Reflections on Teaching

This is a weird couple of weeks because we have parent conferences (with minimum days) backing up onto the Thanksgiving Holiday. My district is one of the few in the area that still has kids come in during Thanksgiving week, so there is this funny 2-day dog-leg of a week. The schedule is all mucked up as I try to squeeze prep time for teacher into 7 partial days.

Here is what is going on:

Second Graders on Kindness. I’ve been using VoiceThread to capture what we are learning. This week’s focus is on manners for hosts and guests. I added some video from a Flip camera and I’m pretty pleased with the quality.

Third Graders are still working on how we interact with the environment in City Wildlife, but we haven’t been doing much writing or VoiceThread, but they are doing important background work by learning keyboarding via Dance Mat Typing. They will be writing a paragraph on the computer in a few weeks.

Fourth Grade seemed cursed. This is a very difficult age, and this particular group of kids seems to have a lot of emotional lability. I made the mistake of direct confrontation and anger in dealing with one class, and they are trying to make me pay for it. I expect it will all even itself out over time, but it’s likely to be unpleasant for all involved for the time being. That was my part, to add to it, the project I was trying to do on PBS Kids Go! Dont’ Buy It wouldn’t work on Firefox. I had to give them an IE page to make it work. So we had both social emotional, and technical problems in altogether in one big happy mess.

Fifth Grade was my just miss of last week, but it went better this week. I had the kids do Inspiration diagrams to show a season, and most did better with a pictorial representation. I’m going to have them give voice responses next week on the VoiceThread. Their work on Galileo there was pretty good.

Sixth Graders are starting to work on research reports. This week was just topic selection. Each teacher is taking a different approach. One wants a compare and contrast of two civilizations, while the other is asking them to form a question to answer. Going forward, I will be working with them on summarizing and paraphrasing vs. plagiarism. Between times, I’m having them add some information to a VoiceThread:

I was going to write a lot more when I did this post, but I got sidetracked by something I read here in the Bracey Report 2009. I was arrested while reading the account of a child who died for want of dental care, but it was the following paragraphs that left me both breathless, and nodding my head in recognition:

We can imagine the misery of this boy and certainly should consider how much he was able to pay attention in class during  the months of his ordeal. And when his 10-year-old brother with a swollen jaw complained of a tooth ache, it again took months to find an oral surgeon, who found he had six abscessed teeth. There is no press report on how he was doing in school during these months. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, untreated cavities are nearly three times as prevalent among poor children as among middle-class children.

Children with a mouthful of aching teeth can’t concentrate; children who can’t see will have reading difficulties; children who  can’t hear what the teacher is saying will likely look like they aren’t paying attention.

Much of that section of Bracey’s report is about  the effects of poverty on the brain, and its relationship to the achievement gap. This is  based on a study that started making the rounds about a year ago, and some other work as well, showing that poverty has a physical effect on the brain. This brought up the question among those of us teaching in these communities about how deterministic this was. Often when educators bring up arguments like Bracey’s we get asked, well how is that different from the argument that Charles Murray makes? First, he argues pure genetics and is extremely deterministic in his conclusions about how low poor folks and minorities will perform. In I Worry: If Poor People are Stupid, Why Bother? sought to answer this by saying, hey we need to stop blaming the victim, and also asked that we not paint the findings too widely, and make them a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I started to think about was my own experience raising a non-neurotypical child, and how different parents approach this challenge, so I’ll offer it up in the hope it offers some insight.

My son was diagnosed with autism quite late. He was 8 years old at the time of his diagnosis. At that time, I began attending parent advocacy meetings (I strongly recommend FEAT Families for Early Autism Treatment, or similar groups to anyone family that has a spectrum diagnosis), and we began attending parenting classes to learn what to do to help Leroy. I was told at the advocacy meeting that I should get a comfortable car because I would be spending a lot of time driving Leroy to various therapy appointments, and that typically in ASD (autism spectrum disorder) families, mom stays home and takes the child to therapy/home-schools the child/does home therapy, while dad works a heck of a lot to pay for it all. I offer this not just to share the inherent sexism of this arrangement (which we do not replicate in our family), but as a setting for what happened next.

Parenting class was interesting because it involved both parents, mom and dad. It was based on ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) and had us coming up with a behavior we wanted to eliminate in our child, and plan to do that. One father, who had not been as involved as his wife in their son’s treatment, said flat out, “why should I expect him to be able to do this like a normal kid, when his brain isn’t normal?” In other words, why should I bother if he has brain damage. The wiring of the autistic brain is different than neuro-typicals, but the dad didn’t realize that this was not destiny and could be affected by “working” on his child’s behavior. The rest of us spent a good amount of time explaining about neuro-plasticity and how you could affect not just behavior but brain wiring by doing the therapy.

Here are some  of the lessons from I’ve taken from my reading and experiences:

1. Poverty and biology are not destiny, autism shows that early intervention makes a difference, studies of early childhood education can make a difference. The bad news, this takes a lot of effort, and a lot of money. Harlem Children’s Zone targets pregnant moms, and families with kids in strollers, and spends up to $4,000 above what the state provides for each student of school age.
2. We’re all individuals, even poor kids, just like there are different degrees of autism. My son was not diagnosed until he was older because he has a milder form of it. My brother had a classic and severe form that showed signs very early. Some kids in poverty will not have brain effects. Some have more functional families and support systems. Some have more “resilience”. Some get lucky and don’t have as many “stressors”. The studies of brain effects from poverty are about the population as a whole, and really can’t speak to the condition of each individual child.
3. While you need to focus on the individual child, ignoring the context in which they live is really brain dead. Wishing childhood poverty away, will not make it so. Pretending that these kids all start out with the same opportunity is foolish. Expecting schools to erase the income gap without providing significant resources is just cruel, but what do we expect from a society that lets a 12 year old die from an untreated tooth abscess?
4. Just because we can’t erase the achievement gap doesn’t mean teachers get to “phone in” the job. We can still help our students do better, and that does not require us to be miracle workers.

• Finland, Singapore, and the U.S. are on an airplane that’s about to crash…
• The Bracey Report 2009
• Education Policy Blog: Poverty and Brain Development, or, I Worry: If Poor People are Stupid, Why Bother?
• Study: Poverty dramatically affects children’s brains – USATODAY.com

Thank you very much for having me in your IB Theory of Knowledge Class on Tuesday. Here were some of the things that I saw while I was in your class:

1. You started with warmup which was to write down three main points for creating a good presentation for an upcoming project.
2. Speed dating was next. You lined up like you would for a line dance and then shared your topic/three points with a partner, listened to the partner and moved on down the line. Then did another more complex configuration. You then shared what was learned.

I noticed that the activities were focused on short writing and speaking assignments, and you moved around a lot. Your teacher seems to make you do a lot of work, and was not doing as much work himself.

This pattern of having students move around in various groupings is common in well run elementary classrooms, I wonder how typical it is in secondary?

Questions:

1. Do other teachers at Burbank have you move around and do most of the work, or do they do the work?
2. Does Mr. Ferlazzo ever lecture (read material) to you?
3. Do you feel like you learned something in speed dating even though you are repeating yourself?

Mr. Ferlazzo then reviewed the project assignment and reminded you about what you learned about “lousy” presentations when you went to the computer lab. Someone asked what you should do to make sure it isn’t lousy, and he said, “the opposite of what they showed.”  A student questioned the assignment about what is a lousy vs. what is a great presentation. Could you do things from “lousy presentation” elements (a web site) and still have it be a good presentation? What about if you learn from it.

Questions:

1. Would you want to sit through a presentation that had any of the elements in the “lousy presentations” show?
2. Did some people mention elements you would want in a good presentation during the “speed dating” that might help you?

Mr. Ferlazzo kills a lot of trees in his class. He handed out a paper and asked you to create a two-column organizer with the words, invent vs. discover. He then had you write what you thought they were, and do a  pair/share/report out about it. He then passed out articles on Math and whether it was invented vs. discovered. You read, and then did a pair share discussion about your thoughts.

1. Someone said discovered because math is like the alphabet, it just is there, but not all alphabets/writing systems are the same. Our alphabet has sounds associated with it (a = “a” sound), but Chinese writing pictographs do not have sounds but ideas associated with them. Are numbers different? Are they always the same?
2. Is something more “real” if it has a number associated with it. Is an “A” grade for getting 90% or higher on multiple choice tests more “real” than an “A” grade on an essay?

I was very impressed with how seriously you took your work, even though you have a really good sense of humor. Your thinking about the question Mr. Ferlazzo gave was very impressive.

Students reading articles

One student made the mistake of saying “I don’t know” and was referred to Mr. Ferlazzo’s poster that says:

I’m not sure, but I think that…

Mr. Ferlazzo made frequent appeals to you being IB students, what does that mean to you? Do you think that you are more capable because you are in IB? Do you think you should be better than that?

There are a lot of diagrams on the walls, many have been made by students. I couldn’t tell which ones the IB class had made, did you make any of them?

Thanks for letting me visit and take pictures!

The title comes from a trope of jokes about the hilarity that results from dissimilar groupings of people (usually a rabbi, a priest, and a minister). Sometimes the joke is how alike they all are and sometimes, the dis-congruity of groupings makes that joke. That’s how I like to think about comparisons between the U.S. and countries like Finland and Singapore on international tests. The issue came up recently on Larry Ferlazzo’s blog in his response to a particularly brain-dead and specious argument about teacher quality (Do Teachers REALLY Come From The Bottom Third Of Colleges? Or Is That Statistic A Bunch Of Baloney?). I was going to write a whole post just about the comparisons to Singapore and Finland, but I’ve decided to put up links because really all I would be doing is using information easily gotten from the posts of others:

• Tuttle SVC: America : EU :: Minnesota : Finland
  Brilliant and short, it takes apart the comparison of America to the EU (or Finland for that matter). I won’t give away the punchline, just click and have a chuckle.

• My Own Private Finland | LFA: Join The Conversation – Public School Insights
  Where Claus von Zastrow points out the reality of teacher evaluation and autonomy in Finland in contrast to the reality being offered by so-called “reformers”.

• Lessons from the North: A Conversation with Canadian Education Leader Raymond Théberge | LFA: Join The Conversation – Public School Insights
  Claus again on our neighbor to the north, and the great job they’ve done on PISA. Their secret, social services for immigrant families that are centered in the child’s school.

• Learning Is Messy – Blog » Blog Archive » “Are We Fixing the Wrong Things?” By Yong Zhao

  Where visiting administrators from Singapore go to Brian’s Title One classroom to find out how to teach mathematics

• The Return Of Jay Greene And The United Cherry Pickers – EdWize
  Diane Ratvich and other point out that countries (Finland) and states (Massachusetts) with the strongest teachers unions seem to have better scores than places (like Texas) that don’t.

• The Bracey Report 2009
  Bracey takes apart  international score data to show that the U.S. may have lower average scores on math and science, but because we have a large number of students, and we have a large number of students at the high end of the distribution (offset in the average by the large number in the cellar of scores), we have more high-end math and science graduates, than countries that score higer on PISA. He also does a nice job on the breakdown of our scores by school poverty-level which yields and unsurprising correlation.

The next edition of the ELL/EFL/ELD Carnival will be…right here! Any blog posts, including examples of student work, that are related to teaching or learning English are welcome. You can contribute a post by using this easy submission form.

The last edition of the Carnival hosted by Jennifer Duarte and Michelle Klepper is  here, and as always it’s chalk full of useful information for working with English Learners.

Future hosts will include Shelly Terrell at Teacher Reboot Camp: Challenging Ourselves to Engage Our Students on February 1st and Karenne Sylvester at Kalinago English: Teaching Speaking Using Technology on April 1st.

You can see all the previous twelve  editions of the ESL/EFL/ELL Blog Carnival here.

As I’m starting new units, one of them has offered examples of both success and failure, and some lessons for me. This isn’t one of those big “ah ha’s” but one of those smaller moments of enlightenment that make up the day-to-day practice of teaching, and improving that practice.

The unit is on Astronomy which we started by learning about Galileo. The next part was to transfer what we learned about the findings of Galileo (heliocentrism) and some more information to an understanding about seasons and what causes them. Part one went well, and many of the students got that our solar system is  heliocentric part on a straight up recall basis. The last two slides on the VoiceThread below have some of the students sharing what they learned in pairs:

The second part, on solstices, equinoxes, and seasons, did not go as well. As you can see from their responses, they didn’t get it.

What worked with the first task? First, they read a story in their regular class, then watched a movie on his life with me, so they had it not just once, but twice. The second lesson was  based on a short lecture with images, and a BrainPop video, proving Gary Stager’s point that they aren’t enough, and my point that they should be used as an into or review, rather than alone.  Still, many seemed to abandon a heliocentric view altogether in their written comments, which shows they still don’t have a firm grasp on it. What might help? I think they really need more on how the tilt of the earth interacts with the sun to create seasons, and I think they need more “hands” on activities, where they manipulate and create. I’ll be having them do some work with objects in Inspiration, chalk, lights, and globes in the period before Thanksgiving break to do this.
Link to Astronomy Unit posts
Solstice Take 1
Solstice Take 2

Between a bought with a cold and new units to set up at work, I’ve gotten behind in my posting, and for this I apologize. Lot’s of interesting things are taking place.

Self-Control Unit for upper grade

I will come back to this unit over time between other units.  The latest thing I was doing with students was having them explore frustration. I showed them some YouTube videos dealing with frustration that were short and sweet, and have them comment about times they feel frustrated, and what it felt like. Probably bracketing Winter Break, I will ask students to look back at what they came up with for dealing with self-control, and tying it more directly to the times that most challenge that self-control so they can apply the tools when they are most needed. It’s still my feeling that a low-tolerance for frustration is the root of a lot of low-performance, and low self-esteem issues for kids academically. I’m also trying to use it at home with my son.

New units

All the grades are moving onto their second Language Arts units. Since my work with students is tied to those unit themes, I needed new unit plans. I’m liking using the Understanding by Design (UbD) unit planner I learned about from Chris Lehmann. I think I’m still not using them optimally, but I feel like we are getting to the big picture ideas, which was my goal.

Second Grade on Kindness is very similar to the Friendship unit for third grade that just finished. If I am doing this again next year, I will focus on how kindness sounds (tone of voice, word choice) more with second, and dealing with differences and conflict in friendship more with third, because they are getting too similar now.
Planner
Page for kids

Third Grade on City Wildlife at the request of one teacher will have a new focus on human interactions with the environment, and how we can leave a lighter footprint. I’ve also been asked to have the kids work on one paragraph writing, which is earlier than I’ve done writing with the kids in teh past, but this is a good thing I think. I’m starting them on keyboarding with Dance Mat Typing to get some pre-requisite skills.
Planner
Page for kids

Fourth Graders on Dollars and Sense is focusing on media and consumer education. They will also be doing some work with Junior Achievement, so some basic business knowledge will also be part of this.
Planner
Blog entries for kids

Fifth Grade on Astronomy will focus on heliocentrism and understanding the scale, and order of the Universe (e.g. stars are not out there with the Sun, and planets, but much farther away outside our solar system).
Planner
Blog entries for kids

Sixth Grade on Ancient Civilization has the kids focusing on the Nile and it’s importance to the development of civilization. Their teachers will also have students doing research reports. I had the two teacher split how they want to do this. One is having them develop a question to answer, the other is having them compare/contrast two civilizations.

Planner
Blog entries for kids

Thanks for letting me chat with your class tonight. Lots of great questions. I’m sorry I was under the weather and unable to stay long. If you have further questions, please send me a comment below. Also, it would be a great help is you share with me resources or approaches that have or have not worked for you in trying to build an online PLN (Personal Learning Network).  Since I do professional development for my district and conference presentations, this will help me offer good advice to my audience. Below are some of the resources for online networks that I mentioned, and some new ones:

Moving Forward list of education blogs

Support Blogging list

Twitter for Teachers list

Plurk for Teachers (Plurk is like twitter, a 140 character microblog, but the comments are “threaded”)

Classrom 2.0 Social Network (this one is really big, so pick a group to join)

Ed Tech Talk You can listen to podcasts on ed tech topics, and if you listen life, chat with others about the show (I forgot to mention, I have show here called It’s Elementary).

Edutopia groups BIG miss not mentioning this one. I moderate a forum on classroom management here, but there are others on project-based learning, etc. It’s more about pedagogy and less about technology.

Instructify is part of LEARN-NC out of UNC-Chapel Hill and is a great resource blog. I used to work for them as a free-lancer.