Category Archives: Education

What My Mom Taught Me About Teaching

Posted by Jeremy Voigt on January 30, 2019
Education, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

On January 14th 2019 my mother died. I sat with her for nearly eighteen hours, and was there when her breathing slowed and stopped.

My mother taught in Seattle public schools for a decade before becoming a stay at home mom. Some of my earliest memories are of her classroom and the daycare adjacent to her classroom. There was a door with a window between us. A green cot I lay on, but never slept on for nap time. A paper mache T-Rex. It seemed huge. The drawer she said her purse was stolen from. A woman I was not related to, but we called Aunt. Dusty light in a 60’s style classroom.

As a stay at home mom, my mom thrived. She was the type that made things happen: lunches, events, or after school programs. Our county didn’t have a rec sports league so she co-founded one. She taught me to read. Put books in my hands. Drove me everywhere. Music lessons. Friends. Ballparks. Yelled louder than any parent in any baseball stands anywhere. Ever. A growl of a cheer.

She had a huge social network. And she was kind to everyone. My town was small enough, at the time, most people knew her, and therefore most people knew me in any given situation. I hated that fact as a kid. I’m a classic introvert preferring to be left alone often, and she a classic extrovert—thriving on the social network. But mom taught me to be kind, or at least civil, to everyone I met, no matter what. And to respect kindness as the highest form of human interaction.

My mother also was an alcoholic. She would not like me saying this. She would say I’m not preserving her dignity. And from her perspective, she’s right. But in my early life my mom taught me to be kind, she taught me to be honest, and she taught me to pay attention to language. And in her later life she taught me to practice these things under strenuous circumstances. I’ve learned over the years that accurately naming something is a kindness. I would argue acknowledging my mom’s disease, and loving her are one act. I would argue putting the truth on the table under bright light takes away its power. Alcoholism gets between people, naming it (without judgement) puts it to the side.

She struggled with that, and it is ok, because it is hard. She could not untangle the connotation of judgement from the word alcoholic. Perhaps that is a perspective from her personality or from her generation, either way it does not matter anymore. We disagreed on this until the day of her death. But what I’ve found over the last few weeks is that the people who love her most, knew and in their own ways acknowledged her disease and loved her all at once. Life is supposed to be hard. If it were easy there would be nothing to do and we’d have no sense of value. And the lesson of naming something, no matter how difficult, proved just as powerful as my mom’s early lessons about kindness.

The day after my mom died, I went to work. I started my AP Language class with a colleague’s student teacher observing, something planned weeks ago. I tried to teach. I started talking about sentences, periodic and cumulative sentences. I thought I mixed them up. Fumbled through definitions. I couldn’t focus. I started sweating. I have never felt so lost in front of students. Even in my first years of teaching. So, I stopped.

I told my students that we knew each other too well after four months, and I could not continue without explaining why I was a mess. I told them my mom died. A subtle shock wave moved through the room. They went quiet. I’ve been teaching for fifteen years and I really believe the single most important thing a teacher can do is be authentic. I told them I was ok, and would be gone the rest of the week. We were quiet as a group for a few beats. That morning I held back because it did not seem appropriate to burden my students with my grief. But standing before them, I just could not fake it at that level. They saw right through the façade, because I’d worked hard to be vulnerable and real and together all year and when I wasn’t everything was wrong. Naming the reality put everything into the fluorescent classroom light. I stopped sweating. We could move on. They said they were sorry with murmurs, with their eyes, and with their awkward teenage silences. It was amazing.

The Wheels on the Bus

Posted by Shari Conditt on January 5, 2019
Education, Professional Development

I’ve spent sixteen years teaching for my current district and until recently I couldn’t have told you what road or geographic landmark determines whether a student attends my school or the neighboring district’s high school. I did know that our district is large geographically. We have a “remote but necessary” elementary school in our district that serves 40 students who live upriver.

We use a variety of terms to describe geographic areas in our school community. Upriver is a pretty common term used to describe the area due east of our community that parallels the Lewis River. I first heard this term when I started teaching in the district. When we received our first yearly snow, I was told that the kids who live upriver needed to go home. I didn’t really understand but later, during the summer, I went hiking and discovered that upriver includes a significant elevation gain that approaches the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Mt. St. Helens. The bottoms is another area I’ve often heard students reference. I really had no sense of where that was nor did I ever find myself in a position to go explore the area. I’d ask and folks would point in a direction but it never made much sense to me. There was talk amongst staff that students would go hang out by the bottoms. I also knew that some of my students lived over there (wherever it was). I came to learn that this area is close to the Columbia River. There are a few parks down there and a road that runs along it that seems a bit too narrow for driving high speeds. It’s also host to some local farms and farm families.

Over the past few years I’ve been really thinking about what it means to “know my students.” Like many, I do interest inventories at the beginning of the year to diagnose learning styles. I learn about likes and dislikes, habits, playlists, and have my students write me a letter so I can get a sense of their voice. Last year, I decided that I wasn’t okay with the fact that I could go a class period without talking to each student, so I positioned myself in front of my classroom door every class period before students walked in so that I could at least greet them coming into class. I find these interactions encouraging as they’ve led to other, deeper conversations about issues going on at home, struggles students are having with peers, or challenges students are facing in my class. But at the end of last year, I still found myself wanting to learn more about the community my students live in.

Because of my work as a part time instructional coach I assist in the planning for site based professional development experiences. I asked our principal if he would be willing to carve out time before the school year to take our staff on a “field trip” to see our community. I wanted to know where the bottoms are and what conditions were like for our students. I wanted to see the boundary lines so I could better understand our students and our district. My principal figured out the “how” and the route, and when we came back for our August trainings, our staff loaded into a school bus one morning to take a tour. The bus took us to places that aren’t on the main roads or that I pass as I drive to work each day. We went past the subsidized housing units, the trailer parks, and piled up decommissioned railroad cars that families live in near the bottoms. We drove past the camp ground that lacks running water that is home to some of our students. The bus driver took us up roads that quickly climb elevation to some of the most beautiful homes in our community with expansive and breathtaking views of valleys and rivers (Note: How do our bus drivers turn the bus around up there?). While the tour was guided by my principal, staff who grew up in town added information to help round out the experience. On that day we saw poverty and wealth and my eyes were opened to the stark contrast between what home looks like for so many of my students.

That trip was nearly four months ago and it still resonates with me. I find myself thinking about where my students live and what their lives must be like in those apartments, houses, trailers, and tents. I’m really seeing my students. I find myself patient with the student who couldn’t finish her work last night. I know now that she doesn’t have reliable electricity.

New Year’s Resolutions for a Busy Teacher

Posted by Lynne Olmos on December 31, 2018
Education, Life in the Classroom, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized

This blog is brought to you by boxes of Christmas decorations, a beleaguered faux Canadian Pine, and the heavenly aroma of black-eyed peas and pork.

New Year’s Resolution #1: Stick to Worthwhile Tasks and Activities

The new year is upon us, happening too fast, as usual. Just as we get used to the schedule of a Winter Break, we are trying to get a mountain of tasks done before school starts up in a few short days. Where does the time go?

That’s really the gist of it, isn’t it? Where does time go? As teachers, we are always scrambling to fit all the learning we can between two bells. We have to cram all the planning, copying, and bathroom breaks into those all too few precious moments, and most of us take the work home, too. We are always squeezing too much into too little time. The struggle is to make all of our time, our students and our own personal time, worthwhile.

I resolve to ensure that my students do not suffer through meaningless busy work.

And, because I am important, too, I will give myself meaningful and worthwhile tasks, too. I will let go of the “busy work” that wastes time, and I will focus on what makes my life more complete. I want to always be able to say, “it’s worth my time.”

New Year’s Resolution #2: Take Time to Celebrate

As I pack away my Christmas décor, removing the sparkle and glow from our home, carefully tucking away old ornaments and our faux Canadian pine, I am feeling sentimental. It all goes by so fast. Not just the holiday, but the year…everything.

In the gloom of winter, we create an artificial shine to remind us of the celebration of all that we love. It’s nice, but it’s fleeting. In light of this, I resolve to make sure that those who are precious to me know that they are. I want to openly value my family and friends, and my students, too.

I resolve to tell my students what is wonderful about each and every one of them.

Likewise, I want to joyfully express my love of learning, of literature, of history and of theater. I want to share what is precious to me with those who I value and hold dear. We should never lose the sparkle and glow that we so intentionally celebrate this time of year. We need to spread it out thouogh the year with enthusiasm.

New Year’s Resolution #3: Expect Great Things in the Future

As I write this, my home is filled with the savory aroma of black-eyed peas, collard greens, and pork. It’s a tradition in our family, and in many places around the country, to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s. It’s for luck and prosperity in the new year. Wikipedia confirms it: “The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity; the greens symbolize money; the pork, because pigs root forward when foraging, represents positive motion.” It’s a lovely smell, and it brings back a lot of memories. But this year, I am really looking forward to so much more. I have a lot I want to accomplish, so bring on those black-eyed peas!

This year, I will be going on an international field experience with Fulbright’s Teachers for Global Classrooms. Last week I found out that my assignment is in Morocco during March. That is big news and such a trip can only be life changing. I am overwhelmed and excited, to be sure.

However, this year could be amazing for so many other reasons, and I don’t want to lose sight of any of it. I have a grandson to enjoy, a young horse to ride, an amazing family. And, not to be forgotten, I have some incredible students in my life right now. I want to plan for the best possible outcomes for us all.

Luck would be nice, but I am setting my expectations very high.

I resolve to expect great things, from myself and my students.

So, let’s break it down. Here is Mrs. Olmos’s advice for a great 2019, for herself, mainly. However, I think these goals/resolutions could work for any teacher.

Stick to what is most worthwhile.
Celebrate all the good stuff.
Have outrageous expectations.

And have a Happy New Year!

A Proposal to Support Student Mental Health and Safety

Posted by Lynne Olmos on December 19, 2018
Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

Have you checked out Governor Inslee’s Proposed 2019-2020 Budget and Policy Highlights? There is a lot to sort through, but, of course, I went straight to the K-12 education highlights. Like my students, I can digest the relevant text more readily. I’ll browse the rest…eventually. But, when it comes to education, they have my attention.

There are some interesting, but not especially surprising, bits. Along with restoring local levy authority, the governor proposes to spend more money on programs to support special education, science education, para-educator training, dual language programs, and recruiting teachers from diverse populations. Everything I read echoed needs in my own school, so I can understand why it’s all there. I hope that these proposed programs reach so far as to benefit my own students in the near future.

However, another area of the budget caught my eye. The proposed budget includes $7.5 million for programs to support student mental health and safety, which is a relatively small amount compared to the rest of the budget. Clearly, recent news events have raised our collective awareness of the need for safer schools and mental health services for our students. Therefore, it’s not surprising that it’s in the budget proposal.

The document suggests supports for districts to offer a “coordinated approach to prevention, early identification and intervention for student behavioral health and safety needs.” It specifies safe schools plans, recognition and response to emotional and behavioral distress, and funding for expansion of access to behavioral health services. All of this sounds reasonable, but it seems like we are focusing on the symptoms and not the causes of the crisis. If it is truly about prevention, what will we be doing differently in schools to prevent distress?

Don’t get me wrong; we need all of the supports mentioned in the proposal. We need more counselors in our buildings. We need plans for school safety that are actionable. We need all educational personnel to be trained to recognize and respond to symptoms of emotional distress. But, does anyone take time to wonder how we could prevent getting to the point where we are responding to distress?

Teachers see students struggle every day. Of course, there is the normal struggle that involves a math problem or a difficult text. However, kids are suffering from more serious struggles. These emotional and behavioral struggles are less tangible, but just as real, and far more frightening. They could be issues brought on by poverty, homelessness, self-esteem, gender identity, sexual orientation, bullying, isolation, or mental illness. To complicate things, our world has become a contentious place to live, and kids are hearing such fearful rhetoric around them on a daily basis. How can they feel supported and safe in the face of emotional crises?

Teens in particular suffer from increased rates of depression and suicidal ideation. Social media often exacerbates their problems, as some students cannot escape the social pressures of their peers so long as they have their phone to check 24/7. Here’s a recent USA Today article that takes on this topic.

We teachers know the problem is monumental, so we spend a lot of time thinking about what schools can do. What can we do? Well, for one, we should do our best to make our schools and our classrooms, safe and supportive places for our students.

Every student needs to be truly seen, heard, and valued. They need the opportunity to show their individual talents and pursue their own interests. This is how we can fully support the mental and emotional health of our students.

Specifically, we need to shift our focus from purely academic achievement to creativity and collaborative learning. I have no issue with traditional standards and assessments. They’ve been the bread and butter of my career, to be honest. But, I know from experience that my students come alive when we are working on creative projects. They talk to each other, truly talk to one another. They empathize, they support, they give of themselves. These simple acts are what make us human. They put us in touch with one another and with the work that we produce.

I see it in my teaching practice. My drama students create close bonds of respect and support, cheering one another on for each and every performance. My Art Club students talk about their problems over Wednesday afternoons of watercolors and pen and ink, comforting and encouraging one another, letting the troubles of the week slip away. Even my least artsy kids choose video or dioramas or other creative projects when given a chance. Art heals, encourages, supports, and edifies.

Simply put, if students only go through the motions of education, listening to lectures, taking traditional tests, and conforming to the standards, they are not expressing what is hidden inside of them. That hidden part of them needs nurturing and needs to grow in a safe and supported environment.

If we want to spend money on emotional and behavioral health of our students, I propose this: Spend it all on arts education. Get every child into visual and performing arts programs. Have them create from their souls. Have them work in groups to create together. Have them feel the support of their peers and the admiration of their teachers. The arts support the emotional and mental health of our students directly. I have seen it in action. It works.

Not convinced by my anecdotal evidence? Try these resources:

The Healing Power of Art from Harvard’s Women’s Health Watch

How Making Art Helps Teens Better Understand Their Mental Health from Mindshift

Anxiety.org’s articles on using improvisational theater to relieve anxiety

New Year’s Resolution: Eight Seconds Every Time

Posted by Gretchen Cruden on December 18, 2018
Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom | anger, behavior, brain-based teaching, classroom management

My New Year’s resolution is to not find myself on a bull ride with a student. In bull riding, an eight second ride earns the intrepid rider a spot on the scoreboard. It is intense and tough to do. In teaching, eight seconds can earn your student a chance at learning and you a chance at teaching.

I clearly remember the first classroom rodeo I observed as a student teacher. The moment came as a too-old-for-his-grade middle schooler was asked to move seats because he was talking.

After no response, the teacher walked closer to the student and through gritted teach said, “Move. Now!” The student just stared back at him. You could almost see the boy’s hand slip perfectly into the bull rope as his shoulders slightly tensed.

The boy broke his stare. As he looked away, his words were just barely loud enough for the teacher to hear. “Whatever dude.”

That was it. The chute was flung open and the bull ride began.

Continue reading →

On Leveraging Technology: part three of several–tools, devices, &iInstruments

Posted by Jeremy Voigt on December 17, 2018
Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Web/Tech

The main response to concerns over screen time and children that I have run into is that educational screen time is not the same as entertainment screen time. I take the point, but I have my doubts. One of my chief concerns is the blind belief in the goodness of technology. Anand Giridharadas illustrates this in a recent interview with Krista Tippet. Giridharadas points out that in Silicone Valley

“there’s this thing of dropping out of college because…they feel they have the technical knowledge they need to get started. And part of what they’re dropping out of, in many cases, is the liberal arts education that is precisely designed to give you these kinds of frameworks to understand things like, history is cyclical, and good things have bad effects, and things go ways that you couldn’t anticipate, and just this normal understanding of how the human condition,…works.

When you have people with that much power over humanity, that much power to decide more and more how children learn and how commerce works and how power functions, and they basically have a naïve, childlike understanding that any tool that they invent will inherently make things better, you go to a very dark place.”

I share his concerns. Teaching literature, the human condition is an obsession, so this resonates with me (plus, I believe in the philosophy of a liberal arts education), but I’m putting my doubts aside for the moment to consider how to maximize the positive potential technology offers the classroom. I want to illustrate a framework for technology in the classroom (or anywhere else).

Recently a friend of mine offered this distinction summarized from Andy Crouch: humans, as inventive, industrious, and inventive beings regularly use tools, devices, and instruments. The distinctions work as follows: Continue reading →

On Leveraging Technology: part two of several–does it really help?

Posted by Jeremy Voigt on November 29, 2018
Books, Education, Education Policy, Literacy, Web/Tech

To leverage is to use the power or force of a lever in the literal sense, and in the figurative—to advantage for accomplishing a purpose. This is a great educational word.

I once had a mentor tell me I should teach every day as if a parent were standing in the doorway demanding excellence for their child. This is a great educational standard. It is also a recipe for failure, which I’m ok with (as I’ve blogged about before, twice). The truth is, the days I really use technology in the classroom are the days I would never want a parent standing at the door.

A newsletter comes home every week from my children’s teachers. Lately, they are full of pictures. The most recent newsletter is full of pictures of students “doing science.” 50% of the pictures are of kids looking at screens. It is not an image of kids doing anything observable.

The image of my classroom or my children’s classroom should not trouble me if the technology is being leveraged, if the technology is being used to advantage to accomplish a purpose. I teach English and sometimes students are staring at books in my classroom, and other times computer screens. I completely get it is part of the fabric of a class. The trouble I have, more often than not, is with the word advantage. An old French word, advantage means a positon in advance of another. It means profit or superiority. It means before. More often than not my lessons that use technology could be carried out on paper. What advantage is the technology? It saves me deciphering handwriting. It is faster, mostly. This begs the question—why is speed something to value in learning?

My son has a lesson on water, and the way it forms land. The class starts on the computers looking at photos of Mars. Amazing. They observe how the land is shaped, determine there is sedimentary rock in a channel (full disclosure I don’t understand how they determined this) and deduce it was shaped thus by water. The homework is to look around their neighborhood, or town and describe land formed by water. This strikes me as odd, it seems the reverse path practicing scientists take. Don’t practitioners observe their world around them and then make connections to new discoveries and distant objects? My son can describe how water forms land, but does he understand how science works? How scientists have used observation since Galileo? He’s 13, what lesson is the most valuable? It didn’t take long for him to learn how water forms land, but did he miss out on a larger, more important understanding? It is possible I’m being persnickety, but I can’t shake the feeling the technology was used to be used and not necessarily used to the advantage of student learning. I’m not so much questioning a colleague’s choices here, as playing the role of parent in the doorway.

What advantage can these machines provide? How do I, as a classroom teacher, rectify the research showing the use of computers does not help much? It seems computers do not increase understanding any faster than any other educational innovation. The results of a seven-year study of the most scrutinized laptop 1:1 program showed laptops allowed test scores to raise at about the same rate as other counties without them:

“Test scores did go up a lot in Mooresville after 2008, when it started handing out laptops. But Hull calculated that test scores also soared by about the same amount in neighboring counties, which didn’t give laptops to each student.”

Additionally, Jill Barshay notes that the computer implementation had a negative impact on how much time students read books:

“From student surveys, the researchers found that Mooresville students reduced their time reading books by more than four minutes a day, on average, to roughly 40 minutes a daily in 2011 from more than 45 minutes daily when the laptop program was introduced. Meanwhile, kids in neighboring counties increased their daily reading by two minutes. Four minutes might not sound like a lot, but over the course of a year that adds up to more than 25 fewer hours of reading, which is substantial. Unfortunately, the state stopped administering that survey after 2011 and it’s unknown if book reading rebounded. But if time spent reading continued to deteriorate, that could partially explain why reading scores didn’t rise as much as the math scores did.”

I suppose this is natural, the new technology will eclipse the old. As mentioned above, I’m a bibliophile, so this sort of news is personally heartbreaking, but I recognize it is not for everyone. But even the lightest research yields rafts of studies where brain researchers are determining that, at best, the results of reading from a screen are only equal to reading from the page. The screen offers no advantage. The more troubling problem arises when one notes these even results occur when testing for basic comprehension not more complex understanding. Even then, the device sometimes can get in the way of the content. Students often report on how they use the device, and then on the content the device provided. The larger problem is, when asked more sophisticated questions, as described in Naomi Barron’s New Republic article, Why Digital Reading is no Substitute for Print, print wins every time. So, the clearest conclusion here is integration of technology succeeds most clearly in pushing out a more successful technology.

Barshay again:

“Students continued to spend as much time on homework as before but spent more of their homework time on a computer.”

The New Republic findings indicate this homework time is less productive, less focused, and equally concerning is this conclusion from Barshay:

“… the highest achievers and lowest achievers didn’t benefit more from the laptops than average students. One of the arguments ed tech advocates make is that educational software can help slower learners review material while quicker learners jump ahead to new topics, with each student learning at his own pace. But the researchers didn’t see stronger test score gains among the bottom quarter or the top quarter of students relative to students in the middle. They did notice, however, that higher performing students were more likely to increase their time on computers.”

The device succeeds most at encouraging more time on the device. A New Jersey school district (also reported on by Barshay) ditched the 1:1 program altogether. The device has some advantages, and is more popular, yet brain research holds with paper. This is not just the preference of luddites and bibliophiles. The long term scientific brain studies are continually reaching the same conclusions previously reached by authors such as Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Sven Brikerts, and Nicholas Carr in their fiction and memoirs across nearly 80 years. How do we leverage something not offering a clear advantage? Huxley and Neil Postman would argue that what we love will destroy us. Birkerts and Carr posit our love of technology is leaving us with a lack of depth. I suppose I’m arguing that we’re missing the important points. My son misses out on a clear experience of the scientific process, my students type drafts and feel they are done because they look done (all typed up neat and clean), and when we read from the screen we receive diminishing returns. I find irony in the fact that the term “leverage technology” comes out of a program adopted by my district titled “deep learning.” It seems technology is great for many things, but depth is not one of them.

So, in addition to my previous questions, we’re left with this: technology is here, and it will remain. How do we leverage it both in the classroom and in personal space so it works to our advantage and does not inhibit our learning and engagement with our lives? I’ve found some terms and am reading some research I will parse in my next post that attempt to offer some possible answers to this troubling situation.

Many Voices, One Chorus

Posted by Gretchen Cruden on November 11, 2018
Education, Education Policy, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized

Oprah Winfrey often talks about the one thing every person truly wants; to be seen and to be heard. This makes sense and can impact your classroom when kept in mind while teaching. It turns out it can impact whole groups of people when applied to policy making.

Recently, I was reminded the power of being seen and heard as I read document produced by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) called the Concise Explanatory Statement for Chapter 392-400 WAC. This 166-page document provides a thorough summary capturing all of the comments put forth by the public as the state went about rewriting policy surrounding discipline in our schools. I was struck by the quality AND quantity of statements parents in particular contributed and how the state was mindful of these comments as they created new policy. This document clearly shows not only whether or not each comment was reflected in final policy, but also where specifically an impact had been made. This started me thinking about the importance of participating in educational policy discussions, both as a teacher and as a parent. But where do you even begin?