How often do you sometimes prefer exclusively using technology?

Survey results are pretty useless when the people designing the survey:

a) don’t understand how to word questions/statements to garner meaningful data from respondents, and

b) create rigid, multiple choice scales that aren’t related to the questions being asked or the statements being evaluated.

You Get What You Pay For…Sometimes.

A friend of mine posted this graph on Facebook (via Fareed Zakaria, via Andrew Sullivan):

Teacher salaries and student achievement

Accompanying the graph was a statement:

[I]mproving teachers’ pay improves their standing in a country’s income distribution and hence the national status of teaching as a profession.  As a result of this higher status, more young people will want to become teachers. This in turn makes teaching a more selective profession and hence facilitates the recruitment of more able individuals. Higher status and higher pay are invariably linked but the two can provide separate driving forces to engineer better recruits to the profession. The key hypothesis is that better pay for teachers will attract higher quality graduates into the profession and that this will improve pupil performance.

To tweet, or not to tweet…

…that is the 28 character question.

I take pride in the fact that I generally wait until the latest digital fad has tumbled from the apex of its popularity down into the “no longer hip, and almost not even relevant” technological valley before I join – that point where the population of new users signing up is comprised primarily of spammers, behind-the-times small business owners, and your grandma…

Cases in point: my MySpace account (created 3 years after the site’s relevance tanked), my Facebook profile (created 2 years after they stopped requiring .edu email addresses), and my latest foray into the hot new technology of 2006 – Twitter.

Yes, I created a Twitter account. Apparently, people can “follow” all of my “tweets” on “www.twitter.com” by searching for me – @SurviveEnglish

You should totally try it!

Profile of a Clayton County Board Member

You may want to read my Disclaimer before going any further. I’m about to rant.

Ok, so the AJC ran an article about a Clayton County School Board member named Trinia Garrett who allegedly downloaded some inappropriate stuff on her county-issued computer. As it turns out, this isn’t the first time Ms. Garrett has had legal troubles, and the Clayton County board itself is certainly no stranger to public humiliation, but it really wasn’t the allegation of porn-hoarding on school property that bothered me. It was Ms. Garrett’s atrocious grammar.

How to Use PowerPoint (Like a Boss): Hyperlinks

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a teacher in possession of Microsoft PowerPoint, will bore her students to death with god-awful presentations.” – Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice was terrible, but you’ve got to admit, Austen is spot on when it comes to evaluating your ability to use twenty-first century computer software. Seriously, you need help with your PowerPoint presentations. Admit it. That’s the first step to recovery. The second step is reading “How to Use PowerPoint (Like a Boss)” on this blog. The third step is implementing what you learn. The fourth step probably has something to do with making amends or donating money, but that’s later on…

Just a forewarning: this is going to be a lengthy post, but it’s worth it. So sit back, grab a beverage, and say “goodbye” to lame old PowerPoint “presentations.” You’re moving up to creating “effective, interactive PowerPoint experiences.” Yup, I went there.

If you don’t like reading, or if you’re a visual-sort-of-hands-on learner, you can download my “hyperlinking made easy” Powerpoint here.

Separate Worlds: A Misguided Look at the ‘Intangible’ Differences Between Public and Private Schools

It seems some conservative Think Tank has published a study that claims teachers are overpaid.

I have a lot of issues with this study, but one thing that really stuck out as I was reading it was a section on comparing private and public school teachers’ salaries. Apparently the authors felt that – because both are doing the “same job” – the fact that private school teachers make less money was a reason to claim that public school teachers are overpaid…this paragraph really caught me:

A [private] teacher-to- [public] teacher comparison also helps to eliminate intangible work-related factors from the analysis. If there are certain aspects of teaching that are particularly frustrating (or rewarding) relative to other occupations, a higher (or lower) salary for teachers may be required as a compensating differential. By limiting both the reference and comparison group to teachers, whatever salary differences we observe are less likely to be driven by these intangible factors.

Because they’re all teachers by definition, there are no intangible factors that differentiate a private school teacher from a public school teacher? Hmmm…well let’s just take a look at some of the “intangible factors” that the authors overlooked, shall we?

For one thing, private school teachers generally have “smaller enrollments, smaller average class sizes, and lower student/teacher ratios than public schools” (ref.). But I suppose class size is actually a tangible factor, so to be fair (sarcasm), we won’t even count it. So what can we count?

Well, public school students are far more likely to come from low income households (see table 8 for ref), and this study shows a correlation between students’ low socioeconomic status and lack of parental involvement in school (as well as correlations between low socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and parent-teacher tensions.) I think most people would agree that these factors contribute to more “frustration” for public school teachers.

Also, according to teacher perceptions, private school teachers perceive that private school students are:

• less likely to show disrespect to teachers
• less likely to use drugs and/or alcohol
• less likely to be tardy
• less likely to be absent
• more likely to be prepared to learn
• more likely to have actively involved parents
• less likely to express apathy toward education

And this study shows that, in comparison to private school students, public school students are:

• more likely to have been the victim of violence at school
• more likely to have been threatened in school
• more likely to be afraid of being victimized at school
• significantly more likely to encounter street gangs at or on the way to/from school
• more likely to fear for their own safety or avoid certain areas at school

In addition, the National Center for Education Statistics found that private school teachers were:

• “…more likely than public school teachers to report being satisfied with teaching at their school.”
• “…more likely than public school teachers to report having a lot of influence on several teaching practices and school policies.”
• likely to “express positive opinions about their principal and their school’s management.”

Even though the authors made the comparisons “After controlling for education, gender, region, and metro status,” it still does not eliminate the discrepancies. So yes…intangible factors do play a significant role in the “rewards” and “frustration” felt by public school teachers in comparison to their private counterparts, so the fact that private school teachers receive less compensation really has no place in the “overpaid” argument. Public and private school teachers work under very different conditions, and these factors should be taken into account.

Now, none of this is meant to demean private school teachers or the work that they do. Teaching under ANY circumstance can be a challenge, and I would never give up my job. It’s the job I chose, and it’s the job I love; however, the notion that intangible factors do not play a role in a public teacher’s reward/frustration is completely uninformed. I’m also perplexed at the fact that the authors of the study didn’t conclude that instead of public school teachers being overpaid, maybe it’s the private school teachers who are underpaid.

I have a number of friends and colleagues who have taught or been educated in private schools, and they confirm these perceptions. And while I can’t say much more about teaching in a private school because I’ve never done it before, I can almost guarantee I’m more qualified to speak on it than either Dr. Richwine or Dr. Biggs, neither of whom has any classroom experience on his resume.

What if private companies were run like public schools?

I asked myself this question a while ago, and here are a few thoughts I found worth mentioning…

What if companies ran more like public schools, with teachers as managers and students as employees?

-Every company in America would be forced to employ everyone in the immediate area who is between the ages of 18 and 65.

-No interviews would be allowed, and all employees must be accepted, regardless of qualifications, willingness, or ability to do the assigned job.

-All employees must be held to – AND MEET – the same standards for job performance and competence. Any office that fails to reach this standard loses corporate funding and may fire all managers (while moving all employees to another office). In addition, this job performance standard would be increased every year until ALL employees are performing at 100% of the government-mandated “standard.”

-A company’s manager would oversee 6 or 7 shifts of about 30 in excess of 35 employees, each for an hour a day (the shift number and length may differ slightly among offices). After each shift, all employees would move on to completely different – and generally unrelated – job functions.

-All employees would be promoted to a more difficult set of job functions every year (or two), regardless of past performance or readiness.

-Family members of the employee would be allowed – and many times encouraged – to come to the office and tell managers how to better do their jobs, while simultaneously claiming that the managers’ evaluations of the employee’s job performance is incorrect.

-No employee could be fired, even in light of poor work performance, absenteeism, insubordination, theft of company property, or physical violence toward coworkers or managers.

-Instead of being fired, if an employee’s behavior is deemed inappropriate, the supervisor of the office may give that employee up to 10 days’ worth of vacation. During the employee’s vacation, all managers who oversee the employee must put together all missed work in advance (after all, that under-performing, insubordinate, violent worker still needs to reach the same performance and competency standard as everyone else).

-The government would regulate not only the rules of every company, but also the products being produced, how the products are marketed, how the products are packaged, and how many of each product must be produced (and to what quality) in order for the company to stay in business – all without knowing what products the company even manufactures.

Anyone else have anything to add?

A Civilized Discourse on Human Wind: Combating Rigor with Fart Humor

Story time, boys and girls…

So the Common Core standards are bearing down on the Georgia state Language Arts curriculum for next year, and one of the primary focuses (foci?) of the new standards is introducing more “rigor” in literary and informational texts. In student-speak, this means “more boring stuff that’s even harder to read.”

It’s difficult enough getting students to read the Gettysburg Address or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (especially the full-blown, all-SAT-words-included version), and it’s even more difficult, after reading, to get any serious discussion out of the students.

I attribute this difficulty to the fact that students just don’t care. Shocking revelation, I know, but student apathy is multiplied (and motivation is incrementally destroyed) when “rigor” is introduced. Students – especially my sixth graders – seem much more adept at discussing farts and underwear than diplomacy or canonical literature.

Then I had an epiphany. If only I could combine rigor and fart humor into one lesson! Then I’d have an engaging text that also forced students to wrestle with the rigor of the language.

Leave it to Benjamin Franklin to show me the way.

The Mick Jagger of the Age of Enlightenment

Let’s take a trip back in time…In the 1700s, the Royal Academy in Brussels, Belgium had established itself as a sort of authority on all things scientific and philosophical. Every year, the academy announced a question that would be asked to all the “learned” men in the world’s scientific and philosophical communities. Whoever came up with the most satisfactory answer to the question was most assuredly showered in all the praise and money and loose Colonial women that any prominent eighteenth century scientist or philosopher would deserve.

BUT…

Ben Franklin was none too impressed with the type of questions the academy asked, believing that there was no greater purpose – no real benefit – to the sort of floofy, metaphysical inquiries these “scientists” were asking. So in 1781, Franklin wrote a satirical letter to the Royal Academy in Brussels to vent his frustrations, and to offer an alternative question.

You can read the text of the letter here. Go ahead and read the first couple of paragraphs…I’ll wait.

Yes, he suggests asking the world’s greatest scientists how to make farts smell better. Do I really need to explain why my sixth graders were absolutely enthralled with this text?

After giving just a little background on the historical context, Franklin’s letter gave me a great opportunity to talk about basic reading strategies: predicting, summarizing, and questioning; but more importantly, I could look at the more critical strategies like clarifying (a lot), inferring, and evaluating. The rigor in the text demands that students break the text down to analyze and understand it, and the fact that it’s a sarcastic jab at the academy presents an opportunity to talk about satire and allusion.

Clearly the language is a barrier for many students, but I discovered that after the first couple of paragraphs – once the students figured out the main idea of the letter – the kids eagerly tried to decipher the text, hoping to uncover some humorous quip before their peers could. There were so many hands raised, so many voices quietly squealing in private delight – like being part of a hilarious inside joke. It was a really inspiring lesson to deliver. True, not everyone “got” the letter the first time around, and some still had trouble with the deeper analysis, but the willingness to try from all students was overwhelming. The motivation to understand the words on the page was more than I’d seen with any Shakespeare play. And remember, these are on-level sixth graders. I’d be really interested to see how this letter goes over with high school students.

Anyone want to risk talking about farts with an American Lit class? Seems like a great way to introduce the founding farters…err…fathers.

What I didn’t do on my summer vacation…

My school district just wrapped up its first week of classes, and I’m happy to report that my first real year of teaching has started off very well.

Normally, the first couple of days of school are reserved for those fun “get to know you” activities, and I encourage that, but too often teachers resort to asking that lame old question: “What did you do over summer vacation?”

Boring.

The teacher smiles on and walks around the room as antsy kids scribble uninspired responses full of phrases like “grandma’s house” and “Six Flags” and “Nothing.” No one gets anything beneficial out of this activity, so I propose an adjustment to this first week relic of a prompt…

Write down everything you did NOT do over summer vacation.

Initially, you’ll get a couple of confused stares, so follow up by saying:

For example, did you ride a rocket to Mars this summer? If not, WRITE THAT DOWN.

You’ll always have that one smart-aleck who says “But I DID ride a rocket to Mars!” Just respond by saying “In that case, you won’t write that down then, will you?”

Give your students five minutes or so to write, and tell them that they should be writing the WHOLE time because they’ll NEVER be able to write down everything they did NOT do this summer. Also, follow-up by saying that you’ll reward the most crazy, creative answer with a prize (I like to give out tickets to kids who share their responses). Students love making stuff up, and they love trying to make their classmates laugh, so this is a perfect way to get students engaging in the creative writing process in the first days of school.

Some of my favorite responses from this year:

“I did not teach a cheetah to drive a limo.”

“I did not eat a sandwich while dancing on ‘Soul Train.’”

“I didn’t get kidnapped and dumped in Cuba.”

“I did not play soccer with bumpy, yellow Martians.”

“I did not become a pink, were-fox Ninja Turtle princess.”

“I did not battle a group of albino Pringles with a tiki torch while eating a deep fried flip-flop.”

“I did not walk into a shaved, striped bear’s stomach and eat my way out while making marshmallows.”

You can easily adapt this lesson into a mini-lesson about adjectives, prepositional phrases, or subordinate clauses by taking a student’s simple sentence:

“I did not see a monster.”

And asking the class to brainstorm prepositional phrases to tack on…

“I did not see a monster in my aunt’s garden.”

…or subordinate clauses:

“I did not see a monster in my aunt’s garden after I returned from the gym.”

Regardless, I guarantee you’ll get a lot more engagement using this prompt, and your kids’ll think you’re cool. (:

Proffreed you’re advertizmints

As an English teacher, I have the arrogant (and lame) hobby of looking for proofreading mistakes in the real world. I take pictures of billboards, signs, shop windows, product packaging – anything that has some blatant (or sometimes not-so-blatant) error in spelling, grammar, or usage. I bring these into my classroom and use them as warm-ups for my students. This gives them something authentic to work with, and it shows them the importance grammar plays in effective real-world communication.

Now, I can’t claim to be perfect; I make mistakes in my writing all the time, but I submit this example to you:

The text:

Hi everyone this is me and my family [I removed the picture] we just moved here about 6 months ago. I just started a job at Carl Black selling cars. I never thought I would sell cars but since I have been here I have heard a lot of good things about Carl Black and since I have been here I found out its true.

We go out of our way for our customers and make sure that they get the car or truck they want and we make sure it will handle all there needs. If we don’t have it here we will find it for them and get it at the price they are looking for.

I made this myspace page to let everyone know I’m here help if your looking for a new or Pre-owned car or truck or if you know someone looking let me know and if they buy a care from Carl Black, we will give you $100.00

This is a screencap of a real solicitation I received on my MySpace account (don’t laugh…it was like, 4 years ago, ok? I don’t use MySpace anymore).

On my count, there are AT LEAST five run-on sentences, three usage errors, two spelling errors, and one word omission. See if you can spot them all. (:

This is a great example for students, and it prompts a lot of discussion. I ask questions like “What was the purpose of this advertisement?”, “Did it serve its purpose?”, “Is his message clear/Does he communicate well?”, “Would you want to buy something from this person?”, “Does this advertisement seem legitimate, or does it look like spam?”

The class can then revise and edit the advertisement to correct the mistakes, clarify the message, and make it more effective.

Compared to standard “grammar in isolation” instruction, I believe something like this is far more engaging for students. I have a whole folder of images like this if any teachers out there are interested. Great teaching tools.