Stop Pretending and Start Acting!

January 20, 2011

Parents looking for a school for their kids must hate reading the same line that tends to pop up in all the school’s brochures.  It’s the line that Principal’s claim they pride themselves on.  I bet if I asked you to guess what the line is, you’d come close.

“We provide a warm, safe and secure environment for our students.”

Heard it before?  Have you ever been convinced that it’s true?

A recent poll of parents of Primary school aged kids were asked about their greatest concerns regarding sending their kids to school.

The results were not surprising:

Bullying is the biggest worry parents have when they send their children back to school.

Three quarters of parents fear their child will be bullied – at school and online – a survey has found.

In a sign of their concern, 89 per cent plan to monitor their children’s online activities closely.

Australian parents are also concerned about the costs associated with sending a child back to school, with one in three nominating money as an issue.

A national poll of 1000 parents of primary school age children found almost half believed a passionate and caring teacher, and a fun learning environment, were critical to their child’s success at school.

Curbing bullying is not just a priority – it is the number one priority.  Yes, more important than academic performance.  And why shouldn’t it be the case?  Parents who invest everything they have towards their child’s health and happiness deserve the right to feel confident the school will do its utmost to provide a safe environment for their child.

Don’t just say you are.  Prove it.  Because parents obviously don’t buy it.

And speaking of parents, I couldn’t disagree with this quote from Parenting Victoria’s Elaine Crowle more strongly:

“The best way to prevent bullying is for parents and schools to work together to build resilience within your child.”

No, the best way to prevent bullying is not simply to fortify the victim – it is to stop the perpetrator.  Resilience often means not reacting when being bullied and instead soaking it up.  That is not a remedy against bullying.  Schools must invest a great deal more into curbing bullying than resiliency programs.

It’s time schools were stripped of their right to boast about their so-called safe and secure environment until they adequately prove that this is actually the case.

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Posted in Bullying, Cyber Bullying | 2 Comments »

Am I a Hypocrite or Just Human?

January 19, 2011

As I teacher, I frequently encounter students who are struggling with fear.  Fear of failure, fear of not measuring up to others, fear of loneliness, fear of losing popularity, fear of not seeming smart enough and fear of public humiliation.

It is my job to notice a student who is fearful and help them manage their anxiety with strategies, words of encouragement and ongoing support.  In these situations I am quite adept  at knowing what to say and the steps required to deal with the issues at hand.

Only trouble is … I am also fearful.

  • I am scared of death (both myself and my family and friends).
  • I am scared of driving.
  • I am scared of rejection.  I have been fine tuning my manuscript for ages out of fear of being rejected by publishers.
  • I am scared of taking risks, doing things that seem beyond me and leaving my comfort zone.

Whilst I am constantly working on myself and have improved over time, it feels strange that I am giving advice for issues I share.

Am I a hypocrite or just human?

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Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

How Do They Come Up With These Ideas?

January 18, 2011

The latest response to fighting truancy is a full out assault against the parents.  The reasoning is clear.  It is the parents responsibility to ensure that their children attend school.  So bad must be the problem and so unable are authorities to motivate the parents to take a more diligent and proactive role, that a range of strategies, including some very weird ideas are being floated around to punish the parents.

Take this one for example:

Sen. Erik Wells wants to give parents an ultimatum: Send your kids to school, or lose your driver’s license.

The Kanawha County Democrat said Friday he plans to introduce a bill that would revoke a parent’s driving privileges if their child has 10 or more unexcused absences.

“We have to get to a point where we send a serious message to parents,” Wells told reporters at The Associated Press’ annual Legislative Lookahead conference in South Charleston.

Then there is a fine or jail time in California:

As of the new year, California parents face prosecution, fines up to $2,000, and even jail time if they don’t make sure their kids attend school regularly. The new state law took effect on January 1 and was signed into law last September by former Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It’s a strict law, which holds three designations for kids who chronically miss school. A truant is any student who is 30 or more minutes late to class on more than three school days, a chronic truant any student who misses more than 10 percent of school days without a valid excuse. A habitual truant is a truant who continues to miss class even after school officials attempt to reach out to the student. Parents of kids who are chronically truant can be found guilty of a misdemeanor and face a series of fines and punishments, starting with a $100 fine for the first conviction and ending with a year of incarceration and up to $2000 for parents of chronic truants.

The UK have taken a softer approach whilst proudly dubbing it “cutting edge”:

A School in the Peterborough area is introducing cutting-edge technology in its fight against truancy.

Casterton Business and Enterprise College, in Stamford, is attempting to tackle students skipping lessons with Truancy Call, a scheme which allows the school to contact parents of absent children by e-mail, text message or telephone as soon as a child is absent.

Once registration of the schoool’s 800 pupils has been completed, the Truancy Call system automatically calls, texts or emails parents until a response is received.

Once a response is received from the parents any further calls that day are stopped automatically. The school has an attendance rate of more than 95 per cent.

This one is my favourite:

Schools are bribing parents to make sure their children attend classes with the promise of cheap foreign holidays.

Families are being offered a discount if pupils turn up for ­lessons every day next term.

Education chiefs have joined forces with a travel company to offer the holiday discount scheme, which is aimed at slashing truancy.

Please tell me they are putting just as much time and effort into conceiving ways in which to make school a more inviting and accepting place for our children.

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Posted in Truancy | 2 Comments »

Time to Engage Our Students

January 17, 2011

It is as big a challenge now as it ever has been to engage our students.  Programs which treat children like robots and show a preference for rote skills and the dissemination of facts rather than debate, creativity and self-expression are limited, turgid and a thing of the past.

It was refreshing to read an article from The Guardian that encourages schools to get more creative:

But there is a long-standing debate in education about creativity and the need to inject more of it into teaching. Can it really be taught?

At The Chalfonts community college, a non-selective school in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, they believe very firmly that it can. As part of an “enrichment curriculum” all key stage three students spend whole days learning how to use video, animation and digital imaging with industry professionals as part of the school’s push to develop creativity across all subjects.

“The aim is to develop personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS), creative thinkers and team workers,” says Greg Hodgson, a senior leader at Chalfonts who also mentors students in the arts.

Digital technology such as digital imaging, film, animation, graphics and game-making is also a critical element in the school’s GCSE art curriculum where it has, says Hodgson, enabled otherwise under-achieving students and apparently non-creative students to blossom by harnessing their fascination with gaming.

“One student, one of the lowest ability boys I’ve ever taught, couldn’t really read and write properly and staff spent more time talking to him about his behaviour than his work. He particularly flourished when I gave him control of the tools and told him that he could actually teach himself.

“He was coding and writing action scripts using interactive Adobe Flash animation, which is a really high-level skill. One lovely piece of work featured moral dilemmas with the story of a girl who had the opportunity to steal. An angel and a devil both appear in the ether around this girl’s head and the reader/viewer has to choose: does she steal a chocolate bar or not? In fact, this is the first stage of gaming: the interactive viewer clicks and decides which line of a story to follow.”

ICT is constantly changing and digital technology is becoming more geared to assist us in the classroom.  Yes, it is difficult for teachers to learn, and I am as terrified by technological advancements as the next teacher.  But it is not just an important skill in today’s age, but also an opportunity to bring greater creativity to our classroom.

After all, students learn so much better when they are engaged and have the chance to think creatively.

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Posted in Technology in the Classroom, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Teacher Myth #2

January 14, 2011

Teacher Myth 2:

Teachers have the right to keep parents at a distance.  Since the parents aren’t experts, it’s best they leave it up to professionals.

Teachers, over the course of their careers, will frequently confront angry and difficult parents.  It comes with the territory.  Then there are those parents that are overly anxious and extremely insecure (the ones that provide you with a 100 page dossier on their child before taking them on an overnight camp).  As much as it is tempting to want to shut the door on some parents in particular, and demand that they stay out of the affairs of the classroom, this is not wise.

Teachers have the responsibility to work with all types of parents and to ensure that the parents are well-informed and updated.

Think of it this way.  You have a person who invested most of his savings in shares through a stockbroker.  The person is nervous, and worried that perhaps one day his shares will crash drastically, causing him to lose his nest egg.  So he calls his stockbroker regularly, seeking updates, assurances and reassurances, sometimes more than once weekly.  The stockbroker isn’t a fan of the constant phone calls but sees this as part of his job.  After all, his client is making a big investment.

Now compare that to a parent.  They have entrusted to the teacher the greatest investment any person can make – their own flesh and blood.  Of course, being bugged and badgered by a parent is not much fun, but it is part of the job.  It makes any financial investment drift into irrelevance.

I am certainly not advocating hostile or abusive parents and I believe there are times when teachers must assert themselves against disrespectful and insensitive parents.  But teachers must also be mindful of the rights of parents.  After all, the data is pretty clear – the experiences a child has at school are a great indicator of how they will grow up.  Negative experiences at school can offset all the good work parents do at home.  You can have a tremendously loving home, but if it isn’t complimented by a supportive and nurturing school, the child could grow up with self-esteem issues.

The following are some methods I incorporate in my own teaching to keep parents informed:

1.  I write a newsletter every week which is low on gloss and high on content.  I write about what we covered in class in Maths and English and some of the activities that proved particularly popular or useful.

2.  Together with my newsletter (which I print in hard copy to ensure that the parents read it) I attach a personal student report for each child.  The mini-report features different boxes to either tick or cross off depending on whether or not the child has performed in that area.  The indicators include: behaviour, respecting others, homework, understanding concepts etc.  As well as that, it has room for a comment so I can elaborate and explain why I marked the child the way I did.

This mini-report distributed with the newsletter every Friday allows me to deal with social disagreements, homework not handed in and behavioural issues straight away.  The students know it’s coming and the parents know that they wont have to hear about an incident months later.  My students get very disappointed when (and it happens very seldom) I don’t have the time to include the student report, because they know that their reports usually feature compliments and words of encouragement which they are very proud to share with their parents.

3.  I include parents over the course of the year in selected classroom activities so they feel part of the goings on in their child’s class.

Does this take a lot of my time?  It sure does.  But it’s worth it because the parents trust that I know what I’m doing and they are properly informed about the progress of their child and the skills and concepts being taught in class.  It works brilliantly at cubing the amount of complaints and enquiries I get.  By saturating (and perhaps even boring) parents with information, they stopped feeling the need to ask questions.  Because some teachers don’t disclose such information, it leaves it to the parents to guess.  Guesswork can often lead to negative conclusions.

Again, no teacher should tolerate abuse from parents.  However, teaching involves interaction with a diverse range of students and parents who have their own unique personalities and character traits.  And the key is to function in a way that’s going to benefit all stakeholders.

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Posted in Dealing with Parents, Teacher Myths | 6 Comments »

The Education Version of Groundhog Day

January 14, 2011

In the classic 1993 Bill Murray film Groundhog Day, Murray was forced to relive the same day over and over again until he learnt from his mistakes.  Whilst only a light-hearted comedy on the surface, Groundhog Day was a timely reminder that mistakes and there consequences are repeated over and over again until they are learnt from.

Every time the curriculum changes I think of Groundhog Day.  I’ve only been a teacher for a short time, yet already I have seen the curriculum change 3 times.  First it was the CSF, then it became the CSF 2, followed soon after by VELS. And the curriculum is about to change yet again!

Why do they do it to us?  Just when you get used to one curriculum, they change it from another.

The cynic in me says the Government is bereft of ideas.  They know that education outcomes are underwhelming, that there isn’t much satisfaction in the quality of schools and performance indicators are not painting a rosy picture.  Yet, they don’t have a clue what to do about it.  They neither have the money, vision or gumption to make any real change, so they go for the obvious alternative – perceived change.

When asked to reflect on their achievements in Education, the Government will proudly point to overhauling the curriculum.  In Australia’s case, they will triumphantly declare that by introducing a national curriculum, they have been able to do what previous administrations couldn’t.

But they will know the truth all along – you can’t change the fortunes of a countries academic performance by altering and renaming a curriculum.  In fact, from my experience you can’t expect any change at all.

Even if my cynical take is wrong, and there is some good intention behind this new curriculum, it wasn’t evident in the released draft, which like its predecessors, didn’t seem to be adding anything of substance.  A bit more grammar, a deeper focus on handwriting and a greater emphasis on history sounds good.  But when it comes down to it, it is just like my boss said both this time and last time, “Don’t worry. It is going to be very similar to our current curriculum.”

From reports the states don’t want their current curriculums meddled with. Critics like Chris Berg from the Sydney Morning Herald have slammed the draft curriculum:

The plan was to have the curriculum rolled out in the 2011 school year, but only the ACT will meet that deadline.

New South Wales and Western Australia have decided to delay the curriculum to 2013. The Victorian government announced recently it would do the same. But there are problems with what’s in the curriculum too. //

Take, for example, the history syllabus. After a full quota of compulsory schooling, Australian students will be none the wiser about the origins and central tenets of liberalism: the basics of individual rights, representative democracy and the market economy, and the importance of civil society.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are the absolute fundamentals of Western civilisation. And they are missing from the national curriculum.

One need look no further than how the curriculum purports to teach ”struggles for freedom and rights”, a ”depth study” for year 10 students.

The struggle for liberty against tyranny is one of the most important themes of the history of the past 500 years. From the English Civil War to the American and French revolutions, the proclamation of the rights of individuals has given us a rich inheritance of liberalism and civil liberties. That, at least, is how you’d think it would be taught.

But according to the national curriculum, the struggle for individual liberty started in 1945. Because that’s when the United Nations was founded.

To hinge the next generation’s understanding of individual rights on such a discredited institution is inexcusable. And it says a lot about the ideology of the curriculum’s compilers: as if individual rights were given to us by bureaucrats devising international treaties in committee.

At the end of the day, all we are really left with is a bad case of Groundhog Day.  The results wont change, yet the same mistakes are being made over and over and over again …

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Posted in National Curriculum | 3 Comments »

Time to Show Support for Teachers

January 12, 2011

Something tells me 2011 is not The Year of the Teacher.

After the disappointment of the New York Supreme Court ruling that teachers alleged to be underperforming can be named and shamed by the media, an unfortunate trend is becoming clear –  teacher blame.

Teachers I am told, are the most bullied of all professionals.  They are subjected to bullying from a variety of sources; their superiors, parents, colleagues, students and as we see from New York, the Government regulators.  For a profession desperately looking for fresh, talented and passionate recruits, teachers have never had it so bad.

Today I read of the rise in bullying from parents through the use of social media such as Facebook.

The NAHT (National Association of Headteachers) says it receives hundreds of calls every week from teachers who are being ‘cyberbullied’ – and the majority of complaints are about parents using the web to criticise teachers or heads.

In 2009, research by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and the Teacher Support Network suggested 15% of teachers had experienced cyberbullying, and it is believed this figure is growing.

One English teacher in the West Midlands told the ATL: ‘I found teaching stressful already but when it got to the point where I was getting home and finding messages about me on social networking sites, or horrible photos on my computer I couldn’t cope.’

The ATL says that one teacher had a fake Facebook account set up in his name containing false sexual allegations.

Another teacher suffered stress after a video of her teaching appeared on YouTube.

The 2009 ATL research showed that 63% of teachers who had suffered cyberbullying personally said they had received unwelcome emails. Over a quarter had had offensive messages posted about them on social networking sites such as Facebook and 28% described being sent unwelcome text messages.

A 24-hour counselling helpline called Teacherline set up in October 1999 for stressed teachers in England and Wales now receives thousands of calls a month.

Teacherline reports that teachers are four times more likely to experience stress at work than employees in other professions.

It is true that not all teachers are good at what they do.  Many are way below standard.  But it’s not an easy profession and it usually isn’t the career path a person just falls into.  People usually take on teaching because they have an affinity with either child, subject or both.  Instead of bullying teachers, how about we call for greater support of teachers.  Help them improve with a positive framework rather than negative cajoling.
How about starting pro-teacher Facebook pages?  Facebook pages which call on Governments around the globe to stop using teachers as scapegoats and stop stirring mass hysteria about the quality of teachers through the media?  How about Facebook pages that seek to empower and revitalise the teacher rather than tear them down even lower, and inadvertently, tear down the fabric of this great profession with them.

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Posted in Bullying, Cyber Bullying, Teacher Welfare | Leave a Comment »

That’s Right, Blame the Teachers

January 11, 2011

New York, what has gotten into you?  What are you doing?  Why whenever there is a problem in education do we denigrate and disgrace our teachers.  Where is the school administrators in all of this?  How do they get to escape the blame?  What about Government?  What positive vision have they offered up in the last decade?

Reading about the recent decision by a New York State Judge to release the performance ratings of thousands of New York teachers to the media, I could only shake my head in sorrow.  Teachers are but one cog in a broken system, and by naming and shaming them you are doing far more damage than good.

The judge, Cynthia Kern of the Supreme Court of the state of New York, wrote in a nine-page decision that the UFT’s argument “is without merit,” adding that the court of appeals “has clearly held that there is no requirement that data be reliable for it to be disclosed.”

The data attempt to measure the progress made by students in fourth through eighth grades under specific teachers by comparing their state test scores in math and English in a given year with the previous year.

The Department of Education has such data applying to 12,000 teachers; overall, there are nearly 80,000 teachers in New York City.

Teachers are not perfect and there are a fair few substandard ones out there. but there is only one proper way of dealing with teachers that are not performing.  You give them support, not disgrace them on the pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Yes, support!  Why hasn’t anyone in Government thought about supporting teachers, empowering them, giving the direction and improving their confidence.  If Governments nurture their key stakeholders instead of pressure them and turn them into scapegoats, you might just see improvements.

Sure, if after receiving the support, some teachers still show no sign of improvement, kindly tap said teachers on the shoulder and tell them their time is up.  Even then, the media should be well out of the picture.

It is easy to lay blame and cause hysteria.  It won’t work and perhaps the plan was never intended to.  The plan buys Governments time.  Time that will be spent doing nothing of any value for the needs of schools, teachers or students.  Meanwhile, even good teachers will be fretting about performance data and the new style of invasive education.

Just the way to go about recruiting great teachers.  Scare them away from the profession before they’ve even signed up.

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Posted in Teacher Welfare, Teachers Stress | 3 Comments »

A Sensitive Issue that Drives Male Teachers Away

January 11, 2011

I don’t like talking about it and neither does many of my male colleagues, but it is a major reason for why there are so few male teachers in Primary/Elementary schools.  The fear of being maliciously and unfairly accused of inappropriate conduct with students drives male teachers away from the early years.  I wrote a post just last month which showed that “the main reason (Canadian) men avoid these young grades is they don’t want to be accused of being pedophiles.”

Recently, a new training video urging teachers never to engage in physical contact with pupils, even when adjusting the position of a child’s hand on an instrument was released.

The film, called Inappropriate Demonstration, shows a violin lesson in which a pupil fails to play the right notes. The teacher explains the technique by placing a hand on the pupil’s shoulder and holding his fingers in the right position on the violin. He then explains it a second time by demonstrating on his own violin the correct position. The pupil then plays the correct notes.

The film advises teachers: “It isn’t necessary to touch children in order to demonstrate: there’s always a better way.”

Thankfully, Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education in the UK, condemned the video.

That approach “plays to a culture of fear” among children and adults, he said, as he ordered schools to abandon “no contact” rules between teachers and pupils. It was “positively right” for teachers to comfort distressed pupils by putting an arm around them, or demonstrate sports skills through physical contact with a child, he said.

The mother of one of my best friends is a teacher who was maliciously accused of improper conduct with a student because she touched the students hand in an attempt to guide him in correct handwriting technique.  It’s scares me personally, because as careful as I am to stay professional and squeaky clean, it is much easier (in  this respect) teaching older kids.

To make matters worse, the kids are used to getting hugs from, and sitting on the lap of, female teachers.  I literally have to tell my students on the first day that under no circumstances can they hug, pat or touch me.  They don’t understand, but thankfully they comply.

I believe that the fear of an inappropriate teacher is a natural one.  The media reports on a new  “monster” every day, who takes the privilege of teaching children and abuses it in the very worst way.  I believe that the prime responsibility is to safeguard the children.  Their safety is far more important than my working conditions and pressures.

However, all things said and done, when you are told that you can’t readjust the grip of your music student, you are reminded why male teachers look elsewhere for a career.

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Posted in Male Teachers | 7 Comments »

Cell Phone App to Take on Bullying

January 9, 2011

It was always going to happen.  Marketing and advertising executives were always going to try to find a way to cash in on the unfortunate bullying issue which is prevalent in schools worldwide.  Here are two new products invented to ward off bullies:

1. Cell Phone App – For $10 a month a parent can buy an app for your child’s cell phone. It will scan texts and emails for language that might indicate bullying is going on, and if it is found the parent receives an alert. It is available at www.websafety.com.

2. The Backpack with Alarm – The iSAFE backpack is marketed as something a child can use if they feel their safety is in danger because of a bully. It comes with a cord the child can pull that sounds an alarm. It costs about $60.

I don’t feel comfortable with companies profiting from bullying.  That cell phone app should be free of charge.

And the bag? Can you imagine how much worse the bullies are going to become when they find out their victim carries a bully bag?  I can just hear them now:

“Oh, your mommy bought you a bully bag!”

The true reason why this is all so sad, is not just that executives in fancy suits are starting to equate bullying with dollar signs, and it’s not just because some of these ideas are going to incite bullies rather than tame them.  No, the saddest part of this story is that there are desperate people out there so deeply afflicted by bullying and so desperate to make it go away.

My recommendation to every boy and girl subjected to constant bullying is to buy the backpack and hand deliver it to your Principal.  The message needs to get through loud and clear.  This is not good enough!

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Posted in Bullying | Leave a Comment »

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