Summer Time

Now, I want to first start this post by stating that I did not get a teaching job just so I could have summers off! That said, by the time June rolls around I ready for summer! I am in the last stages of getting my students prepared for the end of the year regents, God rest this course's soul after this year, and I just wanted to say...bring on the summer!

Teacher Observations

I have taught at both public and private schools . And there were, obviously, many differences between the two types of institutions. I have to say that maybe the greatest farce of public schooling has been the way in which teacher observations have been used by administrators. Please know that I've not had 'problems' with administrators. I work at a high paying, high performing public school and teach largely motivated students--it's quite nice. But I've always been intrigued and, at times, disturbed by the discrpencies between perception and reality vis a vis teacher performance. I have seen many good teachers get 'bad' write ups and vice versa. True enough, that being a 'good teacher' is a subjective judgement but regardless of what your personal opinion of good or bad teaching is, there is an inevitable farce that can occur during an observation.

If you assume that an observation is supposed to asses the normal conditions/teaching styles that occur on a daily basis, there is an immediate obvious problem: as soon as a strange person with a suite and tie or as soon as a well known administrator with a suit and tie enters your classroom... guess what? Students suprisingly do not act naturally. Of course, there are some exceptions--some students could care less whether or not principal is in the next seat, but those kids are rare. I know of classes that behaved great during an observation on a teacher--even though the students were known to dislike the teacher and believe that the said teacher was very very bad at teaching. And I know of examples where students interacted quite disrespectfully while a teacher who was quite respected was teaching.

So what can we draw from these observations?....that a teacher's control of a class or rapport with a class cannot be accurately assessed by an external observer who surprises the class by a once or twice a year visit.

Teaching in Hard Times

Well, it's not the first post about being a teacher in hard economic times, but I can say, as several of my friends find themselves either
A) Out of work
or
B) worried daily about the potential of soon being out of work.

It's yet again good to be a teacher! I actually had noteworthy conversation with one of my friends, a guy who recently lost his very lucrative wall street job, and he asked me what we teachers are going to do to help out--are we going to take a reduced pay or what? And I couldn't help but chidingly respond to him: "Are you going to give back all of your bonuses from the last decade?" Well, I could tell from his grin that he got my point!

If you need a teaching job, go her for teacher placement services. I've used both NAIS and Carney Sandoe(for private school job hunts) and can recommend both.

The TI 89 Graphing Calculators: They can do anything!

I have taught Math for many years and have generally used the TI 84, TI-83 Graphing Calculators--pretty cool calculators that can do neat things like add imaginary numbers and output the results in reduced form etc.. But the TI-89 is like getting used to a whole new machine. When you first encounter it, you might not even know how to use it as the main screen's menu and interface is completely different. However, if you work your way through learning it, the 89 can really do some powerful things including algebra! This of course raises the issue of whether or not it is appropriate to use such powerful machines to take a test; many tests, in fact, do not allow the 89's to be used. So before you go out to buy a graphing calculator like the 89, you should first make sure that it a) can be used on any standardized tests that you take and b) isn't too fancy for your own tastes.

Red Ink--is it that bad?

I recently had some professional development that focused on ways to cultivate positive relationships with students, something that all teachers (ideally) value; it's always a fine line to both support students's ideas while at the same time maintain respect for the truth during class discussions-- as a teacher in the classroom leading a discussion, you'll inevitably get some responses that are way off and, no matter how you cut it, are just 'wrong.' ...navigating these kinds of classroom discussions is definitely a skill that improves with time and experience.

There was one point during the PD that I just can't buy: that students' self esteem is effected by using red pens to correct their errors... that the very choice of ink color (red) is a factor that can demoralize students. The argument put forth, as best as I could tell, was that since red has been used so often to correct students that this ink color is a psychological trigger for students, one both demoralizing and damaging.
I must say that I wholeheartedly disagree with this. I use red pen simply to distinguish the color of my remarks from the color of the student's ink. Oftentimes, the comments that I write in red are quite positive or neutral. In the end, I believe that a teacher's rapport with students is what will demoralize or uplift the students' response to your feedback, regardless of whether you use red ink, blue ink or pink ink.

Teacher Resources Reviews I : Math Resources

I wanted to take some time to write about quality resources for teachers and try to get the word out about some cool things I've seen that might help you in the classroom as much as it's helped me.  One of the coolest math teacher resources  that I've encountered is Drexel's Math Forum . It's one of the first stops for newbie math teachers. On the forum, you can find all sorts of threads relating to instructional technology, teaching methods, and even content based threads about math.  

Grade for this resource:  A-  (All right, all right I have high standards!)

Budget Cuts and Teacher Jobs

If you've got any sense of what's going on in the world, you know that the US and many other countries are in a recession, and you might be wondering if your teaching job is secure.  Interestingly enough, teaching is considered one of the more recession proof jobs  Nonetheless, even schools are tightening their belts and in some cases cutting down on their workforce.  From talking to teacher in other disctricts, the first jobs that are cut are, not suprisingly, the teacher aides, and some schools are also cutting down on the ranks of teachers. 

What does this all boil down to? If your the lowest person on the totem pole, especially if you don't have tenure, you might want to update that resume, to start networking with other teachers (A good place to meet other teachers is at www.facultyu.com --a social network for teachers!) 

When all is said and done though, we are in a much better profession than most during these tough economic times. My good friend, an investment banker, who for years has made much much more money than I... is currently unemployed.  If you're a teacher and looking for a job, here are some good teacher placement services--I've personally used Carney Sandoe, Independent School Placement and OlAS at one point or another (see previous link for more info).