I have been biting my tongue this week and it may be better to continue to do so for the security of my employment and stability, but the insanity of not belonging in the South, yet being here, has been earth-shattering this week. As most of you reading this know, I am a teacher. I consider myself to be better than passable at my job and my students would perhaps rate me much higher than I would rate myself. That being said, I teach English to speakers of other languages. Not a choice field for Southern educators, where there are actually signs in businesses that note "IF YOU CANNOT SPEAK ENGLISH AND YOU WANT SERVICE, BRING YOUR TRANSLATOR WITH YOU."
I have a master of arts in teaching English to speakers of other languages from the University of Southern California which, if anyone has attended USC, is not a small feat...and with a 4.0 cumulative graduate average, placing in the top five per cent of USC's entire graduating class, which is in the thousands. So, my illustrious state, after having dragged its feet in even giving me the monetary credit for having graduated with a master's degree in my field (which has since been eliminated from education in my state), I find out that the state will still list me as a teacher with an alternate route to licensure, which makes it more difficult to remain employed AND close to impossible to get license reciprocity in other states. I would understand if I simply got a master's degree in English or English as a Second Language, but I got it in TEACHING, for God's sake. Teaching the material which I am currently hired to teach. SO, what the state wants me to do, after having taken every single course necessary for local licensure at USC, is take the courses AGAIN, at my expense, at a piece of ****school locally or online. Needless to say, THAT will not happen.
When I went to my HR director in my district office, I was told that there is no way around being categorized as alternatively-licensed, barring retaking a master's degree with a licensure track. Now, mind you, USC has a licensure track mater's but the course work taken in my track is EXACTLY what my state requires in a licensure program and California's licensure is immensely more complicated than here, so a licensure track program at a California university would have been a complete waste of time unless I planned to get my teaching license there. I was also essentially told that I could take it or leave it...and this in a state with the second-to-last teacher pay, no tenure, no masters or doctoral pay and teachers leaving the state IN DROVES, and in a district which has a very difficult time keeping teachers because of the total lack of knowledge and ability at the district level IN ALL DEPARTMENTS. As you might imagine, I am leaning more toward "leaving" it than "taking" it at this moment in time.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
What a Welcome
In the vein of looking at things in a different (note that I did NOT say "new") light in 2015, I received quite a welcome back after Christmas Break. I was OK with the cough that my mother used to call "barking", but the vomiting is a tad out of hand. I say that this was a welcome because as soon as I walked in the door to my office Monday morning, I got a call from a Kindergarten class asking me to hurry over and contact a Spanish-speaking parent because her daughter had just vomited all over the classroom. When I got there, I called the parent, but the child was still sitting there at her table, as if nothing at all had happened. I was coughing, but last night the vomiting kicked in full throttle. UGH.
Today is my son's 16th birthday. It seems both so fast and so slowly that he has gotten to this point. In the state in which I live, the legal age at which a child is no longer required to attend school is 16, so I am hoping that the next few months do not play out as I anticipate that they might. Being a teacher, I know that a child needs an education. Being a parent, I know MY child needs an education. The stories that the kids come home with are always taken with a grain of salt, but when one sees even worse things happening in full view every day in classrooms and hallways, and even in administrator offices, it becomes much more concrete.
I struggle with walking the line between agreeing with my sons that there is something fundamentally wrong with education and my own knowledge of what not getting a piece of paper saying that one has graduated can do to one's future.
Any guidance gratefully accepted.
Today is my son's 16th birthday. It seems both so fast and so slowly that he has gotten to this point. In the state in which I live, the legal age at which a child is no longer required to attend school is 16, so I am hoping that the next few months do not play out as I anticipate that they might. Being a teacher, I know that a child needs an education. Being a parent, I know MY child needs an education. The stories that the kids come home with are always taken with a grain of salt, but when one sees even worse things happening in full view every day in classrooms and hallways, and even in administrator offices, it becomes much more concrete.
I struggle with walking the line between agreeing with my sons that there is something fundamentally wrong with education and my own knowledge of what not getting a piece of paper saying that one has graduated can do to one's future.
Any guidance gratefully accepted.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Lazy Sunday
Well, the last day of "vacation" is winding down and it will be back to the routine in the morning. I am hoping that 2015 will bring opportunities and challenges for growth both personally and professionally. I look forward to challenging my students in new and interesting ways while also imparting a true love of learning.
It is easy to imagine that schools are more than testing and "accountability", but the truth is that students are not loving school, they are not loving learning, they are not engaged in their studies or classes. In planning interesting lessons for my English language learners, it is my intention to do my level best to make the language and its use interesting, even fascinating for them. I know, I know, great words...but now for action. I will chronicle my successes and failures as 2015 progresses and hopefully I can learn from my missteps and recreate my successful endeavors.
It is easy to imagine that schools are more than testing and "accountability", but the truth is that students are not loving school, they are not loving learning, they are not engaged in their studies or classes. In planning interesting lessons for my English language learners, it is my intention to do my level best to make the language and its use interesting, even fascinating for them. I know, I know, great words...but now for action. I will chronicle my successes and failures as 2015 progresses and hopefully I can learn from my missteps and recreate my successful endeavors.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Planning
Lesson planning today and tomorrow...trying new things. Since it has been proven that one learns more when trying to answer a question which interests the learner, I am grounding every plan for this month in relevant material questions which should interest my students. Since my students vary greatly in age and interests, it will be a challenge, but I am willing to try in order to see happier students.
Unfortunately, standardized WIDA testing is coming up soon, so that will surely throw a wrench into the plans for February. I hope to integrate all four skills into each lesson every day so that the students can be more prepared for the testing coming up, without actually "preparing" for the test itself. Skills are skills. If we have them, we are able to use them, so teaching skills is essential to student success...except when test writers throw in random CRAP which even teachers would be unable to answer. :)
Unfortunately, standardized WIDA testing is coming up soon, so that will surely throw a wrench into the plans for February. I hope to integrate all four skills into each lesson every day so that the students can be more prepared for the testing coming up, without actually "preparing" for the test itself. Skills are skills. If we have them, we are able to use them, so teaching skills is essential to student success...except when test writers throw in random CRAP which even teachers would be unable to answer. :)
Friday, January 2, 2015
New Day
A conference being held locally in February accepted my proposal to present on equitable access to education and the need to go beyond making everything the same for everyone. I was excited and proud to have been accepted, but today I made the decision to decline. Between my job teaching and my doctoral courses, with the added effort to become a National Board Certified Teacher this cycle, I simply cannot put the deserved attention to the presentation that it deserves.
The paper outlines why a cookie-cutter idea of "education for all" has not worked and will not work for our students, especially those who enter school without the ideal pre-exposure to goals and methods. This approach has led to less and less attainment of "proficiency" on artificially created and manipulated "goals." In a school building where teachers teach all day and students sit all day every day hearing what the teachers teach, just pure luck would dictate that students would have at least a ten per cent proficiency on the material being taught. However, they are not tested on the material taught, but on manufactured ideas which are deliberately confusing and poorly-worded so that the teacher cannot even grade the assessments without the answer key. It should be clear that if the teacher who deals with the material every day all day is unable to say which answer is correct, there is a problem. If the teacher, who has already mastered the material and is teaching it to students, is unable to pass the assessment, something is wrong. Now, we could blame the "ineffective" or "Less than intelligent" teacher, but the district gave that individual his or her position based on qualifications, grades, scores and a battery of interviews. In that process, somewhere someone should have noticed that the teacher had no idea about the material. That being the case, let's not continue to blame the teachers. If the teacher does not know the material, or how to impart it to the students, let us put the blame on those who put that teacher in the classroom: administrators, politicians and voters who have made the local market for teachers so poor that those who are qualified and ready to teach have all left for greener pastures.
Now, assuming that the hired teachers are at least minimally qualified (which, by law, they are required to be), let's look again at why the test questions cannot be answered. We cannot truly expect that a child, newly exposed to concepts and ideas, can answer better than the educated adult hired to impart knowledge and ideas to the students, but the current system clearly does expect the impossible. I would wager that not many of us got into education and teaching to spend our time failing students or passing students who should have not passed. Personally, I have seen students truly not ready to advance to the next grade advance based solely on the fact that they are labeled "exceptional children," while at the same time, I have seen students who have a grasp on the ideas and concepts unable to pass the standardized assessments held back and their self-esteem and efforts trampled upon.
So, we build up the students who have labels and even stop taking the time to make sure these students truly learn, and the students learn to make excuses because they will pass anyway...while holding back students who put all of their effort into their work and their tests, who can and do demonstrate mastery in alternative formats. This will create an endless cycle of doubt in those pre-disposed to make their best effort and over-confidence and entitlement in those who put forth zero effort. This is simply a microcosm of what one sees every day in our society and political system...those who have the ideas and solutions stay out of the limelight because of their own self-doubt while the privileged and entitled run things unopposed.
Until we fix how things are done in schools, we cannot fix the bigger issue, and until we fix the societal issues, we will never get the support to fix the schools. So, what is to be done, and when??
The paper outlines why a cookie-cutter idea of "education for all" has not worked and will not work for our students, especially those who enter school without the ideal pre-exposure to goals and methods. This approach has led to less and less attainment of "proficiency" on artificially created and manipulated "goals." In a school building where teachers teach all day and students sit all day every day hearing what the teachers teach, just pure luck would dictate that students would have at least a ten per cent proficiency on the material being taught. However, they are not tested on the material taught, but on manufactured ideas which are deliberately confusing and poorly-worded so that the teacher cannot even grade the assessments without the answer key. It should be clear that if the teacher who deals with the material every day all day is unable to say which answer is correct, there is a problem. If the teacher, who has already mastered the material and is teaching it to students, is unable to pass the assessment, something is wrong. Now, we could blame the "ineffective" or "Less than intelligent" teacher, but the district gave that individual his or her position based on qualifications, grades, scores and a battery of interviews. In that process, somewhere someone should have noticed that the teacher had no idea about the material. That being the case, let's not continue to blame the teachers. If the teacher does not know the material, or how to impart it to the students, let us put the blame on those who put that teacher in the classroom: administrators, politicians and voters who have made the local market for teachers so poor that those who are qualified and ready to teach have all left for greener pastures.
Now, assuming that the hired teachers are at least minimally qualified (which, by law, they are required to be), let's look again at why the test questions cannot be answered. We cannot truly expect that a child, newly exposed to concepts and ideas, can answer better than the educated adult hired to impart knowledge and ideas to the students, but the current system clearly does expect the impossible. I would wager that not many of us got into education and teaching to spend our time failing students or passing students who should have not passed. Personally, I have seen students truly not ready to advance to the next grade advance based solely on the fact that they are labeled "exceptional children," while at the same time, I have seen students who have a grasp on the ideas and concepts unable to pass the standardized assessments held back and their self-esteem and efforts trampled upon.
So, we build up the students who have labels and even stop taking the time to make sure these students truly learn, and the students learn to make excuses because they will pass anyway...while holding back students who put all of their effort into their work and their tests, who can and do demonstrate mastery in alternative formats. This will create an endless cycle of doubt in those pre-disposed to make their best effort and over-confidence and entitlement in those who put forth zero effort. This is simply a microcosm of what one sees every day in our society and political system...those who have the ideas and solutions stay out of the limelight because of their own self-doubt while the privileged and entitled run things unopposed.
Until we fix how things are done in schools, we cannot fix the bigger issue, and until we fix the societal issues, we will never get the support to fix the schools. So, what is to be done, and when??
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Positivity
It is the first day of 2015 and it is my resolution to post something positive each day. To be clear, it is not always easy to find something positive in this small berg and this often unenlightened state, so posting something positive may be a challenge. However, if people do not recognize and celebrate the positive, there is not anything to look forward to for future generations. The negativity that we see, hear and notice spreads rampantly while the positivity is so well-contained that many never even get to glimpse it.
So, for today, the very first day of the year...it is my pleasure to say that it is a brilliantly sunny morning! I begin my new term of classes for my Ed.D. on Sunday and I go back to work on Monday, January 5. The number of days off is definitely a perk of being a teacher!
So, for today, the very first day of the year...it is my pleasure to say that it is a brilliantly sunny morning! I begin my new term of classes for my Ed.D. on Sunday and I go back to work on Monday, January 5. The number of days off is definitely a perk of being a teacher!
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