Superintendent Expectations - A 4 Part Series

I have to say I am more impressed by our new Superintendent, everyday. So much so, I will hence forth call her the Super Superintendent. She is taking on a great battle and seems to be doing an outstanding job.

What does the Super Superintendent want to see this year? How will teachers and principals be held accountable? Well it was all laid out for us Monday at the Convention Center P.D.

If you were busy creating lesson plans in your head or catching up on the latest gossip, don't worry. I took notes for you.

1. We will be responsible for creating caring relationships, by taking an interest in the well being of students, maintaining high standards and the belief that all students can excel.

How does this look?

• Praise for effort
  
• Affirming greatness
  
• Inquiring how students feel
• Treating students with respect and dignity

This doesn't sound unreasonable. Hopefully, most of us do this, already. If not, make the effort, these strategies payoff by increasing student motivation and effort and eliminating many discipline issues.

The Super Superintendent referred to a video about the Monroe Doctrine.
Who is Monroe?
Lorraine Monroe " wanted to be a physician in order to help and to heal. Instead, Dr. Lorraine Monroe chose education as her profession and found that she could touch far more lives through the power of teaching." to cotinue reading this article, click here.

2. We will be responsible for forming extended families.
How does this look?

• emphasize the common good
• Students helping students
• school and classroom rituals

Ron Clark is used as an example of creating these extended families.

A Complete Joke by Tamara Lauriano
The first day my new teacher walked into our school in Spanish Harlem, I burst out laughing. Ron Clark was this young white guy from North Carolina who talked with a funny Southern accent. He said he used to be a singing waiter. I thought, Who is this guy? He's a complete joke.
To find out more about Ron Clark, click here.

Rafe Esquith teaches in a fifth-grade classroom in the heart of a Los Angeles neighborhood rife with gang violence. When kids enter the safe haven of his classroom (voluntarily arriving at 6:30 a.m. and remaining until 5:00 p.m.), they leave fear behind and learn how to trust and be trusted. In his latest book, Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire, Esquith talks about how a simple philosophy of “Be Nice. Work Hard” can inspire exceptional results.

Finding an oasis
“There is more than one way to run a successful classroom—from using the philosophy of Thoreau to the philosophy of Mussolini. Over the last 25 years, I’ve tried practically everything to deal with the often maddening behavior of children in a school environment that accepts graffiti-covered walls and urine-soaked bathroom floors as normal.

Visitors to Room 56 never come away most impressed with the academic ability of the children, the style in which I present lessons, or the cleverness of the wall decorations. They come away shaking their heads over something else: the culture of the classroom. It’s calm. It is incredibly civil. It’s an oasis. But something is missing. Ironically, Room 56 is a special place not because of what it has, but because of what it is missing: fear.

I’ve recognized that by improving the culture of my classroom, the ordinary challenges are navigated far more easily. It’s not easy to create a classroom without fear. It can take years. But it’s worth it.
While most classrooms are based on fear to keep the kids in line, our classroom is based on trust. The children hear the words and like them, but they are only words. It is deeds that will help the children see that I not only talk the talk but walk the walk.

Courtesy of Rafe Esquith and Viking Penguin

PowerTeaching Kindergarten Student Engagement. WOW!

Introduction to Power Teaching


Power Teaching is a grass roots, education reform movement begun in 1999 by three Yucaipa, California educators: Chris Biffle, philosophy professor at Crafton Hills College, Jay Vanderfin, 3rd grade teacher at Mentone Elementary and Chris Rekstad, 4th grade teacher at Valley Elementary.

In the last nine years we've given seminars to educators representing over 150,000 students. Though we are centered in Southern California, we've been contacted by teachers from across the United States, Europe, and Africa. Typically, our free seminars, offered three times a year at Crafton Hills College, attract over 400 instructors. Power Teaching presents some of the largest, free teaching conferences in the United States.

Power Teaching rests upon the principle that teachers at every level share the same difficulties: students lack discipline, background knowledge and fundamental problem solving skills. From kindergarten to college, teachers face students who have difficulty with reading and writing. Nonetheless, our students respond to challenges, enjoy well-designed learning games, and can make, in the proper setting, astonishing educational progress.




Our goal is to create peaceful classrooms full of orderly fun. Thousands of teachers believe we're on the right track.

At the root of Power Teaching is a large amount of highly structured, educational tomfoolery. Students learn the most when they are having fun. Power Teaching classrooms are full of task-focused laughter. Humor and games are used to increase the number of times students repeat core information and practice basic skills. Our classes are highly disciplined and tightly organized because students have more fun following our rules, than ignoring them.