Browsing articles in "classroom discipline"
by Susan McGuire Smith |
January 15, 2013
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals took the unusual step of overturning an arbitrator’s decision in a federal employee removal case, returning the case to the agency with instructions to reinstate a teacher fired for physically “repositioning” first-grade students in class. (Mayberry v. Department of Defense Dependents Schools Europe (CAFC No. 2012-3014, 1/7/13 nonprecedential)
According to the court’s decision, Mayberry taught at the Schweinfurt DOD Elementary School in Germany and enjoyed a considerable popularity among most parents and students. After 27 years of “unblemished” service, he was fired for a first time offense involving four first-graders. Mayberry admitted in the arbitration hearing that he had “repositioned” four “intransigent” students. He did not admit to child abuse, physical punishment or using physical force. What he said he did was take the children by the arms or shoulders and cause them to sit up in their chairs or in one case repositioned the child to a different seat. When one of the children complained to his parents they notified the principal who notified the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and put Mayberry on administrative leave pending investigation. (Opinion pp. 1-5)
The CID interviewed the kids and learned that many liked their teacher although several said Mayberry had “grabbed,” “yanked,” “squeezed,” “shook,” or “hit” them when they were unruly. In the end the principal fired Mayberry for “inappropriate touching of students,” citing four “incidents of child discipline” as specifications. (p. 6)
Mayberry argued that the discipline was too severe given it was a first offense and that he had never been warned not to engage in the type of “repositioning” that he used in his classroom for troublemakers.
The lead first-grade accuser testified at Mayberry’s arbitration hearing that his teacher “hurt kids” and “picked me up by the arm and then slammed me on the floor…” and that he did not like Mr. Mayberry. The arbitrator found this testimony unreliable and gave it no weight in her decision. Apparently she did base her decision to uphold Mayberry’s firing on his admission that he did “reposition” children “as a last resort” by exerting enough force to cause them to sit up: “I find that physically moving or adjusting four children, three of them more than once, over a period of time warrants discharge even though this was the first time [his] behavior was brought to the attention of the administration.” (p. 8)
Interestingly, many people testified in support of Mayberry, including several parents, other teachers and a pediatric dentist, but they did not sway the arbitrator.
Mayberry took his case to court and managed to get the appeals court to throw out the arbitration decision and the removal action. While acknowledging that some offenses “warrant immediate discharge,” the court concluded that “repositioning several disruptive students, when they would not follow his instructions to sit in their chairs or stop talking” was simply not enough a first offense to add up to immediate firing. (p. 12) Instead, the school administrators should have put Mayberry on notice that his reported actions were not acceptable and would not be tolerated further. “We remand to the agency with instructions to withdraw the termination, and to provide sufficient instruction as to acceptable classroom discipline.” (p. 13)
We assume that the kids who testified against Mayberry will be assigned to another teacher?
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by Susan McGuire Smith
| January 15, 2013
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is the current No. 2 bestselling nonfiction book on Amazon.com. The book was published in 1986. No. Thats not a typo. 1986. My immediate question was why this book continues to sell more than any other written on the same or similar subject. The authors are Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox and Elaine Bruner.
Hundreds of reviews from parents point to one basic attribute: simplicity. In other words, the book is easy not just to use, but to understand the techniques and their importance. Beneath the surface is a clear cut guide to implementation and use. All a parent has to do is follow the steps in order to reap the benefits. Simple. The research and methodology utilized to create this book not so simple by any stretch of the imagination.
In the 1960s, Professor Engelmann and the late Wesley C. Becker developed Direct Instruction, an instructional method focused on systematic curriculum design and skillful implementation of prescribed behavioral script. Basically, that means teaching students from a prepared lesson plan the instructor follows to the letter. Needless to say, but I will anyway, much debate arose and continues today. What cannot be debated is the worldwide use (including by some home schoolers) of Direct Instruction and the programs effectiveness to students with learning difficulties (cite: Marchand-Martella, Martella (2002) An Overview and Research Summary of Peer-Delivered Corrective Reading. The Behavior Analyst Today, 3 (2), 214 -235).
Over the years Professor Engelmann has either written or co-authored many books on education, including Preventing Failure in the Primary Grades, War Against the Schools Academic Child Abuse, Give Your Child a Superior Mind, and the release on Dec 17, 2012 of Inferred Functions of Performance and Learning co-authored by Donald Steely.
What is blatantly clear is Professor Engelmanns devotion and passion for educating those destined to inherit the world we leave them. He also happens to be a very nice man who hosts an annual Zignic a gathering loaded with food and fellowship.
http://www.zigsite.com/
Q. Professor Engelmann, were you surprised by the long-term parental interest in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons?
A. Confused more than surprised. A school version of the same sequence that appears in Teach Your Child has been on the educational market since 1968.
In contrast to Teach Your Child which has 700 positive reviews on Amazon the school version (Reading Mastery) is not popular, even though it has more experimental evidence of effectiveness than all the other reading programs combined.
Q. What do you believe is the greatest hindrance to verbal communication in our society?
A. The limitation of choices. Issues are shaped by the press and groups that have an interest in conveying particular messages and prejudices. Its not practical for one to address many central issues because discussions dont reveal the technical nature of the issues. Discussions of the schools, for instance, rarely identify differences between what the schools are actually doing compared to the rhetoric about what they doing. This perspective makes it very hard to solve problems that are quite soluble.
Q. There is a current tendency to place all blame for a childs lack of education and/or classroom discipline on the shoulders of the teachers, and none in the home. How do we change that, or can we?
A. Actually, blame for failure almost always is directed to the children. In the 1980s, Galen Alessi analyzed hundreds of referrals of children for being placed in special classes. He did not find one referral based on poor instruction or poor teaching. The number one cause identified by the school psychologists was the student; number two were the parents and the home. In fact, Ive never seen a child who performed in the normal range of intelligence and could not be taught to read in a timely manner, but the same priorities that Alessi described are with us today. Alessi, G (1988). Diagnosis diagnosed: A systemic reaction. Professional school Psychology, 3, 145-151.
Q. Due to the number of books you have written on education, which one would you recommend a parent read first?
A. The book Teaching Needy Kids In Our Backward System provides illustrations and evidence about why school districts are failing and how they would have to change to meet performance standards that are achievable. I think the book presents vignettes that truly characterize why the schools are backward and will continue to be backward until schools become accountable for egregious student failure.
Q. Any parting comments for those not familiar with your work or books?
A. Nobody is to blame for the pathetic state of current instruction, but we have to start looking at what is possible within the constraints of school budgets and draw up rules and regulations that assure schools are doing what they need to do to guarantee teacher success, and therefore student success. We cant continue to accept students in middle school not being able to perform basic math operations or not being able to read simple texts accurately. See my website Zigsite.com for videos and articles that suggest what can be done.
DA Kentner is the author of the award-winning novel Whistle Pass. http://whistlepass.blogspot.com/
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is the current No. 2 bestselling nonfiction book on Amazon.com. The book was published in 1986. No. Thats not a typo. 1986. My immediate question was why this book continues to sell more than any other written on the same or similar subject. The authors are Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox and Elaine Bruner.
Hundreds of reviews from parents point to one basic attribute: simplicity. In other words, the book is easy not just to use, but to understand the techniques and their importance. Beneath the surface is a clear cut guide to implementation and use. All a parent has to do is follow the steps in order to reap the benefits. Simple. The research and methodology utilized to create this book not so simple by any stretch of the imagination.
In the 1960s, Professor Engelmann and the late Wesley C. Becker developed Direct Instruction, an instructional method focused on systematic curriculum design and skillful implementation of prescribed behavioral script. Basically, that means teaching students from a prepared lesson plan the instructor follows to the letter. Needless to say, but I will anyway, much debate arose and continues today. What cannot be debated is the worldwide use (including by some home schoolers) of Direct Instruction and the programs effectiveness to students with learning difficulties (cite: Marchand-Martella, Martella (2002) An Overview and Research Summary of Peer-Delivered Corrective Reading. The Behavior Analyst Today, 3 (2), 214 -235).
Over the years Professor Engelmann has either written or co-authored many books on education, including Preventing Failure in the Primary Grades, War Against the Schools Academic Child Abuse, Give Your Child a Superior Mind, and the release on Dec 17, 2012 of Inferred Functions of Performance and Learning co-authored by Donald Steely.
What is blatantly clear is Professor Engelmanns devotion and passion for educating those destined to inherit the world we leave them. He also happens to be a very nice man who hosts an annual Zignic a gathering loaded with food and fellowship.
http://www.zigsite.com/
Q. Professor Engelmann, were you surprised by the long-term parental interest in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons?
A. Confused more than surprised. A school version of the same sequence that appears in Teach Your Child has been on the educational market since 1968.
In contrast to Teach Your Child which has 700 positive reviews on Amazon the school version (Reading Mastery) is not popular, even though it has more experimental evidence of effectiveness than all the other reading programs combined.
Q. What do you believe is the greatest hindrance to verbal communication in our society?
A. The limitation of choices. Issues are shaped by the press and groups that have an interest in conveying particular messages and prejudices. Its not practical for one to address many central issues because discussions dont reveal the technical nature of the issues. Discussions of the schools, for instance, rarely identify differences between what the schools are actually doing compared to the rhetoric about what they doing. This perspective makes it very hard to solve problems that are quite soluble.
Q. There is a current tendency to place all blame for a childs lack of education and/or classroom discipline on the shoulders of the teachers, and none in the home. How do we change that, or can we?
A. Actually, blame for failure almost always is directed to the children. In the 1980s, Galen Alessi analyzed hundreds of referrals of children for being placed in special classes. He did not find one referral based on poor instruction or poor teaching. The number one cause identified by the school psychologists was the student; number two were the parents and the home. In fact, Ive never seen a child who performed in the normal range of intelligence and could not be taught to read in a timely manner, but the same priorities that Alessi described are with us today. Alessi, G (1988). Diagnosis diagnosed: A systemic reaction. Professional school Psychology, 3, 145-151.
Q. Due to the number of books you have written on education, which one would you recommend a parent read first?
A. The book Teaching Needy Kids In Our Backward System provides illustrations and evidence about why school districts are failing and how they would have to change to meet performance standards that are achievable. I think the book presents vignettes that truly characterize why the schools are backward and will continue to be backward until schools become accountable for egregious student failure.
Q. Any parting comments for those not familiar with your work or books?
A. Nobody is to blame for the pathetic state of current instruction, but we have to start looking at what is possible within the constraints of school budgets and draw up rules and regulations that assure schools are doing what they need to do to guarantee teacher success, and therefore student success. We cant continue to accept students in middle school not being able to perform basic math operations or not being able to read simple texts accurately. See my website Zigsite.com for videos and articles that suggest what can be done.
DA Kentner is the author of the award-winning novel Whistle Pass. http://whistlepass.blogspot.com/
Lawmakers were quick to begin their legislative overreaction to the shooting in Newtown, Conn.: the calls for gun control measures that would have done nothing to avert the tragic shooting (including the fingerprinting of all gun buyers) and lockdown-style school safety measures that would make grade schools resemble prisons.
But it isn’t just lawmakers who have abandoned sober thinking for abject panic. School officials at Roscoe R. Nix Elementary in Montgomery County suspended a 6-year-old student for something nearly everyone does as a child. He formed his thumb and finger into an L-shape resembling a gun, pointed it at another student and said, “Pow!” This kid needed a talking-to, and perhaps a note home to his parents. Suspension was totally uncalled for.
Fortunately, common sense prevailed in this case. As The Washington Examiner reported Sunday, Principal Annette Ffolkes has informed the child’s parents that they will be rescinding his suspension and expunging it from his record. We can only add that we hope no trace of the incident remains, because perfectly normal childlike behavior should not mar a student or cause him to be singled out for life as a troublemaker. The school administrator who originally informed his parents that he had “threatened to shoot another student” should really use words more carefully.
The main question to consider is how we got to this point. On the one hand, teachers are frequently unable to impose classroom discipline because public school systems are loath to suspend or expel even the worst troublemakers. On the other hand, suspensions are handed out for trivial behavior like the incident noted above. Another classic case came last year, when Maryland’s state board had to reverse two suspensions in Talbot County for possession of “deadly weapons” — a penknife and a lighter, which school officials called an “explosive device.” Both items were in fact used to maintain the strings on the students’ lacrosse sticks. The suspensions, though lifted, interfered with the students’ college applications.
Such “zero tolerance” approaches to school discipline have been badly and rightly tarnished. Zero tolerance tends to harm the near-innocent as much as it punishes the guilty. Perhaps more importantly, it has created an even stronger disrespect and contempt for school authority. When fully grown school officials behave so foolishly, it undermines their authority in the sight of the children they are trying to educate. The solution, which most educators already apply, is common sense.
Business owners know you must engage your employees in the change process.
Training our adults to be competitive on the world stage and educating more of our children to be able to collaborate and compete globally is the key to the country’s future prosperity.
Education holds the key to our collective futures. The city, state and nation that create an effective system of learning will thrive. Our goal should be to make Michigan and America the brain bank of the world, where everyone wants to come for deposits and withdrawals.
Yet rather than seeking ways to develop a shared vision and common agenda to make this happen, political and ideological battles sharpen and continue to beat down the vary people we need to build up — our teachers.
The voice of the classroom teacher must be heard, especially around issues of classroom discipline, instructional design and delivery above the reform chatter.
Our public schools are the true Statue of Liberty in this great country of ours — taking the tired, hungry, poor, kids who speak English as a second language, and children with disabilities to give them hope and opportunity. Our great teachers are the torches lighting the way for us all.
Rhetoric from the state and our nation’s capital have never educated a single child. It is our teachers who know their subject matter, who have a passion for teaching and learning, and who are provided the support and tools from administration, that we must invest our resources and energy moving forward.
As Michigan’s state superintendent of schools (from 2001-2005), I had a simple measuring stick against which all decisions made by the Department of Education and state Board of Education were judged: “Show me how this helps our teachers teach and our children learn.”
We need to engage teachers in the process of reform to attract and retain the very best in the classroom.
The state Board of Education, in an overt effort to engage teachers, invited the annually selected Michigan Teacher of the Year to have a seat, but more importantly, a voice at the state board table. The teachers’ voice is always the last heard prior to policy being enacted.
So as the New Year rings in, rather than hammering our teachers down, let’s snap that symbolic hammer in half and turn it instead into a ladder that helps lift up our schools, teachers, and most importantly, our children.
Do our schools and teachers need to constantly evolve, embrace change and adapt to a disruptive world where ideas and jobs can and do move around the globe effortlessly? Of course.
Yet, without the ability to tap the energy, talents, skills and passions of these great educators that are touching our collective futures every day, we are missing a major ingredient necessary to soar in the 21st century knowledge economy.
Research and common sense reinforce that quality teachers matter. In the education enterprise we must always remember that teachers have the lead role (along with parents and students). The teacher is Diana Ross and the rest within the school building are sing “doo-wop.”
We need to actively seek ways to engage teachers and make them a key member of any education reform effort.
If you can read this, thank a teacher!
But if you are a policymaker , consider re-evaluating how you can harness the talents of the master-link in the learning process — our great teachers.
The future of our state and nation is inextricable linked to the quality of our teachers.
— Tom Watkins was Michigan’s state superintendent of schools from 2001-05 and is now a U.S.-China business and educational consultant. He can be reached at tdwatkins88@gmail.com.
ScuttleBu(r)t …
NFL Network’s Darren Sharper, who played defensive back for the Packers and Vikings in his career, picks Green Bay in the playoff battle Saturday night at Lambeau Field …
Packers missed 14 tackles in last week’s loss to the Vikings. That won’t happen in the playoffs. Take Green Bay and give the points …
Reid Travis of Minneappolis’ DeLaSalle High School, a 6-foot-7, 225-pound power forward who also plays quarterback, is undecided between football and basketball in college.
Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports Michigan State basketball coach Tommy Izzo offered the junior a basketball tender. The 3.9 grade point average student has also heard from Harvard and Iowa State …
From Dwight Perry, Seattle Times: “Twin sisters Lucy and Kelly Knott, 24, of Stockport, England, are teaching assistants by day and pro rasslers by night. Classroom discipline probably isn’t a problem.” …
Watched a scorekeeper and basketball coach go at it recently over a player not entering the game fast enough.
It got a little testy but not quite to the level of the late Don (Pasty) Anderson of Norway scrapping with Forest Park basketball coach Stu Smith. They always made games that much more entertaining …
Golf champion Steve Stricker, married to Ironwood native Nicki Tiziani, plans on playing just 10 PGA Tour events in 2013. Stricker, 45, has won 12 times in his career.
The Daily Globe also reports the Strickers own a summer home in Land O’ Lakes, Wis. …
Senior leadership will be one reason why Notre Dame upsets Alabama in the national championship. There’s 29 seniors on The Fighting Irish.
“You see how the seniors act and you know that’s the way you have to act,” sophomore defensive end Ishaq Williams told Lenn Robbins of the New York Post …
Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, on the New York Jets bringing in Tim Tebow to push Mark Sanchez: “If you seek to inspire the San Francisco Philharmonic to a higher level, you don’t try to scare ‘em by bringing in a hot kazoo player.” …
You don’t want to mix it up with Cheboygan High School hockey coach Craig Coxe. An NHL enforcer for eight seasons, Coxe and Bob Probert got into some “highlight-reel fights” according to HockeyFights.com.
Cheboygan edged Kingsford in overtime last week …
Two more reasons why the best seat in the house is in the house.
Scalpers for the Packers-Vikings thriller collected $400 a ticket. Parking in lots near the Metrodome? $40! …
A student at Noble Street College Prep does classwork at the school in Chicago in February. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Our neighbors at MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry report that Chicago’s Noble Network of Charter Schools is making some cash on the side by charging “disciplinary fees” to unruly students. The parents of one teenager, writes Traci Lee, had to pay close to $2,000 in fines for infractions including “an unkempt appearance and not making eye contact.”
Unreasonable, perhaps, but not unprofitable. Writes Lee: “According to the Chicago Tribune, Noble raked in approximately $200,000 in disciplinary fees in 2011 and almost $400,000 since the 2008-09 school year.”
That’s small change compared to the nearly $70 million in funding the charter school network is expected to receive this year, but it’s enough to make it worth the effort. Noble Network CEO Michael Milkie defended the schools’ actions last year, telling the Tribune that the fees not only clamped down on violence, but also offset the costs for the school to administer detention.
Indeed, disciplinary fees are a win-win for charter schools: Not only are they reasonably lucrative, but there’s also a great way to enforce social control. If a kids’ unruly behavior puts a significant financial burden on his parents, you can bet those parents will do everything they can to get their son in line. The increased classroom discipline, in turn, reflects well on the charter school, which might then expect more city funding.
So the charter network has considerable incentive to make the fines increasingly draconian, both to discourage infractions and to squeeze more money out of the kids who still misbehave. But they also have an incentive to create more and more rules which the students might then break. The greater the risk of breaking a rule, the more likely the schools are to make a buck off their students.
Better yet, the schools can justify the proliferation of seemingly harsh and arbitrary fines—say, fining students hundreds of dollars for “not making eye contact”—by using “Broken Windows” theory. Under James Q. Wilson’s theory (dissected here by Mike Konczal), you could argue that such rules preserve order by targeting potential troublemakers and punishing them into submission before they have the chance to do anything which would actually harm the community. It’s the perfect combination of money-making scheme and authoritarian policing program.
Of course, such a system sounds like a nightmare for the actual students and parents: an education system governed by fear of financial ruin. It’s a fundamental flaw in the charterization of public education that such an outcome seems not only reasonable but ideal from a management perspective. Charter advocates talk a good game about freedom and school choice, but private institutions which control public goods have plenty of incentives to be authoritarian—even tyrannical.
As the Noble Network example goes, debt is a crucial tool for enforcing such tyranny. I wrote about another example over the summer: When local governments outsource debt collection to private companies, the contractors will frequently lard on additional debts as punishment for late payments. As a result, one man “has spent a total of 24 months in jail and owes $10,000, all for traffic and license violations that began a decade ago.”
Needless to say, the analogy between the education system and the criminal justice system is not a flattering one.
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Jeremy Olson writes about children and families, and is an overscheduled father of two. His blog tackles the best and worst of parenting, families, health and love. He wants to hear from you – what’s going on in your house?
The threat of “no recess” as classroom discipline …
Posted by: Jeremy Olson
Updated: January 2, 2013 – 12:47 PM
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Media coverage of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new recommendation in favor of school recess glossed over one of the more intriguing proposals (to me, anyway) – that recess never be withhold from students as discipline.
The position paper, released Monday, is based on a wealth of evidence showing that recess provides a much-needed mental break so that students can focus better when they are in class. The evidence also shows that recess is a rare opportunity for students to test decision-making and social skills — though it also is a breeding ground for bullying if adult supervision is poor — and that taking it away can have negative consequences.
“Ironically, minimizing or eliminating recess may be counterproductive to academic achievement, as a growing body of evidence suggests that recess promotes not only physical health and social development but also cognitive performance … On the basis of an abundance of scientific studies, withholding recess for punitive or academic reasons would seem to be counterproductive to the intended outcomes and may have unintended consequences in relation to a child’s acquisition of important life skills.”
On the other hand, the threat of taking away recess is an effective disciplinary tool for teachers, especially those challenged with large class sizes. So I checked with a couple local principals to gain their perspective on this recommendation.
Donna Montgomery of Hopkins’ Gatewood Elementary School said she agrees with the AAP recommendation in general and that her teachers favor sending their children out for recess so they can have some classroom prep time. But she also noted that “students must be in the classroom to learn. Taking away the opportunity for recess is much preferred over a school suspension.”
The withholding of recess is only an occasional consequence in her school.
“When they make poor decisions on the playground, such as being overly physical or hurting others, we keep them in the office for a day or two,” she said in an email. “This might apply to three or four students in a month.”
The authors of the new Pediatrics statement recommended that schools and researchers examine alternative forms of discipline that could effectively replace the withholding of recess.
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Tom Watkins was Michigan’s state superintendent between 2001 and 2005.
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Tom Watkins served as Michigan’s state superintendent of schools from 2001 to 2005. He is an advocate for public education and sensible school reforms, and a 2010 Upton Sinclair Award winner from Ednews.org.
He is a U.S./China business and educational consultant. He can be reached at: tdwatkins88@gmail.com.
By Tom Watkins
Business owners know you must engage your employees in the change process.
Training our adults to be competitive on the world stage and educating more of our children to be able to collaborate and compete globally is the key to the country’s future prosperity.
Education holds the key to our collective futures. The city, state and nation that creates an effective system of learning will thrive. Our goal should be to make Michigan and America the brain bank of the world where everyone wants to come for deposits and withdrawals.
Yet, rather than seeking ways to develop a shared vision and common agenda to make this happen, political and ideological battles sharpen and continue to beat down the vary people we need to build up — our teachers.
Teachers are key.
The voice of the classroom teacher must be heard, especially around issues of classroom discipline, instructional design and delivery above the reform chatter.
Our public schools are the true Statue of Liberty in this great country of ours — taking the tired, hungry, poor, kids who speak English as a second language, and children with disabilities to give them hope and opportunity. Our great teachers are the torches lighting the way for us all.
Rhetoric from the state and our nation’s capital have never educated a single child. It is our teachers who know their subject matter, who have a passion for teaching and learning, and who are provided the support and tools from administration, that we must invest our resources and energy moving forward.
As Michigan’s state superintendent of schools from 2001 to 2005, I had a simple measuring stick against which ALL decisions made by the Department of Education and state Board of Education were judged: “Show me how this helps our teachers teach and our children learn.”
We need to engage teachers in the process of reform to attract and retain the very best in the classroom.
The state Board of Education, in an overt effort to engage teachers, invited the annually selected Michigan Teacher of the Year to have a seat, but more importantly; a voice at the state board table. The teachers’ voice is always the last heard prior to policy being enacted.
So as the New Year rings in, rather than hammering our teachers down, let’s snap that symbolic hammer in half and turn it instead into a ladder that helps lift up our schools, teachers, and most importantly, our children.
Do our schools and teachers need to constantly evolve, embrace change and adapt to a disruptive world where ideas and jobs can and do move around the globe effortlessly? Of course.
Yet, without the ability to tap the energy, talents, skills and passions of these great educators that are touching our collective futures every day, we are missing a major ingredient necessary to soar in the 21st century knowledge economy.
Research and common sense reinforce that quality teachers matter. In the education enterprise we must always remember that teachers have the lead role (along with parents and students). The teacher is Diana Ross and the rest within the school building are singing “doo-opp.”
We need to actively seek ways to engage teachers and make them a key member of any education reform effort.
If you can read this, thank a teacher!
But if you are a policy-maker (governor, legislator, school board member, superintendent, principal), consider re-evaluating how you can harness the talents of the master-link in the learning process — our great teachers.
The future of our state and nation is inextricably linked to the quality of our teachers.
Dave Murray is the Grand Rapids community engagement specialist. Email him at dmurray@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter @ReporterDMurray or on Facebook.
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