2008 September 02 Archive at The Core Knowledge Blog

Archive for September 2nd, 2008

Let’s Be Careful Out There

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 2, 2008 in Education Practice and No category. 3 Comments

Here in New York, and in much of the nation, children start school tomorrow. It’ll also be the first day ever for thousands of new teachers. Whether you came from a traditional teacher training program, Teach for America or another alternative certification program, it’s safe to say that not everything you need to know to be effective has been covered in class.

The website Gently Hew Stone published a list of 50 Things New Teachers Need To Know last month. While I don’t subscribe to all fifty, most are solid and it’s a good place to start. ”All staff development and teacher in service days exist to promote fads,” GHS notes somewhat cynically, but not inaccurately. “If you get to attend a really useful one every two years or so, count yourself lucky.” He’s also not a big fan of group work. “People who insist that students need practice cooperating and working with others are wrong,” he writes. “They need practice being focused and responsible. If you do give group work, please make sure that each individual has a specific product or element of the whole for which to be responsible and graded on.”

Catching Sparrows’ excellent advice includes buy good shoes and be kind to janitors. She also offers a badly needed counterweight to all the hero teacher movies that may have inspired you to join the ranks in the first place. “There will be at least one student for whom you do not make the difference,” she sagely observes.

Whatever the reason, that’s no reason for you not to pursue all options on behalf of that student. Here’s the second part of my statement: Sometimes you won’t be the one who makes the difference, but you are not solely responsible for the success and well-being of that student. If you have concerns about a student, but can’t seem to make a connection, consider advocating for the student by finding the people who can help. Don’t let the solitary nature of the job make you feel as though you are alone in the pursuit of helping a student who doesn’t seem to want you to help them. Someone else may be able to do that - and it’s not a failure on your part.

“The best trick, and it’s not much of a trick at all, is frequent home contact,” notes NYC Educator. ”It’s true that not all parents will be helpful, but I’ve found most of them to be. When kids know reports of their classroom behavior will reach their homes, they tend to save the acting out for your lazier colleagues—the ones who find it too inconvenient to call.”

If you’re fortunate enough to have a reasonable and supportive AP, God bless you. If not, like many teachers, you’ll just have to learn to take care of yourself. If you really like kids, if you really know your subject, and if you really want to teach, you’ll get the hang of it. But make those phone calls. The longer you do it, the more kids will know it, and the fewer calls you’ll have to make.

Ms. Cornelius at A Shrewdness of Apes weighs in thoughtfully on classroom management, supplies and staying healthy. Read what Jose Vilson has to say about discipline too. I’ll add my own piece of advice that I wish I’d received as a first-year teacher: sleep. Many times I would push myself to the point of exhaustion planning lessons, and then I would be frustrated and resentful the next day when my “perfect” lessons didn’t go well. Being a teacher is the hardest job in the world to do well, but if you have to choose between sleep and more time planning, choose sleep. Days that I was overplanned and under-rested invariably went badly; when I was well-rested, I was better able to handle whatever the day threw at me, even if I felt I was less than perfectly planned out.

In general, I would set the goal for any first year teacher to move from unconscious incompetence — not knowing what you do not know — to conscious incompetence — knowing what you don’t know. That forms the baseline for growth. I would also issue a warning to maintain a healthy skepticim of pedagogical orthodoxy. If student achievement corresponded with certaintly from experts about what’s best for children, there wouldn’t be an achievement gap.

In the end, I personally believe that becoming a good teacher has more in common with becoming a good writer that understanding the standards and practices of a profession. You become successful when you know your subject and find your voice. Best of luck finding yours.

It’s What’s Inside That Counts

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 2, 2008 in Education News. 2 Comments

Great teaching, not great buildings, make for a first-rate education, says Jay Mathews in the Washington Post.

Ten years ago, I wrote a book about high schools with golden reputations in some of the country’s most expensive suburbs. They were full of Advanced Placement classes and fine teachers, but I was astonished at how bad some of the buildings were. Mamaroneck High School, in one of the most affluent parts of Westchester County, N.Y., had three 66-year-old boilers that repeatedly broke down and many clocks that didn’t work. La Jolla High School, north of San Diego, full of science fair winners, was a collection of stained stucco classrooms and courtyards of dead grass.

Mathews is right, of course, but while some in education use poor facilities as an excuse for underachievement, let’s not make excuses for miserable facilities either. I taught for years in a poorly maintined 110-year-old building in the South Bronx, whose construction predated indoor plumbing and electricity and seemed to reject both like badly matched donor organs. Pigeons roosted in the lighting fixtures if you forgot to close the windows at night. There wasn’t so much as a slide on the playground. There wasn’t a playground. On its best days it was an physically uncomfortable place to go to school. A few blocks away, the local library remained shuttered for years while it operated out of a trailer. It’s hard to imagine upper crust Manhattanites abiding these kinds of conditions for long for their children. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

“It might be better if we spent our money on principals and teachers who inspire, who don’t take lethargy or resentment for an answer,” says Mathews. “Put educators like that in the rickety buildings we have, and stand back.”

Stand back indeed. It smarts to be struck by falling plaster.

Starting School Under a Cloud

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 2, 2008 in Education News. 0 Comments

Many of the nation’s school districts start the new school year under financial stress, with budget cuts, higher fuel and food costs. The New York Times leads a bleak school year curtain-raiser from Louisville, Kentucky where school officials say record numbers of students turning up for classes this fall are homeless or poor enough to qualify for free meals.

As 50 million children return to classes across the nation, crippling increases in the price of fuel and food, coupled with the economic downturn, have left schools from California to Florida to Maine cutting costs. Some are trimming bus service, others are restricting travel, and a few are shortening the school week. And as many districts are forced to cut back, the number of poor and homeless students is rising.

“The big national picture is that food and fuel costs are going up and school revenues are not,” Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association, tells the Times. “We’re in a recession, and it’s having a dramatic impact on schools.”

Detroit has laid off at least 700 teachers, the Times notes, Los Angeles 500 administrators and Miami-Dade County hundreds of school psychologists, maintenance workers and custodians. And all across the country field trips are being cut to save gas, while many schools have adopted four-day weeks.