Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
An addendum...fight or flight part 2
Cannondale didn't call. I went through with the training. I didn't vomit on my shoes. I did have technology challenges. I witnessed some of the most amazing conversation I have ever seen at this training.
So here's the thing. I work with incredible teachers. On Wednesday, I don't think I knew that. I knew about individuals in the building--there are a lot of people in my building whom I really admire. But I don't think I viewed our staff as a whole that way. I felt like people didn't know me, and I felt like I had a good sense of who a lot of them are. I was definitely wrong on the latter point. And on the earlier one, I think they know me now. By day 2, I was loosening up to the point that I felt like people were really seeing me.
It makes me wonder how often we get pigeon-holded into our classrooms and then pigeon-hole other teachers into what we think is their space. And the school year is about to start, and I know my space is in the back corner, but maybe my open door will feel even a little more open now.
So here's the thing. I work with incredible teachers. On Wednesday, I don't think I knew that. I knew about individuals in the building--there are a lot of people in my building whom I really admire. But I don't think I viewed our staff as a whole that way. I felt like people didn't know me, and I felt like I had a good sense of who a lot of them are. I was definitely wrong on the latter point. And on the earlier one, I think they know me now. By day 2, I was loosening up to the point that I felt like people were really seeing me.
It makes me wonder how often we get pigeon-holded into our classrooms and then pigeon-hole other teachers into what we think is their space. And the school year is about to start, and I know my space is in the back corner, but maybe my open door will feel even a little more open now.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Fight or flight... the courage to teach
In my dreams, I am really fast. Smoking fast. In the water, on the bike, on the run.
In reality, I am anything but. I'm pretty fast in the water--I finished in the top 20% at both the Ironman races that I did. I can get there on the bike with proper training. But I'm a slow and steady kind of gal on the run, and that isn't going to change. If Cannondale called me tomorrow and said, "Hey, we just happen to be looking for a slow runner with average cycling skills and a decent swim stroke to round out our team of sponsored triathletes," I would quit my job and train full time. I love the idea of being paid to sweat.
Why am I writing about this on a teaching blog?
My fight or flight reaction is kicking in. I'm under pressure (somewhat self-imposed, somewhat externally applied). Options: wrestle the gorilla or start writing letters to Cannondale.
The school year officially starts in two weeks. Two weeks from today, actually. And I have only two students currently enrolled in my class. There will be more, but we have to wait for the students to get their immunizations in order and such. So for this part, it's best to just breathe and wait and know that the seats will be filled and the school year will roll forward.
The pressure is in the training that I'm delivering to our staff this week Thursday and Friday. With permission from WIDA, we are using some components of the CLIMBS course training to train our staff how to better work with our ELLs. I have put incredible care into developing the materials for these two days of training. I've spent hours thinking about transitions between activities and grouping and how to best emphasize the most salient points. I've woken up in the middle of the night thinking of ways to convince the staff that this work is important and worthwhile. I've written, rewritten, noted, printed, copied, and collated papers for the whole staff.
I pulled Parker J. Palmer's book, The Courage To Teach down off my shelf again and started to read the first page, and I was struck by his own reflection after a bad first day of teaching that it might not be too late for him to find a new career. I didn't read beyond that first page. I just was caught up in the idea that it probably isn't all that uncommon for people faced with challenges to look for an out, no matter how far of a stretch that out might be. (The chances of Cannondale calling me between now and Thursday are not very strong.)
So here is the thing about doing a training like this. It is like wrestling a gorilla. The difference here is that sometimes the gorilla is like a personal trainer that you hire to put you through your workout and sometimes the gorilla is a bit of a wildcard. I feel like I'm not sure which gorilla will be showing up on Thursday and Friday, and that is where my anxiety comes from.
Courage, KKB. Courage. (And keep those fingers crossed for Cannondale's call.)
In reality, I am anything but. I'm pretty fast in the water--I finished in the top 20% at both the Ironman races that I did. I can get there on the bike with proper training. But I'm a slow and steady kind of gal on the run, and that isn't going to change. If Cannondale called me tomorrow and said, "Hey, we just happen to be looking for a slow runner with average cycling skills and a decent swim stroke to round out our team of sponsored triathletes," I would quit my job and train full time. I love the idea of being paid to sweat.
Why am I writing about this on a teaching blog?
My fight or flight reaction is kicking in. I'm under pressure (somewhat self-imposed, somewhat externally applied). Options: wrestle the gorilla or start writing letters to Cannondale.
The school year officially starts in two weeks. Two weeks from today, actually. And I have only two students currently enrolled in my class. There will be more, but we have to wait for the students to get their immunizations in order and such. So for this part, it's best to just breathe and wait and know that the seats will be filled and the school year will roll forward.
The pressure is in the training that I'm delivering to our staff this week Thursday and Friday. With permission from WIDA, we are using some components of the CLIMBS course training to train our staff how to better work with our ELLs. I have put incredible care into developing the materials for these two days of training. I've spent hours thinking about transitions between activities and grouping and how to best emphasize the most salient points. I've woken up in the middle of the night thinking of ways to convince the staff that this work is important and worthwhile. I've written, rewritten, noted, printed, copied, and collated papers for the whole staff.
I pulled Parker J. Palmer's book, The Courage To Teach down off my shelf again and started to read the first page, and I was struck by his own reflection after a bad first day of teaching that it might not be too late for him to find a new career. I didn't read beyond that first page. I just was caught up in the idea that it probably isn't all that uncommon for people faced with challenges to look for an out, no matter how far of a stretch that out might be. (The chances of Cannondale calling me between now and Thursday are not very strong.)
So here is the thing about doing a training like this. It is like wrestling a gorilla. The difference here is that sometimes the gorilla is like a personal trainer that you hire to put you through your workout and sometimes the gorilla is a bit of a wildcard. I feel like I'm not sure which gorilla will be showing up on Thursday and Friday, and that is where my anxiety comes from.
Courage, KKB. Courage. (And keep those fingers crossed for Cannondale's call.)
Monday, July 11, 2011
Why would they? Why wouldn't they? On the Atlanta teachers and testing.
I admit a little bit of glee at the mental picture of Atlanta teachers getting together with a stack of standardized test booklets and a few pizzas and some number 2 pencils to make a party out of changing their students' answers on the state tests. "Pass me some pepperoni. And what was number 22 again?"
NPR was doing a talk show segment today on the testing scandal. The question they kept asking was, "Why?" And to my surprise, I was sitting in the car saying, "Why the heck not?" But let me answer why.
Teachers in public education work in a fundamentally flawed system. And when you work in a fundamentally flawed system, you grow tired of trying to measure up in a fundamentally flawed system to a fundamentally flawed standard that no one thinks that we can reach.
To tell teachers that our "goal" is to reach 100% proficiency by 2012 or 2013 or 2014 is just asinine. Seriously? 100% proficiency? I can tick off the names of several students who will prevent that national goal from happening. And they won't prevent that goal from happening because they are trying to prevent it from happening, they will prevent that goal from happening because they didn't hold a pencil until they were 12 years old. So the idea that they would be proficient in reading and math at grade level in their second, third, or fourth language within a year or two of arriving in the country is just asinine.
Then there's the AYPs. Our school has 18 benchmarks that we have to meet. Other schools have 2 or 3; it all depends on the population of the school. And here comes that magic number again, 100%. You have to hit 100% of your benchmarks to show adequate yearly progress. And it is an all or nothing deal. You can hit 17 out of the 18 benchmarks, and you still won't make AYPs because of one sub group. So hell, even if we are making progress, then we aren't making enough progress. What the hell kind of a system is that?
Then there is the actual testing system itself. We don't test kids at the beginning of the year and then test them at the end of the year to measure progress or to check the quality of our teaching. No. We test kids at the end of each school year. And the test measures whether or not they are meeting standards at grade level. Who cares if we've taught a kid to read better than he had the year before? Who cares if we've taught a kid math that he didn't previously understand? If he isn't at grade level, then we're not making progress.
And did I mention that we measure apples against oranges? We don't look at the class of 2015's progress from one year to the next. Nope, we compare one seventh grade class of students to an entirely new class of seventh grade students. Whose progress are we showing by doing that?
And don't even get me started on the unfairness of the testing for students for whom English is a second or third or fourth language. That is an entirely different post.
Back to the Atlanta teachers and that pizza. Why? Because the system is broken. And sometimes, when you are working in a broken system, you lose your way. I've never compromised my integrity when it comes to the state tests, but I do understand the weariness of working under a broken system and wondering if anyone else knows that it is broken. More absurdly, I wonder why we are always talking about all the problems with the system, and no positive change is happening.
NPR was doing a talk show segment today on the testing scandal. The question they kept asking was, "Why?" And to my surprise, I was sitting in the car saying, "Why the heck not?" But let me answer why.
Teachers in public education work in a fundamentally flawed system. And when you work in a fundamentally flawed system, you grow tired of trying to measure up in a fundamentally flawed system to a fundamentally flawed standard that no one thinks that we can reach.
To tell teachers that our "goal" is to reach 100% proficiency by 2012 or 2013 or 2014 is just asinine. Seriously? 100% proficiency? I can tick off the names of several students who will prevent that national goal from happening. And they won't prevent that goal from happening because they are trying to prevent it from happening, they will prevent that goal from happening because they didn't hold a pencil until they were 12 years old. So the idea that they would be proficient in reading and math at grade level in their second, third, or fourth language within a year or two of arriving in the country is just asinine.
Then there's the AYPs. Our school has 18 benchmarks that we have to meet. Other schools have 2 or 3; it all depends on the population of the school. And here comes that magic number again, 100%. You have to hit 100% of your benchmarks to show adequate yearly progress. And it is an all or nothing deal. You can hit 17 out of the 18 benchmarks, and you still won't make AYPs because of one sub group. So hell, even if we are making progress, then we aren't making enough progress. What the hell kind of a system is that?
Then there is the actual testing system itself. We don't test kids at the beginning of the year and then test them at the end of the year to measure progress or to check the quality of our teaching. No. We test kids at the end of each school year. And the test measures whether or not they are meeting standards at grade level. Who cares if we've taught a kid to read better than he had the year before? Who cares if we've taught a kid math that he didn't previously understand? If he isn't at grade level, then we're not making progress.
And did I mention that we measure apples against oranges? We don't look at the class of 2015's progress from one year to the next. Nope, we compare one seventh grade class of students to an entirely new class of seventh grade students. Whose progress are we showing by doing that?
And don't even get me started on the unfairness of the testing for students for whom English is a second or third or fourth language. That is an entirely different post.
Back to the Atlanta teachers and that pizza. Why? Because the system is broken. And sometimes, when you are working in a broken system, you lose your way. I've never compromised my integrity when it comes to the state tests, but I do understand the weariness of working under a broken system and wondering if anyone else knows that it is broken. More absurdly, I wonder why we are always talking about all the problems with the system, and no positive change is happening.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Root canals, replacement teeth, and refugees
We had a dentist come in to our school at the end of the school year to check out kids who otherwise would not have access to a dentist. Only students who had filled out the paperwork were able to see her, and five of my students were on the list. Of the five students, two were fine. One had so much plaque and tartar on his teeth that the dentist wrote a referral for him to go see another dentist for a complete cleaning. And then there were my two girls. I'll write about one here today.
One student had a vertical crack in one of her front teeth that ran from up in her gum all the way down to the bottom of the tooth. This wasn't a subtle crack. It had bothered me from the beginning of the school year when I first saw her smile because I thought it must be painful. And here is where I made my mistake; my American self didn't want to ask questions about her mouth because for Americans (or at least Midwesterners, I'm not sure about the rest of us), it isn't polite to discuss others' medical issues unless they raise them in conversation. And here is where I made my other mistake; I assumed that the International Center was taking care of my students' medical issues. I was wrong on both fronts. I should have asked.
Here is the story. My student was running through her house in Thailand three years ago when her brother tripped her. She fell. Hard. And hit her mouth on the ground and broke her tooth. From top to bottom. With no access to a dentist, the family's approach was to have her suck it up. Fast forward two years, and her family moved to the United States as refugees. The International Center concerned themselves with getting the children the necessary shots to attend school and getting the family settled in to an apartment, but their support stopped there. Despite the fact that my student has Medicaid that would cover her dentist trips, she wasn't taken to a dentist. And I had her in my class for a full year before I thought to investigate.
There are many details to share. After the dentist came to our school and saw that not only had my student cracked her tooth from top to bottom but also horizontally up under the gumline, she was horrified that the girl hadn't seen a dentist. We needed to get her to an office so that they could get that tooth out.
There are rules about teachers transporting students. We can't. So, I contacted the International Center. No return call. I contacted them via email. No return email. I contacted them again via phone. Nothing. I went to my principal and asked him to grant me an exception to the rule. He couldn't. He was trying to protect me from myself (thank you, litigious society). We contacted a dentist. He could see her right away. We needed transportation. And my student's mom needed to come to sign papers.
My principal intervened and contacted the International Center. Suddenly, we had movement. They would provide transportation. And a translator. And I would be allowed to go to the dentist with my student provided I drove myself and didn't provide them transportation. Fantastic.
My student needed to have the tooth pulled. The dentist needed an oral surgeon to do it because the damage was that extensive. And after having the tooth pulled, she could have a replacement tooth built. The problem? That meant at least four more dental appointments. Two problems there: 1) The International Center SUCKS (there, I finally said it!) when it comes to following up on these kinds of things. 2) Mom speaks no English, and we needed a lot of translation and support. And, frankly, my student's mom saw the whole thing as a hassle and not a necessity.
So the International Center managed to get her to the oral surgeon to have the tooth pulled, but then they dropped out of the picture altogether again. Sigh.
I've now spent two days at the dentist with my students this summer with two more days to come. I've worked out transportation for them and their families. I've dealt with telephone translators. I've been amazed at the trust their families have put in me. I've been amazed at the generosity and patience of the dentist who is working with my kids. And I've been angry that they have been neglected for so long and that my hands have felt so tied to help them.
Here is where I get to the part of the blog where I REALLY get on my soapbox:
1. The International Center needs to do their job. Or maybe redefine their job. But these kids have been neglected, and regulations in the school system have our hands tied. So when we identify a need, they need to support. And I'm tired of making excuses for them.
2. These families need community partners. They need cultural translators who can help them identify resources in the community that they can access. People don't want refugees to come and be a burden on the United States, but they also don't want to provide them the resources needed to make a successful transition from living in their culture to living in ours.
3. We need to start thinking about creative solutions to these problems. And we all need to be on the same page.
Two cups of coffee later, and I know I'm going to want to come back to revise this writing. I don't mean to make this about the International Center and their many failings. Rather, I mean to make this about my students. And their needs. And how we, as a community, need to do a better job folding these kids and their families in to our community.
One student had a vertical crack in one of her front teeth that ran from up in her gum all the way down to the bottom of the tooth. This wasn't a subtle crack. It had bothered me from the beginning of the school year when I first saw her smile because I thought it must be painful. And here is where I made my mistake; my American self didn't want to ask questions about her mouth because for Americans (or at least Midwesterners, I'm not sure about the rest of us), it isn't polite to discuss others' medical issues unless they raise them in conversation. And here is where I made my other mistake; I assumed that the International Center was taking care of my students' medical issues. I was wrong on both fronts. I should have asked.
Here is the story. My student was running through her house in Thailand three years ago when her brother tripped her. She fell. Hard. And hit her mouth on the ground and broke her tooth. From top to bottom. With no access to a dentist, the family's approach was to have her suck it up. Fast forward two years, and her family moved to the United States as refugees. The International Center concerned themselves with getting the children the necessary shots to attend school and getting the family settled in to an apartment, but their support stopped there. Despite the fact that my student has Medicaid that would cover her dentist trips, she wasn't taken to a dentist. And I had her in my class for a full year before I thought to investigate.
There are many details to share. After the dentist came to our school and saw that not only had my student cracked her tooth from top to bottom but also horizontally up under the gumline, she was horrified that the girl hadn't seen a dentist. We needed to get her to an office so that they could get that tooth out.
There are rules about teachers transporting students. We can't. So, I contacted the International Center. No return call. I contacted them via email. No return email. I contacted them again via phone. Nothing. I went to my principal and asked him to grant me an exception to the rule. He couldn't. He was trying to protect me from myself (thank you, litigious society). We contacted a dentist. He could see her right away. We needed transportation. And my student's mom needed to come to sign papers.
My principal intervened and contacted the International Center. Suddenly, we had movement. They would provide transportation. And a translator. And I would be allowed to go to the dentist with my student provided I drove myself and didn't provide them transportation. Fantastic.
My student needed to have the tooth pulled. The dentist needed an oral surgeon to do it because the damage was that extensive. And after having the tooth pulled, she could have a replacement tooth built. The problem? That meant at least four more dental appointments. Two problems there: 1) The International Center SUCKS (there, I finally said it!) when it comes to following up on these kinds of things. 2) Mom speaks no English, and we needed a lot of translation and support. And, frankly, my student's mom saw the whole thing as a hassle and not a necessity.
So the International Center managed to get her to the oral surgeon to have the tooth pulled, but then they dropped out of the picture altogether again. Sigh.
I've now spent two days at the dentist with my students this summer with two more days to come. I've worked out transportation for them and their families. I've dealt with telephone translators. I've been amazed at the trust their families have put in me. I've been amazed at the generosity and patience of the dentist who is working with my kids. And I've been angry that they have been neglected for so long and that my hands have felt so tied to help them.
Here is where I get to the part of the blog where I REALLY get on my soapbox:
1. The International Center needs to do their job. Or maybe redefine their job. But these kids have been neglected, and regulations in the school system have our hands tied. So when we identify a need, they need to support. And I'm tired of making excuses for them.
2. These families need community partners. They need cultural translators who can help them identify resources in the community that they can access. People don't want refugees to come and be a burden on the United States, but they also don't want to provide them the resources needed to make a successful transition from living in their culture to living in ours.
3. We need to start thinking about creative solutions to these problems. And we all need to be on the same page.
Two cups of coffee later, and I know I'm going to want to come back to revise this writing. I don't mean to make this about the International Center and their many failings. Rather, I mean to make this about my students. And their needs. And how we, as a community, need to do a better job folding these kids and their families in to our community.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The end of one year runs into the beginning of another...
Funny how that works. We have been out of school for two weeks. I'm not sure what it is that is preventing me from shifting into summer vacation mode, but my brain refuses to power down. Things I'm wrestling with right now:
- A change in leadership. The principal whom I absolutely adore and admire is retiring as of June 30th, and I was on the committee to select his replacement. That went well, and I'm really excited about the person that we have taking over the helm. I am interested to see what direction the upcoming year will take for our school. (And I will miss a person whom I have come to consider a friend.) Also, the ESL district boss (I don't know a better way to put it...she has so many jobs, but in my world that's her role) who has been an amazing person to work for is retiring at the end of July. I have no idea who will be trying to fill her shoes, but there will possibly be some changes in the coming year. (And I will miss another person whom I admire greatly and have come to consider a friend.)
- A change in staffing. My friend and fellow ESL teacher is headed out on an adventure to China for at least the next two years. Our enrollment is up. So we are hiring not one but two ESL teachers to work in the building next year. And while historically that end of the building has been separate from what I'm doing on my end of the building, I'm going to have to be more involved in that other classroom next year. I'm excited about the possibilities.
- KTIP. I'm going to be trained this summer to be a resource teacher for KTIP. It's a Kentucky program to help first-year teachers reflect on their teaching practices and determine if they have the tools to be successful in the classroom. I went through it a few years ago. This upcoming year, I think I'm going to be a resource teacher for one of the new ESL teachers.
- Summer training. We are doing a training for our whole staff on working with ELL students and making appropriate modifications on July 28 and 29 at our school. This is on my mind ALL the time. I have been doing a similar training at the district level for the last two years, but I want to do something outstanding for our teachers. I hope to inspire them to work with the new ESL teachers to better support our ELLs.
- Technology. The ipads and ipods are always on my mind in terms of how to best use them. I didn't get a lot of the info off of them for the summer for storage, and I have to figure out the best way to store the videos that my students made before cleaning those off for next year's kids. We are also about to start designing our own web pages as teachers in the district, and I'm excited for that. I have a class blog, but I'd really like to have more that is student friendly. So as soon as I get the green light, I'm going to start working on a class web page this summer.
- CLIMBS. I am hoping that with the change in leadership we will continue to offer this at the district level. I LOVE doing that training even though it's really stressful. I love the challenge of it, and I have enjoyed revising it again and again to every time I've worked on it. I love working with teachers from other schools.
- National Board Certification. I'm doing the Take One version of that this year. That's just one part of the four part National Board process. I'm excited about it, but I know it will be a time commitment. I'm not worried about it... it's just sitting there in the back of my head.
- Random thinking. Revising my units for the beginning of the school year. Doing work with System 44 to improve comprehension for my students. Painting a wall in my classroom that always gets marked up with pens and pencils. Sharing the technology with the new teachers (I have to learn to play nice in the sandbox.) Why the heck can't KYTESOL get their act together and post their call for proposals on the website? Getting involved with changing the testing system for ELLs.
I guess that's it for this morning. No deep thoughts here. Just a dumping ground for the way my brain is working this summer. All this thinking, but I don't think I'm getting a lot done. Time for a second cup of coffee.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Ipod Use Number 2
Unbelievable that I haven't posted in a month. Unbelievable that that is the first sentence I choose to post in a month. But it has been an insane month. In that month, though, I have found multiple uses for the iPod in the language learning classroom.
Idea number 2... Vocabulary Scavenger Hunt
The kids had a list of something like 40 vocabulary words related to geography tostudy, and we had photos in the class representing those 40 words. The kids had duplicate mini photos in their vocab notebooks to study. So after a night of studying, I put the list of 40 words on the overhead cam for the students. I had each of them randomly choose any 15 words from that master list in any order and put them on a piece of paper.
Prior to school starting, I snuck into the classroom and hid the 40 vocab pictures all over the room. Taped to random places.
I then collected the kids' lists and redistributed them to different kids. The task? Each student had to go on a scavenger hunt to find the pictures of the 15 words on their list. They had to take photos of the images with the iPod touch. The twist? They had to do it in the order that the words were listed on their lists.
Wild. The kids had a great time. And it forced them to really think about the words in print versus the words as images. And when the quickest kid in the class discovered that he had missed picture number seven, he had to delete his last eight photos and go back at it again. It was a fun, fun challenge to see who could get done first.
Idea number 2... Vocabulary Scavenger Hunt
The kids had a list of something like 40 vocabulary words related to geography tostudy, and we had photos in the class representing those 40 words. The kids had duplicate mini photos in their vocab notebooks to study. So after a night of studying, I put the list of 40 words on the overhead cam for the students. I had each of them randomly choose any 15 words from that master list in any order and put them on a piece of paper.
Prior to school starting, I snuck into the classroom and hid the 40 vocab pictures all over the room. Taped to random places.
I then collected the kids' lists and redistributed them to different kids. The task? Each student had to go on a scavenger hunt to find the pictures of the 15 words on their list. They had to take photos of the images with the iPod touch. The twist? They had to do it in the order that the words were listed on their lists.
Wild. The kids had a great time. And it forced them to really think about the words in print versus the words as images. And when the quickest kid in the class discovered that he had missed picture number seven, he had to delete his last eight photos and go back at it again. It was a fun, fun challenge to see who could get done first.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Security! Security! Security!
So I had my first breach of contract this week on my iPod touch contract. Two breaches, really. The kids took the iPods home to do their video homework, and I had two girls come in the next day without their homework but with iPods with nearly dead batteries. Hmmmm, I thought.
The first flag was that they had changed the settings on the iPods to have a beautiful flowery background rather than the number of their iPod. This was a problem. The kids signed a contract saying that they wouldn't change the settings, and these kids had. (The ipods have numbers as their backgrounds so that I can instantly see what number iPod that I'm using. I also don't want the kids to personalize the iPods because I don't want them to start thinking that these are theirs.)
The second flag was the dead batteries without the homework.
So I went into the internet icon on their iPods, and there was no history. Hmmmm, I thought. What on earth were they doing? Oh, they cleared the history.
What they didn't realize is that there is a separate history for Youtube. And I went into the Youtube app, and sure enough, they had had the time of their lives watching videos all night long.
Now let me say this. I want my kids to have internet access at home, and many of them can't afford home computers. So if a kid takes home my iPod touch and has wireless access at home, I'm all for them surfing away on the web. My students are normally so NOT tech savvy that any trouble they get into is more accidental than anything else.
However, in this case, I was livid. These are two of my lowest students. They make the least effort of all the students in my class in terms of studying and advancing outside the class. And the fact that they had taken home the technology and then used it to watch Burmese videos all night rather than at least trying my homework made me rather angry. And on top of that, the fact that they had changed the settings on their ipods when they had signed a contract promising (among other things) that they wouldn't, also had me rather angry.
I got a professional translator on the phone because I wanted to be clear. I explained that they had violated the terms of the contract that they had signed and that there would be punishment accordingly (they lost free time and had to "pay" me a computer card that they would normally get to use during free time). Then, I asked them about the homework. And the one student (the stronger of the two) actually told me that she didn't know how to use the camera, so she didn't know how to do the homework. I was born on a Saturday, but it wasn't last Saturday. I actually have my students do a practice run or two for their homework and then show it to me in class to make sure that I know they know how to use the technology. Add to that the fact that she had managed to find Burmese music videos all night on Youtube, and she had changed the settings on the phone, and it was just a big, fat lie.
Long story short, they were punished. The rest of the class knew what was going on because I wanted them to know how seriously I took this. But really, what was most revealing to me was the character of the student in that moment. I think the lie is more disappointing to me than anything else.
On another note, I'm going to be posting some iPad apps and activities (and iPod activities) that I'm developing for my kids in the upcoming weeks. The kids just finished their first iMovies, and those are published to Schooltube. It's amazing to see how far they've come.
The first flag was that they had changed the settings on the iPods to have a beautiful flowery background rather than the number of their iPod. This was a problem. The kids signed a contract saying that they wouldn't change the settings, and these kids had. (The ipods have numbers as their backgrounds so that I can instantly see what number iPod that I'm using. I also don't want the kids to personalize the iPods because I don't want them to start thinking that these are theirs.)
The second flag was the dead batteries without the homework.
So I went into the internet icon on their iPods, and there was no history. Hmmmm, I thought. What on earth were they doing? Oh, they cleared the history.
What they didn't realize is that there is a separate history for Youtube. And I went into the Youtube app, and sure enough, they had had the time of their lives watching videos all night long.
Now let me say this. I want my kids to have internet access at home, and many of them can't afford home computers. So if a kid takes home my iPod touch and has wireless access at home, I'm all for them surfing away on the web. My students are normally so NOT tech savvy that any trouble they get into is more accidental than anything else.
However, in this case, I was livid. These are two of my lowest students. They make the least effort of all the students in my class in terms of studying and advancing outside the class. And the fact that they had taken home the technology and then used it to watch Burmese videos all night rather than at least trying my homework made me rather angry. And on top of that, the fact that they had changed the settings on their ipods when they had signed a contract promising (among other things) that they wouldn't, also had me rather angry.
I got a professional translator on the phone because I wanted to be clear. I explained that they had violated the terms of the contract that they had signed and that there would be punishment accordingly (they lost free time and had to "pay" me a computer card that they would normally get to use during free time). Then, I asked them about the homework. And the one student (the stronger of the two) actually told me that she didn't know how to use the camera, so she didn't know how to do the homework. I was born on a Saturday, but it wasn't last Saturday. I actually have my students do a practice run or two for their homework and then show it to me in class to make sure that I know they know how to use the technology. Add to that the fact that she had managed to find Burmese music videos all night on Youtube, and she had changed the settings on the phone, and it was just a big, fat lie.
Long story short, they were punished. The rest of the class knew what was going on because I wanted them to know how seriously I took this. But really, what was most revealing to me was the character of the student in that moment. I think the lie is more disappointing to me than anything else.
On another note, I'm going to be posting some iPad apps and activities (and iPod activities) that I'm developing for my kids in the upcoming weeks. The kids just finished their first iMovies, and those are published to Schooltube. It's amazing to see how far they've come.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Ipods and Ipads and all kinds of fun.... oh my....
I spent last night pondering ways to make my students speak English after they leave my classroom. I love homework. I especially love homework when it has more of a purpose than just assigning homework for the sake of having homework. On the other hand, there are days when I do want to assign homework just for the sake of it. I want homework to be the norm and expectation in my class, not something unusual. I think the iPods are going to make it just that.
We are studying adjectives right now. I usually do this in conjunction with some sort of a content-area lesson, but this time I'm just studying adjectives for the sake of studying adjectives. Of course, later on they'll need these words when we are comparing things in science or talking about different countries in social studies, but for now we're just learning some adjectives.
So this morning I had them build a vocabulary notebook of some adjectives I think are most common. We took pictures from a photo dictionary and pasted them into their notebooks, and they wrote the adjectives next to the pictures. Then, we dug through some other magazines to find the words that had not been listed in their dictionaries. Students got to present their photo concepts of young and old and short and tall to the class. We followed that with some practice constructing some sentences orally. "The baby is young. The mother is old." We're not doing comparatives yet. We are just learning the vocabulary.
And then the cool part. I challenged the kids to take their iPod touches somewhere in the room and to videotape themselves making a comparison. They could do any of the vocabulary that we had done in class that morning, and they came up with some good stuff. The keys were to find two things and then orally compare them on the video so that they could be heard clearly saying the sentences. The kids really got a kick out of it.
Homework? Five more comparisons at home tonight. And they have to teach at least two of those words to someone in their family. I'm checking on the video comparison, not on the teaching. But I think it will be good.
We are studying adjectives right now. I usually do this in conjunction with some sort of a content-area lesson, but this time I'm just studying adjectives for the sake of studying adjectives. Of course, later on they'll need these words when we are comparing things in science or talking about different countries in social studies, but for now we're just learning some adjectives.
So this morning I had them build a vocabulary notebook of some adjectives I think are most common. We took pictures from a photo dictionary and pasted them into their notebooks, and they wrote the adjectives next to the pictures. Then, we dug through some other magazines to find the words that had not been listed in their dictionaries. Students got to present their photo concepts of young and old and short and tall to the class. We followed that with some practice constructing some sentences orally. "The baby is young. The mother is old." We're not doing comparatives yet. We are just learning the vocabulary.
And then the cool part. I challenged the kids to take their iPod touches somewhere in the room and to videotape themselves making a comparison. They could do any of the vocabulary that we had done in class that morning, and they came up with some good stuff. The keys were to find two things and then orally compare them on the video so that they could be heard clearly saying the sentences. The kids really got a kick out of it.
Homework? Five more comparisons at home tonight. And they have to teach at least two of those words to someone in their family. I'm checking on the video comparison, not on the teaching. But I think it will be good.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
So many presentations, and never enough time...
...and the weather of New Orleans is incredible. We spent the afternoon out for a trolley ride, but I'm back at the TESOL conference for a great presentation. I have so many things I'd like to learn about technology now that the iPads and iPod touches have arrived in my classroom.
I should have videotaped the roll out of the iPads. I had a specific plan for them, but I can't remember what the plan was now. I just remember the excitement. And the fact that I told the kids before I handed them out where the magical black button is on the iPad that makes all things go, but some were sp excited that they didn't listen. The despondency over not being able to figure out how to make it "go" immediately was amazingly sweet. And then I gave them about 10 minutes just to play with the apps that I had loaded onto the machines. Amazing excitement.
This week, we got out the iPod touches. The cool part? They have two cameras on them. It's a whole new world for the kids. They took their cameras home for two days this week to get pictures for a project we would be doing at the end of the week, and one student took 293 pictures and a couple of great videos in two days time. I can't imagine what kind of language this is going to generate.
While I'm in TESOL, the kids are making movies of their lives using the photos they took at home. I can't wait to see what they have come up with.
Reporting in from TESOL. More tomorrow.
I should have videotaped the roll out of the iPads. I had a specific plan for them, but I can't remember what the plan was now. I just remember the excitement. And the fact that I told the kids before I handed them out where the magical black button is on the iPad that makes all things go, but some were sp excited that they didn't listen. The despondency over not being able to figure out how to make it "go" immediately was amazingly sweet. And then I gave them about 10 minutes just to play with the apps that I had loaded onto the machines. Amazing excitement.
This week, we got out the iPod touches. The cool part? They have two cameras on them. It's a whole new world for the kids. They took their cameras home for two days this week to get pictures for a project we would be doing at the end of the week, and one student took 293 pictures and a couple of great videos in two days time. I can't imagine what kind of language this is going to generate.
While I'm in TESOL, the kids are making movies of their lives using the photos they took at home. I can't wait to see what they have come up with.
Reporting in from TESOL. More tomorrow.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
How glue makes things fall apart...
I always forget what glue does to my students.
I'm using a series by Scholastic to teach my students a unit on fractions. It's called Do the Math by Marilyn Burns. I'm a big fan of Scholastic products. I'm also a big fan of the people at Scholastic. Never before have I encountered a company so willing to listen to input from teachers and to change/adapt their products for use in the classroom based on that input. I digress, though. Back to the glue.
We are studying fractions. My students are learning what they are. I am learning how to teach about them. I've tried, rather unsuccessfully, for the last two years to cover this topic with my students. Then, someone recommended that I check out this series, and I fell in love with it. It is basically idiot-proof. And when I say "idiot-proof", I'm talking about idiot-proof for the teacher. Unless you try to do something different from what is in the book, you will have success teaching with this series. If you go outside of what the book details, you will confuse your students and yourself. Just follow the program. At least that is what I thought until yesterday.
We've been studying fractions for a few weeks. The kids have these great manipulatives that they use at their desk to solve all the math problems. The focus for the first few weeks is simply in getting them to understand equivalent fractions in the 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 realm. From there, we'll add in other fractions. But they are working exclusively with these for right now, and they have been for the last few weeks.
Yesterday, though, we switched from thinking about fractions in terms of strips to thinking about fractions in circles. This was a quantum leap for my students that the series took for granted. The circles plus the addition of glue to the problem-solving process made it impossible to accomplish much.
I started out the class asking the students to get their supplies: scissors and glue. These are middle school students, but the glue just put them over the edge. I turned my back for a second, and I turned back around to find four girls gluing random things to their notebooks. Whooooaaaa. Put a stop to that. Then we got into the actual lesson.
Now the book really is normally pretty straight-forward. There are step-by-step examples at the top of every page for the students to follow. The directions yesterday were pretty simple. They were solving problems about sharing cookies. For example, at the top of the page, it would say, "4 people share 3 cookies equally." And then the kids had to figure out how to divide those three cookies among four boxes on their paper. The three cookies were represented by circular pieces of paper, and they could cut those to make sure that everyone got the same amount.
The directions at the top of the page listed these steps:
1. Take the number of cookies in the problem.
2. Share the cookies equally.
3. Paste and label the cookies.
4. Write the sentence at the bottom of the page.
And there was a pictorial representation to go with this to explain what happens in each step.
I went through two examples with the kids. I did one on the board. We did one together. Then, I asked them to get to work and do three problems on their own.
All hell broke loose.
One student started randomly gluing "cookies" to her page without actually counting how many were needed in the problem.
One student started working on the back page of the packet--the part of the packet that I had photocopied for Monday's practice.
One student did step one but then skipped to step three without bothering to try to share the cookies first. Person number four was left out in the cold with no cookies on her sheet.
One student, my most advanced, started thinking in terms of dividing the cookies in half and then the remaining halves into fourths. No problem. Except his brother, who was sitting next to him, was watching and trying to copy without understanding why.
One student, when labeling, forgot all the rules of fractions and counted up the total number of pieces on his board (12--each cookie divided into four pieces) and labeled each cookie part as 1/12 even though we've never seen that fraction before.
I intervened as a class when I realized things were going wrong. Then I intervened individually as I could. Then I just lost my ever-loving mind and put a stop to the whole thing and sent them out of the room to their next teacher so that I could regroup and figure out where the heck I had gone wrong. I figured out several things:
1. Never, ever, ever include glue in a project without telling the kids that they have to ask before they glue.
2. Never assume that kids can make a transition from one thing (the fraction strips) to another (the circle) without checking for understanding first.
3. Always check your teacher materials in advance to make sure that you have what you need, the kids have what they need, and the papers that you think are there are actually there. When I did the examples with the kids yesterday, I thought that they had papers in their packets to do the examples with me, and they didn't.
4. Feel free to add an extra step in there that will help the students. I should have required them to divide ALL circles into fourths before sharing out their cookies. And then they could have figured out whether they had wholes or not.
5. Don't be afraid to lay on the floor on the classroom moaning and groaning as a means of personal therapy while teaching. Kids find it endearing that you are suffering for them. (And they'll ask you questions while you are laying there anyway).
I'm using a series by Scholastic to teach my students a unit on fractions. It's called Do the Math by Marilyn Burns. I'm a big fan of Scholastic products. I'm also a big fan of the people at Scholastic. Never before have I encountered a company so willing to listen to input from teachers and to change/adapt their products for use in the classroom based on that input. I digress, though. Back to the glue.
We are studying fractions. My students are learning what they are. I am learning how to teach about them. I've tried, rather unsuccessfully, for the last two years to cover this topic with my students. Then, someone recommended that I check out this series, and I fell in love with it. It is basically idiot-proof. And when I say "idiot-proof", I'm talking about idiot-proof for the teacher. Unless you try to do something different from what is in the book, you will have success teaching with this series. If you go outside of what the book details, you will confuse your students and yourself. Just follow the program. At least that is what I thought until yesterday.
We've been studying fractions for a few weeks. The kids have these great manipulatives that they use at their desk to solve all the math problems. The focus for the first few weeks is simply in getting them to understand equivalent fractions in the 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 realm. From there, we'll add in other fractions. But they are working exclusively with these for right now, and they have been for the last few weeks.
Yesterday, though, we switched from thinking about fractions in terms of strips to thinking about fractions in circles. This was a quantum leap for my students that the series took for granted. The circles plus the addition of glue to the problem-solving process made it impossible to accomplish much.
I started out the class asking the students to get their supplies: scissors and glue. These are middle school students, but the glue just put them over the edge. I turned my back for a second, and I turned back around to find four girls gluing random things to their notebooks. Whooooaaaa. Put a stop to that. Then we got into the actual lesson.
Now the book really is normally pretty straight-forward. There are step-by-step examples at the top of every page for the students to follow. The directions yesterday were pretty simple. They were solving problems about sharing cookies. For example, at the top of the page, it would say, "4 people share 3 cookies equally." And then the kids had to figure out how to divide those three cookies among four boxes on their paper. The three cookies were represented by circular pieces of paper, and they could cut those to make sure that everyone got the same amount.
The directions at the top of the page listed these steps:
1. Take the number of cookies in the problem.
2. Share the cookies equally.
3. Paste and label the cookies.
4. Write the sentence at the bottom of the page.
And there was a pictorial representation to go with this to explain what happens in each step.
I went through two examples with the kids. I did one on the board. We did one together. Then, I asked them to get to work and do three problems on their own.
All hell broke loose.
One student started randomly gluing "cookies" to her page without actually counting how many were needed in the problem.
One student started working on the back page of the packet--the part of the packet that I had photocopied for Monday's practice.
One student did step one but then skipped to step three without bothering to try to share the cookies first. Person number four was left out in the cold with no cookies on her sheet.
One student, my most advanced, started thinking in terms of dividing the cookies in half and then the remaining halves into fourths. No problem. Except his brother, who was sitting next to him, was watching and trying to copy without understanding why.
One student, when labeling, forgot all the rules of fractions and counted up the total number of pieces on his board (12--each cookie divided into four pieces) and labeled each cookie part as 1/12 even though we've never seen that fraction before.
I intervened as a class when I realized things were going wrong. Then I intervened individually as I could. Then I just lost my ever-loving mind and put a stop to the whole thing and sent them out of the room to their next teacher so that I could regroup and figure out where the heck I had gone wrong. I figured out several things:
1. Never, ever, ever include glue in a project without telling the kids that they have to ask before they glue.
2. Never assume that kids can make a transition from one thing (the fraction strips) to another (the circle) without checking for understanding first.
3. Always check your teacher materials in advance to make sure that you have what you need, the kids have what they need, and the papers that you think are there are actually there. When I did the examples with the kids yesterday, I thought that they had papers in their packets to do the examples with me, and they didn't.
4. Feel free to add an extra step in there that will help the students. I should have required them to divide ALL circles into fourths before sharing out their cookies. And then they could have figured out whether they had wholes or not.
5. Don't be afraid to lay on the floor on the classroom moaning and groaning as a means of personal therapy while teaching. Kids find it endearing that you are suffering for them. (And they'll ask you questions while you are laying there anyway).
Sunday, February 6, 2011
blah blah blah... teacher talk time
I woke up this morning thinking about teacher talk time. Literally. I was actually dreaming about an action research project, and my husband woke me up, and my brain was spinning with ideas about how to get this done. My CLIMBS partner and I are going to be delivering a PD to teachers at our school this summer. It will have some elements of the CLIMBS model in it, but we will need to pick and choose the topics carefully to maximize the PD for the other teachers.
Throughout CLIMBS, I have been trying to convince teachers that it is really important that their ELLs are actually speaking in class. (Honestly, I think it's really important that ALL students are speaking in class. They should be engaging the content by using academic language and the vocabulary of the content orally and in writing.) I often say that I am convinced that there are students in our school who go an entire day without speaking. I should revise that to say that I think that there are students who go an entire day without speaking about academic content.
In a class of 30 students, in a 45 minute period, if each student has the floor with no teacher talk time, that means each student would speak for just 90 seconds in a class period. That's with a bunch of ifs. I've been in classes where teachers did 90% of the talking. That meant that there were only about 5 minutes left for the students to do the talking. 5 minutes. 30 students. You do the math. But my dream about an action research project on this makes me want to put my money where my mouth is.
I've thought of two different approaches. One is to pick a couple of students and follow them for a day. I'd like to just watch them and keep track of how many times in the day they engage in the content orally in class. The other is to go around to each teacher's classroom for one period and keep track of two things. 1) How much of the time in the class the teacher is speaking and how much of the time the students are speaking. 2) How much of the student speaking is actually using the content language. I'm rambling, though. Because as I write this, I think about the number of challenges to either of these approaches. Perhaps, I should go less formal.
The idea, either way, is to just have some more or less hard data to share with the teachers when we get together this summer. I do want to see if what I suspect is accurate--that most students are not orally engaging with the content regularly in their classes. But I also hope to see if this is impacting not only ELLs but also the other students.
This stems from a structured activity I did in my class on Thursday last week. I actually gave my students a "script" to follow as they engaged one another to get information from each other to fill in their papers. And when students started, they were nervous. They didn't have control of the language. They weren't sure even what they were asking. By the time they spoke to the 15th student in the class, I saw them gaining confidence and academic language that they could use in their classes. The content matter was the States of Matter. But the language that they were practicing was academic information gathering. And late in the day, when I was in conversation with one of my students and the conversation spontaneously produced the question, "Can you spell that for me?" I was thrilled.
But I wondered if having structured activities with structured oral language would have an impact on other classrooms, as well, or if I was seeing things through the narrow lens of my class and my particular students. Too, this is an informal survey I'm planning. I know there is already hard data out there. There are plenty of researchers smarter than me who have done this work before. I'm not really looking to reinvent the wheel. Rather, I want to know if what the research is showing is true in our school, as well. Guess we'll see.
Throughout CLIMBS, I have been trying to convince teachers that it is really important that their ELLs are actually speaking in class. (Honestly, I think it's really important that ALL students are speaking in class. They should be engaging the content by using academic language and the vocabulary of the content orally and in writing.) I often say that I am convinced that there are students in our school who go an entire day without speaking. I should revise that to say that I think that there are students who go an entire day without speaking about academic content.
In a class of 30 students, in a 45 minute period, if each student has the floor with no teacher talk time, that means each student would speak for just 90 seconds in a class period. That's with a bunch of ifs. I've been in classes where teachers did 90% of the talking. That meant that there were only about 5 minutes left for the students to do the talking. 5 minutes. 30 students. You do the math. But my dream about an action research project on this makes me want to put my money where my mouth is.
I've thought of two different approaches. One is to pick a couple of students and follow them for a day. I'd like to just watch them and keep track of how many times in the day they engage in the content orally in class. The other is to go around to each teacher's classroom for one period and keep track of two things. 1) How much of the time in the class the teacher is speaking and how much of the time the students are speaking. 2) How much of the student speaking is actually using the content language. I'm rambling, though. Because as I write this, I think about the number of challenges to either of these approaches. Perhaps, I should go less formal.
The idea, either way, is to just have some more or less hard data to share with the teachers when we get together this summer. I do want to see if what I suspect is accurate--that most students are not orally engaging with the content regularly in their classes. But I also hope to see if this is impacting not only ELLs but also the other students.
This stems from a structured activity I did in my class on Thursday last week. I actually gave my students a "script" to follow as they engaged one another to get information from each other to fill in their papers. And when students started, they were nervous. They didn't have control of the language. They weren't sure even what they were asking. By the time they spoke to the 15th student in the class, I saw them gaining confidence and academic language that they could use in their classes. The content matter was the States of Matter. But the language that they were practicing was academic information gathering. And late in the day, when I was in conversation with one of my students and the conversation spontaneously produced the question, "Can you spell that for me?" I was thrilled.
But I wondered if having structured activities with structured oral language would have an impact on other classrooms, as well, or if I was seeing things through the narrow lens of my class and my particular students. Too, this is an informal survey I'm planning. I know there is already hard data out there. There are plenty of researchers smarter than me who have done this work before. I'm not really looking to reinvent the wheel. Rather, I want to know if what the research is showing is true in our school, as well. Guess we'll see.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
On the Burmese and cold weather and peer pressure and coats...
It's cold here in Kentucky. It's not Michigan-cold, but it's cold. I actually moved away from Michigan because it is so darn cold. And I hate snow. I hated waking up on cold mornings to the sound of my father clearing the snow and ice off of our cars from the night before. Sometimes, I'd just hear the sound of scraping and pounding. Other times, it was scraping, pounding, and muffled profanity. Other times, it was the sound of my father stomping his feet just inside the front door to shake the snow off his boots before coming up the stairs to wake us up to help him clear off the cars. I'm not a fan of snow.
I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of my students have had relatively little exposure to cold weather. Many are from Thailand. One is from Cuba. For many, the norm was not to wear shoes. For Westerners, this seems to bring about an "awwww" moment... people should wear shoes, for crying out loud. And if they don't, it's because of poverty. I'm not so sure that this was the case for my students. I know that many of them lived in poverty, but their shoelessness was less a reflection of that and more a reflection of the hot climate. Why wear shoes?
So my students arrive in the United States and the shoe expectation is a bit of a shocker. Most of them prefer flip-flops. Year-round flip-flops. Oftentimes, even if they wear flip-flops, I realize that they've kicked off their shoes in the classroom and are running around shoeless. Every October or so, I take the kids to the FRYSC to get them shoes if I see that they don't have anything close-toed. Our amazing FRYSC has gotten shoes for my kids to appear out of the blue. We usually have to provide them with socks, too.
And then winter rolls around, and it's coat time. This year, I took all of my students to the FRYSC at once and we had a coat giveaway. EVERYONE got a new coat. So I know they all have coats.
And now it's cold. And many of them won't wear their coats. I honestly teeter between saying, "Well, I got them the coats. Now it's up to them to wear them" and "No one is at home to tell them it's cold, so they should put on a coat, so I need to remind them." This week, I was in the latter camp.
By Friday, we were in a bit of a situation. Not only were my Burmese students not wanting to wear their coats, but the non-Burmese kids had picked up on it, and for whatever reason were deciding they didn't want to wear their coats, either. I was in the middle of an anti-coat revolt in my classroom. Peer pressure was taking over my classroom and not in a good way.
Maybe I should just give up the fight. Why is this bothering me so much? I don't know. I'm thinking that it has something to do with that mothering thing about wanting my "kids" to wear their coats so people don't think that they don't have them? I have no idea. I want to protect them from themselves a little bit...when they get cold, they are more susceptible to illness, and they don't need to be sick. And I don't like to get sick. And when they get sick, I get sick? I know they are clueless about the weather here. They don't have it ingrained in them that you just wear warm things when it's cold outside (although that would seem to be intuitive).
So here's the irrational teacher admission. I don't have many of these moments in my classroom, but I think I'm there. My control-freaky self has taken over, and I have now threatened my kids to make them wear their coats. That's right. They have to wear their coats, or they will lose a stick (this is the "money" of my classroom). And on Friday, I took it one step further. They'll also have extra homework on Monday if they don't wear a coat.
Oh, crap. I've heard it said that you shouldn't have a confrontation with teenagers unless you are sure you are going to win. And once you've gained some ground, you better hold on to it, or you'll lose what you've gained and then some. I'm thinking I'm trying to play king of the mountain with a bunch of kids standing on top of the mountain with their arms crossed. Not only am I not gaining ground, but I'm probably fighting a losing battle for no reason other than that once I've started the fight, I better keep it up until I win or die trying. Wrestling the gorilla, once again.
Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing might just be because they are teenagers and coats aren't "cool"? I mean, when I was a kid in Michigan, it was okay to wear a winter coat, but you weren't cool if you zipped it up. So maybe I'm fighting a losing battle against teenagers who are just trying to be cool? And what teenager isn't?
Onward.
I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of my students have had relatively little exposure to cold weather. Many are from Thailand. One is from Cuba. For many, the norm was not to wear shoes. For Westerners, this seems to bring about an "awwww" moment... people should wear shoes, for crying out loud. And if they don't, it's because of poverty. I'm not so sure that this was the case for my students. I know that many of them lived in poverty, but their shoelessness was less a reflection of that and more a reflection of the hot climate. Why wear shoes?
So my students arrive in the United States and the shoe expectation is a bit of a shocker. Most of them prefer flip-flops. Year-round flip-flops. Oftentimes, even if they wear flip-flops, I realize that they've kicked off their shoes in the classroom and are running around shoeless. Every October or so, I take the kids to the FRYSC to get them shoes if I see that they don't have anything close-toed. Our amazing FRYSC has gotten shoes for my kids to appear out of the blue. We usually have to provide them with socks, too.
And then winter rolls around, and it's coat time. This year, I took all of my students to the FRYSC at once and we had a coat giveaway. EVERYONE got a new coat. So I know they all have coats.
And now it's cold. And many of them won't wear their coats. I honestly teeter between saying, "Well, I got them the coats. Now it's up to them to wear them" and "No one is at home to tell them it's cold, so they should put on a coat, so I need to remind them." This week, I was in the latter camp.
By Friday, we were in a bit of a situation. Not only were my Burmese students not wanting to wear their coats, but the non-Burmese kids had picked up on it, and for whatever reason were deciding they didn't want to wear their coats, either. I was in the middle of an anti-coat revolt in my classroom. Peer pressure was taking over my classroom and not in a good way.
Maybe I should just give up the fight. Why is this bothering me so much? I don't know. I'm thinking that it has something to do with that mothering thing about wanting my "kids" to wear their coats so people don't think that they don't have them? I have no idea. I want to protect them from themselves a little bit...when they get cold, they are more susceptible to illness, and they don't need to be sick. And I don't like to get sick. And when they get sick, I get sick? I know they are clueless about the weather here. They don't have it ingrained in them that you just wear warm things when it's cold outside (although that would seem to be intuitive).
So here's the irrational teacher admission. I don't have many of these moments in my classroom, but I think I'm there. My control-freaky self has taken over, and I have now threatened my kids to make them wear their coats. That's right. They have to wear their coats, or they will lose a stick (this is the "money" of my classroom). And on Friday, I took it one step further. They'll also have extra homework on Monday if they don't wear a coat.
Oh, crap. I've heard it said that you shouldn't have a confrontation with teenagers unless you are sure you are going to win. And once you've gained some ground, you better hold on to it, or you'll lose what you've gained and then some. I'm thinking I'm trying to play king of the mountain with a bunch of kids standing on top of the mountain with their arms crossed. Not only am I not gaining ground, but I'm probably fighting a losing battle for no reason other than that once I've started the fight, I better keep it up until I win or die trying. Wrestling the gorilla, once again.
Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing might just be because they are teenagers and coats aren't "cool"? I mean, when I was a kid in Michigan, it was okay to wear a winter coat, but you weren't cool if you zipped it up. So maybe I'm fighting a losing battle against teenagers who are just trying to be cool? And what teenager isn't?
Onward.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Inventing the wheel... again...and again...and again...
Through several levels of miscommunication, I thought I was going to have a visitor today. I did a ton of prep last night (which I would have/should have/needed to have done anyway) for an activity that I thought would be at least interesting to watch. My visitor was a no-show, but the activity went well anyway. It was the classic information gap activity with a load of scaffolding; the topic was states of matter. The good thing is that the activity was a good one, and it's one I'll use again next year. The not-so-good thing was that it took A LOT of work to get ready. And after I had gotten it ready, I realized that I'm not doing enough of this kind of speaking activity with my students. Must do more.
But where does inventing the wheel again come in? I'm wondering if I'm doing that. Am I missing something? I've done a lot of searches, but I'm not finding enough stuff out there that integrates content and academic English in a way that would work for a group of mostly semi-literate middle schoolers. Yes, I'm looking for a very specific curriculum. Maybe I should just write one and then sell it. There's an idea.
It would have to integrate technology. I haven't seen any sort of curriculum that successfully does that. I got my hands on an iPad today, and the technology is incredibly promising.
But where does inventing the wheel again come in? I'm wondering if I'm doing that. Am I missing something? I've done a lot of searches, but I'm not finding enough stuff out there that integrates content and academic English in a way that would work for a group of mostly semi-literate middle schoolers. Yes, I'm looking for a very specific curriculum. Maybe I should just write one and then sell it. There's an idea.
It would have to integrate technology. I haven't seen any sort of curriculum that successfully does that. I got my hands on an iPad today, and the technology is incredibly promising.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
A Grant! A Grant! We got a GRANT!
Back in early November, my school system announced that they had some grant monies available for employees interested in putting together technology proposals for innovative ways to use technology in the classroom. They left the proposals open: anyone with an innovative idea could apply. I could have applied solo or with a group of people or... wide open.
So with the other ESL teacher in my building I applied for a grant that would give my students iPod touch devices or iPads to take home with them at night. We would integrate these into the classrooms, but the innovation here is that we are going to allow our kids to take them home at night to do work. I know this isn't all that innovative at a national level--there are schools where having an iPod touch for each student is the norm. I used to work at a laptop school where every student and teacher had a laptop to use in the classroom. But for our school system, this is something new. We don't generally send home hi-tech devices with our students.
Well, we made it through the first round. The district got 62 proposals, and they narrowed them down to 17. The 17 had to go over to Central Office to present their proposals to a room of about 15 people. That was January 3, and we had been waiting to hear back until Thursday night when we got an email letting us know the results. They selected five proposals to fund, and ours was one of them.
I'm thrilled. I don't know if that's the right word. I'm terrified and thrilled. This is an amazing opportunity to pilot something that our district would like to consider for the future. But it's also an incredible responsibility as I essentially vouched for my students in front of the board when we were defending the proposal. The catch is that there is no way that my students' families could pay to recover the cost of a lost/stolen/broken device, so the risk and liability falls back on my judgment in terms of who gets to take them home and who doesn't.
I also now have a lot of work ahead of me. I'm going to TESOL in March, and I'm really looking forward to soaking up from other professionals how they are using this stuff. Prior to that, there is just going to be a lot of experimentation. I have been searching for apps, but I haven't found anything that I'm REALLY excited about. I definitely want them to have a flashcard app, but I need to find one that includes an image and sound on it.
We'll see where this goes. In discussing the funding with the project manager on Friday, I found out that we may have the devices in our classroom by the middle of February. What an amazing opportunity.
So with the other ESL teacher in my building I applied for a grant that would give my students iPod touch devices or iPads to take home with them at night. We would integrate these into the classrooms, but the innovation here is that we are going to allow our kids to take them home at night to do work. I know this isn't all that innovative at a national level--there are schools where having an iPod touch for each student is the norm. I used to work at a laptop school where every student and teacher had a laptop to use in the classroom. But for our school system, this is something new. We don't generally send home hi-tech devices with our students.
Well, we made it through the first round. The district got 62 proposals, and they narrowed them down to 17. The 17 had to go over to Central Office to present their proposals to a room of about 15 people. That was January 3, and we had been waiting to hear back until Thursday night when we got an email letting us know the results. They selected five proposals to fund, and ours was one of them.
I'm thrilled. I don't know if that's the right word. I'm terrified and thrilled. This is an amazing opportunity to pilot something that our district would like to consider for the future. But it's also an incredible responsibility as I essentially vouched for my students in front of the board when we were defending the proposal. The catch is that there is no way that my students' families could pay to recover the cost of a lost/stolen/broken device, so the risk and liability falls back on my judgment in terms of who gets to take them home and who doesn't.
I also now have a lot of work ahead of me. I'm going to TESOL in March, and I'm really looking forward to soaking up from other professionals how they are using this stuff. Prior to that, there is just going to be a lot of experimentation. I have been searching for apps, but I haven't found anything that I'm REALLY excited about. I definitely want them to have a flashcard app, but I need to find one that includes an image and sound on it.
We'll see where this goes. In discussing the funding with the project manager on Friday, I found out that we may have the devices in our classroom by the middle of February. What an amazing opportunity.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
There are days...and yesterday was one of them...
DISCLAIMER: On most days and at most times, I absolutely love my students. They are the hardest working bunch of kids on the planet, and they generally do what I ask them to do without question. They amaze me daily with how they negotiate between the English-speaking world and their world at home while living in a new culture. They are incredible in their motivation and effort. And I would not trade them for another classroom in the district or even the state. But there are days, and yesterday was one of them...
I was out from school on Tuesday because I was facilitating the CLIMBS workshop for other teachers. My classroom aide and the substitute teacher gave my students vocabulary words from science to work with and also some ESL grammar work and also some math work. We had snow days on Wednesday and Thursday. So walking in to my class Friday was like walking in to a graveyard. It sucked the teaching life right out of me.
After any sort of unusual break (snow days, extended vacations, or even just weekends), the students have gotten themselves comfortable speaking only their first language again. And even the simplest question is met with blank stares. "What did you do this weekend?" or "What did you do yesterday?" become sadly painful questions to ask no matter how many times I ask them. I can even tell my students on Friday that I am going to ask them on Monday about their weekend, and they don't come in prepared to talk about it. I can assign them to draw a picture about their weekend or write some words down about their weekend; when I ask them about it, I still get blank stares as they look from their paper to me and back to their paper again as if a stranger put those words or that picture on the paper. It's maddening.
So yesterday, Friday, when I went in to the classroom, and I put some questions on the board to start their morning (as I always do), I got the expected response from many of them. This is not something I understand. Some would say to me, "If you know that is how they are going to respond, why do you keep asking them?" Well, I guess it is because the kids need to know how to make small talk, and talking about what you did when you were not in school is pretty fundamental to that idea? I don't know. Maybe it's because I think if I do it often enough, they'll get it? You tell me. Pedagogically, there are a bunch of reasons to do it. But in terms of impacting my morale, it's an energy suck.
And then there was the homework. I had their math papers on my desk. They were to name some fractions using papers listing the cardinal and ordinal numbers. They had papers with the cardinal and ordinal numbers on them. 4/5= four fifths. This was after practice, intervention, teaching, examples. I was getting this: 2/2= tow tow. And this was from a student who is back for her second year in my class. They had been practicing all last week that when the denominator is 2, it is "half" or "halves". It didn't stick.4/5 = four fiv.
And the ESL homework? I had four kids out of my fourteen who were in school yesterday who didn't even crack their workbooks. Literally. They didn't even open the book to the pages that they were supposed to have done. And they had two extra days to do them. And one of them was that same student who has now been in my class for a year and a half, and she saw the same material last year.
From the QOD, the math homework, and the ESL homework, I was discouraged. So I assigned a lot of homework for the weekend. Retribution. I don't know what else to call it. At the end of the day, as I was going over their list of homework assignments, one student was shooting dirty looks at one of the offending non-homework-doers. I was thinking that was a good thing. Maybe peer pressure will kick her butt into high gear?
On a side note and for my next post, much of my discouragement was oddly fueled by the FANTASTIC news that a fellow teacher and I are the recipients of a grant that will give us iPads and iPods for our students to use in assignments at home at night. Can you even imagine?
I was out from school on Tuesday because I was facilitating the CLIMBS workshop for other teachers. My classroom aide and the substitute teacher gave my students vocabulary words from science to work with and also some ESL grammar work and also some math work. We had snow days on Wednesday and Thursday. So walking in to my class Friday was like walking in to a graveyard. It sucked the teaching life right out of me.
After any sort of unusual break (snow days, extended vacations, or even just weekends), the students have gotten themselves comfortable speaking only their first language again. And even the simplest question is met with blank stares. "What did you do this weekend?" or "What did you do yesterday?" become sadly painful questions to ask no matter how many times I ask them. I can even tell my students on Friday that I am going to ask them on Monday about their weekend, and they don't come in prepared to talk about it. I can assign them to draw a picture about their weekend or write some words down about their weekend; when I ask them about it, I still get blank stares as they look from their paper to me and back to their paper again as if a stranger put those words or that picture on the paper. It's maddening.
So yesterday, Friday, when I went in to the classroom, and I put some questions on the board to start their morning (as I always do), I got the expected response from many of them. This is not something I understand. Some would say to me, "If you know that is how they are going to respond, why do you keep asking them?" Well, I guess it is because the kids need to know how to make small talk, and talking about what you did when you were not in school is pretty fundamental to that idea? I don't know. Maybe it's because I think if I do it often enough, they'll get it? You tell me. Pedagogically, there are a bunch of reasons to do it. But in terms of impacting my morale, it's an energy suck.
And then there was the homework. I had their math papers on my desk. They were to name some fractions using papers listing the cardinal and ordinal numbers. They had papers with the cardinal and ordinal numbers on them. 4/5= four fifths. This was after practice, intervention, teaching, examples. I was getting this: 2/2= tow tow. And this was from a student who is back for her second year in my class. They had been practicing all last week that when the denominator is 2, it is "half" or "halves". It didn't stick.4/5 = four fiv.
And the ESL homework? I had four kids out of my fourteen who were in school yesterday who didn't even crack their workbooks. Literally. They didn't even open the book to the pages that they were supposed to have done. And they had two extra days to do them. And one of them was that same student who has now been in my class for a year and a half, and she saw the same material last year.
From the QOD, the math homework, and the ESL homework, I was discouraged. So I assigned a lot of homework for the weekend. Retribution. I don't know what else to call it. At the end of the day, as I was going over their list of homework assignments, one student was shooting dirty looks at one of the offending non-homework-doers. I was thinking that was a good thing. Maybe peer pressure will kick her butt into high gear?
On a side note and for my next post, much of my discouragement was oddly fueled by the FANTASTIC news that a fellow teacher and I are the recipients of a grant that will give us iPads and iPods for our students to use in assignments at home at night. Can you even imagine?
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
CLIMBS. Module 3. Assessment. The elephant in the room.
I deliver/facilitate the CLIMBS workshop for our school district. I have 37 teachers and administrators sitting in a room at Central Office for five days, and I get to use those five days to try to help them to help their ELL students. Today was day 3. And I was dreading it.
I spent hours and hours and hours revising and supplementing the materials, and I think I delivered something today that was useful and useable. And the point I kept stressing to the people in the workshop today was that the things that they are doing with their ESL students are the things that will also help their non-ESL students. That's the thing that I don't think I've gotten them to buy. We got many great comments at the end of the day, but the one that stuck with me was a teacher writing that s/he felt sorry for the native speakers in his/her room.
I have no idea how to feel about that. There's some honesty there. It's easier to teach a class when everyone knows the language. What the impact is on the students is when there isn't linguistic diversity in their classes, I don't know. But I do believe that ALL students will benefit from a teacher who can teach both language and content. And I do believe that ALL students can benefit from working with diverse learners. So I don't know how to feel about the honesty of a teacher who says that s/he feels sorry for the native speakers in his/her room.
I spent hours and hours and hours revising and supplementing the materials, and I think I delivered something today that was useful and useable. And the point I kept stressing to the people in the workshop today was that the things that they are doing with their ESL students are the things that will also help their non-ESL students. That's the thing that I don't think I've gotten them to buy. We got many great comments at the end of the day, but the one that stuck with me was a teacher writing that s/he felt sorry for the native speakers in his/her room.
I have no idea how to feel about that. There's some honesty there. It's easier to teach a class when everyone knows the language. What the impact is on the students is when there isn't linguistic diversity in their classes, I don't know. But I do believe that ALL students will benefit from a teacher who can teach both language and content. And I do believe that ALL students can benefit from working with diverse learners. So I don't know how to feel about the honesty of a teacher who says that s/he feels sorry for the native speakers in his/her room.
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