Teachers as Professional Baseball Players

It always amazes me to hear about "Teacher Performance Ratings" especially when you consider the criteria used, the questions asked, qualifications and or the agendas of the evaluators.

I like to use professional baseball statistics as a basis for comparisons. Baseball statistics are usually very simple to understand.

The batter goes to the plate and is presented with a number of pitches or opportunities. We can use pitches and students as the base unit.

There is the "wild pitch" that is dangerous to the batter, catcher, umpire, spectators and without proper safety equipment or reflexes can lead to serious injury or even death. We have all read the headlines when the students murder teachers and students.

The lead hitters are placed early in the batting order to take advantage of their established performance rankings. Many of them are baseball's best and yet they fail over 70% of the time they are at bat.

We know that statistics from medical sources, psychology sources, IQ testing and academic potential testing sources show that only 40 to 60% of the population can actually graduate from high school. These can be compared to baseballs "balls" and we know them as the generally "un-hitable" pitches that come our way.

Many unrealistic politicians, new age consultants and self-deluded idealists say that teachers have to bat 100% with all of their students.

Can you imagine any politician trying to make a rule that pro baseball players have to hit 100% of the pitches or successfully hit 100% of the time that they are up at bat. These politicians would be laughed out of the stadium, laughed out of office, made fun of by Stone, Jay, David and Conan.

To properly evaluate teachers we have to use a real criteria that evaluates what the teacher starts with, what the potential of the student is, what learning actually took place.

It would be nice to see teachers properly credited with helping students over achieve and perform at 110% of their potential or even turn students from being chronic underachievers at 20% up to 80% of their potential as students.

Teachers need a new Commissioner, a new league and trained umpires to protect the integrity of their game.

Original post at: ESL in Canada

http://teachenglishblog.blogspot.com/

How to Add our Blog RSS to MyYahoo

How to Add our Blog RSS to MyYahoo - For those of you that have a My Yahoo page the process of adding an RSS feed is simple.

1. Go to your "My Yahoo page" and log in.

2. When your MyYahoo Page is open click on "Add Content".

3. Click the link at the right "Add RSS by URL"

4. Paste the URL into the form and click "Add" This is an example URL for an atom RSS feed. http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/atom.xml

5. Click on back to "My Yahoo" - your page should reopen.

6. Click on the new RSS Feed Link with the Blog Title and Story title.

7. That is it - success - you can read RSS Feeds Yahoo has made the process of reading Blogs very easy by bringing the recent posts to your MyYahoo page.

The Three ESL in Canada Blogs can be added by pasting the URL into the "Add RSS by URL" form. You have to add content, add RSS by URL and paste for each blog to be added to MyYahoo.

1. http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/atom.xml

ESL in Canada News, information articles, reports, opinions, observations, warnings for English ESL students, teachers, agents, homestays and schools


3. http://teachenglishblog.blogspot.com/

English Teacher News, information articles, reports, opinions, observations, warnings for English ESL teachers, agents,  and schools

How to Add a Blog RSS to your MSN Sympatico MyPage

For those of you that have Hotmail with MSN Sympatico and My Page the process of adding an RSS feed is simple.

1. Go to MSN Sympatico or Hotmail or use the myMSN link: http://sympatico.my.msn.com/

2. Log in using your proper ID

3. You will see a MyPage link on top left - click on this to open your MyPage.

4. When your welcome page is open click on "Add Content".

5. A MyPage - Change Content - Web Page Dialog pops up.

6. Click on the tab labeled Search - this opens a Search for Content form.

7. Paste the URL for the feed into "search for content" form. This is an example URL for an atom RSS feed. http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/atom.xml

8. click on the green arrow to the right.

9. A confirmation box lists the Blog title and feed - click the box then OK at the bottom of page.

10. My Page re-opens - check to see if your RSS Feed is listed

11. Click on the new RSS Feed Link with the Blog Title and Story title.

12. That is it - success - you can read RSS Feeds

MSN has made the process of reading Blogs very easy by bringing the recent posts to your MyPage.The Three ESL in Canada Blogs can be added by pasting the URL into the "Search for Content" form. You have to add them one at a time.

1.
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/atom.xml

ESL in Canada News, information articles, reports, opinions, observations, warnings for English ESL students, teachers, agents, homestays and schools

2. http://teachenglishblog.blogspot.com/

English teacher News, information articles, reports, opinions, observations, warnings for English ESL  teachers, agents and schools.