A few weeks ago, I was watching CBS Sunday Morning and they had a little snippet on Parent Report Cards. That got me to thinking about a conversation with my colleagues about the state of our students- how they come to school unkempt, don't do their homework, have frequent absences, and are apathetic towards school/education- and how teachers are being blamed. "Why are we solely being blamed for the failure of our students?" was my thought. Then it came to me... we can't blame the parents! How do you tell a parent that they are not doing a good job raising their child? The Parent Report Card!
The Parent Report Card grades parents on things like: homework completion, student attendance, presence at parent-teacher conferences, response to teacher calls, student attitudes, and the amount of time the child spends watching tv and playing video games. Not such a bad evaluation, right? How many times do, we as teachers, want to ask a parent "Why did --- only get 5 hours sleep? He's sleeping in class." or "When was the last time you read --- a story?" Intruding on the lives of our students with these kinds of questions may seem like just that, an intrusion. But they are all valid questions in the community my school serves.
The new teacher evaluation system is supposed to closely examine teacher performance and use student performance and growth. How about asking student how they feel about their teacher, what their experience is like in the classroom, if they feel like their teacher listens to them. That is the kind of evaluation that is meaningful to me. I want to know if my students feel like I believe in them, that I want the best for them, and that I push them to do better than they have. If kids get a report card, why shouldn't we all get one. Wouldn't a little self-reflection do us all some good?
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Internet Privacy
I wake up every Sunday morning to the horns of the CBS Sunday Morning theme song. Today, the first story was about a public HS teacher that was forced out because of pictures and a profane word on her Facebook page, that she believed to be private. The school board that fired her claimed to have received a complaint phone call from a parent- which her lawyers later discovered was untrue. As a public school teacher in NYC, I don't really have a fear of being fired for something so puritanic. The program brought up the reality of your "online reputation."
I just spent some time deleting records of myself from a locator website. I know my students are savvy enough to locate a person's information if they have their name, which I try to keep a secret at school. My social network page is private, only friends. Based on all of the information out there online about me, I wonder what my online reputation is. I understand why some of my teacher friends refuse to participate in social networking. I'm considering deleting my account, but do I really want to close myself off from my friends and freedom of expression because of a potential scandal?
Students today are going to have a very difficult time with their online reputation when they get older. They don't realize that th things they post will exist forever. They probably won't remember a third of the stuff the posted on MySpace when they were 14. When we teach our students digital citizenship, we need to include this lesson. Aaron Sorkins says about the movie "Social Network" that no one would want a movie made about their lives when they were 19. Essentially, this is what our students are doing today. They are making a digital record of their lives, at it's least profound stage. While some of my students may not be headed to Harvard or a Fortune 500 company, students everywhere need to be more aware of what they put out there and how it will reflect on their online reputation, and thus their actual reputation.
I just spent some time deleting records of myself from a locator website. I know my students are savvy enough to locate a person's information if they have their name, which I try to keep a secret at school. My social network page is private, only friends. Based on all of the information out there online about me, I wonder what my online reputation is. I understand why some of my teacher friends refuse to participate in social networking. I'm considering deleting my account, but do I really want to close myself off from my friends and freedom of expression because of a potential scandal?
Students today are going to have a very difficult time with their online reputation when they get older. They don't realize that th things they post will exist forever. They probably won't remember a third of the stuff the posted on MySpace when they were 14. When we teach our students digital citizenship, we need to include this lesson. Aaron Sorkins says about the movie "Social Network" that no one would want a movie made about their lives when they were 19. Essentially, this is what our students are doing today. They are making a digital record of their lives, at it's least profound stage. While some of my students may not be headed to Harvard or a Fortune 500 company, students everywhere need to be more aware of what they put out there and how it will reflect on their online reputation, and thus their actual reputation.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Welcome to the Classroom
Welcome to the blog. Hopefully I will be able to post links to resources that I discover along the way through the CDIT program and from my personal experiences. I look forward to sharing resources, thinking out loud, and sharing stories of my experiences as a teacher. Enjoy!
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