Welcome to the education thread. I've got a few sites I'll try to link later today.
2. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 7:12:47 PM
The links are up. If there are any others you'd like to see to sites or articles, let Dan or me know.
3. phillipdavid - 9/25/1999 10:43:52 PM
Arky,
A very good essay: The Myth of School Failure.
Here is a page I created a year ago explaining various Problems associated with an alternating day schedule. (my first experience with html...I need to go back and revise some of it.)
4. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 10:47:03 PM
Thanks, PD! I'll add them to the list. I have the essay but it's buried in my bookmarks and I didn't get to it. There was also an intersting article in NYT about distance learning (a pet peeve of my husband's) the other day, but I don't know if I can retrieve it.
5. phillipdavid - 9/25/1999 10:47:36 PM
An idea, Arky:
I've been thinking of keeping a short daily diary of my teaching activities -- a "Days in the Life of a Middle School Teacher" sort of thing.
Let me know if you have any interest I that sort of thing, and I will consider writing one up for a period of time.
6. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 10:48:25 PM
Thanks, PD! I'll add them to the list. I have the essay but it's buried in my bookmarks and I didn't get to it. There was also an intersting article in NYT about distance learning (a pet peeve of my husband's) the other day, but I don't know if I can retrieve it.
7. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 10:49:07 PM
Absolutely!
Sorry about the double post. Forgot what window I was in.
8. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 10:50:50 PM
I got an error message when I tried to add a link, so I'll check with Cal or Wabbit and try again later.
9. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 10:53:33 PM
Nevermind. I figured out what I did wrong.
10. phillipdavid - 9/25/1999 11:04:00 PM
Well, Arky, I'll start a short little daily diary tomorrow. Let me know if you want me to post it here in the thread, or if you want to create a sub-thread...or if you want me to send it directly to you so you can preview it.
My school's site council bludgeoned me into giving a presentation to the staff on Monday about how to prepare for goal-setting conferences (Oct 4-5) with students and parents. So I will actually be working tomorrow for a few hours (hopefully no more than that!), then giving a presentation on Monday to the staff during a teacher workday. These type of activities are maybe not the type of things many normal people realize that teachers have to do as part of their job.
11. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 11:20:25 PM
I'll start a subthread if that's ok. I'll try it now, so if I have a problem I can ask about it by tomorrow.
I hope your presentation goes well (as if there were a doubt). There really is a lot more to teaching than teaching now, and I find myself getting agitated about it sometimes, when I feel the extras are affecting my real job or cutting into class time and making me feel chronically behind. My husband's got a series of out-of-town workshops to go to this year which will involve about three or four Sundays of travel, I think.
12. arkymalarky - 9/25/1999 11:23:53 PM
Oops. I think Wabbit must have to start it. I'll check.
13. dusty - 9/26/1999 12:00:25 AM
Arky, this one?
Distance learning
14. arkymalarky - 9/26/1999 12:12:30 AM
Thanks Dusty! It's not the one I saw, but it's a good one. The one I read was looking critically at one distance learning program and much of what it said agreed with observations my husband has made wrt the distance learning calculus class in his school. It's very lacking in substance, for one thing. I must have the bookmark on my work computer. I've got to clean up my bookmarks. I can't find anything.
15. Stumbo - 9/26/1999 2:11:33 AM
It's a terrible essay, PD. Here are some brief comments...
Rothstein asserts: "But spending more hasn't failed. It hasn't been tried." Yet, even if we grant all his subsequent claims in that section, here's the bottom line, as he himself states it: "In sum, special education, smaller classes, school lunches, better teacher pay, more buses, and fewer dropouts account for over 80 percent of new education money since 1965." So, 20% more isn't more?
"Nearly 30 percent of new education money has gone for 'special education' of children with disabilities. [...] By 1990, nearly 12 percent of all schoolchildren were in special education."
I don't know exactly to what extent schools have control over this, but:
a) Isn't the latter number ridiculously high?
b) Isn't the former number ridiculously high, compared to the latter? Given the choice of allocating some amount of resources to either teaching 3 average kids calculus, or one mentally-disabled kid to spell "cat," which would you pick?
"Nearly one-third of new school money has gone for smaller classes. Pupil-teacher ratios have declined by about 30 percent since 1965 and average class size is now about 24, requiring more teachers and extra classrooms." However: "Unless class sizes get small enough (around 15) so that the method of teaching can change to individualized instruction, smaller classes have no measurable academic effect."
In that case, the thing to do is obvious: bring the class sizes back up to where they were, thus freeing up about one-sixth of the total education budget to be spent in more-effective ways.
16. Stumbo - 9/26/1999 2:13:37 AM
"Teachers did better than chemists (144 percent) and accountants (130 percent)."
Hmmm. So, why is there no influx of chemists and accountants into the teaching ranks? One answer: ed.-degree requirements. The unwillingness of smart people to put up with that kind of idiocy is at least as much to blame for the poor quality of teachers as salary level, I would guess.
"Highly qualified female college graduates are no longer captives of the teaching profession, so the same relative teachers' pay now attracts less qualified teachers than before."
This is the one good point of the article. (People, esp. women, usually get very mad at me when I make it, since they assume that means I'm advocating re-barring women from all other professions.)
"Transportation has consumed 5 percent of increased costs. In 1965, 40 percent of public school students were bused at an average cost of $214 (1990 dollars). By 1989, 59 percent were bused, and the cost jumped to $390."
Does Rothstein believe that busing improves performance (esp. that of minority students) ? If not, he should be demanding that it be stopped immediately. If yes, then why does he try to lump it with spending that shouldn't count as "more"?
"If the typical dropout completes 10.5 years of school, then the higher completion rate has increased per pupil costs by 1.3 percent since 1965. This added spending does not improve graduates' average academic achievement."
"Per-pupil costs" should mean "costs per currently-enrolled pupil," not "costs per person who's ever been a pupil in his life." This is a blatant attempt to fudge the stats.
17. Stumbo - 9/26/1999 2:21:49 AM
As for the "real gains":
"White student reading levels have been stagnant, for example, but growth in minority scores has closed much of the gap in the last 20 years. The same is true for math and, to a lesser extent, science."
And, of course, minorities have made many gains in other areas (such as income), over the past few decades. People like Rothstein are always eager to blame lower scores on lower income, rather than quality of education. To be consistent, shouldn't he also give credit to higher income, rather than quality of education, for higher scores?
"[College] enrollment data provides more evidence of improvement."
No, it does not. Enrollment figures reflect the number of students that colleges choose to accept (and who choose to attend). It does not reflect the quality of those students' pre-college education. (The number of remedial freshman classes, and the number of classes that aren't called remedial but really have become so, do reflect it.)
"American science and engineering performance surpasses our competitors. Of every 10,000 Americans, 7.4 have bachelor's degrees in physical science or engineering. Japan has 7.3 per 10,000 and West Germany, 6.7. American performance continues to improve: in 1987, 7 percent of 22-year-olds had a science or engineering degree, up from less than 5 percent in 1970. Only 6.5 percent of 22-year-olds in Japan and 4 percent of 22-year-olds in Germany had science or engineering degrees in 1987."
Again -- these figures are meaningless, by themselves; they reflect the number of students that American universities choose to grant degrees to, not the amount of learning required to receive those degrees. Using such figures in this way is akin to comparing the per-capita incomes of two countries based solely on how many units of local currency the average inhabitant earns, without even checking what the exchange rate might be. At best, pointless; at worst, dishonest.
18. Stumbo - 9/26/1999 2:22:45 AM
I didn't have the stomach to wade through any more of this. Maybe someone with a higher tolerance level than I do, will.
19. phillipdavid - 9/26/1999 3:39:05 AM
Stumbo,
I notice that your comments don't address the theme of the essay, which is to rebut the often heard idea that the quality of education in public schools has drastically declined. Now given the purpose of the essay, the author's statement you quoted supports his position:
"White student reading levels have been stagnant, for example, but
growth in minority scores has closed much of the gap in the last 20
years. The same is true for math and, to a lesser extent, science."
I believe your points have a merit on their own, but they don't seem to argue against what he is arguing for.
Wrt to special education (msg 15): No, schools don't have any control over this. There are now federal laws which mandate what kind of services must be provided. My school, as a matter of fact, has so many special needs kids right now that we are technically not in strict compliance with federal laws (so I am told by the special ed teacher around the lunch table). I agree that both numbers are ridiculously high, but we don't have a choice about spending it. In other words, given the choice of allocating some amount of resources to either teaching 3 average kids calculus, or one mentally-disabled kid to spell "cat," we have to try and educate the mentally-disabled kid to spell cat.
20. Stumbo - 9/26/1999 4:56:49 AM
PD:
I don't have, at my immediate disposal, any proof that public-school education has declined (aside from personal, anecdotal evidence.) However, Rothstein claimed that said education has improved, and I believe I have demonstrated that his essay offers no proof that it has.
So, for the sake of argument, let's amend the conventional wisdom to: "real spending has gone up by almost 20%, yet the quality has not improved." Would you agree with that?
I accept your word that the schools have no say WRT special-ed spending. But aren't the people who push for mandating such spending, at the expense of more societally-beneficial spending on average and bright kids, generally on the same side of the political spectrum as teachers' unions? Why is there not more dissension in the ranks?
21. phillipdavid - 9/26/1999 12:36:31 PM
Stumbo,
Your astute mind has pointed out some flaws in thinking in the essay which I did not pick up on.
I am now interested in looking into the spending issue. (Although, I wish somebody like MsIT would pop in and explain it to me so I wouldn't have to do the research!).
""real spending has gone up by almost 20%, yet the quality has not
improved." Would you agree with that? "
Two things immidiately come to mind: more kids are graduating high school these days, and the rise in minority's test scores --relative to our childhood days. But honestly, there are so many other myriad factors involved thatI don't feel prepared right now to discuss it in overall terms.
The only thing I know for sure is that the quality of public education is improving quite a bit in my middle school relative to what I experienced 30 years ago, and relative to what my son experienced 5 or 6 years ago in my state. And this is because of the institution of state standards (in Oregon). The Standards have focused instruction in a way that ensures kids are learning very specific skills, and they are holding kids and teachers accountable in a way I think is beneficial. (IF you're interested, check out my exposition on Oregon's new education standards here.)
22. phillipdavid - 9/26/1999 12:38:27 PM
"But aren't the people who push for mandating such spending, at the expense of more societally-beneficial spending on average and bright kids, generally on the same side of the political spectrum as teachers' unions? Why is there not more dissension in the ranks?"
I suppose it could be argued that endeavoring to help the mentally disadvantaged is societally beneficial.
There actually has been murmings of dissension, at least in my school. The "politically correct" mindset in recent years has been to integrate low-level achievers into mainstream classrooms, rather than pull them out into "special" programs -- anti-tracking, if you will. And for the first few years I taught nobody questioned this assumed position. But a few teachers and myself quietly (i.e., behind the pricipal's back) started grouping kids together according to abilites a few years ago, and I believe this is the preferred way to go.
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the money spent on disadvantaged kids is federal money, and regular school expenses is state money. Two states in my neck of the woods, Oregon and California, have seen a decline in state revenues devoted to public education due to property-tax cut laws enacted by the political right. So it is not an either-or situation, since much of the funding comes from different sources.
23. ranheim - 9/26/1999 3:47:11 PM
pd
I am a believer in tracking. I am fully aware that it is not pc; but, if handicapped people : mental or physical hold the remainder behind, they should be grouped in a way that does not impare progress of the whole.
24. joezan - 9/26/1999 8:47:55 PM
"White student reading levels have been stagnant, for example, but
growth in minority scores has closed much of the gap in the last 20
years. The same is true for math and, to a lesser extent, science."
I believe statistics such as these are largely useless anymore, unless they are broken down into different minority groups.
If they were, I think we would see that test scores amongst "traditional" minority groups, i.e., Blacks and Hispanics, have not changed all that much, whereas the heavy influx of Asian and Sub-con immigrants, who place a much greater value on education, tend to skew the stats upward.
Before someone asks...no, I don't have the stats, and am relying solely on personal experience in two completely (demographically) different area of the country.
25. joezan - 9/26/1999 9:26:18 PM
....areas of the country.
26. phillipdavid - 9/26/1999 11:35:23 PM
There was a terribly interesting show on PBS this afternoon about mediocrity in public education. It was called The Merrow Report: Teacher Shortages--A False Alarm? Anybody else see it?
I began watching about half way through, and the first thing I saw was a high school English teacher in Georgia misspelling a common word in class. Then he was interviewed by the host, where it was revealed that he was licensed as a middle school gym teacher, not as an English teacher. I was actually embarrassed because this young teacher had no business in a high school English class (he also taught math!), was not very articulate (only made worse by his thick southern accent -- true or not, he really sounded like a dumb country bumpkin), and had nothing intelligent to say.
The next interview was with a middle school science teacher in Oakland, California who was about to quit. She had no running water in her science classroom, no labs, no regular materials either (she lugged a tub of water from an old dirty toilet into her classroom in her attempt to have some sort of lab activity). She was fed up and burned out.
Next, a classroom full of 8th graders were interviewed in the same school who not had a regular math teacher all year. One student attempted to count off the names of the teachers he has seen so far -- and quit after about ten names (one of them the football coach).
The theme of the whole show was the supposed teacher shortage. But, after watching interviews with several highly qualified teachers who had attempted to apply for jobs in that Oakland district, and interviews within the incredibly ineptly run Oakland School District Personnel Office --which mispalced their applications-- and numerous students within the Texas A&M Teacher Education Program, it started to become obvious that there isn't a teacher shortage.
27. phillipdavid - 9/26/1999 11:38:32 PM
But, there are still numerous districts assigning teachers to teach outside their area of expertise.
Interviews at the Texas A&M program revealed that 3 out of 10 graduates decide never to teach after graduation, and then 35% of those who do teach quit within 5 years. An analysis of their teacher education program (one of 1,300 in the country) revealed that they do an incredibly lousy job of preparing would-be teachers to teach well, and this is one of the main reasons so many quit teaching. It turns out that the teacher ed. program is a cash cow for the university, and that it spends roughly 50% of the tuition money on the program -- the rest goes to support the law, business, and medical schools.
And it turns out that the school has a pilot program which is very effective (one out of about 200 such programs in the country) but which costs much more to run, and which doesn't give the professors as much chance to earn tenure by publishing good articles or doing good research. So the school doesn't support that pilot program. About 25% of the ed. majors are enrolled in that program, and the university won't enlarge it because it can't make lots of money off it, and much of the staff doesn't support it because it isn't conducive to their professional interests (earning tenure).
One Stanford professor said that the education system has kept with the Henry Ford assembly line paradigm, assuming that teachers are interchangeable parts in an assembly line. And this is one of the major problems for teachers -- who quit soon because they are miss assigned and not treated with respect or supported --and for kids who have to live through substandard teachers in their classrooms.
28. phillipdavid - 9/26/1999 11:39:41 PM
And President Clinton's call for more money to educate teachers is not the solution. The host used this analogy: If you have a leak in your pool, the solution is not to keep pouring in more water. The solution is to fix it. And we can do that by increasing standards in teacher ed. programs, and by treating teachers as respected professionals. Of course, one of the hallmarks of professionalism is specialization, and if you have poorly trained teachers miss assigned, and therefore doing inept jobs, it is no wonder they aren't treated as professionals.
The bottom line of this program was that the so-called teacher shortage crisis is largely a self-inflicted wound. Tighter standards in teacher ed. programs are necessary, and so are tighter controls on how teachers are assigned what to teach.
29. arkymalarky - 9/26/1999 11:51:14 PM
I think no teacher who's not certified in a subject should be allowed to teach it under any circumstances. If they can't find the math and science teachers to fill the slots, they need to raise their pay. It's much better here than it used to be, but I've seen people teaching over the years who had no business in the classroom, and the kids who had the misfortune of being "taught" by them came away with nothing for that entire year.
I really hate I missed that program. I haven't had the tv on all day.
I don't know if you would agree or disagree with my post, maybe a little of both, but I stuck my neck out in a teacher's thread in TT for the first time. I'm headed for bed, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if someone chops my head off.
30. joezan - 9/26/1999 11:54:31 PM
pd:
At a conference a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk with one of the speakers, a psych prof at MSU, whose wife is the top dog at whatever state education department it is that awards teaching certificates.
This man told me that soon there will be no teaching certification, as such, in this state. As he explained it, this will free up schools in Michigan to hire people who have demonstrated actual, real-life expertise in, say, running a business, to teach business courses. Of course, Educational requirements would still need to be met. In his estimation (and his wife's, btw), this will be the best thing to happen to public education in a long time, as the certification process has done nothing to improve the quality of teachers.
31. arkymalarky - 9/26/1999 11:59:57 PM
In secondary ed here there aren't very many ed courses required. For my husband to have gotten a BS in math as opposed to a BSE he would have had to take only three more math classes. Really, imo, what someone should know before going into teaching could be summed up in two or three courses at most, and probably just one. The courses I did have, though, in no way prepared me for teaching. Practice teaching under a master teacher is the best preparation.
32. joezan - 9/27/1999 12:09:04 AM
arky:
Even including college (and most of what I remember of elementary and HS), the best teachers I've seen have not been certified.
33. Stumbo - 9/27/1999 2:42:04 AM
PD:
"I suppose it could be argued that endeavoring to help the mentally disadvantaged is societally beneficial."
Yes, it is -- but it must, however, be measured against the societal benefits of alternative uses of the same resources: better education for other kids, if we assume a fixed education budget; building more highways or more hospitals (or more nuclear bombs), if we assume a variable ed. budget but a fixed total one; or people being able to buy themselves more yachts or more cars or more canned soup, otherwise. I don't claim to have a definitive answer as to which is preferable. In any case, this is a side issue.
As for the "Big Catch" in your TSE article: I do not object to spending more money on education; I object to spending more money on education in the same way. I don't know how well or how consistently the reforms you describe are being implemented, but they certainly at least sound like a step in the needed direction.
34. arkymalarky - 9/27/1999 7:34:12 AM
Joe,
You mean they didn't degree in the subjects they taught? We allow people to teach who've not gone through the education program in college, but they're supposed to teach in the subject area they majored in. I generally don't think an English major should be teaching math, though every rule has a working exception, I suppose.
35. DanDillon - 9/27/1999 8:18:07 AM
Glad to see many familiar "faces." I'm tardy because of my work load this year. I'm new to my district, and all of those New Faculty meetings are really getting to me. arky already said it: I, too, hate when the extra bulk in teaching gets in the way of teaching.
36. arkymalarky - 9/27/1999 6:14:25 PM
Hey, Dan! Great to see you! When you get time I'd love to read an elaboration on your post. What kind of load do you have? How does your situation compare to your previous one?
37. arkymalarky - 9/27/1999 6:20:26 PM
This is 38. arkymalarky - 9/27/1999 6:22:08 PM Crap. Try again. now? 39. phillipdavid - 9/27/1999 10:49:35 PM Thanks for the diary thread, Arky. I plan to give an abbreviated, but fairly precise account of my time in school, and I'm anxious to look back on it in a few weeks to get some perspective. We all need a little distance to gain perspective sometimes, and maybe this diary will allow others to get a fresh perspective on an 8th grade Language Arts/U.S. History/Literature/Speech teacher's work life. 40. moonflower - 9/27/1999 10:57:54 PM Sometimes I wonder why so many academics are generally dissatisfied and ego-bound. I suppose it's true of any profession, but academics often seem to people worth running away from. It's not the teaching, really; it's the clashing of hate egos in the faculty. One teacher I know when asked why academics fight so fiercely said "It's because the stakes are so small." 41. SpenceMirrlees - 9/27/1999 11:29:38 PM I have noticed a relationship between the existence of an agreed upon standard of good work in an academic field and the extent of the contumely exchanged among its practitioners. 42. SpenceMirrlees - 9/27/1999 11:30:49 PM (I presume you didn't mean "academics" to mean primary and secondary teachers, but maybe that's wrong.) 43. arkymalarky - 9/28/1999 8:27:05 AM Hmm. I've always had a good working relationship with my peers, but have heard many stories to the contrary, both in other districts and within my own. I do think that where there is a problem ego often plays a part, and that bugs me from the gitgo for teachers to focus on themselves and the impression they're making, placing that over the kids and their jobs. 44. Dantheman - 9/28/1999 8:49:03 AM Good morning all! 45. Dusty - 9/28/1999 9:07:17 AM Dantheman 46. moonflower - 9/28/1999 11:26:52 AM So much energy that could be put to bettering a department or group gets sucked up by egos, hates, and agendas. The intrigues and infighting often take precedence over the educating, the classroom essentially something to do between intrigues. This is not true everywhere, of course, but in many places, I believe it to be the case. 47. joezan - 9/28/1999 3:55:36 PM 48. arkymalarky - 9/28/1999 5:29:44 PM Joe, 49. JonesAtLaw - 9/28/1999 5:47:10 PM To me, home schooling makes as much sense as home doctoring. If Mom or Dad's a M.D. then it might be ok, but lots of docs I know prefer not to work on their familiy alone. I feel the same way about education. There are advantages to parental teaching, but I think you can get much of the advantages by teaching your children as enrichment to that done in school, and by actively participating in your child's school. 50. arkymalarky - 9/28/1999 5:55:11 PM This young man's social life was nil, of course, and it began to wear on him. I think some of his social problems were what made him want to quit in the first place, but I'm not sure since I got in on the program late. They were definitely what made him go back, though. If I could have dropped out in 8th or 9th grade because of social problems, I'd probably be living in a cave to this day...which does have a certain appeal on occasion. 51. DanDillon - 9/28/1999 9:54:27 PM I agree with Jonsey. While home schooling isn't exactly like taking an unsure scalpel to your kid, it does strike me as socially damaging. I suppose it's only becoming more popular nowadays, what with the Scourge of Violence in American Public Schools that Symbolizes Nothing Less than the Great Educational Boogie Man. My sister-in-law-to-be is seriously considering home schooling her daugter, and I haven't figured out a way to gently and slyly dissuade her. Children, especially ECE kids, need to begin building their social muscles in the early grades. Some child makes up a game, the rules don't work, mutiny, the game shifts, kids recognize value of collective input and compromise. At home, mommy and daddy rule. 52. phillipdavid - 9/28/1999 10:29:36 PM Dan, 53. Stumbo - 9/28/1999 11:51:35 PM Leno: 54. joezan - 9/29/1999 12:18:09 AM 55. joezan - 9/29/1999 12:37:50 AM 56. DanDillon - 9/29/1999 9:09:16 AM To be interacted upon? So the vast home schooling movement has arisen out of the culture of victimization? What notion is this? Such language! Your wife makes a good point in learning how to deal with the majority of the population, unpleasant as they are. 57. joezan - 9/29/1999 9:37:08 AM 58. Buck Mulligan - 9/29/1999 10:49:01 AM Hi all. I'm new here, and I thought I'd chime in on the home schooling issue. For background purposes, I'm not a parent, I teach at the college level, and I know two families who home school. 59. JonesAtLaw - 9/29/1999 12:24:13 PM I am no longer a certified teacher, but once was. If I were to seriously consider home schooling, I would be confident that I could sucessfully teach my child the subjects I was once endorsed in. I probably could handle some of the other courses I was not endorsed in, English, basic math, etc. However, I would be at sea to teach him French, or Chemistry or many other subjects that I passed in high school. There is something more to teaching a subject than mastery of the material. There are techniques that one learns from other teachers, and sometimes from teacher's college that make a difference. I recall my eighth grade German teacher trying to teach us how to pronounce certain sounds in German. Specifically the o-umlaut sound. I tried and failed. I faked it for years with a terrible accent. My instructor was a native speaker who picked up an English degree and certification to teach Enlglish. She was shoved into German because she was a native speaker. In five minutes in college, my instructor showed us how to pronounce the necessary sounds by using specific examples from English words or straightforward directions. He had us hold our mouths in the shape we would use to make an long o sound in Enlglish and try to say long e. Bingo o-umlaut in German! This is the stuff that truly effective teachers are made of. Home schooling forces the instructor to learn all of these tools for all of the subjects. A dautning task to be sure. 60. Buck Mulligan - 9/29/1999 1:00:57 PM I think that the hardest part of home schooling would be teaching the most basic material. For example, I never think about how to read, and I have no idea how I would explain it to a child. And there is no way I could teach basic math. I can barely manage to explain algebra. If I had to talk about addition and subtraction I don't know what I would do. 61. joezan - 9/29/1999 2:06:19 PM 62. JonesAtLaw - 9/29/1999 2:48:32 PM Joezan- I know you can knock the rust off your knowledge, but what I was trying to get at was something deeper. There are tricks, techniques and methodology that one learns in teaching a subject which go beyond the material, and some are unique to the subject. If you teach that subject frequently, you retain and master these techniques. If you are constantly doing things for the first or second time, you're less likely to be as effective. 63. CalGal - 9/29/1999 4:46:03 PM Buck 64. JonesAtLaw - 9/29/1999 5:23:47 PM Buck- Yes, welcome!!! I agree with you that teaching some of the basics can be difficult. Although there is plenty of literature on the subject, there is no academic agreement on just how children learn to read. How then, can people without training hope to do better than someone with the training in theory and practice. I compared it to home doctoring. A more fair comparison would be having medical students practice medicine without any clinical training or methods courses. You take anatomy etc. and start in on surgery without ever having instruction in just how one goes about taking out an appendix. You know why it needs to come out, and where it is, and what the instruments are, but have never done it. 65. arkymalarky - 9/29/1999 5:26:41 PM I have several problems with home schooling, at least as it seems to work here. The school is responsible for providing all materials, there is little to no monitoring besides standardized tests, and I've seen people who have no business with their kids after school, much less being around them all day, home schooling. Younger kids are one thing, and I've known one or two parents who've home schooled their younger kids, though the one I remember specifically had a degree in education. Older ones I know, however, go to public school functions such as ballgames, and socialize with the public school kids, so the point of their home schooling (and at least one is for religious reasons) is beyond me. Their kids are getting exposed to the same public school values and ways and people at these functions--sometimes worse--as they would be at school. If parents don't have a network, it's going to be very difficult for their children to get any socialization, which is often the case in small communities where few parents make the choice to home school. 66. CalGal - 9/29/1999 5:43:38 PM I just had an annoying thing happen. Some background: 67. CalGal - 9/29/1999 5:46:12 PM So this year, I'd been monitoring him. He seemed happy, was always focusing on his homework and grades, and seemed to be doing well. 68. CalGal - 9/29/1999 5:50:51 PM "Then--and I want you to be extremely clear about this next part--I want you to tell them all that I am very angry that they have put Spawn out of class and not notified me. I suggest they radically improve their communication process and not notify the parent only when they're concerned about his grades. I also suggest that they consider the fact that Spawn's grades coming home have all been excellent, and I will not take kindly any attempt to down"grade" him just on behavior." 69. CalGal - 9/29/1999 5:52:07 PM As an open plaint--why the hell do they pull shit like this? How on earth can they send kids out of class and not tell the parents--and then have the fucking audacity to call a parent teacher conference to inform me that they're worried about his grades? Idiocy. And yet this happens at least once every single year. 70. ChristiPeters - 9/29/1999 6:08:31 PM CalGal - 71. ChristiPeters - 9/29/1999 6:09:54 PM CalGal -BTW, a big pat on the back from me too, for not killing the messenger. Sometimes that is very hard to do when you are upset. 72. CalGal - 9/29/1999 6:21:22 PM Christi, 73. ranheim - 9/29/1999 7:00:06 PM At 64 I still cannot understand people in the school system who say to me "but you have to meet all kinds in order that you learn how to deal with "it" successfully". I have always asked WHY. 74. arkymalarky - 9/29/1999 7:09:56 PM "None of the three had a very active social life in high school and my wife and I were delighted! We wanted no part of one of ours marrying young." 75. DanDillon - 9/29/1999 7:18:14 PM On home schooling: While a teacher training program isn't always the most rigorous (or worthwhile) 18 months in a person's life, there is something to be said for an individual who is equipped with the tools to teach. Frankly, it worries me a great deal to see someone advocating home schooling on the basis of being able to "teach my child...from a book." Teaching, though varied and complex, is rarely if ever built between two bound cardboard plates. And despite the fact that most of the home schooler's work comes from an established curriculum, one still must know the difference between your and you're. 76. Rick Nowood - 9/29/1999 7:20:12 PM Hi, CalGal. Good to hear that you and Spawn are healthy, wealthy, and wise. No? Well, hell, two out of three ain't bad. 77. ranheim - 9/29/1999 7:26:29 PM arky 78. arkymalarky - 9/29/1999 7:39:13 PM Rick, 79. DanDillon - 9/29/1999 7:55:41 PM Though study after study has been done, there is no research that indicates a correlation between high standardized test scores and future financial success. 80. Rick Nowood - 9/29/1999 8:00:05 PM What do you mean by that? WHAT do you mean by that? What do you MEAN by that? 81. phillipdavid - 9/29/1999 8:12:11 PM Maybe the really intelligent people know better than to spend their energy chasing money. 82. CalGal - 9/29/1999 8:13:57 PM No, more likely the very intelligent people know that there's no point spending money on the prep test to get an 800 instead of a 750. 83. phillipdavid - 9/29/1999 8:35:31 PM In 6 or 7 years of teaching, I have run across probably 10 kids who have rentered the public school system after a period of homeschooling. Most were severly lacking in basic skills, such as reading and writing, and a few were lacking functional or effective social skills. The "successes" (2 of them) were incredible successes and top notch people. In all cases, the quality of these students as students mirrored what I believed I saw in their parents. That is, the two successes had very talented parents who had been top notch students themselves. 84. pseudoerasmus - 9/29/1999 8:41:57 PM PD's #83 seems sensible. Bertrand Russell was homeschooled all his life before he entered Cambridge University. It is said he managed to make jokes in Ancient Greek by age 4. But not everyone has Russell's parents & grandparents. 85. Angel-Five - 9/29/1999 8:52:29 PM Of course there's a reason to get an 800 over a 750. If you could pay for that people would beat the doors down on Kaplan and other smaller courses. It is the difference between a sure scholarship and one you might not get; it's the difference between getting into a prestigious slot and having to take the second best option. The thing is that you can't buy those last hundred or so points. I am tempted to agree with Felipe except that in my experience really intelligent people aren't any wiser than anyone else, and it's only the wise who manage to get past money. If I knew the secret to ignore money, besides just not making any in the first place, then I'd be much happier. 86. pseudoerasmus - 9/29/1999 8:55:03 PM "I am tempted to agree with Felipe except that in my experience really intelligent people aren't any wiser than anyone else..." 87. arkymalarky - 9/29/1999 9:01:52 PM Cal, 88. Rick Nowood - 9/29/1999 10:17:47 PM The universe is full of trade offs. If I loved money as much as I love science fiction, I'd probably be rich. If I had loved my wife as much as I love money, I'd probably still be married. If I loved sleep as much as I love conversation, I'd go to bed. I do know this. I'd rather be rich than poor, rather be smart that stupid, rather be wise than foolish, rather be loved that be alone. 89. CalGal - 9/29/1999 10:55:10 PM It is the difference between a sure scholarship and one you might not get; it's the difference between getting into a prestigious slot and having to take the second best option. 90. CalGal - 9/29/1999 11:02:10 PM Arky, 91. JonesAtLaw - 9/29/1999 11:17:55 PM CalGal- Do you expect every person in a work setting to send you notes as individuals when you deal with a computer problem, or is a meeting with a department head enough? I sympathize with your preference for notes from teachers, but wonder if some flexibility is in order. I am not sure if what the teachers want is an ambush, but if they do, they are sadly mistaken. In any event they should appreciate a parent who will support them in their efforts to address the problem, many don't. I'm sure that many teachers get the response "we can't do anything with him/her at home either...." Good luck. 92. joezan - 9/29/1999 11:31:55 PM 93. CalGal - 9/29/1999 11:32:18 PM Jones, 94. DanDillon - 9/30/1999 8:46:51 AM joezan, 95. DanDillon - 9/30/1999 8:47:25 AM d) One is fully aware of the difference between your and you're, but one also realizes that one is not in a spelling bee here, and doesn't bother to ever preview his posts unless they contain some dangerous html explosives. One also assumes that intelligent contributors to this forum do not pick out a misspelled word as an indication of another poster's intelligence. 96. DanDillon - 9/30/1999 8:52:36 AM Further: 97. ChristiPeters - 9/30/1999 10:12:38 AM CalGal - I kinda figured you had a good reason. I hadn't thought about it, but you are right to not want to set up expectations. I hope you get results with Spawn's teachers now. 98. DanDillon - 9/30/1999 10:42:12 AM Too bad we can't identify all the good schools and transplant what makes them good into other schools. 99. JonesAtLaw - 9/30/1999 4:16:01 PM CalGal- this suggestion may be worth exactly what you paid for it (g), but consider some form of two way communication with Spawn's teachers if problems persist. I wish that I would have had more of it when I was teaching. I remember writing a note home to parents once about a childs grades in a nose dive. It turns out that this lovely 13 year old was having a hell of a time dealing with her parents in the throes of a nasty divorce. It nearly became fodder for the custody fight. I wished I would have just called earlier, with a general inquiry. OTOH I had about 90 kids to keep track of... 100. ranheim - 9/30/1999 4:28:15 PM Those teachers/profs that gave you a "hand out" at the beginning of the class - then read it to you drove me to drink. And if it was a class that I could leave, I usually got up, left, and looked for a beer. 101. CalGal - 9/30/1999 4:35:50 PM Jones, 102. JonesAtLaw - 9/30/1999 4:40:29 PM CalGal- What you propose is reasonable. 103. CalGal - 9/30/1999 5:03:14 PM Jones, 104. ChristiPeters - 9/30/1999 11:09:05 PM CalGal - 105. joezan - 9/30/1999 11:21:46 PM 106. joezan - 9/30/1999 11:22:51 PM 107. arkymalarky - 9/30/1999 11:32:47 PM Had a rep from AR School of Math and Science speak to the students today. It's really an impressive sounding place. We've had a few attend in the past and do well. The graduating class of 95 last year got over $8 million in scholarships, and their average ACT score was 28.4. Any student can apply to attend, they get a balance throughout the state, and all room and board is paid for. Their maximum allowed is 250 students, juniors and seniors. Parents are out minor expenses which the rep said amounts to about $250. Almost all the teachers have Masters or PhDs, and they have state-of-the-art technology and equipment. Students live in dorms during the week and go home on weekends and holidays, though they can stay some weekends if they like. 108. joezan - 9/30/1999 11:47:01 PM 109. arkymalarky - 9/30/1999 11:54:52 PM Actually, 60% of them chose to go in state, if I understood her correctly. UofA has a Chancellor's scholarship which pays everything with money left over, and there are other schools which offer excellent scholarships to top students. My husband's nephew, who made a perfect score on his SAT in math, chose UofA over Yale, which would take him but would not pay any scholarships not based on financial need. 110. arkymalarky - 9/30/1999 11:56:40 PM BTW, there were Ivy League schools and more than one MIT scholarship in that number. I saw a list somewhere, probably this summer when I went to an AP institute there. 111. joezan - 9/30/1999 11:59:43 PM 112. arkymalarky - 10/1/1999 12:05:15 AM Yeah, I told the rep we'd be a lot more enthusiastic about sending our kids there if we could keep their scores on our records. They top every school in the state, and when students from small schools like ours go there it can really affect our averages. The ones we've sent have really benefited, though. 113. arkymalarky - 10/1/1999 12:06:17 AM I say we've sent, but that's not at all true. It's entirely up to the student and parents whether or not to go. 114. JonesAtLaw - 10/1/1999 11:30:17 AM Has anyone heard about a trangender teacher in California being fired for their sex change? I understand that 4 families complained, and that the teacher has been discharged. It was reported that the teacher had good evaluations in the past, hasn't done anything to violate the morals clause of the contract etc. He notified the district that when he returned for the fall semester, he would be a she. She returned to be fired. 115. ChristiPeters - 10/1/1999 11:43:41 AM Assuming all the facts are as you have presented them in regards to ...the teacher had good evaluations in the past, hasn't done anything to violate the morals clause of the contract etc..., my personal opinion is that this is wrong. The teacher should not have been fired and I hope she fights it. 116. JonesAtLaw - 10/1/1999 11:58:28 AM ChristiPeters- I agree, but all I know is snippets from a talk radio show. It is an interesting issue. I can understand some parents trepidation in dealing with the issue. However, what I know of gender change operations, they are not done lightly. There is a good deal of psychological examination done prior to any operation, and not everyone seeking the operation gets it. If the mental health professionals say this is appropriate treatment, and the medical professionals say its appropriate, then I don't think we should penalize someone for following the advice of their physicians. 117. ranheim - 10/1/1999 6:45:07 PM Jones 118. phillipdavid - 10/1/1999 8:50:06 PM Anyone read my diary linked to in the butterscotch bar of this thread? A fairly typical week in my life as an 8th grade teacher. 119. arkymalarky - 10/2/1999 12:11:55 AM PD, 120. joezan - 10/2/1999 7:39:44 AM 121. joezan - 10/2/1999 8:23:32 AM 122. joezan - 10/2/1999 8:24:16 AM 123. phillipdavid - 10/2/1999 11:30:04 AM Arky and Joe, 124. phillipdavid - 10/2/1999 11:31:38 AM Bottom line is that my method is pretty efficient -- the state scoring guide really helps because it focuses their effort and my feedback on very specific writing traits, and gives the students extremely clear feedback. I only grade maybe 7 or 8 essays per student in LA class per year (I also grade many more per student in Literature class, so each student of mine will have about 15 essays graded per year by me, plus all the short, little essays they write in the history tests). For about three moths -- November through February -- I take home essays to grade for LA class. 125. phillipdavid - 10/2/1999 11:32:26 AM Before we switched to the A/B schedule last year, I had block class every day, and block class included Literature/Speech. So I had about 45 student each day, and I taught those students four subjects each day I about 2 and 1/2 hours. I prefer that schedule. And only having 45-50 kids to teach is a whole lot saner than having 150 kids marching through my door each day. I really don't know why all schools don't work with some sort of block schedule or another. Having 6-7 classes each day, with about 150-180 kids each day, grading 150-180 essays or history or lit assignments would definitely lead to a quick burn out. It is sadistic! 126. arkymalarky - 10/2/1999 11:52:44 AM My husband teaches with a 90 min daily block of three classes and a prep and he loves it. If his school didn't put so much on teachers outside the classroom his situation would be perfect. His basic schedule and load are really nice. 127. phillipdavid - 10/2/1999 12:23:22 PM Arky, 128. arkymalarky - 10/2/1999 1:56:10 PM Block only refers to time here, afaik, and it is definitely a growing trend. The only school I know that integrates courses is ASMS and they don't do it with math, which I believe would be a mistake. The reason my husband likes it as a math teacher is that there's much more thinking time and time to help students understand difficult concepts and work with them, even though they leave at semester, and they stay more mentally fresh having the course for a semester. They can also fit in more math before graduation. 129. phillipdavid - 10/2/1999 2:58:32 PM Arky, 130. arkymalarky - 10/2/1999 3:19:38 PM Thanks for the study, PD. I'll have to take some time to look at it more closely. It seems it should be fairly easy for any school to compare their students' performance with and without block scheduling, since it's still fairly new and the past students' scores and grades from both regular and block for many years back are very accessible. 131. DanDillon - 10/2/1999 8:12:34 PM I work at a school with a half-block arrangement. It's a very unintelligent design, as far as I'm concerned, and it reeks of experimentalism. We have "regular" 7-period days on Mon., Tues., and Wed., and then we have an extended "block" schedule on Thurs. (periods 2, 4 & 6 + "academic resource time") and Fri. (periods 1, 3, 5 & 7). These last two days of the week are not used for interdisciplinary work, as pd rightly suggests longer periods might be used, but instead teachers generally treat them as two "regular" periods lumped together. 132. DanDillon - 10/2/1999 8:14:45 PM Of course, there are countless things that go on at my building that I'm extremely grateful for.... 133. arkymalarky - 10/2/1999 9:37:29 PM I hate the control freak mentality of some school administrations, especially when it's obvious that what they're doing is designed to appear forward-thinking and "proactive"(don't you love that word? We hear it a lot from the state ed dept), yet policies are more difficult to follow, more time consuming, and less efficient, and there's no apparent rhyme or reason to them. Often they change from year to year leaving teachers and students frustrated and confused. One reason I've stayed where I have so long is that the administration there has more common sense than anywhere else I've worked, and it's reflected in the fact that our standardized test scores are generally higher than any school in the area and our kids are really good. We have problems, and there are things we need to work on and change, but the basic approach is sound and has served a relatively poor and very small community well. 134. phillipdavid - 10/3/1999 12:26:28 PM Dan 135. arkymalarky - 10/3/1999 4:08:59 PM Well, I have to take back what I said my husband felt about block scheduling wrt math. That was last year when he first tried it. Today I was talking to him about it and our discussion in here, and he feels a lot differently about how good it is for the students, because he said he can't fit in what they need in a semester and any days missed hurt more than in a year long class. He still likes it for selfish reasons, but he agrees it's not good for students, and what he thought were plusses haven't really benefited the kids that he can see. 136. ChristiPeters - 10/3/1999 9:51:30 PM Are any of you familiar with "Future Problem Soving"? 137. arkymalarky - 10/3/1999 10:06:22 PM I'm familiar with it. They compete as part of enrichment a lot in AR. I don't really know anything specific about it, though. 138. Angel-Five - 10/3/1999 10:12:20 PM Would you, or would you not, send your child to a Montessori school if you had the chance to do so for free? 139. CalGal - 10/3/1999 10:15:19 PM What does "free" have to do with it? Or are you just removing money as a consideration? 140. ChristiPeters - 10/3/1999 10:18:26 PM arkymalarky - 141. ChristiPeters - 10/3/1999 10:27:57 PM Well, that was hard. Here is their overview: 142. ChristiPeters - 10/3/1999 10:29:07 PM I guess I should look first and ask last. I still would like the viewpoint of some educators out there on the value of this program. 143. ChristiPeters - 10/3/1999 10:30:47 PM hmmmm... 144. ChristiPeters - 10/3/1999 10:31:32 PM that's better. 145. ChristiPeters - 10/5/1999 10:06:32 AM ok, never mind 146. phillipdavid - 10/5/1999 10:39:26 PM Added a few words about the parent conferences I had yesterday and today in my diary (see link in this thread's butterscotch bar). 147. phillipdavid - 10/5/1999 10:40:49 PM Christi, 148. ChristiPeters - 10/6/1999 9:15:45 AM phillipdavid - 149. ChristiPeters - 10/8/1999 10:02:32 AM geeeez... 150. phillipdavid - 10/8/1999 12:02:11 PM I have been posting n my diary, Christi. 151. phillipdavid - 10/8/1999 12:06:17 PM I am currently enjoying a non-contract day. Got to sleep in 'till 7:30 this morning. 152. arkymalarky - 10/8/1999 7:11:50 PM Must be nice, PD. Just wait until I get my deer day! 153. joezan - 10/9/1999 8:16:49 AM 154. joezan - 10/9/1999 8:35:00 AM 155. joezan - 10/9/1999 9:01:30 AM 156. joezan - 10/9/1999 9:13:32 AM 157. phillipdavid - 10/9/1999 11:46:33 AM Average daily attendance. 158. PsychProf - 10/11/1999 2:29:03 PM 159. ChristiPeters - 10/11/1999 2:40:35 PM PsychProf - 160. Buck Mulligan - 10/12/1999 10:56:16 AM I'm not sure that parents should be told about disciplinary issues. If the situation was critical, for example if a drug problem was threatening a student's health, then perhaps it's time to contact the family. Even then I would expect the student to give consent first. College students are adults and should be treated as adults. 161. CalGal - 10/12/1999 6:36:42 PM I don't think parents should be told, period. It really doesn't matter if they are paying or not--that's their choice to pay, given that their kid is over the age of 18. 162. PsychProf - 10/13/1999 10:49:10 AM Cal...what if the morgue "notifies" the parents...what do I say for myself if I was aware of a situation that put the student at serious risk and then cited the law as a cover for my secretive position. For me the case is this...if I determine the student is at risk, and this is my call, I do what I can to help. The law can do what it wants to me... 163. wabbit - 10/13/1999 11:00:49 AM Cal, 164. Buck Mulligan - 10/13/1999 1:19:29 PM I'm not sure if this is an area where the law has much to say. We are not talking about releasing legally privileged information. And quite frankly, I would not release legally privileged information. 165. PsychProf - 10/13/1999 1:49:48 PM Buck...did you read the link? Please comment on "drugs or alcohol"...and variations of problems within. EG...you know a student uses cocaine and or heroine(i.e. speedballs)....not "caught yet"...turn the cheek as a Prof?...would you want to know as a parent? 166. CalGal - 10/13/1999 2:04:15 PM Wabbit--age is the determining factor. Although if I were a 16-year-old going to college, I'd probably do what I could to be declared--what is that called? Legal independent? Independent minor? I forget. 167. PsychProf - 10/13/1999 2:10:51 PM Cal...I fully understand that I open myself up to legal scantions if I try to help someone in my way....no good deed goes unpunished. It is just very hard for me to look the other way for a "young" person....I just see a "teen" in the age and this is different than 26, at least for me. 168. Buck Mulligan - 10/13/1999 2:12:52 PM I read the link. It's not clear to me that you did from your last post. 169. PsychProf - 10/13/1999 2:24:39 PM Buck...I not only read the link, but I live it on a daily basis. So, fuck you to. I simply wanted to discuss the issue with those interested. Clearly, the easy answer is to suggest health services to the student, and go home. 170. CalGal - 10/13/1999 2:33:04 PM Prof, 171. Buck Mulligan - 10/13/1999 2:34:16 PM Then you know very well that a student who is having problems with alcohol or other drugs can only be helped if he or she chooses to accept the help. 172. Buck Mulligan - 10/13/1999 2:37:59 PM Also, why are college students different than young people who do not go to college? Some things are obvious. When you live in a dorm, the institution that runs the dorm can set reasonable rules for you. I don't think contacting your family every time there is a problem is reasonable. 173. CalGal - 10/13/1999 2:41:44 PM Here is a suggestion: 174. CalGal - 10/13/1999 2:42:44 PM Actually, a better solution. Anytime the person who is financially responsible is not the student, regardless of age, the form must be signed. Yes, I like that better. 175. PsychProf - 10/13/1999 2:43:22 PM Buck...for sure that is too far. Cal...I understand that my own motivations may actually do more harm than good. I have to make a call here and my call is to do whatever I can to help...for me, the wrath of a privacy adherent is better than the responsibilty ignored for the quality of student life.BTW... I an not a missionary...I am talking about legit situations(yes...my call) that parents would clearly want to know about. 176. Buck Mulligan - 10/13/1999 2:47:25 PM Cal, 177. PsychProf - 10/13/1999 2:50:35 PM In case you are worried that college student privacy is being attacked....don't. Very few, beyond lip service... care about the students...and we have plenty of laws to hide behind. Teach and go home...fuck'em...it's their problem. But fail to pay tuition and you will see the gears of academia spring into action... 178. CalGal - 10/13/1999 2:52:34 PM PP, 179. Buck Mulligan - 10/13/1999 3:02:50 PM Well, I'll accept that it's not completely unreasonable for a student to waive some privacy rights in return for receiving money. I received scholarships from a number of sources. It was a condition of most of the scholarships that I had to make satisfactory academic progress in order to have the scholarships renewed. But a disciplinary violation does not necesarily threaten academic progress. So I'll agree that a parent or other party can set some conditions when they're handing out money, but they may be less strict than notification of every event. 180. CalGal - 10/13/1999 3:12:49 PM Buck, 181. ChristiPeters - 10/13/1999 5:28:24 PM CalGal - I like your solution. 182. CalGal - 10/13/1999 5:31:16 PM Christi, 183. ChristiPeters - 10/13/1999 5:35:53 PM Naw, much too sensible. 184. ranheim - 10/13/1999 6:07:18 PM Could this be generational? 185. CalGal - 10/13/1999 6:12:19 PM Ran, 186. Buck Mulligan - 10/14/1999 8:30:19 AM My perspective is different. I spent four years in the army before I went to college. If I had died, the army would not have told my parents unless I had specifically arranged for it. I expected, and received, the same treatment when I went to college. Well, the same treatment with respect to notifying my parents, not the same treatment in general. 187. ranheim - 10/14/1999 10:26:24 AM Cal
Not nearly a perfect relationship, but a relationship. There was that whole David Baltimore fracas -- that got pretty vituperative, and that's biology and biochemistry. Feynman and Gell-Mann were definitely rivals at Caltech, but Gell-Mann is rivals with everyone.
In that sort of case I think the egos get involved because the people involved have always been the smartest and best no matter where they went. The attitude that they should be both helped them get where they are, and is reinforced by continued success.
But, when a universal standard of good work is lacking in a discipline, tenure cases get very bitter because it's hard to say whether it's deserved. As a result the opposing sides stake out a position, and for strategic purposes increase the volume of their claims because they can never convince the other side about their substance.
Particular departments also take on a particular brand, which leads to deep struggles during times of change, as well as much sniping between members of the many different camps.
I have heard "because the stakes are so small," which I guess is supposed to be a joke, but doesn't really ring true. Academics don't exactly consider the stakes small. And in many cases they really aren't -- a valued colleague's, or one's own, job may be on the line. Moreover, plenty of occupations have very small stakes yet are not characterized by the squabbling of academia.
There's a certain type of teacher whom I don't really have time to describe right now, but whom I can hardly stand working with. In a nutshell, it's the all flash and no substance variety who often gets the attention of administrators but who really doesn't put much content in the work and often actually takes advantage of other teachers by shifting more menial tasks to them and getting the best classes through adept use of politics. Many times I've seen this type leave the classroom for an administrative position or a job in the state ed dept. The classroom is really for them just a rung on the ladder.
I see a contrast between the discussion here and one I tried with little success (thankfully, in retrospect) to get involved in in TT, and some of it reflects the difference I see in teachers who work together well and those who have trouble communicating irl.
BTW, there's a different problem sometimes between elementary, middle, and high school and/or from dept to dept, where teachers play the blame game or have different perspectives of education which result in conflict rather than cooperation...i.e. what subject or grade level or dept is going to get more attention, money, etc. This has been occurring here between math and English (my husband says if they emphasize writing across the curriculum, they should do the same for math, since math scores are much lower than English scores statewide), and between athletics and virtually everything else.
I heard a piece on NPR this morning about the Colorado Springs School District's proposal to make the extent of a tax increase dependent upon improvements in test scores. The commentator felt this was likely to grow as a method of getting voters to approve tax increases. I suspect this will be rejected as just a gimmick. Any thoughts?
I heard that show.
The Realaudio link isn't live yet, but it may be here when it is.
Here is the summary:
Aaron Schachter (SHACK-ter) of Colorado Public Radio reports on two Colorado school districts, which are offering voters an incentive for raising their own property taxes. Administrators in Colorado Springs and Jefferson County, Colorado, are promising to raise the overall reading and math scores of their students on standardized tests, in return for more tax revenue to make educational improvements.
I think it will put undue pressure on teaching to standardized tests, also I think there is some merit in the general idea.
arky - #34:
No...they'll still need to be degreed in their particular area of expertise. As the prof explained, probably the greatest source for good teachers under the new requirements will be those who need to fill the gap years between retirement and SS.
They're degreed, with 20, 25, 30 years of practical experience behind them. They've got 5-10 years till they begin collecting SS. They're looking to supplement their retirement, so the starting pay won't kill them.
Unlike some recent college grad, they've got a stable work history, and will most likely stick around awhile, but not long enough to earn the big bucks, or to earn tenure. It's the perfect deal, imo.
We're talking about different things, then. I don't have any problem with that; on the contrary, I think it's a really good idea, especially in subject areas where it's hard to keep qualified people in the classroom, like math and science.
PD, (#39)
You're welcome. Thanks for doing it! It's been a while since I've had 8th graders, so I'll enjoy reading it and looking for similarities and differences in our experiences.
Interesting All Things Considered today on the way home. A young teen boy's diary as he goes through deciding to leave school in the 8th grade to be home schooled and then decides to go back. I didn't catch it all, but it sounded like it covered a span of three years or so.
Of course, the consequences of home schooling go well beyong the social.
What is ECE?
"According to a recent study, only one quarter of American schoolchildren can read and write at their grade level.
On the bright side, this has really cut down on the problem of kids passing notes in class."
Dan:
You seem to assume either that:
a) Home schooled kids do not socialize, or...
b) School is the sole source of socialization for kids in general.
...both of which are wrong.
I have to wonder, seriously, if you actually know any families who home school?
My wife and I know quite a few. Some are terrible at it, and should really give it up. Most (those who have gone into it with alot of research and preparation), are quite good at it. I can assure you, however, that in all cases the kids get plenty of socialization.
As I write this, my wife and I are researching the possibility of home schooling our two children. And, when the time comes a little over two years from now that we will have to make the decision whether or not to do it, I'm quite confident, from what I've seen, that socialization will not even be an issue.
In researching print and on-line home schooling publications, we've discovered that nearly every one of them discusses - even offers lesson plans for - group home schooling activities.
(...cont'd from #54):
In fact, a couple we talked to noted enthusiastically that one of the most beneficial aspects of home schooling is that the kids aren't forced to interact with (or be "interacted" upon by) kids they would not normally choose to interact with, and that the effect this has on stress and anxiety levels is almost immediately apparent.
Of course, my wife's and my reaction to this was, "Well, isn't it kind of, ummm......natural, to be forced to be around unpleasant people? And, consequently, to learn to deal with them?
"Only if you believe that it's more "natural" for a child to be away from his/her parents for 6 - 8 hours a day."
pd,
ECE = Early Childhood Education
Dan:
Actually, by "interacted upon" (an intentional malapropism, btw), I was referring to all of the (admittedly inevitable and unavoidable) distractions which are part and parcel of the school experience. And you will notice that I wrote "...my wife's and my reaction..."
But I don't think "inevitable and unavoidable" mean "necessary".
In any case, no, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that the reason they home school their children is that it protects them from unpleasant people. The couple I mentioned referred to that as a previously un-realized benefit.
The reasons for home schooling are varied, although most of the people I've spoken to have done so for religious reasons (a reason I don't necessarily agree with, btw). Nevertheless, their children appear extremely well-adjusted to me. The ones I deemed terrible at it are, I think, just not very good teachers, and I fear their children will suffer academically.
At first glance, I thought home schooling seemed like a bad idea, at least in most circumstances. I would not choose to home school my children. But I did do a little investigation on the topic, and I discovered a few things.
I have not found any studies which show that home schooled children do better or worse academically than children in conventional schools. In fact, I don't think that many studies have been done, and there are probably not enough children being home schooled upon whom to gather sufficient data. Notice, however, that I have not found studies. Some may exist that I have not seen.
The parents I know who home school cooperate with other home schooling parents to do group activities. Socially, their kids seem to get almost as much opportunity to interact with others as do children who attend small schools. One difference is that children at traditional schools do get to spend time away from their parents. This may be good or bad. I don't know. The children I know who are being home schooled are of elementary and middle school age. I wonder what their social lives will be like when they reach high school age.
I used to assume that traditional schools were the normal setting for education, and I didn't see why parents would choose to do something different. I have realized that there is nothing sacred about traditional schools. If parents want to home school, and if they can do a decent job of it, I think that's fine. As I said, I would not choose to do it, but I think it's a valid choice.
Jones:
My wife and I have been told that that's a very common misconception about Home Schooling. It was one of our chief concerns, in part because I'm one of those people who just do not retain any advanced math. Right now, I could not possibly sit here and even attempt to teach someone algebra. But a few months ago, when I was taking a programming class, I did just fine, because I had the book in front of me. Could I teach my child algebra from a book? I think so.
What you have to remember is, your working from a curriculum in most cases.
I agree that there are advantages to home schooling. You are likely to know your child better in most ways than the teacher; their strengths, weaknesses and their habits. However, there is the problem of objectivity. My parents were both in teaching when I was a child. My mother taught at a nearby school, where I could have attended if they would have requested the transfer. This would have been more convenient for my mother, but she decided not to, in order to avoid the problems associated with it.
It is interesting to me that home schoolers now are acknowledging the need for socialization of home school kids and are pushing for the same kinds of extra-curricular activities offered by traditional schools. I think that it is a good idea. I think that it is also good that some are pooling their efforts in cooperatives to teach their children. Rather Marxist, for such a generally conservative group.
Hi, and welcome!
I really don't see much point in it unless the district is really bad, and in that case a parent would probably do better by the child to get a job and send the kid to private school.
Dan,
I love your take on the Chicken Little Syndrome wrt parents and schools.
Spawn (my son) is 11 and a half. He is very bright and gets excellent grades. He is also very intense. Does not handle failure well. Gets upset. Periodically acts out on himself if he's frustrated. I do not know where this behavior comes from--certainly his mother is a model of decorum and restraint.
Every year, in the first month of school, I will hear of an incident and take action: I write a letter to his teacher explaining his behavior issues, the best way to handle them, and the procedure--namely, every time an incident occurs, send a note home. I guarantee results; I also explain that I do not beat him or anything like that--we handle it very matter-of-factly. No TV. No video games. Two/three incidents tops and the behavior stops. But they are not to let him get away with it or humor him. Every year, the teacher blows it at least once by not telling me of several incidents and then calling me up to report that Spawn is being a problem. I ask where the notes are, the teacher hems and haws, I tell them I don't wish to deal with phone calls, I tell them to send the notes, the notes start, usually only one, the problem ends.
He has gotten steadily and dramatically better every year, to the point that last year his citizenship and conduct scores had nary an "N" among them (N for Needs Improvement). S and O across the board. Far more praised than were his near straight As and his outstanding achievement award in Math (which also received due attention and hugs, of course.)
Background over.
Today, I get a call from the school registrar. She wants to schedule a meeting with me. I assume it's the first parent/teacher conference. No. All of Spawn's teachers want to meet with me about "his anger" and his "acting out".
I said, grimly: "Have they notified me of this before?"
The registrar senses danger. "No, but that's what they're doing now."
I said, "Ah. Well, tell them that I don't meet with them until notes come home first. Surely, if it's enough of a problem that they've discussed it among themselves, it's enough of a problem to warrant me being notified."
She says, "They also need to meet with you because of his grades."
I said, in astonishment, "His grades?"
"Yes, you see, he has been put out of class a few times for behavior and they say it is affecting his grades."
I take a beat. Another beat.
And then I say, "Look. I realize you are just the messenger, so I apologize in advance for any irritation you hear in my voice."
She says, "Gotcha."
I say, "Tell the teachers that neither his father or I will be meeting with them until they begin sending notes home with Spawn--requiring signatures--whenever he acts out. I will be writing them a letter tonight. Got that far?"
"Yes."
"You can also tell them that I will be talking to Spawn tonight to find out what has happened, and he will be in Shit City for not having mentioned this little detail about being sent out of class. (assuming it has happened more than once, and assuming the teachers aren't exaggerating, which is by no means uncommon). Finally, you can tell them that I am most unimpressed with them and as of now, any credibility or slack I might grant them is gone."
I can hear her writing all this down.
"You have it?"
She repeats it back. "And can I leave this phone number for them to call you?"
"No. I do not talk to teachers on the phone. They can write me a note. I am very responsive to notes. I do not wish to talk to them. More importantly from their perspective, they would not enjoy talking to me. Trust me on this."
I hate training teachers.
I also wish--to give credit where it is due--to acknowledge the registrar, who is a wise woman. She realized I was pissed, she did her job, and I have every confidence that the teachers will get that message loud and clear. Most importantly, she made no attempt to justify or defend the teachers.
I wish finally to pat myself on the back for not ripping the registrar apart before I took three seconds to recognize that she wasn't the one I was angry at. Especially given that she turned out to be a wise woman.
I will qualify this by first saying I totally agree that you should have been contacted right away.
I have one question. You said "Every year, in the first month of school, I will hear of an incident and take action: I write a letter to his teacher explaining his behavior issues, the best way to handle them, and the procedure...
Have you considered sending the letter before any incident occurs? Say in the first week or so of school or at orientation or open house if the school has one.
I make a point of telling Lil' Darlin's teachers about her 'modus operendi' at the start of the year.
(Of course, part of the reason I do this is that LD's reaction to problems is not to act out, but to get very very quietly, obediantly, unhappy - at which point she stops learning much of anything. This sort of reaction is much less likely to get the teacher's attention that a problem even exists than any acting out behavior, which is what it sounds like Spawn does.)
Yeah, my post was long enough and so I cut some things out. I should have specified that at first I sent the notes right in the first week. The last two years I've been holding off because as students get older, teachers are more likely to jump to conclusions. IOW, if I identify Spawn as a potential problem, they might be more likely to see him as such. So now I wait until there is an incident. I usually hear of them from Spawn. I should also say that last year, Spawn must have really respected the teacher because there were amazingly few incidents and the ones that did occur were all mild.
Also, Spawn does not act out to get attention--I realize you weren't suggesting this, I just thought I'd mention it. It is all internally driven, and is a function of his intensity level. He responds well to structure--in fact, he needs it. Basically, his acting out occurs because the teacher doesn't know how to react and tolerates it
more than he or she should--thereby not providing structure. Once the structure is provided--act out, note goes home, no TV--he has a framework. He actually finds the notes home comforting (not in any conscious sense, but his behavior and his mood improvement is always dramatic).
Spawn's public school teachers have all generally been at least decent. Worst one was in North Carolina; best one in a public school was his teacher last year.
Funny story I may have told before: when Spawn was in first grade, he had gone a long time without notes and then one came home. I sighed, and said exasperatedly, "What am I going to do with you, young man?"
He said, indignantly, "Mom. I've only been to the principal's office three times this entire year!"
I had to break the news gently--some children go their entire school career without going to the principal's office! He was shocked.
My oldest is a marine biologist. Why did he have to learn to deal with hooligans (and worse) in my home town? My second is in the vaccine division of Merck. Again why did he have to understand under-achievers (and worse)? Now my third is a teacher. She has had to learn! But, she tells me, very little she learned as a school kid translated into the classroom as a teacher.
So far as social life of home schoolers, I can comment from a situation that had some similarities. The high school that was in my hometown (it is currently a middle school - consolidation took away the high school) was terrible. My wife and I sent these three to the local Catholic schools 1 - 8; they went their last 4 years to a Catholic high school 40 miles away. The boys had a room near their school and came home on weekends. My wife had a double standard for the girl : she came home every night. None of the three had a very active social life in high school and my wife and I were delighted! We wanted no part of one of ours marrying young. Call that ego or whatever. Both of us were in agreement. We had married in our late 20s (I had just completed my internship). We, as a married couple, have seen about 1/3 of the world. We considered schooling and travel more important than an early marriage.
Maybe we are paying for it now : all are in their 30s. Only the middle kid is married.
Even in a small rural school like the one I work in, lots of kids hold out on marriage until they're fifteen or sixteen years old. And many of those aren't even parents yet when they tie the knot!
Seriously, what makes you associate public school socializing with early marriage?
CG,
It's kids exactly like Spawn who make my classroom a space full of learning opportunities. I love the energy level. As for the letterful relationships you encourage Spawn's teachers to participate in, it goes both ways. Give both Spawn and the teachers a little credit, and don't flat out assume that "as students get older, teachers are more likely to jump to conclusions." O ye of little faith.
Most people home school because public schools are so bore-ring. Home schooled kids do better on the standard tests than school schooled kids, or so I read. I only know what I read in the papers.
Rick Norwood
www.io.com/~norwoodr
Have we ever compared the size of our 2 home towns. Mine is barely 2000. We have 40,000 in our parish.
Neither my wife nor I consider it a good move to get married early. And in this day of nearly 50% divorce rates we believe it even more.
Additionaly, with a population of only 40,000 one's choice is quite severely limited. We hoped the "pool" at college would be larger.
"Home schooled kids do better on the standard tests than school schooled kids, or so I read. I only know what I read in the papers."
I think that's true, but I don't know a breakdown of it wrt ages. I'd be somewhat surprised if that were the case through high school, but there are numerous factors to consider in looking at the statistics for public schools and home schoolers which would affect how home schoolers compare on standardized tests without necessarily reflecting superior education for home schoolers.
IAC, I think a fulltime personal tutor would help anybody as long as the material's on a level the tutor can handle.
Ranheim,
Where I work is much smaller, and there are many districts in my area of the state the same size or less, but the point is that the marriage pool before college would be the same with home schooling or public schooling unless you isolate your children from others their ages in the community, and I know lots of folks who don't get married until after they get out of high school and to people who weren't from their home towns. In fact, our kids often think they should date people out of their town. The more they and their parents value education, the less likely they are to limit themselves in that way.
You could, for example, mean that the top ten percent of the scores do not earn more than the middle ten percent. I can believe that. Great wealth is largely a matter of greed and luck. But if you mean that the bottom ten percent earn, on the average, as much as the top ten percent, I don't believe that.
Rick Norwood
www.io.com/~norwoodr
Hard to make generalizations about homeschooling, but I would say this, which is I believe is true true for all teachers: except for special cases, the kids will mirror the type and quality of energy the teacher puts out. So a very skillful parent can produce a very high quality student at home.
Perhaps homeschooling licences should be issued. These would be handed out only to parents determined by a state-administered board to be mentally and intellectually fit for providing basic education at home. If they are also found to be too stupid, then the state could also remove the children from the care of these parents.
Acute self-description.
How big are Spawn's school and classes? Does he switch classes and teachers for each subject? The reason I ask is because as kids get older and begin having different teachers and classes it means teachers have more students to focus on for less time, and there is a decrease in teacher communication to parents. I used to get at least weekly reports on my daughter, and now I get two per nine weeks, and one of those is the report card. I don't know the school's policy on contacting parents wrt discipline. Where I work the change in parent/teacher communication both ways is drastic from elementary to seventh grade.
I hope you'll keep us posted on the results wrt the teachers.
Rick Norwood
www.io.com/~norwoodr
No argument. However, we weren't talking about success in college. We were talking about "future financial success" as per Dan's original statement. Extremely intelligent people often realize that they don't even really need to go to college, depending on what they want to do. Or they don't feel the need to spend the money on a really expensive college. Obviously, this isn't always true--some smart people do want to go to the best university, and kill themselves getting there. But there are many who don't. I'm figuring that those many are the ones accounting for Dan's numbers that show no correlation between high test scores and financial success.
Your response implies that success in school is critical to financial success after school. I'm figuring this is inadvertent. Obviously, Harvard graduates are more likely to be financially successful than those coming out of Podunk U, but there is no guarantee in any individual case that this is true.
Oh, I'm sure that is what happened. Spawn is now moving about from class to class and has several teachers. I wouldn't expect them to be giving me notes every day. However, if they'd gotten to the point of conferring with each other about it, then they'd better also send a note home.
Frankly, I think some teachers want the ambush. They want to put the parent at a disadvantage--parent discovers the kid is misbehaving, is fussed, willing to promise anything, apologetic for any problems caused.
I enjoy disappointing their expectations and pointing out their responsibilities.
Dan - #75:
Good points, except that:
a) Many, many teachers teach right from the book - probably half of my teachers did -and many of them were teaching the gifted students.
b) Regardless of what materials are used, getting the attention of one's few children is going to be alot easier than doing so for a classroom full of kids, most of whom the teacher hardly knows, and has no idea how to deal with when something goes wrong (see CalGal's posts above). Basically (and this is also something every home schooling parent has told us), if there is a subject neither parent is particularly adept in, no sweat - the benfits of individual attention quickly make up for that.
c) I didn't say I was "advocating home schooling on the basis of being able to "teach my child...from a book", and you know it. That was very lame.
d) One is fully aware of the difference between your and you're, but one also realizes that one is not in a spelling bee here, and doesn't bother to ever preview his posts unless they contain some dangerous html explosives. One also assumes that intelligent contributors to this forum do not pick out a misspelled word as an indication of another poster's intelligence.
An appropriate computer analogy would be this--I'm supporting a system, and a user calls me up, ranting, "This system doesn't work! It hasn't worked for three weeks!"
My first question: "Have you called me before now?"
Answer: "No."
Then I am deeply sympathetic and will fix his problem, but the three weeks is on him, not me.
And that's still not a good analogy, because in this case I'm the customer. And it's the teacher's job to tell me if my son is misbehaving, particularly if it has gotten to the point that it is affecting his grades or if he is a subject of discussion among more than one teacher.
Your supposition about most parents is probably true. But it doesn't change the teacher's responsibility. Any smart teacher would always cover their ass with a note--because the minute the parent asks why there was no note, the teacher is seriously screwed. All a parent like me has to do is ask why they haven't been notified, and the teacher is instantly at a disadvantage.
So in this case, the teachers probably got together and determined that Spawn was a problem and it was time to address this with his parents--figuring their combined effort would give them the upper hand and convince the parents of the seriousness of this situation. And they got smacked sharply across the nose.
I realize, of course, that they do it this way because most parents aren't persuaded of seriousness until some ludicrous parent/teacher torture session is scheduled. But if they want to leave themselves open like that, they'll have to deal with the occasional sting of a rebuke from a parent who expects them to do their job.
A rebuttal:
a) Many, many teachers teach right from the book - probably half of my teachers did - and many of them were teaching the gifted students.
This by no stretch of the imagination makes them good teachers. Countless dummies teach countless AP and gifted kids. A sad truth.
b) Regardless of what materials are used, getting the attention of one's few children is going to be alot easier than doing so for a classroom full of kids, most of whom the teacher hardly knows, and has no idea how to deal with when something goes wrong (see CalGal's posts above). Basically (and this is also something every home schooling parent has told us), if there is a subject neither parent is particularly adept in, no sweat - the benfits of individual attention quickly make up for that.
Personally (for whatever empirical evidence is worth around here), I have never had any difficulty getting my students' attention. For those who teach straight from the book, however, this would most likely be a monumental task, I understand. And while my students "hardly know" me in August/September, they're already looking forward to coming to Mr. Dillon's English class by October/November. It ain't dumb luck, and it certainly ain't because I teach straight from the book.
c) I didn't say I was "advocating home schooling on the basis of being able to "teach my child...from a book", and you know it. That was very lame.
Perhaps not. But it seemed to me that you were allowing such dry, predictable pedagogy to pass for acceptable teaching methods, especially for those would-be teacher-parents who lack fundamental understanding of basic learning principles. That is very lame indeed.
[cont.]
Just as one is judged by how one speaks, so is one judged by how one writes. Belch a sentence, and both you and your reader excuse yourselves; but craft a sentence, and watch you and your reader long for more. "Proper words in proper places."
...if there is a subject neither parent is particularly adept in, no sweat - the benfits of individual attention quickly make up for that.
Do the parents then coddle the child and tenderly tell him "it's gonna be okay. We don't need to know that nasty ol' geometry anyway"? This is quality home schooling? Individual attention with no schooling mixed in sounds an awful lot like babysitting to me.
Rick Nowood - Not all public schools are boring. The one Lil' Darlin' is in right now not only challenges her intellect, but engages her interest. She has at least 2 hours of homework most nights, but doesn't seem to mind because the work is interesting. However, boredom was a real problem at her school where we used to live. Too bad we can't identify all the good schools and transplant what makes them good into other schools.
We can. We simply don't.
The responsibility of engaging students rests primarily with teachers. Following them, tied for a distant second, are parents, administrative policies, extracurricular coaches/sponsors, the community, textbook manufacturers, and students' peers.
Generally, teachers and I do fine as soon as they realize that all I require is notification. I am a reasonable parent who backs the teacher in nearly all cases. And I always write notes back if they send me one.
I have a few caveats--I do not tolerate reports of my son being teased or taunted. I do not take kindly to stupid rules that affect grades. And, given my reasonable attitude about my son and his behavior, I pay close attention to any suspicions I have that the teacher is scapegoating Spawn. I've never had any real problems with this last since kindergarten, but it can happen.
I agree with being careful wrt scapegoating. I especially worry about this in the case of boys in grade school who are large for their age. They seem to be expected to act their height/size and not their age. Physically active boys are a similar concern. They usually don't have a clue as to how to be sneaky.
You are preaching to the choir. I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier, but Spawn is 5'4" and 125 lbs. In other words, he's a big kid, and has been big all his life. When he was a toddler and pre-schooler, in facilities with kids 2 and 3 years older than he was, teachers used to complain about his behavior and I would always say--isn't that pretty appropriate for his age? They would skip a beat and say, "Oh. Well. Yes, I suppose it is."
It is extremely unusual for a big boy with as many temperament issues as he has to also be a "brain" in school. I sent him to a very small private school for three years (only 20 kids) where he could work at his own speed in a very low-pressure environment--where he was working basic algebra problems in second grade, reading high school texts in third, and so on. It made a big difference when he went back to public school--he had the confidence of knowing he was smart and
capable--even if he did have to go to the principal's office more than everyone else.
It is rare that he actually bonds with a teacher. He'll like them well enough, but nothing more. Likewise, I've never seen any public school teacher really enjoy him--and he is a neat kid, who is generally very much liked by adults. But teachers generally only notice the trouble he causes them. I can't imagine him enjoying school without already knowing his capabilities as he does now. I'm not sure he would have ever gotten to know his capabilities if I'd left him in public school for his formative years.
I always encourage people with very bright, iconoclastic children to consider small private schools--or at least to supplement public school with private tutoring. It is no slam at public schools to say that they do not handle extremely bright children very well--and that's a group that should be handled with kid gloves.
Sounds like Spawn is very fortunate in his parent.
&:o)
Dan:
Individual attention with no schooling mixed in sounds an awful lot like babysitting to me.
I did not realize that you were a teacher. I think this may explain some of your defensiveness wrt home schooling. Teachers are getting it from all sides lately, and most of the criticism seems to me to be baseless finger-pointing. But to reject the notion that the individual attention home schooling provides can make up for a multitude of sins, is outright ludicrous. Why, then, all the fuss these many years about ever-increasing class size?...to say nothing of the fact that what is going on in too many of our classrooms is nothing more than "babysitting", and probably less-than-acceptable babysitting at that, anyway.
Perhaps you are one of those special teachers who manage to keep a whole class of kids on task and interested - I certainly have no reason to believe you are not. But in my experience, the vast majority of teachers are not so gifted. That's not a criticism - I just think there is a natural breaking point, and the more rebellious and distracted kids as a generation become, the lower the threshhold.
(cont'd...)
(...cont'd from #105):
As for augmenting book teaching -especially for those who may not be especially good at it - how many traditional teachers have options like these (all of which, btw, a home school cooperative we've been talking with did last year alone):
...took their group of 12 kids on the spur-of-the-moment to a nearby lake to investigate and take samples when it was reported that the water had, overnight, turned an almost fluorescent green...earning a first-hand education in the effects of farm and industrial run-off in just a few hours.
...worked the farm of a local family, 4 hours every day for a week, so the family could take the only vacation they had ever had.
...took a 3-day hike in the Manistee forest, foraging for their food and constructing their own shelters.
...took monthly museum trips.
...switched their schedules around numerous times, sometimes for as long as a month, to accommodate members whose work schedules had changed, or who could not otherwise participate during the normal times.
...and the list goes on.
Don't get me wrong, Dan. I have the utmost respect for teachers, and I believe that teaching is the most underpaid, underappreciated profession in this country - besides mine, of course. But after so many years of a downward spiral in the quality of public education, criticism of alternative schooling by those in academia begins to sound a bit like GM in the 70's, claiming their cars were better than that cheap Japanese crap.
arky:
The graduating class of 95 last year got over $8 million in scholarships...
Wow! That's over 80 grand a head - do you suppose they'll be spending any of that money in AR?
arky:
Pretty impressive.
What is your view of this?
You are absolutely correct. The pre-op screening for such surgery is extremely complete - even arduous.
Not very many of these "Christine Jorgenson" operations are done. Now think of the skills needed on the part of the surgical team. That is a lot of time - in years - at risk! The surgical team is looking for excuses not to do this surgery as the malpractice risk is so high. State medical societies can be hazardous (your license) as well.
As a lawyer, you probably know more about this than do I. There was a case shortly after Jorgenson where the patient had signed an agreement before surgery that he/she would not sue. Had problems/2nd thoughts after surgery and did sue. The judge in the case ruled that one cannot sign away rights such as these prior to surgery. I never found out how the suit ended; which means it was probably settled out of court. I wish I could remember names for you; or even the state but I am drawing a blank.
It seems you have a hectic pace. I have a good friend who has lots of energy and a very active style with his students, but he was maxed out with 150 ninth graders every year, and he finally had to move to half a day of all seniors because he was close to burning out. It wasn't discipline at all, but just the intensity of the work both outside and inside the classroom--he loved working with writing, but he was overwhelmed by grading with so many students. People who thrive on a fast pace and kids with a lot of energy, though, make great middle school teachers, and they're sorely needed in that age group. I think it's smart of administrators not to overload teachers who teach those grades because it requires so much time and energy. Had his class load been better he'd probably still be teaching ninth grade.
Do you take much work home? I actually prefer to grade at home, because I can get more comfortable and relaxed and I like the incandescent lighting better. I do most of my grading at work, though.
pd:
You've done your homework - nice job. Was all this evidence against A/B scheduling presented before your school decided to go with it? The memory/recall info alone would be enough to dissuade me.
When reading your rebuttals to some of the purported benefits, I had to read the "less time in hallways" one a couple of times. I can't believe that this issue was presented as a benefit of A/B. It seems to me that when you're reduced to defending your position using such a petty issue, you lose before you leave the gate - well, obviously, they didn't lose...sounds like whoever "they" are may have had their minds made before there was ever any debate.
And, speaking of minds being made...
My wife and I may be closer to our decision on whether or not to home school. There was another meeting last night on school re-alignment (which we couldn't make - it was hastily-arranged and we had plans), and it actually sounds pretty good for our side.
Our new HS will be ready for the 00-01 school year, and a few months ago the school board announced plans to relieve the crowding in our elementary schools by making the current Jr.-Sr.HS (grades 6-12) into an "Upper Middle" school -grades 4-8, once the 9th-12th graders move out. This plan was universally, vocally opposed by just about every elementary parent in the district. But we were told, before the first meeting was even held, that there was really nothing else to be done short of building a new school. And this would never happen, as we had just past a millage for a $20+million HS.
A friend reported that every 4th and 5th grade teacher in the district was there last night, and they swore that they would all move down to the lower grades before they would try to teach their kids in a middle school.
(cont'd)...
...(cont'd)
But the big news was that the school board gave preliminary endorsement to a plan the ad-hoc parents group sent them some weeks ago (which was kept secret - a major feat in these parts). The plan provides for total separation of the elementary (4th-6th) students from the Jr.HS students and facilities, including a completely separate bus schedule and a community police officer.
And, amazingly, the board also seemed to have no problem with perhaps the biggest sticking-point...a separate administration for the Upper-Elementary wing. They said that any decision on separate gym facilities would need to go to a millage vote, but they promised to give that their endorsement too.
If this all works out, it will be extremely good news. My wife quit working seven years ago to stay home with the kids, and this change will take place just as our older daughter enters 3rd grade and our younger daughter enters kindergarten. It would be nice to have two incomes again.
I try very hard not to take work home. What I typically grade are History worksheets and tests, Literature worksheets and essays, and Language Arts essays and minor assignments (like DOL sentences).
Literature/Speech class really helps me out because I have the kids do all their reading in class, so I sit at my desk and grade their papers while they read. I do the same thing with History worksheets; I give them an assignment to read one section of a chapter (about 6-7 pages) and complete some questions, which takes them about 30 minutes to do, and I sit and grade while they work.
Language Arts essays are the big bugaboo. The primary purpose of LA class is to teach them how to write an essay well enough so that they can pass the state writing test. I actually haven't started doing that yet...things I am doing in LA class so far are preliminary efforts -- enrich their vocabulary, teach them about figurative language (which I do through Literature class), and how to edit their sentences to make sure they can use commas and other such stuff properly.
The writing test is in the spring, and soon I will start teaching them about the writing process (brainstorm, organize ideas, rough draft, revise, edit, final draft), required elements of different types of essays (descriptive, expository, persuasive, imaginative, narrative), and then I will have them write one essay of each type which I will grade using the stateWriting Scoring Guide. We will do this November through February, so I have a bunch of essays to grade for several months, but I can live with that. These, and the end of the year research papers during fourth quarter, are the only time I usually have to take essays home to grade, and it means four or five hours work during the weekend. (and I usually sit down in front of the football game and give half my attention to each!)
Also, since we use block classes -- I teach two, plus three literature/Speech classes -- I only have about 45-50 students in LA class (I have about 80 in Lit/Speech -- most of them overlap, so I have 45-50 in all three classes). So I can grade 45-50 essays in 4 hours. It is still a lot of work, rather tedious, but I do it efficiently and quickly.
I am not a high energy person. But I am on all the time during school hours. I am actually rather relaxed and sedate, maintaining a sort of Buddha-nature most of the time (except in history class where I am very passionate), so school doesn't stress me out or burn me out (so far). The block schedule helps a lot because I do not have 150 students walking through my door each day -- I have 45 on "B" days, and about 75 on "A" days. The A/B schedule --although I oppose it-- works to make the daily atmosphere less stressful and less zany, because I see less kids every day.
Joe, No, my evidence was created a few months after we switched to the A/B schedule. I was very unhappy with it, so I spent a couple of weekends doing research and writing up those pages you read on my web site. The teacher most responsible for getting our school to switch is a high-energy type who worked herself to death, and she wanted to mellow out the atmosphere of her work days and thought the A/B schedule would do that. And it actually does mellow out the teachers' workday a bit -- the kids are less hyper and rambunctious because they spend more time in each class and less time getting up and moving from one class to the next. But, like I wrote about, it is not as conducive to effective learning as a daily class schedule.
We're thinking about going to block scheduling, and the main thing I've wondered about is whether I can fit in what I've been having students read in a full year to one semester, even with class reading time.
"Block" means several different things. I use it connote classes which are integrated together, so that you have the same kids for several different subjects (which are integrated together) for an extended period of time. There are a ot of advantages and benefits to this.
The sort of "block" you referenced, the half year block where you have kids for long classes in one subject for only half the year, is a big mistake! Even the SAT administrators have come out against it. They have seen that students using the half-year block schedule do not score as well as students in full year classes.
IMO, "block" classes should be an integration of several subjects --like History and Literature, Language Arts and Literature, Math and Science, or like what I had in years past(Literature/Speech/Language Arts/History), not the idea that you have kids for half a year and try to cover the same material that you would normally do in a whole year by having longer classes. That is just stupid, imo.
Take a quick look at this page which shows a summary of a large study done in British Columbia. (I post this page because it has graphs which make it quick and esay to see the data.) It reflects the sort of research about student achievement levels that I have seen reported in other studies. Kids in a semester block class consistently underperform those in year-long classes.
The students don't appreciate the schedule either, seeing as how it is new this year and they've had too many administrative changes foisted upon them already (ID badges, new hall passes, required planners/assignment notebooks, new lunchrom policies, among others). But we do the best we can, and we grow stronger in the face of adversity.
All of this really makes me want to look for a teaching position in the district where I live even more. (Hell, I've already reactivated my application file there for the 00-01 school year.)
What things go in your building that you are grateful for?
All I know from my daughter's school is that it is some sort of academic competition in problem solving.
I sent Spawn to a Montessori school for pre-school.
Yes, that's all I know, too. This will be Lil' Darlin's second year doing FPS and I sure wish the school would provide me with more info. I think I'll do a web search and see what I can dig up. I'll let y'all know what I find out. In the meantime, if anyone else knows something more specific - please share!
Opening doors to student imaginations since 1974, the Future Problem Solving Program offers new and exciting learning paths. Discovering rich and varied ways of thinking, students experience the excitement of creative thinking and the thrill of resolving difficult problems with unique solutions when they participate in FPSP.
...
The program works effectively and simply. Four-member teams learn and utilize the FPSP Six-Step Process supported by a FPSP coach. Our six-step foundation to building dynamic, creative thinking processes include:
1. brainstorming topic-related challenges
2. identifying an underlying problem
3. brainstorming potential solutions to the underlying problem
4. developing criteria to judge solutions
5. evaluating all solutions to determine the best solution
6. describing the best solution to develop an action plan
Applying the six-steps to three annually determined problem topics, student teams write and mail possible solutions at school year intervals to our evaluators who provide valuable feedback. Receptive to varying skill levels, we offer competitive and non-competitive programs.
Here's the website: FPSP
My link doesn't work (I'm not surprised). Let me try again:
FPSP
sorry I don't know how to make it open in a separate window yet.
Checked out your link. It's not something I ever participated in, so I don't have anything useful to say. But they do have a very nicely designed website!
Thanks for checking it out. I like your diary, btw.
did I kill the thread?
Had an interesting comment from our principal during our bi-weekly staff meeting yesterday morning. He made it a point to explain to the staff what the school counslor's job is -- to work with the kids. I got the impression that our counselor has been beset by numerous staff memebers coming into her office unloading on her, using her as a valve to vent their problems and frustrations -- whether personal or work related.
My mom is a therapist, and she has told me about several clients of hers in the past who are middle school teachers. Several of them, apparently, were literally on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Mostly older women who couldn't seem to cope with the nature of today's adolescent -- unruly, bellligerent, obnoxious, recalcitrant, uppity, vulgar, disrespectful (their description, not mine; my mom said the kids seem to be walking caricatures of MTV videos)-- and the frenzy of their school's schedule which had about 180 kids walking into their rooms each day.
Also saw an interesting local news report last night. My state has seen a sharp increase in the numbers of students enrolling in suburban schools, and a decrease in the number of kids in the big city schools. One teacher interviewed said that she has seen a marked difference in the type of kids and parents who have been enrolling in her suburban school the last few years. Many more immigrant children, and many more parents who are truly involved with their kids' eduction -- even many more parents who actually request to volunteer in the classroom. She was smiling and obviously happy with this state of affairs. The news reporter said it appears that the baby boom generation is apparently moving into the suburbs, as are many of the state's new immigrants.
But I am now wondering if there is something wrong with me. I am planning on driving to school to work on some lesson plans, and then go to a class about reading across the curriculum at our local ESD (Education Service District) this afternoon. What a way to spend a day off! Maybe I am just getting old, and have reached a state where I am just what I am.
I had the most hilarious day at work. I teach in a small school, and I mentioned in the Language thread that we have a number of exchange students who are classified as seniors. They're at various levels wrt their English. We had the senior play today, and most of them had roles, and they did a great job. It was a silly comedy, similar to just about every other small school senior play I've ever seen, and the story involved monsters who run a haunted hotel, so the kids were dressed as different kinds of monsters. I can't imagine that any of the exchange students have anything like that in their own countries, and by the time they get through the Halloween Carnival, deer season, homecoming and the parade, the prom, graduation, and the senior trip, there's no telling what they'll have to say about American schools when they get home. We're certainly giving them the total rural school experience.
How do other states determine school funding? Here's an interesting little situation which has come to a head at my facility, where the school of 40 juveniles is run by the local ISD.
We use the "4th-Friday" count, wherein the total attendance numbers on the 4th Friday of each semester (although this last one was on a Wednesday?) are averaged together to determine next year's funding - over $5000 per student.
Well, this situation has always flown beneath our radar since:
a) We're always full, and, under court-order, never over-full;
b) Kids in juvie don't have a choice - they have to attend our school.
So, it's always been a given...we get our check for $200,000-some-odd every year from the state to run our school. But last year, when we were celebrating the nearly total elimination of the gang problem in our county (due to our biggest city's winning of a grant for federal Weed-n-Seed monies a couple of years ago), and the subsequent drastic drop in gang-related arrests, the system's down-side really hit home.
(cont'd)...
...(cont'd from #153):
Because the average of our 4th-Friday counts for last year was only 34 - of a possible 40, we got slammed hard. We lost over 15% of our school funding - because law enforcement finally had the funding to do their job!
So, this year we vowed to do things differently. In the battle for state money, which pits school against school, and results in the absolutely humiliating scene of schools bringing in all sorts of special entertainment and offering gourmet lunches on 4th-Fridays, we knew we had to do something drastic...
"But, how to lure kids in to lock-up?", we pondered. Nothing came to mind. So the decision was made for us - from higher-up.
(cont'd)...
...(cont'd from #154):
At any given time, even in a county this small, there are dozens of teens walking around who have outstanding pick-up orders (juvie warrants) for their arrest and lock up. Most of these are for petty stuff - failing to show for a probation meeting, dirty urine screen, etc. Eventually, of course, they answer to the charges. Usually they are reported to the probation staff by the schools, which keep a list of wanted kids, and which can't wait to get them out of there.
...but we have NEVER gotten any such calls on a 4th-Friday - even on kids who have serious charges to answer for. In fact, the kids have figured out that if they are wanted, school is the safest place to be on the 4th-Friday.
Anyway, this year the probation staff were ordered to go out on "sweeps" for two nights prior to the 4th-Friday count. And did they ever respond! On the count day, we were over capacity by 5. If the remaining count days are anything like this, our school will be rolling in dough next year.
(cont'd)...
And, now that the dust has settled and the schools are recovering from their busiest time of the year - hey...it's alot of work finding the proper entertainment and catering for the big bash! - and the schools are tallying their 4th-Friday attendance counts, the calls are coming in hourly to our school liaison from the attendance officers;
"What do you mean, Johnny was in lock-up on count day? We have him in school that day, and we're counting him. You can fight with the state over this..."
Our school liaison, who is also our senior teacher, reports that he has been challenged in this manner on well over half the kids who were in juvie on that day, and he isn't even finished reconciling the counts with all the schools in the county yet.
Is this 4th-Friday farce not disgusting? Is it any more or less farcical than other methods?
IMHO:
If the parents are footing the bill - then the parents should be told.
If the student is independent/paying their own way - the parents should not be told.
Told - refers to any campus violation which is 'written up'.
Of course that totally ignores the wquestion of how the University would know who's paying.
Hmmmmm....
sticky
How about this - if the parents ask, they should be told.
You know, I think I'm going to think about this a bit more. I'm not sure if my first, knee-jerk, paranoid, over-protective Mom reaction (see above) is the 'right' way to go.
If the kid breaks the law, that is also their business. The school can notify the police, but not the parents.
I wasn't 18 yet when I went to college. If Leon Botstein had his way, neither would most others. Should you make the determination based on whether the kid is in college, or based on age?
If a student is in immediate danger, contact the parents. But a routine disciplinary matter does not warrant contacting the parents. Let's give the student, 18 or not, the opportunity to take responsibility for his or her own actions.
PP--Would you contact the parents of a 28-year-old who happened to be going to school and was using drugs? Probably not. You reach the age of majority, that's how it works. Frankly, I'd sue the college if they revealed information about me and I was over the age of 18. I wonder how they get away with it?
You start with a very extreme case: a student who is speedballing. This kid is in danger, although realistically there is little chance of helping him. He may wind up in jail or the hospital very soon. He is probably dropping out of school, so the college won't have much chance to deal with him. If he winds up in the hospital and he has listed his parents as an emergency contact, they get contacted. If he goes to jail, he's pretty much on his own.
Now let's look at a more mild case: A student who is getting in trouble because of drinking. Somebody from health services needs to sit down with her and get her to seek help. She may want to contact her parents herself, and maybe we'll encourage her to do so, but the decision is hers.
Very common case: underage kid with a beer at a party. Alcohol causes a lot of problems for young people, and it may be a problem for this guy, but we don't know that yet. Don't contact the parents. If I were a parent, (I'm not.) I would not particularly want to be contacted.
Let's keep in mind that when I was in college a few years ago, the school did not even know how to contact my parents. I had no reason to tell them. If the school had told me that they would contact my parents without my consent, I would have had a problem with that.
It might seem legit to you, I understand. But we set the age of 18 as the legal age of majority. As such, I think the best thing you can do is respect that limit. Not only is it the best thing to do legally, I think it is the best way to respect the student. You don't know their situation, their circumstances, or their parents. How do you know that telling them is the right thing to do? It is conceivable that you could do irreparable harm. And given that it is by definition an invasion of privacy--one that you admit you wouldn't do based on your own internal definition of when you think the student is old enough--why take that chance?
All of these examples (Buck's, I mean) of egregious vs. questionable situations are pretty much besides the point--or should be. Like it or not, the parent can't attach the ability to invade their legal majority's privacy to their decision to pay for the kid's college. It's a binary decision on their part--pay or not pay, understanding that the kid is of age.
I've already said that a student in danger should be helped, and that includes contacting the people the student has identified as emergency contacts. But the schools in that news story are going farther than that. They're contacting parents anytime there is a disciplinary violation. I say that's going too far.
The school provide a form for students under the age of 21, authorizing them to notify the people on the list in the case of illegal activity.
The student can sign it or not. They don't sign it, the school doesn't notify.
Of course, the student doesn't sign it, the parents may choose not to pay. This will allow a student to make the choice, but give the parent a means of withholding funds if their kid doesn't see fit to notify them.
How do we know who is financially responsible? And what if the responsible party is not a parent?
My point is that it really doesn't matter if the parents want to know about it. Their "kid" is a legal adult. I understand you're not a missionary.
Buck,
Doesn't matter. Imagine if you had a scholarship. The scholarship committee could demand a signed notification, too.
In other words, the only reason this is an issue at all is because parents are footing the bill and believe they should be notified if Jr (who is a legal adult) is acting out. They have no right to know. It would also be a horrendous invasion in the case where the kid is paying. The parents would be notified? Nonsense.
So I would rather solve the problem by addressing it as an issue of "who pays". The student has the right to waive privacy rights, and the person paying could then make the waiver mandatory--whether they are a parent or a financial institution paying the bill.
Also the issue remains, even if the school can contact somebody, when should they? How much should we expect the school to do? I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for notifying these parties. I'd rather deal with the student.
I think it should be a very clear line--illegal acts only, for example. Although you could make it other things: drop in grades, vandalism, whatever. SHould be spelled out, though.
As a paranoid-over-protective-Mom, my knee-jerk reaction is "God, yes, I want to be notified!" However, two seconds later the sense of the Mom who knows the goal is to have an independent responsible adult kicks in.
What you came up with in posts 173 - 174 works for me.
It is, in fact, so elegant I'm amazed no one has thought of it before. Covers all the bases, eliminates lawsuits. Perhaps this is actually the norm?
My youngest is 30. I would have been hacked off had the colleges NOT notified my wife and/or I should one of our three been in trouble.
We made all three send home "report cards"; otherwize the money stops and you can support yourself. So we had the academic end covered.
You might have been hacked off, but if your kids were over 18, I'm not sure there is much you could have done about it. I certainly hope not--as I said, I think a university should be sued for notifying parents of students who are legal adults.
It is only generational in the sense that people with kids older than 48 might not understand it--before that time (and I didn't do the math, so I'm guessing), the age of majority was 21.
I was referring to us parents born in the 30s and 40s. I suspect that our ideas of "child rearin'" are q