How do you improve schools? --Tom

In my recent reading of the news I came across some of the following articles or websites all dealing with the question of how do you improve our schools.

The first article is from the New York Times, Next Test: Value of $125,000-a-Year Teachers.

In it the author says,

"The school, called the Equity Project, is premised on the theory that excellent teachers — and not revolutionary technology, talented principals or small class size — are the critical ingredient for success. Experts hope it could offer a window into some of the most pressing and elusive questions in education: Is a collection of superb teachers enough to make a great school? Are six-figure salaries the way to get them? And just what makes a teacher great?"

I love those questions, particularly that last one. I just finished a year of study and training to become a teacher in which I wrestled with that very question. I don't want to be just a good teacher. I want to be a great teacher, but how exactly do I do that?

I also came across another New York Times op-ed article entitled, Five Ways To Fix America's Schools. In brief the author says that we should:

• raise the age of compulsory education up to 19 in all states
• borrow high pressure sales tactics for use in reducing casual truancy in schools
• advertise more effectively to get students to college or post-secondary education
• make the college accreditation reports from the Department of Education available to the public
• produce more qualified applicants for higher education

I don't necessarily agree with all of these points, especially the last one, which seems to be saying just teach students better. If it were that easy I think schools would already be doing it.

Finally, the last bit of information I have stumbled across is from the New Teacher Project and their report entitled The Widget Effect. It was mentioned in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Enquirer written by the head of the Philadelphia School System. The overall premise is that school systems need to change the way they evaluate and measure teacher performance because teachers are such an important part of the educational process. It cites information from a study showing that less than one percent of teachers receive unsatisfactory ratings each year, even in schools where students are doing poorly. I invite you to check it out in more detail.

How to Stop an Insurrection (controling your class)

One of my 'aha' moments during student teaching came after a particularly challenging class period, which of course happened to be observed by my university supervisor. The whole period had been a struggle to keep the class focused, on task, and engaged with the lesson I had so painstakingly prepared. I felt like I was on the losing side of a tuck of war. The end of class was in sight and I was trying to squeeze in just a little more instruction before the bell. With about three minutes to go in class a student decided he was done, stood up, and began packing up his stuff. Trying to get in the last little bit of instruction I just ignored him and kept teaching. That was a big mistake. Once some of the students saw him stand up, they also decided it was time to pack up. Any further instruction was not going to be effective.

Sitting down with my university supervisor afterwords to debrief the lesson he mentioned to me that I could have prevented this occurrence if I had simply stopped what he called the "ringleader" from doing it first. By letting the first guy stand up I was sending a subliminal message to the rest of the class that what he was doing was acceptable. If I dealt with the first person who was being disrespectful then I would be sending a message to the other students that the behavior was unacceptable.

A few days later I had a chance to put this technique into practice and it was successful. Lesson learned.

That Darn Yankee and the Almost Mistake

Now, teaching about the Civil War in Virginia as a New Yorker is daunting. But teaching the Civil War for my CT who is an expert and has written books about it, is scarier. In my public school education up North, we spent maybe a week on the entire war. We are spending four weeks on it now. I’m in a whole new ball game.

Before Spring Break, I was teaching the differences between Northerners and Southerners in the Civil War. I came up with a way to creatively teach this in my own unique way. Since my CT was a true Virginian and I am a born and bred New Yorker, we decided to role play a Union and Confederate soldier. As Johnny Reb, my CT put on a confederate costume and talked about missing the plantation and his lack of education on his father’s tenant farm. As Billy Yank, I talked about how my father was an Irish immigrant and my sister worked in the Lowell textile mill. We both refined our accents and spoke in the true regional style.

By the fourth period doing this, my CT and I had this act down pat. I was comfortable with my old “non-teacher Sara speech,” relishing in the fact that my students were getting to see a new side of me. However, I got way too comfortable and turned off my teacher sensor. Somewhere in our act during fourth period, I began to say, “Us New Yorkers like to read magazines, newspapers, and all that other shi… stuff.” I almost cursed in front of the sixth graders. I almost died. I quickly pretended nothing happened and my CT and I continued with the act; on with the show.

I say this was an almost mistake, but really I am horrified that some of the students may have caught on. Luckily, no one said a word and we never heard from a parent. This was one of my biggest lessons that week. I learned that I must always assume the role model position and realized how easy it may be to slip out of it.

Homework: The Numb Factor

I had a conversation with my CT this very morning regarding homework, which has prompted me to expand on my thinking. My CT asked me when I would be giving homework on a daily basis. I responded by telling her I did not believe that homework should be assigned simply for the sake of assigning it. Homework needs to serve a specific purpose and be very meaningful. I just don’t believe in busy work. She disagrees.

I have read article upon article about the usefulness (or uselessness) of homework. In fact, the theme of November’s English Journal issue is homework. The question the issue asks is “Does Homework Help?” The literature consistently points to a resounding no, at least if it is just busy work. Furthermore, teachers have difficulty getting most students to do it. My students have been assigned so much homework, which accounts for only 10% of their grade, taking a zero for an assignment means nothing to them. Through the end of third quarter, they had racked up over 90 assignments. Yes, 90. You do the math; it barely affects their grade. So why would they do it? And yet some teachers persist.

Tonight I will be planning homework for the rest of the week to accommodate my CT’s request, but not without reservations and grunting, much like my students when I give them homework. I had been giving very little homework because I only assigned it when it was necessary, namely, when it would further student learning. Also, my students are required to read every night for the Accelerated Reader program, and usually I would assign extra reading. Reading every night is a perfectly viable and reasonable expectation for English homework.

If students are expected to do homework on a nightly basis, without rhyme or reason, they become numb to its benefits. I like to call this the “numb factor.” They are no longer learning but simply going through the motions. Homework becomes simply busy work, or, as students might say, it becomes torturous and meant only to inflict pain and agony. Plus, I prefer not to have students do anything unless I believe it serves a valuable, reasonably justifiable purpose. This includes every aspect of my planning and teaching, and homework in within that realm.

Because teachers assign so much homework, and because it accounts for so little of students’ grades, they do not benefit from it at all. Of course, the intrinsically motivated still do it. Others, however, just don’t care. I would much rather reserve the homework battle for moments when the homework really matters—not when it would be purposeless and deleterious to student learning.

What Happened!

So our blog took a little hiatus so that we all could finish up our student teaching. Spring break came, everyone went on vacation, and at least in terms of the blog, never came back. I know for myself that once spring break was over, responsibility of planning and teaching a full day worth of classes consumed all the spare time that I had.

Now that we are all graduated the blog is going to take a slightly different form. Since we are all officially teachers and no longer student teachers this blog will be a place where any of the authors can share about anything related to teaching. The lot of us were part of a strong community during our teacher training and it is hoped that this site will allow us to continue sharing what we are doing and learning about teaching. We will no longer be posting once a day like we were prior to spring break. Instead the posting pattern will become totally irregular. You might get no posts for awhile and then a burst of writing. Only time will tell. So keep us on the RSS feed and keep a weather eye out for updates.

As always thanks for reading.

A Colorful Glimpse Into the Soul -- Kyle

How can I reconcile the sheer number of possibilities? How much fun can I have trying to mix and match the limitless options? How many of my students will think I’m crazy because of my choices? These are just a few of the questions that plague my mind every morning when I start to plan out my day. But am I talking about all the instructional decisions I have to make over the course of a day? Don’t be silly! I am, of course, speaking of deciding what to wear to school everyday.

Each day I wake up, confront my wardrobe, and coolly pick out an outfit, which will invariably be described as some member of the animal kingdom as soon as I walk into my room. “Mr. Minner, you look like a turtle today.” (Green shirt, orange tie) “Today you look like a dolphin!” (Light blue shirt, periwinkle tie) “Hey, you look like a blue jay. But a brown one. Yeah, you look like a brown blue jay!” (Gray shirt with multicolored stripes, blue tie, and a brown sports coat). And you know what? I love it! I revel in trying to be as flamboyant and colorful as possible every day without seeming like a crazy person. It brightens up my day when I feel like I’m having fun just because I’m wearing fun clothes. Even if my day is on the brink of disaster, I simply have to look down, admire the unique choice I made, and smile.

Having an interesting wardrobe has more benefits than you might think. Not only does it ensure that I enjoy at least a small part of every day, my students are able to see a part of my personality. They are able to know me as a person, not just as their teacher; so far, this has resulted in increased motivation, a safer classroom environment, and an overall sense of jollity and enjoyment in my room. Having a personality and, most importantly, showing it to my students makes me a real person—a real person who they like. And from my experience thus far, if students like you, they are much more likely to work for you. They are much more likely to enjoy being in your classroom. Most of all, they are much more likely to learn from you because they want to pay attention.

Of course, I do not believe that everyone should suddenly start wearing neon green and bright pink (now there’s an idea…), but I do believe that your wardrobe should mirror your personality. If you can give your students just a small glimpse of yourself, your time in the classroom will be much more enjoyable—especially if you go out and get a brand new seersucker sports coat.

How to Handle a Million Things At Once, or, the Life of a Normal Teacher --Clifton

This past week I was in the middle of planning a lesson when my CT says, "Stop whatever it is that you are doing and get these done." He drops a pile of papers marked confidential on the desk in front of me. Progress reports for all our students with IEPs. Immediately I start second-guessing myself. Does this student have preferential seating? Have they been using it? Or whether or not one student took tests in small groups. A large part of my nervousness is from this being a new task. But I also realize that I was not as familiar with these students' needs as I thought I was.

Later last week as our class draws to a close, and I tell a student that he needs to "pick up the pace," because he needs to turn work in. As I start to move on, the student says something that makes me turn around: "What do you mean?" I don't know what to think but answer him anyway. "You need to work faster because class ends in five minutes and you need to turn that in." As I walk away he says in a joking sounding voice, "Figures of speech won't get you anywhere with me." I remember that this student has Asperger's Disorder and so has trouble understanding figurative language.

I might not always understand when a student is telling me how they need me to teach them. This is not a straightforward task. It's hard to tell what a particular student needs. It is difficult to teach each student in the class the way they learn best. I have been trying to provide students with a variety of different tasks so that they can take advantage of their strengths. No one expects us to be experts yet, but it is frustrating to be constantly confronted with my own shortcomings as a teacher. I'm ready for spring break. The break will give me extra time to think about how I can accomplish everything that I need to in my next unit.

Does Anyone Have Nancy Atwell’s Phone Number?

Lined paper: $3. No. 2 pencils: $2. Colorful pens for revision and editing: $6. Paycheck: $0. The experience of learning to teach writing: priceless.

Being an English teacher, naturally I was excited when I discovered that the first unit I would ever teach was persuasive writing. I love writing, and I love to help others find their voice in writing. The opportunity galvanized me into creating a unit rich with writing workshop activities: writing time, peer reviewing, conferences—the works. Now I know why teaching writing can be an uphill battle. Crashing and burning, and then quickly recovering, in the course of this unit was an invaluable learning experience. I could write extensively on this, but I’ll stick to only a few lessons I learned. Let’s just say I really wish I had Nancy Atwell’s phone number.

The greatest obstacle (not including classroom management) was time. Especially considering that students are not really taught to write these days, I did not anticipate just how much there was to elucidate. My unit of seven days quickly became a unit of ten days. Even then, another week would have done my students well. For example, they did not understand that they had to fully explicate their statements. It was very difficult to articulate to them how to present an idea and exhaust it fully. I finally discovered that telling them to pretend they were explaining their position to a two-year-old child works wonders. Of course, I had to tell them not to write like a two year old.

Also, conferencing always takes far longer than expected. With minimal writing experience, it takes a significant amount of time to help students correct their challenges, even if selecting only the most important aspects of the paper. They all needed a great deal of assistance with composing a good thesis statement, organizing their arguments, fully explaining each new idea, supporting their position, writing topic sentences, using transitions, and writing good introductions and conclusions. Please note: that list does not even begin to touch upon better word choice (they still think “good” and “bad” are acceptable!), spelling, punctuation (commas in particular), verb tense, pronouns, sentence structure (run-on sentences are especially popular), and innumerable other mechanics and usage challenges.

Another challenge in teaching writing was trying to get students to just write. They all wanted to sit and think of the perfect sentence before writing it down. It is as if they think that writing something down is setting it in stone. But then I had an idea… I brought in several of my papers: one revised and edited by a professor, a tenth draft that still had marks all over it, a very first draft, and one that was a first revision. The last was the messiest of them all. I projected them one by one with the document camera while explaining how messy writing is. All I heard was, “wow!” and “ooooooh!” and “geez!” Several students asked if I failed the paper that the professor had marked up, which made me giggle. They were shocked to find I had received an A. It seemed that everything was beginning to click. I highly recommend this strategy, and it would have been most valuable had I thought of it for the very first day.

All in all, I think the unit went very well. My students and I learned a great deal.

Wider Views -- Beth

Something we talked about earlier this week in my seminar class was response to various issues like cheating or disruptive behavior. Our class had several experienced teachers (like over 40 yrs of combined teaching experience) in the room telling us how they have dealt with these types of issues. One experienced teacher stated that we as incoming professionals need to decide what we want our students to walk away with at the end of the semester -- which is hopefully much more than just a better understanding of our content material. In the examples the other teachers gave us, what was clear to me was the ability to listen and be patient with the students and not just assume that the issue’s solution would be black and white. This is not to say the teachers were push-overs. For example, one teacher told us how he responded to irresponsible lab behavior. Instead of banning labs for the rest of the semester (a threat that perhaps was warranted after the poor behavior), the teacher the following day informed the students that he expected adult like behavior in the lab and knew the students could handle this opportunity and that they would be repeating the same lab they did the day before until they could do it correctly. The students then performed as the teacher expected. During my student teaching time I often feel “busy” with all the planning and grading, but this class caused me to reflect on the broader reasons of why I want to be a teacher, to encourage student’s creativity, inquiry, and enjoyment of the scientific world around them, but also the feeling of what it is like to be in a respectful classroom (which I hope I maintain).

The Anti-Snow Dance --Raggs

I had a great idea. I was teaching the Great Depression in my Advanced American Studies classroom, and I realized the excellent educational opportunity that exists given our current economic conditions and the stage of the recovery effort President Obama is in. What a great chance to examine the impact that history has on society today, I thought. And more importantly, it’s an excellent opportunity to relate history to students’ current life, which is the key to motivation for many students. But, if I was going to try to explore the connection, I wanted to do it right. This meant it would not just be a question here and there, but an activity, ideally even a full lesson. This would give students ample opportunities to explore the connections there and see how history really does affect them today.

I was so excited. As per my last entry, I at first had some issues creating interesting and exciting lessons and was ecstatic I had come up with, if I may say so myself, a brilliant idea. I combed the internet for articles exploring the comparison of Obama and Roosevelt and found an excellent New York Times article that outlined many of the similarities between the two men and their eras, as well as a Time magazine cover that had Obama photo-shopped to look like Roosevelt. And while I did feel the students had a decent grasp on the current economic climate, I figured some reinforcement of the situation couldn’t hurt, so I added some graphs and charts on employment, the stock market, and income and savings. And to top it off, I provided the cliff notes version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan of 2009 to see if it looked similar to the New Deal. My brainchild was complete (although I do not pretend to think others had not thought of this idea for a lesson as well).

Then reality hit. Two snow days. Then two days of Standards testing. I all of a sudden had lost two days (as English and History alternate days in my American Studies classroom). We were already a little behind, and this only complicated things. When I sat down to re-plan, I was devastated to discover the easiest way to solve things. It meant mauling my brainchild, which I creatively titled “The New New Deal.” In the course of re-planning my exploration into the current economic climate went from a full lesson, to a half lesson Socratic seminar the last day of the unit, to limited discussion in the second half of the period in which my students took a test (where their attention will surely be minimal). And after creating a test that could accurately measure the learning of my students I realized in all likelihood there would not even be time for a minimal discussion. It now looks like it will be a homework assignment with little to no discussion.

I have loved my student teaching experience thus far. But if there is one frustration I have it is time and standards. On the whole I think standards are both good and necessary. But they are limiting. I think the lesson I had planned would have been very beneficial to students and would have allowed them to make important connections between history and their lives. But, the standards test, which comes before the year is even over, will not have a question of Obama’s stimulus package. And we have to make it to a certain point by the time of the test to ensure our students will receive a passing score. I think everyone, even those who preach the importance of standards, would agree that the goal is to move beyond the standards. Unfortunately, when things have to be cut back to account for unexpected circumstances, the extension activities are usually the first to go. As a teacher, I will try as hard as I can to always move beyond the standards and to teach my students concepts and ideas that connect to their lives, as I have done in this instances as I will at least be able to introduce the similarities and get my students thinking about their current world. But it is not what I wanted it to be, not what I had envisioned. And the standards are not totally to blame (and again, standards are needed), it is simply the time. There is never enough. And this means though that I will likely never do the snow dance with my students. As much as I would love to sleep in, I will be doing the anti-snow dance.