This sweet 1yr old developmentally behind her twin due to malnutrition, making progress now.

On a bipartisan trip to Ghana with One International, Karen Finney tweeted this picture.  It is heartwarming and heartbreaking at once.  It costs almost nothing to prevent, and in dire cases, with luck, reverse the detriment of malnutrition.  We can do this.  Shame on those who prevent such aid from arriving where it is needed.  They threaten the future.

Thank you, Karen, for sharing this!

BRIEF DESCRIPTION ABOUT REIO GHANA

Published Online: May 2, 2011

Commentary

An Open Letter From Arne Duncan to America’s Teachers

In Honor of Teacher Appreciation Week

By Arne Duncan

I have worked in education for much of my life. I have met with thousands of teachers in great schools and struggling schools, in big cities and small towns, and I have a deep and genuine appreciation for the work you do. I know that most teachers did not enter the profession for the money. You became teachers to make a difference in the lives of children, and for the hard work you do each day, you deserve to be respected, valued, and supported.

I consider teaching an honorable and important profession, and it is my goal to see that you are treated with the dignity we award to other professionals in society. In too many communities, the profession has been devalued. Many of the teachers I have met object to the imposition of curriculum that reduces teaching to little more than a paint-by-numbers exercise. I agree.

Inside your classroom, you exercise a high degree of autonomy. You decide when to slow down to make sure all of your students fully understand a concept, or when a different instructional strategy is needed to meet the needs of a few who are struggling to keep up. You build relationships with students from a variety of backgrounds and with a diverse array of needs, and you find ways to motivate and engage them. I appreciate the challenge and skill involved in the work you do and applaud those of you who have dedicated your lives to teaching.

Many of you have told me you are willing to be held accountable for outcomes over which you have some control, but you also want school leaders held accountable for creating a positive and supportive learning environment. You want real feedback in a professional setting rather than drive-by visits from principals or a single score on a bubble test. And you want the time and opportunity to work with your colleagues and strengthen your craft.

You have told me you believe that the No Child Left Behind Act has prompted some schools—especially low-performing ones—to teach to the test, rather than focus on the educational needs of students. Because of the pressure to boost test scores, NCLB has narrowed the curriculum, and important subjects like history, science, the arts, foreign languages, and physical education have been de-emphasized. And you are frustrated when teachers alone are blamed for educational failures that have roots in broken families, unsafe communities, misguided reforms, and underfunded schools systems. You rightfully believe that responsibility for educational quality should be shared by administrators, community, parents, and even students themselves.

The teachers I have met are not afraid of hard work, and few jobs today are harder. Moreover, it’s gotten harder in recent years; the challenges kids bring into the classroom are greater and the expectations are higher. Not too long ago, it was acceptable for schools to have high dropout rates, and not all kids were expected to be proficient in every subject. In today’s economy, there is no acceptable dropout rate, and we rightly expect all children—English-language learners, students with disabilities, and children of poverty—to learn and succeed.

You and I are here to help America’s children. We understand that the surest way to do that is to make sure that the 3.2 million teachers in America’s classrooms are the very best they can be. The quality of our education system can only be as good as the quality of our teaching force.

So I want to work with you to change and improve federal law, to invest in teachers and strengthen the teaching profession. Together with you, I want to develop a system of evaluation that draws on meaningful observations and input from your peers, as well as a sophisticated assessment that measures individual student growth, creativity, and critical thinking. States, with the help of teachers, are now developing better assessments so you will have useful information to guide instruction and show the positive impact you are having on our children.

Working together, we can transform teaching from the factory model designed over a century ago to one built for the information age. We can build an accountability system based on data we trust and a standard that is honest—one that recognizes and rewards great teaching, gives new or struggling teachers the support they need to succeed, and deals fairly, efficiently, and compassionately with teachers who are simply not up to the job. With your input and leadership, we can restore the status of the teaching profession so more of America’s top college students choose to teach because no other job is more important or more fulfilling.

In the next decade, half of America’s teachers are likely to retire. What we do to recruit, train, and retain our new teachers will shape public education in this country for a generation. At the same time, how we recognize, honor, and show respect for our experienced educators will reaffirm teaching as a profession of nation builders and social leaders dedicated to our highest ideals. As that work proceeds, I want you to know that I hear you, I value you, and I respect you.

Arne Duncan is the U.S. secretary of education.

Our webinar guests will discuss both the research on the most effective approaches to improving literacy for ELLs and how some school districts have tried to carry out those approaches.

Presenters:

Diane August, Ph.D. is a senior research scientist affiliated with the Center for Applied Linguistics, in Washington. She is a frequent speaker on research-based practices for teaching literacy to ELLs at conferences. She is the principal investigator for a large federally-funded study investigating the development of literacy in English-language learners.

Gabriela Uro is the manager of ELL policy and research for the Washington-based Council of the Great City Schools. She organizes teams to conduct comprehensive audits of ELL services in large urban school districts. She’s also a liaison for the council’s task force on English-language learners and bilingual education.

Moderator:

Mary Ann Zehr, an assistant editor for Education Week and author of Learning the Language, a blog about English-language learners. No phone is required to participate in the webinar. An archived version will be available within 24 hours of the presentation. The event is not close-captioned. Access will be available starting 15 minutes prior to the event. It is highly recommended that you allow time for system compatibility testing and any downloading that may prove necessary prior to the event. For optimal viewing the recommended browsers are IE for PC users and Firefox for Mac. Please check your audio settings and speaker volume.

REGISTER HERE>>>>

]]> http://everycreativegene.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/webinar-for-esl-teachers-may-4/feed/ 0 rorowlands http://everycreativegene.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/for-language-teachers/ http://everycreativegene.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/for-language-teachers/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:50:05 +0000 rorowlands http://everycreativegene.wordpress.com/?p=234 ]]> How early we learn the kinesics and proxemics of our culture!

Next Season on Survivor

Have you heard about the next planned “Survivor” show?

 

Mayor Bloomberg (NYC), Kathy Black (NYC Schools’ Chancellor), Governor Walker (Wis) and Governor Christie (NJ) will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 1 school year.  Each of them will be provided with a copy of his/her school district’s curriculum, and a class of 20-25 students.

 

Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.H.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.

 

Each of them must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance, with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways.

 

In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and [Code Red] drills for shooting attacks each month.

 

They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the SOLS tests.  If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.

 

Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times.  If all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.

 

These people will only have access to the public golf course on the weekends, but with their new salary, they will not be able to afford it.  There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of their work day.  They will be permitted to use a student restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class.

 

If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before, or after, school. However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit of copies.  They must also continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time.

 

The winner of this Season of Survivor will be allowed to return to their job.

 

Pass this to your friends who think teaching is easy, and to the ones that know it is hard.

Published Online: March 23, 2011

‘Curriculum’ Definition Raises Red Flags

By Catherine Gewertz

Calls for shared curriculum for the common standards have triggered renewed debates about who decides what students learn, and even about varied meanings of the word “curriculum,” adding layers of complexity to the job of translating the broad learning goals into classroom teaching.

The most recent calls for common curriculum came from the American Federation of Teachers and the Albert Shanker Institute, a think tank named after the late AFT leader. Many others are working on pieces of that puzzle—an array of instructional resources for states, districts, and teachers. But the calls for “shared” or “common” curricula have sparked particularly heated conversations.

Read the article>>>>>

Happy New Year to all!

I have been an ESL and Bilingual teacher in the Bronx for 7 years.  About 4 years ago, the NYC Office of English Language Learners purchased a pilot of the Award Reading program (www.awardinteractive.com).  Schools throughout the city were a part of the pilot, myself included.  I was amazed at how rigorous it was for my students, and all the time they felt like they were playing, not learning.  I even had brand new arrivals move up from a kindergarten reading level to a 2nd grade one in just one year.  My intermediate and advanced students all skyrocketed on the NYSESLAT and in their reading and writing within their classrooms.  I saw astonishing growth. The program is a balanced literacy and technology program, all in one.  It is meant for Pre-K through 3rd graders, but ELL students who are below grade level but in 4th grade and higher also benefit from it, without feeling like it is babyish.  Students read quality books, both fiction and non-fiction, then do technology and print-related activities to extend their learning.  There is grammar, phonics, comprehension, tons of vocabulary and fluency all built into it.  They also have moved everything online now (www.awardreadingonline.com).   If you want more details, or want to learn more about how it helped my students, please email me at miss.castellano@gmail.com.  Thanks!  Best of luck!