A friend saw me reading Kozol and asked about it. I told her it was about resegregation and the injustice being done to minority students. She got very excited and told me she knew what the problem in education was. She said, "The good teachers all get the good kids. Any teacher can teach a good kid. Only a good teacher should be teaching a bad kid. " As I thought about what she said, I wondered about our practice of giving the best teachers the honors classes and sacrificing our struggling teachers and our newest teachers to the struggling students. Look around your schools and let me know if this is a reality or just what I have seen in some schools I have been in in the past.

I also was struck by the attitude she had about minority students being "bad."
Hmmm?

Another thing we as administrators need to change. What a way to view minority kids? I hope one day all teachers will be able to teach, treat and train a student as if he/she were their own child. Give them your best and love what you do without conditions.

Jackie, in looking around Bandys, that's not the way I see it there. And to be honest, I am surprised, but pleased. We actually have several very good teachers that ask for the lower level children. They do an excellent job in showing growth with these students and I hope it continues to stay that way.

The same at our school Amy. Many of our "better" teachers have the most challenging classes. Our Principal brings in teachers and asks them if they feel they can step up to the challenge of teaching an inclusion class. Due to her faith in our staff it is very seldom that we hear about teacher having the "bad" classes. For the most part we are very heterogeneous across the board.

Jackie, I have always heard that the veteran teachers got the best students, and I have seen it. One former teacher at Bunker Hill, who started the same year that I started, demanded that she get CP English classes. I didn't demand that, and, of course, I got lower level classes. Even as I became a veteran teacher, I found that I liked lower level classes. I do teach Honors English I classes now, but I also teach regular classes, and I prefer the regular classes. I also like teaching inclusion classes. It is more of a challenge. I feel like I am accomplishing more, and that is what I like most about teaching--seeing the lights come on in their eyes. That is also why I like teaching in the GED lab. To me, that's just what it's all about. And that is why I'm not totally sure I want to be in administration.

I have taught the highest math course (AP Calculus) at Lake Norman and also the lowest(Inlcusion Alg I). Teaching each level has its own postives and negaitves. My old principal believed that each teacher should teach a high level course and a low level course. I found this to be extremely difficult as a teacher since I had to change my quesitoning skills for each course. Any thoughts on this believe of making each teacher teach a high and a low level course.

What if the parents choose the teacher and it just so happens that certain strata of students are given to a certain teacher? Many of our parents make requests based on the homework assigned by the teacher. Some parents dread the science fair project or certain social studies projects.

I see, too, that teachers who make the score on tests get the students who can make the scores on the tests.

It's a strategy of who can deliver what is needed. Some teachers teach tests well. Some teachers work with difficult students well.

Some principals share equitably. Some meet demand.

What about the great teacher who refuses to teach the "hard-to-teach?"
Do you think a senior teacher can meet the needs of a class of difficult to reach students?

It's a judgment call that is tough to make. How are we going to validate our choices.

I am currently doing my Prinicpal Fellow Internship at an elementary school that has just chengedc their ways regarding student class assignment. Forever and ever the parents had been given a form to complete and could list their first, second and third choice teachers for the upcoming year. The current teachers would then sort through and assist with placement for the following year. What happend, is that the current teachers started acting like mother hens and wanted certain kids with certain teachers and then there were more problems...adding parents and teachers in the mix. There was a lot of division amongst the entire faculty because of this-hurt feelings, etc.
Three years ago, a new Principal and AP came in and totally scrapped that system, as the newer teachers or the "unpopular" teachers were getting the "trouble" kids and the academically lower children. The Principal said that if a parent would like to write a letter toward the end of the school year and include the student's learning styles and the teaching styles they feel would benefit their child, WITHOUT TEACHER NAMES, the school would take this into consideration.
Several years after the fact, the parents have gotten used to the policy and accept it. They know have the confidence and trust in the Adminstration to make good decisions. Because our school has many students with Autism and other disabilities, assigning teachers and students can be a complex job in taking their needs, along with all student needs, into account.
I think that after the first couple years of changing the policy, the excitement and opposition will lessen and one day it will be standard...until someone makes another deal of it!
Personally, I like the new change. It makes it easier to assign students and you then don't have to explain why a student didn't get thier first choice...

Tim,

You mention that:



Could you talk about why you felt you had to "change your questioning skills for each course"? I would assume you were teaching higher level thinking skills to both groups, weren't you?[/quote]

In regards to your question, of course I would have loved to taught every student advanced quesitons and tried to get them to a much higher level. Unfortuntely, I can not teach a senior in AP Calculus and a senior in Alg I the same. Each of these courses were on completely different levels of ability. One can not teach a student to apply a mathematical concept to a high level quesiton when he or she does not even know how to use the concept.

The point that I was trying to make was the jump from extremely gifted students to average mathematical students made for a difficult time for the students and myself. I would show Calc students how to solve a problem step by step when this was not neccessary. In alg, I would skip steps becuase the calculus students could follow me without showing each step. I would be on such a high level working out calc problems and would have to drop to an alg I level. This was extremely difficult for me. Maybe I had not taught long enough to handle this extreme jump in ability. Am I totally nuts or does anyone see this being a difficult transition. Here was my schedule that year.

AP CALC (1), ALG I inclusion (2nd) AP CALC (3rd) ALG 1 Acad (4)[/quote]

Tim,
I too have taught different levels on the same day. What I finally figured out was that the types of questioning techniques are the same for all levels, but my expectations for the levels were different. I studied the Socratic method for conducting a discussion and combined that with an activity where students brought in their own questions they thought of during their homework. We looked at their questions and decided together which ones we wanted to talk about first. It helped guide the class to meet the needs of the students rather than my pre-conceived ideas about their understanding of the lesson. This worked well in my literature class. I am not sure that it would work in math.

I see this as an issue at my school. We have a first year teacher, who taught for a semester last year, and she was placed in a combo team this year. The combo team means that she teaches 7th grade social studies, 8th grade social studies, and 7th grade writing. This may not seem like a big deal to people who do not teach middle school, but its not typical to teach 3 different classes in middle school. In addition, she has a mentor she never gets to see. Adding to that, she teaches in two different rooms, one on the 8th grade hall and one on the 7th grade hall. So, I often ask myself why is the new teacher in the hardest set up? It makes no sense, all I can do is remember situations like this and learn how I could make them better for everyone.