posted
It really doesn't surprise me. And, as a non-tenured teacher, stories like this are why I teach from the curriculum guide and only from the curriculum guide. If there are any objections to what I teach, they would have to object with the approved guide put out at the district level, which means my curriculum supervisor would back me up.
You can get creative when you have tenure, not before.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Citation needed? "Statistical" ten percent? It is an estimate, but a highly accurate one.
If a student has parents that know the teachers, attend conferences, keep track of homework, know what's happening in class, volunteer, hold the student accountable, provide encouragement, provide a good home environment, and most of all read with the child when young, the child will be successful in school regardless whether the teacher is great or mediocre, and regardless of whether the curriculum is old-fashioned or based on cutting-edge research, or whether the school is well-funded. The only other factor that has a significant impact on how well the student will do is whether classmates also have involved parents. If those classmates are a mess because their parents have failed them, it makes it much harder for the student to excel.
I'm not big on statistics or research with respect to topics that can be assessed with simple observation, experience, and common sense. In my opinion, all debates about the educational system boil down to this. All the things we get so worked up about with respect to teachers, money, methodologies, etc., are about how the Band-Aid should look in case the parents fail, which they so often do.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Well, sir, what is your solution then? Do we start going into homes and forcing parents to do those things? Or do we adjust the teachers, funding, and methodologies to do the best we can to make up for the lack of involved parents?
Or do you suggest we just let the students fail to learn because they lost the genetic lottery and got stuck with crappy parents?
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: You can get creative when you have tenure, not before.
While this makes some amount of sense -- you should learn to work with the existing system before trying to turn it on its head -- it's mostly depressing.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Especially as an imaginative administration can do just about anybody in if the teachers' union isn't in the mood to put up a fight. Just keep reassigning the teacher to less desirable schedules, and eventually out of subject entirely (speed depends on how likely the teachers' union is to oppose).
At least in the systems I'm familiar with, I'd like to see a major reorganization of school-level administration. I'm not sure yet entirely what I do want to see, but too often the ones who end up with the principal positions (at least at the middle and high school level) for the long term are egomaniacs or petty dictators (or both). I was blessed with a wonderful elementary school principal who left his mark on the entire school, and it was incredible. Our high school went through a sequence of interim principals while the school board tried to decide who to hire . . . and while one or two of the interims were good, they were only willing to be principal for a year or so. The guy who ended up with the job was (is) a very bad principal at most things except managing paperwork.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Well, the good news is that while I have a curriculum guide that lays out exactly what I should be teaching, it does not tell me HOW to teach it. That is, I must teach Nathaniel Hawthorne's literature and cover his contribution to American literature. I also must teach the elements of a short story.
Which Hawthorne short stories I choose, and how I use them is entirely up to me. Same with Poe - I have to cover him, but I can choose which stories and what activities to do with those stories. My book has "The Pit and the Pendulum" but I also enjoy teaching "The Masque of the Red Death," so I will be adding it.
What I don't do, as a non-tenured teacher, is teach someone whose book is not on the approved guide. Nor do I ignore the guide altogether and say something akin to "Meh, I don't like Poe. Let's skip him."
If I had tenure, it's possible I could justify changing things in the curriculum guide - I might could argue that there are other authors from the period who are better representations of it than Poe, etc. But as a non-tenured teacher, I don't try. I teach what's on the guide.
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