An Interesting Presentation

A sad beginning with a unique transition. I think it's well done

9/11

An e-mail message from an Ensign stationed aboard the USS Winston Churchill...

Dear Dad,

Well, we are still out at sea, with little direction as to what our next priority is. The remainder of our port visits, which were to be centered on max liberty and goodwill to the United Kingdom, has all but been cancelled.

We have spent every day since the attacks going back and forth within imaginary boxes drawn in the ocean, standing high-security watches, and trying to make the best of our time. It hasn't been that fun I must confess, and to be even more honest, a lot of people are frustrated at the fact that they either can't be home, or we don't have more direction right now. We have seen the articles and the photographs, and they are sickening. Being isolated as we are, I don't think we appreciate the full scope of what is happening back home, but we are definitely feeling the effects.

About two hours ago the junior officers were called to the bridge to conduct Ship handling drills. We were about to do a man overboard when we got a call from the LUTJENS(D185), a German warship that was moored ahead of us on the pier in Plymouth, England. While in port, the WINSTON S CHURCHILL and the LUTJENS got together for a sports day/cookout on our fantail, and we made some pretty good friends.

Now at sea they called over on bridge-to-bridge, requesting to pass us close up on our port side, to say goodbye. We prepared to render them honors on the bridge
wing, and the Captain told the crew to come topside to wish them farewell. As they were making their approach, our Conning Officer announced through her binoculars that they were flying an American flag. As they came even closer, we saw that it

was flying at half-mast. The bridge wing was crowded with people as the Boatswain's Mate blew two whistles- Attention to Port- the ship came up alongside and we saw that the entire crew of the German ship were manning the rails, in their dress blues. They had made
up a sign that was displayed on the side that read "We Stand By You".

Needless to say there was not a dry eye on the bridge as they stayed alongside us for a few minutes and we cut our salutes. It was probably the most powerful thing I have seen in my entire life and more than a few of us fought to retain our composure. It was a beautiful day outside today. We are no longer at liberty to divulge over unsecured e-mail our location, but we could not have asked for a finer day at sea. The German Navy did an incredible thing for this crew, and it has truly been the highest point in the days since the attacks. It's amazing to think that only a half-century ago things were quite different, and to see the unity that is being demonstrated throughout Europe and the world makes us all feel proud to be out here doing our job. After the ship pulled away and we prepared to begin our man overboard drills the Officer of the Deck turned to me and said, "I'm staying Navy."

I'll write you when I know more about when I'll be home, but for now, this is probably the best news that I could send you.

Not Always, but often...

An interesting read. collaborate with rather than target...

What teachers really want to tell parents

By Ron Clark, Special to CNN
updated 9:12 AM EST, Tue September 6, 2011

(CNN) -- This summer, I met a principal who was recently named as the administrator of the year in her state. She was loved and adored by all, but she told me she was leaving the profession.

Unfortunately, this sentiment seems to be becoming more and more prevalent. Today, new teachers remain in our profession an average of just 4.5 years, and many of them list "issues with parents" as one of their reasons for throwing in the towel. Word is spreading, and the more negativity teachers receive from parents, the harder it becomes to recruit the best and the brightest out of colleges.
So, what can we do to stem the tide? What do teachers really need parents to understand?

For starters, we are educators, not nannies. We are educated professionals who work with kids every day and often see your child in a different light than you do. If we give you advice, don't fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don't want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you're willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future.

Trust us. At times when I tell parents that their child has been a behavior problem, I can almost see the hairs rise on their backs. They are ready to fight and defend their child, and it is exhausting. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, "Is that true?" Well, of course it's true. I just told you. And please don't ask whether a classmate can confirm what happened or whether another teacher might have been present. It only demeans teachers and weakens the partnership between teacher and parent.

Please quit with all the excuses
The truth is, a lot of times it's the bad teachers who give the easiest grades, because they know by giving good grades everyone will leave them alone.
Ron Clark


And if you really want to help your children be successful, stop making excuses for them. I was talking with a parent and her son about his summer reading assignments. He told me he hadn't started, and I let him know I was extremely disappointed because school starts in two weeks. His mother chimed in and told me that it had been a horrible summer for them because of family issues they'd been through in July. I said I was so sorry, but I couldn't help but point out that the assignments were given in May. She quickly added that she was allowing her child some "fun time" during the summer before getting back to work in July and that it wasn't his fault the work wasn't complete.
Can you feel my pain?

Some parents will make excuses regardless of the situation, and they are raising children who will grow into adults who turn toward excuses and do not create a strong work ethic. If you don't want your child to end up 25 and jobless, sitting on your couch eating potato chips, then stop making excuses for why they aren't succeeding. Instead, focus on finding solutions.

Parents, be a partner instead of a prosecutor
And parents, you know, it's OK for your child to get in trouble sometimes. It builds character and teaches life lessons. As teachers, we are vexed by those parents who stand in the way of those lessons; we call them helicopter parents because they want to swoop in and save their child every time something goes wrong. If we give a child a 79 on a project, then that is what the child deserves. Don't set up a time to meet with me to negotiate extra credit for an 80. It's a 79, regardless of whether you think it should be a B+.

This one may be hard to accept, but you shouldn't assume that because your child makes straight A's that he/she is getting a good education. The truth is, a lot of times it's the bad teachers who give the easiest grades, because they know by giving good grades everyone will leave them alone. Parents will say, "My child has a great teacher! He made all A's this year!"

Wow. Come on now. In all honesty, it's usually the best teachers who are giving the lowest grades, because they are raising expectations. Yet, when your children receive low scores you want to complain and head to the principal's office.

Please, take a step back and get a good look at the landscape. Before you challenge those low grades you feel the teacher has "given" your child, you might need to realize your child "earned" those grades and that the teacher you are complaining about is actually the one that is providing the best education.

And please, be a partner instead of a prosecutor. I had a child cheat on a test, and his parents threatened to call a lawyer because I was labeling him a criminal. I know that sounds crazy, but principals all across the country are telling me that more and more lawyers are accompanying parents for school meetings dealing with their children.

Teachers walking on eggshells
I feel so sorry for administrators and teachers these days whose hands are completely tied. In many ways, we live in fear of what will happen next. We walk on eggshells in a watered-down education system where teachers lack the courage to be honest and speak their minds. If they make a slight mistake, it can become a major disaster.

My mom just told me a child at a local school wrote on his face with a permanent marker. The teacher tried to get it off with a wash cloth, and it left a red mark on the side of his face. The parent called the media, and the teacher lost her job. My mom, my very own mother, said, "Can you believe that woman did that?"

I felt hit in the gut. I honestly would have probably tried to get the mark off as well. To think that we might lose our jobs over something so minor is scary. Why would anyone want to enter our profession? If our teachers continue to feel threatened and scared, you will rob our schools of our best and handcuff our efforts to recruit tomorrow's outstanding educators.

Finally, deal with negative situations in a professional manner.
If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, "I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class, because I know that children can exaggerate and that there are always two sides to every story. I was hoping you could shed some light for me." If you aren't happy with the result, then take your concerns to the principal, but above all else, never talk negatively about a teacher in front of your child. If he knows you don't respect her, he won't either, and that will lead to a whole host of new problems.

We know you love your children. We love them, too. We just ask -- and beg of you -- to trust us, support us and work with the system, not against it. We need you to have our backs, and we need you to give us the respect we deserve. Lift us up and make us feel appreciated, and we will work even harder to give your child the best education possible.

That's a teacher's promise, from me to you.

Education in America

I know this is long but I think it's a good read. I copied the text over but you can access the original here

(CNN) -- When newly minted West Virginia Schools Superintendent Dr. Steven Paine told parents, teachers and educators in 2005 that he wanted to use Finland as a model for their education system, he got a lot of blank stares: Finland? What, people asked, does West Virginia have to do with Finland?
The contrast couldn't be more stark: In West Virginia, many children face poverty, illiteracy and broken homes and lack easy access to health care or proper nutrition.
Finland has a largely literate and relatively homogeneous population, little immigration and almost no poverty or social problems. They also offer a vast network of social supports including free meals and health care for school children.
Still, Finland was -- and remains -- at the top of international test rankings for elementary through high schools and after studying and observing Finnish schools for several months in 2004, Paine was convinced they had useful things to teach West Virginia.
But rather than concentrate directly on test scores, Paine thought West Virginia should concentrate on developing more rigorous standards, curriculum and perhaps most importantly -- teacher supports.
Here he was on shaky political ground: Raising test scores has become the central goal of a growing chorus of those trying to improve U.S. education.
But Paine thought an overemphasis on standardized tests leads to in a narrow, unimaginative curriculum that isn't in the best interests of kids.
Develop the right curriculum, standards and teacher supports, Paine said, and test scores will take care of themselves.
In this, he was following Finland's lead: Finland doesn't use standardized tests to assess teachers or schools.
"If we're going to spend the effort and money necessary to raise standards," Paine said at the time, "we might as well shoot for the top and align them with the best practices for global achievement, since that's where our young people are going to be competing in the 21st century."
Paine did not help his case when he warned of a short-term drop in West Virginia's standardized test scores.
This was the toughest part for many parents and educators to swallow. It flew in the face of major federal funding initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and later, Race to the Top -- funding that a poor state like West Virginia could not afford to turn away.
But Paine was undeterred.
Lower test scores in the short term, he said, would be a product of more rigorous tests and passing thresholds, not lower performance.
Because federal programs such as NCLB leave it up to the states to define what it means to call a child "proficient," unscrupulous states simply put the proficiency bar low enough to ensure federal funding. In line with his philosophy on standards, curriculum and teacher supports, Paine wanted to put an end to this by aligning West Virginia's testing with national and international benchmarks.
Paine prevailed in the end and the result became Global21, a statewide initiative launched in 2005 with the purpose of developing "self-directed, motivated and life-long learners."
But West Virginia could not simply transport Finland's system whole -- they had to carefully pick and repurpose policies for their own use.
They started with teachers.
'The most honorable of all professions'
The most important lesson the United States can take from Finland is the "preparation and development of high-quality teachers," Paine said.
This starts with honoring the profession, he said.
"In Finland, it is a tremendous honor to be a teacher, and teachers are afforded a status comparable to what doctors, lawyers and other highly regarded professionals enjoy in the U.S.," he said.
In addition, like other professions, teachers gain seniority and tenure primarily on the basis of training and experience, and teacher unions have a strong voice in shaping education policy -- all very controversial in the United States.
The profession is held in such high regard that competition to get teacher training is fierce. Nationally, only about 10% of some 7,000 applicants to primary school programs are accepted annually to Finnish teacher training programs, according to statistics from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.
And it's not about the money.
"In Finland, they do attract the very best and brightest into the profession, and it has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do with the respect that is given to the profession," Paine said.
In fact, teachers in Finland are paid about the same as teachers in the U.S.
One young Finnish teacher, asked why he went into the profession, told Paine: "Because it is the most honorable of all professions. It is a patriotic, national calling to be a teacher."
But what he learned in Finland, Paine said, is that the respect must be more than just lip service.
Administrators in Finland really listen to teachers, then back up their words by giving teachers autonomy and resources, said Paine.

Opinion: We need year-round school to compete globally
"If you want enduring, lasting student learning, there's no easy way around that but to invest your time and your resources, including money, as close to the classroom as you can possibly get and that's with the teacher."
Part of this investment is in initial teacher education.
In the U.S., most teachers accumulate debt paying for their education, teacher-mentoring is rare and training ranges wildly from a few weeks of training in alternative teacher training programs such as Teach for America to world-class four-year and graduate college programs.
In Finland, by contrast, teachers train for free, receive a stipend and begin hands-on teaching with a mentor almost immediately. All school teachers must hold a master's degree in addition to four or five years of undergraduate training to be permanently employed, and teachers without a master's are given time and resources to get it.
And it turns out that well-respected, well-educated teachers stick around longer.
In the United States, teachers leave the profession at almost three times the rate of Finland's teachers and a third of all new U.S. teachers leave the profession within the first three years -- the less experienced a teacher is, the more likely he or she is to leave teaching, according to statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics. And some research shows that teachers with less training leave more quickly and more often.
Professional development

Poca High School teacher Sonjia Richardson, center, works with her students.
But according to Paine, it is in professional development -- after teachers have their degree -- that Finland really shines.
Finland's teachers spend about half their school time planning with colleagues, working with parents, and taking part in high-level professional development, said Paine.
Professional development became a centerpiece of Paine's approach in West Virginia.
Though professional development was part of West Virginia's system before Global21, not all professional development opportunities are created equal, said Sonjia Richardson, a 12-year veteran of the West Virginia school system.
"My first probably four or five years of teaching, the State Department of Education was this entity that you heard about, but you never saw," she said.
But since Global21, "They have really gotten involved in the schools. They're talking to teachers. They're talking to kids."
Rather than using outside experts, there was a real push by the state, said Richardson, that teacher development be created by teachers and delivered by teachers.
West Virginia's Teacher Leadership Institute is particularly impressive, she said.
It was through a seminar put on by the institute in 2008 that Richardson learned about one of the major initiatives of Global21: project-based learning.
It turned out to be a major watershed for Richardson as a teacher.
"It was a pivotal moment in my career," she said. "It changed significantly what I do in the classroom."
Project-based learning
Project-based learning -- an integral part of Finland's education system -- uses one "project" as a starting point for learning about multiple subjects and how they fit together.
For example, Paine, a former math teacher, describes one Charleston, West Virginia, school where a car accident between two teachers in a school parking lot was used as a starting point to learn about geometry, civics, law, engineering and public speaking.
Students were asked to redesign the parking lot to minimize the likelihood of an accident and maximize the number of spaces.
But first, students went to the city manager to figure out the legal requirements for a parking space. Then they had to calculate the perimeter of what they thought

was a rectangular space but turned out to have several nooks and crannies for more spaces.
"They measured the space of about four or five different areas and then they had to calculate the square footage -- now you're in the multistep calculation," Paine said.
Finally, students were asked to try and determine who was legally at fault in the accident and present and defend their proposals for an improved parking lot to their peers, school officials and parents.

West Virginia students work on a project-based learning plan to improve a parking lot.
"That's really engaging kids in project-based, deep-thinking types of learning that I saw in Finland, and that's what we tried to replicate in our state," Paine said. And not coincidentally, just the kind of pragmatic, complex, collaborative problem-solving that companies say they need in the 21st century workplace.
But when Richardson first tried to use project-based learning in her classroom, she ran into reluctance from students.
"They weren't used to the collaboration. They weren't used to the amount of technology that was integrated into the project," Richardson said. "And they weren't used to giving the presentations like they were required to do with the project."
"But as they worked through it, I saw significant growth in all those areas -- technology, collaboration, presentation. They became less apprehensive."
When her students presented their first project -- a video documentary on how teens influence pop culture -- Richardson was astounded at the final result.
"The first project I did -- after it was done -- I said I would never go back to the old way of teaching, because it was that valuable."
"I wanted to cry because I could see how much progress they had made from beginning to end."
In a more recent project, Richardson was surprised when her students became so invested in a project to reduce poverty in their area that many of them became genuinely upset when they found out that their plan would not be enacted.
Project-based learning has also won over reluctant parents, at first suspicious of the new approach.
"The parents that have worked with us have really come on board and see the relevance of problem-based learning to their children's education," Richardson said.
Since that 2008 seminar, Richardson has worked on numerous projects with her sophomore high school students and has integrated project-based learning concepts into her regular teaching.
"In project-based learning, the teacher's role is so different than the traditional teacher role. ... You're not up answering the questions, giving the information. You're more of a facilitator, a guide, a coach."
She has also been asked to help teach other teachers on project-based methods and contributed to West Virginia's Teach21, a resource that has lesson plans and project-based learning plans that teachers share with each other. The site has developed an impressive following, attracting nearly 15,000 visits a month from 88 different countries.
And West Virginia's commitment to teachers continues to impress her.

New state schools Superintendent Jorea Marple teaches in a West Virginia classroom in 2011.
Recently, West Virginia's new superintendent, Jorea Marple, a lifetime educator and Paine's former deputy, impressed many teachers when she went straight into the classroom after her appointment this year.
"She didn't just do a walk-through or a drive-by. She went in and shadowed these teachers and worked with them, and she went into some of the most impoverished parts of our state," Richardson said.
"That really meant a lot to teachers."
"They value us, and there is this sense that they really and truly care about our kids. And that probably seems like it should be a no-brainer, but really it's not. Sometimes things get so political that the kids are left out of it altogether."
Standardized tests
It remains to be seen whether West Virginia's test scores will "take care of themselves," but in the short term, they appear to be holding the line.
Though comparisons are difficult due to different tests in each state, West Virginia's most recent results are in line with other states that have similarly NAEP-benchmarked tests such as Nevada and South Carolina.
Paine is pleased with the results, but he cautions against focusing too much on the narrow and sometimes misleading indicator of standardized test scores.
"If you have teachers who had low test scores -- fine -- use that as an indicator to dig deeper to find out what's going on in that classroom because test scores could be an indicator that we have a problem. But they shouldn't be the end-all in the game."
That approach can be a hard sell to politicians looking to show results to constituents. Test results are much easier to quantify and recite in a speech, than for example, project-based learning results, said Paine.
And yet, standardized tests don't drive the best education systems, like Finland.
"As we look at the top performing countries -- honestly, they don't chase standardized test scores," said Paine.
Instead of standardized tests, Finland uses teachers to assess its schools, teachers and students.
Assessments are made on a continuing basis by teachers and administrators with special qualifications and training and professional development plans are customized to meet teacher or student needs and backed up with resources.
"You have lead teachers, master teachers and principals who are well-trained in terms of what to look for in a classroom when they go through teacher evaluations," Paine said.
West Virginia is trying to follow this model by keeping stress on standardized tests low and developing a cadre of specialists to make classroom assessments and putting substantive resources at the disposal of teachers.
Compare that with Atlanta Public Schools -- site of a recent standardized test cheating scandal -- where standardized test scores could make or break a teacher's career and a "professional development plan" was often nothing more than a veiled threat, signaling the first step to losing your job.
Opinion: Flawed policy on testing drives schools to cheat
And pressure to rely more heavily on standardized tests as assessment tools for schools, teachers and students is only increasing through federal programs like No Child Left Behind and President Obama's Race to the Top.
Is Finland the answer?
It's important to keep in mind the massive political and social differences between the United States and Finland and "we obviously shouldn't adopt policies just because Finland uses them," said Mathew Di Carlo, senior fellow at the Albert Shanker Institute, a nonprofit education research organization.

Take just one example: Charter schools, a major part of the education reform movement in the United States, simply don't exist in Finland.
Still, the Finland has much to recommend it, and West Virginia appears to have zeroed in on some of the best, said Di Carlo. As for the rest of the United States, however, he is not so sure.
"For whatever it's worth, the three policy measures that are currently receiving virtually all the attention in the U.S. -- charter schools, removing tenure protections, and tying teacher pay and evaluation to test scores -- all fly directly in the face of the Finnish system."
"It seems clear, at least from our national discourse, that we're not really learning much from Finland.
"At least not yet."


I would almost consider moving after reading this.