20): Teacher Quality Edition

February 22, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

We’re going to keep things simple this week, my Eleven Faithful Followers (#11FF). As much as I enjoy our time together and the hours you no doubt spend giggling over every clever phrase and admiring my poignant insights, I’m hoping you’ll take the time to actually go read and follow at least a few of this week’s featured players. Some you’re no doubt already familiar with, but others I’m happy to take credit for introducing to you.

You’re welcome.

Now, let’s get to it, shall we?

One Good Thing is a blog for math teachers, only it’s not, really. Yes, many of the posts reference math assignments or issues, but the guiding philosophy is in the site’s subheading: “every day may not be good, but there is one good thing in every day.”

One of the more prolific posters on One Good Thing is Rebecka Peterson, a math teacher from Oklahoma. Her reflections are generally brief, encouraging, and poignant – leaving many of you to no doubt wonder how the hell I can even read them without bursting into flames. But love them I do, and there are at least two recent missives you should stop and digest right now, then read again every day this week until you’ve truly got them.

Cross stitching them onto something to hang in your bedroom or bathroom wouldn’t be completely out of line.

From Piles (2/19/20):

I am swamped by grading at school. My to-do list for tomorrow realistically needs a week to attend to. And the piles and lists seem to just multiply.
But when I sit back and really evaluate this year, I am ok with those piles.
In a very weird way, I’m even happy for those piles.

I get tingly just reading it again.

From Be Less Helpful (2/20/20):

I gave my kids some not-your-mama’s-calculus problems today. I said we’re going to the gym today and working those brains for an hour…
I didn’t walk around the room for an hour like I usually do. I told them I was putting some distance between us on purpose, so they would feel that productive struggle…

I love my current students, but I miss having classes in which you could do stuff like this and have it turn out well. (Oh, um… Spoiler Alert: it turns out well.)

Follow One Good Thing on the interwebs and fall in teacher-love with Rebecka on Twitter at @RebeckaMozdeh.

Cloaking Inequity is a rather serious website and blog created by Julian Vasquez Heilig, the Dean of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky College of Education, where he also teaches. About the only thing his blog shares in common with One Good Thing is that the posts tend to be brief and to the point – two things I honestly had no idea it was even possible to do on a regular basis. I suppose I should try those eventually…

Not surprisingly, inequity towards students often involves issues with teacher quality.

Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers (2/21/20) primarily gathers links to research and reports, along with an excerpt from a recent study by the Learning Policy Institute (LPI). This is from that excerpt:

Access to fully certified and experienced teachers matters for student outcomes and achievement, yet many states have hired uncertified and inexperienced teachers to fill gaps created by persistent teacher shortages. These teachers are disproportionately found in schools with high enrollments of students of color…

In other words, when states force schools to grab any warm bodies they can to fill teaching positions, guess who gets the least experienced or least qualified educators?

The day before, Heilig shared some research on teacher quality assessment. The ideas won’t be revolutionary to anyone who’s been paying attention in recent years, but they’re worth revisiting. This particular study seems to bring a touch of sanity to a system still determined to rank and score teachers in some fashion, mostly because it rejects doing so based on standardized test scores at the outset and works from there.

How Should We Evaluate Teacher Quality? (2/20/20) examines the question of – well, I guess you get the basic idea from the title…

Here, Heilig summarizes some of the research he’s compiled:

In this policy brief, Lavigne and Good argue that the most commonly used practices to evaluate teachers—statistical approaches to determine student growth like value-added measures and the observation of teachers—have not improved teaching and learning in U.S. schools. They have not done so because these approaches are problematic, including the failure to adequately account for context, complexity, and that teacher effectiveness and practice varies.
With these limitations in mind, the authors provide recommendations for policy and practice, including the elimination of high-stakes teacher evaluation and a greater emphasis on formative feedback, allowing more voice to teachers and underscoring that improving instruction should be at least as important as evaluating instruction.

It’s a bit thick on the edu-speak, but anyone who’s navigated the world of academic bureaucracy for a few years should be fine. Plus, reading big words makes us feel much good smart, don’t it? It’s NOT what makes us better teachers, however, so feel free to add it to the list of silly ideas states keep pushing.

Read Cloaking Inequity regularly and keep up with Professor Heilig on the Twitters at @ProfessorJVH. You’ll thank me.

Presumably you’re already familiar with Peter Greene at Curmudgucation. He’s arguably the most prolific and reliably source of edu-news and commentary on the web, although I suppose Diane Ravitch deserves a shot at the tiebreaker if it ever becomes important to know for sure. Greene is always worth reading, but often he almost accidentally transcends himself with moments like this, from Shoving Babies Into The Pipeline (2/19/20):

It is not a five-year-old’s job to be ready for school; it is the school’s job to be ready for the five-year-old.
This is doubly true now that we have entered an era in which too many people have decided that human development can somehow be hurried along, that we can turn kindergarten into first or second grade by just pushing the littles to sit down and study. Again, there is a germ of truth attached to this movement– children who grow up in homes that provide a richer learning environment get an extra boost in learning. I can’t help noticing, however, that these council of business types never sit down to say, “What we need to do is provide young families the kind of income and freedom that helps foster a richer environment for children.”
In short, these groups could treat young parents like humans trying to raise little humans instead of meat widgets tasked with producing little meat widgets.

I mean, you just wanna hug him and laugh-cry and have his edu-babies when you read stuff like that, don’t you? No? Perhaps I simply have some strange boundary issues?

In keeping with this week’s theme, however, Greene also offers some insight on How To Improve The Quality Of Teaching With Tools Districts Already Have At Hand (And How To Mess It Up):

Like so many things, it all sounds so obvious when he’s explaining it, and yet states and districts keep finding ways not to have the slightest clue:

There is never a shortage of ideas about how to improve the quality of teaching in U.S. classrooms. From the intrusive and convoluted (“Let’s give every student a test and then run the test through a complex mathematical formula and use it to identify the strongest and weakest teachers and then fire the weak ones and replace them with strong ones, somehow”) to the traditional and banal (“Time for a day of professional development sessions that most of you will find boring and useless”), tied to either threats (“We’ll fire you!”) or rewards (“Merit pay!”), school systems and policy makers have come up with a wide variety of approaches that don’t do a bit of good.
And yet, there is a very effective method that not only improves the quality of teaching in classrooms, but increases the chances of retaining good teachers in a district. Best of all, every district in the country already has every resource it needs to implement the technique. Some are even required to do it, though many mess it up badly. What’s the magic technique?

I’ll let you read the rest for yourself. And you totally should. Keep up with Curmudgucation at curmudgucation.blogspot.com and follow Peter on Twitter at @palan57. If you don’t, be prepared to explain what the $#@% is wrong with you as a person and an educator.

Finally, a few pieces to round out your weekend:

Aggie, I’m Sorry – Claudia Swisher at Fourth Generation Teacher wishes she’d read the book a few decades earlier and done one of her fave teachers proud.

Navigating Undergraduate Academic Writing: Guess What? It Depends on the Professor. – In this piece from Academics Write, it turns out that success on college essays is largely a matter of gaming each professor’s expectations and ability level. So, that’s depressing.

If you’re worried that students aren’t getting enough “real world” experience, there’s no need for concern in Arlington, Texas. They’re flushing toilets like crazy there – and successfully! #STEM

Dan and Dee Cain of Twinsburg, Ohio, better get serious about paying back their daughter’s student loans. They’ve already received 55,000 letters from the loan company. (I hope her degree was in math.)

You want a legit scandal? A Ukrainian textbook accidentally proves that Keanu Reeves really IS an ageless time-traveling vampire by showing him in a historical photograph from nearly a century ago.

Finally, if you needed any more proof that Big Brother is here and that he’s going to beat you up and take your lunch money every day “for your own good,” facial recognition technology is being piloted in New York schools – you know, “to keep kids safe.”

That’s it for this week, my Eleven Faithful Followers (#11FF). We have one more Month of Love edition of Blue Serials next week, so if you have something to say or someone to share, this is your last shot – at least until March. Be strong, and Happy Black History Month:

Blue Serials (2/15/20)

February 15, 2020June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

This week’s Blue Serials largely features blogs and other online sources which have absolutely no need of a signal boost from me. Still, if they’re going to be so narcissistic as to create great content that’s not shared here FIRST, I should at least have the right to abscond it and use it for my own glorification.

Plus, these are all, like… really good pieces. So there’s that.

Doug Robertson, aka “The Weird Teacher,” has been particularly shiny recently. If you’re not familiar with Robertson, he’s an elementary school teacher with blue hair, a motorcycle, and a love of the kind of music that used to frighten Congress in the 80s. He’s also the author of not one, but THREE of the best education-related books ever written – and I say that as a guy who’s not a big fan of many education books.

I’d already made a note to myself to talk about “One of Those Years” before I realized that, like Lay’s potato chips, you can’t read just one:

You can say, “It’s been one of those years.” And no one at work will question what you mean. Every single person gets it. Every single person at your school has had “one of those years.”
Like, you don’t often realize it right away. Maybe it was just a weird September, some years start weird. And October felt a little funny. November is always strange. And December doesn’t count, December is always screwed up. But suddenly it’s the end of January and things still haven’t settled in? Oh…oh hell. It’s one of those years, isn’t it?

Doug has a gift for being alarmingly transparent and genuine without awakening up the Cheese Monster the rest of us seem to spawn whenever drifting into honest reflection. His humor cushions the rawness – is founded on it, in fact – and yet he lacks the sort of cynicism and bitterness I can’t help but radiate whenever I’m being genuine about, well… anything.

In other words, you should read the rest of “One of Those Years,” whether it’s for you at this very moment or not. Eventually, one way or the other, it will be.

Speaking of cynicism and bitterness, I was pleasantly appalled to discover that before I managed to finish loving one of Robertson’s posts, he’d made another I couldn’t ignore. I had to read it twice – once to enjoy it, and once to ask myself honestly whether or not it applied to me.

Don’t worry, though – the results are in. I’m clean. Mostly. This week.

From “Hiding Behind Bad Jokes”:

Let’s clear something up right now: Putting “Satire” or “Funny observations” {in your bio} does not absolve you of the responsibility of being coherent and responsible in your education tweets. For every anonymous education account that tweets well there are a dozen that are terrible at it.
That’s right, friends and readers- this is a blog about education twitter. Strap in.

As someone who used to have standards and convictions of my own, I appreciate Doug’s fearlessness and candor. It’s all founded on what’s best for kids, even when sometimes that’s because it’s best for teachers as well. He’s always relevant, even when he tries to confess that he’s not, and his posts – like his books – are both poignant and funny, even when they hurt because they’re too damn true.

If it sounds like I have a Twitter-crush on The Weird Teacher, I suppose I do. It’s the 21^st century, kids – COME AT ME.

You can join the crush at hestheweirdteacher.blogspot.com and on Twitter by following @TheWeirdTeacher. It’s totally worth it, but remember – I saw him first and he probably loves me best.

The Learning Scientists is (are?) new to me, although clearly they’ve been doing this awhile and have a pretty good idea what’s what in terms of pedagogy, child development, and online color scheme choices. Peter Greene at Curmudgucation shared this particular post, and despite his blog having approximately 18.4 million regular readers (including, I hope, every last one of you, my Eleven Faithful Followers), it seemed worth sharing again – just in case you missed it.

The post is called “Learning ‘Useless’ Things in School is (Usually) NOT Useless” – a theme near and dear to my heart. I’m pretty sure a month is shaved off my life every time a student whine-asks, “Why do we have to KNOW this? When am I ever going to need to read, write, think, or otherwise demonstrate understanding and reason in REAL life?!?” or some variation thereof.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

The practice you received using mathematical formulas in primary school likely makes you faster at solving problems that involve mathematics in “real life”. You are also likely better able to understand complex situations that involve math (e.g. political arguments regarding economics). While you may not whistle a tune on a recorder as an adult, those musical lessons helped you to be able to pick up a different musical instrument, enjoy a complex piece of music, or just appreciate the fact that, even if you don’t like the music, Tool is made up of extremely talented musicians.
The challenge facing teachers is to prepare a diverse set of students for later situations that are not only varied, but likely different from ones we can even imagine in our current time. As technology rapidly changes our world, our instructors are set with the task of attempting to make students ready for whatever that future world will throw at them. I would argue that teaching broad knowledge is the best way to do this. Those 8-year-olds could have any number of future professions and future situations. One of them might even take their kid to an aquarium as an adult. Teaching broad knowledge in the only way to prepare students for the broad world they are going to encounter.

And the people said… “Amen!”

Imagine living in a society where the most basic facts and reasoning had ceased to be a factor in political policy, or in which we no longer valued efforts to genuinely understand the world around us. It would be, what’s the term…?

Oh, yes… “GREAT AGAIN.”

You can “Amen” the Learning Scientists yourself at www.learningscientists.org/blog and on Twitter at @AceThatTest. I’m certainly going to.

Three Teachers Talk is NOT new to me, although the actual number of teachers “talking” through the site is closer to three dozen (or maybe three zillion) these days. If you’re a middle school or high school English teacher, or any teacher of anything at any level, actually, and you’re not reading 3TT regularly, well… you’re doing education wrong and probably ruining all of your students.

Shana Karnes is one of THE “Three” in the title, and her musings on “The Rollercoaster of a Teaching Career” are not to be missed. And, unlike a literal rollercoaster, you’re VERY unlikely to throw up at the end…

The truth is, teaching is an unsustainable profession if we don’t give ourselves permission to curate. When I was brand new, single, and 21, I relished the fact that I beat the principal to school every day. I loved spending 12 hours in my perfectly-lit, freshly-painted classroom.
But now that I have children, a home, and a slew of other responsibilities to care for, I have to curate. I may not have the most Pinterest-worthy classroom in the future. I may not have the neatest classroom library; I may not sponsor three clubs; I may not volunteer to be on all the committees. But I will be able to do the work I love, which is having a life that allows me to take my daughters to soccer practice and read my students’ fascinating essays from the sidelines.

Karnes writes concisely and honestly while maintaining a degree of eloquence that leaves my innermost regions trembling ever-so-slightly. You’ve no doubt read about and discussed amongst yourselves the oft-dismissed need for teacher/real-life balance before – but you haven’t read it quite this way before.

Let’s get on that, shall we? And while you’re at it, keep up with TTT at threeteacherstalk.com and on Twitter at @3TeachersTalk. You can also follow Karnes at @litreader.

Finally, there’s this provocatively titled piece from the Hechinger Report – another Curmudgucation recommendation and another organization new to me (but remaining new no longer): “Dress Codes Are the New ‘Whites Only’ Signs.”

Damn. Are they TRYING to make Tucker Carlson fling rage-spittle onto our screens?

Upon actual perusal of the article, however, what we’re really talking about is the banning of blackness – particularly black hair styles – in the name of institutional dress codes. It’s a defiant bit of writing, and part of me wants to challenge the underlying anger or question the connections made by the author, Dr. Andre Perry.

The problem is that he’s right about all of it – so that kinda renders any discomfort on the part of the reader their problem.

Those who would have us return to a period of legal segregation don’t need to bring back signposts to separate us when they can discriminate in other ways, simply on the basis of how we look, how we dress, and how we wear our hair.
When dress codes reinforce white norms, being black becomes a violation…
DeAndre Arnold has attended the Barbers Hill Independent School District his entire life; in high school, he grew his hair into locs. However, before winter break, the principal of Barbers Hill High School placed DeAndre, a senior, in in-school suspension and told him that he would not be able to attend classes, prom, or even his graduation, because his dreadlocks violated the dress code. To notify DeAndre months before graduation that he was being suspended for his hair doesn’t make much sense, but racism isn’t logical…
In response to news stories about the school’s decision to suspend DeAndre, the Barbers Hill Superintendent tweeted that it’s important to hold black students to high expectations, implying that dreadlocks are linked to bad performance. Except hair has nothing to do with academic standards or college readiness. The frivolous use of this dress code to prevent students from graduating is about exerting authority over and controlling black people. Black people should not, cannot change themselves to fit white norms.

Keep up with the Hechinger Report at hechingerreport.org and on Twitter at @hechingerreport. You can find Dr. Perry on Twitter at @andreperryedu.

That’s it for this week my #11FF. There’s still time to Share the Love as a guest blogger this month or suggest blogs, articles, or other online content you believe other educators might find useful, encouraging, or maddening. Email me at [email protected] and let me know what’s on your mind.

I also have a few things I’m offering on Teachers Pay Teachers – the infamous Blue Cereal document activities exploring the Underground Railroad and the Oil Boom (but not at the same time, because… chronology) and my resource book “Have To History”: Landmark Supreme Court Cases. Not trying to get rich off of any of them, but Grandma needs cat food and Grandpa needs a left shoe.

Blue Serials (2/8/17)

February 8, 2017July 31, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I haven’t been doing the weekly wrap-ups recently. I’m never quite sure whether anyone reads them, despite the consistently high quality of the goodies within!

But there’s simply been TOO MUCH quality edu-bloggery lately not to compile it and celebrate a bit. If you’ve been busy, or distracted by national shenanigans, or tuned out after the elections, this might be a good time to tune back in for a bit.

Because it’s February, and it’s starting.

Here’s what you simply SHOULD NOT HAVE MISSED recently from #OklaEd’s best thinkers, explainers, and ranters. God, I love these people and that… stuff they do with the words and point-making and such. It’s glorious.

Oklahoma Definitely Deserves Better – Rick Cobb, OKEducationTruths. #OklaEd

Cobb has never pulled punches, and there’s no indication he’ll be getting less grumpy anytime soon. After being accused of thuggery and non-existent bad behavior and banned from a school choice event a few weeks ago, he’s turned his sights to the new legislative session and the so-called “better plan” that was so trendy as a tool to crush SQ779 last November.

“You can peruse the list of donors who contributed this money (all between October 1 and December 31 of 2016). If you know any of these people (or work for any of the companies that contributed), maybe you can ask them about that better plan. I’d love to hear it.”

Yeah, wouldn’t we all. I’m pretty sure it’s a very concise plan, probably consisting of no more than two words directed towards teachers across the state. The first begins with ‘F’, the second with ‘Y’.

Peruse Cobb on the Twitters and see what else is on his mind. He’s the foundational source of all things #OklaEd and their implications.

Past, Future, and Present – Meghan Loyd, For The Love. #OklaEd

“The past two weeks have been the worst in my teaching career. I have worked crazy long hours, and then I come home and cry over it… I have allowed my emotional needs and hurt negatively impact my students. I want to build a positive culture, and I have done nothing of the sorts.

Then my college professor posted this on Facebook…”

Loyd waxes raw on the power of transparency, community, and encouragement. Loyd is our go-to unicorns and rainbows supplier on #oklaed, but she’s been wounded this year. Doubting. Angry. What she refuses to be is afraid, or silent. For the love, she keeps putting it out there.

Follow her on the Twitters and give a little of it back to her, but with donuts. She does still crave herself some donuts.

How The Chamber Killed Teacher Raises – Mindy Dennison, This Teacher Sings. #OklaEd

Dennison is done messing around. In this post, as with last week’s Better Find Someone To Blame, she’s calling out people and organizations by name and daring them to correct her.

“They solicited and spent almost a million dollars to deny my family a $5,000 raise, and simultaneously endangered the quality of education for 700,000 school children by contributing to the mass exodus of our teachers. If I had to guess how much money they throw into a campaign for their “better plan”, my guess is somewhere between $0 and $0.”

Hey, I’m on her side. Even if I weren’t though, I’d think twice before trying to play rhetorical games with her again.

Follow her on the Twitters and see what else she’s had enough of.

An Open Letter to Prospective Teachers – Rob Miller, A View From The Edge. #OklaEd

Seems like we should finish with some positives, doesn’t it? And that’s what this is, despite one of my favorite openings of the entire realm:

“If you are a young person just entering college, or perhaps a millennial or Gen X-er looking for a career change, you should definitely not consider a career as a public school teacher. Seriously, don’t do it.

Wasting your potential as a classroom teacher is a really bad idea. Do something else. Anything else.”

Not that Miller has been stuck on his own unicorn farm lately. He’s tackled some of the inane rhetoric of our own legislators and written numerous posts about the Trump Administration and the atrocity that is DeVos.

Fortunately, though, he’s still pretty good at finding those reasons to push on – or up, as the case may be. I hope whatever else happens, they don’t beat that out of him anytime soon.

Find Miller on the Twitters and see what else he’s pushing.

Books To Read As We Survive Trying Times – Claudia Swisher, Fourth Generation Teacher. #OklaEd

“I recently saw an observation that when Barack Obama was elected, sales of guns spiked… and now with the election of Donald Trump, we are seeing a resurgence in the sale of books. As a Reading for Pleasure teacher, I find that fascinating… and hopeful.”

Swisher presents the first of four lists of recommended reading for the days ahead. And belief that it can matter.

You gotta love that.

Find Swisher on the Twitters and let her know what YOU’RE reading to get through. Be careful, though – she’ll probably encourage you and stuff.

Alright my darlings, that’s it for this Special Edition of Blue Serials.

I’d tell you things are going to be OK, but I don’t know if that’s true. I’d tell you we can turn this around, but I don’t know if that’s true, either.

What I can tell you is that you are some of the best this fallen world has to offer. You are noble and funny and gracious and kind. Smarter than you think you are and mattering more than the ugly ones will admit.

Fight well, and in love and light. That’s the only kind of fight worth winning in the end.

Blue Serials (10/23/16)

October 22, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I know, I know – so much. Too much. All busy. Things doing! Aaarghhghh!

Nonetheless, Here Are A Few Things You Simply SHOULD NOT MISS From Recent Edu-Bloggery…

The Long Game: Teaching As A Career, Not Just A Job – Christina Torres, on ChristinaTorres.org, talks about fighting weariness, staying alert, and maintaining that new teacher mojo even after you’ve developed veteran teacher chops.

I am still eager to give my students my best, and I still love my job. But after two years it’s much easier to become complacent with the routine of your classroom. You’re able to read the room better. You run into similar problems and pitfalls from the years before. Yes, the kids are different and wonderful and marvelous in their own way, but it’s easy to rest on your laurels and continue on your merry way down the path you forged for two years.
Just like any relationship, though, I am fighting stagnancy and complacency as much as I can. I don’t want to end up getting so burnt out and bored doing this work that I forget all the reasons I returned to the classroom in the first place…

Torres is one of the most genuine and reflective voices in the blogosphere today. I love everything about her at least twice. Follow @biblio_phile on Twitter and fall in love with her yourself.

2-Minute Zen: What’s Your Move? – Dan Tricarico, on The Zen Teacher. If you’re not yet familiar with TZT, you’re doing everything wrong. The ‘Zen’ thing is completely legit, but not nearly as weird as you’d hope.

Instead, Tricarico is ridiculously gifted and making your blood pressure go down and your awareness go up, just by telling you things you kinda already know in ways that sound so natural, but have such impact.

But the question, “What’s the one move I can make right now?” reminds me–in a mindful and present way–that even in a chaotic and overwhelming world, there is always ONE thing I can do. So now that’s my question to you: “What’s the one move you can make RIGHT NOW to create some focus, simplicity, and tranquility, either in your classroom or your life (or both!)?

He’s like Guinan’s counterpart in this time-space continuum.

If it sounds like I have a bit of a crush, you’re not far wrong. Follow @thezenteacher on Twitter and get your own Zen crush on. What’s the matter… chicken?! *makeschickennoises*

The Curse Of Our Online Lives – Bill Ferriter, on The Tempered Radical, has a confession to make. He’s been keeping up with the Presidential campaigns.

I find myself checking into both my news feeds and my social streams several times a day, waiting for another embarrassing revelation about the candidates. I chew through articles about illegal contributions to personal foundations, seedy relationships with high dollar donors or foreign leaders, appallingly misogynistic statements, and accusations of political manipulation…
The ever-present venom frightens me because it barely resembles the kind of open, honest discourse around controversial ideas that characterizes the strongest democracies. So how can we move forward together when we spend so much time spewing hate at one another?

This is both timely and thoughtful – not a surprise, given the source. Follow @plugusin on Twitter for more timely thoughtfulness and less cursing in your online life.

Stop the Blame Game: Teaching Students to Take Ownership – Chase Mielke, on Affective Living, talks real talk about our cultural swamp of blame and distancing ourselves from the least bit of agency in our own daily trudge. I should warn you, though, that while he’s certainly not blaming teachers, he won’t be letting you off the hook, either.

You can see the irony should you choose to get all defensive about it.

A second grader made me cringe the other day. I visited my wife’s class and a girl was showing the class her pictures from a recent soccer tournament. Someone asked how her team did. Her response?
“We got second place. BUT, we actually should have gotten first because the other team cheated and the refs were terrible.”
I cringed. Second grade and she is already building a habit of blaming. I got a dose of depression as I thought about how this blame habit could deepen as she ages…

Check out @chasemielke on Twitter. If you don’t, and end up missing something good as a result, that is SO TOTALLY ON YOU.

That’s all this weekend, my #11FF.

Stay focused, stay informed, and go in prepared for those down-ballot candidates and state questions and stuff. They in many ways matter more than whoever ends up winning the President thing that used to be a big deal.

Blue Serials (10/16/16)

October 15, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I know a place, ain’t nobody cryin’. Ain’t nobody worried. No smilin’ faces, lyin’ to the races. I’ll take you there.

Mercy now – I’m callin’ callin’ callin’ mercy. Mercy mercy – let me. I’ll take you there.

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i know you’re tired, in more ways than a few. We’re all ready for the elections to just happen so we can get on with the inevitable Apocalypse and be done with it. But in the meantime, my darlings…

Here are a few things you simply must not miss from the past few weeks in Edu-Bloggery:

Is Your Classroom Academically Safe? – Jennifer Gonzalez, Cult of Pedagogy. I almost overlooked this post. I’m not a fan of reminders to be warm and fuzzy, and as a teacher of high school freshmen I have limited patience for the “po’ bebbee” school of teacher-scolding.

But then this bit caught my eye:

Here’s where I start to get irritated. “So did you say something?” I ask. “Did you tell your teacher you didn’t understand?”
“No,” my kid says. Then she adds, “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

THAT’s something I deal with every day. Kids so trained in the terror of being wrong that they either lock up and do nothing or stick with the safest possible non-answers and filler, perfectly formatted but accomplishing nothing. So I read the post.

Gonzalez wasn’t quite going the direction I anticipated, but she’s tricky like that. Here, she analyzes reasons kids don’t know what’s going on even when we’re positive we covered it eleventeen ways and gave every opportunity for them to ask. It’s not about teacher-blaming, and never about kid-shaming, but it is thought-provoking and… *sigh* OK, I’ll admit it. It was a bit warm’n’fuzzy as well – but in practical ways, dammit!

Get practical with @cultofpedagogy on the twittering and let her provoke you as well.

Stranger Things and the Upside Down World – Scott Haselwood, Teaching From Here. Haselwood has a passion for #edtech, mathematics, and kids. In his world, however, the first two are always about reaching, challenging, and uplifting the third.

It’s what keeps my eyes from crossing every time he’s all excited about another app. Instead, we’re practically mothers of a different brother. Or… something like that.

In this post, Haselwood starts with the Netflix Series “Stranger Things,” talks classroom realities a generation ago and today, and ends up on the importance of saving kids from the big darkness. I know it sounds odd, but I assure you – it comes together just fine. The video clip from the show is creepy as hell, but other than that – bring in the unicorns.

Follow @TeachFromHere on the twittering and get frightened-yet-enlightened on a regular basis. #oklaed

Because You Like Me… – Rob Miller, A View From The Edge. Is it important for your students to like you? Is it important for you to like your students?

While neither of these are goals in and of themselves, Miller thinks they matter. And he makes a pretty good case, with the grace and deftness we’ve come to expect from pretty much everything he writes.

Follow @edgeblogger on the twittering and get graced up and defted out on a regular basis. For realsies. #oklaed

Why Are Teachers So Stressed? – Peter Greene, Curmudgucation. Greene is perhaps edu-bloggery’s most prolific and pithy watchdog when it comes to ed-reformy nonsense, political b.s., and every other assault on actual learning, equity, and life-not-sucking for all the little children.

It’s easy to take for granted where he’s going with some of his favorite topics, but you risk missing the richness in so much of what he says. It’s like listening to music – sure, you can have it playing while you work on something else, but sometimes you’ve just gotta stop and close your eyes to hear it fully. THIS is a post you should stop and process fully.

Although, I mean – obviously you’ll have to have your eyes open to do that. Let’s not take the analogy too far.

Follow @palan57 on the twittering and keep processing.

5 Helpful Answers To Society’s Most Uncomfortable Questions – David Wong, Cracked.com. This one breaks several rules of the weekly roundup.

First, it’s over a year old. But I just discovered it this week, and I’d argue it has fresh relevance and will probably (and unfortunately) remain relevant for some time to come.

Second, it’s not really an edu-blog post. It’s not by an educator. It’s not even school-appropriate. Which leads me to…

Third. Oh the potty mouth! Tsk tsk. Unforgivable vulgarity. Must have been brought up in public schooling. You’ve been warned.

What Wong tackles here, though, are some of the more antagonistic questions of our day – generally posed by those holding top slots in society’s power structures, and annoyed at what they perceive to be stone-throwing from below.

So, even when personal choices finally come into play, you’re still choosing within that framework — you can choose between becoming a poet or a software engineer, but only because you were raised in a world in which other people had already invented both poetry and computers. That means every single little part of your life — every action, every choice, every thought, every emotion, every plan for the future, everything that you are and do and can potentially be — is the result of things other people did in the past.

Look, just go read the thing. Have I ever led you astray before? And follow @JohnDiesattheEn on the twittering for more thoughtfulness disguised as snarky humor flung your way like truth poo.

That’s it this week my beloved #11FF.

I’m trying not to talk #OKElections16 in the weekly wrap-ups, but please educate yourself and those around you and advocate for thoughtful voting – especially at the state level.

You’re doing more than you realize, and better than you think. I promise.

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