tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post3618029203876446849..comments2024-03-28T11:57:21.902-04:00Comments on CURMUDGUCATION: Brookings Hits the Bathroom ScalePeter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-22237116153819051872014-11-06T22:09:10.203-05:002014-11-06T22:09:10.203-05:00Bathroom scale is non-hygienic and risky too. It a...Bathroom scale is non-hygienic and risky too. It also spoil the beauty of a bathroom. Sometimes we need <a href="http://www.starceramics.com.au/bathroom-renovations-sydney.html" rel="nofollow">to change the bathroom design by skilled renovators</a> to get a complete new one with inspiration. There are many ways to get our dreaming bathroom also. Life is Beautifulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01213663328639545459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-91311551947874686902014-09-17T11:50:04.092-04:002014-09-17T11:50:04.092-04:00It always seems that the worst teachers become APs...It always seems that the worst teachers become APs (but not always). Common Core...it's not as if we didn't have students identify main ideas or think about different perspectives before. Just a bunch of crap piled upon more crap which means more unnecessary work.Highly Effective King Clovishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14653858157695141774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-53413959907146845522014-09-17T00:41:51.257-04:002014-09-17T00:41:51.257-04:00I had an ambitious colleague who was a fairly medi...I had an ambitious colleague who was a fairly mediocre teacher, so his heartfelt wish was to become a department head. When his wish came true (granted by a principal with almost 3 years of teaching experience!) he used his influence to institute "walk-through" observations of other programs. (Mostly, he was nosy.) He came thorough my class and observed a student sitting at my desk, head down, oblivious to the instruction going on around her. In the follow-up, I was called out for 1) violating teacher-student boundaries by allowing the student to sit at my desk and 2) for not insisting she participate. It was also noted that the student was known as a "problem", generally, therefore she needed more explicit supervision. No trust.<br /><br />Called upon to explain, I added to the horror by admitting that she did not even belong in my classroom. The fact was the girl's mother had been admitted to the hospital suffering from a serious heart attack. The older sister had sent her to school, blaming her as the cause of the mother's illness. She came to me, fearful, guilty and alone, so I had her sit with me through the morning. Oh! well, I didn't know that! said the ambitious one. No context.<br /><br />Of course he could have focused on the lesson that was being taught simultaneously, but he had a checklist, and besides, didn't speak Spanish, the language of instruction. No expertise.laMissyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00516322307725011313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-12127144597960168402014-09-16T22:08:09.964-04:002014-09-16T22:08:09.964-04:00All good points, Peter. What a bunch of malarkey! ...All good points, Peter. What a bunch of malarkey! Kane's article is full of conflation, contradictions, and assumptions based on nothing. I can't follow his "reasoning". We're bad teachers because we have bad habits and we don't want to change. Our bad habits are...teaching to too low of standards. Which is why CCSS is good. So to correct this we have to focus all year on only 2-3 of the new, better standards. And we horrible, lazy teachers are somehow competent enough to come up with unspecified "instructional changes" - strategies? - to change our behavior and teach to these "higher standards". But the teachers who are struggling are the ones "not noticing student reactions" and so not getting the pacing right. Which has nothing to do with "standards". Yet "teachers inherently care what their students think." Aside from what metric he bases this assumption on, if teachers care what students think, won't they notice their reactions? I would think that teachers who don't care what their students think would be the "bad" ones. The whole article just makes my head want to explode. Rebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-24981829988269350842014-09-16T21:23:40.195-04:002014-09-16T21:23:40.195-04:00Exactly, context.Exactly, context.Rebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-77215391981013444522014-09-16T17:16:39.982-04:002014-09-16T17:16:39.982-04:00"I only need a bathroom scale if I don't ..."I only need a bathroom scale if I don't trust my own senses, or because I have somehow been required to prove to someone else that I have lost weight. Or if I believe that things are only real when Important People measure them."<br /><br />That comes close to explaining why the Measures of Effective Teaching feel flat-out wrong-headed to me. It's about the so-called neutral outside evaluator, who watches teachers teach. This observation can happen via video--or, as Grover Whitehurst suggests today in a big piece in EducationNext, schools can hire trained evaluators who do not know the teacher to come in with their magic rubrics and clipboards and decide: good or bad?<br /><br />Why is this a terrible idea? There's no context. All teaching decisions are "good" or "bad" not based on the action itself or whether the teachers' words and actions result in higher test scores. Only the teacher--or a colleague who knows the kids and content in question--can evaluate teaching decisions. Why does Mr. Smith fail to ask the obvious question? Perhaps he's missing something. But perhaps he knows that a disruption will happen--or knows that the kids already know the answer--or he judges the question as premature, given his previous assessment of kids' understanding. Only teachers can give credible rationales for their teaching decisions. The smartest "outside evaluator" in the world may see things the teacher does not. But that outside evaluator cannot place himself in the teacher's head and examine WHY she makes decisions, look at the cycle of reflection and data over time.<br /><br />You can't weigh and measure good teaching, if you're parachuted in. You can't decide whether a teachers' actions are a 1 or a 5. This unwillingness to trust teachers, this false meritocracy, is why the Japanese have lesson study and we have guys like Tom Kane and Grover Whitehurst.Nancy Flanaganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00047575960944913289noreply@blogger.com