On my 18th birthday, I practically sprinted to
the school library to register to vote. I don’t think I was really as excited
about the democratic process as I was about the right of passage it marked. It
happened to be just a few months before a presidential election, and all of a
sudden I started to notice the ads and the news stories and quickly became
aware of how complex voting could be.
Author Archives: Janette MacKay
The Lesson Plans
To plan a
complete and well-designed lesson takes time. Most of us have 30-40 minutes of
prep time per day, yet teach 6-10 lessons per day (at the primary level). Since
that in-school prep time is also the only chance we have to go to the bathroom,
organize manipulatives, or gather materials, not much lesson planning happens
during the school day. Which means that either we do most of our planning on our
own time, or we don't do it and end up winging it.
We need
community members, administrators, and policy makers to carefully consider
where they want us to focus our efforts. How much time do you want me to spend
preparing lessons for your child?
Teacher Fever
I woke up in the middle of the night, and knew something was
wrong. I was cold, hot, shaking, queasy, everything ached. I stumbled into the
bathroom to find a thermometer and wait…
wait…
yup. A fever. Now it’s definitive. I’m sick.
Like somehow I didn’t know that until after the little
number popped up on the thermometer.
Well, it’s probably just a little virus, or something I ate.
Uncomfortable, unpleasant, but not serious I consoled myself as I curled up on
the floor by the toilet where I would be spending the next few hours.
A temperature tells us our immune system is working. It’s
fighting off the weakness in the body and in a day or two, we will be well
again. Most fevers don’t send us running off to the doctor. Unless they persist…
A fever tells us something is wrong. But by itself, it
doesn’t tell us what is wrong or how serious it might be. It takes a while to
figure out if you need to call in sick, or check into the hospital. Just get some rest, or run expensive tests
using big humming medical equipment. These are the thoughts running through my
head at 2am on the floor of the bathroom.
What does any of this have to do with teaching? Well, since
I’m home sick today, I’m sitting here looking at my school’s MSP scores from
this past year. We, like many schools, seem to have a bit of a fever. Our
scores aren’t where we’d like them to be. They certainly aren’t terrible, but they’ve
declined two years in a row. I guess you would call that a fever in
reverse. Anyway, it appears that we’re a
bit under the weather. However, the numbers that I’m looking at don’t tell the
whole story. It’s a small school. A few kids having a bad day are enough to
change our scores from one year to the next. Listen to the staff conversations about
this, and we all have an idea what caused the trouble. But what we don’t have
is expensive medical equipment that can give us a definitive diagnosis. All we
have is the number on the thermometer.
Do we need more professional development to help improve our
instruction?
Or new curriculum?
Or a new intervention program?
Or new technology?
Or stronger anti-poverty initiatives?
Or maybe a better thermometer?
Maybe the one we have is broken.
After all, in the past few years we’ve changed our test from
the WASL to the MSP, and then changed the administration of that test from
paper and pencil to computer based. It’s hard to compare year to year using an
inconsistent tool. Looking at National Assessment (NAEP)
scores from the past ten years, our 4th grade state scores have
remained relatively unchanged. It
doesn’t seem to matter what we do: which curriculum we adopt, which diagnostic
test we administer, which RtI model we embrace. The scores have not wavered in
the past decade.
According to the Flynn
Effect, we are getting more intelligent over time. If that’s true, then
seriously, why aren’t our test scores rising?
I’m not saying we can’t or shouldn’t do anything to try and
raise student achievement. On the contrary, I think we need to do even more…way
more…to figure out how to level the playing field, provide meaningful,
appropriate instruction, and assess it in ways that aren’t skewed by politics.
If after a decade this fever has persisted, it seems like it’s time to do more
than just keep taking our temperature over and over.
Wiggly Teeth and School Funding
At curriculum night last week, I parent asked me to share
what a typical day was like for first grade. I felt like the guy in the truck commercial. My mind
flashed to all the things that had happened that day:
Curriculum, Common Core, and (a little) Contemplation
My living room floor is covered in books, bags of play-doh, math
manipulatives, files, and papers. The kitchen counter looks about the same. So
does the table, the sofa, my bed. Summer is ending and it’s time to get those
lesson plans straightened out to start the year. I could do this at school, but
my classroom is in a dark basement with no windows, and the sun is shining.
I’ve spent quite a few hours this past week searching Pinterest and blogs,
going through old plan books and files, reading teacher’s guides, and of
course navigating my fancy new Common Core app for just the right mix of beginning of the
year lessons. I’ve also spent a lot of time reflecting on how we make these
decisions.
Janette MacKay
I have recently started teaching first grade in Seattle Public Schools. This is my 18th year in education. I’ve had the opportunity to live and teach all over the world (China, Guatemala, Hungary, Morocco, Los Angeles…), and have spanned the ages from Kindergarten all the way up to the university level.
I was born and raised in the Seattle area and went to the University of Washington (it’s hard to write a bio without finding some way to work in a little “Go Huskies!”). I never imagined I would be a teacher, but sort of stumbled into it, and discovered the tremendous joy of the classroom.
Teaching well means that we can’t lock ourselves in the classroom, building construction paper fortresses. It requires maintaining a healthy, balanced life outside of the classroom, as well as staying involved with the policies that impact our students every day. Participating in this blog is one way to lend my voice to the conversation.
Reality Check
What do you say when someone tells you they want to be a teacher?
You’ve probably had this conversation: some starry-eyed young college graduate starts to tell you about how he’s going to become a teacher so he can inspire his students and help the parents and do all these great projects and…
I remember when I was that young teacher how deflating it was to hear veteran teachers grumble about how things have changed and all the joy has been taken out of teaching. As a novice teacher, I vowed to never get all bitter and grumbly.
And now?