What do about 1850 teachers have in common? What do 3.5% of Washington teachers have in common?
Shared Fishing, Shared Accountability
By Tom
I caught a rainbow trout yesterday. A beautiful animal; sixteen inches of fin, muscle and poor judgment. It was a blast, but when I reflect on this accomplishment (Which I have been doing a lot) I realize that by myself, there would have been no trout. A lot of other people were involved. Obviously, the trout itself played an active, yet unwilling role, but there was also Dave, who was steering the canoe and telling me where to cast. There was my lovely wife, who was watching the kids back at the campground. There was the guy at the fly shop, who told me which gear to use. And the list goes on, all the way to the Fish and Wildlife Department, which manages the river.
So why the fish story?
GRADE$$$ and TE$$$T $$$CORE$$$
What do you do with a struggling school or student? Bring in stronger teachers? NO. Improve the student to teacher ratio? NO. Offer before and after school support classes? NO.
What you do is throw money at the problem, and I do not mean investing the money in ways that will improving the educational system. What some groups are trying to do is throw money at students as a way to get the students to do better on state tests. Some say incentive, others say bribe.
Education is NOT a Business
In Travis’ response to the policy meme, one of his top five began like this: “Education is not a business model. This will lead to the downfall of education, being caught up in a maelstrom of bureaucracy. In addition, business is not even an appropriate comparison for education.” What follows is an article on the subject that I first wrote for the TLN column in Teacher Magazine.
Like most households where teachers reside, there are many conversations about education policy talk in our home. My husband and I also discuss the Dilbert-esque policies implemented at the major manufacturing firm where he works. Not surprisingly, it’s fairly easy to find some common threads.
Not long ago we began to flesh out an analogy between public education and lean manufacturing, a concept now being pursued by many industries. In general terms, lean manufacturing concentrates on reducing costs by utilizing standardized processes and consistent raw materials that together minimize wasted resources, including time. Any variation in raw materials or processing requires adjustments in order to have the same output at a consistent cost.
Rethinking “Curiosity Killed the Cat”
There’s a new buzzword around my town: Conley. David Conley, a professor at the University of Oregon and author of College Knowledge: what it really takes for students to succeed and what we can do to get them ready (2005) suggests schools are doing a better job of getting students into college, but not necessarily ready to succeed at college. Initially, not having access to his book, I sought out a readily available article. His premise is that schools need an intellectually coherent program that develops “key cognitive strategies” as well as content knowledge. There are many issues I’d like to comment on regarding this work, but for now I’m going to hone in on one strategy he lists: inquisitiveness.
Educ. 609 What to Do When You Leave Teaching
A million is often used as a metaphor for some large, unattainable, unimaginable number. My students often say things like, “That essay will take me a million years to do?” So, for students, a million is a large number. Me, I cannot conceptualize what a million looks like, let alone 1.5 million. But 1.5 million of the 3 millions teachers in American leave the profession every 5 years, mostly to go on to professions that have better pay or more pleasant working conditions. In Washington state, rather than 1/2 leaving the profession every 5 years, it is slightly less, at 1/5. However, that is still not a number about which to be proud.
Riding the ELL Fence
It was the first day of school for my third graders, and they were all coloring. I roamed the room, trying to get a sense of what I was up against. I happened upon Jinhyuk. (Pronounce it Gin-Yuck, as in "What is this, gin? Yuck!") He was coloring everything turquoise. Himself, his family, their house, their trees, the dog, everything. Now, far be it from me to stifle anyone's artistic expression, especially on the first day of third grade, but curiosity ruled the day. "Everything seems to be the same color, Jinhyuk," I observed mildly, "Tell me about that." His neighbor, Cathy, the bossiest kid I've ever worked with, told me about it for him. "It's the only color he's got," she announced, "He only came with one crayon."
That told me something about Jinhyuk. (It told me something about Cathy, too, but that's another story.) It told me he was resourceful; a kid who uses what he's been given to make the best of whatever situation he's in.
This impression was confirmed two months later when he became the center of a minor scandal. One of the fifth grade teachers was holding an "unauthorized" candy sale to raise money for a field trip. Only fifth graders were supposed to know about it. Somehow Jinhyuk, with his limited English skills, caught wind of the sale and managed to sneak across campus during lunch, without a pass, to buy twenty dollars worth of candy from this classroom. Twenty dollars is a lot of cash for a third grader to carry around, but by the time we caught on to him, he had enlarged his fortune to thirty bucks by retailing the candy at a considerable mark-up. People were furious. It was suggested that he donate his earnings to the fifth graders from whom he bought the candy. I argued against it, saying he might not have even known he wasn't supposed to be buying and then selling candy to other kids, and that he'd only been in the country since August. I was told: "That kid knows a lot more than you think he does, Tom."
Meme:Five Important Things Policymakers Ought to Know About My Class–Tom’s Take
1. My students are working harder than they’ll ever work for the rest of their lives. Think about it. A middle-aged man, easily twice your size, gives you something difficult to do first thing in the morning. You struggle with it, finally figure out how to do it, and then he takes it away from you and gives you something else that’s difficult to do. This goes on all day. And he promises to keep making the work harder every day until mid-June. How many of us would tolerate a job like that?
Meme: Five Things Policymakers Ought to Know
Nancy Flanagan at teacher in a strange land started a meme, inviting others to share the five things that policymakers should know about one’s classroom (or school). While I started with a longer list, I settled on these 5 things, which are in no particular order…
1) Classrooms are not flat environments, with everyone learning and needing the same thing at the same time. This is important to keep in mind as policymakers want to create one curriculum for all students and/or one form of assessment intended to measure the learning for all kids. Having assessments embedded within each lesson in conjunction with high standards targets learning more effectively than the ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Washington, a TON of education
Washington state is awesome, awe inspiring. I have just left a facilitator training for NBCTs interested in facilitating candidates who are pursuing National Board certification. I left the training pumped, excited, invigorated! Washington is changing how education is viewed and this change is strengthening the learning of our students.