From My Reader
Published: June 29, 2010Published: June 21, 2010Published: June 20, 2010
Archive - February, 2010
Secretary of Ed on Teacher Prep, Again
This recent speech was posted on ED’s web site. In it, Secretary Duncan criticizes teacher preparation programs. He spoke:
In a speech last fall at the Teachers College at Columbia, I noted that education schools have long been treated as the Rodney Dangerfield of higher education. Colleges of education have traditionally been the institution that got no respect—yet still they are described as cash cows for other, more academically-prestigious departments of the university.
Once teachers finish their preparation program, they enter a profession that continues to treat them as something less than highly-skilled professionals. Smart induction policies and well-designed mentoring for new teachers is the exception, rather than the rule. Professional development is generally of poor quality. Pay is based not on your performance in the classroom or your impact on student learning but rather on your credentials and time spent in the job. Performance evaluations of teachers are largely a sham.
So, how do we explain this paradox of on the one hand revering teachers, yet on the other hand, failing to elevate the teaching profession?
In the context of the current political climate, it seems like these questions fit conveniently with hot topics like of teacher tenure, teacher training, and the use of online courses and blended learning models to broaden the school day. The iZone work I am a part of in NYC is one example of a major city trying to better understand how new approaches to teaching and learning might be used in over 1500 schools.
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Declan’s Epic: A Boy and a Book
When my wife and I waited to learn the sex of the child months ago, I recall the weight I felt on my shoulders as the doctor told us: it’s a boy. A boy? Immediately, I began rehearsing scenarios in my imagination. The kinds of conversations all men have had but don’t necessarily remember: how to aim at the toilet bowl, how to play football, how to treat friends and lovers. And of course The Talk! Our train ride from the hospital that morning might as well have been a rehearsal studio for The Talk, starring Declan and his bumbling daddy.
Still, during this time I decided–out of the blue–that I would give Declan one of the greatest gifts I had gotten: the gift of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
I searched for weeks for a copy of Paradise Lost that I could gift to Declan after our reading. Most of what I found were paperback editions busting at the bindings with critical notes. Not quite what I had in mind. Then, I found a copy on my book shelf that I received from a student years ago. I don’t remember which student (though I’ve narrowed it down to a few). The book is an 1888 edition of Milton’s poetical works. It’s stunning. I don’t know how I forgot about it.
The first 20 pages or so are falling out, but in a clump.
My hope is that a New York based book binder can help restore it so Declan and I can get reading.
It’s something to be looking at a book that is so very old. The way the book smells, for instance… like a some strange mixture of smoke and musk and wood. To think: that book was published over a century ago. Jack the Ripper was marauding around the very same London Milton inhabited over two hundred years earlier. Appropriately, the book is called a “family edition” because of the pictures that decorate the pages throughout.
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Really, Lenovo?
I saw this posting this morning in an Education Week email update. “Really?” I thought. It’s that explicit? How is an educator supposed to attend this webinar and not feel like they are being pitched to the whole time to buy Lenovo’s computers? Will Lenovo list fairly what its computers can and can’t do so education technology leaders can make an informed decision? Check it out:
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Dissertation Train Leaving the Station
Just moments ago, I submitted my second certification exam. It’s a fifty-page review of studies related to my own present and future work. In it, I ask a series of questions to guide the review:
- Why don’t policymakers read educational research?
- Why don’t researchers write for policymakers?
- What gaps exist because policymakers and researchers don’t read and write for each other?
- What assumptions about reading and writing underlie this gapbetween research and policy?
I’m becoming particularly interested in learning more about policymakers and implementers as readers, non-readers, and re-readers. Many thanks to Jon Becker who replied to my last post and gave me invaluable direction.
The next steps include meeting with my adviser for breakfast Friday, discussing the kinds of studies this lit review lends itself to, and beginning preparations on a dissertation proposal for a hearing in the May. If you have any ideas, leads, or links, please send them along!
** On another note, I’m also beginning now to prepare for a reading of Paradise Lost to my son, Declan. These tender, but literary, posts will pepper the blog in the months to come. **
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Help Move Education Forward (and me)
Over the past several weeks, the blog has been quiet. In part, that’s because I have a new son and am thoroughly enjoying being a father. It’s also because I’m at a bit of a crossroads with my doctoral research and hitting a bit of a wall.
In the past, I had expected fully to be writing a dissertation about new literacies and how they relate to the teaching of English, literature especially. I’m not so sure about that now. While I do think such a study is important, there are other aspects of education that have begun to intrigue me. This is greatly due to the new work I’ve begun this year in NYC’s iZone initiative.
Since beginning the new job, I have become increasingly aware of the way in which educational research does and does not affect how policy makers go about reform. This gap between scholarship and schools fascinates me. How does the way educational researchers represent their ideas affect how those ideas are realized in schools? I wish to spend the next week with this question. I’ll be posting snippets from some writing I’m doing that begins to grapple with this question.
And I’m asking for any insights and ideas you may have regarding what is needed in the fields of reform and educational research.
