Six Word Saturday

Mutuality: give respect to get respect.



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This seems to be a missing concept.

I love how I am rude if I reprimand a student (gently) to stop interrupting me while I am talking (to the class) - but the student feels justified in speaking what they want when they want.

six word Saturday

Actions have consequences - like or not.



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This week, a lot of the students are taking the easy route. They are failing to show up at sports practices - and then are surprised that they cannot play the game. They feel they are prepared so the coach has a stupid rule.

Or they show up 20 minutes into the game and have to sit on the bench - and that isn't fair either.

Or they refuse to do any work in a class and want the failing grade changed to a passing grade before report cards come out - whether the teacher has time or not. (And we all know who has to come up with same extra work.)

Interesting week.

Let me give you a clue

Let me give you a clue, honey, because it is obvious you do not have one. After you spend a class period refusing to work, wasting the teacher's supplies, slandering the teacher by saying all sorts of accusations that are not true (not directed to the teacher but making a point to say it loud enough that everyone knows you said it and the teacher heard it), and refusing to follow the classroom rules, I would suggest that asking the same teacher to loan you money will not get you the answer you want.

As a teacher, I should try to teach you the error of your ways, but I am learning this year that you really do not think you did anything wrong. Instead you think I am not being fair.

How many days til summer?

Common Core - finally a voice of sanity

Indiana is putting the brakes on Common Core until they can do some cost analysis and effectiveness analysis. As ineffective as NCLB has been, you would have thought that people would have been more cautious the next time.

Six Word Saturday

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn.



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This week has been a learning week.

Six Word Saturday

Do we want to implement rigor?



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We say we do - but, do we really? Here, if you make it rigorous - go for the depth - the students complain, dig in their heels, their parents complain to the school, and more work is added to the teacher and the student is off the hook.

A very dear friend (who is a master teacher and the mentor who helped me decide I wouldn't destroy kids if I went into teaching) is known for being rigorous. It has caused her problems in a couple of schools because other teachers are easier. Not as good, you don't learn as much, but they are easier.

She was hired by the private school she is in now because of her talents and her penchant for rigor - and given free rein. For a year - then the parents complained about their darlings' grades and how hard it was - and she was asked to tone it down.

This bothered her until her daughter (a college professor who, again, followed her mother's lead) told her to look at this way: teaching allows her time with her grandchildren and brings in a decent paycheck. Stop looking at teaching as a calling and look at it as a job. Do your time, resent every second of your own time you spend on schoolwork (so cut that short) and relish the parts of your life that you have control over.

And I see the loss to the future that our instant gratification society has done to itself. And I do not think the future is better for it.