Principal’s Meeting

Kording

Don’t intend to fill my time period. An hour? It’s summer, for gosh sakes!

Filling Time: John Hunt

S.I.P....6 stages of accepting a fatal disease..

Shock
Anger
Barter
Rationalization
Acceptance
Hope

We’re still somewhere between steps 2 and 3.

I’d like to ask you to put yourselves in the shoes of a first-year teacher at your school. ---You’ve had to complete your undergraduate work, pass the general and specific subject matter tests for teachers in Illinois You enter school on 1st w’shop day, full of enthusiasm and love for kids. 1st day’s meetings… morning spent reviewing the progress on your school’s School Improvement plan. After lunch, a review of last year’s IGAP scores. She leaves the building with a new definition of who she is to be as a teacher.

You may disagree with me but just consider what I have to say, then I’ll hit the road. Don didn’t even invite me to lunch.

I want to make a plea to you, the men and women who determine the goals in education in our area. Based on this premise… TEACHING IS AN ART, not a science. The cry from the state seems to be, “Damn it, we will beat this thing into a measurable science if it kills us all!”

I’ve come to plead with you to help return teaching to an art.

The best teacher I know, Ed Anderson, sums up the current trend in Illinois Education this way: All recent ed plans.. an effort to make it teacher-proof. Idiot proof. Now… will only idiots join the profession?

Forgive me if I seem to mix IGAP, SIP, DLO, STD’s and STP all in the same barrel . . that’s the way we make Burgoo… The only difference is, we can sell Burgoo.

I’m not here to start a movement to destroy all the current hogwash.. after a few years, it will self-destruct like most other educational reforms… simply a plea to recapture the art in our profession.

Sat on state committee to devise and revise the test for those teaching theatre. It was a wonderful test. I was impressed by the depth of the questions. I’m serious. And it said absolutely nothing about whether this person would make a good teacher.

I’m not in favor of frivolous lawsuits but I look forward to the day when a parent marches into the school and sues us for short-changing his child because of time off school so the teachers can work on the current state mandate. In the courtroom, the school will be forced to prove that these days and these plans have helped the education of the child.

(Right now, Larry Armstrong “Why did they have to announce where he taught?” and Don Kording is thinking saying, “Oh my God. We hired him to be funny.) Ok.. I’ll be funny. … my favorite author… READ COONRIDGE>…

Dude Wildrick, ISD principal .. Keith’s porch.. Good teachers are born, aren’t they? Yes, and some are simply encouraged.

Communications problem: Spoke at S’fild Presby church.. slammed the SIP… two board members present.. they had no idea.

A plea to revive the ART in teaching.. Flying a 747 is a science. Teaching is not. Teaching is more difficult, it takes longer, and it’s more dangerous.

I’m an artist.. What stimulates an artist? Must have the confidence to use your art. QUEST: 3-legged stool Must feel skillful, Must feel responsible, Must feel appreciated.

The great teacher must have skills but I’m talking about people skills… (I’ve never had a course in theatre, but I was raised by parents who know people.) The great teacher must feel responsible for what goes on in his or her classroom. Not absolute accountability as the state would define it, but responsibility for creating a love of learning. The great teacher must feel appreciated. By you. By their peers. By the community.

Take a minute think back to the most memorable learning experience of your life.. I’ll bet that it involved a teacher-artist, not a mandate-following robot.

Charlie Frank’s Canterbury Tales bet.

8th-grade teacher, stock market.. my Jewelry store.

Graduate school prof at Western.. Cathcart. . . History of Broadcasting.. filled us with such stories that today, 27 years later, I eagerly devour anything on the subject.

Student teaching, I got kicked out of the classroom early and went to watch Roger McClintock teach math theorems using rap.

Writing plays.. standing in the back row of a theatre watching a scene of mine completely bomb.. people checking watches, looking at programs, etc.

I play a game with my seventh-graders before they take their writing assessment… (Don’t ever write this way unless you become an author of computer manuals.) We do great. Completely useless exercise and we do great. It takes artistry to create more artists.

Your best teachers inspire a love of learning. Period. That is the artist. The artist teacher must have self-confidence and to have that, they must have three sturdy legs on their stool. They must have the skill… (that much we know), but they must have responsibility for creating educated, humane students, and they must be appreciated.

Perhaps your job depends upon your school’s test scores. I pity you, but that’s no excuse for not giving children the best we have, and that’s to inspire a love of learning.

Let me tell you about….. Tall, gangly 8th-grader, Chris… and a spastic young jock, Matthew. Out of the blue, became fascinated with classical music last year because of a band teacher who inspired them… they now take Bach and Beethoven scores home on weekends and study them together for fun. Teaching is an art. CA Test… Matthew.. one of our best b’ball players.. composed a sonata.

7th-grader, Jason… Who entered Triopia as a self-proclaimed failure. He’s now making C’s and still probably doesn’t do well on IGAP. Because several teachers quit taking grades on him for a couple of weeks and simply praised him. Teaching is an art.

Jeff… took speech as an alternative to English. Barely graduated with D’s. . assigned to Viet Nam.. announced opening for platoon leader.. gave a speech… now a retired career officer. I still have to work, and he’s retired. No one could have tested the skills which saved him.

Bob Slavens…

I fear for the teacher entering the profession today the with the implication that their goal is to bring their students up to the standards of the Illinois Manufacturers association instead of what they know in their heart.

Love of learning… untestable A desire to use knowledge for good…untestable Self-discipline and self-motivation.. untestable

We wired our school for Internet access in every classroom last Saturday. That’s good, I suppose. But I kept thinking of my friend from Griggsville who traveled to Mexico to take Laetrile… died of cancer … a relatively curable type.. She ignored the real treatment by putting all her hopes on a quack cure.

Next fall you will probably have new teachers in your schools.. You will have experienced teachers returning and hoping for a new inspiration… a new enthusiasm for teaching.. I plead with you… as a teacher… as someone who cares very much about children and is saddened by what schools too often see as the cure for their problems… I plead with you to help return teaching to an art… To encourage the artist in your teacher’s soul… To keep teaching the most human and humane of professions..

Larry’s first year…. we proposed a four-school institute … a day of awakening the artist in teachers . . . nature walks, painting, basketball, story-telling.. in other words, a day of humanizing teachers so they might go out and humanize others. A BATTLE! “Doesn’t fit anywhere in our curriculum” “You’ll have to reword some of these workshops so I can sell it to my board.” Finally… a watered-down version.. Still the most memorable.

One other teachers’ conference in my 27 years of teaching stands out… Mrs. Jones. (Build the Fort Today.) Jim _______.

Please.. please.. encourage the art of teaching and turn a blind eye to the science which doesn’t even exist.

I sent this plan to the State....NEW SIP..No reply.

--Minus 10 points if your athletic facility is at least 40 times bigger than your special ed room --tour classes..2 points for every smile seen in class... --minus 10 points for every hour paperwork takes away from teaching time. --deduct 20 points if school still serves peanut better sandwiches with chili... no reason but it makes as much sense as the rest of the SIP --School earns 100 points for every teacher who’s been there for over 10 years...says something about the school --30 points for each athlete who’s been coached to think they had a good time playing a game..even when they lost. 60 points for every coach who agrees. He’s an artist! --double school’s points for every parent who comes to the school for anything other than a ballgame. --1000 points for every teacher given the boot because they couldn’t teach. Now THAT would give you a score that told you something about the school.

Well, it’s __________, and I finally caught my hog. Larry told me yesterday that these academy days are really quite good. I hope it is.