Saturday, August 30, 2014

Are the Concepts in the Common Core New?

Are the Concepts in the Common Core New?

By Jill Jenkins

                I collect old text books, a fitting hobby for a retired teacher.  Over the forty years of my career I have quite a collection and some I inherited from my grandmother and my great grandmother.  When you really look at what selections were in these old books it is surprising.   My great grandmother’s Fifth Reader from the late 1800’s, contains rigorous selections of both fiction and nonfiction in a variety of genres. There are short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne,    an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poetry by W. B. Yeats, essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and presidential speeches and one of William Shakespeare’s plays.  After each selection there are study questions that ask the reader to find details from the selection to support a positon.   The variety of different genres, the difficulty of each selection and the strategies in the new Core Curriculum are not all that different from this text, except this is a fifth grade text and the selections and the learning goals appear to correspond with the current ninth grade curriculum.

                Why are teachers claiming the new Core Curriculum requires students to read more difficult literary selections and the rigor is overwhelming to their students?  The English Language Arts Curriculum had deteriorated over the decades.  When I began teaching forty years ago, the curriculum in Language Arts, or as we used to call it, English, was very similar in difficulty to the new Core Curriculum.  Then adolescent literature was born.  Students loved these action-packed pieces of Pablum that can be digested in one or two sittings.  Why not!  I loved Mad Magazine and Archie Comic books when I was a child and my parents allowed me to read all I wanted.  I just couldn’t write a book report on them and get credit at school.  That was still no problem.  I just hoofed it to the local library, checked out a real book and read it as well.  When teachers learned they no longer had to fight students to get them to read, they put away William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and handed the students S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.   At first these adolescent literature books were used for grades fifth through eighth and the students still got to read the classics in high school.  The standards continued to deteriorate and soon students in seventh grade were reading fourth and fifth grade books and students in high school were reading S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.  Finally students were actually writing book reports and getting credit for comic books, now called Graphic Novels.  What a wonderful place, America is!  This is beginning to remind me of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  At this rate, soon students won’t be required to read at all. Just watch the movie.
                Suddenly reality set in when the United States discovered it was scoring lower on standard examinations that our friends in Europe.  Now, some people are ready to throw away textbooks and novels and settle for a series of on-line reading selections with short quizzes and essay questions.  Hold on there, grasshopper. That may not be what we need.  Bill Gates, not really Bill himself, but the Bill Gates Foundation collected a group of outstanding educators ( I know this because one of my good friends worked with them) to develop units that incorporate all of the learning goals of the new Core Curriculum while still teaching real pieces of literature.  Mind you Bill Gates and his team did not write the learning goals.  That was a group of educators and their governors.  The wonderful thing is they even added some ideas from the affective domain or what we used to call Character Education.  This is like a blast from the past, theme based units synthesizing writing skills and reading skills and using genuine literary selections like To Kill A Mockingbird  by Harper Lee and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. 

                Speaking only as an old English (Language Arts) teacher, before you criticize the Common Core, compare it to the Readers, textbooks, our grandparents used and the curriculum that was taught forty years ago.  The Language Arts Curriculum is not that different.  I suggest you look at the Gates Foundations’ Units as well, because they combine the curriculum with character education especially in the 9th and 10th grade.  To those who want to toss out the great pieces of literature and depend solely on computer generated activities to teach skills, I leave you with a quote from William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Square Peg

The Square Peg
By Jill Jenkins
          Imagine being in high school, the most socially and emotionally charged period in a person’s life, and all of the other students talk to other students around you, but no one talks to you.  You hear about parties, but you are never invited.  In fact, you are similar to the girl in Janis Ian’s classic hit, “At Seventeen:” 

               “To those of us who knew the pain

                Of valentines that never came

                And those whose names were never called

                When choosing sides for basketball

                 It was long ago and far away

                 the world was younger than today

                when dreams were all they gave for free

                  to ugly duckling girls like me...”

Teenagers accept only those that fit their perception of the perfect teenage image.  You are the square peg.  You feel loneliness and you wonder if there is something wrong with you because you are different from the others.  Maybe you are different because you have a different religion, a different race, a different skin color, or even a different sexual preference.  Maybe you are different because you aren’t pretty, you aren’t thin, and you can’t afford designer clothing.  Because you are square peg in many schools, you are shunned. Now, you have a good idea of what a child feels when he/she is the victim of bullying.  Isolation is another form of bullying. 

            As a teacher it is sometimes easy to spot the child who verbally abuses other students.  As a teacher, it is sometimes easy to spot the child who physically abuses other students, but as a teacher it is harder to identify students who use the psychological abuse of shunning or isolation to abuse their victims.  Those who abuse others in this way  often  continue to abuse their co-workers by making decisions behind their backs and leaving them out of the loop of communication, ignoring their co-worker and talking behind their co-workers back.  Likewise, these are tactics often used by female students to bully another student. I have seen students who eat every day in the counseling office because they don't want to face the embarrassment of eating alone.  Some schools have made it a policy that no student eat lunch alone, but aren't there still those who are alone even in a forced social situation? Social media and the internet create even a larger arena for these bullies to thrive.   The results of this abuse can be devastating to an insecure teenager.  

            Research actually indicates that students who bully often come from home where they are bullied by a parent and their victims are often students with low self-esteem.  In my own family, my father used to taunt and tease us.  He had belittling names for each of us identifying whatever weakness he perceived.  He believed that this behavior made us more resilient to others.  He wanted to toughen us up. My father’s taunting was imitated by my brothers who called me “Pizza Face” because I had acne, “Thunder Thighs” because my legs were not thin, and often smacked my elbow as I ate pie so they could be amused as pie smashed up my nose.  Belittling children does not make them more resilient.  It destroys their self-image.  A child with a strong self-image does not feel the need to taunt and tease others who are weaker and they rarely become the victims of bullying because their healthy self-image makes them a more difficult target for would be aggressors.  In fact, children who are belittled and bullied by a parent often bully other students at school or bully their own children when they grow up. 

            Stopping the cycle of bullying, means we need to educate both parents and children.  Changing both the parents’ and child’s attitude toward bullying and helping to identify what behavior is harmful to others will help stop this behavior at schools.  Knowledge is power.  Not only knowing what behavior is inappropriate and harmful, but getting to know the square pegs is another way to build bridges.  As long as the other person is some unknown stereotype (oh, those Goth students) they will bully them, but getting to know each child as an individual is one way of stopping bullying.  Group work where students do not just select their own friends, but are placed in groups with students who are different from them helps students gain skills in working with all types of people, but it also helps them recognize the similarities between them and those that they perceive as differ.
            Bullying like child abuse is not an easy problem to stop, but as a teacher you need to create an atmosphere of caring, where students feel like they are all members of a community.  You need to identify all types of bullying: physical, verbal and psychological and never tolerate it in your classroom.  Act to educate students and parents about the effects of even social isolation.  Let’s give the square pegs a chance to fit in.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Cover Your Behind

Cover Your Behind
            The headlines have been filled with the story of Michael Brown and the officer Darren Wilson who shot this unarmed teenager.  The streets have filled with angry protestors all demanding the arrest of Darren Wilson. What really happened that day?   Being a police officer is a dangerous job and everything that you choose to do is judged and observed by everyone in the community and the country.  Being a teacher is no less scrutinized. As a teacher, you must take every precaution to “cover behind” and protect yourself from possible litigation.  How do you do that?
            Many sources have said that Officer Darren Wilson would have been safer if he had been wearing a camera that could have recorded everything that transpired that night, but he was not wearing a camera, so he only has his testimony against the testimony of anyone else witnessed the events.  Many teachers complain about cameras in hallways, but to be perfectly honest, every classroom had a camera or every teacher wore a camera on his/her person, the teacher would have hard evidence if a situation arose that teacher’s conduct was in question. When I began my teaching career, a more experienced teacher advised me to never be alone in a room with a student without the door open.  However, the fear of armed intruders has had administrators advising teachers to keep their doors closed at all times.  How do teachers protector themselves against a student who might wrongfully accuse them of inappropriate action?
            In a recent court case in Albany, California, chemistry teacher Peggy Carlock and Albany High School are being sued because Bowen Bethards, 17, and his mother, Laureen are unhappy with the C+ her son received.  Laureen contends the teacher, Peggy Carlock bullied her son. According to the parent, the student had 106% of the possible points at the beginning of the quarter when the student was assigned to participate in a lab.  The parent took the student to court to his brother’s adoption hearing, on the day of the lab.  The teacher offered the student to make-up the lab, but on the day the student came in to make up the lab, the teacher was absent.  The teacher gave the student a second opportunity to make up the lab by correcting the other student’s lab reports, but the parent claims the teacher did not give the student a rubric so he was unable to do complete the task.  Finally the student failed the final exam and the teacher refused to allow the student to retake the test.  The parent felt this was unfair, because her son will have a difficult time getting into the college of his choice because of his grade.  The school offered to change his grade to a “B” excusing him from the lab, but refused to allow him to retake the test because that would not be fair to other students.  The parent wanted the “A” grade so she sued. 
            This is a difficult situation, but if the teacher clearly states that students will not be allowed to retakes exams in her open disclosure and the clearly states how labs are to made up, perhaps the parent might not have sued.  On the other hand, one could argue the student was given two opportunities to make up the lab.  Furthermore, why did the student need to go to court with his mother?  The legal situation did not even concern him, so why was he absent when he was aware that there was an important lab in his chemistry class that day; however, when a student are absent he/she still needs an opportunity to make up the missing work. The teacher gave him that opportunity.  If the teacher was sick on the particular day the boy chose to make it up, perhaps he could have set up another date. Furthermore, the teacher gave him an alternative activity, an opportunity to grade the other students’ lab reports (most of us may question the validity of that particular method of making up a lab), but his still did not complete it.  Finally, most of us would argue that he took the final exam and failed, he really should not even pass the class, because he has not learned the material.  The teacher and the school are being generous with the student. Is this parent being unreasonable?
            Maybe, but this is why it is important to document every phone call that you make to a parent with pertinent information of what was discussed.  Document every correction you make to a student whether it is moving his seat, taking him into the hall and chatting with him, or having a parent-teacher conference.  You may never need your notes, but if a situation arises and the administration in your building ask how you had been helping a student, you have a document filled with facts that may help them or if the parents bring in a lawyer (this rarely happens, but if it does you need to be ready) you have clear concise information about all of your interactions with the student and the parent.
             In another instance according to National Public Radio, a West Virginia Parent sued a teacher because her student did not receive credit for a project she turned in late, thus causing her to get a “B” for the course instead of an “A.” The teacher had told the student that this project could not be turned in late, but this particular student went on a school excused activity on the due date and submitted it one day later.  The teacher documented that she had told the students they could turn it in early, but it would not be accepted late.  The student needed to understand that the rule applied to her.  The parents felt that the teacher did not have the authority to make such a rule, because the district policy clearly stated that when a student was absent they had an equal number of days to complete the missing work.  As teachers we all know that the end of the quarter eventually comes and teachers have deadlines to complete their grades as well, so by the end of the quarter it is not unreasonable to expect an absolute cut-off for some work. It might be wise to put information that a particular project cannot be submitted late on your webpage, on the paper with instructions about the project and/or in an email to the parents and students.  The more proof you have that you communicated this information to both the parents and student the better chance you have of not being sued.
            One mistake or perceived mistake can destroy a teacher’s career and financial situation.  When I began teaching, a student put an incendiary device into a commode in the boys’ restroom.  The device blew up shattering the toilet and flooding the restroom.  As the culprit left the restroom, a teacher grabbed the young man and pushed him against the wall, holding him until the administration arrived.  The parents sued the teacher who was not a member of the teaching association and had no insurance to cover such law suit.  The district did not back the teacher as it is a standard rule in that school that teachers cannot touch students.  The teacher not only lost his job, but because the parents sued him personally, he lost his house, his retirement savings and ended in bankruptcy.  It is not a bad idea to make sure you have insurance either through a teaching association or that you purchase on your own.  You can never be too cautious.
            Some people will tell you that as a teacher, you need to keep the children safe, act prudently in any situation and follow the behavior guidelines of the school district.  That is all true, but I think you need to make sure that you document everything.  That you publish all of your rules and procedures both on your web-page and through letters or emails and save copies.  Make sure you have records of interactions with parents and students.  I keep all of my students’ assignments until the end of the quarter both in the students’ portfolios and in baskets.  If a student or a parent accuses me of losing their son/daughter’s assignments, I welcome them to go through both the baskets and the portfolio’s to find them.  Most of the time, the students finds a “no name” paper, claims it is his and the argument ends.
            When does a teacher have time for all of this, if you create a log on your computer that you update at the end of each day, it will become a valuable resource in the event you are ever accused of not helping a child, or if the administration is looking for documentation to enroll a non-performing student in a special education program.  More importantly, you will be protecting yourself.  In the event a parent ever suggests that they will be talking to their attorney.  You should no longer speak to that parent.  All communication needs to go through the administration or the school districts’ attorney.  This is when your detailed notes on your interaction with this student will be invaluable to both the attorney and the administration.  Don’t worry too much.  In forty years of teaching, I was never sued.  Some may have threatened it, but it never happened.  The truth is it only takes one unjust accusation to destroy your career, so please cover your behind.