This week's topic is one that is near impossible for educators, community members, as well as legislators to agree upon. How different we all see things was illustrated in a comedic way with the Louie CK clip. I laughed so hard at that clip thinking of how different we all are and how coming to a consensus on something so major, like how a school should be structured, seems beyond reach.
One of the articles that I really identified with was the Meier article. I really liked the part about the Habits of Mind, 5 critical questions at the heart of each curriculum. As a middle school educator who uses teaming in our building, I believe that the importance of having multiple teachers in a building be on the same page and be using the same guiding questions is very powerful. I also struggle, as a history teacher, of constantly reinforcing to my students why history is relevant to them today and why it matters. It is also my goal for them to not just memorize historical facts and content, but to become critical and analytical thinkers. These are skills that they can use beyond the classroom for the rest of their lives.
I agree with Meier in her discussion of the often adversarial relationship between the school and parents. Meier talks about how parents need to know that teachers are not undermining their authority, values, and standards. I also feel as an educator that parents are not supporting me at home and instead are looking for ways to find all the things they think I am doing wrong. I did disagree with Meier on her thoughts about parent-teacher conferences. She talked about how some parents do not want to come to school for conferences because we will only tell them their child is bad and make them feel guilty or inadequate. I am not sure of any educator who would actually do that and I myself, have never used a conference to talk about how "bad" a student is. It should be a meeting to discuss strategies for accomplishing goals, both in the classroom and at home with a students' academics. I also think that one contributing factor to the breakdown of parent-teacher conference attendance is online grading. Everything is put online and so you don't need to meet the teacher to find out what you already know if you are monitoring your students' progress online. At my conferences I often find that the parents I need to see the most never show, which only validates that the students are probably not getting adequate academic support at home, and the parents of my "A" students always come so that I can tell them how great their child is. It's beyond frustrating.
Egger's Wish Upon a School video made a lot of sense to me. I have always felt that the schools do not take advantage of the community resources available for education and training. The biggest reason for that, of course, is the increasing number of rigorous state standards and testing that is required of educators which leaves us all in a race to the finish line. Educators often feel like we have to forgo the extras and cut out the fluff in order to meet all of our standards. The problem is that the fluff and the extras are usually the fun stuff. When you cut out the fun, then schools, in the words of Louie, "suck".
Related Websites:
http://www.nw-service.k12.mn.us/cms/lib02/MN01000650/Centricity/Domain/24/Why_some_parents_don_t_come_to_school.pdf
This website talks about some of the little known reasons for why parent-teacher conference attendance is so low and why some parents don't come to school.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2013/03/02/a-teacher-explains-why-schools-suck/
This is a powerful video by an educator on why he is resigning and why schools "suck"
