Franklin Schargel’s Blog

Bullying among students and peer groups is a hot topic, but talking about teacher victimization is considered taboo.

A 2011 study, “Understanding and Preventing Violence Directed Against Teachers,” reported 80% of about 3,000 K-12 teachers surveyed felt victimized by students, students’ parents or colleagues in the past year. Teachers reported that students were most often behind the verbal intimidation, obscene gestures, cyberbullying, physical offenses, theft or damage to personal property. But few teachers or researchers are talking about it.

The study found that 44% of teachers said they’ve experienced physical victimization. Men who participated in the study were more likely than women to report obscene remarks and gestures, verbal threats and instances of weapons being pulled on them. Women, on the other hand, were more likely than men to report intimidation.  Young teachers especially might be afraid to talk with a principal about being victimized in the classroom because they believe it means “they’re being ineffective somewhere.”

The Internet has created multiple avenues to increase the bullying of educators.  Students have the ability to create fraudulent twitter account pretending to be someone else, possibly a teacher. The perpetrator then intentionally creates a fake account with the sole purpose being to harass and humiliate an educator. By creating a twitter or false Facebook account with malice of forethought is a violation of education codes as well as cyber bullying laws and Facebook and Twitter can be made to take down the accounts..

Tenure of teachers in the K-12 system is different from tenure in universities.  In colleges and universities, tenure basically insures lifetime employment.  In the K-12 educational system, Tenure simply insures “˜due process” ““ a series of steps that schools/districts/cities/states require before a tenured teacher can be dismissed.

In Los Angeles, a judge allowed a lawsuit that would overturn teacher tenure laws and seniority rights to move forward. A committee in the North Carolina legislature is now studying a bill that would eliminate tenure for all teachers.

On Election Day, Idaho voters rejected a series of anti-teacher laws, including scrapping tenure, proposed by the state legislature. In South Dakota, voters shot down an effort to make teacher tenure a local option instead of automatic statewide.

Teacher tenure is complex, controversial, and political throughout the United States, and many state legislatures plan to examine the matter in their upcoming 2013 legislative sessions.

What is tenure, exactly? Legally put, tenure gives teachers a permanent contract after a set term of employment, ensuring that they cannot be fired without just cause. In order to fire a teacher, administrators have to conduct intense reviews of the teacher’s performance and navigate miles of bureaucratic tape.

Proponents cheer tenure because it protects jobs, academic freedom, and teachers’ rights. Unions often cite that without tenure, school districts could easily fire veteran teachers, who cost more, and hire first-year teachers who would work for less pay. It also protects teachers, advocates say, from dismissal because of political, social or religious beliefs.

Opponents say that it makes firing bad teachers virtually impossible. They argue that teachers are granted tenure before it’s proven that they can actually teach.

States vary on when teacher tenure occurs. Mississippi, for example, allows for tenure after only one year of teaching. The majority of states allow tenure after two or three years. Ohio doesn’t grant tenure until after seven years of teaching.

In most states, before tenure is granted a teacher can be dismissed without going through the process noted above.  I know of a teacher with tenure who was threatened with dismissal because he was teaching about the United Nations in a history class.  The removal of tenure laws would allow states to get rid of higher paid senior teachers to be replaced by younger, less-experienced, lower-paid educators.   If you were faced with critical surgery and were given a choice between a newly graduated surgeon, who was highly trained at a prestigious medical school or an experienced surgeon who had performed the surgery hundreds of times, who would you choose?  Obviously politicians do not want to give parents and students a similar choice.

Dr. Lee Jenkins is a long-time friend who is doing amazing things in education.  Lee is a former California superintendent.  He is making his newsletter available to those of you who read this blog.  You can do so by registering at his website,  www.LtoJConsulting.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ltojconsulting.

Dr. Jenkins has agreed to write a description of his work for this blog in the not-too-distant future.  Stay tuned.

I am indebted to  Davide Savenije and Education Dive which compiled a list:

18 iPad uses: How classrooms are benefiting from Apple’s tablets

iPads are quickly becoming a popular and powerful educational tool for classrooms. Beyond the immediate benefit of engaging students, iPads can improve education efficiency and standards. However, many teachers are unsure of how to use them effectively. Coupled with concerns over the costs involved, iPad implementation in schools is seen as an unnecessary and expensive risk.

As the case studies below demonstrate, iPads are being used in education environments around the world with great success. Teachers can have paperless classrooms, take attendance, share interactive presentations and test their students””all on their iPad.

1. SHOW MATH PROCESSES, NOT JUST ANSWERS
Presidio Middle School in San Francisco, California uses iPads to teach students algebra. While the material is the same in the textbook, the iPad helps students understand how to solve math problems because they can view videos explaining the material as many times as they need.

2. POLL STUDENTS
Julie Wilcott, a science teacher at Foxcroft Academy in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, uses the eClicker app to poll her students on what they know and don’t know, which allows her to spend more time teaching the lessons they struggle with.

3. GO ON VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
Most students and schools cannot afford to take a field trip to another country. However, Monica Mitchell, a fifth-grade teacher at Albert Harris Elementary in Martinsville, Virginia, took her class on virtual field trips to the Royal Navy Museum in Portsmouth, England and Yellowstone National Park using the Skype app for the iPad. Mitchell projected the tour of the Royal Navy Museum onto the SmartBoard in her classroom where students were able to interact with the museum guide and ask questions.

4. TAKE ATTENDANCE
Lonnie Strickland, Professor at the University of Alabama, is testing out an iPad app that tracks student’s attendance and participation. While that particular app hasn’t hit the market yet, Apple already has an app to take attendance for teachers called Attendance.

5. PROVIDE INTERACTION WITH MATH AND PHYSICS CONCEPTS
Chris Williams, the Mathematics Co-ordinator at Spring Cottage Primary School in Hull, England, has a list of ten interactive iPad apps that helped him teach math to his students. Red Bull Kart Fighter, a track racing game, helped teach students how to calculate averages. International Snooker was used to help students solve problems such as, how many ways are there to score a set amount of points? Angry Birds, a catapult game with high scores, was used to help teach students how to order and partition large numbers. Similarly, John Burk, a ninth-grade physics teacher at Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Georgia, used Angry Birds to teach students constant velocity and constant acceleration.

6. NURTURE CREATIVITY WITH STORYTELLING PLATFORMS
Educators at Ringwood North Primary School in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, created the Epic Citadel Challenge to foster storytelling, creative collaboration and individual initiative. Students used their experiences in the virtual landscape to tell a story in the medium of their choosing.

7. CONVERTS WORDS INTO RAPS
The Holy Family School in Ashland, Ky., is taking advantage of teacher and student-friendly apps that convert educational texts into engaging material for students. For example, AutoRap will take your words and turn them into a rap and Strip Designer enables the creation of comic strips.

8. GO PAPERLESS
Jackson Christian School in Jackson, Tenn., has virtually paperless classrooms. Students no longer carry binders and textbooks,  while teachers administer tests on their iPads.

9. ENGAGE THE DISENGAGED
Educators at Manor Lakes P-12 Specialist School in Wyndham Vale, Victoria, Australia, found that the iPads were most effective in prompting their most disconnected students to interact in the classroom and have fun while learning. For example, the iBooks and Marvel Comics apps were used to engage students in reading.

10. IMPROVE PRESENTATIONS
Federico Pavano, teacher and technology director at Immaculata-La Salle High School in Miami, Fla., uses Nearpod, an iPad app that creates slide presentations. Nearpod enables Pavano to fill his presentation with text, images, videos and surveys while allowing him to control the speed and flow of the lesson as students interact with the material.

11. ENHANCE PHYSICAL EDUCATION
SPARK, a health and physical education program, has an app for PE classes. PE teachers at Eastlake Middle School in Chula Vista, California use SPARK to record student’s physical activity and show them how to refine their movements.

12. GRAPH DATA
Julie Garcia, a teacher at Innovation Middle School in San Diego, California, uses the iPad to show students how to graph data and look for correlations.

13. TURN IN ASSIGNMENTS
Leslie Langham, a seventh-grade English teacher, uses Dropbox, a free file sharing app, to post homework assignments. Students turn them in using the app and she then grades and returns them all on Dropbox.

14. TAKE NOTES
Christina Weltmer, a science teacher at Garden City High School, was actually taught by one of her students on how to use Notability, the iPad app that enables the user to take notes, record lectures and annotate PDFs.

15. IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS
David Andrews, a Year 6 teacher at Spring Cottage Primary School in Hull, England, has a blog where he posts case studies of iPad implementation in his school. His fellow teacher, Mr. Williams, used Bike Baron, a motorcycling game, to improve his student’s writing skills by having them write about their experiences playing the game.

16. SHARE LECTURES
Jesse Lazzuri, a science teacher at Saint Andrew’s School in Savannah, Ga., used Keynote, part of iWork, to enable teachers to share lectures with students. Students could access lectures whenever they needed and were able to learn at the pace that suited them best.

17. ASSIST SPECIAL NEEDS LEARNING
Warringa Park School, a special needs institution in Hopper’s Crossing, Victoria, Australia, has a list of apps which have been particularly successful in teaching students who have special learning needs. Proloquo2Go aids students who have trouble speaking. Mad Addition, Mad Subtraction and Mad Multiplication help students learn math and have fun while doing it. Red Fish 4 Kids assisted students in learning how to spell.

Similarly, First Words Animals aids with letter and word identification. Jack and the Beanstalk Children’s Interactive Storybook helps keep students engaged as they learn how to read. Whizzit 123 and Toddler Counting helped students with numeracy. Likewise, the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia allows teachers to maintain a group learning environment even with students who cannot leave their hospital beds and do not have fine motor skills.

18. DECREASE EXPENSES
While iPads are often seen as a luxury, a study by Oklahoma State University reported that iPad implementation actually decreased costs for students and schools because they reduced and sometimes nullified the need for physical textbooks.

According to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution two times more students dropped out of Georgia schools as had previously been reported.

The following has been supplied to  me by my friend and colleague, Dr. Steven Sroka.  Steve is an expert in several areas,not the least of them on school violence.  You may have seen him on Oprah among other television appearances.

The bottom line in education takes place when the teacher shuts the door with the classroom full of students. Some say that teaching is a science and some say it is an art. Many educators know that students do not care what you teach, if you do not teach that you care. Here are some “Tips from the Trenches” from those who are or have been in the classroom.

Marvin Marshall, educator, writer, lecturer, and author of Discipline Without Stress:

• “The key to effective classroom management is teaching and practicing procedures. This is the teacher’s responsibility. Discipline, on the other hand, has to do with behavior and is the student’s responsibility.”
• “Teachers practice changing negatives into positives. ‘No running’ becomes ‘We walk in the hallways.’ ‘Stop talking’ becomes ‘This is quiet time.'”
• “Choice-response thinking is taught””as well as impulse control””so students are not victims of their own impulses.”
• “Since a person can only control another person temporarily and because no one can actually change another person, asking reflective questions is the most effective approach to actuate change in others.”

Ric Loya, coordinator of the Condom Availability Program for the Los Angeles (Calif.) Unified School District, health education department chairperson at Huntington Park High School, former mayor of the City of Huntington Park, founder and vice president of legislative affairs of the California Association of School Health Educators, and legendary health educator:

• “So much of the nation’s ills could so easily and effectively be dealt with by providing a quality school health education semester-long course taught by qualified teachers.”
• “[In a quality school health course,] we could deal with violence issues, mental emotional health issues, suicide, substance abuse, major chronic and communicable disease, and so many other life issues.”
• “The fiscal savings would be enormous since health education has proven to be very cost effective.”

Sharon McFadden, founder of The Jacob foundation; mother of Jacob Ryan McFadden Schmidt, who died at the age of 27 from H1N1; and high school teacher in Honolulu, Hawaii:

• “As human beings, we need to realize that we might be the last thread of hope for the person in front of us. I personally embrace life by kicking fear in the teeth. I embrace my life everyday with the mentality that I am on a mission. I don’t always know exactly what it is, but when the door opens, I see that opportunity and embrace it. Never forgetting, but for the grace of God, there go I.”
• “My mission is to have a compassionate heart and to share that with others.”

Marianne Dennstedt Sroka, special-education teacher for the Cleveland (Ohio) Metropolitan School District:

• “Respect. Always treat students as you would like your own children to be treated by a teacher. And speak to parents as you would like to be spoken to. People don’t always remember what you tell them, but they do remember how you treated them.”
• “Listen. It can be difficult to find the time to listen to each of our students, but I believe it is one of the most important things we can do for them. Allowing them to voice their fears or hopes is sometimes the only way for them to deal with life stresses. A child should know you care enough to listen.”

Franklin Schargel, author, consultant, motivational speaker, dropout prevention expert, and author of Dropout Prevention Fieldbook: Best Practices from the Field:

• “All children can learn””they learn at different speeds and in different ways. For many of them, we do not know the ‘switches’ that turn them on, so we accuse them of being at-risk. Traditional teaching and learning techniques do not work with these nontraditional learners. If we are to succeed with them, we need to learn and use nontraditional teaching and learning techniques.”
• “We believe education is expensive. It is not. Ignorance is expensive. Eighty percent of all prisoners are school dropouts. We either pay for education upfront or the lack of education downstream. And prison now costs about $40,000 a year. No school district spends that much.”

Sean Slade, director of whole child programs at ASCD:

• “ASCD believes a whole child approach to education is the best way to prepare today’s generation for college, a career, and citizenship.”
• “It is an approach that does not see youth as empty vessels to be filled with narrowly defined content knowledge, but as individuals who each have great potential to grow and develop socially, emotionally, physically, mentally, and civically as well as cognitively.”
• “Key to this is an understanding that relationships (teacher-student; student-student, etc.) and connectedness to one’s school, education, and community””which aid the development of a positive school/class climate and a sense of belonging””are fundamental.”

And, finally, a few of my own thoughts:

• “Education is like a four-legged chair, where one leg is the student, one the parent, one the school, and the other the community. If you take one leg away, the chair falls. Schools cannot do it alone.”
• “There is no magical solution. There is no program that works with all students. If students don’t learn the way we teach, we must change the way we teach.”
• “Relationships and social-emotional learning are keys to academic achievement.”
• “Educating the head without educating the heart is no education at all.”
• “Safe and healthy students learn more and live better. We may need more metal detectors, but we must have more mental detectors. We need to focus on mental health services to help prevent violence in and out of schools. We need more school counselors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, and resource officers or we will leave more children behind in school and life.”
• “I believe that the efforts of one person can make this a better world. This is why I teach.”

^{© 2013 Stephen R. Sroka, PhD, Lakewood, Ohio. Used with permission.}