Apathy Doesn't Help Students

Back from my three-week hiatus, end of the semester craziness has finally come to a close!


When you walk into a classroom you can immediately tell whether this is a place of learning for students or a holding cell for the down-trodden, waiting to age-out or drop-out.  Anyone with experience in education has seen their fair share of both of these types of classrooms.  However, it is important to realize the fundamental difference between the two and its probably not what you'd expect.

image - www.savagechickens.com

Recently, while doing observation hours in an urban school district, I came across a teacher who said he could only accomplish so much because the students did not have support from home, had unstable and terrible home-lives, and were unmotivated to learn.  He made the honest and humble claim that he was not a miracle worker.  Surely, this teacher cannot be faulted if he does not have the drive and motivation to go the extra mile to engage these disenfranchised students, they're already counted as lost causes by society.  Which one of the two classrooms I mentioned earlier do you think this teacher had? Why?

Flip to another observation experience (it took four years but I've realized 20 hours a semester has begun to pay off), this time in a suburban school district, and the teacher is not only a teacher, but a coach for one of the school's athletic teams.  Motivator? Oh you know it, he could motivate someone to think that derivatives in calculus was entertaining!  However, this classroom of mostly middle-class students is sitting idly unfocused and unmotivated to learn while the teacher shows a video on the topic that day.  What's this teacher's reason for having disengaged students?

One more anecdote from an observation experience: this time in another urban school district.  It is a co-taught mathematics class and the general ed teacher and special ed teacher are working hand in hand to get this class of 30 students to understand how to graph a line using slope-intercept form (talk about BORING).  About 25 % of the students are on IEPs and there is a student who has a auditory deficiency and has an interpreter.  Every student in this classroom is engaged.  Every student is participating. and at the end of the lesson every student leaves with the satisfaction of having learned a new skill.  Oh, I forgot to mention that many of these students come from the troubled home-lives mentioned in the first scenario.  Why is this classroom any different?

Educators must understand that all students have an innate desire to learn, to better themselves, to improve their situations.  If the educator gives up on the student, who is left to look out for them?  Teacher apathy is what stands in the way of educational success and is what marks the major difference between a person who is teaching, and a person who is a teacher.  Teaching is a life-long vocation, not a 40hours a week job. No student deserves being given up on, and every student can be motivated to learn.  It's just a matter of finding their trigger and taking the time to form a relationship.

As I look forward to my student teaching experience, I hope to keep the energy and drive alive because students feed off of the energy of their teacher.  If the fire burns out, find a new profession because students need teachers who are motivated, driven and have a passion for learning.

-MB

Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims

While it is always fun to talk about how Squanto and the Native Americans helped save the colony in Plymouth and celebrated the first thanksgiving, it would be beneficial to students if they learned the real story of where thanksgiving came from and why we celebrate it today.

image - i-love-cartoons.us

Yes, the colonists in Plymouth celebrated a Thanksgiving feast with the Wompanoag tribe, however, this tradition did not stick with consistency through today.  During the Revolutionary War there were sometimes several thanksgiving days in a year marking key victories or achievements.  The "holiday" of thanksgiving didn't become a reality until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November to be a national day of thanksgiving.  However, it was not until 1942 that a federal law declared thanksgiving as the 4th (and typically the last) Thursday of November as a national holiday of Thanksgiving.

So as we teach our students the history of thanksgiving, it's perfectly ok to mention Squanto and the Pilgrims, but lets not forget to give credit where credit is due and give Thanksgiving to two of the most influential presidents in our history, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Happy Thanksgiving!


-MB

Where Does Bullying Come From?

When people start talking about bullying, everyone always starts with the schoolyard bully who is there taking your lunch money.  Now, with the attention being given to suicide victims in high schools and colleges especially, the bully is the student or group of students who are bigots and base their hatred on sexual orientation.  Then, of course, there is the focus on cyber-bullying, because as things go in the 21st Century, technology is a part of all aspects of life, even the negative ones.  But all of these conversations are related to bullying occurring with children, teens, and young adults, what about the bullying that happens in the professional world?

Here, bullying doesn't exist, or so people would have you think.  Adults no longer get accused of bullying unless they fall into one of these categories: sexual harassment, discrimination (racism, sexual orientation, gender) or slander.  Sure, these are really bad forms of bullying, possibly some of the worst in the adult world and are punishable by law, however, what about all of the other bullying that happens that ISN'T quite this bad and doesn't get prosecuted.  I'm just going to mention a few instances of professional bullying that I've witnessed in the past year... I know there's more so feel free to add your own experiences in the comments.


Teachers: According to many conservatives, teachers are overpaid, under-worked and ungrateful people who don't deserve any of the credit they are given.  People are allowed to say "people who can, do; people who can't, teach" on national television without any flak whatsoever.  This is bullying, however subtle.

Muslims: Remember the mosque and community center that was supposed to be built "within the shadow" of ground zero?  Remember how it was ok to say that they had no right to build a mosque so close to ground zero  because the 9/11 attacks were carried about by Muslim terrorists.  How can people be allowed to have such utter disregard for our First Amendment right of freedom of religion?  Why is guilt by association ok simply because a terrorist was from a specific religion?  Are all Christians terrorists when one person kills 85 people in Norway and has a religious reason for it?

image - politicalhumor.about.com

Politics: The presidential campaign is the #1 source of bullying examples in the United States every four years.  The candidates hire hundreds of people to "dig up the dirt" on their opponents and then go on million dollar smear campaigns to make the other person look as terrible as possible for whatever reason they can find.  If you are putting someone else down in order to make you feel better about yourself you are the classic bully.  So why do we accept it as a normal part of our electoral process?  What lesson does this teach kids? (if you're the best bully, you can be president)

According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children can learn behaviors simply by observing it.  Students are encouraged to watch and participate actively in society especially in the political process.  Put these two statements together and you are encouraging students to observe bullying therefore exacerbating the situation.  Let's put an end to bullying in the adult world because we can't ask our students to accomplish something we can't ourselves.

TIME in school IS MONEY well spent

With all of the talk of shortening school days, moving from the traditional 5 day school week to a 4 day school week, even shortening school years to save money, one thing strikes me as odd: How can ANYONE in their right mind think that this is going to benefit students?

Consider this -

image - donmillereducation.com

• The average school day is about 6.5 hours long and  divided into anywhere from 4 to 7 blocks/periods.

• In some schools these blocks/periods rotate so that students who perform badly at a certain time of day have an equal opportunity to succeed in all of their classes, however, this means not every class meets every day

• Each class is either 60mins or 90mins in length (with some variation)

• Students generally take about 5 mins to get settled in each class and attention is typically lost for the final 5 mins of a class bringing the teachable total down to 50 or 80 mins

• This means in a school with 5 blocks per day, a student loses about 50mins of class time getting settled, that's 250mins (or just over 4 hours) per week.

If you shorten the school week to 4 days do you increase the productivity of students for the brief time they're there?  Most likely not.  While teachers might benefit from a long weekend every week giving them ample time to charge their batteries, get papers corrected and plan for their next lesson, students will be more likely to forget information and need to be retaught each Monday in order to prevent regression.  All teachers no that Monday mornings require them to be on their "A-game" as students will be lethargic from having two days off.  Now give those same students 3 days off and see what happens...

Understandably with budgets becoming increasingly difficult to balance, school districts are being asked to make hard decisions in order to preserve the quality of education for their students.  But making a decision that reduces the amount of time a student is in school consecutively sounds like a terrible plan.  If anything the school day should be longer (perhaps with a longer lunch period) so that students can have even more "teachable" time.  Low-income students would benefit from increased school time as their families wouldn't have to worry about spending as much on child-care and they would have less unstructured time which could get them into troubled environments.

The old adage "Time is Money" could never be more appropriate than speaking about educating the youth of America.  The problem we seem to be having is forgetting that time in schools, LEARNING, is money well spent on our future.

-MB

Teachers Are Overpaid: Really?!

This post is a response to an article posted by U.S. News and World Report Education read the article and feel free to post YOUR response to the study in the comments.

image - www.gosmart4u.com

Wow. What value is a child's education? Can you place a dollar sign next to a child and say, "That is how much their education is worth to our nation." It is a common fact among college students aspiring to become teachers that we say to one another, "teaching will be my first job, not sure what my second job will be yet, but I'm bound to have one."

Sure, the hours sound great, all of the major holidays, and not to mention you'll never have to work on weekends... That is, unless you're so passionate and dedicated, like most teachers are, that you spend countless hours preparing for the next days lesson, correcting tests and papers, and spending hundreds of your own dollars to make those students' experience in school as excellent as possible.

The next study they should do would be how many hours the average teacher spends outside of the normal school day doing work-related activity and add it on to the amount of hours they work in a year. Then take their salary and subtract all of the money they invest back into their classroom (usually on essentials like paper and pencils, not extra, unnecessary materials). Now divide that salary over the number of hours and see how much the average teacher is REALLY making per hour. Compare that to the "market average" and then, look a hardworking, exhausted teacher (who works another job all summer) in the face and tell them, "You're overpaid." 

Beg, Borrow and Steal: Info Sharing Among Educators

Throughout the past 4 years of education classes, a common phrase that professors will use is "Beg, Borrow, and Steal" when referring to future educators obtaining resources to create lesson plans and the like.  When I had to complete countless hours of observation and pre-practicum hours the teachers in the schools all said the same thing and many offered their own materials as samples.  This idea of sharing information among educators makes perfect sense.  If a teacher has materials and resources that are extremely helpful to educating students, why wouldn't they want those resources used by other teachers to ensure student success across the board.

Image - businesscriticallearning.com

However, when it comes to actually finding resources to create lesson plans the one place that seems to fail everyone is the internet.  Long held as the place where you can find ANYTHING, the internet is surprisingly lacking as an teacher resource bank.  Sure, there are plenty of scholastic sites choc full of resources if you have the money to subscribe.  These are the same sites that create countless assessments used by schools, and even the creators of high school exit exams, college entrance exams, etc.




So it would appear that the last of the three rules of obtaining resources becomes a reality.  Copyright laws seem to go out the window, photocopies are made and materials are passed around from teacher to teacher, teacher to future teacher, and so on.  In a world where schools don't have enough money to pay their teachers and buy supplies for their classrooms, teachers are working two jobs because their passion for teaching outweighs their need for monetary compensation, these large educational corporations are making millions by developing the textbooks, creating the assessments, and most importantly, stocking up on all the resources so there's no where else to turn to get them.

Of course, teachers could (and should in some cases) develop and create their own resources to use with their lesson plans, however, in some situations it seems inefficient for each new teacher to re-create the wheel when they could be using that motivation and energy to improve upon what we already have and pave a new path forward.  Instead, new teachers will spend their first few years catching up to the rest of the education world, and by the time they're ready to discover something new, over half of them will be burnt out from getting where they are.

Let's change the old adage from "Beg, Borrow and Steal" and make it "Accept, Reuse, Improve"

-MB

Can a Presidential Election Help Education?

As I was reading some articles on the Republican debates that took place earlier this week, I thought to myself,  where is all the much needed attention on education reform?  Turns out, it falls well short of other seemingly more important topics, fixing the economy, job creation, and whether or not taxes should be raised, changed, cut or otherwise.  It was time for a quick and easy investigation.  I went to the websites of the top six candidates from the Republican Party to see what they might have to say for themselves that the media doesn't have time to focus on.

The results:

• Mitt Romney - Education is not listed as an issue

• Michele Bachmann - Education is not listed as an issue

• Rick Perry - Education is not listed as an issue

• Newt Gingrich - Education not listed as an issue

• Ron Paul - Shut down the Dept of Education and encourage homeschooling/private schooling

• Herman Cain - Localize education, remove federal government interference, let teachers and administrators fix things

My reaction: wow.

At a time when President Obama admits that NCLB didn't work the way it was planned, states are clamoring for funding and education reform is on the minds of many, how can it not be an issue large enough to garner a single sentence on a political candidates website?

As for the issues they deem more important than education, perhaps they would benefit from reading some timely articles about the jobs Americans aren't qualified to fill.  This ABC News article details companies that would love to invest in the United States, but have to train all of the employees themselves because they do not graduate with the skills required.  Or perhaps this article from the Times of India which shows jobs that already exist in the U.S. but take months to fill due to lack of qualified workers.

President Obama's American Jobs Act includes pieces that will provide money to hire workers to rebuild and upgrade American schools as well as money to keep teachers from being laid off.  Is this going to just increase our debt? According to the White House it's all paid for by our other major issue: Taxes (another post simply on this debate would be long enough as it is so I'll hold my tongue).  Whether or not you agree with the President's proposal, he, at least, is attempting to fix our broken schools as a method of keeping people employed.

So, to answer the question posed in the title of this article: No.  At least, not currently.  The only people running with a plan have a plan that says: Somethings wrong, let's ditch the whole thing and let states/towns fix it themselves.  We'll see how that works out...

-MB

Occupy Boston: Reminding Protesters of the Meaning of Civil Disobedience

Over the past couple of weeks I've kept tabs on some of the protests happening across the country, mostly watching New York and Boston.  I think it is a great thing for people to exercise their first amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly.  Throughout history classes students learn about groups that have exercised these rights such as the Sons of Liberty in the 1700s and the Civil Rights movements in the 1960s.

However, it is critical to note to students the different causes for these movements and the rules that the protesters followed (or broke) to achieve their goals.  The Sons of Liberty were members of the colonies who were under an oppressive political system in which they were asked to give and give and got little in return from the British government in England. Their response, the Boston Tea Party was a felony, they stole goods from a private company and dumped them into the harbor (also polluting the environment, though people didn't care back then).  The Civil Rights movement in the 60s tried a more lawful approach to resolving their plight. Again, this was a group of people who were subjected to terrible treatment by a government who didn't listen to the voice it supposedly gave them.  They held rallies and marches, gave speeches and boycotted bus systems.  Yes, some of these actions were illegal, but they didn't resist arrest, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. went to prison without a fight, he accepted the consequences of his actions (regardless of how we view those laws now).  These were true exercises of their freedoms of assembly and speech and it helped pave the way for equality in this county.

image - http://socialismartnature.tumblr.com/

What I've come to realize is that many of the people who are participating in present day protests don't really understand the laws.  They believe that there is no penalty for breaking the laws and that the police have no right to break up their protest.  They cry out that the police are being brutal and assaulting people.  From the videos I've seen in Boston, the police response has been lenient and they told the protesters, not to disband, but simply to move to the other end of the park.  The police have let them perform their civil disobedience and stay in the park overnight for 10 days, they just didn't want to have the newly renovated end of the park destroyed.

If you want to participate in protests, good for you, they are an integral part of maintaining the freedoms that people have fought for, but you have to be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions.  If you break the law, the police have not only the right, but the duty to arrest you.  Don't lose sight of what you're protesting (not that I've been able to figure it out myself...) otherwise you go from a group of people sending a positive message for change, to a band of crazed, disjointed people causing a headache for officials and wasting (yes, the police required to keep you under control have to be paid) taxpayer dollars simply because you misunderstand your rights as a U.S. citizen.

-MB

Reforming Teacher Education

There has been a lot of press recently about holding teacher education programs accountable for the results of their students, i.e. the teachers in the schools.  As a soon-to-be graduate of a teacher education program that is considered fairly good and productive, I can say that the problem is not one program vs. another, the problem is simply the development of teacher education programs in general.  As I mentioned briefly in my last post, doctors, lawyers and a number of other professions do not simply allow graduates to be a full member of their field without at least a year of additional training and mentoring.  Teachers should be no different.

Engaging. Approachable. Helpful. Knowledgeable.  These are all qualities that a good teacher hopes to possess, however, it is not easy to gain these skills and qualities during a 16 week student teaching semester.  In fact, there is so much stress simply about having lesson plans done and "perfect" on paper that it is hard to have the time to develop the interpersonal skills that good teachers seem to exude.  Where are the programs that give teachers real hands-on experience in the classroom enough so that when they are thrown into their own classroom they don't panic, burn out or quit.

I want to be a great teacher, one of those teachers that the students want to have, the parents enjoying meeting with and staff come to to ask advice because things just seem to click for me.  From discussions with other students in the program I am aware that I'm not one of a kind, the majority of students who really want to teach want to have the tools necessary to really help students progress, not to just be the teacher who stands in front of the room and bores the students to tears.

Residency programs are the answer.  They provide students with a year or two years of mentored teaching, where the new teacher is not asked to bear the entire burden of teaching students in their first year of work.  Instead the workload is shared with an experienced teacher who knows the ropes and will make sure that the students do not lose out simply because you're trying to get your feet on the ground.  That is the key isn't it?  That the students receive a quality education and the tools they need to succeed.  So many students have missed years because their teacher was brand new, and not for lack of trying, simply did not have the experience to give them the help they might otherwise have received.  After this first year of mentored teaching, the new teacher has an entire year, start to finish, of working with students and seeing what works and what doesn't, learning classroom management and curriculum planning, all while having the support system necessary to get the job done.

Currently a major network of teacher residency programs that I was introduced to by a friend called Urban Teacher Residency United offers programs in many large urban areas in the United States.  But these programs shouldn't be limited to large urban school districts, instead teaching colleges and universities around the country should develop programs based on these models in their own areas whether urban, suburban, or rural.  Through a program like this, you are not guaranteed that every teacher will be great, but you certainly will avoid missing out on years of learning while a new teacher, who might be a great teacher soon, gets his/her feet under them.  And school districts will develop a sense of ownership of their new teachers. Teachers will be connected to their mentors and to other residents in the program and schools will have a better network of sharing teaching strategies and experience that benefit ALL teachers and most importantly, the students.

-MB

Must-See Education Movies

Waiting for Superman

www.waitingforsuperman.com

Tonight, the Social Justice League at Bridgewater State University put on a movie viewing and invited any and all members of the university to come and watch and held a brief discussion following it.  The number one reaction I saw among the crowd of about 40 students was "You've got to be kidding me," followed closely by "how can WE change this?"  Personally, I find the number one problem with documentaries is that after doing such an amazing job articulating what the problem is, they have a hard time showing what the collective "WE" can do about it.  

Some of the suggestions made in this movie were: 

1. Spend more on education
2.  Hire better teachers
3. Get rid of tenure so you can fire bad teachers
4.  Abolish the teachers' union because they stand in the way of true reform and change.

Sure, these might be ideas that could spark the change we're looking for, but what about the negative aspects of each of these?  Ultimately, the conclusion that came in to my mind after seeing this truly heart-breaking documentary was simply this: if you can't change the system immediately, you can at least change the people in the system.  So the first step towards a United States educational system that "works" meaning the students are LEARNING, is to better prepare teachers before they even have a thought of stepping foot in that classroom. Teachers need guidance and new teachers are clueless when they walk through those doors. We need a teacher preparation system that involves HANDS-ON learning for teachers well beyond the less than half a year they spend student teaching. (see Boston Teacher Residency Program- one example of how we can better prepare teachers)

-MB

21st Century Skills

image- http://teacherspodcast.org

EDweek.org - "New Initiatives Signal Shift in U.S. Ed-Tech Leadership "

Excellent! We're now well into the digital-age and it's time education followed suit in understanding the importance of student's access to the internet.  As is described in "21st Century Skills" by Trilling and Fadel (A must read for all educators) the essential skills required to succeed in the world today involve literacy in technology.  Students must have access to resources in order to succeed, not only in schools, but also in their careers.

While some might say (and I agree) the internet is taking over many aspects of daily life that might have been better suited without it.  However, the internet is an amazing array of learning tools that can help students learn in a plethora of ways.  The internet can help an ESL student with the click of a button, ensuring that they can read and understand the course material in their own language so that they do not fall behind simply because they're trying to learn English at the same time.  The internet can do many things for a student who is visually impaired and allow them to be as functional with technology and the world around them as any other student.

An understanding of the internet, email, and even social media is something that people with success in the business world have and use to promote their careers.  No student should be asked to do as much without access to these technologies.  This plan by Comcast should be looked at by other internet providers, all of whom have the means to offer these low-rates to provide access to all students.  If we provide students with the tools and support, they will become the innovators of the next generation, they will be able to turn the corner and find success in their future.

-MB

"No Child" Left Behind

Obama Makes His Own Statement On Education

As a future educator the thought of losing federal funding due to low test scores has always seemed like a broken system.  A school that is under-performing should instead be receiving additional support so as to raise the standards and improve the education of those students.  So from the standpoint that states will have the "freedom" to implement their own standards and not risk losing federal funding, I'm in favor of President Obama's new education policy.

 As a student, who missed out on two weeks of class and countless hours of class-time that could have been spent on actually learning material because we were practicing taking tests, I know that the future of education (even in the hands of the states) includes millions of dollars spent on standardized testing in order to determine if students are meeting the standards set by each state.  Yet, this system is not truly being stripped of it's flaws, instead the buck is being passed from the federal government to the states to take the brunt of the blame (or praise) for the condition of America's schools.

As a resident of Massachusetts, one of the highest achieving states on standardized testing and one of the best states in the country for post-secondary education, I have to say that we don't have it perfect here either.  Yes, the results say that most districts are improving their test scores, but that is not to say our schools are adequately preparing students for life after graduation.  Education has come a long way, yet even here in Massachusetts, there is no time to sit back and feel good because children are still being "left behind" and the focus should be moved from "teaching to the test" to an approach that embraces teaching to learn.  Once a student is taught how to learn effectively on their own, given the necessary tools in literacy and analytic thinking, then they can be successful in today's global workplace.

Ultimately, kudos to the Obama Administration for admitting the flaws in the system and still highlighting the honest attempt to improve America's schools, but at the same time, the ball is in the hands of the states now, it is up to them to fix the system and turn around under-performing schools and give American students the education they deserve.

-MB

Procrastination In the Classroom

http://onlinelearningtips.com/

As I was faced with my first case of procrastination this semester, I felt it was apt to post an article I read that discusses how procrastination is reinforced and some steps you can take to overcome it.  From the teacher perspective, it might be beneficial to talk about procrastination with your students as it only gets worse with time.  Also, by not giving long amounts of time for projects/papers/presentations you can help habitual procrastinators by forcing them to get all of the work done in the allotted time.  Another method might be to have small pieces of a larger project due each day so as to reduce the stress/overwhelming aspect of a large assignment.

This article from California Polytechnic State University sheds more light on the epidemic that is procrastination in schools:

http://sas.calpoly.edu/asc/ssl/procrastination.html

Feel free to share your thoughts, experiences

-MB

Must-See Education Movies

Over the course of my last two years studying Secondary and Special Education I have come across a number of fantastic documentaries that are must-sees for all people with an interest in education.  As I myself have a chance to watch them I'll post my thoughs on them

Race to Nowhere

http://www.racetonowhere.com/

I had a chance to see this documentary over the summer and it was eye-opening.  It is hard to imagine an environment that is so counterproductive for healthy student learning.  Whether or not you end up agreeing entirely or at all with the opinions presented in this documentary (some are related to specific situations/schools/students that might not apply if looked at on a larger scale) it is a great way to reflect on your teaching strategies/styles or even just an educational environment you have an interest in (i.e. your children, your school district, etc).

I highly recommend seeing this and feel free to post your thoughts here!

-MB

Changes: Next Exit

"Change we can believe in"-Barack Obama

"Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, turn and face the strange"- David Bowie

"The times they are a changin'" - Bob Dylan

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix" - Christina Baldwin

"Nothing endures but change."- Heraclitus

Change is something we deal with every second of every day. We have to go from one activity to the next, one place to the next. Time is changing, the weather is always changing. But like the weather sometimes change is for the better. Sometimes change is exactly what we need, it's the kick in the pants motivation, it's a heads up caution, it's a slap in the face reality check... So many people talk about change, our president ran on change, which is ironic, because by definition an election means change, no explanation required Mr. Obama! Even Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher already 2,500 years deceased knew the importance of change. Nothing lasts forever, but that is not a statement of cynicism like so many broken-hearted people make it, quite contrary, nothing lasts forever because everything is always changing. Not all changes are so permanent as death, but even in death things change.

Things that survive are things that can adapt to change.

So here's to the valiant, the brave, the courageous who not only accept Change's existence but embrace it, to those who live by the seat of their pants and never let and opportunity pass them by, I salute you.

-MB