From text to table to text

It's funny when I start doing something in my class that I think is really working, and I get really excited about it, and I want to write about it, and then I realize that someone else already has. The cool thing is that the people who did, Levine and McCloskey say that what I'm doing is a best practice. The not as cool thing is that if I'd just finished reading their book that I've been toting around with me forever, I would have figured this out a lot sooner and been doing it in my classes.

So here's the thing that's been working in classes for us in the last couple of weeks (that I now know is a Best Practice (I like labeling that with capital letters because it makes it seem much more official). I'll try to post some pictures of student work if I remember to pull out the camera when I get back to work on Tuesday.

I call it "from text to table to text." And here's the thing. I have to preface this by saying that I hate graphic organizers. I don't hate them as a teaching tool, but I hate them for my own personal use. I skip over graphs and diagrams in books that I'm reading. I can't remember the last time I willfully pulled out a paper with a bunch of funny boxes on it to help organize my thinking (and I'm wondering how many of you do?) or my understanding of a reading. Yet, they seem to work with my kids. Sigh.

The text: I choose a text related to the topic we are studying and at the appropriate language level for the students. Two examples this week were a text on symbols of the United States government and the branches of the United States government.

The table: I design a graphic organizer that will correlate with the information in the text but that also requires the students to add their own thoughts into the mix. This is important. I want the kids to not only regurgitate the information from a text that they have read, but I want them to make a personal connection with it. For both of the above examples, the students had to find information in the text to fill out the chart. For the branches of government text, they had to tell me who is in the branch, what the branch does, how many people are in the branch, and where the branch is (which building). For the student part of the mix, I asked them to think about something that we had done in class that was like the duties of that branch, and I gave them a sentence starter so that they could show me they understood the connection. So, for example, we had in our table, "The Legislative Branch makes laws." I gave them the sentence starter, "In our class, we were like the legislative branch when we ____________." and had the kids fill in the rest from an activity that we had done that week.

The text again: Once the kids have filled in their table from the text, we then use a paragraph form to turn their table back into writing. For the branches of government activity, I modeled the first paragraph for them using the information from my chart on the executive branch. Then, I had the students walk me through the second branch together using that form. Then, the students had to take the information from their chart and the paragraph form to independently practice creating their own paragraph.

So it's a Best Practice. Good for me. Better for our students, though, that we are finding a way to get them to do extended academic writing despite the fact that they are level 1/2 writers.

Taking the words right out of someone else's mouth...

I don't want my teaching blog to become a series of posts written by other people, but the words of this teacher really struck me. I came to public education late in the game. I was working in private schools for a while before moving to the school where I currently teach, and I honestly had no idea that 100% proficiency by 2014 was not only a goal but a standard teachers were being held to until a faculty meeting early in my first year. I remember being quite dumbfounded when someone brought it up, then laughing out loud. And I remember finding it really strange that no one else was laughing out loud, as well. I still find it strange.

What David Reber writes below articulates my frustrations with the conversation about public education better than I could.

In what other profession...

August 27th, 2010 by David Reber

I’m going to step out of my usual third-person writing voice for a moment. As a parent I received a letter last week from the Kansas State Board of Education, informing me that my children’s school district had been placed on “improvement” status for failing to meet “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.

I thought it ironic that our schools were judged inadequate by people who haven’t set foot in them, so I wrote a letter to my local newspaper. Predictably, my letter elicited a deluge of comments in the paper’s online forum. Many remarks came from armchair educators and anti-teacher, anti-public school evangelists quick to discredit anything I had to say under the rationale of “he’s a teacher.” What could a teacher possibly know about education?

Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession….” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education. Due process and collective bargaining are favorite targets, as are the erroneous but tightly held beliefs that teachers are under-worked, over-paid (earning million-dollar pensions), and not accountable for anything.

In what other profession, indeed.

In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.”

In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”.

In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team.”

But look around. You’ll find droves of armchair educators who summarily dismiss any statement about education when it comes from a teacher. Likewise, it’s easy to find politicians, pundits, and profiteers who refer to our veteran teachers as ineffective, overpriced “dead wood”. Only the rookies could possibly be any good, or worth the food-stamp-eligible starting salaries we pay them.

And if teachers dare ask for a raise, this is taken by many as clear evidence that teachers don’t give a porcupine’s posterior about kids. In fact, some say if teachers really cared about their students they wouldinsist on earning LESS money.

If that entire attitude weren’t bad enough, what other profession is legally held to PERFECTION by 2014? Are police required to eliminate all crime? Are firefighters required to eliminate all fires? Are doctorsrequired to cure all patients? Are lawyers required to win all cases? Are coaches required to win all games? Of course they aren’t.

For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens. As for lawyers and coaches, where there’s a winner there must also be a loser. People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education.

If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.

And if someone – anyone - tries to tell you otherwise; don’t listen. He must be a teacher.

We teach elephants to climb trees...

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.

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.)

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.

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.