Annotation+2


 * Full citation? **

Strauss, Valerie. "Teacher's Resignation Letter: 'My Profession...No Longer Exists'" //TheWashingtonPost.com //. The Washington Post, 6 Apr 2013. Web. 19 Mar 2014.


 * Where are the author/s located, what are their backgrounds and what kinds of expertise do they have? **

Valerie Strauss


 * List of at least three details or examples from the text that point to something important about culture, education and/or the challenge of environmental sustainability in the United States. **

I really liked this quote: "Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself." I think this is interesting because while regulation and standardization is increasingly pushing education toward something of a test that youth must pass before they begin life and become an adult, it is forgotten that education is not prep for life; life should be a continual educational process.

"STEM rules the day and ' data driven' education seeks only conformity standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core.": This is another quote (like the whole article) that calls the system out on being overly standardized. Everything authorities are doing to try to improve the system are damaging it by numbing students passion for learning.

"We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven." The system creates an interesting dilemma: while it is important that there be some form of evaluation to ensure that students are not falling behind and missing the whole purpose of going to school, their solution for this does not seem to be working effectively.


 * What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? **

"Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education..."

"My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic "assessments") or grade their own students' examinations."

"This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom."


 * What is the main argument of the text? **

Gerald Conti is resigning from his job because it has become something he no longer supports or love. Most teachers of the older generation became teachers because they love to do it, and they have seen dozens of cycles of students go through the education system and into adulthood. He is disheartened by what the education system has become through standardization, and no longer feels that he can be a part of it. I think he is making a bold step that hopefully calls attention to important topics.


 * Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported. **

 This article is an opinion piece with no hard data, but Conti brings up the way data driven education is altering the learning environment and this is the result of people in power requiring that assessments be given to evaluate the students and also evaluate the teachers' abilities to teach.   He describes the reaction to these changes as a "zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core." With the densely structured outline of what the students have to learn at which age, etc, there is not much room for the teacher or the student to express their inherent creativity. I have to say, non-creative people are at a huge loss in life, being creative is awesome and important. So we shouldn't be stifling any creativity and killing it off before the students even have a chance. Eliminating the opportunity for teachers to be creative also eliminates any need for them to be skilled or qualified. If everything is decided for the teacher, is there really any need for them? This is the argument Conti is making.  When he brings up that the system is evaluation driven and not knowledge driven--this makes me think of "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" It would be interesting to see the statistics on how much information people retain from primary education into adulthood. I guarantee the stuff they put on tests will be farther from our minds as adults than the life lessons our teachers took personal time to teach us.


 * What parts of the argument did you find most and least persuasive, and why? **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">He did not have solid statistics, so it would be easy for the people receiving his letter to dismiss it. But he spoke from the heart, as a genuinely concerned citizen who is feeling lost in a profession he cares deeply about. This makes his argument very persuasive.


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Explain how the argument and evidence in the text relates to our effort to conceptualize, design and deliver EcoEd? **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">This article relates widely to education, and not so much sustainability. But it does make me think about how bringing sustainability and science into the classroom can help us produce a generation committed to changing the world in that way, and reforms to the education system can only support this.


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What additional information has this text compelled you to seek out? (Describe what you learned in a couple of sentences, providing at least two supporting references). **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Like I mentioned before, I would love to see how much of the standardized/regularized "knowledge" actually sticks into adulthood. I got great grades throughout school, but I don't think there is much correlation to how much I actually retained.