Hold My Chalk

A few years ago the Oklahoma State Legislature passed a law stating that third-graders who score Unsatisfactory in reading on the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Test must be retained.  This law will go into effect this school year.  They were kind enough to allow certain exceptions to the law if the student can meet one of the Six Good Cause Exceptions.   If, after being held back, the student still does not score above Unsatisfactory on the OCCT he can be retained again. If a student has already been retained once in the third grade and then scores an Unsatisfactory again, the school must provide an intensive acceleration class that focuses on increasing the child's reading level at least two grade levels in one school year. This Intensive Acceleration Class must meet certain criteria. It must have a reduced teacher-student ratio. Sounds great to me, often times students learn better in small groups One problem-who else will be in the small group?  Will it be a mix of ...

Public education in this state and nation is in dire need of an overhaul!  Teachers are incompetent, and leaders are lazy and blind to the facts. All anyone wants is more money, when they haven't done an adequate job earning the money they currently are paid. If you read many of the articles in some newspapers or listen to the statements delivered by the state leaders this is what you come away thinking. It saddens me that someone who should be the champion of teachers is the one most critical of them publicly.  As an instructional leader my job is to bring out the potential in my staff.  When I see my teachers doing something well, I need to tell the world.  When I see a teacher struggling, I need to tell the teacher.  I need to go to her and help her gather resources to facilitate improvement. I don't need to set her up to fail, but need to find a way to help her succeed.  The same applies to the leadership at the state level. Instead of demoralizing the ...

You walk into the classroom and notice the students are under some kind of spell.  Are they under hypnosis?  Has the teacher bribed them? Whatever is going on, it seems as though some kind of magic is taking place.  The teacher calls out some random phrase and the students reply with some other predetermined chant.  All effective teachers have some way to get the attention of the students that is positive and never demeaning.  Highly effective and superior teachers use multiple was to get their attention and often do it in a fun and exciting way. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, we call these ways of attaining the attention of the students "callbacks."  When you call the students back from whatever task they are on you can do it in many ways.  There is no secret to it.  This is just a procedure you practice with your students and review it from time to time.  As the year progresses, you can add new ones to the mix.  This adds a...

"...you're just not keeping up," The Doctor. Have you ever felt that way?  You teach a skill to the best of your knowledge and the kids just don't get it?  You try all you know to try, to no avail.  We need to adopt the philosophy of the Jedi Master Yoda. "You must unlearn what you have learned...try not! Only do or do not! There is no try." A few years ago, simply teaching the skill was enough.  You covered the objective, marked it off the list and moved on to the next topic or chapter.   Now we need a different mentality, and many of us are already there. We should compare the teach vs. learn philosophies of education. Every concept you cover needs to be scrutinized, and we need to ask ourselves if the students really learned the idea behind what we were teaching. We can teach and lecture until we turn blue, but if the kids don't get it what good have we done?  To see if they get it, we test then teach again.  Often the second time around is just the...