Discipline in an Age of Educational Deformity

I've taught in two high-school schools in my career.  The first was notably tougher.  When I got transferred to a better school, I suddenly became a more effective disciplinarian.  When you ask kids to sit down and they actually do, it sure helps.  I also suddenly became a more effective teacher!  When you ask kids to study and most actually do, it sure helps.  When you put together the ability to sit down, focus and study, you're golden!  Put that in your multiple "digressions" analysis and process it!

But, no matter where you work, as a veteran teacher, I can recommend a few things for this era of educational deformity:

1.  Don't raise your voice.   Whatever you do, never scream out, "Stop!  The Core is killing me.  Your test scores are my last, best hope!"  Your pained face will not make a pretty picture.

If you yell at students, doubtless, you will not be the first.  You will join a long line of people who have yelled at them in their young lives--and you will be at the end of it, worse off than #151!  Now, you are nothing special:  One more loud voice which hasn't done anyone much good.  Humor, laughing with them, not against them, seems to go much further.  

And, never forget, once you have raised your voice, students will raise their voices--higher and higher.  Thus, begins a war of escalation.  Students will have you beat in so many ways, outnumbered thirty-four to one.  What were you thinking?

2.  Respecting students goes much further.  If you respect students, you gain allies.  NYS will not respect them.  They are branded a generation of Common-Cored failures--mainly because of you.  Secretary Duncan will not respect them.  They are the failing masses, coddled by parents, devoid of that glorious savior of humanity called "grit."  If you make them feel more than a test score, you have the D.o.E. beat at most every level!  You have taken the high ground!

The respect you give students will only return to you many times over.  If your crowd turns rowdy, perhaps overwhelmed with enthusiasm for a particularly highly-effective question of yours, one classmate from its ranks will rise to silence the rest.  Sometimes, it will be done in less than polite terms.  You mustn't show any signs of approval then.  You must resist adding that plus ten!  Bite your lip, if necessary.  Keep frowns constantly in reserve.  

3.  Calls home make a difference.  Although so many parents work, most will have a cellphone.  It will take messages, the good, the bad and the ugly.  It is most useful when you find parents willing to strip their children of privileges.  This proves particularly threatening in terms of the potential restriction of access to modern technology!  In some cases, however, the parent faces the same conundrum as you.  Nothing seems to work.  In other cases, the parent may have no home, no phone and no desire or ability to talk to you.  Good luck to you then!  Your VAM scores will not be very forgiving.  Don't worry it's all "science."  And, "science" never discriminates!

Never forget that, as the former State Commissioner once seemed to indicate, parents are motivated primarily by "special interests."  The "special interests" aren't so much well-endowed lobbyists as their own children.  If you show you care enough to call, and not just about the bad stuff, you may be able to build a team bent on helping a kid.  It doesn't always work, but it, at least, shows you care, strengthens the chances of success and gives you a sense of solidarity.  Call in the guidance, deans, psychologists, as needed.  They are there to help people.  

4.  Last, but definitely not least, in terms of discipline, preventative measures go the furthest.  Here is one suggestion.  Students stay on task better when they enjoy the task at hand and when they understand it.  If students are bored out of their wits or lack basic skills, they are more likely to disrupt the class.  

Sorry about the Core.  There's not much any of us can do about it.  It only exacerbates discipline problems.  Kids tune out of test prep.  Who wants to feel pressured to complete hundreds of problems in a race against time?  Who wants to Race to the Top of someone else's idea of "The Top"?  Who wants to break a simple problem down into multiple components?  Who wants to read manuals?  Who wants to dissect works of literature until the last ounce of enjoyment has been sucked out of it?   School and growing up are tough enough, as is.  Students, more than ever, may want to stand up and just scream!  You must be the example though.  If you must scream, be sure to go in the hallway and shut the door first!

Lifting NYC's Phone Ban

The City will lift its ban on cellphones come March.  Schools will need to formulate policies to regulate their usage.  For parents and students at schools with metal detectors, this probably was a long time in coming.  It will even the playing field.  No longer will so many students be forced to pay daily sums to shop owners to store their phones for them.

Although phones were outlawed at my school, in the absence of metal detectors, most students had them in tote.  The unwritten rule was to conceal them and no one will know.  In the early years of this new technology, I confiscated misused phones and deposited them in the Dean's Office.  Repeat offenders could not receive their phones back until a parent came up to the school.  Poof!  So much of the social life of a teenager was gone just like that!  Word spread like wildfire.  Better not risk it.   

After returning from a child-care leave, I was gently taken aside and told that teachers can no longer take phones.  They must call for a dean.  The dean would either confiscate the phone or talk sternly to the kid.  Since I, myself, have been blessed with the power to talk sternly, I handle situations myself.    

Even when phones were not permitted in our school, they still managed to be stolen.  Teachers even had phones stolen.  Everyone is advised to guard his property.  For purposes of statistics (and we all know statistics never lie), disappearing phones are counted as lost, not stolen.  Someone's loss, however, is often another person's gain. Since phones aren't supposed to be in schools, students had to grit their teeth and bear the loss.  Some cried.  

So how, if at all, might the new policy change things?  It remains to be seen.  Will stolen phones be investigated?  Will the number of phones stolen, or, should I say, "lost" skyrocket?  Will students begin to bring a host of other devices to schools?  Will they try to be hooked up to one thing or another underneath a hood?  If teachers or deans confiscate phones will they be liable if the property is subsequently "lost" or stolen?  What if the dean's office is raided and all the phones in its possession are robbed?

One thing for sure:  Teachers will have to be "highly effective" in monitoring students.  For many schools, this may be an awakening.  They will learn how the giant pocketbooks provide near-perfect camouflage netting for phones.  Boys may turn their attentions to a wool hat on their desk.  Teachers will soon learn the magic that can be worked by dexterous, young fingers beneath a desk.  They will learn to note the tell-tale signs of glowing pockets in dark corners.  Students will claim to use phones as mirrors,  calculators and clocks.  There may be frequent calls from Grandma.  "My Grandma, what a long call you have!"




The phone has great potential to disrupt education.  Oops!  There go some more VAM scores!  Kids will attempt to text at the wrong times.  They will establish rendezvous points and then ask for the pass.  Regretfully, as well as social calls, there will be drug deals and other unsavory business transacted.  Students will have gained a great tool for cheating.  One kid can surreptitiously click a photo of his answer sheet and instantaneously forward it to friends and family.  How many students will have a bathroom emergency at the exact time they must write an essay response for their test?  Google Chrome may be only a flush away.  Phones may enhance bullying.

Phones are not completely evil, however.  Most students will listen to reason and put it away.  Most students do not want their parent called.  Most parents do not want their child's phone interfering with school.  Whether we confiscate misused phones or not, the threat of doing so can put a major damper on a student's day.  Hopefully, schools will confiscate misused phones--when all else fails.  Doubtless, there will be plenty more contracts to sign about phone policies and liabilities.

If I was the parent of a teenager, I would want my kid to have a phone.  My kid would, doubtless, want it, too, but for reasons completely different from my own.  As a teacher, you may want students to have phones despite the need for constant vigilance.  When you want to Google a fact or find additional information, the kids' phones are entirely handy.  Their internet speed puts the school to shame.  And, I won't even mention the dexterity of young hands on the device.  It might frighten you!

Vive Voltaire! Vive Free Speech!

Each year, I spend a day with my tenth graders examining some quotes from Voltaire.  It is part of a unit on the Enlightenment.  His most famous quote reads, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."    

Of course, Voltaire lived in a time and place without the luxury of free speech.  He repeatedly faced exile and imprisonment.  He understood the price for his boldness:  "It is dangerous to be right on matters on which the established authorities are wrong."

Let me conclude here with a final quote from Voltaire.  "God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give the gift of living well."  If we are to live well, we must not be afraid to speak our minds.  It is the reasoning behind our country.  It is the reason many of our ancestors ended up here.  Only by allowing all ideas to freely compete will some rise to the top and others sink to the bottom.  The minute a government or individual blocks this free competition, it is a tell-tale sign.

Vive Voltaire!  Vive Charlie Hebdo!  Vive Liberte D'Expression!

On Common-Core Aligning Ourselves with Cra-Z-Knitz

 

Prior to Christmas, my daughter saw a commercial advertising the above product.  She, in fact, saw the commercial many times.  It must have been highly effective because each and every time she saw it, she called me in to see it.  And, each and every time I arrived too late. It's all in the timing.

When she saw Santa Claus, he, of course, being who he is, asked her what she wanted for Christmas.  Cra-z-knitz, of course!  Santa doesn't need to see commercials.  He just knows.  As chance would have it, she unexpectedly saw Santa a second time at a different venue.  And, of course, still being who he has always been, he asked her again what she wanted for Christmas.  Cra-z-knitz, of course!

Surprise of surprise, Cra-z-knitz arrived on Christmas morning.  I thought she might get two, but it was just one.  And ever since then, I have been wondering if Cra-z-knitz is Common-Core aligned.  First, we puzzled through the instructions together.  Manuals or informational texts do seem to be the preferred genre of the  Core--although I, personally, do not willfully read such stuff for pleasure.  Do you?



Yet, I read it, and duly noted each and every "Note" to the reader, only to better ensure my daughter's long-term enjoyment of Santa's gift.  Then, I reread parts and puzzled over a few pictures. Still, at some points, ambiguity reigned supreme.  Yet, we went for it, realizing that in the worst case scenario we might just pull out the yarn and start all over again.  In other ways, we do this repeatedly in life.  It would be little more than a metaphor and a minor inconvenience.  

It turned out we were actually producing a knitted scarf.  The amazement was equaled only by relief.  As the scarf grows longer, I increasingly wonder if I might not have just given my daughter a pair of knitting needles and a ball of yarn.  I could teach her to knit.  The basic stitches are not complicated.  Cra-z-knitz actually seems to take the simple process of knitting and break it into many more steps.  Although each step might be simple in itself, when put together, the whole thing seems overly time-consuming and complicated.  In this way, it reminds me of Common-Core math.  

Off hand, I would think anyone who could master that machine and its instructions could probably master a pair of knitting needles, but I might be wrong.  I know one thing for sure though:  The old-fashioned way is so much cheaper and more easily portable.  The more I think about it, the more I'm guessing Cra-z-knitz aligns in some key ways to the Kra-z-Kore!  Both are certainly well advertised.  Where might they differ?:  The end products of Cra-z-knitz promise to be tangible and intensely practical with winter upon us.  I'm not sure I can say the same about the Core.  Binding off for now...

Can You Teach a Child Creativity?

Here is the scene a few hours before midnight.

At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, I was wowed by my ten-year-old daughter's imagination.  She rigged a shiny, small silver ball made out of tin foil to a string above our TV set and lowered it from our ceiling, ensuring with great precision that it would land at the first stroke of the New Year.  It's funny.  Our TV was tuned to the New Year's show.  Yet, we never saw the Times Square ball drop.  We're not even sure there was one.  We were too rapt up in watching my daughter's little silver ball drop.

My daughter used the computer to map out and save her plans for our New Year's Eve Ball Drop

Children are naturally creative, some more so than others.  As they mature, that same creativity may either thrive and grow or wither away.  Why is this so?  Education has so much to do with it.  The U.S., hitherto, has been known for the creativity inspired by its educational system and its democracy.  Now, that same creativity seems threatened.  

I once had two very bright students in the same honors class, competing against each other for the highest grades.  They both were near perfect.  One could memorize every relevant fact and spit it back, as necessary.  Whereas one student could not move easily past rote memorization, the other student could use her imagination to make connections in new ways.  Both girls were super.  But one might be better able to deal with the unexpected and solve problems with creativity.  One may follow orders better.  The other will more than likely weigh and evaluate orders and, perhaps, offer some suggestions to improve them.

There are ways to promote creativity and ways to sap it.  I hope my daughter's imagination never shrivels up.  I know, given an education system increasingly geared towards measuring schools by high-stakes tests, creativity might easily fall by the wayside.  The system is geared to ensure test preparation takes precedence.

When I see Common Core emphasize reading informational texts and manuals over books that might better awaken the imagination, I know creativity is sapped.  When I hear art and music programs across the country are cut, I know someone is failing to understand that America could never have been built upon testing or the prep for it.  America was built upon ingenuity.  With diverse sets of ideas from around the world blending together upon a ground made fertile by opportunity and freedom, creativity and toleration of differences are our most valuable assets.  Let's not wage war on them.  

On Returning to Work...

Yesterday, several teachers were lamenting how they slept like babies all vacation long, but the night before returning to work, they were awake all night.  They slept hardly a wink. 

In my case, I often wonder on the eve of returning if I still remember how to teach?  Will I actually remember one-hundred and seventy names?  Might I have grown rusty in the interim?  What about all that content? These feelings are most pronounced in September when I additionally ask myself:  Will I have a nice bunch of kids or will they attempt to eat me alive? 

With each passing year, every time I return to work, including yesterday, I find teaching, content, questioning skills and one-hundred and seventy names come back to me even better than riding a bike.  And, every year, when I step back into that classroom, I know I belong there.  I've grown accustomed to its face.  It almost makes the day begin.  Like breathing out and breathing in...

So, I am pleasantly surprised how smoothly things go and how lucky I am to teach some really great kids.  Every day is not a diamond, but with each passing year, I wonder how I got so lucky and if I might possibly teach some of the best kids this side of heaven.  And every year, I confirm to myself and my students as I look around my school that these current "reformers" who would brand so many teachers as degenerates know so very little about the value of public education.  

A New Generation of Teacher Thank-You Cards?

In a recent post entitled, "What NYC Teachers Do Every Day," I  presented some samples of cards and thank you notes received from students between 1994-2004.  The value students place upon their own education differs so markedly from the value-added model.  It isn't even funny.

From the Daily News, December 18, 2014
Can't Be the Test or Its Cut Score, Right?
Must Be the Stupid Teachers!  Better Fire Them All!

Given the attitudes and philosophies underlying the current ed. "reform" movement, can you imagine the next generation of teacher thank you cards when the schoolyard bullies rule?  Here's one I propose:

But on a happier note--because there always is at least one:  In the past week, I dug through some additional stacks of paper.  Here is one of several more recent examples of student notes, proving that happiness still smiles through the last two years of educational deformity.  

The letter below was put in my mailbox by a soft-spoken Tibetan student who sat in the back of my very large ninth-grade global-history class, 2013-2014.  I often called on her, encouraging her to project her voice a little more.  And, still, I never strained so hard to hear someone's ideas.  She volunteered for an extra project.  She brought her dramyin to class one day and demonstrated how to play it as part of a presentation on the culture of Tibet.  The world comes to meet me at my school.  It is one of the reasons I love my school.  It is one of the reasons I keep growing as a teacher.  It is one of the reasons I return to teach.

p.s.  I am by no means the "coolest teacher ever."  But it only goes to show that no matter where you teach, and whether your clientele be students, your children, a sibling or a pet, there is probably some soul somewhere convinced that you are the "coolest teacher ever"!  And when the evaluation comes to you direct from the heart of someone whom you respect, it is so much more meaningful than a VAM score!  Put that in your thoughts and think it, as you return to work today!

Students Are Not Mere Statistics: The Story of Student #41

In order to preserve privacy, I will not use real names.  So, let me call this Student, #41, in honor of Ben Hur's position at the Roman oars.  Student #41 came to my class several years back.  He came in the middle of the year.  This is not uncommon in New York City.  It is probably not uncommon in many places today.  Parents move.  Families immigrate or migrate.  Kids deal with the changes as best they can.

Student #41 turned out to be different from all other cases with which I had previous experience.  A sealed letter turned up one afternoon in my mailbox, informing me of the unusual situation of Student #41.  The letter was written in the vaguest terms.  Basically, I was asked to visit our AP Guidance for further details.  I, of course, did so.

Student #41 transferred to our school from across the City.  Student #41 was the sole survivor in his family of his father's psychotic rampage.  I later learned that Student #41 had been away when his father decapitated his mother and sibling. Student #41 found his family members in bags in the closet.  

Still, Student #41 showed up to class as a mild-mannered young man.  He sat in the front row of my class.  He looked no different from any other student, only his leg kept swinging back and forth like a metronome.  I knew Student #41 would be getting a lot of psychological help outside of the classroom.  I knew he had a supportive and loving member of his extended family who took him in as they both faced this tragedy together.

Still, I knew as a history teacher, if I was not careful, I might very well say the wrong thing.  I don't think I felt as much stress any year in the classroom as I felt then, despite all the observations and media abuse showered upon teachers today.  I was consciously and subconsciously worried that I might not only say the wrong thing, but that I might fail to say the right things.

To begin with, I counted myself lucky that this student joined our class after the unit on the French Revolution.  I don't know how I would have dealt with the Reign of Terror.  Thank goodness for small blessings.

Student #41 quickly fit into the structure of group work in class.  I am sure that nobody around him would have ever guessed the issues with which he was dealing.  If they had known, I know they would have been loving though.  I look at the students around me every year and I know many must battle their own inner storms.  

Can you imagine how many kids across the City must face homelessness, hunger, neighborhood violence and drugs, serious parental illness or even death, pregnancy, prostitution, etc.?  And, yet, "reformers" are more concerned about Common-Core-aligning these kids and taking down their teachers.  Strange days, indeed!

When we came to WWII and the Holocaust in Student 41's class, I decided to teach it in a new way.  I changed the focus from the destruction wrought to how survivor's deal with the ruins around them.  I had a book written by a former student's grandmother called I Will Survive.  I searched for other stories of survivors.  I wove them together.  In that and other ways that year.  I attempted to focus not so much upon tragedy as upon how survivors rebuild their lives and the different paths they find to move forward. 

I don't remember Student #41's score on the Regents.  I remember he did well though.  I will never know the thoughts passing through his head, but I appreciated that I must deal with historical content that year with the greatest care.  I don't know the quality of the job I managed, but I tried my best.  I am a teacher, but I am also a mother and a sympathetic human being.  The depth of Student 41's success won't show up in any test score.  But, you know what, Student #41 is not a statistic in any sense of the word.  Student #41 is a survivor.   I was glad I was given the opportunity to try to be his teacher.  

On Recipes for Ed. Reform and the Kitchen

If you had a recipe for ed. "reform," what ingredients might you include?  How many cups of teacher demoralization and junk science would you use?  How many tablespoons of charter schools would you substitute  for nonprofit public schools?  How much sugar would you cut?  How much arsenic would you add?

Many years back, I had the luxury to examine decades of Better Homes and Gardens, 1920s-1960s.  You can learn much about the past by comparing what is shown against what is not shown in the glossy pages of magazines.    

Here, however, I am focusing on recipes in celebration of a New Year.  Just as art and music are the eyes to the soul of an era, recipes can also tell us much.  Plus, some are in good taste!

In the 1920s, you see simpler ingredients, including an occasional reference to lard.  They had ice boxes instead of modern refrigerators.  People shopped frequently to keep foods fresh.  Slicing and beating were mostly done by hand.  Imagine the muscle and patience needed to whip enough egg whites for an Angel Food Cake!  

Every decade has its own recipes.  In the 1930s, Americans contended with the Depression.  The diet of many changed.  In the 1940s, Americans were among the few to be safe on the home front, but rationing was a reality.  Many recipes called for molasses (as a substitute for sugar).  Shortening and "vitaminized margarine" replaced butter.  In the 1950s and early 1960s, there are more recipes linked to particular products, including deviled ham, for example. 

Here, I have chosen to focus on some of the sweeter recipes, many from Januaries past, to welcome 2015.  Please steadfastly overlook and pardon me for any recipes that might conflict with New Year's Resolutions or your personal tastes.  I just wanted to present a cross section (in snapshot form) of recipes across time.

If you choose to try any of these recipes, let me recommend that the best creations usually veer from the printed page.  They add and subtract ingredients based on the likes and dislikes of individuals found in the family.  Let me end by saying, education reform should be the same.  There is no one national formula.  There is no one recipe for success.  I appreciate local and specialty cuisines.  Our democracy is built upon such flavors.  

Better Homes and Gardens, 2011

Some Recipes Across Time

Note:  C=Cup; T=Tablespoon; t=teaspoon



Mexican Eggs (9/1925)

1 pint of canned tomatoes
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1t salt
1C water
6 small green hot peppers or 1/4t cayenne
1T shortening
8 eggs

Put in a saucepan the tomatoes, salt, shortening, and water.  Add onion, garlic and pepper, finely chopped until thick and the water has evaporated.  Beat the eggs slightly with a fork, add to the mixture and cook like scrambled eggs.  This recipe serves 6 people.

Edinburgh Scones (1926)

4C flour 
3t baking powder
1/4t salt
2T sugar
2T lard
1/4C raisins
1 egg
1C milk or buttermilk

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.  Wash the raisins and add to dry ingredients.  Add sugar.  Rub in butter and lard.  Beat the egg and add milk to it, then mix all together to form a wet dough.  Turn onto a floured board and knead lightly.  Roll out to 1/2 inch thickness, cut into triangular pieces and bake in a moderate oven (400F) for 20 minutes.  These are good either hot or cold.  



Sweet Potato Biscuits (1/1936)

Sift 1C flour, 3t baking powder and 1/2t salt.  Cut in 3T shortening, then 1C cooked, mashed sweet potatoes.  Slowly add 1/2C milk.  Roll on a floured board to 1/2" thickness.  Cut with a biscuit cutter 1" across.  Place 3 biscuits close together in the center of each ramekin.  Bake at 425F for 30 minutes.



Creole Gingerbread (1940)

3/4C dark molasses
3/4C brown sugar
3/4C Wesson oil
2 eggs
2 1/2C sifted flour
1/2 baking powder
2t grated ginger
1 1/2t cinnamon
1/2t cloves
1/2t nutmeg
2t soda
1C boiling water

Mix ingredients in order listed, dissolving soda in boiling water.  Bake in a shallow, Wesson-oiled pan in a moderate over (350F) 30 to 40 minutes.  To serve, spread with apple butter and top with whipped cream.

Orange Shortcake (1/1943)

2 C enriched flour
1/2t salt
4t baking powder
1T sugar
1/3C shortening
1T grated orange peel
1 well-beaten egg
1/2C milk
3 or 4 oranges, sectioned
1 orange, sliced

Sift dry ingredients; cut in shortening.  Add orange peel, egg, and milk, stirring until moistened.  Turn out on lightly floured-surface.  Divide dough; pat each half out to fit an 8" round cake pan.  Bake in hot oven (425F) 20 minutes.  Fill and top with orange sections.  Center with slices.  Serve with Hot Orange Sauce.

Lemon Sponge Pudding (12/1943)

1C sugar 
1/4C enriched flour
1/8t salt
2T melted vitaminized margarine
4T to 5T lemon juice
1t grated lemon peel
2 well-beaten egg yolks
1C milk
2 stiff-beaten egg whites

Combine sugar, flour, salt, and margarine; add lemon juice and grated peel.  Stir in egg yolks and milk; mix.  Fold in egg whites.  Pour into greased 1 1/2 qt. shallow casserole.  Bake in pan--1" hot water surrounding--in moderately slow oven (325F) 1 hour.

Molasses Sponge Jelly Roll (9/1944)

4 egg yolks
1/4C sugar
1/4C molasses
4 egg whites
3/4C cake flour
1t baking powder
1/2t cinnamon
1/4t nugmeg
1/4t ginger
apple butter

Beat egg yolks until thick; gradually beat in 1/4C sugar and the molasses.  Beat egg whites until almost stiff.  Fold in egg yolks.  Fold in sifted dry ingredients.  Pour into waxed-paper lined 10 1/2x15" jelly roll pan.  Bake in moderately hot oven (375F) 12 minutes.  Loosen sides; turn out onto waxed paper sprinkled with confectioner's sugar; remove waxed paper.  Trim crusts.  Roll quickly with fresh sheet waxed paper on side of roll.  Cool.  Unroll; remove paper.  Spread with apple butter; roll again.


Golden Marmalade (12/1944)

1 1/2C sliced oranges
1 1/2C sliced lemons
9C water
sugar (about 6C)

Combine thinly sliced, unpeeled fruit and water; let stand 24 hours.  Boil 10 minutes; again let stand 24 hours.  Divide mixture.  Cook only 2C at a time.  Add 1C sugar for each 2C fruit.  Boil until sirup sheets off spoon.  Time may vary from 12 to 18 minutes.  Cool a few minutes; stir to prevent fruit floating.  Seal in hot, sterilized glasses.  Makes about seven 6-oz. glasses.



Spiced Pears (1/1951)

2 1/2 C brown sugar
1C vinegar
1 cinnamon stick
1T whole cloves
2 qt. (about 4 lb.) fresh pears, pared

Heat sugar, vinegar, and spices to a boil.  Stick several cloves in each pear.  Simmer in syrup until tender.

Cranberry Pinwheels (1/1953)

3/4C water
3C fresh cranberries
1 1/2C chopped fresh apple
1 1/4C sugar
3/4t nutmeg
1/4t cloves
3T butter or margarine
1 1/2C enriched flour
2T sugar
3t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/4C butter or margarine
6T milk
melted butter

Add water to cranberries and apples in saucepan; simmer 10 minutes.  Stir in 1 1/4C sugar, spices, and 3T butter.  Reserve 1/2C; put remainder in bottom of 10x6x1 1/2" baking pan.  Sift together flour, 2T sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Cut in 1/4C butter.  Add milk; mix until flour is just moistened.  Turn onto lightly floured surface and roll to 6x10" rectangle.  Brush dough with melted butter.  Spread with 1/2C cooled cranberry mixture.  Roll as for jelly roll; cut in 6 1" slices.  Place cut side down on top of cranberry mixture in pan.  Bake in hot oven (425F) about 15 minutes.  Serve warm.  Makes 6 servings.

Apricot Bran Muffins (1/1957)

2/3C finely cut dried apricots
2T sugar
1C sifted enriched flou
1/3C sugar
2 1/2t salt
3/4t salt
1C whole bran
3/4C milk
1 beaten egg
1/4C salad oil

Pour boiling water over apricots to cover; let stand for 10 minutes.  Drain well; mix with 2T sugar.  Sift together dry ingredients.  Mix bran, milk, egg, and oil; add to flour mixture, stirring just till moistened.  Gently stir in apricots.  Fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full.  Sprinkle tops with additional sugar.  Bake in hot over (400F) about 25 minutes or till done.  Makes 1 dozen.  



Hot Mexican Bean Dip (1/1960)

1C mayo, chilled
1C dairy sour crean
1/4C finely chopped onion
1/4C minced parsley
1/4C finely chopped canned water chestnuts
1T to 2T finely chopped candied ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1T soy sauce

Combine mayonnaise and sour cream.  Add remaining ingredients and mix well.  Trim top with additional chopped candied ginger.  Offer crackers and potato chips.  Makes about 2 cups.

Budin de Pina or Pineapple Pudding (July 1965)

1 lb. finely chopped fresh pineapple
4-oz. ground almonds
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/2C to 1C sugar, depending on sweetness or pineapple
1/2C dry sherry
1/4t ground cinnamon
12 lady fingers
apricot jam
sour cream
1 oz. slivered almonds

Mix pineapple, ground almonds, egg yolks, sugar, half the sherry, and cinnamon.  Cook over low hear, stirring constantly until thickened.  Cool.  Split the lady fingers and spread with a thin layer of apricot jam.  Place half the lady fingers in the bottom of a serving dish.  Sprinkle with half the remaining sherry.  Spread with half the pineapple mixture.  Add second layer of lady fingers, the rest of the sherry, and the remaining pineapple mixture.  Chill, spread with a layer of sour cream, and stick with slivered almonds.  Serves 6 to 8.

Some Reflections On the Year Past: Barking and Blogging

Given it is solidly 2015 now, let me make a few reflections on the year past, the homefront and the "schoolfront."  Last year was quite interesting, full of canine-related adventures for the first time as well as blog annihilation, followed by an ultimate rising from the ashes.

On the homefront, there were literally huge leaps in learning.  We gained two dogs.  On the first day of summer break, we found the energy to adopt a Sheprador puppy from North Shore Animal League.  We quickly dubbed him Midnight.  He has the most glossy black fur, but if you could look closely, you would spot a tuft of white on his underside seeming, at times, to be in the shape of a crescent moon.  When we welcomed 12 a.m., on New Year's Eve, I happily realized that "midnight" symbolized the break of a new day as well as of a new year.  Midnight is limitless.  It (and he) is full of possibilities. 

Midnight is now nine-months old.  Being teachers, of course, we had to  educate our puppy.  He graduated from his dog training last fall.  The funny thing is he performed in class to perfection, but sometimes at home, he fails to listen.  I'm guessing this is because, in human terms, he's verging on his teenage years.

"The Graduate"

Then, come early October, we gained a giant, old Retriever named Shadow with a wonderful personality, but a penchant to bark at strangers and occasionally growl at their dogs.  He has come to visit with his Aunty and her family for two years.  With all of his 115 lbs., if he could, he would charge across the street with me, terrorizing unsuspecting bystanders until they realize that all he really wants to do is sniff their dog in a most friendly manner.  Then, they are charmed.  I will not attempt to educate Shadow much.  He is already the equivalent of professor emiritus.  And, if you meet him, he'd probably be pleased to shake your paw.

Sister, Can You Spare a Dime?  How 'bout a Hamburger???

In 2014, I managed to balance home life, now including the two dogs plus the three kids, with teaching and blogging for public education.  (Past training for marathons probably helps here.)  In March of last year, following a short period of great blogging success given some kindly references from Dr. Diane Ravitch, I saw my first 95 pieces blown to cyber bits by my blog partner, regretfully done, as he told me, because word had passed down the Unity line advising members to stop expressing their independent views in expectation of the upcoming NYSUT conference.  God forbid any Unity member should favor scrapping the Core.  God forbid any Unity member should vocally express a view construed as contrary to the party line.  Unity must be unified, even at the cost of failing to represent its rank and file.  This was a major disappointment to me on several fronts.  

I then made the decision to reconstruct what was lost.  It seemed like it might take part of a year.  Then, it seemed it would take a month.  It took about three days.  I picked myself up and started again.  (Runners often do this.)  Such is my spirit, but it sure helped to get some encouragement along the way.  

It seemed I had a few more things to say in defense of public education and, in particular, NYC public-school teachers.  So, here I am for another year, somehow finding pockets of time to freely express what is on my mind--with allegiance to only my vision of the truth.  I doubt I'll blog 'til the end of time, but as long as I have things I feel must be said, I will say them.  Pardon me, if sometimes it might even sound like I'm barking!

Some Thoughts on Tisch's New Year's Wishes

So, here it is, New Year's once again.  2015 is upon us.  Chancellor Tisch's twenty-page letter of recommendations came just in time to welcome the New Year.  Has a Time-Square ball (or a facsimile thereof) fallen squarely upon the heads of teachers once again?  





            

I try to read her report with equanimity, but hard as I try, something always gets in the way.  The letter first points towards "significant steps" the State has taken, including simultaneously raising academic standards as well as graduation rates.

There is no mention of the abysmal roll out of the Common Core.  And does anyone care to remember that graduation rates across the City increased alongside half-baked schemes of credit recovery?  Does anyone care to know that teachers had their data thrust regularly before their eyes--with class averages falling below the realm of desirable highlighted in yellow?  Such stuff could make or break a school, an "Education Mayor," perhaps a federal grant.  It starts at the top with Race to the Top.  The implicit message below decks: man the oars or the ship will go down with you aboard.  The implicit instinct for most:  survival.  Can you imagine a world without tenure, or five years to it, as Tisch recommends (pp. 9-10)?  It's "aye, aye, Captain" always and swab down the decks.

Does anyone care to know how the amount of test prep has increased and the joys of teaching and learning are slowly sucked out of the classroom?  Would Ms. Tisch like to staff the hard-to-staff school--and suffer the consequences of an APPR over which she ultimately will learn she has only very limited control?

Tisch talks about reducing the amount of testing by ridding the evaluation system of the 20% once awarded to local measures.  She would have State measures count for 40%.  I say the test prep will grow even worse.  And I say Pearson will simultaneously be smiling all the way to the bank.  

Tisch wishes to "reward excellence in teaching" (p.2) and create "career ladder pathways" (p. 9).  She should think first about a simple plan to retain teachers given the level of demoralization and depression that has hit the profession.  How many in the City will be able to survive to retirement when the landscape about us is so very bleak?  I love working with the kids.  And I love shutting my door and doing what I do best.  Yet, I have seen one too many You-Tube videos of like-minded persons throwing in the towel thanks to the likes of Tisch with her merry bag of "reforms."  I have seen too many early retirements.  I have seen increases in stress, absenteeism and illness. 

Tisch would like "state-prescribed scoring ranges for the other measures of teacher and principal effectiveness (the observation subcomponent) rather than allowing them to be locally-negotiated" (p. 4).  It is not satisfactory to her tastes that 95% of teachers "were rated either Effective of Highly Effective" (p. 4).  She would have teachers rated ineffective on the Student performance subcomponents "receive an Ineffective overall rating" (p.4).  It can't be that some students are academically "ineffective" for one reason or another.  Low test scores can't be caused by the failure of students to study in a world of competing priorities.  It can't be caused by sometimes intense hunger caused by a lack of labor that pays parents a living wage.  Ms. Tisch, who in heaven's name do you think will work with the academically neediest when martyrdom is the reward?

Rather than focusing on how to keep teachers in the system, Tisch would like to focus on how to rid the system more quickly of teachers (p. 5).  She wants to give the State a larger role in administrative hearings.  She wants to "further clarify that a board of education has unfettered discretion to terminate a probationary teacher or principal, including for performance reasons, until a tenure decision is made at the end of the probationary period, as long as those reasons are statutorily and constitutionally permissible" (p. 9).  Does failure to follow marching orders due to morality constitute cause for instantaneous dismissal?  If it doesn't, who will distinguish that cause from another set of trumped-up charges?  Could be nice, I suppose, if you appreciate summary executions--or if it is not your head on the chopping block of junk science!

Chancellor Tisch wants to target teacher education programs that coach fewer than eighty percent of the "institution's students" to passing scores on "each of the required certification examinations" (p.7).  Looks like teaching to tests will become a national contagion at all levels.  Who's institutionalized now?  Perhaps Ms. Tisch can win more thanks from the humble folks at Pearson, Prentice Hall and the like.  "Increased performance" (p. 8) can only be measured by tests.  Where would we be if God and NY State had not created tests?

Tisch says that novice teachers should spend a year in classrooms through an internship program.  She says there is evidence to suggest a "positive impact on student growth and achievement" (p. 7).  We have had some fine student teachers at our school over the years, but they are forbidden from teaching any class that ends in a high-stakes exam.  No teacher wants to be the fall guy for his or her student teacher.  No student teacher wants to spend a month and a half engaged in intensive Regents prep.  

Tisch seems to favor destroying more school-based communities.  She would combine regional schools, close "failing" schools and recommend "conversion of the schools to charter schools" (pp. 11, 13).  She would lift the charter cap.  I take some heart when she references a 2010 charter law to "require the enrollment and retention targets be established for students with disabilities, English Language Learners and students in poverty in charter schools, and to make the repeated failure to meet or exceed those targets a ground for termination of the charter" (p. 14).  

All else she says though seems to raise the specter in my mind that she will close smaller charter schools in the name of expanding the Moskowitz Empire, so well-funded and so generous with its dollars in Albany.  Will Ms. Tisch agree that not all English Language Learners are on equal footing?  Will she agree that not all students in poverty suffer to the same degree, not all children with disabilities face the same degree of obstacles in their young lives?  Will the charter schools take on the neediest?  Will Success Academy mean "success" for those who seem to be farthest from it?

Surprise of surprise, Tisch would like some things to stay the same.  Much of it has to do with maintaining the status quo for appointments to the Board of Regents--which seems so well shielded from public opinion despite the disastrous "Swing Around the Circle" taken by former Commissioner King in his bid to sell the Common Core to an uninterested and sometimes hostile public.  Imagine if the raised "standards for accountability" (p. 1) applied to the NYS Board of Regents.  When she draws upon the history of the Board of Regents dating back to 1784 and the mantra of Alexander Hamilton to support the continuation of the present selection and appointment process for the Board of Regents, I fail to understand the logic (pp. 15-16).  If I know anything about Hamilton, he's rolling over in his grave now.  Tisch would further keep the same process for determining the next State Commissioner.  And she would keep mayoral control (pp. 14, 16).    

I don't disagree with everything Tisch says.  She rightly recognizes that State schools will face increasing burdens with more undocumented and unaccompanied students.  These children have a constitutional right to education, only their teachers may simultaneously be sacrificed at the altar of high-stakes tests.  I agree that "deeply disturbing inequities in resources" exist (p. 16).  Districts with high-needs ELLs do demand more services.  Career and Technical Education are very important pathways.  Pre-K is a bold experiment which will surely fail without further support (p. 17).  It will also fail, however, with test-based statistical measures of success.  

I agree with Tisch that school segregation needs to be addressed.  As Tisch points out, and as many of us remember, "a 2014 study by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that New York State has the most segregated schools in the nation" (p. 18).  Pretty sad when its beacon city has been founded upon diversity and relative toleration of differences.  Let us study further how some charter schools can increase segregation.

Tisch needs to retain teachers.  There's only so much "blended online learning" (p. 14) can do for kids when qualified teachers flock from the classrooms of the neediest students.  Tisch reports that it is "too soon to report retention rates" for novice teachers who work in "high-need schools" (pp. 6-7).  I'm guessing the news is not good.  If you don't believe me, march into an overcrowded classroom with thirty-four high-needs kids and see how many are focused on learning.  Start teaching and see how long you last.  What will you do, Mr. or Ms. Scapegoat, when the media is on your back and your students' inabilities to perform on tests spells your own doom--despite several advanced degrees and a caring heart?  Welcome to the World of Ed. Deform.  Welcome to the World of Chancellor Tisch.  Despite it all, 2015 promises to be a good year--so long as we remember that education teaches us to think and democracy teaches us to speak.  Perhaps it's time for more of us to add another resolution to our list this year:  one which we will fight hard to keep.  Happy 2015!