Assuming Too Much or Too Little?

Oftentimes, I hear my colleagues talk about how little students seem to know. They complain about how little students are able to retain. The bottom line: They are complaining about how little content knowledge students have and retain. Is content knowledge important? Does it have anything to do with making students college- and career-ready?



The answer to both questions is yes. According to E.D. Hirsch, Jr., content knowledge is essential to understanding a text. Since the 1980s, Hirsch has been advocating the necessity of having content knowledge. In Cultural Literacy, Hirsch and his colleagues provide a very detailed list of basic cultural knowledge students must possess to be proficient readers of Literature, etc. More recently, in The Knowledge Deficit, Hirsch outlines the loss that students suffer from not gaining content knowledge. According to an international study of productivity in schools, US schools are one of the least productive in the world; our students decline 38 normalized points in reading achievement (Hirsch, 2006, p. 82).



By comparison, Hirsch's schools-Core Knowledge Schools-offer an alternative curriculum to the traditional American public schools. In Core Knowledge Schools, teachers follow a set K-8 cultural literacy curriculum. Despite the many critics (more on this in a second), these schools show a remarkable, steady rate of achievement from Grade 4 to Grade 6; meanwhile, the traditional schools show a higher starting point, but a stagnant trend over time. Perhaps teachers aren't too far off when they feel that students seem to have the same knowledge gaps year-to-year. Core Knowledge Schools seem to know how to be efficient; students start at around a 640 on the Stanford 9 in the sixth grade and they end somewhere around a 710 (Hirsch, 2006, p. 90).



So, who would oppose such success? Educators who identify themselves as "naturalists" or "formalists" or just those who think learning "just facts" is a waste of time. Naturalists believe that learning is a natural process. This theory is just not true. People are naturally curious, but they are not naturally good thinkers (Willingham, 2010). Cognitive scientists have shown that engaging interest is easy, but promoting thought is hard. Formalists believe that once students know the forms of learning, they can learn anything if presented in the preferred form. What will students learn? Without the purpose and direction of a learning goal in mind, thinking critically can be very difficult. (Some writers, like the late David Foster Wallace, could literally critically think about anything. I don't think everyone is quite so talented.)



We need information because our brains are built of schema. These schema are built of information. The more schema, the more quickly we can read and assimilate a new text (Hirsch, 1988). Teaching students information is not useless; teaching students information is an efficient and constructive use of time.



This idea leads me to the next consideration in preparing a college- and career-ready students. How can teachers present a series of regimented information pieces without giving up their autonomy in the classroom? My home county has been trying to develop a new evaluation protocol intended to bring administrators into the classroom. Instead, we've been getting a narrow interpretation of The Skillful Teacher masquerading as an evaluation system. I believe that we are being placed in the position of teaching with the "pedagogy of direct command and absolute control" (Kozol, 2005, p. 64). In Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol recounts the efforts of a program called "Success for All." This system seeks to create "the establishment of 'faultless communication' between the 'the teacher, who is the stimulus,' and 'the students, who respond'" (Hirsch, 2005, p. 64).


This monotonous give-and-take is what all good teachers fear will be implemented in their classrooms at any moment. Regimentation and a lack of flexibility do nothing to help students gain the knowledge and understanding they need for college; however, learning is not something that can be held up as though it were some type of new Apple gadget you must have in order to be tragically hip and cool-you know...like Justin Long.



What needs to be done is for us to remember that content knowledge is not just mere facts. Teachers should have deep content knowledge of their subject area in order to be the most effective. They cannot be in charge of the dynamic energy of a classroom if they must grasp for straws whenever they are asked an insightful question.

Teachers also need to be given the flexibility to achieve results on all levels. Massie Risch, Deputy Assistant Secretary for External Affairs and Outreach at the US DOE, said it best on Advocacy Day: "We are looking to tighten up on the goals and increase flexibility in how you get there." Students need the hard and fast learning goals that show them and us that they are learning; however, the strict order described in Kozol's book only helps to deaden a student's approach to the content. The monotony of teacher give, student take only makes education look like mechanical schooling. If teachers are no more than purveyors of information that students are to assimilate, then teachers need not be in the classroom and TVs and computers can take their places. But, if students are more than empty vessels, they need living, knowledgeable, and dynamic people who can and will challenge them to be the best people they can be, regardless of how they reach that goal.

The Data Driven Aughts

by Tara Seale

I titled this post the Data Driven Aughts, first because educators and students alike have been driven by data accumulated from the NCLB assessments, and second because I wanted to use an Urban Dictionary word because I am hip like that. Aughts refers to the decade between 2000-2010. Even though teachers frequently complain about standardized testing, and I am a proponent that believes much of what we are testing and how we are administering the tests (Please - a paper and pencil?) isn't relevant in the 21st Century, I still pour over the data produced from the NCLB assessments. Maybe it is my competitive nature because I want to know that what I am doing in the classroom is really making a difference, maybe it is because I haven't seen a way to use data to indicate growth through project based learning portfolios, but I currently depend on standardized testing to determine if my student has moved, hopefully in an upwards direction, or unfortunately, maybe he or she has not moved at all.

In a recent blog post by Lisa Nielsen at the Innovative Educator titled 21st Century Educators don't say, "Hand it in." They say, "Publish it!" Lisa spells out why standardized tests are not reliable indicators of what students are capable of achieving. She advocates publishing student work for an authentic audience, and she also provides six ways for an educator to move from a classroom that hands it in to a classroom that publishes it. I highly recommend reading this post, and I completely agree that this is the best environment for students, but I also believe that standardized testing is not going away in this next decade either.

Data is even becoming more flashy. I recently checked out data on the NAEP website to discover that they were using the Google's data in motion gadget as a visual graphic to demonstrate how 4th grade and 8th grade math scores have changed between the years 2003 to 2009. As a literacy teacher, I quickly noticed that only the math scores are using the cool visual motion graphics, and most of the scores move in an upwardly direction. I wonder what direction the literacy scores move?

This is my real worry. There are many articles out there suggesting that students growing up in this Googlized Century cannot maintain focus long enough to read a full length novel or write a lengthy prose, I don't necessarily believe that (read my response to one of these article at Sharing the Solitary Self for a Greater Mind), but I do have some concerns that arose when I read an article about the NAEP data from Detroit.

Ryan Beene wrote an article at Crain's Detroits Business titled Detroit's public schools post worse scores on record in national assessment. At the fourth grade level, only 3 percent tested at the proficient level and at the 8th grade level, 4 percent tested at the proficient level. This is alarming. Even if we should be moving towards project based learning and a publish it instead of turn it in classroom, when less than 5 percent score proficient on a basic skills test (even though they did use a pencil in a texting world), this is alarming. Do I think the scores would have been different if students created a portfolio and took a digital assessment, probably, but there is still obviously some serious issues and deficiencies in this urban area. When I went to the NAEP website to see how the rest of urban America performed on this test, it was better than Detroit, but scores were still very low. The highest 8th grade reading score was
in Charlotte with 29 percent of students scoring proficient.
The blog comments at the bottom of the post in the Ryan Beene article list a variety of reasons why the Detroit scores were so low: lack of parenting, politics, economics, inadequate teaching, inadequate classroom equipment, etc... but what emerged for me as I read the comments is that there are numerous problems without a clear plan to fix it.

If nothing else, the data driven aughts have shown us that something needs to change, but I also see change. The NAEP will have a digital component in literacy by 2011, and we are moving in the direction of adding 21st Century equipment in all schools. I am not sure if this will all be enough, but I hope when I click back onto the NAEP website in 2020, I will be able to see the literacy scores set to motion, but of course, there will be another gadget by then, something even more visually dynamic, something not even invented yet, something that one of our students will create.

As I glanced through the New York Times, I came upon a news item that dampened my identification with my Netflix favorite, Friday Night Lights. As James C. McKinley, Jr. explains in “In Texas Schools, Teachers Carry Books and Guns,” a small Texan town decided to begin the school year with some teachers carrying concealed guns.

I realize that there is a regional culture at play here. I get the fact that I probably wouldn’t choose to teach in this school district anyway. However, as both a parent and an educator, I find the premise that teachers should be armed wholly offensive. The concept contradicts the social contract between students and teachers. “I’m here for you. I’m going to work with you, on respect, on attitude, and on your education. Unless, of course, I have to shoot you.”

Listen, I teach in a state with fairly lenient gun laws. I realize every time a student leaves my room unhappy with me that there’s a chance he or she can return with a gun and shoot me. Middle-schoolers carry guns to schools in our area. I get the threat, truly. Jonesboro happened my third year of teaching, so perhaps I formed my social contract with students with the horror of the school shooting on the table. I understand that police officers in our schools carry weapons; I even understand that the police officer may be in plainclothes, so that a shooter would not know who to shoot first. I’ve taught quiet, tense children who wrote dark poetry and made me think about Columbine. I’ve taught loud, angry children with parole paperwork. I’ve had altercations with perfectly nice seeming children that made me wonder if I’d ever see an attack coming. However, I consider it a risk I take on with the job, similar to the chance of death I take on when I get in the car and drive. (Or the risk lots of adults take when they go into work…schools have not cornered the market on violent shootings in the past twenty five years.)

If we teachers begin each day, strapping on our concealed weapons, with the defensive position that our students may, in fact, start shooting after the warm-up and before the vocabulary quiz, then we have truly lost our teaching spirit. “Teacher expectations result in student achievement.” Isn’t that the tattoo they make us get? If we expect them to shoot us, aren’t we feeding into a negative self-perception at odds with the students we hope to cultivate? Might they shoot us? Yes, they might. Do they? More often then ever in history, but still, statistically, not that often. Let’s take the risk and leave our guns at home.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Educator

A Reason to Come to School?

If a student comes to school and cuts my class, I consider that my problem. However, if a student doesn’t come to school at all, I tend not to worry about that kid. Unless I know a student from a previous class or a club relationship, I begin my sense of responsibility when students and I cross into the building. Therefore, Gretel C. Kovach’s “To Curb Truancy, Dallas Tries Electronic Monitoring” in the New York Times intrigues me.

I’ve never worked in a school with a truancy program; in fact, I’ve never given much thought to where the kids are who don’t come at all. I guess I’ve fully turned that one over to the front office. While watching Season 4 of HBO’s The Wire, I felt for the character of Cutty, an ex-con now working in various ways to keep kids off the street. In the show, a middle school in Baltimore uses a couple of temporary custodial positions to hire men as informal truant officers, and Cutty has taken the job. As the HBO episode guide relates:

“Out on his truancy rounds, Cutty learns what his job is really about. The school is only interested in having the kids show up for one day a month in September and October - the minimum attendance that assures each school will be funded for the fullest enrollment. Cutty is incredulous. 'Naw, naw man. School is school,' he says to deaf ears. 'Which one of y'all still needs your September day?' his round-up partner asks the kids in an abandoned lot. Cutty is disgusted.”

This kind of bureaucratic ugliness can crush any educator’s spirit, and I try to stay away from school issues beyond my realm of control as a classroom teacher. I know I don’t have these system-wide answers. However, what would I think about teaching a kid wearing an ankle bracelet? Would I even know? My initial reaction is distaste, not unlike the state senator who “complained that ankle cuffs used in an earlier version were reminiscent of slave chains.” But since I’ve already admitted I don’t think much about where these students are, how much does my personal distaste matter?

Kovach writes: “The effort is financed by a $26,000 grant from Bruce Leadbetter, an equity investor who supports the program’s goals. The bulk of the money pays the salary of a full-time case manager, who monitors the students and works with parents and teachers.” I wonder if it is the relationship with this case worker that really makes the difference. It’s not fully clear in the article if the nine students at the featured school are the only members of the program, but Kovach gives the impression that nine students are in a six week pilot program. “The bulk” of 26K for six weeks and nine students sounds like a nice wage for the case worker, not that he or she doesn’t deserve it. I just wonder how that compares to the case loads and salaries of high school counselors.

The article creates the impression that once these formally truant kids get to school, they attend all their classes. Do the ankle bracelet and the focused attention from the case worker give these kids a sense that someone finally will notice whether or not they go to school? What does it say about a school system that can be fixed this way? It makes me want more information, information I could use to prove that smaller school sizes could create schools where kids knew people cared whether or not they showed up without electronic monitoring. To be fair, if I feel like doing extra educational research, it will be about teaching writing or critical reading; as I admitted already, I tend not to take on this kind of school system issue. An article like this one reminds me just how much work and thought has gone into getting my students in front of me. Free public schooling for the masses is some undertaking, isn’t it?

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Late to the Jargon Party

Okay, okay. So I know Marc Prensky’s “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” hit the world in 2001, but I just read it. I’d heard the buzz words of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants,” but I didn’t really know what they meant. I think Prensky’s considers his audience Baby Boomers; I’m thirty-five, so I’m not really an immigrant or a native. I guess I’m first generation!

I’m not devoted to Prensky’s theories, especially since by his designations, I’m teaching “legacy content,” namely reading, writing, and logical thinking, for which Digital Natives don’t have a natural taste. Lucky English teachers, eh? He suggests that those of us teaching “legacy content” need to employ “future content,” which involves technology. I didn’t find that earth shattering. However, when Prensky writes: “Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other things,” it caught my attention. Elsewhere, Prensky writes: “Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to ‘serious’ work.” Prensky’s list rings true to me, and I’m trying to give it more thought.

Over the summer when I can get some distance from the daily mental burdens of grading and classroom management, I like to ruminate about how I teach. (I’ve always joked that my summer lesson planning always goes so well because my imaginary students love everything!) I see Prensky’s list as a challenge, and I’m going to brainstorm how I can make some “style” changes to better communicate with my sometimes restless natives:

• Going Faster and Less Step-by-Step—My gut instinct is “No way!” If I go faster, I’ll sacrifice depth and cause confusion. However, if I think about going faster by going less step-by-step, I realize that I already try to do this. I don’t try to hold every student to the same step in a process at the same time (at least not every day). I try to design units with multiple tasks that students can move through as they get to them. Like a water park where three different slides dump into the same pool, most students end up in the same place even if they took various steps to get there.

• Going More in Parallel and Multi-Tasking—This concept goes in place when I remove the step-by-step process. So okay, maybe all the vocabulary words for a chapter don’t need to be written out before we begin that chapter. See? I’m flexible! I really need summer to plan for this kind of teaching because it requires me to have lots of things prepared ahead of time. Essentially, when I begin a unit, I need to have all the steps already prepared because students will hit various steps at various times. (Although I do build in what I think of as anchor points, places where we convene together, say for a mini-lesson from me or for a test.) I also find it challenging to figure out what to do with the students who finish first, maybe a full day before other students. Do I “reward” them with extra work? Let them play solitaire while the principal walks by? Start the next unit and accumulate a week off for the end of the year?

• Going with more Random Access—I recognize Prensky’s validity on this point. My students do not think as sequentially as I do when they look for information. It’s probably impossible to organize a unit this way this first time I teach a new prep, but once I’ve made it to the end of a unit, I have a fair idea of when students have questions and what resources they’ll need. Instead of providing students with a packet of directions at the beginning of a unit, I’m going to use my web site enrichment for my classes to make FAQ-style directions. (Hard copy directions can be re-organized like this, too.) This fulfills the “just in time” learning for natives who like to find what they need in the instant they need it, as opposed to being given a complete packet and told to flip through it for their answers.

• Using more Networking—I know my students like to work together, but I don’t always want to see collaboration. It frustrates me when I give short answer questions and three kids write identical responses; in fact, I watch them pass around one kid’s notebook as each kid copies it. The trick here is designing lesson elements where students collaborate on problem-solving but then separate again for written assessment. I know it’s as old as the hills, but I love Think, Pair, Share. If I ask students to write before they collaborate, I can cut down on the copying. Maybe I’ll try to get them working together without seeking a written product at the end of the session…

• Using more Instant Gratification and Rewards—This concept makes me a little queasy because it feels like I’m catering to a baser appetite (Am I longing for the old country, Prensky?). I teach critical thought through close reading and careful writing. My “legacy content” and I are the anti-instant gratification. Does passing out Jolly Ranchers really help? Sigh. Alright. I have created some computer-based games (using these great game shells) and use some web-based tools for rote grammar/punctuation and MLA/plagiarism practice. These online drills help me differentiate and give students instant feedback. I try to return written work as quickly as I can. I’m thinking about using student email more to give frequent positive feedback during the week (although I’ve heard that email to today’s student is already passé.) I’m still crazy enough to want students to find reading the fiction and poetry we cover its own reward.

Quite obviously, I need to give each of these elements much more thought. I don’t think Prensky has all the answers, but I did think his list gave me a lot to think about this summer.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

How About a $75,000 Raise?

In the New York Times, Elissa Gootman’s “At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay” has me thinking. The first principal and school founder, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, plans to pay his teachers a starting salary of $125,000 year. As principal, he will earn $90,000. He is 31 years old, and he taught middle school for three years through Teach for America after graduating from Yale himself. His teachers will put in a longer work day and school year than traditional teachers and will have additional administrative responsibilities. “The school will open with seven teachers and 120 students, most of them from low-income Hispanic families. At full capacity, it will have 28 teachers and 480 students. It will have no assistant principals, and only one or two social workers. Its classes will have 30 students.” Getting a job won’t be easy for interested teachers: “There will be telephone and in-person interviews, and applicants will have to submit multiple forms of evidence attesting to their students’ achievement and their own prowess; only those scoring at the 90th percentile in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT or similar tests need apply. The process will culminate in three live teaching auditions.”

Okay, so the first thing I did was look up my GRE scores. I consider myself a good teacher, and for all that additional money, I suppose I’m willing to brush up and take the test again to lift my lazy 89^th percentile up a notch. To be completely candid, that percentile qualification rubbed me a little wrong. While I think test scores matter, I’m not certain they reflect everything my students have learned, and I’m not convinced my GRE verbal score reflects my capacity to teach language. I suppose GRE scores reflect some level of intellect, however, and the cutoff has to be somewhere, right?

Next, I wondered about working for a 31 year old principal without school management experience who earns less money than the teachers. Won’t the fact that the collective experience of Vanderhoek’s teachers greatly outweighs his own be a problem? I’ve never held a position of authority over my fellow teachers, but my experiences running the occasional workshop (as well as the behavior I’ve observed during faculty meetings) leads me to believe that we teachers can be a tough crowd. Would an additional $75,000 each make us more cooperative or attract people who do what’s best for the school without ego? If the principal is the only administrator in the school, and he is not the highest paid executive officer, will the leadership role still work? Perhaps the entire power structure would be different. As principal, does Vanderhoek still fire teachers or determine class loads and room assignments?

Some of my other considerations are more personal than professional. Would earning $125,000 for my teaching (assuming I could make the cut, of course) give me the same martyr satisfaction that I get from earning $50,000 at the master’s level after thirteen years of experience? (Oh, I’m sorry, is my Catholic showing?) Does the same kind of teacher seek out the big salary? I’d get public school kids with a private school paycheck. In truth, I’ve never dreamed that I could earn that much money without sacrificing my democratic ideal that strong teachers should remain with higher need students in the public school system. If I could afford to truly travel or pay someone else to clean my home, would I have better energy for my students? How much longer is the workday and work year? If someone else cleaned my house but I had to be at school until 6 p.m., would my energy level end up being the same? Would I feel more patient and less frustrated if I could buy better shoes and afford to have my hair professionally highlighted? Would I have to dress better and start getting real haircuts? Am I even motivated by more money?

Maybe the thought of earning over a 100K for my work is so completely unfathomable to me that I can’t properly think about it any more than I can imagine sprouting wings and flying to work. With that pay scale, I start to think that teaching would require the kind of “on-site” time dedication other jobs that pay 100K require. Currently, I do lots of my work from home; I grade essays at 5 a.m. or on Saturday afternoons while I watch my son play in the yard, and I email reminders to students on Sunday evenings while watching television. I work many hours “off site,” planning lessons in my head while I drive or browsing for articles and topics on the Internet. If the 100K requires more hours in the school building, I’m not sure teaching would permit me to be the kind of parent I’m striving to be. Then again, who knows? Maybe I could work part-time for more than my current full-time salary. (I have to say, I find that much more tempting. If I had fewer students and more time, I dream I could fix the world, one five paragraph essay and close critical reading assignment at a time.) As the old joke goes, “They say money won’t fix education. I say, ‘Let’s try it once!’” Good luck, Principal Vanderhoek. I’m very interested to see what this experience yields. May it benefit both students and teachers…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Clicking my Way through Intermittent Mediocrity

Okay, so I’m not the teacher I like to be every day. Some days I’d evaluate my own teaching as “eh.” Yesterday, my lesson ended 10 minutes early. Now, in my own defense, it’s an hour and forty minute class working on remedial grammar and writing skills in a course I’ve never taught before, but still, ten minutes is too long. To boot, I gave a quiz, and I didn’t notice a kid had his cell phone out until a colleague walked by my room. As we gave our little waves to each other, I saw her eye drawn to said student. I scurried over and took care of it, but my cheeks still burn to have been that teacher. Here’s the honest truth: Despite caring intensely and working hard, sometimes, I am that teacher.

I can’t put my finger on an exact pattern. I’m not that teacher too often because I hate the feeling of knowing my lessons have fallen short, so I step it up after a day like yesterday; however, I can’t say these days are totally rare either. Sustaining quality teaching isn’t easy, and there are days I struggle for the enthusiasm and attentiveness it takes to be more than a moderator of activities.

All this has been on my mind as I read a good piece in The New York Times about the use of clicker technology in the classroom. One of the teachers in the piece talks about the prep work involved in loading clicker technology with the questions needed for review. I use clickers in this oh-so-long-grammar-review-by-the-end-of-the-110 minutes-none-of-us-cares class. (Our school uses a technology called Turning Point.) It’s true that I have to load the questions into a PowerPoint-like format before getting to use it, which can be time consuming. Fifteen grammar questions take me about fifteen minutes to create. (I’m usually copying content off of handouts; I’m not originating the content.) However, now I have the questions made for each semester I teach the class, so that payoff is pretty big if the content stays static, like with grammar.

Why am I discussing clickers along with my own mediocrity? Because I think clicker technology unnecessarily intimidates teachers…My class yesterday? We did about twenty minutes in a clicker session, and it delivered me from total mediocrity to merely intermittent mediocrity. (Hey, some days I’ll take what I can get!) Even though I felt low energy, I could lean on the clicker technology to create momentum for my class. The deadly, “Let’s go over the homework” part of grammar practice becomes more dynamic when students click in their responses. I can see whether or not everyone has at least guessed at each question; whereas, when we check homework without clicker technology, I find it hard to engage more than the student I’m currently calling upon for the answer. Once I know everyone has responded, I push a button and a Who Wants to be a Millionaire-type bar graph shows the range of responses in the class. Students who don’t understand get to see they are not alone. We all get to see progress as more and more students get the answers right as we move through the review. That’s gold in a grammar review session; very rarely do students really feel like progress is being made.

Pretty much all this happens while I push a mouse. By investing fifteen to twenty minutes a day in preparation, I get to use this clicker lesson in every class of that prep I teach forevermore especially when it’s January, and I’m stumbling a little. In my humble opinion, teaching for twenty to thirty years is a marathon requiring patience, enthusiasm, faith, intelligence, integrity, forgiveness, and lots of energy. There will be days along the way when I’m not impressed with myself. Incorporating techniques like clicker technology can help me keep moving on days when I might otherwise stall. What other experiences do people have with clickers? What say the teaching masses?

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

How Should We Court Parents?

I’d love to tell you that I first read about Damian Frye during my careful daily reading of the New York Times or through my conscientious attention to my NCTE newsletter. However, I first met his story on the parenting site Babble.com when I read Madeline Holler’s “Hey, Teacher, Leave those Kids’ (Parents) Alone.” According to Tina Kelley in “Spreading Homework Out so even Parents have Some,” Frye teaches ninth grade in Essex County, NJ and asks parents to do things like “read and comment on a Franz Kafka story, Section 1 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and a speech given by Robert Kennedy in 1968.” Good stuff, eh? Here’s the kicker: “If the parents do not comply, Mr. Frye tells them, their child’s grade may suffer — a threat on which he has made good only once in the three years he has been making such assignments.”

He goes on to explain “that all the students’ parents had computer access and that only two had told him that they were not fluent in English; one posts on the blog anyway, one sends her responses to him privately, by e-mail. Another parent phones responses in to him. Tony Lopez, a corporate lawyer who posted a lengthy reaction to the Kennedy speech…said he was actually glad to do the weekly homework.” At this point, I’ve read Holler’s annoyed blog, Frye’s enthusiastic testimony, and a hundred or so of the comments posted to the New York Times article, and I’m still not sure what I think…

NCTE’s own Carol Jago praised elements of Frye’s assignments but also “cautioned against penalizing students for something that their parents cannot or refuse to do.” As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I purposely teach discouraged learners, so I’ve taught a higher proportion of kids whose parents might not be a resource. Computer and Internet access for parents, in fact computer literacy for parents, could not be assumed where I taught high school. I also taught in districts where instituting a policy that showcased one child’s socioeconomic differences against another’s was frowned upon. One county-mandated unit I taught required students to interview a family member, and even that benign requirement got dicey; some students ended up interviewing a close adult relationship within the school instead because of stories too sad and varied to record here. It upset those students for other kids to know they didn’t have a close relative…I’ve never taught honors, but some people commenting on the New York Times’ thread laughingly predict the competitive nature of parents coming to fisticuffs on Frye’s blog since “the parents probably write the students’ essays anyway.”

Suffice it to say, I cannot emulate Frye’s assignment in my classroom because I don’t think it would work for the kids I teach. However, I’m struck by his innovation; I haven’t spent much time thinking about how to involve my students’ parents in their learning. My relationship with parents has been more like teammates as we work their children’s I.E.P. plans into the mainstream classroom or (thankfully—less frequently) it’s been…um…I’ll confess…defensive on my part. The state I taught in required four years of only one subject—English—so the grades students earned in my class garnered lots of parental attention that sometimes devolved into bullying the teacher. (Gulp. It only happened once, but I’m not sure I’ve experienced many things as stressful as looking up into my doorway and seeing an angry parent in her coat, arms folded, expecting to meet with me unannounced because of a message I’d left about her child’s performance…) So, anyway, the idea of courting parents has not occurred to me. I thought about parent involvement with the kids who worked the literary magazine I sponsored; heck, they gave their resources often to our penniless endeavor, but it is a new idea for me to consider crafting assignments so that parents can have “intellectual conversation with teenagers who are normally less than communicative.” I hadn’t considered that part of my job as I drafted a unit. So now I’m wondering, is it part of my job?

When I really think about it, I like the idea that my assignments would enhance dinner table conversation for my students and their families. I often wrote the goal, “Students will foster an appreciation of literature” on the board after “Students will cooperate in groups” and “Students will punctuate full sentences correctly.” While I’m not comfortable with Frye’s policy of grading students in part by their parents’ performance, I will really think about inviting parents into the process, of using my lessons as a neutral gathering ground for parents and children to meet, because I believe that is part of the power of reading and discussing literature. I believe it has a curative power—why not let my students witness that in their own lives?

The discussions I’ve encountered online debate whether or not Frye should do as he does. I’d love to hear what my fellow English teachers think they could do instead…How can we take what works about his concept and adapt it to our own circumstances?

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

If a Teacher Lectures and No One Listens...

Trained in the Nancy Atwell-era, I’ve only ever delivered a mini-lecture in my classroom, which usually tops out at about 15 minutes. However, part of my responsibility is to prepare students for professors whose expertise and style may better lend itself to lecture. Despite a few bum experiences, I often found lectures illuminating and captivating as a student. Isn’t the ability to listen attentively a skill worth teaching?

In her Washington Post piece, “Breathing Life into the Lecture Hall,” Valerie Struass explores the current state of the classroom lecture in today’s colleges. Not surprisingly, professors talk about using PowerPoint and/or clicker systems to enliven their lectures and ensure students are engaged. At the end of the article, however, Strauss shares the observations of Julie Reuben, a Harvard education professor: “Professors often spend their adult lives researching a particular topic and feel they have a unique synthesis and understanding of the research. They want to talk about their work. And although the process of putting together the lectures is a creative, intense experience for professors, it doesn't always translate to students who have to sit and listen, Reuben said.”

Who hasn’t sat and listened to someone wax poetic about something he or she found fascinating that ceased to fascinate in the translation? And yet, I can’t help but feel that learning to listen to lectures, especially those put together creatively and intensely by people who “have a unique synthesis and understanding,” is part of what being a mature learner means. As students mature, their own learning preferences can’t always be at the center of the learning experience. By college, students should be able to listen to people whose complete passion for their subject eclipses their ability to monitor audience response. As voters, we often make our determinations through listening to speeches, to debates, to interviews. Learning to listen attentively therefore impacts the democracy, right?

I applaud the inclusion of visual bullet points and intermittent statistical assessment of who understands and who does not via PowerPoint and clicker systems, and I’ve used both. I’ve also prepared mini-lectures and worked on teaching note-taking because I think learning to listen to lectures takes practice. Yes, all teachers and professors should use lecture purposefully rather than habitually. Yes, teaching should not be about the professor’s ego and pleasure. I’m not about to start lecturing for half an hour in my classes, let alone an hour and a half. However, I’d hate to see the lecture go completely. The lecture is the snooty cousin to the speech which is the political root of the voting system. “Free education for all” means preparing individuals with the necessary skills to participate actively in their democracy. I know not everyone will learn best through lecture, and I think teaching methods should be varied, but I urge us as educators not to erase the expectation that people learn to listen.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Teaching with Good Principals

One of my goals as a blogger is to create spin. Yes, spin. I hope to do so in a savvy, positive way rather than an obviously-indulges-herself-in-false-logic kind of way. Negativity and education can seem inextricable when we look around, whether we look in the newspaper, around the cocktail party or in the faculty room. In many schools’ cultures, there lives an “us versus them” attitude between teachers and administrators. “They” get paid more. “They” wanted out of the classroom. “They” don’t have to deal with what teachers deal with anymore. That may be true, but administrators also deal with stuff I don’t think about: Is the boiler at the right temperature? Will the union call for a strike? Did the booster parents stop arguing with the PTA parents? Are all the buses here? Newsweek’s “The Principal Principle” by Barbara Kantrowitz and Jay Mathews actually moved me to tears as I read its profiles of great principals around the country. So often in my classroom, I felt alone and anonymous, swamped by papers and student needs I didn’t know how to address. At times, I felt measured only by my students’ grades and scores. Often, my 150 or so students created more variables than I knew how to manage. Administrators deal with these same issues, at a much higher volume.

Good administrators put themselves between teachers and problems. Good administrators may not have a peer within the building. Good administrators ensure the safety and integrity of the school as a system. Good administrators have to pretend to like many more people than I have to as a teacher! Give me a minute to climb off my soapbox. Okay. Listen, I teach, but in the time I’ve been teaching, some of my teacher friends have climbed over the wall into the front office. I already know they’re good folk. I already trust them. The politics of many work places asks us to take sides, and when I was new, several factions sought to win my loyalty. Heck, several factions will always seek loyalty. Happiness as a teacher, however, stems from empathy not only for students, but for all the people within our system, which includes administrators. I’ve grown happier as a teacher since I’ve let go of thinking that no one who left the classroom can care about the classroom as much as I do. Just like I believe my students possess a variety of talents, I realize educators come in the micro-vision and macro-vision versions. My teacher blessing for all teachers out there: May your body feel rested, your mind feel at peace, and may your building be managed by excellent administration. Without their foundation, we’d get much less done…

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Cell Phones: Keep them Hidden or Limit their Use?

The community college I work for permits instructors to set the cell phone policies in their classrooms. Most students possess the maturity to turn off the ringer during class, but some students do leave to take a phone call. Around the student center, students sit in isolated little pockets, talking to their old friends via cell phone. It certainly colors the atmosphere in my classroom, but because of the age of my students, the problems are minimal.

High school teachers don’t teach only the mature students; they teach everybody who gets off the bus, so the cell phone issue isn’t as easy for them. According to Jo Craven McGinty’s New York Times piece, “Student Cellphone Rules Still Vague Despite Law,” city parents (including some City Council members) want a bill that would “allow students to transport cellphones to and from school.”

Currently, cell phones are banned from New York city schools. Where should the cell phones that are legally transported be while at school? “The Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, said the bill would place the onus on education officials to figure out how and where students can store their phones during the school day.” City Council member Mr. Koppell, who supports the ban states, “’We have enough problem with discipline in our classrooms and order in our classrooms that we don’t need to make the teacher or the proctor a policeman to make sure the cellphone is off.’”

I get it. Parents want to ensure that their kids can reach them and vice versa, especially after school. However, adolescence is a time to gain maturity, and handling cell phone usage with consideration and good judgment is something with which many adults wrestle. Do schools really need another “onus,” Ms. Quinn?

Cell phones could be like hats. Students are allowed to wear hats to school, but then are expected to store them in the school-provided locker. If students wear hats in class, teachers are expected to stop them. “Remove your hat, please” comes from adults’ lips as often as “Good morning.”

No, wait! Cell phones could be like vending machine items. Students may only buy sodas and snacks before and after school despite the fact that the machines are usually on throughout the day. Students may buy a soda or snack as long as they don’t drink or eat it in class. Students are not supposed to use the vending machines on a bathroom pass. If students drink sodas or eat snacks in class, teachers are expected to stop them. “Put the soda away, please” can be heard as often as “Hello.”

Maybe cell phones are more like the dress code. Both cell phones and personal appearance can provide a distraction, right? There’s a list of appropriate and inappropriate dress, so as students come in the classroom, teachers monitor strap thickness and underwear coverage. Or MP3 players, that’s it! Cell phones could be regulated by the “can be seen but not used” rules of the ear buds…Ugh. Just writing about all the things teachers regulate before the teaching begins exhausts me.

If students know cell phones aren’t allowed at all, they will keep them hidden. It keeps the issue more clear: “Don’t let me see a cell phone in the school.” It is sad that parents can’t be sure their kids are safe on the way to school and want them to have cell phones, but must schools take on that problem, too? If schools create a whole new procedure around cell phone storage (look at how well we manage hats, vending machine items, and dress codes), we’ll just create more work for teachers, which takes time from learning.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher

Is Teaching in Need of an Image Makeover?

Slate Magazine’s Ann Hulbert wrote a very interesting piece on teachers’ image last week, “Back to School: Could Teachers Become the New Lawyers?” The title strikes me because I’ve said to fellow educators bemoaning how some students don’t seem to respect us that, “If we want them to give us respect automatically, we should be their lawyers instead of their teachers.” As I type that, I realize how bitter it sounds. I guess I’ve just accepted that since American respect often pairs itself with careers that are well-paid, I would have to earn students’ respect rather than be granted it.

Hulbert writes about the new wave of Hollywood films on teaching that are shifting the teacher archetype: “Strangely, perhaps, the spectacle of obsessive administrators and anxious teachers in the trenches…just might help buttress a field that could use some defeminizing. High-pressured and punishing—of such macho qualities is social cachet often built in the world of work. Nowhere…do you hear anyone touting the familiar (female- and family-friendly) perks of the profession: the long summer months off, the seasonal breaks, the 3 o'clock dismissals, the heartwarming kids…The scene is more reminiscent of, say, the Union army, beset by struggles and squabbles within the ranks, yet striving to make slow headway on divisive home ground.”

The “defeminizing” point makes me wince. I suppose since my father taught challenging students, I didn’t grow up with a “female” or “easy” image of teaching. (Really, for the life of me, all I can think of in keeping with her reference is Little House on the Prairie. Has teaching adolescents housed by the thousands in one building ever been easy? Would I have ever eaten an apple I found placed anonymously on my desk?) I don’t think the description of teaching she provides is new; more likely, the kinds of teaching conditions she feels foster “macho qualities” in teachers have grown more prevalent.

Okay, disagreements aside, Hulbert is right that Americans need to understand more about what it takes to teach well. I’ve tossed about the theory that, like jury duty, all citizens should be required to do some “public school duty” every few years. Even if all they do is collect equipment after gym class, issue tardy slips during passing time, and monitor the cafeteria, I feel Americans would vote for school budgets and teacher salaries with a whole new respect.

A friend of mine discussed recently that even though people claim staying home with your kids is “the most important work of all,” they still won’t think much of it on a resume. To a lesser degree, my experience with how people view teaching is similar. “You’re a teacher! How wonderful!” is what you get told at a party, but the business world is suspicious about whether or not we teachers know how to work a forty hour week. If Hollywood can change that, I say more power to them.

co-posted on Between Classes: Living a Balanced Life as a Quality Teacher