Garnering Knowledge for Teaching

Today’s brief entry comes from an odd place.  I happened upon this article about a parent protesting the use of BCE and CE instead of BC and AD for time measurements.  These are commonly used time measurements in many areas of science now and they are appearing more frequently in textbooks.  The article touches on a controversy that I see rides the line between the separation of church and state.  This topic itself must be decided on a local level and I will not weigh in on it.

However…read through the article and then look at the first comment.  Come back and see me…

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/keepthefaith/story/69A5B307BBB343478625766E000870B9?OpenDocument

Particularly the comment…

“For those who pay taxes and work in the real world, remember this: Those who can – do; those who can’t – teach. The schools should be teaching students the skills to survive in the private sector and leave the PC crap for those who choose to waste their time and money on social science degrees in college.”

I do understand that the author of this comment has a theocratic bone to pick with the system.  But I have watched with horror over the last year as this country has turned vicious and nasty over theocratic differences.

My concern with statements like that above is that the writer is denigrating teachers on mass as a population of people who cannot do anything, so they teach.  It makes the attempt of placing teachers in a lower social strata than the “hard working” people of the “real world”.  This has the effect of placing the writer in a higher social strata and thus allowing him the right to control the actions of those below him.  Since he works hard, and teachers do not, he should have more of a say in what happens in the classrooms.  Especially since he believes that the teachers are in the process of “indoctrinating” his children.

My first thought after reading this was…do people still believe that teachers do not work hard?  Did they not read my last entry?

My great sadness is that this perception of teachers not as hard working professionals but that of glorified babysitters persists in the age of Highly Qualified Teachers and National Board Certification.  I am even sadder at the thought that this misperception would engender anger and agression towards these hard working professionals.

To those who feel their rights are being violated by the government, please do not take this anger out on your child’s teacher.  She/he is a dedicated person teaching what the school district has asked her/him to teach.  These teachers go home and work hard every night on lesson plans and tracking charts.  They often have families and children of their own to raise.  They are not the enemy.  They are the hope for your child’s future and need your support.

Also, because of the new standards for teachers, most teachers will have at the minimum a BA and many now have their Masters’.  The young students I have seen come into my classrooms have been dedicated, passionate individuals with the desire to lead young minds to discovery and growth.  They enter the workforce as highly trained professionals who spend at least 2 years in a specifically designed teacher education program.  Depending on the grade level they will teach, pre-service teachers study a range of methods for teaching math, language arts, science, and/or social studies.

When was the last time you had to explain long division with fractions to someone who did not understand it?  Do you know what to do when a student is consistently having trouble including the first sound of unknown words when decoding a new sentence?  What should first graders know and understand about electricity?

Teachers can answer those questions and many more. They balance pedagogy (how to teach) and content knowledge (what to teach) with the individual strengths and needs of their students in a particular classroom for every moment of every day in school.  They present their lesson plans in detail to school administrators for scrutiny and create personal professional growth plans to maintain certification.  Teachers are amazing, multitasking, caring people who do good 25-30 kids at a time on an annual basis.  Can those who “Do” claim such a contribution to society?

Props to teachers who can and DO teach.

This morning, the Dallas Morning News described a recently released study noting the failure of a Texas teacher merit pay experiment.  It is interesting to note that the results did not necessarily say merit pay was a failure.  It noted that the design of the system set up in Texas was seriously flawed and did not establish the incentive atmosphere intended.  It seems well performing schools…wait for it…have the highest performing teachers, and that some schools, instead of giving larger sums to “high performing teachers”, split the money among many teachers in a building.

Can you imagine being the teacher who doesn’t get a bonus?  I’m not sure how that necessarily provides an incentive.   I do think there must be ways we can reward teachers who are stellar and encourage those teachers who are hanging in there, and address the issues of teachers who are spinning downward.  It is similar to a student who has lost motivation.  Taking away something loses all meaning when the punishee doesn’t care about what was taken.

I work with teachers and people who are learning to become teachers.  I believe that most  are dedicated professionals who devote an inordinate amount of time to their work for much less pay than others who spend 60+ hours on the job.  Overtime is not a celebrated task (meaning extra money for the bills), but an expected job responsibility. And before you begin to tell me how much time teachers have off in a year, think about the math…

An average individual working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year will put in 2,080 hours if that person does not take a vacation, sick day, or time off.  For argument’s sake, we take two weeks off of that total for an average amount of time an American takes off each year as 2000 hours (I imagine the number is far greater).

Teachers are in class with students for a minimum of 180 days a year in most states.  Divide that by 5 (for a school week) and you get 36 weeks of contact time with students.  Add to this 2-3 weeks before school starts (the first two to get the classroom and curriculum pulled together and the third is the week of inservice the district provides before the first day of school).  Also add to this a week over the winter holidays and the week of spring break.  For argument’s sake, I will reduce the number of hours for these weeks because, although teachers do work at home on their vacation weeks, they do not generally put in 40 hours.

So,

36 weeks at 60 hours a week: 2,160

Approximately 5-6 weeks at 25 hours a week: 125-150 extra

Going total: 2,285 hours per year.

And I believe that to be a low end estimate.  If you doubt that teachers work 60 hours a week during the school year, go to your teacher friends and ask them.  See what their number is.  I can guarantee 90% of them will tell you it is more than 40 when you include grading, data collection, lesson planning, lesson preparation, training, meetings, parent contacts, testing, test prep, and all the various other minutia that make up the day/week of a teacher.

So, we have 2,285 vs 2,000 (heck, I’ll even throw that 80 back in for you workaholics that don’t take days off).

Still, there is a difference here.  This also does not really include the after school activities and weekend fund raisers that teachers are often required to attend or conduct.

Acknowledgment #1: Teachers work hard and they work for a long time.

Back to the Dallas story: the perspective behind incentive pay for teachers assumes that teachers need some kind of incentive to do their jobs well.  The story, and the investigation into the program, state that the pay involved in the program was not enough to motivate teachers to do more.  To me, this insinuates that teachers are simply getting by and that is why students are failing.  Teachers are slackers who don’t want to do their best at their chosen profession so we need to bribe them to be better.  AND not only that, but the measurement of this bribe will be the state standardized test scores that are now attached to your teacher identification number.  NOTHING ELSE…just the test scores.

I talk to my teacher friends and I hear more of the same thing: they have more paperwork to fill out, more extensive lesson plans to turn in, more frequent testing dates to prepare for and more expectations as to what types of lessons are planned, written out, and executed.  All of this must be done with more students, less administrative support (most buildings run with one administrator these days), and less classroom supply money, not to mention a reduction in or lack of  curriculum supplies.  We want them to do more with less and then do even more with even less.

I hear my partner talk about the teachers of his high school days.  The teachers who did not care and who read the paper while kids napped in the classroom.  I try to tell him that I do not believe those teachers exist any more.  But I do not know that for sure.  I still see kids sleeping when I walk by classrooms (especially in high schools).

The teachers I know work hard and are being expected to work harder. I do not have issue with high expectations.  This is critical to educational excellence.  I do have issue with a lack of respect for the hard work that is already occurring around the country.  I have issue with the general vilification of the teacher as the bad guy in our education drama.

There are multiple, complex factors that come into play for education.  Even now, as state budgets are being passed, cuts are coming deeper to public education and yet the expectations of AYP success are still high.  Teachers face larger classrooms with fewer supplies and textbooks.  Some teachers (and this is not an exaggeration) must even bring their own toilet paper and cleaning supplies from home to work. They also face students from challenging circumstances who come to school hungry, tired, and worried.  According to Maslow, kids who don’t know where their next meal is coming from will have a very difficult time relegating brain power to multiplication tables.  Teachers need to find a way to make their classrooms safe, welcoming places where those base needs are met, in order to establish an environment of learning.

I believe we need to hold teachers to high standards.  But those must be measured in the classroom, not on a test.  That test is not only measuring what a kid might have learned last year with a particular teacher, it also measures whether she ate on a regular basis last year, how many homes did she live in over the course of the school year, how much parental support there is at home to promote student learning, or simply to provide a safe home, and how effective every teacher before this teacher has been in educating this child.  We don’t even mention whether the school district has the funding to provide consistent and fully supported curriculum throughout the grades for the students moving through from teacher to teacher.  So many complex experiences come together for one test.  Should that test make or break a teacher’s career?

I am hesitant to endorse merit pay because so much of it rides on an inaccurate measure of teacher quality.  If only there were another way to identify excellence and encourage growth in this demanding profession.  The National Board Certification program moves towards identifying master teachers, but it does nothing to address the needs of teachers who are struggling in the classroom.  How can we bring everyone up and give teachers realistic and motivational goals to achieve in order to make their teaching more effective and successful.

Perhaps if we put that funding towards simply paying teachers more for their 2,285 hours a year, or better yet, put it towards classroom supplies and curriculum, we would eventually see those gains we are seeking.  Maybe if we acknowledged the time and energy of teachers instead of treating them like human resources, it would help motivate and encourage growth and enthusiasm.

NCLB and the Highly Qualified Teacher requirements have already had an effect on what happens in public school classrooms.  Teacher certification standards have become more complex over the last decade, and the teaching force will be undergoing an experience change over the next decade as many teachers retire.  I noted in my previous post, seeing gains from reform will take time. We need to stop, and sit a moment to see where the painting is, before continuing to brush on the colors of a new bandwagon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/health/03rewa.html

Need to be dissertating, but I couldn’t resist a short commentary on this one.  I’ve often discussed the benefits and drawbacks of using rewards in the classroom.  I am one of those who believes that some type of reward system can be a useful tool in maintaining a positive classroom culture.  I have also seen this type of system go haywire and lose its effectiveness.  My students will tell you I think the reward should reflect the activity done to achieve the reward.  It must be a meaningful reward or it will simply be another “thing” in the child’s life.

Here are a few thoughts about some of the reward systems discussed in the article:

• Several of the rewards discussed were monetary and had to do with AP tests.  I’m not sure this is where the debate should reside.  Just getting cash for a good test seems shady to me and could encourage misappropriation.  I also feel that paying teachers for their students’ good scores, although an admirable thought, opens doors that might not be conducive to true learning.  A more reasonable approach could involve students scoring high on AP and standardized test scores would earn funding for a public college.  That would be a more appropriate reward and would maintain the focus on further learning.  Kids take the test to be able to go to college, not to get paid.
• It seems to me that paying for achievement is a frightening road to run.  Only the best and brightest would get paid and that already happens. If we want to use the work analogy, then kids should get paid for showing up.  That’s what most people get paid to do…show up and do a job for a specified period of time.  Only in upper levels are people paid more for productivity or for achieving a goal.  The general work force gets paid for their time.  Period.  So, yeah, kids go to school.  That’s their job.  But there are other ways to help them see that besides paying them.  That’s why kids strive to eventually become adults, to finally earn their own money and be independent.  Isn’t that the real goal of education?  To produce independent, productive, adult citizens of this United States?
• There is a real question here of how can we make academic achievement more palatable to our students?  How can we help them understand the intrinsic rewards we are always blathering on about?  What does that really mean?  Have we structured our educational system to reward all thinkers and inspire children to WANT to do more?  We are just now moving away from a system that waits for children to fail before they receive some kind of special attention.  We are still burdened with a punitive system of accountability that only offers normalcy for those who achieve high standards and spends time and energy on punishments for those who do not.
• Do we really want to employ a business model that rewards the top 2% of the corporation with unimaginable wealth and rewards workers on the bottom level by allowing them to keep their jobs? Our culture has already seen the devastating effects of a materialistic society gone wild.  Money can’t be the answer.  There just isn’t enough of it to go around.  But what about freedom?  What about earning responsibility?  Who would work for the opportunity to determine what your next project would be instead of having it handed to you?  What if rewards were appropriated based on individual goal achievement instead of being at the top of the class?  Those who feel progress=victory will not like an arrangement of such equanimity.  But, what if our children are ready to see the playing field leveled out just a bit?  To see the system tip away from what you can get and towards what you can do would make too much sense.

In my classroom, I often had rewards available such as additional reading time, or computer time (which involved an educational exercise of some sort), or some free time (a truly valuable commodity in an elementary classroom). To me, rewards were a celebration of a goal completed or a recognition that a student has been making good choices.  I used little slips of paper and verbal praise to constantly reward my students and let them know I noticed when they worked and tried.  The little rectangles of paper had some celebration of the student and a place for her/his name.  They placed the papers in a box in the back of the classroom and on Friday we drew names.  Those who got their names drawn were able to choose from the rewards I mentioned above.  Sometimes I included tangibles such as pencils, books or other educational supplies.   Sometimes I would award a student with free time or reading time outright for a particular achievement.  My students understood that everyone was on their own footing.  I did not expect Sue to achieve exactly the same way that Jan did, but I did expect her to improve from where she was.  They were learning self-management skills and how to reward themselves for their own achievements and how to delay gratification for that reward.  These are all necessary adult skills to be independent.

I have to agree that we can’t set up a system where our students expect reward for all of their achievements.  Unless you are already in the upper 5% of the population, that will most likely not happen in the real world after school.  We can, however, set up a system that mirrors what we would like our society to be.  One that rewards hard work with choice and freedom and those rewards in turn allow a person to achieve for their own purposes. “Crazy talk” one might say.

My big question is, how can we do that in a society that produces “Marry a Millionaire”, “My Super Sweet 16″, and “Real Housewives of Orange County”?  We revel in excess.  We wallow in it and flaunt it as a society and make it seem as if this represents a large number of our citizens.  But in reality, 97% of us do not live those lives and have NO CHANCE of ever living those lives.  How can we make our culture more reflective of its people and less reflective of its elite?   When will we draw our young students’ eyes away from the bling they see and desire, to something more achievable, sustainable, and tangible to them?

To no surprise my thoughts are inspired by the NYT Education Desk.  I am a big supporter of the news they get out about education.

I was busy last week and missed this in the Times.  Some days I just can’t get around to reading the online paper.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/health/24well.html

Essentially, in last month’s Pediatrics journal, a study demonstrated that young students studied (ages 8 and 9) who had 15 minutes of recess during the school day, showed better behavioral control than those who did not.

I don’t want to be rude here, but duh.

I’ve been touting the wonders of recess for years to my teacher education students.  They hear my mantra of “kids need a little bit of unstructured time to their day.”  PE does NOT substitute for recess because it is still a structured activity that requires students to follow an instructor.  Recess, on the other hand, is a free form activity that allows all students to act as they wish (in accordance to the general rules of the playground of course.)  It is the one moment of the day when kids can truly choose their own actions without the guidance of an adult.  It is their moment to be themselves, and breathe, and exist as free boys and girls.  They can talk as much and to whomever they choose, they can run, or walk, or just stand if they like.

I found that my public school students (who were always students with IEPs) had a sense of renewal after we took a little time outside.  It was a chance to run and sometimes scream when the inside voice was just not expressive enough.  After a few moments of swinging and sliding and simply being themselves, they were more open to returning to the work at hand.  Honestly, we don’t ask many adults to work under the pressure or circumstances in which we ask children.  Although they need the stimulation, they also need some processing time.  I’ve always believed recess provided that.

The study in Pediatrics finally gives me evidence that my belief is a valid educational concern.  Although I don’t feel that everything we do must be backed by a scientific study, it always helps to have one available in case one is required to support a position.

I feel sad when my students come to me and say their students do not get recess time or much of any undirected time.  How do children learn to manage their own time and create their own meanings when they do not get opportunities to do so?  We have been pushed into the belief that accountability only means test scores and intensive core subjects time.  However, how are we accountable to the student who can do well when fed this information, but has no concept of how to engage with it on his own?  Kids need time! They need time to process, file away information, create new schemas for new information, and then organize all of that information in time for the next batch to be served up.  It is a lot for a growing brain and although we are built for such activities, we also need to give that growing brain a fighting chance to hang on to the information recently stored.  Sleep does most of this work but It seems little breaks through the day help.  I know they help me.

Time needed to absorb and time to comprehend are not things that come easily in a classroom focused on the big test coming up. I am hoping the new administration is able to make the NCLB laws more sensible and meaningful, so that practice can reflect that.  But in the meanwhile, just give the kids some recess will ya?

This conversation comes from yesterday’s New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/books/10scho.html?_r=1

Essentially Scholastic is being taken to task for selling trinkets and non-educational items alonside its offerings of books at fantastic prices.  I am divided as to how I feel about this issue.

First, as my teacher education students know, I am a HUGE fan of Scholastic.  I have so many of those red and white boxes scattered in my basement holding books, letters and so forth (reuse!)  I love Scholastic because they make books financially accessible for both students and teachers.  Without this company I would never have been able to build my initial personal teaching library of over 2000 books (some of which I gave to a dear friend entering teaching when I moved for grad school.)  Using both bonus points and my own money I was able to create a diverse library that was able to morph with whatever grade/age level I was teaching in a particular year.  I had beautiful books, thoughtful books, challenging books, and sometimes a few frivolous books (such as the Simpson’s Christmas Book).  My world of books was due to the opportunities a Scholastic order form could provide.

Additionally, Scholastic has played a key role in the publication of childrens’ and adolescent literature.  Without them we would have no Harry Potter, or Series of Unfortunate Events.  There are creative avenues being explored for multicultural literature and also literature aimed at boys.  Scholastic sponsors these efforts and brings them into our classrooms.  Think about it, Goosebumps were not brilliant pieces of literature, but they got kids reading (especially boys) and frankly, one of our issues is getting books into the hands of children voluntarily. Scholastic deserves much praise for making the American classroom a literate place full of words.

That being said, I do understand the trepidation being felt by those examining just what it is that Scholastic offers every month.  I have found that the more recent book order forms (from the last couple of years) have been heavy with the toys and trinkets.  I often question the appropriateness of a child taking her book money and buying a little charm bracelet with a notebook too small to write in with it.  I know Scholastic is meeting some demand, kids love little trinkets, but is it also trying to make up a profit margin with these toys?  There seem to be more and more of them with each month’s offerings.

It is not that I am opposed to kids having the opportunity to spend money on the trinkets, but really Scholastic, don’t we want them buying books?  They can get a trinket at Walgreens or KMart, but have you seen the book selections (not to mention the prices) there?  It’s horrible.  I am also concerned that as the trinket selection grows, the opportunity to discover a really fine book or get lost in a story diminishes.  When you get down to it, a good portion of the books available through Scholastic are children’s pulp (good for practicing skills but not good literature.)  I fear that the pulp and trinkets will soon outnumber the beautiful pieces that I have always relied on Scholastic to obtain.

However, since Scholastic is a corporation with the intent to make a profit, I think the trinkets are here to stay.  It seems to me that the way to tackle this problem is in the classroom.  Encourage parents to look at the order form and approve the books their children are ordering instead of simply giving out cash for whatever because it’s an “educational vendor.”  Also teachers in classrooms can encourage students who buy books to be savvy readers and consumers of literature.  Can the classroom culture be one that rewards students for their intellectual choices?  I would say so.  But it is not easy and takes the dedication of a teacher who is also committed to literature.

What do you think?

Often teacher education students are asked to explain their philosophy of teaching. It’s a worthy exploration that allows candidates opportunities to explore the whys of their own teaching desires.

However, I would pose that my philosophy of teaching is fluid and responsive to my audience of students.

This was clear to me recently when I moved from teaching a 301 course (for years) to an 802 course. There is perhaps a year’s difference in experience and training between the two courses, but my entire approach was different for each audience. I noticed that junior level teacher education candidates need a balance of knowledge (content) and experience (application). However my intern level candidates were focused highly on application within their experience, with knowledge (or more often a way to access knowledge) scattered in.

These approaches require a shifting of how one teaches and essentially a shift in the philosophy of that moment of teaching. You will have many philosophies that apply in contexts and to contents and, if you are a thoughtful teacher, these will be fluid and capable of adaptation and growth.

Does the same apply to a philosophy of learning? What IS learning anyway? We talked about two types of teaching applications last week (banking or situational)…but what does that say about learning?

Do you believe ALL students can truly learn? Everything?

Do you believe kids can learn while talking? walking? sitting still?

What is the BEST way to set up a learning environment? A learning situation? Are these different? IF we pondered these questions, would we have a better handle on the learning needs of our students? Would we be better prepared to differentiate a lesson or a learning moment?

What is your philosophy of learning? I’ll think about that and post mine by next week.