August 2010
It is that time of the year … What makes a good teacher?
I dedicate this entry to a clueless elementary school principal at Sycamore (IL) District 427, because he clearly doesn’t know what makes up a good teacher, and given his position, desperately needs to figure this out.
So the question to my students is:
What are the most important qualities of a good teacher?
- Someone who is not judgemental. somebody whi is always there if you need extra help. For example: e-mail and non-school hours.
- Acceptance, understanding, creative
- Nice and teach a lot, but also give a lot of breaks
- one who can explain things better.
- I like to be interested in what I learn, so the teacher has to be interesting. Also, of course, nice, understanding and somewhat funny.
- Someone who doesn’t get too angry.
- Good speaker … asks us questions during class
- very funny
- The main quality is funny, because the less boring class is, the more I pay attention.
- Organized, helpful, understanding, reasonable.
- Supportive and fun
- Know how I learn
- Makes learning easy
- Looks forward to class everyday
- Funny, chill, like a teen again
- Explains, but not overdone
- They have to be fun, and want to get to know the students better and be interactive and exciting [Note: They may have misunderstood the question and described what they like about video games.]
- Smart, funny, friendly
- Being able to understand the student.
- Smart, focused
- Nice, not strict, laid back
- A good teacher is nice and sweet and understands when you might not do well in class on certain days because everyone has those off days.
- Nice & fun, gives break times, not boring
- Teachers who hope the best for their students, not ones who just don’t care.
- A lot of patience
- Respectful, positive attitude, willing to help, doesn’t pick favorites.
- Someone who I can trust, and someone who knows what they’re talking about.
- When teachers make a point to connect with their students
- Willing to teach, listen to students, compassion
- Makes sure EVERYONE understands the information
- Easy to comprehend
- Helps kis learn in fun ways without overwhelming them with a lot of work and throwing too much information at them
- Makes sure everyone knows before moving on.
- I like it when a teacher gets personal about some things.
- Always enthusiastic … has a sense of humor even if it isn’t the best.
- Sympathy! Some days just aren’t good for high school kids and any teacher that can understand that is a saint. [Note: I think I do this in my class, but I am not saint.]
- Entertaining
- Gives good notes
- Easy to talk to
- Fun, easy to talk to, challenging
- Young good looking female [Note: this individual is going to be having a short talk on the subject of how weak attempts at humor get taken out of context and ruin people's careers]
- Not rushing through things that are difficult
- A teacher who genuinely cares about their students and puts as much effort into the class that they want the kids to put in.
- laid back
- Someone who makes me want to come to class
- Interesting, fun, quirky, fair, but also in control
I did remove a lot of the repeats … and I will climb up on my soapbox to make some points.
First off, I would agree with a great many of these. Some might not be as important as others, IMO, however, note that not one student (I ask you to take my word for this) said things like: doesn’t give homework … gives less homework … gives easy tests … easy grader, etc. I think this serves as anecdotal support that high school students do have some serious ideas about what makes a good instructor.
Second … this is not only a long list (some repeats for sure), but it is a long list of some fairly abstract concepts. I think the one thing that we could all agree on: we know it when we see it … that is: teaching is an art (perhaps in keeping with this standard, it is more like pornography … I won’t argue), and is very far from a science. Keep this in mind when people talk about trying to rate teachers or schools, or students and base everything about them on some objective score. I think we all agree that you cannot truly objectively rank art … I argue the same for teaching and learning.
Third … I am not going to sit here and say “teaching is the greatest or most difficult job on Earth”. It is the best job for me. There are other, far more difficult jobs (parenting jumps immediately to mind … surgeon, president, intelligence operative, soldier/sailor/marine/pilot also jump to mind to form a non-exclusive list). Teaching requires a certain level of education and training and preparation, but there are jobs that require more. However, whenever anyone thinks that there is any truth to the aphorism “those who can do, and those who can’t, teach” … and that teaching is even remotely “easy”. With due respect, they can suck me.
Fourth point … Think about how this group of students was all over the place with their list of “what was most important”. I guarantee you that if I polled adults from any and every walk of life, there would be equal disagreement on this list.
Yet, there are politicians and citizens who think they can base a teacher’s livelihood based on some short list of objective criteria.
Think about that folks when you are considering who to vote for … there are plenty of outstanding teachers who fit those criteria above who would be dropped from their job in a country minute because they put student education and welfare above the results of a standardized test. This is already happening. When selecting a politician to vote for, there are a lot of issues that go into deciding a good leader. All I ask: make this one of the things you consider.
It is that time of year … big moments!
Moving on … students respond to the following:
What have been some big moments in your life?
- Going down state in swimming
- When my brother left for college … I got his room
- Saving my brother’s life and dealing with my grandfather’s death
- When I went to a Bears-Packers Monday Night Football Game in Green Bay
- When I had open heart surgery, and when my aunt and grandma died six months apart
- now! (applying to colleges)
- This last summer when my mom got re-married
- Getting my braces off
- Moving four times before second grade
- When I went to the Miss Canada pageant, and my cousin won Miss World Canada
- Traveling to New Orleans to do volunteer work
- Surviving cancer; speaking at the NBA Summer League Tipoff in Las Vegas
- When I volunteered at Shriner’s Hospital for kids with spinal injuries … I learned to be grateful for my health
- Becoming a godfather
- Placing first and second in all my dances in an Irish Dance competition
- Visiting my family in Guatemala
- When my parents got divorced. I was grounded from Jan. 6, 2010 to June 20th 2010. I died my hair June 21, 2010
- When I moved from Ireland to America, I was terrified.
- Getting my tattoo
- Becoming a junior firefighter
- When my uncle passed away before freshman year … it was a very hard time for my family
- Moving from Ireland when I was 5
- When my grandfather died after 48 years with cancer
- The first time I performed at a poetry slam, and the first time I got on a plane … it was the first time I realized how much I love to travel and want to do it for the rest of my life.
It is that time of the year … Favorite Books and Movies.
Bowing to popular opinion, I will curtail this posting, a combination of two questions:
What is your favorite movie?
Like most years, the most popular answer was a very recent film; in this case, Inception. Stepbrothers, Charlie St. Cloud, Rush Hour, Zombieland, A Walk to Remember, Remember the Titans, and The Notebook all got multiple mentions. Other notables:
- old Disney films (like Cinderella and Aladdin) [Note: Aladdin is NOT old!]
- Full Metal Jacket
- The Goonies
- Sands of Iwo Jima
- There Will Be Blood
- The Blues Brothers
- The Shawshank Redemption
- pre-1990s James Bond films
- Gladiator
- Saving Private Ryan
The other question:
What is your favorite book?
20 students responded “none” or “I don’t read”. It was, sadly, the number one answer. Multiple mentions included: the “Twilight” series, A Child Called It, The Hunger Games, My Bloody Life, the “Hary Potter” series, The Messanger, The Road, The Last Song, Lord of the Flies, and A Long Way Gone. Others of note:
- Nineteen Eighty-Four
- The Time Traveler’s Wife
- The Old Man and the Sea
- Arthur Conan Doyle’s works featuring Sherlock Holmes
- Of Beetles and Angels
- Night
- Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Guadalcanal Diary
- Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
It is that time of the year … Who is your hero?
On Thursday, I headed back to school, and on Monday, the kids came back, with classes starting this past Tuesday. The kids appear promising, though with two of my classes up 50%, and the others up about 20% … along with some bureaucratic changes that I fear are going to discourage kids from taking challenging electives, it is a very tentative year. My colleagues are putting on a happy face and acting like pros, but when the worry about the ability of quality education to survive is starting to have its impact. Our school has been able to hold out amid the chaos for a long time, and I think we are all afraid the best days of the school are either over, or may not be back for a long time.
Nonetheless, my 17 year tradition of polling my students continues. Each year, like many teachers, I ask some questions of my students, some of which gives me a little insight into their thinking … some I ask for my personal curiosity.
For the record: these response are a mix of my sophomores who come from a lower level class and my seniors who are taking a full year elective course in non-AP physics (but borders on accelerated). Some of these students are in accelerated/AP courses, including AP Chem and Bio. As always, I present the answers as they were given to me.
This year, in response to a question I got from a viewer last year, I am doing things differently. Every few days I will pick a question, and give all of the answers, instead of just select answers.
Who is your hero? Why is that person your hero?
- Obama, hes cool
- My brother, I try to be live him.
- My mom because she has been through a lot and still loves me and my siblings
- My mom, because shes a good role model
- noone
- My grandma or dad because they both had tough lifes and they became suceesful people.
- My Mom and Dad because even though their divorced, they’re both still there for me at all times.
- My mom b/c she is such a wonderful human being & she is a great cook.
- My cousin Marissa is probably m hero because shes alwaysnice and caring towards everyone and is just an amazing person to be around
- I don’t have a hero.
- Michael Jordan because he change basketball
- My hawkette coach, She is so younge, but works so hard, she owns her own studio and runs a dance team. She is understanding and a amazing coach. [Note: this is a very special response to me. The coach she is referring to is, in fact, a former student of mine; the first time I can report one of my students got named as someone's hero in this response. I can verify that she is every bit the passionate and professional coach this current student describes her to be.]
- I would say my mom is my hero because she got where she is today by herself without anyone’s help.
- My hero is my doctors because they saved my life when I was a baby due to heart problems.
- Avril Lavigne, she had her first album and hit singles at the age of 16.
- My older sister Anna, she always gets me to do my best and gives me wonderful tips.
- Probably my mom because I look up to her for everything
- Mom because she is really nice and supportive
- My parents because they had to put up with me and my siblings and they were great examples.
- My dad because he sets the greatest example for my sister and I. He is loyal, responsible, respectful, understanding and wants the best for his family.
- William Shakespeare, he is my hero because he didn’t let his poor background stop him from becoming one of the most famous authors ever. [Note: Spelling is a big issue for many of my sophomores. My initial impression was to think this was some attempt to impress me, but given that this young lady spelled Bill's last name correctly tells me she is prett darn serious!]
- Mariusz Pudzianowski, he is my hero because he is the world’s stronges man and he is also Polish like me.. When I look at him I see that when he was youd he was just like me and the accomplished a lot in his life so it tells me that I can accomplish a lot just like him. [Note, I checked this out, and Mr Pudzianowski is in fact the first five-time winner of the International "Strongest Man" competition.]
- My grandma was my hero. She died not to long ago but she was the best grandma. She took care of me like if I was her everthing. I was her spoil girl. and my mom is my hero/best friend because shes always there for me.
- I would say either my mom or my cousin, Amanda. My mom does a lot for my family and I so I look up to that. Amanda is always there for me and helps me out with things also.
- One of my heroes are my mom becaus she does a lot for me.
- My Dad, I’ve always looked up to him and always wanted to be just like him.
- My Great grandfather because he’s taught my father to be a good man.
- My dad he taught me how to play ball and about cars.
- Myself I think I am great and know what I can do in life.
- My hero is MJ, because hes the best.
- I really don’t have any heros.
- My mom because she always comes to my rescue when I need help.
- My dad because he knows everything I want to know.
- Coach Disrude, he is a good guy, has time for everyone, strong, he has been through rough stuff and overcame it, wants to help everyone [Note: Coach Disrude is one of my colleagues whom I know well: he is our freshman wrestling coach, and I think he does a phenomenal job of really educating a bunch of 14 year old testosterone laden boys into better disciplined wrecking machines.]
- My cousin he always helps me with problem and I want to be like him.
- My mom she does so much with such little $.
- My mom, because she is always there 4 me no matter what. I can count on her 4 almost anything.
- Don’t have one.
- My dad because he shows perseverence and never gave up in life and now is very successfull
- Austin Carlile. He is my favorite vocalist and he achieved his success from never giving up.
- My dad because he takes care of all his family.
- My dad because he is always there for me and my family.
- My mom b/c she has to deal with a lot everyday and still has time for family.
- My grandma. She will help out everyone and anyone without wanting anything in return. Nothing ever makes her lose faith and she has unconditional love.
- I havent really found someone that I can completely idolize
- My dad because he is successful and has a great life.
- My mom b/c she always encourages me to do better
- sister = best friend!
- I don’t really have a specific hero. I think all the people who have helped me become the person I am today are my heros
- My parents are my heroes because I always look up to them, they give me great advise, they teach me to make right choices and things that’ll happen later in my life.
- I’ve always looked up to my parents.
- My family they’re all people who I can look up to & made certain I grew up in a healthy home.
- My hero is the head of the Stevens Point Environmental Science Biology Ecology . She has done so much with the wildlife around Wisconsin and I want to be like her.
- My hero is my dad because everything he has done reflects who he is and it imprints on me for my future.
- My parents are my heros they encourage me to do my best.
- My hero is my mom cause she raised me and got me to where I am today.
- My parents, have taught me so much.
- My hero is my grandfther because he passed away and always proved to never give up on goals you have set.
- My mom because she helps me.
- My dad is my hero he is a good hard working man
- My parents the guided through my childhood while helping me along the way
- I don’t have a hero
- Clint Eastwood, hes a cool guy
- Multiple members of my family are my heroes. They are all honorable people.
- My mother because she is always giving and helping others she always thinks of others first.
- My little sister. she keeps me motivated each day even when I feel like doing nothing.
- I don’t really have a hero no one has individually saved/helped me personally enough to be my hero
- My mom, she overcame breast cancer when I was young and she never complaines
- My mom because she came to the U.S. with just a bag of clothes and now we’re very fortunate.
- My parents. They have helped me through a lot of things & they taught me to push myself to do the best that I can.
- My dad because he works a lot to support us.
- Leonardo Di Caprio. He is simply fantastic in everything that he does and I would like to make big accomplishments like he did.
- My grandfather, he enlisted in World War II and then had the courage to serve in Korea when his country needed him.
- My grandma, shes always there for me and helps me out a lot.
- I don’t Have one
- My dad is my hero because he triumphs through hardships and is one of the most determined people I will ever know.
- My Nana. She is hardworking & always positive no matter what.
- My hero is my mom and dad because we came from Serbia when I was four years old and moved to the U.S. and they have started from nothing and got us everything.
- Michael Phelps. He has demonstrated a lot of skills & dedication to what he does that I admire.
- Michael Jordan b/c he didn’t make the team in school but became the best.
- I am my own hero, just because I don’t really have heroes and I love myself. I think heroes aren’t necessary.
- My father — supports whole family & mom — takes care of 4 kids all at once.
- My hero is my brother Anthony because he always cheers me up.
Problem Based Learning, and bad ideas
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/25/australia.terror.assignment/index.html?hpt=T2
Problem Based Learning (PBL) has been around for a long time, but only recently is gaining vogue.
In problem based learning, students are presented with a complex problem which has an open ended solution. Students then solve the problem. With the right students, it is a great way to learn. With the wrong students, it blows up in your face. It is being touted as one of the solutions to our (IMO, over dramatized) educational problems, but I am skeptical.
A teacher in Australia, using PBL had a novel problem he asked his students to tackle:
Students are to plan a biological or chemical terrorist attack to take place somewhere in Australia. They must include their choice of victims, as well as their plan of attack to maximize death.
Needless to say, at least one student objected, and the assignment was rescinded. To the credit of the principal of the school, the teacher was young, and was corrected to not do it again, and is not going to be fired.
I wouldn’t sweat the Asian carp and Zebra mussels …
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Chicago-River-Alligator/ss/events/sc/082410alligatorchica;_ylt=Aii6iuroA_muyYCv5N5.dnhbbBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBuZzVjMHViBHBvcwMxNwRzZWMDZXAEc2xrA2ltYWdl
Zebra mussels have been a problem in Lake Michigan for some time, and the EPA is desperately trying to keep the Asian carp that have overrun the Mississippi and Missouri River Systems from getting to Lake Michigan.
These are bad invasive species, but they have one thing in common: they typically don’t predate on human beings. But Chicago has a new menace in town.
For the second time in a month, an alligator has been captured in the Chicago River.
A frickin’ ALLIGATOR has been found in the CHICAGO River! It would have been less shocking if a brown bear had been found polishing off a few tourists on the Sears Tower skydeck, given that this is prairie country.
The first reports were ignored because, like, this is Chicago, and it is not known for being the domain of crocodilians. The last time large predatory reptiles roamed the Chicago area was sometime around the …. I don’t know … CRETACEOUS PERIOD?? However repeated sightings had the Chicago Police call in a reptile expert, and sure enough, plucked a gator out of the river. Just this week, a second one, measuring three feet and capable of eating cats, small children, and chihuahuas was pulled out of the river.
This may be something that Chicagoans may need to adjust to: a world where ferocious man-eating alligators are now a part of the urban fauna.
We await nature’s next move.
What does it take to reform?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100817/ap_on_re_us/us_gang_killings_execution;_ylt=Al1fdQZ5CP9lwxNPsV9wqE0UewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTNmODE1bzU4BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwODE3L3VzX2dhbmdfa2lsbGluZ3NfZXhlY3V0aW9uBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrAzNyZHRyaXB0b3RleA–
This article caught my eye …. Randy Ertman will very soon be taking his third trip to witness an execution in Texas. He is not the one being executed. Rather, he has been a witness to those who killed his daughter.
His daughter and her friend were 14 and 16. On their way home one night through a park in 1993 Houston, they ran into a gang in need of initiating a new member. They were kept alive for over an hour while they were raped repeatedly, hit so hard that several teeth were knocked out, some of their hair was ripped out of their scalp, and some of their ribs were broken. A few of the injuries were specifically traced to a pair of steel toed boots that the ringleader, Peter Cantu, was wearing. Their decomposing bodies were found four days later. The gang members, being ever intelligent as gang members tend to be, kept valuables from the girls as prizes, and made sure not to get rid of anything incriminating, like blood stained clothing and follow up video back at the crime scene of one gang member celebrating the event. One of the brothers of the ringleader eventually turned in the whole group after he heard them bragging about it. Sadly, after this murder, two of those involved were linked to an earlier murder, which, had they been caught, would have maybe prevented these two from happening.
Two 17 year olds are serving life sentences, only because their death penalties were overturned by a Supreme Court ruling barring the use of the death penalty on anyone under 18. A 14 year old is in the middle of a 40 year sentence. Derrick O’Brien and Jose Medellin both have already been executed.
It turned out to be a big case … You might remember that when Medellin was executed, the Mexican government filed a protest because he was Mexican born (hence a Mexican citizen) and was never advised that he had the right to speak with counselor officials from Mexico. The World Court demanded that the execution be stayed, and the State of Texas politely reminded the World Court that they aren’t a sovereign nation, and that they have no right to demand anything. When George W. Bush demanded the State of Texas investigate, in what must have been a rare moment, the State of Texas informed the President that he had not right to interfere, and that only Congress had that power.
It was also the case that led to the inclusion of a “victim impact statement” where relatives of the victims are aloud to address the court in person or in writing during the sentencing phase. It was Randy Ertman who argued for the right of the victim’s family to be represented in the death chamber to witness the execution.
While he was the first to be convicted, thee gang’s leader, Peter Anthony Cantu, arguably the most despised person in Texas, will follow two of his fellow gang members into the death chamber.
What caught me in the article was that the corrections people describe him as a model prisoner.
Let me be clear before proceeding. I am not a supporter of the death penalty. For one, I’m not sure it really works too well in deterring crime. For another, there are too many cases that have come up expressing doubt as to the guilt of a person being executed. I’m also not a fan of tax payers supporting these guys in prisons that they might escape from. The Supermax concept has some promise, though a lot of the same people who oppose the death penalty claim that treatment in these facilities causes permanent and severe emotional distress on prisoners. I could probably live with that as a happy medium.
My question is: why was a person so fraught with problems his whole life (theft, rape, murder, etc) wait until now to turn his life around?
I mean … is the point made in the horror movie Saw that correct? … do some people only learn to appreciate and respect life after they are truly … truly faced with their own impending death?
Is this one of the great twisted ironies in our country: without the death penalty, this man almost certainly would have never changed, and almost certainly would have raped and killed again, but with the specter of execution, he becomes the person that would have saved his life.
Or … is there some type of therapy death row inmates go through that turns their life around in time for their execution. If this is the answer, why isn’t this being done more with other criminals guilty of lesser offenses?
I pressed a little bit … I found an anti-death penalty website:
http://www.deathrow-usa.us/PeterCantu.htm
(please note that I do not endorse these websites because, while they may make a principled stand for something, I strongly disagree with their tactics) addendum: a protest by death penalty advocates took place today at one of the memorials to the young ladies who were killed. That borders on the tasteless, in my opinion, and makes it very easy for people to not only ignore your message, but turn against it.
… that had a statement from Mr. Cantu, specifically requesting “non-judmental, open-minded, and honest” people to communicate with, because they are “mutual traits that I reciprocate willingly because honesty is the foundation to lasting friendships.” He continues “This is a world of confinement for 23 hours a day but it’s your letter that humanize, where the Texas officials have sought to dehumanize me.”
If this is not some kind of a put up … it is a shame that it took all of this for this kid to get straightened up. If not, then I would say Mr. Cantu won’t have to worry about being dehumanized for much longer.
addendum: Peter Cantu was executed by lethal injection this evening in Texas.
The times change: the Beloit Mindset List
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php
Each year for many years, Beloit College questions their incoming freshman to get a sense of the culture of their incoming class. It is often considered an eye opener to not just see what incoming college students are thinking, but to see just how far times have changed. Here are highlights:
1. A majority do not know how to write in cursive script handwriting. I had some students two years ago mocking an elementary school teacher who tried unsuccessfully to teach this to her students, swearing they would need to know how to write in cursive.
2. A large number do not use e-mail. A larger number feel e-mail is “too slow” a means of communication.
3. 25% of the incoming freshmen have at least one parent who is an immigrant.
4. Remember when Clint Eastwood was the baddest of the bad asses? They don’t … they only know him as a sensitive director who does cameos in his own films. Some are not aware that he was ever primarily an actor.
5. Remember when parents worried about “Beavis and Butthead”? This group has virtually no recollection of that television show.
6. A large percentage of these students have never had a landline telephone with a corded handset.
7. DNA fingerprinting and a complete map of the human genome have always existed for them.
8. Do you remember the controversy over Johnny Carson leaving “The Tonight Show” to Jay Leno instead of David Letterman. They don’t … to them, the late night airwaves have always been a two man contest instead of a one man monopoly.
9. Most of these kids have never seen a slide projector outside of a movie.
10. One of the things the kids are shocked about: the increasing lack of CD-Rom drives: until recently they have never known computers without them, and a large chunk have no memory of seeing a “disk drive”.
11. If you its noisy, and you want to ask someone from my generation for the time, you point to or tap your wrist. A large number of these kids have never owned a wristwatch, and would never do that to communicate for the time of day.
12. They have no conscious memory of “Czechoslovakia” … they have always been two separate nations.
13. The earliest computers that they have any memory of are all completely obsolete (the survey notes that this might have been an Apple II, for reference).
14. Baseball fans only remember one MLB Commissioner in their lifetime: Bud Selig. Most don’t know he used to own the Milwaukee Brewers.
15. The idea of an HIV positive athlete is not even remotely newsworthy. The days of panics regarding Magic Johnson and Greg Louganis are ancient history to them.
16. The space race? They have only ever known Russian and American cooperation in space exploration.
17. The idea that you get the news from only the “Big 3 networks” is something they have never known … news is from cable sources or the internet only. Many have never watched a network news show or read a newspaper, and still keep up on current events. BTW … they also don’t understand what is meant by “Big 3 Networks” … because they have always known four big over the air networks.
18. Many of the TV shows their parents talk about … they know as (remade) films.
19. There has always (for them) been a free trading relationship between Canada, the U.S, and Mexico.
20. They have no memory of Ruth Bader Ginsberg not being a Supreme Court justice.
21. The threat of an all out nuclear attack on the U.S. by Russian missiles and bombers is only something they read about in a book or see in a movie. They have never seen the Russians as a lethal adversary.
22. They have no memory of ever seeing the national approval rating of Congress being over 50%.
23. To this group: Beethoven is a dog, Barney is a purple dinosaur, and Michelangelo is a computer virus.
I just checked: four more hairs went grey while I was writing this 
Homework apparently not the problem …
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-schools-homework-poll-20100813,0,2639992.story?obref=obnetwork
Over the past decade, there has been a bit of media coverage regarding how teachers don’t do enough … that American education isn’t rigorous enough, and that the state of education today is really bad compared to what it used to be.
I am not going to create an argument over that … but I will point out this article, which, if the Chicago area is typical, points to two interesting pieces of data.
1. Parents don’t have a big problem with the amount of homework given kids.
2. Kids today get a lot more homework than their parent used to.
I have to immediately disqualify my personal experience in school for determining when the amount of homework is too much. Some of my friends who read this blog will easily confirm that particularly in some of our math classes, the amount of homework was a lot by any standards. There were a few nights (not many, a few) when 100 problems was a homework assignment in accelerated algebra … 30-40 was a normal night’s load for math. I have regaled my students with these stories, and they usually respond by asking if I had to do it going uphill both ways to school in the snow.
I can’t be sure of the amount of homework has gone up, but I think there are a lot more kids who try to be involved in a lot of things. 2-3 sport athletes plus a school club … in some cases a club sport …. maybe a kid who is in the band, the orchestra, a jazz ensemble, and the speech team. So there is that.
I am also not going to jump on this as some kind of evidence that parents are being hypocritical … that is to say that they complain schools do so little in one breath, and then too much in the other. I have heard of (and cannot find) studies that show that when parents are asked about their school … they have a tendency to respond more favorably … but when asked to comment about “American education as a whole”, things are terrible. A finding like this is but one finding, but weekly supports that idea: my school works my kid a lot …
Another issue: quantity is not necessarily a sign of quality. Just because students get more homework does not mean that they are necessarily understanding anything more. As a matter of fact, I think something kids are having a hard time adjusting to is the idea that they are being pushed more and more to work cooperatively. At a young age (heck at an old age), people have a hard time drawing a line between “cooperative help” and “cheating”. So, with more and more homework, I really do think more and more kids are getting less and less out of it.
For what its worth, one of the things I have really tried to abolish (and according to my older students, I have been successful) in getting rid of so-called “busy work” … I try to give students the bare minimum to practice/demonstrate particular skills, and provide extra work for those who ask for it. The better students get more time to do other things, and the conscientious students who need more help, get it.
Teacher pensions: when is it OK to break a contract?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Battle-Looms-Over-Huge-Costs-nytimes-252868470.html?x=0&mod=pf-retirement
In Illinois, there are two mantras among teachers:
1. Our pensions are constitutionally protected. No governor or legislator can ever take them away.
2. Plan for your retirement like your pension doesn’t exist, because it is becoming increasingly likely that some younger teachers will never see it.
I think both of them are extremes, though the latter is becoming more and more likely to be closer to reality. I have always found a certain irony that senior citizens who would take up arms if one dime were taken from their social security checks, have no problems with stripping public sector employees of their equally hard earned pensions.
Go back to the 1930s when social security became reality. The idea was you pay a little in, and when you retire, you are (statistically) likely to get a little more out (since the government has dutifully turned a profit on interest in the meantime).
Then life expectancies increased, and what was supposed to be a reasonable “little bit more” became a lot more.
Public sector employees, as a rule over time, don’t have a lot of incentives, and if history is any indication, public sector employees didn’t have a lot of people make it their life long ambition. Even among teachers, while only something like 50% of new teachers stick it out to retirement, back in the day, that number was much higher. Part of what allowed communities to hold on to teachers was offering benefits like a slightly better retirement (some towns offered their teachers homes and discounts at the local markets on food).
While this article is about Colorado, Illinois is similar: teachers are forbidden from paying into social security, and instead are forced to pay into what we call TRS (Teacher Retirement System). On paper, it works out pretty nice: school districts get away with paying teachers a little less by paying a percent of their salary as a TRS contribution (which is usually a percentage of their now slightly reduced salary). It isn’t school district money: it is a part of the teacher’s salary (this is something a lot of people don’t fully understand … the school pays the money out of the payroll to the TRS, but it is not the school district’s money … it is similar to the Social Security deduction made from your check … it is YOUR money). It is also serious money … I pay in about $5,000 per year (note, this is my money that is never paid to me, of course it is also tax deferred). When a teacher comes up for retirement, they draw an annual pension which is a healthy percent of the average of their last five years teaching.
Like with social security, life expectancy went up, and the amount people were drawing went up, and the amount they were paying in didn’t go up proportionally. But then something else happened:
Back about the time I got into teaching, there was a glut of old teachers making larger salaries, and a lot of young teachers waiting to get in. The solution was simple:
The older teachers, with state approval, were permitted to write checks for some fairly serious money (I think it was like $10,000 or so, but I could be off) to buy a year of their career and move them one year closer to retirement. Some teachers had other ways of doing this: for example, teaching summer school allowed you to get a certain amount of credit (like 1/3 of a year) toward retirement. School districts saw this as a boon: big salaries vanished, and smaller ones came in!
Of course, these older teachers controlled their unions and their negotiating authority (typically), and as a result saw another way to get some money: since the pension was based on the average of your final years salary, there came an opportunity to boost up those salaries. School districts are not going to offer everyone massive pay increases, and unions could never get away with differentiated pay scales. The solution: offering “retirement bonuses” got around paying every teacher a lot of money, but it still saved the school district (and the local tax payers) money, and got the retirees what they wanted. The senior citizens were happy, the tax payers were happy, the school district was happy. The younger teachers were happy because they were glad to get the job in return for not seeing their annual salaries go up as much.
The problem was: that last part was not state approved, because no one saw them coming. The state took too long to put a stop to it. In some cases, teachers collected a few thousand more over the last few years, but some administrators, typically superintendents had golden parachutes put in their contract that saw some of their salaries jump ten thousand plus dollars in their final year or two.
So now you have teachers retiring very early after long careers, and making a lot more money than the actuarials ever thought anyone would be making.
Illinois just rushed a bill through the General Assembly (as in not thinking about the consequences). Teachers hired before 1/1/11 will not see their pensions touched. Everyone after that has to work until 67, period, before touching a dime.
BTW … when I say “not have their pensions touched”, I should really be saying “won’t be having their pensions touched yet”.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many 67 year old teachers that can run a classroom. This means if I am an 18 year old and I am thinking of what to do with my life, I am thinking teaching is out, or that teaching is not a long term profession … maybe something for me to get into and raise money for grad school or something to do on the side while I sell real estate (read: since I am not focusing solely on teaching, I will be a mediocre teacher) … exactly what the profession has been trying to move away from in the past few decades.
More problems: anyone who is anyone in economics will tell you this law will do next to nothing to solve the problem. The pension system is still bleeding like ever before, and the bleeding will continue to increase (and now with the economy down and school districts taking in less, while teachers are being let go, even less money is going into the pension system). I think the only way this is going to work is have all working teachers up their contributions, and decrease the amount being paid out to all retirees … likely by reducing the cost of living increases that each retiree gets.
Any politician suggesting that senior citizens take less money from pensions or social security might as well pack up the office and go try some other profession because the senior citizens will make sure he never gets elected dog catcher in any civilized nation. However, the fact remains that the current retirees are bleeding the system dry, and unless something is done to stop this, the impact on the state governments, local governments, schools, and future retirees will be monumental.
As I noted above. With all of the lumps education has been taking, a lot of people are avoiding it. I see fewer and fewer of my students showing an interest in education. Seeing that there is now a big push for teachers to pay more and get less, and work longer before retiring … the reasons to go into the profession are getting smaller.
Colorado, to their credit, has that idea: despite the fact that it will interfere with some well laid plans of retired teachers who were only being human in taking advantage of a legal system, those teachers need to get less money. Colorado implemented all of those plans.
If you read the article, this amounts to serious cash … one teacher interviewed just retired based on the contractual amount he had been promised by the state. If he lives 30 years to 92, he will lose an estimated $500,000 over that time. Colorado’s stand is: “Sorry, but if we do nothing, we will run out of money and no one gets anything.”
Needless to say, the retired senior citizens are suing to the hilt to get their money back claiming it was a breach of contractually promised money. This lawsuit, and the subsequent elections I suspect will be a big test to see what happens in other states. If electors can take money away from senior citizens (right or wrong … that’s what is happening, and that is what NEEDS to happen), and then survive re-election, other states might be more tempted to go this route.
Things like pensions and social security can work over the course of decades, but in order to work really long term, there needs to be a lot of forethought, and the courage to do unpopular things in advance. Those are two things that our state and federal governments have had in short supply at least for several decades; insisting instead that they can come up with magical fantasy solutions that make all of the bad things go away … and most of the American public loves it and later calls it the “good ol’ days” … back when we could fix things. Nothing really got fixed … it just got stored in the back of the garage for the kids to fix later.
I think it is safe to say, one way or another, those days are all over. Americans are going to have to get used to paying more and getting less. They are going to see higher taxes, and what they get for them won’t be as good. The days of 50 cents buying your family a nice couple of steaks and 50 cents buying a gallon of gas are long gone. In some ways, they were the good old days. I feel bad that in so many ways kids today and those following will live in a much tougher world … how tough … who knows for sure?
But human being are resilient …. they have survived plagues and infestations and progroms and wars (hot and cold) and the collapse of empires and they even survived Barney. Somehow the kids will survive, and maybe (hopefully) will have learned a bit about our mistakes along the way.
addendum: There is another interesting unintended consequence of this. As more right wing factions try to keep teacher salaries and pensions low, driving potential new teachers away from the profession, this has, potentially, a significant effect on NCLB. NCLB bases itself on the fact that every public school will eventually fail, thus allowing schools to fire their entire staffs and replace them. The assumption being: there will be plenty of energetic newly graduated teachers coming out of colleges to replace the curmudgeonly old greedy teachers who don’t know what they are doing. Ironically, this could put a serious damper on NCLB when schools fire their entire staffs, and have no one to replace them with.
