Am I King or Am I a Citizen? That is the question....

Classroom management starts with how I perceive my students. Will I see them as individuals? Or will I see them as just a group of kids? I choose the former. I want to see each individual and know each individual. That being said, each individual will be held to a standard that they must meet. If they don’t, they will be individually held to account.
Consistency is key. I am a structuralist and a person of routine, I want to set up the game and let the students play by the rules and learn that when they choose to challenge those rules, they will suffer consequences for their action.
I do not feel as if I am king of any class that I walk into. I want to provide an environment where I am a leader. Being a good leader does not mean walking alone with everyone in lock step behind. Being a good leader means listening to the group in which you lead, and making the best decision based on that collaborative information.
I think of my classroom as a laboratory, we are there to tinker, experiment, toy with, think, and play. In order for this to be accomplished, we must adhere to a basic set of guidelines. I feel as though these guidelines are long instilled in humans at the point of high school. We all know how to treat one and other with respect. From time to time we must be reminded of what respect means and what disrespect means, but as long as that is done every time someone missteps, and everyone is held accountable for their actions, we should have a very pleasant classroom experience.

The Way I See It

The Debate Over Differentiated Pay: The Devil Is in the Details

Awesome article!!! This thing covered a wide range of very complex issues without sounding academic or long winded. We are talking about one of the most pressing issues in education today, and I began to get so frustrated while reading the first half of this thing. I lose my mind when we being talking about what to call something... merit based pay, performance pay, differentiated pay, call it unicorn and leprechaun based pay for all I care. But that is the point, this thing is so tricky, even the name is a stopping point.

I would like to think that we all know, tying pay to standardized test scores, is NOT the way to go. I would like to think that the Obama administration has learned the lessons of districts that have tried this before. But I don't know if that is going to be the case. In today's society where political expediency is king, and policy is dictated by reelection, it seems to me that the quickest way to turn a total system around in four or eight years is just to peg it to test scores.

This will fail.

As proven throughout the article, this issue needs to be discussed. There has to be a large number of people at this table. Ideas need to be flushed out and properly debated. And this takes time. Time, is something that no politician has a lot of. Especially those at the top of the pyramid.

I love the way this article ended. Any time the idea that performance based pay is modeled after the modern economic sector as a whole is brought up, I cringe. Because it isn't. At least not all of it, and from the numbers that were given, only a very small portion of the economy is structured this way.

Great great read!