Posts Tagged “district”

Professional Development

It’s part of every teacher’s life, professional development. In the past, in our district you had two kinds, the piece the district chose for everyone to follow and your own goals, that you chose(you know the one that really pertained to your teaching). Recently, in our district this has changed. The personal goals are now tied to the district wide goals (in other words, they are choosing both).

Since this change, we have embarked on a few new “next best thing that will increase student performance and test scores” adventures. First the focus was on vocabulary. All grade levels developed a list of pertinent vocabulary word and determined their importance to the curriculum. These lists were compiled, dispersed and I am sure filed. It was a bunch of busy work that is now on a shelf or in a drawer. Strategies for teaching vocabulary were also taught. That piece of the instruction was relevant and teachers are continuing to use it. Personal goal for this district wide goal – put an example of a vocabulary lesson you use in your portfolio. (Um, ……I already had one actually)

There was supposed to be more to the vocabulary adventure, but it was cut short. For some reason it was imperative we move on to Reading Comprehension. Again we were told it was the next most wonderful thing to improve student achievement and test scores. Seemed logical to us, so we shelved the vocabulary materials, and willingly grabbed the new reading materials. The trainer informed us that we would be learning a series of strategies that can be utilized with all students, no matter their reading level to improve their comprehension and lead them to using print. Let’s see…..we learned a total of……you guessed it…..ONE. The read aloud, is the only strategy we learned before the next switch was made. Personal goal for this district wide goal – put and an example of a read aloud lesson plan in your portfolio. (Ok, so I didn’t have that one.)

There was supposed to be much more to the reading comprehension adventure, in fact at the beginning we were told that it would take a few years to complete. BUT….the next year, we were on to the gold seal lessons of CORR. It was also touted as the next most wonderful thing, something that would be part of our professional development for more than a year. (is anyone else no longer hearing “RAH RAH RAH”…..but instead “BLAH BLAH BLAH”) Of course the personal goal was to create a lesson and get it gold sealed (and guess what…..you could put it in your portfolio!) I wrote up and submitted a lesson I do every year with my students, without any changes. It was gold sealed and my world was happy. (and yes, it was already in my portfolio) BUT WAIT – everyone did that….and now we are moving on again.

This time the professional development is “differentiated instruction”. We are just getting started; the first meeting was the prerequisite pep rally. “It’s not a strategy, it’s a philosophy! You won’t complete an assignment and put it on your shelf (or in your portfolio), you will integrate it into your teaching. This isn’t something we can cover in a year, this will be a long term journey, lasting 3 to 4 years. It will benefit students, improve their performance and in turn, improve test scores.” Wait, I have heard this before, and not just once or twice, but EVERY TIME WE START! I am afraid, now, my enthusiasm is not what it should be.

As a teacher, I really do want to learn whatever strategy or philosophy I can to help my students be as successful as they can be. I think every teacher does. There has to be a better way. If your professional development has been spectacular, please share! Those of us in mediocre land would love to hear about it.

He’s talking to me……

Imagine, you are a fourth grader in a small town. Nothing exciting EVER happens here, the last big thing was a garage fire last summer. But on September 8th, 2009 the President of the United States talked to you. Granted he wasn’t there in person, and there were many others who got the same talk, but still, the President took time out of his schedule, busy as it is, to talk to you. That makes you pretty important.

My district elected to televise the President’s speech in classrooms and allow students and teachers to be part of this nationwide event. I was amazed as rooms full of busy, chatty, bouncy students became quiet as they listened carefully to the President. In the room of fourth and second graders, where I sat to watch and listen, we did not give any special instructions about behavior. All we asked was that they be respectful of the others in the classroom, and be good listeners. (This is a daily request of our students, most of the time it is made many times during the day) As President Obama spoke, no reminders needed be given.

What I wished as I sat with them was that their parents and the rest of the adult world could see and experience this. The amount of respect their children gave, and the effort they put into listening. After the speech ended, and the Second Graders went back to their classroom, I asked the Fourth Graders to take out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and write their feelings about the speech. Tell what they thought was important, what wasn’t, and what they would remember. Every student was immediately busy writing, making it evident they had really been listening; not just sitting quietly because they thought it was expected.

“I liked when he said I wasn’t a troublemaker when I got in trouble.” “I think school is important, and teachers should give you a second chance so you can do better.” “He said we should be responsible, like our parents and the teachers.” “I really hope he will get the school new computers, because we need them.” “He sounds like the teachers at school, because he kept saying that school was important. I wonder if teachers made him say that.” “It is important not to give up.” “I am going to go to college.” “He said we could invent new cool stuff.”

Those quotes show just a small portion of what the students took away from his speech. They did not see a hidden agenda, they did not see a liberal or a conservative, and they did not see “politics”. They saw an important adult, in many of their minds, the most important adult (after all, he IS the President) take the time to talk to them about important ideas in a way that made sense. He did not talk down to them, or dumb down the message. He did not sugar coat the ideas. The students understood this message - about accepting personal responsibility, the importance of setting and working toward goals, and the overall importance of education. I hope those who were given the chance to hear it will remember it; it is a good solid basic message. It is a message that our “blame game”, “it’s not my fault”, “instant gratification” society needs to hear. It was no surprise he sent this message to minds open enough to listen, think about it, and then act.

Mentors
In my district, as in most now, we have a mentoring program.  It was just in the beginnings when I was hired, so in the 3 years of mentoring that I and all new hires are required to complete, each year was unique.  Although I didn’t always find the information or assignments helpful, my actual mentors were, well, quite honestly, priceless.
  
My first mentor was Mrs. B.  She had been teaching for well over 30 years.  She had been a special education teacher, classroom teacher and reading teacher.  She was the only Title I teacher in the building where I began my teaching career as a “guided reading teacher”.   (It was a part time, 9/10ths, position – you know where they get you full time really but don’t have to give you full time benefits)  Mrs. B. was a soft spoken, low key, small, gray haired grandma type lady.  She was kind and extremely patient with the students, and with me!  I have since lived on some pearls of wisdom she gave me my first year.  “You can’t save them you know, you can give them strategies, tools, and encouragement, but you can’t save them.  They have to do that themselves.”   I have recited that quote to myself numerous times, as I struggle to “save” one.  “Some are just hardwired different, dear.  You have to figure that out, that’s your job.”  Man, if that isn’t the truth.  Funny thing about that though, the ones that are hardwired differently are the ones that I end up enjoying the most!!  Imagine then, that after you are so impressed by this dignified, upstanding, master teacher who never raises her voice, you are walking by her room one day and hear, “Well, shit, shit, SHIT!”  My head spun ‘round, and I peeked in and said, “Mrs. B.  are you OK????!!!”  Her answer, “Sure, why do you ask?”  I sputtered to explain why I’d asked and she laughed…..laughed long and loud.  She said, “Yeah, I’m a teacher, but that’s just my day job, the rest of the time…..I’m human!”  Probably the most important pearl of wisdom she ever gave me.  As I continued that year, I learned she was very human, smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish and told the dirtiest, funniest jokes you ever heard.
 
My second mentor was also a Mrs. B.  She was different from the first but just as good.  She told me, “Administrators come and go, and you get to jump through new hoops each time.  But, kid, the students stay the same, so just shut your door and teach.”  She gave me OLD stuff.  Old basals, old games, old lesson plans…..and you know what I figured out, for my strugglers, they often WORKED!  That slow building repetition, it was just what they needed.  She LOVED the students and they knew it.  They worked so hard for her.  She most often got those with the biggest behavior issues.  It didn’t matter how quirky they were, they were just another student in the class, expected to follow the rules.  You know, it took some of them the first semester to figure that out, but once they did, she rarely had behavior problems.  She had over 30 years in the district, taught in 4 different buildings, taught reading, classroom, and special education, and survived half a dozen superintendents, and more principals.   Her best piece of advice, “You gotta start where they are and find something about them that you truly like.  They don’t care until you do.”  That was true for academics and behavior, and I remind myself of that almost every day.
 
Both of my mentors have since retired and I miss them both, immensely, if for no other reason than they reminded me to “keep it about the students”.  There is so much other, well, crap that you deal with as you sit on committees and go to professional development and get new administrators that it can be easy to forget why you are really there.  So on those days, I find myself asking not “What would Jesus do?” but rather “What would Mrs. B. do?!” (Either one of them).   After I ponder that for a minute, and pull up one of their pearls of wisdom, I just shut my door and teach.

Connecting
In today’s instant, ready-made, immediate gratification world, students are used to where interactive things react to them with the flip of a thumb, and books seem like too much work to understand. Struggling students often give up before they even get started. Because of this, I make all of my guided reading students a promise on the first day we meet. “I promise we will only read GOOD books.” That’s my promise, it’s easy to make and it’s easy to keep. I have some real aces in my pocket that get pulled out regularly, “Crash” by Jerry Spinelli, “Riding Freedom” by Pam Munoz Ryan, “Dead Man in Indian Creek” by Mary Downing Hahn and “Summer of the Swans” by Betsy Byars are just a few that are always big hits with my fourth and fifth graders. I know the real reason these books work for students is because they can connect to them, to the characters, to the situations and to the messages.

In my district, a reading teacher co-teaches in a classroom with the classroom teacher during the guided reading block. This normally means I will see two groups of 4 to 6 students for a 20 minute period each day. I LOVE guided reading groups, LOVE them! I am passionate about reading and this is my best opportunity to pass that passion along. In the end, you get moments that make all of the struggles of the year worth it, and I got two of those this year when I saw struggling students get excited, and become active learners.

The first “yes this is why I teach and why I am still paying those student loans” moment happened with a fourth grade group. We were discussing vocabulary and the students had to create definitions using just context clues. The word we were defining was “cajole”. None of the students arrived at the right definition independently, but as we started to discuss what was happening in the book, one student said, “Oh, I know now!!! It’s like that word from “Terror at the Zoo” (another staple), you remember don’t you Noah, you know, that word, “coax”.” My teacher’s heart soared!!!!! This group then went on to bring me a visual example of a “brand”, after that was also a vocabulary word. I drew a poor visual on a white board, and they felt the need to bring a “good” picture of a brand to have in my folder for next year’s group. They also found more biographical info on Wild Bill Hickok, the main character of the story we were reading, to add to my file again. All of this, not assigned, not suggested, but very exciting from the “buzzard” group – you know the diehard strugglers, who come to the table already defeated – well, look out world, they have just realized they can own what they’re reading AND help out next year’s groups too!!

The second came from a fifth grade girl, “Shelby”. Shelby had actually been a special education student, had received Title I services and although she “graduated” out of both programs, she still struggled. Her group was working with the “Lit Circle” set up as we were reading “Run Away Home” by Patricia McKissack. This group of 3 girls and 2 boys was particularly cohesive, and I enjoyed their mix of personalities immensely. They certainly never let each other get away with “doggin out” on their jobs, and pushed each other to excel. Shelby came to group one day, ahead of the rest, clutching something to her chest and breathlessly these words tumbled out of her mouth, “Mrs. R, I know I am not the connector today, I’m the summarizer and I have my summary but I have the best connection, a better one than anyone ever had, even Aly, who is the connector today, has and I just want to know if after she does her connections I can share mine even though I know it’s not my turn and if I can’t share it then I really really really really want to be the connector tomorrow because I have the BEST connection, you aren’t even going to believe and I found it all on my own, nobody even had to help me so can I please please please share it today?! PLEASE!!!” YES, of course, you may share your connection today; I am certainly not going to put a damper on that enthusiasm! What Shelby had made was a text to text connection. In the story we were reading, a female Apache Indian warrior, named Lozen, was mentioned, quite briefly actually, as well as Geronimo. What Shelby brought to group was the book, “Cool Women”. Lozen was discussed, and a picture of her with Geronimo was included. Shelby was right, her connection WAS pretty spectacular. Spectacular enough that not only did she impress her teacher, she impressed her group as well.

It’s all about connections….between students in a group, between students and their teacher, between students and the book; but mostly it’s between students and themselves

How do you get legislators to understand this??????

The end of the school year always brings a flurry of testing, much of it fairly high stakes.  In my district we have always done school wide testing regarding reading to track overall growth.  In my current building we just use a “fluency” test.  Which I don’t find particularly helpful, for me it does not give a true picture of a child’s reading ability.   This opinion was only strengthened when I had a student ask me if I was going to ask them questions about the passage or if they were “just reading it”.   (If a 4th grader can figure this out, why can’t our government or administrators.)

In my previous building we used a different test, the DRA.  This test gives a more accurate picture of a student’s ability, in my opinion, but it also takes more time if you do it school wide.   (Since my current building houses over 640 students, time is an important factor according to administration.)  Even though this test was “better”, I had some memorable moments while administering it.  My most memorable was a 5th grade student, “Amy”.
 
Amy was one of those students that everyone in the building knew, not because she was naughty but because she was such a character.   She came into my room and sat down, smiling, informing me – “I am a great reader Mrs. R!”  Super!  I give her the directions, part of which essentially say – “please read carefully because when you are finished reading you will be retelling me the story”.   We complete the first part of the test, and she silently reads the rest of the story.  When she is finished, I say, “Please tell me about the story you read.”  At this, she slaps her forehead(in true I-coulda-hada-V8 fashion) and says with great enthusiasm,  “What?!!  Well, I wasn’t thinking about the story, I was just READING it!!!”

As I contain my chuckles, I tell her to just start at the beginning and tell me what she can remember.  Amy starts off very well.  She remembers the characters names, and is doing well with the details and the story line.  Then all of a sudden, she takes a hard left turn, and I think, “what is she talking about?”  It must have been written on my face because Amy pauses and says, “Oh, by the way, I am just making this part up – it wasn’t in the story.”  Well, that time, I couldn’t contain my chuckles.   I apologized for laughing and asked, “If you know it’s not right, why are you making it up?”  Amy replied, “I couldn’t really remember the ending, so it must not have been very good.  I am just giving it a better one!”

 
How do you get legislators and administrators to understand this - that there are Amys in every set of test scores.