From All Sides: The Disastrous Effects of Short-Term Thinking in Educational Policy

“As soldiers arrive on the battlefields of Afghanistan, they face enormous expectations to show "progress." It is an impossible situation: the military's counterinsurgency strategy requires, by all accounts, years to implement and even longer to succeed. Yet officers are pressured, both by political considerations in Washington and command expectations in Kabul, to accomplish big objectives on very short time frames. Because it's rare for a tour of duty to last more than 12 months, commanders are severely constrained in what choices they can make. It's difficult to be slow and deliberate when one must show progress, right now, in time for a Congressional hearing or a strategic review. Those pressures constraint incentives and shape day-to-day decision-making. Officers, perhaps understandably, look for ways to demonstrate short-term gain, sometimes at the cost of long-term success. Today, Tarok Kolache is "cleared." Three years from now, when the Obama administration says it will begin reducing troop numbers, how stable, safe, and anti-Taliban will its remaining villagers really be?” (How Short-Term Thinking is Causing Long-Term Failure in Afghanistan, by Joshua Foust, The Atlantic)

Putting professionals into situation where the emphasis on showing short-term progress in lieu of the overall long-term goals of a particular situation can have devastating and long-lasting effects on an organization.  No where is this more true in education than it is in the State of New Jersey, where a recent confluence of political, economic, and social variables threatens to undermine the profession of teaching, and the role that public education plays in our state.  The long term effects of these policies and shifts in social values will make it much harder to attract competent professionals to the public schools in our communities, and the effect on students will only serve to exacerbate this looming catastrophe.  The game is being played right now in a way that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, unless the root causes for these changes can be recognized, the myths dispelled, and a more ethical and intelligent course of action can be reached by all involved parties.

At first glance, the primary culprit in the changing view of educational professionals can be laid at the feet of our state political system.  The attacks on unions, lead primarily by the governor, have fundamentally weakened the public perceptions and the bargaining ability of the unions, both of which are essential to continue their relevance and existence.  There are numerous, dubious reasons for these attacks. “In the past five years, we have witnessed a demonization of teachers unions that is close to achieving its goal: destruction of the most stable and potentially powerful defender of mass public education. Teacher union’s continued existence is imperiled — if what we define as "existence" is organizations having the legal capacity to bargain over any meaningful economic benefits and defend teachers’ rights to exercise professional judgment about what to teach and how to do it” (Werner). The successful destruction of the union would have many negative effects on the quality of our teaching workforce.  There would be unprecedented numbers of people leaving the profession, and those that would choose to become teachers given the negative way that they would be treated would call into serious question the standards to which these potential candidates hold themselves.  Losing good teachers to the demonization of our profession would therefore have a direct impact on the quality of education provided to our students.  As with most states that have a history of strong Teacher’s Unions, New Jersey is consistently ranked highly when compare to the other states, with a strong union having an almost direct correlation to highly achieving student populations.  The continued deconstruction of the unions is a short-term idea, that would have devastating long-term consequences.

Everyone likes the idea of lowering taxes.  This is uniquely true in New Jersey, where we have the highest percentage of property taxes in the United States.  It was easy to run on this, as Chris Christie discovered (although he has demonstrated much more difficulty in devising ways to actually lower them), and he eventually passed a 2% cap on local governments that wanted to avoid referendums that went to a vote.  Naturally, as local school budgets are tied directly to the property taxes, this in effect created a 2% increase on schools themselves, “thus scoring a political triumph that could give voters greater control over how their towns and school districts raise and spend money. With his signature, Christie lowered the existing ceiling on annual increases from 4 to 2 percent, and closed most loopholes in the existing law. When towns and schools starved of revenue want to raise taxes higher, they will have to get permission from a majority of local voters — something foes warn will widen the chasm between rich and poor communities” (Heininger). Another byproduct of this law, has occurred in the hiring process at local schools. I came to realize this in full after last year’s interviews, where the Director of Human Resources instructed all building principals in our district to not interview any potential candidates with more than 1 year of teaching on their resume.  This edict, and various others across our state, make it difficult to hire qualified staff, while at the same time making it almost impossible for established teachers to switch districts if they are unhappy.  Clearly, this affects students when they will be increasing placed in front of teachers that are either brand new, and learning on the job, or teachers that are stuck in buildings they may no longer wish to be in.  Over the long-term, the effect of this seemingly innocuous short-term decision represents a perilous path for New Jersey.

Recent years have seen the number of students applying to, and being accepted by, colleges rise at an exponential rate.  As this national trend has continued, it has had obvious effects on the types of programs being implemented in public schools to prepare students for this eventuality.  Schools pride themselves on the number of students that they place into colleges, and the state and federal government adopted new ways of assessing schools by this criteria.  Somewhere lost in this seemingly common sense approach however, is a basic truth, “what's still getting lost, some argue, is that too many students are going to college not because they want to, but because they think they have to” (Marklein). Clearly, all students should have the opportunity to go to college, but what is less easy to say, is whether or not all should.  The social pressure that districts are under to show that their schools send students to colleges at high rates poses some questions about the degree to which they are assessing and attending to the needs of a diverse population of individuals.  No where is this more apparent than the loss of Vocational education programs with normal public high schools.  Where once these classes were filled by students confidently preparing themselves for the workforce, we know see scores of students that have simply been removed from the mainstream due to lack of engagement or skill.  The social stigma that is now carried by those that aren’t “college material” often means that these students, many of whom have been made to feel less than for much of their academic careers, see where they have been placed not as an opportunity, but as confirmation that they are broken or deficient.  When too many of our curricular decisions are made in this regard, we do our students a great disservice, all in the name of “helping” them.

The past few years in education have shown a great deal of upheaval, and a slew of initiatives and changes designed to better the future and opportunities for our students in a new and growing global marketplace. It is our job as leaders within these communities to make sure that the decisions we are making make just as much sense 20 and 30 years down the line as they do in the immediate years to come.  The political, economic, and social pressures that are being exerted on our profession are strong, but we as educators have a duty, to inform those around us, in both our teaching and social lives, that these types of knee-jerk reactions will do far more harm than good. Hopefully, we are successful in this endeavor, our students’ future may depend upon it.

References

Foust, Joshua. "How Short-Term Thinking Is Causing Long-Term Failure in Afghanistan." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 24 Jan. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Heininger, Claire. "N.J. Gov. Christie Signs 2 Percent Property Tax Cap Bill."The Star-Ledger. Nj.com, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Marklein, Mary B. "What If a College Education Just Isn't for Everyone?" USA Today, 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.

Werner, Lois. "Teacher Unionism Reborn." New Politics. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.

Bringing Weapons to School

In so many of the movies that I’ve watched over the past 25 years, a common trope is apparent.  Anytime there is some new technology or innovation introduced into our society, it is almost always co-opted by some form of bureaucracy, and in most cases, weaponized.

The movie that really drove this point home for me as a child was “Short Circuit,” a quintessential 80’s flick starring Steve Guttenberg, Ally Sheedy, and of course, the sarcastic robot, Johnny Number 5.  As anyone my age will tell you, the idea of having a robot like Johnny 5 around would have been, in the parlance of our time, radical.  This was an amazing technology, an artificial intelligence capable of independent thought, with a thirst for knowledge, and a desire for fun as well as social justice.
The main crux of the film was that Johnny and his creators were trying to save him from being turned into a mindless killing machine.  Of course they succeed, and evil is punished accordingly.
A more recent and, in retrospect, way cooler, example of this is the plotline in the latest installment of the Batman franchise, “The Dark Knight Returns”.  At one point in the film we learn that Bruce Wayne and the R&D wing of his company have constructed an experimental energy reactor capable of delivering free power to all of Gotham (read, NYC).  The only catch is that he refuses to turn it on, because he is afraid that the introduction of the technology will call for, wait for it, a desire from others to turn it into a weapon.
Eventually, it IS turned on, subsequently weaponized, and used as a bludgeon to bring the city to its knees.  Batman’s only solution is to drag it out to sea, where it can explode without hurting anyone.
Over the past few weeks, the hazy details of the State of New Jersey’s plan to enforce the development of Student Growth Objectives (SGO’s), also known by their alter-ego, Student Learning Objectives, have begun to emerge.  As the Instructional Leader in my building, I’ve been tasked with helping the staff through this process.
We are currently developing the Objectives themselves, essentially the skills that educators will target in their classrooms as a way of gauging the progress of their students.
On it’s face, a Student Growth Objective is a great idea.  The concept is that teachers will create assessments that will check a student’s level of understanding of specific concepts multiple times over the course of the year.  The teachers will look at the data that has been collected on each child, and use that information to guide the instruction for EACH INDIVIDUAL CHILD BASED ON THEIR SPECIFIC LEVEL OF NEED.
If you are at all familiar with the blog, you know what a high value I place on Individualized Instruction, and this appears to be a great tool that we can use to start actually altering the types of instruction that are considered acceptable in a 21st Century Classroom.  The more I have gone through the process with the staff in my building, from Math teachers to the In School Suspension teacher, the more I have come to realize how innovative and valuable this exercise has the capacity to become.
But here’s the problem, and isn’t this always the problem?  They want to turn it into a weapon.
The SGO process is tied directly to the state legislation known collectively as EE4NJ (Excellent Educators for NJ), an acronym that begs two initial questions:

1.  By what measure are the educators in NJ, a state that consistently over the last 40 years has been ranked among the top 5 performers in the country, not excellent?

and,

2. How can we strive for excellence when the bill itself substitutes the word ‘for’ with the letter ‘4’ in its own name; did they write it through text message?

All joking aside, the bill calls for the SGO’s to make up 50% of a teacher’s evaluation each year.  While this may not seem problematic, there are many troubling reasons this should not be tied to keeping your job.

The first is that teachers, in order to guarantee that they can keep doing what they love, will be reluctant to make the SGO’s as rigorous as they should, or can, be.  By holding the bar as high as possible, you are potentially shooting yourself in the foot.  

In addition, the student populations in individual schools will now be consistently called into question within that school.  Since the ability to show growth in your students is the measure of success, a teacher with a different classroom make-up compared to his or her colleagues may be at an advantage or disadvantage.  Students with strong work ethics and supportive families will be a hot commodity for teachers.  In some schools, however, the strongest teachers are sometimes syphoned students that struggle in various ways, because of their previous track successes with such students. Unfortunately, a class full of struggling students competing against a more heterogeneous grouping may hurt these high quality teachers.

Finally, those that teach Math or Language Arts are considered teachers of a “Tested Area”.  In addition to their SGO’s, these teachers will have up to 35% of their retention evaluations linked to Standardized Test scores alone.  Aside from keeping potential Math and Language Arts graduates away from those subjects, and the lack of job security linked with pay that they offer, current teachers in those subjects have a distinctly different level of anxiety when compared to their colleagues in the “Non-tested Area’s”.

The culmination of the building-wide anxiety that was created by this law, and its intended effect of essentially ending tenure, brought the tension in our building to the forefront the past three weeks.

And it didn’t have to be this way.  They took a great, innovative idea, and used it to create a cudgel, a weapon.

This is nothing new, the influx of high-stakes testing as an evaluative tool is in and of itself a very similar story.  What we need to ask ourselves as we move forward, not just as educators, but as a society, is what do we truly value in the education of our children.  Do we hope to make them into critically thinking innovators, or simply an army of test-taking, institutionally bullied imitators.

The state has it half right, looking at students as individuals is key to unlocking their potential as students and learners.  The problem is taking that good idea, and using it to intimidate and threaten the very people responsible for creating the type of students we all want to see in our society.

I think back to the way this is handled in the films that I’ve seen.  The only way to stop the potentially damaging weaponization of quality innovations is simple, you have to fight back, and you have to let everyone see you doing it.  If we do it that way, we can retain the value of the innovation, and shame those who would use it inappropriately into the background.  That, or we’re going to need a talking robot or Batman to save everyone.

I think I’m more comfortable relying on us.

Writer's Workshop Conferencing Tips

My class workshop/studio focuses on 3 major "Process" papers, with additional supplementary papers that emphasize full student choice.  The following are tips for conferencing with students during the supplementary paper process, but they have direct applications for conferencing in general with students as well.

The supplemental papers can cover a very wide range of genre, lengths, and subjects.  Frequent conferencing, particularly on the front-end of the paper, is key to student success.  The following is a brief overview of the path students might take through the supplemental paper process.

I.               Topic/Genre Generation

a.     The main issue at the beginning of the process is helping students to face the “white page.”  This can often be a daunting task, especially for students who may not consider themselves writers.  The most important question to ask the students during conferences at this point, is whether their topic or genre interests them.  Failure to attach themselves to a topic of importance will doom the product to failure, as it will neither engage the students, nor make their writing exciting and valid.

b.     “But it’s Hard!”: Allow students to flounder here.  There is no rush to find a topic, and it may take students time to make a decision.  This is the best time to give students a chance to explore their desires, wants, and interests.  Do not confuse a student struggling at this point with a student “not doing,” give them the time they need to find something worth saying.

II.             Outline/Planning

a.     This step will be different according to genre and topic (as well as the student’s level).  Remember to gauge the steps in a way that is authentic and meaningful, not simply arbitrary.

b.     Start Small, Go Big:  Remember that planning is the act of creating a paper’s skeleton.  We will add the muscle and skin later, but now we need a strong foundation.  The outline and planning provides this.  Allow students to create plans that help them to look at the document as a whole, and help them to see all of the moving parts, before we ask them to compose.

c.     No One Way:  Use your knowledge of the individual students to determine what steps you’d like them to consider in their plan.  Make sure that they also have authorship in these plans, and that they understand each step, and why they are doing them. Without the buy-in, the paper will end up being for you, and not for them.

III.           Text Generation

a.     The Simplest Step:  Get out of their way and let them write.  Let them write for extended periods of time, and stress the need for getting everything down, not simply the bare minimum.

b.     The More the Better:  Writing is sculpture, we start with a large chunk of rock, and we will eventually cut away from it and shape it to our desires.  Text generation is building the rock.  There must be enough to cut away from when we’re done, so urge students to write as much as possible.

c.     No Arbitrary Rules:  Don’t tell the students that paragraph must be a certain length.  It isn’t true.  Don’t tell them that a persuasive essay is five paragraphs.  It isn’t true.  Don’t tell them that you must provide a counter-point in every argument.  It isn’t true.  Avoid any type of arbitrary rule that is not indicative of authentic writing, and certainly don’t tell them that there are writing rules, which are in fact designed by you to guarantee certain types of outcomes.

IV.           Drafting/Editing

a.     Once the student has generated the requisite amount of text, they should begin a typed draft.  Students should be cognizant of self-editing during this process, but understand that this is not relegated to getting rid of the red and green “squigglies.” Before they begin a formal, “hard edit” they should print the document, which will force them to look at the paper in a different way.

b.     Don’t Overwhelm:  When editing a printed piece, resist the urge to correct every mistake.  Odds are that this will result in a paper filled with red marks.  Rather, read the piece looking for a pattern of errors.  Once you recognize the pattern, stop reading the document, bring the pattern to the student’s attention, and teach a mini-lesson if necessary.  Ask the student to go forward through the remainder of the document and find other examples of this mistake, and have them corrected when they bring it back to you.  If the student is recognizing the mistake, great!  If not, re-teach accordingly.  Try not to mark for more than three areas of improvement per draft, as this will allow the student to manage the drafting and editing process.

V.             Publishing/Performance

a.     Make sure students know that they are not simply writing for their teacher.  By requiring the students to either publish or perform their work, it forces them to take pride in their endeavors, and to write for themselves. The added pressure of “getting it right” falls on them, and placing the writing in the public arena is a powerful motivator.

Things to Remember:  these  papers are about creating buy-in, and opening up students to a writing life, where self-expression is sought and encouraged.  As teachers, we can provide individualized instruction that is student-directed, and still cover the curriculum requirements we are responsible for.  For formal, class-wide pieces, we can still have process-driven papers, but supplementary papers can allow additional opportunities for individual growth.

The Thick of It

I always found popular culture intriguing because it represents what is relevant RIGHT NOW.  I think many students share this sentiment but often find popular culture and current events quite distant from what goes on in their classrooms.  With the recent super storm, Hurricane Sandy, students in Morristown, New Jersey were in the thick of what was on the news and flooding social media networks.  I thought this was a great time to capitalize on their interest with what was going on RIGHT NOW.  When we returned from our seven days off from the storm, I immediately presented the students with “The Hurricane Sandy Relief Project.”  The project has two components, a short term (individual), and a long term (group).  The short term project involves donations, interviews with the those involved, and immediate relief for victims.  Often in our society, donating time and money is seen as the endgame.  I disagree.  While donations are essential and necessary, they do not change an infrastructure in a way that creates long term improvements for the community.  Therefore, students are spending more time on the long term aspect of the project.  Students are required to focus on one issue related to the Hurricane.  Some of their topics include the gas crisis, the electric grid, price gauging, and Morristown preparations, etc.  They are required to research how this issue unfolded during Hurricane Sandy.  Then, they will write a business proposal to the appropriate person with a plan of how to improve on their topic of choice.  They will include a statement of need, a budget, and an overview of their creative suggestion.  Lastly, they have to “sell” their idea to their classmates.  The goal is to eventually send off the best proposals/presentations to local government officials, power companies, or local community members, whomever the relevant recipient may be. 

                We are halfway through the project and students are collaborating effectively with Google Docs, sharing ideas at any time of the day via their computer, phone, or tablets, which allows me to immediately see any changes they make to the document and to keep track of their pacing.  Google Docs is a teacher’s dream as I don't feel the need to hover over them in class, I can keep track of who is doing what from anywhere.  It is a phenomenal monitoring system.  The greatest thing I have noticed is how invested students are in this project.  Because they feel an intimate connection to the Hurricane, they care immensely about the success of their proposals.  I (the teacher) am not the final viewer of their product, in fact, I am the first of many.  Their product will be judged by their classmates and ultimately their community.  The stakes are high for this assignment, students refuse to stay married to their product, they see it as adaptive and ever-changing.  They don’t want to continue with a “bad” idea, as many of them do with their traditional assignments.  Once they start a traditional assignment, they are hesitant to revise and change it, because they know that their perhaps sub-par idea will receive an acceptable grade.  This assignment is about more than grades, thus they are willing to revisit, revise, and reflect.

                From an educational standpoint, this project allowed for genuine, meaningful research, collaboration, and communication.  They are learning a variety of skills such as persuasive and informative writing, public speaking, and prototyping.  They are also beginning to think about important marketing questions; what presentation will impact their classmates the most?  What is the best method to capture the attention of an audience?  How will our classmates connect emotionally to our product or idea? I love that students are beginning to understand the process; discussion, research, discussion, dividing of tasks, writing the proposal, and  bringing the proposal to life with a presentation.  Ordering is difficult for many students, as they are quick to jump around and find it perplexing to follow a pattern.   This project guides them in how thinking should be sequenced for the best possible product.  I look forward to sharing their presentations and proposals in the coming weeks.

               

Sol Lewitt Mid-Week

Day 2 of Sol Lewitt Project: Calm to Chaos, Collaboration to Cooperation, Communication to Coordination, and of course, creativity. 
My apologies for all of the alliteration but I am an English teacher at heart.  The past two days have been the best I have known as an educator.  It is unbelievable to me what children are capable of when we let them think outside of the box.  I almost feel guilty taking credit for any of their success because they are so self-directed in the tasks of the past two days that it must be their inherent will to collaborate or their amazing middle school teachers.  If you insist, I will take credit for the structures of this assignment, and the risk-taking it entailed.

            Before we began this journey of constructing an 8x40 foot mural which will be displayed at Morristown High School, in the Morris Museum of Art, and then around Morristown, I was apprehensive, nervous, unsure, and anxiety-ridden.  I didn’t know where this journey would take the freshman.  Think about it…here I am asking them to read directions critically (directions that require reading, math, and logic skills), prototype a design, agree on the best design, and execute that design on an 8x8 panel.  After that, I am asking them to blog about their role for the day, which rotates through the experience.  Each day students will either be prototyping/drawing, filming, or analyzing some aspect of the process.  This request is a tall order for students who are used to sitting in their desks and taking notes.

            I don’t want to become overly optimistic, but I can’t help it.  The past two days have shown me students who want to work together, who can overcome adversity, and who can challenge themselves and their classmates with respect and poise.  The first two days of this project saw students  measuring, talking, focused, engaged, and IN THE MOMENT.  What a concept: in the moment, working hard, observing others, and seeing the results of their productivity on something that won’t be thrown out or never referenced again after its due date.  It didn’t end there, students were blogging about the dynamics of their group, the divisions of the class, the leaders, the connections to academia, and their progress as a class.

            I cannot wait to see if the remaining weeks of this project are as epic as I’ve imagined them, I have no reason to believe otherwise. 

Compliance and Ownership

Image by Humphrey Bolton

Last September, I decided that my class was going to embark on a full-fledged, studio approach to the year.  Students would self-select topics and papers that they would develop over the course of the year, and my role would be to mediate and conference with the students over the course of the year, effectively providing an individualized experience for every child.

            I knew that for many of the students, this would be a sea-change.  There were exiting a class that was far more rigid in it’s methodologies, one that prided whole-class direct instruction and specified intense rubric-based papers for all kids.  I spent the first few weeks laying the groundwork for the class, explaining the importance of being self-motivated, an interested person in our world.  We did a few preliminary papers to illustrate the process, and then began to open everything up.

            My struggling writers took to it immediately.  They found themselves writing more, finding ways to get deeper into their topics, and were proud to share the work that they were creating.  I was proud of myself. I was seeing a change in my struggling students.

            About a month into the second semester, I was walking with one of my students down the hall.  John (we’ll call him) was an average to high-functioning student, who had been rewarded highly for his compliance throughout his school life. 

He turned to me and asked, “Mr. D, this is fun and all, but when are we gonna learn something?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, now very interested in the response.

“Well, last year, we used to have vocab tests and reading quizzes, and we would learn little tricks?”

“Tricks?”

“Yeah, she would show us how to use a thesaurus to…”

“Okay, hold on,” I interrupted. “What have we done this year?”

The conversation went on, and I tried to explain to him how much individual attention he had received to that point in the year.  He conceded that he knew that his writing had improved, and that he had read more on his own that year than he had in the entire year previous.  Despite all of this however, he still couldn’t shake the idea that something was off.

The conversation floored me for a few reasons.  First, I realized that I may have not adequately explained myself to the kids in terms of why we were doing what we were doing.  Secondly, I was shocked that John had been so CONDITIONED to what he considered “school”.

Regardless of what they are exposed to, CHILDREN ARE LEARNING.  We would do well to understand that, and it’s implications.  If we provide students with experiences that are simply a measure of their ability to recall, or to get things done for the sake of doing them, we will create a class of student’s that excel at simply doing what they are told.

John was being given a chance to truly take control of his own learning, and without more help to understand why that was a good thing, he was reverting to the only thing he felt comfortable with: Compliance.

We must teach our students that they need to become comfortable being uncomfortable.  They need to live within the mindset that there are few absolutes, and that being there is ok.  When we narrowly define progress through a curriculum, we narrow our students’ ability to roll with the punches, we destroy their natural ability to be adaptive.

This year, I am spending much more time extolling the rationale for why we are taking a turn away from traditional methods.  My students need to know not only why they deserve to have ownership of their education, but why they should demand it.

A few questions to close as always:

1.                     How can we increase individualized experiences for students in the face of public scrutiny over narrow measures?

2.                     What positive effect will tying student achievement on standardized tests have on best practices in classrooms?

3.                     How can we approach the institutional changes necessary to allow more progressive methodologies across our classrooms?

Day 2: Cultivating Interests

The second day of class will continue the work of the first, getting to know my new students and find out what things matter to them.  I have 80 minutes to work with.  We will start out by heading to the Library, and setting up camp in a corner with comfortable chairs and access to all of the books in the school.

I’ll ask the kids to take the time to really explore the place, to find a comfortable spot, and to start pulling some titles.  They’ll be able to begin reading the text to see if it may interest them.  If they are already in a book, they will be generating a “Reading Futures” list in their journals.  While this is going on, I’ll be pulling students aside to talk to them about their lives.  We’ll discuss their life in school, their life at home, their life with friends, their goals and dreams for the future. 

I’m excited to give them this time.  I’m excited to watch them go through the stacks, and have longer than 5 minutes to figure out which book they will read.  I’m looking forward to finding books for them if they need help, to facilitate a spark or interest that they never may have known existed.

When their ePortfolios are up and running, they will digitize the document that they create today, a reference point that they can constantly change as their interests change.  The Interest Inventory is the first step in class towards empowering my students to take an active part in their path through the year, and their lives.

Are we providing enough opportunity to listen and observe our students?

Are we occasioning space for these interactions to occur, between students and book, between teachers and students?

Are we gifting ALL of our students, not just the “high flyers”, with the chance to own their educations, to become active participants in their own development?

Day One: Ideas for the Opening of School

Tomorrow the kids arrive and a new year begins.  I’ve been given an amazing opportunity, and it has me excited, engaged, and to be honest, nervous. 

I’m piloting a model classroom this year.  Many of the posts on this blog will feature the ideas and lessons that I plan on implementing, but also whether or not they are successful.  The goal is to create a living document that I can use for reflection and development.

The class will be an 8^th Grade Language Arts “A-Level” class, which is code in our district for “Standard” or “College Pre” level.  The students that have been selected all are on the bubble, students that have consistently scored between 10 points above or below proficient on the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK).  Many of these kids have had difficulty forging connections between their school lives, and their lives outside of education.

The goal for the year is to strengthen those connections, to allow them to see that their lives include both their academic pursuits as well as the pursuit of their interests, or to get Foundational, their happiness.

The class will provide experiential lessons and activities that will provide metaphorical and literal translations into their academic lives.  The class will have an open door policy, allowing teachers and administrators, parents and community members, to drop in and participate in the work we are doing.  Fostering this sense of community is one of the hallmarks of the class.

Before any of this can take place however, there has to be a groundwork of trust that is created, which leads me to my activity for the first day.  I’ll be taking the students outside (weather permitting) as a physical removal from the school environment, and starting with learning their names and getting everyone familiar with one another.  I will then introduce the class rules, and hold a discussion about each, inviting students to share their previous experiences at our school.

Here are the 4 Class “Rules”:

Your Words Matter

Too often, students arrive in the 8^th Grade believing that their academic future is “fixed”.  That there is no possible way to transcend the difficulties that they have had in the past, whether they are academic, behavioral, or social.  It’s important on the first day that I let them know that they will be judged only by what they say and do from this point forward, and that when we communicate, their words must be clear and precise.  Their words will define their character, they are not something cheap top be thrown about, devoid of meaning.

You have a Voice, USE IT

As a by-product of this, the importance of their words is tied to the use of their words.  Not speaking up opens up the ability for others to speak for you, to assimilate their ideas as yours.  Not questioning, or probing deeper into the things you are struggling with, robs you of the instruction you are entitled to in our system.  Learning to speak for yourself will be an important part of the class.

We Can’t Do This Alone

No one works in a vacuum.  Many of the things I will ask you to do require collaboration, the ability to work well in a group.  Use the resources around you to develop yourself, to enrich yourself, to strengthen yourself.  When we do this well, we all become stronger.

 Life isn’t about FINDING Yourself, it’s about CREATING yourself.

I first saw this on a mug at Barnes & Noble, and I have no shame in saying it changed my life.  This ties into the first rule.  Students tend to think that there is some perfect self out there, and that after they wander through their education and life enough, they will discover this perfect self.  We know that this is not true, and we owe our students the knowledge that every experience, every challenge, every triumph, and every failure is a piece of the person that they are creating.  We are all in a process of becoming, of working towards becoming the person that we would like to be.  To that end, we need to be mindful of the things we do, the choices we make, and the road we travel.

Suffice to say, I’m pumped to start this year.  There will be roadbumps along the way, but the new tactics and personalization that I plan on providing my students has me completely energized. 

How are you starting the year in a unique way?

What are you going to do that will change lives in your classroom? 

Please let me know, and I’ll get back to you this weekend with how it all went down!