Every teacher knows that the end of the year brings all sorts of motivation to our students. Those who want to get the high GPAs are grabbing at straws to get higher grades while those who have done very little work the entire semester are finally coming in for extra help. it brings to mind the phrase, "your emergency is not my emergency" more often than not.

That being said I always try to offer extra support at the end of the year through review guides for my final exam, providing more "office hours" to students who need extra help, and checking my email more frequently for those with questions. Despite that, students still fail and still blame me for it. And it sucks.

What I really want to focus on with this entry, though, is how teachers are often pressured by the education system around us (schools, districts, tenure policies) to inflate grades in order to increase passing rates. Yes, I understand that there should be some leeway and students who need a 65% to pass but only have a 63% should get the benefit of the doubt. But I have a hard time granting that students who come in late to class daily or consistently disrupt and complete no work are deserving of that leniency. 

It is often an internal and external conflict of mine when this takes place because I want to make sure my students are prepared for their next years of high school and if they fail, perhaps there is some legitimacy that I did not do enough to ensure their success. But the onus is on them as well. I know many will call me callous for putting responsibility on them but I think it is valid to do so and am happy to discuss further.

In the end, I doubt I'll have to make too many changes to my grade book and hopefully will get an accurate picture of what my students know and remember. More importantly, I hope whatever grades they get in the end they understand as coming from them and not being doled out bye an unfair teacher.

In March 2016 the New York State Board of Regents met and decided on new regulations to be upheld by all New York State teachers and teaching assistants. According to the meeting there were a few important changes that have confused a lot of people. If you read on their news website, it lists all the new information but does not compare it to the old. My intention is to do that here to the best of my ability.

Here is the text from the NY State Education website that as of this posting has yet to be updated with the new rules.

As it stood before this change the major things to know were:

• Teachers with "Professional" certificates needed to document and complete 175 hours of PD every five years.
• Level III Teaching Assistants needed to document and complete 75 hours of PD every five years.
• Teachers with "Permanent" certificates did not need to document anything.

Those rules have now all changed. With the adoption of Subpart 80-6 (what a descriptive name, no?), now it seems the following is in effect (with some caveats, of course):

• Teachers with "Professional" certificates need to document and complete 100 hours of PD every five years (a reduced number)
• Level III Teaching Assistants need to document and complete 100 hours of PD every five years (an increased number)
• Teachers with "Permanent" certificates need to document and complete 100 hours of PD every five years (a severely increased number).

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This all comes into effect on July 1, 2016 so if anyone has not completed the old requirements they will get to bypass them and essentially get a "reset" of the clock. The five years starts again on the registrants birth month of the 2016-2017 school year (so since my birthday is in April, I will register before then and start documenting afterward). 

While on my Facebook newsfeed this afternoon I was intrigued by a post from a friend of mine still teaching at my last school in Philadelphia. In it, she describes a strange occurrence in the School District of Philadelphia.

Apparently, today Superintendent Hite sent an email out to all staff expressing desire for them to refer any leads they might have for teaching in the city. I think my friend expressed the correct amount of shock and chagrin - it is an truly fantastical idea that teachers in Philadelphia would feel that their own voice would be the catalyst to ensuring the vacancy rate of Philadelphia schoolteachers reduces to zero (something that hadn't even happened by April!).

Teachers in Philadelphia are working on an expired contract that has been pushed deeply by the current administration. Luckily, recent arbitration and court rulings have been in their favor (notably: Non-teaching assistants winning back pay and the State Court limiting the School Reform Commission's power). But to think at this point that a long-term position is a viable option by teaching in Philadelphia is a hard sell. A private firm that was hired to fill substitute positions was not even able to decrease vacancy rates at all and is being dismissed.

​I hope the leadership of Philadelphia schools takes a hard look at the path they are on and starts asking teachers not to refer newbies to a district being chopped up by pro-charter interests, but to help rebuild what is currently there.

CNN recently released a new poll showing again that teens have an unfortunate addiction to using their cellphones at all times of day. While it is unsurprising as a teacher to read about this (and probably unsurprising to the rest of the country as well), it is something to be wary of for the next generation. Probably the most important piece of research to come out of this article is something I have read a few times before:

Our brains crave unpredictability - it's not only a curiosity but also a biological fact. For tens of thousands of years the human brain developed while trying to stay alive through hunting, foraging, fighting off animals, and more. These situations are fraught with unpredictability and therefore exciting to the neuronal pathways. 

As our development has continued, however, we have become creatures of comfort and routine - something that can help us put effort elsewhere but we need to consciously focus that effort into things like hobbies, activities, and interactions with other people. What teens tend to do (perhaps because of the easier access and a parent's desire for quiet) is use their phones. Social media use is the most pervasive things I see in the school in which I work and it scares me sometimes how connected some of these students need to be in order to feel comfortable or confident in themselves.

I have students tell me that I'm acting "too much" when I ask that their phones are put away during class yet the way I see it, they are not only losing the information from a class they need to graduate, but also losing the ability to focus their concentration on something, even if it's not as "entertaining" as they think. 

I can only hope that if and when I become a parent that I am able to consistently retain this interpersonal interaction with my children and foster it amongst my community.