Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Interesting Tweets From #CalTURN Conference

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 18:27:02 +0000

The California Teacher Union Reform Network just had a conference over the weekend, and here are some interesting and useful tweets that came out of it. Most were shared by David B. Cohen. David Berliner and Linda Darling-Hammond were two of the speakers there, and spoke about standardized testing and Common Core (among other topics).

I’ve used Storify to collect the tweets:

What Bill Gates Didn’t Say About Videotaping Teachers In His TED Talk On Education

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:44:22 +0000

Bill Gates announced his multi-billion dollar plan to videotape teachers in his TED Talk earlier this month (see The Best Of “TED Talks On Education”). As part of his talk, he highlighted videos of teacher Sarah Brown Wessling, who just wrote a post in The Huffington Post about it.

One portion of her piece, in particular, caught my eye:

If we want video to be an effective tool for teacher growth, here are some ways to help shore up enthusiasm.

• Keep evaluation and exercises for growth separate. As soon as evaluation becomes part of this process, the process changes. Teachers are far more likely to go into compliance mode, fearful of making mistakes. And when fear prevails, authenticity loses. So, instead, make the purpose of using video very clear: for self-reflection and growth.

This is the same point I made in The Washington Post in Videotaping teachers the right way (not the Gates way).

I don’t think Mr. Gates is too clear on that, though….

I’m adding this post to The Best Posts & Articles About Videotaping Teachers In The Classroom.

Quote Of The Day: “No One Likes To Be Changed”

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:22:57 +0000

No One Likes To Be Changed is a useful post at The Harvard Review that includes research and examples useful to educational policy issues and the classroom.

Here’s an excerpt:

I’m adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On “Motivating” Students.

Two Excellent Resources On “Close Reading”

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:34:27 +0000

Here are two excellent additions to The Best Resources On “Close Reading”:

Here’s a sample chapter from Notice and Note, the great book by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst.

Grant Wiggins has written a very thorough and helpful post on the topic.

Bonus: Here’s a third interesting one: Does Background Knowledge Matter to Reading Comprehension? by Russ Walsh.

“Ways to Use Class Time During the Last Two Weeks Of School”

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:10:02 +0000

Ways to Use Class Time During the Last Two Weeks Of School is my new Education Week Teacher post.

Today’s post offers suggestions from two exceptional teacher authors: Roxanna Elden and Donalyn Miller. Part Two in this series will include responses from two more great educators: Alice Mercer and Bill Ivey. In addition, that post will share the many reader comments that have been and continue to be contributed.

Find Quotations — & Their Sources — With “Quotesome”

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:12:37 +0000

I’ve written about my frustration with many quotation sites on the Web because they don’t provide their sources. There are some out there that do, and you can find them at The Best Places To Find Quotations On The Web.

I’m adding Quotesome to that list. The quotes have links to their sources, you can search by topic or person, and you can add your own.

Infographic: “Increase Your Blog Traffic in 3 Easy Ways”

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:59:23 +0000

I’m adding this infographic to The Best Sources Of Advice For Teachers (And Others!) On How To Be Better Bloggers:

Source: visual.ly via Stephanie on Pinterest

Video: “This Is Water”

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:54:28 +0000

You may have heard about the late David Foster Wallace’s amazing commencement address from several years ago at Kenyon College. A few days ago, a video, using his audio, was unveiled on the Web, and has since been seen millions of times. Here’s the video (you can read the transcript here).

Here are previous posts where I’ve also highlighted particularly notable commencement addresses.

The Best Posts On LA’s Banning Of Suspensions For “Willful Defiance” (Along With Commentary From An LA Teacher)

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:39:35 +0000

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s recent vote to ban student suspensions for “willful defiance” — without having a plan in place for alternatives (the Superintendent has four months to develop such a plan) — is a complicated issue. Clearly, out-of-school suspensions are not the ideal way to handle problems. Our school, for instance, has reduced these punishments dramatically by instead using “in-school suspensions” where teachers provide class work for them to do elsewhere on campus. And the relational culture, including conflict resolution, developed by our administrators, hall monitors and teachers are also extremely effective in dealing with discipline issues.

Nevertheless, there still are cases where out-of-school suspensions are used.

I also recognize that they can be and have been used inappropriately in some schools, and that not all schools have a similar relational culture.

I just seems perplexing to me that this ban was approved prior to having an alternative strategy in place, and I wonder how much educator input was solicited prior to the decision.

First, I’ll share links to articles about the ban, and then a commentary by Martha Infante, a very respected teacher in the Los Angeles district (and she’s respected throughout the state, too!). I hope readers will share their own thoughts:

Los Angeles Schools Ban Suspensions for ‘Willful Defiance’ is from Education Week.

LAUSD will no longer suspend students for ‘willful defiance’ is from Ed Source.

L.A. Schools: We Won’t Suspend Kids For Mouthing Off Anymore is from Take Part.

L.A. Unified bans suspension for ‘willful defiance‘ is from The Los Angeles Times.

LA Schools Throw Out Suspensions For ‘Willful Defiance’ is from NPR.

Commentary From Martha Infante:

Martha Infante teaches at L.A. Academy Middle School. Ms. Infante was the 2009 Teacher of the Year for the California Council for Social Studies (Middle Level).

It is the dream again. The one where you’re standing at the front of a classroom and a roomful of defiant students is disobeying your every instruction, laughing at your every command for order. It’s a nightmare actually, and many teachers have it on a recurring basis. I’m sure Freud or any other psychoanalyst would have something to say about the root causes, but I think it boils down to fear. Teachers have an enormous responsibility for the welfare and education of each and every one of their charges. But when it comes down to it, the vast majority of time, teachers are alone in the classroom, outnumbered 35 to 1.

In real life, most would not guess that I suffer from this nightmare as I am one of the stronger presences on my gritty, urban middle school campus. I am a veteran of the curse-outs, pushes, shoves, death threats and punches. Flying doors that smack you in the face? Not me, I keep a three foot distance from the range of doors. Water bottles thrown down the stairs and hitting you smack on the head? Not gonna happen, I always look up before climbing to the second or third stories. And as for suspending students for not bringing pencils or talking back? Well, lets just say the consequences I impose on my students are less desired than suspensions.

Yet I support respecting the discretion of teachers to issue a suspension for willful defiance.

The truth is that over my 20 years as an educator in an urban district I have seen student behavior get worse, not better. Teachers are being asked to take on the roles of counselors, therapists, disciplinarians, and now food servers, as we implement Breakfast n the Classroom next year. Which is fine. I’m up for the challenge.

But don’t take away my tools for behavior modification.

Counselors disappeared years ago. Psychiatric social workers are a luxury most schools can’t afford. Administrators are carrying the largest loads ever, and support staff is severely limited. Budget cuts have left schools with skeleton staffs and the students know it. No one is there to help me. It is my nightmare come to life.

I have many tools at my disposal as a seasoned educator. Even the most defiant of students tones it down when it comes to my classroom. But every now and then you have to show students you can and will remove them from the classroom and even the school if they are unwilling to maintain the integrity of the classroom. I’m not talking about defiance toward me exclusively. It could be a student that won’t stop calling your daughter a female dog, or your son a homosexual. One boy could not stop making sexual remarks in spite of getting a primo counseling spot with our school’s only therapist and the parents were not able to stop him either. So when he got into an argument with a girl and said she needed to be raped, he had to go!

The counseling didn’t work. The parents were ineffective. It’s me, the defiant student, and 34 other children. And now I’m supposed to keep him in the classroom? I do not agree.

Most suspensions I’ve been involved with have to do with other teacher’s students. I have no connection with them, cannot teach them the value system we create in the classroom. These are the students that say F you when you ask them to go to class, or blatantly tell you they are ditching when you ask them where they are supposed to be. Just yesterday I called for assistance on my radio in one such case, and the student laughed all the way to his next ditch spot. What can we do to help students understand how to respect authority? I do not have the answer to that. I think it lays with parenting. I think it has to do with the lack of follow through by burned out teachers who have had to deal with years, decades of troubled students with little support, and certainly no respect. Those kids know they can wear a teacher out and only the crazy ones will hunt you down to give you your consequence.

I believe that removing the right to suspend students for wililful defiance neglects the reality that the role of teachers has changed. I’d give anything to not have to discipline students, but no one else is taking care of that for me. And the truth is that the smartest of the defiant students (and many of them are very smart) will figure it out and take it as an approval of their sometimes horrid behavior. And as this policy is set to start next school year,I hope with my deepest of hopes to be wrong.

May’s Best Tweets — Part Three

Larry Ferlazzo — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:07:08 +0000

Every month I make a few short lists highlighting my choices of the best resources I shared through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog.

I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in this post.

If you don’t use Twitter, you can also check-out all of my “tweets” on Twitter profile page or subscribe to their RSS feed.

I use Storify to “curate” my best tweets: