I remember how it was -- JR
Teachers Are Divided on Whether Arming Themselves Would Make Schools Safer: Poll
Those in support of the Second Amendment have argued that police presence at schools, as well as more mental health resources, could reduce school shootings. Some have argued that arming teachers would make schools safer. A new survey published this week asked teachers if arming themselves could make schools safer.
In the survey conducted by the RAND Corporation, more than half of teachers said that they believe arming teachers would make schools less safe (via CBS News):
Still, 19% said they would be interested in carrying a gun to school, according to the RAND Corporation's survey of K-12 teachers — which would equate to more than 550,000 of the nation's 3 million K-12 teachers.
The remaining 26% said it would neither make schools more or less safe, according to the survey of 973 K-12 teachers conducted by RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, between October and November 2022.
[...]
White teachers were more likely to believe carrying firearms at schools would make them safer, compared to Black teachers. Male teachers in rural schools were also more likely to say they would carry a firearm if the school allowed, according to the survey.
According to the survey, the top concern for students among teachers is bullying.
"Despite the prevalence of anti-bullying programs, everyday school violence is a concern for teachers. Bullying, not active shooters, was teachers' most common top safety concern, followed by fights and drugs," Heather L. Schwartz, a policy researcher at RAND who co-authored the study, said.
In the findings, 49 percent of teachers said their top concerns were bullying and cyberbullying. This reportedly varied by the age of the students taught. Middle school teachers said self-harm was also a top concern.
https://townhall.com//tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/06/06/teachers-gun-safety-study-n2624084
************************************************Parents livid over Pride video shown to 3rd, 4th, 5th graders in which child says, 'I never really felt like a boy, and I don’t really feel like a girl, so I’d rather be both'
Some parents in Connecticut are up in arms over a Pride Month video that was shown to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders; one of the scenes features a child revealing, "I never really felt like a boy, and I don’t really feel like a girl, so I’d rather be both."
What are the details?
Some parents whose children attend Wells Road Intermediate School in Granby argued that they should have been told about the video before their children were shown it, WFSB-TV reported.
What's more, some parents said their children are too young to learn about the topics like gender, the station said, adding that parents should be the ones to have such discussions if they so choose.
The video shows children describing what Pride Month means to them, WFSB said.
“Pride means you should be able to be free," a participant named Simon — who uses he/they pronouns, said in the clip. "All my life I never really felt like a boy, and I don’t really feel like a girl, so I’d rather be both."
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Parents told the station the day the video was shown at school, their kids got home and told them about it.
"When I saw the video, I was extremely disturbed," parent Kyle Reyes noted to WFSB. "These are conversations that, if anyone's going to have with ... kids, it should be parents having them with [their] kids."
Reyes added to the station that he's pulling his four children — all of them under the age of 9 — out of the district over the video.
WFSB showed the video to a mother who was in the school pickup line Monday: “They needed to get parents’ permissions to show their children that. We should’ve been told so we can have a conversation at home and not be thrown off guard this way.”
Stephen Davis was picking up his 8-year-old granddaughter and told the station that "there was nothing warning us" and that children "don’t have to worry about being an adult when they’re 8 years old."
What did the district have to say?
The superintendent’s office said parental concerns are being dealt with internally — and that the video was designed for 2-to-12-year-old students, WFSB reported.
The station said it obtained a letter from Wells Road principal Pauline Greer sent to parents over the issue: “It certainly was not intended to alienate or disturb any child. In context, we were trying to remind students that it is ok to be who you are and still be treated with respect dignity, and kindness.”
Reyes noted to WFSB that "parents are starting to come out of the woodwork, and it’s time to start fighting back."
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Australia: Parents left in the dark by new-age learning
In the jargon and edubabble much loved by new-age, Woke educrats teachers no longer teach, instead they are described as facilitators and guides by the side, and students, instead of being students, are knowledge navigators and digital natives where self-agency and self-directed, inquiry-based learning prevails.
Teacher-directed lessons have been scrapped to be replaced by collaborative, negotiated, goal-setting based on deep dives and holistic synergies. Instead of pass/fail, assessment is based on muti-tiered progression points and zones of proximal development.
Welcome to the mad, crazy world of 21st century learning where teachers are drowned in education gobbledegook making it impossible to teach effectively and to ensure students work hard to achieve the best results.
No wonder, despite the additional billions invested over the last 10 to 20 years education standards, as measured by international mathematics, science, and literacy tests, have either flatlined or gone backwards. Employers also complain about young employees lacking basic skills.
Teachers are no longer the masters of their subject based on the fact they know more than their students. Instead, learning is restricted to the world of the student. Teachers are told students must have choice, voice, and agency when it comes to what happens in the classroom.
Primary school children, in particular, are centre stage where self-directed learning draws on a process model that allows students to engage with the curriculum at their point of need and that engages them as the centrepiece in the inquiry cycle.
Students pose questions, seek answers, and are guided to become effective researchers where they take ownership and co-construct meaning with peers. To cater for all learning styles, success-criteria is outlined and/or co-constructed so that they can be set up for success, and ultimately be rewarded in the classroom.
When it comes to assessment the new-age classroom is also progressive and decidedly Woke. Gone are the days when students either passed or failed and where the class was ranked in terms of performance.
Those responsible for Australia’s National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) boast there is no pass/fail in the national test as students are assessed as either exceeding, strong, developing or needs additional support. Whatever that means.
Instead of summative assessment, where 4 out of 10 means fail and work is ranked A to E, teachers now use an assessment that is descriptive, diagnostic, collaborative, and based on a developmental continuum with various progression points.
Not only do students progress from year to year without any explicit measure of whether they have mastered what is required, but parents are left in the dark as their children progress through school. The first time students face a high-risk, objective test is Year 12.
Not surprisingly, one of the common complaints made by teachers is that instead of having the time and energy to actually teach and interact with students they are exhausted by a new-age approach to learning and assessment that is cumbersome, time-consuming, and counter-productive.
What needs to be done? Instead of meaningless edubabble what happens in the classroom should be expressed succinctly and directly in plain English based on what the evidence suggests is the most teacher friendly and effective approach.
Teachers, instead of being guides by the side, must be authority figures in charge of the classroom. Students, especially boys, need boundaries as the most effective classrooms are those where there is a disciplined, industrious environment with consistently enforced consequences for bad behaviour.
One of the reasons Australian classrooms are ranked among the most disruptive and noisy across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is because schools have adopted fads like open classrooms and teachers as friends instead of authority figures.
Teachers and schools must also set high expectations where students are pressured to excel instead of excusing failure because students are from so-called disadvantaged groups and less well-off communities.
One of the reasons Asian students in places like South Korea, Japan, and China outperform Australian students in international tests like TIMSS and PISA is because every student, whether poor or rich, city or country is pushed to excel.
The expression only a fool repeats again and again what has been proven to fail is especially true when it comes to education. Notwithstanding that the gobbledegook forced on teachers is responsible for falling standards and teacher burnout, it is still all pervasive.
The most recent asks teachers to implement a multi-tiered level system of teaching, involving ‘universal student screening, evidence-based interventions provided on a sliding scale of intensity, and progress monitoring of students receiving intervention’.
Asking teachers to evaluate and monitor every student, each lesson based on individualised learning programs and progression points, once again, overwhelms them with paperwork, taking time from actually teaching and raising standards.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/parents-left-in-the-dark-by-new-age-learning/
******************************************************My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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