A Teachers Viewpoint

How to save American schools - step one

2006-04-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

The first thing that absolutely must be done is to abandon the absurd notion that anything useful is gained from the current misuse of standardized tests. States, local boards and schools must simply refuse to take part in these tests. They are resulting in the destruction of schools, good administrators and good teachers while doing little or nothing to improve appallingly bad schools.

Perhaps the most aggressively dumb use of test scores is when the whole school score is used to evaluate individual teachers. In every school in America there are lizards who think that the way to teach is to make kids copy the textbook. In the same schools there are great teachers who break their backs everyday to see that thier kids get the highest quality instruction. Yet those same great teachers have their evaluations graded down because some other loon next door can't teach. This practice is demoralizing great teachers everywhere. The time has come for school administators of courage and integrity to say this is one thing I will not do.

The time has come for intelligent administrators, teachers and governing agencies to stand up on their own two feet and say this is enough. Most important it is time for parents to say with loud voices "you will not do this to my child." It is time for parents, teachers and everyone involved in schools to stage a rebellion in the voting booth. If a legislator or any government official insists on continuing the current use of standardized tests - vote - them - out.

Parents need to remind government officials that their children belong to the parents, not to the government.

I wish to concede one argument that school testing advocates will make. There are lousy public schools - many of them. However, standardized testing is not the way to determine the quality of a school. All anyone has to do is walk through the halls of any school in America to perceive the quality of a school.

The only intelligent use of standardized tests is to determine the growth of a single student over some reasonably extended period of time. Standardized tests of content should be used to gauge a childs' growth in a discipline. That is the single use for any standardized test.

Take back control of your schools.

National Geographic vs Tippy Chases His Tail

2006-04-21T18:05:00.000-07:00

Another aspect of the testing scandal that is occurring in Texas is seen in the seemingly trivial requirements around this test. What is the difference between a magazine like the National Geographic and a 10 page book from the school library.

One can be read in a classroom after TAKS and the other cannot. Would you like to guess which one is forbidden?

You are absolutely right! National Geographic would be the magazine that is the one that the students cannot read after the test.

After a student completes marking the TAKS test he or she certainly must remain quiet. That is not arguable. So, students in a particular testing situation were given National Geographic magazines to read. The problem is that National Geographic is a magazine. By virtue of its binding students were told that they could not read National Geographic magazine.

The state of Texas tells test administrators that after the test the students can read a book. They can't read a magazine. They can't draw. They can't put their heads on their desk and sleep. The situation has become so legalistic, so rule bound and so silly that school administrators are running scared of being found guilty of violating any of the silly rules associated with this farce. Since the instructions say "book" the students WILL read a book, not a magazine like National Geographic. So students are reading books. And many, if not most of the books, are written at a very low reading level. As long as the material they read is in the printed form we know as a "book" anything is legal.

The thing I would like to ask any parent is how long are you willing to put up with this until you hold the politicians who voted for and still support this monstrosity responsible. How long will you put up with this mess. Your kids time is being wasted.

The people who tolerate this waste of time in their kids lives are responsible. That would include all of us if we do not raise our voices for change.

Is there any hope left for average to low income kids

2006-04-20T08:08:00.001-07:00

Lately, I have been wondering what it will take to help the public to understand how bad things are in many public schools. I am especially concerned about schools that serve average to low income populations. Many of those schools are under the leadership of people with minds so dull that it boggles the imagination. So many administrators in schools are playing a fools game. There are so few administrators now that have the intellect and the independence to reason for themselves.

Most school administrators have bought into the testing philosophy. Because of that the educational landscape is becoming more of a wasteland. This week in Texas we are giving the TAKS. The TAKS is that way that schools are now judged in the state of Texas. There is really no other way in which schools are measured. Unfortunately, that is also the way that teachers are measured. Tragically, it has become the way the kids are measured.

In many districts across the state teacher contracts are being held up until the TAKS scores come in. Many of the superintendents and boards in charge of school districts believe that the scores on the TAKS is actually a way to measure quality teaching. Rational thought still can be found in some places. But, unfortunately, many school leaders have fallen for the common orthodoxy that somehow a school population, particularly one that is challenged, can be in the same place at the same time. Further, many of them seem to think that it would be a good thing if they were in the same place on tests.

If a school district falls into the last appallingly stupid group its approach will be something like the following. The district finds that its test scores are below their expectations. The district curriculum leadership then tries to identify the specific objectives that need work. They tell teachers that their evaluations and their jobs will depend on the test scores of their students. All the busy bees go to work writing manuals, worksheets and workbooks to remediate the skills that are lacking. The skills are taught out of context with the view that if you really hit those skills hard then success can be achieved. This procedure focuses on ever narrower objectives until almost nothing is taught. Then the tests are given the next year. When the scores don't come up it must be the teachers fault. So, obviously the answer is to hold teacher contracts until the scores come up. Some districts will try to shuffle the chairs by simply moving teachers and adminstrators around. Other districts may actually go so far as to close schools to eliminate the problem of low test scores. When a school is closed and redefined by a district the scores at that school basically go away. That is the solution of an intellectually bankrupt leadership.

Presently there are schools who are just dumping their older, more experienced teachers for cheaper young, inexperienced teachers. School districts can save a tremendous amount of money in this way. Too bad about the kids. I have seen situations where hundreds of years of combined experience are replaced by people who have no experience. There are classes where the students are reduced to reading the chapter of the textbook and doing the questions in the back of the chapter. Many, many classes exist where there are no grades in the computer. I have seen situations where the grades absolutely were fabricated out of whole cloth.

The collective leadership of many schools represents a true confederacy of dunces. There are some specific things that failing schools can do if they want to help the kids. I will muse about those things in coming days.

wonder whats new today

2006-01-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

You have to love it.....

A wake-up call from one of America's top education watchdogs: Parents are ultimately responsible for their kids' future success. Check out the rest of the article here.

Here's one that seems to say that school success might indicate success in he real world. Who would have thunk it?

In their meta-analysis of 127 studies involving 20,352 participants, psychologists Nathan R. Kuncel, Ph.D., and Sarah A. Hezlett, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Deniz S. Ones, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus, set out to directly test whether the abilities related to performance in academic settings overlap with those predicting performance in work settings. To do this, they focused on studies that involved the Miller Analogies Test, or MAT. The MAT has been used for admissions decisions into graduate schools as well as in hiring and promotion decisions in the workplace. In use since 1926, the MAT is composed of analogies that require knowledge in many different areas, including sciences, literature, the arts, history and vocabulary. Read the rest here.

Kudos to teacher Debbie Fisher in St. Petersburg, Florida ...

Debbie Fisher, a teacher at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg, has a problem her peers can only wish for:After class, her students don't want to leave. Check it here.

Here is another great teacher. For Elaine Schwartz, 2005 is going to be a tough act to follow. That's the way to go Elaine! Read about this wonderful teacher here.

Late in the day today, I noticed this article in the Guardian over across the pond. Teachers who use any technology probably are familiar with Power Point. Here is a nice article on the uses of the program. According to the article "Whether it's used to teach special needs children to express themselves or for demonstrating accelerated learning, PowerPoint is proving a real hit." The rest of the article is found here.

The loss of wonder in school

2006-01-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

As we all know there has been an enormous controversy regarding the teaching of evolution in schools. I think one, among many, of the things that bothers me with the secular fold is the loss of wonder. I am a Christian. But, I don't have a problem with evolution because I believe that God did it all. I also see the holes in evolutionary theory. I think I found an article today that puts it better than I could ever hope to do. The article is The Death of Wonder by Rabbi Nathan Lopez Cardozo

I didn't know what to do with this from the start

2006-01-03T21:44:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, I will now. I really hope I am a little less bitter now than I was a few months back. A lot of things in education seem unjust to me and in fact, they make me mad.

I am going to be restructuring this blog to include much more related to home schools. I really believe in them. I am very drawn to the independent lifestyle it affords. I am also keenly aware of the traps that can be set. I am going to try to keep this local as much as possible, offer teaching tips and support homeschoolers as much as possible. I will also be scanning the news for items as they come up.

Henry Cate asked me if I would mention the First Carnival of homeschooling. So, the First Carnival of Homeschooling is up and can be found at: http://whyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2006/01/carnival-of-homeschooling-week-1.html

I am more than willing Henry. There ya go!

I hope everyone has a great and happy New Year. I hope God blesses you really well.

If you have kids in a public school pray for them.

2005-05-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

I just viewed the videotape of the attack on two teenaged boys on a schoolbus by an out of control adult. The article and video can be viewed from this link. The parents handled themselves extremely well in the interview I heard. The bus driver is a very fortunate man. The child he attacked wasn't mine.

Why do parents put up with this kind of behavior from anyone associcated in any way with a school. The bus driver clearly struck the student first. I don't think he feared for his life. If the story is correct as it has been reported (and as we know pigs are flying regular routes around the country) there was a kid who may have been disrespectful of the adult in charge. There also may have been an adult who took God's name in vain in front of the kids, called police then proceeded to go ahead and kick the crap out of the child who came to his brothers defense before the police got there. There is nothing like seeing a jerk about the size of the average gorilla grab a scrawny 15 year old by the neck and shake him like a rag doll. Yep, this winner is real powerful with kids. I wonder how he would be with some of the dock workers I grew up around. They were good men filled with love for their wives and children. But, I shudder to think what might have happened to someone who grabbed one of their kids and nearly broke his neck. There were very good reasons why no one sexually molested a kid in the neighborhood where I grew up. Can you
say vanishing off the face of the earth?

These parents need to get themselves a better lawyer as well. That guy basically apologized for defending the kid. What he should have said in response to some of the stupid questions is something like "Stupid, pathetic, cretin, you don't throttle a kid for being a cheeky kid under any circumstances where there is not a deadly weapon and the threat of immediate death. They need to get a lawyer who hates schools and would love to pull some creep through a propeller backwards. Fire the suit.

Does it matter if the kid misbehaved? Certainly. Do the kids need correction? Yes. Did a kid say something cheeky that started this travesty? Does the sun come up in the east? Were the kids who watched this happen abused? Yes. Should the boys be charged with a felony and spend the next five years of thier lives in juvie? Not in any universe. Would I have blamed any dad who came up to beat the stuffings out of the bus driver? No? If I were one of the authorities in question would I have leveled charges at such a dad who defended his kids from an out of control animal? No, based on defense of ones offspring. If you are a parent who can put yourself on that bus when the driver was shaking the kid by the neck who would not use a tire iron to drive the point about not strangling kids home to him then may your kid have many guardian angels. They will need them. They are not safe around you.

What happened to adults maintaining control of themselves? What happened to adult influence? What happened to adults being able to get along with kids? What happened to the idea of talking to kids. What happened to the archaic idea of teaching the kids as if each one of them was the apple of your eye?

Have we finally come to a time when an adult can actually assault a kid and basically skate while the kid gets a felony. If these two boys have to go through the special hell of a trial, being sentenced to five years in juvenile, and basically lose their youth then this school district should just be closed, it's leadership fired, it's buildings ripped to the ground and the earth salted under it. They have no business being anywhere near kids. Actual human beings should then come to build a real school where kids are taught right from wrong, instructed until they have mastered what it is they are trying to learn, and treated with the respect that comes with birth in this great country. By the way, if anyone wants to reply that I am talking about being weak on discipline go submerge yourself for about an hour. We gave up corporal punishment in most places not because we thought it was bad for the kids but because we were such disgusting pukes that we were afraid we would get sued. We replaced that with running every kid who chews gum through the court system. You think that's an exaggeration? If you do you know nothing about zero tolerance.

Education is in a flaming nosedive.

Kids have to be taught. You see it goes like this. If you want your child to be respectful, treat the child with respect. If you don't want your child to smoke, don't smoke around the child. If you don't want your child to drink, don't drink. If you want your child not to do drugs, don't do drugs. If you want your child to be of high moral character, be of high moral character yourself. If you want your child to show respect to the opposite sex, then show respect to your wife or husband. If you want your child to be honest, don't be dishonest. If you want to be able to tell your kid not to have sex as a teen, then you had better be sure you didn't. Kids learn by example. News flash - if you work in a school you are one of the examples. Join up and get over it. If you can't accept that responsibility, get your sorry butt out of the school business.

The same goes for teachers. It also goes for school bus drivers, teachers aides, secretarys, office workers and the copy clerk. Get over it, if you work with kids you ARE held to a higher standard. You are the example when the parents are not there. Teachers are the only good example in some cases. Everyone who works with kids has a commission given to them by God. We work with precious cargo. We have a higher calling. And, here is a news flash for any simpering jerk who wants to argue that we just have a job then you need to get out of this sacred profession now.

I believe it is time for people who give a care about kids to say ENOUGH. If you want to know why kids in this country seem to be out of control look in a mirror. Our popular culture is just so much crap.

That is why I find this bus problem so horrifying. An opportunity to lead young people was missed. An opportunity to show how an adult responds to stress was missed. An opportunity to show a group of kids that school is not some wretched place they have to spend their days was missed. I can't think of anything that was done right in this situation from the inoffensive lawyer to the gorilla on the bus. We in education are in deep quicksand with the limb over our head more than an arms length away. The time is almost too late. We have to say ENOUGH - NO MORE. Heaven help us all.

More on student morale

2005-05-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

I wonder what would happen if schools suddenly decided to treat students like the young adults they are. what would happen if kids were given some decision making power in the way they learn the things they have to learn. What would happen if students were surrounded by their own art, their own work and their own intellectual creations. What would happen if students were addressed as 'mam and sir. What would happen if students were spoken to in a quiet voice as two sane adults address each other. What would happen if we modeled the best behavior a human being is capable of to students.

Would test scores improve? Would learning improve? Would students look at school as a destination rather than a required drive-thru window on the way to life. I think the answer to all those questions is a clamorous, lusty yes.

If we examine the way we work as adults, I think many of us would agree that our best work comes out of autonomy. My best work is produced when I am given some latitude in how I am to complete my work. I know for sure that most of what I learned that is with me still I learned as a teacher.

While I prepare lessons from scratch as a teacher I am doing original work and research. I am fully engaged in the project. There is a flow to the work that I fall into that is hard to lay down. I have had students so engaged in my career that I had to run them out of the building in the afternoon.

A reasonable assumption is that students who look at their school lives as positive parts of their overall lives will feel better about the school. Let's face it, most kids do not think very far into the future. They think about how they feel now, today, and in the next hour. Kids also do not have the ability to understand how something will impact their lives. So, tick off the kids and everything goes away - discipline, teacher morale, test scores, safety, and untold numbers of things that I haven't thought of yet.

Kids also understand when their time is being wasted. If they are drilled to death for the state tests they will realize they are not really being taught something for their good. They realize that most of the time the school is concerned about the schools good. If the dress code becomes more important than the learning the kids will behave in a perfectly predictable manner. If, for instance, the administration of a building holds the view that the dress code is the underlying secret of success there will be a problem in every case. I have known of districts where the superintendent actually spent time at the high school, clipboard in hand, tagging kids for dress code. In the same situation teachers are told that their teaching evaluations will be effected if administrators walk into a teachers room to find one or more students out of dress code. Use your imagination. You will be able to predict what happened to the morale of the teachers and logically enough the morale and dedication of the kids.

The test scores in this unidentified school district continue to go down at the same time that dress code was identified as a way to improve scores, discipline and student morale. The results were predictable. Scores are going down, teachers are leaving and kids are constantly in trouble.

Check out your own local school. Find out if your school is rule driven or driven by a concern for impact of administrative decisions on the human needs and concerns of students. One student told this writer that "they just can't get past the dress code, if they put half the effort into helping us learn that they put into being sure that we don't have on denim that day, maybe things would be better. Right now, I hate school".

Schools should not ask students to think until the administration of the district is willing to ask itself the hard questions. The first question might be "why are we following this policy"? The second question might be "is there any indication at all that what we are doing could possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, in any universe, contribute to student learning and mastery"? The third question might be "is this policy based on reasoned thought and disprovable research questions or is it the result of my two-bit bias?"

Schools in our era are too often driven by assumptions that are simply the biased opinion of someone who should know better, the biased opinion of someone who is painfully ignorant, or the untested hypothesis of someone who wouldn't recognize good research if someone threw a book of research design principles at them.

In my experience rigorous thought and hard reasoning is extremely rare in the upper levels of educational administration. More often the contents of a one day seminar is forced on a district by an upper level administrator who bought the presentation hook, line and sinker without asking "is there any reason to believe that this content represents anything close to the truth.? Too often they simply are caught up by the flash of the latest idea down the pike. Two often what has really worked with kids since the first time there were kids is thrown out in deference to the latest idea that someone created because they really wish it worked and was true.

If you have a kid in a public school, pray for them.

A short object lesson

2005-05-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

I have written before about the need for respect in dealing with kids. Like people of all ages, young people during the period of early adolescence want to be treated with respect. This is a simple concept. Today, I worked at a middle school as a substitute. I was assigned to the class of an excellent teacher who had been called away suddenly. When I arrived, the class could be heard several doors down the hall. When I entered the room an aide exchanged places with a look of relief.

The scene was the usual middle school chaos that can occur when kids are within three weeks of the end of school and their regular (and excellent) teacher is gone. Three boys were up pushing each other larking around - having fun. Two students were in the back listening to their cd players. Girls were loudly talking. Some girls were putting on makeup or adjusting their hair in mirrors. A couple of kids were sitting in their desks staring off into space in the 13th year trance.

I walked across the room to the teachers desk to put down my gear. After placing my laptop pack on the desk I turned and walked to the front of the room. I stopped in front of the class just looking at them with what I hoped was a neutral expression. I held up my hand in the "attention" gesture commonly practiced at this school. One girl and one boy started yelling for quiet at the top of their lungs. Another boy came and stood beside me doing a really good imitation of me by holding up his hand in the same way and saying "quiet class, quiet".

I turned my head slowly and pinned him with my best sinister glare. I said quietly "excuse me, may I continue" in my most neutral voice. Then I stared at him is what I hoped was a neutral expression. With bravado consistent with his age and stage of development he replied, "don't get all up dog, yo". I motioned to his chair. He did a very exagerated bow that drew a few giggles. I smiled back at him. He sat down. I bowed in a grand fashion and said "thank you so much, sir", paused a few beats and added the word "yo". That drew laughter. I said "I need everyone looking at me for a moment". I waited probably 20 seconds in silence. The class gradually, over the next minute or so, turned and settled down.

In a moment I said "I have only one rule; I am going to treat you with complete respect.... and I expect the same courtesy." One last student said something that I didn't fully understand to which I responded "excuse me". As soon as the kids became quiet I said "o.k. let me check roll. I am going to try to pronounce your name correctly, but if I don't please forgive me. I didn't learn to even spell my name until I was in the fourth grade." Giggles around the room... I checked the roll verbally. When I finished I said "now I need a good volunteer to take the roll down for me". Twelve hands went up. I picked a girl who had been sitting quietly during the start of class. I then explained the lesson, got the kids started and then circulated around until the kids were well on their way. There wasnt a problem the rest of the 90 minute class. I managed to teach quite a bit during the progress of the period. They kids responded so well. I was so proud of them.

A few days earlier, I was at the high school. While there I had a chance to visit with an old friend who had done a survey for the administration. One of the things the a young man said was "I want my teachers to stop yelling and sceaming at everyone". Another kid said "I want my teachers to teach".

I started my career 32 years ago yelling, barking orders and talking kids into corners from which there was no escape. I will never forget the day my supervisor took me out, bought a six pack of beer and drank it with me. That day he told me to always remember that every child was the apple of someones eye, the most precious of all things to them. I have never forgotten that statement.

As I write this I am listening to one of the great songs currently out. The song is called "Simple" by k.d. Lang. (yes,she uses lower case). With your permission k.d., the most touching line of this work of art says:

Love will not elude you .... love is simple;
Love will not elude us ..... love is simple;
Love is a philosophy..... it's simple;

Teaching with love is a philosophy.... it's simple. Teaching with respect is a philosophy....it's simple. It's simple. Love gathers love.
The fruit of showing love and respect is receiving love and respect. Kids are not the enemy to be crushed under our feet. They need the same things we all need - love, respect, encouragement, freedom from ridicule, and a good example.

If love is your philosophy, the kids will make teaching what you want it to be. Love will not elude you. Returned respect will not elude you. It's simple.

The best intentions of mice and men

2005-05-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

A person greater than I once said something about the best laid plans of mice and ment being blown away must have been thinking about my last month. Suffice it to say that this has been one of those times when life is "interesting". I believe there is another saying about wishing someone an "interesting" life.

I remember at some point telling Edwonk - I believe - that I was going to post everyday or at least several times a week. So much for that.. I was completely innocent of what it takes to write a great blog like so many of you do everyday of your lives. All my preconceptions are now gone, reality has set in.

Anyway, my "interesting" month has come to a conclusion. The bilge pumps worked, someone on a white horse rode in for me in just the nick of time. I am back, hopefully to stay without too much interruption.

I started this in the hope I would be able to make some contribution - no matter how small - to the grand effort of helping people to get appropriate educations. My intention is not changed as I pick up the thread.

John

Reflections on the note to public schools

2005-04-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

I sincerely want to thank the folks who took the time to respond to my post from April 5, 2005. All of your points were well taken. I also appreciate the observation about my spelling. I am an educator. As such, I should be more careful when posting. I have no problem with that comment.

That post was composed and posted in a moment of anger. The post truly was a "stream of consciousness" piece. The provocation was the confluents of several events. I frequently just float aimlessly around the internet to see what may be written about education. While doing my nightly wandering, I discovered the Time piece on homeschooling. The quote I added to my post was the one that drove me over the edge last evening.

The premise of the quote is that parents have some sort of "social contract", for lack of a better term, that causes them to be bound to place their children in the public schools for the greater good of the social construct we call public school. That view is deeply repulsive to me.

I do not believe that the purpose of a child is to serve as fodder for any social institution. I believe the quote implies that parents who take thier children out of the public schools are somehow harming society or undermining the purposes of the state. I find that idea to be so alien to the idea of the rights of man that it must be answered - written 4 years ago or not. Yes, I knew when it was published.

Every parent in this country must understand that children in public schools are in a social laboratory. I do not mean to imply that there is some vast conspiracy to indoctrinate children to become automatons, slaves of the state or worse. But, I do mean to imply that the situation in many schools is negative. One of the things I love about the church I attend is the idea that everyone is welcome and received with open arms. I see skater kids, punk kids, goth kids and kids who fall into all the other types coming to church. No one harasses them. The idea is that we want to get them in the door of the church where they can meet the Lord first. Then as they mature in the Lord, the dress takes care of itself. I think the same thing should happen in schools.

My attitude as a teacher is - please - just let the kid get to my room. If I can get them to my room, I know that I can help them. I know that encouragement, excellent teaching and respect will take care of 99% of the troubles. The problem is that often the very first thing the kid hears as he or she enters the building is someone barking at them about the shirt tail, or the logo, or the number of buttons buttoned. A kid in a private school, most likely, understands some of the validity of dress codes. A kid walking in off the street most likely does not. I would ask why does the first thing a kid hears have to be "go to the office and get a detention". If there are no private parts hanging out why can't they be taught. After all that is what we do in schools. What would be so bad about just letting the little dude with the bad hair get past the guard and into my class where they will be taught. I will take care of instroducing enough cognitive dissonance to get them to correct at least some of their fashion habits. But, please, let them get to my room through the maze of teachers assigned to gum duty, potty duty (not letting them get to the restrooms before the appropriate time), dress code inspection duty, lanyard/ID duty, clear backpack duty and the other myriad kinds of inspections that we do.

There is always one in every crowd of kids. A boy came into a school with an untucked shirt, two separate kinds of shoes, unwashed, uncombed hair, the wrong color shirt, no belt and, frankly, he smelled. He was directed into the office where he was confronted by a teacher who asked him why he would come to school like that. Didn't he know any better? Didn't he have any pride? Wasn't he proud of his excellent school? Doesn't he know he will never be able to even get a job flipping burgers if he dresses like that? The kid expressed the opinion to the teacher asking these questions that she was a particular kind of bitch. He was ushered off into the assisstant principals area. There he met the building law officer who gave him a ticket. Because he was still a bit resistant he was arrested and taken off to juvie in handcuffs. When he had his court date a few more things came out. When he got home from school the previous day his mom was asleep in preparation for her evening shift. No food was prepared. There was no milk and cookies, not a crumb. There were no juicy leftovers from the night before because there was no meal the night before.

When the boys mom woke up she found him with his head in the icebox. So, logically enough, she slapped the crap out of him. Then she told him to get out of the house. About that time her first trick arrived for the evening. The boy sat by the steps crying as trick after trick when in and out of the house. After several hours the door was slammed shut and locked. The boy was locked out. He hid in the bushes beside his house out of fear. He did not sleep, bath, or have clean clothes for the morning. So, he came to school in what he had on his back. His ID was at home on his desk.

I just pray that he gets the right judge. Welcome to the wonderful world of the semi-urban public school. Try to help me understand why that child is going to do anything other than hold schools in contempt. Try to explain to me why an unsocialized child is not taught about why they need to dress correctly before they are shuffled into the school judiciary. And, miracle of miracle, just about every time I tried to rationally explain something to a kid it worked. Teaching works every time it is tried. Now try to explain to me how that child is going to get an education. Oh, I almost forgot the state test will take place in a couple of weeks. I am just sure that child is going to be ready to sit
for a test given over 5 days. Each session will be 8 hours during which the kid will be required to sit still and quiet for those 8 hours whether he is finished with the test in 1 hour or 8 hours. He will be told he can only read or sleep after the test. Oh, I forgot. He reads on the third grade level. So he is likely to just put his head down and sleep. Come to think of it the testing may be good for him - he will get some sleep. He has a lot of trouble sleeping in his home while his mother is turning tricks. Ah, a benefit of the testing. Because it lasts 5 days he may get 5 days of nearly 8 hours sleep while at school to learn. And, he will also have the luxury of one bathroom break in the morning and one in the afternoon.

I wonder what would have happened if he had just been allowed to go to class. I wonder what would have happened if someone had asked him about what had happened to him instead of having him arrested and taken out in handcuffs.

We teach children, not mature adults who are fully responsible for their views and habits. What happened to sitting down with a kid and teaching with love how to dress. What happened to taking the time to sit down with a kid to try to find out why things are like they are. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that the school has to appear hard and zero tolerant of shirt tails, t-shirt colors and saggy pants. Otherwise society would fall into chaos.

When I was a kid in junior high school, who had a few more social skills then kids today - not many but a few, people actually taught me why I needed to dress correctly. But, I will also never forget the time I was stood against the wall so my jeans could be measured for distance from the floor. I made the mistake of following my genetic code and growing 3 inches so my jeans were 2 1/2 inches above the tops of my shoes. I was told that my mother could come and get me or I could have a paddling (3 pops)for a dress code violation where I had a growth spurt and my pants were 2 1/2 inches above the tops of my tennis shoes. My mom was working to support our family of two after the death of my father. There was no way I would call her to come bring me other pants. I wouldn't have done that too her. So, it was across the desk for 3 of the best. When that was over I was put in a "bad kid" class for the rest of the day where I copied the dress code over and over for about 7 hours. If my mom had stayed up late the night before, she could have let out my pants. So, I got a bruised butt, 7 hours of alternative class and a lot of yelling from the power mad person in charge of being sure we got our copying done by yelling, more paddling and intimidation. Later I asked my mom to let my jeans out. She still does not know why I asked.

Sure, dropouts are just a mystery.

So, I have a modest proposal. Any parent has the right to take their child out of what has become a social engineering experiment. So, yes, I modestly propose that public schools quit whining. I propose that they make themselves full participants in the competitive society. They should compete for their clients in a free market where they would have to prove to the folks that they offered something of value.

I also know full well that there are beautiful and caring schools in the public system. I taught in one of them - well for the most part. But, I would invite anyone to go into a public school for a week. Wander around, listen to the kids in the hallway, walk into classrooms and really listen, really question. You will learn more in that week than you will learn in all the op ed pieces in the next few weeks.

Think nothing like this is possible in your school? Think your school is doing everything it can to help you kid? Think that your local school is just peachy? I would advise you to get into your childs school and dig deep.

A note to public schools - quit whining!

2005-04-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading a fine article on home schooling over at Time.. By in large, it is a fair and thoughtful article that considers many different aspects of the home school phenomenon. However, this quote just sent me over the wall.

"Home schooling is a social threat to public education," says Chris Lubienski, who teaches at Iowa State University's college of education. "It is taking some of the most affluent and articulate parents out of the system. These are the parents who know how to get things done with administrators."

My first gut reaction is a very loud - so what? Chris Lubienski misses the point entirely. The thing that parents care about is not public education as a social construct. They care about their living, breathing kids. And, a lot of them want to keep them that way.

Within the last couple of weeks we had the second most appalling school tragedy in recent years. Another needless school shooting took the life of innocent kids because an insane child snapped. The parents who have a brain in their heads will look at this senseless act and wonder if it can happen at their child's school. And, without too much trouble they arrive at the correct answer which would be yes. Only a profoundly disfunctional idealogue would have trouble understanding the desire to protects one's child. After all the school at Red Lake had metal detectors and a security guard. Neither of those protections did one bit of good. How can someone criticize a parent for not sending their child into what is essentially a war zone. Personally, I am amazed that anyone would go back to a school that had endured such a heartbreaking, profoundly stupid tragedy.

Then there is the general state of instruction in many schools. In many places education has been reduced to the least common denominator of items that may be found on the state test. The system as it stands now simply weeds out the more intelligent administrators because they are likely to question the methods of preparing kids for these high pressure assessments. In many cases the schools are left with people who either cannot think of a reason to question the testing orthodoxy or who do not have the mental horsepower to bring the system into question. Presently, there is a high school somewhere in these United States who daily prowls the hallways with a clipboard. On that clipboard is a form that lists all the possible infractions of dress code that might occur. The reason the form was created was to make it easier for the superintendent to write up kids for violations of the dress code. The checklist makes it so much easier - don't you see? This superintendent has vowed to fight the good fight against untucked shirts, and incorrect pant colors so that - yes, you guessed it - test scores will improve. Of course, all the kids see the stupidity of it. And, they become angry. So, angry that their motivation, morale and respect for the authorities is all but destroyed. Yes, it is actually happening. The story is true. Only the names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent. I cannot criticize the parents of an intelligent child who just throw up their hands at the absurdity of this fruit bat of a superintendent.

In another school somewhere in america a substitute was asked to conduct a class reading of a passage with the students. By the end of the day the sub was nearly ready to pull her hair out because of the kids who could not read written English --- in the eighth grade. In this particular school district the motto is "preparing the future". So little is taught in any school on any particular day that few children can keep from getting so bored they almost can't keep their heads up. And some of the teachers refer to these kids as being from the "shallow end of the gene pool" as they prepare more banal lessons. The really brilliant, idealistic, committed teachers in the building are trying to swim upstream against a current running like a tsunami.

Then there is the kid who I will call William. William can be found in the hallway sitting at a desk much of the time. He sits there because he misbehaves in class. He clowns, he fidgets, he plays, he puts his head down. So, some - mind you, some - of the teachers use the brilliant strategy of putting him in the hallway unsupervised. Some might say that the little wretch deserves it. But the fact is that there are one of two brilliant teachers who can get him to do anything. For those teachers he will actually do work, turn it in, listen, and work in a motivated fashion. Why - because those teachers treat him with the respect he deserves. Yes, they correct him. But, they do is like he is a beloved child. Some the other staff members just can't understand why he will not treat them with the same kind of respect. Oh, I forgot to mention that this kid has the original parents from hell. Both of them drink. Their whole approach to child rearing is to either completely ignore the kid or "beat his butt raw." This child puts the lie to genetic inheritance because he is bright. He also has a good heart. He also doesn't have a chance. But, he is disruptive. He is extremely difficult to handle. And, some other parents child will have to sit by him as he makes faces, crawls under his desk, makes faces at the teachers behind their backs, pulls hair, pushes, calls out and generally single-handedly destroys the learning environment.

Teacher turnover in most schools is unbelievable. There is no way to tell who any child will wind up with in any given year. Most schools just go ballistic if a parent has the audacity to ask if their child can be in the class of the only successful math teacher on the staff. Parents often hear something like no, your child can't be changed out of Mrs. Lizards class because if we changed her out we would have to change everyone out. The logical answer would be - so what? If the person is such a drooling stooge that no child should be in the class, why should any child be in the class. Then there is the teacher of my acquaintance who allowed a child to become ineligible because he had three zeros. The three zeros were for papers that the teacher claimed the child had not turned in. When someone went into the room when the teacher was not there and found the papers in the 4' high (measured) stack of ungraded papers, the principal signed off on the child so he could play his sport.

Why wouldn't a parent want a child to be a part of all this joy. In many places the process of public schooling has become a nightmare. In others it can be pure joy. But, taking all of the problems into account, there is no way on Earth that anyone can criticize any parent for taking their child to be nurtured and educated in their own home. In the face of the failure of public education to educate and protect your own child, social constructs crash and burn.

No grades - I can get behind this - if

2005-03-29T19:24:00.000-08:00

Carmine Park Elementary School may be the first school to truly experiment with the elimination of the traditional grade levels.

Carman Park Elementary School may soon be a grade-free school.

Students would learn based on ability level, regardless of age. If a fourth-grader is ready for algebra, he or she would be grouped with children of varying ages studying algebra.

I strongly support this approach if all the various levels are truly addressed. The ideal situation in education is an environment in which kids are actually allowed to progress at their own appropriate rate. The problem will develop if there are teachers in this program who are absolutely devoted to the kids who learn differently or at a slower rate. I share this view with Jenny D whose excellent post can be found here. She rightly worries about the kids who are struggling. Too often in the past, students who were difficult or who were perceived as having learning difficulties were shuffled off to less capable teachers with fewer resources.

The same thing has been true of students who were either able or just much more motivated. These students frequently found themselves meeting roadblock after roadblock.

However, this is an effort that I would encourage everyone to get behind. The problems will be great. The kids will have to be followed very closely. Those who can go fast may well go very fast. The teachers may find themselves jumping through hoops to keep enough in front of them. The kids who are behind will have to have enough really creative teaching techniques to assure that they learn to mastery.

I congratulate this school on getting out of the box in the truest sense. They deserve the support of the education community. Personal agendas need to be set aside with regard to this experiment. Good on them!

encouragement

2005-03-28T22:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight I finished a course of study that lasted 24 weeks at my church - Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. We all got a very nice certificate, video was made of the evening for a production, we all walked. When a guy was called up to get his certificate we all cheered wildly and yelled encouragement. We had a ceremony to make the completion of something difficult and meaningful. I felt like I was on cloud nine. When you walked off the stage you walked through a double line of men who had gone before you. Each man who walked through the line got high fived, patted on the back, blessed, congratulated and it felt so good. So why won't this work with kids. At the end of a difficult unit teachers could have a ceremony. We don't have enough cerimonies marking the growth of a youngster. They have no feeling that an important milestone has been crossed. It's just another day.

Ceremonies work. They build people up and celebrate their triumps. People get to mark a place and move on. It's proof you did it. A sense of accomplishment - it's so simple. Maybe something will change in the persons life because of a gfreat and early success. It's simplistic, but it works for human beings.

God Bless

John J

For Red Lake

2005-03-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

Today all educators feel a sadness that, for some, is too deep for tears. We live in a time when the most joyeous times of youth are sometimes shattered by the an appalling darkness. Today is a day when all educators should stand with their colleagues at Red Lake. We have all seen kids who, for one reason or another, seem to be a split-second from an insane decision.

But, I would remind all of us of this; we chose our work because we are willing to stand watch at that place where the extremes of culture and the extremes of youth may come together explosively. We work in a profession that is constantly blamed for the ills of society. Yet, we cannot control the powerful tide of darkness that sometimes floods the soul of a child. We try everything we can to reach every kid we teach in spite of the heart-rending frustration that we all feel. We know that we cannot reach them all. We know that we cannot heal them or know when that one precious soul may descend into that ultimate darkness. But, we still stand at the brink. And, those of us who stay, do so willingly in the belief that somehow we will be able to help that one kid. Sometimes we ask ourselves if it is worth it, if we are doing any good when it seems that every current is running against us.

And all of us must remember, that, oh yes, it is worth it. Everyone of us has touched many lives. Everyone of us has blessed some child in a way that will reverberate through the generations. We can all look to many children whose lives are in some way better because we were there. Ours is one of the most blessed professions. We are given a life's work that will effect the future all of humanity for the better. Never doubt that your lifes work is worthwhile because what you do represents the best motivations of humanity.

I would like to share the note I sent to the principal of Red Lake, the faculty, the kids and the community in this dark time. I encourage everyone who reads this to take a moment and stand in their shoes. Try to imagine... then let them know that our profession forms a circle of love around them. Let them know. Don't let them think they are going through this without the thoughts and prayers of their colleagues.

An open letter the administration and faculty of Red Lake:

I want you to know that my prayers and thoughts are with you, your faculty, your kids and your community. God will see you through this. Also please know that the nation cries with you in this time. I have been involved in taking guns off kids. We live in times when events can spin out of control for reasons that we cannot control. I know how quickly the day can change from wonderful to the darkest horror.

You must remember that rule number 1 in education is that kids sometimes become completely lost. Rule number 2 is that, despite our best efforts, educators simply cannot change rule number 1. Please, please do not take this on your shoulders. And, please convey to your faculty not to take this event on their shoulders. There is no way that any educator can see any of this coming. A few years ago one of the most wonderful kids I ever taught lost his way and took his life. After much thought and prayer I realized that there was nothing I missed, nothing I could have done. We cannot know when a child’s life will drift into madness. We do what we can but there is only so much we can do.

I know without a doubt in my heart that all your wonderful kids have found their way to a beautiful place with God. This was not caused by you, nor God, nor your school. This happened because a very troubled child lost his way. Your work still has meaning. You are involved in a profession that will effect generations into times unimagined in the future. Your kids are and will be better for your work and your life. Don’t allow yourself to think that the horror you have walked through in any way changes the good that you are doing or the good that you will do. May God bless you, your teachers, your kids and your community.

John McGeough

There is no mystery - there are no wrongs

2005-03-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

Anyone want to know what is screwing up kids? Here it is. There is a perfect example in Maryland. Montgomery County Public Schools are instituting a version of sex education that makes a unique use of the lowly cucumber. I'll never be able to eat a salad again. In a recent piece by Cal Thomas we are informed that this system will be teaching kids in middle school and high school how to put a condom on a cucumber. Further, Mr. Thomas tells us that "They will also be taught that homosexual couples are the newest American "family."

We are also informed that the school district will be encouraging their students to "develop" a sexual identity.

One wonders if the school district is going to make any neanderthal like statements such as it is best to abstain from pre-marital sex? How are they going to present the "sexual identity" topic? And, what does this possibly have to do with the education of young people.

To me, this is just reprehensible.

When will parents have enough. School districts have absolutely no business getting into training children about how to have sex. Further, it is unimaginable that a school district would talk with kids about their sexual identity in a way that influences them one way or another. Schools have no business in what should be basic parenting. Unfortunately it is true that many parents have completely abdicated their responsibility for raising their children to schools.

I cannot imagine any parent allowing a school to give their child any instruction about the child's sexuality. If parents love what schools have done to education, then they will be enraptured by what they will do to their childs attitude about sex in general and their sexuality in particular.

Here is what will likely happen. The children in any school district are likely to be instructed by an individual who has absolutely no professional training in the subject matter they are required to teach. Most of them will be no more informed of the average person on the street about human sexuality. Likely, in the middle school the person will be a person like myself - certified in life/earth science with no training that gives them any credential to teach this vital and controversial subject. Further, these kids will be subjected to the views of those individual teachers. Most won't intend to put their views on center stage, but they will not be able to avoid it. They will do so with a raised eyebrow, a too-neutral expression, an inflection in their voice. Some may actually state their views about these issues.

As a parent I would not want that to happen. I am a teacher. I know teachers. Some are brilliant. But, some are barely functional. Some would drop dead if a thought passed through their heads. Cruel perhaps, but true.

Here is another fact that parents need to consider. There are some teachers that are wonderful people. But, there are also those who have the moral principles of really degraded alley cats. Both, those who are wonderful people and those who are reprehensible, ferral alley cats will be teaching these kids.

Among the more insidious ideas that permeate schools these days is the idea that anyone in schools know better how to raise kids better than the parents. This is about nothing else. In this case a school district has decided to indoctrinate children in a philosophy that holds that it is alright to have sex as a child. Teaching children the use of condoms presumes nothing else. Further, a school district has decided to make itself the arbiter of what is right and wrong about the issue of homosexuality. Nothing could be further from the proper mission of a school. This is an example of pure arrogance. The school is simply saying that we don't care if you want your child not taught how to have sex, we will teach them how to do it if we feel like it. And, we feel like it. The school is also saying that we have decided that we know best about how to approach instruction about your childs sexuality. And, we want to indoctrinate them with the idea that homosexuality is right and acceptable regardless of your backward opinion.

I say this to parents all over America and in Maryland. You have the power to tell this and any school district what can and cannot be taught to your children. Your power lies in your moral courage, your love for your children and your moral convictions. If you abdicate this to the school, may Heaven save your children. Not just from this issue but from any other issue that the propagandists leading some school districts decide to teach.

If you want to know why kids get pregnant, they do so because they do not believe it is wrong. Get over it.

If you want to know why some kids get so confused about their role as young men and women, it is because they have not been taught what is right and what is wrong.

Kids who steal do so because they do not believe it is wrong, so do adults.

Kids who lie do so because they do not believe it is wrong.

There are no mysteries here. Our children are having babies, doing drugs, becoming alcoholics, killing each other, engaged in sexual immorality, and Heaven knows what else because they do not have any sense of what is right and what is wrong.

Right and wrong is neanderthal these days. When you wonder why kids are having sex, performing all manner of perversions, and showing no respect for any societal standards look no further than the mirror. And, one of the primary mirrors in our society is the public school.

How dare they do this. More to the point, how dare any parent allow schools to do this.

Many, many kids are on the road to hell because no one had the guts to say this is right and this is wrong.

Well, Maryland, this program is wrong.

Looking around the internet

2005-03-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

The brilliant Edwonks chose the same story as my post for today. They too saw the silliness in saying the pledge of allegance in Russian. Here

Over at Education Watch you will find a brilliant post about the various way a college education can be delivered. Here

The Unrepentent Individual is taking a few carefully aimed shots at the BMI. Here

Professor Plum has recently been concerned about the tragic state of toilet training. Yes, toilet training - check it out here

The blackboard jungle seizes the teachable moment. Here

Chris Correa has a spectacular article on the origins of IQ studies. Here

Number two pencil is taking aim at the SAT II. Here

Polski13 gets our attention with a few thoughts on getting the attention of kids. Here

No left turns looks at the religious left. Here

What a great reading menu.... enjoy!!!

Can we just have common sense

2005-02-23T19:52:00.000-08:00

Floridatoday.com is reporting that a 13 year old middle school student has been suspended for "assault" with a rubber band. I cannot know the specifics of this situation. If this media outlet can be trusted, here are the basics of the "assault". The student found the rubber band. He slipped it on his wrist. His science teacher demanded the rubber band. The boy tossed the rubber band on the desk. As a result he was charged with a Level 4 offense. This is the highest level offense in the school discipline code. This places the incident with the rubber band at the same level as arson, assault and battery, bomb threats, and explosives. The thing that apparently places this event in this category is that the school code of conduct does not discriminate between a rubber band and a stick of dynamite.

The boy received a 10 day suspension for this heinous act. Additionally, he may be expelled period. Just brilliant.

There are a couple of things that need to be considered here. First, the boy may have thrown the rubber band. He may even have snapped it. The report says tossed. What he did may have been overtly rude, maybe not.

The boy would have been well advised to place the rubber band on the desk rather than toss it. Perhaps, he needs to be given instruction in polite behavior and respect for needed authority. I don't doubt that what he did may have been perceived as acting out. I wonder if, when he decided to toss the rubber band, he decided to put the teachers eye out. I doubt it. I would imagine that he behaved like a 13 year old boy. He may have been irritated by the teachers demand. But, this begs the question of intent. Did he intend to attack the teacher with the rubber band. Again, I doubt it. Did he perhaps act with a little bit too much "one facial hair" bravado? Perhaps. About the time boys get a bit of facial peach fuzz some of them tend to think they are a cross between Tarzan and the California Governator - Awwnold. They simply start acting like things are bigger than they are. Silly - yes. Criminal - No. Now of course, he may have decided to kill the teacher with the rubber band by tossing it on the desk. Let's grow a brain.

The teacher may have asked a bit rudely. I am not proud to say that I have, just because the day mortally reeked, driven a kid or two to distraction in my thirty years of teaching. Some days should just be put out of their misery. I have yelled at kids. I am guilty of saying "shut-up" to a kid from time to time. God forbid in the old days I even paddled some for being a "cheeky" little kid. I wanted to tape one to the wall with duct tape and actually said I ought to duct tape you to the wall. Then, of course, the kid wanted me to do it and begged me to do it the rest of the year. He still teases me, 5 years later, because I didn't have the nerve to do it even after his mother told me to go ahead and she would come take a picture. (I still secretly wish I had taped him to the wall after it became the joke of the year). Especially seeing as how I let them duct tape me to the wall. It actually works. I taught science and physics to Pre AP students O.K.

I have seen teachers yell at kids to give up rubber bands. And, I have seen kids angered by the tone. I find the tone in many schools today to be a bit uncivil on the part of the teachers. So, I ask this simple question.

Is there anyway we can somehow not react to a rubber band like it is a hand grenade. And can the parents please help their kid with the idea of respectful behavior.

And, for heavens sake can some of the loonier school districts out there figure out how to think??????? Please, is there a way you can not make us all look like a pack of drooling idiots.

Lets all just get a clue. The poor kid didn't throw a hand grenade. He tossed a rubber band. Unless you actually are a drooling idiot you should be able to tell the difference. And if you profession is working with kids one would assume that you are cool, collected and capable of grace under pressure. And that if you see a rubber band tossed you will not freek out, mess your pantaloons, and start babbling in new languages. Once again, for those who missed my point IT WAS A FREAKIN RUBBER BAND. FOR THIS WE ARE GOING TO DERAIL A KIDS WHOLE EDUCATION.

What can you possibly do if a kid actually does produce a weapon at school. I guess you are sharpening the blade on the school guillotine. Most likely you set it up at lunch so all the kids can eat while the rubber band thowers' heads fall in the basket.

Schools are often pits of leadership challenged adults who have few to no skills at leading children.

The just freakin brilliant decision to expell this kid for 10 days and pssibly just put him out of school will effectively end his education. What will happen is that he will be placed in a backwater program where he will get the benefit of worksheet after worksheet with little to no instruction.

Plain stupidity doesn't really bother me. It is aggressive stupidity that gets me going. This is an example of agressive stupidity in its purest most malignant form.

Go ahead with this crap schools, you will single handedly bring the ultimate failure of public education. Only a freakin genius could think that a level 4 charge is the appropriate response to tossing a rubber band. I hold these educators in absolute, undiluted contempt. You need to go dig fence post holes before you do real damage in your current career. Please go perpetrate your complete inablility to put two thoughts together in a profession that deserves you - like snark diddling.

Save our children from ourselves.

You can read the article here.

Thoughts on another visit

2005-02-21T18:56:00.000-08:00

Here are another gaggle of geese. At least so it sounds. There is noise hereabouts. Vibrant chatter bounces off the plaster walls. Teams of middle school kids explore a major topic. This is major work.

The internet technology class, 18 early teens are unaware that I am in the room. They are absorbed in their trail. They follow electron pathways in search of answers to big questions. One possibility is "start with sand on a beach to explain how it might pass through the complete rock cycle. Be sure to explain how certain processes such as, but not limited to, compaction, contact metamorphism, and subduction can change the form of the sand." To answer such a question is to absorb whole conceptualizations of natural law. Or consider this; "Offer reasons that would justify a group of people to develop a city at the outlet of a great river into the ocean even if there may be natural dangers such as extreme weather, disease carrying insects and flooding."

These kids were so many bulldogs pulling at a tattered rope. And, why not? They worried a puzzle for its solution. No muliple choice absurdity here. Just, dare we say it, fun. Out of their efforts newspapers, brochures, presentations and a myriad more types of products were forming. The tapping of keys spoke to the energy of small fingers bringing thoughts out from the blood, proteins and myelin of their brains. This is learning. Connections formed deep within the wondrous liquid stuff of their minds.

Like students at Harvard Med they worked the cases. And by working the cases they did, miracle of miracles, learn the details. These are the ones who will pass the states puny yardstick as one who hops across a crack that might have broken their mothers back.

Out of their grappling they will write, reason, compute, plan and create. Much like we who are not in the artificially contrived construction we call school must do every day of our lives.

I watch a bit more. I am thankful when a group asks me to sit with them. I lose myself in their work - learning. Thirty-one years teaching, two degrees and most of a doctorate and I came to learn with 13 year olds. Sometimes the miracle happens.

Thoughts on a visit to a school

2005-02-18T18:49:00.000-08:00

Depth – that’s what’s missing. The teacher passes out two separate sheets of paper. There is a story on each sheet. Literature reduced to a paragraph. Hemingway reduced to an afterthought. There are about 150 words in each. Depth – where is it?
You are supposed to read each of the small stories. Then the kids write another paragraph describing the similarities between them. Less than 100 words. Time to completion was less than 10 minutes out of 50 for most of them.

That was all they had to do. That was all. After they were finished they, started talking quietly. Comparing hair, styles, counting the birthday money pinned to the front of the shirt, talking about the last fight they saw. It was just 50 minutes out of their lives. Then multiplied by 6 periods. Then multiply the time by 180 days. So, they may have actually been thinking 10 minutes on average. 50 minutes a week. 200 minutes a month. 2400 minutes a school year. That would be 40 hours. 5 days of 8 hour days. Nothing.

The kids are not motivated. There is nothing to be motivated about in this setting. There is no wonder why kids see no relevance in school. There is no discussion, no thinking, no extension, no controversy and nothing to get excited about.

Somewhere there are kids reading real literature. They are having discussions, no, arguments about what the words say. They are chewing at the meaning. The teacher is challenging them to think, provoking them to question. Not here.

A small group of kids looks at a low rider magazine. Brightly colored red, blue, pastels, primary colors in bold stylish shapes hold their attention. I don’t blame them. At least what they are looking at has some color. Eye candy. Who can blame them. Why would they not want to read the magazine compared to the bloodless, correct little story. Why would they not want to read about something exciting?

No one grapples with this stuff. There are no questions. No curiosity. The kids have no reason to be interested. They should be developing projects. These kids should be grappling with the big ideas of literature. These kids should be finding the grand generalizations that drive literature. Striking language designed to make sparks is wanted. Brilliance is lost in so much trivia.

I despise being bored, forced to do meaningless things that have no point. How can I ask the kids to like what bores me. School, as we now do it, has become a pale, almost transparent thing. Weak like tea that has been diluted too much. No flavor. No caffeine. This is one-eighth coffee and seven-eighths skimmed milk or the juice off spoiled cottage cheese. They want to spit. I want to spit.

These kids are not learning because there is nothing here worth learning. They are not stupid. They sense that their time is being wasted. These are good kids with real brains. What is being lost here? Tragedy. Appalling tragedy.

I ask them to pass me the Truckin’ magazine.

Join the legislative proficiency movement

2005-02-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

State legislatures have remarkable power. They control the amount of taxes that are taken out of your paycheck. Legislatures are responsible for the laws that govern regulation of your behavior. The penalties you will incur should you violate those regulations are determined by these bodies. Legislative acts determine what speeds you can drive and how the industry that supplies your car insurance is regulated. Members of legislative bodies determine how your children are going to be educated. Indeed, in Texas the state legislature determined which students will be able to graduate from high school through the requirement that students pass a standardized test. They also added to the strength of an entire industry – the testing industry.

These and many, many other critically important duties are performed by members of the various state legislatures. They also have some influence on whether or not you will live or die. Regulation of substances in air, water, automobile speeds, transportation safety and other things that have an impact on your life are controlled by legislatures. These responsibilities are heavy. Because of the importance of their job, the people who occupy the seats of the various state legislatures must be competent. How are we to be sure that your particular representative is intellectually functional or too seriously impaired to safely serve under the weight of so many heavy responsibilities.

We must be assured that every representative responsible for making laws that will govern every aspect of your behavior be able to read with great skill. Since we presume that all of them are high school graduates, each one of them should read at the 12th grade level. Every one of them must be able to comprehend what they read. How can we give the responsibility of governance to a person who does not comprehend what he or she reads. If you are willing to place your life in the hands of someone who can’t prove that they have high levels of reading comprehension, then will you please email me a note so that I will know to avoid you on the freeways – that are regulated by marginal readers in our state legislature. How can we allow our representatives to hold their jobs without proving their ability to comprehend the written word. Further, their actions have an impact on the general public. So, I am proposing that each member of our present legislature and all future representatives be required to pass a reading skill test before they can be seated. Since their actions impact uthe public good, these scores should be ranked. The rankings should be made public. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The Education Wonks have a great post today which exposes the fact that the Texas Education Agency has not even decided yet what the passing standard is for the current TAKS. Here

The Unrepentant Individual tells us why flights to Europe are about to get much more expensive. here

You have to wonder

2005-02-16T06:24:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what is important to know. We send kids to school to learn supposedly. But, what? What is it that is going to be important to know at 20, 30 or 50? What kind of knowledge is it important to have to get a job. I thought of all the years we spend teaching kids what we think of as a set of skills that are supposed to help them function in the world. In my musings, I decided to go look at the released Texas TAKS tests. Because I taught science I decided to look at science. I came across the following question.

A block of maple wood with a volume of 405 centimeters and a density of 0.67 g/cm(3) is sawed in half. The density of the two smaller blocks is now -

A. one-fourth the original density
B. one-half the original density
C. two times the original density
D. the same as the original density.

This question is found on the 8th grade Texas science TAKS test. Given that the kid taking the test had missed enough questions save one to fail the test, this question could be the one that makes the difference. This question could be the one that triggers all sorts of academic consequences of the kid. Further, if enough kids had failed to pass the test, this question could be the one that lowers a schools rating thereby impacting everyone in the school.

The academic in me is screaming to get out. The academic wants to say everyone should know the concept of density inside and out. Everyone should know that if you cut a substance in half the native density does not change. But, I have to ask myself and my readers the following question.

How many of us find the concept of density vital to our well being. How many of us get by just fine throughout our entire lives without knowing that cutting a block of wood in half does not change the native density of the wood. How many stock brokers, lawyers, cooks, writers or even cardiovascular surgeons speak of density everyday of their lives.

And how important is it that if this question is marked incorrectly a kids academic career needs to be interrupted. In the Houston Independent School Distict the new superintendent announced that three low performing HISD high schools will have outside groups take over the management of the schools. One of the principals who would be basically fired from his position has been in the job less than a year. Further, this years standardized tests have not been taken yet. Could something like that question have triggered that rather radical step.

I also feel moved to ask the heretical question of; so what? So what if my kid misses that question? What does that mean for my child' future. Does it condemn a kid to the intellectual rubbish heap of history? Should he lose his summer by having to go to summer school to take a lot of nonrelated work in the other subjects that he would be required to take?

I am willing to go out on a limb here and say that if the average citizen forgot everything they ever knew about density, the world will not stop turning. If a kid misses that question is there any reason to have a stroke over it? Is there any real reason to drop a schools accountability rating. I would like to know if there are any schools whose accountability rating has been dropped because one more kid missed one more question. I am sure of it. In all the cases where schools have dropped in accountability rating, there certainly must have been a question that was a tipping point.

Just wondering this morning.

Looking around the blogs:

Let's all give support to the Carnival of Education Week #3. Entries for this weeks Carnival should go to owlshome (at) Earthink.net.

Education watch has is dealing with the real problem of bias against conservative student groups.

Over at the Unrepentant Individual be sure and read this article about bloggers and their blogging lynch mob.

Professor Plum gives a wonderful analysis of the present crisis in edland.

At Blackboard Jungle there is an excellent quotation about properly placed cynicism about schools. And to our fearless writer of the jungle - have a great break.

Video taping of teachers is the excellent topic for Chris Correa today.

At Number 2 Pencil we find a post about a school addressing the minority achievement gap.

Radio tracking kids

2005-02-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Brittan Elementary School located near Yuba City has decided to take what may or may not be a bold step into the 21st century. Students at Brittan Elementary school must now wear radio ID transmitters. The article can be found here.

Congratulations - a school now tracks kids in the same way Walmart tracks say -underwear shipments- with radio tags. This is a K-8 school district that has 600 students in total. Of course, I would have to ask for exact numbers but if you divide 600 students by 8 you get 75 students per grade level. My class load last year was about 150 students. Some of my colleagues had loads of 160+. Now mind you, that refers to one teachers class load in a school of nearly 1000. I had no trouble keeping track of kids either by scanning the class visually or using a seating chart to check roll. The process of checking roll for most teachers is near instant using a chart or just knowing your students.

So, this situation begs a question. What can a school that may have 75 kids per grade level want with a radio tracking system. Do there teachers have that much trouble taking roll? Has roll call for that mass of kids been taking too much class time - say 10 to 15 seconds?

According to an article in the Mercury News school principal Earnie Graham said "we're trying to stay away from the tracking word. It's just another tool to verify student attendance."

Principal Graham also said "it's just another tool to verify student attendance. And I believe it keeps kids safe." The principal goes on to say that an intruder was located because of the absence of a badge.

Hold on a minute. Is he trying to say that the only way to tell if someone doesn't belong on campus is a badge. Yep, a badge helps. A simple badge that is would help. How in the world is an intruder going to be identified by NOT having a radio tracking badge on. If the intruder was identified referencing a badge it was simply the absence of a badge, not the fact that he wasn't beeping in the main office.

The article goes on to say that students are required to wear the badges from the time they leave home for school. Hmmm, does this mean that the tracking capabilities carry away from the school building?

No, this is a practice that should be ended immediately. I can tell you from years of experience in schools that attendance is not the only thing this system can be used to track. Let's just go on to the next step and require that id tags be surgically implanted.

The last institution I would trust to use this kind of a data collecting technology would be a public school.

This also stinks for other reasons. The company that supplied the transmitters - for free - is InCom. This company is owned by Michael Dobson and Doug Ahlers. Michael Dobson is the network administrator for the district. Ahlers teachers graphics and animation at another school. Can anyone say "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?".

I hope and pray that the parents in this district go absolutely hog wild on this issue.

Looking around in the ed news

2005-02-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

Now here's an idea. In a story found in the Dallas morning news Plano Independent School District seems to be having some success with AP Spanish. The idea is to encourage Hispanic students to enroll in AP Spanish as a way to get them into the AP frame of mind. The students find that they are able to do difficult work. Because of their success they may move on to difficult work in other areas. This looks like a good way to help Hispanic kids who are struggling. So often, these kids get shuffled into the less absorbing classes with the Mr. or Ms. TweedleDee at many schools. Check it out at this link.

Well, the Texas legislature is in session so that means that there is going to be a cat fight over merit pay for teachers along with the usual fight over school financing. The governor remarked "Excellence should not be rewarded the same as mediocrity, otherwise mediocrity becomes it's own incentive" in his State of the State message. This remarkable proposal would, of course, be tied to the scores on the state test lovingly referred to as the TAKS. An assumption that needs to be considered in developing merit pay plans is the idea of a level playing field. Considering schools that I am familiar with this presents a bit of a problem. It's kind of like comparing groups of runners who are made to run on a course that is absolutely flat and a course with a 20% grade. I taught students who were in Pre-AP science. These kids typically finished the TAKS test by 9:30 in the morning when it started at 8:00. But, my teaching buddy down the hall taught everyone who walked through the door. Given that my kids were scoring in the 97th to 98th percentiles versus hers that scored all over the spectrum, one must ask how the difference in raw material going to be handled? My kids may have been scoring that high because of me (chance that pigs will fly tomorrow) or because they came to me with brains full of information (chance that if you jump off your house you will fall). My buddy down the hall often had kids make major gains in their percentile rank while they still lagged in the overall comparison. It is easier to go from 60% to 70% than it is to go from 98% to 99%. She was more than likely doing extraordinary things with her kids. I hope I was also, but who knows? Hmmm. You can see the article here.

This particular kid might be the next CEO of Microsoft...unless he wears an orange jumpsuit. In the old days he would have stolen the answer key off the teachers desk and if he got caught he would have gotten popped. Well times they are a-changing. Now, you use a keystroke recorder and go the your local school districts kiddie prison. Student could be jailed on cheating allegation...

The Education Wonks tell an interesting tale of censorship here

We find support for my view that the Smithsonian Institution is biased at Edwatch. Check it out here

Chris Correa has an excellent post that outlines how researchers look at teacher thinking.

The Blackboard Jungle tells a horrifying story about why teachers most likely need combat pay, not merit pay. This teacher to me is a true hero

John

If a teacher reads this

2005-02-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

Morning thoughts

Remember as you start your day that you may be the single greatest influence in a child's life today. The way you respond to the first greeting of the day may save a life - literally. I know that some of the finest moments in my career happened when I listened to a child, just the child, not the mind I am supposed to fill with knowledge, but the little innocent spirit that just wanted to be loved. Your legacy is in the warmth of your smile, the sincerity in your greeting, the words of advice you should not be afraid to give. Pray that God will guide you to respond to children in your room in the way that God would respond to them. You are there in that classroom to help nurture a life. Yes, you are there to teach, but if you don't have a sincere, parental, and Godly relationship with your kids, you will teach next to nothing. There is nothing wrong with a kid feeling like he or she is walking into another loving home when they enter your classroom. There is nothing wrong with thinking that you have been given the greatest commission since time began. Because you have been given a great commission - to help shape the lives of children, to help them to believe in themselves, to help them love knowledge. I will offer a special prayer for you this morning. God bless you teachers, every one.

John

some reading assignments

2005-02-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

Over at the Ed Wonks there is a great letter from a teacher.

Professor Plum gives us larnin about Rod Paige's resignation and real instruction.

Check out another view point relative to this post at education week.

should be enough reading for tonight...

On dropping AP

2005-02-06T14:01:00.000-08:00

Over at Education Week Bruce G. Hammond writes about schools who are dropping AP.
When I saw this headline I knew I would quickly need to get a new valium salt-lick because I could feel the screws that keep the top of my head on backing out.

Mr. Hammond tells us: Bold text will be my comments

"The case against AP consists mainly of what good teachers know in their bones about education: that students learn best when they can immerse themselves in hands-on work, and that the best learning involves genuine discovery rather than the mere ferreting out of information already hidden away in the teacher’s brain.

What good teachers know in their bones? First of all, I recall a number of teachers at my former building who were thought good by the former principal. They were good in that they could smell their way to the teachers lounge when it contained donuts. I recall one teacher who let a kid fail, thereby barring him from his extracurricular activities, because she had not graded his papers. She gave him three zeros for work that was laying, rotting in the stack of ungraded work by her desk. The reason as I see it that AP is finding a less welcoming environment is that there are now far and few among the treestumps who sit behind the SOME of the teachers desk who are capable of teaching what the AP courses require. Thank God for the saints who sit behind other desks. AP coursework does require a bit more of a knowledge base in the teacher. AP courses do require an actual "sage on the stage" rather than a "guide on the side". Otherwise, the average cafeteria lady could take time out from adding water to the instant macaroni and cheese kidchow to be a "guide on the side" of any AP physics class.

Modern research tells us that the human mind does not absorb knowledge so much as construct knowledge.

Construct knowledge from what? What the mind does do is use taught concepts to realize rules. Rules then lead to generalizations. But, first must come teaching. When a child is extremely young, the child has no knowledge base from which to construct rules. So, the concepts like the hard "c" are given to the child so that rules can be produced. This is the germ of the conflict between phonics based instruction which gives a child a set of rules with which to tame the beast that we call written language and the appalling notion of making the poor child learn every word in the language separately and independently -- called whole language. Every school in the country should simply drive the heathen hoards who assaulted children with whole language back to the wilderness from which they came. Be gone foul and pox ridden word walls. So what does this have to do with AP? AP courses provide the concepts upon which the more advanced regions of the disciplines are built. They allow students to internalize the concepts that will lead to the rules and the generalizations needed to --- oh, say --- learn enough biochem to make a new drug that will keep my astoundingly fit body going into its' 100s.

"Students who initiate and control their learning process retain far more than those who are passive receivers".

Anyone who can write that statement understands nothing about excellent teaching. The person who can believe that AP students are passive receivers is still an intellectual virgin with a simple mind that has not yet seriously engaged a brilliant teacher dealing with a difficult subject. They might also be seriously injured or killed if a single serious thought passed through there brains. The ding-dong who writes that must think that you can disturb the depths of the oceans by piddling in the surf. Hands-on learning indeed. Yes, I taught my middle school pre-AP students using many hands on activities. But, unlike tweedle-dee at the school across the street, I found that I had to actually take time to seriously explain some of the mysteries of the atom, instead of having them do yet another "PointlessPoint" presentation showing atoms fading in and out while the neutrons, protons and electrons dance across the screen like so many deranged elven Fred Astaires singing in the rain.

"Modern research tells us that the human mind does not absorb knowledge so much as construct knowledge. Students who initiate and control their learning process retain far more than those who are passive receivers"

Unfortunately much of the modern research in education is so much frog piffle. I know of a Grand Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Sabotage who is doing her Doctoral work by giving third graders a survey to find out their opinion about something or the other regarding what they like to read. Frog slobber - all of it.

Again, this genius may have actually walked into an AP class in full debate or question phase and didnt recognize it as a class because he couldn't understand the elevated discussion or, perhaps, thought they were sacrificing a goat. If I walked into a room where a group of people were speaking to each other in Klingon I would have a lot of trouble understanding (and not peeing in my pants from fear). That actually happened to me at a Star Trek convention - don't ask. I walked into a room of Klingons speaking to each other. I thought I had walked into the the red-neck butt scratchin, fartin and yelling football calls at each other padded room where everyone was running on about a half pint of Jack. it is possible that our dutiful scribe simply didn't understand advanced calculus or perhaps biochemistry.

Then we find this remarkable statement "None of this is compatible with Advanced Placement, where the central emphasis is on teacher-driven coverage of large amounts of subject matter handed down from the College Board."

No, dear writer, it doesnt come from the College Board; no, it comes from God - yep - the big guy. AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE LIGHT. Thus sprake zaratustra but it was really physics he was talking about. AND THERE WAS LIGHT AND IT WAS GOOD.
I think the real punishment for goofing up our original grace in the garden of eden was physics, calculus and all the other stuff... See before eve took some bad fruit and suddenly the black boards fell off her eyes and she realized that she had to actually learn physics and chemisry. Adam then fell into the trap by eating said bad fruit. He too was condemned to have to learn calculus by hands-on-activities only. We fell from intellectal grace as well. We were condemned to be in the room with Ms. Handason where we folded paper in the shapes of small books with doors that opened onto a single word forever. Then God had mercy and divided the chaos into several different areas called AP PHYSICS, AP CHEMISTRY, AP ENGLISH AND SO ON TO MAKE SENSE OUT OF IT ALL. God gave us teachers who actually knew the subject well enough to each it with the view to helping his or her students grow smarter, wiser, and more skilled. Heaven save us from those who would make it simple.

OK Ill cut my part a bit short tonight by simply saying that I hope that my cardiac surgeon last week did not have to reconstruct of his medical skills in a pair-share format. I'm a bit worried because something down around my prostate seems to be pumping - oops checking that again are we, doctor. You do know I had a triple bypass
right? I even wrote a YES up and down my sternmum and a big cross out no on my .... well we won't go there.

Here is the original blood-sucking article here.

I just discovered Professor Plum - who is one of the greek small case gods by the way. Sorry, prof, you don't get the stage with the big guy. Please check out his sayings about instruction at his site about instruction Where was this man when I was in ed school being brainwashed.

I will now be following the adventures of Professor Plum as he is now elevated to at least the status of a greek god. What a man....

On standardized testing

2005-01-30T20:31:00.000-08:00
A great article about standardized testing here.

From Fairtest another resource.

Rethinking standardized testing from Seattle. (one of my favorite places)

A real audio story from NPR about parent opinion on standardized testing.

Another point of view

From ERIC

And finally over at google blog

Spelling bees and equality

2005-01-29T20:13:00.000-08:00
Today I found an article (here) about a school district that decided to cancel a spelling bee so that.... well, I can't follow their reasoning. If I understand this logic the spelling bee was cancelled so that kids could be successful. Assistant Superintindent of schools Linda Newman stated that "No Child Left Behind says all kids must reach high standards," Newman said. "It’s our responsibility to find as many ways as possible to accomplish this."

Ok, if I remember from my experiences with spelling bees many students participated. I participated in bees. I was busy as a bee, so to speak, learning the words on the list. I derived a lot of benefit from studying my word lists. I think what small ability I have in spelling today is because of bees. Yes, I got nervous. Yes, I was disappointed when I did not win. The adults around me had the sense to things to the effect of "you win some and you lose some, try again next time". I did try harder next time. And the next time I won. The person who was 2nd was a very near second. In other words the effort everyone put in raised everyone up.

When a group of students compete over a set of things to learn, they study harder than they normally would because they are inspired. They all improve. Yes, there certainly is one winner. Uh, the fact is that someone knows one more word than everyone else. And, yes, those students were disappointed momentarily. But, most, if not all of them, were inspired to come back and try again. That is they would unless the adults around them actually did make them feel inadequate.

A few years - ok I lied - many years ago I played trumpet with some degree of excellence. At that time I wanted to be a professional performer. I went to an audition to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. When I arrived there were already over 100 trumpet players there. When we started to warm up, it was soon apparent that the competition was going to be stiff, then one more player started warming up. He was able to do things that I didn't until that time believe human beings could do. He played like I imagine Gabriel must play. His playing was magnificent. He got the job, should have gotten the job because on that day at that time he was the best player. As I talked to other players after the day was concluded, I found no one --- no one --- who felt belittled or hurt. To a person everyone was ready to go to a practice room and get to work. That competition was so inspiring because I was able to see a goal that I could take on. And, I reached it. I wish I could say that I went back again and won the day, but the job didnt open again when I wanted it. But, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

What can an administrator possibly think. One thing I know without a doubt is that anyone who can cancel an event has never taken part in such an event. If they had they would understand what the competition does --- it inspires. IT INSPIRES! It makes one want to be as good as that student, because you know that you put on your pants the same way in the morning. It doesn't depress your or make you want to quit school. No, it makes you want to do it again. Can these people understand that when many people reach for excellence they all get better.

This is another one of those examples of aggressive stupidity that harms kids. This school district was not happy to just find something stupid to do. No, they took their stupidity and aggressively used it against the kids. That I cannot abide.

In taking away the spelling bee the geniuses in the Lincoln School District choose to take away a huge incentive for exellence. Instead of hundreds of kids working hard on those spelling lists learning those words, non will be. They have strangled savagely to death one of the golden gooses of motivation - striving for excellence.

Ok, Assistant Superintendent Newman try to rub two brain cells together to get a spark and see if you can listen for a bit. Kids do best when they have a goal to work toward. Kids work hardest to learn when they are all trying to reach a goal. Yes, one kid will get the trophy, but all of them will have worked harder and will be better for it.

I hate to do it but Assistant Superintendent Newman you must turn in you right to be around any living child today. Your very presence is harmful to learning. You must go to the back room because you are an embarrasement to the profession. You should go there and hide in shame. Then please prepare a resignation letter that you will hand in to resign your job before you do any more damage. Until you rethink your philosophy, find out what universe you are in and get back to ours, you are USELESS. You are doing actual harm to the ability of children to learn. You are completely without understanding. Please resign now ----- or some superior please fire her before she does any more damage to the kids in your district. In fact, please do not allow this person around kids because she does not believe that kids can learn. If she did believe that all kids can learn, she would praise the effort the kids put out on spelling bees. She is without understanding and is completely incompetent in her job. Please someone get this person out of her position before she can do any more damaging things to the kids. Rid your school district of this Newman plague before it crosses into the distant lands where there may yet be some learning going on....

John

Thinking about gifted children

2005-01-28T21:03:00.000-08:00
Today I only have a few reading assignments. So, just drifting around the net.... One of my goals as an educator is to advocate for gifted children and developmentally appropriate programs for all children. Here is a wonderful article that covers most of the bases. Check out "When gifted children have problems". The next article about a trail drive is just fascinating. While I know not many situations lend themselves to this, maybe it will strike some ideas. Read A "Diary provides map for trip across Texas".
I wonder what happens when kids start breaking 100 dollar bills to get bubble gum? Well here is the answer. And for all my yapping about zero tolerance in schools, here is a kid who needs zero tolerance, I'll be the first to admit. Check out what happens when a coach gets in the middle of a fight.
You need to read at least one travesty a day. This is one of my favorite examples of what I think of as aggressive stupidity on the part of a school. Check out this zero tolerance example for the nice little town of Conroe.
Here is the all time example of critical problem solving - suds division.giv

Well, that may give you some nice reading tonight. All the best, see ya tomorrow.

John

What is a felony of the second degree

2005-01-27T13:15:00.000-08:00
After discovering that two boys aged 9 and 10 were charged with a second degree felony, I decided to find out what is a second degree felony. A felony of the second degree carries a term of improsonment of up to 15 years. There is a fine of up to $10,000 or any higher amount equal to double the pecuniary gain derived from the offense by the offender or double the pecuniary loss suffered by the victim.

While I can't imagine that any court would actually put away two boys of this age for 15 years and charge them minimally $10,000 I have no faith in the system when it comes to kids. Imagine a school going for 15 years imprisonment over two stick crayon drawings.

John

More on stick figures and felonies

2005-01-27T08:46:00.000-08:00
Here is another excellent point of view over at the Education Wonks.

Test scores and stick figure arrests

2005-01-26T20:32:00.000-08:00
I think I can stop screaming now. I went a little further and looked up Ocalas test scores on the Florida standardized test. They speak for themselves.

Ocala test scores

John

Stick figures and felonies

2005-01-26T18:41:00.000-08:00
As I plan to travel to my state capital to attend a conference on zero tolerance issues there is breaking news. Apparently two children, aged 9 and 10, drew stick figures that resulted in felony charges. Article. The two special education students drew what were referred to as "primative" (what else would most 9 or 10 year olds be able to draw) stick figures.

The two children were taken from thier school in handcuffs and charged with a second-degree felony. Another child was depicted in the drawings. Thus the two special education children were charged with making a "written threat to kill or harm another person" according to Local6.com. Additionally, the boys were suspended from school. So, if I read this correctly, the boys have already been punished by the school through suspension. Now the city of Ocala, Florida is going to use its full legal power and taxpayer money to prosecute two 9 and 10 year olds on second degree felony charges.

Would every parent in America and the world please turn in their children tonight. I have to confess, too, that when I was a child I did also draw stick figures that I am sure sometimes illustrated violence to someone else. Or, at least I am sure I did. Also, while everyone else is turning themselves in would the Ocala school district also turn itself in for not teaching these kids anything about respect. Oh, I forgot -- how about THE PARENTS! I am suggesting that the parents, teachers and any other adult involved in the lives of these kids turn themselves in because the kids obviously WEREN'T TAUGHT ANYTHING! Or, alternatively, they were taught something about right and wrong and then in whatever silly bullying mood they were in forgot it BECAUSE THEY ARE KIDS! WHAT WOULD A SCHOOL KNOW ABOUT HOW KIDS CAN BEHAVE? WHAT WOULD A SCHOOL KNOW ABOUT TEACHING KIDS HOW TO RESPECT OTHER KIDS.

Help me I think my head is going to explode.

Obviously, this particular school doesn't know how to accomplish the task. Nor, do they give a care for either of the parties.

Here is a news flash for the geniuses who had these kids arrested today. I am sure that this could not be tried because it is such an old-fashioned notion. How about doing what my mother would have done. She would have taken me aside and sternly told me that what I did was wrong, that I was never to do that again, and that if I did I would be spanked or lose many things I liked to do. Heaven forbid - that would be child abuse of the worst sort. No, obviously it is better to arrest two 9 and 10 year old kids. Obviously, it is better to drag them out of their school and take them to the police station - I assume. No, better to put them through the juvenile justice system. No, so much better to spend who knows how much money prosecuting the two stick drawers. Absolutely, it is better to use what amounts to capital punishment for schools -- that is -- suspend them for something that could be corrected by TEACHING. Is it possible that these brilliant minds have forgotten that you TEACH 9 and 10 year olds how to behave instead of arresting them. Einstein move over - you place in intellectual history is insecure.

And, how about the other kid, the one who felt threatened? Is it better to teach him that the adults in school can't protect him. Obviously, he couldn't have been told he did the right thing to report it to the teacher. Obviously, he should now understand that if he draws stick figures he, too, will be arrested and taken away. No, he couldn't be told that what the other two boys did was wrong, but that the school will see to it that he is safe. No, he couldn't have been told that the other two boys were going to be punished. Absolutely not, no, he has to believe that his life was actually threatened as surely as if some child molester abducted him. No, he couldn't have been assured that some people behave badly, punish the "evil-doers" and let it go at that. No, we have to involve the whole legal system. They must be hanging people who drive faster than the speed limit in Ocala.

Another aspect of this example of school absurdity is that now that the process has started three will not be any turning back. According to the article the "Ocala police said they stand behind the decision to arrest the children". Brilliant, where are they going to go from there - the death penalty for 5 year olds who push another kid down? They must blow away jay-walkers on the spot.

The arresting officer was particularly eloquent. And, please forgive me, I absolutely do support the police when they are fighting real crime. But, the arresting police officer had to rise and say "when an adult or even myself look at the picture looked at it first I was thinking there is really not much to the picture or I would not be scared by the picture those children drew".

No kidding? First, is the police officer not an adult? Someone, please, please, please tell me that the wording of the statement is not a direct quote. Someone tell me that local6.com got it wrong.

Second, is there no adult on the staff who could have sat down with the child to calm his fear. Must he be so afraid of this - an infantile stick drawing - that it requires police intervention? Must this child be that afraid of other children? What have they taught this child about fear. How is he to respond when he is confronted by a barking dog?

What will happen when a child on some playground actually hits him or pushes him to the ground? What recourse will he have? Logically, he must call 911 and summon the swat team. Given the logical path of ascending consequences you have to think the police will come on the play ground and empty a revolver into the kid who pushed him. Really, what will this school do to a kid who actually touches another child? Do they have a guillotine set up on the stage of the cafeteria?

The officer went on to say "However, we have to put ourselves in his mind and that's the bottom line here. It is his well-being and the way he perceived that picture to be. It actually put him in extreme fear and he was in fear of his life".

Most likely the officer is right. The poor kid probably was afraid. However, having taught for 31 years I absolutely know that it is remotely possible that he might also have gone up and told the teacher in the manner of a child sticking out his tongue and waggling his hands in his ears at the other.

More is the reason to sit the child down and talk with him about the incident. Teach him about what happened. Teach him that he is strong enough to withstand the assault of stick drawings. Please, don't teach him that a silly stick drawing requires the intervention of the police. Teach him that he can stand the unholy stress of having two other 9 and 10 year old children drawing admittedly distressing drawings about him.

Now, back to the children. Can someone tell me why it is better to drag them out to the police car than, say, Heaven forbid, give them a couple of pops, give them a couple of days of in-school suspension. No, can't do that, it would be old-fashioned. Or, it might be cruel. Well, how about handcuffing them, dragging them to the police car, taking them downtown and actually having some poor overworked police officer book them in.

To justify arresting children for this absurd "crime" you have to believe that there is absolutely no hope of redemption in pre-pubescent kids. You have to believe that these kids are so far gone that they can't be saved. You have to believe that reasonable adults have no other recourse against stick drawings than to call in the armed police. You have to actually believe that stick drawings require an ARMED WITH DEADLY FORCE response. You have to actually believe as an adult - presumably with some kind of an advanced degree, presumably with some degree of experience in dealing with children - that stick drawings require ARMED AND DEADLY FORCE. What kind of mind responds this way to CHILDREN?

This in the same United States where so many people believe that adults who murder, rape, and cut innocent people to bits should not be given the death penalty. This in the same United States where it is legal to rip a living, breathing child out of its mothers womb. Oops, ripping the child out of its mothers womb sort of fits in with this response in a perverse sort of way. Bad example.

If that is how we now should raise children in this society would you please get the manned vehicle to Mars. If it is better to arrest children, handcuff them and put them through the juvenile system instead of sitting them down and teaching them right from wrong then I most certainly was born 100 years too late.

All I think I know is simple. If that school in Florida has to call in the police to arrest kids who draw admittedly tasteless and silly stick drawings then there is no person in that school who is safe.

And finally to the school - Is there any way you can find to make education and educators look more stupid? Can you find a way to make yourselves look more like you are unable to teach children the barest essentials of civility? Can you find a way to broadcast your abject and miserable failure to do you job louder? If that is the best you can do then lock your doors today and send your children home because you are hopeless and there is no reason for your continued existence as a place of learning. Your skills with children certainly must be worthless.

John ---

p.s. Please forgive the CAPS as they were written, I couldn't find a way to actually scream online.

So why should kids do something good

2005-01-24T14:36:00.000-08:00
In today's Houston Chronicle I found an article bearing the following goofy title; "Debakeys High Scores Draw Angst". In this article we find that "officials at the Texas Education Agency are reluctant to report that happy news, fearing it might violate a federal law." The federal law in question is the "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act."

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is intended to protect the privacy of students. Like the zero tolerance laws, this act was not completely thought out. The act is intended to protect the privacy of educational records. First, the act provides that only parents or eligible students can inspect a students records. Second, a party may ask a school to correct records that they find inaccurate. If the school will not change the records the parent or student may place a document in the record to explain why they find the record inaccurate. Third, under general conditions the school must get written permission to release records. However, they may release the records under certain conditions. Records can be released to school officials with a need to know, for the purpose of a transfer, officials for the purpose of an audit, upon applications for financial aid, organizations conducting studies, accrediting organizations such as the TEA, to comply with a judges order, in response to health or safety emergencies, or within the requirements of the juvenile justice system pursuant to specific state law. Schools may disclose "directory" information without obtaining consent. Schools have to tell parents about the fact that directory information may be released. They must give the concerned parties a resonable amount of time to tell the school that they do not wish such information to be released.

So, all the students at the Debakey High School for the Health Professions passed the TAKS. In response to that the Texas Education Agency is afraid that if they said that 100% of the students passed the TAKS they would be breaking the federal law.

Can there be any wonder about why schools in Texas have so many problems? Announcing a 100% pass rate simply means that all the students passed - with different scores. Some of the students may have made an 80, others may have made a 90, some may have made a 100. I have a newsflash for the TEA --- the Debakey High School for the Health Professions attracts brilliant and motivated students. What do they possibly expect? I really don't have a problem with stupidity. I only have a problem with agressive stupidity. How is it that the agency in the state of Texas responsible for the education of her children can think that announcing that 100% of a population of students passed a bonehead test of minimal skills is the same as announcing the individual scores of the students. From where I sit that is just premeditated, prejudiced, aggressive stupidity in the first degree.

Geeze Louise!

This is another example of institutionalized stupidity on the same scale as the current zero tolerance laws. So, in its astounding silliness, the TEA lists the pass rate of such high performing school as Debakey as 99%. Please, can the Texas Legislature sunset the Texas Education Agency before it reproduces?

John

zero tolerance for zero tolerance

2005-01-23T21:49:00.000-08:00
Last Thursday evening I was honored to speak to the good folks at katyzerotolerance.com. The meeting at which I spoke was attended by Dora Olivio, a member of the Texas House who is very helpful in zero tolerance cases. I had a wonderful talk with Representative Olivio early in the meeting. I will be most happy to help her with any of her education concerns. I then spoke about my concerns about zero tolerance issues and the story of a student who was involved in an inapprpriate search at my school last year. I will also speak at the Texas Summit on Disciplinary Actions in Austin on January 28, 2005.

Coming up on the calendar is consideration of SB 126 of John Lindsay. The bill "does not require a student code of conduct to specify a minimum term of removal under Sec 37.006 or an expulsion under Section 37.007. The other wonderful part of this bill is the mandated consideration of Culpable Mental State Required. "A school district may not punish a student under this subchapter based on conduct that contains the elements of an offense under the Penal Code unless the principal, board of trustees, or other person authorized under Secton 37.009 to review the student's culpable mental state required for that offense under the Penal Code".

This would require that a student would have to have a mental state or intent that would cause them to use and item as weapon. So a child makes a mistake and brings a boy scout knife to school he will not recieve expulsion, a ticket, a court date, a juvenile record, a long assignment in a DAEP, and other punishments. This is a major leap forward. Had this been in effect last year, my student who brought an object to school by mistake would not have expelled, ticketed, had a court date, a juvenile record, and a 45 day assignment to our lousy DAEP class where he was strip searched on the first day.

An example of why I feel so strongly about this issue is illustrated by this story. I urge you to read the stories that can be found here for a taste of what is now happening in many schools.

I am asking those of you who are residents of this state to get behind SB 126. Call your legislator in Austin to let them know you like it and want it supported.

John

Thanks to everyone

2005-01-23T21:38:00.000-08:00
Dear Friends:

I just wanted to say Thank You to all who expressed sympathy in my familys recent time of loss. We would not have gotten through it without old friends andank new friends. Thanks so much for your expressions of concern, prayers and stories of your own losses.

John

death in the family

2005-01-19T19:44:00.000-08:00
Hi all:

Due to a death in my family, I will most likely not be posting until the weekend. Thanks to everyone.

John

The value of gifts

2005-01-16T13:32:00.000-08:00
What is it about the "one size fits all school" that bothers many of us so much? Why does the standardized approach bring out the radical in so many people in or interested in education? What is that ticks me off so about todays schools?

I think it has to do with gifts.

Every person is given different gifts. The various gifts afforded different people vary both in degree and nature. Everyone knows tha certain people do certain things well while others are able in totally different ways. I am a teacher and a woodworker. I do both things extremely well. I am able to get to kids that others can't even begin to deal with in their classes. I literally never knew who would try to sneak in my classes from period to period. My lessons are creative and filled with unique events. Kids who had trouble with the system sought me out.

But, I am certainly not the person who you want to organize an event. My desk was always a disaster. Most assuredly I would have been fired several times over if I had not had people blocking for me with my paperwork. Occassionally I would have a cleaning fit. My desk would be hopelessly clean. Students would come into my room and roll their eyes when they saw my neatly organized desk. They all knew that there was zero chance for me to keep it that way until the end of the period. And, by the end of the period I would have it trashed again. I have no gifts in the area of organization. You want me to come up with a unique way to help some kid understand the theory of relativity. You do not want me to plan some schoolwide event.

So, what do my lack of organizational skills have to do with modern schools? Modern schools do not care anything about individual gifts and development. Schools are organized to be factories. They are very efficient at delivering a plain vanilla curriclum. Schools may be good at delivering basic content. What most schools do not do is help any individual child realize their God given gifts.

Public education has been normed down. They try to reach the median. Schools do not reach children who are given gifts that do not fit into the institutional structure. Heaven help the gifted young musician or mathmatician. There is not hope for a child who has the potential to be a brilliant creative writer. In fact, I do not believe that traditionally organized schools do much for any child. I believe they don't because I have never met the "median" child. I have never met a child who is "average".

The greater tragedy is that I have seen so many children whose particular gifts and personality traits doom them in the traditional education system. There is no hope for some kids. There frequently hope for the child who is a gifted football player. There is not much hope for a child who can be a gifted musician.

Some years ago I was blessed to be included in a trip to England through the University of Houston. The purpose of the trip was to look at schools for gifted children. One of the schools we attended was the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music at Bath. That was a day filled with miracles. One of the miracles was a young man who played a cello recital for us. We sat down in a small room. A cello leaned against a chair in front of us. If memory serves the headmaster told us that the situation would be informal as the kids were involved in the regular school day. A moment later in walked a young teenager dressed in physical ed. clothes. He was introduced. I wish I could remember his name. His hair was tousled, he was a bit sweaty. The boy had just come off the soccer field in p.e. Then he sat down and played with skill and maturity that left us all in awe and me in tears. After he played he ran out the door and back to the soccer field.

What would happen to such a child in America's schools today? Almost certainly he would never have developed his gifts. Almost certainly he would have been normed down to the lowest common denominator of his talents.

Schools should let the musicians play. They should let the mathematicians calculate, the poets write and the debaters argue. They should let those who live for science investigate. Young builders should build. Yes, everyone must be able to spell and balance their checkbook. But, how much better to let children develop the gifts they have been given by God and become what they were created to be.

John

Shaping the future

2005-01-15T22:44:00.000-08:00
Friday afternoon I drove by my old campus. The marquee was standing by the side of the road as it has been for years. The base of the marquee reads "Shaping The Future". Above the base was a message posted by my incredibly adept school district. The message read

KHS TAKS NIGHT MAINE BLDG
SPAGHTTI SUPER 5:30 TO 7:30

Now since the school is in Texas there seems to be no need to make a reference to the state of Maine when you are trying to indicate that the meeting will be at the main building. Following that I question this spelling of the phrase "SPAGHTTI SUPER". No, I am not making this up. And I have the picture to prove it. I will post the picture for your amusement soon.

Not about schools but it involves kids and our young soldiers

2005-01-14T20:31:00.000-08:00
Please check out these pictures. Click the link above then look for "Pictures From Iraq That Are Too Shocking & Graphic for The Mainstream Media." I don't know how long this link will be live. I just got a kid back from Iraq. Regardless of what your views are on Iraq, I would like to focus on these wonderful young people. Thanks so much to the El Paso Internet Courier.

another link to the Dallas High school walk out

2005-01-14T20:23:00.000-08:00
More information about this walkout.

And the beat goes on

2005-01-14T20:01:00.000-08:00
This is an interesting article. Here is a short quotation from the article found at Dallasnews.com.

Students at North Dallas High School walked out of class on Thursday morning in a show of dissatisfaction with the school's principal.

More than 200 students from the school, among DISD's lowest-performing campuses, left the building and marched peacefully several blocks to DISD headquarters to complain about their principal Dina Townsend.

Even if the principal in question is not guilty of the things these kids say, there seems to be something badly wrong on this particular campus. The question I have is what caused these students to walk out. The point I would like to make is that this kind of behavior on the part of students is symptomatic of some underlying problem. Another thought I would like to offer is that I doubt that much learning will take place at this location until the underlying problem is resolved. It will be interesting to see if the students are punished and how the district reacts.

The beatings will continue until the scores improve

2005-01-14T16:49:00.000-08:00
I visited with an old friend for a while today. We talked about the bubble kid issue. If you read my last entry, you will remember that "bubble kids" are the ones who almost pass the TAKS. He described to me how his district is approaching improvement on benchmark tests that are leading up to the TAKS.

The benchmarks are supposed to determine how well a child is doing on a particular objective that has been separated out from the rest of the taught curriculum. The benchmarks in his district are rather short - often being under 10 questions. If the child does not pass this small quiz, he will be assigned to a required afternoon tutorial. The child is removed from his afterschool elective activity. That activity is often sports. This is what passes for brilliant thinking on the part of thousands of school administrators and curriculum leaders.

So in an attempt to motivate and retrain the child he gets to miss what may be his favorite activity to attend a tutorial where he will be instructed in an ever smaller chunk of the objective. What this amounts to will in most cases be worksheets or a series of discreet, short activities intended to impact knowledge of the objective. There are several assumptions that underlie this technique that I challenge.

1. Children create understanding from intense study of small chunks of information that make up a greater whole. There is a a large body of evidence that trying to offer tutorials that attempt to prescribe for small discreet objectives may be the worst way to help underachieving kids.
2. Removing kids from a favored activity to "remediate some problem" will cause them to be motivated to do better on a standardized test. My personal experience is that this causes a lot of resentment. I can't offer hard data to back up this opinion. But, I believe this causes as many problems as it solves.
3. More of the same will help kids learn. I know this is not the intended outcome. I don't think any school leader intends remedial instruction to be "more of the same". But, I believe this is what most remedial instruction in schools amounts to for most kids. There are rare teachers who make reteaching completely different and novel. Unfortunately, they are far and few between.
4. More time, by itself, will result in improvement. This is debateable. There is evidence that more time spent on a target skill may be the least effective method.

In my experience, most kids regard the intense remediation that occurs after failure on a standardized test as punishment. Many of the kids resent being taken out of their afternoon activities. Unfortunately, a number of schools have threatened the lower achieving kids with removal from their elective until they improve on the standardized test. This option may the the worst of all the attempts to help low achieving kids.

The kids who are not achieving are often kids who do not find school rewarding in the first place. They are not "school boys" or "school girls" as low achieving kids refer to successful kids in some environments.

What is needed here is to increase the richness and the complexity of instruction so that the kids can make the needed connections. Instruction needs to approach as many ways to learn as possible. I would argue that the lower achieving kids need a richer environment, more enjoyable projects that induce kids to process information in the deepest possible way, and it must be fun.

Yep, fun. Schools being the dreadful places many of them are, simply are not fun places to be. We are asking kids to learn in ways that are alien to any natural way of learning. We are asking to enjoy the beatings. And, we often tell them that the beatings continue until they improve.

John McGeough

Bubble Kids and Kids left behind

2005-01-10T20:51:00.000-08:00
This evening I want to tell you a secret. Have any of you heard about "bubble kids"? This is a term your school district will not explain in its newsletter. The reason they won't post it is that "bubble kids" get all the help in the testing furor.

Bubble kids are those who fail by only one or two points - or bubbles. The kids bubble in their answers on test forms. So a bubble kid is one who missed the passing score by only one or two bubbles.

I sat in several meetings with the principal, the dean of instruction, and the department heads when we were told to identify the bubble kids in our subjects. These kids are important to the school because they can make the school look better in the test scores. They are so close, the reasoning goes, that they can benefit from tutoring and therefore help the scores.

So the bubble kids are identified, divided into groups, and tutored relentlessly. The kids who missed by 5 or 6 points, maybe 10 points; what happens to them. It's simple. They cant raise their scores enough to help the schools rating, so they are ignored. Why would you waste your time with them the school thinks, they can't help us. They don't get intense help with their work. After all, don't you know, they won't ever pass anyway. Why waste valuable tutoring time on them? Of course, what a brilliant idea - work with the kids who can make you look good and throw the others to the sharks. I truely wish I knew which of our administrative geniuses brought that obscene idea into the district. Thats Sheldon Independent School District, always go for the easy stupid solution instead of the complex one that would require planning, actual thought, listening to teachers, or giving a care.

You may ask what about the kids who can go on. They can't help much more either. After all they have already passed the test.

But, ohhhhh those precious bubble kids. If we could just get those kids to get two more questions right then we might be recognized. Can you imagine how wonderful that would be.

The concept of the bubble kid was created to help school ratings, not to help all the kids who need help. What morally reprehensible thing to do.

My school district - The Sheldon Independent School District did it. I witnessed it because I was in the meetings. We had to identify the "bubble kids" for each subject and design tutorials for them. The lower kids could just go jump because they couldn't help the district or the building. This was the same brilliant district that had the ever popular group strip searches.

I doubt if Sheldon will ever figure out how to be successful. That would require teaching every child to success. That would require slightly more intelligence than identifying the kids who missed passing the test by one or two points. Working with individual kids until they are successful escapes the school board and administration. No, what we were supposed to do was to identify and concentrate only on the kids who could help the district raise itself above it's already appalling status.

Parents in Sheldon and all districts across the state. Be in the power group. Find our if you too have a "bubble child". If your child is not a bubble child call your remarkable districts to find out how your child can also be a bubble child.

If it weren't so pathetic it would be funny.

John McGeough

What if schools thought of themselves as a service?

2005-01-09T13:19:00.000-08:00
I wonder what would happen to education if schools thought of kids as clients who had to be pleased? Thats a radical thought isn't it? Such a view would require a sea change in the way in which schools regard kids.

Today, many schools are about two things and two things only; test scores and keeping order. The approach to raising test scores is to reduce the curriculum into smaller and smaller bits. Schools often attempt to guess what will be on a particular standardized test. When they think they have it figured out, they create warm-ups and drills to force feed kids those discreet facts. Schools reduce the content, water it down and dumb it down until they think they are only teaching what is going to be on the test. Because of this kind of approach, schools have become places of excrutiating boredom. They create souless, boring lessons designed to teach the trivia that is going to be on the test. Schools today have little or nothing to do with how children really learn.

Some truly great schools look at it another way. There exists a kind of school that actually tries to create activities and materials that stimulate kids. Lessons in such a school would take into account the way kids live. Kids learn through doing and through play. Great schools look at the real world to find out what children do when they are going about the business of learning as kids.

Great schools do not concern themselves much with disciplinary management. They don't have to be too worried about discipline. These places have such vibrant teaching approaches that their kids are captivated. The kids are interested in what they are learning because it fits the fact that they are kids.

Kids would be regarded as a clientele that must be served an interesting, absorbing and vibrant product. Imagine what could result if a school thought of itself as a competitor for the love and joy of children. Think of the results that could be attained if schools thought of kids less as things to be managed.

I wonder what would happen if schools structured their world so that children actually wanted to be there. Children want to be in a place of joy. They do not want to be in a place where they are assumed to be potential problems.

Presently, students can generally expect punishment instead of fulfilment from many schools. They are bombarded about their hair and their clothes. Kids often find themselves being yelled at in hallways. One of the schools in my district required 5th and 6th grade students to eat silently at lunch. No talking was allowed. I could never understand what perverse and warped logic supported that policy. The environment many kids find themselves in is often chaotic. They find themselves often sitting still for hours when they would work much harder if thier work was intrisically interesting. Many kids feel that they are despised if they learn differently, dress differently, or commit the error of bringing the problems in their lives to school.

For a school to reform itself in a new mold it would have to completely change the way it regards kids. Kids would have to be regarded as basically good. Kids would have to be treated with respect. There is absolutely nothing wrong with talking to a child as if they were born deserving respect. That in itself is a novel concept in many places. They would have to be taught in the way humans actually learn. Lessons would have to be written with an eye to interest combined with solid learning. The school would sincerely try to fashion itself into an entity characterized by deep respect for all kids. Kids would be treated with courtesy. Discipline does not suffer when respect is afforded to children. There are students who almost never hear pleasant words from the adults around them. The adults in the school would actually listen to children as if they have something to say.

Students would be thought of as precious cargo. No student would experience being forced into a mold that does not match their skills or development. This means that few would learn at the same pace. People simply do not learn at the same pace. They would not be labeled failures if the scored badly on the currently trendy standardized test. They would be helped. Standardized tests would only be used to diagnose rather than to sort and cull.

Schools would have to look at themselves as a service industry. They would remold themselves into organizations that made happiness the central to their endeavors. Every kid would be built up. Every act of the school would be to make every student believe they can be successful. Every moment in school would be filled with purposeful activity. Kids would never feel their time was being wasted. They would feel that the goal of the school was to insure their success no matter what their background, no matter what their reading level, no matter what the nature of their circumstances.

Such schools would have to hire brilliant, secure people who could actually think. Too many schools are led by rigid, dry people who do not really have any joy in their own lives. Many schools love children in the abstract but when faced with the living, breathing children, they fail miserably. In the pursuit of test scores instead of valid learning they create failure and miserable places.

What would happen if administrators believed in making a school a happy place to be?
What would happen if kids were treated warmly in schools?
What would happen if kids who aren't cut to the pattern were loved even if they are different?

I wonder.

John McGeough

a beginning continued

2005-01-07T10:34:00.000-08:00
Anyone out there ever had a problem with zero-tolerance laws?

Welcome to the brave new world of criminalizing kids. In the past - in ancient times - when I was a kid problems were taken care of immediately. Most often a kid who became unruly was given detention, given sentences or - Heaven forbid - paddled. This very outmoded system was used for generations. Kids were treated like kids. Mistakes were regarded as just that - mistakes.

Unfortunately, today we treat kids as we would criminals. I make reference to the practice of using absolute standards that apply regardless of circumstances.

One of the things that just destroyed me last year was the practice of strip-searching students with regularity. The most amazing things can happen to kids in a school. Students who were assigned to our DAEP were supposed to be provided instruction on a daily basis. DAEP stands for District Alternative Education Plan. I will never forget the day I took an assignment down to a student and found all the male students had been taken out of the room. When I entered the room there was a huge commotion coming from an office off the main classroom where the cubicles for DAEP were kept. The sole remaining student in the room was a female child.

The individual in charge of the program had taken the boys out of the classroom to an office area. The aide who remained in the room was extremely upset. When I asked the aide what was going on, she informed me that they were being searched. The sound of yelling and raised voices was coming from the office area. I asked the aide what kind of search was being conducted. She told me the students were being strip searched. There were a total of 9 boys out of the classroom.

I immediately went to the principal to inform him of what was happening. He was not in his office. So, I sent him an email. The principal investigated. The fact was that the students were being strip searched. This was performed frequently. To make a very long story a bit shorter, the policy was changed. The individual in charge was reassigned. The program itself has been changed to some degree. To make matters more interesting the students were given a short period of time to get dressed. If they were not able to get dressed in the required time they were made to do exercises, disrobe again and dress again.

Think it can't happen to your child - think again. All the parents of children treated in this fashion thought that nothing like this could happen to their child. If you assume your school would never do this, you are being too trusting. What I would suggest that you do is read your districts search policy very closely.

Be sure to look at your districts policy regarding certain objects that your child may bring to school. If your child were to mistakenly bring some object to school that can be construed as a weapon, the punishment could be extreme. You need to be there for your child every time someone talks to your child at school. Do not assume that such things cannot happen at your school to your child.

Kids are now removed from the classroom for all sorts of things. Normally, a child who has been removed will be placed in some kind of an Alternative Education setting. The children in DAEP classes are supposed to receive the same instruction as children in the normal program. Often, all a child will get in a DAEP are simple worksheets with little instruction and little help.

A child in a DAEP may have brought a weapon of sort to school. Others may have uttered a profanity to a teacher. But, don't for one moment assume that the kids who are in the school program for "bad" kids are bad.

Also, don't assume that the administrator who put the child there had any choice. Many states have enacted laws that now define mandatory punishments for all kinds of offenses. Some of those offenses would have landed the kid in a detention, brought them a couple of pops with a paddle or a call to the parents in the less enlightened past.

I should tell you that I am about as conservative about discipline as they come. I support corporal punishment as an option without hesitation if it is done with the parents knowledge and permission. If a child brings a gun to school the proper response to that is obvious. But, schools need to remember that kids are not small adults. Our job as educators is to teach children. In the past discipline was offered along with a life lesson. Kids were not crushed by disciplinary policy as they are now. Kids were treated as kids.

For some reason, our society has decided to bring the weight of the world down on a child who commits certain offenses. Many schools will now bring in the police for often simple things. Many times the child will receive a ticket. The child and the parents will have to appear in court. The courts will almost invariably find for the school. When that happens your child will have a criminal record. The sentence will often include community service, service of some sort at school, a fine. Sometimes, your child may end up in the juvenile jail for something that would have brought a paddling a few years ago.

Often these policies become a source of conflict between schools and the clientele of the school. And, in almost all cases the school will win.

Here is a simple, somewhat trivial, example. In today's Houston Chronicle there is an article entitled "Parents Join Seventh-Grader in Detention". This article can be found at http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2981525.

The child in this particular case attends a middle school in the Pearland Independent School District. She was repeatedly late for the start of school. Remember that the child in question is a middle school child who does not drive. Remember also that the child is not able to impact how her parents get her to school. Basically the parents had a series of problems with their car. According to the Chronicle the mother "said the tardies came on mornings when the school bus had already passed before she found out her van wouldn't start. A recurring electrical problem with the vehicle has been remedied." As a result of the tardies the child was assigned to serve one hour of detention after school.

Yes, I know that this is a petty problem with a trivial punishment. But it is the principle underlying the situation that interests me.

The parents told the principal of the school that they were responsible for the child's tardiness. They informed the principal that the van would not start. They were honest enough to take responsiblility. Now, what would a reasonable administrator do? One might think that he would consider the nature of the problem. You might think that he would understand that a child cannot control the actions of her parents. You might think that would be all there was to the issue.

You would be wrong. According to principal Lonnie Leal "we are enforcing the handbook consequences for a student who is repeatedly late to school." It made no difference that the child had no way to get to school on those mornings other than with her chronically late parents. The comic part of this story is that the parents served the detention with the child because they were responsible for the child's tardiness.

So what? Why would I consider this a problem? Because, this is an example of a school failing to use common sense in dealing with a simple issue. Can you imagine how rigid this principal and school will be with another child who may be caught in a more serious catch 22?

The child was tardy to school. The parents told the school that it was their fault. The child is in middle school. The parents were taking the child to school. The child is not in control of the adults in charge of her. Neither the child nor the parents can repair the car with a snap of the fingers. The child cannot drive. According to the article the bus had run.

Now, who would you punish? Right, the child!

The problem here is the complete lack of common sense on the part of the school administration. What does the school expect the child to do in this circumstance? Any rational adult would understand that if there is an issue, it is with the parents. After the child is at school, moving between classes, then the child is responsible. But, the child is not responsible when the parents will not or cannot get the child to school.

So, of course, the school chose to punish the child.

Never assume that schools will look at individual circumstances when enforcing rules. Never assume that schools will give different punishments for different levels of reponsibility. We live in a one size fits all world. Never think for one instant that your child can defend himself from an assault without expecting the same punishment as his assailant. A colleague of mine told me that when her child was being bullied at his middle school, the assistant principal told him not to defend himself. The child was told to roll up in a ball on the floor with his hands protecting his head until an adult arrived. If he took the step of trying to defend himself from an assault he would be expelled with the assailant.

If you have a child in a school, believe your child. Don't immediately assume that your child is making something up. Err on the side of your child.

John McGeough

Well, its a small world. As I was closing out today's entry, I noticed this. Check this link for another example of strip searching treated as something normal by a school. Let's go to Texas City, Texas ---
http://www.local6.com/news/4061915/detail.html

Check it out.

John

A beginning

2005-01-06T16:46:00.000-08:00

I retired from teaching in the spring of 2004. I have told many friends that this is my first retirement. I did not leave teaching. I have only changed my direction for a time. I may go back next year. Who knows. The important thing for me to say is that I needed a break after the worst years of my career.

What happened in the final years before my retirement completely destroyed my confidence in my profession. If you are a parent who happens for some reason to read this blog, you need to understand one thing and only one thing; believe your child. At the very least, investigate anything your child says about his or her school day.

I left a school that was in disaster mode. I do not blame our students for this in any way. Our students were as good as any in America. Most were not rich. In fact, my school had something like 50 to 60% on free and reduced lunch. The ethnic makeup in the school was approximately 1/3 caucasion, 1/3 Hispanic, and 1/3 African-American. The kids were wonderful. They just needed to be taught. I place the blame for my schools failure, at the time, on the system and practices of the district administration.

Test scores were plummeting. Discipline was becoming a real problem. The halls had become so bad that I was actually knocked down by two students running and horseplaying in the hallway in front of my classroom. I am not a small guy. I weighed at that time about 280 pounds. I landed down the hallway about 6 feet from where I was standing. I was not injured. But, far worse, was what the kids were going through.

At that time we were getting kids in the seventh grade who did not read at any functional level. Many of the students had few to no math skills. Unless things change a great deal in the future, those children will experience little or no academic success. My school had attempted to address low test scores on the TAKS test and low general academic achievement by attempting to analyze the standardized test itself. The upper administration imposed policies on the administrators in my building that were questionable at best. We took to giving practice tests at the end of each grading period that were practice TAKS tests. These tests took one week each time they were given. One test was given on each day of the practice testing week. Students were required to sit silently from approximately 8:30 in the morning until dismissal at 2:50 in the afternoon. During that time students were required to take one subject area test that consisted of approximately 40 questions. After the students were finished they were required to sit still and quietly for the next several hours. They were only allowed to read or sleep. However, they could not read material that was subject matter. They were given a one gallon jug of room temperature water and a small paper cup that they were required to keep track of during the testing periods. Generally, they were allowed only one restroom break in the morning and one in the afternoon. I was extremely fortunate in that I was allowed to test in the library. I taught Pre-AP science and regular program science. In that role I taught in a lab. Because of that I was allowed to take my students to the library to test.

Students were walked to lunch where they were forbidden to talk about the test with other students. I can assure you that the test is the last thing they wanted to talk about. The lunch provided was generally a cold sandwich. Students were given a shorter period of time to eat the lunch. Then they had to go back to the testing room and remain silent the rest of the day. Most of my students and many of the students in the school finished in the first hour. After two years of this kind of routine, students in the eighth grade became extremely resentful of this routine. The test scores on the benchmarks were consistently low. Many students got into the habit of simply marking randomly. Low test scores resulted in more of the same - much more.

Teachers were then asked to analyze the "data" gained from these tests. We were asked to make reports on every student by taking data off the computer screen and writing it on copied data forms which we then turned in to the dean of instruction. She would then check off our compliance with the program.

Generally, the program that followed was a regimen of "warm-ups" aimed at improving performance on the benchmark tests - and the TAKS itself - by attempting to pinpoint material that the students had missed on the test. We used TAKS formatted questions in these warmups that were presented at the beginning of the period. This consisted of one question a day. Each question was intended to remedy or teach a particular TAKS objective.

The students in our school were bored senseless. School had become something to be endured. The time of all my students was simply wasted. Students who had mastered the material were not challenged. Those who had not mastered the material were simply not taught. The situation was terrible for everyone concerned.

All this was done at the expense of teaching a rich, varied and challenging curriculum. Our upper administration persisted in responding to low test scores by intensifying the practice testing. Teachers who protested and questioned were shut down. The administration did not allow any criticism of its orthodoxy. Our local building administration was simply told what to do. We were a district that made a great deal of noise about the value of building representation. But, the opinions of the representative counsel in the school and the faculty in general were simply discounted. Those who voiced opposition to the benchmark testing, questioned the academic value of the warmups, or objected to the time spent in test prep were labeled bad team players.

Consequently, our building was remarkably unsuccessful. Kids were unmotivated. Teachers were demoralized. The response to the problem by the superintendent could not have been worse. The most brilliant solution to a pernicious lack of curriculum development skill in the district was answered by simply arranging a whole cloth restaffing of the district. If I remember correctly, every principal and assistant principal changed position. No consideration to quality was considered. One of the most brilliant assistant principals I had ever worked for was transferred to another building "for the good of the district". Nothing was done to the upper administration staff who had presided over this travesty. Nothing was done to the curriculum practices of the district as a whole. These actions took and already demoralized staff and devastated them. The school board bought the whole package without question. As any typical school administrative body, they placed the wagons in a circle and assumed that reasoned, albeit sometimes emotional, criticism was attack.

Unfortunately, this school is not a terrible place. In fact, it is dead average. The school from which retired is unfortunately very much like many, many schools across Texas and across our great country. This is the source of my concern. I will continue in future posts to outline other practices teachers are familiar with that are as common as dirt. Among the problems that exist in our schools are pernicious and devastating zero-tolerance policies that are just destroying many, many children.

So, what is my goal in creating this web log? What I intend to do is describe to you the problems as I see them, the good things I want to congratulate, and the things that I believe you as parents and students need to know. Generally, the media does not tell the public the real problems that exist in schools. Nor do they tell you the great things that are going on in schools. Certainly, they do not showcase independent learners such as home schooling parents who often do such an excellent job of educating their children. Rather, the media tends to frame home schoolers as eccentric recluses who should be looked at with caution. In fact, most home schoolers have decided to remove their children from situations that they deem dangerous to their childrens' intellectual growth, cultural growth or spiritual growth. They are to be congratulated for the innovative people they are instead of being condemned as zealots who want to withdraw from society.

There are many great schools doing a wonderful job for most of their kids. But, if you are a parent of a child in any school environment, you should not assume that all the strange things your child may tell you about their day is constructed from whole cloth. You should question everything, examine everything and be in your childs school at unexpected times. You should look at your districts practices with a critical eye. Remember, it is your child. Their future is actually in your hands, not in the hands of the school.

More to come.

John McGeough

A Teachers Viewpoint

2005-01-06T13:38:00.000-08:00
Welcome to A Teachers Viewpoint. My name is John McGeough. I have 31 years of experience in public education at all levels including university teaching. I am extremely troubled by what has happened to education in the last few years. I am extremely concerned about what schools may be doing to the nations children through lowered standards, violence, institutional bias and zero-tolerance policies. These are not my only concerns. The purpose of my web log is to explore what is happening to children in todays education environment.