An irony: Teachers are forced to teach to a test nowadays. More and more often, teachers can lose their positions if they don’t do this. That teaching leads to substandard results in the cases of students who are too far out of line with state standardized test expectations for their grade. For those students, teaching to the test frequently does more harm than good. Then administrations and everyday citizens blame teachers.

Eduhonesty: It’s like tying weights to a teacher’s legs and then demanding she jump the high bar.

The Wall Street Journal published an article in June of 2013 that suggested the surge in subprime mortgage defaults of 2008, a large factor in the global recession of that time, might have been caused by a simple inability to do the math necessary to understand the risk those mortgages represented.

I’m afraid I’m about to contribute to the next meltdown. If I don’t change positions, I’ll return to a math position where I will be expected to use a book that my students will find essentially unreadable while teaching lessons that have been previously scripted by committee. They will tell me what to teach. I will have to be teaching what everyone else is teaching or risk reprimands. Unfortunately, if my next class shares the data characteristics of my last class, that book will be 3-4 years above the actual mathematical operating level of my students. When I suggested to a colleague that I planned to scour the internet for appropriate materials, she strongly advised me not to go off the script. Deviations were not going to be tolerated by the new administration.

Eduhonesty: This is part of the reason why I interviewed for another position last week. I don’t want to bail on my district at this late date, but I don’t want to try to teach that book either. I will use the book if I must. I’m a team player. My gut response is that I will be selling my kids down the river, though, if I do what I’m told to do.

I don’t think I have a choice. I expect “informal” visits to be happening throughout the week as the new administration tries to step up our game. Sadly, I doubt my last minute rescue by District X will come through. I will be allowed a small portion of the class for review, but otherwise I am expected to be charging forward.

Damn. Damn. Damn. When I was in school, the administration seemed to understand that a student who finished the fourth grade book should go on to the fifth grade book, not the seventh grade book. They also understood that math classes needed to be tiered or, to use an unfashionable word, tracked. As it stands, I won’t be surprised to get a class whose test scores indicate that are working at anywhere from a second grade to a seventh grade mathematical level of mastery, all in the same room at the same time, with only a small number of students actually able to read the book.

My only chance will be after school tutoring, if I have any chance at all. I hope some of them will decide to stay late with me.

If we believe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity has more than quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. Unfortunately, I do believe the CDC. I can see in my school that many children are overweight or even obese. These children wear clothes to hide their rolls of fat. They talk about how fat they feel. Sometimes they ask teachers or other adults for advice as the first unwanted pounds start accumulating around their waists.

Government attempts to change school lunches are likely to be one more well-meaning mistake, however. I diet sometimes. After my recent three-week vacation, I need to diet again. And I know something those fans of the healthy new lunches don’t seem to have put together yet: You make stupid eating choices when you are hungry. Yesterday, I missed lunch because I ended up having an unexpected job interview. When I hit the Golden Corral dinner buffet with my girlfriend — I picked the buffet — I was starved. I guarantee no weight was lost yesterday. The final score was something like My Diet 0, Golden Corral 42.

As noted in a previous post, school lunches where I taught last year frequently had fewer than 300 calories, and that was assuming students ate the whole lunch. Many times, I’m sure the day’s school lunch calories are all consumed during P.E. On soccer days, active students are using more than a lunch worth of calories. These students will feel ravenous when they get home and will fill up on whatever is at hand. At that point, I’d bet the whole school lunch program comes undone. Bags of Takis, Flaming Hot Cheetos, tortilla chips, pizza, cheese quesadillas, leftovers and any snack that feels filling will be part of the afternoon feast.

Eduhonesty: I’d like the government out of the school lunch business, but if we can’t get the government out, we need to pay attention to lunch calories counts. I’m sure the first thing most of my students do when they get home is to start foraging in the cupboards and fridge. Current lunches offered at my school are more likely to cause obesity than to cure it.

It fell to Earth in some of the strangest places.

I just interviewed for an hour for an English position in an alternative safe school. It’s August. School has almost begun. I don’t want to make a change at such a late hour. My current district will be scrambling to replace me. But if I get the job, I’ll jump. The position sounds intriguing and the money would be a distinct improvement. The benefits are better, too. I’m getting old and shopworn as time passes and I don’t know if I’d hire me. I’ve made too many changes in the past. But I might get an offer nonetheless. My references are strong. I like alternative kids and I am sure this liking shows. I am more than willing to look past the infraction that got these kids expelled from their original schools.

Eduhonesty: I blame the internet. I am quite thoroughly endorsed since I love taking random college classes. Principals can search on my application endorsements and every so often someone finds me. I cannot help but want to explore my options.

For any aspiring teachers reading this post: Learn Spanish if you can. Take classes for fun when you are able. Pay the fee to add any endorsement for which you qualify. After three frustrating years looking for a history position, one of my favorite coworkers learned Spanish and found a bilingual social studies position almost immediately.

Passing by schools, I see parking lots filled with cars. We are all getting developed and with good reason: Teachers are required to have a certain number of professional development house (PD) in order to retain their licenses. Expectations and requirements keep going up too. My two masters’ degrees spared me from some of those hours in the past. In the future, I get no break for my previous education. I will need 120 hours of development for my next renewal, instead of 40. At an average of 6 hours per development day, that’s 20 days.

Eduhonesty: I don’t know how I feel about this. Continuing education has provided me with great ideas and strategies, some that I have been able to put into practice immediately. I love taking classes for enrichment.

On the other hand, after awhile these PD sessions become repetitive. I have an opportunity to go be developed for the next three days. They will pay me, so I probably should go. I’ve attended so many PD seminars on the topic in question, though, that I doubt the usefulness of parking my posterior in the latest uncomfortable chair. Who knows if the presenters have even taught in a public school classroom? I have been lectured at by men and women who have only taught college students and all I can say about those experiences is, “I’m sorry but until you have lived through a day in a room with twenty or thirty middle school students, please don’t tell me how to manage my classroom.” These are the same people who think you can easily break a class into four groups and then work with one group while the other three cheerfully do independent work.

Hah! I might even be able to make a mathematical law to cover this four-group suggestion: distance from the teacher is inversely proportional to time spent discussing romantic prospects and Justin Bieber. Bieber wins in this scenario, not the students. You can’t take your eyes off some kids and you shouldn’t take your eyes off others. I know this. Presenters who don’t understand what I am saying should not apply. I am especially suspicious because tomorrow’s presenters are coming from a publishing company.

But I’ll likely go. I just hope I learn something to justify all that time in a chair. I hate being stuck in chairs. That’s one reason I enjoy teaching. Possibly it’s also one reason I can make teaching work. I completely empathize with those kids who need to get up and move, even as I deny them their fifth bathroom break of the day.

Many people use these words interchangeably today but socialization stands for more than chatting with buddies in the lunchroom.(In fact, socialization as chatting is a substandard usage at best.)  Socialization also refers to a process in which children learn how to become productive adults, acquiring their personal identity by absorbing the norms and values of a culture and integrating these understandings into their behavior and social life.

Why am I bothering to draw this distinction? Probably because children don’t automatically mature into adults. Socialization is a societal, social and familial process. The role of schools in socialization has always been assumed, so much so that I am afraid the fact that our schools are exiting the process may go unnoticed.

What is whole child education? The definition has become murky. If we visit wholechildeducation.org, we will find that it is about every child’s right to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported  and challenged. While laudable goals, these expections talk about what we need to provide to/for our children. The goals only obliquely address what our children need to learn to do for us, themselves and others.

Once, whole child education included moral and ethical education. We are still educating students in these areas but mostly peripherally. We send students to the dean for various infractions such as fighting, cheating, lying and skipping class, among other behaviors. We practice PBIS, otherwise known as positive behavioral intervention systems, frequently with the secondary agenda of controlling classroom disorder; however, the only moral/ethical topic that comes up today in the classroom on any regular basis is bullying. We work aggressively in many schools to rein in bullying, because this always-crackling phenomenon has been supercharged by social media, and the ease and anonymity the internet provides. But we are dropping other topics.

We used to discuss a wide variety of behavioral considerations. For example, teachers would explain how to address adults and how what clothing to wear for different occasions. Teachers regularly took time out of their schedule to go over manners and “proper” behavior for a variety of contexts.

As we watch America’s children cut in line,  ignore people who are talking to them, and sit on benches awaiting restaurant tables while elderly women with canes stand nearby, we ought to pause to wonder if socialization is being neglected. We have always have rude children, of course, and all children have moments of rudeness. But the current testing juggernaut has resulted in many schools running back-to-back academic instruction, often scripted instruction, without leaving time for other topics. This opportunity cost from relentless, test-based teaching may be invisible, but its effects are not.

As I watch families sit silently at restaurants, the children glued to phones, pads and other electronics, I wonder: Who will socialize our children? Parents may mistakenly believe schools will pick up and carry this ball while schools expect parents to take charge. In the end, I’m afraid sometimes nobody is in charge and the effects have become readily observable.

In professional development, we often hear that there is no teaching without learning. We need to remember that the reverse may also be true: Except in rare instances, there is no learning without teaching. As we script in more obligatory math minutes and more test-prep essays, if nothing else, we ought to make certain that topics for some of these essays relate to morals, ethics and behavior. Many of us remember the famous words from John F.Kennedy’s inaugural address in 1961: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Our students need to absorb these words and their underlying message: Life in society carries responsibilities as well as privileges.

Speaking as an old-school teacher, I miss the days when we taught geography, handwriting and manners. Our children may be able to survive without cursive writing, but I’m tired of adolescents who cannot tell Africa from Asia and who think they live in the country of Chicago. I’m also tired of children who don’t say please or thank-you, and who don’t wait their turns. (I’m sorry if this p.s. seems whiny.)

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. We are creating curricula and charter schools around the idea that academic studies in these areas will save America’s students. STEM is no silver cross that will ward off all the vampires of unemployment and underemployment, however, and we need to be careful that our STEM focus does not become another well-meaning, expensive set of programs that produce relatively little bang for the buck.

Eduhonesty: In the end, studying engineering will prove vastly more useful to most college students than studying archeology. But as we move towards a STEM-oriented curriculum, we need to remember that students learn best when presented with material one step above where they are currently operating. Handing everyone harder algebra books at a younger age will only produce more innumerate, confused and angry students. After years of watching No Child Left Behind and after serving on a math curriculum committee chosen to select  my district’s math books, I know that desperate districts may pass out those algebra books without regard to student learning levels. I’ve seen versions of this scenario too often now.

Great ideas can be wrecked by faulty execution. Great ideas don’t work for everyone. Great ideas don’t always fulfill their purpose for that matter: Ask the many thousands of STEM graduates who just lost their jobs at Microsoft.

I support pushing the STEM agenda at our students. The fact that foreign students are now dominating many college programs in STEM areas should be a wake-up call. But if STEM becomes just another acronym, another buzzword in a frantic push without focus on individual student needs, those foreign students will continue to fill up our universities.

We have to fix test-driven curricula before we will be able to make any STEM- orientation a reality. How do I know this? I am going to be given a book next year that my math students cannot read, a book that is years ahead of most of their actual learning levels. I know from experience that an unreadable book might as well be no book. I’ll be scrounging lessons off the internet as I work around a mostly useless book. Consequently, my students will not be moving closer to a STEM career. More likely, they will be getting ready to drop out of high school.

Question for the day: Why don’t we look at those countries whose students are filling the halls of our universities and find out how the educational systems in their countries work? Why don’t we emulate China? Why not let teachers teach students in a more rational order, allowing students to retain new knowledge by putting that knowledge in context? Instead, we are handing them “rigorous” books that might as well be wreaths of garlic for all the help those books will provide them in this technological age.

(My apologies to those districts who are doing a great job of preparing students for STEM careers. Many students near where I live are going off to top universities to study science, technology, math and engineering. We still do a great job in many zip codes anyway.)