Category Archives: Elementary

The Lazy Teacher’s Guide to Conferences

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Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Parent Involvment

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were early efficiency experts who did motion study work. The book about their family, Cheaper by the Dozen, explains the technique they used. “A lazy man … always makes the best use of his [time] because he is too indolent to waste motions. Whenever Dad started to do a new motion study project at a factory, he’d always begin by announcing he wanted to photograph the motions of the laziest man on the job” (Gilbreth and Carey, 94).

There are lots of tips and tricks for having effective parent-teacher conferences, from the NEA and KidsHealth to a collection of materials from Edutopia.

But how to be efficient? How to make the best use of your time?

Let me share some ideas. See if there are ones you can adapt to use with your students and your parents.

I have students write in a journal nearly every day. At the beginning of the school year I ask them to write short pieces about gifts or talents they have, ones they wish they had, and ones they are willing to work hard on this year to develop as skills. Often those responses have little or nothing to do with school. They have to do with sports teams or drama classes or art classes. Which is great — I learn a lot about my students’ interests. I have them type those pieces and print them. I hang them on the bulletin board in the hall.

(I also use the discussions we have to drive home the point that there are multiple kinds of gifts and talents, not just the ones that get kids placed into self-contained classrooms. And we talk about how everyone has to work hard to improve skills.)

About four weeks into the school year I narrow the focus. I ask students to write in their journals about what they do well at school. I ask them to think specifically about academics and behavior inside my classroom. The next day I ask them to write about what they need to improve. We’ve had a month of school. By now they should be able to pinpoint some areas of success and areas for growth.

The third day I ask them to write about how the adults in their life can help them—parents, grandparents, teachers, whatever grownups they rely on for help.

Once again, I have them type up what they’ve written, but this time I don’t have them print the pieces. They save them into the Kragen classroom folder into a subfolder called “journals.”

Meanwhile, I have a template for my conferences:

In the week before the conferences, I copy the template, one for each student. I add the student and parent names. Finally, I import the paragraphs each student wrote into their page.

As parents and students arrive for conferences I greet them. I ask the students to collect their most recent papers to go home. I give the parents the STAR test results and any other paperwork from the office.

Just that quickly we are ready to start the interview.

I sit at the computer, facing my student. Parents listen while I conduct an interview. (It’s really hard for them to be quiet and listen, but I ask them to wait to talk until their child is finished.)

First, I ask, “What are you good at? I see you wrote that you are good at math. Are you good at other things too?” As we talk, I add to what the student initially wrote. Sometimes I say, “May I add something? May I put down that you are extremely well-behaved?” or “You do really well in group work.” I’ve never had a student turn me down! It gives me the chance to reinforce the idea that behavior and teamwork are valued skills in the classroom.

Second, I ask for what they need to improve. Usually they have a really good handle on what they need to work on. My contributions are less likely to be additions and more likely to be suggested solutions.

Third, I throw them a curve ball. I ask, “What are your goals for school, for your life? What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to accomplish?”

Some children have vague ideas. “I want to get good grades.” I sometimes suggest, “I want to be well-educated?” They usually smile and say yes.

Others have definite plans. “I want to be a veterinarian.” “An entertainer.” “I want to work with robots.” “I want to be an author.” “I want to be an inventor.”

Those responses can lead to a brief but rich conversation.

1.

During the conference I Google the top ten colleges in the field and recommend to the student and parents that they contact the schools to find out what their requirements are. What would the child need to do in high school in order to be a good candidate for the program? Plan ahead!

(My dad did hiring for Lockheed. He told me once that they looked at candidates from only five schools in the US. I always thought that if it was your life-long dream to work at Lockheed it would really be awful to find that out after you graduated from school number six!)

BTW, also look into financial aid at each school. How will you start planning to pay for the college now?

As families take summer vacations, I recommend they visit any of the top schools they might pass. See if they can get a tour.

2.

Find mentors or interview subjects. Can you tour the robotics department at UW? Can you job shadow a scientist?

I won’t take the whole class on a field trip to visit such specific places, but I recommend parents take their own children on personal field trips.

Last summer a girl did field work with a biologist.

“The last question you ask is, who should I talk to next? Daisy chain connections. You may end up finding an area of interest that you don’t even know exists because it’s not something we talk about in a fourth or fifth grade classroom.”

3.

“What’s stopping you? If you want to be an author and write about your travels, start now. You’ve traveled across the country several times. How do you pack for long trips? How do you amuse yourself on long drives?”

“If you want to be an entertainer, start now. Read poems aloud—with GREAT enthusiasm—to the kindergarten classes.”

“Do you know about inventors who are young people?” I suggest the TED talks with Richard Turere and Boyan Slat. “And you should also watch Slingshot on Netflix because you will love it.”

Fourth, I ask each child how the adults can help. By now we may have answered that question within the other sections, but I always like to double-check that I haven’t missed anything.

About this point I turn to the parents and ask, “Is there anything you would like to add? Do you have any questions?”

Virtually every time, the answer is no. Parents tell me the conference feels very thorough.

What you need to notice is that the student has done about 85% of the work. I’ve done some copy and pasting, I’ve added comments into the document, but mostly I’ve had a great time talking to each of my students.

I print a copy of the page for the parents that they can take home immediately. They LOVE not having to take notes!

Of course, I have an electronic copy of everything. In the spring we can pull up the fall conferences and review how well the students are doing.

(In my next post I will share more ways I save time doing conferences!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning to Change

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Education, Elementary, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking.

It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

― Albert Einstein

My world of teaching has been in a four-grade classroom for a number of years now – all subjects, all students, 5th-8th grades. This has lead to a process of thinking and teaching that includes all sorts of skills for differentiating instruction and juggling the inevitable pulling ahead and tugging back of student abilities.

But, last year I became painfully aware of that my “usual” operations were not working for this particular grouping of students. I could tell their needs were not being fully met and frankly, I was getting burned out trying to span the range of abilities. I needed a change in my thinking surrounding teaching and learning. I began to explore other approaches to teaching and took what I found to my students. I knew that this level of massive change would be akin to fixing a plane while flying it. I needed everyone on board, to be…on board!

We decided on an approach rooted in personalized learning and with the added feature of flexible seating. Gulp! Big changes!

What I have found most fascinating throughout this experience has been the way in which we have collectively experienced these changes. When I first told my students about flexible seating and how they would get to design the classroom, they were ecstatic! Big sheets of paper, markers and ideas were strewn about as the students set out to “design” our space. Unsurprisingly, every group featured beanbags. Yet, surprisingly, two of the groups had neatly arranged their beanbags into rows of five by four. Changing thinking is tricky…

The 2019-21Operating Budget request has been released by Superintendent Reykdal. In this budget, there is a $37 million increase in spending for professional development to occur over the next two years. This request seeks to allow for more comprehensive, on-going and content-relative opportunities to develop professionally. This emphasis on sustainable change is reflective of the latest research in what makes for effective professional development. Inherent in this quality of professional development is the process of change on behalf of educators.

The concept of moving from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side” is not new in the field of education. I had honestly thought I had mastered the guiding/coaching side of teaching. A personalized learning approach seemed a natural fit for my students and me. What I have come to discover is that this first six weeks of school has been a steep learning curve, backed with a lot of online professional development as I have reflected on the philosophy of personalized learning and how I am implementing it in my classroom. It turns out the “stage” is awful hard to step away from. Changing thinking is hard…

Education is in a transformative state across the nation and across our state as we work together to prepare our students for the futures before them. We must change our thinking to meet their changing futures. This level of transformative change in the classroom and in our teaching requires time, effort and resources. The operating budget set forth by Superintendent Reykdal allows for the time to implement such changes. The vast majority of educators I know are willing to put in the effort for change – that is if it is “real” and worthy. Now, it will be interesting to see how the availability of resources unfolds to meet the challenge of changing our thinking.

Reading From the Ground Up

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Education, Elementary, Literacy, Science

Last year my district bought a brand-new ELA curriculum for the elementary grades. It has short stories, poems, and even a handful of class sets of novels for teachers to share. There are also nonfiction materials integrated into the standard social studies and science topics of the different grade levels. For example, since fourth graders across America often study Native cultures, the fourth grade ELA curriculum has booklets about Native tribal history and a traditional Native story. In addition, there are booklets about money management, economics, and innovation. For science, the booklets include topics ranging from earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, skeletons, and porpoises. There is also a short biography of an early paleontologist.

Our school day is scheduled around lunch, recesses, specialist time, a set period for math, a set period for reading, plus additional WIN times for math and reading—WIN standing for “What I Need,” whether it’s reteaching, extra support, or enrichment. Last year our fifth grade teachers complained that they had 20 minutes a day to fit in all the district-adopted science and social studies curriculum. “But you are teaching science and social studies in your ELA curriculum, right?” was the response they got.

Well yes. To a degree.

This week I attended a full-day curriculum workshop on the Next Generation Science Standards. The presenter at one point blurted out that he wished that one subject would be dropped from the school day altogether—reading.

Publishers would love to have you believe that they have provided the tools needed for integration by teaching science and social studies lessons within the ELA curriculum. But that’s exactly backwards for how true integration works.

In fact, this backwards system of integration may explain why reading scores have flatlined since 1998!

According to The Atlantic, “Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia … writes about the science behind reading comprehension. Willingham explained that whether or not readers understand a text depends far more on how much background knowledge and vocabulary they have relating to the topic than on how much they’ve practiced comprehension skills.”

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute says improving reading and writing instruction in America’s schools requires teachers taking the lead. “Teachers should tackle the content-knowledge deficit. In particular, they should take the lead in adopting content-rich curricula and organizing their lessons around well-constructed ‘text sets’ that help students build on their prior knowledge and learn new words more quickly.”

For real integration, I maintain that you need to start with your content-rich subject. Start with science. Or start with social studies. Figure out the main topics you will teach over the course of the year and decide how you will organize them. I teach either science or social studies, one at a time, alternating them. I am starting this year with Explorers and then Mixtures and Solutions. Next will be Colonies followed by Space. Finally we will study the Revolution and Constitution, and we will end the year with Living Systems.

Continue reading →

Put Down Your Phone and Pick Up Your Room

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Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Television

I’ve been reading a lot lately about children and adolescents and young adults having trouble managing their behavior and emotions.

  1. Psychology Today had an article “Crisis U” about the rise of mental health issues, particularly anxiety, in college students. Many students haven’t had to deal with much disappointment in their first 18 years. “In their overparented, overtrophied lives, many have not learned to handle difficulty.”

Simple frustration becomes a trigger for overwhelming emotional responses. “For increasing numbers of students all across the United States, disappointment now balloons into distress and thoughts of suicide. Lacking any means of emotion regulation and generationally bred on the immediacy of having needs met, they know no middle psychic ground: Mere frustration catapults them into crisis.”

Over-exposure to social media sets up unrealistic expectations. If everyone posts just happy, smiling pictures and glowing reports of vacations and accomplishments, then what is wrong with me? Older adults generally have more perspective than college students about their peers’ public personas and their private lives. Kids can feel like abject failures just by looking at their phones.

Unrelenting competition, both to get into preferred schools and to maintain the desired GPA, is another issue. A solution from Psychology Today? Stop grading on a curve. (I was lucky enough to have teachers and professors who gave out the grades we earned. We could all get an A. Alternatively, we could all get an F. On the other hand, if we all got an F, our profs realized their teaching was at fault. They were willing to come back and reteach, even in my college classes. That attitude has informed my instruction throughout my career.)

  1. Nina Parrish’s Edutopia article on “How to Teach Self-Regulation” provides tips to teachers on how to move beyond instructions in academics. Her exhortation to observe problem behavior with the goal of figuring out why it is occurring and their addressing that behavior once the child has cooled down really resonated with me. I confess I don’t manage to do that all the time. I’m still working on it!

She also recommends setting clear expectations and overtly teaching study skills, which I start from the first week of school. On a side note, virtually our entire teaching staff went to the AVID training in Seattle this summer, where we were inundated with the power of focusing on study skills.

  1. NPR’s piece “Why Children Aren’t Behaving, And What You Can Do About It” claimed we face “a crisis of self-regulation.”

Even for younger school children, their access to technology and social media is a culprit. For one thing, there is too much seat time already for students K-12. If they go home and spend endless additional hours on the computer, on the phone, or in front of the TV, that’s exacerbating an already existing problem. Young kids can have the same reactions as older, college students as they see that everyone else’s life looks perfect on social media. They can stress about what is wrong with them, or what is wrong with their family. Finally, news reports tend to focus on the negative. If young children watch the news, they see everything that is wrong with the world at a point in their lives when they can do little to effect meaningful change. It can contribute to a “mean worldview” vision of the world, and can leave them feeling out of control.

Lack of play is another issue. Not having time to play is a big part of the problem. Then not having unstructured playtime is another. In my school last year we were down to two recesses a day and PE two or three times a week. I would love to give kids PE every day and three recesses a day: morning, noon, and afternoon. Budgets and master schedules and limited numbers of specialists make my wish list impossible, at least for now.

So here’s what I can do. At parent conferences in the fall, inevitably I have parents who tell me that they require their child to get their homework done immediately after school. Only then can they go out to play. I always say, “Please don’t do that. By the time your children get home, they have been working for hours at school. They really need to go outside and run around before they sit down to do more work. Besides, we have such short days here. I’d like the kids to get outside in the sun as much as possible.” Parents and students both seem to relax once I say that.

The last point from NPR had to do with chores—any household job that children do to contribute to the well-being of the family as a whole. If kids aren’t pitching in, they are “underemployed.”

It’s part of the work of the family. We all do it, and when it’s more of a social compact than an adult in charge of doling out a reward, that’s much more powerful. They can see that everyone around them is doing jobs. So it seems only fair that they should also.

I have to say, I found this argument to be highly persuasive. Translated into the classroom, I like the idea of “we do the work to keep the classroom clean and organized because we are all part of the community” so much better than “we do the work just because Mrs. Kragen gives us a reward.”

Of course, I grew up doing chores. I had to clean my room every Saturday morning before I could watch TV or play—put all my stuff away, dust, and vacuum. (I took forever to get that done each week. I was not an organized child.)

As soon as we were done with our bedrooms, we had to do an inside job: dust the rest of the house, vacuum the rest of the house, clean the two bathrooms, or mop the kitchen floor. I always had last pick. I finally complained to my mom. She said the first person down got first pick. Oh.

Then we had an outside job which could be anything from sweeping the patio to helping put up a fence. We did get paid 50 cents or so for the outside jobs.

I tell my students about that regimen, and they act as though my parents were committing child abuse. Many of them have no chores at all. They think they shouldn’t have any. (I wonder if their lack of chores fosters a sense of entitlement.)

At our Curriculum Night next week, I’m going to share this article and suggest to parents they might want to institute some “household jobs” with their own families!

Setting the Stage for Learning

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Education, Elementary, Professional Development

“Mommy made me mash my M&M’s,” trills from the nervous troupe of twenty-five on the stage. Kindergarten to high school, these children are all warming up their voices for this summer’s presentation of “Alice in Wonderland” to be presented at our community theater. It is an all-children production; children will be acting, building sets, running lights and generally spending their summer months of June and July busily learning the art of theater. Wow! It is a whirlwind of creativity and intense focus!

I sit in the seats and watch the artful director as she manages her cast and the chaos about her. She is a natural and is adept at bringing out talent in her students. She is trained. She is skilled. She is volunteering.

Who knows who might be on the stage in front of me; the next Bette Midler (cleverly disguised as the girl who is constantly poking the boy next to her and giggling) or James Dean, who sits nonchalantly at the edge of the stage taking it all in, coolly removed from the preparation of it all and yet, on cue, his voice solos a piece that draws you deeper into the play. Each child is actively discovering and shining their own diamonds in the rough.

I want this moment in my classroom; this theater, this drama, this drawing out of students’ talent. But…and yet…

But, I do not have the skills nor the training to finesse such a dynamic. I can clearly see the skill set the director before me has on display. It is a different type of with-it-ness than what I use in the classroom. It is an odd blend of “more loose” and yet more commanding. She knows how to spatially place her players and what will and will not work onstage. Her visions are grandiose. She makes bold statements of how a scene will play and I think, “What? They can’t do that. It is too complicated.” And yet, as if by the magic of the theater, the action takes almost immediate form on stage. She is skilled and gifted in theater. Neither of these are traits I possess.

And yet, it is clear that our state has fully embraced requiring schools to provide these opportunities for self-expression in the form of theater, dance, music, and the visual arts. As of 2017, we have adopted new Arts Learning Standards. These standards are being assessed in-district, using OSPI developed assessments. As a school, we recently completed a school accountability survey set forth by the Office Superintendent of Public Instruction of what we are currently offering our students in the Arts. How many hours are we providing per week? Who is providing the instruction? As a staff, in a small rural school, we often have to be very creative in how we make these experiences happen for our students.

Should schools require the arts to be taught in school? YES! According to the Dana Foundation, the Arts increases attention skills, spatial skills and motivation. Not only do these contribute to an increase in reading and math test scores, they impact a person’s entire life beyond academics. The ability to pay attention, to see connections in space relative to themselves or between concepts, and a desire to go and do? These are basic foundational needs that all learners need in order to be successful in their lives beyond school.

Should the state provide funding for teaching the arts? YES! Currently, there is not funding allocated specifically for the instruction of the Arts at the elementary school level. Our school supports our Arts Program through fundraising and grant writing. These tasks are often placed on the shoulders of our staff. Both of these are time-intensive tasks that take away from the education of students. It should not be this way.

Why do the Arts even matter? The answer to this could – and has – filled many a book. For me, on this sunny summer morning, the answer is in the awkward teen whose entire demeanor changes as he sets foot on the stage – shoulders lifted, a broad smile; he is in his element. His voice rolls forth in a solid sound, “Mommy made me mash my M&M’s!” So silly…so freeing…so theatrical! His face is one of newly found confidence; a new found self.

The power of art to not only to express who you are, but to learn who you are.

Wish List for WACs for 2018

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Assessment, Education Policy, Elementary

In November of 2017 several groups banded together to present comments to the legislature regarding the WAC revision of Section 412 of EHB 2242. That’s the section of the WAC that requires districts to prioritize identification of low-income students for participation in the Highly Capable (HC) Program.

The Washington State Association of Educators of Talented and Gifted (WAETAG) was involved in writing the letter. So was the Washington Coalition for Gifted Education, The Northwest Gifted Child Association, and the National Association for Gifted Children. But the letter didn’t just include voices from gifted-land. The Washington State PTA and the Washington Education Association added comments as well.

So what did we ask for? What was our wish list for the New Year?

Our number one, first priority, was universal screening.

Universal screening eliminates the reliance on nominations/referrals (which eliminates any potential of bias or problems of access skewing the identification process).

By the way, we also want people to stop using the term “nomination” for HC students. After all, a nomination sounds like you think people deserve something extraordinary—an award, an election. The correct term would be a “referral” for services, just like any other service a student might need. Districts could continue to collect referrals from parents, teachers, community members, and even students who self-referred, but that more subjective input would be used as supplemental data after the universal screening.

There were other items, including:

  • Report card grades or teacher recommendations should not be used as “gatekeeper” screening devices. Use objective tools to screen. Subjective tools can be used for additional information, but nothing more.
  • All screening needs to be done at the student’s home school, during normal school hours.

We also asked the legislators to clarify a couple of points. The phrase “multiple measures” means there are different ways to identify students, not that students need to score highly on every measure in order to qualify for services. The 5% funding formula is not a limit on enrollment. Districts are supposed to identify and serve all students who qualify for services, no matter what the percent.

There was a section in the letter on using local norms to identify HC students. You can read the Seattle Times article, “The Push to Find More Gifted Kids,” to see how Miami’s school district uses local norms.

Here are the things I loved about Miami’s success story (and the Florida law that drove it):

  • They acknowledge that students who have less exposure to vocabulary, books, museums, and so on—or students who deal with Adverse Childhood Experiences Syndrome (ACES)—can score lower on IQ tests. They need a safe and rich environment to expand their potential.
  • Those students who are brought into a HC class who scored lower and had fewer rich experiences or had more ACES—those kids will require tutoring in order to catch up. (That tutoring costs extra money.)
  • Miami spent additional money in other ways too—more “psychologists, teachers, administrators and a battery of nonverbal intelligence tests for kids not yet fluent in English.”
  • “Florida law mandates that all teachers of the gifted complete 300 hours of study on the temperament of highly intelligent kids, as well as the best ways to instruct, counsel and draw out their creativity.” That would be great if we had a similar requirement in Washington!
  • They spent about $1850 more per gifted student beyond the cost of basic education.

What did they gain? Miami is a front-runner in finding and developing ELL gifted students. Their gifted program demographics closely reflect their overall district population percentages.

Here’s what I wasn’t so excited about:

“In Miami, middle-class and affluent kids need IQ scores of at least 130, while low-income children or those whose first language is not English can get in with scores 13 points lower—provided they rate highly in measures of creativity and academic achievement.” That 130 cut-off seems really dated and wrong to me. I don’t know anyone who uses a 130 test score as a cut-off anymore. (How last century!)

Here’s a simple solution for those of us in our state.

We are supposed to look at multiple measures. So you go into your Multidisciplinary Selection Committee. You have a spreadsheet with data, student numbers (not names) down the left and labeled columns along the top, for example: CogAT verbal, CogAT quantitative, CogAT nonverbal, verbal achievement, quantitative achievement, HOPE scale (read the instructions first!), and so on.

You should have other things easily available on file for supplemental information, like a parent referral form or a teacher referral form or report card grades.

Next add a couple of other columns to your spreadsheet:

  • One should be for any demographic data you might have on each student.
  • One should be for free/reduced lunch data. As long as you identify students by number instead of name, there is no problem with sharing that data for the team to use.

Now as you use multiple measures to identify students for HC services, consider demographic and F/R lunch data as measures so you can make your best effort to maintain diversity in your HC program.

Do you want to make sure you are being fair? When you think you are done, do a sort by each demographic group to see how they compare with each other. Then do a sort by F/R. How well do your results align with your over-all district demographics?

Over time, you should see a more balanced HC program!

And happy new year to all!

ACLU vs OSPI

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Current Affairs, Education Policy, Elementary

Last week the ACLU sued the OSPI because Washington students with emotional disabilities are suspended or expelled from school at twice the normal rate. The suit alleges that the state should ensure that teachers “de-escalate” situations in which students with emotional disorders are having outbursts.

I have always admired the ACLU. They consistently take contrarian stands in support of the most marginalized people in our society. It’s an important role, now more than ever.

And on this issue they are true to form, advocating for the highest of the high-needs students, the kids with disabilities that prevent them from controlling their behavior well enough to make it through a day in school without having a verbal or physical meltdown or endangering their classmates or teachers. These kids need advocates.

I know because I’ve got one of these kids in my class this year. He has an IEP for academics and behavior. He performs about two grade levels below his peers and spends most of the school day in a series of learning support small-groups.

And as long as no one makes any demands on him, he’s fine.

But it’s hard to go through a school day without anyone putting demands on you. Teachers are supposed to ask students to do such things as read, write, solve math problems, join discussions, walk in the hallway, stop talking, take turns, and so on. And when someone asks this guy to do any of those things, there will be an outburst. There will be yelling, door-slamming, chair-throwing, running off and swearing. And by swearing, I mean serious filth; the kind of talk you’d expect from a hung-over stevedore trying to start a cold, 2-stroke outboard engine.

And then there’s the playground. Most kids are able to handle the give-and-take of the somewhat unstructured playground environment. There’s bound to be some teasing, perhaps some taunting and occasionally it can get a little nasty, which is why we have supervision. Most kids know when to pull back before a situation turns violent, but once in awhile we have kids who don’t, and again that’s why we have supervision.

This little guy has no filter, no control. The slightest slight by another student is cause for a full-on response, consisting of violence, racial and sexual insults and, of course, swearing.

All of this is despite the fact that he has a full-time, one-on-one aid. She shows up every morning, follows him around all day, helps him with his assignments and does everything possible to de-escalate his outbursts. It’s literally a full-time job and it’s required by his IEP.

Which brings me back to the ACLU lawsuit.

I get it; kids should not be suspended or expelled because of their disability. But as I explained to the parents of this particular student, there comes a time when I have to advocate for the rest of the class. And the rest of the class is terrified of this student. When he enters the room, they all get quiet and try to become as small as possible. His racial insults make them cry. He’s getting big enough that when he hits them it causes serious pain.

Consequently, he has been suspended at least three times this year. We did not do it lightly. We were fully aware of the consequences of our actions. We knew that he suffers a disability that affects his ability to self-govern.

But there are 600 students in our school and 27 students in my class. They need advocacy, too. At some point the right thing to do for the larger population might not be the right action for one particular person. When a student, no matter who it is, crosses the line and does or says something completely beyond the pale, suspension is an action a school must have at its disposal.

I’ll be interested to see how this lawsuit proceeds. If there’s another way to deal with students who display extreme behavioral disorders, I’d love to know about it. But until then, I think we need to continue to use school suspension as a last resort.

Waiting to be told?

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Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom

By Tom

After our new Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, stepped into a public school last week, perhaps for the first time, she told a journalist that the teachers seemed to be “waiting to be told what they have to do.”

Maybe they were, but I doubt it.

If they’re anything like me, they have a pretty clear idea of what to do.

Last week, for example, while DeVos was visiting a school, I was teaching in one. And I spent most of the morning helping my fourth graders finish their reports and come to logical conclusions.

Their reports were about Native Americans in Washington State. From the early days through the settlers. After a short discussion the consensus was clear; the only logical conclusion was that America stole Indian land.

It was hard to argue with that conclusion.

Later that day I was working with the afterschool “ELL Homework Club,” a free service we offer to our many recent immigrant students. The last kid in the room was picked up at 5:10 by a mom who was born in Pakistan and fled to Thailand, where she had kids before moving to the U.S.

The mom was apologetic. Her appointment with a refugee counselor ran late. We talked for a while and I told her about my experience working with some teachers in Pakistan a few years ago. We agreed that her daughter stood a much better chance of getting an education here in the U.S. than back in Pakistan.

That said, she was worried about recent events.

After listening to her concerns I felt the need to apologize, “Please know that I, along with teachers everywhere, welcome you and every other immigrant. We’re glad you’re here and we value the diversity you bring to our school community.”

She seemed glad to hear that, and a little surprised.

No, Mrs. DeVos, I’m not waiting to be told what to do. I know why I’m here. I’m here to explain the dissonance between past and present; the contradiction between what we should have learned and what we aren’t doing. I help ten-year-olds understand how a nation that barged in and took land from people who lived here for “Time Immemorial” now arbitrarily denies access to legitimate refugees.

My job is to help them understand our nation’s sad, sloppy slog toward progress. How a nation that had slavery fought itself to end it. How a nation that imprisoned Japanese-American citizens liberated Europe and shut down Auschwitz.

But there’s more. I work with America in the present. The America I see in my classroom. Kids whose families long ago came from England, Ireland and Italy, and kids who came last year from Libya, Vietnam and Pakistan.

I know exactly what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to teach.

School Choice

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Current Affairs, Education Policy, Elementary

I’m getting a new student tomorrow. I haven’t met him yet, but I’ve met his discipline record, and it’s staggering. He’s packed more misbehavior into his short life than most of us commit in a lifetime. Not only that, but academically he’s at least three years below the rest of my class.

Before school I’m going to meet with my new student, along with his mom, the principal, the assistant principal, the dean of students, the school counselor, the learning support team and the para-educator who will work with him one-on-one throughout the entire school day. We’ll review his IEP and work with the behavior plan established at his old school in a way that fits the resources and capacity of ours.

How do I feel about my new student?

It would be easy to resent his arrival and fret over the possibility that he’ll disrupt the carefully constructed learning community that I’ve established. I could easily wonder “Why me?” and look for every opportunity to kick him out of the classroom, perhaps for good.

But I’m optimistic. I sincerely want the best for this little guy, and I honestly believe that my classroom will be the best place for him.  I want to work with my team to make this situation successful. I want desperately for him to look back in ten years and see his fourth grade year as a turning point.

And trust me, he will.

Coincidentally, our next Secretary of Education will spend tomorrow explaining herself to the Senate Education Committee. She’ll tell them about the wonderful things she’s done as a billionaire philanthropist in her home state of Michigan.

Most of those things involve pushing the agenda of school choice. School choice advocates want to increase the number of charter schools and they want parents to use vouchers to enroll their children in private schools using tax money that would otherwise have been used for a public school education.

Charter schools and vouchers can be great for those families who take advantage of them. Although many don’t, some charter schools outperform non-charter public schools serving the same population. Some private schools do, as well.

But not everyone gets to go to those charter schools and private schools. And sometimes those schools decide that certain students “aren’t a good fit” for their school. And those students get to go back to the regular public school, a school that has no choice but to accept that student and goes out of its way to accommodate him or her. The kids who do stay at those schools stand to benefit when the “misfits” leave. Their classrooms are quieter and there’s nobody slowing them down.

And if that wasn’t unfair enough, the charter schools and private schools then get to brag about how their schools are outperforming the nearby public schools. Even when they aren’t.

I wish Betsy DeVos (and her boss) nothing but the best. She is, after all, about to be running the federal department that oversees my profession. And he’s going to be president. But I want both of them to remember that public schools are not just the default choice for those waiting to be rescued. Public schools are, and always have been, thriving communities that enthusiastically and effectively serve every kid who happens to live nearby.

Including my new student.

Teacher Dreams

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Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Uncategorized

imageIt always starts with a dream. A real dream; not an aspiration or goal, but the kind you have when you sleep. One year it was a poorly-executed field trip to Manhattan (with fourth graders) and another year I had a class of forty but no classroom. I was expected to teach them out on the lawn.

In this year’s late-summer teacher dream I was giving a practice spelling test to my kiddos and the third word on the list was “sh*t.” It was a difficult situation, especially trying to come up with an appropriate context sentence. I remember silently cursing the publishers from whom we adopted the curriculum.

My annual awkward teacher dream is how I know my summer is winding down. The next phase involves completely going over my plans for the year. Then there’s the “Leadership Team Retreat” where we revisit our School Improvement Plan and chart out corresponding Professional Development. After that there’s a few days of moving furniture and putting up bulletin boards, some whole-staff meetings, a slew of online, state-mandated health trainings and before I know it, kids.

But let me back up a bit, to the part where I go over my plans for the year. One thing I’ve noticed is that as the years go by, I find myself changing things less and less. Back in the day, I would practically reinvent myself every summer. Different homework plans, new classroom management programs, alternative seating plans, you name it. But now, thirty-three years in, I find myself merely tweaking.

When I first noticed this trend I felt lazy. Is this what it feels like to be burned-out old-timer? Perhaps. But maybe it’s what it feels like to be a competent veteran. I think about the major changes I used to make – classroom management, for example – and I honestly don’t feel compelled to make any major changes. Not because I’m afraid of the effort, but because it worked last year. And the year before that.

Change is good. But so is repeating something that still works. I guess the challenge is trying to figure out what to keep and what to tweak.

And believe it or not, the only thing I’m going to totally overhaul this year is my spelling curriculum.

I wonder why.