Journalism?

Like most schools we have a school newspaper. The students interview teachers and students about a variety of different things. Sports, clubs, "controversial" issues (is block scheduling good?) etc. Last year I was interviewed a few times for various things. The students who did the interviewing did a good job I thought.

This year things are very different. I've been interviewed twice. Both times I got an email with a list of questions that I was to type my response to and send back. Now I think this is a problem. First of all it becomes homework for me. Typing thoughtful responses is more difficult than simply talking with a student. Isn't one of the skills of journalism asking questions and taking down the responses? Condensing them and double checking that you have quotes correct? I think it is a shame that these students are allowed to do all email interviews rather than do one in person.

I Wish I Was in Your Class Again

As the year progresses previous students at times make their way back to my room to say hi. While they visit I ask how math is going for them this year and many of them utter the phrase I hate "I wish I had you again this year" or "I liked your class so much better." Now you might say why in the world do I hate that phrase. What a wonderful compliment. Here's what I don't know. When they say that it means one of two things

1. You were such a great teacher and I learned so much from you.

or

2. Your class was so much easier and I didn't have to try as hard and you didn't yell at me as much.

I hope when they say that they mean number one but I always fear they mean number two.

Things That Make Year 2 Better Than Year 1

• You now know 2 groups of students. Past students and Current Students
• Instead of learning names of all the faculty I only have to learn the names of the ten or so new people
• I think you gain some respect from other teachers for surviving your first year
• Coaching a team and having even more students you know
• Teaching a class for the second time and therefore having more confidence in your ability to teach it well.
• Not having the stress of house hunting or an hour long drive to work.
• Tests are already made now all they need is to be tweaked rather than invented from scratch
• Having the knowledge of who does what in the office and knowing who can get the job done for you.
• Not being called a first year teacher.

Busy Busy Busy

So being a second year teacher, first year coach, and in grad school all at the same time isn't the best idea. At some point I might get to write a real entry, hopefully. Otherwise I'll see you at the end of October when the season is over.

In Defense of Tenure

Let's get a few things straight. Tenure protects bad teachers. That is a problem that must be fixed. Also just so we are clear I myself do not have tenure yet. Now that we have that out of the way . . .

Tenure isn't as bad as everyone thinks. Absolutely there are plenty of teachers in the system that only have their job thanks to tenure. They are lazy and ineffective and schools are powerless to be able to fire them. I have no solution to this.

But there is a flip side, tenure also protects good teachers. Let me explain. Those of us who teach know that education is an ever evolving field. Every year there is the new "thing" that is going to change education. Differentiated instruction, multiple intelligences, problem based learning, guided discovery, etc. Some of these work, some of them don't. Some of these ideas are good in some situations others not so much. The problem happens because some administrator goes to a workshop and learns one of these new methods, thinks it is the educational penicillin so to speak, and tries to get all their teachers to use it all the time. This is where tenure becomes good. Those of us who are in the classroom realize that you cannot do something like problem based learning everyday. It doesn't work. Some days you have to have the back-to-basics-I-talk-you-take-notes-then-do-some-practice-problems type of lesson. The enlightened administrators don't like this. Lessons like that are ineffective according to them. Therefore if you do an "evil lecture" you must be a bad teacher.

Essentially tenure protects good educators from falling victim to the always changing fad world of education. Confidence in our jobs allows us to do what we know from experience to be effective without having to cower to the newest educational trend. (Not that this does not give us an excuse to not try new things, but the key word is try not accept as perfect without an evidence)

Now the automatic argument is that in a "real" job there is no tenure why should teachers be any different? Well take an editor for example. An editor essentially proofreads for a living. He has no tenure, nor will he ever. But his job is not ever changing. The grammar rules of today that he is in charge of using properly are not changing. His boss will never say to him, "how about instead of using grammar we have the reader 'discover' where the grammar should go. Get rid of all those pesky commas and periods." The rules of the editor's job aren't changing so he doesn't need tenure. As long as he continues to properly apply the rules of grammar he has job security (assuming the finances of the company remain stable and such). Expectations are clear and consisten from day one. We teachers are not so lucky, our "grammar" rules are ever changing at the whim of our administrators.

It leaves us with a not so rhetorical question, which is worse, tenure protecting good teachers or tenure protecting bad teachers? and how do we fix the system?

Charters Not So Great?

According to CNN charter school students are scoring lower in both math and reading. Interesting considering how many people are saying charter schools are the key to our education problems.

Personally I think this study is flawed because how different charter schools can be. For example in Deleware the charter schools are often the best schools in the state because the public schools are in such bad shape. The best teachers in Deleware want to teach at charter schools.

In many areas of Pennsylvania the situation is reversed. Charter schools aren't so great because many of the public schools are doing very well and also pay much better. So in Pennsylvania often the best teachers are working in public schools. This is a broad generalization and is not true in all areas. Also this is completely based on what I have experienced not on any hard data. Although I do believe this makes it hard to study charter schools nationwide when they are so different from state to state.

Coaching - Day 5

I made it through cuts and no one has threatened to kill or harm me yet. So far so good. There is a definite upside to cuts though. All of a sudden you have 20 very happy players and 20 very happy parents who are all willing to help out in anyway possible. I don't know what is in store for this season. It will be interesting to say the least since this is my first time as a head coach and it is the first time this school has ever had a volleyball team. All I know is I've picked a team I'm happy with let's see what happens from here.