Certifiable?

Last week I began brainstorming possibilities for Entry 4, in which I will list up to eight achievements to show that I’ve met three standards (XIV. Self Reflection; XV. Professional Community; and XVI. Family Outreach). I had combed my resume for what I thought were the most impressive items, but upon receiving feedback from a couple already certified teachers, I think I might be polishing some of the wrong apples. In fact, polishing apples might be the wrong approach entirely.

For example, NBCT Cathy writes about this blog, “you show yourself as a leader, but can you show a link to student learning (as resulting from the blog, not just your thinking)??”. Good question-- does this blog somehow connect to student learning? One way that it might is that I have shared this and other writing of mine with students in class, because I want them to think of me as a member of the community of writers in our classroom.

That is central to my approach to teaching: as a writer, or a reader, I am not the keeper of all truth with a pouch of gold coins to reward to those who learn their tricks. Instead, I am on the journey with my students; we make meaning together, through conversation and writing. I will have to make the case for NBPTS examiners that my own writing not only informs my teaching, but directly helps my students with their writing.

Cathy also asks, about the summer institute for teachers in which I will participate this summer as a co-director, “[this] shows leadership, and you may be able to show learning [but] You have to be careful here, because the learning should be from your class/your community.” Another good insight. Part of the summer institute is that each participant creates a presentation for their peers about some aspect of their teaching, generally featuring examples of student work. Also, each presentation is meant to be user-friendly to working teachers, giving you lessons to take into your room the next day or year.

Both aspects -- culling examples from the work of last year’s kids and bringing new writing project lessons to my classroom next fall -- should make it easy to show a direct connection to student learning. Moreover, these comments help bring into focus what may be the most important single aspect from the three standards: “student learning.” It makes a lot of sense, really. In selecting achievements to show that I’m a good teacher, find examples of good learning.

Mary Beth, another NBCT, suggests that I might want to capture the lightning of student learning in fewer than eight bottles. In other words, include fewer than eight accomplishments, which hadn’t occurred to me before. She sent me to thoughts on Entry 4 by Florida NBCT Richard Wedig, who provides useful pointers in general as well as a good argument for the less is more approach by discussing portfolio scoring.

As I revise my views about what makes an NBPTS-worthy accomplishment, new ideas come to mind, including several that weren’t “important” enough to make it to my resume but which nevertheless show student learning in spades.

One example is a poetry unit I did with ninth graders this year in which I collaborated with a creative writing teacher of twelfth graders. We had some of her seniors come to our class near the beginning of the unit and talk about their poetry writing, and then, once my kids made their own portfolios, we sent them upstairs to get feedback. Each ninth grader eventually received a full-page letter from a senior writer with very specific comments on their work. I gave my kids a chance to revise their original poems based on the feedback for extra credit. This was a strong learning experience for some kids, and left an easy-to-follow paper trail.

I’ll continue to brainstorm, but I think I’ve learned a valuable lesson at the start. Instead of showing off what I can do, I’ve got to show off what my students have learned as a result of what I’ve done.

Posted by Emmet Rosenfeld at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I love telling students, with the straightest face I can muster, that “B.S.’ing” is one of the most crucial steps in the writing process. Sometimes I just write it on the daily agenda and wait for one of the sharp-eyed ones to call me on it.

In all seriousness, I do believe that brainstorming is indispensable before writing. Whether one does it via free-writing, a web or outline, or just a good old-fashioned list, a writer must generate a number of ideas before committing to one. Analogously, students should generate a lot of “low-risk” writing (more than a teacher can read, or would want to) before they develop one into a polished piece.

In this spirit, here is a quick list of possible “achievements” for Entry 4. You’ll recall that I need to document and analyze eight to show how I met three (previously discussed) standards. Excuse me in advance if this sounds like I’m glossing my resume. I am, more or less. But it’s for a good cause. Think of all the food my family can buy and the mortgage we can pay if I get an eight thousand dollar bonus. In two years. If I pass.

1. The canoe. Another teacher and I won a $9K grant to build a Native American dugout with traditional stone tools next year, a project we look forward to doing in conjunction with the Alexandria Seaport Foundation. Booya.

2. This blog. And other recent clips, including a piece in Ed Week (June 14) challenging Newsweek’s list of the 100 Best American High Schools. Teaser/shameless plug: watch this space for an upcoming debate with Jay Mathews, chief architect of the list.

3. Learning Alive. An outdoor program for grades 3-8 combining writing and curriculum-related field trips which I conceived and ran for two years at Alexandria Country Day School (ACDS), the small private school where I used to teach.

4. Language Arts Department Chair. Mentored younger teachers, set up inservices, and attempted to align a K-8 Language Arts Curriculum at ACDS.

5. Summer Camp Director. Also at ACDS, I grew a spindly sprout of a summer program (net $10K+) into a robust sapling (net $50K+) over the course of two summers.

6. NVWP Summer Institute. Instead of weenie roasts and slippy slides for me this summer, I am co-director of an intensive 5-week professional development workshop by and for teachers based at George Mason sponsored by the Northern Virginia Writing Project.

7. IBET English coordinator. Resume-ese for saying that next year, along with force of nature and program founder Barbara Nelson, I will help keep all the ninth grade English teachers on the same page as we work our way through the complex interdisciplinary program at TJ that “integrates Biology, English and Technology.”

8. Extracurricular sponsor of: the classic rock club that got a surprise visit from Jethro Tull this year; an Odyssey of the Mind program that sponsors an invitational meet for more than 700 elementary school kids; and, next year, a tutoring program at a local elementary school, among other possibilities.

9. Super dad. Jack and Will are playing in the sprinkler as I type, and my lovely wife is sending me to bass fishin' camp. NBPTS might not give me credit for this one, but my family does. Happy Father's Day 2006, loyal readers. Time for snow cones.

Posted by Emmet Rosenfeld at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My approach to the foot of the NBPTS mountain has been more arduous than anticipated, and both blog ideas and morale are on the wane (things should perk up once we make it to summer vacation). The mountain itself, you may recall, takes a year to scale, including as it does the traversing of four crevasse-ridden portfolio entries and then, to attain the summit, the dreadfully exposed final pitch, a day of assessment behind a computer keyboard at a testing center.

I began my approach blithely enough last February, setting off with a bulging pack from a colorful town in the foothills that afforded a blissful view of the peak on a clear day. I now realize that the sense of proximity was an illusion: I have trudged through an introductory course and several months of a relentless school year, and only now is the rolling landscape beginning to give way to the steady incline which will take me above treeline to the jumping off point for the actual ascent. The well-worn trail has given way to a fainter path; discarded oxygen bottles and weathered gradebooks dot the way.

I’ll take a few weeks to acclimate once I reach the camp, and then the push begins in earnest. I have laid the groundwork for the first leg of the climb, Entry Four (“Documented Accomplishments”), by delineating the three standards which apply. I’ll kill a few more lonely hours on the trail soon by listing things I’ve done that might qualify: eight accomplishments with documentation and analysis will ultimately comprise this entry. Of course, after that, there are still thirteen more standards to address over three entries. Two entries require video-taping, and one the in-depth analysis of several students’ assignments.

I have attempted, along the way, to create a video record of my journey. I left the camera running on a tripod in the corner three times, but none of the footage was usable. I could hear me, but none of the kids. After that, I plucked a student from the class to get behind the lens, but that presented problems because she wanted to do the activities at the same time she was supposed to be filming. I think I’ve recently solved the problem. I recruited one of my seniors, an unblinking girl named Iris with experience in the school’s video tech lab. She shot the class once but the group work bouncing around in my low-ceilinged trailer distorted the audio. She came again last Friday when I was interviewing individual groups, one by one, while the rest of the class rehearsed Romeo and Juliet projects in the cafeteria under the supervision of a colleague. Hauling this clunky IMAX equipment may pay off yet.

Also along the way, I have negotiated the sloughs of bureaucracy. I admit my passage through the swamp has been eased considerably by the gift of a pack horse from my district. That would have set me back $2500 or so at one of the small village markets I passed through on the way. Just between you and me though, it’s sway-backed and I think a couple of its back teeth are rotten. I have to pay $500 up front that doesn’t come back to me until a ways further down the paper trail. Seems like my horse has to make two or three switch backs every time there’s a little hill, instead of going straight up it. Still, every time I pass one of those poor teachers whose district doesn’t shell out the fees, I feel lucky. Right now, though, I just feel tired. Ho there, boy. Let’s call it a day. That mountain'll still be there in the morning.

Posted by Emmet Rosenfeld at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday an online psychic who lived in my house two owners ago showed up and wanted to take a look around the old place. “This is where I used to do my face-to-face counseling,” he remarked as we passed through the dining room. “Senators, lots of famous people have been in here.” Passing a wall in the kitchen into which I had drilled more than a few holes to hang a pesky shelf, I was shocked upon hearing that he had fished a lot of wire through there when renovating the upstairs bathroom.

Oddly enough, the previous owners have also made a recent appearance. They popped up just the other day, ruefully eyeing the wicker-strewn porch and the front door they’d painted fire engine red. Turns out “country living” in Vermont didn’t suit them and they wanted to return to a town where it didn’t take an hour and a half to reach a Greek restaurant.

Remarkably, two weeks ago an elderly couple knocked on the door when our sitter was here and also asked for a quick walk through. (Cue twilight zone music.) One of them had lived here before the psychic, and married the other, his sweetheart from up the block. Now in their 80s and visiting from Florida, the fellow recalled growing up with 5 kids in the then one-bathroom house.

Turns out, these walls can talk. The shed I built in the backyard and the flower beds my wife put in at the base of the trees we planted for the boys when we moved in are just the latest brushstrokes on a mural of living that this house has been painting since 1912 (before that, the psychic told us, this plot was a paddock for a lucky gambler’s race horses, and the school down the block was the site of the local race track where he made his fortune.)

All of which goes to show that the past is always with us, whether we see it or not. And in no place is this more true than the classroom. Kids have histories that are revealed in shards through their writings and actions, and the parents that come with them sprinkle fragments of their own into the mosaic. Piecing these together requires the patience and intuition of the artist teacher, hence this week’s top 10 list, based on the innocuously worded but essential:

Standard XVI. Family Outreach
Accomplished Early Adolescent/ English Language Arts teachers work with families to serve the best interests of their children.

10. Families are the first teachers. Understanding them is crucial to knowing the kid.
9. Get them on your side with two-way communication. Seek information from parents on how their kids learn; provide information about your program that can guide parents to participate productively.
8. Parents are allies. Not us vs. them but us and them.
7. Communicate regularly and respond thoughtfully to parents. The fewer surprises, the fewer problems.
6. Parents’ history as learners affects their perceptions of how you’re doing as a teacher. If they had a negative experience in the classroom, the may be “reluctant” partners. If they were work-booked to the bone, they may want to see their kids bringing home workbooks.
5. Invite productive participation from all parents, which includes reaching out to ESL parents with the help of school translators.
4. Be “respectful” of parents who understand but don’t agree with what you do (I won’t digress right now into a conference from hell story, but remind me to tell you some day about my chat with the parents of Harry, the nice black Nazi.)
3. “Enter discussions” with parents with the goal of keeping the focus on two things: the learning of the child, and instructional strategies.
2. It is our job to “wean parents away from an overreliance on test scores and grades” (hallelujah, hallelujah) by showing them actual student work.

And the number one goal of family outreach, as delineated in Standard XVI...
1. Invite parents into the class as volunteers, observers and speakers, and also make sure to “devise assignments” that bring the students and parents together in the pursuit of truth and knowledge. That’s right: fun for the whole family! (Can someone bring a few extra chairs in here, please.)

Posted by Emmet Rosenfeld at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)