New Terrain

Question: Which of the following issues do you care about?

a) POVERTY
b) DISCRIMINATION
c) HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
d) INSUFFICIENT HEALTH CARE

Answer: e) Any of the above and EDUCATION

Reasoning: If you care about any of those things, you deeplycare about education. (See below)

Before 2005, I never cared to be a teacher. It's not that I didn't want to be a teacher-- I liked children and I had spent some time tutoring in my day and thought teaching was fun-- I didn't care to be one. Being a teacher seemed... lame. And unambitious. And unimportant.

I remember someone particularly intelligent told me he was majoring in education. My incredulous response was, "Why???" Sure, educating the next generation is important, but, well, not that important.

And you know what my mother told me when I told her I was joining Teach For America? She told me that if I wanted to enact change in society, being a journalist is important. Being a human rights lawyer is important. Being a doctor is important. Being a teacher is important, but not as important. It's not glamorous, it's not well-paying and it's not important enough to enact real change.

Before eduholics begin verbally beating me and my mother down for heresy, I have obviously changed heart about education and cannot imagine devoting the bulk of my sweat, time, and tears to any other mission. But my former-ambivalence and vagueness about education is how many, if not most, of my peers-- even my kind-hearted, well-educated and socially conscious friends-- feel. What changed my mind and compelled me to drop an (important) career in journalism was being taught that education is about justice. Education, particularly the ghastly achievement gap between the rich and the poor, is a matter of social justice. And people in education are the social activists in this movement. Education. Is. Important.

Given that this is a teacher news site and this is an education blog and you have bothered reading to the sixth paragraph, I am clearly preaching to the choir about the importance of education. What we really need to do is compel those around us about the importance of education so the social value of teaching is on par with poverty, health care and discrimination. Because ultimately, all those issues take root in education. And ultimately, in order to close the achievement gap and achieve justice, we're going to need to convince many more folks that education is important enough for them to devote their careers and free time to teaching, policy-making, financially-supporting (and the other countless ways to contribute).

Facts about our achievement gap:

- By the end of fourth grade, African American, Latino, and poor students of all races are two years behind behind their wealthier, predominantly white peers in reading and math. By eighth grade, they have slipped three years behind, and by twelfth grade, four years behind.

- One in three African American males will be incarcerated in state or federal prison at some point during their lives, and the rate is significantly higher for black men who do not finish high school. For Hispanic males, the rate is one in six; for white males, one in 17

- Only one in 50 Hispanic and black 17-year-olds can read and gain information from specialized text – such as the science section of a newspaper – compared to about one in 12 white students.
- Lead exposure: Low-income children have dangerously high blood levels at five times the rate of middle-class children. Lead dust exposure harms cognitive functioning. High lead levels also contribute to hearing loss.

- Vision: A poor child's difficulty in learning to read is often caused by vision problems. Poor children have severe vision impairment at twice the normal rate. One cause is watching excessive television, which can retard development of hand-eye coordination and depth perception. Forty-two percent of black fourth graders watch six or more hours of television a day, compared to 13 percent of whites.

- Fifty percent or more of minority and low-income children have vision problems that interfere with their academic work.

For even more resources on closing the achievement gap, check out The NEA Foundation

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Update: This part got buried below, but it's a critical message that I want to highlight. "First year and other new teachers out there-- YES YOU CAN. You CAN get your students to read two grade levels higher by the end of the year. You CAN get your third graders who can't yet subtract to multiply and divide like cute little actuaries by the end of the year. DON'T LET ANYONE TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN'T. I DID IT, MY COLLEAGUES DID IT, AND A NUMBER OF MY FIRST-YEAR TEACHERS ARE DOING IT THIS VERY MINUTE. IT'S VERY HARD, BUT IT'S POSSIBLE AND NECESSARY. PLEASE DON'T STOP TRYING."

I've been promising myself to respond to every comment on the blog for the past month, but, um, I haven't. What can I say? You know how 60-hour work weeks go. But that doesn't mean I don't read, mull, dwell, and obsess over comments and discussions started on this blog and others. Last week's comments left on 125 G's by readers John Boyer, Jim in New Orleans, and Brett were truly thought-provoking and deserve far more attention on this blog. Thank you for sharing your insights about the heart of great teaching. Keep on blogging.

What does "great teaching" mean to you?

This is what I think it means:

I think it means a teacher who can get kids-- all kids, whether they're LEP, in Special Ed, have parents in jail, or have been in jail themselves-- to learn and retain a lot. Basic. Everything else is just the path to get there.

Typically, that "a lot" is defined by the state standards, which way too many of our kids can't master. Yes, standards are constantly being revised or (desperately) demand revising, but for the most part, the state standards (and the national standards) are bars for where kids need to be.

Logic has it that if a great teacher is able to get a student to learn, then that student will be able to demonstrate their learning. Heck, they better be able to demonstrate it on a test or essay. Because if they can't tell you what 4 x 5 is on an end-of-year test, are you really all that confident that they will know it in the next grade or at their job one day? Great teachers are confident about their students' learning. Therefore, I do think student performance scores on appropriate and aligned assessments are key to measuring a teacher's greatness. (Note the outrageous emphasis on appropriate and aligned assessments. I know my whole-hearted support of assessments will rattle some folks-- please share your comments. We'll devote a blog entry to testing one day. =)

What does it take to become a great teacher?

OK, so back to my original point. To me, these rock star teachers who yield enduring student learning employ a variety of skills, including but not limited to:

Skill No. 1) Feasible, but high, high, high expectations that all their babies, 3 to 21 years old can and must learn. Great teachers genuinely care about their students and go to the end of the earth to help them. That said, you also need feasible, but high expectations for yourself. First year and other new teachers out there-- YES YOU CAN. You CAN get your students to read two grade levels higher by the end of the year. You CAN get your third graders who can't yet subtract to multiply and divide like cute little actuaries by the end of the year. DON'T LET ANYONE TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN'T. I DID IT, MY COLLEAGUES DID IT, AND A NUMBER OF MY FIRST-YEAR TEACHERS ARE DOING IT THIS MINUTE. IT'S VERY HARD, BUT IT'S NOT ONLY POSSIBLE, IT'S NECESSARY. PLEASE DON'T STOP TRYING.

Skill No. 2) Strong plans. Hands down. All the good teachers who have enduring results I know plan. My own teachers from grade school included. When I first started teaching, I actually believed that being super-duper motivating and having high expectations would be enough to teach the kids. Wrong. I needed to thorough long term plan, unit plan, lesson plan and revise everything over again. I wasn't a good teacher without doing (a lot) of homework of my own. This doesn't mean that great teachers teach fact after fact so kids do well on tests. This means great teachers teach the necessary facts and skills that will enable students to think critically during the lesson and develop enduring understandings.

Skill No. 3) Motivating and investing their kids. Motivating and investing their families. Motivating and investing the postal carrier. Getting everyone around the students to care about students' achievement. Even though planning is mandatory, teachers who can inspire and lead a la Robin Williams in "Dead Poet's Society" (swoon) will move people to join a new mission called learning.

Skill No. 4) Ability to reflect about their own practice, identify what areas and which students aren't learning, and be able to trace back exactly what is causing the problem, and be able to figure out the teacher actions that are contributing to it and then FIX IT. Fix it by changing it yourself, finding answers from other teachers, seeking help from mentors or observing a whole lot of amazing educators. The options are endless. The trick is in being able to honestly reflect about what needs to change, and using all the available resources out there.

I think having strong administrative support, sufficient support services, and technology are really great and can only help, but I don't think they're necessary for great teaching. As I'm compiling this list of what great teachers have, I'm actually going through a mental list of the folks I know who are all first-, second-, third-, fourth-, and 25- and 35-year veterans. All these great teachers have the key points I made above, but not necessarily the nice things like support and technology.

I am 25-years old, I've taught so far for only two years, and my current job is to professionally develop first- and second-year teachers so they are great, fast. Given my age, background and ideas (although they're not particularly ground-breaking. I'm stealing them from great teachers after all), I imagine some would call all this idealistic. To that, I say two things: 1) Thank you, because if something idealistic becomes reality as this has so many times over, that means we can all expect to aim for the ideal; and 2) Please share your thoughts and ideas. According to Skill No. 4 above, a trick to great teaching is to ask everyone for help.

What does great teaching mean to you? And what does it take for teachers to get there?

Jessica,

Whose definition do you use to establish greatness? The greatest teachers I had were those who had the courage to reach beyond the traditional curriculum, rather than the teachers who followed all the "rules" as promulgated by Schools of Education and administrators.

The metrics used in a charter school may not be the same as those used to evaluate public school teachers, and the idea of evaluating a teacher based upon the test scores of his or her students would seem, to me, to reduce the attractiveness of a high needs teaching assignment to a great teacher.

In a similar vein, to suggest that National Board Certification be a criterion of "greatness", as has been suggested in other forums, leads me to speculate that, as in many other areas of the education world, the way to get ahead is to engage in activities which result in less time spent preparing and executing the business of educating kids!

I applaud your sentiment, but remain skeptical as to an objective means to establish the criteria for "greatness" and how to teach it to others. "Greatness" comes from within, and often is not recognized by students until long after graduation, if at all. How do we as a profession treat those teachers who are not recognized as "great" by the education community, but whose influence is great upon the leaders of the future?

Posted by: James Boyer | March 7, 2008 2:27 PM

Ahhhhhhh, we get back to the basic question: What does good teaching look like? Many researchers in the field of education, Roland Barth for one, I believe, tried to address this question with a degree of legitimacy, and did a good job of doing so. Lee Shulman, I believe, also effectively addressed this question.

Nevertheless, good teaching is difficult to define. Robin Williams' character in "Dead Poets' Society" would fail most modern teacher evaluations miserably. Imagine throwing out the established curriculum: pedagogical blasphemy!! And yet- he inspired his students in ways few teachers could.

"Good teaching" is not like good nursing or good doctoring, where often there is a set course of action for a certain malady. Most people who have a broken arm will have it set the same way, with a few exceptions. Teaching is quite different. Ten students with dyslexia may have to be approached in ten different ways.

There are some things we know in terms of what good teaching looks like: good teachers have a sense of structure, consistency, they truly care about the learning of the students, among others. One thing that must be understood, however, is that good teachers generally take years to develop effective teaching and behavior management strategies.

School systems must understand a key component of "good teaching," however- teachers must be supplied with what they NEED to be effective: technology, good training, mentoring with highly effective teachers, and the necessary support services. Too many times, the problem is that we bombard new, potentially very effective teachers with bureaucratic minutiae (lunch counts, collecting student fees, endless ineffective in-services) that compromise the time that could be better spent in preparing to serve the students. Feeling overwhelmed, they either quit or do what they have to do to survive.

Define good teaching, instruct the art of good teaching, and support good teaching. That would be a big step to teaching all teachers to be "great."

Posted by: Jim in New Orleans-SPED teacher | March 9, 2008 11:30 AM

If you look at the website for the school in New York, they have a clearly defined set of expectations setting out what their definition of a great teacher is http://www.tepcharter.org. If I was a Middle School teacher, I would bust my tail to get on board at this school - take a look at what their expectations are and how the support structure is organized.

Great teaching starts with mastery of subject matter, continues with outstanding communication and observational skills, and culminates in the continual process of self assessment and reinvention necessary to improve effectiveness. It is an art, a skill set that can only be accumulated through rigorous applied study, application, and experience. TEP has it right - teaching is the job that deserves the highest pay in the educational environment. Until such time as this occurs, people like Jessica will leave the classroom and move into positions where the pay is commensurate with ability and the opportunity to impact learning and teaching is greater.

Basically - we have to step back and realize that a socialist (state run and evaluated with a captive consumer base) system such as public education is designed to simply sustain itself, not reward innovation or support progress. Step back for a second and really take a look at how your state's educational system is structured, look at the levels of bureaucracy in even the local districts, perhaps even in your school.

I am no fan of school vouchers, nor do I think private schools are any better on the whole than public schools, but look at the institutional obstacles in place - there's no recognition and reward for outstanding work on an individual level - I was constantly angered that 35% of the teachers in my last school got bonuses for work they had no part in. I left the classroom because I went completely off the top of the pay scale by taking a private sector position - a pay jump that would have taken another 15 years, no matter what efforts I made in the system.Such institutional mandates make it less likely that driven, talented people will join the profession in the first place, and that many will leave as they realize that motivation, effort and innovation are not recognized nor rewarded.

Posted by: Brett | March 13, 2008 9:29 AM

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

"The world is becoming smaller and smaller and smaller, and we need to compete with others for jobs. We need to be sure we know as much as they do. When we complain about homework, we need to know people in other parts of the world are doing more homework. It just needs to be done."

It was pretty awesome to see the sixth graders sit back in quiet shock with that quick dose of reality as their teacher explained the school day structure for students in Japan.

Also, kudos to her for building her students' skill at synthesizing information and making and supporting their own judgments.

"Students in Japan don't typically interrupt class by asking a lot of questions. If a student has a question, he/she asks the teacher after class. But I like it when you guys ask questions. When you're learning about a new culture, think about what you like about it and what you don’t like. Keep all of those things in mind."

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whenever I saw a new piece of artwork hung up in the school hall, or when the school purchased a new fleet of Chevy Malibus, I would get petty and think to myself: They could have just added that to my paycheck. I imagine that is so at most schools. A lot of money is spent on stuff that doesn't necessarily add direct or close-indirect value to student learning-- a lot of money that could have been added to my paycheck.

Now, an up-and-coming New York City charter school is doing just that. No, they're not adding to my paycheck per se, but they're scrimping and saving and focusing their funds on stuff that direct has an impact on student learning. They plan to scrimp and save so much, they are holding themselves accountable to paying teachers a whopping $125,000 salary.

"The school will open with seven teachers and 120 students, most of them from low-income Hispanic families. At full capacity, it will have 28 teachers and 480 students. It will have no assistant principals, and only one or two social workers. Its classes will have 30 students. In an inversion of the traditional school hierarchy that is raising eyebrows among school administrators, the principal will start off earning just $90,000. In place of a menu of electives to round out the core curriculum, all students will take music and Latin. Period.

While the notion of raising teacher pay to attract better candidates may seem simple, the issue is at the crux of policy debates rippling through school systems nationwide, over how teachers should be selected, compensated and judged, and whether teacher quality matters more than, say, class size."

Increasing pay is fabulous, especially in terms of getting high-performing teachers to teach in high-needs areas. Apparently, finding the funds to pay teachers the salary they deserve is possible, and a necessary component to getting talented teachers to stay in the field.

I can't help but wonder, however, if this is something that can happen at a nationwide scale where not every teacher is great. As with most things in the education world, this school leads us back to the question of: How do we teach all teachers to be great?

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm technically working, and shouldn't be, say, scanning The New York Times homepage. And I definitely shouldn't be publicizing my non-productivity. But I am and I will. Check out the article on the negative impact of TVs in children's bedrooms.

According to the article, "Children with bedroom TVs score lower on school tests and are more likely to have sleep problems. Having a television in the bedroom is strongly associated with being overweight and a higher risk for smoking."

"In one two-year study, the devices in half the homes were programmed to reduce children’s overall viewing time by half. (Children had to use a code to turn on any TV in the home, and the code stopped working once the allocated TV time for the week had been reached.)

Although all the children in the study gained weight as they grew, relative body mass index dropped among those with mandatory time limits. The researchers found that cutting into TV time did not increase exercise levels. Instead, the children snacked less, lowering their consumption more than 100 calories a day."

Just a thought: As educators, is it our responsibility to send out notices to parents about these new studies in order to better inform and encourage parents to make these changes? I wasn't one of the lucky children with a TV in my bedroom (or at least so I thought at 12), but I also don't know if my two working parents would have necessarily read the article or study on their own to help determine their decisions.

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I read the illustrious The New York Times' extensive article, "Teaching Boys and Girls Separately" once on Friday, again on Saturday, and twice more Sunday. I had to be sure that my sense of underwhelmed-ness and disappointment was genuine. It was. It still is.

Perhaps I'm asking too much from an article (I don't think I am), but it could have easily been summed up as: A headline-grabbing theory that people claim makes a significant difference on student learning, but lacks actual hard proof. However, the theory does have with warm and fuzzy anecdotes about kids. And everyone love kids.

In fact, I think it could have more accurately used the same interviews and investigation to more explicitly say this: A headline-grabbing theory that may or may not work with all students. But it doesn't really matter, because those warm and fuzzy anecdotes about kids and classrooms really just further prove that what we really need are good teachers-- not single-sex classrooms.

That's what I got out of the article at least. All the positive examples they give about where single-sex education indirectly suggest that good teachers are the ones responsible for the gains. Sure, those classrooms saw great results in their students, but they also had already high-performing teachers vying for those classes, as well as schools with extensive support and much greater academic requirements and structure throughout the day. All those factors seem to be consistent across the single-sex classrooms described at Foley Intermediate School, the Young Women’s Leadership School in East Harlem, and the Excellence Charter School in Brooklyn-- three schools described extensively throughout the article for their high student performance. My question is-- why couldn't that have been discussed explicitly?

What makes me more anxious is the suggested silver bullet to close the achievement gap:

"...there’s no doubt that public schools are failing poor minority students in general and poor minority boys in particular. Despite six years of No Child Left Behind, the achievement gaps between rich and poor students and white and black students have not significantly narrowed. 'People are getting desperate' is how Benjamin Wright, chief administrative officer for the Nashville public schools, described the current interest in single-sex education to me. 'Coed’s not working. Time to try something else.'"

Fortunately for the article (and unfortunately for reality), Wright goes on to explain that single-sex classrooms don't all see significant results-- in part because of a lack of teacher engagement.

"Not all schools see great results from switching to a single-sex format. After transforming the Thurgood Marshall School in Seattle, Wright moved to Philadelphia to work on the district’s single-sex programs, and the results were rather modest, a fact Wright attributes to working both with middle- and high-school students and with less-engaged teachers. Other districts have started single-gender programs only to shut them down, as major logistical headaches outweighed the small academic gains. Lori Clark, principal at Jefferson Leadership Academies in Long Beach, Calif., which in 1999 became the first public middle school in the country to convert to a single-gender format, is in the process of reverting her school to coed. 'We just didn’t get the bang for the buck we’d been hoping for with our test scores,' Clark told me."

Posted by Jessica Shyu at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)