Teachers Who Leave: I can second the conclusion reached by the reseachers. It’s been a common idea that new teachers take about 3-5 years to hit their stride. In this, my fourth year of teaching, I feel very comfortable, very confident, more focused and more concerned on how my students learn (as opposed to whether they are learning at all). I’ve got classroom management tricks under my sleeve, I don’t feel like I have to reinvent the wheel everytime I sit down to write a lesson plan, I’ve learned the “rules of the game”, plus the kids in the school know me and my name gets around. Like all things, becoming good at something just takes time and we should remember this before we rush to judgement on the quality of teachers in our schools.
The New York Times > Education > Governors Seek Rise in High School Standards
I’ve often said that high schools get the shaft when it comes to funding and research, so I welcome this attention from the state and federal level. A caveat: We have to be careful not to assume that what works at the lower grades will work at the higher grades. High school is a whole different ballgame because of who high school students are…young adults with far more personal autonomy than younger students, especially poor, urban students who take on tremendous family responsibility and for whom school is low on a list of priorities that includes taking care of younger siblings, working after school to help out with family expenses, being translators for their non-English speaking parents, making sure of a bed to sleep in at night, traveling long distances from shelter to school and back again…the list goes on.
So calls for more rigorous standards and harder exams need to be tempered by the reality that the priorities of our kids don’t necessarily match the priorities of their educational guardians.
Public Lives: Persuading Youth to Think Ahead (Way Ahead): The fact that Andrea Batista Schlesinger is only 28 absolutely blows my mind. She’s already been the educational policy analyst for the Bronx Borough President (that’s how she got her current job). I’m not a little intimidated…
Bronx Museum Sample is a weekly event held at BXMA every Wednesday night, from 6:30-8. I went tonight, for a book release party celebrating the publication of Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, a history of hip-hop by Jeff Chang. I bought the book and got a free T5S shoulder bag (hott). I was disappointed during the panel though, which included DJ Cool Herc, because all the panelist were holding the mic like the DJs they are, real close to their mouth, so that even though I could hear them, I had no idea what they were saying. I guess I’ll have to read the book or something!
But I was glad that I finally made it up to the museum. I’m forever talking about it but I’m all talk and no walk…I’d never been there until tonight. I’m definitely going back to check out the Romare Bearden exhibit. Maybe I’ll go after work one day. It’s free on Wednesdays and I have an empty Wednesday afternoon coming up (a class cancellation).
In general, today was a getting-shit-done day:
I got new glasses, for the first time in over five years!
I renewed my gym membership, saving myself almost 20 bucks a month.
I found a new doctor and made an appointment for next week.
I called my dentist to let them know I hadn’t skipped out on the bill–just moved and got busy.
I made some headway on the research for my Master’s project and scheduled a meeting with my client for two weeks from now.
The only thing I haven’t done this week is work-stuff…I’ll save that for the weekend. It’s vacation until then!
The Education Wonks are having another Carnival of Education! Send your links to owlshome[at]earthlink[dot]net! The deadline is today, at 10pm (Pacific Time).
Chickens&Robots at Closet, Inwood, Manhattan:
My brother-in-law had his first art show tonight. Check out the pictures!
for teachers | conferences:
Woo Hoo! I have good news and good news!
One: I have been given one-day leave to attend the WANDT: conference in April.
Two: The school is paying for it. I did not expect that one.
Like I said, woo hoo!
This post was originally written on February 6th, but since readers are still commenting, I’ve moved it up here so that it won’t age out. Check out the new comments and please respond!
I was responding to a comment over at Jenny D. when I wrote this:
I have to say that initially I was opposed to tenure as well…I was okay with the possibility that I might be let go if I wasn’t performing up to par. Working in a public school for four years has changed my perspective on that matter. Public schools are fraught with politics, more so than in the private sector. Many times teachers are “pushed out”…they are given such a hard time by the principal or by others in the building that they leave because of it. Sometimes teachers are given a hard time because they don’t support the union. Sometimes teachers are given a hard time because they are percieved as not being social enough or friendly enough. The list goes on. I’m not exactly thrilled with the union, because I think it demeans our professionalism but at the same time, I’m grateful for the fact that I have some protection from petty politics.
But then, I stopped writing because I started thinking about why teachers should feel anymore vulnerable than someone who works in the corporate world. I mean, office workers deal with office politics, too. What’s the difference? And with this question, it becomes more difficult to justify giving teachers tenure. Do we need the protection anymore than anyone else does? I mean, if we didn’t have a union, teachers and principals might have better relationships, in general. Teachers might not feel like they needed tenure…that they would be treated unfairly.
What’s the history of tenure? Does anyone know? Why did it become custom? In the beginning, what purpose did tenure serve? Why do college professors need tenure? Is there a corporate equivalent of tenure? Would removing tenure necessarily spur “bad” or “lazy” teachers into action? Even though I got tenure this year, I haven’t stopped trying to do my best and I know lots of other teachers who haven’t either. We don’t walk around saying, “I can do whatever I want, I have tenure.” But, there are probably teachers who do…
I would love it if someone could weigh in on this and help me figure this out!
To paraphrase Dooce, Two Ways for Students to Annoy the Heck Out of Me:
1. Constantly point out, gesticulate or otherwise make it known that you have noticed the huge monstrous zit on my face. You get bonus points for calling it a “period pimple”, which for the record, people, it is not!
2. Wish me a Happy Valentime’s (sic) Day. That is no typo. Valen-tIMe. (To help you keep it in context, these are HIGH SCHOOL kids.) Valen-tIMe. Valen-tIMe. WTF?
