By Tom

My youngest son has expressed interest in pursuing a career
as a pilot. He turned 14 last month, so we gave him a flying lesson for his
birthday. The lesson was last Saturday and it was wonderful. But before I tell you
all about it, let me digress for a bit.

Thirty years ago, as I was starting my teaching career, the
big, new book that every teacher had to read was Madeline Hunter’s Mastery
Teaching. This was the dawn of Instructional Theory into Practice, better
known as ITIP. Hunter’s “innovation” was the seven-step lesson plan, which she
gleaned from studying thousands of effective teachers and analyzing what they
did. It was a no-nonsense approach to lesson planning and instruction, an
approach that’s worked for many of us to this day.

Let’s get back to the airfield. My son sat down with his
instructor. I forgot the guy’s name, but he started off by asking my son
whether he’d ever been in a small plane or not. “There it is,” I thought, “Pretesting;
he wants to know what my son already knows.” After that he pulled out a map of
the Seattle area. He took a toy plane and showed my son where we would be going
and exactly what he’d be doing in the plane. In other words, he was stating the
objective.

Then he pulled out a giant poster of a cockpit. He explained
the controls and some of the gauges and dials that would be important on this
trip. This was important, new information; otherwise known as input.

After that we went out to the plane, and the instructor led
my son through the pre-flight checklist and got us both buckled in and set up
with our two-way headphones. Then we took off.

At first they both had their hands on their steering wheels (actually
they’re called “yokes”) and the instructor helped correct my son’s attempts to
steer. But he gradually released control as my son gained confidence. It was a
textbook example of guided practice. After about thirty minutes, my son was
flying the plane himself; turning, going up and down, you name it. It was
awesome. It was independent practice.

The instructor took over for the landing. Apparently that’s
where it gets tricky. After we landed, he sat us down to go over the flight, celebrate
my son’s success and tell him what the next steps would be. It was closure.

Now I don’t know if flight instructors read Madeline Hunter
or not. I doubt it. But I do know that effective instruction is important to
them. It’s actually a matter of life and death. And when you get right down to it, good teaching is good teaching, whether it's in a classroom or an airplane. 

The bottom line,
however, is whether or not the student learned something.

You be the judge:

By Kristin

The New York Times reports that New York will now include standardized tests in art, gym, foreign languages, kindergarten and first grade, and English Language Learning.

I suppose we all saw this coming. It's an unfortunate response to states being pushed to grade every teacher and the inequity of only some teachers teaching tested subjects.  But a standardized test for art or gym?  Really? A standardized test for kindergarteners?  Really?

The single biggest problem with the direction testing is going is that instead of assessments being used to support student growth, which is how I use them, students are being asked to spend inordinate amounts of time supporting the measurement of their teachers.  It's not about the kids, and it's not ethical.  

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By Kristin

This year I taught a reading intervention class and was given one task: teach my students what they needed to know to be at or above grade level standard in reading.

Our goal was no secret, and from the first moment I saw my students I was like Jillian Michaels, ignoring the whining, forcing them past the fear and being honest with where they were and what they had to do.  It was exhausting, and we didn't let even a minute slide by.  No singing Happy Birthday, no holiday parties, no movies.  After the big test, we took one day off to celebrate our hard work before hitting the mental gym again.  Why?  Because now our goal is to be above grade level.  We continue to use every second  and to work as hard as we can.  Except for last Tuesday, when in my heart I know my 6th period spent the most important ten minutes of the year.

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By Tom

I’ve always had a loose relationship with Memorial Day. I
loved celebrating it, of course; what’s not to love about a three day weekend?
But the meaning of Memorial Day was always somewhat abstract, probably because
I’ve never actually had a member of my family die in battle. I had a
great-great grandfather who survived the Civil War (he was a Confederate
private), my grandfather’s family fled the Ukraine to avoid the Russo-Japanese
War, my father missed World War II but ended up on an aircraft carrier during
the Korean War. And although the pilots who took off from his ship didn’t
always make it back, he never saw any direct action. As for myself, I was
fourteen when Vietnam ended. Thank God.

So growing up, Memorial Day has never meant much more to me than a long
weekend in May.

As a teacher, I’ve always marked Memorial Day with an
explanation of what it means and what we’re supposed to be honoring with our
day off. And since I work with young children, they have always been eager to
share their stories of relatives who died in war. (Or simply died, although I
try to move those stories along) This has been a staple of my May lesson plans
for decades.

Recently, however, my Memorial Day lesson has become a little
awkward, and it has to do with where I work.

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By Mark

Unlike too many schools, we are in a position to hire. Last week, we interviewed candidates for two positions in my department–one replacing an irreplaceable veteran moving on to retirement, the other filling a new position resulting from enrollment growth. 

In total, we had over 70 applications submitted. 

We narrowed it to the interview pool, and each interview was impressive enough to warrant an offer. That's a good problem to have. 

In a break between candidates, my administrator, fellow humanities teacher and I started talking about how we would answer the questions we were posing to these candidates. We were asking them to deconstruct their lesson planning process, evaluate their own teaching, outline not only their management philosophy but also the practices that they find successful or challenging. We asked about standards, technology, collaboration, pedagogy, parent relationships, discipline…and more.

Obviously, when looking for a job a good candidate will expect to have to put all this on display. A well prepared candidate will have already anticipated this kind of scrutiny and be ready with details about his or her own practice.

And in the past, the reality has been that after the job interview, most teachers are never asked to do that depth of thinking about their own practice. Ever. Again. The interview was the gate, we said the magic words, and we passed through into our classrooms where we could shut the door and be the professionals we proposed ourselves to be in that interview.

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By Tom
White

It's over. My students have prepared for and taken the 2013 fourth
grade Measurement of Student Progress. It's now behind us. Let me offer a few
observations and reflections, based solely on my students' experiences:

-The adults seemed a lot more anxious and stressed out than the
students. Maybe it's because they were so well-prepared. Or maybe because their
evaluations aren't riding on the results. Or maybe it's because they're just
kids and they haven't learned to take everything seriously yet. Whatever the
reason, my students simply came in, sat down, listened to the directions, did
the work and read quietly until everyone was done.

-For some reason the narrative writing prompt was the same as one
of the released prompts from a few years ago. That was weird. In a good way, at
least for my students, since we used it as a practice exercise a few days
earlier. I'm not sure if the test writers goofed up or just ran out of ideas.

-Watching kids take an hour-long test is really boring. I'm used
to being incredibly busy for seven hours straight when I'm at work. Boredom is
something I only dream about, but when it finally came, it was horrible.

-I find it insulting that teachers aren't allowed to look at
student tests to see how they did. There's a lot of useful information in there.
I have no intention of changing any answers; I just want to see what the
answers are.

-While reading the directions for the math test, I noticed that it
listed protractors among the approved, supplemental materials. I stopped the
proceedings and sent someone down to the office to get a class set of
protractors. I didn't see anyone using their protractor for any constructive
purpose, and after the test, I asked my students if they actually needed them.
They didn't. Well played, OSPI; well played.

-And finally, this: Like most schools, we did everything we could
to maximize our students' testing performance. We rearranged schedules to
provide for long, uninterrupted blocks of time, we sent home letters to the
parents, asking them to make sure their kids got plenty of sleep, exercise and
nutritious food. We provided snacks during the tests, to make sure they weren't
hungry. We even ensured that there were no intercom or phone calls in the rooms
where kids were testing.

We did it all.

Which made me wonder: why don't we take learning as seriously as
we take testing? Why don't we make sure our kids are rested and well fed when
they're learning? Why don't we post signs on the doors saying, "Quiet!
Learning in progress!" Why don't we make sure kids aren't having recess
right outside the windows when we're teaching? And why don't we make sure
phones and intercoms don't interrupt our lessons?

I have no idea.