Read In

I think I’ve hit on a way to keep the day before winter break begins still focused on learning and away from the hyperactive, cabin fever craziness it can often be.  I may be wrong, but I am willing to try it out.

My students have been begging for a day of reading since the beginning of the school year.  They want to wear their pajamas, drink hot cocoa, and sprawl out on the floor with their books, luxuriating in the time and space to read with no distractions.  Even my most reluctant readers are on board, and the truth is I am happy to do whatever I can to create lifelong readers.

As I was putting December’s calendar together, it hit me:  we should have this Read In the day before break, which is a Thursday half-day.  I have each of my classes for 1.5 hours, which is quite enough time to really sink into a book.  I’ll provide cocoa and tea, and I’ll find some parents willing to donate some fruit and other goodies to snack on.

I introduced the idea to my kids today, and they were thrilled.  We’ll spend our last day together before the winter holidays sprawled on the floor, slurping on cocoa and traveling to the other worlds inside our books.  I can hardly wait, and it’s not because of the two-weeks that follow.

Am I Talking to Myself?

There are days when I wonder if I live in an alternate reality, where in that reality, I am speaking out loud when I am teaching lessons, but in the true, actual reality, I am mute.  Today was one of them.

One of the items on my No Excuses editing list is proper paragraphing.  When I introduced the list, I made sure to follow-up with a lesson about a common error students make in paragraphing:  indenting and double-spacing instead of indenting or double-spacing.  It’s as if students get so paranoid about paragraphing that they feel the need to do both for emphasis.

We looked at examples, I answered questions, and I felt sure paragraphs wouldn’t be a problem for my kids.  But clearly this was one of those times when I was in the alternate reality, because today, no fewer than 25% of my students made that exact error, and they were surprised that it was wrong when I handed their papers back with that comment.

Head:desk.

Fortunately I don’t have this experience every day, or I might have to take a less frustrating job…like working at the DMV for example.

No Excuses Editing

My students are tremendous writers.  They have voice, are well-organized, and write compelling, thoughtful pieces.  In short, they have content in spades.  The editing and presentation, not so much.

The pronoun I isn’t capitalized.  Homophones are used as if their meanings are interchangeable.  Their papers often haven’t been spell checked or proofread with the eyes.  Sometimes it actually looks like someone has bitten off a chunk of their final paper.  I’m not fussing about advanced skills like comma usage or parallelism; we’re talking skills they learned in third or fourth grade.

A fifth grade teacher at our school a couple of years back used a strategy called No Excuses; essentially, she wouldn’t accept any work that any No Excuses errors in them.  I decided to try it with my seventh and eighth graders, and it works like a charm.

I don’t introduce the list until the beginning of second quarter.  I don’t want the beginning of the year to focus on grammar or spelling, though we do discuss editing.  I want the beginning of the year to be about the heart and soul of writing, and too many of my kids think good writing is writing where everything is spelled right and the grammar is good, however lifeless and bland the content is.  No, first quarter is for helping them find topics and pieces they care about.

Second quarter, however, becomes about understanding the reasons for conventions and holding kids accountable for editing on their own with skills they already have.  Right now my students have a list of ten items they are accountable for, but we will add more to the list as we learn more advanced concepts.  Work that has No Excuses errors is handed back and is not considered turned in until it’s fixed.

Today my students discovered I meant what I said.  I had them switch papers and look for No Excuses errors for their partners.  As papers were turned in to me, I quickly scanned them and handed them back immediately to fix with the numbers of the errors from our list affixed to the paper on a sticky note.  They were shocked and a little upset, especially my eighth graders who are held to a rubric that allows only a certain number of late assignments to be eligible for an A.

It is a lot of work upfront.  After all, I end up reading each paper at least twice, and often I have to help kids “see” the errors.  And then there’s the loud, screechy whining to listen to, but that’s just the sign that the strategy is working.

All of the extra work is worth it, however, as I know that the next piece will have fewer people turning in mistake-ridden work and the one after that will have only one or two holdouts.  Ultimately, it saves me grading time, and my students learn to pay attention to detail in an authentic way.

Learning Takes Time

I hear from friends and former colleagues about the pacing guides they’re held to, the speed of light pace they have to keep to “cover” everything in their curriculum.  In the quest for improving test scores, it seems our nation’s schools and government feels the logical thing is to move faster.

Has it occurred to anyone that the problem isn’t getting to everything but not being at liberty to take the time kids need to truly understand and master the content being covered in class?

Learning is complex, and facts are best retained in context.  If we memorize all the pertinent dates of the American Revolution as well as a list of events that caused it, does that mean we truly understand how revolution was possible or why it’s important to our current understanding of our nation?  Are we educating our children to learn groups of facts, or are we educating them for deep understanding and application?  And which path is more important to their–and our nation’s–future?

Thanksgivings Ramblings

It is a complicated year for many reasons. It’s not only the arduous task of classroom management in a notoriously difficult school, not only because we are in the midst of a teacher inquisition, but most importantly because of the obstinacy to education, not just in my students but in policy makers as well.

I’m not fond of teaching religion but I have to. Today, in the middle of a jeopardy game I stopped for that teachable moment to explain that Jesus was a Jew. Obviously I did this for a reason. But I was stunned with the determination of my students to refute this.

After accessing their previous knowledge and referencing the text, we concluded the debate in short order. I guess I should be proud of what I accomplished. But it won’t show up on any standardized test, which to be honest makes my job harder. The students openly talk about what is and what is not on our state standardized tests. They finally concluded correctly that Social Studies is not. So to them Social Studies and American history are not important. The values of a nation have been lost as the mission of educations transfers from producing citizens to producing employees.

I cannot be proud of what my generation has committed itself to.

My father and father-in-law won a world war, ended separate but equal, saw that women gained equal rights, and questioned national authority when their sons were sent off to fight another war, one they did not believe in.

My students asked me what I am most thankful for. I never answered. But I’m going up to bed now and give her a hug. Tomorrow I’ll dine with my father in law and best friend, and I am thankful for that. But when his generation is gone, I do not believe mine is fit to carry on.

Who’s the boss?

It was test time and I knew my students were unprepared. Too many student absences, not enough homework returned. It happens frequently in what is one of the most difficult learning/teaching environments in Philadelphia.

So I stopped the test and talked with my class. What can they change to improve and what can I do to help them?

The feedback I received was: go slower, ask more questions: Valuable feedback indeed.

And I struggle with it. Being able to ask questions that stimulate thinking was always something I prided myself in. But I am on a schedule. I have a core curriculum to follow and must be on certain pages on designated days. I guess some schools, perhaps those with higher socio–economic backgrounds can maintain this pace and effectively teach. It would seem that in my situation my effectiveness has been hampered.

My wife who teaches third grade at a different school was surprised when she saw the work I was correcting. It looked so similar in penmanship and depth to the work her third graders produce.

But I must teach and move forward pretending my students are all at grade level. If I am not teaching where that core curriculum says I should be, I could receive an unfavorable observation and ultimately lose my job. I know who butters my bread, and it’s not my students.

Our students are our customers and we should be serving them. Under No Child Left Behind, we pretend to meet the needs of the students, all the while working to serve those above us, principals, superintendents, and politicians. They have egos and career goals. They have wants and desires that must be met, even if only on paper, just like they did in Russia for years, leading up to its failing and falling.

The American educational system is moving 100% in the wrong direction.  We have chosen to meet the wants of bureaucrats instead of the needs of children. I want to listen to my children. Their voices should point the direction and speed with which I move. But they are not the boss.

 

 

Mandatory Furlough–after the fact

Like many institutions, our school district has asked employees to take a furlough (unpaid days). Well, that’s OK. Anything for the cause and all that.

Here’s how it worked in my district though. We were told we would be paid Quality Teacher Days for parent-teacher conferences, building prep and so on. That’s how we do it every year.

Then a few months down the road, we were told that these days would count for our furlough days–unpaid. But not particularly voluntary.

Well! It feels a little different to volunteer the time  instead of being  promised payment and then have the rules change. Maybe we would have cancelled parent-teacher conferences and figured out furlough days another way. At least we’d have talked it over and chosen together.

Dancing in the Art Room

Most mornings, several kids gather in my art room. I am fortunate to have my room in a detached building from our very old junior high. This used to be the woodshop classroom but alas, with budget cuts, there is no shop teacher. The many gorgeous tools and supplies are in the adjacent shop though .

Who comes into my room? Not the sports jocks, not the cheerleaders, not the student government kids. Nope, the kids who come in you might characterize as the outcasts. What do they want?

Oddly, they want to help. They want to load or unload the kiln, sweep the floor, or this week, they want to help me wind yarn, since we need to divide the skeins for the knitting beanie hat project we are doing.

When I play music, they sometimes dance.

Today I had a modest roomful of kids who would never risk ridicule in the main school, winding yarn, eating peanuts (I brought peanuts–better than sugar, don’t you think), and showing their moves. I took the chance and showed them a few moves too.

Test scores? AYP? NCLB? Grades? Nah.

But real education? Memories? Service? Joy?

Yes, I think so.

The S-Word

Having been in education now for depressingly close to three decades, I’ve noticed that educators are very careful when the opportunity presents itself to describe a student as “smart”.   When I changed teaching jobs and moved from a Connecticut high school to a South Carolina high school in the mid-eighties, I was struck by how teachers used the S-word freely but almost always in a whisper, as in He’s really smart or Oh, she’s smart. I had never heard any teachers in Connecticut ever label a student as smart.  But in South Carolina I heard it fairly often, as if a news flash or notice of some special case.  I won’t attempt to theorize why – it’s just something I noticed.

Then there are those teachers who call everybody smart.  In addition to cheapening the attribute, it’s just not true.  This isn’t Lake Wobegon, after all, where “all the children are above average.”  No one in education seems to want to admit the obvious:  All kids are not smart.  It may be politically correct to say they are, but it’s a lie.  I guess I’d rather be honest than politically correct.

I should point out that I use the term “smart” not in a Howard Gardner sense, but more in a Martin Gardner sense.

I should also point out that my premise that not all kids are smart does not in anyway lead to the conclusion that they cannot learn or that they should not be taught.  Quite the opposite:  All kids can learn, and it is our job to find a way and a pace that accommodates them wherever they may be on this continuum of smartness.  If they’re on the low end (i.e., not smart (there, I said it)) we must work even harder to reach them so that they do learn and are successful.

Why do we have such a problem saying some kids are smart and some are, well, not smart.  We immediately acknowledge without pause that some kids are athletic and some are not athletic.  Or that some are creative and others are not creative.  Why is smart any different?  Is it that, as a society, we place more value in being smart than, say, being athletic?  Not really.  Look at the mean salary of professional athletes compared to the mean salary of rocket scientists.

So what’s the deal?   dven.

Tuition Tax Proposal in Philly

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has proposed a 1% tax on tuition paid by college students.

His rationale? College students don’t contribute to the tax base.

Oh, really? You mean they don’t drive (drivers’ license fees, license plate tax fees, gasoline tax, etc. etc.)? They don’t eat (food tax)? They don’t go to movies, plays, concerts?

Please! If you want to take your pinch of flesh from somebody, why go for those who are almost universally working for minimum wage to support a four-year-long educational endeavor, one that will serve the students of course, but one that will also build the nation?

Commentators point out that such a tax would be way illegal, and certainly held up/stopped in court.

But just proposing it reveals a great deal.