Living Part of That Dream

  Time is not our enemy. It ticks away regardless of how much we wish that it would slow down.It flies when we're too busy to notice its march. Time etches its footprint in our faces with character and proof of  our perennial frowning or smiling. It can be our friend though. Time will give us perspective if we let it.

I'm letting it. Yesterday was MLK Day. I reported to work as usual. The district had scheduled students to be off that day, but Mother Nature had other ideas and delivered us a snow day to make up. We teachers were scheduled for an in-service, and that has been postponed until the spring. In all the hustle and bustle of snow day make-ups, curricular restrictions, and state testing prep mania, it is all too easy to forget this day's significance. For once, I gave myself permission to bring my student's attention to the day.

I shared with my students the benefit I received from time giving me a new perspective about the legacy of Dr. King,  Race in America 2015, and the hope for the future that I believe my students represent.

First came the 2 minute history and math lesson. The first slaves were brought to our nation, destined to be slaves for their whole lives leaving a legacy of slavery for their progeny,  in 1619. President Abraham Lincoln freed all slaves in rebelling states in 1863. From 1863 to 1965, the freed slaves and their descendants were second class citizens: segregated, denied equal protection under the law, and legally disenfranchised from our nation's promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not only in the Jim Crow South but throughout the nation. Did you know that the state with the most Jim Crow laws was California? The Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, finally recognizing the full citizenship of all people born or naturalized in this country, regardless of skin color. I finished that snap shot of history with a question that many adults struggle with: Is it reasonable to expect that 347 years of a culture of prejudice, cultivated to justify the permanent enslavement of one race of humanity, can be erased in fifty years?

King had a dream. Are we there yet? What is your dream: for this country, for your family, for yourself?

My students are our future and a story about  my interaction with one family gives me hope for a country I will live in if I'm lucky to become elderly. Four or five years ago (time is fleeting when you get older) I was hosting parent conferences in my room. Typically, parents appear in my door frame, tentatively-- uncertain they are at the right place at the right time. I always put them at ease by asking if they are here to see Mr. Logan for English and by asking  their child's name. So this encounter was pretty much routine--- hesitant parents at my door way. But the story took a curve ball when I introduced myself.

"You're Mr. Logan?" the father asked me incredulously.

I was not prepared for that reaction. I cocked an eyebrow at him quizzically.

"You're not what I expected at all." He continued matter-of-factly.

My stomach lurched to my throat. "Oh here it is..." I thought to myself, and the foreboding I felt when I found out that, in 2004, I became the first person of color hired to teach in this district returned to me. A flood of emotions and thoughts flooded my psyche in the space between  two heartbeats before he continued.

"I was expecting some old white dude in a beard." He explained humorously at the irony of meeting a completely different form of Mr. Logan than whom he expected.

I laughed too. In the same space between two heartbeats, half a year's worth of my teacher schtick came back--- blaming my forgetfulness on my advancing years, Shakespeare's picking on Orlando for having a young man's spotty beard... I understood in an instant what his child had told him about me.

The mom laughed too. The ice was broken. We had a great collaborative meeting about how to make their son successful in class. I felt lighter than I had in a while.

Time has given me the gift of perspective. When I shared this vignette with my students I pointed out  why they give me hope. I never hear myself described as my student's black teacher. I'm just their English teacher. I get on their nerves sometimes because I am a little nutty: turning their beloved pop tunes into instructional ditties. Creepy laughs. Demanding their attention, thinking, and energy.

That's why I'm living part of the dream. My students judge me by who I am to them. My heart. My pedagogy. My work ethic. My example is how they judge me. They judge me by the content of my character not by the quality of my permanent California tan.

I agree with my students. Fifty years isn't enough time. We're living the dream in pockets. My pocket is room 225 at South Eastern Middle School - East.

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

Dear Students: Stststststs.... STUDY

Question: How do we know what we don't know in school?
Answer: Review your notes from the lesson and ask yourself, "Do I get it?"

When the answer is "no," you need to come to class the next day armed with questions. The first level of studying is reviewing your notes. All things a teacher (ESPECIALLY Mr. Logan) writes on the whiteboard or chalkboard or even the computer screen, to help you understand a concept are notes. WRITE THEM DOWN... just saying... ;-)

This is a strategy to last a lifetime, not just to survive Mr. Logan's class. For the next four and a half years, you are privileged to have "teachers." After high school, the job title shifts to "instructors" and "professors"; those words mean something. Implicitly there is an expectation- you are expected to learn on your own.

So, while I'm teaching TDA's, literary analysis, grammar, and vocabulary, I'm also (we all are) charged with helping you learn how to learn on your own. In teacherspeak, we call it independent learners. The first step to achieving that is to understand that you are expected to review your lessons. When you do that at home, you are most likely to realize that everything that made sense in class while the teacher was teaching is no longer clear. Now, you can come to class armed with questions to increase your understanding.

We have many opportunities to get help from teachers this year: ask questions in class, post questions in Google classroom, have mom or dad send your teacher an email, request I/P conferencing. The biggest thing I want you to think about is this: If you don't ask questions, or even know what questions you need to ask, how can your teacher help you?

Step one: Study.
Step two: Evaluate what was unclear.
Step three: Ask for clarification.

Still don't get it? Start the process all over again. I challenge you to drive me dizzy with questions until you get it. All readers are my witness--- I'm encouraging bombardment with clarifying questions on Wednesday, December 17, 2014.

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

Motive, Motivate, Motivating, Motivation

mo·tive

ˈmōdiv/

noun

1. 1.

   a reason for doing something, especially one that is hidden or not obvious.

mo·ti·vate

ˈmōdəˌvāt/

verb

1. provide (someone) with a motive for doing something.
2. mo·ti·vat·ing
3. ˈmōdəˌvāt,iNG
4. present participle of motivate

mo·ti·va·tion

ˌmōdəˈvāSH(ə)n/

noun

1. the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.

...

This is an open letter to my students, their parents, my peers, and my administrators. Come to think of it--- all my posts are, but this one is more pointedly directed to my community. The students and their stakeholders. 

Standardized testing has always been a part of my world. As a student, I took the Iowa exams every fall. In high school, I took the PSAT and SAT to gain admission into college. To enter graduate school, I had to take the MAT.

Standardized testing is not new.

What is new is what is at stake. Our schools, our districts, our teachers are measured by the performance of our students on these state tests. Some misunderstand the focus of these measurements. When the No Child Left Behind mandate began, districts were measured by how many students performed advanced, proficient, basic, or below basic on these exams. That is still part of the measurement, but our students are also tracked for showing a year's growth or improvement on these same tests.

Many worry, myself included, that we are testing these kids to death. We give them standardized testing periodically to get a sense of whether the students are improving before the "big dance" in the early spring. Our students are quite capable. There are many distinguished educators in our building, and our district who grow our students. We know it through anecdotal proof  in discussions with our students, marked improvement from quiz to test time, and we know it from student testimonials. The problem is the state test is the big dance and we have to prove it there.

How do we get there besides a re-alligned curriculum,  continuous training and improvement of our teaching, and constantly telling our students how important these test scores are to our building, district, and teachers? I think a key component needs some work.

 We have to provide students with a motive, to motivate them, so they find the test motivating to show their best work,  so that their scores reward their motivation. Some years I get a majority students with an attitude of "What's in it for me?" This attitude isn't just about the standardized tests, it's about class in general.  Good teachers know how to generate a desire to learn in their classrooms and how to  inspire their students to perform at high levels. These objective state tests are a different animal.

I don't have the answers and that concerns me. I do know that I want to see an attitude, during the testing in all our classrooms, from our students  where students are not annoyed or intimidated by the tests.  I'd like to see and overhear students taking on the same competitive attitude they do to the tests and quizzes we give them.  Something along the lines of  "I'm going to Ace this!" or "So those other districts think they're stronger than me--- watch this!"

This has to be the atmosphere of our teams and our building. Our students are awesome. They are being prepared but their attitude has to be not only "Yes, I Can!" it also has to be "Look at what I can do." How do we get there from here?

Our team is asking that very question of our students in a survey during Intervention period.

Stay tuned.

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

On 21

I just posted grades for the first quarter for the twenty-first time. It doesn’t feel like it. I’m not sure what a 21st milestone is supposed to feel like, but I do know that the realization feels-- eery? unsettling? odd-- like I just woke up from a daydream… it’s disorienting, but not alarming. It just is.

Hopefully, after a few decades of teaching I’ve learned some things. What I think I learned is the true nature of what I do as a middle level educator. My lesson plans matter to my boss--- they’re a record of my planning. My grades matter to my student’s parents-- they give a record of their child’s effort, progress, and give a little insight to his or her acumen when they actually apply themselves. The revelation is something that must be experienced before it is fully understood. Who I am with my students: the man they deal with each day, over a pattern of a year matters more to them than the brilliant lesson I craft, the exemplary grades that they earn, or how much they learn from me.

What matters to them goes something like this. “Will you be the adult?” They will goad me into an argument but not respect me if I engage. They want limits and they’ll never admit that. They want fairness, empathy, attention, genuine concern. If a teacher gives them these things freely, willingly, effortlessly, with all their heart, students learn. They learn because they know they are safe.

Safety isn’t just about kevlar vests, fire retardant material, soft surfaces, and mouth guards. Safety is knowing this is a room where a student can act thirteen because he is and that is a place where he or she will still be respected and welcomed the next day. She wants to know that, even if she was unbearably moody, that I’ll still give her a high five and say hello in the halls, at lunch, at the local grocery store when I run into her and her dad that evening. These simple things open the classroom and all I attempt to do with them.

If I was mentoring this year, here is the advice I would give a new teacher. Be boldly honest. Tell them what you really think. Tell stories. Have fun. Smile BEFORE Christmas. Classroom management isn’t about a healthy dose of fear. Students let you manage them when they feel respected, welcomed, and safe. You don’t have to know their names by the end of the first week of school but you do have to show them that  who they are matters to you, and that you’re trying to remember their name, how to spell it, and that you actually listened to them, when they explained that detail.

I’ve learned that seriousness is overrated. Finding the funny and letting them in on the joke, encourages them to laugh, breathe, learn, relax, smile, learn… I’m a bolder entertainer in the safety of my classroom than anywhere else. Teaching demands everything I think I have to give and more. I teach English but I’m more than a teacher in room 225. I’m an actor, a singer, a story-teller, a dancer, a dad, a mentor, a coach, an editor, a decorator… I’m not the sage on the stage, but sometimes there is a stage.

It was so ingrained during teacher education that we should be the guide on the side and not the sage on the stage. I’m on the stage sometimes but not the sage. Entertainer? Yup--- you might walk by my room and hear the roar of laughter spill into the hall or a roar, cackle or shriek from me. Music flows there too. I used to try to hide that from my bosses--- I was having too much fun being Mr. Logan for it to be acceptable and professional right?

The stage is my five paragraph essay I write for my students to read each day. The stage is my engraved invitation delivered daily to each student to join me in the fun of learning. The stage is shared. The stage is my sharing who I am with them boldly, without apology and it is my open letter, inviting them to do the same with me. They do. We’ve had dance contests to see who has the smoothest moves to teach their feet to remember the most common coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and, so. I’ve been the Pied Piper of Fawn Grove, encouraging the students to rattle the guidance office ceiling below us and the social studies walls beside us talking about FANBOYS and problems with run-ons in a cacophony of dubious military drill cadences, cleaned up for middle school, and redirected to grammar.

I’ve learned that The Joker was right, “Why so serious?” Discipline with a smile and  dealt gently is rewarded with compliance and a sheepish smile. Discipline with a smile and a sense of humor, that is not sarcastic, actually can earn you a genuine and instant “Sorry Mr. Logan.” mid-chuckle as they accept the invitation to laugh at the audacity of their behavior. Imagine that--- apologies that are genuine, evidenced by the behavior extinguishing?

I could be wrong, but there’s some reason that when I announced that I was going to be absent that my students were disappointed and concerned instead excited and inquiring who would be my sub. My students do most of their work. They respect each other, my room, and me. I set the tone.

I also learned that if I don’t invest the time to create a room that students want to be in, and a teacher they want to be with, nothing else will matter to them and their grades will reflect that. I teach middle school. They will remember a few of my crazy grammar songs, my wit, and my empathy for the fact that these two years are rough. Only a few will remember what an appositive or gerund is. Do you?

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

Celebrate Good Times Come On!

          If you're hearing the trumpet-blasting introit to this 80s classic, you and I have things in common. Why am I talking 80s radio burn in a blog about teaching? It's the solution to a conundrum I was having with my students. Since the first week of school, I have struggled to encourage students to share their victories with me. I have a part of my bulletin board in the back of the room dedicated to this desire called "Staying Informed.” For three marking periods, my results were the same. Nothing.

          This generation’s aversion to bragging is so strong that they could not even bring themselves to speak or write of their accomplishments, even when encouraged to do so. Then somewhere, from deep inside, the middle school version of me began boogying up into my consciousness.

“You want to celebrate their accomplishments, right? ---Selllllll A BRATE Good Times COME ON! J J” …and then the trumpets and the electric guitar started playing in my head.

Fortunately, I did not burst into song at the moment. I was walking around proctoring state testing and eyeballing my empty bulletin board when it came to me.

          I tried it out on my homeroom. I pulled up a prehistoric Commodores video of the gang singing the song and played it for my students after the tests were collected. I gave each student a 3x5 index card and explained my reasoning. I told them I wanted to celebrate their good times with them and publish them on the board. They learned they did not have to put their names on the face side of the cards if they wished to remain anonymous but I wanted to hear from all of them.

 “What has been a bright spot in your life for the 2013-2014 school year? It doesn’t have to be school related; it just has to have happened during your 8^th grade career.”

          The results were pretty interesting. Students celebrated becoming athletic leaders on their teams, mastering back flips, killing and gutting their first deer (I teach in rural Pennsylvania--- hunting is a big deal here. So much so that you’re cool if you wear Hollister, Aeropostale, or hunting camo--- not necessarily in that order) students rejoiced in being scoring leaders in their sport, perfect scores on Social Studies tests, being selected to play on 18 and Under travel sports teams, and trips to foreign countries… finally. They opened up and let me in.

          Lesson learned: Celebrations are cool-- brag boards are droll. That’s their story and I’m learning from them.

Benchmark Three

What Mr. Logan learned from Benchmark Three

            Most of my students grew--- some staggeringly well in every category but one: Language Standards. What is in that category? Basically, vocabulary-- I admit it, I put no attention to building their vocabulary this year beyond pointing out vocabulary in the literature I made them read.

            As always, I used the data to inform instruction. I had a few options to address their vocabulary deficiency. I have five different series of vocabulary programs (black line masters for workbook pages,) each of differing merit. I opted not to go with any of them for one simple reason. If you are a parent of one of my students, ask them about this.

1.      If a vocabulary chapter had ten words, when I polled my students, only 2 of them were new to them. That means that the exercises designed to reinforce their memory, usage, and comprehension of these words would be wasted effort for 80% of their words. Absolutely no one has time to waste after losing 9 days of school to winter closings and 12 days of schedule interruptions (delayed openings).

2.      The lists that students would have to memorize for tests are discovered in a vacuum. It is highly probable that students will encounter these words, but inauthentic learning is off-putting to students. They see it for what it is and react to it as “busy work.” Again - Absolutely no one has time to waste.

           

            So does this mean I waved the white flag at the problem as being insurmountable and unsolvable? Have you met Mr. Logan? My detractors say I am stubborn and cocky. My fans say I am confident and driven. I can live with either comment--- it’s all about connotation versus denotation. We opted for a different choice. “Choose Your Own Vocabulary.”  I asked students to abandon context clues once a day when they encounter words that are unfamiliar, uncertain, or are totally new.

2.      These words have to appear naturally, within the 24 hours since our last class meeting. Acceptable sources include: an article they read in another class, a chapter out of a textbook, a word they encountered surfing the web, a word they encountered in their free-read novel, or a word they encountered while reading a periodical for fun.

3.      Students were not allowed to just look up random words.

4.      Students brought the word, spelled correctly, defined, with root word, prefix, and suffix already identified.

5.      Each table created a database and shared it with me and their group mates.

6.      The first ten minutes of every class from the past two weeks has been utilized for the groups to share their words with each other and then the scribe shared the words with the class.

            The feedback that students gave about the experience is pretty powerful. In a class of 20 students, students have the opportunity to be exposed to twenty different words each day (theirs and 19 others). Using an informal poll, students gave feedback that more than fifteen of the words they encounter from each other are new. Out of those 15 words, they reported that they could see themselves using five or more in writing or speech immediately.

            Let’s put those soft numbers in perspective. This means that students are potentially acquiring 25 words each week from each other that they will begin using in their writing immediately. Students also shared that they enjoy learning from each other more than a random list generated by a textbook publisher.

            Here is a sample list of words that students encountered yesterday in my period 4 English 8 Class:

·         Opusculum

·         Terminus

·         Phenom

·         guile

·         Intelligible

·         Beguile

·         Robust

·         Arsenal

·         Incapacitated

·         Vigilant

·         Coalition

·         Diagnosis

·         Nombril

·         osmosis

·         cumbersome

·         monocle

·         ratification

·         egotistical

·         inkling

            Where are these words coming from? Most of these words are coming from their academic day. Many are from social studies, world languages, and science. When teachers, who do not teach ELA, ask what they can do to help improve ELA State Testing scores—the answer is pretty simple. They are already doing it. This is not the English classroom that GenX or Baby Boomers experienced, and that’s a good thing. It’s potentially better. The key component to all of this is that the kids still have to do their lesson to learn their lesson.

            Manny Scott, an inspirational speaker and original member of the Freedom Writers (Hilary Swank starred in the movie by the same name about this group of teens) shared with members of an audience-- mostly educators and business professionals, with a handful of teens: “A Texas rancher challenged me when I repeated the phrase ‘You can drag a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink.’ He said you can pry its mouth open, force some salt down its gullet, and then it will be happy to drink!”

            I have been ruled by a desire to find that metaphorical salt for my students this year and I have found it in an unlikely source. Whereas I have, in general, 80% participation with homework, Choose Your Own Vocabulary achieves well over 95%. Why? I’m not sure--- I don’t really want to look a gift horse in the mouth and ask, but if I were to conjecture, I would say the social element of bringing the words, hearing what words others brought, and hearing the teacher’s commentary motivates them. Now for the rest of that salt…

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

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.