No Opt Out

This year my entire district is going to be reading Teach Like a Champion, 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. I was a little hesitant when I read the title - and let's face it - books that have been picked out for us before haven't always been stellar. My first glimpse of this book was refreshingly useful! Strategy 1 in this book is called No Opt Out and I think will be helpful in my class. We've all had kids that when they're asked to answer a question or share in class have 1 standard answer, "I don't know." What an easy cop out. This strategy's goal is to teach/reinforce to kids that it's not okay not to try. If a student doesn't know the answer, it's okay to say that, but once another student answers correctly or gives them a cue to help them answer, the teacher is supposed to circle back and have them answer. I'm not being very verbose, but I think you get the idea. Hopefully, it will help establish student accountability and validate students that participate and know the answers.

WHO NEEDS SUPERMAN WHEN WONDER WOMAN AND MR INCREDIBLE ARE ALREADY HERE????

From the title you can probably feel my frustration about all of the negative teacher bashing that has recently been going. On the national level, the focus is on inner-city schools and there is no focus on the rest of the schools around the country that are functioning properly.  All of the schools in America are not failing! In the article, "The Evolution of the Schools Suck Bloc,"  Gerald Bracey points out that schools have been the scapegoat for our societal woes for decades (way back to Sputnik in 1957). He also points out some amazing statistics, such as, "Even kids in schools with up to 50% of students in poverty attained an average score that, had they constituted a nation, would have ranked 4th." Really?  This isn't the picture that is being painted acrossed the nation.  There are many myths floating around about the educational system in America that most people just believe because we have heard them repeated over and over. How do we combat this?

I've read quite a bit about the film Waiting for Superman. I think Rick Ayers summed it up quite well. He points out that when schools focus on standardized testing they
* reduce teachers to test-prep clerks
* ignore important subject areas and critical thinking skills
* dumb down the curriculum
* leave children less prepared for the future
How true! The United States is a leader because of our creativity and ingenuity.
Clearly, there is always room for improvement in our educational system. As a nation, we want what is best for our children, the future leaders of our country,  but breaking what is working to make all schools conform to one cookie-cutter mold is not the answer.

As educators we have the answers. We know what is good practice and what our students need. Until we can figure out how to share this with the nation at large, we need to continue to be the Wonder Women and Mr. Incredibles of the classroom. (After all, capes are SO out of vogue!)

Facebook as a Communication Tool

As an 8th grade team, we are always trying to increase our communication with the parents of our students. Face it - when we hand a middle schooler something to take home to their parents, I doubt most of those papers ever surface from the bottom of the backpack (if it was lucky enough to make it that far!).
When we had ClassRoll, there was a great place to enter our assignments and include notes for the parents. We switched to Infinite Campus last year and really missed that feature. After speaking with our IT Dept. we were encouraged to start a Parent Page on Facebook. We wanted to make it clear to the parents that we aren't saying the students have to have a FB account, but if they do they can also "like" the page and get updates. In our newsletter, we let the parents know that the page is intended for use by parents of 8th grade students at Ellsworth Elementary Middle School and that it is an attempt to increase parental involvement and awareness of what is happening in the classroom. Our goal to keep parents updated on 8th grade activities throughout the year.
I'm really excited about this added communication tool.