It takes a village

I'm sure most people have heard the expression "It takes a village to raise a child." This is very true, and this is one reason why modern school reform efforts are not working. These policies look only at the schools, not at other factors that affect a student's education -- i.e., a student's home life and mental health, among others. This is one reason why I think "education policy," "economic policy," "health policy," etc. should all be working together rather than in silos.

The writer of this article outlines five reform efforts that he thinks would affect education for the better, and I agree especially with his points about building community ties (due to the above reasons) and a student-centered learning environment. To this second point: In grad school, I was taught that a student-centered learning environment (in which students take "ownership" of their learning, rather than the teacher lecturing) is sacrosanct. Yet I have only seen it implemented in a handful of classrooms (granted, I have not observed more than probably a dozen, but I have heard enough stories from my own students that school didn't work this way for them; thus they have to be taught how to engage in my own student-centered classroom).

Ravani also mentions instructional guidance, which I think is highly lacking when new policies are implemented. We are all expected to attend Professional Development events, because like every other profession, there are changes in the field. Yet these events, though well-intentioned, are often useless, because we are not taught how to implement new teaching methods. This New York Times article details how the "new math" of the Common Core is an incredibly good idea, but teachers are not given adequate time to learn how to teach it. Therein lies the problem.

But back to the village scenario. Ravani's first point is about strong school leadership, and I think we can all agree that strong leadership of any organization is essential for its success. The goal of strong school leaders should be to ensure that all their students are successful, and they can do so by ensuring that all of the school's parts are working together. Larry Cuban explains that there is a difference between complex and complicated tasks, and school reform is the former due to all its moving parts. Hence, we need a village to run a school as well as raise a child. Therefore, why is one entity (the government) in charge of everything? We need to include ALL parts, in this case, students, parents, teachers, and administrators, into the decision making process.

The learning never stops!

I'm trying really hard not to slack off this summer, so I'm taking a teacher-ed class that the county is offering this summer. It's a four day session (which is now half-way finished) about Media Literacy, and it has been really fascinating. The course is based around how we can implement media like TV, movies, internet, advertisements, etc. into lesson plans, and it has actually gone above and beyond my expectations.

However, despite all the good that's coming out of this course, it reminds me about the things that are wrong with education. And here they are:

1) The first element that made me rather sad was the fact that teacher materials are rather hard to get. The county purchases textbooks from a certain textbook company, like many others, and this company provides additional materials to help us teach better. Ok, makes sense. But the instructor of the Media Literacy course said that the county was going to give each teacher a supplemental DVD from this company that had things like film clips with guiding questions to make our jobs easier. Except then they didn't because these DVDs cost $300... each. Probably because of copyright and stuff, but still. That is ridiculous. I realize this textbook company is a for-profit corporation (which is sickening to me), but that is outrageous. However, what I found even more offensive was the fact that these guiding questions (the instructor gave us a preview) were pretty simplistic for the most part. The textbook company seemed quite patronizing in that regard, saying that teachers are basically interchangeable and not even all that necessary -- all we do is press play, apparently.

2) Next, I've gotten to know teachers at other schools through this course, and the way they talk about how the SOLs make their jobs more difficult is rather baffling. For instance, one woman was saying she teaches a Read 180 class, which is a highly scripted course that helps struggling readers. She is supposed to stick to the script, but today she said she had to deviate from it in order to teach simile, metaphor and personification, which are not in the script for this course, but are on the SOL. Which these students, even though they are behind their peers, still have to pass. Umm, what? How does that make any sense whatsoever? That just goes to show that standardized tests do more harm than good, and that there is something wrong with prescribed programs, especially when they are so evidently contradictory.

3) The instructor today was talking about a project she had her students do in which they had to create and discuss a metaphor they created based on a specific text. She said this was a fabulous project, because the depth of conversation and analysis the students got into was much greater than it would have been if she had provided them with a more simple question-and-answer, or even a seminar. I thought that was really awesome, but then of course my mind went to the idea of standardized tests again, and how these tests aren't really testing what students know. It was clear to this teacher how well her students understood a text, but more importantly, how honed their critical thinking skills are, yet if they were to have a standardized test on the same text, it would be difficult to judge how deeply their thoughts could go.

4) Finally (and this is not from the course), this article is so well-written, so poignant, and so in-tune about what is wrong with national education standards when it comes to children in poverty. Why is there so much wrong with this profession?

Year of the Rat

Yeah, long time since an update. Whoops.

Spring break is over, which means the fourth and final quarter has started, which means this is the most difficult time of the year to keep students engaged, especially seniors. I spent this afternoon at the final training for second-language learners, and this was probably the most valuable session, as I got several (mostly movement-based) interactive activities which would work well with (woo alliteration!) all students. I was talking to a colleague after the session about our difficulties with getting students -- particularly the younger ones -- to turn things in, and even do work in class. I was telling her that at my school everyone agreed that this year's sophomores has been the worst group of students people have ever seen. The juniors are fine. The freshmen are fine. There is something seriously wrong with the class of 2014. She said it was exactly the same thing at her school, and as she put it, "there must have been misalignment in the stars or something." It's really quite baffling.

However, on a positive note, students from all over the country are capable of doing amazing things. I have to constantly tell myself this. This video is proof.

What a week!

Phew. I am exhausted. This has been a hellish week. I'm not going to go into details, but suffice it to say that meetings put me WAY behind in terms of grading and planning (which I consider way more important, but hey, what do I know?). On top of everything else, we had a fire drill today that was not a drill. Apparently there was a gas leak, so they had to evacuate the whole school for about an hour. Fun times. It was good to see the kids fooling around, though. They needed that break for a bit. Anyway, I am probably going to bed early tonight. So overwhelmed right now.

Why so standardized?

I did not go to school today because I had to go to an all-day training for new English teachers. The training was supposed to teach us how to use our textbooks. Qua? A: Why was this training not done before school started? B: Why do we even need training on how to use a textbook? Surely (most) teachers are intelligent enough to figure out how to navigate through them. There are also people called Department Heads and Resource Teachers we can turn to.

To add another layer of ridiculousness to this nonsense, the county is discontinuing the use of these textbooks next year. Que?? We can surely spend our time doing other things (like, oh I don't know, LESSON PLANNING??) if what we "learned" today will be useless in another 9 months.

Now add ANOTHER layer of incongruity on top of that unappetizing cake. (Though not a surprising layer.) There were maybe 20 minutes of the whole day that were useful, out of the 6+ hours of the training. And it could have been handed to us in packets. We're adults. We will read it. Maybe I'm being optimistic; I'm also quite computer literate (most of the training was how to use the supplemental online resources, which I didn't even think were useful for my purposes... but I'll come to that in a moment), and perhaps some of the older teachers are luddites. Ok, fine, but the county does not need to pay for a private textbook company to send their Floridian consultant (even though we use VA textbooks.... ummmmmm ok....) to walk us through tons of information that most of us either won't use or will forget the second we walk out of that room. Not to mention paying for the subs who have to replace us. This seems especially ridiculous in a county as bountiful and wealthy as this; there are plenty of people and resources for media illiterate teachers to turn to.

The frosting on this masterpiece, though, was the insistence of doing EVERYTHING (or so it seemed) through this one textbook company. Sure, some of it served to save us time coming up with tests and the like, but most of it seemed like a marketing campaign toward standardization. Ug.

Ok, I am really not a sourpuss (except I am when it comes to this country's obession with standardization). One of the benefits of working in this particular county is the freedom with which we are allowed to teach. That can also be difficult, as I was given few guidelines and fewer texts. But clearly, standardization has not affected us as much as other counties. Yet.

And finally (whoops, didn't mean to write an essay...), I continue to love Valerie Strauss for reasons like this. Normally I don't like Alfie Kohn nearly as much, but he has earned major brownie points with me with this article denouncing standardized tests.