Race to the Top

As I am enjoying the sun shining through the living room window, I decided to flip through the upper reaches of the cable channels. In the 900's you'll find radio stations. I decided to see what was on KUOW, the local NPR affiliate out of the University of Washington. I really enjoy Weekday, when I get a chance to listen, and find Steve Scher to be a great host (ability to ask direct questions, let people speak, and keep the conversation moving).

This morning the program is called "Race to the Top." One thing that I found interesting, which piggybacks off of yesterday's posting, was the quote "there isn't a magic bullet. This isn't rocket science." The speaker mentioned the need for additional time, which I agree with somewhat. I certainly agree with the notion that we need to go into the summer, if for no other reason than the fact we aren't predominately agrarian anymore! What I wonder about is why we can't succeed within the time structure (daily) that we have currently? If you structure your time effectively, what prevents you from making the gains of those who are going 7-5? The other issue is that 7-5 inspires burnout in teachers. My September through December were largely 7-5 days, and I felt awful. Now it wasn't 7-5 with kids, but rather 7-5 with planning on the front and back end. Do I do that now? To a degree, but I leave by 4 or 4:30, and do additional time at home. Alas I digress.

Great Teaching Part 2

The article "What Makes a Great Teacher?" in the Atlantic Monthly was an interesting read. In particular, the actual "secrets" of TFA teachers made me giggle a little bit. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry really, which is a feeling I have when I see almost any media outlet discussing "great teachers." When ABC did a short 2 minute bit spotlighting people that make a difference (2 teachers in this case) I was mildly mortified. Why? Because the reasons they were being spotlighted, much like those in this article, are simply characteristics teachers should embody. Perseverance, willingness to change, commitment, reflection, intelligence, etc are all traits that teachers should have.


None of the secrets revealed in the article were earth shattering to me. In fact, my own "research" (done via discussions with people coming from various teaching programs) shows that most programs stress those secrets to their students. I could get cheeky, but I'll refrain. Of course you want to be frequently checking for understanding. How else will you know if your teaching is being effective? Of course you want to revise your practice. If something is not working, or isn't working well, then you need to spend the time finding a way to make it work for your kids (not for you, but for your kids). Yes, you need to involve kids and parents in the learning. Yes you need to be committed to student success on a very deep level. Certainly you need high expectations. If you went up to 100 educators and asked them if they believe in these ideas, my guess is that at least 90 would agree with all of them. Now do they all actually do these things? I'm not sure what the percentage would be... 60-70%? Actually do them well? Lower than that.

What I found to be amusing was the mental math example in the article. Why? At our New Teacher training on Thursday we were discussing high access/involvement strategies for students. Hand raising is akin to giving kids a ticket to La La Land. As a teacher, you are allowing students to opt into your lesson, while others are allowed to opt out. Earlier in the year I did a mixture of this, along with selecting kids... usually after a prompt of "let's hear from someone we haven't heard from yet." That was part of my whole group instruction, and I did monitor who was involved. I'd then check with those who didn't raise hands as I floated during guided practice or independent work.

In this instance I'd have kids write it on scratch paper and correct with a partner (a mental math partner- done either as ability groups or heterogeneously). We do mental math as our morning warm up 2-3 times a week, and it is a set of 10 problems on the board that they do in a journal we created (construction paper over lined paper) and check with their shoulder partner. I then pull Popsicle sticks to solicit responses. If someone were to get it wrong after checking, then we do a thumbs up/down with another Popsicle stick with someone showing/telling the process and the answer. This allows them to see where they went wrong. In the example the teacher had them shout it out, which does a few things. 1) It could easily be a signal that shouting out (blurting out) is acceptable (low access to learning), 2) It provides little to no information that you can use since you have 20-30 voices going at once. So how are you really checking for understanding?

The last point I wanted to make was about the process. The process "I do, we do, you do" is far from new. What I would have enjoyed is seeing more of the we do, you do in this article. What does the teacher do during guided and independent practice? Are they pulling small groups (using the checks for understanding to reteach)? Is the teacher floating around to table groups? How did they establish the guided/independent routines, assuming they exist in these classrooms?

I feel a bit like I am slamming other teachers, which isn't my intent. But I do find myself a little offended when TFA-ers or KIPP teachers are spotlighted for their "magic" when non-Ivy League, hard working teachers are doing the same things (if not better) and receive no credit. Do I want TV cameras? Truthfully, no since that is another distraction and takes time away from getting kids to standard (and beyond). I simply want a more representative article of the teaching profession.

What Makes a Great Teacher?

We are at Spring Break. Hooray. Breaks are welcomed, not because it is a chance to go on vacation but rather because it is an opportunity to recharge. My current plan is taking Saturday-Wednesday off from all things school, then spending at least one day in the classroom and another doing some planning/grading. How am I doing so far? Pretty good, blog reading aside.

In cleaning out my google reader, I stumbled upon a response to this article in the Atlantic Monthly. As a whole, I'm not really sure where to start. In the big picture, I think articles like these are written for educated people who wonder "what has gone wrong with our schools?" I'm not sure the motives of the Atlantic piece. Is it to make teaching seem accessible to anyone might consider a career change? Is it trying to advocate for a larger economy of scale for programs like Teach for America or KIPP? To be honest, I'm not sure what the motives are.

I'm on record as thinking that those programs (toss in most, if not all, charter schools and the Harlem Children's Zone as well) are not replicable on the broader scale. Using economic terms, which business people can relate to, you would seem to make a good thing great by increasing the economy of scale. You have less of a cost if you expand it to a broader audience. Have those programs had success? In some cases they have, their statistics bear that out. I say "their" because there has been one independent study of teacher efficacy in TFA (showing better math scores than public scores, but negligible gains in reading). Are they as successful as they are purported to be? No.

Keep in mind that charter schools (not TFA) have total control of their population, and have the ability to skim off those students that are low achieving for academic or behavior reasons. Do they say that they do this? Yes and no. In many cases they say that you can be asked to leave the program if you don't abide by their rules, which is essentially a blanket excuse for skimming without actually saying it. Ahhh but where do those "troubled" kids go? They dropout or they end up in public school, exacerbating the disparity. Each kid taken away from the charter school means fewer students in the equation for statistical purposes, while adding one to public schools makes the percentage look a few percentage points worse. In addition, the shelf-life of a TFA or KIPP teacher is typically 3-5 years. A revolving door of teachers is NOT what our public schools need. In my next post I'll look at the micro issues in the article.

Weird Weeks

There are times during the year where the schedule is tossed out the window. The result is some loss of stability. We have optional conferences Monday and Tuesday, which means early dismissal at 11:30. After that we have our normal Wednesday early dismissal but an assembly from 9:30-10:15. Thursday we have a fairly normal day, aside from an art docent coming into one of the rotations. Oh, and Friday is a professional development day.

I feel like this is fairly typical of conference time. While we are staunch defenders of instructional time, some loss is inevitable when it is taken out of your control. Even though we try to maintain some semblance of order with our rotations, kids are still fixated on the differences "You mean there is no 3rd rotation? You mean we are going to an assembly? What about homework? How does this work?" That is right, some kids ask for homework... which does say something about the job we do. They still want order.

Pass it on

Two links to pass along. The first was about the movement to create common standards in the United States. The second is called "Building a Better Teacher." This morning is was the most emailed story on the NY Times, and now it is 6th (by 8pm). I haven't finished the latter article, but I made it halfway and am intrigued.

The first article is interesting as well. I read it during lunch today, and still feel the same way: common standards are good. I have never really understood why we have 50 different sets of education standards. If you could explain that to me that would be great. I believe the 2 main ideas I've heard were: 1) there are regional differences that need to be accounted for in standards and 2) each state should have the right to do what is best for its kids. I get both thoughts, but find each to be flawed. There are differences between Washington and Arkansas, but not enough for us to have different standards for reading (or math, or science, etc). Doesn't everyone need to be able to able to comprehend text (summarize, ask q's, make connections, etc)? Why should each state invest money into developing standards? Wouldn't we better served pooling our resources, and pushing the savings into instruction?

Impossible is Nothing

A few years back, Adidas had the campaign "Impossible is nothing."

I loved the commercials for many reasons, not least among them that Haile is one of the greatest distance runners of all time. Where am I going with this? What really gets me are the responses: It's impossible, OR It's too easy. I feel like I hear those responses too often. The big picture is that there is this unwillingness to struggle intellectually. The other piece is the unwillingness to push beyond what is provided, and seek out other solutions.

Things can certainly be easy. The challenge is often in taking them beyond the basic level, which sometimes needs to be done independently. I think back to Haile, the runner in the video (a person I look up to), and wonder whether he said "that is impossible." I'm sure trying and failing led him to that response initially. But what was it that made him persist until he ultimately broke his own record (9 times over)? How do I help instill that in my kids?

Week Two of Novel Study

Finally, after what seemed like a month of talking about it, our novel study kicked off. We started on Monday with a book pass where kids looked at the books and ranked them 1-5. Then I tabulated those and put them into book groups. Each kid gets a book, and a packet of work to do. I know I know, the dreaded packet!

In my packet of work you get:
-1 vocabulary sheet to find an unfamiliar word and go through the process of synonym, antonym, definition, picture, usage. It was provided by a wonderful teacher in the district who got it from Busy Teacher's Cafe. It certainly beat making my own reproducible.
-1 front and back FQR sheet. They summarize the main events from their section in the Fact section, write questions they had in the Question section, and respond/reflect in the Response section.
-1 cover sheet with due dates and skills outlined.

My day is a little different now too. They come in and get started right away on their reading, usually the first 15-20 minutes. Add that up over the course of the week and they get at least 60 minutes of reading and work time on their FQR sheet. During that time I am conferencing with kids, and taking notes on the computer (fluency, retell, that sort of thing). It takes away the total time I have for social studies, but is worth it in getting them to be focused on reading and getting them thinking about what they read.

How has it gone? Really great. Kids are enjoying it, and most are asking really wonderful and authentic questions. I think the highlight was having book group meetings on Friday. I used some role sheets from Literature Circles. While recording/role sheets aren't ideal, they are part of my release model. I need a go-between to ensure that everyone is on task and with it in their groups (which I circulate to while they are meeting).

Next up is week two, and getting them to improve on the work they are already doing. What do we think about while we read? How can we note the main events, and put them into complete sentences (plus have some voice!)? Where can we find evidence that elaborates on our statements? All good stuff that is in the works.

I Like to Laugh

That isn't true. I love to laugh, and would laugh all day long if I could. The past few weeks have been rather hectic. After our midwinter break that spanned the end of one week and the beginning of the next, everything has been in overdrive. School has seemed to have everything coming at once, from budget talk to state tests to student share night. Added onto that was buying a house (doing all of the many things that go with that) and trying to rehab from a pulled quad (2 times). But all the while I've found some funny things to laugh about...

• Crazy hat day was yesterday, and one of my kiddos wore a cowboy/girl hat. She came running back from recess and gave a "yeee-haww" with her arm doing the lasso. It was quite funny, and she cracks me up.
• The comparison of the Sign of the Beaver to camping. I'm not sure that Matt, in the 1700's, was going to be heading to the General Store when he ran out of molasses, but perhaps if he were camping...
• I laughed when I saw that the focus of a new school was on technology. Personally, I believe my district is a fairly tech heavy district. I also know that I use technology A LOT. But I don't think either of us says "we are focusing on technology." Instead the focus is on great instruction that will help students grow as learners. Can technology help with that? Absolutely. My kids are using the Internet to find/read articles for current events. They are researching to add information to our class wiki. They are creating presentations and Photostory work to go with reading and writing they have done. We create audio versions of work using Audacity, and we do all sorts of things. But those are all extensions of the instruction I already provide. Could I provide great instruction without technology? Yes. But it would be an adjustment. I always wonder, how will technology make this lesson better? If it won't, then it isn't worth using at that time.
• "Wait a second, you mean I need to summarize all that I read (20 pages) by the end of the week?" Yes, yes you do.