A comment by a reader suggests a new contest. Who would you like to see assigned to teach for a year and under what conditions? What are the terms of the contest and how would you determine the winner?
Put your thinking caps on. The contest lasts for 24 hours only and may be shortened or extended by the decision of the judge (me).
Ready, set, go!
Sounds like a good show but I’d prefer to watch “Survivor Inner City Edition” where in September they put ed reformers like Gates, Broad, various politicians and members of the Walton family in a city like say Newark with only 5 weeks of TFA training. They would have to live on a 1st year teacher’s salary and use only the resources available in that school. Of course they would get that extra “loss aversion” incentive money but they won’t be able to spend it until the following year when their test results are finally posted. The one who makes it to June wins! What you ask? The chance to do it all again the next year! But then again if their scores didn’t improve well then maybe not.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would nominate my superintendent. He would have to teach according to his allotment of minutes per subject area that he sends out every September. The only problem with his schedule is that it allows no time for snack, transitioning between subjects/ specials, sharing, and sometimes just having fun (I should whisper that last word: fun left the curriculum years ago). I currently teach second grade. One kid coming in upset or eager to share the news of a new baby in the family can put the whole day’s schedule off. Children aren’t machines that can be turned on/ off when it suits our purposes. When did learning to be a human being leave the curriculum?
A high school student in a high scoring parish in Louisiana told me that the schools had destroyed her creativity by the time she was in the third grade. She was an honor student. The system is second or third highest scoring in the state. It is very sad how love of learning and school can be extinguished by a few bad administrators.
I’d like to see both Arne Duncan and my state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, teach a year’s worth of freshman English (or any other tested subject, for that matter) at a public high school in Detroit…
They would have to live on their income as a teacher (which has been cut by 10% by the emergency manager), though we could allow them to share an apartment to save money. They would also be required to write daily plans describing how they will get their class of 40-60 students (class size also increased by the EM) to meet the standards and be able to pass the Michigan state achievement tests.
They would be considered a “winner” if they survived the year without using up all their sick days (assuming that the EM has not taken these away from teachers). Their “winner” status would be revoked if they still insist that poverty is an excuse.
How about a Gladiator Team Teaching Event? Within one semester, in a high poverty school district, the teams must compete to raise test scores by at least one grade level.
Team One: Arne Duncan, Gov. Mitch Daniels, Bill Gates, and hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson
Team Two: Pearson CEO Marjorie Scaduto, Gov. Kasich, Joel I. Klein, and Sal Khan
Add Charlotte Danielson and Robert Marzano to the teams.
I’d like to see any of these plutodidact contestants with school age children enroll their kids in the same schools to which they are assigned, just to help develop their empathy a bit.
Wow! Empathy? Would they even know how to identify such an emotion?
Chris Christie,just imagine the parent/teacher conferences
WOW…let’s add Chris Cerf to that list. Now the only problem, we need to be able to pick the schools. They’ll wanna go to one of those high performing magnet schools! Not happening…if they need extra resources or supplies for students…they must buy them with their salary.
All I’d need is a 1/2 hour of Duncan, Rhee, et al’s time. It would be a suburban school (easy right?). Kindergarten class, so no huge problems with discipline. It would be an art class, so the kids would be motivated. Here’s what they’d need to do in 1/2 hour:
* Get their styrafoam printing-plates that they completed last week, brayers, inking plates for 6 tables and locate the owners of the styrafoam plates with no names, this last bit is extremely important.
*Demo how to print and make sure everyone is watching. Extra attention would be given to how to roll the brayer in the ink forward and back, what a good ink cover sounds like and looks like (sticky for the sound and smooth, but slightly bumpy like an orange for the texture).
*Make sure enough paper to print on is at each table and then squeeze 2 inches of ink onto the inking plates at each table.
*Children rolling brayers through ink may have to be reminded to cease jumping up and down and roll the ink onto their printing plate. It’s called the brayer dance, it’s a lot of fun, but they forget to do their prints.
*Keep squirting ink on the inking plates as it runs out.
*Keep scanning for kids inking their hands, faces and other people’s paint shirts. Redirect if this is happening.
*Remind everyone of their time limits and keep squirting ink.
*5 minutes before the end of class and as all ink dries on the inking plate stop the printmaking. This is the difficult part but it helps that they run out of ink.
*Direct students to locate their prints and pick up any on the floor, etc. Remind them that the ink is sticky and not to stack them together.
*Designated helpers pick up all brayers and take them to the restroom to clean-up (it helps if the custodian is laid-back).
*All others throw away the inking plates and styrafoam printing plates, wash tables, dry them, locate their prints and sit down. Sometimes it helps to put heads down because they are all high on art at this point.
* Collect or redirect on how to clean brayers. Check restrooms for errant ink.
* If there is time, have several children get up and reflect on their process, other may positively critique the work being shown. Mark the names of the children who do this so you hit everyone during the year.
*Dismiss, there is another class lined up in the hall to come in the minute after this one leaves.
*Repeat.
It would be a salutary experience for them I know. One of my principals had to do it for me once and she still remembers the prints, the ink and the kids as a huge artistic jumble. I respected her more than any of my other principals after surviving this. The real key is that each child must have 2 prints. This is the criteria, and I’d bet good money none of the empty suits could pull it off.
It is always a good day if you have a good principal who is willing to get ink on her hands. You are blessed.
Hope you have your helpers put the painting shirts on the kids. That is always interesting with little ones. Some of my special ed kids I took off their shirts (all were girls and under 10 and so was my para) and tied big towels around their necks. I also put shower caps on their heads. I had an art grant and we had great fun painting t-shirts.
Oops. Sorry. This was supposed to be for a year? Oh well, I think this 1/2 hour would do the trick.
Im a fourth grade teacher in Texas.
My contestants would be George W. Bush, Rick Perry, my micro managing principal, Bill Gates, President Obama, M. Rhee, and Duncan. They would be assigned a fourth grade class in a so called low performing school. Living in the community on a teacher salary would be a must. Each contest would be responsable for getting their classroom ready and weekly lesson plans. Contestants would learn how they have narrowed the curriculum when 25 kids walk in that have no idea that Texas is our state not a country or how to write a complete sentence since their only focus in previous years has been reading and math, but they will take the Writing STAAR in March. Each contestant will have a variety of ELL, Sped, GT, RTI, and learning impaired students. Oh and dont forget students with behavioral and emotional issues. Contestants will have to differintiate their teaching for the above, on,and below level students. They must make note how they are doing this in their weekly lesson plans. After each benchmark the contestants with the lowest % of passing students will be placed in the middle of town to answer for their bad teaching and then fired. The contestants that make it past the first round will be required to tutor after school and on Saturdays for free. They will need to turn in lesson plans for this in addition to their weekly ones.
I’d like to see the contest as the RURAL edition. Bill Gates and the Waltons assigned as the teacher in a 1 or 2 room school, teaching from 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM, 4 days a week with students in grades K-8. Lunch is a brown-bagger with students. There is a morning nutrition break, which the teacher must prepare, serve, and clean-up.The teacher has all duties, and there are no “specials”, except music for 45 minutes, once a week, about 3 out of 4 weeks per month. Of course, there is no on-site special education teacher, so the classroom teacher must make all accommodations and modifications within the regular classroom, and/or must facilitate, (in the regular classroom with all other students to attend to) therapy via computer teleconferencing.
The teacher(s) must provide lesson plans for every grade, every subject, every day, with reference to state and common core standards. There are no colleagues within a 75 mile radius. All disciplinary problems must be handled by the teacher, on site.
Parents may show up at any time and may remove their children for such reasons as “he [a 5-year old] is needed to work the round-up”, or “he [an 8-year-old] has to go on the deer hunt with me if we are to have any meat this winter”. Oh, also, on a fairly regular basis, the teacher must deal with scorpions and with sidewinders on the playground, and the yearly tarantula migration that goes right through the school yard. No special training is provided or required to deal with these issues, and of course, they were not likely covered in the 5 week training (or even in a 4-year course). The teacher is expected to live on-site in a trailer. The nearest grocery store and gas station is 75 miles away, and the prices are much higher than in the city.
None of this is made up or exaggerated; these are the actual working and living conditions in a Nevada rural school where I taught for 3 years., and the same conditions still apply. More often than not, the teacher hired for this position has little or no experience teaching, so perhaps the 5-week preparation isn’t all that much of a factor. I’m betting the oligarchs wouldn’t last a month, but if they should survive, they get the lowest pay in the state for their efforts, and if they leave before their year’s contract is over, their contract specifies that they will be billed for the cost of finding a replacement for them. Of course, they could also be sued for “abandonment” in this state, and lose their teaching license into the bargain.
Shall we recruit our friendly neighborhood cooties (aka, head lice) into this endeavor? Let’s imagine our contestants sporting mayonnaise and shower caps on their heads. They might also try the lovely smelling RidX. They can have a head shave if they can’t find someone to help them comb and pick.
That reminds me of a rural school where I worked where a high school student had lice. After being inspected and medicated by special education (We do that kind of thing even if we aren’t supposed to.)The RID was purchased by one of the paraprofessionals. She was then accompanied to the beauty school students in the vocational section of the school and given an attractive haircut. The cut was necessary because she was a white girl with unintentional dreadlocks. Her hair was matted beyond hope. She was poor. They said she lived with her daddy and had no sheets on the bed. She was not on free lunch because he was too proud to fill out the paperwork, as many of those parents were. She was about 17 or 18 so DFACS was not going to intervene anyway. It was her BOYFRIEND who brought her problem to the attention of special education. Kids have always known for some reason that special ed. will figure out what to do. This was in Georgia near the state line of Alabama. 2001. Paulding County.
Any ‘reformer’ teaching ethics would be fun to watch. (…or character education for the younger grades). There just has to be a standardized test that tests actual ethics…because they’ll teach their brand of ethics.
Michelle Rhee–let’s see what kind of miracle she can perform in the classroom.
Tom Corbett–the governor of Pennsylvania who has slashed funding and caused many teachers to lose their jobs. Let’s see how he likes being in a classroom packed with extra kids because of his policies.
I would feel bad for their students, though.
Any of the deformers would be great contestants. So, would the governors, mayors and lawmakers. Would make no difference what state. Placement must, however, be in their labeled “failing” schools.
Going to be a difficult contest to judge, Diane!
Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Bill and Melinda Gates, the Common Core team (final edition), President of the College Board, Governor (pick a state, doesn’t really matter)
Challenge: step into my role as a special education teacher with a resource class of students 3-4 years behind in math, and required to bring them up to level in one year. Then go down the hall into the rooms of other teachers to ‘serve’ my students who may or may not have the basic classroom skills to be successful. Handle all discipline in a proactive, developmentally appropriate manner, and above all, never piss off the parents. Have a friendly greeting ready for the child who threatened to hit you. Be respectful and professional with the administrator who demeans you (and colleagues) regularly. Drop everything when a parent calls, regardless of whether you are in the middle of instruction, but don’t dare leave students unsupervised. Teach with rigor and simulataneously ensure that all students are on the honor roll. Should be a cakewalk!
Anyone of these scenarios would be fun to watch on reality TV. I would just add in a full course of daily assessment, formative and/or summative, all aligned to the common core standards and, of course, all documented in daily lesson plans (turned in once a week).
Although I love him dearly, I would put President Obama in a school, not because he doesn’t care but because he does not understand school culture. He got the wrong advisor on this one in Arne Duncan and has also lapped up the propaganda of Michele Rhee. Otherwise he is a great president. High school. Inner city or rural anywhere. He would learn from the experience and be a changed man because he is open to change and wants to do a good job. High school social studies. Inner city or poor rural. Coach basketball on the side. Assigned to ride the school bus from the projects to keep order.
(A principal in Atlanta did this with his male teachers.)
This would not be intended to beat sense into the president but to teach him. He is out of touch in this one area.
Twinkie1cat,
I generally enjoy your posts and what you have to say but this is a doozy-“Otherwise he is a great president.”
Let’s see he who promised to expand the war in Afghanistan and did! He who wanted to keep our forces in Iraq longer than what was negotiated by the Bush administration-and even now there are many private mercenaries who have taken their place. He who involved the armed forces in Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and many other places not authorized by Congress. He who promised to “put on his walking shoes” to back labor and then sat on the sidelines in WI. He who has expanded drone operations throughout the world. He who has declared himself god and emperor able to kill anyone anytime as long as they are supposed terrorists including American citizens. He who as CIC proclaimed that uncharged and held in atrocious solitary confinement with practices that most consider tortuous Bradley Manning to be guilty without a shred of evidence being heard in a court. He of suspects not having due process rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. And on and on and on!
Nope, not a great president at all, pretty much on par with Bush the Second except that he talks a better game, con game that is.
Michelle Rhee: severe/profound/multihandicapped self contained. Everyone wears diapers, is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair. No paraprofessional. Students weigh 60-150 pounds. Parents who pop in and out. 7 students. 2 tube fed. Must teach, prepare lesson plans and write legally binding IEPS, give alternate high stakes test and stay under the radar of a racist principal who hates special education and people of other races and nationalities.
Bobby Jindal: Same conditions as Michelle Rhee plus a special hell for a second year since he is so arrogant, hardheaded and conservative. That is an inner city charter middle school full of over aged black male students held back because they cannot pass the LEAP. No paraprofessional. Building is crumbling. (Prescott Middle, Baton Rouge) Paycheck depends on results and he has to live in the same community with his students. (Highest homocide rate in city, zip code 70805—19% of the population but 30% of the murders.) Oh, and the charter runs out of money and informs the teachers they won’t be paid (Crestworth Academy, Baton Rouge, Thursday night Channel 2 WBRZ) If two years doesn’t teach him, he can go to a poor rural school, say Pointe Coupee High, for an additional year, a charter where a senior girl was bullied until she committed suicide this spring.
Bill Gates and Bloomberg. Somewhere in the inner city. In a school with no air conditioning on a 95 degree day (and no Mayor Bloomberg you may not install your own portable air conditioner like you have on your SUVs. It would be a violation of the fire code and run up the school’s electricity bill). Bill Gates will be teaching an inclusion class of 60 students (remember, class size does not matter and a super genius like Gates can surely handle 60 freshmen, 40 of whom are special ed and the other 20 have failed the Algebra EOC three times, with no teacher training). Did I mention you only get 35 desks and you’re in a classroom designed for 25? Did I mention that the special education teacher will be permanently absent from your classroom because they are too busy doing IEP’s to comply with the Department of Ed? Did I mention that you will have no technology to assist you with your instruction? Can’t just turn on the Khan academy negative integers lesson and sit back and check your email. Three independent evaluators (one an elementary teacher from the suburbs, one some type of “ed consultant” that used to work on Wall Street, and the other will be an administrator at your school sick of Harvard white guys from Seattle coming to his school for two year stints while they pray the economy improves). They will judge you for your use of collaborative learning, differentiated instruction, infusion of rigor, your students’ higher level thinking skills, data assessment feedback and any other instructional strategies currently being promoted by Kim Kardashian. What’s that you say? Why is Kim Kardashian telling you what to do as a teacher? What could a no talent Hollywood reality star who became famous for being peed on possibly know about teaching? Just because she chooses to donate wads of cash to every branch of the US public education system does not make her some sort of education Czarina! Some might ask the same question about how the founder of a monopolistic computer software platform could possibly be qualified to tell teachers what to do as well. Just saying.
I forgot to mention that at the end of the year your evaluation will ride on how your students performed on the state reading test instead of how they performed on the Algebra EOC because the value added algorithm needed three years of consecutive test scores in order to make its “growth” prediction.
Excellent scenarios so far, but I can’t believe that no one has mentioned teaching the more rigorous Common Core State Standards that will prepare every child for college and/or career. Contestants must teach these standards, which they have in large part helped fund, with only materials that are aligned to the CCSS, are touted by publishers as “research-based”, and are mandated by the district. Contestants must also prove that they are effective teachers based on their students test scores AND that their students can out compete students at their grade level in every other country.