learning

Leave a comment Posted on class reunion, students

A Reunion to Remember

Attending class reunions is not on my bucket list which is why I’ve never appeared at one.  Since I had few friends in high school, why would I want to see people 10, 25, 50 years later with whom I never interacted with in the first place?  

However, when a former student of mine reached out to me with an invitation to her class’s 10th year reunion, I said, “yes.”    This wouldn’t be a reunion of people I went to school with, it would be seeing former students who are now approaching 30 years old. 

I have always enjoyed receiving emails and texts from those who shared a part of their youth in my classoom. Often they’d come by during their first year in college, a time when they struggle with the transition of becoming more independent and desire to return to familiar surroundings. 

Typically, it has been former journalism students who have remained in contact in my retirement years since I formed more personal bonds with those who worked on the school newspaper.  And Melody, the young lady who organized the Class of 2015’s party, was one of those students.

The event was held in a bar/billiards establishment.  My wife agreed to accompany me to ensure I’d have at least one person to talk with.  We walked past the billiard tables to a secluded bar area in the back and there was Melody greeting us.  At first, I was surprised how few people had gathered, but by the time the evening was over, nearly 40 people were present; I was one of a handful of teachers.  It was nice to see these former colleagues, but catching up with my students was what made the evening special for me. 

As student after student approached me, I could still detect the younger faces in the more mature visages now in front of me.  A couple of them have married and one recently had her first child.

The highlight of the evening was hearing from them how much they remembered about my classes and the positive impact it made on their lives.   As I have often said, these moments make a teacher’s career feel well spent.  Once students leave our classrooms, we rarely get a chance to see how they are doing years later.  I’m glad I went. Us older teachers need those moments.

Leave a comment Posted on California Commission on Teacher Credentialing

Get Ready for Less Qualified Teachers

This year, over 17,000 teaching credentials will be issued in California, not enough to fill about 25,000 vacancies.  In order to encourage more people to go into teaching, a new state law was passed in 2024 allowing anyone with a bachelor’s degree to get accepted into a teacher credential program.   It is no longer necessary to pass a test to assess a candidate’s basic knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic.  It is no longer necessary to have a minimum 3.0 GPA.

California Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s Executive Director Mary Vixie Sandy said that “now is a great time for anyone with a qualifying bachelor’s degree” to become a teacher.

Why is allowing less qualified people into the profession viewed as a good thing?

Instead of fixing what ails the teaching profession, namely a lack of prestige, competitive salaries and support from administration and parents, the state is lowering the qualifications to attract more people into the classroom.  If anything, higher minimum requirements is the first step in ensuring only qualified people be allowed to teach.

If this approach were applied to the medical field, with an influx of doctors who could not otherwise meet basic requirements suddenly earning medical degrees, they’d be an uproar about health care.

For some reason, when it comes to education, there isn’t any pushback that more inexperienced, less academic people will be teaching young people.  But it gets worse.

To meet the demands of the teacher shortage, school districts are hiring people on an emergency credential that pays them a full salary without taking the two years of coursework and student teaching that traditional candidates complete.

Even those teachers who do the full credential coursework and earn a credential aren’t destined to be effective teachers.

I know this first-hand from my work as a university field supervisor who visits schools where the teachers in training work.  My job is to observe a candidate teach between three to six lessons over an 18-week semester, then evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

More important than someone like me is the mentor teacher who observes the teacher candidate every day, reviewing their lessons and offering suggestions.   It’s crucial that the mentors are highly qualified.  Unfortunately, many are not. 

College credential programs don’t have the luxury of vetting mentors due to how few classroom teachers show interest in that role.   That’s because not enough excellent teachers are willing to hand over a couple of their classes to a novice.  Often, those who become mentors are those who are looking for a lighter workload.

That’s why the evaluation forms from the mentors may not be an accurate assessment of a student teacher’s abilities.  After all, how can an ineffective teacher help a young teacher be effective? 

I often find myself assigning higher marks for candidates based on the inflated evaluation of the mentors.  It is difficult for someone like me to hold higher standards since the mentor is seeing so much more of the candidate.  How can I justify lower marks when I’m only observing six lessons, while the mentor observes 90 lessons?

My job observing student teachers for the past four years is frequently disappointing and sometimes depressing.  Still, each semester I meet that one young teacher who has a knack for working with kids, a desire to help children with their academics and their lives.  That’s what keeps me going, a flame of faith that for some students, their future will be bright.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, schools, students

There was a special ed teacher who was dressed as a clown—literally.

You read that headline right. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ll say it again.

I knew I was in trouble when I walked into the classroom and spotted a special education teacher dressed up as a clown.

This is just one bizarre sight I’ve seen in my job as a university supervisor of secondary school student teachers that gives me pause about how far standards have fallen in public schools since I retired four years ago.

When the pandemic forced the temporary closure of schools, officials tiptoed around accountability, treating students with kid gloves for fear of triggering mental health wildfires.

Initially, such a policy of not failing students in 2020 who didn’t turn in work or show up for class seemed compassionate.   But the pandemic has been over for a while now, and returning to normalcy doesn’t have a timetable yet. Students are taking advantage of how the system is babying them and society will pay the price with fewer educated people.

If you read about how high school graduation rates have increased in recent years, don’t believe what you are reading.  Schools are handing out diplomas like flyers shoved underneath cars’ wiper blades.  Diplomas are no longer proof that a student has learned anything.

Parents are assuming their children are productive during the school day, but much of their time in classrooms is wasted.  They would be shocked to see the what’s happening. 

Walk into any classroom and you would be more likely to observe a babysitter not an educator.

Teachers seem paralyzed in monitoring students.  Students and even staff members (see “teacher dressed as a clown”) are doing whatever makes them feel good.

  • Kids arriving to class never once removing the backpack off their shoulders as if ready to exit the class before their seat is even warm.
  • Several wear over the ear headphones or in the ear devices, some cover their full head with hats or hoodies (which hide the devices).
  • A constant flow of kids leaving to use the restroom, transferring the pass to the next one like a baton in a relay race, never once forgetting to bring their phones though frequently forgetting to bring their materials to class. 

And all of this while the teacher is up front delivering a lesson that clearly is not reaching its intended audience.

Once I saw a girl—presto, change-o—pull out a handful of McDonald’s fries out of her bag, pass some to her seatmate, then drop the rest down her mouth without detection of the teacher.  The smell alone was a distraction.  This magic trick occurred when students were reading aloud The Diary of Anne Frank.  How could a student concentrate on this sensitive material when all her brain power is consumed with not getting caught doing something that is wrong? 

When I checked with the student teacher about this matter, his response was “I have to choose my battles.”

If he is willing to overlook this, just what battle is he willing to fight for?

Teachers have waved the white flag in terms of controlling students’ addiction to technology. 

Within seconds of a teacher asking a student to leave her phone alone, her fingers are quickly back touching the device.  One student asked her teacher to take away her phone because she didn’t have enough self-control to do it herself.

Right in front of me a girl was facetiming with another student in another classroom.  That meant two classrooms had students running amok.

Kids using laptops are quite adept at clicking from one screen to a next just as a teacher approaches.  Such flipping behavior scrambles their minds resulting in an inability to focus on school work.

Not helping the situation is that some schools have made it a policy to have bowls of free food such as bananas and cheerios placed near the door so kids can grab something before sitting down, thus encouraging eating during class. One time an adult aide went around and picked up all of their food trash . . . for 10th graders.  Not only do they not have to pay for the food, they also don’t have to clean up after themselves.  What’s going to happen to these kids when they will be on their own?

The one lesson students have learned in recent times is that there are no consequences, ramifications or penalties for disrespecting school—they are in charge of the classroom. 

When I point out to student teachers the importance of setting high expectations and training students to be in learning-mode, I get bewildered looks as if I’m asking them something that they are not only powerless to do, but, worse, disinterested in doing.

To them, I appear as an anachronism dressed in a sports jacket, dress pants and dress shoes, so whatever advice I may pass along disappears after our debriefing; clearly, whatever I have to offer is “old-school.”

For college students thinking about becoming teachers, the first pre-requisite should be to visit a classroom for an hour.  It may open up their eyes NOT to enter the profession.

Based on what I’ve been observing as a university supervisor, I sleep well at night assured that my decision to retire was not pre-mature.