So, feeling "in the know" about this particular subject, I opted to stick my toe into the supremely shallow and very heavily policed waters over at what passes for black public intellectual output
over at the atlantic. It didn't take long for me to piss off the extremely partisan toddlers and get put in check. My question, did I "argue" in bad faith - as I was accused of doing by the hyperactive moderator Sandy - who also happens to profess to be a "master teacher" in various and sundry of the humanities and whose primary instrumentality is chalk?
In my estimation, the severe and excessive levels of thought policing that take place in the cathedral's "safe places" has nothing whatsoever to do with trolling, but are instead hallmarks of the profound discursive and political weakness of feminized progressive politics. Emotions prevail in these contexts, and if your position is unpopular - no matter how it's presented - you will be ostracized because they are incapable of a fact-based or reasoned counter-argument. You're either with us, or you're against us -
is.all.they've.got. This is why I believe nobody will step up and overcome the malicious narrative mischief being worked by Nicholas Wade and amplified by the Establishment.
I actually don't think tenure is the biggest issue, I think
supervision is. In most schools, the principal or other administrator
might only stop by a classroom 4 or 5 times a year, with maybe only two
of those being actual evaluations. What rarely happens: observation,
identification of issues teachers need help with (#1: classroom
management), and then sustained support until the issue is resolved.
Yes, there are bad teachers out there, but usually problems just fester
because no one knows about them or takes the time to fix them.
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Yes, and how many inner-city high administrators actually could
advise a French teacher, music teacher, art teacher, special education
teacher or an AP physics teacher effectively about how best to instruct
their students? All they can do is make sure the teacher is in the room
and the students are mostly paying attention and order is being
maintained.
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Bingo!!! Education is not rocket science. Take attendance, perform
instruction, issue grades. Supervise for consistency and quality in all
of the above. Simple.
Parental priorities in high-performing public school districts:
1. Safety
2. Children have fun in school
3. Children served good food that they enjoy.
4. Academics
5. College/Vocational preparation
In that order
If
you take care of the first three, four and five have a marvelous way of
taking care of themselves. The first three are of course bellweathers
of a competently managed school environment.
The invisible 800lb
gorilla that no one EVER explicitly articulates - is that the past three
generations of urban public school graduates / attendees - a majority
have had such an atrocious experience in school, such an abject failure
and deviation from priorities one through three - that they not only
have zero warm and fuzzy feelings about the enterprise, they actually
have a deeply imprinted and visceral aversion to contact with the school
of any kind.
These are generations whose compulsory attendance at
schools stripped of cultural enrichment and starved for resources at
the business-end of education delivery - was miserable. Their experience
was rendered miserable because bloated, overpaid, incompetent
administrations were engaged in various and sundry modes of parasitic
extraction and self-aggrandizement that had nothing whatsoever to do
with the needs and wants of their core constituents.
Until the
19th century education model is fully reformed (and it can't be due to
deeply conflicting institutional interests) and urban public schools are
remade predominantly safe, fun, and nourishing - then the problem of
failed performance will persist.
Off the top, somewhere between
50-70% of the existing teacher cadres have got to go. In addition,
10-12% of students who are irretrievably pre-jail and make life
miserable for the other kids, teachers, and school leadership - they've
also got to go. I believe they used to call it "reform" school.
Finally,
parents and grandparents have to be brought back into active communal
engagement with the institution despite the ill-will they may bear
toward it because of their own miserable experiences therein. Cultural
enrichment activities are the path down which this bridge and community
rebuilding can be achieved. Again, those programs require reallocation
of resources away from the central office and out to the locations where
education and community are delivered.
The political will and
audacity to effect these kinds of institutional changes is not present
in sufficient quantity to make anything like this happen anywhere in the
U.S.
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Yes, firing 50-70% of people who do the work is clearly the place to
start if we want to improve education outcomes. Why didn't I think of
that?
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Teachers get certified at the age of 21-22, and don't have to update
that at regular intervals like most professionals. Consequently, we have
48 year old teachers who haven't updated their pedagogical methods
since prior to the advent of the world wide web, facing kids with Googol
in their pockets and the answer to nearly any question those kids want
to pose. It's a grotesque understatement to call such an obsolete and
out of touch skill set "doing the work". More like "occupying the
position", "waiting on a pension" and "categorically failing to manage
the classroom".
There's a reason that kids don't want to listen to these out of date and irrelevant throwbacks.
It varies by state, but even in backwater Alaska teachers have to
take a couple credits of continuing education courses every year to
maintain their credentials. The courses general cover new pedagogical
methods and is not dissimilar from what lawyers and other professionals
with a certificate do.
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None of what you've posted contradicts the comment you are responding
to - nor does it support your generalization that teachers aren't
motivated and often required to update their credentials.
You are simply not arguing in good faith. Don't post again.
I'm not at all sure you know what your are talking about. I doubt
that anyone has taught a quarter of a century without "updating" their
pedagogical methods - at least not in any major school district.
Teachers have been forced to cope with and adapt to curriculum changes.
And I don't believe that their resistance is always because they are
incompetent, but might be because they have experience that outside
consultants and "reformers" don't value.
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I've watched it first hand for five years now and have been
absolutely shocked and appalled at the lack of professional development,
the lack of self-motivated continuing education, and the profound lack
of basic operational technology skills. Technology is now a primary
content and curriculum delivery modality in the classroom, part and
parcel of what you do to boost both individual and collaborative student
engagement - but an overwhelming percentage of teachers are technology
illiterate.
Concrete examples; in the large urban district it's
been my privilege to observe, we rolled out a new student information
system. Fewer than 15% of teachers participated in mandatory training
for the SIS - with the consequent failures of basic data entry in the
non rocket science aspects of school business, i.e., entering attendance
and issuing grades.
So also for training in the use of the
short-throw projector systems and blue-tooth pens and controls for using
these systems to interactively display their lessons.
Finally,
the actual computer classes for children have suffered from a 9 year old
pathetic excuse for a curriculum focused on "digital citizenship"
rather than actual functional skills.
On their own, the children
tend to be exponentially more technology literate and technology aware
than the adults purported to function as their instructors.
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I don't believe that your experience with issues like short throw
projectors comes close to supporting the suggestion that 2/3 or so of
teachers are incompetent and should be terminated. Sorry. You come off
like a wack job full of extreme opinions based on a pocket full of
anecdotes.
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lol, the writing on the wall has you petrified. That's a very good thing indeed!
6 comments:
hilarious
lol, I was sincerely getting worried about you magne. All this red meat I'd put up here for your delectation. Now I know exactly where you've been and what you've been up to. BD, is that Wade jawnt still readable? Or, are all the pages firmly stuck together? I'm surprised you didn't place a bottle of lotion and a box of tissues in this still life you took the time to carefully arrange and photograph...,
I can't even tell what subject he is talking about.
How can a "professional commentator" like Bomani Jones exposed what plaintiffs, lawyers, ex-girlfriends and NBA professionals already fought on the front line? You are mis-attributing who done the ass-kicking to the writers of history instead of the actual actors who personally went against the NBA, NAACP and Donald Sterling.
I guess I'm more confused at your desire to name-drop Bonami daddy and attribute heroism to a Black pundit you see on the mainstream media - sounds like a case of being starstruck and little snobby socialite for the Black power movement who know the difference between who puts in work and who puts themselves in front of a camera...
Why don’t you just admit Bro. Dunn that you have no documentation to validate your claim that Bomani (not Bonami) got his ass handed to him, in the context of the Wade discussion, by Rainbow/PUSH, of all groups. Loose lips sink ships, and you’re sunk on that point.
Bro. Jones first exposed Tokowitz Sterling’s institutionalized white supremacy back in 2006.
[Sterling was sued for housing discrimination by 19 plaintiffs in 2003, according to The Associated Press. In this case, Sterling was accused of trying to drive blacks and Latinos out of buildings he owned in Koreatown. In November, Sterling was ordered to pay a massive settlement in that case. Terms were not disclosed, but the presiding judge said this was "one of the largest" settlements ever in this sort of matter. The tip of the iceberg: Sterling had to play $5 million just for the plaintiffs' attorney fees.
And the coup de grace? Neither that case, nor the more recent one, has qualified as big news.]
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=jones/060810
As a journalist Bro. Jones did his job. It was ignored by the MSM and the NBA. I’m not sure what NBA professionals you are referring to (Elgin Baylor?), because the NBA establishment is just as guilty as Tokowitz Sterling, particularly David Stern.
“White-supremacy culture is created, maintained and run by rich white men, Sterling's peers. He is the longest-tenured owner in the NBA. Former commissioner David Stern had multiple opportunities to run Sterling out of the league for his bigoted actions. Sterling's peers have always protected him ... until he had the audacity and stupidity to be caught on tape explaining the culture they maintain.” -- Jason Whitlock
While the MSM, NBA, and Sharpton, et al, jumped on the bandwagon to condemn Tokowitz Sterling’s sensationalized comments, it was Bro. Bomani Jones who focused attention where it belonged, on institutionalized white supremacy. Obviously, Ed Dunn, who cannot document a loose statement, does not want to give Bro. Jones credit for his contribution.
cannot discern the difference between who puts in work and who puts themselves in front of a camera...
cannot discern the difference between who puts in work and who puts themselves in front of a camera...
cannot discern the difference between who puts in work and who puts themselves in front of a camera...
accept no substitutes.....,
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