I was sitting in a conference in another state last week when the conversation got heated.

We had just listened to a very well executed presentation about how to improve assessments so that they minimize the "chance for student error other than not knowing." We'd heard about PLCs and how to make them work. We'd heard about the power of shared assessment rubrics and the value of examining student work. We'd all drunk the kool-aid and sat smiling, basking in the glow of new learning with all its potential for impacting student growth. 

Then reality began to crash in. My colleagues from another district (in that other state) began to recognize the vast gulf--the chasm--between the promise of this ideal about which they'd learned and grown excited, and the real resource and personnel limitations they knew they'd face upon arrival back home.

How are we supposed to do this? They pleaded. We're already so busy doing everything else we have to and we don't even have time to do all that--and now there's more?

The answer was obvious:

By Travis Wittwer

In keeping with October's theme of Invisibles, I share with you ... The Meetings, but first, a brief definition. "Invisibles" is a general term for all of the unseen things that teachers do to keep the education machine running. The goal of October is to bring a few of these Invisibles to light so that people outside of the school setting have a clear idea of what it is like inside the school. 

So on to The Meetings as my teaching partner and I have been all week. It started on Monday .... 

I woke up in the middle of the night, and knew something was wrong. I was cold, hot, shaking, queasy, everything ached. I stumbled into the bathroom to find a thermometer and wait…

wait…

yup. A fever. Now it’s definitive. I’m sick.

Like somehow I didn’t know that until after the little number popped up on the thermometer.

Well, it’s probably just a little virus, or something I ate. Uncomfortable, unpleasant, but not serious I consoled myself as I curled up on the floor by the toilet where I would be spending the next few hours.

A temperature tells us our immune system is working. It’s fighting off the weakness in the body and in a day or two, we will be well again. Most fevers don’t send us running off to the doctor. Unless they persist…

A fever tells us something is wrong. But by itself, it doesn’t tell us what is wrong or how serious it might be. It takes a while to figure out if you need to call in sick, or check into the hospital.  Just get some rest, or run expensive tests using big humming medical equipment. These are the thoughts running through my head at 2am on the floor of the bathroom.

What does any of this have to do with teaching? Well, since I’m home sick today, I’m sitting here looking at my school’s MSP scores from this past year. We, like many schools, seem to have a bit of a fever. Our scores aren’t where we’d like them to be. They certainly aren’t terrible, but they’ve declined two years in a row. I guess you would call that a fever in reverse.  Anyway, it appears that we’re a bit under the weather. However, the numbers that I’m looking at don’t tell the whole story. It’s a small school. A few kids having a bad day are enough to change our scores from one year to the next. Listen to the staff conversations about this, and we all have an idea what caused the trouble. But what we don’t have is expensive medical equipment that can give us a definitive diagnosis. All we have is the number on the thermometer.

Do we need more professional development to help improve our instruction?

Or new curriculum?

Or a new intervention program?

Or new technology?

Or stronger anti-poverty initiatives?

Or maybe a better thermometer?

Maybe the one we have is broken.

After all, in the past few years we’ve changed our test from the WASL to the MSP, and then changed the administration of that test from paper and pencil to computer based. It’s hard to compare year to year using an inconsistent tool. Looking at National Assessment (NAEP) scores from the past ten years, our 4^th grade state scores have remained relatively unchanged.  It doesn’t seem to matter what we do: which curriculum we adopt, which diagnostic test we administer, which RtI model we embrace. The scores have not wavered in the past decade.

According to the Flynn Effect, we are getting more intelligent over time. If that’s true, then seriously, why aren’t our test scores rising?

I’m not saying we can’t or shouldn’t do anything to try and raise student achievement. On the contrary, I think we need to do even more…way more…to figure out how to level the playing field, provide meaningful, appropriate instruction, and assess it in ways that aren’t skewed by politics. If after a decade this fever has persisted, it seems like it’s time to do more than just keep taking our temperature over and over.

By Tom White

Last Monday night, many of us watched the Seattle Seahawks beat the Green Bay Packers with a controversial touchdown pass. Then we watched it again, and again and again. It was an interesting play; two “referees” saw the same thing from pretty much the same angle, but while the guy on the left saw an interception, the guy on the right saw a touchdown. (See Figure A) The guy on the left then deferred to his colleague and they ruled it a touchdown. It was immediately challenged by the Packers. So the refs went off the field to watch it again and talk about it. Three commercials and 17 replays later, they came back onto the field and ruled it a touchdown. Seahawks win, 14 to 12.

Four days later, on Friday morning, the faculty at my school sat down to watch some very different film. We watched Teachscape videos. Our district is complying with the new teacher evaluation system by using the Charlotte Danielson evaluation model, and we’re using Teachscape to support it. Consequently, we get to spend the majority of our professional development time watching teaching videos and talking about whether the teaching is unsatisfactory, basic, proficient or distinguished.

by Maren Johnson

The auditorium was packed with several hundred teenagers from two school districts when the bell rang for lunch.  No one moved.  The occasion causing the students to sit in place and ignore the bell?  An arts assembly at our school.  In conjunction with a local film festival, our students had watched a movie in their social studies classes and now had the opportunity to hear from the director.  A student asked the guest speaker one last question, "Do you have any advice for aspiring film makers?"   Students wanted to hear the answer, and they weren't going anywhere until they did, lunch bell or not.  Our guest, the award winning film maker Alrick Brown, shared three ideas in response:

1) Study your craft.  If you shake your booty on YouTube, that doesn't mean you're a film maker. If you get a million hits on the internet, that doesn’t mean you’re a film maker. The success needs to be replicable and you get that by studying your craft. 

At first I thought this was some sort of statement against the democratization of art through social media.  Not at all.  Our guest mentioned that the reason he was able to be a successful film maker, making movies in often difficult circumstances in developing countries, was because he studied and worked hard at it: a Masters Degree in Education, followed by two years in the Peace Corps, then a Masters Degree in Film making.   The message of the importance of study and hard work in all careers really seemed to hit home with the students.  Clearly this applies to teachers as well—we need to study our craft!

Video Productions teacher with guest film maker

At curriculum night last week, I parent asked me to share what a typical day was like for first grade. I felt like the guy in the truck commercial. My mind flashed to all the things that had happened that day:

Tamara Mosar

In the state of Washington if you are an English Language
Learner in-country for less than three years you cannot be considered for
special education services. Unless there is written documentation (key word
there being written)of special education services having been received in the
country of origin or if qualifying tests can be administered in the student’s native
language. There is very good reason for this: English Language Learners often seem
slow to make progress in comparison to their grade level peers. They often
display behaviors inappropriate to the classroom: refusing to answer questions
or make eye contact, hiding under desks, violating other student’s personal
space. All of which should be expected from students not yet able to
communicate in English, who come from cultures where eye contact with adults is
not acceptable, have a different definition of personal space, and often have
post traumatic stress syndrome. So the policy is there to attempt to recognize
this reality for ELLs. To give them time to acquire language and acclimate to
our culture, rather than write them off as SPED.

However the policy can backfire. For example I have a student from Bhutan who in infancy was relinquished by her mother to another family in order to keep her from starving to death like two older siblings. Severely malnourished, this child was taken by the new family to a Nepali refugee camp where after care from camp doctors,the adoptive family notes significant developmental delays. Eventually, according to the family, the camp school places this child in special education courses. When the family arrives in the U.S. the child is placed into an age appropriate grade per policy. Parents alert school personnel to the child's history, request grade level retention, and special education services.  ELD and Special Ed staff attempt to start the identification process but hit a dead end because there are no written records from the refugee camp school-just the parent’s word- that
the student received special education services, and there is no Nepali version of the qualifying tests. Policy regarding qualifying ELLs for special ed apparently cannot take ancdotal evidence from parents in place of written documentation or test in the primary language. Thus, the child was left with only ELD services much to the consternation of the family. 

I now have this student in middle school. A notoriously difficult time to qualify even an English speaking student for SPED services. Especially as this child is studious and compliant-you know, the kid who quietly fails. We may be able to squeak in through a Health Impairment qualification because we still can't get around the primary language testing issue. But it will take time. Time we are running out of. And this is how well meaning policy quietly fails.

By Tom White

On the way to the grocery store last Saturday I listened to a wonderful essay called “The Presumption of Decency.” The essential message was that we should presume the best in people, even if we disagree with their views, and it was clearly directed at the current presidential campaign. Then on Sunday I read a column by Eugene Robinson in which he calls for an end to rampant teacher bashing, specifically to the penchant education reformers seem to have for blaming teacher unions for the dismal quality of education in our nation’s poorest neighborhoods.

I couldn’t help but draw a connection between the two and ask the dreamy question, “What if?” What if both sides of the education-reform debate stopped fighting and started working together? (And if you don’t think these two sides are actually fighting each other, it’s time to come down from Candyland and read Class Warfare by Steven Brill and The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch.)

By Travis

Sarah Brown Wessling, an English teacher at Johnston High School and 2010 National Teacher of the Year, wrote that "teachers must be able to expose all the 'invisible' work we do." 

I completely agree.

And her comment made me think of the forest adjacent my school. 

Tamara Mosar

As I followed the Chicago Teacher Union’s strike, getting
past the noise about evaluations, salaries, the right to organize, it became
evident to me the underlying issues point to a conversation about education in
this country few are engaging in. Namely, are we as a nation still willing to
provide a free “quality” education to all children? Now many will tell me there
are numerous people engaged in the Should We Privatize Education debate. I
know. I live thirty minutes from a state that chose to spend a significant
portion of the budget for teachers’ salaries on laptops for every student from
a certain company. But that is not where I am going with this post.

 I don’t think we can enter the conversation of public and political will regarding continued provision
of public education until as a nation we come to consensus as to what
constitutes “Quality Education”. There have been volumes of back chatter
regarding the impediments to a “quality education”: relentless and rising poverty,
bad teachers, bad administrators, bad parents (just once I’d like to hear bad
policy or bad politicians), community violence, limited if any early childhood
education.

But what is “Quality Education”? Does “quality“ mean all
students graduate? Does it mean if a student graduates they are ready to enter
the workforce? Does a “quality” education mean students are prepared to enter college
without the need for remediation in math and English? Or does “quality”
education mean students can demonstrate mastery of subjects in end of course
exams or standardized tests like HSPE, SAT, AP, or IB? Does a “quality”
education include the provision of health care and social services?   Does “quality” education produce a just and compassionate citizenry?

What say you?  Any
takers for this conversation?

By Rob

Struggling students are referred to the Guidance Team.  We identify the most significant barrier to student success.  We develop a plan to address the barrier.  We choose metrics to track the effectiveness of our plan.  We document our interventions and meet regularly to track progress. 

A teacher may bring a student to the team who’s reading below grade level.  We review the student’s reading data.  Perhaps we find evidence they need phonics support.  We align our school’s resources- this student will meet with our reading specialist for an 8 week phonics intervention.  This may lead to improved fluency and the student can then carry the meaning while reading.  As a result, their reading comprehension improves.  I’ve seen this happen.  It demonstrates some of the best work a school can do.

by Maren Johnson

One of the projects I am most excited about this year is facilitating a group of National Board candidates. We have never actually had a National Board cohort in my district before (we are a bit small and rural), but this year we have a healthy sized group--Whoo-hoo!  Even a teacher from a neighboring district is joining us.

We started our first meeting with a "Hope and Fear" protocol for setting group norms that I got from one of the expert National Board trainers in our state.  Participants individually wrote their hopes and fears for the National Board process, shared them, then together came up with norms that would help facilitate the hopes and prevent the fears.

If you skim back through my past posts here, you might notice that I have cast the word "data" with a very specific connotation. I even did a search on SFS for the word "data," and lo and behold, a bunch of my posts--and even more interestingly, a bunch of my comments on other posts were there... and just the snip shown in the search results highlights my apprehension, distrust, reservation, and resistance to data.

While I curse under my breath, I have to recognize: that search? That's data.

I'm having to re-evaluate my own resistance.

As I examine the new teacher evaluation system, I'm in general a proponent of what it contains, but anything that mentions that four-letter-word always unsettles me a little. 

Not long ago I co-presented at a CSTP teacher leadership conference, and one of the points about leadership was to consider how to activate change and to recognize that growth and change cannot happen unless someone is upset. By upset, we didn't mean p'd off, we meant having their status quo challenged in a way that unsettled people enough to get them moving.

I guess that is what the d-word embedded in the new evaluation system is doing to me right now... unsettling me enough to allow me to change. Especially since I discovered Flubaroo.

By Tom White

I was asked to switch from third grade to fourth grade this year. I'm enjoying the change, but one of the realities I'm facing is the increased emphasis on writing instruction. Third graders learn how to write paragraphs, while fourth graders learn how to write with paragraphs. Consequently, I've turned to the five paragraph essay: an effective, flexible starting point for young writers.

Like it or not, the five paragraph format is effective. There's something appealing about introducing a topic, expanding on it in three, detailed paragraphs and finishing with a succinct conclusion. If you can give three good reasons for holding an opinion, then you’ve got something. If you can’t, then you don’t. As there was no way I could come up with three good reasons why my mom should let me play with the lawn darts after my trip to the emergency room, the darts stayed hidden. Understanding the five-paragraph format is a useful tool for anyone with an opinion or an agenda.

It’s flexible. Not only does it work as an essay, but it also comes in handy when writing short stories. You introduce the characters and setting in the first paragraph, throw in a beginning, middle and end and wrap up the story with a fifth paragraph and boom: you’ve got yourself a story. Other uses come quickly to mind: fairy tales, pourquoi tales, even the standard three-part joke can trace its roots to the five-paragraph format. Once you’ve mastered the five paragraph essay, the sky’s the limit.

Although teachers and assessors may tire of the five-part, formulaic pablum put forth by fourth graders, working with young writers is a challenging endeavor. Good teachers know how to use scaffolds; and the five-part format is just that. Think of it as a literary algorithm. Or better yet, imagine John Coltrane or Andre Previn in their youth, banging out “Hot Cross Buns” and “Ode to Joy” while their parents patiently endured those tough times, knowing their future virtuosos had to master the basics before they could conquer the world. Like it or not, kids are not born knowing how to write.

There’s no shame in teaching the five paragraph essay. Not for me, anyway. Writing is easily the most complicated thing we teach. Students need a place to start; something they can grasp and understand and then improvise on. It's time to give the time-honored five-parter it's due.

 

By Kristin

When I saw this poster it made me laugh out loud, partly because it's true and partly because when I face where we are as public educators I can laugh or cry. 

Here's where we are: there is a clear, definable line between students who are successful on tests and students who are not, and that line divides children not only on the basis of academic achievement but of economic status and race.  Poor children don't do as well.  Do I want to cry because the injustice of a broken system feels bigger than me, or do I want to cry because the dirty secret is out?  

This year, I only have 44 students--all 9th graders. 

I'm still working full time, but half of my day involves work as a TOSA, guiding teachers on peer observation learning walks, assisting with PLC initiatives, and other near-the-front-lines work. While this work does require preparation, meetings, and organization, it does not require me to curl up with a stack of papers to grade after my sons have gone to bed (or before they've gotten up). Having only two English classes this year will be a far different experience... previously, five hours of student contact time each day meant as many hours each day of outside-of-my-contract-hours planning, assessment, and feedback. 

It's just part of the gig, so don't read that as a complaint, but rather as a statement of reality.

Part of my role as TOSA is to help with the implementation of the newly mandated Teacher and Principal Evaluation project (TPEP), and again and again I hear from both teachers and administrators that their top concern about this new initiative is not its content, aims, or potential.

It is about time.

By Maren Johnson

Growing up, I never wanted to be a teacher.  My parents were both teachers, my aunt and uncle were teachers, my grandma was a teacher, my great aunt was a teacher.  Not me, I wanted none of it.

After graduating from college, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life.  I joined the Peace Corps.   I applied to be an agricultural volunteer to help small farmers, but instead, I was assigned to be a math teacher for two years in Guinea, West Africa.  I taught in a small town in the rain forest on the border with Liberia.  Before the Peace Corps, there was no math teacher at my school.

Teachers under the tree at my school in Guinea, West Africa

By Kristin

This summer I saw something very similar to the chart you see here. A principal was explaining how she gathered and analyzed student data, and how that data drove her administrative decisions.

You can see, if you click on the chart, that Teacher B didn't do so hot.  Because a teacher's reputation precedes him, what's going to happen if parents find out about Teacher B's scores?  Will they request a class change?  Will they complain?  Test scores are scary for teachers because they don't tell the whole story, but they tell an important part of the story.

1. There is typically a positive correlation between effort and results.

2. Success in high school has surprisingly little to do with how smart you are.

3. Don't accept an opinion just because it is the first one you learn.

3a. Don't discount an opinion just because it contradicts the first one you learned.

4. Make sure that you don't confuse what you know with what you think you know.

5. It is perfectly okay to not know things, as long as you don't stop there.

6. You should make it a habit to question what you think you know and believe.

6a. Changing your opinion about something important, especially when you are faced with new information, is not a sign of weakness.

My living room floor is covered in books, bags of play-doh, math manipulatives, files, and papers. The kitchen counter looks about the same. So does the table, the sofa, my bed. Summer is ending and it’s time to get those lesson plans straightened out to start the year. I could do this at school, but my classroom is in a dark basement with no windows, and the sun is shining.

I’ve spent quite a few hours this past week searching Pinterest and blogs, going through old plan books and files, reading  teacher’s guides, and of course navigating my fancy new Common Core app for just the right mix of beginning of the year lessons. I’ve also spent a lot of time reflecting on how we make these decisions.

By Tom White

As I understand it, the primary form of professional development in Japan is something called Lesson Study; a model in which a team of teachers collaborates on the planning and delivery of a lesson. One lesson. The whole team decides on a topic, picks a lesson and then plans it. Once the lesson plan is complete, one member teaches the lesson to a group of students while the rest of the team studies how the lesson plays out. Their focus is on the students’ interaction with the learning activity. After the lesson, the entire team compares notes, analyzing and reflecting on the lesson. This debriefing session usually evolves into a revision of the lesson, to be taught by a different teacher and observed again by the rest of the team. Only when they’re satisfied with the lesson does the team move on to a different lesson.

It’s important to note that during the observation and the debriefing, the focus is always on the lesson, not the teacher. Furthermore, the lesson is always referred to as “our lesson.” And rightly so, since it was crafted by the team, not the teacher who presented it. This makes lesson study an extremely “safe” way to get teachers out into each other’s rooms and talking about teaching.

I love Lesson Study. I’ve used it in my own school and I’ve help get it going in other schools. What I particularly love is the focus on The Lesson – the most underrated element of teaching; the singular point in which the teacher, the school and the curriculum come into direct contact with the student.

The primary purpose of Lesson Study is the creation of good, tested lessons. That’s why they do it in Japan, where Lesson Study originated during the post-war years. Lesson Study in America also yields quality lessons, but in my experience, the real benefit is the incidental learning that goes on throughout the entire process. As teachers discuss every part of the lesson, they each call upon their experience and training to come up with ideas to share. They listen to each other and debate the possibilities, all the while refining and expanding their own philosophies and teacher tool-kits, thereby benefitting the rest of the thousand-or-so lessons they teach each year. It’s extremely
powerful, especially with a mixture of young and “seasoned” teachers.

Despite all this, Lesson Study hasn’t really caught on in America. This doesn’t surprise me, and I can think of at least three reasons why it hasn’t – and likely won’t – take root in this nation.

First of all, Lesson Study is too gradual for our country. Productive, professional discourse notwithstanding, Lesson Study’s output of two or three quality lessons per year is simply too glacial for a nation that prefers “school reform” over slow, sustainable improvement. We don’t want our low-performing schools to simply “get better;” we want them to “turn around.” Unlike Japan, we want Results Now. In regards to professional development, Japan joined a gym, while America invented liposuction. Ironically, Japan – plodding along with Lesson Study – has become an educational superstar, while American schools, despite our Results Now mentality, haven’t changed a whole lot over the past twenty years.

Besides that, I don’t think there’s enough trust in this country between groups of stakeholders that teachers, working without an administrator or without an “expert” are actually “working.” I recently worked with a group of teachers in Washington D.C., facilitating the formation of two Lesson Study groups. The biggest concern they had was protecting the process and their work from their principal, who they felt would want to either influence their lessons or turn the “study” into another form of evaluative observation. This makes sense, considering that principals are under intense pressure to increase test scores. PD time is precious, and it’s hard to justify squandering it on something that won’t yield immediate, measurable changes in data.

Finally, Lesson Study is simply too simple and too cheap for America, a nation that doesn’t take any professional development model seriously until Corwin Press has had its way with it. It’s not that you can’t find a book about Lesson Study – you can; but you can also reread the first paragraph of this post and save yourself $24.95. It really is that simple. Lesson Study is the minimalist’s model of professional development. The haiku of PLC’s, if you will. In fact, the teachers with whom I was working in D.C. had, within the first hour, and without so much as a binder, figured out the basic process and begun adapting the model so it would work in their school. By the second hour, they had formed their two groups and were working on a set of norms that would guide their meetings. By the fourth hour, one group had starting planning a lesson in which their students would use primary documents dealing with the Iroquois Confederation to write historically accurate recipes using the foods available to the Native People. The other group was working on an activity in which students would look at global patterns of lactose intolerance and make connections to the history of colonialism.

Very cool lessons; but what was even cooler were the conversations they were having: What constitutes a primary document? What’s the operative difference between guided and independent practice? What’s the biology behind lactose intolerance? Why is there so little health data from
Somalia? Should we let the students try to make sense out of a color-coded map before or after we tell them what the colors represent? What exactly is an anticipatory set? How could different tribes eat such different foods and still get adequate nutrition? These discussions, focused on both content and pedagogy, happened without either an expert or an administrator.

Lesson Study is the epitome of high-quality, job-embedded professional development. It’s simple, powerful and effective. It gets teachers talking about their craft and it gets them into each other’s rooms to watch each other teach.

It’s perfect, and it will never catch on in this country.

It’s too bad.

Tamara Mosar

The start of the school year always has me thinking about how I will measure student progress/acheivement and how to share that information in a way that allows students grow as learners. Most years that means I'm re-examining rubrics, re-tooling and preparing to set up student portfolios. For years my district has been looling at Stiggins and how do we assess to promote learning. Accross the state a number of districts are moving to standards based grading. Something Kristin brought up recently.

Philosophically I like standards based grading. I think it offers teachers, students, and families a far more clear and objective picture of learning taking place. Much in the same way TPEP has potential to be a powerful tool for porfessional growth, standards based grading has the potential to be a powerful tool in student learning when accompanied by timely actionable feedback. But there are issues.

By Rob

One of my favorite summer activities was playing fetch in the park with my dog.  After the pooch was worn out we’d sit in the grass and I’d marvel at the swallows that arrive by late morning.  These birds would swoop, dive, bank and turn.  It was dizzying to see how quickly they’d change directions and commit to a new path.

It's a new school year.  I'm teaching biology and chemistry, classes I have taught for years.  This year, however, there is something new--this year, for the first time, my tenth graders are required to pass the Washington state biology end-of-course exam in order to graduate.

My concern is that a high stakes exam that focuses only on biology narrows the curriculum to the detriment of chemistry, physics, and earth science.  The problem? 

By Tamara

Based on recent posts we have all been involved in a great deal of professional development over the summer. All much needed in light of the myriad changes coming down the pike between Common Core Standards,New Teacher Evaluation, and in some cases, like my building, piloting Standards Based Grading and Reporting. I am excited about each of these new "initiatives" (for lack of a better catch-all word). Each holds tremendous potential improving the depth and outcome of student learning, actionable professional growth and development for teachers, and clear communication with families about student learning and achievement. I am also terrified. Taking on all three in a single year feels like drinking from a fire hose. Each one asks us to reconsider and re-evaluate what we do each day in classrooms: how we impart skill and content knowledge to students, how we communicate their journey to mastery, how we assess our own performance. Not terribly unlike going through National Boards. Yet it seems so much more rides on how we adapt to implement these changes. Not just becuase it is an election year, but because we are reaching the tipping point were the industrial revolution model of educating people is no longer serving us. It is time to change.

These last few days I've been immersed in a professional experience that has shifted my direction as a teacher: how to use video as a means for facilitating my own and my colleagues' professional growth.

To use video observation successfully, one key is to look objectively at a video of classroom practice and identify critical teacher actions and student actions that are observable--and to note or record these observable actions without evaluation or judgment. Instead of watching teachers and thinking "I like how they did that" or "that is not a good assignment," my attention shifted to noticing the actions without judgment: "The teacher waited while the student revised his own incorrect verbal answer" or "The student recorded her thoughts on a continuum to self-assess."

Judgment is not forbidden, it just isn't first. By identifying the "observables"--the objective concrete details of teaching and learning--I can build a better foundation for evaluating what I can use to improve my own practice and what specific actions can do this. This all got me thinking.

What do you say when someone tells you they want to be a teacher?

You’ve probably had this conversation: some starry-eyed young college graduate starts to tell you about how he’s going to become a teacher so he can inspire his students and help the parents and do all these great projects and…

I remember when I was that young teacher how deflating it was to hear veteran teachers grumble about how things have changed and all the joy has been taken out of teaching. As a novice teacher, I vowed to never get all bitter and grumbly.

And now?

By Tom

Last winter, Nick Hanauer famously called Washington State “an education reform backwater.” It’s a curious insult. Strictly speaking, a backwater is a stretch of river that moves slowly, due to a dam or other obstruction. It’s water that’s “backed up.” Washington’s geography, of course, is dominated by the Columbia River, which winds its way slowly from the Canadian border to the Pacific, through 11 hydroelectric dams, which render it, for all intents and purposes, a 745-mile “backwater,” a label that belies the fact that it provides power and irrigation for most of the northwest.

But that’s not what Hanauer had in mind with his insult. He was complaining that education reform tends to move slowly here in Washington State, due mostly to the obstruction of the Washington Education Association. If only he could have seen what I saw this summer.

By Mark

This summer, I've been participating in a book study about challenges in implementing Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts. In that spirit, I sat down today to look at my scope and sequence for the classes I teach (Freshman English Lit and Comp). All along I've been saying to myself and others that this whole Common Core Standards shifting is no big deal: we're already doing that work, it's just a matter of identifying in those standards all the things we already do--we won't really have to do much that is "new."

As it turns out, this whole process really made me rethink what I teach and how I teach. I found that there were many standards which were addressed, reinforced, and assessed in basically every single unit of the sequence. I also found a few standards which never appeared more than once, buried as a footnote in some broader unit. More concerning: some of the projects and assessments that I and my students enjoy the most were supported by only tenuous connections (at best) to the standards. 

This coming school year, I anticipate that many of my posts will reflect my process with the Common Core. Interestingly, when I try to characterize my feelings, the first word that pops into my head (however irrational this may be) is the word mourning. Some of those projects that kids seem to connect with so well lack strong connection to Common Core, even if they are the tasks that former students still recall to me ten years later. No matter how much I, or they, love the experience, these are the things I really need to examine and honestly assess whether they belong in my classroom under my new expectations.

As I try to help other teachers make this transition to the new standards, I need to remember that word that popped into my head. As I encounter resistance, I need to remember that isn't just about being "opposed to change." I need to remember that the first reaction when you are told to do something new might not actually be a reaction to that which is new, but rather a quick and confusing pang of loss for something deeply enjoyed that no longer seems to fit. 

By Tom

Last summer I was part of a panel discussion with several other teachers. As it was winding down, the moderator asked us one final question. “What would you say is the most important factor impacting student learning?” Each panelist said something about class size, funding, standards, blah, blah, blah.

I got to go last. “The most important factor, as far as I’m concerned,” I said, “Is the extent to which we as teachers are able to work effectively with our students’ families.”

I still think that’s true.

By Kristin

My school, a middle school, has been implementing standards-based grading.  It's a big deal for us, but elementary schools have been doing this for years. That means that when parents see an A on the report card, they can assume their child has met and is exceeding grade-level standards in that content area, even if he was the most disruptive child in the class and one who rarely did homework.  The standards we're using are the Common Core standards, and we've moved to consistency within grade level content areas.  

This transition means we've had to move away from things like marking down for late work, averaging a quiz's grade with a retake, or offering extra credit. 

There has been much respectful compromising.

By Mark

It is wonderful when businesses offer ways to support effective teaching. People can speculate about the advancement of agendas, but anything that can offer opportunities to help teachers hone their craft and thus increase student achievment is a good thing.

I'm sure you've seen these commercials from Exxon Mobil about supporting science and math education:

 

Let's solve this: I like that. However, one piece of rhetoric is more troubling: "Let's raise academic standards across the nation" (00:15).

By Mark

An opportunity arose about two months ago. It would have meant less work, more pay. It would have meant not losing evenings and weekends to grading papers and planning. When I sat to do my pro/con t-chart to help my decision making, the list of reasons why I should take the new job was longer than the list of reasons why I shouldn't.

Sometimes quality outweighs quantity, though. More money, more time, less "work": those ought to have been very appealing.

There was but one reason I chose to stay in the classroom and stay in education...and it is a selfish reason:

By Tamara

So my dad asked me the other day what on earth would be the
benefit of dismantling the Department of Education. His question was prompted
by an article he recently came across. My response was,” have you heard of X,
Y, Z testing/educational publishing companies?”

If we did away with the Department of Education and public
schooling as we know it, these companies as well as private on-line schools are
poised to make bank. Along with their politically connected supporters (note I
did not single out a particular party-gains will be on both sides of the
aisle).

The New York Times not too long ago chronicled the gaffe
about a prompt regarding a pineapple on state exams. The testing company
responsible for the item in question holds the sole contract for standardized tests
not only for New York City public schools, but the entire state of Texas.
Apparently anti-trust laws don’t apply when annual testing has been legislate-
thank you NCLB.

The fact is privatization of our education system is a very
real possibility. Either through the dismantling of federal departments or the
lure of click-for-credit on-line programs. The question is, how is public
education going to respond and deal with this reality? And will our children
benefit or suffer from the outcome of the debate?

 

By Tamara

I experienced a huge learning curve this year. One of the
most significant I’ve had in some time. I jumped into the world of virtual
education and taught a course form my district’s on-line credit retrieval
program.

Now there are numerous and vastly divergent views in our
world of education when it comes to on-line learning programs. Here is what I
learned from dipping my oar in it:

• 
  By offering virtual courses in addition to
  traditional classes, my district was able to keep a significant number of
  students enrolled who otherwise would have left for private on line programs.
• 
  On-line “learning” is NOT a silver bullet for
  failing/struggling students: if a kid can’t read at grade level, is not a self
  starter, and struggles to with attendance; what is essentially virtual
  independent study is likely not the best solution.
• 
  But….virtual classes do offer those kids a fresh
  start and blank slate with a virtual teacher who knows nothing of behavior
  issues, poor attitude, etc…Students also get one-on-one attention through
  email, instant messaging, and the feedback given for every submitted
  assignment. It caters to their comfort with and preference for digital
  communication. I also noticed (and was blown away by) how many of my students
  requested reading strategy support and help with organizing their writing who
  took my suggestions and ACTUALLY PUT THEM TO USE.
• 
  If we educators put the kind of time and energy
  into the weekly progress reports, emails/instant messages to kids “where are
  you? Why haven’t I heard from you?” and parent/guardian contact the program
  requires, I bet over half these kids would have never failed in the first
  place.

The concept of blended virtual and traditional classes is
going to be the norm-with all the good and bad that brings. If we in public
education can’t find a way to embrace that and work within that reality, the
private sector is more than ready and willing to take it on. Along with all the
funding attached.

 

By Mark

I do believe that ADD and ADHD are real. However, I do not believe they are as prevalent as the diagnoses suggest. A recent article in the New York Times (online) took this concern to a new dimension, for me at least, with the revelation that students, in response to the high stakes and pressures for academic achievement, have taken to abusing the stimulants typically prescribed for ADD/ADHD.

As troubling as this drug use is, it is a symptom of a much larger problem in our society and our education system: we are test obsessed and we have created a subset of society for whom there is prestige and glory in being over-scheduled and over-stressed rather than in being intelligent.

So here's the question: who is it that makes school so hard that kids turn to these measures?

By Tom

I was teaching my third graders how to solve division problems the other day. Specifically, we were solving story problems which involved division, and the students had to figure out what to do with the remainders.

The first problem involved brownies. There were three people sharing sixteen brownies, and we figured out that each person received five whole brownies and one-third of the last one. Simple enough.

The next problem involved balloons. Again, three people had to share sixteen balloons. Balloons, of course, don’t lend themselves well to fractions; a third of a balloon is essentially worthless. For this problem, we decided the best answer was five balloons each, with one balloon left over, to be popped. For some reason, third graders always prefer to pop the leftover balloon, rather than let one of the five people have it. Maybe it’s greed; maybe it’s the thrill. Who knows.

We practiced several of each type of problem, until they got pretty good at deciding whether a problem was a brownie problem, where the remainder gets turned into a fraction, or a balloon problem, where the remainder is left alone.

Then I introduced a new problem. Sixteen people were going on a boat ride. They had to rent rowboats, and each boat held three people. How many boats would they need?

“Five and one-third!” said Ronald. He saw this as a brownie problem.

“So Ronald, you think they should rent five whole boats and then get one-third of another boat?”

“Of course!” He was adamant.

Let me explain about Ronald.

By Mark

I'm not quite ready for the paradigm shift to year-round-school. However, like many teachers, I am concerned with that "summer brain drain" that inevitably happens when younguns are separated from the oppressive tyranny of teachers for the months of July and August... I don't know about you, but the "three month summer vacation" is long gone where I live. June is for school.

It struck me yesterday (as my ninth grade students were having one of those so-good-it-gives-the-teacher-goosebumps discussions of how various literary elements and author's decision making influence the manifestation of unversal themes) how incredibly far my students have come as critical thinkers. With four days of class before the final exam--then a long stretch with no regular exercise of that mental muscle--my worry crystallized sharply.

Of course, I encourage my students to always have a book they are reading for fun--fiction preferably, but a good biography or nonfiction tome is equally wonderful. In my close-of-the-year parent mailer, I encourage small bites of learning: car-ride discussions of books, online free math games that actually involve computation not monkeys shooting darts at balloons, setting up routine family trips to the library. As we might assume, the students who get this kind of family support and structure are not necessarily the ones who need it most.

What do schools do, or what can they do, or what should they do to keep the minds of students growing over the summer?

By Tom

Last Wednesday I found myself in a conference room as part of a task force focused on implementing Washington State’s new evaluation system in our school district. As the day progressed, I learned five important things:

1. Thank God for the WEA. As the legislation behind the new system made its way through Olympia, our teachers’ union worked feverishly to insure that most of the important details would be worked out at the local level – where teachers themselves would have the greatest chance of being heard. That’s essentially why I was sitting in that conference room instead of teaching in my classroom. The reason why the WEA worked so hard on this front is open to interpretation. If you’re an idiot and/or an editorial writer for the Seattle Times, it’s because the union is greedily trying to maintain the status quo by giving ineffective teachers a greater chance of keeping their jobs. The rest of us understand that no one’s interests are served when teachers are treated like voiceless, dispensable cogs in a system where every decision is made from the top down. Like I said; it’s open to interpretation.

2. People will be losing their jobs. Early in the meeting a principal sitting across the table said something that startled me: “At least a third of my teachers are going to fail under this evaluation system.” I was taken aback, “How can you know that, when we haven’t even fleshed out the details?” “I’ve been in their rooms,” he said, “I know how they teach, and I know how they’ll score on this evaluation.” The WEA, along with OSPI and local school districts have tried to emphasize the potential to tie this evaluation system to professional development, and I’m sure they’ll succeed, to a point. But make no mistake: this system was originally conceived and is currently perceived as a way to facilitate the removal of poor teachers.

By Tamara

My master teacher is retiring in twelve school days. It is hard to imagine the education landscape without her. Even though we haven't taught in the same building or even subject for years, her presence has always been a reassuring compass.

Like all true master teachers she has seen education fads come and go, the pendulum swing more often than a middle school girl changes her crush. And like all true master teachers she navigated our profession by sticking to the timeless foundation of solid teaching: knowing her students-their interests and aptitudes, well planned units of study that imparted skill while capturing attention without becoming a dog and pony show. Never making excuses for them or letting them excuse themselves because they came from a poor neighborhood and experienced things no one should.

She challenged students to examine what it means to be "Great", never let two sentences start with the same word, and invited them on a journey through western expansion by digging through old suitcases and diaries. If attention ever did wander into trivial activity, she brought it back into focus with a sharp reminder to "Quit FARDING in class! Save the hairbrush and lipstick for the bathroom." I have never witnessed a vocabulary/deportment lesson that held eighth graders in such rapt attention.

It's been over a decade since I had the privilege of student teaching with Mrs. Robinson. I hope in this age of Power Standards, Common Core, and TPEP her brand of solid, foundational teaching remains our ultimate goal.

I sat at my dining room table this morning, finishing up a crossword, before moving on to what’s new in education news.

Budget cuts, great numbers of teachers leaving the profession, and frustrating class sizes are creating an education dilemma. An edulemma, if you will.

In an effort to view the current situation from all perspectives, I donned my alter ego, William P. Levitt, and found that solutions to our educational situation are within reach. 

By Mark

At the close of each year, I always come up with some kind of message--like we all do--to the students who are about to leave my classroom. I posted my message to the class of 2010, ruminated about the significance of the ceremony in 2011, and have been mulling what to share with the class of 2012. Here it goes:

This year I want to address the lies perpetuated by this graduation "celebration." 

I'm talking about the blatant lies and excess flattery penned in cliche'd almost-rhymes in the cards you have been or will be receiving from friends and family over the next few weeks. Thankfully, like much of the homework reading assigned in the last several years you won't be reading those either. I know you'll shake them for cash, check the envelope just in case, then hand them to mom for filing in your memory book.

Let's start with the most seemingly innocuous: "Congratulations, graduate! You did it!"

By Tamara

It is the end of May. Yet, daily, in every period there are three to five students who need a pencil. Or paper. Or both. Or just need to be reintroduced to their binder which has been languishing in their locker. Since January.

This daily inability/disinterest/motivation (I don't know which descriptor to use here, which is the crux of this post) to come to class prepared is less about there being fourteen days of school left than it is about personal responsibility. A reflection really of what this batch of kids expects from life and themselves. I am worried.

Having spent over a decade teaching in Title I schools, students' lack of basic supplies is the norm. So like most title schools we stand in the gap with a heavily discounted student store and many teachers keep extras in their rooms for those kids who really can't access supplies. So there is really no reason other than conscious choice for a student to come to class without basic supplies.

It is that conscious choosing not to bring the materials necessary to actively engage in learning that has me worried. It is not even the typical "I can learn this by osmosis" attitude. The repeat offenders are presenting as uninterested and unconcerned with learning. Now middle school students are not reknowned for great forward thinking or meta-cognition beyond "I think Justin Bieber is really cute/stupid" (though they do often have moments deep thinking and the hardest questions I have ever been asked have come from seventh graders). They do typically get if-then-because kind of logic. The kind that takes poor kids with difficult home lives to skills center, community college, and beyond. These kiddos aren't there. And I don't know that what I am observing can even be called apathy.

It's more a perfect storm of learned helplessness, lack of opportunity, and almost nonexistent value for obtaining knowledge...about anything. I don't believe any of them want to grow up to be stupid. But they certainly don't want to grow up to do anything requiring they come prepared, on time, or with a sense of curiosity. I fear our best intentions have created this storm. These kids KNOW if they hold out long enough we will give them the answer, and the pencil and paper too.

So I am wondering: which acronym in the Ed Reform alphabet soup is going to address accoutability?

By Mark

By nature, I am a pessimistic skeptic. I am a glass-half-empty-because-it-is-cracked-and-leaking kind of person. But, if there's one thing I believe, it is that a person should, no must, be willing to adjust his or her beliefs when faced with new information. 

Thus, though I was a TPEP skeptic at first, as I have learned more, my attitude has shifted.

Thus, though I was a PLC supporter at first, as I have learned more, my attitude has shifted.

I think resistance to a new acronym, doctrine, or mandate is healthy and important. The "new" must be vetted, examined, deconstructed, and challenged in order to become worthy of acceptance. The key there, though, is that if something new can be proved to have merit upon close and level-headed inspection, then it can and should be accepted.

Yet, it is staggering how much energy some people invest into resisting: resisting change, resisting what is new, and even resisting learning that might threaten or contradict their initial knee-jerk and not-fully-informed reaction to the "new."

Case in point: making copies.

By Marge’s Son

In 1966 I started kindergarten. The bus stop was in our front yard, and my mom put me out there with the other kids to wait. “Stand here,” I was told, “and when the bus comes, get on it. When the bus gets to the school, get off and someone will tell you where to go.”

The bus came, but I didn’t get on. Instead, I went back in the house. My mom was there with the rest of my family, and when she saw me I could tell what she was thinking, “This one clearly needs more supervision.”

Which I got. All through school my mom was on top of things. Getting me to bed on time, getting me up on time, making sure my clothes were clean, my lunch was packed and my homework was done correctly. She drove on field trips, stayed home with me when I was sick and baked cupcakes on my birthday. She didn’t do anything huge; she did all the small things that go into raising a child. She did all the stuff that every teacher wants every student’s mom to do.

Twenty years after the failed bus ride I was a very young teacher. I was living at home, trying to save money for my upcoming wedding. My little brother was home from college and we decided to go skiing. It was a Wednesday night and my mom saw me heading out the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Me and Steve are going skiing.”

“Steve and I. And isn’t it a school night? Are your lessons planned for tomorrow?”

Always the mom. Always worrying; never fully convinced that I would succeed without supervision. And always right.

Throughout my career I’ve had to measure every parent of every student against the standard set by my parents. Some have come close. They’ve done all the little things. They get their kids to bed on time, get them up on time, make sure their clothes are clean, their lunches are packed and their homework is done correctly. They come on field trips, stay home with their kids when they’re sick and bake cupcakes on their birthday. They do all the small things that go into raising a child. All the stuff that every teacher wants every student’s mom to do.

Twenty years after the ski trip I was up on a stage at a huge convention center in Washington, DC, receiving an award for teaching. As I stood there, I saw my mom in the crowd. She looked relaxed; as if realizing that a lifetime of supervision – of parenting – had finally paid off.

This is for you, Mom. Thanks for everything.  It’s also for the rest of the moms, who make what we do possible.

 

By Travis

Writing did not come easily to me. In junior high, I would watch my friends energetically write, their pencils dancing away, creating works of great literature, or at least semi-coherent pieces that would garner a passing grade. 

Writing eluded me. I knew what writing was and I was an avid reader, but the power to mold words and phrases into something worthy was beyond me. It was akin to magic.

Science and math were my subjects. I tolerated English because I enjoyed reading. Then in my senior year, my American Literature teacher changed my life.

Mr. Blair was a short man, solidly build. The use of "stout" would fit most welcome on his person. He wore casual clothes as he was also a coach in a variety of sports. Golf shirts and jeans. He did not have the appearance of an amazing teacher. I walked into class on the first day and had him figured out: sports guy who loved worksheets and end of chapter questions. I would nail this semester. 

I left that first day both wrong (totally wrong) and happy at being wrong (a unique endeavor in my early adolescence).

By Mark

There will be coffee awaiting me in the main office tomorrow in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.

Coffee: I used to joke with my students that if any of their papers came back with coffee stains from me, it was a bonus 5 points. That comment comes from a deep memory of receiving back many an assignment in Mrs. Jones's class that had coffee rings on the corners.

On my drive in to work this morning, I got to thinking about Mrs. Jones, from whom I took 9th grade science, chemistry, physics, geometry, Algebra II and Advanced Math Pre-Calc. She was basically half the science department and half the math department in the tiny high school from which I graduated. 

My freshman year, a rather self-important group of us claimed that we were going to get her fired. She simply expected too much of us. It was unreasonable. A few of us had parents on the school board, so we knew it would be a slam dunk.

By Travis

I took my sons to school with me on national Take Your Child to Work day. It humanized me. I have a good rapport with students because I care about them as people outside of my subject area. I know for many students the intricacies of Shakespeare’s language in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is not what is important for their survival that day. I also know that my class may just be a blip on their day of ups and downs. Given this, I work hard to make their time in my class an “up.”

By Mark

Of my seniors, some may graduate, some may become a statistic.

Of the total FTE in my building, some may have jobs next year, some may be RIF'd.

Of the courses on the master schedule, some classes may be scratched, some may be cobbled together.

I may decide to stay in the classroom. So much depends.

All of these this-or-thats will be decided in May. How appropriate.

By Mark

For several years, my building has been identifying and aligning curriculum to standards--first state standards and now Common Core Standards--with part of this process being the identification of the Power Standards! each unit of instruction is to focus upon.

Simultaneously, we are gearing up for a new teacher evaluation system which figures heavily on a teacher's ability to define what his/her students' learning targets are and assess and document student progress toward those targets.

To an extent, both have been an uneasy fit for me as a high school English teacher. It is not so much in the philosophies underpinning these movements. It is that no one that I talk to seems to understand what I've started calling "The English Problem."