Professor Plum has decided that he will begin doing what other folks do--namely, (1) have some entries that are an assortment of resources and news, with the occasional snide remark; and (2) the usual effervescent essays that are the cause of so many painful groin pulls in Valiant Readers.
This just in from Faithful Reader Adrian...
I was wondering if you all
could help me get some exposure for this post (http://quincy2001.blogspot.com/2005/02/what-is-teacher.html)
asking readers to answer “What is a teacher?” I want to get as many
answers as possible, since the intent is to compare them with the stated goals
of various education schools and other ed. establishments. I see a big
disconnect between the two, and want to see if other people’s definitions of a
teacher are equally far off the establishment’s. Anyway, thanks in advance
for the help. ~Quincy~
___________________________________________
Here are some math resources...
www.schoolhousetech.com
Terrific articles at Education Next.
Also
www.teachyourchildrenwell.com Check the math CD my Mike Maloney.
Check the Gadfly. See esp the article by Rick Hess, who makes a distinction between hard science when selecting curricula and methods but good judgment when it comes to organizational decisions (which can't be tested the same wqay as a teaching methd).
___________________________________________
Here's as bit of news from Canada...
Barbara Kay
National Post (Canada)
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
[Emphasis mine. PP]
A sensational news item out of Toronto this month reports a "rising tide of
parental rage." Parents are swearing at teachers in front of children,
mouthing off at the school secretary or even launching (unspecified) physical
assaults over marks and discipline issues. "A generation ago," says
Sharon O'Halloran of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario,
"teachers and other authority figures were held in high regard. Now the
pendulum has shifted."
Setting aside O'Halloran's failed metaphor -- pendulums
don't shift, they swing -- her indignation leaves me curiously unmoved. Of
course, one never condones uncivil or violent behaviour against pubic servants.
And yet somewhere inside me a little imp is smiling. The little imp remembers
that after 9/11, the Toronto branch
of Ontario's biggest secondary
school teachers union joined the anti-American "root causes" chorus,
disseminating an article entitled Why
America is Hated, and encouraging teachers to use it in the classroom.
Although I normally abhor blame-the-victim games, since today's scapegoats
represent that arrogant juggernaut, the public education empire, I'll make an
exception.
What are the root
causes of parents' anger? Perhaps they feel their kids are getting a
second-rate education, and they're powerless to challenge the system. Or more
specifically, perhaps it's because they have kids in Grade 3 who feel dumb
because they can't read, spell or do simple math, with nobody in the
educational hierarchy taking responsibility for their failure.
I recently corresponded at length with a Vancouver mother, "Alice," who e-mailed me after reading a column I'd written about
political correctness in universities. Alice's
experience convinced her that the public school system is about union interests
first, and teaching children last. Her son "Brian" is dyslexic. He
was failing to learn to read through his school's "whole language"
approach, whereby a child follows his "feelings" about what a word or
story signifies, rather than its plain meaning.
Through her own research, Alice fell upon a program that worked in home trials, a variant of "Direct
Instruction"(DI), which is a rigorous, old-fashioned methodology based on
phoneme recognition, structure, memorization and drills. The school district
finally agreed to provide a teaching aide for Brian, but hired one with
seniority -- union rules -- and no expertise in dyslexia or DI. This
compromised his entire year, Alice
reports. Brian never learned to read
well, and dropped out of high school.
Direct Instruction has
been called the dirty little secret of the educational establishment. Its
superiority as a teaching tool, for all students, not just those with special
needs, is chronicled in the largest educational study ever done in the world.
Project Follow Through ran under the auspices of the U.S.Department of Education from 1967 to 1995,
and covered 79,000 children in 180 communities. Its results unequivocally
demonstrate that compared to modish program types like "student-centered
learning," "learning to learn," "guided reading" and
"balanced literacy," students under DI fared better in mastering the
three Rs. DI even improved "higher order thinking" and
"self-esteem" -- exactly the warm and fuzzy outcomes Canada's Whole
Language approach aims to boost.
So why the stubborn resistance to this inexpensive,
easily-implemented and highly standardized model?
The problem starts with the teachers colleges. Vancouver mother Karin Litzcke, an MBA and freelance journalist on the public education
beat, is writing a book on public education and democracy. According to her
research, DI isn't taught, even as an
alternate methodology, in a single Canadian education faculty.
DI gets results
quickly, even with learning-challenged students like Brian. It has also proven
effective with large classes -- and thus fewer teachers -- which might explain
why the union-dominated teaching industry views it with skepticism
Like Alice,
Litzcke complains that the education system stifles citizen input: Parents who
oppose the status quo are stonewalled or marginalized as troublemakers. Out of frustration, some 15 parents,
including Alice, have tried to sue educators for
malpractice, so far without success. Unlike their counterparts in law and
medicine, teachers aren't held to any legally binding professional benchmarks
-- except the ones the unions negotiate with provinces.
If your child can't read, spell or do math, Google
"Project Follow Through" and read a story that will enrage you. But
don't swear at the teachers. They're only failing to teach what they themselves
weren't taught.
© National Post 2005
Y'all can read more about the effectivness of DI and how the ed establishment suppresses its use here.
Aside from teachers and principals who eventually use DI curricula out of a sense of moral responsibility ("Fifty percent of our kids can't do math. We had to do SOMEthing.") others use it only because their state accountability system will nail them if they don't get more kids passing end of grade tests. [What a field!] In time, many teachers and principals who were reluctant to use DI ("It's not my style."--as if THAT ought to weigh real heavily in the decision) begin to like DI--"Hey, this really works!!"--and become diehard advocates. I'll tell you about that some other time.
Comments