Posts Tagged ‘Educators’

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Easing a Child’s Transition Back to School

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

This is part 2 of a 2 part series. The first part is The first week of school for Teachers.

As I discussed yesterday, the first week of school is absolutely chaotic for teachers. However, an effective teacher will make everything seem seem serene and well put together. The teacher gives an air of calm and purpose, making sure the children feel secure and ready to learn. The students, though, rarely sense the whirlwind of the week that follows, and continue being kids—much to the frustration of their teacher, who has enough to deal with as it is.

Yes, both teachers and students get anxious about the beginning of school. Parents, though, can be a big help in easing a child’s transition from summer vacation mode to school mode. Here are some tips that can make the student’s—and teacher’s—life a little easier:

1. Make sure your child is prepared for a chaotic and unpredictable week – That first week will involve lots of changes. If a child understands that this chaos is temporary and will then settle into a routine, it’ll help him/her adjust to the change. It will also allow the teacher to complete what is necessary to get on with the business of teaching your child.

2. Explain the importance of routines and procedures ahead of time – learning doesn’t happen until the class gets into a predictable rhythm: a routine involving rules and procedures that help the class run smoothly. Explain to your child the importance of those routines and that the teacher is doing them so that he/she can help you learn—even if the routines seem alien or unnecessary to you. There’s a method to our madness, believe me. If you don’t get it, just ask (see number 6).

3. When we send home our rules/materials/goals and expectations letter, take it seriously – it should go without saying, but too many parents take a look at the letter, run to the store to buy the necessary materials, sign what needs to be signed, and throw the rest away. Those letters we send home explain, in a nutshell, what is expected in the classroom. It’s vital FROM DAY ONE that the parent and the teacher are on the same page.

4. Bathroom your child before he/she leaves for school – you may not realize this, but most of the really effective learning happens in the morning, when we’re most alert. Many schools have banned bathroom use before a certain time. Making sure the student leaves the house fully evacuated helps in avoiding breaks in concentration. (Of course, if the kid has a medical problem, let us know.) I turn into a real vindictive monster when it comes to kids that abuse bathroom privileges…please avoid that.

5. Make sure your child takes homework seriously – homework will be assigned from the very first day, thanks to the wonderful universe created by school administrators and No Child Left Behind. Make sure your child gets into good homework habits from the beginning, along with all new routines he/she will learn that first week.

6. If you have a question or concern, ask sooner rather than later – don’t wait until a call comes home that Johnny isn’t doing his classwork to ask about classroom procedures. Believe me, we’re more than happy to discuss how we operate with parents. If something doesn’t make sense to you, it probably doesn’t make sense to us, either. We’re BOTH accountable for the well-being and success of this child, no matter what the NCLB crowd thinks.

The number one thought that we teachers want to leave with you is: be patient. Thanks to our current educational climate, most administrators are trained to see teachers as uneducated simians with number two pencils. Of course, that is hardly the case, but the first week of school creates such a myriad of concerns that we may seem like savage apes at times. At least for those first few weeks, give teachers the benefit of the doubt that they are doing the right thing. If you have concerns, it’s better to air them out with the teacher before escalating with administrators. After all, the students see their teacher more than anyone else that day, and they need to feel as comfortable as possible.

Teachers get frustrated and burnt out just like kids. If parents can work with us, then we can at least share the frustration, along with the thrills, of helping children learn. Now excuse me while I get back to cleaning my classroom…

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Luciano D’Orazio, AKA “Mr. D”, is the chief author/founder of Mr. D’s Neighborhood, a history education blog containing news, opinion pieces and resources pertaining to history and history education for grades K-12. He is the social studies coordinator for a K-5 elementary school in the South Bronx, New York, and is a Teacher-Historian with the Teaching American History federal grant program.

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Posted in Back to School, Guest, Teacher Perspectives | 4 Comments »

Round 2 Race to the Top Finalists: 18 States & D.C.

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Race to the Top is a historic federal project to investment in education reform, with $4.35 billion available to support states in their comprehensive educational reform. Funds are being disbursed in rounds. Round one and round two involved competitions amongst the states for grants based on their comprehensive plans to reform their schools and the statewide support for those plans. Reform plans include items such as adopting rigorous standards, elevating the teaching profession to reward excellence, turning around low-performing schools, and building better data systems to inform reform, among many others.

The round two competition is currently in progress. Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia applied for the second round, which has over $3 billion available for grants to the winners. Yesterday,  U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the nineteen finalists: Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.

“Peer reviewers identified these nineteen finalists as having the boldest plans, but every state that applied will benefit from this process of collaboratively creating a comprehensive education reform agenda,” Duncan said in a prepared speech “From educators to parents and political leaders to journalists — there is a growing sense that a quiet revolution is underway in our homes and schools, classrooms, and communities. This quiet revolution is driven by motivated parents who want better educational options for their children. It’s being driven by great educators and administrators who are challenging the defeatism and inertia that has trapped generations of children in second-rate schools.”

The finalists will travel to Washington to present their plans to the peer reviewers who scored their applications. After the state’s presentations and an extended question-and-answer period, the peer reviewers will finalize their scores and comments. The winners will be announced in September.

Delaware and Tennessee won $600 million in the first round of funding.

Christi Grab is Parentella’s Editorial Director and author of the book The Unexpected Circumnavigation: Unusual Boat, Unusual People Part 1 – San Diego to Australia. and is currently working on Part 2 of the series.

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Posted in Christi Grab | 4 Comments »

Would you want your child to become a teacher?

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

I have 2 kids and will soon have a third. I was talking to another friend of mine about what we want our kids to become when they grow up. In India, Engineer, Doctor, or lawyer are popular choices. Now it has shifted to computers, coding, etc. In my previous post, The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I talked about my family background and the abundance of teachers. Teachers are, for the most part, respected. I remember getting up when the teacher entered the class to wish them and thanking him/her when he/she left.

Fast forward, 20 years later (I think its 20, if its more, I don’t want to think about it!), I am very happy to find myself back in Education and affecting change. As my friend and I were talking, I began to wonder if I’d like my children to become teachers.

I was very surprised to find myself really thinking hard about it! Perhaps because I know too much? This should have been an easy answer.

Pros:

  • It is an extremely satisfying job. At the end of the day, when you see a student succeed and move past their limit, it is a proud moment.
  • You only have to work 9 months out of a year.
  • It is fun to interact with children.

Cons:

  • With the current resource and budget cuts, it is harder for a teacher to do their jobs.
  • The pay is not good.
  • Even though it seems you have work only 9 months out of a year, a teacher’s work never ends. You’re always working on the next lesson plan, grading, etc.
  • Lack of professional development and the ability to move things forward. Due to resource cut backs, professional development has been another area that has been hit.
  • There is a lot of stress. As a teacher, one has to balance a lot of expectations.

I am sure there are more pros that I can think of right now. It seems like the negatives outweigh the positives for a teacher. If, purely based on my very rudimentary analysis, one were to arrive at a conclusion, it would be that as a parent, we would not like our kids to become a teacher. I have a lot of friends that are educators, my family is in Education. Why is it though that on paper the prospects for the job are dismal?

I look forward to our #PTChat tomorrow at 9 p.m. EST and hope to add more Pros.

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Image Credit: http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2008/11/16-22/teacher.jpg

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Posted in Aparna Vashisht, Parent Perspectives | 3 Comments »

Why Getting Out Is Good

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

This is the time of year when every teacher can tell you exactly what is good about getting out, but I’m not talking about teachers. Students are my focus, specifically students who lack experiential learning.

Those students are often children from inner cities, but more and more of them are showing up in rural and even suburban areas.

A story in the New York Times about a principal and her students being hurt by the Race to the Top rules made me rethink my view of field trips. My previous position was that I totally dislike them.

From my teacher point of view they require additional planning, additional paperwork, often a long ride in an uncomfortable school bus, and additional risk. Because of a student drowning just before the end of the school year just past and its preventability, the risks have been foremost in my mind.

But like I said, this is not about teachers.

From the student point of view, field trips are, at worst, a day out of the classroom. Paradoxically, having a day out of the classroom may also be the best thing about field trips. If I haven’t already made it clear here or in my personal blog, I love teaching but I am not a big fan of classrooms or school buildings.

I am not a fan because I believe that for a great many students being in a classroom all day actually interferes with learning.

The students I teach know a lot. They know poverty, they know hip hop, they know sneakers and labels, they know that a lot of what we try to teach them in school will not make the slightest difference in their lives even if they learn it. They know that for many of them their lives will not be so different from the lives their parent’s have led. This is not a good thing.Many of my students have not been out of their neighborhood in the Bronx until we take them out on school trips.

I grew up in NYC. I went to NYC public schools, but my education was very different from the education these students are getting.

Image via Wikipedia

It has nothing to do with the schools being better or worse. They were pretty oppressive places 40 years ago and they still are.

The difference is (more…)

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Posted in Deven Black, Education Policy, Learning Activites, Teacher Perspectives | 10 Comments »

School Offices Versus All Others

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Photo: StockXchng/Marzie

I know Deven has previously written here about how education should not be treated like the business world, and while I totally agree with that, as a parent, I still am troubled by the fact that the worlds are still completely separate. And, as a parent, I find that it makes it harder for me to feel like a teacher and I have much in common. I have previously written here that parents and teachers simply must come together in order for effective productive change to come about.

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from my older daughter’s middle school that there is a $5 fine due for damage to one of the textbooks returned at the end of last year. (Seems my younger daughter spilled some deodorant on it.) The letter goes on to remind me that the school will only accept cash (so mailing a check is out of the question), the fine will have to paid before I can register her for next year, they are closed for the summer on Mondays and Fridays, and while they are open Tues. – Thurs. from 8:30 – 2, I really should call first to make sure they’re there.

Apparently, the $5 is not enough of a penalty. And apparently, it’s really me as the parent who needs to suffer the punitive damages. Not just the $5, but I now have to find time out of my work day (where my hours don’t change over the summer, thank you very much) to drop off cash, and I also have to work around the school’s schedule to do it. (And, of course, weeks have gone by and I only think about it on Mondays and Fridays.)

And I’d like to go back to the cash only issue. This is actually the first time in the 8 schools my girls have attended that I’ve encountered this particular problem. I’m sure there’s some history behind it. While other schools have made it clear that any bounced check would result in a $25 charge to the offender, this school has made it clear that they have absolutely no trust in us parents whatsoever.

Along with a lack of trust is a lack of efficient systems. In the 21st century, I really have to pay cash? There’s no way to pay online? I’m a 21st century person. I simply do not pay cash for anything, and as a result, I simply don’t carry a lot of cash.

This is also the same school that made it very clear at registration last year that all of the people working that day were there voluntarily and we should please be patient. I was not there voluntarily. They required me to be there in order to register my child, which I’m required to do by law. And yet, I’m the one who’s supposed to be patient.

And I’m also required to pay this fine. In cash. On the days that they decide to grace me with their presence.

This is not my life. This is not my working world. In my working world, I’m not only required to physically be there 40 hours a week, 50 weeks out of the year, I am also required to have my Blackberry to answer emails and phone calls when I am not in my office. When I’m home with a sick child, I work from home. When I’m at lunch with colleagues, we generally talk about work stuff (even though our company no longer will reimburse us for “working lunches” – we still work through lunch).

Yet I know I am one of the lucky ones in the working world. I have worked in jobs that require 80-hour workweeks. I have worked in places where I have to clock in and out. I have worked in places where my hours change weekly, completely at the whim of others. I can’t imagine how parents in those conditions can comply with some of this school’s requirements.

Now, I realize that this isn’t a teacher’s issue. I’m not even saying I begrudge your summers off. And I specifically did not become a teacher because I could never handle not only having to survive the school administration, but the district, state and federal mandates.

Still, I think it’s important for teachers to remember that a parent’s experience with the front office might have a lot to do with a seeming lack of involvement. And why we’re already scowling when we come meet you at Back to School Night. That is, if we even come. Because if my kids are okay with it, I’d much rather stay home!

April McCaffery is a single parent to two daughters going into 5th and 8th grade.

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Posted in April McCaffery, Parent Perspectives | 11 Comments »

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