Thursday, August 03, 2006
YO
Why do people keep writing me emails about how they disagree with me? Clearly my ideas are a constant source of brilliance for the world and my opinions are always 100% correct and incomprehensibly well thought-out. Readers are lucky to even have me around to dish out these hot plates of sizzling fajitas made from the chicken of excellent thinking and the tortillas of hilarity!
The message, friends and neighbors: stop messing around with my deeply held beliefs!
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
New York City is having trouble finding space for all its new small schools, and many of its existing schools feel they have no room to accomodate them. One public school in Lower Manhattan went nuts when a charter school was slated to move in. That charter school will now be housed in the Tweed Courthouse, below the offices of Chancellor Joel Klein. I liked that because it was gutsy and shows he cares about charter schools and wants to give them a chance to educate kids.
Competing for shared resources is always a tricky deal, but it seems to be exacerbated by a sense of institutional rivalry when there are charter schools involved. My own school's administration often has difficulties with the administration of the public school we are attached to. This summer our students had to use the other school's cafeteria (because the Board of Ed refused to deliver hot lunch to our cafeteria since it was only a "warming kitchen" and not a full-fledged cafeteria). This was not our choice, but our students still had to eat, and there were only a handful of students at summer school in the public school. But instead of letting us walk through the hallway (mind you, we walk in silent, straight lines), which really makes the most sense and creates the least disturbance, the other school's principal made us go through the basement or around the outside of the school. When asked, she had no explanation for this demand. I hate that kind of bureaucratic, power-play nonsense, especially since we are all working toward the same goal (or should be): to create better lives for the students in our community. Can't we all just get along?
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
Huzzah! This New York Times article reports that Kansas voters just knocked out the School Board members who supported the teaching of intelligent design in Kansas schools. See, I can have some respect for creationism, because it's part of a religious belief system, and no one tries to argue differently. On the other hand, intelligent design, the theory that the complexity of living beings proves the existence of a 'guiding hand' in evolution, passes itself off as a scientific theory. The problem is that intelligent design has no hypotheses that can be proven or disproven and, therefore, is not science and should not be taught in a science classroom alongside legitimate scientific theories. Certainly evolutionary theory has its problems, primary among them being the lack of a coherent fossil record. But just because we don't understand everything about evolution and how it happened doesn't mean it should be scrapped! I'm glad people are finally standing up to this political hijacking of knowledge. Kudos to Kansas!
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
P.S. This blogging thing is hard! Big ups to Eduwonk for doing it every day!
Here's what I mean
I am currently attending the KIPP Summit 2006 in New Orleans, attended by all the KIPP schools as well as other excellent charter schools and charter school networks (for example, Uncommon Schools and Achievement First). It is awesome. Compare some of the AERA presentations I talked about yesterday with these, presented over the last few days here in New Orleans:
--"Basics on Advising College-Bound Students"
--"Analyzing Test Scores"
--"Activities and Questioning with Bloom's Taxonomy"
--"Informal Assessment of Reading Difficulties"
--"Overview of Expository Writing, Parts I and II"
--"A Typical Day in Math 8"
--"Developing Number Sense"
These sound a little more practicable and useful than a session on Taiwanese mail-order brides, don't you think? Yesterday I learned a ton of great strategies for creating a safe, calm, effective learning environment and how to deal with students with difficult behavior. Today in 1.5 hours I learned exactly how to teach my kids to write summaries from fiction or non-fiction and how to highlight text effectively (college, hello!). THIS IS WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED from grad school and NEVER GOT. And was so sad about that I had to write an angry blog full of tirades. It's $30,000 worth of tragic.
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
Several people emailed me about the definition of eco-racism. Basically it is racial discrimination in environmental policy, as in dumping toxic waste in minority communities. I appreciate this as a valid and serious issue. Our society has many such disturbing tendencies, and all citizens should educate themselves in order to make democratic choices based on their beliefs. However. Macro-society issues like eco-racism, or gender inequality, or class differences, are often prioritized in education schools ahead of the actual business of education, which is teaching and learning. I believe that an educated society is a better society, and that educating people (particularly those who have traditionally been powerless) can help to solve a lot of these troubling issues (for example--educated people are better at advocating for themselves and their communities politically). Thus, I am troubled that teachers (or teachers in training) are forced to learn about HUGE societal issues that they cannot possibly solve by themselves before (or in place of!!!) the techniques necessary to become a great teacher.
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
teacher certification
Here's another article by Frederick Hess, Tear Down This Wall: The Case for a Radical Overhaul of Teacher Certification. This dude has a good sense of humor and some good points to make. He argues that to be qualified to teach, people should only be required to have a bachelor's degree, pass a test in their subject area, and have a clean criminal record. This would not eliminate teacher training programs, but it would mean that they would have to offer something that principals, teachers, and schools would value since they would all be competing with one another for students and respect. OH NO! INTRODUCING MARKET FORCES! EVIL! But a good idea. I would love to be able to choose from teacher training programs that have been shaped by competitive value. I was going to quote from the article, but when trying to paste from the Adobe document instead of words I got 1000 little boxes, which I'm guessing you're not interested in. If you click on the link, go down to the conclusion on page 29 and read the last paragraph. It's funny and true.
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
P.S. Thanks for those of you who emailed me with ideas! Keep those suggestions comin'! newoldschoolteacher@gmail.com
This article, Silly Season for the School Scholars, by Frederick Hess at the American Enterprise Institute and an education researcher named Laura LoGerfo, is hilarious. It's about the titles of research papers presented at the April conference of the American Educational Research Association. My favorite titles include:
--Resisting Resistance: Using Eco-Justice and Eco-Racism to Awaken Mindfulness, Compassion, and Wisdom in Preservice Teachers
[If someone has a creative guess as to what "eco-racism" is, I would like to hear it]
--English-Language Learning in a 3-D Virtual Environment: Native/Non-Native Speaker Dyads Co-Questing in Quest Atlantis
[Do you know that "dyads" means "pairs"? I heard "dyads" used all the time at grad school. What's wrong with "pairs"? And if you don't like it, can't you say "two students"? Someone needs to let these people know that making up new words does not make you smart. Or, as I like to say, "making up new words does not make you comalius."]
Maybe some of this silliness wouldn't be so bad, but, as Hess and LoGerfo point out, we have real educational crises on our hands right now. Do articles on eco-racism and Taiwanese mail-order brides (that was another one they mentioned) really help educators search for solutions to these crises, or are they a way of keeping busy to avoid the real and difficult problems facing education in our country?
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
first post!
So I just read the letters from the "Kindergarten Playtime" article the Eduwonk referenced below. It seems to me that these readers are getting a little hysterical. I don't think anyone wants to take all play away from kindergartners or other young children. The point is that once kids start school, it shouldn't just be about the child's "creative potential" but about his or her educational or learning potential. Many children enter kindergarten lacking the language skills that will help them develop essential literacy skills. Kindergarten teachers have to play catch-up so these children will be on track to college. It may be hard on young people to do math drills and phonics exercises, but adult poverty is even harder.
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher
Hi everyone! It's a pleasure to be a guest blogger. For those of you who don't know me, I'm 24 and just finished a harrowing year in a master's program at ed school. I went into the program knowing what I wanted to get out of it in order to be a good teacher, and I got almost none of it. Read my blog if you're interested in the details of my year of shame.
By some miracle of science, I recently landed a job with a high-performing, fun, great, fantastalicious, SUPER charter school in New York City. I am so lucky that they were willing to take a chance on me. It's my dream job. We just finished 3 weeks of summer school, and I love it already. The kids are great, the parents really want this kind of education for their kids, and everyone in the school works so hard and is so smart. So happiness has arrived.
Over the next few days I'll be posting entries about articles I see and whatnot. I'm not used to this format wherein I have to "read things" and then "comment intelligently." For my blog I just spewed out random thoughts that came into my head, which usually consisted of nonsensical cursing at the nearly unbelievable stupidity and wastefulness of the education establishment. Saying something constructive is more difficult. So if you see any interesting articles or news, PLEASE send them my way! You can email me at newoldschoolteacher@gmail.com . And don't worry, the eduwonk will be back before I can do any real damage to the good reputation of this blog. :)
--Guest blogger Newoldschoolteacher