The Educational Animal Kingdom

Why Educators Must Become Political Animals

      This is an extremely interesting opinion article written by Mary Esther Van Shura on the role of educators in the political realm. The article starts off by explaining why people in positions of power are typically described as "animals" and what that metaphor typically means. The author's main point was to address the need of our educational leaders, principals and superintendents specifically, to become political animals. The article states that those with influence are frequently portrayed as creatures of immense appetite operating with reckless disregard for the needs of others, which could be seen as a little rough. But the thought is that it is necessary for our educational leaders to take on the political persona to fight for what is right in their field with the right knowledge and language to combat those with "higher power". The author really wanted to portray the importance in determining the level of congruence between the school-community profile and the greater community’s electoral makeup and just how our leaders can do that. The author offers up the animal kingdom as thus:

The tigers (the voters)
The zebras (the unions)
The hippopotamus (the bureaucracy)
The monkeys (intergovernmental forces and/or lobbying groups)
The bats (social forces)
The hummingbirds (social media)
The owls (legal forces)
The bunnies (special interests)
The hunter (the media)
          
     The author went on to talk about the need for our educational leaders to understand the beasts of the kingdom but to also become one themselves, "It’s time for the educational establishment to recognize that the sustainability of efforts to promote accountability and academic excellence will be compromised if we do not have administrators who are proficient in the art and science of being a political animal." I really think that this is an awesome article with a great message that really puts the direction of our educational management into perspective.

4 day school week? Ah screw it, lets just drop the whole "education" thing

Don't Bet on Savings from a Four-Day School Week, ECS Says 

         This article really kind of made me wonder what kind of fools are running some of these school districts. I had heard a buzz about a thought of some school districts moving to a 4-day school week to save money but never did I ever think it was actually going to happen. Apparently as many as 120 school districts in 17 different states already have, and it didn't work. Really?!?? No way! Did these educational leaders really beleive that by cutting one fifth of the school week that they would actually save on 20% of their budget? I am honestly sickened by this. Our educational system is currently failing. NOT just on the financial end, our students test in the middle of the road internationally at best...and its getting worse. So we decide that its a good idea to shorten their instruction period AND give them a longer gap between lessons? I seriously want to puke. Michael Griffith of the Education Commission of the States put out a report that "On the whole, promises of savings from moving to a four-day week are vastly overstated..." and goes on to report that at most a district saved about 5% with the average falling between .4 and 2.5% savings by moving to a four day school week. I say fire the Superintendents of those districts, and everyone on the board of education that supervise them, fire every single one of them. I know my opinion sounds harsh, and it is, but there seriously has got to be a better way. Yes, times are hard these days especially for education but try to cut your losses, dont screw the budget and the instruction at the same time.

Yes, yes Invest!!!

Tennis Star Agassi, Bankers Team Up to Invest in Charters

             This article outlines a basic model to turn charter schools into a business interest for private investors. The concept is really quite interesting, literally have people invest money in schools that they put together as college preparatory courses? Hmmm. My first thought when reading the title and first part of the article was 'Really? These rich jerks are gonna try and find ANOTHER way to make profit off of us and our children? Get outa here with this crap. How are you gonna try and promote education with "Tennis star" Andre Agassi? Agassi used to be a meth addict! What kind of example does that set for education?' As I read on it became apparent that this was a serious endeavor with some real high level investing companies like Intel and Citi Bank, who have a really good history of community and educational involvement. My biggest reservation with the Charter school idea being funded completely by outside sources is what governing body will be setting their standards? Will the accreditation mean a good education for the students that they enroll? Also, with this being a charter school likely having tuition will this become an addition to the 'rich get richer'  by paying for better secondary education? I would also like to hear more about their plan for the actual educational direction. The article only talked about the business side of things, which again makes me skeptical. The thought is definitely interesting and something I would like to see culminate into a positive thing for our society, but for now I am not so sure.

Teach to the test. Teach to the test. Teach to the test. Taceh to the tset. Tcaeh to the tset.

Teaching Beyond the Test, to Make Room Again for Current Events

        This N.Y. Times article written by Michael Winerip is a piece that really makes us think about the standards set for AP testing and what kind of things are actually being covered. Chris Doyle, who is an AP history teacher, is doing his best to help students do well on the AP tests while still having in depth conversations and time dedicated to events that are current to the students. Doyle spends at least 5 weeks discussing the wars that the students he teaches have been a part of; Afghanistan, Iraq, and other significant events like 9-11. There was a great parallel that was made in the article between an advanced biology lesson and the lack of conversations and attention to the wars of late, “We studied how animals stop reacting to a stimulus after a certain length of time,” said a student of Doyle’s, “That’s what the war has become to us.” It really is sad that even our brightest students in high school are not challenged, at least by the tests, to formulate opinions and study the basis of the wars that we have all seen and been a part of in the last 15 years. I think that it is great when teachers like Doyle make sure to get kids to think critically about what is going on currently in the world around them, even when it isn’t a part of the test that he as a teacher will be evaluated on by the student’s test scores.

Pay me now? Why not?

Tech Mogul Pays Bright Minds Not to go to College

        It is stories like these that really put the higher educational system into question. In this article, tech tycoon Peter Thiel has recruited 20 of America’s brightest minds and offered to pay them $100,000 each to do a two year entrepreneurial project and not go to college. Theil is calling the project the “20 under 20” fellowship. These are some of the brightest minds in the world right now and they are deciding not to go to college? What does that say for our system? Who wouldn’t want to forgo the 4-8 years of college and graduate school and start getting paid right away to follow your true passion? Theil, who is touted as an extremely successful investor who graduated from Stanford Law school, is obviously presenting these kids with an extremely unique opportunity. The article doesn’t really quote Thiel specifically on his stance on higher education in America today but he obviously can’t be too upset with the system if he is doing so well himself as a product of the system. Theil is quoted in the article saying "Turning people into debt slaves when they're college students is really not how we end up building a better society." No kidding! The job market for current college graduates is so extremely tough and all of these kids are already in a lot of college debt with no direction or job? I like what Thiel is doing and hope that some other wealthy people in the states can recognize that we need to be making an investment in our future instead of deciding to put them into debt to make their pockets bigger.

Be Careful, Technology

Texting in Class Earns an A From Teachers

        This article addressed a very interesting topic in education today. The general subject of the article was how and if using technology in education can really be beneficial for our students.  My observation over the past two years working with high school students is that everyone has a cell phone. I mean everyone. I worked in a title one school with some of the least affluent students in the school. Every single one of them had a cell phone. So the argument that not everyone has access to technology is somehwat of a mute point to me. The article started out with an example of a teacher encouraging her students to bring their electronic devices to class and having them use them to communicate with the rest of the class. The teacher set it up in a way that she posed a question and then had her students respond with their devices. Their responses then showed up on the interactive whiteboard in front of her class. Wow. Think about the possibilities, the way that changes the way students learn and interact with each other and even the teachers. Is everything about this good? I don’t necessarily think so. I understand with a situation like the one presented at the beginning of the article, each and every student’s response gets to be seen by everyone else, meaning everyone had an input on the question at hand. That definitely doesn’t get to happen when a question is posed in class and the instructor chooses one of the few volunteers to answer the question. But the negatives are apparent too. Where is the true face to face communication? Does this allow students to hide behind their devices? If the entire class has an electronic device out how much instruction time is going to waste when students aren’t paying complete attention to the teacher? Even if there was a great management system for appropriate times to be using devices, how much learning time gets lost in the transition? This article was very positive and excited about the use and direction of technology in the classroom, and so am I, don’t get me wrong. It is easy to see that our current generation of students is fairly reliant on technology and that the future of education may be too. I just hope that there can be some efficient way to incorporate and manage the use of technology in the classrooms without losing too much time or focus on the lessons at hand.

School or Prison? You choose

Read the letter here!

        The link to the article above will take you to a letter written by a Michigan Schools Superintendant, Nathan Bootz,  to the Governor that was posted on the bigthink.com website. First off, bigthink.com is an awesome website that has articles and blog posts from “The World’s Top Thinkers and Leaders” that addresses current events and opinionated topics.  Anywhoo, this letter that was written by the Superintendent was sarcastically toned with the premise of ‘Please make my school a prison’. I strongly recommend that if you really want to take anything away from this post that you read the letter AND some of the comments that are listed below it.

The Superintendent addressed the enormous discrepancy between funding for schools and prisons in the state of Michigan. The article sites that on average, the state spends about $7,000 annually per student and $30,000-$40,000 annually per prisoner. Bootz states,   “Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.” He goes on to argue that he believes there is a direct relationship between Michigan’s lack of funding for schools and the extremely high prison enrollment. This really is an extremely discouraging fact, but one person who commented on the article made a great point:  Why when we know that the national debt is extremely high do we continue to ask for more? We obviously know that if we are in a financial crisis we can’t really just say, “Ok, let’s find them these resources too” and pump more money into the already failing systems.  Now, I don’t really believe that Superintendent Bootz’s purpose of the letter was to try to find equality in funding between the school and prison systems, I think he got the true message across to the Governor and the readers who saw it. There are serious fundamental problems with the way our state and federal systems are set up and there needs to be change, soon. The way I see it, there is too much focus on the right now and not enough focus on the future. Some people may say, “Well the prisons and prison systems generate money and jobs”. Yea, well so do schools. If we truly believe that the money and security that prisons generate is really worth 5-6 times more than what educating our future is worth, we really are screwed.   

Being a Leader to a Student Teacher

    What I Learned From My First Student Teacher 

       
        I thought that this was a really great article that could spark some thought and interest for our upcoming task of student teaching next year. The teacher who wrote the article had some really great insight into how both of the educators can really benefit and learn from each other. Sarah Henchy wrote this article after having her first complete experience with a student teacher. She brought up 5 great points for current teachers to consider about the student teacher experience.

1. Project positive energy but avoid sheltering your student teacher from the realities of teaching.

2. Offer support but don’t force it, teachers need to learn when and how to ask for help.

3. Explain your actions and motivations.

4. Help the student teacher to break down the experience and focus on specific aspects of effective teaching.

5. Don’t be afraid to admit your shortcomings and welcome feedback and support from your student teacher.

            This article really has some great insight into what can make a great student-teaching experience and how important it is for the leading teachers to take a well rounded approach to the situation. As a cohort, our class has talked about how important it is to realize that by becoming a teacher we have agreed to take on many challenging tasks, including being a life long learner. The teacher who wrote this article was really able to take a lot away from the experience and highlighted some of the most important things that student teaching is about for aspiring teachers. The relationship that this article portrays really seems like an ideal situation. So here’s to hoping that we all get paired up with a humble and constructive leading teacher!

 

Traditionally female-dominated careers still draw few men

 Experts Call for Expanding Boys' Career Options      
     
        This article spent a good amount of time talking about the trend after
Title IX of women entering more male dominated careers. Reported by the
article, apparently since that time the percentage of male college
graduates has decreased, male unemployment has increased, and the
discrepancy between male entering typically women dominated careers and
women entering typically male dominated careers has widened. There has
been so much focus on women needing to take a more active role in all
aspects of the workforce that there has now grown a gap to where some
studies have had to focus on now encouraging men to enter typically
female centered workplaces, like nursing and education. The premise of
the entire article really was summed up well with one quote by  Thomas
Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of
Opportunity in Higher Education, “My perception over the last 40 years is
we’ve provided a lot of support and encouragement for girls to try and
take on new things,” he said, “but I’ve also seen no special effort to
encourage boys to take on different subjects.”
        The reality of the situation is that women have accepted the role of
stepping outside the “traditional boundaries” set by society and that men
have not. Although complete ‘equality’ in my mind is unattainable at this
point because of many years of twisted beliefs, we really should try to
be conscious. Conscious of the fact that when it comes to being an
educator, we need to encourage and prepare any and all of our students
for any career that might interest them. Please do not misquote or
misunderstand me, I truly do believe in gender equality in every aspect
of the word and I do believe that any man or woman that put their minds
to a specific job could and deserve to be successful at it. The push and
pull of really putting the focus of trying to equal things out, like
telling men they should start pursing typically female dominated careers
or visa versa might just elongate the battle. It may be far off, but
making an effort at not recognizing any career as typically dominated by
any sex would, and should really be the ultimate goal.

New Rating System Target’s Media’s Educational Potential

READ THE ED WEEK ARTICLE HERE

A nonprofit media consumption rating group is planning to expand their field from rating just movies, video games and websites for appropriateness to the field of education.  Common Sense Media, which is already an advisor to the U.S. department of education on issues of media and digital literacy, announced last week that it has started to develop a new educational rating system. The basic idea behind this new rating system is to put pressure on media corporations to produce more educationally directed media that will actually help build skills in children.  The company already has a free digital literacy curriculum for 4^th-8^th graders and, in addition to building the rating system, will also be to creating new criteria and curriculum ranging from educational theory to video-game making from “in-depth discussions” with a group of 20 experts across those fields.  The majority of the remainder of the article talked about how this new rating system may affect the video gaming industry and how educational games at most times are viewed as “boring” and could negatively affect sales. This may mean that the major gaming industry leaders may opt not to produce educational based games.

What does this mean for education and educators? There are some definite good and bad things that will come with it. Being able to develop games that truly hone and develop specific educational skills that will build scaffolding to generate expertise in particular areas is a very tantalizing concept. Also having the evaluative method to show that these specific games build educational skills would be great as well. Unfortunately, having these kinds of programs may also pose problems for general education classrooms.  When students have constant stimulation in a one-on- one educational setting (playing a video game) and not as much constant stimulation and less one-on-one support (a regular classroom) a lot of problems can come from that discrepancy on the learning side as well as the discipline side. I truly believe in the idea that each student learns differently and that there is a specific way to teach to each of them. If there ever was an entire educational system built upon this video gaming theory that touched on every subject it would be really interesting to see what kind of student it really creates, and where it might lead that particular student in the future. Hopefully there will be enough students who can really benefit from this type of education to make the investment worth it.    

The silence of the pupils

This article "Studies Home In on ‘Quieter’ ADD Students" in EdWeek (I promise that wasn’t my typo, the title really does say ‘Home’) partakes in a interesting discussion about taking greater notice in the un-typical students who may have ADD. We typically think that ADD always means that the students are going to be disruptive and inattentive. For those of us who don’t know already, hyperactivity (ADHD) is not the only type of ADD. There are many students who fly under the radar by sitting quietly and not being able to follow along with lessons. The studies show that the quieter ADD students tend to be female and that they aren’t typically diagnosed until later in life due to the discrete nature of their ADD.

          What does this mean for us as educators? To me it shows us that we really need to be attentive to our student’s habits and the work that they do. The quiet ones are the students that you really need to worry about because you don’t know what is going on. Pay attention to their work and class participation when it comes to comprehension and understanding.

          The article talks about specific methods like preventive brain training to work on those underlying problems, but not all of our schools have the resources to spend time in computer labs daily. A staple in helping students with ADD that showed up multiple times in the article was providing ways to help calm the students down and make them comfortable with their learning environment. Constant attention to the student’s involvement and comprehension is key to their success in your classroom. Moral of the story? Don’t let the quiet ones go unnoticed.  

Measuring quality of college education

Read the original article here

     This article focused on a few really interesting measures of quality in college education. Specifically on preparation for the workplace versus civic preparation and scientific inquiry and the leniency of grading of their college courses. I feel pretty partial to the argument of basically preparing students for specializing in a specific area as opposed to providing more a liberal, well rounded education.  College is expensive and for students who aren’t sure of direction need to know early exactly what they are paying for and what their college degrees will be preparing them for. The president of New Mexico State University put it best that schools need to really start paying attention to labor-market outcomes and stay up to date with employability directly out of college.  The civic preparation and scientific inquiry is also very important but something that I feel is really just a preparation for continuing education into the realm of graduate school. My hope is that these universities will start really educating their students about what their college paths will mean for them in the future so these students can get a jump on what they believe their paths will be.

     The second part of the article talks about leniency of college grading, which is something that has really interested me throughout my undergraduate and graduate education. It seems as though there is a real inconsistency when it comes to expectations among universities, departments and sometimes even specific professors. I am a believer in holding higher standards and honestly have more respect for the professors I have learned from who hold you to those higher standards, even if it means failing you in a course because the work you are doing is not up to par. One of the quotes in the article says ‘How could I possibly give a low grade and hurt this student’s future chances?’ This is a weak and immoral stance taken by an educator, you give a low grade to a student that earned it. Students need to learn that after school, the people surrounding them most likely will not accept meritocracy and just push them along in their careers because they are worried about their future.  

Common standards? Pllllease do something!

Read Jay's post here

Jay Mathews is a writer for the local Washington Post and he wrote this post as a response to the heated conflict over common standards for our public schools. The title of the article is “Great common standards battle: ho-hum”. Ho-hum? It’s really kind of disheartening when our national journalists give such a passive and light hearted response to such an important topic in education today. Granted, this post is really just an opinion to the battle, but he still says that this is “still a big bore”. Maybe he is right, this is a big bore. Having those in power of our decisions and path to the future of our nation’s educational standards not being able to come to a conclusion about what is truly best for our children’s education is a bore. Find someone who isn’t a bore, come together and find positive research to get the ball rolling forward, instead of around in a circle back and forth between politicians whose job is to disagree with each other.

            One of Mathews’ points is that the coalition on “Closing the Door on Innovation” manifesto say that common standards are a blow to the creative competition between different teaching systems. Seriously?  Having a standard creates competition in other aspects of our life! Think about sports, all professional teams have a standard of how the game is played and won, but there are a million creative paths they have to embark on to teach and create a winning environment. Having a goal in sight and specific standards to reach doesn’t mean that you all have to do the exact same thing to get there.

            I am far from an expert but what I do know is that we need to make a decision and soon. Letting the current kids be in limbo because we can’t come to an agreement on what is really needed is truly unfair. If something is broken it needs to be fixed, and our current system? Broken.

“Not a part-time job”

 Read the Ed Week article here!

    This article is a great little refresher for those of us who are becoming teachers to read and remind ourselves why we are choosing to do what we do. It is also something that could have a few good additions to our talks about what “good teaching” really is. A fox business panelist on the Daily Show was quoted saying “Teaching is a part-time job! Their work is done at 2:30 in the afternoon and they don’t work summers…” The article went on to list off 20 things that teaching really “is” and how all of those specific things make a good teacher. I really loved all of the things that connected us to our students and all of the extracurricular things that we involve ourselves in to show our investment in our students (time we don’t get paid for). Spending countless hours creating fun and inspirational lessons at home, attending sporting events to support students, staying late to meet with a parent who can’t come in to talk during your contracted hours, pretty much everything that a teacher does outside of their actual subject area and the “job” they are supposed to be doing. Teaching is an incredibly important thing that, only a few professions can say, has an impact on EVERYONE at some point in time in their lives.

    Many times this semester we have talked about how important making connections are and truly investing in your students and caring about their education inside and outside of your classroom. This article is a great pick-me-up and reminder of why we do what we do.

Want some real education reform? Stop enabling students!

        A former professor of ours, Barry Jahn, sent us a link to a blog written by David Ginsberg titled Education Reform Key: Stop Enabling Students' Self-Defeating Behavior. This short opinionated post really hit home for me as I have been an educational support specialist for the past two years working for multiple teachers who either knowingly or unknowingly enable student’s self-defeating behavior. Ginsberg talked about having high expectations for his students and when those expectations were not met he continued to lower and lower them in order for the students to be successful. I am a firm believer that this is a major issue in some subject areas today.
        I believe it starts at the district and state level where we will refuse to hold a student back a grade for not meeting expectations. Instead, we choose to push them along into the next grade level and into new material where the scaffolding is obviously not present from the previous year, this then becomes a vicious cycle and often dooms students to drudging through classes and material that they do not understand. Ginsberg brings to light another point that adds to this issue, continually lowering his standards and expectations to tailor to the underperforming students. He talks specifically about giving truant students opportunity after opportunity to turn in make-up work, re-teaching lessons to accommodate students who were absent the day before, allowing students to do extra credit to compensate for poor grades on quizzes and tests, and backing off on assigning homework because most students weren't doing it. All of these things are enabling kids to be mediocre students.
       If we want our future to be better than our past we must change what we are presently doing. Hold kids to higher standards, hold true to due dates, have set standards and guidelines for truancy and extra credit and stick to them. Don't change your curriculum and expectations to make sure that your students LOOK successful, make them successful by requiring things to be done correctly. The sad part about this is that it is not all that difficult and could make for a huge change but it must be done all across the board from all educators at all levels.

Why can't I just get my middle school students to just stop talking and listen!?!

The article this response and summary is tied to is "Cant stop talking:

Social Needs of Students in the Middle" an article from the NEA website, written by Peter Lorain

This article did a great job of addressing the topic of the tendency of middle school students to be extremely social, even in situations when it is not appropriate. What I got from this article was that we as teachers need to understand that this is the period of life when teen-agers truly develop individualized social skills. What does socializing mean and provide for this age group? It is a time in their life that gives them a chance to belong to a group and from new friendships, create an identity and persona for themselves within and among groups, begin to find new adult role models who they can use as confidants and identify with, and also establish their thoughts and beliefs about right and wrong. The author spoke about how socializing is a normal and healthy behavior, especially at this age, because middle school-aged students tend to lead themselves (and others) through these issues that they are experiencing at this time by socializing.

            So what does this mean for our classrooms? We need to let kids at this age do just that. Let them talk! Give them plenty of time and opportunity to be social and discuss moral topics. Allow them to be like others in their group but also promote and permit individual expression. Be there for them as a mentor about life and not just about the specific subject that you are teaching. Middle school is meant to be a transition from Elementary education to High school not just as an introduction to new, specialized material, but also as an opportunity to learn about and establish themselves and who they are as a person. 

TAG Education Funding Verges on Elimination (September 2010)

      This brief article is talking about the possibility that the only remaining federal funding for Talented and Gifted students is in real danger of being eliminated. For the past few years the only federal funding for the TAG programs has come from Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Education Act which has provided about $7.5 million annually. The Government has two different thoughts on where to re-direct the money...to either an Obama backed program making an effort to increase graduation rates and college attendance in high poverty schools or to the Senate's option which would be to roll the money into the federal Institute of Education Sciences fund.
     Now don't get me wrong, both of those programs mentioned to receive the Javits funding are good causes and have great goals in mind for our national education. But if that money is allocated to one of those programs away from funding programs and guidance for Gifted students there won't be ANY funding left at the federal level. Does our government feel that the Gifted students don't need the extra help and challenge? Doesn't it make sense that if we are struggling so badly to compete at the international level that we might want to continue to help guide and improve the gifted students who, along with those who are struggling, are a part of our future as a nation?

Read the Education Weekly article here!!!