The Empowered Teacher

Letter To FL Legislators! A Guest Blogger, A Republican, Yet A Friend...My Mission In Blogging Bipartisanship!

2010-03-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

The Empowered Teacher is NOT a Republican, but I have many good friends who are...that's not meant to be tongue in cheek, by the way. Lately, with all the hulaballo after the Health Care Bill passed, both sides have become ultra sensitive to each other, thanks to our sensationalist media...on both sides. Since this blog is about education, not necessarily political, although educational politics cannot be excluded, I wanted to attempt a bipartisan blog entry, a view from a guest blogger, a Republican friend, regarding the FL Republicans Bill to institute performance pay. To hear my Republican friend say that she will not vote for the GOP in the upcoming elections is music to my ears, but the truth is we have to educate ourselves and vote out all these career politicians, Democrats and Republicans who are not looking out for the best interest of teachers and students. Recently, I blasted Arne Duncan...my loyalties are not to the politicians, they are to those whose mission is to improve our standard of living and overall quality of life, and especially our education. I hope my friend's letter to FL legislators inspires and empowers you to write to your state legislators about the need for true educational reform. Check out my friend's bipartisan blog: http://www.factualxchange.com/

To All Florida Legislators:

I recently became a Republican after the last Presidential Elections. Quite honestly, I am very disappointed in seeing that the Republican Party of Florida is acting in the same way the President of the United States has conducted himself in passing the Health Care Bill.

I happen to know that the same tactics used by the President and his allies have been used in the State of Florida Legislature regarding Senate Bill 6. Senator Thrasher, is the king of $$$$. He is the person ALL OF YOU REPUBLICANS need for funding. Thrasher is also connected to the Bush family and finishing up what Jeb Bush never did. I don't know what's in it for him and the others, but I do know that the fact that the Republicans made this bill happen scares me in the November elections and in the next Presidential elections.

Seeing the partisanship involved in the passing of this bill only alienates those voters who were loyally going to vote REPUBLICAN all the way in November. You have just alienated a lot of voters who were walking on the fence.

Florida turned into a blue state in the last elections. My hope was to regain Florida as a red state and bring the Republicans back. The way the Republicans have voted in the Education Bill is only a reinforcement to everything the Democrats have been saying about us Republicans!!

In regards to the Education Bill, among the many 'unknowns' here are some points you should consider:

1. We are in the business of promoting education. How in the world can we promote education without endorsing such to our own teachers by not compensating them for gaining higher education such as a Master's or Doctorate's degree? What message are we sending our own students? Don't get an upper level degree? Why waste time on loans for higher learning when we will never recover the cost spent on it?

2. What is going to happen to all school psychologists, media specialists, counselors, reading, math and science coaches working for the school system? They are 'teachers in the payroll. They have no students to test, so what is their salary going to be?

3. What is going to happen to elective teachers? What "test" are they going to give?

4. What is going to happen to administrator's salaries?

AND... most importantly, what is going to happen to the core subject teachers who are the heart of the FCAT and students learning their A, B, C's?

It is time, we redirect and shift our focus to STUDENT AND PARENT Responsibilities. We have come a long way since 'No Child Left Behind'. We have pushed, pushed, and pushed teachers to do better. Better professional development, more money for schools, poverty level schools, etc.

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING everyone that is not a teacher is failing to see is:

LACK OF STUDENT ACCOUNTABILITY.

Teachers have been held accountable and that's great. Now it's time to focus on students being held equally accountable for their education.

I can guarantee you that it doesn't matter how much money Senator Thrasher or anyone in the Republican party is promising you. What good is all that money for funding campaigns without having the constitutents on your side?

All of those Republican legislators in the State of Florida who have betrayed my trust and hope in them will risk losing in the next elections, no matter how much campaign money you receive.

Signed,

A VERY CONCERNED REPUBLICAN

Check out the blog http://www.factualxchange.com/

Hard Work, Tears, Self -Doubt! Arne, Thanks For Encouraging Teachers To Pursue The NBPTS!

2010-03-20T20:25:00.001-07:00

Hogwash and Poppycock… The Propaganda Surrounding The National Board Teacher Certification And What We Can Learn From Joe, The Plumber!

2010-03-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

When we are sick, we take comfort in knowing our doctor is a board certified physician. When we need justice, we hire a lawyer who has passed the bar exam, licensed to practice law. When we have clogged pipes, we call a certified plumber.

Now plumbing may not rank up there in status with being a doctor or a lawyer, or even a teacher, but plumbing is an important job; life would be pretty medieval without plumbing! Most people think teachers undergo extensive training in the teaching field, more training than you would expect a plumber to undergo on how to plumb;yet, it might be surprising to learn that plumbers have more rigorous training and supervision than teachers.

Why is it that plumber trainees must pass a series of certification tests each time they want to move up the ranks for a different level of plumbing; teachers have no such requirements to prove they are competent at different stages in their career, or in different areas of education. For example, teachers are not trained and do not have to prove they know how to design a test to ensure critical thinking, or how to meet the needs of diverse learners.Teachers do not have to pass a test to prove they know about the emotional, social and personal factors that influence how a student learns. Teachers do not even have to pass a test to prove they know how to provide feedback, or what effect the physical appearance of their classroom has on student learning and achievement. Teachers do not have to prove they know how to choose appropriate and effective resources to teach so students will be challenged. Unfortunately, teachers do not have to prove they are highly qualified individuals, although state licensure tests lead us to believe otherwise.

Plumbers, on the other hand, have 5 different stages for which they must prove proficiency before they can achieve the title of journeyman, the highest degree of plumbing competency. Teachers have no such requirement for each year of teaching. Novice teachers are thrown into the classroom to fend for themselves. Plumbers must pass each stage of their trade by demonstrating competency on tests, logging in over 8,000 hours and being supervised 100% of the time by a certified plumber while they pursue their journeyman license.

How is it possible, that when we seek to educate our children, we place them in the hands of individuals who have not been required to meet a minimum degree of competency, or even supervision at different stages of experience?

States require all teachers to earn licensure in their subject area, but these licensing requirements are not as stringent as the National Board Certification for Professional Teaching Standards, nor do these state tests require that teachers videotape themselves teaching to reflect on their teaching strengths and weaknesses. State licensure tests do not assess an individual’s true ability to teach. Anyone can pass those tests if they know enough about a subject.Many people have become teachers who used to work for the private sector. They pass the licensure tests, but fail to understand the human factors that are the most essential aspects of being a teacher. Having a Bachelor’s degree does not guarantee you have the ability to teach.

I believe every teacher should be required to be National Board Certified. The process would weed out the incompetent teachers, and the standards of the certification would ensure every teacher was adequately knowledgeable in their field and in understanding the social, emotional, physical, psychological, and even political complexities of teaching and learning.

Now, earning National Board Certification does not guarantee excellence because striving for excellence is a highly personal choice, but it does guarantee that the teacher will know his/her subject matter, and he/she will know how to teach that subject to students, how to grow as a teacher, how to reflect on the practice, how to design lessons and tests, how to choose resources, how to ensure equity, fairness and diversity in the classroom, how to provide feedback, how to collaborate with peers and stakeholders, how to communicate with parents, but most importantly the teacher will know how to help his/her students to grow academically. The NB certified teacher can choose to short change his/her students by not teaching to these standards (that’s another topic for another post); however, the certification proves the ability to teach is there; no certification in any field can guarantee an individual will make moral choices.

There may be many non-certified teachers who have not passed the National Board or who have not pursued it because of all the negative propaganda surrounding it.If you pursued NB certification, and did not pass, it boils down to three reasons: one, whether or not you followed the directions; two, how clear, concise and convincing were your descriptions, analyses and reflections of your lessons; or three, you truly may not be effectively teaching, and need to try again.

For those teachers, who have not pursued NB certification, you may already teach at the NB standard because the NB standards are the model for quality teaching. If you consider yourself an effective teacher, then the NB standards are the natural by-product of good teaching. However, do not let all the hogwash and poppycock surrounding the NBPTS prevent you from pursuing your NBPTS certification.

I do not understand Arne Duncan and others who continue to propagate this perception that pursuing NB certification is practically impossible, that almost half of the teachers who attempt it fail, and that teachers will doubt their ability to pass as they go through the process. I can’t understand if the mission of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was: “to establish high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do”; “ to develop and operate a national voluntary system to assess and certify teachers who meet these standards” and “to advance related education reforms for the purpose of improving student learning”, what message does the Department of Education and even the National Board send about those teachers who have not passed, or those teachers who have not pursued the certification?Does it mean that the NB standards are meant to attract an exclusive group of elite teachers? Does it mean that it is acceptable for the rest of the teachers in America to not be required to meet these standards? Are they suggesting that the rest of the non-certified teachers can teach at sub par levels?

Recently, Bill Gates stated, “Unfortunately, it seems the field doesn’t have a clear view of what characterizes good teaching,” “I’m personally very curious.” If the NB has been able to pinpoint what constitutes quality teaching, then why not hold every single teacher accountable to meet these standards before they enter the classroom, and while they gain experience in the classroom? If plumbers have to prove what they are able to do, and what they know about plumbing at different stages of their trade, how is it that teachers are not being held accountable to prove they know how to teach. Other industrialized countries require that their teachers meet standards like the ones set out by the NB. Why can’t we hold every teacher in America to these high standards?

Arne Duncan’s attitude negatively reinforces the low self-esteem many teachers have about their abilities. His thoughts about teachers pursuing the National Board speak volumes about the lack of confidence our leaders and our society has for the ability and caliber of teachers. Arne Duncan expresses the hypocrisy that exists in the government’s mission to raise standards. As Secretary of Education, you would think he would know the psychology of the self-fulfilling prophecy.If you tell people something is challenging and half won’t pass the challenge, it is human nature most people will not even make an attempt. If I told my students before they embarked on preparing for a challenging test or project, that most of them would not pass, that most would doubt their ability to do the task, and that most would fail the first time, not only would I have some parents up in arms about my lack of confidence in my students, but most of the kids would probably not even attempt the task.

Arne Duncan, thanks for your words of encouragement! One of the National Board standards is knowledge of students. As the Secretary of Education, you do not know students. You do not know teachers, your clientele! Thanks for believing that only some teachers in this country are competent enough to prove they can meet the NB standards. I passed the National Board the first time around even though I had many naysayers who believed I would fail because they believed in the propaganda. They even added my being a minority to their fatalistic equation. Our society has such low standards for what our teachers should be able to do with students and then we expect to raise the standards for students.The National Board is no walk in the park, but it seems to me that this fatalistic attitude, the “Oh it’s so hard!” ”Oh, you can’t pass the first time!” “Oh only 50% of the teachers pass!” is typical of the low standards we set for ourselves in this country regarding education.

If you have read Maxwell Gladwell’s best selling book The Tipping Point, exploring how behaviors, attitudes and products gain popularity, we can apply the book’s examples to help us understand why teachers themselves have adopted the stance that it is perfectly acceptable to be mediocre. Teachers are guilty of propagating the notion that “it’s good enough; there’s no need to go above and beyond”. Pursuing the National Board Certification in the eyes of many teachers, forces teachers to go above and beyond. In reality, the NB certification should be the national standard, not one that appears unattainable in the minds of teachers.Teachers, administrators, school boards and our number one cheerleader, Arne Duncan, have been instrumental in perpetuating this belief. Teachers can help to change this inimical mindset, which ultimately sabotages our progress and democracy.Pursue your National Board Certification today!

Bradbury's "The Veldt" Empowered My Civil Disobedience!

2010-03-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

Ironically, as a language arts teacher the last set of lessons I taught were for the short story "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury. The truth is, my last week as a teacher I did not want to cheat my good students from their education, so I decided to search for something meaningful to teach which would carry me to survive throughout the week. As I read the short story for the first time preparing my final lessons, I soon discovered forces beyond my understanding were at work because the story's theme provided me with a perfect ending to my 20 year teaching career...if I had intentionally sought out to find a story to express my dissatisfaction with public education, I would have not found it. My stumbling upon "The Veldt" so haphazardly felt like a sign that I had made the right decision, and I would go out making quite an indirect statement! It was my civil disobedience of sorts, my moment of empowerment after years of abuse, and a way to send a message to all: the dysfunctional parents, the incompetent administrators and the insolent little children. I cried for the innocent bystanders, but unfortunately my heart could bleed for them no more. I won't spoil the ending of the story because I urge all teachers to read it on those days when they feel defeated, but all I will say is that in typical Bradbury fashion, the story's themes express the plain truth about society and children today, even though it was written over 50 years ago. Bradbury warned of us these days of "just answering back" would come...we did not listen, and so we as teachers deal with these monsters who know they can get way with murder because they know adults fear them. I did not, and I wish more of us would not.

We All Can't Be Rocket Scientists If We're Too Fat For The Space Suit!

2010-03-11T19:17:00.000-08:00

Parents and students need to be held accountable. We have to stop throwing money at our educational system. More money is not the solution. Lack of resources, and lack of funding are not the reasons our system is a failure. Great teachers and motivated students will engage in teaching and learning under the most dismal of circumstances. Just look at Afghanistan and other countries in Central America and around the world where children use twigs as writing utensils and the ground as paper. When there is a desire to learn, learning will take place even under the most extreme circumstances, and when someone is eager to teach, they do not need texts, tools or technology to do so. An eager and willing disposition will suffice. The problem in our country is our students have become apathetic. And adults have become apathetic and pathetic! As adults we keep lowering the standards, coddling students, enabling them, and simplying learning because we are afraid that if we make them think too much it will be hurt their self-esteem, and worse of all, we are afraid students won’t like us…guess what…they know we have low expectations for them; they know how to manipulate the system, and they know we are afraid to let them fail! When it did become child abuse to let a kid experience failure?

Our educational system is completely dysfunctional, and we have a vicious cycle of victims, victimizers, and accusers. First and foremost we have dysfunctional parents who do not value education. There are parents who are all about status under the semblance that they care about education. Along with the house and the car, the kids must be in honors or AP classes to compete and complete the “we’re better than you” profile. However, these parents all want the honors or gifted label for their kids, but not the rigor to be expected in these types of courses. Their kids are too busy playing sports or involved in other status building extra curriculars to be able to keep up with the required workload of an honors course.

Since the creation of the College Board AP program over 50 years ago, the number of students enrolled in AP classes has more than tripled. However, AP and Honors courses were once limited to the crème of the crop; today any Joe Schmoe can get in if mom or dad signs a waiver overriding a teacher’s recommendation. What does the teacher know? Joe Schmoe’s parents have to brag about Joe Schmoe to the other Joe and Jane Schmoes in suburbia. And here is where the crisis begins. Joe Schmoe can’t keep up with the rigor, nor does he have the motivation or the study skills or the innate desire to learn about all this AP “stuff”…he may be a good kid, but he is not a scholar, yet mom and dad and the spineless counselor lie to Joe and tell him he’s God’s gift to studenthood, and it’s the teacher’s fault he’s struggling! So now it’s the teacher’s fault! The principal calls her to a meeting, and he recommends that she make accommodations, and take Joe’s self-esteem into consideration, his future, his extracurriculars…Joe is the school’s basketball star for goodness sakes…Joe Schmoe might fail AP English, and God forbid that were to happen! This type of culture thrives across American suburbia, and it gave birth to a myriad of 21st century teaching issues such as increased teacher burnout, teacher harassment, grade inflation, lowered expectations and standards, the death of the deadline, conflict mediation between teacher and student, and so many more issues.

According to Mensa, only 2% of the population is considered “genius” and only 5% of the population has an IQ above 125! Visit any suburban middle or high school in the country and the number of honors classes surpasses the number of regular education classes. Statistically speaking it is impossible to have so many gifted and honors students in one suburban school. As a former teacher of the gifted for 15 years, I rarely had truly gifted students in my classroom, and only once did I teach a student who in my observation was a genius. My teaching experience supports the Mensa statistics. I taught lots of highly motivated students, but they were not all gifted. I also taught a lot of duds and way too many Joe Schmoes who would have been better off learning a trade than learning about Shakespeare. This created many issues for me as a teacher, and it often forced me to slow down the curriculum against my will. Notice I said slow because I refused to water it down, but in the end the system won, and my refusal to dilute forced me to quit! Which brings me to the tragic reality of why we have so many failing classrooms. Every class needs to be taught at the rigor where students will be challenged based on their ability level. We need to stop watering down the curriculum, and administrators and parents need to listen when a teacher says a student is able to do better, but is choosing not to. We need to tap into students’ innate desire to learn. We need to change our attitude about education and about teachers. We need to learn from those nations who value education and hold their teachers in high esteem. We need to create a culture in our country that values being smart. As human beings we are hardwired to want to learn; we need to make learning relevant and purposeful without compromising high standards so kids will want to learn.

We need to realize that we all cannot enroll in Rocket Science 101 if some of us have motion sickness, some of us are afraid to fly or if some of us are too fat to fit in the space suit.

Suburban parents listen up! Change your attitude or else! Nobody cares when you drive up the school driveway and drop off your Joe or Jane Schmoe in your leased luxury SUV; what should matter to you is if your child will have the knowledge and skills necessary to give himself a comfortable lifestyle in the future, if your child will have the critical thinking skills to be able to discern if he is being manipulated by his government, and if your child will have the intellect to be able to perserve a democratic government.

Off With Their Heads!

2010-03-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

“Unfortunately, it seems the field doesn’t have a clear view of what characterizes good teaching,” Gates said. “I’m personally very curious.”

It's Not Easy Being Green, But I Come In Peace!"

2010-02-25T13:31:00.000-08:00

I write to you as a member of a minority group, actually a double minority since I am also a woman. I think we need to change America’s mindset…and we need to change our nomenclature…we need to stop categorizing people as members of the minority race and the majority race…We need to stop asking people to check off little boxes identifying what color, race or creed they are and then using the answers to generalize and stereotype. Does the majority who design these demeaning demographic devices have a different set of expectations depending on the box I check? We have come a long way, but we need to go further and stop being so afraid of one another! We need to begin thinking about people as members of the human race. The word minority connotes powerlessness and disenfranchisement because minority means there are fewer in number to voice an opinion or exercise change.

Why is it necessary to continue to identify people as being a member of the powerful or the powerless?

Why must our educational research be driven by proving how poor and how uneducated minority groups are compared to the majority, yet we do nothing to bridge the achievement gap? Why do we lower our expectations for minority groups, and surmise that minorities can only relate to other minorities? Why do we assume that most minorities are poor while certain minorities are geniuses? Why can’t we raise the standards for those who are poor and learn from the habits of those geniuses?

Any human being who lives in poverty will not be able to achieve academically, or prosper in other aspects of life for that matter. And guess what, lately we have a lot of poor folks in America who aren’t minorities! Breaking the cycle of poverty requires tenacity, and ambition…a strong work ethic and passion. Talent and ability naturally complement this equation. Throughout our country’s history, many minorities have embodied these traits while others have not; some minorities flourish while others do not, so prosperity or poverty among minority groups in the U.S. requires a complex anthropological examination of so many factors and variables rather than resorting to generalizations and stereotypes that one particular minority group or all minorities share a common idiosyncrasy of being either geniuses or lazy, poor, uneducated seekers of salvation from the great white hope of the majority.

Unfortunately, in my experience and observations, so many members of the majority have this opinion of minorities. I am a minority although I was born in this country. My parents were immigrants, like the parents of so many others who now makeup the majority. I am a first generation American and proud of it. I am white yet the so-called majority does not recognize my shade of Caucasian. I speak and write English perfectly, in my opinion, yet the majority is adept at detecting minute deviations in my standard American English intonation, which the majority uses to categorize me as a minority. At times, I pass as a member of the majority, or at least I think I do, but sometimes the majority can’t quite pigeonhole me into one of their categories. I find it perturbs them when they can’t figure out what I am. Sometimes, it becomes necessary to conceal my true heritage, but sooner or later, I cannot suppress who I am, and I face the backlash of ignorance, and both the subtleties and the blatancy of racism and discrimination. The majority puts up this wall afraid to learn about my culture, my customs, my second language; they fail to realize I am an American like them, and they refuse to accept our similarities because they are blinded with the fear that we may be different, and something different may require them to change or alter their life. It won’t, but they don’t know that. Most people seek consistency and uniformity. Our American culture perpetuates this uniformity through intolerance…we’ve come a long way but racism in the hearts and minds of many who belong to the majority is alive and well.

Why must we be so closed minded in perpetuating this notion that minorities relate better to those who share their race, color or creed?

We are all human…unless we have personality differences preventing us from getting along, we should be able to relate to one another regardless of our race, color or creed because we share common human experiences: we all experience joy and pain. In the end we all want the same things: love and acceptance. I read a post on a blog regarding how students at a predominantly black school related better to a black principal. This is exactly the type of mentality we need to eradicate. It’s that mentality perpetuating the idea that we cannot possibly understand each other if we have different color skin or are of a different race or religion. There are many factors, which may prevent us from being able to relate, but it is a travesty when people fail to make a connection because one person’s skin color is black and another’s is white…or because someone is a Jew and another is a Muslim. Our schools fail to educate our children about tolerance for our differences; we fail to teach children that there are thriving cultures and languages outside of the United States. We encourage racism and denigrate multiculturalism in our schools by limiting the exposure our students receive to other cultures. So many of our own teachers are ignorant to the richness of the cultures of so many of our minorities.

Why do we have few minorities in education? I will give you three main reasons why. First of all, successful minorities seek better paying jobs. Teaching offers no monetary incentive that is why so many minorities pursue careers in medicine, business, technology, and law. Some minorities immigrate to the U.S. to pursue higher education and eventually stable employment with greater financial compensation and opportunities for growth. A teacher’s salary, and the climate of public education do not appeal to a minority seeking professional growth or opportunities to make money. Our educational system also conflicts with the tenets so many minorities believe about the value of an education and the status teachers deserve. The second reason why many minorities do not enter the profession or leave the profession involves racism and discrimination, something I experienced first hand as a teacher who happens to be a minority. Being the only minority in a school or even in a school district can be quite intimidating and dispiriting. I felt many of my colleagues were either afraid to get to know me, or apathetic about learning about another person’s culture. Not that I walked around pushing my culture on anyone, quite the opposite was true. No one was ever blatantly impolite, but there were subtle signs of a lack of acceptance. Few ever asked me where I was from, but it was an unspoken fact that I was not a native. I felt isolated from my peers no matter how hard I tried to gain their acceptance. My administrators were more blatant in their racism…they felt threatened by my expertise. I am not sure if this was racism or just plain insecurity on their part. But I wondered if my being a minority played any part in their aversion for me. There was another minority teacher at my school who in my observation of events, I felt had it much worse than me. She was a foreign exchange teacher from China, working in my district with the goal of teaching Chinese to our native English speaking population. She spoke broken English so had difficulty carrying on a conversation. I made an effort to speak with her and get to know her. We conversed as best we could on several occasions. On other occasions I witnessed the same unfriendly attitude toward her that many of my colleagues displayed toward me. I realized I was not alone. No one bothered to get to know her as a person, but worse than that, no one bothered to create opportunities for her to share her culture with the entire faculty and most importantly with the student body. Instead, people made fun of the way she spoke English.

The third reason there are few minorities in education is, in my opinion, a controversial attitude. I will not be politically correct…it’s fear! Fear from the majority that the minorities will somehow take over the country. This “there goes the neighborhood attitude” prevent the majority from finding competent minority candidates. Employers see a name, or a color or even a religion, and it frightens them. Sometimes, minorities prove they are smarter, faster and more efficient at getting the job done…this threatens the majority. ( In many cases, and in my experience working with other minorities, minorities who have a post graduate education are better prepared because the education they earned in their native countries was far superior to the education they might have acquired in the U.S.) “It’s not easy being green” in both senses of the word, and it’s even more difficult for people to recognize their weaknesses and learn from each other. The majority needs to realize minorities “come in peace” and the majority needs to remember that hundreds of years ago, they were a minority, escaping to this country in search of religious or political tolerance. But we are imperfect beings, and we forget, and we fear what we do not know. The changing face of the United States is frightening to many who belong to the majority. If they are competent leaders, minorities as superintendents, principals or teachers will know how to build relationships with both the majority and the minority. I am not being facetious when I say if Oprah can gain the following of the majority, any talented leader can do the same. Obama had the charisma as well, but I won’t go further with that one, for that’s too long and complex of an issue to discuss why some of the majority disguise their racism behind their so-called partisanship.

But, I say don’t blame “the man”…the minorities have no one to blame, but themselves for not speaking against the social injustices they endure. This is the greatest country in the world and regardless of racism, with hard work, anyone can achieve success whether you are a member of the minority or the majority.

The best way to sabotage someone’s future, minority or majority, is by sabotaging their education. Some minorities rise above this while others perpetuate the stereotypes and do nothing to improve their living conditions and have no one to blame but themselves. Public schools across our country with a majority of minority students have the worst teachers and the fewest resources. The elected leaders of these communities, many of them minorities like their constituents, fail to defend their rights for a quality education. These leaders have other agendas and could careless about the plight of minorities, just like some members of the majority. However, thank goodness for those members of the majority who have common sense, compassion and empathy to stand up for the human rights of both the majority and the minority.

So I say to those of the majority who care about human rights, that the Rooney Rule although well intentioned, is not a good idea for education. It will not work to recruit more minorities. At least it won’t work for me. I want to be hired based on my merits, not to meet a quota…I don’t want others to resent me, which was a natural by product of affirmative action…I want to be respected as a human being …I want to stop checking off the little box identifying me as powerless. Next time I face one of those so called demeaning demographic data collecting devices I will add a write in category and print in big bold letters: I am HUMAN!

Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall - part 2

2010-02-07T08:11:00.001-08:00

" ‘If You Don't Eat Your Meat, You Can't Have Any Pudding.’ " Why Teachers Need Pink Floyd At Their Next Inservice!

2010-02-02T08:09:00.001-08:00

Pink Floyd, the consummate rock band, were educational advocates, whether or not they were conscious about it. They understood from experience the oppressiveness and failure of the educational system, and like a true rock band they sang in rebellion about it.

For their loyal rock fans, what change did this education anthem bring about since the release of their message in 1979? I’m not sure if The Wall prompted any educational reforms in England, so I’ll be true to my egocentric American attitude and ignore the plight of the Brits’ learning to focus solely on asking if our own school of thought on educational reform changed since Pink Floyd warned us we were nothing but bricks in the wall. The answer is: We learned nothing, and we have done nothing but eat our pudding! We have not found recipes to make the meat more appetizing. Nothing has been reformed for over 3 decades; in fact, we have added more bricks to wall, and naturally, the wall has grown bigger, and the meat more rancid.

The disconnected, deviant policy makers and educational stakeholders didn’t listen to Pink Floyd then and don’t listen to Pink Floyd now, or maybe they’re closet rockers with an agenda to sabotage education. In any case, the powers that be, don’t care to read the writing on the wall because they want us to keep adding bricks to the wall.

But hey, we’re not off the hypothetical hook on that wall either. What have we done as a society to heed the rockers’ message? Well, as victims of the educational sabotage, not exactly our fault, since we’ve got bricks for brains, we interpreted the song literally! The song speaks of rebellion, but it also speaks of our conformity; we chose to listen to the conformist message, unfortunately! Many adopted this rebellious anthem “we don’t need no education” without realizing that Pink Floyd was actually inciting us to demand an education, but one that spared us from the “dark sarcasm in the classroom” and “the thought control”; using double negatives work well poetically when David Gilmore sings the lyrics, but we would fail to impress anyone with this blatant grammatical error in our casual speech. Yet today, so many in our society speak this way, and this is exactly what Pink Floyd was trying to tell us: We need an education, or else not only do we sound ignorant, but we also become mindless drones devoid of original thought and individual expression.

(Perhaps, Pink Floyd were staunch proponents of the importance of grammar too. I don’t really think so, but the idea would work well to support my argument.)

Despite the writing on the wall, I think few have sung this song in protest in front of school board buildings across the USA demanding we raise the standards in every school. I think that now more than ever the song speaks volumes, with speakers being unnecessary for the message to be heard, and with many people willing to play it so others will hear. The song's power lies in that even though Another Brick in the Wall failed to reform education then, today, if marketed properly, the song can be re-released through our social media to raise consciousness that we must tear down the walls we have built which prevent our students and teachers from being individuals and independent thinkers.

Our schools whether they are in affluent or impoverished areas have so many remnants of antiquated methods Pink Floyd warned about. Our schools still have silent classrooms where students are never allowed to speak or express an opinion contrary to the teacher’s social, political or religious beliefs. Allowing students to have small and large group discussions is essential to developing critical thinking. Many teachers are afraid of using discussion strategies because of student discipline issues, and the risk of being burned alive by their own students as Pink Floyd cautioned! Teachers need quality inservices where they will gain the skills necessary to be effective leaders in their classrooms. Learning cannot occur if we cannot hold our students’ attention. We should not resort to lowering the standards or appeasing students with lights, colors and games to pique their interest. Teachers need quality inservices where they will learn practical classroom management skills which will then enable them to set high standards and present material to engage students in taking ownership of their learning. Inservices need to be realistic too in addressing the human fact that teachers will not reach each and every single student. This notion cannot be misconstrued to mean there are those students who we can give up on. We must promote education for all, but we need to consider there will be those members who will contribute more and those who will contribute less. School systems need to listen to the song and realize contributing less does not mean the contributions will be insignificant or less valuable; it just means the contributions may not affect as many people in society. Part of the educational oppressiveness Pink Floyd warns about is the propaganda of lies public education instills on our psyche: that intellectually we are all equals. Every student regardless of his/her intellectual circumstances takes the same test. Every student does not have to go to college to be a successful, productive citizen, and there is no guarantee that every student who does go to college will become a contributing member of society. An education is relative to the individual’s life circumstances, upbringing, geographic location, ability to learn, the pace at which he/she learns, the response to different stimuli; in short, the number of factors that affect how a person learns are endless as are the possibilities for success or failure once an individual acquires an education. We must insist on equal access of resources so every American can obtain a quality education, but we must reject the idea that we are all the same.

If you visit any school in the U.S., the landscape is evocative of the sinister agenda Pink Floyd sang about. Too many of our students and teachers have become factory-like drones, mindless and afraid to speak against the injustice occurring in our schools. Those students who have resisted conforming have taken extreme and often tragic measures to stand out as individuals; yet, misunderstood in their desire to be heard and misguided in their search for identity, they have been ostracized, and ridiculed. Our system has been an accomplice in enabling maladjusted students to become even more disturbed; rather than taking time to investigate, we have built a wall to avoid dealing with problems. Our ignorance of the issues, have enabled these lost students to resort to violence, hurting, and at times even killing innocent students and teachers because our system failed to read the writing on the wall that something was terribly wrong. We have more socially maladjusted children in our schools than ever before. School violence and school shootings have become commonplace, and depression and suicide rates among children continue to rise. Pink Floyd forewarned us of this total collapse in education with their shocking images of children using books as pyre to burn their school and their teacher. Students build these metaphoric funeral pyres for their teachers on a daily basis in so many of country’s classrooms. We focus on who is to blame, rather than on rehabilitating our children’s psyche, rescuing our teachers, and putting out the fire with practical solutions.

Schools are social institutions; obviously, schools cannot be held responsible for curing all our social ills, or for the actions of the mentally ill; however, our schools have a responsibility to ensure the safety of all our children. When we build walls, we are blinded to the fact that bullying goes unpunished in our schools. Our walls overshadow the fact that the system is broken, and there are teachers, counselors and principals who ignore our students’ welfare to pursue their own agendas.

An education does not solve all our problems, but it can alleviate and prevent many of our social problems. Our schools should no longer be called institutions because of what the word connotes; instead our schools need to be centers for inspiration, innovation and improvement. Humans have an innate desire to learn. Even prison inmates seek learning over idleness. How many of our schools are architecturally designed to look like prisons? How much longer will the spirit and minds of our teachers and students remain imprisoned behind the walls educational policymakers have built? As teachers, the wall we allow the educational leaders to build does not serve to protect us and ensure our survival; instead our own sanity and prosperity hang in the balance if we do not speak against the injustice we witness in our schools. We must not be afraid to replay the song for all to hear.

As raucous and rebellious as Pink Floyd’s song was, we put up a wall, and did not listen. At our next inservice we need to replay Another Brick in the Wall for our teachers, for our counselors, for our principals; we need to replay it for our superintendents, at our school board meetings and at all the meetings where educational stakeholders convene. We need to share recipes that reconcile the necessity to eat one’s meat before one’s pudding; the meat we serve needs to be so appetizing and filling that our students won’t crave the pudding. The meat will be satisfaction enough; it’s only the meat that will strengthen their minds and their bodies enabling them to tear down the walls brick by brick, releasing them of all thought control!

The Hard Truth

2010-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

This post is in response to a post I read on an educational blog I am following: Musings of a Not So Master Teacher http://jtspencer.blogspot.com/. Check out his blog and his post on Friday, January 29th "A Make Believe Conversation About Parenting". I disagree with this blogger, but the beauty of our country is that people can agree to disagree, be civil about it, and not risk being imprisoned or beheaded for a dissenting opinion. So please read his blog, then read my response so you can understand where both he and I are coming from. Who do you agree with? Let me know! I would love to hear from you!

In regards to your points, unfortunately public education should be run like a business. Whether you earn a high school education or a college education, the goal is to get a job. To get that job, you must COMPETE (this is capitalized for emphasis, not yelling) with others for “value”, “worth” and “acceptance”. And if you don’t speak the language or have a disability, the odds are against you…so sorry, that’s life. Life is unfair, and you are going to have to work three times as hard. Even when you have the talent, there is no guarantee, you will be successful, so we must equip students to be prepared for life’s challenges.

In life there are moments, and there are people with whom, you can express your “self” and be your “self” but sometimes no one is going to give a hoot about your “self”. Your employer only wants you to get the job done, often ignoring your “value”, stripping you of your sense of “worth” and rejecting, rather than “accepting” your “self”. Kids need to learn what contributions they can make with their sense of “self”, whether it’s on a small scale or a large scale, depending on the limitations of the individual’s intellect.

By the way, we are in a global pissing contest, and sorry for the profanity I am about to use; you started the metaphor, I could not help myself. We are dicking around for thinking we’re not! We need to teach our students that aim, size, and potency do matter. Our schools’ aim should be to teach students how to think critically about their place in the world. Currently, our students’ performance demonstrates we are impotent against the educational prowess and virility of Japan, China, India, Brazil, etc. who have had a steady stream of success in modernizing their societies and economies. We need to teach students to think BIG and think deeply! Many of our schools encourage students to play it small by not allowing them the opportunities to think big! We keep faking it, telling our students how great they are, when they’re really not! This issue can be resolved…not with Viagra, but by teaching our students how to be great…in academia!

Grades are meaningless, and so are an endless number of things humans have generated to rank our value, worth and acceptance; students have to conform to the fact that in our society, grades serve to determine their value, worth and acceptance. If a student plans on entering college, grades won’t be meaningless, so students must suck it up and earn the grades so they can prove their value, worth and acceptance to survive in the real world. If a student plans on subsistence living, then maybe grades are meaningless. And if a student thinks they’re as talented as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Einstein, or Johnny Depp or the countless number of other high school and college dropouts, then they need to drop out, pursue their dream while living under a bridge, or in case they’re wealthy, while mom and dad pick up the tab so they can go find their “self”. But still they must know that society won’t conform to make them feel good about their “self” or to help them with their sense of value, worth and acceptance. It may be up to more than just knowledge and talent, which will make them, succeed, it may be fate!

Guess what, public schools DO need to compete for resources as well. Elected officials in impoverished districts do little or nothing to elevate the living conditions in those areas. The people in these communities must take charge and demand that they receive the same resources as affluent areas. But they don’t! They have few true leaders who work toward improving education and for eradicating poverty. In this business, there is an unspoken truth that many of our nations’ worst schools have the worst teachers. Why aren’t the leaders of these communities galvanizing their constituents to come out in droves to protest this violation of human rights? Because these leaders think it’s beneficial to keep people poor and ignorant! And the people themselves are oblivious they are caught in this cycle; they even resort to destroying the resources they are being given. One in million break free. Take Geoffrey Canada and others like him who makes no excuses for poverty. We need more people like him. We have to stop feeling sorry for the poor little White, Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans in these under privileged neighborhoods and schools, and teach them how to empower themselves by holding them accountable to meet high expectations.

And that kid in the middle, he needs to step up his game, and get some educational Viagra because life will be hard, if he’s not hard on himself!

What Do School Administrators Have In Common With The American Idol Judges?

2010-01-28T21:44:00.000-08:00

Simon, Randy, Paula, and Kara have decided the fate of millions of wanna be singers, yet has anyone ever heard any of these judges sing? Well, we heard Kara's pipes during her little showdown with bikini girl last season, and Paula convinced us she was Straight Up, Forever Our Girl, but what about Simon? And Randy? Did they ever have any hit singles? I think Randy played guitar for Journey? But can either he, or Simon sing at all? Randy's obsessed with contestants' pitch issues. He's even coined his trademark phrase: "It was a little pitchy for me, dog!" As a true coach, why doesn't he or Simon sing so contestants learn the difference between pitchy and not so pitchy renditions; then we will know the truth about whether or not these judges are actually qualified for the job...which brings me to my analogy.

It seems to me that lately, there is a mad rush to leave the classroom to become an administrator, a baffling phenomenon, quite frankly. These novice administrators with less than three years in the classroom enter the role of administrator inexperienced and unfit for the task of overseeing a school, an entity which is as complex for these neophytes as it is for those American Idol rejects to understand why they weren't chosen to go to Hollywood! This less experienced breed is comparable to the newest American Idol judge, Ellen Degeneres. They are what I like to call "The Ellen Type". Like Ellen, they lack experience in the field. They may have the best intentions, and may be talented individuals, but they lack the skills and hands-on knowledge necessary to make worthy critiques for other beginners or veterans. Ellen is a great entertainer, and this newbie administrator may be a real go-getter too; however, what wealth of experience will Ellen draw from when she evaluates the contestants' singing ability. In the classroom, how will the inexperienced administrator evaluate the teacher who takes risks versus the one who teaches by the book? How will "The Ellen Type" administrator serve as a mentor and a leader to both the seasoned teacher and the beginner? Basically, the essential question is what will “The Ellen” bring to the table?

"The Randy"..."The Randy" is the administrator who provides vague feedback. Like the contestants who may be unsure of where they stand with Randy, teachers often do not know where they stand when it comes to "The Randy" administrator's comments or requests. "The Randy" may be friendly, but he is inarticulate and lacks the eloquence in speech, and in writing that you would expect from someone in a leadership role. "Randy" types will love you one day and hate you the next. "Randies" may have earned many accolades and carry a reputation for being experts in the field, but you wonder about their talent when they were in the classroom because "The Randy Type" never seems to take the stage to demonstrate his own so called expertise.

While Randy has experience, but we're not sure if he was as good as he or others claim, “The Kara” has proven her ability, and she's got a track record of success in the field to prove it. Real life Kara is a songwriter and a music producer. Technically, though, she’s hasn’t been a singer in the public eye. Like Kara, “The Kara Type” administrator has been in education for years, yet she’s been out of the classroom more than she’s been in it. In essence, Kara is the equivalent of the administrator who provides theoretical advice and examples, rather than practical solutions. “The Kara Type” focuses too much on educational research because she has spent her career reading educational theory, but not necessarily discovering if it works in practice. Also, real life Kara suddenly joined American Idol. “The Kara Type” has a tendency to jump on the bandwagon of educational trends. And like the real Kara, she will take offense if you point out any of her flaws. Real Kara challenged bikini girl to a singing showdown to upstage bikini girl at last season’s finale. “The Kara Type” won’t stand for her teachers to disagree with her opinions about educational theories, and she will become defensive just like the real Kara if you suggest she does not know her stuff. Unlike Kara, she won't challenge you to a singing duel; she might try to “upstage” you to prove she's smarter than you, and she will definitely force you to analyze inordinate amounts of student data to find patterns and correlations so you can later spend hours designing lessons to bore your students enough that they will want to listen to William Hung! “The Karas” are smart and knowledgeable leaders, but they have allowed theory to overshadow the truth of the classroom reality. "Karas" are poor listeners, and have a know it all attitude undermining any potential to do good. “The Kara Type” comments may be impractical, or idealistic because this administrator has worked outside the classroom far too long ago, or like the real Kara who has never been a "real" singer, they began as an "Ellen", and turned into a "Kara" over the years.

Paula...now here is one of my favorites. “The Paula” is the controversial administrator who makes everyone cringe whenever she opens her mouth. “The Paula” is a popular leader, but mostly because people can’t wait for her next gaffe. She is not necessarily well respected in the field. Everyone speaks about “The Paula” in hush tones at school regarding her latest faux pas, and everyone speaks loudly about “The Paula” at home as friends and family are shocked to believe “The Paula” is the leader of a school. “The Paula” is careless with confidential information; her reputation precedes her, and the powers higher than she are secretly plotting to remove her without scandal. There are allegations of drug abuse and sexual harassment, but when you get to know “The Paula”, she is actually a kind person and would have the potential to be an effective administrator because she is a charming, people person. If “The Paula” could only balance her personal and private life and learn to filter her speech, everyone would realize she's not a Cold Hearted Snake. Her Crazy Cool attitude makes her like the real Paula, one of those administrators whose contract you never thought would be terminated.

Of course, I saved the best for last! “The Simon” is one administrator to contend with. He's a self-centered, pompous, pretentious SOB who thinks he was God's gift to teaching then, and God's gift to the administrative world now. He's not well liked, and he's feared. Like the real Simon, he gives backhanded compliments, but he has his pets who worship him hoping he will make them his protégés. His leadership style is brusque, and standoffish. “The Simon’s” feedback may demoralize, and demean you if do not have a thick skin. Although he expects perfection, he will be late to meetings, which may unnerve “The Ellen” assistant principal. “The Simon” is unprofessional in his demeanor and tone. He is impatient, demanding and expects you to not have a life outside the field. The paradox of “The Simon” leadership style is that he's right most of the time. His feedback hurts, but he has an impeccable eye for recognizing talent. If “The Simon” likes you, consider yourself lucky to have earned his vote, at least temporarily allowing you to "stay" off the teacher blacklist.

The Empowered Teacher...Out!

"I Would Prefer Not To"-- Can Teachers Urge Students To Passively Resist Standardized Testing?

2010-01-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

I found a great website titled TeachersCount.com which EMPOWERS teachers by showcasing our accomplishments, allowing our students to honor us, and facilitiating a forum for discussion.

I entered their TeacherBlogger section and found a post about The Bartleby Project, cleverly named after Herman Melville's novella "Bartleby, The Scrivener" whose main character engages in passive resistance against carrying out his assigned duties at work. Like the character of Bartleby, the leader and creator of The Bartleby Project urges teachers to influence their students to passively resist standarized testing by simply chanting Bartleby's mantra: "I would prefer not to." My response to the post about this rebellious movement follows:

Teachers are a strange breed; we love to complain, but when it comes down to having a back bone and speaking up against all of the injustices we endure, we cower in fear of losing our jobs. Who can blame us! We are such a fragmented and disenfranchised group. Taking on a school district not only makes us a target and a pariah among our colleagues, but the risk of losing our job serves to gag us.

As a 20 year veteran, who had nothing to lose this time around, I spoke up against my school’s district hypocritical anti-bullying policies. I also brought it to my superintendent’s attention and to my school board that my child’s teacher had submitted a fraudulent Advanced Placement syllabus to the College Board. The AP teacher showed over 50 non-academic movies instead of teaching the AP syllabus she submitted for the College Board’s approval. I provided solid evidence, but school boards don’t like the truth, especially if it has been uncovered by a parent who happens to be a 20 year veteran teacher.

I suffered the backlash of speaking the truth, and bringing these serious issues to light. I resigned after 20 years disgusted and depressed by the politics, the lies, the teacher abuse and the lack of genuine concern for improving the education of our students.

I can only imagine that a teacher would face termination and public humiliation in the press and in the court of public opinion if he/she encouraged students to boycott standardized testing. Encouraging students to sabotage a standardized test would be deemed a criminal act in the eyes of a school district because of the lack of parental consent. I believe there would be many legal implications for a teacher who took part in obstructing standardized testing. The media would certainly brand the teacher as someone who abused his/her influence over students to coerce them to sabotage an assessment tool designed by the school district’s state.

Now, if a group of teachers who had nothing to lose, mustered up the courage to organize themselves to recruit parents, counselors, administrators and possibly even school board members to form a covert operation aimed to sabotage standardized tests, then this would change the entire image of the operation. It would no longer be a conspiracy, but rather an intervention on behalf of all stakeholders to save our children from the ill effects of standardized testing.

Without a united front from all stakeholders, this would be a mission impossible. If teachers can gain parental support so it is parents who convince their children to boycott the standardized testing, the plan has a chance of being successful. Without parental consent, it is a failed mission because although there will be those kids who will jump at the chance to rebel against the test, especially among middle or high schools students, there will always be those who won’t shock the status quo if they aren’t sure their parents approve. It’s human nature among kids to conform to their parents’ wishes, and obviously, it’s human nature among teachers to passively and silently accept injustice rather than confront it and risk their livelihood.

The Death of the Deadline

2010-01-25T18:46:00.001-08:00

The American post modernist attitude has reshaped and redefined many aspects of our life, privacy for one and deadlines for another. Lately, it seems, that some people in academia have developed this notion that we have evolved, making deadlines passé, and stifling. This new school of thought emphasizes the fact that although life is short, you can not put a time limit on creativity, so why not go ahead and provide students with all the time they need to complete whatever is their grand design! These pseudo advocates for student rights have succeeded in making me wonder if Michelangelo had a deadline to complete the Sistine Chapel, or if Shakespeare had patrons breathing down his throat to ensure he would deliver his literary genius right on schedule.

If we allow this educational trend to influence us, we begin to think about deadlines in a new light; we not only begin to question if you can not put a time limit on genius, but whether like so many societal norms naturally upturned at the beginning of a new century, is forcing our students to adhere to deadlines detrimental to their being?

I believe the answer is absolutely not! Establishing deadlines for completing assigned tasks in a classroom setting, and requiring students to meet them teaches students responsibility, accountability, and dependability, and is the only way for a teacher to assess student mastery of concepts being taught and learned.

In my 20 year teaching experience, I have observed that gradually all educational stakeholders have been responsible for negatively influencing and changing our country’s attitude about the relationship between students and deadlines in the classroom.

Laissez faire has become the norm regarding deadlines, not only in our country’s elementary, middle and high schools, but I was recently shocked to discover this practice of ignoring deadlines to be commonplace in colleges across the country. As a parent of a college freshman, my daughter has confessed that professors allow students to decide when they are ready to submit term papers, and some even tell students deadlines for assignments are negotiable.

Like any shock to the status quo, a sign of deviation from the established norm guarantees you are considered inflexible to change and labels you a pariah. In many schools, teachers who do not accept late work from their students fall out of favor not only with their students, but also with parents, counselors, administrators and even with their fellow teachers. In short, teachers who refuse to participate in boycotting deadlines become educational pariahs and are placed in a role where they must defend why late work is simply not acceptable.

In the college setting, even more is at stake for our country. When professors do not show leniency in deadlines, students and parents complain; a professor’s course becomes unpopular, and the college loses money. The college student graduates with a substandard education and no sense of responsibility. The death of deadlines in college is a dangerous trend; it is a student’s culmination of years of elementary, middle and high school conditioning to defy deadlines.

If it is difficult to teach students about the importance of meeting deadlines, it becomes impossible to educate parents on why they are doing more harm than good when they make excuses for their students and enable them to either miss or ignore a deadline. No parent wants a teacher, or any other adult for that matter, telling him he is failing to raise a child properly because he allows his child to miss a deadline. The issue of deadlines becomes a battle between a teacher’s and a parent’s morals and values. When a discrepancy exists between a teacher’s expected standard of behavior from her students, and a parent’s expectation of what his/her child should be held accountable for, teachers lose the battle due to pressure from counselors and administrators to accommodate the parent’s expectations of acceptable behavior to submit work days, weeks, months and would you believe, even a year after the due dates.

Case in point: Bart Simpson was a 9^th grade student in my gifted English class. It was an accelerated course taught in 18 weeks, but covered 36 weeks worth of material. Whenever I assigned homework, Bart either did not do it, or he did not do it correctly or completely. I was always thorough in my explanation of homework citing examples prior to sending students off on their own to practice the skill or concept I was teaching. I also offered assistance before or after school, but Bart never took advantage of this. Bart’s father called me to complain that Bart had too much homework; I explained the course covered a gifted curriculum, but Bart’s father’s expectations for the rigor of a 9^th grade gifted English class conflicted with those set my school district. Bart’s father called me on a regular basis to make excuses and ask for extensions for his child’s homework, tests and quizzes since Bart was also consistently absent whenever there was a quiz, test or project due. Bart’s father supported his child when Bart lied and said he had submitted homework to me on time, but I had lost it. Bart’s father claimed that he had observed his child in his room completing homework, so his child had to have submitted his work to me. The truth is Bart did lie to himself, to his father and to me; I never received the assignments, and this made me resort to collecting homework one by one and obtaining student signatures from those students who did not submit homework. This became a time consuming and inevitable practice, necessary to prevent me from being in a situation where it was my word against my students’, and I was going to lose. Believe it or not, Bart did not consider himself an underachiever, and he and his father were competitive about Bart’s GPA. Both he and his father argued with me all semester about deadlines because Bart wanted to earn an A for doing nothing; Bart was used to earning an A for doing nothing even in an affluent and highly acclaimed high school. Bart’s father wanted me to give his son extensions beyond the two days allotted for each day absent for all of Bart’s missed assignments. Bart’s other teachers allowed him to make up work beyond the time allotted and often exempted him from missed quizzes, tests and projects. I was a nonconformist and refused to take late work. Nevertheless, Bart ended up earning a low B average. Bart was absent for his final exam, so I had to make arrangements for him to take it over the summer with an administrator. Needless to say, Bart failed to meet yet another deadline, and had more time to study than his peers. I would be naïve to think he did not consult his peers about the questions on the test, or that his father did not condone Bart missing his final so he could earn a higher grade.

Although the student absentee policy required students to provide a doctor’s note or legitimate excuse for an absence, Bart had over 50 unexcused absences and early dismissals, yet he was still allowed extensions beyond the two day policy to make up class work, homework, tests and quizzes. Many of Bart’s friends warned teachers that Bart was a con artist and was feigning illness so he could go home early and miss assignments when he felt he would not earn a passing grade.

One year later, Bart is no longer my student. He is a tenth grader but has developed more sophisticated ways to avoid deadlines. This time he is in my department chair’s 10^th grade gifted English class. She asks me about his past history, but before I provide her with any details, she tells me about his habit of slipping late assignments underneath her door at the end of the week, and he and his father claiming he had submitted them on time. Ironically, after my conversation with her about Bart, I receive a message from Bart’s father. At first I think, Bart’s father has mistaken me for Bart’s new teacher, but upon asking the counselor about Bart’s father’s message, she affirms he wants to speak to me. Bart’s father wanted me to give his son another opportunity to take his final exam and to resubmit old assignments so Bart could earn a higher grade in freshman English; Bart’s father appealed to my “humanity”, claiming his son was under distress when he took the final exam in the summer. I was appalled by Bart’s father’s audacity in asking me to retest his son and in demanding Bart resubmit assignments from the previous year. I explained that Bart was no longer my student. This would be unethical and unfair to the other students and Bart was now in 10^th grade. The course was closed. Bart had had the opportunity in the summer to choose the date he wanted to take his final. Bart’s father went up the chain of command to pressure me into retesting his son, so his son could earn an A in the class. My department chair, who was Bart’s current teacher, and was now the victim of Bart’s manipulation, suggested that I rewrite and administer a new final to Bart, so I could keep Bart’s father happy since our school’s motto was a happy student makes a happy principal. I said No! I told my department chair she had my authority to rewrite my final and administer it to Bart if she wanted, and so she did. This was one of many battles I lost because of parental pressures on teachers and administrators to ignore deadlines and in doing so overlook rules and policies.

Unfortunately, I learned more lessons from this experience, than Bart did in my class; I learned that many parents are only interested in ensuring their child earns an A even if the child learns absolutely nothing in the process. Feigning illness, lying, cheating and being absent on the day of a test, quiz or when a project is due is acceptable, and even if these tasks are previously assigned, and the teacher has provided a generous amount of time to complete them, submitting late work is better than submitting no work at all and teachers should accommodate students or risk placing undue pressure on a student’s self esteem, and creativity. Basically, requiring students to meet deadlines becomes inhumane in the eyes of these pseudo advocates for education.

Certainly, teachers decades ago did not face the same issues we face today with students not meeting deadlines. Today, teachers fear the backlash of not conforming to the demands of a parent requesting to negotiate a deadline. When and why did our country abandon the belief that punctuality was a virtue? When and why did we entitle our students and allow them to believe that they could choose when they wanted to complete their work? When did it become a burden and a choice rather than a requirement and a responsibility for a student to adhere to their teachers’ parameters?

Students need structure at all stages of learning, so do adults for that matter. Psychological research has proven that it is human nature to procrastinate if given an extensive amount of time to complete a task; most people will work more efficiently if they know there is a deadline looming ahead.

These so-called progressive educators may argue eliminating the “deadline” relieves pressure. In my teaching experience, not setting deadlines promotes procrastination, avoidance and laziness. Proactive and empowered teachers have developed consequences when students fail to meet deadlines, but unfortunately the climate is such that even when teachers equip themselves with foolproof strategies to document the slackers like Bart Simpson who fail to submit work on time, in the end, the students always win.

Regardless of interventions, strategies, technology, conferences and how reasonable or generous the amount of time you have allowed a student to complete an assignment, administrators and counselors do not want students to experience failure, or rather they say teachers should not fail students. By lifting deadlines, we often end up modifying assignments to such a watered down level there is little to no critical thinking involved, but students will feel successful and pass. Students do not learn anything, but they pass! Actually students are intuitive, they recognize when adults vacillate; they sense weakness and learn to manipulate the system. They catch on that adults are willing to exempt them from the rules to ensure students do not feel failure.

Our failure to help students understand the sanctity of meeting deadlines is one of the most degenerating standards of American education. Our students are smart to recognize our willingness to compromise, but in the long run, they will not be intelligent enough to compete globally. Our fear of allowing students to fail will deteriorate their civility and their ability to function ethically. School allows students to practice so many life skills they will need as adults in real life; in the 21^st century, our relaxed attitude about deadlines will backfire. Life has many non-negotiable deadlines our students will not be prepared to meet.

Are They Talking Behind Your Back?

2010-01-17T11:24:00.001-08:00

Whether you want to admit it, or not, there are two societies thriving in your classroom, one is in plain view which you take credit for leading fearlessly, and keeping under control and then something very human begins to happen right behind your back. Whether we like it or not, an “underground” society emerges which you as the teacher are not privy to, a secret society inaccessible to you because of the role you play: “The Teacher”. Regardless of how cool you may think you are as a teacher, and how much you think your students admire and respect you, students do talk behind your back. We only imagine it’s all good, but we often ignore our gut feelings and forget we can’t possibly expect every student in the class to worship us. We can try to achieve that status, and we can try to reach them by serving as role models and ambassadors from the adult world. We should never as teachers compromise our educational values, or lower our teaching standards to gain popularity with our students. We do have a responsibility to stay current and keep abreast of what’s happening in their teen culture. In the past decade or so, technology has modernized our classrooms to help us meet the needs of all types of learners and once for all bid good riddance to the antiquated methods which made learning torpid, tedious and teacher-centered, and served to isolate us even further from our 21^st century students.

Todaysmeet.com is a service allowing us as teachers to enter the teen psyche and surreptitiously discover what they are talking about “behind our back” during a lecture, a discussion, a guest speaker, a viewing of a film, and so many other school activities requiring them to be a passive audience member. Todaysmeet.com EMPOWERS you as the teacher because students are held accountable for listening; they are no longer spectators, but participants in an interactive audience requiring them to hold their own by providing comments, questions, speculations, arguments, answers, solutions, evidence, opinions, explanations, reflection, analysis, application…the list of possibilities is endless and dependent on the criteria YOU set for the * “backchannel” conversations students undeniably have behind our backs. Obviously we cannot control the conversations students have outside of our classrooms, but Todaysmeet.com EMPOWERS us to control the conversations students are having “behind our backs” inside our classrooms.

* Backchannel is a term used by James Socol, creator of Todaysmeet.com. Socol says “backchannel” is “everything going on in the room that isn’t coming from the presenter… where people ask each other questions, pass notes, get distracted, and give you the most immediate feedback you’ll ever get.”

The temptation for students to pass notes, and have sidebar conversations is virtually eliminated with Todaysmeet.com.

Todaysmeet.com EMPOWERS you as the teacher to know exactly what students are thinking, and therefore instantly obtain feedback about a student’s depth and breadth of understanding during any type of presentation.

How does Todaysmeet.com work

Step One

Prior to any type of presentation, demonstration or listening activity, visit Todaysmeet.com to create and name a room where your students will be talking to each other while they hear the presentation.

Empowering Potential: You can choose to have students talk to other students who are in the same classroom at the same time; or you can collaborate with another teacher to have two or more classrooms engage in a conversation by listening to the same content at the same time. Every student will need to have his/her own computer. If computers are available for every student in a school building to use all at the same time, an entire school can view a presentation and engage in conversation on Todaysmeet.com integrating subjects, grade and achievement levels, and encouraging cooperation and communication among all students and teachers.

Step 2

Decide when you would like Todaysmeet.com to delete the room, i.e., in 2 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, one day, one week, one month, or one year. The type of presentation students will be listening to will determine the longevity of the meeting room. If you plan on having an on-going discussion, you may want to extend the time so you can return to the same room where the feed of previous posts will appear and serve as a recap of a prior conversation.

Step 3

Once you have created and named your “talking room”, provide your students with the URL of the room. For example:

Create a room

Name a room: Lab demonstration # 1

Delete a room: in 2 hours

Click on Create a room.

Note: If the name you chose for your room is already taken, a red X will appear next to the URL under the heading of Name a room.

Once you click on Create a room, the next window to appear will be a split page with two sides; “Listen” on the left and “Talk” on the right as well as a window for students to type their names.

Empowering Potential: It is important to set specific norms regarding the names students will use. When working with middle school students who may hesitate to share their true thoughts and feelings for fear of how their peers may perceive their posts, a teacher can EMPOWER her students by asking them to generate a pen name, which only she will know. An EMPOWERED teacher will keep a log of the student names along with the secret pen names. This will ensure confidentiality and afford students the piece of mind they will not be criticized for their posts.

At this point, the teacher will have a URL to provide her students once they enter the classroom and before a presentation. The teacher can write the URL for all students to see and enter once they each have their own computer. Upon typing and entering the unique URL of the teacher created “talking room”, students will see the split page of Listen and Talk and will need to enter a name and click join to begin adding their posts.

How can Todaysmeet.com EMPOWER you and your students

Students can use Todaysmeet.com to engage in conversation after listening and viewing a myriad of activities, such as a lab demonstration, a lecture on any subject, a guest speaker, a film, an audio recording, a student presentation, a play, a written exercise practice while learning how to write a second language, a debate, and so much more.

Empowering Potential: You can even have a silent Socratic discussion after reading a specific text; instead of discussing the text out loud, both you and your students can post questions and responses on Todaysmeet.com rather than having an oral discussion. This may enable the more reticent and timid students to gain confidence in their role in the class since they can use their pen name to posts their thoughts and keep their posts anonymous.

How will you use Todaysmeet.com in your Empowered Class? Share your ideas

Empowering Potential:

Teachers can use a Todaysmeet.com as an assessment tool in a variety of ways. Student posts offer teachers instant feedback showing a student’s understanding of concepts being discussed. Student posts can provide teachers with an instant assessment or even a summative assessment of concepts taught. The possibilities to use Todaysmeet.com as an assessment tool are endless. An Empowered Teacher needs to determine the content of what students will hear and/or see and identify how this content will help students meet the specific learning goals the teacher would like to students to reach.

Teachers can even use posts on Todaysmeet.com to teach students Self-Assessment. Teachers can use both teacher and student models as examples of quality posts. Teachers can allow students to experiment with the technology first so they can feel comfortable writing posts and then lead them in a discussion about posting etiquette and what makes for an acceptable and unacceptable post. Providing a rubric indicating the frequency and quality of the posts, and posting etiquette is a must! Before using Todaysmeet.com it is essential to explain norms for acceptable posts and provide specific examples of unacceptable posts. You may want to ask students to give you examples of what would be considered acceptable and unacceptable posts.

The Todaysmeet.com discussion can be used as a springboard to study and explore other topics, which will naturally come up in the conversations.

Allow and accept the natural digressions, which may surface away from the topic at hand since it is not unusual for people to get off topic if for a moment during discussions.

Assist students in evaluating and interpreting their posts and those of others; Teachers can print the posts(feed) and have a follow-up conversation out loud about the thoughts posted. Questions teachers can ask are endless such as, what were the patterns? What comments stood out? Who had the most insightful remark and why? The wittiest? The strangest? Evaluate the off-topic comments as well and discuss what effect they had on the conversation.

Always consider their strengths and weaknesses of your students and their varying degrees of ability regarding critical thinking, spelling, typing speed, etc. prior to the Todaysmeet.com session and after. An Empowered Teacher takes the time to self-reflect on what the advantages and disadvantages for the different ability groups? What modifications can be made next time you use Todaysmeet.com? What worked well and what needs tweaking? What did students appear to be confused about? What may have caused the confusion?

Bring your students’ hidden questions and thoughts to the surface of your classroom to promote conversation, critical thinking, and most importantly to determine the homogeneity and/or heterogeneity of your students’ thoughts. Todaysmeet.com lets you enter your students’ mind. Empower yourself in your classroom by guiding what your students are saying “behind your back”.

What To Do With “MissusSmartyPants” In The Classroom!

2010-01-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

The adage “dress for success” holds true for so many professions, but not as much as it does for a teacher. However, because of that other adage identifying teachers as “underpaid and overworked”, and an even more odious cliché, “those who can’t, teach”, a teacher’s fashion sense has been compromised. In the last decade, personal attire for teachers has appeared more like it was “bagged, borrowed or stolen” from the mismatched and messy closets of the world rather than from those of the professionally polished. This shift from dignified to embarrassing has been primarily due to many factors. First, our country’s own negative attitude toward teachers, and the system’s failure to provide teachers with a competitive salary, so they can afford decent looking clothes. Second, an increase in clothing costs making shopping for professional wear difficult to allot for in a teacher’s budget. And third, this fashion trend called “business casual”. Teachers by nature being creative have given their own spin to “business casual” substituting fashion for comfort. But who can blame us? Did I mention incurring an unavoidable dry cleaning expense to properly care for business clothes, being on our feet all day, and risking damage from all types of stains, spills, and spots also puts a strain on being fashionably conscious? Truly, these are simply excuses! When we’re not teaching, we’re more like our students than we think, rationalizing for why we look so poorly dressed. Teachers are master bargain hunters when searching for classroom resources why not EMPOWER yourself discovering ways to dress for success without putting a strain on the wallet! Missussmartypants.com can help you!

Teachers are in essence “edu-tainers”; we are always “on”; we’re always in the spotlight and under such close scrutiny. Students do pay attention to what we wear, whether we care to admit that or not. Students may not always pay attention to what we say, but they are certainly paying attention to how we behave, and especially to how we look. Upon their first impression of us, our appearance is all they have to size us up and decide if we will be in control or not. How put together we look affects the tone and mood of our classroom. A disheveled teacher fails to establish credibility and earn respect from his/her students. Our presentability factor directly impacts our teacher with-it-ness factor sending a message loud and clear to our colleagues, administrators and parents that we are in control of our classroom.   If our clothes are wrinkled, stained, mismatched or outdated, we appear incompetent.

In today’s celebrity obsessed culture, we can actually learn a thing or two from those who depend on their looks for their livelihood. The Empowered Teacher needs to realize because we’re always “on”, we cannot afford to ignore our appearance and how educational stakeholders will perceive us by the way we dress. This is not to say that teachers need to strive to be the “Branjelinas” of the teaching world; that would be nice, but unrealistic. Whatever one’s shape and size, there is no excuse for being sloppy and poorly dressed. Age, weight, and attractiveness do not need to detract from one’s appearance. No one is perfect! Just as the Empowered Teacher knows how to capitalize on a student’s academic strength and minimize his academic weaknesses, you too can learn how to accentuate your positive physical attributes to create a confident and competent image. Missussmartypants.com can show you how!

Disempowered Moment:
I have a friend who earned a master’s degree in administration to become an assistant principal. Once she graduated, she began to apply for administrative positions. However, whenever she interviewed, she never got the job. In my opinion, her appearance was working against her. My friend’s outfits alternated between sleeveless blouses paired with short pencil skirts, and blouses made from cheap looking fabrics mismatched with high waisted pants, which made her look older and heavier around the midsection. She was in her late 30s, slightly overweight, lacked serious muscle tone in her arms, and probably had 45 inch hips. She never wore an ounce of make up, and had fine hair that always appeared greasy.

Now you might think I am being cruel describing her this way, but honestly, this is how she looked, and I can almost guarantee she was not being hired as an assistant principal because of her appearance. I remember introducing her to another teacher friend who told me my friend was not being hired because she looked like a dirty dish rag! That was just the brutal truth! My friend did not have to join a gym and improve her muscle tone, lose weight and go from a size 14 to a size 2 to be hired as an AP; my friend did have to capitalize on her positive attributes. She had beautiful green eyes she could have called attention to with a touch of make-up. As mean as this sounds, she could have washed her hair everyday if she knew she was prone to greasy locks, but most importantly, she could have found clothing that was more flattering to her body. Sleeveless did not work well for her, but she insisted on showing off her un-toned arms, which brings Oprah to mind!

Now I know, Oprah is a billionaire, and teachers can only dream of affording to dress as beautifully as she does, but I want to use Oprah as an example that being overweight is not an excuse for dressing poorly. Oprah is a perfect example that you can look fabulous at any age, with any shape or size, and even with un-toned arms! Hopefully, my friend will soon realize that her pencil skirts helped to write her off the list for the administrative job pool rather than pointing her toward a more lucrative job prospect. Pun intended! Missussmartypants.com could have helped her!

Empowered Potential:
An Empowered Teacher not only makes conscious decisions that are educationally sound to impact his/her students, the empowered teacher is fashionably conscious recognizing the impact his/her personal appearance has on all educational stakeholders: students, colleagues, parents and administrators. Our appearance speaks louder than our words, and our clothes need to say: “I am a competent and confident teacher!” not, “I am certifiable!”

Missussmartypants.com EMPOWERS you to rethink and refresh your fashion choices for the classroom. Leslie, aka, missussmartypants, can help you choose a professional look that not only makes a fashion statement, but an EMPOWERED statement: “Yes, I teach because I can! I am a professional; I dress like one; I act like one, and I deserve respect!”

It’s not a popularity contest about who’s the best dressed teacher in the school; it’s about maintaining a look that displays confidence and implies you are in command of your appearance and your classroom, in essence you are EMPOWERED. It’s not about spending thousands of dollars on retrofitting your wardrobe either, it’s about learning how to mix and match the pieces you already own to maximize wear ability and missussmartypants.com is an affordable service that can help you achieve this goal.

Here are a few basic and affordable pieces every male or female Empowered Teacher should own:

a pair of dressy khaki pants
a pair of dressy black, brown or navy pants
a pair of casual black, brown or navy pants
a crisp white dress shirt
a comfortable, yet fashionable pair of shoes to complement your look
a light sweater in a flattering color that says I am innovative, not I am tired and outdated

Check out Missussmartypants.com for more friendly tips to EMPOWER your teacher look!

Empowered Potential:
While technology has retrofitted our classrooms transforming them into hip places to learn, Empowered teachers are clear about the fine line between dressing professionally trendy and dressing age and audience appropriately. Whether you’re a teacher in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or 60s, you don’t have to abandon your “hipster” attitude, but your “look” must declare authority figure rather than “friend”.

Make-up is an essential for women of all ages. Students have to look at you for long periods of time. Why add to the torture they endure sitting on those hard plastic desks by forcing them to look at your tired face. Even if you do not like wearing make-up, powdering your nose during a break to rid your face of its shine, will give you a refreshed, composed look. A little lipstick won’t hurt either!

Fashion guru, Tim Gunn, from Project Runway, always advises to find a sweat suit alternative. Sweat suits can betray the look you may be trying to achieve because they do not conform to all body shapes and sizes. If sweating is not in your teaching repertoire, than a sweat suit has no place in your teaching wardrobe.

Even physical education teachers have a dress code they should adhere to. Check out Missussmartypants.com for some fun and creative ways to exercise your right to be professionally polished in the classroom!

One final adage teachers live by is “Necessity is the mother of invention.” While teachers did not invent jeans or flip-flops, although who knows if we did since we are by nature innovative individuals, it seems lately we did invent wearing them as business attire in the classroom. The pain we endure on our feet, and the sensory overload we experience affecting our minds and bodies has given rise to the flip-flops and jeans conundrum. But, we can’t blame our feet, and our students for making us take these drastic and desperate measures in our search for comfort. Slapping on our flip-flops and zipping up our weekend jeans to stand before a classroom of students strips us of our legitimacy and worth as professionals. Would we dress this way to an interview? Flip-flops have no place in the classroom unless they’re on your students’ feet, and jeans need to be dressy and age appropriate for the teacher’s age, not the students’! Explore all of your fashion options to replace flip-flops and jeans at Missussmartypants.com. This is one “smart aleck” you will definitely appreciate influencing your degree of EMPOWERMENT in the classroom!

What other teacher fashion do’s and don’ts have you observed?
Share your thoughts on theempoweredteacher.blogspot.com and Missussmartypants.com

For those of you who are really bold, what teacher fashion faux pas are you guilty of? Learn how to “purge your closet” at Missussmartypants.com!

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