Yes this is a letter to the local newspaper. Do I think there is any chance my letter will be read? NO! So why am I doing this? Because I'm still irritated about that tabloid journalism article about teacher effectiveness that was in the paper a little while ago. I'm also writing this letter because this blog has had a few page views and I'm thinking there may be followers who actually believe that there are many, many ineffective teachers in our schools.
Dear Reader and Maybe The Indianapolis Star,
Although there is no signed contract between the school teacher and the parental unit there is an informal agreement between the two parties. This agreement simply states that we in partnership will do everything we can to insure that the scholar gets the best education possible. Keeping this in mind below you will find a scenario that involves the teacher and the parental unit in the classroom where I sit in the back of the room.
On a daily basis the teacher prepares a behavior folder that indicates to the parental unit how their scholar behaved while at school. The behaviors range from blue and green which is excellent or good to orange and red which is bad to gone postal. There is also room on the behavioral folder for the teacher to write messages to the parental unit about their scholars behavior. Inside the folder on the left hand side is where the homework is placed. Inside the folder on the right hand side is general information about events happening at school. In exchange for all of this information prepared by the teacher on a daily basis all that the parental unit is asked to do is sign the folder daily and offer any feedback that may be helpful to the teacher. Below is a chart showing the number of times a folder was sent home and how often it was signed.
Scholar Folder Days Parental Unit Signatures
Floss. 16. 0
The Collector. 12. 0
Yo! 11. 5
CorP. 19. 0
EM. 17. 0
Straw. 8. 8
I'm going to help you out by doing the math. Sixteen percent of the time folders were returned with a parental unit signature. Let me remind you again that all the scholars that I work with have emotional disabilities and for the most part are behind academically. Let me remind you again that the teacher and parental unit have to work in partnership so that the scholar has the best chance to improve both socially and academically. With that I would like you to answer the following question.
Who in this partnership is being ineffective the teacher or the parental unit? Please post your opinion in the comment section so I can tally the score.
PS - if you are being observant you noticed that one of the scholars only had eight folder days. This is one of the great mysteries in the classroom as this scholar's folder has gone home around seventeen times which is consistent with some of the other scholars. Unfortunately twilight zone types of activities are occurring as the behavioral sheet for this scholar keeps disappearing. Fortunately I've been very observant sitting in the back of the room as I noticed that the behavior sheet tends to disappear on days when the scholars behavior has been fair or trending towards poor. I also made one other discovery. One of my jobs is to maintain the appearance of the classroom. So it is fairly common for me to pick stuff up from the floor and deposit them in the wastebasket. In doing this one day I noticed a object in the wastebasket that looked familiar so I reached in and picked it up. Yes I know that sounds gross. Well what do you know I found a scholars behavioral folder torn into pieces in the wastebasket. I'll let you figure out which scholar owned this behavioral sheet.
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