Take+One

9/8/11 HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHUCK!!! We miss you Melanie.

Some ideas from our meeting today: Creating the video and asking questions to the teachers. What would you tell someone who is interested in the teaching profession? Why is teaching an undesirable profession right now?

Ideas... From Joan - How about a video that changes back and forth between newspaper headings denouncing education, teachers, etc. and screen showing lists and pictures of what teachers really do? or How about a video following a teacher for 24 hours? or a video showing as many teachers as we can get to show "who is your child's teacher?" or a quiz for legislators..."So, what do your really know about teaching?" This would involve some research on our part. Perhaps surveying teachers in our districts about number of students taught, number of students that require special services, how many parent conferences are conducted, how many committees and meetings attended, time spent getting lessons prepared, etc. or I remember a video called the __Powers of 10__ that started with a particular location and zoomed out 10 times the area of view. The zoom out continued until the view was from outside the Milky Way Galaxy, and then zoomed quickly back in to the starting point. Maybe something like this could zoom in or out of a particular classroom or teacher???

It's Kelly. I love the Powers of 10 video and think that would be a great place to start. It also goes back down into the original person, so we could then do the day in a life thing. Good ideas, Joan.

Questions: From Joan... What makes you feel valued as a teacher? Describe what a good teacher looks like? What else do you spend your time doing at school besides actual "teaching"?

From Kelly: Did you see this one? It's exactly what we were talking about.

http://us.cnn.com/2011/09/06/living/teachers-want-to-tell-parents/index.html

I added some questions to the discussion that Chris started. Not sure if it is where we were going, but it is where my head was today.

From Chuck: Here's a follow up to the article you posted Kelly:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/08/living/ron-clark-reactions/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Here are our questions so far:

Joan:

1. What makes you feel valued as a teacher?

2. Describe what a good teacher looks like?

3. What else do you spend your time doing at school besides actual "teaching"?

Chris:

1. A school super in CA recently gave up 3yrs pay totalling $800k to keep some programs running in his districts. Surprisingly, most of the comments on news site message boards were not about how generous he was, but rather how shocked people were that he made that much money. Why do you think citizens expect those in education to make so much less than like positions in other professions?

Melanie: Who is responsible for supplying students with materials? Parents, society, teachers?

2.How much of your time is spent improving your content knowledge and pedagogical skills?

3.Describe a program in your school/district that is not directly related to sudent learning yet consumes your prep time.

4.Should all of your students be able to score proficient on the Biology EOC. Why or Why not?

Kelly:

1. How do you recognize good teaching?

2. If you were evaluating teachers, what would you base it on?

3. What do you need in order to do your job better?

4. How do you know when you've done a good job?

Chuck:

1. Amidst all the turmoil in the US educational system, why do you continue teaching?

2. What motivates you to become a better teacher?

3. To what degree do you think teachers and education are valued in the US?

4. How do you balance the stresses of teaching with your personal life and family.

5. What changes would you implement in order to improve teaching and learning in your school?