drjamesarnold.com

Going Pro     I’ve given it a lot of thought lately, and I have made the decision to go pro. For a lot of kids around age 21 or so that means entering the draft for a professional sport, but I used my college eligibility a couple of years ago and, despite the fact that my backyard football, church league basketball and Little League baseball careers made a pretty interesting highlight reel in my own mind, I never received any scholarship offers for any sport beside saxophone.  That one worked out pretty well, and the $50 a semester led me to a career in music and weekend rock and roll gigs that continue even now.  No, I won’t be going pro in any professional athletic arena, but have decided that far too many people now seem to be anti something or other, and it seems to be a gigantic waste of time to spend your life always being against something rather than standing for something else.     Let me give you an example.  Rathe...

The debate in education over whether or not standardized test scores accurately measure what testing advocates say they measure continues. One question often heard by testing advocates is “if we don’t use tests what CAN we use to measure our schools?” After reading Peter Smagorinsky’s article in the AJC Get Schooled blog “What if schools focusing on improving relationships rather than test scores?” I wondered if the example he gave of the unnamed Superintendent in North Georgia might be an isolated case.  It is not. Taylor-Made Learning       Gordon County is in the northwest corner of Georgia, and the city of Calhoun, the county seat, is along the banks of the Oostanaula River where it joins Oothcalooga Creek.  Until 1835, Calhoun was part of the Cherokee Nation, and the area retains many Native American names as part of its geography.  Highway 41 passes through the center of town and I-75 on the eastern edge, leading to Chattanooga 40 ...

Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Johnny : What've you got?    Marlon Brando - Johnny in “The Wild One” 1953      Schools are, and have always been, a reflection of our society. The societal issues we face are, like the people of our society, a  wonderfully illogical mix of multiple beliefs and interests, tragic and triumphant circumstances, individually unique backgrounds and talents and seldom prone to universal  solutions.  Over the past few years I have heard - and I’m sure you have too - ideas presented as solutions to violence in schools including changes in gun laws, upgrades to mental health screenings, arming teachers, metal detectors in all schools, armed guards patrolling the entrances and halls, rapid response systems, improved background checks, requiring daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, restoring prayer (it never left, by the way...lawyers just changed who led it),  the i...

This article - and others on the teacher shortage - can be found on the Center for Teaching Quality website  https://www.teachingquality.org/lets-begin-at-the-beginning/     Let’s begin with the premise that teaching is hard work, and that good teaching is even harder.  Bad teachers work hard, but fail through a deadly combination of inexperience, poor planning, poor preparation, ineffective staff development programs, the lack of a good mentoring program or all of the above, to direct their efforts toward positive results for students. If you really need proof that teaching is hard, simply ask any parent at the end of an extended school vacation if they are ready for school to resume. Parental valuation of the work teachers do rises exponentially as holidays progress.     I believe that the vast majority of teachers love teaching.  Just what is it teachers do, you might ask?  Here is a partial list of  teacher responsibilitie...