Best Sellers List - anyone with enough $$ can be there

See article:

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-pastor-contract-resultsource-bestseller-lists-20140305,0,7039368.story?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly&utm_campaign=2870584436-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0bb2959cbb-2870584436-304643353#axzz2vHuFzua0

Morality rules?

Apparently not in that church or for that book.  If not in the churches, then where?  It just proves we must judge for ourselves about so many things and look at another's opinion as "information" not necessarily truth.

People behave badly in all walks of life. Church goers are as likely to be amoral as non-church goers. Good people can be found in and out of Church. So can bad people.

It's just that church-goers claim themselves to be in a higher order.  The rest of us (I go to church quite often, though) don't claim perfection or the right to judge others.  We know that we are human and that greed is among us and morality is a matter of culture and belief.

However, in this culture, we do have a standard that says things should be measured on a fair standard.  This article, if not immoral, was at the least based on unfair practices that led to a belief that stood on shifting sand.

I remember reading the 2012 WSJ that this article references. Yes, what a scam. And this guy used church funds for the scam, yet. That needs to get even more publicity.

I guess my point though is that a business is available to fake your standing as a best selling author.  If there's one, there are several more.  They even have ways to beat the bots.  Once again, it isn't quality but rather who has the most bucks that makes the difference.  I don't say that as sour grapes, just reality.

Kerry Kenedy said her acquittal was for three reasons:  she was innocent, she could afford the best counsel and 3 I forgot.  But she made a big point that money buys justice.  It also buys injustice.

I got the point, and agree. That's what I called a scam. Of course it's dishonest and manipulative. And it goes on with everything. This is why critical thinking skills are so important. Most people lack them,  which is why they're so easily influenced. I wish schools would emphasize such classes, with examples like this. I guess there isn't room with all the diversity and multicultural classes, and now the Common Core, SPLC-directed "Teaching Tolerance" (Orwellian-speak) curricula.

Schools have been the subject of research since the beginning of time.  Full knowledge of what students need, how they learn best, and what curricula will prepare them best for the future is available.  It's completely ignored in exchange for the political agenda of the moment - regardless of political party or beliefs.

Any teacher is well aware that the most important gift for students is teaching them to teach themselves; another way of saying critical thinking skills.  If nothing else was taught, a teacher's job would be complete.

Many great people are self-taught.  They could read and think.  They could use numbers. 

With modern technology and Google, a teacher is pretty redundant except for their ability to reach into the mind of a student and find and nourish a thirst for learning.  Technology doesn't do that so well as a human yet.

Each of us has that moment in our education when a teacher found our learning spot. I pretty much did what teachers told me to do and did it well because I needed adults in my life who praised me.  I performed academically in all subjects for praise.

In eleventh grade, I had two great teachers.  One was Mrs. Redman.  I remember her as "old" with gray hair in a bun and a wrinkled face on a skinny body in old ladies dresses.  But mostly, I remember the ordinary day when she became extraordinary and made the witch come alive in Macbeth.  You could hear a pin drop in that classroom, then gasps, and suddenly Shakespeare was alive for all of us, including me.  From that day forward we did not gripe about any reading assignment from her as she challenged us to find our own characters to bring alive as she had done with Macbeth.

My second great teacher put me in front of a microphone for a radio club.  It wasn't a class, just an in-school club that gave student announcements for extra credit.  Once I had the mike, I hungered to become an announcer or television journalist.

Those two moments had nothing to do with FCAT's or Common Corps or A,B,& C schools.  We had one annual exam that was across the U.S.  We spent a few days prepping for it.  Our entire school career was not exam prep, it was being lucky enough to have the two teachers I had that inspired us to desire learning and put it to use.

I have plenty of education and education administration credentials.  I have taught K-12 and adult in all but higher sciences and some technical and career subjects.  I was a "master teacher," etc.  I designed state-implemented curriculum.

And I believe that most of our school buildings today are useless.  The best schools are spotty at best and generally private with high tuitions.  They have select students in small classes with integrated curricula that is usually thematic - arts, sciences, technical studies, academics, sports - anything that gives learning context - again so students may learn for themselves as inspired.

School building warehouse students while parents work.  They pick up the slack where parenting is found lacking.  They play political football with grants and tests and "new" curricula emphasis. 

I find the best rounded students I know are those that are home schooled though I don't recommend it.  Those children are generally schooled in the arts, music, sports and the community.  They get to move at their own ability in the different subjects.  I object to the home schooling political slant without any challenge from outside influences, but I sure find the education superior to what I see in school based learning.

I'm not sure how this thread got around to teaching, but since it has, I naturally have to put in my perspective.

I have been retired for almost 12 years now, and have no idea what the trends are, and LC's titles are completely new to me.  My oldest daughter, as many of you know, is a middle school administrator, my younger daughter is a high school counselor, and my son and daughter-in-law are both tenured professors at an eastern university that, among other specialties, trains teachers.  I guess I need to ask them. We will all be together next week as Jaycie is bringing her parents and grandpop to SA for her 5th  birthday.

Meantime, I have a bit of related news.  A couple of weeks ago, one of my former students from the late 80's sent me a friend request on Facebook, which I responded to immediately, and have now reconnected with.  In one of her comments, she told me, "I have thought of you often."  It works two ways.  I have often thought of her, too.  All of my students were special, some even more so than others.  This particular student was one of the truly special ones.  So many people had given up on her, but somehow, she was refusing to give up on herself.There were problems at home that I won't go into.  Many of you are also Facebook friends so you may have come upon a comment or two.  She had, and has, a keen mind, which went unrecognized by too many adults who had an influence over her life.  

One of the reasons I liked the experimental program that I "fell" into when I started teaching was that it promoted the points that DK was making - that the best thing teachers can do is to help students learn that they can teach themselves.  Our program thrived on that.  One of my contributions to the literature on teaching was an article called "The Learning Wheel," which showed how the standard, hierarchical method of teaching higher level thinking could be used in a cyclical format.  It was part of what I learned during the first years of teaching in our unique system.  Our classses were self-paced and competency based.  Our classrooms did not have desks, but tables.  We generated our own supplements to the textbooks because there was nothing available to purchase that would adequately help us to do our jobs.  I, for example, taught English and Language Arts, from Correlated through Advanced and Honors, at all grade levels, at the same time.  Math teachers taught everything from 9th grade basic math through pre-calculus, also all at the same time.  Our students were given materials to allow them to work independently, and we, as teachers, moved around the classroom, working independently with each student, one-on-one, as we were needed.  Our classes were small - 15 students max at a time.  One of the first things I learned was that I could not possibly have all the answers to their questions, so I had to learn how to help them find their own answers.  It was an expensive program, which we kept going in the public system by applying for, and obtaining, grants from the public sector.  The Learning Wheel was an outgrowth of my experiences.
When I first started at the school, nearly all of our students were underpriveleged in one way or another.  When I left, 14 years later, we were drawing a large number of students from around the district (we were a magnet school) who were disappointed with their home campuses' honors and gifted and talented programs and had heard about us an our successes.  Odd thing was, the district was embarrassed by our records because they ran counter to the districts proclaimed objectives - correct that - it was more about the district's hidden agenda.  We were located in a heavy business district in the northwest Houston area.  The residential sections were mostly lower socio-economic groups.  Our school board got re-elected every year by keeping the taxes down,  and in addition, the hidden agenda tended to keep the resident children "down" too, maintaing the status quo, so to speak.

For my own reasons, I left that campus to join the night high school staff, and that is a whole -nother story.

If I were required to, I could pull out a very large sheaf of my appraisal reports, most of which were rated Clearly Outstanding, and the remainder, Exceeding Expectations. (I only bring this up because I have learned that when I post about my teaching years, I invariably get a few responses that seem intent on belittling the posts.)  I keep them, but what really counts is running into former students from a quarter of a century ago who say, "I remember you often."

Our public school system definitely needs revamping.  We need to begin with the notion that the students can learn - and learn to learn, regardless of their background.  Theu do not all learn the same way, so we need to be able to find the best ways for each of them, and apply the techinques that work.

Dear Annie,
The teacher that I have thought of often are few.  I wish you could teach teachers how to teach.
Love,
Betty

Betty, I was just lucky that Fate sent me to the best place for me to learn.

Annie

You know, Annie, 
You have such a lovely brain and such compassion in your heart that you would be the best of teachers no matter if it was for a few or for a lot of kids.  Those who would have you as teacher would be the luckiest.
Yes.  I do believe that.
Love,
Betty

   

Annie

A close friend of mine told me she was going to a retirement at Annapolis, the invited special guest of an officer who was retiring, all expenses paid.  He wanted her there to hear his speech that gave her credit for turning his life around and making it possible for him to join the military, make rank, find the woman of his dreams, raise children and now seek a new chapter as his military life came to a close.  When she told me about the speech, I cried.  It was the starfish story again, the one child who made a difference in the world because a teacher pulled for him and made it possible to graduate in spite of errors on his part. He had two paths awaiting him.  She sent him forward instead of back.

Again, pedagogy is needed because it's part of the teaching of facts - but it is that special connection that a teacher makes with certain students to spark their own initiative that makes the real difference for the rest of their lives.  Unfortunately our systems don't reward those teachers, it sends them to troubled schools and night school and outlying schools because they usually have difficulty with bureaucracies and stupidity that get in the way of teaching. Fortunately, those are good places to spark a child who needs a special teacher.  The burnout rate, however, is high.

Actually, I got along quite well with the Central Office staff. I wrote curriculum almost every summer, and attended and sometimes taught the summer workshops, so we were on pretty friendly terms. I wasn't sent to these campuses, I volunteered. They were the exciting places to be, and at night school, we were envied by the other faculties because we only taught classes four nights a week. On Fridays we had meetings and spent a few hours tutoring. We were paid the same as the other schools, but we worked ten fewer hours a week and had smaller classes.

We still had to teach the same courses and prove that we were covering all the required elements, and our students still had to pass the state exams, but we had more freedom in how we chose to go about it.

Since we've shifted to talking about education, especially in the US, what do you guys think about the coming changes to the SAT?
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/05/college-board-unveils-new-sat-major-overhaul-writing-exam

Here are just a few of them:

Quote :

The current writing test, in which students cite their own experiences or values to respond to a statement, will be replaced with one in which students respond to a passage of writing, and must analyze evidence. The students will be evaluated on both their analysis and their writing.
The writing test will be optional. Currently, even though many colleges ignore writing test scores, all students must take the writing portion of the test.
Reading sections, like the writing section, will see a shift in focus so that students must cite evidence from passages to support their answers.
The point scale will return to 1600, as it was before the writing test was added in 2005, when the scale changed to 2400. Those who take the writing test will receive a separate score for that.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/05/college-board-unveils-new-sat-major-overhaul-writing-exam#ixzz2vTQVJDxQ
Inside Higher Ed

Fortunately there are teachers who thrive in adversity and love the off-site environments.  They generally remain teachers and don't rise into administration, however.  Off-site is off-site no matter how you slice it.

Personally, I never aspired to be an administrator. I preferred working directly with students. The state, at the time, had a merit-based pay system, so there were many of us who stayed in the classroom.

Our principal at the magnet school (I'm not familiar with the term "off-site; I'm assuming it refers to something similar. These terms change from state to state, as do teaching conditions in general) had been an English teacher before he became an administrator. He had developed a reputation for caring about his students, and that reputation had followed him into his first AP position, which, in turn, led to his being chosen as principal for ACE (what we called the magnet school). I missed the first two years of the program. By the time I arrived, the basic set-up had been worked out, and faculty members who didn't function well in the system had mostly gone. We had frequent regular staff meetings and every teacher had a voice during those meetings. The school had adopted a disciplinary system that worked for us, one that encouraged students to accept responsibility for their behavior as well as for their learning. It was an effective system for our school and its unique set up.

After nine years of the school's continuing success, the proncipal was promoted. The principal of the district's largest traditional high school had been promoted to Central Office, rapidly on his way to becoming the first assistant superintendent, and our beloved principal was chosen to succeed the promoted gentleman as head of the largest school campus in the district.

Our new principal was a bit embarrassed at the small size of our campus, and especially so since we had no UIL sports teams. The man had been a coach before becoming an AP, and was very much into competition. He didn't quite get the concept of community that had marked our program. He took over a very tight control of our faculty meetings, an we basically lost our voice as a faculty.

In the meantime, our first principal went to that oversized campus with an administrative sector as large as our entire magnet school's faculty. It didn't take him long to learn that it was going to be impossible to create the community atmosphere with such a large group. He grew increasingly unhappy with the job, and was eventually "kicked upstairs" to a Central Office director's position. Our magnet school moved closer and closer to a typical traditional high school. I adapted to the changes, especially after being assigned to teach the English AP classes, but each year became more frustrating. When I heard about the newly opening night school job, I jumped at the chance to transfer. The first year there was pretty rough, but our faculty members, once again, had a voice, and we held frequent meetings to discuss possible solutions; some staff members left at the end of the first year, new ones came in, and before long, we had a system that worked for our students.

Smaller student bodies, smaller class size, and fewer faculty members gave us the opportunity to make the changes that made a difference.

I don't know about thriving in adversity. I always got along quite well with my superiors - the principals, AP's and counselors I worked under, because working with them, rather than fighting against them, gave me the opportunities to get the assignments I wanted, the opportunity to help write the curriculum and supplementary materials that we needed to do our jobs, and the support of the administrators, both on campus and at Central Office.

Just me.

Having been an administrator at several different types of schools in several states and countries I have seen education from several perspectives.  I hold with my opinion that the quality of the teacher, qualities often not measured, makes the difference for certain students.  Others will succeed regardless of the walls in which they attempt learning.  Others will fail.  The public school system for all children in the U.S. is a hodgepodge of haves and have nots and is not conducive to a thriving nation.  Period.

dkchristi wrote:

  The public school system for all children in the U.S. is a hodgepodge of haves and have nots and is not conducive to a thriving nation.  Period.

 Agreed, as I said in my last post:

Quote :

[size=11.818181991577148]Smaller student bodies, smaller class size, and fewer faculty members gave us the opportunity to make the changes that made a difference.[/size]