HIP: class expectations

Because there's nothing quite like strict discipline for teaching teenagers, the Highly Ineffective Principal actually came out and said the following (although not all at the same meeting):

1. Every class should have 100% attendance daily. It is the teacher's responsibility to call parents and make this happen.
2. Every child should have a hand up for every question. The right hand should be raised if they know the answer and the left one if they don't.
3. If a paper drops, everyone should be able to hear the paper hit the floor.

Total silence is best.
Teacher-led questions only.
Your kids are not allowed to be sick, go to the doctor, be dismissed early for sports, go to the counseling office, be involved in anything outside of school or else ... what?

And people wonder why teachers bitch about incompetent administrators.

The Highly Ineffective Principal: Clerical Error

A certain principal writes a letter for the school yearbook.  In his message, Roosevelt Principal Dr. Steven Strachan tells the graduates how proud he is of them and that they are a class of “great leaders, articulate orators, brilliant scientists, breathtaking athletes and extraordinary artists.”

He plagiarized the message.

Word for word. All of it.

From a principal in CA, uncredited.

But, but, but, but ... he "asked permission to quote"!

Here's the best part:

"I sincerely apologize to the Roosevelt community and to the class of 2014 for the inadvertent clerical error causing mistakes to be printed in the 2014 yearbook. An unedited draft of my remarks was accidentally published rather than the final version, and I take full responsibility for the oversight."

 Clerical error? A clerical error is misspelling the name of the guy you're quoting, or writing that the year is 2041. A clerical error is the yearbook editor rearranging the paragraphs inadvertently. A clerical error does not include you plagiarizing the entire message from another principal and then congratulating the WRONG SENIOR CLASS at the WRONG SCHOOL.

The Roosevelt principal even concluded his message like Barone did, writing, “Congratulations to the Albany High School Class of 2013.”

Blaming your plagiarism on the yearbook editor's "clerical error" is low-class, especially when you phrase it "clerical error causing mistakes to be printed." Passive voice apology fuck-you?

My favorite part of this is that he takes "full responsibility for the oversight." If one of his students did that, suspension would be in order. Nothing is happening to him ... he doesn't even have to pay the piddling amount of money for the reprint: the last line of the piece mentions that the pages are being reprinted with $800 from the "Principal's Discretionary Fund."

In case you're not familiar with public school budgetary BS, that's a slush fund that the principal may use at his discretion. Usually, it's used for things like buying a poor senior her cap and gown, or funding some low-income students tickets to a show that other kids are going to. Maybe supplying the SpecialEd department with some bit of tech that they can't get under normal budgets. Feel-good stuff or charitable-type things.

Educator of the Year.

The Daily Schedule, or Why do we do this?

When Amnesty International works to ban a practice in prisons, you might want to rethink doing it in schools.

My school has 1.5 hour blocks separated by 3 minute passing times.  Long ago, I began to tell students that I didn't want to know when or if they were going to the bathroom, just go one at a time and don't dawdle.

"It's none of my business. The pass is right there. Carry it to get yourself past the AP.  I don't need to know why ... TMI, people."

You know what? They go if they need to. But the vast majority doesn't abuse that and class runs just fine.

"I know that sometimes you don't really need to go, but that you need to walk down the stairs, across the building and up the other stairs and then back.  Just realize that when you get back, we will be focused on something and you'll have to pick up the thread quickly. Be ready."

Yes, I admit. That kid in the third row goes every day. He's a wanderer and the AP gets on his case and wants me to restrict his movement, but I refuse. Having him sit and fidget and whine will only distract everyone -- far more than if I just let him go -- and letting him get it out of his system means that he can focus when he returns.

If the situation calls for it, I will ask him directly, "Do you NEED to go? These instructions are important and you'll need to be ready to start this when you get back. Can it wait?"

I don't like it much but it's necessary. 

Admin bitches about tardiness, yet we give them 3 minutes to move two floors and across to a different building. We are told to stand at our doors so we can greet the students but also to monitor the hallway and ensure the kids are moving in an efficient way.

Admin stresses about teaching "bell to bell" -- for 90 goddam minutes -- as if the stresses we put on students don't count. "Teach to the bell" means that kids have to write, think, or be doing something right to the last second, then collect all their stuff, make it down the hall or further, get into the next room and be seated before the tardy bell.

In three minutes?

Why do we torture kids in this fashion?

They have a cup of coffee in the morning to help wake themselves up ... and caffeine is a diuretic. who in their right mind thinks that students will be able to take care of business AND walk to the other building in just three minutes?  Apparently, we do.

At lunch, many will down a 3/4L bottle of Gatorade.

We're all instructed to let the kids drink as much water as they want. We're reminded that 8 cups of water is necessary, so water is the only thing we're all supposed to allow in class -- and many students have a water bottle and the school just installed those nifty water fountain extensions with the reusable bottle filler spout thing.

But you can't go to the bathroom? Does anyone understand how the human body works?

Apparently not.

What brought this up?  Taught by Finland, "For every 45 minutes of classroom instruction in Finland, students are entitled to a 15-minute break. This is guaranteed by law!"

I love this guy. He's an American teacher who moved to Finland and is a teacher there. Well worth reading regularly. What set him off? This Chicago Administrator's note:

In addition to scheduled restroom breaks, students will be given restroom passes to use if they need to use the restroom outside of the scheduled time. Students will be given two restroom passes to use between now and the end of the quarter. They can choose to hold on to them and trade them in for a reward at the end of the quarter. Following these guidelines:

Have students fill in their names as soon as they receive them. Passes are invalid if names are crossed out for another name.

 For the upper grades, students can use one teacher's pass in another classroom, but they still only get the same number of passes per quarter.

 Use a class roster to have student initial next to their name to indicate that they received the passes.

 Have students fill in the "time out" and "time in" and then turn the pass in to the teacher when finished. This will help them practice the [Common Core Standards] of telling time with both digital and analog clocks.

 Promote the benefit of not using the passes by reminding students that rewards will be given for left over passes at the end of the quarter.

Tech's Magic Formula

Scott MacLeod:

Lack of vision + inadequate infrastructure + no training + poor implementation + insufficient ongoing support + refusal to change = tech success!
Does this sound like your wishful school or district? Hope not!

With our Highly Ineffective Principal (HIPster), we drew a Royal Flush on this one. It's all we can do to keep the one-to-one going despite the random flailings of the administration ... we being three of the teachers.

1. Lack of vision - If it hadn't been for one particular teacher getting the ball rolling and two other of us pushing, we'd still be without BYOD or any one-to-one program.
2. Inadequate infrastructure - don't get me started.
3. No training - Inservices revolve around the Curriculum Coordinator and his protocols for having discussions about "authentic" learning and teaching, protocols for having meetings, protocols for developing a single lesson plan that we'll test in a few months. That's right ... we're making a single lesson. Technology? Not so much.
4. Poor implementation - 
1. Kids are damaging their devices and no one has a plan for that. 
2. They don't charge the batteries ... "I can't hold class because they didn't bring it."
3. Leave it at home.
4. Some parents don't want their kids to have that much screen time and have asked that the kids NOT be given one.
5. Insufficient ongoing support - Crickets make more noise.
6. Refusal to change - This is the one part we do too much of. Change, change, change ... without ever looking back to see if the previous changes were effective or looking forward to see if we can predict and measure the effects of the present proposed change.

= tech success!

Return of the HIPster - Highly Ineffective Principal

HIPster tactic - pass the buck.

The Buck Stops over There.

At issue is a major schedule change involving midterm exams for all-year courses and final exams for block courses, the start of the new semester, the tech center, and other schools in the district that share our buses ... that will go into place NEXT WEEK!

HIP: "I won't make the decision without asking the faculty." Faculty are rather surprised by this - there has been no mention of this idea which originated a couple days ago. As you might imagine, opinions on this are all over the place. Finally, Random Teacher speaks up.
Random Teacher: "Just MAKE the decision, already."
HIP: "Let's see if we get consensus. All in favor?"
Maybe 1/4 of hands go up. Some discussion ensues.
HIP: "Okay, we seem to have a consensus in favor."
Random Teacher: "Wait, you never actually asked the others and most people are against it."
HIP: "All those in favor?" Again, the one-fourth.
HIP: "All those against?" Maybe one-fifth.
Random Teacher: "So just make the decision."
HIP: "I'll talk it over with the other principal and get back to you all in the morning."

Wow.

Just one more sign of the Education Apocalypse

Destroying the budget, it is.

Highly Ineffective Principal decides that the cost of printing is SOOOOO big. "Something must be done! I know, quotas!" Never mind that the principal himself prints out and copies tons of junk for our mailboxes instead of forwarding it. Never mind that the principal needs to hire someone to implement and oversee the quota system / accounting and is paid more than the printing budget. Never mind that the quotas are set without any rhyme or reason.

Whence the rant? I was just reading Mimi's blog and I ran across this sentence:

PS. You can see a copy of my said trig test here. Sorry but the font is small -- for two reasons: one is that I am almost out of printing quota for the month.

Aaaaaah.

Kinko's charges 9 cents per page to make copies and they're making a good profit. A typical school photocopier costs between 3 and 5 cents a page, so let's say 5 just to be snarky. (It's based on print density and that trig test was hardly dense.) That trig test is two pages so that's 10 cents per kid; pretending there's 30 in the room, a total of $3 for that assignment or test.

Why, yes money grows on trees.
To pay the admins at least.

You're going to complain about a teacher spending $3?  Really? I can see why you'd want a teacher to consider the printing costs if the options were to print the text of War and Peace or buy the paperback, but otherwise the school should just shut up about printing costs. Three dollars is approximately what our curriculum coordinator (who never actually shows up and coordinates) gets paid for 2.5 minutes, assuming $90K, 180 days, 7hours/day.

"Sorry, I can't print out the work for all of my 150 students. A useless member of our school bureaucracy (is that redundant?) needs to be paid for the time she'll spend while her computer boots up today."

Zombies, all of 'em.

Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals ... Fair Weather Discipline

The true HIPster always has a weather-eye open for trouble ... and stays away. 

Whenever there's a problem, he's nowhere to be found. Faculty who hear the ruckus come running to break it up, split the combatants, and escort the drama queens to the office.  Since the teachers were there, they must be responsible for the problem.  This is, of course, obvious.

When things are calm and peaceful ... there he is, smiling as if he did something to be proud of. "My presence here has made all the difference."

He's like the Anti-Fire Department ... Always Missing.

Apparently the OSS knew about Highly Ineffective Principals

In Teachers’ Unions as Saboteurs?, Andrew Gillen quotes the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, published by the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) during World War II. It includes advice for indirect sabotage in “General Interference with Organizations and Production.”

(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (Just like my principal - who knew?)
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences… (This sounds like me. What if I'm the one?)
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” (HIPster has this one covered.)
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (Mission statement, anyone?)
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.”
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon…

This can also be caused by Ineffectiveness, but ineffectiveness looks the same as sabotage.

Good to Know about those Exit Cards.

We're back with another episode of "Highly Ineffective Principal."

*rimshot*

"Oh, sorry. That wasn't a joke?"

So we all got an email from him that told us of the information that he put in our mailboxes (right there, you know this is a good one). He went to a conference and heard about something INCREDIBLE and he wanted to make sure we all knew about it. It had the key words "brain research" and "student engagement" and "achievement" so you know we were all on pins and needles.

Exit cards.

Yup.

Forget instant communication, clickers, voting by text, Google poll, smartphone. We aren't going to be trying any new, 21st Century stuff. Our HIPster is enthralled by note cards. "Before I file the information away, there are several items in my notes that I want to share with you."

We teachers apparently have never heard of this "Exit Cards" idea.

We also can't seem to get the 12 pages (double-sided, too) of information as a .pdf or a text email. It was photocopied for every person in the building. And put in mailboxes.

Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals: Um ... Confidentiality?

The true HIPster is acutely aware of his school's scores and how NCLB is bearing down on his job as a result. Fearful for his bloated salary, he flails out with any half-baked idea that might have an effect on the school's results, regardless of the damage it does to students. After all, he's HIP.

You could give them gang tattoos, too.

"Anaheim Union High School District has killed a controversial incentive program that assigned students color-coded ID cards and planners based on state test scores, required those who performed poorly to stand in a separate lunch line and awarded the others with discounts. The program was designed to urge students to raise scores on the California Standards Tests, but it also raised concern among parents and students who said it illegally revealed test scores and embarrassed those who didn't do well."

Yeah. "Urge" them to raise scores. Or maybe "humiliate" them might be more accurate. "Here are all the smart kids in the school and none of them are you." Other than painting a target on the smart kids' backs (because you haven't really solved that bullying problem, yet, have you?), all that this accomplishes is to divide the students against each other and raise resentments higher than they were naturally.

And to have to carry around binders and ID cards that announced continuously that you were deficient -- who thought this was a good idea? A HIP.  It's akin to saying "All you Black kids in this line. All you Asian kids in the Yellow Line. Hispanics in the Brown Line. Normal kids in the White Line."  I can cite psychology experiments (one quote above) that demonstrate what's wrong with this idea and history is filled with stories of whole societies that took this idea and ran amok.  Never mind the confidentiality laws - you CANNOT announce a students scores on tests.

No matter how desperate your job prospects are.

Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals: Idealism Run Weird

Everyone has standards - things we will or won't tolerate in class. All of us have administrators who toss in a few of their own - no hoods, no hats, no gum, no food in the rooms, no drinks in the halls, no glass bottles; you've heard them before.

But then you have the Highly Ineffective Principal. He goes way beyond the reasonable ... all the way to "perfect".

1. Every class should have 100% attendance daily. It is the teacher's responsibility to call parents and make this happen.

I am speechless.

This is "perfect", all right. Perfectly idiotic.

h/t to Pissed Off Teacher, who has a list of these from a real HIPster.

Habits of Highly Ineffective Principals: Make a new committee

So we have a committee that is charged with discussing the way testing will happen. They talk about the testing schedule and the testing environment. A question comes up about a different group of students that isn't being tested at that time and a proposed change for them.

As a HIP, what do you do?

Do you appoint someone to make the change work? Do you state clearly that you believe that a school should do X in a situation like this one and that the current committee should make a decision? Or do you form a new committee that will meet at a different time, comprised of different people but still has you, the HIPster principal as its head?

Yup, make a new committee.

Free Speech, Bullying and HighSchool Students

Link to the original.

The Layshock v. Hermitage School District and J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District cases were heard by the Third Circuit court this spring and summer. Yesterday, the court issued two simultaneous opinions to resolve how much control high schools may exercise over their students’ off-campus, online speech. In Layshock v. Hermitage School District and J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District, the 14-judge court delivered two landmark victories for free speech.

The judges held that school officials cannot, “reach into a child’s home and control his/her actions there to the same extent that it can control that child when he/she participates in school sponsored activities.”  In the two respective cases, students had been disciplined for creating MySpace profiles intended to mock their principals.  The Third Circuit ruled that schools cannot punish students’ online speech simply because it is vulgar, lewd, or offensive.

So here's the question for all of the schools which are trying to police bullying: if the act occurred at home, using a home computer, how can the school discipline the student for it? What if the iPhone's Facebook app is used from the sidelines of a football game? This isn't Tinker - in fact the Justices specifically said they weren't at that point - so what is an over-bearing, self-important little HIP principal to do?

More specifically, when are we as a society going to figure out what to do with our bullied children?

(Hint: Start with a visit to the home of the bully. Asking the school to do that for you is inappropriate.)

Why We're Resisting Change

Education week has 10 Reasons Your Educators Are Resisting Your Change Initiative and it seems like a pretty interesting list.


Why are teachers always resisting change initiatives dictated from on high? Peruse the list. One VERY important reason is missing. Admins will consistently miss it and won't get it.

Teachers will ALL get it.

10 Reasons Your Educators Are Resisting Your Change Initiative

1. Surprise, Surprise! Decisions or requests that are sprung on administrators and teachers without notice.
2. Excess Uncertainty. Not knowing enough about the change will result in the "walking off a cliff blindfolded" syndrome.
3. Loss of Control. Feeling that changes are being done to, rather than done by, those affected.
4. Loss of Routine. Concerns that change will require administrators and teachers to question familiar (and comfortable) routines and habits.
5. We've Seen This Before. Expectation that the initiative is temporary and it will stay incomplete, meaning the best strategy is to lay low and not contribute to success.
6. Loss of Face. Change implies that the former way of doing things was wrong. Some administrators and teachers may feel embarrassed in front of their peers or staff.
7. Concerns About Future Competence. Educators can question their ability to be effective after a change: Can I do it? How will I do it? Will I make it in the new situation?
8. Ripple Effects. Change in one area can disrupt other projects or activities, even ones outside of work.
9. More Work. Organizational change often increases workloads.
10. Sometimes the Threat Is Real. Change often creates real winners and losers, and people worry about where they will end up when the project is complete.

Additional thoughts
As a school leader, if you want your change initiatives to be successful, you MUST address these issues. More important than whether you think you’ve addressed them is whether the resisters believe that you’ve addressed them. It’s what is in their heads and hearts, not yours, that’s important.
What else might we add to this list? I’d probably add:

11. Under-Resourcing. The initiative is not accompanied by sufficient resources (e.g., time, support, funding, training) to actually make it happen. So why should we bother?
12. Innovation Fatigue. Too many simultaneous initiatives. [this contributes to both 5 and 9]

Source: IBM’s online Change Toolkit for educators. Scott McLeod cross-posted at Dangerously Irrelevant

Notice the reasons listed are written from the point of view of an administrator who knows that what he is doing is right in all ways. Secure in this knowledge, he is confounded by all those naysayers. Why are they obstructing him in his righteousness? What is the solution to this knave? How can we deal with him, shut him up and move on with our tablets to mount on the wall where all the sinners can see them -- and convince them to stop worshipping their false American Idol. (Enough bad references!)

So, besides the fact that the announcement came from on high in response to a problem that nobody had and takes the form of an initiative that no one ever thought of ...

What I find the most amazing is that neither in the original post nor in any of the comments added on has  anyone taken note of the most important reason to naysay, block, obstruct, resist or otherwise hinder the adoption of a new initiative is ...

WHAT IF IT DOESN'T WORK?

If I've already seen this initiative fail, I will continue to fight its newest incarnation. My experience is the only reason why I get paid twice what a new teacher earns. Why do my principals insist that my resistance is pigheadedness rather than a reasoned evaluation of the project -- a project that will come up short because I've personally been through its failure before?


I've done some dumb things. My schools have done some dumb things -- we actually built open classrooms. One year later, we built walls.  A nearby HS built a huge open classroom building and has spent every year since hating it. I have no intention of repeating my failures intentionally.

It's funny, though not too surprising when you consider the mindset of the posters and the administrators involved, that no one ever seems to consider the possibility that the initiative is a proven loser.

Even though you don't like me saying it, it still won't fly.

What is a Principal ...

Scott Macleod has been asking what Teachers feel that they need from Administrators.

Whatever happened to the real meaning of "Principal," as in, first, head, leader? Implicit in the title was that the Principal was the lead teacher.

A teacher.

The one with the most seniority or best leadership or highest level of comfort with paperwork and families or whatever was elected by the teachers from within their ranks. Private schools (who used to call teachers "masters") have a Head-master. It's the same thing. I think the administrators started being a detriment to schools when they stopped being teachers.

Lead us from the front.

"Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more." Shakespeare, Henry V

What Teachers Need from Administrators.

Dangerously Irrelevant has the beginning post of a series on what teachers want from administrators. Though I agree with some of this gentleman's points, there is some contradiction in what Brian Crosby says.

I agree with him when he wants teachers to have more say in professional development. No wasted meetings. This should be obvious, but isn't. Admin who haven't taught in years should temper their advice. Schools should hire teachers and then expect them to be teachers - stop second guessing all the time. Accountability is good if you allow the teachers to teach. If you require they follow a script, then hold the script accountable.

Absolutely: Change for its own sake is stupid. Adopting the gee-whiz Fad of the Month from a summer admin workshop while instituting a new math curriculum, new science curriculum, and new Common Core Standards only ruins any chance of knowing whether any reforms were successful. Maybe it's a science mindset, but you should only change one variable at a time if you want to isolate cause.

"Research" in education is often inapplicable to the school. Apply with care. Read the damn paper before you try to implement the hype in the newspaper report of the University press release of the heavily hedged Executive Summary. Don't expect the 150 college students in the study to behave in the same way as your high-schoolers.

When you make changes, you should be "experimenting" properly. Measure before and after. Have a control group. Add your data to that of the study. Isolate variables. Either track the proposed change scientifically or accept the fact that you are playing Russian Roulette with kids who won't get another chance at a high school education.

I'm not so thrilled with the idea of 2 weeks in the beginning of the year for planning - seems like too much and wouldn't be well used by the faculty. It's a nice idea in theory, but details go out the window at first contact with students. Besides, I like having the summer.

A big sticking point for me is the reform contradiction and I felt that his message lost its way.

Saying "Changing course constantly is very bad," he wants to stay away from the Summertime Fad and avoid jumping on the research-based fad. Then he wants to explore non-research-based pedagogies (i.e., fads), change to 21st century tech and wants his admin to "BEG for creativity and innovation." Which is it?

"Creativity and innovation" are euphemisms for "summer workshop fad" except for frame of reference. Is it always a fad if your admin proposes it but realistic and wonderful if it came from your own 6-hour workshop? Brian is tripping down this staircase.

Is it a gun or a weapon?

Highly Ineffective Principal holds firm to his principles. (No jokes about his gun, AT EASE in the back.)

The picture "shows a hat created by 8-year-old David Morales to honor American troops, for an assignment to decorate a hat in his second-grade class at Tiogue School in Coventry, R.I. School officials told him he could not wear the cap he decorated, saying it violated the district's no-weapons policy because the toy soldiers were carrying tiny weapons. (AP Photo/WPRI)"

I can't stop laughing.

UPDATE:
It gets better.

Rhode Island boy with banned hat wins a medal
General praises him for his 'outstanding job'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS / Washington Times
June 20, 2010

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. | A Rhode Island boy whose school banned a hat he made because the toy soldiers on it carried tiny guns was awarded a medal on Friday for his patriotic efforts. Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, the retired head of the Rhode Island National Guard, gave 8-year-old David Morales a medal called a challenge coin during an appearance on WPRO-AM's John DePetro show.

---

R.I. school to reverse ban on boy's toy soldier hat
By ASSOCIATED PRESS / Washington Times
June 20, 2010

COVENTRY, R.I. (AP) -- The superintendent of a Rhode Island school district that banned a second-grader's homemade hat because it displayed toy soldiers with tiny guns said Saturday he will work to change the policy to allow such apparel.

So ... he doesn't feel that he can simply declare the hat "not a weapon" and move on, he will leave this ruling intact and simply "work to change the policy". Weasel.

In the running for HIP

"A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."

Because you're an idiot?

The Highly Ineffective Principal is Usurped.

There are so many things wrong here, I just don't know what to say. Hold on, I DO know what to say. I think these folk have usurped the title of Most Highly Ineffective Principal. If you can't teach 'em, suspend 'em!

• School Officials: Grow Up. If this is the extent of his "intimidation," then you need to seriously reconsider your actions. If he made other students uncomfortable, then you need to talk to him and to them and help everyone understand the meaning of "Play" and appropriate things. If this is too complicated for you adults, then you should quit your position and get a job you can handle. Like maybe at Burger King.
  
• Momma: Grow Up. You're the Adult. Teach your son how to behave. If they've complained about this behavior for several months and you've ignored it, then you have also failed as a parent. You have to realize the school is unwilling to do (or incapable of doing) this. Teach him proper behavior. Nobody cares if your son isn't violent at home - we all know what a special little snowflake he is, unique and wonderful.

Say it with me again, "Zero Tolerance means Zero Intelligence."

---

Ionia kindergartner suspended for making gun with hand
By Brian McVicar The Grand Rapids Press
March 04, 2010, 10:39PM
IONIA -- To the little boy's mother, it was just a 6-year-old boy playing around.
But when Mason Jammer, a kindergarten student at Jefferson Elementary in Ionia, curled his fist into the shape of a gun Wednesday and pointed it at another student, school officials said it was no laughing matter. They suspended Mason until Friday, saying the behavior made other students uncomfortable, said Erin Jammer, Mason's mother. School officials allege Mason had displayed this kind of behavior for several months, despite numerous warnings. "I do think it's too harsh for a six-year-old," said Jammer, who was previously warned that if Mason continued the practice he would be suspended. "He's six and he just likes to play." Jammer says her son isn't violent, and there are other, more effective ways of teaching him not to make a gun with his hand. "Maybe what you could do is take his recess away," suggested Jammer, adding her son doesn't have toy guns at home. "He's only six and he doesn't understand any of this."

New and Improved! Technology initiatives in education.

Time for a big-ass rant.

The Tempered Radical knows why teachers give up on Interactive White Boards. With some major snipping, and hoping I don't eliminate context:

What bothers me ... is an attitude towards teachers that I see often in conversations about school change. "Teachers all resistant to change and lazy!" the argument goes. "If they'd just be persistent and determined, our schools would be saved." ... The general belief is that teachers lack determination and commitment in almost every circumstance.
... that's a flawed assumption. ... the amount of effort that most changes take doesn't align with the corresponding benefits that change is designed to produce. ... The software wasn't designed to naturally facilitate the kinds of teaching that I believe in and limited access to the hardware required that I restructure learning time in my classroom almost every day.

I'm all over this. I think that the programmers who do this stuff should spend some time teaching to find out how the "real-world" will use it and what those teachers actually need. This is, for me, the crux of the problem. Those who write don't know what problem they are trying to solve and often do not have a clue as to how I will use it. (Sort of an educational consultant, no?)

Then, the pressures of making a sale get in the way of making my life easier. All too often, the person making the purchase isn't the one who gets to use it. Even if they asked the teachers, they're still asking someone who hasn't used it and can't really tell.

There are four major problems with technology and tech initiatives: Variety, the learning curve, Usability and Availability.

The rant is below this break.