| Note: I am certified in four areas thanks to Alt Cert and the Florida Teacher Certification Exam. -- Steve McCrea, WhatShouldSchoolsTeach |
| See my web page about Becoming a Florida Teacher and the Florida Education Corps (a 2 year commitment of public service) -- Steve McCrea |
| Do I need to have a major in math to be able to teach math? It might help for calculus, but most students don't get that far! See my Visual Math and Gym Math pages -- Steve McCrea |
| What Should Schools Teach? Take the survey, help a teacher prioritize his lessons... |
| I mailed the following letter to K. Walsh at NCTQ. SEE HER NEWSLETTER National Council for Teacher Quality |
| Here we go.... Dear Ms. Walsh... Thank you for writing about recent issues. I find it hard to find out what is new and what is useful and what is valuable that is going on in another school in my district... how about what is happening in quality arund the country. Your Council is very important. A paragraph was particularly useful: Our broad mission may be teacher quality but it is a mission that is framed and measured by one indicator: how well students are achieving. One measure of achieving is "how well are these students received in the work place and in society in general"? Are students perceived as polite and helpful? Are they well-trained? I invite you to visit my web site and send me your comments... I've been asking myself and business people and anyone who has to hire and work with young people: "What do you wish students were learning? What have schools forgotten to teach?" As a teacher, I can help kids remember to "do a role-play," to imagine situations that they might face. When it rains in south Florida, you need to drive a little slower --- a neighbor's kid recently smashed his car. "I was going my usual speed and suddenly the car didn't make contact with the road. I was sliding." Hmmm, I thought... "Was the road dry?" "No, it had just rained." I wanted to shout, Didn't anyone teach you about hydroplaning? A little bit of rain water on hot oily roads is very slippery.... So that's the genesis behind my web site: what should schools teach? Yes, 3-4-5 triangles are important for passing tests, but knowing to turn "right/tight, left/loose" will make sure you don't strip the threads on a bolt. Employers have loads of complaints, doctors shake their heads when college students end up in emergency rooms with alcohol poisoning (hmmm, just turned 21? Why does that not surprise me?), and people ask, "Didn't you learn that in school?" Thanks for your time: www.oocities.org/talkinternational1/education.html (my alt cert page) And for the "What should schools teach?" the page is www.oocities.org/talkinternational1/what.html I also suggest that you visit my mentor's page, www.WhatDoYaKnow.com by Dennis Yuzenas, a guy who should be teacher of the year every year. If you hold a conference on teacher quality, please invite Dennis to speak. He has very high standards while maintaining a sense of humor... I hope you will answer my short survey (below): ------------------------------------------------- GO TO SURVEY Basic question: What should schools teach in addition to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic? ------------------------------------------------ By the way, I hold my teaching position thanks to an alternative certification process. I would need to take 10 courses of mathematics (since I took just two math classes in college), but I scored 800 on SAT math, 1520 combined score, so I'm well qualified to teach math to students. Thanks to alternative certification, I'm in the classroom and I've been teaching in a public school for nearly a year. Had I gone the traditional certification route, I'd still be teaching as a substitute teacher and taking night courses. Thank goodness for Alt Cert! I'm also certified to teach English and ESOL and I'm preparing to take the Chemistry Subject Area test. I'm still looking for a permanent position and being certified in multiple areas helps! Teaching across the curriculum (such as teaching math in English class and poetry in Chemistry class) is made more credible when the teacher is certified in multiple areas. Alt Cert makes it easier to show a working knowledge of a subject area -- $25 to take the Florida Teacher Certification Exam and I can show that I'm not a dummy. Alt Cert is a way of opening doors - it's up to me to maintain a high standard of knowledge within the field. I'm sure there are teachers who slip through the Alt Cert process and fail to learn important information about teaching methods, since they haven't had to complete a professional teaching course, but a supportive principal can help identify a teacher's weaknesses-and the teacher can learn on the job. Florida needs 20,000 new teachers and the universities are producing about 4000 certified teachers... so alt cert opens doors for people like me who are new to education. I feel I need to provide this anecdotal evidence to answer the quote that you took from the American Association of Colleges for Teachers of Education: Even more ominously, AACTE claims that alternative certification "subvert[s] the [No Child Left Behind] law." Look, I'm happy to take additional courses - the Alt Cert program in Florida requires me to take continuing ed units - but putting me in the classroom is the best thing the system has done with me. I spent 20 years working in "the real world" and that experience brings some confidence and reality check for students that lifelong teaching professionals can't give (since they have been teachers all their lives and they have not managed offices or been working in US Department of Energy or in state government or in private enterprise). Alt Cert could bring a spirit into the teaching profession that could be a new way of doing "public service" to the nation. I've suggested to my governor that a Florida Education Corps could be set up similar to the Peace Corps where anyone who wants to teach for 2 years could consider themselves as "stopping out to serve." In effect, the Alt Cert process allows anyone with a college degree to start teaching within 3 months... which is a great way of bringing into schools the viewpoints of non-educational professionals. I walk around my school pointing out to students that "you have an employable skill." I can say that because I've hired people, I've worked in companies and in the federal government and I can speak from direct experience. I can see where the AACTE is coming from - a teacher coming through the Alt Cert route lacks the jargon and formal theory and without a supportive administration, the alt cert teacher could be held back from learning helpful theory to get good teaching methods into the classroom. But going through a teachers college is no guarantee of building a teacher with effective methods... I've seen a lot of experienced teachers with standard certification and many of their students are bored. ...in part because the teachers are constrained by administrative policies, but also because "you're new, Steve. Someday you'll slow down like the rest of us." Huh? And this person gets paid more than me? I'll take naïve enthusiasm for bringing visually stimulating lessons to classes over standard certification that tolerates an attitude like that! I teach at an adult school where GED and "school of choice" students mingle...students with attendance and discipline problems come to Hallandale Adult Community Center as a "last chance" to get a diploma, and my principal gives me students who are bored and sliding toward failing the FCAT (our standard test for comprehensive assessment). I wish we could have an exit test for graduation that tested practical skills, too, such as "when a police officer stops you for speeding, it is a good idea to save time for the officer and get your license, registration and proof of insurance ready to show the officer." Any student who thinks that is true needs to get in the mind of the officer who sees a driver fumbling in the glove compartment. Obviously, hands on the wheel until the officer tells you to get your license and other paperwork. Steve McCrea Fort Lauderdale, Florida www.teacherstoteachers.com -----Original Message----- From: Teacher Quality Bulletin [mailto:tqbulletin@nctq.org] Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 12:16 PM To: TQBulletin@nctq.org Subject: Teacher Quality Bulletin - Vol. 4, No. 11 ******************************************************** Welcome to the Teacher Quality Bulletin! TQ Bulletin is a weekly e-mail newsletter brought to you by the National Council on Teacher Quality (www.nctq.org) ******************************************************** Dear TQB Readers: (read K. Walsh's letter) |
| To see some real quality, visit Dennis Yuzenas and his web site for WHAT DO YA KNOW? |
| Are you inspired yet? Become a teacher in the Florida Education Corps... |
| QUALITY ARTICLES David Hyde and the "No Salute" story Speaking of Quality, have a look at this article by Thomas Friedman (NY TIMES) Other jokes A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2" in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "Yes". The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and proceeded to pour their entire contents into the jar - effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognise that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things - your family, your partner, your health, your children - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter - like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else. The small stuff." "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal. Take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand." One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers." ================================================ Workforce skills for March 17 Listen to a phone message Answer the telephone and take a message. Write a resume, showing your past experience. Focus on the results. Select some consumer reports.. and write a letter to request brochures. //////////////////////// sample lesson plans Math Lesson Plan with Dice Cards Math Lesson Plan with Playing Cards ESOL lesson for creating a book about "A Successful Life" WHAT SHOULD SCHOOLS TEACH? |