ICTeachers - Interesting Stuff for Teachers ICTeachers Magazine -
April 2002 -
Probably the best educational newsletter in the world! |
||||
To Subscribe to the ICTeachers Newsletter -
Go to the website http://icteachers.co.uk/
and sign up! Who Are ICTeachers? ICTeachers is a little bit of all of us. To all of you out there who are still teaching... I SALUTE YOU! Teaching is about kids, it's about fun and enjoyment and excitement and energy and enthusiasm and about relationships. It is NOT about targets, SATS, value-added, accountability, profit, public-private partnerships, monitoring, scrutiny and inspection. Teaching is about thinking, socialisation, achievement, potential, problems, talking, progressing, developing, fun, laughter and chocolate cake! Teaching is NOT statistics, analysis, SIP's, SDP's, MP's, OFSTED, DfES Initiatives, HMI, RGI, or any other string of letters other than maybe DSR, VAK and TGIF! Respectfully yours, The Editor Well, say a prayer for our very own Vaultman who is having OFSOD this week (OFSTED inspection for those abroad - worse than being searched for drugs at an airport!)! So far its looking good but hey, you never can quite trust them can you! So, anyway, yours truly is making the recommendations this week. KS2 SATS Revision amongst other things - http://www.icteachers.co.uk/children/children_home.htm Editors Recommended Links - Learn about computer virus myths, hoaxes, urban legends, hysteria, and the implications if you believe in them. You can also search a list of computer virus hoaxes & virus hysteria from A to Z. If you have anything on your hard disk to share with colleagues then send it to vaultman@icteachers.co.uk ,
Last week my daughter's school was shut for a day because of 'drains' and on another day my partners school was shut for 'boilers'. I'm not sure that any of the conversations
about this revolved around how damaging this was going to be for the
education of the children ("Oh my God , How are we going to add 14
points of value to each child Let's face it teachers strikes really get up people's noses. Parents (I'm one) because at short notice they have to find alternative 'child care' Ministers because teachers are supposed to be supine acquiescent deliverers of centrally determined directives ( I asked the Schools Standards Minister-Stephen Timms- at the Leading Learning Conference on Friday (brilliant) What he understood by Standards and whether defining standards as SATs results was missing things out. I wasn't convinced by his reply that he quite understood what I was getting at - and why should he - he is an ex-treasury minister) Daily Mail readers because most of them probably envisage primary education as something nice people do because they 'love working with children' and involves little more than organizing a nature table. There was a photo in the papers some years ago of the whole of central Paris brought to a standstill by Primary Teachers and the government reversing policy - my memory is that it wasn't about pay & conditions. In purely pragmatic terms (not something in my experience of a while ago, ILEA NUT activists were/are strong on) it may well be counter productive but in terms of 'irritating' the above I'm all for it Alex British pupils are being taught the meaning of swear words in an attempt to stop them using bad language. Children as young as 11 are being asked to write down as many swear words as they know as part of an educational module on personal, social and health education (PSHE) which will be compulsory in schools from September. It also covers sexual health, drugs, smoking and relationships. The Department for Education and Skills said that individual schools should decide how to teach the module. "An inner-city comprehensive will have different needs from that of a rural small school," a spokesman said. The move has outraged parents. One said: "I think it is absolutely disgusting. Children learn enough bad language on the street without the teachers teaching them more." The shadow education secretary, Theresa May, condemned the classes and said she could understand the concerns of parents who would be worried about their children learning swear words at school. "It isn't way to help children become well-rounded citizens," she added. The lessons will increase the vocabulary of Muslim children in English swear words whose first language is not English. They will be able to learn more swear words under the supervision and guidance of a teacher who is supposed to show them a right path to become a citizen of global village. The inner-city schools where Muslim pupils are in majority pick up bad language from the street and by their peer groups. The Muslim pupils have already been victims of British education system, where they are being mis-educated and de-educated by middle class white loony and secular teachers having no regard to their Islamic culture and language. Such lessons will add isolation from their parents and pave a way for Anglicizing. PSHE is suitable for all white schools and not in those schools where Muslims are in majority. They have already been subject to a lot of new experiments damaging to their well being. The result is that they suffer from identity crises crucial for mental, emotional and personality development The new experiment will increase their misery and will not benefit them in any way. They need their culture and language right from Nursery level along with National Curriculum. They need extra funding and efforts to learn English language, literature and poetry right from an early age to compete with rest of the school population who has the advantage of having English as their first language. They also need the services of Muslim teachers who can act as role models for them. The DFEE and the LEAs should concentrate on raising the standard of education of the Muslim pupils by teaching English academically rather than wasting time on teaching swear language, meaning of four letter words for sexual acts and female genitalia in the class by qualified Teachers. The Muslim pupils need Muslim schools and the only solution is that the state schools with Muslim majority should be managed and controlled by Muslim educational trusts and Charities similar to those schools who are being managed and controlled by private companies to raise their standard of education. They are in a better position to understand the needs and demands of the Muslim pupils. I hope that the implementation of my proposals will pave a way for improving their educational standards that will prepare them to serve the British society at large. The Muslim community will feel proud to their achievements resulting in better community relations, which are at the bottom for the time being. Iftikhar Ahmad London School of Islamics Summer Offer - 30 Pages - £250
pa
Sites include primary, infant, junior, secondary, community and special schools. Take a look at SOME of the sites we have recently built: http://www.woolgrove.org.uk "Bob gives
wonderful follow up service and uploads the stuff I send him without fail. He gives me
tips and advice and I really feel that I am an honoured customer. Nothing is too much
trouble and he never makes me feel dumb or ICT illiterate." Headteacher The Rise and Fall of
Administrators - USA Part 1 the Problems This will be a series because it took a while to get rid of this guy. First of all, everyone should know that after 2 years, even without tenure, it is almost impossible to get rid of an administrator or teacher. The unions here are too powerful. It would cost the districts a lot of money to even try and then don't have much of a chance. In the wisdom of all teachers who have protected our jobs from awful administration, we have also protected them. The rise and fall of administrators, (in my unnamed
school district to protect myself from my bad luck),
is the name of my article. Normally no one in
this town would venture out and snatch any newsletter from the UK but
if I put in 1 small but interesting article on the rise and fall of the
_______ administrator, someone would find it.
Not that they could do anything but some member of
my union would have to approach me and tell me My school district has been unique. At best we have had lousy administrators in the past. Our administration definition of awful means bad for children, bad for moving up with changing times and bad for test results. They usually leave us alone. We actually had a principal who never, ever had any faculty meetings - not even on the first day of school. It was great. Everything was done with the memo in the mail box (before e-mail). If there was a problem, a secretary handled it or told you that you shouldn't have done something. There were no observations, but we did sign a paper that we were observed and we filled out how we did. One time, I marked myself low and the principal asked me to change the rating. The principal would lock his office door, leave on the lights and leave the building. Of course many teachers liked this approach. It was the next best thing to not having a principal. And this principal was made superintendent . Unless we went to a board meeting, we never saw the man ever again. This man was one of many awful, leaderless people who came and went. We usually left them in place because they left us alone, The schools ran ok and we got paid. We didn't have meetings, or the useless committees......... life was good. .... Enter the new breed of principals. They come in 2 catagories: Type 1. They want to
change the world and inflict pain and suffering on
us We had 2 principals who were a bad combination of both. These people all had to go. Principal 1 was a female who wanted to save the world and change everything. Principal 1 was determined to do things her way. There were no flexible schedules, no coming in later, no reasoning (we did our homework and contacted the school district that she came from). This one actually called a faculty meeting (1ONLY) and had it last until after 4:30 pm. She was informed that we leave at 3:30 and there will be no more meetings after school ever. We saw problems in the near future. Remember that the superintendent used to be the principal here and this lady wanted to change everything he did for that last 15 years. We did get rid of this one just in time only to have the replacement an absolute awful, stubborn, and strange person with no experience. We ate him for dinner. He was sort of fun at first but later it became "old" and very annoying. There were 80-90 of us and him. He did not have a chance. I still don't know why anyone would want the job. Everyone wanted the assistant principal to get the job. The superintendent didn't want to change principals again because they would not look good. Yes we were going through principals faster that you can change your socks -5 in 2.5 years. We knew we had a real problem with the "new principal" and he started to pick on me as well as others. That was his major mistake. He declared war on teachers. I must have filled out 25 complaints on him (and I didn't even have to make up a thing). We have mailboxes in the main office. Good things like paychecks, messages etc. are put there along with junk mail and notes from the principal. I am not real good at going there everyday and removing items. One day I was standing in front of the mail boxes and the principal asked me to clean out my box. He took everything out and handed it to me and I threw it the garbage. He said that I could not do that. There was message from him and how could I throw out everything without reading his message? He actually went into the garbage and retrieved his memo. I couldn't help it, I told him that I guess I'll have to find another garbage can to throw out his memo. And so it happened. This guy was so incompetent that he had no clue what to say to me next. The memo wanted me to write a report on a 1st grade student. I did 2 paragraphs and put it in his mailbox. A few weeks later, I got the report back demanding more information and something that looked like a college term paper. It was to let me know that he wanted a 10 page report. A few weeks later he asked me for the larger report. I told him I didn't have it. He asked why and I told him that he didn't like the first report and he probably wouldn't like the second report either so I didn't bother. He was shocked and wanted to know what priority his report was. I told him that it wasn't a priority and he went away. We use to have an expensive machine that punched name plates. He threw it out along with other equipment because he didn't know what it was. This is not allowed. NY State law requires all equipment to be removed after the board of education's approval. He was called on this matter and told not to discard any school property. He continued to toss out equipment. And they didn't fire him yet! He was a problem. Our union was bent on getting rid of this boy. He could not make a decision to save his life. No one would talk to him alone. We would take along union reps. because he hated it. He would make commitments to parents without running it by teachers. This meant, students were failed. The parent complained. Over the summer, the principal passed the kid and told him that the reading teacher (me) would take the kid and he would be reading on grade level. But he never told me this. I found this out by accident and filled up my schedule fast (without these kids) as I saw this coming. Then the parent complained in Nov.. [Yep, that's how time passed when the parent discovered that I wasn't taking their kid]. Yes, that was the failing Nov. report card. Now he wanted me to take his mistake. He told me to take the kid. So I snatched up a building rep and informed Mr. incompetent principal that I could not take the kid as I already have too many students and it's against union policy. This was fun now. I actually was enjoying this. He wanted me to remove 1 kid to make room for the new student. I told him, that all my students need help and I would not make that decision. That was what a principal had to do. Mr., didn't get up in the morning before me, selected a third grader who was the only child of a single parent. I called the mother in and instructed her that her son was very much in need of extra help and she should seek contact with her lawyer, the board of education etc. The very next day, the principal was called over to the administration building to be yelled at. The passed on child was put in special ed. to solve the problem and no one was removed from my classes. By contract we needed a faculty work room. Mr. Principal was told to find one quickly. At first, he refused. Then the grievance process started and he started cleaning out some tiny closet. We let him. Then we informed him that it wasn't big enough. He refused to find a bigger room and we went to the superintendent. Within 2 weeks, he was cleaning out a bigger room. We always waited until after he completed a task. Then we had it corrected. ........ Stay tuned for the next exciting adventures of the doomed principal or if you are incompetent, don't come here and mess with us. Watch for the field day disaster, what grade am I in? .... the mindless room change and angry parents.....To Be Continued! Broadband technology is the always–open gateway to a new world of Internet services delivered at lightning–fast speeds to homes, schools and businesses. There are many kinds of broadband services on offer including DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), cable modems, wireless and satellite services, all of which are at least ten times faster than a standard dial-up connection. Broadband’s blazing speed eliminates the so-called ‘World Wide Wait’ that users encounter with dial-up services. The speedy connection can open up a new world of audio, video and games, among other applications, that can be tedious going using the slower conventional connection. Web pages that take minutes to summon up with dial-up services pop up instantly with a broadband connection. A cable modem or DSL link to the Internet is always on so there is no need to dial in to an Internet service provider (ISP). Simply click on your browser and you are on the Internet. Jubilee Primary School, Hackney, is one of the first UK schools to move from the standard ISDN line to Espresso’s broadband via satellite service. Head teacher Mrs J Brunton-Simmonds comments, “Espresso’s great! We couldn’t live without it! This new technology has the potential to turn teaching on its head. We installed an Astra-Nat Satellite dish last year and we’ve never looked back. We are able to deliver so much more to our pupils now.” For the future, broadband via satellite offers the potential to link homes, schools and the wider community to new and better online services beyond the limitations of ISDN (and ADSL). Thousands of local school children are already benefiting from an enhanced learning environment made possible through broadband via satellite, but as with all new technologies it is only when the mass market moves to broadband that the full benefits will be recognized. Lets hope it’s sooner rather than later. Next Month, HONEST! The Editor reviews some of the REALLY BAD things people have said about OFSTED when they signed up for the newsletter. Be sure to wear earplugs! If you have research or articles you think would interest fellow educationalists then forward them to me md@icteachers.co.uk This Newsletter is
produced by ICTeachers Ltd |