Leading From The Heart

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.

Tag: teaching

  • Why I don’t do zeros.

    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”]

     

    report card

    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:

    Saturday Morning FlowChartMind Map made with Bubbl.us

    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):

    Thatā€™s right, not radical at all. We do NOT need to give zeros and, Iā€™m sorry, but the excuse that weā€™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 Oā€™Connor at a conference in Ottawa. And then I started to read everything I could about it, which Iā€™m still in the middle of doing ;)

    So I guess Iā€™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 DOESNā€™T need to be top down. If we sit around waiting for someone else to do something, wellā€¦wouldnā€™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. (whereā€™s the smiley guy for sarcasm?) Un-unh. Iā€™m not waiting for policy to inform my practice. I prefer to focus on my practice and allow it to inform policy.

    I googled Ken Oā€™Connor and found this. An administratorā€™s notes from one of his sessions from last year. I particularly like the list at the end – repair kit for grading.
    http://carnets.opossum.ca/roberto/2007/10/ken_oconnor_excellentevidemmen.html

    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.

     

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  • What’s my lesson? (look right through me.)

    hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson? look right through me, look right through me. Roland Orzabal/Tears for Fears, 1982

    So my brother-in-law makes these videos of my niece and nephew, which I do appreciate since they live in Ohio of all places (that might have come out sounding wrong). The last one he sent had this beautiful piano music as its soundtrack – when I asked, he answered that it might be Michael Andrews, in an intro to a remake of Mad World by Tears for Fears.

    So I youtubed it and, indeed, that’s it. Beautiful song.

    I’ve listened to it a few times since I received the latest twins video last week, and only tonight did my mind make its way around these lines – hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson? look right through me, look right through me.

    In my last post we reflected on the human qualities teachers – we – bring to our classrooms. One of the strongest just might be the ability to both do and not do what this line is asking.

    G-d forbid, as teachers, we look through our students. Imagine being invisible? I’ve known how that feels. Like I don’t exist. That’s the part not to do.

    image found here, on the pbase gallery of backtothestart.

    At the same time, when a student arrives in my classroom she is implicitly asking for her lesson.

    She is asking me for her lesson.

    And if I look right through her, past her language, her colour, her attitude wrought from years of learned helplessness and strong wall making and straight to her, I just may be able to find the lesson she’s asking for.

    Maybe.

    image found here, by accident, at a Physics blog by teacher Dean Baird. I’ve bookmarked it.

    That’s the part to do. That maybe I wrote about? That is where my heart leads me.

  • em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble or Hesitancy and “digital literacy”

    hopfkeyrings
    Image found on Wikipedia: Hopf Fibration and released into the public domain by its author, Davidarichter

    I’ve stayed away from this blog for the past 2 days or so. I’ve been reading a crime novel, making a necklace, playing with my dog, doing suduko, unpacking and organizing, facebooking, and tweeting – basically keeping my mind superficially busy so that it could be free to work away on some issues in the background.

    The reflection was triggered by comments on my last post.

    I teach, learn, and live with digital technologies. I do think it important to pass on skills and knowledge regarding these technologies to my students and colleagues. So, why am I unsettled?

    On Monday,Keith Gessen mused,

    Nice thing weā€™ve got going here, this ā€œpro-internet,ā€ ā€œanti-internetā€ debate.

    (go read his post to see what he was going on about).

    And as I read his post it made me think that this has all become a debate – a this vs. that – and it’s so not about that. It is, however, a resistance to the growing feeling I have that ‘digital literacy’ (see bottom of post for more on that) is becoming confused with the goal.

    I teach, learn, and live with digital technologies, among other technologies, because I have found them to help me in my goal mission – YES MISSION – to help kids learn…

    …that kindness is a trait to be valued.

    …that making hateful comments like these ones have repercussions that go deep into our souls.

    …that accountability and responsibility for one’s actions is heavy heavy….but, heavy.

    …how to seek and find the positive in life.

    …that they can find their highest selves

    …that they can help others to find their highest selves too

    …what it is to be a part of a community

    And I can’t forget
    …that they need to hang on to a sense of humour.

    Ease with technology needs to be could be (depending on our immediate needs ;) ) integrated into our learning selves, but it isn’t THE goal.

    Tracy.
    ~~~~~~

    A virtual high five goes out to these posts I read earlier today:
    Learning, Motivation, and Technology by Steve Ransom
    Motoko by Keith Gessen
    Resources for Community Managers by Connie Bensen
    Workplace Literacy by Ken Allen

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    ps – The term ‘digital literacy’ is starting to creep me out. I laughed OUT LOUD when I read Doug Belshaw’s tweet this morning. It was a good one:

    http://twitter.com/dajbelshaw/statuses/872378657

    Twitter / Doug Belshaw: I’m coming to the conclusio… via kwout

    Go back to where you were

  • Who are teachers?

    “Today’s topic…self-construction”

    KRS-One **audio from 1vibe.net, April 22, 2008

    7 months ago (though I just discovered it) Clay Burrell wrote On Leaving Teaching to Become a Teacher:

    More and more I wonder: is school a good place for teachers who want to make a difference in the lives of their students, and to the future of the world? Is there a way to leave the daily farce of gradebooks, attendance sheets, tests, corporate and statist curriculum, homework assignments, grade-licking college careerist ā€œstudentsā€ (and parents), fear of parents and administrators, and fear of inconvenient socio-political truths – and at the same time, to make a far more meaningful impact on the lives of the young?

    Iā€™m thinking yes. Iā€™m thinking, moreover, obviously. Iā€™m not sure how much longer I want to work for schools. Iā€™d so much rather teach.

    Coinciding with that discovery was 2 others:

    • this video, reminding me of KRS-One’s moniker ‘The Teacher’.Ā  (originally found here)
    • Jeff Wasserman‘s article from 1999, From Klezmer to Clerks, where he wrote:

      Everyone has a story, every individual and every culture.

      Tell yours.

      Tell it in words or in sounds or in images or squishy things to touch. Tell it to yourself, or tell it to others. Be creative and unafraid. You know what to do.

    But really, there are no coincidences.

    My mission as a teacher has to do with teasing out the stories, with helping people find their stories – the most positive ones they can.

    Like Clay, I don’t think that teaching is relegated to the classroom. In fact most real content that affects peoples lives is not found in the classroom, it’s found in the experiences that make up each of our stories.

    Example: KRS-One is truly a teacher. He inspires to create a positive story.

    “Today’s topic – self-construction”

    “… This is an opportunity for you to rise to your highest self. There it is.”

    I’m not going to tell you his story, watch the video up top, and you’ll get an idea of where those quotes come from.

    The point here, is that teachers are found all over.

    So why do I choose to teach in the classroom?

    Classroom teaching is a unique opportunity to help young people choose their direction and write their stories. It’s like living is research, and the classroom is the lab where we get to make sense of all that cool data.

    My job has so much more to do with helping kids organize the information that comes at them (the stories of the world) in a way that makes sense for them, then it does with teaching them the stories of the world, and so much more than it does with “…gradebooks, attendance sheets, tests, corporate and statist curriculum, homework assignments, grade-licking college careerist ā€œstudentsā€ (and parents), fear of parents and administrators, and fear of inconvenient socio-political truths…”

    Yeah, there’s some paperwork and politics. I keep my mind focused on student need and my core values of relationship and hope for the future, and the paperwork and politics don’t seem as important. Everything falls into place.

    Cause this is what I am supposed to be doing.
    It’s the best way I know to rise to my highest self, and to help others do the same.

    That’s why I teach.

  • An Essential Question for EdTech

    Integration

    Integration by me: I realized this painting was ‘done’ when I had integrated colours from the daffodil’s cup into the petals.

    Recently I wrote a post on digital literacy within the wider context of literacy and, in writing, touched on what I realize is central to my own teaching:

    an essential question for educators today is how do we integrate literacies in our students? and in ourselves?

    It is not enough – it really, really isn’t – to advocate for technology in the classroom because it looks good and because others say it is important. A reflective school leader – administrator, teacher, support staff, consultant – will start digging deeper for essential questions around student learning in relation to the use of technology, as well as apply those questions to their own learning.

    I use technology in my teaching because literacy is the central focus for me at all times. ā€œLiteracy is about being able to make sense of the world we live inā€ (Dennis Harter, in comment to my post) and my deepest desire as a teacher is that I help students to begin to achieve this, that I give them the tools with which they can make sense of their/our world.

    I use a mashup of communication tools in my teaching, from word processing, to podcasting, to text readers, to visual editors, to blogging, to wikis, to debate, to improv, to (perhaps the most important) simple conversation. I do this because each of these tools can help different students make sense of the vast amount of information that is available to them in different ways. This is essential because each of my students need the opportunity to discover the tools that work best for them and I recognize that these are not necessarily the tools that work best for me.

    If I did not use technology in my teaching I would be going against all that I stand for as a teacher.

    That being said, if I return to my essential question from above, I need to stress that using tech to improve literacy is only part of the picture, part of the system. Literacy is a complex system made up of many and diverse components.

    I am moving more toward thinking about how my job is really to assist students in integrating their literate selves. In doing so, I need to recognize and honour the role(s) played by different technologies in their learning and in my own. That is essential for me.

    (this post was inspired by this one)