atychiphobia

Uncommon Core

    This is part of the Slice of Life Challenge hosted by the Two Writing Teachers

 

There has been this nagging little itch in the back of my brain for the last few months.  Our district, like many others is in a full blown "Common Core-itis" stage of transition.  As a fourth grade teacher I haven't had much district supported professional development yet.  But, I know it will be coming.  Being who I am, I have dug in on my own and tried to thoughtfully look at the Common Core State Standards, The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and a rather lengthy list of other resources that are infiltrating my web browser.

I am not 100% sure where I stand on this adoption of the CCSS.  On the one hand I have never been a big fan of top-driven programs in any arena of my life.  On the other hand I do see some merit in the idea of more consistency in terms of curricular goals across our country.  While I am unsure of the need for elementary students being able to disect themes across several books, I am actually happy that the CCSS is calling us out for not valuing nonfiction reading as much as we should.  The sadness of the lack of writing poetry in elementary classrooms is balanced by the fact that writing in general has been lifted to a new place of importance in our curricular planning.  I could go on and on with lists of positives and negatives.

I think my big concern with the Common Core is the fact that it is missing more than a few big things for me as an educator.  The wrestling match that will go on in my head over the next few years will be my possibly Uncommon Core values with the Common Core expectations.  I know many of us are having similar concerns, but I am starting to compile a list of ideas I refuse to let go in the face of a massive reworking of our curriculum.

My Uncommon Core (so far):

1) Students will love to read what they choose to read.  Unless I have completely missed the boat in all of my independent study of materials, I can't find one mention of students actually choosing to read books they love.  While I know that students should be able to "read closely" and "refer to details and examples in a text", I still want my students to leave our room knowing who they are as a reader and actually wanting to read.

2) Students will use nonfiction texts or media to propel into greater inquiries of topics they love.  I do completely understand that students should be able to "interpret information" and "explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text", but where is the big why?  I do believe that the value of digging into nonfiction is to gain a better understanding of what our world has to offer us.  Without falling in love or becoming more curious about a topic or idea, we don't connect to it, so we have a harder time developing a depth of understanding.

3) Students will develop an understanding of the power of writing.  Writing moves us.  Writing is a way to share, learn, persuade, enchant, and connect with just about any audience.  After many readings of the CCSS for writing, there is not much there that frustrates me (with the exception of devaluing poetry completely), but there isn't anything about the empowering and tranformational process that writing gives a learner.  We need to elevate this idea if we want our students to actually want to write.

4) Students will create effective classroom and school communities through the acts of collaboration and communication.  The listening and speaking parts of the CCSS are certainly robust.  I have zero problems with things like, "pose and respond to specific questions to clarify or follow up on information", who would?  Ideas like actually communicating with a degree of civility seem very sound to me.  However, what is the purpose?  We should be looking for ways to empower students to use these skills to make places of learning more valuble to them.

I am sure other ideas will bubble up from the dark corners of my brain, but for now I know that when I am developing goals for next year, these four ideas will be front and center as I am also trying to revamp what I need to do in order to be more aligned with the CCSS for English Language Arts and Literacy.

Later,

Tony

Current Wonderings

This is me most evenings lately.  Spending time reading and thinking about lots of stuff.  I am in the middle of a self-propelled wave of inquiry about how best to inspire the kids I work with everyday.

I work in a good school by most accounts.  We have great community support, a solid teaching staff and for the most part the kids are awesome.  These are all relative concepts, because what I think is good others might think is anywhere from fantastic to craptastic.

Working in an environment where people are happy and kids are doing fine on pretty much everything including standardized tests, you'd think that I wouldn't be spending 2 to 3 hours daily just reading (or sometimes watching video clips) and thinking.  However, I can't turn my brain off right now.  It's most likely a combination of great learning from twitter, several conferences I have been to lately and the fact I am just a little unsettled about the roll out of Common Core.

So here are some things I have been wondering lately.  

1) Can I be excited about the renewed emphasis on writing that the Common Core brings when I am also very concerned that emphasis of argumentative, informational and narrative writing is so high that poetry may become devalued?

Creative Writing beyond Narrative: The narrative category does not include all of the possible forms of creative writing, such as many types of poetry. The Standards leave the inclusion and evaluation of other such forms to teacher discretion.

-From Appendix A of English Language Arts Standards of Common Core, page 23

2) For years I have felt like I guided my students to deeper thinking, but will computerized Common Core assessments really allow for the kids to actual show deeper thinking, especially when typing can still be a struggle for our students?

3) How do we as teachers work to create environments where collaboration is valued, creativity is nourished and problem posing is in the forefront when we are increasingly being asked to raise test scores.  And unfortunatly I don't think that will slow down with Common Core.  

4) Speaking of creativity, Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk about schools killing creativity is kind of old news, but why aren't we taking his thinking seriously?  Can you remember the last time you had professional development about nurturing creativity? I can't, which is probably why I get lost on TED for hours.

5) I consider myself reasonably smart and more times than not I am prepared for what I need to do, but If my principal had a "staff meeting rubric" with this:

Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion"

 -From the Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards : Grade 4, page 24

I am not 100% sure I would pass.  And I am not 10 years old.

6) The group of students I have this year seem to have raised their personal bars for reading this year.  All 28 of them exceeded their goals for the first trimester in terms of books read and trying out different genres.  I should be immensely excited, but this has been tempered by a few questions like, "Is my daughter really challenging herself as a reader?"  Why wouldn't reading 17 novels written for children ages 8-12 in three different genres during a 12 week stretch not be challenging yourself?

7) Is the internet really changing my brain?  And if it is, should I be worried?

8) Will public education in America end before I am ready to leave the profession of teaching?  If you think that is crazy or outlandish, would you have believed 5 years ago that we would see an assualt on the teaching profession from powerful Democratic politicians and powerful business leaders at the same time?

9) Why do I keep adding feeds to my google reader when I can't even keep up with the over 300 I have in it currently? Especially when some of the feeds post multiple times daily.  I feel like I am probably Richard Byrne's worst subscriber.  Even though this is not his intention I often skip his posts because he make me feel like a slacker.  

10) Is is better to work for change within the system like I am trying to do now or do something truly amazing and move out of the system and create a school like Kelly Tenkely has done with Anastasis Academy or like Andy Smallman and Melinda Shaw did with Puget Sound Community School?

Any advice for me? I'd appreciate it.  Also I am curious about what you may be currently wondering.

Later,

Tony

 

Finding Fellow Travelers on the Path

It has taken me a while to post.  So to all three of my readers, sorry about that.

I went to the NCTE Anuual Convention for the very first time this fall.  I seriously have no excuse for not attending in the past.  I guess I thought that the roughly $1,000 I knew I would spend on conference fees, transportation, hotel, food, drinks and books was too much for me to afford.  After 3 days in Chicago I came to the conclusion that I can't afford not to spend the cash in the future.  Thank goodness my "tweeps" got me to seriously consider going.  Without them I would have missed a tremendous experience.

Thinking that  I am clearly an "odd" teacher has never felt better to me than it did at NCTE.  For nearly 20 years I have meandered along a path that felt like the outskirts of the world of teaching.  I am the guy who spends probably too much time and money on both books for kids and professional books.  The nearly constant process of looking for new thinking and stories has been fulfilling, but often times I have felt rather lonely on this path.  Yes, I have been fortunate enough to develop connections with some great people over the years, but in my school I feel out of place at times.  I love where I work, but it is hard to have a conversation with a colleague about a book they haven't read.  And it is really hard to have conversations with colleagues who say things like, "I know I should read more, but who has the time?"  These colleagues are great people and teachers, but it is hard to completely be myself with them.

The major take-away for me after attending NCTE is that there are literally hundreds of teachers like me.  In fact there are people that make me look like I never crack the spine of a book or think about new ways to inspire kids.  Meeting and learning from people who live in a world filled with the richness of reading and learning was both ridiculously rewarding and humbling.

Creating a list of all the people who welcomed and inspired me at NCTE would make this post about 3,000 words and it would become dreadfully boring, but I feel the need to say thank you to a few old and new friends that helped create the wonderful time that I had.  So thank you very much Franki, Katie, Cathy, Karen, Mandy, Donalyn, Jeff, Terry, Mindi, Katherine, Teresa, Brenda, Bill, Troy, Laura, Ann Marie, Jen, Cindi, Ellie and Colby (who rescued me with a place to stay).  

In different sessions, both Kathy Short and Sara Kajder spoke to the idea that NCTE was home or family to them.  If I hadn't gone, I am not sure I would have completely understood what they both meant.  Their vision of family is probably not the same as mine, but I do think I found a community of fellow travelers at NCTE.  And it sure beats the idea of walking down the path without some company.

Later,

Tony

image credit: m3cfa

Invitation Not Command

I know that I am my own worst critic when it comes to writing.  Most of the time when I finish something, my first thought is, "Boy that is a lousy piece of crap,  who'd read this?"  I have grand intentions to write more, but that very loud voice in my head usually wins out.  This post for example has been in the hopper for a few weeks now.  It took a little nudge from my friend Franki to get me to say, "I'll go back, revise the beginning and send it out."  I think we all need a Franki in our lives, someone who knows just how to push the right buttons, even if she doesn't realize she is doing it.  

Over the summer I got a text from Franki that read something like this:

Why don't you write an article for Choice Literacy? #invitationnotcommand

The next thing I know we are bouncing ideas back and forth and I feel no pressure to write, but I want to write.  I feel no pressure to get anything done, but I WANT to get something done.  Fast forward a few weeks and I have posted on this site more regularly and have not one, but three articles published on Choice Literacy.  For someone like me, this stretch of writing was huge with a capital H.  It felt fantastic to write, share and get feedback.  

I have slowed down lately, but when school starts for me I put forth so much energy into cultivating rleationships with my students and families, that writing for me takes a back seat.  However this whole #invitationnotcommand thing provided some opportunities for me to think deeply about how a small phrase might mean big things for student writers.

Standing on the shoulders of mentors like Lucy Calkins, Katie Wood Ray and Carl Andersson has taught me that I do need to teach in the writing workshop.  I can't ignore the idea of pushing students to new crafting techniques, new ways to think about composition and the art of being thoughtful with revision.  However, I have always struggled with pushing my 4th graders without deflating them. I know too well how damaging one sentence can be for a writer who is trying to take a risk.  I have "crushed" a few too many students over the years even though I thought I was helping them.

I decided early on this year that I would use the phrase, "This is an invitation, not a command" when I wanted to nudge students toward big important thinking in their work.  We had mini-lessons on this language.  The point of these lessons was for them to know that 1) these invitations would make them think deeper about their writing and 2) it still kept them in control of their writing.  I didn't want the kids to think that if an invitation was given there was an expectation to follow through.  My students even know who Franki is and how successful she is with her "invitations, not commands."  In fact I think she has a nearly 100% track record.  

Due to the class discussions and my purposeful use of the phrase, my students have started using it with each other during peer conferencing in both writing and reading.  It has been a rather interesting experiment.  I am seeing students gently push each other to new places in both writing an reading.  Not all invitations are accepted, but nearly every time one is accepted, the writer or reader ends up being happy he took the invitation and ran with it.

Our class will continue to explore the concept of invtations for the rest of the year.  I am cautiously optimistic that it will be as HUGE for them as it has been for me.  The initial stages seem positive.  When you see 4th graders revising entire poems or adding complete scenes in personal narratives due to invitations from each other, it is hard to think that it won't be really big.

Later,

Tony

By the way, Franki has extended her invitation not command thinking to her library.  G0 read her thinking now.  #invitationnotcommand

image credit to Tomas Hellberg

 

Back To Basics Revisited: Part 1

Back in January, I wrote about the idea of returning to a few basic ideals to refocus my energy.  One of the ideas was to seek out ways to become more of an advocate for causes that I think are truly important in my life.  It pains me deeply to think that there are people in our communities that need food but have difficulty providing it for their families.

To serve this cause, my family and I have been volunteering once a month for the last four months at the Dublin Food Pantry.  We go in on Friday nights and help restock shelves, clean, tear down boxes, pretty much the "behind the scenes" work.  Due to the age of my son, the volunteering policy prevented us from being there when clients came in to select their food.  I was very fine with this because I am not sure if I could effectively handle the awkwardness of maybe seeing a family I know come in to collect food.

 

The Dublin Food Pantry seems small beacuse it is tucked into the basement of Dublin Community Church, but it regularly provides about a week's worth of food for a great deal of families.  The Dublin Food Pantry has served over 600 families in the last year and has over 200 regular (meaning one visit a month) clients.  I am not realy sure if this is a big number, but it seems like way too many people need this organization to make ends meet.  

When we go in to volunteer, all four of us become unbelieveably focused on the tasks we are asked to do.  I can stand in a halway and break down boxes for recycling for 20 straight minutes and not get bored.  My daughter Ellie, who is a great kid but has a healthy disdain for doing extra work, will stack cans of soup without any complaint.  My son Hank actually loves vacuuming the floors when we are getting ready to leave.  My wife Julie beams with joy when she is organizing juice boxes (well she beams with joy when she is organizing anything, but it seems more joyful at this time).  We volunteer at the Dublin Food Pantry and like it, because we are doing something that is selfless.  But when I think about our volunteering deeply, we are helping ourselves a great deal.

I am quite certain that we are actually another family that is being served by the Dublin Food Pantry. For a few hours a month the four of us are together doing something that is helping us to forge tighter bonds.  We are doing something that is helping us all understand how fortunate we are.  We are doing something that is helping us show that one of the biggest gifts in life is to do good for others.  

It may seem strange to say this, but I think that we should be thanking the Dublin Food Pantry for letting us volunteer instead of them thanking us for showing up.  

Later,

Tony

On Purpose

Earlier in the week, during an indoor recees, I heard a student exclaim with gusto, "You did that ... ON PURPOSE!"

After helping to deflate the debate over how we share dominoes in our room, the words ON PURPOSE still lingered in my mind.  I wasn't thinking so much about how kids, or adults, intentionally do things to annoy each other.  Which considering the lack of civility in our society right now, that would have been an easy mind trip for me to take.  The itch in my brain was more related to the purpose of education in general.  

I flashed back to a recent discovery of a call to action by some UK educators at the site pupose/ed.  When I found this site over a month ago, it was late one night and I read several posts thinking not only about the purpose of education, but my purpose.  Somehow I forgot about it and didn't go back.

The recess comment, remembering the website and then a question at lunch the next day sparked connections that made my brain go into full double esspresso mode.  The innocuous  question, "What is the purpose of flour in cookies?"  came from a student who was reading the ingredients of his Oreo snack pack.  I quickly replied, "I think it's probably the ingredient that holds everything together.  But I'm not sure so let's check."

Another student who Googled, "What is the purpose of flour in cookies?"  the first hit was from wiki.answers.com

Flour is in cookies to add mass and also the yeast in the flour turns into gluten which rises.

Not the best answer nor did it confirm my thinking, but "Shazam and thank you very much!" Through connecting some rather strange dots (really thought provoking website ... two students arguing over dominoes ... the purpose of flour in cookies) I saw a very simple answer to a question that I have pondered for a while.  What is my purpose?  And thankfully it is not to add mass.  I have done enough of that in the last year already.

I  and, I imagine we all, could create a I-haven't-been-to-the-grocery-in-a-month length list of our purposes.  Things like:

Loving parent, spouse, son, daughter, sibling

Protector

Mentor

Learner

Friend

Shoulder to cry on

But when I saw the phrase, "which rises" I somehow knew that my primary purpose was to rise to greater things and help others rise to greater things.  I need/want to be like all-purpose flour. Well not the bleached and pre-sifted parts, but the enriched parts that help cookies to rise.

I wrote recently about the desire to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly.  I think I have been doing a better job of that (with the exception of some twitter taunting with dear friends).  This idea of "rising" like flour in great home-baked cookies is very interesting to me.  I know I am rambling and maybe losing my audience by this time, but when I can focus my energies on one big idea instead of the gazillion little things that fill my day, I am usually in a better place.

So what would it take for me to be a little more like the all puporse flour pictured above and RISE?  I am not quite sure.  But I am going to start with making sure that I actively seek some new challenges and actively help those around me rise to a place they might not have thought was possible ON PURPOSE.

Later,

Tony

 

 

Watching the "Car Wreck" on the Median in my Classroom

My class took a math test recently. This is not a huge thing for a 4th grade classroom, but it was enlightening to watch my class as they took the test. Usually I am reading the test to a sudent based on the rules of an intervention plan, or I am trying to do other things so I don't have to watch my kiddoes take a test. On this test day though, I decided to sit back and carefully observe.

I noticed 2 distict groups of test takers. About 70% of my class fell into the "I need to work though this test group". This was interesting to me. Some of these students do well in math and some struggle. However, what really impressed me was the stick-to-itiveness of this group. As I watched the class the kids in this group had determination smeared across their face. They looked engaged (I was partially proud and partially sick to my stomach. Is brute determination on the end of unit 4th grade math test a good thing?), I even witnessed more than one student, get to the last page of the test and then go back to check over work. The first student who fell into this group finished in 25 minutes and the last one was done in 48 minutes.

The other 30% or so of my class fell into the "I know what I am doing, so I don't have to really work on this test group". This group leaped right into he test and the average time spent on taking the test was 15 minutes. With the first one racing up to turn in the test in 11 minutes.

I really want all of my students to be successful in math, but I struggle with what successful is. In my district, we have an arbitrary benchmark of 85% accuracy for "achieving the standard". On this particular test the total points were 25, so if you miss 3 points you have met the achieving mark. If you miss 4 or more you are not considered successful on meeting the standards taught. Which means in my work that the character trait of perseverance doesn't always seem important to the grade. I may be overgeneralizing this a little, but I do think there is something to be said for being ready for following through on a task. Even a task like a test.

Here comes part one of the car wreck I mentioned in the title.

Of the 8 students who were in the "I know what I am doing group" 2 missed the achieving benchmark with score of 21/25 and the highest score was 24/25. These are not poor scores by any measure, but every single "lost point" had little to do with mathematical understanding. The errors were all a result of not carefully navigating what the individual problem was asking to do. For example, in one scenario, a student lost 2 points on a problem that was designed to check understanding of factors. The factors of 45 were embedded in a word problem. Instead of explaining an answer "like the class could create a display with 3 rows of 15 or 9 rows of 5", the student wrote, "the class could have 4 rows of 10 and 1 row of 5". He completely misread the context clue of "a display with rows of equal amounts."

All 8 of the students in this group had similar errors. All 8 of these students have very strong number sense and 4 are identified as being gifted in mathematics. The "car wreck" for me with this group, is that I have been unable to help them understand that speed doesn't necessarily equate with quality work. I, at this point in time, am completely at a loss for how to help them. This concerns me because I think if these students don't learn the concept of being thoughtful in situations like these, then unfortunately doors that could potentially open for them, like AP math or the IB program available at our district high schools, may be closed. Maybe I am over thinking this issue, but I have always been a long-view educator. Yes, I want my students to be successful this year in my class. But what I really want is for them to be successful 5, 10 and 15 years down the road.

Part 2 of the car wreck is a little different.

Of the larger group, who seems to be already working on the trait of wanting to produce quality work, the test scores varied considerably. The two students I have who struggle with math earned a 76%. Not great, not close to the 85% benchmark, but on the other hand, they were successful. Both showed evidence of catching mistakes when they were working and both did better than their last assessments. There were also three students who scored 100% on this assessment (and none of them are identified as gifted in math). The car wreck for me with this group is more about helping to reinforce the idea of working through a task is a valuable cause when they don't earn an "A". I had 7 student who felt they worked hard on this assessment, but were somewhat deflated to see a "B" or a "C" at the top of their paper. My concern for this group also relates to the long-view. For how long will these students be intrinsically motivated to work "hard" on test or projects or whatever if the result of their work does not yield "A's"?

This is a tough balancing act for me. How do I shift thinking in a student who spends 12 minutes on a test and earns an A-, while he sits next to a student who spends 35 minutes and earns B+. And at the same time make sure the student who earned the B+, doesn't get down on himself when the friend sitting next to him earned a higher grade and "ripped" through the test.

If you are reading this and have any tips let me know. I could use them.

Later,
Tony

 

image credit David B. Williams via Flickr

Back to Basics

Over the past two weeks or so I have had a busy, but fully amazing time.  I always start of winter break with grandiose plans of spending a great deal of time reflecting, tweaking and planning the "2nd half of the school year."  Usually, I do less than what I think I should, but this year was very different.  I purposely chose to spend time with family and friends and think about my whole life, not just my teaching life.

This was my plan:

1) Try to stay away from my school computer.  I was pretty successful with this goal.  I only checked my school email twice over break.

2) Try to avoid conversations about school.  For the most part, this was very successful, especially considering my wife is a teacher and nearly the first question all my other relatives and friends ask is, "How is school going."  This question always makes me wonder if teaching is the only relevant thing about me.  I often wonder how non educators would start a conversation with me if I was a motorcycle mechanic (how's the shop treatin' ya?), a chef (how's the restaurant?) or a tax accountant (how's the IRS these days?)

3) Try not too feel guilty about taking a break.  This one was a little more difficult, but I think felling guilty about not doing everything I can is in my DNA.  But I only felt a little guilty.  Let's just say I slept very soundly over break.

So instead of working, talking about work and feeling guilty about not working, I read, played games with my family, watched some bad tv, exercised (wowie!), cooked some fabulous meals, became more of an expert at Angry Birds and did lots and lots of thinking about my life in general.  

When I get into super reflective mode about my personally life I tend to get a little religious.  One thing that I have resisted sharing in my online life is the role that my ongoing realtionship with faith and doubt has in my life.  Unfortunately religion can be a very polarizing concept and I think there are too many things out there that divide us, so I have stayed away from the topic of faith.  I am not going to delve too deep here because I am not a Biblical expert by any means, but I do need to share a small epiphany I had over break.  I need to get back to some basics.  Some really old school basics.  Like some Old Testament basics if you will.

My lifelong struggle with faith and doubt has been rewarding and tumultuous.  For me faith has been uplifting and confusing, but faith  wins over doubt because of the inspiration that faith has given me over the years.  My faith is based on the idea that I am here to do good things, faith gives me purpose.  Doubt, as important as it is, does not really give me a purpose.

So while I was doing some reading over break, I went back to the book of Michah and reread this over and over:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Pretty simple and challening at the same time.  It has given me a lot to think about and will frame my goals for 2011 in all phases of my life, including the teaching part.  Here is my short list of things to do in 2011.

1) Do justice:  There are many ways to look at this idea, but I am determined to be more of an advocate for just causes.  The enormity of injustice in our world is probably too much for me to take on personally, but I am going to become a stronger advocate for two causes.  One local, the Dublin Food Pantry and one global, 1 Goal.  Both of these organizations need help and have worthy goals.

2) Love kindness:  This is a hard one.  It seems simple enough, but if I were to fully embrace the concept of loving kindness, I need to become more aware of how not addressing the lack of kindness directly might be the same as fostering of love of cruelty or intolerance.  I do think I am a kind person, but I also know that I tend to become quiet when others are becoming cruel or intolerant.  I may need to step up and rock the boat a little more.

3) Walk humbly:  For those who know me well, I have had no problem with sharing why things suck.  However, I never really stop to think about how a different point of view may look at the ideas I share as being equally lousy.  I am not too sure how I am going to fix this issue, but if I can be successful at 'walking humbly' I am convinced I will be a better person.

Over the next few weeks I will try to explore how this short list relates to my teaching life, since the purpose of this space is to share stories and thinking about my life as a teacher.

Later,

Tony