DIFFICULT CHOICES TO MAKE

I have some really difficult choices to make over the next few months about my future as an educator. As I discussed in my 2/12/10 blog BUDGET CUTS AND HOW IT MIGHT EFFECT ME, there is a possibility that I might be laid off after this school year, as I am the bottom of any and all seniority lists of all the teachers in my district.

When the Superintendent announced this budget shortfall in February, my wife and I reviewed our own budget and found out that since we paid off the house last year, that we are in pretty decent shape financially, not great, but not bad either. My wife's pension along with my military retirement retainer (it is not a true retirement, I am still able to be recalled to active duty involuntarily) and medical coverage gives us a great deal more flexibility than others may have.

During the past month since that post has passed we have discussed at length what we both want in our future (long term and short term).

• First and foremost we want to spend more time together, my wife retired last November and is enjoying it immensely, although her health is a concern at times. We both enjoy being active outdoors and like to do these kinds of things together. If we wait, with my penchant for getting injured and her health this might not be something that we will not be able to enjoy if we wait until we are both older.
  
  
• Second I am jealous as hell of her being able to stay home while I have to go to work. Even though I love what I do during the day, my time is not my own at nights, on weekends, vacations and even during the summer break; it seems I am always doing or will be doing something to get ready for school. The joys of being a Special Education Teacher always behind on paperwork and then the duties of a classroom teacher trying to make lessons engaging for the students. We knew what it meant when I returned to teaching, but it doesn't make the time spent on education related "stuff" and not doing other things any less.
  
  
• Third I have to decide whether I can conform to the way standardized testing is being used to evaluate schools, possibly teachers and student and/or adherence to rigorous (please click for definition) standards based education, which I have a difficult time agreeing with. I have tried to see and put them both in as positive a light as possible, but I just can't wrap my head around how they are going to help my teaching or my students learning and I have truly tried. I know they are or will be the law/regulation and will require me to "use" them, but I still have a difficult time fully supporting the route we are taking. The question is can I support this direction enough to stay in public education?
  
  
• As a special educator I see what standardized testing is doing to the curriculums and how it negatively affects my students. I am not a big proponent of standards based education, it will eventually lead to a rigorous national curriculum, which may not be the best thing for all of our students. Students in special education need to be taught with methods and modes that are different than their peers and with these two requirements the freedom to do this is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Right now I am lucky where I teach, I have been given a great deal of leeway in how I attempt to teach my students, but as these two things gain more traction with those in power, I predict this will change in the future.
  
  
• In my TO TEACH OR WALK AWAY blog from a couple of days ago, I discuss some of the decisions that many teachers are going to have to make this year and it seems I am one of them.

I believe that if I am laid off after this school year, I will retire and enjoy life.

If I don't get laid off that is going to be a lot tougher decision...I love what I do, I really like where I teach, my administrators have been wonderfully supportive of me and most of my peers attempt to do the right thing with the students. At the same time I want to spend as much quality time with my wife, doing the things we love to do while we still can.

So here goes the roller coaster ride for the next few months as we try to figure out what to do next.

Oh well, time to get ready for school tomorrow and see what the next few months bring.

and as always...

Have you made a difference today? How?

DO THOSE THAT SHOW-UP MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE?

Cross-Posted at Shelly Terrell's Teacher Reboot Camp on 3/6/10, that I have updated a little bit and want in my blog for future reference. :)

I was following my Twitter stream the other morning and saw a Tweet go by from Shelly Terrell.

and I responded back with

When I say "backroom" what do I mean? To me the backrooms include public employees' offices, at some level of government (local, state or national) and/or business/corporate offices, in addition to the stereotypical ones you see in political cartoons and in the movies.

Those are the backrooms where education and other policies are developed, discussed, and refined to meet the needs of those who initiated the policy or idea, not necessarily what is the optimum course of action or in the best interests of the majority of people it affects.

Backroom management is not a new or novel concept. Government and business policies have been implemented this way (in the backroom) throughout history, so why should we expect things to work any differently today? This how things are typically done, in whatever field you are discussing - a small number of people make the real decisions to meet the needs of those in that backroom and their associates, not necessarily what should be done.

After the policy has already been discussed and planned, those who developed that policy allow those that "show-up" to talk about their proposals (the back-room decision). Then in order to give the appearance that those in the back-room are listening to those who "show-up", they offer up relatively unimportant compromises or changes, so those who "show-up" can say "we made a difference" and everyone goes home happy. But did those who "showed up" really make a difference?

Just because you "showed-up or got involved" it does not mean that that you were actually heard or that what you said made any significant difference. This is something what many of us do not want to believe or understand is actually happening. We want to believe that our voice matters, when in most instances it really doesn't.

A big difference today compared with other times in history, is that the internet allows more of us to participate in more conversations, and with more people. We discuss many of the policies that effect us in our online communities (the social networks) - often at length and intelligently, but what we say and have said, has had little or no affect on the policies being implemented or changes to policies presently in place i.e. NCLB, RTTP, Standardized Testing, National Standards, Funding, and a host of other "policies" that affect us daily.

It would be nice to believe that with the advent of social networking that we can and do make more of a difference than we could in the past and that all my time online is not just done to hear myself or others with similar interests just talk. But in reality, I have a feeling, it would be very naive on my part to think we are being listened to or heard in any meaningful way, based on the "new" policies we are seeing.

Why would those in power want to share the power they presently possess or change the policy processes so that they to have to actually listen other's provide input to something they have already answered in their circles? "They" have their goals/objectives and want to retain that power. Public service employees may mean well and believe that they "know" what is best for us and they have their interpretations of "how" things should be done based on the rules and regulations they often help initiate. Those in business want to maximize their profits and to put it bluntly, if they are able to show some social consciousness, it is good for business. So those who have the power to make policy will and have limited access to the "backrooms" where the real policies and decisions are made to retain their control over the process and the outcomes.

Is this a pessimistic view of how businesses and governments enact policy? No not really. It is simply the reality of how things are done and will probably be done for the foreseeable future. What can we do about it? In my view from the bottom - unfortunately not too much. But once in a while one little voice from the wilderness can start an avalanche and force a backroom policy to fall apart and be changed or stopped.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that "just showing up," is enough. It is more important about "where and when you show up" that actually impacts your ability to make changes...so show up in the backroom if you can.

If somehow you gain access to the backroom you must be willing/able to openly discuss and defend your thoughts or beliefs intelligently and backed with data (if possible) while you are in there, you may not get the chance again.

and as always -

Have you made a difference today? How?

TO TEACH OR WALK AWAY

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about how all of these new/semi-old laws, rules, regulations and guidance in educational policy are going to affect how teachers teach in the classroom over the course of the next few years. This thinking on my part has brought up more questions and concerns than it has answers.

As teachers we have to follow the laws, policies and guidelines that have been developed for education at the local, state and federal levels and live with the behind the scene "deals" that have been struck with businesses and corporations that we don't have full knowledge about. We have to teach in our classrooms with or in-spite of these sometimes tedious requirements that many of us believe need to be either changed to be effective or repealed.

When teachers tacitly ignore or actively refuse to incorporate into their teaching the laws and regulations that they disagree with, are they setting themselves up for negative consequences from administration? Do they suffer higher burnout rates due to the stresses of pushing back against policies that probably won't be changed and they know it, but push back anyways?

It seems to me that more and more teachers are going to have to compromise their ideals or teaching methods, to incorporate these laws and rules into their teaching in the classroom, irregardless of how they actually want to teach or leave. I have a feeling that teachers will have to make these changes in order to simply remain in the teaching profession at the public school level, due to changes that are occurring in accountability and teacher evaluations.

These questions and comments also raise the following question.

Is it better to continue to be a teacher who can make a difference within the present system even if we don't agree with it or to walk away saying you cannot teach under these conditions and be replaced by someone who will?

I think that this is going to become one of the major issues in education over the next few years - who teaches the students what.  Now even the how may be subject to "rules and requirements"  Is that teaching?  

Here is the door - hey wait a minute why are there so many of you?

What will you do? Walk away or stay and incorporate what has become the law/regulation into your classroom? 

 If you walk away what will you do?

Please let me know you opinions on these questions and what will you do, I am trying to answer these questions in my own mind too.

and as always

Did you make a difference today? How?

Image from Google Images  caption is mine.

Tom Whitby's - Lead Us Into Reform

I was reading Tom Whitby's latest blog on Lead Us Into Reform

His blog article was spot on and I made the following comment and didn't want to loose it, because I felt what he said was very important and wanted to remind myself of where I read this. My comment here is not as important as reading Tom's blog.

Well said...leaders and administrators/managers exist in all professions and but the difference is noticeably obvious when you walk into a school building. The biggest difference is that in a building with a leader in charge the attitude is "what can be done" and there is an obvious positive attitude in most people that you come across, especially after the first couple of years and they have put their "stamp" on the building.

The building with an administrator/manager the overwhelming attitude is "what can't we do" and there is an undercurrent of negativity that just permeates what is done throughout the whole building. People are reluctant to step forward and try new things or be honest about what works and what doesn't.

Leaders tend to support innovation, while administrators try to not rock the boat and just punch their resume. Give me a leader to work for, they are tough to work for because they expect so much more from everyone, but you don't mind because it feels like you are making a difference. Here is to leadership and how social networking pushes leaders hip to be leaders.

Are we talking Spiced or just Grog?

It is well worth your time to go back to read Tom's blog.

TEACHERS NEED TO BE ACTORS TOO!!!

This is one of those nights when this usually upbeat and positive teacher is simply tired. Not physically tired, but mentally tired, drained, empty, caput are all words that describe how I feel tonight. The tank is empty, I don't feel too great and just want to whine.

It has been a loooooonnnnngggg week. Today was tougher than usual, my first block was so obnoxious that I had to resort to acting being "pissed" (no other word is appropriate) at them. They just wouldn't settle in, were extremely rude and doing what teen-agers do best - trying to annoy adults. :) I tried several different strategies that were totally ignored or flat out didn't work.

So I walked over to the door, gave my EdTech a wink and a smile, and slammed the door--hard -- so hard that it echoed and a couple of other teachers stopped and looked in for a second. When I turned around you could have heard a pin drop.

I stomped back in and began to talk in a very low and slow voice describing the behaviors that I was observing, a the lack of respect that we were receiving and how they were cheating themselves of the opportunity to take charge of their own education.

I didn't raise my voice at all, but my EdTech told me later that I was very stern, very stern...and that no one did not give me their attention while I was talking. They sat there very quietly watched me and listened to everything that said very closely.

In this class, surprisingly almost everyone one of the students are beginning to like to read (this is a special education English class for children who's behaviors have not allowed them to be successful in regular classroom - so liking reading was not their "thing" back in October). So thinking quickly on my feet, where everything else had failed, I told everyone to get out a reading book. I told them I was too angry to talk anymore or attempt the lesson that I had planned but that I still wanted them to do something productive, so they needed to read for 10 minutes while I regained my composure (which I really had not lost).

Everyone immediately got their books and started reading, no side conversations, snide remarks or anything else which had been the problems earlier. I reinforced that reading was not a punishment but an opportunity for me stop being angry and that I needed some time to calm down. After about 5 minutes I went around the room and did my usual thing when they are reading - asking what was going on in the book etc.

During this whole act, I wasn't angry, but I did want to get their attention and show them how their negative behaviors could effect other people or teachers. Towards the end of the time they were reading, I wrote the following assignment on the board:

Notice that paragraph is spelled wrong - I also have a "thing" where if the students catch Mr. Shaw's mistakes they get a point and one student got a "point" for that.

After the 10 minutes of reading I gave them the assignment and told them that I wanted them to start it in class and that for the first time this year, I let them know that I was assigning them homework. This really got their attention, because they all know that I don't believe in homework.

I think that sometimes we need to appropriately show children how to react when we are angry. Even though it was the "actor" in me, it did show these students that someone can be angry and not yell, scream, swear, hit or hurt other people. I hope this was a lesson in life for these students, but more than likely a week from now they will have forgotten Mr. Shaw getting "pissed" and just do what teenagers do.

I know that I will probably catch some flack for this from some people out here, but at the time it was the correct thing to do and to me was a teachable moment that I took advantage of. It certainly was better than trying to force my way through a lesson that wasn't working and sending more than half the class to a detention lunch or after school detention which I consider rather useless most of the time.

But I can hope that just one of these students will remember that that "old mean and rotten Mr. Shaw" got mad at us one day and didn't yell, scream or hurt anyone, he stopped and took some time to regain his composure. I can only hope that - one day when one of them gets angry at someone that they do what I did today - walk away and take some time to calm down.

I do wonder though, if any of them will remember this in their end of year reflection that they will do? It will be interesting to see if any do remember this day.

So I am looking forward to reading their responses and from the initial work that was being done in class, many of them wrote a lot more than a paragraph.

Did you make a difference today? How?

WHAT DOES 21ST EDUCATION MEAN TO ME?

I posted the following in response to the Whitehouse.com request for input on:

21st Century Education means that students are prepared to use the tools and have the necessary skills that will be pertinent tomorrow, not yesterday or even today.

What do I mean by that? Technology is growing exponentially and whatever tools we use today are going to be obsolete in a short while therefore we need to teach differently than our old Factory teaching model.

We need to teach our students to:

• think for short term and long term affects of their actions
• be able to look for the truth (knowing what propaganda is), not just the rhetoric that is being spewed by all sides of the issues
• have an open mind
• that change and flexibility are important
• that sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in
• that education does not end when school gets out
  
• think critically and be able to research to solve problems with reasonable solutions that harm the least.

We need to use and do teaching that is relevant to the students, not just teach them how to regurgitate facts. Building background knowledge is necessary, but it is not the only things we should be teaching students. As they say what gets tested gets taught, today we are focusing on teaching background knowledge in today's schools because that is all that is on the Standardized Tests and that is how we are funded.

We need to go beyond that model of education to where we teach students to think about what they are learning and how it relates to them and what is going on around them. We need to teach them to question what they are learning instead of following blindly what is placed in front of them.

We need to look at the whole educational system, from the classroom, to funding, to what are the actual goals of education, what needs to be taught in school versus what is taught in our schools, to what do our children need to do to have the opportunity to be successful over their lifetime.

Without properly educating all of our youth we are setting up a classed society which will cause problems for us in the future. Look at the history of classed societies and what eventually happens to them, we are currently headed in that direction and we need to change course now.

Finally, we need to put the needs of the students first, not the adults who teach them, not the adults who administer the schools, not the adults who run corporations, are consultants, lobbyists and businesses that make money off education or the politicians who use education as a stepping stone to further their own agenda.

I apologize in advance, this is a quick write and I know it is first draft quality, but the ideas and meaning are there if not the grammar.

MY FAVORITE BLOG POSTS FROM THE LAST YEAR

I got this idea from Karl Fisch to pick one post per month from your blog, that I really thought was my best post from that month, not necessarily the most popular.

I have been a bit of a wastrel in my blogging over the past year and have at least 3 main blogs during that time and a job change. But each time I come back to Blogger for various reasons...maybe it would be better to just stay here and work through things instead of bouncing off to try a new blog host or blog.

So this will give readers an idea of what I have been writing about for the past year and what I think are my more relevant blogs.

January 2009

I created the blog Aging Reluctantly around January 16, 2009.

WHY I REALLY LEFT TEACHING was written on 1/16/09 at my Aging Reluctantly blog. It was a rant about the ills of education from someone who at that time was a former teacher, but this blog post was probably where that little voice inside me was starting to ask, shouldn't I be back in the classroom?

February 2009

RACISM AND COWARDS was written in 2/09 at my Aging Reluctantly blog in response to Attorney General Eric Holder's speech. Racism has been and continues to be an issue in this Country no matter what anyone says and needs to be discussed openly and in detail. Otherwise it will continue to be swept under carpet the same way it always has been.

March 2009

WHY AM I BLOGGING? was written in 3/09 at my Aging Reluctantly blog, I had been asked by a co-worker, how I dared to write my thoughts down so others could read them and I explained my reasons for doing so.

April 2009

STRIKING A BALANCE - REAL LIFE/ONLINE PRESENCE was written 4/09 at my Aging Reluctantly blog. I was getting overwhelmed with my online presence and knew that I needed to do something about it.

May 2009

I TOOK THE AMERICORPS OATH TODAY was written 5/09 at my Aging Reluctantly blog. I was the Maine State AmeriCorps Program Officer and I took the day out to simply be another AmeriCorps member that morning. I learned a lot about AmeriCorps and what it means to many of these young people.

Many of my posts from January through the middle of June were done at my Aging Reluctantly blog and when I copied and pasted them back into Blogger, I did not do a publish on date and have a date in June as the publish date.

I returned to my Blogger My Thoughts blog on June 12, 2009

June 2009

GOOD-WILL HINCKLEY IS A PART OF ME

WHAT GOOD-WILL HINCKLEY MEANT TO ME

I couldn't choose just one of these they go together. Good-Will Hinckley had been a part of my life since I retired from the Coast Guard in 1996. I discussed what GWH had meant to me and that it was more than just simply a place where I worked. I had met and made friend there, met wonderful students who are now grown up and how special a place to work it was.

July 2009

IS MY BLOG SUCCESSFUL? Matt Chevrenault over at Life Without Pants sent out a blog asking how successful people's blogs were. I discussed whether I thought mine were successful or not. Looking back I still believe that my blogs have all been successful.

August 2009

WHERE HAVE I BEEN? I took a break from blogging and took a good look at where I wanted to be and go.

September

MY JOB SEARCH IS STARTING - At the beginning of the month I announced that I was going to look for a new position.

I ACCEPTED A TEACHING POSITION - At the end of the month I had accepted a new teaching position.

October

TEACHER ORGANIZATION VS WORK ORGANIZATION I discussed the difference between being an organized teacher and being an organized office worker...there are many differences.

November

I created Resource Room 220 on November 14, 2009 and left behind Blogger again for a different blogging platform.

TEACHERS – WE ARE NOT POWERLESS A rant about how teachers are not powerless and things we can do about it.

December

FRIENDING ONLINE – DO IT CONSERVATIVELY? After reading Rich Byrnes' post on Friending on Facebook, I decided to write about it also. It was a good thing because a short time later one of my students requested to "friend" me and I had to take it to our administration to ask their policy. It wasn't written down anywhere.

January

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT My rant on having "outsiders", politicians just leave us alone and let us teach.

February

This month I stopped having Resource Room 220 as my primary blog, WordPress was too limiting in regards to Widgets and theme choices, so I returned to Blogger around February 25, 2010. Resource Room 220 was actually my most successful blogging attempt and to me it was a very successful blog.

ARE YOU PART OF THE SOLUTION OR PART OF THE PROBLEM? After a recent #edchat I vented a little bit about how people/teachers in particular can be part of the solution or continue to be part of the problem.

There that is a quick review of the blogs that I thought were most important to me and that I believe others may have enjoyed. I left out the very personal entries from when my mother died and some others that were similar.

Overall, my last year of blogging has been very productive and I definitely enjoy the writing. Blogging lets me write out my thoughts which make me think about honest opinions on matters are. If I write them down here, I have to be able to defend them. If I can't defend them, then maybe I need to re-look at what or how I believe.

Did you make a difference today? How?

CENTRAL FALLS HIGH SCHOOL & THE NUCLEAR OPTION

I have been going back and forth, trying to get this straight in my head and just had to do it this way - writing about it in my blog.  I know that my view on something as important as this,  matters very little, but it was important to me to get a handle on it, as it is a big topic of discussion on the internet and at my school.  As I wrote this post (which I started on Friday) I changed my mind several times on the direction I would take until I finished up a few minutes ago.  Even now I am torn about who is right and who is wrong?  It seems to me there is plenty of blame to go around.

Okay here goes. Let's see how many people I rile up with this post?

I have been reading and listening to discussions about the firing of 88 teachers and the Administrative Staff at Central Falls High School by the School's Board in Rhode Island with a great deal of interest with a 5-2 vote. From what I have been able to piece together, the school is in a high poverty area, it has been a failing school for several consecutive years, multiple changes in principals over the past 5-6 years, there were prolonged negotiations between the teacher's union and the school with no agreement on the "how" of how to improve the school's AYP, and just recently the Superintendent decided to recommend the nuclear option of firing all the teachers/administrators at this school. I think those are the facts in a nutshell (yes I know that what happened is a lot more complicated than the simplistic version above).

How bad were things at this school? By all reports I have read things were BAD.

It sounds like it was very difficult to teach there and even more difficult to be a student at CFHS based on the drop-out rates (somewhere around 50% dependent upon which source you read).  It seems like a variety of "things" were attempted to improve the school and little progress was made on "test scores" or more importantly to me - staying in school rates.  The Superintendent recommended to the board to fire everyone and got 5 board members to agree to that recommendation, inspite of the tremendous pressure that they knew they would face as a result of their decision, speaks very loudly regarding how negative things must have been in that school and how contentious the relationship between the union and the board had become.

Outsiders like me have to ask:

Was there a culture of failed leadership by administration?

Did administration fail to respect and incorporate the teachers and community into their plans to reform the school?

Was there a culture of some teachers having given up and negatively affecting their peers?

Did teacher's support administration's efforts to reform the negativity at the school or add to it?

Did teachers actively or by their inactions block changes that could have helped the school?

Was there a lack of support from the parents and community to improve the schools?

Was leadership provided by administration or teachers?  It seems there wasn't enough from either.

Yes this is a poor school district, but it is not the poorest school district around and I agree that standardized testing sometimes is as much a reflection of socio-economic factors as it is poor teaching.  At the same time students were voting about how bad the school was with their feet - by dropping out.  Other low economic schools rural and urban are successful - what happened here?  

I have a feeling that all the above and much more happened as is evidenced by the Superintendent and their version of the school board resorting to the "Nuclear option" of firing all teachers and the principal.  I cannot believe that this was a decision that was reached lightly or without a great deal of warning to the teachers and their union.  It is a decision that does not happen overnight and yet the way we are talking is that is like this just suddenly happened.  This is part of a long process that started quite a while ago and while it is not the end result that either side wanted, a decision was made.  Which was basically - blow up everything and start over.

I do not know the particulars of the negotiations prior to the decision to fire everyone and start over.  I am sure that there will be lawsuits and investigation by politicians attempting to make a name for themselves.  The finger pointing and blame game has already started.  But who really suffers?

The students?  Maybe?  Do they really suffer during this - not as much as many would have us believe, they are already leaving this school at an outrageous rate, that in itself shows that are tremendous issues and problems at CFHS.  There is going to be a lot of publicity and the negativity from teachers that are being fired is really going to make the rest of this school year suck.  Maybe this drastic action will eventually have a positive effect...for the students in the future, but I do feel sorry for this year's seniors, they have quite a cross to bear.  

The teachers?  Yes they will suffer and be branded as "failed" teachers coming from a school that used the nuclear option.  These teachers have to face the remainder of the school years as lame ducks and then go try to find another teaching position.  Many or most of those teachers who are not part of the returning 40-50% probably will not be able to find a comparable position, especially in today's economy.  I would not want to be a teacher at this school through the next 4-5 months, it is going to get very ugly, as the morale that is already so low, sinks even lower.  

The administration? Yes getting through to the end of the school year is going to be a nightmare!  Teachers will use up all of their sick time, student behaviors are going to be off-the-wall, teachers will be in-school but not invested, unless they believe that they will be part of the cadre that will be re-hired.  During the next year this school administration is going to be under tremendous pressure to hire quality teachers, incorporate a complete change in the climate and attitudes of the teacher/students and other stakeholders towards this school.  They are going to have to provide training and professional development to staff on a scale that was not considered in the past.  Finally, they are going to have to listen to the community and get the new/old teachers involved in the change they are attempting, because top-down management will not work in this situation.  Unfortunately, much of this is going to require additional funding, hopefully they will get those funds.

The community?  Initially there will be some "hard feelings" and negativity around this action, but in the long-run the actions that all this publicity has generated will hopefully positively impact  this high school.  Possibly the community will take a more vested view of "their" school, which will help in improving the school and possibly result in more students staying in school and graduating.  It sometimes takes a crisis like this to bring a community together to make the needed improvements?

There are so many more questions than there are answers to this sad situation. 

This high school will probably hit bottom around June 2010, what will happen after that will be a combination of the efforts (or lack of) of the Administration, the Teachers and the Community.  I just hope that the end results, justify the means  and that Central Falls High School will become a reasonably performing high school in few years.

Was the Nuclear Option warranted?  I don't really know but the genie (as they used to say) has been let out of the bottle, now we have to live with those consequences.

But I am very scared that as we go further into this, that this "nuclear option" will be used to break unions, not just improve failing schools, but that is a completely different post and I am sure that many others will do a much better job of discussing that issue.

Have you made a difference today?  How?

GREAT WEEK IN THE CLASSROOM

This has been a really great week in the classroom.

On Tuesday, I had my gang of three ask if they could read for 5 more minutes and when I said yes, they actually went back to reading and read for the full 5 minutes. These are 3 very hyperactive boys who fought me tooth and nail about reading at the start of the year!!!!

We had a new student come into the mix and he appears fitting in pretty well. He changes the dynamics in the classroom, but so far, so good. Let's see how he does after the honeymoon period is over.

Got to sit down and talk with my mentor student and got him caught up a bit more on his homework and school work. Actually he a pretty good kid, he just "has to" maintain his "street cred" with others.

We worked on learning Keynote, while I tied creating a presentation to the writing process. Basically I had the students use creating a slide show as the pre-write, which got all but a couple engaged in the hardest part of writing (planning), I think they had fun putting in music, transitions, etc. Next week we will put together a paper of varying lengths (dependent upon the student's engagement and skill level).

I got to go to a presentation on interpreting and utilizing NWEA scoring. I have gone over my position on Standardized Testing several times in the past and I generally am not a proponent. The way that it was presented showed that it could be useful and possibly helpful. I also could read between the lines and could see the dark side to it. Overall, if it is used the way it was presented, it could help me as one of the tools in my classroom. I will take a wait and see attitude on this one.

So here's to a great week - last week. Now to get to work on planning for next week...two PETs, a couple of meetings, classroom activities, Progress Notes close...just a normal week. :)

STANDARDIZED TESTING - THE REALITY

I think that anyone who has read my blog over the past couple of years, knows that I am not a supporter or fan of Standardized Testing. I strongly believe that it does not measure student progress appropriately and using it to measure of schools or teachers is misuse of what the tools were originally designed for.

Unfortunately, the reality in the United States is that Standardized Testing is a fact of life in education whether you are a student, teacher, administrator, parent or politician. Right, wrong or indifferent Standardized Testing is how OUR Federal and most State Educational Leadership has chosen to measure progress in education. I am not going to get into the negativity (that has been done all too often) it has created in the classroom and other places, but instead look at the reality of the situation.

No Child Left Behind is a law, that was passed by our elected officials and it uses Standardized Testing to measure school progress and requires that almost all students be tested. Irregardless of whether you believe it is a good or bad law, it is the law and if it is not followed there will be consequences for the schools and everyone who is associated with them.

The present administration and their policies appear to reflect a continuation of Standardized Testing as their primary measurement tool and they will be in Office for at least 2 more years. Even if they were voted out in 2012, I do not believe that any significant changes in Educational policy would occur in a different Administration. I do not see the philosophies of Alfie Kohn or other opponents of Standardized Testing being selected for leadership positions in this Administration or any possible replacement.

So where does that leave us -- with Standardized Testing being used as the primary measurement tool for the foreseeable future. Based on this reality bitching and whining about how bad Standardized Testing is not having any positive affect or making any changes to those policies. We have had 8 years of this and a change of Administrations without any affect on those policies.

Has/Is this negativity towards Standardized Testing (whether accurate or not), contributed to some of the low test scores whether we realize it or not? If we are negative about these tests in our classrooms and schools, don't our students pick up on this negativity that we have provided given them?

What effect does our negativity have on test scores...I believe that it does have a negative affect on a student's scores or whether they even show up (either physically or mentally during the test). We have complained about these tests with our "comments" so often that our students just blow them off as unimportant, when in fact they are important to the school, its reputation in today's world and possible funding streams.

This negativity is unfair to our students and we need to look at ourselves to see if there is a way that we can positively spin the Standardized Testing into at least something that we are neutral about and loose some of the negative image we give these tests while at school.

Does this mean I will stop thinking that Standardized Testing is appropriate for the ways they are currently being used - NO and I will continue to work/discuss ways to change what I consider a bad policy, but I will do this outside of school.

In school I owe it to my students and yes to my administrators to support or at least not interfere (intentionally) with policies that are in place that they have to enforce (even if they often don't support them either), to ensure that our students do the best they can on their mandated testing.

I know that this is not what I want to do, but sometimes when you can't change "what is", you need to change your approach, otherwise people stop listening and tune you out. I learned in the military that sometimes you have to make the best of the situation no matter how much you disagree with the policy. Like I tell my kids, sometimes, you just have to fake it until you make it.

I know that some will say I am co-opting my position, but to them I say I am facing reality that Standardized Testing is going to be around for the foreseeable future and we need to acknowledge that fact.