Food for Thought by MACE

There is a wealth of information and insights on MACE's website. However, there are a few tidbits I want to share with you all. Please, visit its website for some candid, yet colorful and comical commentaries from MACE. Enjoy...

A student will not learn unless that student is MOTIVATED TO LEARN.  The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon or social process.  Peer pressure, family history and appreciation for academia, family income, culture, etc., are many of the factors which bear upon a student's MOTIVATION TO LEARN.  What is wrong with so many of our schools today is that students simply do not bring the proper motivation to the table of learning.  It is not that the student is incapable of learning; the problem is that the student does not want to learn.  I have always said that 90% of our students could master (not just have a grade given to them, as is often the case today) 90% of what we dish out to them in way of academics if they truly were motivated to do so.

Without the proper motivation to learn, no student will learn, regardless of who is teaching.

Order is the first law of the Universe, and without order, a school will always be in chaos.

Four Horsemen of Real School "Reform"

By John R. Alston Trotter, EdD, JD and Norreese L. Haynes, BSBM

(l-r) Dr. John Trotter (Chairman) and Mr. Norreese Haynes (COO of MACE)

Reform # 1:  Restore classroom discipline.  Make sure that teachers are supported when it comes to classroom discipline.   Order is the first law of the Universe. 

Reform # 2:  Realize that you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.  All of the top-down, heavy-handed snoopervision is counter-productive to establishing good teaching conditions.  

Reform # 3:  Put the onus for learning on the students and their parents.  This is the modus operandus of the private schools, and it works.  Pampering and coddling the students do not work. 

Reform # 4:  Realize that the motivation to learn is a social/cultural phenomenon.  Teachers teach the students, not learn the students.  If a student refuses to learn, then Arne Duncan himself cannot make this student learn and therefore should not be held accountable for the student's refusal to learn.  (c) MACE, September 9, 2010.

Teachers "teach" the students, not "learn" the students.  Physicians "treat" the patients, not "heal" the patients.  Lawyers "defend" the accused, not "acquit" the accused.  Until our politicians and policymakers start holding the students and their parents responsible for the learning facet of the educational equation, then improving education is like spitting into a tsunami.  Other countries and cultures understand this simple concept, but in our "wisdom," we have become educational "fools."  (c) MACE, August 27, 2010.

Characteristics Of An Effective Principal.

by Daniel D. Trotter, Sr.

MACE reps on the picket line

       

       The author is the father of Dr. John Trotter, and he serves on the MACE Board of Directors.  Mr. Trotter is a retired Georgia school principal. 

The following is a list of characteristics that I would suggest to any principal who cares to be respected and admired by both students and teachers:    

    

1. 
   
   Always be completely open to teachers.  Be willing to discuss any policy that you have and give the background as to why you instilled the policy.              
2. 
   
    It is important that you always speak pleasantly to your teachers and never put them down in the presence of others.  All constructive criticism should be done in private.  Never raise your voice when you have a need to correct a teacher.  Never strip your teachers of their dignity.           
3. 
   
   Be generous with praise and cautious with criticism.  Be quick to give credit to others when it is due to them.  Make it a policy to commend your teachers often.  Look for reasons to commend them and you will see that they will work harder for you.           
4. 
   
    Always tell the truth – even when it hurts.  No one respects a person whom they can’t depend on to tell the truth.  As the saying goes, “Tell it like it is.”      
5. 
   
   Be easily approachable.  Encourage teachers to ask you for help, if needed.
   
6. 
   
   Be seen!  A principal should be in the school halls when students are in the halls.  You should be in and out of the cafeteria during lunch.  You should go into the classrooms often, if only for a few minutes.  You should be visible in order to be a leader. 
7. 
   
   Make discipline your number one concern.  Without discipline, little teaching or learning can take place.  You are the key to any school’s discipline.  You must have a firm policy and be sure that both teachers and students fully understand it.  Be willing to take a stand and then stand.            
8. 
   
   Never accept an accusation against a teacher until you first speak with that teacher.  Be a friend to your teachers and support them as much as possible.  When they make mistakes, let them down easily.    
9. 
   
   Be open to teachers’ suggestions and, if you disagree, be pleasant in your discussion.  You have no need to be threatened, if you are open and honest.          
10. 
    
    The last characteristic is a summary of the other nine.  When you deal with teachers, remember two things:  Tell the truth and treat others like you would want to be treated.

MACE’s Eleven Simple Statements (MESS) 

 

By Dr. John Trotter and Norreese Haynes

  

     We often see such ludicrous actions or lack of actions taken by public school systems that we are dumbfounded at the school systems lack of ability to subscribe to simple precepts.  When a school system simply refuses to acknowledge simple realities relative to the public schooling processes, the results are disastrous.  From our combined experiences as a teacher, administrator, and/or representative of teachers over the years, we have compiled some simple realities that most superintendents, school boards, policy-makers, and politicians ignore when dealing with the public schooling processes.  Below are eleven simple statements which, in our opinion, are irrefutable and intractable.  To ignore these simple statements will imperil any school system.

 

1. All children can learn but not all children want to learn but rather some children even refuse to learn.
2. Unmotivated and disengaged students often disrupt the learning environments of those students who want to learn.
3. You cannot have orderly learning taking place in the classroom without order first being established in the classroom, and the chronically-misbehaving and disorderly students must be removed from the regular classroom.
4. You cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.
5. Creative teaching is effective teaching, and states and school systems need to free up teachers to be more creative and therefore more effective.
6. A smothered, suffocating, beat-down, and beleaguered teacher is an ineffective teacher.
7. A top-down, heavy-handed approach to teacher supervision kills a teacher’s spirit and creativity and works counter to effective teaching and student learning.
8. A teacher can only teach the student, not learn the student, just like a physician can only treat the patient, not heal the patient, and a lawyer can only defend the accused, not acquit the accused.
9. Ultimately, the student is responsible for appropriately engaging or not engaging in the learning processes, and the onus for learning must be put on the student, not the teacher.
10. If the student refuses to appropriately engage in the learning processes and therefore refuses to learn, there is nothing that the teacher can do to make the student learn, and the teacher should not be held responsible for the student’s refusal to learn.
11. The artificial and manipulative inflating of standardized test scores is no true indication that students are learning but that a superintendent is trying to financially bolster his or her professional resume at the students’expense.