Back to Reality

I’m still pondering the next few posts I’ll write about my experiences at ISTE 2010. Right now, however, I’m simply a little sad. It’s difficult to say goodbye (for now) to old friends and new friends… but I believe that the most difficult part of leaving a conference like ISTE is heading back to reality.

Let me explain: while I miss my family and home like crazy, and I’m really excited to start the school year and see my students again, it’s difficult to return from a place where people “get” you.  At ISTE, if you tell someone you’re on Twitter, they don’t look at you like you’re a crazed Ashton Kutcher fan who lives in a fantasy online world. When you discuss the inanity of standardized testing our children to a learning-coma-like state, they understand. It’s nice to be around people who know that using technology tools to help transform student learning means more than copying your paper notes to a PowerPoint slide. Or worse, PowerPoint slides.

I’m not saying that I’m an edu-snob or that I subscribe to the Nick Burns, Computer Guy mentality of tech support. I truly enjoy working with people who want to learn more about, well… about anything. Learning is always the key. But for one brief moment at the end of June each year, it’s really refreshing to be around some of my favorite people in the world. Luckily, I only have to wait about 360-ish more days until the next time.

Thanks, ISTE, for another great experience.

Message and Delivery

This evening, I found myself stepping outside of what I consider to be my professional demeanor. I sat with a group of people I respect and watched a speaker lose control of what he was saying because of how he presented it. He lost his audience, and his audience did not give him the respect that he deserved because of how he delivered his message.

What can we all learn from this experience?

1) While it may be funny at the time, you’ll regret ridiculing the person and the delivery. At first, it was funny… later, I was embarrassed. Embarrassed for him, and embarrassed for us. We’re all better than that. To be completely honest, I don’t feel better about myself for going along with any of it.

2) If you’re presenting, KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. You might have the key to saving the world, but if you fail in the delivery… no one will listen. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the human condition. Your responsibility as a presenter is to ensure appropriate communication of your thoughts. When you don’t effectively communicate and are then taken to task for that error, take your lumps and find a better method to share your message.

Maybe more importantly, do your research ahead of time to know your audience well. If a large percentage of those people blog/Tweet/present about “Death by PowerPoint,” perhaps it would be best to find something other than PowerPoint to aid in sharing your information.

We have all probably made similar mistakes in our own presentations somewhere along the road. Did we judge more harshly tonight because of the magnitude of the event? Because the speaker was paid? Because of who we- the audience- are and what we expect? I’m guessing some combination of all of those.

However, what kind of message did WE send with our behavior? I expect to take some lumps for my “delivery” – in this case, it was behavior. I’m not blaming anyone else for how I behaved – what I said, what I sent out through my network. That’s mine, and I have to own it and deal with any repercussions.

That little voice that’s always in my head reminded me of something– I’ve been talking to a few people the last few days at ISTE about intellectual snobbery and how careful we must be not to look down our noses at our colleagues or students because they don’t have as many letters behind their names or because they are new to what we’ve all been doing for the last 5, 10, 20 (whatever the number) years.  Tonight, I’m thinking I need to practice what I preach.

A Purposeful Reflection

When I changed jobs last August, I thought I would be such a happy little blogger, documenting my new change, all the new challenges, and the daily reflections of returning to the classroom. 

That obviously didn’t happen. I forgot what it was like to move into a new job– all that time it takes to really get into the swing of a new routine and a different schedule. And honestly, I wasn’t sure what I most wanted to post regarding my job change. 

It came down to the fact that I was unclear what my central purpose would be for blogging once my role changed from a teacher of teachers back to a teacher of children. 

That word- PURPOSE– seems to get lost in a lot of what we do on a daily basis. It’s also something I heard over and over today in the sessions at Edubloggercon. Early today, someone in one of the sessions noted that using technology tools is misdirected without a clearly defined purpose. In another session, we questioned the point of having students writing reports. Students need to learn to write with a purpose, and the end result of a report is NOT really a purpose at all.

In yet another session, we talked about learning networks, what and how they should be named- but I kept thinking about purpose again. If I grow my own personal learning network, I’d better have a purpose in mind. How do the people and resources in my network add value to me? What do I want to gain from that network? What do I want to contribute to that network? In the end, does it matter what we name it? It might. But I think the purpose of why I cultivated a learning network is more important than what I call it. 

Purpose. I’m thinking that I need to consider this word more often. I know when I write my lesson plans, purpose is always a consideration. But do I communicate that effectively to my students? I don’t know. When I blog, I need to be more purposeful in each post. Why am I writing the post? Am I considering my audience? What am I really trying to convey to my readers when I post? Or… am I simply using the blog as a reflection tool to help me better organize and understand my own thoughts? 

These are points I’ll need to ponder over the next few weeks.

Learning Through Discussion

I’m sitting in Edubloggercon 2010 in Denver this morning with a few hundred educators from around the world. Together, we have decided what we want to discuss that is relevant and meaningful to us. We have divided ourselves into smaller discussion groups, and our natural seating arrangement is a circle. 

I’m fairly certain the majority of the attendees today will leave feeling that they have 1) learned something new, 2) reinforced a previously held philosophy, and 3) thought of a different way to teach when they return to school. I know I have already, and I’m only just now sitting in session 2 of 6.

This is great professional development. How are you facilitating opportunities like this for your school?

A Good Decision

Today is my last work day of the 2009-10 school year… and the end of my first year back in the classroom. I can’t believe how quickly the year flew by!

Walking to School, Pink Sherbet Photography

Walking to School, Pink Sherbet Photography

Throughout the school year, I was constantly asked if I was still glad about my decision to leave a position in Professional Development to return to the classroom. “Hey, Michelle! Any regrets?” “Don’t you miss working in an office where you get a whole hour for lunch?” “Don’t you miss a more flexible schedule?”

Resoundingly, my answer was absolutely NO REGRETS. Best decision I have made for myself in years!

It was definitely a selfish decision. I missed teaching. I missed working with children. The pay cut was substantial, but my family supported this decision. You know what they say: if mama ain’t happy…

The first two weeks of school were pretty overwhelming. I have a freakishly good memory (you’ll know this if you’ve ever met me), but I had 430 new names to learn. There were skills I had to dig out of somewhere deep inside me that hadn’t been used in almost ten years. I worried whether the kids would like me. I worried whether the staff would like me. I wondered if I was simply philosophy-rich, yet practice-poor.

Maybe the most challenging part of going into this school year– would I be able to walk the talk I’ve been delivering to teachers for the last eight years? Could I encourage and engage and enable my students to think, create, solve problems? Oh, yes… and learn the content of the curriculum?

I hope that I did… no, I know that I did. Sure, I stumbled more than once (okay, a lot), but I can say with confidence that I taught differently this year than I did during my first six years in the classroom. It wasn’t always perfect or pretty, and I still have a long way to go, but I think I did some good things in the classroom this year.

The reasons: I have fabulous kids! I have great colleagues and a supportive administration. I’m in a school district that insists upon excellence from its teachers. I’m lucky to have a Personal Learning Network that is global, accessible, full of resources, and always willing to help!

But for me, it always comes back to the students… they deserve my best everyday. Even when that doesn’t happen (we are all human, right?), those little faces and minds are what bring you back to your classroom with the notion that you’re going to do whatever it takes to help those minds grow! That might sound a little “sunshine-y” to cynics, but those kids are what kept me going every day, week, month.

Most importantly, I remembered how much I love teaching. Not so that I can be the star on the stage, imparting my sacred wisdom to a bunch of children who know nothing… but because I also love learning. What a joy it is to me to watch kids discover the fun in learning! And to be back teaching music again… wow! Is there anything greater than listening to children sing? I’m not sure I’ve found its equal.

Am I glad I returned to teaching? No. I’m ECSTATIC!

I’ll close with this–
Yesterday, our students had a half day of school. One of my 4th graders gave me a gift, and attached was this poem:

It’s the end of the year,
and I thought you should know
part of me cannot wait ’til summer
and a part doesn’t want to go.

It’s not recess or lunchtime
or even time with my friends.
It’s because I will miss you
that I don’t want the year to end.

Thanks for being a great teacher!*

It’s been a great year! Can’t wait for August, so that we can all see each other again and learn some more!

*I don’t know the source… if anyone has it, please share so that I may properly credit/cite. Thanks!

[photo credit]

Image by Pink Sherbet Photography under Creative Commons license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/234942843/

I THINK

About a month ago, my friend Deven, aka spedteacher, blogged about his new Four Word Education Plan. In this post, he discusses what he wants to hear from his students in class: “I’m not sure, but…”3364591795_621f67fe7a

After I read Deven’s post, I thought about the children in my classroom. I teach Kindergarten through 5th grade music. I try to ask as many open-ended questions as possible to help my students really think. Sometimes, it’s successful… but mostly, it’s the same kids raising their hands every day.

For a while, I countered with, “I need to see some new hands,” and encouraging smiles at those who did not raise their hands. Sometimes, that worked, but mostly I still have those eager ones who always want to try.

From Deven’s ideas, I decided to have a quick time-out with all of my classes… even Kindergarten. I asked them what was more important: answering correctly or learning from our mistakes. We talked about how our brains learn, and that when we work together and learn from mistakes, we all learn better. I asked them if it was embarrassing to answer a question with the wrong answer. Some of the kids said they were afraid the others in their class would think they were stupid. We all agreed that we can help each other learn by understanding some of us know a few things that others don’t. Wouldn’t it be great if we all shared that knowledge together? We could help each other be smarter!

Wow. What a surprise I had the next day. I thought that, since they all had enthusiastically agreed about our new learning plan, things would be better. Nope. That’s when I thought about the Four Word Education Plan: “I’m not sure, but…”

We took another brief time-out. I modeled how to answer a question with those four words. I asked for other examples from the kids: “What else could we say when we answer a question?” Some proposed, “This is just a guess, but I THINK…”

Glory, Hallelujah! They are thinking. Not just answering easy, rote-learned answers, but thinking!

We talked about how guessing, especially guesses that take into account what we have already learned and what we haven’t yet learned, are GOOD! Without guessing, inventors wouldn’t invent anything. Discoveries would never be discovered.

I still had a few holdouts. There are some of my kids who like to stay tuned out and let others in the class answer all the questions. So I added one more component to my learning plan: “Please raise your hand before answering, but I might call on you even if your hand isn’t raised.”  Guess who likes using the “I’m not sure, but…” option the most?

[Photo credit]
Image by Kevin Dooley under Creative Commons license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/ / CC BY 2.0

A Lesson on Accountability Part II

My apologies, Mr. President.

It has been over a month since I wrote Part I of this post. To be completely honest, I have put off writing the second part because I’ve been too angry to write it.  I’m so frustrated with what I hear coming from our government, with so-called “experts” who have not spent a day of their life in a classroom, yet have the expertise to tell us what’s wrong with our schools, and with all the blame and finger-pointing that has become the status quo in American education.

To preserve my integrity as a teacher and professional, I cannot allow myself to get carried away in frustration and anger, because I teach CHILDREN. Everyday, I go to my school and look at those bright, eager faces who are waiting to learn. I don’t want them to feel like something is wrong with their teacher. So that is my excuse for the delay in completing this post. It was the right thing to do. Now, though, my thoughts are ready to pour out of my fingers. It’s time to finish.

In the last post, I addressed the overuse and misuse of standardized testing, as well as the practice of making teachers scapegoats. Since that post, Daryl Cagle, a political cartoonist I have followed for years, posted one of my new favorites. In addition to the parents in the cartoon, Cagle might have also added you, our President, Mr. Duncan, Secretary of Education, and a number of other politicians. That cartoon inspired Lee Kolbert to write a blog post about what has become acceptable behavior: blaming teachers, questioning every decision a teacher makes, etc.  Both Cagle and Kolbert pose some food for thought about the changes in education over the last 40 years.

Part II will focus on the issue of teacher tenure, merit pay, the role and future of Physical Education and the Fine Arts in American education, the issue of funding public schools, and a suggestion for you.

1) Tenure: I’ve been an educator for most of my adult life. I understand how tenure is meant to function, and I have witnessed how it actually functions. There are many in our society who have called for the end of teachers’ unions/associations (not every state provides for teachers’ unions), as well as the end of tenure. But is tenure really the problem? Or is it more about what is easier to deal with when it comes to removing ineffective teachers?

Maybe I’m lucky. I work in a district and a state, in my opinion, that has very high standards for our students, and our teachers are expected to be exceptional. I truly believe that, in my little corner of the world, for every poor or ineffective teacher, there are at least a hundred others who are amazing teachers. I know that may not be the case in every school or state, but I can only speak to my own experience. Many of my colleagues have continued their professional growth and postgraduate education, they work far beyond the posted school hours, and they give their best every day. These people have earned their tenure. If they are struggling to be more successful, they need support and relevant professional growth opportunities. Most struggling teachers want to be effective teachers. They just need help. When their jobs are threatened, they are not receiving that help. Threats don’t work on students… why would we think they would work for teachers?

Administrators need to have the opportunity to spend time observing their teachers and working with those who need assistance. I don’t think there are many teachers in this country who chose this field because it meant doing the least amount of work possible and having summers off.  If I think about it, as an educator, I haven’t had a free summer since 1991 (last summer of undergraduate school). Most teachers chose to teach knowing that they would be underpaid and underappreciated. You have to be passionate to be a teacher! Some teachers lose that passion along the way. They just need to feel appreciated and supported in an environment that allows for personal and professional growth. I don’t see that in a lot of schools around our country.

And really, this all goes back to blaming teachers for students’ lack of progress or success. That responsibility cannot lie ONLY with the teacher. Is the teacher highly influential in a child’s life? YES, but not the only influence. When study after study shows the effect of the parents’ education on their children’s success, we cannot ignore the simple facts that  families MUST be part of the equation for successful education of children. How can we bring our parents and community into our schools to become partners in our children’s education? If our schools could spend less money on standardized testing, for example, we might be able to afford more programs to create those partnerships. Until that happens, you will not see children reach their full potential.

Tenure isn’t the problem. Adequate support and relevant professional growth opportunities can transform and inspire teachers. A transformed and inspired teacher will transform and inspire his/her students.

2) Merit Pay: while I think the idea of merit pay is rooted in rewarding those teachers who really want to help their students and will go to any length to ensure success, I think the reality of merit pay is unrealistic. On any given day, an elementary student in the United States might see up to 5 different educators. Most elementary students in the U.S. have a classroom teacher with whom they spend most of their day. The other educators are teacher librarians, art teachers, PE teachers, music teachers, counselors, and administrators. Some students work with paraeducators in one-to-one or small group experiences. Which of those educators will be responsible for ensuring success on a standardized test? I believe ALL of them are. Which educator will actually receive the merit pay? This is a pretty risky incentive, one that I believe will foster unnecessary resentment among colleagues. In the middle schools and high schools of our country, students encounter even more teachers. How do we decide which educator was the one and only person responsible for a child’s success on a test?

The other issue I have with merit pay is that it does not foster collaboration. By nature, humans crave social interaction. We’re taught that sharing is supposed to be a good thing. I’ve learned more about teaching through collaboration with other teachers than I have in any graduate level course. When we share our successes, as well as our failures, we learn more together. Merit pay, in my opinion, will absolutely crush the collaborative culture we’ve worked so diligently to cultivate. When it becomes a competition for pay, people will not want to share what makes them successful. By sheer nature, we will become hoarders of our innovative ideas… and kids will lose.

Merit pay works in business where profits are at stake and competition is good for business. Schools are not businesses, and should not be run as such. Our bottom line is ensuring every student learns. There is no profit at stake. Children are at stake, and I feel competition among our teachers put our children at risk.

Should great teachers be rewarded? Absolutely! Those rewards are out there- we just need more of them. Recognition of hard work, grants, teaching awards, opportunities to present what we’re doing… these are all recent examples of what I’ve seen teachers request in lieu of merit pay.

3) Physical Education and Fine Arts: Currently, in my state, Physical Education and Music are required as state standards in every school, elementary through high school. The number of hours required differ for each level of education, but they are required. I’m worried that will change, as a disturbing trend continues to sweep schools in other states. Faced with budget crises, school boards and superintendents are cutting these curricular (not extra-curricular) areas in favor of  “essential” subjects- reading, math, and science. Never mind the significant amount of brain research regarding all the positive effects on learning from physical education and art and music classes. A simple web search will point you to more than the few links I’ve provided. We have all this research, yet these programs are still cut. That doesn’t make any sense, unless people truly believe that pulling out exercise, opportunities for creativity, higher order thinking skills, problem-solving, teamwork, and life skills are less important than reading, math, and science. Our kids might know how to read and write, solve familiar math problems, and memorize a few scientific facts, but how will they know how to work together to solve a problem they have never before encountered? What will they be prepared to do once they leave the familiar and rigid structure of school? Physical Education and Fine Arts Education classes extend and enrich reading, math, and science.

Full disclosure: I am a music teacher. Some people think I fight for music education in public schools because it’s my job and I don’t want to lose my job. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I fight for music education because it’s the right thing to do for kids. I know what academic advantages music education provided for me… and I know what advantages my students have because they come to music every other day in our elementary school. Yes, we learn to sing, move to music, and keep a steady beat. Some might argue that’s not very important. Even though I disagree, I can also say that my students’ experiences are far beyond those simple objectives I report in my grade book. In every class, they have the opportunity to answer questions for which there is no right answer. They get to create, play, evaluate, synthesize.

Maybe more importantly, students in my music classes are CONNECTING their learning. In math class, they learn math in isolation. In my class, one song can teach us something new about reading, math, science, world cultures, as well as how to connect all of those areas. When we learn a new concept, we involve three of the five senses (seeing, hearing, and touching), and we ALWAYS learn by doing. I don’t necessarily prepare my students to grow up to become world-class musicians, but I do hope I am preparing them to become world-class thinkers and learners.  I am not an exceptional teacher. There are more like me than not.

Jon Orech is an educator whom I have recently begun following in my network. He wrote a post about Fine Arts teachers and how they “get it” when it comes to teaching and learning. After reading that post, I thought, “he gets ME and every other fine arts educator who fights for what’s right for kids.”

If we know what is right for kids, why are we not ALL fighting for it?

By the way, I don’t have to teach music. Again, this is not about me worried about job security.  I have worked, as I noted in Part I, in the private sector in e-commerce, several technology fields, and higher education. I received a superior public school education when I was growing up which, coincidentally, included challenging Fine Arts and Physical Education classes. Because of that superior education, I can do whatever I set my mind to do.  I do not HAVE to teach. I CHOOSE to teach. And again… there are more teachers who are as passionate about teaching and learning as I am than those who don’t really care about their students’ learning. Let’s fight for those people, too, while we’re at it.

4) Funding Public Schools: This morning, I heard a sound byte on the Today show of Michael Petrillo of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Basically, he stated that schools need to get used to the fact they will have to operate with less money. So… let me get this straight. Our students are not successful enough to compete globally, teachers are not doing their jobs properly, the new Blueprint for education is supposed to relax some of the unfunded mandates of NCLB, yet standardized testing is still the rubric by which we judge which schools are succeeding… BUT, schools have to just deal with the fact that they are getting less money? That’s a little tough to swallow as a taxpayer. My taxes have helped corporate greed remain alive and well in the form of bailouts, but our kids just have to suck it up? I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t fly with me!

Asking schools to “make do” when they already operate in a very lean hierarchical structure means telling kids, “You are not important enough for your country to invest in you.” Most schools were built to reasonably accommodate 25-30 kids in a classroom. Some districts are laying off teachers due to lack of funding, and the teacher to student ratio is expected to double. Have you ever been in a classroom with 25 kindergarten students? 25 8th graders? Probably not. Classroom management with that many kids is challenging at best. Doubling that number is unfair to every single child in that room, and I can predict that test scores, and more importantly, LEARNING will suffer.

In an age where technology is further dividing the have’s and have not’s, we’re telling our schools that they DON’T need decent broadband internet connections or up-to-date computer access for every child. In my classroom, there is one computer for up to 24 kids at a time, unless I check out laptops. I can check out those laptops- our school has two carts of about 26 laptops each. Keep in mind that I compete with at least 20 other teachers for those laptops. Our school is luckier than most that don’t even have that much.  Cuts in funding mean fewer technology updates and equipment, and again, our kids will fall behind. Many people argue that kids don’t need computers and internet access to learn. Of course, they don’t. But if we expect them to compete globally and learn how to be successful in an age where information changes by the second, they cannot do that without the proper tools. Thirty years ago, we wouldn’t have batted an eye at purchasing textbooks, pencils, and paper for our students. Those were the necessary tools. Now, our tools need to provide access to current information on a global perspective. That requires funding.

Are we saying that our children, the future of this nation, are LESS important to us financially? They are not worth our investments? Was the Race to the Top grant initiative supposed to encourage states and schools to innovate and thereby receive additional funding? In my opinion, it was just a contest with winners and losers. If we want our students to compete globally, we can’t have any losers. Racing to the top means stepping on people at the bottom.

I have basically one suggestion for you, Mr. President, on how you can help all children in the U.S. become successful: LISTEN to the right people.  Listen to educators. Listen to students. Listen to parents. There are voices out there with solutions, and they are begging for the opportunity to be heard. These voices will give you the answers you need to successfully reform American education.

Sincerely,

A passionate advocate for the future of our nation’s children

A Lesson on Accountability Part I

Dear Mr. President:

In the past two weeks, I have read more about schools, teachers, and accountability than I have ever seen in my nearly 20 years in education. Sadly, I can’t say that what I’ve been reading is encouraging. The one word I see over and over again is “accountability.”

Accountability IS a good thing. As a teacher, I strive to instill its meaning into the mind of every single child I’ve taught. Accountability is a life skill that will make you or break you as an adult. But please understand me when I say that I’m afraid “accountability has become nothing more than a political buzzword, and I’m more afraid for American education than I have ever been in my life… and it’s not because I’m afraid of how that term, accountability, relates to me.

An American education has always been about opportunity. EVERY child in the United States has the right to attend a public school. We don’t turn children away because they cannot afford to attend public school. We even ensure they have meals during the day, whether they can pay or not. I fear this right may disappear.

You, Mr. President, are asking for more from our schools, but when was the last time you spent some serious time observing a typical school day/week/month in any public school? When was the last time you saw a teacher work with a child before school, during a lunch break, during teacher plan time, after school… all to ensure that student learns? When was the last time you asked what type of programs are being offered at schools to help struggling learners become more successful? When was the last time you attended a public school nighttime program that focused on bringing a community into a school for a multi-age learning opportunity?

I don’t deny that some schools could do much more to help their students become successful. What I do see, however, is the blame placed squarely on the shoulders of the teachers. We both know blame doesn’t lead to improvement. Besides, are the teachers the only adults responsible for those students academic success? How many of our children have parents who are supporting their education? What are schools doing to bring in community members and parents to be accountable for their children?

Are there bad teachers in our country? Sure, but I can assume that the percentage of bad teachers to good teachers is actually much less than you think. What I really see happening: teachers in the United States are becoming scapegoats. One of the most important things I learned in my history classes is that, when a nation is in crisis, scapegoats are created to assume the blame and suffer undeserved and, many times, brutal consequences. Please explain how blaming and firing teachers will EVER lead to successful schools?

Full disclosure: I am a teacher. I have always been a teacher, even when I was a student in elementary school. My teachers noticed at a very early age (2nd grade!) that I was a natural at helping students understand the concepts we were learning. Peer tutoring was something I loved. From the age of 8, I wanted to be a teacher. One of the most amazing things to witness is that point when you truly see understanding in a child’s eyes.

I worked really diligently to become a teacher. The first few years of teaching, I wasn’t very good. Sure, my choirs sang well, my students could recite facts about music back through the Renaissance period, but I was hung up on classroom management. I didn’t have enough strategies to be as effective as I should have been. Those strategies came with time, as well as advice from a master teacher mentor.

Eventually, my classroom strategies improved, and then I remembered the most important thing about teaching: LEARNING. Those kids didn’t care what I had to say. They wanted to be involved in their own learning. My goal was to help them learn to think, but more importantly, learn to learn. Those were skills they would need their entire lives!

Eventually, I left teaching for higher paying jobs. I felt I wasn’t really making an impact on children, and I was burnt out. Outside of education, I was successful… but  unhappy. So, I took a very hefty pay cut and returned to my first love, teaching. Teaching music, to be exact.  I love working with my students, and I take ownership of their learning and well-being. They are my children.

Almost every day, a student might ask me, “Why is writing (or science or math…) so important to you? It is just a music class!” My answer is the same now as it has always been: you are LEARNING. You are teaching your brain something more important than any fact you will ever remember.

Which brings me to the last point of Part I: your version of accountability is all about standardized tests. Standardized tests do not, and never will, measure LEARNING. They only measure “remembering” and occasionally “applying.” Those are the two lowest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Standardized tests do not measure analyzing, evaluating, creating, inventing… what do we want more for and from our children? Yes, I want children who can read and write, but I also want children who can think for themselves and can move beyond what we already know to what we do not yet know.

I will gladly admit there are some facts that must be memorized before we can move on to higher order thinking skills. Those facts currently on standardized tests, however, do not fully measure what a child knows and is able to do. Yet, we are basing our entire definition of success in schools on standardized tests. Money is tied to standardized testing. Threats to teachers and administrators are tied to standardized testing. Children are being threatened with standardized testing!

Have you ever seen a 2nd grader stressed out because he knows a standardized test is approaching? I have, and it sickens me. 2nd graders should not be worried about a TEST. The result of all the pressure and emphasis on standardized testing: teachers have begun teaching to the test. We can’t have teachable moments in the classrooms anymore, because “it’s not on the test.” “If it’s not on the test, we don’t teach it.” Students do not love learning. They don’t love or even like school. How are the children of this country going to be successful if they don’t want to learn? Their definition of learning has become “preparing for a test.”  And I don’t blame them.

To close Part I of this note to you, I want to re-emphasize my two main points: we cannot have true accountability with tests that are so inadequately measuring our students’ true capabilities and potential; nor can we expect scapegoats to rise up and suddenly become accountable when they are shoved down, stepped on, and blamed for everything that is wrong with American schools. There has to be a better solution. I will address those ideas in Part II.

(Edu friends: I really want to send this post (and Part II) to our nation’s leaders. I would be grateful for any suggestions you have! Thank you!)

Independent Learning

Hooray… my blogging drought has ended!

After today’s #edchat on Twitter, my brain just couldn’t stop rolling. The topic was “What is 21st century learning & how Is it different than 20th learning?” Lots of good discussion!

What I believe about education in the 21st century is that we absolutely must prepare our kids to be independent learners. The greatest gift I can give my students is how to find information on their own and then KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT.

For so many years, school has been “Do as I say. Learn what I tell you to learn.” If it’s not in the curriculum, we’re not supposed to teach it. Worse yet, students aren’t necessarily supposed to learn it, either.

Ask any employer today what their number one issue is with employees, and I’m sure you’ll get a lot of answers about responsibility, ethics, accountability. Those are all very important!  But I know also that many employers would say that they cannot find employees who can think for themselves or complete tasks without being told exactly what to do. Why is that? Think about what we do to kids in school, and there’s your answer.

How many times do you hear a child ask, “Is this going to be on the test?” They have learned to play the game of school. If it’s not on the test, why should they learn about it? That’s the mentality of the 20th century. It can’t be the same now.

Teach your students to discover new ideas on their own. Provide them with guidelines that are developmentally appropriate, but then also give them enough to room to succeed on their own… and fail on their own. Failing at something is extremely important to the learning process. We need to build in risk-free opportunities to fail. Besides, how many times in life is there only one right answer? Rarely. And when there is only one “right answer,” that answer tends to change. (Pluto, anyone?)

Teaching and learning in the 21st century doesn’t have to be scary. It should be fun… an adventure! There are many, many days when my students teach me new things from their own discovery. Those days remind me why I wanted to become a teacher in the first place.

I hope I can walk this talk in my classroom every single day. What about you?

Culture of Trust

Yesterday, I read a post by Sylvia Martinez, “Students are not the enemy.” It’s a great post, and the comments are very thought provoking. Essentially, Sylvia notes that students (and very often, teachers) are viewed as threats to the safety of a school and its network. There are hundreds of vendors out there who would love to sell you some software/hardware to protect you from the “enemy within.”

Umm… hello? Now kids are “the enemy???” Sylvia calls foul, and so do I.

The longer I’m in education, the more I start to worry about what we’re doing to our kids…. and what we’re doing to our teachers. We’re living in an era of assuming the worst from everyone. In my experience, people give you what you expect them to give you. Kids are no different.

If you haven’t read Engage Me or Enrage Me by Marc Prensky, you should. The article discusses an atmosphere of mutual disrespect between adults and kids. We don’t value what they value and vice versa. That’s how it’s been forever, right? Generation gaps and all that… but I think we’re missing something bigger here.

What if we trusted our students to do the right thing? What if we gave them the rules without any threats, and then empowered them to make choices?

What if we trusted our teachers to be professionals? To make good decisions about what would help a student learn better? To come to work on time and leave when they need to leave. To grow professionally in a manner that is best suited to their own individual learning styles, content areas, and needs.

Will some people disappoint us? Yes. Of course. We’re realistic. I contend, however, that most won’t.

As a learner, I feel empowered in a culture where I am trusted. There is no one standing over my shoulder to ensure I do the work I’m expected to do, because they know I’ll do the work. In fact, it’s insulting to me that anyone would assume I would do less than my best. I’m motivated most when I have choices, guidance, clear expectations, and am trusted to do what I’m asked.

On the other side of that type of culture- put me in a cage, give me a set of restrictive rules,  tell me not to do the wrong thing and then stand there to ensure I don’t– I’m probably going to screw up. It’s insulting, degrading, and not a great learning environment.

Which of those two cultures most resembles school?

I choose to trust my students. Today, we started a blogging exercise. The kids are 5th graders who have not blogged before, so we began with small steps. On my class blog, I wrote a post. They were asked to read the post, and then answer some questions in their comments. The comments should include their opinions. I’m finding 5th graders are not often asked for their opinions, so this is sometimes tough for them!

My  directions before they began were:

  1. Read the blog post.
  2. Think about the questions.
  3. Answer the questions in your comments.
  4. When you are finished, read the other comments. If you want to respond to someone else’s comment, please do so.
  5. Be responsible and respectful in your comments.

That was it. At first, they looked at me and asked, “Then what?” I said that was all, and that they could start working. If they needed my help, they could flip up the Help card on their computers- otherwise, they were on their own.

One student asked me if he was going to get into trouble if he checked his email during this exercise. I said no, because I knew he was going to work hard on his answers and leave a great response in the comment.

You know what? I received some really great responses from that exercise. The kids were honest, and every single one of them finished the activity without me standing over them to ensure it was done.

That’s a TINY example of trusting kids to do the right thing. I intend to walk into the classroom every day and assume the best will happen.

I’m going to build a culture of trust with my students. What about you?