BC EDUCATION
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Ugh... (*rolls eyes*)

One issue I haven't seen discussed widely in #education that has been a thorn in my career since day one is teacher certification...and I received something this morning to remind me how this thorn continues to persist.

A thread. 1/

 I've seen it reported often over the past decade plus how there is suddenly a teacher shortage here and there, but what doesn't get reported is how little of an effort states put forth to try and recruit talented educators. In my experience, nearly the opposite has been true. 2/
Most recently, I had applied for a new cert in a state that shall remain nameless. I applied early in the school year knowing that paperwork takes time, hoping that by the time that paperwork was processed, I'd be able to look for a new job.

It's been 2 years now. Nothing. 3/
In 2011, I completed my MA in educational technology.
This master's degree program was so young at the time, no state had any sort of certification to go with it.

Seeing that State X now has an ed tech cert, I applied for that cert so I could apply for public school jobs. 4/
State X, however, told me that even though I had the master's degree that they were looking for AND the transcript to prove it, it still wouldn't be good enough for them.

Why?

They wanted to see the course descriptions for that program I took a decade ago now. 5/
Now, I ask you, good people of the Twitterverse:

How many of you out there have completed an undergrad or grad degree AND decided to save the course catalogs of every year of the courses you completed as a souvenir?

I'm sure the answer is practically no one. 6/
Now, you might say to me, "well, Jeremy - you could just go back to your college and ask for those course descriptions. Surely the registrar has an archived copy!"

...and I did.

...and they don't. 7/
So once again, a pathway for me to teach in a public school system is once again barred, just because I didn't have the foresight from a decade ago to keep one particular magical piece of paper.

Isn't that absolutely ridiculous? 8/
Years ago, after graduating into the Great Recession and no one wanted to hire an English/Language Arts teacher, I decided to take courses to get cross-certified in middle school Math. ELA + Math is not a combo you see every day, after all.

9/
I went on State Y's website to research requirements for getting this done, & I enrolled & completed the 3 courses necessary to get this done in one semester while holding down a full-time job.

Just as I completed those courses, State Y decided to change those requirements. 10/
As a result, State Y tried to argue with me that I no longer met their requirements.

In that instance, I fortunately had printed out for my own reference earlier what their requirements were at the time I enrolled & completed the courses they wanted. 11/
State Y eventually relented and let me have the cross-certification, and in their email response literally told me they'd let me have it "this one time."

Gee. Thanks. 12/
Before that, this insanity all started back in college, when my advisors failed to advise me on which lovely standardized tests I needed to complete at which times of the year in order to make which states happy. 13/
As it turned out, there were two completely separate standardized tests for certification...and each of those tests had two parts to them that for whatever ridiculous reason were only offered in two completely different sessions. 14/
Due to lack of advice from my college advisor while I had plenty on my plate w/completing *3 English courses at the same time* in order to be able to have my final semester be student teaching, I ended up taking 1/2 of 1 test & 1/2 of the other test at first. 15/
My college advisor had also dropped the ball on giving me a student teaching assignment, by the by. Had I not visited their office one day to ask a Q about something else, I would not have been placed at all for student teaching, and I would've had to have an extra semester. 16/
Due to logistical constraints w/ how those cert tests were offered, I had to wait until the summer to take the second half of both of those tests. As a result, my certifications in both states that I had applied for were not processed until the school year had already begun. 17/
...and that's how I ended up teaching in primarily private schools over the past decade, given that private schools do not necessarily require their faculty be state-certified.
/18
...all of that is to say the process of obtaining a teaching certification from state to state is absurd. States should be trying to help people become educators in their state rather than actively working to dissuade talent. /19
I fought through all the nonsense to get the degrees and the certifications that I had put the time into earning fair and square...and apparently today, I'm still fighting, because apparently a master's + an official transcript is not good enough to make State X happy. 20/
@threadreaderapp Unroll

More from Education

Anthony Lee Zhang
Anthony Lee Zhang
@AnthonyLeeZhang
I often say to grad students: a reasonable thing to aim for in grad school is ~2-3 essentially complete and posted papers, alongside your JMP. This often looks like your JMP, plus your 2nd-yr paper, a paper from RA'ing for a faculty, or from working with classmates

Of course, some people get top jobs with only one very, very good paper. This is very risky though - you don't know ex-ante whether your paper will be very good! Most schools care about productivity, so having a couple of completed papers helps

Even if the papers are not change-the-world papers. Also, it exercises your paper-writing muscle. Not everyone comes into grad school ready to write ECMA's!

One "mistake" I sometimes see is some students don't take the 2nd year paper seriously enough. That's basically your only big milestone other than your JMP, so if all the time you put into the 2nd year paper doesn't produce a draft, that's a pretty big time sink

Another mistake, ironically, is taking field class paper requirements too seriously. If you take 3 field classes a quarter, 3 quarters, that's 12 papers! There's no way you can write a different one for each class
EDUCATION
Dominik Mertz
Dominik Mertz
@DocDominik
Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.
EDUCATION
Advertisement
Sorcha Browne Byrne
Sorcha Browne Byrne
@iamsorchab
Hi teachers and parents 👋 I have complied a short list of useful online maths tools and virtual manipulatives to assist you with distance learning. I have included the curriculum area and suggested what class group they would be most suitable for. See below! #mathschat #edchatie

This website allows you to create a graph. Useful for 5th/6th class. Children can create pie charts, bar charts, etc. adding in their own data and designing and labelling the X and Y axis themselves. Charts are easily

Online protractor. Useful for 5th/6th class. The teacher can use screen sharing to how to use a protractor. Children who do not have a protractor at home can use this to measure angles.

Exploring area and perimeter. Useful for 4th - 6th class. Tasks can be set to create shapes of a specific area/perimeter. There is also a game that can be used for formative

Interactive geo-board. Useful for 1st - 6th class for exploring perimeter and area and the characteristics of shapes. Images can be saved easily to be shared with the teacher via email, screen share etc.
EDUCATION
Shuvo Ghosh, MD
Shuvo Ghosh, MD
@ghoshuvo
@KaylaAncrum 1) This reminds me of junior high back in the Chicago suburbs when some classmates pretended my name was ‘too hard’ & relentlessly teased me as ‘Shoehead,’ ‘Shitvo,’ & ‘Shamu’ for almost 2 years until my social studies teacher Mr. C decided to absolutely GO OFF on them:

2) In class one day, to everyone’s utter astonishment, he stopped his lecture & said ‘I think some of you are having trouble pronouncing Shuvo’s name. It’s easy to say shoo-VOH, but your behaviour inspires me to give you new names now. Let’s point out a few examples.’

3) Mr. C turned to a red-haired jerk who often led the bullying and said ‘If you don’t shape up, you’ll be known as Carrot Head in my class, since you’re uglier than Carrot Top and you’re certainly bigheaded and arrogant.’

His face turned redder than his hair.

4) He then then turned to a classmate named Edie & said to her ‘I won’t call you Edie anymore, I’ll call you Dedie, as in DD, since that’s the grade you get in my class & it’s short for Dum-Dum, which is what you proved to be.’

I actually felt bad for her she was so mortified.

5) Then he turned to another kid whose last name was McCracken & said ‘You will be known as McChicken, since you’re a coward, & based on your performance it seems the most you can ever aspire to be is a fast food server, so wipe that smug grin off your face, cluck cluck.’

!!
EDUCATION
Parents United Against Unsafe Schools
Parents United Against...
@Parents_Utd
This seems like a positive base from which to #BuildBackBetter


https://t.co/OwpgNh8mEu


https://t.co/7eOi1Bv3bM


https://t.co/GhxVgLuWJE


https://t.co/ymHp910wrC
EDUCATION

You May Also Like

Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
SRI KANTESH HANUMANTHA, KADARAMANDALAGI (KAR)
#bharatmandir

KANTESHA means Prabhu full of brightness.
Here, Sri Hanuman appears with a front face and sparkling eyes. Earlier, the village was also called KANTESHPURI on the name of Kantesha Hanuman.


Several thousands of years ago, Hanuman lived in this village. He once saw the Sun and mistaking it to be a fruit, began flying towards it. Since then, this village came to be known as Kadara Man Dalagi. (Kadar means rays, mandala is cluster of rays).


It is believed that King Janmejaya had set up the shrine to get rid of his difficulties.
There is a small pond on the right side of the kshetram where Teppotsava (Float festival) is celebrated.

Kanaka Dasa has praised Sri Kantesha in his various poetic compositions.


Kanaka Dasa was the first devotee to popularize the power of Kantesha. It is said that once Kanaka Dasa was deeply wounded in a battle. To seek blessings, he visited Tirupati but Sri Venkatesha appeared in his dream and advised him to see Kantesha first before seeing him.
ALL
Vibhu Vashisth \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Vibhu Vashisth 🇮🇳...
@VIBHU_Tweet
MAHARAJA CHHATRASAL BUNDELA was the great Bundela King who revolted against the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb.
Chhatrasal Bundela was born in year 1649 CE in Maur Hill of Bundela region to Champat Rai and Lal Kunwar. He was the descendent of Rudra Pratap of Orchha.


His ancesters were the vassals of Mughal Emperor. He drew inspiration from his father and revolted against the alien rule of Mughals. He was just 12 yrs old when his parents died in fight against the Mughal Army of Aurangzeb in 1661.

When his beloved father attained martyrdom in the year 166, the young Chatrasal was present in the last battle of his father against the Mughal and from these valiant campaigns,..

..he gathered the courage to free Bundelkhand from Aurangzeb’s rule.
He joined the Mughals initially, and was recommended by the Rajput King Mirza Jai Singh to be recruited in the Mughal Army in order to support their Deccan Campaigns.


But serving the alien rule of Mughals which brought chaos and misery to Bundelkhand was unacceptable for Chatrasal Bundela and his father’s incessant struggle against the Mughals kept the fire of independent Bundelkhand alive in his heart.
ALL
Advertisement
Brian Cates
Brian Cates
@drawandstrike
A lot of people don't understand that Trump & his incoming team didn't face a normal transition period, like it was over a in a matter of a few weeks or months.

The DOJ transition period JUST ENDED when Sessions left. Almost 2 exact years to get it there.

Pompeo at the CIA took over a year before he was done and ready to shift over to the State Department.

All kinds of stuff has been going on behind the scenes nobody leaks or talks about.

We only had the barest mention of the fact the Clinton Email investigation restarted

Nobody leaked in a year that Huber was deep diving into the Clinton Foundation.
Keep that in mind as all the usual suspects continue to INSIST nothing is happening/going to happen.
POLITICS
Zena Hitz
Zena Hitz
@zenahitz
I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
CULTURE
Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
1/Politics thread time.

To me, the most important aspect of the 2018 midterms wasn't even about partisan control, but about democracy and voting rights. That's the real battle.

2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.

3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.

That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends

4/Yet more good news: Michigan made it easier to vote. Again, by plebiscite, showing broad support for voting rights as an

5/OK, now the bad news.

We seem to have accepted electoral dysfunction in Florida as a permanent thing. The 2000 election has never really
POLITICS