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Name:
Location: Vancouver, WA, United States

Teacher

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Yes...it's been a while but I'm responding to the nice folks (TW) over at Stories from School

Here are the Five Things Policymakers Ought to Know:

1 - Building a "community" should involve more than "ice breakers", advisory, and muffins on a Friday. What's wrong with good old-fashioned pep assemblies? Don't moan about lost class "time". If planned well and with more than adequate support from staff and faculty school wide assemblies can help build that "community".

2 - Please know the difference between a "faculty meeting" and an "informational meeting". I can count on one hand in an eleven year career when the faculty meeting actually was that and NOT one dispensing testing dates, tardy updates, and/or signing a card for a hernia surgery. Let's use e-mail for the info and our precious time to discuss ideas and issues of importance.

3 - Teachers should have a voice in the hiring (or firing) of colleagues. This would mean peer evaluation and would actually be more meaningful than the system (at least my employer) uses now.

4 - Please have follow through with your "grand" visions, mission statements, etc. Policymakers at all levels have problems with this. I hate dead ends or change for change sake.

5 - Please policymaker read this article for a wealth of knowledge.

Ciao,

TL

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2 Comments:

Blogger Travis A. Wittwer said...

[TL] two on your list resonated with me. The one about faculty meetings. God. What a waste. They seem like prisoner of war camps. Sure, an unusual bell schedule is important or knowing how to fill out a form, but, like you said, that is the beauty of email. Keep the meetings for building that vision of education. Once the faculty meetings become paperwork, it is a sure sign of the loss of the school as a whole.

I also appreciate you posting a link to the article. This is a great article and good to read again. I have some issues with the article (football is a chosen activity; it is an agreed upon set of rules--football really would not be better than high school if the person playing was not in to it and fought it the whole way; I do not know if you can compare football to school just like I would be cautious comparing cooking to math class.) However, it is a great article for pumping you up and causing people to reevaluate how they do what they do which is your intent.

How can policy makers save our schools knowing this? How can they provide the time needed for building that community that excels, a school that has a vision, and a place where people want to go?

Tough.

I will throw one example out there. My son's school is a public school, not a charter, not private. However, it is K-12, with about 400 students. It has many alternative bends to it, but every year it exceeds results on any state test (as if that was the way to measure a school) and students show up because they like the community of the school, they belong, they know there is something there for them.

Can we continue to create quality education (did we every) in Costco Sized Classrooms?

5:25 AM  
Blogger Travis A. Wittwer said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

5:26 AM  

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