21st Century Education

“One can’t believe  impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.  “When I was your age I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes  I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm

Are you sick of High Paid Teachers

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage. That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan -- that equals 6 1/2 hours). Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.

http://www.payscale.com/teacher-salaries-by-state
Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET'S SEE.... That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year. Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here!

There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days =$277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student--a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

Top Ten K-12 Teacher Salaries by State

1. California	$70,394
2. Massachusetts	$65,897
3. New York	$64,583
4. Virginia	$59,585
5. Illinois	$58,756
6. Texas	$58,325
7. Pennsylvania	$56,629
8. Georgia	$56,227
9. Florida	$53,789
10. Ohio	$53,309

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Jenny's Story

http://www.childnet-int.org/jenny/index.html 

“Jenny’s Story” is a hard hitting film based on the true story of Jenny* a young teenager who chats to a stranger online using Instant Messenger. The film shows how through online chatting, Jenny reveals personal information which results in her being contacted in real life, and ultimately hurt. * Jenny is not the girl’s real name and her part in the film is played by an actor.
The film and supporting resources you will find on this page, aim to challenge young people about the dangers of chatting to strangers on the Internet, but also help them reflect on important issues such as trust, flattery, personal information and how they can develop strategies to avoid being manipulated or feeling “trapped”. The teachers’ resources will help teachers prepare this as a classroom activity for secondary school pupils from KS3 and upwards.
On this webpage you can read about the background to the project, view a short extract of the film, access the teaching support material, download the Press Release read the summary of our evaluation and order Jenny’s Story resource for your school.

Cyber Bullies

Physical altercations are actually the least common form of bullying, according to sources. By definition, “Bullying is the conscious, willful, and deliberately hostile activity intended to harm someone else for pleasure,” Bullying is more widespread in schools than many people believe. “The Kaiser Foundation, in conjunction with Nickelodeon, found that 86 percent of students—boys and girls—between the ages of 12 and 15 get taunted or bullied at school,”
The fact that girls can be bullied or bully others may seem unusual to some, but experts familiar with the issue say it's surprisingly common. “Everyone always felt that boys do more bullying.”Some experts believe that times have changed. “Girls actually bully more than boys,” says Michelle MacPherson, a social worker with the Department of Family and Community Services in New Brunswick.“ At one time, boys bullied more than girls, but now girls are much more physical. When you factor in the verbal and relational aspects of bullying, they're bullying a lot more than boys.”http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=681927n&tag=related;photovideo

Since we are nearing the end our semester, I thought this teaching video would be a change of pace. ENJOY!
http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/2145/Jerry_Seinfeld__History_Class/

Deep Math

After reading Dana's blog, I was interested in finding information related to deep math understanding. Research out of Vanderbilt

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Sides of Communication

It states on NSPRA's website http://www.nspra.org/, the main goal is to promote "responsible communication" for school administrators. This is indeed a lesson for us all. I do like communication where the person is the listener, the receptor of information. I have always felt that a person who is listening to me is really trying to understand my message and be empathetic to my cause. As teachers, we have to differentiate instruction http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/teaching/differentiate/planning/  for various learning styles so why not differentiate communication for various “communication styles?” Just like teaching, we have to deliver the message for multiple modalities. Be aware of our audience and developmental level. Deliver our message more than once and be aware that the beginning and the end are the most important. We also need to respect that our communication can be in multiple forms while still trying to deliver the same message to many receptors. One size does not fit all. While technology is a becoming limitless, communication still needs to promote a human aspect.