Last month I wrote about Lynden Dorval, a teacher suspended after 35 years of service for daring to challenge a moronic rule that says you can’t give a zero grade. This includes situations where the students fail to complete or even give in their assignments.
Today I read that the suspension may well turn into a sacking. It seems that principal Ron Bradley isn’t thrilled that Dorval didn’t leave any lesson plans for the substitute teacher. Who in their right mind would expect a suspended teacher to provide the school with lesson plans?
Tell me Mr. Bradley doesn’t sound like an infant fighting over a crayon in this exchange:
Lynden Dorval was told in a letter he received last week from Ron Bradley, principal of Ross Sheppard High School, that he is facing termination.
After criticizing Dorval for not returning unmarked exams, assignments and lab reports after he was suspended — and not leaving lesson plans for his replacement — Bradley informs the physics and science teacher that his job is on the line.
“I find it utterly reprehensible that you would sit on these exams and assignments for weeks without alerting the school,” Bradley wrote in the letter, which is dated June 18th.
“Your behavior is unbefitting a professional. It is also ironic in light of your very public pronouncements about your concern for the welfare of your students.
“Your habitual refusal to obey lawful orders, your repeated insubordination, and your obvious neglect of duty force me to consider recommending termination of your teaching contract with Edmonton Public Schools.”
Out of ten, I give Bradley’s handling of this situation a …. zero!
Education achievement in the U.S. has fallen to the middle of the pack among developed nations, according to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which ranked the knowledge of 15-year-olds in 70 countries. The U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics.
Is the American style worth implementing in my own classroom? Do American teachers even know what the “American style” is?
I have just watched the second installment of the How toUnmake a Bully trilogy with my students. The second film focusses on the topical issue of Bystanders. It has always been difficult for teachers to motivate bystanders to act. The standard anti-bullying programs and resources don’t measure up to this brilliant piece of film-making.
It only took twelve days for teacher Mike Feurstein and a cast of elementary students from Glendaal Elementary School to shoot this movie. From the extraordinary shot of a child with cafeteria tray in hand being rejected from every table he tries to sit at to the chilling scene where a bystander gets the courage to speak out against a bully, this film speaks to children in a way other resources fail to.
I watched the film with my students and they were enthralled, They even gave it a standing ovation during the closing credits. This is a tribute to Mike’s well drawn characters and his use of comic and superhero references. The idea that children have the very same super powers they pretend to posses during role play situations is a stroke of genius.
Here is a movie that is perceptive, knowing, vibrant, beautifully constructed and shot and will get your students reflecting about their experiences, behaviour and future choices. Throw away your old tired resources and bring these films into your classroom.
(I suggest you show them the first film in the series, How to Unmake a Bully, before you show them Bystanders – How to UnMake A Bully, Volume 2 ).
If children are going to great pains to hide their online activity from their parents then it stand to reason that parents are well within their rights to monitor what their children are doing. Some will argue it’s spying, I believe it’s being responsible and looking out for the child’s welfare.
We would like to thing that our children make responsible decisions and are honest about their activities – but that is often not the case:
Parents can now use an array of tools to keep up with the digital lives of their children, raising new quandaries. Is surveillance the best way to protect children? Or should parents trust them to share if they are scared or bewildered by something online?
The answers are as varied as parents themselves. Still, the anxieties of parenting in the digital age have spawned a mini-industry, as start-ups and established companies market new tools to track where children go online, who they meet there and what they do. Because children are glued to smartphones, the technology can allow parents to track their physical whereabouts and even monitor their driving speed.
If, a few years ago, the emphasis was on blocking children from going to inappropriate sites on the family computer, today’s technologies promise to embed Mom and Dad — and occasionally Grandma — inside every device that children are using, and gather intelligence on them wherever they go.
A smartphone application alerts Dad if his son is texting while driving. An online service helps parents keep tabs on every chat, post and photo that floats across their children’s Facebook pages. And another scans the Web in case a child decides to try a new social network that the grown-ups have not even heard of yet.
I am sickened by the forces that are trying to get impressionable parents to see ADHD drugs as if they were multivitamins. There are many factors that result in a loss of concentration in the classroom. They include diet, sleep deprivation and uninspiring, non engaging teaching styles.
Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, struggle in school. Their wandering concentration makes it tough to follow directions, absorb lessons, and finish homework. Now, new research may offer a partial solution.
The large new study funded by the government of Iceland suggests that stimulant medications like Ritalin may help to prevent some of those academic declines.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that the earlier kids get started on drug treatment, the less their academic performance was likely to suffer between fourth and seventh grades, especially in math. And girls saw a bigger benefit than boys did from early drug treatment.
Why is a lack of concentration viewed with such negativity?
What kind of policy prevents young children from applying sun block? How on earth can schools proclaim to be looking after the welfare of their students when they would rather see them burn in the sun than let them apply lotion?
Two young girls had to go to the hospital with severe sunburns after a Washington state school forbid the sisters from applying sunscreen during an outdoor field day.
Jesse Michener said she was horrified when her two daughters, Violet, 11, and Zoe, 9, came home from school Tuesday sporting “hurts-to-look-at” burns after spending five hours outdoors with no protection, according to a post on the mom’s blog.
Michener said she didn’t rub sunscreen on her kids because it was raining when they left for school. She argued that even if she did apply the much-needed block, the school wouldn’t have let the girls reapply to maintain protection due to a “deeply flawed” school policy.
Children in all states except for California are not allowed to apply or bring the product to school, ABC News reports, partially because it is considered a medication.
Sunblock – a medication? So let me get this straight. The same school system that is going berserk when it comes to recommending children be prescribed ADHD drugs such as dexamphetamine and methylphenidate, prevent children from applying sun protection on the grounds that it’s a medication?
If I taught under such twisted logic I would risk my job over this issue. I would seek parental information regarding allergies and written permission from them to allow their children to put on sun block. No doctors certificate, no consultation with policy makers and hopefully, no sun cancers on innocent children raised under a stupid, incoherent and irrational system.
The cane may have disappeared from West Australian public and Catholic schools in 1986 but it has not disappeared completely from the state’s schools.
According to Minister for Education Liz Constable, two independent schools in WA still use the cane.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education Services said the School Education Act prohibited the use of corporal punishment in public schools – but confirmed the cane was used in some non-government schools.
The spokeswoman said the government regulated the use of canes through the process of school registration.
Mrs Constable said although she did not believe physical punishment was an effective method for controlling student behaviour and did not support its use, parents were able to make their own choice.
“It is a matter of parental choice to send their children to study at schools that include this type of punishment in their discipline policy,” she said.
“The strategies we are implementing now in public schools focus more on positive reinforcement, especially around attendance issues.”
The push to ban corporal punishment has less to do with the rights of parents and more to do with the rights of children.
More horrible news that will taint our wonderful profession:
A Southern California high school teacher has been arrested on suspicion of directing students to assault another student in a classroom hazing incident.
Fontana police said Sunday that 27-year-old Emmanuel De La Rosa, along with four other students, were arrested on Saturday.
Police alleged that De La Rosa facilitated some students to carry out the hazing to curb behavioral problems in the classroom at AB Miller High School. Police declined to describe the nature of the hazing, citing the ongoing investigation. At least one student suffered minor injuries.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports (http://bit.ly/Ocffl5) that an 18-year-old student arrested in the case faces charges of assault, child cruelty and attempted sodomy.
De La Rosa was booked for investigation of child endangerment.
I have traditionally been against the installation of cameras in classrooms. My view was that such an initiative would show disrespect for the teacher and make them feel insecure and constantly scrutinised. I also felt that it would weaken the teacher’s authority.
But with the proliferation of secret cell phone videos that have made its way to YouTube, I wonder if it’s in the best interest of teachers and students alike to have cameras installed in the classroom. This will stop children from filming their teachers without their knowledge, it will pick up incidents where students are bullying their teacher and it will prevent predators from abusing children:
In the wake of school abuse scandals like the one involving Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles, some people think equipping classrooms with camera could protect children from predators.
Surveillance cameras are nothing new. They are in convenience stores and government buildings and even in bus stations.
But they aren’t in classrooms.
Mal Weisberg, the owner of a company that sells surveillance equipment, said this should change.
“These parents deserve to know what their kids are up to,” said Weisburg, whose company, Privacy Connection, has been selling such cameras for a quarter century.
Jiang Xiaoshan died from exhaustion on June 19 after reportedly staying up every night to watch the Euros with his friends.
After watching Italy defeat the Republic of Ireland, the 26-year-old fan went back to his home in Changsha, took a shower and fell asleep. Mr Xiaoshan never woke up.
Technology addiction is a universal problem and one of the signs that one is addicted is sleep deprivation. We are seeing an increase of exhausted kids in the classroom. Part of the reason for this is children have access to televisions, computers and smartphones in their bedrooms. This often results in late nights and a lack of concentration during the day.
“Cellphones, Facebook, iPods and video games are keeping kids up later at night. And the literature is suggesting it’s getting worse, not better,” Collop says.
At the AASM annual meeting in June, dozens of studies were presented indicating school performance is dropping because of student sleepiness, Collop says.
“There’s more and more information showing insufficient sleep affects cognitive ability, and emotional and physical well-being,” says Dennis Rosen, associate director of the Sleep Disorders Program at Children’s Hospital Boston.
About 25% of children overall experience some type of sleep problem, ranging from difficulty falling asleep and night wakings to more serious primary sleep disorders. More than a third of elementary-school-aged kids and 40% of adolescents have significant sleep complaints, according to AASM.
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