Seeking advice on Fairfax County Public High Schools

[Anonymous]

If your day is not filled with passion, I feel sorry for you. Perhaps, a more positive outlook is in order. Believe me, my life isn't always peaches and cream, but I am very passionate about what life I do have. Passion is like a smile - you sound better when smiling (try it out esp. on the phone) and life is prettier, as are you, with a smile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'd be surprised. One is never too old to learn a new trick, or two.

No your wrong friend. Any fool can be a trickster, thief, or a crook. If takes intelligence, character, confidence, integrity, imagination and many other qualities to be a teacher.

No, I'll pass on being a trickster, but you seem quite proficient at it none the less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your day is not filled with passion, I feel sorry for you. Perhaps, a more positive outlook is in order. Believe me, my life isn't always peaches and cream, but I am very passionate about what life I do have. Passion is like a smile - you sound better when smiling (try it out esp. on the phone) and life is prettier, as are you, with a smile.

I love the way you think and write. Your writing has a pretty poetically flowing quality. Very unusual - very beautiful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If every moment of your day is filled with passion, well, God bless you. For most ordinary humans, each day can have its moments of passion, but also moments of getting through the boring details of life that must be handled. Kids need to learn how to handle a bit of boredom sometimes and not just give something up because it is not exciting every single moment. If you ever work in a lab, you will have a lot of boring moments that are part of the overall end result. If you ever have the care of a baby or toddler, you will sometimes encounter boring moments. An adult learns how to stick to a job even when every moment is not exciting or entertaining. An adult learns that great things can eventually be the result of dealing with a lot of boring moments, so an adult knows how to carry on with grace and learn and grow even when life is not particularly pleasant.

You have a lot to learn.

If your day is not filled with passion, I feel sorry for you. Perhaps, a more positive outlook is in order. Believe me, my life isn't always peaches and cream, but I am very passionate about what life I do have. Passion is like a smile - you sound better when smiling (try it out esp. on the phone) and life is prettier, as are you, with a smile.

You should re-read the post you are responding to. The poster has a very positive outlook, in that the poster realizes that learning and growth take place even when life isn't providing exciting entertainment. I would find it much more negative to believe that children can only learn when they are being provided with entertaining lectures and pictures to look at on a screen. The child who learns to learn in all types of situations will have a bright future.

You do indeed have a lot to learn.

[Anonymous]

You had me right up to your last nah nah na nah nah sentence. Quality teachers don't feel the need to win conversations. They just need to have passion about the subjects they teach and passion about sharing that information with the children they teach.

Quality teachers can general excitement about growing alge. FCPS teachers lack passion and they inadequately communicate with their students.

FCPS teachers are not connecting with their students. No one is demanding teachers do song and dance routines in class, but we are demanding that they begin to communicate with their students in an honest straight forward way where they demonstrate enthusiasm for the subjects they are teaching.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps. However, these are students we are speaking of (they HAVE to be in school) and if we are boring them we need to add an idea or two to our bag of teaching ideas.

If you are too old to modify, you should consider retiring.

I love what I do and am thankful, each and every day, that I get to do what I do! As I said before, I am not an FCPS employee; my employer is so much better and allows me to raise the bar higher and higher for, not just me, but my students, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps. However, these are students we are speaking of (they HAVE to be in school) and if we are boring them we need to add an idea or two to our bag of teaching ideas.

If you are too old to modify, you should consider retiring.

I love what I do and am thankful, each and every day, that I get to do what I do! As I said before, I am not an FCPS employee; my employer is so much better and allows me to raise the bar higher and higher for, not just me, but my students, as well.

Do tell . Seriously, if you are so happy with your district, your teaching, your bar raising, please tell us what district (or school) you work for.

However, it surprises me that you are actually a teacher, because most of what you have shared has been entirely too vague (assuming this is the person who essentially hijacked the thread to complain about FCPS)

[Anonymous]

No, I am a teacher and did not hijack the thread. I do not teach in a district - I teach at a college.

[Anonymous]

Teaching in a college setting is very different from teaching K-12.

[Anonymous]

Of course it's vague - this is an anonymous forum - right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teaching in a college setting is very different from teaching K-12.

Not really. It's all bout the methods of teaching and they are the same. It's about enticing your students and sharing ones love for whatever is being taught with those in the class. Funny thing...quite a few of my students from the FCPS system suggested that I teach at the HS level, and told me how they would have greatly appreciated a teacher who inspires.

Teaching is an art; not everyone who teaches is an artist, though.

[Anonymous]

It is certainly nice to be enticed to learn and to be entertained while learning but a person who expects to be enticed and entertained for any learning to take place will be limited in how far his education can progress. Passion is certainly part of learning, but at a certain point one has to roll up one's sleeves and put in the effort and work to learn without an expectation of being entertained.

A teacher can love and be passionate about his subject, but not every student will connect with every subject, no matter how enticing and entertaining a teacher tries to make each class. Some kids like math, some like history, some like physics. We are all individuals wth our own likes and dislikes, our own strengths and challenges. In college, students take classes they choose, while in high school, our society requires that kids take all the core subjects plus a language usually as a minimum for a college-bound student. There's nothing wrong with having favorite subjects and less favorite subjects; we just need to be careful not to blame the teachers for the fact that kids will naturally like and be better at some subjects over others. Just look forward to college when you can enjoy as much as you want of your favorite subjects!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching in a college setting is very different from teaching K-12.

Not really. It's all bout the methods of teaching and they are the same. It's about enticing your students and sharing ones love for whatever is being taught with those in the class. Funny thing...quite a few of my students from the FCPS system suggested that I teach at the HS level, and told me how they would have greatly appreciated a teacher who inspires.

Teaching is an art; not everyone who teaches is an artist, though.

It is actually very different. Your syllabus, i.e. what and how you teach, are not affected by the SOLs. k-12 teachers are seriously hampered by them, due to all of the practice tests imposed that are geared towards students passing the SOLs. The time involved is incredible...in some settings every week a practice test is given...this takes away quality instructional time, and requires teachers to not be nearly as creative as they are capable of, and want to be. It sucks their passion out...

In this realm (K-12) teaching is no longer viewed as an art; it is viewed as a numbers game with data being king (and data can't be "merely" the teacher's professional judgement based on classroom interactions, observations, formative assessments..for it to be "real" ).

I am thrilled your students are enjoying your class, but you and they would be quite dismayed if you were constricted via teaching in a public HS in FCPS or any other district in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teaching in a college setting is very different from teaching K-12.

Not really. It's all bout the methods of teaching and they are the same. It's about enticing your students and sharing ones love for whatever is being taught with those in the class. Funny thing...quite a few of my students from the FCPS system suggested that I teach at the HS level, and told me how they would have greatly appreciated a teacher who inspires.

Teaching is an art; not everyone who teaches is an artist, though.

It is actually very different. Your syllabus, i.e. what and how you teach, are not affected by the SOLs. k-12 teachers are seriously hampered by them, due to all of the practice tests imposed that are geared towards students passing the SOLs. The time involved is incredible...in some settings every week a practice test is given...this takes away quality instructional time, and requires teachers to not be nearly as creative as they are capable of, and want to be. It sucks their passion out...

In this realm (K-12) teaching is no longer viewed as an art; it is viewed as a numbers game with data being king (and data can't be "merely" the teacher's professional judgement based on classroom interactions, observations, formative assessments..for it to be "real" ).

I am thrilled your students are enjoying your class, but you and they would be quite dismayed if you were constricted via teaching in a public HS in FCPS or any other district in this area.

At least we are having a civil dialog and perhaps I might have slightly wrong and mildly offensive for say FCPS teacher were part of the Zombie Apocolype; I'm sorry. However, I still maintain there is far too little enthusiasm in the classroom. One essay is written in about eight pieces and stretches out over an intolerable period of time. It's this painfully slow bleeding process and its one work that is excessisively heavily weighted. This snail's pace of slow grinding progression saps the student's energy, excitement, enthusiasm, creativity, and attention. The students are no longer working to produce something new and novel in which someone else might have missed in the materials. No, far from it, they are they to figure out what specific details the teacher is looking for. If the student's interpretation doesn't fit precisely within confines of teacher's interpretation no credit is granted. Earlier in this thread I've give examples as to what I am alluding.

It cannot be possible that preparing for the tests so totally eliminates all time for lectures where teachers can teach the content and draw links and parallels with other literature, characters, events, and phenomenon. Why do FCPS teachers fail to cross reference or create chains of events. Why do FCPS teachers fail to emphasize the nature of cause and effects. Every lesson is taught in isolation from the next.

When I asked days ago to ask you to ask your children what they learned in school today, I was looking for someone to respond with an interesting story about a chain of events which occurred. Something like "Mom and Dad, did you know that "a" happened , which the caused "b" to happen, which caused "c" to happen, which resulted in "d" happening.

Kids love to learn, but they only learn when education makes sense. Education facts need to be connected to other educational facts and the links of that educational chain must be relevant to their own lives. Otherwise the facts being taught are just disconnected nubulous facts independently floating in space with no particular connection to anything else.

Our kids don't come home from school excited to tell us about the things they've learned in school because they are not being told the complete story about anything. Teachers give them bits and pieces related to today's lesson, but they never fully ties the objectives of the entire unit together. This is because the spend no time lecturing and making those important connections in front of their classes supporting their explanations graphically using the LCD projectors provided to them by the County.

The students spend their lives in groups, but when assessment time comes they are on their own to fend for themselves taking the same tests students took when traditional teaching methods and books were used.

It's sad! FCPS is grossly overrated, the students are not learning much, the schools are like the workhouses from the age of Dickens and the creative imaginations of our children are being crushed.

[Anonymous]

I think year round schooling is ideal, especially for young minds. I love Tom Sawyer and the lazy days of summer, as do my children; however, year round schooling in ALL the schools (not just low income) should be seriously considered.

The reason for summers off, historically, was for children to work on the farm. In modern America, there are very few actual farmers who rely on their children for help during the summer months.

I do believe that once this change takes effect, many who only 'teach' for the days off (there are many), will leave the profession, and those who truly love teaching will remain.