Skip to main content

Citizenship: Teaching AND Living it

I am the PAGE representative for my elementary school.  PAGE is The Professional Association of Georgia Educators.  For those in other states, it is not a union.  It is access to legislative news, legal representation, should the need arise, and professional development.


I receive their legislative updates as soon as our General Assembly legislation session starts.  Bill 717, written by Representative Holt from District 112 of Social Circle, GA, proposed that parental involvement be tracked and given a grade, A to F.  It also proposed that each child's parental involvement grade be used as a factor in our newest teacher evaluation system.  The new system is less than equitable, as it makes it next to impossible to earn "exemplary".  We have been told to expect "proficient" or "needs development".  It puts undue pressure on students to move in lock-step with their peers as opposed to just making progress on an individual basis.  Additionally, it creates an inordinate amount of work for principals and vice principals to observe, document, and conference that many times each year.  Long story, shorter;  I wrote all of the representatives in the house and received a handful of replies.  While it looks like this exciting new bill might already be dead, :( it led me to start taking a larger interest in actively tracking proposed bills.


I stumbled upon an app and website, Open States:  Discover Politics in Your State.  I downloaded the app.  It is very user-friendly, but I did discover that you need to use the left toolbar instead of swiping the screens to go back to the main page.  I can see who my house and state representatives are, and I can look up and track proposed bills.  A tracker that tells the legislative status of a bill is in beta.  Open States is a product of Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that uses the Internet to "catalyze greater openness and transparency" of our government.


Just as we teachers read great literature to encourage our students to read, so could we also take a greater interest in the workings of our government to teach greater citizenship by our students.  Our passions often become their passions, so look into this app as a tool to share a real-world experience in the classroom.  Great for 3rd and 4th grade Georgia government standards!




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Quarter 1 Common Core ELA & Math

Forsyth County, GA posted a link to the pacing guide they have created for next school year. I printed it out and took it home to look it over and start planning for next August. I know, I know. I'm working on the first day of summer vacation, but I need to wrap my brain around the new standards and how they will mesh together with science and social studies. Here is what I created for quarter 1 English/Language Arts. (Hopefully, the following quarters won't be so time consuming!) Everything in black type was provided by the county or the Common Core Standards website. Everything in blue type is something of my own that I added. Here is what I created for quarter 1 math common core content.

Smile

Look at that shelf. Such disarray.  That's kind of how I felt around mid-August.  Pulled in too many directions.  On overload.  In need of a bookend to hold me up and set me straight.  (or, in need of more time in my day)  One week, I tried staying no later than 4 PM, and leaving undone what I couldn't accomplish, but that was stressful, too! I currently spend around 30 minutes everyday, either during classes, during planning, or after, afternoon car duty, to keep all of the books shelved.  I'm doing a better job of preventing the shelves from looking like the one pictured above.  (We've had 3 different moms come a collective six times to volunteer to help with shelving. Yay for Mrs. Stratton, who has come back multiple times!)  I implemented a new change this year, to allow 4th and 5th graders to re-shelve their own fiction or everybody/picture books.  That has helped! I also started a 5th grade program called "Castle Apprentice" (since our library

Common Core Math Games and Resources

Whoo! Another find from Pinterest. Here is a site with games linked to common core standards. While I'm entirely sure that the Expressions part of the math text we adopted several years ago will excellently support the new common core standards, it is always nice to have additional resources for parent volunteer centers or small group remediation games. I also like the list of math read aloud titles. There are also links to free online games that support standards too. It's nice to find so many resources all in one place!