I can see in the state database that my application for level two certification has been received as it’s now labeled “Assigned/On Hand” in the database. Once this clears, I’m hoping to take the Praxis II exam — 0041 — so that I can apply for Secondary English certification.

I think or at least I hope that it’s still true that anyone who holds level one certification in any area can take the praxis test and apply for certification in another area. I took the practice test and got 22 out of 24 correct, so I’m not worried about the test as much as finding the $130.00 necessary to pay for the exam. And it’s only written so I can’t take it via computer.

Talking with old connections, I found the right person at Penn who could convert graduate courses to Act 48 hours. A few key strokes, twelve hours, and my teacher certification is ACTIVE.

It made me think about how so much of school reform ends up falling into the lap of administrative assistants. A group of legislators, probably on the advice of some education professors, possibly on the word of a lobbyist or two, comes up with new regulations for teachers. The goal is to make sure that teachers keep studying, learning, and growing; to do so, they must enroll in classes of various kinds, either workshops offered by the district or college courses. Fine.

But then the implementation of this falls to the administrative assistants who must figure out ways to make their computer system talk to other folks computer systems. Many of these individuals become the gate-keepers but more importantly, the only people who know how to make things work, how to keep people certified, how to ensure that the bureaucracy keeps up with the vision put forth by the “reformers.” What never ceases to amaze me is how vast the gap between the idea and the reality becomes.

Beginning the process of renewing my teacher certification and I’m reacquainting myself with the horrid feeling of being a cog in a massive bureaucracy. I had a “Level One” social studies certification that I had let lapse. Do I apply for “Level Two”, having taught for five years, completed an induction program, and ensured that the school district will certify me as not having been rated unsatisfactory? Or do I first figure out how to get the necessary Act 48 credits to “activate” my old certification?

Looking at the state website, I see that I’d done 58 hours of in-service training. I was short 62 hours. I think maybe my Ph.D. would count.

I called an awesome employee at the school district (HR is a very, very different kind of place than it was fifteen years ago; someone (I think it’s Paul Vallas) deserves credit for this turnaround). She told me that I would receive my Level Two certification in the mail. Then, I’d receive a letter saying my certification was inactive. She recommended I call the registrar at Penn who would have a way of turning my Ph.D. course hours into Act 48 hours, that they’d be able to do this directly. I’m dubious but I’m going to the registrar’s office to find out.

I’m at the beginning of this process but I already remember that sinking feeling that whatever experiences I’ve had that would make me a good teacher are essentially irrelevant. This teacher world — one I want come back to — is far from the academic world. I think about academic conferences and the daily life in a university as a tenure track professor; no one questions your right to be there. There’s a hiring process but once annointed, that’s it, you’re good, you have your occasional issues with students and peers, but there’s no barrage of paperwork, no figuring out what you need to do to keep your job.

Reformers need to incorporate rather than disregard the rich wisdom of the classroom.

There’s a high schooler named Azeem Hill. Here’s his blog.

One of his teachers told me something he said at a conference last week:

“You can’t have critical thinking without critical conditions.”

I wonder sometimes why we even have education professors when a thoughtful high school junior can come up with something like this. I listen to future teachers, current teachers, experienced teachers talk in nauseating depth about how important critical thinking is to their practice but what they really mean is that they include the critical thinking question at the back of the chapter for homework.

You can’t think critically about a boring textbook. But you also can’t think critically when the situation doesn’t demand it. I might have a great social studies assessment but unless I’ve really scaffolded the project correctly, unless the students understand what’s at stake with the project, unless we’ve figured out — together — how we’re going to attack a problem, then it’s not a critical situation. It doesn’t have to be brakes or a transmission. It could be a poem that unlocks a new meaning, a document that explains how someone viewed the past, a formula that opens new possibilities for figuring out how the world works. Great teachers help kids discover this and then get out of the way.

This quote stuck with me:

In a recent book, for instance, Labaree showed that education schools like the one that employs him teach theories that have little to do with how schools work but–here comes the twist–that’s okay because education school graduates ignore those courses once they start teaching.

Review of Labaree’s new book is here.

The reviews of Keith Richards’s new book have been overwhelmingly positive. I liked this excerpt from today’s review in the Times:

“There’s a certain moment when you realize that you’ve actually just left the planet for a bit and that nobody can touch you,” Mr. Richards writes. “You’re elevated because you’re with a bunch of guys that want to do the same thing as you. And when it works, baby, you’ve got wings.”

I gave up rock star dreams long ago but what’s he’s describing is the feeling you get after a particularly successful class, where things have clicked, where everyone is engaged, where students have synthesized their own ideas with the texts of the class, where the conversation is spirited and respectful, where the period may end but the student leave knowing that the real work has just started.

I’ve never known what it would be like to have a school that felt this way. I hope someday I will.

A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.

From Democracy and Education, Democratic Ideal section, full citation later.

I liked this article on Brockton High and its turnaround. Three things:

The article is built around a Harvard Report, here, and the lead researcher is quoted saying, “Achievement rose when leadership teams focused thoughtfully and relentlessly on improving the quality of instruction.” Nothing outrageous here — focus on instruction and have a single objective (in Brockton’s case, a focus on reading and writing in every class) — but what seems to set this school apart is that they had not only a competent administrator who actually understood what good instruction looks and feels like, but who also could make changes within the contract. Respecting a collective bargaining agreement while empowering teachers? I hope this example gets the press it deserves, especially as pundits and politicos continue to scapegoat unions as the sole issue stopping school reform.

I like Nicholas Lemann’s work, even if I have real problems with his book on the Second Great Migration, which doesn’t matter, ’cause it appears that this book will replace it as the must read book on that topic.

Anyway, this essay, here, makes a sound argument regarding the unnecessary hand-wringing over education. I liked this description of democracy:

It is also, like democracy itself, loose, shaggy, and inefficient, full of redundancies and conflicting goals. It serves many constituencies and interest groups, each of which, in the manner of the parable of the blind men and the elephant, sees its purpose differently.

I do wish he’d cited David Berliner’s book from 1996, The Manufactured Crisis, which makes a very similar argument.