Author Archives: Gretchen Cruden

The Absence of COVID-19

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching

The Washington State Department of Health issued guidelines for the 2021-2022 school year in regard to how schools may best mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in their facilities.  This document seems to put a tidy bow on the layered measures school can and should take to ensure student health. And yet, the bow is quickly unraveling through no fault of anyone. 

The state has worked hard to help reduce the number of absences students incur due to COVID-19. This makes sense as absences rates correlate greatly with student success. There are no longer such stringent requirements regarding actions surrounding “close-contacts” and healthy students are able to return more quickly to school if they test negative for COVID-19 during an imposed quarantine time. Many schools are even taking advantage of the Learn to Return program offered that allows for schools themselves to do COVID-19 testing onsite. All of this may have worked beautifully if the Delta variant had not hit and changed the playing field.

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Piloting Year-Round Schooling

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Uncategorized | , ,

As educators, we all know about the summer slide—that disheartening and frustrating phenomenon in which students return to school in the fall knowing less than what they walked out the door with in the spring. Research shows elementary students’ performance falls by about a month during the summer, with students from low income households losing even more. To make matters worse, the summer slide appears to be cumulative. This contributes hugely to achievement gaps shown between low-income and higher-income students over time. 

The summer slide has always been painful, but now we are facing a COVID slide that threatens to overwhelm our educational system. Washington State is examining ways to address this loss of learning, including extending the school year as outlined in Senate Bill 5147. This bill calls for 50 school districts to pilot an extended school year program of up to 210 school days beginning in the 2022-23 school year and running through the 2025-26. At the conclusion of this pilot, the state would then determine whether an extended school year should be implemented statewide. 

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Imagining 2021

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Equity, Life in the Classroom, Literacy

Perhaps one of the most powerful of phrases in all of teaching is one embedded deeply in the Washington State K-12 Learning Standards (Common Core State Standards) for English language arts. This phrase is one that I honestly believe could change all of humanity if it were embraced and appreciated fully; lives could be improved, our environment could be stabilized and nations would no longer be at war with one another. Wow—what phrase could possibly have such a powerful impact? Reasoned judgement. In essence, reasoned judgement is the critical thinking skill of being able to objectively analyze and evaluate information such as data, text, and research findings and derive a sound argument. Take it a step further and reasoned thinking can be shared with others in a coherent manner. 

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Hands-in Learning

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Education, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Parent Involvment

Like many of the rest of you, I went from being a classroom teacher to also being continuous-education facilitator (perhaps a new state term?) of my own children in the blink of an eye. While I am still juggling the steep learning curve of being a virtual teacher for my brick-and-mortar students, I have had my own steep learning curve at home. 

This morning, we sat at the kitchen table and went through our “classroom norms” to start the day:

Breakfast eaten-check. Hair brushed-check. Teeth brushed-check. Pajamas changed into real clothes for the day-check. I double-checked…no pajama bottoms? Wow! We already had some of my “real” middle-school classroom norms beat! 

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Keeping Behavior Expectations High

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary

We sat in the thick of a heated discussion. Faced off in our groups of four, we discussed what approaches our schools would take in response to a student repeatedly refusing to comply with a teacher’s request to do their work. “We can’t expect the same level of behavior for all students. We need to be culturally responsive. Why push the issue? The kid isn’t really hurting anyone by not working.”  

I sat back, mouth a gape. Did I just hear what I think I heard?  And if I did, what does this mean for education? What does it mean for classroom culture? What does it mean for the future of our country? And no, that final question is not an exaggeration!

Not. Hurting. Anyone…?

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WARNS of Trouble…

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Assessment, Education, Education Policy

Peace and quiet. Ahhh…I looked out at my students as they were silently reading and took a mental survey of what I know about this group of 6th-8thgraders. Who are these young people?

In my room, at least 60% are in homes where I know drugs and alcohol are playing a role in the family environment and nearly 80% are coming from homes where poverty has a firm hold. One in four are being raised by widows. Quietly they all read, lost in worlds of adventures far from the starkness of their real lives. 

It is not hard to see where almost every single one of my students faces a daily challenge in which they must use some kind of coping mechanism just to show up at school. I am actually quite surprised that truancy is a rarity in my classroom. However, I have had to become familiar with the new laws surrounding truancy this year. 

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Prep for Success?

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Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom

I was a few years into my teaching career when found myself in a line outside of thick conference doors waiting to get into a session entitled, On the Verge of Burnout? I was curious, who were all these people, burning out? Teaching was great!

Finally, after waiting a few minutes, I touched the shoulder of the young woman in front of me and asked if she knew what the hold-up was, why weren’t they opening the doors? She replied that indeed they had opened the doors and this line was the overflow for standing room.  Overflow? I should have seen the writing on the wall then—things were not looking good for teachers’ mental health. That was over a decade ago and it seems things have only gotten worse.

Fast forward fifteen years in my teaching career. Honestly, we are barely a month in and I feel the weight of an entire school year upon my shoulders. There is just too much; too much to teach, too much to manage, to juggle, to collect data on, to make fit. I am feeling the burn of being a candle lit at both ends.

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Thrilled about a new mandate? YES!

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development |

On May 9th, Governor Inslee signed a law that surely will affect our most vulnerable of students deeply. This new law reads: “Beginning in the 2020-21 school year, and every other school year thereafter, school districts must use one of the professional learning days funded under RCW 28A.150.415 to train school district staff in one or more of the following topics: Social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, using the model plan developed under RCW 28A.320.1271 related to recognition and response to emotional or behavioral distress, consideration of adverse childhood experiences, mental health literacy, anti-bullying strategies, or culturally sustaining practices.

I cannot believe it. This is such an incredibly positive step in the right direction! I am especially excited to see trauma-informed practices included in this new law.

Last month I wrote about the importance of teaching students self-regulation skills, especially in regards to how they would like their lives to play out. The challenging part is having the insight as a teacher into the impact of trauma on students to help these students regulate. Often their regulatory behaviors are counter-intuitive it would seem and only when you know the motivations driving them do they begin to make sense. Insights are not always enough though. You have to be able to act on this knowledge. An equally difficult aspect of helping students of trauma is to have the skills required to respond to emotionally laden situations in a healthy manner. Up until now, access to this knowledge and these skills have been limited. This is the case no long. Now, the question becomes, “Can this knowledge and these skills truly help, and if so, how?” Continue reading →

Family is the basis of society

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Elementary, Life in the Classroom | ,

Last month I wrote about the history of character education in American schools and drilled down to the character traits and values the Basic Education Act in our state outlined as important for schools to teach. One of these values is the concept that family is the basis of society. In other words, family is the foundation upon which our society is built. Let’s check in on the state of American families from yesteryear to today to see how our foundation is holding up.

According to Pew Research, in the 1960s, almost 73% of children were being raised in intact homes with their parents of origin. Today, only 46% of our students are coming from home where they have an intact family of origin. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this means over half of the children in our classrooms have felt the trauma of family break up and may be grappling with the complexity of living in a blended family. How do we teach about the importance of family when literally, the majority of our students will not grow up in an intact family?

We could talk about the about the different family structures out there. Unfortunately, no matter how you spin the numbers, study after study shows children coming from an intact family of origin fare the best when it comes to behavior and academic achievement. There are exceptions to the rule, but society is not built upon exceptions; it is built on the norm. We need to help our students develop the skills they will need to participate in healthy family lives as adults.

One lesson to teach…maintaining an intact family takes self-regulation skills.

Many times I have told a student escalating in conflict to hit the “cool it” seat outside my door. There the student can sit in simmering anger, chose to practice the breathing reminders (or not) and simply take a moment. I check on them. Have they breathed? Are they ready to talk? It is not until they have cooled enough and breathed enough to talk and hear words that I go and sit with them. I hear them out. We talk about the pain and shame that usually was the root of the conflict. We talk about how good it was to get away for a moment to clear out thinking. We talk about what we could have done differently so the anger did not get so hot. We talk about many of the other self-regulation skills we have learned in class.

And then I ask, “Why do you think it is important to learn to manage your feelings and manage conflict?”

If the student is fresh to the experience of the “cool it seat” they replay with, “So I don’t get in trouble.” That is true; for now. Back to class the student goes.

My repeat offenders hear an additional lesson. They hear a variation of the following:

“Hey, we seem to meet out here a lot. I am thinking I need to let you know a secret of life. Think you’re ready for a secret?”

What kid doesn’t like an insider secret? There is almost always a nod or at least a shrug of “Whatever” that really translates in my teacher’s mind to, “Please, give me the secret to ending this. I need to stop doing this same dumb thing. Help me out.”

I pull my chair closer and lean in. All kids know the best secrets are told leaning in.

I begin. “The thing is this. You do not magically get handed a pamphlet on how to handle anger and frustration when you are handed your child in the hospital. You do not get handed a book about how to love someone when you get married. If you think your own child or your wife someday could never make you as angry or frustrated as your classmate, you are beyond wrong.”

Repeat Offender just stares back. Still listening, but not hearing it yet.

“How mad that kid made you by taking your pencil and lying about it? That is nothing compared to your own 15 year-old sneaking out and lying about it. If you think for a moment that your wife won’t make you want to slam your fist through the wall from sheer frustration, you don’t get what loving and living with someone for a long time means.”

Repeat Offender usually says something snarky about not having kids or not being married. I always look them straight in the face and simply say, “True, but you are a kid. So, maybe you know how it feels to have a parent out of control…”

Most of the time there is a small wince. I hate that wince. It means they know.

“You job at this age is to learn to manage your emotions and your actions so that someday you have the skills to deal with your child without treating them like you just treated your classmate. You are here to learn how to keep your fist unclenched and at your sides instead of into walls. You are here to learn to hear the words of someone else, even when you are mad at them.”

Repeat Offender nods.

“Do you know why you need these skills?”

Repeat Offender knows somewhere in his heart, but does not know how to say the words.

I help. “You need the skills of self-regulation so you can have a happy life. So you can have a happy family.”

There is not a lesson I can teach about family being the basis of society. There are only moments I can grasp as teachable. If even one of my Repeat Offenders hears me and takes their need to learn self-regulation to heart, it is one more chance for a family to be kept intact in a healthy way. Healthy families are the basis of a healthy society.

*For the record, physical and emotional violence are not the only causes of families to fall apart. There are many other ways in which self-regulation plays a role in creating healthy family dynamics. There are also many other ways I teach self-regulation. Those will be the subject of my next blog as they connect to the other areas teaching character and values in the classroom.

Teaching Builds Character!

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, Social Issues

It takes a little knowledge to dig a little deeper sometimes. This month, I am hitting the knowledge. Next month – I am digging a little deeper. What am I talking about? Character education! Let’s first get a little history…

A triad of men formed the genesis of what is called character education today.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was fascinated with both his own moral character and those of his fellow Americans. At the age of twenty, he set out to develop his own moral character in a systematic way and devised a way to evaluate how well he was adhering to his top thirteen traits of character. He wrote about these same traits as being excellent tools to derive moral answers to the questions of every day life for children. Some of these same traits (such as resolution, industry and justice) form the backbone of today’s character education programs. I wonder what app he would develop in today’s world to self-monitor his character?

Horace Mann (1796-1859) did not think the schools of his era were lacking in the ability to teach academics, but was lacking in something far more imperative to society; moral reasoning. He was of the mind education should not only include moral instruction, but that it should be mandatory. Mann’s home state of Massachusetts became the first state to require that children attend classes in 1852. The law stated every child must attend school to learn read and do math. If parents refused, they were fined large sums of money and if they still refused, their children were removed from their homes and their parental rights were severed. Wow-times have changed! Part of this severity was due to the importance Mann placed in having all children raised with having been taught moral reasoning.

William McGuffey (1800-1873) had an equally strong impact in the formation of early learning. He became a teacher at the wise, old age of fourteen. He began to see the importance of have a unified approach in schools to moral learning and developed the most popular curriculum in history; the McGuffey Readers. These schoolbooks were laden with Biblical stories and moral lessons. In this way, the prevailing social norms of the time were established for the students. These lessons became the foundation of moral development for early American children for many generations.

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