That moment when the high school usurps your curriculum...AGAIN

Last post was about my thrilledness (Humpty Dumpty and Shakespeare give us all permission to invent words) over my highly gifted kids getting into Lord of the Flies. I was exuberant.

(I never blogged about why this unit was a big deal. See, I'd been teaching Animal Farm and To Kill a Mockingbird to my 8th graders for four years when the high school VP emailed my principal and told him those books were now (thanks, Common Core) going to be taught in 9th grade. It was more than lame--for one, I was getting ready to launch AF in a week or so, and two, TKAM is just my favorite. For three, teaching TKAM was so awesome after teaching Elie Wiesel's Night--to teach about a man of courage just brought me joy and was a wonderful counterpoint to Night's darkness. OK, I reconciled myself to writing units for two new texts this year. I asked the VP what the upper grades were teaching and only heard from one 9th grade teacher.

Fine. I spent days creating a unit for Lord of the Flies, and boy did I get excited. Talked to a teacher friend in Texas. Stole a few ideas from a teacher in Pennsylvania. Got some ideas straight from the Creator. Man, this was gonna be waaaay better than AF, waaaaay deeper. You can see read about my excitement here and here.)

Things just kept getting better, especially when I assigned chapter 8 for reading and the kids came in all shaking their heads about the answer to the question, "Who IS 'Lord of the Flies?'" Whoo!!!

After school that day I had a couple of formers come by to visit, sophomores in Honors English at the local high school. "Guess what we're reading, Miss M?" Oh dear Lord, please, no....

I dashed off an email to my principal and the high school VP, forwarding an old email where I'd asked for what the upper grades taught. I told them I'd heard no reply. I told them SOME of what my unit contained--Hobbes, Rousseau, leadership theory, Christ figure symbology, Freud--and got the response: "My best advice is to check with the department head before you select novels."

Are. You. Serious....

If my kids could do this in 8th grade, shouldn't the 10th grade teacher tackle something tougher? Give them Plato. Or just TELL ME WHAT THE UPPER GRADES ARE DOING, AS I'D ASKED. Or ask US what WE'VE done at the lower grades!

Anyway, my principal wrote a response supporting me: "Please understand that we need to keep Lord of the Flies here at DP." I haven't heard anything back from the high school or from him. I am hoping no new news is good news, but it's been a loonnnnng time since I have been that deflated. Gonna press on this year with my plans--comparing Peter Brueghel's paintings to the novels, finding music that goes with each character (compiling the definitive LOTF soundtrack with rationales), writing fine literary analysis papers, and celebrating all of it with a luau complete with PORK (bahaha) and the "islands" creating displays of the symbols and characters chosen from the text: fire, specs, the conch, the beast, pigs, Ralph, Simon, Jack, Piggy......and when they get to high school and the high school forces them to do the same things I had them do already, it will be upon THEM to write a new unit. These kids are ready for more.

And I think I am done giving up the books that work so well with my history course. 

Testing...testing...1, 2, 3, 4 days of testing!

The state's high stake test
comes more than a month before
school actually ends

The test tests learning
of content that they haven't 
had a chance to learn

Senator Kehoe

A state senator--

coming to speak to our kids!

Hope she is upright...

Hope she reaches them,

sticks to the Constitution

and doesn't grandstand

Hope she interests them--

holds their fickle attention

and challenges them

I love that she chose

a middle school--most speakers

shun this strange age group

May her risky choice

be rewarded by a most

fascinated crowd.

Sweaty Eddie and Sweaty Betty

Back in the baking bungalow. It was only me, but even with three fans, it was over 90° in there.

Now imagine three dozen kids in there, too, sweatily resplendent in their fall finery, hoodies and high tops and tights despite the mercury, slaves to his majesty, King Fashion...

Some people would be foaming with rage if pound animals were kept in the conditions we allow our precious kids to endure.

Look, I know we have a luxurious time of it compared to Haiti and other developing countries.

But this is not Haiti.

Our schools house more wealth than banks--human capital--but our shortsighted, quick profit mentality coupled with mismanagement and comparably low pay for the educators lead to reluctance to invest in the One Sure Thing. Shame on us. Shame on U.S....

Michelle Rhee isn't Superman

She gave it her best.

My daddy always thought unions for white collar work were anomalies. Even the pitbull Ms Rhee is no match for unions. I am so sad. She is quitting, leaving the superintendency of Washington D.C. schools for her fiancé and maybe California. (This proves she is sane.)

Saw "Waiting for Superman" this week. I was defensive walking into the theater, but I really liked it, even though many didn't--click HERE for a link to an article outlining why by Washington Post guest blogger Rick Ayers. Its premise: that public schools are broken. (My colleague says it's a bit dramatic to make such a sweeping statement in light of the ambitious goal of American education--to teach EVERYONE--and the fact that our colleges are full and we still have doctors and lawyers and mayors and so forth. Among his many objections, one is that almost every other developed nation sends kids to tracked schools such as voc. ed. schools as early as middle school, instead of trying to prepare EVERYONE for university.)

The film offers charter schools as the answer. Yet the film itself notes that only one in five charter schools is better than public schools; some 40% are worse. The film fails to mention the high turnover rate in these high performing charters (it keeps costs down since teachers leave before retirement pay, benefits, or raises get too high).

I teach public school and I totally support charter schools. I just think it's shortsighted--nah, just plain stupid--to think they are a panacea. Especially the ones featured in the film. If you feel special because you won a coveted spot in a charter, hmmm, if your parent(s) are involved enough in your education to pursue a spot in a charter along with the time and requisite paperwork it takes to apply....hmmmm: consider the effects on the student body, student motivation, parent involvement, etc etc. Kind of a positive snowball effect, really.They aren't really comparable to public schools, neither the good nor the evil.

It kills me that public schools are uneven, that there are bad teachers who are so tough to fire, that in the same district there can be de facto segregation and inequities. I find tenure deplorable. Even so, God bless public schools. We take them ALL, from the blind to the mentally ill to the supergeniuses to the average pimply self-conscious child of a single mom who works the night shift to children of the Cosbys to those with Down syndrome. We take the ones who hail from traditions without a written language (the Hmong), the homeless, the pregnant, those in foster homes, those in gangs. We take the ones kicked out of other public schools, ones who have been to jail for hitting teachers. Heck, this year I even have a student with albinism, African American at that--my first white black person. (No Michael Jackson references, please; I never taught him.) We make it our goal to teach them all the same rigorous curriculum. If results are uneven, who is surprised? Who?? When was the last time that person set foot in a local middle school classroom for an hour?

My personal experience as a student has been bell curvish--most of my teachers were ok, kinda blah, mediocre...a few beastly ones and a few diamonds. Even Geoffrey Canada admits in the film that he was sucky his first few years (would Rhee have fired him before he had a chance to develop into the father of an amazing charter school?)--who isn't?

Maybe it's a coincidence that my experiences echo the law of averages, maybe not. Maybe as budgets tighten and teaching spots become scarce and there is greater competition for spots, the quality of teachers will rise.

Or maybe people in college will pursue options that have better press and better pay--especially math and science folk. And schools will have to remain the takers of the two kinds of people who go into teaching: those who come for the fabled and probably doomed two month's vacation, and those who come for love. Because no one comes for the cash.

those troublesome outliers

This September our site is designating all 6th grade classes as gifted classes with 30% of the kids being designated as gifted. Eliminating tracking is the idea, and the hope is to create a culture of rigor and high achievement and lose any notions that there are smart or dumb classes. All students will receive GATE curriculum. Only the seminar kids--the mega-gifted, if you will--will remain in a separate class.

Love the theory; excited to see it tested at our school.

But this kinda raises a question in my lil punkin head: why were GATE classes started to begin with?

(Upon reflection, this raises tons of questions. I need a bigger head.)

yet ANOTHER superintendent

Had Alan Bersin. He implemented so many positive reforms! What a shame his bedside manner was so lousy that he alienated most of the people who now benefit from his shake ups. He left for a more powerful position working for Ahnold up in Sacramento, and now he is working for Obama as the border czar. His legacy = focus on literacy.

Got Carl Cohn. Genial. Silent. He held "Cookies with Carl" meetings to listen to the people. His legacy = a new logo (he didn't like SDCS having a different one than SDUSD) and cookie crumbs.

Got Terry Grier. He implemented something called SMART goals where we had to fill in paper grids on everything imaginable using this little acronym.  His legacy = acre upon acre of deforestation and--brace yourself--a new logo. 

The new logo was announced in the same letter he announced his probable acceptance of a position in Texas that will pay twice what San Diego does, and will have half the headaches.

Boy, can't wait for that new logo. That oughtta really improve education, right?

Super Duper

Superintendents

come and go like fashion; leave

us new logos--thanks.