So I'm a Mom AND a Teacher

We've moved to Texas thanks to Uncle Sam, and our eighth grade daughter's first day of school has made quite an impression on her.

She was picked up late by the bus (the driver of which either drove the route incorrectly or followed a pick-up schedule that was changed by the school without notifying parents), which was completely full, three kids per seat. She got to school and dealt with the inevitable "we're a no-nonsense school" attitude from each of her teachers (this is a middle school that had serious "troubles" three years ago, to include drugs, gang violence, etc)... found out that there are six whopping people in band, and she's one of only two girls in it. When she told her English teacher that no, there were no "Mead Composition notebooks" in stores anywhere (yes, we looked at Target, K-Mart, Walmart, and Office Max on BOTH sides of town) her teacher's response was "well, you will get some." Ah, how pleasant. There were so many ticked off parents at the PX and Target today after school because many of their children brought home additional school supply lists from individual teachers after many of us thought the list we had been given at orientation had been rather.... comprehensive. Our daughter brought home TWO additional supply lists, and then gave me the papers she was dreading, the "these are my rules, don't break 'em 'cause these are the heavy duty consequences" notes from teachers who wanted parent signatures on them. I had to correct the note from the English teacher because the grammar she used fell short of "meeting" MY "standards" (remember folks, I'm a kindergarten teacher).

All this after yesterday's El Paso newspaper crowed on and on about the 35-45% of teacher new hires this year that DO NOT HAVE TEACHING DEGREES. They did the quickie "teacher certification" through an "alternative certification program." So bankers, engineers, etc. are now teaching fourth graders. First graders. Kindergartners. High school kids. And I, as a teacher with a degree in Elementary Education, with twelve years teaching experience, and four state teaching licenses, have not been hired. Because I cost 7,000-10,000$ MORE to hire than these "new alternate certification" teachers do. And the main reason the alternate program teachers WANTED to take "substantial pay cuts" by quitting their original vocations to become teachers? SO THEY'D HAVE SUMMERS OFF.

What teacher told any of them they'd get their summers "off?" My Lord. And I'm guessing you wouldn't let a kindergarten teacher who changed her mind and decided she'd "try her hand at being a surgical doctor" into her own practice after obtaining quickie medical licensure in a year-and-a-half's time!

So our girl questioned us as to why all she and the other students heard today were the lists of punitive actions that would be taken against students for infractions such as: being tardy ONCE, "challenging teachers' authority," and not having the exact notebook paper a teacher requested. Apparently many of the teachers at her school have been told that if they yell and appear serious and hard-assed, they have AUTHORITY and will be given RESPECT. Our daughter is *not* a problem child. She aces all of her classes and is a whiz at math. She enjoys humor, kindness, silliness. In short, she's a young girl. More child than woman. And I guess she's outnumbered. She has always had favorite teachers. Favorite subjects. Favorite pieces of music to play. Hobbies, giggles, and still likes Disney pre-teen shows. Up until this year, she has always ENJOYED school. ENJOYED learning. ENJOYED building relationships with those who have helped her on this trek so far. Now she is under the impression that teachers here don't care, don't want to care, and just expect compliance. I'm hoping this will not be a long year.

All this from the school district that has produced seniors in high school (that I have personally assessed during my brief stint at the learning center) that don't know how the prefixes "uni, bi, and tri" change words. Seriously.

We don't want to be stationed here after the SGM Academy is over. And we will certainly not be retiring here.

Personality Personalities

It's been a week of social interactions, transitions, and personality profiles, inventories, and surveys for our family. I've quit a job NOT because of negative people, lousy pay, or odd hours, but because of my own personality quirks... My husband and I have been continuing the social transition of meeting new people (as have our children), spending time with them outside of the required Army situations but only because we've met them thanks to the Army... and for homework my husband "got" to take personality profile tests, one after the other, assessing his personality "type" when working with others. Of course I took the tests too, I was curious!

First I completed the Jenkins Activity Survey: This survey (JAS) "was developed in an attempt to duplicate the clinical assessment of the Type A behavior pattern by employing an objective psychometric procedure. Individuals displaying a Type A behavior pattern are characterized by extremes of competitiveness, striving for achievement and personal recognition, aggressiveness, haste, impatience, explosiveness and loudness in speech, characteristics which the JAS attempts to measure."

One of the benefits of the Type A behavior pattern is the "work work work, get it done, get it done, get it done" aspect. Type A people get more things done in a given period of time, and the social approval that results from accomplishing so much supprts a person's urge to hold on to the Type A behavior. But Type A's also experience negative aspects of their behavior. Close relationships usually aren't built on hard-driving, competitive, aggressive and hostile interactions, so many Type A's admit to having few if any, close friends.

And how did I score? The JAS ranks behavior by four scales each offering percentile marks. The higher the percentile score, the higher degree of Type A behavior exhibited. In the Type A Scale, I fell in the upper average range, while my husband blew it off the chart. In the Speed and Impatience Scale, I again scored in the upper average range for Type A behavior (my darling man scored in the highest percentile again), in the Job Involvement Scale I scored in the highest average category you can reach before having one's score considered "well ABOVE AVERAGE," and in my Hard Driving and Competitive Scale I scored in the middle average range, my "lowest" Type A score. SO... I try to do more than others in less time (true), I set high, sometimes rigid standards and I pride myself on performing well and achieving (true), I do not "feel content or satisfied very often" (false), and can at times be "aggressive and easy to irritate." NO COMMENT! Ha!

I took the KOLB Learning Style Inventory to find out what type of learner I am. Here's the big fancy description if you're interested "thanks to Zanich, 1991" (and apologies, my "link" button isn't available: http://www.coe.iup.edu/rjl/instruction/cm150/selfinterpretation/kolb.htm

I scored highest in AE, Abstract Experimentation ("doing"), then AC, Abstract Conceptualization (thinking). Moving down the list I scored 31 in RO, Reflective Observation (reflecting), and the learning mode I rely on the LEAST is CO, Concrete Experience (Experiencing). Weird classifications, huh? According to the KOLB, "A high score on Active Experimentation indicates an active, "doing" orientation to learning that relies heavily on experimentation. High AE individuals learn best when they can engage in such things as projects, homework, or small group discussions. They dislike passive learning situation such as lectures. These individuals tend to be extroverts." I CAN HEAR JESSICA LAUGHING ALL THE WAY IN KANSAS AS SHE READS THIS!

My learning style could be found in one of four classifications after the AE, AC, RO, and CO scores: Accomodating, Converging, Diverging, or Assimilating. What's funny is that while I scored as a Converging Learner, I often choose to behave as a Diverging Learner! A Convergent Learner's "knowledge is organized in such a way that through hypothetical-deductive reasoning this person can focus it on specific problems. Research on this style of learning shows that Converger's are relatively unemotional, preferring to deal with things rather than people. They tend to have narrow technical interests, and choose to specialize in the physical sciences. This learning style is characteristic of many engineers." Hmmm.... okay, I'm a teacher. While a Divergent Learner "has the opposite learning strengths of the converger, I find myself often CHOOSING to look at situations and new information as one. This person is best at Concrete Experience (CE) and Reflective Observation (RO). This person's greatest strength lies in imaginative ability. This person excels in the ability to view concrete situations from many perspectives. We have labled this style Diverger because a person with this style performs better in situations that call for generation of ideas such as a "brainstorming" idea session. Research shows that Divergers are interested in people and tend to be imaginative and emotional. They have broad cultural interests and tend to specialize in the arts. This style is characteristic of individuals from humanities and liberal arts backgrounds. Counselors, organization development specialists and personnel managers tend to be characterized by this learning style."

Maybe I'm just flattering myself. Finally, the simplest self-assessment of all was found online, at the Personality Test Center, http://www.personalitytest.net/types/index.htm (where is that link button?!?!?)

I could have been a "journalist," "field marshall" or even an "inventor," but scored as a CONSERVATOR ("ISFJ"): "These people are service and work oriented - very loyal. They may suffer from fatigue and tend to be attracted to troublemakers. They are good nurses, teachers, secretaries, general practitioners, librarians, middle managers, and housekeepers. 6% of the total population."

Teacher? Check. Librarian? Check (okay, years ago). Housekeeper? Check. Am I attracted to troublemakers? Nope, just "Type A" MP Army-Harley-riding types, *wink*.

Take the Personality Test and report back, IF YOU DARE!

Getting back into the teaching mode...

Getting back into the mode...
I've moved, unpacked, settled, and explored, and after once again having the time and inclination to visit the blogs and websites of teachers I admire, I feel myself getting back into the teaching mode.

After visiting Doug's blog Borderland, I read Shauna's latest blog entry concerning her apprehension with her son starting preschool. I visited the Sylvan Learning Center website, entertaining the possibility of shaking up my own professional development paradigm by working at one of the centers this school year, and then checked out an article at NEA Today that had some fascinating responses to the question: what does the future hold for public education?

After 1) reading the responses, so many of them reaffirming my own opinions on the politics of education versus the reality of education, 2) being reminded of parental concerns thanks to Shauna's thoughts, 3) perusing a website where education really is a business, and 4) hearing Doug's teacher-thoughts echoing in my mind, I tried to determine where my own personal interest and focus falls each July or August as I prepare to meet another group of young learners. With the boost of an afternoon cup of coffee, my mind came up with a question instead of an answer:

Is a child's/student's intrinsic motivation to explore, learn, risk, and try being damaged or otherwise thwarted by the poor teaching practices of parents, teachers, and other education "professionals" as a partial result of NCLB's Test, Test, Test, Punish, Punish, Punish design?

Without gory details or my usual ramblings and recounting of classroom horror stories, I would have to respond, "yes, very often." It's a question I'll be trying to answer with more precise responses over time in the future, since I've been feeling for the last few years that I've been a good teacher in spite of NCLB, and not because of it. Until then, I'll share some quotes from notable responders to the NEA inquiry (while wishing that there had been some responses from "plain ol' parents" too):

Deborah Meier
Education Activist and Author "We will see a return to celebrating childhood, enjoying those immensely useful childlike qualities instead of squashing them. Instead of making 3-year-olds do "academic" worksheets, I imagine K–12th grade will look more like the kinder (children's) gardens of yesteryear, with everyone involved in serious activities. Playfulness, after all, is at the core of what strong intellectual work is all about."

Alfie Kohn
Author "When I ask teachers what their long-term goals are for students, one response I hear almost everywhere is "lifelong learner." It's not just that we want them to know certain things but that we want them to keep wanting to know, not just that they're able to read but that they do read . . . and think, and question.

If we took this objective seriously, every educational practice and policy – from whether to assign homework to how to assess learning, from the size of classes and schools to the length of school days and years – would be evaluated primarily on the basis of how it affected kids' excitement about ideas. Higher achievement (let alone higher test scores) would never constitute a sufficient basis for doing something. If a proposal might well turn students off to a given topic, let alone to intellectual inquiry itself, it wouldn't stand a chance. And of course intrinsic motivation to learn would be the principal outcome variable used by educational researchers.

I believe that schools should and can make student interest their primary criterion, but I can't say whether they will. The likelihood of this transformation will depend on how willing we are to align our practices with our goals."

Linda Christensen
Educator/Rethinking Schools "Education is at a dangerous crossroads. While the federal government urges schools to close the achievement gap and work for equity, it endorses programs that teach compliance and rote answers. School districts write mission statements about creating citizens of the world, but more and more, they turn teachers into robotic hands to deliver education programs designed and shipped from sites outside of our classrooms.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has pushed administrators to grab quick solutions to get a fast bump in their test scores. Instead of taking the time to build teacher capacity to improve instruction or creating schools as learning communities, more administrators opt for "boxed" professional development— from fill-in-the-blank writing curricula to stick-the-kid-on-the-computer reading and math programs.

But against this tide of top-down reform, a counter movement of resistance is surfacing. Many teachers are insisting that the real world must be at the heart of the curriculum, inspiring students to acquire the academic skills that help them understand self and society.

My vision for the future of education is that as teachers, as union members, we have the nerve, the audacity to struggle to nurture a curriculum that simultaneously responds to urgent social demands as well as the academic needs of our students."

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In my mind, everyplace is a school or classroom. We'll see how it goes this year.