Abracadabra: His job was gone
May 7, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: Dubious decisions, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
Professor Dumbledore never had this problem: A Florida substitute teacher says he was fired on accusations of wizardry.
He didn’t wear a pointy hat or robes. He didn’t carry a wand or broom.
Yet, Florida substitute teacher Jim Piculas says he was fired for performing a magic act in a classroom.
Piculas does a half-minute magic trick in which a toothpick disappears and reappears.
After he performed the trick while subbing at Rushe Middle School in Land O’ Lakes, Piculas’ job disappeared faster than you could say “vanishing cloak.”
WTSP-TV in Tampa Bay talked to the district’s assistant superintendent who said it wasn’t just the wizardry that got Piculas fired. He said there were other issues such as “not following lesson plans and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.”
Piculas fears he won’t be able to get a job elsewhere because of the firing.
No word on whether Hogwarts school of magic is hiring.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
What is the problem with expanding the mind of students who don’t want to be there in the first place. I, for one, think it great that this teacher is ‘teaching out of the box.” Lesson plans are there to help the teacher, but how many teachers deviate from the lesson plans? The real question is “are these students learning and staying on target?”
I’m not a full-time teacher, but do teach ‘at-risk’ youth in the evenings. If you don’t break up the Monotony of teaching you lose your students.
May 9th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I agree with Irma. Students receive so much stimulation from other sources- electronic media, games, cell phones, text messages, etc., that a teacher who stands in a classroom and preaches will lose his/her audience before the first sentence is finished.
It’s important for teachers to be engaging- and I think the school was hasty in their decision to terminate. So teacher strayed from a lesson plan- it’s not that big a deal. The plan is meant to be used as a guide. A good public speaker will guage the audience and deliver the information in a way which is most appealing to that group.
I’m not a teacher, but I’ve done some training. Adult learners present an interesting set of challenges, especially when they include a variety of demographics. If the teacher did a magic trick to break the ice and ‘bond’ with the group, then congrats to the teacher for thinking outside the box!
May 9th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with both comments. However, my husband is a teacher and because of the “No Child Left Behind” legislation, a lot of teachers have been reprimanded for not following a lesson plan to the “T”, even if it means the students are not actively engaged in the learning process. It’s mainly about teaching to get higher marks in standardized tests, everything else be damned. I know how frustrated he is when he knows there is a better way to teach the students and have them interested in learning, but cannot do so because of the constant threat of disciplinary action if he strays from the course. If the school district has low test scores, the administrators are even less concerned about anything other than standardized tests. Hopefully this will change in the near future with the November elections but teaching today is more about babysitting and teaching to the test.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
You know I am tired of the crap that goes on in teaching. I have three grown children and presently three grandchild and I am disguested at how our children are learning. I physically went to high school with one of my kids because of certain issues. And I could not believe my ears and eyes. Currently, my granddaughter is being home schooled because of how our schooling system has failed. Teachers should be allowed to teach that best suits each situation. Yes the lesson plan is a guide and as long as at the end the teacher accomplishs the goal, who cares how he/she got there. And the kids probably had fun getting there, retained more, and probably learned something. I can’t tell you how many times I asked my grandkids (who are in middle and high school) at the end of the school year what did they learn and they virtually tell me nothing. I’m 55 years old and I can tell them what I learned each school year from each teacher. What a difference. We need to go back to the old way of teaching. It worked.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Is it no wonder that there is an increase in people homeschooling their children! I have also noticed with the job applications that I receive a major increase in kids who have dropped out of school and gotten a GED. Nothing wrong with a GED. But it appears that the No Child Left Behind is not working.