On Leveraging Technology Part Six–Essential Questions

Posted by Jeremy Voigt on April 29, 2019
Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Web/Tech

I keep trying to put down the topic of technology in the classroom, and I keep finding it impossible. Last week two things arrived in my inbox.

The first is a short article summarizing decade long research comparing reading comprehension from a screen with comprehension from paper. The conclusions were unambiguous: reading from screens harms comprehension compared to reading from paper. This is one of the first articles I’ve read in some time offering such clear conclusions:

“More evidence is in: Reading from screens harms comprehension.”

“One likely reason: Readers using screens tend to think they’re processing and understanding texts better then they actually are.”

Virginia Clinton, heading up the study says, “Reading from screens had a negative effect on reading performance relative to paper.”

and,

“There is legitimate concern that reading on paper may be better in terms of performance and efficiency.”

Reading this threw me back into memory. Sitting in the Henier auditorium, at the community college where I work part time, listening to a recent PhD graduate from the University of Washington (forgive me for forgetting her name), report her research findings on reading comprehension and technology. Her findings seemed contradictory to me. She reported finding that young readers reading from iPads comprehended the content at similar levels but were slower in reporting it because they were interested in describing the technology.

For example, if a student read a paper copy of a picture book and was asked comprehension questions they immediately discussed the content. If a student read the same picture book from an iPad and was asked the same comprehension questions, they discussed what buttons they pressed, and the interactions with technology before they discussed content. The researcher presenting dismissed the delay, but it stood out as alarming to me. As a parent and as a teacher efficiency is important to me. My top rules for technology in my personal life and in my classrooms are:

It must add to life
It must not distract from life

Continue reading →

Family is the basis of society

Posted by Gretchen Cruden on April 20, 2019
Elementary, Life in the Classroom | character, family

Last month I wrote about the history of character education in American schools and drilled down to the character traits and values the Basic Education Act in our state outlined as important for schools to teach. One of these values is the concept that family is the basis of society. In other words, family is the foundation upon which our society is built. Let’s check in on the state of American families from yesteryear to today to see how our foundation is holding up.

According to Pew Research, in the 1960s, almost 73% of children were being raised in intact homes with their parents of origin. Today, only 46% of our students are coming from home where they have an intact family of origin. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this means over half of the children in our classrooms have felt the trauma of family break up and may be grappling with the complexity of living in a blended family. How do we teach about the importance of family when literally, the majority of our students will not grow up in an intact family?

We could talk about the about the different family structures out there. Unfortunately, no matter how you spin the numbers, study after study shows children coming from an intact family of origin fare the best when it comes to behavior and academic achievement. There are exceptions to the rule, but society is not built upon exceptions; it is built on the norm. We need to help our students develop the skills they will need to participate in healthy family lives as adults.

One lesson to teach…maintaining an intact family takes self-regulation skills.

Many times I have told a student escalating in conflict to hit the “cool it” seat outside my door. There the student can sit in simmering anger, chose to practice the breathing reminders (or not) and simply take a moment. I check on them. Have they breathed? Are they ready to talk? It is not until they have cooled enough and breathed enough to talk and hear words that I go and sit with them. I hear them out. We talk about the pain and shame that usually was the root of the conflict. We talk about how good it was to get away for a moment to clear out thinking. We talk about what we could have done differently so the anger did not get so hot. We talk about many of the other self-regulation skills we have learned in class.

And then I ask, “Why do you think it is important to learn to manage your feelings and manage conflict?”

If the student is fresh to the experience of the “cool it seat” they replay with, “So I don’t get in trouble.” That is true; for now. Back to class the student goes.

My repeat offenders hear an additional lesson. They hear a variation of the following:

“Hey, we seem to meet out here a lot. I am thinking I need to let you know a secret of life. Think you’re ready for a secret?”

What kid doesn’t like an insider secret? There is almost always a nod or at least a shrug of “Whatever” that really translates in my teacher’s mind to, “Please, give me the secret to ending this. I need to stop doing this same dumb thing. Help me out.”

I pull my chair closer and lean in. All kids know the best secrets are told leaning in.

I begin. “The thing is this. You do not magically get handed a pamphlet on how to handle anger and frustration when you are handed your child in the hospital. You do not get handed a book about how to love someone when you get married. If you think your own child or your wife someday could never make you as angry or frustrated as your classmate, you are beyond wrong.”

Repeat Offender just stares back. Still listening, but not hearing it yet.

“How mad that kid made you by taking your pencil and lying about it? That is nothing compared to your own 15 year-old sneaking out and lying about it. If you think for a moment that your wife won’t make you want to slam your fist through the wall from sheer frustration, you don’t get what loving and living with someone for a long time means.”

Repeat Offender usually says something snarky about not having kids or not being married. I always look them straight in the face and simply say, “True, but you are a kid. So, maybe you know how it feels to have a parent out of control…”

Most of the time there is a small wince. I hate that wince. It means they know.

“You job at this age is to learn to manage your emotions and your actions so that someday you have the skills to deal with your child without treating them like you just treated your classmate. You are here to learn how to keep your fist unclenched and at your sides instead of into walls. You are here to learn to hear the words of someone else, even when you are mad at them.”

Repeat Offender nods.

“Do you know why you need these skills?”

Repeat Offender knows somewhere in his heart, but does not know how to say the words.

I help. “You need the skills of self-regulation so you can have a happy life. So you can have a happy family.”

There is not a lesson I can teach about family being the basis of society. There are only moments I can grasp as teachable. If even one of my Repeat Offenders hears me and takes their need to learn self-regulation to heart, it is one more chance for a family to be kept intact in a healthy way. Healthy families are the basis of a healthy society.

*For the record, physical and emotional violence are not the only causes of families to fall apart. There are many other ways in which self-regulation plays a role in creating healthy family dynamics. There are also many other ways I teach self-regulation. Those will be the subject of my next blog as they connect to the other areas teaching character and values in the classroom.

Teach Challenging Books

Posted by Hope Teague-Bowling on April 8, 2019
Books, Current Affairs, Literacy

I first floated the idea of teaching Claudia Rankine’s book Citizen: An American Lyric at Lincoln on The Nerd Farm podcast. One major point of discussion was that despite being first published in 2014, the urgency of this book is felt on every page. It feels like it was written for this moment.

Within a few short weeks, listeners flooded the mailroom with donated copies. I was a little nervous. I teach about race, class, and gender but I’ve never taught a book like this. I’ve taught poetry but I’ve never experienced a book of poetry that defies what I learned in college. In the back of my mind lingered the most daunting question of all: can I, a white woman, do justice teaching a book about racism, microaggressions,and intersectionality?

Not one to shirk challenge, I talked my student teacher into team-teaching the text. We found exactly three resources for teaching this text–a reading guide from Graywolf Press and two teacher blog posts from higher ed. For one month, my juniors wrestled with the language, structure, and themes of this book.

Despite the unfamiliarity of poetry as a genre and the “untraditional” way Rankine breaks any expectations of form, Rankine is accessible in a high school classroom setting. Every high school student needs to experience poetry, art, and language the way Rankine creates it. This year when I prepped for the unit, I found, more articles from college level classes, and several university teacher guides signaling to me that I’m not the only one feeling the timeliness of this text.

With the rise of hate crimes, public displays of racism and the casual way these are presented by media, I’m especially convinced that now more than ever, students and teachers need to grapple open and honestly with the discomfort of these issues. In particular, white teachers should teach books that make them uncomfortable or are out of their “range of expertise.”

For students of color, they tell me they need this book because it validates their daily existence. They want to read a Black author who excels at the art of language. They want to feel they are not alone.

For white kids, they need to see a black artist at the highest level. They need to be challenged as perpetrators and beneficiaries of white supremacy. They need to consider how intersectionality shifts and shapes power.

For teachers, we need to teach books outside our comfort zones be in content or style. We need to use our platform in the classroom to amplify authors our students might never experience.

For white teachers, we need to create safe spaces to have open and honest discussions about race in America–where we aren’t threatened by disagreement, where students of color feel confident expressing their thoughts, and where we don’t’ “not all white people” the conversation.

Instead of being fearful of these difficult conversations, we need to be brave. No matter what race we are, we need to collectively read and discuss more books like Citizen. Maybe then we will actually do something to loosen the grip of racism on our country.

Professional Development: Yes, and…

Posted by Lynne Olmos on April 2, 2019
Uncategorized

How many times have you groaned about sitting through professional development? How do you feel about a parade of presenters telling you yet another way you can do your job? Do you get excited about trainings? About conferences? About the newest in education-related publications?

Admit it. You have been part of a conversation or two that has scoffed at “PD.” It comes with the job, right?

I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to the onslaught of professional development that most teachers in most districts experience. It’s part of the cycle. However, I have developed a certain method for making any training or professional development experience more meaningful, and more enjoyable, too! It comes straight out of my theatre arts class.

I teach improvisational theatre to my students. One of our basic tenets of improvisation is the idea of “Yes, and…” Here is what Wikipedia says about this mindset:

“Yes, and…”, also referred to as “Yes, and…” thinking, is a rule-of-thumb in improvisational comedy that suggests that a participant should accept what another participant has stated (“yes”) and then expand on that line of thinking (“and”). It is also used in business and other organizations as a principle that improves the effectiveness of the brainstorming process, fosters effective communication, and encourages the free sharing of ideas.” (For a good article that explains it more fully along with videos, go here.)

You see, “Yes, and…” is a great way to manage any professional development. You say “yes” to the idea being shared, truly considering it, and then you add your thoughts and ideas to incorporate it and expand upon it. It works. It’s engagement. Imagine if all of our students had a “yes, and…” attitude!

“Yes, and…” gives value to both the new idea and your own ideas, too. I have begun using this attitude myself in any situation that requires me to deal with opposing or conflicting ideas. I don’t immediately shut off communications. This change of attitude has really paid off for me recently. The big “Aha!” moment came to me in Tangier, Morocco, during my international field experience with Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms (a program you should definitely check out- here).

You see, traveling to North Africa to learn about the Moroccan education system and culture was not a glorified vacation. It was work! It was often eighteen-hour days filled with tours, hikes, co-teaching, interviews, and language mix-ups. It was challenging and exhausting. There were definitely moments where I wanted to shut out the new and different and just be the old me. Then I realized – quite suddenly – that I had to “Yes, and..” this whole experience. So, I got myself up, dusted myself off, and posed for some more pictures, shook some more hands, and stumbled through another multilingual conversation. (Want to see how this adventure played out, check out my travel blog- here.)

From there on out it was a blast! I had no reason not to be all in. I accepted all the new learning, realized it was mine for the taking, and added my own input at will. It was not being done to me. I was part of it. Yes, I was having to adapt to new ideas, and I was shaping those new ways with my own experience and creative input.

We know that a productive and positive mindset is crucial for learning. Do we apply this to just our students? What about us? We need to think positively and absorb what we can use in every learning opportunity. Think about that at your next dose of professional development.

Shameless plug time: There is an amazing learning opportunity on our horizon. The Washington Teachers Advisory Council is hosting their third conference next month. This conference takes place at beautiful Cedarbrook Lodge in Seatac on May 4th and 5th. Lodging included, it will cost you only $100-125 to attend, which is a steal! At this conference, you will encounter an all-star lineup of presenters, panelists, and speakers, including 2019 WA Teacher of the Year Robert Hand and 2018 National Teacher of the Year Mandy Manning. Sessions will include topics like transforming special education inclusion practices, educating to advocate, innovating education with STEAM, social emotional learning and character education, and much more.

You should begin your professional development mindset shift by saying YES to learning from the best educators in your region, AND sharing your own innovative ideas as well. To register, go here.

Do you have any “Yes, and…” experiences to share? I would love to hear about them. Please comment below.

On Leveraging Technology—part five: a sorting

Posted by Jeremy Voigt on March 29, 2019
Education, Education Policy, Professional Development, Web/Tech

On Leveraging Technology—part five: a sorting

When I started writing about technology in the classroom back in October I began with these central questions:

How do we teach mindful use of technology to students who are already immersed in technology?
How do I deal with the inherent assumptions in the previous question that imply such immersion is negative?
Is such immersion negative?

A host of other questions has arisen from my explorations.

Context: My district decided against one-to-one technology adoption after passing our technology levy. The district my children attended adopted one-to-one. The comparison has been interesting. Of course, the comparison is not perfect. I’m a teacher in one district, and a parent in another. Obviously different perspectives. I’ve also made some clear decisions about my kids and technology, and technology in my personal life, which I laid out in the first post.

Here I am at the end of March, the longest month, and where am I really with answering these questions?

Continue reading →

Teaching Builds Character!

Posted by Gretchen Cruden on March 26, 2019
Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Mentoring, Social Issues

It takes a little knowledge to dig a little deeper sometimes. This month, I am hitting the knowledge. Next month – I am digging a little deeper. What am I talking about? Character education! Let’s first get a little history…

A triad of men formed the genesis of what is called character education today.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was fascinated with both his own moral character and those of his fellow Americans. At the age of twenty, he set out to develop his own moral character in a systematic way and devised a way to evaluate how well he was adhering to his top thirteen traits of character. He wrote about these same traits as being excellent tools to derive moral answers to the questions of every day life for children. Some of these same traits (such as resolution, industry and justice) form the backbone of today’s character education programs. I wonder what app he would develop in today’s world to self-monitor his character?

Horace Mann (1796-1859) did not think the schools of his era were lacking in the ability to teach academics, but was lacking in something far more imperative to society; moral reasoning. He was of the mind education should not only include moral instruction, but that it should be mandatory. Mann’s home state of Massachusetts became the first state to require that children attend classes in 1852. The law stated every child must attend school to learn read and do math. If parents refused, they were fined large sums of money and if they still refused, their children were removed from their homes and their parental rights were severed. Wow-times have changed! Part of this severity was due to the importance Mann placed in having all children raised with having been taught moral reasoning.

William McGuffey (1800-1873) had an equally strong impact in the formation of early learning. He became a teacher at the wise, old age of fourteen. He began to see the importance of have a unified approach in schools to moral learning and developed the most popular curriculum in history; the McGuffey Readers. These schoolbooks were laden with Biblical stories and moral lessons. In this way, the prevailing social norms of the time were established for the students. These lessons became the foundation of moral development for early American children for many generations.

Continue reading →

Measles and Vaccinations

Posted by Jan Kragen on March 10, 2019
Current Affairs, Science

My mother caught the measles when she was in the second grade. Her overwhelming memory of the ordeal is one of boredom. She had to stay inside the whole time (which could have been up to three weeks). Even worse, in her day, she had to stay in a darkened room, so she couldn’t even read to entertain herself. Of course, there was no television yet.

She didn’t get that sick. She didn’t have any long-term effects.

No big deal.

I have another relative who caught the measles. Robert Dudley Gregory fought with the Union Army during the Civil War. At one point his whole company came down with the measles.

Before I go any further, I want you to consider that the average age of a Union soldier was 26 years old. These were young men in the prime of life who caught a “childhood disease.”

Many of them died. Those who survived were damaged for the rest of their lives.

The minute my mom was diagnosed, a quarantine poster was slapped on the front door of their house. When her dad came home from work, he wasn’t allowed inside his own home. That’s how seriously they took quarantines in 1938.

Back in the 1930s people had a more intimate understanding of measles. They knew from experience how contagious it was, how swiftly it spread, and how deadly it could be. They were not prepared to take any chances.

Once the measles vaccine became available in the 1963, it was considered a godsend. Measles went from being as “inevitable as death and taxes” to a 95% immunity rate after the second dose. Cases plummeted. By 2000—in less than 40 years!—it was eradicated in the United States.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been eradicated in the rest of the world. Measles can be contagious for days before any symptoms appear, so visitors from other countries can bring the disease and spread it here, affecting students, families, classrooms, and school districts.

How is that possible if everyone here is vaccinated? As you’ve seen on the news, not everyone in America is vaccinated. As fewer people vaccinate their children, more catch the disease. So now Washington State is moving toward vaccinating more of its students.

My students sometimes ask about that. They ask, in particular, about measles and autism.

I tell them there was a one individual doctor (see The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin). He noticed that signs of autism started to appear in some young children after measles shots. After studying a handful of children, he published a paper making the claim that the shots might be causing autism. It raised alarms, as any such allegation should.

Then other doctors around the world tried to replicate his experiments.

(We talk in science about how the ability to replicate experiments is crucial in order to confirm the results of those experiments.)

None of the other doctors or scientists could replicate his experiments. In fact, study after study showed no link between measles and autism.

Then I ask my class, “What should the doctor do, as a good scientist?” They think he should figure out where he made his mistake.

I tell them that’s not what he did. Instead, he went on the internet to tell the whole world that he was right and every other doctor and scientist was wrong.

Now the kids have two lessons they can draw on. They know about replicability in experimentation. They also know that anyone can post anything on the internet. Having a site doesn’t mean the information on it is authoritative. (After all, I teach them how to make sites of their own. They know they are not authoritative! We always ask, “Who sponsors the site? Who vouches for the information posted there?”)

They agree that the American Medical Association and the Center for Disease Control are more authoritative than a single doctor, especially when his studies contradict everyone else’s.

What is interesting to me is how much tension goes out of the room after discussing the issue in those terms. Science. The internet. They feel like they know how those things work. It puts the question in a context they can understand.

Abraham Lincoln Again

Posted by Jan Kragen on February 18, 2019
Current Affairs, Elementary, Social Issues

Last week I did a series of lessons on “argumentation in reading.” I told my student that I analyzed their STAR reading test data and found their lowest subcategory was in this particular area. However, I confessed to them, I wasn’t sure what the phrase meant. I mean, I teach them argumentation in writing, along with informal logic and fallacies of reasoning, but what was argumentation in reading?

I told them the story of how I investigated my question all the way up to the national STAR testing organization. They replied with their definition and sample test questions.

I shared the results of my research with my class, “You know how I teach you how to use good, logical, well-reasoned arguments in your writing? And how I teach you to use evidence to back up your reasoning? This STAR business is different. When they say ‘argumentation in reading,’ they are talking about bad argumentation. Not using evidence. Appealing strictly to emotion. Manipulating audiences.”

For the next couple of days, I defined terms and showed examples from print advertising and from commercials. Several times I mentioned that they could find examples of this kind of bad argumentation in other places—political speeches, letters to the editor, editorials on the opinion pages. As I wrapped up the final presentation, I quipped that I was just showing them the more entertaining examples of argumentation in reading instead of also pulling in political speeches and the rest.

One of my boys said, “Maybe that’s a good thing, to avoid sharing anything political.”

Maybe I can get away with something from 164 years ago.

The American Party was prominent in United States politics from the late 1840s through the 1850s. More commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party, its members formed a secretive group, answering questions about their beliefs with the phrase, “I know nothing,” which is where they got their more popular name. Most members were white middle class or working class men who strongly opposed immigrants, especially Catholics. Earlier waves of immigration to American had been strongly English-speaking and Protestant, but by the early 1800s people began to arrive from Germany and Ireland, upending cultural expectations and stirring up resentment and fear.

How did Lincoln react to the Know-Nothings? In a letter written to Joshua Speed in 1855 he said,

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

In the middle of the Civil War, at the national convention that nominated Lincoln for reelection, the committee members noted his justice and protection to all men employed in the Union armies “without regard to distinction of color” as well as his liberal and just encouragement of foreign immigration to “this nation, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations.”

Lincoln believed in our national motto, E Pluribus Unum—Out of Many, One.

What do you think? For Presidents’ Day, do you suppose I can get away with talking about how Lincoln supported immigrants from all nations?

Stories From School

Practice Meets Policy

On Leveraging Technology Part Six–Essential Questions

Family is the basis of society

Teach Challenging Books

Professional Development: Yes, and…

On Leveraging Technology—part five: a sorting

Measles and Vaccinations