a*****g
发帖数: 19398 | 1 By Sharon Brody
-----------------------
SIDEBAR PHOTO AND VIDEO (3 minutes) David Weinstein is retiring early after
teaching first grade at Brookline's Pierce School since 1987. He says he's
stepping down mostly because the data collection associated with education
reform takes time and attention away from teaching the way he believes is
best for children. (Sharon Brody/WBUR)
----------------------
If you're lucky, then at least once you have a teacher who makes all the
difference. My firstborn - who's now on his way to grad school - lucked out
when he was 6, with Mr. Weinstein.
David Weinstein has taught first grade at the Pierce School in Brookline for
29 years. He's gifted, dedicated and beloved - so I was stunned to find out
that he is retiring, early.
In his early 50s, he's leaving as the Brookline schools are immersed in
contentious contract negotiations, largely about the data and documentation
workload for teachers. This isn't just a Brookline issue -- it's part of the
national story of education reform.
Weinstein says it's the main reason he's stepping down. Even in a
progressive town with an acclaimed public school system, he says, the
paperwork is overwhelming.
And this is not a guy with an aversion to detail. For instance: Every year,
since 1987, he has mailed a birthday card with a personal note to every
student he's ever taught.
Weinstein's last day as a teacher in Brookline is Monday, June 20. As the
day neared, he paused to reflect.
Here's a condensed and edited version of what he said.
It's something I've been thinking about for a long time now, just in terms
of how the profession has changed and what we're asking of kids. It's a much
more pressure-packed kind of job than it used to be. And it's challenging.
The pace is intense and I feel for kids, because they're rushed. They're
constantly being rushed. You only get to be a child once. And you don't get
to enjoy childhood when you're constantly being rushed from this place to
that place to this, and being assessed in this way.
There's a lot more data collection than we used to do. Data collection is
important; part of education is assessment. Data collection isn't inherently
bad.
What becomes problematic is when an outside party is asking you to collect
data which isn't tremendously useful to my tailoring instruction to children
. And that - that becomes frustrating to me as an educator, when I'm
spending the limited time that I have each day collecting data, as opposed
to developing lessons and working with children.
---------------------------------
SIDEBAR PHOTO: David Weinstein keeps a block area, sandbox and water toys
in his first grade classroom. He says that's rare now that play time has
been phased out of primary education. (Sharon Brody/WBUR)
----------------------------------
There are only so many hours in a day. And I'd rather spend those hours
doing something else which I think would be more beneficial to children.
All this assessment and all this testing - what I think a better reaction is
, is supervision of teachers. You want to have your principal as your
instructional leader. You want principals and vice principals and all the
administrators to be going into classrooms and to be watching what's going
on, on a regular basis.
But our administrators are so overwhelmed and overburdened by all the
mandates that have come down. Our teacher evaluation system is unbelievable
in terms of the amount of work that has to be done -- self-assessments, and
reflections, and have meetings, and download evidence, and create goals, and
all this paperwork, which is not nearly as valuable as someone coming into
your classroom all the time and saying, "I really liked what you were doing
here," or "Would you think about doing it this way?" or "What about this?"
or "I noticed so-and-so was having a hard time with that." Those discussions
, those wonderful rich discussions, that's what moves education forward.
There's a lot of looking at standards - that's the big thing in education -
and really with the goal of trying to break education down into bits and
pieces, so that we can have a clear understanding of where kids have mastery
and where kids don't have mastery. All these little pieces don't
necessarily add up to a whole. It's hard to say that if you've mastered this
and this and this, you have an educated person. That I don't believe.
My favorite quote is "Education is not the filling of a pail but the
lighting of a fire." That's what education's all about. We want to get kids
excited about learning. I want kids to leave first grade and want to learn
more and be excited about learning and coming to school and discovery. That'
s what education is all about. [SEE http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/ ]
--------------------------
SIDEBAR PHOTO: David Weinstein plays a math game with his last class of
students. (Sharon Brody/WBUR)
--------------------------
I guess the big-picture problem is that all this stuff we're talking about
here is coming from on top, from above, be it the federal government, the
commonwealth of Massachusetts, the school administration. But the voices of
teachers are lost. I mean, nobody talks to teachers. Or, if they do talk to
teachers, they're not listening to teachers.
And that's, I think, the frustration - that this stuff just comes down, and
we sit with each other: "Well, who thought of this?" or "Why do they think
this is a good idea?" It's kind of like "Why not come and talk with us first
?" We actually are professionals who work with kids. We want what's best for
kids. We know what works. We know what doesn't work.
Education is always changing. What we know about teaching and learning is
always changing. But the people making those decisions should be teachers.
It should be educators making those decisions, and not politicians, and not
people who aren't in schools.
Would I be leaving teaching if things were different? Probably not, no, I
wouldn't be.
You know, honestly? If it wasn't so intense now, all year long, every single
day, I would do it for longer. I would. But the reality's a reality.
I think what I'll miss the most is having my own group of students. That'll
be hard, because that's like - that's one of the things that actually brings
tears to my eyes. Because it's, like, every September, I've had this new
group of kids to form and to work with. And I won't have that any more. So
that's hard.
But then I think to myself, "You know what? At some point, you're gonna have
to say goodbye." And I think, you know, I've had 29 groups of first-graders
. I was lucky enough to get to have these groups of students. They're still
around. OK, they're not 6 years old anymore, but that's a good thing - they'
ve moved on. But, you know, that's hard.
And, under different circumstances, would I like to have a few more groups
of students? Yeah, I would. But it is what it is.
-----------------------------------
Sharon Brody News Anchor is the voice of WBUR's weekend mornings. On
Saturdays and Sundays, she anchors the news for Weekend Edition and other
popular programs.
******************************************
-- | d****g
发帖数: 7460 | 2 我就最讨厌paperwork。
很多"庸"人在paperwork方面最厉害，混的可好了。
另外顶这句。"That's what education's all about. We want to get kids excited
about learning" | a*****g
发帖数: 19398 | 3 这是个全社会的 leadership的问题
我期望的leader是简化流程、并且还能把风险控制在适当的可接受的范围内
现在的社会是没完没了减小风险，增加千奇百怪的流程。
这个不是 leader——是个普通人大概也能做的事情。
excited
【在 d****g 的大作中提到】
: 我就最讨厌paperwork。
: 很多"庸"人在paperwork方面最厉害，混的可好了。
: 另外顶这句。"That's what education's all about. We want to get kids excited
: about learning"
|
|
