I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: A slice a day for all of March.  You should do it too! Check it out here. Thank you,  Two Writing Teachers! 

Scene 1: SLO (Student Learning Objectives – Part of the new Teacher Evaluation) Faculty Meeting

My team and I sit and we listen, and we try to understand.

I feel like an idiot, honestly because I don’t truly understand all the rules and percentages, and most of all, I don’t understand the why. SLO, Value Added….  I don’t know much, but know this is busy work for teachers:  Select students, create objectives, fill out paperwork, assess students before and after… Our ability to show student growth will be used (how, I’m not sure) as part of the complicated matrix of our evaluation. Obviously, I already assess my students to inform my teaching.  By all accounts, this won’t be difficult. The teachers who piloted it said we just follow a step by step process.

I blurt out to my team, “I don’t care if this will be easy. It’s stupid.” This is not my most eloquent reflection, but other teachers are annoyed as well and they echo my thoughts: “I don’t have time for one more thing.” “How does the state have the resources to read through our paperwork? They don’t.”  I want to spend my time teaching my students, planning for my students (not to mention some time with my family).

Do I want my students to grow as the year progresses? Of course I do. Do I want to assess my students? Of course I do. I don’t want to do busy work. I don’t want to calculate percentages of instructional responsibility with my math co-teacher. My team wonders a lot. We wonder for instance how our amazing Learning Support teacher (my math co-teacher)  will survive this current “Value Added Measurement” system. One of my colleagues says “She’s not. She will fail forever until they cure learning disabilities.” Her sarcasm makes her point.

My administrator and the others who shared the information with us truly did their best to explain how this will all work. Now I’d like to hear from the Department of Education about why.

While I wait for that answer, I reflect on Saturday’s learning.

Scene 2: TCRWP Saturday Reunion. . . 

We rush up 4 flights of stairs, M gets to the top first (of course) and yells down “It’s full!” So we rush down to the other session we had circled on our program, “Using Media to Strengthen Students’ Critical and Close Reading.”   Cornelius Minor (@MisterMinor) engages immediately, and his content resonates with us. We are immediately grateful for the closed session that made us come downstairs for this.  His fast pace is perfect: He moves around the room and inspires by listening to us and showing us amazing new ideas. This is my kind of professional development – completely full of concepts, rituals and lessons that I can take back to the classroom, reminders of things I know and forget mixed with new ideas that I can’t wait to try with my students. “Play!” he tells us.  “You don’t own vocabulary by writing it down. You have to play around with saying it.” I immediately tweet that.  He reminds us of the importance of skill isolation. All too often we forget this and wonder why students are forgetting things they usually know as they are trying out new skills. Practice skills with media, and then you can replace the media with written text. He tells us that engagement means that kids are ready to fail and get back up to try again, that critical thinking is a ritual. 

I learned so much, and I brought it back to my classroom for my kids immediately. 

I don’t even need to wonder about which kind of experiences I want to spend my time with: SLOs or planning for engaging my students in close reading and critical thinking. One helps children, one pretends to help the state. When I have the chance to decide how to best spend my time,  I will choose helping children. Every time.

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: A slice a day for all of March.  You should do it too! Check it out here. Thank you,  Two Writing Teachers! 

A Slice on the Keynote Address by Diane Ravitch at #TCRWP Saturday Reunion:

My alarm woke me at 6:50 on Saturday morning. My eyes popped open as I reached up to pull on the bedside light chain. Angry sleepy friends, M and K made fun of me for this for the rest of the weekend, but we had places to go! We were ready quickly and headed, map in hand on a walk to Riverside Church.  We stopped for some Starbucks, and to take a quick picture of the “real” Seinfeld restaurant… (We weren’t sure, but I looked it up…) We arrived with half an hour to spare.

M and K knew how much I was looking forward to hearing Diane Ravitch at the keynote, so we hurried in, passing a woman with a clipboard and a name tag that said “Diane Ravitch: Guest.” I felt a slight tug in my brain to just sit down next to that woman so I could introduce myself when Diane Ravitch came, and tell her how much I respect how she is speaking up and defending public eduction. But, that isn’t really my personality, so we went in and found great seats, front and center.

Lucy Caulkins came out to speak to us before the start of the keynote. I had never “seen Lucy” before. (That’s how people seem to refer to this, as in “Have you seen Lucy? Are you going to see Lucy?”) and I was struck by how comfortable she seemed talking to this huge crowd. She was such a teacher, using her hands to tell us directions and some rules. (“Don’t get hit by a car!”) She then went on to say that she was involved in working on a new website to collect transparent data about common core testing: testtalk.org, she believes it will be called.  She wants us all to contribute, with our names attached. She talked about feeling afraid sometimes to speak up, and how Diane Ravitch is an inspiration for telling the truth, speaking out and taking action.

And yes, when 9:00 came, Diane Ravitch inspired just that. 

I couldn’t take notes fast enough.

She painted a sobering picture of what is happening to schools right now, and her facts called me to speak up too. She didn’t hem and haw or measure her words to make them more comfortable and less than the truth. Children are different, she told us, even if taught exactly the same standardized curriculum. “It’s called humanity….Teaching can not be standardized. Children are not appliances…..” She called the situation right now a hoax, and totally insane.

I decided something listening to her. I decided that I do need to speak up. I decided this even though I have it good. I teach in a district that is measured in its approach to the common core, and thoughtful.  But, I need to speak up because the way the common core was developed was not ethical, and in many places, it isn’t being approached in a measured or thoughtful manner. I haven’t been told to teach to the test. But, I need to speak up because there are too many teachers who must do just that. My district puts in a splendid effort to put kids first, and empower teachers. But I need to speak up because there are so many kids who aren’t put first in this country, and so many teachers who have been vilified.  I have worked on unpacking some of the Common Core with my curriculum office, and found many parts to be solid and good practice. But, I need to speak up because there are plenty of developmentally inappropriate parts as well, and children are being pushed too hard. Sometimes, it’s okay to stand on principle and speak up.  Thank you, Diane Ravitch for reigniting me. I will speak up. (Shh…. I did have a whole different  last paragraph that I erased… I was speaking up just a little too loudly…. balance, Ona, balance.) 

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: A slice a day for all of March.  You should do it too! Check it out here. Thank you,  Two Writing Teachers! 

I am staring at a sign in my classroom: “Sorry about the mess, but we are learning here.” It rings true in my classroom for sure.  Peek into my room,  and you will see an elementary eruption. When we are creating our muppets,  fleece scraps are slumped on desk tops, chair tops, and our own tops. Sometimes liquid watercolor is drying on paintings, waiting to be cleaned up on the counter and still in use by some kids. Supply baskets are full and ready to go. (Truth be told, we often lose track of time, so cleaning up is left until later.)

My mess sign is deeper than that though. The mind is messy: jumbled up while the light bulb starts to flicker, before we’ve been able to file our knowledge in the appropriate mind folder. I imagine it looks like my desk in the summer, when I have all my paperwork out in order to organize, de-clutter, and get ready for the next school year. Who am I kidding? That’s what my desk looks like right now. Yikes!

I should probably edit my sign to say: “Sorry about the mess and the noise, but we are learning here.”  In my classroom we value and practice the art of a silent reading, writing and work time. But we aren’t always quiet (just ask my teacher neighbors…). Our learning squawks and giggles, hoots and stomps it’s feet.  We collaborate, debate, articulate and create our own understanding.  I am proud of my students. They take responsibility for gathering information when they need it. They ask questions, and question answers. I facilitate. I guide, scaffold, correct, help, ask and answer along with them. I am proud of our learning environment – walls of student work and helpful charts. We spend almost all day together in this classroom, it may as well be fun and comfortable.

“Sorry about the mess, the noise, and the colorful clutter. . . but we are learning here.”   

But not today, not the rest of this week. This week I need a new sign: “Today we aren’t learning.” These mornings will be silent. All the colorful charts and helpful strategies have been covered. Students are not permitted to ask me for help. I am not empowered to guide them. (I know, I know, I’m still allowed to help by encouragement.)

They are taking their standardized tests you see – and these tests have very little to do with learning.

I know what you want me to say, reader. You want me to say that of course we need some kind of standardized assessment. But I won’t. Because I don’t think we do. It isn’t information that helps me enough to warrant the stress, the time, or the cost. So I’ll keep giving the test this year, and forever more. I’ll follow the rules and regulations. I’ll cover my posters, count and sign for my tests, silence my class, read the directions and monitor my students. I’ll collect the tests, return the tests, sign that I returned the tests. And tomorrow I’ll start again. But I won’t say we need to do this. Because I don’t think we do.