Day One of meetings. I giggle every time I remember that commercial for office supplies from some store, with the parents doing a coordinated happy dance-with-shopping-carts number to the song "Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Kids, of course, were dragging their heels after them. I feel that way about school supplies. Both Doug and I could spend hours in an office supply store just wandering the aisles and collecting stuff for our desks. It's wonderful.
Today was back to school day for me, heralded by 6 hours of meetings. Followed by tomorrow's 6 hours of meetings. Our district is trying to get collaborative, and the buzz-letters are PLCs - professional learning communities. Or in other words, as Doug says, "starting to do what the business world has been doing for years now." The problem is, we're still talking. They aren't giving us time to DO what we need to do. We don't need 2 days of meetings about this, when we've heard it all last year. Let us start "unpacking our standards" as we discussed today and actually DO collaborative work.
The problem I have with PLCs is the same one I have with NCLB - that's "No Child Left Behind" for non-educators. Side note - I feel like I'm in the Army now with all these acronyms. My other favorite is the "glicks", or GLCEs - Grade Level Content Expectations. Anyway... the problem is, basically, it is expected that 100% of children will meet or excel standards 100% of the time. And that can never happen. Tell me, what other profession anywhere in the world is expected to have 100% approval/accuracy/job performance 100% of the time? It simply can't be done. Not to say we (teachers) shouldn't strive for excellence and constant improvement... but come on. It is totally ridiculous.
Even better, with PLCs, the responsibility for student achievement is entirely in the hands of the teacher. In the perfect "achievement pyramid" there is no step for "do the #*$! work in the first place." It is all teacher-directed, teacher-motivated, teacher-led support and interventions. Where is personal responsibility? On the one hand students are asked to be "explorers" and be totally active learners; teachers are expected to be "facilitators" rather than the traditional lecture-input-output. That's what I do, and it's good. On the other hand, when it comes to failing students, it's up to the teachers to intervene and save them. Bah, humbug.
In last interesting news, Detroit teachers voted almost unanimously to strike starting today. I feel I need to explain their concerns because the news is doing a horrible job of reporting what the demands are. Detroit teachers would like copy machines that work most of the time, the computers that are in their classrooms to be plugged in and operational, among other things. Regarding their pay, yes they are asking for a 5% raise every year for the next three years; but what the news fails to mention is that the union accepted a pay freeze 4 years ago, and now they are being asked to take a pay CUT. So I do support the Detroit teachers. Not to say I support a strike - technically it is illegal, and the union can be fined up to $5,000 a day - but I think the DPS teachers have put up with enough.
Today was back to school day for me, heralded by 6 hours of meetings. Followed by tomorrow's 6 hours of meetings. Our district is trying to get collaborative, and the buzz-letters are PLCs - professional learning communities. Or in other words, as Doug says, "starting to do what the business world has been doing for years now." The problem is, we're still talking. They aren't giving us time to DO what we need to do. We don't need 2 days of meetings about this, when we've heard it all last year. Let us start "unpacking our standards" as we discussed today and actually DO collaborative work.
The problem I have with PLCs is the same one I have with NCLB - that's "No Child Left Behind" for non-educators. Side note - I feel like I'm in the Army now with all these acronyms. My other favorite is the "glicks", or GLCEs - Grade Level Content Expectations. Anyway... the problem is, basically, it is expected that 100% of children will meet or excel standards 100% of the time. And that can never happen. Tell me, what other profession anywhere in the world is expected to have 100% approval/accuracy/job performance 100% of the time? It simply can't be done. Not to say we (teachers) shouldn't strive for excellence and constant improvement... but come on. It is totally ridiculous.
Even better, with PLCs, the responsibility for student achievement is entirely in the hands of the teacher. In the perfect "achievement pyramid" there is no step for "do the #*$! work in the first place." It is all teacher-directed, teacher-motivated, teacher-led support and interventions. Where is personal responsibility? On the one hand students are asked to be "explorers" and be totally active learners; teachers are expected to be "facilitators" rather than the traditional lecture-input-output. That's what I do, and it's good. On the other hand, when it comes to failing students, it's up to the teachers to intervene and save them. Bah, humbug.
In last interesting news, Detroit teachers voted almost unanimously to strike starting today. I feel I need to explain their concerns because the news is doing a horrible job of reporting what the demands are. Detroit teachers would like copy machines that work most of the time, the computers that are in their classrooms to be plugged in and operational, among other things. Regarding their pay, yes they are asking for a 5% raise every year for the next three years; but what the news fails to mention is that the union accepted a pay freeze 4 years ago, and now they are being asked to take a pay CUT. So I do support the Detroit teachers. Not to say I support a strike - technically it is illegal, and the union can be fined up to $5,000 a day - but I think the DPS teachers have put up with enough.
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