There in no teacher shortage...

As myself many of colleagues approach retirement (thus meaning old), I worry about the profession.  I worry about teachers, students and the overall trend.  We continually hear about there not being enough teachers.  Today I read an interesting article "There Is No Teacher Shortage" and if you take the time to read it - I agree with it.

1) It is simply supply and demand - what schools want: great people at rock bottom prices is not achievable.  Especially when the teaching profession has gone from highly respected to... well... what it is today.  And it used to be a job where you would put in a career and your retirement was there - it was not great but it was consistent.  And that too - it least in Wisconsin is gone.

2) So states lower standards so more people can be teachers - and eventually that will have an effect.   In my opinion it will start in urban and rural areas because they have less resources - teacher cuts, teachers will move to the suburban schools... And the spiral will begin.

So the question becomes what now - will we react prior to the bottom or not.  And it really comes down to one thing:  Those brave people who become teachers should be able to have a middle class living after a short period of time and right now that is not the case.

Eventually this gap between job requirements and pay can only result in one thing - the standards equaling the pay.  Meaning if it is not treated importantly, financially, it will become a second class job and our students will reap that prize.

If students are number one - the teaching career should be paid like it.

A different PLC... Programmable Logic Controllers - in Geometry!!

We have started working on Mechatronics at our school in our Intro to Engineering/Problem Solving Course.  Thanks to an NSF grant, Maryland Design, and our local tech school - BTC.  I was able to train last summer in Florida, and then my boss took the leap and we purchased the trainer below - only $567.  And then our local tech school, BTC took the leap to start a dual enrollment path and reimbursed our school for the trainer.  Below are our first two videos for 

Next is working thru the curriculum for the trainer - but you notice the difference - get it first - use it and then figure out the details!! The experience for the students has been great - even if we struggled with the path occasionally.

And the really important next big step is to have every math student do a bit of programming!! Most likely in Geometry - tied to logic and proofs (which we don't do much of).  I think a bit of programming like this really develops a students "if-then" thinking!
But is starts with willingness to say there are better things to do than we been doing....  A tough statement.

My plan is to have videos up of Geometry students doing some programming by May!

Back to blogging, finding reflection time....

Lately I have found myself is a funk.  And while I put my best foot forward everyday this funk is holding back my ability to let things roll off - meaning - things are annoying me lately.  And in education that can take a toll.  And I think it has a correlation to my reduced blogging time.

While I have not blogged much in the last year - I still have been doing reflection, just thru other sources - PLCs and twitter mainly - but I think that finding time to blog, time to have the thoughts flow thru my fingers is a necessity for me.   For me it prioritizes where my energy goes, what I am thinking about and what should be next.

So in the next few weeks I plan to write about the following things:

1) No homework in HS Math -- I have not assigned any homework in my classrooms this year.  I assign projects - but daily practice we are handling differently - mostly bell-to-bell, coupled with retest and requiz as some students take more time.

2) Infinite requizzing - why it works and why you don't have to worry about "what will happen in college."

3) Our school just went to one-to-one (as of last week) in our HS, how should I utilize this in my math room?

4) Engineering in HS, how to get students problem solving....  Not worrying acout curriculum but finding opportunities.

For me, it is simply time that needs to be taken....