October 13, 2000 ~ Nancy Grasmick speaking at the Teacher of the Year luncheon
I once read an online post by novelist Harry Crews. He said that teaching--real teaching--is a messy business. And then, just a few months ago, I read your nomination packets, your views on teaching and teachers, the importance of the profession and your contributions to it. I read your assessments of what makes an outstanding teacher and why you are one yourself...or at least why others say you are. And so it seems to me that you agree with Mr. Crews...that you, too, think teaching is a messy business. And that, in the eye of teaching's predictable chaos--an apt oxymoron if ever there was one--is the key to something wonderful.
Let me elaborate. I read in your biographies that you'll forfeit the lesson you were scheduled to deliver because a student who rarely contributes to the classroom discussion decides to share a thought or ask a question...and, by drawing him out, you know you'll realize an even greater goal.
I read that you don't reuse lesson plans, because you think each set of students is unique, and, therefore, even the best-laid plans are seldom transferrable.
That you'll let the articulate child tell you what she's learned when she has trouble writing it down, and then formulate a better plan to accommodate all learning styles.
You'll open up your house to anyone who needs you--40 rambunctious 3rd graders over for a group homework session or just one 11th grader struggling over an English assignment.
You'll pay house calls to students and fellow teachers...help them set up computer systems and install software applications...without thought of a favor returned.
You'll dance without self-consciousness, sing without modesty, and act with all the stage presence you can muster, so that instruction is not only a little more fun for your students, but a lot more memorable.
You'll let your students glimpse your world...invite them to participate in what you're doing outside of the classroom.
You'll let your own learning guide your students', and, in turn, let students refine your instructional practices.
You'll show students how learning helps us unravel the mysteries of life--or, sometimes, just helps us appreciate them better.
And so it is no wonder that, when asked, nearly everyone in America can quickly submit the name of at least one teacher who has profoundly influenced--even saved--his or her life...
After all, nearly every one of you did.
You talked about Mrs. Hart, 4th grade, who greeted you with unfailing encouragement and warmth.
About Mrs. Schlotterbeck, 8th grade social studies, who showed you, for the first time, how much fun learning could be.
Mrs. Kennedy, grade 2, who cast you as the lead in the Christmas play and made you feel worthy of the role.
Mrs. Echols, your French teacher, who sat you down and discussed your college options with you...as a parent might.
Ms. Taylor, middle-school math, who presented dynamic lessons and valued hands-on learning.
Mrs. Gass, Mr. Boyer, and Mr. Peerless, who knew you were on the wrong path, and encouraged you to try out for student council or the school musical or the choir, so you would have neither the time nor the energy to self-destruct.
In the coming years, these stories will be supplanted by stories about you. Vivid stories about how you sparked an interest, opened a door, coaxed, cajoled, prodded, and prompted. How you took a different approach when the first one failed--and the second and the third and the fourth.
You are, right now, a legend in the making to thousands and thousands of students.
Poet and critic John Jay Chapman once said that "teaching...implies a need and a craving in the teacher, himself."
That, too, was evident in the synopses I read.
All of you mentioned your love of teaching; more telling, perhaps, is that many of you spoke of a need to teach. All of this passion is who I am, said one Teacher of the Year. It cannot be separated from me.
And so I thank you for heeding the call, for satisfying in yourself the need and the craving.
You have touched more lives than even you could possibly know.
We honor you, and we thank you.
Showing posts with label department of education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label department of education. Show all posts
Sunday, June 24, 2001
Tuesday, June 5, 2001
MSPAP
There's a lot to be said against the MSPAP tests but one of the biggest factors is that the way in which the tests are reported does not take into account simple human nature. Students receive no feedback on their performance on the test. There are no consequences for the student. The schools receive a "report card" for the performance of their students. What's wrong with this picture?
Middle school students are concrete thinkers and the abstract escapes them. They usually ask, "What's in it for me?"
Yesterday, Scott said that when he takes the test, he's not going to try at all because it doesn't matter to him. Then I reminded him that the school receives a report and that students ARE the school and that if he messes up on the test, it makes the school look bad and ultimately he will look bad as part of the school community.
I'm afraid this test is merely a reflection of the trend to hold teachers accountable for student learning but not holding students responsible. The old saying is true. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. I could stand on my head trying to compete with MTV, knock myself out to teach a lesson a dozen different ways in interesting ways and agonize over how to help a student to understand the lesson. However, if the student is unreceptive for whatever reason, there's nothing I can do as a teacher.
If a student chooses not to work, not to learn, should I be blamed? Absolutely not.
And the MSPAP test should hold the student responsible for performance by providing test results to every student.
Middle school students are concrete thinkers and the abstract escapes them. They usually ask, "What's in it for me?"
Yesterday, Scott said that when he takes the test, he's not going to try at all because it doesn't matter to him. Then I reminded him that the school receives a report and that students ARE the school and that if he messes up on the test, it makes the school look bad and ultimately he will look bad as part of the school community.
I'm afraid this test is merely a reflection of the trend to hold teachers accountable for student learning but not holding students responsible. The old saying is true. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. I could stand on my head trying to compete with MTV, knock myself out to teach a lesson a dozen different ways in interesting ways and agonize over how to help a student to understand the lesson. However, if the student is unreceptive for whatever reason, there's nothing I can do as a teacher.
If a student chooses not to work, not to learn, should I be blamed? Absolutely not.
And the MSPAP test should hold the student responsible for performance by providing test results to every student.
Monday, May 14, 2001
School Testing
A posting from George Curtis from MDK-12@UMDD.UMD.EDU:
I have this old political cartoon on my wall from THE BAY TIMES newspaper on the Eastern Shore it shows a large pig on a scale. There is a picture of a farmer and a scientist standing next to the pig.
The farmer say, “Weighs the same as an hour ago...maybe if we feed him?”
The scientist says, “No...No...No...Just keep testing him until his weight increases.”
The bottom of the cartoon reads, “If agriculture were run like the Department of Education.”
A posting from Peter Donahoe which appeared 5/10/01 on MDK-12@UMDD.UMD.EDU:
It might interest you to know that Maryland’s eighth-graders, on average, appear to know a little less math and science than eighth-graders elsewhere in the United States and a lot less than children in many countries, including Hungary, Bulgaria, Australia and Slovenia. I’m not even mentioning places like Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, which lead the world in math and science?
A 5/10/01 posting on MDK-12@UMDD.UMD.EDU from Jim Morrow wrote:
I’m REALLY surprised... especially with all the testing that Maryland does..Maybe we should start giving the tests weekly.. I’m sure that if we give the tests often enough our results will improve..
This is the article from the Washington Post:
Maryland Math, Science Learning Dip, International Test Shows
By Karin Chenoweth
Thursday, May 10, 2001; Page HO21
It might interest you to know that Maryland's eighth-graders, on average, appear to know a little less math and science than eighth-graders elsewhere in the United States and a lot less than children in many countries, including Hungary, Bulgaria, Australia and Slovenia. I'm not even mentioning places like Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, which lead the world in math and science.
I know this because Maryland participated, as if it were a separate country, in an international test of eighth-gradestudents in 1999. So we now have important data to help us think about what children should know and how our schools are doing. The 1999 test was a repeat of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) administered four years earlier.
Because of TIMSS, we realize that American fourth-graders know, on average, as much math and science asmost in the world, while our eighth-graders are about in the middle of the pack and our 12th-graders can barely compete with students in the poorest and least developed countries.
The 1999 retest, known as TIMSS-R, was done partly to test the notion that some special characteristic of fourth-graders who took the test in 1995 would keep them at the top. No such luck. Kids who performed so well then were just average in 1999, seemingly on the same downward path as their older brothers and sisters.
This confirms much other data indicating that something begins to happen in our middle grades that retards the pace of learning for most kids. It isn't that they aren't learning math and science, but they tend not to learn as much as children elsewhere in the world, as evidenced by how the 38 participating countries did.
If Howard County had participated as a separate country, it probably would have performed better than the whole of Maryland. Part of the reason lies in demographics. In general, the wealthier the jurisdiction, the better its students did on TIMSS-R, and Howard is wealthier than most of Maryland.
All of the 13 states tested performed at about the national and international averages. But the wealthy school districts in those states performed much better and the poor ones much worse.
The biggest exception was probably the Michigan Invitational Group, a collection of diverse school districts that demographically match the rest of Michigan. Those districts have been working closely with the National Science Foundation to develop high-quality math and science programs, and they performed much better than Michigan as a whole.
This is an exciting finding because it demonstrates that attention to teacher training, a strong curriculum and high-quality materials can make a significant difference in student achievement. Howard can also look at neighboring Montgomery County for an idea of how it would have performed. Montgomery County was 10th in math in the world and 26th in science.
Like Howard, Montgomery has been pushing more students to take algebra in eighth grade. About 40 percent of eighth-graders in both counties take algebra, compared with about 33 percent statewide. So my guess is that Howard County, like Montgomery, would have been in the top 25 percent.
All of the participating states and districts deserve a lot of credit. It isn't every school superintendent who wants his or her district judged against world standards, and all who agreed to do so should be applauded for their intellectual courage. This is especially true for urban districts that participated.
It is tough, for example, to explain to parents in Dade County, Fla. (Miami), why their children scored way below national and international averages. But Dade, and Rochester, Chicago and Jersey City, which also participated, are determined to help their kids learn at high levels, and this is one way they're proving that.
The TIMSS-R provides a rich source of information about our expectations of children today. For example, American kids performed badly on a rather simple problem asking for the area of a shaded rectangle within a parallelogram. Only 34 percent of Maryland students and 45 percent of Montgomery students answered correctly.
In this country, we tend not to teach geometry until high school. In Singapore, where geometry is woven into the math curriculum more consistently, 83 percent of eighth-graders got the right answer.
There's a lot more information that can be mined from the TIMSS-R, because students, teachers and principals were also surveyed about interesting issues. For example, if anyone thinks that kids today don't realize that it's important to do well in school, forget it.
More than 95 percent of the 3,317 Maryland students surveyed said it's important to do well in math, science and language. But 98 percent also think that it's important to have fun and 84 percent to be good at sports. While students also overwhelmingly said their mothers thought it important that students do well, only 76 percent said their friends do.
This contrasts sharply, for example, with what students in Singapore believe about their friends. That might be one small factor in why Singapore's eighth-graders lead the world in math.
Here's another interesting fact: 40 percent of Maryland's math teachers report that they majored in mathematics and an additional 35 percent in math education, fairly comparable with the rest of the country.
But here's the kicker: 92 percent of Maryland's eighth-grade math teachers say they feel well prepared to teach eighth-grade math. This high level of confidence, and the lower level of training, contrasts sharply with that of the top performers in the world.
For example, in Singapore, only 66 percent of eighth-grade math teachers say they feel well prepared to teach eighth-grade math although a higher percentage of them were actually trained in the field. It appears that the more you know, the greater your appreciation of the complexities of the field -- and the less confident you may be that you are prepared to teach it.
By the way, if your kids complain they have more homework than others, they now have some evidence. According to surveys filled out by teachers, 73 percent of Maryland eighth-graders are assigned math homework three or more times a week. That compares with 63 percent of eighth-graders nationwide.
TIMSS-R provides a wealth of information, and I've only skimmed the surface. For more, go to www.timss.org, where half of the 300 test questions are posted. It's kind of fun to see how you and your kids stack up against Singaporean and Japanese students.
Homeroom, which appears every other week, is a forum for you. Send questions, opinions and issues that you would like to see discussed to Homeroom, The Washington Post, Howard Extra, 10490 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Suite 650, Columbia, Md. 21044. The fax number is 410-772-2330; the e-mail address is homeroom@washpost.com. To see previous columns, go to www.washingtonpost.com, click on the Education page and look for Homeroom under Education Columnists.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
I have this old political cartoon on my wall from THE BAY TIMES newspaper on the Eastern Shore it shows a large pig on a scale. There is a picture of a farmer and a scientist standing next to the pig.
The farmer say, “Weighs the same as an hour ago...maybe if we feed him?”
The scientist says, “No...No...No...Just keep testing him until his weight increases.”
The bottom of the cartoon reads, “If agriculture were run like the Department of Education.”
A posting from Peter Donahoe which appeared 5/10/01 on MDK-12@UMDD.UMD.EDU:
It might interest you to know that Maryland’s eighth-graders, on average, appear to know a little less math and science than eighth-graders elsewhere in the United States and a lot less than children in many countries, including Hungary, Bulgaria, Australia and Slovenia. I’m not even mentioning places like Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, which lead the world in math and science?
A 5/10/01 posting on MDK-12@UMDD.UMD.EDU from Jim Morrow wrote:
I’m REALLY surprised... especially with all the testing that Maryland does..Maybe we should start giving the tests weekly.. I’m sure that if we give the tests often enough our results will improve..
This is the article from the Washington Post:
Maryland Math, Science Learning Dip, International Test Shows
By Karin Chenoweth
Thursday, May 10, 2001; Page HO21
It might interest you to know that Maryland's eighth-graders, on average, appear to know a little less math and science than eighth-graders elsewhere in the United States and a lot less than children in many countries, including Hungary, Bulgaria, Australia and Slovenia. I'm not even mentioning places like Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, which lead the world in math and science.
I know this because Maryland participated, as if it were a separate country, in an international test of eighth-gradestudents in 1999. So we now have important data to help us think about what children should know and how our schools are doing. The 1999 test was a repeat of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) administered four years earlier.
Because of TIMSS, we realize that American fourth-graders know, on average, as much math and science asmost in the world, while our eighth-graders are about in the middle of the pack and our 12th-graders can barely compete with students in the poorest and least developed countries.
The 1999 retest, known as TIMSS-R, was done partly to test the notion that some special characteristic of fourth-graders who took the test in 1995 would keep them at the top. No such luck. Kids who performed so well then were just average in 1999, seemingly on the same downward path as their older brothers and sisters.
This confirms much other data indicating that something begins to happen in our middle grades that retards the pace of learning for most kids. It isn't that they aren't learning math and science, but they tend not to learn as much as children elsewhere in the world, as evidenced by how the 38 participating countries did.
If Howard County had participated as a separate country, it probably would have performed better than the whole of Maryland. Part of the reason lies in demographics. In general, the wealthier the jurisdiction, the better its students did on TIMSS-R, and Howard is wealthier than most of Maryland.
All of the 13 states tested performed at about the national and international averages. But the wealthy school districts in those states performed much better and the poor ones much worse.
The biggest exception was probably the Michigan Invitational Group, a collection of diverse school districts that demographically match the rest of Michigan. Those districts have been working closely with the National Science Foundation to develop high-quality math and science programs, and they performed much better than Michigan as a whole.
This is an exciting finding because it demonstrates that attention to teacher training, a strong curriculum and high-quality materials can make a significant difference in student achievement. Howard can also look at neighboring Montgomery County for an idea of how it would have performed. Montgomery County was 10th in math in the world and 26th in science.
Like Howard, Montgomery has been pushing more students to take algebra in eighth grade. About 40 percent of eighth-graders in both counties take algebra, compared with about 33 percent statewide. So my guess is that Howard County, like Montgomery, would have been in the top 25 percent.
All of the participating states and districts deserve a lot of credit. It isn't every school superintendent who wants his or her district judged against world standards, and all who agreed to do so should be applauded for their intellectual courage. This is especially true for urban districts that participated.
It is tough, for example, to explain to parents in Dade County, Fla. (Miami), why their children scored way below national and international averages. But Dade, and Rochester, Chicago and Jersey City, which also participated, are determined to help their kids learn at high levels, and this is one way they're proving that.
The TIMSS-R provides a rich source of information about our expectations of children today. For example, American kids performed badly on a rather simple problem asking for the area of a shaded rectangle within a parallelogram. Only 34 percent of Maryland students and 45 percent of Montgomery students answered correctly.
In this country, we tend not to teach geometry until high school. In Singapore, where geometry is woven into the math curriculum more consistently, 83 percent of eighth-graders got the right answer.
There's a lot more information that can be mined from the TIMSS-R, because students, teachers and principals were also surveyed about interesting issues. For example, if anyone thinks that kids today don't realize that it's important to do well in school, forget it.
More than 95 percent of the 3,317 Maryland students surveyed said it's important to do well in math, science and language. But 98 percent also think that it's important to have fun and 84 percent to be good at sports. While students also overwhelmingly said their mothers thought it important that students do well, only 76 percent said their friends do.
This contrasts sharply, for example, with what students in Singapore believe about their friends. That might be one small factor in why Singapore's eighth-graders lead the world in math.
Here's another interesting fact: 40 percent of Maryland's math teachers report that they majored in mathematics and an additional 35 percent in math education, fairly comparable with the rest of the country.
But here's the kicker: 92 percent of Maryland's eighth-grade math teachers say they feel well prepared to teach eighth-grade math. This high level of confidence, and the lower level of training, contrasts sharply with that of the top performers in the world.
For example, in Singapore, only 66 percent of eighth-grade math teachers say they feel well prepared to teach eighth-grade math although a higher percentage of them were actually trained in the field. It appears that the more you know, the greater your appreciation of the complexities of the field -- and the less confident you may be that you are prepared to teach it.
By the way, if your kids complain they have more homework than others, they now have some evidence. According to surveys filled out by teachers, 73 percent of Maryland eighth-graders are assigned math homework three or more times a week. That compares with 63 percent of eighth-graders nationwide.
TIMSS-R provides a wealth of information, and I've only skimmed the surface. For more, go to www.timss.org, where half of the 300 test questions are posted. It's kind of fun to see how you and your kids stack up against Singaporean and Japanese students.
Homeroom, which appears every other week, is a forum for you. Send questions, opinions and issues that you would like to see discussed to Homeroom, The Washington Post, Howard Extra, 10490 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Suite 650, Columbia, Md. 21044. The fax number is 410-772-2330; the e-mail address is homeroom@washpost.com. To see previous columns, go to www.washingtonpost.com, click on the Education page and look for Homeroom under Education Columnists.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
