Interesting Quotes February 10, 2009
Posted by suptblog in : Posts , comments closedFrom That Workshop Book by Samantha Bennett . . . “How do I know what my students know and are able to do?” and “How will I use what I learned about students today to help them learn more tomorrow?” The question “How do I know what my students know and are able to do?” has the power not only to change how we spend our time as teachers but also to change the nature of schools. This question makes school about learning instead of about teaching. If a teacher is constantly pursuing the answers to “How do I know?” the school day builds around what comes out of the mouths, pencils, and actions of students instead of what comes out of the mouths of teachers. If “How do I know?” guides a teacher’s daily practice, teachers can no longer say, “I taught it. It isn’t my fault they didn’t get it.”
When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before. Jacob Riis
Kids and Creativity!!!! February 5, 2009
Posted by suptblog in : Environment , comments closedHaving his finger on the pulse of one of the founding philosophies of Song-CAMP, in a Tuesday,18nov08 Morning Edition interview on National Public Radio (NPR), Bill Ayers (author of a new book “City Kids City Teachers and To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher”) quoted a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks about a boy who vandalized a school: The boy says he wanted to create: ” ‘If not a note, then a hole, if not an overture, then a desecration. But I shall create.’ And that’s the aspiration of every human being — to create, to be seen, to be noticed, to make a difference, to leave your footprint in the sand. And if we don’t provide that for kids, if we don’t open that creative vent, then we for sure open the destructive vent.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97124808
Teacher Compensaton Comparisons in APS September 9, 2008
Posted by suptblog in : People , comments closedTeacher Compensation Comparisons
Teammates,
Attached is a memo explaining that we are highly competitive in Colorado regarding teacher salaries. As I mention in the memo, we have a long way to go to get closer to the national average for teacher pay, but this is a Colorado problem and not just an APS one. I will strive to make the argument in Colorado forums that we need to raise the salaries to make us more competitive in the Nation, not only for teachers but for all our employees.
This is issued in the truest interest of Trust and Teamwork.
JB