Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals - No Game Plans

Fire Drill? Everyone just go mingle on the athletic field. The faculty can take roll and the assistant to the VP can wander aimlessly about. At some point, you exit the building and casually call the school back in. After all, you are the HIP one here.

Why should you bother to make a fire drill/evacuation plan that organizes everyone? Nothing will happen. There won't really be a fire. Fire, Schmire.

Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals - Cop-Speak

Officer Callahan is your Buddha, cop-speak is your Mantra.

You must re-brand everything in the worst cop-speak you can:

• If a kid refuses to do what a teacher tells him to do, don't say "For refusal to obey a stupid order" but rather for "Insubordination". (You have to make it sound really bad)
• Taking an Advil for PMS should be called "Illegal Drug Use" and warrants a strip-search.
• Pocket knives and nail clippers are "Illegal Dangerous Weapons"
• Horseplay is "Assault, Level 1" because calling it horseplay isn't mean enough.
• Use words like "Perpetrating" cause they use those at the station.
• Call the police if she won't stop texting. That'll teach her.

N.B. I'm not ragging on cops here. I understand that they have to do their jobs in a world of lawyers who delight in hanging cops by their words, so they HAVE to be careful. Principals need to keep things in perspective. Using cop-speak is a sign of a good cop but not a good administrator. Then its a sign of a highly ineffective principal.

Technology and the 21st Century

There was a nice comment on my rant the other day. I was discussing the merits of Dangerously Irrelevant's call for firing teachers who demanded training or who wouldn't learn new technology.

Sandra said "I'm wondering if DI is thinking of the same teachers I am who are perfectly happy to keep photocopying the same originals (or multiply-copied copies) they've used for 20 years, and who balk at the request to re-type them and make them available to other teachers digitally."

Before I ask for a teacher to be fired over this, I wonder if someone could explain exactly how much of this makes a difference in that teacher's classroom? Does re-typing something improve it? If that old map is still useful and correct, use it. If that hand-written worksheet still works, what is the need for change? (I am assuming it is legible. In fact, I note that many items deliberately use a handwriting font for student interest and understanding - maybe we should hand-write them sometimes?) If someone else wants to use it, why is a teacher required to put it in a convenient form? Why can't the recipient do that work?

We are too often changing without knowing that the result will be an improvement. I am very uncomfortable with forcing people to upgrade or perish.

I am in favor of technology and all the teachers I know are as well. What I disagree with is the notion that new is necessarily better and that teachers who don't jump into the bleeding edge are somehow deficient.

Change for the sake of change: Here's my take on the Frameworks, Standards, GLEs, Curriculum Mapping and Other Reasons to Re-type the Syllabus.

Sandra also asks "In addition to only using their word-processing programs for the most basic purposes, these teachers also refuse to learn how to use basic email and student grade software themselves, and either find someone more tech-savvy to give them their own personal tutorial session or insist that the school give them one."

This is a better point. I cannot imagine someone refusing to learn email. I can see the reluctance to learning gradebook software on their own. Many of those grading programs are garbage. The flaws are legendary and the implementations are often a joke. The interfaces are counterintuitive and cumbersome.

One school locally has a grading program that takes forever to use because of all the "wizards" it pops up, and then there is a different, on-line, system that the teachers HAVE TO MANUALLY RE-TYPE data into. Oh, and they're required to keep a paper gradebook and lesson plan book as well because the Principal wants to be able to review them. Any wonder why these folks don't bother doing more than one grade per marking period on-line? The retreat into "I want training" is pretty reasonable - it's a way of putting off the pain.

Then we have a philosophical question. If something is new, why should people be denied training in how to use it? Like Sandra, I am the teacher people ask for help because the tech guys are non-existent and useless. Why me? I spend hours on this stuff - I like it. I run websites with thousands of pages and I've been doing programming for years. I know how programmers think and I can teach.

Most people take a bit of time - I try for a two-hour window during the August inservice so I can get everyone done at once. It's a lecture with each teacher at a workstation. You can leave them to explore the software (taking 10 to 20 times as long to find 10 to 20 percent of the stuff they need) and do collaborative learning or 21st century on-line learning, ...

But teaching is quicker, better and more efficient.

Facts and International Tests

21st Century Skills, as promoted, are not effective without a command of some basic factual information. If you don't know any factual material, a few minutes on Google may or may not get you relevant facts. Then, of course, the student who has no knowledge cannot evaluate what facts are found, cannot compare the new knowledge to the old, cannot "stand on the shoulders of giants". An hour's worth of Powerpoint and some multimedia cribbed from Google images won't hide that lack, which is why I refer to it as Glitzenbullshit.

One commenter replied to an earlier post that
"There is a reason why the U.S. scores 35th in the world in math. It is because the rest of the world is embracing inquiry and prioritizing 'flexible' thinking...while we are still preparing to compete in the industrial age."

I'd really like to know how he arrived at this cause-effect relationship.

The US averages must naturally include many schools that have made these changes to a 21st Century Focus -- I would maintain that it is precisely because so many of our schools have changed to 21stCS that our averages have declined on tests like PISA and TIMSS. These tests don't measure 21stCS sets; they measure factual information and basic skills.

It is not, perhaps, indicative of a 'good education', but until you define THAT and determine what such should entail, you cannot use a fact-based international test to determine superiority or otherwise.

I would also point out that the whole concept of comparison conveniently ignores the fact (there's that dirty word again) that many nations to which we compare ourselves have much more homogenous culture and demographics, and most have a national curriculum and province-wide, if not national, control over schools. Almost all of the "great" successes have nationwide testing programs to finish off school. The final product is much more amenable to testing like PISA.

When I compare students and programs, talk with ex-students, visit colleges and speak with professors and admissions, converse with tradesmen and businessmen, I find one thing across the board. Success in college, life and careers is correlated more closely with schools that stressed facts and knowledge first and then blended in communication, information, literacy and critical thinking skills. Any school that tried to do it the other way invariably and ultimately did a disservice to its students.

Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals - The SIS

You must purchase a very expensive piece of software if you want to be a HIPster. This software is called a SIS, which is short for Student Information Software.

This software is vital; you cannot be a proper principal without being able to spend hours looking through the data. How else will you be able to notice that Mr. C's classes are failing the state tests and they are failing his class? How else will you make the leap to the realization that Mr. C. is a lousy teacher?

Do not accept his reasoning when he says, "When you have a class full of 10th graders who really should have been 11th grade but failed everything last year; when those same kids are absent 20%-50% of the days; when those kids even tell you to shove it where the sun don't shine ... what did you expect?"

Simply reply that you are running an "outcome-based education system and the only outcome you'll accept is passing grades for all students."

After all, the SIS (and therefore you) is infallible. The teacher must be at fault.

Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals - Budgetary Legerdemain

You've got the budget requests for your departments? Send them back with a request to cut the budgets 25% because "It's really tough out there right now."

Once the budgets are in and fixed, spring the new courses on them so they panic over buying new course materials. Then, submit the budgets late so the School Board "trims the fat" with a heavy knife instead of with due consideration.

When everyone is furious and seething, splurge on new office furniture, computers and software for the office (remember that $35,000 Student Information System you didn't really need?) -- because hey, it's in YOUR budget.

Ahhh. What a comfortable chair.

Dangerously Irrelevant Is

Dangerously Irrelevant shows why he's irrelevant.

In many job sectors, employees are expected to keep up with relevant technologies or risk job loss. When do we require that of K-12 and postsecondary educators? At what point do we say to them “No, we’re not training you how to use this. It’s easy enough for you to learn on your own. And if you don’t, we’ll find someone else who can.”
When will we, as educational systems, redefine the job descriptions and expectations of educators to include their regular and effective incorporation of relevant digital technologies?

Like many bloggers and opinionators, DI has it wrong. There are precious few teachers who aren't technologically capable. We all use technology every day. We call on cell phones, use computers, drive cars, download things from the Internet, use graphing calculators, SmartBoards and other technology. The level of use is different, but we're ALL living in this world now.

Who defines your acceptable level? Who decides that it isn't enough? Who has actually made sure that more technology is actually USEFUL in the classroom setting? Will it be Techno-geek boy or an actual teacher in a school like Packemin High School? To accept a definition like this from someone who has such an obvious axe to grind is like calling on the Oil Companies to write an energy bill for Congress. (Oh, wait ...)

A commenter says "The obvious next question is: If we are successful in changing job descriptions to include integrating 21st tools and resources, how do we fairly assess teacher performance?"

to which I respond:

The students need to know what they are doing - that's called knowledge of subject. Those 21st century skills are mostly Glitzenbullshit, a tool that kids can pick up at any time. People like this commenter are changing the subject out of ignorance.

As Peter Berger (Poor Elijah's Almanac) says,

The high-powered Partnership for 21st Century Skills still preaches this same doctrine, euphemistically arguing that we need to "emphasize deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge."

Unfortunately, without deep knowledge, the best you can have is a shallow understanding. Without any knowledge, meaning facts, any understanding you think you have is illusory, baseless, and void.

...

You can't attain understanding without knowledge, and you can't acquire knowledge without mastering facts. You can't skip the grunt work, even if it's often dull and painstaking. That's true in any discipline. Our children need to realize and accept this. So do the experts who mastermind our schools. So do we all. That's the new angle on teaching and learning that we desperately need. More gimmicks won’t help.

True, grappling with facts and turning them into knowledge can be hard work.

But reckoning with ignorance is even harder.

Success is in the Eye of the Beholder.

Through test scores, Arizona rates about 24 percent of charter schools as "excelling" or "highly performing." About 37 percent of regular public schools win those marks.

Thanks to George Orwell, you can define anything to fit your opinion. Long live Charter Schools.

Caffeine and alcohol

The FDA is looking into suspected problems with caffeinated alcoholic drinks.

Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, a substance added intentionally to food (such as caffeine in alcoholic beverages) is deemed “unsafe” and is unlawful unless its particular use has been approved by FDA regulation, the substance is subject to a prior sanction, or the substance is Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS). FDA has not approved the use of caffeine in alcoholic beverages and thus such beverages can be lawfully marketed only if their use is subject to a prior sanction or is GRAS. For a substance to be GRAS, there must be evidence of its safety at the levels used and a basis to conclude that this evidence is generally known and accepted by qualified experts.

Which leads me to wonder whether any of the nerds at FDA have ever actually had a drink. Let's see: Kahlua, anyone? How about drinking a cup of coffee to try and sober yourself up?

Here are some of the offending types:
Liquid Charge, Liquid Core, High Gravity Core
Joose, Max Vibe, Max Fury, Max Live, 3Sum
Hard Wired
Smirnoff Raw Tea Malt Beverage
P.I.N.K. Vodka, Tequila, Rum, Gin,
3AM Vodka
Gravity Vodka
V2 Vodka with Caffeine, Everglo Vodka
Vicious Vodka with Caffeine
Slingshot Party Gel
Gruv Malt Beverage with Guarana

Reported problems? Hey if you drink any of this crap, you've got problems. Psychological, not physiological.

Learn Vocabulary in Bite-sized pieces.

I'm usually talking about math here, but I've found a website that cracks me up, is free, and helps with vocabulary in a clever way.

Give it a try.

And Now ... the Ugliest Ring Ever Made

What the title said:

Okay, maybe I'm being unfair.  They photographed it on cheap purple plastic astroturf and that NBA logo is so wrong.  Let's try another view:

Meh.  Could be worse, I suppose.  Blocky, garish, heavy as hell (but that's the point), loaded with way too many mini-diamonds (bling!).  I remain unconvinced.  How about a side view?

Ooooooh.  Isn't that clever?  They laser-etched the player's face into the ring.  This is possibly because the players can't read their names and will need to identify the ring if lost?  No, that can't be it.  The team has super-duper secretly etched a tiny "L" into the ring somewhere to identify it with a ultra-secret password-y id number written down on a piece of magic paper in a vault somewhere.  Why?  Because you might mistake it for another ring just like it? 

Did you notice the special detail? The shape of the upper part is exactly like the Staples Center roof.  Can't you hear it?  "Look, ma ... this is where I play ... and this is my face."

Like anyone would steal this thing and not instantly melt it down in horror.  Shudder.

Because the NFL is against selling a product ...

A player struck the Captain Morgan pose in the Eagles game. The NFL fined him because they didn't get a cut ...

The NFL will likely be a little more sensitive with this latest promotion, since it would have benefited Gridiron Greats, and the post-career struggles of players has been a paramount hot-button topic. While the league welcomes charitable donations to Gridiron Greats, it doesn’t want those contributions to be used as a carrot to influence the on-field antics of players – particularly when the antics center on selling a product.

God knows, you wouldn't want crass commercialism to get in the way of a football game, would you?

I think it was hilarious. The players should pose anyway and Captain Morgan should pay the fine AND pay the $50,000 to the retired players fund.

Doonesbury - Say What?

Sometimes words just fail me.

"I've had two teenagers who were considering killing themselves, because they didn't want to be around when the world ends. Two women in the last two weeks said they were contemplating killing their children and themselves so they wouldn't have to suffer through the end of the world."
-- NASA Astrobiology Institute scientist David Morrison, on 2012 fears

I lived through the cold war. We would practice hiding under desks in case the Bomb was dropped. The siren was tested every day at 2:00. The cellar of the school was the town bomb shelter and periodically we'd line up and practice the attack drill. It probably affected me deeply but I can't say as I ever heard of any of my contemporaries having this kind of reaction.

Do we need a new Great Depression to shock the world back to reality, followed by a great War to give them a new sense of pride of self?

God, I hope not.