Christa Allan

Coming around again…and again…and

Christa Allan — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:07:37 +0000

I found this blog post from four years ago. I’m reposting it because, sadly, nothing’s changed…

DISCLAIMER: The experiences of which I speak are personal to me and are not necessarily representative of all teachers and/or schools and/or school boards and/or students and/or their parents.

1. A universal revelation is embedded in the following fill-in-the-blank: “It would make so much more sense if we____________.” I realize that whatever I use to complete the statement probably won’t happen because, generally, if it makes sense, it doesn’t happen. And so, I solved the dilemma with the dilemma itself.

2. COPIERS (the machines, not the students): Teachers, at least in high school, are usually granted one period per day called our “plan period.” Generally, we’re planning how to call parents and/ or return their calls, grade papers, record grades, return parents’ emails, possibly attend a parent conference, make copies, and-we pray-go to the restroom in the sixty or fewer minutes we’ve been granted. Oh, I forgot, and we plan lessons during that time.

Take the average number of people on the faculty, divide that by the average number of people on the faculty less twenty, and that’s how many copying machines are actually functioning on any given day.

At one school I taught in, we were on a first name basis with the repair person. In fact, in that same school it was not unusual to wait in a line of eight or more teachers to make copies. School started before 7:30. Many of us would arrive an hour early just to beat one another to the front of the line. And on exam days, beat one another took on a whole new meaning. It was also in this school that we were limited as to the number of copies we could make. Run out of copies before you run out of month? Two options–buy them (yes, with our own $$$) or work a deal with one of the coaches, who, for some odd reason, never used their allotment.

It’s a glorious day in teacher land when you open the door to the faculty lounge and there’s a vacant copier, and it doesn’t have a sign telling you that it needs toner or is blinking some alien code.

3. SUPPLY MONEY: Oops, I’m sorry, could you repeat that? Oh, yes. Money to buy supplies. One time in my entire teacher life I was bowled over by what I was granted to purchase supplies and that was in the school in which I currently teach. I’d arrived after Hurricane Katrina and was granted a generous sum to get my classroom together. (Of course, the next day I had to evacuate for Hurricane Rita, but that’s another blog. )Prior to that, the most I’d ever received in a school year was $75.00; the average sum was $50.00 per year.

Now, I’d like you to imagine walking to your desk at a company at which you’ve just been hired, opening the drawers and finding—nothing. No things. Nothing. Teachers are not shocked by this. We purchase our own everything–pens, pencils, paper clips, rubber bands (my daughter used to call them bubber rands), staplers, yaddayaddayadda. Posters hanging on walls, calendars, clock, overhead transparencies, dry erase markers for the boards, erasers for the dry erase boards, manila folders, cleaning supplies, Kleenex, paper towels. Now I know some teachers in some schools put some of these items on their supply list for students to schlep in the first weeks of school. I usually don’t. The room does come with a file cabinet, a trash can, and sometimes a bookcase. It’s always fun to watch a first year teacher ask, “Where can I get a_______?” We direct him/her to Wal-Mart.

In the early years, I would take pity on students who did not have a pen or pencil or paper and supply them. But when I started having to purchase school supplies for my own five children, that ended as fast as Rene Zegweller’s marriage. Now, and because I teach primarily juniors who are chronologically 16 and 17-year-olds, he without a pen better hope for a friend with.

Here’s my take on that: Did this same kid forget his/her cell phone or his/her pants? No. So, I instruct said kid to attach a pen to the cell phone or pants pocket and have the pen in school. It’s not only problem ownership, it’s just simply responsibility. Try getting to the airport without a ticket and borrowing one from the pilot or your friend. Let me know how that works for you.

Happy Day of Labor? Hmmm….

Christa Allan — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:12:10 +0000

A Jambalaya of People: I am New Orleans: On the 5th anniversary of Katrina

Christa Allan — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:31:35 +0000

Vince Vance’s music video, I am New Orleans, is a musical collage of sights and sounds of the city released for the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Vance, who has lived in New Orleans for most of his life attempts to honor the city and showcase its beauty and its uniqueness.

New Orleans Videos – Vince Vance’s Musical Vide…, posted with vodpod

with thanks to my MIL Carolyn for the link!

Laugh often and much: a reminder from the other Waldo

Christa Allan — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:12:14 +0000

Dogs: An unusual guide to school reform

Christa Allan — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:37:52 +0000

Marion Brady, is a veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author. This was emailed to me by Lee Barrios, also a teacher, who asked:

Send the copies to your senators and representatives before they sell their vote to the publishing and testing corporations intent on getting an ever-bigger slice of that half-trillion dollars a year America spends on educating.

By Marion Brady
Driving the country roads of Scotland, Ireland and Wales, I have sometimes been lucky enough to be blocked by sheep being moved from one pasture to another.

I say ‘lucky’ because it allows me to watch an impressive performance by a dog – usually a Border Collie.

What a show! A single, mid-sized dog herding two or three hundred sheep, keeping them moving in the right direction, rounding up strays, knowing how to intimidate but not cause panic, funneling them all through a gate, and obviously enjoying the challenge.

Why a Border Collie? Why not an Akita or Xoloitzcuintli or another of about 400 breeds listed on the Internet?

Because, among the people for whom herding sheep is serious business, there is general agreement that Border Collies are better at doing what needs to be done than any other dog. They have ‘the knack.’

That knack is so important that those who care most about Border Collies even oppose their being entered in dog shows. That, they say, would lead to the Border Collie being bred to look good, and looking good isn’t the point. Brains, innate ability, performance – that’s the point.

Other breeds are no less impressive in other ways. If you’re lost in a snowstorm in the Alps, you don’t need a Border Collie. You need a big, strong dog with a really good nose, lots of fur, wide feet that don’t sink too deeply into snow, and an unerring sense of direction for returning with help. You need a Saint Bernard.

If varmints are sneaking into your hen house, killing your chickens, and escaping down holes in a nearby field, you don’t need a Border Collie or a Saint Bernard, you need a Fox Terrier.

It isn’t that many different breeds can’t be taught to herd, lead high-altitude rescue efforts, or kill foxes. They can. It’s just that teaching all dogs to do things which one particular breed can do better than any other doesn’t make much sense.

We accept the reasonableness of that argument for dogs. We reject it for kids.

The non-educators now running the education show say American kids are lagging ever-farther behind in science and math, and that the consequences of that for America’s economic well-being could be catastrophic.

So, what is this rich, advantaged country of ours doing to try to beat out the competition?

Mainly, we put in place the No Child Left Behind program, now replaced by Race to the Top and the Common Core State Standards Initiative. If that fact makes you optimistic about the future of education in America, think again about dogs.

There are all kinds of things they can do besides herd, rescue, and engage foxes. They can sniff luggage for bombs. Chase felons. Stand guard duty. Retrieve downed game birds. Guide the blind. Detect certain diseases. Locate earthquake survivors. Entertain audiences. Play nice with little kids. Go for help if Little Nell falls down a well.

So, with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top as models, let’s set performance standards for these and all other canine capabilities and train all dogs to meet them. All 400 breeds. All skills. Leave No Dog Behind!

Two-hundred-pound Mastiffs may have a little trouble with the chase-the-fox-down-the-hole standard, and Chihuahuas will probably have difficulty with the tackle-the-felon-and-pin-him-to-the-ground standard. But, hey, no excuses! Standards are standards! Leave No Dog Behind.

Think there’s something wrong with a same-standards-and-tests-for-everybody approach to educating? Think a math whiz shouldn’t be held back just because he can’t write a good five-paragraph essay? Think a gifted writer shouldn’t be refused a diploma because she can’t solve a quadratic equation? Think a promising trumpet player shouldn’t be kept out of the school orchestra or pushed out on the street because he can’t remember the date of the Boxer Rebellion?

If you think there’s something fundamentally, dangerously wrong with an educational reform effort that’s actually designed to standardize, designed to ignore human variation, designed to penalize individual differences, designed to produce a generation of clones, photocopy this column.

If you think it’s stupid to require every kid to read the same books, think the same thoughts, parrot the same answers, make several photocopies. And in the margin at the top of each, write, in longhand, something like, “Please explain why the standards and accountability fad isn’t a criminal waste of brains,” or, “Why are you trashing America’s hope for the future?” or just, “Does this make sense?”