the most in education is our Mindset. Many teachers and students believe that intelligence is something that in genetic and either you have it or you do not. You can witness this by seeing how students pretty much track through school on the same path as they started.
In psychology you learn that positive reinforcement is a powerful tool. However, you need to make sure you are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTXrV0_3UjYreinforcing the correct behaviors. In this clip Carol Dweck discusses the difference between Growth and Fixed mindsets.
I am interested in your thoughts about the clip? Do schools need to focus on mindset more? Will a growth mindset lead students to have more GRIT? Does it give hope to those who have given up on school? Are we as teachers the problem in developing the wrong mindset among our students?
Looking forward to your response.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Treat me like paper
As we started back to school the number one topic that was mentioned in our first week was how to conserve paper. One of our administrators told me that it was one of his goals to go paperless which is admirable. So I have heard a couple of ways that we can conserve paper but no ways in which we can conserve teacher time.
In the past three years many teachers have seen the total number of students rise by 30. This is practically another class to grade, call parents, enter grades etc. With this increase in student load we were hit this year with the fact that we need to keep a porfollio of what we do. These would be artifacts of our lessons, student relationships, and our professional development. It is basically a documentation of what we do which in no way will help student achievement nor develop me as a teacher. In my opinion it is something that my bosses should be doing for me We also have to understand a new evaluation and get our arms around a new curriculum (core)
Many of these increases on our time is out of our administrators control, they do not decide staffing, or when to roll out new evaluations. However, I really do not see our administrators thinking about reducing our workload as hard as they are thinking about conserving paper. A matter of fact they have increased our workload by making it mandatory for all of us to join a school committee. Just for full disclosure this does not impact me since I have been on several committees. However, that was my choice and not mandated to me
So what would be my suggestions to the administration. Make every meeting voluntary, if the meeting are good people will come. They have to plan one meeting a month you would think that it would be awesome, and that would bring the teachers. They should try to inspire and motivate us to want to join these committees not mandate us. I struggle to remember a meeting or committee that I attended last year that motivated me for school the next day. Two, think of ways that we can get teachers out of duties and replaced by other members of the staff. Finally, if the top two can not be done how about an honest and personal thank you.
Am I asking too much for my leaders to care about me as much as they do the paper?
In the past three years many teachers have seen the total number of students rise by 30. This is practically another class to grade, call parents, enter grades etc. With this increase in student load we were hit this year with the fact that we need to keep a porfollio of what we do. These would be artifacts of our lessons, student relationships, and our professional development. It is basically a documentation of what we do which in no way will help student achievement nor develop me as a teacher. In my opinion it is something that my bosses should be doing for me We also have to understand a new evaluation and get our arms around a new curriculum (core)
Many of these increases on our time is out of our administrators control, they do not decide staffing, or when to roll out new evaluations. However, I really do not see our administrators thinking about reducing our workload as hard as they are thinking about conserving paper. A matter of fact they have increased our workload by making it mandatory for all of us to join a school committee. Just for full disclosure this does not impact me since I have been on several committees. However, that was my choice and not mandated to me
So what would be my suggestions to the administration. Make every meeting voluntary, if the meeting are good people will come. They have to plan one meeting a month you would think that it would be awesome, and that would bring the teachers. They should try to inspire and motivate us to want to join these committees not mandate us. I struggle to remember a meeting or committee that I attended last year that motivated me for school the next day. Two, think of ways that we can get teachers out of duties and replaced by other members of the staff. Finally, if the top two can not be done how about an honest and personal thank you.
Am I asking too much for my leaders to care about me as much as they do the paper?
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Character
As a teacher I now realize that my main goal is to prepare my students for their next step in life. For most of them it will be going to college. I am amazed that I teach at a top 500 high school and only 48% of the students who graduate our high school complete college in six or less years.
In order to help students achieve this goal I am trying to focus on a couple of traits that will help them at the next level. The traits are GRIT and self control. This week I have had a couple of students show me that they have both these traits.
Amicia and Allie are two students that I had in AP psychology last year. They were strong students who scored an A for the course and a five on the AP exam. This year I have the pleasure of having them in AP economics. Both of them showed some GRIT this past week.
Allie struggled on one quiz, at the end of class, she set up an appointment to meet with me so that she could make sure that she understood the concepts from the quiz. We did meet and she left with a better understanding of the material. On quiz 3 she did well, but I had mentioned to the class that my other class had a much more difficult quiz. At the end of class Allie asked did I have a copy of the difficult quiz.
What is great about this story is that she was not settling for doing well on the quiz but pushing herself to make sure she could handle the most difficult of concepts. It is this type of practice that really benefits students. When they might push themselves out of their comfort zone they are not only mastering the material but also building intelligence. I do not know will she ask me to write a letter for college but this is the type of attitude that makes me positive she will succeed any at college she attends
Amicia, had a similar story in that she is not as confident in Economics as she was in psychology. At the end of the day she asked did I have a copy of the hard test. That night when I went home she e-mailed her answers, so that she could get feedback (the most important part of practicing). We exchanged e-mails so that she was clear on the problem she got wrong. Again, she pushed herself beyond what was needed which demonstrated both self control and GRIT. This is the type of effort that is going to make her a great economics student
Finally, the weekend became even better when one young lady asked could she meet me at 6:45AM to review economics. We were meeting as a group at 7:10 but she wanted to make sure things were clear before the group meeting even began. WOW. This young lady might struggle now but I know she will be successful because she is going to outwork her problems.
Three great stories about kids pushing themselves to be great. Who else wants to join the group. This is what makes teaching great.
Friday, September 6, 2013
who is charlotte danielson
This is the question flying around the internet as many school districts implemented her evaluation system. While school systems around the country should be trying to inspire teachers it seems that instead they are trying to beat them down. I sat on the teacher focus group for this evaluation and I remember thinking when this model is implemented it will be time to retire. Unfortunately for me retirement is not an option right now, so it makes me think, do I want to stay in public education?
First off, teachers now have to keep a portfollio to demonstrate the good work that they do during the course of the year. So we will have some teachers who will spend a ton of time putting this together so that they get a good observation. None of this work will benefit students, but who cares, it is just extra work for the teachers. I wonder who will sit down to read these portfollio's but that is a different story.
The next thing is that it dictates how you are going to teach. No longer is the teacher suppose to be responsible for learning but the students now need to be in charge. In fairness there are a couple of activities in which I put students totally in charge of and I think they work well. However, by no means do I think that anybody should dictate the way we teach. Each teacher is different, we have different classes and teach different subjects. None of this matters with the Danielson model, one size fits all. So be ready for a lot of group work.
Thirdly, there are four levels according to this evaluation system. Highly effective, Effective, developing effective and ineffective. We were told that you can not live in highly effective just visit. So there is no motivation to try to be the best because you can not be there for more than a lesson or maybe a few minutes. Who knows, surely not teachers. Who still really do not know how all the points add up to gain your level.
So instead of inspiring teachers to be great, we have developed a checklist of things that you need to do according to some person. Nobody has tried to sell us on the model, they have just tried to shove it down our throats.
What keeps me going each day. I have amazing kids who inspire me each day to think of ways to make learning better and more fun.
First off, teachers now have to keep a portfollio to demonstrate the good work that they do during the course of the year. So we will have some teachers who will spend a ton of time putting this together so that they get a good observation. None of this work will benefit students, but who cares, it is just extra work for the teachers. I wonder who will sit down to read these portfollio's but that is a different story.
The next thing is that it dictates how you are going to teach. No longer is the teacher suppose to be responsible for learning but the students now need to be in charge. In fairness there are a couple of activities in which I put students totally in charge of and I think they work well. However, by no means do I think that anybody should dictate the way we teach. Each teacher is different, we have different classes and teach different subjects. None of this matters with the Danielson model, one size fits all. So be ready for a lot of group work.
Thirdly, there are four levels according to this evaluation system. Highly effective, Effective, developing effective and ineffective. We were told that you can not live in highly effective just visit. So there is no motivation to try to be the best because you can not be there for more than a lesson or maybe a few minutes. Who knows, surely not teachers. Who still really do not know how all the points add up to gain your level.
So instead of inspiring teachers to be great, we have developed a checklist of things that you need to do according to some person. Nobody has tried to sell us on the model, they have just tried to shove it down our throats.
What keeps me going each day. I have amazing kids who inspire me each day to think of ways to make learning better and more fun.
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