Nobody else saw me “putting down” Mr. Mousley here, including himself. RE-READ CLOSELY WHAT I SAID. I said, CHANGE THE CONDITIONS IN WHICH HE TOILS, SO THAT HE CAN BE HIS BEST.

If you say, “He is a great teacher, given the constraint of having to teach 170 students daily, who increasingly don’t know the math required to learn Mr. Mousley’s science lessons” you’ve completely missed my point. Mr. Mousley can be a BETTER teacher, as he himself understands, even though you apparently don’t, connecting strongly with ALL of his students, which nobody can do with a 170 student load, trying to teach subject matter that requires math skills that fewer and fewer of his current students possess.

I’m in his corner. You aren’t. I want public education to succeed, by transforming change. USD 259’s recent efforts to gather African American parents, and get them to pledge to support their children’s education, use school resources to learn how to do this, and be involved is excellent.

Those in public education who want incremental micro-change are creating an impediment that encourages a hostile force that will hand over public education to private providers. They can follow different, 21st-century-productive paradigms.

If you have an amazing math-science teaching TALENT like a Mr. Mousley–this is no ordinary functionary teacher– who would love to teach a single group of students 4 hours a day, and loop for 2, 3, or 4 years, if given a green light by the Superintendent of Schools and the Stuckey Principal, what are YOUR objections to this, articulated in a logical, coherent manner?

Over the last year, it seems you have done nothing but belittle this man and others like him. Is it not time to celebrate the successes of our schools rather than look for alleged weaknesses?

My proposal isn’t “out of left field”. Teaching is about connecting. Our elementary school teachers have the same students for 6 hours a day, so 4 hours at upper-elementary/middle school level isn’t unimaginable, because we’ve already tested the basic several-hour single-teacher proposition (up through 6 grade in states with K-6 elementaries). Some teachers have looped for 2 years, and based on admittedly-limited conversations, most of them I’ve talked with LIKE looping. So a 4-year looping proposal is merely an extension of something that seems to work.

Spending longer hours and more years with a group of students allows a teacher to establish very close interpersonal relationships with his or her students. The underlying idea to my proposal is to promote MENTORSHIP.

This was never a component of the industrial age education model. Sometimes mentoring happened spontaneously, but most often not. When it happened, it was great. When it happens today it is great. So let’s systematize it and make it happen A LOT MORE. That’s all I’m basically saying.

Mr. Mousley is saddened and saddled by students’ diminishing algebra skills. He needs them to understand math in order for them to understand science, and their math knowledge isn’t enabling them to understand science.

So why not let him teach his kids math that integrates well with the science he teaches? In other words, enable Mr. Mousley, and other teachers too, to be knowledge aggregators and synthesizers.

Shoot, and here I thought I was in Kansas.

Height in meters: 393

I also worked with surveying terms as a surveyor in summers while going to K-State (one summer job was in Eureka, California with the U.S. Forest Service) and also in Washington DC for a time after getting out of the Army.

I remember Olathe when its downtown square was still ringed by retail businesses and it had a population of about 8,000 people. No more.

Funny thing is – I taught a lot of that in Freshman geology – including Township-Range-Section descriptions.

Going north, I would guess Wichita is perhaps 45 degrees N or half way between the equator and the North Pole.

Am I in the planet ball park?

Ergo, the rubric would be knowledge.

One is mulitple choice and the other is multiple mark. Neither question evaluates any level of performance, just another level of rote memorization.

Indeed, that will be the tough sell. As I have been saying for a long time, bringing education up to the 21st century level is a must. But with it comes cost for education, including paying teachers a salary that reflects the difficult job ahead.

The executive summary should be a stepping stone for this to be implemented. Lets hope the leaders of this country can understand it and get on board.

http://www.skillscommission.org/pdf/exec_sum/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf

I’m the Josh Anderson referenced above. I wanted to point you to the source of my ideas (omitted in the final cut of the article). The “Tough Choices or Tough Times” report changed everything I believe about education. A free copy of the executive summary (every bit as good as the book itself), can be found at http://www.skillscommission.org/executive.htm.

As a side note, the Kansas Teacher of the Year is given a one semester sabbattical so that he or she can travel Kansas and see firsthand the great things that are happening in our schools, including elementaries.

Thanks,Josh

If you truly care about transforming public education, get on the side of the teachers. They alone will be responsible for the necessary changes.

Enlist me anytime you like about transforming public education. Education is like healthcare. not a business, a societal good. Richard Mousley is contending with too many students, and a declinining math-knowledgeable population. He needs to be given a 5th grade class, 4-hours a day in integrated math and science instruction, and have him loop for 4 years through 8th grade.

Now, some of you can say I’m wrong. But I say, GIVE THIS AMAZING TEACHER A CHANCE to CONNECT WITH YOUNG PEOPLE FOR A LONGER PERIOD. THINK DIFFERENTLY. And SEE WHAT HAPPENS.