Totally 3rd Grade Blog

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This video captures a  rare, closed performance by Taylor Mali.  In it, he performs his slam-poetry piece, “What Teachers Make.”  Watch it any time you can’t remember why you still bother teaching.

This video (with English subtitles) is a parody of Helpdesk support back in the middle ages. I’ve included it here because the humor in it helps ease the troubling truth that we need to do a much better job integrating technology into our everyday lives.

American culture is especially guilty of assuming that it is “leading the way” around the world when in reality, that was last true over 40 years ago.  It’s time to re-assume our leadership role by equipping our populous with the real tools we’ll need for the future and stop wasting time teaching kids how to fill in little bubbles with a No. 2 pencil.

Original taken from the show “Øystein og jeg” on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)in 2001. With Øystein Backe (helper)and Rune Gokstad (desperate monk). Written by Knut Nærum.

This video makes a good case for fostering “learning communities” as a means of harnessing the talents and “connectedness” of modern kids. 

As Steven Heppell points out, it’s time for the “death of education and the dawn of learning.”

What kind of community experience are you fostering in your classroom?  Are you creating an environment that capitalizes on the natural abundance that the kids in your classroom are ready to share? 

I’m pleased to be able to post this Paul Harvey audio clip, which was recorded off-the-air over ten years ago.  Like all of his work, it is incredibly insightful, heartfelt and makes me cry every time I hear it.

Take a few minutes to listen and see if you feel, as I do, that the eloquent classroom teacher who Paul gave voice to well over a decade ago has yet to be heard.  It’s time for the powers-that-be to listen up.

Paul Harvey tells it like it is.

Their hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do…baby-sit!

I would give them $3.00 dollars an hour and only the hours they worked, not any of that silly planning time.

That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 AM to 4:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch).

Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

Now, how many do they teach in a day…maybe 30?

So that’s 19.5 X 30 = $585.00 a day. But remember they only work 180 days a year!

I’m not going to pay them for any vacations.

Let’s see…that’s $585 x 180 = $105,300 per year.

(Hold on! My calculator must need batteries!)

What about those special teachers or the ones with master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage just to be fair, round it off to $7.00 an hour.

That would be $7 times 6-1/2 hours times 30 children times 180 days =$245,700.00 per year.

Wait a minute, there is something wrong here!

There sure is, duh!