So Now What?

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See full size imageBy Tom

It looks like we'll have to accept a new reality next year. There will be fewer teachers, teaching more kids, for less money and with less support. There's no other way to look at it. It's grim, bleak and discouraging.

Many of us tried to mitigate what's happening right now. We blogged, lobbied and wrote to our representatives, trying to protect what was precious to us. And to some extent we were successful. The National Board bonus, for example, seems to have survived. But overall, this legislative session was a horrible disaster for education in Washington. Things will be different next year. And beyond. And by different, I mean worse.

So what do we do?

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Who Speaks?

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Education Policy, Teacher Leadership

By Guest Blogger Terese

I woke up today thinking, “How did I get here?”

Just a few short years ago I was teaching fourth graders, working hard to do the best job I could and otherwise minding my own business. On Tuesday I was at the state Capitol, talking with a legislator about an amendment to a bill that had just been proposed. 

What happened in between is a long story. But out of my experiences I have developed a belief that is now central to everything I do. I spend my days thinking about it, planning, trying to figure out what to do next. I toss and turn at night, problem solving. I am dedicated to promoting what I believe in every way that I can.

I believe in the power of teachers’ voices.

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Teaching Writing on a Budget

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By Tom

I took my third graders on a field trip the other day. We went to all the important buildings in our community; the fire station, recreation center, city hall, public library and police station. It was fun, especially when everyone got to go into the holding cell at the police station. And when we got back everyone chose their favorite place and wrote a paragraph about it. The paragraphs were fine. Each one of them had an adequate topic sentence with three to five detail sentences. Exactly what I asked for.

Then we went on another field trip. This time we went to the local sewer treatment plant. When we got back to school we did some more writing. But this time the writing was incredible. There was far more elaboration and an incredible amount of authors' voice in their writing.

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Training

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Education, Mentoring, Professional Development

A recent article printed in the Christian Science Monitor covered the issue of teacher training (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0327/p01s01-ussc.html?page=1). The key controversy is that ”Some policymakers say the focus needs to be on improving traditional education schools, which produce 4 out of 5 teachers in the United States. Others are strong advocates of so-called alternative models designed to streamline entry into teaching for exceptionally talented students or mid-career professionals.”

As I sit through yet another sound bite for differentiating instruction based on the needs of my students, and as I am being asked to contemplate taking part in an alternative academy for low-performing ninth graders next year, I marvel again that we, as educators, don’t practice what we preach. Why should we expect every prospective teacher to flourish under the exact same training? We certainly don’t expect that from the kids in our classrooms.


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Professional Development and Baseball

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Professional Development

Picture 4 

By Tom


My family and I are down in Arizona this week, trying to dry out from a ridiculously wet winter. Coincidentally, our beloved Mariners are in the exact same place! So we went to a Spring Training baseball game today for the first time, and frankly, it was a little weird.

Now we've been to a lot of Mariners games. But this one was different, and at first I couldn't quite get a handle on it. It wasn't so much the weather, which was perfect; like Seattle in July. It certainly wasn't the fact that the Mariners were getting creamed; God knows we've seen that often enough. No, it was something about the way the players went about their business. They were working, but differently. Their attitude wasn't what I'm used to seeing when I watch pro baseball, yet there was something oddly familiar about it.


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NBPTS and Washington Teachers, a great match

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Professional Development


IMG_6180


Clickity-Click,
tap….tap….tap, Click, CLICK, tappity–click.
That is the sound of Washington teachers finalizing their portfolios for
National Board Certification.

The process of National Board Certification involves 4
lengthy portfolio pieces, a combination of analytical and reflective writing;
video submissions; documented accomplishments; and instructional materials.
Additionally, there are 6 assessments on content knowledge at a testing center.

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Randy Dorn, Seal Keeper?

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Education Policy

 By Tom

It was pretty obvious to most of us that the relationship between Randy Dorn, Washington's new Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the state legislature didn’t get off to a perfect start. Shortly after taking office, he announced sweeping changes to the state assessment system; changes made without much input from the legislature.

 

They weren’t happy. But we didn’t know the extent of their unhappiness until just last week, when the House and the Senate each passed massive education bills. Which, according to verse three of Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill,” meant that the two houses then got to switch papers so that they could scrutinize and criticize each other’s work.

 

I looked at these bills and quickly became overwhelmed. They’re really long. Remember, I teach third grade all day. Anything longer than a paragraph freaks me out. So I decided to focus on the section about accountability: how the state is going to make sure our students learn. And for the most part, I like what I see.

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Inside an NCATE Visit

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Education

See full size imageBy Tom

Regular readers to our blog may have noticed that I frequently mention NCATE. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education is responsible for holding colleges of education to high standards. And that’s important. No one wants their child spending six hours a day with someone who didn’t go through a decent teacher education program.

 

So how does it work? How does NCATE go about checking out teacher schools to see if they’re any good?

 

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Least Restrictive?

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Life in the Classroom

In my tenth-grade core English classes, we’ve been working on writing skills with regard to literary analysis with the triple goal of learning how to find relevant citations, how to use MLA formatting, and how to answer WASL-type analysis questions. One young man in my class has really been struggling with the concepts and doing poorly on the quizzes, even though he understands the literature. I told him after he struggled with one quiz that I would sit down and do the next one with him. He was absolutely horrified at the thought and said, “Then everyone else will know that I’m in special ed! I wish I could just go back to a special ed classroom where it doesn’t matter that I’m stupid.” That broke my heart. He is far from being “stupid,” but that is his academic self image. He didn't care that I had sat down and worked on the quiz with two other struggling students (who happen to NOT have IEPs).

This brought me back to a subject I have contemplated much over the last decade. When I started teaching in this district, our SE kids were mainstreamed. Then the trend changed to separate SE classes. Now the pendulum is swinging back to inclusion models as being the "least restrictive environment" (LRE).

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