Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Taking off the gloves...

Sometimes you just have to pay attention to your gut. When you think you have been played, maybe you have.
Read this compilation of moves by Arne Duncan and the DOE to avoid actual listening and learning while he is on his Listening and Learning Tour.
The "conversation" described by Stephen Krashen and the NCTE could have been the exact same one I joined through NBPTS for NBCTs interested in sharing concerns about the Blueprint. No opportunity to talk, an interactive webinar with no interaction, questions selected from a big pile by the speaker Judy Wortzel. Adherence to a strict 30 minutes where 15 minutes is taken up covering ground that the well-informed listeners are already familiar with. Blah, blah.
Time to step over the DOE and go straight to Congress otherwise we are going to get even more of the worst of the worst.
The secretive nature of the activities of the DOE sound a lot like Dick Cheney's "energy talks." Talking with who knows who about who knows what behind closed doors.
Please get informed and get vocal. If you don't know what to do, get on Teachers' Letters to Obama. Big noise is the only way to get attention.
There's three million of us. We could make a really big noise.

4 comments:

  1. Just one difference. In the "discussion" I participated in, the (softball) questions were selected by the NCTE representative, not the Dept of Education. The NCTE and DOE cooperated in making sure hard questions (those submitted by me, Ken Goodman, and I assume some others) were not asked or discussed.

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  2. Typical. If Duncan wraps his head around what we teachers have been saying instead of shutting down public schools, then maybe this country can move ahead. We have been mired in BAD educational policies since Reagan and it has gotten worse than ever under George Bush. And now we have Duncan. HELP me.

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  3. Do ya think Duncan "hates" teachers? I do. Duncan has major issues in this arena. Just listen to what he spouts?

    And then there's Obama. Where is the hope? People, please nail Duncan's/Obama's plans for education. They are unsound.

    So much of what they spout sounds like Hitler.

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  4. Wow. We got to Hitler pretty fast. My hope is that the teachers will develop a louder voice than we have managed in the past and speaking with authority about what works with children.
    And Stephen, now that you mentioned it the NBPTS webinar followed the same format. Our moderator from NBPTS did the question selection. There were over 100 of us online, time for only a fraction of the questions, and no opportunity to see what others were asking. At least seeing the questions by others is a possibility in that format that was blocked.

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