Colleen Rogers
On: State Initiatives
Absolutes—Anything with the educational tagline “no” (i.e., No Child Left Behind) or "every” is fallacy. These are abstract, lofty goals, but are realistically unattainable by teachers and their charges. To keep trying to bulls eye state policies with exact precision using constrained classroom bows and arrows is ludicrous, and, worse yet, misguided service delivery to the public. To state that “all” students or teachers can “absolutely” reach a goal is snake oil salesmanship and professionally dishonest.
Giveaways: Many of the students I have taught have been the recipients of “freebies”—free computers, full tuition scholarships, etc. Growing up in a working-class family myself, I am glad that I did not have this “assist”—I believe that what is given is truly not as treasured as what is earned. I have seen students "pound jump" on top of school issued computers, drop out of college shortly after receiving full ride scholarships, etc. Personal cost and sacrifice is necessary to appreciate projected value. This should always be an imperative lesson for our students. The hyper-acknowledgment of students with multiple seasonal or end of the term “celebrations”, and the issuance of minimally deserved awards and certificates is also over used—in life, one does not always receive accolades for “showing up” or even for “significant effort”. Why misguide our students into believing that doing your best in tasks always necessitates a nod of recognition? Why not promote that the internal value of positive effort bears its own prideful sense of accomplishment?
Colleagues: On Administrators
Absentee administrators—A principal needs to be a visible presence in a building. Principals need to walk the halls, sub for teachers, talk to students, and occasionally buy the secretaries and janitors doughnuts. From when we were first told about attending school by our parents, it was the Principal that we were expected to revere and sometimes fear. As educators, we understand the chain of command and the division of labor among administrators, but parents and students in actuality do not. Principals need to, at least superficially, show that they are behind their staff, and that they are making an effort to get to know the students they represent. The best principals are dynamic promoters, convincing building staff and students alike that “their” building is one of safety, success and support.
Parent pacification—Parents have become puppets in connection with schools—their Master Puppeteers are their own children. Children now have immediate access to Mom or Dad via cell phones or texting. Parents, as if responding to a Bat Phone, now charge to the academic site of their child, in response to their offspring's any-complaints. Parents, subsequently, require explanations for random scholastic or disciplinary decisions made by a classroom teacher. But, before addressing the teacher personally, parents make a demanding pit stop at the administrative office. Teachers are on-the-spot adjudicated by the Principal, the one from whom they should expect back up and support, and are generally ruled culpable of any alleged offense deemed egregious by the child in question.
What ultimately happens in these instances is that the child learns that, with enough deflecting and button pushing, misbehavior and poor conduct consequences are rigged in their favor. Adults no longer run the home or the school building, and unified efforts toward community standards of conduct are nullified. Administrators need to shut this down at the door. Otherwise, the score for responsibility training is:
Student: 3
Teacher, Parent and Administrator: 0
In schools, appointments need to be made, teachers need to be vocally represented, parents need to follow board guidelines, and students must present their case in front of all the adults, who need to eyeball the child's veracity, as a team, before teacher “misdeeds” are given any credence.
Staff meetings: Who hasn’t said: “Why hold a meeting when an email will suffice?” Why set up meeting agendas that are top down without the input of the instructors who will theater the targeted initiatives? Why not give teachers from the same department or grade level an opportunity to utilize meeting time to address issues specific to their own content, forwarding action plans to their administrators for accountability? Why is the majority of meeting time spent on state mandated directives that are a minimal track of assistance for the needs of students in our buildings? With so many teachers stressed out and leaving the profession, why not occasionally designate a segment of meeting time for teachers to vent and get colleagues' support?
On Colleagues: Other Teachers
Co/Team Teaching: Classroom instructional pairings should be abolished. There, I said it. No matter how you slice it, no two teachers sport the same instructional styles, practices on student discipline, models for record keeping, or classroom set ups. Team teaching is confusing for the students’ expectations of classroom leadership—it is never truly clear who is “large and in charge”. The dual classroom management presented ends up being a “go ask your Dad” scenario. Pairings sometimes spawn building issues and instructional comparatives—many partnerships are also flavored with complaints about the “work spouse” with whom a classroom is shared. Team teaching results in a perpetual curricular “first date”, wherein no one wants to initiate bold student initiatives for fear of offending their “partner”. Teachers should go lean and fly solo.
Teacher-Bullies—Many teachers do (sometimes daily) discuss a challenging student followed by a frustrated eye roll. It is a way for teachers to blow off some steam, and the focus is on the behavior the student exhibits in class. However, when a teacher creates an insulting bitmoji of the likenesses of a student to circulate to other staff, refers to students using racial slurs, or attacks a students’ physical attributes or emotional weaknesses, we have crossed the line. Truly, teachers that verbally or physically confront students should be checked. We all do need to carefully “dress down” students occasionally for conduct issues, but when the focus is on the student’s attributes over behavior, we are worse than the student bullies about whom we proclaim to have"zero tolerance".
Faulty teacher modeling—This year, I worked with a teacher possessing all the qualities of a strong Dean. An iron fisted classroom was her modus operandi and her calling card. Noisily turning a textbook page inspired fear in her students. Her strong leadership is certainly admirable. But, as we shared class space, what I witnessed in her free period was a scene from “Bad Teacher”. There she sat, yellow hoodie pulled down rapper-style over her eyes, gym shoed feet planted on a table top, with rapid fire texting being thumb pumped onto her cellphone. All of this, of course, being done in front of the students whose phones she had confiscated, dress code violations she had contacted parents over, and slouchy posture for which she had issued student detentions. In my day, this “do as I say, not as I do” registry would have gone unchallenged. In this era, though, a student quickly self- advocates by pointing out the hypocrisy of such teacher behavior. Teacher karma is mirror monitored by administrators, colleagues, parents, and students. Students are fearless in adult remanding when trying to worm their way out of offensive behavior also exhibited by their own teacher. Not a good idea to call out a girl for short skirts if you’re wearing a low-cut cleavage blessed top to school, teach. You will eventually get checked.
On: The Classroom
Team Projects for Students: Minimize team projects for students as much as possible. Inevitably, the same students are drivers, fast tracking toward the project’s destination, while other students (you know who they are) hitchhike, cruising for a shared, above their norm, grade. Individual responsibility and accountability are likely to be dust in the wind, and the slacker ends up with an easy “A”, while the high achiever parks garaged resentments for the unfairness of it all.
Student Directed Projects: In the world of “Project Based Learning”, many teachers permit students to select project topics, choose formats, etc. with the goal of inspiring inquisitive learning. This is thought to be a high interest “spark” for students, and a pathway to motivate them toward true investigative exploration. The problem is that our students live in a Google World, and are inclined to follow the "quick look-up route" on their way to a flimsy analysis of a theme. Their Wikipedia "research" is followed by submitting their "discovery" to a preordained plug and play format. Teachers have to be more directive, not less, when planning projects to avert sketchy, superficial conclusions drawn by students who use misinformation found online.
Rubrics: I have never written, used, or been assessed under a rubric that was truly a fair evaluation of a student project or a teacher evaluation. With every rubric, there is an underlying current of subjectivity in assessment. Rubrics are not a fact-based checklist--they are, instead, a personal view on the nuances of performance. Both students and teachers are critical of outcomes in rubric evaluations because they are not “clean” or “irrefutable” measures of performance or effort. For example, to mark a teacher as 'needing improvement" in a disciplinary domain is an unfair rating if the instructor has referred wayward students, without consequence, to the evaluating supervisor as part of prior disciplinary protocols.
Unappealing classroom arrangements or decor: Many classrooms, other than science labs or art rooms, are now arranged with table seating. The idea is to foster team planning or student grouping. This type of seating makes testing difficult, is more challenging with student discipline, and is difficult for accommodating students with special visual or auditory needs. Let students have their own non-shared work space (a.k.a., desks). By minimizing the sidebars of their classmates, students have a better chance to focus on their own learning styles and productivity.
With respect to classroom decor, many teachers no longer show pride in the instructional environment—posters are not hung, student work is not displayed, and classrooms are disorderly and disorganized. With the realization that many teachers “pony up” their own funds for students’ surroundings, creative ways can still be found to make the students’ learning environment a model of pride. Check Pinterest (wink).
On: Technology
Dual Bladed Technology—Technology in the classroom deserves its own discourse, but it is both an instructional dream and a social nightmare. Today as instructors, we are in computerized living color—we can make things come to life in 3D, augment lectures, show student presentations, and add sound, light, and movement to every concept imaginable for our students' benefit. Students can now build models and clearly see a vision of their future. For teachers, lesson planning, grade averaging, and posting assignments is breezier and much easier to coordinate with colleagues, administrators and students. Parent communication and student discipline outcomes can be tracked, and state mandate targets can be assessed. The downside to all of this, of course, is our hyper reliance on all that is techno. This is now part and package to the core of teaching, and when technology fails to perform, we are stymied. If the cash register breaks down, we cannot make change. With online “texts” and coordinated instructional software as our primary teaching tools, we don’t always have a reliable Plan B if it all shuts down. Additionally, there is now a "flatness" to our school tools—students will never again have the sensation of going to a library, selecting a text from a musky shelf, turning pages, and checking out something "sweat" published and tactile, something with a unique feel and claim.
The human X factor of interactive support from a favorite teacher or coach is also diminishing. The division between tech and human is now blurrier to students. Students partially learn from a inanimate box. Students tech-access both classwork and home gaming, which essentially causes a matched sensation with both schoolwork and leisure. I think that these parallels make it more difficult for students to discern class work as knowledge acquisition and human connection from computerized free time "play". These are skill sets that no longer differ as significantly, and cause students to slip on distinctions.
I think that the most fearful impact of technology will be with students socially. Students today may be boarding the techno-Titanic, barely lifting their heads above the perilous waters of Instagram and Snap Chat. The increases in online bullying, posted suicides, and horrifying acts of violence flagship the ways in which our students have a disconnect with the real life outcomes of behaviors shown on social media. In my high school and junior high classrooms, it was apparent that every free moment students had was peppered with gaming or texting. Confiscating a student's phone was nearly tantamount to removing a kidney, or so it would seem. Many students seem to use devises in an attempt to further isolate, or as a way to goad or bully other students. Using technology seems to form almost extremist ploys for attention for some students, while it advances the off-the-grid loneliness of others. Without a fear of face to face confrontations, students speak without censure. Without a fear of awkward interactions, students stare down at their screen and avoid eye contact with peers. This over reliance on technology as a substitute for real friendships, and the failure to comprehend the gravity of online conduct concerns me as my students threshold a newer, more multi-dimensional, era of technological advancements.
I realize that many of my perspectives are curmudgeony and "throwback", but many times a reversal to educational tried and true mentorships is what students will hold fast as memories. Personal connections still retain the greatest impact on students' future social behavior. With all of our technology, it still always comes back to students' perennial first-day-of-school question: "Who is your teacher?"
With every teacher, there are ire provoking "triggers" unique to grade level, district, or number of years teaching--feel free to comment on your "hot spots" as well...
Clipart chosen from:
http://clipart-library.com/mad-teacher-cliparts.html
