I ended my first entry of A Place at the Table with an invitation.

I hope you will pull up your chair and join me here at the table for some conversation.

Writing this blog for Teacher Magazine has been a gift. In 2003 I was invited to join the Center for Teaching Quality's Teacher Leader Network. It opened up a whole new professional world. I was a good teacher, but participating in TLN changed how I perceived the profession and my place in that profession. In 2007, Teacher Magazine offered me the opportunity to write under the TLN logo. It was an opportunity that I never expected, but it is time to move on now.
There are other voices that need to be heard. I've retired from my classroom and there are some new professional opportunities that I would like to explore. So, as I sit down at this table for the last time, I'd like to raise a glass and say thank you to some of the people who made it possible for me to have A Place at the Table.

• To Sheryl who so graciously introduced me into a community of teacher leaders.


• To Barnett and the CTQ staff who believe that teachers really are the true education experts and who work to elevate teacher voice.


• To my smart and committed TLN colleagues who have broadened my awareness and honed my thinking.


• To John who has ruthlessly edited my work and generously nurtured me as a writer.


• To my husband who has always believed in me, supported me, and who does the laundry so I can have time write.


• To my former teachers who ignited my curiosity and modeled excellence


• To my students who allowed me into their lives and minds.


• And finally to you, my readers, who have been willing to pull up a chair and join me at the table.

For twenty-eight years, I have been pursuing of knowledge for myself and my students. I'm not through with teaching and learning even though I have now retired. I'm looking forward to little less performance pressure and a little more time to be still, read, and reflect on what matters and why. As a teacher emeritus, I ready to embark on a new adventrue In Pursuit of Wisdom. You are welcome to join me on the journey.

Posted by Susan Graham at 1:47 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I spent Sunday afternoon talking to a new teacher, Anne Morgan. Anyone who has worked with new teachers is probably familiar with the Phases of First Year Teachers.

True to form, this new teacher feels she is reaching the end of her resources in the survival phase and is careening down the hill into the disillusionment phase. She is in her second month of teaching and is suffering from what mentors sometimes refer to as Black October. I've seen it so many times before and it didn't surprise me. But this was a new experience for a lot of reasons.

I've mentored on-line before, but I have never had a mentoring conversation on Skype. I could see the exhaustion in the slump of her shoulders and the near tears in her eyes. I could hear the weary sighs and the tremor in her voice. I kept wishing I could hug the monitor.

It was the first time I had ever mentored an international teacher. She is an American citizen who has world travel experience, and is is fluent in French and functional in Spanish. She had never been in South America before signing up to teach third graders in an English immersion classroom on the coast of Chile.

Most new teachers I work with come through a traditional teacher preparation program. A few are career switchers who went through alternative programs with abbreviated field experiences. Anne did summer session of introductory teacher prep courses; her field experience consisted of babysitting and sporadic substitute teaching.

Like many of the new teachers, Anne is young and just out of college. She is dealing with those experiences associated with a first full-time "grown up" job. In her case, those are complicated with immersion into a new culture. She's had to deal with immigration regulations and work permits. The job came with housing, but the housing came with two new roommates that she had never met. She has to figure out how get along, how to get around, where to buy things, how to use new currency, and a million other little everyday issues that go with adapting to an unfamiliar country.

Anne didn't have the luxury of the anticipation phase of first year teaching. She was offered the job on a Monday. She left for Chile the next Saturday. She reported to work the following Monday morning. Why the rush? Because she is a "replacement" teacher. Her Chilean students are beginning their 3rd quarter. Taking on a class mid-year is a challenge for a seasoned veteran--it's a staggeringly difficult job for a rookie.

Anne's worried about classroom management. She says they talk too much, but she also says that after a month they are listening more. She is sometimes overwhelmed by parents with high expectations and small concerns, but she makes herself available even when communication is difficult. She says that she struggles to meet the needs of all learners, but she was proud of developing differentiated activities that are beginning to engage her struggling learners. She's exhausted, but she stays up late trying to planning with lessons and grading papers. She tells me that she wants to scream most days, but that she loves her kids.

So talked about what works and what doesn't. We identified the issues had a real impact student learning. We explored ways to motivate those reluctant learners. We analyzed which classroom management issues were priorities and which ones might not matter so very much. We enumerated and celebrated her successes--because sometimes new teachers are so concerned about what went wrong that they forget how often it went right. We managed to laugh a little.

She told me that she felt better. I told her how much I love her. No, that's not standard mentor communication, but there's one more unique thing about this mentor/mentee relationship. This new teacher, Anne Morgan, isn't just a new teacher. Annie is my god daughter. I am so proud that she is committed to becoming a teacher who makes a difference and I can only imagine what a challenge this must be. Teaching is such demanding physical, emotional and intellectual work; and it may be the most important and gratifying work there is. Surviving that first year is hard for any teacher. Surviving it against these odds is a Herculean task, but I think she can do it. I hope so, because the the world needs teachers who are willing to make a difference.

A Note to Readers: In 2007, Teacher Magazine gave me a public voice with A Place at the Table. I've retired from my classroom and now it is time to step away from this space and make room for other voices to be heard. I've invested a great deal of time an energy as an educator in the pursuing knowledge. Now, in retirement, I think I'm ready to expand that quest. If you have the time and inclination, you are invited to join me In Pursuit of Wisdom.

Posted by Susan Graham at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I love trivia games.

My favorite TV show is Jeopardy. Have you ever noticed when a player seems to have trouble working their buzzer? I found out about that. You can't buzz in until Alex finishes the question. It's not enough to know the answer. You have to have fast reflexes and a sense of timing. In fact, I've noticed that some of the best players buzz in first without knowing the answer, but anticipating that they can figure it out before their time runs out. One could argue that speed may matter more than knowledge in some cases. Buzzer insufficiency is my excuse for never trying out for the show.

I don't usually listen to the radio, but I love NPR's Wait Wait....Don't Tell Me. I regularly pull it up on my computer and listen. Wait Wait is an interesting contrast to Jeopardy because the right answer is secondary, there is no buzzer that cuts you off when time is up, there is no penalty for being wrong, and the prizes are minimal. It's the engagement of the game that motivates the player and appeals to the listener.

Wait Wait is more about wondering than knowing. The possibilities are more engaging than the absolutes. It's also interesting that there is only one short segment, the Fill in the Blank Lightening Round, that is timed at all. Most game shows are about reaching the goal of winning a prize by providing the correct response faster than the other contestants. Wait Wait is more about the thinking out loud journey of problem solving than arriving at the "right" answer.

As I listened this week, I thought about wait time in the classroom. Wait time is one of the hardest things about teaching. Mary Budd Rowe's research on wait time revealed that teacher wait time between asking a question and redirecting was often less than 1.5 seconds. But when wait time was extended to a minimum of 3 seconds these differences occurred.

For students:
The length and correctness of their responses increase.
The number of "I don't know" and no answer responses decreases.
The number of volunteered, appropriate answers by larger numbers of students greatly increases.
The scores of students of academic achievement tests tend to increase.

For teachers:
Their questioning strategies tend to be more varied and flexible.They decrease the quantity and increase the quality and variety of their questions.
They ask additional questions that require more complex information processing and higher-level thinking on the part of students.

When I talk to teachers these days, they often mentioned feeling rushed. They have so much content to cover, they need to keep up with the pacing guide, they need to keep everyone motivated, and they need to make sure the kids are ready for that big test. Recalling the teacher's information is so much faster than taking time for students to puzzle out their own understanding.

There's probably not a teacher out there who has never had a student say "Wait, wait. Don't tell me!" Wait time is a hard skill to learn and in our current teaching and learning environment, there is a great deal of pressure to move on and move faster. It may be counter-intuitive, but sometimes the longer you wait, the faster they learn.

Posted by Susan Graham at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I have mixed feelings about Education Nation's panel with students.

First of all, I wonder if these six young people, only three of which are currently enrolled in P-12 schools, are really a clear reflection of student perspective. And while his contributions to education are admirable, I didn't really understand why a professional athlete was included in the panel group. At times it seems that Ann Curry's questions tended to lead the students to endorse certain positions and as she summarized, she seemed to do a great deal of interpreting what they said. But eventually, the young people began to talk more freely. As they sort of took control of the discussion, they spoke from their hearts; and when they did that, do you know what their conversation centered around? Their teachers.

Lisa Neilsen at The Innovative Educator summarized the panel in as 20 Things Students Want the Nation to Know About Education. I acknowledge that she may have imposed her own perspective in identifying what the top twenty points were; but having watched the panel myself, she wasn't far off.

Since Curry took some liberties in directing the conversation and Neilsen took some liberties in summarizing as well, I've taken the liberty of rearranging her list by categories and here's my take on the list. Here's how I sorted what these young people had to say:

About Community:

• The community should become more involved in schools
• Even if you don't want to be a teacher, you can offer a student an apprenticeship.

About Curriculum and Instruction:

• We learn in different ways and at different rates
• Teaching by the book is not teaching, it's just talking.
• Us youth love all the new technologies that come out. When you acknowledge this and use technology in your teaching it makes learning much more interesting.
• We appreciate it when you connect with us in our worlds such as the teacher who provided us with extra help using Xbox and Skype.
• Bring the electives that we are actually interested in back to school. Things like drama, art, cooking, music.
• You need to use tools in the classroom that we use in the real world like Facebook, email, and other tools we use to connect and communicate.

About Teachers:

• I can't learn from you if you are not willing to connect with me.
• Caring about each student is more important than teaching the class.
• Every young person has a dream. Your job is to help bring us closer to our dreams.
• We need more than teachers. We need life coaches.
• You should be trained not just in teaching but also in counseling.
• Tell me something good that I'm doing so that I can keep growing in that.
• When you can feel like a family member it helps so much.
• Our teachers have too many students to enable them to connect with us in they way we need them to.
• You need to love a student before you can teach a student.

About Reform:

• I have to think critically in college, but your tests don't prepare me to do that.
• Education leaders, teachers, funders, and policy makers need to start listening to student voice in all areas, including teacher evaluations.
• We do the tests to make teachers look good and the school look good, but we know they don't help us learn what's important to us.

The list was both encouraging, heartbreaking at the same time. These kids know what they need and can articulate it. They want education to be relevant to the world in which they live. And they want to make that world a better place.

But above everything else, they talked about teachers. Specifically, those teachers who make a difference. One was named Mrs. Murphy and they all had a Mrs. Murphy in their life. They all identified the importance of a relationship with teachers who acknowledged students as people; who listen and care about the dreams of those student/people; and who help students acquire the knowledge and skills they need to realize those dreams. These are not the ambitions or dreams of education pundits, policymakers, school administrators, or those teachers. They are the dreams of students themselves, just like those on the stage---whether the dream was to be a builder, a dramatist, a business owner, a president, a journalist, or a teacher. One young man said "Every student has a dream and with the right teacher, they can get as close to dream possible."

And the interesting thing is that they saw teachers as being powerful enough to help them do that. What power! What trust! Students believe their teachers can help them make their dreams come true. Or perhaps even more important, since most of us don't realize the full extent of our dreams, some meaningful adaptation of their dreamscape--a viision balanced by reality. Why? Because they know their teachers and their teachers know them. "You have to love a student before you can teach a student." It is a breathtaking, if, perhaps, unrealistic expectation, but I believe that it is the inspiration that lead most teachers to invest their career in the classroom.

Don't decisionmakers realize that the possibility of that impact is what motivates us? That we push back against some policies not because we're afraid of accountability but because we believe that our first accountability is to our students and their dreams? I am not saying that teachers are all knowing, but I have to wonder, "Can policymakers really know what's best for students if they do not love them as individuals, and how can they love them if they do not look into their individual faces, listen to their personal thoughts, and share their unique dreams?"

Trust their teachers to know them, to love them, and to help them accomplish their dreams. Students do and they know us.

Posted by Susan Graham at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

News from our nation's capital:

The District's rates of childhood obesity, sexually transmitted disease and teen pregnancy are among the country's highest.

For several years

Periodic surveys have detailed student attitudes toward risky behavior, but officials said the annual test will fill gaps in their understanding of what young people know and why they might behave the way they do.

So, you'll be relieved to know that

D.C. public and public charter schools, which annually test student progress in reading and math, will also measure what they know about human sexuality, contraception and drug use starting this spring. The 50-question exam will be the nation's first statewide standardized test on health and sex education, according to the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, which developed the assessment for grades 5, 8 and 10.

To be fair, I went to look at the sample questions provided at both the 5th and 12th grade level which were drawn from the Council of Chief State School Officers compiled list of more than 2,000 potential test questions for a health education assessment project. I answered 8 of the 9 questions correctly, scoring 88% which, in most school systems, is a B. I found out that I was not smarter than a 5th grader when it came to smoking. Here's the question I missed:

6. Advertisements for cigarettes may convey all of the following messages EXCEPT that smoking cigarettes:

• is a way to make friends.
• enhances athletic performance.
• makes a person popular.
• is difficult to quit.

I wasn't sure how the average DC 5th grader was going to figure it out.

First of all, I wondered, how many kids would be real clear on what the question meant by "convey"--especially if English was not their first language.

Then I wondered to which advertisements the question was referring. The question says "advertisements for cigarettes", which is different than "advertisements about cigarettes." This matters a lot because it is quite possible that students have seen more advertisements "about" than "for" and it is quite possible that those "about" ads were promoting non-smoking. Why? The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 placed strong limitations on all tobacco advertising and prohibited TV advertisement, but has invested heavily in non-smoking TV campaigns on those networks where young people are frequent viewers.

So if they weren't seeing them on TV, where were they encountering cigarette advertisements? Magazines? Most teachers will tell you that there are a limited number of print periodicals in our students' homes, especially children of low income families. But in response to National Institute of Health research on cigarette advertising many major magazines including Time, Newsweek, People and Sports Illustrated eliminated cigarette ads from school library editions in 2003--before those 5th graders ever started kindergarten.

So what does that leave? Billboards? I'm just not sure that the average 10 year old spends a lot of time analyzing the subliminal suggestions created by top advertising firms for tobacco product billboards as they fly by the window of the car. I've been watching for a couple of days, and I've seen no advertisements for tobacco products on the internet.

I'm going to be professional and diplomatic and say that the intent of the question may be somewhat unclear due to word choices; that the alternatives provided require an inappropriate expectation of deductive literary analysis for the targeted student population; and that some students may have insufficient exposure to multiple forms of tobacco advertising to make an informed judgment.

All that it is educationese for "this is really sort of a dumb question." If it tells us anything, it may provide some indication of how much children grasp about persuasive speech based on visual literacy. But it is unlikely that it will provide any real information about the likelihood of a child's future use of tobacco.

But here's the really interesting thing: There is a mindset that if young people can just learn the answers to these questions, they will make wise choices about eating habits, sexual relationships, substance abuse, and interpersonal relationships. Teachers can teach them the content and even the test questions, but knowing the answers is not the same thing as applying the knowledge in life. If just knowing the answers to the questions was all we needed, there would be no doctors in rehab facilities, there would be no scientists that smoke, there would be no lawyers entangled in paternity suits, there would be no coaches or retired athletes who were overweight and out of shape.

We will not change performance by memorizing the answers. Not in sex education or any other course. It's a smoke screen that serves administrative and policy purposes, but it doesn't help kids very much. When are policymakers going to figure that out?

Posted by Susan Graham at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I teach.
I taught.
I will teach.

Not any more. As of today I lost two of those verb tenses. I'm down to I taught. School started yesterday and I'm not there. I am retired.

For the first time in twenty-three years, I did not carefully lay out my "back to school" outfit the night before. I did not double check the alarm clock--worried that I wouldn't get up on time. I did not have a knot in the pit of my stomach like an actor on opening night. I did not stand on the bus ramp helping students find their way to their homeroom. I did not try out how to pronounce names. I did not distribute the required course syllabus. I did not reassure any sixth graders that it's okay that they don't know how to read a schedule or open a locker. I did not monitor the back hall as the buses loaded at the end of the day. Today I did not teach. Tomorrow I will not teach. I taught for twenty-eight years. Past tense. Today was the first day that I really and truly realized that I am retired and that I teach and I will teach are no longer in my lexicon of common usage.

I'm not sorry. It was time to go. I wanted to leave while I still loved it and while students and colleagues still said, "Oh no, are you really going to retire?" I'm not through with education; there are still a lot of opportunities to work with teachers and on policy. But I am keenly aware of how much I will miss watching children evolve into young adults in my classroom and my role in cultivating their minds. I find I am asking myself, "Did it matter? Will anyone remember?"

John Steinbeck was in his 50's when,remembering his teacher, he wrote;

She left her signature upon us.
The literature of the teacher who writes on children's minds.
I've had many teachers who taught us soon forgotten things,
But only a few like her who created in me a new thing, a new attitude, a new hunger.
I suppose that to a large extent I am the unsigned manuscript of that teacher.
What deathless power lies in the hands of such a person.

From the first time I read those words, I knew that was the teacher I wanted to be. I want my former students to approach the everyday tasks of living as creative expressions rather than mundane chores. I want them to remember to appreciate the application of knowledge in living; to see food, shelter and clothing as expressions of beauty and statements of their individuality

In the grocery store, in the doctor's office, with their own children in tow, former students confront me asking

"Do you remember me?"

Yes, I do.

And I am affirmed--It mattered. I left my signature is on them in some way. But I've come to realized that while I was hoping to write myself into their lives, each of them has signed the manuscript of my career. They have done more than written their names, they have written the story of my life work.

I am no longer a classroom teacher; that chapter of my of my life is closing. But I will not linger in the past tense. There are new challenges and new opportunities. And who knows how the story will end?

Posted by Susan Graham at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It's been a busy week here on our hill fifty miles south of the nation's capitol. Tuesday we had an earthquake. A bookcase overturned, some china was broken and some pictures fell off the wall. Thursday we had a tropical storm with 90 mile per hour winds, 1.3 inches of rain, and 40-something lightning strikes in two hours. The power went out, some good size branches came down, fire from the sky blasted the top out of one tree (which landed on the neighbor's house), and a big oak crashed down in the woods behind our house and toppled into the ravine. Friday we had to gather limbs and sticks and rake and mow up the leaves.

Yesterday Irene blew through with more rain and wind. My petunias are beat up, that nice urn on the back porch tipped over and cracked, and, for almost eight hours I went without power which meant I couldn't check my email or watch the weather channel to see if it there was still a storm outside. Thank goodness I had my iPhone, my flashlight, and a good book.

So much for disaster and hard times in my life.

But you know what? I didn't get much else done this week. It's true I had messes to clean up, but the biggest problem was my level of distraction. Of course there wasn't much we could have done about the earthquake. Who knew? One minute I was standing in a store and the next minute merchandise was rolling around and everyone was running for the parking lot where we watched out cars bouncing up and down. But the hurricane was another story. Everyone on the East Coast knew it was coming. An enormous amount of time, energy, and money was invested in preparing for disaster. After all, better to be safe than sorry and really, it was foolish not to prepare when the probability of disaster was so high. So shelters were set up, provisioned and opened, and public officials stood in front of the cameras promising safe harbor until the storm and danger had passed.

According to data released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in its annual report over the last decade there has been a significant decline in economic well-being for low income children and families. The official child poverty rate, which is a conservative measure of economic hardship, increased 18 percent between 2000 and 2009, essentially returning to the same level as the early 1990s. This increase means that 2.4 million more children are living below the federal poverty line. Data also reveals the impact of the job and foreclosure crisis on children. In 2010, 11 percent of children had at least one unemployed parent and 4 percent have been affected by foreclosure since 2007....In 2009, 42 percent of our nation's children, or 31 million, lived in families with incomes below twice the federal poverty line or $43,512/year for a family of four, a minimum needed for most families to make ends meet.

NEWS FLASH:

• When a family is struggling to put food on the table at the end of the month, there's not a lot of money laying around for uniforms, diorama or science project supplies, or AP tests.
• When a parent is trying desperately to find work or hold on to two part-time jobs to keep a family afloat, they don't have time to research multiple school options, jump through the hoops of getting their child enrolled in a "good school", provide transportation to that school or promise to volunteer at school.
• When kids don't know whether or not they'll have a home next week, they may have a hard time focusing on schoolwork - and it doesn't much matter whether a hurricane or foreclosure is the cause.

Thousands of people stayed glued to their TVs this weekend wondering if, when, and how Hurricane Irene would create disaster. The vast majority of us survived the storm with little more than some inconvenience.

Yet, almost half of our nation's children are endangered by the crisis of family instability and lack of economic security. Now that is real disaster for now and the future. It's not a possibility, it's a certainty. And it's not a temporary situation, it's a permanent one. And it will be a disaster not only for these children, but for our government, our economy and for those of us who live quite comfortably removed from the point of impact. We will all be affected.

Some stakeholders have taken the position that our schools should serve as sort of emergency shelters, with the school staff cast the role of relief workers. But school as shelter from poverty and family disruption is a solution that is neither functional nor sustainable. While a shelter may help children survive, it is unlikely that most will thrive in such a setting. Nor is it realistic to assume that a school faculty can function in the dual role of full time relief workers and full time educators without burning out after a few years. Superman is a myth. He's not coming. Teachers are people with lives and families of their own. "Sheltering in place" at school doesn't address the reality that a shelter is usually a last resort. People are hesitant to come in because they must give up their independence and take on the role of supplicant.

Most of our schools are already serving as part time emergency shelters for too many children. We feed them. We deal with their health issues. We provide safe after-school environments. We quietly see to it that they have school supplies. We "find" coats for those who don't have one. We counsel parents who need help accessing social services.

Our schools are holding their own and making progress in helping children prepare for what lies ahead. One could argue that they are doing so against almost impossible odds.
Schools have been and will continue to be shelters and safe havens for children. But it is disingenuous to pretend that they can address their primary function of education while attempting to address the dual disaster of poverty and dysfunctional family circumstances.

Last night the President addressed the lingering effects of Hurricane Irene's passage, saying, "I want people to understand that this is not over. The impacts of this storm will be felt for some time, and the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer."

Hurricane Irene was a drop in the bucket compared to our current poverty rate among our children, and if we don't do something about it, we are headed into the eye of a storm from which we may never recover as a nation.

Posted by Susan Graham at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The business page of Sunday's paper featured a full page story of two young entrepreneurs. One of them was James Adams. I teach with his mom, he lives in my neighborhood and I've known him since he was born. I couldn't wait to talk to him.

When I finally caught up with him today, James was on the road to Tennessee. He's at the cusp of one of life's big adventures—his freshman year of college. He'll be moving into his dorm at Sewanee: The University of the South. It's one of the highly selective Mid-Atlantic liberal arts universities affectionately known as part of the Kudzu Ivy League. The rich cultural and academically demanding climate of Sewanee's very traditional university community will suit James.

But today was a big day for James in another way. His business, Southern Ties, is about to go retail and he and his partner are launching their new fall product line. At eighteen, James is an entrepreneur as well as a college student. When James first told me about his foray into clothing production, I admit that I was surprised. I asked about the inspiration and motivation behind his entry into the men's accessory market and he explained that it was a school project.

James attended the Commonwealth Governor's School, a school-within-a-school program for academically talented and gifted students, which serves about 500 students, grades 9 through 12, at five sites in three counties. His four academic core classes were taught within the Governor's School with the other three periods in host neighborhood high school. The program overview states that the Governor's School is designed to allow students to

...[A]chieve a deep conceptual understanding of a discipline as well as its integration with other disciplines...through opportunities to experiment, analyze information critically, make conjectures and argue their validity, and solve real world problems both individually and in groups....and develop technology skills for effective communication, investigation, and presentation.

James explained that each year there was an independent culminating project that was a major component of student performance. He told me about how, as a freshman, he was expected to create a project proposal. With a strong interest in architecture, his proposal was for a visionary eco-friendly high school. As a sophomore, the expectation was that he would design a project plan. His plan for a West Coast version of the Epcot Center began to require theory to mesh with the pragmatism of functionalism and development. By the time he was a junior, the real world problem chosen required a business plan. James began to refine big dreams into feasible realities with his plan for a bookstore/bistro. As a senior, James was expected to turn proposals, designs, and business plans into a product and the result was Southern Ties. I asked him why he chose this project he told me he had a growing interest in business. I asked him, as a businessman, what he expected as return on his investment of creativity, knowledge, effort and time. His answer—"I wanted an A."

James had done his research, designed his product, built a business plan and created a website and half a dozen sample ties. He was surprised when a merchant in Tennessee contacted him and ask if he could deliver two dozen ties in less than a week. His project had taken on its own life. Now, three months later and his ties are available at two stores and on-line. He and his partner have contracted out production and are planning to expand the product line. His project has become a viable small business.

We talked about the sequence of these projects and how they had funneled from big ideas to achievable realities. We laughed about the fact that he didn't learn to sew in my class because he was a band kid and only got to stay in FACS class for three weeks. His partner's mom helped them with sewing. James told me that he had to teach himself how to create his website because he had never taken a computer technology course. He was in Governor's School and there really wasn't much time electives. We agreed that it was ironic that the success of his academic program project was dependent on teaching himself skills that were available in Career and Technical Education courses available in his school.

There is an enormous amount of talk about college and career readiness in public education. I look at James and see a success story of a conceptual academic learner who has grounded his abstract understandings with concrete applications. He distilled big ideas into real life solutions. But there are other students who process learning the other way around. Only after they acquire and concrete skill are they interested in exploring the academic background that increase their expertise. Maybe, for these students, success lies in using practical skills as the foundation for expanding learning.

In the discussion of college and career readiness, education stakeholders sometimes get caught up in determining which ought to come first, preparation for college or preparation for career. That's a chicken or the egg argument. James found success by distilling his big picture knowledge into a small business action plan. Another student might expand his knowledge of physics and math to enhance his mechanical drafting skills. Both are viable paths can to college and career readiness, both are valuable and both should be offered as equally desirable options to all students.

Posted by Susan Graham at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

As a Family and Consumer Science teacher in a public middle school, I'm not sure whether to be mad, sad, or glad. It seems that in The Education Review edition of The Washington Post Magazine my content area is one of the three feature stories. In Learning for Life, I read that

Sewing. Woodworking. Etiquette. Personal finance. Cooking. All are valuable life skills.

Yes they are! That's why they are all, except for the woodworking, part of my middle school Family and Consumer Science curriculum.
curriculum.

We sew. Not because these kids will be whipping up their own wardrobes, but so they can participate in a workplace simulation where they are expected to demonstrate and assess their management of time, resources, equipment, and interpersonal workplace skills. We sew so that they can apply math skills, read and interpret instructions, develop spatial concepts critical to engineering and see how simple machines (gears, levers, wedges, pulleys) have been employed to produce results. Oh, and we also talk about the economic benefits and drawbacks related to the outsourcing clothing manufacturing

strong>We learn etiquette; which is primarily about the mores which allow some people to move easily through society and the world of work and creates barriers for others. As assistant manager for the day, my students learn to answer the phone with "Good afternoon, this is Mrs. Graham's classroom." But we also learn manners, which is a more complex idea of how we related to our classmates, our families, and our larger community. Etiquette is about the rules. Etiquette is about knowing the appropriate responses under specific conditions. Manners is about the mindset of thinking about the comfort and convenience of those around us. It may very well be one of life's most important lessons.

We learn personal finance. My sixth graders can write a check and balance their checkbooks and give a clear explanation of the difference between debit and credit. My seventh graders can comparison shop balancing quality against price to make informed decisions within a limited budget. My eighth graders set up ratios to determine unit prices.

We cook. And while my students love to cook and eat, that's not enough. In addition to technical writing skills and applied math skills, we explore the connection of science to everyday life; baking bread products using physical, chemical and biological processes and analyzing heat energy transfer on the range and wave theory with the microwave. We learn about nutrition as we interpret food labels. We explore the Columbian Exchange that introduced potatoes, tomatoes and peppers to Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Sewing. Woodworking. Etiquette. Personal finance. Cooking. All are valuable life skills. Few are taught in school....But there is an alternative industry of classes for these non-academic skills that kids are expected to pick up by the time they finish high school.

Could the idea that academic knowledge is separate and apart from application to real life problems be a pretty obvious explanation of why we have trouble engaging all students? Wouldn't it make sense to conceptual knowledge and application together seamlessly?

And, since these are >"skills that kids are expected to pick up by the time the finish high school" aren't they just as important as maybe that fourth year of higher math or the third year of foreign language? Those matter, but which is more critical--calculus or cooking dinner?

The classes come in the form of after-school lessons and summer camps and provide much peace of mind to parents....

But if this is "an alternative industry" doesn't that indicate that it is going to be accessible only to those children whose parents can afford the luxury of after-school classes and summer camps? Since we know that poor nutrition and obesity, lack of soft workplace skills, and the constraints of surviving on a low income in home situations where parents are unable to provide learning support impede the progress of children of poverty, wouldn't it make sense to teach these basic life skills to all of our children? By isolating this learning in the industry of after-school and summer camp, haven't we also limited enrollment to those children whose parents have the resources to identify options, transport kids, and pick up the bill? As a society, wouldn't we all have a little more "peace of mind" if we new that all our children had the "non-academic skills that kids are expected to pick up by the time they finish high school"?

The classes come in the form of after-school lessons and summer camps, and provide much peace of mind to parents who wonder why home economics and shop classes have been phased out of so many school systems.

The truth is that we all know children and their parents want these learning opportunities and that we ought to be teaching skills for living well. But the harder truth is that this kind of learning experience just isn't as cost effective as traditional classroom instruction. Building and equipping a food preparation lab demands more resources than an empty classroom with 30 student desks and a whiteboard. Class size matters when fire, knives and scissors are in use. You can't teach cooking without a budget for consumables.

We can't give our own children every educational opportunity we'd like. Right or wrong, if we can't do that for our own family, we're not going to do it for other people's children. So we are faced with tough consumer decisions. We will have to determine what is essential for a life well lived and what is enrichment for personal and professional advancement.

I would argue that those life skills that prepare us for daily living are more than just icing on the cake.

Posted by Susan Graham at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

John Merrow sends his regrets:

I won't be reporting from Saturday's Save Our Schools March and Rally because my young granddaughters (and their parents) are visiting from Barcelona,

I totally understand Mr. Merrow. I'm a grandparent too and time with grandchildren is precious.

Jay Mathews, nationally recognized education pundit at The Washington Post apparently will not be able make it either. He titled yesterday's blog: School march won't unite us, but so what? I'm sure he didn't mean to sound dismissive. He must have thought about coming since he wrote

If I were at the "Save Our Schools" march around the White House, my sign would say "Bring Us Together." Too many of us who care about schools are picking at each other, but maybe I am expecting too much... Some of us want to focus on what is happening in classrooms.

The Post offices are only a few miles from the White House, so Jay knows just how miserably hot and humid it will be out there Saturday. But I guess I'm a little confused about the identity of the "some of us" to which he refers. Which ones of us comprise that "some of us?"

I'm also a little surprised by his choice of sign slogans. "Bring Us Together" seems a little inconsistent with Mathew's usual willingness to live up to his blog's name, Class Struggle. In most cases, he's not shy about taking a position. Just last year he was consistently and adamantly supportive of Michelle Rhee's themes of "Go Hard or Go Home." I don't recall him encouraging compromise as she closed schools and fired principals and teachers. When there were accounting errors, testing irregularities, teacher firings, union busting, politicization of her office, and incendiary comments in the press he seemed to agree that "sometimes you just have to break a few eggs to make an omelet." While I agree that it seems "...we rarely meet each other halfway," it seems that "all of us" and not just "some of us" might need to be less focused on compliance and a little more open to compromise.

Fortunately, Valarie Strauss, Jay's colleague at The Washington Post who blogs at The Answer Sheet, will be there, in her capacity of education opinion writer. And even though John Merrow will be busy with the grandkids, he posted that

...it's likely that PBS NewsHour will have a presence there. I regret missing the event, because I expect I would recognize a lot of people there. I wish everyone well.

I have a question, however. The acronym SOS is catchy and convenient -- the internationally recognized cry for help. But what are protestors hoping to save our schools FROM? And, just as important, what are they FOR?

The "catchy and convenient SOS acronym" is indeed a cry for help. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the message that educators, parents, and other supporters are trying to communicate is this. We need to Save Our Ship of public education. It is the great equalizer that has made America the land of opportunity for those who were born here and those who arrived here from distance shores. There's no question that public education is floundering in rough water. War weary from the Policy Wars it is battered. Its crew of teachers have been under attack and they are disheartened and battle weary. And our passengers, America's children, are at risk. With good intentions, it seems as if some stakeholders have seized on a different interpretation of SOS. They appear to believe the message is "Sink Our Ship of public education. It's expensive and there's too many aged and overpaid crew members. We could load the passengers into lifeboats and inflatable rafts. They're young and can make do. And while most of them are Waiting for Superman, we try floating some new experimental boats. Meanwhile we can condemn the old tub, sell it as scrap metal, maybe turn a profit on the deal."
Unless I misunderstand, this is misguided mission that these protesters are hoping to save our schools FROM. They believe that in the last twenty years we've wandered off course, unsuccessfully experimenting with other people's children and attempting to privatize public education.

Because Merrow's HUFFPOST piece linked to the Save Our Schools website, I was surprised that he didn't find the answer to his second question--"More important, what are they FOR?" If you go to the site you'll see a tool bar that says About. Pull that down and you'll see Guiding Principles. Click on that to find this list of what these teachers, parents, and supporters are FOR:

• Equitable funding for all public school communities
• An end to high stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation
• Teacher, family and community leadership in forming public education policies
• Curriculum developed for and by local school communities

The site goes into more details if you're interested and I'm surprised John missed it.
But, he did write that

I regret missing the event, because I expect I would recognize a lot of people there. I wish them well.

I hope the organizers who invested so much of their own time, money, and heart don't take nonattendance on Saturday means non-interest because I, too have to RSVP with great regret. After twenty-eight years in the classroom, I have bad feet and two artificial knees and I can't handle the heat and crowds. I expect that I, too, would recognize a lot of people there. I am so proud and blessed to claim you as colleagues. You know who you are.

I hope policymakers, stakeholders and the media understand that it isn't just a protest about testing, tenure and retirement. Teachers aren't asking for help, they are offering help in response to the distress signal that stakeholders have been sending ever since A Nation At Risk was published. The SOS agenda is doing what's best for our children and their development. SOS marchers realize that 20% of our children live in poverty and to say that hunger, inadequate medical care, unsafe neighborhoods and dysfunctional families are not excuses is inexcusable. Practitioners and parents know instruction that is driven by the data from a single sitting test is developmentally inappropriate and it doesn't prepare children to develop their own answers to the challenges of an unknown future. Participants see the unanticipated consequences when theoretical policy plans collide with the realities of implementation in the field. They know these things because they are the ones who see the faces of children not flowcharts and spreadsheets.

SOS marchers coming from all across America because they care about the children in their classrooms.They are not a problem to be dealt with or a distraction to be dismissed with "so what?" They are the first wave of an army of 4 million highly educated and motivated citizens in small towns, urban centers and suburban neighborhood. If our nation is serious about saving our schools, it is time to invite teachers to the policy table.

[Editorial note: Education Week Teacher is not affiliated with the Save Our Schools event; the views expressed in this opinion blog do not reflect the endorsement of Education Week or Editorial Projects in Education, which take no editorial positions.]

Posted by Susan Graham at 2:58 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend