Friday, May 20, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
True Notebooks
DEAR FRIEND
Hello there old friend
At the moment I'm kind of down
It seems as though this is the end
I haven't had the chance to see you around.
I've been sitting here bereft,
Along, locked down
But now I have a window
And see you every night.
Times are hard, but I'll be all right.
Gun towers, barbed wire is all I see
No matter how far I travel
I glance up, and there you'll be.
It's good to have a friend like you
At times you help me shine through.
I still have a long journey to go
But I'll be free again
I'll use this time to grow
In not just one way, but all
There's a lot for me to learn
So I'm gonna start like a baby, with a crawl.
Though the road may seem
Long and far
Eventually I'll make it
Dear old friend, North Star.
-Kevin Jackson
Hello there old friend
At the moment I'm kind of down
It seems as though this is the end
I haven't had the chance to see you around.
I've been sitting here bereft,
Along, locked down
But now I have a window
And see you every night.
Times are hard, but I'll be all right.
Gun towers, barbed wire is all I see
No matter how far I travel
I glance up, and there you'll be.
It's good to have a friend like you
At times you help me shine through.
I still have a long journey to go
But I'll be free again
I'll use this time to grow
In not just one way, but all
There's a lot for me to learn
So I'm gonna start like a baby, with a crawl.
Though the road may seem
Long and far
Eventually I'll make it
Dear old friend, North Star.
-Kevin Jackson
Well Said Notebook
"Sorry but I don't need any part-time people in my life. You're either with me or you're not, you can't just come & go as you please."
Yup.
Yup.
Monday, May 16, 2011
#sschat
I just spent the last hour watching a twitter chat, and occasionally participating in it, all about social studies, particularly tonight, the topic of debate. And I took 3 pages of notes. I couldn't figure out where to take notes digitally fast enough flipping back and forth between the notes and the chat, so I grabbed my "classroom ideas" notebook and started there. A couple ideas that I really liked and want to implement:
- During the 1st week of school, set up all technology and accounts with students, do they need google accounts or edmodo or schoology accounts? (two new online educational groups, similar to blackboard for students)
- Post debate vocab words on the board for students to see, such as "my opponent" and "the negative side" as well as good verbs to use, and then teach those words at the beginning of the year, and watch as students begin to use them in their debate
- Have a participation card system, or talking chips, to monitor or increase participation. Either have green/yellow/red cards for students, or students only get x number of chips to speak x number of times.
- Preparation is key for debates going well, both for students and teachers. Give them graphic organizers for their topic-research, they list the pros and cons of their side, guess the pros/cons of opposite side, come up with x number of points supporting their argument.
- Possibly have a judges panel. If using students, they create a checklist of key points for both sides, write a debrief of the debate, and can award points for good supports. Can also invite parents or community members to judge.
- Debates aren't just about winning/losing. Have the entire class try to come to a consensus at the end of the debate. Can set an amount of the class if necessary...100% v. 75%. Maybe in DC the lesson of the debate can be that students can come to consensus, why can't congress? (Another debate topic: Is it good or bad that Congress doesn't often come to a consensus? AP Govt class there)
- Post-debate everyone must write/debrief to make it effective. Have to summarize their points, and the opposing points (tell them ahead of time so they can take notes if they want to, or make them), and then critique both sides, maybe have some self assessment, add forgotten or just thought of points, ask further questions for further study. Maybe write a letter to another student in the class, discuss whether they would switch sides, etc.
For the past week I've been pretty bored, I don't think I'll ever be a stay at home mom once the kids are in school because I'd go crazy. I need something to do. I was getting pretty frustrated with not knowing where I'm going to be in 3 months (obviously the DC area, but doing what? living where?) because I'm a planner and I would love to be able to plan my classroom and the year starting now. That plus the unsureness of the job market has made it even more tough to stay positive, but participating in the chat tonight (even by just watching it) really made me want my own classroom and want to do whatever I can do get it. Did I mention that I made it to the 4th round of the first process for DCPS? Oh yea. I teach a 30 minute lesson to middle schoolers Thurs the 26th at Sousa Middle School (in Southeast). If I pass that I get to talk to principals. Hopefully about then the NoVa schools will be kicking into gear too.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Education: Promise for the Future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BjcS-bHeC0
The reason why we need to spend more money on education, not less. From a NYT op-ed:
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI
San Francisco
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing.
At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.
So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?
We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.
Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each. At the year’s end, if test scores haven’t risen enough, he or she is called a bad teacher. For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.
But we can reverse course. In the next 10 years, over half of the nation’s nearly 3.2 million public school teachers will become eligible for retirement. Who will replace them? How do we attract and keep the best minds in the profession?
People talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly. There is no silver bullet that will fix every last school in America, but until we solve the problem of teacher turnover, we don’t have a chance.
Can we do better? Can we generate “A Plan”? Of course.
The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.
And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in
these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.
McKinsey polled 900 top-tier American college students and found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a maximum of $150,000. Could we do this? If we’re committed to “winning the future,” we should. If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.
Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary “American Teacher.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 1, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated one finding from a McKinsey poll of 900 top-tier American college students. The poll found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to
a maximum — not a minimum — of $150,000.
The reason why we need to spend more money on education, not less. From a NYT op-ed:
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI
San Francisco
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing.
At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.
So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?
We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.
Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each. At the year’s end, if test scores haven’t risen enough, he or she is called a bad teacher. For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.
But we can reverse course. In the next 10 years, over half of the nation’s nearly 3.2 million public school teachers will become eligible for retirement. Who will replace them? How do we attract and keep the best minds in the profession?
People talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly. There is no silver bullet that will fix every last school in America, but until we solve the problem of teacher turnover, we don’t have a chance.
Can we do better? Can we generate “A Plan”? Of course.
The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.
And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in
these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.
McKinsey polled 900 top-tier American college students and found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a maximum of $150,000. Could we do this? If we’re committed to “winning the future,” we should. If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.
Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary “American Teacher.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 1, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated one finding from a McKinsey poll of 900 top-tier American college students. The poll found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to
a maximum — not a minimum — of $150,000.
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