Some thoughts on "Distrcit Administration"

While I waited for our Highlander to have a check up, I sat in the lounge and finally had the chance to read through my copy of District Administration.

I was pleasantly surprised. Given the title, at first glance I thought there could be few things worse than reading this. But I was in for a treat.

Some observations --

From the Briefings section the headline "Duncan Calls for 'Sea Change' in Education Schools," caught my eye.

Duncan wants to see a 'sea change' in teacher education programs. In fact, he cited a study where 3 out of 5 teachers surveyed said they thought their schools of education didn't adequately prepare them. When I taught as a GA at BSU and team-taught with my former methods professor, many would-be English teachers spoke again and again and again on how they were getting ripped off by the Ed department.

I hope that has changed, but it certainly was the prevailing attitude from my undergraduate years there (194-97).

While I had several excellent methods classes in my English and Education classes at BSU (they were actually taught by the same professor), when it came to teaching me on how to be a teacher, those classes were as far as it went.

Three of the biggest wastes of time I have ever experienced in college were all from the Ed department. Biggest waste #1, "Classroom Management and Discipline."

What a crock.

First, I am bitter because the teacher told me - point blank - that she only gives 5% of her class an "A."

Second, the professor flat out told us that she went into special needs education but last all of a few days out in the "real world." If you want to know why so many education programs are terrible, there you have it. Too many teachers can't hack actually teaching, so they go back to school to teach teachers. What sense does that make? Do surgeons who don't have the stomach or nerves for surgery quit and then teach future surgeons how to operate? This is why the best professors I had in my education class all spent time in the high school classroom.

Third, we spend a considerable amount of time role playing. I know. What the hell kind of sense does that make, right? Total waste of time.

Fourth, CPI. I can't remember what the hell that stood for, but we spent a ridiculous amount of time being certified in it. CPI - from what I recall - was a series of 'moves' you could use to restrain a student or - at the very minimum - to prevent you from being harmed in an altercation.

A bigger waste of time I cannot imagine. What sense does it do to devote so much time to something that rarely happens in a teacher's day or year or career. I've never used one single strategy that I was 'certified' in (the only one I recall had to do with if you were being bitten, we were instructed to do one of two things: either grab the student by the back of the head and pull them toward us (we were told of one elementary teacher who was being bitten and yanked her arm away and tore the tendons from her arm) or you could rub the student beneath the nose (this, I guess, would cause them to stop biting down and you could get free). Now, the absurdity of this is so obvious. Yet, we wasted hours on this crap.

Again, why waste hours on a strategy that I have never used once. Why not, instead, actually give us some practical classroom management and discipline tips that we might use! They could have given us tips on what to do if we have to sub for someone else's class and there are no sub notes. They could have given us tips on how to remove a student from the class when they are being disruptive. They could have given us tips on how to stand outside our classroom and talk to every kid who passed. Those are things I've spent a lot of time learning how to successfully handle. Yet, we were taught what to do if a kid bites us.

Biggest waste #2, Ed Psych. BF Skinner. Piaget. That's it. Two names for twelve weeks. Now that's success.

And you know what? I use none of that. When I'm dealing with students or counseling them or trying to reach them or getting to know them, I am not mentally thumbing through the various psychological strategies I learned. I will say, though, that the instructor for this class was good and did - at least - make an impression on me. But when you leave a class and you have to say something like "I might not have learned a lot about (fill in the discipline of your choice) but I sure learned a lot about life . . ." that's not necessarily a good thing.

Just think about going in for a colonoscopy and having your doctor say, "Well, in med school, I didn't learn much about pain management or detecting cancers, but my professors sure taught me how to be a better human being."

Biggest waste #3, Human Relations/Measurement and Eval. Now these could be because I had the worst teacher in the history of BSU (who, and it was no coincidence, was also the head of the education department for my final years there) for both classes.

First, the Human Relations debacle. This was a strictly lecture and try not to fall asleep class. Luckily for me, our teacher was so terrible that I had no trouble staying awake, for I knew that what I was witnessing was the worst teaching ever. I knew that I was in the presence of 'greatness' - if you will - and I knew I could learn a lot from this man, mainly on what NOT to do when I became a teacher.

It is from this class that I heard the worst analogy ever. The professor was talking about race relations one day. He equated it to a refrigerator stocked with groceries. The white majority happened to be the expensive food on the top rack. The minorities were all the slowly rotting fruits and vegetables in the trays below. I think the entire class cringed at that one.

Unfortunately, I had this same man for my Measurement and Eval class, which he claimed would be the most important education class we ever took. And it might have been had we taken it from someone else.

I actually have a current colleague, Mike, who was in this class with me. We didn't know each other then, but when we were discussing the worst classes we ever had, we both began talking about this horseshit Measurement and Eval class that met in one of those tiny cramped, glorified closet-type rooms on the third floor of the Ed building. And though the class was designed to make us better teachers and how to accurately measure and evaluate our students' growth, all we did was sit in that cramped room with the lights out and the overhead projector cranked up, scrawling notes upon notes upon notes and listening to the professor drone on and on and on.

We both agreed that we learned zero.

It seems to me that one important step to improving American education is not to heap yet another education reform upon us (Profiles of Learning and NCLB and RTTT). Instead, improve the teacher education programs.

As Jon Merrow says, "Make it hard to be a teacher."

If teachers come in with a number of classes in pedagogy and classroom observation (not just some stupid little tutoring practicum like I had over at the middle school in Bemidji) and actual hours and hours of teaching before they actually student teach (one of the best things I did - thanks to my methods class, again - was work with an excellent teacher at Bemidji High School. Now, I didn't actually teach, but she let me lead discussions, teach a novel, and administer and grade papers and tests. That was a learning experience and one that was invaluable to me!), then we could forget about having to offer all of these slick new reform efforts twice a decade.

Here is my plan for education reform -

Make it hard to be a teacher. Take the best and brightest. Teach them how to teach. Better yet, let them work with kids and let them try to make a difference in their lives. That way you can avoid losing so many teachers after their first year or after just student teaching! And best of all, you might be able to avoid those teachers (think quick, we've all had them) who just go through the motions or who teach the same year over and over until they retire or who persevere even though they HATE kids.

Next, don't just toss first year teachers to the wolves. Too often (it would be really interesting to see some research on this . . . maybe that's what I'll focus on if I ever go to UND to earn a PhD in education) first year teachers are given the classes the veteran teachers don't want. In rare cases (as with me) it works out (I basically taught five sections of Comm 10 my first year. Though the classes were hell - that last hour class was easily the worst I've ever had - but it allowed me to hone my craft and lessons. For what I did first hour was revised by third hour and by fourth hour it was excellent. Of course, that last hour class ripped it to shreds, but I learned so much because of this), but I think this drives more teachers out of teaching.

Merrow brings up another good point - and schools in other countries actually do this - don't make first year teachers teach a full load that first year. Maybe they teach three classes and have two periods to reflect and hone their craft. This is opposed to tossing a new teachers five sections of the classes none of the veterans want (oh, and probably having that first year teacher coach on top of that)!

Next, I would change how schools are funded. The great Albert Shanker had a great point - if you tried to think of the worst way possible to fund something, you couldn't come up with a worse way than how we actually try and fund our schools!

A lot of supporters for RTTT always talk about how schools are always clamoring for more money and yet they never seem to have better test scores than kids in China. They claim that we spend more than enough on education for the results (or lack of).

If that's true, then why is our high school teaching roughly the same amount of kids we did 10 years ago but minus one position? Why don't we have a great vocational ed program (machining, carpentry, and small engines)? Because we are short one teacher. What happened to two magnet programs (dance and media arts)? Not enough funds. What happened to a lot of life skill classes in phy ed? Again, there is one position cut. We agreed some time ago to have our classroom supply budgets cut to save positions. Yet, we never had (or ever will have) our supply budgets returned to what they were. Good lord! We don't even have money for colored paper!

So if we our given plenty of money for education, I don't know where the hell it is.

Finally, offer worthwhile professional development (and I'm not talking the type we currently have where districts from all over sign up for a marathon session of various speakers and presenters and then you see teachers (like students) skip out or bail. I mean the type that is individualized to each teacher. Fund a teacher so they can attend the Red River Valley Writing Project or go to an NCTE convention or allow teachers to have a professional day where they sit down with university professors to see what skills the professors expect their freshman to have when they enter college or simply allow teachers to spend a day watching other teachers teach!

Sounds easy, right?