In today’s world of computers and the internet, schools have learned to use new technology to appear to be better than they really are. I like to refer to this phenomenon as “Symbolism over Substance” or “It’s Better to Look Good than to be Good.”
Another local private school built a new computer lab located next to main entrance and the office. As I was told by one of their teachers, the administration planned the computer lab with the idea that it would be the first thing you see when entering the school. A floor to ceiling glass wall makes the addition visible to all. Impressed parents imagine their children learning the most up to date technology, but this is just an illusion.
My own school allows each teacher a generous $950 allowance toward a new computer every three years. I myself am on my third lap top from this program. I have to admit that I would be lost without my computer. When my computer is “down” I am unable to do any of my important teacher duties. I could teach class without one, in fact, all I need to teach chemistry is a chalk board and a periodic table. I have included “power points” in my teaching “bag-o-tricks” because it makes me look good to administrators and parents. In reality, a power point presentation is no more effective than any other kind of teaching strategy.
We do everything by computer. I take and report attendance, record grades, get weekly faculty bulletins, and communicate with other teachers and parents. The students are dependent on a computer to register for classes, order books, and pay for their lunch. I am sure that it is like that at every school–we are not special in that regard.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Without Parents There Would Be No Students
Just last week we had our annual “Back to School Night” where parents come in the evening and run through a shortened schedule for their child. I have 5 minutes to talk to the parents about that particular class. I usually hand out a one page sheet detailing how to contact me and how to access my web page for each class. This year my hand-out included 10 things a parent could do the help their child improve their grade. Maybe 50% of the parents show up.
Parents can be a remarkable asset to the teacher, helping him or her be more successful at an increasingly difficult job. On the other hand, parents can also be a pain in the ass. As one of my colleagues once said, “At the next school I teach, all the students will be orphans.” I would like to share one example of my experience with a bad parent. This situation occurred about 4 years ago.
Beth was a 16 year old high school sophomore. Her work was usually missing or incomplete, and generally uninspired. As the year went on, she did more and more poorly on exams. She failed 3 of the last four exams, as well as the final. Her grade for the semester was a D+. About a week after school ended, I got an angry email from her mother. The woman said that her daughter had told her that the reason she did so poorly on tests was that the work we covered in class was never the same material tested on exams. This woman demanded that I meet with her and have ready; all her daughters exams from the year, a copy of each study guide, and my lesson plans. I was told she wanted to check each test question with my study guide and lesson plan to verify her daughter’s claim. She also added that when she had the evidence of my incompetence, she would go the school principal and request I be fired. Most teachers I know would have refused and referred the problem to an assistant principal, probably getting in a angry shouting match with the parent for making such a silly request. I, on the other hand, wanted to have some fun with the woman so I agreed. When she arrived, I had 16 exams laid out in piles that included the study guide for the unit and a copy of the appropriate page from my lesson plan book. I said hello to both of them, the girl and her mother, and asked which exam she would like to start with. The woman began to shake her finger at me and threaten to have me fired for being such a bad teacher, but didn’t ask for a particular exam. I suggested the last exam of the quarter, the one Beth had gotten a 54% on, and handed the pile to her saying that the class average was 86%. I then sat back and watched. She opened the exam and began checking, she would ask me to identify the review question, and the lesson plan entry that pertained to each question she pointed to. After 5 or 6 questions, the woman looked to her daughter and said, “Show me what you mean.” The daughter was pail as a ghost, and taking the packed, fingered through it for a while and then said, “I don’t remember ever learning this problem in class.” She said, looking a little shaken. Like a gift from God himself, she chose a problem that was exactly like the one we did in class as an example. I smiled, and took her class notebook from a pile next to me. At the end of each year I collect class notebooks, keeping them for the summer before I throw them out. I opened to the last section of her notes and pointed out that we had done that problem in class and she had even wrote it in her notebook. “Maybe it was a different problem.” She said. I asked her to find one that illustrated what had claimed and handed her the papers, adding that there was no hurry. The mother was turning red as a beet and grew more and more agitated with each minute. The girl thumbed through the papers, them pushed them aside and said “I don’t know.” The mother flew into a rage and began screaming at the girl. As it turned out, the girl had made up the story so as not to be grounded for the poor grade. She never thought her mother would follow through and demand a meeting. Children never consider the consequences of their lies. I asked the girl to leave the room and I scolded the mother for falling for such a ridiculous lie and wasting my time. I added a specific threat that if I found out she had told anyone that I wasn’t teaching the material I would take action, legal if necessary, to expose this vicious lie. I let her know that I viewed Beth’s accusation as defamation and wasn’t going to tolerate it. I purposefully made it as humiliating on the woman as possible, but not in front of her daughter. It was worth the 90 minutes it took me to organize the material. I don’t suffer arrogant fools well and enjoy messing with them.
Here is a tip for all you parents out there. When children do poorly in a class they usually claim that the material wasn’t taught, and its bullshit. Why would I, or any other teacher, spend their time making up lessons over something we weren’t going to test on? Even a bad teacher wouldn’t do that! What’s wrong with you! Maybe a poor job was done in teaching something, but an attempt to teach is always going to be made, or the material would be taken off the exam.
A note to teachers. When a parent accuses you of this, never get angry. Invite them to a meeting and bring out your written record. Collect student notebooks and be ready to show the parent a record of what is covered in class. If Beth didn’t have the problem we needed to see in her notebook someone would have. Show the parent that another student has notes on the topic and you have established that it was taught and it is their child’s fault, not yours. It is very important that any accusation that you don’t teach the material is addressed immediately and directly, but not with anger. If you don’t, after a while, word will get around that you are a poor teacher and your career will be in jeopardy. Unless, of course, the accusation is true, in which case you need to find another career.
Parents can be a remarkable asset to the teacher, helping him or her be more successful at an increasingly difficult job. On the other hand, parents can also be a pain in the ass. As one of my colleagues once said, “At the next school I teach, all the students will be orphans.” I would like to share one example of my experience with a bad parent. This situation occurred about 4 years ago.
Beth was a 16 year old high school sophomore. Her work was usually missing or incomplete, and generally uninspired. As the year went on, she did more and more poorly on exams. She failed 3 of the last four exams, as well as the final. Her grade for the semester was a D+. About a week after school ended, I got an angry email from her mother. The woman said that her daughter had told her that the reason she did so poorly on tests was that the work we covered in class was never the same material tested on exams. This woman demanded that I meet with her and have ready; all her daughters exams from the year, a copy of each study guide, and my lesson plans. I was told she wanted to check each test question with my study guide and lesson plan to verify her daughter’s claim. She also added that when she had the evidence of my incompetence, she would go the school principal and request I be fired. Most teachers I know would have refused and referred the problem to an assistant principal, probably getting in a angry shouting match with the parent for making such a silly request. I, on the other hand, wanted to have some fun with the woman so I agreed. When she arrived, I had 16 exams laid out in piles that included the study guide for the unit and a copy of the appropriate page from my lesson plan book. I said hello to both of them, the girl and her mother, and asked which exam she would like to start with. The woman began to shake her finger at me and threaten to have me fired for being such a bad teacher, but didn’t ask for a particular exam. I suggested the last exam of the quarter, the one Beth had gotten a 54% on, and handed the pile to her saying that the class average was 86%. I then sat back and watched. She opened the exam and began checking, she would ask me to identify the review question, and the lesson plan entry that pertained to each question she pointed to. After 5 or 6 questions, the woman looked to her daughter and said, “Show me what you mean.” The daughter was pail as a ghost, and taking the packed, fingered through it for a while and then said, “I don’t remember ever learning this problem in class.” She said, looking a little shaken. Like a gift from God himself, she chose a problem that was exactly like the one we did in class as an example. I smiled, and took her class notebook from a pile next to me. At the end of each year I collect class notebooks, keeping them for the summer before I throw them out. I opened to the last section of her notes and pointed out that we had done that problem in class and she had even wrote it in her notebook. “Maybe it was a different problem.” She said. I asked her to find one that illustrated what had claimed and handed her the papers, adding that there was no hurry. The mother was turning red as a beet and grew more and more agitated with each minute. The girl thumbed through the papers, them pushed them aside and said “I don’t know.” The mother flew into a rage and began screaming at the girl. As it turned out, the girl had made up the story so as not to be grounded for the poor grade. She never thought her mother would follow through and demand a meeting. Children never consider the consequences of their lies. I asked the girl to leave the room and I scolded the mother for falling for such a ridiculous lie and wasting my time. I added a specific threat that if I found out she had told anyone that I wasn’t teaching the material I would take action, legal if necessary, to expose this vicious lie. I let her know that I viewed Beth’s accusation as defamation and wasn’t going to tolerate it. I purposefully made it as humiliating on the woman as possible, but not in front of her daughter. It was worth the 90 minutes it took me to organize the material. I don’t suffer arrogant fools well and enjoy messing with them.
Here is a tip for all you parents out there. When children do poorly in a class they usually claim that the material wasn’t taught, and its bullshit. Why would I, or any other teacher, spend their time making up lessons over something we weren’t going to test on? Even a bad teacher wouldn’t do that! What’s wrong with you! Maybe a poor job was done in teaching something, but an attempt to teach is always going to be made, or the material would be taken off the exam.
A note to teachers. When a parent accuses you of this, never get angry. Invite them to a meeting and bring out your written record. Collect student notebooks and be ready to show the parent a record of what is covered in class. If Beth didn’t have the problem we needed to see in her notebook someone would have. Show the parent that another student has notes on the topic and you have established that it was taught and it is their child’s fault, not yours. It is very important that any accusation that you don’t teach the material is addressed immediately and directly, but not with anger. If you don’t, after a while, word will get around that you are a poor teacher and your career will be in jeopardy. Unless, of course, the accusation is true, in which case you need to find another career.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
What It Means To Be Educated
Anyone who is interested in education must be aware of what it means to be educated. Rather than write a long article about my feelings on this subject, I will refer the reader to a link on the right side of this page. “The Disadvantages of Being Educated” an essay written in 1937 by Albert Jay Nock. Most of our schools are set up today to train, not educate. The commonly believed purpose of an “education” is to prepare one for a job. The truly educated person is instructed in much more. As suggested rather sarcastically by Nock, an educated person is of no real use to society in terms of the economy. What is implied though is that education is important for the culture to survive. The disappearance of “education” as the driving force behind schooling, and its replacement with “training” has, and will continue to result, in the loss of our culture. To be educated, a person must know more than how to fix a computer, fill a tooth, or remove an appendix. Some understanding of culture, music, art, and philosophy are equally important to the survival of our society.
To illustrate this, let me tell you about an encounter I had with a former student several months ago. Nick was one of the best chemistry students I ever had the opportunity to instruct. He was, at the time of our reunion, an engineering student at a prominent state university. I found out from our discussion that there were so many requirements for his major that engineering students had no room in their schedule for electives. In fact, there were no elective requirements for students in his major. Nick was not being educated, even though the university would have denounced any suggestion of such a thing.
When I attended college, my alma mater was proud to market itself as a liberal arts college. I was required to take courses in philosophy, mathematics, classical and modern literature, as well as courses in the natural sciences. My major was Biology and I had enough credits in both Physics and Chemistry to declare both as minors, but I was required to declare a minor outside of my major subject area. As a result I have enough credit hours to become certified in social studies if I ever wanted. I was educated, and I am proud of it. I was trained to be a teacher during my undergraduate schooling, as well as in graduate school where I received an M.S. in Science Education. Ironically, I feel I learned nothing important about teaching from any education class. I learned how to teach by teaching, and it took 5 years before I really knew what I was doing—some of my students might argue that I still haven’t gotten it right.
Enough ranting for today! I just graded my students’ first lab report of the school year. Needless to say, many of them lack adequate thinking and writing skills, something I will try to improve on all this year. Below are some of the more “interesting” answers I encountered.
Question: A student needs to find the volume occupied by a rock. Describe how this could be done using only the rock, a graduated cylinder, and some water. Answer in complete sentences.
(student answer 1)
The student could carve out the inside of the rock and fill it up with water. Then he could pour the water into the graduated cylinder and find the volume of the rock.
Author’s note: Someday this student will work for the government.
(student answer 2)
Drop the rock into the graduate annafing water displaced minus the volume of water raot with rock from regular volume [typed exactly as it was written.]
Aurhor’s note: WHAT????!!!!!
(student answer 3)
First fill up the graduated cylinder with rock. Next, drop the rock into the cylinder. When that is finished, read the top of the rock for the measurement and subtract the volume from the water up to the bottom of the rock.
Author’s note: I have nothing to say—I am just speechless!
All of these students are in Honors Chemistry.
I have much work ahead of me this year!
To illustrate this, let me tell you about an encounter I had with a former student several months ago. Nick was one of the best chemistry students I ever had the opportunity to instruct. He was, at the time of our reunion, an engineering student at a prominent state university. I found out from our discussion that there were so many requirements for his major that engineering students had no room in their schedule for electives. In fact, there were no elective requirements for students in his major. Nick was not being educated, even though the university would have denounced any suggestion of such a thing.
When I attended college, my alma mater was proud to market itself as a liberal arts college. I was required to take courses in philosophy, mathematics, classical and modern literature, as well as courses in the natural sciences. My major was Biology and I had enough credits in both Physics and Chemistry to declare both as minors, but I was required to declare a minor outside of my major subject area. As a result I have enough credit hours to become certified in social studies if I ever wanted. I was educated, and I am proud of it. I was trained to be a teacher during my undergraduate schooling, as well as in graduate school where I received an M.S. in Science Education. Ironically, I feel I learned nothing important about teaching from any education class. I learned how to teach by teaching, and it took 5 years before I really knew what I was doing—some of my students might argue that I still haven’t gotten it right.
Enough ranting for today! I just graded my students’ first lab report of the school year. Needless to say, many of them lack adequate thinking and writing skills, something I will try to improve on all this year. Below are some of the more “interesting” answers I encountered.
Question: A student needs to find the volume occupied by a rock. Describe how this could be done using only the rock, a graduated cylinder, and some water. Answer in complete sentences.
(student answer 1)
The student could carve out the inside of the rock and fill it up with water. Then he could pour the water into the graduated cylinder and find the volume of the rock.
Author’s note: Someday this student will work for the government.
(student answer 2)
Drop the rock into the graduate annafing water displaced minus the volume of water raot with rock from regular volume [typed exactly as it was written.]
Aurhor’s note: WHAT????!!!!!
(student answer 3)
First fill up the graduated cylinder with rock. Next, drop the rock into the cylinder. When that is finished, read the top of the rock for the measurement and subtract the volume from the water up to the bottom of the rock.
Author’s note: I have nothing to say—I am just speechless!
All of these students are in Honors Chemistry.
I have much work ahead of me this year!
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Welcome!
Call me Mario. That isn’t my real name, but some of my students think I look like the computer character that goes by that name. I have been a high school teacher for more than 30 years. At the present time I am assigned to teach Chemistry, but in the past I have taught Biology, Anatomy and Physiology, Physical Science, Algebra, Trigonometry, and Calculus. Outside of my teaching duties I am, at present, the Chairman of the Science Department at my high school; and have been Chairman of our Faculty Council, a member of our School Discipline Committee, a member of the school’s Curriculum Committee, and our Student Government Advisor.
Outside of the high school where I teach, I have taught GED Review at our local Junior College, and have, four times, been a member of an outside team evaluating high schools for accreditation through North Central, as well as an advisor/consultant to the Office of Catholic Education in a major American city. I have won an award as an outstanding science teacher by a nationally known research laboratory as well as an international gifted student organization. I have also been a presenter for our state science teachers’ organization on two occasions.
None of this is any reason to think that I am an expert on education or have any solutions to the significant problems facing schools or the “education establishment” in this country. I have former students who think I am the most wonderful teacher they ever had, as well as those who don’t understand how I still have a job—neither of them are right.
The purpose of this blog is not to solve any problems, but to create a forum where they can be discussed. I have many ideas on how we can solve some of the problems facing students; changes we could implement that might improve schools. When I mention one of these ideas to an administrator it is usually followed by an annoyed look and a brief explanation of why “we can’t do that.” Most of our administrators are top notch people who care deeply about students and teachers; working tirelessly to run an efficient and productive school. I attribute their lack of enthusiasm for my ideas to the possibility that they were required to take a class in “administrators’ school” where they were told to reject any idea that wasn’t taught there.
The school where I have taught for all these years is, in my opinion, one of the finest educational institutions anywhere. My own child graduated from the school where I teach and I would have never allowed her to attend if I did not believe it was her best option. In fact, I graduated from this school myself many years ago, and our alumni have been successful and productive members of their communities. Given all of this, we still have problems that need addressing; some of which I will get into here from time to time.
Outside of the high school where I teach, I have taught GED Review at our local Junior College, and have, four times, been a member of an outside team evaluating high schools for accreditation through North Central, as well as an advisor/consultant to the Office of Catholic Education in a major American city. I have won an award as an outstanding science teacher by a nationally known research laboratory as well as an international gifted student organization. I have also been a presenter for our state science teachers’ organization on two occasions.
None of this is any reason to think that I am an expert on education or have any solutions to the significant problems facing schools or the “education establishment” in this country. I have former students who think I am the most wonderful teacher they ever had, as well as those who don’t understand how I still have a job—neither of them are right.
The purpose of this blog is not to solve any problems, but to create a forum where they can be discussed. I have many ideas on how we can solve some of the problems facing students; changes we could implement that might improve schools. When I mention one of these ideas to an administrator it is usually followed by an annoyed look and a brief explanation of why “we can’t do that.” Most of our administrators are top notch people who care deeply about students and teachers; working tirelessly to run an efficient and productive school. I attribute their lack of enthusiasm for my ideas to the possibility that they were required to take a class in “administrators’ school” where they were told to reject any idea that wasn’t taught there.
The school where I have taught for all these years is, in my opinion, one of the finest educational institutions anywhere. My own child graduated from the school where I teach and I would have never allowed her to attend if I did not believe it was her best option. In fact, I graduated from this school myself many years ago, and our alumni have been successful and productive members of their communities. Given all of this, we still have problems that need addressing; some of which I will get into here from time to time.
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