Read, Write, Reflect: Classroom Management… or Should it be Mismanagemen...

"Thinking of it that way, I guess I do have a rule, that as the teacher, I am required to develop a relationship with each and every student in that classroom. That is a classroom management system I can get behind.

Today I read a blog post that said what I believe in a nutshell –“Not one rule you make this week will cause good behavior in May. But every strong relationship you make will.” Yep, that’s something I could post on our wall."

Read, Write, Reflect: Classroom Management… or Should it be Mismanagemen...: As I was reading our staff handbook the other day the following line jumped out at me: Start the year with specific w...

Anchor Charts

http://pinterest.com/pin/30680841184595444/

One thing I want to do more of this year is creating and referring to anchor charts.  One blogger has really done a great job of this.  I think I'm going to use her anchor chart with my 10th graders during the first week.  I'm liking the side-by-side comparison of the two.  I don't think I've used this obvious and simply way of explaining the difference to students.  I also think I make a lot of assumptions that they're following along with me when I'm trying to help them understand the differences.

I'm about to start reading this

Educators Study Online Dishonesty

First Lines

First lines are such a great way to sell books. Maybe could even be a warmup activity.

Bay of Pigs

I've spent the past few weeks casually digging into and learning about some ed reform efforts.  Maybe it's all the extra time afforded by summer days?  Or writing on this blog?  Or even working on National Board Certification?  Also the extra media attention around Teach for America in Minnesota?  Not sure...

In a spirited conversation with alumni and the executive director of TFA in the Twin Cities she mentioned this article: Is ed reform heading for its own Bay of Pigs?.  She found it fascinating and concerning.  This only made me love her and her leadership more.  The concern is merited.

It seems like I'm trapped between two different schools of thinking in education: reformers and traditionalists.  People who want major change and those who see that change as dangerous.  Union haters and union lovers.  What I know and experience, though, is that both groups are passionate, skilled, and student-centered.  Both have their weaknesses and strengths.  It does feel like both groups are falling into this trap of "groupthink" described by the writer, Kathleen Porter-Magee:

• a feeling of moral superiority among group members;
• collective rationalization, where members discount warnings or fail to rethink assumptions;
• overly negative and stereotypical views of the group's “enemies”
• and censorship of dissenting opinion—either via self-censorship or direct pressure put on those who disagree.

 I'm just hoping that despite connections to both worlds that I continue to surround myself with people who are not scared to dissent.  There is good middle-ground in most pieces of education.  People from all the "camps" need to come together, like Porter-Magee insinuates, and poke holes in each other's ideas until something sticks.  One issue at a time.  Not fearing each other or feeling superior.    

    

First Days - Game Changer

I know many amazing teachers who get nervous on the first day of school no matter how long they've been in the classroom.  I get nervous three or four days later when students start to get comfortable.  Even then, I heavily rely on what I said the first few days of school to keep us moving, which brings me to my golden rule.

GOLDEN RULE:  Whatever you say, do it.   

So those first few days are key, because we're in front of the class making a big stink about what we want.  Whatever stink we make, we need to make sure we follow through on every part of it.  Fairness and trust are so important to teenagers.  I keep it simple so that on days three or four, when students start to settle in and test boundaries, I can continue to build their trust in my expertise and guidance throughout the school year.

Secondary Solutions

I came across this on Pinterest, and it's a simple yet fail-safe list of what to cover those first few days .  If there's anything I prioritize it's these same 7 things:

1. Entering the room
2. What to do right away upon entering the room
3. Bathroom policy
4. Cell phones/music
5. Turning in work
6. Late work
7. Class expectations (like grades, cold-calling, syllabus, signing up for Remind101, etc.)

Deciding the specifics of each of these expectations requires finding the right balance between your personality and school requirements. 

Here's what I mean: Bathroom passes are a school-wide issue.  I don't have leeway there.  It is what it is.  However, late work has no school-wide policy.  I have room here to make decisions about the way I want it to work.  I tell students during day one that I accept late assignments, but I give cut-off dates throughout the quarter so I'm not swamped with thoughtless last minute submissions.  These dates are communicated. I don't grade every single night, so if I'm not grading with militant urgency why would I expect that from my students?  I give students absolute deadlines when I need their work to get my work done.  The only exceptions are large projects/papers.   

I'm not going to implement a perfect system where X many days late equals loss of X points (I've tried).  I'm not going to deliver an absolute punishment with no chance of recovering in some way to a student for making a bad choice (I always rescind for someone).  I'm not going to alienate a student or family (I must be a negotiator and partner).  This isn't to say I'm not firm in my expectations, but I don't have an elaborate system that takes more time than it's worth to track and traps me into situations where I am inconsistent.  This fits my teaching style.  The goal, is to be clear in communicating whatever the expectation is and then following-through.  

The Point of Blogging?

Yesterday I wrote a thoughtful response to a post on a highly politicized education blog. Diane Ravitch hasn't approved my response but has many, many others.

I'm wondering about some things, and I actually don't have answers already in mind.

Should blogs be a place for like minded folks to come together or a place for debate? Should that distinction be explicit?

Do people who read certain blogs stand no chance at hearing the opposition and adjust their thinking after reading comments?

Why do we write publicly and with anecdotes if not for the explicit reason to develop ideas? How are ideas best developed?

Policy Roundtable Discussion

This afternoon I'm attending a policy roundtable discussion with Educators for Excellence.  Our discussion topic is focused on new teacher mentoring.  It's interesting to me that Minnesota does not have any state provision for new teacher mentoring but 22 other states do have state-funded induction programs. 


I'm excited to learn more about how an induction program would work in Minnesota.  I especially loved this quote from the Teacher Support Partnership:

"Finally, induction systems are not about evaluation. Activities that involve assessment of performance, either self-assessment by the educator or collaboratively with a peer observer, are used for formative purposes. Formal evaluation requirements that lead to summative decisions remain the responsibility of the school administrator. Induction systems are focused on the growth, development, and sustained learning of educators." Minnesota Educator Induction Guidelines

The video above is a link to a PBS story that highlights what Chicago is doing to mentor their teachers and prevent burnout.

New Words

I liked the brevity and straightforwardness of this article from The Week.  I'm thinking I might hand it out to my students: How to make a newly learned word 'stick'  I like things that demystify processes of learning for my students.

Summer

Summer is all about recharging the battery, digging in to new ideas and reflecting on the old. I'm always thinking about my classroom, and that's okay with me. Can your career be your hobby and still live a balanced life?

I think so. I've wondered the past few years if I should be adding more non-school things to my life. Right now, I don't feel like anything is missing. Hobbies are supposed to energize, and thinking about my craft does that for me.

When school starts, there just isn't always enough space to dig into new ideas. So I happily use this space: Juut, coffee, Focus by Schmoker, and summer.

Abandoning Books Can Be Meaningful

"Why aren't you reading your book?"  

"Ms. E - it's boring."  

"Oh - stop reading it and find a better one.  

What don't you like about it so you can avoid other similar titles?"

GoodReads recently did a poll to investigate what makes people abandon their books.  This can be a tricky topic for English teachers.  First, we read for different purposes.  Academic reading is an area that cannot be abandoned for many different reasons.  Whatever the hurdle, the reader has to be resilient enough to jump it.  However, reading for pleasure is a whole different thing.

We start to figure out our true personalities in high school.  While peer pressure definitely still has its place, students in our English classrooms are encouraged to pick what they love - even if you're the macho, dreamy boy all the girls crush over we still want you to keep reading your selected book, The Pregnancy Project, because for some reason it entertains, interests, and intrigues you.  As a reading teacher, I feel it's my job to give teens the space to explore whatever it is that piques their interests.  But if the Pregnancy Project suddenly sucks halfway through the book, I say quit it.

“Time is what we want most,but what we use worst.” - William Penn  

I want my students to have endurance and determination, but pleasure reading is not the place to do this.  Instead, let's use that precious non-academic reading time to our best of abilities and hook our students.  Let's give them the space to develop their identity as a reader, just like we know our own identities when it comes to music, fashion, and art. Sometimes one needs to explore new styles, quit, and restart to build self-awareness.

GoodReads: Pyschology of Abandonment

I could chat about the contents of this chart forever!  What's extra fascinating to me are the non-quitters - 38.1% always finish, no matter what.  This represents most academics I know, and sometimes it outcasts me.

In my classroom, I'd say that number is definitely smaller if only for the reason of age and developing their tastes in books.  It would be interesting to collect this same data with my 10th graders at the beginning of the year and at the end.  Would a year of great classroom library choices develop a student's tastes in reading enough to not quit so quickly out of boredom?  Is a boring book always going to be boring to you no matter how long you've been reading, making the analysis null?

Wait.  Forget that bottomless pit of questions I could create.  Maybe what's great about this chart is simpler.  There's so much stigma around quitting and a learned helplessness around it with reading. Looking at this chart, it's clear that there are socially acceptable reasons to stop a book.  Quitting doesn't define your ability in this situation.  But teens, especially struggling readers, think it does.

Maybe there's nothing too spectacular or research-based to learn from analyzing this chart in relation to my own classroom, except to share it with my students and validate their decisions as readers.

 

Did they learn anything?

Pinterest Link

No seriously, did they?  Or did they game the system?


My biggest pet peeve as a teacher (besides cheating) is when students do their work out of a desire for points.  When they game the system, do what they think they must, so they can move along.  Checking for learning is how I beat them at their game.  My biggest strategy is cold-calling, and I will keep doing it this year.  I like this info-graphic quite a bit, and I plan to diversify my learning checks a bit more using some of these suggestions.

How I want to incorporate this:
One particular cloud sticks out to me - "Compare: Compare your work to an 'A' work."  Thanks to my school's collaborative learning teams and my wonderful colleague who shares a classroom with me, I have been so much better at this in recent years.  One thing she ALWAYS does is have an exemplar for students to see what the end product should demonstrate.  We even gave students examples of different levels of achievement with certain assignments.  This seems obvious, but when I was a new teacher I struggled to add exemplars because it takes more time (who has more time!?).   

Hold up though, this isn't really my point.  Anybody can do this and check for their students' learning without an initial exemplar.  Why not take that final step in a lesson to have students reflect on how their work stacked up compared to an A?  Take the 5 minutes and give students some closure by posting or distributing an "A" assignment. Ask students to rate themselves or explain the differences in their work and the exemplar.  As teachers, we should have a few exemplars or else we just got checked - better reteach.  I also love how this helps students because the "A" work isn't an example from a textbook.

Start this habit right away - first few weeks.  Make it the norm for students to reflect on their performance.  Loop the reflection in later by asking them to analyze how the reflections have changed the way they approach learning.  If we can continue to compare and reflect we make learning authentic and meaningful.

Teach kids how to teach themselves.

Side-note:

Pinterest is full of great links to teaching ideas.  I find myself constantly adding links to my "teaching board" but never really going back to those links.  I plan to use this space to explore some of those great resources I find. 

       

Aimless Amy

I was given the nickname in college, Aimless Amy, because I knew exactly what it was I wanted to do with my life: teach.  Nine years later I still know exactly what I want, but I see how aimless the teaching profession can be without purpose, honesty, and passion.

I teach at a large city high school with amazing colleagues and even more amazing students.  The job never gets old.  I'm a proficient teacher, passionate - even.  But I continue to peel away at what it means to be a great teacher for my students and community.  I know my contributions need continual strengthening as long as there's an achievement gap at my school, in my state, in our country.

Hopefully this isn't another fledgling blog that eventually slips away from the writer.  I once found peace and inspiration in writing blog posts in college as an undergrad, because I was exploring a world that seemed so new to me.  It's important to harness that curiosity, passion, and desire even as a veteran teacher (I am a veteran teacher, now, right?).  Here I will share.  Hopefully my readers will walk away with resources or insight into what it takes to teach well.  I don't want to be aimless.  I want to approach my classroom with renewed purpose, honesty, and passion every single year.