This post is dedicated to my crazy teacher friends who try everything they can to help our students, even at the expense of their colleagues’ goodwill. Based on a recent email thread, we’re all trying so hard, but we’re trying too hard alone.
That has to change.
Do you have departmental/content issues? Does the history department turn up their noses at the math teachers or is the elective crew treated like a tertiary annoyance? Supporting our colleagues is more than bringing in a few shoeboxes and glue sticks. It requires deep, drilled-down communication and understanding, and allows for every department to support and connect with one another. Of course, an administration is an integral part of an overall vision: communicating to staff may require multiple messages, reminders, little check-ins of how the vision is progressing once the vision has been shared. It doesn’t mean lockstep. It doesn’t mean one size fits all. It doesn’t mean one ring to rule them all, either. Throw that garbage in the fires of Mordor and carry on, Samwise.
It does mean that departments are talking to one another, and know an overall vision of the school Like other PBL projects before, the Zombie unit was the 8th grade ELA department’s attempt, and we learned a lot. We have some refinement to do, and it was clear based on all of us whose students had more time to dig in, whose students had someone helping with hands-on skills, and whose had lipstick “infection” marks on their faces and played tag (cough).
When everything is important, everything becomes jammed up: think of a school day more like well-run traffic and flow engineering, or flocking science: when kids can move with a flexible, responsive schedule, or when a big PBL project is being conducted, perhaps that is the day when there is a shift in time; better yet, they can go to each class and work and consider through that lens.
(Students are trying to avoid predators, after all–aka going to class.)
It’s going to require some brave teachers and administration to put aside egos and come to solutions that are best for students. We have the skill sets and the drive to do something like what Emily Pilloton does with her girls. We need to include all, however. I am wondering if we have the will.
There are three concepts to juggle, and with any dexterity and caffeine, allow me to attempt this hat-trick:
We are not doing a great job, and we need to do better.
We’re not showing students what rigor and high expectations really mean, and moreover, what it means to them.
We’re not working as leadership teams.
We’re running through the standards in concrete lock-steps and not understanding nuances and complexity. (See #1, and then refer to #2).
This year, as best as I can say, seemed like being lost in the woods and someone stepped on my compass. The good news is next year I’m leading and designing curriculum, and I know it’ll be great: sharing ideas and asking others, collaborating, and teaming on what our students need is my jam. I can’t get over, though, the haunting dread that we are not really doing what we need to for our students. Our current practices lack for consistent connections, and it is unacceptable. We have master teachers in our building, trained at the highest levels of PBL, science, math, social sciences, humanities, and language arts. The elective teachers are experienced and hold our students to the highest standards, too. But what is happening? My theory is we’re still working in too much isolation and silos. Our PLCs improve every year, even through administration shifts, but our cross-content and staff heterogony are lacking. We’re too homogenous. We must do better at being allowed the time to share knowledge and information.
If I bring up my ‘burning questions’ unit with new leadership/staff, and or if they bring up something that they’ve tried, where is the reciprocal curiosity? Where is the time to say, “How did you do that? What resources do you have? Will you share that with me?” Right now we do this by the seat of our pants.
Agency represents the power that derives from the pursuit of those questions that matter most to students. It is what fuels action, a central component of YPAR that allows young people to attend to and explore firsthand the nuances of issues that have a direct bearing on their lives. It is contextually bound, always in negotiation, and mediated by the histories, social interactions, and cultures that young people’s identities are entangled within. We argue that agency cannot be framed as a competency then, but as a capacity to imagine and act upon the world. Central to this is the opening of spaces for students in their plurality, spaces where they can examine their relationships with each other, with texts, and with the world.”
I would love a resource guide of the staffs’ individual areas of expertise. My work with the National Writing Project precludes my inclination and bias toward their research, and I make no apologies for it.
It is not enough to teach knowledge but constantly strive for the highest levels the taxonomy, creativity.
As the writer Claudia Wallis says, teaching ethics in decision making combined with knowledge is the goal:
“Basically, ethical reasoning involves eight steps: seeing that there’s a problem to deal with (say, you see your roommate cheat on an assignment); identifying it as an ethical problem; seeing it as a large enough problem to be worth your attention (it’s not like he’s just one mile over the speed limit); seeing it as personally relevant; thinking about what ethical rules apply; thinking about how to apply them; thinking what are the consequences of acting ethically—because people who act ethically usually don’t get rewarded; and, finally, acting. What I’ve argued is ethical reasoning is really hard. Most people don’t make it through all eight steps.”
Think about that for a moment: doing the right thing means there may be no reward. No tchotchke, no token: just the idea that doing the right thing is doing the right thing. A beloved colleague said to me the other day how frustrated she feels when she sees students throw away our offering of an excellent, free (to them) public education. Do they have the ethical right to do so? What if it was framed that way–would it flip their thinking about their lives and connections?
“If ethical reasoning is inherently hard, is there really less of it and less wisdom now than in the past? We have a guy [representative-elect Greg Gianforte of Montana] who allegedly assaulted a reporter and just got elected to the U.S. House of Representatives—and that’s after a 30-point average increase in IQ. We had violence in campaign rallies. Not only do we not encourage creativity, common sense and wisdom, I think a lot of us don’t even value them anymore. They’re so distant from what’s being taught in schools. Even in a lot of religious institutions we’ve seen a lot of ethical and legal problems arise. So if you’re not learning these skills in school or through religion or your parents, where are you going to learn them? We get people who view the world as being about people like themselves. We get this kind of tribalism.”
New types of assessment are gaining ground. Several states are piloting performance-based assessments to replace standardized testing.
Exemplars in the business community are now promoting flat organizational structures, where employees work in smaller teams and have more voice and power over how they work.
Teachers are more networked than ever before, providing a unique opportunity to share and spread good teaching practice.*
*#3 makes me a little blue: I am more connected to my PLN in many ways than I am to my PLC. With my PLN, we can share ideas, no one counts or keeps score on how often I share, no one gets frustrated, and we simply share and collaborate. I want to be more connected with teachers in my building and this needs to be facilitated, without excuses.
If my friend and I go to a National Consortium for Teaching About Asia graphic novel seminar on a Saturday, how do we invite interested staff members to share in what we bring back? For staff members who send out an all-staff email about information from University of Washington opportunities to their upcoming roller derby match, how does a culture of a school encourage this knowledge and communication? I would love to know how other staffs communicate with one another: I understand the flat organizational structure, but I would rather see a web-shaped structure: interconnected and sensitive to the students’ needs: a roundtable, rather. We are a long way away from Finland’s shift to move to broader-based, connected learning? (No, they are not getting rid of topics.) How can we create more broad-based understanding and connections OPPORTUNITIES for students, that not only is of value but constructive?
“Classes are not taught in silos, but rather teachers collaborate on interdisciplinary approaches so students can see connections between things they learn.”
My wish is as the current admin returns to teams (hallelujah!) my enthusiasm doesn’t get the better of me.
This is a lot to process: teachers are feeling exhausted, that they must be all things to all students, and to themselves and their families. But I would caution all of us when we’re encouraged to say “no,” and to scoff or scorn, to look past that, and try to say yes, yes to each other at least. Yes to the idea people, the organized people, the curators, and collaborators. Do what we ask students to do:
One of my favorite colleagues had this great idea. It’s all hers. I asked her if I could post it, but didn’t ask permission to share her name. Let’s just call her “Abazening Person” for now. The idea was to ask the staff (after two weeks’ of testing, more days of testing, and yeah…we’re tired) about their silly and serious advice for new teachers and/or teachers new to our school.
But you know why she is one of my favorite people? The person who can listen, hold their own, be gentle, strong, and wise is rare. I hope I have reciprocated the love and friendship because I don’t have a lot of friends, but the ones I do have I hold dear.
She asked the staff to write on slips of paper she provided, organized, etc., one silly and one serious piece of advice. What a great activity for the staff, and something to try with students, too! This is the list she compiled from the hand-written notes:
Thanks for sharing, everyone!
If you have anything to add for our 2017-2018 New to MC/New to Teaching “Words of Wisdom” as the year finishes up, please let me know. J
New to MC:
Jump in with both feet. There is no “halfway” at MC.
You have to be mentally tough to work here. Do something for yourself on the weekends.
Grab a $0.25 cup of coffee in the Work Room to start your day! Start a fresh pot and its free. 😉
Buy & wear a fit-bit.
Be the change you want to see…and LEAD that change.
Learn to juggle. You will make all the right friends.
Spread LOVE <3
Get to know the teachers. Building relationships is a big deal here.
P* gives the best hugs.*
A turkey dinner is served Thanksgiving week. Consider eating with kids in the lunchroom.
Don’t park under the lampposts unless you want a plethora of bird droppings!
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh with the kids!
First lunch is the BEST! 😉
Read the daily/weekly bulletins!
Avoid parking near the portables, unless you LIKE walking through large puddles on a rainy day.
Feel free to collect “floor pencils”. Even if they have bite marks, your kids will need them. J
Admin. feeds us well; if it’s a meeting or celebratory day, there is food…somewhere!
The staff bathroom in the C Building near the art room has a lock that works selectively. Use with caution. 😉
Leave the windows closed. The HVAC works better.
Participate in staff activities as often as possible. Parties, dancing, contests, movies; bonding time is never wasted time.
The parking lot floods. Bring boots!
Be nice to Mr. Gordon Dorsey(head custodian). He can be a huge help!
Be prepared for schedule changes. Make extra packets for new students.
Search for coffee around the building. It’s there…you just gotta find it!
If you see something that needs to be done, just do it.
The alarm will go off if you enter C Building before 6am…but you won’t hear it or know it until they come looking for you.
Find a teaching partner if you want to start/run a club.
First come, first served in the side parking lot along the field and C building.
La Huerta is awesome!
Never piss off the office staff. 😉
Spiders or flys in the classroom may derail your lesson for up to 15 minutes.
When cleaning out lockers, kids will trash books. Be on the lookout!
Enjoy the company of staff; great group!
Keep letting your light shine and you will glow for others to see.
New to Teaching:
Growth mindset is a must in this building.
Students – “What you put into your education determines your success in learning.”
Senior staff is very supportive. Talk to them for assistance and advice.
Always get their names right…or work hard on it. They care and it matters.
Be flexible with student students, schedules, etc.
Take the time in September to really get to know your students. The payoff for the rest of the year is immeasurable!
But the Mama Stortini’s special gift card in September.
Stand by the door. Don’t allow students to stand by the door before the bell rings. They love to slip out.
The kids who need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving ways.
Rather than focus on the problem, try to be part of the solution.
Document everything.
Talk to our Student Success Team about options for discipline. Don’t always go for punishment. Discipline is about teaching.
Remember that our students are someone’s baby. Honor that bond and don’t judge.
Get ready to hear the “F” word. 😉
Get a second opinion…or three. Different perspectives help you to come up with your own, authentic “way”.
Don’t be shy about saying “no food or drinks” in the classroom.
Make sure students know you care about them. You can get them to do almost anything if they believe that you believe.
There are a lot of ELL(English Language Learners). Strategies to help them will be necessary to know.
Call home. Then try again. Our parents care…they just aren’t easy to reach all the time.
Do not be a “friend”. Be an adult with clear expectations. It’s what they need!
Learning can be good fun if you make it.
Teach students not to laugh at disrespectful/disruptive behavior. This will be super helpful.
Don’t be afraid of technology. It makes things easier.
Work on setting your classroom systems into place at the start of the year. Do it well and you will reap the rewards
Don’t take students’ negative attitudes personally. Stay calm!
Rule your classroom with an iron fist.
Actually TALK to your students, one to one. It goes a long way.
Make sure students know they are not allowed to have their laptops out without permission.
Don’t listen to or ask for advice from the crazy ones. 😉
It can be easy to become involved with everything so remember to schedule time for yourself.
Say everything like you mean it!
Don’t take the negative things kids say personally. It never really is personal.
Be a storyteller. Our kids like to know your life.
Collaborate and be open-minded in your PLC. It is all in the best interest of our students.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
You may not be able to guess the ones I contributed, and it doesn’t matter: what matters is we all said and felt a big collective hug toward each other and our students. She opens her heart and home and welcomes one and all, and if we all learned how to be a little more open, everything would just be…abazing. 🙂
Ann Beatty recently penned a brilliant article for The Atlantic, “Hollywood’s Reductive Narratives About School.” Not only does she make a case against most popular teacher movies, but articulates what I’ve been trying to say for a long time. Over the years, students occasionally, with moony eyes and hope, ask me if I “love” Freedom Writers, and seem kind of hurt when I say no–but then come to some deeper understanding of when I tell them why. The “great White savior-teacher-lady” is bullocks, basically. But Beatty says it better. She writes: “Bulman argues these films are popular because they bolster the middle-class fantasy that holds individuals accountable for low-income students’ successes or failures, while conveniently absolving viewers of any responsibility to lobby for system-wide change.”
It is Hollywood, and it is a fantasy.
This fantasy resides in the same room as bootstrap baloney and the grit myths. The [white] middle class, usually young teacher, (so much ageism in Freedom Writers….so…..much….) comes to the school, loses her relationship with her husband, looks great in sweater sets, gets a paternal nod of Fatherly Approval from Daddy, and carries on, changes the world, and enlightens one and all. The thing is–her students possessed abilities and THEIR OWN STORIES the entire time. Somewhere along the way, they were taught to read, make letters, write, sing their ABCs, etc. I wonder if these narratives seep into our culture to the point where students can’t see past their own experiences, either, making short-cut assumptions about their teachers, no matter their race, gender or age.
The dangers of the ‘rockstar’ teacher or group include the shallow dismissal and incorrect thin-slicing of a group or individual personalities and dynamics. As in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Danger of a Single Story,” (which Beatty alludes to in her essay as well), the danger lies in accepting one’s perspective as the only perspective, and everyone else is getting it wrong.
Stop: it’s not a zero-sum game. It’s not a competition. It’s not a ‘celebration’ when there are winners and losers. It’s a celebration when it’s a celebration, and everyone is invited to the table.
Beatty distinguishes between pity and empathy: pity leaves us all diminished and weakened. Pity is the beast that lower the bar, doesn’t maintain high expectations, or gives a pass when too tired to keep pushing. Empathy, however, should work reciprocally: we and our students come to better understandings of one another’s, and our goals align. (Easier said than done, clearly.)
“Pity means I tell students who I think they are; empathy means I ask them, again and again, to tell me who they are. Such a shift resets a power imbalance. Classrooms where teachers and students actively work against the narratives and misconceptions that batter them are places where real learning happens.”
What Beatty comes to, and where I came to a long time ago, was that students are so much more than a Hollywood narrative, and so are we. When we work together and stop putting each other in ‘rockstar’ or competitive situations, zero-sum games, when we don’t reduce one another as colleagues or reduce our students to simple numbers, we see a much bigger and more beautiful picture, a bigger life, one larger than any Hollywood truncated narrative. As the next few weeks fall into summer, what final messages will I, in some cases desperately, in other cases seamlessly, instill in my students?
Well, as friends read Beatty’s post on social media, many agreed with the list of damaging teacher films. But everyone still likes “Bad Teacher.” Okay, I’ll let that one slide.
Teacher Appreciation Week is May 7-12: I thought it was this week and asked my students to write their favorite teacher, coach, counselor, mentor, etc. a poem last week, thinking it was this week, but…yeah. Typical. A few students immediately had someone in mind, but some didn’t, and that concerns me.
Some wanted to write about me, but the standard rule that they need to think about someone else. It was strange how many didn’t have a connection or relationship with an another adult in the building to say “thanks.” Writing on demand is difficult, so maybe this extra week will give them the headspace to come up with someone. Maybe they just don’t know the other teachers in the building, for many reasons. We’re all kind of siloed this year, and with any luck and work that will change.
Here’s the thing: do we teachers do a good job of giving thanks to one another, especially if that colleague has been openly hostile? Do we show our colleagues the respect they deserve, even if personalities clash? Can we see beyond the petty disagreements, passive-aggressive communication, undermining behaviors for just one week to consider, “You know, I think you’re a jerk, but you are a good teacher and care about our students?”
My call to action is this: write your colleagues a letter, poem or haiku and tell them thanks — every last one. Find something good about their teaching style that helps kids. Aggressive colleagues are sometimes the best teachers. They don’t have time for small talk or niceties. I confess I have been thought of as that ‘aggressive colleague.’ It’s not my intention to scare a colleague or increase anxiety, in a colleague or myself. It is my intention to make a great environment for students, and I’ll focus on that.
Writing this post means I’ve outed myself, but heck, few people read this anyway. With deep sincerity: if you are reading this, you are an awesome teacher. Really. You have found your path to best serve students, and have the friendships you need. We all work too hard with heart, mind, and soul not to be respectful to one another.
And for the love of pencils, don’t buy them a chicken:
*Yes, keep these passive aggressive thoughts to yourself. Let the respect show only.
Throwing this out there: I need a writing group. I need the accountability and presence of other ideas. I am wondering if my lack of writing with any regularity, except for this blog, is a result of no structure, the end of PSWP, and not finding another NWP. Writing Workshop works. It is an exceptional means to help students grow as readers and writers. I’ve tried to sell colleagues on it, and because they haven’t been to the mountaintop and met with gurus of enlightenment like my friends Holly Stein and Kim Norton, they don’t believe me.
So I just have to make sure it fits with my students, and keep proving it, time and again.
Our school is trying to do many things in a hurry to get students at grade level: PLC work is the big focus, and for math and ELA, the district provides rough ‘frameworks’ but at least for the ELA group, they’re never done, or if they are, there is a conflict or confusion between the PLC created Common Formative Assessments and the district created ones. These are not mutually exclusive, but nor does this jive with the spirit of a PLC, and that is to be agile and responsive to student needs in an intentional means. Assessments that might be best for students at one middle school in the district may not be what’s most needed for ours.
Along with the PLC work, the administration wants us to focus on our grading practices, and the discussion is open and collaborative. It has always been my personal policy not to mark things down for being ‘late.’ Convoluted systems and make-up work tangles up the process, so I make it simple: there is a due date, and the assignment will ‘close’ a week afterward. It’s marked zero and missing to affect grades because if it’s not, the student isn’t aware it’s missing. These are middle school kids, remember. Once it’s done, I give it full credit. If it’s an assignment that is rubric based, they have time to redo it for a better grade. Assessments for our PLC and district are scored accordingly, but marked as “no count.”
Recently Ethical ELA posted an article about flexibility and student learning:
The writer used my favorite quote that I use as my tagline, and this–this is a fantastic idea:
What will you do with your one precious life? They reflected on their values, dreamed about what, who, and where they wanted to be, took a career quiz, read biographies, explored opportunities in high school, looked into part-time jobs, explored colleges, searched apartments, created a budget, read about philanthropic options, developed mottos, wrote a speech to synthesize the research in the voice of their future self (see an example below), and created a slideshow with images to support the content (e.g., Slides, A Life as an Artist, also see below). I set up a schedule for three students to be “guest speakers” each Friday through January, February, and March.
I may start off with my ‘ambassador of the table’ and then move to the guest speaker idea.
Before the break, the well-laid plans included a quick version of Greek mythology, then onto Box of Destiny! Ah, well. Add three snow days, a studio teacher workshop for the ELA department, the ‘no immigrants’ protest day, things did not go as planned. Do they ever? So, instead of the full-blown BoD presentations, I asked them to focus on just the story of their character from first-person perspective. Developmentally, this shift is very difficult for some students, and that makes it all the more valuable. Many had their stories done, many had them started, and many couldn’t get out of the starting gate, with all the scaffolds available. We did a modified writing workshop protocol on Friday, and I took the papers home to write feedback for one and all. Between my hand-written and typed feedback in Canvas, I hope to see some growth for the next project.
Life is not linear, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s why whenever I watch a Marzano or other expert they always use a math example, not an ELA or social studies one, because reading, writing, and history are messy indeed. But that’s okay: I know other experts to draw from, including my own knowledge and experience. If you want to come to the mountaintop with me, I’ll take you there.
I’m still recovering from my winter break gall bladder removal: the big incision pinches, my diet has changed, and it’s January. And this particular cyclical January has millions of us in the U.S. and around the world incredibly anxious. This month was the ’17 TechExpo and proudly a few Minecraft Club members rallied and represented.
Ethan, Hannah and me
This year the Minecraft Club hasn’t been as big as it’s been in the past, and I’m not sure if it’s because we have a new staff and it needs some promoting. Regardless, we have some hardcore fans. The students have to provide it for themselves, but I’m still working to change that.
One thing that struck me as odd, and irksome, was a woman, (not sure what her role was, etc.,) asked me if “all the kids were doing was just playing Minecraft” for the booth, and yes, basically, that was it. The ‘l’esprit de l’escalier‘ moment came when I thought of all the things I should have said, namely, ‘Go ask the students yourself.” I learned later she asked an IT person who was helping in the general area the same question. It put me on the defense: I’m constantly educating other educators about the benefits of Minecraft in terms of coding, narrative, resource management, etc.
My inner voice screams: WHAT THE HECK DO YOU WANT?! Manage thy expectations, ma’am.
But honestly, sometimes…I just get a little burnt out. It’s exhausting constantly meeting others expectations. Or falling short.
One thing, though, that wipes away a snooty lady who questions the existence and right of students to share a passion they love was a visit from a former student.
I didn’t recognize him at first: when students grow from 8th to 12th grades, they change a lot. We talked, and he shared that he was going to college, he was working, etc., but he seemed kind of down. When he told me of his college plans, I asked him if he remembered my promise to him and his classmates that I would be there for them, long after 8th grade, if they needed help or guidance. He said he did–and then he skipped a beat and said how disappointed he was that he was graduating under Trump’s presidency.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I swallowed and said I was struggling to find silver linings in things, now, too.
But.
Think of it this way: he’s the first one graduating under his own rule– and that is the most powerful thing of all.
His shoulders lifted, and he seemed ready.
That was Thursday night, January 19.
Friday was the inauguration. I made a point to let it go for the day.
On Thursday in class, I tried something slightly new for Part-Time Indian. I took ten theme seed ideas, wrote them on large Post-It notes, and put them around the room at four table stations. The students counted off, and then rotated and discussed which idea out of the group per table. They kept track of their ideas in their composition books. We’ll use this for their own writing about the novel this upcoming week.
The big ideas of Part-Time Indian.
Friday we talked about the arch of one positive idea, and how one positive idea is often conflicted by negativity. I had them draw the diagram of ‘dreams’ and the betrayal idea versus the racism in the novel. On one side, his tribe and community see him as a traitor, but when he goes to Reardan, he is met with constant aggressive and casual racism.
Then I had the students list positive things about themselves. The number of things was determined by one student choosing a random number between 1 and 10. Next, they had to write the same number of negative things, and then determine how those negative things caused obstacles for the positive thing. They can also use this as part of their final reflection about the novel.
And then on Saturday, I was too exhausted, in pain, and sick to get myself to Seattle and march.
So when I get this call to service, to do something else, something more, am I allowed to say “no?”
I write this blog, I plan new, original lessons. I meet with colleagues. I try to walk the dog with my husband. I try to keep up with book club reading choices and read new books for my students. I run two clubs. I am a union rep this year. I stay up on news and curate articles. I watch documentaries. I look and curate new resources. I spend a ton on new books. And this is all part of my personal passions and pursuits. But when I get one more ‘call to adventure’ it’s overwhelming. When I commented on Love, Teach’s post, another commenter told me my service as a union rep was “a good place to start.”
Can someone hand me a Dixie cup of water on this marathon, please?
No one can determine or judge what we do or don’t do. You know why there were millions who marched on Saturday? Because women get it done. Men, good men, do too. We all do our part: we write, draw, take photographs, bravely post our own opinion (even if it doesn’t match others in our circle of friends), and try to come to understand. Listening to understand, instead of responding, is critical, and something I could work on. Concurrently, however, I am not going to back away from my beliefs that are based on deep research and reading. If new information or actions occur that help all Americans, I’ll listen. So far nothing but “post-truth” or “alternative facts” in some Orwellian nightmare has seen the light, but I’ll still look.
And working together as classrooms and community is the best thing of all. Love this idea from Ethical ELA:
In class, we talked about the concept of betraying one’s community. We took a stand up vote:
How many think Arnold betrayed his community?
(no one stood up)
How many think his community betrayed him?
(most students stood up)
I asked those who remained conflicted or neutral to share their thoughts. It is in that ‘third place’ where a lot of truth is told. It is hard to see the community made to feel ashamed that they weren’t able to provide the life and education Arnold/Junior deserves, and understand why they don’t cheer him on when he leaves.
This is our shared conflict: stay in the tribe and ‘go along’ or speak up and question? How do we share of ourselves and our gifts? If we want something different or break away, do we risk losing our past?
For now, this is what I share, and what I do. Many of my social media contacts have hidden me. That does hurt, just a little. But it’s also their choice is they want to read my message or not. I read everything — echo chambers are boring. I can’t control whether or not they want to curate or prune me from their feeds. And as uncomfortable as that is, it is.
Currently, is there any topic that more widely confusing and debated than learning targets/success criteria?
Right about now, I’d love to adopt John Spencer’s Design Thinking, use and implement what I know from Kelly Gallagher, Kylene Beers, Donnalyn Miller, Pernille Ripp, and the writers at Ethical ELA, Marzano, DuFour, Mattos. Richard DuFour and Mike Mattos both clearly said the learning targets and success criteria do not have to change each day: it depends on the instruction. The clarity and teaching points are the important factors. But now I’m doubting my own ears, sensing their sage advice was a phantom, a mist…an illusion with a puff of confirmation bias.
But this is the current obstacle: the staff and district are so singularly focused on narrow interpretations of learning targets and success criteria tunnel vision is a distinct outcome, and I have witnessed that my students this year are less engaged, grudgingly compliant, and lacking in curiosity more than I’ve ever seen before.
Things are too dry, laid bare, and not engaging or interesting at all–it’s become very teacher-focused and demanding, and not supportive or interesting.
Time to shake things up.
Yes – know where students are going. Be clear. But engagement and inquiry mean the timing and creation of goals needs, nay demands, to be more student driven.
Here is where I contend not just learning target but teaching points are more valuable for students, along with more discussion, teacher feedback, etc. Tracking and parroting learning targets are a waste of time. However, analysis and reflection are not, and incredibly important: there is a huge difference with digging deeper with a skill or strategy and its purpose, and moreover, transference.
Here is my takeaway from this: understanding what the ‘rules of the game are’ isn’t the same as not allowing students to craft and design. I sense many teachers/coaches are not understanding this nuance. Take his example of Australian football: if you told the students the rules of the game that doesn’t mean they’re going to be great football players– all that means is they are allowed to inquire and strategize of how to play the game well.
Do not confuse success criteria with strategies or mastery.
If our goal, our objective, as we’ve repeatedly stated is to have students drive their learning, the most effective measure by John Hattie, etc. then please consider who’s in control of their learning; the teacher or the student?
This is what I’m trying to do with my Reading Road Trip, but we haven’t left the driveway yet:
I decided the best way to approach the quarter would be with the question of where stories come from, how authors craft stories for readers, and why we read and listen to stories. Framing our independent reading this way, meant that my job was to ask these questions every day and to set up experiences for students to explore these questions. Standards related to author’s craft, words in context, public speaking, and reading diverse, complex texts informed my instruction as I developed essentially five parts to our class, which I will explain below (independent reading, close reading, text structure, language lessons, and read alouds).Essentially, however, I organized our daily time this way:
Monday through Thursday: 7 minutes of language study,34 minutes of reading and conferring individually and in small groups; during the 34 minutes, I would either take a small group to a table to do a mini-lesson or I would meet with students individually to book talk options and confer about what they were noticing about their books.
Fridays: readalouds
. These days, students would read short pieces while their classmates/ audience would listen for and document textual evidence of sensory language, figurative language, tone, mood, word choice, character interaction, etc.
Daily Portfolio Development: Every day, students were responsible for documenting their reading experiences. They’d take pictures of books and sticky notes; they’d document reading responses on Google forms. We used these artifacts for an end-of-quarter portfolio to demonstrate learning and negotiate final grades.
Can I get this moving with a student teacher, other demands, PLC work, district demands, and general tomfoolery of a Title I school (everyone has an agenda, including me, on what works best)?
Someone mentioned the other day our scores have never been good. I guess compared to the district’s numbers, that’s true. Not sure if I paraphrased that correctly, but that was the conclusion she drew.
But have they shown growth? Resoundingly yes.
So, for a few moments, I thought I would look over the scores on the OSPI School Report site, and they are a mixed bag of growth and famine. Consider in the ten years we’ve had three state tests, and during the SBA(C) time the first year of a pilot year, we had no results or data to review. My continuing concern is that the SBA is not a transparent assessment, and we’ve been working mostly blind for years. The fact that my students scored 65-75% passing last year is a testament to them, not me. Overall, last year the 7th grade ELA PLC (of which I was a part) showed significant gains:
41% in 2015-201635% in 2014-2015
But herein lies the rub: whenever we make decisions about what’s best, how do we accurately gauge based on only two years’ worth of data? In other years my 7/8th-grade students grew from about 40% of passing reading to 60-65% on the WASL/MSP. Those years included as many best practices as I could muster, working as the Curriculum Leader in a collaborative way, and cross-content teams. It’s false to paint a picture that our students have never grown.
Here’s what I do know: if you focus on teaching it, students learn it. Clear and concise instruction that includes skills and strategies, with a hefty dose of student self-reflection, independence and choice make the most sense.
What data battles have you had to fight? Is it providing students with reading ideas based on solely their Lexile? Is the collective or group/team misinterpreting the data?
My biggest obstacle to instruction, however, isn’t from others, it’s from my students themselves. Those steeped in learned helplessness and confusion. Somehow along the way they have no idea what’s happening, and don’t try at all, and turn nothing in. And it is different for every student, and unpredictable (and thank goodness–this would limit my ability to truly get to know them).
So———-November. Nine weeks or so till the end of first semester. With my student teacher’s help, I think we can do this. Getting students to read, transfer those skills and strategies to bolster their reading confidence can only help. We’ve got this, right?
Your neck tingles. You feel the hot breath, tinted with salmon bones and gooseberries, mingle in your cheaply-shampooed hair; feeling unprotected, vulnerable, and instinctually aware, you know someone just played the research card, and it feels like a bear attack–wild, demobilizing and terrifying. How do you survive?
Remember that word ‘collaboration’ we’re so fond of? Well, this is where it’s put to the test. When our personalities and teaching styles clash with others, and deductive reasoning paints us in a pedagogical corner, we’re left with few other options than to go to the research well and find other credible experts who support our own teacher-action research and experience. Sometimes it seems our own knowledge and experience aren’t worth the certificate paper it’s printed on. Conversely, when we are convinced of our methods, so sure that our approaches are the best and right, we do so at our peril and ignore a balanced approach. In other words, we’re all trying to do our best, but what if others don’t see our best as credible?
The specific controversy is about independent reading time. There are hundreds more in education. Here are the links to the authors:
Strategic, solid teachers are constantly striving to hone their craft, and honor their own life experience. Shanahan argues that independent reading time is a waste of time. I claim trying to make teachers into robotic close-reading drones is worse. Far, far worse.
After reading the key points, I condensed these ideas:
Asking anyone to sit for twenty minutes with a book/text of their choice and independent reading level feels hollow and difficult. If you use it for babysitting time while you check e-mails, etc. students quickly grasp the hypocrisy. When they read, you read.
Make your shared text time as meaningful and enlightening as possible in order for students to return to their independent reading time armed with confidence and courage. This is THEIR time, their passion, which leads me to the next point:
And ELA teachers: there is no question we have it tough, but our work has never been more important. My observations and anecdotal data collection includes the increased amount of time students, especially of poverty, spend consuming media and not creating.The struggle to convince students into having faith in me, that we’ll get to use their laptops for creative ends, and bear with me while we do forumulaic mandates. But yes, I’ve seen good close-reading lessons, controversial discussions and working through big thematic, enduring understandings fill their minds with good stuff.
This blog post by John Spencer sums it up for me, and something I hold dear: “Should Schools Be More Confusing?” Yes. And teachers should allow each other to practice research and ask the tough, inquisitive questions, too.
“We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.” –Rod Serling
Agency represents the power that derives from the pursuit of those questions that matter most to students. It is what fuels action, a central component of YPAR that allows young people to attend to and explore firsthand the nuances of issues that have a direct bearing on their lives. It is contextually bound, always in negotiation, and mediated by the histories, social interactions, and cultures that young people’s identities are entangled within. We argue that agency cannot be framed as a competency then, but as a capacity to imagine and act upon the world. Central to this is the opening of spaces for students in their plurality, spaces where they can examine their relationships with each other, with texts, and with the world.”
