Results tagged “New York Times” from Boarding School Blog - onBoarding Schools

"The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It's not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it's deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft...

The primary trait she (the developing genius) possesses is not some mysterious genius. It's the ability to develop a deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine.

Coyle and Colvin describe dozens of experiments fleshing out this process. This research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we're "hard-wired" to do. And it's true that genes place a leash on our capacities. But the brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through behavior. As Coyle observes, it's not who you are, it's what you do." (NYT)

The New York Times ran a conversation (Teaching: No 'Fallback' Career) covering a subject that regularly comes up at our house and, currently seems to be on many peoples' minds as they consider the stability of civil/public service careers- "maybe I'll go into teaching?" In the framework of a struggling private sector, it's a nice sentiment; it sounds good; people think the schedule is good; it's indoor work and, for some reason, people perceive at as an easy, second-tier profession that anyone can practice without too much difficulty.

After all, we don't pay teachers particularly well and they certainly aren't accorded much social status. But with the collapse of finance and the contractions of other industries, 'maybe I'll teach?"

My wife and I shake our heads in wonderment. "Do these people have any idea what a classroom is like? I'm dumbfounded by how little people seem to know about classrooms and, sometimes, irritated by the opposite side of the same coin, how much they think they know about a profession that they've never pursued.

I have been a high school teacher and administrator and my wife still is a high school math teacher and has been an administrator. My argument against such sentiment usually begins something like- "X has no idea what's it's like to live and function among high school students for your entire work day. There's no way he/she can spend their day not speaking adult." Or, my other primary observation on the topic- "So-and-so finds no amusement or joy in kids being kids. The first time that a student responds like a teenager instead of an adult so-and-so will explode."

Most adults aren't built for teaching based on the basics of the situation- being an adult in the student or kid world all day. I haven't even needed to address teaching practice and thinking to get most adults to think twice about their teaching sentiments.

To teach well, one has to love being among kids- all day. Be professionally adaptive and adept. And, operate with a heightened sensibility of service. It's not about you.

In "Teaching: No 'Fallback' Career" The New York Times collected the thoughts of five education professionals on the subject of moving into the classroom.

Their observations should prompt our thanks for those who make the classroom their profession and give pause to those who believe the classroom easy.

Pam Grossman professor of education at Stanford University:

"...Because all of us have spent thousands of hours in classroom observing teachers, we may underestimate the skill required to engage a group of children or adolescents and ensure that they are learning. Much of the teaching we do in everyday life, as parents or employers, involves telling or tutoring. As parents, we help children with math homework, test them on their vocabulary words, answer their questions. But teaching is much more than telling, and teachers have to know more than right answers.

Good teachers must also be connoisseurs of error. Over time, good teachers can anticipate predictable errors and misconceptions, understand the logic behind the error, and help move students toward a deeper understanding. Work on the teaching of mathematics at the University of Michigan has demonstrated that what they term "mathematical knowledge for teaching" distinguishes teachers from mathematicians and more effective teachers from less effective ones..." (NYT)

"...The notion that anyone can teach is pure myth. No matter how much one may know or how altruistic one may be, some people are just temperamentally unsuited to teach and are toxic for kids. The problem is that it is difficult to identify those types.

....It won't take you long to know whether you love teaching. As nervous as I was, it took me about 10 minutes after first walking into my first class some 40 years ago to realize that for me the classroom is a magical place where I wanted to work. At the same time if you realize you don't love it, do your students a favor: get out and look for another line of work..." (NYT)

"...it took me until my third year before I was fully competent, even though the students, parents, fellow teachers and administrators were all pleased with what I was doing. I learned to rethink each lesson, from class to class as well as from year to year, and to adjust my lesson plans according to the students in each class.

That's the hard part, thinking more about the students than about the content. It is probably the biggest challenge for many career switchers. One doesn't have to be their buddy, but one has to build relationships of trust..." (NYT)

"Manager. Entertainer. Mathematician. Care. Performance. Preparation. Knowledge. Teaching always appears easy to the outsider. Poor teachers make it seem easy because they do nothing. Effective teachers make it seem easy because they make teaching seem effortless. Either way, the public is duped. The only way to understand the level of commitment and expertise necessary to be a good teacher is to do it yourself. Do it for a minimum of three years. Then, decide if A.) it's the place for you and B.) if it's easy."

"Faced with one of the most challenging fund-raising environments anyone can remember, colleges and universities are appealing to donors to help meet the swelling demand for financial aid...

The incoming student body for the fall of 2009 will have higher financial needs than in the past," said Clay Ballantine, Hampshire's chief advancement officer. "I tell donors these are excellent students and we want to take financial concerns out of their decision-making process, and we're looking to you to provide a gift that will help us do that."

"I was the guy who started it 20 years ago, and I believe deeply in it...It's an extremely important part of me and Juilliard'... Mr. Polisi said he hoped to raise money to restart the program, on a smaller scale, in two years."

"There is no way of knowing just how many would-be or current private school parents are turning to the public schools. But there is no question that the city's public kindergartens are experiencing a groundswell of interest...

The growing undertow from private to public emphasizes just how desperate some families have become.

Moving your kid out of private school is usually one of the last things to go," said Kathy M. Braddock, a partner at Charles Rutenberg Realty. "You give up vacations and cars and take away summer camp first.

But I hear people evaluating everything now. I know lawyers who have been laid off, Wall Street people, the Madoff victims. These are people who never thought they would be in a financial situation where they would have to start making certain choices.

...saying you're interested in sending your kids to public schools used to be a taboo among a certain group of people....Now it's actually kind of cool and in vogue."

"It's pretty much a given tuition rates go up every year...But as a parent, I prioritize and give up other things. This is a necessity for my family."

"It would be unbelievable to get some kind of job out of this...I would love to get my stuff out there and then see other kids wearing it and think, wow, I designed that." (NYT)

"...The Obama approach would make it more likely that young Americans grow up in relationships with teaching adults. It would expand nurse visits to disorganized homes. It would improve early education. It would extend the school year. Most important, it would increase merit pay for good teachers (the ones who develop emotional bonds with students) and dismiss bad teachers (the ones who treat students like cattle to be processed).

We've spent years working on ways to restructure schools, but what matters most is the relationship between one student and one teacher. You ask a kid who has graduated from high school to list the teachers who mattered in his life, and he will reel off names. You ask a kid who dropped out, and he will not even understand the question. Relationships like that are beyond his experience..."

"....recently, after years of what frustrated parents describe as inertia in the church hierarchy, a sense of urgency seems to be gripping many Catholics who suddenly see in the shrinking enrollment a once unimaginable prospect: a country without Catholic schools.

From the ranks of national church leaders to the faithful in the pews, there are dozens of local efforts to forge a new future for parochial education by rescuing the remaining schools or, if need be, reinventing them. The efforts are all being driven, in one way or another, by a question in a University of Notre Dame task force report in 2006: "Will it be said of our generation that we presided over the demise" of Catholic schools?" (New York Times - For Catholic Schools, Crisis and Catharsis)

"The Archdiocese of Washington was so desperate to save seven struggling parochial schools last year that it opted for a solution that shook Catholic educators to the core. It took down the crucifixes, hauled away the statues of the Virgin Mary, and -- in its own word -- "converted" the schools in the nation's capital into city charter schools." (New York Times - For Catholic Schools, Crisis and Catharsis)

1. Make yourself the best choice
   
   
2. Stay affordable to your constituency

"Who is right? The parent who sees the application process as a life experience, and thinks that offering a crutch might help them now, but cripple them in the future? Or the parent who says "we're not in Kansas anymore," and feels that all the work put in and learning done during high school will not be enough without advice and guidance on navigating the increasingly competitive system?"

"South Koreans have become the largest group of foreign students in the United States, according to American government statistics, outnumbering even those from China, with a population much larger than South Korea's 48 million people."  (Fackler, NYT)

"Upper-middle-class families will still have the ability to send their children abroad, even if it means great sacrifice," said Oh Ookwhan, a professor of education at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. "This will allow them to stay ahead of less fortunate families."

"In the early 1980s, James J. Liautaud was a trouble-making student at Elgin Academy who ranked near the bottom of his high school class. He drank beer. He smoked cigarettes. He skipped class.

The dean, James Lyons, recognized the rebellion as insecurity, and saw what others did not - a student from a financially struggling family, trying to fit in at a prestigious school among wealthier, more polished peers. The dean, who had a working-class upbringing himself, put his job on the line. "If he goes," he told the faculty, "I go."

"Since colleges and universities pay no taxes on their endowments or on the income they earn, the public has a keen interest in knowing whether schools are adopting payout policies that make sense. The rainy day so many colleges and universities have saved for is here. The question is whether these institutions will have the wisdom to step up spending in response."