A Philosophy of Education IV (The Roles of Students and Teachers in the Classroom)

What is the place of students? What is the role of teachers? The questions are reciprocal in the sense that you must have students in order to be a teacher.

Students should be active participants in the learning process. I believe in cooperative learning, in a process where students learn together. And I believe in participatory learning. Education, especially in the early grades, is not about knowledge - facts and figures, dates and names. It is about skills. Students learn the three R's mostly through exercising, practicing particular skills. You don't tell someone how to read. You introduce them to the process and allow them to practice it in ways that build strength in it.

Teachers should be expert guides, not bosses or masters. The rigidity of the relationship and the formality of the two roles, student and teacher, will vary from subject area to subject area and from grade to grade. The idea that we can make generalizations about kindergarten classroom relationships that will still hold true in the tenth grade is probably a naive desire to oversimplify theory and philosophy.

If I must generalize about teaching situations in a subjunctive mode, I'd prefer a student-centered classroom where the teacher aids in the discovery process (not in construction of "reality," since reality is already here and is pretty real without the help of my students) and where the teacher acts as a coach in the development of skills. I'd prefer a classroom where the students felt as few restrictions as possible within the requirements of the learning process. And I'd prefer a classroom where learning, not teaching, was the central focus.

The higher the student-teacher ratio, the less like this a classroom becomes. And in my mind the single biggest factor in the quality of education and the success of the educational process is the most expensive factor - personnel. We can tinker with curriculum. We can alter pedagogy. We can think of new ways to measure success (and accountability). We can require that the one teacher we have (in a room where two are needed) be better trained. But the solution that is most likely to work is the solution that no one wants to pay for: more teachers per school.

Taking Georgia's "Technology Test"

To be certified in Georgia (something I'm trying to accomplish), you have to prove computer skill proficiency. One way of doing that is to take the technology test at a RESA office.

Georgia has a 25-page list of technology skills they think a teacher should be able to show. I took their test on July 2.

The technology test took me about 40 minutes. It was actually 6 different test (in Riverdeep, believe it or not) and I had an hour total to take them all. Lowest possible score was 100. A passing score was 176. Highest possible score was 300.

I got my lowest score on WORD, which I suppose means that WORD does a lot I don't know about (since I use it 8 or 10 times a day). If I'd gotten one more wrong answer on WORD I'd have to take the test again. I got my highest score on EXCEL, which I learned to use mostly for this test. Whatever...

My scores:

• Internet - 288
• Access (Database) - 280
• PowerPoint (Presentation Tools) - 280
• Spreadsheets (EXCEL) - 300
• MS WORD (Word Processing) - 176
• Windows Operating Systems - 248

Black Wednesday

Tomorrow is Wednesday. I'll have to iron a black shirt. And a black pair of pants. And perhaps polish my black boots a little. Because on Wednesdays I wear black...

It's been that way for 132 weeks. On November 2, 2004 I worked as a poll worker for Tazewell County, Virginia, at the Springville polling place. I think I worked about 17 hours that day. I came home and went to bed. And when I got up the next morning it took me about seven or eight minutes to figure out the George Walker Bush was still president. I wore black to work that day. And for 130 of the 132 Wednesdays since the election I've worn black whenever I left the house.

The two exceptions? The day after Democrat Tim Kaine won the governor's race in Virginia I wore more festive colors to work. (Since I work in West Virginia, half my co-workers never fully understood why.) I also dressed quite colorfully on the Wednesday after the most recent midterm election - the one where Democrats won back Congress.

When is the next opportunity for a colorful Wednesday? At some point in 2008 I expect No Child Left Behind to face reauthorization. I'd like to see the Highly Qualified Teachers provision and the accountability provisions of the law revised considerably. I'd also like to see the name changed; NCLB is leaving children behind in droves.

If the law governing public education in America is revised substantially I may well dye my hair some strange shade and wear a green shirt and purple tie to work the next day...

The Quest to Stay Certified

I'm in graduate school - at least at the moment. When I first entered the public school classroom a couple of years ago as a teacher I already had a Masters Degree in Education - but it was in adult education and did not include any type of certification. The state of West Virginia certified me, provisionally, in special education. That Master’s Degree was actually my second graduate level degree.

Part of the reason I'm in school is that I change careers - twice now, actually. I went from working for a volunteer service organization overseas (a "missions agency" - 1983-1993) to working in higher education in a variety of semi-administrative student services roles (1997-2004) to teaching in the classroom. While I can understand some retraining being necessary, I had begun to suspect that the "high qualified" provisions of No Child Left Behind would keep me in college for the rest of my adult life.

Of course the colleges eat this up. My need to stay certified subsidizes their existence. I get credit for the classes I've taken (and paid for). No one much cares what I actually know or can do.

I make a joke out of the cost of going to college. If you look at my face you can see that my left nostril is somewhat bigger than the right. That’s because there’s a man at the Bursar’s Office at Marshall University who sticks his right forearm up my left nostril all the way to his elbow to retrieve tuition. Yes, I pay through the nose for going to Marshall…

Since I started teaching I've taken forty or so additional hours of graduate work, and because I live in Virginia and work in West Virginia, I've paid out-of-state tuition to take my classes. I have over 100 graduate hours altogether and while the coursework keeps me certified, it provides me not further pay advantage (I have a "Masters plus 45" now). I'm tired of it.

Georgia seems to have solved my problem for me. I've recently discovered that Georgia will certify me based on testing - without any additional college work. They'll do that provided I'm already a teacher someplace else (which I am). So after a review of my transcripts they've told me three tests I need to pass to be fully certified in special education (learning disabilities, emotional and behavior disturbances, autism, mentally impaired, etc.) And by the end of August I expect to have passed those tests, be certified, and be in the process of transferring that information back to West Virginia. Then I can take other tests and add additional certifications to my license - early childhood education, middle school social studies, high school English, whatever...

It saves me $4,000 in tuition this summer.

When NCLB is reauthorized next year, hopefully one of the things that will change is that the Federal government will mandate a "test out" option for many of the specialized certifications teachers need today. College was nice; but the best training I've gotten has consistently been professional development in-services and workshops provided by my school system.