Monsters Are Due

Good Monster, Bad Monster.

 I found myself on Monster.com this week. I was updating my five year old profile, and I uploaded a new CV. I think Monster.com is kind of a ridiculous little job search engine, and I haven't used it much at all.

 This opinion of mine may be misplaced.

 Within two hours I'd gotten an email from a local insurance company urging me to apply for a position on their website.

 I want to write about this feeling today because I have been focusing on some of the things I find ridiculous about the secondary public education system these days.

 A new proposal for the week: EdJoin.org needs to act more like Monster.com by allowing and encouraging employers to search employee profiles and resumes instead of only allowing employers to post job openings.

 EdJoin.org, for those who are not familiar, is an online attempt to become a major window for teachers to seek employment opportunities across the country. School districts post job openings based on grade and content area. Postings will specify salary (if you're lucky), or numbers of hours per week, or specific details of the position on occasion.

 When I saw that email from the insurance company about a job opening, I was both happy and, again, miffed by my current free-agent status.

 Why am I NOT getting emails like this from SCHOOL DISTRICTS?!

 I am a teacher. I was trained to teach young learners. I am certificated and nearly have a cleared credential for my content area. I have two years experience teaching public school students. I have taught English and History. I applied to 30 schools (at least) over the spring and summer.

 So why is the only company that is actively recruiting me an insurance company?

 I realized that one of the problems with EdJoin (aside from it NOT really being used by states outside of California) is that it undermines the value of teachers, and places teachers in a position of competing against each other.

 On the first point, teachers like me (who are not invited again to teach in their school district) are left to scramble through dozens, sometimes hundreds, of individual job postings--to research each school district individually and compose dozens of individual cover letters for each position application. Don't free agent teachers have anything better to do than compose dozens of cover letters and repel dozens of depressing rejection responses?

 On the second point, of course American teachers should compete against each other, right?! It is America, after all! Why should teachers be different from others, who are similarly scraping at the eyeballs writhing within the seething mass of unfortunate job seekers during a mass recession. After all, we want the best of the best in our classes, right?

Old Man Pullman is now Online!

 Here's the problem: free agent teachers are doing all of the work, and school districts are left holding all of the cards behind a curtain.

 The question, again, for me is whether or not we ACTUALLY value teachers. If not, then what can we do differently? Are teachers the professionals who improve our classrooms, or are the school district's fossilized fixtures the ones to implement improvement and change for the better?

 If you value teachers, EdJoin, then why don't you allow teachers to build their own profile? Let teachers build themselves up and show how good they feel about their history of work in the classroom! Teachers could upload student work, or lesson plans, or project outlines, or post links to their class websites or Prezi profiles, or display statistics illustrating specific classroom successes. Teachers could post skills and their profiles could boast endorsements from colleagues or former coaches, a'la LinkedIn.com. Letters of reference and a teacher's educational philosophy could be posted right on their EdJoin profile.

 The problem is that every state is still using their own particular systems for finding teachers. And from what I can tell, these other services, like EdJoin, don't boost the profile of the teacher, but instead favor the hatchets of the districts.

 Again, teachers are left to scramble through local and particular systems whenever they land in a free agent position. Professional free agent teachers aren't really able to translate their personal stats from one job to the next outside of the realm of luck. Districts can interview a person, but still they have no real idea of who they're getting and how their performance and style will "fit in" with the particular school site.

 And doesn't it make sense to allow districts to search for teachers? Districts and school sites know better than anyone what kind of teachers they're looking for! Districts could search for candidates that fit their model, rather than leaving hundreds of teachers to adjust their hundreds of cover letters to include the appropriate string of keywords to impress the HR personnel of each district.

 Last year, I was told by my union rep that my school district was spending upwards of $15,000 to provide me with professional development, in-service, and other training over the course of the year. And then they dumped me out of the bus, and picked up some new schmoe on which they'll spend another $15,000 in similar training.

 How does this make sense?

 From my perspective, prompting EdJoin to build teacher profiles into their platform and encouraging districts to actively recruit professional teachers is a pretty simple way to inject some excitement into the teacher recruiting process. Hey, this might even allow teachers to more harmlessly link up with school sites that are actually going to result in a strong and lasting relationship!

--Captain Picard Day?  --Oh uh ... Yes it's a ... it's ...
it's for the children. I'm a ... (nervous chuckle)
I'm a role model.  --I'm sure you are. Starfleet out!

 Aaaaaaand, it's time for another installment of History With StarTrekTNG!

 This week, we're going to look at "The Drumhead", which is the third episode out of the series that was directed by Jonathan Frakes, the 95th episode of the series, and the 21st episode of the show's 4th season.

 "The Drumhead" is a beautiful (by TNG standards) episode exposing the need for Due Process of law, the power of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the limits of Justice and the tyranny of dictators.

 In it, Picard is forced to play along with what he describes as a "Drumhead trial," in other words, a trial produced out of expediency on battlefield atop the leather surface of a war drum. Such trials were usually ways for Generals to shoot or hang traitors or deserters or spies, and were often unjust and grossly biased.

 This episode features a number of great speeches, both virtuous and from the perspective of the tyrant who wants to assign blame. It's quite similar to "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" for its ability to teach foreshadowing, perspective, and characterization (all three are also ELA standards), and how it deals with the concept of trial, blame, justice, scapegoating, treachery, vendetta, rights, xenophobia, patriotism, and even racism.

 Most importantly, however, this is an episode featuring Picard with forehead in palm (always a classic Picard move), and is one of the best of Picard standing up to injustice within the Federation (a trope rather exhausted in Picard's character over the total 7 seasons).

 A cursory look at nearly all of the History content standards will lend relationships to "The Drumhead" quite readily. Clearly this episode can be used to teach Civics, the Magna Carta and the War of Independence. It can be used to discuss current unrest concerning policing in America. It can be used to teach advocacy, intolerance, and other more heady moral issues. It could probably even readily be used to discuss immigration and ethnicity issues including hate crimes and stereotyping.

 This is an appropriate connection with today's topic of empowering teachers during the job hunting/recruiting period. Since districts, as it is now, have the unjust ability to conduct drumhead trials with teacher application materials and job qualifications, I find it appropriate to bring this episode up here. Teachers are put in the middle of veritable witch hunts when it comes to securing jobs or holding favor with administrators to keep their current jobs.

"The first time any man's [or woman's] freedom is trodden upon, we're all damaged..."