If you incorporate their personal experience, they will learn

Conditional statements are such a pain in the butt to teach because students have a hard time relating them...

Social Studies and Math? Who knew

While tutoring my 7th grade girls this year we completed a calendar project to review order of operations and expressions.  I really liked it (I would hate to grade it) but thought it was a good project.  Well a teacher at one on my school's, Ms. J. made the students place holidays from different countries on their calendar!  HOW COOL?  I told my other school about it and they are going to use it for the 3 major religions.  Love it. Use it. Amazing.

Accountability vs Responsibility

We constantly want to know as a state how we can improve our schools.  This year members of the State School Board traveled to Finland to look at their school system.  Only 1 in 10 people that want to become teachers, actually do.  They all have their masters.  There are in unions WITH the principal.  There is no word for accountability in Finnish.  Where in the US we are begging people to become teacher and it has been stated that teachers do not need higher education or professional development.  A direct quote from a NC congressman was that teachers have learned all they needed to in undergraduate studies, they do not need PD. (I do not want my doctor to think they learned all they needed to in undergrad/med school).  In the US we have people whose job is to hold people accountable (cough::me::cough).  The main difference between Finland and US is that only 4% of Finnish live in poverty so they automatically start off in advantage from the US.

Lets first start with the teachers:

North Carolina Teaching Fellows was recently cut from funding. This is a great program (yes I am partial) where 500 high school seniors were given $6500 for four years to attend a state college and they were expected to teach for four years in NC to “pay it back”.  They can teach in any system they wish to, as long as it is a NC public school.  NCTF also provided summer enrichments and seminars during the school year to increase the educational opportunities.  With the budget being what it is, they could not afford it anymore and the state legislation cut it.  Teach for America just got another big push from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding it for another year.  TFA is a program where it recruits non-education majors and pays for their undergraduate loans if they teach for two years in a low performing, high poverty school.  They do not get to choose their school.  70% of NCTF stay in the field of education after their commitment is over.  7% of TFA candidates do. What are we saying about education as a priority job in America? 

As for accountability, like I’ve said before, my naivety is out the window.  I have seen a need for accountability.  Most teachers want to learn all they can and absorb all the resources they are able to, so that they can best teach their children.  However, when teaching is not considered a professional career by all, nor taken as a professional career by all, there are always those “that give us a bad name”.  We do not want to be teachers because we get the summers off.  We are not teachers because we get out at 3 pm.  We do not teach because we have recess and a lunch break.  However when that is the view that people from society have, and the attitude that a couple of teachers take, we have to hold all accountable for their actions.  In Finland, they said the closest word for accountability is responsibility.  We definitely need teachers to take more responsibility for their actions.  I have heard the words “take this class because it’s easy and it’s over fast” talking about a differentiation strategy.  I don’t want to hear that from my doctor “I took that class on how to work on migraines-it was fast and easy.” I want to know that they learned something! 

Merit pay has been discussed as a way of getting teachers to teach better.  However then you are judging teachers based off of tests that are not designed to judge teachers.  The 5^th grade reading test cannot judge my abilities as a teacher.  Education is not a black and white quota driven profession.  Using the tests as such high stakes models we are squeezing every bit of creativity, critical thinking and innovation out of education models, in the words of Diane Ravitch.  Teachers are teaching to the test, to keep their jobs.  One study found that the merit pay wasn’t “worth it” to teachers.  Another found that merit pay destroys collegiality.  Either teachers are not enticed by the amount of pay they could receive, or they were hoarding their materials and their students. 

As professionals we need to be sharing our best practices, we cannot think of our students as “mine” and “yours”.  We need to embrace our strengths and weaknesses and all of our children and teach each and every child, the best way possible.  For this to happen though, we all have to take responsibility for ourselves and our children.  We cannot limit our hours to the school day.  We cannot stop our education at the undergraduate level.  We cannot look for easy CEUs.  We must challenge ourselves, push ourselves and strive to be professional learners.  I would gladly give up my job and go back in the classroom if it meant that teachers would find PD on their own, collaborate without being prodded and observe each other to learn best practices.  I know time is the biggest issue, but I’ve learned that the more time I take, the better my profession and career are, and the better my personal life is too.  When you are happy at work, you are happy when not at work.  It is a balance, and it takes a positive, responsible outlook.

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Stop working and love your job.

Teaching is not a four letter word-so quit acting like it.

I want to teach forever. 

Do you?

Do you blog?

Challenge: Should you choose to accept it...


Blog with me.  One day a week.  Blog about your classroom.  About your daily life.  What did you like? What did you not like? What great resource did you find? What questions did you leave unanswered?  What color shoes did you wear on Wednesday? 


I have attempted many blogs.  My first was when I studied abroad with my best friend Canden.  We had a joint one.  I then made one of my own...lasted 7 entries. I've had about 3 in the last couple of years none of which I can stick with.  I've never been very good at holding my own feet to the fire-so will you help me?


I love education, and devote too much time to being the best educator I can be.  Dean Shareski wrote for the Huffington Post that he believes that blogging is crucial to creating practicing reflectors.  Even our new teacher evaluation system states that we must "actively participate through the use of self assessment, reflection, presentation of artifacts, and classroom demonstration(s)."  What better way to do this than put it on the web, have others look at it and help you reflect?  It's like Twitter but with way more than 140 characters.  Want to read Dean's blog? He has http://ideasorthoughts.org where he keeps his...ideas or thoughts...clever. 


What kind of great things have people gained from blogging?  George Couros documents how he got teacher's blogging.  How it has helped him reflect and inspire his teachers, and inspire him.  Just from hearing one idea for the classroom I get a little thrill...imagine what could happen when we have a little time to read what our coworkers are doing on Saturday morning and we get inspired too. 


I know, I know, I know...time.  It's of the essence.  We don't have enough of it, we can't take more of it and what we have left is precious.  However as Thoreau said

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”

Replace live(d) with teach/taught, or inspire(d).  I want to go to school every day knowing that I have inspired, or taught someone something.  I want to do all I can to make sure that I have lived up to everything I set out to be.

The constant cynic in me will now counterpoint my Thoreau with Thoreau “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” If you do not feel like you have a blog worthy atmosphere, don't do it.  However from all the great things I've seen, and conversations I've heard in my short time in this position, I would like to think that we have all "lived" in our classrooms and collaboration should make us sit down and write. 

Blogs to follow to inspire you:
Dan Meyer-math guy, but all around educator
Meredith Stewart-SS MS and HS teacher, also taught ELA (LOCAL!)
Mrs. Chili-ELA Hilariousness.  Only teacher I don't know through Twitter but her blog is funny
Dean Shareski-Reckless Learner by trade
Sophie Germain-2nd year teacher who is all around hilarious
Sam Shah-not for the weak math hearted, but great use of tech integration and love of...life!
Jason Buell-note the name of the blog...discusses mostly standards based grading

Diane Ravitch

Last night I went to Duke and saw Diane Ravitch.  She is a New York Times columnist, advocate for educational reform, against corporate America reforming education, and mind changer. 

First of all I want to thank Duke for hosting the evening.  However with that being said I believe that colleges should separate outsiders from students.  It made me think of how great Elon was for bringing such powerful speakers as Desmond Tutu, Benazir Bhutto, and Walter Cronkite.  Canden and I would get all dolled up (by this I mean pajamas), gather our homework and go grab our seat to half listen, half talk, half work on other homework (did you know 3 out of 2 people have trouble fractions?)  Of course Duke expected it’s education students to attend too.  And of course Christine (another IF) and I closed two of those lovely duke girls in…who insisted on talking.  So loudly the elderly man next to me told them to hush. So in the future Duke, you have a balcony, separate us.  Speaking of separation….

Did you know that US Education has changed in the last 50+ years?  We have ended segregation by races, ended separation of exceptional children and have had a storm of Hispanic immigration. Apparently we are integrated, included and immersed yet think that we have to pretend like things aren’t changing.  Diane went on to discuss charter schools, merit pay and the basic state of our schools.  Twenty years later we are still a Nation at Risk.

Those in charge want to pretend that it doesn’t matter what school they teach at, what group of students they teach, a good teacher will get good results.  “We can’t change society, so let’s change our schools”.  Education is a “business” that deals with products of intangible results.  The employees are the teachers, the parents and students are the consumers who use the products and the only profits that we can “see” are test results.  The corporate minded see that what works in a business should work in education-if a business fails, you fire those in charge.  If a school fails, you fire the teachers.  If the business is still failing, it goes under and is bought out by another company.  If a school continues to fail, it is bought out by a charter school.  Only 18% of charter schools actually outperformed their public school counterpart.  Now if the other 82% were comparable charter schools would be fine, however 36% of them did worse.  The government has taken money away from traditional public schools, only to endorse schools that did 36% worse. 

Diane said she saw the “train heading down the wrong tracks” and got off.  However in the world of politics, and personally speaking, life “I disgraced myself for changing my mind, and apparently you don’t do that”.  She knew that the free market goes through cycles where there are “winners” and “losers”, but in the sense of children we cannot have losers.  In education “there is no race, there is no top”.

We cannot continue to rate schools based off of test scores.  There are too many factors in determining how well a school performs.  Tests should only be used for what they are built for-if we are assessing how much a 5^th grader knows, we cannot assess how good of a teacher they had-yet we do, on a daily basis.  Now anyone that knows me, knows that I took test scores personally.  And by personally I mean cried my eyes out.  I felt that it meant that I was a bad teacher because my students did not perform well.  Were there things that I could/can do better?  Oh my goodness yes.  Were there things out of my control? Most definitely. 

Schools that have less than 10% poverty rate immensely outperform schools with higher rates.  If we could get schools to average out poverty rates, how would they rank themselves then?  There is a book called Hope and Despair: Why There are No Bad Schools in Raleigh.  Raleigh used to have this grand bussing scheme.  All the schools across the large district were “similar” and therefore all performed “similarly”.  Until two years ago when this was deemed unlawful, Raleigh was “fixing” the system.  Schools that perform below a certain level are always looked at by the state-well they got rid of those schools.  I don’t know about the issue of growth, but this is worth looking at. 

How does poverty affect education?  In undergrad we are given this idealistic approach to education.  It doesn’t matter who I teach, I can get any and all students to perform.  While yes, I can, it is difficult to engage low ability, hungry, distracted students.  Students that are born into poverty probably did not receive proper neonatal care, therefore have a higher chance of developing mental disabilities.  Students raised in poverty probably did not receive one on one attention at home, or proper pre-k education.  Compared to their peer who was not raised in poverty, on day one of kindergarten they are already behind.  Once they are in school, a child who is living in poverty probably does not have a parent at home helping or checking them with their homework, therefore, getting further behind.  As they grow up a child in poverty will be forced to take care of siblings, find jobs of their own, and basically put education on the back burner.  No matter how good their teacher is, living is more important.  So how does poverty affect education?  Greatly. 

How can education affect poverty? A child living in poverty, who puts education as a priority can rise above their surroundings.  That same child will grow up and hopefully get out of poverty, and then give back to their “old community” helping others rise above their situation.  But which came first, lack of education or poverty?  Can we stop the cycle?  We cannot break the cycle by closing schools and turning the system into a corporation.

the behavior you incentivize is the behavior you get

Joe Reed's (previously mentioned Marine) favorite quote and so true...

Now that I know it is related to dog training, I'm a little offended...yet so grateful to have an honest friend who always reminds me that my goal (even though I have no clue what I want or need) should always be the end in mind.  This phrase however, has rung true in so many ways today.

Rewarding behavior-the most prominent examples are rewarding bad behavior.

Think about it from the teacher-student relationship:
If you laugh at a student's inappropriate response to a question, they will think it's ok. 
Ex: "What does bivariate data mean? Hint look at Bi"  "Swings both ways?" "funny, but no." You will never be able to talk about bivariate data again. believe me, I know.

Or from a boss-employee relationship:
The boss that does not have authority over their employee will never see the results they want from their work/ers. 
Ex: "I need this by tomorrow morning." "I can't" "ok." You will never get anything done on time.

Or from a parent-child relationship:
We've all witnessed the child throwing the tantrum in the store only to get candy from their parents. 

Significant other relationship:
There are two sides for this one, and while I try to avoid over-generalization, there will be some, gross amounts actually.
A girl who feels let down by a guy, yet constantly tries to get his attention.  She will only continue to be let down, while he will still be "the man".
Ever seen the guy carrying his girl's purse with his manhood inside?  I don't need to say more. 

While I can come up with a million examples where the trend is as above...I often fail to see where the reverse is true.  Where do you see good behavior incentivized?

It's one of the constant struggles for a teacher-praising the child who does well all the time. We are taught to praise the "problem child" when they do well so they can learn the "right way" to do things, yet for the students who are already doing right, we forget they need praise too.

Same can be said for employees, the ones that do their job, or others' job, are often not recognized.  I see this in education a lot because you want to do what's best for the group, there are always those people that just make sure what needs to get done, does, no matter the situation and rarely receive the credit.  After hearing 6 marines talk about their jobs this weekend and how it sounded like 6 teachers talking about theirs, just with a whole lot more cussing, I imagine this holds true for most professions. 

What about the parent-child relationship?  Ever seen one sibling go totally goth just trying to get attention because their sibling throws temper tantrums? yeah, nuf said.

Then we're back to significant others.  I think it's funny that most relationships, outsiders have negative views towards.  "They are so not good for each other" "He is whipped" "She has no idea he is leading her on".  However we all have such a desire to be in one, no one cares that we are feeding bad behavior.  How do you incentivize "good behavior"

Where is behavior good, or just what should be done?  Where is the line between praising mediocrity and recognizing good work.  If a student does their homework should we give them candy, or are they expected to do so?  If an employee shows up to work everyday for a month, do they get a goodie bag (speaking from experience) or is that just what they are supposed to do?  Your child never cusses like other 12 year olds, do you raise their allowance, or do you not mention it?  What are appropriate incentives?  Is praise enough or do we need things?  Is attention praise or a thing? 

"Rewards or punishments create doubt about the true motive for which good deeds are performed"-Benabou and Tirole

Want a better, more well versed reading?  Read this blog-wish I had before I wrote all this...

I had a teacher apologize to me in front of her class because she brought candy for the winners of a game she was about to play.  I agree that candy is not the best reward for students working, however, a prize for a game is appropriate.  Whats the prize in a relationship though?  What can we give to our employees, children or love interests?  Obviously I don't know the answer to any of this...look at my track record....better yet, don't, I would like to receive some positive reinforcement at some point in my life again. When I deserve it.