Dear NEA,

I have a New Year's Resolution for you:  Man-up.

That's what my students would say.  That's much of what your membership seems to be saying. And that's what I implore you to do.

I have been a teacher since 1978 and an NEA member for almost as long.  But the fact of the matter is that, as I improved in my abilities to teach through an association with other professional organizations (the National Writing Project, The National Council of Teachers of English), the NEA became less and less important in my professional life.  I came to think of my membership as an insurance policy: a fall back in case I ever found myself battling against the district that employed me which, it was clear, would treat me like a freelancer and leave me twisting in the legal winds should anything go awry in my teaching life.  (And there are so many things.....)

The NEA has done nothing to change that view over the years.  I hear from my organization almost weekly, but only to excite my interest in an NEA MasterCard, an NEA low-interest loan, an NEA home-owner's insurance policy.  The monthly newsletter NEA Today goes largely unread. Most of the teaching tips or online resources have come to me months before in online communities where my professional development continues.

Ten years ago I shouted at the NEA as I read the Sunday editorials.  It was clear that the "Texas Miracle,"  discredited as a fraud even as the Rod Paige plan was being marketed wholesale to the nation, was going to visit a classroom very dear to me: my classroom.  And so it was.  But where was my 3.5 million teacher-strong union on this plan that flew in the face of all the research we know about motivating, engaging and helping students toward a better life?

Silent.

So here I am.  Ten years out speaking in a little-ole' backwater blog.  Wish I had the backing of a large education group.

Here's what I know about the union from the ground:

• We are under attack, and sometimes deservedly so.  We need to lead the reform issue from a moral high ground.  By leap-frogging over our detractors we can create a profession where our clients - the children we teach - are at the center of everything we do. I want what Mark Simon suggests:  "Teacher Unions have a responsibility to advocate not just in the narrow self-interest of their dues paying members, but in the public interest, from a teacher's perspective." (Thanks Steve Owens.)
• I can't convince young teachers to join.  They don't get it. We are losing them and a whole generation who will not seek teaching as a viable career. In this way, if the union is not destroyed outright by the current "reformers" it will die a slow death of attrition.  And so will teaching.  What will be left in its wake?  A predatory, privatized patchwork of questionable ethics.
• On the largest issues we are defensive.  Not a good position.  We need to lead.  The more involved in policy I've become the more amazed I am by the alphabet-soup of disparate education associations all speaking similarly on the same issues but undercutting each other's message by being too many, too small.  Pull it together.   We need a single, very large, credible megaphone if we are to combat the billionaire's boys club.  That means leading from effective practice first.  It will raise our collective voice above the fray of profit-making plans.
• I did two years as a union rep in my building.  Much of what went on in the local was about next year's raise.  We didn't even address the "slave clause" in my contract which describes my work as "anything necessary for the smooth running of the school."  Pretty vague description of teaching and learning.  I wanted to argue for a better definition of my role and practice.

Here is what I mean by Manning UP:

Assume the responsibility for improving education and take on the role of Educator-in-Chief.  We know what conditions are needed for good teaching.  It's time to put our effort, our money, and our mouths where our hearts are: demand what has already been proven best for the children of the next generation by demanding the training, induction, and working conditions that allows good teaching to flourish. Do it on OUR terms, from the position of Effective Teaching, not a corporate manual.  The plan has already been outlined in the Commission report Transforming Teaching.*

Embrace the report.

It has already been heralded as a ray of hope in an education wasteland.

We need to lead. After all, America invented public education.  It's time we  re-invent public education for the 21st Century.  It will mean hard work, embracing change, speaking out about what really works, and even arguing amongst ourselves and conducting ongoing research, but I volunteer to marry my effective teaching chops with your organizational chops to create a robust profession.

Do it.  Or it will continue to be done unto us.

Three and half million people moving in the same direction has to effect some sort of change.

*Disclaimer: I served on the Commission.

Boxing Day

Today is the traditional British holiday reserved after Christmas to celebrate the servants--those stalwart workers who keep the manor house running, make the holiday go smoothly, and generally make life much more enjoyable for the upper classes.

The "box" in Boxing Day refers to the the vehicle for enclosing the gift for the servants (and not for the fisticuffs I imagined when I first heard the term.)

I say we co-opt this day and turn it into an American celebration of public servants, those handmaidens to government and the collective good who make our lives run much more smoothly.

So, cheers, to the guy who came by two days before Christmas and collected the remaining leaves on our street. Their duties were delayed by the extensive cleanup needed after the surprise Halloween snowstorm that brought down limbs and trees all over town.  They cleaned that up too.

To the firefighters who show up night and day to correct our wrongs.  To the police who patrol our streets in the dead of night.  The snowplow operators who go out in the worst of the weather.  To the mail carriers, the emergency technicians, the road and bridge builders.  To all the invisible workers who keep everything humming.

And, of course, to teachers, who make every other occupation possible.

Happy Holidays.

Teachers Leading their Profession

Today the NEA released the report of the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching and the NEA responsed to the recommendations of the 21 teachers from across the nation.  I was privileged to be one of those 21 teachers appointed to the Commission for the past year.  We first convened on December 10, 2010 and our charge was to define effective teaching and imagine a teacher-led profession that would result in a true reform of our nation's schools.

You can read the report, Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning, here.  The recommendations are comprehensive and include changing expectations in teacher preparation, induction, and providing a career ladder where accomplished teachers can take on differentiated roles that would lead to changes in schools across the nation, all monitored and evaluated by teachers themselves.

In her remarks, the Commission Chair Maddie Fennel, a fourth-grade teacher from Omaha, Nebraska said the following:

We must make clear to the public, in both our words and our actions, that student learning is at the center of everything we do. Our vision is of a profession that clearly and visibly puts student learning at its core and guarantees that students acquire the critical thinking ability, ingenuity, and citizenship skills they will need to thrive as 21st century citizens. The schools we envision develop students’ academic knowledge, critical thinking, and innovation skills, while also attending to their overall well-being. Our vision for the teaching profession rests on three guiding principles:  1. Student learning is at the center of everything a teacher does.   2. Teachers take primary responsibility for student learning.         3. Effective teachers share in the responsibility for teacher selection, evaluation, and dismissal.

We envision a teaching profession that embraces collective accountability for student learning balanced with collaborative autonomy that allows educators to do what is best for students. 

I can assure you that changing the landscape to ensure success for all of our children, along with a schooling system that ensures the well-being of every child was at the fore of every discussion.  We were always aware that our nation cannot stand on the status quo and that the real road to reform will rely on strong, effective teachers in every classroom.

The NEA's response to the report is to initiate a Three-Point Plan for Reform which includes raising the bar for entrance into the profession,  using teachers to ensure that great teachers are serving our children, and providing union leadership to transform the profession into a teacher-owned profession.

The Commission report did not stop with recommendations to the NEA.  There are suggestions for pre-service providers, policymakers, and the teachers themselves.

The NEA's response is a start.  But the teachers themselves must support and work toward the ownership of our profession--and much of realizing that vision will not be easy.

The Commission has provided the opening for claiming our profession.  Now it is up to us to take on the hard work ahead.

What's wrong with this picture?

Yesterday, flipping channels to see if there was a Virginia Tech game on I could listen to as I baked, I happened on the halftime of the SEC championship game. (You can tell I am a tepid football fan.  There was a Tech game, but I missed it.)

They were just about to begin the huge halftime event: a Dr. Pepper Tuition Scholarship contest.  At stake? $100,000 in tuition money.  Apparently they do this every year.  Who knew?  I didn't.

Here is how the contest works: You enter with a video.  This year's winner expressed her love for Dr. Pepper before launching into an explanation of her goals and her lack of ability to provide tuition money.  Then the finalists come to the championship game and are pitted against each other in a football tossing contest.  The one who can throw the most passes into the hole (isn't this just a mega-cornhole contest?) wins the whole she-bang: $100,000 devoted to tuition payments.

To be fair, in a search of their website, it appears that Dr. Pepper gives away a lot of scholarship money.  But the video, and a love of the product is de-rigeur for winners.

When she won, she completely broke down, barely able to express her appreciation for the opportunity to pursue her education--clearly a relief to an issue where she has struggled.  It was hard to turn away.  As a piece of entertainment, it was riveting.  Who knows what happened to the loser.  We never saw her.

It sickened me.

I know it is America and we believe in pullin' yourself up by your bootstraps, winners and losers, the power of physical prowess, fate, chance, rags-to-riches, but come on.  Since when is throwing 13 footballs through a hole the necessary pre-requisite to gaining an education?

This whole spectacle reminded me of the desperate dancers in the depression-era movie They Shoot Horses Don't They?  The dance marathon in the movie depicted lots of down-on-their-luck participants dancing till they dropped in hopes of winning a prize that stood between them and utter destruction.

So what's wrong with giving away tuition money through an entertaining contest?  Let me count the ways.

• The girl is clearly bright.  Why isn't school possible for her and anyone else who has worked hard and plans to give back?  It used to be.  I remember.  At one time there were several states that offered free tuition to students who had maintained their grades....and wanted to go to college.
• The contestants must prove their love of Dr. Pepper.  Dr. Pepper has conscripted free testimonials from desperate kids.
• My students already suck down too many soft drinks.  Many have diabetes.  And so forth...
• Why does it take $100,000 to go to school?  (It does.  I have colleagues who still owe $50,000 or more as they start their careers--earning just enough to scrape by month-to-month.)
• The winner throws a football.  Yay.  Football reigns.
• We are entertained by someone's need.
• A mega corporation holds sway over people's fate.  Hmmmm.....

I never liked Queen for a Day either.

Early Childhood Development in Real Time

I was a stay-at-home mom for twelve years and still consider myself lucky to have had the time for this important work, especially when so many must work full-time and raise children simultaneously in order to afford a house, food, etc.  Raising children is hard work.  The need for consistency is what wears most parents out since children are always testing the fence line.

I still consider my time away from teaching as an intensive course in Early Childhood Development.  It lasted twenty-four-hours-a-day for twelve years.  As a teacher, I found my own children's development fascinating--particularly language acquisition.

Now I have the chance to observe the next generation of children up close and personal: my three (soon to be four) grandchildren.  Here is what I am learning in real time.

Most Important Lesson of All: standardization in education seems like a really stupid idea after spending any amount of time around kids.  They show up in the world with totally different sets of priorities and motivations.  Our one-size-fits-all education system seems hopelessly out of date.

For instance, grandson number one is highly physical.  He literally throws himself at the world, leaping off of steps, climbing anything that is handy, shouting "Bam! Bam!"--his chosen expletive when he is either frustrated or successful. At two he can independently use all of the playground equipment he can reach, including hanging upside down from monkey bars. He runs and kicks a ball.  He manipulates objects, builds and destroys in nanoseconds, and goes full tilt until he collapses from exhaustion.  After all of that dashing around, it is possilble to convince him to sit in a lap and listen to a story.  Thanks to his mother who has made reading a daily end-of-day routine, this boy will probably excel at both sports and school.  But I'm thinking the long days in a desk are not going to be easy for him.

Granddaughter number one is thoughtful, orderly and reticent.  She does not warm to strangers and even takes many minutes to acclimate to familiar places, including her grandparents' house where she spent the first six months of her life.  She loves books and often removes herself from a room crowded with adults to read quietly (in the way that a three-year old reads: turning pages and reciting what she remembers).  She has spent many long periods pulling blankets and towels out of our cedar chest and arranging them in neat squares on the floor.  Similarly she likes grouping objects, putting small objects inside of bags and other containers and carrying them around.  All of these activities seem to please her in some way. When she found one of my ubiquitous journals and a marker, she began to make a "list" (deftly picking up the marker with her left hand and writing right to left) with a line for every person named (mommy, daddy, Marnie, Pee-Paw). When she ran out of names, she thought for a moment and then began to name things she likes (popcorn).  She'll certainly be a reader, but does the strong interest in patterns show a mind for math?

As I watch the two of them and their obviously varied strengths and tendencies I can't help wondering: how do you design a school that capitalizes on their separate potentials?  How can we use student autonomy and natural curiosity to catapult learning to where it matches the growth in knowledge and technology we face in the coming decades?

Interestingly, both grandchildren love the ipad we have stocked with books and games.  (They fight over it.)  Both seem to enjoy the mastery they have over choosing activities and switching back and forth between games, puzzles and stories.  Manipulating virtual objects with a finger is highly engaging, as most adults can probably testify.

Both of them like to bake, decorate, and "eat" a cake (in CakeDoodle) and paint in Art Set.  The grandson prefers Thomas the Train Engine for his story, puzzle, and matching game fix.  Granddaughter tends toward the Disney book where she can dress up a variety of Princesses.  They both think the game of tossing tires with "Mater" from Car Story is the funniest thing they've ever seen.  I fail to grasp the joke, but they think its a hoot.  Maybe it's the sound effects.

Watching children this way makes me think that teachers should be developing skills and knowledge in order to set the next, appropriate learning tool or activity in front of a child.  In this view of education, teachers would be adept "kid watchers" who are extremely knowledgeable about a variety of teaching strategies that all aim for the same objective, or leapfrog over objectives, to match the student's current need.  It has been said elsewhere: we need an Independent Education Plan for everybody.

I'm betting that my two, bright grandchildren will show up in kindergarten already reading- or close to it - given their rich upbringing.  In the current system, that might mean three long years before something new and exciting is introduced.

We need to work on this.

Fake Writing

This week Jay Matthews of the Washington Post drew attention to the problem of teaching writing in our public schools.

It's awful.  That's the consensus.

His argument was sparked by a commentary earlier in the week by Paula Stacy in Education Week where she bemoans the lifeless writing products which pass for good thinking when students arrive in colleges and universities.

She's right, you know.  In the main, writing instruction, when it is addressed at all, is horrible.

If you ever had to evaluate a raft of these so-called papers, you too would bemoan the state of writing in the United States.  The papers are wooden, lifeless, replete with errors, and simplistic in their thinking.

In short, they follow the process steps outlined in various formulas (like the dreaded five-paragraph essay).  Teaching formulaic writing is similar to teaching dance by pasting the silhouette of footprints on a dance floor and asking the dancer to follow the prescribed steps in some semblance of a rhythm.

And we all know what that looks like: rhythmically-challenged white guy trying to boogie.

Having read my fair share of five-paragraph essays, it's clear an instructor barely has to read in order to make an assessment since the path the student is taking is telegraphed in the thesis statement.  No surprises.  No turns of thought.  Just scan down the page and see if paragraph one matches their first point, with some evidence; paragraph two should follow suit, and so forth, until arriving at a conclusion that restates the thesis (again, dear idiot reader, in case the point isn't clear yet through mindless repetition).

Poor Montaigne.  How he must roll over in his grave.  His "essai"--meaning attempt at understanding, often without a neat conclusion, sometimes even with more questions than answers--has come to this: all problems solved in three easy steps.

Writing has long been a neglected art in all of formal education.  Why?  There are a number of reasons, but first and foremost is the lack of attention and time spent understanding the craft of writing or using writing the way it is intended--as a tool for further learning.

The inattention to writing has been perpetuated for generations.

Poor writing instructors teach the next generation what they were taught and those hapless students grow up to teach the next class and so forth.  And now districts can buy all the easy answers in a box, hand them out to teachers, ask them to spend an hour or two on writing twice a semester and feel smug in having resolved the writing problem.  (Starting to see the danger in the "three solutions to every problem" thinking we've structured for ourselves?)

Teachers, like most of the adult population, are insecure in their own writing (having either hated it, been chastised for poor spelling, commas, what have you, or convinced that writers spring fully formed from the mind of Zeus and cannot be shaped by instruction.)

There is one group that has championed good instruction in writing for more than 30 years: The National Writing Project. This, one of the true academic communities in existence today--modeling learning through inquiry even beyond the level of most academic communities in our universities--brings teachers together to share best practice in both teaching and using writing.

In its often-heralded capstone professional learning program -- the Intensive Summer Institute-- the National Writing Project insists that teachers write, for themselves but also for their students.  When the teachers return to their schools after the institute, they are often the oddball down the hall who is doing something weird with their kids--and getting results.

Teacher Consultants trained through the Writing Project write with and in front of their students modeling the messy, recursive process of composing a thought into the clearest expression possible.  From invention to publishable quality piece, writing project teachers show their students where an idea comes from, how it is developed, how an audience shapes a message, how writing helps clarify thinking, and that anyone can be a writer--one who makes meaning from experience.  Most TCs look for real-world writing opportunities for students, journal regularly, give students latitude in choosing topics, and infuse writing into every subject area.

The problem with writing in our schools is that it is treated as a separate discipline, when it should be a part of every subject.  The irony in today's current instruction is that we assume that a child can sit down and produce a piece of writing that reflects their thinking without having been provided ample opportunity to first think independently.

Writing should inform every subject with students writing to themselves first. Even a kindergartner can ask "What do I already know about the changing seasons?"  Students can collect their own data: What did I see on the way to school today that helps me understand how the earth rotates around the sun?  What questions do I have about how the world works?  What are my strengths?  How do I know when I'm competent?  What have I done that I am proud of?  How did I do that?

These are real questions of inquiry that students can wrestle with in their own language and are a necessary step in learning any subject. Writing is a separate form of thinking wherein the writer comes to know his or her own mind.  It is a necessary step in understanding and retaining experience.  It is a record of where the mind has been.  Oddly, after composing a true inquiry, the writer, rather than the reader, is the one who knows the subject best.

And, when used in this context, writing ISN'T about correctness.  It is about thinking.

Our kids write poorly because they are asked to write what they do not know.  And adults who have survived this method of formulaic composition do the same--and then act accordingly--finding repetitive, simplistic answers to weighty and complex problems.  We cannot afford to perpetuate three-answer-group-think in a world with increasingly complex, global problems.

By the way--The National Writing Project-- probably the most under leveraged tool for improving instruction in our nation's school, repeatedly held up as the gold standard for professional development, and among the cheapest (the budget for the entire nation was only 22 million) was cut from the Department of Education budget last year.

Oh, well.  That leaves 22 million more for multiple-choice testing.

At least those tests give you four choices instead of three.

Taking it slow

I have learned that the swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot.  Henry David Thoreau

 I walk to school.  Not every day, but most.  I drive only when an appointment after school means being somewhere at a distance in a big hurry.  Rain, snow, mud, they do not dissuade. 

Thirty-five years ago, when I began to jog for exercise, I learned to appreciate changing weather.  Forging ahead is only a matter of dress.  Prepare for the weather, and you will not be at odds.  The job I secretly covet is mail carrier—those foot soldiers who realize a daily hike in every condition.

Lately, I have walked to school, then home, then back to school in the evening for musical rehearsals, then home again in the dark.

Be jealous. 

I walk more than half a mile, in the dark, through a friendly neighborhood where I know who lives in most houses. 

And now it is fall, the best of seasons.  In the dark walk home, the wind rustles dried leaves, the last of crickets and locusts still sing, the scent of fresh mown lawns transports me to every Saturday of a long ago childhood, dogs bark, and an occasional walker appears in the gloom.

Traffic is a far off hum somewhere down below this hillock in the Shenandoah Valley.  There are stars beyond the streetlights and, these days, some wood smoke in the chill.

When I first transferred to this neighborhood school, the world simultaneously contracted and expanded.

After a month of walking I realized that I had not even ventured to the other side of town. On a short errand I felt awkward at the wheel of my abandoned sedan.  And yet, in that month I had not felt confined. Instead I had discovered another world in the six blocks surrounding my home.

An unremarkable tree on the corner emerged from the fog one morning, every needle bearing a drop of dew.  Remarkable.  Once I helped a box turtle climb the curb.  Earlier I was halted by a humongous caterpillar the size of my palm.  This stranger had an other worldly quality and awakened a childish sense of awe.

The clouds are never the same.  Sometimes they are swollen and leaden with rain, another day just a yellow smear across a hazy sky, then pushed out completely by the greedy azure, or simple jagged lines of crystals scratched halfway to the clear blue.

I just have to remember to look up and not at my feet.  This morning, when I remembered to lift my eyes, I was startled by a glowing guava, all pinks and golds and purple, stretching across the eastern Blue Ridge.

Sometimes, when I get to school, the beauty of the literature I have taught and read my whole life resonates in the memory of a recent twelve-minute stroll.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.                                               Ralph Waldo Emerson