What Teachers Are Talking About This Week
February 4, 2016 | Sign up to receive The Teachers Edition.
Earlier this week, Acting Secretary John King continued to make the case for reducing the amount of time American students spend on testing. In a short video on YouTube and a letter to chief state school officers, King clarified that good assessments are critical for learning, but that poorly constructed assessments take away from learning time and aren't useful to parents and educators.
Every teacher has heard it in response to the question, "What do you do for a living?" It sounds something like, "Oh wow, thank you for doing that!" But talking about teachers like we're missionaries reflects a subtle bias, according to writer Amanda Ripley. She cites the common refrain, "Are you going to be a principal?" as evidence that people generally misunderstand the intellectual challenge of teaching: "Do people ask a pediatrician why she isn't gunning to be a hospital chief?" she writes (Washingtonian).
 After Their Teacher Went Into Space, Her Students Went Into Teaching
Thirty years after Concord (N.H.) High School watched social studies teacher Christa McAuliffe take off aboard space shuttle Challenger, a number of them have gone into teaching. One, an elementary school teacher in Virginia, says she sometimes asks herself "What would Christa do?" as she writes her lesson plans (McCormack, Associated Press).
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NPR has been profiling great teachers at all kinds of schools around the world as part of their 50 Great Teachers project. Now, they synthesized 12 interviews with top teachers to offer 12 necessities for being a great teacher. Among them:
- Assume a secret identity
- Be a teacher, not a friend
- Recognize it takes vulnerability to learn
Per-pupil spending in this country ranges widely: from as little as $6,432 per student in Utah to as much as $20,530 in Washington, D.C. Many states dropped their per-pupil spending this year. The biggest spenders tend to be clustered in the Northeast, whereas the Southeast and West tend to spend the least. See how your state compares here (Brown, Washington Post).
 Artist Weighs Going To College, Working To Support Her Family
In this short documentary, a talented teenager in the Mojave Desert is torn between her goal of attending art school and wanting to help support her family. Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe have collaborated for over 20 years on documentary and fiction films, and in this one, we see a school that may not be able to fix a student’s home life, but "it can offer students acknowledgment, advice, life skills, and most important, empathy. In Summer’s case, it at least gave her a choice" (New York Times).
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- "The best resource we can give teachers is time with each other. Not a matter of finding it, it's a matter of making it." -- Kyle Pace, Instructional Technology Specialist, Missouri
- "It's important to support teachers and administrators who want to take chances. Inertia is a real force." -- Al Rowell, Teacher, Georgia
- "Passive versus active use [of technology]. Really need to push for creation and not consumption." -- Brandi Miller, Teacher, California
Join next Tuesday night's Twitter chat on leadership and technology (7 pm EST, 4 pm CST) and you might find your voice here.
Is all the emphasis on collaboration, group work, and professional learning communities causing introverted teachers to burn out? Some suggest that introverted teachers are struggling with "collaborative overload," which eliminates the possibility of teachers having time to recharge in the way they might need (Godsey, Atlantic). Former teacher John Spencer has ideas for how we could reinvent school to support introverted teachers.

Ariz. Counselor Named 2016 School Counselor of the Year
As part of her Reach Higher initiative, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted the 2nd Annual School Counselors of the Year in the East Room of the White House. Katherine Pastor, a school counselor at Flagstaff High School (Flagstaff, Ariz.) was honored for her passion for the profession and unyielding integrity that make her an indispensable asset to her students, her school and her community.
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 5. "Teachers must assume the best in their students but administrators must do the same with the teachers" (Teacher, Virginia). 4. Having a voice in educational decisions that involve my students and my profession will make me feel empowered" (Teacher, Maine). 3. In reference to student teaching arrangements: “We can’t practice on children….they have one chance to go through 5th grade” (Teacher, New York). 2. “Teacher prep doesn’t end on the day you get your job” (Teacher, Connecticut). 1. “We spend too much time on nomenclature instead of on actual teaching and figuring out how to change the life of every kid." (Teacher, New York).
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