Posts Tagged ‘High school’

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The Tony Danza Teach(ing) “Experiment”

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

As you may be aware, the A & E television station is running a new show called “Teach” on Friday nights. It is TV’s latest reality show, starring Tony Danza (of “Who’s the Boss” and “Taxi” fame). Danza is teaching English at a “tough” public high school. For real. Unlike the other reality shows out there, in “Teach” children’s education is at stake. It’s one thing to have “the biggest loser” because the “results” only affect one person–the “loser.” With “Teach,” many children are affected.

Danza tells us that it had always been his ambition to teach, but he got sidetracked by a career in acting (not too shabby). He is assigned an English class. We don’t know if he has received a teaching credential or has an emergency permit of some sort. The class is filmed, as are meetings with parents, instructional coaches, students and even the principal. Danza also takes on some sports coaching opportunities at the school. While alone, Danza film-documents his afterthoughts about what has just happened. He might be reflecting in the classroom, or at home grading papers, or talking about the excitement of the “first quiz” that he is giving.

Clearly, the students have been told to speak their minds, and that they do. Some praise him, while others have concern about his abilities, credentials and practices. We see Danza laugh, be frustrated and even cry (quite a bit). All things we’d see if following almost any first-year teacher. This is most certainly reality.

I’ve seen each of the first three episodes and find myself engaging in a self-debate about the ethics of this experiment. Should this be happening at all? After all, I began my career twelve years ago in a tough inner-city school, having an emergency teaching permit and having not yet completed a credential program. In this respect, Danza and I are/were equally qualified. He may even have an edge–he’s a good thirty years older than I.

Knowing that kids’ futures are at stake, I had wondered how good an idea this was. Then I thought about myself, and the fact the school they show probably has a tough time attracting qualified teachers. At that point, I concluded the experiment was ethical.

I eagerly await the conclusion as I find myself glued to the TV every Friday evening (I haven’t been this interested in a TV show since the 1980s). The show was filmed this past school year, and we’ll have to wait till the season finale to see the results of the real final exams the students take. Until then, I find it ironic that the teacher is in reality a student too. I hope nobody fails.

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Mr. Franklin is a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is an eleven year veteran and has won District and County Teacher of the Year awards. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Bank of America Community Hero award. Before teaching, he spent five years at Learning Forum, which runs summer camps designed to increase student academic potential. It is a world-wide program.

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Posted in Media, Steve Franklin, Teacher Perspectives | 17 Comments »

How Parents Can Help Older Students at School

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

My father stopped going to school when he was twelve years old.   As the eldest of seven children, it was expected that he would always quit school early and work to support the family.  His first job was picking bananas with his father. Dad was probably lucky to finish school so early because school wasn’t his thing.  He was always getting into trouble, probably like a lion in a cage.

Image:  Dad and my daughter

You see, dad has a learning disability. This learning disability didn’t stop him from helping me through school, though.

When I worked as a high school teacher, so many parents would ask me how they could help their teenage son or daughter.  Like all parents, they were worried about their teenager’s grades or study habits.  But what I came to realise is that many parents were concerned that they couldn’t help their child with their homework in the older years because they couldn’t do the work themselves.

You can help your teenager without understanding the school work.

My dad couldn’t help me interpret Shakespeare.  He didn’t know the first thing about Trigonometry and would have had difficulty editing my Modern History essays.  Yet he helped me with my homework and study every night.  Here is what he did:

  • Made sure that I studied in a quiet place every night (and wouldn’t go to bed until I had finished my work)
  • Listened to me at the dinner table as I tried to remember facts from Economics
  • Held my hand when I wanted to give up after getting a really bad result
  • Sent me back to my room when I wanted to give up
  • Found me a math tutor when I couldn’t keep up.

My father is often quoted as saying that he deserved half my grades.  And he probably did.

When students are in elementary school, the parent takes on a type of teacher role during homework.  Parents are in charge or making sure the books are read, sight words are learnt and spelling words are practiced. As students become older, I believe the role of parents help with homework also changes.  Kids don’t want another teacher at home.  They have listened to teachers all day.  They want their mom or dad who can guide or support them.

Don’t try and do the homework or assignments for them.  Or even with them.  You did your time.  You are not the student anymore. Help your kids by providing them with a great place to study and give them love, support and tough love they need to get the job done.

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Posted in Ainslie Hunter | 3 Comments »

Real Consequences of Real Education

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Nobody disputes that education is transformative.  Students come in at the start of the year and are very different by June.  This effect is cumulative. Year after year the students grow and develop.  Sure, they’d grow and develop with or without formal education, but could this society continue if all children grew and developed without specific direction? I think not.

Children aren’t the only ones who grow and develop as a result of being in school for six or more hours a day.  Teachers change, too.  At least this one has.

Six years ago my friends likely would have described me this way:

Very smart, but impatient with others who don’t get things as quickly as he does. Edgy; tense; quick to anger; sarcastic. Stubborn, inflexible, stiff, rigid. Disorganized.

Yes, I did say my friends, all of whom were surprised, to say the least, that I wanted to become a teacher and a special education teacher at that.

Six years later these same friends say:

Very smart. Calmer, but still very alert. Flexible. Open to new experiences and way more patient. Less judgmental. Less sarcastic but wittier. Very generous.

What happened?

I changed. None of those changes were planned, directed, strategic or part of a curriculum.  All the changes are the results of tests, and those tests were anything but standard.  Anyone who has read my writing for any length of time knows that I have VERY low regard for standardized tests; they are a fraud being perpetrated on the American by its elected leaders, none of whom have a clue about how children learn.

Unfortunately, as standardized tests have become more prevalent schools have had to move further and further away from operating in ways compatible with the ways students learn.  Students learn and develop the same way I have grown and developed the past six years, the way I’ve grown and developed through the courses of all my various careers.  I was put into situations where I had to solve problems and learn from the failures and successes of the effort.  Even more important, I was given time and help to figure out why what I did was a mistake or success, and, if the former, how to do it better next time.  I engaged in the process because it was meaningful and both success and failure had consequences that meant something to me.

The noted educational philosopher, Tom Bodett, he of “We’ll leave the light on for you” fame, said, “The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”

More and more it seems we shield our children from life, from having experiences that have consequences, from taking responsibility for their successes and failures.  My great grandparents did hard, physical work and hoped for a better life for their children.  My grandparents did slightly less hard physical work and hoped for a better life for their children.  My parents did more intellectual than physical work and hoped for a better life for their children.  I do purely intellectual work and hope my now 16-year-old son has a better life than mine.

But I wonder if I am helping him develop the tools to do that.

He is great with kids, but he does not want to babysit.  He is big (6’4” and still growing!) and strong, but does not want to do physical work.  When I was a kid I didn’t get an allowance. If I wanted money I had to work for it.  My son gets $20 a week whether or not he empties the dishwasher or cleans the cat littler. When he doesn’t do it, my wife or I do.

Have I failed my son by not giving him larger responsibilities, by not giving him or allowing him to find tasks with real consequences for him?

I’m not talking about punishing him for not cleaning the cat box or paying him to do so.  When I was his age I dropped out of school to work on political campaigns because the election of those candidates and enactment of what they stood for had greater importance to me than parsing Moby Dick.  I was bored in school because it did not have meaning in terms of my needs.

My son is smarter than I am but his grades are worse than mine were even though he attends school every day and I rarely did.  He has grown up in a stable home with two parents that he knows love each other and him.  When I was 17, I moved out and lived on my own to get away from a very difficult family situation.  I had to earn $200 a month for my rent and money for food and clothes and other aspects of life.  My son has gone to camp for part of the summer for the past six years.  This year he is there for the whole summer because he has a paying job, his first. Maybe the $250 he earns this summer as the theater aide will teach him about effort and responsibility, and provide him with tasks that carry meaningful consequences of success or failure.

His parents haven’t done that and neither has his high school.  I think we’ve failed him in an important way.

Has education or the pursuit of it transformed you in a tangible way?

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By Deven Black

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Posted in Deven Black, Teacher Perspectives | 7 Comments »

Alternative Priorities

Monday, July 5th, 2010

When I was growing up, I pretty much lived for the after-school hours. Those hours were spent in rehearsals. I started doing community theater when I was six and continued all through school.

My parents insisted that I could not be failing any classes in order to participate. A reasonable request, and one I took seriously. At the High School for the Arts, a certain GPA was necessary in order to stay.

My oldest daughter has come close to failing a couple of classes, and yet, I could never pull the trigger on taking away her “extra-curriculars.” They were what got her through the day.

My 12-year-old, former 7th grader is pretty average in most aspects. She’s not the greatest student, she’s not the most popular girl, she’s been a victim of bullying, and she’s battling some raging hormones. What’s more, she knows it.

The only place where she feels better than average, the only time where she feels beautiful, the only time where she feels special is when she’s in rehearsal and performing. There, my little girl shines and is the best she can be.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

When I got the progress report that she wasn’t doing so well in a couple of her classes, I considered pulling her out of dance or acting, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t take away that place where she felt extraordinary rather than ordinary. She needed that.

The most I could do was tell her that the High School for the Arts won’t be so forgiving. The best I could do was let her know that those activities are a privilege, not a right. I know there are many parents, teachers and others that would disagree with me. Still, I have to look at the long-term consequences; play the tape through to the end.

So what would she be doing if she wasn’t in rehearsals, wasn’t learning choreography, memorizing lines, dancing to the music? My guess is she would spend her time in the Tech Lab, creating fake FB accounts, playing videogames, withdrawing further from the world around her. Is that really better?

Sure, it’d be nice to say that she would use that time to study, but I simply don’t find that realistic. She’d spend the time fighting with me, feeling worse about herself because inadequacies in other areas meant that she couldn’t do what she loved. Couldn’t do what made her feel good about who she is.

And it’s not just about doing what you love: it’s about being free enough to learn, feeling confident enough to put yourself out there. Every performance is a sort of dare. In fact, she was worried when performance time came because she knew that a girl from school that she didn’t get along with would be coming. She worried that the girl would laugh at her, would think she was bad. But she believed in herself enough to do it anyway (and that girl ended up not coming after all).

And it’s not even just about finding self-confidence. She actually learns through these performances. She reads scripts, and learns how to analyze what’s between the lines (a skill I’ve found useful in every English lit class I’ve taken). She learns musicality (a form of math), and dance. With America in a time of a crisis with obesity, dancing keeps her physically fit. Dancing, singing and acting not only makes her a better person, it makes her a better student.

She ended up not failing her class. She pushed herself at the end, she swallowed her pride a little and asked for help, and she found enough confidence in herself to believe that she could pass the class. And she did. Just barely, but she did.

So I’ll take the criticisms from others that I didn’t pull her from her extra-curriculars. In the end, what’s important is that she grows and strives to be better. She did. And she still is.

Do you and your family have activities you are just not willing to let go?

By April McCaffery

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Posted in April McCaffery, Parent Perspectives, extracurricular activities | 13 Comments »

How can Teachers and Parents Collaborate to Improve the Drop-Out Rate?

Friday, June 18th, 2010

According to a study conducted by CNN, in the US nearly 6.2 million students dropped out of high school. How many millions of students who drop-out each year are unemployed, on welfare, or go to prison? With the current worldwide economic crisis can we really choose to ignore the impacts of our failing education systems?

This past Wednesday on the #PTCHAT educators, parents, principals, and other stakeholders gathered to discuss how we can collaborate to help students graduate.



Here were some of the great ideas shared:

Parentella: It’s no surprise that the national drop-out rate hovers at around 10%, the question is what more can we do to prevent it?
IMTJen: @Parentella – parent involvement is HUGE in prevention!
dancallahan: The End of the Best Friend – NYTimes.com http://nyti.ms/dtYP9w
POWERORGmath: :( They need hope and more people like you @Parentella 50% of all drop outs come from cities like Philly, Detroit & LA
GaryBrannigan: We begin to lose kids in the elementary years. Poor readers in third grade struggle throughout schooling
readtoday: Keeping communication open with teens is very difficult even under the best circumstances
iwantwealth: RT @readtoday: This story about a homeless girl’s struggle to finish HS is very moving http://bit.ly/czCmyo
heoj: many struggling kids feel un welcome in school – always in trouble – school is a negative environment for them – this must change
drtimony: I you haven’t read this article by Larry Steinberg, you should: http://ow.ly/1ZygD the backstory is compelling, too.
chrisemdin: Dropout can be prevented by showing students that others have the same struggles. They often struggle in isolation.
cybraryman1: We can prevent dropouts if we redesign how we educate these children and prepare them for careers etc.
martalaura: teach parents how to support education at school and continue at home
TeacherReality: @readtoday Yes, they do. Our country needs to go back to offering more vocational programs in the high school.

Parentella was created to solve the issue of parent and educator communication at elementary, middle school and high school levels. As part of this mission, we are hosting weekly #PTCHAT discussions to encourage a productive dialogue between parents and educators. We hope you will join us Wednesdays at 9 p.m. EST.

You may also want to join Parentella on Facebook to keep updated.  We invite you to propose questions for the next topic on June 23rd. View the entire transcript here.

If you are new to following hashtag discussions, you may want to check out this video tutorial on using Tweetdeck for hashtag discussions.

by Shelly Terrell

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Posted in PTChat/EdChat, Shelly Terrell | 1 Comment »

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