Law Presentations

The last two class periods of law presentations turned out to be more interesting and informative than expected. Each group did a great job. Law issues and court cases can be dull and boring. Lawyer talk and the writing by lawyers often make issues less clear. It sometimes does take a lawyer to explain complicated issues. In this case, the law presentations did make the laws and the concepts behind the laws more clear. The different areas of law that a teacher must be aware and follow were in number more than most people realize. The list of law topics did cover a wide range of catagories. The list did cover many problems that society has struggled with inside and outside of the classroom. It was interesting that on a particular issue that states sometimes have different laws. Communities within a state can have different standards. The issue of Unions had ninteen states requiring teacher participation in Unions and collective bargaining and sixteen states that prohibited collective bargaining. The Union staes did pay their teachers more. It would be interesting to find which states did a better job with student achievement. Union or Non-Union?

Teachers and Unions.

Teachers throughout this country should have the ability to organize and collectively bargain for better pay, working conditions (i.e. class size), as well as, to allow for their own initiatives and programs to be heard and considered. States that allow teachers collective bargaining rights have a fair better/easier time attracting and retaining good teachers, and while I am certainly not saying that there are no issues of concern regarding abuse of the rules by unions. I feel that these criticisms may be overstated, because if they were as wide spread as some would claim; the government, backed by vast popular support, would step in to either sanction or disband them for their actions.
Just as I feel that every teacher has the right of participating in a union of collective bargaining power, I do not feel that people should be require to pay any membership fees to an organization that they have an ideological disagreement with. All I am advocating is for a system that gives the freedom for unions to exist for those who would like to benefit from the use of their services.

His Word Game Feeds Thousands

John Breen created a 10,200 word definition challenge online at FreeRice.com last October. For every question that is answered, twenty grains of rice are donated to the U.N. World Food Program and is paid for by corporate advertising. So far twenty million grains of rice have been donated which will feed a million people for one day. The program also was designed to help his son study for the SAT's. The remark of a widow who lives in a refuge camp with her daughter was, "I really depend of rice." John Breen also commented on his program, "When people make changes in little ways, they're more willing to do something big."

David Wybenga

Presentations from last class

I really enjoyed the presentations that were presented over the past couple of weeks. It was interesting to see how court cases were decided and how many actually went against the teacher or students. I wish that we had been able to spend more time on discussion for the IEP presentation because I am still confused by it...As an art teacher would I have to fill one out??? I think as class we were all so interested in the presentations so we asked a lot of questions and there was a lot of discussion, which was good. I enjoyed them...thanks to everyone who presented last week.

Sports or Academics?

I was talking to a lady from home that teaches high school biology, and I thought it fit in nicely with our ethics discussions. She has a young lady in her class that is also one of the star players on the softball team. She had a paper due in the class on a Wednesday that she failed to turn in. The state softball tournament was that Friday. The teacher told her that she needed to turn in some form of the assignment before playing in the tournament because school came first, so the student just decided to not show up to her class at all for the remainder of the week. The softball coach looked it up online on the state tournament webpage that she did not have to attend school in order to play in the softball games that weekend. It creates a huge ethical dilemma because technically the softball coach is correct that the student is allowed to play, but the student also got around not turning in her assignments when she is a student first and foremost. I don’t know that I completely agree with telling the student that she wouldn’t be allowed to play without turning in the paper, but it is also wrong of the coach and principal to go behind her back.

A Petition to Raise the Bar

http://www.goodbyeminimallyadequate.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
This is a petition to remove the words, "a minimally adequate education" from our state constitution regarding current educational standards in SC and replace them with, "a high quality education, allowing each child to reach his greatest potential." Please take a moment to sign the petition if you agree with its intent.

School Ethics According to the Simpsons

http://www.tubearoo.com/articles/87164/The_Simpsons_Whacking_Day.html

I caught the first couple minutes of this last night and happened to find the episode online. I like the super intendents comment about the geography requirements. It made me think about the states developing standards to make themselves look good after NCLB. You only need to watch about the first five and a half minutes, but if you are a fan of the Simpsons feel free to watch the entire episode.