Here’s My Lesson Plan

Posted on January 27, 2018 by Poetic Justice

Unchained and Free – My Life Lesson Plan

Unchained and free.
Liberated and alive.
Curious and full of wonder.

That is my lesson objective for the children.

Writing words of truth.
Declaring phrases or empowerment.
Thinking critically.
Creating new and awesome products.

Those are my planned activities for the students.

Making the world ripe for peace.
Fostering justice and equity for all.
Spreading love, learning, and awareness wherever they roam.

That is my home work assignment.

Unchained and free.
That is the title of my life lesson plan.

And what standard am I teaching?
The student will assimilate ways to save humanity.

Will you join me?
Will you engage in liberation?
Will you touch a generation with fierce passion?

If you do,
Your final evaluation score will be beyond innovating.

Together let us set free a generation chained to stupid standards, invalid tests, and abusive segregation.

This poem is dedicated to my friend Dr. James Avington Miller Jr. of The War Report on Public Education and his vision for schools where Positive Youth Development – PYD – is the key to life-long learning.

A Poem in Favor of Humanity

Posted on April 29, 2017 by Poetic Justice

2017 – it’s 2017
Who would think that in 2017
I would feel the need to have you read
a poem in favor of humanity?

I look out at my students
what do I see?

I see wires from teenage ears
red, yellow, black pods in and around their ears
talking to them
mesmerizing them
hypnotizing them

I see the omnipresent ChromeBook
on their desks – their laptop computer instructors
And on tables as stand alones
I see the Boxes standing tall –
They are Black
They are Powerful
They are Teaching my kids

And I am complicit….

Whoooaaa
What did I just say?
The black plastic and metal square heads
Are everywhere… scrambling
the brains of my students
teaching them to be compliant
malleable
common
ordinary
all the same
as
each
other

But my kids are the outliers on the scattergrams –
my rebels
my questioners
my thinkers
my doers
the next generation’s movers and the shakers

At least they used to be

……

They used to be when we treated them as humans
not data
not profitable
not little red, yellow, and green bars on Excel data sheets
not as inhuman commodities
not as a dollar sign
not as a deficit
not as the invisibles
the unwanted
the disposable
the shame of the school
the student who brings down my VAM

So – where is the humanity in 2017?

The little rectangular plastic and glass slab that sits in our pockets
I won’t even begin to go where that slab has pulled our children

a place where our children hide out
a place where our children hide from reality
a place where a child is no longer human

Why do our kids want to get lost in the Screen instead of in the woods?
Why do our kids want to get lost in the Internet instead of in a good book?
Why do our kids want to live inside a box instead of in the real world?

I cry out for a return to humanity
for a return to nature
for a return to that which makes us human
and unique and real and immortal.

I cry out for a 21^st Century Transcendental Movement.

Who will join me in the fight to transcend
the data
the algorithms
the pie charts
the Excel Spread sheets that try to
define our students?

Let us together form a new world
for our children and grand children –
a world that celebrates the child in each of us
a world that loves nature
a world that believes we are more than just flesh and blood –
certainly more than a data point –
a world that believes we can transcend the rational
a world that reaches for the stars.

Alison McDowell – What Silicon Valley Has Planned for Public Education

Posted on April 1, 2017 by Poetic Justice

This is really hard to watch but every teacher, parent, and grandparent needs to watch this through to the end. The truth of what has been going on in public education, what is happening now in public education, and what is planned for the future of public education needs to be understood and shared with the public. If not, our future will be determined by a small group of elitists.

We need a miracle uprising to take down this scheme.

This is Poetic Justice’s idea of educational transformation:

loveschools

Thanks to Christopher Chase and the Art of Learning Facebook page for the above graphic.

Please visit Alison McDowell’s blog Wrench in the Gears. You can download the slide show from the video. Feel free to use and share.

Share the TRUTH – the TRUTH will set us free.

How exactly did the Department of Defense end up in my child’s classroom?

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Poetic Justice

At chilling look at where we are today in the war over the minds of not only our children but all of humanity.

Wrench in the Gears

You cannot fully understand what is happening with Future Ready school redesign, 1:1 device programs, embedded assessments, gamification, classroom management apps, and the push for students in neighborhood schools to supplement instruction with online courses until you grasp the role the federal government and the Department of Defense more specifically have played in bringing us to where we are today.

In 1999, just as cloud-based computing was coming onto the scene, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13111 and created the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative or ADL.

Section 5 of that order set up “The Advisory Committee on Expanding Training Opportunities” to advise the president on what should be done to make technology-based education a reality for the ENTIRE country. The intent was not only to prioritize technology for “lifelong learning,” but also shift the focus to developing human capital and in doing so bind education to the…

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Multitudes

Posted on January 14, 2017 by Poetic Justice

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Multitudes
Multitudes
MULTITUDES
all lost right now
floundering and flirting with danger
seeking answers and finding closed minds
closed hearts
and perilous half-truths.
Multitudes of young people ~
they need to be lead out
of the bottom place
and become the top
because these multitudes
are beautiful ~ so lovely
so precious.
Remember the multitudes
never forget
always reach for them
never turn your back
turn the world to them.
Turn the world upside down
and inside out.
This is our calling…

Dismantle the Boxes

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Poetic Justice

Dismantle the boxes and
cherish humanity
the old
the young
the poor.

Dismantle the boxes and
care for humanity
the rich
the intelligent
the challenged.

Dismantle the boxes and
embrace humanity
the artistic
the creative ~
in all the colors of humanity.

Despite Opposition, Board of Education Approves Controversial Teacher Prep Program

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Poetic Justice

We must stop this travesty in CT. Please read and share.

Please watch the testimony given today and ignored.

BLOGCEA

CEA Educational Issues Specialist Michele O’Neill was one of many who raised concerns about Relay at today’s State Board of Education meeting.

In spite of serious concerns raised by teachers, CEA leaders and staff, state university deans of education, and community members, the State Board of Education today voted to allow the controversial Relay Graduate School of Education to begin operating in Connecticut. Relay provides a shortcut to teacher certification whose methods and outcomes have repeatedly been called into question.

“Relay teachers do not receive the same training other teachers do,” said CEA President Sheila Cohen. “Instead, they are given a crash course in teaching that focuses on increasing student test scores, not student skills. There are no do-overs for the students whose classrooms are managed by unprepared, inexperienced teachers who weave their way into the profession through these dubious, subpar teacher training programs.”

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Who Will Carry This Torch?

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Poetic Justice

I wrote this poem eleven years ago. I return to it today and just want to weep. What are we doing to our children? Who will save them? Who will carry the torch of knowledge for the next generation and for the generation behind us?

No one to close the windows
when the rain storm pellets their beds.
No one to lock the doors at night
and keep intruders from walking in.
No one to warm up dinner and
feed their craving little bodies.
No one to scare away the dragons
who star in their dreams at night.

Abandoned.
Forsaken.
Forgotten.
Alone.

The children are
thrown away –
labeled incorrigible –
impossible –
beyond our abilities to help.

The achievement gap widens.
The terrain becomes more barren.
The house falls into further decay.
The green in the landscape
slowly
silently
serenely
melds into
grey.

When will
no child
be left
behind?

Then, I came across this beautiful hand drawing today and it gave me new hope. This is drawn by a 15 year old girl from the Philippines and brings hope for change. Let it start here in our own country and in our own hearts.

ph_112

A Lone Teacher Talks Back: An Educator on the Impact of Teacher Evaluation

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Poetic Justice

As far as Poetic Justice is concerned, all metrics need to be eliminated from the evaluation process. This may be a radical thought in this age of teaching reform, but it is not a radical idea to those who are pure educators.

This is what a valid teacher evaluation checklist would look like if I were in charge of my own building. This is what my own personal self-evaluation looks like:

1. Are the children safe?
2. Are the children the focus of the classroom?
3. Does the teacher recognize and respond to the individual needs, strengths, and giftings in the class?
4. Is the teacher helping, not harming her students?
5. Is each student regarded as more than a data point?
6. Is the teacher connecting content to the life experiences of his students and their collective situations?
7. Is the teacher sensitive to the backgrounds and cultures of her students?
8. Is the teacher striving for synthesis of content into her students’ learning schema?
9. Is the teacher doing much more than just delivering prescribed content to a prescribed time table?
10. Is the teacher using her own teacher created lessons and materials?
11. Is the teacher respecting and cherishing student voice?
12. Are writing and reading considered a joy by the teacher and by the students?
13. Is there present a pedagogy based on love, joy, and compassion?
14. Is the teacher actively growing in her own professional development?
15. Is the teacher sharing and contributing to her colleagues successful practice?
16. Is the teacher aware of her craft as an art as well as a science?
17. Are ALL assessments used to help the student and to inform instruction?
18. Is there a holistic dimension to assessment taking into account cognitive as well as affective domains of learning?
19. Is creativity regarded by both students and teacher as the highest form of learning?
20 Are the children safe?

This checklist is is direct opposition to the findings at this weekend’s Network for Public Education convention report and is in opposition to current evaluation systems. Poetic Justice is not saying all data is irrelevant; I am saying that data is only one small part of a teacher’s toolkit.

I left a career in the business sector expressly because I wanted to help children. I wanted to devote my life to the welfare of humanity not to some corporation’s bottom line. Today’s approach to teaching and learning is far more dehumanizing than even the approaches I experienced in business. At least in the business sector, the customer was always considered and any harm to that customer could result in litigation.

My plea is for those in educational power positions, to please consider the harm being done to children and teachers when only metrics are considered important.

Please join a FaceBook page I administer with the Walking Man – Dr. Jesse Turner – Teachers Are More than Test Scores.