What Teachers Are Talking About This Week
February 11, 2016 | Sign up to receive The Teachers Edition.
President Obama's proposed 2017 budget includes a $1 billion commitment -- called RESPECT: Best Job in the World -- to attract and retain effective educators in high-need schools through advancement opportunities, teacher-led development, improved working conditions and compensation. It also dedicates $10 million to Teach to Lead and $125 million to programs that would create and expand pathways into the teaching profession, particularly in high-need schools and high-need subject areas.
Education Week collected photos on Tuesday of principals at work using the Twitter hashtag #APrincipalsDay. The project is part of a special report on principals: Shaping Strong School Leaders. Principals were caught counseling students, visiting classrooms, directing traffic, and eating lunch -- at 6 p.m.
Anthony Yom, a math teacher in Los Angeles, got lots of attention a couple weeks ago when one of his students was among only 12 in the world to get a perfect score on the AP Calculus exam. Now, LA Times columnist Steve Lopez takes a look inside Yom's class to determine the secret recipe for how to get every one of your students to pass the exam. Says one student: "He challenges us to the max, so we do better on tests."
Denver Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib recalls one day in elementary school when "We had to write a little, one-page thing on what we were gonna be when we grow up, so I put, ‘I’m gonna be an NFL player.’" His teacher's reply was less than encouraging, but nevertheless he persevered, drawing strength from his ten-year-old wisdom. See what he said to his teacher in reply (Collier, Post-Gazette). In our defense, here are the odds of becoming an NFL star.
A survey of 66,000 middle and high school students found that only 47 percent of students feel they have a voice in their school. Meanwhile, 43 percent said they were bored in school. The survey writers point to student-teacher relationships as an important way to help improve some of these numbers. Read the rest of the results here (Education Week).
 At one Chicago elementary school, students say in-class yoga is helping them "calm down when you get angry." Child health researchers say children exposed to constant signs of stress can show similar symptoms of trauma to what's endured by combat veterans. At this school, students breathe and visualize success before taking tests (Al Jazeera America).
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Fifth-grade teacher Dorothy Suskind reflects on the benefits of being a teacher-researcher: "Teacher researchers pause each morning as they walk into their classrooms and ask, 'What will my students teach me today?' To answer that question, they listen to and watch their students engage in authentic work; collect work samples, photographs, and transcripts to document what their students say and do; and use that information to evolve their practice as they celebrate and support the voices and experiences of the children they teach" (Edutopia).
 Outside Magazine takes readers inside an adventure boarding school for kids with ADHD. For kids whose "neurons are exploding in a million directions," school leaders have found that outdoor adventure, like rock climbing and rappelling, is helping kids gain focus. According to the article, "studies consistently show that aerobic activity targets the same attentional networks that ADHD medication does" -- read to learn how it works for kids like Zack who was twice suspended and placed in a special classroom when he was in a regular middle school.
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U.N. Issues Concerns About Status of African-American Ed
A United Nations working group visited several states last month to evaluate the experience of African-Americans in the United States and issued a report last week decrying the presence of police in schools and "excessive punishment of poor children for minor offenses." They also objected to what they called "structural invisibility of African-Americans" in school curricula, particularly as it relates to colonization and enslavement, and de facto segregation in schools.
 There is a new-looking school in Forsyth, Ga., but don't expect any students to walk into classrooms. That's because the school is being used as a national training site for how officers respond to school shootings. They expect to train 30,000 officers this year alone. This short video takes viewers inside a chilling simulation; says one trainer: "What somebody's gonna do and who's going to do it ... these are a lot of unknowns. But I know it's a statistical likelihood that it's going to happen" (Atlantic).
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 Stamped and Delivered
Garfield High School (Los Angeles, Ca.) math teacher Jaime Escalante who was featured in the film Stand and Deliver, which depicted his quest to inspire and teach calculus to underachieving Latino students, is now featured on a new U.S. postage stamp. "With his colleagues at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, he proved that supposedly 'unteachable' students could master even the most difficult subject," the USPS said in announcing the new stamp (Kim, Education Week).
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5. "No plan or program will ever fix [education] issues if you don't have the right people" (Teacher, Illinois).
4. "Until legislatures and teachers come together and talk about education rather than in two separate rooms, we will not have progress" (Teacher, Massachusetts).
3. "The most important adults in schools are the ones that know the most kids' names" (Teacher, Washington D.C.)
2. "Saying 'I'm just a teacher' is like SpiderMan or the Black Panther saying, 'I'm just a super hero.' Doesn't even sound right" (Principal, Pennsylvania).
1. "I don't have a choice to be a teacher leader. My students need me to be" (Teacher, DoDEA)
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