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"
Dear Kristi,
ReplyDeleteSimilarly to you I felt that finding consensus on the topic of what makes schools good is an impossibly complex and opinion riddled topic. Perhaps even more so since we all have our own agendas, our own experience, and for teachers – our own pedagogical approach. There’s also the sense that “anyone can be a teacher”, which makes this discussion even more complicated (which anyone who attended some TE courses at MSU can attest to being an inaccurate assumption). Significantly, the ability to agree as peers on what is a good (and possibly successful) school is having a building/district wide agreement on what it should look like. Working as a team and like you said “being on the same page” is a major way to create a consistent atmosphere through which we can achieve a continues curriculum and our learning/teaching goals. In this regard, my only concern is what happens when the curriculum is so preset and so “unified” that teachers are unable to adapt it through their own assessments of what their particular students’ needs.
I was quite dismayed to hear that you don’t feel like you get support from parents. As an ESL pre-service teacher I often worry about what such conferences might entail, and how to deal with parents who may not feel the way I do about educational goals. On the other hand, when I was running an ESL after-school program in which I was teaching students and their parents, I felt that often parents were just happy to be kept in the loop and have their chance for input. I wonder if my experience is different because most ELLs parents’ I was working with had limited English? I can see what you mean about online grading, and it’s interesting because I see a big push towards moving homework assignments/grades/handouts etc. into an online domain for the benefit of students. I wonder if there is a communication breakdown between teachers and parents as their ability (and need) to use that information? It seems like that would explain the breakdown you are describing. In some ways I feel like parents need to be made aware of how much CCS have changed the way we are now teaching our students (less fun fluff ;). I’m not sure how much they are aware, and in particular in terms of what it means to teach for the test (which is exacerbated when schools have less and less funding and deal with serious poverty).
It was a pleasure reading your post!
Thank you,
Adva
Hi Kristi,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. I'm glad you enjoyed the Louie CK post and can still laugh about that wonderful and crazy place called school. We need a movie/TV show that captures both the serious and funny side of school. Louie is close.
What I really noticed in this post is how serious you take connecting your subject not only to your students, but what the rest of your colleagues in the middle school are doing. That is so essential for progress in curriculum. If we build those connections to the community, and to what the rest of the staff is doing--through something like Meier's Habits of Mind (and the portfolio students must defend in order to graduate, based upon them)--then we are going a long ways toward a powerful and integrated curriculum.
The parent-teacher relationship has long been bad, I something think. At this point, there can be so much distrust, it's more than any one teacher can handle. I do think, at times, we imply to parents they are not doing a good job. Just like new teachers don't want to go to the principal for help for fear of looking inept, I think it might be the same with parents and teachers. And as a parent, I occasionally receive advice that has hurt my feelings. Maybe I need to get tougher, but the advice assumed a lot about me as a parent that just doesn't jive with who I am. So something to think about there too . . .
Wonderful post. Thank you for your work,
Kyle
Great Article! I noticed you have numerous articles addressing education and education issues. We have a website, www.EducationBug.org, which I believe would be a great resource for your website visitors. Please check it out and consider adding us as a resource, maybe on your other great blogs page.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Brenda Whynot
EducationBug.org