Stop the Madness!

I am writing this blog from the classroom where I am proctoring the first part of the NYS Math Exam.  I am here to relieve the proctor who began the test.  All proctors are afforded this benefit.  The students must sit.

There are eleven seventh graders who began testing about an hour before I arrived (15 minutes ago).  Four were still working at that point.  Now, there is only one student still working.  Students are not permitted to speak until the end of the testing time.  They cannot read, do homework, draw, or use electronic devices of any kind.  These eleven children, like several hundred others throughout our building, like thousands across New York State, are practicing the skill of timewasting.  Forbidden to engage in any constructive activity, one student makes a pile of eraser crumbs.  Two students independently play (almost) silently with their pencils.  Several have their heads down, although this enforced lethargy does not seem to lead to actual sleep.  One plays with a snap bracelet (too noisy, I must ask her to stop).  No need for resentment to build against the lone student still working -- even when he finishes.  This state of twitchy, stifling, monotony will go on until the mandated exam period is over.

As adults, parents, and educators we often lament the time our students "waste" on Facebook, texting or watching "Annoying Orange" videos on Youtube, but socializing is a critical piece of adolescent development.  Humor is vital to all of us for a healthy spirit.  I would argue that forcibly wasting our children's time in this manner is shameful.

But the rules and requirements of state testing are clearly beyond the realm of my control, so how is it an appropriate topic for this blog?  Think of your own classroom while students are testing.  What happens as students who work more quickly finish, but some take the entire class period to finish?  How many of your students are productively engaged in another activity, how many are sitting with their heads down leaving you to clean up the drool before the next class comes in?  What restrictions do you place on their post-test activities?

My challenge to you is to offer your students some post-test options that encourage them to think.  I'm not suggesting tying it to the assessment or offering extra credit, but as an analogy, my daughters will eat chips and junk if it's around, and they're left to their own devices, but if I buy fresh fruit and keep that around, they'll eat that and be just as happy.  Some kids will be mentally burnt after a challenging test, and may need a "mental break" to do nothing more than put their head down, but let's stop the madness of mandated monotony.

Tweet Your Bucket Full

I just finished reading an inspirational book by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton called How Full is your Bucket. The book is a summary (written for the layperson) of Clifton's lifetime body of work studying the impact of positive and negative interactions with our friends, family, colleagues, and even strangers. They say that positive interactions "fill our buckets".

I think most of us realize the impact of a sincere compliment -- I know it can lighten my step throughout the day.  Sometimes I'll even pull out the memory of it later, and wrap myself in it like a cozy blanket.  I also, unfortunately, have had my share of negative interactions whose memories sneak up and undermine my confidence at inopportune moments.

Rath and Clifton recommend actively "filling other people's buckets" -- giving sincere compliments and personally acknowledging those with whom you interact in a positive way -- as a way of filling your own bucket.  I have found that growing my PLN with Twitter is an almost constant stream into my bucket, as well as providing endless opportunities to do some bucket-filling.

Consider the thoughtful retweet.  (I use the word thoughtful, because random retweets are meaningless). When you retweet another professional, you are effectively letting all of your followers know that you think that idea is worthwhile enough to share.  You have filled that Tweeter's bucket.

Consider the uptweet.  When you read a blog post that impresses you in some way, and you uptweet it to your followers, you again are making a statement that what this person wrote, among all the posts you may have read that day, is worth your followers' valuable time to read themselves.  You have filled that bloggers bucket.

Consider the side conversations that can sometimes develop from a Twitter chat.  The majority of those I've had have grown from a mutual sharing of ideas.  Sometimes they are shared values, sometimes the ideas are at odds.  In either case, the willingness to engage in professional dialogue shows that you value the other's ideas enough to take the time for a conversation.

The professional Twitter community of educators that I have been a part of for almost a year has rarely yielded negative interactions.  On the contrary, the connections I have made energize me as a professional, and as a human being.

So here's my challenge to you:

Pay closer attention to your retweets and uptweets.  Acknowledge to yourself that you are filling the author's bucket.  Pay attention to when you are retweeted or uptweeted, because your bucket deserves to be filled to.

Let me know how it goes!

Madeline Hunter 2012

Madeline Hunter is one of those names in education that I recall studying back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I was studying to be a teacher.  Yes, I confessed to being only 40 in my last post, but when I think back to typing some of my papers on a typewriter, it seems we're in a completely different world now. 

I landed in teaching in sort of a backward way.  My undergrad degrees were in French and music, and I did not take any education courses until grad school.  I completed my Master's program in fifteen calendar months -- including studetn teaching.  To be honest, all the names and which names matched which theories were all a blur -- especially as I tried to simply survive student teaching.

I recently picked up a copy of Hunter's Mastery Teaching.  It is designed to accompany a video series, but read it anyway.  I would, in fact, encourage any veteran teacher to revisit "the classics" through the lens of a seasoned teacher -- I think Hunter would agree.

So here's a quote from Madeline Hunter's Mastery Teaching:

...it is important for teachers to identify consciously and deliberately the decisions needing to be made in each category and base their decisions on research-validated knowledge.  Equally important is teachers' ability to "read" signals from students and to assess the learning situation so necessary adjustments will be made.

From my perspective as a veteran (but still growing) teacher, I offer this:

Plan your lessons thoughtfully, but be ready to seize those "teachable moments".  Be prepared to be flexible.  Listen to  your students so you can better meet your learning needs.  Be data-informed, but not data-driven -- in other words, don't box yourself in based on last year's results from assessments taken by last year's students.  Date from last week may even be overridden by a sudden breakthough in learning, or an unexpected tragedy affecting students in your class.

If your teaching employs only science, you're a technologist.  If your "art" does not have a scientific foundation, you're simply a promising amateur.  You need both art and science to be a mastery teacher.

--Madeline Hunter, Mastery Teaching

So my challenge to you is to go read something by Madeline Hunter.  Think about it in relation to your teaching and your students.

Let me know how it goes!

Ed Reform, or Finger Pointing?

Two posts in two days...can you tell it was a rough day?  I stepped back from self-paced language learning  and pulled my classes together for some cultural inquiry in preparation for National French Week (Nov 8-14 for all of you who had a burning desire to know!)  Silly me, I thought I'd have them read a couple of blogs...in English, of course, since they're novice learners of French.  No brainer, right?  Wrong.  Eighth grade.  You would have thought the world had stopped spinning.  Many of my students can't read.  Eighth grade.  Difficulties ranging from "a bit of a struggle", to "it might as well have been written in French".  Major eye-opener.  Needless to say, that lesson was an

EPIC FAIL:

Extreme Perseverance Is Crucial       First Attempt In Learning

I restructured my lesson, and it worked better with my next two classes, but it got me thinking about all the finger-pointing that goes on in the so-called ed-reform movement.  (I hate that term because it's so politically charged and ideologically motivated).  My reflection about my students, their issues, needs, and where they come from made me want to paraphrase some statements that either have been or could have been (based on circumstances) made to me by students with whom I have had contact over the years.

• English isn't my first language
• My mom's an exotic dancer
• Call me Vicki -- that's my street name.  I'm a prostitute.
• I have ADHD.  I don't always take my medication.
• We haven't had electricity at home in over a month.
• I have a learning disability.
• I smoke pot.
• Sometimes I can't control my bowels.  I smell bad.
• I have to go to court to testify against my uncle.  He molested me.
• I get bullied every day.
• I won't be in school tomorrow.  I have to help my mom pack.  We got evicted
• My rapist just got out of jail.
• My mom has cancer.
• None of my teachers look like me.  I'm black (Hispanic, Asian, Native American)
• My parents are divorced.
• My parents are dead.
• I live with my grandparents because my mom can't handle being a parent.
• I'm pregnant.
• I think my girlfriend is pregnant.
• I got so trashed last night!
• My mom lives just down the street, but she doesn't want to see me.  Ever.
• I'm afraid to come to school.
• There's no food in my house.
• I won't be in school for a while, because I'm going to rehab.
• My family likes my sister best.
• I cut myself when I'm sad.
• I'm mentally ill.
• I've been in trouble for dealing drugs.
• My dad committed suicide over the weekend.
• I'm autistic.
• My mom is mentally ill.
• You think my mom was drunk at Open House?  You should see her at home.
• I have Asperger's Syndrome.
• My 17 year old sister died of emphysema.  My mom has forgotten all about me.
• If you call my house, make sure to talk to my mom, because my dad hits me.
• Nobody else cares, so neither do I.
• I'm on probation.
• I have no friends because I smell bad.  I smell bad because I don't wash.  I don't wash because it keeps my cousin from waking me up for sex.
• I'll never be as good as my sister.
• My mom's afraid of my dad.  So am I.
• I'm a kleptomaniac.
• I'm a pathological liar.
• My mom's in a nursing home because she's too obese to take care of herself.  Or me.
• My father died. My mom doesn't know how we'll pay the bills.
• My 20 year old sister has been taking care of me and my brother since our mom died, but our house just burned down, and we have nowhere to stay.
• I'm in your class because I threatened to kill the other teacher.
• I have speech problems.
• I'm hard of hearing.
• I'm blind.
• I'm a junior.  I just came back to school after having my baby, but now my house burned down.
• I think I'm going to kill my father.
• I bashed my stepfather in the head with a shovel so he would stop beating my mom.
• I'm in a wheelchair.
• My parents use me and my brothers to hurt each other.
• My stepfather is mean when he drinks.
• I hate my mother's boyfriend.
• My parents punish me by making me dig holes in the backyard until dark with no food.
• I can't read, but there is not enough of a discrepancy between my IQ and achievement scores for me to qualify for special ed services.
• I sleep most nights in a tent in the backyard with my boyfriend.  Our parents don't care.
• I have to take care of my parents.
• My boyfriend hits me, but my mom says I have too much invested in the relationship to break up with him.

I've only been teaching for sixteen years.  Every one of these statements comes from a student I have known in that time.  I teach in suburban America -- perhaps in a neighborhood like yours. 

To all who would point fingers at who is to blame for these students' failures, (inability to read at eighth grade):  Who would you say is at fault when they don't learn? Can you really put the bulk of the blame on teachers?  Budget cuts?  Unions? Public education? Parents? Society? Youtube?

When my students arrive in September, many of them have been dealing with the aforementioned issues (and this list is by no means comprehensive) for a lifetime, years, months, weeks, or maybe an issue comes up mid-year in the blink of an eye.  I know adults who would be brought to their knees by lesser problems than I have seen teenagers defeat and rise above.  Others flounder, and slip through the cracks of an imperfect system.  Still, some continue to insist on laying blame, because finger-pointing is easy, makes a good sound bite, and gets politicians elected. (It can also make you temporarily feel better when you're frustrated, and I'm certainly not above it from time to time, but the good feeling never lasts, and it never solves anything.)

Learning is complex, and there are any number of variables which can affect learning outcomes -- many of which are utterly outside the realm of control of any current system, or any system proposed by ed reformers.

So here is my challenge:  before you point a finger and demand accountability, take ten steps back, and look at the big picture.

Let me know if you're still pointing that finger.

Setting Goals

In a lot of ways, goals to effect change are what this blog is about.  In the words of Mahatma Ghandi, "Be the change you want to see in the world".  If I'm writing well enough, and making my points effectively, there are teachers out there (at least one?  maybe?)  who have set goals for themselves based on the challenges I put forth.  Goalsetting can be a useful strategy in every aspect of life.

It's been almost a decade since my school district moved away from the traditional annual teacher observation to the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) model which begins with a SMART goal.  (If you are unfamiliar with SMART goals, please check out this SlideShare by Elona Hartjes.  This is what I used to present the concept to my eighth graders.)

Setting Goals The Smart Way

View more presentations from Elona Hartjes

When SMART goals were first introduced to us, it seemed to make a lot of sense -- a lot more so than putting on a dog and pony show once a year (although one of the highest compliments I ever received from a student was that I didn't act "different" on observation day).  SMART goals seemed a very common-sense and effective way to plan for and measure change.  As the years passed, I often wondered what was wrong with me that I could not write an acceptable SMART goal.  I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person (feel free to disagree) and I would say the same for my colleagues.  But being sent back to the drawing board umpteen times, or having an administrator just plain rewrite it for me becomes demoralizing after a while.  It was as if adminstration found a sound theory in SMART goals, but decided to sharpen it to a fine point and stab their teachers to death with it.

So out of frustration I was pretty down on the whole SMART goal concept for awhile.  This year, with the self-pacing I'm doing with my students, I realized very quickly that I needed to hand over the reins (see my post on Control ) and instead of giving them each their tasks at the start of class each day, they should be setting their own goals, and telling me their daily plan.

Easier said than done.  Experience (read:  prior bad judgment) has taught me not to approach something like this without first training students.  "Ok class, write a goal" will likely result in responses from "IDK" to "sleep" to "beat level 15 on Angry Birds".  So I started researching goal-setting with students.  You guessed it -- SMART goals were the basis of virtually every example I looked at, and with good reason.  So, after yers of moaning and complaining, I slapped a Band-Aid on my bruised ego (being stabbed to death might have been an exaggeration...) and got to work.  I showed my students Hartjes's SlideShar, and walked them through the goalsetting process using a website called Goalbook.  (fantastic site -- definitely worth checking out!)  They completed their first goals yesterday, and I was impressed.  Some of their metacognition was surprisingly insightful, and I think they were pleased at being given an additional measure of control over their learning.

So my challenge to you is a double-edged goalsetting challenge:  Set a goal for youself to teach your students how to set their own learning goals -- for one topic, one unit, one project, even one class period.  Let me know how it goes!

Control

The tug of war of control between federal and local governments over education, union and school board, parents and school districts, teachers and administrators, are ever-present in any discussion of education reform or transformation.  But the control issue that seems to come up most often in my discussions on both #edchat and #langchat is the issue of student control.

It is evident that in order for students to have more control of their learning, teachers must give up some of their control.  For many teachers, this is a very scary prospect.  The idea that good classroom management equals a quiet classroom filled with obedient students is a traditional view that has been reinforced in teacher education programs for decades.  Then again, I have also seen tweeted and retweeted, even by educators I greatly respect, the sentiment that noisy classrooms are where the most learning is taking place. Judging from my own three-ring circus (read:  classroom), depending on what activities are taking place and how many activities are going on at any given moment, the volume can range from a dull roar to almost pin-drop quiet (which I find almost unnerving) but in either case, students are engaged.

I have students who choose to work alone when they have the opportunity.  I have students who choose the low-tech options when they are available.  With guidance, this is how they learn which learning methods work best for them.  Do they have completely free rein?  Of course not.  Am I endorsing classroom anarchy?  Never.  But students respond positively when allowed to make choices within a system of structure.

I was prompted to post on this topic by an experience I had with my students last week.  I had just introduced them to their electronic portfolios in wikispaces.  They were setting up accounts, embedding their first speaking pieces, when the buzz began among them that there was a chatroom in the wiki.  Now, I had planned to introduce this in the future, so having them discover it on their own, saved me quite a bit of direct instruction.  Of course, my little angels thought they were putting one over on me, but because I let them be in control, I have some found time with this group.

The day after I drafted this post, (but before I had a chance to type it), I had another experience with students that made an even bigger impact on me.  In a class of novice French students, one group was working on being able to count out loud up to 20.  I had selected two different counting songs (here and here) for them to use to model their pronunciation, and use for memory aids.  I was working with other groups for a few minutes, and when I went to check on the counting group, they were watching a youtube video I had never seen before (here).  They knew from a previous class that my teacher account (which was logged in on the computer they were using) did not have youtube blocked, and they took it upon themselves to try to find a better alternative to what I had offered.  They were successful.  I subsequently used the video they found with other classes, who also enjoyed it.  Here was a group of students who were allowed some control of their learning, realized there were better alternatives out there, found them, used them, and LEARNED.  I couldn't have planned it as well myself.

Giving students choice will not bring the world to an end.  In fact, it just might make your classroom manageable.  You might even find your students teaching YOU a thing or two.

My challenge to you:  Find one area in which you are willing to give up some control to your students -- homework, seating, practice method, assessment method.  Let them surprise you.