Education and Local Media

Education in Local Media
There seems to be a definite struggle between the public’s perceptions of teachers, what they do, and who they should be. This clip was shown about a year ago on the Columbus affiliate of NBC. The Clip discusses the pending revisions to the Teacher’s Code of Conduct. In general, professionalism seems to be the underlying issue here and the public’s pressure for the ODE to responsibility for the conduct of their teachers. We see a strong focus here on how the ODE as a whole plans to punish their teachers.
The clip begins by talking about “conduct unbecoming of a teacher”, which, according the clip included not getting a background check, or hosting inappropriate material online, meaning blogs, and online profiles, any of these offenses could be punished by s years suspension of the offender’s teaching license. Although, this clip did give to distinct examples that the ODE was looking to include in the revisions, this term, “conduct unbecoming of a teacher” seems a tad on the vauge side, so I decided to see what ODE actually met by this. According to the ODE website, their definition of conduct unbecoming to a teacher reads as follows:
“while ‘conduct unbecoming’ is not defined by the Ohio Revised Code, it encompasses allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and emotional maltreatment of a child. It also includes, but is not limited to: allegations of sexual harassment; improper relationships with students (physical, emotional, sexual, etc.); academic fraud; proficiency test violations; educators exposing students to inappropriate material; falsification of a licensing/certification application and falsification of professional credentials to receive licensure or certification; crimes or conduct involving minors, school children, or the school community; violating terms and conditions of a consent agreement. OAC 3301-73-21(B)”
Did I mention the definition was vague? According to this definition by ODE, abuse seems to be the number one issue that the ODE wishes to address, which, I believe it should be. I do not think it is all the important to start a witch hunt over a picture of a teacher’s weekend or college indegressions that might be on their Myspace or Facebook, if it does not affect their teaching or any students individually. It really seems a shame that the public is so focused on the lives of teachers, and not the actual education of their children.
While I was looking up possible sources for this, there seems to be an overwhelming number of “investigations” about teacher/student abuse, most of which concerning sexual abuse, or inappropriate relationships among teachers and students. In general, the idea that the public thinks or fears that every teacher is out to molest their child frightens me. It also frightens me that children, in the end suffer because of these misconceptions. It seems like because of these highly publicized cases that the public loses trust with their teachers, their school districts, and the education system in general.

Standards: The Kiss of Death

What would you like to see your student accomplish in art by the time they finish middle school? According to the ODE, your incoming high school freshman should have just under 20 things under their belt, including the ability to “Research culturally or historically significant works of art and discuss their roles in society, history, culture or politics”, “Achieve artistic purpose and communicate intent by selection and use of appropriate media”, “Apply the strategies of art criticism to describe, analyze and interpret selected works of art”, “Demonstrate aesthetic inquiry and reflection skills when participating in discussions about the nature and value of art”, and “Use words and images to explain the role of visual art in community and cultural traditions and events.” Of course, I did pick what I say as some of the most outrageous of the demands to list, but I think get the point.
When you look what the ODE cites as the “purpose” of these standards, we see those four little words that hit like a punch in the stomach to most teachers nowadays, No Child Left Behind. The more I read of the standards the more it frustrates me, it takes about how these are guidelines and as long as we teach them we can teach them anyway we want, and then we come to the paragraph, so neatly tucked away you might even skip it if you were just skimming through: assessment. Because this IS standards based curriculum, we must have assessment, otherwise how do we know we met our standards. Finally tucked away at the end of the paragraph is a sentence that truly makes my blood boil, “Continuously analyzing an arts program through ongoing assessment will help teachers and school decision makers determine a program's effectiveness and will help communities realize the value and importance of fine arts programs”. This is what the standards really are, a way to figure out when we it is the optimal time to cuts the arts programs from schools.