One very unlucky high school in Queens was subjected to a professional development day that was straight out of hell. The primary part was for the school's unfortunate teachers to listen and see a very boring and hard to understand presentation by Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky about the teacher evaluation system and the Danielson framework. The school's teachers were forced to listen to a two hour lecture that bored them silly. By the end of the video presentation, teachers were more confused then ever. In fact one Assistant Principal said that if he was to rate the Deputy Chancellor's presentation, he would give him an "unsatisfactory observation".
Teachers I spoke to said that his presentation put them to sleep, made them laugh with ironic humor because of how bad it was, and the audience were just wishing when would it be over. Imagine, the Deputy Chancellor of the Division of Academics, Performance, and Support putting the entire school's teaching staff to sleep and bored to death. Is it any wonder that the Assistant Principal would have given the Deputy Chancellor an "unsatisfactory observation"?
The good news is that the days are numbered for the leadership at Tweed and a hopefully, a more sympathetic leadership takes control in less than 200 days. Many of the people in power positions at the DOE will be forced to resign or leave for jobs with the ed deformer organizations. Let's hope that the other schools will not be subject to the boring and terrible presentation by the soon-departing Shael Polakow-Suransky. We suffer enough than sit through a presentation that has been universally panned by teachers and assistant principals who saw it.
In Queens last week, the district superintendent of D 30 also was confounded with questions he couldn't answer...and he had a person from Danielson along side. Questions from the audience were skirted and admittedly they had no answers for the teachers!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree - I was subjected to that awful video last week in which the Deputy Chancellor did the voice over . I was out in 3 minutes - it was awful - painful and I was lucky enough to sit in the back and snooze during the hellish presentation. I would love to see him speak in front of a classroom of teenagers - I would supply the tomatoes and the paper for paper airplanes. His lesson gets a maximum ineffective from me - bye bye Deputy Chancellor - can't imagine what organization will be dumb enough to hire you when your term of torture against teachers is over - and not a minute too soon
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think a more sympathetic leadership will take over at Tweed?
ReplyDeleteI realize that Michael Bloomberg is an especially loathsome figure, but so-called education reform is a systemic issue, and not about one man. Thompson is a more traditional retail politician, and doesn't have Bloomberg's contempt people beneath his station. But don't think for a moment he will fundamentally change what's going on.
In fact, if the Obama/Booker bait-and-switch model plays out, he could be the perfect vehicle for more austerity and attacks on teachers.
While Thompson has a more civil and respectful demeanor, it's not going away - the school closings, charter invasions, the overall institutional malice directed at teachers- no matter who is elected mayor, unless people resist and fight it on many fronts.
Suransky would not survive one full month as a teacher teaching some of the students I had this past year. Wait, perhaps he might. His boring tone and lack of any type of passion would cause the students I was able to keep from cutting to indeed cut his class. He'd survive these students because they simply would not attend his classes. My goodness Shael - can you at least sound interested - you would be torn apart in a real classroom.
ReplyDeleteMichael, it can't be any worse. Call me an optimist.
ReplyDeletenew article just published on Shael's policies showing that they have been a disservice to children
ReplyDeletehttp://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2014/01/corporate-reform-versus-child-centered.html