By Tom

I found myself at a district technology workshop yesterday. I was sitting next to my friend Taylor, who teaches third grade across town. We spent the day planning ways to incorporate technology into our curriculum. Taylor’s a smart teacher and she had some great ideas. I learned a lot from her, and she might have learned a few things from me. Or maybe not. The point is, we came from different schools and spent the day sharing ideas and working together to improve our teaching practice. There was no competition. I may or may not have been helping Taylor’s students outperform mine, and I couldn’t care less.

From time to time, I checked the internet to see how things were going in Congress. That’s right; I was off-task. And as it turned out, Congress was in the process of letting the administration buy up lousy loans in an attempt to save the US economy.

I hope it works. But as I was switching back and forth between my curriculum and my country, I couldn’t help but notice something. We’re going to spend $700 billion bailing out a system that is supposed to deal with failure in a Darwinian fashion. And at the same time, many of the same clowns who ruined the very economy that they’re supposed to manage are trying to get public education to act more like private enterprise.

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By Tom

We’ve all just endured two weeks of party conventions, highlighted by a speech from a former community organizer and a former mayor who isn’t sure what a community organizer does.

And I think I’ve got some advice for the man who eventually wins this election.

But first let me tell you a story.

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There’s a new buzzword around my town: Conley. David Conley, a professor at the University of Oregon and author of College Knowledge: what it really takes for students to succeed and what we can do to get them ready (2005) suggests schools are doing a better job of getting students into college, but not necessarily ready to succeed at college. Initially, not having access to his book, I sought out a readily available article. His premise is that schools need an intellectually coherent program that develops “key cognitive strategies” as well as content knowledge. There are many issues I’d like to comment on regarding this work, but for now I’m going to hone in on one strategy he lists: inquisitiveness.

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A million is often used as a metaphor for some large, unattainable, unimaginable number. My students often say things like, “That essay will take me a million years to do?” So, for students, a million is a large number. Me, I cannot conceptualize what a million looks like, let alone 1.5 million. But 1.5 million of the 3 millions teachers in American leave the profession every 5 years, mostly to go on to professions that have better pay or more pleasant working conditions. In Washington state, rather than 1/2 leaving the profession every 5 years, it is slightly less, at 1/5. However, that is still not a number about which to be proud.

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Nancy Flanagan at teacher in a strange land started a meme, inviting others to share the five things that policymakers should know about one’s classroom (or school). While I started with a longer list, I settled on these 5 things, which are in no particular order…

1) Classrooms are not flat environments, with everyone learning and needing the same thing at the same time. This is important to keep in mind as policymakers want to create one curriculum for all students and/or one form of assessment intended to measure the learning for all kids. Having assessments embedded within each lesson in conjunction with high standards targets learning more effectively than the ‘one size fits all’ approach.

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I teach fourth grade in Lynnwood, Washington. It’s a suburb of Seattle, about 15 miles to the north. I’ve been there for the past twenty four years. I can’t imagine being anything other than a teacher.

I grew up in the Northwest, along with my two brothers, none of whom are teachers; and my two sisters, both of whom are. My parents were never teachers, although I learned almost everything I know from them.

My wife works in a school; in fact it’s the same one our two sons attended. Our oldest is a high school junior and our youngest is a ninth grader. When I’m not teaching or writing for this blog I like to endure Seattle Mariners games, sail and ski with my family and go on long bike rides by myself.

by Tom

Here’s a fun math problem to solve:

Let N be an odd number.

a. Prove that N squared is odd.

b. Prove that when N squared is divided by 4, the remainder is 1.

c. Prove that when N squared is divided by 8, the remainder is 1.

d. Find an odd N such that N squared divided by 16 leaves a remainder that is not 1.

If you’re like me, you probably remember doing this kind of work at some point in your education. Given enough time and motivation, you could probably figure it out. But if you’ve taught third grade for the past 24 years (like me) you probably haven’t done a problem like this in a long while.

So what? Well, a new study released by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) concludes that colleges of education are under-preparing elementary school math teachers. As a teacher who considers himself reasonably prepared to teach math to third graders, my initial reaction is to defend my colleagues and the institutions that prepared us. However, I think we do have to own some of this. I have sat next to teachers during math trainings who appear to be learning (or not learning) some very basic math for the first time. And I think it’s a fair generalization to acknowledge that college undergraduates who are strong in math do not gravitate towards elementary education. We tend to get a lot of people who are competent in math, but not obsessed by it. I think it’s reasonable to expect teacher education programs to ensure that their graduates know how to do college-level math.

On the other hand, most people would agree that with many math skills you either “use-it-or-lose-it.” The minute you stop solving algebraic equations is the minute you stop knowing how to solve them. I teach third grade. I was once pretty good at algebra; I’m still very good at subtraction and multiplication. In their report, NCTQ includes five different math problems that they feel elementary teachers should be able to solve. The problem above is one of them. Although there was a time in my life when I could have solved each of these problems, I have to admit that now is not one of those times. Why not? Simple: I do not work with this material on a day-to-day basis. It is not currently critical that I know how to do this type of math. That’s how people forget how to do things. (By the way, this is exactly why the American Red Cross makes us take CPR classes every two years to retain our certification. They assume we haven’t had to save anyone’s life lately, and they know we’ll forget how to do so.)

The NCTQ and its panel of experts (none of whom teach elementary school) believe that grade-school teachers should have more rigorous coursework in math content. Perhaps. But my concern is that a large portion of this “rigor” will be left behind once these teachers begin working with their students. I think their time in college would be better spent on methods courses and content-level math classes in which they focus on developing concrete understanding of the math with which they will have day-to-day interactions.

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Another blogger on education. Really? Is that necessary? What could there possibly be out there that is not written up in another blog, or, rather, hundreds of other blogs? What do I think I can add to the blogosphere? Good question. A question to which I do not have a solid answer. If pressed, it would sound something like I have the most experience within the experience of my own teaching experience. That makes me an expert.

You will find my posts to be more philosophically based, leaving you with questions. Large brush strokes with no answers except for those with which you leave when done thinking. I spend my free time discussing education with friends and peers. Some people watch baseball, others have fantasy football teams, still more are impressed with cars. I geek out on all things education.

If this were an interview, you would have already read my resume. It would include such items as 13years of teaching; Nationally Board Certified in Early Adolescent English/Language Arts; a diverse involvement in education outside of the school day; special education certified; and a simple byline that states “just odd enough to elicit the excitement of students”.

I went through school just as expected. Elementary….Junior High…High School…College. I have held three jobs in my life, all for a number of years. I was a paper boy from 4th grade until high school graduation. I painted houses for about 10 years, starting right after high school graduation. Singularly focused and highly dedicated. I figured with my college coursework, grades, and involvement in schools, I would land a job straight out of college…however, that was not the case. 

I subbed for a couple of years, holding a variety of long-term sub jobs, each time waiting for that “teacher retirement” group everyone seemed to say was on the way. I have taught in a variety of subjects: physics, biology, speech, poetry, special education, and English. My love of teaching is found in the English class which oddly was a class in which I did simple “okay”, but never saw the reason to care; dead authors…who cares? As a student, my classes were science and math. Yet, as the teacher, I find that so much growth and enthusiasm and genuine love of learning can be found in my English classroom. 

For the span of 2007-2009, I took a year’s leave of absence to be at home with my three sons (cue music). I did this because it is a part of their lives, the family life, of which I want to experience. 

This was a hard decision for me, to take a non-linear path. On one hand, I had the great opportunity to spend time with my sons. On the other hand, I had a well established career; a place in a school; a name for myself in the community. Stay-at-home-dad or consistent course? I did choose to stay at home and after a couple of months, when my colleagues stopped forwarding emails, I let go of “that world” of teaching, but I never stopped thinking about education.

In 2006 I received my National Boards for Professional Teaching Standards certificate in Early Adolescent English/Language Arts, the highest certification a teacher can achieve. After receiving my certification, I facilitated candidates going through the NBPTS process. 

I am returning from a two-year leave of absence where I was a stay-at-home dad and worked with various educational organizations in Washington state. Some of my family’s life from that time is shared in my bike column entitled, The Wheel American Family.

M Y   P O S T S :

5 Ways to Improve Education–I only need one (2009.08.24)

Why don’t teachers blog (2009.06.20)

Teaching is Unique (2009.06.08)

Faculty Room–Open Thread, What’s on your mind? (2009.04.10)

NBPTS and Washington Teachers, a great match (2009.03.18)

WCAP: Part 2 (2009.02.25)

WASL: New and IMPROVED! 25% more for 45% less. (2009.01.22)

Collaboration, not Isolation (2009.01.20)

An Increase of Online Courses in School (2009.01.05)

The Return to Teaching (2008.12.31)

WASHINGTONIOUSLY Awesome: NBCTs fill the classroom! (2008.12.09)