A Place at the Table

What's Around the Bend?

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:44:04 -0500

In my community, our schools are our polling places, so Tuesday was a teacher workday. I had just arrived when Gheorge came by my room. Gheorge is a new citizen, and the week he took his oath of allegiance, we all celebrated with him. Back in Romania, Gheorge taught violin at the school where he worked. In our school he empties the trash and sweeps.

"Mrs. Graham, I am here to tell you, today I am a real American. Today I vote for President of my new country, because here in America we are free and we are not afraid. God bless America, Mrs. Graham!

This election was destined to change history, regardless of the outcome. A man of mixed race born in Hawaii, and a mother of five living in Alaska, ran for President and Vice President of the United States of America. Alaska and Hawaii weren't states when I started school. I don't divulge my politics, but I suppose I just gave away my age; so it won't surprise you when I share the song that has been stuck in my head this week. Back in the '60s Momma Cass Elliott sang: There's a new world coming And it's just around the bend There's a new world coming This one's coming to an end There's a new voice calling You can hear it if you try And it's growing stronger With each day that passes by.... Some good people I know hear those words and celebrate the fulfillment of a dream. Some other good people I know hear those words and worry that we've lost our bearings. Like Gheorge, they are all real Americans -- whether they see a new day as a challenge to be overcome or an opportunity to be seized. America was built on the belief that the world we live should and can be changed in an orderly and civil manner. We have common goals even when we differ on how to accomplish those goals. It is inevitable that a "new world is coming," and aren't we privileged to have the opportunity to help shape it? As Gheorge puts it each day when he arrives to clean up my room: "God Bless America!"

Right or Left on Main Street?

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:29:48 -0500

Every year thousands of people come to Fredericksburg and the surrounding counties of Spotsylvania and Stafford to walk the grounds of Civil War battles. In 2008, our community finds itself in the unexpected position of a political battleground. In case you’ve been living in a cave, Virginia is one of the hotly contested “swing states” and our area, at the southern tip of the Washington, D.C. metroplex, may well be the hinge on which the Virginia electoral votes swing. On September 27th Barack Obama and Joe Biden visited the campus of the University of Mary Washington. Last week, on October 28th, Sarah Palin spoke in Hurkamp Park. In a spirit of fairness, God let it rain both events. However, that rain didn’t dampen the enthusiasm or water down the intense partisanship of anyone. I know because on Friday night, we dined with Democrats and on Saturday, we partied with Republicans. But my bridge group has agreed that it would be a bad idea to hold the regularly scheduled first Tuesday night of the month session, and my book club has called a ceasefire on candidate bashing. Here on Main Street, in a small but diverse community, politics can get personal and sometimes prickly. We saw the same tension at school this week as our students voted in a mock election. Each morning during announcements our principal reminded students to be respectful of the opinions and positions of their classmates and their classmates’ families. Political advertising encourages the public to vote based on a candidate’s “likeability” or to vote against the opposition candidate based on “dastardly former acts or future plots.” It’s not surprising that a great many students think of a Presidential election as a popularity contest or cast it in the athletic competitive framework of “us” and “them.” Enthusiasm and emotions are running high and students are looking for validation of their opinions from their teachers. I won't tell my students how I am going to vote, nor will most of my colleagues. Just as in most communities, teachers are expected to be politically neutral during the school day. Some teachers choose to make their classroom a politics-free zone. While I understand their desire to keep politics out of the classroom, I think it is important that students understand that in reality, everything in their lives is touched by the political process. When they ask who I’m voting for, I won’t answer, but I will engage them in discussion. Why do they think I might support one candidate or the other? I want them to talk about issues rather than personalities. And, if issues reflect the concerns of the people, shouldn’t both candidates be talking about the same topics? Instead of trying to shape the issues, shouldn’t candidates be addressing how they would shape solutions? Wouldn’t that be more productive than talking about each other? I hope that I can help my students understand that elections, regardless of what the advertisements tell us, are not so much about good guys and bad guys, they are about workable plans to address the needs of society equitably and efficiently.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
It’s not a politically neutral statement, and we cannot teach American History, American Government or American Literature -- or a host of other courses -- without talking about these principles on which our nation is founded. As teachers we are given the awesome responsibility of providing students access to the knowledge of past, the skills of communication, and the habits of critical thinking necessary to participate in self governance. I want them to believe in the good intentions of their fellow citizens. I hope they will understand that they are inheriting the privilege and obligation to keep sorting out what those words mean in today's world, and to move them from ideas to realities. As for how I vote, I will remain a political enigma. You decide........

Tuna Helper Teaching

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:58:16 -0500

It’s a Hamburger Helper World we’re living in these days. Times are hard and budgets are tight. People are eating out less and clipping coupons more. The weekly newspaper's Food supplement is featuring “stretching your food dollar” rather than “expanding your epicurean sensibilities.” While eating is a necessity, where we eat and what we eat is discretionary, so when a dollar needs squeezing, the food budget is one of the first categories to take a hit. Unfortunately, a lot of policymakers put education spending in the same category as food budgets. They know that public education is a necessity, but they also view education as an excellent place to go searching for some fat to trim. Unfortunately, in many schools, the fat was all gone long ago, so to trim anymore will require cutting into the meat. The biggest cost of education is personnel, and in virtually all school systems, the cost of teachers is directly related to their levels of experience. In these tough economic times, I fear we may have some stakeholders who are going to be pushing harder than ever to stretch the budget by laying off or buying out the chefs and filling in with some Tuna Helper Teaching. “What’s so wrong with stretching the hamburger or tuna or teaching for that matter?” some might ask. Well, let’s take a closer look at the product. Although I don’t serve or eat Tuna Helper myself, I keep a box of Creamy Broccoli Tuna Helper in my pantry at school. Analyzing food labels is part of my FACS curriculum and Tuna Helper is an interesting example. Did you realize that in addition to no tuna, there is no cream, and while there is some broccoli, that seasoning pouch contains more salt than vegetable? So why do people buy these sort of “convenience” foods? They require little thought, skill or imagination to prepare. They produce a consistent product that is filling even though it may have very limited nutrition value. To the indiscriminate palate that has never experienced skillfully prepared fresh food, packaged food may not be exciting, but synthetically produced flavor is acceptable even if sugar and salt tend to be pervasive. If you ask most shoppers, they would cite lower cost as their primary reason for buying a packaged convenience food. In reality, Tuna Helper offers a limited amount of real food value at comparatively high price. It would be a lot cheaper, a lot more nutritious, and not much more trouble to start from scratch. If the promise of a cheap nutritious family dinner in a box is a marketing success, then how much more tempting is the idea of Tuna Helper Teaching? You know, just throw in some kids and a hint of teacher, add the special curriculum packet, simmer over high accountability and serve. It’s fast, easy, convenient, and consistent. It may not be inspiring, but isn't it harmless and certainly better than nothing? After all, it keeps the kids busy and can be delivered by a teacher without a lot of experience, creativity, or planning time. Here’s the problem: A Hamburger Helper dinner every now and then might not do any major harm. On the other hand, a regular diet of the stuff is to be avoided. It provides too many calories with insufficient nutrients and contains high quantities of fat and salt that may damage the body while dulling the palate to authentic flavors. Cooking and eating become mindless, meaningless chores rather than nourishment to body and soul. Tuna Helper Teaching runs the same risks. Packaged curricula do not adjust to the needs or tastes of the learner. They do not challenge the skills or excite the imagination of the instructor. Consistent multiple choice responses become more desirable than authentic learning experiences. The design focus is convenience rather than excellence. The outcome is that it fills the day without enriching the mind. Some policymakers are quick to point out that times are hard, stakes are high, money is scarce, and there are just no other solutions but to opt for the standard ingredients and the package directions. “Tuna Helper Teaching,” they’ll tell you, “may not be exciting, but it’s adequate, it reduces the risks that creative teaching carries, and is the best we can do with the resources we have for public education.” The predictions of the long term damage and cost of childhood obesity are grim enough. But the impact of obesity on the next generation pales at the potential problems we are creating by stuffing our children with an education that limits their learning to what some manufacturer (i.e., education publisher) can fit in a cardboard box.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:43:06 -0500

Lately there is a miasma of stress that hovers in the halls of my school and community. In a high speculative and very expensive real estate market, property values have dropped precipitously, leaving more than a few mortgaged folks with a negative value. The stagnant building industry and retail market will leave some of our students' families without work. Property taxes are our primary funding source for education, so we are looking at draconian cuts on top of last year’s merely drastic cuts. As a suburb of Washington, we live in the shadow of the Capitol and the Pentagon. Election years mean potential life changes for some families. Deployment is always just around the corner in other homes. Middle school is tough enough without adult pressures oozing into the halls to mix with the homework, hormones and heartaches of early adolescence. Thirteen year olds alternate between worrying about their interim reports and making the team, and wondering where they'll live and whether their parents will be around. This weekend I needed a break. Friday afternoon I left the papers on my desk, knowing they could wait since Monday was an in-service day. I spent Saturday morning digging in my yard rather than grading. Then, pleasantly weary, I did not read the book that I received as “homework” from a Central Office committee. But while I did avoid work, I couldn’t quite put school behind me. Instead, I spent my weekend with a new young teacher friend, Ms. Hempel.

She had chosen teaching because it seemed to offer both tremendous opportunities for leisure and the satisfaction of doing something generous and worthwhile. Too late she realized her mistake; teaching had invaded her like a mild but inexorable infection; her students now inhabited her dreams, her privacy, her language.

Ms. Hempel is not quite real, but within a few pages, I knew that she was more than a character in a novel. Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum’s Ms. Hempel Chronicles is not quite fiction, not quite a collection of short stories, and not quite a series of essays on teaching and learning in the middle school environment. It is a compilation of all of these. Bynum builds her story on her own experiences teaching seventh grade at the Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn. Ms. Hempel can touch her students’ lives because she has not lost touch with her own experience of being thirteen. Because she recalls with clarity her own adolescent misconstructed efforts to deal with an adult world, she cuts through the pseudo- sophistication of her students. “Haven’t you heard,” she asks her eighth graders, “about the clowns? Who kidnap you? Who drive around in vans?” Only someone who vividly remembers her own adolescence and the confusion of dangling between childhood and adulthood understands that worldly eighth graders can still be unsure whether there might really be a van full of clowns gone bad, lurking just around the corner. I am sorry to tell you that Ms. Hempel doesn’t stay in the middle school classroom. Like so many fine teachers, she leaves. And though it’s not stated, it would appear that she leaves during those first five years when so many teachers walk away. Author Bynum left the K12 classroom herself. In addition to being an author, she now teaches at the University of California, San Diego. Unlike Ms. Hempel and Ms. Bynum, I’ve stayed in middle school for 20 years now. I am teaching the children of my former students. It keeps me young, but it also wears me out. There are days when I contemplate what I might accomplish as an educator beyond the middle school classroom. And there are days when I just wonder if there isn’t a nice job in an insurance office that would be a lot easier. But most of the time, I love what I do. Bynum puts it this way:

This was the feeling that Ms.Hempel couldn’t shake: conviction that she spent her days among people at the age when they were most purely themselves. How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all of those thrumming, radiant selves? Here they were, just old enough to have discovered their souls, but not yet dulled by the ordinary act of survival, not yet practiced at dissembling.

Tomorrow I’ll go back in my classroom. I will be immersed in the egocentricity of adolescence for four hours before I can catch my breath. I'll come up, scurry to the office, scarf down a sandwich, and plunge back in for another two hours. Sometimes I question how long I can keep up the pace. Still, the weekend with Ms. Hempel reminded me that though it can knock the wind out of you, middle school can leave you breathless with wonder.

A Nation at Risk for Real

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:22:09 -0500

I am trying to wrap my head around our current fiscal crisis. Not only am I having a hard time trying to grasp the implications of the still-developing disaster or the proposed interventions, I'm having a hard time just trying to really get a fix on what $700 billion dollars is. This is what it looks like: $700,000,000,000.00 That’s a lot of zeros. I trolled the internet to get some perspective on what $700 billion really amounts to. If the federal government siphoned off Florida's gross domestic product, we could cover the bailout. Invading the Netherlands might be advisable—that nation's GDP was $768.7 billion last year. In terms of individuals' net worth, $700 billion is equal to 11 Warren Buffets, 12 Bill Gates, 280 Oprah Winfreys -- or 14 million average-earning American households. “Cost” per citizen: $3,324 -- the equivalent of one long living-large weekend at the Wynn in Las Vegas) Hmm, somebody’s living a lot larger than I am. Because to me that $3.3 grand looks like a semester of in-state tuition our local University of Mary Washington. Of course this is an optimistic estimate of the bailout cost. Some pundits predict that this is only the beginning. We are told the longer we wait the worse it will get. I don't know about you, but I’m feeling a little sick now. How did we get ourselves into this mess? Well, the Republicans blame the Democrats and the Democrats blame the Republicans. Main Street blames Wall Street for being greedy and Wall Street blames Main Street for not reading the fine print. The one thing that they all agree on: It's somebody else's fault. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for all of them to turn to public education and say, “No one understands the numbers! They can't do the math! We told you education people that we were a Nation At Risk and now look what has happened! We're beginning to think that IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” Well, let it be noted that this whole thing might have been avoided if Wall Street read Teacher Magazine. My Teacher Leaders Network colleague Anthony Cody wrote on July 28th: At the same time we have boosted the amount of higher math our students are required to take, we seem to have lost the most elemental common sense math from our schools – and our society. The past decade has seen people encouraged to borrow against the equity in their homes to make consumer purchases. This practice was sometimes even justified as “good debt,” because the interest is deductible.
Ed Week reported that the The National Mathematics Advisory Panel recommends every eighth grader should be taking Algebra which Should include symbols and expressions; linear equations; quadratic equations, functions, algebra of polynomials; and combinatorics and finite probability. These should be the focus of state curriculum frameworks, algebra courses, textbooks, and end-of-course exams.
But it seems to me that our eighth graders don’t need Algebra as much as they need Numeracy or Mathematical Literacy which can be defined as An individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded mathematical judgements and to engage in mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s current and future life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen.
Lynn Arthur Steen explains numeracy this way: Numeracy is to mathematics as literacy is to language. Each represents a distinctive means of communication that is indispensable to civilized life….. Despite great differences in structure and form, both mathematical language and natural language are powerful tools for description, communication, and representation. Numeracy is especially important for a nation expecting to compete in a global economy fueled by information technology. Whereas natural language is redundant, ambiguous, and concrete, mathematical language is concise, precise, and abstract. Full expression of our thoughts and visions requires the richness of both natural and mathematical language. Like yin and yang, numeracy and literacy are the entwined complements of human communication.
Teaching our students the codification of mathematics focused on how to do math problems without addressing how to use math to solve life problems is a misunderstanding of the discipline and a disservice to our children. Suggesting that they take advanced mathematics courses because "they will help you get into college" without providing an explanation of how they will "help you get on with life" is form without substance. We are indeed a Nation At Risk and it will fall to the children in our classrooms to rescue us. To our great shame, we are about to saddle these young people with a crushing amount of debt while simultaneously pricing them out of higher education. It is probable that they will spend their lives paying for our lack of self restraint in economics and public policy. Unfortunately, fellow educators, we’ll have to figure out how to prepare the next generation for this glum future on the cheap, since we have overcharged our national credit card and we are likely to hear that there's just no money for school supplies in the budget. Sometimes I wonder if the economists on Wall Street really understand that they aren't playing Risk with play money, but gambling with our businesses, our homes, and our retirement funds. Sometimes I wonder if the policymakers in Washington grasp that this isn't a debating society, and that their "good shots" to the opposition don't score points, they imperil the stability of our nation. Sometimes I wonder, when the grownups get through, will there be anything left on the table to address the needs of our children?

Now Just Wait a Minute!

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:44:04 -0500

My TLN colleague Laura Reasoner Jones addressed gender equity last week in her Teaching Secrets: Bridging the Gender Gap essay here. I understood her point to be that each child is unique and that we need to be thoughtful in responding to them as individuals. It was really interesting to me that the responses her article solicited clearly demonstrate that the same information can be perceived differently by various readers. In fact, some of the responses were pretty inflamed, and I went back to see what was so controversial. Do you know what re-reading the piece and the comments caused me to take away from this article? Wait Time. Now I'm a big advocate of Wait Time and, even though it’s sometimes painful, I work hard at practicing it in my classroom. But Laura gave me a new insight about waiting. I’ve taught myself and encouraged others to wait for student response. But it occurs to me that I seldom employ Wait Time BEFORE questioning or AFTER student responses. In the last few days, I’ve been thinking: If taking Wait Time while my students think before they speak is important, then maybe it’s equally important for me to take Wait Time of my own to process what my students say. To do otherwise implies that while their action of responding has value, the content of the response they offer probably doesn't impact my thinking. It also means that I don't give the rest of the class a chance to process that answer either. If I’m not taking the time to think about the student response, can other students be getting much out of this interchange? Today I was participating in Santa Cruz Mentor Training and I experienced a different kind of Wait Time. One of the strategies used was Silent Sharing—a brainstorming process where no one gets to say a word. A group gets one piece of paper and one marker that is passed around the table. No one speaks and no one adds an idea until the paper comes back around to them again. It was enlightening. One could literally see thinking, evaluating and responding on the faces at the table. It occurs to me that teaching, learning, professional growth, education policy, politics, religion, parenting, and a lot of other conversations could benefit from some Silent Sharing too. I’ve noticed that public discourse is mostly coarse, far too public, and there’s way too much of it. I’m going to be using Silent Sharing in my classroom and also in my work with teachers, but while the TV has a "mute" button, the world doesn't, so Silent Sharing for all probably isn’t feasible. As a compromise, may I suggest a little more Wait Time? Here are some simple Wait Time Guidelines. Before you get to questioning: Take Wait Time to consider how what you are saying and how the questions you are planning to ask might be perceived. Will the listener hear a need for information? An expression of concern? A perceived doubt? An inappropriate meddling? Before you ask your question: Take Wait Time to consider exactly what it is that you want to find out. That they are listening? That they can/will repeat what you told them? That they agree with you? That they are developing their own understanding or forming their own opinion? After you ask your question: Take Wait Time to allow the listener to process the question and formulate an answer. Oh good, we already knew this part! After the listener responds: Take Wait Time to process the response. Does the answer tell you what is known? What was thought? What was felt? What was misunderstood? Before moving on: Take Wait Time to inform the next step. What does the answer tell you about your own communication skills? What does it tell you about the respondent? How does the answer to your question impact what you do next? I know what you are thinking—I’m too busy to do this much waiting! The reality is that we don’t much like Wait Time. Minutes are precious and waiting seems inefficient because, you know, it just takes a lot of time! So in the classroom we “keep up the pace” and “move on” and “maintain momentum” because, while we like getting answers to our own questions and giving the right answers to the questions of others, when the questions are hard and when it comes to listening as well as talking—hmm, not so much. Questions can seek information, but they can also do harm when we question without listening, listen without really hearing, and respond without thinking. The response may be defensive avoidance or aggressive verbal swatting. Communication may shut down or escalate to hostility. So let’s take a little Wait Time and count to 10 before we question, after we question, and before we respond. Let’s listen to the sound of silence, because sometimes it speaks volumes.

Everything Old is New Again

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:11:47 -0500

In the last two weeks, I’ve been hearing a lot about change. It seems that everyone is in favor of it. Me too! My poor old laptop was retired from active duty and replaced a new machine with more stamina, but less weight. My virtual teaching community moved on from a listserv to a slick new platform. My 54 year old house finally got the dream kitchen that I have been planning for 22 years. My 58 year old body got brand new legs in the form of titanium knees. And this week, after 20 years of teaching middle school Family and Consumer Science at Gayle Middle School, I got to start all over again with a new school year. It occurs to me that I am probably an advocate of change because with each of my changes I had the good fortune of retaining the best of the old while reaping the benefits of the new. But change entails a certain amount of loss. It requires letting go of the safe and familiar. And change can exact varying levels of pain in the transition. New laptop and new platform--not so much. New kitchen and new knees---much. Since the macro vision of change has already been pretty much covered, I thought I might offer some micro observations on the process of change: Most of us have a love/hate relationship with change. While excited by concept of change, we are hesitant about giving up the familiar, and we loath the upheaval of the process of change. Change is almost always more appealing as a theory than as an application because change is usually harder, takes longer, and rarely turns out exactly as we planned. Generally, the more dramatic and permanent the change, the greater the risk and the more difficult the transition. The less input we have in change, the more resistant we become to the process. Change often results in unanticipated consequences, both positive and negative. Policymakers often talk about change in terms of reinventing education. It sounds visionary, almost always involves dramatic overhauls and new technology, and is often very expensive. But promoting the reinvention implies public education was, and is, bad by design. I would argue that it is one of America’s finest accomplishments and that in many situations, it continues to work well and does not need to be “fixed.” Even in those settings where reinvention is need, the logistics of implementing major design changes in school is not unlike attempting to redesign an airplane while in flight. It's daunting and dangerous and there are children on the worksite who are, at least to someone, not expendable. At the other end of the policy spectrum are those who frame the discussion in terms of reforming education. But doesn’t that sort of imply that teachers, students and education in general have gone buck wild and need a firm hand to impose a lot more supervision and discipline? In a culture that thrives on incentives and is willing to overlook personal and policy failure in business and government it seems unrealistic to attempt to motivate through threats and to hold children and their teachers to a higher level of accountability than adults in position of authority. I humbly suggest that reform might be more effective if it trickled down from the boardroom to the classroom. Somewhere in the middle are those who say they want to restore quality to our public schools. This more moderate group often suffers from nostalgia. They long for classrooms where women in apple jewelry and men in V neck sweaters write neatly across the chalkboard as students sit compliantly soaking up knowledge. These stakeholders often remember their or their children’s school experience through the soft focus lens of time. But we can’t turn back the clock and, no matter how good those schools were then, they won’t serve the needs of today. So, may I offer my own back-to-school platform for education policy? I don’t believe we need to reinvent, or reform, or restore America’s public schools. I believe we need to renew our schools. Let’s honor and build on the sturdy framework that has served us in the past, but let us also have the discipline to clean out the education closet and get rid of what is no longer functional or no longer fits. Let’s just say "NO" to “But we’ve always done it this way.” But let’s also listen attentively when teachers explain, “This is why I do it this way,” because -- when research tells us that a good teacher is the most important factor in student achievement -- it makes sense to pay attention to what good teachers know and are able to do. So there's my personal message of change, and there's my bold vision for the future. As either a student, a parent, or a teacher, I have now gone back to school for the 50th time. Last Tuesday was my Golden Anniversary First Day of School and I'm celebrating the journey!

The Joy of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:11:12 -0500

“What a shame, he missed breaking the world record on that one!” “Well, I just don’t know if it was good enough..she had a balance check after that double back flip and then she took an awfully big step on the landing!” “Oh man, he missed that rebound? He’s got three inches on that guy!” As you can surmise, I’ve been spending some of my last lazy summer evenings watching the Olympics. My husband and I lolled in our easy chairs with a chilled beverage in hand and make uninformed judgments on diving and gymnastics. “The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat” makes for great entertainment. But I wonder—What happens to these athletes after the Olympics are over? Because whether a competitor never made it past the first round of eliminations or stood on that center platform with gold while the national anthem played, it’s still over. It was two weeks of entertainment for us, but for the competitors, a lifetime of commitment was invested in a performance that lasted only minutes. So, was it worth it? For Michael Phelps, boy wonder, there will be multimillion dollar endorsement contracts. He earned it. For Kobe Bryant and the rest of the basketball team, there is redemption for the NBA’s tarnished reputation. They were fierce athletes and gracious sportsmen, they made us proud. And then there are Shawn and Nastia, who held us all breathless with their physical grace and their steely poise under pressure. They made impossibly difficult feats of strength and agility look easy, and they did it on a piece of wood four inches wide and about three and half feet off the ground. At ages sixteen and eighteen, they have won gold medals, the hearts of viewers, and big endorsements so what comes next for these two? Will Shawn start her junior year at Valley High School and will Nastia begin her collegiate experience at Southern Methodist University? For two weeks we watched, cheered, groaned and, as a country, shared their success and felt their pain. But I wonder about all the athletes all over the world who trained for years and dreamed of gold, but who didn’t make the team. I wonder about all the Olympians who trained for years and carried the responsibility of representing their nation, but never made it past the first round eliminations. I wonder those who were contenders but watched a medal slip away because of a muscle cramp or a torn tendon. What is it like to lose by .001 of a second? How does it feel to come in fourth? What keeps an also ran marathoner going long after the winners have finished? Part of what makes the Olympics so riveting is the stakes. What are the odds of a little girl in Iowa becoming a world champion and how often does a young man with attention deficit disorder maintain such intense focus and become the “Greatest Olympian”? Unless they are self deceiving, it’s not about the money, because odds of turning a quest for Olympic gold into a pile of cash are not good. Most Olympians will go home with some nice souvenirs, some wonderful memories and the satisfaction of having tried their best. We talk a lot about high expectations and high stakes in education circles these days. There are few situations that set higher expectations and higher stakes than Olympic competition. So here I am I wondering again: What if we could harness that kind of energy and motivation toward learning? What if our culture valued learning as much as winning? What if we honored perseverance and celebrated “personal best” in learning as well as sports?

Reading Across America

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:42:11 -0500

It’s wonderful to discover people who share your secret indulgences. My fellow blogger Donalyn Miller writes of reading in airports -- and I had to smile because I, too, have been reading my way back and forth across America this summer. I left Virginia in the morning and arrived in California in the afternoon. Along the way, I wedged in a trip to Ireland where I spent the intervening hours with a flock of sheep as they avenged the murder of their shepherd in Three Bags Full. Not only can we take books with us, books can take us places we might not have the chance to visit. While I physically returned to the East Coast by plane, my mind was taking the train west with the circus in the 1930’s as I read Water for Elephants. I’m old enough to remember the excitement of the Ringling Brother’s Greatest Show on Earth under a big top. I could smell the animals, hear the midway, and taste the dust. And I recalled the thrill of bareback riders, tightrope walkers, and the trapeze artists. My mother always warned me about the danger of the “carnie” people, but now I could roam behind the tents freely and without fear as I attended the circus by book. By book, I have been to places far more dangerous than the circus. Books let us go places we dare not venture in reality. Books also allow us to travel through time. A week after I got home from California (via Ireland communing with the sheep and the Midwest with my pachyderm companions), my husband and I left to drive to Texas to visit our families. On the way to Texas I finished another book (ah, summer). Although Wolfe warned us that You Can’t Go Home Again , neither we escape Dreams from My Father. Books allow us to journey into the heart of our most personal relationships whether fictional or biographical. I was taken by surprise by the intimacy of traveling through time and into the private spaces of my own family as we returned from Texas. For the better part of two days of the return trip, I read aloud from my maternal grandmother’s journals. She passed away on Christmas Eve the year before I was born, and I have always regretted not knowing this woman that I am said to closely resemble. Last week I spent 1942 with my grandmother. As I read her journals, the house that I remember so vaguely came alive as she did her church work and visited with a constant stream of friends and neighbors. In this story, my mother is a 17-year old, in her senior year, flitting in and out from school to church to social events. She is a flirt, a clotheshorse, a night owl and something of a spoiled princess—so different and yet not so different from the eighty-three year old mother I know today. So why does a Family and Consumer Science teacher write about reading? Here is what I notice as I read. In every case, the characters and their world, whether fictional or historical, are shaped by the everyday experiences of the homes they make, the clothes they wear, the food on their table, and the relationships formed around these most common of daily domestic circumstances and experiences. Donalyn writes that “Books build connections between readers.” They also build connections between people who live in places and under conditions that we will never experience. They invite us to reach across time into the past, and we develop an understanding of others by walking in their shoes, living in their homes, and joining them at their table. In doing so, we come to understand them and the world that we have shared. Along the way, we also come to understand ourselves.

Sink or Swim

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:49:43 -0500

In summertime, the urgency of the classroom fades a bit in the sun, and there's more opportunity to consider best practice. My friends in the Teacher Leaders Network Forum have been discussing the issue of just how much additional time and support a teacher can/ought/must provide to students who are struggling. Determining the tipping point between helping a child grow and retarding that growth can be difficult. And while we as teachers continually advocate for parental involvement, the formula becomes more complicated when parents become part of the equation. "Call me every day if you have to," one parent told my young New York colleague Ariel Sacks. Ariel says, "Some have asked me to email detailed descriptions of any assignments their child doesn't complete in class or on time—" Some teachers, such as my husband, maintain websites that give students and their parents’ constant accessibility to learning goals, assignments, student progress and additional resources. Other teachers provide regular lunch or after school tutoring sessions or provide tutorial packets for parents and children to work on together. One teacher friend makes her cell phone number available to students and finds that they rarely abuse that availability. Some teachers report that no matter how much information or access they provide, students and parents still seem to need or even demand more. Somewhere in the discussion about support and interventions, Nancy Flanagan said, “All of these interesting stories and comments seem to be focused around whose responsibility it is to learn.” It occurs to me that while it is obvious to us as teachers that learning is ultimately the child’s responsibility, this necessary truth may be opaque to parents. After all, the job of parenting is to nurture and support and protect. Our culture emphasizes protection—car seat, bike helmet, or that new global conditioning tool for your children in the park. But we seem to be much less prepared to deal with the other primary role of parenting -- building self-efficacy. Maybe it’s because it seems less critical in our world, but we don’t have a clear grasp of how to empower our children to survive on their own. Too often we hang on and facilitate and intervene until our children pass that teachable moment for self determination. At what point does it become irresponsible on our part not to expect our children to be responsible for themselves? At least for me, this was the hardest part of parenting. Here is this precious creature full of possibilities and you want them to "fulfill all their potential." That's the obvious part. But reality is that potential means just that--no one is going to become all of everything that might be, and as parents we have to let go and let our child make lots of hard choices for themselves. The dark side of this is that we don't want to let go because we don't want to give up control and/or if our children belong to themselves, we become nonessential. Long ago when I was a teenager I taught swimming lessons to preschoolers, and I learned a lot about nervous parents. I thought I got it. But when I REALLY got it was after I became a parent and watched my own child flail around in the water, while their instructor said, "Come on, you can make it to the side! Keep kicking!" To partner with a teacher and say, "Help me decide when my child is going under and when he's just learning to swim" is an act of trust. But if children never risk crashing and failing, neither will they ever discover their own power or reach their potential. Letting go is hard for parents, and sometimes a parent needs a teacher to hold their hand while they allow their child to sink a little and flail a little, and even swallow some water, so that eventually that child can swim against the tide.

You May Say That I'm a Dreamer . . .

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:57:41 -0500

Imagine . . . What if classroom teachers were acknowledged as experts on what teachers should know and be able to do? What if classroom teachers were critical partners in determining the quality of teacher preparation? What if classroom teachers worked alongside university faculty as colleagues? What if classroom teachers really did find a place at the table? You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one… because two things happened this week that were beyond my dreams a couple of years ago. On Thursday, my TeacherSolutions partners from The Center for Teaching Quality -- Nancy Flanagan, Patrick Ledesma, and Andy Kuemmel -- sat in the Sam Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, briefing policymakers on the research we did about the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The trio represented our 10-person NBCT research team (and NBCT voices from across the country) in making the case for the value and continuing importance of a national standard for accomplished teaching. Our report, Measuring What Matters: The Effects of National Board Certification on Advancing 21st Century Teaching and Learning is a meta-analysis of the voluminous NBCT impact research, from the perspective of teachers who have earned the credential. With support from the Center for Teaching Quality, we spent many months studying the research and participating in live on-line discussions with top teacher quality scholars across the country (something I never dreamed I would do) before drafting our research and policy suggestions. I wish I could have been there with them to share the fruits of our work. Instead, I was on the West Coast with about 20 teachers and an equal number of college and university faculty who prepare teachers for the profession. We came from across the country and across the education spectrum from preschool to graduate school. We were all in training together to serve on the Board of Examiners for NCATE -- the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. We were in sunny California (I know this because we could see it through the hotel atrium roof), but this was no vacation. From Saturday till Thursday we struggled to wrap our heads around the Council's accreditation standards. We dug through a mountain of evidence. We debated—sometimes forcefully—about the recommendations we would make. We wrote our report into the wee hours of the morning. We proofed and polished and then we faced a rather stringent review of our work. Teachers and teacher educators worked side by side as peers, learning to assess the quality of programs that prepare the next generation of teachers. As I pause to reflect on all this recent professional activity, I realize that I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked before. I’m doing quite a lot of it for little or no extra compensation, and I’m loving every minute of it. Why? What does all this mean? It means I’m no longer “just a teacher.” I am surprised and humbled to discover that I have become a teacher leader and have the opportunity to a contributing member of the education profession if I’m willing to accept the challenge. It requires I be informed. It requires I keep an open mind and a respectful demeanor. It requires that I assume good intentions and live with compromise. I requires I never neglect my students in order to serve my profession. It’s a lot to take on, and it's a little scary sometimes, but there is important work on the table and good company around it. And I’m noticing that more and more of that company is made up of teachers. Just imagine! I hope some day you will join us…….

Does Anybody See What I See?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:03:30 -0500

Here in Fredericksburg, the home town of George Washington, and 50 miles from the nation’s capital, the Fourth of July is a big deal. There is a parade, a wonderful wacky raft race featuring almost anything that floats, a street fair with vendors and a stage for local talent. The day ends, of course, with fireworks bursting in the air above the park along the river. It is a Norman Rockwell Fourth of July — the way we like our history. But the Fourth of July isn’t over for me until I have watched 1776. It just isn’t the Fourth until I sing our nation into existence along with Tom, Ben, Abigail, and John. I know all the songs and most of the lines by heart. Each year I have to remind myself that the Continental Congress didn’t really sing and dance their way to the Declaration. Critics may have found the movie trite and historians may be horrified by a musical taking dramatic license with some characters and events. But it strikes me that, when it comes to historical accuracy, Sherman Edwards’ song and dance of the Founding Fathers may not be much different than the highly edited photo-op sound bite version of current events we get on the evening news. I know that 1776 is quasi-history, but if we are completely honest, is there is really any other kind of history? We weren’t there. History is someone else’s best guess based on interpretation of incomplete evidence and less than objective witnesses. The best we can do is take their story of who, where and when, try to verify information we have, and ferret out what is missing. We discern what, how and why by considering multiple interpretations of facts, looking for consistencies or conflicts, and forming our own opinions. Thirty-five years after its release, some school systems are still fribbling over whether middle school civic students should be allowed to see 1776. Sexual innuendo and inappropriate language, rather than historical accuracy, seems to be the concern. I hope some teachers will practice a little civil disobedience and continue to treat their students to two hours of this engaging and uplifting piece of history as entertainment. Our children face enormous challenges against great odds in a very cynical world. There is little doubt that we will leave them with large and serious economic, environmental, social, and international problems. Moving our nation forward is likely to require some audacious new ideas, a great deal of compromise, and considerable sacrifice. Perhaps they might find courage in a version of history where less than perfect people engage in what was sometimes less than noble behavior to arrive at a less than pure policy that still transcends itself and its makers. Maybe those haunting lines, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?” were theatrical inventions of self doubt created for dramatic effect, but within a few hours of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence the real John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than the means.
The movie ends with the signing, but the story doesn’t. There was indeed a great deal of gloom and frustration and difficulty ahead. Jefferson and Adams, partners in conception, often found themselves at odds on how to rear an infant nation. But until the shared day of their death on July 4, 1826, fifty years after the signing of the Declaration, there was one common belief on which they never differed:

The objects of... primary education [which] determine its character and limits [are]: To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing; to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.--Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818.

because

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. John Adams, The Boston Gazette, 1765

If we are to honor our history, we need to prepare the next generation to think creatively as well as efficiently, to value cooperation as much as correctness, and to question as effectively as they recall. So, on the Fourth of July of an election year on behalf of America's teachers, I'm asking along with Adams — Does anybody see what I see?

Smells Like School Spirit

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:55:16 -0500

School is out, and my students and my colleagues are reveling in summer. Summer delights the eye with sunlight through the trees, fireworks on the Fourth, sunburned skin and sun-bleached hair. Summer resonates with the sounds of birds singing in the morning, children splashing and laughing in the midday, and fans softly whirring in the evening. Summer air is perfumed with the scents of spicy sweet petunias, fresh cut grass, and roasting meat and veggies on the grill. Summer has almost, but not quite, begun for me. I am on an extended contract, working an extra ten days at the beginning and the end of the school year. Our bustling district community of 1,000 adults is reduced to fifteen summer staff--three administrators, three teachers, two secretaries, one counselor, one bookkeeper, and the maintenance crew. But for those of us who work these extra days, the school has its own summer sensual delights. The long halls of empty lockers open onto indistinguishable classrooms. Last month each room had its own distinctive character. Now they are uniformly neat, tidy, and sterile. The teachers’ desktops are clear of post-it notes, pens and papers. The bulletin boards are stripped, waiting expectantly for fall. I can work for an hour hearing only the clatter of my keyboard, the ring of a telephone next door, and the occasional quiet slap of a single pair of sandaled feet down the hall. Sounds that would have never survived the cacophony of a school day now echo in empty space. On summer mornings when I unlock the back door, it’s the smells I notice first. The aromas of pine scented cleaners and floor wax waft through the hallways of my school. I love that smell. It gives me the same good feeling that comes from a freshly cleaned house or a just-washed car. Things feel renewed, under control and ready for what lies ahead. Floor wax and Pine-Sol are reassuring, promising that in September there will be a fresh start in a familiar environment. My school smells like the security of home and the hope of a new beginning. It occurs me that too many schools don’t offer those images, sounds and smells of anticipation and potential success. The windows are dirty, the walls are dingy, and the bathrooms have corners encrusted with grime. They have developed that moldering funk of damp ceiling tiles and outdated books that have set too long on undusted shelves. These other school buildings project an air of discouragement and hopelessness, like the odor of sour milk seeping from the dumpster at the back door of the empty lunchroom. When disarray and neglect assault the senses, I wonder about their impact on the students and teachers. The influence of sensory stimuli has been on my mind this week because my TLN colleagues and I have been having an interesting discussion about distraction. It started with a chat about whether music or even background TV enhanced or impaired the concentration of our students or ourselves. There's always been discussion of aural and visual stimulation, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered about the olfactory stimuli. Smell is the first and most visceral of our senses. Oliver Wendell Holmes said:

Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.

Pheromones are serious science, and allergic reactions to smells are increasingly a medical issue. While aromatherapy may be dismissed as New Age fluff and candle stores may be fads, smell is big business. We purchase the scent of fresh cotton, kiwi, sea breezes, wild ginger, fresh baked bread and animal musk in air fresheners, laundry detergents, shampoo, dog food, and a thousand other products. So tonight I’m wondering, in my FACS teacher mode (which can lead me down some strange hallways indeed): Is my response to a freshly cleaned and waxed hall an inherent or learned response? Were the fragrances in Pine-Sol, Clorox and Future floorwax chosen because research had determined they would generate positive feelings in me and others? Does the smell of food in my FACS classroom support retention and trigger recall? Will we ever identify all the variables that influence a child’s interaction with school? Does anyone doubt that a fusty-smelling old school impacts student learning? If there are scents associated with failure, can we define the smell of success? If we ever define the smell of a successful school, how long will it be before someone tries to market it like new-car smell? How long before someone suggests it as a solution-in-a-can, the perfect thing to mask the festering odor of neglect and decay? I mean, we've already had the solution-in-a-box. The solution-on-a-disk.The solution-in-a-law. Anyone up for a spritz of School-Smell-So-Good?

A Broader Bolder Vision (Some Assembly Required)

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:34:54 -0500

You can’t pick up a newspaper without reading something about education, and when The Washington Post carried a huge ad for A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, it got my attention and piqued my curiosity. So I went to the Broader Bolder website to read the entire report.

“Schools can’t do it alone,” said Co-Chair Helen Ladd. “Accountability is a pillar of our education system, but schools need the support of the community – both before children arrive at school and during their school years – for all children to achieve high standards.”

As a teacher, my first thoughts were: “Thank you for acknowledging that! These people get it!” Most of our schools do the best we can with the circumstances and resources we are given. To simply turn to public education and say “Geez, don’t you people care about kids? You really ought be accountable. The welfare of America’s children is your responsibility. Get with it, or we will deal with you harshly” is not only heartless but naive. These are the core goals of the “Broader, Bolder Approach” -- • Continued school improvement efforts. • Developmentally appropriate and high-quality early childhood, pre-school and kindergarten care and education. • Routine pediatric, dental, hearing and vision care for all infants, toddlers and schoolchildren. • Improving the quality of students’ out-of-school time. These seem to be pretty logical and not highly controversial goals that were being endorsed by some people whose names I recognized and respected. But when I started digging into the reactions to this manifesto, things got a little more complicated. Just about everyone in the virtual education world had something to say, either good or bad, about the Broader Bolder Approach. Think tanks and research groups all seem to have a position on this proclamation, and each group seems to be “interpreting” the “real” agenda of the Broader/Bolder coalition, based on how it fits with its own organizational agenda. Sometimes it seems that the education discussion is more about power and competition between adults than it is about looking for ways to cooperate for the benefit children. I'm a policy amateur, my knowledge of education politics is shallow, and I don’t pretend to be smart enough to thoroughly deconstruct stakeholders' agendas and motives. I know some of the endorsers by their, in my book, good reputation. I don't really have time or energy to figure out all the backroom alliances or scores that are in the process of being settled. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would have a problem with the stated goals of Broader and Bolder. At the same time, I acknowledge that there is a great distance between good ideas and practical implementations and between envisioning and implementing. Since questions are echoing in my mind, I'll share them here. All of these issues effect education, but are they education issues? Too often, policymakers determine that if something is a child issue, then it can just be rolled into education policy, killing two birds with one stone. Some of the additional “birds” are initiatives like child nutrition (breakfast and lunch), physical fitness, financial literacy, family life education (we don’t say sex), character education (but keep it value neutral, please), drug awareness, bullying prevention, internet safety, social equality, environmental awareness, heath screening, and childhood obesity. While all of these are important issues, is the classroom or school where primary responsibility belongs for addressing them? Does the social activism emanating out of Washington sometimes usurp the role of parents, or does it simply acknowledge that “someone has to do it”? Are we asking too much or too little of our schools? While acknowledging that “schools can’t do it alone” in the end, if we identify these things as education issues, do we, with the best of intentions, inadvertently demand that public education accept responsibility for fixing all of our societal problems? Does this diminish or enhance our schools' mandate to educate children? If these become “education issues,” are policymakers going to have the courage and discipline to provide the resources necessary? Will other areas of government give education the authority to take leadership in implementation -- or will other agencies see schools as a method of delivery for their own programs, under their own control? If childhood health and after-school care become education issues, does that imply absolution for everyone except the education community? If we are still waiting for full funding for IDEA and NCLB, what assurance do we have that the necessary money will ever be made available to address these other pressing (and expensive) issues? And finally, if we constantly hear concerns about the high cost of public education and the ROI on those public dollars, will shifting more social services to us add fuel to the misperception that we are spendthrifts? As I read the profiles of the Broader and Bolder task force, I am sure that they have the expertise and knowledge to have foreseen and addressed (as best they can) many of my questions. But I couldn’t help but be disappointed, as I scanned the list, that K-12 classroom teachers weren't represented. I wonder if I would have been more or less enthusiastic if I had seen at least one practicing K-12 educator on that list? "Teachers hold America’s future in their hands", or so they say. But sometimes what seems doable as theory (some assembly required) becomes a lot more complicated in reality once you’ve unpacked the box. I can’t help but wonder why, if teachers are that important to the future of our nation and if teachers are the single most important factor in student learning, we are so rarely invited to the table when the Bold begin envisioning new approaches to our professional work. Everybody’s talking at me -- but what if teachers were participants in those formative discussions rather than audiences or topics? How bold would that be?

A Spelling Bee in My Bonnet

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:57:01 -0500

The 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee is a Super Bowl of American academia, a place where 12-year-olds who can spell ophthalmoplegia are TV stars and spelling judges are hounded for autographs. -- The Washington Post Two hundred and eighty-eight spellers came together to compete in a high stakes, high profile battle of etymology and Sameer Mishra, 13, emerged as the new champion. He was up against some formidable opponents, many of whom are repeat participants, but he had an inside track since his sister had been a three-time contestant and his coach. The Bee made front page headlines. The final round was covered live by ESPN (they love statistics). ESPN's pre-Bee events included interviews with spellers and reviews of former final elimination words. What is it about a spelling bee that captures our imaginations? Is it the ecstasy of victory and the agony of defeat? Is it that we like to see a different kind of kid be a winner? Is it that we all remember standing in a line in sixth grade anticipating our turn? Every performance of the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee gives four audience members a chance to relive that sensation, bringing them into the cast -- a group of stereotypical competitive spellers. They are “different,” but they explain to us that they really aren’t different all in the same way. They "love spelling” because being good spellers gives them a sense of pride, identity and order during the angst of early adolescence. As an educator, I guess the critical question is, “To what purpose?” Are these young people investing time and energy into competing at this level because they are building vocabulary skills? Do these students take on spelling because they enjoy the competition and they are good at it? Is memorization of proper spelling the intellectual calisthenics that expands their working memory and ability to recall information? Do they hope to take home scholarship money for future education? Or do they just want to hang out with like-minded kids? Are spelling bees academic or archaic? Do they demonstrate thinking skills or memorization skills? Does the acquired learning achievement justify the require learning investment? Does a bee develop self confidence or create unnecessary stress? Is competitive spelling an intellectual pursuit or a sport? Why not see if you have what it takes to spell competitively. Scripps Howard encourages you to test your spelling skill with the qualifying round of words. Go ahead and try. I did okay, but I’m not going to tell you how many I got right. I will share this: I just used spell check to correct six words out of the approximately 500 words in this piece (spell check was one of the words that I misspelled). So is this whole piece loquacious (from Latin meaning wordy; garrulous) or perhaps galimatias (from the Greek meaning nonsense; gibberish)? Well, I did just learn a new word. It may never became a ubiquitous part of my everyday speech, but sometimes it’s just fun to know things. Don’t you think?