Sunday, September 29, 2013

About teacher education programs................

These two letters were in response to Joe Nocera's article, reprinted below the letters.
Brought a smile to my face.......I directed ( 15 years) two long term Teacher Ed programs that were effective and successful BECAUSE they placed student teachers (called interns) in classrooms, four days each week, alongside an experienced teacher (the mentor), for a year. Each and every Friday I met with my 30 plus interns to talk about the challenges of teaching.

I also worked (7 years) as a Site Professor in a university program that put its student teachers in an urban classroom ONE day a week.

Guess which program prepared its students more successfully?
This caught my eye yesterday in the NYT...........................I have, after all, been involved in the teacher education process formally since 1996.
It's not well written but I shall follow it for a while and see where it takes me.

The New York Times


October 2, 2013

Preparing Teachers for the Urban Classroom

To the Editor:
I read with interest “Three Sisters (Not Chekhov’s),” by Joe Nocera (column, Sept. 28):
There is an important point seldom made in the discussion of the preparation of teachers going into difficult schools. No matter how excellent the preparation, nothing but experience can prepare one for the potential volatility of the classroom.
When everything is calm and suddenly a fight breaks out that involves half the students in the room, fists flying, hair pulled, biting, shouting, cheering along the sideline — you name it — what does a teacher do? For that day at least, and for beginning teachers there are many like it, standardized test scores become irrelevant.
In that situation, the teacher in charge must have credible authority. Pedagogical theory is not enough. And in those schools, credibility comes with time.
It is the teachers who stay who have it. These are the teachers who the students trust will not abandon them by succumbing to burnout or moving on when the opportunity arrives. Students have a way of sensing who will stay and who will not.
What urban schools need more than anything are teachers and principals who stay and build community. Whatever it takes, that is the most necessary ingredient for reform in public education.
ROBIN LITHGOW
Los Angeles, Sept. 29, 2013
The writer taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 26 years.
To the Editor:
Kudos to Joe Nocera for highlighting the overly theoretical approach to preparing teachers in most traditional programs. Without clinical training, one in three new teachers in New York City exits the school system within three years, stymied by poor preparation and the lack of continuing support.
Fortunately, a partnership of Hunter College and New Visions for Public Schools is piloting teacher residency programs, which take a page from medical training. Residencies allow aspiring teachers to spend a year working alongside an experienced mentor before becoming full-time teachers of record. Early evaluations show that these teachers stay in the profession longer and have an almost immediate impact on student achievement.
Although still in their infancy, teacher residency programs are an innovation whose time has come.
ROBERT L. HUGHES
President
New Visions for Public Schools
New York, Sept. 28, 2013

 
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This caught my eye yesterday (I'm a recently retired educator with oodles of experience in the teacher ed. market). It's not well written but I shall see whereit leads me.

September 27, 2013

Three Sisters (Not Chekhov’s)



It’s September, and school’s in. Let’s talk to some teachers, shall we?
The teachers I have in mind are Edel Carolan, 28; Denise Dargan, 36; and Melinda Johnson, 38. They’re sisters, each with a different kind of teaching experience. Edel is a second-grade teacher at a public school in the Bronx, while Denise, who stopped teaching three years ago, spent eight years as a teacher at a New York City charter school, one of the seven charters that Carl Icahn, the financier, has opened in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Melinda, meanwhile, teaches second grade in a suburban school district in New York.
When I got them together over the summer, my thought was that it would be interesting to explore the differences between their varied teaching backgrounds. And there were certainly plenty of differences: Denise raved about her job teaching in the charter school, though she also said that the longer school days and the intensity of the place took a toll on her family life. Melinda, who had also taught at a public school in the Bronx before landing her current job in the suburbs, recalled being amazed at the “sense of calm” in the suburban school. “I was shocked,” she said. “I thought ‘Where’s all the action?’ ” Edel talked about how she could never take parental involvement for granted the way her sisters could — but also about how satisfying it was when she had a class full of kids whose parents were invested in their educations.
In the weeks since we had that conversation, however, what has stuck with me is not so much the differences as something they all had in common. All three sisters felt that they had been unprepared to stand in front of an urban classroom when they first became teachers. Denise, who didn’t have a teaching degree, had been hired by Jeffrey Litt, then the principal of the charter school — he is now the superintendent of all the Icahn charters — so it is not a surprise that she had to learn on the job. Indeed, she made it sound as if learning on the job was relatively easy because Litt was such a gifted teacher himself.
Edel went to a college in Pennsylvania and Melinda to one in New York. Both have undergraduate degrees in elementary education, yet they both recalled how lost they felt when they first stood in front of a classroom. They hadn’t done nearly enough student teaching, they felt, and, in any case, the student teaching they had done hadn’t prepared them to deal with issues, as Edel put it, “like poverty, drugs, crime, and hunger” that she was seeing on a daily basis.
In desperation, Edel sent a note to one of her college professors asking for help. (He gave her a few pointers.) Melinda recalls thinking that even the most basic elements of her job — classroom management, organization, lesson planning — were things she had to figure out on her own, after she had begun teaching. When I asked them what they had learned in college, they shouted in unison: theory! (Denise went on to get a master’s degree in education, which she laughingly described as “not exactly hands-on.”)
For all the talk about public school reform — much of which revolves around improving the practice of teaching — what goes on in schools of education never seems to get much attention. According to a study released a few months ago by the National Council on Teacher Quality — a study that reported that three-quarters of the nation’s teaching programs are, “at best,” mediocre — “the field of teacher preparation has rejected any notion that its role is to trainthe next generation of teachers.” The report continues, “The burden of training has shifted from the teacher preparation program to the novice teacher — or more accurately the new teacher’s employer.”
Yet shouldn’t teacher education be precisely what the reform movement should be focused on? Surely, it would be a lot easier to improve the quality of teaching by training people before they become teachers, rather than after they’ve started on the job, the way Edel, Denise and Melinda had to learn.
“It never fails to amaze me how few reformers have talked about this,” says Amanda Ripley, the author of the fine new book, “The Smartest Kids in the World.” Ripley investigated three countries that have educational outcomes better than ours: Finland, South Korea and Poland. In Finland, she discovered that getting into a university teaching program was akin to “getting into M.I.T.,” she told me. “You master a subject, and then you spend a year doing student teaching, with a mentor who gives you constant feedback.” By the time the teacher is ready to join the work force, he or she actually knows how to do the job.
As it turns out, there are some people who are trying to transform teacher education here at home. As the school year progresses, I hope to introduce some of them — and their ideas.



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Friday, September 27, 2013

Citizen Science


"Mr. Paull, Mr. Paull, see what I found!"
Countless children have excitedly shown me what they picked up off the ground, lighting a fire in their heads.

I like to think that the delight and warmth in my response has fanned those fires and set many on the way to be keenly aware and interested in what's around them. 

Scientific research often involves teams of scientists collaborating across continents. Now, using the power of the internet, children are participating, too.

Citizen Science (also known as networked science) is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists, often by school children. 

Formally, citizen science has been defined as "the systematic collection and analysis of data; development of technology; testing of natural phenomena; and the dissemination of these activities by researchers.”

I’m defining Citizen Science as:

North East Elementary School’s participation in scientific research in The Pinery Nature Reserve.

This post describes the work currently underway in North East Elementary, led by 5th grade teacher, Jeannine West, who fans the fires of young scientists' inquiry and research, each and every day.

Here's her input to the school's website:


Here’s part of what Jeannine wrote for the school’s website:





CITIZEN SCIENTISTS AT NORTHEAST ELEMENTARY

            Fourteen fifth graders are currently involved in a Citizen Science program at Northeast Elementary.  Citizen Science is collaborative scientific research, managed by scientists and conducted by amateur or non-professional scientists in the field.  Its goal is to further science itself---and the understanding of both science and the scientific process.  

For the last two weeks, fifth graders students have been observing pollinators in the bird sanctuary adjacent to N. Pinery Parkway and the school.  This data has been shared with a network of other citizen scientists through a project called The Great Sunflower Project, a group which is counting and identifying pollinators in yards, gardens, and schools all over the United States.  This group has constructed the largest single body of information about bee pollinators in North America.



As the weather is changing, students will be turning their focus to the spiders in the bird sanctuary and will be collecting data about the amazing assortment of arachnids living there.

If you want more information about Citizen Science, visit:

The process excites the 5th graders, lighting and fanning their fires of curiosity – and deepens their knowledge and respect for The Pinery environment.

OK, week by week, I shall document what the Citizen Scientists are doing.........

October 9th.



October Discovery



Banded garden Spiders typically begin to appear during autumn from early September to late October as temperatures start dropping.
Their webs can reach a diameter of about 60 cm. The length of the web depends on the size of the spider, capable of reaching a total length of 2 meters.




We are Citizen Scientists at Northeast Elementary.  Each week, we go to the bird sanctuary outside our school.  Today, we made an extraordinary discovery.  In a tall grassy area next to a big rock, we spotted a huge orb web.  After a short walk, we returned to find a yellow, speckled spider with banded legs feeding on a large grasshopper.  When we went back to our classroom, we discovered its species name: Argiope Trifasciata, a spider found in tall, dry grasslands in Colorado.  It was an amazing discovery for Citizen Scientists!



--Alexis, Ashley, Bailey, Cade, Chloe, Emillee, Henry, Lilly, Jace, Justin, Maddy, Paige, Paris, Steele, Weston


November

The Citizen Scientists went to the nearby Nature Sanctuary and helped clear out the nesting boxes.................and were fascinated by what they found.


Today, January 12th, I enrolled in YARDMAP and Ebird, two Citizen Science projects that focus on my garden.......that is the cultivated and wild environment that surrounds my home in The Pinery.......
I'll keep you posted on how that works out.

Incidentally, I have about six bird feeders hanging from trees and this one (see photo) that is on my deck. The squirrels and the deer eat most of the bird seed in the hangers, hence the deck feeder.....and that one does attract a lot of different birds.



Thursday, September 19, 2013

A very, very touching article in today's NYT September 19th


SEPTEMBER 18, 2013, 9:08 PM

A Decade of Goodbye

These weeks after the passing of my husband, Stuart, I often think of Joan Didion and her book “The Year of Magical Thinking,” and about how her beloved husband, John Gregory Dunne, died suddenly of cardiac arrest while sitting in his living room.
During Stuart’s illness, I considered Ms. Didion fortunate to be spared a long goodbye. How much more difficult it is when one suffers a decade of caregiving — the dash to hospitals, the languishing in emergency rooms, the years of chemo and radiation. A path that leads only to degradation as a 175-pound man, who scaled mountains and joyously ran marathons, one day transmogrifies into a 118-pound skeleton, with a failing liver and kidneys.
For the last decade death has been hovering, but now it scratches at our door.

“I always hoped in the end the docs would pull one last trick out of their hats,” he says.
Then, “What is it like to die?”
“I don’t know,” I answer.
Departure grows near. He knows it, but rejects the idea. For me, illness has so permeated our lives that I can’t imagine it will ever end. Time has been our only friend. His illness will get worse, of course, but not for a while. There will always be just a little more time.
Then he turns yellow, like a summer squash. But we still watch “Jeopardy” and Brian Williams; traces of normalcy remain.
Until finally, in March, there is the conversation.
“We can’t offer you anything else,” reports the oncologist. Suddenly, the moment is at hand, not unexpected, of course, but somehow unbelievable.
Hospice arrives. He hates the word “hospice” because it solidifies reality.
“People leave hospice,” I offer.
“In a box,” he snaps.
The plan is that Stuart will die at home. The hospice program delivers a walker, an oxygen machine, a hospital bed, a portable potty and a package of medicines, which I am forbidden to open without the nurses’ permission. The critical medicine is morphine, to be administered by mouth in droplets.
I am told Stuart needs 24-hour nursing care. He doesn’t want strangers in the house and protests. I am afraid to be alone with him when he dies. What will happen if I cannot ease his pain?
Each morning he is a micrometer sicker.
On the morning of June 21, he rises and walks to the bathroom without using his walker.
“Please,” I beg, “use the walker. If you fall, you will break bones, and the pain will be unbearable.”
“I can do it. I can do it.”
The night before, the nurse offered to give him a sponge bath, and he refused, saying he was too tired. Days have passed since he has properly bathed.
“Let me give you a sponge bath now,” I volunteer.
He has never let me tend to his most personal needs, but today he willingly sits on the corner of our bed as I help him disrobe. His entire body is jaundiced. I soap a sponge, gather towels and wash him. The moment is intimate, a rarity for us. I massage his back, chest, arms and legs with moisturizer.
“That feels so good,” he murmurs.
Joan Didion never had such a moment, I think.
I dress him, and he asks for his walker. But I am not finished. I want to comb his hair. In 52 years of marriage, I have never combed his hair.
“O.K.,” he says. And smiles.
I am meticulous in this act of grooming. Then I step back and study him.
“You look handsome,” I say, and mean it.
The night nurse has left, and the day nurse has yet to arrive, so I help him into the living room and into his favorite chair. I prepare breakfast. I can see him from the kitchen. He reads the paper and briefly chats with his broker, then says he doesn’t feel well and wants to go to bed.
“Don’t move,” I say. “I will help you.”
As he grips the handles of the walker, I slip my hand under his armpit and with all my might strive to lift him. He rises almost fully and then, abruptly, his arms and legs become as lifeless as a puppet’s as he falls back, unconscious, into his chair. His eyes are closed. He is dead, I think.
I rush to call hospice.
The nurse arrives as Stuart slowly revives; he twists in agony. Morphine is administered, but the pain does not ease. The nurse tells him he needs hospital care — an IV, stronger drugs — and that he will not be able to die comfortably at home.
He ignores her. He wants to rise and walk, but he can’t. Most of all, he wants to live.
“You are dying,” the nurse flatly tells him.
Anger fills his eyes. He will not give in.
“These are probably your last lucid moments,” she continues. “Your wife is here. What do you want to say to her?”
I see something different in his eyes, a softening. Maybe, finally, an acceptance. He looks at me; I am shaken and silent.
The nurse grabs my hand and pulls me to his side.
“Stuart,” the nurse urges, “what do you want to say? This is your last moment.”
He speaks to me. But he says the words so quickly that I now can’t remember exactly what he said. Then he falls into unconsciousness, and swiftly the ambulance carries him to Calvary Hospital, where he peacefully dies.
We were married 52 years. What reasonable person could ask for more? And yet, if I had one wish, I’d add just five more minutes. Even though the last decade was a misery, I feel luckier than Joan Didion.
In my bereavement group, a participant mourning the death of his partner talked about the “honor of being present on the last journey.” I understand what he meant.
Joan Marans Dim is an author, with Antonio Masi, of “New York’s Golden Age of Bridges.”