Tag Archives: BSISD

Half Rant and Come To Ravitch Meeting – Can I get a “Hail Yeah!” Edition

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Before I get into today’s post, let me first thank all of you who called/emailed/texted/posted your outrage/concern/disgust/sympathy/encouragement regarding my last post. It is comforting to know that I have supportive, loving people on my team.

Second, let me clarify that I did not lose my job. I just signed a mostly meaningless contract, as the BSISD has ensured that they can nullify or amend the terms on it at any time and for almost any reason, and I think my principal (who will hereafter be referred to as Kim Jong-il) was really just trying to scare me into…well, I’m not sure what I could be scared into doing; forcing my student to do better on their tests, I guess. Maybe it was Principal Kim’s way of reminding me that I am a valuable member of an important educational team, or maybe Kim was trying to tell me that next year, The Great Leader will have his powerful eye on me, but either way, I wasn’t outright fired. So there’s that. For right now, all Kim did was add an excellent sub-plot to the After School Special they’re going to make about me some day.

http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/about kim jong-il

Of course, it’s just a matter of time. Eventually I will be sacked (that’s British for ‘fired’. It doesn’t mean I’ll get laid. But that could happen eventually also. I’ll keep you posted.)

When I first started teaching I looked around at the older teachers and shook my head, knowing that I would never be like them. There were the ones who ranted and raved, always arguing about anything new and the impossibilities behind the implementation of innovative ideas. I called them the “Nein-Nicht” faction.There were the “Bobbleheads” who had long ago checked out, and just smiled and nodded, regardless of the topic. There were the “Fraidy-rabbits”, who always did everything to the letter and freaked out with every new task, trend or mandate.They ducked their heads and trembled a lot.  And finally, there were those who agreed to do whatever was asked of them, no matter how ridiculous, time-consuming, useless or clearly unfeasible, and then shut their doors and did exactly what they wanted to do, whenever and however they wanted to do it. You know, “What happens in the classroom stays in the classroom” folk. One of those guys used to smoke out the window of his third floor room and showed up drunk as a skunk at prom one year, where he was the late night chaperone. I’ll call this last group “Ken” in his honor.

The reason I shook my head when I looked at those old teachers so long ago was that I could not understand what happened to them to make them behave as they did, and because I knew that I would never be one of them. I firmly believed that anyone that out of step with modern, research-based and widely-endorsed best practices in education should leave the profession. They had stayed past their passion, usefulness, and welcome, and it was time for them to go.

Well, lo and behold, time passed and hot-damn it all, now you can just call me fraidy-rabbit-nein-nicht, bobble-headed Ken!  I can totally understand how teachers get so frustrated and weary with having the same tedious arguments about doing the same things that never work that they are quick to veto the same ineffective, poorly-thought out, ill-implemented solutions that never have and never will fix the same problems, even if they have exciting, inspirational new names and slogans. (Believe to Achieve! Failure is Not An Option! No Child Left Behind!) I can see how it is easier to smile and nod than to corrode your insides with the acids of resentment, fury and anxiety that is the cocktail of this business. It becomes less than a stretch to understand the fears that mount up as the workload gets heavier, the classroom gets larger, you get older, and the economy gets weaker. And, though proms suck after you graduate high school, everyone knows they are more fun when you are drunk, no matter how old you are.

So you see, even though I love teaching and I love my students (Julio just texted me from Mexico. He spelled “Miss” with three esses, and told me I was as bad as all the gangsters in Guanajuato! What’s not to love?!), I am hopelessly out of alignment with the direction of modern education, and some day, probably sooner than later, it will be my time to go, either willingly or by force.

So, to recap the popular wisdom on education:

1. The current educational trends lean towards the one-size-fits-all solution of blaming the teachers for low achieving students. If we get rid of bad teachers – and “we” are sure about who “they” are, because we base our evaluations on “facts” and “data” -we will float to the top of the universal smart pool. Someone once told me the same thing happens to your doo-doo if you are healthy, but that is totally irrelevant here.

2. In order to achieve this, (not the healthy doo doo but getting real smart), we must inform the public about the corrupt, lazy and highly over-compensated workforce we currently employ, and be constantly vigilant in reducing their ranks. This will also save on money, which may be the single most important thing in a good, strong, effective school system that produces genius students.

3. Students are low-achieving if they perform poorly on standardized tests. Again, the only conceivable reason for students to perform poorly is that they are poorly taught. Therefore, teachers should be judged, hired, retained and paid based on how their students perform.

4. All students are equal; therefore, all students can perform equally.

I said this was only going to be a half rant, so I will state my case in as few words as possible. Of course, for me, this will still be lots of words. Sorry!

1. A logical fallacy is an error in logic. Here is a list of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies See if you can spot all of the false assumptions in the logic of the statements listed above.

2. The difference between “standards” and “standardization” is as big as the difference between “sterile” and “sterilization.” You can quote me on that. “Accountability” is much more than “blame”. Another good quote, if I do say so myself.

3. Just because it is said or written, just because numbers are presented, doesn’t mean that it is a complete truth. Nothing is ever black or white.

4. We are not all equal. We are all marvelously different. We learn differently and have different strengths and weaknesses. Duh!For further clarification, see Kurt Vonnegut’s fabulous short story, Harrison Bergeron. http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

5. Public servants are not the enemy, no matter who says that they are. We need people who want to make a career of working for others. Less and smaller is not always better. photo from Dallas Observer http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/04/the_10_best_signs_at_this_week.php#more

So, that’s the end of my rant. Except for this: I know some of you don’t care about public education. You don’t go to school, or your kids go to private school, or have already graduated, or are retired, or don’t have kids, or whatever. Maybe you’re just “not political”. Maybe this is all so boring to you. Maybe it’s just all so hopeless. But, still, you should care.

You should care because hordes of children are being effected by a broken, detrimental system that is actively destroying creativity and problem solving mechanisms. They are denied effectual tutelage by budget cuts, short-sightedness, lust for power, and adherence to agendas, rather than needs.

These kids will marry your kids, will be your neighbors, will be either a positive or negative factor in our economy, will become leaders or predators, and will shape the future. Our collective future. These hordes are our future, and we must set them up and provide them with the tools they need to be productive, creative assets to society, as opposed to drains or a dissatisfied group who will one day be filled with hatred and resentment for those who failed them.

We cannot afford a nation divided and divisive. We cannot sit and watch while a “haves” and “have-nots” system is created. We are all in this together, and we are responsible to pay attention to what is going on and to do what is right.

I saw this on a bumper sticker: Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes. (Susan Sarandon saw the same bumper sticker. Small world, right? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-sarandon/speak-your-truth-even-if_b_290792.html

Knowledge is power. We have to educate each other more broadly and deeper, as opposed to narrowly and in a linear manner. We need to teach the children well, and we are not doing it in today’s climate. You have to care.

For more on this from someone who is smarter, less emotional, and more eloquent than I, youtube former Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, or read her books, or articles, or check out her website http://www.dianeravitch.com/. Better yet, check out her blog. http://dianeravitch.net/ She is the bomb. She speaks the truth. Listen to her. Learn from her. Love her.

Maybe she will play me in the After School Special. Either Diane Ravitch, or Taylor Swift. Or maybe Young Jeezy. I don’t know.

To watch the shit hit the fan, click this! http://youtu.be/QJEhJklbl10

 

Someone Who is Definitely Not Me Wrote This!

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I was listening to the Beeb last night, as you know I am wont to do, when I heard a story about a guy who sold his company, and gave $16 million to his employees. Many of them had been there for a long time, and the man wanted to thank them for their hard work and dedication, and so, even though they didn’t get sacked under the new boss – “sacked”: that’s Britspeak for “fired”, in case you aren’t as internationally hip as I am – they got up to $31,800 deposited into their bank accounts on the sneaky sneak. Sweet.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57369402/aussie-bus-boss-wows-staff-with-$16m-in-bonuses/

In related news, the BSISD has decided that teachers should not get paid for their 30 minute lunch break. The school board voted – also on the sneaky sneak- to add an extra 45 minutes to the work day. The board is still debating on what exactly teachers are supposed to do in that 45 minutes, but so far, the board is not considering allowing teachers to do things like grade papers, call parents, or meet one-on-one with students, to do things like talk about pregnancies, drug addiction, gang violence, domestic abuse, parents, siblings, death, fears, hopes, dreams, the future, the past, etc.; all of those things would take more than 45 minutes, so we still have to do them on our own time, like we have always done. Instead, “The [extra] time will be used for professional development, planning, professional learning communities, and tutoring as determined by the principal and school leadership, according to information from the district.”

At my school that means more charts and graphs, word walls and foldables.

We just had a staff development day. We were asked to analyze standardized test data using a special chart template that required five separate downloads in order to complete. I didn’t understand any of it. We were supposed to analyze why our students missed specific questions on the test, so that we could figure out how we had failed them by not teaching the test that we are not supposed to teach to, but we were never allowed to see the actual questions. One of our instructions said, “If you need more help with these instructions, use the Universal Tool.” I have never heard of the Educational Universal Tool, but since my Personal Universal Tool is out of batteries, I was at a loss.

I went to the folks in the math department, on account of they’re real good with charts and graphs and data of all manner. They were filling in rows and columns and fields and color-coded addenda like nobody’s business.

“Whatthewhothe?” I asked.

“We just type in stuff like ‘see Figure 407(c) iii’,” Math Man 2 replied. (I still don’t know all of their names; mathfolk are in demand throughout the BSISD, so they usually jump off our particular sinking ship pretty quickly.)

“What’s Figure 407(c)iii?” I ask, wondering how come everybody knows stuff with numbers and letters but me.

“It’s part of the Universal Tool.” Math Man 1 has a glint in his eye. He knows something he’s not telling, that’s for sure.

“What is the Universal Tool?” I whisper conspiratorially.

“We never found it,” confesses Math Mama 4. “I think it’s hidden in the square root of pi.”

Really, I don’t get math or mathfolk at all.

We were asked for feedback on how helpful this staff development was for us. I wrote that it was Sisysphean, not because I thought that maybe someone would care about how low morale is and how this sort of ridiculous task just deepens the frustration, but because it made me happy to think that if anybody read our comments, they would have to look mine up in order to understand it. Haha!

Anyway, about the extra time; it’s not the 45 minutes. Like I believe I have made clear, I work MUCH more than 45 minutes a day without pay anyway. It’s the implication that teachers are lazy, and try to shirk their duties. It’s the disrespect and contempt for people who are, in some cultures, revered. It’s the fact that no principals, to my knowledge, stood up and said, “Hey! Our teachers are dedicated professionals who come to work every day and teach with knowledge and passion despite overwhelming challenges and ever-increasing demands! We demand the impossible of them, knowing they will fail, but expecting them to persevere with a smile on their faces and the patience of Job! Give them a break, would ya?”

That never happened. People don’t speak up or out, because everyone is afraid. Right after the board voted, a man emailed the acting superintendent to complain. He was removed from his classroom and put on administrative leave the next day for “allegations of potential misconduct.”

Really. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Or could I?

Nope.

 

Blizzard 2011 Rages On…Yay!

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Click here to see this image if you have old eyes and it’s all too tiny as is:
http://thoughtballoonhelium.blogspot.com/2011/02/productive-snow-day.html

Words and pictures by Grant Snider

Conversation between teachers in BSISD on eve of possible snow day:
Veteran Teacher: Say, there! What’s in that enormous rolling suitcase you’re dragging?
New Teacher: (huffing and puffing) Grading. Since we may have a snow day tomorrow, I thought I’d try to catch up on some of this at home…
VT: Oh, right. Have I told you about my grading system?
NT: I don’t think so! I’m always interested in “best practices”, though! Will you share it with me?
VT: Sure! What I do is, I get all my papers together and divide them by class and period, being careful to vary which one is on top…
NT: Clever! I like this already! That way I can look at each class with fresh eyes!
VT: Right! Then I open the trunk and set the papers in the back half, right corner of the trunk…
NT: So they will be less likely to shift out of order! Practical! It’s so great to have a mentor teacher!
VT: Indeed! Then I leave the trunk open and drive to happy hour. Any of the papers that have ideas in them that are weighty enough to keep them from flying out into the universe get 100 points!
NT: Oh…wow! Neat! I’ll try that method after I put all the new vocabulary up on the word wall and make some foldables to teach the students about the Age of Reason…
NT thinking to self: Crazy old teachers! They should all be forced to retire! I can’t imagine thinking number grades aren’t the end-all measure of a student’s worth, or that it is even remotely possible that teachers or administrators can just “make grades up”! Meaningless grades…impossible!

I Live In The Present, No Matter What You Think!

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Upon rereading my last post, it occurs to me that some of my followers- that’s right, I have followers– might have studied American history, and might, therefore, have prior awareness of certain factual information, like, for instance, the douchebaggery of George Armstrong Custer. Perhaps, though I find it difficult to fathom, you don’t find my take on certain important events, like the lead up to the Battle of Little Bighorn, what one would term “breaking news.” I understand that just because something happened over 130 years ago and you learned about it when you were twelve, some of you might not think that a rehashing, no matter how vibrantly told, is really relevant to today’s complex and turbulent times. Really, I get that. Misguided as it is, I feel your boredom with my historical fascination.

Alas, as a graduate of the BSISD, I have almost no knowledge of my country’s past, nor do I have any sense at all of basic geography, chemistry, physics, or algebra of any kind. Sometimes I get confused about what it means when the big hand is on or near the nine, and if you use obscure directional terms like “north” and “south”, I am bound to end up near Oklahoma, a place nobody really goes by choice.
I think back over my education and wonder why I never learned about things that others seem to know.
In the BSISD high schools, many history and government classes are taught by coaches, often of the ignorant, foaming, Republican nature. I went to a school that had no athletics, so the powers that be had to import a survivalist, child-loving redneck to fill in for a football dude. Mr. McCartwright, as I will call him, spoke as if he always had a hunka chaw under his lip. “I hate to tell yew yer wrong, cowboy…. but yew shure ain’t right,” he’d say when we’d question the ethical nature of the Confederacy, or mention the hypocrisy of the Puritans. I particularly remember his enthusiastic portrayal, in a series of seemingly interminable lectures – no print-rich, stimulating word walls for this guy, I tell you what!- on “The Plight of the American Injun.”
“What happened with yer injuns,” he said, with a sad and knowing smile, “wuz that they re-lied on the buffaloes, for evrythang…evrythang you could pawsibly imajun!”
While I imagined the Indians relying on the buffalo for electricity, rock concerts, snow days, weed, Flashdance t-shirts, and blowdryers – I had a pretty vivid, if not juvenile, imagination at that time – Mr.McCartwright would suck at his teeth and shake his head in the mock pity of those who know better.
“Sad to say,” he went on, “but them buffaloes got sum disease, sumpin’ real bad, like a buffalo flu. They got to gettin’ real sick, and then hell! They all up and died!”
He proceeded to explain, with charts and graphs that he drew on the blackboard – back in the day, we used a substance called ‘chalk’, that left a thick, white dust on a black board- that the Indian was totally unable to adapt to the loss of the buffalo, and therefore succumbed to a quick and relatively painless death on paradises called ‘reservations’ that the United States government set up for their final days.
Is it any wonder that until recently, I thought that George Custer was a great American hero?
Anyhoo, I could tell you many more stories about Mr. McCartwright, who ended up being reprimanded for attempting to force me into writing a major paper about a book called The Great Hoax, which was about how the Holocaust never happened; this, even though he was made aware that my grandmother wore an unwanted tattoo from her long years at Bergen Belsen, and my grandfather spent WWII in a Prisoner of War camp; or about how he married a student (her parents were happy about it, even though she was shy of 17), named Betsy McSlutterson (okay, okay, not her real name!); but that’s not really what I want to talk about here, at this point, today.
Today, I’d like to be relevant.
So…the Superbowl, right? I hear they’re playing it in DALLAS, this year! Dallas, Texas! Yeah, that’s right! Dallas: it’s not just for presidential assassinations anymore, right?! Hellz, no, dawg! Hope those teams from those places win, right? Can I get a what-what? By the way, happy fidddieth anniversary, JFK’s Inaugural address! Address that changed America, right? Sorry Dallas killed you, JFK! Possibility and promise…shoot that bitch right in the head, what?! Hellz to the yeah! That was some old style shit; hope and change, no lie, GI! Do ya feel me?
So, speaking of fitness- oh, hell no! Segue much, Ex-Lax? How about that Jack Lalanne, right?He’s dead! Dead as Kennedy! Guess all that fitness and shizz only paid off only for ninety-four years! Fo-nitey-fo! Guess he feels like a fool, what? Let’s all go to Mickey D’s and celebrate, right! That shit’s on me, fo’ sho! It’s cheap, so I should buy it!
I heard that Camden, New Jersey, which has a crazy high crime rate, decided that the police department was not a top priority and laid off 44% of it’s force and a good chunk of firefighters…has anyone been following what’s going on south of the border, about what’s up down Mexico way? Drug cartels and death, that’s what’s up! Lawless chaos and scared citizens, wondering how it can get any worse! Maybe instead of making sure we get rid of ‘sanctuary states’ and making sure registered voters have picture ID, we might look at finding ways to fund basic safety and security essentials…other than just firing a bunch of people. Do I smell administrative mismanagement and overspending? Ah, yes, I always do! http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110123/A_NEWS0801/101230309/-1/NEWSMAP
And talkin’ ’bout relevance…how ’bout that news I watched today on the teevee? Now that’s some relevant shit, right? Less see…Oprah’s got a sister! OMG! Who knew? I did not know that! Thank you, news on teevee! And that’s not all! Gabby Giffords is continuing to slowly improve! Since all signs have pointed towards her very fortunate betterment, and I have been continuously bombarded by information regarding her every progressive twitch, I must say, I am shocked by her…predicted progress! The other day, the TV news preempted regularly scheduled programming to show an ambulance moving her from one hospital to another – LIVE! Oooooeeee! That’s riveting!
And speaking of predictions…it’s going to be cold this winter, with snow, and ice! BRRRR! Let’s talk about it some more, shall we? Get this! On the news the other day, I learned that the Octamom, a misnomer fo’ sho’, since she actually has 14 kids….is broke! I did not see that coming! Also, if you deep fry healthy foods in lard and fat… they lose their health benefits and actually cause you to increase calories, and therefore gain weight! So that’s what’s up with your unforeseen obesity, lard ass! Thanks, teevee! I did not realize that! And it’s flu season! I forgot, even though it happens at this same time every year! I wondered why all around me kids at school were turning pale and puking on their desks! Whoopsie! Wash those hands, boys and girls, and quit coughing with your dirty mouth aimed right at me, biyotch! Sneeze in my eye again and I Will Cut You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, did I tell you I went on vacation? I did, and it was so relaxing…
Kisses!
AVR
P.S. Here’s something else I know: yellow fever causes black vomiting. It’s not the scarlet death, but still, what exciting color combinations!
P.P.S. In case you were wondering, I don’t have TB. Whew! Close one! Now about the syph…
Just kidding! All clear!

Brian Has Left the Building

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I had to go to a meeting at school the other day, in which my ‘learning community’, which is our new term for ‘department’, meets to discuss our ‘learning objectives’ which means ‘test scores’, and our ‘content objectives’, which means ‘things on which we are to be evaluated’, which means, really, ‘word walls and foldables’. You may recall that word walls are a complex intellectual stimulatory tactic, wherein the educator puts words on walls, and foldables prompt cognitive retention sparked when the learner folds things, particularly if said things are very colorful. For a low performing high school like ours, these ‘teaching strategies’ are non-negotiable, and educators must be constantly reminded of their importance and application. That is why we have staff development training and learning communities; if we all understand how to comply with non-negotiables like these, if we believe, we will achieve, and failure is not an option!
These meetings just kill me. I used to bring a book, but then I felt guilty about being openly rude, even though apparently texting during a meeting, especially if one is an administrator, is considered acceptable etiquette. I have tried to participate in the ‘dialogue’, but I found out that ‘dialogue’ really means monologue, and too many questions will get you a room out in the portables, where fire alarms don’t ring and metal detectors don’t matter. Now I just sit quietly and draw, singing show tunes in my head from musicals featuring transvestites. (I call them my tranny tunes, and I can’t tell you how many times they have been the only positive elements in otherwise unbearable situations. I have worked up a very impressive mash-up from Rocky Horror and Hedwig songs, if you want to hear it later.)
As if the actual attending of the meeting wasn’t bad enough – I could be more detailed about how totally excruciating they truly are, but I don’t want to appear bitter – they start well before school begins, at the crack of dawn. Perhaps you don’t know this about me, but I am not so much of a morning person. I wake up like the Blob, morph into Young Crankenstein, and eventually become enraged, like the Incredible Hulk, by the very fact of morning…what I’m trying to say is that waking up, for me, is a monstrous experience. (Like how I did that?) So, because I don’t like to be told to get up and go to work (see the last several posts on my you’re-not-the-boss-of-me attitude), I am always late, no matter how early I get up, and my clothes are always mismatched, because on meeting days I tend to get dressed in the dark.
When I got to the meeting, they had just finished discussing new innovations in word walls (your rooms can be even more print-rich and stimulating if your word walls are colorful, graphic, and in fun shapes and sizes!), and about how our evaluations would hinge on important teaching strategies like how often we changed or added to our word walls, or if our lesson plans made note of how we were incorporating foldables into our instruction on test taking for success, which is basically all that we teach.
I was happy that I missed that part.
I am then chided for being late, and told that a note will be made of my tardy and it will go into my file for my evaluator. We have to be constantly reminded that our evaluations, on which our future employment in the glorious BSISD depends, can and will be used against us if we don’t ‘buy into and comply’ with the ‘data-driven best practices’, because it has become clear to our administrators that if left to their own devices, teachers would just do what they thought was effective and meaningful, as opposed to what the district’s highly paid consultants decree is effective and meaningful.
As I thought about that, I began to get cranky.
The meeting culminated with our learning community’s administrator, a former English teacher who often seems to struggle with subject-verb agreement, sharply reminding us that we had to add more rigor to our lessons about word walls, foldables and test-taking. While we would be asked to defend anything over a 10% failure rate (a good teacher motivates kids to pass and does whatever he/she can to make sure that students are successful in learning! Remember, failure is not an option!), it is imperative that our classes are not easy, blow-off classes. We want our students to have a high degree of ‘college-readiness’, and according to the data, we have not yet reached that goal. (Last year, 3% of our graduating students were deemed to be college ready in an independent survey conducted by our town’s newspaper. This year, our goal is 80%.) The reason we have not reached our goals (or is it ‘our objectives’?) is because teachers are not completing the mountains of paperwork we must fill out in order for us to truly know our students and meet their needs, because teachers are not using the best practices the highly paid consultants have been recommending for the past 15 years (I wish I could be highly paid to recommend the exact same stupid strategies year after year!), and because teachers just refuse to make their classes appropriately rigorous, mostly on account of – here, the administrator winked and said, “You all know who you is!” – laziness.
Buttons popped off of my blue and red plaid shirt. My purple (they looked blue in the dark) pants frayed above the knees as my rock-hard calves ripped through the flimsy fabric. I was pissed, David Banner-style, and I needed to kill.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to satiate my blood lust because the bell rang. Today, I was going over the concept of the journey motif, as evidenced by the archetypal epic poem, The Odyssey, and revisited in the movie Cast Away. Today we were discussing how Odysseus had to recognize and overcome hubris, just as Chuck Noland, the hero in the movie, had to give up the need to control, in order to discover what Maslow calls “self-actualization’, or what occurs when a human being’s highest level of needs are met: morality, creativity, spontaneity, adaptability, a lack of prejudice and an acceptance and understanding of fact. I didn’t have time to do a foldable on this stuff, so my students probably weren’t learning anything, and the notes I have been desperately trying to teach them to take and use most likely won’t add to their college readiness, on account of I forgot to put key words up on the wall. Worse still, I did not make a lesson plan this week, for the fifth year in a row, so it is impossible for me to have any idea of what I am doing and, worse still, if I get evaluated today, my administrator will not be able to see that what I am teaching is what I said I would be teaching – with foldables!- in the weekly lesson plan I am supposed to turn in by 8:00 every Monday. Crap.
At lunch, the Sign Language teacher came into my room, all sweaty and wild eyed. Seems he’d been upset by the rigor talk, and in order to be in compliance, had attempted to make meaningful connections for his students with the real world by focusing on a topic in current events, having his students research and write about it, and then debating the topic in sign language. I had suggested the use of current events to him previously, because, even though I had not seen any data to prove it, I suspected that our students didn’t know anything about what was going on in the world. I came to this conclusion by talking to them. Obtaining information in this way is generally frowned upon, for it has many variables and is difficult to standardize and thus measure effectively.
The teacher – I’ll call him Fraidy Fraiderton- was worried because he couldn’t understand one of his student’s opinions as it was stated, and so he didn’t know how to grade it, and, even though it was nonsensical to him, he wanted to give it a high grade, because the student “tried so hard.” Since I was an English teacher, could I read it and tell him what the student was trying to say, so that he could give the kid 100 points? He already had three students in that period who he had to fail, because they didn’t ever come to class, and his passing rate was beginning to look suspicious. Students LIKE to go to GOOD teachers classes, and so they show up. Absence rates go in teacher’s evaluations also.
Before you read the kid’s paper, let me remind you that I teach in a high school. The topic, the debate over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” had been discussed for a week in class, and students had 15 minutes to write their opinion. The student is a general education student in the 10th grade, has never failed a class, and is liked by all of her teachers, because she always turns in her work and pays attention. She is by no means the weakest student in the class. What follows is exactly what was written.

I think we should keep Dont ask dont tell, because if you dont ask you cant tell somebody what you want to say Cause all you couldnt do is not saying anything just stare at the person that you were going to talk too. That would be soo boring! but if you cant tell by talking you could always finger spell to the person if not than you could just write it down I mean if we don’t do does things than I guess we don’t have a Brian. We just can’t ask somebody What there talking about cause they might be talking about your friend that you talk too. Don’t you agree????


I feel sorry for Mr. Fraiderton. He loves his students. He knows that they have been undereducated for their entire academic careers, because the system that is in charge of educating them is totally and irreparably damaged, and has lost focus of what it means to teach and learn. He understands that many of his students, while perhaps illiterate, are smart, and eager to learn new things. They come from a different world, one in which harmful, hopeless cycles are seldom broken or altered, and where problems are more dire and pressing than those encountered in algebra class. Sometimes, their parents die, or go crazy, or are deported, or locked up. Sometimes they just split, or they stay, and do absolutely everything in their power to give their children any available opportunity or luxury. They look for answers not on word walls, but in the advice of others, and often, that advice is incorrect, poorly thought out, not applicable to their situations, or in a language they can’t understand. They cut themselves and sniff air freshener, glue and heroin, join gangs and have sex in alleys behind dumpsters. They have babies. They look for comfort. And they come to school.

The teachers take them in, and do the best that they can. They cajole, joke, scold, suffer abuse, lash out, wheedle, persuade, compromise, give second chances, aim high, and go low in order to meet the students at a common ground. They call CPS and buy pizza for parties they aren’t supposed to have. They stay after the bells ring and come early, and buy gifts and coats and binders and books. Sometimes they cheat for the kid, and sometimes they don’t and risk being hated and turned upon. They are highly educated or downright stupid. They love the students, and the students follow them around like loyal puppies, sometimes, and other times, the students break the teachers’ hearts or steal their wallets. Some kids soar with wings that have had the feathers plucked one by one, and inspire everyone lucky enough to have watched them take off. These kids never give up, and refuse to succumb to the gravity pull of despair or doubt. They are amazing. Some kids never stand a chance, and some just don’t care.

Little by little, the daily drama gets to be so much. It’s overwhelming. Some teachers like Mr. Fraiderton cave in to the pressures from above and feel like if they just follow the rules, if they just do what they’re told, everything will be all right. Some teachers think the data has meaning, and is pure and factual, above manipulation and agendas, and others don’t even look at it, but mindlessly copy and paste numbers into columns because that is what they are asked to do.Some take up drinking, or become obese, or get prescription pills, or have nervous breakdowns. Some do become lazy and ineffective, or stubborn and mean-spirited. It does happen. But not that often.

I have started to think that if I teach anything, pretty much anything at all, and if I can connect with a kid, and show them that the world is big and life can be wide and crammed with possibility, I am doing good. Maybe not a good job, but doing good, and that has become the most important thing to me. The lessons don’t fit on the plans I no longer make. The “teaching” part is getting harder and more ridiculous. I’m frustrated and beaten down. I am out of sync with the pedagogy of my field, and I am resentful of authority. I want to give up, but something in me keeps me from finding something else. I want to scream and wish I would just shut up. It’s been this way for along time now.

TGIF, right?


From the "Truth is Stranger" Department…

Posted on by
5

One of the problems in fiction writing is that of credibility. Up to a certain point, a reader will willingly suspend reason and cheerfully allow himself to be manipulated by the author (I would actually pay extra for a little manipulation from an author! I like those intellectual types! ) After this point, however, if the story is simply too implausible or outrageous, trust between writer and reader is broken, and the reader resents the writer for wasting his time and being deceptive, or worse still, incompetent.

So, the problem is, how far can one go without losing the audience? How much are people willing to believe? At what point does the reader just throw the book off the bed and hiss, “OK, now you are just pissing me off!”?
For example, I am writing a story about a fictitious urban school district in a modern American town. Like all school district, this one professed to be “all about the kids”, and so, in order to better itself and its schools, this district- let’s call it BSISD – hired a very expensive consulting firm to measure the morale of the schools it ran, on the grounds that happy workers are productive workers who will churn out a quality product, which in this case is a well-educated, college-ready kid. The consultants generated charts and graphs in four colors and powerpoints with background music and short, humorous film clips that were both entertaining and enlightening. They developed questionnaires and methods for scrutinizing the validity of both the questions and the answers of the surveys, and then created MORE charts, graphs and powerpoints, using more colors, music and film clips to showcase the data that was collected. This took approximately three years, and then the consultants set about analyzing the data using a variety of criteria and comparisons that would determine if the Operational Health of the organization – the school- was healthy or not. This cost billions of dollars, but BSISD had long ago decided that expensive consultants were the best kind, and that the more they charged, the better the results proved to be.
Five years later, the firm had enough data and colored charts to create an Operational Health Index (OHI), in which a deliriously happy school would score 100 points. The BSISD was so concerned with getting data for the OHI to find out if the teachers and students in the schools were content, that the administration of the district had long ago stopped accepting complaints from the teachers and the students who voiced discontent for any reason. The theory was that they would get the chance to express their opinions on the well-researched questionnaires, which would then be dissected and analyzed be well-paid professional consultants. Then and only then could the results be disseminated and understood.
All of that was just background to the story. Exposition, if you will. Are ya still with me? It gets better…
CHAPTER ONE: Once upon a time there was a little elementary school in a large , urban school district called the BSISD. At one time there had been a happy faculty there, who lovingly taught adorable little kids how to color, count with beans, settle down for story time, tie their shoes, play the triangle or cowbells, and take naps. They sang lots of songs and performed plays about Thanksgiving, and they celebrated each others birthdays and Valentines. Some of the classes had a bird or a hamster or a goldfish, and everybody learned about responsibility by taking turns feeding the pets and cleaning their cages. The pets were usually named “Sunny” or “Fuzzy” or “Mr. Wiggles.” For the children, it was a great place to start their education, and every day, they skipped eagerly, hand in hand to the classrooms with their tiny chairs and cubby holes. When they graduated from the third grade, they knew how to read, write, add, subtract, multiply and divide, color inside the lines, the Pledge of Allegiance, that the policeman was their friend, and that even though Charlotte died, she had lived a good life and would never be forgotten.
However, times had changed.
OK, so Chapter One seems pretty likely. Nothing impossible here. I like the idea of a fish named Fuzzy.
CHAPTER TWO: The little elementary school was no longer a happy place. Someone had decided that the kids should all be the same, with all the same skills, talents and goals, and so programs had been cut in order to make way for classes that molded and restructured them. No more recess or nap time. No more arts and crafts; only worksheets, and only coloring INSIDE of the lines. Mr. Wiggles died and was never replaced. Students were instructed to walk only on the right side of the halls, no talking, hands to themselves. They wore little uniforms, and had a prescribed amount of homework every night. Some of the reading classes were taught from a script that the BSISD issued to the teachers every month. The script had segments for group snapping and clapping, and students and teachers were judged on their timing and adherence to the instructions on the page. There was no music. Parties were strictly forbidden, due to a lack of educational value, and plays took way too much time.
If a child wouldn’t fit into the mold, more rigid molds were created, as experts decided that all kids could be the same, if only they were motivated properly. Blind kids can learn to squint, and a good teacher never gave up on a child’s ability to master what had once seemed impossible. It was up to the teachers to motivate the children properly. This was stressful, as some students still insisted on being themselves. Teachers received training, and then more training. The training was always the same. It started off like this: “You are here because you are a bad teacher. Regardless of your years of experience or personal victories, you have always been a bad teacher. You must change. If you don’t change, you will be fired. You will become acceptable by copying data from computer screens onto spreadsheets, folders and stickers. Now let’s make some foldable graphic organizers to illustrate what we’ve learned.”
The teachers were sad, too. Many were scared, for themselves, yes, but also for their students, who they loved.
Chapter Two is getting a little out there. We live in a free society, and this is downright Orwellian. Nobody would believe that all kids are the same! That’s just stupid. That part about the teacher training is preposterous, too. What the hell is foldable?
Should I even go on? I know how this story ends up. Have I lost you already? Too ridiculous? Let me know if you are interested in Chapter Three, though I think I already know what your response will be – nobody really cares about the public schools, especially when the story is long, complex, unbelievable and depressing.

From the “Truth is Stranger” Department…

Posted on by
5

One of the problems in fiction writing is that of credibility. Up to a certain point, a reader will willingly suspend reason and cheerfully allow himself to be manipulated by the author (I would actually pay extra for a little manipulation from an author! I like those intellectual types! ) After this point, however, if the story is simply too implausible or outrageous, trust between writer and reader is broken, and the reader resents the writer for wasting his time and being deceptive, or worse still, incompetent.

So, the problem is, how far can one go without losing the audience? How much are people willing to believe? At what point does the reader just throw the book off the bed and hiss, “OK, now you are just pissing me off!”?
For example, I am writing a story about a fictitious urban school district in a modern American town. Like all school district, this one professed to be “all about the kids”, and so, in order to better itself and its schools, this district- let’s call it BSISD – hired a very expensive consulting firm to measure the morale of the schools it ran, on the grounds that happy workers are productive workers who will churn out a quality product, which in this case is a well-educated, college-ready kid. The consultants generated charts and graphs in four colors and powerpoints with background music and short, humorous film clips that were both entertaining and enlightening. They developed questionnaires and methods for scrutinizing the validity of both the questions and the answers of the surveys, and then created MORE charts, graphs and powerpoints, using more colors, music and film clips to showcase the data that was collected. This took approximately three years, and then the consultants set about analyzing the data using a variety of criteria and comparisons that would determine if the Operational Health of the organization – the school- was healthy or not. This cost billions of dollars, but BSISD had long ago decided that expensive consultants were the best kind, and that the more they charged, the better the results proved to be.
Five years later, the firm had enough data and colored charts to create an Operational Health Index (OHI), in which a deliriously happy school would score 100 points. The BSISD was so concerned with getting data for the OHI to find out if the teachers and students in the schools were content, that the administration of the district had long ago stopped accepting complaints from the teachers and the students who voiced discontent for any reason. The theory was that they would get the chance to express their opinions on the well-researched questionnaires, which would then be dissected and analyzed be well-paid professional consultants. Then and only then could the results be disseminated and understood.
All of that was just background to the story. Exposition, if you will. Are ya still with me? It gets better…
CHAPTER ONE: Once upon a time there was a little elementary school in a large , urban school district called the BSISD. At one time there had been a happy faculty there, who lovingly taught adorable little kids how to color, count with beans, settle down for story time, tie their shoes, play the triangle or cowbells, and take naps. They sang lots of songs and performed plays about Thanksgiving, and they celebrated each others birthdays and Valentines. Some of the classes had a bird or a hamster or a goldfish, and everybody learned about responsibility by taking turns feeding the pets and cleaning their cages. The pets were usually named “Sunny” or “Fuzzy” or “Mr. Wiggles.” For the children, it was a great place to start their education, and every day, they skipped eagerly, hand in hand to the classrooms with their tiny chairs and cubby holes. When they graduated from the third grade, they knew how to read, write, add, subtract, multiply and divide, color inside the lines, the Pledge of Allegiance, that the policeman was their friend, and that even though Charlotte died, she had lived a good life and would never be forgotten.
However, times had changed.
OK, so Chapter One seems pretty likely. Nothing impossible here. I like the idea of a fish named Fuzzy.
CHAPTER TWO: The little elementary school was no longer a happy place. Someone had decided that the kids should all be the same, with all the same skills, talents and goals, and so programs had been cut in order to make way for classes that molded and restructured them. No more recess or nap time. No more arts and crafts; only worksheets, and only coloring INSIDE of the lines. Mr. Wiggles died and was never replaced. Students were instructed to walk only on the right side of the halls, no talking, hands to themselves. They wore little uniforms, and had a prescribed amount of homework every night. Some of the reading classes were taught from a script that the BSISD issued to the teachers every month. The script had segments for group snapping and clapping, and students and teachers were judged on their timing and adherence to the instructions on the page. There was no music. Parties were strictly forbidden, due to a lack of educational value, and plays took way too much time.
If a child wouldn’t fit into the mold, more rigid molds were created, as experts decided that all kids could be the same, if only they were motivated properly. Blind kids can learn to squint, and a good teacher never gave up on a child’s ability to master what had once seemed impossible. It was up to the teachers to motivate the children properly. This was stressful, as some students still insisted on being themselves. Teachers received training, and then more training. The training was always the same. It started off like this: “You are here because you are a bad teacher. Regardless of your years of experience or personal victories, you have always been a bad teacher. You must change. If you don’t change, you will be fired. You will become acceptable by copying data from computer screens onto spreadsheets, folders and stickers. Now let’s make some foldable graphic organizers to illustrate what we’ve learned.”
The teachers were sad, too. Many were scared, for themselves, yes, but also for their students, who they loved.
Chapter Two is getting a little out there. We live in a free society, and this is downright Orwellian. Nobody would believe that all kids are the same! That’s just stupid. That part about the teacher training is preposterous, too. What the hell is foldable?
Should I even go on? I know how this story ends up. Have I lost you already? Too ridiculous? Let me know if you are interested in Chapter Three, though I think I already know what your response will be – nobody really cares about the public schools, especially when the story is long, complex, unbelievable and depressing.