Has Cable television ruined America? Well what do you think? Whether you are a radical Tea Party member a right wing conspiracy nut, a ultra conservative right winger, a centrist liberal an anarchist or non political you probably have noticed the polarization found in American politics. You can now glam on to a favorite boutique program on cable that will spout rhetoric you find appealing. Most people do not bother to listen to the other stations as their rhetoric is obviously false and in no way relevant. Sure even when there is absolutely nothing on all 200 hundred channels I still enjoy flipping along the stations and taking in a sentence here and a scene there. My intellect know I would be perfectly fine without all those options in fact I probably only watch about a dozen channels on a regular basis. There is some value in all the options. One unintended consequence however is the loss of a network devoted to finding an audience of or for the majority (at least the majority of 20=40 year old's or whatever the money spending demographic is) Now you find your niche with a few million fervent followers and preach to the choir.
It does make it less stressful listening to just the intelligent and well informed even if it is totally biased and one sided. Most of you probably already realize this but it bears repeating. You are really not opened minded people even those of you who are more open minded than most. Your brain filters information, it actually uses different synapses to process information that agrees with your world outlook than those messages that do not agree with your hard wired brain.
I think the internet while having this great capacity to spread knowledge to the entire world also has the ability to limit an individual world view as we search for similar voices and information that resonates with our views.
ok so this was off topic and tangential to say the least but with a rap up paper and a culminating blog coming this week I did not want to be to repetitive.
thanks for reading the blog.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Week 4 blog
I often refer to iQ Academy as a start-up company. This description helps when discussing the staff interactions. Most of the staff are from the initial start up and are heavily invested in the school. They are considered risk takers in the district. They demonstrate a passion and common goal. Meeting over the years have been productive.
Last year we hired a new Principal, a teacher with great technical skills and a high degree of motivation. The new principal does have a totally different style than the last principal and there has been several speed bumps in the transition. Though I personally functioned better under the leadership of the last principal the current principal is the right person for the present circumstances. Cuts to staff, slow growth in enrollment etc.
The morale is low at the moment because of the loss of some very passionate qualified teachers. Many feel the best in online education is yet to come and are still hopeful toward the future.
We have a celebration acknowledgment section each staff meeting. I have noticed the number of personal and professional celebration sharing has decreased significantly this year.
We need to make sure we encourage teachers to be involved with the needs assessments, development of changes and there implementation. We are currently working on a mandated change and it is not going well at all.
From my experience as a educator I would say that a positive and productive climate can make all the difference. I have been in situations where there was staff participation and mutual respect. This environment encouraged and maintained an open invitation for faculty involvement. I have also been a part of schools that have used the top down approach, and my experience it has been less effective or beneficial.
Usually in a top down deployment you will not have as much buy-in and you may develop individual or group resistances. I found even if the change was successfully implemented the staff did not feel the same way about the process.
Teachers that feel they are being supported and are a part of the change process are going to be more motivated and experience a greater degree of satisfaction. This could ultimately determine the success of the proposed change.
In principal at IQ we do have a methodology in place for a continuous improvement plan. It is called Summer Academy and supporting that is the establishment of Professional Learning something that start with a C I believe( it is not cheese). PLC's. ah that is right communities.
We do have discussion and set SMART goals and review them each year. But this Summer Academy takes place in July. So some of the same dedicated folks attend each year. They supply a small stipend which comes to 5$ an hour so here we see those informal leaders we have discussed previously coming together. (due to contract dispute I fear this year's SA will not be well attended)
While the summer academy is helpful it needs to be carried through throughout the school year and it has been my experience that this happens some years and some years more pressing issues interfere with the follow through. More time needs to be found for PLC's and follow through on established SMART Goals. I also find it very interesting how teachers are expected to develop curriculum, continue their own education, meet in teams and oh yeah almost forgot Teach and be responsive to individual students and their families. Within a Calendar school year. Obviously this doesn't happen within the school day most of it happens outside the school day, just something to reflect on. Interesting model we are working with.
Last year we hired a new Principal, a teacher with great technical skills and a high degree of motivation. The new principal does have a totally different style than the last principal and there has been several speed bumps in the transition. Though I personally functioned better under the leadership of the last principal the current principal is the right person for the present circumstances. Cuts to staff, slow growth in enrollment etc.
The morale is low at the moment because of the loss of some very passionate qualified teachers. Many feel the best in online education is yet to come and are still hopeful toward the future.
We have a celebration acknowledgment section each staff meeting. I have noticed the number of personal and professional celebration sharing has decreased significantly this year.
We need to make sure we encourage teachers to be involved with the needs assessments, development of changes and there implementation. We are currently working on a mandated change and it is not going well at all.
From my experience as a educator I would say that a positive and productive climate can make all the difference. I have been in situations where there was staff participation and mutual respect. This environment encouraged and maintained an open invitation for faculty involvement. I have also been a part of schools that have used the top down approach, and my experience it has been less effective or beneficial.
Usually in a top down deployment you will not have as much buy-in and you may develop individual or group resistances. I found even if the change was successfully implemented the staff did not feel the same way about the process.
Teachers that feel they are being supported and are a part of the change process are going to be more motivated and experience a greater degree of satisfaction. This could ultimately determine the success of the proposed change.
In principal at IQ we do have a methodology in place for a continuous improvement plan. It is called Summer Academy and supporting that is the establishment of Professional Learning something that start with a C I believe( it is not cheese). PLC's. ah that is right communities.
We do have discussion and set SMART goals and review them each year. But this Summer Academy takes place in July. So some of the same dedicated folks attend each year. They supply a small stipend which comes to 5$ an hour so here we see those informal leaders we have discussed previously coming together. (due to contract dispute I fear this year's SA will not be well attended)
While the summer academy is helpful it needs to be carried through throughout the school year and it has been my experience that this happens some years and some years more pressing issues interfere with the follow through. More time needs to be found for PLC's and follow through on established SMART Goals. I also find it very interesting how teachers are expected to develop curriculum, continue their own education, meet in teams and oh yeah almost forgot Teach and be responsive to individual students and their families. Within a Calendar school year. Obviously this doesn't happen within the school day most of it happens outside the school day, just something to reflect on. Interesting model we are working with.
Friday, June 4, 2010
So this week I am writing down my ideas I though through while cutting the grass yesterday. I have found it very productive to cut the grass this year. I get some exercise (walk behind mower) I find it almost enjoyable and I tend to think creatively while mowing. I came up with several new story pieces for two of my books I am currently working on I also invented a back pack snorkel air reserve system for holding reserve air for short dives to the bottom.
This week I was thinking about how changes in my school specifically the rewrite to curriculum and the criteria based grading we are planning to implement. WE started by looking at standards, this led us to creating our own as we had some rather big difficulties with the ones the district wrote over the last several years. We then scrapped that as our department head went in a more general direction of looking at the 21st century skills direction. That work is all on hold now.
We developed a more long term goal of implementing the criteria based grading and curriculum writing which is now in jeopardy as well. In yesterday's meeting a very emotional Principal informed the staff of the cuts that had to be made to staffing for the upcoming school year. It is said to see highly professional motivated and passionate people let go or reassigned when there contribution is truly needed. Well we then split up into departments, mine is unfortunately only 3 people instead of 5 as was the case the last several years, though fortunately I am still one of the 3. I will have 7 preps next year and they have increased the student total to 600 students for the year. This will obviously impact our implementation plans as well as my teaching.
Sympathy please, I will teach 6th grade science, 7th grade science, Environmental, Chemistry, Anatomy and physiology, AP biology, AP chemistry.
I understand that as I have described our operation as a start up company we all have to pitch in to make sure we get established and weather the difficult times yet I feel a real disappointment that the numbers of students and preps may adversely effect the educational outcome. Frankly I am also disappointed as I will less time to improve my classes using some of what I have learned in this program.
This week I was thinking about how changes in my school specifically the rewrite to curriculum and the criteria based grading we are planning to implement. WE started by looking at standards, this led us to creating our own as we had some rather big difficulties with the ones the district wrote over the last several years. We then scrapped that as our department head went in a more general direction of looking at the 21st century skills direction. That work is all on hold now.
We developed a more long term goal of implementing the criteria based grading and curriculum writing which is now in jeopardy as well. In yesterday's meeting a very emotional Principal informed the staff of the cuts that had to be made to staffing for the upcoming school year. It is said to see highly professional motivated and passionate people let go or reassigned when there contribution is truly needed. Well we then split up into departments, mine is unfortunately only 3 people instead of 5 as was the case the last several years, though fortunately I am still one of the 3. I will have 7 preps next year and they have increased the student total to 600 students for the year. This will obviously impact our implementation plans as well as my teaching.
Sympathy please, I will teach 6th grade science, 7th grade science, Environmental, Chemistry, Anatomy and physiology, AP biology, AP chemistry.
I understand that as I have described our operation as a start up company we all have to pitch in to make sure we get established and weather the difficult times yet I feel a real disappointment that the numbers of students and preps may adversely effect the educational outcome. Frankly I am also disappointed as I will less time to improve my classes using some of what I have learned in this program.
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