The city of Lawrence has been placed into state receivership by the same law that allowed the takeover of BPS schools Dever

and Holland. With the state takeover come thesnake oil salespeople who have an unlimited license to sell their wares. One such

salesman under contract in Lawrence as a consultant is the Center for Transformative Teacher Training, which seeks to morph each teacher into an educational robot. Their teacher “mentoring” program includes the transmission of classroom “commands” through earpieces from Coach Belichick to teacher Tom Brady.

“But I am not Tom Brady….”
“Give him a warning,” said the voice through the earpiece I was wearing. I did as instructed, speaking in the emotionless monotone I’d been coached to use. But the student, a sixth grader with some impulsivity issues and whose trust I’d spent months working to gain, was excited and spoke out of turn again.

“Tell him he has a detention,” my earpiece commanded. At which point the boy stood up and pointed to the back of the room, where the three classroom “coaches” huddled around a walkie talkie. “Miss: don’t listen to them! You be you. Talk to me! I’m a person! Be a person, Miss. Be you!…”

The students were also perplexed by my new earpiece accessory. “Um, Miss, what’s that in your ear?” they asked. I looked over to the three adults in the far back corner of the room for my scripted answer. “Tell them you are like Tom Brady. Tom Brady wears an earpiece to be coached remotely and so do you,” was the response.

Continue reading on the Edushyster blog.

(To learn more about the Center for Transformative Teacher Training, see below.)