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lol at the typo it's the end of my 12 hour shift for which I'm overeducated yet simultaneously undertrained
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Apr 23, 2023 20:15
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Cuttlefush posted:im not sure about antisocial, but there's definitely a type of otherwise friendly goonchild that can get driven insane by positive reinforcement wanting no positive reinforcement (in public? of a certain type? at all?) is itself a desire that can be satisfied as a reward to positively reinforce behavior. wanting nothing is still wanting something. reaching out to find this out in the first place is itself a kind of positive support for this kid. it's possible they're just happier with praise or reward in private, and by reaching out in private it demonstrates that that's possible, reinforcing telling them that it's possible. it's unusual that someone's true desire is to have no praise or reward whatsoever, but in that rare case: asking, then respecting the answer, tells them that you're someone they can ask for what they need or want. respecting their wishes is itself a positive reinforcement for them reaching out to get what they need.
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Apr 23, 2023 20:58
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Cuttlefush posted:respond later but I am curious what you do with the kids that doesn't work on. and i know there are some Like HawkPerson said, people tend to be hard-coded to respond to some kind of praise. Because of the social dynamics we experience growing up, there just aren't many examples where someone doesn't in some way respond to receiving recognition, support, etc., for performing well. Differentiating (making praise depend on the complexity of skill or behavior) is especially important here, because kids and adults generally know when they haven't done something worthy of explosive praise and won't respond as a result. You can also tailor praise to the student by modifying how it's presented. There have been times when I've just done a small fist pump and nodded at kids immediately after seeing a student do something good because I knew they did not want any verbal praise in front of their peers. But: War and Pieces posted:especially the antisocial kids who are otherwise getting good grades and doing their homework I can think of two limit cases where this might happen. Student 1: This student's problem behavior is so severe that there are limited to no opportunities to provide praise. They're physically and verbally aggressive, unable to communicate their needs, constantly escalated, and a threat to you and your staff. Typically, a child with that description is placed in a specialized environment with (god willing) 1:1 support from an ABA technician or well-trained paraprofessional all day. But still, they're doing so many things that are dangerous or unacceptable that it's hard to find the space or opportunities to praise them for good behavior. Something that works in this setting might be noncontingent reinforcement (https://www.education.uw.edu/ibestt/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Noncontingent-Reinforcement.pdf), where you provide them with consistent reinforcement (in this case, praise or tokens or something) regardless of their problem behavior. You make it very specific so as not to accidentally thank them for throwing a pencil or punching a kid. "Thanks for showing up today." or "I'm glad to see you." or "I really like that shirt." or something. The object is to build rapport and "pair" with them by providing something reinforcing and associating it with your presence or interactions. Or you can praise them for even the briefest instances where they do something good. For example, the student just finished flipping their desk during a test. The desk is set up again, the test is back on their desk, and they pick up their pencil and look at it. Instantly, I'm going to say, "Thanks for picking up your pencil." or "I appreciate you getting ready to take your test." You might sometimes praise them while they're being physically aggressive! If they're about to punch a teacher, but you clap your hands, and they look at you, immediately say, "Great job looking at me! That's awesome!" because looking at you is a behavior you want more than aggression. I've had a kid throwing rocks at me as they eloped down the stress at 2:30 pm! Because I'd rather them be doing that on the sidewalk than in the street, I would tell them, "Thank you for staying out of the street!" or something when necessary. Of course, the praise has to be developmentally appropriate for the student's cognitive skills. Student 2: This kid just doesn't want to be noticed at all. They're pretty introverted, have no friends, don't want to talk, and may struggle with anxiety or something. In this case, my praise won't be as effective because I don't have any rapport with them. If you have a positive relationship with a kid, praise will generally work as long as it's done well. My goal then is to find a way to tailor praise or reinforcement to their preferences AND build rapport throughout the year so they respect/care about my opinion of their performance. I'd figure out one of their interests or maybe even talk to the parents to see what they enjoy doing at home (games, sports, etc.). For example, one of my previous students loving loved JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It was their favorite poo poo ever, and they knew literally everything about every part. I saw them wear JoJo shirts to school every day of the week, eat food out of a JoJo lunchbox, etc. I wanted to connect with them more on their level about their interests, so I spent some of my off time streaming JJBA in the background at home. I think I watched parts 1-3/4 over two weeks and took notes about important characters, scenes, etc. When I had the chance at school, I asked the kid questions like, "I've been really getting into JJBA recently- do you have a favorite part?" or say things like, "I saw you wear that shirt last Friday and decided I'd check out the anime. It's pretty good- I can't believe people complain about the animation style." One really fun one that led to like a 10-minute conversation was, "Did you start with the manga or just jump into the anime? I feel like the manga probably captures more of what author name was trying to do, but i don't know. Should I read the parts I've already watched?" etc. So in this instance I found something they liked and expressed genuine interest in their thoughts about it. I'd pepper conversations with, "Dang, you really know your stuff. I wish you spoke up a little more in class." or "Thanks for talking to me about this." or "Man, I really enjoy talking to you." and over time built enough rapport that they valued my praise in other areas.
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Apr 23, 2023 21:09
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Edit: sorry to those replying to me that I'm missing. I keep forgetting to respond because of all the other questions One year I had a big-time struggler who loved the demon slayer anime! With the parent/principal's signed permission, I brought the first few volumes to school and told the kid he could earn them with tickets. I'd give out tickets for things like staying in his seat, raising his hand instead of blurting out, staying focused, etc. It's really all about finding something your student actually cares about and wants to earn. As long as you set expectations within the realm of possibility, they will put in effort to receive it. There's a concept called ratio strain in ABA which is basically: the demand or task is too difficult or complex and thus the student does not receive reinforcement frequently enough to influence their behavior. If I take a kid who's out of his seat or yelling like every 30 seconds and tell them they can earn an action figure but only by behaving perfectly all day, the kid will never be able to succeed. I need to set expectations realistically and increase from there. You gotta start small and gradually increase how much they need to do so they have the chance to succeed. NeatHeteroDude has issued a correction as of 21:28 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 21:12
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huh. all right. starting to think i went to troll kid schools or something. you're talking about like 6-10 year olds right?
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Apr 23, 2023 21:31
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Cuttlefush posted:huh. all right. starting to think i went to troll kid schools or something. you're talking about like 6-10 year olds right? You have to make everything you do developmentally appropriate, but these general principles work k-12. Maybe a high school kid really likes competitive overwatch, so I put some of that on in the background while I type emails. Or a 10 year old loves five nights at Freddie's, so I watch a YouTuber play the most recent one to pick up on stuff we can talk about. Even just like bare minimum knowledge and an authentic interest in what the kid thinks is enough to start building rapport. Like, idk poo poo about lots of things but I'm genuinely interested in hearing what my students want to communicate so it's easy to ask questions and stuff Don't forget that like no adults in any given school will ever genuinely ask a 13 year old whether jotaro would beat josuke in a death match on even footing
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Apr 23, 2023 21:40
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NeatHeteroDude posted:Don't forget that like no adults in any given school will ever genuinely ask a 13 year old whether jotaro would beat josuke in a death match on even footing no poo poo, because the answer is obvious and even asking the question makes you look like a cop
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Apr 23, 2023 21:49
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500 good dogs posted:no poo poo, because the answer is obvious and even asking the question makes you look like a cop that's why I ask the question!!! for this response specifically e: there's a lot of strategy involved in all of this stuff but the first step is going to be finding a way to get authentically interested in what a student wants to talk about. all jojo fans are going to be like, "wtf dude how is that even a question?" and a kid who really likes/knows the series will immediately respond and want to correct you NeatHeteroDude has issued a correction as of 22:08 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 21:55
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NeatHeteroDude posted:that's why I ask the question!!! for this response specifically poo poo
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Apr 23, 2023 21:58
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so the scaling of education is an interesting thing bc group dynamics change heavily based on numbers. a group of 10 6th graders behaves differently than a group of 30 and 50 is different still and all of that is different from how a kid acts by themselves or with 1 other person. it’s not necessarily bad to have a large class in certain circumstances. BUT the expectations, activities, behaviors, and etc must be adjusted to the group size. I am not going to be able to do things in a group of 50 that I could do in a tutoring type scenario. then again, there are many fun and good things I can’t do with just one kiddo either. where the ed system loses it imo is where it expects 20-person class size results out of 40-person class sizes. in a 20-person class I can give predictable and regular deep personal feedback; I can give big projects that require careful grading; I can be in charge alone. in a 40-person class I generally need to put personal feedback on a rotation to keep it predictable, like maybe I talk to 5 kids a week about their progress. I don’t give big intensive projects that I grade alone in depth. I don’t run the class myself but have student leaders that help me fill in important gaps (demonstrate a skill or catch up a struggling kiddo). big classes are great ways to have students learn and practice being a part of a thriving community where people adopt and discard roles as the community’s needs change. so imo it’s not that education doesn’t scale, it’s that many educators and administrators think there’s nothing that needs to change when scaling and then we’re all like “why doesn’t the HS ELA teacher with 200 students write thoughtful comments on all the kids’ essays” as if the answer isn’t obvious on its face. I wish we had a greater variety of class sizes. it would be rad to have my big giant classes and also have some tiny ones for different kinds of work.
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Apr 23, 2023 22:10
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I always taught in rooms where there was a pretty close ratio of adults to students. I usually had an aide, a nurse, and OT, PT, and speech were always rotating in and out. I have no idea how you teach more than 10 kids by yourself. Every time I was asked to cover a bigger class it was terrifying.
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Apr 23, 2023 22:16
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Glad to have found a nice new teaching thread (the weekend recommendation thing really works!) I've taught English at the high school level in a private school in a well-to-do suburb of Paris, France for five years now (having moved here back in 2011). This is mainly because as a non-citizen of France I am not allowed to be a civil servant, but I can be paid by the state. How that's exactly different is in the fine print. I typically work with seniors and sometimes with juniors. I don't mind sophomores but I'm not the best at teaching them since I'm very disorganized. Having been a student in Connecticut my whole life, I do think that the American system was better as a student, mainly in the ways I felt I was taught to be independent and think critically, even if at the end of the day we didn't learn much. Plus we had a lot more free time. Students have class over here from 8:15 am to 6:05 pm, though they do get an hour off for lunch and will often have hours off throughout the day but it's still a long day. It's certainly better to teach in France than the US though. I don't know if I could teach in the US. The genuine possibility of having to confront a student with a gun would be enough to put me off of it. I think we get paid better too, though not much better. We do have a gently caress-ton of vacations though (2 weeks off for every 6 weeks on), which you can either use to be a good and responsible teacher who prepares and grades poo poo, or you can use to slack off and be lazy as poo poo and then panic when class picks up again. NeatHeteroDude posted:that's why I ask the question!!! for this response specifically It's funny because while I'm very interested in my students as individuals, culturally that's not how the system works in France. They have a real hierarchy of Teacher and the Student, and while that's been shifting over time, the students here find it radically wild how candid I am with them. My wife, who's French, has gotten used to it but at first she did think I talked too much to my students and was too nice to them, because that's just not what she experienced. She found it strange I gave an email address to graduating seniors. Not many have written but it's always nice when they do. I often wonder this about education: Do you think that you can learn to teach or is it more of a vocation or calling? I'm starting to lean towards the latter because even in my scant time doing this, and I got into it knowing this is what I wanted to do, I've seen such inept examples that I don't know what the deal is.
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Apr 23, 2023 23:20
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NeatHeteroDude posted:Or a 10 year old loves five nights at Freddie's, lost cause
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Apr 23, 2023 23:55
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this feels somewhat related, ive recently become morbidly fascinated with the troubled teen industry, which basically just sounds like a network of child abuse camps where these kids are screamed at, humiliated, and tortured into compliance with some horrible synanon-inspired program. i guess my first question is how the gently caress is this stuff still around? are there any schools like this that actually use valid methods of instruction, therapy etc or is it all terrible? and as educators do any of the teachers here have any experience with this? not like teaching at one but maybe seeing a student go to one or encountering a student who has been to one before. also if this is a stupid or inappropriate topic please disregard!!
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Apr 24, 2023 00:19
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lobster shirt posted:this feels somewhat related, ive recently become morbidly fascinated with the troubled teen industry, which basically just sounds like a network of child abuse camps where these kids are screamed at, humiliated, and tortured into compliance with some horrible synanon-inspired program. i guess my first question is how the gently caress is this stuff still around? are there any schools like this that actually use valid methods of instruction, therapy etc or is it all terrible? and as educators do any of the teachers here have any experience with this? not like teaching at one but maybe seeing a student go to one or encountering a student who has been to one before. also if this is a stupid or inappropriate topic please disregard!! i know someone went to one of the troubled teen behavior modification boarding schools which apparently was one of the 'good' ones. what they described sounded weird but just boarding school weird except when they brought up being punished with work details for getting unauthorized calls, removal of various privileges (communication and privacy mostly), and losing/regaining contact with the kids who failed out of the nice place and went to the even more trouble teen programs. i never pressed but just the bits and pieces sounded hosed
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Apr 24, 2023 00:41
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This school is still open: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Rotenberg_Educational_Center The use of electric shock as punishment was opposed by the Association for Behavior Analysis International last year. Better late than never I guess.
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Apr 24, 2023 00:49
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lobster shirt posted:this feels somewhat related, ive recently become morbidly fascinated with the troubled teen industry, which basically just sounds like a network of child abuse camps where these kids are screamed at, humiliated, and tortured into compliance with some horrible synanon-inspired program. i guess my first question is how the gently caress is this stuff still around? are there any schools like this that actually use valid methods of instruction, therapy etc or is it all terrible? and as educators do any of the teachers here have any experience with this? not like teaching at one but maybe seeing a student go to one or encountering a student who has been to one before. also if this is a stupid or inappropriate topic please disregard!! to answer the first question, in loco parentis is a hell of a thing. the baseline that all other regulations are built on top of is that educators and caregivers can exercise the same amount of discretion over children in their custody as the parents can, as long as they are acting in the interest of the children and acting with the permission of the parents (with lots of permission being unspoken tacit agreement as part of a traditional relationship). parents pretty much have free rein to decide what constitutes the interest of the children, and can therefore have someone act on their behalf. parents can and do scream at their children to try to get them to stop, so camp counselors can too. parents can lie to their children or transport them wherever they want, so, with the parents' permission, so can camp counselors. (this is why students don't have a bunch of constitutional rights protecting them from government intrusion from their public school, as well.) one reason it persists is because a lot of people, including parents and regulators, think that negative reinforcement is a good way to teach. changing regulation about this is slow, and it's generally easier to get a school board or district administration to sign on to something like this than a state legislature. that leaves private schools and other private programs, many of which are selling themselves as curing the failures of wimpy liberal public schools, to fall through the regulatory gaps. just to give you an idea of how slow this regulatory change is, while most of them don't use it in practice, 19 states still allow public schools to use corporal punishment. (private schools can use it almost everywhere!) the law lags way, way behind the science. now that just covers the parts that are legal. it's not legal to starve children or injure them or do a lot of other things that attack/aversion/conversion therapy camps do, but the government agency in charge of investigating those cases is probably relying mainly on tips from parents and caregivers. if the parents think that some abusive behavior on the part of the caregivers is fine and there's no whistleblower, then it often just doesn't get reported. and if the kid ends up irreparably harmed, then the parents have a vested interest in hiding that, out of fear of being held responsible along with the camp. it sucks! Cease to Hope has issued a correction as of 01:08 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 01:01
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NeatHeteroDude posted:You have to make everything you do developmentally appropriate, but these general principles work k-12. Maybe a high school kid really likes competitive overwatch, so I put some of that on in the background while I type emails. I try to keep up with everything the kids talk about, but who has time to watch it? It's been five years and no one has ever realized I just read the fandom wiki episode summaries for whatever shows are on. For games I check patch notes whenever they pop up on RockPaperShotgun or whatever and occasionally check the last few pages of the Games forum thread.
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Apr 24, 2023 01:35
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Hawkperson posted:I’m glad to hear it. this is what i at least was trying to say to you the whole time. it’s one thing to look from outside on the system and identify its issues; it’s a whole nother thing to actually get inside the system to try and fix it. outside perspective is vital though. as we strive to change the system from within, we get changed by it. I think this thread is much better suited to a dialogue between teachers and those we teach/have taught/have to deal with the results of our teaching than our little stress relief thread in the academia forum. Yeah, thanks for listening both then and now and providing your perspective. I was at a particularly burnt out place at that point myself, which has since wildly improved to say the least. Regarding Canadian education, I think you've pretty much got it spot-on. We import the diet version of whatever's happening in the US at a given time, so our problems are not as severe, but they're broadly similar. I've had a few thoughts based on reading this thread and what it says about the state of education in general, for better or worse, plus a few recent experiences that have led me to similar conclusions, and it's this: we're doing an increasingly less poo poo job of dealing with students who have behavioural problems. NeatHeteroDude has explained a lot about what he does and how and why it works, and it makes a lot sense -- in fact, it looks broadly similar to the exact training we get on how to teach as flight instructors. Keep largely positive, even if you have to dig that well fuckin' deep to find a drop, set attainable goals when a student is struggling so they can build up to bigger and better things and feel a sense of accomplishment, and honestly, avoid punishments where possible, because that poo poo doesn't really work. Like, to wit: NeatHeteroDude posted:You have to make everything you do developmentally appropriate, but these general principles work k-12. No, these general principles work way beyond that! I have a student in his 40s or maybe 50s, and yeah, that's how I pulled him from "the guy who several instructors stopped flying with and I was honestly concerned about sending solo at some point" to a really drat good student, who's solo'ed safely several times, most recently this morning! It's not always easy, it's not always pleasant, but if you can figure out how to adapt the techniques, they really can be used almost universally. Back to my original point: I think we're collectively really improving in this area. At the same time, I think the content and context of this thread does belie the fact that it's still operating in a sort of triage mindset. We're getting better at treating the worst and most threatening, for lack of a better word, problems. I don't know that we're doing as well with middle- to high-achievers. The state of gifted education as a subset of SpEd is usually quite poo poo for any number of reasons -- just look at the number of people who bitch and moan about having been in a gifted program. I also question, to some degree, whether average students -- the ones who don't really stick out in any significant way, positive or negative, are getting the best possible education. Again, due to under-resourcing, I think there's very much a mindset of "oh well, they'll be fine, we have bigger problems to deal with." That's not a wrong choice given the circumstances, but it is sad to see. Now, what I've seen recently, since we're working with the Air Cadets to do a bunch of familiarization flights, is that this is very much a solvable problem, but it requires extra resources and has to be done more or less entirely outside of the education system itself if it's to be done at all, and I don't love that it's largely being done in a context that glorifies the military and that sort of poo poo. But they are certainly providing a service by actually being demanding, and then rewarding effort beyond the necessary, and leadership, with genuinely desirable things up to and including "the government pays you to get a pilot license." At its core, it's still motivating people by giving them things that they find desirable, and to bring it all back together: it's pretty much universal, and we shouldn't forget about that with students who aren't causing problems per se just because it's not strictly necessary to do at the moment. But I do recognize there are constraints when you're just working with what you're given to keep the poo poo down to shoe level every day.
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Apr 24, 2023 01:38
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Mormon Star Wars posted:I try to keep up with everything the kids talk about, but who has time to watch it? It's been five years and no one has ever realized I just read the fandom wiki episode summaries for whatever shows are on. For games I check patch notes whenever they pop up on RockPaperShotgun or whatever and occasionally check the last few pages of the Games forum thread. One of the general language exercises I have them do is a short 5 minute oral presentation on anything they want. I'll usually do this at the end of the year when they know me better and are comfortable speaking about whatever the hell interests them and this sort of exercise keeps me up to date on stuff. When I've done it earlier in the year, they're usually too shy to do that and will do rather generic presentations.
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Apr 24, 2023 01:44
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Greg Legg posted:I always taught in rooms where there was a pretty close ratio of adults to students. I usually had an aide, a nurse, and OT, PT, and speech were always rotating in and out. I have no idea how you teach more than 10 kids by yourself. Every time I was asked to cover a bigger class it was terrifying. it's funny, I struggle bad with small groups. I generally need at least a few kiddos to be into what I'm doing to have the motivation and energy to teach a lesson well. if I'm 1-on-1 and the kid is not feeling it I'm also not feeling it. on the other hand I'll take 80 6th graders any day, once they get pointed in a certain direction poo poo gets really fun. just don't ask me to individually grade 80 6th graders on their work.
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Apr 24, 2023 01:53
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PT6A posted:I've had a few thoughts based on reading this thread and what it says about the state of education in general, for better or worse, plus a few recent experiences that have led me to similar conclusions, and it's this: we're doing an increasingly less poo poo job of dealing with students who have behavioural problems. well that's good to hear. SEL and that sort of support has become quite popular in the last few years, and for once I think the new hotness in education is actually pretty useful so I'm glad to hear it's maybe doing something. when trauma-informed teaching started getting popular I was like holy poo poo, finally why isn't this the first thing we think about when we're trying to educate people. no one is learning in an environment where they feel like they are in danger. duh. 100YrsofAttitude posted:Glad to have found a nice new teaching thread (the weekend recommendation thing really works!) hello, old friend!  to your question: yes, I think teaching can be taught. I think it's a skill (or well. a collection of skills) that some people take to quickly and others need lots of practice and work. just like the skills we are teaching our own students. like our own students, I think the key is motivation. if someone wants to be a good teacher and willing to put in the work they can be that (barring systemic poo poo like being given impossible situations and demanding miracles)
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Apr 24, 2023 02:01
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100YrsofAttitude posted:I often wonder this about education: Do you think that you can learn to teach or is it more of a vocation or calling? I'm starting to lean towards the latter because even in my scant time doing this, and I got into it knowing this is what I wanted to do, I've seen such inept examples that I don't know what the deal is. Personally, I have a passion for teaching, but I was incredibly inept when I started. It was hard to improvise if a class went awry, I was shy, it was hard to chat with students at times. But I put in the reps and got better. It's a profession that draws a lot of people, because there's such a need for a lot of teachers, but not everyone gives a poo poo. Or people get stuck and don't want to continue to improve after a certain point once they get comfortable. Because it's such a public job and everyone encounters teachers at some point in their life I think it's more obvious when that happens, although I suspect that happens in most occupations. I haven't been able to pursue teaching further than a few year stint, but I appreciate how much I was able to build important skills while I was teaching, from being comfortable with public speaking to organization to empathy to engaging with pedagogical research.
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Apr 24, 2023 02:29
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Eliot Rosewater posted:hi im a speech language pathologist and i strongly disagree with this statement NeatHeteroDude posted:Lots of teachers are genuinely upset by being asked to read research of any kind lol NeatHeteroDude posted:PBL stuff and research. - - - Waiting for Superman has got to be one of the most evil movies ever made. Obama, Arne Duncan, and the rest of the Dems carrying water for charter and private schools, basically just agreeing with Republicans when it came to education. The only reason Betsy Devos didn’t do more damage is because she couldn’t be quiet about it and Trump couldn’t be quiet about anything so there was somewhat of an immune response. Now that Biden is President the same things are happening, just at the state level. My state (Texas) is very close to just implementing universal school vouchers (also other dumb stuff like mandatory display of the 10 Commandments) and the Dems aren’t and can’t do poo poo about it (partially because Texas Dems succ even in comparison to other Dems and partially because they all send their kids to private schools and don’t give a poo poo).
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Apr 24, 2023 05:29
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I am an evil ideologue corrupting children, but only because I care. The intention is to teach them political cynicism, critical thinking, and nitrogen chemistry. The hope is that this will allow them to notice that things are hosed up, to determine for themselves why things are hosed up, and then to be able to do something about it. Re: PBL, I share doubts regarding its ultimate efficacy, but I like to hear chatter about it when considering schools to work at, because so far it's been a reliable indicator that the school has a decent amount of time and resources scheduled for science classes. That means I can structure practical work as PBL to keep people happy, while using the previously mentioned time and resources to teach.
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Apr 24, 2023 06:30
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Pulcinella posted:Waiting for Superman has got to be one of the most evil movies ever made. Obama, Arne Duncan, and the rest of the Dems carrying water for charter and private schools, basically just agreeing with Republicans when it came to education. The only reason Betsy Devos didn’t do more damage is because she couldn’t be quiet about it and Trump couldn’t be quiet about anything so there was somewhat of an immune response. Now that Biden is President the same things are happening, just at the state level. My state (Texas) is very close to just implementing universal school vouchers (also other dumb stuff like mandatory display of the 10 Commandments) and the Dems aren’t and can’t do poo poo about it (partially because Texas Dems succ even in comparison to other Dems and partially because they all send their kids to private schools and don’t give a poo poo). also moms for liberty has been really pushing their model legislation with a lot of success lately. florida and the LEARNS act in arkansas are a preview of what pretty much every US state with a republican trifecta is heading towards texas's currently pending bills have a lot of the same wording and rhetoric. "education savings accounts" to subsidize private schools instead of calling them vouchers, offset payments (with a built-in sunset) to public school districts for students who use the vouchers to go to private school, and don't-say-gay sex education. raises for teachers but no budget appropriation for the ones they already passed. that's all entirely separate from the bills requiring time set aside for prayer and to display the ten commandments. the only good news is that the ESA proposals might be in trouble because they're going to be pretty expensive, so republicans may cross the aisle to vote against that. either way there's a bunch of low-key stuff in SB8 that's tailor made to give pressure groups like MFL an in to endlessly harass school boards, districts, and even particular teachers with hearings about specifics of teaching methods and curriculum.
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Apr 24, 2023 06:43
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Hawkperson posted:hello, old friend! "wants to be a good teacher..." is certainly key. Why does one teach then? It's not the pay certainly. I know I do it, selfish as it may sound, but because I wanted to give something back to society and felt this was a way I could certainly be of use. I was very close going the whole research/university route, but it felt so navel-gazing (no offense to those of you in academia), that I pivoted quickly to high school education. It's anecdotal but I'd say every 3 out of 4 teachers I've met here do so for the hours. It's a valid reason, but it doesn't necessarily make for good teachers that many teachers in France become teachers so to have the time to be at home around their families. They know they'll work, but since we only have to put in a minimum of 18 hours per week (I average 20-21 and did a year at 24 hours which was exhausting, though I made "bank"), they can be home and be around their kids. Dreylad posted:Personally, I have a passion for teaching, but I was incredibly inept when I started. It was hard to improvise if a class went awry, I was shy, it was hard to chat with students at times. But I put in the reps and got better. It's a profession that draws a lot of people, because there's such a need for a lot of teachers, but not everyone gives a poo poo. Or people get stuck and don't want to continue to improve after a certain point once they get comfortable. Because it's such a public job and everyone encounters teachers at some point in their life I think it's more obvious when that happens, although I suspect that happens in most occupations. So yeah, you did it because you wanted to and were able to improve, like Hawkperson was saying. The funny thing, to teach here, you need to pass a four hour written exam and an oral if you pass (and have a master's like in the US or Baccalaureat +5). The exam proves nothing except that you know your subject. Being an English teacher I had to write a pretty standard history dissertation on some documents on India's independence, a subject I didn't know much about but I only had to work with what was given, and an essay on the modal CAN. I haven't taught either subject at all as of yet and will likely never talk about grammar in great detail since it's not required. The oral is a bit more relevant but there your critiquing a lesson plan's content, not its implementation. The exam proves a teachers knowledge and analytic skills to some degree, but the social aspect of the job is wholly ignored, and I personally feel that is one of the biggest parts of the job, if not the biggest. Proof is the stuff that's been said so far in the thread. Still it's reassuring that people can and do improve, if they so choose. I may be a bit bitter, it's been the roughest year since I've started and I think it dimmed my view of my co-workers. They're nice for the most part, but yeah.
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Apr 24, 2023 09:42
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18 hours a week!! I am terribly, terribly jealous
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Apr 24, 2023 14:27
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It is very nice but it's also one of the reasons why the government refuses to raise our wages arguing we don't work enough to deserve it. Of course the students have far more class than any one individual teacher works so they're just run ragged.
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Apr 24, 2023 15:57
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100YrsofAttitude posted:Of course the students have far more class hah! ETA 
ChickenOfTomorrow has issued a correction as of 18:24 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 16:19
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Very interesting thread OP. Thanks for making it as I’ve enjoyed reading it. You are clearly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your career! How do you feel about Alford Kohn, particularly his theory on motivation laid out in his book “Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes” and several articles. Here’s one I read: https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/risks-rewards/ I think he makes a lot of sense but it’s definitely not an easy path to follow.
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Apr 24, 2023 22:25
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I have two principals this year. It sucks.
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Apr 24, 2023 22:45
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Sublimer posted:Very interesting thread OP. Thanks for making it as I’ve enjoyed reading it. You are clearly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your career! phone posting so will maybe effort more later but overall his work was absolutely groundbreaking in the early 90s but some of his conclusions have later been questioned as research progresses. for one, one of the ways teachers effectively teach is by helping kids transfer motivation from extrinsic to intrinsic. generally, if a kiddo doesn’t get extrinsic motivation of some sort at the outset of learning about a discipline, they’re disinclined to pursue the discipline at all. in short, people want to feel like they are good at something before they feel it’s worth their energy to pursue it. the evo psychs theorize that it’s one of the ways we adapted to our environment. no sense in wasting precious energy on something that won’t get us something useful in the future like survival or babies (or both lol). so current thinking is generally less “extrinsic rewards are always bad” and more “a good teacher is one that can get kids from extrinsically motivated to intrinsically motivated” for another, consequence is absolutely not synonymous with punishment and there’s been all sorts of research into that. also, life is full of consequences and we are absofuckinglutely doing our students a disservice if we remove all consequences from lovely behavior. I will vouch for this firsthand, as community-style support and uplifting instead of a progressive discipline system is one of the things I tried to implement in my classroom in the last few years. I’m willing to believe that part - maybe all - of the failure is due to the inherent authoritarian culture of the US and how much that seeps into expectations in the classroom. but even in that case, it means that it’s not a workable solution even in the long term. like, maybe in 200 years you could run a classroom like that, but not now. essentially the “no more consequences!” part of his arguments is lib as gently caress and has no grounding in reality and I hold him personally responsible for all the fascists we have operating out in the open these days  this is largely a joke but a tiny bit not
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Apr 25, 2023 00:57
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the unabonger posted:I have two principals this year. I have none for next year! Going to be an interesting transition. We have the highest suspensions in a school district that hates suspensions, but behaviors are just out of control, for multiple reasons. Every teacher seems to want MORE suspensions, and expulsions. The district is 100% looking for someone to bring those numbers down. People are gonna hate it.
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Apr 25, 2023 07:44
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Grem posted:I have none for next year! https://twitter.com/AskAManager/status/1650681924468236289
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Apr 25, 2023 07:49
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Sublimer posted:Very interesting thread OP. Thanks for making it as I’ve enjoyed reading it. You are clearly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your career! I think there's some sound thinking in this having never heard of the man (again training to be a teacher in France is almost exclusively focused on your field of study). The three things that stuck out to me was the idea that rewards only motivate students to get rewards, that grades are detrimental, and how values have to be grown from the inside out. I wholly agree that rewards are counterproductive. Kids won't often work because they're interested but just for the good grade. It's very frustrating. I personally hate grades and would do away with the system of evaluation, though I don't really know what you could use instead. France has tried to implement a system that marks a students mastery of skills or competencies, but most people ignore it and it isn't rather defined. What I've tried to do is to reduce the value of grades in my classes. I evaluate the kids and grade them since I'm supposed to, but I'm always trying to minimize their impact by giving make-up tests or extra exercises and by constantly telling them that they don't matter as much as they think they do (to some degree sure especially if you need to get into that elite university but I don't need to tell you how good of an idea that is to begin with). When it works, the students end up not caring about the grade they'll get and participate more in class knowing that they don't have to worry about doing 'poorly'. When it fails, kids just coast by and are satisfied with whatever grade they can get and don't really get engaged. With students like that, I'll admit I don't try to grab their attention more and that's on me. At the end of the day what upsets me most is how often we're teaching for an exam and not for becoming a better person. I find that most of the time in my job is finding ways to do the latter while still doing the former so that the kids can still move on. It's harder at the high school level since they're so well formed at that point. A lot of their preconceived notions are set and won't change much and values have to be worked on at home too and can't just be put on a teacher, with their tons of other responsibilities. Grem posted:I have none for next year! I'd be curious to know what reasons you have for the behavioral issues? This has been my worst year in terms of academic success and talents. The kids are very nice and don't at all subscribe to the age-old canard veteran teachers bandy about of "The generations are getting worse and worse", but I have to admit they haven't really succeeded this year. The results for their baccalaureat were the lowest I ever got, and I blame myself as much as anything else for not having taught them well-enough. I personally find them to be quite immature this year and for me the blame falls squarely on the pandemic, which left the students with a good two years of schooling in and out of quarantine, which was handled rather poorly. So I just sort of think they lost two years of proper growing up and the seniors I have are mentally juniors if not sophomores. I suspect this will be the case for at least another 5-8 years, with only the youngest kids in primary school having malleable enough brains to have well-adapted to the troubles and those who were already old enough, were resilient enough to deal with it. The students who were anywhere between 4th and 10th grade (American) will almost certainly face consequences unless they were in a particular well furbished school districts and in a house that was way supportive and adapted to the situation. It's terribly unfair that the pandemic is 'over' and that there was no slow ramping up but just an attempt to act as if nothing had changed. It doesn't do them any favors whatsoever.
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Apr 25, 2023 13:44
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I think it's mostly socioeconomic stuff for me. We've had students move to our school because they were evicted, students move out. Parents working multiple jobs. It's impossible to list them all, I'm sure the blame would fall mostly on capitalism anyways. Oh, and there's a loving gangwar going on at the apartment complex most of my students live in. Two parents in prison, one parent dead. It's just...a lot this year.
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Apr 26, 2023 07:35
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Sublimer posted:Very interesting thread OP. Thanks for making it as I’ve enjoyed reading it. You are clearly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your career! Well, from my point of view, I view positive reinforcement as a tool on the road to having the student develop the necessary intrinsic motivation, particularly when the results of the tasks themselves leave... something to be desired, shall we say. Putting all the "things" together and achieving the end result is motivating in and of itself, typically, but slow, difficult progress on some of the components thereof can be de-motivating, if for no other reason than the student may not see the relevance of their progress, or they might not be able to accurately assess their progress in the context of necessary progression toward their ultimate motivation/goal. If the positive reinforcement/rewards become the sole motivator, that suggests to me that the curriculum is doing a poo poo job of establishing an actual motivation for going through the work of learning whatever is being taught, and without that motivation being established, no system is going to work.
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Apr 26, 2023 15:26
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Grem posted:I think it's mostly socioeconomic stuff for me. We've had students move to our school because they were evicted, students move out. Parents working multiple jobs. It's impossible to list them all, I'm sure the blame would fall mostly on capitalism anyways. Those are quite the circumstances. That sounds super rough to have to deal with. I can't believe what they think a stricter system will accomplish though. Good luck with it all.
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Apr 26, 2023 15:29
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anecdotally, vape pens being small and relatively unobtrusive is wreaking havoc on my campus. we really don’t suspend much anymore in CA (which I think is fine/good, to be clear) but drugs on campus is still automatic 3 days I believe, and selling/distributing is automatic rec for expulsion. I feel like every day I get an email about the last kid I would have imagined being involved in drugs getting in huge trouble and disappearing for a week 
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Apr 26, 2023 15:47
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