Se Hace Camino Al Andar

The Education Wonks: The Carnival Of Education: Week 30 – Thoughts And Ideas Freely Exchanged

I am having serious internet connection issues. What’s depressing is the fact that I’m so freaked about it. I most certaintly can live without my internet access but eh… I have no idea if it’s a hardware issue, if it’s my computer. It was working fine one day and then not so fine the next. The only clues I really have are the fact that the wireless works but not the wired. So, maybe it’s a cable/peripheral issue, maybe it’s a router issue. A friend thinks its a software issue. Who knows? I’m sorta hoping it’ll correct itself. I need a new computer anyway because this one is old (by computer standards, anyway!) but there’s no guarantee that a new computer will fix the problem…
In the meantime, I saw a teacher at Dunkin Donuts this morning. How did I know she was a teacher? She was carrying a bag full of those little baskets that I need to buy, plus some other school supplies. Why does she get to go to her classroom and not me! Grr. The single biggest and most significant, helpful improvement of my current working condition would be having my own classroom but it’s hard because the number of teachers is constantly in flux, not to mention enrollment, which in turn affects the programming of classes, and therefore classrooms. We’re not even a huge school but we’re big enough to have space/staffing issues. I don’t even know how many people we will have in my department this year. Some people left, some people were hired in June but that can always change. The people hired can decide to go elsewhere and some people wait until August to leave the school. This is a city-wide issue, I think and not just my school.
I’m defininitely ready to go go go. Well, I’ll be more ready after I go shopping but after that, no stopping me…

The Computer School is hiring! If you know any Spanish teachers in need of a job, email me and I’ll forward you the information. You can email me at nanirollsATgmail.

School starts next week. That means this week, I have to put myself back on my regular schedule–up at 6am, in bed by 10pm. I also need to tighten up the unit plan I wrote two weeks and come up with some plans that I can use, no matter what I’m teaching. I recieved a tentative schedule before school ended, tentative being the key word here. I’ll most likely end up with 9th grade and Ramp-Up again but you never know…anything can change over the summer, such as new hires falling through or teachers making the decision to leave. Usually, the school makes us do a week of “study skills,” which I belive to be a waste of valuable classroom time. I think that can be incorporated as I go. I’m trying to internalize the lessons of my curriculum workshop and avoid planning “activities” first. So, the first question that I’m asking myself is, “What do I/we need to accomplish the first two weeks of school in order to set the tone for the rest of the year?” My answer: I need to foster a sense of community in my classroom, I need to set the routines in place, I need to make the expectations clear, and I need to get them writing, right off the bat. A lot of this stuff depends on my own preparation in setting up the classroom for maximum management and engagement. For example, last year, the classroom library was in shambles. The books were stored in metal utility cabinets instead of bookcases and they were hard to access. This year, I’ll be making a trip to the dollar store to get a whole bunch of those small, rectangular baskets to sort the books in. Later, I’ll ask the kids to categorize the books for the class. This is really only for Ramp-Up, otherwise the library would be arranged and re-arranged a million times with each class. Better to have one class do it for the others. I need to pick up cleaning supplies for my room, and stuff to make the walls look interesting. That’s the other thing–I also don’t know what room I’m teaching in. Last year, I had two rooms and one of them was decorated to the hilt by another teacher who spends all day in there. But the year before that, I had my own room, which was great…no travelling! Who knows what will happen this year? I also have to think about the mobile laptop lab we are allegedly getting this year, with grant money that my AP procured at the end of last school year. As usual, there are lots of questions and unknowns. They won’t be resolved until I get into the building next Tuesday, and even then, there are no guarantees. It sucks but I’ve been around long enough to know that it’ll never change, that it’s best to accept the situation and plan for anything!

I’ve been in my new place for a week now and I’m nearly settled, aside from some living room and organization issues. Today, though, I’m taking a break from the city and heading up to Chatham, New York. Maybe I’ll see an inkling of fall up there, maybe I won’t but in any case, it’ll be good to breathe a little. See you later.

PS: Julie, we definintely need to get out of here next week and pretend that school is not starting in two weeks. Eek!

The Education Wonks: The Carnival Of Education: Week 29: Thoughts And Ideas Freely Exchanged

Since I recently read Marzano’s book, Transforming Classroom Grading, How Grades Deceive (free sign-up required), an op-ed published in the Post on Saturday caught my eye. Mark Goldblatt is a professor at FIT, a SUNY school in the city. He says, “…high school grades are like monopoly money; they correspond to nothing in real life.” The article is a complaint about incoming college freshman who fill up the remedial classes. Goldblatt argues that “grade inflation is the single greatest obstacle to educational reform in America because it feeds parental complacency.” As long as parents see A’s and B’s on their childrens’ report cards, there’s nothing to complain about, right? Goldblatt asserts that high schools are more concerned with making kids feel good about themselves than with teaching them actual skills. He makes a good point. My school isn’t necessarily concerned with giving kids warm fuzzies but they like to see high passing rates in the classes. It makes the school look good and there’s probably some kind of funding issue involved.
Goldblatt offers a solution: “Force every public school teacher, from first grade to twelfth grade, to mark on a bell curve. For every A or B he assigns, he must assign an equal number of D’s or F’s. Neither the class’s mean, nor its median can exceed a C.” This, he says, will rile the parents up, making the demand an “emphasis on fundamentals, on reading, writing and arithmetic,” along with school choice, merit pay and the union leaders’ heads on a platter. After all this, “will genuine education reform come.”
This is where I part ways with Goldblatt. As usual, the situation is being oversimplified. I don’t know about you but in my school, teachers do not have autonomy over grading policies. The grading policy is set by the department, and the principal. Grading on a bell curve fails to reflect the actual understanding and comprehension that a student has over the material. Perhaps Goldblatt should read Marzano’s book. I don’t have the solution to education reform but I can tell you that it will take a lot more than changing a grading policy.

Julie drove cross-country and took some awesome pictures. I’m pretty sure there’s more to come but these are good for now!