Leave a comment Posted on Public Education, student teacher, student teaching, students, teaching

The Student Teaching Sacrifice

Those who go into the teaching field are often viewed as giving individuals due to the lack of financial rewards and nowhere is that truer than with those who train to become teachers who sacrifice an entire year’s salary.

In California, most teacher candidates work in classrooms for no pay for a whole year before earning a teaching credential.   Due to the demands of teaching during the day and taking teacher coursework in the evening, holding down a job to make ends meet is nearly impossible.

Unpaid student teaching is a rite of passage that has rarely been challenged. Teachers have accepted less than stellar working conditions for so long that not being paid while learning the trade doesn’t seem to raise eyebrows.  

In the FAQ section of Purdue University’s website on teacher candidates, here is what the college says about students who wish to work while they teach:   “Student teaching is a full-time commitment that leaves very little time for other business. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you do not take on additional responsibilities, such as part-time employment, while you student teach.”

When I was a student teacher, I was quite fortunate that my boss at the time allowed me flexible work hours so that I could continue living on my own while doing my student teaching.   But nearly all teacher candidates must stay at home or live with a working spouse as they earn their credential.

While their school work hours are not as long as a full-time teacher’s, they still need to develop lesson plans in a precise, detailed format, have the lessons approved by the classroom teacher who is supervising them, deliver the lessons to the students, establish communication with parents, attend school meetings, and grade student work.  

I work with student teachers and see how much effort they expend.   If they have sleepless nights, it should be due to figuring out how best to unravel a Shakespearean sonnet for students, not because they can’t pay a utility bill.

Even the name “student teacher” sounds somewhat derogatory. Imagine a patient in a hospital being examined by someone called a student doctor instead of a medical intern.   Doesn’t sound as comforting, right?

That’s why if nothing else changes about the lot of the student teacher, let’s start referring to them as teaching interns.

And like medical interns who get paid a small salary, teaching interns should likewise receive a stipend. Have the school district and university jointly contribute which, if nothing else, recognizes the hard work it takes to learn the teaching trade.

The Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) has begun doing just that by inaugurating an Aspiring Teacher position this school year that pays teachers-in-the-making almost $16,000 plus benefits (equivalent to half the regular beginning teacher’s salary). MNPS Director of Innovation Derek Richey says that they desire student teachers to work in a more “paraprofessional capacity.”

For those wishing to cut corners, accelerated teacher credentialing programs such as Teach For America offer full-time paying jobs after participants complete a mere five weeks of instruction; nice for the teacher, not so nice for the student.

What’s ironic is that the least trained people entering the profession don’t have to financially sacrifice as the most trained do, with the latter group ending up with more college debt.

If we desire the best people teaching to our children, then we need to stop the student teacher indentureships. We may never know how many college students who might have made wonderful instructors turned away from teaching due to the financial burden they would have had to endure.

Leave a comment Posted on Merry Christmas, Public Education, teaching

“Merry Christmas” With No Apologies

Each December there is an increasing amount of attention spent on the word “Christmas” and how its use has to be carefully monitored especially in schools.

A decorated tree is permissible if you call it a holiday tree, and students performing music in December is okay as long as the songs focus on sleigh rides and snowmen. And for goodness’ sake, school is closed for Winter Recess, not Christmas Vacation.

So we ignore the whole reason why we aren’t teaching kids at the end of the calendar year.

Like Harry Potter’s nemesis Voldemort, the word “Christmas” is the holiday that must not be named.

In June, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed the “Merry Christmas” law that allows teachers to say the greeting and to celebrate Christmas without the fear of repercussions. Such a concept is gaining traction in Louisiana and Oklahoma as well.

Regarding Christmas music, Glendale Unified has a brochure entitled “Religious Expression in the Schools” which prescribes “a balance between religious and secular music” whenever a concert includes religious music.   Still, when was the last time you attended your child’s school for a student performance in December and the word “Christmas” was used to describe the show?

What’s interesting is that many of the most beloved Christmas songs were written by Jewish composers: “Winter Wonderland,” “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas,” and the most famous Christmas song of all time, “White Christmas.”

If it weren’t for these immigrant songwriters, the American idea of Christmas wouldn’t exist.   These artists didn’t feel excluded from society because they weren’t the majority religion; instead, they desired to be included by imagining a broader definition of the Christmas season.

Imagine how the song titles would be altered in today’s times to “Rockin’ Around the Holiday Tree” and “White Winter.”  

The point is this: certain traditions in the United States are what makes all of us Americans.   If the trend continues where each ethnic group’s own individual customs are preserved museum-like, not to be influenced by anything “American,” this country will be further splintered and fragmented than it already is today.

School children are not sharing in the common culture that most of us over the age of 50 had–what it means to be American.   And part of that American education is the way we all celebrate Christmas, from putting light displays on houses, to visiting Santa, or attending school Christmas pageants.

What’s funny is that right here in Glendale on display is pure Christmas Americana at, of all places, the Americana, where you can watch water dancing to Christmas classics along with snow falling on the hour with a real Christmas tree that rivals Rockefeller Center’s.   It is a Christmas that maybe some of us never really had in our past, but it is an ideal we buy into no matter our ethnic or religious background.

Perhaps we should re-read the response New York Sun newsman Francis Church (an interesting last name, right?) wrote to 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanion’s letter back in 1897 regarding the existence of Santa Claus:

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus.”

And how dreary our schools would be if our children remain ignorant of what made Christmas such an American holiday. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, students, teaching

U for Parent Participation

Visit an elementary school at 10 in the morning in the middle of the week for a 3rd grade dance festival and you’d be lucky to find viewing space on the playground, standing among parents with cell phones and iPads extended out in order to record the event.

Fast forward to a high school Back to School Night (BTSN) and there are more empty chairs than ones filled with parents.

In the current climate of data collection and analysis, one would think that today’s school districts would compile statistics on how many parents attend these events.   Perhaps it is because the numbers would not look good.

When my wife and I went to our youngest son’s BTSN, I felt sadness for the tiny empty chairs with no parents in them, especially because the parents were asked to leave behind a handwritten note of encouragement for their child to read the next morning.   How would those kids react to a bare desktop when arriving to school?

At a recent Recruitment Night for the 8th grade parents of children who will soon attend my high school about a few dozen showed up.

Over a hundred current high school students and faculty were in attendance.

There are 450 8th graders at the local middle school; if 45 families were present that night, that would translate to a 10% return, with 90% no-shows.

This was a night for parents to find out what the neighboring high school has to offer their children, arguably the most critical 4 years of the K-12 educational journey, the years that greatly impact future success in college.

What message does it send to children when their parents don’t make an effort to care about their next four years of schooling?

There was no award show on TV that night, the Super Bowl was already over, and the Winter Olympics were a week away.

Sure some parents had to work, and some didn’t want to leave the house because it was drizzling that evening.   But what excuses the rest of them?

Flyers were distributed, info was prominently displayed on the website, and robocalls made.

Think of all the dedicated high school administrators, teachers, students, and support staff who sacrificed a couple of hours of their evening not eating dinner with their own families in order to provide critical information to their children’s success.

Students who had to get dressed in their pep team outfits, the marching band who had to carry the tubas and drums, the teachers from all departments packing and carrying materials to set up tables, then re-packing and returning the materials.

This was quite an effort.

Where were the parents?

At my most recent BTSN as a teacher, 44 parents showed up representing less than one-third of the 150 students I have.   And I teach advanced classes.

I polled my students to discover why their parents were absent. Some said that parents didn’t know their way around campus, all the more reason for schools to encourage students to attend BTSN (schools prefer parents only at BTSN unlike Open House).

It makes sense for children to accompany their parents in the middle and high school grades when one must locate 6 different classrooms with barely a handful of minutes between passing periods.   Those parents with limited English skills could use their children’s help translating for them as well.

However, the most common reason given for parents not attending BTSN was that they “didn’t have the time.”

Yes, conflicts with jobs and child care may arise.   Yet all schools are asking is for parents to support their children twice a year. If a parent cannot commit to even do that, then it is quite discouraging.

Schools should consider holding report cards as carrots to encourage parents to come to BTSN.

At the elementary school level, parents schedule conferences with the teacher and go over a child’s report card.   This is doable due to the elementary school teacher having only one class all day.

It is not feasible for secondary school teachers who have 35 students in 5 classes totaling 175 to have one-on-one conferences. Even if an in-person meeting is scheduled for no more than 5 minutes, it would take 15 hours to hold all those meetings.

By distributing report cards in the child’s first period class, parents would get in hand their children’s grades and could sign-up for a conference as they make their rounds from classroom to classroom.

A study done by the National Center for Education Statistics from the mid-1990s showed that parent attendance at teacher conferences was higher than any other school event including Back to School and Open House nights.

Additionally, the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory discovered in their 2002 study, A New Wave of Evidence, that when parents get involved with their children’s schooling, kids have fewer absences and higher grades.

Schools traditionally grapple with student absenteeism, but parent absenteeism is more detrimental to a child’s academic success.

Children learn from their parents, and if parents aren’t involved with their children’s education, then the children likewise won’t be involved.

Educators can be staff developed on Common Core standards until they are blue in the face, taxpayers can pay higher property taxes to place iPads in the hands of students, but there is a limit to what schools can do for kids.   More parents need to show interest and take an active role.

The saying used to be that it takes a village to raise a child.   But that village cannot thrive without the citizenry of parents.

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, parents, Public Education, students, teaching

Common Core Requires Patience

Years of neglect of not teaching music and other arts may have a deleterious effect on student success if a sample Common Core assessment is any indication.

Part of a sample 11th grade test developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium whose charge it is to design tests that will reflect mastery of the new Common Core standards ask students to write about the role of government-funded public art.  

First, students have to read four sources on the topic.   Then, they have to write out answers to questions about the readings (no multiple choices here).   Finally, students must write an argumentative letter.

The level of vocabulary and geography needed in order to understand the reading selections on the test include words that the majority of my honors English students did not know: city council, Florence, argumentative, iconic, Vatican City, masterpieces, national identity. Even understanding the idea of “public art” proved troublesome.

Most would agree that these words and phrases are important to know and that high school students should know them.   In case they don’t, then answering questions about the reading selections and writing about them would present a challenge.

Jacqueline King, spokesperson for Smarter Balanced, said that teachers would be given a 15-30 minute classroom activity the day before the assessment which would include definitions of specialized vocabulary (e.g., muralist).   However, students would be expected to know academic words such as “argumentative.” The teacher, unable to preview the assessment beforehand, would not be able to pull out words that her particular student population may have difficulty understanding.

Of course, if schools provided regular field trips to art museums or students studied art in general, they would have the prerequisite knowledge that this sample test demands.

In addition to awareness about art, the other aspect to this practice assessment is that it is asking students to read multiple sources in order to derive information for writing a research paper.

Over 20 years ago, GUSD had a requirement that all high school sophomores write a research paper.   The assumption was that reading and writing happen in the English classes, not necessarily in any other courses.

Now, with the Common Core standards and the new type of standardized testing, students will fail miserably unless they receive frequent instruction in careful reading and writing across the board, not just one hour a day in their English class.

Therefore, it is imperative that teachers of non-English courses have students practice these skills as well.

Next year, the new testing will be administered to grades 3 through 8 and 11.   This means that those 11th graders will have had one year of Common Core standards-based instruction so no one should be surprised if the results aren’t very good.

When next year’s third graders take the test as 11th graders in 2023, they will have had eight additional years of such instruction.   Meaning, that their test results would best reveal what impact the Common Core movement has had on education.   If the scores of this “first class” improve from year to year, then it would validate Common Core.

It is a noble endeavor to wish children excel at a high level.   It is ignoble to expect high results overnight.  

As educators continue learning more about Common Core, patience is needed before conclusions are drawn about its legitimacy.

Here’s hoping the bureaucrats will allow a sufficiently long learning curve before declaring the failure of yet another education trend.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, students

Another Unnecessary School Holiday

For the first time in Glendale Unified School District’s history, April 24th is no longer a school day.

Previously, school remained open on the day Armenians commemorate the genocide of 1.5 million who were killed by the Ottoman Empire in Turkey.

Finally, GUSD has acknowledged the obvious that with such a large Armenian population in the city, teachers teaching to half-empty classrooms no longer made sense.

Berdj Karapetian, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America’s Glendale Chapter, said he is “pleased” that Glendale schools will be closed considering one-third of its students are of Armenian descent.

I must admit that many of my colleagues enjoyed working that day in the past if for no other reason than to have class sizes between 15 and 20 instead of the typical 35 to 40.   However, little education occurred to those who showed up, including a handful of dedicated Armenian students.

It makes sense for a school district to take into consideration its student population when determining non-instructional days.  

The tricky part for districts, however, is ensuring that the closing of schools is more culturally based rather than religiously oriented.

The Muslim community in New York City has for years been asking the school district to close on two days important to them, one for the end of Ramadan and one for the Festival of Sacrifice.

While a few cities in America such as Dearborn, Michigan have honored such a request, schools need to be mindful of the separation of church and state. Still, school districts with significant Jewish populations have for years shut down campuses on high holy days which are religious in nature.

While I don’t necessarily oppose such action, it does make one wonder how a system reconciles scheduling religious holidays on a public school calendar with downplaying the use of Christmas music and decorations in December, going so far as rebranding Christmas vacation as Winter Break.

Students should be encouraged by their parents to celebrate and commemorate important dates in their respective religion and culture.   But that doesn’t mean that schools have a legal duty to have non-instructional days that will accommodate every possible ethnic or religious group.

The argument that students are penalized if they don’t attend school on meaningful days in their community is specious. Section 48205 of the California Educational Code clearly states that if a student misses school “due to observance of a holiday or ceremony of his or her religion” he shall be “allowed to complete all assignments and tests missed during the absence . . .[and] be given full credit.”

Having no school in Glendale on April 24 makes sense.   If the city’s demographics change in the future, other non-instructional days may have to be considered. However, at some point, there won’t be any days to consider.

At a time when every minute counts in teaching to kids, and America is the country with fewer school days compared to other like nations, school districts have to be careful when determining when to close school.

Think about this for a moment.   How can a country that banned school prayer over a half a century ago be the same land that allows religious holidays on a public school calendar? Only in America.

Leave a comment Posted on anti-social behavior, pot legalization

It’s Time to Speak Up Against Pot Legalization

America is going to pot.  Literally.

The latest Pew Research Center poll shows that 54% of Americans favor legalizing marijuana. 

If you are part of that 54%, you must be on cloud nine (high, in other words).

First came states allowing medical marijuana dispensaries.

Then in the November 2012 election, Colorado and Washington citizens voted to legalize it for recreational use.

And now, California here you come, get ready for the same to happen in 2016.

Evidently, the adage “if you can’t beat them, legislate them” applies here as politicians view selling pot as another revenue maker like the Indian casinos.

However, do people really want 7-Eleven to sell marijuana cigarettes?

The 420 bacchanal that occurred in Denver on Easter Sunday with thousands celebrating the smoking of marijuana seemed like a live horror movie.  While smoking pot in public remains illegal, it did not deter most who now feel emboldened to flaunt their lifestyle while authorities turned a blind eye (only 47 citations were issued).

Bad behavior is the new good behavior.

It’s not enough for pot smokers to continue their illegal habits in the privacy of their own homes.   No, they want everyone to accept their lifestyle, and to shove it in everyone else’s face.  The Selfie generation makes the Me generation look philanthropic in comparison.

Legalizing marijuana, no matter the 21 years old minimum age requirement, gives off the message that it is safe.   Never mind that in March a college student jumped to his death from a fourth floor balcony in Denver after eating a marijuana cookie, his death due to “marijuana intoxication.”

Allowing another mind-altering drug legal status pulls the rug out from under decent parents who devote their lives instilling solid values in their children.

Once marijuana is legalized, how do schools’ anti-drug campaigns respond, and what changes, if any, will occur?

Currently, Glendale Unified has four middle and 5 high schools that have a Tobacco-Use Prevention Education (TUPE) program funded through 1988’s Proposition 99 cigarette tax. 

The District’s Assistant Director of Student Support Services Dr. Scott Anderle said that if marijuana ends up legalized, it would still remain illegal for minors so the same anti-drug campaign that is available in schools today such as Red Ribbon Week in October along with TUPE would continue.  

I’ve seen students in my classroom who are high by the redness of their eyes or by the lack of clarity in their thinking.   We don’t need more kids stoned.  

It is not much of an extension to think that those people growing up in the permissive 1960s and 1970s have passed down to their children (who then pass it down to their children) the lax attitude not just towards drug use but other moral issues.

Those who have made cigarette smokers the lepers of the 21st century should likewise oppose pot smokers.    All the things non-smokers do not like about cigarette smoke still apply to marijuana:  second-hand smoke, ashes and butts on the ground, and don’t forget the carcinogens.

Referencing this column’s title, it is a jungle out there and I increasingly feel powerless counteracting the nastiness that permeates our culture.

Over the years, with the help of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Maya Angelou, I’ve tried teaching students the importance of human compassion and people treating one another with a common decency.

Where is the organized effort to stand up for the other half who are not in favor of legalizing marijuana?

It seems that law-abiding people have to retreat, stay home, shut the doors, and keep the decaying social mores away.  The pot smokers are coming, the pot smokers are coming.

Leave a comment Posted on anti-social behavior, Public Education, students, teaching

Eyewitnesses to Teacher Scuffle with Student Become Eyewitlesses

A video went viral last week of Santa Monica High School teacher/coach Mark Black restraining a student in his classroom.

When the public first saw the video, reaction was negative about the teacher.

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District superintendent Sandra Lyon issued a statement calling the event “utterly alarming” and labeling “the kind of physical restraint used by the teacher [as] unacceptable.”   She further promised the family of the student involved “support that they may need.” 

Then details emerged that the student allegedly had marijuana and had first attacked Coach Black with a box cutter.

Public opinion turned, viewing Black as a hero (a collective voice saying, “Finally, a teacher unafraid of putting an unruly student in his place”) and Lyon as a villain for hastily condemning the Coach without knowing all the facts.

Worse than Supt. Lyon’s rush to judgment was her rush to side with the student and offer his family assistance.   One wonders, why offer to defend an alleged criminal over a long-time, highly regarded employee?

Due to the public backlash, some calling for her resignation, Supt. Lyon released a second statement days later, softening her tone towards the teacher, “In no way was our action to place the teacher on paid leave a determination of wrongful conduct.”

On Tuesday, the 18-year-old was charged with five misdemeanor counts including threatening a school official, possessing a box cutter as well as marijuana. A second student, aged 16, was also charged with battery.

But there is one more antagonist in this story and that is the group of students who stood motionless, watching their teacher struggle with an out of control peer for 58 seconds without doing anything.

Yes, we don’t know what preceded or followed the video segment.   We do know that the video segment is 58 seconds long, and when you watch the video, it seems to last longer than a minute. 

Students had enough time to take out their phones and videotape the incident (two other student phones are seen in the frame also taping it), but no time to do something, to act, to help their teacher.  Cold-blooded inaction.  Forget about physically intervening because that sometimes can worsen a situation.   But not a single teen can be heard on the 58 seconds even calling for help.

These young people are not eyewitnesses but “eyewitlesses.”

One might dispute this charge of apathy by pointing to the outpouring of support for Coach Black with the 22,000 likes on a Facebook page or the nearly 9,000 signatures on a change.org petition.

However, anonymously clicking a button on a computer in the comfort of one’s home is not the same type of courage as doing something about an event happening in front of your eyes.

Last month was the 50th anniversary of the murder of Kitty Genovese, the Queens, New York 28-year-old woman whose screams in the middle of the night were heard by dozens of people for 30 minutes without anyone coming to her aid as her killer stabbed her in 3 separate attacks before ending her life.   This is where the phrase “I didn’t want to get involved” originated and where neighbors not helping neighbors became the theme of city life.

What happened last week is not of the same magnitude as the Genovese case, but human behavior remains unchanged.   Those kids did not want to get involved.

In recent years schools have had to deal with lockdowns whenever an outside predator invades a school campus.   This story highlights another kind of lockdown that no drill can defend against, and that is a lockdown of the human soul.

Leave a comment Posted on anti-social behavior, Justin Bieber, students

Leave it to Bieber!

When working with teenagers, I try to keep up with the latest trends so that I can namedrop a Kardashian or crack a joke about Instagram to let them know that this old man teacher does have an awareness of youth culture.

So not only I do know who Justin Bieber is, but I know how his arrest last week in Miami impacted his fans, my students.

His name has now been added to the long list of celebrities gone astray.   The only real surprise was how long it took the tween superstar to fall from grace.  Next on the hit parade will be his somber mea culpas (too bad Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey no longer have their post-Oscars specials) offering regrets over his illegal actions.  

To the Beliebers (the term coined for Bieber followers), Justin can do no wrong.  I’m not sure if they understand the severity of his actions.

What decent person allegedly drag races 60 mph in a 30 mph zone with an expired license while under the influence of alcohol and drugs (did Bieber already forget last November’s death of “Fast and Furious” actor Paul Walker in a car going over 100 miles per hour?), uses profanity towards police officers while resisting arrest, then smiles for his mug shot as if it is for the high school yearbook, and waves to cheering fans upon leaving jail?   

Instead of concealing himself beneath his hoodie, he uses his exit as a photo-op.   Such brazenness would not exist if Bieber were an average citizen, but being in the public eye fuels the blatant lawlessness that his adorers view as a badge of honor.

Of course, this raises the real problem of this latest example of celebrities running amok:  there is no shame anymore in our society.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines shame as “a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done something wrong.”

When I walk around campus I regularly hear students swearing like sailors, dropping f-bombs as if they get paid to use them.    There is no attempt at cleaning up their vocabulary when a grown-up walks by because they feel no shame in using such language nor do they fear any repercussions.  Welcome to the 21st century.

Who knows how much of Justin’s upbringing, born to teenaged parents who were never married, marred his value judgment.   Like father, like son, both have their arms fully tattooed.  And, as the New York Daily News reported, Jeremy Bieber may be an enabler in his son’s shenanigans, apparently “partying with his famous son” at nightclubs, participating “in the SUV caravan that allegedly blocked traffic” for the illegal drag racing.  

When a parent is acting like a teenaged delinquent, the child has no guidance.   I guess his folks are simply “leaving it to Bieber” to figure things out.

I used to teach Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter about Hester Prynne who, as a result of an adulterous relationship, must wear a large red letter ‘A’ upon her chest as punishment so everyone in towns knows what she did. 

By the end of the book, Hester actually uses the public ostracism to transform herself into an upright individual, the ‘A’ standing for angel.  Shame can lead to positive change.

Some of my students say that while they don’t condone his behavior, they may still buy his music.  That’s too bad.  Until he cleans up his act, we should shun entertainers like Bieber who feels no shame in behaving badly.   Just don’t ask him to tattoo a letter to his chest as punishment; chances are he’s already done so.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, students, teaching

Later in the Day, Not Earlier in the Summer

Glendale schools opened on Aug. 12, the earliest start date in history, doing away with the traditional September-through-June school calendar that hasn’t been all that traditional for a while now. The back-to-school ads that once appeared in newspapers and on television before Labor Day now surface after the Fourth of July.

The rationale behind this “August creep” is for students to finish the fall semester before winter break, and for students taking Advanced Placement tests in May to receive more instructional days earlier in order to maximize their success.

In others words, the school calendar is skewed toward secondary students who have semester finals, and in particular, the minority of students who take AP tests. For students in kindergarten through fifth grade, there is no reason.

The argument of having students take their fall semester finals before winter break so that they don’t forget the material while on vacation isn’t sound. Students used to come back after vacation for a couple of weeks of school and then take their finals.

Now, they come back after one week off for Thanksgiving for two weeks before finals; not much different than before.

The notion of providing students more time to prepare for AP tests so that they produce higher results is also not valid.

Students this year actually have one less school day before the May AP exams than last year. While the school year began one week earlier, there are additional days when school is not in session before AP testing: two extra days during Thanksgiving and three extra days during winter break.

Carly Lindauer of the college board said that she is unaware of any “evidence to show that simply starting school earlier, and having two to three more weeks of instruction, automatically leads to higher AP exam scores.”

And what about the energy costs to run air conditioning during August, which has an average of about 11 days that reach 90 degrees or more, based on Weatherbase statistics?

Notice how hot and muggy it has been this week.

The district frequently sends out emails to staff about turning off lights, copiers and computers. Yet the amount of money it costs to run the air conditioning all day at all of its schools must exceed the savings of turning off coffee makers. I was unable to get a district official to comment on this.

Where I work, there are older buildings that use a chiller that has to be turned on as early as 4 a.m.; otherwise, classrooms will not be properly cooled that day. If students can’t focus on a teacher in a stuffy room, who cares how many school days there are in August?

Tina Bruno, executive director of the Coalition for a Traditional School Year, said that evidence suggests that “states with the highest cumulative scores on college entrance exams, Advanced Placement testing and the National Assessment of Educational Progress share some of the latest school start dates in the nation.”

The quality of the instruction and parent involvement have more to do with kids doing better in school than spending more time in school in August does.

If school districts care about what’s best for kids, then perhaps an examination of the start of the school day, rather than the start of the school year, is where their focus should be because more studies show the academic benefits of starting school after 9 a.m., rather than starting in early August.

1 Comment Posted on Public Education, teaching

Opening Day Fatigue

My throat is throbbing and sore.  My feet are achy.  I’m basically a walking zombie.  Why do I feel this way? 

It’s the first day of the school year.

This is my 24th year of teaching.  And every opening day I have to brace myself for the amount of energy I’ll need to pull the day off.  I only have one hour to do much work with each group of 35 students.

The first day with students sets the tone for the rest of the 179 days.  My tradition is to shake each of my student’s hands as they enter the classroom, look them in their eyes and greet them with a smile and warm greeting, Welcome to Sophomore English.  

I constantly walk up and down the rows of students.  I want them to feel special in my room and to know that I expect high standards both from them and from me.  There’s not much time to do much work.  And I intend to make the most of the precious minutes I have with these young minds.

Teaching can be easy; teaching well is not.  I’ve always said that what is remarkable is not that there are bad teachers in America, but that there are exceptional ones.   There are few rewards in the teaching profession.  To make a difference in young people’s lives is a trait that one either has or doesn’t have.  You can’t teach passion in teacher training classes.

Now, if I can only muster enough energy to play catch with my sons.