by Travis
Just the word school will conjure emotions. For some, the word elicits sunny days and the warm feeling of heading off to school with new clothes and a box of supplies. Others made have a visceral reaction to the word school. One that is not pleasant.
Schools have not been about individualized learning until recently. The goal of school was to create a shared belief in a system. For most, there were three lessons to learn:
Behave
Conform
Do
By Brian
My district has two elementary schools, one middle school, and a single high school. Three of the four schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and are now designated as Schools in Improvement by the federal government. (One of our elementary schools did hit the mark.) This happens when a school does not meet standard in one of the categories the federal government uses to parse the student population; for example too few students from low-income families pass the test. Out of 2,133 schools in Washington, 1,286 did not make AYP. That's 60%, a supermajority. There are over 1,100 Schools in Improvement in Washington State. Remember Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average? Evidently we're not there.
By Nancy
Educators are urged to bring 21st Century skills into their classrooms, and the world wide web has become part of our lives. Teachers are charging ahead, pushing out the classroom walls, and You Tube, Facebook, Flickr, and blogs provide a wealth of resources that are timely, engaging, and free. So the debate comes up at every gathering of educational tech users: how much should districts filter the internet? Or should districts filter at all?
by Luann
I
just completed 20 years of classroom teaching. My goal is never
to become one of those "old" teachers, sneering at innovation while
pulling an ancient worksheet from a dog-eared folder. I've asked
younger colleagues to alert me should they
observe these tendencies in my practice. I stay in tune with the
world, and my profession. I listen to students, with a focus this past
year on the (lack of) skills of a particularly interesting class of
intentional non-learners.
I actively seek out and employ
practices that I identify as the best practice for my students at the
time and in their setting.
I can smell a gimmick that will make students roll their eyes from a
mile away. I take risks in my classroom so long
as the risks lead to student learning, er, being able to meet a
standard. I threw out my worksheet collection awhile back when I
noticed that no student ever wrote, in an end-of-course review, "I
really enjoyed doing all those amazing worksheets and I learned so much
from them, too. I know they will help me to be successful in my future
career." Lately, though, I've been
questioning more and more emergent strategies being labeled as best
practices. Is the voice in my head directing me to the retirement
line or is my well-seasoned malarky detector speaking? Do years of
formal education, classroom experience, and professional development not make me
qualified to choose appropriately for my students? Apparently they do not…..
By Rena
By Mark
We have some new leadership in my building that is making me very optimistic. One of the movements being promoted by our leadership is the concept of PLCs, or Professional Learning Communities. We've had these in our building for a while, but the current push involves analyzing student data to assess past practice and inform future endeavors. Makes good sense, prompts a good deal of collaboration, and seems to be ready to push teachers toward improving practice. If it sticks, I see good things on the horizon.
Not too long ago I talked to a retired teacher whose building in a different state had attempted PLCs in her last few years of teaching. "We dumped that pretty quick," she explained. When I asked why, she explained that it didn't seem to be doing any good. When I asked her how she knew that, she couldn't really answer the question, but she knew that she and her colleagues didn't really like it. They said their principal called it "reforming" their school culture…they knew it was just another passing education fad.
This small is example is all you need in order to see why major education reform will always fail.
by Brian
My apologies to the gender police, but it
seems appropriate to borrow the title of Tolstoy's wonderful short
story to ask the question. Because as Pakhom tragically found out, we need far less than we think. The State Board of Education
has increased the amount of math needed to graduate from 2 to 3
credits for this year's incoming freshmen class. The requirement for
the class of 2013 is for every student to take Algebra and Geometry,
and pass an end of course exam in both. Then they will have to take
and pass Algebra 2, or take an alternative course after a conference
with their parents and an administrator approves of the plan. I teach
high school math. I generally try to avoid sarcasm, but what have
these people been smoking?
Our first day of school was last week Wednesday. I love the first day of school. I love meeting all my new students. I love all the excitement and the nerves. I love to remember first impressions during the year as I get to know my students better. Usually, the first day is a whirlwind. I’ve planned twice as much to cover in a day. Students are somewhat shy and nervous. Not this year. I still planned much more than was needed – we covered about a quarter of what I had ready. My students were aggressive attention seekers, with six boys competing for the role of the “class clown”. Not to mention other students enjoying the unplanned entertainment and encouraging more. After a late evening of phone calls home and a few subsequent meetings with parents, I began to wonder… what happened to the multi-age classroom?
By Nancy
I attended a school board meeting a couple years ago, along with dozens of parents, teachers, and students, when our school district was considering the elimination of all elementary school librarians. The seven board members appeared to listen thoughtfully. Everyone left the meeting that night with a sense that voices had been heard, and that school librarians were valued and would be saved. The board and the superintendent moved on to their closed door executive session.
You guessed it: librarians were eliminated.
More recently, our school board hosted a series of community meetings to gather input about a long list of potential budget cuts. These community meetings were well organized, well-attended, and resulted in a complex tally of votes that represented each special interest group's favorite line item. The process was completely transparent, and stakeholders felt great about their ability to contribute to the final budget decisions.
You are right again: in the end, the original prioritized budget list did not change.
In both cases, the school community realized that they actually had little influence on school district decisions. And huge questions came up: should seven community members, from all walks of life and usually having no training in education, be the final authority in our public schools? Should a 7-member board have the ultimate power to affect thousands of lives? Shouldn't education reform start with reforming the school board system?
By Mark
Nearly every training and inservice repeats the same mantra: we must increase student learning. So we get shipped off to learn about a new strategy or a new tool or a new curriculum. We meet about goal setting and analyzing student data and impact on student learning. We are constantly doing extra in an effort to better the service we provide our students.
All that extra work, and it turns out there is something out there which has delivered a measurable impact on student learning, and it doesn't involve a special training or new curriculum.