The things that go through my head

When we went back to school shopping this year, I saw that “Data traveller” was on the supply list. I thought it was kind of silly to have one, as it is just something to lose. We own about three data travellers and I couldn’t find a single one. I am very cheap and I told my child, who is ten years old, to use her email to send herself files if she needs to do homework. After school had begun, Katy informed me that she was not allowed to use email. This seemed rather absurd to me. Why would the schools prevent kids from having email? I caved and bought a data traveller, which only works on my laptop. What good is it to have a data traveller that won’t work on her computer? So I had a conversation with the teacher about this new rule. It appears that the school division does not want kids using email in class, so their solution to this problem is to not allow kids to use email at all. She will allow my child to use email to send her homework assignments home, so common sense did prevail in this case. But it got me thinking.

I showed my kids how to use email as soon as they asked for it. I think Katy was about four or five when I helped her get her first hotmail account, which she still has. Same with my oldest daughter Hannah. Being the overly permissive parent that I am, I thought that they should have email if they want it. I told them how to use email safely and gave them the typical internet safety mom speech: “Never meet up with someone that you don’t know from the internet” and all that good stuff until they were giving me the mighty eyeroll and the exasperated “Mom! We aren’t idiots!”. I used to think that I should have their passwords and spy on the kids and what they do online. I did do that for a little while but then I realized that I trust my kids. They are smart kids and are not going to do anything stupid. And life is too short to spend all my free time spying on them.

I know some parents that do not allow their children to have email and I know many parents that do. It just makes me wonder what is reasonable. I really feel strongly that kids should be allowed to have email if they want it but maybe there is another angle that I am missing here.

It will not surprise anybody that knows me or is a reader of this blog to hear me say that I have a complicated relationship with the public school system. I love teaching and learning but I feel like the educational system does a good job of making meaningful learning difficult, if not impossible. I consider myself an expert on school. It is true that I did not spend four years of my life in an institution of higher learning and did not get a Bachelor of Education. But I did spend my formative years educated in various public schools in small towns around the province of Saskatchewan. I also have spent many years employed by the public school system to educate many children as an educational assistant. I have observed the inner workings of a school, the various roles played by different people, I have seen how people teach and how people learn. I have two young children that I have sent to public school and have had the opportunity to see school from all sides of the educational fence. I have been the angry parent, the neglectful parent, the bored student who writes swears on her desk, the parent of the child that will not wear shoes, the advocate for a student, and the eater-of-words when things don’t go the way that I think that they should. I wear a lot of hats.

I could and really should write a book about all the ways that school fails people and society. But in the meantime I will just throw up the odd post to vent and see if anybody else in the blogosphere feels the same way.

Educators all talk too much. If you think of a classroom, what immediately comes to mind? Straight rows of desks, probably five rows of six desks, with the teachers’ desk at the front of the room. A chalkboard or possibly a whiteboard at the front of the room. More recently, smart boards have made their way into classrooms. I still haven’t seen one, except on youtube and I have no idea how the work, but there you go. Smart boards are a recent invention so they must be good. All the desks are facing the front of the room so that the students are all facing the teacher and waiting to have their young minds filled with wisdom.

I don’t think that this set-up is inherently evil, as long as the desks are occasionally moved around and the kids get to talk to each other once in a while. This traditional setup lends itself to the exact model of education that is so completely problematic: Teacher talks while students listen.

As a child, I used many coping mechanisms to deal with the boredom of listening to so many people talk on and on about mostly uninteresting things. Fiddling, fidgeting, passing notes, and pulling hair. Does anybody remember what the principal had to say during all those school assemblies? Nope, me neither. This also applies to a lot of the speeches and lectures that teachers present.

If you were to be completely honest, can you really claim that people are listening while teachers talk? By the way, I am including myself in this. I also talk waaaaaay too much. But I do have a proposal to cure this problem that currently has no name. I have decided to call it the 15-minute rule.

Never speak uninterrupted for more than 15 minutes. This includes reading out of books or giving speeches. Students must be allowed and encouraged to engage in class discussions and give feedback on whatever concept is being taught. How else can you tell if your students are getting anything out of your class?

I’m calling it the 15-minute rule.

What do you think? Is the 15-minute rule a good idea or am I full of bunk?

This story really set off my old creep detector. Remember Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher that was arrested and jailed for her relationship with her underage student? She and her husband hosted a “Hot for Teacher” Night. If you want to spew chunks on your keyboard, go ahead and check out the promotional poster. On the off chance that you don’t want to see the poster, allow me to describe it. It’s a picture of a scantily clad young woman wearing school-girl fantasy gear. Puke. This event creeps me out on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. Glorifying child rape? Celebrating the abuse of your authority over young people? It’s a really creepy toss up.

I may have to post pictures of kittens after writing about this disturbing story, in order to cleanse my blog of evil spirits. YECH!

DISCLAIMER: This post is written from the perspective of a parent of children that are currently being schooled in the public education system. While it is true that I am employed by the school system, I write this as a parent, not a professional. My professional opinions are worthless, as I have not put in enough time participating in rote learning at an institution of “higher learning” to earn a Bachelor of Education.

This post is long-winded and not for the faint of heart. If you have a short attention span, leave now and read a twitter feed. Read more…

There are lots and lots of people that have an opinion about what is wrong with the educational sysem.  They can opine about the scourge of grade inflation or low standards or funding or standardized testing or some other irrelevant side issue.  The problem with school stems from the fact that it’s a restrictive, confining institution more in love with dominance, competition, and enforcing social hierarchies than in learning.

Marks and grading are a perfect example of school perpetuating dominance and submission.  Students compete with each other for high marks on a transcript.  Only a few people can get the highest mark.  These are usually the people that try their best to impress the teacher and tell them what they want to hear.  Dissenting viewpoints are often ignored or silenced.  Students are severely punished for making mistakes.  Their mistakes are permanently recorded on their transcript.  They might get an 85 instead of a 90.  This will block admission to a prestigious school.  Better to read the teacher’s mind and give them exactly what they want, rather than take a risk.  Failure is not an option.

Mistakes should be celebrated as a part of the learning process.   The only way that this can happen is to ditch the marking and grading system.  Get students to prove their knowledge and understanding of course material before they can get a credit.  There are many ways to do this that do not require assigning marks.  There are essays that can be written and presentations presented and assignments completed.  Teachers can give written and oral feedback rather than numbers.  Tell students what they need to learn, not give them a low number.

All forms of assigning numbers to learning needs to go.  However, the school system will not allow this to happen.  Just look at what happened to Denis Rancourt. He taught a forth year physics class at the university and got into all kinds of trouble because he gave everybody in his class an A+.  The university would not allow him to go to a pass fail system.

You should have seen how all the teachers and administrators at SPSD (my employer) reacted to a speech by Alfie Kohn in the fall.  He is a big proponent of ditching the marking system.  It’s not what people want to hear.  Teachers simply can not imagine what they would do if they could not dangle a number in front of their students.  Behaviorism is entrenched in the school system.  We are all primitive organisms looking for rewards and avoiding punishments rather than human beings going through each day and trying to learn from each other.

The only way to have a minute chance at making school relevant and rewarding, like it should be, is to get rid of marks.   Multiple choice tests are useless and irrelevant.  I have spent far too much of my time teaching kids how to pass tests rather than learning about interesting and meaningful things.   Rubrics are horrible things.  Rubrics sit on the school systems brain, like a pulsating octopus.  They are simply one more way of assigning a number to learning.  They need to go.

Before I go, I should emphasize that I do not blame teachers for their inability to see the problems in the school system.  After all, they are simply doing what they are taught to do.  The system teaches them, and they pass it on to their students.  It is going to be a painful process to wean teachers of their marking addiction but it is incredibly important, if school is ever going to lead to lifelong learning.

Have I made myself clear?  Good.  Class dismissed!  Have a nice day!

It never fails to amaze or entertain me the conversations that I have with people after they learn that I teach kids for a living. I am continually getting sympathy from people of my parents’ generation because educators are no longer allowed to beat children when they misbehave. Just the other day when I was enjoying a cold beverage with my dad and his friends’ they all regaled me with tales from their misbegotten youth. “I remember one time I got beat for mouthing off to my teacher. And do you know what happened when I got home? I got it even worse from my parents. No wonder kids these days don’t listen. They know you can’t touch’em anymore.” This is then followed by a tirade about the downfall of society caused by a lack of corporal punishment. Seriously, this is what I hear over and over again many times when I am having a casual conversation about school. I wonder if they really think that educators sit around bemoaning the fact that they can not beat children that get out of line. Perhaps they imagine that school staff rooms are full of teachers sighing over their unused whips and straps.

I can honestly say that I have never once heard a teacher say that they wish they could hit their students to keep them in line. I have never personally felt that way, and I am not just saying that so people will come to my blog, read this and then tell me how great I am. My ego is big enough as it is! I suppose I am just puzzled by this sort of thinking. One time, in a fit of temper and after getting some bad advice from an influential but unnamed individual in my life, I slapped my child. I felt so guilty and terrible that I never, ever did it again.

What on earth does it teach your children when you have to hit them to make them behave? They learn that asserting authority just for the hell of it over someone less powerful than you is honorable. They learn that they only need to do the right thing when there is the threat of punishment hanging over their heads. They learn that violence is the best way to solve their problems. But do they learn to value education when they are forced to go through the motions of learning? Just because the kids are sitting still and doing a good impression of looking interested in what the teacher is talking about, doesn’t mean the students are learning anything. Except how to conform. It’s much more difficult to teach kids to value learning for its’ own sake. Or to teach kids to do the right thing even when nobody is around to see it or punish you for doing the wrong thing. Beating them is pretty much taking the easy way out.

I’m so glad that I don’t have the option of hitting kids because living in the time when it was socially acceptable to beat children would have made me go looney tunes, I am quite sure. Thinking for yourself sure can be rough at times.

Which reminds me. I was thinking of doing some book reviews. Since I love complaining about things that I love and hate so much, it should be right up my alley. Right now I am re-reading the Little House on the Prairie series with my children. It’s pretty good stuff, as corporal punishment of children in school was very common back then. It really demonstrates how far we have come as a society that that is not considered socially acceptable anymore. Anyway, I have no idea when I will have some time to throw a book review together so I won’t make any promises. But I sure do have a lot to say about Little House on the Prairie so I am quite sure that I will get to it soon. I will have to whip out my Blackberry and put it on my to-do list.

I was annoyed about the recent kerfuffle over Nutana’s proposal to do away with failing grades. I sent the Star Phoenix this letter on Friday but they decided not to print it. I would like to think they made this editorial decision based on the fact that they basically wrote the same thing in the forum section today. But with more words and less awesome. That thought is holding my ego together. Here goes nothing, I hope you like it.

Collegiate Renewal

I am very disappointed about the recent bad press in regards to Nutana Collegiate’s proposal to abolish failing grades. I would encourage anyone who wishes to criticize this proposal to do a little research in order to have an informed opinion. This proposal will be a very minor change. It does not mean that students will be pushed ahead if they have not completed a course. A grade of 49% or under indicates that a student has not yet met the course requirements. Thus, putting an “incomplete” on the transcript is quite accurate.

This initiative is just one of many ideas that are being proposed as part of the Saskatoon public school board’s collegiate renewal initiative. There are many reasons why education remains beyond the reach of many people. We really need to do a better job of being inclusive and focusing on learning rather than grading. Learning can not be summed up by a letter or number grade. We need to examine why so many people continue to be frustrated with school. This will require members of the public and the media to be more informed about what this requires. I would encourage everyone to read readily available public documents which are accessible on the school boards’ web site at www.spsd.sk.ca. There are many interesting schools of thought regarding traditional grading practices that need to be examined and discussed in a meaningful way. The works of Ann Davies and Alfie Kohn would be a good place to start. Hopefully we can move beyond meaningless criticism and have an intelligent conversation about educational reform.

This is a question that I have struggled with over the past year.   I love working with kids and I love teaching and learning, so wouldn’t working for the public school board with young people be the perfect job for me?  You would think so, wouldn’t you, but there are many things that I have witnessed throughout my career that made me reconsider.  Last year, I was working in a grade ten science class and I had one of those “A-HA!” moments that made me wonder if public education, as it is currently experienced by students, is really “inspiring learning”.   Read more…

As you read this I am back at school. But it’s OK. I have had a great and wonderful summer full of delight and joy. Lots of lounging about in the sand and splashing around in the water. Lots of catching up with friends and kid-free time. But I am ready to go back to work. For one thing I miss being around other adults (besides my partner) and I have had enough quality time with the children. I am beginning to feel like a momma cat. When I was a kid I had this really great cat with a litter of kittens. She was a great mother and took very good care of her babies, licking them and feeding them when they were small and taking them to the farmer’s field for hunting lessons when they got older. But every so often she would get fed up with her bratty kids. They would climb all over her and fight with each other, requiring her to bare her teeth and swat at the kittens to keep them in line. Then she would pick them up by the scruff of the neck and drop them down a hole in the back of the closet.

I am that mother cat.

On Wednesday they go back to school so I won’t have to drop them down any holes. The really funny thing is that the kids want to go back to school. Can you imagine? When I was a child I would have died before admitting that I missed school. You would think that between Club Penguin and Webkinz and television and chores and trips to the swimming pool and two doting parents that these kids would be entertained enough. Maybe public education isn’t as bad as I feared.

I am very fond of TED talks. I learn so much from them. For instance, I agree with many of the views shared by Sir Ken Robinson in the following TED talk. I have many loud opinions about public education that I promise to share. Having a forum for my views about education is one of the reasons I started this blog. Anyway, I’m off to a writing workshop at the WAM festival and I will be back with blogular goodness.