Dear Teachers.... a blog post from a parent

My twitter-teacher-buddy and real life colleague (@nico1e) shared this awesome blog post she read and I just had to share it with you....

Dear Teachers,
As we enter another school year, I want to take a minute to write you this note and let you know how much I appreciate what you are about to embark upon with my children.
But first, a little story.
My favorite, and most influential, teacher of all time was my 5th grade teacher, Miss M.
Now back in,
gulp,
1978,
on that first day of 5th grade, I wasn’t so psyched to be in her class.
She was strict.
She sat us in rows.
She laid down the law.
I’m not sure she cracked even one little hint of a smile in that first week of school.
She pretty much scared the shit out of me.
But over time, when she knew we were ready, she loosened up.
She softened.
She smiled.
She even gave us hugs.
She expected a lot from us, but she also encouraged us to be creative.
Every year she had her students do this project, and every kid in 5th grade knew about it.
If you were in Miss M’s class,
you got to make weirdos.
Weirdos were basically brown paper bags from the grocery store that you turned into big, stuffed heads.
We could design and decorate them any way we wanted.
The weirder, the better.
And then, when they were all done, Miss M. hung them from the ceiling in the classroom.
Kids in other classes would walk by our room to check out those weirdos.
They were always jealous.
And we were always proud.
Miss M. always pushed me to work hard and to do my best.
Sometimes I thought she was a little picky.
But one time, I made a felt board as a project after reading a book.
I worked really hard on it.
I was determined to impress Miss M.
And I did.
In fact, Miss M. thought it was so good, that she had me present it to a 6th grade class.
To kids who were older than me.
She set the bar pretty high. But I rose to the occasion, and I exceeded her expectations.
I felt so good about myself.
And I’m not sure why,
but we also watched the movie Brian’s Song in Miss M’s class.
I didn’t learn much about myself from that movie.
But I did learn something about teachers.
That’s when I learned that teachers are real people.
Because that’s when I saw Miss M. cry.
There was one other experience from 5th grade that really stands out for me.
Pioneer Day.
That wasn’t just for Miss M’s class. It was for all of 5th grade.
Pioneer Day was our big field day.
We dressed up like the pioneers did.
We had relay races and other athletic events.
And then there were other non-athletic activities.
Like the spelling bee.
It was such a fun and interdisciplinary day.
Every fifth grader looked forward to that day.
Why do I tell you this story?
Because I know that Miss M was able to enjoy teaching and we were able to enjoy learning.
She had some freedom.
And so did we.
She was allowed the flexibility to adjust her curriculum.
She taught me more about hard work, and discipline, and achievement than any other teacher I ever had.
Without ever sending home a single CMT practice prompt.
Or a bunch of math practice problems where I had to solve the problem.
And explain my answer.
Write it out in words.
And then write it out again in numbers.
And then write a complete story about it.
And then illustrate it.
Yeah.
As my third grader would say,
back in the day, teachers could do their own thing.
They were allowed to make some things,
I don’t know,
their own.
Not anymore.
I bet Miss M. would hate teaching now.
And that is why I am writing you this note.
I know you can’t really change the curriculum.
I know teaching to the test isn’t what you want to do.
I know it’s coming down from up above.
I know you are being forced to teach this way.
I know that the school year you envisioned when you were a young graduate, and the one you are actually going to experience this year are not even close to each other.
I also know that parents can be one of the most challenging aspects of your job.
I know that before you give a kid a grade, you worry if you’ll get a call from an angry mom or dad, demanding you to change it.
I know there are adults who believe their kids before they believe the teacher.
So, just so you know, I know all kids lie.
Even mine.
Especially mine.
I know that what happens in the classroom,
and the story that my children tell me,
are not the same.
And so,
to be clear,
I’m on your side.
If my kids give you a hard time,
that’s not okay with me.
Hold them accountable.
I’m all for that, and I’ll support you.
100%.
My kids know that school comes first.
They know that we expect them to try their hardest and do their best.
We are consistent with both of those messages.
Now,
all that being said,
I don’t give a crap about my kids’ test scores.
And I don’t want you to spend your day stressing over whether my daughter can solve a multi-step math problem in fourteen different ways.

What I do want is for you to use your strengths to help my kids find theirs.
I know your hands are kind of tied.
But if you took those standardized test practice prompts and math problems,
crumpled them up,
and used them to stuff 21 paper bags,
if I never saw one of those worksheets come home,
but I did see 21 weirdos hanging from your classroom ceiling,
well,
your secret would be safe with me.

 

SOURCE: http://not-your-average-mom.com/dear-teachers/

Teacher Resignation Video - Everything I love about teaching is extinct

Huffington Post shared this article about a teacher who was among several given involuntary transfers to other schools due to "poor climate"

"I was proud to say I was a teacher," Rubenstein tells the camera, after describing how she abandoned a career in public relations to "do something meaningful" with her life. "But over the past 15 years, I've experienced the depressing, gradual downfall and misdirection of communication that has slowly eaten away at my love of teaching." "Raising students' test scores on standardized tests is now the only goal, and in order to achieve it the creativity, flexibility and spontinaety that create authentic learning environments have been eliminated. ... Everything I love about teaching is extinct," she continues.

Teacher Resignation Video: Ellie Rubenstein Explains 'Everything I Love About Teaching Is Extinct'

Standardized Testing... funny!

Source: sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net via Amanda on Pinterest

8th grader designs standardized test - to make fun of standardized tests... great read!!

8th grader designs stadardized test, that makes fun of standardized tests. See Here.

Unfortunately, she said, she has plenty of occasions to think about standardized tests because because kids have to take too many of them. She doesn’t like it, she said, “because teachers are always teaching to the test instead of teaching stuff that would interest us or that they are good at teaching.” She designed a mini eighth-grade reading test, complete with tips on taking the test, a complete reading passage and multiple choice questions to answer. The reading passage begins: Dear New York State, I am not fond of your tests. They do not show you who I am, or who my teachers are. For example, if a student is a bad test taker, you would look at her test and think she is a bad student. What happens if a kid is just having a bad day? You would only see that one test and and think he was an unsatisfactory pupil. Imagine how stressed the teachers are having to rely on their students’ test scores as a form of evaluation.

READ MORE HERE

Teacher Resignation: I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me

Increasingly teachers are speaking out against school reforms that they believe are demeaning their profession, and some are simply quitting because they have had enough.

One letter of resignation from a veteran teacher, Gerald J. Conti, a social studies teacher at Westhill High School in Syracuse, N.Y. was shared in a recent Washington Post article.


Read the entire letter here.

He talks about the changes over the years and how the teaching profession and the classroom have become devalued and pushed by testing to get funding.... here is an excerpt:

In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale.

He closes his letter with this:

After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered.
For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean.

[Source]

Globe & Mail: Fraser Institute flunks on grading high schools

Globe and Mail
Gary Mason
May 1, 2012

The teachers at Hazelton Secondary quit worrying about the Fraser Institute’s rankings of B.C. high schools a long time ago.

When the conservative think tank started publishing its report card on B.C. schools years ago, teachers there used to do a slow burn. The schools at the top were always private institutions or public ones on the west side of Vancouver that had a wealth of resources most other schools could only dream of having.

The schools at the bottom of the rankings were always ones like theirs, in mostly aboriginal communities.

Years later and little has changed with the ratings.

It’s easy to understand why the Fraser Institute’s grading system infuriates so many people. Comparing schools like Hazelton to a private college or a high school from any of the dozens and dozens of affluent neighbourhoods in the province that has none of their problems is absurd.

The top-ranked high school in B.C. for the second year in a row is York House, an all-girls academy on Vancouver’s west side. The Fraser Institute’s ratings are based on a range of indicators. For instance, according to the report, the percentage of students at York House who failed a provincial exam in 2010-11 was zero. The graduation rate at the school for the year measured was 100 per cent.

In recent years, the report added a new rating, one based on the average parental-employment income in each student’s family. A positive number, according to the report, suggests that the school is effective in enabling its students to succeed regardless of their family’s characteristics.

York House got a positive score of 2.0, based on an average family income of $118,000.

Let’s compare that to Hazelton Secondary, located in northwestern B.C.

Hazelton finished 278th out of 280 high schools ranked. But then, it’s always near the bottom. About 35 per cent of its students failed provincial exams. According to the Fraser Institute, even when you factor in the family background of the students at the school, it still does poorly. It received a mark of minus 4.1 based on an average parental income of $33,400.

What that suggests to me is that even when the impoverished backgrounds of the Hazelton students are factored in, the school is still underperforming.

What an insult that is to the teachers there, who have among the hardest jobs in the province.

Read More here