The First Slice

I decided that this year would be the year that I introduced the Slice of Life challenge into my writing workshop. We had been bouncing back and forth for years, trying to find the perfect balance between assigned topic writing and personal free choice writing, and this challenge seemed like the best way to do it.

We brought everyone in to class, completed the homework collection and upcoming assignment minutia, and started to introduce the idea of writing about the tiny moments of our lives. We examined an example, pulling apart the details of what made the writing work. We took time to visualize a moment, and then we set to the task of writing. I held my breath for a second before my pen hit the paper. What would happen? I wondered internally. Could this group handle finding their own topics, or would they start resisting, playing, or worse yet, just not doing. But my worry was for nothing because for the very first time all year everyone in the room was silent as words got into notebooks and stories started to develop.

We wrote for 10 minutes, and in those ten minutes amazing things happened. We wrote and wrote, and as soon as our timer went off, people needed to share. Alex needed to tell his stories of eating cherry tomatoes plucked fresh off the vine when he should have been weeding in science class. Gil regaled us with the story of Michael's first ever home run. Ravi entertained us with his covert mission to procure a comb, and Pamela and Kosette's friendship was sealed by a returned glue stick.

In only 10 minutes we got into the slices of lives, and the writing was good. I was amazed at how much magic could happen in such a short time. Pleased with how much potential we have to grow as a community of writers, and sure that next week's slices could only get better.
 

Settling In

Our start of school calendar was organized very differently this year. Most years, our first week of school comes right after Labor Day. Teachers arrive on Tuesday, 6th graders are oriented on Wednesday, and then on Thursday everyone attends school for two days. This first week always had a rhythm to it. Thursday and Friday became about rules and syllabi, and students spent inordinate amounts of time in their homeroom reading student handbooks, attending assemblies, and getting more information about more rules and syllabi. Kids were squirrely since sitting for six hours hadn't been part of their routine for months. By the end of that first week everyone was exhausted and ready for the weekend. Those two days are a big part of the reason why I dislike the first days of school. Those days feel artificial. They feel like a waste of time. My students and I end up too busy waiting for school to really begin when we begin this way.

This year, due to Jewish holy days, things were organized differently. 6th graders attended a full week last week. 7th and 8th graders came for four days starting Tuesday. Homeroom time was spread out over four days, and classes were almost as long as they will be on a normal day. This forced us to rethink things and really reflect on how we wanted this year to start for our students. Instead of the usual introductory slide show, we spent time talking as a group, introducing ourselves, mingling, and sharing reading choices. Instead of telling students the rules, we had them work in groups to create presentations explaining the importance of rules. We were up, we were active, and students were running the show by day two. Instead of wasting time treading water, we jumped right in to the deep end, and our kids all swam! We used that first week to set a tone that our classroom community is one where we work together. One where we solve our own problems instead of relying on the teachers to solve them. And one where you will be held to a high standard. 

We still have a long way to go this year, but I can already feel how this different start is going to make all the difference. By the end of last week I already knew the names of about 85% of my students. I know who the natural leaders in each class are. I know who is willing to take big risks, and who my shy students are. I know who will need more support in managing their time and who will need more support in the social interactions that make up so much of the classroom experience. In short, I already know my students in a way that I never would have on our old schedule. And the best part of the whole week was that by Friday I was energized instead of drained. I couldn't wait to jump back in this week and continue to build on those first experiences.       

First Impressions

Yesterday I had a chance to meet all four of my new classes of seventh grade. Even though I had been working in school for nearly a week, the new year did not become real until that first group of students walked through the door.

By the end of the day I was completely exhausted, the strain of being "on" for so long after a summer of being "off" coupled with a barrage of new and challenging names had my brain completely overloaded. And my feet were hurting something fierce by about noon! But, we all survived, and had a lot of fun.

Each class definitely had its own culture, and each group seems very different. I know that finding the style and flow with each class is going to be one of the best challenges of this year. This group left some strong first impressions, and there are some things that I want to remember to think about this year as we move forward.

Period 4 has a gentle, go with the flow kind of feel. Students were willing to participate, a few were eager, but none showed that first day energy that warned me that there was a personality that might need to be molded a bit to fit the community. This group will be great to help test out new lessons and to set a pace for the rest of the day.

Period 7 is a class that I am really excited to teach. The majority of the class are not native English speakers and there is a very varied level of English proficiency. This class already has a culture going, many of the students have already bonded through the shared experience of being in a new school where we speak a new language. This class will force me to slow down and focus on skills. They will need more intentional vocabulary and writing mechanics instruction- two areas that I normally gloss over relying on student's prior knowledge. All four sections will benefit from this intentionality.

Period 8 is a wild bunch! Yesterday we saw five or six kids trying to outshine one another. They have energy, but they are also supportive. It's hard to chide a student for calling out when they're shouting supportive comments to their peers, right?  These students will challenge us to always keep class interesting, to keep them engaged and motivated in fun, active tasks. We'll have to be creative to keep up with them. If we can do that, I think we'll be able to direct all of that energy towards a really fun and productive community.

Period 9 is challenging. It's the end of the day, and it is our most heavily needy population. Luckily, we have three teachers to support our students. In this class I can already see a great diversity of skill. It's amazing how a skill as minor as reading procedural directions on the first day can throw up red flags around a student's skills. I think this class may have a few non-readers, but they seem to be a class of workers. They will "do" as long as we make sure that every one of them knows how. This class will probably need a less exploratory approach than we're used to, and structured differentiation will be our friend.    

I can already see how developing lessons and curriculum to meet all four groups where they are is going to take a lot of work, but it will be beneficial. Each group has strengths and some challenges, but I believe that the approaches we will take to meet those challenges will benefit everyone. I think it's going to be a great year!

What's Your Mission?

This morning in day 14 of our 15 day Summer Institute we started exploring our own ways to reform education. We examined the issue from a variety of perspectives. We looked at the rhetoric of the national agenda, from the fiery mission of angry teachers, and through the academic lens of teacher researchers. We asked a lot of questions and came up with some actual answers. 

Through the care of my colleague I was actually asked what I would do if I could change the entire system of education. The question was provocative, and led me to realize that I am thankful to not have to answer the question. I came up with more wondering than answering, and I realized that I only know how to change what I can control. Focusing on large scale reform feel futile because of what I know about what I don't know.

I don't know what would work best for every student, every teacher, and every school in the country, but I do know that a one size fits all approach will not work. I know that great teachers are highly trained, highly educated professionals, who devote their entire professional lives to becoming the most effective teachers and mentors they can be. I know that great teachers care deeply about doing good work, that we are not lazy, and that we go above and beyond the perceived duties of our jobs. I also know that test scores do not show the entire picture of a school, a student, or a teacher. I know that too much is being put on the plates of schools, that we are being expected to solve problems well beyond our reach, and that each new reform further ties our hands. I know that the stress created through reform last year was damaging to schools, teachers, and most importantly to children.

So, if I were in charge I would loosen the reigns. I would stop protecting those teachers who are just in it for the summers off and the early end of the work day, and support those great teachers who do great work. I would really examine the data comparing our students to students in the rest of the world. I would consider the populations we compare our students to, the methods others go to to get their results, and the effect of poverty, compulsory education with college and career readiness standards for all, and a pervasive practice of social promotion on our own test scores. I would act with the knowledge that teacher accountability, and high standards is only one small piece of the education reform puzzle. And I would openly and freely admit that as long as we continue to ignore the devastating consequences of poverty we will never be able to "fix" education. 

There are so many parts of this that are beyond my control as a classroom teacher, but I also know that I gave up part of the power of what I can control through this year's ed reform initiatives. This past year I was pulled out of my classroom for reform related meetings, trainings, and work sessions for 9 school days. In my classroom I spent the equivalent of 8 class periods focusing entirely on test preparation that was out of the context of authentic learning. I administered 690 minutes worth of high stakes testing in my classroom alone. That means that 22 hours of my 120 instructional hours was spent on educational reform. That is 18% of my student's class time being devoted to these tasks. 

That is unacceptable!

So, for this year I am on a mission. Here is my teacher mission statement:

I am a highly skilled, thoughtful and passionate professional who has been given the opportunity to change the lives of my students, but I only have 180 days to do that in. Every moment of those 7,200 is critical. I vow to make every one of those minutes count. I refuse to have that time wasted by anything that is not in the best interest of the students that I have the honor to teach. They deserve my attention, and my presence; for that there is no acceptable substitute!      

So, what is your mission?

Psst...Can You Keep a Secret?

In the last three weeks, I have been forced to sign two highly intimidating confidentiality agreements. These agreements have been a pre-requisite to my responsibilities at my job. Although I have not wanted to, I have had to pledge that I would not share any of the content I was presented in my tasks, or even speak about the tasks I had been asked to complete. I essentially agreed that once the task was complete I would metaphorically erase all knowledge of the experience to protect the integrity of the task. In fact, by even just publicly mentioning that I have signed these agreements I have probably already broken them, and could be held legally liable for my actions. You’re probably thinking that I have some high level government job, or that I work in a health care field where I am entrusted with protecting the confidentiality of my patients, but that is not the case.

I am a public school teacher who was recently forced to administer and score the New York State Common Core exams for 2013.       

By now you’ve probably seen the myriad articles criticizing this year’s high-stakes standardized testing. You’ve probably read about the problems associated with the test: the lengthy reading passages about arcane topics, the grammatical errors within the readings and the questions, the convoluted multiple choice questions with more than one reasonable answer, the lack of adequate time for students to complete the tasks they were given. 

Maybe you’ve heard about the anxiety and health concerns brought out by the high-stakes testing. Record numbers of school nurses have reported symptoms of dehydration during state testing, since schools will not let kids have water during their 90 minutes of testing for fear of accidental destruction of a test. There are reports of kids crying, and vomiting during the test. In fact, some states have had to formalize their official policy for what to do when a child vomits on the test. In my school we even had a student who had such a severe panic attack they had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. 

The criticism is not just anecdotal. Critical articles seem daily fare for the education sections of news outlets. The criticisms started before the tests had even been administered, and have not slowed since (Parents, teachers, and students have all spoken out. These are just a sampling of the responses that have been published in the past three weeks). And the problems are not limited to New York. In Indiana, Oklahoma, and Minnesota criticism of the actual test is being overshadowed by the reports of critical computer problems that made taking the exams impossible.

Any one of these complaints is reason enough to take a close look at our current obsession with standardized testing, but I want focus on the idea of the secrecy involved in the entire testing process. New York has signed on to a 5 year contract with Pearson Education, a contract that has cost the state $32 million dollars. One of the conditions of this contract is the these exams be "secure tests". The testmakers have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that not a single word of these exams be leaked to the public. The tests are kept under lock and key until 1 hour before administration, teachers and test administers sign confidentiality agreements at every turn, and students as young as 8 years old sit through daily readings of a list of the contraband electronic devices they must surrender during the test. The concern over the security of these tests does not seem to relate to cheating, if it did wouldn't there be some demand that students be seated in rows, or that tests be administered in gymnasiums (like the SAT or other college entrance exams)? As it stands, students are still allowed to test in their classrooms or other "well-lit, well-ventilated areas", and test administers are simply given a charge to monitor for and report potential cheating to their principals. No, we are not trying to secure the student outcomes, we are trying to secure the actual test. We are not protecting student interests, we are protecting Pearson's interests.

Creating a rigorous, reliable, high-stakes exam that combines multiple stand alone and paired reading passages of authentic texts, multiple choice questions, short writing questions, and text based essays is no easy feat. First there's the actual test creation, followed by "field-testing" of exam questions to determine how the plan will fly when put in front of live children, and then the creation of scoring materials that use actual student responses to create a complex series of "anchors" so that live scorers can "align their thinking" and provide reliable scores. Each test presented to students in New York this year contained a number of actual assessment questions as well as built in "field test" questions, so in essence while Pearson was creating a high-stakes testing environment for the assessment of students and their teachers (as per the new APPR requirements that link student scores to teacher outcomes) they were also creating a lab where students were serving as guinea pigs for future tests. Only Pearson knows which questions were "field test" questions and which were actual questions. Based on the quality of what was put in front of students this year, teachers can only hope that about half of the questions will be thrown out as failed field test questions, but we'll never know, and thanks to our confidentiality agreements, we can't even talk about those questions.

Providing specific feedback on any reading sample or question, even for the purpose of helping to create a better exam in the future is in breach of the agreement.

I usually try to keep my cynicism in check, but in this case there is something suspect in this secrecy. To pilot an entirely new plan, or to "cross a bridge while we are still building it" as one key figure in ed reform has said, while simultaneously eschewing feedback on the process, product and long-term implications, feels disingenuous to the goal of free-thought and public education. Instead we have a system where protecting the interests of a corporation is trumping the protection of the interests of an entire generation of children. And that makes me tremendously uncomfortable.

Pearson has a lot riding on the success of these exams, $32 million in New York alone. And the response to this first attempt is lackluster. We can only hope that next year's plan fixes some of the problems that were brought out this year. But if it doesn't, it won't matter, since we still probably won't be able to talk about it.

Why I'm Standing By the Core

     I've spent a lot of the past two years being very skeptical about the Common Core and the ad hoc full force shift that education in our nation has taken. At times, I've been miltant and strongly opposed, at times I've been panicked and guided by fear, but I am starting to break through all of those reactive stances to be able to bring myself to a place of really evaluating what we're facing and determining whether I can support what is being presented. I still have moments where my personal pendulum swings from skeptical to irrate on subjects like APPR, the flood of new testing that Common Core is ushering in, and what I see as the barely veiled agenda to deteriorate the public education system of America in favor of a for profit model dependent on charter schools and big business. But, when it comes down to the fundamental question of whether or not I can support the new Common Core Learning Standards, the answer is yes.

     Here's what I have experienced in my own classroom this year as a teacher trying hard to adapt the Common Core to best meet the needs of my students. The work that we do is extremely focused. Before the Common Core, my curriculum was a mass of almost 200 disjointed performance standards. There seemed to be little to tie any of these ideas, strategies, and skills together, and the result was a kind of "teach by the wind" style that was fun, and worked most days, but never really lent itself to the opportunity to come back and do in depth work with any one idea or skill.

      But the Common Core has changed that for me. I appreciate the clarity of a skills based approach to learning. By stressing the most essential skills for students to be successful, and then building on those skills grade by grade, I can see how to focus my teaching to get the most out of every limited minute. Every day in English class, we work on the same skills. We work on reading closely and carefully. We work on writing clearly and coherently, we work on bringing our reading lives and our writing lives together. This was what I wanted to accomplish as a teacher before the Core. The difference is that before I couldn't figure out how to put all of the pieces together coherently, and now I feel like I have a roadmap for how to do that.

     One of the biggest concerns I hear people voicing about the Common Core is a fear that the core will standardize education so much that we will lose the art and skill of teaching in the work. I can understand this fear. With school districts quickly adopting modules, canned programs, and data tracking devices this is a valid concern, but one that I have not seen coming from the Core itself. Maybe I am simply lucky to teach in a district that is not shoving a program onto my teaching. That seems to be a failure of leadership rather than a flaw of the Core. The new standards are not a new curriculum, they are not a new program, they are simply a framework of skills that we expect students to work on. I have been able to adapt these new guidelines to help sharpen my teaching. I haven't abandoned my philosophy or my best practices. My students still write to learn, they still read voraciously of their own choice reading, they still engage in self-directed writing workshops, they still develop interesting research questions, but what they get from me is more intentional teaching. This is an improvement that I stand behind wholeheartedly.

       Today I got into a discussion with a social studies teacher who was chafing at the idea of stressing the need of text based evidence and appropriate citations in every piece of writing that students do. He thought this the antithesis of authentic thinking, and didn't think it appropriate or necessary to be done on a regular basis. He could see the sense in something like a research paper, but hesitated to bring the expectation into regular practice. He expressed fear that teaching this way would create automatons incapable of independent thought beyond the text.

       I get this, because I've been there. I've had those same fears, that a highly skills based approach will stifle creative thinking, but I've shifted my thinking. We owe it to our students to give them all of the skills they need to be successful learners. That means training them to think creatively and critically, but also teaching them to follow the rules of being a successful student. As I see it, the content, ideas, and big thinking of a curriculum are the nails, while the skills, just like those stressed in the core, are the hammers. One without the other is pretty useless.

       I have a lot of clarity right now on the Core and the expectations it puts on teaching and learning, and personally I can stand behind it. We have work to do, and many of the effects of the Core are ones that I think it essential to examine, but from where I sit I can see with good sense and sound professional judgement how this plan could benefit education.

SOL 14: Happy Pi Day!

This day, March 14th (or 3/14 for the more visual) is one of my favorites in my school. Since the irrational number Pi is a new concept our students need to master in 7th grade it's the perfect day to collaborate and celebrate all things Pi. Today our students will work their way through their general schedule but each class will have a Pi theme.

In social studies students will work on the history of Pi.
In math they will compete in a Pi memorization contest to see who can remember the most digits (last year's winner was in the 400s!).
In science they will do probability experiments that rely on Pi.
In music they will compose Pi songs and finalize Pi themed musical skits.
and in English we will write Pi poetry.

The day will conclude with Pi performances, a Pi poetry reading, awarding the Pi memorization winner and of course, a slice of actual pie baked by our students in FCS. The day is always a little chaotic, but a lot of fun.