Garrulous Mr. Gates

[proud2BlibKansan]

It's been a busy year for Bill Gates. He's been spreading his gospel far and wide. He spent 2 million dollars promoting Waiting for Superman, yet its alleged villainess, AFT President Randi Weingarten and company chose Gates to address her convention, an unlikely choice, to say the least.
I'm not an education expert like Gates, so I'll comment only on a TED talk he gave last year. My experience is limited to teaching 25 years in New York City. Still, even a layperson such as myself has to wonder where the influential Gates gets his information:

How does that compare to a normal school? Well, in a normal school teachers aren't told how good they are. The data isn't gathered. In the teacher's contract, it will limit the number of times the principal can come into the classroom -- sometimes to once per year. And they need advanced notice to do that.

My principal can and does visit my classroom whenever he golly goshdarn feels like it. He offers no advanced notice, and walks around the building visiting my colleagues in exactly the same fashion. Gates's version of what happens in a "normal school" sounds more like a crass stereotype than any contract I've ever heard of.

So imagine running a factory where you've got these workers, some of them just making crap and the management is told, "Hey, you can only come down here once a year, but you need to let us know, because we might actually fool you, and try and do a good job in that one brief moment."

I'm having trouble imagining a teacher who shines like a Christmas tree on an annual basis. If you can't teach, you don't give a sterling lesson on command. If you hate kids, you don't instantly learn to love them when the principal walks in.

more . . . http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-goldstein/teaching-in-the-out-back_b_741413.html

[billlll]

1. gates products are full of security holes etc

Why buy them?

[Catshrink]

2. Gates doesn't know what happens in a public education classroom

and why would he? This college dropout did not attend public schools.

My former principal used to slip in with the students and sit in a vacant desk. I'd notice him when I scanned for attendance and then pretty much ignore him. He'd sit and listen, if I was lecturing, or dive in and participate if we had an activity. He raised his hand to ask questions. Then he'd leave to go visit another class - and slap a sticky note saying "good job" or "very interesting" or "this was fun!" on my desk on the way out. It was totally random and always a positive experience. He knew what was going on in every classroom on campus. Our current principal isn't as gregarious as the former but he also visits classrooms randomly.

Bill Gates also said that after three years teachers don't improve. Neither has your OS, Bill.

[LWolf]

3. He's clueless, or disingenuous. Or both.

My principal can and does visit my classroom whenever he golly goshdarn feels like it, too. Parents do, too. Other staff members do. We aren't "out of sight, out of mind." I've got other adults coming in and out of my room all day long.

I, too, spend a lot of time in my room making sure that everyone is attentive and engaged. That's "normal."

What do you get when the clueless and disingenuous have more billions than they know what to do with? You get a weapon of public education destruction.