For writing purposes, I spent a few hours reading or trying to read about students and cheating yesterday. I looked up articles and research. As with drop-out rates, the numbers are fuzzy. No one knows what percentage of students are cheating. If you include copying other student’s papers, that number may run as high as 97%. Different studies indicate that from 80% to 97% of high-school students admit to some type of cheating. Many students no longer regard copying as cheating. That’s “helping” in student terms.

At the end, I felt a profound sense of disquiet. These numbers are impossible to nail down, and not because of the many sources available. Relatively few sources are available, given the importance of the topic. Reading between the lines, teachers and other educators seem to have tossed up their hands.

Where is the indignation? Where are the attempts to define the concept “cheating” and to then quantify that topic? Those efforts exist, but systematic work designed to attack the problem appears to be almost absent.  In the meantime, we are left with small studies and anecdotal evidence, much of it more than a decade old. Those old numbers are still floating around the internet, I suspect, because not enough new numbers have been created to replace them.

To quote an ABC news article at http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132376&page=1:

“Authoritative numbers are hard to come by, but according to a 2002 confidential survey of 12,000 high school students, 74 percent admitted cheating on an examination at least once in the past year.”

That’s exam cheating. That’s 2002. What is happening on a daily basis? The situation cannot be improving. For one thing, about the only penalty left for cheating is a failing grade and teachers usually just stick a zero into the gradebook for that one instance of cheating, leaving public school students likely to pass at semester’s end, despite having been caught cheating.

I also think the demand for daily group work in some classrooms may be aiding and abetting cheating, as students learn to “work together” on papers. Too often, “work together” means that Maisie writes the paper and other group members write a version of Maisie’s paper. Sometimes those other students hardly bother to change the verbiage. I don’t know if Maisie thinks she is “helping” them. More probably, like my daughters in high school, she thinks, “Well, somebody’s got to write this paper. I need the grade. I guess I’m stuck again.”

Another quote from the ABC news article:

“There’s other people getting better grades than me and they’re cheating. Why am I not going to cheat? It’s kind of almost stupid if you don’t,” said Joe.

One interesting note that struck me during my internet wanderings: Joe may not be at the bottom of his class. He may be at the top. In this time when competition to get into the best colleges has become absolutely cutthroat, students at the top are justifying cheating as necessary to their long-term life success. That’s quite a moral whammy to work into the fabric of our society.

For readers who are interested, I’ll offer a few websites you might read in your spare time.

http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Everybody-Does-It-2523376.php

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132376&page=1

http://www.challengesuccess.org/

http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/25/my-view-cheat-or-be-cheated/

http://www.school-for-champions.com/character/newberger_cheating2.htm#.VjOFJkldGcw

(The phrase “teachers’ spare time” during the late fall can only be considered an oxymoron, but maybe some readers want to explore this topic further. For one thing, I’d bet many newbies are beginning to sense how large this problem has become in the average classroom.)

Returning to yesterday’s topic, I want to emphasize a key point: Those cell phone dust-ups are not victimless crimes. All the kids in that classroom lost a considerable amount of learning time to that girl’s refusal to obey her teacher, I am sure not for the first time. News reports tend to trivialize the infraction here. It’s not a large infraction in the sense that the girl did not throw her Principal to the floor or smack her teacher across the face. Let’s be clear though: what she did was to hijack her classroom, so that all learning ground to a halt.

Poor and urban schools suffer academically from these shenanigans regularly. Government reports document a much higher average rate of disciplinary referrals in these schools. The activities that lead to these referrals are NOT victimless offenses. Five minutes here, five minutes there and pretty soon hours of the academic week have disappeared, stolen from students who need that time much more than their counterparts in calmer zip codes.

http://www.webpronews.com/raven-symone-sympathizes-with-spring-valley-high-school-assault-officer-2015-10/

Raven-Symone is causing controversy for The View once again, as she appeared to sympathize with the officer in the Spring Valley High School assault. South Carolina Deputy Ben Fields has since been fired from his job for the way he removed a student–who wouldn’t get off her cell phone–from a classroom at the school. Footage of Fields’ removal of said student shows him flipping her desk over and dragging her across the floor. It has since gone viral. “The girl was told multiple times to get off her phone,” Raven-Symone said during the show’s roundtable discussion, adding, “There was no reason for him to be doing this type of harm. It’s ridiculous, but at the same time you’ve got to follow the rules in school.”

Apparently, Twitter fans and others are landing on Raven-Symone hard again. The girl’s getting slammed on social media. Her last recent dust-up involved African-American names.

“I’m not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea. It’s just not going to happen. I’m not going to hire you,” she said.

She apologized after her father chided her and I did appreciate the irony of a girl named Raven-Symone coming out against unusual names.

But I’d also like to support this girl. She knows the politically correct thing to say. I’m sure of it. She just… isn’t. She isn’t saying what she knows she is supposed to say. Instead she is saying what she thinks.

I understand why she backed off on Watermelondrea. No one should be discriminated against because of a name. But, unfortunately, a dialog stopped there that ought to be part of the American conversation. While no one’s chances of getting hired should be affected by their name, the fact is that the name on a resume matters.

Research shows that Andrew has a much greater chance of getting an interview than D’Africanus. Frequently, people interpreting that research point to racism as a possible cause. I am sure that racism forms part of the picture. Other times, though, I’d bet that some person trying to make a team looks at that unique name and thinks that D’Africanus may be less of a team-player than Daniel. Prejudice can be overt or latent.

Prejudice or not, a resume’s objective is to get a person in the door. Will the average corporation even interview an applicant named Furious? I’d say that Furious will need more and better credentials than the average bear just to get a chance to talk to somebody. He’s starting at a disadvantage — whether that ought to be true or not.

The thing Raven-Symone might have discussed which ought to be on the table is this: How can we best set our kids up for success? The research says mainstream names help. That research should be a consideration when picking out baby names, I’d say. If Raven-Simone might toss a resume in the round file because of a name, how many other people will do this?

As far as the girl and her cell phone, yes, that guy used far too much force, completely over-the-top for a cell phone, that’s for sure. But Raven-Symone had a point. The girl in that video had ignored multiple polite requests to do the right thing. While doing so, she stole a great deal of time from classmates.

Let’s say her drama took 8 minutes, including off-camera phone requests that made regular distractions. If she has 25 classmates, that’s 200 minutes of learning time lost, or about 3 1/3 hours. Similar phone events are taking place in classrooms all over America and the time loss from that refusal to cooperate is sucking away days of learning time — and proportionally more days of learning time in urban, academically-disadvantaged areas, the areas that need that learning time the most. Government statistics bear that out. (Click on the picture to get the big view. My mom did not know that.) Readers, if you comment on social media, I’d like to suggest you give Raven-Symone some positive feedback for expressing honest opinions. The force of social media scares many people now, people who doublespeak and/or refrain from speaking for fear of causing offense. I, for one, would like to stand up for an honest girl. Please pass this post on if you agree.

P.S. The text of my own social media comment: I love Raven-Symone. She says what she thinks. While the officer definitely went too far, more consideration should be given to the learning time this girl was taking away from all of her classmates. If her drama takes 8 minutes and there are 25 kids in class, that totals 200 minutes or 3 1/3 hours of learning lost. What gives phone-girl the right to do that to all of those other students and that teacher?

Is Rafael nodding off? Does Sarah tend to put her head on her desk? You can find all sorts of advice to deal with the problem of sleepyheads.

Calling home to alert parents may help. Maybe Rafael has been playing computer games all night. Maybe Sarah has been texting friends or trying to defeat Rafael in his virtual quest. Electronics create many drowsy, sluggish students nowadays. Lack of food can sometimes be a factor. Some kids just have trouble waking up. An ample amount of research shows we are starting school before many of our students come to full consciousness.

In any case, I practice my operatic voice on these students. Make a joyful noise. Or make a loud, operatic noise anyway. Make it up as you go.

“Rafael, you are sleeping again. Oh, Rafael, you cannot sleep. You must wake up, wake up, wake up. Oh, Rafael, sleeping in class is bad. You cannot sleep, you silly lad. Tra la la” Etc.

The kids will laugh and if your voice is as bad as mine, I guarantee Rafael will be up and begging for mercy pretty quickly.

The tall, attractive, brunette nurse I was conversing with has two girls, ages 4 and 9. Her youngest is about to enter kindergarten and she is worried because her district’s kindergarten runs only 2 hours and 45 minutes, a short half-day. She asked me if I thought half-day kindergarten would put her youngest child at a disadvantage. All these other districts seemed to have full-day kindergartens now. Would her daughter’s lack of academic exposure at the age of 5 interfere with her future scholastic excellence?

Sigh. Mom is a Polish immigrant living in an excellent elementary district. Students who stay in that district feed into some of the best high schools in the nation. Her 4-year-old girl has an academically-motivated family and will be attending a school with money to burn and strong community support. The state report card for the school looks like this:

I reassured mom, pointing out that children in Finland start school at 7 years of age and seem to be cleaning many other countries’ scholastic clocks.

We need to relax. You can teach a two-year-old child the alphabet in a month or two. You can teach that same child the alphabet two years later in a week. If parents are having fun singing letters at their toddlers, I see no reason to stop the songs. But we are pushing academics at younger and younger ages, and I find that worrisome. Learning should be fun for little kids.

That half-day kindergarten does not seem to have been doing Greenbriar’s students any harm.

P.S. Readers may note the fall in scores from 2012 to 2013. Across Illinois schools fell during those years, as Illinois changed scoring so that school scores would not take a dramatic plunge over the cliff when students took the new PARCC exams. Greenbriar’s fall is actually quite gentle compared to many others across the state.

(A post mostly for newbies. Again, for new readers, please pass this URL on to any new teachers or others who you think might enjoy the read.)

If students are asking lots of questions about your expectations for an assignment, somehow something has gone wrong. Your clear, concise directions missed their target. Please don’t feel that’s a criticism. When a teacher knows exactly how a process works, that teacher can easily make assumptions about student background knowledge. Especially new teachers may be surprised by the knowledge or lack of knowledge that their students are bringing to the table.

Just because changing fractions to decimals was in the previous year’s curriculum, that doesn’t mean that most of your students retained that knowledge. We are going fast — often too fast, in my opinion — in order to hit demanding, curricular goals. Many portions of the preceding year’s curriculum will probably require review. So what do you do if you are trying to explain the day’s assignment and you find yourself encountering a forest of questions and a sea of hands?

You probably should adapt or drop your assignment. Yes, that assignment is in the lesson plan. But if a large group seems confused and you only have a few minutes before the end of class, you will be better off giving students a pass on homework for the night. You don’t want students to spend their evening butchering your reinforcement activity. Fixing bad habits later will slow you down much more than waiting another day and taking review time to get ready for that assignment.

Like all of us, students achieve their best results when they know exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Incomplete directions frequently lead to incomplete assignments. If you assign problems 1 -20, but only talk about 1 -10, some students will leave off the last half of the assignment. No one in the room hears 100% of what you say. Even the most attentive students drift off, distracted by sirens, birds in flight, classmates picking noses, or any of the myriad details of daily life that happen around instruction.

I talked about the temporal latte effect a couple of posts back. One way to prevent learning time loss during times other than transitions is make sure you cover all your expectations — then repeat the high points of what you covered. Repetition costs a little time, but can have a hefty payback. Thirty extra seconds of directions can recover hours of lost learning time, ensuring that some assignments will be done that otherwise might have slipped away.

This post is for long-term readers who see a post and say to themselves, “Wait! She said that before.”

The eduhonesty blog went over 10,000 readers awhile back, so I am sometimes running with topics I know I attacked previously. I hope new readers are digging into the archives, but teachers are inundated with time demands nowadays and I can see that reading my 2012 blog posts will probably not happen very often, at least during the school year. Many teachers are running full-tilt at the dragons they need to slay.

So if time management tips contain a bit of repetition, please let me slide. As I’ve said, I’m trying to help. I’m also making it up as I go while trying to write a book.

Transitions carry a potent latte effect, in dribs and drabs of time rather than money. How are your transitions going? This post is intended for teaching newbies, but everyone who has a job that moves rapidly from task to task can benefit from thinking of transitions as their own temporal versions of a latte.

I first heard about the latte effect from Ben Stein. The idea is straightforward. A vanilla latte can be a delicious treat, but those lattes add up. One $4.00 cup of coffee seems harmless. One month of daily $4.00 coffees adds up to $120, though. That’s not so harmless. In ten months, the lattes total $1,200 or so. That’s airfare or a nice week-end spa break.

Transitions occur when you move from one activity onto the next. Teachers tend to have a day packed with transitions at all levels. Given that students manage transitions with varying degrees of success, some planning and practice can make classroom activities go much smoother. Poorly structured transitions can lead to social chatting, silliness, and even misbehavior and disruptions.

How can you avoid these problems?

Don’t trust the little nippers to know what to do! Or the big nippers! While it’s important to show faith in your students, you may not all be on the same mission. You want to teach the Battle of Shiloh. They want to know if Jaime’s girlfriend really broke up with him, and what she said in those awful text messages.

I suggest verbal warnings combined with actual practice.

♦ Establish clear routines for transition times. Physically practice these routines at the start of year.

Yes, it’s the end of October, but some reinforcement of routines throughout the year can be helpful too, especially if routines are slipping. If your transitions are sucking up valuable classroom minutes unnecessarily, I’d practice now. Try timing transitions. This gives kids the idea that those shifts between activities are supposed to go fast.

♦ Remind students when they need to get started. In the case of an opening activity, that should be as soon as they walk in the room. Don’t let the conversations start. Standing by the door works well. Students should pick up papers to complete from a desk near the door as soon as they walk into the room.

♦ Review your lesson objectives before the lesson begins (or right after you call in or collect the opening activity) and then once more at the end of the lesson. Tell students in advance what activities are planned for period.

♦ Tell students when an activity is ending. Give them a 2 minute or a 5 minute warning.

♦ Tell them where you are going next and when. “We are going to finish plotting points in 2 minutes. You will need to get your book out so that we can look at the material on page 25.”

Two minutes here, three minutes there, three minutes an hour later, and the total minutes lost to slow transitions add up fast. I believe in explaining this to students, along with the math. Show them the minutes. Show them how quickly they can lose hours and even days. Learning various versions of the latte effect will help our students greatly as they get older and begin to buy their own lattes.

The Discrepancy Model is one model used to determine whether or not a student qualifies for special education services. In the past, this model was the gold standard, but other placement strategies have been allowed in the last few years. Many districts still use the Discrepancy Model, though, sometimes in conjunction with other intervention techniques. For readers who are not teachers, here’s a bit of explanation.

In the Discrepancy Model, trained personnel use a child’s IQ or another intelligence measure to determine how well that child should be performing academically. We measure how far a child has fallen behind his peers, with the interesting additional twist that if a child has a lower IQ or intelligence measure, then that child should be falling behind his peers. Under the Discrepancy Model, the discrepancy between a child’s IQ-adjusted age and academic performance must lag by one to two years in order for that child to qualify for special education.

I had a student tested for special education once whose IQ of 78 fell a full 22 points from the 100 point “average.” She did not qualify for services. My student struggled to write even simple words, and her math consisted of nearly random numbers much of the time, but her performance matched her measured IQ and she had missed the district special education low intelligence cut-off by three points.While normally a student must fall behind peers by a year or two in order to qualify for special education help, falling behind is not enough. My student was far behind most of her peers, but her IQ actually kept her out of special education. She was performing up to expectations for her measured intelligence.

Her homework arrived faithfully. She was perhaps my most reliable student. That homework was mostly wrong and sometimes so wrong that I could only be fascinated as I read through three pages of numbers without a discernable pattern.

Another school district’s policy might have resulted in a special education placement for my student, but different areas and districts have different policies depending upon their resources and location. My student remained part of the regular bilingual program. If she had not been lucky enough to qualify for bilingual services, she would have been on her own in a regular classroom, perhaps one of 28 or more math or language arts students, lost and confused as she tried to follow the new content introduced by her teachers.

Eduhonesty: My student’s best piece of luck: She ducked the Common Core. She graduated last year. She never had to take PARCC test. She attended almost all of her classes while flexibility still remained in the classroom.

One test does not fit all. One curriculum does not fit all. I taught that girl that “him” was not spelled “hem.” I don’t know how many times I taught her that. I taught her that “will” was not “well.” Over and over, I worked on words and ideas. I worked with her on adding fractions. She remained years behind her technical grade-level, but she was my student before the Core ruled all content. I was able to differentiate content as well as delivery back in that time. For the sake of all the students like my former student — who was a delight to teach despite the many repetitions required — I wish we could move back in time.

That plan from last year where the bilingual and special education department were required to give exactly the same tests and quizzes as the regular teachers? That plan was crazy. Many of my students last year failed quiz after quiz. When you are doing math at a third grade level, a Common Core-based test written by outsiders at a seventh grade level can only be a disaster. No other outcome is possible despite Field of Dreams rhetoric about not underestimating your students.

Eduhonesty: In the 1800s, when you finished the 3rd grade reader, you went on to the 4th grade reader. You learned math and English step by laborious step. I remain simply bemused by all these so-called educational experts who created the Core. How can they avoid understanding the simple truth that giant leaps in curricular expectations and demands create confusion rather than learning?