This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.
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I began as a 1st grade teacher. After only 4 years in the classroom, I wrote a proposal for a program to try in our school district for students who did not do well in Kindergarten. At the time we were retaining about 1/3 of our 1st grade students (and in a school of 1000 students K-3 that was a lot of students). I was reading the studies done on the effect that retention had on students - even if they were retained early in their elementary years. The details of the program aren't really important here. The important part is that I wrote the proposal and I took it to the school board for approval. We were a relatively small district, and I do know that it's often easier to create a change in those schools; however, the important detail here is that the school board DID approve this program.
I spent a lot of the summer planning curriculum, because there wasn't any and I didn't want to duplicate what had already been done. If the students weren't successful then why do 'more of the same'? Obviously, these students needed something 'different' in some way. Luckily, I also had the support of the asst. superintendent who also oversaw curriculum. She allocated some money for materials and supplies for my new venture.
The program lasted for 2 years, and was successful for the students. The school administration was happy with the program, the parents were happy, and the district admin was fine with what was happening. The reason it was discontinued was new regulation from the state department of education.
So - here is my musing this morning. We are so entrenched at this point in "research-based" and "results-based" and "best practices". Are we so short-sighted as to think we have already created the absolute BEST way to do things? And I have always wondered how do you definitively measure the "best" for all students/teachers/schools/locations? I know that what I considered and measured as "best" 25 years ago is not what I would consider "best" today. And even if it WAS "best" then, our populations have changed (and my location makes a difference these days, as well).
Why do we limit ourselves to what has already been done? Certainly corporations don't do this. The most innovative ones who support "thinking outside of the box" are the ones that create new products and services. NASA certainly would have never made it to the moon and beyond by "doing the best of what had already been done". (And if you were to talk to my dad who worked for NASA for 25 years beginning in the 'early' days, he would tell you that layer upon layer of bureaucratic rules made it more difficult to create new ways of doing things as the years went by.) What if someone had decided in 1900 that we could only do the "best" of what had already been discovered about education? Would we still be filling our lanterns in the mornings and stoking the fires?
Twenty-five years ago, I used to long for school districts to have a department of "research and development". Why not? How do we discover the "best" for our students in our particular classrooms if we have to ALWAYS do what has already been done? I like to think that the greatest innovations in education are still to come!
Last Edit: Sept 8, 2013 15:25:19 GMT -5 by ladywclass
Elem spec ed, 29th year (also gen ed, g/t, college experience) Indiana & Texas
Most folks want innovation, but they resist the upheaval that innovation causes. For some, innovation is finding a way to find a better ROI (Return on Investment), and so innovation means more profit for providers.
I can definitely tell you that every time I ask a PD 'consultant' for the research articles they base their practice on, they have been unable to provide it.
The worst part, though, is that everyone wants instant changes with instant results. They don't understand how statistics work, much less be able to construct a reliable or valid measure, either through quantitative nor even qualitative techniques.
Last Edit: Sept 8, 2013 15:40:48 GMT -5 by kumumele
Post by ladywclass on Sept 8, 2013 15:38:14 GMT -5
And my point is ... we as the professionals shouldn't always have to have an already authored study in order to take what we are observing and use what we already know as teachers to "try" something new and different in our classrooms. With the current evaluations, it's very difficult to 'try' something 'new' without being penalized. I don't mean we should just suddenly abandon teaching facts and skills (and heaven help us ... thinking shhhhh) but even some of the most important scientific discoveries have happened because something went 'wrong' ....
Elem spec ed, 29th year (also gen ed, g/t, college experience) Indiana & Texas
This is year 9 for me of high school math teaching. I'm 53 and it is career #3. In the first career I was a cook for 15 years: some years in big fancy hotels in Boston, some years in family places, and the most profitable years risking my hide on boats in Alaska. After getting a math B.A. from U.W. Seattle I LUCKED into the dot.bomb thing in '97 & worked at Microsoft for 5+ years, doing database support for a few years.
ummmmmm ... here comes a comment which people will readily use to PROVE I'm burnt out & don't care & narrow minded ...
High school really isn't taking a '67 chevy & bag of carrots & a case of soda and getting to Mars and back. Other than that 1/10,000,000 person, you just don't have the technical skills to make a new google or reliable steam engine or semi conductor or polio vaccine.
While there are typically better ways to do things, I think we in education are suffering from the American Management Disease more than anything. Working stiffs are blamed AND no one holds accountable the people at the top, in any industry. I honestly think that New Ideas! should have some kind of basis in reality beyond Power Point. In fact, unless someone can make a tentative flow chart of the steps to implement the idea, and can give reasonable estimates of the time and skills needed for each step, I would NOT allow that someone to have a job creating ideas to dump on, stick on, and foist on us working stiffs!
I think 'we' are too often pretending that we're ALL going to be working Making! Great!! Ideas!!! - while some other unnamed class in an undisclosed location provides all the nitty gritty support to us pondering types as we act like Rodin thinking statutes. Why don't we face the reality that providing health care and safe water and sewage and safe food and reliable retirement and EDUCATION and transportation and leisure and unemployment retraining and transportation and housing to 7,000,000,000 is a LOT of work - so let's figure out how to do it efficiently, AND let's figure out how to share the grunt work and share the more creative work.
AND let's fire parasitic manager classes who blame us cuz we get in the way of their empire building, lying and stealing.
Post by ladywclass on Sept 8, 2013 17:16:50 GMT -5
I did put the work into showing how my program would be run. It was pretty well planned out when I pitched it to the school board - down to the budget I was asking for. The materials bought by the asst super were 'icing on the cake' as far as I was concerned and helped me immensely - but I would have managed without them. (And the materials were shared with other teachers to use them in other ways ...)
Elem spec ed, 29th year (also gen ed, g/t, college experience) Indiana & Texas
I did put the work into showing how my program would be run. It was pretty well planned out when I pitched it to the school board - down to the budget I was asking for. The materials bought by the asst super were 'icing on the cake' as far as I was concerned and helped me immensely - but I would have managed without them. (And the materials were shared with other teachers to use them in other ways ...)
+++++ um... not sure how this response comment system works ... oh well +++++ I don't doubt you did! In my 8+years of teaching I have had ZERO ideas fleshed out for me! training after training after training is just high level happy happy crap - AND - of course it isn't paid for!
IF my teacher training had been studying what people did and how they actually did it - instead of reading about it & talking about it & theorizing about it & writing about it, the 'it' being ivory tower 'best practices', maybe my training would have been more useful! Maybe more of us would be contributing useful ideas instead of high level crap, cuz ... we're all in college and we all don't dirty our fingers with dirty little detail stuff !!
Post by glamourgirl on Sept 9, 2013 11:31:37 GMT -5
I agree that every new idea and innovation does not need to be researched and published, but they certainly need to be relevant.
Many times we sit through PD that is geared to elementary students and at best 6th grade. It's not relevant, it's irritating, it's time wasting, and makes me hostile! Most of our district people have an elementary background - or worse, no education background, and they can't seem to understand how it will not translate to high school. Some of the greatest and most successful ideas come from teachers in the trenches right now - not 30 years ago.
Post by I'd rather be cruisin' on Sept 14, 2013 20:45:55 GMT -5
What the powers that be tend to forget is that "evidence-based practice" is a triangle. Scientific evidence only comprises one angle of the triangle. Another angle of the triangle is the professional's experience/knowledge. And the last angle is the "client's values" (often the parents in our case...or the students if they're older). These politicians are trying to effectively silence the voices of two prongs of the triangle. Innovative programs, in my opinion, should encompass all angles of the triangle.
36 years in Public education. 9 years in self contained K-12 Hearing Impaired class; 4 years in self-contained K-5 SLI class (severe language impaired); 23 years SLP, the last 6 years in Middle and High schools.
Post by ladywclass on Sept 14, 2013 22:07:55 GMT -5
Even the best of inventors - as they researched and did systematic trials - took a 'leap' from the known and succeeded .... we have difficulty doing that in education ...
Elem spec ed, 29th year (also gen ed, g/t, college experience) Indiana & Texas