Teacher Leadership Today

VIVA for Teacher Voice!

The VIVA Project is building a "National Idea Mine" by inviting teachers from across the United States to join in some themed discussions of important education policy issues. The organizers promise you'll "have a chance to discover what similar experiences teachers have, regardless of where they work and what you can learn from differences in your school’s setting, resources and missions."

The idea is to tackle one topic together over six weeks and build "a resource directly from classroom teachers for political leaders." Project organizers say they've received assurances from the White House and the U.S. Department of Education that the views expressed via the National Idea Mine will be listened to. Here's the issue NOW on the table:

Each year, the federal government spend  s billions to promote teacher quality. If you were President Obama's Secretary of Education, how would you direct these funds to meet the real-world classroom challenges of teachers and improve teacher quality and the effectiveness of professional development programs?

The project is limited to classroom teachers and the first discussion is underway. But there's still time to be heard! Check it out. These days, it makes sense to plant your ideas in places where your ideas matter.

Over at "Teaching Now" — Superman Sightings

  Our friends at Teacher, the Education Week virtual magazine, have a lively blog they've tagged "Teaching Now" that's well worth adding to your feed. In a post yesterday, editor Anthony Rebora highlighted three recent blog articles about the new documentary film Waiting for Superman. All, as it turns out, written by members of our Teacher Leaders Network.

Here are a few more from other TLN member blogs:

• Larry Ferlazzo, the King of teacher resources, is keeping a running list of WFS articles -- at least the ones he finds credible.

• Ken Bernstein, aka teacherken at DailyKos, has a list of his own.

• Anthony Cody, who blogs at Teacher under the title "Living in Dialogue," comments regularly on the negative effects of the film on the teaching profession.

• David Orphal says WFS is a "narrow portrait" but also that it speaks some important truth about the conditions of many students.

• As Patrick Ledesma, another Teacher blogger, awaits the opportunity to see WFS, he reflects on truth and faith and the anti-hero.

• And Jose Vilson wonders: just what does Superman know about pedagogy?

UPDATE: Nancy Flanagan uncovers a disgraceful filler in MORE magazine -- a cheap shot at teachers worthy of subscription cancellation.

 

How to We Recuit and Keep Great Teachers?

TLN Forum member Steve Owens is a USDOE classroom Teacher Ambassador and a recently joined member of the Teacher Leaders Network. Steve contributed this week's TLN article for Teacher Magazine — it's a review of Why Great Teachers Quit: And How We Might Stop the Exodus by Katy Farber.

Policymakers, he says, would be wise to put some of Farber's practical ideas in any "Blueprint" for school reform.

What if Race to the Top gave points for states that established 30 minute duty-free lunches, regular bathroom breaks, and provisions for nursing mothers as the norm? What if voluntary standards for teacher working conditions and compensation analogous to the Common Core Standards were established—and adoption of these teacher standards was undertaken with equal urgency?

Lots of good commenting already underway. Add yours!

Insider's View of "Waiting for Superman"

The new documentary film Waiting for Superman is something of a paean to charter schools — and includes a profile of the SEED Public Charter School in the District of Columbia.

TLN blogger Dan Brown (Get in the Fracas) teaches English at SEED. In this recent post, he describes the aspects of his charter school that make it a great place to teach. But he also cautions readers and viewers of the film not to be seduced into thinking that ALL charter schools are excellent — or that charters are the answer to all of public education's challenges.

UPDATE: Over at Advancing the Teaching Profession, Barnett Berry highlights Dan's balanced look at charter schools and education reform.

How to Build an Audience for Your Edu-Blog

You're a teacher who wants to blog — but you're wondering "Who'd listen to me?"

Or maybe you already have a blog — but it's buried so deep even Google can't find it.

Bill Ferriter has some proven advice for you. Three posts' worth, in fact.

The author of TLN's popular teacher blog The Tempered Radical agrees with social media expert Amber Mac that there are three essential elements in building an edublog audience:

Authenticity .... Bravery .... and Consistency.

"While page views, subscribers and comments are not the primary metrics that I use to judge the success of my online efforts," Bill says, "seeing new visitors is definitely rewarding."

Teaching Secrets: Create Extra Learning Time

In her latest classroom management article for Teacher Magazine, middle grades teacher and TLN member Marsha Ratzel offers a tour of Room 66, describing “some of the routines and procedures that make your classes run more like a well-oiled machine than a smoking jalopy.”

Her system, she says, can create nearly a month of extra classroom time for teaching and learning.

She even includes pictures!

A Practical Book about Assessment and the Limited Benefit of Testing

Instruction That Measures Up, a 2009 book by measurement expert James Popham, offers both a practical look at testing and assessment from an instructional point of view -- and some sharply pointed observations about the limits of testing in offering students useful feedback or making judgments about teaching effectiveness.

So says popular blogger and TLN member Ken Bernstein in this new review at the TLN Teacher Voices blog:

This is a book Popham intends to be of practical use to teachers. One may not agree with all his formulations -- this reader had some questions about the approach Popham offers as the structure of an effective lesson. Nevertheless there is a great deal of insight and practical advice. If nothing else, readers should come away with a deepened understanding of the terminology, and of the appropriate uses and inappropriate misuses of assessment of various kinds.

Bernstein offers several favorite quotes from Popham, including: "...few educators, though seemingly awash in an ocean of test-based accountability, currently recognize how few accountability tests are even mildly sensitive to the quality of a teacher’s instruction."

Renee Moore: Sidelining Teachers in the Education Discussion Makes No Sense

Over at TeachMoore...

Milken winner, Carnegie Fellow, NBCT and former Mississippi teacher of the year Renee Moore begins her latest blog post:

When I was growing up, we had a kiddie table at Thanksgiving in another room, while the grownups sat at the big table making important family decisions between bites of turkey and sweet potato pie...

We can see where this analogy is going... and it's perfect.

Wormeli: Teachers Must Resist Anti-Intellectualism

In a recent interview with TLN member Elizabeth Stein, teacher-author Rick Wormeli talks about his latest book Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject — and extends the conversation to offer his well-considered views about the need for teachers to resist the anti-intellectualism common in many schools that Wormeli sees as a significant barrier to advancing the teaching profession.

Teachers who question policies, offer new research to consider, share compelling professional reading with others — who post regularly on professional networks and think critically about teaching and assessment practices — should be affirmed and supported, not made to feel like the goody-goody at the front of the room keeping everyone from recess....

Read the complete interview at the TLN Teacher Voices blog

Teacher Magazine's Newest Blogger

Congratulations to TLN Forum member Patrick Ledesma as he launches a new blog at Teacher Magazine with the appropos title Leading from the Classroom. Patrick is a charter (2003) member of TLN, an NBCT, and a middle grades technology specialist and special ed chair in Fairfax, VA. He's also a 2010-11 Classroom Teacher Ambassador for the U.S. Department of Education.

Patrick joins three other TM bloggers who are members of TLN Forum: Anthony Cody (Living in Dialogue), Susan Graham (A Place at the Table), and Nancy Flanagan (Teacher in a Strange Land).

An awesome foursome!