I didn’t.

And here is a link to check out.

Truly,

Steve

Read about how they are reducing administrative costs and developing greater parental roles in governance by clicking here.

Truly,

Steve

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/education/big-study-links-good-teachers-to-lasting-gain.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

Elementary- and middle-school teachers who help raise their students’ standardized-test scores seem to have a wide-ranging, lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates and greater college matriculation and adult earnings, according to a new study that tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years.

It’s a good read and it points yet again to the real value of recruiting, training and retaining the very best we can find.

Truly,

Steve

Read Kim’s post here.

The audio interview itself is in French.  It is impossible to listen to and not be affected.

Her Mother is not looking for anything more than for her daughter’s suicide to not be in vain.  Don’t we owe her at least that?

Truly,

Steve

It’s been four years since I campaigned and won a seat on our council of commissioners, with bullying being one of my top stated priorities.

With my own children in the school board, I knew that bullying was something that went on every day in our schools.  It’s of interest that when I first drove focus to the issue at council, one of our commissioners actually questioned if bullying really was a problem in our schools, because he didn’t think it was. Wow – it has been and continues to be a long road indeed.

So what is the problem? Do we need better rules?  Codes of conduct? Better policy?

If you read our existing codes of conduct, you would say no.  The expectations are very clear and in fact, were these codes of conduct to be enforced to the letter, we would at least minimize and at best eradicate the bulk of all bullying in our schools.

So – we don’t need to worry about rules, or codes of conduct.

Do we need better policy? When I first recognized the depth of the detachment from reality that some of our politicians suffered from, I decided to work on a framework, or a definition of what our expectations were as a school board as regards respect and responsibility.  It took more than a year, but that framework finally became policy.  It is posted in every school lobby in our board.  And it too looks good on paper.

So we have codes of conduct. We have policy. And yet, virtually every school day I hear of dirty, disgusting and entirely abusive acts witnessed at our schools.

So what to do? I have tried to get standardized reporting of bullying incidents in our schools. We have in fact begun to survey our student population and the first board wide results should be examined by commissioners shortly.

But in the mean time, we actually have kids killing themselves because they see no way out.

So we’re obviously not doing enough.  And it’s not moving near fast enough.

If we want to take this bull by the horns, the first step we need to take is real enforcement of the rules that we have in place. We say bullying in any form will not be tolerated.  So – why are we tolerating it?

For some reason, school boards seem to feel that they are wholly responsible for educating every single student in our system. Regardless of their behaviour. Personally, I believe that if a student cannot bring himself to behave and where we have exhausted all of our means to socialize that student? Sorry, then he goes to the next level – provincial social services, outside of our schools and perhaps offered online schooling.

But to leave that student in amongst the rest of our population and allow him the continued opportunity to abuse them and distract them from their own education? Where is the sense in that? The education act requires us to provide an education for all students. It does not specify the format of that education nor does it require us to keep the wolves in the sheep pen.

Bullying is a societal problem, and school boards cannot handle it alone. There are many cases where social services should take over. The bully should be removed from the school and his issues dealt with by social services. The attempted education of the bully cannot be allowed to supersede the education of the rest of our students, let alone to take priority over the real life safety of our kids.

Until we accept these facts, we won’t succeed in dealing with the problem.

Truly,

Steve

Minister Moves to Take Control of South Shore Regional School Board

At the same time, a number of the Scotia issues seem to apply to many of our school boards.

As the new year begins, I see enormous potential in where Quebec could go in education. How we could become leaders not just in Canada but around the world.

But at the same time, I fear that being so mired in petty politics at every level, even though we have that potential, politics may kill it yet again.

Truly,

Steve

Once again, I could not agree with her more – here is her most recent article:

——————————
‘Positive discipline’ fails to deal with bullies head-on

Much has been written about bullying and how difficult life can be for some children in school. The suicide of Marjorie Raymond on Nov. 28 in Ste. Anne des Monts and the torment she experienced have highlighted these hardships once again.

But what can be done to end bullying? It’s obvious that it is firmly entrenched in children’s lives, and that no matter what adults try, it remains resilient. Special schools for bullies, exile for victims, campaigns like It Gets Better, tolerance programs, conflict resolution, anti-bullying legislation and bystander education have not done enough to improve the tortured lives of many students. Even Lady Gaga’s anti-bullying video and other celebrity public-service announcements have had little impact.

I’m in my 38th year of teaching high school, and I know exactly whom to blame for the bullying crisis. It will not get better until educational theorists, parents and school-board officials are all indicted for the premeditated crime of raising and nurturing bullies. They need to be held accountable for their reluctance to believe in tough discipline and for their impotence in acting as parents or in loco parentis. Taking some cues from the federal government’s new Safe Streets and Communities Act and getting tough on youth is where schools and parents should be looking for solutions to the bullying problem.

Children want some discipline in their lives. But instead of discipline and consequences, we have bandwagons and dangerous experiments that are forced upon schools, both private and public. Doctors, psychologists and educational theorists conjure up policies and practices that schools are compelled to embrace. In many schools across North America, the “positive discipline” theory has been a train wreck that has handcuffed educators and given birth to generations of students who are undisciplined and feel that they are invincible. “Positive discipline” too often creates and nurtures bullies.

The “positive discipline” theory holds that the best way to change behaviour is to reward the positive, not punish the negative. The emphasis is always on positive reinforcement. Many students expect and need discipline, but instead they meet the love machine of “positive discipline.” Oh, they feel the love all right, and they sweet-talk it right back. What’s not to love about a movement that believes in Oprah-style talk therapy and a “pry for why” philosophy?

“Positive discipline” has usurped old-fashioned rules about behaviour, and created a world where bullies are psycho-babbled at instead of punished. Do bullies really need to be told (softly, delicately and never in a decibel above a compassionate, conversational hum) that it is wrong to pound another student in the face?

Parents are also responsible for the bullying crisis. Parents have to “teach their children well,” and not be afraid of using punishments and negative consequences.

I have witnessed too many parents who are poster boys and girls for what not to do in child-rearing. Their killer instincts when it comes to protecting their children from outsiders dissolve when the enemy lies within the home. Their punishments are fleeting and mercurial. Chances are given again and again. Consequences are forgotten or forgiven. Their children are permitted to wheedle and negotiate. Suggestions by the school are ignored. Their fatal flaw is that they view leniency and abdication as love. They cannot simply say, “Because I said so. That’s why.” Somewhere between the Tiger Mother approach and the permissiveness of many parents lies the demise of bullying.

Don’t blame bullies for the bullying problems that exist. Strong parents and fewer ideological bandwagons infiltrating the schools would help deliver a huge get-well card to all those who are bullied and tormented. As one student wrote: “Children see, children do. Don’t expect anything more from us than what you teach us.”

Freda Lewkowicz teaches at Rosemere High School in Rosemère.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Positive+discipline+fails+deal+with+bullies+head/5889859/story.html#ixzz1hDxpb96W

At our local high school, 20 teachers will line up in order to get their chance at the photocopier tomorrow morning. Waiting. Waiting.

How about giving us enough money to buy a copier?

The disconnect at the Ministry level is unreal. Google Adwords. $50,000 to Groupe Cossette.

Thanks Madame la Ministre. Thanks for nothing.

Truly,

Steve

Do we need change? Absolutely. Do I think our schools to have more effective local governance? Absolutely.

But let’s start at the *real* top here. Let’s look at what the Ministry does, how it does it, and how they are the root cause of so much of the useless bureaucracy that robs public education of time, energy and yes, money.

The most recent change. Partnership agreements between the school board and the Ministry. Management and Educational Success Agreements between the schools and the school board. On the English side, the Ministry hired three fairly recently retired education-types to help “guide us” through it. How many on the French side? How many bureaucrats did they have behind the scenes to develop this asinine idea before that? How many resources are being abused in their attempts to monitor it? How much money was thrown away in this useless exercise?

And what real change, in our classrooms, do you think these paper-pushing-collossal-wastes-of-time have delivered?

ABSOLUTELY ZERO. There’s the truth of it. ABSOLUTELY NONE.

It’s a joke. It’s a hoop that the Ministry forces school boards to jump through. And they have to jump. And nothing gets better, because we just spent scads of time, energy and yes, MONEY on getting through this useless hoop. And for what? So that the Minister can say that school boards are failing. The Ministry is failing!

Your fancy announcement about smart boards and laptops. Nice. Every teacher gets a laptop. And the reality? For our 800 teachers, our actual allotment is 120 laptops. And we’re not allowed to buy them. Because the specifications for them are not yet out. And the call for tender is not yet done by the Ministry, because the specs aren`t out.

The announcement was: Every teacher with a laptop. And the reality is: 85% of our teachers WITHOUT a laptop, and really, the 15% that should maybe somehow get them, well, our Ministerial bureaucracy has yet to respond. No laptops. Good sound bite for the news cycle though. Oh, and by the way, good luck finding a plug. And let`s hope someone`s going to pay to connect the thing to the internet.

WHO IS AT FAULT HERE? The school board? Or The Ministry?!?

ENOUGH. The buck stops where, Line? The buck stops at *YOUR* DESK. You and your bureaucrats are responsible for 99% of the bureaucratic waste in our system.

The simple fact is that the vast majority of useless reporting that schools spend their time on is forced upon all of us by the Ministry, *not* by the school board. Until these facts are addressed, there will be no real change.

Do we want more power at the school level. Absolutely. Who’s going to manage it? Who’s going to oversee it? Who is going to be accountable, and how is it going to be measured?

If you think for one second that you can just dump this all on our principals, well then, I am *certain* that you have *no* idea what you are talking about. The bulk of the principals in public education are teachers first. Most have very little experience in budgeting, purchasing, human resources, crisis management, I.T. and so on. I have been to an actual governing board meeting and checked on the local budget report. EMPTY. Nothing. ZERO. A particular principal waits until the end of the year, and then kind of divvies the total monies out to budget lines that seem appropriate. This is the truth that we have. Do you have any first-hand knowledge of the way things really are, Line? Your actions suggest that you don’t.

Now, more parental involvement on governing boards. Absolutely. But! Governing boards need to have experienced contributors as well. People who know the education act, who know how to manage, who know how to help direct a governing board filled with parents who typically have all the good-will in the world, but who have no real idea how to govern a school. So – more parental involvement, but with experienced and professional “guides” to ensure governing boards understand and fulfil their role to its potential. Without that, a governing board can be fairly useless.

And when we look at more local governance, are you even aware that governing boards can often times be entirely acclaimed, and even short members, because the participation rate at that level is sometimes less than 1%? The public has lost confidence at every level of Government. Many of Montreal’s municipal by-elections elect councillors with far less than a 10% participation rate. So let’s get rid of the city? Similar logic, no?

Continuing on election participation rates… you seem to love talking about these. Yes, they are horrible for school board commissioners.

But really – do you have any right whatsoever to say anything at all when the provincial participation rate in 2008 was THE LOWEST RATE IN SEVENTY YEARS?!?! And what is spent on a Provincial election? I spent around $2500 of a total legal limit of around $3400 for my ward. You spent more than $51,000 on your last election in your riding. Is it any wonder that there is a lower participation rate for school boards?!? And by the way, add to that the fact that in my ward, we somehow expect voters to drive for as much as 45 minutes to get to the single polling station we have in northern Blainville. Yes, that’s incentive to vote.

Listen, we all agree that there are big issues that we are facing in public education today. We need major change. Many of Francois Legault’s ideas are bang-on. Even some of the direction from Line Beauchamp makes some sense to me. But overall, the arrogance and the extreme ignorance that is driving announcements like today`s one is simply astonishing, and in fact dangerous in its potential to harm our students.

Let’s try and work together to fix these problems. Your decrees with little or no useful foundational information are going to result in public education in Quebec costing us more and delivering less than it is today.

And once again, the kids will pay the price.

Truly,

Steve

nb: So ends the rant. Look for more, real solutions in the next post.
nb2: Maybe we can show education the kind of respect and focus that it deserves, and have an Education Minister and get someone else to look after recreation and sports? Maybe then she’d have the time to spend to get to know what is really going on?

How many of you use your smart phone as your primary camera? Primary computer, dictionary or note tablet? I’m sure many hands would be raised as we are addicted to having immediate access to information and productivity tools.

Contrasting, the majority of schools nationwide (and possibly worldwide) have banned the use of cell phones in the classroom. This is totally understandable as cellphones can be used as a tool for bullying, cheating, constant texting as well causing classroom distractions if not managed properly. How do you tell the student who wants to use their smart phone to photograph the chalkboard notes he/she can’t when indeed it will help them? A difficult dilemma.

Schools across the US are experimenting and finding the use of mobile phones in a controlled environment are enhancing the classroom learning experience. In a recent blog, Advancing Mobile Phones as Learning Devices, the Principal of New Milford HS experimented and allowed his teachers to use cellphones in the classroom for student response systems. They utilized Poll Everywhere, an application that checks for understanding, reviews prior learning, and informally assess the work. After a year of experimenting with mobile phones in the classroom, he concludes,

“As educators we must establish a vision for our students and model the use of cell phones as mobile learning devices in order to empower them to embrace the same view. We live in a world where these devices are a huge part of our student’s lives. Schools should position themselves to not only take advantage of this resource as budgets are tight, but also teach students about the powerful tool they possess.”

What are your opinions on opening the door to cell phone use as a classroom tool? Please share your experiences and best practices with the educators worldwide. We’ll all benefit!

Read and comment on the original post here.

 My two cents: Use the phones as the intelligent tools that they are. Teach appropriate usage and enforce it. We actually have teachers running gleefully out of an active classroom to grab a cell phone from a student with an, “Aha! Caught ya!”.

  And it’s the student that is the problem here?

Truly,

Steve