Lives of Teachers: Public or Private?

This is my response to an excellent discussion, by Andy Losik, a fellow educator/blogger, on his blog, HCS Geektopia. Below, I have quoted a portion of his posting that relates to problems some teachers have with online content that they have used, developed and placed in their profiles, websites, blogs and other online media.

If you don't think people are really looking at your Facebook pages or Googling you, think again. Here is a blog post from talk show radio host Kim Komando instructing parents how to find all kinds of information about YOU!

A tv station in Arizona ran a November sweeps piece on what they found on Arizona teachers' social network pages. "Teachers Expose Private Lives" dug up all kinds on new hires across the state, told where and what they teach, and tried to confront many on air.

Unfortunately for some teachers, the damage was done a long time ago. People post stuff or make crazy decisions and end up paying for them every time a perspective employer runs their name through a search engine. That stuff just doesn't go away.

You have expanded on a critically important topic that can affect the lives of many teachers.

Having a teen who interacts online, along with myself, I have had some strange experiences that lead me to believe that we may have more to worry about than monitoring our own behavior.

There is a dangerous trend among spammers and SEO's of ill repute to hijack websites, profile pages and public pages of social networking sites such as twitter, jaiku and others.

A few of my friends found our tweets online with different names, and these were part of a dating service. One of my friends was so aghast that she made her tweets private, shared the information with her colleagues and gave some suggestions to combat these thieves. I am of the opinion that might deter some, but not the hard core identity thieves.

My take home story is that we need to educate our leaders, including administrators and parents, not to jump to conclusions without verification and appropriate safeguards (including hearings) for teachers or we will end up with a witch hunt on our hands in a time when we need good teachers.

Through appropriate education on this topic, communities can aggree on standards and determine which teachers are trying their best to do right. We can learn to root out cases of identity theft, overcome a social faux pas and weed out the teachers with real social/emotional issues.

Thanks for carrying on this valuable conversation;D

What a Difference a Day Makes!

It seems that NASA and the European Space Administration did NOT say these new predictions by student are correct. It seems that NASA has already accounted for the orbits of the satellites in their collision calculations, so the 1:45,000 probability stands.

clipped from www.theregister.co.uk Schoolboy's asteroid-strike sums are wrong German kid saw 1 in 450 chance of Apophis apocalypse By Lewis Page → More by this author Published Wednesday 16th April 2008 11:06 GMT There's only one problem with the story: the kid's sums are in fact wrong, NASA's are right, and the ESA swear blind they never said any different. An ESA spokesman in Germany told the Reg this morning: "A small boy did do these calculations, but he made a mistake... NASA's figures are correct." It would appear that the intial article in the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, which says that NASA and the ESA endorsed Nico Marquardt's calculations, was incorrect. The story was picked up by German tabloids and the AFP news wire, and is now all over the internet. because Apophis will pass interior to the positions of these satellites at closest approach, does not threaten the satellites in that heavily populated region. All in all, it seems there's no need to dust off the asteroid-busting space nukes just yet. ®

Always Check Your Variables.

Apophis is even more likely to hit Earth, according to a young student and verified by NASA. As part of his entry in a science competition, Nico Marquardt determined that one variable had not been considered in the probability of a Earth/Apophis collision...satellite collision reseting the asteroid's trajectory.

clipped from news.yahoo.com German schoolboy, 13, corrects NASA's asteroid figures: paper AFP/NASA-HO/File Photo: This artist's rendition released by NASA shows an asteroid belt. A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected... BERLIN (AFP) - A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported. NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right. The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

On a Trip To Peru

Pictures from one of my favorite fossil hunting spots with my best assistant and friends. This area is located in the layer referred to as the Pennsylvanian. Lots of invertebrate fossils, including a variety of clams, coral, and trilobites.

Tip My Hat to Twitter

I took advice from another teacher, @Helenotway, to check out Animoto You can use this website to make videos from pictures and images.

Then add music and Voila! you have a video that you can download, embed or put on YouTube. This is so cool.

This is my first trial, and it took about 30 minutes to complete, from start to finish. Oh, what I can do with this awesome web application. Thanks Helen.

Fire the Government? Fire Yourself!

Reports of teacher censorship seem to be on the upswing, as do reports of abuse of power against teachers. A small minority in communities are using scare tactics to justify disrespectful actions against teachers who are trying their best to follow the KNOWN rules and teach our children well.

A teacher began a writing mentor system for students. The students would blog, and the mentors(other teachers) would comment on their blog posting. The teacher trained the students about internet safety, and the students, according to the record of their posts and comment logs were following the safety rules. It seems that a minority of the community was able to complain and convince some in governance that this blogging activity should be stopped.

The school administrator told the teacher that the equivalent of our SRS wanted the protected online posting be discontinued, while they began an investigation. The teacher was very accepting of this situation and asked that standards be developed so similar successful activities like these could continue.

You can find the summary of this story on the teacher's blog posting, Order for Closure: Al Upton and the Mini-Legends. Several other teachers have commented about this situation in their blogs.

Reports are made of teachers being placed in a non-teaching environment, like a holding cell sans physical iron bars, without a hearing or official explanation. I first heard the report on This American Life episode: Human Resources with Ira Glass, so I invetigated this scary scenario.

It seems that the reports are true. These teachers, some after years, in what is called the Rubber Room, teachers are usually fired without fanfare. Occasionally, some teachers are returned to their classrooms. Listen to their amazing stories, and you may wonder where these teachers are. To put you at ease, they are in New York City! Don't believe me, listen to this trailer of Rubber Room, the movie.

There are stories just like these are happening everywhere, in our country and abroad. Forget about fair, most times we can actually focus in on legal. Is the treatment of these teachers legal, and where is their support system?

Members of the community who allow these demoralizing things to happen to teachers should educate themselves. Since schools are under local control, community members are in control. What is your community's legacy to your children?

Community members need to shout, "Fire Yourself!" to school boards and administrators who hire people and then turn around and fire them. The people in the community need to accept their role in government. Go to school board meetings to keep your public servants honest. If you don't, you get the government you deserve.

Communities are hard pressed to find good teachers. Some communities seem bound and determined to undermine the teachers they do hire. What they don't seem to realize is, THEY HIRED THESE PEOPLE, so really they are the people with a problem...not the teachers they hired. If you can't hire a good, quality teacher and then let them do their job, with leadership, not harrassment, get out of the school business yourself.

Communities must remove these ineffectual leaders from their administrative or governing positions as soon as possible, unless the community decides they can be rehabilitated. If so, the rehabilitated person must frequently report to the community on their progress in becoming a lead manager, not a boss manager. They are not the dictator, they are OUR representative to our children and their teachers.

In a timeless balancing act, there is a delicate equilibrium in this human equation between the ruled and the ruler(s). As individuals, humans assert a countervailing weight, to the controlling entity, a ruler(s). The individual's right to control their own body and property must balance the effect of group control over the individual. The sanctity of the individual cannot be abandoned because of ineffective governance.

When ineffective, dysfunctional governing bodies scramble to strengthen control by asserting their need to take questionable actions against individuals, communities as well as individuals lose.

Ultimately, what a community and its governing affiliates achieve will be judged as abusive, benign or helpful. They will be judged by their deeds, evidenced by the respect for individual rights and dignity. Can you say that your community and your representatives treat your employees with dignity?

If you live on a deserted island with no contact with anyone else, only self government applies to you. For the rest of us, there is NO SUCH THING AS SELF-GOVERNANCE, we are part of many groups under many jurisdictions. Because that is true, individuals living and working together, in a democracy, have an obligation to remember that WE are the government. If our representatives are weak and ineffective, WE are to blame.

If you don't know what is happening in your government, I would suggest that you best go find out.

Where Others Fear To Tread

Through Fear by Martin Gommel
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Sometimes, it can be frightening to be a teacher, and it can really be frightening when the schools that hire you are in turmoil. Yesterday, while listening to NPR's All Things Considered, March 13, 2008, I heard that teachers will be dismissed, programs closed and students shuttled to classes not of their own choosing. I empathize with the teachers in California who will be laid off soon.

This terrible disservice and governmental disrespect, in California, for their children and those dedicated to teaching them, reminded me of a similar experience that happened to me early in my teaching career. Fortunately, the majority of the teachers in the state where I taught stood together in the face of (seemingly) more powerful groups. No one is more powerful than those dedicated to a righteous cause to help the teachers who teach our children.

I faced the most frightening experience early in my teaching career when our teacher professional group recommended a one day walkout to let the Louisiana state legislature know what the effect of our finding jobs in other states would do to their schools.

Amazing! I thought. I just started teaching two years before. Why me? Why should I get involved. I could be fired for participating in the walkout, but our salaries were a pittance compared to teachers in other states. For instance, my salary was 30% less in Louisiana than it would have been in Kansas, at that time. Just as today, teachers made thirty to fifty percent of what other college graduates with similar training were making.

The members of the Lousiana state legislature appeared deaf to requests from schools, teachers and the public, so there we were. A statewide teacher's walkout was called, and the state's school administrators figured out that a majority of teachers really were prepared to meet at the state capitol, in Baton Rouge, and take our case directly to the legislature.

Some of the teachers in my school were only teaching as a hobby or to occupy their time. It seemed to me that they were not as effective as they could be if they had dedicated more effort to their teaching. They could hide within the status quo, so they were definitely opposed to the teacher walkout. The other teachers, mostly the more experienced teachers who really dedicated themselves to their work, were going to the state capitol, in Baton Rouge.

Even though I knew that the walkout was right, I had to think about whether I would participate. A few days before we were to converge on the state legislature, I decided that I would go to the state capitol, supporting my students, my community, myself and my peers.

Right up to the Friday afternoon before we were going to walkout, during the following week, the press was reporting that the teachers could face firing if they walked out. It didn't matter, we were determined. When the governor realized that thousands of teachers would walkout, he called off school for the entire day.

Since school was closed all over the state, the problem of firing thousands of teachers was averted, but we still had not achieved our goal: convincing the legislature that teachers were serious about the necessary pay raise.

On the day of the proposed walkout, I traveled for hours to get to the state house, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Being there was a humbling experience that I will never forget. There really were thousands of teachers. Everywhere, on the streets, green spaces, sidewalks and other flat spaces. As far as the eye could see, there were teachers.

We had come to show our support for those Louisiana legislators who were trying to do right by the the children of Louisiana. There were speeches, group discussions, and most people had their signs. It was a truly historic, appropriate use of the right to assemble and petition the government with grievances. Teachers made their point, and the very next year we received an increase in the base salary.

The teachers in California can always make their point TOGETHER. When they work together, teachers can achieve any goal in education. When they really listen to each other....not just talk at each other.

Listening is a skill that teachers must constantly hone. By doing so, we will successfully achieve our goals for the future of education with the help of our real network.

Teachers go where no one else will go. They work with all children where they find them, and take them where they know they should be.

Teachers follow when others will not answer the calling. Everyone says that they would love to teach, but they usually admit that they couldn't stand up to the rigors and economic distress of the teaching life.

Teachers expand their families to include other people's children, spending hours grading or working at home each evening, weekends and holidays with their school family.

Teachers do what no other professionally trained college graduate will do today: TEACH, yet even when our ranks are dwindling and our hopes for semi-autonomy seem far, far, away...maybe even in another galaxy, states like California are committing unspeakable acts that further undermine teacher confidence in the public system.

What are these unspeakable acts? The continuing destruction of the California Public School System. Watching from another state, this story of California teachers seems like a Greek Tragedy, water torture or death by pinprick, but now it seems that so many multiple pinpricks have created gashes in the California educational
system.

Teachers are being ripped from their students, and students are being displaced, all in an effort to squeeze ten percent cuts from the already distressed public school system.

What can we do to help California teachers survive this unnatural disaster? We can connect with our social networks, and lend our support to our colleagues in California. We can find organizations that will help us support teachers in some way that will work for the California teachers.

I would like to ask these important questions, as a starting place for discourse about this crisis in California Public Schools:
Can the teachers being laid off depend on their peers who aren't being laid off?
Can they depend on their unions?

From a distance, it doesn't seem that they can. This is a sad time in our public life as many teachers think they only are looking out for themselves. In my experience, as a teacher, this tactic is not reliable in the long run. When they ignore injustice in their ranks, it really makes the bystander teachers more vulnerable, because the governmental agents learn that no one will complain if more children, teachers and communities are mistreated.