Eruditio and Whiteboards

Farewell Friday: A Portrait of Beloved Community

2007-06-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

On the penultimate Friday night of the school year, I gathered with about 10 colleagues from my school to bid farewell to four beloved members--2 middle school teachers and 2 high school teachers--of the science department. After enjoying some food and socializing, what began as a time of reflecting on the significant contributions of these four teachers blossomed into an amazing time during which words of vulnerability, encouragement and thanksgiving were shared by all of us about each other. Joyful laughter and heartrending tears rang out into the night alternately. Fears, disappointments, admiration, struggles, hopes and appreciation were all shared with great intimacy that night. The significance of what happened that night is profound and I will never forget it.

For over two hours as we either fought back our tears or just let them flow, we heard how these four colleagues, along with the rest of us, had existed as a community that had challenged, supported, encouraged and engaged each other so meaningfully over the past few years. Even though most of us had only worked together for about five years, the tears and heartache expressed that evening reflected a level of intimacy usually only found (if ever) in professional relationships forged over decades. Some people work for 30 years in a profession and never achieve the depth of relationships that I have found with my current colleagues--so how did it come to be this way?

I think that there is something about the sticky mess that is public education (at least at my school) and something about working with kids that provides the conditions necessary to get to that Friday night. How does one deal with a 15 year-old who plans to drop out of school at age 16 by oneself? How does one deal with parental accusations of incompetence by oneself? How does one deal with high stress and low pay (and the commensurate feeling of being undervalued) by oneself? How does one deal with a 16 year-old student who can't pass Algebra I but who plans to become an actuary by oneself? How does one deal with accusations of racist favoritism by oneself? How does one deal with endless bureaucratic procedures--that may actually inhibit student learning--but which seem designed solely to limit litigation, by oneself? How does one deal with the implications of families with means fleeing the school system you work for in favor of private schools by oneself? How does one deal with the interpersonal interactions with 120 adolescents every day for 180 days by oneself? The answer, I think, is that one can't deal with such things by oneself. Survival necessitates community. The bonds between my fellow teachers and me were forged as we worked side-by-side in a profession that demands your heart and soul; we developed an intimate interdependence that enabled us to sustain each other through the emotion-filled and often heart-wrenching highs and lows that are altogether common in teaching.

My colleagues have poured their lives out into their students and their school. They are the smartest, most passionate, most caring, most interesting and sometimes the most discouraged people I have ever met. I am honored to have worked beside them--their self-sacrifice, their commitment to social justice, their concern for helping kids, their innovative and creative pedagogies, their leadership and vision, and their sensitive hearts certainly have made me a better teacher and more importantly, a better person. I was blessed to experience that Friday night with my fellow teachers and dear friends and am even more blessed to have experienced the days, weeks, months and years leading up to it. I am thankful to have participated in and benefited from the building of such an intimate community of adults--to love and be loved so deeply by the people with whom you work is truly a gift.

The Money Quote, Part II

2007-06-10T17:05:00.000-07:00

My soon-to-be-departed principal and his wife had a baby a few months ago. Recently he and I were talking about his new job and he said a big reason why he and his wife were excited to go to China was that their child

"would be able to attend good schools there."

While I haven't totally unpacked the significance of an American public school leader feeling like he has to move to China for his daughter to have access to good schools, I can't help but feel a sense of foreboding about it...

4 Principals in 4 Years

2007-06-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, our principal informed us that he would be leaving our school to become the Middle School Head at an American School in Shanghai. A search committee has been formed to find our next fearless leader. This next principal will be the fourth in four years at my school (the fifth if you count the principal who hired me, but who retired before my first day of school). What does such high turnover say about the being principal at my school?

Education and Technology

2007-05-05T04:54:00.000-07:00

Education and technology are becoming increasingly intertwined. The theory is that the more adept students are at using technology, the more prepared they will be for finding 21st Century jobs. In education there are people--often called Instructional Technology Consultants or Educational Technology Consultants--who consistently advocate for increasing the use of technology in the classroom. We should not fail to note, however, that an increase in the use of technology in schools necessarily increases the demand for the services these people provide--how nicely that works out for them!

Anyway, it seems to me that schools often blindly follow the advice of these people and embrace technology before understanding what it would take to make that technology educationally relevant for students. Case in point from the NY Times--a recent article about schools and school systems that had issued laptops to all students. These schools are now finding that 1) students are using the laptops for non-educational purposes (online gaming, pornography, hacking into school networks) more than for educational purposes, and 2) these programs are incredibly expensive because of the maintenance required of laptops. Surprise, surprise...

Apparently another use of technology in education is to bribe students to perform well on standardized tests: At Northern High School in Durham, NC, school administrators are offering free iPods to students who score a top score of "4" on the North Carolina State Writing Assessment. Why are they doing this? Apparently many students do not show up for school on the day of this test. Many other students do not try to do their best on this test. Why not? Perhaps because this test doesn't count for a grade. Perhaps because they are tired of all of the standardized testing in North Carolina.

Lunch Duty

2007-03-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

For the next two weeks, during my 30-minute lunch break, I have Lunch Duty. This entails sitting on a chair outside of the boys' bathroom next to the cafeteria. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do there--make sure the boys flush after using the urinals? interrogate passers-by? stare intently at 6th graders?--but we've all been told how important it is that we are at our duty stations.

The Money Quote

2007-02-14T17:30:00.000-08:00

So subtle, I almost missed it.
From a recent parent email:

"Hopefully, we'll see an improvement in grades. That's the goal and objective."

Interesting...I thought the goal and objective was an improvement in learning.

The Emperor Has No Clothes

2007-02-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

Three days ago I participated in a meeting for a student who is in our Exceptional Children's (EC) program (i.e., Special Education). The purpose of the meeting was to reevaluate his Individualized Education Plan (IEP). This student is failing all of his core academic classes; he is also receiving D's and F's in his elective classes (something almost as rare at my school as the white rhino). He is enrolled in the lowest levels of each class that we offer at our school for ninth graders including:

Standard-level Science
Standard-level History
Inclusion English (which means there is a special ed teacher in the classroom in addition to the regular teacher)
Career-track inclusion Math (which means that there is a special ed teacher in this class also and that this math is not a part of the college-prep curriculum accepted by the University of North Carolina)

A sad situation for sure. Now here is where the situation gets even sadder: This student's parent says, "I just want to make sure that he gets through high school so that he can get to college, where things will be easier." Then the Exceptional Children's Coordinator, the student's EC caseworker, his math teacher, and I all look at the mother and nod in agreement. No one says anything.

I hate to be fatalistic, but it seems unlikely that, given this student's performance so far in high school, that college will be an option. But there is this idea out there that all kids should go to college, or at least have the option of going to college. The President says it, Senators say it, educators say it, parents want to believe it, kids believe it. But the reality is that not all kids will have the option of going to college, and perhaps--although this may be educational heresy--not all kids should.

My school really offers no vocational options to students. As an arts magnet school, we basically offer the college prep curriculum and an abundance of art electives. How is the student mentioned above being served by my school? It doesn't appear that he will become an artist (given his performance and interest in his arts classes) and the academic work is killing him. Even if he is able to graduate in 5 years after repeating the ninth grade, what will he be prepared to do? How will the classes he will have taken--World History, Physical Science and Earth Science, Spanish 1, Career Math, Clay 1--prepare him to be a self-sufficient and contributing member of society?

The fact is that we (educators) don't want to tell people that they should begin thinking of options other than college prep--such as vocational programs--and parents and students wouldn't want to hear it even if we said it. But it seems that at some point as a society we need to pull our heads out of the sand, realize that perhaps college is not for everybody, and consider the possibility that there's nothing wrong with that.

What's the Problem in Physics?

2007-01-24T16:35:00.000-08:00

I have a good friend who teaches physics at my school. He has taught for over 10 years, is National Board Certified, and has a PhD in biomedical engineering. Over the past several years the scores of his physics students on the North Carolina End-of-Course (EOC) test in physics have been at or near the top of the district. Last year, our school district decided to implement "benchmark" testing throughout the year in order to ensure that teachers and/or students are on track for the EOCs. These test supposedly mimic the EOCs and give district officials probable cause to interrogate principals and teachers whose scores aren't where they should be.

On the first benchmark test of this year, my friend's physics students scored below the district average. The principal's response to this development was to ask my friend, "What's the problem in physics?" My friend reacted with indignation to this comment by the principal. Why did such a seemingly innocent question catalyze such a strong reaction from my friend? I think that unpacking this situation will reveal much about the dynamics within my school; further, I believe this situation is emblematic of some larger, common problems that occur vis-a-vis public schools in the Testing Era.

1) If poor student test scores can be grounds for teacher critique, good test scores should be used for encouragement. At no time during the past seven years of teaching in a high-stakes accountability environment has my friend received affirmation from the principal for his consistently outstanding test scores. One can't have it both ways: either the test scores are meaningful (both positive and negative) and say something about the job the teacher is doing, or they are useless and don't warrant a response. It is demoralizing for teachers when administrators are silent about high test scores but jump on a teachers for low test scores.

2) Superficial conclusions will infuriate teachers. The question that the principal posed to my friend was really a conclusion: that there must be a problem in physics this year and that it must be simple enough to be explained right then and there, in a sound-bite. This occurred in the school's main office, where my friend had gone to drop off a form. The bell to signal the beginning of the next class period was set to ring momentarily. The question the principal asked does not have a simple answer. As such, it doesn't warrant the simplistic, 5-minute sound-bite answer ("I forgot to teach the unit on mechanics," "I neglected to tell the kids that g=9.8 m/s/s," "I told the students that they could use ballpoint pen to bubble in the answer form on the benchmark") that he must have been expecting. Hamstrung, there was really no way my friend could respond in that context, in the busy main office of the school, in the middle of the day, 5 minutes before 24 students would be pounding on his classroom door to be let in. The person asking that question needed to be willing to work a little harder to hear a legitimate--rather than a simplistic--analysis of the state of his physics classes this year. Absent that, a little righteous indignation on the part of the teacher is perhaps understandable.

3) Superficial conclusions are based on superficial analyses. The test scores in question were the average percent correct for my friend's physics students on that benchmark test compared to that of the rest of the district. Hypothetically, let's say my friend's students had averaged 80% correct on the test while the rest of the district averaged 87% correct. That doesn't look too good. But what if his students were not especially high achieving students? Then is getting 80% correct really so bad? What if the average math PSAT score of the other physics students in the district was 650, while the average math PSAT score of my friend's students was 575. Now those scores are actually beginning to look a little better. The problem with comparing average scores of different cohorts of students without controlling for any other variables is that it can only lead to superficial conclusions such as the one proffered by the principal.

In North Carolina there are two sets of test scores that are relevant for different reasons. The first set of relevant scores are basically the percentage of items that students get correct on a given test--these are called Composite Scores. This is the set of scores that gets published in local newspapers, that gets on school websites, and that most of the general public (and sadly probably many educators) thinks is the only data that matters. However, there is another data set in calculated in North Carolina that is perhaps more important. This second set of data is student Growth Scores. For each test given in North Carolina, the state Department of Public Instruction has devised a formula that, given a student's past performance on other relevant tests, predicts their performance on the current test. If a student performs as predicted, he has Met Growth. If the student scores far enough below the predicted score, he has No Growth. If the student scores far enough above the predicted score, the he may achieve High Growth. In North Carolina, schools are awarded bonuses based on how many of their students meet the various levels of Growth. I would argue--assuming that the prediction formula is legitimate (which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish)--that Growth Scores are more powerful indicators of how the teachers and students are doing than are the Composite Scores. If a student who is predicted to score a 75 instead scores an 87, the teacher might be doing something really well. If a student who is predicted to get a 95 instead scores 73, then there might be a problem. Sadly, growth scores are not published in the newspaper, on school websites, and in my experience are even difficult to get my hands on as a teacher. I have yet to see individual growth scores for any of my students, yet it would be quite helpful for me to know which students are learning more than predicted and which are learning less than predicted. The fact that I just had to write a paragraph explaining what Growth Scores are is probably the reason why, despite their usefulness, these scores are not utilized for the benefit of increased student achievement: these scores require more than a superficial understanding to interpret them.

It also turns out that AP Biology has become wildly popular at my school. This is the result of it being taught by a wonderful teacher and the fact that the class takes an annual trip to an exotic, tropical location each spring break. As a consequence of this, many high-performing juniors are enrolling in AP Biology in lieu of physics. Since only 3 years of science are required for graduation, and because my school is an arts magnet school, many of these students stop taking science after AP Biology. This swell in AP Biology enrollment is causing fewer high-achieving students to take physics and it seems reasonable this trend could cause average physics scores--BUT NOT NECESSARILY GROWTH SCORES--to drop.

In fact, my friend the physics teacher has led the district and my school in Growth Scores over the past five years. Because of the growth scores of his students in physics and physical science, he is almost single-handedly responsible for my school receiving bonus money for each of the past five years. And the students he currently teaches, those same students who scored below the district average on the benchmark test, may very well receive high growth scores on the EOCs at the end of the year because those scores take into account that his students are not necessarily the same as the other physics students around the district. So the question of "what's the problem in physics" should probably become "is there a problem in physics?" I guess we'll have to wait and see.

But does anyone (policy makers, administrators, the general public) really want to take the time to look this deeply at the issues? It's much easier just to conduct a superficial analysis of the situation ("our average scores have dropped") and then make a superficial conclusion ("somebody must be doing something wrong").

4) Superficial conclusions lead to superficial solutions. The district in which I teach seems to have a different silver bullet each year for fixing our many problems. However, one silver bullet that has stuck around is a district-wide intranet called RIO. RIO contains unit plans, pacing guides, and a smattering of lesson plans that all teachers in the district are supposed to utilize in order to make student learning more uniform from school to school. This, in turn, is supposed to help students learn better and, of course, raise test scores. It makes sense then, that after the principal asked my friend what the problem was in physics, he followed that question up with, "Have you been using RIO?"

What's funny about that question, and about the district's almost fanatical emphasis on RIO as the solution to all of our problems, is the fact that there is no evidence that I'm aware of that can show that RIO is an effective means to improve student achievement. Sure it cost lots of money...sure it involves technology...sure it sounds sexy...but has it been shown to increase student learning? There is no data to suggest that the lesson plans on RIO are any more effective than other lesson plans teachers have been using. There is no data to suggest that the pacing guide on RIO is any more effective than other pacing guides teachers have used. In fact, if our district's academic performance is any indication, RIO's early returns look pretty bad. Last year was the first full year that RIO had been implemented and the district's test scores last year--both Composite and Growth Scores--were at an all-time low. Furthermore, when my friend was leading the district in both Composite Scores and Growth Scores over the past five years, RIO didn't even exist!

It seems that when it comes to education, people want simple solutions such as "Every teacher must do X to improve test scores." These superficial solutions--some of which can be quite expensive--can sound really good, but if they are based on superficial conclusions, which are based on superficial analyses, then we're really not making much progress.

Revenge of the Bulletin Boards

2007-01-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Today our department received word from our principal that we are responsible for decorating the bulletin boards in our hallway in order to prevent the currently blank boards from having more graffiti written on them. We have been directed that we have until January 23rd to decorate these bulletin boards. Furthermore, the assistant principal in our building will be "checking the progress."

I, for one, am unclear as to why hallway decor is a teacher-responsibility. In this day when teachers are held accountable for student achievement (and perhaps rightly so), I find it a bit ironic that teachers can focus our time and energy on decorating bulletin boards, while an assistant principal who faces virtually no accountability for student achievement can "check our progress."

The even greater irony is the same day that I received this directive to decorate bulletin boards in the hallway, I participated in a "fireside chat" with Mary Easley, the First Lady of North Carolina, who extolled the importance of teachers today: You are what enables North Carolina to stay competitive in the global economy, she said.

North Carolina: Equipping students for the global marketplace one bulletin board at a time.

Listlessness vs. Purpose

2006-12-24T06:24:00.000-08:00

One blessing about being a teacher is that I have a sense of vocational calling every day. I never feel a lack of purpose in my job. One problem that arises from this, however, is that my sense of purpose can become an overwhelming burden: There are too many students who need a quality relationship with an adult; there are too many students who are failing my class; there are too many students whom I am not challenging enough academically; there are too many colleagues that need encouragement; there are too many lesson plans that I need to improve. The problem with this mentality is that I become the center of everyone's world. The reality is that I cannot possibly meet all of the needs I encounter each day, and I need to be ok with that.

Another aspect of the immense purpose I feel through teaching is that while I am on vacations from school I begin to feel listless and purposeless. The summer is especially bad--I actually begin to feel unproductive, guilty, and a little worthless as a result of being away from school. Certainly this is not healthy, but it gives me insight into the lives of people, like the 40+ year-old professional athlete riddled with arthritis, who just cannot give up their careers even when they should have long ago.

Part of me thinks that I need to cultivate a more comprehensive sense of purpose--one that is not situationally dependent. It seems like my purpose shouldn't wax and wane with the school year, that it should be independent of any environment in which I find myself. While that sounds good, I can't help but think that it might be a bit simplistic and it becomes problematic if we take that thinking to extremes: Should I feel purposeful if I work to make handguns for a firearm company? Should I feel a sense of purpose if I work to make money for a company that exploits workers or the environment in the developing world? Should I feel a sense of purpose if I am a CIA assassin?

Perhaps the reality is that there is a feedback loop between purpose and vocation. Each informs the other; each challenges the other; each molds the other.

Provision

2006-12-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

I have two close teacher friends who are both looking to leave the teaching profession because they cannot financially provide for their families. One of them wrote the following to me in a recent email:

"I am thinking about leaving the profession...I am not providing for my family and it is increasingly expensive as [my kids] get older...This month has been really hard...I hope that we can figure something out. My debt keeps growing and I am not keeping up with my bills. It sucks that I can't do what I want to [teach] because of money."

This makes me very sad, because this friend is a phenomenal teacher. I also know a single mom with three children who teaches elementary school in my school system. If she were to apply, her children would qualify for federal free/reduced school lunch.

While salaries are low for beginning teachers, it often doesn't seem so bad because most new teachers are young, single and just glad to be drawing a salary after getting out of school. And besides, when you are 22, many of your friends aren't earning much more money than you are. Even so, many new teachers struggle to even pay rent and make car payments. The problem appears to become more severe as teachers enter mid-career: a teacher with a master's degree in North Carolina earns $40,130 after EIGHT years of experience; after TWENTY-FOUR years of experience (16 years later), that same teacher still earns less than $50,000 ($49,970). That's an annual average increase in salary of $615 or 1.4%. Inflation averages 3.0% , which means that these teachers actually have less money each year for those 16 years.

The reality is that good, qualified, passionate teachers leave teaching because these salaries don't provide their families with the financial security they want. As a society, I don't think we can complain about teacher quality when the salary schedules discourge qualified people from staying in (or joining) the profession.

Playing Left-Field

2006-12-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

Today we were talking about gold mining for a little while in my classes. The students had just read an article about the environmental and health impact of a mining technique called "heap leaching."

When I asked my 7th period class, "So what is this thing called 'heap leaching?" the first student to respond answered that "heap leaching is when someone covers their entire body with leeches."

What is My Class Really Like?: A Study in Relativism

2006-12-13T17:20:00.000-08:00

Student 1, Yesterday:
"Are we just taking notes today? All you do is lecture!"

Student 2, Today:
"Are we doing another lab today. We are always doing labs in here!"

Student 1 and Student 2 are both taking the same class with me.

Wow

2006-12-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

As a teacher at an arts-focused school, I get asked all the time by my students if I am going to attend their such-and-such concert. Guitar concert, percussion concert, dance concert, band concert, choir concert, play, musical, etc. Since we also have sports like any other school, I also get asked if I am going to attend their such-and-such game. Basketball game, soccer game, baseball game, volleyball game, swim meet, softball game, etc.

I am usually up for one big event or game per semester. I realize that's not a lot, but it can be difficult to go home after a long day of teaching and then find the energy to return to school an hour or so later to interact again with students and their parents. But tonight was the night.

Tonight I attended the Winter Dance Concert at my school. It was simply amazing. Students who are timid and lack confidence in my class were bold, powerful and graceful on the stage. Students who struggled mightily to pass my class had choreographed and performed entire numbers. The music was pulsing; the movements were fluid; the timing was impeccable; the performers were inspiring--and they were just teenagers.

Tonight is why I love my job.

Confronted With My Own Humanity

2006-12-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

There is no doubt that teaching forces me to confront my own humanity almost every day. Yesterday, in fact, I snapped at a student who was annoying me, and then felt terrible about it until the next morning.

What makes these incidents so disappointing for me is that I try very carefully to "manage" my life in order to be in tip-top shape while teaching--so that I don't screw up and snap at students who annoy me. I make sure that I get enough sleep, eat well, and prepare dilligently for each class. I do these things carefully and intentionally so that I will be as well-rested, patient, and refreshed as possible as I face the demands of my 115 students each day. I place great importance on my relationships with students and work hard to cultivate those relationships through genuine and consistent interest in their lives. However, no matter how well I try to arrange my life to optimize myself for the classroom, there are always times when I can't escape the limitations of my own humanity--my pride will prevent me from admitting I'm wrong in front of a class; I'll be short-tempered with a kid; I'll neglect a struggling student; I'll stress out about an obnoxious parent; or I'll let my feelings (and pride) be hurt by criticism of my teaching.

The good news, however, is that it can be a gift to be faced with my own shortcomings on a daily basis. It ensures that I don't live in a dream-world in which I'm the star. It keeps me humble. It causes me to feel deeply--to hurt, to seek help, to pray, and to have hope. These are great things and I'm thankful to be in a profession which prompts me to experience them.

A Sign of Our Times

2006-12-02T06:45:00.000-08:00

I was sitting in a parent-teacher conference the other day. This was a conference in which the student, his parents, the guidance counselor, and ALL of the student's academic teachers were present. Here are the common themes with this student: he has done absolutely no work inside or outside of class, never brings paper or pencil or notebook to class, has an excuse for everything, and has been consistently lying to his parents about his performance.

What was his parents' response upon hearing this report from all of his teachers?

"We need to get him tested (for special education placement)!"

The Teaching "Profession", Part II

2006-11-23T19:28:00.001-08:00

Is teaching a Real Profession?... my second post on this subject.

Another reason why teaching may not be considered a Real Profession by its critics is due to the fact that the profession lacks rigorous standards that prevent entry or that weed-out those who should not be teachers. There are no multi-day board or bar examinations (as in medicine and law), no tooth-drilling practicum (as in dentistry), and no inquisition by a denomination (as with clergy).

To be honest, this critique may be a legitimate criticism. In order for me to become a public school teacher I had to:

complete a portfolio for my master's program, which took some significant time for reflection and writing. However, could I have put less time and energy into the portfolio and still gotten my license? I'll never know, but I don't think anyone in my program failed to get the stamp of approval from the graduate school or the state because their portfolio was substandard.
student-teach for several weeks. This was probably the most important part of my training, but it only lasted about 10 weeks.
take a two-part, four-hour exam called the Praxis. I didn't have to study at all for this exam. I think that some high school students whom I currently teach could have passed it. Let's just say, it wasn't exactly rigorous.

I'm not saying that the sum of these things was trivial, but I don't think that it is a process that really selects those who will make capable teachers from those who won't.

The funny thing is that the public is constantly clamouring for higher standards for teachers. "We need to make sure these teachers are qualified," they say in the public sphere. Here's the problem: you can't raise the bar for teachers without also increasing the incentives. Durham Public Schools, for example, still needed to fill dozens of teaching positions several of weeks after the start of school. This shortage is not due to the fact that the standards are too high; on the contrary, there just aren't enough teachers who want to teach in Durham. We must give people greater incentives to join the ranks of teachers or we must content ourselves with what we currently have.

Its fine with me if the hoop-jumping that disguises itself as "high standards for teachers" becomes instead legitimate and rigorous standards for teachers. Raise the standards for teachers; make rigorous teaching examinations; require year-long teaching apprenticeships, create genuine and helpful systems for teacher accountability. However, with increased standards there must be a commensurate increase in incentives. Otherwise, we should just get used to the phrase "lack of qualified teachers."

The Teaching "Profession", Part I

2006-11-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

Is teaching a Profession?

My knee-jerk reaction is to say, "Of course it is." I have an advanced degree. I am salaried, not paid by the hour. I wear a coat, tie and fancy shoes to work each day...oh wait, no I don't. I wear khakis, a polo shirt and flip-flops as long as the weather allows. So upon deeper examination, this question is not so easily answered. This will be the first of a series of posts in which I consider the Teaching Profession.

We will begin by considering a reason why teaching might not be considered a Real Profession. The (usually anti-public-education) nay-sayers will claim that teaching is not a profession because Anyone Can Do It (i.e., it's not that difficult). I think that some of these people believe that since they Went Through School, that they Know How To Teach School. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to point out the idiocy of this logic. Just because I sat through a concert of the San Francisco Symphony, doesn't mean that I can conduct an orchestra; simply going to a Duke basketball game doesn't make me Coach K.

Elementary school teachers, in particular, endure the ire of these critics, because the nay-sayers imagine how easy it must be to teach the simplistic elementary school curriculum. Anyone Can Teach That Stuff, they scoff to themselves as they drive home from back-to-school night. In high school, the calculus and physics teachers probably are on safer ground than the freshman English teacher. Still, Almost Anyone Can Teach That Stuff.

What the critics seem to miss, is that content is only part of what a teacher must know. First and foremost, teachers must understand and enjoy being with kids. That fact ensures that Not Everyone Can Teach. Second, Teaching is not simply Content Dissemination. It is the art of getting students to buy into, to embrace and to learn what you are teaching. While 3rd grade math itself might not be intellectually taxing, I would wager that Getting 3rd Graders To Learn Math (not to mention Love Math) is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Further, I would wager that this kettle of fish--something that is termed pedagogy in eduspeak--is one that not just anyone could accomplish.

These are the questions that teachers must wrestle with: What is the best way to teach a particular concept? How will you know if students have learned it? How will you get students to learn it rather than memorize it? What will you do with students who don't learn it? What will you do students who have already learned it? What are the common misconceptions that students must overcome to learn it? How is this concept connected to the Real World, Etc., etc., etc. These are not easy questions and answering them is certainly not something that Anyone Can Do.

More on this topic to come...

Brownie Points

2006-11-21T06:51:00.000-08:00

Today one of my friends at school (a fellow teacher) brought in brownies for the winners of a class competition. What was the first comment from one of the winners? Was it "thanks for baking us brownies in your spare time"? Was it "Wow, these brownies are great"? Was it, "I know you don't make much money but we appreciate that you spent a few bucks on brownie mix for us"?

No.

The comment of the first student to get a brownie was, "These are too dry."

That's just great. Really, really great.

What can I do?

2006-11-20T09:42:00.000-08:00

15 minutes into class a student (who is currently failing) asks, "Does anyone have a pencil I can borrow?"

It seems to me that learning earth science is secondary to learning to bring a writing utensil to class.

(Malatov) Cocktail Dress

2006-11-19T17:48:00.000-08:00

Three weekends ago a couple of students unsuccessfully tried to burn down our school building. The following weekend they tried again and were caught by police. What brings students to the point where they want to destroy an institution that supposedly exists for their benefit? This seems to be an extreme example of what teachers see almost every day: that students--the very people for whom we become teachers--view us as the enemy. Is the student-teacher relationship necessarily adversarial? One would hope not, but I think most of us can also remember times during adolescence when we viewed our parents as adversaries. So perhaps that adversarial mindset is an organic part of an adult-teenager relationship in which there is a power dynamic.

The teacher's time paradox

2006-11-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

There is a paradox in teaching that I would guess most teachers are aware of: short weeks are actually long weeks. A two-day week, like the upcoming week of Thanksgiving, is longer and more draining than a "normal" five-day week. There are many reasons for this paradox, including increased hyperactivity of the students, the teacher's anticipation of having a few days off, and of course, the added busyness of preparing for a holiday.

There is one more wrinkle to this paradox. Although a short week is more tiring than a "normal" five-day week, a five-day week that follows a short week is the most draining week of all. This is because the teacher has lost his endurance during the course of the long weekend. Knowing this, we can derive a simple equation where a "normal" five-day week equals x, a short week equals y, and a five day week following a break equals z.

z = 2y = 3x

Any questions?