Posted on by grumpyoldteacher

On Tyranny: Lessons for Educators 11

Reflections on the short yet deep book of Timothy Snyder.

Investigate. Figure out things for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad.) Take responsibility for what you communicate to others.

Back in 2011, Florida enacted a law requiring teacher evaluations to be based on test score data and eliminating ‘tenure’ in favor of annual contracts that could be non-renewed for any reason or no reason at all.

Few teachers paid attention until 2014 when the law took effect. At that time, teachers in my building were upset, mad, and demanding to know when it happened. I replied, “Three years ago. I tried to tell you.”

I know the risk of uttering any criticism of teachers, but sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Get active. Understand what’s going on. Raise your voice. Monitor the legislative sessions in your state and what laws are proposed. Your livelihood depends on it. Stop voting for people who want to take away every protection you have. Stop voting for people whose end goal is to demolish the career you have chosen. Stop voting for people who see you as Public Enemy No. 1.

Think about your professional development. You are your own expert. Keep learning; keep striving to be a better teacher, whether it is gaining new content knowledge or perfecting your craft as a teacher.

Subscribe to a few professional journals. Read the magazines your union sends you. It’s not all business or organizing; unions sponsor research into best teaching practices. I have found many good ideas in the publications of NEA and AFT.

Read books. Don’t rely solely on your district for your professional growth. Much of what they do is to enable them to reach district goals, which center on school grades, not what you need to be a better educator.

Be careful of what you find on social media/the internet. There are good ideas and materials on sites like TeachersPayTeachers, but some of it is plagiarized and some of it is schlock. Don’t be lazy; write your own lesson plans even if they are only in your head. Many district lesson plan templates exist to document compliance with legal obligations or district requirements. Don’t be afraid to force the template to record your plan as you intend to teach the lesson.

Responsibility for what we teach is inherent in our professional standing. Justifying bad practice by pointing to the district curriculum is bad practice. The next generation is depending upon their teachers. Let’s not fail them.

Posted on by grumpyoldteacher · 1 Comment

Hello, Jacksonville! More Notes from NPE

Sorry, I didn’t post last night about the afternoon sessions. It was a long day beginning at 7:30 in the morning and lasting until 8:30 at night. All I had time to do was fix a few typographical errors in the previous post.

Highlights from Connecting the Fight for Democracy to the Fight to Save Public Education:

Democracy is learrned in the classroom. Sometimes formally in the curriculum, but also in how the classroom functions: how teachers establish the ethos to guide its function, how peers interact with one another, and how the adults react to those peer interactions.

Good schools cannot teach democracy alone and achieve societal goals; investment in the community is needed as well through the provision of means to achieve health care, eliminate hunger, etc. Anti-democratic forces know this and want to eliminate both.

Converting federal involvement into block grants takes away the federal government’s ability to specify rules and conditions that worked to achieve fairness and equity. Dismantling federal agencies does the same.

It is futile to meet this moment with past practices and strategies. We must build a movement of the many to not only defend, but improve local schools and government services. Don’t defend general ideas or institutions. Focus on individual impacts. Reach out to win over the one-third of the electorate that did not vote.

Highlights from Flipping the Conversation and Changing the Narrative:

No one will be persuaded if they are given facts and figures–storytelling is the key. Know your audience, establish a common language, provide a clear, coherent, and cohesive story that has emotion; also, don’t memorize or improvise, but practice the story and act natural.

E.g., ask people how many days of schooling do their children lose if a state adopts a certain law or policy? Four? People will react because it has become personal to them if a policy costs their children days of learning.

Change from talking about the vehicle to talking about the destination. Shift from discussing a policy to exploring the policy’s impact on the audience. Put faces on the policy changes. Who was affected? What’s their story?

Don’t qualify or condition statements. Say the thing, have passion over polish, and don’t run on. Too much detail buries the message.

Name the villain. Who is responsible? Be direct and focus on a common enemy, which does not have to be a person. Avoid passive language.

Utilize social media platforms. Be simple and consistent, but vary the content of what is posted. Engage with people to grow followers. Learn how to use the different platforms.

Get to the why, i.e. who has controlled the legislature and school funding when people talk about bad schools and low test scores. Be a truthteller. Show up. Give your testimony. Don’t overlook any area or group of people, for example, rural Americans.

Put out reports. Bring media attention and develop relationships with reporters and journalists. Use charts and graphs to make things easily understandable. Attach the report to real people. Provide fact sheets and stories. It’s an all of the above strategy.

Don’t overlook AI and put your content on the internet. Use AI to pick up the content and provide it when people are using AI and chatbots to find information. It will use the content in its results.

Thank the media for the stories it reports when it provides a positive message for schools. Comment on stories; submit questions.

This isn’t polished content but a quick summation of all I learned yesterday afternoon. We have more sessions today and close out with a keynote address by Governor Walz. I’ll provide a final update late this afternoon. Have a happy Sunday!

Posted on by grumpyoldteacher

The Tesla Tank

I will not offend your eyeballs or your ears with a picture or a mention of that vehicle. Suffice it to say that today I saw two on the brief stretch of interstate I use between my library branch and home. It still is ugly to my eyes, even if one owner painted theirs all black and another painted theirs with a black roof and olive green sides. I kept an eye out for flying side panels.

The Rise and Fall of the Elon Empire.

This is the tank I’m talking about–the tumble in stock price of Elon Musk’s central business, one that has lost 48% of its value from its peak in mid-December till now. (Although this is a concern for Musk, it does not mean his house of financial cards is about to fall. Note that today’s price is the same as it was in October.)

Around the world, Tesla has lost its cachet. 94% of Germans say they would never consider buying a Tesla. Sales are down across the globe. In America, Tesla owners are desperately trying to shed their vehicles, but Trump’s supporters are all-in on gasoline, not electric-fueled vehicles.

Not to mention the competitive challenge Tesla faces as Chinese EVs (Electric vehicles) overtake it. Tesla is the overpriced Macbook to Chinese Windows-running computers. But the snob appeal is gone as Musk has become in only two months a toxic personality that consumers loathe.

It’s so bad that the huckster-in-chief, the con of cons, the man who wrote the book on how to build and then ruin a brand, the man whose picture is on the page when you look up grifter in the dictionary, had to promote someone other than himself and staged a Tesla sell-a-thon in the driveway at the White House.

Why, it’s almost like parents CHOOSING to abandon their public school for one of the many options now available. Why are people who push hard for school CHOICE upset now that automobile owners are CHOOSING to abandon their Teslas for a different vehicle? Isn’t that their CHOICE?

Muskrat Love is NOT on my playlist.

Just as the Muskrat wielded a chainsaw on stage, one gifted to him by Argentine’s current president, Javier Milei, and said he would use it on the federal bureaucracy, including the Education Department, investors took a look at the stock price and rebelled. It seems Elon has become toxic and Tesla’s Board of Directors is concerned to the point of discussing his continuing involvement with the company. They also are looking out for themselves as they sell off their stock in the business.

Not even the best oligarchs can save this mess. Their expertise lies in monopolizing markets and taking choice away from consumers. Then, they can charge whatever they want, which is probably their end game. I used to think that they wanted parents to have to bear the full cost of educating their children, thereby eliminating public schools and school taxes. But the profit motive is strong–strong enough for them to want to eliminate public schooling as the most cost-efficient and effective means of delivering education to children so parents have no choice but to pick a profit-generating alternative.

Then again, I don’t think this is a universal plan among the ‘garchs. Some of them must be planning to replace their wage-busted undocumented workers, now deported or soon to be, with children. After all, if their parents can’t afford to send them to school, they are available to work. Isn’t this why states are weakening child labor laws?

What a dream! It’s as if the Gilded Age has returned in all its ugliness and fury as a few ‘garchs gather control of the entire economy into their hands. Vanderbilt, Morgan (JP), Gould, Carnegie, Rockefeller et al. approve.

We used to think Connect-The-Dots was a children’s game as we adults try to figure out what the ‘garchs and their stooge in the White House are really up to. Maybe it still is, but the children no longer hold the pencil. They are the dots.