He looks incredibly great, actually...I'm not kidding.

An op-ed piece     By   SUSAN PINKER* in

                                          

                                                         
                                                                              says:

"As extensive research shows, just one year with a gifted teacher in middle school makes it far less likely that a student will get pregnant in high school, and much more likely that she will go to college, earn a decent salary, live in a good neighborhood and save for retirement."

                               .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

The other day my father went the Natural History Museum. After looking up his last name to give him a ticket, the young docent, K., asked, "Do you have a sister named Lola? She was my favorite teacher all through school..."

[Ed.: OK, I could either frame this as "My dad looks good for his 77 years," "I look awful for my half century," or "Students have absolutely no idea that 13 years isn't really that long." (Personally, I think my daddy looks fantastic.)]

"...yes, she made me love history so that I even got a history degree--lots of my friends did, too."

Teachers don't get to revisit students and distill and analyze their positive and negative influence on their students and their lives' outcomes.  That "extensive research" can't really show causality.  Could I measure my efficacy by counting who got pregnant in high school, who graduated from college, who saves for retirement? Is it my personal fault if a kid drops out? There is NO WAY to find out one's influence without asking the students, is there? 

And self -reporting is, as they say, less than reliable.

How can "They" know what would have happened if a kid had this type of teacher, or that kind? How could they know that maybe K. would have become a ROCKET SCIENTIST or a BRAIN SURGEON if she hadn't gotten derailed by the thrills of 8th grade history class where we sang some cheesy songs, took Cornell notes throughout the year, and reenacted the Battle of Gettysburg in twenty minutes? 

Maybe I RUINED HER. Maybe K. was going to find the cure for cancer. Maybe she would have been an engineer and be making all kinds of money, rather than handing my extremely youthful-looking dad a ticket in a local non-profit museum.

But maybe I saved her life. Maybe she was thinking about finding the cure for cancer, but now she will live a beautiful, fulfilling life helping others connect with the past, present, and future. Maybe she would have been miserable in any other field.

I reread that NYT paragraph and find it overwhelming. That much responsibility...that's crazy, people. We place these middle schoolers into cinderblock classrooms (which I find absolutely horrifying--the cinderblock classrooms, not the placing of the kids) and for 55 minutes, five days a week, one middle school teacher can have that great of an impact??? How can anyone be calm about this??? How can we not be more serious, wise and intentional about teacher recruitment, training, and retention??? how? how? HOW???

When I was in middle and high school, taking those career aptitude tests, one of the questions was about how important it was for me to influence people. For me, the answer was super duper important. I really wanted to (and still hope to) make a positive difference in this world--but I didn't think I could actually influence someone's sex life or retirement savings.

That's like, dude, more influence than Oprah. 



I've always felt the responsibility to be a heavy one, an honorable one. But dear Lord, this little paragraph means I want to make sure that YOU love them through me. Help me to be Your arms. Help me to speak Your words. Help me to love them the way You do. Amen.

*from "Can Students have too much TECH, JAN. 30, 2015

Teach me HOW to, Dougie....and I'm just wild about Harry

THE FIRST DAYS OF SCHOOL: For many years I have believed Harry Wong was the only one who really knew how to write so that teachers would become better at what they do. He knew without good management skills, good teaching was near impossible. When he said to NOT do a fun activity to lead the year, it was water in my face--a shock. Really? Wouldn't that make kids excited about school? But he explains himself and he is right. I have read this book sixteen (16) (XVI) times and it's probably time for me to do so again. Wong always reminds the reader of how respectable our profession is, how indispensable, how wonderful. He makes me proud of what I have chosen to do, and he helps me do it better.

At first I thought that was it. This was the one really great useful book for teachers. Oh sure, there were lots of little inspirational ones, or little helpy ones that usually didn't apply to my content or whatever. But then our site decided to delve school-wide into:

TEACH LIKE A CHAMPION: Doug Lemov succinctly explains the best techniques that the best teachers use, and he shares how to implement them.  He cares about EVIDENCE, not trends, upon PROOF, not intuition. I kind of laugh when I hear some of our staff members say, "This is all stuff I do already," because, tee hee, "No it isn't. You do SOME of the stuff, and some of the stuff you do, you do in the way that he says not to do." Not gonna lie--I thought I was a pretty good teacher until I read this book. I have a long way to go and lots of room to improve, and Lemov's eminently useful book is going to get me farther in my journey to be an awesome teacher than I could have dreamed. I also bought the field guide to accompany the book but can't speak to that since I haven't cracked it open yet. Lemov makes me eager to see how much I can grow.

The Student Teacher's German Lesson on the Last Day of School: a follow-up haiku to last post

Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf
German lesson had some oomph!
sechs, sieben, acht, neun--

My student teacher
did just fine. Acht, sieben, sechs,
funf--he survived it

and there's proof: vier, drei,
look down! There's no blood upon
the ground! Eins and now

he's done! Learning German was
sorta fun. Now I simply
have to run. I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!


(yes, there was candy)

The YMCA School of Swimming, German, and Feisty Sharks

Long ago when we were wee 'uns and enrolled in a Backyard Swim class, my brother told me that at the YMCA, they just threw you in the pool and let you figure out how to stay afloat. Although that's not true (is it?), my student teaching felt a bit like being thrown in the deep end after having merely READ about swimming, with a university supervisor, master teacher, and my own rising panic all screaming, "Swim better!" as I flailed about in a pool with 30 smallish but feisty sharks. Consequently, whenever I have student teachers, I've always tried to make things easier for them.

My current student teacher began the semester boldly independent, sure that he could be an amazing teacher right away, mostly by building rapport with kids, which meant talking about football. Without realizing it, he began pretty much copying my day-to-day lesson style and sometimes whole presentations, using my examples and pauses, borrowing far more from me than he imagined, because lesson planning is time consuming and he was teaching, going to school, and working ten hours a week: "I liked the test you're giving, so I'm going to use a lot of it" meant he was pretty much going to change my joke question to one about the Philadelphia Eagles. I suggested activities, had him spin them his way, let him use my homework, and let him believe that he was mostly original.

So. Student Teacher realizes his 4th period is beginning to turn on him (the worst feeling) with only two more days of school, today and next Monday. Finals are over today. "What do you have planned for Monday?" I ask.

"I don't know."

"You better think of something, because the natives are restless." With no test to dangle over young teens and as a teacher without much life experience and with not much originality, he's in deep water.

He hemmed and hawed and hung about, and said, "I wonder what I could do? I wonder what would keep them involved? Hmmmm."

Yes, he was flailing, hoping I'd rescue him. "The internet is loaded with ideas, M." Suddenly, I was working for the YMCA.

"I know! I'll teach them to count in German!" He looked at me for feedback. (Teach them to count in GERMAN?!? OK, that'll be interesting to about ten of them. But twenty sharks'll kill you just as dead as thirty. "If you were thirteen, would that interest you?" is normally what I would ask, pushing him to fix his lessons until the answer was "yes.")

"What incentive will you use? I think you are going to have to cave and buy candy."

"Yes, that's what I was planning to do." I tell him I'm glad he thought of that, because middle schoolers will do anything for a Jolly Rancher, but I think he told a fib. I hate fibs: my brain thought, "You and your German lesson are on your own. After ninety days of Lola-designed, -modified or -approved lessons, you are going to have to apply what you've learned at Backyard Swim."

I'll be in the room so there will be no blood, but fifty-five minutes feels a lot longer when you see fins.

 

Teachers: WE ARE OK

Our school is launching a little aid raiser for the Red Cross in honor of the victims of the Moore, OK tornado. Our goal is to raise $1000, a dollar per student.

One teacher ordered "We are OK" wristbands online to give to donors.
Two are manning the collection table during their lunch.
One is housing the funds during our drive.
One wrote the bulletin announcement.
One is doing an "all call" to the parents.
One will manage the transfer of funds to the organization.

I kind of wish students were driving this drive.

(As I was sharing our drive with an advisory class, a student asked, "When did this happen?" Hmmm.)

And as this school year zooms toward its end, I reflect on the two real lock downs our neighborhood schools had--the teachers were champions. I reflect on the teachers at Sandy Hook and Plaza Towers and Briarwood--the teachers were heroes. I reflect on Q, tutored after school by my student teacher, who is going to pass now--my student teacher is a champion. I reflect on the teachers' hearts prompting this drive--they want to help the hurting so badly. 

Hmmmmm.............................maybe teacher-bashing can end for a season, m'kay?

Cruel to Be Kind

Last post wasn't very cheery, was it?
But it was real.

A large part of my angst was training a novice teacher. All kinds of ego and fear were in the picture, because he wanted to design his own lessons and he was going to take over two classes full of my giant thirteen year old babies.

"You do realize that teaching is three huge jobs at once--presenting, planning, and class management, any one of which can be really challenging..." I really thought it might be best to use my already designed standards-based lessons, not because I thought they were good (which I do), but because I wondered about his ability to do the other two. Truth be told, he is physically a bit awkward and his enunciation is mushy; when he shared that he'd 1) been bullied in high school 2) overcome a speech impediment and 3) had had an IEP, I believed him. Colleagues would ask me, "How's he doing?" with the small, knowing smile of one who already knows the answer; they thought he'd be lunch meat.

Here's the surprise: he generally connected well with the kids. He was able early on to think on his feet, to persevere, to press on--wow, stuff that you can't teach--impressive. Granted, he was blessed with the best behaved kids I have ever taught IN MY CAREER, and they were already trained when he took them. But their awesomeness built his confidence on the management front.  Presentation-wise, he was pretty good, sometimes even funny, and his mushy diction didn't seem to pose problems for anyone but me. His incessant football references helped him with some students (although they seemed to alienate others, truthfully).

His lessons? Hmm. That was another story. I worried about how he never. ever. wrote anything down. He shared with me that he responded well to encouragement. Uh, oh. I feel weird about high five-ing grown ups, and in the beginning I wasn't sure I should even be encouraging. I was (and remain) freaked out by the atrociousness of his spelling and grammar ("mils" for "mills," for example). I was concerned about his lack of, or over simplified reflections about how the class had gone. His class management? The typical problems of wanting to win the approval of "the cool kids," of needing them to like him, of passing over the quiet children.

Real conversation snippet: Me: "So what went well today?" Him: "It was AWESOME!"

Sigh. 

So last Friday after something bad happened because he didn't write it down, I sort of turned into the calm, icy surgeon and let the scalpel fly a bit. "You don't read much, do you? You don't like to read. [I had tons of evidence]. It shows in your lessons. You don't want to admit to the kids you don't know something,  I understand, but you can't just make things up. You can't get up there and teach something you don't know about. You need to research the time period you are teaching, dig deeper than the text--read a ton!!-- make sure what you are teaching helps them understand, look at your presentation through the eyes of a thirteen year old. You need to rehearse your lessons, anticipate what they won't get, how they'll respond, blah blah blah...." It wasn't a monologue. But it sure wasn't the "Good for you! You are trying so hard" lines that tone-deaf grandmas give their American Idol wannabe offspring.

And I thought, "He hates me and thinks I'm mean." I'm not really used to being hated, and I'm not mean.

Funny thing is, he TOTALLY brought it this week! His lessons had depth, and so did his understanding. When kids asked questions, he fielded them with soft hands himself, or he said, "Hm, I'm not sure, Miss M do you know?" and let me either field them or shrug my shoulders with him. While teaching them about Sequoya, he even googled how to say "Hello" in Cherokee* and had a mini language lesson.

I gave him a high five after class. He earned it.

And then after school I began speaking in football terms: "I would think you'd want to review your performance--don't coaches watch films of games in order to improve and anticipate, to praise and refine? When I ask you how something goes--" He smiled and interrupted, totally understanding what this elderly lady twice his age was doing, but actually and finally COMPREHENDING the urgency, the importance of what I expected him to do to improve: "You don't want to know the score, you wanted to know the big plays," he said. "No, I want to go even deeper than that: I want to know why you called those big plays, how you were able to execute them, and why you went to no-huddle when the players were obviously lost and there was no audible..." 

Anyway, that seemed to change the air, clear it, charge it. Why can people take constructive criticism from coaches but not others? Coaches can literally YELL at kids and it's no big deal, and kids get out there and work for the coaches' curt nod of approval. I would gently say, "Can you think of another way to get S. to participate?" to a grown man and he'd cross his arms and look injured and depressed.

At any rate, I am finally relaxing. He will not mess up my giant babies. He will be a better teacher over time, he is doing quite well for how early on in the semester, he is grading 40% of the papers, and I will be able to do much of my grading at school, thus freeing up my weekends. Win-win. Or as he would put it, "AWESOME!"















*oh-see-YOH

They can't say I didn't try...

When kids finish my final, I have an optional, anonymous survey for them: I ask them to rate each technique on its effectiveness or inspirational quality, from 1  -  4, and leave a space for them to 'splain anything they want to:

1) passing around the grade sheet on Monday and then posting it

2) making you keep track of your grades in your agenda

3) if the teacher could somehow force you to use your agenda

4) assigning goal sheets asking you to set goals and write out your game plan

5) passing out tickets for random candy drawing--tickets for academic or citizenship excellence

6) rewarding good work with bonus points

7) knowing that late work is half credit

8) getting donuts when the whole class turns in hw three times

9) Stupid Teacher Plays where we act stuff out with the teacher narrating

10) our mnemonic songs

11) Stupid YOU plays where YOU invent the skits

12) having kids teach a section/topic

13) the Constitutional Powers project

14) getting a printout of your missing assignments

15) notifying parents when you are missing three assignments

16) the teacher writing a note in my agenda when I did something fabulous

17) knowing my class ranking

18) taking graphic notes (all those cartoons the teacher drew!)

19) keeping your notes in one separate, bound composition notebook

20) doing reports and projects

21) knowing that the homework will be directly helpful for doing well on the tests

22) review game: brain gambling [note: other teachers call it "Las Vegas"]

23) review game: jeopardy

24) review game: steal the bacon

25) knowing that if your grade is high enough, you can skip the final

26) earning a free hw pass for having six weeks of perfect hw turn ins

27) the study guides

28) when the teacher draws a star on the class chart with the highest class average that week

29) when what we study in history overlaps with what we are reading in English

30) getting tests signed by a parent

31) knowing your teacher believes you can do better than what you are doing

I end with this: "What else could your teacher do or try that would encourage kids to do their work, learn, or try harder?"

And then I read them. This year the big winners are #9, 1, 19, 31, and 10.  The relative losers (most were still helpful, but not comparatively) were #30, 11, 12, 3, and 4. I am sad about #4 and don't intend to stop it, but I need to figure out a way to revisit the plans and make them more immediate. The kids do write their goal percentage in their agendas so they see their goal every Monday, and #2 scored pretty high, but....sigh, there is just too much to do in 55 minutes--or there are just too many chilluns. 

It was interesting to see how many kids shot down being taught by their peers. I asked my seminerds about that, and they explained that you really learn your section, the one you are teaching or performing, but you get next to nothing from the other groups. 

Suggestions this year: 

• replace tests with more projects to "engrave the info in our minds"  (but some kids hated projects)

• use more puppets (apparently the one I have, Citizen Genet--a critic of the Proclamation of Neutrality--is a big hit and the kids asked about him all year.)

• get privacy boards to use during tests

• change seats more often

• more review games (not different ones, just do more games in general)

• during the Civil War game, give kids points for answering, not just points for their side

• use more graphic notes--they really help and they are motivating

and the "I wish" award goes to: 

• make the kids think in a positive mind frame

Market-driven?

California Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss: "Publishing this data is not about demonizing teachers," Reiss said. "It's going to create a more market-driven approach to results."

Market-driven?

In the business world, poor service/products generally lead to the death of a company, but there are plenty of other companies happy to swoop in and fill the vacuum. That's because a company affords the opportunity for the entrepreneur to access wealth and autonomy, despite the enormous startup costs (time, money, energy, etc) and the lack of guaranteed success.

But who will swoop in to fill the vacuum of teachers at the bottom of the Times list who may lose their positions?

Don't get me wrong, there are teachers who should get the heave-ho. This list will be a wake-up call for some, and a confirmation of sinking suspicions for others. (I'm all for abolishing tenure as it currently operates, but that's for a later post.)

It's just that teaching as it is perceived by the public affords neither of the incentives the business world offers, neither wealth nor autonomy.

Because of budget cuts, there are many new teachers itching to fill the classrooms of the bottom listers. But a huge percentage of newbies drop out after less than five years. Some leave because they realize that even with the two months' vacation that lured them, there is still more work than a 9 to 5 position. Some leave because of the shock to their system that school isn't "Saved by the Bell." Some leave because it takes more than patience and love of children and good intentions to do this job. Some leave because the money disparity is silly, particularly for those with science degrees. Many leave because working conditions and demands are often ridiculous.

"Market-driven" implies supply and demand, and it works two ways in the education world. Is there a supply of teachers? Is there a supply of BETTER teachers? Has the certification process changed to reflect the realities of public school education and the findings of research?

Is there a demand for new teachers that is more than wishing? What I mean is, the public WANTS great teachers like teenage boys WANT Corvettes, but do you see teenagers driving Corvettes? No, you see middle-aged people driving them because they finally can afford to. Is there money to pay for the great teachers the public WANTS, or is the public just so many wishful teenage boys?

On the other hand, is a great teacher one who works for money? And that raises all other sorts of issues about human motivation and how that connects to the supply of teachers. As things stand, top grads tend to choose fields other than education, but some trickle into the classrooms because any profession that directly works with improving others is something of a calling. (And that's the subject of a later post, as well.)

There is no question that a great teacher is valuable, worthy of wealth and autonomy; our current system does not reflect that truth, rewarding equally the effective and the ineffective.