Need I say more?
Click on the link to read Who Said Grammar Isn’t Important?
Click on the link to read The Resistance Against Teaching Grammar
Click on the link to read Captain Phonics to the Rescue!
Click on the link to read the Phonics debate.
Why Spelling is Important
August 23, 2012Police Want Schools to Install a Gun Cupboard Next to the Broom Cupboard
August 23, 2012
Police have requested that high schools install locked gun safes just in case a shooter appears on campus:
Plainfield Police asked the district to install locked gun safes to keep a rifle and important information at several schools in the event there’s a shooter on campus, according to Plainfield School District 202.
The safe could include a “long gun, such as an AR 15 rifle,” according to the request, and would be stored in the offices of school police officers, who would be the only ones with access.
The request was made for Plainfield Central Campus, Plainfield East, Plainfield North and Plainfield Academy. Plainfield South High School will not be included.
“Unfortunately, in today’s society active shooter incidents are no longer something we see on TV,” Police Chief John Konopek said in a statement. “They are reality.”
Click on the link to read Valedictorian Given “Hell” by Precious School
Click on the link to read The Worst School Rule I Have Ever Come Across
Click on the link to read Eight-Year Old’s Gift To Teacher is a Gun!
Click on the link to read Kids as Young as 3 are Getting Tutors
The Dog Eat Dog Style of Education
August 23, 2012
Classrooms are increasingly becoming a case of a battle of the fittest. The pressure to deliver individual achievement on curriculum benchmarks and standardized testing have not helped. More and more we are seeing classroom relationships fracture and a strong preference for achievement over effort.
A friend of mine discussed an issue he was having with his son’s school. He told me that his son’s teacher is rewarding some of his students for reaching a certain goal. His son, among others, are excluded from a field trip because they didn’t fully rote learn the expected material. He tried his best, but didn’t get there by the deadline. He is in Grade 4 and is already being excluded for not meeting benchmarks.
When I was doing my teaching rounds I encountered a scenario in the music room where a child had disturbed the class. The teacher was considering punishing the child by excluding him from the next activity. The teacher decided to ask the class to determine this child’s fate. The teacher gave them two options. The first was to give the boy one more chance, the second was to exclude him. I watched in amazement as the entire class voted to prevent him from taking part in the activity. The class were taught to be ruthless towards each other so that’s what they did.
When will our educators realise that a child cannot achieve their potential when they are not valued for their efforts or respected by their peers? All this talk of ‘child centered teaching’ and ‘teacher centered teaching’ is off the mark. I prefer, what I call, ‘classroom centered teaching‘ – where the needs of the group necessitate the style in which I teach. According to this method, it is my job as my first priority to ensure that each child feels valued for who they are, what skills they have and how they are treated by their peers.
This means that when there is a disagreement among students, I do not hesitate to use teaching time to work things out. The time I invest into the social environment in my class has a strong impact on academic progress. Those of you that have witnessed a rift between students or groups of students in the classroom may have noticed how hard it is to get the class to focus on classwork when the playground politics is unresolved.
Whilst standardised testing doesn’t consider a child’s effort or the qualities and interests of a child, I can think of nothing more important. When a teacher decides to treat half the class at the expense of the other half, they are anointing winners and losers.
My students are all winners.
Click on the link to read Problem Kids, Suspensions and Revolving Doors
Click on the link to read The Solution to the Disruptive Student Has Arrived: Body Language Classes
Click on the link to read When Something Doesn’t Work – Try Again Until it Does
Click on the link to read Teachers Should Stop Blaming Parents and Start Acting
Perhaps Teachers Should Just Wear a Target Sign
August 23, 2012
Is it appropriate for an educator to throw food at a student? Absolutely not! Even when the student threw it at them first? That doesn’t make it any more acceptable.
But should a teacher lose their job over such an incident? It depends.
Especially when the student who initially threw the food gets off with nothing more than a suspension.
If you fire a teacher over retaliating then you must expel the student for initiating. You can’t send the message that students can throw things at vulnerable teachers and get nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Remember, students are being suspended nowadays for nothing more than wearing the incorrect school uniform.
This story tells us that we can tacitly encourage our students to take aim at their teacher without any fear of a lasting punishment or a retaliatory response by the teacher:
A high school assistant principal has resigned following allegations that she threw a hamburger at a student in May.
Patricia Whitney, assistant principal at West Haven High School in New Hampshire, stepped down Monday. She was placed on administrative leave in May after she reportedly had a disagreement with a student when Whitney told the teen she was not supposed to be in the cafeteria at the time, WFSB reported. In response, the student threw part of her hamburger at the assistant principal, and Whitney allegedly picked it up and threw it back at the student.
The student was suspended, and district officials launched an investigation into the incident. The school board agreed unanimously Monday to accept Whitney’s resignation.
“I’m pleased at how it turned out,” Superintendent Neil Cavallaro told the New Hampshire Register. “I think it’s best for both parties to move on.”
Students, however, said Whitney got along well at the school.
“She’s very nice, she comes out of nowhere, she gives people great advice, she helped me a lot,” one student told WFSB.
I am not defending the actions of Ms. Whitney. What she did was clearly wrong. But this story has wider implications. It says that teachers, in the wrong environment are moving targets just waiting to be the victim of the next food fight.
Click here to read ’5 Tips for Stressed Teachers’.
Click here to read ‘The Overwhelming Responsibilities of the Modern Teacher’
Karen Klein Gives Back
August 22, 2012
Well done to Karen Klein, the bullied bus monitor, who has put some of her donated earnings into an anti-bullying foundation. There were a lot of rumblings from sections of society about the extent of her earnings as a result of the notorious bus incident. Hopefully, the negativity surrounding Ms. Klein can be put to rest:
A bus monitor made famous after video of her being bullied by students went viral in June is using her experience to make a difference.
Karen Klein has received more than $700,000 in donations from around the world.
And she says she’s using some of that to launch an anti-bullying foundation.
“We’re hoping to get other people to put money in it, and this is going to be for education for people that have been bullied, for people that just — for people that need it for this situation,” says Klein.
Though Klein hasn’t finalized the details of her foundation yet, she took part Sunday in the “Strike Out Bullying Ball Game” at Frontier Field in Rochester, New York.
She threw out the opening pitch for the minor league Rochester Red Wings.
The team is working with local organizations to teach fans about the dangers of bullying.
Click on the link to read Teachers Who Rely on Free Speech Shouldn’t be Teachers
Click on the link to read Punishments Handed to Children Who Bullied Bus Monitor. Now What?
Click on the link to read The Kids Who Bullied Their School Bus Monitor Shouldn’t be Punished: Nelson
Click on the link to read Video of a Bus Monitor Being Bullied by Middle School Children Goes Viral
Our Pay Isn’t the Problem
August 22, 2012
Teachers have more to complain about than their pay. Sure, it would be nice to get paid more, but let’s face it, our nation can’t afford a substantial pay rise and we are not being completely ripped off. No teacher enters into the profession with the intention of making a sizeable income. We know that we will always be paid less than the ideal amount.
It is the conditions we face that we should be most concerned about. The obsession with changing curriculums every two years without any apparent reason, the increase in planning paperwork that robs us of time to devote to other aspects of our job and the crazy overregulation which has shifted the focus from quality education to lawsuit damage control.
Rita Panahi is right to point out that a teacher’s pay is no reason to strike:
Why, one wonders, do presumably intelligent people study for four years to enter a profession where they find the pay so unacceptable?
It’s akin to buying a house near an airport then complaining about aircraft noise.
If money is what motivates you then teaching is probably not the job for you.
Higher pay comes with greater scrutiny but teachers have fought hard against attempts to link their wages to their performance.
Under the current system, which the Australian Education Union desperately wants to retain, almost all teachers automatically move up the pay scale every year regardless of their ability, effort or suitability for the job.
This absurdity helps to explain a 2009 survey of teachers which found that nine out of 10 of them don’t believe their school would acknowledge improvements in the quality of their work, while seven out of 10 believed their consistently underperforming colleagues were in no danger of losing their jobs.
Actually, despite the persistent whingeing we’ve grown used to from teachers, they are hardly surviving on the breadline.
A first year teacher can expect to earn around $57,000, which is more than graduate paramedics, accountants and substantially more than nurses. This can rise to more than $90,000 at leading teacher level.
Not bad for a job with enviable hours and holidays of which most of us can only dream.
Click on the link to read If Teachers Were Paid More I Wouldn’t Have Become One
Click on the link to read “Better Pay Leads to Better teachers”: Prove it!
Click on the link to read The Overwhelming Responsibilies of the Modern Teacher
The Daycare Centre With a Boxing Ring
August 21, 2012
“No pinching, only punching” – sounds like advice a boxing coach would give. It certainly doesn’t sound like an appropriate thing for a daycare worker to say:
Three employees of a Delaware daycare were arrested Monday after police say a ‘disturbing’ cell phone video allegedly captured two toddlers participating in an organized fistfight.
The Hands of Our Future LLC Daycare in Dover also had its license suspended pending a hearing, CBS 3 in Philadelphia reported.
Three of the center’s employees — Tiana Harris, 19; Estefania Myers, 21; and Lisa Parker, 47 — are accused of forcing two 3-year-olds to strike one another in the head and face repeatedly last March.
“It’s shocking, disturbing and infuriating to watch this video that shows the two children whaling on each other,” Dover Police Capt. Tim Stump told The News Journal. “These are our most precious cargo and to have adults responsible for caring for their well -being to have them behave as such is sickening.”While the footage was not released publicly, police said one of the children could be heard yelling, “He’s pinching me,” and then a worker responding, “No pinching, only punching,” CBS reported.“Clearly one of the children is crying and does not want to continue on and he is pushed back into the fray by one of the adults,” Stump told the station.
It’s frightening to read about some of the individuals entrusted with the care of our precious children.
Click on the link to read Child Commits Suicide Due to Alleged Systematic Bullying and Inept Teachers
Click on the link to read The Cure for Suicide Isn’t Another Educational Program
Click on the link to read Sick Teachers Need to be Arrested not Fired!
Is there Wisdom in Making Students Repeat the Year?
August 21, 2012
It is interesting to read that after shelving their policy of holding students back, schools are starting to revisit the notion of making students repeat the year.
Whilst I’m not an advocate of such a policy and up until now research seems to suggest if anything, it will do more harm to a child than good, I am open to it as an option. There is simply no point moving certain children up a grade. It is unfair to a child to be promoted to a grade based solely on psychological impact rather than academic necessity. I wonder whether the past research has proven so negative against the notion of holding back students because most schools do not have the support structure to make such a move accommodating and palatable for children.
The shift in thinking has come about, partly because recent research into this area has been far more supportive of retention policies:
Thousands of third-graders may have a sense of déjà vu on the first day of school this year: The number of states that require third-graders to be held back if they can’t read increased to 13 in the last year.
Retention policies are controversial because the research is mixed for students who are held back, but a report published on August 16th by the Brookings Institution suggests that at least for younger children who struggle with reading, repeating a grade may be beneficial.
The report, which examined a decade-old retention policy in Florida, was authored by Martin West of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He argues that “the decision to retain a student is typically made based on subtle considerations involving ability, maturity, and parental involvement that researchers are unable to incorporate into their analyses. As a result, the disappointing outcomes of retained students may well reflect the reasons they were held back in the first place rather than the consequences of being retained.”
West comes to the following conclusion:
“Retained students continue to perform markedly better than their promoted peers when tested at the same grade level and, assuming they are as likely to graduate high school, stand to benefit from an additional year of instruction.”
There is no doubt that the psychological impact of the child should be our number one priority, but I believe that good, supportive schools can help effectively transition children to make repeating a year a far more positive experience.
Click on the link to read Teaching Children to Deal with Embarrassment
Click on the link to read What our System Does to Children Without Attention Spans
Click on the link to read Lessons Children Can Learn from the London Olympics
Click on the link to read A Class Full of Class Captains
Top 10 Math Apps for Children
August 21, 2012
Courtesy of teacherswithapps.com:
iDevBooks – Educational Math Apps, by Esa Helttula, are par excellence when it comes to educational tools! This suite of apps are a must-have for any school using mobile devices, as well as for parents who want to encourage mastery of math concepts for their children. This collection of 16 iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad educational math apps are easy to use and offer intuitive interfaces. The iDevBooks math apps are used by schools, parents, and students worldwide. They are also popular in special education.
Jungle Time, Jungle Coins & Jungle Fractions!, by Andrew Short, of Jungle Education – We still need to learn to tell time, utilize money, and understand fractions. These three essential concepts are not easy to teach and harder to learn. Lots of hands on practice is needed and Andrew Short has got the “lots of” covered. All three games offer five levels of challenge, they start with the rudimentary concept and gradually progress over several grade levels. A MUST HAVE!
Motion Math: Hungry Fish, by Motion Math, is another MUST HAVE math game! Mental math is such a key component for success in building a strong foundation in math, and building on this early on helps all other math concepts fall into place with relative ease. Our students were enthralled by this simple, yet brilliant game – and they were polishing up on their number skills with smiles on their faces! Brilliant job Motion Math!
Math Evolve, by InterAction Education and Zephyr Games, has really pushed the envelope. This app introduces a revolutionary “video-like” gaming app for practicing math facts. One of our students called it, “The Call of Duty,” of math games. Adam Coccari, teacher and creator of Math Evolve, sums it up best when he says, “Achieving success in all levels of math starts with having a solid foundation in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.” Mastering these facts takes time and lots of practice, Math Evolve has taken care of all of that in an enormously engaging format.
Operation Math, by Spinlight Studios, is sizzling with excitement! The mission is possible with this new app, which grabs kids attention immediately and keeps them engaged on their quest to do good. The goal here is to help destroy Dr. Odd and practice your basic math facts along the way. In order to open the series of locked doors, you must perform either addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or any combination of operations. You can first train in the infinite Base10 Training Room, where your performance will be tracked. When you are up for the challenge, you choose a mission.
Sums Stacker, by Carstens Studios Inc, is an amazing app. It incorporates critical thinking, problem solving, and strategic planning skills, all while you’re “playing” with math concepts, with great gaming style! Carstens’ says this about math, “It wasn’t until after my school years, that I became a lover of math. I managed to slip through all of those classes, text books, and homework assignments, without learning one of the most important math lessons of all – math is fun!” This app challenges your reasoning, your number sense, your addition and subtraction facts, and your knowledge of coin values, and oh yes, reading, if you so desire.
iTooch MATH Grade 5, by eduPAD, is a terrific app that covers a lot of ground conept-wise and shouldn’t be limited to just fifth graders. This app combines a no-frills approach to content while still providing the user with an exciting learning experience. The mascot is adorable and keeps kids on task with lots of encouragement and there is a lesson summary available when needed. iTooch MATH now has grades three through five available.
Oh No! Fractions, by di Luna, came recently to our attention, but if a colleague hadn’t said, “It’s tough for kids to grasp fractions”, it may have slipped through the cracks. Luckily, it didn’t and we are here to sing its praises.Oh No! Fractions is as simple as it gets. This gorgeous app lets the user decide whether the given fraction is less or greater than another fraction. After the child has decided and chosen less or greater, it asks ”I’m Sure” and then “Prove It” where a visual representation of the two fractions is shown and manipulated by the child.
TallyTots, by Spinlight Studio, is a simple yet invaluable learning app to teach youngsters number concepts. The intent of the app is to teach your child number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, and how to count to 20 – all while having a delightful time. When the app starts, you are taken to a screen that has all 20 numbers. Your child chooses the number they want and the counting begins. Each number is outlined as it is counted up the number line.
KidgitZ, by TapDream Arts, is the second in a series of mental math challenges for kids of all ages. Addictive, it is! Students were so engaged that they never even heard the bell ring… and the next period was lunch and recess! Several students came looking for me and my iPad to continue playing during extra help. Their responses were all similar, with mentions of how hard it was to stop playing this AWESOME game!
Click on the link to read Maths is a Very Poorly Taught Subject
Click on the link to read The Obstacle Course that is Teaching Maths
Click on the link to read Girls and Maths
Click on the link to read Putting Your Children to Sleep With Math
Valedictorian Given “Hell” by Precious School
August 20, 2012
Some schools are so out of touch with society it’s not funny:
A STRAIGHT-A student in the US has reportedly been denied her high school diploma for saying the word “hell” in her valedictory speech.
Kaitlin Nootbaar graduated from Oklahoma’s Prague High School back in May of this year and was named valedictorian.
In her graduating speech which was inspired by the film Eclipse: The Twilight Saga, she accidentally said the word “hell” instead of “heck”- a move which her father claims has cost her dearly.
“Her quote was, when she first started school she wanted to be a nurse, then a veterinarian and now that she was getting closer to graduation people would ask her what do you want to do and she said ‘How the h*** do I know? I’ve changed my mind so many times,” David Nootbaar told local TV station KFor.
The audience laughed and she was given a round of applause at the end of her speech. But when she went to pick up her high school diploma this week, she was told by the principal she will not get in until she writes a letter of apology.
Her father is furious with the school and said administrators have no legal right to refuse to release the diploma as his daughter was a straight-A student.
Click on the link to read The Worst School Rule I Have Ever Come Across
Click on the link to read Only Closed-Minded Schools Block YouTube
Click on the link to read Experts Push for Kids to Start Driving at 12
Click on the link to read Kids as Young as 3 are Getting Tutors
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