- Dan Rather

Yep. That day was today.

Here’s the good news: It was not about me.

Because  many teachers I know tend to be secret artists and performers, we tend to take everything a little too personally. The class that would not listen. The student that called us that horrific name that rhymes with “brother trucker.” The other teacher who seems unsympathetic to my plight. The sun that did not come out.

We tend to blame ourselves for all of it.

But you know what? In the field of education, it is really not about you!

Just as you really have little control over a kid who is determined to learn and succeed, you also have little control over the kid who is determined NOT to learn and succeed. It is never about you.

And the really good news? It gets better tomorrow.

I have found that tomorrow is always better than the day before. Today, as my students were tearing apart the class, the class structure and my lesson plan piece by piece, I was able to sit back and realize two things.

1. It is not about me.
2. Tomorrow will be better.

Here’s to tomorrow my little rapscallions. Here’s to tomorrow.

Reblogged from PacadaVision:

EARTH

If this little world tonight
Suddenly should fall through space
In a hissing headlong flight,
Shrivelling from off its face,
As it falls into the sun,
In an instant every trace
Of the little crawling things -
Ants, philosophers, and lice,
Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,
Beggars, millionaires, and mice,
Men and maggots all as one
As it falls into the sun….
Who can say but at the same
Instant from some planet far
A child may watch us and exclaim:
“See the pretty shooting star!”

-Oliver Herford

In the end, we are as nothing… Men and maggots together destroyed. Sobering.

If this little world tonight…

Ron Artest – er, I mean, Metta World PEACE – messed up. That’s right, the man formerly known as Ron Artest – the same man who was suspended for 73 (that’s right, SEVENTY-THREE) before his therapeutic name change in 2004 – made a real jackass of himself Sunday night. (If David Stern has any kind of a backbone, World PEACE will pay a significant price for his, uh, NON-peaceful behavior.)

If you have been hiding under a rock somewhere – or simply do not keep up with the daily news cycle – you can read about the story here. Or here. Or even here.

Because life is full of teaching moments (you like that?), I figured I could a couple in here that we can pass along to our students. Well, actually 4 to be exact.

Here they are: (Feel free to watch the video below and add your own)

Here are 4 that I can think of:

• A winning game can be overshadowed by a bad play. For our students, a great year or semester can be overshadowed by one bad decision – cheating, fighting, truancy, drunk driving, unprotected sex, etc.
• When the whole of your life has lacked integrity, a comeback and regaining trust in a short amount of time is extremely difficult. It is still amazing to me how it takes an entire lifetime to build your reputation, only to be brought down in an instant. Even greater is when you have built a reputation, fallen and then worked to rebuild that reputation… and then fallen again (as is the case of World Peace). People are less likely to trust you.
• People will always trust you once… twice is hard to come by. The biggest problem World Peace has going for him is his track record. Even if the hit was completely unintentional, his record speaks otherwise. Not matter what he says, what will speak loudest is his record.
• One bad incident will outweigh a lifetime of good achievements. There is more proof of this than I can write about here, but World Peace is a great example. While he has done a great amount to attempt to rehabilitate his image since his 73 game suspension in 2004, this latest incident could be his undoing. Success and trust-building is a lifetime task.

In the second writing Kathleen interviews several students and asked what they considered made for a good teacher. Here is the basic list. For all full list feel free to read her essay, “Respect, Liking, Trust and Fairness” from Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students.

Here they are:

• Let us know what to expect from you and from the class.
• Know your material.
• Push us to do our best – and push us equally.
• Do your part.
• Make sure everyone understands.
• Don’t denigrate us.
• Keep your biases to yourself.
• Don’t treat us like little kids.
• Listen to what we think.
• Care what’s going on with us.
• Don’t betray our confidences.

My favorite quote from one of the kids on the subject of “liking” versus “respecting” the teacher.

There was this guy who coached track. If he told you to do twenty laps and the guys were complaining, he would say: “Okay do five.” If you were tired, he would say, “Okay, you can stop.” He would take you out for pizza after practice. He was a cool coach; they all loved him. But when the time for the meets came, they never won anything. So they got a new coach. The new coach, if he says, “Do fifty laps,” and they say, “We don’t wanna,” he’ll say, “Oh, no? Then do fifty-two!” They hated him because he made them work so hard. But when the time for the meets came, they won every single time. They learned the difference between respecting and liking. – ALEXIS (the student)

Good words to remember as we head back to the battlefield tomorrow.

While I would not consider this to be top writing, it gets the job done and the subject is quite fascinating: Michelle Rhee.

For those who may not know, Michelle Rhee was the Chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public School System, one of the worst school districts in the United States. Appointed by D.C. Mayor, Adrian Fenty, Rhee took over the helm of this school system at 37 years old, without any prior high-profile school administrative experience. Yet, this Teach for America alumni had one mission: to fix the D.C. school system from the inside out by hiring great teachers and removing those teachers who were not producing necessary results. While Rhee had a great many supporters, she made just as many enemies.

This in itself could settle for a blog post, but I want to focus on another aspect of Rhee’s career: her early career teaching.

The book does a great job giving the reader little more than a bird’s eye view on the first days of Rhee’s career. Unbeknownst to most people, Rhee was actually advised to give up a career in teaching after she was first observed handling a classroom. Later, we read how, after heading home for a break, Rhee’s father stepped in to push her to head back to her chosen profession, no matter how hard the task.

Yet, it was in these moments where Rhee’s toughness and perpetual pursuit of excellence was refined. While Rhee was always somewhat of an over-achiever, her first teaching experience in the inner-city of Baltimore, Maryland was the first time she had ever failed at anything. This was her first experience in giving everything she had to give, yet coming up short. However, Rhee never gave up. As a matter of fact, Rhee pushed harder.

Some great excerpts from the book:

“After the first year was over, the roommates all agreed they needed a break and took off for a cross country trip to the West Coast. Except Rhee. ‘Michelle stayed back, working nonstop over the summer, preparing for the next year. I remember her sitting on the floor with a pile of things to do, trying to build a learning center with manipulatives,’ says [Rosemary] Ricci… If the children weren’t behaving and weren’t learning – if they were being disrespectful – Rhee blamed herself… The fear of failure was there but more terrifying to Rhee was the fear of never becoming a successful teacher” (The Bee Eater, 31).

Michelle Rhee was a hard worker who never gave up. From the her first role as a teacher to her role as Chancellor to her current as founder and CEO of Student’s First, the national organization working for education reform.

No matter what you may think of Michelle Rhee, her philosophy or her politics, we can all take a lesson from her when it comes to the perpetual pursuit of excellence for the betterment of our students.

Bill Gates 11 Tips For Success You Will Never Learn In School:

1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

2: The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

3: You will NOT make $90,000 a year right out of high school.

4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: opportunity.

6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes – learn from them.

7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills and listening to you talk about how cool you are.

8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.

9: Life is not divided into terms. You don’t get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you “find yourself”. Do that in your own time.

10: TV is not real life. In real life, people have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs..

11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one!

Jason Kamras, the 2005 Teacher of the Year

1. There is a need for great principals. Great teachers want to work for a leader who has a great vision for their school.
2. More support for teachers. The 1/2 day in-services and workshops are not cutting it. Teachers need/want more accountability and more training in order to grow.
3. Stop tolerating mediocre teachers. High-performing teachers want to work with other high-performing teachers.
4. Give more challenges to high-performing teachers. Great teachers should receive greater challenges and greater responsibility in leadership roles as they tackle the challenges placed before them.
5. Pay teachers more AND more smartly. Not only should great teachers be paid based on merit, financial resources must be rerouted to pay teachers more in the specialized fields of Math, Science and Special Education.

Sounds like some good words from someone who knows.