The names will be changed to protect the guilty.

I don’t know if Fred and Barney have a future in crime or not. On the one hand, their unshakable contention that they were in class is admirable and this steadiness will stand them well someday in the court system. They never waver. The Assistant Principal asks them. I ask. Other teachers ask. We always get the same answer.

On the other hand, the teacher’s class they skipped is a small group that works on the computers and records events on the computers. She’s a very alert women and they weren’t there for more than a week. They certainly weren’t in my class. It’s too small to hide in that crowd. I know they weren’t in the other bilingual teacher’s class. He’s a detail-oriented man. So where were they? Their story never changes. Fred’s mom just keeps smiling grimly through conferences, as if to say, “That’s him all right!”

The other kid’s aunt looked considerably more worried. She should be. Fred and Barney are excellent liars. If not for the missing digital footprint, that reading teacher might begin to doubt her own recollections.

Parent-teacher conferences were more exciting than usual. I was able to put my students’ PowerPoints up on the big, new Smart Board. The parents were so impressed. The kids were mostly very proud. Motivation to do the next computer project is high right now.

I teach. I believe that most teachers deserve a lot more support than they get. Having said that, I support more rigorous testing for those entering the teaching profession. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study of education in different countries by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In 2009, the U.S. scored 17th in reading, 23rd in science, and an abysmal 31st in mathematics. The causes for these pathetic results are many, but at least part of the problem is that we allow some people to teach who simply don’t know their material well enough.

I have sat in too many seminars with fellow educators and watched these people prepare posters for the wall as we all do our prescribed group activities. These are groups of teachers preparing materials for other teachers to view. The grammatical and spelling mistakes I see often make me wince. Admittedly, these seminars frequently include bilingual teachers whose first language is not English. But I am not talking about a mistaken preposition here or there — I am talking about incorrect spellings of words that are sometimes in the most commonly used 500 or 1,000 English words.

I actually quietly corrected a couple of mistakes last time, walking up to a poster and fixing a few words. One of the presenters looked at me oddly, but I simply could not keep still. Enough is enough. If you can’t spell, have a group member who can spell do the writing on your poster.

The scary part: I’m by no means sure that the teacher who prepared that poster knows she has problems with spelling. She passed her test to teach. Her Principal is probably ignoring her errors. Her elementary school students are probably learning her errors, memorizing whatever she writes on the board. Does she even know that that “absense” has a “c” in it? Or that “enviroment” has another “n” in it?  We all make mistakes, but I see far too many of them to believe that I am merely seeing absent-minded errors.

Sometimes there is too much negativity.

Let me observe that a New Smart Board has arrived in my classroom. Real technology! The Smart Board is an interactive whiteboard that is a combination white screen and computer, operating as part of a system that includes the board, my computer, a projector and some software. A projector displays the image from my computer on the interactive whiteboard. Students can use a special pen to provide touch input to solve problems and indicate answers.

This may prevent some of my secret sneaking into the computer lab. Friday was crazy as we finished projects there and I put them on flash drives. Someday perhaps some of our technology will actually PRINT, but one step at a time.

In the meantime, the new Smart Board takes up much of my two-toned back wall. They removed the bolted bookcase, which had been painted around, and the tiles below with the two-toned paint look a bit silly, but nobody is really looking. The students are quite intrigued by the new board. They will be amazed when they realize what it can do.

Also on the positive side: I have an absolutely awesome principal. I would follow him to Mars.

Kids are great. But some students definitely lack motivation, even if they have the energy to play video games for eight hours straight each night.

How can this be fixed? If the mystery of motivation could be solved, much of urban education might come together. The pundits in Washington ignore this facet of education, but motivation is bigger than any teacher, curriculum or set of standards.

Eduhonesty: You can set the standards anywhere you damn well please. It won’t matter it you can’t convince a student to actually do some work.

Treasure meditation is supposed to be 10 minutes of visualizing and experiencing my life after I have my greatest desires. My personal meditation includes no school and no students, interestingly enough. I go to empty ocean beaches, I go to a small lake nestled in fir-covered, green hills. I see myself holding a yard of beer in a crowded Irish pub. My consciousness avoids my school.

When it does enter the school hallways, it looks sadly at the fragmented, shattered staircase they just repaired. It’s worse now than it was, more dangerous than before. They fixed it less than a month ago but the gray tiles on the front of the risers are shattering, whether kicked by students or simply unable to bear the weight placed above them. The shards of tile are slipping hazards. I keep throwing them to the ground below for some custodian to spirit away.

Since I described the computer lab situation last year, perhaps I should throw in an update on the Computer Lab in 2012:

We now have spiffy laptops although no printer that works as yet. The computer lab has never been officially opened but I am going there anyway. So let’s say the lab opened in mid-March. People find me there and say, “Oh, is the computer lab open?”

I’m kind of amused to discover I don’t want to tell anyone that it’s open. Right now, the only people who are competing with me for the lab are the special education teachers who have their IEP (Individual Education Plan — the special program for students who need extra help) meetings there. I told one colleague who works near me. I can share the lab with him. I told a special education teacher. But mostly I’m keeping quiet.

For one thing, it’s cool in the lab. When the class goes above 85 degrees, that lab is a welcome refuge. As of this date in mid-March, the only student work saved on the disks in the downstairs lab comes from my classes. I don’t know what if anything is saved on the upstairs computers. We’re working downstairs because that was the only working lab on the day I started our PowerPoint projects. Since we are saving to specific machines, we’ll stay downstairs for now. I need to buy a flash drive so I can back-up student work.

The problem with this blog is that I approach it like I approach Facebook. I don’t want to put in personal truths because I wish to keep a light cyber-footprint. So I remain cloaked for the most part.

I have a lot of truths to tell and a lot of issues to get on the table. But I don’t want to lose my job. Contrary to what is often presented in the public, it’s absolutely possible to fire a teacher. It’s not as easy as it is in the private sector, but I have seen teachers fired.

It’s also possible to drive a teacher to quit. I watched as one long-time high school employee was moved to the middle school to teach material she hardly knew, then moved again into another subject in another room, isolated from the rest of the staff. She lasted out that year, but I never saw her again after that.

Eduhonesty: It’s difficult to fire a tenured teacher. Unions often can and do take care of their members.

Districts are more likely to drive unwanted teachers to quit and they have formidable powers at their disposal. That 3rd grade teacher who angered her Principal may suddenly find herself teaching 7th grade science in another building, if she has the endorsement, with a planning period at the tail end of the day and a sweltering room over the kitchen.