by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.
I found out today that the teacher I am replacing for the year has handed in her official resignation. This means that I can possibly stay in my position permanently. HOT. For real! Why is this? Because I feel that I am doing real work here. Real work with kids that shows I am we are making a difference.
The change is significant. It’s my duty to honour it. It’s as beautiful and natural as seeds becoming flower. (click image for source)
We are the 50 students and 4 teachers in our alternative program for Grade 10 and 11 students. It’s long, hard work – today I arrived in my classroom at 7:30am and left it at 7:15 pm. We are in the middle of an exam week and I saw kids who were tired and frustrated sticking it out, staying late to make sure they get it – whether ‘it’ be math, English, History, whatever. These are kids who are in our program because up until they were accepted into it this or last year they spent more time skipping class then attending it. These are kids who used to walk away when things got tough. They’d still like to, I know it because they tell me, but they don’t. They don’t.
Not all of the students I have this year are showing this same commitment, and some may not make it until the end of the year because of this lack of commitment. But those that do, they are going places. Because if they can make such deep and significant personal change as choosing to succeed rather than fail, choosing to tough it out rather than give up, in such a short time, then they can do anything. For Real. And imagine, these are only the seeds.
My inbox has been very active of late, with submissions to this week’s Carnival of Education.
Carnival at Annandale, Virginia made available on flickr via a CC license. Click on image to view source.
As carnival host, I have control of the content and form of this week’s post and so I have made the decision to leave out the numerous postings I read that are either trying to sell a product/service that I felt did not have to do with education, or are providing a service that rubs me the wrong way, such as the selling of term papers ;)
So…without further ado… except to point out that the posts are organized solely by order of reception…
— Rachel Rambach sings us a social story/song she wrote for one of her students: Marissa’s Guitar posted at Listen and Learn. She even offers to send you a copy of the story if you contact her. Great stuff!
— Lorri begins her post with this quote that echoes my own concern for the future:
It scares me to know that I will be raising a family in a society were gangs are so prevalent and out of control. Knowing the influence that gangs have on teens and the violence, drugs and general lack of respect they have for society scares me to death. -Bree
— Denise offers a boatload of free math teaching resources: More Free Math Resources posted at Let’s Play Math!. As a first time math teacher (I usually teach English, History, and Ethics) I’ve subscribed to the site!
— OKP has an existential crisis and asks, What do you think is the purpose of high school? Existential Crisis #1 posted at Line 46.
— Matthew Ladner exposes something previously unknown to me – the benefits of illegal private schooling in India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya: Black Market Private Schooling in the Third World posted at Jay P. Greene’s Blog. Makes me want to think of alternatives to some of our own public school crises and reminds me that it needs to take a village, not a commission or board, to raise a child.
— I love that Carol Richtsmeier writes about the things you should never learn to do so you won’t have to do them! I never learned how to work those diaper things. You see, my nephew’s visit last summer coincided with a nasty tummy problem… Scanners, Mowing Lawns & Things You Just Shouldn’t Learn How To Do posted at Bellringers.
— Nancy Flanagan writes, ‘We all lose when kids perceive politics and voting as dirty and dangerous’ in this commentary on children’s perception of the voting process: One Vote Samba posted at Teacher in a Strange Land.
— Matthew Needleman reviews the K12 Online conference and is ‘…in awe of the thinking, planning, and creating that has gone into creating the K12 Online presentations’: K12 Online: Week One Review posted at Creating Lifelong Learners.
I slept a lot yesterday. We shut down our section of the school where I work because 3 of the 4 teachers are sick (including me) as well as a number of the students. I had planned to spend the day correcting at home, but I’m one of the sickies and ended up spending most of the day asleep. Just being. Not a bad thing.
It's good to just be sometimes. Image posted by me on flickr. Click it to view source.
But now I’m up early, so I have time to think while I post about some things I’ve been meaning to post about and follow up on some others.
Blogher Boston
Last Friday I got in my little car after work and sped drove down the 132, then the 30, then the 15, I-97, 11, 2, 78, I-89, I-93, I-95…. to Burlington, Massachusetts, 20 minutes away from Boston. I arrived at 10 to a big comfy bed, room service, and a remote control. Nice. (I have no tv at home, so it was a treat :) )
I had no idea what to expect from BlogHer Boston as I walked into the conference hall the following morning. A few months ago I had signed up for it, thinking it would be nice to connect with other bloggers. I had a great day. For real. It was hot.
Unfortunately the Internet connection was slightly wonky at the hotel, very slow. So instead of using Dabbleboard, my latest favourite note-taking tool, or live-blogging, I used labyrinth, a mind-mapping software that I have on my computer, to take notes during the day. (This is unfortunate because, since then, I have both upgraded my system to ubuntu 8.10 (beta) and reinstalled 8.04 (the beta is still buggy, big-time). Before re-installing I archived my home folder and saved it on the LG pen/memory stick/lazer pointer I got at the conference. All good, right? The unfortunate part is that the ‘create archive’ function seems to be one of the buggy features. It won’t open. Hence – all is lost.) Luckily my mind is still somewhat intact, so here are my personal memories of the day:
1 – Great food and stuff – I ate like un puerco, un porc, a pig. And I got all kinds of fun stuff – comfy slippers from Shine, a retractable mouse from LG, baby thermometers from Playtex, chocolate from Megan at A Girl Must Shop… and more…
2 – Hanging out with Liz Henry in the morning and trying to crack the problem code in my blog. I’m going to quote her since she already wrote about it and I’m starting to feel lazy,
Hacked with leadingfromtheheart.org a long time on her wordpress recent posts plugin. We modified the plugin code that she’d already modified. We broke it, she re-installed it, then we ignored the plugin and went for fixing the styles of the stuff that the plugin spits out:
li, h3, ul, and a
. The mysterious space before the recent posts turned out to be a top margin on
h3
that was 3em, not 3px. Whoops! I showed her how, if you view source on someone else’s blog, you can search on “css” and find the link to their style sheet, and then paste it into the address bar to see their whole style sheet in the browser. So, for example, I used my spying skills to find her stylesheet: https://leadingfromtheheart.org/wp-content/themes/unstandard/style.css . Anyway, she’s a good hacker and has an amazing, amazing blog about teaching high school. Give it a read.
It was so much fun to take some time to just examine code with someone else. Something I’d like to do more of.
3- Attending some great sessions around making the most of our blogs, being part of a community of women who blog, and dealing with information overload. Beth Kanter’s talk on the last subject was fantastic. I wish I had my notes, but luckily she created a wiki-page … so go to it –> Managing Information Overload and Building Your Blog Community. The slide-show is great.
4 – Meeting some fabulous people.Lizbdavis and JessieNYC were the only two edubloggers I met at the shindig. They rock. Jessie blogs with her students at university as well as for Racism Review and Liz blogs at The Power of Educational Technology. Sherrypardy is another hot blogger I met in Boston. She writes at SherryPardy.com as well as for a living, and she also happens to be the mother of 3-year old twins named Sara and Max. I happen to be the aunt of 2-year old twins named….Sarah and Max! I met many inspirational people throughout the day, though these three, along with Liz Henry, are sticking in my mind past the event.
5 – The closing session. The day was such a rich exploration of community and conversation. I was quite disappointed to discover that there was no formal closure. The final session was an information session, not a community closure. The fact that it was a full community session, with no other option beside leaving, took away from the value it had as a session as well as from the day. We had begun the day by starting conversations (we had taken about 30 minutes to line up 2-by-2 and introduce each other for 2 minutes, then move on down the line), a meaningful end of the day could have been to put some closure to the conversations that had occurred during the day in a way that set up how to continue them in the future.
6 – The reception! Luckily, I was able to do that a little bit for myself at the reception. Even more fabulous food and an open bar! I plopped myself down at a small table with a mountain of different cheeses and a glass or two of red wine and chatted with Sherry, Liz D., Liz H., and a few other people. I gleaned some stickers from the stack Liz H. pulled out of her bag and was teased by Liz D. about being Canadeean and using google.ca ;)
School Research
Some of you know I began the PhD program in educational technology at Concordia University in January of 08. I’ve got a long way to go before completing, however am starting to think about my research focus and will be submitting a proposal in the near future. My thoughts have been cloudy around this. I knew I wanted to explore learning in a systemic way – organizational learning, group learning, individual learning, and I know I want to look at what works already. There is so much reinventing the wheel in education and I definitely don’t want to do that. But I haven’t sat down and put it into words yet. Until this morning, when I read Jan Smith‘s post Leap and the Net will Appear
.
I have decided my action research question will focus on the circumstances and beliefs that lead to student engagement in learning. I really want to use blogging or digital storytelling as the lens through which to explore engagement. I also want to build my own skills in integrating technology so I can help my colleagues do the same.
And that led me to formulate a comment that rings true to my own passion about learning.
Your research focus is interesting. I plan on looking at something similar on a systemic level. (I’m a PhD student in educational technology) I’m interested in the circumstances and beliefs that lead to engagement in learning on an organizational level as well as in the classroom, and how each impact the other. And you know what? This is the first time I’ve been able to concisely put into words what I want to research. Thanks!
In other words – how does organizational learning/action impact teacher and student and how does teacher and student learning/action impact the organization? And this can be extended to the outer areas of the system as well –> school board, government… Obviously still needs to be pounded out some, but I have a start.
Following Up
My friend Jenn, from How do you still love teaching? has begun her own blog, Jennyjukebox, and in reading her posts I remember that it is not just because she is in her first few years as a teacher that teaching is hard. It is difficult and exhausting always because we do difficult, exhausting work with children.
I’m also realizing that, even though I’ve been teaching for about 12 years, it’s my first time in this particular program, with this team of teachers and with this group of kids. It’s a steep learning curve and it can be exhausting. On top of striving for excellence with these kids I’m also teaching new courses and getting used to a new school culture – it’s a lot of work! (my comment to her post Recharged).
It is the most meaningful work I can think of doing (for me – not the most meaningful for everyone). It my soul purpose.
I took my Jewish holidays, and will be making up the time on the weekend by attending different school events. I still do not feel comfortable with how the school board is dealing with religious observance. Though feel less queasy having found out that none of the holidays are paid days for anyone. The school board does, however, organize the 200 working days for teachers around the Christian holidays. Only non-Christians have to come in on the weekend or do extra work after school or emergency substitution to ‘pay’ for their holidays. Our collective agreement is up for renegotiation in 2 years. If I am still with this school board I will definitely be making my voice heard on this matter. To be honest, the school board’s track record with dealing with individual needs (not only mine in this case) makes me question whether I will still be there, but that is another post.
I’ve re-designed tracyrosen.com a bit. I’m liking this new design much better than the old one. It uses the DePo Clean theme, which is a JOY to modify. I have never had such ease in modifying a template. For real. I also created a blog for my Grade 11 class using the same theme. Lovely. Clean. Simple.
I have a few more things to follow up, but that will have to be in another post. This is one long story already and I need to start thinking about preparing food for someone I care about this evening so I’m going to say good bye for now.
Listen to a podcast about this post here [audio: learningfrommystudents.mp3]
image from maniobras de escapismo by Ma Vera on Flickr
My students inspire me
“I have learned more math this week than I have so far in all my years of high school.”
“Today I don’t feel complete. I did not get to the gym yesterday because I was working on homework and I didn’t finish the homework because I didn’t get some of it. So I’m not feeling complete.”
“I’m weird. I get the math when it is in a word problem, but not when it is written as straight math.”
“Today I am tired. I had another fight with my mother last night and didn’t get to bed until late. Tonight I am going to party.”
Why?
Because I learned that even though the math scares me a bit, I can teach it. And I think that is because I teach my children first and then the math. I also learned that we do such a disservice to students when we stay focused on basic skills rather than going on to learning that requires higher-order thinking skills. If she had not told me that she was ‘weird’ I may have made her do more of that ‘straight math’ instead of letting her think. I wonder how many other ‘weird’ students are out there. I learned where my students are coming from when they put their heads down during study hall, the last 45 minutes of the day, instead of reading a short story or trying to figure out the equivalent resistance of whatever.
and I learned this:
To you, 17-year old Cody
Each morning we check in
in a circle we sit
we shoot the shit
we state where we are at
so we can clear the path to where we are going
so we can clear the path to the part of our journey that will take place today.
“I feel tired”
“I feel happy”
“I did not finish my homework”
On Thursday morning you, 17-year old Cody, said
Today I do not feel complete.
and you went on to say why.
all eloquent and concise.
And I learn that it is not my job to make
you feel complete.
I think to myself of what stops me from feeling complete – of my boundaries, my hard lines, my fears.
No, it is not my job to make you feel complete. It is my job to learn from you how to rearrange my own boundaries, reorganize my own hard lines into rungs as I rise to my own completeness.
And that is why I say to you, 17-year old Cody, thank you.
Tracy, Sept. 13/08
Everyday Real (moment of truth 2008) [audio: http://www.tracyrosen.com/leadingfromtheheart.org/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/everydayrealmomentoftruth2008.mp3]
From The Pull Forward EP Vol.2 by Scholarman, available for free download here
Listen to these ideas. (Go here to see a mindmap of this podcast and links to resources I refer to in it or just keep reading normally. Whatever turns your crank.)
[haiku url=”http://www.tracyrosen.com/leadingfromtheheart.org/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/assessmentAug9.mp3″ title=”Why I don’t do zeros”]
Image: from Not So Good by zephyrbunny, found on flickr and made available through a creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license
It’s Saturday morning, a little over 2 weeks until the school year starts again for teachers at the New Frontiers School Board, where I work. My mind lately, as it usually does around this time of the summer, has been shifting from summer to practice, and this morning it opened up to assessment. Here’s the flow chart of how it hit this groove:
And here is that comment I made over on Hugh O’Donnell’s post (which you better go over and read if you want any context):
That’s right, not radical at all. We do NOT need to give zeros and, I’m sorry, but the excuse that we’ve got so many initiatives thrown at us warrants the practice? (the practice = completely demoralizing children and doing nothing to help improve their learning) Come on. A zero as feedback gives me no hope.
I really began to learn the art of assessment about 5 years ago, when I met Ken O’Connor at a conference in Ottawa. And then I started to read everything I could about it, which I’m still in the middle of doing
So I guess I’m one of those teachers who read. And you know what I do when I am reading? I do it publicly – I carry the book around with me, I talk to others about what I am reading and about how, if at all, it is helping to change my practice.
So it DOESN’T need to be top down. If we sit around waiting for someone else to do something, well…wouldn’t it be lovely for there to be the perfect piece of grading policy to fall from above that all teachers would embrace and follow. (where’s the smiley guy for sarcasm?) Un-unh. I’m not waiting for policy to inform my practice. I prefer to focus on my practice and allow it to inform policy.
he he – first comment of the weekend. Guess the coffee is kicking in
(and that’s the edited version…)
Assessment informs learning. I assess before, during, and after units of study so that my students and I know where they stand with the learning that is going on. If a student is NOT meeting the expectations for ANY reason – be it ability, interest, learning style, or socio/emotional issue – it us up to me to address it and assessment is data that shows me if how I am addressing it works. Evaluation is when I look critically at all of the data that I’ve culled from assessment, and reporting is how I share that with parents.
So…I don’t do zeros because of my professional ethics, which are closely tied to my core values:
always hold on to hope for the future –> a zero in no way informs a learner of anything to do with potential for learning and change and can completely destroy any possible hope that was there.
always teach with integrity –> giving a zero undermines my integrity as a teacher.
always maintain the utmost respect for my students and their families –> a zero indicates to me that no communication has been made between me and my students/families about progress and how to fix things.
Very often a zero is tied to behaviour. It is a punishment for skipping class, not studying, acting jerky or disrespectful, whatever. When these things happen to me (and they do) I focus on why this is happening instead of trying to punish it. It makes more sense for me.
Mind Map made with
