What Is It That You Do Again?

Teaching is simultaneously instilling in a child the belief that she can accomplish anything she wants while admonishing her for producing shoddy work.

As I read these words in a blogpost by Dennis Hong, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Here in less than 25 words is what we do every day, every year in our classrooms regardless of grade level.This week, I found these words to be of a particular truth. There are many stories of perseverance and of failure in every classroom of an urban school such as the one in which I work. One child may flourish despite the traumatic challenges in his life, while another cannot function.My challenge - the one I take most seriously - is to lift the curtain so that kids can see it doesn't have to be. That yes indeed, they can graduate high school - some days it is indeed just that basic.In my white, middle-class upbringing, it was always assumed each of us would go to college and go on to a career. We would make our contributions to society. There was not doubt in anyone's mind that we were going to do this regardless of any obstacles. I have had third grade students tell me they weren't sure finishing high school was something they cared about. How sad is it that a child in this day feels that a high school diploma is OPTIONAL? That, to me is unacceptable thinking. So yes indeed, for me teaching is about instilling not only the belief that a student can accomplish anything she wants, but also to show that there are many possibilities.Shoddy work. I catch myself on this often. Giving kids a bye on quality work is not doing anyone a favor. Education - and homework - is frequently not a priority for some families, and while I understand why, I feel a need to redirect children - without denigrating parents - to make it one. Tricky? Sure.  Worth it? Definitely.To be a teacher is a series of what seem to be contradictions. In Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov says

Teachers must be both: caring, funny, warm, concerned, and nurturing – and strict, by the book, relentless, and sometimes inflexible. Teachers send the message to students that having high expectations is part of caring for and respecting someone.

Isn't that the truth?

Dear Ms. Rhee....

It could be that it's the "vacation" head cold talking, but I don't think so.  I was working in my classroom this morning, when I opened up my school email account.  And here, for the third time in  the last couple of months, is - unedited - what I found:

________________________________________From: Michelle Rhee, StudentsFirst [admin@studentsfirst.org]Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:19 AMTo: Bisson, AmySubject: An important battle[http://studentsfirst.org/page/-/email/wrapper/email-header-smaller.jpg]<http://studentsfirst.org/page/m/220fa479/3691c862/12a2b5b1/6519e0d6/1021812536/VEsH/>Dear friend,[http://studentsfirst.org/page/-/email/sf_email_ad_dd01.jpg]<http://studentsfirst.org/page/m/220fa479/3691c862/12a2b5b1/6519e0d7/1021812536/VEsE/> This isn't about politics -- it's about what's best for our kids.But in their desperate attempt to defend the status quo, the entrenched special interests try to turn everything into a partisan fight. That's why I am writing to you today about an important battle brewing in Connecticut.Right now, Connecticut has our nation's largest achievement gap in math -- African American students are three and a half years behind white students. Governor Dan Malloy, a Democrat, knows there is no room for party politics in this fight. He's got a plan to tackle this issue, and he's got bipartisan support.Polls show that Connecticut residents support the governor's plan, but special interests are on the attack, trying to sway public opinion back to the status quo.We've got a TV ad on air right now in support of the governor's reform efforts in Connecticut. Donate $10 to keep this TV ad on the air:http://studentsfirst.org/yoursupport<http://studentsfirst.org/page/m/220fa479/3691c862/12a2b5b1/6519e0d7/1021812536/VEsF/>This is not just a racial divide in Connecticut. Math scores of eighth graders from poor families are three grade levels behind their wealthier peers.Governor Malloy's plan maps out the necessary steps to bring equality to education. His plan calls for the establishment of meaningful teacher and principal evaluations, which would allow us to recognize our effective educators and support those who need improvement.The governor also aims to reform tenure so that it serves to elevate effective teachers rather than protect ineffective ones. And lastly, the plan would expand the number of high quality public charter schools so they can serve more students.I know Connecticut is not the state you call home, but there are kids there who need someone to stand up and fight for them. Help us win support for reform in Connecticut with a donation now:http://studentsfirst.org/yoursupport<http://studentsfirst.org/page/m/220fa479/3691c862/12a2b5b1/6519e0d7/1021812536/VEsC/>Thank you,Michelle RheeCEO and FounderStudentsFirst825 K St, 2nd FloorSacramento, CA 95814916-287-9220

I don't know, I felt OFFENDED by this email in my WORK email account. Especially since I am most likely one of "those" teachers who would be classified as underperforming.  I don't shy away from challenges presented by the students in my school or District because I believe every child deserves to have a good education. But I am not the second coming either and there are factors out of my control that impede learning.   Please Ms. Rhee, explain how this isn't "political".So in a Quixotic moment, I fired off the following:

Dear Ms. Rhee,Please STOP sending mail to this address. First of all, you are not "my friend".  I work as a public school teacher and have for nearly 25 years. Wouldn't that make ME one of your targets, a public school slacker?  Just FYI, it  is a vacation week here in Massachusetts. I am not paid for this "vacation" nor is any other public school teacher here in Massachusetts. However, I AM here on my own time working hard to prepare a learning environment for my students when they return to their studies next Monday.  I don't have time for this kind of nonsense on my WORK email account. I feel that your solicitations, and I have received 3 so far, are inappropriate for the workplace.  I have no intention of donating $10 to your Political Action Committee or you rconsulting firm - however you wish to define yourmoney-making scheme today.Remove my name from your list permanently.Amy Bisson

Most likely that won't stop a thing. But I have to admit I feel better.

Marathon Monday

If you've ever visited Boston, you know that this view of Boylston Street (taken near the BPL) is fairly unusual.  This weekend, Boston was teaming with tourists, Red Sox fans, and New Englanders just wanting to get outdoors and enjoy a warm Saturday afternoon.We were no exception. On Monday, the locals will watch as hundreds of runners push themselves beyond what seems humanly possible to run 26.2 miles from Hopkinton, MA into Boston.  As a testament to persistence, the Marathon inspires me.

Reflections on a Classroom Library

About 3 years ago now I spent a winter-spring weeding and reorganizing the library in my classroom.  Lots of people have lots of ways to do this -- and lots of reasons for what they do.The first thing I did was to throw/recycle or donate books - relentlessly and without much sentiment. I teach in a school where many children do not have access to their own books so, whenever I could, I gave away books. What I was left with was a collection of material that I would enjoy choosing from, and that is key. If you personally wouldn't touch the book, your students probably won't want to touch them either.Responding to what I felt was a need to level books so that children read within a range of levels and a need to expose students to varieties of genres, I did lots of research and found the system Beth Newingham employed in her own third grade classroom was the best fit for what I intended. I color code baskets so that, even on the most basic levels, students can select and return books without any intervention from me (well, most of the time).  I have red bins designated for any fiction genres and green bins for any non-fiction genres.  I keep a larger browsing crate of poetry.  Within each of the two major categories, fiction and non-fiction, there are sub-genres: for example realistic fiction, historical fiction, informational text.  Sometimes I've subdivided those categories further: Science and Nature, Lands and People for example.Again, the reason for this is to be sure children are exposed to many different genres. Also, it helps me ensure that I have a balance of book genres; my natural tendency is to load up on realistic fiction. It's been enlightening to see what gaps there are in our library.The labels for each book are afixed to the book front as is the colored dot designating the book level range.  I tape the label onto the cover with clear mailing tape and have not have any problem with a student picking off the label.Because the levels in each color range are somewhat broad, I haven't found any problem with students trying to read books at their frustration level, known by my colleagues as "fake reading". We "color conference" frequently using Modified Miscues or Fountas Pinnell Benchmarks and students are coached in conferences.  I have found that when the children know there's an opportunity and an expectation for movement from one color to the next, competition is less of a problem. When I had baskets of books in just one level, that was not always the case.Children are fairly accurate in replacing the books in the bin. This is a task and responsibility that I expect from each child. Not every book in the room is leveled or labeled; there are opportunities for children to self-select and decide for themselves whether or not a book is a good fit.Additionally I created a spreadsheet/database for tracking which books are in the library. I keep an alphabetized list (by title) in an index notebook that the children can access in case they are looking for books with more than one copy for a buddy reading or in case they are looking for a particular book title.  My children consult this book often when they are swapping books in and out of book boxes. The list also is useful as every so often we get asked to provide an inventory of the books in classrooms. I can sort the list in several ways: color code, Guided Reading Level, author, genre. This is helpful when replacing or adding to a library.For more on how my personal journey in organizing a classroom library progressed, check this link. As Beth Newingham states "Every teacher organizes a library in her own way". This is one that works for me.

A (Non)-Writer Discovers Notebooks

A while ago, our Literacy Coach began talking to us about revisiting notebooks as a means to developing writers and authors.  I'm possibly the last person in education to discover Aimee Buckner and Notebook Know-How, but I am so glad I have made that connection.Not being a writer myself or at least not a disciplined one, I found notebooks and their use just one more thing to do with kids. Our school-wide writing calendars, focused on responses and one new genre of writing every two months was quite time-consuming. I couldn't imagine when we would fit in using notebooks.And then I read this

-- we shouldn't write for significance, but rather that we should write as a habit. Sometimes we'll write something significant and sometimes we won't. It's the act of writing -- the practice of generating text and building fluency--that leads writers to significance.

Wow! Did those words speak to me! What I had been doing "wrong" all this time, both as a non-writer and a teacher of writing, was expecting each morsel to be significant. The notebook is a place to practice, to try out, to experiment. Not only in writing, but in any endeavor, a learner needs a safe place to practice without worry as to the significance of the outcome.This is a discovery that I can relate to. As an amateur photographer, I've been reticent to take my camera with me because I would not have anything worthwhile to show for it.My students are starting to use notebooks now. And while they are not yet a habit, we are learning together to find a safe place to experiment with some of the strategies that professional writers and authors use.We are learning to be learners through our experimentation.

A Life on the "Outside"

Often I excuse my compulsive need to read and research all things educational with "I don't have a life." It is true that my child has long grown past needing me as a parent - I no longer do homework or nag to complete projects or carpool to sports. So I don't have obligations or promises to keep in that regard.So why don't I live a "normal" life - one where you leave things at work, not to worry over them until the next day?Teaching, believe it or not, is an insane profession. Piecing together the puzzle of why one child masters a topic while the other struggles - and what to do about that - is a riddle I not sure I'll ever master. Twenty-five years later, I continue to struggle with delivering lessons effectively, lessons that children enjoy and connect to other learning. That takes research. Thank goodness for the World-wide Web or I would need a cot set up in the local library.Lately, I've begun to wonder about what life will be like for me outside of teaching. I have two - or three if our investments tank - years left in the classroom before I feel financially secure enough to back away from a "regular job."I know I'd like to travel. I know I'd like to explore a book writing idea that Adrien and I have had on the back burner for several years. Throughout my life I have done something in the arts, I enjoy cooking and gardening and reading and knitting. But mostly what I've been for nearly half of my life is a teacher.I regret the lack of balance in my life. That my profession overwhelms and consumes me most days. But I am hopeful that I can find my place in the world - my life on the "outside". 

Essential Teacher and the One Best System

At our faculty meeting this afternoon, we spent some time trying to break down what are the essential characteristics for teachers in this small urban, multi-cultural environment. For most of those around me, with whom I could turn and talk, skill at curriculum was not an over-arching factor. Most of the teachers around me mentioned qualities such as "diligence", "empathy", "creativity".... in fact, the list started to sound like the seven virtues.What is important for a teacher to be effective? Can that quality be distilled and replicated? I wonder about that. People who have heard me get on my soapbox know it aggravates the heck out of me that in current educational discourse, there is an assumption that our students are widgets - all the same raw material to be turned into a finished product without fail.Sorry. I teach living breathing humans whose day-to-day experiences are as varied as the number of children crossing the classroom threshold daily.  And while I want to make our classroom an environment bursting with thought and learning, sometimes all I can provide for a child is safety - a place away from the buffeting of daily traumas.Is anyone measuring how successful that was?Diagnosing what children need, for me that is an essential quality. While my vocation is not usually life or death (or is it?),  I think is essential for a teacher to be able to diagnose what a student needs, academically and emotionally,  and provide for those needs. That's what I aspire to do and to varying degrees, there is some success to be celebrated here.Recent surveys decry the drop in teacher satisfaction with their careers; headlines lament that many teachers leave this career within five years. People burn out from the constant bashing that we teachers don't do enough, that our "products" are defective.Can educational effectiveness be condensed so that it can be replicated over and over? Is there one best system? I believe I know how I would answer; how about you?

Madness of Another Kind....

There are no brackets. There are only anxious and tense teachers and students. Stressed to the maximum. And the cracks are starting to show.We are in the middle of our test marathons. Last week it was MEPA - Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessent, given to 15 out of my 22 children to assess their growth in English. This week - today actually - we start the Reading MCAS. Fifteen out of my 22 students will have endured two high-stakes and grueling tests within the space of 2 weeks.Walls are covered or stripped of anything that could remotely be thought of as a study aide. Last year I had to rip desk tags from tops of desks because the tags had the audacity to show the cursive alphabet. I've covered birthday charts, removed math words, and even turned the labeled genre baskets in our classroom library around. No cheating.This year we have a new feature to testing that will not prove anything except that 9 year olds are not adept at checking their test booklets. We teachers have always been sworn to not look at the questions/test materials on the MCAS - please explain how I proctor students to ensure they do not go on to another section of the test that is off-limits when I can't look at the test <sigh>.Students - those very same 9 year olds - must check their own test booklets to ensure they haven't forgotten to fill in a bubble answer. This is new and worrisome. If you've ever met a 9 year old, you know they are not usually meticulous about details. If they turn 2 pages of a test booklet at a time and skip 6 answers, for them, that is an "oops" moment. And it is frequent. It is making me very tense because my students need every answer they can muster and to punish them for normal kid-stuff seems mean. And maybe meant to up the ante in proving teachers don't know what they are doing.I feel like there is so much more my kids could know of third grade curriculum before being tested. And there is, of course. It is mid-March; school does not end for 90 days - one-quarter of a school year later. What could possibly be the motive for testing children on end-of-year skills 3/4 of the way through their learning cycle? Seriously?The cracks are showing. Kids are acting out. Teachers are not smiling. No one is happy.Welcome to March Madness - public school style.

Genealogy Connections

I was sucked in almost the very minute we - Adrien and I - went to a talk at the New England Genealogy and History Society's Library on Newbury Street in Boston. For a while, I would go in to Boston almost weekly and, while Adrien poured over the Drouin Index for his French Canadian ancestors, I would rummage through fragile directories and volumes for my Puglisi, Duym, and Flournoy relatives.One puzzle piece that had remained missing was that of my maternal grandfather's father, Richard Wilson Flournoy. Not much was known about him; there are some family artifacts: his train conductors' scarf, a wallet with a small scratch pad, a time table, a formal portrait. It was known that he died in a train accident when my grandfather was about a year old.Periodically, Googling an ancestor's name yields a result. This week I tried that with Richard's father, Peter Creed Flournoy. About two entries down, was Richard's name attached to a cemetery database in Albany, New York.Richard Wilson Flournoy, was born on March 4, 1859 in Linneus, MO. His father was a Civil War colonel on that "other" side, so when the War ended, the family moved to Arkansas. Eventually, they were able to move back to Missouri and, in 1882 he married my great-grandmother, Minnie Palmer. After living in Bennington, Kansas, Richard went ahead to Albany where he worked on the Hudson River Railroad. We have a letter Richard wrote to Minnie, who was still in the midwest, telling her he would be sending for her and their daughter Carrie soon. In 1889, my grandfather, Palmer, was born in Albany.And that's where things had come to a stop. This week, through the cemetery listing, we learned that Richard's death came on March 19, 1891 caused by gangrene of  the arm. The family story that Richard was in a terrible train accident has been finally confirmed. We also now know that Richard was buried, not in Missouri with his Flournoy relatives, but in Menand Cemetery in Albany.As usual, new genealogical information brings more questions. Is there an account of the accident that eventually took my relative's life?  My great-grandmother Minnie retained a lawyer to get some compensation for the loss of her husband - a bold move by a woman in 1891.  Why?Questions and more questions. And the hunt continues. 

Michelle Rhee and Students First

In the past week I've received two unsolicited email messages "signed" by Michelle Rhee on behalf of some group called "Students First".  You know Michelle Rhee of "Waiting for superman...", former chancellor of the DC schools. Queen of soundbites.I'll leave the blow-by-blow rebuttal of her craptastic plans for "improving" education (just send me $10 - are you kidding me?) for another post. Just suffice it to say I disagree vehemently with her hypothesis that everything wrong with public education today stems from professional educators, and more specifically professional educators who have been teaching for quite a while.The first mail message was sent to my school/work address and thanked me for participation in the 6-word essay contest. Sorry, not me.  So the question is, since I have absolutely no interest in "joining with" Michelle Rhee to save our best teachers from those old experienced ones - like me? - how in the heck did she get my address. Please tell me that the Commonwealth did not sell teacher email addresses to this organization.The second email with the subject heading "Working For Reform In Westford" was a real jolt. Now if I haven't opted in to this organization's email messages, I surely have not given out my HOME town. And frankly, working for reform in Westford -- my hometown is an affluent suburb and routinely performs well on the state testing criteria - is a kind of puzzlement. Ms. Rhee, what exactly are you planning to "reform", or should I say more accurately  what consulting services do you hope to sell?What bothered me about this? Well, it is pretty creepy to get targeted email that you did not solicit. This is not exactly in the same league as browsing on a website for fashion and getting a bunch of pop ups on the side of a search page. How absolutely bush league this effort is - not exactly the accepted practice of most service marketing!Michelle Rhee is a opportunist and she is selling something. She is not the answer to education's ills. I'll be keeping my ten dollars. Right in my wallet.

The Economics of Teaching

It's tax time and time for the annual review, in our house at least, of where we spent our monies last year.  I usually provide our accountant with a spreadsheet of anything that we can clearly deduct which includes the amount of money I spend on school. Some years that is a painful profess.I have to admit that I probably only capture about 75 percent of what I spend on my classroom and kids. There are many times when I shop at Staples or Michael's and buy something for our household and slip in a few bucks worth of something I can't live without -- just try to live without sticky notes, no-can-do.Totaling up that number for a year - books for the classroom, folders, pencils, pens - can be quite an eye-opener!Which got me to thinking. School budgets get slashed every year. Every year we are asked to do less with more. And every year there is some new program or initiative that is under-funded (or unfunded). Our new science program is an example: this past week as my grade level team has been planning for the next part of one unit, we discovered a list of supplies needed - which includes a couple of different plants for each pair of children - and the majority of items on the list were starred as "provided by the teacher." Now there's a nice little assumption: teacher will buy those supplies for a class of 25! I give the science program points for both honesty and chutzpah.What if, instead of listening to those uninformed loudmouths who blather on about how much "those teachers are costing us" or who comb through the budget slashing this, that and the other line item, teachers actually started reporting what they personally spent to run a classroom? And what if, we consolidated those amounts by school district at budget time so that the public got a clue about how much those "greedy" teachers GIVE to their municipality ?I'm not talking about extra coursework, professional development, or dues to professional organizations. I'm talking supplies that the Districts don't have to purchase because teachers take the money out of their own wallets.If the IRS allows a $250 deduction and there were 1000 teachers in a district dipping in to their own money, that would be $250,000. I'm looking at real numbers that top the $250, sometimes I've spent close to $2,000 on classroom materials. That number then starts to look pretty impressive.Wouldn't that be an interesting number to know on a district-by-district basis? Most likely there wouldn't be any shift in thinking for bigmouths who complain about how expensive education is, but it would be satisfying to know that it might enlighten some who think of education as a drain on the municipal budget.

Thank you Dr. Seuss

Sometimes, though not that often lately, we have fun.Lots of schools mark Dr. Seuss' birthday with Read Across America celebrations.  Even though it was low key, we did too!Our special visitor and guest reader was my husband, Adrien. We dug up a book that loosely connects to his career as a photographer, Snowflake Bentley. Bentley was an avid photographer of snowflakes and his collection of glass negatives and resulting prints is still fascinating. Adrien always brings his camera when he visits, and the kids enjoy hamming it up for the professional photographer. Before he left, he was asked several times if he wouldgo with us on our spring field trip to the Boott Mills.Sometimes our influence on children is so subtle that it nearly goes unnoticed.But today, in the midst of all the fun, I knew Adrien had knocked it out of the park when I looked around my room. There were all of my kiddos who normally need to be cajoled into wearing their glasses - wearing their spectacles mid-nose. Just like their "Mr. Bisson".So thank you Dr. Seuss. Thank you for giving us a fabulous excuse to have a bit of fun today. And to Adrien.... thank you for voluntarily being a role model for my kids. Now how about that field trip date?

Toxic Stress.... duh!

It caught my eye immediately as I was scanning yesterday's Globe: Dr. Jack Shonkoff's interview. Dr. Shonkoff is the Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.So what is toxic stress and why be concerned.  Well, as I've recently learned, there impact of cortisol, the brain's response to stress, cannot be underrated. Cortisol is not necessarily bad -- but it has a negative impact when over-produced in response to stress.  Children (and adults) who are under constant stress have overproduction of cortisol as the body learns to get used to the "new normal" of constantly being under seige. What I do understand about cortisol is that is impacts fat "preservation" and insulin levels. Those lumpy middles on adults and kids may have more to do with continuous stress than anyone ever thought.The question is, now that we have a hypothesis, what can be done?Children - and their families - who live with the everyday traumas of poverty need help. We are quick to blame, to point out the (obvious) socio-economics that make crawling out of the hole of poverty nearly impossible. Our society, our government, should make providing healthcare and family support services to those who need it a priority.To read more, or to learn the facts, click here. 

Daily Five Math, Common Core and Investigations

That's right, I am incorporating all three of these things in one classroom.  I've been a fan of the Daily Five and Literacy CAFE for a couple of years. Last year, I started to use the structure of the Daily Five in mathematics.  I did this for a couple of reasons - first and foremost is that I hate segmenting curriculum areas into compartments.  If something works well in one area, it should work well in another.  And it does.Admittedly, I have adapted D5 to suit my own needs as a teacher and the needs of my students.  This year has been a little tricky. The Common Core implementation ALONG SIDE continued attention to the 2004 Mathematics Framework makes me feel like I'm straddling a fairly fast moving river as the water level rises.This week - school vacation week here in Massachusetts - I spent some time getting my bearings again for what universal or landmark games I can rotate in and out of the Daily Five.  Here's what my current list looks like (this is on wikispaces, feel free to join in).

"Nobody Got Up Early in The Morning and Could Draw Perfectly..."

Christopher Myers is an author that I've grown to admire. One of his stories, "Wings", is included in the basal readers we're provided with. For me, this is one of the best pieces of children's literature ever: the illustrations, the premise, the themes.... sometimes I think this text belongs in the hands of the adults more than the children!One of my passions in teaching is to teach my students that they are smart, that they can learn. Convincing kids that they are capable learners is hard work, but with all due respect to those test writers lurking out there, it is the most important thing that I teach.Sometimes I am not quite sure my students believe me - and why should they? After all I grew up in a white middle class family and socio-economic situations were so much different than most of my students.  Still, we keep trying to meet on that common ground.Christopher eloquently speaks about the portrayals our students see of success; how our students don't always see or know what it takes to be successful.

Nobody got up early in the morning and could draw perfectly.

Check out this video  on Reading Rockets to hear, in Christopher's own words, the valuable lessons our kids need. Advance to the clip labeled Hard Work to hear Christopher speak about effort in whatever you do.

From the Peanut Gallery

All I really ever wanted to do was teach.  It gets harder and harder to love this career every year. We are awash in edicts - do this, don't EVER do that. Decisions made from afar by people who seem to have no idea what students are like, what they need. 

I study more, read more, research more about pedagogy this year than I ever did when I was a beginner. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But in this time in education it seems as if we are ants scurrying from one thing to the next trying to find the perfect solution to all our students' shortcomings. We work under a microscope - the public, the press, the politicians all want teachers to turn out perfectly educated humans as if they were widgets on an assembly line.

I'm afraid I can't do that no matter how hard I am trying - and whether one wants to recognize it or not, No one program, no one method is going to be successful with all students.

I am working hard. Last week, one of my students had been physically assaulted by a parent with a hanger - DCF sent him home after investigating.  Think his mind was on 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication?  Guess how well he did on the District math test - a test that indicates whether I have done my job - when his mind was on how he was going to make it though the weekend without getting smacked around for causing DCF to confront his attacker - his father.  And he's only one tale from this classroom. There are many more with similar traumas and distractions everywhere you look, I don't care how affluent your school community is.

The climate for education - for the kids and for their teachers - is so punitive. We collect data to cover our asses under the guise of informing instruction.

Is this what education has come to? I hope with every breath of my being that the answer is no.

Sustainable Farming and CSAs

I hadn't driven on Route 27 for a few weeks. Yesterday, though, driving through Acton and over to Concord, I noticed the gigantic red, white and blue FOR LEASE sign outside of one of the recently (ie within the last 5 years) organic farmstands. It was kind of a shock to me; no one has been buzzing about it in town.A reminder that farming and selling fruits and veggies is a tough business? This particular farmstand may have relocated, that would be my hope, but I fear it simply has fallen victim of America's penchant for cheap food grown who-knows-how.If your family history is anything like mine, you probably have people in your ancestry who made their living from working in agriculture. And as we've become more modern, the farms, sadly have been disappearing. Over the 16 years I've lived in my town, I've watched as apple farm after apple farm has been sold off as plots for housing development. The old-timers in town talk about pig farms and dairy where a strip mall now stands.My husband, Adrien, has been photographing the efforts of farmers who work with New Entry Sustainable and we belong to the CSA, World Peas. The farmers working with New Entry come with a variety of backgrounds: some have degrees or backgrounds in a related field, some are career-changers tired of being tied to a desk, some are immigrants from far-away countries trying to adapt to a new land.Trying to encourage and train new farmers is a work of the heart as farming is such an unforgiving business: market selection, tending crops - those can all be taught. Weather and the whims of nature, impact even the most thoughtful farm efforts. For more on New Entry and some of the people who do this work, you may find this blog post interview with Matthew Himmel  interesting.We enjoy the fruits of their efforts as they learn farming techniques that we hope will enable these newbies.  One way we can all support local farms and farming is, of course, through Farmers' Markets, but another is to buy a CSA share, like World Peas.And maybe, those For Lease signs won't be popping up so frequently. 

Writers' Notebooks Revisited

Struggling with teaching writing is nothing new for me. I myself struggle with writing - the process, the ideas, the whole of it I'm afraid. And here's an admission (omission?) of guilt: I have never kept a writers' notebook.Our district is committed to implementing Units of Study by Lucy Calkins - whose ideas I do admire and respect. In my struggles to incorporate "Lucy" into "Amy" interpretations of what I'm doing and what to do next are frequently garbled. I need to make sense out of this in my own way.One of the things I've struggled with the past few months is Writers' Notebooks. Originally I tried to get kids to jot down ideas - observations or snippets of a storyline that might be turned into something more significant at a later time. Lately, I've been teaching students a the strategies that Lucy Calkins outlines for generating narrative writing ideas.Being more direct in teaching strategies for ideas seemed to be working. Kids were recording ideas and then focusing the idea for later development. Everything seemed to be humming. Or was it really? The transfer from notebook to draft was not very seamless.This past weekend I found a book by Aimee Buckner call Notebook Know How.  I'm sure I'm probably the last person on the planet to discover this gem, but on the off-chance that you haven't read it, do it. Now.In my rush to get a Writers' Notebook into my students' hands, I forgot something:

A notebook can become whatever the writer makes it to be.  As teachers, we can guide its use, present strategies,  and even mandate entries if we wish. If the notebook is to be useful, however, it must be useful to the writer first, and the reader (teacher) second.

Here's exactly what I have lost sight of! In my rush to get kids to use a writers' notebook I haven't provided them with any background for why writers use notebooks, nor any strategies for developing the notebook into a personal tool for each developing author.So for the first time, I am going to keep my own Writers' Notebook in hopes that I, too,  can learn right along with my students. We will become authors together.

Why The Math D5 Fits

Lots of teacher types seem interested in applying the Daily Five principles to mathematics. What does that mean? For me, it means that teachers are struggling to find ways to deliver comprehensive instruction to our students and to differentiate so that rigor is applied to all students no matter what their level of accomplishment.The Math Daily Five as developed by Gail and Joan consists of four categories really - Math by Myself, Math Writing, Partner Work (Math with Someone), and Math with Technology.  I like the categories, really I do, but I also know I need to be accountable to expectations for teaching math that are required in my school district.My current thinking - notice I am saying current because I expect this will morph as we figure out more of what the kids need in transitioning to Common Core - is that I need five, not four major categories. The categories I currently use in my classroom are: Math Exploration, Fact Practice, Problem Solving, Technology, and Math Games.  Here is why:

• Our district has adopted a Launch-Explore-Summary model for delivery of instruction.  The "explore" activity on the Math D5 board is connected to the lesson that has been launched during math.
• We also use Investigations in Number, Data and Space as our basal mathematics resource.  This structure supports the materials we have the most consistent access to.
• Fact practice is necessary as students are often deficient in knowing their facts - I still have students who try to count on their fingers to add and subtract and they need to master those pronto. Common Core requires students in Grade 3 to master multiplication and division to the 10s family. The fact practice games and flash cards (we use the triangular ones) fit well in here.
• Our Unified School Improvement Plan specifies that students get direct instruction in problem solving - not to mention the Massachusetts Common Core docs also call out problem solving structures. I give students at least one problem to solve each week in their Problem Solvers' notebook to track their progress.
• The games I choose for the Math Game choice function as review of prior skills and often as intervention practice for struggling students. Many of these activities are based on Number Sense and Operations/Algebra as that is where my students are weakest.

With all the nuts and bolts of why I use the Daily Five out there, one of the most beneficial aspects is actually more general.  The Sisters advocate for teaching students to be independent - accountable for their own learning actions and trusted to stay on task without constant teacher intervention.  For me, this is the ultimate reason for teaching students the Daily Five structure. I need to pinpoint which students are struggling and provide targeted help (an initiative also mandated by our District).  If I am constantly redirecting students I simply can not do that. I need to know that the students who are not directly interacting with me at any particular point in time are engaged in meaningful mathematics activity for the entire 90 minute mathematics period.Another reason why I've embraced the Daily Five structure for mathematics is that it allows for segmenting the time frame.  Does anyone really have those long imaginary blocks of time with class interruptions at the end of the day? I don't think so. My schedule is much more coherent this year than it has been for the last 3 years; however, I still need to interrupt my mathematics block for lunch and recess. So the general structure of the block goes like this:10 - 15 minute Launch with whole group20 - 30 minutes (students start with Explore and move to a choice)10 minute mid-point check in (either we solve/discuss the daily activity or we check in with something I've notice as I observe students working).15 minutes additional independent choice time (at this point I pull one or two students who are struggling with the daily concept for some clarification OR if everyone "gets it" (right), I work with a group of students to extend thinking.LUNCH & RECESS20 minutes additional independent activity (intervene with students who struggle with number sense)10 minute Summary of what we've done or learned for the day.So far, this structure is working for me and my students. Perfect? I don't think so, but the more I learn about what my students need and the more read and study about the thinking behind the Daily Five, the more I think I am on the right track for helping my students.

Be - Do - Have

To make a true change, you have to BE the thing you are trying to become right now in the present moment.  Then you will automatically DO the things necessary to HAVE what you desire…..BE DO HAVE

10 Tips for Change, Metabolic Effect

It seems like such a simple idea, doesn't it? But the reality of making change is much different.

Doing for the sake of doing is not motivation. Don't you just despise having to do something "just because".

For my students, changing self-image or mindsets are such important ideas to build. Getting kids to believe in themselves is probably one of the most important, yet most challenging things a teacher can do.

Testing is not motivation enough for students to DO what they need to do to HAVE or achieve their life goals. Possibilities are. What possibilities do we introduce to our students so they know WHAT they want to BE?