February 17, 2014

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (February edition)

I had trouble deciding on one theme for this week's post, so instead I chose three.  Depending on your mood, you may want to read the beginning, middle or end.  The entire post is fairly short; so even if you read all three parts, you'll still have time to catch a few of the bobsled races from Sochi.

The Good -
As in I caught the boys not playing computer games several times this weekend.



The Bad -
I'm tired of ostentatious words showing up everywhere.  In my opinion there is no need to use pompous vocabulary when ordinary words can express the same meaning. 

stakeholders means community
cohort means group
unpack means to understand a process

When people use these pretentious words in everyday communications, it creates distance and elitism.  Who wants to listen to that?

The Ugly -
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I'm on the classroom teacher's side.  But the teacher who created the Who's the daddy? assignment was wrong.  Really, really wrong.  I say this as a teacher who has taught genetics, used Punnett squares in the classroom and scoured the internet for interesting and relevant science activities for teens.

The superintendent says only one parent complained.  I don't care if no parents complained, it was highly inappropriate.   Ninth graders are fourteen and fifteen years old.  It is very irresponsible for a certified educator to turn their classroom into an audience for Maury.

With all the teacher-bashing, pension theft and high stakes testing, educators need to rise to a higher level of professionalism, not sink to the level of  tabloid television.  The principal called the complaining parent and the superintendent spoke to the media but I believe there should be a public apology.  You know, to the cohort of stakeholders unpacking the lack of administrative discipline.

5 comments:

  1. Love the photos of the boys! And I hadn't heard about the 'Who's your daddy" thing. That is amazing. Just unbelievable.

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  2. OMG!!! Cohort, Stakeholders and Unpacking.. UGG.. Yep its Ugly and bad! I was always told if you don't have something nice or positive to contribute don't.. Who's the Daddy sounds like trouble to me. There is allot of Single parents, divorced, and men in the service who are not in any every day pic why start something that could turn very negative and make people feel bad. For goodness sakes isn't LIFE hard enough!!!
    On the plus and Good side! I love seeing how the boys read!! Hugs to you All!

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  3. I'm with obernon - great snaps and I wouldn't beleive that Who's Your Daddy thing could be real if I hadn't read it here!
    Despite the disturbing content, I enjoyed the way you broke this post down.

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  4. That Who's the daddy thing made me flip! I would have been pretty ticked if I was one of those parents. I read some of the comments on the article and people really are that ignorant. Love the pictures of your boys! And I am a huge fan of technology-free times too. :)

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  5. Love your boys doing non-screen-time activities!

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