• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

The Teacher Thread

Rambo

Timed Out
Timed Out
Joined
Oct 3, 2007
Messages
24,706
Reaction score
1,347
Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger
Those of you who do teach in levels below HS, how do you deal with your co-workers? As a man in an "elementary" setting, I get so frustrated with many of them. I feel they are very weak minded, don't question ANYTHING, and then ***** about the circumstances they find themselves in. Then you have the opposite, those who are so strong minded that they don't care what anyone tells them, they do what they feel is best, get reemed out when things don't work out, and then ***** about the circumstances they find themselves in. Even the men I work with. I wind up spending most of my time alone preparing instead of collaborating with these people because they drive me up a ******* wall. Its like there is no middle ground for them. There's also such underlying cut throat competition at staff meetings where if a teachers makes a suggestion that administration likes, that teacher is ostracized by his or her peers. There's also a sense of "my job is harder/more important than yours" where I work as well, which I know is due to the standardized testing and promotional criteria (have to pass Math and ELA) and in my school the two lead teachers in those subjects (and the entire grade's ELA staff) are not even certified in those areas. Is this something that is just in my school (I've worked in only one school for ten years - aside from summer school) or is it throughout? Sorry, just needed to blow off a little steam and hopefully hear some useful tips on how to deal with it.
Yep, sounds about right.
 

KenRose

Senior Member
Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
764
Reaction score
50
believe me, it's like that at HS too. Also, I teach PE. Dude, EVERYONE thinks that their job is harder and more important than mine, yet my car is one of the first in the lot at 6:45 and is the last when I leave (at 6 when I'm not coaching, at 8 when I am). Not sure that you should follow my lead, but I usually deal with it by keeping to myself and those within my team.
Sorry if you had a bad week bud. Try to take a day away from the school work just as a mental break.

Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger
Those of you who do teach in levels below HS, how do you deal with your co-workers?

As a man in an "elementary" setting, I get so frustrated with many of them. I feel they are very weak minded, don't question ANYTHING, and then ***** about the circumstances they find themselves in. Then you have the opposite, those who are so strong minded that they don't care what anyone tells them, they do what they feel is best, get reemed out when things don't work out, and then ***** about the circumstances they find themselves in. Even the men I work with. I wind up spending most of my time alone preparing instead of collaborating with these people because they drive me up a ******* wall. Its like there is no middle ground for them. There's also such underlying cut throat competition at staff meetings where if a teachers makes a suggestion that administration likes, that teacher is ostracized by his or her peers. There's also a sense of "my job is harder/more important than yours" where I work as well, which I know is due to the standardized testing and promotional criteria (have to pass Math and ELA) and in my school the two lead teachers in those subjects (and the entire grade's ELA staff) are not even certified in those areas. Is this something that is just in my school (I've worked in only one school for ten years - aside from summer school) or is it throughout?

Sorry, just needed to blow off a little steam and hopefully hear some useful tips on how to deal with it.
 

Eason

Bicurious Racist
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
14,276
Reaction score
1,882
+1 on stick to people in your own dept/other depts who are worthwhile.
 

NewYorkIslander

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
10,003
Reaction score
5,627
Originally Posted by Eason
+1 on stick to people in your own dept/other depts who are worthwhile.

Thats the thing, my "department" is one other guy who teaches 7th grade history. So it can get pretty lonely, but thats ok. The school is so small in that regard. I wish I was able to get out to more history staff development. The past few years, through a generous grant, I was able to attend conferences at CUNY Grad Center with the American Social History Project. With two little kids at home I don't have the time to do much staff development on my own time, so without that....

How often are you guys sent out on Staff Development? I wish there was more available.
 

Eason

Bicurious Racist
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
14,276
Reaction score
1,882
^^Thus, why I included "other departments" too! There may be people worth knowing in other places. About Professional Development- we have about one a month, but it's honestly not very helpful for a lot of us who are pretty experienced in pedagogy. Of course, it depends entirely on the topic of the workshop.
 

CBrown85

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
6,131
Reaction score
2,249
I do most of my own professional development at home online. I've mentioned that twitter is a killer resource to set up a PLN (prof learning network). I connect with other teachers, newbies, administrators and even a couple superintendents. So good for tossing a question out there and getting replies that you can actually work with (and in a non-competitive environment). We've added five days to the school year so we can have five pro-d days. One is province wide and you can hit up conferences by subject or whatever all over the place and the rest are district wide- those are fdutger divided up into school and subject and are sometimes self directed. Now, many schools are doing PLCs which add a certain amount of time to the school day so that every second Wednesday there is an hour in the morning set aside for teachers to collaborate in groups (divided however they want).

To be honest it's totally weird hearing about the tough time you're having connect with e other staff- mind you, we don't put a lot if emphasis on standardized testing. The school i do the most work at is even going so far ti get rid of %ags in grade 8 and 9 and only sticking to authentic assessment and letter grades. As for inter-departmental communication- it depends totally on school culture. My practicum school was massive but the teachers there connected really well on a personal level so that made it all the more easier two collaborate on methods, units and ideas.

The elementary school i sometimes work at is almost all women (one full time male and one part-time music guy) and tensions sometimes get high. Wouldn't want to be in a situation like that.
 

KenRose

Senior Member
Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
764
Reaction score
50
I do a lot of PD on my own. Weenends/evening/summer. We have designated PD days here in Canada; I believe we have 3 a year, but for the most part they are not very helpful to me. I plan one of them for my department, and that's usually the one that's most worth wile.

Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger
Thats the thing, my "department" is one other guy who teaches 7th grade history. So it can get pretty lonely, but thats ok. The school is so small in that regard. I wish I was able to get out to more history staff development. The past few years, through a generous grant, I was able to attend conferences at CUNY Grad Center with the American Social History Project. With two little kids at home I don't have the time to do much staff development on my own time, so without that....

How often are you guys sent out on Staff Development? I wish there was more available.
 

Rambo

Timed Out
Timed Out
Joined
Oct 3, 2007
Messages
24,706
Reaction score
1,347
Great article in the Times on the stupidity of the new NY teacher grading system: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/e...pagewanted=all
No one at the Lab Middle School for Collaborative Studies works harder than Stacey Isaacson, a seventh-grade English and social studies teacher. She is out the door of her Queens home by 6:15 a.m., takes the E train into Manhattan and is standing out front when the school doors are unlocked, at 7. Nights, she leaves her classroom at 5:30. Though her principal praised her work, Stacey Isaacson received a poor ranking in a statistical model used by New York City schools to evaluate teachers. “She’s very dedicated,” said Tejal Bahtt, a fellow teacher. “She works way harder than I work. Yesterday I punched in at 7:10 and her time card was already there.” Last year, when Ms. Isaacson was on maternity leave, she came in one full day a week for the entire school year for no pay and taught a peer leadership class. Her principal, Megan Adams, has given her terrific reviews during the two and a half years Ms. Isaacson has been a teacher. “I know that this year had its moments of challenge — you always handled it with grace and presence,” the principal wrote on May 4, 2009. “You are a wonderful teacher.” On the first day of this school year, the principal wrote, “I look forward to being in your classroom and seeing all the great work you do with your students,” and signed it with a smiley face. The Lab School has selective admissions, and Ms. Isaacson’s students have excelled. Her first year teaching, 65 of 66 scored proficient on the state language arts test, meaning they got 3’s or 4’s; only one scored below grade level with a 2. More than two dozen students from her first two years teaching have gone on to Stuyvesant High School or Bronx High School of Science, the city’s most competitive high schools. “Definitely one of a kind,” said Isabelle St. Clair, now a sophomore at Bard, another selective high school. “I’ve had lots of good teachers, but she stood out — I learned so much from her.” You would think the Department of Education would want to replicate Ms. Isaacson — who has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia — and sprinkle Ms. Isaacsons all over town. Instead, the department’s accountability experts have developed a complex formula to calculate how much academic progress a teacher’s students make in a year — the teacher’s value-added score — and that formula indicates that Ms. Isaacson is one of the city’s worst teachers. According to the formula, Ms. Isaacson ranks in the 7th percentile among her teaching peers — meaning 93 per cent are better. This may seem disconnected from reality, but it has real ramifications. Because of her 7th percentile, Ms. Isaacson was told in February that it was virtually certain that she would not be getting tenure this year. “My principal said that given the opportunity, she would advocate for me,” Ms. Isaacson said. “But she said don’t get your hopes up, with a 7th percentile, there wasn’t much she could do.” That’s not the only problem Ms. Isaacson’s 7th percentile has caused. If the mayor and governor have their way, and layoffs are no longer based on seniority but instead are based on the city’s formulas that scientifically identify good teachers, Ms. Isaacson is pretty sure she’d be cooked. She may leave anyway. She is 33 and had a successful career in advertising and finance before taking the teaching job, at half the pay. “I love teaching,” she said. “I love my principal, I feel so lucky to work for her. But the people at the Department of Education — you feel demoralized.” How could this happen to Ms. Isaacson? It took a lot of hard work by the accountability experts. Everyone who teaches math or English has received a teacher data report. On the surface the report seems straightforward. Ms. Isaacson’s students had a prior proficiency score of 3.57. Her students were predicted to get a 3.69 — based on the scores of comparable students around the city. Her students actually scored 3.63. So Ms. Isaacson’s value added is 3.63-3.69. What you would think this means is that Ms. Isaacson’s students averaged 3.57 on the test the year before; they were predicted to average 3.69 this year; they actually averaged 3.63, giving her a value added of 0.06 below zero. Wrong. These are not averages. For example, the department defines Ms. Isaacson’s 3.57 prior proficiency as “the average prior year proficiency rating of the students who contribute to a teacher’s value added score.” Right. The calculation for Ms. Isaacson’s 3.69 predicted score is even more daunting. It is based on 32 variables — including whether a student was “retained in grade before pretest year” and whether a student is “new to city in pretest or post-test year.” Those 32 variables are plugged into a statistical model that looks like one of those equations that in “Good Will Hunting” only Matt Damon was capable of solving. The process appears transparent, but it is clear as mud, even for smart lay people like teachers, principals and — I hesitate to say this — journalists. Ms. Isaacson may have two Ivy League degrees, but she is lost. “I find this impossible to understand,” she said. In plain English, Ms. Isaacson’s best guess about what the department is trying to tell her is: Even though 65 of her 66 students scored proficient on the state test, more of her 3s should have been 4s. But that is only a guess. Moreover, as the city indicates on the data reports, there is a large margin of error. So Ms. Isaacson’s 7th percentile could actually be as low as zero or as high as the 52nd percentile — a score that could have earned her tenure. Teachers are eligible for tenure in their third year. To qualify, a teacher must be rated “effective” in three categories: instructional practices, including observations by the principal; contribution to the school community; and student achievement, including the teacher data report. Ms. Isaacson was rated effective on the first two. The past chancellor, Joel I. Klein, imposed new policies to make tenure harder to earn. In an e-mail, Matthew Mittenthal, a department spokesman said: “We are saying that a teacher’s tenure decision should simply be delayed (not denied) until that teacher has demonstrated effective practice for consecutive years in all three categories. The alternative is what we’ve had in the past — 90-plus percent of teachers who are up for tenure receive it. Do you think journalists deserve lifetime jobs after their third year in the business?” The view seems to be gaining support. However, the number of years that it should take to earn tenure does not get to the heart of the problem. The tougher question, says Ms. Isaacson, is how to create a system that will fairly evaluate teachers, whether it is used to grant tenure or lay off teachers. “I don’t have a problem looking at teachers based on merit,” she said. “Every job I had, I was evaluated based on merit.” Marya Friedman, a sophomore at Bronx Science, describes Ms. Isaacson as brimming over with merit. “I really liked how she’d incorporate what we were doing in history with what we did in English,” Marya said. “It was much easier to learn” — which, of course, is what great teachers strive for.
 

JustinW

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
10,511
Reaction score
1,810
Apparently there is a new alternative certification option starting in Texas. You pay full fees up-front (about $2.8k), do some classwork and then 14 weeks unpaid work as a teacher's assistant. Sit the final exams and then get your license - no probation or internship year.

I think the teacher schools will love it because they get their money up-front, even if you don't secure a teaching position once licensed.
 

javyn

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Mar 15, 2006
Messages
25,473
Reaction score
14,748
Dear teachers, why are you all such lazy welfare whores who hate America?
 

CBrown85

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
6,131
Reaction score
2,249
Originally Posted by JustinW
Apparently there is a new alternative certification option starting in Texas. You pay full fees up-front (about $2.8k), do some classwork and then 14 weeks unpaid work as a teacher's assistant. Sit the final exams and then get your license - no probation or internship year.

I think the teacher schools will love it because they get their money up-front, even if you don't secure a teaching position once licensed.


I wonder how much of the focus will be on modern pedagogical techniques and theories rather than just training 'more of the same'.
 

CBrown85

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
6,131
Reaction score
2,249
Originally Posted by javyn
Dear teachers, why are you all such lazy welfare whores who hate America?

Don't worry. Most regret it after 5 years and quit.
 

JustinW

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
10,511
Reaction score
1,810
Originally Posted by CBrown85
I wonder how much of the focus will be on modern pedagogical techniques and theories rather than just training 'more of the same'.

I imagine we will see a move from the former to the latter.

I was at a district meeting today and we all started talking about the pending lay-offs. At first I was encouraged that everyone agreed there was merit in keeping both the new and the experienced teachers. In fact, everyone agreed that the selection should be on merit. Yay. Then we started discussing the best metrics for measuring teacher merit. Not yay. I am still stunned that one 40-something high school teacher really believed that popularity with the students was the most important measure of teacher performance.
 

Dinhilion

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2010
Messages
135
Reaction score
2
Originally Posted by JustinW
I imagine we will see a move from the former to the latter.

I was at a district meeting today and we all started talking about the pending lay-offs. At first I was encouraged that everyone agreed there was merit in keeping both the new and the experienced teachers. In fact, everyone agreed that the selection should be on merit. Yay. Then we started discussing the best metrics for measuring teacher merit. Not yay. I am still stunned that one 40-something high school teacher really believed that popularity with the students was the most important measure of teacher performance.


It's called playing to your strengths.
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 35.5%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 60 38.7%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 17 11.0%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 27 17.4%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 28 18.1%

Forum statistics

Threads
505,172
Messages
10,579,191
Members
223,888
Latest member
RoseBenif
Top