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*Educators* Should Serve On Board Of Education

Candidate’s Guide to Primary and General Election

It looks like we need more highly qualified educators to run for Texas State Board of Education. I don’t have anything against being a liberal, conservative, or independent on the board, but I do have a problem with an education board made of people who haven’t taught in the classroom.

I was very concerned about the new curriculum standards the board created for language arts this fall. The previous standards were closely based on standards created by NCTE, a group who should make standards. Luckily TEA got the best teachers in the state to interpret the standards to create a meaningful and sound set of state tests. The tests have more influence on the classroom than the standards, so we dodged a bullet in this case.

Now there’s national attention on what’s going into Texas textbooks. John Stewart illustrated the problem on his 3/17 show.

At the end, he suggests getting elected to TX SBOE. You only need 500 signatures, to be a Texas resident a while, and a few more qualifications.

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Assignments On Phones

I keep warning my middle school eighth grades students that one day they’ll groan at the teacher about assignments given on their phones. I predicted it would happen to them in high school, but they had their doubts. Seems this may be closer than they realize:

Teachers begin using cell phones for class lessons — AP: Yahoo! Tech

The students in the article are like mine — they love their phones. My students think they would love to use them at school. They don’t realize that they’d have to learn to use them in a way that helps them learn. Adults have had to learn (or still have to learn) how to use the technology in a way that doesn’t cause problems. It was interesting to watch this learning happen as I went through college and grad school.

Eventually, students won’t crave the use of their phones in class, but I am excited about the thought of the first time I’m allowed by my district to start including such common technology in the classroom.

Update 24 June 2010: My district has added portable electronics to the list of things I can “request approval” of for a lesson. I just have to design a lesson and fill out the form, and then the Director of Instruction for my building signs off on it. Now I have two choices: quickly include it in a lesson as a gimmick, or spend some real time thinking about the most authentic and effective use of personal tech to enhance lessons I teach.