Second-grade teacher's unique homework policy goes viral

Second-grade teacher's unique homework policy goes viral

By Jennifer Earl  

CBS News  

August 22, 2016

 

...[T]here’s at least one stressful thing second-graders at Godley Elementary School in Texas won’t have to worry about this year: homework.

Brandy Young teaches 2nd grade at Godley Elementary School in Godley, Texas.

godleyisd.net

Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher at the school, passed out a letter to every parent at a “Meet the Teacher Night” ahead of the start of the school year to explain her new homework policy -- or should we say, no-homework policy.

A pleased parent posted a photo of the letter on her Facebook page, and it went viral with more than 59,000 shares...

“There will be no formally assigned homework this year,” Brandy Young explained in the letter. “Rather, I ask you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.”

The teacher said homework just wasn’t working for her classroom anymore. So, she decided to make meaningful change.

“[Students] work hard all day. When they go home they have other things they need to learn there,” Young told CBS News. “I’m trying to develop their whole person; it’s not beneficial to go home and do pencil and paper work.”...

Teacher of the Year urges Gompers’ community to be accountable

I loved teaching primary grades because I could teach kids basic skills instead of teaching over students' heads, forcing them to go through the motions, pretending they understand what they're doing. But even in primary grades teachers face pressure to teach at the level of the students' age rather than their actual level. And most or all of this pressure usually comes from other teachers.
 

Teacher of the Year urges Gompers’ community to be accountable

by Brad Racino 

May 25, 2017

inewsource.com

 

More than 25 teachers and students have come forward to talk about allegations of grade inflation and unrealistic academic expectations detailed by inewsource last week in an investigation of Gompers Preparatory Academy. The school is a sixth-through-12th grade charter in southeastern San Diego that promises “students can succeed at the university of their choice.”

Maria Miller, a resident of nearby Encanto, was named Teacher of the Year during one of her three years at the school. She’s currently an 8th-grade teacher at Lewis Middle School.

Miller was impressed with the order and procedures where once stood chaos, gangs and drugs. She was excited as a first-year teacher, but said she immediately noticed a problem when her advanced placement (AP) history students couldn’t read at a sixth-grade level.

She has concluded there is a glaring disconnect between the school’s leadership and the surrounding Chollas View community, as well as a need for partnerships with the elementary schools that feed into Gompers.

... [T]ranscript of inewsource’s conversation with Miller...

When I actually started to develop my lessons, and have my classroom and do what it is that I wanted to do … I started to run into some resistance in terms of how I had been trained for an AP class and what the expectation of an AP class was.

Students I knew were reading at a sixth-grade level were taking an AP class...

I had a lot of resistance in terms of how fast and the amount of work that I was giving the students. And then the students themselves. I recall a student running out of my room because they couldn’t write a summary. ‘I don’t know what you’re asking me to do.’ This was 11th grade...

Are we actually setting kids back with our emphasis on academics in kindergarten?

I've been in education for 20 years, and there's a disturbing trend afoot in kindergartens around the US
Christopher Brown
Business Insider
Apr. 17, 2017

Being a kindergartner today is very different from being a kindergartner 20 years ago. In fact it is more like first grade.

Researchers have demonstrated that 5-year-olds are spending more time engaged in teacher-led academic learning activities than play-based learning opportunities that facilitate child-initiated investigations and foster social development among peers.

...Here's how play helps children

Research has consistently shown classrooms that offer children the opportunities to engage in play-based and child-centered learning activities help children grow academically, socially and emotionally. Furthermore, recess in particular helps children restore their attention for learning in the classroom.

Focus on rules can diminish children's willingness to take academic risks and curiosity as well as impede their self-confidence and motivation as learners — all of which can negatively impact their performance in school and in later life.

Giving children a chance to play and engage in hands-on learning activities helps them internalize new information as well as compare and contrast what they're learning with what they already know. It also provides them with the chance to interact with their peers in a more natural setting and to solve problems on their own. Lastly, it allows kindergartners to make sense of their emotional experiences in and out of school.

Improving children's executive functions

Why Executive Function Is A Vital Stepping-Stone For Kids’ Ability to Learn

iStock/manopjk

By Katrina Schwartz 

KQED.org

December 13, 2016

...STRATEGIES

• Breathing buddies: Students lie down on the floor with a favorite stuffed animal on their chests. They slowly breathe in and out, watching the animal rise and fall. This helps students calm down when they are upset and gives them a strategy to implement when they feel themselves getting worked up.
• Teachers keep “meta boxes” in their classrooms full of fidget toys students can use to help them pay attention when they feel like they need to move.
• When transitioning between subjects or recess, teachers often play calming music and let only five kids in at a time to limit the chaos.
• Many elementary school teachers have had the experience of asking a question, seeing many hands in the air, but then calling on a student who says he forgot. That could be a working memory problem. Some Carlisle teachers are proactively addressing this by letting those kids record their thoughts on paper or a device so they can contribute when they’re called on.
• Carlisle was an early adopter of Wexler’s Activate program, too. The iPad lessons focus on typical working memory games that require students to remember the order of things, progressively getting harder as the game develops. The physical games reinforce the online learning with social interactions that help embed the memories in movement. Mass ball is one game that requires students to throw a ball in a specific sequence. Students have to juggle paying attention to the order and catching the ball.
• Carlisle teachers also have students do a lot of balancing games, which help with executive functioning. Teachers might ask students to walk on a line balancing bean bags on their heads or to do the same walk on tiptoe. Teachers also use relay races to get kids moving, since exercise alone helps with executive functioning.

Adults have an attention span of about 12 minutes with a fully developed executive functioning system, so it’s no wonder kids can’t focus without a break. “It cannot be overemphasized that all of us need to be thinking about taking information in smaller chunks,” said Malinda Mikesell, the reading supervisor for the Carlisle Area School District. She said kids need an opportunity to do something with the information on their own before having the chance to reset for the next chunk of information...

A calculator that makes you estimate the answer before you can see it

Behold the Power of an Educated Guess

By: Mario Koran 

Voice of San Diego

Aug. 5, 2014 

...[Ilan Samson, an inventor from Israel] set out to make people rethink how they learn math long before 43 states adopted new Common Core state standards. But now that Common Core is in full-swing in San Diego, he’s hoping more schools will see the benefit of having a tool like QAMA in their classrooms.

The calculator is already in students’ hands at High Tech High and the Preuss School at UCSD, among other schools...

The goal is to help students connect math concepts, and build on them, instead of learning lessons in fragments. Ideally, students will be able to explain how they arrived at an answer, which is why parents might notice – and sometimes reject – an increased focus on word problems.

But if we want American students to become more competitive internationally, it may be time to rethink how we teach. Elizabeth Green, editor of Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news site covering education, took a detailed look at why Americans stink at math.

Green determined that Americans can learn a lot from how math is taught in other countries. One or her points fit with Samson’s take: American students spend too much time memorizing arbitrary rituals. This approach is divorced from true learning, and undervalues the process of finding the answer...

Teachers in high-scoring countries work hard to make learning interesting for kids

Teachers like to blame others, but the fact is that it's the teacher's job to make learning interesting to kids.

What High-Scoring Countries Do Right in Math, Reading, and Science
By Catherine Gewertz
Education Week
September 30, 2013

A new study analyzes the results of international math, reading, and science tests and provides a profile of the practices that schools, parents, and teachers in the highest-scoring countries have in common.

The TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center released the study today. It was made possible by the fact that the TIMSS, which assesses math and science achievement, and the PIRLS, which gauges reading skill, were given at the same time in 2011. That enabled the test administrators at Boston College to synthesize information from the two in order to make observations about what they called "the culture of educational excellence."

They used data from 34 participating countries to offer some analysis at the 4th grade level. They focused on about half of those countries, where took 90 percent of 4th graders scored at a basic level of proficiency in all three subjects, and in particular, on five nations that educated 35 percent of their 4th graders to a high level of achievement in all three: Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Finland, Hong Kong and Russia.

Ina V.S. Mullis and Michael O. Martin, the executive directors of the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, said in a statement that while each country had its own unique strengths and approaches to education, "the analyses presented in this report suggest that, across countries, there are a number of school and home factors that can positively affect student achievement in reading, mathematics, and science at the fourth grade."

One key finding concerned the pivotal role of good reading skills. Not only do strong skills drive high achievement in literacy, but they facilitate high achievement in math and science, too, where students often must read complex material to solve problems.

Far more details are in the full report, which is on the study center's website, but here are some highlights.

School conditions that correlate with higher student achievement in reading, math, and science:

• All parties—principals, teachers, parents and students—are "equally invested" in working together to achieve success;

• Teachers understand curricular goals;

• Teachers are successful implementing curriculum;

• Teachers expect student achievement;

• Parents support student achievement;

• Students want to do well in school; and

• The school provides a safe and orderly environment by maintaining discipline and reducing frequency of bullying.

What teachers do that correlates with higher student achievement in reading, math, and science:

• Making sure students know what they're expected to do;

• Making sure students like what they're reading;

• Trying to be easily understood;

• Presenting content in interesting ways; and

• Giving students interesting things to do and read.

What parents do that correlates with higher student achievement:

• Creating a home environment supportive of educational attainment, with a lot of books available; and

• Reading books, telling stories, singing songs, playing with alphabet toys, reading signs and labels aloud, and playing word games.

Girls With Anorexia Show Characteristics Of Autism, Study Finds

This article might help teachers as well as doctors help girls (and boys) with autistic traits: try to get them interested in a topic involving how a system functions. And of course, all kids need to learn how to find the main idea in a cluster of details.

But what to we do for the self-focused teachers with rigid attitudes and behaviors, and a fascination with details? They need help, too!

Girls With Anorexia Show Characteristics Of Autism, Study Finds
08/05/2013
By Kate Kelland
(Reuters)

Scientists studying girls with the eating disorder anorexia have found they show a mild echo of the characteristics of autism - a finding which could point to new ways of helping anorexics overcome their illness.

A study by the leading autism expert Simon Baron-Cohen at Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre found that compared to typical girls, those with anorexia have an above-average number of autistic traits.

They were also found to have an above-average interest in systems and order, and below-average scores in empathy - a profile similar, but less pronounced, to that seen in people with autism, suggesting the two disorders may have common underlying features, Baron-Cohen said.

"Traditionally, anorexia has been viewed purely as an eating disorder. This is quite reasonable, since the girls' dangerously low weight and their risk of malnutrition or even death has to be the highest priority," he said.

"But this new research is suggesting that underlying the surface behaviour, the mind of a person with anorexia may share a lot with the mind of a person with autism. In both conditions, there is a strong interest in systems. In girls with anorexia, they have latched onto a system that concerns body weight, shape, and food intake."

People with autism have varying levels of impairment across three main areas - social interaction and empathy or understanding, repetitive behaviour and interests, and language and communication.

Cohen noted that autism and anorexia share certain features, such as rigid attitudes and behaviours, a tendency to be very self-focused, and a fascination with detail. Both disorders also share similar differences in the structure and function of brain regions involved in social perception.

OVERLOOKED As many as one in 50 school age children in the United States are diagnosed with autism. In Europe experts say the rate is around one in 100 children. Most cases are diagnosed in boys.

But Bonnie Auyeung, who worked with Baron-Cohen on this latest research, said its findings suggested a proportion of females with autism may be being overlooked or misdiagnosed because doctors see them first with anorexia.

The study, published in the BioMed Central journal Molecular Autism, tested how 66 girls aged 12 to 18 with anorexia but without autism scored on tests to measure autistic traits...

Tony Jaffa, who co-led the study, said acknowledging that some anorexic patients may also have a higher than normal number of autistic traits and a love of systems offers specialists new ideas for ways to treat people with the eating disorder.

"Shifting their interest away from body weight and dieting on to a different but equally systematic topic may be helpful," he said. "(And) recognising that some patients with anorexia may also need help with social skills and communication, and with adapting to change, also gives us a new treatment angle."

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Pravin Char)

L.A. schools will no longer suspend a student for being defiant

A good teacher knows not to give an order that will be disobeyed, since that disobedience will undermine the teacher's authority. A wise teacher does not engage in a challenge that creates a winner and a loser because the classroom atmosphere is harmed no matter which challenger is the loser.

Teachers preserve their authority in the classroom by not taking the bait offered by defiant students, but rather by giving appropriate consequences. Those consequences do not need to be severe, but they need to be consistent.

L.A. schools will no longer suspend a student for being defiant
The Los Angeles Unified school board voted Tuesday to ban suspensions of defiant students, directing officials to use alternative disciplinary practices instead.
By Teresa Watanabe
LA Times
May 15, 2013

Los Angeles Unified has become the first school district in the state to ban defiance as grounds for suspension.

In a 5-2 vote that was met with cheers, the school board banned suspensions for defiant students, directing officials to use alternative disciplinary practices instead.

The action comes amid mounting national concern that removing students from school is imperiling their academic achievement and disproportionately harming minority students, particularly African Americans.

"Now we'll have a better chance to stay in school and become something," said Luis Quintero, 14, a student at Augustus Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles. He attended the board meeting along with dozens of other students and community activists who have been pushing the proposal by board members Monica Garcia and Nury Martinez.

But the vote came after an impassioned discussion over whether the proposal would give a "free pass" to students and shield them from the consequences of misbehavior. Board member Marguerite LaMotte, who voted no, told students that they needed to pay for their mistakes, while member Richard Vladovic said no student had the right to disrupt learning opportunities for classmates.

"I'm not going to give you permission to go crazy and think there are no consequences," LaMotte said.

Board member Tamar Galatzan voted no without comment, while Vladovic supported it as an experiment, saying he would be "the first to stop it" if it proved disruptive to learning. Garcia, Martinez, Steve Zimmer and Bennett Kayser supported the proposal.

The action marks a decisive step back from "zero tolerance" policies that swept the nation after the Columbine school shooting in Colorado more than a decade ago.

The proposal would ban suspensions of students for "willful defiance," an offense criticized as a subjective catch-all for such behavior as refusing to take off a hat, turn off a cellphone or failing to wear a school uniform. The offense accounted for 48% of 710,000 suspensions issued in California in 2011-12, prompting state and local efforts to restrict its use in disciplinary actions.

School officials will instead focus on positive behavior incentives, which have reduced office discipline referrals by up to 50% in 13,000 schools using them nationwide, according to Fix School Discipline, an initiative of the Public Counsel Law Center of Los Angeles.

Here's how every child can have an excellent teacher--without firing any teachers!

WHY WE NEED TO USE CLASSROOM TEACHERS DIFFERENTLY

"There’s very good evidence that teacher quality matters a lot in terms of student performance in school and success later on in life. The economist Raj Chetty of Harvard, for example, has found that students randomly placed with more experienced kindergarten teachers not only perform better on tests but earn more and save more for retirement as adults, are likelier to go to college, and go to better colleges than their peers with less experienced teachers. Eric Hanushek of Stanford estimates that a good teacher – defined as at the 84th percentile, or one standard deviation above the mean for you stats nerds – provides students with test scores associated with an increase of between $22,000 and $46,000 in lifetime earnings."--Washington Post

Lots of kids get stuck for years with various incompetent teachers, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can fix the problem. And not spend any extra money!

Am I crazy to think this?

HERE'S THE MATH:

Here's the comparison for four classrooms and one extra salary (in thousands):

Currently: $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 = $300

New plan: $100 + $50 + $50 + $50 + $50 = $300

HERE'S THE PLAN:

An excellent teacher could come into each classroom for just a few hours a week and make a huge difference--if that teacher had responsibility for student success and authority to make decisions.

Parents should not need political clout to get a good teacher for their child. Every student should--and could--have a great teacher, without wasting time and energy on the losing battle to fire incompetent teachers.

The truth is that the critical moments in learning don't happen continuously five hours a day. They add up to at most a couple of hours each day, and probably much less. The rest of the time an ordinary, mediocre teacher can handle the skill practice and lesson reinforcement, computer activities, art projects, silent reading (how much skill is needed to be in charge of that?) and so on.

GIVING SUPPORT TEACHERS A REAL JOB

At my old school we were paying a top salary--well over $60,000, for a computer teacher who was very nice, but her job was merely to familiarize kids with computer programs. An aide could have done the job. When the principal (Ollie Matos) tried to switch that computer teacher to giving basic reading and math lessons, the teachers went ballistic. The story became a sensation in the San Diego Press, and a group of angry teachers were named the "Castle Park Five" by San Diego Union-Tribune editor Don Sevrens. Basically, what the teachers wanted was 45 minutes a week in which they could send their students to another teacher. But in my plan, classroom teachers would have this kind of help and relief for more than an entire day each week! The nice computer teacher could become a master teacher!

Resource teachers like computer teachers and language and math support teachers could become master teachers. And let's face it: how much good are those resource teachers able to do? They go around and offer suggestions, but they are really doing the equivalent of passing out band-aids. I would never want such a job. It might be relaxing not to have direct responsibility for student learning, but isn't that the point of being a teacher?

NO MORE ABUSIVE TEACHERS

Academics would not be the only thing that master teachers would be responsible for. Abusive, immature teachers with a habit of undermining students could be overruled and guided by the master teacher.

WE COULD SAVE MONEY!

Why do we pay bad teachers the same amount of money as good teachers? It makes no sense!

Excellent teachers should be paid much more than average teachers, and could be responsible for all students in several classrooms.

Each classroom could have a full-time regular teacher who be paid a lower salary, but would be eligible to become a master teacher. The master teacher would also be responsible for helping and guiding the regular teacher.

Here is a chart of average teacher salaries in the US.

In California the average teacher salary is roughly $60,000 (with a starting salary of $35,000.)

We could allow regular teachers to rise in salary to an average of $45 thousand, and allow master teachers to rise to an average of $90 thousand--for overseeing four classrooms.

Money for support teachers and teacher aides would be switched to master teacher positions in the classrooms. (Of course, special education would still require teacher aides.) Some people who are currently teacher aides could become regular teachers.)

Here's the comparison for four classrooms and one extra salary (in thousands):

Currently: $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 = $300

New plan: $92 + $47 + $47 + $47 + $47 = $300

MEANINGFUL EVALUATIONS OF TEACHERS WOULD BE REQUIRED

Of course, meaningful evaluations of teachers would have to be instituted to make this plan work. Current evaluation systems are worse than useless. My plan would call for frequent observations by both master and regular teachers, but they would observe classrooms in other districts to keep school politics out of the process as much as possible. The observations would have a beneficial side effect: they would allow teachers to get pick up new ideas.

I believe it would be good to use student test scores when choosing who is to be a master teacher, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. The good thing about it is that it would take some of the politics out of teacher evaluation. It should be noted that although student test scores vary widely from year to year for most teachers, some teachers do get consistently high scores from their students year after year.

Here's how every child can have an excellent teacher--without firing any teachers!

There’s very good evidence that teacher quality matters a lot in terms of student performance in school and success later on in life. The economist Raj Chetty of Harvard, for example, has found that students randomly placed with more experienced kindergarten teachers not only perform better on tests but earn more and save more for retirement as adults, are likelier to go to college, and go to better colleges than their peers with less experienced teachers. Eric Hanushek of Stanford estimates that a good teacher – defined as at the 84th percentile, or one standard deviation above the mean for you stats nerds – provides students with test scores associated with an increase of between $22,000 and $46,000 in lifetime earnings.--Washington Post

Lots of kids get stuck for years with various incompetent teachers, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can fix the problem. And save money!

Am I crazy to think this?

HERE'S THE MATH:

Here's the comparison for four classrooms and one extra salary (in thousands):

Currently: $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 = $300

New plan: $100 + $50 + $50 + $50 + $50 = $300

HERE'S THE PLAN:

An excellent teacher could come into each classroom for just a few hours a week and make a huge difference--if that teacher had responsibility for student success and authority to make decisions.

Parents should not need political clout to get a good teacher for their child. Every student should--and could--have a great teacher, without wasting time and energy on the losing battle to fire incompetent teachers.

The truth is that the critical moments in learning don't happen continuously five hours a day. They add up to at most a couple of hours each day, and probably much less. The rest of the time an ordinary, mediocre teacher can handle the skill practice and lesson reinforcement, computer activities, art projects, silent reading (how much skill is needed to be in charge of that?) and so on.

GIVING SUPPORT TEACHERS A REAL JOB

At my old school we were paying a top salary--well over $60,000, for a computer teacher who was very nice, but her job was merely to familiarize kids with computer programs. An aide could have done the job. When the principal (Ollie Matos) tried to switch that computer teacher to giving basic reading and math lessons, the teachers went ballistic. The story became a sensation in the San Diego Press, and a group of angry teachers were named the "Castle Park Five" by San Diego Union-Tribune editor Don Sevrens. Basically, what the teachers wanted was 45 minutes a week in which they could send their students to another teacher. But in my plan, classroom teachers would have this kind of help and relief for more than an entire day each week! The nice computer teacher could become a master teacher!

Resource teachers like computer teachers and language and math support teachers could become master teachers. And let's face it: how much good are those resource teachers able to do? They go around and offer suggestions, but they are really doing the equivalent of passing out band-aids. I would never want such a job. It might be relaxing not to have direct responsibility for student learning, but isn't that the point of being a teacher?

NO MORE ABUSIVE TEACHERS

Academics would not be the only thing that master teachers would be responsible for. Abusive, immature teachers with a habit of undermining students could be overruled and guided by the master teacher.

WE COULD SAVE MONEY!

Why do we pay bad teachers the same amount of money as good teachers? It makes no sense!

Excellent teachers should be paid much more than average teachers, and could be responsible for all students in several classrooms.

Each classroom could have a full-time regular teacher who be paid a lower salary, but would be eligible to become a master teacher. The master teacher would also be responsible for helping and guiding the regular teacher.

Here is a chart of average teacher salaries in the US.

In California the average teacher salary is roughly $60,000 (with a starting salary of $35,000.)

We could allow regular teachers to rise in salary to an average of $45 thousand, and allow master teachers to rise to an average of $90 thousand--for overseeing four classrooms.

Money for support teachers and teacher aides would be switched to master teacher positions in the classrooms. (Of course, special education would still require teacher aides.) Some people who are currently teacher aides could become regular teachers.)

Here's the comparison for four classrooms and one extra salary (in thousands):

Currently: $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 = $300

New plan: $92 + $47 + $47 + $47 + $47 = $300

MEANINGFUL EVALUATIONS OF TEACHERS WOULD BE REQUIRED

Of course, meaningful evaluations of teachers would have to be instituted to make this plan work. Current evaluation systems are worse than useless. My plan would call for frequent observations by both master and regular teachers, but they would observe classrooms in other districts to keep school politics out of the process as much as possible. The observations would have a beneficial side effect: they would allow teachers to get pick up new ideas.

I believe it would be good to use student test scores when choosing who is to be a master teacher, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. The good thing about it is that it would take some of the politics out of teacher evaluation. It should be noted that although student test scores vary widely from year to year for most teachers, some teachers do get consistently high scores from their students year after year.

Bandwagon fads in teaching

Bandwagon fads in teaching
Washington Post
June 9, 2012

Personal opinion by Joan Reinthaler, Washington:

Educational theories go in and out of style with some regularity. Open classrooms were all the rage for a time, and some years later schools found themselves repartitioning those noisy spaces.

Diane Ravitch, a respected educational policy advocate, reversed her own thinking about the No Child Left Behind law. We’ve been through the wars of phonics vs. whole word in teaching reading and constructivism vs. direct instruction in teaching math.

I read about Fairfax County’s effort to fire teacher Violet Nichols [“Determining if teachers make the grade,” front page, June 4] for not jumping on a particular bandwagon, while that same day’s Education page in the Metro section [“The flip side of classroom learning”] featured a teacher who has decided to “flip” her calculus class (a current vogue in which students learn lessons at home and do homework in class) — the impression being that if everyone did this, they might teach better.

I have no idea whether Ms. Nichols is a good teacher or not, and I assume that flipping is working for the Bullis School, covered in the Metro story. But for an administrator or a school system (or the press) to judge a teacher on whether she latches onto some favored bandwagon is to ignore the most important aspects of effective teaching: the individual and her art. Using such a sledgehammer approach may make judgments easier to defend, but it is inimical to good education.

Arizona girl, 8, humiliated with "catastrophe" award

UPDATE: I watched this video of a report on this story and was delighted to get a look at the girl's actual homework. Some of the assigned work looked like excellent reinforcement, assuming it was actually at the girl's independent reading level. But then I spied the spelling work. Experts long ago found that copying spelling words more than three times is completely useless, in addition to being mind-numbingly boring. I could see that the words were repeated well over three times each. It is busy work, pure and simple. Shame on the teacher.

Experts say that children should be given no more than ten minutes homework for each year they have been in school. I wonder if this girl's teacher followed best practices in assigning homework. Did she give more than half an hour's homework to this eight year old? Yes, I know that parents often want more homework for their kids. They think it will make them better students. Instead, the parents should be reading to their kids, discussing what they've read, discussing everyday math, and exchanging ideas and opinions with their kids. A lot of parents do this, and their children do better in school.

Also, I'd really love to know what the assignment was. Many teachers give work that they didn't have time to cover in class, so they expect parents to teach it. This girl's parents may not have been able to give her the needed help.

Many teachers think respect is a one-way street, something kids owe to them, but they don't owe to kids. One teacher at my school contemptuously referred to kids without homework as "losers".

Arizona girl, 8, humiliated with "catastrophe" award
Teacher pointed her out for not having homework
BY NANCY DILLON
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
May 28, 2012

An Arizona teacher gave her 8-year-old student a "catastrophe" award for not having her homework.

The dog ate her homework, so third-grader Cassandra Garcia got a serving of humiliation that some are finding hard to swallow.

The 8-year-old was called in front of her laughing classmates recently to receive a “catastrophe” award for “most excuses for not having homework” at her Tucson elementary school, KGUN9 News reported.

The colorful certificate included a giant cartoon ice cream cone, her teacher’s signature and a smiley face in black marker.

“It’s cruel, and no child should be given an award like this,” the girl’s mom, Christina Valdez, told KGUN. “It’s disturbing.”

She said her daughter was crushed by the hazing, so she complained to the principal at Desert Springs Academy.

“She blew me off. She said it was a joke that was played and that the teachers joke around with the children,” Valdez said.

Sheri Bauman, a psychologist at the University of Arizona College of Education, agreed.

“That isn’t an award,” Bauman told KGUN. “It doesn’t fit the criteria."

Being humiliated after making mistakes is counterproductive to learning, she said.

Studies Illustrate Plight of Introverted Students

May 23, 2012
Studies Illustrate Plight of Introverted Students
By Sarah D. Sparks
Education Week

Educators often look for ways to bring quiet children out of their shells, but emerging research suggests schools can improve academic outcomes for introverted students by reducing the pressure to be outgoing and giving all students a little more time to reflect.

"Whoever designed the context of the modern classroom was certainly not thinking of the shy or quiet kids," said Robert J. Coplan, a psychology professor and shyness expert at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada. With often-crowded, high-stimulation rooms and a focus on oral performance for class participation, he said, "in many ways, the modern classroom is the quiet kid's worst nightmare."

Susan Cain, the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, published by Random House this year, argues that such children often stop learning when they feel emotionally threatened in a class environment in which being an extrovert is considered the norm.

"There is too often a tendency to see it as inferior or even pathological," Ms. Cain said, "so teachers feel they have to turn the introvert into an extrovert."

Quiet as Stupid?

Take a typical class review session, in which a teacher asks rapid-fire questions and calls on students in turn. "So if a teacher asks a question and the person doesn't answer right away," Mr. Coplan said, "the most common thing is the teacher doesn't have time to sit and wait, but has to go on to someone else—and in the back of their head might think that child is not as intelligent or didn't do his homework."

That slowness to speak can dramatically affect a student's success in classrooms where vocal participation and group activities are critical.

A 2011 study found teachers from across K-12 rated hypothetical quiet children as having the lowest academic abilities and the least intelligence, compared with hypothetical children who were talkative or typical in behavior.

Interestingly, teachers who were identified as and who rated themselves as shy agreed that quiet students would do less well academically, but did not rate them as less intelligent.

As many as half of Americans are introverts, according to the Center for Applications of Psychological Type, located in Gainesville, Fla.

There's a distinction between shyness—generally associated with fear or anxiety around social contact—and introversion, which is related to a person's comfort with various levels of stimulation.

Why are some animal trainers--and teachers--so aggressive and cruel when they teach?

These aren't exactly Sea World training methods being used on these elephants. Not a treat in sight.

More video evidence of movie elephant suffering released by ADI as elephant experts condemn abuse
Animal Defenders International
LOS ANGELES, May 11, 2011 -- Wildlife vet describes training at elephant suppliers for Water for elephants: “Nothing rivals the cruelty I have witnessed over the last few days.”

Animal Defenders International have released more shocking footage from Have Trunk Will Travel, where the elephant Tai used in the movies Water for Elephants, Zookeeper and Britney Spears’ circus video, was trained.

The first footage ADI released related specifically to what was shown in Water for Elephants. It showed how Tai was taught to perform tricks with electric shocks and bull hooks and not with love and marshmallows.

Dr Mel Richardson, captive wildlife vet: “As a veterinarian with 40 years of expertise caring for elephants and other captive wildlife, I can assure you these videos depict animal cruelty and unnecessary suffering. These people are tormenting their elephants. The aggressiveness and vengeance with which the handlers beat and punish the elephants is unconscionable. There appears to be no purpose other than to torment the elephants. As a veterinarian in 1982-84, I worked for an animal dealer who imported 44 baby African elephants to train for the performing animal industry. I have witnessed and treated the wounds of elephants traumatized by severe training techniques. And nothing rivals the cruelty I have witnessed over the last few days from the videos from Have Trunk Will Travel.”

Dr. Joyce Poole, world renown elephant biologist, Co-Director of Elephant Voices, lead author of The Elephant Charter, world-renowned elephant biologist, with 40 years studying elephants: "What we see is systematic abuse of fearful and terrorized elephants. The brutality and aggressive attitude demonstrated by the handlers leaves no doubt in my mind about the trauma that has been inflicted on these poor elephants. The roars of pain and squeaks of alarm heard in the footage all confirm the same - elephants forced with violence to do painful tricks that are unnatural and harmful to them."

Pat Derby former TV and movie animal trainer and founder of the Performing Animal Welfare Society, Ark2000 elephant sanctuary: “The actions I viewed on this video could only be characterized as needless suffering and unnecessary cruelty. In the early 70s, when I was working with animals on film sets I hated the way elephants were trained. Elephants bring out a fury in many men as no other creature does, a rage to dominate and to hurt.

“Although Have Trunk Will Travel states that their elephants are trained with food reward and positive reinforcement, no treats are visible anywhere in this video, and the bull hooks and electricity are used aggressively and angrily."

“The elephant actor in Water For Elephants, and the other elephants at Have Trunk Will Travel, have paid a high price for a few mediocre moments of entertainment. If you care about elephants, skip this movie.”

Peter Stroud, former curator of elephants at Melbourne Zoo, has said there was little doubt Tai has been subjected to cruel training methods at some point:

’’Getting an elephant to do what it’s told really requires the elephant to be dominated. If you want to see an elephant behaving in the way this elephant probably does in this movie, where it’s in and around people and performing circus tricks, it’s a near certainty that it’s been trained using punishment, using pain, using very traditional methods that have been with us for a long time but are not at all elephant friendly. They’re basically cruel.’’...

Test Scores Soar Here, But the Grades Aren't So Easy

Test Scores Soar Here, But the Grades Aren't So Easy
February 6, 2011
by Emily Alpert

Savannah Sparkman was used to automatically getting As for doing her schoolwork. She was stunned to see her grades sink after she transferred to Kearny High School of International Business.

"I put in all my effort and got Bs and Cs," said Sparkman, who moved from Japan as a junior. "I thought I was doing something wrong. Then I found out the average was Bs and Cs."

Teens swear there are no easy As at this school. And the numbers back them up.

Good grades are common at San Diego schools with high test scores. But not at the School of International Business, one of four small, themed schools carved out of Kearny High. It has some of the highest test scores in San Diego Unified. But its students aren't swimming in As and Bs.

Grades and tests don't always line up neatly for each individual. A teen might work hard in class and blow off state tests. But comparing grades and scores across whole schools helps reveal the gulf between grading at different schools. An A is not an A is not an A.

Voiceofsandiego.org earlier examined grades at the Met, a small school accused of grade changing. Grades there are tops, but test scores are not. International Business is at the opposite extreme, a school with top scores and surprisingly low grades.

How teachers grade students differs so much from school to school that it is nearly impossible to decipher what grades really mean. Scholars say even when teachers have the same set of marks, they often calculate grades differently. For instance, the Met allows students to improve their grades over time by doing more work, even months after a class ends. Less than a mile away at International Business, the only way a student can improve an old grade is to retake a failed class.

Grades may be slippery, but they can decide teens' futures. Tougher grading at schools like International Business could better prime students for tough colleges, but also hurt their chances to get in if colleges just don't know the difference. The school has tried to ensure that its grades mean something.

But its kids have to compete in a world where grades can mean anything.

♦♦♦

Mike Little warns his accounting class that if they leave their balance sheets unbalanced, they'll get an F — maybe a D if he feels nice. He knocks off points if students round to the wrong penny or forget to bring their calculators...

"I'm very intolerant of things that would be bad for business," Little said. "If you work in a bank and your computer program rips people off, you get sued."

Principal Ana Diaz-Booz jokes that she braces for phone calls from parents and kids pleading to get out of Little's class when each semester starts. But tough grades are a point of pride for her school.

Are You Trapped in a 'Compliance Culture'?

Are You Trapped in a 'Compliance Culture'?
Education Week

Our book club discussion with Kathleen Cushman, author of Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery, is going on all this week. Here's a sampling of some of the topics that have come up so far:

• Are teachers weighed down by a "compliance culture" in schools, and how do they balance curriculum demands with deeper, more student-centered learning models?
• What "small decisions" can you make as a teacher to spark students' engagement in a lesson?
• Do we overestimate the amount of direction students need from adults?
• Do prescriptive lessons diminish student creativity and motivation?
• How important is relevance in lessons? How do students develop the intellectual discipline to stick with assignments that don't seem relevant or exciting to them?
Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Share your ideas, experiences, and questions. Join the discussion. (You don't have to have read the book.)

Poverty supresses children's genetic potential, study says

Many teachers say it's the parents' fault that their children are failing, and that teachers shouldn't be asked to do the parents' job. But what if parents simply can't do that job? Are teachers in the right when they wash their hands of their students' fates? I think not. Teachers should continue to do as much as they can for every child, and not say, as I heard one teacher say at Castle Park Elemetary, "I don't have time to help the kids who are behind." Too many teachers feel justified in placing invisible "rejected" stamps on the foreheads of kids who are "too much work."

Jan 10, 2011
Poverty supresses children's genetic potential, study says
Psychologists at University of Texas say the difference is about opportunity, not superior wealthy genes
By Adam Clark Estes

Researchers at the University of Texas claim that poverty may affect how children achieve their genetic potential. Using 750 sets of twins as subjects, the team of psychologists led by assistant professor Elliot Tucker-Drob found that 50 percent of the progress wealthier children show on mental ability tests can be attributed to genetics. Children from poor families, however, showed almost no progress attributable to genetics.

Don't get too carried away with the conclusions this might suggest. Based on this study, rich kids are not genetically superior to children of poverty. They're simply provided with more opportunities to fulfill their potential.

Of course, this conclusion holds some interesting implications for the field of childhood development. From the University of Texas announcement about the findings:

These findings go to the heart of the age-old debate about whether "nature" or "nurture" is more important to a child's development. They suggest the two work together and that the right environment can help children begin to reach their genetic potentials at a much earlier age than previously thought.

As the nation pulls out of the greatest economic disaster since the Great Depression, such a breakthrough could serve to shift attention toward taking better care of America's youth.

One out of every five children in the U.S. lives in poverty. That's a lot of lost potential...

Can you raed tihs? Olny srmat poelpe can.

Can you raed tihs? Olny srmat poelpe can.


I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

The End of 'The Stupid Class'

June 7, 2010
The End of 'The Stupid Class'
By EMILY ALPERT
voiceofsandiego.org

Bianca Penuelas and her friends used to joke about being in "the stupid class" at Correia Middle School. The gifted kids took one set of tougher classes for English and history; she and her friends took another, easier set of classes. So Bianca didn't bother to work hard at school.

"I didn't think I had to try because I was below average anyway," the eighth grader said.

Now she sits side by side with those smart kids she used to only see between classes, kids who she now counts among her friends. Correia put almost all students into the same classes this year, ending the controversial practice of splitting children into classes based on ability, also known as tracking.

"We wanted to debunk the whole thing and try something new," said Principal Patricia Ladd. Her hope was that doing so could raise the bar for all kids at Correia. "So we detracked."...

When she’s stumped, it becomes a teachable moment

When she’s stumped, it becomes a teachable moment

By Lisa Deaderick, UNION-TRIBUNE
November 24, 2010
Karen Jensen likes the moments in class when her students ask her a question and she doesn’t know the answer. That way, they all have to find the answer together.

“I hope that’s a model to them that if you are interested in something, if you don’t know the answer, we have the resources to go out and find out what we want to know,” she said...