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Let's "fix" education!
39 Plays4 years ago
Everyone had an idea on how to "fix" education, from budgeting to removing the mandatory standardized testing. The ideas are limitless, but what would Robert and Abbie do if they had unlimited funds and the ability to do whatever they wanted? See if you agree, or can take an idea and make it work for you. Listen and follow along as you will benefit from engaging with the hosts discuss different ideas and viewpoints on all educational topics as they provide their insight and “perspective” in hopes of having a greater understanding of their profession. Join administrator Robert Hinchliffe and teacher Abigail Peterson as they examine different educational topics from various points of view. Take the challenge of looking at a topic from another side and see if your opinion may change. In the end, no matter what side you are on, it’s all about perspective. What’s yours?
In this episode:
- Does school choice "fix" schools or kids?
- Is Common Core antiquated in many ways?
- Should the arts still be in elementary school or be a choice? Or should there be more options for "specials" in the younger grades?
- Should people be allowed to stay at one school regardless of whether or not they fit there?
- Are textbooks the answer, or is there a better solution?
Connect with Abbie and Robert
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ItsAllAboutPerspective2021
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Its-All-About-Perspective-102961565105781
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ItsAllAboutPer2
Abbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindergarten_chaos/’
Robert on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pryncypalwithay/
Robert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertHCCS
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme: 'It's All About Perspective'
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome! You are listening to It's All About Perspective with your hosts, Abigail Peterson from Kindergarten Chaos and Principal Robert Hinchliffe. Join us as we discuss education from various points of view. Take the challenge of listening to see if your opinion changes. But no matter where you stand on the issues, remember, it's all about perspective.
Challenges of the Current School Year
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode. We're so glad that you've joined us today. It's the countdown now, right? We have about six weeks left, Robert.
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, so you have six weeks, but I try not to count down, but that is under 30 days, I believe. Yes, it's crazy. This year has been definitely very different for I think probably every single person in education between virtual and hybrid.
00:01:04
Speaker
It's masks. Even if you've been in person, I'm sure there has been mask mandates. It's been a very interesting year. It's been different than anything else anybody's gone through ever, for sure.
00:01:19
Speaker
Uh-huh. And I'm looking forward to see how next year is going to be. You know, with immunizations on the rise and, you know, the vaccine's going to be available probably to children in the next few weeks or months, we'll see how that all pans out. Let's hope it's close to normal. I think people need normalcy as much now as they ever have.
00:01:43
Speaker
Right. Even just for mental health, I think that's going to be a key.
Zone Variances and School Inequality
00:01:50
Speaker
So we were having some conversations earlier just because we like to have conversations. And you were telling me that the CARES Act is going to be giving our specific school district
00:02:06
Speaker
a very healthy chunk of money. We're not exactly sure on the exact amount, but a very nice amount of money that will hopefully help our district. So it got us to thinking and brainstorming a little bit about what we would change in education. And so there's two ways to look at it. How would we change education without money or
00:02:34
Speaker
what we would change and basically the budget is endless. So what's your thoughts on how you would change education?
00:02:45
Speaker
So I have these always in my mind. I've got a list of five or six things that I think would help schools, Clark County schools, teachers. Of course, these aren't all my ideas, I think all the time, but I've got a few. So I'll just give you one that the first one that came to mind was in Clark County, a parent can request what's called a zone variance.
00:03:11
Speaker
So if they don't like their kid going to this school, they can put in for a zone variance and the principal can approve or disprove it to go to a different school, not in their home zone area. One thing I think the district should do is get away the zone variances.
00:03:30
Speaker
except for staff employees. The reason I think this is, I'm not a huge school choice fan. I believe that you should fix the school and have buying into the school in your zone. But what is happening is a few things. One, some parents with the means to go to a quote unquote better school can.
00:03:51
Speaker
What they're doing is they're taking their student, perhaps they're successful, and those successful students are going to a different school, thus taking the success away from the lower performing school. So what I mean by that is, let's say that 50 kids from a school who can pass an SBAC
00:04:10
Speaker
get his own variance to a different school, you're taking those 50 kids from the lower performing school and thus making it a lower performing school. You're taking resources, whether it be students or parents, away from a school because they're going to his own variance.
00:04:26
Speaker
a school that they chose. So I don't feel like that is right because then we're judging that school on their scores when all of the quote unquote successful students may have opted to go to a different school. It's not an accurate depiction of that zone. And I don't like that. Plus, I also know that some schools, basically, I would, for lack of a better word, sell zone variances.
00:04:54
Speaker
Perhaps you want to come to my school and I look up your previous aspect scores and I see that you pass with flying colors. And I know that mom and dad will donate to the school. Well, yeah, I'm going to sign that zone variance.
00:05:09
Speaker
I look up a student who has discipline issues and didn't pass the yes back and the parent was trespassed. No, I'm not going to sign that zone variance. So you get a little bit into the winners and losers. And I don't think that's necessarily fair either because if you take the student whose parents donate to the school
00:05:30
Speaker
And you take them to your school, you are then taking resources again, away from another school that may really need it. And if all of the good resources or the quote unquote, good kids are leaving a school, that makes it more difficult to turn around. So that was just one thing I had right at the beginning. I don't like zone variances for non staff employees, for those reasons.
00:05:56
Speaker
But that's very interesting because, well, the way our district works is the numbers that you have in your school is equivalent to basically the amount of money you get.
Impact of Budgets on Resource Allocation
00:06:10
Speaker
And so I know, for instance, our school that we were at together was what we would consider a smaller school, like less than 500 students. And so our yearly budget
00:06:23
Speaker
was dependent on how many seats were filled. And so I know that a lot of principals and a lot of schools, they want to hand out zone variances so that they can get more money. So you don't lose a teacher or maybe you can gain a teacher. So I would be totally on board with that if it was completely
00:06:48
Speaker
legit. And like you said, if it was just employees that were getting zone variances, but so many times I see where it's like, oh, well, you know, my friend is the such and such, or she's the niece of the friend of the mother of the grandmother who works in the, you know, and it just becomes this big problem, in my opinion. I think our district tried
00:07:13
Speaker
years ago. I don't think you were here back then. I've been here since 1991 and we used to have what they called sixth grade centers. And they would bus kids very much like a zone variance where you would say, okay, well, you are in this area and you're zoned for this school, but now we're going to bus you clear across town. And the Clark County School District found out that that didn't work. It didn't change. It didn't do what they thought it was going to do except
00:07:43
Speaker
upset families on both ends. And so, hey, if anyone in our district is listening, maybe they should consider that. I have brought it up before to people because you're absolutely right. And I am guilty. I don't want to say I'm not guilty of signing zone variances. When I was at Smith, we had to have 494 kids or that meant we were going to have to surplus someone.
00:08:10
Speaker
So about September 1st, if we're at 493 or 490, then we're going to start accepting zone variances because I do not want to lose that teacher, which equals $88,000. So again, you have put, you have pinned me against the neighboring schools.
00:08:30
Speaker
to fight for those dollars. But it goes back to what you said in the beginning in support of no zone variances and that it's taking away from another school. And it's like, let's just equal it out. Let's just equal it out. And if there's no zone variances and you lose a teacher, well, that's just the name of the game. And you have to go into that school knowing if you are the newest teacher that's been hired and you have the lowest seniority,
00:08:57
Speaker
then you know going into it that there's a chance that you could be surplus and you have to be okay with that. And you know what? You're not the only person because there's plenty of teachers in our district that that happens to. And again, I don't want to make you think I don't do it. I am as guilty as anyone. I know.
00:09:16
Speaker
But I don't like it because again, you're pinning me against other colleagues and other schools and taking resources away that are desperately needed, whether that is in terms of student success or money or parent support or whatever.
00:09:31
Speaker
And so that might be just an issue here in Clark County. What's another way that you think that we can fix education?
Relevance of Common Core Standards
00:09:38
Speaker
Maybe that's a little bit more global and not necessarily strictly on our district. My global one is I believe Common Core State Standards are antiquated. You can call them NVACs, you can call them whatever you want.
00:09:52
Speaker
Abby, I'm curious, how many times in your life have you used trigonometry or geometry or algebra two? How many times have you really thought about shades of meaning or nuances? There are so many standards that do not apply to life now. Absolutely, I agree. And I feel like it's eating up teacher time and taking away from teaching things that are important. And here's an example.
00:10:18
Speaker
When we worked at Smith, I talked to the fifth grade teacher in math and I'm like, hey, is there five standards that you can cut out that you know kids don't need?
00:10:28
Speaker
And he's like, you know what, there's five. The problem is you know full well that if I cut those out, those are the five that will be on the aspect test at the end of the year. Great point. So it goes back to testing. So we'd have to redo the whole common core standards and state testing thing. But teachers out there, I guarantee you, you can think of a standard you're teaching that doesn't need to be taught. And now that I have a high schooler and a middle schooler, there are so many things that do not pertain to life.
00:10:58
Speaker
Absolutely. We went through it when we were in school. Am I ever going to need physics? Not unless I'm going to go into something that requires it. So, you know, like one thing that they're finally coming around on, I think is financial literacy. Absolutely. Things like that, kids need.
00:11:19
Speaker
you know, how to, how to apply for a loan if you need it, or how do you apply for a job? Let's do some life skills for high school. But no, they've got to have algebra one, they've got to have algebra two, they probably need to know how to cosine, sine, all that stuff.
00:11:36
Speaker
It's interesting that you say that because I was having a conversation with some family a couple weeks ago and we were talking about, you know, of course, you know, when you get around your parents and if your parents are older, they talk about the good old days, you know, and the good old days being, you know, my dad happened to be talking about Home Ec and how when he was in school, which was in the 50s and 60s, how
00:11:59
Speaker
you know, he took home act and how, you know, he took typewriting. Well, obviously we call it keyboarding now because we still use keyboarding to some extent, but now we have voice to text and now systems are coming into play where even keyboarding is kind of going out. And so I was thinking about how they've done away with some things, for instance, like I said, typewriting.
00:12:24
Speaker
but yet they haven't replaced it with something that is relevant, such as financial literacy or such as creating not necessarily a resume, but being able to even communication. We live in an age right now where everything is online and they don't have to speak to somebody. So can we talk about, can we have a class on communication, whether it's communicating through text,
00:12:53
Speaker
It's not real professional to send a text that says, see the letter C and then the letter U. Let's learn to be a little bit more professional maybe. And that's just my thought is going along the lines of what you said, let's take out some of those antiquated things, but let's replace it with something that's more relevant. I agree. And I get into some hot debates with people when I bring this up.
Integrating Arts and SEL in Curriculum
00:13:21
Speaker
You know, like kids, kids need outlets. I completely understand that. I get that. So when we were opening the school, I brought up this whole idea. I'm like,
00:13:32
Speaker
Okay, what do kids need these days? They need computer skills. They need social-emotional skills. They need to know how to read. They need STEM. They need PE. I'm like, what if we make those the specials? We don't have art and music as a special because we can listen to music now very easily in the classroom. And that's fine. You can push back. Teachers always do.
00:13:58
Speaker
But when kids get to middle school, if they want to elect to take art or elect to take music, that's because they are engrossed in it and they want to learn about it. We force kids in elementary school to take art and music, which I believe is based upon a 75-year-old system, when they need computer skills. Now, on the flip side, teachers will argue with me that they get computer skills. They're on technology from the moment they're born.
00:14:25
Speaker
You're absolutely right. And I agree with that. And I'm open to both sides. However, why don't why isn't if every elementary school had a special called socio emotional class or growth mindset class, I think the world would be in better shape. And I just can't help but wonder if we're using specials incorrectly in elementary school, which goes back to we have these standards and these old ways of doing things.
00:14:51
Speaker
Okay, but here's what I think is I think that we need to integrate them. Okay, because I am against getting rid of music and art. And I'll tell you why. Because it's been scientifically proven, we have right side and left side brain people.
00:15:08
Speaker
And some people have never really had experience with either side, correct? So let's give them the options, just like with our own personal kids that we have. If a child says, oh, I don't like broccoli, well, you've never tried it.
00:15:25
Speaker
Let's try it. Let's experience it. And then you can go from there. So let's have music. It doesn't have to be the old way. It doesn't have to necessarily be reading notes. But let's integrate that with some social and emotional. Guess what? That's going to take efforts.
00:15:42
Speaker
and research on us as educators which leads into one of my points of how I would change education and it would be it would be moving the people that are the antiquated people move them around okay so
00:16:00
Speaker
you move up the ladder and you've been in education for 25 years and suddenly you get to be on the board of education or you get to be the superintendent just because basically of how long you've been in education. But you are so far removed from what is actually happening in the classrooms
00:16:19
Speaker
And so you have this team of people that are making all these decisions that haven't been in the classroom. Let's start moving them. One of my suggestions is I think that admin, you're not going to like it, but I think admin and I think people that are in the higher-ups, I think every other year need to be like student teachers and need to go back into the classroom for nine weeks and spend in the classroom.
00:16:44
Speaker
Because I think that you will suddenly have a new appreciation and say, oh, this has now dawned on me that, OK, I see the problem here. I see the problem here.
00:16:58
Speaker
So there is a law there used to be where, um, people in central office or all admin had to spend a day in the classroom.
Administrators in Classrooms: A Closer Look
00:17:07
Speaker
Okay. Well, a day, a day, no, I, I, I, okay, go ahead. I'll let you finish. Thank you. I have noticed that since I was out of the building in January last year until August, and then through distance learning, I very much got away from what teachers were doing.
00:17:28
Speaker
So I understand your point. Absolutely. Are there people that are so out of touch with reality and tone deaf? Are they the ones making the decisions? Yes, for sure. I don't know that they need to be there nine weeks, but maybe a week.
00:17:47
Speaker
maybe a week, you have to go through a full week. I could see that definitely helping because I will be the first to admit, and I've said this many times, this year is hard. I would not want to go back to the classroom this year. I could muddle through it. I couldn't do it near as well as the teachers at Thompson. But I see your point that you are so frustrated as a teacher with people out of touch with what's going on, making decisions that you want to fix that problem.
00:18:15
Speaker
Well, how are we going to change the curriculum? You're talking about changing the curriculum because we see a need for that. And who are the people that are creating the Common Core? It's these higher ups that haven't been in a classroom, in a setting, for a very long time.
00:18:32
Speaker
This is just again from my very limited point of view, but they have a team. Okay, we're going to have this team of people and they bring on one teacher. They'll bring on a classroom teacher as their representative, right? But do you know how much clout that one teacher has?
00:18:53
Speaker
They say, oh, yeah, thank you. Thank you for your opinion. And they go and make their decisions anyways. And so, yeah, there's a quote unquote, a teacher representative. But the reason why I say nine weeks, Robert, is because you don't know what it's like to have to teach
00:19:09
Speaker
And then, and then do aspects. You don't know what it's like to when all of a sudden, you know you're just getting your groove and oh now you have a new student in the classroom, and now you have to adjust, or all these, all the paperwork.
00:19:24
Speaker
all the amount of paperwork and just one week I don't think is going to do it. And I'm not saying that they have to change their salaries, take their precious money away from them. I'm not saying that. I'm saying they just need to have the experience and so they can have a little bit of
00:19:43
Speaker
empathy instead of sympathy. I hear what you're saying. Two years ago, I think it was two years ago, I had to sub in fourth grade for three straight days. It was eye opening in the fact that how many times I got interrupted
00:20:00
Speaker
how many things couldn't go smoothly, then there was a fire drill, or then there was this, then there was that. So it was eye-opening to me for sure. I agree that people are out of touch. I'm not denying that. I think that would be a good start. I just don't think that they would be able to self-reflect enough or care enough to get out of their box to fix the problem after putting in that week. I think it would be just checking the box. Checking the box.
00:20:27
Speaker
Um, and so I, I'd like to go back though, kind of go back to what you're saying. Like I don't want art and music. People think I don't value you by any stretch. I do. I think the best art and music teachers are the ones that can blend in social, emotional, and technology into their lessons. If you, I mean this in the nicest way, fourth graders have to learn the recorder.
00:20:53
Speaker
I was so thankful that Claire and Harper didn't have recorders last year because of the pandemic. It's not to take anything away from music teachers. It's not. It's not.
00:21:07
Speaker
But there's just not many seventh or eighth graders can play the recorder right now, even though they went through fourth grade. And so, again, I understand it might be fun for a little bit, but today's kids are just different. They need today's music. They need to. I agree.
00:21:24
Speaker
And that's why I'm suggesting, and that's why I'm suggesting there's got to be an integration because my two kids that are in public school, they go, I've shared this before, but they go to a public school, but it was the original blended learning school before COVID last year, before blending learning was a regular term.
00:21:47
Speaker
they went to a blended learning and so they don't have art and music. No, I take that back. My daughter does this year, but they don't have it as like specials. They're in sixth and eighth grade this year. But one thing that my son is doing is he's in robotics and I've been watching him and they did a whole, this is all online and they did this whole production and came up and they did a like,
00:22:11
Speaker
a news segment that they created and they had to do all the working pieces and do green screen background, which is all relevant to what we're doing today. It's that STEM, they gave them Lego kits and creating these robotics. I am all for that, but it goes back to who's the people that are going to make the change? The higher-ups? Oh, well, they're going to say that that's not necessary. I think too.
00:22:41
Speaker
And thinking about it, art teachers or music teachers, if you're listening, are you using today's music to teach the lessons? Because kids are more into music today from the people that are out there. They have access to it now. But if you are doing
00:23:00
Speaker
a Jimmy crack corn and I don't care. Kids don't understand that stuff. Give them something today. Our art, are you teaching art and you're using apps that they can get on their phone and color stuff in or learn things. But if you have them, you know, again, it's such a challenge because the art and music teachers are going to push back, which is fine.
00:23:21
Speaker
But we cannot teach art music like we did in 1950. It just doesn't work. We were blessed at Smith. We had a fabulous art, fabulous music teacher who really tried to bring things forward into the 21st century. And the kids like art and music.
00:23:38
Speaker
And the one thing I loved about our last music teacher is that she did bring the social emotional into the classroom. And one of the things that she would do for the intermediate students is she would do like an American Idol at the end of her classes. And it really gave some kids the courage
00:23:57
Speaker
Maybe it wasn't necessarily that they were learning music and they now knew the scales and they now knew, you know, do re mi fa so la ti da. Maybe it wasn't that, but it gave them the idea and the courage, like, I can do this, that growth mindset that we always work
00:24:14
Speaker
teaching about, you know, in the classrooms outside of specials. And she brought that in. And I remember hearing stories at staff meetings where she would raise her hand and she would say so-and-so and she would recognize a student that everybody was like, really? That student did that? I'm so surprised. But it gave them their own little, you know, literal stage to shine and have that social emotional peace. Perhaps you have me thinking that maybe I'm going to
00:24:43
Speaker
come up with another way to change it. Maybe we need more choices for specials in elementary school rather than the basic four or five. So that kids can choose their passion, which we talked about last week and go and do that. Yeah, we can expose them to other things, but let's give them more choices.
00:25:03
Speaker
That's my only thing is I love choice. I love choice. In my classroom, it's like in my literacy stations, there's choice. There's always choice because not everybody likes the same thing. But what I do have to say for younger kids is that a lot of times they don't know what they like.
00:25:21
Speaker
They don't, you know, yes, they have their own ideas, but sometimes they don't know. So giving them the option to try something that maybe they thought they wouldn't like and then they found out, you know, they like it. So I agree with having choices, but I do kind of, I know when my son, he went to a magnet school for sixth through eighth grade and
00:25:46
Speaker
in sixth grade, they make them, and I'm saying that in quotes, but they have to take each one of the specialized programs, one each quarter in sixth grade. And so it gave them the exposure to all, you know, to robotics and to, I forget what all the other ones was, that was a long time ago. But then in seventh grade, then they got to choose, because now they had experienced all four. So then in seventh grade, they got to choose and say, okay, well, I really excelled in,
00:26:15
Speaker
engineering and I really want to do engineering. And so they had the choice in seventh grade and eighth grade to choose. And I think that's a great idea. So if we could change education, maybe the answer is, maybe the answer is more choices for K through three, four and five more elective type things in elementary school. I don't have the answer. I'm just throwing it out there. Not everybody is Mozart.
00:26:37
Speaker
Not everybody is Picasso. You know, not everybody is Magic Johnson. So again, they need to be exposed and find out what they're good at, but they nobody likes to be forced to do things they don't want to do, especially once a week.
00:26:53
Speaker
Okay, so here's one we kind of hit on this one. With the CARES Act in Clark County, one thing they're doing is quote unquote forcing every school to go to envisions math.
Resource Banks over Textbooks
00:27:10
Speaker
So that's your opinion, your perspective.
00:27:14
Speaker
Some people out there would be like, oh, I like envisions. Some would be like, no, I'm going to be engaged in New York. OK, whatever. I don't believe you can textbook yourself out of poor scores. I just don't. Why are we buying textbooks for millions and millions of dollars? Here's what I would do. I would pay someone whatever salary you thought this was worth, have them develop a program. So we have a program kind of like this. You can touch on this.
00:27:44
Speaker
Basically, why can't you make a bank of good teaching strategies, a bank of good resources for each standard? So you're teaching whatever, Abby, you're teaching counting to five.
00:27:58
Speaker
And you click on this resource and bam, you've got three examples to watch. You've got various quote-unquote worksheets if you like those. You can watch people use this strategy for this standard. And then that way you don't have to break the standards down. The district has put the time into breaking the standards down. We have what's called curriculum engine.
00:28:23
Speaker
Kind of the same thing, although there's lots of errors in it. Why can't we do curriculum engine on steroids? Here is this awesome, awesome resource that has examples of lessons, examples of Abby Pearson teaching how to add to five strategies, all of the things that are great.
00:28:42
Speaker
have them in one bank rather than spending millions of dollars on textbook. Let's spend millions of dollars on that. Yeah, go. Why? Because it makes sense. That's why. That's why it makes sense. And number two, because it puts these
00:28:59
Speaker
Curriculum companies out of business and I've shared that before I feel like it's it's the equivalent to the pharmaceutical companies in the medical field where they come and they pitch and they say oh use our stuff what our stuff is so amazing look at that look at our data I Completely agree with you and not that goes hand in hand with one of what of mine ideas was and that's meaningful PD and
00:29:21
Speaker
And it goes hand in hand. If you had curriculum engine, or whatever system you guys use in your district, if you were able to click on the standard, fluently add and subtract within five, and you could click on it, and you could see three different ways, and you could see some anchor charts to use, and you could see some actual videos of kids actually hands on using manipulatives, things that you already have in your classroom, that would make sense.
00:29:49
Speaker
That's what I'm trying to do right now, Robert, is I'm trying to share with teachers and showcase that, look, this is how to teach it. It's easy. It's simple. You don't need a workbook. You don't need a manual. I don't need the district to spend a thousand dollars on curriculum for my classroom when I don't feel it's meaningful and productive. You could also, within this, someone's going to rip this off and make billions of dollars off of us.
00:30:17
Speaker
just just put us in somehow or we can we can come work for you but you know people always say well the new people need a textbook they don't need a textbook they need resources like this where they can click and watch expert teachers do something and see what the model is not everybody's gonna agree on what the model is okay give three models then
00:30:38
Speaker
Right. I agree. When you don't know what to do these days, you click on Instagram or Google or Twitter or whatever, TikTok, YouTube. Anything. The teachers are already doing this. Why don't we build something and pay some people to do this rather than spending billions of dollars on textbooks? Textbook companies are a ripoff.
00:31:02
Speaker
And the reality is that there are going to be schools in our district that take that curriculum and put it in a closet and shut the door. And so basically you've got a closet full of bags of money in your school closet because it's not being used.
00:31:19
Speaker
Some people want the textbook. OK, you want the worksheets. Well, on my curriculum engine on steroids, I'm going to have worksheets. And you know what's not going to be on there? Lower level questions. We're going to have some numberless word problems. We're going to have something that stimulates a number talk on there.
00:31:38
Speaker
Whatever it may be, why are we wasting money? Because guess what? In five years, that textbook is out of date. It's out of date. Absolutely. You can pay someone yearly to keep this thing up to date with the newest standards, the newest
00:31:54
Speaker
everything and throw new ideas on there and then maybe have a spot for room transformations that fit this strand. The ideas are limitless. If somebody has a billion dollars they want to loan to me to get the best teachers in Clark County to build this thing, we will make $2 billion. I guarantee it. It's so amazing to me we don't have this out there.
00:32:14
Speaker
And what the higher ups don't understand is that when it's like stimulating the follicles of the brain, as soon as you start offering this to teachers and they start seeing like, oh, then as you start doing that, new ideas come to you and you say, oh, I can use this. Oh, I can use this. Oh.
00:32:37
Speaker
uh mr hench lift can i have a spinning wheel because i want to use it for addition and subtraction oh i could use it for sight words it they don't realize the power behind giving the idea or
00:32:52
Speaker
We talk about the main idea, the big idea, but letting the teachers have the autonomy to create and to make it work. That's what they're missing. But again, this makes sense. But Clark County School District, if you want us, I'm willing to join your team. Right. Smith Elementary School, I think the highest we were ranked in the district to earn 26 schools was 17th.
00:33:19
Speaker
which was great. That's fabulous. We are in the top 10 percentile. That's fabulous. The reasons we were successful is because the teachers had the ability to do fun things they thought were right and not follow a textbook.
00:33:36
Speaker
If you follow me on Instagram or you follow my blog and you know anything about me, you know that. One of my taglines is meaningful and purposeful. That is what my goal has been or my mantra has been over the last few years because one thing I noticed
00:33:55
Speaker
and you can vouch for me. When I first started teaching kindergarten, I wanted to go into other classrooms. I went into veteran teacher classrooms, I went into newer teacher classrooms, and I just soaked up every kind of PD and every opportunity, even on my own time, that I could because I wanted to be the best that I could be. And one thing I found was that sometimes there's just things
00:34:22
Speaker
that classes, teachers, educators are doing that is not purposeful. It's not purposeful. It's just rote, R-O-T-E. It's just rote memorization, rote going through each little thing. And there's no meaning behind it. Let's get some meaning behind it. Let's have some PD that actually is useful.
00:34:51
Speaker
One of the things that I loved about when we worked together was like you're saying, you have a team of teachers, really strong teachers that all have these different ideas. And when we would come together and we'd say, hey, did you see so-and-so? Many times those teachers would say, okay, I can flip this and I can make it work for my great level. And there's power in that.
00:35:15
Speaker
I agree. At some point in time, we have to let the teachers be professionals and get out of their way and quit telling them what to do and how to do it. So okay, we're getting on here. This is my big idea.
Proposal for Teacher Salaries and Accountability
00:35:27
Speaker
Okay. This is my big idea. If I were the president, which will never happen. If I was the governor, which will never happen or the superintendent, which will never happen. Here's what I would do. I would pay every teacher. It's a long, it's a long solution. So you got to follow along.
00:35:44
Speaker
I would pay every teacher $100,000 a year starting. Now that's where we start. Okay. Doesn't matter where you're at now. It doesn't matter if you're close to a hundred. If you're over a hundred magically, you can keep your over a hundred with that. The union would agree. They're like, heck yeah. With that comes what's called a three strikes rule. You mess up three strikes. I can therefore terminate you and you're gone. And that's the way it is.
00:36:10
Speaker
Now to combat that from principles who fire people for fun, if I as a principle, every time I fire someone, it has to go through like a, you know, a panel or something to make sure that you are not wrongfully terminated. If I as a principle wrongly terminate three people, then I am terminated. So therefore there's accountability on my side also, okay?
00:36:37
Speaker
We have gotten to where a teacher can literally do something wrong six, seven, eight times and you're not going to get fired. I'm just being honest out there. You're not going to get fired unless you mess up a lot. You could literally, I can say don't jump and you can jump and you're not going to get fired. The only thing that's going to get you fired is if you lose money or do something really bad to kids, what you shouldn't do anyways. Right. So going along those lines,
00:37:04
Speaker
With that, so I'm going to offer the union $100,000 for every teacher. I'm going to give $50,000 to each aid. They are grossly underpaid. $10 an hour to go into a room and sometimes be hit or kicked or whatever is not enough. We're going to run out of those soon. So every license, 100, every support staff, 50-ish, maybe more. With that comes the three strike rule.
00:37:32
Speaker
And with that, everybody is on a one year contract at every school. Therefore, if I come into a school and there are people that I do not feel like fit my vision, I can, quote unquote, non renew them at that school and they would then go to surplus and have to go find a school or a principal that they fit into their vision of. You're not fired.
00:37:57
Speaker
you're not fired. You're just no longer needed at Smith because I want to go this way and I feel like this is the team I want to do it. What happens is I take over school and there's 30 people there, 25 of them hate me the moment I get on campus, then I'm constantly got to deal with that. If I got to just suck it up till the end of the year and figure out which ones I think can fit my vision and then go forward, the others go to a different school.
00:38:21
Speaker
Essentially, what will happen is the teachers that can't find a school, I'm sorry, your services are no longer needed. Because if you can't find a school in Clark County where we are short teachers, then you have to look intrinsically at yourself and say, Why can't I? So it would be a very fair way, I think, to basically let people I've said this before, everybody needs to know when it's their time to go. Hmm.
00:38:50
Speaker
And well, I think the one, I mean, I, I see problems with your, with your big, with your big solution, but yeah, but the one thing I do like as a teacher, and this would be, um, you know, you're going to, there's going to be teachers that love it and there's going to be teachers that are absolutely against it, but I do love the idea of a one year contract.
00:39:14
Speaker
I do with within with your school with your specific school, because I think that if I mean you and I haven't always got along there have been times that you have been very upset at me. And there have been times Yeah, but I feel like
00:39:29
Speaker
I'm pretty confident, I would say probably 85% to 15% confident that even though you may have been upset at me or didn't like the way I handled something, that I think you appreciated what I did in the classroom. And so you would renew me even though we had personal differences. And so I feel like
00:39:52
Speaker
I am competent enough that I would have my contract renewed where there's other teachers that they need that little light under their they're they need that fire they need that that little carrot dangling that says like step up to the plate or step off the plate one or the other. I agree with you and that's where admin you have to make that decision if that ever happened okay.
00:40:16
Speaker
are the past issues more important or more substantial than the future and what we can create? You would have to weigh who is there to continue to move this bus forward as we talked about last week.
00:40:32
Speaker
Think about it, think about it. I don't think it would ever work at the salaries that we're at now, but I definitely think that if we were offered, and of course this is just our made up little solutions, but I think if we were offered $100,000, I think, come on, you better line up to what you're being paid. And so I just don't think it would work right now at the salaries that we're at.
00:40:59
Speaker
Okay, that makes sense. And the reason that I say you need to pay them is because if you really want to attract the best teachers to Las Vegas,
00:41:08
Speaker
you're going to have to have a salary that blows people away. And in order to basically fill the void and continue to move the bus forward with better talent and better talent, better talent, you're going to have to make it a place people want to live. The problem right now, I think too, what this does is going back to people need to know when it's time to go. You need to know when it's your time.
00:41:31
Speaker
If this were baseball, Johnny Bench, who'd caught in the 1970s in the Hall of Famer, he would still be the starting catcher, even though he probably cannot hardly walk because he's like 85. But in education, he could, nope, that's my starting position. That's my starting position. Literally, unfortunately,
00:41:53
Speaker
I think there are some people out there who really can work into their 80s, like one of our people at Smith. She was fantastic. I told her, you can stay as long as you want to. It doesn't matter because she kept moving the bus forward. Some people move the bus or just ride, and unfortunately, you can ride and walk just enough.
00:42:14
Speaker
to stay until you want to. So again, there has to be a way to weed out the writers is kind of what I would come up with. It's not fair, it's not nice, but I also know if I can attract really good people to my school, so we used to have people that would want to come to Smith, but I didn't have any open positions, and I knew they were fabulous. Well, I know they can do better than X or Y or Z, but I'm stuck with X or Y or Z.
00:42:44
Speaker
We can't move our bus forward when we're stuck with the same people on our team all the time. And I think that really handicaps some schools in some ways. We have to find some way for me. If I come into a new school, those people might not be my style. They might want to work with textbooks all the time. And then I throw their textbooks away. There has to be a way for us to mutually part ways and go
00:43:09
Speaker
that way without feelings being hurt, without them losing their job, or any punishment on the principal side. Now, I mean, I like I said, I like parts of your plan, but that obviously requires a lot of money. And so they would save it by not buying textbooks.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yes, that's true, but you know how that's going to go. So I think though that out of our conversation today, I truly think there's two things that I think that districts globally across our country could do.
00:43:45
Speaker
It would probably cause some kickbacks. It would probably cause you know a slight rumbling But I think it would benefit and that is what you said. Let's change our standards so that it's not just strictly Antiquated standards. Let's let's get some other things that are meaningful and purposeful involved in that and let's give teachers a system that isn't just a bunch of
00:44:15
Speaker
standards written down on paper. Let's give them some meaningful resources. So I think that is an amazing idea that districts across our country could do. And then I also, and I know you don't like it, but I also think that higher ups, including admins, I think that they should go back at least every two or three years and have to spend a significant amount of time in the classroom.
00:44:44
Speaker
because I think it would really change some people's perspectives. When we talk about perspectives, I think it would really change their perspectives and it really would give some insight into what is happening in 2021, not in 1998.
Steps Toward Educational Change
00:45:01
Speaker
I want to end my ideas. I agree with you. I want to end my ideas with this quote that just got sent to me and it's just random, but it kind of fits kind of what I've been talking about.
00:45:11
Speaker
Whatever you think you can't do, just know that there is someone who is confidently doing it wrong right now. They have no plans at doing it better either, and people are paying them to do it. Please believe in your own excellence as much as they believe in their mediocrity.
00:45:29
Speaker
So take these ideas, if we had any, believe in your excellence of the ideas as much as they believe in doing a mediocre job and change education. Like when we work together, my whole idea, my whole thought process is how are we going to revolutionize education? How are we going to change it going forward? So yeah, we can't do some of these things right now, but we can do something to change education. So starting tomorrow, let's do it.
00:45:57
Speaker
And it all starts with a spark. It all starts with a spark. And it's like, it does look overwhelming in it, you know, but at one time I had, this is kind of funny and it's kind of personal, but, you know, I've struggled with my weight, my whole adult life. And so I went to the doctor and my doctor, my regular family doctor, he's funny. And I was like, I'm just struggling. And I just, you know, it's just,
00:46:22
Speaker
It's just overwhelming, and it's too much, and I can't. And he said, you know how you eat an elephant? And I was like, what? And he's like, one bite at a time. That's right. One day at a time. And so really, we think, oh, this is insurmountable, and it's never going to change. But you know what? It takes one spark. It takes one conversation. It takes Robert and Abby having a podcast to just put out these ideas and somebody hear it and say, look, let's take a little action.
00:46:52
Speaker
you know, we can see that this is something that other teachers and other educators are wanting and let's be the change. Let's be the change. Be the change. That's the thing. Don't be afraid to change. We don't want, we want to leave it better than we got it, essentially, you know, better than it was we're here. Move it forward, even if it's one bite at a time, move it forward, right?
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:47:14
Speaker
And no matter where you stand on the issues, it's all about perspective. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.
00:47:31
Speaker
Thanks for listening to today's podcast. We would love to hear your perspective on this episode. Head over to our Instagram page. It's all about Perspective 2021 or our Facebook and Twitter page and share your opinion. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review on whatever platform you're listening to this podcast. And one last thing. Remember, it's all about perspective.