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Wouldn't you just hate to have a frustrated English teacher for a parent at age 9?
My daughter has been having a bit of trouble with comprehension tests at school lately (probably because she is not terribly keen on reading) so this morning I got out my old Norton's Anthology to try and give her some practice at comprehension. I read her this poem, one of my favourites by William Blake.
A Poison Tree
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine -
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
On the first read through, we wrote down all the words she didn't know, ie, wrath, foe, deceitful, wiles, beheld and veild. We then looked them up in the dictionary and talked about their meanings during a second read through of the poem. We talked about her and her friends and how sometimes you feel better if you tell someone they have hurt your feelings rather than bottling it up and growing a 'poison tree' inside you.
We then moved on to talking about metaphors and particularly the apple and tree metaphors. She had been a bit disengaged up until this point but then got really excited thinking about apples in other stories like the story of Adam and Eve, Snow White etc.
We then had a look at Anthony Browne's book The Shape Game (the kids love this book anyway) which includes a reproduction of a painting about a woman being cast out of her family because she had given into temptation. There is half an apple lying on the floor of the room in the painting and my daughter was quite excited to see this and interested in the other symbolism in the painting (which Anthony Browne explains in the book).
We also read Pamela Allen's Black Dog (the kids also love have Pamela Allen's books read to them) which continues on with the friendship theme and has a lot of symbolism in it, eg, a bluebird, trees, bread and of course, Black Dog himself.
She has now gone off to Kung Fu clutching a copy of Grimms Fairy Tales all excited about reading the gory versions of popular fairytales. Plenty of symbolism there!
On reflection, I think the Blake poem was probably a bit ambitious, especially as a starting point. I will look for something a bit more accessible next time. Any suggestions most welcome.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0806/08060301
UCL has taken a leading step forward in opening up its educational impact to the world.
It has today launched its platform on iTunes U through which users can download lectures, interviews, seminars and news, and play audio and video materials on their iPod or computer. Until now, only North American institutions have featured on iTunes U.
The new partnership between UCL and Apple makes UCL the first mainstream UK university (and one of only three European universities, with Trinity College Dublin and the Open University) to pioneer global participation in iTunes U.
It's not until closer to the end that feelings of joy and we're almost done start to emerge. I'll keep you posted.
I have not accomplished all I
Every teacher knows each year's group is different. This group has high and low kids, active and quiet ones, a few who never said a word to me until December. One in a second year of Kindergarten; a couple who will probably be in Gifted classes
I have some very bossy little girls and a group of darling happy boys who roll around like puppies; happy happy joy joy -- little awareness that their entire futures are hanging on their ability to read a list of 51 words before June 13th.
And this year has been hard for me. People in my life keep dying. I was out for a big block of time. I've been physically sad and I know I have to fight crotchety-ness occasionally. However ... I'm a good teacher so I won't take any blame. (hoo-ah)
I will, however, spend hours and hours trying to figure it out and plan things for next year so it'll be different and better.
I switched from first grade to kindergarten because i
We're hoping the two missing hours might be a reason for the lack of growth we've noticed. We've put in a request to our prince asking to teach the kids for an extra hour next year. It'll mean not having two teachers for small group time, but that didn't seem to be the answer. We'll see what he says.
I thought you might be interested in seeing my teaching certificate. My "Clear Multiple Subject Teaching Credential". I have to renew it every five years and just did, so it's nice and fresh. It used to be that teachers got a lifetime certificate but by the time I got mine, credentials die every half decade. Mine was planning to pop on June 1st, but I sent the state $57.00 and promised I'm not a communist and now I'm good to go.
If you look closely enough, there's Arnold's signature for you to enjoy.
What you cannot see is on the back where it appears I am also qualified to teach preschool, highschool, adults and evidently algebra, Latin or advanced chemestry. scary.
I think I'll stick to the 8 and under set, thank you.
Thursday was Open House at the local little elementary school. I've been doing it for 20 years and still haven't quite figured out what that's all about. Spent a couple days cleaning the tables, shelves, etc. (custodians only clean floors and take out trash) And gathered an array of kindergarten work so each child's parents had something to take home.
That day I work from 7:30 until 6:30 so that 6 student's families can come by, smile and nod, say 'well, how's she doing?' and that's about it.
After Open House I met some friends for dinner and live jazz at a local Italian restaurant. That was fine. Really needed the wine and adult conversation.
Home and in bed asleep by 9. What a wild woman.
this is for Flamingo Dancer:
I love Anthony Browne's books. They are great for teaching visual literacy skills to high school students (visual texts included on the high school English syllabus here) and my own kids love them too. You can just 'read the pictures' for ages and always see something new.
Having a younger sister was lucky for me. Not only was she a willing listener, she believed every word I said - just like I believed every word my teachers said. And just like my teachers I sometimes spoke the biggest load nonsense. It was fun to tell my sister interesting facts with even more interesting embellishments. “The things we see” I once told her “are actually refracted upside down on the retina at the back of the eye, but our brains turn it the right way around for us”. True. “Baboons, also see inverted images, but unlike us their brains are not smart enough to turn the image around. So they see everything upside down”. Not true.
At university I was a tutor for a couple of years in Art History and Visual Communication and it was during this time that I had my 15 minutes of fame. My classes usually went well, word got around and in time there were so many people attending my lessons I felt like the lecturer. I would have given the tutorials for free at the time, just for the sake of it. It was fun.
After I graduated I decided to do some travelling. One of the first jobs that caught my eye was teaching English as a foreign language in far flung places in the world. It paid more than 10 times what I had ever earned before and I figured that it would look better on my resume than bartending in London or working on a kibbutz in Israel (two other options). Little did I know what a quagmire ESL teaching would prove to be or how hard it would be to extricate myself from it… The only way to make it count as CV-worthy experience ultimately was to go into proper teaching, which is precisely what I did.
Now I find myself teaching Art and Design at a lovely school in the Eastern Cape. All in all it is a fine job but it is not quite as enjoyable as I had expected it to be. The kids are neither as talented nor as interested in art as I had imagined them to be, which is draining. I have less time to make my own art than I thought I would have. Teachers in general and Art teachers specifically are not accorded much respect in South Africa and everyone knows that we earn an appallingly low wage. So the question posed to me today is certainly warranted: why teach?
I tried to answer the question honestly. I am teacher because it is a job that allows me to be my own boss, to set my own rules and be in control of my work environment. Art is important to me, which makes sharing my knowledge and skills in it feel important too. Teaching is one of the few jobs that comes with three months of paid vacation, it is a job that keeps me fit because I am always on my feet, and perhaps most significantly, I am rather good at being a teacher, which is gratifying.
My students nodded their understanding but after the class I caught the tail end of one of them saying how unimaginable it would be to finally be done with schooling only top return as a teacher. What a waste of freedom that seems to them.
I wonder if they are right.
Last year I considered working as a sales representative in Taiwan at the same company my wife works at but I rejected a job offer there because it seemed far too boring. Teaching art on the other hand has not been all that exciting either. What made it seem worthwhile was the belief that my students find my classes enjoyable and worthwhile – that I am making a positive impact on their lives. Today I realised that even my best classes are not enough to keep my students wishing they could be somewhere else, and that has affected me rather adversely. It really made teaching seem thankless on every level.
I suddenly find myself willing to reconsider a new line of work, amongst people my own age in the ‘outside world’ dealing with just about the only thing that matters to everyone – money.
Something that I received from my lecturer...
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to all teachers.....
How much do teachers make? Tribute to all teachers.....
*WHAT TEACHERS MAKE*
The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, 'What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?'
He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.'
To stress his point he said to another guest; 'You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?'
Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, 'You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, then began...)
'Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental.
You want to know what I make?' (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table.)
''I make kids wonder.
I make them question.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.
I teach them to write and then I make them write.
Keyboarding isn't everything.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them show all their work in maths.
They use their God given brain, not the man-made calculator.
I
make my students from other countries learn everything they need to
know in English while preserving their unique cultural identity.
I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.
Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.'
(Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.)
'Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money isn't everything; I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant...
You want to know what I make?
*I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.* What do you make Mr. CEO?'
His jaw dropped, he went silent.
THIS IS WORTH SENDING TO EVERY TEACHER YOU KNOW.
Even all your personal teachers like mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters,grandparents, and your spiritual leaders/teachers
^_^
So I'm sitting here crocheting a scarf for my friend Sylvester Obafunwa. It is gold and black, the colors of his ethnic fraternity. He is one of the most polite and chivalrous young men I have ever met. He immigrated here from Nigeria as an adolescent.
As I crochet I'm listening to NPR radio via the internet.
I listen to the latest political chat about Obama and Hillary. I admire her stubbornness, THE midwestern virtue, I've come to think, even though she's not from the midwest, but wish she would drop out of the race already.
My friend Kerri is student teaching in Houston this semester. Every week she writes an editorial for her hometown newspaper in Spalding, Nebraska. This is the latest edition.
Dear Nebraska,
You've made Texas jealous for six seasons.
You were far superior at teaching your students for six rounds of No Child Left Behind testing, and under the leadership of Commissioner for Education Doug Christensen, you did it very, very well: some of the best teaching and learning in the nation for some of the lowest pay.
Here in Texas, educators salivated for a system like the one you had, with district-mandated assessment and a commissioner who worked on behalf of teachers. A true team, working for on behalf of student learning.
But on April 10, LB 1157 was approved, giving the State Board and a small subcommittee control over an all-in-one battery of tests for Nebraskan students in math, science, reading, and writing: exactly the policies that Commissioner Christensen and teachers oppose.
See, local tests – quizzes, papers, things your teacher grades – are designed around the curriculum to tell whether students have learned from lessons. High-stakes tests, especially in sub-par districts, tell states whether teachers have adequately predicted a test and prepared their students to fill in the bubbles or write in the boxes.
By the very nature of The Test, engaged learning will inevitably be sacrificed in favor of Test preparation. Texas knows. Teachers here were jealous.
Currently finishing my student-teaching in Houston – in a card-carrying Leave-No-Child state – I have learned much about the nature of this profession. A teacher makes 4,000 decisions a day. That's about one per second: who to call on, who not to, will you write a pass? Will you emphasize context clues or dictionary usage when Syan wants to know what "lucid" means? Then, decide on lesson planning, notes to parents, grades (oh, grades), and team collaboration. If you coach, let's be stingy and say you make twice as many.
No part of teaching is mechanical except the bell ringing in 50 minutes, and you can't practice for the moments when your students, in the middle of a short story, ask how HIV is transmitted. They will ask.
It's not just a teacher's job to answer. It's a community's moral responsibility to answer its youth truthfully, to decide what's best for the young minds in their care. And those closest to them know best. As teachers and districts, we know our students, their parents, their after-school activities, their aspirations, their skills, and their character. We can build the curriculum to strengthen their weaknesses and flaunt their strengths as individuals. Districts know the needs of their specific students better than the five appointees who will serve on the State subcommittee. Texas was jealous that our educational system echoed this philosophy.
But the bill would allow for comparison among schools! advocates cry.
Nebraska! I cry more loudly, This is not a positive attribute of the bill!
Whenever you initiate a state Test, some schools won't test as well as others, and those schools get pressured to improve. Best-case scenario: nobody wants "low-performing" or "fourth-tier" on a resume. Worst-case: school closing. Cut funding. Open enrollment. The battle scars of NCLB.
In all cases, administrators within lower-performing districts must serve the State, no longer the students. It becomes a game of allegiances, essentially, and LB1157 serves Washington, not Andrew, Jennifer, and Marie.
If your district doesn't do well, you'll adopt a new curriculum. I've seen it. From January to March every year, my cooperating teachers teach The Test. Nine weeks. If you teach math or science in my district, 16 weeks. Even the best students come to school with enthusiasm comparable to catfish's. I wince to think of what else we could be teaching while discovery is replaced by disinterest.
What you don't understand, legislators, is that these students are not learning more. They're testing, testing, testing. 35 kids per class, one teacher, and they're testing again. This is the fate of a school that didn't do as well on The Test as the all-white, upper-class, home-owner districts up I-10.
Don't pretend, Nebraska, that you won't see similar socioeconomic inequities among test-takers. Assess per-pupil spending and teacher pay across Nebraska, and take a guess how the score card will look. Spalding, do you want the same Test that Kearney has? Cozad? Lincoln? Lexington? West Omaha? North Omaha?
Education must be beyond comparison. The institution of education is to serve students as individuals, and districts know best what their demographics need. In our post-9/11, NCLB world, we cannot accept the idea that education is a competition, when competition tugs at the integrity of the institution as a whole. We say, "leave no child" when LB 1157, like all bills of the sort, only waves into the rearview to the children we've left. No funding to help those deemed quantifiably inferior, not a word about quality first-line instruction or supplemental courses, only testing and its deformed curriculum for the students we are supposed to be serving.
I was proud of you, Nebraska. You were the last frontier in local NCLB assessment.
Or maybe the State Board will consider giving poorer-scoring schools more money to hire quality teachers and shrink class sizes, tactics that have proven effective time and again in promoting student learning. That would keep Texas jealous.
