Some years ago, one of my teaching colleagues decided to quit fighting the battle against tired and lazy seniors in her English IV class. She included in her course description a statemen that students would be permitted to sleep no more than 10 minutes per 90 minute class. The result? Students who had never fallen asleep in class felt compelled to take a nap in their English class? Why? Because what had been intended as a way of limiting a problem behavior was perceived by the students as granting them the right to engage in the behavior.

Which leads to this situation in England.

A secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers - as long as they don't do so more than five times in a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, they will be 'spoken' to at the end of the lesson.

The astonishing policy, which the school says will improve the behaviour of pupils, was condemned by parents' groups and MPs yesterday. They warned it would backfire.

Parents were advised of the plan, which comes into effect when term starts next week, in a letter from the Weavers School in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.
Assistant headmaster Richard White said the policy was aimed at 15 and 16-year-olds in two classes which are considered troublesome.

"Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score," he wrote in the letter .

"Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson."

Parents called the rule 'wholly irresponsible and ludicrous'.

This is not a plan to eliminate the use of the particular word – it is permission for the kids to use the word in question. Kids are going to feel that they now have the right to use the word. And since the consequence of going over the permitted limit of five is that the class (as a group) will be “spoken to by the teacher,” there is effectively no consequence for spewing out the profane term in question.

I can hear that discussion at the end of class – the teacher reminds students that the word is inappropriate in a classroom setting, to which someone responds “whatever you effin’ say, teach!”

If this were my school and they persisted in following through with this stupid policy, my response would be “I effin’ quit!”

Posted by: Greg at 10:20 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Reminds me of somebody. A sure sign of intelligence is when a person says the "F" word at the beginning of the sentence and at the end for a dramatic closing.

Imbeciles they are with that stupid policy.

Posted by: mcconnell at Mon Aug 29 11:49:55 2005 (CQ3Yp)

2 Hope you recognize that my use of the term "effing" here is for ironic effect.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Mon Aug 29 12:54:19 2005 (yqECe)

3 Yes, I know. We know who those Effers are who like to eff everybody in the back just because they effing don't like them because of a party affiliation. How effing unbelievable.




Ok, wittle boys and girls...mind your potty mouths.

Posted by: mcconnell at Tue Aug 30 13:21:44 2005 (CQ3Yp)

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More than one out of every eight girls at Canto, OhioÂ’s Timken High School is pregnant as school starts this fall. If that number astounds you, please consider that it does not include those who have already had a child. What is the reason?

There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton Repository.

The article reported that some would say that movies, TV, videogames, lazy parents and lax discipline may all be to blame.

School officials are not sure they what has caused so many pregnancies, but in response to them, the school is launching a three-prong educational program to address pregnancy, prevention and parenting.

IÂ’ll resist the temptation to make a snide comment about the contention that school officials donÂ’t know what has caused so many pregnancies. IÂ’m sure that a health of biology textbook clued them in really quick.

No, the reason is that sex has no consequences today. Look at what the school is doing – creating a parenting program to help these kids raise their kids. If it looks anything like my school district’s program, it will include free day care, free medical care, special scheduling, and a coordinator to get the new mothers hooked up with all the relevant entitlement programs. Getting pregnant and dropping a kid at age 16 won’t have any consequences at all – and when the little girl with the rotund belly is the guest of honor at a cafeteria baby-shower surrounded by all of her friends, being a “baby mama” will continue to look glamorous. And I won’t get into the question of the small number who actually get married on Saturday and come to school on Monday showing off their new wedding ring. And after graduation, many of them will be eligible for special scholarship money for overcoming the hardship of being a teenage mother.

I can still remember the day when getting pregnant (or even married) meant that you education was over. You had made an adult choice, and needed to live with the adult consequences. But with the consequences removed, what incentive is there for a young lady to put a dime between her knees and keep it there until graduation? None.

I realize that shame and consequences are dirty words in today’s society, and that using them marks one out as a cold-hearted SOB with an archaic value system. But let’s be honest – those social sanctions worked. Maybe we need to go back to them.

Either that, or more of my colleagues had better expect to hear what I heard from a student in my class several years ago – “Mister – I think I need to go to the nu-u-u-u-u-r-r-r-s-s-s-e! My baby’s coming.”

Posted by: Greg at 12:52 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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We are currently in our second special legislative session here in Texas. Both have been called to deal with education issues, including teacher pay. So what has happened so far? Lots of nice words about teachers (while trying lowering our pension, increasing our contribution to the pension system, an increase in the retirement age and multiple attempts to gut hard-won provisions of state law that let us have a lunch period, planning period, and safe, orderly classrooms), but no movement on the pay raises for teachers, who are paid over $600 below the national average.

But the legislature has passed something.

And there is the Texas statehouse, where lawmakers, meeting in a so-called "education" session, recently sent Gov. Rick Perry a bill giving judges a pay raise while continuing to reward teachers with compliments and promises.

(Guess, in case you haven't heard, which profession's pay is tied, under a longstanding law, to legislators' retirement benefits. Yes, the bill that went to the governor will give those pensions a boost.)

Just so you understand what the legislature gets out of this bill, let me explain the situation. The Texas legislature is a part-time job which pays an annual salary of $7200. Yes, you read that right -- seven thousand two hundred dollars. Legislatorscan retire at age 50 with a pension of around $35,000 with 12 years of service -- and can receive over $100,000 with sufficient years of service and senior leadership positions factored in. Now the legilators could have amended the bill to eliminate the windfall to themselves (which, by the way, is some $6400 annually -- close to the amount Texas teachers are paid below the national average), but they didn't.

Which is not to say judges do not deserve a pay raise -- but look at what they are getting.

The judicial bill, which Perry is expected to sign, will increase the state's contribution to a state district judge's salary from $101,000 to $125,000 a year, which counties can continue to supplement. Salaries for court of appeals judges will rise from $107,000 to $137,500, and for members of the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals, from $113,000 to $150,000.

The raises, the first enacted by the Legislature since 1997, will bring judges' salaries in Texas more in line with other states.

Funny, isn't it, that the folks whose pay is being increased to the national average are already making over $100,000 annually, while teachers are only going to see half of their gap closed by this legislation -- and $1000 of that will be an illusion, switching our untaxed health care stipend to taxed salary dollars.

And i won't get into the issue of the failure to appropriate the money needed for new textbooks which are sitting in warehouses waiting for delivery.

These two issues of education funding may go by the wayside -- but at least the elected officials goth theirs during the "education" special session.

Posted by: Greg at 07:25 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Alief ISD, located on the west side of Houston, Texas, has a strict policy for those students who get into fights. Students who "participate" in a fight are expelled. Now the parents of Matthew Meloy, a former student at Hastings High School, are fighting that rule, suing the district after their son was brutally beaten during his senior year.

Meloy says he was jumped by four other students who were bullying another member of the baseball team.

His family blames it on Alief ISD's strict "no fighting" policy.

"He'd write, "Dad, I didn't want to get kicked out. I didn't want to get suspended. I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to do that because I didn't want that to happen', " says his father, Rick Meloy.

Meloy's father says his son was obeying the school district's zero tolerance policy when it comes to fighting.

"He absolutely knew that because that is something that is in the handbook at the school. It's drilled into the students' heads that if you participate in any way you will be expelled," says Jess Mason, the family's attorney.

When asked if they tell kids not to fight back, "We tell them not to assume they can use that as a justification," says the district's Paula Smith.

Just how badly was the 215-pound, 6-foot three-inches Matthew beaten? Well, his injuries included a jaw broken in two places, teeth floating on busted gums and injuries so severe that he couldn't talk. Two years later, he still has additional surgery ahead of him.

This rule and the way it is expalined and enforced makes students incredibly vulnerable. Matthew Meloy was terrified of being expelled just weeks before graduation, which would have destroyed his future plans for a college education at Texas A&M, one of the finest educational institutions in Texas (no matter what I say to the faces of my Aggie friends). Instead he was beaten to a pulp and could easily have been killed.

Will the next victim of this policy be a young woman who fears that any resistance to a sexual assault will result in her expulsion?

It seems to me that the courts need to intervene and hold those who make such policies liable both professionally and personally for the damage that they and their policies cause.

Posted by: Greg at 06:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I don't know how I would cope with this situation if I were one of these teachers. Guaranteed a paycheck, but with no regular duties and an unclear future, these seventy teachers are in a sort of limbo.

Just days before the start of school in HISD, some contract teachers don't have permanent jobs.

They were all let go when three highs schools deemed low performing by the state were reorganized.

The total number of teachers in this situation? Seventy. Why so many? because state law requires that such chronically low performing schools have a 100% replacement of staff. Personally, that strikes me as a bit inefficient. After all, within that group of teachers are folks whose students did well and who would be an asset to the resonstituted campus.

It is interesting, too, who doesn't have a permanent assignment.

When school starts Monday at Kashmere High, veteran teachers Peter Nagy and Linda Murray won't be there. They've lost their jobs.

"I love teaching," said Peter Nagy, history teacher. "I don't like what HISD has done to me. I think that is utterly unjustified."

Nagy taught history at Kashmere for 20 years.

Murray is a 10-year veteran who taught English. Last year she was Kashmere's teacher of the year.

But as of Thursday, neither one of them has been assigned to a new school.

The school's teacher of the year wasn't scooped up? I wonder why. I mean, here is someone who looks to be an asset somewhere in the district.

Honestly, I'm surprised that the district hasn't mandated their placement somewhere.

Posted by: Greg at 04:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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From time to time I will blog about personal things.

I've hinted around school issues once or twice, but quite obliquely.

Today I'm going to break a rule -- I'm going to comment on a colleague.

This colleague is a large, arrogant individual who has alienated a great many colleagues. It doesn't take most folks long to recognize him for the sort of person he is.

He is also the campus representative for one of the four major teacher organizations in the state -- the one that presents itself as a union (there are no real teacher's unions here in Texas, since we can't strike or collectively bargain). So during our in-service time, he was permitted to make a brief "sales pitch" to the faculty along with the other campus reps.

What comes out of his mouth as part of his presentation?

"And if you have a problem and need a lawyer, just call them and they'll get back to you within 24 hours. They do a great job getting things straightened out for you -- I wouldn't be teaching here if they didn't!"

Our principal simply bowed his head and covered his face. One of the folks at my table whispered "Now we know who to blame --maybe Shakespeare was right about killing all the lawyers."

You know -- I don't think that little tidbit added to the credibility of that particular organization at all.

Posted by: Greg at 06:35 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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