Educational Leadership:Helping All Students Achieve:Closing the Achievement Gap. Closing the Culture Gap. By Tim Walker The majority of the 22 students in Lauren Mead’s first-grade classroom are White, but like the nation as a whole, only just. Almost half are Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, or Black. Students at Rose Hill Elementary in Kirkland, Washington, speak more than 20 languages. Mead, now in her third year of teaching, is a White woman faced with an increasingly racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse classroom.
And she’s not alone. The teaching force in the United States has remained stubbornly White, despite changes in public school student demographics. But in terms of teacher effectiveness, does this really matter? It depends, say the experts. Helping students make the link between what they learn in the classroom and the life they know outside of the classroom is at the core of cultural competency, a skill sought after by school districts across the country. “We’re Really Not Prepared for This” Culturally responsive teaching is not only an issue for White, female educators. Start with a Question: Innovative Teaching Requires Innovative PD: 5 Solutions. If school and district leaders want teachers to take risks and innovate in their classrooms, then those leaders must take similar risks when designing professional development.
Modeling is not overrated. Let me repeat that: Modeling is NOT overrated. What follows is the If...Then of professional learning. If school leaders want teachers to be innovative, then they have to offer experiences that inspire innovation. IF we want teachers to try new tech tools and instructional practices, THEN give teachers a chance to try them out in context.
Teachers have grown tired of trainings that are focused on the latest app or shiny new tech tool. Instead, the teaching and learning that these technology tools help promote should be modeled within professional development. What followed was not surprising. The professional learning teachers experienced was not about a tool. School day scheduling often limits teachers' abilities to co-plan and collaborate. What is “sandbox time”? Evidence Based Reporting - Evidence-Based Reporting. You are already registered. My son has been suspended five times. He’s 3. Tunette Powell’s sons, JJ (left) and Joah, have been suspended from school eight times combined. (Tunette Powell) I received a call from my sons’ school in March telling me that my oldest needed to be picked up early. He had been given a one-day suspension because he had thrown a chair.
He did not hit anyone, but he could have, the school officials told me. JJ was 4 at the time. I agreed his behavior was inappropriate, but I was shocked that it resulted in a suspension. For weeks, it seemed as if JJ was on the chopping block. Still, I kept quiet. I was expelled from preschool and went on to serve more suspensions than I can remember. Tunette Powell’s oldest son, JJ, was 4 years old when he was suspended from preschool. And even still, when my children were born, I promised myself that I would not let my negative school experiences affect them. So I punished JJ at home and ignored my concerns.
Just like before, I tried to find excuses. I blamed myself, my past. “JJ?” The secret to Patagonia’s success? Keeping moms and onsite child care and paid parental leave — Quartz. When Phil Graves, a father of three young girls, worked for Deloitte, his days looked a lot like those of many working professionals. He left before the kids were up to commute to work in San Francisco. He raced through his day, and dashed home to make the bedtime crush: bath, bedtime stories, a few sweet snuggles before lights out for the kids, dinner with his wife and a flurry of emails before bed. “All my quality time with my daughters was on weekends,” he said. And that was a good version of what most working parents in the US experience. Deloitte has some of the most family-friendly benefits in corporate America. For 17 years it has featured on Fortune’s “Top 100 Companies to work for” and was recently named a top company by Working Mother magazine.
Its benefits include paid maternity and paternity leave, and flexible work arrangements. Graves is now head of Patagonia’s venture fund and everything about his day is different. Care-giving is not America’s strong point How to scale it. Teachers work more overtime than any other professionals, analysis finds. Teachers are more likely to work unpaid overtime than staff in any other industry, with some working almost 13 extra hours per week, according to research. A study of official figures from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) found that 61.4 per cent of primary school teachers worked unpaid overtime in 2014, equating to 12.9 additional hours a week.
Among secondary teachers, 57.5 per cent worked unpaid overtime, with an average of 12.5 extra hours. Across all education staff, including teachers, teaching assistants, playground staff, cleaners and caretakers, 37.6 per cent worked unpaid overtime – a figure higher than that for any other sector. Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT teaching union, said the scale of teachers’ unpaid overtime was “untenable”. “Much of teachers’ excessive workload is as a result of government education policies and initiatives, including the totally out-of-control accountability systems," she said. “We already have a shortage of teachers in many subjects.