Philosophy Without A Home

I’ve heard that good students will survive a poor teacher, but bad students will never recover. I’ve also heard: Tell me and I'll forget ; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand. -Chinese proverb Quality teachers get students involved. How do you get students involved? · Make them feel safe in the classroom o Safe from violence o Safe from ridicule o Safe to be wrong o Safe to ask for real help · Preview what will be learned o Point out the things they will learn · Give an activity and let them do it o Refuse to accept anything until after they try § Students don’t try because · They don’t see the point · They don’t understand · They need to keep up walls physical and mental · They know it isn’t important § Give them the skills they need to complete the project. · There are students who don’t try because they don’t know how to do it and they are afraid to admit weakness. · Especially at

Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr If you care to look you will find dozens of articles just like this one . Articles about states passing laws requiring teachers to show improvements in student test scores or lose their jobs. First, I think it should be obvious, but it isn't, that one test per year is just bad science. We need a real way to measure teacher performance, preferably based on a combination of several metrics. Second, if we pass a law like this how is that going to play out in the classroom? Who is going to take the IEP students? “Not I”, said the teacher with 10 years of seniority. Who is going to take the disruptive students? “Not I”, said the team leaders “I'll send that disruptive child to the office everyday before 8:01 so I can teach the other 29 students in my classroom.” Said the teacher who got stuck with them. Who is going to work in the worst schools? “Not I”, said the teacher who

It's been kind of a busy week for reading and all. A great blog on gearing up to teach Algebra I next year Summative exam ( thoughts on Karl Fish's transparent assessment ) If I have been proving that I know a concept throughout the year because I am passing formative exams then why should I have to pass a summative exam at the end of the year to prove that I know what I proved that I knew then. All I’m really proving is that I remembered what I proved that I learned earlier in the year. Some thoughts on bringing the conversation of change into being Thoughts on teachers from Rethinking Conversation and Change Often the problem at home (in the school) is that it (the conversation) quickly turns into a bitch session. Well if the administration did this… If the parents did that… If I were allowed, knew how, had the expertise, had the resources I could do the other… Most teachers don't really want to talk theory in the break room. They just want to complain about the st

Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr After reading this interesting article I really wanted to get my thoughts down right away. The article seems to be saying if we pay students every week or two to for concrete actions that we know will improve learning than paying for grades works. We aren’t paying for grades so to speak but motivating students to do those mundane tasks they don’t like, but which we as teachers know will help them learn. If we pay a student to read a book, or pay a student to control his/her behavior, or show up to school, or any of those things we as educators know our students need to do to be successful, is it wrong? It’s just another way to motivate our students. I'm not really fond of paying money to go to school, but I like it better than spending so much of my time talking about discipline. One of the biggest complaints of middle school grade math teachers is that students don’t have basic skills . They can’t do simple co

After reading Lockhart’s Lament I got to thinking about what might happen if we taught math class more like we teach Art. I thought about the first district I taught at. We never seemed to have any real art classes. A couple of volunteers would come in about once a month and teach a lesson and that was it for the elementary school. Yet, the high school always seemed to be filled with the most amazing art. I know my fourth graders loved to draw. I encouraged it as much as I could but I never really tried to teach art. I just don’t know enough about the subject to teach it. I brought in a few artists I knew and let them teach when I could. Was the positive encouragement and the hands-off attitude crucial to developing so many artists or am I just imagining things. Should elementary teachers who don't know anything about Math or Science not teach those subject and invite experts to visit their classrooms?

I’m not a strict Problem Based Learning (PBL) person, but I am one who loves to try to make my students think. Actually, I love to think so I just assume my students should also. It isn’t always true. Suppose I gave this problem to my students: What is the measure of angle C? Even my best students would probably give this problem about five minutes before giving up. They simply don’t know HOW to go about finding the answer. I have noticed that as soon as I start asking students to think they often just shut down. Problem solving at its core is a creative endeavor. Students must transfer the problem from English, or better yet an observation, decide what the actual problem is, devise a strategy of attack, evaluate the effectiveness, and often times start over again from the beginning. Or as illustrated: Picture found at Man With No Blog . The problem is students are in school and as Sir Ken Robinson is so famous for saying, “ Schools Kill

Image by bionicteaching via Flickr Not since I was a student teacher have I had to deal with a school Internet connection that had any sort of serious filtering. Way back then I talked to the IT person and we discussed the pros and cons of filtering. Eventually, we decided that teachers should bear the primary responsibility of monitoring student behavior and the filters would simply block obvious pornography sites. Ah the good old days when we didn't have to worry about gambling, online games, facebook, myspace, twitter, and all that other stuff. Today the conversation is a bit longer, but I think the results should be about the same. The primary responsibility of monitoring the students should fall on the heads of the teacher. The filters should block only the sites that violate school codes. Social networking, games, etc they can sometimes offer quality educational value and should not be blocked. I never really understood those teachers who would com

Last year a grandmother was watching her grandchild Rey Rey die of cancer. She wanted to do something about it. She started a fund raising campaign with the help of St. Baldricks. Last year the school raised over $1,000 and the district raised about $3,000 total. Rey Rey did not survive, but the St. Baldricks charity event did survive. This year the school raised over $600 not including however much the district raised in total. At the is point the reader may be disappointed that the children raised less money, but you shouldn't. With the struggling economy and the number of empty foreclosed homes in the area, combined with the over $1,000 raised last month for Haiti relief I think these kids are pretty amazing. Just another story to prove that in a school with 78% free/reduced lunch eligibility , the less you have to more you tend to give to charity. stbaldricks from Brendan Murphy on Vimeo . Last second donations can be made here. https://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/de

I’ve always loved the use of a student-centered or constructivist based learning for classroom teaching. The knock has usually been that there isn’t enough practice. I’ve never felt that was a problem. Everyone else seems to comment on it so I’ll mention it. Image via Wikipedia The knock I find is assessment. Yes, we can assess projects and read journals, and take tests, but for me that doesn’t satisfy (and for many it isn’t a multiple choice test so it isn’t valid). As a student I was always a master of learning a specific skill and remember it long enough to pass the test and then forget it (Please give me a multiple choice test, I can pass most of those without even knowing the material). Yeah, some of the stuff I stuck in short term memory is still there, but not all. Really, for me the stuff was there like the answers to Trivial Pursuit questions, but they had no real meaning. The problem for me is if it isn’t important enough to remember for long term

While listening to Sir Ken Robinson the other day I saw a lot of people in the comments asking these questions along the lines of: Should we continue to encourage students in their passion even though they suck at it? And should we allow passionate teachers to stay even though they suck? Image by USV via Flickr Is everyone who is passionate about art creating museum quality art? Of course not. Some passionate people are curators, some are graphic artists, some are in design, and some teach. Not all make a living by making art, but I would bet most have a job or hobby that let’s them express their love of art. Even though I like art, I’m not one who is ever going to pay millions or even thousands of dollars to buy a piece of art for my home. I’m just not that passionate about art. I do however like to doodle a bit when bored. Should passionate teachers who aren’t really good teachers be allowed in the classroom? We aren’t even close to being able to ask that question. I think if