Totally 3rd Grade Blog

Share your views about teaching 3rd grade

• About this site
• Music Site
• Contact

August 27th, 2010 by David Reber

I’m going to step out of my usual third-person writing voice for a moment. As a parent I received a letter last week from the Kansas State Board of Education, informing me that my children’s school district had been placed on “improvement” status for failing to meet “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.

I thought it ironic that our schools were judged inadequate by people who haven’t set foot in them, so I wrote a letter to my local newspaper. Predictably, my letter elicited a deluge of comments in the paper’s online forum. Many remarks came from armchair educators and anti-teacher, anti-public school evangelists quick to discredit anything I had to say under the rationale of “he’s a teacher.” What could a teacher possibly know about education?

Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession….” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education. Due process and collective bargaining are favorite targets, as are the erroneous but tightly held beliefs that teachers are under-worked, over-paid (earning million-dollar pensions), and not accountable for anything.

In what other profession, indeed.

In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.”

In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising  “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”.

In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team.”

But look around. You’ll find droves of armchair educators who summarily dismiss any statement about education when it comes from a teacher. Likewise, it’s easy to find politicians, pundits, and profiteers who refer to our veteran teachers as ineffective, overpriced “dead wood”. Only the rookies could possibly be any good, or worth the food-stamp-eligible starting salaries we pay them.

And if teachers dare ask for a raise, this is taken by many as clear evidence that teachers don’t give a porcupine’s posterior about kids. In fact, some say if teachers really cared about their students they would insist on earning LESS money.

If that entire attitude weren’t bad enough, what other profession is legally held to PERFECTION by 2014? Are police required to eliminate all crime? Are firefighters required to eliminate all fires? Are doctors required to cure all patients? Are lawyers required to win all cases? Are coaches required to win all games? Of course they aren’t.

For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens. As for lawyers and coaches, where there’s a winner there must also be a loser. People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education.

If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.

And if someone – anyone – tries to tell you otherwise; don’t listen. He must be a teacher.

   David Reber, Topeka K-12 Examiner

David Reber teaches High School biology in Lawrence, Kansas. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from the University of Kansas, and a Master of Science Degree in Education from Emporia State University. In addition to teaching, David is active in state and local politics with interests in school finance, curriculum, and content standards. David has represented Kansas teachers as an elected delegate to both state and national level assemblies. David welcomes your feedback at ksmanimal@gmail.com.

Statement:

We refuse to pay for the crisis created by the 1%. We refuse to accept the dismantling of our schools and universities, while the banks and corporations make record profits. We refuse to accept educational re-segregation, massive tuition increases, outrageous student debt, and increasing privatization and corporatization.

We call on all students, teachers, workers, and parents from all levels of education —pre-K-12 through higher education in public and private institutions— and all Occupy assemblies, labor unions, and organizations of oppressed communities, to mobilize on March 1st, 2012 across the country to tell those in power: The resources exist for high-quality education for all. If we make the rich and the corporations pay we can reverse the budget cuts, tuition hikes, and attacks on job security, and fully fund public education and social services.

We have the momentum, the numbers, and the determination to win. Education is not for sale. Let’s take back our schools. Let’s make history.

Invite your friends to the March 1, 2012 Facebook event:https://www.facebook.com/events/206613039422535/

Thursday 26 January 2012
by: Marion Brady, Truthout | Op-Ed

Imagine the present corporately promoted education reform effort as a truck, its tires nearly flat from the weight of the many unexamined assumptions it carries.

On board: An assumption that punishment and rewards effectively motivate; that machines can measure the quality of human thought; that learning is hard, unpleasant work; that what the young need to know is some agreed-upon, standard body of knowledge; that doing more rigorously what we’ve always done will raise test scores; that teacher talk and textbook text can teach complex ideas; that … well, you get the idea.

Misdiagnosing the Main Problem

Right now, the biggest, heaviest assumption on the reform truck has it that, when the Common Core State Standards Initiative is complete – when somebody has decided exactly what every kid in every state is supposed to know in every school subject at every grade level – the education reform truck will take off like gangbusters.

It won’t. If all the reformers’ flawed assumptions are corrected, but the traditional math-science-language-arts-social-studies “core curriculum” remains the main organizer of knowledge, the truck may creep forward a few inches, but it won’t take the young where they need to go if we care about societal survival. The mess from this generation’s political paralysis and refusal to address looming problems can’t be cleaned up using the same education that helped create it. (more…)

I invite you to take a look and help us explain why educators and other public employees are the enemy?

This has been a rough week.

I don’t understand – why am I the enemy?

I put myself though college – twice, bachelor’s and master’s – while my kids were little.  I worked full time, went to school at night, paid out of pocket, never got a bridge card or unemployment , ADC or welfare.

I get up and go to work every morning.  I pay a percentage of my healthcare and even pay extra to have my husband covered.  I pay into my retirement fund.

I pay taxes – income tax, property tax, school tax, sales tax, and registration fees on the American cars I’ve always owned.

I had nothing to do with Wall Street scandals or the housing bubble, and my house is now worth half of what I paid for it, but I still pay my mortgage.  No short sales, no foreclosures, no sticking it to the banks and taxpayers.

Why am I the enemy?

[Is it] Because I have worked hard without entitlement programs to get two degrees and a decent job?

No CEO bonuses here.  Not even a UAW bonus.

My kids had to take out student loans for college too – with 10% per year tuition hikes.   Because Mom and Dad go to work every day, we’re too “rich” to get handouts.

Why am I the enemy again?

[Is it] Because my job involves teaching children to read and write and [to] understand math and science, which can’t possibly be complex or demanding?

[Is it] Because I provide Band-Aids and pencils and Kleenex and calculators, and wipe away tears and tell my students that yes, they can master fractions if they will just come in early or stay late with me and I’ll help them?

[Is it] Because I use everything I’ve learned about brain research in graduate classes to make their learning process natural and fun and exciting, to the point where they think my class is easy? Because I treat them as individuals, and manage to challenge kids who read at a 12th grade level, while differentiating for kids who read at a 2nd grade level, all at the same time?  Is that why I’m the enemy?

[Is it] Because everyone’s been in a classroom and it seems so easy to run one?  Is that why I’m the enemy?   (Does getting your oil changed at Jiffy Lube regularly mean you could design combustion engines as well as the engineers at Ford?)

I’ve always worked hard and paid my own way, and yes, I got an A in calculus and I can explain redox reactions and Newtonian physics to middle schoolers.

But I’ve never made a fortune, never gotten [sic] a bonus or a company car or cell phone or expense account or incentive trip to the Bahamas.

I just work with kids every day.  Whoever shows up – hungry, sad, tired, bouncing off the walls – I work with them.  I teach them.  They know more when they leave my classroom than they did when they came in, every day.

But I’m the enemy.

Why is that again?

Please explain it to me.