Due to the Common Core curriculum, school districts are furiously trying to teach critical thinking to America’s students. I’d like to observe the following: As the country lurches in lockstep toward this goal, independent thinkers in educational administration seem to be vanishing. Is the Common Core curriculum the best plan for American education? A case can be made for and against this new focus on critical thinking, but almost nobody in educational administration is making the case against the goal — at least publicly.

Let’s start with the fact that those countries who are outscoring us on international tests are NOT doing anything like the Common Core. No one has put anything like the Common Core into widespread practice. This is a huge experiment with an already educationally-lagging population as test fodder. I submit we might be much better off studying Finland carefully and then doing what they do, since the Finnish approach seems to work very well.

Eduhonesty: Where are the voices saying what I just said? Many teachers are sounding off, but a dearth of administrators seem have joined the chorus. Is it because, in the upper echelons of American educational administration, there aren’t many critical thinkers? Maybe these pundits want to emphasize critical thinking because in some distant, vaguely aware portion of their collective consciousness, they realize they don’t seem to be able or willing to think critically.

On December 3, the Illinois General Assembly approved Senate Bill 1, a fairly comprehensive set of changes to teacher retirement benefits and to the funding of the Teachers’ Retirement System.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about this. Changes to the existing system seem unfair since people have been relying on promises made to them. They have budgeted with a certain set of expectations. After all, if you can’t trust your own state, whom can you trust?

Still, I am a fiscal realist. The state of Illinois has fallen into an abysmally deep hole and it can’t keep writing checks for which there are (or will be) insufficient funds.

Eduhonesty: Pension reform has become unavoidable. The budget numbers simply don’t work and those numbers have to be fixed somehow. That said, this post is for aspiring teachers: There are fifty states where you can teach. Don’t pick this one.

So a new student arrived. I did the perky new student introduction. Welcome to the class!

I introduced the poor guy. Then I asked those questions from MeTV shows. You’re new? Where did you come from? You’re local? Oh, but you were not here before? Were you at the local Catholic school? Where have you been in school?

Awkward moment: When your new student tells you he just got out of jail.

I felt pretty bad about maneuvering him into that public admission, needless to say.

Eduhonesty: Maybe this post should be a reminder to talk to students privately before barging into their business. I blew this one badly.

“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he
knows.”

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)

I’ve written this before, but it’s worth a repeat of sorts. Some days I’m really tired of big words. I have lists filled with words to use to create lesson plans. They’re not allowed to merely “review” anymore. It’s not active enough. They’re not allowed to “learn.” Learning is not specific enough.

They have to classify, generalize, illustrate, paraphrase, summarize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, research and demonstrate, among other action verbs. Many administrators want to see these words and I tend to oblige them. These same administrators produce erudite presentations showing their own grasp of multi-syllabic words.

Eduhonesty: Don’t get me wrong. I love big words. I play spelling games for fun. But there is a large difference between seeking the most effective word and showing off to impress the audience. We appear condescending and pretentious when we use too many polysyllabic words in a single sentence. We also appear insecure.

Let me take a stand: There’s nothing wrong with a goal such as “Students will learn the difference between a metaphor and a simile.” We can gussy this sentence up all we want, but the truth is that extra verbiage in a lesson plan won’t help students to learn any faster or better. The extra time we spend on the lesson plan may be taken away from planning actual instruction too.

Many students struggle to connect with their social studies classes. Yet the content of these classes permeates the news and daily life. We make some connections using primary and other sources from the internet.

But if we want students to understand their place in the civic scheme, why not have them attend village board meetings? Or park board meetings? Even zoning boards and planning commissions are likely to have their moments. So many towns offer a direct view into the politics. We don’t take enough advantage of outside resources.

I suggest the little nippers check out their local school board meetings.

She once said to me, “My brain just doesn’t work,” somewhat blithely but entirely sincerely as she explained away an assignment gone wrong.

Yet she’s pretty good at math. She catches on quickly.

I wonder how she came to that original belief about her abilities.

Fortunately, she seems to be realizing she her brain has more power than she once supposed.

“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”

Malcolm Forbes (1919 – 1990), in Forbes Magazine, courtesy of bob@lakesideadvisors.com.

Eduhonesty: Forbes was lucky enough not to see the current post-NCLB educational apocalypse. Currently, I sometimes think we are emptying minds as we teach students that the purpose of education is to pass tests. With this focus, the joy of learning may become utterly lost. Students hear, “You need to know this for the test,” — all the time.

How often do they hear, “Isn’t this fascinating?”

Among other considerations, curricula aligned to the test can ensure that teachers won’t get a chance to teach interesting material that they and their students will enjoy.

Example: I love geometric proofs. A small, but mathematically hardy, group of students can be expected to feel the same way. No true mathematician exists who can’t and doesn’t produce proofs. Unfortunately for students, some expert in my state determined that proofs represented such a small percentage of overall standardized test requirements that teaching proofs was a poor use of instructional time. My then-high school stopped teaching proofs, except for a brief, essentially useless introduction to the idea.

Student Sets Teacher Gabriela Peñalba On Fire: Police
The Huffington Post | Posted: 11/28/2013 1:35 pm EST | Updated: 11/29/2013 8:11 am EST

A Tennessee high school teacher was set on fire by one of her students, cops said.

WATE reports that Gabriela Penalba, 23, turned her back to her class on Monday morning at West High School in Knoxville when a 15-year-old male student set her hair and shirt ablaze using his lighter, police said.

Students quickly put the fire out.

Gawker notes that the student allegedly “exploited the commotion” by throwing the lighter out the window and fleeing before being captured by police.

The quick thinking of her students helped Penalba avoid any burns, according to WBIR.

The student faces aggravated assault and evading arrest charges.

His name has not been released because he’s a minor and has not been charged as an adult.

Eduhonesty: This story hit the news. Many don’t. America’s children almost all go to school until their mid-to-late teens. Last year, I had one who was hearing the voice of Satan. This year I’ve got one with eyes as cold as dry ice. I’d say less than 1% of my students are scary — but for a high school teacher that nets out to 1 or 2 a year and statistics don’t always have much to do with reality. I’ve gone years without trouble and I’ve had multiple sources of possible trouble in one year. I once had a student put a foreign substance in my coffee. Fortunately, classmates alerted me. A fair number of my colleagues have been hit or otherwise harassed over the years. One ended up leaving the state as a result of student violence and its aftermath.

From a University of Illinois publication: http://news.illinois.edu/news/11/0727LIttleVillage_KimShinew_MonikaStodolska.html

“The largest Hispanic neighborhood in metropolitan Chicago, Little Village is an area plagued by high crime rates and gang violence. Although the community comprises only 4.4 square miles, police recorded 2,625 crimes there during 2006, including 1,222 thefts, 268 robberies, 22 criminal sexual assaults and 11 murders.”

I assure readers that a fair number of these crimes were committed by local middle school and high school students. These kids don’t settle down just because they entered the halls of their local school. They don’t declare a truce at the school doorway.

There’s a reason for all the cameras and surveillance equipment in America’s schools nowadays.

Having taught once does not make anyone an educational expert. The opposite may be true.

This country is filled with educational administrators who left the classroom for the board office or administrative positions in schools. Many of these administrators were excellent teachers. Whether they left for higher salaries, the chance to influence district reform efforts, or any of a number of valid reasons, these administrators are often sincere when they say, “I miss the kids and the classroom.”

But let’s be clear: Many people move up because they are stressed out or even burnt out, while remaining unwilling to walk away from the investment they have put into education. One common path out of the classroom involves taking evening classes and then moving into administration, leaving unmanageable classes and underappreciated students behind.

Some teachers move up for the greater good.

Others move up because they can’t cut it in the classroom.

Eduhonesty: The best teachers, those who love teaching and can teach, tend to stay in the classroom. Why leave a job you love? (As I noted, some solid reasons to climb the admin ladder DO exist — such as $$$.) If America wants to know how to reform eduction, we ought to ask the classroom teachers. They are the true success stories in American education.