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This Is Heavy: The WATAC Conference and Finding Meaning

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Professional Development, Uncategorized

Last weekend I attended the 4th Annual Washington Teacher Advisory Council’s Spring Conference.  The planners re-organized their conference into an online format. Amazingly, they were able to accommodate the largest number of attendees in their history thus far. That is one positive when it comes to the distance learning format. We can fit more folks into the “room.”

Don’t get me wrong; I would have much preferred seeing all my friends and colleagues from around the state in person. I look forward to it every year. However, seeing them all virtually and hearing how they are dealing with our unprecedented issues these last months of the school year was invaluable.

If you are unfamiliar with WATAC, it is an organization formed initially to organize award-winning teachers in our state to make our expertise available to stakeholders with influence on education policy. Since its inception, it has expanded to include leaders from all aspects of education – administration, certificated, and classified. Anyone with an interest in teacher leadership is welcome at the conference. And, for me, the conference has been a great way to get a shot of teacher energy as the final stretch of the school year hits, and I really, really need that boost.

This year…I really needed a boost.

Don’t we all? The truth is I am actually grieving. I wobble back and forth between shock, depression, and a sort of manic activity level of problem solving. I’m a mess! In fact, the concept of the five stages of grief won’t get out of my head. Although, losing a loved one is unspeakably worse, losing my classroom feels like a huge loss.  After all, I love my job. I love the most annoying of my seventh graders and the snarkiest of my seniors. I am deeply attached to my classroom, my kids, and my teacher lifestyle. So, yes, I am grieving the loss.

The five stages are trademarked, actually. You can go to David Kessler’s website, if you are interested in what he says about grief and grieving. After wondering if I was actually experiencing grief, I looked over the process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Yep. I’m doing all of that.

The conference theme was “Back to the Future, and keynote speaker Amy Campbell, our current Washington State Teacher of the Year, quoted the famous meme that comes from the movie Back to the Future, the one where Marty McFly says, “This is heavy.”

This IS heavy, Marty. You thought it was tough that your mom had a crush on you. But this, THIS is heavy.

Education is changing. This is not merely a moment of pause. We can’t go back to normal. In this crisis we have pulled back a curtain and revealed serious problems with equity in education. Yes, we knew they were there, but it is easy to just go about our business making little shifts that don’t rock the boat too much.

It won’t work that way this time. Serious change is needed, and now is exactly the time to work on it.

As Amy told us- speaking directly to my teacher soul – we are experiencing loss. We are in a crisis that impacts our safety, our economy, and our mental health. “Hindsight really is 2020,” and we need to find our “place on the continuum and start moving forward.”

Most importantly, she said, “Old normal should not be the final destination.” And I feel that. I really do.

As a member of the teacher panel later in the conference, I was asked what was working, what was hard, and what I want to take into the future of education. I don’t remember what I said exactly, and I hope it made some sense at the time. But, I can summarize right now.

What’s working? YouTube, Padlet, Zoom, and all the technology no one thought we could use on such a large scale.

What’s hard? Missing the kids and noticing that some fell off the radar when the crisis hit. Many of my kids live in crisis all the time. Not knowing where they are right now is indescribably tough..

What to take forward? Poor kids, rural kids, isolated kids—they deserve whatever the other kids get. I don’t want to see how the one-to-one schools gracefully flipped their systems to accommodate distance learning. I want to see how internet access becomes a universal right for all families. I want legitimate supports for English language learners and students with IEPs and 504 plans. I want to see every teacher receiving the training to support distance learning. I want my tiny district to have more than the grit, goodwill, and volunteer spirit that is filling the gaps in the system. I want equity for all- educators, families, students, all of us.

That’s what I would take to the future.

So, thank you Amy and all the other wonderful WATAC planners and facilitators. You acknowledged what we are going through and you set us on an impassioned path to the future. You did not pretend it was easy, but you did assure us that we are not alone on this journey. There are a lot of amazing educators who are fighting the fight alongside us. So thank you.

In closing, my grief research led me to David Kessler’s final stage of grief from his latest book. He calls it “finding meaning.” It is the way that we can begin to move forward. We find meaning in the loss. I am starting to feel like I am on that path. With the “loss” of my familiar job as an educator, I am focusing on how to reinvent it to make it equitable, relevant, engaging, and, well, comforting, for the students of my future classroom, online or elsewhere. I am beginning to plan going back to the future.

WATAC Facebook Page

Amy’s Keynote on OSPI’s YouTube Channel

Differentiation for Parents

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Differentiation

I remember the days when class was still held in a building, and my biggest concern was figuring out how to differentiate my math lesson to meet the needs of my students.  However, in our new reality of distance learning, I am learning to differentiate for parents.  In order to equitably reach all students educationally, I needed to understand each student’s situation in accessing the material I was creating for distance learning.  

My first obstacle was communication.  How do I communicate with students who are not responding to emails?  I realized very quickly that my only option was to establish a firm communicative relationship with the student’s lead parent/guardian. Like all teachers, I log into my student information system, Power School for my school, and find contact information. I figured the quickest way to reach out to parents would be by phone number.  

Originally, I called the parents/guardians of my students.  I was able to reach a few but found myself leaving a lot of messages.  I still had at least 30% of students whom I couldn’t reach.  Next, I emailed every parent that I couldn’t reach by phone.  I received a few more with this method but still fell short of reaching everyone.

My third option was using an app like Remind to email parents.  I know some educators use other apps like Class Dojo or Class Policy.  Essentially, these offer similar features where you send the parent a code that instructs them on how to download the app and communicate with you via that platform.  Luckily, I had already set this form of communication before the quarantine.  

This form of differentiation helped me contact a few more. These parents were very happy that I had reached out in this manner.  They were very apologetic and expressed that they don’t often check their email.  Others felt bad for not answering my *67-caller ID blocked phone number.  

However, I was still missing quite a few parent contacts.  I equate it to classroom attendance.  If I haven’t seen nine students out of 30 from my second-period class, for several days, I would do anything possible to get a hold of parents/guardians. During a conversation with a colleague, they had heard of other teachers finding success using TalkingPoints.  Initially, I was skeptical.  I figured this was another app, and I was already using Remind.

But how would I reach these last few?  Reluctantly, I began to research this form of communication.  I discovered that this platform has a web-based version.  TalkingPoints allows a teacher to send a message in the form of a text that will appear in the preferred spoken language of the parent/guardian from the web.  Finally, I had reached the majority of my students.  

I keep relentlessly trying to find a way to reach the last 2%, but sadly they are the ones who have no contact number or email on record that is currently useful.  My next thought is reaching out via the United States Postal Service.  Fingers crossed!

In finding the preferred manner of reaching parents/guardians I was able to determine strengths and limitations for each of my students. Through this communication, I identified obstacles and collaboratively created an educational plan of action for each student as well as the best method to communicate on a weekly basis with parents/guardians and students.  

The silver lining during this unprecedented time in education is learning many ways to communicate with families and the importance of being flexible with more than just a phone number or email.  I’m starting to get excited for the 2020-2021 school year when I get to offer parents/guardians their preferred option of communication.

Uncharted Territory

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Education, Middle School, Uncategorized

I had planned to write this blog on tier two interventions.  However, I believe many of us find ourselves thinking about our students and how to best teach them during this time.  The main question that plagues me is: How can I maintain equity for all my students during this time?

It isn’t fair that there are unheard student voices out there who are scared, upset, angry, confused and some who can’t communicate.  I know that teachers are in uncharted territory, but students are looking to us, their teachers, to establish normalcy. I have spent the better part of the school year getting to know and understand all of my students’ mathematical and social-emotional needs.  

I learned through classroom meetings that my students had busy lives with many obligations outside of school. When we received the news that the 16th would be our last day together, my mind was flooded with thoughts. 

A few days ago I surveyed my students.  Their names have been changed for privacy.

How would Melanie handle her math when I know she is the oldest sibling and will likely be taxed with the extra responsibility of keeping her siblings in check.  

“I’m kind of starting to like it less than I thought I would. My house is kinda crazy right now with my 6 siblings around all the time. I wish it was only 3 or 4 weeks. I have to help them with their school stuff and it’s hard.”

Continue reading →

Every Dot is a Child

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Who could have imagined 2020 as a year of unprecedented change and uncertainty? The closing of schools and statewide quarantine orders requires flexibility on the part of teachers. We’re still working–albeit from home. 

I’ve been participating in staff as well as Specialist and Building Leadership team meetings through Google Hangouts (as a side note, some teachers use this online platform to meet with their classes). In many ways our conversations in these meetings relate to the new challenges we need to overcome in our profession. In other ways, our conversations return to the usual concerns of our field.  

Your students may not be taking the SBA this year, but you will see plenty of other data on their academic performance. The data may come from iReady, DIBELS, MAPS, or another assessment preferred by your district. 

The push in education is toward data informed instructional practices like the work done by John Hattie through Visible Learning. During PLCs, staff meetings, or as part of evaluations, teachers look through data–numbers, graphs, and percentages–to gauge student progress and plan for remediation or instructional changes. Now is the perfect time to analyze data and adjust instruction to accommodate for the needs of our students. 

But please remember: every dot is a child. 

A graph depicting my student’s growth from baseline to summative assessment in vocabulary knowledge.
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Connections, not Lessons

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Take a look at these two data sets. The yellow line represents confirmed cases of COVID-19 outside of Mainland China. What do you notice?

Screen grab from my phone at 5:35pm on Friday, March 20th, from the Johns Hopkins University website.

Astute readers of graphs will notice that both of these graphs represent the exact same data. The top graph uses a linear, uniform scale on the Y (vertical) axis. The bottom one uses a logarithmic scale. Notice the Y axis labels. In the top graph, the yellow line shows a steep and troubling upward trend, accelerating toward the top of the scale. The bottom graph? A casual climb.

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An Empty Classroom and a Full Heart

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Hey, teachers. How are you? Tough week, huh?

Me? I’m okay, just a bit lonelier than usual. I am alone in my classroom, alone with empty desks, blank whiteboards, and quiet halls. It is eerie and unsettling. It puts everything in perspective for me. I’m trying to consider it a gift, insomuch as I can in these difficult times.

As you know, all schools in our state are closed, but our local administrators have some leeway in the management of the closures. The situation is fluid, and changes daily, but this is what I am currently experiencing. The school buildings are closed to the public until at least April 27. We are delivering food and grade-level learning packets via bus routes. Families who prefer can call ahead and pick up meals and supplies at our school offices during abbreviated hours. Classified staff are still busy, at least part time, doing odd jobs, disinfecting the facilities, copying the packets, preparing the breakfasts and lunches, delivering the food and supplies, and providing childcare to local first responders and healthcare workers. 

As for the teachers, we are expected to work seven-hour days and log our activities daily. This week we are preparing the learning packets, creating activities that can help our students progress without our day-to-day contact. We are asked to stay in touch with families and make weekly calls to the students in our advisories. We can clean and organize our classrooms. We can sign up for online classes. We can read books or watch online professional development videos. We can work at home if we so choose.

I see other teachers in my social media feeds creating cool online resources for their students, but we are encouraged to plan for the many students in our district who won’t have internet access. We are rural, a bit remote, and we have a large population that is often displaced or even homeless. It’s complicated. Continue reading →

Meditations on Social Emotional Learning

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I’ve been meditating lately.  I’ve also been juggling sticks, and bouncing balls. I’ve been intentionally crossing my center line and stepping up my yoga practice. Why? Stress. Not because I have more stress than I had before, but, after a lifetime of suppressing my stress responses, I finally found out how to regulate them.

It turns out that we can learn to manage our own stress and emotions. As educators, we need this, both for ourselves and our students.

For the entirety of my career, I have heard it in the staff room and in our meetings: Our jobs are getting harder because the kids are harder to teach than they were before. Are they? Maybe. We certainly have specific challenges that are increasing year by year, and they often have everything to do with our students ability to manage their emotions, or self-regulate. For too long, educators stuck to the idea that the families were responsible for the emotional learning of young children, but we know better now. We are part of the team that teaches our kids to interact appropriately with one another, and, even more importantly we teach them self-regulation skills.

Honestly, we always have taught these skills. What has changed is that now we are more intentional about it, and we even have legislation to back it up. Standards have been written (OSPI’s SEL page), and all those publishers are making bank selling us all the new ways to help our kids with social emotional learning or SEL (the ASCD’s resource list).

I’m for it. Who wouldn’t be? The kids in our care can only benefit from building stronger relationships with their teachers and peers, and that is a big part of social emotional learning. But, since we have so many other things to teach them, SEL will often be wedged in as an add-on and it may or may not effectively help the ones who need it the most. Continue reading →

Can We Talk?

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My parents in 1999. When we immigrated to the U.S.

I can count the number of times my dad came to one of my school events on one hand. The most memorable was my high school graduation. Until I saw him sitting in the stands, I hadn’t been sure he’d come.

Was it because he didn’t care about my education? He kept a close eye on my grades and always repeated, “You can do anything. You just have to want it.” Was it because his work schedule didn’t allow it? He was self-employed and so had a flexible schedule.

Like many parents of the students in our classrooms, he did not speak English. My dad never felt comfortable in the school environment, because he never became a proficient English speaker. The moment he left Ukraine and stepped foot on U.S. soil he went from being respected and competent to ignorant.

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The Effectiveness of Classroom Meetings

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Last year I implemented classroom meetings once a week with my 6th-grade classroom. My experience began by doing a lot of research on the topic.  There were several formats to select from and even more opinions on the effectiveness of using valuable class time to hold them.  

The ideas behind the purpose range from meeting the social and emotional needs of the student to covering the daily agenda of classroom activities.  I use the power of a class meeting to help students feel welcome, safe, and as an activity that allows their voices to be heard.

When I first heard about the advantages of a classroom meeting I almost couldn’t believe it.  I thought, “who has time to do all that?” I gave myself permission to use 30 minutes every Wednesday to conduct morning meetings. Initially, I decided to focus on one question. I gave them a survey asking: do you feel respected and safe at school?  

Many students shared the same concern – their perspectives on lack of respect in their lives.  

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Curriculum Soup: Shopping Online for Supplemental Lessons?

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We are putting on our annual black-eyed pea soup to ring in the new year, and it’s just in time to send out some blessings to my educator network. My New Year’s wish for all of you is that you are blessed with an excellent, comprehensive curriculum that covers all the applicable standards with incredible depth, while also supplementing with materials that increase engagement and support differentiation, while broadening your students’ world views with those windows and mirrors we all want to provide.

No? Too much to ask?

I tend to be a dreamer, but even I know that the perfect boxed set of curriculum is not a realistic expectation. That cold reality hit me the first day I stepped into my classroom seventeen years ago. I remember the shock I felt when the books and supporting materials were presented to me. They were old. They were boring. And, they were completely unsuitable for the kind of teacher I wanted to be. Continue reading →