Ten New Year’s Tips for Teachers 2013

I hope that you are enjoying your Christmas holiday and are re-energizing yourself for your return to the classroom in the New Year. When you return you have a wide diversity of experiences from your students. Some may have traveled a great deal for a family vacation. Some may have just stayed home. Some of your students got as much loot as the GDP of a third world country and others got nothing at all.

As your return to the classroom here are a few tips and suggestions (in no particular order).

1)      It’s all about the students. No matter what happed during the holiday break, you need to be ready for school on the day you return.

2)      Establish goals for the class. Make a chart that illustrates their growth as a group.

3)      Stimulate creativity. Encourage your students to think independently and creatively.

4)      I know it sounds crass, but start to develop review plans for your state assessment testing in the spring.

5)      Take care of yourself. Winter is the time for colds and flu. Try to eat healthy and exercise.

Make sure you take time to relax and energize yourself.

6)      Make contingency plans for bad weather. Chances are if you work in the Northeast, Midwest,  the Plains, etc. you will have a few “snow days.” Be sure lessons are posted on your school’s web site and encourage students to keep up to speed while at home. Develop assignments that can be completed independently.

7)      Begin to explore professional development opportunities to sharpen your skills or develop new ones. Summer programs for teachers have application deadlines that often are in February or March.

8)      You may be receiving your mid- year evaluation from your supervisor or principal. Be sure to take the opportunity to meet and review your strengths as well as those areas that need improvement.

9)      Believe it or not you may be welcoming new students into your class. Some families may choose move early in the New Year as one family member may have secured a new job that starts in January. Make these new students feel welcome and encourage your class to do the same.

10)   If your school allows it, begin to develop plans for a spring class trip with educational value.

Best wishes for a Happy and successful 2013.

c. 2012 J. Margolis

Teachers are Heroes

This week I should be writing about how to teach about religious diversity and the richness that Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwaanza bring to American culture. I should be writings about tips and New Years resolutions for teachers to make 2013 a better teaching year. Or I should be writing about how high school economics and civics classes can discuss,debate and analyze “the fiscal cliff” issue.

But I cannot write about any of these topics- at least not today. Twenty first graders in Newtown, Connecticut are dead as are six adults, including  teachers, principal and a school psychologist.

These children loved school and loved their teachers. They were excited about the upcoming Christmas holidays. Now instead of talking about Santa Clause and presents, family visits and holiday trips, we are talking about funerals, school safety and gun control.

The NRA refused to appear on any of the Sunday news talk shows but they will probably produce the tired mantra that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  I chatted with a friend of mine, an attorney from Canada, who both explained why gun control has been so successful in the land of our northern neighbors. He chided his American colleagues who have interpreted the Second Amendment to include gun ownership for reasons other than national defense.

What I want to write about today is that teachers are heroes, not just on Friday, but every day. Few people would ever believe that teaching is a dangerous job? Every day you step into a classroom you are a hero to your students. Even on your worst day as a teacher you are your students’ bets hope.  Teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School were heroes on Friday- doing what they always do- looking out for the safety and welfare of their students. Schools were always thought to be a safe place for students- a warm and nurturing environment in an often cold and indifferent world. We need to regain that safety. The sign  in fron of the school said "visitors welcome." We need to protect that notion.

May the souls of the children and their teachers who perished last week rise high in Heaven and may their memories be a blessing to those that loved them.

c. 2012 J. Margolis

Extending Classroom Time

A recent Associated Press article noted that an increasing number of states are taking part in an imitative to increase the number of hours in school students are required to attend. Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee are cooperating in the program in the latest effort to improve student achievement.  This project is being funded by local state and federal funds in conjunction with the National Center on Time and Learning (http://www.timeandlearning.org/). The goal is to add 300 hours to the school years. Each district will decide whether to add hours on to the school day or add days on to the school year. US Education Secretary Arne Duncan has endorsed this effort which is part of a 3 year pilot project that will ultimately include 20,000 students. This latest maneuver is the continuation of a trend as there are currently over 1000 schools throughout the United States that are currently operating on some type of extended schedule. The article notes that “student testing, teacher evaluations, charter schools and voucher programs join longer school days on the list of reforms that have been put forward with varying degrees of success.”

As usual the focus of this program will be on improving math and science skills, two critical areas that American students have fallen behind many of their world wide peers.

The research on this topic is extensive and there have been divergent outcomes. Programs like the KIPP Academies (http://www.kipp.org/) have proven that extended time in class and additional days in school do make a difference in student performance.  But on the other side of this issue, researchers report that in our high tech, computer, Smartphone, etc. society, the attention span of students has dwindled so that additional time on task in the classroom may not be productive.

Secretary Duncan has expressed his interest in extending the school year into the summer as well as having school open six days a week.

c.j. Margolis 2012

Does Teacher Training Matter?

What kind of training should a teacher have? How many years of college should be required? How much contact time with students in an actual classroom setting. What are the most appropriate assessments to determine whether a teacher candidate is ready to enter the profession? These are questions that have baffled colleges of education for years. As the teaching profession comes under more public scrutiny and demands more accountability, the issues surrounding teacher preparation have again surfaced. Most traditional colleges of education divide their pedagogy into several sections- Theoretical and practical. In the theoretical domain, students are exposed to how children learn. They investigate theories of learning, stages of learning and review of learning disabilities.  Everything thing from John Dewey to Daniel Golman is often included. The practical aspects to teacher preparation include site visits and observations of actual classrooms or in campus experimental classrooms, teaching sample lessons to peers that are videotaped and culminating in clinical practice, also known as student teaching. Teacher candidates are expected to prepare lesson plans and develop teaching strategies that will encompass all learners the classroom. In many colleges and universities, graduates who wish to teach in middle or high school setting must also be deemed highly qualified (using federal NCLB guidelines) in the subject that they teach. This often means completing a separate undergraduate degree in the specific content area, e.g. English, Mathematics, Social Studies, etc.

But the question remains which type of preparation best serves the candidate and ultimately the school and its students? When we take a look at the current research, the new norm for teacher evaluation is how the students perform on state or national standardized tests. So what becomes more critical, how to teach (pedagogy) or what to teach (content)? How does a teacher address the various learning styles so that all of the students (or a majority) can pass the test? A teacher should complete needs assessments of the students at the beginning of get academic year and monitor their progress as the year continues. Since most assessment tests are administered in the early spring, it is imperative that teachers ramp up their efforts after the Christmas vacation. By that time teachers should identify who is in need of remedial help, who can grasp concepts orally, visually or hands on. This might tend to favor the theoretical plank of the academic curriculum. There are too many videos on YouTube where students stare blankly at reporters and cannot answer the most rudimentary questions like how many Supreme Court Justices are there and how many Muslim nations there are.

Readers here  might want to  read some of the recent books by Linda Darling Hammond( From Inequality to Quality due out in April 2013 and Surpassing Shanghai  c.2011)

c.J. margolis 2012