Heat and Light

The terms "heat source" and "light source" have become popular in my office recently. As curriculum coordinators and instructional specialists, we work directly with classroom teachers as advisers and advocates and are specifically instructed to provide "light" (inspiration) rather than "heat" (punishment). It's made me think a lot about the type of leadership we provide for teachers and how or why teachers need light and heat sources.

In our structure, principals are primarily heat sources while curriculum and instruction staff act as light sources. When I was a building level specialist, I never needed to provide heat. Light was sufficient. For example, my strategy with teachers was as follows:

1. Inspire teachers to do the "right thing" (light)- This worked about 80% of the time, through modeling and student response.

2. Ask teachers to do the "right thing"- This worked about 18% of the time, by explaining why, setting the stage for teacher to try, then encouraging their successes and offering suggestions for improvement.

3. Tell teachers to do it, because it is the "right thing" (heat)- For the 2% of the time this was needed, I didn't do it. My principal did.

As I contemplate getting my administrative endorsement, it occurs to me that the administrators role must be a real drag! They are called in to supply the heat while the others get to shed the light. How unfair!

It made me think about the light/heat dichotomy. Maybe it's not either or. Too many heat sources forget that they can also provide light.

Think about it. Too much heat is dangerous, uncomfortable, deathly. But too little heat is dangerous, uncomfortable, deathly as well. When principals begin with heat, it can be a huge comfort for teachers. Think of my process in reverse.

1. Tell teachers what you expect and hold them accountable. Don't make them guess how to do the "right thing"  (heat)

2. Ask teachers to step out of their comfort zone in ways that are uncomfortable, but not unattainable. Support their work and show them that what you have asked them to do is valued by providing time and attention while also limiting the number of things you are asking them to focus on.

3. Inspire teachers to do the right thing (light) by showing them examples of the work done right. Send them to other schools, ask them to observe their colleagues, and perhaps most importantly, model it yourself.

It's not heat OR light. It's heat AND light.

Agree or Disagree?

The 5 Most Significant Responsibilities of the Online Facilitator

1.       Differentiate- Know the students

Create opportunities for getting to know the students: their interests, their learning preferences, their past experiences in traditional school and online environments, their tech savvy. Make the course personal for students in a way that is difficult to do in a traditional classroom.

2.       Set the tone- Ease tension by making a good first impression

Make the first experiences students have with the course positive. Send an introductory email that gives students a clear picture of expectations and requirements for the course, but personalize the first email and module so students get to know you as a person. Make sure they are aware that you are available any time.

3.       Be available- Provide feedback and respond promptly to concerns

Do what you say you’ll do. When a student sends a question, answer it as soon as possible. Check many times per day. Provide feedback as immediately as possible. Make sure the feedback is specific and helps the student understand how to improve and what to continue doing.

4.       Know the content- Be an expert in the information

Be well-versed in the content prior to class beginning and have a variety of professional contacts and information to access in case a question comes up that you cannot answer. Online classes offer students to opportunity to learn from anyone. Give the impression that you are the BEST person for students to learn from by knowing more than the person who may be teaching the traditional course.

5.       Be a good teacher- Utilize the best of traditional pedagogy, but adapt for an online environment

Use time-honored techniques from teaching in a regular classroom (see above), but also adapt to the online environment by trouble-shooting things like technology glitches and ethical issues. Utilize opportunities that online learning gives students and teachers that traditional classrooms would not be able to benefit from (such as asynchronous communication, videos, Skyping, etc.)

My Brain Hurts

Do you ever have the feeling your brain is so full that it can't possibly take another bit of information? I'm having that feeling this morning.

In the past 2 months, I have learned more than I have learned in the past 2 decades. I have read more books, blogs, and articles than I have in a lifetime (at least professionally), and I have had more in-depth, intellectual conversation in 2 weeks than I have had in my career.

It's awesome.

This is what it's about, this "innovation" thing you always hear about. It doesn't feel top-down because my colleagues are real people, with the hearts of teachers, trying to do right by kids in a way that will change our school system in a lasting way, not just to make themselves look good.

I clipped this article byAllan Kelsey from www.leadingleaders.net after an excruciating committee meeting where 16 people were expected to work as a team to write a unit using the UbD framework without dividing up any part of the work. I googled "idea group size" in a passive-aggressive attempt to make myself feel better about the futility of the project. Rereading that article today while looking for something else, a quote struck me:

"Perhaps it is at 5 that the feeling of “team” really begins. At 5 to 8 people, you can have a meeting where everyone can speak out about what the entire group is doing, and everyone feels highly empowered."

While my team of 8 is often divided in a variety of combinations of 2-8 people, the feeling of the 8 meeting together and working together to solve the problems of the world, is pretty amazing.

One of my current favorite professional reads...

... begins the final chapter with this line: "The best educational leaders are in love- in love with the work they do, with the purpose their work serves, and with the people they lead and serve."

I'm definitely in love, but my brain hurts today. Thank goodness I'm headed to a school for a learning walk this afternoon at:

Curriculum 2... 1?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/5617505546/

As a 2001 graduate of high school, I have only taught in the 21st century, yet most of my general education took place in the 20th century. The term "21st Century Learner" was part of my vocabulary from the day I entered an undergraduate education course. The "skills" associated with these "learners" have been the focus of my training from my first days on the job.

I'm no closer to understanding who the heck this 21st Century Learner is.

Am I a 21st century learner because I went to college and began my professinal life in the 21st century? Is my brother? He graduated in 2005 so he was in high school only in the 21st century. Were my second grade students, most of whom were born in the 21st century, the earliest members of this group?

Ultimately, the question is pointless, because, really what is different in the 21st century? How is school that much different for students today than it was when I was in school? The internet and computers already existed. Social networks did not, but instant messaging and email did. Cell phones did (although they certainly did a lot less then!). My teachers forbade all of these things. We still mostly do.

One could argue that school is different, I suppose, but how is curriculum different? Are kids learning different things in different ways?

I suppose these questions led me to purchase only one book at this years' ASCD conference in Boston:

http://www.curriculum21.com/

I agreed and disagreed with much in the book, but I noticed a pattern as I was highlighting away: I was highlighting an awful lot of provacative questions. I decided to begin compiling a list of items to contemplate later, including:

• Is the use of technology an "event"?
• Do (the students) feel as if they are entering a simulation of life in the 1980's?
• How are millions of students still struggling to acquire 19th-century skills in reading, writing, and math supposed to learn this stuff?
• Do our students know what addition is, or only what it looks like?
• What if students are expected to demonstrate their readiness to graduate with independence? What if it takes whatever time it takes, with reasonable guidelines?
• What is the difference between the test we give students in formal learning settings, versus the work portfolios that we discover in the informal learning spaces on the Web?
• What is global competence?
• What values, lifestyles, points of view are included or excluded and why? Where can I get more information, different perspectives, or verify the information? (research, critical thinking)
• How will (our) students be different from how they were on the first day of school?
• Can we change our traditional culture of teaching and learning so that students are empowered to take more responsibility for making important contributions to their own learning and to their learning community?
• Are we educating students for a life of tests or for tests of life?

Wow. Now these are some "curriculum mindshift" questions! When I took a position in the Office of Gifted Education and Curriculum Development, this was the first book assigned to my group of curriculum developers. It has been the topic of 3 formal professional conversations and countless informal conversations. Some key ideas I have taken away from these professional opportunities include the following:

Oh... IN the computer!

In preparation for a professional development session I am attending, I have been reading Heidi Hayes Jacobs' "Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum & Assessment K-12". Though published in 1997, the book has new relevance for my school system as we prepare to map our curriculum K-12, all subjects, for a variety of features including, but not limited to:

• 21st century skills
• Macro concepts such as "Change" and "Systems"
• Habits of Mind
• Integration of content areas
• Literacy (including media literacy)
• Technology integration
• Models and strategies

While most of the book was surprisingly relevant and timely, one thing struck me as interesting and rather amusing: Jacobs regularly refers to putting district information "into the computer" with no reference to how, why, or with what program. My, how far we've come in our use of terminiology since 1997! I keep a OneNote notebook page for my professional reading and included the above image to summarize the HOW of mapping. Ohhhhh... we need to put the information IN the computer!

Stay tuned for a less-sarcastic update on the relevance to "Mapping the Big Picture" post-collaboration with my colleagues!

Curriculum Survey

From UConn

Curriculum Survey

In my new capacity as an instructional specialist for the Department of Curriculum Development, I have recently been tasked to work with my colleagues to develop a survey of questions for teachers and administrators, grades K-12, across our school division to get a sense of the state of our current curriculum. Our aim was to keep positive and look forward, rather than backward. Our plan was also to keep the survey under 10 minutes because we are hoping for some really substantive feedback, but also realize that September is not exactly the best time to ask teachers and administrators for 10 minutes!

Throughout the creation process, one question kept rolling around in my head: How would I answer this question, 3 weeks after leaving the classroom and the world of curriculum consumers rather than producers? I thought it only fair that I answer the questions myself.

1.       What is essential and timeless in your curriculum?

• Inquiry (scientific, mathematical, historical, etc.):  One will always need to inquire, no matter the time or context.
• Written and oral communication: Basic writing and speaking skills connect us all and help us to understand one another. This may evolve over time (for example, Skyping skills or blogging), but will always be a relevant part of the way we connect.

2.       What is non-essential or dated in your curriculum?

• (Dare I say it?) HANDWRITING! This is not something we should teach over and over, but rather something we expect or practice over time. 
• Memorization of dates and names in the absence of conceptual understanding: Why bother? This is what our students are asking themselves (as they should be!).
• The "right" answers: I have a colleague who proclaims that nearly any right answer can be refuted if one "assembles an arguement with evidence".

3.       What should be created that is currently missing in your curriculum?

• Cohesive planning documents that help to integrate content, particularly at the elementary level: All subjects should agree and the order in which we teach should make intuitive sense to students.
• Flexibility guidelines: Explicit directions are needed for what can be changed and what must stay consistent throughout the years.
• An emphasis on LEARNING rather than on TEACHING needs to be evident when pacing guides are created.

4.       To what extent does your curriculum guide help you meet division objectives?

• Balanced assessment: The curriculum (in some areas) models a balanced assessment approach by providing formative and summative assessments, mostly in the form of performance tasks. In other areas, the formative assessment piece is lacking. A list of possible formative assessments or hints for places that may be good to evaluate students and provide feedback may help teachers make this a priority.
• Integration of technology: This is lacking. Specific tools are listed from time to time, but they can quickly become dated. Instead, a bank of different tools that suit different purposes could be included as well as hints for good places for KINDS of tools (such as social networking, collaboration tools, organizational tools, production tools, etc.)
• Responsiveness to student needs: The documents support it if the teacher prioritizes it. I would like to see a stronger emphasis on this part with tools for scaffolding. I would also like to see explicit pre-assessments that evaluate what individual students know/don't know against the standards with which the summative performance will be judged.

5.       The written curriculum is:

a.      rigorous and challenging for all (emphasis added) students. Disagree- Gifted units were locally developed to address this issue. In an ideal universe, this would not be necessary.

b.      engaging for all students. Disagree- This does not appear to be a priority in the curriclum beyond the superficial level

c.       differentiated to meet the needs of all learners. Disagree- Tiered tasks rarely appear and when they do, the activities are not equally engaging which is unfair and disrespectful.

d.      relevant to 21^st century learners. Disagree- Our curriculum (about 98% of the time) is firmly rooted in the 20th century, and occassionally in the 19th century.

Additional Comments: There is much room for improvement in the current curriculum, but there is also much good. Changes for conceptual understanding, transfer, engagement, and 21st century learning absolutely need to be made. Teachers are sporadically making these changes when given the chance and could have a lot to offer at a system-wide level.

What would YOU say?

Top Teachers List- Part 3



During my third year of teaching, I was introduced to someone who would prove to be a great influence on my teaching life. Until that time, the only meaning I associated with the term "consultant" was the "Bobs" from the movie "Office Space". If you have not seen this film, I recommend you stop reading this post immediately and check out the movie (or at least this scene) because this post will not make any sense to you. My next great teacher was an educational consultant. For humors' sake, let's call her "Barb".

Barb arrived at my school to host a session on creating a vertically aligned plan for improving vocabulary instruction in grades K-6. We determined that many of our rural, impoverished community was lacking a solid foundation of everyday and academic vocabulary and without explicit instruction, we would not be able to close many of the achievement gaps our school was suffering from. This was my first opportunity to represent my grade level at a meeting where not all of us were able to attend. I was nervous, but excited to be part of the team.

Before that time, my professional development experience was limited to in-house meetings with long agendas of to-do items or data analysis based on own students' performance led by the building administrator. My only other sources of educational information came from my step father, a teacher in the school district, and my mother, a guidance counselor in the school district. Barb was my first outsider.

The vocabulary meeting was good, but relatively uneventful. Barb worked with our school on several other projects throughout the year, but it wasn't until my second year working with her when I began to really see her as one of my "top teachers".

My building principal created a leadership team and asked a representative from grades 3-6 to attend a series of workshops about becoming teacher leaders. I was in the midst of obtaining my masters' degree at the time and had heard the term "PLC" and others thrown around, but knew very little about what this would entail. The first day of training was fabulous, with a fancy lunch, time away from the classroom, other adults to speak with, free books... but it was the content that truly made a difference.

"I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Barb."

The first session was a very emotional one. Barb asked us to examine our own beliefs about teaching, our attitude towards our students, our demeanor when faced with change. As a new teacher, I'd spent precious little time examining my philosophical beliefs about teaching because I was still learning how to read a manual and get my students to line up quietly. I learned that year that building my own content knowledge by reading current information about education was absolutely vital to my growth. Barb exposed an area of weakness in me that I didn't not even know was there. Luckily, I had a supportive principal and colleagues who shared this value so it was nurtured in me early on and still serves me well today.

"I celebrate his entire catalogue..."

Another great lesson I learned from Barb was that every original idea that I've had is not even remotely original. Someone somewhere has probably already written articulately on the subject. Conversely, I learned that I have something to add to that body of research based on my personal context and expertise. I wasn't ready to understand this lesson that first or second year with Barb, but it is something I walked away from and revisited later in my career. Some of my most beloved authors (Wiggins and McTighe, Marzano, Maxine Greene, Brunner, etc.) were introduced to me in snips and quotes. These little soundbites resonated in my mind and I was able to read their work in its entirety when my own capacity was greater.

"Do you know I have eight different bosses? Eight, Barb. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation, it's not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Barb, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired."

We spent a great deal of time talking about teacher motivation. It was at a session with Barb when I first learned the link between student success and teacher effectiveness. Building the capacity of teachers is the number one most efficient pathway to increased achievement. I also learned that being motivated myself was not enough. If I wanted to be an effective teacher leader, it was my job to motivate my colleagues, some of whom were worn out and disenchanted with the changes to public education since the beginning of their careers. This continues to challenge me today, but at least I know now that blaming is not the answer. I need to advocate for children by building the capacity of my colleagues whenever possible.

"The pleasure's all on this side of the table, trust me."

I also learned the power of an energetic and passionate speaker. Barb cared about her topic, she cared about us, and she truly believed that change was possible. The very next year after my Barb experience, I took a new position that thrust me into the role as presenter. I spend a lot of time these days in front of adults, both parents and teachers, who need to see my passion and belief in the success of each and every thing I am recommending. It made all the difference in myself as a participant and I hope it does the same for participants in the workshops I now lead.

"Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too..."

The most important lesson I learned was that my job would never be an 8-3 kind of job. I looked with envy upon my older co-workers who clocked in and clocked out each day. I longed for this kind of freedom and automaticity in my teaching. I learned from Barb, however, that these were no longer effective teachers (or at least that they were not working to their potential). A truly effective educator does not "clock out". As a classroom teacher, I often stayed at school until 6 or 7 PM (and on one memorable occasion until 9 PM because of a blinding snowstorm!). As a resource teacher, I am often able to leave much earlier with much less work. I could, if I wanted to, clock in and clock out, but Barb instilled in me a passion for working to my potential. This may mean reading educational philosophy in my beach chair in July or attending a conference during a holiday vacation. It may be as simple as maintaining a blog that helps me to reflect on my practice or making a connection via Twitter that can make me see things differently.

Regardless, Barb "fixed the glitch". I now see my role in an entirely different way.

Critical Friends

 

As an adult, I accept criticism readily and even eagerly. I appreciate a challenge and like to have direct feedback on areas of improvement. I awkwardly accept compliments and move on quickly to how I can improve, especially when it comes to my work.

Recently, I was introduced to a new concept I was not so comfortable with: the role of the "critical friend". I was charged, at a staff development session, with surrounding myself with and acting like a critical friend during my professional meetings.

A critical friend is someone who challenges our beliefs and makes us consider our viewpoint with a critical eye. Sometimes this leads to a change of heart and sometimes it solidifies our position, but the purpose is to deeply reflect and commit to the ideas we so fervently defend.

This made me think. Do I have critical friends at work? Do I act as a critical friend? Do I have critical friends in my personal life? Have I always? What happened to my relationships with past critical friends? For this examination, I reached deep into my personal history for answers.

I grew in a fairly liberal household surrounded by extraordinarily conservative households. Our news was conservative, my friends' families (and therefore they also) were conservative, my teachers were conservative. I took pride in my liberal perspective and wore it like a badge of honor. My eighth grade lunch table regularly held debates about abortion which consisted of shouting across the table and ultimately led us to other friends with similar views to our own. I found critical friends and abandoned them quickly after the novelty wore off.

I was a senior in high school during the election of 2000. Although I was unable to vote because I would not turn 18 for another year, my school was a polling place and I got heavily involved in the election. A friend and I drove around town replacing Bush signs with Gore ones or painting red x's on the ones we did not replace. We were very proud and very disappointed by the results of the election. I went a full year without talking about politics with anyone because I was so angry. I had no critical friends at this time. I couldn't stand to.

I started college three weeks prior to the 9/11 attacks. I had just begun bonding with my dorm mates when the attack happened and we quickly became a tight-knit family. It did not matter what our political beliefs were. Like many places around the country, we were united... for a time.

The debates about the Iraq War and other post- 9/11 issues surfaced within months of the attacks. Many of my new friends had very different perspectives from my own. Some were from military families, others grew up in conservative religious families, some had Muslim backgrounds. Suddenly I had no shortage of critical friends, I just never realized they were critical. I got into heated debates and challenged not only their beliefs, but my own and those of my family. I found that some of my most precious values were naive and based on a limited life experience. I began, finally, to see things from my critical friends' point of view.

Somehow though, in my professional life, the ability to find critical friends has escaped me. I have colleagues who drive me insane. My husband teases me that I am not happy in class unless I found someone to "hate". Some of my bosses make me want to scream when they do not see things my way. I do not want critical friends at work. I want work to work my way.

This is a new professional goal for me. I plan to embrace my colleagues and seek out critical friends. I'd like to challenge my own pedagogical beliefs the way I once challenged my political beliefs. I'd like to do the same for others. As long as we all truly have kids at the forefront of our minds, I think the idea of critical friendship can do wonders for professional growth.

I dare you to criticize that goal!

"I am what I am not yet".

un·pop·u·lar [uhn-pop-yuh-ler]-adjective

1. not popular; disliked or ignored by the public or by persons generally.
2. in disfavor with a particular person or group of persons.

—Related forms

un·pop·u·lar·i·ty, noun

un·pop·u·lar·ly, adverb

 

Dictionary.com Unabridged  Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2011
 This weekend I was reading with my four year old niece. We were talking about different jobs people have and what those people do. I asked her what a doctor does and she said "They give me shots in my legs". I asked her what the police do and she said "Be mean". Her perspective on the world is always intriguing to me because it's just so pure. To her, doctors don't make you better and the police do not protect you. She only knows how these people have directly impacted her small, short life.
Lately, I've felt a bit isolated at my school. My ideas have not always been well-received by my colleagues and I've been feeling kind of, well... unpopular. Most times, when I push a certain initiative in my school it's because I have a certain long-range "vision". Sometimes it's for my students in my school, but sometimes it's for public education in general. Regardless, my co-workers, like my niece, only see how these ideas and projects impact their own small, short lives. Another deadline, another item on a to-do list, another person who doesn't "get" how much work they have. They don't like me pushing their boundaries and expecting more for a higher purpose. They want me to leave them alone in their little bubbles.  This has happened to me before. It happened as an undergrad during group projects when I refused to use an Internet-ready project as-is instead of creating something that came from my heart. It happened when I was a classroom teacher, young and green among more experienced teachers. It's happening now, as I work as a resource teacher in a school where most of the staff have worked since it opened its doors in 1984. I'm a generally likable person in my personal life. I have a decent sense of humor. I'm knowledgeable enough about the things I have to be and humble enough to learn the things I don't know. I care deeply about my students and the success of my school. So why am I the outcast? The truth is, I don't know exactly. I have my suspicions, but I can't pinpoint the exact issue. If my co-workers and I were listed as "in a relationship" on Facebook, we would be described "It's complicated". It wasn't until I took an educational philosophy course a few years ago that Maxine Greene put a name to my lack of popularity. As a poet and an admirer of the arts, she articulates the idea much better, calling it "wide-awakeness". As Greene says, 

"I'm very influenced by existentialism and the thought that you can be submerged in the crowd, and if you're submerged in the crowd and have no opportunity to think for yourself, to look through your own eyes, life is dull and flat and boring. The only way to really awaken to life, awaken to the possibilities, is to be self-aware... I use the term wide-awakeness.Without the ability to think about yourself, to reflect on your life, there's really no awareness, no consciousness. Consciousness doesn't come automatically; it comes through being alive, awake, curious, and often furious." 

Maybe there's nothing more scary than encountering someone who is already wide-awake (or at least attempting to become wide-awake). It makes a person realize they have blindly wandered through life and missed the point completely and it terrifies the person who'd prefer to hit the snooze button for the rest of their career and lifetime. 

I strive to be "wide-awake" everyday. I choose to acknowledge the deficits in our system and my own school. I question my own abilities and choices. I challenge my own conceptions of what my students can do and what the role of public education can be for society. I make a lot of mistakes and hold myself accountable. I hold myself and my colleagues to the highest possible standard and always wonder if we are doing enough, trying hard enough, asking enough of ourselves. 

I refuse not to be wide-awake. I will not apologize for expecting more. It may make me unpopular, but I accept that. I hope that my niece realizes someday that doctors cure diseases and help the healthy stay healthy. I hope she figures out that the police put themselves in harm's way to protect others. I hope  my colleagues realize that I push them because I know they (and I) can be better than we are right now.

Maxine Greene famously said "I am what I am not  yet." This is a hopeful statement. I hope what I am not yet is better than what I am. I hope what WE are not yet is better than what we are.

Mis-Understanding By Design

I first heard of Understanding by Design when I got a crash course in the "Learning-Focused Schools" initiative. (See http://www.learningfocused.com/) My principal at the time time taught a 2-hour professional development session to myself and 2 other new teachers as part of our induction process. We were brand-new teachers, fresh out of college, no teaching experience beyond day-to-day subbing and student teaching. Those 2 hours were more beneficial to me than 4 years in college.

My love affair with Learning-Focused was short-lived, however. I began to realize that this Max Thompson fellow had marketed a bunch of basic teaching principles and was making millions off of administrators eager to try the next best thing. Essential Questions? They're just objectives. "Beginning with the end in mind"? Well, duh! The teachers I worked with acted like these were novel concepts, but to me, they were just what I like to call "simple logic".

So I decided to dig a little deeper and find out where ol' Max Thompson got his ideas. It was then that I discovered my holy grail as an educator: Understanding By Design. It was everything Learning-Focused Schools had promised, but never fulfilled on. It made perfect sense and it changed me as a teacher.

Now, years later, I am still uncovering pieces of UBD. I learn a little more about it every time I design a unit and wish I could go back and change my first years of teaching every time I discover a new layer that didn't occur to me, but should have.

I spent part of last week out of my building working with colleagues from across my school division on revising our Social Studies curriculum for grade 5. As we went through the painful process of designing Stages 1 & 2 with more than 16 people, I became frustrated with my colleagues' lack of understanding. Later that week, however, during a class that required me to write curriculum for gifted students, I realized that some UBD principles make sense to me on paper, but are much more complex when used in the context of actually creating a unit.

In short, I was disgusted with my colleagues for their lack of knowledge, but was humbled by my own misunderstandings only a few days later. Our entry points may have been different, but neither were closer to putting the entire puzzle together.

I consulted my Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, a favorite among my students, and discovered that the word "understandan" comes to us from before 899AD as an Old English word which meaning (literally) to "stand in the midst of".

 As I "stand in the midst" of several curriculum units in various stages of revision, here are some things I KNOW, but still struggle to UNDERSTAND.

1. Stage 1 is the most difficult, stickiest, time-consuming, and VITAL stage of the unit-design process. Weak Enduring Understandings lead to weak Essential Questions which lead to weak rubrics and performance tasks supported by weak lessons. A good Enduring Understanding can MAKE a unit while a bad one can DESTROY it.
2. Creating a concept map is one of the most arduous and necessary tasks for designers of curriculum. When conceptual understanding reaches graphic form, it creates clarity for the designer, the implementer, and the student who will stand "in the midst" of the unit.
3. While it may be tempting to create a unit independently, teamwork is the best policy when designing a unit. Even if it is just for feedback, a second (or third, fourth, fifth) pair of eyes makes a unit richer, more universally understand, more complex, and more streamlined. This idea is the one that is most difficult for me, as I prefer to work alone and initially do not think a single one of my ideas isn't perfect!
4. There is always someone smarter than you. Elementary teachers, in particular, are trained to be expert generalists. We are rarely content experts and are certainly not working in the disciplines we train students to understand. Tapping into the mind of an expert, even if just by researching, is key.
5. True performance must be measured by action. Performance tasks, while difficult to design and time-consuming to score, are the best way to show transfer of information in students. Pitched high enough (but with support), performance tasks can uncover a depth of understanding in students we never thought possible. The tasks should aim for authenticity, in whatever form that can take, whenever possible so students see the value of the task.

This is only the beginning of my list. I'm no where close to designing Stage 3 in my units so my generalizations stop short of actual learning plans and revision. As arrogant as I was at the beginning of the week, I was reminded how important it is to withhold judgment of others when designing curriculum. As a wise woman once said of me, "She has a lot to learn."

I do.

The Sleepy Reader

"I am a reader, a flashlight-under-the-covers, carries-a-book-everywhere-I-go, don't-look-at-my-Amazon-bill reader. I choose purses based on whether I can cram a paperback into them, and my books are the first items I pack into a suitcase." ~ Donalyn Miller, "The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child"



I was that kid who used to almost fall asleep on the bus. I dragged myself into school in the morning and I swear I learned nothing until at least 9:30 AM. I was mopey, hypersensitive, and asked to go to the bathroom simply because I couldn't stay awake in class and needed an excuse to get up and walk around. As a teacher, I judged students like I was. I judged their parents, their nutrition, their sleep habits. I forgot, when I first got into the classroom, about the sleepy reader.

The sleepy reader is the kid who cannot put their book down. They sneak a flashlight to bed and end up with poor eyesight as an adult as a result. They read and read and read, not noticing that a day has gone by and there is no light in the room. They read in social situations where it's actually unacceptable, like at a family dinner party or (once) at the movie theater. The sleepy reader is not tired because they are neglected or their parents don't care. They're tired because they were too busy reading to sleep.

I don't see many students like that these days. I'm surprised by this because I work with strong, early readers who are identified gifted. As I've been working with a team to improve our remediation tutoring this year, I've been giving this a lot of thought. What happened to the sleepy reader?

When I stumbled upon Donalyn Miller's book in our school's professional library, I found some answers to my questions. I found this part, in Chapter 1 "There and Back Again" to be particularly inspiring:

"I transformed my classroom into a workshop, a place where apprentices hone a craft under the tutelage of a master. I learned that being the best reader and writer in the room is not about power and control. Instead, I must be a source of knowledge to my own young charges, I should guide them as they approach their own understandings. Meaning from a text should not flow from my perceptions, or God forbid, the teaching guide; it should flow from my students' own understandings, under my guidance."

I imagine Miller's classroom is full of sleepy readers. This is a classroom where I would want to be. This is a classroom where reading is taught as a craft, not as a set of isolated skills needed to pass some arbitrary test. Students in this classroom learn that reading is important for readings' sake, but also opens doors and windows to so many other things. These children learn that reading is joyful.

As the holidays approach, I have been encouraging my students and their parents to find ways to bring learning outside the four walls of our school and into their homes and communities. But when I think back on my own childhood as a sleepy reader, I realize I did this for myself simply because I got a whiff of the joy of reading. Maybe the best thing we can do for some early readers is just get out of their way.

Good Teacher Days

Ever had a "good teacher" day? I used to excitedly tell my friends and family every time I had one. It was a day when all of my students seemed happy and engaged the entire day. Things just fit together, like the pieces of a puzzle. My lessons flowed nicely and maybe some kind of unexpected "teachable moment" occurred.

I'd venture to say I had about 15 of these kinds of days my first year of teaching. I think I might average about one a week in my current position. This has something to do with my self-confidence, I know, but it also has to do with my position as a non-classroom teacher. It's easy to feel like a "good teacher" in 45 minute segments!

I used to keep an old-fashioned (meaning non-electronic) journal in my early days of teaching. This entry from my third year made me smile today as I was reading through it, which I often do... to remind myself of where I came from and how I got here, wherever here is!

2/10/08- "It was a good teacher day today. 'Test Prep' all day and the kids had no clue. It CAN be done!"

If I had known what Twitter was in those days, I might have shared this with my PLN. At the time though, it was self-affirming enough to have a day that just felt right. The entry was accompanied by one of my favorite quotes, by George Bernard Shaw:

PEOPLE WHO SAY IT CANNOT BE DONE SHOULD NOT INTERRUPT THOSE OF US WHO ARE DOING IT.

I think of this every time I hear a news story about bad teachers. Bad teachers are only bad when they choose to stay bad. Everyone can have "good teacher" days, but they only happen when we work for them.

I'm still working for them. Are you?

Be the Change You Seek

 I stumbled upon this video today from the RSA's 21st Century Enlightenment Project:

http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/c/39BF9545D740ECFF/20/zDZFcDGpL4U

 
After a particularly trying week (or 2 or 3) at school, this really rocked my world. I've been living in my head quite a bit lately and have had a hard time finding colleagues willing to wax philosophical with me about changing the system that we call "public education" in this country. No one wants to talk about the things they can't change.

Then, a few days ago, while driving to school, I was listening to CNN and heard a speech by President Obama on his tour of Asia. He was in India and spoke of a quote by Mahatma Gandhi that resonated with him: "Be the change you seek." I scribbled this onto a gum wrapper at the next red light and found it in my pocket later that day at a particularly low moment.

Sometimes it's a bit discouraging to work in the public school factory. In positions of leadership, it's sometimes hardest of all. You see people who lack capacity, compassion, the will to work towards the greater good... it's hard to watch! In fact, I'm sure it's why many people escape. Honestly, though, I think there's something empowering about believing that changing yourself can change the system. If we all had this attitude, imagine what we could accomplish!

Matthew Taylor of RSA said it better than I can:

"What we aim for can be as important as what we achieve." 

Now, I am a skeptic of "the power of positive thinking" (see Barbara Ehrenreich's "Smile or Die" by the same organization), but there is just something so empowering about this statement! If we aim high, even if we don't reach what we aimed for, at least we tried and at least we got higher than we were before.

As a perfectionist who wants to have done it 100% yesterday, this could be a tough pill to swallow, but I think we could do a lot of "damage" to our current educational system with this kind of thinking. I believe it was Skype co-creator Niklas Zennström who said he wanted to "...be destructive, but for the purpose of making the world a better place."

So... a premature New  Years' Resolution of mine: I will be the change I seek.

I am frustrated by teachers who won't risk new teaching strategies. I vow to try a new teaching strategy. And I'll do it clumsily in front of another person who might be inspired to take the risk as well.

It irritates me when administrators ask their insubordinate to do things they themselves have never tried. I will shatter my mental image of myself as "perfect classroom teacher". It's easy to remember yourself as perfect, but not quite as easy to actually be perfect! I will try something new before asking someone else to do it.

I can't stand the grading system we use in schools today. I will start to consider developing a new grading system and even it only lives in my brain, at least it will be better than whining and complaining about what we already have.

How will you be the change you seek?

Parents and Schools



I have to admit: When I first started teaching, nothing scared me more than parents.

When you are 21, fresh out of college, and in your first classroom, you know how little you know and you spend 90% of your time trying to hide it. I used to think to myself all the time my first year of teaching, "If my child is ever in the classroom of a first year teacher, I will do whatever it takes to get them out. Their whole year will be wasted." When I think back on that year, I can't believe every single parent didn't call the school to get their kids removed from my care.

It's not that I was abusive or mean or (completely) scattered... it's just that there were so many who were BETTER than me! I tried things and failed 3 or 4 times a week, even day. Who would want that for their child?

Recently I was speaking to a friend whose husband is in med.school. I asked her, do they tell the patients that they are not doctors, but doctors in training before they help with a diagnosis or even a surgery? Her response: The patients don't even notice or ask.

This really took me aback! They didn't notice?! How could they not? This person had very limited experience outside of a classroom, a book, or an observation. How could they not tell the difference between a seasoned veteran mentor and a young, naive intern?

Maybe it's the lab coat. Teachers don't wear lab coats, but let's face it, we can be spotted from 4 miles away when we head to the grocery store after work still wearing our "crazy socks" from Spirit Day. We have chalk dust or markers coating us. We give "the look" to innocent children in Walmart. We LOOK like teachers, so maybe parents don't notice new teachers anymore than patients notice interns.

I'm not afraid of parents anymore. Not even a little. I don't get that sick feeling when I'm paged from the office with a call and I don't have nervous dreams the night before the parent workshops I host as part of my position as a gifted resource teacher. I imagined the worst from these parents, but have been pleasantly surprised how a forging a relationship with the parents has truly improved my interactions with their children.

For example, yesterday a parent explained how useful rubrics are to her family. Her son tends to go completely overboard on projects, but having a rubric to break down criteria is helpful for him because parents and child know what the teacher expects.

Another parent shared her child's obsession with Taylor Swift. In a discussion about helping gifted children deal with failure, she decided to do some research about Taylor Swift and find out some difficulties she needed to overcome to get to where she is today. Upon sharing that, some other parents decided to do the same using athletes their children look up to as well.

A very knowledgeable and caring parent also shared how anxious she finds her child gets when asked "why" questions. She suspects he thinks the asker knows "why" and expects him to come up with the correct answer. Even if he MIGHT know, his fear of being wrong keeps him from answering the question. Instead, she tries to rephrase her "why" questions with "What do you think about..." to help him take the risk to answer a difficult question. I used this technique with him in the classroom today and was shocked by the sophistication of his response when I might previously have gotten a blank stare.

These parents KNOW their kids! They know them well, much better than I can in two 45 minute sessions a week. Their insight proves to be invaluable time and time again. Conversely, when all their children will say when asked about school is "It was fine." or "I don't know.", substantial conversations with someone from the school can be enlightening for parents as well.

In the words of Macaulay Calkin: "I'm not afraid anymore!"

Stress is a Choice

I believe that stress is a choice.

I have spent about 2/3 of my life quitting bad habits. I’ve gone from grinding my teeth to biting my nails and back again more times than I can count. I know that my bad habits crop up in times of stress and I attempt to quit them in times of relative peace.

In my second year of teaching I decided to keep a “stress calendar”. On every working day I rated my stress level from 1 (no pulse) to 10 (ready to be committed). Sometimes I forgot about it entirely and sometimes I got a bit of sick satisfaction from writing down an “8” or even a “9”. What I did not anticipate, however, was the amount of stress relief that calendar would bring me in my third year of teaching.

When I got to the end of my last staff meeting that first week of school in my third year, I checked my calendar. Last year I rated this day a “7”. Just reading that brought me down to a “5”. That day in October when I realized that my guided reading schedule, which looked so perfect in August, just simply wouldn’t work with this group of students should’ve been at least a “6”, but came down to a “4” when I realized that October never got below a “5” the year before. In December, when my family and my in-laws started competing for holiday time and my kids were bouncing off the walls, I didn’t even need to look at my calendar.

Now, in my sixth year of teaching, I never look at that calendar. I don’t need to because I realized that stress is a choice. There are ebbs and flows to the amount of stress I suffer from in my personal and professional life. I can choose to be stressed or I can choose to be calm. The things that I cannot control will not change no matter how stressed I am and the things that matter now will most likely be distant memories before I know it.

I believe that stress is a choice.

Single White Female

I have always been what I affectionately refer to as a "psuedo feminist". My fiancee calls it my "bleeding heart". I do not consider myself a liberal or a democrat, but I am certainly not conservative or a republican. I am also not apolitical. I think I simply believe in the inherent good inside myself and others and rarely, if ever, feel like particular groups or rights should be excluded.

Therefore, it always burned me a bit that I knew in my heart and soul that I would become a teacher. I knew about the critical shortage of women in math and science careers (alas, my two worst subjects). I also knew that caucasion females are not exactly in short supply in schools today. When I saw this modern-day Rosie the Rivetor magazine cover, I was still in the early stages of my career and was shamed when I looked around and saw 2 dozen faces just like mine leading the classrooms in my school, but only about 6-8 students participating in the lessons who fit the "caucasion female" bill.

Why is it that caucasion females are attracted to elementary schools? Is it because this was a happy, safe place for us in our youth? Or maybe it's because OUR teachers were caucasion females, successful and secure women we looked up to?

By those standards, there are few students in my current school who can relate to me, at least on the surface level. It is a struggle to remember that all kids do not learn they way I learned... that is, exactly as my traditional teachers taught me. This country has a major problem: a plumetting national reputation and "failing" subgroups barring us from federal funding.

Can our predominantly caucasion female workforce solve this problem? Honestly, I think so.

Rosie is the symbol I chose here because women have a history of righting the wrongs of society. In general, women are empathetic and motivated (at least those of us who chose to go into teaching tend to be). What better qualities could there be to right the current wrongs of our schools?

Our schools are designed to educate as many people as possible as similarly as possible. Is this really the best plan in this day and age? If we are truly leaving "no child behind", then we ought to start teaching as many people as possible as effectively as possible.

Top Teachers List- Part 2

Top Teacher #2: Dr. W

I began grad school in the summer of 2007, hoping simply to gain a degree that would earn me more credibility and more pay. For much of that summer and the fall semester, I felt like I was getting little else. Then, in the spring of 2008, I took a class called "Educational Assessment", which promised to be important but terribly boring. As a relatively weak math student, I dreaded the statistics and mathematical mumbo-jumbo.

The first day of class was an evening in January. Class had already been cancelled once due to inclement weather. I drove nearly an hour from my school, immediately after the day had ended. My students were rowdy that day due to several days off playing in the snow. I was tired and had a headache. There was no time for dinner. I would have to eat my smashed peanut butter and jelly during the first break from class.

Needless to say, I was in a foul mood. I was pleasantly surprised, however, by a familiar face standing in the classroom door as I approached.  Having recognized (but not being able to place) the professors name, I now made the connection: I had this teacher in undergraduate school and liked her very much. She was actually my very first education professor and taught a class the students called "Fundies" which stood for "Fundamentals of Mathematics". I remembered loving the practical tips she gave and the way she taught the class as we should be teaching... truly learning by doing.

My mood improved considerably and the class proved to be one of the most useful I have had in my educational career. I learned things about assessment that, looking back, blow my mind in their simplicity, clarity, practicality, and utter importance. How could I not have known these things, yet been allowed to teach for 3 + years?! It astounded me.

Everyday class started with an "icebreaker" which I would immediately take back and use with my students. One popular technique is what my prof called a "Snowball Fight". The students write their responses to an open-ended question on a piece of paper, then crumple them up into a ball. The next two minutes are for the snowball fight. Everyone throws the wads of paper at one another, getting out energy and acting ridiculous. When the teacher yells "Stop!" the students pick up the nearest "snowball" and read the response using the sentence starter, "I think this person said this because..." to interpret what the classmate said.

As much as I enjoyed the "icebreakers" and alternative assessments the professor provided us with, one piece of advice stuck with me. I have used this quote to describe my graduate school experience to many people over the past 2 years. She told us:

Undergraduate elementary education classes are some of the toughest classes to teach. It is like preparing a traveler for somewhere neither you nor they have ever been before. You give them a suitcase and fill it with as many things as possible. You pack warm weather clothes and cold weather clothes, rain gear and swimsuits. Chances are, they'll never have enough of what they need.. They'll have enough to get started, but will need to fill their suitcase themselves once they get to their destination.

Graduate classes are different. You are now packing a suitcase to travel back to somewhere you've already been. You know generally what the climate is like there, what you like to do, and how you will spend your time. There are always unexpectedly cold or warm days or maybe your tastes change, but you know what things to put in your suitcase and what to leave behind.

How profound! I have approached my life-long learning as an educator from this perspective. I know what needs to go in my suitcase and what can be left behind. I know the things that were most important the last time I went on this journey and what I didn't have enough of. The more times I make the trip, the better prepared I will be.

Here's to a new school year! May your suitcase be full of everything you need!