The Mentor Program

This Washington Post article shows the importance of a proper mentor program. Read it, leave a comment, share your thoughts on the topic.

Nationwide, schools in low-income communities lose 21 percent of their teachers every year, while those in more affluent areas lose 14 percent, according to the Education Department. Academic malaise and discipline problems drive many teachers out of schools in low-income areas. Half of all teachers quit within five years.

Mentoring is an unheralded but pervasive reform that has swept public schools during the past 20 years to stem the exodus.

In the District and Montgomery County, full-time mentors are dispatched from the central office to observe a new teacher's lessons and to offer tips on how to decorate a classroom bulletin board or build a class library. In Fairfax, Prince William and Arlington counties, the mentor is a specially trained teacher at the school.

Three months into her first year at Flower Valley Elementary, Lawrence had not yet divided her class into smaller groups for daily reading lessons, a cornerstone of instruction in Montgomery. She was nervous about managing the class while working with five or six students at a time.

Her mentor offered a suggestion: When teaching small groups, wear a firefighter's hat. Tell the class she is not to be interrupted at such times unless there's a fire . . . or someone needs a bathroom break.

"I can help you sit down and plan this," Robinson said.

Mentoring is available to virtually all new teachers. Since 1999, Virginia has required a mentor for every new teacher. The commonwealth also offers grant money to fund extra mentors at hard-to-staff schools. Fairfax schools use the money, about $2,000 per new teacher, to pay a team of about 30 mentors, mostly teachers who are retired or on family leave.

Good induction and mentoring programs have proven worth. But some programs are underfunded, with mentors who have multiple jobs or are "spread very thinly among many buildings," said Jennifer King Rice, an associate education professor at the University of Maryland.




Good news, Bermuda has this form of programming and should, for the most part be around for a while, many find their mentors rather effective and helpful-share your thoughts.

Multiple Intelligences

We had a show a few episodes ago where we highlighted the theory of Howard Gardner- Multiple Intelligence. There is a school in Georgia that is using this theory, and thriving as a result of it. Check the artlicle for yourself.



Smartville is the Enota Multiple Intelligences Academy, a charter elementary school, in Gainesville, Georgia. The nickname embodies the schoolwide philosophy: At Enota, the theory that everyone possesses unique talents and aptitudes isn't just accepted and celebrated, it's an integral part of school culture. Kid-friendly labels for Howard Gardner's eight intelligences -- punchy interpretations like "word smart," "body smart," or "nature smart" -- pervade the school, appearing in hallway signs and classroom conversations. The real-world activities afforded by the school's village persona, staff members say, allow students to explore and express the multiple ways of being smart.


"Some people learn by doing worksheets, some by acting it out, some by sculpting, and some by listening," explains Enota fifth grader Katherine Anderson. "We work together and show each other different kinds of smarts. It helps us choose what we want to be when we grow up."
This schoolwide application of multiple-intelligences (MI) theory to curriculum is not an ivory-tower exercise, say Enota educators. It is good teaching. "Changing the definition of smart needed to happen for a long time," says fourth-grade teacher Audrey Thornton. "Gardner's principle was written to build in flexibility. The beauty in it is that you can take the philosophy and figure out how it's going to work with your kids." In other words, adds fifth-grade language arts and social studies teacher Denise McConnell, "we don't teach content. We teach children."

Click here for the rest of the article.

To read an article to learn more about the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, click here.

"A Random Walk through the Forest" an evening with Dr. Christopher

We here at Teacher Talk must say that this show was rather informative and would encourage everyone to purchase this book. Dr. Christopher has taken the time to record the history of education in Bermuda, the book places it all in context as he shows what was going on in the cummunity, and how that helped to shape the events that forged new pathways in education. This is truly a book that is a must for every library, and will be an important read for generations to come. Make sure you purchase this book!!

A place at the table- Not ready for the rocking chair

Here's a finding worth mulling over:

At the end of their careers, accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems.

I’m one of those highly accomplished Baby Boomer teachers. I love working with my students. I love working with new teachers. I love working with colleagues in staff development. I love writing and researching. I love being a keeper of institutional knowledge for my school and my school system. I love developing my professional skills with experiences such as the Santa Cruz mentor training. My own children are grown, my personal life is in order, my professional network is strong, my knowledge is current, and my skills are refined by practice. I’m not ready to quit. I’m ready to do more.
I'm ready to take on new challenges, but I find that there are few options at this point in my career. Those of us who chose to stay in the classroom in our 30s are now expected to stay in our classrooms in our 50s. But by limiting how we are used, school systems fail to realize the full return on their investment in skilled classroom practitioners.


...It is a faulty and costly assumption to allow accomplished veterans, who have been the beneficiaries of a substantial, long‐term professional development investment, to walk away from their careers just because they are in their fifties. We must develop selection criteria and processes that enable veteran teachers to contribute to schools according to their expertise and level of commitment.

What do you think? Post your thoughts.

Discussion Questions for Chapter 1

We would like to thank you for joining us on this venture. Here are the discussion questions for Chapter 1. Please feel free to post your thoughts.

1. Why do you feel Dr. Ladson-Billings felt it necessary to entitle the Chapter – A dream Deferred? Give evidence to support.
2. Interpret the 5 vignettes used in the chapter to address cultural relevant teaching.
3. What are differences between educating whites versus educating blacks. In order for our students to receive a quality education, do they need to attend private schools? Why or why not?
4. How are teaching practices (how we teach/ the way we teach) different from curriculum (what we teach)? Is having a new curriculum going to improve teaching and learning practices? Why/why not?
5. What can teachers take from this chapter, to take steps to empower themselves and make a difference in their classrooms?


Here you go- post your thoughts, we can't wait to see what your groups have discussed.

Celebrate our Students

This past show featured our young scholars and what they are up to. We had Mr. Wendell "Shine" Hayward on to talk about the wonderful Spring into the Arts event that has just started and features talent from both public and private schools. In case you haven't seen it yet, you must check it out this week. It starts at 7 at the Ruth Seaton James Performing arts Center, you will not be disappointed as you bare witness to the best in amateur talent that this island has to offer. We also featured three people from the Berkeley Institute who were talking about their upcoming student conference, and event designed by the students, for the students, designed to address the issues that they want to know about. Kudos to them!! Then we had Mr. Harris and Mr. Virgil fro the Educational Center who shared their heartwarming experiences about their trip to Ghana, West Africa. Mr. Harris, personifies the statement- "The audacity of hope" as he is doing everything that he can do to reach his students, planting the seeds that will hopefully take root. Click here to listen to the show.

Try something new in your class, encorporate technology. Want to hook all of your students? Take the battle to their ground, use what they know best to reach them. Here is what a school is trying:


DAVIE - The fourth-graders sit in clusters in a darkened classroom at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School, headphones over their ears and pencils in hands, jotting notes into science journals as they watch a report on the sun's layers play on iPods.

Down the hall, a class of third-graders watches a podcast on iPods to help them solve math problems. And in another classroom, first-graders read books and create their own video book reviews for their classmates to watch.

At this elementary school, iPods are more than just trendy devices for listening to music or watching movies. They help give classroom lessons, facilitate parent-teacher conferences, serve as teacher-training tools and deliver messages from the principal.

Students still get traditional drills from teachers and textbooks, but the iPods are a regular part of the curriculum.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

What do you think? Try it, you just might hook them.

Using cell phones in class? Well what?!?!?

In less than an hour, the Mary Passage Middle School students worked their way through more than 70 questions for a semester exam review, with every eighth-grader participating in a drill that looked more like a game show than a quiz.

"They only get one crack at it so they have to make sure they are right," said Neeley.

Cell phones, considered a nuisance or worse in many schools, are welcome at Passage. At least eight teachers are using them for a range of lessons, from reports to quizzes in English, social studies, science and math classes.

Principal Kipp Rogers is the man behind the move. Rogers teaches a math class in addition to his administration duties.

Last year the school ran out of calculators needed for a math exam, so he let a student use the calculator function on his cell phone. The student was excited to use a phone instead of a calculator. He found 19 of his 22 students had phones, a finding that squared with a 2008 Harris Interactive research study reporting four out of five teenagers carry cell phones.

But Rogers was aware of the potential for trouble, from students sending messages to each other during class to cheating or taking inappropriate photos and sharing them, an activity known as "sexting."

Click here for the rest of the article.

What do you think?

Why will they miss you?

If for whatever reason, you were not able to teach tomorrow, or next month, or next school year, would you be missed? The bigger question is, why would you be missed? Would you be missed simply because you were a fixture, having been in the same classroom, or at the same school for a looooong time? Or, would you be missed as you were an enzyme for change, you encouraged collaboration amongst your colleagues, you sought to use innovative methods to present your material, or you stood for what was right, no matter if it went against the popular opinion, namely, your chances of upward mobility may have been hindered by you simply expressing, even in a respectful way, what was right?

Why would you be missed? Think about it. If necessary, set your sails now, set a new and positive course, its never too late to change.