Making Lemonade

So goes the saying. There have been many lemon rinds going out to the compost bin this week and the rats are getting fat. But not I.
This week I began the lemonade diet. That so called diet that has lasted over five decades and still continues to roll on. The effects have been phonominal as I have lost 12 pounds and that was on the morning of day 5. Who knows what other benefits are in store?

Fear and Loathing in Education

My Administration class is now called Las Vegas because everything that goes on in that class, stays in that class. So I try to keep my name free of this Blog to save my face. This is Vegas.
My made a post a couple weeks ago talking about math standards in my state being on the transformation. Somebody took that as a hit agains the materials we use at our school and kept going, including a YouTube video called something along the lines Math instruction, an inconvenient truth, or something to that effect. I then posted a link to the University of Chicago with evidence that the series does indeed work for children. That research validates success if kids are instructed well.
A school board member then cut and pasted the postings and sent this to my principal. This cut and paste included the YouTube video.

My principal then responded to me saying

I just read your posting to ___(left out for my sake). That's an interesting perspective, one
which I hope doesn't undermine your ardor in teaching your students to
multiply fluently. The new standards are not yet adopted, and texts are not
yet reviewed by the state. In the mean time, we'll have to teach our hearts
out to help students both understand and apply mathematical principles.

I read this email when I returned from paternity leave and I nearly ran to her office to see what she meant. To which she replied
"That posting was very negative and the YouTube link shines a very negative light on what we do in our school.

All I could do was deny the allagations and ask her to check the posting. Her reply was I checked once and I checked twice.

Now we are talking about a first year principal who is trying to build trust in her building. I have no idea why she would not check her facts before making judgments about what was said. Something I have learned in regards to being a principal one of them being, checking facts. Trust is a terrible thing to lose with even one teacher. I feel as though I have not been respected in this event and I feel that our principal does not know me. If she did know me she would know that I am a very staunch supporter of Everyday Math and that I do not wear my feelings on my shirt, so it takes a great deal for me to question an email that has been sent to me.

Building a Fence

What in the world am I talking about? I have no idea but I will say that we in the education field have done so in a great way. The staff at my school is entirely too fenced in to move forward with any kind of modern agenda. Or postmodern if you will. On the other hand we do have teachers with Masters degrees. So that makes them great, right? Sure, if you are an ignorant fool. There are quite a few here at my school with those credentials. We all think we are quite good at educating the children of our semi-rural area. But are we. Hardly.
My thought is that a good staff desires to learn more about their field and uses data to increase the efficiency of the output. How do we do that? First, we gather data. Of all sorts. Gather as much as is possible. No, homework packets do not count. What counts is that data that can be collected and used. Who is missing a great deal of homework or even which days does a kid not turn in homework most often? Which days are kids absent would work too. Data is what a business collects to figure out what is going on in order to see what can be done to improve the business and production. If each person in business decided to do as they please, I wonder the likelihood that the company would maximise profits. The same goes for schools. Are we maximizing the education children leave with if we do not teach common areas at common times and collect and use data to improve profits, if you will.
I am feeling as if each teacher at our school feels as though he or she is above pleasing the shareholders (students, parents) and wants only to try to profit in a way that makes the worker happy. Too bad the shareholders are those who will ultimately lose.

Raining Cats and Dogs

This morning I was greeted by my team teaching partner saying, "I was really hoping we would be two hours late, today."
She was speaking of her hope that our school would float away in the incredible amounts of rain that fell on Sunday night. Consequently, because all the rain fell on Sunday, there was little chance of school being late on Tuesday. Perhaps she entered a time warp and actually thought today was Monday. Who knows?
That is how things are around my school. On Monday another teacher said, "I am hoping for some major rain so we can get a day off." Wow.
Not much later I heard, "A couple of your kids ran into me." SHe was speaking of my kids, or kid as there was only one boy who made such a mistake to look backwards while walking and run into a self-proclaimed bit#@.
Is this the way things get when a school makes a gigantic transition from a principal who does very little to a principal who puts all of her guts into making a school run effectively. Perhaps there is a culture issue with us all and we really are not in the mood to work. Not well anyhow. Or maybe we are tired. With Christmas (not the holidays) on the horizon who can blame teachers for not feeling rested?
Not this cat. I want to take it all the way. Give me that ball. I am tired of hearing all of the whining and complaining. We do not do what other schools with the same amount of time. Now is the time to be unlazy.

Mitt's Classroom

I have no idea what to write. I am a little bit testy today as I had to sit and listen to NPR in my truck and deal with my political ally, Mitt Romney, pick on other candidates for the GOP nomination. "Mitt, what are you doing?" I asked him. "We should never sling mud at those of our own party, man."
There is absolutely nothing wrong with slinging mud at those who wrestle in filth like those of the Democratic party. But that battle has far from begun. We still need to deal with certain people like Rudy. Nevermind McCain or Thompson. These two are political dopes. One is as old as dirt, the other a flop from Tennessee who does not have a chance in Rome of beating a semi-black or a woman. Not with the power they have.
Yeah, this is education we are talking about here. But I think that Romney knows what is best for schools, a very misunderstood idea with conservatives. Mitt understands that the power of the school lies with the principals and that we need savvy principals who can build within schools a reform of a small scale to bring teachers and district offices together.
This is not to mention the breaking down of the monopoly that teachers unions have on the teacher labor market. I have yet to see what unions do beside give teachers excuses for why their students are unsuccessful. "Oh, my kids are so low!" But nevermind that.
Mitt understands that charter schools are the way to go. Allow schools to exist that are union free and teachers have the responsibility to teach as opposed to get away with the bear minimum that a contractual obligation supports. This kind of nonsense does not create successful schools. Hard work creates successful schools and we need to challenge teachers to work to that level. To compete with schools that might do better with best practice.

Roofies

No, not the upper although I did get high. On the roof. The monday after Thanksgiving was the perfect time to climb on a roof and fix a hole that leaks about a gallon per day. Especially fitting was that the wind was fierce enough to nearly blow me down like a pirate. The rain was cutting holes in me and there was a giant trying to get me for stealing his harp and golden-egg laying goose. Okay so the rain was not cutting me.

In all honesty, I am not a handy man. But I do seem to be becoming one by the day. I am not perfect by any means and I would much rather concern myself with improving my school and teacher accountability than stand in the rain with a hammer in my hand wondering where the nails are. Stupid nails.

My school is seeming bass ackwards. For some reason we are worried about the comfort levels of our teachers and helping everybody work at their own grade level when dealing with scoring writing assessments. Some just want to work with thier friends. Others are worried that having three people in the same room might make their ears hurt and lose concentration. We are talking 900 square feet. There is not going to be an overabundance of noice in that space or even six people in 1800 square feet.

At any rate, do we need to be in grade level? THis is about the future of our school. I know where my kids are and I trust others to score their papers. I want to know where others are and to have rich conversations with others in my school, at other grade levels. THis is just the first of many writing assessments but I really see this as being wrong. If we set the stage for making poor choices now and lack those rich conversations about writing, when will we make the change? I wonder.

I do not know everything. Nor do I want to. But we need to move forward with this. Not get bogged down with details. Suck it up and score some papers. Get to work and stop worrying about if you can hear.

I find difficulty in being the only heterosexual male teacher in my school at times and really find it difficult to relate to women who are needy and have problems with everything.

Mobilizing the Insanity

Have you ever stopped to think about what it all would would like without mobilization. This is a quick check to see if you are really thinking. Of course you have not. Even if you believe in evolution you know that things, no matter what they are, have always moved. Always.
But I am not here to talk about the way things used to be. We are in the here and now, probably not talking about anything any of you care about. I am here to ramble. Kind of like Led Zepplin but without all of the pills and alcohol and certainly without the outer reaches of Tolkien novels. How many of their songs have to do with Hobbits and Elves?
Enough about people who work at Wal-Mart. We are only here to support the big ones baby. Those special little people who sit in the back of the classroom and answer all of the questions. Those malicious white people. Sure, I am one of them but nobody wants to talk about that. Nobody wants to talk about how white some white people are. Just that they exist, all people exist. We are all just as happy as can be because we do not see color, we see the inner beauty of every person here on earth.
Hogwash. You, just about every one of you who reads this knows about Jena. And you are thinking about how everything is just fine and dandy down there because the law will take care of it. If only the whole issue of race were that easy. We are talking 400 years of built up angst between races. No, this goes back 5,000 years or more. But we will just stick with the former number simply because that works well with America. Yeah we had Martin and Malcolm and Rosa say some stuff and ride busses and go on some marches. But that does not take care of 400 years of slavery. That kind of thing does not just go away. There are still plenty of people alive that remember having to drink from a filthy water fountain because there was a water only bad enough for blacks. That stays in a person's blood and carries on to another generation and this goes on and on until people forget. But you see, people only forget experiences if they are mediocre. If the experience was horrible or fantastic they do not forget. When was the last time a black person had a fantastic time with whites? Sure, I bet they occured but if you are not black you tell me when you had a fantastic time with a black.
Do you have that kind of relationship with a member of a different color group? If not I think you may want to look at how you view race. Your own Race.