Bacon's Rebellion

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VDOE Regulation Officially Nonsensical

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by

sherlockj
in , ,

Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane

by James C. Sherlock

I am a reasonably experienced and educated man, but sometimes I need help.

I just read the Virginia regulation 8VAC20-23-190. Professional studies requirements for PreK-12, special education, secondary grades 6-12, and adult education endorsements.  

I know, you don’t have to say it.

But anyway, I read it. The full regulation directs how Virginia teacher candidates must be educated. It directs a formal syllabus of 18 or 21 semester hours. VDOE swears that VDOE and the Board of Education wrote it, not the University of Virginia education school, and I take them at their word.

When I was done, I had to go back to Part 5. Classroom and behavior management: 3 semester hours. A key element:

“This area shall address diverse approaches based upon culturally responsive behavioral, cognitive, affective, social and ecological theory and practice.”

Seriously, that is how it reads. That is where I needed the help. I wrote Charles Pyle, the truly excellent and responsive press relations person at VDOE. My query:

“While I understand each word, I don’t understand their use in this context. Is there a reference that breaks this out more completely with examples?”

Charles, of course, doesn’t write these regulations, and when he got my query, he asked the appropriate desk how to answer my question. Here is what he got back and passed on to me.

“VDOE ensures that all competencies are met through an intensive and thorough review of course syllabi, including course outline, assignments and assessment of content  If revisions are needed, VDOE works with the institution’s dean and/or director of teacher education to provide guidance on items that may need revisions or if there are general questions about specific competencies.

OK. That means that VDOE doesn’t understand it either, or perhaps couldn’t come up with anything on a Friday.

So now I want to hold a contest. Answer this question for a gold star. In the context of classroom discipline, what is the meaning of:

“This area shall address diverse approaches based upon culturally responsive behavioral, cognitive, affective, social and ecological theory and practice.”

Tie breaker is your answer to “ecological” theory and practice in classroom discipline. Remember, the full power of the Commonwealth stands behind the answer.

Or not.

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20 responses to “VDOE Regulation Officially Nonsensical”

  1. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    As a technology geek I can’t help myself …

    “This area shall address diverse approaches based upon culturally responsive behavioral, cognitive, affective, social and ecological theory and practice.”

    diverse – 2. including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.

    culturally responsive [teaching] – Geneva Gay (2010) defined “culturally responsive teaching” as “using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them”

    affective – relating to moods, feelings, and attitudes.

    ecological [systems] theory – (also called development in context or human ecology theory) was developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner. It offers a framework through which community psychologists examine individuals’ relationships within communities and the wider society.

    Attempted translation … liberal babble to English …

    Phase 1: Substitution of nonsense words and phrases with definitions:

    This area shall address ” involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations” approaches based on “using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them”, behavioral, cognitive, “relating to moods, feelings, and attitudes” social and “a framework through which community psychologists examine individuals’ relationships within communities and the wider society” and practice.

    Phase 2: Attempted conversion from liberal babble into English:

    This area shall address approaches that differ based on people’s different backgrounds. It will be based on perspectives and attitudes of those people from different backgrounds. It will also take into account behaviors, thinking, learning approaches, moods and feelings, both in theory and in practice.

    Phase 3: Logic extraction:

    This area shall address all things to all people.

  2. Publius Avatar
    Publius

    Fun and games! But before I ridicule the nonsense, I will agree that Chuck Pyle is a good guy. I wondered where he was.

    “This area shall address diverse approaches based upon culturally responsive behavioral, cognitive, affective, social and ecological theory and practice.”

    Of course this answer means racism of the systemic sort. So any disparity is per se racist – it will be white supremacy culture – and the version of white supremacy can be based on behavioral expectations, or based on equal academic expectations, or basic social norms, or environmental racism as a low-performing school is probably in a lesser area of town and therefore is likely nearer a dump.
    Affective is tough…since it appears to relate to mood, then I guess affective means an excuse for violence being disproportionately “black” due to rage caused by white supremacy culture and the white fragility to not understand that.
    Therefore, the teacher will be assessed on equity outcome in discipline and strongly disincented to deal with anything other than a near felony for fear of violating racial metrics.
    Is that a sufficiently anti-racist answer? Did I do Ibram Kendi proud?

  3. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    Classroom and behavior management: 3 semester hours.

    The college professor teaching this class is really an ex public school teacher who could not hack the trench line. The teacher pursued a PHD and found a safe harbor at a school such as UVA. Who knows what they are really teaching beyond this babble of buffalo chips? It doesn’t matter anyways since half of Virginia’s teaching workforce earned their degrees and licenses in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, etc.

    I had a class like this at VPI. The professor had nothing to offer. I never read the text book and I attended class only on test days and the exam. The assessments were a cinch. Common sense is all that was needed.

    1. CJBova Avatar
      CJBova

      I don’t think common sense is applicable in this ecosystem.

      https://www.simplypsychology.org/Bronfenbrenner-Ecological-Systems.jpg

      1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
        James C. Sherlock

        I note the Mesosystem has nothing in it. Likely means lunch. Probably the most useful one of all. Unless the kids have cell phones.

  4. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Liberal sniffing of whiteboard markers helps.

  5. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Let me take a crack at it: Disciplinary measures will vary depending upon a student’s ethnic group, intelligence level, emotional control, and ….. oh, I give up.”

  6. dick dyas Avatar
    dick dyas

    Well, first, it is unintelligible. As a former member of the Army, I am fully aware of techno-speech, that insider language which only a few can understand.
    But this? It is either code or the work of a terminal retard.

    1. Publius Avatar
      Publius

      The new and improved, kinder, gentler, CRT trained Army would bounce you out for that blunt language.
      Kill the enemy by calling them retard, and hurt their feelings!

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Yeah, but they still allow sexual assault. Can’t do anything about it. Guess it comes with the uniform.

        You’re welcome for your salary.

        1. Publius Avatar
          Publius

          As usual…idiotic, non-germane, non sequitur…
          And Nancy claims to have paid for it…while hating the military at the same time.

  7. Ichabob Avatar
    Ichabob

    It means someone is going to make a lot of money making teachers train using “AI”: https://education.virginia.edu/about-us/curry-foundation/priorities/classroom-simulator

  8. CJBova Avatar
    CJBova

    I cheated. After reading about the 14 most common parenting styles from the American Society for the Positive Care of Children, to try to see what might be needed to be culturally responsive, I went to an article from the Southeast Education Network. I gave up on understanding this meshugas at, “Never assume students have any familiarity with appropriate behavior. Continuously discuss and rehearse rules to shape students’ awareness.” I can only conclude society as we know it is doomed.

  9. CJBova Avatar
    CJBova

    And it will only take donations of $250K for proof of concept, $2.5-$5 mil for the phase 2 prototype over 5 years, and another $5-10mil and 3-5 years to create a national center. What a deal!

  10. CJBova Avatar
    CJBova

    A couple of nagging little questions: If this has been around since 2002, why are there online references to doctoral
    papers, theoretical constructs, colleges offering classes in the
    application of ecological theory for behavior modification in
    classrooms, but no schools advertising or praising its use and
    effectiveness?

    Is the planned social-emotional learning in kindergarden
    the prelude to introducing this ecological theory by VDOE?

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Sometimes the idea is just to have ideas. The are, for example, lots of patents that are now OBE, never having been implemented as is, but that led to improvements that are the backbone of today’s technology. Although patents may not be the only source of those ideas. For example, “Dr. No” (James Bond movie, 1961) is the first document use of a pager, and direct dial radio phone. Bet they wish they had patented those two Q ideas.

      BTW that Q was an MI5/6 scientist, not the source of RPV factual information.

      1. CJBova Avatar
        CJBova

        If these were only ideas, and not regulations that cannot be defined in other than academic newspeak, you could have a point.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          I was answering your comment about papers vs school edorsements. OTOH, until the Manhattan Project, schools didn’t endorse nuclear weapons either although the faculty was studying nuclear physics. Wait, bad example, they still don’t.

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