Be careful about who is attacking teachers...

Please read:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/28-11

Or a few exerts:

"Test-based teacher evaluation systems have the potential to seriously damage the teaching profession. The National Academy of Sciences found 20 to 30 percent error rates in “value-added” ratings systems based on their own dubious premises. Teachers in the bottom group one year were often in the top group the next and vice versa. The same teachers measured by two different standardized tests produced completely inconsistent results. The basic assumptions of these testing systems are at odds with the way real schools actually work. Bending school practices to accommodate them could negatively affect everything from the way students are assigned to classes to the willingness of teachers to serve high-needs populations and the collaborative professional culture that good schools depend on for success."

"It took well over a hundred years to create a public school system that, for all its flaws, provides a free education for all children as a legal right. It took campaigns against child labor, crusades for public taxation, struggles against fear and discrimination directed at immigrants, historic movements for civil rights against legally sanctioned separate and unequal schooling, movements for equal rights and educational access for women, and in more recent decades sustained drives for the rights of special education students, gay and lesbian students, bilingual students, and Native American students. These campaigns are all unfinished and the gains they’ve made are uneven and fragile. But they have made public schools one of the last places where an increasingly diverse and divided population still comes together for a common civic purpose.

But the system’s Achilles’ heel continues to be acute racial and class inequality, which in fact is the Achilles’ heel of the whole society."

We need to be careful about those who call for educational reform. Many are out for profit through privatization of schools, but we must stand up for equal access and equitable resources for all of our children. Free and fair access to public education should be the cornerstone of our society.

What frustrates me most when reading this article is that if we truly valued our kids future and their education then our country would have no debate over education reform. It would end at, "every student, every teacher, every school, will have the full support of every person in the country." If we truly wanted a healthy, successful country our schools should be funded well beyond their needs and our teachers shouldn't have to worry about being judged on merit based systems based on standardized testing that doesn't properly judge students achievement.

None-the-less, what can be taken out of this is that the US education system is at a crucial point...as I'm sure has been said many times before. What will come of this latest move for reform? Increased class sizes to increase market efficiency? If so you can count me out. I'll start my own school here in Guatemala with small class sizes and strong teacher to student connection. Because anyone whose taken an upper-level college class with 10 other students knows the value of small class sizes.

Peace,
LP

A Guatemalan education

So I've not only been a teacher here in Guatemala, I have also been taught many things. First and foremost I've been learning a lot from my students. I especially remember the first couple times I tutored...I had no idea what to do! Do I give them a English quiz to see how much they know or do I just talk with them? Should I create lessons or just trust that they'll have something to do? How much should I allow the parents to get involved? These are all questions that I struggled with when I first began and still struggle with now. Well in answer to the first question, I didn't give them a test to see how much English they knew - I just dived right in. With the older students this wasn't too much of a problem, but with the younger ones who have had less English classes it was nearly impossible.

For one of my students I'm learning that I'm going to need to start creating some ideas of things for us to do. The last few times I've been over he's had no homework, or any desire to actually study English, so we've spent the better part of an hour each time stumbling through conversations half in English and half in Spanish. He is using more English with me than before, but I feel like he's not respecting me as much as he used to...part of that might be tied in to the fact that he's been on the losing end of a few soccer games and I might have rubbed it in his face a bit. Mostly because he tried to tell me I wasn't going to score a single goal...and I scored four or five. I think he also struggles a lot with the concept of "losing gracefully" or losing at all. He doesn't seem the type that's needed to share or lose to a sibling.

As for my other learning experiences here in Guatemala, I have also been learning Spanish. I took a full week of classes at La Union with my wonderful teacher Julia. She and I are now family and she offered to give Salem and I private lessons at a discounted rate! We haven't yet had time to take advantage of that opportunity, but I would like to work with her at least a little bit. My Spanish speaking skills have also improved over the last couple weeks since I started working at the Hostel and Travel agency owned by the parents of one of my students. At the Hostel I have to be able to speak Spanish because most of the staff speaks very little English. All the cleaning ladies, the repairman, and the night watchman speak almost entirely in Spanish. Thus to communicate with them without the help of one of the English speaking staff members, I have to be able to speak in Spanish. I really like talking with the cleaning ladies. They're hilarious and they love to make jokes -- usually at my expense. For example, one of the cleaning ladies named Mary usually chuckles a bit whenever I say something in Spanish -- the best example being when I tried to tell the women I work with that there was a man at the door asking for her, but the work I used to say "for you" might have meant "for her purposes or use"...So they all laughed pretty hard about that.

More to come later...

Peace,
LP

Haven't blogged in a while...

O.k. so I haven't blogged about just myself in a while so I thought what the heck --- I might as well.

For the past two months Salem and I have been in Guatemala. For the most part she's been the one having all the educational experiences. She's been doing her student teaching at a elementary and high school called Colegio Boston near Ciudad Vieja. She has been having a great time and has been doing a wonderful job. A couple weeks ago when her parents were visiting, the three of us tagged along with her to school. It was a lot of fun and quite amazing to be able to watch my wife do something I know she loves so much. Usually I just get to hear about it...on that day I got to see her in action. I loved it! :)

As for my own educational experiences here in Guatemala I've had a few and they've taught me a lot. First is the tutoring that I started about a month ago. I began with one student, a sixteen year-old kid whose had English classes for a long time, and then I added two other students who are younger and have less experience with English. The older student is really easy to talk with and almost a breeze to study English with. For the most part with him my goal has been perfecting and tweaking what he's already learned in his English classes. I have also tried my best to help prepare him for the TOEFL test - an English for primary foreign language speakers used like an entrance exam for U.S. colleges and universities. My other two students are about the same age, but the difference in how they were taught English is evident. One student goes to a school that teaches English almost like an immersion program -- i.e. the school does its best to hire strong English speakers as teachers to influence their students comprehension of English. The other student goes to a primarily Spanish school that teaches English by using Spanish - similar to how Spanish is taught in almost every U.S. school. The down side to the second approach is that the teachers may not have a very strong background in English and thus their influence in English is not very strong either. Both these students are on a similar level of English speaking ability, but it is easily apparent that one comprehends more than the other when spoken to in English. No matter what, it is also apparent that all of my students need to speak more English in practical or real-life settings. That's been a big part of my "un-paid" duties with these kids. I hang out with them and play soccer or video games with them --- all the while speaking almost entirely in English so that they can use what they do know of English in a real-life setting. This also has offered me the opportunity to try to use my blossoming abilities in speaking Spanish...a subject on which I will write at more length at a future date. In the meantime I need to go to bed.
Peace,
LP