You would want all the schools in one district to
basically follow the same core curriculum, but the core
curriculum is only meant to be about 60% of the curriculum.
Forty percent of the curriculum we can decide on. An also,
for something like foreign languages, how we teach things is
basically left up to us. We have textbooks, etc. but the
way we approach specific problems etc. is entirely left up
to our professional discretion and that is the way it should
be. And, as I said, I have never had anything else. In New
York State, where I come from, there is an animal called the
Regents, the Board of Regents. And with the Board of
Regents it is a little more stringent. They say, "These
specific things must be taught and in order to prove that
these things have been taught, there are state exams." The
state exams come in a Brinks truck to the school in a locked
box and they are locked in a safe and then the day of the
exam or the hour of the exam, the principal comes by with a
sealed envelope and in his or her presence you open that
envelope, pass the exams out to the kids. And that is how
they decide if the curriculum guides are being adhered to,
but I never found that to be constraining or anything. It
made sense to me.
Q. How about, have your felt your work life, are there any
instances that you could tell me about in which your work
life or how you conduct a classroom with decisions you make
about your work life? Have they been influenced by the
superintendents or anyone?
A. Not in the slightest, except that I have been fortunate in
that, I can say one specific incident. Yes, I can. Our
superintendent, Dr. ZZZ, decided, or I'm sure there were
other people in on the decision, that the foreign language
department in the XXX Public Schools should offer more
languages and it was decided that Russian and Japanese be
taught, in addition to the traditional four - Spanish,
French, German and Latin. And that was his decision, or
someone's decision. Since I, a hundred years ago in 1968,
had a minor in Russian, I decided to take advantage of it
and teach the Russian classes, starting last year, in the
Fall of '90, I guess. And we had the choice, it was, they
were going to have the courses on television. They had two
teachers, the Japanese teacher and a Russian teacher who
were teaching the subjects via television and I thought that
even with the hiatus I had between my fluency in Russian and
1990, the my students, or the students at Mountain View
would get a much better learning experience if they had a
warm body in a classroom, and so I decided that I would
teach the class, but that was it. We had enough students to
have a class, to justify a class, and that was it other than
the fact that Dr. ZZZ or the committee or whoever,
decided to have Russian, which was the original impetus that
hasn't effected me at all.
I just can't imagine it really influencing, the
superintendent or principal influencing a teacher to the
point that they change something they are doing unless what
they're doing is felt to be to the detriment of their
students, that I can't imagine. If a teacher is a competent
professional, in my experience, that teacher should be left
alone to do his or her job. Following guidelines, of
course.
Q. And that has been your
A. And that has been my experience.
Q. Have you felt any influence by the School Board?
A. Influence by the School Board? The only thing that I've
been influenced by, not directly by the School Board but
perhaps by community standards, things that I might have
discussed in New York State with my students, I don't
approach here, I don't bring them up in class because of, it
may be because of the Board, but is nothing that's really
been said by the Board. I basically look at it as community
standards. The community standards are different here than
the community that I originally taught in. And, so certain
things are maybe not tabu but certain things just are not
discussed, like homosexuality, things like that, whereas in
New York State I might have, I wouldn't have built the
lesson on something like that but sex education or something
like that might have been a topic for debate in my advance
level class. But I wouldn't do that here because certain
things are just, not only community standards, I believe
according to State law, certain behavior patterns are not to
be discussed in classrooms in (state name).
Q. This sounds like your first sense is that it is community
standards -
A. To me, I would think it would be the community standards.
Community standards, I see no reason to break their
community standards. I, luckily, am not in the position of
say an English teacher who would have to decide that some
piece of literature would not be appropriate, because things
that we read in class are hardly ever of a nature that would
have people look askance at the work they were doing.
Q. Have you, can you tell me about an incident that happened to
you or someone you know in which your work life was
influenced or shaped by legal or judicial judgements?
A. Well, other than what I just said about certain things
being, I believe according to (state name) State law or
educational policy tabu, I really can't think of anything.
The legislative aspect, or the influence of the legislature
on education is sort of distant, I think. They come up with
things that are not very specific. The only thing that
might influence my later actions as a teacher is the fact
that the legislature has mandated a foreign language in the
elementary school. Whether this mandate remains is another
question, but that might effect my teaching, but that is all
it would do is effect it because the students coming in
would be of a different caliber or they would be at a
different level than the student that we have now.
Q. Have you felt any influence by state or federal programs or
regulations?
A. Regulations or programs? We have been helped by grants, but
I don't think that is what you mean. Certain grants have
been received by the school districts that I've worked in
and certain monies have been available to do certain things.
Q. Have those grant monies effected what you are able to do in
the classroom?
A. Able to do in the classroom in (state name), no. But at one
point back East, we received a massive grant for all sorts
of AV equipment, etc. and that definitely changed my style
of teaching. It was a small district and we couldn't afford
very many audio visual aids and all of a sudden we got a
$50,000 grant and we were able to get a lot of things that
added interest to the curriculum, etc.
Q. Were there any strings attached?
A. Not that I know of. It was just specific money for specific
audio visual materials. There might have been strings
attached to it that I wouldn't know about, but we were, it
didn't effect me at all. One thing that did effect me was
that I'm old enough to remember national defense bank loans,
and my wife and I married early at age 19 and we both took
advantage national defense bank loans, and at that time you
were forgiven up to 50% of the loan if you taught, and that
obviously effected me a great deal because I probably would
not have been able to be a teacher if it hadn't been for
those grants, those loans. If I had taught in a school that
was very, in great financial distress or in a very poor area
of a major city, I think I could have the entire loan
forgiven. I was just lucky to be within that period of
time.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
was influenced or shaped by parents?
A. Influenced or shaped by parents. Once again, there are, you
have contact with parents, in most of the contact that I
have with most teachers would be of a disciplinary nature.
Calling parents to tell them that their son or daughter is
having a problem and what could be do about it, etc. I also
call the parents, on the other side of the coin if the
student is doing extremely well, but I really can't think of
anything that specifically changed my method of teaching or
what I taught because I spoke to a parent or because a
parent was critical of what I'd done. I have been extremely
fortunate, I can't think of specific instances, but I do
know that parents can influence teachers, but at this school
we do not have that type of atmosphere. I know other
schools where the parents call the shots. If there is a
complaint of a parent, then the administration will see that
something is done to appease that parent. But that, I
think, is more of a consequence of the parents having
certain mind-sets that they can approach school and have
certain things done. I am not saying that parents should
not call teachers or should not influence their children's
teachers but sometimes I think some parents feel they can
change things around, or a parent will call, I luckily have
not had this, tell a teacher that a grade must be changed
because the student is used to getting "A"s, or something
like that, and that doesn't happen here, or at least it
doesn't happen to me.
Q. Is this because of parents and how they see their
involvement or is it the administration?
A. I don't know. Maybe it is a combination thereof. The
parents here on the whole, of course making a
generalization, are interested in their student's welfare,
which is fantastic, and they see to it that their sons and
daughters basically do what they're supposed to do, for
most, I can't say for most, in my experience, because I
perhaps see a group of students that is not a typical
student body. And maybe the administration sort of, I don't
know, makes it known that you can talk about certain things
but other things, things are not going to happen unless
there is a reason for it. And I know of other places where
that is not the case, where parents are use to complaining
and therefore, they complain a lot and therefore, things get
changed, but I have never
Q. Other public high schools -
A. Other public high schools in (state name).
Q. Maybe this is kind of high school I should look for.
Q. Would you say that is that's the kind of high school that
would have the same kind of parent society as a private high
school?
A. Maybe, it could be. It's interesting. This one specific
incident that I'm thinking about, the parents are perhaps
spoiled by the junior high or one of the junior highs that
feed to the high school and in that junior high school, the
parent's word is law. Anything that happens, the teacher is
almost always found at fault by the administration. And one
specific thing that I know of, there are rules that the
administration come up with. Twenty rules that the students
are to abide by, but a correlation to this, or a corollary
to these rules is that a specific rule must be broken three
times before action may be taken on it. So therefore, the
students know they can break all twenty rules twenty-two
times and nothing will happen to them, and this is, I think
this is perhaps the thing that leads to problems later on in
the high school when parents feel that they can make, I'm
not saying, I don't want to seem that I'm against parent
involvement cause I'm not at all, but sometimes parents can
make unreasonable requests.
Q. What kind of parent involvement do you feel you have here?
A. Here? Let's say positive but distant. O.k.? That is
basically what I have here. It is, they are supportive but
they are not overly supportive, and you as a teacher will
know what that means. Having someone looking over your
shoulder all the time. It wouldn't, depending on the
circumstances, would not bother me but some people can get a
little out-of-line, I think, and I think, I would think,
even though this has never happened to me, that my
professional judgement could be questioned or something like
that, and I wouldn't like that. I'm just coming up with
answers because I don't have any specifics of my own. I
guess I'm lucky.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
was influenced or shaped by any professional organization
with which you identify, or any teacher's association?
A. Again, not really. The only thing that I can think of is
back East we worked to rule once. I found that extremely
uncomfortable. We did not have a contract so therefore we
worked to rule.
Q. What does that mean?
A. Work to rule means you follow the rules of the contract.
You are supposed to be in school from 7:30 to 3:30, that is
when you are supposed to be in school. You do not take any
work home. You, that is what you do. That is when you are
to work. That is when you work. You do not do clubs, you
do not do anything. It is, they want a specific thing; that
is what they will get. And we had that, luckily, only for a
couple of weeks when I was there, but the same district had
that for two years within the last, I think they got their
settlement in perhaps October of this year, but it has been
going on for two years, the work to rule for two years. A
very uncomfortable situation. I don't know if I could have
done that.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
was influenced by in-service training or your own continued
education?
A. Well, only positive ways. Going to, I love going to some
types of in-service training and, or basically seminars that
are put on by various educational organizations because I
find a new impetus, I find interesting things to do and it
makes me excited because I can see using those things in the
classroom and making things more interesting for the
students, and making my teaching more effective.
Q. Can you give me an example?
A. I'll give you an example, I can give you an example in that
I found out about those Russian things at a seminar I went
to and another thing that I had, it was a very simple thing,
it was called Reality Based Education and it was a language
teacher from Texas who spoke in Tempe at one of our language
association conferences, and it was just a very simple
thing. What she does is she takes, let's just use these,
these are little pictures of places and you place them on
poles and instead of teaching what I was doing reviewing
today, prepisitions that takes certain cases, you set these
up around the room and you send the kids to these different
places and you do different things and it sort of sending up
an artificial reality, like you're going to the post office
and then you're going to the factory and then you're going
to the park, and in doing this you are setting up an
artificial reality within the classroom and the students are
actually doing something. O.k.? Another thing that has
something to do with this is a form of total physical
response and that is a phrase that is used by language
teachers that presupposes that you not only learn by hearing
and seeing, you also learn by doing, and what I will be
doing next year, I've done this before, but I've come across
something that is even better, there are specific little
units on total physical response. For example, how to
change a light bulb, and each kid will have a lamp with a
light bulb and we will go through, in German or in Russian,
changing the light bulb. Or, we will go through another one
is having a fight. There is a specific thing about having a
fight, having almost a know-down, drag-out brawl because
somebody has your book, or something like that. And it adds
a little more interest to the class and by doing, not only
hearing and saying, etc., they the students tend to retain
the material better, and I have all sorts of little tricks
like that. I'm very good at adapting, finding and adapting.
I'm very good at that. Not to good at creating myself but
finding and adapting.
Q. I see, take from the best.
A. That's right.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident that happened to you or
someone you know in which your work life was influenced or
shaped by students?
A. By students. Just interest, I guess. When I was a
beginning teacher, the first couple of weeks everybody is
excited by a new language. The excitement is there; the
kids hang on your every word and later on, the excitement
wanes and we get into the nitty-gritty of the course work
and certain students fall behind, and at that point, one of
my, I had a double masters in German and education and my
foreign language education, and I did my master's thesis on
mastery learning, way back when a hundred years ago, in 1974
to be exact. And I got into mastery learning, the fact that
students needed - certain students needed more time to time
to master something or a concept. And the students
themselves are the ones who led me into this. I would not
have embraced mastery learning as I have done without having
seen students who's enthusiasm had waned because of their
lack of success, and that's one way that they influenced my
teaching and I use mastery learning in several of my
courses. I don't use it in all of my courses because I just
don't have the time. I find it, I use it but I don't use it
to, use if for everything I do in some of the courses
because I just don't have the time. As I told you at the
beginning, I teach five lesson plans. I teach one Russian I
class, one Russian II class, one German II class, one German
III class, and a German APIV class, and I just don't have
time to do it in basically the upper level German classes,
I'm just too tired. And by the time you get to that, the
students have sort-of weeded themselves out anyway. Sort-of
the better interested students at that point. You don't
really need it as much as you need it in the first year.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident that happened to you or
someone you know in which your work life was influenced or
shaped by colleagues?
A. Colleagues? Well, once again, are you asking for specific
things that are negative, or things that are positive?
Q. It doesn't matter.
A. Once again, it is getting interest and feedback from your
colleagues that might cause me make changes, but once again
it is minor changes, or little changes in what I'm doing.
My teaching method is basically eclectic and I feel that I
want to do those things in class which are most successful,
that get the kids to learn as much of the subject as
possible. And whenever I see somebody doing something that
is different, I like to try those things. We have a group
of German teachers that meets together once a month or so
and we do things together. We just plan things together and
give each other hints. We support each other, etc. and that
helps me. But I haven't really had anything negative.
Q. It doesn't have to be negative. You were talking to the
other gentleman about AP tests, which made me think that
someone influences what or how you teach, because those kids
have to take the AP test.
A. Well, it's the kids who are going to take the AP test, we
know that there are certain things that must be learned. If
you want to say that there is this, there is an AP
curriculum, which there really isn't, but we know that the
students must be very good at all four skills in order to
pass the AP test and that is an expectation of our
principal. I guess that is something has influenced me,
that our principal is very supportive of the Language
Department is willing to see lower numbers in the upper
level language courses, but he also expects that the AP
courses be offered, that students take AP exams and if they
are going to take them it is only logical that it would be
nice if they passed them.
Q. Who sets those standards?
A. The standards for the AP? The standards for the AP are
nationwide. There is a specific test that is produced by
the college board in Princeton, New Jersey and those tests
are administered by the college board and the tests come
here; our counselors give the tests to our students; we are
not allowed in the room, and then the tests are sent back to
Princeton to be corrected there.
Q. And that set of standards would be the same --
A. That set of standards is the same throughout the United
States.
Q. A different kind of question. Can you describe, out of your
own experience or of that of someone you know directly, a
creative attempt made to improve the classroom teaching
method, the curriculum or student achievement that was
thwarted or substantially altered by any of the sources of
influence that I presented to you; parents, principals,
school boards, students?
A. I really can't. Everything that I've attempted to do has
met with open arms on the part of everyone concerned. In
1984 I decided that it would be a good idea for the foreign
language department, or specifically the German department
and Mountain View to have a Partner's School in Germany, and
I was thoroughly supported by the administration, both the
school administration and the district administration and
they facilitated everything and we now have had an exchange
with a school in Berlin for seven years, and every June I
take a group of students to Berlin for a month and every
October they come here for a month and they attend school,
etc. and they are allowed to attend school here and they are
only too happy to have things like this happen. Just this
year the Japanese teacher decided to do the same thing and
he started our Japanese exchange just in March. The school
board, the principal, the administration, the
superintendency, we only get encouragement from them.
There's really, we really have not had any problem. In
other districts there are problems. For example, in Tempe.
In Tempe they cannot be official. They cannot be under the
auspices of the school board. It is done privately. You
may, students may come to the schools. They will allow
that, but the trip is not sponsored by the school district.
In my case, the school board backs the trip. It is part of
the XXX public school.
Q. Do they contribute financially?
A. They do not contribute financially, that would be
ridiculous, except that they do have some financial
responsibility as terms of insurance, but the organization
that I work through also provides the insurance so we've
never had any problem with that, but I think that's what the
problem is in YYY. They don't want that insurance
problem. We've never had a problems with that. It would be
nice if we had some financial --- but I don't think the
taxpayers would like that.
Q. Can you describe for me a failed attempt by any of these
sources to influence you that you resisted?
A. I can't think of anything. Nothing large, nothing major. I
know back East once as sort of a power play, the board
decided that on snow days, teachers were to report and they
tried that a couple of times and we were supposed to phone
in to our principal if we were unable to make it to school
and they tried that for a couple of snow days and then they
sort of decided ---
Q. And what happened?
A. Well, the teachers were resentful. We basically felt that
if its too dangerous for the students, that it must also be
too dangerous for the teachers to go to school so what are
you trying to say here?
Q. So, what did the teachers do?
A. Well, the teachers basically called and said, "I'm unable to
get out of my house." Basically, that is what happened.
Q. So that took care of it?
A. But the school board also did fight back and what they did
was, they had very few school days, at least the last couple
of years or one or two years that I was there, they had very
few school days, but what they started to do was to open the
schools late which was probably a better idea, because
normally the conditions were bad in the morning, or early in
the morning and if the plows were out, it was a little
better unless there was a snow storm going on. That was
there answer to it, so there were fewer snow days. But what
they had done, they had always built snow days into the
calendar anyway.
Q. What does it mean to you when people talk about bureaucratic
constraints on teachers?
A. There is paper work but most of the paper work is necessary,
I guess.
Q. What is the paper work about?
A. Paper work is filling in bubbles for different things, for
different surveys, etc. or whatever, and it really is no big
deal. It is just extra thing that you have to do, and it
really is nothing --- educational paper work. Once again,
the only thing I can do is think about my experience. I
really have had no problems with that other than in the XXX
district is extremely large, and I am sponsor of the German
club and it just takes a long time for purchase orders to go
through, etc. They are getting better because they've come
up with a new computer system, but it still takes a while.
You really have to plan in advance. You have to plan two
months in advance.
Another thing is that with, like with my exchange. I get
two professional days during the exchange. When the Germans
are here, we take them to (city name), to the Desert Sonora
Museum, etc. and to (city name), etc., and then we also go to
the Canyon for a three day camp out and I get two Fridays
off as a professional day during, for me to do that because
its part of my work, basically. And, one year, well for
several years in a row, I was able to request this personal
day within a month of the day, and there was no problem in
getting it approved. Two years ago, I followed the same
system and I was able to get the one trip to (city name), but
unfortunately the day that we had planned on for the trip to
the Grand Canyon was a day that was already filled. There
are just a certain number of professional days that they
will give on a specific date in order to insure that there
are enough substitutes, etc. and I unfortunately had not
applied in time, and so I was left with a choice and the
choice was, take a personal day, they would allow me to take
a personal day and therefore a substitute would be hired but
it would be deducted from my sick pay, or I was also able to
get colleagues to cover for me, and that is what I ended up
doing because I felt that it was completely out-of-line to
ask me to take a personal day so I could take Mountain View
students, plus our German guests to spend a three-day
weekend at the Canyon camping. I didn't think that was
quite fair. Since I'm not exactly a wonderful camper and I
just do it because the kids like to do it.
But the next year, what I did was, o.k., this is what we
have to do. I now make out the two requests in May and for
the middle of October, that's how I do it. If you plan
ahead, there's no problem, but if you're not the type that
can plan ahead, you can run into problems with
"bureaucracy", but I understand the reason for it. We're a
district, this is a district with 60,000 students, and what,
5,000 employees. You just can't do things at the spur-of-
the-moment. It's impossible, but sometimes you get
frustrated with it. You learn to live with it or adjust,
and that is what I had to learn, but that is comparatively
minor, just a little thing.
Q. The last question, you'll probably have a hard time with
this.
A. Because I have no problems?
Q. Right. Rank the following activities according to the
degree of control and discretion that you feel you have.
One being the most control; four being the least).
A. O.k. I feel that I have the most control over the selection
of teaching techniques. Number two would be the grading
practices with the proviso that there is an overall school
or district policy which says that 90% is an A and things
like that, that the final exam must be worth 20% of the
semester, etc. there are those specific things that I don't
really consider to be a constraint; and the next thing would
be the selection of content, topics and skills to be taught,
because that is something that is decided upon by a group
within the district but I was a member of that group, so
there was no problem there really, but I have less control
there because I have to meet with other colleagues; and then
with the discipline of students, there are certain rules,
there are certain state laws etc. that must be adhered to,
and so therefore, I have a -- a lot is left up to my
discretion, but there are certain things that I couldn't do.
Like I couldn't demand that a student stay after school for
two hours or something like that in order to finish
something because the student might have a job or you can't
do that without notifying the parent in advance, and things
like that. I'm not talking about corporal punishment or
anything like that, but there are specific rules that the
district has, certain offenses are to be handled in specific
ways, but once again, I don't have these types of problems
because I guess I'm blessed by atypical students, or
something, but if I were to have problems with certain
things, there are certain district guidelines which must be
adhered to, like if I were to send a student to the
principal there must be a form filled out, etc. etc. etc.,
other than that, I'm just too happy in my job, I guess. I'm
not saying that I'm not overworked, but I guess that's
partially part of the job and partially part of my own
doing, because no one said I had to take five lesson preps,
that's just what I did. Next year I'll have six lesson
preps.
Q. That's alot, alot. If you could do this quick little two
question survey.
A. Do you mean by grouping students in classes, do you mean
within classes, within the classes or separate classes?
Q. Either way.
A. Obviously within the class, I would have a great deal but if
I were to say there should be a track one German one class
and a track two German one class, I wouldn't be able to do
that.
Q. You wouldn't have control over the students placed in your
class, but once in your class --
A. Right, or let's say, if I'm department chair, if we decided
that it wouldn't be feasible in German, French or Japanese
or Latin or Russian, but in Spanish where we have the
numbers, it would be feasible to have a track for native
speakers, a track of AP students and a track for regular
students, but if we started doing them, we do it to some
extent, but if we tried to really go overboard with it, we'd
have major problems with the accounting department because
of the problems of scheduling the students.
Q. Would you mind if I have to come back to ask more questions,
if I could call you at home and set up the appointments.
A. Yes, my home phone number is 545-9496.
Q. By the time I get to all this, you'll probably be out ---
but if I do discover there are other questions.