geek.teacher

While I’m still waiting for the 2.0 OS drop in order to be able to play with all of the new software, you can now access the App Store through iTunes.  i was very pleased to note the presence of an Education section.  Right now it’s mostly language learning, but there’s also some neat-looking astronomy, flash cards, math, and language programs.  It’s enough to make me hopeful for the potential, and I’ll bet it’s going to have Lisa Thumann plenty excited.

I’ve been gone for eight days, and most of the time I couldn’t access the net.  This is how Google Reader greets me:

Montreal was awesome, but I bet I’ll still be a little jealous of you NECC peeps after going through that 145 posts.

For this Wednesday’s project, I had to tell something unique and interesting about where I live.  So I made a Google Map of some of my favorite places in Philadelphia.

 
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I like this idea a lot.  More please!

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

The following story sickens me for two reasons.  Obviously, any man who would brand a student is fruit loops and needs to be cast out on his duffer.  But from an educational policy perspective, the following bits in combination horrify me much more:

John Freshwater, an eighth-grade science teacher for the past 21 years

Makes you go “hmmm…” until you get to this:

Freshwater was also reprimanded several times for refusing to move his Bible from his classroom desk and teaching creationism alongside evolution, according to the 15-page independent report. The report also cites evidence that Mr. Freshwater told his students that “science is wrong because the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin and so anyone who is gay chooses to be gay and is therefore a sinner.”

Emphasis mine, of course.  I would love to know what kind of reprimands he received, and why on earth nobody moved him out of a science teaching position if he’s clearly opposed to basic science.  Assuming Ohio is a tenure state with unions, I get why it can be difficult to remove him entirely from teaching without some sort of branding incident first.  The unfortunate reality of having Unions is the protection of all teachers, regardless of whether, in the end, they deserve it or not.  But surely the principal, superintendent, or school board has enough authority to reassign him to a position where he’s not actively arguing against the very academic standards he has a responsibility to uphold.

Science in the classroom needs to come from actual science.  Creationism does not equal science.  So get that man out of the classroom without him going psycho, please.  Quite frankly, everybody involved in this whole mess has failed the children who stepped foot into Mr. Freshwater’s classroom to learn science.

Update 6/22: Thanks to @garageflowers for a link to the investigation results in PDF.  the investigators clearly found that he had taught about evolution and creationism.  I feel the pain of the high school teachers who complain about having to deal with the fallout of that, but it’s even more interesting given the following:

In the interview of one other 8thgrade science teacher, sheindicated she followed the curriculum and, as such, did not teach evolution, creationism, intelligent design, the periodic table, the big bang theory or thermodynamics. 

Apparently he didn’t just do the cross branding just once, this only happened to be the first time somebody complained about it enough for somebody to look into it.  Sigh.

Finally!  It’s over!  I’m looking forward to some much need R&R, vacation to Montreal in a couple of weeks, getting some serious and not so serious reading in, a little game time, and, of course, preparing for next year.  A big part of that, of course, involves looking back on the year that just passed.  Somewhere in all of the paperwork that I had to do at the end of the year, my district requires me to fill out an Appraisal Summary.  I’m going to throw myself to the wolves and throw mine out there.  Given the nature of the process and the form it’s an overwhelmingly positive look at how I did, and I think for now I’ll keep all of the stuff I think I could have done better to myself, since throwing my faults out there to the world makes me kind of uncomfortable still.

Please list your activities for the year and or attach a log.

Goal: Promote safety, character development, and positive relationships at all times.

In September the class spent the first few weeks establishing rules, routines, and procedures.  Students were made aware of the rules and consequences of the behavior plan, and a letter was sent home to parents describing it.  Parents were also given more information at back to school night.  

Since then the rules have been consistently reinforced and reviewed as necessary.  Students are given daily behavior sheets to be signed by parents each night.  All students are consistently earning between 48 and 50 points a day out of 50 points possible.  Students are given multiple opportunities throughout the week to share about themselves with the other students and are reinforced to talk and listen appropriately.

Students have been referred to work with the Social Worker and/or Behavior Consultant as needed.  

Describe how this experience enhanced your professional growth.
I strongly feel that I have really hit my stride this year in terms of my classroom management.  Overall, this year’s class turned out to be by far the most well-behaved group that I have had in my six years of teaching, and they were certainly not all predisposed to the behaviors we developed when they started.  Students that didn’t want to work or volunteer at the beginning of the year are doing so now.  A student who was exhibiting behavior outbursts regularly early on in the year has had only one in the entire second half of the year, and he calmed down from it faster than ever before.  One parent told me her child did almost no work in previous school years and now loves coming to school.  Another parent has noticed a difference in her child’s behavior not just in my classroom, but also in his afterschool program and at home.  I think it also helps that I genuinely became comfortable this year in working with people outside of my classroom to help me meet these goals.  [Behavior Consultant] and [Social Worker] were supremely influential in my students’ lives this year, and working together with them really helped me to make sure everything I did was focused on helping my students meet their own individual behavior needs both in my classroom and outside of it.

Please list any additional activities and accomplishments
Student Council Co-Advisor

• This year we ran four dances, ran two successful door decorating contests that saw schoolwide support, bought Christmas presents for two families and Thanksgiving dinner for another, and donated $2500 to the American Cancer Society.

Inservice trainer

• I ran a half-day inservice training on doing progress notes using the Cleartrack online Special Education paperwork program.

Professional Development
I attended several professional development programs which have had an influence on my teaching methods and approaches:

• Reading Apprenticeship – An overview of different strategies that can be used to assist students with reading comprehension
• Structured Teaching for the Included Child at the Timothy School – gave me lots of information about students with autism and strategies for helping them both academically and socially
• Conference on Students and Electronic Media at Princeton University – Gave me lots of information about online computing tools and strategies for mixing them into content areas as well as giving me an opportunity to network with people from around the country working on and learning about these areas

There you have it.  I’d type up my evaluation, but, honestly, it’s rather generic, and we can only be Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory.  Obviously, since I’m not pooping my pants right now, I got an S.

Over at Edutopia they’re running a Reader’s survey.  It’s on a wide variety of topics, including best education blog (which one of my inspirations, Vicki Davis, was nominated for), best technology tool, etc.  My personal favorite, though:

What’s wrong with this picture?  IT’S TWO RICH GUYS WHO DONATE MONEY AND ONE ACTUAL LIFE-LONG ADVOCATE AND ROLE MODEL FOR EDUCATORS!  Seriously!  If you haven’t read Savage Inequalities by Kozol, go do it, now.  It will change the way you look at your mission as a teacher.  To add insult to injury:

Now, if I know nerds (and I do), Star Wars nerds will stuff the ballot box for Lucas, and computer nerds will stuff the box for Gates as soon as words gets out.  So, frankly, the results already become meaningless.  Regardless, for all that is good and decent, educators, please vote for Kozol.  Then I recommend never visiting that stupid site ever again.

Thanks to @garystager for the tipoff.

i frequently enjoy Rhymes with Orange, but this is just too great.

It’s funny how you can be so surrounded by an idea that the counter-argument never even comes to mind.  Considering that I will frequently throw my self into the role of devil’s advocate, I find it frankly embarrassing that I never thought to challenge the common wisdom that cell phones in school are the enemy until I recently saw some thoughts about it at the Conference recently.  The ridiculousness amplifies itself when I consider how much I use my iPhone for…well, everything now.  Thankfully, some people out there, smarter than I, challenge the conventional wisdom and give me ideas that I can use in the future.  Check out this NY Sun article where Lisa Nielsen talks about ways to use cell phones in the classroom, which, of course, one can’t actually do when cell phones are banned.

Finding Lisa’s blog there has now brought me up to 37 education blogs I’m following.  Considering a month ago I know that number was below ten, that’s a whole lot of new and interesting info to pop up for me.  Hooray!

Today I totally blinked out at the wrong moment.  i covered an art class today with sixth graders, and everything moves along nicely.  I stare them down a little, they get to work, and do their thing, mostly behaving.  Then I mess up.

Two girls walk up to me.  One says, “She needs to go to the nurse.”

Of course, I have to do the stupid thing and ask “Why do you need to go to the Nurse?”

After a couple of awkward silent seconds, I tell her to fill out her planner so I can sign it.

I know to look out for the panicked look on face when asking to go to the nurse or bathroom, but now I need to keep in mind the question can come by proxy to avoid embarrassment, instead of me further extending it.