Shooting at Michigan State

[CentralChamps21]

I know we're not supposed to get political, but this is personal. I'm a senior in college right now (though not MSU). I'm about ready to head to a classroom, probably not unlike the one where two MSU students were killed last night (a third was killed at the student union, five more in critical condition).

It took a long time to get myself out of the house, into the car, and to classes today. I really didn't want to come here today.

How do we end this insanity? I'm not against more gun restrictions but at the same time there are lots of countries where there are many guns that don't have this, at least nowhere near this frequency.

[whitesoxfan99]

1 hour ago, CentralChamps21 said:

I know we're not supposed to get political, but this is personal. I'm a senior in college right now (though not MSU). I'm about ready to head to a classroom, probably not unlike the one where two MSU students were killed last night (a third was killed at the student union, five more in critical condition).

It took a long time to get myself out of the house, into the car, and to classes today. I really didn't want to come here today.

How do we end this insanity? I'm not against more gun restrictions but at the same time there are lots of countries where there are many guns that don't have this, at least nowhere near this frequency.

Without significant nationwide gun restrictions this won't ever change.  No where else in the world has the type of gun ownership the USA does and other Western Counties like Canada that do have pretty high gun ownership (but no where near approaching the USA) at least actually place restrictions on the types of guns that can be owned and make it a more rigorous process to get a gun.  Add in that our healthcare system and access to mental health care services are trash and this is what you get.

[Texsox]

As a teacher with a sense of duty to protect my students, I've learned my family worries a lot for my safety. I worry for my son's safety who teaches middle school. 

How to prevent this? Companies are realizing there is money in inventing systems to keep kids safe. Go to Green looks promising to help lead kids to safety. Less intrusive metal detection technology is being worked on. Shifting money from other areas to enhance security is being done. Voters tend to approve bonds with school safety measures. 

Out of respect for the many victims of gun violence each year, perhaps we can shift from any gun debate, which leads us down a predictable path. 

 

[Texsox]

20 hours ago, CentralChamps21 said:

 

It took a long time to get myself out of the house, into the car, and to classes today. I really didn't want to come here today.

 

This really hit home in our district after Uvalde. How many teachers and students are in classes today who are not able to focus on lessons? Daydreaming is one thing, persistent fears for personal safety is a completely different issue. 

It's also adding to the acute teacher shortage around the country.  Lack of respect and constant attacks wears folks down. We have to take a bullet to gain any respect from the community at large. 

[The Beast]

On 2/14/2023 at 10:13 AM, CentralChamps21 said:

I know we're not supposed to get political, but this is personal. I'm a senior in college right now (though not MSU). I'm about ready to head to a classroom, probably not unlike the one where two MSU students were killed last night (a third was killed at the student union, five more in critical condition).

It took a long time to get myself out of the house, into the car, and to classes today. I really didn't want to come here today.

How do we end this insanity? I'm not against more gun restrictions but at the same time there are lots of countries where there are many guns that don't have this, at least nowhere near this frequency.

It’s personal for me even if I’m just someone who works from home. My wife is a teacher. My brother is a teacher. My twin sister is a teacher. For my wife and twin, the kids have gotten worse since they opened up the school again. Lots of disrespect and little accountability at the schools.

One of my concerns is they will be in a lockdown situation or a live shooter situation and my worst fear is they will be shot or killed. Then I’ll have to raise my son as a single dad and lose one of my close siblings.

The amount of mass shootings this year is alarming but even with new laws, I don’t know if that stops lone wolf shootings. I’d like an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and red flag laws, but I would like more security measures at schools. I wish that more could be done about random domestic terrorism incidents too, but it seems very difficult to stop everything, just like it’s difficult to stop the violence in Chicago.

[Texsox]

@The Beast That seems to be everywhere. We've had much worse behavior in our school since COVID. Eighteen months of quarantine and away from in person coats l classes seems to have long term implications beyond gaps in learning. (For comparison we're a mostly two parent, college educated, upper middle class school.) We've had more like expelled this year than in the past ten years combined. 

I'm at an out of town tournament with seven players ranging in age  from a nearly 18 year old to barely 14. We're staying three days so we've kind of settled in. This seems as normal as it's always been. But once we get back to large groups things just are different. 

[The Beast]

3 hours ago, Texsox said:

@The Beast That seems to be everywhere. We've had much worse behavior in our school since COVID. Eighteen months of quarantine and away from in person coats l classes seems to have long term implications beyond gaps in learning. (For comparison we're a mostly two parent, college educated, upper middle class school.) We've had more like expelled this year than in the past ten years combined. 

I'm at an out of town tournament with seven players ranging in age  from a nearly 18 year old to barely 14. We're staying three days so we've kind of settled in. This seems as normal as it's always been. But once we get back to large groups things just are different. 

Interesting. Could it be that teenagers don’t believe adults have some authority and that they don’t need to be held accountable? Did the lack of accountability from school during Covid make them think they could get away with bad behavior? Is it a new generation of parents and instead of parents blaming kids they blame the teachers for poor performance? Or is it being out of the classroom for that long that changed the world where kids care less about school, more about what they see on social media and don’t have the understanding that an education is needed to advance to college or a trade school to get a good job? It seems like some of these are possibilities.

[Texsox]

It's probably a combination of all of that and things that aren't apparent yet. We hear a lot of "respect". They disrespected me so we had to fight. 

[CentralChamps21]

12 hours ago, The Beast said:

Interesting. Could it be that teenagers don’t believe adults have some authority and that they don’t need to be held accountable? Did the lack of accountability from school during Covid make them think they could get away with bad behavior? Is it a new generation of parents and instead of parents blaming kids they blame the teachers for poor performance? Or is it being out of the classroom for that long that changed the world where kids care less about school, more about what they see on social media and don’t have the understanding that an education is needed to advance to college or a trade school to get a good job? It seems like some of these are possibilities.

I did high school entirely online from home. Not just once COVID hit but all four years. Between interactions and assignments combined, I averaged about 5 hours per day on school and graduated in 3 1/2 years with over a year's worth of college credit. Not saying all this to brag but to point out that traditional school is a huge waste of time and I get why kids behave so badly. We need to trash everything we know about K-12 education and start from scratch.

[The Beast]

4 minutes ago, CentralChamps21 said:

I did high school entirely online from home. Not just once COVID hit but all four years. Between interactions and assignments combined, I averaged about 5 hours per day on school and graduated in 3 1/2 years with over a year's worth of college credit. Not saying all this to brag but to point out that traditional school is a huge waste of time and I get why kids behave so badly. We need to trash everything we know about K-12 education and start from scratch.

What if online education isn’t for every kid? How would you start from scratch? Is being isolated from others the best thing for them at a K-12 age?

55 minutes ago, Texsox said:

It's probably a combination of all of that and things that aren't apparent yet. We hear a lot of "respect". They disrespected me so we had to fight. 

I’m a little old school, but my dad made the point that education is needed to get a good job. Even if someone doesn’t need geometry for a future career, they need to take pre-reqs to get into programs and understand that what they learn today is what will help them meet educational demands of tomorrow. 

I always had a tough time understanding why so many kids talked during class and got away with it. I was in math and science classes that were lower level since I was misplaced. The kids that were in there were among the most disrespectful and were not willing to try to learn. I wish kids would understand school is not a happy hour and is their job. If they want to be social, join a club or sport or get it out in gym class instead of talking over the teacher in the classroom.

[CentralChamps21]

1 hour ago, The Beast said:

What if online education isn’t for every kid? How would you start from scratch? Is being isolated from others the best thing for them at a K-12 age?

 

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that online education is for everybody. I think some elements of it (not having "lecture" time in every class 3-5 times/week, more individualized curriculum, etc.) need to be incorporated into physical schools.

If you have the ability to have your kid at home full time and the kid is an above-average student, I highly recommend online learning though.

[Texsox]

Here's something I really like about my school. Our principal pushes to get every kid connected though a club, organization, sport, etc. She wants every student to have a teacher that they see for something they choose to do and hopefully share a passion for. Sports is easy. Then when a student is struggling in class, either academic or behavior, the classroom teacher has someone that hopefully knows the kid and can help the issue. 

Just Wednesday I had a student that was missing 90% of the assignments. I checked his schedule, emailed his coach, and four missing assignments were completed during his lunch hour. ROTC, band, etc same thing. I share an athlete with basketball. His teacher reached out about a behavior issue and he had conversations with three coaches by the end of the day. Problem solved. 

It's the kids that we can't find ways to connect with that keep me awake. 

[The Beast]

3 minutes ago, Texsox said:

Here's something I really like about my school. Our principal pushes to get every kid connected though a club, organization, sport, etc. She wants every student to have a teacher that they see for something they choose to do and hopefully share a passion for. Sports is easy. Then when a student is struggling in class, either academic or behavior, the classroom teacher has someone that hopefully knows the kid and can help the issue. 

Just Wednesday I had a student that was missing 90% of the assignments. I checked his schedule, emailed his coach, and four missing assignments were completed during his lunch hour. ROTC, band, etc same thing. I share an athlete with basketball. His teacher reached out about a behavior issue and he had conversations with three coaches by the end of the day. Problem solved. 

It's the kids that we can't find ways to connect with that keep me awake. 

I like that there is an emphasis on getting kids involved and connecting them to a teacher with a shared interest. Then a coach or club leader gets accountability out of their student athlete. 

What kinds of kids are the ones that the staff can’t connect with?

[Texsox]

11 hours ago, The Beast said:

I like that there is an emphasis on getting kids involved and connecting them to a teacher with a shared interest. Then a coach or club leader gets accountability out of their student athlete. 

What kinds of kids are the ones that the staff can’t connect with?

It's a broad mix. Start with any one who believes anything school appropriate is lame/stupid etc. Toss in the loners and hard core shy kids who get good grades. Since they aren't trouble they get ignored while teachers battle the 5% who are in trouble. I few times a year I try and look around the room and talk to them. 

Kids who require the bus to get home and don't have friends who will give them a ride. A scattering of language challenges. I really wish I spoke Pashto. We have a growing group of refugees from Afghanistan and many are illiterate so my Google translate strategy doesn't work. Generally speaking many that we are settling here were involved helping the US in the war. Seems like the least I can do to repay their bravery is try to help their children.

Side note, prime example of our district philosophy of teaching the whole child and offering opportunities, two of our high schools have cricket clubs and I'm hearing the level of play is good. It's mostly our refugees but little by little they are drawing in other kids. I'd love to see that keep expanding. The cricket pitch is behind one of the city owned golf practice facilities we use. Whenever I go over to watch someone will offer me a bat but I haven't taken them up on it yet. 

[The Beast]

On 2/26/2023 at 7:02 AM, Texsox said:

It's a broad mix. Start with any one who believes anything school appropriate is lame/stupid etc. Toss in the loners and hard core shy kids who get good grades. Since they aren't trouble they get ignored while teachers battle the 5% who are in trouble. I few times a year I try and look around the room and talk to them. 

Kids who require the bus to get home and don't have friends who will give them a ride. A scattering of language challenges. I really wish I spoke Pashto. We have a growing group of refugees from Afghanistan and many are illiterate so my Google translate strategy doesn't work. Generally speaking many that we are settling here were involved helping the US in the war. Seems like the least I can do to repay their bravery is try to help their children.

Side note, prime example of our district philosophy of teaching the whole child and offering opportunities, two of our high schools have cricket clubs and I'm hearing the level of play is good. It's mostly our refugees but little by little they are drawing in other kids. I'd love to see that keep expanding. The cricket pitch is behind one of the city owned golf practice facilities we use. Whenever I go over to watch someone will offer me a bat but I haven't taken them up on it yet. 

I appreciate hearing this from you, particularly about how you reach your students and what your district is doing to involve kids. The cricket idea would be a good one for the refugee kids since they would have a sense of belonging and meet other like minded kids.

My wife has said she has kids come from countries like Poland and she’s not sure how the school helps these kids. Some kids know other languages and can translate for the other kids, but it’s not that kid’s responsibility to teach the other student. She does what she can for all of her students but with resource limitations it sounds like she can’t do it all for her kids.

One other question for you - how is grading handled in your district when it comes to zeros? When I went to school kids had zeros for partial credit for turning something in, but now I guess they are giving 50% and can’t give zeros for missing assignments. That to me takes away from accountability.

[Texsox]

Officially in Texas teachers are in complete control of their grade book and no one can override them. But, admin controls what classes you teach and when. 

Here's the math that I see and what I tell my students. If you don't turn in one assignment you have a 0. If you make 100s on the next three assignments, you are still failing. Three missing assignments and nine 100s is failing. Turn something in, no matter how craptastic, and you'll have a much better chance to pass.

For most of my career I've taught seniors. They have passed English since kindergarten and passed two comprehensive state wide exams. Who am I to stand between them and their diploma and say you haven't passed my standards? So I usually have 99% passing rates. I'll also pull up a chair and sit next to them until they finish the assignments.  

A key difference is I accept and embrace that it's my job to get kids to pass. It's likely from a first career in sales. 

[Texsox]

Couple final things. I take late work without penalty. Nowhere in the state standards am I required to teach "responsibility". I don't care if you learn something on February 8th or March 5th. I'll also accept corrections until the student is satisfied with their grade (lol happens about twice a year but helps out with parents).

My grading style is what I call "zero up". When I look at a student's assignment it's a zero and I start looking for everything they did right until we top out the grade rather than starting at a 100 and deducting points. It's probably meaningless in the end but I'd rather look for things that a student does right than searching out mistakes. That creates an adversarial relationship and blocks effective partnerships in my mind. 

The first time I graded that way was after looking at a kid's math homework that was covered in red with -2 all over the place. I grabbed a green marker and started writing +5 and +10 all over the paper. Damn if I didn't feel better afterb working through that stack. 

Kids and administrators love my classes but teachers vote for teacher if the year. As a coach I'll never earn that award but I'll take the Student Council's Teacher of the Month Award (most recently January 2023) or our Counseling Departments "B" award any day. 

And thank y'all for asking. One of my friends keeps telling me I should write a book on my grading system. It's at the top of my list of things I'd change in education.