Humble Pie

Okay, so maybe it is not as extreme as eating humble pie (which according to definitions is extreme humiliation), but the phrase is fitting as pie--like any other food--offers our bodies calories to use to perform. My journey as a teacher--especially as a high school teacher--continually offers up slices of humble pie. Just when I think I am finally "getting it," along comes a book, or blog posting, or twitter post, or Facebook link to show me just how little I actually know. As I work on planning for the next school year I think to myself, "Oh, that was a good lesson (or unit) that I taught." And then there's Jeff Wilhelm or Kelly Gallagher or Carol Jago or Tom Newkirk or Penny Kittle or many others to remind me that I was kind of fooling myself. And then, I have to hit the books (some of them for a third time) to try to make sense of what I did in order to figure out what I need to do next to improve. There are some outside of education that proclaim that teaching is instinct, that anyone could do it, that knowing your subject is all that matters, and maybe for a rare few teachers that is true. Poof! Lessons work magically and students shine brightly. Or, maybe that is just what they tell themselves . . . What most outside of education do not understand is how being a reflective teacher--and I stress that word--is tough and can beat you down. If. You. Pay. Attention. We want our students to do the work of learning, and we have to do it with them. Even when it hurts. This kind of pain is good. It means that we recognize something lacking. However, by feeling it we can address it. We can make it better. Humble pie doesn't taste so good, but it is nourishing and gives the nutrients and sustenance we need to keep moving and growing.

Re-reading a "classic"

Part of my summer must-do list is reading/re-reading a stack of professional development books I purchased over the years. Now that the first year back is under my belt, I want to be more organized and thoughtful about how and what I teach. That means going back to books I meant to read or think I need to revisit. Why? Nearly every day last year I found myself almost frozen with indecision: how should I teach writing?; how should I incorporate vocabulary; which reading strategy should I use to teach _______? Maybe that's the curse of being a teacher--there are always going to be a myriad of ways to teach. I want to be the best that I can for my students, and that means I cannot remember that I, too, am a lifelong learner. Today's book was Carol Jago's (2000)With Rigor for All: Teaching the Classics to Contemporary Students. One paragraph really struck me. "Every time teachers of literature give an objective test, they undermine their students' confidence in themselves as readers. The very act of posing questions whose answers will be judged as correct or incorrect sends wrong messages to students: that there is only one right answer, that their teacher is the source of all correct information in a classroom, and that the purpose of reading is to answer questions. Unless this set of beliefs is what we want to encourage, we must abandon all tests forever" (p. 97). As I was reading this I couldn't help but think of our nation's (and state's) obsession with standardized tests. We are equating reading with one test--a test that determines a whether or not a student gets a real diploma or a "certificate" that says he/she attended high school. Why on God's green earth are we doing this to kids?

Summer?

Ah, the proverbial "summer vacation," where my K-12 colleagues and I get paid to go to the beach, eat bon bond, and pretty much do nothing but mooch off tax payers. Yeah right! I realized yesterday that school starts again in two months. Yes, two months! And that is giving us around 10 more days than we had last summer. And, I also realized that I need more than two months! I have so much work to do to prepare for my new courses--courses which have some pretty high-stakes attached to them. You know that moment at the buffet when you are really, really hungry and there are like 10 stations of food to choose from? Well, that's me. And, life is certainly not a beach right now.

Really?

Really? It's been four months since I've written anything??!! I am the WORST blogger ever! So much has happened this semester--and there are only two weeks left--that it is hard to process it all. I have learned, and continue to learn, some important lessons about my kids, the school, the community, the tests, the curriculum, the laws, the rules . . . but, more importantly, I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher. Some of what I've learned I have really liked and been proud of, while other things haven't been so great. I have learned that I really like kids and even on "bad" days, I still pretty much like them. That's good. However, my 10 years in higher education shows itself from time to time. I need to learn to bring things to their level. I am getting better and I continue to try to learn. I still love teaching writing and writing and that translates to my honors kids and the ones needing "help" in reading. I love when I hear kids discuss books and recommend books to each other. I like that they scream in (good) frustration over Tris and Four, holding the book high overhead and proclaiming, "I need to hurry up and read to find out what's going on!" I love that boys who proclaim to have never read a book, keep going back to my shelf to work through biographies. I have learned that I am good at coming up with some good classroom practices to promote learning; however, I still hate grading! I need to get a better attitude about it and grade in a quicker fashion. I learned that a year away from research was much needed, but I miss it and have the research bug poking its head nearly every day. I am learning the hard lesson of letting things go. I can't reach all kids, and oh do I wish I could, but it just isn't possible. 20 absences out of 80 days of school is hard to overcome. Mostly, I have relearned and re-seen just how great my colleagues--and teachers in general--are. They work so hard, with passion and joy and humor. They love the kids. We love the kids. I love the kids.

Planning for Instruction . . . On a Short Timeline

Okay, so as of last week--the new semester--I have five new classes of kids, four of which are Intensive Reading. There are three levels of reading classes here in Florida: A (the lowest performing), B (those in the middle range), and C (those who are close to passing the FCAT). All three levels are really complicated because the students in them fluctuate in scores from year to year--no big surprise there. That said, I have new kids--the Cs--and my job is to get them ready for FCAT retakes, which are in three months from now. No pressure there! The FCAT is a mandated hurdle that all kids must pass; I hate it, and I think it's complete BS. However, it is what it is. I want my students to pass and LOVE to read and THINK CRITICALLY and become INFORMED YOUNG ADULTS. First things first--how to plan instruction to maximize time and help students the most.

I downloaded all their FCAT overall scores and sub-scores and created excel files for each class mainly looking at the last two test administrations. With this data, I hope to be able to both differentiate instruction and create small groups to focus on the individual literacy practices that students need the most help with. Mind you, I also have to use two "texts"/"programs" that our district spent a bajillion dollars on. Neither one is aligned with (a) what the FCAT tests or (b) what I would do based on my PhD and ten years in higher ed. Like all things (I am thinking about AR), "programs" are often erroneously equated with teaching. Moreover, neither one promotes critical thinking. So, critical literacy/critical thinking is what I will have to come up with and USE in between the "mandated" texts I have been given (oh, and I only have 5 copies of one required text and I have 25 students! HA, the irony)

Even More on DOK Misinformation

I am reposting this from Dr. Walkup's blog: Karin Hess, probably the most prolific national trainer on Depth of Knowledge, has agreed to share her thoughts on the matter: I'm glad you said that you see this as problematic - I do as well. I call this the "DOK wheel of misfortune" and tell people in my workshops to discard it. It flies in the face of what DOK is about: What comes AFTER the verb. I usually point out that, for example, comparing two story characters (DOK 2) does not show as deep understanding as comparing (analyzing across texts) themes from two different stories (DOK 4). Secondly, verbs alone are "generic" to content and again research tells us that analyzing in science, for example, does not require the same mental schemas as analyzing literature or mathematics. The DOK wheel is easy (efficient?) to use, but ineffective in terms of delving deep into content and processes. Feel free to use it and to quote me on how useless the wheel is. http://granted-solutions.blogspot.com/2014/01/karin-hess-weighs-in-on-bad-depth-of.html

Good Intentions Gone Awry

The more I am back the K-12 school system the more I see good intentions gone awry and good information misinterpreted and misrepresented. Most of it relates to the Common Core, which was led by two non-teachers (don't even get me started on those two folks). As I was preparing to work on my first set of lesson plans for the new semester I found myself "missing" my DOK chart. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with it--in my 10 years as a teacher educator I had NEVER come across such a thing--it is a chart (really it is a wheel) with 4 levels of knowledge and tasks (verbs) associated with them. It is similar to Bloom's Taxonomy. Anyway, we have to use the top two levels of this chart to write objectives and guiding questions for all daily lessons. Since I had misplaced mine I of course went to the Internet to find another. Imagine my surprise when I came across a blog that showed that Webb did not create this wheel and, even worse, he has "explicitly stated that he considers the wheel chart misleading and has always discouraged its use."

According to David Walkup, who talked to Webb, "The problem with the DOK wheel chart rests on the fundamental, but completely false, premise that teachers can simply select certain action verbs to raise and lower the DOK level of their instruction." A link to Walkup's blog is below. http://granted-solutions.blogspot.com/2013/12/bad-dok-chart-sabotages-understanding.html