A rolling thread where we are teachers

ugh instructional design

how can a field full of educated people who educate others be so submerged in idiocy and sloganeering

ambition

these people need copies of orwell's 'politics and the english language' in their faculty mailboxes

or someone needs to force them to do a beckett and write everything in a second language so that they're denied every single little encrustation of verbiage whenever they want to express their thoughts

i have so many things to say but i am not going to 1) type them all out or 2) do so here.
but yeah, try doing all this in a different language and then get back to me with some hella jargony bs

hey i'm not saying it's not an impossible task, i'm just saying, goddamn

guys can we just do this from now on

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/12/19/photos_open_air_schools_for_sick_kids_in_the_early_twentieth_century.html?wpisrc=hpsponsoredd2

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/theres-a-cheaper-more-effective-way-to-train-teachers/282778/

it often seems to me like this kind of model—apprenticeship under good and experienced teachers—is obviously right, even for higher ed. (where that could conceivably be more like the european model, save for the fact that that's often a matter of research-lead-and-subordinates as much as it is master-teacher-and-apprentice?), but when i think about the teachers i've had, i would only be willing to be apprenticed to a handful of them from the entirety of my educational career. it seems like maybe at all levels we have an allergy to requiring people to be under the authority of others, especially outside of institutional settings where people are temporarily, formally subordinate to others (i.e. schools)?

-1 the Atlantic

I'm in a program like this, but the mentor teachers are all hand-picked for not being pedagogically conservative buttholes. Although they are pedagogically conservative in some ways, their employer, who runs my program, gives them a pass for not fulfilling the butthole part and for having some teaching chops. They also have to have at least ten years experience.

If I follow you correctly, you're right that they'd run into a lot of buttholes-without-chops if a program like this was expanded to include every new teacher. Or maybe you're just saying that students would bristle at being under someone's authority, in which case, it's nice of you to consider them. My program director is also working at the state level (California) to try to change credential testing to make it more "authentic." She helped implement PACT, which consists of 2 unedited 10 minute clips of the student/intern teacher teaching and a thesis-length analysis and explication.

I think the number 1 most effective school reform would be an emphasis on goodman/glasser/kohn-style student and teacher autonomy. From the teacher side, you can't really police what a teacher thinks or says or does in a classroom, and when you try you get, e.g., the anti-teacher, anti-union standards movement, which has cost a lot of money and has accelerated the bean counter philosophies of school and district management, but has arguably (not arguably) made American schools worse. So you can't very effectively (and without repurcussions) tell a teacher what to do or who to be, but a new teacher participating in a schoolwide democracy, in which consensus and consent are foregrounded elements of the occupation, and in which the administrative mandarins take a backseat in directing school function and policy, is a new teacher who will learn to be a school leader, to be better educated about state and district policy and law, and to be more conscientious about their curriculum and planning. A lot of traditional schools with revolving door administrations already have crippled versions of this model in place, because the schools would die if the teachers didn't assume, of no one else's volition but their own, leadership roles. These schools would do much better to just restructure and forget about hiring that principal or vice principal or "guidance counsellor."

i don't think it's just being nice! i seriously question how much someone doing that job can be told what to do or who to be, even to the extent of taking guidance from a 'master' / mentor for a limited period of time. i know that it HAS been done, that arrangements like that are not unheard of (thinking of old-timey disciplinarian schoolmarms or whatever, to dig that far back?), but it literally just perplexes me. something about the idea of one person who is supposed to enjoy/exercise some degree of authority visibly/tangibly being directed by a superior exercising their own authority, same place same time, gets something wrong about the work that's being done. (i suppose that is why this program gets pitched primarily as 'observation', 'helping' etc.?)

once in graduate school i happened to have (this was in no way the norm, for obvious reasons) a fellow graduate student as a t.a., for one of my first classes of my own in fact, and one day i heard her sitting in with some students engaged in group discussion, and the stuff she was saying made me just want to stop and say SHUT UP, DON'T RUIN THEM WITH YOUR MEDIOCRITY, but of course i couldn't quite do that so i just tried to leave her with few responsibilities so that she would disengage from the class for the remainder of the semester instead of trying to chip in. (now, with less of a need for control over all the aspects of the course, i could handle that better, but even late on i had a nightmare of a t.a. who i just had to cross my fingers would not ruin her students' chances of getting anything out of the class.)

'let me teach you how to teach someone else' kind of leaps over the fact that you're the one who has to do it, in the end. and in some way which is not exactly the same as say with a surgeon, 'let me teach you how to perform this procedure'. or 'explain thing x to someone else the way -I- tell you to explain it', which is a little closer maybe. with certain things, you can tolerate the requirement that your own explanation essentially repeats one you were given / told to give. but when the requirement bears on your own manner of giving the explanation / relating to others?

I agree with you. I meant it's nice of you to think of them because no one else will, because they're students, and nobody cares about students, even if they're adults. I see you're addressing it from a much more practical point of view, though.

You're perfectly describing one of the key motivations for decentralizing schools! Structural changes will always trump reforms that emphasize behavior.

'but how can we make improvements if we don't tell people what to do and then look to see if they did it?!'

http://dianeravitch.net/2014/01/22/north-carolina-greatest-insult-to-teachers-ever-cooked-up-in-backroom/

“The NC 60/30/10 Plan, which “embraces high teacher turnover,” would place teachers on one of three tracks: Apprentice, Master or Career.

“Sixty percent of all North Carolinian teachers would make $32,000/year in the Apprentice category and be allowed to teach for up to twenty years, at which time they must retire or move on to another industry.

“Thirty percent of teachers would be eligible for the Master category if they have been teaching for three years, have completed an online training program, and can demonstrate mastery of the teaching method based on “customer survey data.” Master teachers would earn $52,000/year.

“Ten percent of teachers would become Career teachers, making $72,000 if they have an advanced degree and can innovate and lead.

“All teachers would be able to serve in North Carolina for no more than 20 years. If the plan were to be adopted, all teachers in North Carolina would be required to reapply for their jobs in 2015.

wau

i guess the tool hawking the plan has since said they are backing off the most bonkers part, the 20-year limit for 'apprentices'

though now that i look more closely, the 'masters' aren't just more highly trained, they're trained in 'the teaching method based on "customer survey data"', surely one of the cornerstones of any solid customer-teacher relationship

fuck corporate ed reform forever

this is disgusting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25906736

UK Government allegedly briefs against the schools inspection body, partly for the right reasons but largely for the wrong reasons:

...the wish for schools to develop their own approaches to teaching was being held back by child-first orthodoxies among inspectors...

...who were stifling innovation

I would not disagree that Ofsted stifles innovation, not least because teachers have little time to really plan because they're too busy shuffling paperwork and fabricating Ofsted-pleasing frameworks.

hiya, if you are or know of a good maths teacher in london (up to a-level) who's in the market for a part-time role in a good school, do get in touch with me!

This seems like the place to share my series of recent essays and how-to notes on authority, classroom management, and the Law of the Jungle. I wrote this for myself, while in grad school and while subbing, but wonder if it could help others too. I'm really interested in people's experiences with any of the phenomena described, and your reactions to anything below.

Main essays/outlines on Fred Jones (on "say, see, do" teaching, preferred activity time, "meaning business," Alfie Kohn, cooperative learning, and more):
Instruction.
Motivation.
Discipline.

Offshoot essays:
John Taylor Gatto's 'Dumbing Us Down.'
Why classrooms aren't communities.
School and the Law of the Jungle.
Teaching or violence.
John Locke, A.S. Neill, and authority revisited.

i've read some of those, pete, but it's a lot to take in and pitched way below my student level, so i might need a think on it.

meanwhile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAy3vJn4pbs

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2014/02/12/no-college-left-behind-randy-bests-money-making-mission-to-save-higher-education/2/

on the illiterate businessman whose company 'academic partnerships' is raking it in helping businesses and schools convert to online course delivery

http://spartandaily.com/119401/online-proctoring-raises-privacy-concerns

sure, no big, we'll just be watching you through your own camera while you pay $20 to take this test

well, watching you and half a dozen other test-takers, night-watchman style

yeesh

Nguyen said he is also concerned with the type of personal information he was asked to provide to ProctorU.

In addition to showing the remote proctor his driver's license and entering in his student ID number, Nguyen said he was asked to answer four personal questions about himself.

One was to pick a family member's name out of a list of names.

Nguyen said that his uncle's name was on the list, although he isn't sure how they had his name since he's never willingly shared that information in a public context.

The questions, Hayes said, are a security measure that is also employed by some credit card and insurance companies.

He said all of the information is compiled from public records and databases by Acxiom, a data-brokering company.

"We're looking for something that you are, something that you have and something that you know," Hayes said, explaining the comprehensive verification process.

fuck ed tech in whatever orifice is convenient at the time

there are no orifices, they are remotely located and you receive updates about them in an app on your phone, which does not work

the worst
ugh
so gross!

cool i will just give this ed tech to my students
*it is broken within a week*
welp
*prepares paper lessons*

i spoke up against educational products during our HLC visit this week
feel good about that

been following this dude

https://twitter.com/Beaker_Ben

who is a regular from one of those college instructor griping blogs

and he has made a habit of retweeting students tweeting about their teachers

good GOD are they vituperative and abusive about the most innocuous things when they're doing it in a public backchannel

best to avoid shit like that
you can't even start to think about it

also are you an old ilxor with a new name?

nope, same one my mother gave me

This story is really bizarre. Teacher jail!

http://www.thenation.com/article/179605/where-shame-policy-inside-las-teacher-jail

http://inthesetimes.com/article/16691/a_boycott_today_keeps_the_testing_at_bay

http://www.geoffshullenberger.com/archives/269

against 'adaptive learning' platforms

That Nation story is both crazy and sad: “They want to dehumanize the profession as a whole, because if you can bring this profession down, if you can make people lose trust in this profession, then you can do anything.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/10/does-england-have-the-solution-to-the-grade-inflation-problem/381571/

The U.K. is not immune to disputes about grade inflation. But it’s telling that the most common grade by far is still a second, not a first. When employers all accept that a second-class degree already provides a stamp of quality, it removes the narcissism inherent in minor differences. There are also fewer incentives for professors to assign higher grades if students recognize that the majority of them will receive the same mark. And sticking to four grades hasn’t harmed the UK’s stellar standings in global university league tables.

This approach might be called the Goldilocks principle of grading. It suggests that students, teachers, and employers can all find their way in a system where grades are not too high and not too low, but just right. And that might mean the majority of students get exactly the same grade.

it's called a C, people

Ban grading aside from pass fail

http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2014/12/pearsons-renaissance-1-history-and.html

this crank's anti-corporate-reform-gobbledygook blog makes me happy

Odd German film from a few years ago--looks and feels more like a television show than a movie--but very good in terms of what it's like to face the reality of class control when you're starting out (not that that issue ever really goes away):

http://www.filmmovement.com/downloads/photos/Forestfortrees_hi.jpg

The teacher's personal life belongs in a Fassbinder film.

The black hole/Bermuda Triangle of elementary teaching: marking a class set of stories. Some never make it back.

I'm halfway through one about a new gaming console that does everything from waking you up in the morning to getting you something to drink:

"Ahh now that is one tasty glass of lemonade" said Jake relaxed.

Pulp Fiction reference, I'm pretty sure.

I like marking math.
I don't mind marking art.
As noted above, I hate marking anything with words.

the wordst

I love this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fn_vAhu_Lw

http://wishtv.com/2015/07/12/indiana-schools-report-shortage-of-teacher-applications/

School districts across Indiana are having trouble finding people to fill open teaching positions amid a nearly 90 percent drop in the number of teacher licenses issued by the state.

The Indiana Department of Education says the state issued about 7,500 teaching licenses for the 2007-2008 school year. WTHI reports that number fell to 934 for the 2013-14 school year.

Licenses for teachers with at least 10 years of experience fell from 333 to 4 in the same period.

yeesh

Wow--I'll know where to direct all the underemployed supply/graduating teachers here. It's really hard just to get on my board's supply list (i.e., substitute, if you're American--I remember an American friend once thinking we hired teachers to man the supply cupboards).

that's a key position tho

If you don't have the key, you'll never be able to open the cupboard, so yes.

the hell's going on in indiana?

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/18/charter_schools_worst_nightmare_a_pro_union_movement_may_change_charters_forever/

ha ha god bless unions

Let’s say, hypothetically, that the charter-union movement starts picking up steam. Is there any chance that Wall Street, which has been a massive supporter of charters, will abandon it because of their views on unions?

Yes, I think that’s definitely a possibility. That’s something that various union people said to me. Jesse Sharky, from the Chicago Teacher’s Union, said that right, there’s a lot of businesspeople and entrepreneurs who are very interested in the charter school sector, and if that sector became more heavily unionized, it’s not so clear that suddenly it would be such an interesting or intriguing investment for them to make.

at a top-tier university, how many pages can you expect undergraduates (these days) to be able to read per week? i am composing a syllabus from scratch for the first time in a very long time and im realizing i have no idea what's a reasonable expectation on my part.