Revisiting Critical Friends

This year I have a group of students who, most of the time, try to work together.  So far they don't seem to get on each others nerves very often. Mykids range from highly independent, self-motivated students to those with pervasive developmental challenges.  Some days we exhaust each other.I made a decision to revisit narrative writing again this month to see if we could improve on our first attempt in this writing genre.  One of those improvements is that I have assigned each student a "critical friend", a writing partner.  This afternoon we used the 10 steps toward independence (thanks Gail and Joan!) modeling what a conference with a critical friend should look and sound like - and how it should not.  I guess we've done this routine enough times with other parts of the Daily Five that it was no big deal to follow a good model with a poor model with a good model.And then I asked the newly formed writing partnerships to go off and talk about their ideas for this new narrative writing project and offer encouragement and suggestions.I  often like to step away from the children  and become an observer. Oftentimes I am amazed at how things roll and today was no exception. I could hear each author explain the five narrative ideas they had thought of, why the idea was important to him or her, and then listen as the partner either encouraged or gently offered a suggestion or clarification of the idea.  The partners were so sincere in their responsibilities to their writing partners; how powerful it must have felt to get some feedback from a peer, not only from the teacher!When I think about making sure my student writers have peers to support them, I sometimes find myself hesitating - wondering if the students have the skills (social) and judgement to offer constructive criticism to a peer. I wonder if I am asking too much of them.  But today, I observed I have very much underestimated my students. They are most definitely up to the task of working with a writing partner, a critical friend.I won't under-estimate them again. Critical friends are here to stay.

Adventures in Technology

It was a chance discussion that brought it on. My sister, a newly minted teacher from Oregon, pointed me to a blog written by one of her instructional technology professors, Barry Jahn. It was the post on an $80 SmartBoard that caught my interest.Working in cash-strapped urban school districts generally means technology is way down on the list of priorities.  I have two iMacs in my classroom - 1 is nearly 10 years old and no longer can be updated; the other newer model (3 years old) is shared by my students and me and now has been given over entirely to the students. Getting a picture here?So I am always on the look-out for some technology applications that I can a) afford and b) use meaningfully. As a former instructional technology specialist I firmly stand on the side of tech teachers who think technology should be one of the tools students use -- not some stand-alone flash-in-the-pan.So when the idea of making a SmartBoard out of a Wii-mote appeared, I was intrigued. I already had the Wii-mote -- gathering dust as those things are apt to do. I had my old Dell XPS laptop that I was in the process of designating for use in school as "my" computer.  I had a projector already in the classroom. So all I needed was a bluetooth dongle, the software, and an infrared pen.  Sounds easy - right.Well not so fast. There is Murphy's Law to consider here - if anything can possibly go wrong it does (and did).  First I needed to get past the hurdle of getting my Dell to connect to the school's network. Can I tell you that Fort Knox does not have such stringent security?Then the bluetooth was not plug-and-play technology; that took about a week to figure out the ONE WAY it would recognize my Dell and the Wii-mote. The projector and Dell had a little tussle with each other and wouldn't "talk". And finally, it turns out WHERE you place the Wii-mote has a lot to do with whether or not the pen gets seen by the system and can be calibrated.Oh and the software, no longer free - but a free-trial, didn't much care for working either. It felt like every hurdle that was overcome had another one waiting to take its place in the line of "technology prevention". It probably didn't help that I truly was trying to do this on the cheap by using my 8-year-old laptop.However, persistence paid off and 2 months later I have a SmartBoard. I rolled it out with my students this week when we introduced the concept of similes with the students, using an already made SmartBoard file from Smart Exchange. Even though the calibration on the pen still needs a tweak, the silly thing worked. And honestly, I don't think I've ever had an easier time getting kids to understand the concept of figurative language.A perfect reason to use technology in the classroom! Can't wait to find some others.

Seeds of Science

A few weeks ago, the District trained all 3rd and 4th grade teachers on a new science program that is being initiated here in Lowell. The logistics of revising an already tight schedule to include a new program with some pretty hefty time requirements has been nightmarish to say the least. It hasn't helped much that the administrator who successfully advocated for this program is no longer part of the Central Office administration.  It also has been received less-than-enthusiastically because of timing: adding in a new program when we have major curriculum overhauls in English Language Arts and Mathematics (Common Core!) while we straddle the former frameworks makes everyone cranky.However, yesterday my students were involved in a soil experiment that has made all the angst over getting this off the ground feel worth it.As typically happens when implementing a new program, you read it once, read it again, and still miss something. At least I had remembered to gather leaf matter from my backyard for the student observation. But as it was 6:30 and I was on my way to school, I just picked up what I could from the side of my driveway. To me, it just looked like a bunch of dead red maple leaves - nothing too interesting to observe and record.Well, were we all in for a surprise.  Table by table, each group discovered not only leaves (and a few sticks), but BUGS! Spiders, beetles, bug casings -- the whole gamut. And were the kids ever excited! "This is the best day of my whole life," one of my less-academically inclined students yelled.  I think I would agree.I never know just how valuable, exciting, and wonderful a lesson is until it gets rolled out in front of the students. All that hand wringing? Worth it.

Show Don't Tell

Recently, Northern Nevada Writing Projects WritingFix website featured the book Show Don't Tell by Josephne Nobisso. It caught my eye as this is exactly what I ask my Third Grade Authors to do: use your words to SHOW what happens in your writing. In fact, Googling those words, this seems to be a pretty universal thought for teachers of writers.As my students have worked through the past weeks to create a Small Moment Narrative - our featured writing product for November - one strategy I've introduced/reviewed is that by adding conversation to writing, an authors shows what is happening in the story.  Oh how my Third Graders love to use quotation marks! Sometimes those marks appear in the darndest placed :-)In preparing for conferencing, I try to read each students narrative ahead of time. It gives me an opportunity to consider the most important next step we need to take in a student's writing. And sometimes it is just plain fun to pre-read their ideas and thoughts.Before I packed up some of the students' writing for my "homework" yesterday, one of my ELLs approached me with a warning: "I've written some Spanish" she told me in a whisper.  I assured her that wouldn't be a huge problem - armed with false cognates and an online translator, I was pretty sure I could problem solve the gist of her writing.But what she had done was not just add randomly placed Spanish words in her narrative. She had written conversations in Spanish! Why? Because that is her home language and that was the language her mother speaks with her. So when Mom spoke in her Small Moment, the conversation was authentic.Absolutely brilliant - don't you think?! 

Using Daily Five Math to Support Common Core

This summer was partially spent in aligning Common Core Mathematics curriculum (Massachusetts-style) with the district's universally available materials and laying out a scope and sequence that makes sense vertically and horizontally. As anyone who has looked at the Common Core in depth can attest, it's an on-going process full of starts and stops.A particular challenge to 3rd and 4th grade teachers in this transition year - this year our students will be MCAS-tested on 2004 Curriculum Frameworks - is, while we work to transition there is a great  need to keep a close watch on those standards that have been moved from our grade level. Particularly the standards for which our students will be accountable but were not previously taught to mastery.To my thinking, this is where using the Daily Five in Mathematics makes perfect sense. I can still launch my core lesson - the Common Core-based lesson, have my students work for a period of time on the activity (notice I'm not saying worksheet!), reconvene for a summary discussion and refocus students on continued work using one of four categories: Strategy Games, Facts-Clocks-Money, Problem Solving, or Math Tools.Yes, I know that the Sisters don't use this terminology.  These are the terms that I use because of the mind-blowing task of straddling two curricula while transitioning to full Common Core implementation.As a third grade teacher, I know the bulk of my mathematics intervention - the dance to catch kids up on things that are now receiving more emphasis - will be on number sense and operations (CCM: NBT, OA) . Prior to this year, there was no explicitly spelled out requirement that students master addition and subtraction to 18s in second grade.  We've got some wood-shedding to do here.To keep things sane, and to allow me to meet several small groups, I have a few strategy games that I call "landmarks". In our current multiplication unit, those games include array cards, Marilyn Burn's Circle and Star game, as well as Close to 100 (or 1000) and Collection Card games (Investigations in Number Data and Space) we used to introduce 3-digit addition/subtraction. The teaching challenge is to pick out universal games where "rules" stay the same, but the ante is pushed to make it challenging for all students no matter what their level of mastery.As most students use the four choices to continue to build mathematical concepts and skills, I can meet with small groups of students needing intervention support  in place value, or understanding of addition/subtraction or some other yet undiscovered area of need.How can I do that? Because my students are Independent Learners, I know that when I attend to the small group, the rest of the class is engaged in some meaningful practice and learning. The same Daily Five expectations for Literacy - get started right away, do math the whole time, work quietly, work on stamina - are applied to independent explorations in mathematics.For me, the Daily Five principles applied to the mathematics class make this differentiation possible. My implementation certainly is not perfect, but knowing my students are getting what they need without the teacher being pulled away by monitoring what is going on in other areas of the classroom makes the work ahead possible. And definitely more enjoyable.

It's Not All That.....

    I work in a smallish/medium sized urban school district. In recent years, the school budget has been cut so to eliminate instructional technology teachers and the staff holding up the technology infrastructure hangs on by their collective teeth. We are not an affluent community; no PTO is holding a raffle to raise funds for Smartboards or laptops or anything else as a matter of fact. The not-a-recession has hit this community - and thereby the budgets - fairly hard.In my own classroom, I have one old iMac "jellybean". It no longer gets operating system updates or browser updates. CDs make an interesting hum when spinning in the drive. The "teacher/desk" computer is 2 years old; I've taken it off my desk so the kids - all 24 -- can be a crack at using it in the classroom. For my own technology use, I brought in my old (6 years) Dell laptop. Because it is my own personal property, the District won't allow it to access the school network or the Internet.Getting the picture? Technology just isn't pretty in this urban district.I used to feel pretty sorry about this, but an article in the Times and Boston Globe this weekend is causing me to rethink. Here is a link to the Times article about a Silicon Valley School where technology is not part of the infrastructure of a student's learning.Think about it. When do you use technology? Is it a tool for getting work done? Or is it entertainment/edutainment?I think there's probably room for both types of applications in education. And while I certainly would appreciate having some hardware that wasn't purchased before my students were born, maybe the application of technology needs a revisit.  

The Layered On Effect

Maybe this post needs a subtitle: Right hand, please call the left hand!Yesterday my colleagues and I spent the day in training for a new program being used in third and fourth grade - Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading. From what I can see, the program has many merits. And of course, there's the little matter of students and science instruction.For many years - I'm going to say 8 or 9 now - our elementary schools have been without a science specialist to help guide teachers and students in teaching science.Those positions were eliminated during budget cutting - along with library and computer specialists in the latest round of fiscal roulette. With state standardized testing in Middle School showing our kids' science test scores in the toilet (can we all say a big DUH here?), there is a renewed interest in teaching science in the late elementary grades.All good, right?Here's the challenge. There is no time in the day to implement this program unless we are allowed to give something up - isn't that always the way? 90 minutes of reading instruction + 90 minutes of mathematics instruction + 60 minutes of writing workshop and don't forget breakfast, lunch, recess, specials and Morning Meeting. Where will new hour for science come from?fI can see a couple of options - but for every option tossed on the table for discussion, there is an alternate roadblock. If we take time from math or reading instruction or writing instruction, our students will most likely lose some of the gains we have made. The new program is developed in such a way that I don't believe it will fit into the structure of Daily Five - something I'm committed to philosophically AND pedagogically.Will this program become just another layer of stuff we are required to do? I hope not. What I do know is that I can't cram another hour into a school day without something giving.Hopefully it won't be my sanity that gives.

Let's Toss All the Balls in the Air

Last week, we created our last I-Chart; the one for Listen to Reading. So now we have all the components of the Daily Five in place. It's an exciting yet frightening time .It has not always been smooth sailing. I find I have to keep pinching myself as a reminder that one of the most important parts of the Daily Five is that the responsibility for our classroom environment, for developing independent learners, is for me to give up control. Kind of a challenge for an obsessive, compulsive control-freak.This week I'm identifying some of my barometer kids - I have 3 - those kids who have difficulty maintaining stamina and who need to build their independence with smaller steps. Each of these children have difficulty throughout the day with attending/listening; their hands are always in motion (I've never seen a third grader disassemble a pencil sharpener before!). This is going to be a challenge.Now with all the components in place, it is a matter of logistics -though  my students concept of time is somewhat off reality. What some students feel is about 20 minutes - the time I would ideally like them to spend Reading to Self each day - falls somewhat short; the students like to move through all five choices. We are working through the intermediate Daily Five structure and some days there isn't enough time to complete 5 activities.What is gratifying is to have students choose to read, choose to write. There is a subtle change in attitude that makes all the hard work we have been doing to build independence worthwhile.  There is a lot of work we have to do yet, but the Daily Five is making a positive difference in transferring the responsibility for learning to my students.

Whew - 4 down one to go

We are still laying down the routines and expectation for the Daily Five. Here's how my morning goes: Get up (usually before the alarm), start coffee, sit down with my laptop, check email (and Facebook, okay I admit I'm addicted) and then watch one of the Sister's videos on the Daily Cafe website.Most of my students - with the exception of two who are exceptional in that they have significant developmental delays - are able to sustain 15 minutes of Read to Self  followed by 15 minutes of Writing.  I don't suppose it is that unusual at this point in the year to find my students can sustain stamina for nearly 30 minutes for the first choice session, but the stamina in the second choice session  is about 2/3 of that.There are a few glitches. I can hear my students using Check for Understanding when they Read to Someone. But the voice levels are so loud - or at least I think they are. Coming from a background in constructivist mathematics where the classroom can be a noisy place, I am torn about stopping and restarting the students - they are talking on topic after all.Next week we will add Listen to Reading -- without the benefit of a listening center. (shameless plug: I've written a proposal on Donorschoose.org if you are feeling supportive). We will be using our boombox for that... wish us luck!What I am seeing is a powerful transfer of responsibility to my students. They are starting to feel empowered by choosing what they will work on. And I am delighted that I was able to give a complete Fountas & Pinnell benchmark test without waving off at least one student who didn't know what to do next and who wanted to interrupt me.I think we're getting somewhere.  

Stamina

I've been working - really working - at the conferencing table for the last several session of D5 choice. Up until this point, I have been "fake working" -- monitoring students without their knowledge -- so as to regroup if and when stamina for an activity is broken. We are nearly pros with Read to Self now and becoming much more independent with Writing; just a few missteps in the ""work quietly" department.Word Work is still a work in progress as is Read to Someone. The kids are getting very accustomed to setting their goals for independently working (hurrah!) and are starting to verbalize why we do what we do in the classroom (extra hurrah).When I hear other educators talk about the Daily Five, it is often said that D5 is simply an organizational structure. Well, yes, there is that aspect. However, for me, the beauty, the benefit of working with this structure is the explicit guide for creating independent students - students who become responsible learners.It is not enough for students to comply in school just because teacher "said so." Think about it: when you were a kid, you were probably often told to just do something. When you didn't understand the point of the activity or the routine, did you find it easy to remember and to comply? I didn't.Building stamina for independence has been a painfully slow process. It is natural to want to get the show on the road, to be able to get in the routines of the day - all of them - as quickly as possible.Independent habits of mind take time. We are building our stamina this year and already the payback is becoming obvious.

D5 One Day at a Time

We have been in session with our students for 3 days now. At one point yesterday afternoon I came to the realization that these third graders are funny and likeable and want to learn. Being somewhat superstitious I'm a little nervous about saying that out loud so early, but there you go.We started our journey with the Daily Five on our very first day of school - just like the Sisters advocate.  I picked out one of my favorite read alouds, Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems and began by asking students about the ways they thought this book could be read. That resulted in a blank look that telegraphed, "Lady, if you don't know how to read a book, we've got a big problem here."It took some coaxing, but we finally came up with 2 bullet items to add to our anchor chart. We tried reading the pictures for Knuffle Bunny first and then I modeled reading the words. I have quite a few students for whom reading is a challenge, the permission to read by pictures gave them a sense of accomplishment -- just as the Sisters said it would.We continued building the anchor chart for 3 Ways to Read on the second day of school by adding "Retelling the story".  We've been talking about good fit books and will continue to develop that concept over the next week.Working on developing the I-Chart for "Read to Self" was quite an eye-opening experience for me. It took a bit of coercing to get kids to realize that reading to yourself can be fun -- but it also makes you smarter.  That's a term I use a lot with my students as I am a big proponent of using attribution theory in developing habits of mind for effective effort. So instead of "becoming a better reader", I've tweaked the sense of urgency to get smarter by reading.As teachers, I think we assume that children intuit that we are working hard when they are working hard. my students had absolutely no clue what I might be doing while they were reading to self... really.  Blank stares followed by tentative guesses that I might be walking around the room.  So we stopped and took the opportunity to talk about teachers listening to students read, coaching students to improve their reading, and meeting with a small group.I've paid close attention to the purposeful use of a good model and a  not-good model of nearly every routine we are working on. What a powerful way to get my barometer kids to buy in to successfully participating in focused and meaningful reading activities!I find it is challenging to resist the urge to just dive into a fully developed schedule; I want to get everything rolled out all at once, but I know that doesn't work. This year as I implement the Daily Five more purposefully, I am resisting the urge to rush building stamina and go right to sustaining a block of reading for 15 minutes. I learned from experience last year that even though I felt like the kids could sustain their attention, in reality, they could not. We're up to 5 minutes as of today; five minutes when they are truly independent, when they are truly employing those 3 ways to read a book, 5 minutes when they are totally ignoring me because they are focused on reading. Awesome!So far.... so good.

What Matters

It is terribly difficult to keep one's focus on the things that are important - the "prime directive" for those of us who grew up on Star Trek - no matter what your profession.For me, the prime directive is to encourage children to be curious, to encourage them to take learning risks, to encourage them to love learning new things, whether or not those things are academic. In current times, education has taken on an air of desperation as policy makers try to jam every child into a one-size-fits all curriculum. What we gain in test scores, we lose in creative possibility.  But I digress.How easy it is to lose sight of what is important! We have been in school (officially) 2 days and here it is, the morning of the 3rd day (4:30 in the morning to be accurate). So far the things that are occupying my mind are schedules, logistics, paper management, and directives. "When your up to your ass in alligator, it is hard to remember your original objective was to drain the swamp." I don't know who said that originally, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a teacher during the first week of school.Before any magic can take place in my classroom, I need to put aside these distractions. The outside influences that are impeding what I would like to accomplish - my prime directive - need to be shut out.Energize.

Purpose

What is my purpose in life?I was asked that question recently and my white glare honest answer is, I'm still working to uncover that answer. My purpose has been defined differently at every stage of my life.At different times, my purpose has been defined by different roles: daughter, sister, wife, mother.  Each role carries a separate purpose.  Supporter, caregiver, even pain in the ass. For my family, my purpose is often to be historian; my deep obsession with family history leads me to honor and respect those who came before. It connects me with the history of our country and our world. It causes me to pause, to wonder at the hardships endured so that I could be here in this place at this time.Professionally, my purpose also has evolved over time and again has been dependent upon my role. I've taught every grade level from Pre-K through 12th grade.Currently, my purpose is intertwined with my role as a third grade teacher in an urban school. For me, my purpose in the classroom carries the responsibility of opening minds to possibilities, to embrace discovery of something new, to discovering that as a learner, you are far more capable than anyone had imagined. To love learning and creating and finding your way - not without false starts and missteps, and not without learning from those missteps.Not without having some fun either. To take pride in what has been accomplished; to ignore those who say "you can't" . To know that smart is what you are when you work hard... not what you were born with.My purpose in life, my mission, is to guide learners to these ends. Surely there is no test for this, no measure. The pursuit of such overtakes my life, not just 10 months of the year, but all twelve. It is critical. It is important.It is my passion.

Words of Encouragement & SOS Rally

Underneath all of the coverage of the debt crisis was another important event that really needs some attention: the Save Our Schools rally in Washington DC over the weekend. Stakeholders in public education got to listen to and rally around some educational heavy-hitters - Diane Ravitch, Jonathan Kozol and others whose writings and voices I admire. They have the fortitude to call public education - or what passes for it - on the carpet and not worry about jumping in to the fray.One speechmaker that surprised me - not because I didn't think he was thoughtful enough for it - was Matt Damon. That's right. Matt Damon the actor, writer and pride of Boston (Cambridge really, but we won't worry about ZIP codes here).How proud his mom, Lesley College educator, Nancy Carlson-Paige must have felt to hear Matt talk so poignantly about the impact teachers made on his life. Teachers who did not have to worry about whether or not the single-shot, high stakes test scores that we live with now would measure whether or not they were effective educators of children. They provided students with opportunities to express themselves creatively, to learn about the world, and to learn to love learning. Can we say the same happens now?Maybe it was the turning of the calendar to August when thoughts turn to preparing for the upcoming school year, but I personally really needed to hear these words:

So the next time you’re feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope; the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself called “overpaid;” the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that’s been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything. ... Please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you, and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you, we thank you and we will always have your back.

So if you live with, know, appreciate or support a public educator or someone working in public education, speak up. We need to know that once in a while, we get it right.To read Matt Damon's speech in its entirety, here's a link.

D5 and Barometer Kids

One of the most powerful and admirable things about Gail and Joan - the Sisters - is how they openly share their teaching life.  They don't preach that they have all the answers, and anyone who has spent more than a nanosecond in a classroom knows that absolutely no one can have all the answers. Teaching is organic; it changes from day to day and sometimes from minute to minute. It changes from year to year as well as the culture of the classroom is fluid and dependent on the humans that make up the class.According to The Sisters, one of their most frequent troubleshooting queries is about children who don't seem to develop the stamina required during independent work periods.  Fake reading, avoidance tactics (bathroom visits, taking FOREVER in the bathroom), whatever you call these behaviors, the kids aren't reading and are often sucking away valuable teaching and learning time.Joan and Gail call these kids "barometer" kids -- depending on which way they are going directly impacts the entire atmosphere in the classroom.Last year I think I had quite a few kids who could make or break the learning in the day. Some of this distraction was a cry for attention and some was something deeper. Whatever the cause - attention or organic -- the impact on all of us in the room was immense.  Here's a link to what they have to say about one of their students who had difficulty building stamina.The Daily Five structure demands that children learn to own some of the responsibility for their own learning -- and that includes building the stamina it will take so that I, the teacher, will not always need to be the ring-master.It will take a bit of trust for me to let go, to trust that my students are capable of learning how to do just that -- to be trusted to make good learning choices without me getting in the middle of things.We will all be learning new things this school year.

Daily Five and Neuro Brain Function

Today, I had the privilege of attending The Sisters Daily Five presentation here in Massachusetts - and if you get the chance, it is well worth your time.... and money. Some of the most intriguing parts of the presentation involved the research on brain function.When I try to apply a something new and exciting to my own teaching, the temptation is to just rip of the bandage and dig in. Maybe that's not the best way to do it though.  Having lived in older home for most of my adult life, I know that when I first move in, I want to spend all my capital on the things that are seen, the obvious things like a new coat of paint or new furnishings. Fixing structural pieces (the chimney, the roof) aren't going to be as obvious.No one walks into your (new) home and says "Wow, that's quite a nice chimney job. Love the new cap!" But these kinds of fixes are the structure and although there's more of a wow factor in repainting or re-papering, the structure must be dealt with first. So how does this thinking  relate to the Daily Five?According to the Sisters, Kenneth Wesson's work on neuro brain function, informs the structure they advocate for Literacy: a small focused hit of instruction with the whole group followed by a period of 10-15 (primary grade) or 20 (intermediates) of independent work. Wesson further states that the amount of time allotted to the whole group lesson is directly proportional to the average age of the students in the class. Joan - one of the sisters - taped her class to prove this was wrong when she first heard it and ended up becoming a believer. She shares this video clip during the Daily Five presentation.Think on that for a moment. At the beginning of the school year my students are 7 or 8 and by the end they are 8 or 9.  My third graders only sustain focus on what is being taught for an average of 8 minutes! And if I have a "young" class -- teachers know what I mean by this -- the time is even less.The impact on teaching is that time spent on the actual lesson must be focused and succinct. Thank goodness I am not forced to use a basal; if I had to do all the ramping up to the actual point of the lesson, my kids would either learn little or we would both be frustrated by constant re-teaching.But what I do need to attend to next year is boring right down to the essential learning more quickly. It may mean timing my mini lessons until I get the feel for just how long 8 minutes is.It is a model we've used both in Reader's Workshop and in Mathematics (Launch-Explore-Summary), but the model stopped short of explaining why it is so important to have a short burst of focused whole group instruction. As I start to plan for the coming school year, the one structural piece I am determined to attend to is this one. Those mini-lesson times, whether in literacy or mathematics, need to correlate to the amount of time my students can function.And maybe then we'll be able to move on to dressing things up.

Three Things My Students' Test Scores Won't Tell You

Every day there appears a new idea for making teachers accountable for student achievement. Yesterday I noticed a pip of an idea in a twitter post: Phys. Ed. teachers should be evaluated based on their students' fitness level.  This preposterous idea, that the fitness level of a student who has maybe 40 minutes contact time with the physical education teacher, should be the basis for that teacher's effectiveness is exactly what discourages me. Isn't there an "outside" influence on such success? Of course there is -- the home, the importance a parent places on physical activity  follow-through, not to mention nutrition choices!And then I began thinking about how our own state testing is going to impact how I am perceived. Here are three things that you won't see from picking apart my students' MCAS scores:Being in class matters: The students who did not regularly attend school had the worst SRI growth -- I'm waiting to see what the MCAS data officially looks like, but I won't be surprised if these same students' results are not very good.  Their growth from beginning to end of year using the Fountas & Pinnell benchmark (although that's somewhat subjective) also reflected limited growth. It would appear that something must be taking place in class that would cause students who do come to school to learn. Hmmm, wonder what that could be?Supportive families matter: Even when students come from some pretty unbelievable socio-economic circumstances (homelessness, poverty, violence), the end-of-year results of students where the parent was a collaborator were positive. What does that say? Could it be that learning in a vacuum without home involvement is rare?Timing is everything: One of my biggest -- notice I said "one of" -- is the timing of the state English Language Arts exams.  It happens in March which is, let me count, 7 months into the school year. Please explain how 7 months of learning makes a complete year (10 months). It follows on the heels of ELL testing, the MEPA in Massachusetts. the poor 8- and 9-year old kiddos who have to do all of this get exhausted.If I'm accountable for learning for an entire third grade year, shouldn't I get the whole year? This year was a special challenge; students coming from one of the classrooms had a long-term substitute for much of second grade. The regular classroom teacher is a strong, conscientious teacher but the substitute was definitely not up to the task. For these students I spent a LOT of time trying to bridge gaps from second grade. I really could have used more than 7 months for this work.Isn't this what bothers educators about state testing tied to evaluations? It is the unknown, random, living-breathing fabric of teaching. We work with humans. Stuff happens. Outside influences impact the final "product".  There is more to growth (an lack thereof) than testing. 

Through the eyes of a child

This has been one of the most challenging groups of children I have taught. Considering that this is my 23rd year as an elementary teacher, that's quite a challenge.  Teaching in an urban district with children whose daily life is clearly outside of my own childhood experience, oftentimes means much more than academics are encompassed in a day's teaching. I never am quite sure how the children perceive what we are doing or how we are doing it.At the end of the school year, our children write a letter to the incoming class, the children who will fill this class during the next academic year. It often amuses me when I find out what they recall as "important". This year there were lots of references to our lunchtime kickball games and to our frequent viewing of Reading Rainbow, as well as the expected reference to our Valentine's Party.Here, however, is my favorite letter this year -- the one I will copy and look at on those days in future months when the challenge of teaching makes me feel as if I am getting nowhere fast.Dear New Third Grader,When you come to third grade it will be like an emoshinal (sic) roller coaster because when you come here Mrs. Bisson will get mad at you if you do something bad and trust me you don't wanna (sic) go down that path. I've been there before and it was not so good.Anyway in third grade it will be very fun. I mean in third grade it is kind of a little competitive but you will get through. Even if Mrs. Bisson can be a little hard on you she lets us do fun things like play BINGO, watch movies. We even have our own journal so that is why its a good place to be.I also think that if you have Mrs. Bisson that you are the luckiest person walking on this earth. Oh, one more thing. Have fun in third grade.I will think I am the luckiest person walking on this earth to have worked with you, my friend!

The challenge of teaching science topics

So many years ago I don't even remember the exact year, I participated in a summer institute in Boston. That's where I learned a lot about engaging kids through thematic science teaching; one of the best things I learned about was 321 Contact. Sadly this show's run ended in the early 90s.It was at the institute that I first saw a 321 Contact Special about the rain forest and biodiversity.   It was so impressive that I bought the video and boy, am I ever happy that I did.  I've shown this video in my classroom nearly every academic year and it never, ever has lost the ability to engage kids in learning about biodiversity and the importance of preserving earth's resources.Yesterday, as I watched the video with my students, there was another, even more relevant segment on the video -- the impact of excessive carbon dioxide on our planet and the resulting warming. That's right.... a video from the 1990s explaining Global Warming. I don't know whether to be excited or frightened.Or maybe saddened. Our students don't get enough exposure to science. Including science activities in the day becomes more of an afterthought and time for something more than superficial background knowledge has to be carved out of a thoroughly packed day of mathematics and language arts.This is wrong. Somehow incorporating science into my curriculum needs to be rethought and refocused on. Science is more than (as one superintendent wanted us to do) reading about it through small group instruction.

Power of verbal language

Lately I've noticed a lot of head bobbing in place of actual vocabulary with my students - and not just with second language learners.  It's got me second guessing whether or not I've been as focused on oral language as I should be.My current crop of students are really quite chatty. I don't think they've ever encountered a moment topic, social or academic, that did not trigger commentary :-) -- quite a bit of it off topic.  At least it seems that way to me - maybe I'm getting tired and ready to cut the apron strings.I find myself saying "use your words" more often lately and I'm wondering why.The way I look at it, the use of oral language has a huge impact on students' written communication. I often ask the students to tell me orally what it is that they mean to say in written form.  And then, instead of words flowing out of their lips, I ask them to make those words come out of their pencil. This is not a new and unique strategy -- I know teachers do this all of the time.What is troubling to me is that when my students resort to head bobbing, that oral language piece is, well, languishing and the proof often shows up in writing. Sentences are developmentally simpler than more verbal peers.There can be no let up. Even with just 7 weeks to go, there will be a renewed effort to insist on using verbal language on Monday.