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  1. #181
    Lord Ash and any other teachers on this board,

    Thank you for teaching our kids. Enjoy your summer off. Come back rested to teach the next set of kids. Your real reward is when kids return to your class to see you long after you have taught them. To me, that is the sign of a good teacher.

    Sincerely,

    DukieInKansas

  2. #182
    Quote Originally Posted by DukieInKansas View Post
    Lord Ash and any other teachers on this board,

    Thank you for teaching our kids. Enjoy your summer off. Come back rested to teach the next set of kids. Your real reward is when kids return to your class to see you long after you have taught them. To me, that is the sign of a good teacher.

    Sincerely,

    DukieInKansas
    Man I try to be all mean, and you come back with that? *sigh*

    Thanks Dukie

  3. #183
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Asheville, NC
    Sorry, I just read this. I'd love to give you a happy ending, but about eight weeks ago his grandmother gave him his mothers number without talking to us. She's in a halfway house for using meth and has another outstanding warrant, she was just released from jail seven months ago. D. Quit taking his medicine, became very angry all the time, kept getting in trouble at school despite our efforts to support the school, then did a couple of thing I'd prefer not to write about. He left our house two weeks ago and is living with a friend while his mother says she is sending him a bus ticket to CA. We did everything we could, and it almost destroyed our family. I ended up in the hospital, our 13 year old is still traumatized by some of the events, and my husband had to bear the heavy lifting to end things. We are focusing on that we tried our best, and at 17, he made some very poor choices. And we're trying to rebuild things at home. I tell teachers all the time they make a difference everyday, even when they don't feel like it. Trying to believe that for myself now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Hey all,

    BC, that is a great story. Thanks for doing a good thing How are things going?

    Thought I'd share the latest ridiculousness...

    So I have a young lady in my class... a nice girl who is awful pretty, but who also realizes it. She wears a TON of makeup, and has a bad habit of wearing INCREDIBLY short shorts... like, rear-end-hanging-out sorts of things. She is part of a social group that is somewhat similar... all very pretty, popular girls who we've heard a lot of rumors about as sometimes being a touch mean on The Facebook.

    Anyway... a woman teacher on staff had spoken with the girl a few times about her shorts not being appropriate, and we had hoped she would make the change on her own, but nothing happened.

    Then a student who sits at this girls desk in another class gives me a note. She said she found it sitting in the lip of the desk, and folded up you could see some curses showing. She gave it to me but clearly wasn't sure if she should.

    So I opened it up and it was very strange... it had the name of the teacher who had spoken to her, surrounded by random words... some really bad curses, and then some random stuff (Osama Bin Laden, Muzlem (the spelling offended me more than the curses!), donut... random stuff.)

    I looked at the handwriting, and it was clearly hers... teachers have to get good at this stuff, and this was a clear match... bs and ds written the same, a connected the same, etc etc. I even compared it to other writing of hers and made a little photocopy comparison of the two pieces, letter by letter.

    So I meet with this other teacher and the principal, and we felt we should call mom and dad in... between the dress, the note, and some rumors of some meanness on The Facebook, we thought we should maybe keep an eye on her, to make sure that she didn't start down a "bad" path.

    So the principal gets the number to call, but the mom calls first! "I need to come see you," she says, and the principal says "Well, I was calling you also" so a meeting is set.

    Holy cow.

    The mother comes in with the husband, the kid, and the grandmother, and promptly informs us that she is going straight to the Bd of Ed to report the woman teacher who spoke with her daughter and she will have her JOB. Apparently her daughter was bullied and she won't take it. After having the daughter leave, we show her the note and she insists it isn't her daughters, insists that we aren't handwriting experts so how would we know, demands we call the police and bring them in with a handwriting expert to figure out whose handwriting it is, points out that the girl has examples of work around the classroom and ANYONE could forge the note to get her in trouble... she is calling her lawyer, this is ridiculous, we are "after" her daughter... she literally puts her hand in the face of the woman teacher, saying "I don't want to hear THIS ones voice again!" and insists she might have ALL of our jobs, because we clearly are out to get her daughter.

    We were flabbergasted.

    When we suggested that her clothes didn't fit school dress code, the grandmother began to rant about how it wasn't our place to say, and then that we should require an inseam of a certain length. "How are we going to measure the inseam on a young lady?" asked the principal. "Just tell them they cannot buy anything shorter!" insisted the grandmother. "We can't tell people what to buy," said the principal. "We are just a school. However, we can tell them how they need to dress, which is why this is coming up." The grandmother went crazy, looking at me and saying "Oh, so you want them all coming in wearing a burqa, is that it?!" she demanded. "No," I said, full of wide-eyed innocence "Why would she wear a burqa? She isn't a Muslim. She can't even spell Muslim." (I couldn't help it... it was too good of a line to not use. Thankfully I don't think they got it.)

    It was incredible. The mother insisted that there was no clothing issue and said she would refuse to come bring her daughter appropriate clothing if we called home, despite the booty shorts and the overwhelming blue eyeshadow that some teachers insisted privately would have looked far more appropriate on a street walker. And they insisted their daughter was framed, that the note found in her desk in her handwriting was a fake planted there to get the girl in trouble, despite the fact that she doesn't really have any enemies, and that anything about Facebook was false. The mother went so far as to demand an apology from all of us to her daughter for being out to get her, maybe in front of the whole school so everyone would know it wasn't her daughter who wrote it.

    Oh man. After almost two hours the principal just wound it up, we talked to the girl to make sure she knew we certainly weren't out to get her and we wanted her to be comfortable in class, and that was that. When the family left we were all spent. Seriously? Call the police and get a handwriting expert?

    Such a momentous waste of time and energy, and such a delusion on the parents part... despite the fact that we said, again and again, we simply wanted mom and dad to be aware because when kids hit puberty they change a lot and can make a lot of social-driven mistakes, they were sure we hated their daughter and we were planning to destroy her. Insanity.

    Anyway... there is my story of the day. Yay for parents who help the process along!

  4. #184
    Aw crap. Well listen, kudos to you and your family for doing your very best to help a young person out. If he wasn't in a place where he could accept it, so be it.

  5. #185
    BCGroup,

    I'm sorry to hear the help you tried to give the young man didn't turn out the way one would hope. You and your whole family are in my prayers that you will heal and come out of this stronger as people and a family. I pray that at some point the young man will take a look at his life and remember that a family cared enough to put themselves out for him and it will make a difference at that point.

    Thank you for trying to make a difference.

    DukieInKansas

  6. #186
    Hey all!

    Well, the new year has started, and so far so good... class is a bit quiet, but well behaved and I am sure they'll open up a bit soon enough.

    Anyway... had a funny moment today that I had to share... I think I actually watched a boy step from boyhood to the first beginning of manhood!

    So. I have a big group of girls this year who are friends. They are also very fashion-conscious, and unfortunately as fashion today seems to be short shorts they tend to wear them. To be honest none of the girls do it for the "wrong reasons" I don't think... they aren't quite like that; they are generally a very sweet, nice group. They mainly do it because it is the fashion and they have a bunch of older sisters who dress like that. One girl in particular, a very cute young lady (we'll call her Marisa) with a high school age sister who is quite a beauty tends to wear shorts that are really, really inappropriate. I haven't addressed it as my principal has sort of given up on the issue and there is no way I'm tackling it without support from an administrator, but a number of the teachers have exchanged the old "Oh man, come on." look as the classes go down the hall.

    So anyway... today there was this thing the kids all had to write on... a sort of list on a clipboard that I put on a chair in the front of the room. They lined up to come write on it, but for some reason none picked it up; instead, they either bent down to write or they got on their knees on the rug in front of the chair to write. I ended up standing off to the side a ways watching them write and go back to their desks, and just generally keeping an eye on things.

    The class gradually moves through and the line shrinks, and soon there are just two left; Marisa, whose shorts today were so short that bits were beginning to poke out, and behind her a somewhat nerdy, somewhat chunky boy we'll call Winston (his real name might be even nerdier. He is still a bit immature (the difference in sixth grade between boys and girls is pretty noticeable) and a real sight; round glasses, always has the cowlick of hair, the chubby red cheeks, the not-too-fashionable clothes... he feels like he stepped right out of 1941 England. He giggles a lot and talks about cartoons and action figures and stuff with the other boys... he is that sort

    So Marisa, like a lot of the kids before her, gets on her knees at the chair and then sort of leans forward to lean on the chair as she writes, ending up sort of on all fours with her elbows on the chair and her rear end in the air. She is writing for a few seconds and Winston is just looking absently around the room, eyes blinking owlishly behind his spectacles, waiting his turn. He then looks down to see if the person in front of him is done, and suddenly his eyes widen as he takes in the sight a foot in front of him. His head sort of pulled back, and his chin very, very slowly dropped slowly, ending in this O shape of sheer terror and unrivaled delight. As Marisa was kneeling in front of him, rear in the air, he literally stood there for a minute as she wrote, his eyes GLUED down, absolutely and completely FROZEN in place, as she wrote away. His eyes were like dinner plates; it was like someone gaining their sight for the first time in their life. This little scene went unchanged for a minute, and no one in class noticed a thing (except, of course, my poor friend Winston who is doing his best impression of a statue.)

    Then Marisa finished up, got up, smiled at Winston and handed him the pen, and went back to her desk. His O mouth slowly changed to this perfect shocked grin of absolute and sheer revelation, his mind clearly in some other brand-new land as he carefully bent down and began to write.

    It was funny; afterwards I noticed that he seemed to go a little out of his way to talk to her the rest of the day, going so far as to partner up with her for a science assignment.

    It was one of the cuter boy/girl things I've ever actually seen in school... no one in the room realized what was happening except me, and the expression on his face was like something out of a comic book

    Anyway... a funny moment
    Last edited by Lord Ash; 10-06-2011 at 08:11 PM.

  7. #187
    Thanks for sharing this moment. What fun to be able to watch young people mature.

    I hope your school year is full of inquisitive students and cooperative parents.

  8. #188
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    I hope the nasty detractors of the teachers, nationwide, are happy because they're helping to destroy already-fragile morale.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/ed...me&ref=general

    Worst of all:

    More than 75 percent of the teachers surveyed said the schools where they teach had undergone budget cuts last year, and about as many of them said the cuts included layoffs — of teachers and others, like school aides and counselors. Roughly one in three teachers said their schools lost arts, music and foreign language programs. A similar proportion noted that technology and materials used in the schools had not been kept up to date to meet students’ needs.

    “The fixation on testing has been a negative turn of events when the things that engage kids in schools are all being cut,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  9. #189
    Hate to say it, but I am not surprised. I would never recommend anyone become a teacher at this point... It just feels like a dying profession. In my home state of NJ it definitely is a dying profession... The governor has implimented a 2% property tax cap, so no district is allowing raises above 2%, even if there are even more students than before and demand and results are increasing. With the mandatory increase in teacher payment towards health benefits already hammering salaries, and obviously no way for teachers to make a bonus or anything (and no way for districts to pay for them even if they existed) teachers will actually end up losing money as the years go on, as the cost of living and inflation far outstrip the raises of .5 and 1% that have been settled on. It is just foolish and irresponsible to become a teacher, as there is no financial viability left in a profession that was already a tough one for any American with a family and expenses to manage.

    Fun times. A veteran teacher I work with, a very determined and smart woman who was apparently a well known leader in the civil rights movement and who cares infinitely about her kids, recently told me to get the heck out of education while I can, and get into consulting, because I was wasting my time and my brains in the dead end that is the classroom. It was a very depressing moment.

  10. #190
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Hate to say it, but I am not surprised. I would never recommend anyone become a teacher at this point... It just feels like a dying profession. In my home state of NJ it definitely is a dying profession... The governor has implimented a 2% property tax cap, so no district is allowing raises above 2%, even if there are even more students than before and demand and results are increasing. With the mandatory increase in teacher payment towards health benefits already hammering salaries, and obviously no way for teachers to make a bonus or anything (and no way for districts to pay for them even if they existed) teachers will actually end up losing money as the years go on, as the cost of living and inflation far outstrip the raises of .5 and 1% that have been settled on. It is just foolish and irresponsible to become a teacher, as there is no financial viability left in a profession that was already a tough one for any American with a family and expenses to manage.

    Fun times. A veteran teacher I work with, a very determined and smart woman who was apparently a well known leader in the civil rights movement and who cares infinitely about her kids, recently told me to get the heck out of education while I can, and get into consulting, because I was wasting my time and my brains in the dead end that is the classroom. It was a very depressing moment.
    That is distressing. I was educated in NJ, and had so many good teachers. I hate to think I was just lucky, and that kids now would need to be even luckier.

  11. #191
    Sorry, wanted to add... it isn't only money that is depressing the teachers I work with.

    There is, unfortunately, a lot of "legislation from above" that is really getting people upset. The two biggest things are about teacher and student evaluation.

    Student evaluations nowadays are almost completely state tests. We focus SO much of our "education" on these tests, tests which were created by someone else and that do not rate anything like Social Studies or Science or Art or anything like that.

    Plus, something that really bothers teachers is the logic-defying goal of all children showing progress beyond the progress that is typical for their age group. Obviously tests test different material and abilities as you move on by year... a first grade test tests the abilities and knowledge expected of a first grader... a second grade test is correspondingly more difficult.

    However, a student showing consistent performance is not good enough. A student cannot be fairly consistent from year to year, showing appropriate development. Instead, not only do they have to progress as we expect them do (as determined by how the tests are made more difficult) but they have to get better than that. Given that ALL students have to do this, it can be overwhelming. As I always say... we cannot get all ADULTS to agree that Elvis is dead or that they haven't been kidnapped and probed by aliens... how can we expect 8 and 9 year olds to show consistent progress beyond that which is expected and appropriate for their age?

    I'll write more later about the second part, teacher evaluations, soon... got to run

  12. #192
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    ...how can we expect 8 and 9 year olds to show consistent progress beyond that which is expected and appropriate for their age?...
    That doesn't seem mathematically possible.

    But get back to the classroom, ya lazy git.

  13. #193
    Heh

    Yeah, it is basically an impossible standard.

    If the tests are properly and adequately made, and thus account for increases in both knowledge and capability, how then do we expect ALL students to make progress above and beyond what is expected for their age? What about kids who progress slower? Or who are not as smart? Or are not interested in doing well? Or who suffered a massive loss in their family two weeks before the test? Or...?

    This blows me away. It is simply impossible to create a challenging and appropriate test that A) all students will pass and B) all students will outpace. And no one seems to notice? I don't get it.



    The other thing that I mentioned is teacher evaluation. Teacher evaluation is a very, very, VERY difficult thing. How do you account for the influence of a teacher in the learning of a child? How do you separate the teachers influence from the influence of parents, of friends, of genetics, of circumstances? Unfortunately the evaluation methods that are being proposed by many politicians and education professionals who are, for all intents and purposes, political positions seem almost impossible to manage.

    I can say this; when I rate myself, I certainly don't look at state test scores. I see which kids developed a work ethic, which kids internalized the reasons for the North defeating the South in the American Civil War, which kids eagerly look forward to writing every day because they love being the gods of their own little worlds, which parents tell me that their child comes home every day with story after story from school that they HAVE to share, which kids come to visit even years after I've had them.

    And how do you evaluate this? There is absolutely no equivalent in any other profession. It is maybe the most difficult aspect of teaching, but in some ways I cannot help but think it is also one that can be more easily solved by having principals and administrators who work far more closely with their staff, evaluating them constantly as they go and constantly keeping in touch with the families those teachers work with.

    But some of the models out there seem impossible and so far removed from what is important about teaching, and the idea of tying a teachers salary to the performance of their students on a state test is just insulting. Can you imagine if doctors got paid based on their patients remaining healthy, or if soldiers got paid based on winning or losing a war? Obviously it would never happen.

    The most important part of teaching is the most difficult thing in the world to test... it is like testing love. I don't know how on earth we can then try to tie salaries to it... and unfortunately many teachers I know are becoming more and more discouraged as the job they regard as so much more important than taking a multiple choice test is being evaluated more and more often solely on that.

  14. #194
    Lord Ash I may be printing off copies of your last few posts in this thread and handing them out to people who keep suggesting I get into teaching

    I have an MBA but a rough job search (because I want to work in professional sports) has lead me to the schools the last year and a half working with small groups of students identified as "at risk for failing" state assessments. I love my students and there is nothing like seeing them "get it". However, I have no desire to pursue a license and a full time teaching position because of the issues with assessment and teacher evaluation. It's insanity.

    Keep fighting the good fight. As I'm sure you know there are many in the profession who agree with you on these issues (unfortunately they don't seem to be the people with the power to make decisions).

  15. #195
    Quote Originally Posted by kmspeaks View Post
    Lord Ash I may be printing off copies of your last few posts in this thread and handing them out to people who keep suggesting I get into teaching

    I have an MBA but a rough job search (because I want to work in professional sports) has lead me to the schools the last year and a half working with small groups of students identified as "at risk for failing" state assessments. I love my students and there is nothing like seeing them "get it". However, I have no desire to pursue a license and a full time teaching position because of the issues with assessment and teacher evaluation. It's insanity.

    Keep fighting the good fight. As I'm sure you know there are many in the profession who agree with you on these issues (unfortunately they don't seem to be the people with the power to make decisions).
    *laugh* Please do. It is close to impossible for me to recommend anyone get into education.

    And good luck with sports. Remember, don't scoff at unpaid internships, that is how things start in sports. Look for spots with minor league teams; it is rare to just start off at an NBA team or whathaveyou. It can be a very enjoyable field.

  16. #196
    Hi all,

    Sorry, a bit short on positive stories recently, but thought folks might get a kick out of this...

    We are currently studying the American Civil War. One of my students, a cute young lady who unfortunately does struggle a bit with school, really dedicated herself to preparing for the big chapter test and was determined to do well. She did, getting an A-, and according to mom also picked up something else in the meantime... a crush on none other than Robert E. Lee.

    Who would have guessed?

  17. #197
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    St. Louis
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Hi all,

    Sorry, a bit short on positive stories recently, but thought folks might get a kick out of this...

    We are currently studying the American Civil War. One of my students, a cute young lady who unfortunately does struggle a bit with school, really dedicated herself to preparing for the big chapter test and was determined to do well. She did, getting an A-, and according to mom also picked up something else in the meantime... a crush on none other than Robert E. Lee.

    Who would have guessed?
    I would have guessed Stanton.

  18. #198
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Ash View Post
    Hi all,

    Sorry, a bit short on positive stories recently, but thought folks might get a kick out of this...

    We are currently studying the American Civil War. One of my students, a cute young lady who unfortunately does struggle a bit with school, really dedicated herself to preparing for the big chapter test and was determined to do well. She did, getting an A-, and according to mom also picked up something else in the meantime... a crush on none other than Robert E. Lee.

    Who would have guessed?
    Was PT Beauregard or Stuart too dashing?

  19. #199
    Heh... It was actually funny, talking about JEB Stuart being quite the rage amongst southern belles, and describing him, and then showing them a picture... Somehow, for some reason, they had a hard time "seeing it.". There was definitely some explaining to do re: hats and beards

  20. #200
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by InSpades View Post
    And you used "average worker at Goldman" in your response. Do you have anything of substance to add to the conversation?
    As a resident statistician, I'll comment. The old joke about averages, of course, comes to mind. Paraphrasing here - you're at your local bar wondering what the average worth of the people around you might be, then Bill Gates walks in.

    Salary distributions are notoriously skewed data. A much, much, better measure of the middle value in salary data is, of course, the median. But even with your average salary of $58,000 (with benefits taking you to $70,000), we'd need to know the range. Typically with teacher salaries, you start very low, you work your way and get tenured, if you can afford to stay in the profession that long, then you hit the ceiling and your salary doesn't go up any more unless you switch to being a specialty teacher or administrator. But let's also compare teachers to a Joe average office worker. If Joe average office worker runs out of printer ink or needs a pad of paper or even a new box of red pens, he asks the office manager to order some. Teachers have to go to Staples and buy their own. If every teacher stopped supplying their own classrooms tomorrow, many of our children would suddenly not have paper or pencils or crayons or art supplies or a host of other things we take for granted. I'm sure these expenses are tax deductible but still, it ain't right.

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