Teachers

Boris Slutsky exemplifies the truth of the aphorism that you are where you're from.Slutsky, who teaches piano at the Peabody Conservatory and who will give a recital tonight in Friedberg Concert Hall, came to this country from Russia in 1977 as a 15-year-old. For most of his adolescence and all of his adult life, he studied the piano at the best American conservatories. But when he plays the piano and teaches it, he remains very much a Russian."Whenever people ask me if I am glad my parents brought me to this country, I tell them that I am deeply grateful -- and I truly am," says the 35-year-old pianist, whose aureole of red-gold hair combines with his fair skin and eyes to make him resemble a saintly figure in a Russian icon.

Sister Marie Vincent Brothers, a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame who spent nearly three decades as a teacher and graphics designer at Notre Dame of Maryland University and was once described as one of the "swingingest" nuns, died June 8 at Maria Health Care Center in Baltimore County of lymphoma. She was 86. "She had a lovely gift of integrating art into just about everything," said Sister Miriam Jansen, who knew Sister Marie Vincent for at least 40 years. "Her creativity was just remarkable.

Every good teacher deserves a gift   - rare tokens of appreciation for their hard work. But, Andrea Segovia, third-grade teacher at Ashburton Elementary School in Bethesda, was a little concerned when she unwrapped an expensive-looking necklace stuffed in a Ziploc baggie. She suspected the “gift” from a boy in her classroom probably came from his mother's jewelry box. She was right. “I could just tell that it was someone else's necklace,” Segovia says. Almost every teacher has at least one story of the unusual holiday gift.

Working with Anne Arundel County schools, an independent foundation helped feed needy children and their families for more than five years. But that came to an abrupt halt a year ago, after a member of the Journey Foundation reviewing the organization's bank records saw that more than $3,700 was missing. Within months, the foundation was defunct, and one of its founders, then a teacher a Corkran Middle School in Glen Burnie, was charged with stealing from it. On Tuesday, a tearful Pamela Fowler pleaded guilty to felony theft from the foundation that was the brainchild of her and her brother, jazz musician Norman Evans, whose annual spring concerts raised thousands of dollars for Journey.

The Howard County Arts Council is looking for teachers to fill positions in its Visual and Performing Arts Summer Camps next year. Camps are open to students in grades K-7. Interested teachers should contact Wendy Meetze at 410-313-2787 for more information.

The National Rifle Association's push to arm school teachers and its suggestion that 40 to 60 hours of weapons training will enable them to handle a confrontation with a shooter in their classroom is short-sighted and unrealistic ("Gun advocates detail plan to arm teachers," April 3). I know from my own experience that amount of training is wholly inadequate. After seven weeks of intense weapons instruction in Army basic training, where we basically lived and slept with our weapons, we went on a night-time exercise meant to simulate battle conditions.

As the husband of a teacher and brother-in-law of two other teachers, I have to say Dan Rodricks ' recent column ("This looks a lot like playing hooky," Nov. 13) about teacher absences is missing a big chunk of the story. The fact is the only time off teachers have available to them during the school year are sick days and two or three personal days. They don't get three weeks or more of paid vacation like a lot of people do in their jobs. This is the only time available to them.

Editor: I am writing in response to Mr. Flen's letter to the editor published on Feb. 24. My daughter is an elementary school teacher and I know that she and her colleagues do not work 70 percent of the time! That may be what they are paid for, but that is not what they work. If you drive by any Harford County public school, you will see cars there well before the school day begins and also after the day ends. Teachers spend several hours before and after school preparing their lessons.

Re your editorial "Pay for Performance" (Aug.22): Yes, by all means, evaluate and compensate teachers on the basis of student performance. But why limit this process to educators? Let's apply the same norms to other professionals. Let's evaluate dentists according to performance, paying them more when their patients show progress in avoiding cavities, less when periodontal work is necessary. Let's evaluate and compensate physicians according to changes in their patients' health, with penalties assigned for overweight patients with heart attacks, or smoking patients who incur lung cancer.

Never before has public education been so perilously close to its demise. In the name of reform, we have tweaked, pushed, pulled, torn apart and done everything but "fix" education. This has been a long, tortuous process. The one ingredient that has always been missing has been true thoughtful collaboration with the very people who really do know what is going on in the classrooms: the teachers. The current administration talks to the educators but doesn't really listen ("Leaving no child behind," March 16)

As this week marks the end of the school year for Baltimore City schools, I thought I'd share a piece sent to me by a first-year teacher that draws a rather provocative conclusion that many of the district's struggles are fueled by its own low expectations. The reflection piece, titled "Low Expectations for Low-Income Students," documents some of the more tumultuous times in this teacher's school this year, which she says were mostly supported by policies that encourage poor academics and behavior and affirmed by manufactured statistics.

The steel drum sounds that filled the room at Catonsville High School were so infectious that students playing the instruments couldn't help but dance. Music teacher Jim Wharton, the cavorting leader of the impromptu jam session, was steadily beating a cowbell when he stared out a nearby window and spotted a truck driver looking in while reversing the vehicle. "Come on," Wharton beckoned, motioning the driver to pull over and join the troupe. Even though his calls went unheeded, the 62-year-old child at heart resumed getting his groove on, savoring the Caribbean flavor he helped introduce to Baltimore County schools more than 20 years ago. After teaching music in the county for nearly 40 years, Wharton is retiring.

A caucus of the Baltimore Teachers Union has conducted its own survey which concluded that, of the sample participants, city teachers have been overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the union contract that is set to expire this month. According to the survey, conducted by the Educators for Democratic Schools, of the roughly 200 teachers polled, only 11 percent of respondents said they would vote for the contract--passed in 2010, and hailed as the most progressive in the country for its pay-for-performance structure--if faced with the decision again.

Editor: Congratulations to David Craig in his bid for Governor of the State of Maryland. I wonder if Mr. Craig realizes that for each Maryland county, there is a county teacher's union. There are many teachers in the State of Maryland, many students of voting age who want to become teachers and even more family and friends of teachers. If there was never any additional room in the Harford County budget for teacher pay increases in the past...

Spring has come, warm weather is final here. That can only mean one thing: Graduation season is upon us. This year my daughter Divina St. Peter is one of thousands of American students successfully graduating from high school. Divina began her educational endeavor at Laurel Elementary School, and soon after continued at Dwight Eisenhower Middle School. On June 3, 2013, she became a member of the Laurel High School Class of 2013. Her success was in no small measure a collaborative effort by her outstanding teachers from all of the above mentioned local schools.

I am one of those "excessed" teachers Yonni Raich wrote about in his recent commentary on Baltimore County teacher transfers ("Teacher transfers hurt Balto. Co.," June 4). Mr. Raich makes a compelling argument about the impact of teacher transfers on schools. First, the term "excess" has a distinctly negative connotation. No one wants to be told that the institution for which he or she has dedicated years now considers him or her excess baggage to be eliminated. I worked at Loch Raven High School for 17 years and initiated several school-wide programs, one of which helped garner an award for character education.

P arents in Detroit are fuming over the abysmal scores of city students on a national achievement test - and demanding that the officials responsible for their kids' failure go to jail. Of the 18 big cities that participated in the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress, Detroit came in dead last, with 69 percent of fourth-graders and 77 percent of eighth-graders scoring below the basic level in math. (Charlotte, N.C., topped the list, while Baltimore City ranked near the middle.

Dear Maryland taxpayer, My eldest child graduated from her public high school recently, and there was much celebration and excitement. When the 425 proud students of the Class of 2013 marched into the new Tiger Arena at Towson University in their caps and gowns, there was hardly a dry eye in the house. The customary "Pomp and Circumstance" echoed across the gym. Speeches were made. Award-winners were recognized. Diplomas were awarded and hands were shaken. And from the school principal to the valedictorians, there were heartfelt thanks given - to classmates, to teachers, to school administrators and yes, even to parents.

When Boston Marathon bombing victim Erika Brannock arrived home to Baltimore this week, the first item on her wish list was finding the stranger who saved her life amid the chaos that followed the April attack. The 29-year-old Towson preschool teacher looked directly into a bank of television cameras from an airport terminal and made a plea to the woman she knew only as "Joan from California. " She said, "I don't know if you're even watching, but Joan, I would love to find you and tell you thank you and give you a hug. " On Wednesday, she got that chance.