By Tom White

On the way to the grocery store last Saturday I listened to a wonderful essay called “The
Presumption of Decency.” The essential message was that we should presume
the best in people, even if we disagree with their views, and it was clearly
directed at the current presidential campaign. Then on Sunday I read a
column by Eugene Robinson in which he calls for an end to rampant teacher
bashing, specifically to the penchant education reformers seem to have for
blaming teacher unions for the dismal quality of education in our nation’s
poorest neighborhoods.

I couldn’t help but draw a connection between the two and
ask the dreamy question, “What if?” What if both sides of the education-reform
debate stopped fighting and started working together? (And if you don’t think
these two sides are actually fighting each other, it’s time to come down from
Candyland and read Class
Warfare by Steven Brill and The
Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch.)

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Tamara Mosar

As I followed the Chicago Teacher Union’s strike, getting
past the noise about evaluations, salaries, the right to organize, it became
evident to me the underlying issues point to a conversation about education in
this country few are engaging in. Namely, are we as a nation still willing to
provide a free “quality” education to all children? Now many will tell me there
are numerous people engaged in the Should We Privatize Education debate. I
know. I live thirty minutes from a state that chose to spend a significant
portion of the budget for teachers’ salaries on laptops for every student from
a certain company. But that is not where I am going with this post.

 I don’t think we can enter the conversation of public and political will regarding continued provision
of public education until as a nation we come to consensus as to what
constitutes “Quality Education”. There have been volumes of back chatter
regarding the impediments to a “quality education”: relentless and rising poverty,
bad teachers, bad administrators, bad parents (just once I’d like to hear bad
policy or bad politicians), community violence, limited if any early childhood
education.

But what is “Quality Education”? Does “quality“ mean all
students graduate? Does it mean if a student graduates they are ready to enter
the workforce? Does a “quality” education mean students are prepared to enter college
without the need for remediation in math and English? Or does “quality”
education mean students can demonstrate mastery of subjects in end of course
exams or standardized tests like HSPE, SAT, AP, or IB? Does a “quality”
education include the provision of health care and social services?   Does “quality” education produce a just and compassionate citizenry?

What say you?  Any
takers for this conversation?

If you skim back through my past posts here, you might notice that I have cast the word "data" with a very specific connotation. I even did a search on SFS for the word "data," and lo and behold, a bunch of my posts–and even more interestingly, a bunch of my comments on other posts were there… and just the snip shown in the search results highlights my apprehension, distrust, reservation, and resistance to data.

While I curse under my breath, I have to recognize: that search? That's data.

I'm having to re-evaluate my own resistance.

As I examine the new teacher evaluation system, I'm in general a proponent of what it contains, but anything that mentions that four-letter-word always unsettles me a little. 

Not long ago I co-presented at a CSTP teacher leadership conference, and one of the points about leadership was to consider how to activate change and to recognize that growth and change cannot happen unless someone is upset. By upset, we didn't mean p'd off, we meant having their status quo challenged in a way that unsettled people enough to get them moving.

I guess that is what the d-word embedded in the new evaluation system is doing to me right now… unsettling me enough to allow me to change. Especially since I discovered Flubaroo.

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By Tom
White

I was asked to switch from third grade to fourth grade this year.
I'm enjoying the change, but one of the realities I'm facing is the increased
emphasis on writing instruction. Third graders learn how to write paragraphs,
while fourth graders learn how to write with paragraphs.
Consequently, I've turned to the five paragraph essay: an effective, flexible starting
point for young writers.

Like it or not, the five paragraph format is effective. There's something
appealing about introducing a topic, expanding on it in three, detailed
paragraphs and finishing with a succinct conclusion. If you can give three good
reasons for holding an opinion, then you’ve got something. If you can’t, then
you don’t. As there was no way I could come up with three good reasons why my
mom should let me play with the lawn darts after my trip to the emergency room,
the darts stayed hidden. Understanding the five-paragraph format is a useful
tool for anyone with an opinion or an agenda.

It’s flexible.
Not only does it work as an essay, but it also comes in handy when writing
short stories. You introduce the characters and setting in the first paragraph,
throw in a beginning, middle and end and wrap up the story with a fifth
paragraph and boom: you’ve got yourself a story. Other uses come quickly to
mind: fairy tales, pourquoi tales, even the standard three-part joke can trace
its roots to the five-paragraph format. Once you’ve mastered the five paragraph
essay, the sky’s the limit.

Although
teachers and assessors may tire of the five-part, formulaic pablum put forth by
fourth graders, working with young writers is a challenging endeavor. Good
teachers know how to use scaffolds; and the five-part format is just that.
Think of it as a literary algorithm. Or better yet, imagine John Coltrane or
Andre Previn in their youth, banging out “Hot Cross Buns” and “Ode to Joy”
while their parents patiently endured those tough times, knowing their future
virtuosos had to master the basics before they could conquer the world. Like it
or not, kids are not born knowing how to write.

There’s no
shame in teaching the five paragraph essay. Not for me, anyway. Writing is
easily the most complicated thing we teach. Students need a place to start;
something they can grasp and understand and then improvise on. It's time to give the time-honored five-parter it's due.

By Kristin

When I saw this poster it made me laugh out loud, partly because it's true and partly because when I face where we are as public educators I can laugh or cry. 

Here's where we are: there is a clear, definable line between students who are successful on tests and students who are not, and that line divides children not only on the basis of academic achievement but of economic status and race.  Poor children don't do as well.  Do I want to cry because the injustice of a broken system feels bigger than me, or do I want to cry because the dirty secret is out?  

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This year, I only have 44 students–all 9th graders. 

I'm still working full time, but half of my day involves work as a TOSA, guiding teachers on peer observation learning walks, assisting with PLC initiatives, and other near-the-front-lines work. While this work does require preparation, meetings, and organization, it does not require me to curl up with a stack of papers to grade after my sons have gone to bed (or before they've gotten up). Having only two English classes this year will be a far different experience… previously, five hours of student contact time each day meant as many hours each day of outside-of-my-contract-hours planning, assessment, and feedback. 

It's just part of the gig, so don't read that as a complaint, but rather as a statement of reality.

Part of my role as TOSA is to help with the implementation of the newly mandated Teacher and Principal Evaluation project (TPEP), and again and again I hear from both teachers and administrators that their top concern about this new initiative is not its content, aims, or potential.

It is about time.

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By Kristin

This summer I saw something very similar to the chart you see here. A principal was explaining how she gathered and analyzed student data, and how that data drove her administrative decisions.

You can see, if you click on the chart, that Teacher B didn't do so hot.  Because a teacher's reputation precedes him, what's going to happen if parents find out about Teacher B's scores?  Will they request a class change?  Will they complain?  Test scores are scary for teachers because they don't tell the whole story, but they tell an important part of the story.

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1. There is typically a positive correlation between effort and results.

2. Success in high school has surprisingly little to do with how smart you are.

3. Don't accept an opinion just because it is the first one you learn.

3a. Don't discount an opinion just because it contradicts the first one you learned.

4. Make sure that you don't confuse what you know with what you think you know.

5. It is perfectly okay to not know things, as long as you don't stop there.

6. You should make it a habit to question what you think you know and believe.

6a. Changing your opinion about something important, especially when you are faced with new information, is not a sign of weakness.

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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.

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By Tom White

As I understand it, the primary form of professional development in Japan is something called Lesson Study; a model in which a team of teachers collaborates on the planning and delivery of a lesson. One lesson. The whole team decides on a topic, picks a lesson and then plans it. Once the lesson plan is complete, one member teaches the lesson to a group of students while the rest of the team studies how the lesson plays out. Their focus is on the students’ interaction with the learning activity. After the lesson, the entire team compares notes, analyzing and reflecting on the lesson. This debriefing session usually evolves into a revision of the lesson, to be taught by a different teacher and observed again by the rest of the team. Only when they’re satisfied with the lesson does the team move on to a different lesson.

It’s important to note that during the observation and the debriefing, the focus is always on the lesson, not the teacher. Furthermore, the lesson is always referred to as “our lesson.” And rightly so, since it was crafted by the team, not the teacher who presented it. This makes lesson study an extremely “safe” way to get teachers out into each other’s rooms and talking about teaching.

I love Lesson Study. I’ve used it in my own school and I’ve help get it going in other schools. What I particularly love is the focus on The Lesson – the most underrated element of teaching; the singular point in which the teacher, the school and the curriculum come into direct contact with the student.

The primary purpose of Lesson Study is the creation of good, tested lessons. That’s why they do it in Japan, where Lesson Study originated during the post-war years. Lesson Study in America also yields quality lessons, but in my experience, the real benefit is the incidental learning that goes on throughout the entire process. As teachers discuss every part of the lesson, they each call upon their experience and training to come up with ideas to share. They listen to each other and debate the possibilities, all the while refining and expanding their own philosophies and teacher tool-kits, thereby benefitting the rest of the thousand-or-so lessons they teach each year. It’s extremely
powerful, especially with a mixture of young and “seasoned” teachers.

Despite all this, Lesson Study hasn’t really caught on in America. This doesn’t surprise me, and I can think of at least three reasons why it hasn’t – and likely won’t – take root in this nation.

First of all, Lesson Study is too gradual for our country. Productive, professional discourse notwithstanding, Lesson Study’s output of two or three quality lessons per year is simply too glacial for a nation that prefers “school reform” over slow, sustainable improvement. We don’t want our low-performing schools to simply “get better;” we want them to “turn around.” Unlike Japan, we want Results Now. In regards to professional development, Japan joined a gym, while America invented liposuction. Ironically, Japan – plodding along with Lesson Study – has become an educational superstar, while American schools, despite our Results Now mentality, haven’t changed a whole lot over the past twenty years.

Besides that, I don’t think there’s enough trust in this country between groups of stakeholders that teachers, working without an administrator or without an “expert” are actually “working.” I recently worked with a group of teachers in Washington D.C., facilitating the formation of two Lesson Study groups. The biggest concern they had was protecting the process and their work from their principal, who they felt would want to either influence their lessons or turn the “study” into another form of evaluative observation. This makes sense, considering that principals are under intense pressure to increase test scores. PD time is precious, and it’s hard to justify squandering it on something that won’t yield immediate, measurable changes in data.

Finally, Lesson Study is simply too simple and too cheap for America, a nation that doesn’t take any professional development model seriously until Corwin Press has had its way with it. It’s not that you can’t find a book about Lesson Study – you can; but you can also reread the first paragraph of this post and save yourself $24.95. It really is that simple. Lesson Study is the minimalist’s model of professional development. The haiku of PLC’s, if you will. In fact, the teachers with whom I was working in D.C. had, within the first hour, and without so much as a binder, figured out the basic process and begun adapting the model so it would work in their school. By the second hour, they had formed their two groups and were working on a set of norms that would guide their meetings. By the fourth hour, one group had starting planning a lesson in which their students would use primary documents dealing with the Iroquois Confederation to write historically accurate recipes using the foods available to the Native People. The other group was working on an activity in which students would look at global patterns of lactose intolerance and make connections to the history of colonialism.

Very cool lessons; but what was even cooler were the conversations they were having: What constitutes a primary document? What’s the operative difference between guided and independent practice? What’s the biology behind lactose intolerance? Why is there so little health data from
Somalia? Should we let the students try to make sense out of a color-coded map before or after we tell them what the colors represent? What exactly is an anticipatory set? How could different tribes eat such different foods and still get adequate nutrition? These discussions, focused on both content and pedagogy, happened without either an expert or an administrator.

Lesson Study is the epitome of high-quality, job-embedded professional development. It’s simple, powerful and effective. It gets teachers talking about their craft and it gets them into each other’s rooms to watch each other teach.

It’s perfect, and it will never catch on in this country.

It’s too bad.