What's Better?

            Have you seen that commercial that’s been running on tv lately, where the spokesman asks elementary children “What’s better?” and the two choices are so clearly unequal that the question is nearly specious? It’s funny the first time you see it and then it becomes insipid, right?  That’s how I am now feeling about the question about the efficacy of differentiated instruction. Which is better: 1- a situation where the teacher slaves over whole class instruction lesson plans and attempts to teach a block of eighteen to twenty-eight students simultaneously, or 2- a class centered upon the individual needs of each learner? If you are the student, or if you are that student’s parent, the question is first speciously funny and then it becomes insipid. If you’re an educator rebelling and rebutting this idea as you read this, consider this: on staff development days, do you prefer to be talked at in 45-90 minute blocks, or do you prefer to interact with your colleagues and learn the material together? I guess I’m the oddball because there is no contest between the choices.

            My empirical data is backing up that I made the right call. My spreadsheet that I use to track benchmarks is color-coded: blood red for below basic, fire engine red for basic, blue for proficient and green for advanced.  My blood-red students have migrated from below basic to basic and even a few catapulted to proficient and advanced proficient scores. Many basic scoring students from the first benchmark have progressed to proficient. Even some of my proficient students have crossed into the advanced threshold.  The second benchmark exams were given only 2 weeks into my classroom “reinvention.” I could say that the data only shows that I have been an effective classroom teacher. I will concede that this may be true, but if that is all that the data is telling me, then student scores should explode by the next benchmark this spring. Stay tuned.

            I must confess that if I were a color I would be a neon day-glow hue and the farthest from gray. I am excited to teach my students every day. I am energized by minor milestones, and egged along by my student’s enthusiasm. One student put it this way in his end of the marking period reflection:

You're a good teacher but you have the energy of a 5 year old on candy and I have to get used to that.

Guilty. My enthusiasm and energy comes from my desire to keep my students engaged. Students can accuse me of being crazy or crazed but they can’t call me or my class boring.  Students who have become accustomed to the sedate and measured approach to teaching, take a while to adjust to my approach to the classroom.

            I am encouraged by the feedback I am receiving from students about how the change is going:

1.     English is a class that I look forward to everyday because it is fun and I like learning about English. I like the way you set up the classroom in stations. I like it better than before because it focuses on our special needs. I hope English stays this fun until the end of the year.

2.      My first study island of the year I received a below basic. The second one I took recently I got an advanced. So my attitude on school changed. I started working hard to pick up my grades and get A’s in all of my classes. I didn’t get A’s in every class but I got all A’s and B’s.

3.      The thing I like most about English 8 is that we are separated into groups based on our skill level. That is my favorite part of English 8 because I prefer to be in groups and be taught one on one.

4.      What I like the most about it was that the teacher puts himself in our shoes and interacts with us instead of just talking the whole time.

5.     I don’t want to change my English teacher I want to keep Mr. Logan as my English teacher throughout high school I love how he teaches he’s funny and he teaches in ways to help us. He doesn't just teach the whole class he looks at everyone's strengths and weaknesses and goes off from there. I can actually learn from how he teaches because I understand it; he also is fun and lets us have fun.

I did receive some critical notes too. Some kids told me they did not like different learning activities in different groups but that was when I first changed the class. When I met with them to conference, the kids told me that they see the benefit. I am satisfied that the majority of my students have “bought into” the pedagogical shift, and that emboldens me to carry on and go deeper with my instruction.

      Do you remember the student I mentioned in an earlier post? He had noticed that one of my vocabulary words was using more than one of the roots that I taught him, and his reaction to praise for this feat encouraged others to speak up and take chances. Well, not only did he improve on his benchmarks from below basic to basic, he also has been completing his classwork consistently. I was so pleased with the change in him that I called his mother to tell her about the day when he was the only one in his cohort that was prepared with his writing piece to share on our conference date.

      I made her day. He made mine. I love positive phone calls—they are even better when you are calling back a parent that you originally contacted with grave concerns. The next day, my student informed me that the whole home had great fun teasing, congratulating, and making a positive fuss over him. He made my day again. These little moments of small triumphs that just might change a life are what teaching is all about. To be a member of the village that impacts a child is a powerfully rewarding feeling.

      This is my twentieth year in the classroom. I am more enthusiastic about my job now than I was in 1993, when I started this journey. Great students, supportive parents, accessible and supportive administration, along awesome colleagues are a huge part of my success this year.

      That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Eyes on the Prize

Lesson Plans

There is a problem and it is related to a funny aphorism for stupidity: “Question: What is the definition of stupidity? Answer: Doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different outcome.” I’ve been struggling with lesson plans since switching to DI as the dominant model for my classroom. The district push is to go deeper into what we teach instead of flying over the surface in the name of “covering” the curriculum. Well, the good news of creating a student-centered classroom with a differentiated instruction model is that you have to slow down.

When you apply this principle to lesson planning, the paradigm of day to day lesson plans goes out the window. I have been experiencing that and thinking I was doing something wrong because I am not hitting my objectives—not even closely.  Just as middle school teachers should not fight the highly social nature of their students when trying to teach them, and they should instead embrace the energy and redirect it towards learning, so should a teacher who tries to differentiate his lessons embrace the slower pace of his classroom and use it to his advantage. For that reason, my lessons are going to look differently. Instead of daily goals, it makes sense to think about lessons in terms of clusters of days: weeks, cycles, triads and double dates.

When I plan that way, I allow learning to happen authentically. For example, I was able to hit all my objectives for today with my first period class, but the other three morning classes either did not get past sharing their work on fragments from Friday, or  they only finished enough to look at today’s writing reflection question.

Normally, I would be alarmed, but since I am focused on learning and not schedules I was able to look at what happened. Friday’s fragment exercise was formative assessment of the concept. In my period 2, 3, and 4 classes, students showed me that they forgot about linking verbs. This necessitated an “on-the-fly” mini lesson to reinforce that fuzzy concept. Then we applied it to our sentences, when many students took phrase fragments and made even more fragmented sentences by just adding more phrases or clauses, without making sure that the sentences had subjects, or that they demonstrated a complete thought. This caused another mini lesson on the fly. Do you see the time ticking away? If you’re a teacher--- you know this is a doomed lesson when it comes to adhering to schedule, but if you are focused on student learning you see that you responded to teachable moments to scaffold missed learning.

So, tomorrow all my classes will get to the writing prompt and tomorrow I should get to sitting down with at least one group to review their last prompt with them if the formative assessment I am writing up is completed quickly. When I expressed concern that students were only 75% proficient at turning phrase and clause fragments into sentences, and that my benchmark for mastery was 90%, a student made a bet I am following through upon tomorrow. She said most students, if individually tested, would score better than that. So I’m writing up another formative assessment now to test her theory. That’s a bet worth taking, especially when a student expresses that level of confidence in her peers.

Is it a big deal that the marking period ends Friday and we’re not even ready to take the end of the novel test yet? If I am to be ruled by the calendar—yes, be afraid, lose sleep tonight worrying about how to squeeze it in this week. If I am ruled by making sure the students actually learned the skills I am teaching--- no, we can get there by next week.

Paradigms shift and then there is chaos and cognitive dissonance. The old folks used to encouragingly admonish the youth of the next generation (I know it sounds like an oxymoron or at least a paradoxical phrase) “Keep your eyes on the prize.” My prize= real student achievement that can be measured with empirical data. Everything else is noise.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 

Finding My Guide on the Side

            I’m a few days off my target but this is a learning year for me. Rome wasn’t built in one day and I guess I cannot expect that I will be able to gut and reform how I teach my students in one week. I’m still feeling “under the gun” even though the stress is of my own creation.

            I have finally shared with all my students what the data is telling me about them and what my solutions are. I have gathered my supporting materials, posted the “remedies” online and have started assigning supplemental class assignments to be completed in and out of class. What makes me most enthusiastic about this endeavor is the feedback I am receiving from my students.

            They like the change. The students who scored” basic” and “below basic” are hopeful about improving their scores and believe in me because I believe in them. Not many of my students are what I would categorize as “excited” about the change but they are receptive. That’s good enough for me--- have you talked to a 13 or 14 year old lately. Seeing them “excited” about doing anything that resembles “work” is unusual. I can deal with receptive.

            Next step: reconfiguring my room into an autonomous, student-centered environment. That means I need to give responsibilities back to my students: supply maintenance, class routines, etc. That’s not that hard--- every kid will have a job and will be expected to be responsible for executing that job.

• ·         Supply wizard  - responsible for retrieving and putting back supplies needed for the learning activity
• ·         Scribe  - responsible for composing and submitting written material for the group when group assessments and assignments are given
• ·         Spokesperson - will present information the group worked to create or find and share back formally with the rest of the class.
• ·         Accountant - keeps records for the group to submit to the teacher daily—who finished their task? Who did not?
• ·         Time Guardian – watches the clock and  keeps the group working toward the their task with five minute interval warnings
• ·         Editor – checks group submissions for grammar, spelling, and word usage errors before submitting group work for the teacher. All members are responsible for reviewing their work and looking for editing errors but the final responsibility belongs to the editor.

My goal is that, by Halloween, students will have adjusted to my expectations and that visitors will see a room run by the students, managed by the teacher, and that learning is occurring with or without the teacher leading them. I want to be a clinician and facilitator of learning this year. These are just some steps along the way.

Mom's Homework

            I am writing this blog because my mom told me I should. That’s right. At 46, I still do what my mom tells me to--- to be honest, I do it more now than I ever did in any other decade. My mom’s usually right about the important stuff. I resented that truth when I was in my teens and twenties.  Now that I’m ending my fourth decade, I count on it.

            I called mom and dad on my way to bowling last night to check in with them and share some news I figured only they would understand or be happy for me to share with them. Two wonderful things happened. I found an” attaboy” specifically addressed to me and my closest teaching colleagues in my email yesterday, and I saw the beginnings of a real change in a student who had the potential to be a challenge student this year.

            Mom says those are the things I should commit to paper so I remember them because something may come of them. She’s probably right, so here goes:

            I was on a field trip last week to a diversity summit. I mentioned it in an earlier blog. I was invigorated for teaching by it, but I already was inspired by the opportunity to try something new with my students this year. On the bus ride to the conference, I sat with two of my closest teaching buddies. Our friendship was founded upon a discovered mutual passion for teaching our students and shared teacher values for excellence, empathy, and compassion.

            So, on the ride up, we shared and discussed many things: the new electronic systems we are learning this year; how to use the data we now have about our students to help them meet with success in our classes; enrichment and intervention periods; how we assess our students’ learning and what improvements we are making; and stories about growing up and our families—lots of stories. I was aware our superintendent was there, but we didn’t really feel a need to be self-conscious about our conversations. They were kid-friendly and therefore boss-friendly. We really needed the chance to catch up.

It turns out our boss was listening. A week later our conversations on the bus ride had become a faded memory.

             Yesterday morning, I saw a message from our superintendent labeled “Kudos”, but I thought it was a general message to the faculty about the success of our in-service training, so I was startled when I saw this message when I finally opened it in the afternoon:

Good morning.  KUDOS to the three of you!  I could not help but notice the rich professional dialogue that took place both on the ride to the Diversity Summit and on the ride back to Stewartstown.  I congratulate you for making exceptional use of the time available to share best practices and instructional strategies.  Our students are fortunate indeed.

I’m not sure I’ve ever received a note like that from a superintendent before. It was humbling. Mom says I should shout it from the rooftops. Hello rooftops. I’m shouting at you now.

            The second reason I called my folks was to share a small victory. I met one of my students in seventh grade last year while covering the intervention room. The intent of the duty was to be on-hand to help students who needed to catch up with a missing assignment and to monitor students while they made up a missed quiz or test. This young man was a frequent visitor because he not only would not do his work, but he also was often an active disruptor of his science class.

            Every time he came in, I would ask him what he did. He would tell me honestly, and then I would ask: “Was it worth it?” Sometimes he would say it was, but most of the time he would say it wasn’t. The difference was often predicated upon exactly how irritated he was when he walked in.

            This year, he’s my student, and after the first two weeks of school, he started to show similar, work-avoidance behaviors. He would interrupt other students by tapping their shoulders, try to whisper across the room or rock apathetically back and forth in his chair. I didn’t take the bait to get angry or correct him with frothing hostility, but I did redirect. I had sidebar conversations with him, worked with him one on one, and tried to get him to understand he was in a room for learning that was safe for everyone, my strongest, my weakest, and every student in between.

            Yesterday he showed me a willingness to make the effort. Every day, as a warm up, I share with my students a quote for the day and a Greek or Latin Root Word. We are in the Latin Roots now. Since I already have shared 30 common Greek Roots with my students and we are now into the Latin Roots, to make sure the Greek Roots are not forgotten, I share words derived from the Greek Roots as vocabulary words for students to look up.

            To help my students understand the value of this daily practice, I shared that I once tutored a student who needed to improve his verbal scores to get into a college that wanted him to play soccer for them. I helped him improve his verbal score by 200 points in 4 weeks by teaching him roots. When students can look at a word and recognize there is a root word in it and remember what the root means, they have a better chance of decoding the word. I received big thumbs up from my students after that story.

            Yesterday, my former intervention “buddy” volunteered an answer when we started decoding words, “Mr. Logan, can there be more than one root word in the vocab word at the same time?”

            I answered him.“Absolutely. Which word do you see that looks like there is more than one root word?”

            “Pathological?”

            I was stunned—I hadn’t really paid that close attention to the word when I pulled it from the “pathy” list, he was right. I was extremely proud of him. “You are absolutely right. He’s in it to win it! Awesome!”  I rushed to his chair and gave him a fist bump.  “You took the skill and found something about a word no one else could see. More than that, you recognized ‘logy’ was being used in the word even though they changed the root to ‘logical.’ You made my day.”

            My “buddy” is cool. He didn’t beam but his eyes did, even though he held his countenance in his controlled smirk. He was proud too.

            Today. It happened again in the same class period, this time a student who has been identified as having language standards issues in English class(among other things, that means that acquiring vocabulary is a challenge for her.) stepped up to the plate, swung for the fences and knocked it out of the park. That one student’s decision to jump on board the train to success gave his peers permission to do the same. Now, I really don’t want to mess this up.

            That’s my story, I’m sticking to it. Pssst--- tell my mom I did my homework would ya?

Evolve

            Here’s a thought. Am I really reinventing my own wheel, or am I just fully becoming the “me” I always hoped I’d be as a teacher? I wonder because, instead of being nervous through this change into a differentiated classroom, I am relieved. It feels “right” to me.  The students were already responding favorably to me as their teacher before I rolled out what I am doing and why today. What was interesting to me about the first full day was how much more receptive the students were to what I was trying to do with them after I rolled out the plan.

            To say it was all my students would be a lie. With one more class to go, I can share that one student did not like the flexible grouping plan.

            His complaint: “You mean to tell me that we won’t be sitting with the same people every day?”

            I nodded affirmatively.

            “That’s stupid. Why can’t we just stay where we are?”

            Kids looked at me cautiously. How would I react? Was the student going to get in trouble? Would I yell?

            I grinned and said. “Different days different people will be sitting together because they have the same need.”

            He was not satisfied but he dropped it. “Staying where we are” is the problem I am trying to remedy through this approach. I do not want to preserve their current levels of proficiency in the four standards. I want to explode them using lessons like surgical strikes to heal what is ailing in their learning.

            The tenor of the room shifted from uneasiness to diligence. Kids got to work and I got down to the business of facilitation their lessons.

            After building home groups, I jigsawed the class according to last week’s quiz. Students who earned 100% on the grammar/Greek words quiz, were moved to the “front of the room.” I beamed their journal question for the novel to respond to and share with me on google docs.

            Next, I moved students who were perfect on the Greek Roots part of the quiz but missed a part of the grammar assessment to the next row of groups. Their assignment was to complete an additional adjective and adverb exercise set. When they finish tomorrow, they will look into my teacher addition, find the right answers and, as a group, present how to correctly identify adverbs and adjectives and the words they modify.

            For the vocabulary group(s,) students were gathered into two tables. Each table was given a copy of last week’s questions. Students were advised that not only did they need to correct their missed answer but that they also had to explain to the class how to keep from choosing the wrong definition for their Greek Root words. Tomorrow will be a formative assessment of the students’ emerging understanding of modifiers.

            Formative assessment is also evolving and I am happy to report that I am seeing genuine improvement in most of my student’s quiz scores. Class averages for last Friday’s quiz ranged from 80 to 95% where as the pre quiz scores were closer to 70% in all but one class. Even the failures (there were VERY few) managed to bring their grades up 20% from the preview quiz. I even had a student for whom I knew a failing grade would be devastating. I took the time to focus on the fact he scored 4/20 the day before but scored10/20 on the “real assessment.” I gave him a fist pound and reminded him that, although he did not cross the passing threshold he made significant gains nonetheless. I was genuinely happy for him. Learning is happening when your progress is forward even small steps in the right direction are genuinely applauded because I coach the way I teach.

            That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

We Elders

We, Their Elders…

That phrase stayed with me from yesterday’s Fifth Annual Diversity Summit. Elders. I know I am a grown-up and I’m older. I have grown nieces and nephews who are now raising their own families. I have mentored first year teachers and supervised student-teachers in the past. I guess I knew I had become an elder, but it didn’t really strike me until Consuelo Kickbusch referred to the adults in the room that way. Elders.

That word resonates with me. My father was an elder in our church. In the church homes of my parents, there was no Mr. or Mrs. Or even Dr. There were only Brothers and Sisters. I remember confusing my Franciscan Order Nuns at St. Mary’s School in Baldwinsville, NY when I would tell them stories of Sister Jerry and Brother Herbert. That is how we showed reverence to our elders.

As elders, we yield great power and must exercise great responsibility to our students. They are our charges and we are charged to teach them well. Well, isn’t just the curriculum and faithful execution of polished lesson plans. Well is teaching the whole child. I don’t think that happens when the child feels you don’t see them.

I heard Manny Scott in two days give two very different talks to his audience. In one, he spoke to us, the elders of the learning community, and in the next, he spoke to the students. He shook some trees and invited the students to share that they were in pain and needed us, their elders, to help them or get them help.

With the elders, he shared uncensored stories of his youth. They were still lingering with me when he showed us that many of our students had stories that were similar and it broke my heart to see how many of our students were in pain, feeling hopeless, or had burdens too heavy to bear by themselves.

Every day I set out to create an environment safe for learning, risk-taking, sharing, being authentic. Every day I try to let my students know that they are the reason I wake up, without grumbling, at 5am. They are the reason I look forward to Mondays. I don’t usually tell them, I just hope they will know, by my spirit, that I am here because of them--- not the paycheck or the bills I pay with the paycheck. They matter.

Each According To Their Needs

             

I don’t know why I’m apprehensive about next week. I know I am right and I don’t fear failure. I am beyond resilient and yet – I really don’t want to mess this up. I am exercising my weakest teaching tools and exorcising my biggest professional demons simultaneously. In a word, I am organized. My room is still neat but messy at the edges, but my pedagogy has never been this focused before.

            Last blog, I wrote about data-mining but I wasn't specific. In 2002, when I took a course in differentiated instruction from Carol Ann Tomlinson, one of the tenets to “getting it right” was to let your choices be data driven. A decade ago, my data was tainted because I was using only my own assessments and observation. I was using information like individual student learning styles, IEPs, and 504 considerations. We did not have the advantage of web-based assessment engines like studyisland.com or PVAS at the time.

            We are more than half-way through the first marking period and that is part of my uneasiness with my new endeavor. It could not be helped, but I wish I was starting sooner. I wasn't going to attempt to develop individual improvement plans, alternative lessons, or flexible groupings based upon my (shrinking) gut.  (Guess who is reversing his middle-aged spread. --- Fodder for another blog. Down 15# and counting!) So, for my initial plan, I used my students’ first quarter benchmark scores from study island and my observations of the writing samples I had collected, so far, from journal entries and short responses to prompts.

            I wanted to know a few details to start. The first question: “Who passed and who failed?” While gathering my answer, I discovered, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, that my students were all over the map. There wasn't even a clear trend among the advanced, proficient, basic or below basic scores. Strengths and weaknesses fluctuated between individuals and across class grouping. With that distinction or inconsistency noted, I developed a new question. “What are my students’ strengths and weaknesses?”

            Study Island separated its questions into four domains and students were rated in each by their scores: Language, Writing, Reading, and Informational texts. A few of my students showed proficiency and even mastery in two or more domains, yet still they scored “basic” because one domain score was significantly low enough to drop them into a failure overall.

            I admit that, based upon past eighth grade performances, I was really looking for the data to validate my assumptions about this cohort of students. I expected to see that everyone was weak with reading informational texts. Far more students not only were proficient in informational texts but they even scored perfectly in that domain. However this area is still a concern area because this form of reading is still a weakness for many of my students. So, those students were going to need more time learning how to attach the genre.

            The second tenet of DI that I learned was to use the data to inform my decisions for lessons, and groupings, rather than the behavior and interpersonal dynamics among my students. As you may expect, some students had multiple weaknesses but some of these weaknesses I have disregarded this month because some of the benchmark was a pretest of information not yet rolled out, that will be introduced later in the curriculum.

            Our school has already committed to remediation and enrichment for all students who need it, regardless of  IEP, 504, and other legally binding markers. The data showed  me that the advanced scorers still needed remediation in their weak areas (some areas were under 60%.) The 2012-2013 PVAS data just went live this week in school. That was too late to help me achieve my goals for first marking period, but the data may paint a different picture than the results from our September testing. Since I want to see all my students grow, I need to remediate all of their weaknesses. The benchmark domain markers were a good place to start, and since they will be tested each quarter, the data will allow me to track progress, quarter by  quarter.

The Monolith in the Room

I remember the first day I stepped into room 310 as a student teacher at West Philadelphia High School in October of 1993. Mrs. Merrill's room was neat, clean,  and tidy, but not sterile. There were neat rows of desks pointing at the front chalkboard and her teacher desk. I remember the knot  I felt in my stomach, looking at the room full of guardedly respectful students as they were informed that I would be their student teacher for a few months.

My knots were not solely because of the daunting task of teaching for the first time. It was the rows and rows of students. All summer I had read pedagogy articles about the tyranny of the middle. The fiction of the middle. The top students and the bottom students being left behind because teachers try to teach to the imaginary middle. That wasn't what was bugging me either.

The kids loved Mrs. Merrill. She had been teaching over 20 years at the time, always at West. She was a respected faculty member and community leader. Students knew they were in a welcoming place of high expectations and they did their best to rise to her benchmarks of success. The climate was something I feared disrupting with my "neophytisms" and outside baggage. I was entering urban education, but I grew up in the suburbs. That wasn't what was wrong, though.

I came to teaching from coaching. Bowling. Believe it or not, a year before I started the application process to grad school, I had an epiphany. I hated my cubicle-hell job. I had a degree in English that was not being used and I LOVED working with adolescents so much that I coached 3 youth league sessions each Saturday. I even volunteered to run clinics on Fridays and I even took it upon myself to buy equipment for students from financially struggling families. I coached each student according to his or her needs and according to their readiness to learn what I had to teach them. My gut rebelled to the monolith in the room that day.

I remember interviewing with Jim Larkin, the director of Teacher Education at UPENN's Graduate School of Education. He was brusk, imposing, and intense. He didn't intimidate me, I went to military school and was educated by Viet Nam vets who always gave you the feeling they were only a tick shy of going postal.

"What makes you think you can teach?" he demanded.

 "Sir, if I'm half the teacher I am a coach, my kids will be lucky to have me." I replied staring him dead in the eye-- and I meant it.

That first year of coaching, three of my teams won their local title in their divisions and advanced to win their district and regional titles. They each placed at states and my boys A team won the title. I knew I was good --- call it cocky, confident or convicted of accomplishment based upon performance data, but I was confident enough to hold my ground to a battle-hardened veteran urban educator turned ivy league administrator. I received my acceptance letter the next week.

The rows made the front of the room feel like a stage or, more aptly, a dais. The rows seemed like an audience, not a classroom. I knew I wanted to move the desks out of rows. I wanted to know my students as a room full of individuals with individual needs. How would I broach my need to divide and conquer to an established veteran?

It was nearly a non- issue. Carol Merrill was amazing. She let me try nearly every crazy idea I had and I grew under her mentorship. She gave me my launch. Twenty school year openings later, I'm still in the blackboard jungle. I am still finding new sources of inspiration to keep me fired up and fresh for a new year.

I am not just waxing nostalgic this afternoon. I am remembering why I do what I do and why I need to do more of it. Last week, I was data-mining preliminary testing data from studyisland.com, as a "homework" assignment from our principal, Mr. Terch. What I discovered shocked me. I had fallen trap to the oldest trick to play on a teacher. I believed the label on my classes: one honors class, and four college prep classes. 

If these labels were supposed to accurately identify the students in my classroom, then there was going to have to be a massive rescheduling project to get the kids where they "belonged." There were CP kids who aced the reading benchmark and honors students who completely bombed it. 

If I had only looked at the scores, I would have been horrified and marched into Mr. T's doorway to advocate multiple schedule changes but that was a very small part of the results that surprised me. My classes are the farthest from being homogeneous in ability groupings. The basic and below basic overall scores of my students don't tell the whole story--- some student's strengths are over 90% in one area but they bombed in other ways.

After 20 years, I have some pretty good solutions to these deficits, but I have been wondering the past few days how I can teach and remediate simultaneously.  Nearly one click and my mind came to the conclusion-- the only way students will achieve success, and learn at a pace that is consistent with their readiness, is to completely remodel what English class looks like in my classroom. The solution? Differentiated instruction, based upon the needs indicated by the first benchmark of the year and other preliminary data available to me so far.

My classroom is already physically set for the change. We have tables and no desks-- perfect for flexible grouping, collaborative learning, and micro-managing.

Now for rethinking lesson-planning. Large group lessons will  not serve the needs of my students. According to their benchmark scores and the first two writing samples I have read, their needs are all over the map, so I must teach like I coach bowling--- each according to his or her needs. I know what to do-- I have done it before and met with success, but back then, I only had to turn in a calendar to my supervisor. Fortunately, I have friends that have El Ed and Special Ed backgrounds-- they know how to write this up so that a supervisor knows what he or she is looking at when they come to visit and observe.

Today, we learned about our new responsibilities for the PA Teacher Effectiveness rating system we are now entering. I am a little overwhelmed, but I am more excited than anything. I can't teach a big block in the middle of my room but I can teach a room full of individuals. That's my goal in 2013-14. Tune in to see how it's going.

For every season, vert, vers, vert...

If you're a linguist, one of my students, or one of my students's parents you will get today's title. Vers and vert are the Latin roots that mean turn. As I travelled up the hallways to my duty period I mused at a change I made to my pedagogy. Students have written me, over the years, thanking me for teaching them Latin and root etymologies. I have also read and heard a lot about the efficacy of chunking information. There's also been instruction to teachers about considering going a mile deep and only an inch across.

All of that pedagogical discourse made me re-examine somthing in my practice that I considered "working." -- my delivery of instruction. For nearly 20 years, it has been my inclination to explore and exhaust the curriculum expediently. After all, the state testing is always in the spring, so we must get all the eligible content in before then, right?

I wasn't so sure that was a good idea anymore, so I conducted a year-long experiment with my students. They did not know it until today, but I had been teaching them significantly differently than I had in the past. I used to go through all the Latin and Greek root words in the span of one marking period. Each day would be a new root with 10-15 examples, and once I had 15 into their notebook, I would proceed to drill and kill in preparation for the test. Students actually wrote me years later to thank me for that???

This year, I talked over my idea with my learning support teammate and decided that it would be better to use one root word per week and give one example each day. Repitition, recall, relate--- repeat. The idea was that, yeah, I could give the kids extensive tests at the end of each 15 word chunk, but how much of an enduring understanding am I building in the former model? Even when a kid memorizes brilliantly and achieves perfection, how many of these tools will she remember three years from now when she needs it most on her SAT reading comprehension test?

Today, after students completed their scholastic reading inventory tests, I gave them a crossword puzzle that included all thirty Latin root word definitions. In the puzzle, students had to  write in the correct root words. My old teacher's heart was warmed by what I witnessed. Students did remember. Students flipped through their notebooks remembering when they had first encountered the root words. I let students work in pairs or groups, each according to their comfort level. The level of engagement I witnessed is what made my day brighten. Students engaged in discourse of not only what the words meant but also how they knew they had the right answer or when they remembered learning the roots.

No where was this more evident than with my Honors English students. They were nearly giddy with enthusiasm. I have results to my first reservation-- students do remember more for a greater period of time when spend an extended period of time with new information. My second querry is harder to answer. How do all of my students to that level of enthusiasm for their learning?

Group work seemed to go a long way to achieving the goal. Students became more competitive when they were attacking the goal--- finish the crossword before the bell so that all can learn the answers. For a formative assessment, I conducted root relays in class. I broke the class into five parts. Each group had a designated spot to answer their questions from and each student had the opportunity to earn points for thier team. When a teammate provided an incorrect ansewer, they were eliminated from thegame. When all members were eliminated, the sole remaining team became the winner. Students were focused on the win, I was focused on their learning.

This is the season where I begin to look back at the year and forwards to next year. The less is more approach is working for vocabulary but reading needs tweaking. I am researching how to enable online journalling or something similar to a tweet--- a chance for students to daily respond in  a sinple paragraph (2-3 sentences) about the quote of the day or if they didn't want to write about the quote, they could tweet about what is happening in their choice- novel. If every student in my room has a device or laptop, students would be able to see the posts or tweets and repond to them real tiome.

Actually, I do marvel

Sixth period has been a hard nut to crack. For the first three marking periods, the words I would use to describe the culture of the class would be unsettling: zombie-fabulous, lethargic, passive-aggressive, or  blah. They are my first class after lunch and that might account for some of their lackluster enthusiasm for class--- were their stomachs taxing all their energy ny digesting their high carbohydrate menus? The answer lay in their comments however: "Are we going to have fun in class today?" "Why can't we play a game?"

Fun? So my dazzling personality and student-centered lessons weren't fun enough?? I tried not to be offended. This group is also my smallest class: a whopping eleven students. The words I used in the previous paragraph no longer aptly describe the culture of these students. I credit the addition of a genuine live-wire to our class, but I also see that, during this last marking period, the class actually appears to be enjoying the our time together.

In this marking period, we have used fewer individual assessments and more group assessment opportunities:  a literature circle and a drama group project. The reults make me think I need a paradigm shift. When I was teaching the "eligible content" the first three marking periods: grammar, etymology, formal writing domains--- EVERY assessment, formative and summative, was individual. I missed out on tapping into my students' group dynamics.

Watching these guys at work is both interesting and entertaing. They slammed two tables together to have a "family meeting" about their upcoming production. The eleven elected to combine as one large group to produce a 4 minute scene from one of the five drama plays we read last month. The leaders rose to the occasion and policed the group. Group members were interrogated about the status of their job performance: "You do have props right?" They policed each other: "Stop being a dingus and pay attention!" and they attempted to motivate: "We've got two days--- settle down!" They were more on each other's case than I ever could hope to be--- micromanaging each distraction or individual distractor.

I do marvel. The energy that was lacking for thirty weeks has transferred to composing their last writing pieces. Students seemed more willing to write, give authentic feedback, and participate in fruitful and constructive discussions about revising than at any other time this year--- not bad for eigth-grade-itus. Students gave genuine praise to those who were deserving instead of just to those that they liked.

I'm basically talking about synergy. Team cohesion. With the year almost over, their transformation gives me pause. This group suffered from being as small as it was. I didn't do as many small group formative assessments because class often consisted of eight or nine students during cold and flu season. I drilled them to sleep.

This marking period, they are my most open and cooperative group. I am really looking forward to seeing their twenty-first century version of a scene from A Midsummer's Night Dream. I need to talk with my principal about taking pictures to share with the blog: legal concerns etc--- it's going to be a hoot. The script sounds good from their rehearsals and that kids are generally excited about costumes.

Dumb stuff makes this teacher smile--- like seeing a class finally come together after months of feeling disconnected.

That's my story. I'm sticking to it.

...and That's Funny How?

"You're acting like an overweight black woman from the south!"

Seriously?  Yep- that's just one of the "funny" things my students are saying to each other  in class. Compound that with students who argue with each other over whether such comments are offensive and you have Spring Fever 2013. For the most part, these comments are not mean-spirited, but I know first hand, that they are still hurtful to those who hear it.

When I moved to the Tidewater, Virginia region that January in 1980, I was in seventh grade. I was still shell-shocked by the epic 1978 mini-series, Roots. Moving to the southeastern seaboard after seeing that, was the last thing I wanted to do. It was a bad move: full of spirit-crushing bullying. I went to military for 8th and 9th grade.

When I returned, no one but my closest friend remembered me, that was a good thing. High school was a fairly seamless transition from military school. Maybe it was because I was miserable in a military setting of endless regimentation and no arts and maybe it was because I was pleased to spend my extra-curricular and elective time in music. Unlike the junior high debacle, I found making friends a pretty easy exercise, but that's where the problems that relate to the beginning of this blog arose.

I returned to public school during the 1982-1983 school year. The Civil Rights victories of the  1960s were not even 20 years cold. This may account for the awkward situations I found myself in those years. Whereas at Western Branch Junior High School I found myself a pariah: yankee, upper middle-class, articulate and an avid learner; in high school I experienced overwhelming acceptance. I also found myself a niche' of similarly inclined outsiders. We called ourselves the import club because we were all from somewhere other than Tidewater.

These friendships in high school and even at the military acadamy had their pitfalls, however. Let me flip it and reverse where I am going with this: some of my best friends were biggots. Don't think that's possible? I wouldn't believe it if I had not experienced it.

In polite society, one should avoid talking about finances, religion, and politics, right?--- didn't most of us learn that from our moms? However, when you befirend someone, you start feeling each other out on these issues. That's where the comment comes from.

My friends would gleefully come to me to share a great joke they heard since the last time they last saw me. First, there were the black, white and red all over jokes: skunks in a blender-- but as I got older they turned darker. Jokes about blacks from my white southern friends.

When they saw I was offended, they would assure me "We don't mean you--- you're different." As if that was supposed to make me feel better about them finding humor in impugning members of my race with their stereotypes. What did they mean "different?" And then the other kicker "yeah, but you don't really act or talk black, you're more like us." Act black? Talk black?

I wish I could take the 46 year old version of me and teleport into the teen me. There are things I would say-- no, cussing a blue streak isn't on my mind. My friends were operating under stereotypes that were so entrenched that even our friendship could not dispel them.

Acting black? I don't need to act a color. I am the descendant of African slaves who  kidnapped and shipped to the New World, --some as many as three centuries ago. The comment was a reference to my diction and elocution. Our home lives were similar. Both of our parents were college-educated and expected us to succeed in our studies, go to college, and become productive members of our communities. This meant that my folks were just as anti-slang, anti-regional dialect as theirs were. No one in my family spoke ebonics.

The same could not be said for many of my African American classmates at WBHS. I also was one of three African American students enrolled in advanced, honors, and accelerated classes-- where I met many of these friends. My school had a 60/40 white to black ratio demographic and there were well over 450 students in my graduating class alone.

For many of my friends, I would learn over the years, I was their first or only black friend. We played on sports teams together, hang at each other's houses playing video games, watched movies, crammed for tests, even visited each other's places of worship on a few occassions. We were friends, but since I lived in their neighborhood, was in their "hard classes," and did not live up to what they had grown up was true of "those people" I was "other," and like them.

I was offended by their jokes. It did not matter to me that they were not talking about me. They could have been talking about cousins who acted out a culture that they only had a cursory understanding of. This was decades before I would teach a course at the College of New Jersey called "Race, Class, and Gender," where we learn the socio-polical history of these assumptions and their economic, political, and educational rammifications.

When I hear these things. I cringe, I question, I try to gently educate. I believe it serves no purpose, as an educator, to react like a school-nun who overhears blasphemy. I try to get my point across subtlely.

Navigating these murky waters of human relationships impacted upon by racial, religious, and ideological differences has been part of my life story. I lived in white neighborhoods and predominantly white school districts most of my life. Most of my black friends that I had growing up, were relatives whom I only saw when I travelled to my grandparents' homes in Ohio. Many of my cousins had the same life experience because they were also born to college-educated, upwardly mobile and achieving parents. That was our family identity.

My paternal grandfather, a mason contractor, noticed that folks with college degrees struggled significantly less during the Great Depression than those who did not. He made sure all seven of his children went to college in the 1940s and 1950s.

The student who said the opening lines of today's blog? He is an avid reader who reads well above grade level. I gave him a choice of Having Our Say, Black Boy, and Selected Stories of Edgar Allen Poe to read during PSSAs. He devoured Poe and Wright. When he finished Black Boy, he came to me before homeroom to talk to me about it.

"I had no idea things were like that back then..." I looked at him.

"Do you understand why I had an issue with what you said to her?"

"Oh God! Yeah! Geez... I'm sorry." I hope I smiled gently, I was relieved he seemed to get it.

"Not everything is funny just because you think it is. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah."

"Cool."

That's it. No need for a write-up or call home. Other teachers were aware of what happened because other students immediately realized that  he should not have "gone there" in front of me. My point-- no one should go there, regardless of in front of whom.

I'm caught in the middle. I understand when to pounce and when to wait for a teachable moment. I'm an educator, not a thought policeman. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Forever Is A Pretty Long Time

My Grandma Bailey used to often say to me that you don't have to worry about the folks that talk to themselves, only the ones who answer themselves. If that is true, then I guess folks are going to have to worry about me.

I visited my page and noticed I had not posted in two weeks, and, although there is plenty that has happened since then that I could write about, what should  I write about?  Immediately the problems with portfolio assessment popped into my mind. I heard myself thinking: "Grading those things took forever." Then a voice answered back: "Forever is a very long time." See? Time to worry...

Anyway, last marking period, instead of an end of the unit test and essay, I assigned a portfolio project for the poetry unit. Students were offered various modes to show what they learned in the project: lessons, reflections, original poems, explanations of the poems and, of course, the dreaded compare and contrast essay. When I added up all the points for each section, the assessment accounted for 110 total points. No pressure.

To keep the grading organized, I created a live, self-marking, assessment tool, through Excel. Even with a computer program aiding me, grading these alternative assessments took weeks to grade. That is why I am giving another portfolio project, but this one will be a group project.

The problem with group projects is avoiding one person to be saddled with the majority of the work. Why? 30 projects are easier to grade than 105. Yet, group projects offer even more challenges to the assessor. How do you balance between group and indivnual accountability? How do you prevent one student from having to do all the work?

Monitoring helps. If you're out of your seat observing, listening, and interacting with the groups, it becomes clear who has read and  is pulling their own weight. The slacking student is also easy to recognize if you are closely monitoring. This is the time of the year when the good-natured ogre rears his head. Those who are not doing their daily work are oftened removed from the group and have to complete the project as an individual project. This way, the group is not penalized because they have one or more group members who won't work.

The best part? Grading these things won't take me forever.

Showing Up

Last night was a great experience in my Lancaster Challenge League at Leisure Lanes. I swept all three of my matches and two of my wins were within very narrow margins. I won my first match 206:180, my second match 215:211 and my last match 210:209. The first two matches were satisfying because when I am playing on tough scoring conditions, a win is a win. Yet I was irritated with myself because I had an opportunity, in each of the two matches, to help my team win the team totals point, but each time I threw shots errant enough to keep from striking.

The last match however, reignited me. I showed up. I had been leading by 15 pins most of the match, but in the ninth frame I was a little off-balance and missed the pocket completely. I left a nasty washout: 1-2-4-6-10. I figured I just blew my match. My opponent also failed to strike in the foundation frame, but at least he only had a pesky 10pin to convert into a spare. For my part, my spare attempt was a disaster, I underestimated my ball reaction on the spare and ended up only mowing down the 1-2-4. My total after 9 frames: 180.

Then it was time for my opponent to convert his ten pin. He missed. His score in the ninth: also 180. As anchor, the scenario brewing at this point was the potential need to triple in order to win my individual along with the team point. Bowlers live for pressure situations like this one. I prefer to go first in these situations because I like to get in the head of my opponent with a solid strike.

No luck, my opponent's teammate finished before mine, so he was able to set the tone for the final frame. I have learned not to look at my opponent's shot in these situations. I had no need to know whether he struck or not. I had no need to see whether he had a lucky hit or not. My goal was clear-- triple and he can't win. So I turned my back to him and wiped dust off my bowling sole with my crying towel. The sound was unmistakably a strike, but I disciplined myself not to look at him or the score.

In pressure situations like these, I have learned to concentrate on what I could control and think in positives only. Every coach and athlete knows that though the brain may understand negatives,  the body does not. My mantra in these situations (stop snickering, I do have one): Breathe. Head level. Chest high. Let the ball throw my arm. The result? A thunderous strike destroryed the rack.

He got up for his next shot. did not look at my opponents, the team, or the score.  I jumped to the approach as soon as he took his first step, got a bead on my target. Breathe. Head level. (I could tell it was another strike from the sound of the impact, but it was muted by the silent chant of my mantra. God helps those who help themselves. My mantra, my prayer, steady my body Lord, I can do the rest.) Chest high. Let the ball throw my arm. Bam! Another solid strike.

He lead the charge into the third bonus ball. Again, not looking, I recognized the sound, tinny and unimpressive, probably a flat ten pin. I didn't know. I noted his teammates' condoling encouragement, but I would not look at his score or his lane. I didn't want to know. "Just execute." I could feel my balance slip a little into the delivery so I rotated it harder at the release.  Bang. Strike three.

Mission accomplished. I won the match. I showed up. The adrenaline rush was awesome. Slowly, my game was coming back. After nearly 2 years of fighting through rehab of a replaced ACL and resurfaced minisci in my sliding leg, the player I know I was, and still am, is returning. Vindication. Affirmation. It turns out that, not only did I win all three individual points, but I also posted the third high series for the night in our league.

Finally, I was able to do in league what I try to do each day in class: show up. It's not about attendance, its about being present, living in the moment, and showing you can be counted upon. That is when the richness of our profession fills me up. There is nothing like the feeling of "I did that," and the that was helping a kid be successful, not just helping the team win a match. Priceless. I imagine my satisfaction in living a purposeful life is much the same as my father's when his five patents for television designed were approved and GE implemented them immediately into production. This is my vocation. Selfishly, I stay in it because I love knowing that what I do in my classroom matters, not just for today but also into the future. Every decision I consciously and unconsciously make is preidcated upon that one conviction.

This week I was presented with a reading problem from a concerned parent. We just started literature circles and her child was having extreme difficulty reading one chapter. After reading the parent e-mail, I took the time to call the student over and ask him about how his reading was going. After talking a while, it was clear to me that  he needed to hear the words.

The problem brought me back to my old days as a reading teacher in NJ. That school had an extensive audio library, nearly every book taught in our classes was available as an audio book. The student softened when he finally realized I was trying to help him. Today, he came to class feeling accomplished because using the read-aloud strategy enabled him to do his homework without a hitch. It's taken three marking periods for the student to get that I'm a teacher, and not an ogre or disciplinarian. For me, there is no comparison to seeing a closed, frustrated face open to you, ready to learn. I fight internally daily to be present for my students, to be ready when they are ready to let down their defenses and let me teach them. I fight being influenced by frustrations generated by the other stuff.

My dad told me when I was a teen, "Boy, if you never want to work a day in your life, do something you love. You won't believe they're paying you to do it." It took me three different career paths to find that job and this is it. He also admonished me "There is [stuff] you will have to deal with in every job, but that [stuff] won't matter so much when you're doing what you're supposed to be doing." There is stuff, plenty of it, I try not to get overwhelmed by it. I remember church ladies on Sunday mornings in my grandmother's church testifying how they would not let evil steal their joy. I don't let stuff steal mine. I am present. When I stop being able to be present, I will stop teaching.

...bet you didn't think I'd be able to take a successful bowling night and bring it back to teaching, did you?

Black History Month

"Soul and race are private dominions." - Michael S. Harper, "A Love Supreme"

I few yawns ago in history, the world was flat. A couple blinks ago, teaching the accomplishments and contributions of non-whites and women to American history, culture, and science was a novel idea. The world is not flat-- everyone knows it-- we have satelites orbiting our lop-sided Big Blue Marble proving that.  Non-black children gleefully make their elders uncomfortable "spitting" n-word laden lyrics with their earbuds planted in their ears, trying to match the meter, rhythm, and passion of the mc on their ipods and mp3 players. Affirmative action is under serious scrutiny by the US Supreme Court this year, and I even have adults asking my why there isn't a national white history month, or why can't we take elective courses in white history.

Memo to my educational peers: we have lost our way. I integrated suburban schools in the 1970s, colleges in the 1980s and am still integrating as an established teacher. I didn't like being singled out, however benevolently and affectionately, by revered and trusted teachers when they pointed out all the things I was first at, by virtue of the color of my skin. I resented being pressured into joining the Black Student Union in college (there were less than 20 blacks on a campus with just shy of 1800 students).  I was extremely uncomfortable with being drafted to head up the African American Club in my first teaching gig. -- not only was I pressured into accepting a leadership role with the club, but I also had to submit to monthly 7am meetings with the district African American Parents Network to report my actions, future and past, with the group: welcome to first year teaching, fun.

All of these experiences have led me to a practice that I don't think is that radical. I don't explicitly teach an African American History month unit or even a lesson. Rather, I consciously select every variety of vegetable availabe to thow in my salad bowl of curricular reading materials: white, black, Latino, indigenous peoples, Asian, males, females, etc.. Discussions of race only come up when the subject matter leads us there. For example, when we read an excerpt from Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the events were about segregation, prejudice, respect, and pride. We connected back to SE Hinton's That Was Then, This Is Now and the civil rights video we viewed to supplement the civil rights era race conflict in the story.

I was a student when the only black writer we heard about was Dr. King. I also remember that the library had books about others-- I retreated to the library often and read everything the school had about people who looked like me-- their accomplishments, their writings, their stories, their dreams. I also read everything the library had about vampires, bowling, ghosts, vulcanoes, and monster movies. I try to remember not to be myopic when I teach, because students have multiple interests and passions. I also try to remember it's not the 1970s and that my current 8th graders were born between 1997 and 1999. They not only don't understand the 20th century, they don't remember it.

However, I am not ready to say it is time to retire "the months" -- Black History Month, Women's History Month. Why? Not everyone is committed to, or adept at, making their curricular materials inclusive of the human condition. On the other hand, when people are genuinely asking me why there is no White History Month, it becomes clear that in the zeal towards inclusivity, we have alienated others to the point that they don't notice the reason for the inclusion in the first place. How many national holidays have been enacted to honor the accomplishments and contributions of an American woman, a Native American, Latino? Do you know who Lewis Lattimer was, or why he comes to mind as I sit in an artificially lit room blogging to you?

History has its name for a reason: "his" + "story."  Some history educators point out that history is written by those who won, won the war, won the credit... Besides Madame Curie, see if you can rattle off 7 women who profoundly impacted the world we live in today. Besides George Washington Carver, Malcom X, and Martin Luther King, can you list 5 African Americans that you learned about in school? Besides Chief Joseph and Chief Crazy Horse, can you list 5 Native Americans that you learned about in school before college? Who was Cesar Chavez and what impact did he have upon US Labor policy? What did the Coolie Act have to do with fair labor practices in the West and why were the Irish immigrants of the 19th century threatened by Chinese immigrants? Until our students know the story of our nation and can rattle off answers with the same speed that they can tell about the Mayflower, Continental Congress, and The Revolutionary War, we are probably still going to need to teach a segregated history that is out of context and anachronistic.

Along the way, let's not turn students off.

New Tricks, Old Canine

I am not sure that anyone has administratively asked for clear self-improvement goals from me since I left New Jersey. That's probably a problem, since I have been teaching in PA for the last 8 years. I had become rusty at thinking about my profession in such terms. That lead to me feeling a little "stuck." I went to the meeting with something, which is always better than nothing, but it had no "punch."

To his credit, Mr. Terch recognized that and pushed me. He asked me "What have you learned that is new to you in the past 12 months?" I guess that was a fair question, but it was a little unsettling. I did not want to say "nothing" because that would not have been true. I learned about formative assessment and learned that my natural desire to include novelty into my pedagogy was not just having fun with my students, but that it was also helpful to their learning.

But when he pressed me on technology, I had nothing. Technology requires a budgeting priority in my life that does not exist. With a remodel underway in my large bathroom, new car payments, and a 3 year salary freeze, buying gizmos that I don't need or have any real interest in, was definitely not on my radar. Bandwagon propaganda has never appealed to me.

I grew up in an engineering family: dad is a retired electrical engineer, my sister is an electrical engineer, and while I was growing up, both of my brothers-in-law were electrical engineers. I gained the understanding that new technology is expensive and often has bugs in it, and that if you wait long enough for the electronic competitors to come out with similar products, the price will come down. For that reason, I did not acquire my first cell phone until 2004, I bought my first CD player in 1991, my first DVD player in 2006, and I received my first iPod this year for my46th birthday.

The funny thing about technology. It's like options on a new car. If you don't buy it on your car, you don't know what you're missing, but once you experience the benefits, you don't know how you lived without it. When I was in college, I spent one summer with my 86 year old maternal grandmother, while clerking with a law firm in Columbus, OH. In return for allowing me to stay with her rent-free, I purchased groceries and was her personal chauffer anywhere she wanted to go. As a "thank-you" gift, I purchased a microwave oven for her. She called it the "miracle wave" because she did not know how she managed to raise 7 children without one.

At the end of the year, I will be able to tell my principal that not only did I learn to create, broadcast, and share multi-media prezis, I also learned to download apps, rip music and video onto my iPod Touch, sync my automobile to my iPod, and use it as a coaching tool. Who says old dogs cannot learn new tricks?

Woof!
PS- Teaching propaganda? Check out this prezi! (Yup, I'm proud of myself.)
http://prezi.com/npw0y9_a-gce/propaganda-notes/?kw=view-npw0y9_a-gce&rc=ref-20374267

Mixed Bag of Thoughts and Reactions

It's been over a week since my last post. If anyone is out there reading and wondering where I've been:

1. It was the end of the second marking period and closing out the quarter took priority
2. I had quite a bit to respond to but I wasn't sure how to frame my respond
3. Jury duty--- couldn't write what was on my mind because of sequester orders from the judge.

So, that accounts for my blog-silence.

For people who read this to get insight into the mind of educators, I have been silent about the recent school shootings purposefully. I don't have proposals or insights to share. The terror inflicted upon the children and educators, in both incidents, cannot be cooked down into a satisfactory analysis that brings about a swift resolution.

At the risk of sounding like a cop-out:  it's complicated. Are there problems in this country with regards to who has acceess to firearms? Yes. Are there deficiencies in the way our nation deals with the mental health needs of its citizenry? Yes. Should we rush to make new ordinances in a knee-jerk reaction to the violence that keeps happening? I am not sure. That is all I have to say about that.

Personally, a part of me always knew I was involved in a dangerous profession from the time I was a student teacher. As a student-teacher,  I had a student in my class who was involved in a lethal car-jacking in Philadelphia, who was under house arrest, and who wore his "ankle bracelet" proudly. In another incident, a student was shot by an intruder in the stomach during lunch in the cafeteria. Adding to my "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" reality, there were also numerous cases of attempted arson to the building, and another intruder pistol-whipped a student  just outside the principal's office. These facts made it an inescapable reality that teaching there was dangerous.

Then, in 1996, it  happened in the spring. Columbine. The tragedy there drove a point home to me that teaching is dangerous  anywhere. I was teaching in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District near Princeton, NJ. Our demographics were similar to Columbine's and so were our social issues. We also had a population of parents who worked high-salaried, high-powered jobs that sometimes would leave them clueless about their children's actions. It was completely believable to me that a kid's parents could be oblivious while he stock-piled enough weaponry in the garage to outfit a couple platoons. That's when I realized "it could happen here too."

My response was not of fear for myself, but for my students. I understood the adolescent desire to destroy bullies, tormentors, mean girls-- the monsters of adolescence, who make most grown-ups emphatically reject the notion of regression to adolescence.  Middle school and/or high school were rough on everyone. No one wants to do it again. Those who actually act out their morbid fantasies of retribution are symptomatic of breakdowns in our nation about values, mental health and access to weaponry. I've got nothing. I don't really want to play the blame game--- it doesn't serve anything and it doesn't help solve the problem. Again. It's complicated.

Finally, I missed three days of class becase I had jury duty. Here's the shorthand. About three hundred citizens of York County were called to serve jury duty this week. We waited in lines for hours just to be processed into a room where we sat and we were talked at for another hour and a half. Then we were coralled into courtrooms 40 at a time to be selected into 12 person juries. The rejected prospective jurors were sent back to the holding room.

I was selected from myfirst "cattle call." We heard a criminal case and found the defendant not guilty on all counts. We weren't saying he was innocent, but when someone comes at you swinging a pick-ax with intent to do you harm and all you do is whack him with a metal basebal bat-- that's self-defense, and we all agreed. The "victim" only had a bat-shaped welt on his back no cracked ribs or anything. In our view he was fortunate because, if the defendant was perpetrating an assault with that bat, we would be looking at that plus attempted murder charges too.

The experience was eye-opening. Maybe Jerry Springer and Maury Povitch aren't staged after all--- we met the real McCoys and the Hatfields on trial this week.

I posted on Facebook about being happy to go back to work once we were released from jury duty. A friend responded that she liked and then unliked my post because: "wanting to go back to work is just wrong." SALTS (smiled a little then stopped.)  I like my job; there was even a time in my career when my job was everything in my life. When I have to go somewhere that takes me away from my class, I long to be back in class, interacting with my students. Some say that's weird. I say I'm blessed, because I found my calling.

Even my students miss me when I'm gone. Most of them. That tells me something good.

We're now in BYOD every day mode. Third marking period. There is grumbling in the building because kids are being  kids and they push the boundaries. They do that with everything. It is more interesting to me what the kids are doing right than what they are doing wrong. I know-- that makes me wierd but then again John C. Maxwell points out that: "Your attitude is the outward expression of an inward feeling." What does it say about others who think that I'm too polyana?

What are they doing that's interesting to me. Some kids are using a notetaking app on their ipods, smart phones and ipads called "In class." This app lets kids take notes, in order, according to their class schedule, they can organize photos they take of notes from the chalk board and the app will save it under "Logan English Period 4" for example. Awesome. It works too-- they aren't as clueless about what's going on. Does this mean I am getting through to digital natives on their home turf? Too soon to tell...

Kids are plugging into their tunes on their ipods and pumping out drafts in record time. Some may peer into my room with disapproval of the freedom I've given my students, but my bottom line is being fulfilled. The work is getting finished and produced at higher levels of quality. Students are exhibiting signs of increased motivation. What's wrong with that?

New Year

2012 was--- I dunno. Too many adjectives, some sad, some tragic, some triumphant, some flabberghasting, some inspirational-- it was a year, in all it's glory and wonder.

In this new year and even during the last month of the old one, I wasn't thinking about resolutions--- I'm already fulfilling one-- mostly. I am thinking about where the last year has taken me in my growth as a teacher, a citizen, and a human being. I've tried new things, rediscovered my voice as a writer, activist, and teacher. In the coming months I want to keep learning.

I'm still peeling back the layers of the Mr. Logan I am evolving into. So I don't have a new resolution; it is just a continuation of 2012's: to evolve and become a better educator to 21st century learners. Stay tuned-- I'm just getting started.

Enough

When crazy, horrific events happen, the media stokes the flames of quick, panacea-seeking answers from the right and from the left. Politicians use these tragedies to rally their base for their pet crusades-- gun control, mental healthcare. Have we lost our ability to come together as a nation?

Have we lost our desire to solve the problems we face as a nation? We are not the generation that used its collective will, resources, intellectual trusts, and American ingenuity to win the space race. And yet,  I believe that potential is within us nonetheless. I have to. I'm a teacher who teaches the next generation with hope for tomorrow.

But, to be honest, I am disappointed in us as a nation. We would rather fight on extremes of every position rather than admit that each of the many issues we face: fossil fuel dependency, funding public education, climate change,  terrorism, health care, social justice, immigration, even the fiscal cliff, are complex problems with no simple answers, but with a collective will to solve them (rather than self-serving attacks to win a debates) we can. I refuse to believe that the progeny of the generation that put the first man on the moon is incapable of summoning its collective will to solve the problems of our nation.