An Old Educator's Thoughts on Reading Instruction

After teaching nearly 30 years, I must admit I am totally confused by the debate over reading instruction. Maybe I am missing something? Balanced Literacy vs. Scientific Methods?

Over the last 10 years of my long career, I observed that whenever the a specific reading program was dictated, success, often defined by scores on standardized tests, was fleeting. When I worked in a school where the school leaders had worked in classrooms, and as admins continued to spend extended times actually doing the work of teaching, I thought I had achieved nirvana. The training and discussions were rich and deep. I felt supported to try new approaches when they made sense for my students.

We taught reading under the umbrella of using a balanced literacy approach.

BALANCED literacy includes effective instruction in five essential components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. If reading instruction is effective, an essential descriptor for successful reading instruction, all of these five elements must be included in instruction. Those same elements are part of a scientifically based reading program, but the difference, I believe is that the scientifically based programs include ongoing research and are spelled out more sequentially. An example would be Orton Gillingham.

For those outside of education, to insinuate that phonics is not a part of a balanced reading program is a misconception. And the implication that schools should offer explicit phonics instruction as the only decoding strategy is likewise unrealistically narrow.

I’ve recently read disparaging comments that students are taught “decoding strategies” in place of phonics - which is in my experience, untrue - and uninformed. As an elementary teacher I found explicitly teaching students to use decoding strategies, including, but not limited to phonics, was a pedagogical decision that I continue to feel made sense. Teaching a variety of strategies to decode texts is essential to becoming a fluent reader with good comprehension skills. When I reflect on my own practice as an adult reader, considering what my brain does when I encounter an “unknown”, I use one or more of these skills regularly. For example, when reading a text and encountering a word or term from another language, I often skip and return or use context clues.

Why wouldn’t I teach students that these strategies are what accomplished readers use, too?

When a program is determined to be Scientifically based, there is on-going research that provides an analysis of effective pedagogy. The same five components of reading are included with the emphasis on continued research and evaluation how effective these strategies are. Scientifically based reading is NOT a specific program, although I’m sure there are textbook publishers that would like one to believe otherwise. As educators and educational researchers learn more about how to effectively teach reading, it will continue to change. Educators adapt reading instruction to reflect new understandings, and most importantly to address the needs of the students they work with.

And this is why, for me, teaching reading has always been somewhat of an art as well as a science. No matter what it is called, reading instruction needs to be effective and to include the essential aspects of learning to be literate

Changing Mathematics and Thinking

As an elementary educator for nearly 30 years, I always taught mathematics. It was, for me, a matter of personal interest that my students move beyond the “I hate math” mentality toward finding problem-solving interesting and challenging and sometimes even enjoyable. So when I read about the kerfuffle happening in Florida this past week involving approved mathematics textbooks, the news caught my attention. One of the reasons given by Florida official when 41% of elementary school textbooks were rejected was that some of the texts addressed social-emotional learning.

I’m afraid I don’t understand the problem.

What happened with mathematics pedagogy over the course of my career can be characterized as remarkable. Oftentimes at the start of my career there was a pervasive sentiment of “I hate math” or “I can’t do math” or “I’m just not ‘good’ at math”. I know that was how I often felt as a student, and I know from many conversations with my students’ parents, that the ‘can’t’ sentiment was well-ingrained into generations of students. Sometimes even teachers would voice this sentiment.

What changed over time were approaches to mathematics seasoned with a little attirbution theory. And students gradually became more enthusiastic and positive about mathematics.

The approaches to teaching math that I found most effective often required the most teacher pedagogical preparation and skill. Those were cycles of lessons on which students constructed their own mathemtical conceptual meaning and learning. It takes time and some pedagogical self-control not to just hammer in the concept. It takes skilled guidance and time, especially wait-time.

Inquiry-based and rooted in solving problems that engaged students, sharing solutions and strategies in discussion should be on a par with computational accuracy, also known as getting the “right answer” (which, Gov. DeSantis, is NOT my definition of math). In listening to students explain their thought processes, as their teacher, I could then guide students to more efficient and traditional algorithms. To me, this is where the important stuff of learning math could be discovered.

Using the theory of Constructivism (see also Constance Kamii), students learn to understand why applying an algorithm makes sense. Many adults have been subjected to blind formulaic memorization (“Ours is not to reason why; just invert and multiply”), but often don’t know when or why to apply them (also known as incorrect answers, Governor DeSantis). My personal learning journey is aligned with this process: it was when I intuited the process of learning, when I created my own algorithmic sense, that I truly could understand mathematical concepts and apply them with accuracy and efficiency. In other words when a more efficient algorithm or formula was then explained to me and I could track that back to my own understanding, I applied those more standard algorithms correctly.

Controlling the parts of an emotional response to a challenge by shifting focus to what CAN be done when confronted with a task that is hard or challenging alters the outcome. This is the crux of attribution theory and one that I felt enabled students to persevere when confronted with a learning challenge, whether based in mathematics, science, literacy or even the arts.

In fact, directly teaching students that they are capable of asking for help, solving challenges by taking time or persevering is, in my opinion, lessons of far greater value than simply coming up with a correct computational answer. If such instruction is addressing “social emotional learning needs”, then let’s do it.

My suspicion, however, is that Florida’s rejection of certain textbooks has nothing to do with social emotional learning - or Critical Race Theory or Common Core standards, all given as reasons for rejection in Florida. The stated “reasons” for rejecting texts seem to play conveniently into conservatives’ agenda for dismantling public education and the false narrative of failing public schools.

If the real concern is for students to understand mathematics including computing a “right answer”, then allow educators to use materials that empower students to deeply and fully understand the mathematics.

It's Not That Simple....

Senator Charles Shumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi have published their collective ideas supporting public education.  Their 5-point proposal can be found in this USA Today article. I read their ideas with great interest, particularly as recent Democratic administration proposals have not been very supportive of Public Schools and the 90% of students who attend them. Take a look at the often high stakes test-reliant and misguided education policies like Every Child Succeeds or Race To The Top.I often find it illuminating to read comments attached to news articles, even when my own views are in disagreement with the commentary. I like to try to understand what people who don't live and breathe edu-issues think.I try to stay above the fray and not get pulled into debates with anonymous readers. However, today, I couldn't help myself.  One comment at the end of the Shumer/Pelosi op-ed was predictably that teachers should be judged on the basis of student test scores.As a former educator, and one who proctored high-stakes testing many, many times, I can't disagree more.  There are far too many outside factors that can - and do - influence a student's performance on a standardized test, and quite a number of these influences are out of the classroom teacher's control to mediate. Education is not the simple act of pouring knowledge into children.So I broke my own rule this morning and responded to the comment. And this is what I wrote:

...., but I disagree with this. I was an elementary educator and unafraid to take on some of the most difficult to educate throughout my career. In the city in which I worked, that meant students who were learning English as they learned grade level skills and concepts, behaviorally and emotionally challenging students and those children who came from traumatic home situations. Tying my performance as an educator simply to test scores would not tell the whole story of whether or not I was an effective teacher. It would only tell whether or not my non-native English language speakers, special education, and economically diverse students could master a standardized test. Teacher effectiveness and evaluations need to include some holistic assessments and consideration of how academic growth can be influenced by outside factors.

A single measurement is not any way to assess whether or not a teacher is effective. Nor is it a way to measure whether a teacher deserves a merit pay bonus (spoiler alert: I think those merit bonuses kill the collaboration needed to fully support and educate a child).Tying a student's performance on a high-stakes assessment does not tell the story of whether or not a teacher is effective.

When More (Time On Task) is Less (Effective)

Some years ago, I enrolled in an Italian language class at Boston Language Institute. The class met for 3 hours - no break - several times each week. The instructor only spoke my "new" language, Italian, for the entirety of the three hours. We had some written materials, some listening resources, but mainly we were expected to immerse ourselves in Italian. If this sounds like what happens in a classroom, I would agree.The first thing I learned from this experience was how utterly frustrating it is for a learner to function outside of his or her native language. But one of the larger experiences for me was the chance to experience what it must feel like for a student to attempt to sustain concentration and focus for extended stretches of time without a break.By Hour 2 of my 3-hour class, I felt hopeless and defeated. I could no longer take another idea into my brain. I left the class with a dull and aching head and lots of questions as to what the goal of that instruction was. If this was my experience with sustained time-on-task learning as an adult, it wasn't hard to imagine the same sense of frustration and defeat applying to the young learners in my classroom.Regardless of whether or not the student is learning in a non-native language, as many of my former students were, extended periods of concentration does not necessarily yield higher academic achievement. Whether adult or child, the brain needs what the brain needs. And in learning new things, the brain needs some time off to make connections and absorb learning.Since the inception of education reform, standardized curriculum, and high-stakes testing, educators have been pressured to prove that students are learning. The proof has, to date, been in the form of high stakes testing. Students, teachers, and schools who do not achieve arbitrary scores indicating that the prescribed curriculum has been mastered are called out. The trickle down response to test scores that are less than stellar has been toward reducing or eliminating children's recess time.Why? Because when test scores look bad, the first response is that the students need "more time" to learn the material. That time has to come from somewhere, so shaving minutes away from recess is the first response. To me, this sounds a lot like what I did as an unprepared college student studying for a final in Western Civilization: cramming.Reducing or eliminating students' active time does not mean better test results. The brain needs some time to process and absorb new learning. Kids who fidget less, focus more.So what our kids need is similar to what my experience as a student proved for me: more recess. Don't take my word for it. Here's a statement from a recent Time Magazine article from October 23, 2017:

... a 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found positive associations between recess and academic performance. “There is substantial evidence that physical activity can help improve academic achievement, including grades and standardized test scores,” the report said.

More time-on-task does not equate to more learning. 

Teacher

I started reading Meditations from the Mat this weekend. The writings are daily practices in mindful meditation written by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison and had come highly recommended by a group of yogis I've encountered in an online group.In explaining his own yoga journey, from a weekend retreat at Kripalu to yoga teacher training, Rolf Gates relayed a story about an encounter with Baron Baptiste, renowned yoga teacher and author.

..."Are you a teacher?" I said I was, but the words didn't ring true. I taught classes, but I was not a teacher.

For a while I puzzled over how that could be true; if one taught, one must be a teacher, right?As Rolf explained, the act of teaching is the act of drawing out. In yoga, that means drawing out what the student may already know about breath, alignments, and postures.In education today, do we have the flexibility to draw out of our students what they already know and can connect to? Can we lead them to knowledge without having to force it in before the students are ready for it?Standards in a general sense, are good end-goals for education and educators. Where standards and standards-based education go awry is when those end points are unreasonable or developmentally inappropriate or, in some cases, designed to foster failure. The purpose of early childhood education should not be a dress rehearsal for intermediate grade level standardized testing. Yet it sometimes is.As an example, I have heard from participants in the graduate level literacy class I led tell of kindergarten students writing or keyboarding.  This is wrong. Forcing young learners toward skills that are outside what is developmentally appropriate for them is a disservice to them.Teachers want to teach, to draw out, what their students know to make connections. We want learning to be relevant, to spark curiosity and to stay with our students. We want to teach. 

Is STEM the only thing?

Is STEM the only thing? I'm asking for a friend.It occurs to me that in the rush to turn out worker bees for business sectors, the focus in education is more than a little skewed in favor of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Yes, these are all important studies and part of a well-rounded balanced education. However, I am questioning that the focus on STEM has over-shadowed other content and curricula that, in my biased opinion, should be equally important.Because I see education in terms of an avenue toward a pursuit, observing the march of the bureaucrats toward the next great crisis in education is equally frustrating and alarming. Our educational goal should be to "hook" students into becoming life-long students, to foster curiosity and questioning and the drive to know more.And maybe that pathway toward becoming lifetime learners is through a STEM discipline, and perhaps it is not.As a student, my personal pathway into learning was through something quite different. I was a more-than-adequate reader, not a particularly skilled writer, and a horribly incompetent math student.  What fired me up to become more disciplined about learning and more successful as a student, was a love and pursuit of music. The irony of this statement is that, as an adult, music has taken a backseat to the very disciplines that catch all the attention today - technology and mathematics.To me, it is more important to teach students to think critically, to process logically and, yes, even scientifically. Science, math, and technology are important and great ways to get to those problem-solving and thinking skills. But other disciplines can be a means to this end - and toward the goal of fostering and enduring desire to learn - too. And for the student whose interest in learning lies in arts and humanities, exclusion of such pursuits leave them flat.So while our education policy makers direct a refocus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, I hope there might also be a similar pursuit of arts and humanities. Because, in my opinion, there is a need to balance educational pursuits across all disciplines.

Are we over-coaching developing readers?

One of the texts I've reviewed for a course I'm leading this summer is Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris' Who's doing the work: How to say less so readers can do more. What do you, as teacher, do when a student is stuck in their reading? Do you go into wait-time mode or try to move things along with hints or suggestions of strategies? And if you do either of these, what is the student's response or reaction?Sometimes when we think we are moving responsibility for learning to our students, the shift is not as significant as we think. Case in point: when a student successfully uses a decoding strategy to uncover a challenging word, does the student look to you, the teacher, for affirmation.  Surely that's something I was guilty of doing.However, when students come to rely on that affirmation and teacher praise as an indication of whether or not the word was called correctly, that is scaffolding that has over-served its usefulness in steering students toward a gradual release of responsibility.  We set the students up for dependency, not independency.In real reading - the kind that students engage in on their own either in school or later in life as adult readers - what happens when a decoding challenge the meaning of the print breaks down? Will a teacher always be there to nod a yes or to give hints?The end game for reading instruction is to enable a reader to develop so that he or she knows that to do when confronted with reading challenges.  Instead of leading a student through the use of a specific strategy (get your mouth ready, think about what makes sense), what if the prompts from a teacher were more open-ended:

What do you notice?

What can you try?

There are undoubtedly times when explicitly teaching strategies for decoding and comprehension are not only appropriate, they are essential. How else would a reader learn about them? But once the strategy has been introduced, practiced and become part of a reader's repertoire, shouldn't we, as coaches, allow the reader to decide what to do?Over coaching developing readers is something I became aware of as an active and as a retired teacher.  More open-ended questions and less controlled coaching not applies to reading. Think of the implications for problem-solving in math.So I ask: are we empowering our students to truly be independent? Or, as Yaris and Burkins point out, are we creating learners who are dependent upon our affirmation and approval? Are we allowing students to be independent learners?

Return to Sender

Educators, if you received a free and unsolicited book in the mail, would you read it? That's what a conservative "climate realist" group by the name of Heartland Institute wants you to do. In fact, it would be really swell if teachers would do a little more than just read their free book(s). If you would also start teaching some of their conceptions and beliefs, that would be great.Here's an introduction to this Heartland Institute courtesy of Dean Reynolds' report on April 22 CBS News.  There among the reported 97% of scientists who believe global warming is real, is non-scientist Joseph Bast claiming that global warming is not only part of the cycle of life on Planet Earth, but actually desirable for us humans (see video link above).Bast, CEO and President of Heartland Institute, is admittedly not a scientist; what he claims to be is a "climate realist". Here are some of the ideas Heartland Institute champions:

• Second hand smoke, smoking, and lung cancer have no connections
• Global warming is not a "thing" - it is more like a cycle of nature and "cold weather kills more people than warm weather does." (refer to clip at 1:15 mark)
• In Education, the group supports the increasing charter schools, providing education tax credits for private school students, vouchers and the group supported the parent "trigger" reform started in California.
• Health care saving accounts and a "free market" health care system, and (finally)
• Hydraulic fracking

Curiously, or maybe not so curiously, Heartland Institute is engaged in a concerted effort to influence science educators in Grades K-12. As such, this group has committed to mailing 25,000 copies of a free book (Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming authored by Craig Idso, PhD; Robert M. Carter, PhD; and S. Fred Singer, PhD) and DVD every two weeks until every single K-12 Science teacher in the United States has a copy (reported total 200,000 copies). Lennie Jarrett, who manages Heartland Institute's Center for Transforming Education, includes a cover letter (please read it here).Now everyone is entitled to an opinion, but if one is going to flood schools with science materials, shouldn't those materials be.... scientific? As in something that is based upon proven and replicable fact and not on opinion? Bast and Heartland Institute hope that science educators will have some doubts about that. After all, 3% of the scientific community don't agree on the cause(s) for climate change.From time to time, entities offer curriculum and materials to schools and educators for free or reduced costs. The utilities companies used to send Lenny Lightbulb coloring books to elementary school teachers who requested them. Apple Computers became prevalent technology in schools because Apple targeted the education market and offered deep discounts. As a teacher, presenting opposing opinions on issues should be part of the educational process. When proven and science-based facts are replaced by flimsy opinions of "think tanks" with a political agenda, that is not science. Here's a second viewpoint detailing why the Heartland Institutes' effort is alarming written by NY Times Op-Ed writer, Curt Stager.That's a gift that should be returned to sender.

Lost Things

Don't it always seem to goThat you don't know what you've got til its gone

I was thinking about Joni Mitchell's lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi this morning because, I think a lot of what has disappeared in classrooms has happened so gradually that even educators don't realize the value of what has gone missing.During last Friday's middle segment on Beat The Press, Adam Riley asked if the panel believed viewers could tell the difference between fact and opinion. Here's the link to the segment which is definitely worth the five minutes viewing time.If as an adult, knowing the difference between fact and opinion is an important skill, do educators have opportunities to explicitly teach students to distinguish between opinion and news/facts? I would suggest that in this era of time-on-task we do not. I think teaching and practicing critical thinking has been replaced by test preparation and test strategy sessions.As a high school student, one of the courses I took to fulfill the English requirements was a course called Propaganda and Prejudice.  We started out examining marketing materials and ended up dissecting political discourse to better understand opinions and how facts can be manipulated to prove a point. Those lessons of examination and questioning have stayed with me my entire adult life.As a teacher of elementary students in 1987, one of the PBS programs that we employed to encourage students to think deeply about issues was called (I think) Think About It. Think About It was a 15-minute, current events based program for middle-elementary and junior high students and broadcast each week on the local PBS airwaves. We watched it together every Friday afternoon. Students were enjoined to dive deeply into a current issue and engage in opinion writing or discourse based on facts they could uncover throughout the upcoming week. I underscore based on facts, because, as the panel from Beat The Press points out, our current conversations seem mainly based on beliefs and perception and not necessarily on researched or proven fact.Why these anecdotes are important is the action of thinking about whether or not a statement is true or verifiable or even plausible seems to be a missing skill. In our divisive political conversation, proveable facts are in very short supply and thinking about whether a statement is reasonable or truthful is often even more scarce. Case in point would be the Comet Pizza shootings in DC.When the focus is on test preparation and standardized testing, something has to go. Honestly, until I started to think about the question posed by the Beat The Press panel and wonder more about why our grown up and adult students don't necessarily discern between fact and opinion, I didn't realize the full extent to which teaching critical thought has been omitted. Is one of those "things" educators let go in favor of prepping students for test success explicit teaching and practice with critical thinking?I wonder, if result of 20 years of education "reform" and focus on standardized high stakes testing, is a cohort of adults who cannot critically question and discern opinion from fact?

Rigor is not what you think it is

An English vocabulary word tossed around education today is "rigor". As the Common Core standards became de rigueur, teachers were told to teach with rigor. We've been encouraged to raise our expectations of our students by raising the "rigor".

"Rigor." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.

I'm not sure edu-experts know exactly what rigor is. Harsh inflexibility, strict precision, rigidity, severity? These words are not what I would want to guide my own child's education, and they are certainly not something I feel comfortable aspiring to as an educator.If the standards call for inflexibility then how can we, as educators, say we meet our students where they are and move forward? Some child is getting left behind.What would I want? I would want a standard that allows me to differentiate for students who are challenged linguistically, intellectually, and experientially. I would like those same standards to be appropriate to the development of a child. Perhaps in place of teaching for rigor, we should aspire to teaching for responsiveness to how our children learn? Or flexibility of thought? Or inclusiveness?How about trusting the professional judgement of educators and allowing teachers who know their students best determine how and when to push children up to and beyond what is expected? 

Teaching Conflict Resolutions Through Pretzel

Put yourself back in elementary school and imagine your reaction to a classmate calling you a name or hurting your feelings through action or word. Would you speak up or would you allow that hurt to fester and grow into something more significant? Would you feel listened to? And if you caused the hurt would you recognize it as such?In our adult conversation, do we listen - really listen - to each other even when the conversation is difficult? I am not so sure any more. Maybe what we adults could use is a refresher course in conflict resolution.Ruth Sidney Charmey, author of Teaching Children to Care and a co-founder of the Northeast Foundation for Children invented a powerful activity for children named "Pretzel" (click on the link to find out how the activity was implemented) as a way to teach children conflict resolution and empathy.My good friend and colleague, Paula Gendron, introduced me to Pretzel as a means to teach children awareness of others. Although from year to year it morphed into other small treats (Skittle, Sticker) according to the allergy concerns in the classroom, the premise always remained the same: we all need to feel safe in our classroom community in order to do our best work. In my classrooms, we used this activity almost weekly to heighten awareness and sensitivity  in the classroom community.Two of the rules or norms for Pretzel would be applicable to all of us.  The first one would seem fairly easy: find something positive to say and compliment someone.  It's easy to see negativity, and that can wear anyone down.  I believe that when I look for something positive to say, no matter how seemingly insignificant, it can change not only my mindset, but another's as well. For my former students, it was a requirement that there be something positive noticed and complimented whenever we participated in Pretzel.The second norm is a bit harder to do whether you are a child or an adult. When someone offers a criticism, the listener needs to really listen without interjecting commentary or excuses. It is important for the listener to remember that the words are expressing how someone perceives a situation.Listening without becoming defensive or commenting defensively is very hard whether or not you are 8 or 18 or 48 or 108. However, listening to another viewpoint or version of events along with an awareness and acceptance of how someone feels is an essential component to developing empathy. When an 8-year-old hears a classmate say that walking away from one friend to play with another caused hurt feelings, the first reaction is denial. We need to notice more when words and actions might cause another person hurt. We need to be more empathetic.Grownups need to practice conflict resolution now more than ever. We are bombarded daily with bully talk and hate speech that inflames and does not resolve anything. We need to accept that there may be more than one way to perceive a situation, listen no matter how difficult to hear, and develop our adult empathy. And maybe once we adults practice the skills of conflict resolution, we'll have less conflict to resolve. 

What If Miss Parker Hadn't

I was in the seventh grade when Miss Parker told me, "Donovan, we could put all your excess energy to good use." And she introduced me to the sound of my own voice.

In five minutes, Donovan Livingston the Student speaker at Harvard Graduate School of Education 2016 Convocation and Ed.M. candidate uses his voice to remind all of us of why education is powerful. His voice reminds us that equity in access to education and educational possibilities cannot and should not be restricted.The reason to be an educator is embedded in his poetry.  A number on a test does not define a person's worth. Invest in five minutes that can reaffirm your resolve to be an educator.https://youtu.be/9XGUpKITeJMUse this link from Harvard GSE to link to the text.

Still Ignoring the Evidence

Play - real, unstructured brain break time - is as important to a child's learning as academic time.So why are school leaders and decision-makers so reluctant to let go and allow more recess? I cringe whenever I hear a school leader lecture that there isn't enough time in a school day to increase play or unstructured time. Two reasons come to mind:

• Quantity not quality - somehow the misguided idea that number of minutes and time-on-task are larger concerns than actual learning,
• Test preparation is driving the construction of a school day.

Quantity not quality assumes that a student can maintain peak brain function and learn every second of a lesson. Ken Wesson tells us that students can attend to a lesson launch for approximately the same number of minutes as that child's age.  Here is a link to an article I posted some time ago outlining this thought as it applies to a classroom.  If we are serious about optimizing student learning and making sure academic time is effective, we should know how the brain functions. What is the point of just yammering for 60 minutes when a 10 year old brain turned off 40 minutes ago?I often hear - and truth be told, sometimes would say - that school days are packed. At one point when I taught 4th Grade, there were more minutes of instruction required within the day than there were minutes in the entire school day. And in this day and age, there is test preparation, which has to come from somewhere. Just exactly how much time gets expended to prepare students for those high-stakes tests like PARCC or Smarter Balance?Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor of Education at Lesley University advocates for younger students to have more time for play and unstructured learning time as does K-12 writer Caralee Adams in the article "Recess Makes Kids Smarter". Students are routinely asked not only to sit, but sit still for inordinate amounts of time when they developmentally are not ready to do so. Could misguided school policies requiring students to be on-task for long periods of time be driving the bulk of students perceived to have ADD or ADHD? Brain research makes me wonder.For more about the importance of recess, free play, and unstructured time, the New York Times Parent Blog posted an article titled "Students Who Lose Recess Are The Ones Who Need It Most". This article takes the importance of unstructured time a step further by advocating that taking away recess as a means of punishment for out of compliant behavior or for missing homework is counter-productive.  Losing recess may be a major factor in loss of self-control or executive function.Our kids need to move, they need less chair time for their physical health and for their brains for function. Why do we continue to ignore brain researchers? To quote Ken Wesson, "If your job is to develop the mind, shouldn't you know how the brain works?"

The Other Growth Our Students Need

About 10 years ago, I was introduced to the Responsive Classroom, a program that was highly supported in the school in which I worked. There are many principles of Responsive Classroom that not only make for good classroom management, but create an environment of communal trust within a classroom and a school as a whole.The first principle of a Responsive Classroom has always been important for me, a foundation of my career as a teacher: The social and emotional curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum. Recently, Edutopia and other education news sources carried the tale of how student "grit" is a key to student success.  What is grit? Self-perception, the ability to overcome inner obstacles, persistence, resiliency, self-regulation of emotions - in short, as Carol Dweck has written, it is a Growth Mindset.These ideas are essential to a child's education. They are the social and emotional curriculum that form the foundation for academic growth. And they are often missing in classrooms jammed with test preparation and curricular standards.Sandra Dunning, the Principal who introduced me to Responsive Classroom, believed in the importance of developing a community of learners. Each morning, a 30-minute block of time was carved into our schedules for the community-building of Morning Meetings, Greetings, collaborative activities that fostered this development in each student, teacher, and classroom. There was a calm, purposefulness to our classroom in those days, and when things went off the rails, as sometimes happens, our group was able to process together and resolve whatever issues had preceded it.Sadly, under the guise of "raising the bar" and increasing "rigor", by the last few years of my teaching career, the daily activities that had created and fed my students' social and emotional growth were undermined and replaced by time-on-task schedules, test preparation and packed curricula. Most mornings, we could squeeze in a Morning Greeting between breakfast and leaving for Allied Arts classes; some days we could not.Responsive Classroom Principle 4 reminds us that To be successful academically and socially, children need to learn a set of social and emotional skills: cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. We are short-changing our students' education when we can't attend to emotional and social growth.  

A Vicious Cycle

So, what would you say an unexpected by-product of ed reform might be?  With loss of autonomy in what to teach when, emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing and little control over just about anything else in the educational day, teachers are leaving some districts for transfers to more affluent schools and for other careers.I mention this because it is challenging to teach in a gateway - or as the Pioneer Institute referred to it last week "middle" - city. And because the Lowell Schools are making an effort to diversify faculty and staff.This article addresses this very issue and was published by In These Times last August. It clearly points to the challenge of hiring and retaining teaching staff in these times of education reform. As you read the article, consider the challenge of attracting teaching candidates who are impassioned to work as educators with a diverse and challenging student population.The by-product of education reform is fall-out of professional teaching staff. As professional educators reach their limits of stress, do they move to a less challenging district? Or do they leave for a career in another field, perhaps related, where the environment is less toxic?So what does happens as a result of corporate reforms overtaking the education landscape?  Is there a reliance on Teach for America trained (and I use that term loosely) or alternative certification?Here's Kevin Posen's take from the In These Times article:

In order to fill the gaps, licensure rules are relaxed and “supports” are provided for an increasingly amateur workforce—through prefabricated curriculum and assessments. And the cycle starts all over again. The demoralization of the American teacher is leading to the deskilling of their profession, which leads to teacher resignations, which leads to more demoralization, ad infinitum.

In other words - a vicious cycle for educators and education. 

Education: What is Equity?

Ludlow Superintendent Todd Gazda posed this question in a recent Commonwealth Magazine article:  What is equity?  Because, as Dr. Gazda points out, current education policy tends toward equalizing education for all students with standardized curriculums proven by standardized assessment and incentivized "business systems" for implementation.

Equity, like fairness, is not treating every student the same, but rather focuses on giving every student what they need. - Todd Gazda, Commonwealth Magazine

Any educator who has worked for a nanosecond in a classroom knows the truth of that quote. Twenty-five inquiring minds can, at any point in a school day, need twenty-five different things. One may need teacher to soothe a physical hurt. Or another may not have eaten since the last school day. And another may have witnessed a domestic assault at home.How do you suppose each of these children might engage in learning? Would they be able to engage in the instruction in the same way? Would they have mastered the content objective for the day?  No, equity is not treating each child the same.Which is why teaching, to me, is not a science that can be boiled down to a set of steps that everyone anyone can do; it is an art. We can expect our students to work and master content. We can hold students to high expectations and have faith and confidence that they will soar. But we should not expect our children to do this in lockstep.Equity in teaching is taking children where they are, determining what is needed to move ahead, and giving each the supports they need to get there, no matter how long it may take to do so.Our state and national leaders need to have the courage to allow educators to educate all students. With equity. 

Editing & Revising with Peers

As a writer and, as a teacher, I value collaboration with peers. I know that my writing is made more clear, more interesting, and more precise when I rely on a trusted "critical friend" to offer constructive feedback. And so, when the Commonwealth's writing standards included peer revising as well as adult conferring, the inclusion of critical friends in the Writing Process made sense. Beginning in Grade 2, Writing Standard 5 includes this important progression of peer revision and peer editing. [Refer to the Writing Standards ("Code W") by grade level beginning on page 26 of the 2011 Frameworks.]From my experience, elementary students must be taught explicitly how to do this. They need good models of what peer conferring looks like. As a proponent of the Daily Five, I found the 10 Steps to Independence model to be an ideal teaching method for introducing peer editing and revising to my students.Students at the elementary level need some structure for learning how to be a helpful peer editor or revisor; and to this end, I was fortunate to get an offer for some coaching from our former Literacy Coach, Patricia Sweeney.  Pat provided a structure for the students: 2 compliments and a suggestion. Here were the guidelines:

• The author reads the piece from beginning to end without interruption
• The revisor/editor offers 2 compliments. Personal references ("I like...") were excluded; more constructive/objective language included ("When you wrote..., your writing was... (very clear, powerful, descriptive, etc.").
• No "buts" - one of my 3rd and 4th graders favorites, because what 9-year old can resist telling another to get their "but" out of writing. (When you wrote ...., your description was very clear, BUT...)
• The revisor/editor can offer 1 suggestion (so not to overwhelm the author all at once), jotting on a stick-on note. (You might want to .... or Your writing might be more powerful if ...). The author can agree or disagree with the suggestion, but listens and takes it "under advisement".

This structure provided the students with two things: a language framework for offering constructive feedback and an opportunity to apply grade-level writing skills as the "student" become the "teacher".These peer-led conferences always took place prior to conferring with an adult and prior to producing a final version of the writing.  Peers did not assess another student's writing, but offered constructive criticism for the purpose of helping the author improve upon the writing.Exactly what my adult peer editor and revisor does for me.  

PARCC Week, Day 1: Intro to Standardized Testing

As I sat down to write about my personal opinions about PARCC and standardized testing in general, I came to the realization that a single post might not be enough. Over the course of the next week, I'll be posting about PARCC and some of the reasons it merits the attention of anyone connected to students - parents, teachers, and community members. This is the first entry of this series.This week our local School Committee voted to change the Spring 2016 assessment tool from the previously approved (October 2015) Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) to Parternship for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC). The deed is done, but that doesn’t mean it has to stand forever.As a third-grade and fourth-grade teacher for the last 9 years before I retired in June, I had quite a bit of experience with MCAS. My students were never part of the PARCC pilot, or try-out tests, but I have taken a good, long look at what PARCC releases on their website (parcc.org). I reviewed test items as part of my personal work as educator as well as when I was a part of the team re-writing math curriculum to align with Common Core Standards.Preparing students who are barely 9 years old for hours-long testing involves teaching test taking strategies. This does not mean teaching to the test. It means basic skills such as teaching students to scan questions prior to reading a passage, reading the italicized introduction to a reading passage, highlighting using allowable tools, staying within boundaries of open response question/answer areas, erasing bubble sheets, and making only one answer choice, ensuring that the whole test has been answered and no items left skipped, reading test items and dealing with tricky and subtle changes in wording, and it means preparing to focus and concentrate for long periods of time. Some may think that those listed strategies should be assumed; I would remind you of that old saying: " when you assume....". None of this is second nature to a 9-year-old.Each year that I administered MCAS, I kept a notecard inside one of my desk drawers. On that card, I noted some factors of a students’ life that might negatively impact test performance. Why? Because invariably when the results of testing were released, teachers are rightly asked to look closely at the results and make instructional decisions to improve.  And now, in a more toxic environment, those test scores can become part of an evaluation of my teaching.I don’t think my instruction was perfect and there are/were plenty of standards on which I could have done a more effective job. My notes, however, contained items such as “no glasses, broken and not replaced”, “arrived 2 hours after test began” and “upset and crying due to fight at home”. This is the reality of teaching in schools where trauma is high. To disregard the impact of such things on a child tasked with performing on a one-shot high-stakes test is foolish.I dislike and distrust most high stakes testing. My English Language Learners (ELLs) - some years that population made up 75% of the classroom - are smart and funny and wonderful learners who easily misunderstood some of the subtleties of test language.  They’ll make sense of these tests and learn to deal with them, of course, but it will take more than a few years. Yet the Commonwealth punishes them by designating their test scores “needs improvement” or “warning”. What must that do to a child’s psyche? My students were always more than a number to me, but the Commonwealth doesn't see it that way.So through the lense of someone who has been in the room during testing, who has witnessed extraordinary effort of students to try to show their best performance on a snap-shot of their learning, over the next several posts, I will try to explain what it is that makes me even more apprehensive about this new assessment, the PARCC tests.Next topic: The Corporate Connection

Year End Loose Ends

Project Learn

Recently I had the pleasure of talking about education with LZ Nunn and Brittany Burgess from Project Learn, a nonprofit supporting education and educators. LZ recently accepted the challenge of becoming the ED of Project Learn.One of the topics we tossed around was grant writing, and ways Project Learn might offer support to teachers and staff who would like to pursue grant funded projects and activities. As a follow-up, LZ found this grant announcement that some teachers might want to pursue:

Grant Alert DetailFund for Teachers GrantsSponsor: Fund for TeachersSubmitted: 10/27/2015 12:00:00 AMFund for Teachers provides educators, possessing a broad vision of what it means to teach and learn, the resources needed to pursue self-designed professional learning experiences. FFT grants are used for an unlimited variety of projects; all designed to create enhanced learning environments for teachers, their students and their school communities.Award amounts vary. K-12 Teachers are eligible to apply.Deadline: January 28, 2016Please Note: The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools (CHHCS) does not administer this funding opportunity.Please contact Fund for Teachers for more information and to apply for this funding: http://fft.fundforteachers.org/

Clicking on the links will take applicants to the requirements and application process. Here's a great opportunity for teachers to design their own PD and get funding to pursue it.

Common Core, Common Care

Valerie Strauss, the author of a Washington Post OP-Ed, The Answer Sheet, often posts something that sparks my thinking. Her latest column, What Happened When a Troubled Little Boy Appeared at My Classroom Door highlights the story of transient students who challenge us not only as educators, but as humans. Please read this post and think of all the teachers you know, particularly here in Lowell who create safe communities of learners despite challenges of society.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Larry Ferlazzo, another highly regarded Education Week author as well as teacher, writes a yearly column predicting what will happen in education throughout the coming year.  Last year's column (click here), highlighted issues in education such as E-rate funding and VAM (time to break out the Google). I think #1 is spot-on: the drive to increase technology in schools is not necessarily for enhancing learning. New technology is really needed to support the new tests that will be electronically administered by 2017 (MCAS 2.0 or PARCC - they're going to put the same demands on our kids).And to find out what Mr. Ferlazzo predicts for 2016 check out the latest right here.

Devalued + Demoralized = Teacher Shortage

The New York Times has a good read today stating what nearly every educator in the U.S. could have predicted: indications showing the beginnings of a teacher shortage in the U.S. Read the article here.According to the author, because there aren't enough teachers available to hire, urban districts across the U.S. - including Providence, RI right here in New England - are resorting to hiring teachers as "interns" who then are assigned a mentor (yeah!) and simultaneously complete a credentialing program at a university. Notice the word, simultaneously. That means the new teacher hired to be in a classroom has not been trained in nor exposed to such things as classroom management, child psychology, and pedagogy. Minor stuff, right?Here's something that doesn't surprise anyone teaching today. Many educators in classrooms are demoralized. The public has been convinced that educators are lazy, shiftless leeches unable to make educational decisions without a scripted lesson. Teachers are told that our students don't "achieve" as demonstrated by high-stakes, single shot testing created by a multi-national conglomerate with questionable motivation. And our worth as educators continues to be entangled with those scores quantifying whether or not we are effective teachers without regard to other factors. Factors over which educators have no control such as the poverty and eroding support for those with many hurdles to overcome. Demoralized? You bet.Devalued? Well consider for a moment that the candidates who are featured in this article go through a year's credentialing.  The amount of time spent in an induction (mentoring) program is not detailed, but anything less than three years is minimal. Personally, I feel that most of us would have benefited from five years of coaching and mentoring. So with minimal time spent learning how to become an educator and possibly minimal time being mentored to be an educator, what happens? The candidate is termed an "intern" - a technicality - so that person can fill the position while simultaneously learning to be a teacher. Does anyone see a problem here?Given this atmosphere, is it any wonder that there is a teacher shortage? University and college students must be wondering why incur student loan debts for a career in education. Experienced teachers who are well-prepared and, despite arbitrary ratings based on students' test scores, effective, are leaving the profession to retire early (as I did). And others are just plain tired of being trampled on by the press and corporate know-nothings and decide to move on.Teacher shortage? Did anyone really expect a different outcome?