Jamie Gustin

What a memory. We were going through some old boxes of documents and came across this school portrait when Spring picture day happened to coincide with my annual Abraham Lincoln's birthday activities. I'm not going to discuss how old this picture is but it's really old.

@KSPrior Then the answer to your question is that the courses are college level. If there is a concern that the college board or the local colleges are watering down the curriculum, examine the standards and compare them to AP exams or the dual credit curriculum.

@jgustin I am aware.

If high school students are earning 1 or 2 years’ worth of college credit in high school, are these students really taking college-level classes—or are colleges simply teaching high school level material?

@taylorgrayson @JamesAFurey Fact, opinion and propaganda was a skill that was directly taught when I started teaching. It is the cornerstone of information literacy which is a 21st century skill. Research in encyclopedias and the library was directly taught. Research in current electronic databases is also.

Decades of abandoning knowledge for "21st Century Skills" has produced a generation of kids that can't read, write, or reason but can make a Power Point or Canva slideshow with which to boringly read off with their back semi-turned to the class. You can't build anything lasting without memory. You can't think clearly about a world you don't know anything about.

@JonHaidt @HadleyFreeman @thetimes Freeman, you, and many others are right concerning screen time. But gamification has nothing to do with screen time. Game-based learning uses games as a part of the learning process. Gamification is about classroom and lesson structure and doesn't need or rely on electronics.

As parents make progress on the first norm (no smartphone before 14), they increasingly notice that schools are putting screens on their kids' desks and gamifying the school day. ⁦@HadleyFreeman, in @thetimes, lays out why this must change: thetimes.com/comment/column…

@DrP_Principal Oh, that brings back such a strong scent to my mind. And thin paper stencils filling file cabinets.

Do you know what this is?

@JamesAFurey That is 100% accurate. It is as true as the scientific laws that govern distribution in physics. Structure, participation, pace, presence, and relevance all play a part of filling the void. Most classroom management focuses on reacting to problems rather than avoiding them.

A teacher who won’t carry authority in a classroom leaves a vacuum. And certain students are more likely to fill a vacuum. These are the students who fill it with noise, with resistance, with chaos. Authority isn’t about control, it’s about avoiding that vacuum.

@JamesAFurey Retaking tests in school need to be limited because time is limited and students need to move on. If students have to retake tests numerous times there is a problem with the curriculum or instruction. But they are still meaningful tests if constructed and administered well.

If you allow test retakes for poor grades, that’s fine, I guess. But then you’re not really giving tests anymore in any meaningful sense of the word.

@rtinfow @Beanie0597 Yes, and like anything else it can be implemented well or poorly.

@jgustin @Beanie0597 Putting blue, silver, or gold stars on papers is a form of gamification. It's a recognition system that is sometimes confused with game-based learning.

@sage_stage I would expect very few positions to be open now. It will open up more April and May, probably most end of May or June and starting to taper end of June or July. Most won't notify their school or district until the contracts have to be signed or until the last minute.

I've been in the transfer portal over a week now and haven't heard anything yet. Though I don't think it's really expected to kick into hear for another month. I'm trying to hold out hope I could get into a better or closer school and give that a try before committing to leaving

I've often entertained the idea of leaving education, but I never could find something I'm excited about, could replace my income, and I could get into at my age. Anyone have a really good career survey? It's such a bad job market now. Even outside of education

@JamesAFurey I believe it's more about rebellion than reading. It happens with all subject areas, even "fun" electives. There are a lot of reasons kids have for not participating, but often when they work harder to get out of something, it is because they don't like being told what to do.

I’m always somewhat amazed to see the effort which some students will put into NOT reading. Something has happened to make them hate books. They brag about having never finished one, they stare at the wall during reading time, they tell their classmates they only pretended to read. For these students, it’s as if illiteracy gains them social capital. I hate it.

I generally support school choice and you could probably convince me to support a voucher for the amount of property taxes a family pays, but giving 2 1/2 times the median property tax bill per child to people isn't school choice (we already have that), it's education welfare.

@MilaLovesJoe Yes. Full stop. Every time. It's just polite.

@sage_stage Online learning will never work as a hybrid of in person lessons, like that model. Video lecture won't hold student attention well enough to learn. If online learning ever works effectively, it has to be redesigned completely for that forum with small steps & learning activities.

I've been in in person and virtual classes myself. Same room with the whole class and teacher is best. Everyone on their own computer in their own space can be convenient but not as great for learning. But the entire class in one room and teacher on a screen just feels dystopian

@JamesAFurey A huge amount of the English language is based on Latin. I see huge benefits, but the problem would be to balance the time rather than teach Latin first. Maybe targeted Latin concepts as foundation, then tie relevant concepts into specific lessons from your typical curriculum.

I’ve been seeing this a lot, and between the comments and what I read in The Well-Trained Mind, I’m convinced I’d like to teach my kids (myself first) Latin. Advice from those who have done it?

@MrDanielBuck Online learning, as it has been implemented during and since Covid and when done as a "one off," has little benefit. But the alternative is a make up day. There is not a lot of learning done then either, especially if it is added to the end of the year.

“Online learning days” is a trend that needs to die All joy of snow days lost and for what? Does anyone honestly think learning actually happens on those days? Perfect example of bureaucratic anxiety. “If those kids aren’t doing what we tell them, they’re wasting their time”

@JamesAFurey There's positive and negative to that. You should want and expect proper grammar, especially from the perspective of education, and the rules are there to communicate ideas most effectively. But there is also something to be said for a forum that values ideas over grammar.

Every once in a while, I'll put a lot of thought into what I tweet, revising it and making sure the wording is perfect, and it will get 6 likes. But then, I'll rattle off some imperfectly worded screed, replete with spelling and punctuation errors, and it will get 300 likes. Twitter is weird.

@JamesAFurey @Steynhouse @213Room Thank you. That analysis looks to be very good after an initial reading of it. It does show strong evidence supporting that skills promote exposure/enjoyment. Since they prefer to lump exposure and enjoyment into "enjoyment" more study is needed to fully evaluate the findings.

@jgustin @Steynhouse @213Room onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

A lot of good practice in English teaching has been completely replaced by efforts to "spark a love of reading." Which is a shame because there are undoubtedly more important goals to accomplish as an educator. And, ironically, accomplishing those goals will more consistently result in students who love to read than the wishy-washy style of teaching ascendant right now.