YOU ARE RIGHT ON, RENEE! I love Alfie Kohn--why don't more people read him? I am so afraid we are bringing down our own country! Do we have things to work on in education? ALWAYS! Do we do so many things well? ABSOLUTELY! We need to work toward improvement by beginning with what we do well and encouraging and promoting children and supporting our teachers. Arne Duncan is a wonderful human being---but, has he ever taught? We need to stop "watering" the "seeds of self-destruction" and, instead, "nurture the good seed" that DOES exist and help it grow. It is amazing how teachers are being blamed for everything that is wrong with our society. I guarantee you that the Asian societies do NOT treat their teachers with such a lack of respect--quite the opposite! Our country is a great country--we need to work TOGETHER to keep heading in the right direction. Despite all that ails us, we teachers must stick together and continue working with our children--who hold the key to our future. WE CAN DO IT! WE CAN DO IT!
>>> Renee <[email protected]> 4/11/2012 10:03 AM >>> Disclaimer: This is an opinion. Mine. I know that many schools have competitions of many kinds, and that competition is part of society and that some competition is just good, healthy fun. But I think it's important to think about the message that *some* school competitions send, and to me, a reading competition just goes against my grain. If I were teaching in this school, I would not feel good about being pitted against all other classrooms AND I would find it hard to participate. That's why I suggested a school wide collaboration (ongoing documentation of books and pages read by the whole school), where everyone works together toward a common goal. Our current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has pitted schools against schools and teachers against teachers with his stupid Race to the Top program. High stakes tests pit schools against schools and teachers against teachers and students against students. In my classrooms we always kept a running tally of how many books and pages kids read, throughout the year. The end numbers were pretty impressive; frankly, I think they were way more impressive than cafeteria displays of students names who had reached the "Millionaire's Reading Club" or classroom displays of race cars racing along on race tracks made of Accelerated Reading scores. Am I really the only one out there? Does anyone read Alfie Kohn or Daniel Pink? Renee Goularte 20 years teaching, all grades, ELL, at-risk, GATE, multiage, and Art. On Apr 10, 2012, at 10:14 AM, Phyllis Oliver wrote: > At a school where I was reading specialist we used to have > competitions between classes.(We only had one room per grade level.) > We might have 3rd and 4th and 5th and 6th compete for the most AR > points or most pages read. We did this by the month. The losing class > would serve the winning class a treat (such as homemade sundaes or > popcorn with a movie, or pizza) the losing class then served > themselves and all enjoyed the treat. This seemed to work especially > well with 4-6 grades. > Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." ~William Butler Yeats _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
