14 Videos for Teacher Study Groups and Staff Development
Bill Page's Original, Nationally Distributed, VHS Videotape Program Converted to DVD's
The following described videos are the real ideas of a teacher, who shares his classroom experiences for encouraging teachers to consider, compare, contrast, challenge, adapt, adopt, discuss, debate, research, and question his positions as a means of reflecting on their own experiences.
- What Every Teacher Must Know (52 minutes)
- What Every Teacher Should Do (28 minutes)
- Motivation… Is Only Half A Word (55 minutes)
- Motivation…Is Having A Reason (49 minutes)
- Classroom Tests, Grades, and Grading (38 minutes)
- Marking Papers (42 minutes)
- Professionalism in teaching (34 minutes)
- Ideas for Getting Going (34 minutes)
- Assuring Student Responsibility (45 minutes)
Bill gives the crucial elements to developing responsibility in students in the classroom. Much of what it takes to get students to take responsibility is just the opposite of what teachers traditionally do. Bill offers practical suggestions for teachers to develop and assure that students accept their responsibility through active, meaningful participation.
- Teaching Individuals In A Group (45 minutes)
- Discipline And Self Discipline (49 minutes)
- Hassle-Free Teaching (49 minutes)
- Four Most Important Lessons I Know (19 minutes)
- What Administrators Should Do (58 minutes) “I have never been an administrator; I wouldn’t want to be an administrator; and I have concerns about teachers who do want to be administrators,” says Bill. He then offers a classroom teacher’s perspective of what administrators should do to help teachers improve. Unaffected by journals and jargon, Bill offers a humorous, sobering, thoughtful view of the role of administrators and ties it in with lessons for teachers. A new and better way of evaluating the job of administrators.
“In my first year, I discovered the three most important teaching elements every teacher must know to be successful. Now, after several decades, I’m all the more convinced they are the most fundamental keys to the successful teaching-learning process. This is the “Keynote Address” Bill has made throughout the U.S. and Canada to 1000’s of teachers
A helpful reminder that a professional teacher has the obligation to make his or her class interesting, to get the kids involved, to get them moving instead of complaining that they won’t sit still. The teacher’s is obliged to use a multimodality approach, and to take responsibility for each kid’s participation. The kids can’t make the class relevant, exciting, or memorable. Only the teacher can do that.
Some teachers apparently think motivation is some mystical inner drive that causes certain kids to want to do worksheets, homework, and busy work rather than watch TV or goof-off. The tape show that every kid is always motivated every second of every day. The problem is that kids are motivated to do nothing. The problem is that motivation is only half a word. Learning the other half can insure that lack of motivation will never be a problem in any classroom.
A fresh, important concept of what motivation really is (besides being just half a word). Motivation is reason, as in having a reason. Reason is synonymous with motivation. Kids are not motivated to come to class—they have a reason to come to class. Kids are not motivated to study for the test—they have a reason to study for the test. The “trick” to teaching is giving the kids reasons to learn. This tape shows the “trick”.
Bill offers his own irreverent, provocative examination of the teacher’s role in student failure. When you hear Bill Page say, “grades are totally subjective and they cannot be otherwise,” or “kids don’t flunk—they get flunked,” or “the alternative to flunking kids is teaching them,” not only does he mean it; he shows how he learned to eliminate failure and how every teacher can make sure no kid will flunk again—ever.
Bill says, “I do not mark papers, I do not take papers home; and I can’t believe there are teachers who would ever take 160 themes home to mark or grade. Two keys to learning are: first kids must do the work. It is they, not the teacher, who must do the thinking, planning, and evaluating. Second, students must have meaningful feedback. Feedback on their efforts must not discourage them. Bill uses and shows lots of ways to give feedback without marking their papers or giving F’s. Toward
Bill answers the question “When is student failure the teachers fault?” with an emphatic, unqualified, “always”. He then gives a series of essential professional behaviors to which teachers must aspire or use to eliminate student failure. “I do not get paid to flunk kids; I get paid to teach them. And, so I do.
Teachers do their best. They do what they know to do. They do what they have learned to do in their own schooling. What teachers need in order to improve are two things: the incentive to improve (which this 14 set program is designed to give) and some practical ideas for making a change or getting started. (Which this tape gives.) And any teacher can adapt the practical ideas.
Teachers do not teach classes. The teach individuals. No group ever learned anything, only individuals learn. There is no alternative—either we teach individuals or we teach groups. So long as we teach groups, the “bottom” of the group will likely be left out, frustrated, confused, and thereby “unmotivated: to participate. The “top” is likely to be bored, unchallenged, and minimally involved. Group instruction requires extrinsic motivation. Only through individualization can “all” students be intrinsically motivated.
“We need to teach kids to behave, not make them behave.” Bill explains how he gets kids to “Sit down, shut up, follow procedures, and want to learn, without coercing, intimidating, bribing, forcing, and cajoling. This tape shows how Bill does it. “Self-discipline is the only discipline any teacher will ever need.
Although the term “Hassle-free” may be a hyperbole, Bill does, in fact, show how he eliminated “at least 80%” of all his classroom problems, including discipline, homework, disruptions, seating, rules, procedures, and policies. When teacher focus on learning rather than working, most classroom control problems and corrective measures become unnecessary.
From a teaching career that spans more than four decades, come four profound and meaningful concepts that have it all—a theory, a philosophy, universality, practicality, specific suggestions, directions, and strategies. A tape guaranteed to be used over and over again. It is as inspiring the tenth time your view it, as the first.
