As a superintendent, no part of my job was more important than visiting schools and seeing students, teachers, and leaders in action. Those visits kept me grounded, reminding me of the real-world importance of every decision we made in the central office.
But that’s not to say that I always liked what I saw. Sometimes I would drop in on random classes and see inspiring examples of high-quality teaching and learning. But other times I saw teachers going through the motions and students waiting around for the bell to ring.
Whenever I visited one of those lifeless classrooms — and I saw far too many of them — I found myself wondering how the kids manage to show up every day instead of lashing out in rebellion against dull lessons and mediocre teaching. What explains their willingness to keep attending a class taught by a teacher who isn’t interested in them? Maybe it’s the price they have to pay to pass the course and move on toward a diploma, but if they chose to play hooky sometimes, who could blame them? Wouldn’t that be a rational thing to do?...
I saw them too. Too many of them were at least in part the fault of Common Core/Curriculum 2.0. It's hard to have a lively classroom when kids are mentally and emotionally exhausted day after day after bloody day. >:-(
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher with 18 years of MCPS HS experience, I would argue that CCSS has zero to do with that, and more of the MCPS mentality of accelerate at all costs.
DeleteStarr was the superintendent of all those classrooms and all those mediocre teachers were his staff. He was their boss. Talk about passive! So he raked in a 6-figure salary to stand around talking about 'grit' instead of actually working to fix this, difficult as it might have been. Glad he's gone and I hope no other children and parents have to suffer under his 'thought leadership.'
ReplyDeleteStar was a "Stuporintendent."
DeleteMy favorite was a high school Technology class… The room was nearly dark (all the time). If they were “working” on a school assignment, kids were on computers (almost exclusively Google Classroom). Many kids were watching and/or listening to their smartphones (not working). Others were texting. There was ZERO teacher engagement. If you want to know what school this was (and even the teacher’s name) ask, and I’ll post the information.
ReplyDeletePlease post.
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