Cheating

As a teacher, I see and hear about all forms of cheating, from copying vocabulary work, to copying and pasting a report, to looking at another's answers on a test, to making up book reports about non-existent books. Nothing really surprises me anymore.
Read the news report of what happened in Hanover High School in Hanover, NH.

What is this telling us about the current generation?

Are they over-booked with too many academic, activity, job-related and personal commitments that they have no time to do their work, complete assignments, or study for tests?

Are parents or the students themselves putting too much pressure on the students to achieve a good grade that learning takes second place?

Are schools and teachers emphasizing the wrong thing- grades instead of actual learning?

No learning can actually be graded- learning is learning- it changes the brain. How can that be graded?

So what do we and teachers, students and administrators do about cheating?



What is the parental role in this issue?

Sensation, perception and reality

Read Kasen Keller's blog about reality and then post comments to it.

After reading Will Richardson blog about the read/write web, Pushing Writing Literacy, I was intrigued by his ideas. I have been reading his book as part of a technology class and have heard him speak about this age of technology and how teachers should be using more of it with their students, but how can we? I am puzzled by how I can incorporate all this new technology (blogs, pod casts, Twitter, RSS feeds, wikis, digital works, etc) into a class when I have limited access to the technology and limited time to learn about while still planning, correcting and teaching.

I would love to have students create digital videos of Edgar Allen Poe short stories and would love to have them create online books with student-created illustrations and public service announcements about social issues that concern them, but will computer labs tied up in keyboarding classes, programing classes, and application classes, just getting the students to the lab twice a week to word process an writing assignment is a challenge.

Laptops for all students would help, but so would additional funding for the technology tools like subscriptions to online programs, quality digital cameras and video recorders, editing tools, and the like. When that happens and I am trained well on all of there tools, then maybe magic can happen in my classroom, and reading and writing will take on a whole new meaning to students.

Student writers' understanding of plagiarism

Today, I read Kate Kellen's comments on how her students don't understand the concept of plagiarism in writing. Just when do we teach students about this bane of the English teacher's existence? If elementary students are allowed to copy from the encyclopedia for reports and middle school students are allowed to copy from the Internet and other sources with no regard to summarization, paraphrasing, quoting and citing sources, is it then up to high school teachers to correct years of "damage"? I find that almost unbearable and sometimes impossible. The process of incorporating research into writing takes years of practice- not just four years of the sporadic paper in English classes. I wonder what college English teachers have to say on the topic.

The Crucible, The Red Scare and Other Witch Trials

With your class in your blogs discuss the following questions:
1. What was Miller's point in writing The Crucible?
2. How are McCarthyism, the Red Scare, Arthur Miller and The Crucible interrelated?
3. Document other times in American history when 'witch hunts' were conducted and discuss the outcomes of the Salem witch hunt and the other witch hunts you find. What do they all have in common?

Find documents, web sites, blogs, etc. that provide information on this topic and blog about what those artifacts contain. Provide links in your blog space so that the other members of the class can read and learn from them.

After all research, processing and discussion have been completed, please write an essay (in your blog) that presents what you have learned in relation to the questions/problems stated at the beginning of this blog.

To get you started, spend awhile watching this PowerPoint and reading the websites linked to it.

Teachers As Advisors

Now that we have had a few TAA meetings, what do you think about it? Did you know why the program was implemented? What are your opinions about its use in RHS?

parental roles

Today, I read an interesting article about a middle school in Maine that will begin to dispense birth control pills to middle school kids in an attempt to control the increase in pregnancies (17 in one year).

It seems that over the last 20 years or so, schools have slowly been required by society to take on some of the roles that parents usually have. Take discipline for example. When I was in elementary school, I was more frightened about what my father would do to me if I misbehaved than what the administration would do to me. Parents disciplined their kids back then. Today parents defend kids against discipline by school authorities and often threaten to sue if any discipline is given- even when the kid did wrong and deserves the consequences. We have even stopped calling it punishment and have replaced the word with consequences or discipline.

Nutrition and food choices used to be policed by parents, who would ensure that their children ate breakfast and healthy foods. Today, schools have taken over by serving breakfasts, morning and afternoon snacks and even supper, along with a lunchtime meal. Classroom teachers have to teach children about food and obesity and exercise and hygiene because some parents fail to do so.

Home used to be a place where kids felt safe and protected and a place they wanted to be. Now, kids come to school an hour early and stay for hours afterword just to avoid being left home alone or in an abusive situation. Schools purchase metal detectors, security guards and pass card door opening systems in order to ensure that kids are safe in school. Teachers spend hours in training to learn how to identify abused, neglected, and dangerous children when we could be teaching instead. All of this happens because some parents don't pay attention to their children.

Now schools have become the place where kids learn about sex, birth control and parenting, again, because some parents are not doing their jobs.

I understand why some of my students call me mom and why some come to me with problems that parents should help them with. I also understand why some teachers decide not to have children or why some burn out and leave the profession. No where in my training to become a teacher did it say the I had to parent someone else's children, but I am. Most all educators do. We ties shoes, wipe noses, teach right from wrong, listen and help because we care. But this can't go on forever.

Where will this parent to school stransition stop and can this switch go on like this much longer?

Mondays

Today is Monday; it's after 5:00 P.M.; I have managed to survive another one...barely. I find that Mondays are my most stressful day of the week. It is on this day that I realize that what I accomplished over the weekend was not enough and that I am still behind. Mondays are when others come to me with ideas and jobs that they have thought of over the weekend, so now I am even more behind because people have given me more to do on top of what I have yet to do. Which day is your worst?

Small town life

Today is the opening day of pheasant hunting season. This season is important to the livelihood of the town of Redfield. Hunters spend thousands of dollars to come here and hunt. Restaurants, bars, hotels, air lines, grocery and convenience stores, car rental places and hunting lodges depend on this next 3 months to earn them a large part of their annual income. Does anyone else think it is ironic or even wrong to depend so much on the hunting and killing of such a small bird? A bad winter could wipe out a hunting season and cause a huge money crunch. A series of bad winters or even bad springs could wipe out a large chunk of Redfield's economy. That is a scary thought.

I like living and working here; both my family and my husband's family live here or in surrounding area and the thought of not being able to raise my kids here and work in the school system here is scary. It just seems odd that I indirectly am affected by a sport which I do not enjoy or even like.

This year Keith's hunters from down south are returning and with the money he earns as their guide, we will be able to purchase a new computer. Somehow this feels wrong to me. Some 70+ pheasants will give up their lives to that I can access the Internet and WWW more quickly and so that my children can do school work in the Window 2007 programs that the school now uses.

It confuses me how people can plan for, make money from and enjoy so much the shooting of a wild animal.

technology

We are currently in an age where technological improvements come at lightning speed. Most people, especially the digital immigrants of my generation, cannot keep up with all the changes. What is the best part of the technology that is available today? What do you use and what could you not live without? As digital natives the current generation has great advantages over all past generations. What are some of those advantages?

How can teachers teach using the technology available to students and schools? Is just word process and using PowerPoint enough use of technology? What program or software would you love to learn how to use?

Venting

I find that as this quarter comes to a close that I am more stressed out than ever. Can a teacher really burn out in Oct. when school started in Aug.? I find that I am so overwhelmed by all my obligations that I sometimes just want to quit. If I feel like this already, I wonder what students feel like. So many of them have such heavy academic loads and then they add sports participation, work, clubs, family, religion, and all the other life events. When do they sleep?

What will happen as the year progresses? Will things get worse? Will both my students and I explode? quit? give up? Where will we all get the strength or fortitude to plow through all the "stuff" in our lives and survive yet another school year?

I am thinking a vacation is in order- a long one to Hawaii or a cruise to sunny beaches and hot climates.

Any other options to surviving the school year?

Gossip

Gossip is a great problem in this school. How do we address it and the hurt, misunderstanding and fighting that it causes? Should teachers and others "punish" those who gossip? How? What about when the gossip comes from those in authority? Should people be confronted by those they gossip about? Am I just overreacting to this problem? Is it just a part of life?

Book list

I would love to create a book list for my website. Please submit your favorite books (non-fiction and fiction). Include title, author, publication date and a one or two sentence description of the book. It will be great to know what students are reading that what they love to read.

Bullying, Teasing, Horseplay, Harassment, and other problematic behaviors

Last year I asked about bullying in the school and got some responses. How is this year going in the areas listed in the title of this post? What is the worst problematic behavior that goes on in this school? I have been dealing with a lot of gossip and rumor. How, as a teacher, do I stop that? Are students being harassed or bullied or teased in our school? How is it being handled by teachers and administrators? Express your observations about this issue!!

A good story

What makes a story a good story? What does a good story have to have so that you will read it? Is is suspense, plot, a unique character? What is the best story you have ever read?

Pain versus suffering

A Buddhist saying proclaims: "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." Is this true? What is the difference between pain and suffering? Why do some people suffer and others do not?