Jennifer and Stacey,
You said:
“As Dr. Ruth said in 663 if you can connect with one teacher others may soon follow”.
Connecting with one teacher will also help you relax some, because you're not totally alone in the school. If you're more relaxed, then you'll be more effective, and will better demonstrate the strengths of the tool you are trying to incorporate.
You also said:
“…when we get past the limited mind set of standardized testing & NCLB…”
You used "when"! That's good. You have a lot of faith...we need that attitude to make good changes. It can be discouraging, wanting change, and dealing with a machine as big as the NYS Education Department.
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4 comments:
I like your faith. I find that dealing with big machines leave me overwhelmed.
It's not because of faith that I think NCLB will eventually be replaced, it because parents always want the best opportunities for their children.
Right now, I believe this system of operating is proving itself to be an ineffective failure and as evidence slowly emerges and our students continue to fall behind (in comparison to the rest of the world) there will be more and more pressure for from parents demanding change. Our government has already funded at least one major study to determine improvements that can be made to overhaul our educational system.
However, I haven't seen any real changes implemented.
I guess it's all political and politicians don't want to spearhead anything that could risk future votes. However, if parents demand change, then politicians won't consider making them such risky business.
Anyway, all you have to do is Google "American Schools in crisis" and you'll find an array of documentaries, stories and articles that will move you to get behind change and support change.
Here is just one link to a great short video on how the United States ranks in comparison to the rest of the world:
http://www.edin08.com/voicefored/
just copy and paste the above URL into your address bar. I'd do it, but unfortunately I'm a product of our public schools systems :-)
Stacey,
Wow. That video was so good! It is so perfect that they used junk food to represent education in the U.S. We are producing overweight and brain-lethargic students.
I have a theory that the people in the Education Department sit around and make up projects and rules just to keep themselves in a job. In New York State in particular, the huge amount of paper pushing that goes on (when I compare it with a user-friendly and efficient Washington State Department of Education)and the excessive testing of students that goes on in the schools (creating more of those jobs) is CRIMINAL. These people are just inventing jobs for themselves. When I worked in the State Department of Social Services system, it was a similar situation. "Albany" was CONSTANTLY changing the rules and the procedures, which made more and more work for us, and constant confusion, for which they had to constantly do trainings. THAT is a broken system. I think the Dept of Education has also created a complicated system, which, if you don't study it carefully, is hard to follow. This causes the underlings (those of us that work in the schools) to not try to understand it fully, thereby allowing the Dept to continue to create jobs for themselves, and not be questioned. You are correct when you say that it will take a massive movement from parents, but we as educators must also do our studying and research to understand the system's redundencies and wasted energy ($$).
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