GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Research shows that when teachers develop personal connections with their students, often by sharing information about their personal experiences and feelings, their students behave better and work harder. But should they try to make those connections online, using MySpace and the Facebook?

CNN reports that many teachers are confronting that question for the first time as social networking sites gain membership among professionals and as the first generation of young adults comfortable with exposing their personal life on the Internet ages out of school and into the workplace — which sometimes means the classroom.

I can imagine plenty of legitimate, constructive uses for teacher-student connections on social networking sites, from homework help to letting shy students speak out in a safe forum to bolster collaboration among students. But the potential for trouble is also great. What if students see pictures of their teachers doing things no teacher would consider doing in a school building? And do teachers really want visual confirmation that their students break all the rules once the school bell rings at the end of the day? Social networking sites can also facilitate serious abuses — in Missouri, a recent spate of illicit student-teacher relationships has prompted legislation that would prohibit teacher-student online networking.

Teachers, where do you draw the line? What do you do when a student “friends” you?

I think people are afraid of candor with kids because they feel like they don’t want to fight with them; they don’t want to hurt their feelings; they don’t want to step on them. I think that’s a big mistake. I don’t think clarity and candor means meanness or hurting kids’ feelings. If you can be very specific about what’s working in a piece of work and equally specific about what’s weak, it’s a gift to the student who created it.

So says Ron Berger in a thought-provoking interview in UnBoxed, “a journal of reflections on purpose, practice and policy in education” published by the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. Berger, of Expeditionary Learning Schools, thinks student projects should be organized around the concept of “crafting beautiful work,” with the teacher using models of excellent work, peer critiques like those practiced in writing and art workshops for adults, and multiple drafts to help students create something truly masterful.

Berger says that his ideas were informed by his experiences in the arts and architecture:

As a self-employed carpenter I designed homes and additions, and you would never do blueprints for anything without an incredible amount of critique from the homeowners, from engineers, from other builders, from architects. That process of many different iterations of the project and many improvements along the way was the ethic of what we did. And that ethic, of being a craftsman and carpenter and trying to do things really well, certainly spilled over into my sense of what a classroom should be.

(more…)

New classroom by EditorB.

It’s unfortunate that in a year when many people are feeling the economic crunch, teachers in the city will likely have to spend more out-of-pocket on classroom expenses, thanks to cuts to Teachers’ Choice funding. The Teachers’ Choice program reimburses teachers for the purchase of supplies ranging from art, science, and physical education equipment to basic office supplies, classroom libraries, and computer software.

Teachers’ Choice was eliminated altogether in this year’s first budget proposal, but thanks to City Council discretionary funds, 60 percent of Teachers’ Choice funding was restored in the final budget. This year, JD2718 writes, teachers will receive $150 (down from $220 last year), social workers, school psychologists, and guidance counselors will get $100, school secretaries $50, and lab specialists $75.

It’s absolutely better than nothing, and I understand that hard choices must be made during economic downturns, but New York’s teachers will certainly feel the pinch. When I was teaching, I could spend my allocation in a single trip to Staples, stocking up on basic supplies that my students would use all year: enough markers, scissors, and bottles of glue that each lab group could have their own, class sets of rulers marked with both metric and standard units, meter sticks, and much more. My school provided basic supplies, but Teachers’ Choice money gave me the flexibility to buy exactly what I needed and keep it in my own classroom where I could make sure it was kept in good condition (not a guarantee when supplies are shared among a whole school, unfortunately). Other schools are much worse about providing supplies; over the years I’ve met a number of teachers who bought small photocopiers because they were paying to have hundreds of copies made when their schools ran out of paper, severely limited photocopying, or failed to repair broken copiers.

The decrease in Teachers’ Choice funding will hurt the newest teachers the most, as a greater proportion of their salaries tends to go to supplies. New teachers are paid least and have not yet accumulated a store of materials for the classroom, as more experienced teachers have. Also, with more years in the classroom, many teachers learn tricks to minimize purchases and keep costs down.

Nationally, Scholastic Administrator reports, teachers spend an average of $475 on supplies, with elementary school teachers spending the most. Teachers can claim a $250 federal tax credit for purchasing materials for school, without needing to itemize their spending, yet for most that is barely half of what they spend on their classrooms.