The State of Education

The state of Missouri is currently trying to pass a new bill regarding education and teaching in our fine red state of Missouri. I could do my best to sum this bill up in wording that makes me sound incredibly educated yet understandable to the masses. Yet, I feel it would be easiest and most accurate if I copied and pasted the information this bill contains. I will give all credit to the Missouri National Education Association, for the finely written excerpt below:

The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee approved an HCS version for HB 1740 (Scott Dieckhaus) on Feb. 22 in a contentious executive session.

The bill is on a fast track for consideration and is expected to be taken up for floor debate on Feb. 28. Stay tuned for an upcoming action alert to all state representatives concerning HCS/HB 1740 on Feb. 24.

The HCS:

1) repeals teacher tenure for all new hires and eliminates use of seniority in reduction in force,

2) repeals the minimum teacher salary for teachers with Master's degrees and ten or more years of teaching,

3) contains a tax-credit style voucher for students of unaccredited districts to attend private schools,

4) adds charter school expansion and accountability similar to HCS/HB 1228 (Tishaura Jones),

5) creates statewide virtual district school and virtual charter school open enrollment,

6) includes provisions allowing accredited districts to establish class-size capacity standards with regard to student transfers from unaccredited districts,

7) contains the provisions of HCS/HB 1174 (Mike Lair) to allow the State Board of Education to hold a hearing and act to revise the governance of a school district when it becomes unaccredited, rather than automatically lapsing the district after two years, and

8) contains the provisions of HCS/HB 1043 (Mike Thomson) regarding distribution of school formula funds when the formula is underfunded.

Alrighty, back to me...This bill has a lot going on and I do not feel the need to dig through it all as I am not the most educated on some of these topics. I did; however, put in bold some finer points I feel should be made clearer for those who may not be aware.

1. Wanting to repeal teacher tenure. Tenure is basically grandfathering in a teacher and making it so they can not be dismissed without just cause. Let it be known that any teacher who is abusive in anyway to children deserves to lose their jobs and 99.9% of the time will lose their job, so don't feel this would ever keep a truly bad teacher in place. People who support the repeal of tenure often feel that it promotes complacency amongst teachers in work ethic and growth. First being that teachers will not work to their full potential if they have no fear of losing their job, thus keeping lack luster teachers in the schools. This is a legitimate concern for the general public. As a current teacher in a public school, I would like to offer the insight that there are not many ways a teacher can slack off. We are held accountable for what each student learns and we are held accountable to see that our students make Adequate Yearly Progress (a term that came about from No Child Left Behind, which is another discussion for another day). Not making adequate progress is just cause for letting a teacher go. Secondly, a teacher becoming complacent might refer to not keeping up with trends in education. One thing I can say, which goes for a large majority of teachers, is that we love learning. We would not make a life long career out of education if we did not adore soaking up new knowledge as it became available. That aside, we are still required to upkeep our learning within the field. We have certain training opportunities that are required of teachers that vary from district to district. The state also requires a certain number of professional development hours by each teacher each year. So the fact of the matter is that teachers will continue to work hard as their job will always depend on it.

What good can come from tenure? First of all it was started by universities as a way to ensure that academic staff was not filled with young researchers but instead filled with seasoned minds with more background and understanding of academia. How can this be a bad thing? It makes sense to me. This trend has dropped off in US colleges and universities but is still held as common practice in many countries in Europe and Asia (both continents who routinely out score American schools for the record.) Think about it in regards to our public school systems in Missouri. Would we want only first year teachers educating our youth? I am in my sixth year of teaching and I am still learning ways to perfect my classroom management and handling student behaviors. By having tenured teachers we would have teachers who understand how to run an efficient classroom.

Finally I will sum up my rant on tenure with, there is very little draw to the teaching profession in the material realm. We obviously have a pay check that very few would like to see in their bank account, the least we could get is some decent perks and benefits that attract people to the profession.

2. Repealing minimum pay. I will not go into great depths here. All I will say is, SERIOUSLY? Our minimum pay for a Masters Degree teacher is still laughable compared to other professions. When they start to CAP the salaries of doctors, lawyers and businessmen then maybe I would consider a minimum pay for a teacher.

6. Accredited districts capping class size. Basically as we stand now, if a child attends an unaccredited school district they have the opportunity to attend an accredited school district. Now making sure schools are able to stay accredited is again a discussion for a much longer post. For the purpose of this, lets just assume it was unavoidable. If schools can cap class size on accredited classrooms then I promise that will leave students in an unaccredited district with no where to go. Why would we not want to offer all our students an education at an accredited school? Now I understand that a teacher can not feasibly educate a class of 45. I am not promoting that at all. I just think that there has to be a better way that what is proposed. I don't have a solution and I am not sure what options are available. What makes this even more upsetting is that many unaccredited schools are often in low income areas and it makes me wonder if they are capping class size or if they are eliminating the unworthy. Either way, education has gone through many struggles to make it unlimited for students of all abilities and races and I would hate to think that anything would change that. Its a battle we already won, I would prefer to not revisit it again.

The Newest Digs

Its been just over a semester since I have had my own classroom again. Here are a few quick pics just so you can see where I hang out everyday!

Yes, I am room 108...please do not stalk me!

Look at that visual schedule! If you teach students with Autism...you know this is how we roll!

I did say students with Autism correct? Yup, this is just one of my students getting in some sensory time on a therapy ball with a recycling bin on his head. I am not sure what sensory input he gets from the bin on his head...it was not recommended by his OT, it was self applied!

Look at all those cool job boxes I inherited with the classroom!

Did I mention I work with kids with Autism yet? Do you see the organization in these buckets? We don't just sort, we line up in perfect little rows!

R.E.S.P.E.C.T

Teachers, generally, are not hated as a whole profession. There are a few bad apples, sure. But for the most part, people often do not find us all that horrible. Now dentists, no one likes dentists. There are fears that are endless and the pain of dental work is unbearable. I can understand why people hate dentists. There are all the Wall Street bankers and corporate workers that really seem to bother people recently. The one percent making gobs of money, yes they seem to bother people as well. There are also jobs people take for granted that really seem horrible: trash collectors, mail carriers, slaughter house employees, road construction workers and the like. We think little of them yet they make the world go round.

Teachers don't really carry a bad reputation or go unnoticed like the afore mentioned careers. People seldom fear teachers. No one protests our over paid salaries. We hardly get forgotten about in the grand scheme of things. I have even had numerous people go as far as to say they find my chosen career path admirable, respectable or even daring...until one man.

Now this was barely a blind date...a first meeting would be a better descriptor. He is one of the gems people describe when talking about online dating. We had ordered a first round of drinks...our last round as it turned out and started some of the basic "get to know you" questions. These questions are basically just a recall of everything on our dating site which spurred this first meeting originally. As we are talking jobs he asked me what I did again. I reminded him I was a teacher and then time stood still. He slowly opened his mouth and uttered the words, "I don't respect teachers."

It was not unlike the scene from A Christmas Story in which Ralphie slowly utters "fuuuudddgggee" while helping his father with the flat tire. We all remember the scene. We all know the terror Ralphie felt and the shock of those around him. This scene played out rather similarly and I blinked in disbelief. Did I just here those words uttered out loud? The knee jerk reaction to throw my drink in his face never happened as I was too stunned to react. Who actually says something so horrible, to a teacher at that?! He had no real basis for his thoughts. No bad memories causing this attitude towards a profession shaping the minds of the world's youth. It was just a general disrespect for a teacher, not unlike how I feel about strippers. Nothing completely wrong with strippers, I don't hate them, no bad experience, I just don't find it completely respectable. (I don't however compare teaching to stripping all that often. I mean, after all, a stripper makes much more than I do.)

Now correct me if I am wrong, but I have a rather naive belief that most people find most teachers somewhat respectable. To think so strongly in the other direction makes me really question a person. Do people truly not understand what a teacher does? Is this a feeling that is widespread among the general population? If this all happens to be the majority rather than the minority opinion, please contact me directly. Upon removing my foot from your ass I will escort you to my classroom to see what I do everyday. Maybe then you will understand.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Despite what people say, the three reasons that teachers choose to teach are not June, July, and August. Lets be honest, any free time we get in the summer is highly cherished...but many schools now are year round, if they are not teachers often opt to teach summer school. (Fine, plenty teachers will disagree with me, but I like to think of us as more noble than this!)

I, however, do very much enjoy my holiday free time the best!!! I cannot imagine having to go to work the day before or after Christmas or Thanksgiving...been there done that. Retail helped get me through school and I am happy to say I will probably never have to worry about working the holiday season again!

That is all...a very pointless blog you may say, and I would have to agree! I just wanted to express my great joy of having 5 days off for Thanksgiving and 2 weeks off for Christmas! My joy is bubbling over and I had to share it with the whole interwebs! Please don't hate me...in fact feel free to buy me presents or send me pie!! :P

In the Age of iEverything... Pt C

I have spent the last two posts talking about technology in the classroom and what an avid proponent I am of such technology. My current school just put up Smart Boards in every classroom which is SUPER amazing! (This post is not about Smart Boards or their awesomeness so please access the link if you are unaware of this great technology for teachers.) I stand behind any school who is willing to go the extra step or dollar to make their classrooms interactive.

HOWEVER, every up has a down and every positive has a negative. Despite my huge support of technology I thought I would take a minute to share the downsides it can have in a classroom, with a very true to life tale.

Once upon a time there was beautiful princess. She greatly upset the wicked queen and was banned to a life of low paying servitude in an education setting...

Fine, don't believe me...I was working in my classroom for children with Autism, but trust me, there was a wicked queen, errr director. Back to the tale!

I was assisting one of my high functioning kiddos who was quite smart. He worked on a reward system in which he could earn highly reinforcing items for appropriate behavior. For him this was the internet. As I sat with him on his 15 minute computer break I began multi-tasking, which is normally great but today proved horribly wrong. The additional work caused me to take my eyes off the screen for a bit. When I looked up, expecting to see some dumb anime website, I saw Google maps on street view. How peculiar, it looked just like my apartment complex neighborhood! Oh but it was! This little ankle biter had used the white pages to locate my address and searched for me! His plan was to "murder me while sleeping." Luckily he did not live in the same city as me and does not have access to reliable transportation. (Notice I left out my doubt in his ability to carry out murdering me.)

Whenever I get on my high horse about technology in the classroom, I just think back to this shining moment in my career and start to research the price of encyclopedias!

PS: I am forever and a day unlisted from here on out!

In the Age of iEverything... Pt Duex

If you recall my previous blog...which sported an awesome must see video, you will recall the great importance I place on technology in the classroom. I do try and stand by this. I have often allowed students to research on the internet as well as use different computer programs for creating reports that were not in document form. This might not always be the case, but I try and make it happen when I can. In fact, one time I was meeting with my supervisor and she told me she wanted the students to learn how to use research materials, i.e. dictionaries and encyclopedias. I proudly responded, "Fear not, they know how to search wikipedia as well as how to access dictionary.com and ninjawords.com." I take great pride in knowing my students were internet savvy. Not that I can take credit for this, I am pretty sure that group of students came out of the womb with a GameBoy DS in hand. She was upset because "EVERYBODY" should know how to use an encyclopedia....What??? WHY??? I surely do not go to my local city library and check out an encyclopedia to do research (Well mainly because you can't check them out, but you get the drift.) Heck, the higher up one gets in education the only research allowed is from peer reviewed journal articles which can mainly be found ONLINE! I do not see the value of teaching archaic methods of research when my classroom was equipped with two internet accessible computers. Well, the supervisor put her foot down...so I kindly asked for her to purchase me a set of encyclopedias. Magically Wikipedia worked just fine!

In the Age of iEverything... Pt 1

I heard a random quote while passing by a radio with a news station on...(I have no source for this information, unless "small counter in parents' kitchen" can be somehow sited in APA format!) This quote mentioned that the average child spends about 5 hours on some sort of computer equipment daily. Hmmmmm, sounds about right, but how often do you see children learning on computers in school? I mean as an adult, many jobs require the use of computers or internet access almost 24/7. Technology, social media, Smart Phones and all things computers are quickly shaping our lives and how our society functions! Holy geez, I make grocery lists on my iPhone, support my social life through Groupon, make plans via Facebook, take classes online, document my life through photos and twitter updates, heck even my mom just downloaded a new book to read! Why would we expect our nation's children to do anything different?

To drive my point home I considered composing a lovely essay on the importance of technological use in modern day classrooms...but I happened to stumbled across a video that clearly sums up my thoughts with fewer words and cute little kids! I thought rather than reading me ramble on, this video would suite you better! I really feel this is something everyone involved with children and schooling should watch. It points out some severe problems in the American education system and offers teachers a wide variety of options to make learning meaningful, active and hands on!

I will give you a minute to grab your popcorn....

3...2....1....

Now I am sure those who actually read my blog might have opposing view points. It should even be known that I too have denied my students the opportunity to create school work with technology as it might become harder for me to monitor. This is something I hope I can grow away from and learn how to better utilize in the future. I have some more thoughts that will hopefully be blogged in the near future to expand upon the use of technology in the classroom!

Reading, Writing, and NASCAR

Why hello fellow readers! It has been a while since I sat down an attempted to share my educational insights and stories with those of the blogosphere! The reason for my hiatus has been my lack motivation to keep a teacher blog when I am not teaching!! As barely mentioned in the previous post I lost my job and have forever been searching for a new one.

With this thought in my head I decided to blog out my feelings of economy as well as my job search and the less than stellar results I am having!

Everyone is quite aware the economy has not been going strong and with this in mind everything, including schools, suffer. Education has never been one of the country's highest funded entities. After all, what kind of money and revenue do children bring to the table? Last I checked it was a worthless enterprise. Personally I feel we should save the nation’s money for bailouts, spilling oil and huge commercial chains and advertisements. Did that come off as sarcastic? It was meant to…my lack of career at this point has left me a bit bitter.

Actually I have spent this time off brainstorming ideas on how to make the United States education system a bit more profitable. I came up with this killer idea…you ready for it?

ADVERTISING! When has advertising not worked? We are surrounded by it everyday and it essentially controls our lives as American consumers. As a teacher I would be more than happy to sport the national flag of Kellogg directly next to the American flag. I am practically dying to throw on a jump suit clad in Eggo Waffles and Pepsi labels. Hell, if this keeps me employed the big businesses can even take domain of my classroom bulletin board, which anyone in the know, understands how particular I am about my bulletin boards! Lets be honest, this tactic worked for NASCAR. You can try to convince me otherwise, but I am pretty sure no one actually watches NASCAR for the sporting event itself.

I digressed slightly from reality and my plan was not to do so. To be more on topic, teaching is a highly saturated field, at least in St. Louis and our surrounding areas. We have four large universities in STL alone that boast being “Teacher Schools” as well as two other large universities that I am sure offer the same degree. We then have the large state schools strewn about the Missouri that also feed heavily into STL upon graduation. On the other hand, STL also has numerous schools that are constantly closing. St. Louis Public Schools have been on a downward spiral for a long time and they are the biggest district we have to work with in this community.

I know I am the teacher here, but you can do the math. St. Louis is being force fed teachers with no place to go. I recently applied to a school district, one in which I had connections and did my student teaching. I felt this gave me a greater chance at scoring an interview at least. I talked with said connection and guess what? 488 teachers applied for the one job! My goodness with those numbers I will have to write my resume in Myspace Glitter Graphics just to be noticed!

To make matters worse, I am almost finished with my Masters degree. Schools do not want to hire someone who is already at salary step Bachelors +30! Sorry for the teacher talk but that’s a lot more money than they would have to pay a newbie fresh from college. However, if I look in other job fields I am told I have too many qualifications and would be better suited somewhere else? Where is that somewhere else???

Oh yeah…teaching, and let me tell you about the saturated teaching field…well this is just becoming a very circular tale and I am beginning to sound a bit like a NASCAR announcer…and they make another left turn!