Hello everyone,
As of today, every daily email that I was perspicacious enough to preserve has been loaded onto a blog entitled "Combe's Daily Email," which you can link to off the Garfield web page, or by googling "Combe's Daily Email."
I will continue to send emails based on what I observe in the classrooms and what I think need to be distributed, but I welcome anyone to go to the blog and see the old ones. The truth is, I find that I am repeating myself sometimes, and I may even send an old one to you anyway.
I am new at blogging, and I rarely read them myself. I always read my non-spam email, so you can see why I have been sending emails, and why I have delayed blogging.
If you find mistakes, let me know. Who knows? I may turn it into a book someday.
Jeff Combe
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Work Hard vs. Work Smart, part 3
Hello everyone,
A teacher wrote to me about yesterday's email, and I'm including some thoughts in CAPS throughout.
In a message dated 5/15/2007 2:27:50 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, jeffery.combe@lausd.net writes:
Personally, it seems to me that students who strongly connect with their teachers will do their best of their teachers ask them to. (Conversely, students who don't connect with their teachers probably won't.) Mr. Del Cueto proposes using the next two weeks to review for the test. A mid-semester review can cover many things that would end up on our finals. Helping students with reading and math skills (if they are not normally in our subject area) are easily incorporated into reviews of regular things that would be on the CSTs. Work smart.
Yes. I have noticed that students who like their teachers seem to try harder, and the students who do not connect with (hate) their teachers often seem disinterested in the same class... but not necessarily the subject. Lets face it; we can try to reach all of our students all of the time, but not everyone is always going to love you. Why can't we let the students choose their own teachers from the available teacher pool-- like they do in college?
MANY HIGH SCHOOLS STILL DO THIS. THERE IS A PARTIAL SELECTION WHEN STUDENTS CHOOSE AN SLC, BUT
It would be interesting.
How far below the State's average are the math scores at
IN SUMMARY, 81% OF OUR STUDENTS ARE NOT PROFICIENT (SCORING "BASIC" OR BELOW) IN EITHER MATH OR ENGLISH. THAT REPRESENTS A SIGNIFICANT DROP IN MATH SCORES FROM THE PREVIOUS YEAR. ENGLISH SCORES HAVE BEEN STEADILY BAD FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS.
Are our scores disproportionately lower than the other lower scoring schools across the State?
OUR API IS NUMERICALLY REPRESENTED AS 1.3. THAT MEANS THAT, IN COMPARISON WITH ALL THE SCHOOLS IN THE STATE, WE'RE IN THE BOTTOM 10% (THAT'S THE 1). COMPARED TO SCHOOLS SIMILAR TO US, WE'RE IN THE BOTTOM 30% (THAT'S THE .3). YOU CAN SEE THIS AT http://api.cde.ca.gov/AcntRpt2007/2006BaseSch.aspx?allcds=19647331933381.
And what do the students at the higher scoring schools have that our students do not which enables them to excel in math while our students suffer?
THAT'S A LONG, COMPLEX ANSWER THAT IS SURE TO CAUSE LOTS OF FIGHTS. IF YOU THINK OF THE PROBLEMS THAT OUR STUDENTS FACE, ANSWER "ALL OF THE ABOVE."
Can we please learn what it is then, fill the void somehow?
FRANKLY SPEAKING, WE DON'T HAVE THE POWER TO FILL THE VOID. WHAT WE CAN DO IS
I CAN'T MAKE A STATEMENT THAT THERE IS A BLANKET APPROACH TO TEACHING. ENGLISH PEDAGOGY IS DIFFERENT FROM MATH. THE TWO AFFECT DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE BRAIN AND REQUIRE DIFFERENT KINDS OF INTELLIGENCE. THERE ARE SOME GENERAL PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS THAT I THINK ARE HELPFUL.
1. TEACH UP RATHER THAN DOWN. I MEAN THAT WE KEEP DUMBING DOWN OUR CURRICULUM AND CLASSROOM REQUIREMENTS BECAUSE WE THINK THAT OUR STUDENTS' LOW SCORES SOMEHOW MEANS LOW ABILITY. THAT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE. LOW SKILLS ARE SYMPTOMS OF A WIDE VARIETY OF PROBLEMS, INCLUDING LOW INTELLIGENCE, BUT WE SHOULD RATHER ASSUME THAT OUR STUDENTS ARE AS CAPABLE AS THOSE IN
2. DISCIPLINE PRECEDES LEARNING. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS AT LENGTH.
3. TIME CAN BE MORE EFFICIENTLY USED. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS ALSO.
In what ways are the Bulldogs underdogs when it comes to excelling in math? How does the (obviously lower) socio-economic status of the average
ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS CAN BE ANSWERED, THOUGH MANY OF THE ANSWERS ARE OUTSIDE OUR ABILITY TO FIX. FOR INSTANCE, NONE OF US HAS THE POWER TO FIX INDIVIDUAL FAMILY PROBLEMS LIKE POVERTY, IMMIGRATION CONCERNS, OR SUBSTANCE ABUSE. WE CAN HELP INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS NEGOTIATE THEIR EDUCATION IN LIGHT OF THEIR PROBLEMS, AND WE CAN GIVE THEM THE HIGHEST QUALITY EDUCATION POSSIBLE SO THAT THEY HAVE THE POWER TO AVOID THE PROBLEMS THEMSELVES LATER ON. MANY OF THE ANSWERS TO THE PROBLEMS ARE CONTAINED IN THE IDEAS OF A RIGOROUS, WELL-ROUNDED EDUCATION. (THESE ARE IDEAS THAT NEED TO BE EXPANDED, BUT THIS IS ALREADY TOO LONG.)
BELOW ARE ADDITIONAL IDEAS FROM ANOTHER EMAIL:
Dear Dr. Combe:
Enclosed, please find part of a dialogue that I held with my niece half an hour after responding to your daily email. Kelsey was just accepted to the
[8:39 P.M.]: I guess it depends on what kids.. I think you'd be surprised how many people do well/actually like math, probably more than you would think. There are, of course, kids who hate math... but that's how it goes. by senior year those who really hate it usually drop it though, so the people who take math now pretty much like it.
Why do they like it? Please give me the reason...
[8:41 P.M.]: There is always a right answer to every question, not really anything to memorize... it makes way more sense to people (at least, to me) than something like interpreting poetry or the revolutionary war.
Her answer was... "It makes sense."
PS. I got her permission to use this part of our conversation after she gave me her answer.
Work Hard vs. Work Smart, part 2
Hello everyone,
I seem to have hit a sort of nerve in talking about working hard versus working smart. I had discussions with both the principal and another teacher before either had read yesterday's email, and the discussions brought up other issues that are worth considering.
Working smart in the classroom may mean constructing lessons that accomplish multiple goals. You may do a project in which students create something. In the course of the creation, students will have researched their creation, read various source materials, interpreted the materials, worked with other students (incidentally practicing verbal skills), written a report of their presentation, and likely done a verbal defense of their project. Along the way, they may have accomplished a variety of goals within the original discipline, learned (hopefully achieved) multiple standards, and even reinforced standards from other disciplines. (Drama students work on projects in drama, for instance, but they achieve a variety of standards in English in history as a sort of auxiliary harvest.)
Working smart may mean allowing for multi-tasking. There is the obvious in which you set up the warm up, the students work, and you take care of the bureaucratic affairs (roll, enforcing tardy policies, handing out papers). You may proctor tests and grade papers at the same time, or give personal counsel to an individual while the class is working on group projects.
I have thought about a lot of ways of teaching reading and writing to reluctant students, and, for me, "working smart" sometimes meant finding the best way to get what I really wanted (which was for them to increase their reading skills). I had the hardest time persuading my students to read on their own, and at my best, I never had more than a third of the class (I would have thought a third was miraculous) that would do it. It was very hard for them to be held accountable for not reading, and, besides, my goal was not to find a way to fail them, but to find a way to get them to read when they didn't want to.
Writing was another difficulty. How could I get them to actually write something that was good when, even for me, writing is a process that includes lots of quiet thought and intelligent reading.
For me, working smart was facing realities. I learned that, since my students would read if we read together as a class, and they could easily be held accountable for writing outside class, that I would spend a lot of my class time reading with them, and have them write on their own. It wasn't ideal, but it was the smartest thing in the current reality.
From Mr. Del Cueto there were discussions along a similar line. Our discussions understandably veered off into what is a practical way to help students do well on the CSTs, and how we can smarten our work to accomplish the goal of raising our API.
This may take some more time to discuss, and it might be worth it to take a lot more than I have today. I want to pursue the idea of multi-tasking ad accomplishing what is practical, however.
It is essential for us to raise the scores, whether we resent it or not. We understand, however, that high school students across the board are doing more poorly on the tests than their elementary school counterparts. We have tried various sorts of motivational assemblies in the past, but they have had little effect, and they take class time that may be better used elsewhere.
Personally, it seems to me that students who strongly connect with their teachers will do their best of their teachers ask them to. (Conversely, students who don't connect with their teachers probably won't.) Mr. Del Cueto proposes using the next two weeks to review for the test. A mid-semester review can cover many things that would end up on our finals. Helping students with reading and math skills (if they are not normally in our subject area) are easily incorporated into reviews of regular things that would be on the CSTs. Work smart.
Jeff Combe
Work Hard vs. Work Smart, part 1
Hello everyone,
Below is an excerpt from last Friday's email. Below that is an email sent in reply. Still further below are my comments.
Subject: Re: Daily email: American attitudes in education
In a message dated 5/11/2007 10:16:36 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, jeffery.combe@lausd.net writes:
Of course, we need to combat the effects of American entertainment on our students. Many of them honestly but falsely believe that all their dreams can come true if they only dream firmly enough, rejecting all disqualifying factors or necessary hard work. This may be suggesting that the old American ideal of hard work is eroding (ya think?), but we are in a good position to teach our students that hard work is still rewarded, and that realistic dreams (I don't intend that to be an oxymoron) can come true with a combination of good planning and hard work.
"Work hard and you'll get ahead... work hard and you'll get ahead!" I've heard it my entire life growing up from the old man next door who spent most of his life pushing electrical supplies like an elephant until he dropped dead at sixty-five from a heart attack, leaving thousands in unpaid tax bills. Perhaps the "work hard" story is something that once held true in our capitalistic society; however, some of my students may not hold a lot of consideration for it because they have parents who work extremely hard, yet rarely get ahead. They live paycheck to paycheck... kind of like I do at the moment. The "work hard and you'll get ahead" philosophy is not self-evident their lives. Hence, the "why should I bust my tail working hard if it will not advance me in life?" attitude wins over. This may be how our students perceive the "hard work" ethic in contemporary American society; it may be their reality. If this is the case, then maybe we should consider changing the "work hard" scenario to "work smart?" Do you think that our students would differentiate between the two or would they would see both as work? Yes. I think that the old American ideal of hard work is eroding and I believe that it should be replaced with a work smart attitude. Why should we work hard if we can do it the easy way and have more success? Is it wrong not to work hard? What are your thoughts on this?
Many of our students understand hard work to be continuous physical labor that produces food or money immediately. It's hard for them to understand the idea that one might put a lot of effort into something with no immediate benefits so that the results a few years down the road will be exponentially better.
Part of this may be the result of the adolescent inability to project into the future. As teachers, we often have to try to help our students make long-term decisions when their brains aren't fully developed enough to do it on their own. In just a few years, when they are able to project better, they come and thank us; for now, when many of them are cognitively unable to understand the cause and effect of their own impulses, they hate us.
As I started to read the teacher's response above, I thought, "Of course, I should have drawn a distinction between 'working hard' and 'working smart,' and by the end, I saw that the teacher had also wanted to draw that distinction.
I don't see "working smart" as necessarily the easy way, however. It's just more efficient in the short term (we get better results out of our labors) and more effective in the long term. I think that teachers would do well to structure their lessons (and especially their homework) around the concept of intelligent, efficient, effective work. When we're just doing "busy work," we all get frustrated. We want our work to have results.
To me, "working smart" does not mean being lazy. It means that I accomplish my goals with no extraneous labor. It's like the old idea of letting your money work for you. If you can defer spending your money so that you have savings, then your savings will earn interest; the day may come when the interest will equal current payments and you can retire. Spending the principle loses both the principal and the interest, so you have to work yourself to death.
"Working hard" means that I am focused and on task when I need to work. It does not mean that I work without let up or rewards, though the rewards may be deferred for a time. Since our students are unable to sustain work with the prospect of a long deferment of rewards, we may need to construct some other rewards to help them keep working.
One of the problems that I referred to in American culture is that we seem almost completely unwilling to defer any rewards, and our students have that attitude. I understand it when it occurs in the context of poverty (food and shelter can't be deferred for very long); I reject it when it occurs in contexts such as poor impulse control and incomplete cognitive development. In the latter cases, we have a responsibility to try to help them do what they need to do, keeping in mind that they also need to make decisions and learn the consequences of those decisions.
Jeff Combe
What Not to Do in Discipline
Hello everyone,
I've been talking to administrators and deans more than any other time in my career, and I am seeing more of the legal side of education than I ever saw before. The deans and administrators keep telling me about all sorts of ways that teachers get into trouble, get sued, or get fired, and they want me to warn you about some of the sorts of things you must not do.
This is not a comprehensive list, but it's a good start.
1. DO NOT TOUCH STUDENTS. If someone is giving you trouble, call campus security. Don't touch them to move them or send them out. While we work in a society that greets with abrazos and besos (hugs and kisses), the sad truth is that teachers put themselves at all sorts of risks by any kind of physical contact.
2. DO NOT USE SEXUALLY CHARGED LANGUAGE OR BEHAVIOR. You may be surprised what students would consider sexually charged. Don't tell someone they are attractive, for instance. Don't even pretend to flirt. Be careful with literature and music that has sexual references. Avoid quoting things that use sexual words or innuendo. Don't make references to your personal life if it can be interpreted sexually. I know this is difficult to do when we live in a pornographic society, but you must put yourself above it or risk all sorts of legal problems. We discussed this in literature and classroom vocabulary, but I ought to re-emphasize it here. (I've even heard students complain about teachers that chose too much sexually oriented literature.) Avoid the very appearance of evil.
3. NEVER BE ALONE WITH A STUDENT. Do not be alone in your classroom. Do not give students rides. Never be in a room with a student with the door closed. I can think of occasions when it would not be good even to be with more than one student. It's a sign of the times, everyone. Read it and keep yourselves safe.
4. LEARN AND BE SENSITIVE TO OFFENSIVE WORDS. Don't even use the word "stupid" in class. It's extremely offensive in Spanish, and it is considered far more offensive to people from a Spanish-speaking background than it is to those of an English speaking background. All references to race are likely to cause you trouble and must be handled with the utmost sensitivity. Likewise politics, religion, and gender. The idea here is not to be PC or to restrict academic freedom; just be aware that certain words open big cans of worms that may not be worth opening.
Above all, be professional.
Jeff Combe
Unusual Discipline
Hello everyone,
I'm thinking lately about unusual or creative disciplinary methods that teachers will sometimes try. These can sometimes work and they can sometimes backfire, and I thought I'd give you heads up on a few that come to mind.
Reality therapy: I like the idea of reality therapy. I was introduced to it in college, and I saw it at work when I worked at a psychiatric hospital years ago. In the hands of a skillful therapist, it can be very effective.
Sometimes teachers use something like reality therapy with their students. The idea is that you tell the kids, "Such and such is the logical end of the course you are choosing," or (one that I used once) "You need to study because you will never play in the NFL."
These aren't bad in and of themselves--necessarily. The problem comes with how you are interpreted. You need to be very careful with how students perceive you, which means that if you are going to use anything like a dose of reality, you ought to make sure you have a lot of time to completely explain your meaning.
Be careful of saying something that can be interpreted as saying that someone is stupid. The word "stupid" is far more offensive in Spanish than it is in English. Be careful that, when you judge a course to be stupid (such as telling the boy who announces that he wants to be a drug dealer when he grows up that his course is a stupid one--true story), that you cannot be interpreted as telling the boy that he is stupid. (You would be better off using another word that isn't a Spanish swear word.)
If you want to point out to students that failure to do well in American academics may land them in a low-paying, dead-end job, be careful that you are not dishonoring worthy people. Don't put down the custodian or garbage men or the hundreds of worthy jobs that people have. Homelessness and working at McDonald's forever are too easily dismissed as unlikely (most of them know how to get better jobs eventually). It usually works better to talk about the choices that education gives in choosing honorable work of all sorts.
Humiliation as tactic: Teachers have historically used this. I've seen many teachers try it with varying success. I can't recommend it. It backfires more than it succeeds, especially if you and the student come from differing backgrounds.
Don't make students wear humiliating clothes (hats or T-shirts), or stand or sit in humiliating places to punish them. It's a sure way to have their parents after your credential. Never give students humiliating labels or nicknames for discipline. (You even have to be careful with affectionate labels or nicknames, because the students might misinterpret them.) It's usually best to reprove them quickly and efficiently, and that's usually best done away from their peers. A sharp public reproof ("Please don't talk while I'm talking," or "Please switch seats so you can't talk with your friends") is more than sufficient.
I don't mean to take away all your possible disciplinary methods. Sometimes a creative way of dealing with someone can be very effective. I just want to make you aware of some pitfalls. Take time to evaluate whatever you do; reflect on your classroom practices; make changes when you need to and press on.
Jeff Combe
Weapons in School
Hello everyone,
With permission from the original teacher, I'm forwarding to all of you an exchange about weapons on campus.
For general information: There are all sorts of helps on campus for students that may be traumatized by either on- or off-campus events. If you have students that have been traumatized by an event, send them to their counselor, and the counselor will facilitate other interventions if necessary. If you have a large number of students, and you feel that you need support helping them deal with a traumatic event, contact any administrator, and the administrator will help you get an intervention team.
Jeff Combe
The exchange (slightly edited):
>Sent: Tue 2/20/2007 4:26 PM
>To: Combe, Jeffery
>Subject: Re: FW: FW: Daily email: Eyes in the back of your head
>
>
>Jeff-
>
>I heard from one of my students that a loaded gun was brazenly displayed during a class with a sub. I wasn't sure that I believed my student, so I checked with the Dean's Office and heard that the rumor was true. Isn't this information that the Dean's Office should share with the teachers?
>
>Thanks,
---------- Original Message -------------
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:20:57 -0800
From: "Combe, Jeffery"
>In general, teachers cannot be kept from such information.
>
>I'm not sure why the dean's office didn't openly tell everyone this information. There could be a number of good reasons; I can think of several off the top of my head why I wouldn't tell everyone.
>
>Truthfully speaking, you can assume that weapons are periodically brought onto campus and that the entire campus does everything possible to both prevent them and to make sure that, when they are brought onto campus, they are promptly removed. It's a blessing in disguise that the student stupidly thought that the gun could be displayed because there was a sub; that means that the student was caught and the gun was confiscated (eventually). It's frightening sometimes to think that there are weapons like that around, but it's a reality of today's world, and the best way to deal with it is to report as soon as safely possible.
>
>If the student is back in your class, you should follow up with the deans to see why; my guess is that the student is in the process of being expelled from the district, which is what is supposed to happen in a case like that.
>
>
>Jeff Combe
Sent: Wed 2/21/2007 11:21 AM
To: Combe, Jeffery
Subject: Thanks for the reply
The gunslinger in question wasn't my student, so I don't know what happened to him. My student told me about the incident because he felt it had impaired his ability to do well on a test in my class.
If you feel this is an important issue, feel free to bring it up for the group.
Thanks,
COMBE: While it's possible that your student was just giving an excuse for an off day, I would still take the student's complaint of impairment seriously in a case like this. Send the student to the counselors and let them assess how badly the student is trauamatized. You might be able to work out a reasonable way to either allow the student to retake the test, or grade the test on a different scale.
Warm-ups
Hello everyone,
Let this one count for two days. I won't be on campus tomorrow.
We used to call "warm-ups" "dispatches." Ten years from now, they may have another name; they may have a slightly different purpose; they may even be dictated from above. They will always have, however, at least two major purposes.
First, they are supposed to prepare the kids' minds for the lesson at hand.
Second, they are supposed to give the teacher some undisturbed time to take care of the roll and other essential business.
What this means on a practical level is that warm-ups need to be easy and interesting enough that the students will require almost no supervision while doing them; and they should be somehow related to the subject being taught.
If warm-ups are too difficult or require too much supervision, then they fail in their purposes.
All this, of course, raises another problem: Where do you find a never-ending supply of warm-ups that fill the bill? I frankly question the value of spending hours preparing things that should, at most, take ten minutes of class time to do and correct. Warm-ups should be easy enough for students to do with no supervision, and they should never be difficult for the teacher to set up or manage.
Let me give a few suggestions of possible warm-ups that can be used successfully, and require little preparation:
In English, I made journals my warm-up. Students were required to write for ten minutes a day, filling a fixed number of pages per week. I graded only on quantity, though I read every journal. Journals work for history as well. My journals were almost pure freewriting. (If you're interested, I will tell you the overall value of freely written journals. There's not enough time today.) Other teachers require students to write on assigned subjects or in prescribed modalities (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, faux-journalism).
In math, I would choose problems from areas that students had already mastered. Give them problems from chapters that they worked on last month or before. This way your picking from the textbook's already established problems and you don't have to find your own.
In science, I might consider either the math or the English approach. In more math-oriented classes (like chemistry), give them problems they've already "mastered" for review. In more informational classes, let them write. How about science fiction? Maybe observational journals, requiring them to keep track of science-related things they see in their daily lives. Keep it simple.
Sustained silent reading works if you focus heavily on the ritual of it at the beginning of the year. (It's hard to get going, but it keeps itself running well once everyone buys into it. It works across the curriculum also.)
When I require reading for homework, a simple quiz can function as a warm-up. ("Write five major points that you remember from last night's reading," or "What happened to Scout in last night's reading?")
Deftly handled, warm-ups can accomplish several other things as well: They can encourage students to arrive on time; they can encourage students to do their homework; they can fill gaps in students' learning (by reviewing old material); and they can help to establish order (especially if you require silence during warm-ups). Make effective warm ups part of an unvarying classroom ritual, and you will find that management of your classroom will improve.
Finally, always collect the warm-ups, even if you don't correct them or give a grade for them. Collect them as often as possible (every day is best, though I collected the journals once a week). If students once get the idea that you are not holding them accountable for warm-ups, then they become next to useless. (I'll write about accountability another time.)
See you next week.
Jeff Combe
The Eureka Principle (Relaxation)
Hello everyone,
I'm taking a few days off, and I can't stop thinking about it.
We're making a small vacation out of the trip to pick my son up from college. I'll be back next Monday for those of you C-trackers that might need help with your roll books, for those of you B-trackers that might need help on the first day back, and for those of you A-trackers that are still tracking.
I find that education is a tough business, and when I have the chance to recreate, I'm a better educator.
Sometimes, my holidays give me experiences that I use in the classroom. Sometimes they just give me needed rest.
I think many of you may have read about the "Eureka Principle." Archimedes was laboring over the question of how to measure the amount of gold in a king's crown (he was on commission) and he couldn't come up with the solution, so he gave up and took a bath. While relaxing in the bathtub, with his mind presumably on other topics, he observed how his body displaced the water in the tub. He realized that he could calculate the amount of gold in the crown by measuring the amount of water the crown displaced (volume) against the amount a certain amount of gold should displace. If the gold in the crown was mixed with Zinc, a less dense metal, then the crown would displace more water per weight than a crown of pure gold. (If my science is wrong, forgive my faulty memory; it's the point that follows that really matters.)
Archimedes was so excited by the realization that he is said to have gone running down the street naked, screaming, "Eureka!"
The concept is that, after a long period of working at something, a period of relative relaxation is sometimes necessary for further progress to be made.
For our students, this means that we ought to structure lengthy projects in such a way that the students are forced to have time for reflection. (Have the assignment due in pieces over several weeks.)
For ourselves, this means that an occasional vacation, during which we think of school not at all, will give us just the sort of relaxed mind necessary to come back with fresh ideas and better pedagogy.
By the way, I really do believe in the principle; I'm not only justifying my time off.
Still, even if the Eureka Principle were not true, I'd still need a vacation.
I'll see you next week.
Jeff Combe
PS By the way, the crown was adulterated, and the crown maker was executed for cheating the king.
Classroom Discussion is Like Tetris
Hello everyone,
Someone said something to me the other day that made me think that effective classroom discussion is sometimes like playing Tetris.
You know the game Tetris don't you? Little shapes made up of variously colored boxes float from the top of a video screen, and the player tries to flip the shapes around so that they will fill in empty space, or so that their colors will match other colored shapes. The object is to have the shapes fill the screen with no empty places. I am often hypnotized watching my daughter play.
Effective classroom discussions can be like Tetris in the following ways:
1. Student comments and questions are unpredictable. They seem to drop out of nowhere sometimes
I confess that, if you have only one prep, by the end of the day you might have an idea of some of the questions or ideas that might be brought up. Further, after teaching for more than 20 years, I knew that someone was bound to ask certain questions at certain times. (It is impossible to teach Shakespeare's complete sonnets without the question, "Was Shakespeare gay?" coming up.) I also confess that a certain amount of manipulation can take place. (If I announce in my film classes that I don't watch "R" rated movies, I can predict with fair accuracy that someone will ask me why.) But if you allow free inquiry, which I think is important in class-wide discussions, then you must know that some students will ask questions or bring up subjects that are not obviously connected with the discussion in hand. Personally, I think ALL questions must be answered, and none should be ignored or disrespected, but that leaves the discussion open to enormous digressions, which leads to similarities 2 and 3.
2. You need to fill in the gaps while under time constraints. Class only lasts as long as it lasts. You can't fail to make connections.
3. You need to flip the shapes around to make them fit. In Tetris, different colors and shapes are dropping all around you. In class, wide varieties of subjects are flying around. I want to talk about sonnets, my students want to talk about gay sex. This sort of digression is not for the faint of heart, though it's very invigorating. I can use the non-issue of Shakespeare's sexuality to turn the students back to sonnets so fast that they hardly know they've ventured away from fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. (The fact that the question of Shakespeare's sex life in the sonnets is unanswerable, but the sonnets provide all sorts of interesting commentary on a wide variety of human interactions--both sexual and non-sexual makes for very interesting sessions with these 400-year-old poems.) In the meantime, students are close reading more than they've done in their lives in an effort to keep up their side in the discussion.
I will have approached the sonnets, by the way, with very specific objectives in mind. As soon as I open up a class-wide discussion or inquiry into the sonnets, however, I find that the class is led in ways that don't necessarily fill my objectives. I need to find ways to make the connections. The suggestions in the previous paragraph may help fulfill some of my objectives including close reading of difficult texts or decoding of compound/complex sentences. Still, I may also have objectives involving the structure of poetry, scansion (it was an AP class), and autobiography; or I may have an integrated vocabulary lesson built in (including lessons in connotation). I need to use the discussion to fill those objectives. It requires me to keep the objectives firmly in mind while following the potentially wide-ranging discussion.
My reward for allowing digressions then making connections, is that the connections become very powerful because students make them based on previous knowledge or associations that I would have been unaware of until I began the discussion.
It really is like a game, and, when it works, it's exhilarating.
Jeff Combe
Teaching Moments (Teaching Around Extraordinary Events)
Hello everyone,
Much of what we do in education revolves around setting up artificial constructs that allow our students to learn things in some order (i.e., thematic, sequential, chronological) and make applications/connections to their lives.
Occasionally things happen in the outside world that interrupt the order but provide for excellent teaching opportunities. Those are called "teaching moments," and they must be taken when they come because they can't be duplicated. Further, they usually can't be avoided; they have a way of imposing themselves on the students' consciousness in an inescapable fashion.
The political situation surrounding today's planned student walk-outs is such an opportunity. The bizarre weather of a few days ago was as well. The War in Iraq; the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; the two shuttle disasters; the Columbine shootings; the 1992 riots; the Simpson trial. All of these events thrust themselves into the classroom forcibly, and can be turned into extraordinary teaching opportunities, or can be squandered or (worse) allowed to fester.
Let me give a few suggestions on how to handle things.
1. Be willing to throw out your regular lesson plan for all or part of the period. More immediately after the event
it will be more important to do so. (If first period needs to talk about it; 6th period may be sick of it). Be willing to keep or adapt your lesson to the event. Be flexible.
2. Allow students to talk. Teach them to talk appropriately about things. Teach them to control their emotions in discourse. Teach them to disagree respectfully. Teach them to debate.
3. If the event was particularly emotional, you may have to ignore the advice in #2, and let them cry about it. This is important, for example, if someone close to them dies in a public way--a teacher, a student, a TA, or the president.
4. If you are qualified, teach them to understand the situation. If you are not qualified, you might teach them a skill related to their reaction: how to find out accurate information, how to evaluate information, how to communicate their feelings.
5. If they're sick of it, don't press it. You'll be tempted to keep the magic of the moment going as long as possible. Let their interest dictate for the first day. By the second day (if it's not an ongoing situation), transition back to normalcy.
6. Sometimes, they will want to extend things; be careful of the tactic of getting you to cancel work so they can beat a dead horse. The first day might be fine; if they need to talk about it more than one day (and it is not ongoing), you might say, "I'm willing to keep talking about it; let's just make sure you know what your homework is; everything we don't accomplish in class will have to be homework." You'll get a true test of their need to talk about something by their willingness to accept the homework.
7. Be very careful not to advocate anything illegal. (Don't encourage them to walk out, for example. Don't urge rebellion or riot. You'll lose your job.)
Above all, take the moment when it presents itself. Some of the best teaching you'll ever do will happen when you have a situation that truly allows you to teach.
Jeff Combe
Teachers are Different
Hello everyone,
I've alluded, a few times recently, to the idea that teachers were different as children from most of their peers.
By and large, we were the kids in class that really loved learning. Some of us honestly loved school. We were excited to go to college, and we decided to become teachers because we wanted to pass that excitement on to future generations.
Many of us have a strong sense of social responsibility. We want to do good for society.
A large number of us who teach high school had life-changing experiences as adolescents, and we want to guide other adolescents through the quagmires and pitfalls of their teenage years.
We forget that, when we were in school, we typically shunned those students who hated school. We often avoided those who seemed to dislike learning. We abhorred bullies and buffoons, and we resented those who made learning difficult for those of us who wanted to learn.
Some of us were the kind-hearted souls who defended the teachers that were particularly vulnerable to student disruptions, and we spent hours with the teachers who taught the subjects we loved the most, often becoming life-long friends with them.
So, now we are the ones in front of a classroom full of students who weren't like us. Now we have to learn to understand the thinking of those who hated to learn, or those whose personal problems never resonated with us, or those whom we might have avoided when we were younger.
What sort of teachers can we consider ourselves if we don't make an effort to understand and teach those who don't want to be understood or taught?
Now, I know that I'm painting with a very broad brush. I know that there are many among us who have a deep personal understanding (often born of personal experience) with the most troubled and unresponsive of our students. I also know that there are many whose sympathies and understanding have been quickened by their experiences with struggling students in the classroom.
I'm bringing all this up not because I mean to suggest that we should allow reluctant or recalcitrant students to control what happens in our classes just so we show our compassion and understanding.
I'm writing this only because I think it's helpful for us to stop and think occasionally about how the rest of the world lives. The vast majority of our students will not become teachers; most of them think of school the way we think of teacher training programs (something to get through); most of them are not naturally excited about the things we love.
When we take that into account, we might look for ways of making our subject interesting to people that aren't naturally interested in it. We think of clear ways of explaining things to people that don't naturally think the way we do. We respect a variety of approaches and we don't take it personally if they don't love what we love.
I'm not perfect at it, and it's helpful for me to remember once in awhile.
Jeff Combe
Suicide and Homicide
Hello everyone,
I'm excerpting from an email sent yesterday:
"What is the protocol for reporting a student who expresses suicidal/homicidal ideation. I had one student over a year ago who is still here and there was no one who could give me a definitive answer. ... Is there some legally required form? What do I need to do to adequately document this? I would just like to know what bases I need to cover and how quickly does this need to be done. It was kind of upsetting to know that I had a student in this situation and no one knew where to refer me or how quickly it needed to be done."
I called Rich Lieberman who works for the District Suicide Prevention unit and proposed this question to him. What follows is an attempt to summarize his information:
With the student mentioned above, there are two problems: suicide and homicide. They must be considered separately.
In the case of the homicidal ideation, school officials must first make a threat assessment. What is the level of threat? Is the student simply expressing, inappropriately, a vague discontent? If it's obviously so, then teach the student to be appropriate in such expressions. If you have any doubt about the level of threat (it may be ambiguous enough that you can't say for sure that it's innocuous), then refer the student to the proper person.
The choice of whom to refer to depends on what sort of threat is made and how it is made.
A general kind of threat ("I'm so frustrated I could blow the place up") is different from a targeted threat ("I'm going to kill Combe"). Unless you're absolutely positive that the threat is not credible, you should make a referral. The general threat could be referred to the deans if the immediate danger is low (there are liabilities that I will discuss below).
If the potential danger is higher or you are unsure, the referral must be made to the school police.
If the threat is a targeted threat, meaning that it is directed at a specific person, then both the targeted person and the school police must be informed.
In the case of suicide threats, the school will make an assessment of whether the threat is low, moderate, or high. I think that the best person to make that assessment would be the school psychologist, but you may refer to the school nurse. All suicide ideation must be taken seriously. (I would draw a line at something like quoting from a movie, "She's so refined, I think I'll kill myself." That's a quote from a film, not ideation. Students sometimes quote songs without ideation. If you are not certain which they are doing, make the referral.)
Watch for threats of suicide or violence in the students' writing. If it is written, you must obtain a copy (you don't need permission for a copy of such a threat), and you must ensure that the copy of the threat was delivered to the proper person; you should probably do it yourself.
Your liability is the same as the school's liability. According to Mr. Lieberman, schools are successfully sued for two common things: not notifying authorities, parents, and potential victims; and not supervising high risk students. (The latter problem arises when teachers send high risk students out either unsupervised, or supervised by another student. The high risk student then hurts him/herself or others, and the school is liable. If someone in your classroom could be a high risk, then make sure that an adult authority in the school is constantly supervising them.) Parents must be notified in any case of moderate to high risk of suicide. High risk students must always be supervised.
If you have any questions, you may visit the website of the Office of Crisis Counseling and Intervention Services at http://notebook.lausd.net/portal/page?_pageid=33,259455&_dad=ptl&_schema=PTL_EP, or call (213)-241-2174. You may contact Rich Lieberman at (310)-650-1888. Mr. Lieberman recommends contacting David Holmes, of Local District 5, at (323)-224-3100.
Here is the District Suicide Prevention unit: SUICIDE PREVENTION 6651 BALBOA BLV. (818) 705-7326
School police are at extension 2055.
Jeff Combe
Suggestions to Female Teachers from a Female Teacher
Hello everyone,
This is an email that was sent to me by a female teacher. Males have different concerns, but many of the same things apply. It is worth considering; I endorse the suggestions. Though the teacher didn't feel confident in the wording, I prefer to use the original.
Jeff Combe
I just wanted to privately suggest these topics to you. In know they are sensitive and I myself did not word them in the best way, but I thought it is important to mention.
Suggested topics for new teachers:
-Don't stay in the room alone and leave the door open after 4pm or when there are not many teachers or staff members around.
-Don't wear low cut blouses or blouses that float open when you bend down where your cleavage is showing; it is an invitation for student comments, etc...
How to Substitute
Hello everyone,
Wow, a lot of you had classroom coverage this week. I thought maybe I ought to talk about how to sub.
All of you born in the
REQUIRED:
IF YOU KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO BE ABSENT: Insure that THERE IS A LESSON PLAN THAT CAN BE EXECUTED VERY EASILY. Anything complicated or difficult at all probably won't get done. (Our PSP subs are very good, but you won't always have them. If you teach a complicated, specialized subject, it's unfair to expect many subs to know how to do it, so don't.) Make sure there is enough work to keep the students busy the whole class. HAVE THE LESSON PLAN RELATE TO WHAT YOU'RE DOING IN THE CLASS; DON'T WASTE DAYS. Just let it be easily executed.
IF YOU ARE SUDDENLY SURPRISED BY YOUR ABSENCE: Fax in a lesson plan, or call your classroom and dictate the lesson over the phone. Keep it simple.
ALWAYS HAVE A WORKABLE ALTERNATE LESSON PLAN in case yours won't work for some reason (the VCR won't work; the books aren't available; the lab is closed).
IF YOU'RE SUBBING:
TAKE ROLL: Take roll on ISIS using a substitute login. The main office will furnish one. If the login information is not already in the classroom, call the main office, and they'll help you.
ENFORCE THE SCHOOL RULES: Don't allow hats, electronic devices, profanity, or gang attire in the class. Keep track of tardies to the best of your ability. IF the students say that the regular teacher allows those things, tell them that you don't.
SOME SUGGESTIONS:
Watch them as they come in to keep track of potential trouble makers. (Students who laugh to see you, nudge their friends, and whisper are a dead give-away )
FIND OUT THEIR NAMES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. This can be a tough one, since a significant portion of the time they will give you false names. (It's a silly game, but they play it. If you fall for it, they know they have you.) I recommend sketching a seating chart, then, while they are working, ASKING EACH OF THEM THEIR NAME INDIVIDUALLY; write the names on the seating chart. That way, you can always tell the names of the misbehavers, and you can root out those who don't belong in the class (there will often be ditchers who've come in to join their friends for a day of fun; don't let them stay). If the teacher has left a seating chart, ENFORCE IT. If you're really good, you can call roll and have them raise their hands if they're present, then you memorize their names. That's if you're really good.
After you take roll, announce the names of all the absences and tardies. Let them correct you, but be certain of the corrections.
FOR TARDIES, don't let them in immediately. Take their names at the door as you let them in. (Don't leave them in the hall for very long, but a brief delay of a few seconds so that you can record their tardies lets them know you mean business.)
GIVE SPECIFIC RULES AND ENFORCE THEM STRICTLY. Keep the rules simple: "Stay in your seats; work quietly (or silently)."
FOLLOW THE LESSON PLAN AS EXACTLY AS YOU ARE CAPABLE. Treat the absent teacher the way you want to be treated.
IF THERE IS NO LESSON PLAN, do your best to prevent total chaos. Usually, enforcing the very simple "stay in your seats and work quietly" rules is enough to prevent mayhem.
Ah, I see my time is up. Hope this is helpful.
Jeff Combe
Students in the Hall, part 2
Hello everyone,
I received an email that raises some good questions (and illustrates my point) about keeping students out of the halls. The email is in Times New Roman below; my responses are in CAPS.
There are always kids in the stairway near my room during my conf. What do I do
about that?
FRANKLY, SOMETIMES YOU WILL DO NOTHING. HOWEVER, I PERSONALLY THINK THAT DOING NOTHING OUGHT TO BE RARE, THOUGH SOMETIMES YOU JUST WON'T HAVE TIME TO CHASE FERAL STUDENTS DOWN.
IF YOU CHASE THEM AWAY PERIODICALLY, THAT SPOT MAY DEVELOP THE REPUTATION FOR BEING A HARD ONE TO "KICK BACK" IN BECAUSE THE TEACHER IS ALWAYS CHASING STUDENTS AWAY. THAT IS GOOD.
STILL, SOME SPOTS ON CAMPUS ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE BAD. IF YOUR CLASS IS NEAR THE PERIMETER FENCE OR NEAR A BACK OR HIDDEN STAIRWAY, YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A PROBLEM.
MY CLASS ROTATIONS USED TO BE ROOMS 221 AND 222 (TWO OF YOU HAVE THAT ROTATION NOW). THEY ARE NEAR SOME OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS HIDING SPOTS ON CAMPUS. (THE THINGS THAT GO ON IN THE SOUTHEAST STAIRWAY OF THE 200 BUILDING OUGHT NOT BE DISCUSSED IN A FAMILY NEWSPAPER.)
IT WAS AN ONGOING BATTLE FOR ME TO KEEP STUDENTS FROM DOING ALL SORTS OF SHENANIGANS AROUND THAT CORNER OF THE 200 BUILDING. I NEVER GAVE UP, THOUGH THERE WERE DAYS I PRETENDED NOT TO HEAR BECAUSE I JUST DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM.
Who do I contact about that problem?
FOR THOSE OF YOU AT GRIFFITH, I WOULD ASK MS. MEYER THIS QUESTION.
AT GARFIELD, THOSE OF YOU IN THE 600 AND 700 BUILDINGS HAVE PERMANENT CAMPUS AIDS THAT ARE ASSIGNED CLOSE BY. IT'S A SIMPLE MATTER TO CALL A CAMPUS AID TO HELP YOU. THERE IS ALMOST ALWAYS ONE IN THE MALL AREA NEAR THE 700 BUILDING, AND THERE IS AT LEAST ONE GUARDING THE DOOR IN THE 600 BUILDING. (THESE BUILDINGS ARE AT TWO OF THE FAVORITE ESCAPE ROUTES OFF CAMPUS, AND THE AIDS HELP STEM THE FLOW.)
THE REST OF YOU MAY HAVE TO GIVE A QUICK CALL TO THE MAIN OFFICE AND TELL THEM THAT THERE ARE STUDENTS MISBEHAVING IN THE HALL NEAR YOUR ROOM. THE MAIN OFFICE WILL THEN RADIO CAMPUS SECURITY.
USUALLY BY THE TIME SECURITY ARRIVES, THE STUDENTS WILL HAVE RUN OFF. DON'T LET THIS DISCOURAGE YOU. SECURITY WON'T BLAME YOU. THE STUDENTS WILL GET THE IDEA THAT, IF THEY BOTHER THE TEACHERS IN THE AREA, SECURITY WILL BE CALLED. (IF THE STUDENTS RUN AWAY, IT'S USUALLY BECAUSE THEY'VE SEEN SECURITY COMING, WHICH IS IN YOUR FAVOR.) GETTING THE IDEA THAT THEY CAN'T "DITCH" WITH IMPUNITY IS AN IMPORTANT EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVE; DON'T BE AFRAID TO HELP THEM UNDERSTAND THAT.
YOU MAY ALSO CALL CAMPUS POLICE DIRECTLY AT EXTENSION 2055. OUR TWO OFFICERS ARE VERY GOOD AT RESPONDING TO CALLS SUCH AS THIS. NORMALLY, YOU WON'T CALL THE POLICE UNLESS YOU'RE SEEING SOMETHING ILLEGAL (DRUGS OR A FIGHT; MAYBE WHOLESALE DITCHING).
I ALSO RECOMMEND ASKING THE STUDENTS FOR THEIR PASSES OR ID'S. IF THEY HAVE NEITHER ONE, THE MERE SUGGESTION THAT YOU'RE GOING TO CALL THE OFFICE USUALLY SENDS THEM AWAY.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO STILL REGULARLY GIVE YOUR STUDENTS PASSES TO GO TO THE BATHROOM AND GET DRINKS DURING CLASS--SOMETHING THAT FEW STUDENTS EVER NEED--LET THIS GIVE YOU SOME IDEA WHY I TRY TO PERSUADE YOU NOT TO DO IT. MANY OF THE BAD THINGS THAT HAPPEN ON CAMPUS ARE CAUSED BY STUDENTS WHO SAY THEY NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM.
I ask them to move but they just move out of sight for a while and then come back the next
day.
ONE OF THE REALITIES OF OUR PROFESSION IS THAT WE HAVE TO CONSTANTLY REPEAT OURSELVES. IT'S PART OF WHAT GOOD TEACHING IS ALL ABOUT--REPETITION. A FEW VISITS BY SECURITY WILL GET THE POINT ACROSS--AT LEAST UNTIL THE NEXT TRACK CHANGE.
JEFF COMBE
Students in the Hall, part 1
Hello everyone,
When I was a beginning teacher, I occasionally sent students into the hall when they were disturbing the class. I'm not sure what happened to convince me to stop doing it.
It may have been that someone warned me that I could be held responsible for what my students did in the hall.
Sometimes, you may see students out in the hall way that your neighbors have sent out there. Some of you may have sent students out to the hall. I urge you not to do it.
You are legally responsible for students who are in your class. Students that have been sent out into the hall are technically still in your class. Students out on passes from you are technically still in your class. If someone is "in your class," and you may be legally liable for them, you ought to have them be someplace that you can keep an eye on them unless you trust them very much (certainly not the ones who are misbehaving). You may send students to another class (with that teacher's permission), to the counselors, or to the deans. In those cases, the student is no longer "in your class," but is in theirs. (Keep in mind, though, that you should not impose on others without their express permission, and your willingness to do them the same favor.)
This is not something to take lightly. Over the past two decades, I personally have been a witness to a wide variety of crimes committed by kids outside class. (I include in that the crime of underage copulation and other such non-enforced crimes.) The murders I am aware of, I did not witness, and I can't say that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between a student's being murdered and a teacher's sending the student out of class; but I know that there are strong tangential relationships. Drug sales and use; violent crimes; thefts--all of these happen among our students.
Don't let them happen on your watch.
If you're in the habit of sending students out into the hall, please get out of it. If you're not in the habit, avoid it. If your kids are disruptive, let's talk about other strategies to deal with them. Don't send them into the halls unsupervised and without a pass.
Jeff Combe
Building Student Expectations
Hello everyone,
In honor of the A-trackers that are coming on, I thought I'd say something about opening day.
When I was in high school, we were invited to the customary opening assembly to explain the school rules to us. One of the vice principals--a new guy--got up and kept us in stitches with his witty explanation of what we were supposed to do and what we should avoid. He made it clear that if we had any problems at all, we should come and see him, and he would help us out. He was really funny, and we pronounced him "cool." (Yes, we used that word when I was in high school.)
Within a month, he was one of the most hated people on campus. He had built for himself an impossible set of expectations. We thought that he would always be witty and entertaining in every assembly. When we wasn't, in the very next assembly, we rebelled. We thought that he would always be our friend, but when someone went to him with a drug problem, he didn't handle it the way they expected, and word soon got around that he could not be trusted. The first time he tried to enforce the rules, he had an argument from people that thought that he would let everyone slide if they were friendly with him. His intentions were good, but he wasn't superman, and he wasn't our best friend. He couldn't possibly do everything he led us to believe he could.
If students expect you to be witty and entertaining all the time, or if they expect you to be available for them every single second of every day, you are doomed to failure. No one can possibly maintain that. Every professional comedian, psychologist, and social worker knows it. As soon as you fail to live up to the students' expectations (and it won't be long), they will reject you as untrustworthy, and you might as well be in another profession.
If, however, your students expect you to be all business, to be an unswerving enforcer of high standards of behavior and academia, and to be a tried and true adult rather than an arrested adolescent, then they will be pleasantly surprised whenever you are interesting or funny or kind or understanding of their needs. You will feel mean and distant at first, but you will actually end up way closer to them than the one who comes in to be one of them and ends up being a hated outcast.
I don't mean to be cruel or unkind. I just mean that you should be firm, just, and fair--without exceptions. If you set rules, you enforce them. Let the kids think that, in your class at least, work begins the first day and continues at the highest level possible until the semester is over. Those high expectations are much easier to maintain than the ones that suggest you are always funny, always cool, always understanding, and always there for them.
If you're on B-track, you can do this when you get back. If you're on C-track, do your best. For A-trackers, by all means, seize the day and make this a great semester.
Jeff Combe
Standards (including standardized tests)
Hello everyone,
Today is the last day of the California Standards Tests for C-track. A and B trackers, and the traditional year people at
I have a point I want to make that's unrelated to the tests themselves, but I suppose I ought to comment on the tests.
Testing season is both good and bad for both teachers and students. For teachers, the tests take away valuable instruction time, but they can provide an accurate assessment of our instruction. Yes, they are hard to look at sometimes, especially in decile 1 schools; yes, our students don't always try (it's a problem across the state; secondary students don't take the tests as seriously as elementary students); and yes, we can't always get the data in a timely, usable way. Still, when I've been honest with myself, I could see that the tests were pretty close to my personal assessments of the students, and I could see where I needed to plug holes in my curriculum or my pedagogy. Besides, the tests always gave me extra time to get caught up on ungraded papers or unread books. My students lost class time, but gained a first hand knowledge of what they were expected to know, presented to them by real people from the outside world. And they liked the break from the normal routine.
The whole point of the tests is a worthy point: there are standards that are expected of our students.
The Random House Dictionary gives 28 different meanings for the word "standard." 22 are noun forms; 5 are adjectives. I think 10 of the 28 meanings apply to the idea of what a standard may be in education. Note especially definition 4 (cited below), the idea of a standard being normal. One of the things the state is suggesting is that, when we teach to standards (or, better, above the standards), and when our students actually learn, our students will be "average" or "normal." Anything less than that is a great disservice.
As you move through the testing season and begin to work on backward planning of the next school year, think in terms of those standards as accepted norms that our students must really achieve, and resolve to plan the year to accomplish that.
I cite from Dictionary.com:
standard
–noun
| 1. | something considered by an authority or by general consent as a basis of comparison; an approved model. |
| 2. | an object that is regarded as the usual or most common size or form of its kind: |
| 3. | a rule or principle that is used as a basis for judgment: |
| 4. | an average or normal requirement, quality, quantity, level, grade, etc.: |
| 5. | standards, those morals, ethics, habits, etc., established by authority, custom, or an individual as acceptable: |
–adjective
| 23. | serving as a basis of weight, measure, value, comparison, or judgment. |
| 24. | of recognized excellence or established authority: a standard reference on medieval history. |
| 25. | usual, common, or customary: Chairs are standard furniture in American households. |
| 27. | conforming in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc., to the usage of most educated native speakers, esp. those having prestige, and widely considered acceptable or correct: |
| 28. | authorized or approved. |
—Synonyms 1, 3. gauge, basis, pattern, guide. Standard, criterion refer to the basis for making a judgment. A standard is an authoritative principle or rule that usually implies a model or pattern for guidance, by comparison with which the quantity, excellence, correctness, etc., of other things may be determined: She could serve as the standard of good breeding. A criterion is a rule or principle used to judge the value, suitability, probability, etc., of something, without necessarily implying any comparison: Wealth is no criterion of a person's worth.
| Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) |
Jeff Combe
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