More Joy...Less Stress

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is carrying a great burden." Philo, 1st Century.

"I grow old.  I grow old.  I will wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."  T.S.Eliot

School is back in session tomorrow.  With one semester ended and new courses beginning, it is deja vu all over again: first day of school.

The last post described my schizophrenic existentialism.  Survival mode means focusing on the details of the day and ignoring the larger picture as much as possible--which includes ignoring the utter lack of interest and passion among the seniors.  Age?  Or 12 years of testing mania at play?

My mantra for the fall was: "If nothing else, we are going to have some fun."  So....lots of smiling, laughing.

That is an old person's prerogative: just let the little things go.  We don't care so much anymore.  The trousers will be rolled.  Your paper is late?  No sweat.  We will work on a way to git 'er done.  Fell asleep in class?  You must be uber tired.  Sleep is probably better than what is going on right now. No breakfast?  Here's a granola bar.  Screw the no food, no drink rule.

Highlights from the fall where I was completely unaccountable and did not do my job collecting data and leading from the front of the room:

• Getting the chance to really get to know my students while wandering around the city library on a field trip.  Exploring the building, talking about favorite places to eat, laughing at the name of the old guy in the painting (it is a funny name).  You know, just talking?
• Joining in on a technically inappropriate joke in class.  But, hey, it was hilarious.
• Letting the kids interview me as practice before their interviews with other adults.  Talk about engagement.  Everybody sat up straight and joined in that day.  (This should tell us something about how kids want to interact with the grown-ups. They think we are kind of interesting.)  I gave honest answers. They mostly wanted to know what it was like when I was young, how I met my husband, stuff like that.  No one asked me about grammar....
• Helping the kids develop the questions for our British literature study.  (Again, not doing my job.) They were given the topic: The Evolution of the English Language.  They came up with doozies: What is English? Why do other languages borrow from English? When and where was the English language created? How was it influenced (and how frequently)?  How old is the English language?  How long did it take to develop?  How many countries and people speak English? We hung the questions up.  They knew the answers later.
• Putting kids in groups to read and share their own writing.  Many highlighted this as their favorite exercise.  They learned without me...
• Dancing to a students' rap music played through his phone until he was so disturbed by my old lady, white girl moves that he put the phone away (trousers rolled).  That's another day when I can say that every student was fully engaged...and laughing.  I didn't write him up.
• Watching kids explain their work to their parent/grandparent/guardian sometimes in Spanish or Bulgarian, on a conference night where I did not lead the conference. Don't I wish I spoke more than one language like so many of my students....?
• Hearing a student share a poem (written in 7 minutes) and enjoying the snapping and applauding from the kids after...followed by an instant evaluation: "You need to put that in the creative writing magazine!"  Who needs a gradebook? Who needs a teacher?
• The day we wrote about someone we were grateful to have in our lives. And then called them. And read it to them.  That assignment was never turned in.

So much of school is not kind.

We tend to rule from a deficit model:  start with 100 and take away whatever is not there.  We measure what you're missing, not what you came with.

We hold everyone to the same due date (for fairness) when what goes on outside and inside school is not really fair.

We sort kids into groups and everyone knows who the Bluebirds are.  We make the same rules that everyone must follow.  We ask everyone to pass the same (stupid) tests.

But some kids have more access than others.  Some have more support than others.  Some have more healthy food than others.  Why does school always have to have these "fair" rules when everywhere else the scales are tipped?

We'd be better off teaching and modeling some empathy or, perhaps, how to have some fun everyday.

Mantra for the spring:  "If nothing else, we are going to have some fun...."

The soft bigotry....

The state of Virginia has received a waiver on the No Child Left Behind act.

There were concessions.

The state had to agree to implement a Teacher Evaluation process that relies heavily on student growth measures.  40% of teacher evaluations must be based on this measure.  Multiple measures, to be sure.  For now we are permitted to establish our own group of students, identify the goal, collect data, and prove that the teacher realized growth.

OK, I think I can live with that since I hope I have been trying to move students along a continuum ever since I started teaching.  The challenge, frankly, will be in working this collection and study into an already full workload.  But it is doable.  Wish it came with some time....

Apparently, another concession was to move from AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) to AMO's (Annual Measurable Objectives--semantics?).

OK.  So what does that mean?  According to the State Department of Education it means these are goals for reducing proficiency gaps between low-performing and high-performing schools.

The AMOs represent the percentage of students within each subgroup that must pass Standards of Learning (SOL) tests in reading and mathematics in order to make acceptable progress over six years.  While the AMOs represent yearly goals for low performing schools, all schools must meet these objectives.  (My emphasis, not theirs.)

They used the actual pass rates of student subgroups in low-performing schools to set the percentage of students who must pass in order for accreditation (I assume?).  They will determine the subgroup pass rates on Reading after the new SOL test, which is predicted to depress scores, is administered this year.  So here they are in Mathematics.

For 2012-2013, pass rates in Mathematics:

All students:                             61%
Proficiency Gap group 1:         47%
 (students with disabilities, limited-English proficient students and economically disadvantaged students  
  regardless of race and ethnicity)
Proficiency Gap group 2:         45%
  (African-American students, not of Hispanic origin, including those counted above)
Proficiency Gap Group 3:        52%
  (Hispanic Students)
Students with disabilities:         33%
LEP Students:                          39%
Economically Disadvantaged   47%
White students:                         68%
Asian Students:                         82%

Here is the Virginia Department's argument that this is not discriminatory or expecting less of our students.  Guess we're only going to leave some kids behind.  In the case of those who are African American, only 55% of kids in the next six years.

Is this not the same thing Florida is up in arms about?

Anybody want to agree that we should be done messing with numbers and figure out how to get all kids off to a good start so that learning for every group is possible?

Here is what we ALREADY KNOW works.  Read Nick Kristoff's recent editorial that discovers (huzzah!) that quality preschool instruction and nurturing of kids can overcome all the above "sub-groups."

But we wouldn't want to spend money there....

Ya Gotta Love the Numbers!

Bernie Madoff was once a respected businessman.

In fact, he was once the chair of Nasdaq.  

It was his earlier reputation which shielded him from the kind of scrutiny that would have quickly exposed his scandalous Ponzi scheme where he duped his investors into believing that money was being made when, in fact, nothing had been invested at all.

In his defense, Madoff claims that the pressure to show quarterly gains led him to fake the billions he assured his clients they were earning.

A lame excuse, but at least it acknowledges how human behavior can be manipulated by the rules.

I see parallels in our current emphasis on proving student growth by distilling learning to sets of numbers.  Though we like to think that numbers don't lie, when personal fortune rises and falls with the numbers, it is a sure bet that some of those numbers will lead the public into a false sense of security that "Our children is learning."

Here's an example:

The math scores in one building were not showing gains.  The solution: at the halfway mark of the year, take all the students who are not showing learning gains (i.e. they are failing) out of the course.  Create a new course that repeats the first semester.  By renaming the course, these students do not have to sit for the spring state tests until much later.

Result: Big jump in scores that year because only students who are adequately prepared take the test.

Well, you say, what is wrong with that?  The students who aren't ready are given the opportunity to relearn the material, aren't they?  The scores jump. The school is no longer 'failing.' Our children IS learning!

Here's where I take issue with scores as a representation of true progress and gains in student learning.

Like Inigo Montoya says to the Sicilian genius Vizzini in Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. ['Inconceivable' for Vizzini. 'Learning' for the rest of us.] I do not think it means what you think it means."

Scores did jump, but it was a deception played on the public.  Nothing was essentially changed except slowing the pace of instruction for some students.  As a result, many who struggle with math are doomed to repeat the same material presented in the same manner, or are subjected to mind-numbing drills designed to prepare them to pass the test.

True reform would exhibit itself in helping teachers locate new ways to engage students who struggle.  And there ARE new strategies out there.  But it would take time for teachers to re-think, re-learn, re-tool an entire course.  No time and resources were part of the scenario described above.

It would mean spending money on professional development for teachers, helping them help students find a way into and through the math puzzle.  No money for that.

But enormous pressure, along with piles of money spent on the bubble tests, must show immediate progress or heads are going to roll.  Desperate people do desperate things.

YOU do the math.

So, what happens to students who must sit through math again?

I envision my recurring nightmare: I have missed a course in high school and they drag me out of my current life, back to my old school to take the WHOLE YEAR OVER AGAIN.  In the dream I am panicked and disheartened.  My whole life is disrupted and, on top of all that, it's boring me to death because I know I can do the work in a week!  But they won't let me!  I would drop out, but I know it would be the death of all my hopes.  The whole dream is bathed in an overwhelming feeling of asphyxiation.  I can barely breathe and wake up in a sweat.

Well...  Some of our kids do drop out, anxious to get on with some kind of life outside of school. Who can blame them?

Our current love of data extends beyond those we consider left behind.  Students in upper-level courses are distracted by numbers represented in SAT scores and fall into a single-minded obsession with high grades in order to compete for colleges.  It perverts their thinking.  And -guess what?- sometimes they cheat.

Just like Bernie Madoff.

Should we hold teachers (well, the whole system, really) accountable?  You betcha.

How can we do it in a way that honors both teaching and learning?  

Some teachers have made suggestions.  Check out this plan formulated by the teachers in the workforce and a part of the Teacher Leaders Network.

Let's get honest about what we are hoping to do and be sure that everything is being measured - including our support for true learning.