I never paid my kids for good grades, but I also never considered making them pay ME for poor grades!  Brilliant move!

I am all for vocational training, if that's what you're talking about.  They did that when I was in high school, and it seemed to work.  But then again, lots of things were done differently when I was in school, things that were better, but all of that's gone now via No Child Left Behind.

Hi Tim~ 

I totally agree that students do well when they are good and ready to do well and not until then.  I was also much like you, a late bloomer with my desire to learn and find a love for learning. Like yours, my desire also arose in college when I too discovered I was a straight ‘A’ student because I chose to be, not because I was being bribed.      Some people have a desire to learn early in life and others it takes a maturation process and a purpose for wanting to learn.  As a 5th grade teacher I can say all the above things your parents said to you about education and success and how they go hand in hand.  I can reward, I can punish, I can make phone calls home, I can make them make phone calls home, I can take privileges away, I can give tons of privileges but I can't make any kiddo want to do their work or learn until they choose to.     Sadly, with so many subjects to teach and plan for, standards to address, competencies to help children pass, papers to assess, meetings to attend, paperwork to fill out,  parents and students to please, etc. that leaves little to no time to try and find ways to make the state adopted standards in all subjects meaningful to real life applications.  Back in the day we didn't have high stakes testing or NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND (when many are really being left behind because one must not stay on one concept to long in fear of not addressing all standards, no matter if the students understand the concept or not), yet most of us seemed to grow to be successful, creative, and productive citizens.      If you discover some creative ways to implement life skills in the state adopted standards and the district adopted curriculum that gives ALL children the desire and motivation to want to learn and succeed, please pass them my way. As for now I will continue to work tirelessly to help ALL my students, at different levels, with different interests, desires, home situations, learning styles, motivational levels, learning needs, and desire to come to school helping them find some type of love for learning everyday.     I love to read your posts.  Keep them coming.   Mrs. B

I couldn't agree with you more, Terri.  Teachers are hobbled by oversight at the State and Federal levels.  I had a gut reaction while reading Doug Noon's comments on NCLB and testing today.  He is right on the money, and I was extremely jealous that he wrote the following - not me!

"One of Darling-Hammond’s slides listed what she called the 'changing expectations for learning':

• ability to communicate;
• adaptability to change;
• preparedness to solve problems;
• ability to analyze and conceptualize;
• ability to reflect on and improve performance;
• ability to manage oneself;
• ability to create, innovate, and criticize;
• ability to engage in learning new things at all times;
• ability to cross specialist borders;

NONE of these expectations are addressed in any NCLB reform proposals, or its simplistic testing regime. If we’d have used an NCLB-style approach to the Apollo moon mission, President Kennedy would have simply ordered NASA to fly conventional airplanes higher and higher until they fell out of the sky, and then blamed the pilots for lacking the will and the know-how to get the job done."

The NASA analogy says it all.  Folks, our educational system needs to become less top-down, not more - as soon as possible. Teachers should be facilitators of learning for our students, administrators and support staff should be facilitators of efficiency for our teachers, and the state and federal governments should get the heck out of the way.

Tim,

On your last thought, the problem you talk about is not just here.  My brother was an elementary school teacher in Annapolis, Maryland, and he said that he went into teaching with many goals and plans for making his classroom truly educational.  Boy was he mistaken.  He said that he was completely hamstrung by rigid policies of what you could and could not do, largely created from administrators who were more aftraid of violating political correctness and the "self-esteem" of the children than it was to educate. 

The result? His first and primary goal was to find a way of keeping the students in line before he could even begin to teach.  I couldn't really relate until he told me to watch the fourth season of the Wire (an HBO series that had its final run last year) and when I saw the classroom scenes, I got it.  If the classrooms aren't that bad out here, it sounds as if current policies will create that type of enviroment.  My hats off to all of you with the task of working your way through that mire.

 

 

Thank you Tim!  I read the article by Doug Noon and another very important point I found while reading this article is in the statement below:

  “Darling-Hammond and the other speakers in the forum described a performance based approach to testing that uses teacher-scored formative assessments that would influence both teaching and learning, and which is already operative in various places inside and outside the US. “     The state tests are a formal written assessment.  Not all kids, actually not many,  test well with this type of format.  The students may very well know the answer to a given question if worded in a different manner. Good educators use multiple types of assessment tools: formal, informal, projects, investigations, etc.  Many of these assessments are performance based and are actually better indicators of a student's understanding of the curriculum being taught.       In the real world, at real jobs, after the initial formal written assessment (TESTS) that allow you to get the job in the first place, most tasks are performance based.  Why is it that so many workers after getting a job are unable to perform the task at hand to be effective at the job?  It really is a sad system that has been developed that we all are aware of; now how do we fix it? 

 

P.S.

Nothing about this blog, just a BEEF with formatting! 

How do you get your paragraphs to show up after you submit your blog?  Mine are always all bunched up, but in the comment box I have placed spacing for paragraphs. 

Thanks TECH MAN

MrsB,

Good question.  I have noticed that sometimes the formatting doesn't come across when first submitting, but not every time.  It is kind of frustrating.  When that happens, I go back in and edit the line spaces back in and it always takes it the second time.

Weird.

Murphy1951,

I agree with you in numerous ways as it applies to attitudes, beliefs, and the freedom that teachers used to have.  I would like to point out two things, however.

First - some of the restrictions that teachers now have placed upon them are a result of a few teachers in the past who weren't responsible with their trusted position.  While it is not okay for management to punish the whole for the sins of a few, that is what has happened in some cases over the years.  I would love to see all teachers today be as responsible as most were 50 years ago also.

Second - It is important to note that we are preparing kids for jobs today that require completely different skillsets than the jobs of the 1950s.  I wish government would recognize that.  From a structural standpoint, the way we did "school" back then, and currently for that matter, is all wrong if we actually want to prepare students for future success.  That is a whole different discussion, though.