Comments on: Show Me Your Goals, Sir

By: Gregory Louie

Gregory Louie — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:29:53 +0000

Hi Margo/Mom,

I understand and appreciate your perspective. In my own professional life I practice setting concrete goals daily in light of a continually refined sense of mission and vision.

I’ve also had the practical experience of successfully mentoring internationally award winning science, math and engineering students. I met them individually on a biweekly basis to monitor their progress on their research goals. Goal setting is undoubtedly a powerful practice.

On the other hand, I had less than a dozen students in a special class authentic science research class. I couldn’t imagine being required to do the same kind of mentoring with 90-120 students, which is not unusual for a typical NYC teaching load.

So what can appears to be a powerful idea on paper, can be practically impossible to implement in the real world.

All the best,

Gregory

By: Diana Senechal

Diana Senechal — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:16:46 +0000

Margo/Mom,

It is not Authority I distrust, but Jargon-Ridden Authority.

Diana Senechal

By: Lightly Seasoned

Lightly Seasoned — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:11:51 +0000

Right, but you guys really do have goals, yes? They may not be ed-ease type goals, but things like figure out a better way to teach x, or revise this unit so it leads more smoothly to the next..??

By: BadaBing

BadaBing — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:57:26 +0000

Mike Curtis:

We’re on the same wave-length, and I know that might be scary for you, but what you said in response to the idiots in charge was perfect. If I say that my goal is to have no goals, do I have goals or am I declaring that I have no goals. Sincerely, though, in a teachers’ workshop, which I avoid like swine flu, only the sane would have no goals. Now I’m getting into Catch-22. Better quit while I have no goals.

By: Mike Curtis

Mike Curtis — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:33:20 +0000

Looks like they’re playing stupid again; and they’re winning. In a teachers’ workshop years ago, we were tasked to set up a 3-year plan with annual stepping stones as goals. Additionally, we had to develop rubriks with which to measure our achievements as educators.

My response: “My goal is to have no goals. I’m already there, so I’ll leave it to you to develop a rubrik to measure my descent from doing the best I can.”

I’m still successfully teaching by doing the best I can.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:54:25 +0000

As a third grade teacher, I’m just imagining trying to assist my 27 students in establishing goals in every subject. Do kids with IEPs get to use their IEP goals as their own goals, or do they need to put the goals in their own language? Do the goals have to be aligned with the curriculum? For example, can one student write, “I will learn long division” when long division isn’t taught in third grade. If so, will I then have to start teaching long division?

In a classroom, there are certainly times when goal setting is appropriate. But as a forced activity in each subject, the goal setting becomes meaningless, another bureaucratic nightmare for teacher and students.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:14:20 +0000

these tools are highly effective when woven into the culture and operations. The goals reinforce the culture and operations. That’s true in schools and business.

When ladled atop disfunctional culture and operations, they just dissipate energy further (whether a school or business setting)

By: PeterW

PeterW — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:38:57 +0000

I think that having students make up and articulate goals for normal classes is a waste of time…if the goals are relevant at all, they will likely be banal. (Which is not to say that they are unrealistic – most of my goals were simply something like “learn what the teacher teaches and get a good grade.”

But I do think that having teachers describe specific concrete goals for the class is useful – something like:

I Unit 1 – Fractions
A. What is a fraction?
B. Pies and fractions.
C. Parts of a fraction.
D. Common denominator.
E. Adding fractions.
F. Canceling out.
G. Multiplying fractions.
H. Dividing fractions.
I. Fractions and decimals.
J. Converting fractions to decimals.
K. Converting decimals to fractions.
L. Pies and fractions, part II.
M. Review.

(I am not a math teacher…).

I think that something like this, with more detail, would be helpful for the student, informative for the student’s parent, and maybe even helpful educationally.

By: Robert Pondiscio

Robert Pondiscio — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:35:37 +0000

The problem with this exercise — and if problems like this were gold, we’d retire the national debt — is that it takes the germ of a good idea (goals focus learning) and reduces it a task that may or may not be relevant to the learner with concommitant enforcement mechanisms. The “goal” then becomes the goal setting itself, rather than the educational benefit supposedly represented by the process. Call it bulletin board syndrome: A supervisor notices that good things are happening in classrooms with great bulletin board displays, and somehow that turns into “all classrooms must have great bulletin boards. Why? Because that’s what “they” are looking for during walkarounds.

So instead of making good things happen in the classroom, we concern ourselves with the visible indicators of the good things — the bulletin boards, small groups, accountable talk, the learning aim and standard on the board, etc.

It would be comical if it did not come with a real price tag attached.

By: KauaiMark

KauaiMark — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:50:48 +0000

“…able to recite goals”

Can’t most kids make up something on the spot?

Like: “My goal today is to avoid A** H**** like you asking me about my goals. Looks like I failed today”