Some Post Debate Thoughts

Watching the debate last night, my mind would drift during the particularly awkward parts. During one of my mental excursions, I began to really wonder just how well students in America are taught to present an idea and defend it with facts and logic. Do we really do enough of that? How do students know when they are doing a good job of it? How do we ensure that students are able to debate for themselves and also be able to see the fallacies in someone else's case?

Watching the debate, I also began to wonder why it is that we hold politicians to views they held ten and twenty years ago. I am definitely a different person now than I was ten and twenty years ago. My views have changed (I hope for the better). Why can't a candidate make the case that at one point they believed something and have since evolved to another viewpoint without being called a flip-flopper? Both Trump and Clinton would have been way better served to admit a change in stance than to deny a previous stance. What does it tell society when people are unwilling to admit a shift if perspective?

I certainly was glad that my 11th and 8th grade children were interested in the debate last night. My daughter was also required by both her English and Social Studies teachers to post some of her reactions on forums that they had set up. I thought that this was great. Now, most of the students in my daughter's classes have similar backgrounds and political leanings, but the ideas were out there and public which is a good thing. Is there any national forum out there for students to post reactions and civilly debate for themselves how this election is going? How many breakfast tables across the nation do you suppose were talking about the debate this morning? I hope a lot.

While I would have welcomed the third party candidates to the debate last night so that the public could be aware of other possibilities, their presence would have radically changed the dynamics of last night's debate. I am not sure the new dynamics would have been better. I liked the stark contrasts I saw and some of the sub-surface emotion that was clear. Johnson and Stein would have diminished that. However their presence may have gotten the debate to a clearer focus on issues and policies. Less exciting, but more important in the long run. 

Some Pictures from Homecoming

Take Aways fro Homecoming Event

If you were there, please fill-in what you took away.

1. There is a huge need for better mentorship programs in education. While mentoring is the law and a good idea, most districts plan their own programs. Some programs are superb. But, others programs are haphazard, indifferent and do not help a new teacher very much. This needs to change and have a better overall structure to ensure quality throughout a state. Some textbook companies should also investigate the idea of creating a text for these programs.

2. Teacher prep programs really do need to help students learn soft skills like: classroom management, how to handle angry parents, how to conference, how to ask for help, and how to plan routes to professional licensure. None of this should be a course, so how do we do it?

3. Educators need a time to meet with other educators, no matter what field they are in. We all benefited from the diversity of the group on Saturday.

4. The February program will probably be in the evening and more social in nature. More to come there.

What did I miss?

If you were not there, what can we do to get you there in February?

Immediate Job (Consulting) Opp in Boston

Hey all,
A great consulting company that I have worked for/with is looking for a consultant to do ELL PD for HS teachers in Boston. This PD will focus on helping teachers instruct ELL students in test taking strategies and reading strategies, with a focus on aligning with the WIDA Access language.
Looks like it will be about once a month for approx. 2 hours.

Let me know if interested and/or you would recommend someone!
P.S. They typically pay really well :-)

Questions Regarding How We Do Education

Every once in a while, a bunch of questions jump into my brain regarding US education. Here are some of the ones which popped in this weekend. See if any of you are willing to take a stab at answering them.

1. Why do most American high schools insist on a four year plan? Shouldn't there be a three, four and five year plan for students? What might these plans look like? (This stems from conversations I have had of late with students who want to come to my school because of all the electives they are taking as seniors. Most students get to senior year, and they need to take an English, perhaps a math, perhaps a science, and that is all. The rest of their schedules are filled with electives they do not need and do not want. Why couldn't they have met these requirements in 11th grade? In other cases, I meet with students who are well behind in credits because their school days were overwhelming, and so now they feel like failures because the pace was wrong for them)

2. Why is it that most high school students will finish high school without ever having taken a tech type course in high school? Especially in Massachusetts, tech schools have a monopoly on tech courses, and less that 20% of Massachusetts students have access to a tech school. I know I would have benefited from some course that would have made me better at: electricity, plumbing, woodworking, automotive or something else.

3. Why does high stakes testing try to assess both minimal competency and academic excellence in the same test? Isn't that a little unfair to those who score at the lower end? Instead of showing what they can do, they are forced to try to answer many questions they cannot even access?

4. Why is the first budget cut always to non-academic courses? Yes, everyone needs to take Geometry. But, in terms of a student's total quality of life during their school years and beyond, how much of the Geometry will they remember, no matter how small the class size, versus how much of their band, art or drama class, no matter how large the class size? Are we educating the whole child or not?

5. At what point does this country take a hard look at school starting times and really make decisions about starting times based on real research?
The same question for length of school year, homework, and final exams.

Anxiety

As principal of Goodrich Academy I am tasked with the intake interviews for all prospective students. In effect, I have to screen for students whose needs we cannot meet and also get an idea of the learning needs of the students we accept. Except in rare cases we take most students who apply.

What I notice more and more is the sheer number of students who want to come to my smaller, more placid school because of their anxiety. It is troubling that so many young people are unable to function in school because of how nervous they get (about crowds, about reading aloud, about math, about failure). And, the anxiety has taken over their ability to succeed.

I get it that I am from one of the "just get dressed  and go to school" generations, so the numbers from when I was in school are very skewed. But, it seems that anxiety is a growing concern rather than a consistent one in education. For example, most schools can calculate the percentage of bullies they will probably have to deal with in a given year. They can take a pretty close guess at the number of fights, drug issues, drop outs and medical leaves they will have. IEP  and 504 numbers tend to stay the same over time. Retention rates are steady. But, anxiety has momentum.

I am enormously gratified that students, parents, and counselors have taken anxiety seriously and worked to address it. I have seen the results of people trying to repress things, and they can be disastrous. But, where is it all coming from? Why is anxiety so common today?

What I do know is that whatever it is we do here, it works. Students come in their first day tense and generally leave smiling. We have small classes and responsive teachers. We give students an appropriate course load, tailored to that individual. We remove a lot of the areas of high school drama (no cafeteria, very small hallways). We work to give students control over their own education and the direction it follows. I think as students can gain control over their education, a lot of their anxiety is abated. Having regular conversations about how they are doing helps as well. In a school with 170 students, this is all possible.

Why is the anxiety out there?
What are ways to help students through it?