Discipline Toolbox

So, rumor has it that the teachers in one of our schools have been told that the discipline policy this year is that they are forbidden to send out any of their students from class at any time. For any reason. It has been deemed verboten to ask a student to leave no matter how creatively they conjugate certain Anglo-Saxon normatives and no matter the volume of the oral conjugation. No matter what.

Really?!

I was told that when teachers spoke up to ask about those extreme behaviors that happen from time to time, they were told 'that's what you all have a toolbox of management ideas for. Unless there is a weapon involved or a student is seriously hurt use something from your toolbox.'

Really?!

I almost don't know where to start with this one. I am tempted to start with the word "seriously" because it is begging for definition. As in, when you say "seriously hurt," exactly how conscious should the student be? Like, "It seems like he suffered a concussion, but it looked moderate, not serious." Do we quantify the loss of bodily fluids in categories? As in, "I would have sent her out of class but the blood loss was minor, not serious." However, the whole edict is so absurd that I struggle to focus.

Of course the toolbox comment is out of line, too. Obviously, we all have a toolbox for 95% of the behaviors we experience (which is why we don't send out 30 out of 32 students all the time, we only send out 2 of 32 students from time to time, for example) but we need support for those 5% of behaviors that we don't have the time, space, skill, wit, mutant gene, language, super power, Kevlar, or strength to handle.

We cannot, CANNOT, be expected to accurately predict, prevent, or react to 100% of the misbehavior we encounter 100% of the time while simultaneously teaching to a standard that we've written in kid-friendly language and posted on our wall, entertaining, requesting iPods-cellphones-pdas are put away, heterogeneously grouping, monitoring, adjusting, checking for understanding, watching for spitballs, picking up paperclips, handing back assignments, quieting students down for announcements, requesting about the iPods again, handing out a bathroom pass, diagnosing an illness as worthy of a school nurse visit or not, lending pencils, lending paper, collecting assignments, recording student wonderings on chart paper, collecting paper footballs, getting the box fan to blow on the students equally(or rotating equally who gets to sit by the heater), and answering the phone when the office calls.

Regardless, classrooms should never feel like they could even possibly become mere holding pens where the clock slows to a crawl as you pray for the period to end so that the belligerent student you can't send out, but who has successfully destroyed your lesson, your class, and your morale, can finally leave.

Luckily, we are at that beginning-of-the-year infatuation stage where anything is still possible and I think our student conduct contract language on page 66 is just the place to start. The St. Paul Federation of Teachers will be working with this building to fix this problem, and if you'd like, I'll keep you posted on our progress.

In the meantime, it looks like telling you to put cape on your back to school list a few entries ago could come in handy, couldn't it?

A Teacher's Answer

I still find myself steamed at these education reformers who believe that education can be reformed by a rap on your knuckles with a ruler from some ivory tower or elected position, rather than from engaging teachers in discussions about what works to teach students and what fails to teach them. There is enough rhetoric about what needs to be done to teachers once they are finished with that ruler to fill an iPod. Merit pay, stricter accountability, abolishing tenure, unsustainable pilot programs, and the list goes on.

Tonight John McCain said, in a tone that suggested he thought it was a brand-new idea, that when he is president finally “teachers will answer to parents and students.”

Uh…Roger that John, except for the part where you think teachers don’t answer to parents and students. And except for the part where you listed parents before students. Teachers do answer to students and parents John, in that order. We always have. It’s why we got into this gig. We love our subject matter, we have a talent for teaching, and we picked an age level that dove tails with our talent.

All of you, John McCain included, can get over yourselves falling over each other to see who can insult teachers and our unions first and best.

Let me get this right, Sarah Palin can refer to her husband as a proud member of the Steelworkers, but I should somehow be ashamed to be a member of the American Federation of Teachers or the National Education Association?

And another thing, in the last 30 years you have been responsible for writing some of the most neglected education law in our country. In the last 30 years you have been responsible for under funding some of the most promising education laws in our country. Yet, somehow, teachers are the problem of the last 30 years of education? Say more about that…

We are teaching the children and young adults in our community. With the talent and care we bring to our jobs. With the resources we have. And with the determination to leave this world better than the way we found it. And we are represented by a union. So you can stop treating us like we’ve somehow gamed our way onto your 6-figure, platinum health care senate gravy train, John.

I believe in our members so strongly that I left the classroom I love to work for a better profession for all of us. Because the teachers, educational assistants, and school & community service professionals who believe in our work are also workers who deserve rights. Therefore, I will not apologize for working for more affordable health care. I will not apologize for wanting my members to be able to own a home in our community. I will not apologize for providing due process to members to inoculate them from unfair, vindictive, or bullying bosses. So help me God.

Leapfrog

Mary Cathryn, St. Paul. First time caller, long time listener...

Yesterday our Governor spoke to a group about educational issues at "Time to Choose-- Children or the Bureaucracy" assembled by a 527 group founded by Newt Gingrich called American Solutions for Winning the Future. It has been reported that Pawlenty said that the government should work with teachers' unions to "accelerate changes" (StarTribune, 9.03.08) in education. He added that he couldn't "leapfrog" a group like Education Minnesota in a state like this.


I would like Governor Pawlenty to list the changes, accelerated or otherwise, that he has brought forward in partnership with Education Minnesota. The only one he seems to tout with any regularity is Q-Comp, but that is just TAP-- the Teacher Advancement Program (a Milken Family Foundation brainchild) --turned into legislation. There is nothing breath-taking or new about the ideas fostered by Q-Comp. In fact, I would argue that the St. Paul Public School District had the potential of being much more innovative with the well over $21 million increase of district health insurance premiums in the last few years than we ever could with the almost $9 million we would get in Q-Comp funding if we were interested. But neither the Governor nor our school board wanted to "accelerate changes" to a more innovative health insurance pool.

As a result the money goes into the black hole of a Health Partners renewal rather than

• buying down class sizes,
• assuring a school nurse for every child,
• providing every child with physical education and a licensed librarian/media specialist,
• offering teachers a common professional learning period commensurate to our planning period built into our school day,
• adding professional days to the school year,
• offering more innovative summer school options and school calendars, or
• improving professional development for educational assistants.

Which still leaves my question to be answered: What changes has the Governor actively worked with Education Minnesota to accelerate?


I'll take my answer off the air.

Welcome to St. Paul-RNC

The Republican National Convention opens in St. Paul tomorrow and I want and expect my city to shine.

I hope this becomes the world’s opportunity to see St. Paul as the sort of city that is open for business. While I trust the conventioneers will enjoy the plethora of things that make St. Paul a fabulous place to hold any convention, from our high quality restaurants, our promising entertainment venues, first-rate facilities, and I might add our excellent selection of local beers, I hope they have the opportunity to discover the other things that make St. Paul among America’s most livable cities.

I hope they can spend time enjoying our sterling city park system, notice our vibrant and distinct neighborhoods, marvel at our brilliant array of residents, appreciate our city leadership, travel the varied miles of our bike paths, and find out about our hard-working, high-quality, comprehensive pre-K through university schools, especially our up-and-coming St. Paul Public School District.

If they do, they might just decide to stay awhile.

I should know. I came to St. Paul from the Iron Range for college. I returned to St. Paul after time in Washington State, Oregon and South Korea to raise my family and teach. Being able to experience “all of the above” makes it easy not only to believe in St. Paul, but to live here, too.

Barack Obama makes history for all of us

After a meeting earlier today, a colleague was conveying to me that his 6 year old son wanted to vote for Barack Obama. When his dad asked him “Why?” the 6 year old said, “Because his skin is brown like mine, Dad.” His father was a bit in awe.

At 7:07 p.m. tonight my phone buzzed with a text message and it was an SPFT member with the message: “It’s done. The first African American has just been nominated for president. History in the making!” Her joy was palpable.

I would argue that while the nomination is, in fact, done we are actually on the cusp of much more beginning in every other way for our country.

These things reminded me that this is not just any night for some people. Quite frankly, this should not be just any night for any of us.

It makes me that much more excited for our Obama Acceptance Speech Party tomorrow night at the Como Park Picnic Pavilion from 7:30 to 10 p.m. This is an event to watch with community, in the community.

Please join me!

Teachers are My Heroes

I was sent a link to a blog this morning that I spent an inordinate amount of time perusing. While doing that I came across a website of Democrats for Education Reform (www.dfer.org), which listed their heroes in education

Most of the Heroes in the Democrats for Education Reform group were folks who champion charter schools. As someone who lives in the charter school capitol of North America, I understand that they are not vanishing from the landscape anytime soon. However, to believe that the only champions of education reform are those “daring enough” to be in the charter school movement is naive.

While charter schools will always have a place in education discussions, school districts will not be vanishing anytime soon either. School districts will continue to educate the majority of America’s children for a long, long time. In fact, I would argue that peering into the myriad of practices and school choice within a school district (let’s take mine, for example) will reveal some of the most promising educational practices of this century at the practitioner and school building level.

I would argue, with the St. Paul School District’s comprehensive city-wide district options, with St. Paul as the cradle of charter school law, and with our affordable parochial school system that there isn’t a better incubator of school choice in the country. Yet, an overwhelming majority of parents still choose St. Paul Public Schools. Why? Because we still do the best job of educating children. We are comprehensive enough to meet every child’s needs. We are small enough to be light on our feet to innovate. We tend to attract high quality, experienced teachers. We have smart, dedicated educational assistants.

Perhaps, no school district can truly meet every families needs, and so I will admit that the mother looking for the music-based, Montessori, Russian-immersion, 4 day week elementary school experience for her child will sadly be out of luck in St. Paul (for now), the students who stay with St. Paul Public Schools truly will graduate to something great.

Our high quality teaching force is a major reason for that success, and our teaching force is also first to reflect on what could be done better. Why else, with a pressure-cooker atmosphere and magnifying glass accountability, would I run in to teacher after teacher this opening week saying things to me like, “I’m ready” or “I’m excited” or “I can’t wait to start”?

These teachers are union members, they are my heroes, and I am honored to represent them.

Fever? Medicate with a corn dog!

Just in time for the Great Minnesota Get-Together is a little health care advice. Make sure in all those steps you are walking (and no doubt logging on your flashy, trendy, go-with-anything, cheap-plastic-crap-is-the-new-black pedometer) that no harm comes to you if you are fortunate enough to attend the State Fair. You see, your school board is hard at work making Minnesota safe for the affordable corn dog, rather than the affordable urgent care visit from the regrettable results of one too many of them.

It is critical for our school board to address, in a public and meaningful way, the runaway costs of our health insurance. Yet, another legislative session went by without one instance of our school board supporting our efforts to find a solution to the rising health insurance costs that are devouring our district’s budget. Additionally, another renewal period for health insurance is upon us and still our school board remains quiet.

It is hard not to be insulted by their silence when the best collaboration they can offer is from the July 15th board meeting where they authorized a joint purchasing agreement with North Branch Area Schools “in order to further collaborative efforts and to enhance both districts’ buying power by participating in cooperative purchases, bids and contracts.”

Once again they have proven that they put a premium on saving money on corn dogs and copy paper, but they are absolutely content to turn their backs on any significant discussions on health insurance, let alone offer a solution. It is clear that they are comfortable allowing health insurance to continue festering the morale and working conditions of the member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

But, hey, I bet that corn dog will go down nicely with some ketchup, and then you’ve added a vegetable.

Gotta light?

I seem to be a little in the dark here, not the first time and surely not the last, but I was just told by a teacher that she cannot have the lights on in her room when she comes into her building to work before opening week next week.

Some buildings were completely shut down this summer to save energy and despite the fact that principals and clerical staff reported for work on August 4th (with office lights, I hope) teachers who came in early to work were told that the lights would remain off until teachers officially reported back on August 25th.

For as long as I can remember teachers have been coming in to school in August to begin setting up our rooms, deliver school supplies purchased over the summer, or to meet with other teachers to plan. I have occasionally been asked to leave because of a mammoth construction project that wasn't quite finished yet, but this is the first time I have ever heard of someone not being allowed to use their lights until their contract year actually started.

It will be interesting to see if there is a mandatory "lights off" period when the school year starts. That sure would make "work to rule" easier to implement for our union.

Unity

It was a weird goodbye ceremony today at the end of our week-long professional development class. After six teacher presentations that varied in quality, and a Yemeni television interview (“What do you think of the teachers you worked with? What are your future plans to work with this union?), we were treated to a completion ceremony where the president the General Union for Teaching and Education Professionals spent the better part of 10 minutes saying that he was not a liar, he does not associate himself with liars, he would not be sitting next to us if he was a liar, and may he never have the opportunity to be in the same room with us again if he is ever caught lying.

Well, now that we established that, I realized we got his show because we worked with the Yemeni Teachers Syndicate (their rival union and I suspect the aforementioned liars…) the week before them. He made it clear that he has no intention of recognizing them, let alone working with them. They obviously do not get along, so when it was my turn to speak I told them a story a friend of mine pointed out years ago. My friend said to me, “We could spend all day with you arguing that your football team is better and me arguing that my football team is better, or we could decide that it’s great that we both like football.”

As much as the fact that he was a Packer fan bugged me, he had a good point: One that I have tried to live by in many situations since that day. It is most applicable in my teaching life: growing up, in St. Paul, and here.

I grew up in an “FT” household. Over the years I watched my dad and his friends organize to get a majority of members in the Hibbing Federation of Teachers so they could bargain the next contract and I heard them grouse when they didn’t feel they were represented at the table. But when it came time for me to join the SCEA in St. Cloud, no one encouraged me more than my dad. When I moved back from the West Coast and Korea, it seemed to me that no one was more ready for the merger of the MFT and the MEA than my dad and the others who had lived through those years of bitterness and rancor. In Minnesota we had finally decided to stop arguing about whether my union was better or your union was better and decided to think it was great that we all wanted a better future for Minnesota’s students together as Education Minnesota.

I hope that the Yemeni Teacher’s Syndicate and the General Union of Teaching and Education Professionals decide someday that, despite these hard feelings that seem like they will never go away, they will think it is great that they all want a better future for Yemen’s children together.

I want that for them, too. And I was glad I was here to tell them that it can be done.

Teacher Interrupted

You know your teaching has suffered a lot of interruptions when you find yourself wishing for the sanguine moments of a burgeoning learning walk of 15 adults whisking through your room merely wondering.

Our last day of teaching in Yemen is tomorrow and every day we have had multiple interruptions. The president of the union has stopped by every day and every day when he comes in he walks around to greet certain attendees genially and then says a few words to everyone. Today he interrupted us to say that he was inviting everyone to lunch in our honor, which brought spontaneous applause. That was in the middle of a lesson.

The president also brings random dignitaries in from the Sana’a Secretariat Education Ministry, the Government Oil and Mineral Ministry (?), and various others, who then also get to say a few words to us and the group assembled about how much they believe in education and how much they support teachers. Now granted, I’m not an administrator, nor have I played one on TV, but a little something I picked up from a couple principals I used to teach for: If you really want to support teachers, then let us actually teach! Criminy, what a concept!

On top of that, there are these random principals of different neighboring schools (this training is being held in a school) who are stopping by and insisting that we come for a tour during our breaks. The first principal who stopped by admonished us, “Why aren’t you holding your training in my school?” as if I had control of where the training was going to be held. One principal hounded us to 2 days to visit his school. On the bright side, the planets aligned enough that when we taught the “Time on Task” portion of our professional development we had secured a killer teachable moment. We gave them the definition and example of allotted time. “For example, we have from 12:45 to 2p.m. allotted in the schedule to teach you between these breaks. When you didn’t drive us back from the school visit until 1:05 and then we had a visit from Mr. Minister for 5 minutes, we lost 25 minutes of our allotted time. What then happened to our engaged time commensurately?”

This time, I don’t think anything was lost in translation.