May 2008

Try This!

Reading Lists from the International Reading Association

• Children's Choices — links to information and annual lists of Children's Choices award winners
• Young Adults' Choices — information about and links to downloads of Young Adults' Choices booklists
• Teachers' Choices — information and links to downloads of the Teachers' Choices booklists

Book Lists from NEA's Read Across America

May 2008

Try This!

SUMMER LEARNING TIPS: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF SUMMER

• Locate a summer program. There are high-quality summer camps and programs in almost every price range.  Camps offered by schools, recreation centers, universities, and community-based organizations often have an educational or enrichment focus.

• Visit the library. Find out what interests your child and select books on that subject.  Participate in free library summer programs and make time to read every day. 

• Take educational trips.  These can be low-cost visits to parks, museums, zoos and nature centers.  When planning vacations, consider those with educational themes.

• Practice math daily.  Measure items around the house or yard.  Track daily temperatures.   Add and subtract at the grocery store.  Cooking is a chance to learn fractions.  Every day experiences can be fun and interesting, while giving kids opportunities to learn the skills they need.

• Get outside and play.  Limit TV and video game time, just as you do during the school year.  Intense physical activity and exercise contribute to healthy development.

• Do good deeds.  Students learn better and “act out” less when they engage in activities that aid in their social-emotional development, such as community service.

• Keep a schedule. It makes sense to continue daily routines during the summer and to continue to provide structure and limits. The key is providing a balance and keeping kids engaged.

• Prepare for fall. Find out what your child will be learning during the next school year by talking with teachers at that grade level. Preview concepts and materials over the summer.

Find out more at:www.summerlearning.org

Education Minnesota teachers offer five tips to keep students sharp during summer

How can students stay sharp over the summer break? With the end of the school year upon us, Minnesota’s teachers are offering tips to help students avoid a common summertime ailment known as “summer loss.” This phenomenon affects students of all ages. Simply put, students learn a lot during the school year, but they often take a few steps backward academically over the summer break.
 
Summer loss is often more prevalent among lower-income students who may not be exposed to the same summertime learning activities as middle- and higher-income students. Examples of such activities include music lessons, summer camp, family vacations and countless other learning opportunities.  
 
These tips apply to all students, regardless of their family income.
 

Talk with your child about what they learned during the school year.
Take a few minutes to review the topics that your child studied during the school year. Ask them what they liked and what subjects caused them to struggle. Then find opportunities to bring those topics into discussions with your child during the summer.

Read, read and read some more. The volume of summer reading is the single best predictor of how much your child may “gain” or “lose” during the summer. Read aloud with your child every day. Make it fun by reading outdoors, at home, the beach or a neighborhood park. Visit the local public library regularly, and subscribe, in your child’s name, to children’s or teen magazines.

Don’t limit activities to paper and pencil. Trips to a museum, zoo, sporting event or even a shopping mall can provide excellent opportunities for your child to apply reading, creative thinking, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The natural world can be the best teacher. Children gain a lifelong appreciation of the outdoors while honing their writing, math and observational skills. For families that have the opportunity, academic, activity or sports camps can provide a fun and stimulating environment to improve children’s skills, both in and out of school.

Encourage children to write about their summer experiences. Scrapbooks and journals can help children process, explain and remember their experiences and enhance writing skills. During family activities, collect souvenirs, postcards, ticket stubs and photos. Have your children write captions in activity books and read them aloud as you review the book together.

Remember that summer learning should be fun! Summer is usually a time without academic grades and testing. This freedom can be used to encourage children to explore subjects of special interest to them. Students need the summer to relax, play and act like children before returning to school in the fall. Enjoyable summer experiences can make a world of difference in children’s attitudes and approaches to academics when school resumes.

Some school districts may assign a modest level of homework for children to tackle during the summer months. It’s important to help children budget their time to get their summertime homework done in a timely manner. That will help them avoid an end-of-summer rush that may detract from their back-to-school experience in the fall. It is very important that students return to the class in late August or early September refreshed and ready to learn.

Study points to growth in distance learning and virtual schools

By Cindy Long

September 7, 2007 - Middle and high school classes are just a click away with online learning, a trend that’s taking off around the country, according to a report from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), an education advisory organization serving 16 southern states.

Just 12 years ago, none of the 50 states used the Web to provide courses to middle grades or high school students, but by 2000, several of the 16 SREB states, including Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana and West Virginia, had or were beginning to implement state-sponsored virtual schools. The North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) reports that 38 states have established e-learning initiatives and that there are currently 25 state-wide or state-led virtual schools in the United States.

"Online courses are growing because they fill students’ academic needs, regardless of where they live in their state,” said Bill Thomas, director of SREB Educational Technology. "They are especially invaluable for students who need academic courses their school cannot provide, for those who need to retake a course — or for students who have schedule conflicts that do not allow them to take courses they want or need."

While the trend is gaining momentum, there are some hurdles to implementing online learning across public school systems. Because a state virtual school is a new entity that typically requires each state to establish new funding, creating quality control and management policies can take time and can be difficult for those who do not understand the benefits of this approach, according to SREB.

With 14 of the SREB's 16 member states overseeing online schools and the remaining two members preparing to follow suit soon, the organization is encouraged that the southern region has more statewide or state-led virtual-school programs than all other regions of the country combined.

Related Content:

• NEA’s position on distance learning
• Report on SREB State Virtual Schools (PDF, 113 pgs)

Tales Out of School

In the second installment of a series of stories by educators making a difference, Carol Sanders shares her story about a writing assignment that broadens her students' horizons. Do you have a story to share? Visit our Tales Out of School discussion board or send an email to Cindy Long.

Out of 'Student' Body Experiences

By Carol Sanders

I teach college-level composition to high school seniors, a course that comes out of Southwest Minnesota State University.  One of the essay assignments is a profile of a person, place, or activity. For the assignment, students perform field research where they physically go to the person or place and observe for a few hours -- and they learn a lot more than they think they will.

One girl followed our head custodian for half a day. Several exhausting hours later, she found out that a janitor has an important and demanding job. A boy observed his mother teaching a second-grade class and discovered a side of his mom he hadn't seen before. Another boy went to a sporting goods store, dressed up in hunting clothes, and stood as a manniquin, where he saw a lot of unusual shopping behavior.  A girl sat in the waiting room of a chidren's clinic watching the parents with their sick kids . . . and saw a lot of love.

In a unique observation experience, a boy rode the elevator in a busy hotel while engaging in unusual behaviors -- he faced the back, he sang outloud, and even sat down on the floor of the elevator-- just to see how people would react. Some people responded positively, while others assumed he was a foreigner. Others seemed to be intimidated.  He was eventually asked by a security guard to leave the hotel. 

Some students watched professionals at work or observed a factory in operation, but no matter what field research they performed, they all learned a great deal, and their essays are fascinating to read. They talk all excitedly about their observations in class and have trouble narrowing their essays to four pages.

This assignment helps my students gain writing skills, but more importantly it also helps them to grow as people.  Kudos to the authors/editors of the St. Martin's Guide to Writing for inventing this valuable learning activity.

Read the first installment of "Tales Out of School," about a hat knitting project in Bangladesh.

By Danielle Taylor

August 22, 2007 - When disadvantaged children fall behind in school, educators know it's often the result of an unstable situation at home. It's an especially vicious cycle for kids whose parents are in prison. Not only do they suffer academically, they're also likely to continue a pattern of intergenerational incarceration. But a Maryland-based non-profit is committed to giving at-risk students a shot at life beyond the bars.

The U.S. Dream Academy , based near Baltimore, Md., knows that “the children we don’t educate too often are the adults we incarcerate,” according to its website, and recognizes that the crime rate of children of prisoners is much higher than that of their peers because of an often fractured and volatile home life.

However, good mentors, a quiet place to read and do homework, and people who believe in them is often all these kids need to beat the odds. Eighty percent of prisoners never finished high school, so for many kids, a high school diploma serves as their ticket toward a different life.

When minister and gospel singer Wintley Phipps visited a prison to sing to the inmates, he was shocked to find his wife’s pregnant niece behind bars. He wondered about the future of his niece's child, and of the children of the other incarcerated parents who start out with many more obstacles than their peers. Sixty to 70 percent of children of prisoners end up behind bars themselves, and Phipps realized that unless at-risk kids were exposed to a different future, they would continue the cycle. In 1998 he founded the Dream Academy to introduce children to a different set of options.

Unlike many afterschool programs, the Dream Academy provides tutoring as well as mentoring services, and gets kids in touch with responsible adults who hang out with them, help them with homework, take them to places they wouldn’t otherwise see, and give them a different perspective on life to show them there’s more out there to dream and strive for.

“A lot of these kids have never been outside their own ZIP Code, let alone their city or state,” said Gary Ogden, director of programs. “We expand their horizons by showing them other options.” The program also gives kids access to computers and the Internet, a resource many don’t have at home.

A father of two who was incarcerated 17 years ago for bringing drugs into the community, but has since been released, is grateful for the program. He's now raising his children while their mother is in jail. He's also raising his sister's two children, and the whole brood comes to the Dream Academy every day. The father says he couldn’t do what he’s doing without the program, which provides the entire family with the support network they need.

“The kids really enjoy it,” said Executive Vice President Diane Booker. “We’ve gotten letters. One girl says she really realizes she can go to college.”

The program has proven successful in the lives of untold kids who have gone on to graduate from high school and college, get good jobs and become responsible citizens. Since 2001, approximately 2000 third through eighth grade kids have walked through its doors.

As their motto goes, “A child with a dream is a child with a chance.” And that’s the reality.

Related Content:

• Who is affected by achievement gaps?
• Keeping kids out of trouble during afterschool hours

By Cynthia Kopkowski

August 22, 2007 - Barbara Morgan’s journey of 5.3 million miles came to an end yesterday when the teacher-astronaut and the rest of the Space Shuttle Endeavour crew landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

After touching down, Morgan suffered some of the adverse affects of being back in a gravitational environment. She was too unsteady on her feet to participate in a post-landing review of the shuttle with her fellow crewmembers.

“It will go away and it’s actually pretty interesting if you could be in my body,” Morgan told reporters at a NASA press conference several hours after landing.

Her safe return from space marked the culmination of an emotional, decades-long trip for the former Idaho elementary school teacher. In 1986, she was a charter member of NASA’s Teacher in Space Program and the backup for New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe on the doomed Challenger mission.

After the Challenger explosion, Morgan returned to the classroom. In 1998, she re-entered NASA’s space flight queue as the first Educator Astronaut, meaning she’d be a fully trained astronaut first and an education advocate second.

Her primary duty while in space was operating a large robotic arm to assist the spacewalking crew members in attaching new equipment to the International Space Station.

But there were plenty of educational activities going on while Endeavour was orbiting. Last week, Morgan spoke with students from Idaho and Virginia using a ham radio. During launch she had trouble breathing and felt like somebody was standing on her chest, Morgan told the students. In addition to work, life aboard the shuttle meant playing with her food, exercising on a treadmill, bike, and special weight training machine, and sneaking peeks out the window at the Earth below.

“Last night I was looking out the window and I was looking down at the Indian Ocean, and there were big lightning storms all over,” she said.

NASA officials cut Endeavour’s slated 14-day space stint short to avoid possible problems from Hurricane Dean as it made its way across the Atlantic Ocean.

Some important cargo made its way back to Earth from space with Morgan. She toted back 75 pounds of basil seeds that students nationwide will grow in greenhouses that they design and build. The seeds are available to educators on a first-come, first-served basis, along with grade-appropriate lesson guides.

Visit NASA's Office of Education to sign up for information about getting the seeds.

In the first installment of a series of stories by educators making a difference, Mary Draper, the Family and Consumer Science teacher and Work-Based Learning Coordinator at East Junior and East High School in Mankato, Minnesota, shares her story about a service learning project that took her across the globe. Do you have a story to share? Send an email to Cindy Long with your story about an exciting issue or project you’re involved with at your school.

Hats "On" to Service Learning

By Mary Draper

A student and I just returned from an adventure in Bangladesh, and it all began with a cap knitting project.

Last fall my 8th grade Family and Consumer Science classes completed a service learning project knitting baby hats for the nonprofit organization Save the Children’s “Caps to the Capitol” initiative. I chose this service learning project because of its tie to children’s health, and because it included a request that students write letters to Congress and the President lobbying for funds to support newborn global health. Since writing is one of our school district's goals and I also teach a child development unit, it was an excellent fit for my curriculum.

I wrote and received a grant for supplies to make the hats and began the monumental task of teaching 103 students how to knit. Eventually all produced at least one hat; some made up to six.

To make the project relevant, I explained that 4 million infants die each year before they are a month old; 2 million die in the first 24 hours of life, and that simply keeping an infant warm with a knit hat can help save lives. Facts such as these helped the students internalize the value of their work; they even visualized the infants who would receive their hats, including a student who was having problems keeping her hat small. After several attempts to correct the problem, I told her that the large hat would be for the mother of the baby. When she heard me say this, tears welled up in her eyes and she asked, “But what about my baby? Will she die?” I assured her there would be enough hats for the babies.

Students felt empowered knowing their hats would impact newborn health. Eighth grade students truly care about making their world a better place, and learning that they can play an active role helps capture their interest.

Once the hats were finished, the students wrote their letters. They were skeptical about whether the letters would actually be read by the politicians, but they still wrote with conviction. I then packaged the hats and letters and sent them to Save the Children.

From D.C. to Bangladesh

Two months later, I received a call from Save the Children asking if I would come to Washington, DC, with three of my students. One student had never flown and two had never been to Washington, so it was a terrific adventure.

My student teacher also joined us, and the five of us met with staff members of two Senators and Congressman Tim Walz, who is from Mankato, our district. During a meeting with the U.S. Agency for International Development, student Mollie Juberian read her letter to President Bush.

The final activity was a reception at the Textile Museum where journalist Cokie Roberts was the keynote speaker. We felt so honored to be participants in such an important event and also humbled by the entire experience. It was wonderful to see my three students represent all of our 8th graders. But the best was yet to come.

One month later Save the Children invited Mollie and me to travel to Bangladesh. They wanted us to actually deliver the hats to villages there! We left March 22 for 11 days and a lifetime of memories.

Bangladesh is a beautiful country with lush palm trees, rice fields and exotic sounding birds. We met Save the Children staff from the Dhaka office, later flying to Sylhet, an area of vast tea plantations and rice fields. From there we traveled to five villages and placed hats on newborn babies. Meeting with the families was a moving experience. Villagers were exceedingly poor. They lived in mud houses and only one village family had furniture; the others had only blankets on dirt floors. Mollie and I took turns placing hats on the babies. Their families were extremely appreciative of our efforts and said that even after their child outgrew the hat, they would display the hat to remember that people in the U.S. really care.

Upon our return, I tried to help my 8th grade students understand Mollie and I were ambassadors for them. They were with us in spirit and that spirit will continue to be present in Bangladesh long after the babies have outgrown their hats.

The benefits of service learning are many. It engages students in active learning, helps curriculum become relevant to students’ lives, develops critical thinking and problem solving skills, increases awareness of current social issues, and nurtures civic responsibility. Service learning projects are designed to be a meaningful link to community, and this one certainly was. The community happened to extend to our global community.

Save the Children is an incredible organization doing life-saving work in healthcare, education and disaster relief. I would like to encourage people who want to learn more about this organization to visit their web site: www.savethechildren.org.

Now what?

Students and staff at Virginia Tech gather for a candlelight vigil. (Photo by Sandy Schaeffer)

After the shooting Monday of 32 people at Virginia Tech, educators and student association members on and around the campus are pondering how they will handle their students' questions and emotions, not to mention their own. (See "It's Just So Senseless" at the Virginia Education Association site.)

The NEA Health Information Network (HIN) is working closely with officials at Virginia Tech, the 70 members of that school's chapter of the Student Virginia Education Association, and educators in the surrounding public schools to help them figure that out. They've extended offers of counseling, so that as schools get back under way in the upcoming days and weeks, educators are better prepared when confronted with this complex issue.

"In the wake of something like this, we want to help them understand what they might anticipate with the kids," says Jerald Newberry, HIN's director. "They'll wonder what kind of questions the young people will have, what the symptoms of post-traumatic stress are, and what type of resilience they can expect from the students." Those are the same questions that surfaced earlier this year, when NEA HIN dispatched counselors to Enterprise, Alabama, after deadly tornadoes killed eight students and critically injured a teacher.

This week, students and teachers in the Montgomery County, Virginia, public schools watched the horror unfold right in their community. "They watched the ambulances driving past their schools," Newberry says. "A lot of teachers in the public schools have spouses who are professors at the university. And the school system feeds directly into Virginia Tech. They talk about six degrees of separation? In this case, it's more like two degrees."

Assistance will be crucial, Virginia Education Association President Princess Moss says. "We know from similar incidents that the reverberations of these events are deeply felt by all those in the school community," Moss says. "Not just those in the direct line of fire." Or, as Newberry says, "We want to determine how we as an Association can best take care of and support each other. If (educators) are the caretakers, who's taking care of the caretakers?"

Teacher bloggers all over the country turned their attention to their extended school family in and around Virginia Tech, venting their frustration and outrage, extending their sympathy and hope, and expressing concern for their own students and communities. One writer expressed a sense of loss echoed by many others in his blog Practical Theory:

"Our schools are supposed to be sacred places. I believe — always have believed — that they are our secular cathedrals where people come together around the process of learning… Days like today remind us that the need for safe schools move across age ranges, across racial and socio-economic boundaries, across geographic boundaries. They remind us that our schools, as much as we wish them to be safe havens from the dangers of the world, too often are not. And they remind us of how much more work we have left to do."

For those seeking assistance immediately in handling crisis in the classroom, NEA's Crisis and Communication Guide and Toolkit can help.

Plans are being developed for an NEA scholarship for education majors at Virginia Tech, Newberry says. Details will follow.

Expressing NEA's support for the student members at Virginia Tech, NEA President Reg Weaver stressed that campuses and all schools must be safe places for professionals and students.

"We must have zero tolerance for violence in our institutions of higher learning, and we must as a society take the steps necessary to make school campuses and other education environments safe from violence and guns," Weaver said. Monday's shootings underscore the importance of decisive action to address guns and violence, Weaver said.

In the wake of these horrific events, you may wish to make a donation to The Virginia Tech teacher education scholarship.  The Janet M. and James F. Johnson Teacher Education Endowment Scholarship supports students who are studying to be teachers. Making a donation is easy and can be done in three simple steps:

1. Write a check payable to Virginia Tech Foundation


2. In the memo line (bottom right hand corner of the check), write Fund #885814 (NEA)


3. Mail checks to the Virginia Tech University Development, (0336) Blacksburg, VA 24061.

—Cynthia Kopkowski

Posted April 19, 2007

By building schools, students from Buffalo build bridges to Afghanistan

By Cindy Long, NEA Today

Tony Agnello and his students are busy changing the world. They’ve worked at shelters, helping the homeless and disadvantaged women and their children. They’ve assisted refugees from around the world prepare for emigration to Canada. They’ve supported an orphanage in Bosnia. And they’ve helped with relief efforts to aid earthquake victims in India and those in tsunami-ravaged areas of Asia. But the work they’re most proud of has been in Afghanistan, where they’re building an educational foundation for Afghan women and girls.

It’s all part of their involvement with Orchard Park Educational Outreach (OPEO), a student service organization at Orchard Park High School, just south of Buffalo, New York. OPEO is led by Agnello, a veteran teacher and coach at Orchard Park High. He’s president of the Friends of Afghanistan, the official organization of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) who served in Afghanistan, and also heads up the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program with Afghanistan.

Agnello was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Afghanistan in the 1970s, where he “experienced the wonderful, tolerant, supportive, and kind culture of the people of Afghanistan.” In the years since, he’s watched war and instability bring radical extremism to the country. “The injustice [of extremists]…is especially harsh toward minorities [especially those inside of Islam] and most insidiously toward women [who are made] second class citizens and denied regular medical, occupational and educational access,” says Agnello. “Our program attempts to level the playing field by providing opportunity that is inclusive and that does not discriminate based on gender.”

And it’s working. The OPEO program is already making a difference for thousands of Afghan girls. Through partnerships with nongovernmental organizations on the ground in Afghanistan, the students of Orchard Park have helped build five schools for Afghan children in four provinces. Three schools are exclusively for girls; the others permit girls to attend during split sessions. They’re providing financial support for PARSA, a women’s vocational training program; funding AID Afghanistan, which offers accelerated learning opportunities to girls; and supporting the YES Student Exchange Program, which brings the best and brightest Afghan high school students to the United States for a year of study and cultural exchange.

Back in New York, the Orchard Park High School students engage in awareness campaigns, fundraising events, and communication projects. They organize an annual Faculty Basketball Game that raises thousands of dollars for local and Afghanistan-based projects, and they’re currently writing to Congress to ask for policies to directly benefit the Afghan people. A Leadership Conference is also in the works, which will bring together Christian, Muslim, and Jewish students to discuss world issues and see if there is any consensus regarding common ground and common good among Americans of diverse backgrounds.

Even grade-schoolers are pitching in. A local and ambitous second-grader held a rummage sale and made almost $5,000 for OPEO’s school construction projects.

“We are doing some very special things and we have provided educational opportunity for thousands of Afghan children where none would have been available,” says Agnello.

For more information about how your group can contribute to or learn more about these projects, contact Tony Agnello at: aagnello@opschools.org.

Posted April 12, 2007

You Write the Songs

Wow! There are a lot of talented songwriters in our classrooms! We asked for songs from NEA members, and boy, did you strike up the band! From all over the country, would-be Sinatras flooded our mailbox with tunes of the teaching life, laments of NCLB, and odes to curriculum in the classroom.

And the winners are…

First place: No Cow Left Behind

Submitted by John Carratello, an elementary school teacher in the San Jacinto Unified School District, in San Jacinto, California.

“Most children will never become musicians, take up a musical instrument, or sing in a choir. However, knowing something about music and having the opportunity to participate actively in its performance is very important to an individual’s overall development,” says Carratello. “Participation in a music program also helps to improve academic achievement, and gives students a better understanding of and appreciation for the types of music they already enjoy.”

Second Place: Public Education

Submitted by John Rockwell, an AP Literature and 12th Grade English teacher at Rancho Verde High School in Moreno Valley, California.

“A good song can get your class focused and ready to learn. If you are open enough to sing in front of your students, you are giving them your trust; in turn, they will trust you,” says Rockwell. “I like to sing them into and out of class. It tells students, ’You are welcome and wanted here.’”

Third Place: We All Make a Difference

Submitted by Julie Baker-Anderson, a vocal music teacher at Monroe Middle School in Omaha, Nebraska.

“If we truly want our students to be well rounded  then we must offer them an education in music and the arts,” says Baker-Anderson. “Not only does music bridge a gap among all races, religions and cultures, but also crosses into other curricular areas as well. The benefits are many, and time and time again statistics have shown that students who study music do better academically.”

Back to NEA Today

March 9, 2007 - When a  series of violent tornadoes ravaged the Albama town of Enterprise, the local high school took a direct hit. The storm killed eight students at the school, and also destroyed the homes of many more students and faculty members.

In the wake of the disaster, the Alabama Education Association has set up a foundation to support those whose lives have been affected by the tornadoes. 

Checks and money orders, made out to the Alabama Education Association Fund, can be mailed to:

Alabama Education Association
P.O. Box 4177
Montgomery, AL 36103

For educators, students, and parents in Alabama and other areas hit by disaster, the NEA Crisis Communications Guide and Toolkit  (2000) provides resources to empower school staff facing crises and to guide their school communities toward hope, healing, and renewal.

Related Content:

• Dealing With Disaster
• Students' Emotional Well-Being After a Crisis

Bring your students to the frontlines of climate change in the Arctic where glaciers are melting, polar bears are drowning, and Inuit villagers are struggling to survive.

By Cindy Long

This Earth Day, your students can experience global warming firsthand by joining the 2007 Baffin Island Expedition, led by Arctic explorer Will Steger. Steger is leading a team of four American explorers and educators and three Canadian Inuit hunters between remote Inuit villages to hear and record the stories of the Inuit people facing very real changes with the warming of the Arctic.

Sea ice and glaciers are melting, shortening the Inuit hunting season by months, and villagers are struggling to hold on to their traditional way of life. Daily written, audio and video posts from the team members bring the day-to-day struggles in the Arctic right to your classroom via globalwarming101.com, a website created by the Will Steger Foundation.

Theo Ikummaq, an Inuit hunter and guide on the expedition, writes about the disappearance of more polar bears in the region:   “I started seeing polar bears as soon as I could start seeing into the distance. Probably right from my mothers back…The absence of ice is creating more people and polar bear conflicts, driving them inland more.”

Steger’s team is traveling with Ikummaq and three other Inuit hunters on the 1200-mile, four-month-long dogsled expedition across the Canadian Arctic’s Baffin Island. With dispatches sent to globalwarming.com, young people around the world can witness firsthand the effects of global warming.

Through dispatches, photographs and maps, the site allows students to feel a deeper connection to the Arctic, witness the current impacts of climate change on people who live with it every day, and be empowered to take action.

Earth Day will mark the 58th day of the team’s journey. Log on to the site to hear about their experiences, see how global warming is affecting the Arctic, and find lesson plans.

Steger’s expedition has teamed up with National Geographic to create a standards-based curriculum for K-12 teachers, including:

• Six interdisciplinary standards-linked Lesson Plans approved by National Geographic Xpeditons and the Union of Concerned Scientists.  These lesson plans explain global climate change processes, the global significance of warming in the Arctic, regional impacts of global warming, potential solutions and courses of action. 
• Ten discussion starters to help students develop critical thinking skills and learn to engage in respectful and informed debate about global warming.
• K-12 Standards-linked Classroom Activities developed by teachers at Jefferson Community School, A K-8 public school in Minneapolis emphasizing adventure learning and the environment, and by participants in the Steger Summer Institute for Climate Change Education.
• Links to additional educational resources. 

Related Content:

Globalwarming101.com
Learn more about Steger, the expedition and global warming.

Share you ideas!
Talk to other teachers about environmental education on our discussion board.

The U.S. average public school teacher salary for 2004-05 (the most recent survey) was $47,674.

State average public school teacher salaries ranged from those in

• District of Columbia ($58,456),
• California ($57,876), and
• Connecticut ($57,737) at the high end to
  
  
• South Dakota ($34,040),
• Mississippi ($36,590), and
• North Dakota ($36,695) at the low end.

Over the decade from 1994-95 to 2004-05, in constant dollars, average salaries for public school teachers increased 0.2%.

• Louisiana (13.6%),
• Georgia (11.0%),
• Idaho (9.0%),
• California (8.6%), and
• North Carolina (8.5%) had the largest real increases in salaries during that 10-year period.

Twenty-eight states saw real declines in average teacher salaries over those years, adjusting for inflation. Those with average salaries declining 5% or more:

• Alaska (-15.8%),
• Kansas (-12.5%),
• Connecticut (-11.1%),
• Wisconsin (-9.6%),
• New York (-9.0%)
• Pennsylvania (-7.8%),
• Hawaii (-7.7%),
• West Virginia (-7.5%),
• New Jersey (-7.1%), and
• Alabama (-5.5%).

The U.S. average one-year increase in public school teacher salaries from 2003-04 to 2004-05 was 2.1%.

The largest one-year increases -- 5% or more -- were in

• Oklahoma (8.0%) and
• Vermont (6.0%).

Average salaries in current dollars declined in

• Maine (-0.6%),
• West Virginia (-0.3%), and
• Alabama (-0.3%).

Based on the trends, NEA estimated that the average classroom teacher salary for 2005-06 would increase by 3%, from $47,674 to $49,109. The national average salary, although useful as a benchmark statistic, hides vast differences among states, with statewide averages likewise clouding significant local variations.

For additional information on teacher salaries visit the Professional Pay area.

Calling quality teachers "the most inequitably distributed school resource," noted education rights activist Linda Darling-Hammond called on the U.S. government to implement a new "Marshall Plan"- a national commitment to train and retain high-quality teachers in every school.

In low-income areas, students remain unlikely to have teachers who have sufficient training in content areas or the necessary pedagogical training, Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University, said during a recent visit to NEA Headquarters. This problem is particularly acute in California, which underwent a large-scale hiring of unqualified teachers to help implement a statewide class-size reduction initiative in the late '90s.

"It's common practice for good teachers to not get hired in inner-city schools," explains Darling-Hammond, "Many of these districts prefer unqualified teachers or substitutes. Why? Because they cost less."

Such shortsightedness, she points out, reduces student achievement and fosters grade retention and dropouts, sending many students into what she calls the "school-to-prison" pipeline.

Key to reversing this trend, Darling-Hammond says, is a commitment to teacher retention. While California and many other states are falling short on this front, Connecticut, Kentucky North Carolina, and Vermont, among others, have succeeded in preparing, mentoring and supporting new teachers. Internationally, Darling-Hammond points to Finland and South Korea as examples of countries that make "serious investments in initial teacher education and school-level support."

As part of what she calls the new "Marshall Plan," Darling-Hammond supports the establishment of more service scholarships to prepare talented teaching recruits in high-need fields, such as mathematics, ESL, and physical science, and to teach in high-need locations. Doing so, she says, could provide classrooms across the country "with a highly qualified teacher and provide mentoring and professional development to each and every one of them"- all for less, Darling-Hammond adds, "than what we spend on the war in Iraq in one month."

-Tim Walker

For more on teacher quality, visit Issues in Education.

By Cindy Long, NEA Today

Can math be fun and entertaining? Absolutely, says Frances Britton, a math teacher at La Plata High School in Charles County, Maryland. All you need to do is make it into a game.

"Math-ardy" (think Jeopardy, with math problems) is one of her students' favorites. Britton comes up with problems, each worth a hundred points, and writes the categories on a white board. She then divides the class into teams for the competition. Each team gets a turn to choose a category, and all compete for the correct answers.

Another favorite is "trashketball." Again, the students are divided into teams. "I create the groups myself rather than letting the students choose," Britton says. "That way, I can be certain that each team has a strong student and a couple who might need some assistance." The stronger students act as tutors, helping the struggling students along as part of their winning strategy.

Once the teams are set, each student gets a pad of paper. The problem is called out, and the students go to work, pencils flying. When each team member is done, they confer to be sure they all have the right answer. If any student does not, the rest of the team must show them how to work out the problem. Then they hold up a pad with the answer on it. The first team to hold up their pad with the right answer gets to shoot a paper ball into the basket – a trash can. If they make it, they get two points.

"The kids love shooting the baskets the most, but they don't get a shot until they get the right answer to a problem," Britton says.

Even if you don't have the time or inclination to play games in your math class, there are easy ways to get students interested. Britton recommends re-writing word problems to incorporate the names of the students in your class, or teachers from the school, or even popular sports figures or celebrities. Find out what sports the students like, and include stats from the local team in problems.

While Britton wants her students to think math is fun, the main thing she tries to convey to them is that everyone can succeed. "Success is different for different students," she says, "What's important is what is a success in their eyes. The goal is for every student to feel successful in their own way."

Here are some resources to add some fun to your math lessons: