New Haven Independent

posted by: East Rocker on January 29, 2010  1:07pm

Are teacher subject to drug/alcohol testing?

posted by: Alphonse Credenza on January 29, 2010  3:48pm

Clearly, the problem is the children.

posted by: NHPS Teacher on January 29, 2010  3:52pm

Teacher evaluation in NHPS is complicated by the tension between the need for standardized measures of performance on one hand and the need for teachers’ professional autonomy and school-specific missions on the other.

Philosophies of learning and subject matter vary from school to school and from teacher to teacher, ultimately leading to qualitatively different understandings among students working in the same discipline across the district.  What kinds of understandings should students develop as a result of their public school education? Answers to this question are necessarily political.

However, most conversations about educational outcomes center around the degree of students’ understanding—you know the words: deficient, basic, proficient, advanced, etc. This focus skirts the equally—or more—important political conversations about the fundamental philosophical positions that should serve as the basis for teachers’ practice and students’ learning. The standards movement has tricked casual observers of education (and many policymakers) into thinking that what can be measured is what should be measured.

Any history teacher worth his credential will tell you, however, that the standards fallacy is destructive to students. In a traditional classroom, the canon of history is a disconnected series of names, places, dates, events, and discrete skills that is fine-tuned for creating valid tests, boring students to death, alienating minority youth from their own past and identity, propagating destructive myths of the relentless progress of civilization and of American exceptionalism, and fabricating our students into compliant cogs in the capitalist machine. How much can it matter how well our students know what they know if what they know doesn’t matter all that much?

Sociology professor James Loewen offers an alternative approach: 1) help students to figure out how to answer the question “what causes what?” so they understand how society functions, 2) use historiography to develop critical thinking, 3) use history as a weapon against false ideologies, and 4) use the study of the past to combat ethnocentrism. This is just one alternative framing of the history classroom in a way that would better serve our city’s youth than a tired, triumphant parade of dead white guys. Another example: The late Howard Zinn left behind a legacy in his beliefs, actions, writing, and teaching resources that empowers students to be the custodians of their own rights and of what is right. A final example: Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel” debunks the prevalent myth that white people of European descent are historically more intelligent and resourceful than other groups of human beings through the study of geography.

As a history teacher in the district, I have read the curriculum and prepared my students for the quarterly exams. It’s no secret that our students are not meant to study these alternative perspectives, yet it is my moral imperative to teach them. My school leadership supports this vision of history and our school mission and identity reinforce it—in fact we draw students from all over the city and suburbs to come here for it. I’m not saying it’s right for every teacher, which further complicates our problem.

So how will my colleagues and I be evaluated and compared to other history teachers in the district? Sure, our students will do well on the multiple choice and writing tests, but we all know that’s not enough. Will they be prepared to enter this society as adults if persuasive writing and some content vocabulary is all they’re ever asked to learn? I don’t think so, so I’ve enriched my courses with ideas, activities, readings, images, videos, etc. that present alternative perspectives, resonate with students’ identities, prepare them for the challenges they will face in society, and inculcate humane, just, and empathetic values of citizenship.

I doubt many other teachers are satisfied with the curriculum’s impoverished vision of history’s potential for students. In fact, I’ve heard some of its writers express strong feelings against it, so I wonder: What are my colleagues across the district bringing to the table that I’m not hearing about? How many of them would like to hear about the work we’re doing at my school? What outcomes are most important for our students? How can we prepare students to understand and work within society, yet have the desire and ability to transform it into something better? What would a curriculum look like if we sat down and wrote it from scratch? What perspectives are our students most in need of hearing? What assets and challenges do our students bring to the table? What does evidence of student mastery look like?

Evaluation and accountability, I believe, are good targets for reform, but more importantly, what about the crisis of collegiality among teachers across the district? Mr. Harries is big on teachers’ professionalism and with good reason, but I hope that vision extends to professional collaboration.  I can’t speak for other disciplines, and I have a ton of respect for the work that our history supervisor does to get us working together and having the right conversations, but something’s missing here. I know it’s out there among us, and I would love to see us come together and make the curriculum something we can all stand behind. I would also love to see options for teachers who privilege certain valid understandings over others. Then I would be happy for my colleagues and myself to be evaluated on our students’ learning.

posted by: Tim Kane on January 29, 2010  3:58pm

Hey Credenza!  Would you care to explain your comment - or is it some attempt at sarcasm??

posted by: urban ed on January 29, 2010  7:35pm

@East Rocker: Fingerprinting and background checks—Yes. Drug and alcohol testing—No.

@NHPS Teacher: That’s as thourough a summary of the problem as I’ve seen in a long time. Your students are indeed well-served.

posted by: Another NHPS Teacher on January 29, 2010  9:27pm

I would give myself a C this year. About average. I want to do better but the constraints put on us by the curriculum don’t allow for ingenuity and innovation. Plus the behavior of the students is sometimes counterproductive. I wish they would see this and say, “Hey, there’s a reason why I’m not learning much…it’s because I’m way too sociable.” But they are teenagers.

My evaluation will probably say something good or great though. It never offers any real professional advice on how to grow as a teacher. Mostly just says “write objectives on the board” or “call parents more often”.

posted by: elspeth on January 30, 2010  9:26am

Anyone who thinks that children will speak freely about the qualities of a teacher just because she is not present does not remember that a classroom teacher controls the lives of children quite completely.  They still have to live with their teacher 5 more months.  I believe they would only truly speak freely about their teacher to a trusted adult, other kids, or if they could be anonymous.

posted by: urban ed on January 30, 2010  11:39am

OK…I don’t want to seem like I’m whining here…I “Took the King’s shilling” to become a NHPS administrator with open eyes to everything that means.

But here’s the problem with the current eval system…It relies too heavily on administrative personnel to be instructional leaders at the same time that we are expected (at a higher priority) to be managers of schools.

What’s an administrator’s first responsibility? To ensure a safe and orderly learning environment for faculty and students. In an urban environment, in current times, that is a full time job in itself.

Now factor in the teacher evaluation system. How many teachers is a NHPS administrator responsible for evaluating? 20? 50? Divide that by the 3 tiers of the eval system, and it means a formal process for 6-15 teachers….three formal observations per year of a class period each in length, plus a pre- and post-conference for each one (and the actual numbers are more than that, since the teaching force is skewing younger.)

OK, I can schedule the observations and confernces (production of the associated narratives happpens on my own time—no problem there.)

But…Maybe there’s a fight. Maybe a parent needs to see me RIGHT NOW. Maybe a CO alarm goes off. Maybe a suicidal kid gets brought to my office. Maybe I get called downtown for some Important Meeting. The result is that observations and conferences get postponed.

Now I’m behind. I never know what is going to come through the front door, so I give the evaluations the short shrift to catch up. The documents I produce are of little use to the teacher for feedback, and of less use in any potential action based on poor performance. Unless they screw up mightily and bring down a crapstorm of parental wrath, any ineffective teachers I have are staying right where they are.

So the addition of some objective data will be a great help. Unfortunately, standardized tests are problematic since in spite of the fact that their scores are now directly related to my school’s reputation and funding, it is still unclear whether they measure the actual skills we want 21st century students to have (an aside: did you know that SAT scores are positively correlated to the number of family ski trips a student partakes in?)

Anyway…I want to be the instructional leader I was hired to be. I had a very successful classroom career with some of the toughest students New Haven had to offer at that time. So I have a LOT of feedback and suggestions to offer to teachers to help them do their jobs as well as possible. I do that all the time, informally.

But the structure for doing that in a formal way and tying it to a teacher’s continued prospects for employement simply isn’t there.

One old-school model that worked better was for most of the evaluative fuction to be implemented by department heads, teachers who supervised and evaluated colleagues for a stipend and/or a reduction in teaching load. They could focus on that without having to worry about the day-to-day crap building administrators have to deal with. Of course, that kind of system would negate my desire/ability to help, which was a big reason I got into the administrative game in the first place.

So I guess what I’m looking for is a system that is streamlined and flexible enough for me to implement it well, and at the same time reach the desired outcome of overall improvement in the teaching force. I hope that the current reform effort will help that happen.

And for those who oversimplify and say “Just get rid of bad teachers!” or “Dump problem students!” I have one response:

You haven’t done this job. The world doesn’t work the way you want it to work. Accept that, educate yourselves, and then work for positive change.

posted by: urban ed on January 30, 2010  12:41pm

@elspeth: “Anyone who thinks that children will speak freely about the qualities of a teacher just because she is not present does not remember that a classroom teacher controls the lives of children quite completely.”

I’d like to challenge that thought. While I recognize its truth in the context of a traditional educational model (teacher as arbiter of content/disciplinarian/controller of grading) I submit that students CAN be induced to provide such feedback, AND (@Another NHPS Teacher) be self-reflective about their own learning and their own behavior’s impact on it. IF teachers are able/empowered to make themselves the ‘trusted adult’ you speak of.

And, in fact, that’s crucial to the learning process. I’ve seen it. We cultivate it at my school, and I’ve seen the difference that it makes. Teachers need to recognize, and leadership needs to support, the idea that today’s students aren’t going to listen to you just because you say you know more than they do (and what teenager ever believed that, anyway?) It’s all about engagement, and that’s largely about relationship-building.

As one very wise teacher I know once summarized, “If they won’t learn FOR you, they won’t learn FROM you.”

posted by: Alphonse Credenza on January 30, 2010  3:57pm

Sarcasm?  Me?

he average child is dumber than he was 50 years ago.  And far less motivated to learn.  Parents care far less.  Children unruly.  More difficult to teach them.

posted by: elspeth on January 31, 2010  5:16pm

@urban ed
perhaps I should have said that it should not be “assumed” that children can speak freely in the absence of their teacher.  I am the parent of children who currently attend New Haven Public Schools. My children and I have encountered teachers who are talented educators AND kindred spirits, teachers who are good people AND adequate educators, and teachers (only a very few) who are none of the above. 
It is infinitely sad to watch a child be diminished by a teacher who does not have basic interest,respect, and affection for all the children in the classroom.  But these qualities cannot be taught or injected (more’s the pity!).  What happens when such a teacher has tenure?
I think that you (urban ed) write eloquently about the dilemmas of trying to work within a system that does not always function well.  How does an administrator or a district deal with a teacher who has made it past the first four years of teaching and is not an adequate teacher?  What recourse do children or parents have?  Can a child regain a work ethic if noone checks their work?  Can a child regain a sense of self as learner if they have been told they are stupid?  Can children learn to be fair and friendly if their teacher is the bully?

posted by: LaShell Rountree on February 1, 2010  11:29am

Alphonse Credenza
Sounds like you are grouping kids, in the spirit of, grouping racial groups and gender. Do not past judgment on those you do not know. If you are interested in how “dumb” or smart these children are, I would challenge to make sure you know what you are talking about before you comment. If you are interested in having a personal conversation about my son or any of the other kids in this picture you can email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). I am always interested in an open minded discussion with any rational human being, especially when it comes to young people who are not able to defend themselves from adults who make comments about them on line. I am eliminating the back and forth on this blog by offering you the opportunity to contact me directly.
LaShell Rountree

posted by: Alphonse Credenza on February 1, 2010  1:48pm

LaShelle

You assume that people do not share, generally speaking, ideas or characteristics.  This is a false assumption.  Would you like me to discuss this more?

You also snipe at me with allusions to (here go the PC words) “racism” and “gender bias.”  This is a shot in the dark, aiming to injure with a completely unsubstantiated claim.  the

Compared with 50 years ago, people are generally badly educated.  And care even less about learning than ever before.  Teachers who’ve been in the system a long time understand the truth of this assertion.  Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s false.

Your child may be the exception.  Or not—I have no idea.  If you had read my comment with any degree of care, you will notice I made no comment about the children in the image.

I do not wish to speak with you in private, but will only discuss publicly.

posted by: LaShell Rountree on February 1, 2010  3:10pm

Alphonse Credenza

I appreciate your response and your honesty that you would rather not speak to me directly, I am willing to go with the flow and accept your explanation. In the future fully disclosing what you really mean would be helpful. If I made a mistake than I apologize. From my perceptive I see pictures of innocent children that include my son and his classmates and you made generalizations about all children which to me, appear to be unfounded. Of course people share generalizations, but the next time you share make sure you don’t do it when the appearance is of innocent children who may or may not read this article. It’s called sensitivity. I am adult and I can take the blows. Explaining your theory to a bunch of 11 years is a little more of an advance topic than some of us might like. I am happy to share with my son that there are some people who are suck in the past and dealing with in this current society is hard. Technology makes learning easier for today’s children. I am not surprised your teacher friends from 50 years ago think the kids are dumb; they can’t keep up and are resistant to change. The easy way out it to blame it on the children.  So some of your old friends in education are the master of all the children of the world and know who is smart and who is dumb. I got it, maybe these teacher friends of yours have been around too long and either don’t care, hate their jobs, or can’t keep up with technology like children the can. If you don’t understand it then it must be dumb, right… If you have spent time researching this topic, I would be interested in reading up on it. When you make your statements include something to back them up. Race, income and gender play a role in this topic. I write what I mean, whatever I am writing I truly believe.  I don’t waste time on your so called PC words. I wrote it because it is reality.  You can remain in denial if you like but it is the case. Nothing is more real then experience. As far as my son goes defending him would be fruitless. You clearly have already made up your mind the children of today are dumb according to you. Well I am looking forward to them proving you wrong. I only hope you will be around long enough to witness it, you and your teacher friends of course.

posted by: Alphonse Credenza on February 1, 2010  5:10pm

I think you mean, by sensitivity, that one should avoid speaking one’s mind if someone might be offended. 

Sorry, can’t, won’t do that.

I will not be intentionally offensive, but I will not curb my tongue when I am right and believe my knowledge or opinion increases in value when others learn of it.

posted by: LaShell Rountree on February 2, 2010  10:44am

Alphonse Credenza

What I mean by sensitivity is just that. Being sensitive to young people’s needs is crucial when you are an educator. When one gets to a point in their life when they make statements such as “Sorry, can’t, won’t do that” gives the appearance that sensitivity is low on their list of attributes’. We should all, regardless of age, continue you learn. How right you are appears to come from your own admission.  However, rest assured. I have learned from you. Learned that you do not have sensitivity towards the young and the world they are challenged to live and compete in.  I hope you are not in the field of educating our young. And your friends in education from 50 years ago, I hope they are all retired. It is apparent their outlook for the future of our country is rather bleak.  Enough said.

posted by: Alphonse Credenza on February 2, 2010  1:14pm

“the future of our country is rather bleak”

It is indeed.  If you do not see it now, I hope you do.  Widespread populist self-approbation is so much self-abuse.

posted by: LaShell Rountree on February 2, 2010  1:34pm

Alphonse Credenza

In deed it is.