It’s Friday! Time for the Roundup. Let’s get to it.
‘The World Feels Less Stable’: Educators’ Sense of School Safety Right Now (EducationWeek)
“Four in 10 educators feel less safe in their schools now than they did five years ago, according to a new survey by the EdWeek Research Center. School shootings factor heavily into their fears, but so does a swirl of other dynamics, from an angry political climate to a rise in student and parent aggression.”
“At the same time, in another question, 6 in 10 teachers and administrators said that fear of a ‘purposeful mass homicide’ at their schools – by an outsider or a student – was a key factor in their worries about safety.”
I’ve written about these fears in the past, but is it time for public schooling to go smaller in terms of how many learners are assigned to one place? And, is it time for public schooling to become way more mobile compared to assigning young learners to one place called school?
If schools have become unsafe, then we do have other options to choose.
Teachers Leaving Jobs During Pandemic Find ‘Fertile’ Ground in New School Models (The 74)
“School closures in Vermont didn’t drag on as long as those in other parts of the country, but that didn’t lessen the strain.
Social distancing, masks and confining students to their classrooms caused an ‘explosive amount of mental health needs,’ from lack of focus to outright aggression, said Heather Long, a former counselor in the Orange East Supervisory Union district.
‘I started to watch as more and more restrictions were being placed on kids,’ she said. ‘I felt like I couldn’t reach the needs.’
That feeling of helplessness is one reason Long left her job in December – joining others who’ve stepped away from traditional schools and transitioned to alternative education models during the pandemic. Now she’s running a microschool out of her New Hampshire home as part of Prenda, a network of tuition-free, small-group programs in six states. Teachers making the leap into such programs are finding parents willing to join them.”
This isn’t rocket science. If your traditional school is not meeting your children’s needs, then find some other like-minded parents who want to start a microschool. Find a top-notch adult learning leader – depending on the size of the microschool – maybe more. Figure out a budget (several years ago we ran a pilot for 50 kids and budgeted $7,500 per student for the year) and start building learning plans for each kid.
Looping: Here’s What Happens When Students Have the Same Teacher More Than Once (EducationWeek)
“When students have a teacher for more than one year, they benefit academically and behaviorally, a new working paper shows.
The study, which was published this month by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, captures all instances of repeat student-teacher matches – a teacher who happens to move from 2nd to 4th grade, a high school math teacher who teaches multiple grade levels, and a teacher who “loops” with her same class for two years.
‘Student-teacher relationships are a key and core feature of a successful school, and one way to help develop those is by giving teachers and students more time to get to know each other,’ said Matthew Kraft, an associated professor of education and economics at Brown University and a co-author of the paper.”
When I was a school principal, we gave teachers and teams of teachers the option of looping with their kids. For the most part, young learners and the adult learning leaders enjoyed getting to know each other beyond the typical September to May academic year. Every once in a while, we ran into a personality conflict, but they were few and far between.
The real challenge to scaling the practice of looping was teacher certification, when a teacher was prevented from looping with their kids because they didn’t possess the right state certification to teach the next course. What we might want to do is change how we certify teachers these days. Instead of content certification like social studies or math, create skill certifications like reading, writing, or problem-solving.
No College? No Problem (Reasons to be Cheerful)
“At the age of 17 Latisha Carter became a single mother, putting her hopes of going to college firmly on the backburner. But she was determined to work. Three years later, after having another child, Carter became a nursing assistant, taking after her mother and aunt.
Yet she couldn’t shake her dreams of making it in corporate America.
‘I felt like I disappointed my mom,’ says Atlanta-based Carter. ‘I was the youngest kid, and then I ended up having kids. I wanted to prove to everyone that I am not a disappointment.’
Buoyed by the extensive training on offer, Carter secured a call center role at software company NCR. This built up her industry experience to land a customer service role at software giant Sage in 2000. Carter’s imagined corporate success story was finally a reality and over the next 20 years she catapulted up the ranks to director level, eventually landing a senior role at accounting tech company Xero – all without a college degree.
As a director in corporate America with no university on her resume, Carter is less of an anomaly than you might think. A recent Harvard Business Review report analyzed more than 51 million jobs posted between 2017 and 2020, and found a marked decrease in the number of employers requesting diplomas.”
One of my biggest professional regrets is that I fell into the “everyone has to go to college” crowd back at the start of the century. What I’ve learned since then is that being “college ready” and having to “attend college” are two very different goals. Let’s endorse a system moving forward where kids are “ready” for college or careers and stop berating those who decide to bypass the university for a promising career.
School Shootings Are Fueling the Debate Over Cellphones in Class (EducationWeek)
“Educators’ views of cellphones as safety tools are often wrapped up in their perspective on cellphones in schools, period, given the longstanding debate about whether the devices should be encouraged for learning or banned because of the distractions they cause.”
As promised, here it is – an article debating whether cellphones are a safety asset or liability during a active shooter event.
I stand by what I said in yesterday’s column: as educators, we are going to lose on this issue if we think teenagers, and when it comes to safety any family, will agree to not use electronic devices just because a teacher, principal, or school board is telling students not to use them inside schools.
It’s the 21st century.
Have a great weekend. SVB
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