I normally try to steer clear of topics about which I feel vehemently about as I tend to not hear what others say about them. However, the HSA graduation requirement is something that is just making me nuts. I realize that the purpose of the HSA tests were to make all students meet a minimum level of competance prior to graduation. That is NOT what they have accomplished. Right now, the only students who are suffering are ESL and special education students who are having to work on so-called Bridge Projects that will allow them to graduate on time. I have been in on planning and studying the HSAs since their inception. From the beginning, teachers who were involved kept saying--"Why not have a dual-track diploma system to go along with the HSAs?" A system could have been implemented from the beginning that would make everyone take the required tests once and then make the decision as to whether or not they would retake them to obtain a passing score. What would be wrong with that? Nothing; absolutely nothing except it wouldn't look as good as having all students pass these tests--by looking good, I mean the State Board of Education. The tests are longer than the SATs and the results are never explicitly spelled out for the student, parents or teachers. The state board representative can't even tell you how the darn thing is scored. It all has to do with easy, medium and hard questions and whether the indicator being tested is covered in more than one question. A complicated system that no one really understands and therefore should be invalid. Right now, my school has 152 out of 299 seniors who will not be able to graduate if they don't pass the tests or do the Bridge Projects. The projects are even more difficult than the tests except for the Algebra ones. The projects are not capable of being done by ESL or special education students on their own and so it falls on the teachers and the schools to provide time for these tasks to be accomplished. If the problem just existed in one school system, I would not be alarmed but it is across the state. The article in today's SUN was good as far as it went. But let me tell you that the majority of students who need to do projects in Biology or English have a long way to go to see the fruits of their labor. Once again, the burden of assisting these students falls on the shoulders of the schools and faculty. If a dual-track diploma system was in place, students woul be able to take the test, make a decision as to whether or not they want to take it again and go from there. Is that too much to ask?

After a number of years of teaching, I often find myself in discussion with others about why bother to teach. The rationale goes something like this--Students don't want to be in school; young people have access to so much knowledge on the Internet; why bother reading; teaching is for those who can't excel at other things; the list goes on and on. Well, tonight, at a Pizza Hut of all places, I was once again reminded as to why I teach. I went out with my children--23 and 21--for a rare meal out for the three of us as a group. We were perusing the menus--already knowing what we would order--when my daughter started laughing out loud. She then pointed to an insert that I had yet to see and said "No comment; just read." The insert was for the promotion that Pizza Hut does yearly for its reward program for elementary students who get good grades. I have seen the campaign numerous times but this one was a classic. "Bring in you're A's and get $$$ off of your order." Now I am used to seeing grammar errors everywhere even in communication from the School Board but this one was particularly distressing as it was in an ad for good grades in school. I don't know if anyone bothered to actually read the ad before it went to press or if they just allowed spell check to do the work. The point is that now I don't know if I can ever look at a Pizza Hut again without making the jump to that grammar error. I know that it is a small thing in the overall scheme of things but it is another example of why I teach. Both of my children immediately caught the error but how many others who have read the ad didn't even bother to think anything was wrong? Maybe one day, no one will care if it should have read "your" instead of "you're." I always will. Knowledge is power and those who know how to properly use the language will always be in demand somewhere, somehow. It is my goal to share my love of learning with others and THAT is why I still go to work and care about what others know.

The beginning of the testing season is upon us and those of us who deal with testing in any shape, manner or form dread this time of year more than any other. The push to get everyone tested, the push to make sure that all the teachers and others are not overworked with proctoring, and the push to make sure that all of the tested students pass all combine to produce one giant headache for anyone involved. This year is particularly stressful in that it is the first year that seniors have to have passed all of the tests or achieved a combined score of 1602 in order to receive a MD diploma. Of course, now the State Board of Education has thrown a wrinkle into the situation by publicly stating that maybe--just maybe--these tests are not a great idea and that we should have a dual-track diploma system. So now the students have another reason to doubt the veracity of teachers who tell them how important these tests are. What a negative blast from the top down! We will have to wait and see what transpires at their next meeting to see what other gems of wisdom are imparted to us. And the Bridge Plan for graduating seniors--another "do it or die trying" situation. The projects are difficult for students to handle on their own. Add to that the manpower involved in getting them done and students are already having a fit. I wonder if standardized testing will ever be run by someone who actually wants students to be successful.

All of us who are currently in teaching are ruled by NCLB. It rules our lives, our instructional methods and too often, how our schools are governed. There has always been standardized testing--SATs, ACTs, PSATs, regent's exams, and on and on. What NCLB has done is take standardized testing and move it to another plane of existence. Now testing becomes the rule of order and no one is exempt from its power. Those of us who deal with the realities of testing on a daily basis however are continually frustrated by the unevenness of the application of the testing standard from state to state. There is no general consensus about what makes a highly qualified teacher, what type of test is good to use for AYP and whether or not special education students should have to meet exactly the same criteria as "regular" students. Maryland has one set of rules, Texas has one set of rules, California has one set of rules and seldom do two states agree on anything. What seems to get left behind here is the student. What message do we as teachers send to students who can pass a class with an 85 or 90 and yet not pass a state-mandated test? Who can judge whether or not the student has learned the material required for proficiency in the class--the teacher or the state? Who decides the value of a teacher by their ability to teach and connect with students or their ability to pass a test of dubious quality? I am all for teachers and students demonstrating proficiency in the classroom and on tests but let's make those tests fair and equitable. Let's standardize the tests for both groups across the board so that a teacher or student who gets a passing score in MD will still have met the passing standard in the other 49 states. Then we will get some true equality in our schools. NCLB doesn't address this or the fact that not everyone needs to go to college. We are turning out classes of students who do not have marketable skills but have been told that they are "college-ready." What a farce!

Someone recently asked me what being a professional teacher is. I was taken aback for the moment as I had to think that over for more than a few minutes. Being a professional teacher has changed rapidly since I first began teaching and I would appreciate that discussion going on between teachers of all levels of experience.

I believe that a professional teacher treats the work as a calling and not just another job. Teaching in one of the few professions that you must learn to make changes in your life in order to be successful. One of the areas in which I personally see a lack of professionalism is in the way newer teachers view being absent from the job. When a teacher is absent, particularly in a system where substitutes are not available in great numbers, the students and the other staff are both impacted. I am not unfeeling as I know people become genuinely ill, have family emergencies and are effected by circumstances over which they have no control. But I find that newer teachers will take off for any reason--my cat died, my friend is getting married, I have a hangnail, I stayed up too late and am tired--and see nothing wrong with the issue. Yes, we have a certain number of sick days given to us but they are for use when YOU ARE ILL or injured; not for going to get a haircut. When a teacher is not in the classroom in my school, chances are that the substitute will not attempt to do anything that remotely resembles teaching and/or the classes will be divided up and given to other teachers who have classes of their own to teach. This sets a bad example for the students. We try to get them to understand that being in school every day is important and then their own teacher doesn't come in for a trivial reason. Oh, and don't think that the students won't tell exactly why you are not in school; not only do they know but they share with anyone who will listen. I have come to school when I probably should have stayed home but, you know what, the students would work with me when I lost my voice or had to not move around much in the room. It also gave them the feeling that I cared for them.

Another example of professionalism is to do those duties that are required of your job without having to be reminded to get them done. Things like lesson planning, attending required meetings, filling out required reports in a timely manner are all part of showing that you treat your job as a profession and not just a time killer. I cannot count how many times I have had to ask teachers to turn in class counts, book counts, special education forms, attend meetings on time or at least let me know where they were. I try to be reasonable about all timelines but often I need information by a certain date and there are always one or two teachers who must be contacted in person in order to get the information (which took them two or three minutes to gather). And yet I am expected to drop everything when they need something from me even when it requires me to change my schedule.

So, some of the newer teachers out there, tell me what you think that it means to be a professional teacher. I am interested to see how far off you think I am.

Since I have been in the teaching field for over 20 years, I am often asked why I went into teaching particularly since I had several other jobs before. I certainly didn't go into teaching as one sees in MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, DEAD POETS' SOCIETY, or DANGEROUS MINDS. Those movies, while immensely entertaining, are not accurate portrayals of teaching in today's world. I know that the movies are inspirational and make for good stories but, get real, those kinds of stories are the work of Hollywood magic. They may be based on real events but I have never seen those kinds of events in any real school that I have entered. That doesn't mean we don't have our inspirational moments but they are far fewer and far less dramatic than anything you will see in the movies. A closer depiction of teaching can be found in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH and TEACHERS (with Nick Nolte). I went into teaching after having a career in another field and becoming disillusioned with the workplace grind. I was hired sight unseen by a principal who knew me by my family reputation. I was lucky to fall into a system that allowed me to experiment with who I was as a teacher and how I wanted to find a place in the system. I have made many good friends with fellow teachers and have kept in touch with former students who are now located all over the United States and have had various degrees of success. I wanted to be a better teacher than some of the ones I had had in elementary school and in high school. In fact, the one person who made me want to be a teacher was the man I had as a 5th-6th grade teacher who played favorites, embarrassed students and was, in general, totally incompetent. I raged against him and always vowed, if given the opportunity, would be a much better teacher than he ever was. Somewhere he knows what he did and probably would be surprised if he knew how I felt. So that is why I am a teacher. I have had a great career but I am looking forward to leaving with my brain and body intact. Let me know why you wanted to go into teaching--I am curious.

So, this week this blog lived up to its title--hot! If you work in Baltimore City and this is your first year, you had the joyous experience of having school dismissed early because of the heat. The rule for heat dismissal is that the outside temperature must reach 90 degrees at the Science Center by 11 a.m. in order to release students early. Now, let's think about this situation. Most of the schools in the city are un-airconditioned (except for the principal's office and the library/media center) and the buildings were built in the days before "green" design. The majority of them are brick, concrete-block or something of that sort; good bomb shelters but not conducive to allowing heat to escape once the building has warmed up. On Thursday, the inside temperature in my building was already 80-85 degrees before the students arrived. Get real! Students do NOT learn in an environment where they are sweating, sticking to the chairs and there is no air moving around. The argument is made that "students dealt with these temperatures in the buildings for years and did well." True enough, but the school year then didn't extend from the end of August to the middle of June either. Also, students were better able to deal with heat as air-conditioning was not a ubiquitous feature of many homes and apartments. I didn't live in an air-conditioned house until the late 60's and even then we only had it in one room. Brand new teachers got a jolt when they hit the buildings and had to deal with not just the heat but the short tempers and drowsiness the heat produced. I am not saying we should air-condition all the buildings but a more reasonable system for determining the comfort level of schools needs to be devised. I have had parents tell me that they were going to keep students home because of the heat and, quite frankly, I don't blame them. Have administrators and general office personnel live in the same rooms as the students and teachers; then see how long they will last. And, folks, if you think the heat is fun, just wait until winter and the heat doesn't work in the building because they turn the boilers off over the weekends. The least the system should do is provide fans to move air around. Most teachers I know end up getting two, three or even four fans in their rooms just to keep the temperature bearable. With all of the money appropriated for school improvement, maybe climate controls should come in the list at some point. Let's all hope that the hurricane coming past Maryland will take the temperatures down into the manageable level. We will survive folks but drink lots of water and wear loose clothing. KEEP THOSE FANS MOVING!!!

The first week or two of school with students is referred to as the "honeymoon period" for obvious reasons.  Both sides, students and teachers, getting to know one another, sizing each other up, wondering what motivates their actions.  Well, for most schools in the state, the first week of school is over and all things are sorting themselves out.  The first week in my school has been BUSY--mostly with meetings that were unnecessary and problems that arose because educated people can't read directions.  I am always amazed when teachers who should know better don't read opening day directions and send students to the incorrect lunch period or to another class without the time being correct.  Sometimes I just want to walk up to them and shake sense into their heads.

All in all, the first week usually makes or breaks a new teacher.  They find out who the students are who will give them problems and who are the ones who are there to learn.  They also rapidly discover which administrators will back them up and which ones won't.  It is now time to begin making alliances with the support staff that is needed for a teacher to be truly successful.  Personally, my first week was good--way too busy but productive.  I believe that the majority of the teachers at my school are there to do the correct thing and are trying to do so in a positive manner. 

That's it for today.

The school year is here and you will find that there will be weeks when your classroom is more familiar to you than your own home.  In fact, you will spend more of your waking hours there during your first year than you will at home or with your family.  That may sound like a horror movie but, even when you are home, you will be thinking about school and lessons and students and on and on.  That being said, you must make your classroom a place that you can stand to be in for extended periods of time without screaming.

Different people accomplish this task in different ways.  Depending upon the school in which you have landed, you may be able to paint, hang curtains, bring in comfortable chairs and other such amenities.  At a minimum, your room should be clean, well-lit and have at least one or two places where you can sit while not teaching and be comfortable. 

As an example, let me share how I used to keep my classroom when I was in a full-time mode.  I was fortunate that I had a large room with windows all down one of the long walls.  I put colored paper on top of the shades because the shades were old, gray and cracking.  I painted my desk dark blue instead of institutional gray and I brought in a desk chair on rollers.  I personally enjoy plants and have lots of them at home; so they made it in to the room also.  Over the years, I also had an iguana and a couple of guinea pigs that lived in the classroom on an extended basis.  And, no, I don't teach science but I used the care and feeding of them as rewards for improved behavior and grades.  The iguana made a name for himself and was in the room off and on for three years.  The guinea pigs didn't last that long but that was OK too.  You do have to be careful introducing pets into the room.  Some students have allergies and others are afraid of reptiles and the like.  The animals made me feel connected to the outside world and the students learned something from being around them as well.  I keep a cloth on the top of my desk not only for padding but for an additional bit of color. 

I have friends who decorate their rooms for every season and keep plants and stuff all around.  Most schools have some sort of guidelines for bulletin boards and the like which you will be evaluated on; so pay attention to that.  Students love to see their work posted and that can always fill a board or so.  Make sure that every student gets a chance to see their work displayed--makes for a happier environment.

Lastly, try to keep your part of the room as clean as possible.  Nothing is more depressing than walking into a room with dirty desks and messy bookshelves. 

Good luck and have a good start to the year.

One more weekend and the summer "vacation" will be officially over.  Then we will all step into the whirlwind that is a school year in the 21st century.  Despite what I might feel at times, I still love my job or I wouldn't be here.  Yes, it has its problems--paperwork, administration, petty rivalries, heat, lack of supplies, and on and on--but, at the end of the day, the rewards still outweigh the challenges.  I always look forward to seeing what new teachers bring with them, what veteran teachers have done over the summer, and what new hoops there will be for us both to jump through.  This year brings added elements for me personally as I have developed a new personal relationship that could make major changes in my life and my daughter has gotten engaged.  Even my son, who is the youngest and most unstable of us, has found a relationship with a girl who seems to be the real thing.  Add all of this to the normal stresses of the school year and I see lots of "fun" ahead.  That's all for now.