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Why This Website
SDCOE
CVESD
Castle Park Elem
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff &
Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
Office Admin Hearings
Larkins OAH Hearing
Girl culture among teachers is top
down, with most teachers wanting to
take orders, to follow leaders.
In most offices, there is more self
interest involved in politics, and
probably more likelihood that the
managers will insist on change.
We need a geometric progression
of change; arithmetic increases
can't keep up with the vast numbers
of failing children who add to the
ranks of school problems as
teachers, administrators, parents,
voters and board members.
All I ask is that people act in their
own best interest. They need not be
kind or caring or even fair--except
as this is required to benefit
themselves.
down, with most teachers wanting to
take orders, to follow leaders.
In most offices, there is more self
interest involved in politics, and
probably more likelihood that the
managers will insist on change.
We need a geometric progression
of change; arithmetic increases
can't keep up with the vast numbers
of failing children who add to the
ranks of school problems as
teachers, administrators, parents,
voters and board members.
All I ask is that people act in their
own best interest. They need not be
kind or caring or even fair--except
as this is required to benefit
themselves.
Teams
"Teamwork" in schools seems to
involve, more often than not, the
union of small minds gathered for
the purpose of marginalizing
anyone who does any real
thinking. The goal is stability,
sameness, security for teachers.
Conformity can actually improve
the performance of the least
capable teachers, but the system
requires compliant, weak,
mediocre teachers, prefers them,
in fact, in order to keep the "team"
in control.
"Teamwork" in schools seems to
involve, more often than not, the
union of small minds gathered for
the purpose of marginalizing
anyone who does any real
thinking. The goal is stability,
sameness, security for teachers.
Conformity can actually improve
the performance of the least
capable teachers, but the system
requires compliant, weak,
mediocre teachers, prefers them,
in fact, in order to keep the "team"
in control.
I have noticed in the schools I've
worked at that it was often the
people with the gravest
psychological problems, including
addiction, that were the most
insistent that everyone conform to
a narrow range of thinking and
action. My theory is that these
people don't trust themselves to be
themselves because they behave
badly when not strictly
self-controlled. Those of us who
have learned to trust ourselves
(and our students) are apt to feel
comfortable with fewer rules and
restrictions.
worked at that it was often the
people with the gravest
psychological problems, including
addiction, that were the most
insistent that everyone conform to
a narrow range of thinking and
action. My theory is that these
people don't trust themselves to be
themselves because they behave
badly when not strictly
self-controlled. Those of us who
have learned to trust ourselves
(and our students) are apt to feel
comfortable with fewer rules and
restrictions.
Need for cohesive teams is used
as an excuse for a group of
teachers getting together and
forming a “girl culture” group. The
groups’ goals are sometimes
unprofessional and their decisions
arbitrary. “Teams” are not
creative, but rather mediocre, top-
down, forcing others to move in
lock-step for social, not
professional reasons.
as an excuse for a group of
teachers getting together and
forming a “girl culture” group. The
groups’ goals are sometimes
unprofessional and their decisions
arbitrary. “Teams” are not
creative, but rather mediocre, top-
down, forcing others to move in
lock-step for social, not
professional reasons.
Framework for failure
We don't want everyone to fail.
We need a certain number who
can process information to a
certain degree to make our
economic system flourish. But
we can't have anyone thinking
so much that they notice that
there are problems with the
system. We need most people
to fail intellectually.
Teacher culture fosters
immaturity among teachers,
and encourages them to punish
any thinking that could threaten
the framework for failure.
See Five Dysfunctions of a
Team
We don't want everyone to fail.
We need a certain number who
can process information to a
certain degree to make our
economic system flourish. But
we can't have anyone thinking
so much that they notice that
there are problems with the
system. We need most people
to fail intellectually.
Teacher culture fosters
immaturity among teachers,
and encourages them to punish
any thinking that could threaten
the framework for failure.
See Five Dysfunctions of a
Team
Control
Maintaining control essential for
both children and adults.
Explanations not required.
Secrecy important. Appearance
of stability and
smooth-functioning must be
maintained, or the board
members may be voted out.
Maintaining control essential for
both children and adults.
Explanations not required.
Secrecy important. Appearance
of stability and
smooth-functioning must be
maintained, or the board
members may be voted out.
Control thinking as well as
behavior of adults. Orthodoxy of
attitude required. Controllers
don't trust those who are not
convinced of their correctness.
behavior of adults. Orthodoxy of
attitude required. Controllers
don't trust those who are not
convinced of their correctness.
“Boy, Was I Wrong About Him”: Why It’s So Hard
to Size People Up
by Jeff Wise
April 23, 2010
Evolutionary Psychology
"Some of us are better than others. My wife, for example, is a particularly bad liar, which is
one of the reasons I married her. (At least, this is what I believe about her; ask me again in
30 years.) Others are exceptionally good. I've learned not to trust my gut when it comes to
such matters. Time and again, it's the person who I really, really like on first meeting who
turns out to be an incorrigible rogue."
...Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar suggests that it's because, in a
sense, deception is what we evolved to do. His "social brain hypothesis" posits
that the reason we evolved such large brains is that, as social animals, our
ancestors were constantly jockeying for position within the social group. As I
write in Extreme Fear, for mammals like us, heirarchical rank can be a matter of
life or death; that's why we seem to have a separate fear system devoted to
social threat. In order to survive, we have to be able to figure out what's going
on in our friends' and relatives' minds. And at times, to prevent them from
accurately understanding what's going on in our minds. So deception is part of
our evolutionary inheritance. We lie for the same reason a bird flies and a
whale spouts: it helps us survive.
to Size People Up
by Jeff Wise
April 23, 2010
Evolutionary Psychology
"Some of us are better than others. My wife, for example, is a particularly bad liar, which is
one of the reasons I married her. (At least, this is what I believe about her; ask me again in
30 years.) Others are exceptionally good. I've learned not to trust my gut when it comes to
such matters. Time and again, it's the person who I really, really like on first meeting who
turns out to be an incorrigible rogue."
...Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar suggests that it's because, in a
sense, deception is what we evolved to do. His "social brain hypothesis" posits
that the reason we evolved such large brains is that, as social animals, our
ancestors were constantly jockeying for position within the social group. As I
write in Extreme Fear, for mammals like us, heirarchical rank can be a matter of
life or death; that's why we seem to have a separate fear system devoted to
social threat. In order to survive, we have to be able to figure out what's going
on in our friends' and relatives' minds. And at times, to prevent them from
accurately understanding what's going on in our minds. So deception is part of
our evolutionary inheritance. We lie for the same reason a bird flies and a
whale spouts: it helps us survive.
Why do we always pick on the New Guy?
Communication Central
by Bakari Akil II, Ph.D.
May 6, 2010
...As an adult being the new guy (or gal) takes on a different meaning. The craziness of
school yard childhood bullying goes away and is often replaced by passive aggressive
workplace behavior from workmates/colleagues and the occasional office tyrant.
Many of you may already know what I'm talking about, but there are a few who may have
been lucky enough to have no or very pleasant 'new guy' experiences. Yet, regardless of the
severity or pleasantness of the ‘new guy' experience the back and forth dance must take
place.
Robert Sommers in his book Personal Space: The Basis of Behavioral Design (2008), talks
about two things that affect people's behavior when first meeting each other. Those things
are "territoriality" and "dominance." Sommers asserts that most people avoid trouble
because they are fully aware of areas that are ‘safe' territories (usually their own) and avoid
those that aren't. Further, because they are intimately familiar with the power hierarchies
that exist between them and other people within their own environment there is usually no
need for conflict (dominance) because arrangements, whether conscious or not, have
already been determined.
Now imagine the ‘new guy' entering the new work environment. The people within the
organization already have their arrangements in place. They know their roles, who is in
charge, their general standing in the scheme of things and written and unwritten protocols
of the organization. The new person upsets this balance and the balance has to be
restored, albeit in a different way than before.
The established members of the group only have to deal with the new person once in
establishing a relationship, regardless if the outcome is positive or negative. The new
person has to negotiate terms with everyone in the organization.
As Sommers expressed in his research, established members use territorial claims in
negotiating with newcomers and let them know immediately where they stand. These types
of claims are often verbal and serve as gentle warnings. For instance, an established
member may say, "Don't worry about these invoices, I always handle these." Usually, the
new person (without rank) would respond to such statements with deference until they learn
where their own boundaries begin and end.
However, if that fails then 'dominance' techniques will be used, depending of course, on the
level of aggressiveness the established members are willing to display. But, since the
workplace is not designed or tolerates such behavior, newcomers are usually at the
receiving end of passive aggressive activity.
Examples of the treatment handed out to ‘new guys' in the workplace include being called a
"newbie" or "rookie;" being told an inappropriate joke to see how they will respond; being
ignored by someone in the hallway even after being properly introduced; having to listen to
rants such as "you young people are all over the place;" and being subjected to the "stick
with me and I'll show you the ropes" conversations. In severe cases, established members
try to assert themselves by yelling or using threats...
Communication Central
by Bakari Akil II, Ph.D.
May 6, 2010
...As an adult being the new guy (or gal) takes on a different meaning. The craziness of
school yard childhood bullying goes away and is often replaced by passive aggressive
workplace behavior from workmates/colleagues and the occasional office tyrant.
Many of you may already know what I'm talking about, but there are a few who may have
been lucky enough to have no or very pleasant 'new guy' experiences. Yet, regardless of the
severity or pleasantness of the ‘new guy' experience the back and forth dance must take
place.
Robert Sommers in his book Personal Space: The Basis of Behavioral Design (2008), talks
about two things that affect people's behavior when first meeting each other. Those things
are "territoriality" and "dominance." Sommers asserts that most people avoid trouble
because they are fully aware of areas that are ‘safe' territories (usually their own) and avoid
those that aren't. Further, because they are intimately familiar with the power hierarchies
that exist between them and other people within their own environment there is usually no
need for conflict (dominance) because arrangements, whether conscious or not, have
already been determined.
Now imagine the ‘new guy' entering the new work environment. The people within the
organization already have their arrangements in place. They know their roles, who is in
charge, their general standing in the scheme of things and written and unwritten protocols
of the organization. The new person upsets this balance and the balance has to be
restored, albeit in a different way than before.
The established members of the group only have to deal with the new person once in
establishing a relationship, regardless if the outcome is positive or negative. The new
person has to negotiate terms with everyone in the organization.
As Sommers expressed in his research, established members use territorial claims in
negotiating with newcomers and let them know immediately where they stand. These types
of claims are often verbal and serve as gentle warnings. For instance, an established
member may say, "Don't worry about these invoices, I always handle these." Usually, the
new person (without rank) would respond to such statements with deference until they learn
where their own boundaries begin and end.
However, if that fails then 'dominance' techniques will be used, depending of course, on the
level of aggressiveness the established members are willing to display. But, since the
workplace is not designed or tolerates such behavior, newcomers are usually at the
receiving end of passive aggressive activity.
Examples of the treatment handed out to ‘new guys' in the workplace include being called a
"newbie" or "rookie;" being told an inappropriate joke to see how they will respond; being
ignored by someone in the hallway even after being properly introduced; having to listen to
rants such as "you young people are all over the place;" and being subjected to the "stick
with me and I'll show you the ropes" conversations. In severe cases, established members
try to assert themselves by yelling or using threats...
Teacher Culture versus Education Reform
Similarities to "girl culture"
Similarities to "girl culture"
May 27th 2010
By Emerald Catron
Lemondrop.com
Why Women Lie (to Each Other)
Women milead their friends to make themselves look betterIf you secretly suspect those
denim sailor pants make you look like a wide load truck, but your BFF insists they're
killer, you should go with your gut.
According to a new survey, 38 percent of women admit to lying to friends about their
appearances to make themselves look (and feel) better by comparison. Not only will
women tell their pals they look good when they don't, they'll also tell them they should
change when, in fact, they look great.
Additional petty crimes women admitted to ranged from pouring a drink onto a
girlfriend's clothing item which they envy (while their friend is wearing it), to neglecting to
tell a friend that what they're wearing is making them a walking fashion faux pas.
A whopping 66 percent had told a friend she looked fabulous when the opposite was
true. The reason we do it, scientific experts say, is maybe even more depressing: "It is
about survival and attracting the best possible mate for yourself," Phillip Hodson, fellow
of the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy, told the Daily Mail. "We
don't want to ruin our chances."
By Emerald Catron
Lemondrop.com
Why Women Lie (to Each Other)
Women milead their friends to make themselves look betterIf you secretly suspect those
denim sailor pants make you look like a wide load truck, but your BFF insists they're
killer, you should go with your gut.
According to a new survey, 38 percent of women admit to lying to friends about their
appearances to make themselves look (and feel) better by comparison. Not only will
women tell their pals they look good when they don't, they'll also tell them they should
change when, in fact, they look great.
Additional petty crimes women admitted to ranged from pouring a drink onto a
girlfriend's clothing item which they envy (while their friend is wearing it), to neglecting to
tell a friend that what they're wearing is making them a walking fashion faux pas.
A whopping 66 percent had told a friend she looked fabulous when the opposite was
true. The reason we do it, scientific experts say, is maybe even more depressing: "It is
about survival and attracting the best possible mate for yourself," Phillip Hodson, fellow
of the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy, told the Daily Mail. "We
don't want to ruin our chances."
The Goal
The goal of the predominant
teacher culture in schools--not just
in the US, but in the world--seems to
be to reduce all teachers to the least
common denominator.
The goal of the predominant
teacher culture in schools--not just
in the US, but in the world--seems to
be to reduce all teachers to the least
common denominator.
Teachers need training in
logical consistency, and
they need to teach it to kids.
logical consistency, and
they need to teach it to kids.
I think it's ridiculous to try to stop kids from having best friends. Best friends
are the antithesis of girl culture, which tends to foster manipulative
relationships.
A Best Friend? You Must Be Kidding
New York Times
By HILARY STOUT
June 16, 2010
are the antithesis of girl culture, which tends to foster manipulative
relationships.
A Best Friend? You Must Be Kidding
New York Times
By HILARY STOUT
June 16, 2010
Bullies are popular
Kids who are bullies are
popular among kids, and
teachers who are bullies are
popular among teachers.
Kids who are bullies are
popular among kids, and
teachers who are bullies are
popular among teachers.
Towards Teaching in Partnership: lessons still to
be learned
ERICA McWILLIAM & PETER O'BRIEN, Queensland University of
This resistance to change continues to be noted as prevailing despite a
plethora of literature calling for reform and despite. mounting public
criticism of a perceived lack of teacher 'quality' (Keith, 1987;...
The result has been an ongoing scenario in which teacher culture and.
academic culture are increasingly bifurcated and, indeed, oppositional in the
teacher preparation process. Tripp (1990) cogently makes the point that far
from being. assisted by the academic culture in education—especially through
its practice of educational research—teachers as a group, in the main ...
be learned
ERICA McWILLIAM & PETER O'BRIEN, Queensland University of
This resistance to change continues to be noted as prevailing despite a
plethora of literature calling for reform and despite. mounting public
criticism of a perceived lack of teacher 'quality' (Keith, 1987;...
The result has been an ongoing scenario in which teacher culture and.
academic culture are increasingly bifurcated and, indeed, oppositional in the
teacher preparation process. Tripp (1990) cogently makes the point that far
from being. assisted by the academic culture in education—especially through
its practice of educational research—teachers as a group, in the main ...
"In the Middle Ages, the
sin of sloth had
two forms," he said.
"One was paralysis, the
inability to do anything --
what we would see as
lazy. But the other side
was running about
frantically. The sense
that, 'There's no real
place to go where I'm
going, but, by God, I'm
making great time.' "
...Back in the
time-starved real world,
maybe I needed help. I
called a life coach who
told me to breathe.
Another talked about
paradigm shifts. I made
an appointment with one
coach and promptly
showed up 13 minutes
late. "For someone on
the other end of the time
crunch," she said,
"someone waiting for
you, do you realize that
that can come across as
arrogant?"
This wasn't helping...
--The Test of Time: A
busy working mother
tries to figure out where
all her time is going
sin of sloth had
two forms," he said.
"One was paralysis, the
inability to do anything --
what we would see as
lazy. But the other side
was running about
frantically. The sense
that, 'There's no real
place to go where I'm
going, but, by God, I'm
making great time.' "
...Back in the
time-starved real world,
maybe I needed help. I
called a life coach who
told me to breathe.
Another talked about
paradigm shifts. I made
an appointment with one
coach and promptly
showed up 13 minutes
late. "For someone on
the other end of the time
crunch," she said,
"someone waiting for
you, do you realize that
that can come across as
arrogant?"
This wasn't helping...
--The Test of Time: A
busy working mother
tries to figure out where
all her time is going
Teaching Students Responsibility
What do you do when you know a student did something and didn't own up
to it? How do you handle a flat out denial? It's not like the good 'ol days
where students confessed, apologized and usually wouldn't act up in the
first place. Maybe there is less discipline at home today, maybe it's just a
generational thing? But whatever the reasons are, many students need to
be taught responsibility.
Education author Dr. Allen Mendler shares strategies to teach kids to own
their actions. His methods encourage students to take the right action not
because they think it's the right thing to do, but because they know it's the
right thing to do. In his upcoming online seminar Teaching Students
Responsibility Mendler will review how to respond to misbehavior, how to
handle yourself with difficult students and how to make rules and
consequences meaningful...
* Apply a three-step process to teach students responsibility [Maura
Larkins comment: We also need a class to teach teachers to accept
responsibility?]
* Use rules and consequences effectively
* Respond to covert student misbehavior
* Respond effectively to students who blame others...[Maura Larkins
comment: Would we also be able to respond more effectively to
teachers and parents who blame others?]
Allen MendlerAllen Mendler, Ph.D. is an educator and school psychologist
who resides in Rochester, New York. He has worked extensively with
children of all ages in regular education and special education settings. Dr.
Mendler has consulted to many schools, day and residential centers,
including extensive work with youth in juvenile detention. Dr. Mendler's
emphasis is on developing effective frameworks and strategies for
educators, youth professionals and parents to help difficult youth succeed.
As one of the internationally acclaimed authors of Discipline with Dignity
book, Dr. Mendler has given many workshops and seminars to
professionals and parents, and is highly acclaimed as a motivational
speaker and trainer for numerous educational organizations.
He is the author or co-author of 13 books including Power Struggles:
Successful Techniques for Educators, What Do I Do When...?, Motivating
Students Who Don't Care, Connecting with Students, Discipline with Dignity
for Challenging Youth and More What do I do When. His most recent
publication, Handling Difficult Parents is a practical handbook that offers
proven strategies that all educators can use to set the right tone with
difficult parents. His articles have appeared in many journals including
Educational Leadership, Kappan, Learning, Reclaiming Children and Youth,
and Reaching Today's Youth. Dr. Mendler has been recognized for his
distinguished teaching by the Bureau of Education and Research, and was
a recipient of the coveted Crazy Horse Award for having made outstanding
contributions to discouraged youth.
What do you do when you know a student did something and didn't own up
to it? How do you handle a flat out denial? It's not like the good 'ol days
where students confessed, apologized and usually wouldn't act up in the
first place. Maybe there is less discipline at home today, maybe it's just a
generational thing? But whatever the reasons are, many students need to
be taught responsibility.
Education author Dr. Allen Mendler shares strategies to teach kids to own
their actions. His methods encourage students to take the right action not
because they think it's the right thing to do, but because they know it's the
right thing to do. In his upcoming online seminar Teaching Students
Responsibility Mendler will review how to respond to misbehavior, how to
handle yourself with difficult students and how to make rules and
consequences meaningful...
* Apply a three-step process to teach students responsibility [Maura
Larkins comment: We also need a class to teach teachers to accept
responsibility?]
* Use rules and consequences effectively
* Respond to covert student misbehavior
* Respond effectively to students who blame others...[Maura Larkins
comment: Would we also be able to respond more effectively to
teachers and parents who blame others?]
Allen MendlerAllen Mendler, Ph.D. is an educator and school psychologist
who resides in Rochester, New York. He has worked extensively with
children of all ages in regular education and special education settings. Dr.
Mendler has consulted to many schools, day and residential centers,
including extensive work with youth in juvenile detention. Dr. Mendler's
emphasis is on developing effective frameworks and strategies for
educators, youth professionals and parents to help difficult youth succeed.
As one of the internationally acclaimed authors of Discipline with Dignity
book, Dr. Mendler has given many workshops and seminars to
professionals and parents, and is highly acclaimed as a motivational
speaker and trainer for numerous educational organizations.
He is the author or co-author of 13 books including Power Struggles:
Successful Techniques for Educators, What Do I Do When...?, Motivating
Students Who Don't Care, Connecting with Students, Discipline with Dignity
for Challenging Youth and More What do I do When. His most recent
publication, Handling Difficult Parents is a practical handbook that offers
proven strategies that all educators can use to set the right tone with
difficult parents. His articles have appeared in many journals including
Educational Leadership, Kappan, Learning, Reclaiming Children and Youth,
and Reaching Today's Youth. Dr. Mendler has been recognized for his
distinguished teaching by the Bureau of Education and Research, and was
a recipient of the coveted Crazy Horse Award for having made outstanding
contributions to discouraged youth.
Ways to Improve Staff Culture to Benefit Teaching and Learning
Teaching can be challenging and, unfortunately, those challenges can get
the best of educators sometimes. Perhaps the best way to avoid burnout
and emotional exhaustion is to create a positive teaching environment where
teachers and administrators can help each other stay upbeat and improve
the school's emotional climate.
Inside the School's upcoming online seminar Ways to Improve Staff Culture
to Benefit Teaching and Learning puts the focus on educators and
administrators. You'll learn and discuss strategies to increase teacher
satisfaction, which will improve student performance.
Author, motivational speaker and former coach and teacher Nathan Eklund,
M.Ed., discusses strategies to help educators approach the second half of
the school year recharged and focused. The seminar will be available for
two weeks on demand so educators can watch it at their convenience - even
from home...
* Recognize opportunities within the school structures and schedule to
increase staff support and satisfaction
* Recognize personal steps necessary to ground the act of teaching in the
reasons individuals chose teaching to begin with
* Capitalize on intersections and opportunities among staff to build collegiality
* Reframe how you perceive school not only as a place where students go to
learn but also as a place where adults go to work
About the Presenter:
Nathan EklundNathan Eklund, M.Ed. is Search Institute's Senior Education
Consultant. Eklund works with schools nationwide in implementing
strength-based strategies and in professional development efforts to
improve school and staff climates. Prior to his present role, Eklund taught
high school English for twelve years and was head coach of the boys' soccer
team.
Eklund holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from St. Olaf College and a
Masters of Education from the College of St. Scholastica. Eklund's book How
Was Your Day at School? Improving Dialogue about Teacher Job
Satisfaction was published in the fall of 2008. Through this book, he now
consults with schools about organization development toward improvements
of the workplace climate for educators.
Teaching can be challenging and, unfortunately, those challenges can get
the best of educators sometimes. Perhaps the best way to avoid burnout
and emotional exhaustion is to create a positive teaching environment where
teachers and administrators can help each other stay upbeat and improve
the school's emotional climate.
Inside the School's upcoming online seminar Ways to Improve Staff Culture
to Benefit Teaching and Learning puts the focus on educators and
administrators. You'll learn and discuss strategies to increase teacher
satisfaction, which will improve student performance.
Author, motivational speaker and former coach and teacher Nathan Eklund,
M.Ed., discusses strategies to help educators approach the second half of
the school year recharged and focused. The seminar will be available for
two weeks on demand so educators can watch it at their convenience - even
from home...
* Recognize opportunities within the school structures and schedule to
increase staff support and satisfaction
* Recognize personal steps necessary to ground the act of teaching in the
reasons individuals chose teaching to begin with
* Capitalize on intersections and opportunities among staff to build collegiality
* Reframe how you perceive school not only as a place where students go to
learn but also as a place where adults go to work
About the Presenter:
Nathan EklundNathan Eklund, M.Ed. is Search Institute's Senior Education
Consultant. Eklund works with schools nationwide in implementing
strength-based strategies and in professional development efforts to
improve school and staff climates. Prior to his present role, Eklund taught
high school English for twelve years and was head coach of the boys' soccer
team.
Eklund holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from St. Olaf College and a
Masters of Education from the College of St. Scholastica. Eklund's book How
Was Your Day at School? Improving Dialogue about Teacher Job
Satisfaction was published in the fall of 2008. Through this book, he now
consults with schools about organization development toward improvements
of the workplace climate for educators.
Resistance to change continues despite calls for reform and
mounting public criticism of a lack of teacher quality.
mounting public criticism of a lack of teacher quality.
Study Finds
Social-Skills
Teaching Boosts
Academics
Gains Found Comparable
to Those of Strictly
Academic Programs
By Sarah D. Sparks
Education Week
From role-playing games
for students to parent
seminars, teaching social
and emotional learning
requires a lot of moving
parts, but when all the
pieces come together
such instruction can rival
the effectiveness of purely
academic interventions to
boost student
achievement, according to
the largest analysis of
such programs to date.
In the report , published
Feb. 4 in the peer-
reviewed journal Child
Development, researchers
led by Joseph A. Durlak, a
professor emeritus of
psychology at the
University of Chicago,
found that students who
took part in social and
emotional learning, or
SEL, programs improved
in grades and
standardized-test scores
by 11 percentile points
compared with
nonparticipating students.
That difference, the
authors say, was
significant—equivalent to
moving a student in the
middle of the class
academically to the top 40
percent of students during
the course of the
intervention. Such
improvement fell within the
range of effectiveness for
recent analyses of
interventions focused on
academics.
Compared with their
peers, participating
students also significantly
improved on five key
nonacademic measures:
They demonstrated
greater social skills, less
emotional distress and
better attitudes, fewer
conduct problems such as
bullying and suspensions,
and more-frequent
positive behaviors, such
as cooperation and help
for other students. Also,
the effects continued at
least six months...
Social-Skills
Teaching Boosts
Academics
Gains Found Comparable
to Those of Strictly
Academic Programs
By Sarah D. Sparks
Education Week
From role-playing games
for students to parent
seminars, teaching social
and emotional learning
requires a lot of moving
parts, but when all the
pieces come together
such instruction can rival
the effectiveness of purely
academic interventions to
boost student
achievement, according to
the largest analysis of
such programs to date.
In the report , published
Feb. 4 in the peer-
reviewed journal Child
Development, researchers
led by Joseph A. Durlak, a
professor emeritus of
psychology at the
University of Chicago,
found that students who
took part in social and
emotional learning, or
SEL, programs improved
in grades and
standardized-test scores
by 11 percentile points
compared with
nonparticipating students.
That difference, the
authors say, was
significant—equivalent to
moving a student in the
middle of the class
academically to the top 40
percent of students during
the course of the
intervention. Such
improvement fell within the
range of effectiveness for
recent analyses of
interventions focused on
academics.
Compared with their
peers, participating
students also significantly
improved on five key
nonacademic measures:
They demonstrated
greater social skills, less
emotional distress and
better attitudes, fewer
conduct problems such as
bullying and suspensions,
and more-frequent
positive behaviors, such
as cooperation and help
for other students. Also,
the effects continued at
least six months...
Shyness:
Evolutionary
Tactic?
By SUSAN CAIN
June 25, 2011
A BEAUTIFUL woman
lowers her eyes demurely
beneath a hat. In an
earlier era, her gaze
might have signaled a
mysterious allure. But this
is a 2003 advertisement
for Zoloft, a selective
serotonin reuptake
inhibitor (S.S.R.I.)
approved by the F.D.A.
to treat social anxiety
disorder. “Is she just
shy? Or is it Social
Anxiety Disorder?”
reads the caption,
suggesting that the
young woman is not
alluring at all. She is
sick.
But is she?
It is possible that the
lovely young woman has
a life-wrecking form of
social anxiety. There are
people too afraid of
disapproval to venture
out for a job interview, a
date or even a meal in
public. Despite the risk of
serious side effects —
nausea, loss of sex drive,
seizures — drugs like
Zoloft can be a godsend
for this group.
But the ad’s insinuation
aside, it’s also possible
the young woman is “just
shy,” or introverted —
traits our society
disfavors. One way we
manifest this bias is by
encouraging perfectly
healthy shy people to
see themselves as ill.
This does us all a
grave disservice,
because shyness and
introversion — or
more precisely, the
careful, sensitive
temperament from
which both often
spring — are not just
normal. They are
valuable. And they may
be essential to the
survival of our species.
Theoretically, shyness
and social anxiety
disorder are easily
distinguishable. But a
blurry line divides the
two. Imagine that the
woman in the ad enjoys a
steady paycheck, a
strong marriage and a
small circle of close
friends — a good life by
most measures — except
that she avoids a needed
promotion because she’s
nervous about leading
meetings. She often
criticizes herself for
feeling too shy to speak
up.
What do you think now?
Is she ill, or does she
simply need public-
speaking training?
Before 1980, this would
have seemed a strange
question. Social anxiety
disorder did not officially
exist until it appeared in
that year’s Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual,
the DSM-III, the
psychiatrist’s bible of
mental disorders, under
the name “social phobia.”
Evolutionary
Tactic?
By SUSAN CAIN
June 25, 2011
A BEAUTIFUL woman
lowers her eyes demurely
beneath a hat. In an
earlier era, her gaze
might have signaled a
mysterious allure. But this
is a 2003 advertisement
for Zoloft, a selective
serotonin reuptake
inhibitor (S.S.R.I.)
approved by the F.D.A.
to treat social anxiety
disorder. “Is she just
shy? Or is it Social
Anxiety Disorder?”
reads the caption,
suggesting that the
young woman is not
alluring at all. She is
sick.
But is she?
It is possible that the
lovely young woman has
a life-wrecking form of
social anxiety. There are
people too afraid of
disapproval to venture
out for a job interview, a
date or even a meal in
public. Despite the risk of
serious side effects —
nausea, loss of sex drive,
seizures — drugs like
Zoloft can be a godsend
for this group.
But the ad’s insinuation
aside, it’s also possible
the young woman is “just
shy,” or introverted —
traits our society
disfavors. One way we
manifest this bias is by
encouraging perfectly
healthy shy people to
see themselves as ill.
This does us all a
grave disservice,
because shyness and
introversion — or
more precisely, the
careful, sensitive
temperament from
which both often
spring — are not just
normal. They are
valuable. And they may
be essential to the
survival of our species.
Theoretically, shyness
and social anxiety
disorder are easily
distinguishable. But a
blurry line divides the
two. Imagine that the
woman in the ad enjoys a
steady paycheck, a
strong marriage and a
small circle of close
friends — a good life by
most measures — except
that she avoids a needed
promotion because she’s
nervous about leading
meetings. She often
criticizes herself for
feeling too shy to speak
up.
What do you think now?
Is she ill, or does she
simply need public-
speaking training?
Before 1980, this would
have seemed a strange
question. Social anxiety
disorder did not officially
exist until it appeared in
that year’s Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual,
the DSM-III, the
psychiatrist’s bible of
mental disorders, under
the name “social phobia.”
When Roommates Were Random
Andy Rementer
By DALTON CONLEY
August 28, 2011
EAGER to throw off my nerdy past and reinvent myself at college, I wrote
“party animal” on my roommate application form where it asked incoming
freshmen whether they wanted to bunk with a smoker or a non-smoker.
When I told my mother about this later, she laughed and bought me a T-
shirt that sported the image of Spuds MacKenzie, the 1980s Budweiser
beer mascot, under the words “the original party animal.”
I ended up with Tony from Sacramento, a very quiet, Republican son of a
judge. (I suppose it’s good policy to separate the party animals from those
who request them.) I learned to appreciate his taste in music (U2 and The
Smiths, as opposed to my predilection for reggae and jazz), and we agreed
to disagree about politics during the reelection campaign of Alan Cranston,
then one of the most liberal members of the United States Senate. I had
never met anyone like Tony. And I’m pretty sure he hadn’t come across
many half-Jewish, Democratic children of New York artists. We learned to
get along that first year at Berkeley, and every now and then even tried on
each other’s values and beliefs, just to see how they fit.
Today I am a college professor, and I am sad that most of my students will
not experience what I did back when Mark Zuckerberg was in diapers. While
the Internet has made it easy to reconnect with the lost Tonys of our lives, it
has made it a lot more difficult to meet them in the first place, by taking a lot
of randomness out of life. We tend to value order and control over
randomness, but when we lose randomness, we also lose serendipity.
As soon as today’s students receive their proverbial fat envelope from their
top choice college, they are on Facebook meeting other potential
freshmen. They are on sites like roomsurf.com and roomsync.com, scoping
out prospective friends. By the time the roommate application forms arrive,
many like-minded students with similar backgrounds have already
connected and agreed to request one another.
It’s just one of many ways in which digital technologies now spill over into
non-screen-based aspects of social experience. I know certain people who
can’t bear to eat in a restaurant they haven’t researched on Yelp. And
Google now tailors searches to exactly what it thinks you want to find.
But this loss of randomness is particularly unfortunate for college-age
students, who should be trying on new hats and getting exposed to new
and different ideas. Which students end up bunking with whom may seem
trivial at first glance. But research on the phenomenon of peer influence —
and the influences of roommates in particular — has found that there are,
in fact, long-lasting effects of whom you end up living with your first year.
David R. Harris, a sociologist at Cornell, studied roommates and found, in
2002, that white students who were assigned a roommate of a different
race ended up more open-minded about race. In a 2000 study, the
economist Bruce Sacerdote found that randomly assigned roommates at
Dartmouth affected each other’s G.P.A.’s.
(Of course, influences can sometimes be negative. Roommates can drive
each other’s grades up or down. In 2003, researchers at four colleges
discovered that male students who reported binge drinking in high school
drank much more throughout college if their first-year roommate also
reported binge drinking in high school.)
These studies are important because we know that much education takes
place not through the formal classroom curriculum but in the peer-to-peer
learning that occurs in places like dorm rooms.
Other than prison and the military, there are not many other institutions
outside the college dorm that shove two people into a 10-foot-by-10-foot
space and expect them to get along for nine months. Can you think of any
better training for marriage? In fact, in my research with Jennifer A.
Heerwig, we have found that Vietnam-era military service actually lowers the
risk of subsequent divorce. It’s possible that the military teaches you how
to subsume your individual desires for the good of the collective — in other
words, how to get along well with others.
The drive to tame randomness into controllable order is a noble impulse,
but letting a little serendipity flourish isn’t such a bad thing. Nor is getting to
know someone different from yourself. All colleges should follow the lead of
Hamilton, where roommate choice is not allowed. And if you end up with the
roommate from hell? You’ll survive, and someday have great stories to tell
your future spouse, with whom you’ll probably get along better.
Dalton Conley, a sociologist, is the dean of social sciences at New York
University and the author, most recently, of “Elsewhere, U.S.A.”
Andy Rementer
By DALTON CONLEY
August 28, 2011
EAGER to throw off my nerdy past and reinvent myself at college, I wrote
“party animal” on my roommate application form where it asked incoming
freshmen whether they wanted to bunk with a smoker or a non-smoker.
When I told my mother about this later, she laughed and bought me a T-
shirt that sported the image of Spuds MacKenzie, the 1980s Budweiser
beer mascot, under the words “the original party animal.”
I ended up with Tony from Sacramento, a very quiet, Republican son of a
judge. (I suppose it’s good policy to separate the party animals from those
who request them.) I learned to appreciate his taste in music (U2 and The
Smiths, as opposed to my predilection for reggae and jazz), and we agreed
to disagree about politics during the reelection campaign of Alan Cranston,
then one of the most liberal members of the United States Senate. I had
never met anyone like Tony. And I’m pretty sure he hadn’t come across
many half-Jewish, Democratic children of New York artists. We learned to
get along that first year at Berkeley, and every now and then even tried on
each other’s values and beliefs, just to see how they fit.
Today I am a college professor, and I am sad that most of my students will
not experience what I did back when Mark Zuckerberg was in diapers. While
the Internet has made it easy to reconnect with the lost Tonys of our lives, it
has made it a lot more difficult to meet them in the first place, by taking a lot
of randomness out of life. We tend to value order and control over
randomness, but when we lose randomness, we also lose serendipity.
As soon as today’s students receive their proverbial fat envelope from their
top choice college, they are on Facebook meeting other potential
freshmen. They are on sites like roomsurf.com and roomsync.com, scoping
out prospective friends. By the time the roommate application forms arrive,
many like-minded students with similar backgrounds have already
connected and agreed to request one another.
It’s just one of many ways in which digital technologies now spill over into
non-screen-based aspects of social experience. I know certain people who
can’t bear to eat in a restaurant they haven’t researched on Yelp. And
Google now tailors searches to exactly what it thinks you want to find.
But this loss of randomness is particularly unfortunate for college-age
students, who should be trying on new hats and getting exposed to new
and different ideas. Which students end up bunking with whom may seem
trivial at first glance. But research on the phenomenon of peer influence —
and the influences of roommates in particular — has found that there are,
in fact, long-lasting effects of whom you end up living with your first year.
David R. Harris, a sociologist at Cornell, studied roommates and found, in
2002, that white students who were assigned a roommate of a different
race ended up more open-minded about race. In a 2000 study, the
economist Bruce Sacerdote found that randomly assigned roommates at
Dartmouth affected each other’s G.P.A.’s.
(Of course, influences can sometimes be negative. Roommates can drive
each other’s grades up or down. In 2003, researchers at four colleges
discovered that male students who reported binge drinking in high school
drank much more throughout college if their first-year roommate also
reported binge drinking in high school.)
These studies are important because we know that much education takes
place not through the formal classroom curriculum but in the peer-to-peer
learning that occurs in places like dorm rooms.
Other than prison and the military, there are not many other institutions
outside the college dorm that shove two people into a 10-foot-by-10-foot
space and expect them to get along for nine months. Can you think of any
better training for marriage? In fact, in my research with Jennifer A.
Heerwig, we have found that Vietnam-era military service actually lowers the
risk of subsequent divorce. It’s possible that the military teaches you how
to subsume your individual desires for the good of the collective — in other
words, how to get along well with others.
The drive to tame randomness into controllable order is a noble impulse,
but letting a little serendipity flourish isn’t such a bad thing. Nor is getting to
know someone different from yourself. All colleges should follow the lead of
Hamilton, where roommate choice is not allowed. And if you end up with the
roommate from hell? You’ll survive, and someday have great stories to tell
your future spouse, with whom you’ll probably get along better.
Dalton Conley, a sociologist, is the dean of social sciences at New York
University and the author, most recently, of “Elsewhere, U.S.A.”
Too often being a team
player means abandoning
one's principles, like Colin
Powell obediently reading to
the UN Assembly a false
statement about weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq.
player means abandoning
one's principles, like Colin
Powell obediently reading to
the UN Assembly a false
statement about weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq.
Sore winners are
more common than
sore losers.
The Atlantic Wire.com
March 1, 2012
The glory of winning isn't
enough. "It seems that
people have a tendency to
stomp down on those they
have defeated, to really rub it
in," said researchers Brad
Bushman. Losers, on the
other hand, don't change
their behavior, found new
research from Ohio State
University. In three separate
studies winners got
aggressive with their
opponents. "Losers need to
watch out," he continued.
[Ohio State]
more common than
sore losers.
The Atlantic Wire.com
March 1, 2012
The glory of winning isn't
enough. "It seems that
people have a tendency to
stomp down on those they
have defeated, to really rub it
in," said researchers Brad
Bushman. Losers, on the
other hand, don't change
their behavior, found new
research from Ohio State
University. In three separate
studies winners got
aggressive with their
opponents. "Losers need to
watch out," he continued.
[Ohio State]
A scientific reason
for snobbery
The Atlantic Wire.com
DEC 21, 2011
If we said Rembrandt painted
both of these paintings below,
an observer's brain would not
be able to tell the difference
between the two images,
found research out of the
University of Oxford. But, as
soon as we outed one of
these as a Rembrandt
impostor -- we'll let you figure
that one out -- the brain
triggers responses to make
us prefer the real one over
the phony image, discovered
those same researchers.
"When a participant was told
that a work was genuine, it
raised activity in the part of
the brain that deals with
rewarding events, such as
tasting pleasant food or
winning a gamble," writes the
Oxford press release. "Being
told a work is not by the
master triggered a complex
set of responses in areas of
the brain involved in planning
new strategies." We assume
this extends beyond
paintings, to all things
aesthetic, like, clothing
brands. Thus there's no
shame in a little label
snobbery -- science has
proven we are hardwired for
it. [Oxford]
for snobbery
The Atlantic Wire.com
DEC 21, 2011
If we said Rembrandt painted
both of these paintings below,
an observer's brain would not
be able to tell the difference
between the two images,
found research out of the
University of Oxford. But, as
soon as we outed one of
these as a Rembrandt
impostor -- we'll let you figure
that one out -- the brain
triggers responses to make
us prefer the real one over
the phony image, discovered
those same researchers.
"When a participant was told
that a work was genuine, it
raised activity in the part of
the brain that deals with
rewarding events, such as
tasting pleasant food or
winning a gamble," writes the
Oxford press release. "Being
told a work is not by the
master triggered a complex
set of responses in areas of
the brain involved in planning
new strategies." We assume
this extends beyond
paintings, to all things
aesthetic, like, clothing
brands. Thus there's no
shame in a little label
snobbery -- science has
proven we are hardwired for
it. [Oxford]
| San Diego Education Report |
| SDER |
San Diego
Education Report
Education Report
| SDER |
| SDER |
| SDER |
| San Diego Education Report |
| SDER |
San Diego
Education Report
Education Report
| SDER |
| SDER |
| SDER |
Many teachers and administrators I've known act just like hermit crabs
Hermit crabs socialize to evict their neighbors
By Robert Sanders
UC Berkeley News Center
October 26, 2012
BERKELEY —
Social animals usually congregate for protection or mating or to capture bigger prey,
but a University of California, Berkeley, biologist has found that the terrestrial hermit
crab has a more self-serving social agenda: to kick another crab out of its shell and
move into a larger home.
All hermit crabs appropriate abandoned snail shells for their homes, but the dozen
or so species of land-based hermit crabs – popular terrarium pets – are the only
ones that hollow out and remodel their shells, sometimes doubling the internal
volume. This provides more room to grow, more room for eggs – sometimes a
thousand more eggs – and a lighter home to lug around as they forage.
But empty snail shells are rare on land, so the best hope of moving to a new home is
to kick others out of their remodeled shells, said Mark Laidre, a UC Berkeley Miller
Post-Doctoral Fellow who reported this unusual behavior in this month’s issue of the
journal Current Biology.
When three or more terrestrial hermit crabs congregate, they quickly attract dozens
of others eager to trade up. They typically form a conga line, smallest to largest,
each holding onto the crab in front of it, and, once a hapless crab is wrenched from
its shell, simultaneously move into larger shells.
“The one that gets yanked out of its shell is often left with the smallest shell, which it
can’t really protect itself with,” said Laidre, who is in the Department of Integrative
Biology. “Then it’s liable to be eaten by anything. For hermit crabs, it’s really their
sociality that drives predation.”
A free-for-all takes place whenever three or more hermit crabs congregate, with all
crabs intent on displacing someone else to get a larger shell.
Laidre says the crabs’ unusual behavior is a rare example of how evolving to take
advantage of a specialized niche – in this case, land versus ocean – led to an
unexpected byproduct: socialization in a typically solitary animal.
“No matter how exactly the hermit tenants modify their shellters, they exemplify an
important, if obvious, evolutionary truth: living things have been altering and
remodeling their surroundings throughout the history of life,” wrote UC Davis
evolutionary biologist Geerat J. Vermeij in a commentary in the same journal. For
decades, Vermeij has studied how animals’ behavior affects their own evolution –
what biologists term “niche construction” – as opposed to the well-known Darwinian
idea that the environment affects evolution through natural selection.
“Organisms are not just passive pawns subjected to the selective whims of enemies
and allies, but active participants in creating and modifying their internal as well as
their external conditions of life,” Vermeij concluded.
Laidre conducted his studies on the Pacific shore of Costa Rica, where the hermit
crab Coenobita compressus can be found by the millions along tropical beaches. He
tethered individual crabs, the largest about three inches long, to a post and
monitored the free-for-all that typically appeared within 10-15 minutes.
Most of the 800 or so species of hermit crab live in the ocean, where empty snail
shells are common because of the prevalence of predators like shell-crushing crabs
with wrench-like pincers, snail-eating puffer fish and stomatopods, which have the
fastest and most destructive punch of any predator.
A marine snail shell newly vacated by its gastropod owner (left) and a shell that has
been remodeled by a hermit crab.
On land, however, the only shells available come from marine snails tossed ashore
by waves. Their rarity and the fact that few land predators can break open these
shells to get at the hermit crab may have led the crabs to remodel the shells to make
them lighter and more spacious, Laidre said.
The importance of remodeled shells became evident after an experiment in which he
pulled crabs from their homes and instead offered them newly vacated snail shells.
None survived. Apparently, he said, only the smallest hermit crabs take advantage
of new shells, since only the small hermit crabs can fit inside the unremodeled
shells. Even if a crab can fit inside the shell, it still must expend time and energy to
hollow it out, and this is something hermit crabs of all sizes would prefer to avoid if
possible.
The work was funded by UC Berkeley’s Miller Institute.
Hermit crabs socialize to evict their neighbors
By Robert Sanders
UC Berkeley News Center
October 26, 2012
BERKELEY —
Social animals usually congregate for protection or mating or to capture bigger prey,
but a University of California, Berkeley, biologist has found that the terrestrial hermit
crab has a more self-serving social agenda: to kick another crab out of its shell and
move into a larger home.
All hermit crabs appropriate abandoned snail shells for their homes, but the dozen
or so species of land-based hermit crabs – popular terrarium pets – are the only
ones that hollow out and remodel their shells, sometimes doubling the internal
volume. This provides more room to grow, more room for eggs – sometimes a
thousand more eggs – and a lighter home to lug around as they forage.
But empty snail shells are rare on land, so the best hope of moving to a new home is
to kick others out of their remodeled shells, said Mark Laidre, a UC Berkeley Miller
Post-Doctoral Fellow who reported this unusual behavior in this month’s issue of the
journal Current Biology.
When three or more terrestrial hermit crabs congregate, they quickly attract dozens
of others eager to trade up. They typically form a conga line, smallest to largest,
each holding onto the crab in front of it, and, once a hapless crab is wrenched from
its shell, simultaneously move into larger shells.
“The one that gets yanked out of its shell is often left with the smallest shell, which it
can’t really protect itself with,” said Laidre, who is in the Department of Integrative
Biology. “Then it’s liable to be eaten by anything. For hermit crabs, it’s really their
sociality that drives predation.”
A free-for-all takes place whenever three or more hermit crabs congregate, with all
crabs intent on displacing someone else to get a larger shell.
Laidre says the crabs’ unusual behavior is a rare example of how evolving to take
advantage of a specialized niche – in this case, land versus ocean – led to an
unexpected byproduct: socialization in a typically solitary animal.
“No matter how exactly the hermit tenants modify their shellters, they exemplify an
important, if obvious, evolutionary truth: living things have been altering and
remodeling their surroundings throughout the history of life,” wrote UC Davis
evolutionary biologist Geerat J. Vermeij in a commentary in the same journal. For
decades, Vermeij has studied how animals’ behavior affects their own evolution –
what biologists term “niche construction” – as opposed to the well-known Darwinian
idea that the environment affects evolution through natural selection.
“Organisms are not just passive pawns subjected to the selective whims of enemies
and allies, but active participants in creating and modifying their internal as well as
their external conditions of life,” Vermeij concluded.
Laidre conducted his studies on the Pacific shore of Costa Rica, where the hermit
crab Coenobita compressus can be found by the millions along tropical beaches. He
tethered individual crabs, the largest about three inches long, to a post and
monitored the free-for-all that typically appeared within 10-15 minutes.
Most of the 800 or so species of hermit crab live in the ocean, where empty snail
shells are common because of the prevalence of predators like shell-crushing crabs
with wrench-like pincers, snail-eating puffer fish and stomatopods, which have the
fastest and most destructive punch of any predator.
A marine snail shell newly vacated by its gastropod owner (left) and a shell that has
been remodeled by a hermit crab.
On land, however, the only shells available come from marine snails tossed ashore
by waves. Their rarity and the fact that few land predators can break open these
shells to get at the hermit crab may have led the crabs to remodel the shells to make
them lighter and more spacious, Laidre said.
The importance of remodeled shells became evident after an experiment in which he
pulled crabs from their homes and instead offered them newly vacated snail shells.
None survived. Apparently, he said, only the smallest hermit crabs take advantage
of new shells, since only the small hermit crabs can fit inside the unremodeled
shells. Even if a crab can fit inside the shell, it still must expend time and energy to
hollow it out, and this is something hermit crabs of all sizes would prefer to avoid if
possible.
The work was funded by UC Berkeley’s Miller Institute.
Does teacher culture
encourage a "brain
drain"?
encourage a "brain
drain"?
Does "teamwork" in
schools mean a group of
teachers working closely
together to sabotage
teachers outside their
clique?
schools mean a group of
teachers working closely
together to sabotage
teachers outside their
clique?
Teacher culture doesn't
reward intelligence. It
pressures smart people to
act stupid to succeed in
school politics.
reward intelligence. It
pressures smart people to
act stupid to succeed in
school politics.
The myth that we need groups of
teachers who are willing to work
with each other is a barrier to
reform. First of all, these teams
are usually not working together
because it's the professional
thing to do, but because they are
members of a clique. The idea of
not hiring or getting rid of
someone because the
established "team" doesn't like
them is unprofessional. Why not
simply demand that all teacher
act like professionals, and work
together in the interest of
students? The goal of
conformity directly opposes
reform. In order to be better, by
definition one has to be different.
This is an important cause of the
teacher brain drain.And "fitting in"
immediately rules out teachers
who are interested in changing
things for the better. In my
experience, "reform" has always
been recycled ideas that are
fashionable..
teachers who are willing to work
with each other is a barrier to
reform. First of all, these teams
are usually not working together
because it's the professional
thing to do, but because they are
members of a clique. The idea of
not hiring or getting rid of
someone because the
established "team" doesn't like
them is unprofessional. Why not
simply demand that all teacher
act like professionals, and work
together in the interest of
students? The goal of
conformity directly opposes
reform. In order to be better, by
definition one has to be different.
This is an important cause of the
teacher brain drain.And "fitting in"
immediately rules out teachers
who are interested in changing
things for the better. In my
experience, "reform" has always
been recycled ideas that are
fashionable..
A team of teachers
shouldn't be selected like
sorority pledges, as they
are now. They should be
chosen like Billy Beane
chooses baseball players.
"...Beane has applied
statistical analysis to
players, known as
sabermetrics, which has led
all teams to reconsider how
they evaluate players. He is
the subject of Michael
Lewis' 2003 book on
baseball economics,
Moneyball, which was made
into a 2011 film starring
Brad Pitt as Beane." Of
course, this would require
data about teachers that
would come from
observations by unbiased
parties, interviews, student
test scores and teacher test
scores.
shouldn't be selected like
sorority pledges, as they
are now. They should be
chosen like Billy Beane
chooses baseball players.
"...Beane has applied
statistical analysis to
players, known as
sabermetrics, which has led
all teams to reconsider how
they evaluate players. He is
the subject of Michael
Lewis' 2003 book on
baseball economics,
Moneyball, which was made
into a 2011 film starring
Brad Pitt as Beane." Of
course, this would require
data about teachers that
would come from
observations by unbiased
parties, interviews, student
test scores and teacher test
scores.
The Urge to Punish
One person’s tweets leads to disastrous results
Brian Sin
Mar 23rd 2013
One tweet can lead to a disastrous onslaught of consequences, as Adria Richards
has recently found out. While attending the PyCon Technology Conference last
week, she overheard two male developers behind her talking about “big dongles”
and “forking someone’s repo”. She was offended by the jokes and she stated, “I
was telling myself if they made one more sexual joke, I’d say something.”
Adria Richards tweets incite firings and controversy
However, Richards didn’t say “something” to the developers, but instead stated her
opinions in the public land of Twitter. She decided that public shame would be the
best route for the two developers behind her, so she snapped their pictures and
tweeted, “Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles.
Right behind me #pycon”. The two developers were escorted out of the
conference, and one of the developers (the one on the left side of the picture) was
fired from his position at PlayHaven.
Adria Richards tweets incite firings and controversy 1
While the two men may have been acting immaturely, Richards did no better by
publicly shaming them. She should have confronted these men directly in order to
achieve a more peaceful resolution, or she should have reported the incident
directly to the staff (whom she said she was contacting through text messages). As
many people and sites have said, public shaming should always be a last resort.
Richard’s tweets led to an online debate over sexism as well as privacy concerns.
Many people have condemned her actions, while others stated that she did the
right thing. The developer, who was fired, apologized for his comments, but also
stated that a person like Richards, and her social following, should have been more
responsible. He said, “As a result of the picture she took I was let go from my job
today. Which sucks because I have 3 kids and I really liked that job.”
A group on Reddit has started a fund called the “Feminist Victims Fund” to help
raise money for the fired developer. Anonymous threatened SendGrid and asked
the startup to fire Richards for engaging in “malicious conduct to destroy another
individual’s professional career”. To ensure the validity of the message,
Anonymous launched a DDOS attack against SendGrid.
Shortly following the attack, SendGrid terminated Richard’s position, stating that
her actions and the consequences that ensued caused her to “no longer be
effective in her role at SendGrid”. This whole situation could have been handled
more efficiently and peacefully, but instead it spiraled out of control and ended up
backfiring for Richards.
One person’s tweets leads to disastrous results
Brian Sin
Mar 23rd 2013
One tweet can lead to a disastrous onslaught of consequences, as Adria Richards
has recently found out. While attending the PyCon Technology Conference last
week, she overheard two male developers behind her talking about “big dongles”
and “forking someone’s repo”. She was offended by the jokes and she stated, “I
was telling myself if they made one more sexual joke, I’d say something.”
Adria Richards tweets incite firings and controversy
However, Richards didn’t say “something” to the developers, but instead stated her
opinions in the public land of Twitter. She decided that public shame would be the
best route for the two developers behind her, so she snapped their pictures and
tweeted, “Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles.
Right behind me #pycon”. The two developers were escorted out of the
conference, and one of the developers (the one on the left side of the picture) was
fired from his position at PlayHaven.
Adria Richards tweets incite firings and controversy 1
While the two men may have been acting immaturely, Richards did no better by
publicly shaming them. She should have confronted these men directly in order to
achieve a more peaceful resolution, or she should have reported the incident
directly to the staff (whom she said she was contacting through text messages). As
many people and sites have said, public shaming should always be a last resort.
Richard’s tweets led to an online debate over sexism as well as privacy concerns.
Many people have condemned her actions, while others stated that she did the
right thing. The developer, who was fired, apologized for his comments, but also
stated that a person like Richards, and her social following, should have been more
responsible. He said, “As a result of the picture she took I was let go from my job
today. Which sucks because I have 3 kids and I really liked that job.”
A group on Reddit has started a fund called the “Feminist Victims Fund” to help
raise money for the fired developer. Anonymous threatened SendGrid and asked
the startup to fire Richards for engaging in “malicious conduct to destroy another
individual’s professional career”. To ensure the validity of the message,
Anonymous launched a DDOS attack against SendGrid.
Shortly following the attack, SendGrid terminated Richard’s position, stating that
her actions and the consequences that ensued caused her to “no longer be
effective in her role at SendGrid”. This whole situation could have been handled
more efficiently and peacefully, but instead it spiraled out of control and ended up
backfiring for Richards.
Men also practice something very similar to Girl Culture
Apr 23, 2013
Pictures of people who mock me
For years, strangers have made fun of me for being fat. But I got my power back --
by turning the camera on them
By Haley Morris-Cafiero
Salon.com
...There are so many people in the world who feel they have the right – no,
the obligation — to criticize someone for the way they look, and to be that
recipient of those insults can feel so lonely...
Apr 23, 2013
Pictures of people who mock me
For years, strangers have made fun of me for being fat. But I got my power back --
by turning the camera on them
By Haley Morris-Cafiero
Salon.com
...There are so many people in the world who feel they have the right – no,
the obligation — to criticize someone for the way they look, and to be that
recipient of those insults can feel so lonely...
