In Closing... (What I've Learned)

Yesterday I went to a barbecue for the new Teach For America. I got to talk to a handful of the new South Bay 2007 Corps before they went off to Institute. I remember very well the tremendous swirl of confusion and anticipation that marked this week. Everything seemed so strange and so important, ---trips to the district office and the county office; introductions to teachers, parents, principals and our new colleagues; the occasional, breath-taking glimpse of a real live student.

The new corps members wanted advice. (As though advice could help them! Ha!) In the moment, I didn’t do a very good job of giving it to them. Drawing on what I’ve heard and remembered from great TFA personnel, other teachers, principals, and lay people, here’s what I should have said. I want to say at the outset, that I, even at the start of my fourth year of teaching, am far from mastery of any of this.

Accept your inevitable failure. No matter how smart/high-achieving/supremely-well-meaning you are and no matter how great the edu-boot-camp of Institute has become, you are going to make mistakes in the classroom. Big mistakes. Mistakes that will make you thankful your children’s parents aren’t there. Anticipate and accept this. Not because it is okay, ---precisely the opposite, it has never been less okay--- but because the more willing you are to accept your blundering, the faster you will be at correcting those blunders (good for your kids), and the less tortured your soul will be (good for you).

Realize that it’s not all about you. College is all about you. The harder you study, generally, the better your grades. The same equation is not true for teaching. You will work your tail off, foolishly staying up all night to prepare the most beautiful five-step lesson ever conceived. You’ll have full color overheads, individually prescribed problem sets, and an MTV-quality video hook. Some of your students will learn next to nothing. Why? Because their uncle was stabbed a day ago, or they stayed up all night watching a movie, or they spent the whole time wondering what’s for lunch. You were great, but it is not all about you.

Invest your time wisely. Time will become far more precious than money. When deciding how to spend that time remember the tremendous difference between teaching and learning. Spend your time on what will maximize student learning, not necessarily the same things as what will make you look or feel like the best teacher. My personal rules are as follows: time for students (tutoring, intervention, etc.) is first, time for parents is next (home visits, phone calls home, etc.), time for planning is third (analyzing data, resequencing LTPs), and time for prep (posters, overheads, finding the perfect literature link) is last. Time for professional commitments is squeezed in as possible and necessary. Copies don’t teach children, you do.

Set limits. I realize that you think these two years should be all-out for the kids. They should be. Your mental health, however, is a big part of your quality as an instructor. The happier you are, the more the children will want to engage in your lessons. Children are deeply empathic and they will know if you are glad to be there. Further, the more satisfied you are with your life, the more able you will be to competently deal with frustrating inanities of classroom and school. Read my first year of blogging and see how I learned this the hard way. If all you live and breathe is your classroom, you will be less able to handle it when things go wrong. Things will go wrong. So do what you need to do to walk in to school each morning ready to laugh off your principal’s most ill-timed public announcement or your worst student’s biggest prank.

Be flexible. When you’re ten minutes away from a pinnacle lesson in a key unit and a parent walks in with a note telling you to come early for picture day, be flexible. Don’t think twice, ---grab some flashcards, go to picture day, and make the best of it by practicing the times tables. When that third new student in three weeks shows up at your door, devastating your classroom community with her ADHD, be flexible. Hold class meetings and read relevant stories. When a crazed dog runs into your classroom at 10:30 but is out by 10:37, leaving you with an hour and a half before lunch and a 36 rightfully hyped-up 10-year olds, be flexible. Talk about the dog, draw the dog, write about the dog, and read about dogs. Don’t tell the kids, “We’re such a great class, we’re just going to pretend like that didn’t happen and go on with math!” Weren’t you ever 10?

While fighting the battle, mind the war. What’s the point of getting kids on grade level if they don’t get to see the use of it? Force your grade level to unite in carving out meaningful time for science, social studies and independent reading. What’s the point of getting kids on grade level if they don’t realize they can go to college? Put college into your daily, nay, hourly rhetoric. What’s the point of getting kids on grade level if they go to prison? Keep character education and classroom community in your schedule. What’s the point of getting kids on grade level if they die at 36 of diabetes? Teach about nutrition, model good nutrition, and don’t be afraid to play, outside, with your kids.

Belie the myths. Some other teachers, even other great teachers, will hold many bad assumptions about Teach For America. The TFA who came before you will often have made very poor impressions, especially in professional development settings. Other teachers will expect you to be an arrogant and naive know-it-all "Teach For Awhile" who always has one eye on the door to policy school. Prove all those assumptions wrong. Constantly show your humility at being a zero-year teacher. Constantly show that you are eager to learn from anyone. Constantly show your respect for the community you serve, no matter what sort of students it produces.

Finally, constantly remember that the privilege is yours, even if you deferred a dual program at Oxford and the Sorbonne to come here. No matter who you are, if you are TFA, you are unprepared. The teaching profession is not privileged to have you. You are privileged to be a teacher.

In Closing... (The Grand Experiment)

Our kids need radical improvements in their achievement; to help them accomplish that educators need to make radical changes in what we offer them. In such a spirit, we decided to “departmentalize” our upper grades this year. That means I taught math and writing, while the other teachers taught social studies, science and reading. I have spoken to many teachers intrigued by this notion and I’d like to offer my final analysis on the effectiveness of our experiment this year.

Time

This departmentalization forced us, teachers and students alike, to maintain our urgent and focused instruction throughout the entire day. We were much more stingy with our time, much more willing to fight idleness and chit-chat for each minute in each transition. Compounded across the school year, those minutes become significant.

However, this aspect of the experiment had a terrible Janus face. Instruction is not learning. There are times in the day when most nine and ten-year olds are simply not capable of receiving urgent and focused instruction; primarily, the last afternoon hour of the school day. Usually, good teachers fill these difficult minutes with cooperative or independent lessons that legitimize students’ wiggles and chatter. Yet our departmentalized schedule required two classes to be in the midst of direct instruction on math or reading at this time. Some fourth and fifth graders rose to this challenge but many simply could not. Day after day, I watched them check out of math, dreaming of the freedom shortly to come. At first, I could reel them back with manipulatives and tricks of the trade, but as we reached the more arcane and abstract ideas, many at the heart of fifth grade math, some were just too close to done to keep learning. Across the weeks, this exacted a terrible toll on their overall achievement.

Even for those who could focus, this structure put up more serious obstacles. With the emphasis on uninterrupted reading instruction, all interruptions ---assemblies, library visits, band practices, vision tests, fire drills, etc.--- are scheduled for the mid-day or afternoon. Normally, these can be anticipated and vital concepts rescheduled to avoid them. Under a departmentalized schedule, however, such avoidance became impossible. Every interruption came during two-thirds of our students reading or math time. Worse yet, they came during the same subject, every time. As I revised my planning, I found these interruptions were costing around a whole day every two weeks, resulting in approximately ten percent less time for the afternoon class. By the time of the test, this was about fifteen days, or three whole weeks of math or reading lost.

Focus

Part of our logic in attempting this experiment was to free our teachers to focus on fewer content areas, as all of our curricula are lacking and require tremendous scaffolding and supplementing. In social studies and science, teachers are using the GLAD strategies and needed time to produce the vast array of content-rich materials they require. In reading, our Open Court text is geared for students close to grade-level, which three-quarters of our students are not. Many hours must be spent finding and preparing suitable supplemental readings and lessons. In math, our Saxon curriculum is so poor that the only use I could find for the textbook was as a measurement model for geometry lessons. My hours went to producing an entire year’s worth of activities, lessons, practice problems, and assessments. In this area, I believe departmentalization was an untempered success. I don’t believe any of us could have produced the quality of materials and lessons we did if we were working on all subjects simultaneously.

Behavior

We had hoped that departmentalization would help re-engage some of our more difficult students, by providing them with a fresh face every few hours. I believe this worked well for our more capable, but irritating, students. A number of students who could have struggled this year succeeded because of the chance to reset the clock every two hours. Just before I lost patience with M---, I packed him up and sent him to someone else.

For many challenging behavior cases, however, this plan was not as effective. Some struggled terribly with the need to endure direct instruction in the late afternoon. Some saw a change in teachers as a chance to fool around in one class but, by maintaining reasonable behavior in two others, avoid serious parental consequences. We also saw tremendous rises in theft and vandalism of school property. Students did not recognize a classroom or its equipment as “theirs.” Dealing with these issues cost teachers a lot of preparatory and instructional time and caused a lot of frustration.

Community

Bullying, racism, and cliquishness all became much more of a problem this year than in year’s past. I believe this was mainly the result of a lack of community- and character-building. No teacher felt they had time to dedicate to this standards-less and non-assessed subject. Without class meetings, troubled students were deprived of the most effective means to confront social issues. Without a relationship with a particular teacher, marginally malignant students who might have found a positive role model instead slipped into misbehavior. This could probably have been overcome with a strong, explicit push to develop a school-wide community, but we were not prepared to provide such. Our local KIPP, which also uses a departmentalized model, spends weeks in the summer developing community and behavior expectations, and spends significant time each day maintaining it. That level of investment, I believe, is required for a departmentalized elementary school to counter-act the losses of depriving students’ of their relationship with a specific teacher and the community of a specific classroom.

Achievement

As mentioned above, under this schedule, students were asked to focus on vital, core subjects until the very end of the school day. Many students simply could not handle this and their achievement in their afternoon subject suffered. As opposed to the tremendous gains my students made on last year’s test, I fear that many of my afternoon students will instead post steep declines. They did not go backwards, of course, but they failed to keep pace with the ever-increasing difficulty of the test.

However, looking at achievement more broadly, the results of this experiment are not so dismal. For once, our students achieved in more than simply reading and math. With a dedicated bloc for science and social studies, our students had a meaningful opportunity to learn these subjects too. While this is a serious gain, I hesitate to offer it as a real redeeming point of departmentalization. Schools under any schedule should see to it that their students learn social studies and science!

One unexpected benefit of departmentalization was the chance for more students to excel. In a self-contained class, the teacher can easily allow a students’ lack of aptitude in one area to deflate their confidence and the teacher’s expectations in all areas. Departmentalization reduced this dramatically. Many of my top math students struggled in reading and several great readers never mastered long division. Perhaps this could have worked the other way, and a student’s success in one subject would have boosted their teacher’s expectations for all areas, but the results show otherwise. Our award ceremonies, which typically feature the same “smart kids” receiving all the academic recognitions, were unusually broad and diverse this year, involving many different students. When all the names were called, I was very pleased to see that all the students who I knew to work hard were recognized for achievement in at least one subject.

Conclusion

Perhaps our greatest mistake was in attempting this experiment this year and not last. Just as the military must be careful not to fight the last war, we must be careful not to teach last year’s class. I believe departmentalization was a great idea for our 5th and 6th grade students of the prior year. Those student’s successes and struggles drove our discussion that led to departmentalization, yet none of those students were still at our school! We should have recognized the merits of the idea, but in examining this year’s kids, tabled it as a solution better geared for others.

While I would not recommend departmentalization for most elementary schools, nor would I rule it out entirely. With a structure that keeps direct instruction in the morning and interruptions limited to interruptible lessons, with serious school-wide efforts to build community and character, and with a particularly mature class of students, departmentalization offers great benefits.

I do not regret that we tried this experiment. It worked very well for some, decently for most, though terribly for many. So would any system applied to so diverse a group. I don’t know how our students would have done without our taking this risk, but I do know they need dramatic changes and an environment where we are afraid to try anything radical would unquestionably be worse for all.

In Closing... (The Kids)

Before I get deep in reflecting on the structural/instructional/pedagogical learnings of the year, I want to remember the kids who I have particularly enjoyed getting to know and in whose progress I take particular pride.

S--- is a tremendously shy Vietnamese boy, often ostracized by our enormously Latino majority. This year, however, he made not just one friend but two. After a semester slumped against a pole looking deeply morose, he can now be seen with his arm across the back of his friends, running and smiling. Concurrent with the development of these friendships has been the amplification of his return of my always exclaimed “Good Mornings.” First they were non-existent, then inaudible, followed by whispered, they are now at least quietly stated. His academics have grown similarly. He came to us without a lick of subtraction and promotes to middle school truly ready. S---‘s friends seem to have given him not just a smile, but the confidence he needed to be smart.

T--- is an all-star. In class, he tracks me with almost unnerving focus. Sometimes I want the kid to be distracted so I can pick my nose. He has the focus and confidence to question my processes and correct my mistakes. A 4th grader in my 5th grade combination class, he nonetheless out-paced all others in his mastery of new material. On a test, T--- does not miss. He defines meticulous. I have always been a victim of the mechanical math error; T--- never allows such a mistake. I truly enjoy watching him work, at nine-years old he has the patience and maturity to check his work, to self-correct and assure a perfect score. His line on my spreadsheet is a beautiful row of uninterrupted 4’s.

M--- is a “newcomer,” this is her first year in the United States. As of next year, she is also identified as “gifted.” She participates tremendously in class and invalidates the very concept of a “language barrier.” Her writing shows an almost photographic memory of English sentence patterns. Her grade-level achievements in math, save only for word problems, are a tremendous testament to the caliber of her intellect. Most amusingly, she also has the mannerisms of a forty-year old woman. One day, as I asked her to show me a paper, and she opened her immaculate binder. Then, like a professional secretary, she paused, wet her finger, and flipped to the proper sheet.

D--- is a deeply serious boy. He is not melancholy and he certainly enjoys himself at recess, but he is the least silly child I have ever met. A brilliant math student, I had him work on some enjoyable technology tasks for me once during a whole class re-teach session. After I was done trying to invest the other kids by extolling the importance of the topic on The Test, D--- raised his hand. “Mr. A.B.?” he whispered to me. “You said this was very important. What happens if because I’m doing this I miss a part of it on the test?” I told him that I already knew he’d mastered it, to which he replied, “Still, I think I should listen.”

A--- is still a little girl. There are very few of them left, even by fourth grade. Media and the realities of life with older siblings and cousins quickly dispenses with my children’s innocent natures. Pseudo-sophistication starts cropping up as soon as the children arrive at school; I regularly see kindergarteners in halter-tops and second-graders in heeled boots. A---, however, has no sense of all that. She chatters endlessly, driving me up the wall, but I infinitely prefer it to the gossip of her peers. She still believes that teachers are for liking; she draws me pictures, brings me origami, and she gives me hugs. Male teachers don’t usually do hugs; we do handshakes and head-pats. A--- knows that and I can often see her control herself, but sometimes her hugs are reflexive and neigh on unstoppable, a truly darling trait.

R--- is my most improved student. In September we began the process to refer her to Special Ed, by Christmas she was in the top half of the class. She has worked relentlessly. She came to me with no fluency in her facts but believed me when I told her that they held the key to upper grade math. She mastered subtraction by Halloween and then multiplication by Thanksgiving. Division was then accomplished with surprising ease. Her English is still developing, however, and continues to slow her growth. She did not achieve grade level this year, but I know that she will, soon, and that is more than enough for me.

G--- is only in 3rd grade, not one of “my students” but still one of the highlights of my year. I met him in my after-school GATE classes. He inhabits the same sort of imaginary world I did when I was his age. Almost every morning and lunch he would grab my arm and pull me into his creativity. Yanking on my hand with the refreshing unselfconsciousness of the little kids, he would tell me I was taking him to my cave. This would soon be followed by an almost incomprehensible production of stories and dialogue about all the doings in my cave. The best I can make out was that I am a wizard. I’ve always wanted to be a wizard.

L--- is a student I will deeply miss. I’ve known her for two years, as her older brother brought her to my after-school science classes last year. She is a rarity ----unsophisticated without being immature. Her sense of humor, childish of course, is still quite agreeable to me. She is one of few students with whom talking at length is not onerous. She talks to me about her life but does not involve me with the melodrama of 5th grade. Instead, we talk about her soccer leagues, her singing in a choir, and her family. I would love to keep hearing about her life, to watch L--- grow and succeed. But I know that will not be. I know L--- is simply last in my growing line of endearing, truly interesting students who don’t need me once their year in my class is past. Her charming, authentic personality will never leave her wanting for someone to connect with. She will bond with someone new in middle school and I know she should. A veteran teacher once told me, sadly and sagely, “You just have to deal with it. The best ones never need to come back.”

In a Nutshell: The ELL World

We’ve been working on a stock market unit for the last couple weeks. It’s not a standard, but it let’s us reinforce decimals/percents and use calculators, as well as teach a little bit of financial literacy. I did a home economics unit the last two years and wanted to try something new this time around. The kids, surprisingly, did far better with the financial concepts than I had even hoped. However, no matter how hard I try and scaffold, there’s always something left to confuse them. This exchange is one of my all time favorite exemplars of life in ELL land.

Mr. A.B. : Who needs help?

P----: Me!

Mr. A.B.: What’s up?

P----: This part. I get it mostly, but I don’t know this word.

Mr. A.B.: Read it to me.

P----: In technology stocks, Intel Corporation’s new processor is selling very well. Their price per share soared 7%.

Mr. A.B.: What word don’t you get?

P---: Soared?

Mr. A.B.: Like a bird, went way up.

P---: Oh, okay. I get the rest.

I taught stock, stock market, shares, price per shares, percents, dividends, share-holders, and corporation. Somehow I left out "soared."