to be loved

This morning My Smart Cookie finished her state testing and looked around the counselor's office where we were stationed. Seeing the "How do you feel today?" posters on the wall she stood up and pointed.

"I'm these three!" she said confidently, pointing to the Loved, Silly, and Happy faces.

"I'm loved because, well, you love me." she stated, matter of factly.

4 years ago My Smart Cookie was in my first grade classroom. We had our moments- some good, some not so good- sometimes her fault, sometimes mine. She gave me a run for my money, but through whatever happened I kept focusing on the child underneath. (For classic Smart-Cookie antics click on the 'My Smart Cookie' tag below.) Whatever happens, I told myself through all those antics, I will let this girl know she is important & that she belongs in our classroom.

Once our class ended I worked on keeping in touch, sometimes just by saying hi in the hallway, sometimes notes if I heard she did something well, sometimes she came to Friday morning book club, sometimes I would check in with her to see how everything was going. Once she hit a testing grade I was assigned to her to administer all important standardized tests one-on-one- which meant we had sporadic hours here and there throughout the year to chat before and after she took a standardized assessment.

She's not always easy to love. She's told me I have bad breath before. She's told me horrid stories about her fights with her sister. She's shared totally inappropriate thoughts. But underneath it all is the awesome girl with a wicked sense of humor- the super creative child who one day will show us the brilliance inside her. 4 years of listening to her, reminding her she's smart, laughing at her jokes, reminding her to use good social skills, and... just listening to her- and now I know, she's heard me. She got the message. If nothing else, she knows she's important.

Knowing someone believes in you- that's everything. I've had an odd feeling of success all today. She might not be following other social norms, but now I know that she knows she is loved. That's got to count for something.

moment for non-education thoughts

Dominican library in the Carib territory (Indian reservation)- if you look closely you can see two girls sitting out front
Brand new school
View from our hotel in Calibishie
Heaven.

Forgive my long absence... I've been on the small island of Dominica for my cousin/old roommate's wedding. If anyone is looking for a Caribbean vacation that doesn't feel touristy, I highly, HIGHLY recommend Dominica. It's in the West Indies, near Guadalupe and Martinique, and the only Caribbean island Columbus would still recognize if he landed there today. My cousin's husband was stationed there for the peace corps, which should give you some idea of the adventures we had this past weekend.

I love traveling, and I can't do it without relating it to the children I teach. This trip especially made me reflect on the lives my children lived before they came to the US. The island, with all it's beauty and fabulously friendly culture, gave me an insight into family struggles in countries outside the US. The small houses, all with laundry hanging out front, the children lining the sides of the roads in their underwear to allow them to be comfortable in the heat, the entire families sitting outside on their porches, talking and laughing, the families walking on the side of the road to school or work since there is little transportation on the island. (the country has 2 main roads and only 8 gas stations). The woman walking up the steep mountain with a bushel of bananas balanced on her head. The laughter and joy the families clearly shared, despite the struggles of lacking running water, dependable electricity, good sex education, and medicine. The ground lined with rotten mangos and bananas since there is no infrastructure to can or export the delicious fresh fruit now that Dole no longer uses the island's supply. The day to day struggles so different than we experience. It makes me wonder how our children adjust- their lives here in the US aren't necessarily easier, but instead have different struggles. So many times we worry about our children adjusting to speaking a different language, but don't always reflect on how much they might miss their old culture, the worries and concerns they were comfortable with, their old way of life.

It was an amazing trip, and again, I highly recommend Dominica.

I also, however, get to brag to my first graders who are obsessed with Cricket that I saw the World Class South African Cricket team in the small Dominican airport.

what's your sticky note say?

When I walked into my first grade classroom today I immediately noticed something strange-Every child had a note paper clipped to their shirt with one or two descriptive words.

"Good artist"

"Hard worker"

"Nice"

"Funny"

I wondered what they were up to. We teach writing in the afternoon, so it couldn't have been a lesson on using descriptive words.

I finally asked and quickly learned that it was a part of my awesome co-teacher's morning meeting. She had the children pair up and share something they liked about their partner. Noticing how nice the comments were, she decided to write them down for them, thinking they could tape them to their desks. But, she explained, having them wear them seemed so much better.

It was.

I sat down to begin the reading focus lesson and looked out at their happy labels. Sure one kid was playing with his shoe, but the minute my mind went to being annoyed, I saw the label "funny". I smiled, remembering the comic book the boy wrote a few weeks ago. Yeah, he is funny. No longer seeing him as annoying-shoe-boy, but instead as a funny, bright first grader, I returned to looking at the whole group- a sea of positive sticky notes.

I love this idea for a morning meeting activity, and love that my friends spent the rest of the day with their happy notes pinned to their chests even more. Their own character trait became a badge of honor to wear proudly.

At the end of the day one came to visit me at my desk before he left.

"Mrs. Lipstick," he began earnestly, "I'm a Hard Worker." He tapped his note as though to prove it. And with that, he left to catch his bus, walking with a little more pride in his step.

motivation

There are some families in our school who have become notorious for needing extra-special love and care for working with their children. These families all tend to have many siblings in different grades, making almost every teacher in the school come into contact with a family member in one way or another. These are the families whose parents are difficult to get a hold of, or when you do manage to track them down they give you fabulous one-liners like,

"Condoms? You found condoms in my first grader's backpack? I don't know where he got those- we don't use them at our house!"

or

"what do you want me to do? Tell her what to do? I'm her mother."

or

"I'd be happy to come in and have a parent conference. Let me just get a pen and write down that time. Oh look- I don't have a pen. Nope, no pen in the whole house. Too bad, I really wanted to meet with you."

Most of these parents truly want the best for their children, but are overwhelmed with their jobs, their many children, trying to pay rent, feed their families, and stay above water. These are the children who rarely do homework, tend to need to repeat kindergarten, and need to spend a lot of time with the guidance counselors. They are sweet, wonderful children, whose lives just haven't exposed them to good problem solving strategies, immersed them in language and literacy, or prepared them for school's academic environment. Many of them come to kindergarten able to wash dishes, cook food, and translate for their parents' at the hospital, but have little idea of how to spell their name.

Today, during kindergarten free choice I walked by the youngest members of one of these families. He looked up at me with his bright kindergarten smile and said, "Hey, want to come to our show?"

Quickly he explained that he was getting his friends to put on a Knuffle Bunny Play like his brother had seen on Friday when the first grade went on a field trip. He was directing a whole of children around him to take part in preparing for "the show".

I smiled, said "of course" and then asked him what his brother told him about the play.

Turns out, the brother had the family spend the weekend re-enacting Knuffle Bunny The Musical over and over again.

The family who seems to never turn in homework, avoids parent-teacher conferences like the plague, has let us know that academics are not nearly as important as their children's survival- the children in that family spend the weekend acting out a book, not because it was homework, but because they wanted to.

I died. The first grader in question is the most notorious of this particular family, and the one brother who spent the most time meeting with our fabulous administration. The one who acts like he, at 6, is way too cool for this school stuff. Yet he organized the rest of his brothers to put on a play- a play he'd seen in school- a play based off a book.

On Friday I wrote about how awesome our field trip was, and how much the kids got out of it, and that it was an event they would remember forever. But to be honest, I didn't expect anybody who wasn't already an avid reader to go home and bring the play home to his family.

We can talk all about data collection, high standards, merit pay, accountability, and student outcomes until we've exhausted the subject, but until we find the spark for each of these kids- until we are able to inspire our most troubled learners, no real reform will take place. It's events like our Friday adventure that allow children to connect with the world, and motivate the learners we are so desperately trying to teach.

Manufacturing children

Right as I was slipping out the door today I happened to catch a glimpse of this week's Forbes (Mr. Lipstick decided to take a break from the Economist and subscribe to Forbes for a year since it was free, and the Economist is $$$. Personally, I miss the Economist).
Regardless, this week's Forbes is sporting a lovely cover page of a school black board, with a chalk message that reads, "What Schools Can Learn From Money Management".

Ugh.

So, of course, I had to read it.

I actually opened it with the hope that, maybe, it would actually have good suggestions- new suggestions- that can be added to the education debate. I'm sure money management groups are doing great things, so sure, maybe we can learn from them! Teach me something new!

It didn't take me long to learn there wasn't anything new to teach. We've all read the article before, no matter who wrote it, or in where it was published. It's that familiar ode to the charter school movement, holding them up as the promise of how we will save the failing education system in this country. In comparison, without mentioning public schools at all, it paints us public school teachers as the lazy union card-holding folks who are in teaching for the summer breaks and believe in holding our children back because they come from "bad"neighborhoods.

It doesn't say that of course, but that's what I infer from what it doesn't say.

The article does what every charter school article does- it praises charter schools with lists and lists of examples of the ways charter schools are revolutionizing education. Except, none of the revolutionary practices are different than what we do in the public school. Somehow, just because a practice happens within the walls of a charter school, it's revolutionary. Within the walls of a public school it's lazy, and traditional.

Some of it's descriptions of these amazing charter schools include:

"Teachers receive higher salaries- and help. Brownsville Elementary backs 23 teachers up with five administrators, including deans and 'coaches'. "

OK, we don't have 5 administrators, but we do have 3 administrators and 6 coaches at my school. (and OK, we have a lot more than 23 teachers). Ironically, earlier in the article the author bashes public schools who give too many resources to administration and do not put it into the classroom. Exactly what is the difference between an administrator in a public school and an administrator in a charter school? Somehow the charter school administrator is so much more valuable that they are not considered a waste of resources. 5 administrators for 23 teachers? What do they do all day? I hope they're administering the tests to the kids so that the teachers actually get to teach.

Another miracle of the charter schools:

"Children in kindergarten through second grade are given a one-on-one reading comprehension test every six weeks and graded on a scale of 1 to 12. If the entire class struggles with a concept, McCurry says "we can go back and re-teach that." If an individual student falls behind, the school pulls them out into separate groups for intensive instruction on their individual weak points. The lessons can be delivered on a computer or during lunchtime tutoring session: the3 important thing is that teachers and administrators are constantly watching and adjusting their methods as test results come in."

What do they think we do all day in public schools? Paint pretty, pretty pictures and dance in the daisies? Do they believe public school teachers all operate under the understanding that our children learn by osmosis?

We too give one-on-one reading comprehension tests. Not every 6 weeks, (we don't have 5 administrators so bored they have nothing else to do) but we are constantly analyzing our kids progress through running records and anecdotal notes when we are not administering one-on-one assessments. We have computer programs we use to support instruction, and can determine what a child will learn on the computer based on our assessment of the child's instructional needs. We re-group students frequently to make sure we are meeting their needs on a daily basis. My partner in crime develops math, reading, and writing groups every 2 weeks and gives each group a focus based on the children's needs and strengths.

Another miracle:

"Using Palm handhelds or Web browsers, teachers can input results of, say, a kindergarten reading comprehension test that requires students to pronounce three-letter nonsense words."

(let me pause here- if a student is reading a nonsense word then it cannot be a reading comprehension test. Unless charter schools have the miraculous ability to teach children how to make sense of words like fip, or merm, then it is a decoding test).

"The software can differentiate causes of failure, distinguishing between students who are too slow and those who make errors; it can also flag kids who don't blend letter sounds together. Then it prompts the teacher to group children at similar developmental stages together and provides proven instructional techniques for their particular problems".

Wow, that software can do exactly what I was hired to do as a teacher. But I, and my think-tank coworkers, can do it without the additional software. I don't know what's happening inside charter schools, but in public schools we don't need a palm pilot to tell us how to analyze the errors are students make, remind us how to create leveled groups, or create lessons that teach to particular problems.

Miracles never cease...

"Beyond frontline training it stresses evidence-based methods in the classroom. Teachers watch videos of themselves and colleagues to find what works- and how to knead effective practices into their own instruction"

Ummmm.... yes, yes, we lazy public school teachers also do this one too. We video tape ourselves, analyze it, ask colleagues to observe us, we observe colleagues, we reflect on our lessons, we combine what we observe with our student data to determine how best to teach the students.

Then there are the charter school miracles that confuse me because I don't see them as miracles...

"Roughly 10% to 15% of its teachers quit each year; another 5% or so are fired for poor performance, compared with 9% attrition and 4.4% dismissal rates for public schools."

So, basically you're telling me that more teachers burn out at these schools, or quit to move on with their "real career", but they manage to only fire .6% more "bad teachers" than public schools. Did I read that wrong? Is it a good thing that teachers are quitting? And aren't charter schools suppose to be revolutionizing getting rid of bad teachers?

Wait- having teachers quit is a good thing...

"Achievement First and its peers rely on young, inspired teachers coming out of training programs like Teach for America". Read: recent college graduates with no teacher training, who will work for pennies before they move on to their real careers.

The article also states that Cisco Systems, Google, and billionaire Michael Dell support these charter schools who are using specialized computer instruction. Of course they do! That's like saying pencil manufactures support the use of pencils and pencil-friendly paper. The more you can support a demand for your product, or a product you may be able to work with, the more your own product will be successful.

*** I'm coming off sounding much more bitter than I intend, but I can't help being frustrated as I read the article. Instead of discussing new ideas, or even reflecting a true look at how the money managers can impact school policy, the article only served as a cheerleader for charter schools.

I'm tired of charter schools being hailed as the answer, when most of the time we are doing exactly the same thing in public schools. We use data to drive our instruction every single day. We analyze our children's needs and adapt our instruction to make them successful. We reflect on our teaching, we collaborate together, we seek out best practice, we use technology to support growth. I'm not standing up and saying charter schools don't work- I'm just saying that just because a school has been repackaged and re-branded doesn't mean it is automatically better or any different than other schools.

I was hoping Forbes would be more reflective and more insightful than this. I miss the Economist....

Revisiting Success

In March I wrote about one of my little ones who was struggling to learn her letters. From August until March we were working on differentiating between the letters c and e, trying to get her brain to recognize that because of that small line in between the e, they were not the same letter. In order to teach her I had to keep taking my instruction and dividing in half- going back to the most basic skills at ever step.

I wrote about how long it took her to learn the 9 letters in her name, the steps we took to teach them to her, and how, although we are proud of her progress, we wondered if there was room for such basic fundamental instruction in a high-stakes testing environment.

And yet... now she knows almost all of her letters and their sounds. Because of the strong foundation we gave her with those first few letters, she learned the rest of her letters quickly, not needing the heavy direct instruction we used in the beginning. If you say a word she can, 85% of the time, identify the initial sound and the letter that makes that sound. She makes more progress every day. We created a learner.

We lay the foundation she needed, and taught the child. And she made more progress than we thought was possible.

We taught the child.

Now, how can I do that for every child on my caseload? How can I teach to what they need, so that they have the tools and the foundation to truly learn?

weather channel similes

Remember our weather man?

Today he informed my co-teacher that his heart was beating like a severe thunder storm warning.

There is something to be said for having an obsession and then relating it to everything else in your life.