Paul’s words

OK, so the below article covers an interview with the new Secretary Education.  Secretary Duncan mentions that teachers should be provided better data management systems/strategies to monitor student progress.  I would agree that solid teaching requires solid ways of assessing student growth.  Hopefully these new systems/strategies acknowledge teachers’ time restrictions.  It is my impression that many teachers shy away from implementing some of the already existing data collection strategies because they are seen as too time consuming.

The following comes from PEN Weekly Newsblast. 

Arne Duncan on NCLB
In an interview with U.S. News & World Report, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan weighed in on the No Child Left Behind Act, the signature education law of the Bush years and a legacy he must contend with as he works to fix the nation’s ailing public schools. Duncan said that he supports the focus on accountability for student achievement, but he wants to make the law less punitive. He also wants states to adopt academic standards that are more rigorous and aligned with each other and with those of other leading nations. He is concerned about over-testing, and feels that fewer, better tests would be more effective. He wants to develop better data management systems that will help teachers track individual student progress in real-time, so that teachers and parents can assess and monitor student strengths and weaknesses. His bottom line: “I think we’re lying to children and families when we tell children that they are meeting standards and, in fact, they are woefully unprepared to be successful in high school and have almost no chance of going to a good university and being successful.” Duncan said he is open to ideas for renaming the law.
Read more: http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/2009/02/05/what-arne-duncan-thinks-of-no-child-left-behind.html

I came across an interesting study by the National Coalition for the Homeless, and they advance that “approximately 16% of the single adult homeless population suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2005).”  I thought the number would have been higher.  This study attributes homelessness to various factors. Weirdly enough, education is not really mentioned in this study.  See the link for more.  that http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/facts/Why.pdf

I figure I would attach my e-mail about PSP given that I spent a good deal of time yesterday thinking it through.  here is what i wrote:

Sounds like lots of people are down for spending PSP time addressing concerns and suggestions for the UACM program itself.  I think it makes sense to address such concerns first, and I think we could just allot time every so often during PSP class time throughout the year to talk about such concerns.  I’m not sure it is necessary to create a board that represents the entire class.  I think a lot of time could be wasted trying to come to consensus about whether the board is actually representing the concerns of the entire cohort.

So I think it would be worth dedicating some time as a class to discuss potential UACM/cohort improvements, but once major issues are discussed and addressed, I see no point in dragging along people who are interested in spending their time doing something else.  This is where I think Allison and Kelly’s suggestions come into play.  Once we have spent a class or two discussing UACM/cohort concerns/suggestions I think people who are up for creating a website, working on parent involvement, lesson plans, special ed, teacher/student organizing, or continuing UACM concerns should be allowed to spend PSP time doing this.  They just would not do this under the name of the cohort.

It is my hope that the people who do decided to work on special ed. issues, lesson plans, recycling in schools, parent involvement etc. do it through a website that can be accessed by all teachers and concerned citizens in Georgia.  This way we create a sustainable site where teachers with similar interests can start connecting and building those movements that are too often just talked about.
-Paul

I am excited about the PSP project, but I am also worried that we will spend too much time trying to decide which problem we want to focus on.

It is important that we chose a problem that we all agree is worth solving, but I think we need to realistically look at our time and chart out how much time we have to identify and solve the problem we want to address.

I figured I would take this space to brainstorm how next class could look.  We could take 5 minutes to each chose one problem that we would like to address as a class.  Each member of the class could take 30 seconds to explain why they chose that one problem.  Once we have listened to everyone we can do a scratch keep round with each person having one keep.  After the scratch keep round we could have a vote.  The two or three problems to receive the most votes could be briefly spoken on by each person. Then we could have a final vote.  The problem receiving the most votes would be the problem we work to address.        

I’m obviously flexible as to how next class goes down, and am stoked about working to solve a communal problem.    

So I was bummed on Friday to realize that we would not have a class name that everyone would like.  I was also bummed to realize that in vocally supporting the name Pangea, I may have left some Urbtopian advocates the impression that I did not respect their reasons for supporting the name Urbtopia.  If I did this, I apologize.  

Now looking back on the dicsussion, I realize that the we were primarily divided on the name because we decided that the name would speak to why we joined the UACM progam and how we see our own role as teachers.  We will always have our individual reasons for joining the UACM program.  We (myself included) were wrong to assume that any amount of debate would change these reasons…  Funny how the name “Diverse by Nature” is looking more and more like a better fit for our group name.

In the end, our “name” is of no consequence.  People can call us “clowns” for all I care.  What matters is that we continue to challenge our own beliefs and apply what we have learned to our teaching methods.  I have no doubt that it is our diversity as a group that will allow us to strenghten our beliefs as individuals.  If we all believed the same things about teaching and shared the same reasons for joining this program, then there wouldn’t be much room for growing.           

I really enjoyed today’s class.  I’m glad we got to talk about immigration, interact with kids, and talk to former gsu grads.  Each subject deserves further discussion, but I thought the conversation with the former grads was especially telling of the obstacles we will face…and I’m not talking about our workload as grad students. 

To be honest I was kind of dissapointed to hear that the former grads were not as organized to work collectively to advance social justice issues within the school and in the communities in which the children live.  It’s clear that they try to implement the culturally sensitive pedagodgy into their individual classes (the Blood Diamond activity is one example), but I got the overall impression that there was not much discussion between the teachers about how to address social justice issues during their second and third years of teaching. 

There also seemed to be consensus that the school administration was not responsive to their overall concerns.  Outside of the woman who was the appointed 2nd grade teacher rep, it appeared that teachers had almost accepted the limitations of the administrations resources.  It was nice to hear that the teachers worked together when it came to discipline issues, but I wonder if they could have done more to act communally to address their communal concerns besides just attend the “required staff meetings and grade level teacher meetings.” 

I am not saying that they are not hard working and dedicated teachers.  I would not necessarily expect a first year teacher with grad school night classes to be out in the community all of the time.  Neither would I expect first year teachers /grad students to be organizing non grad school teachers and parents during their non existent free time slots, but I wonder if more collective action can’t be part of our second year of studies.  I wonder if the grad school teachers feel that they will have more time to work collectively their 2nd and 3rd years of teaching.  Will they work to make sure the state and local school district hear their concerns about end of grade testing and lack of playground space?

All I know is that we as a community will have many oppotunities to practice collective action during our time in this program as well as after this progrom.  We will not always agree with each other or be involved in the same movements, but we as a group will have countless opportunies over the next two years to act collectively in ways that start to address the issues we are already expressing concerns about in class.  I just hope that as a community, we continue to keep the drive to work proactively to address the issues talked about in this class… Here we go!                      

On different occasions over the past two days, we discussed the question of whether or not we should give homework in elementary school.  Some have argued that homework is necessary for preparing students for the next grade level.  Others have said that homework takes away from a child’s ability to bond with their family.  

I would argue that homework assignments can be structured in ways that allow students to get to know their family and community.  These assignments could range from interviews with grandparents to interviews with community activists.  I also like Mr. Dr. William’s idea of not grading or not requiring that students turn in all material.  Such assignments or recommendations would hopefully encourage students to appreciate learning outside of school.  

How do we work with students to ensure that they learn to respect school rules while at the same time encouraging them to question such rules?

I appreciated Mrs. Dr. Williams’ suggestion that we as teachers can start off by asking our students why they think such school rules exist.  As Mrs. Dr. Williams reminded us, it is a good idea for us to understand how our schools rationalize such rules.

While it is important to understand why the rules in our future schools exist, it is crucial that we continue to actively question whether such rules are beneficial to our students.  We can follow our school’s principal hallway rule/rules and hope that our boss doesn’t pop his or her head in our class everyday, or we can work with other teachers and administrators to voice our concerns about school rules that can be amended.  I recognize that we as teachers will have to make compromises, but I hope that we learn to work together and not settle for things because they have been done that way for many years.       

Ok, so Sylvia fairly asked where our candidates stand on the NCBL act.  So I went ahead and briefly looked at each Candidate’s campaign website and to check out what they had to say about NCBL. 

Senator McCain has only a few words on his website which directly refer to NCBL.  Here is what his website says about NCBL:

“No Child Left Behind has focused our attention on the realities of how students perform against a common standard. John McCain believes that we can no longer accept low standards for some students and high standards for others. In this age of honest reporting, we finally see what is happening to students who were previously invisible. While that is progress all its own, it compels us to seek and find solutions to the dismal facts before us.”

Here is what you can find on Senator Clintons website:

“No Child Left Behind is a failed policy that needs fundamental overhaul - not tinkering around the edges. The one-size-fits-all approach of NCLB is simply not working, and today’s announcement signals that the Bush Administration is beginning to acknowledge that. As President, I will work with Congress to end the No Child Left Behind Act, and put in its place a more sensible law that stops micromanaging our schools from the federal level and provides real support to struggling schools.”

This is some of what Senator Obama’s website says about NCBL:

Here is a more detailed plan of what he plans to do with NCBL: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/PreK-12EducationFactSheet.pdf

I’ll (this is me/Paul speaking) leave it up to you guys to make your own assessments of the candidates.  This being said, as future teachers we have an opportunity to voice our concerns to each candidate and frame the debate in a way that we see as being beneficial to our schools. 

I applaud those who had the courage to speak up and question whether it was necessary for us as teachers to talk about sexual orientation in elementary school.  I recognize it was not easy for people to speak out against proactively teaching sexual orientation to our future students.   I would not doubt that some people in class remained more silent on this issue for fear of saying something that would be perceived as inconsiderate or inhumane.  Despite fear of rejection, some people did speak up, and I appreciate that because it forced us to explain WHY we should/shouldn’t teach sexual orientation and HOW we should/shouldn’t go about teaching it. 

        I myself am still questioning HOW to go about teaching sexual orientation.  In an effort to be fair I am asking myself how I should present the opposition to homosexuality?  This would of course depend on the grade of the students and the context within which homosexuality is presented, but if for example, I am presenting a short history of LGBT civil rights movement, do I merely say that some people including many major religions opposed this movement?  If try to explain why the LGBT civil rights movement exists, should I not explain why the opposition exists?  How do I as an advocate for LGBT rights pose questions to my class that do not make students or parents feel alienated?  In promoting LGBT rights in the classroom, do I not have the obligation to defend people’s right to religious or individual beliefs?