Another ubiquitous feature of this time of year is the school award ceremony. We give class awards, team awards, grade awards, school awards-- you name it, we honor it. I came up in a strong tradition of middle school team awards and recognitions. Oh, our team did the awards ceremony proud, back in the day. My contribution to the occasion was a power point presentation with an appropriate quotation for each award and a drum roll sound effect before the slide revealing the winners. We congratulated these elite students with certificates, their names engraved on a plaque that hung permanently in our hallway, and even savings bonds solicited from local businesses and organizations.
For years I sat in that annual team teacher meeting where we listed the awards and the kids we wanted to recognize and spent hours trying to match them up. Inevitably there would be that colleague who insisted on black-balling a kid because of some unforgiven slight from January. The veteran teacher versus the almost-twelve-year-old's character and reputation is never a pretty fight. I confess, I rolled up my sleeves and joined a few of those frays, and not always on the student's behalf, I'm ashamed to say, now. My own nephew received our student of the year award, too, after I made the case that he shouldn't be ruled out because of the appearance of favoritism.
I can't say exactly what soured it for me. It could have been an unkind remark or an ugly exchange in one of those contentious meetings that made me realize how arbitrary it all was. Or, it might have been one of the countless students who worked up the courage to ask me why they hadn't been recognized, too. Or was it one of the many disparaging remarks I overheard students make over the years about what was supposed to be such a motivating event? It also might have been all the certificates that ended up in the trash later on the day of the ceremony.
Whatever it was, three years ago, I decided to approach my team with a radical proposal. Let's not give awards this year. The fact that we had lost the plaques when we sent them out for engraving the year before raised my confidence slightly. I felt like it might have been a sign. In addition, I had done my homework on the issue; I'd carefully read Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards in which he makes the cogent anti-behavioralism argument that we are harming kids by the overuse of extrinsic motivation.
Indeed, Kohn addresses awards ceremonies specifically: "in the typical ceremony for "recognizing excellence," the people in charge have unilaterally selected, at their own discretion and based on their own criteria, some people to recognize over, and in front of, others. It is their power to do so that is ultimately being recognized." (page 111)
Ouch, I thought, and so-armed, I brought this idea to my team, and guess what? As much as I'd like to believe in my leadership and vision, realistically, I'm pretty sure that, at the end of a long year, they had neither the energy nor the desire to argue about it. Either way, our awards presentation is no more than a revenant that occasionally haunts me at this time of year.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Lost
I gasped this morning when I heard that an Air France flight was "missing." My sharp intake of breath startled me, because it's not often that one literally gasps. It was early, before seven, when I heard the news on the radio; it was still a breaking story; they didn't have many details, and, at first, I couldn't believe it. How do you lose a commercial jet in this day and age? I wondered, because I really thought that such calamities were all in the past, pure fiction today found only on TV and in the movies. My heart went out to those on the plane and their loved ones.
I probably have a bit more interest in airline news than the average citizen. Most people have heard of the military varieties of brats, but I'm of a lesser-known type, the airline brat. My parents met and were married while working for TWA in the early 60's. I took my first plane trip at 6 months and spent a great deal of my childhood and teen-aged years jet-setting around the world. We didn't have money, but we did have term passes-- little plastic cards that enabled us to fly in any vacant seat for a pittance, and thanks to my mother, travel we did. (Of course as we grew older, first class was always our choice.)
Many things have changed in my lifetime, but none so drastically as air travel. Flying is barely recognizable to me now. It's not only that TWA and Pan Am, the two major US airlines of the 20th century, have been gone since 2001 and 1991, respectively. And it's not the extra security, although I remember vividly the days when anyone could stroll down to the gate to meet an arriving passenger, or the 10-40 extra seats crammed onto every plane. It's not just the food (What food? There's nothing to even make fun of anymore.) or the baggage charge. I guess it's more that flying used to be kind of fun, but now it's just a necessary nuisance.
Come to think of it, I've heard some teachers describe school in close to those words. Hmm. Maybe they should drive.
I probably have a bit more interest in airline news than the average citizen. Most people have heard of the military varieties of brats, but I'm of a lesser-known type, the airline brat. My parents met and were married while working for TWA in the early 60's. I took my first plane trip at 6 months and spent a great deal of my childhood and teen-aged years jet-setting around the world. We didn't have money, but we did have term passes-- little plastic cards that enabled us to fly in any vacant seat for a pittance, and thanks to my mother, travel we did. (Of course as we grew older, first class was always our choice.)
Many things have changed in my lifetime, but none so drastically as air travel. Flying is barely recognizable to me now. It's not only that TWA and Pan Am, the two major US airlines of the 20th century, have been gone since 2001 and 1991, respectively. And it's not the extra security, although I remember vividly the days when anyone could stroll down to the gate to meet an arriving passenger, or the 10-40 extra seats crammed onto every plane. It's not just the food (What food? There's nothing to even make fun of anymore.) or the baggage charge. I guess it's more that flying used to be kind of fun, but now it's just a necessary nuisance.
Come to think of it, I've heard some teachers describe school in close to those words. Hmm. Maybe they should drive.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
A Bike Ride in Search of a Metaphor
There is a canal that runs 184 miles through the Potomac River gorge, right alongside the river itself. Built in the early 19th century, it was constructed to do what all canals do: make a river navigable so that barges might transport cargo from one point to another. Although it was closed to commerce less than a hundred years after it was built, today the canal is a national park and the tow path is restored for hiking and biking.
These days, the river is high and muddy because of all the rain. It's a challenge to experienced kayakers, and even then, there are areas such as Great Falls, that are always too dangerous for those boats; it's easy to see that a barge would never make it through. When you consider the hilly terrain that surrounds the canal, the tow path becomes an ideal destination for a nice, flat, bike ride, too. You can spin hard for miles in the shade getting a pretty good workout, and, in many places, enjoy that view of the wild, brown Potomac.
The special education teachers in our building often face resistance from their general education colleagues when it comes to the issue of putting accommodations in place for their students. Many regular ed teachers feel that accommodations "dumb down" the curriculum and make it "too easy" for the special ed kids, so they ignore the fact that the IEP (individualized education plan) is legally binding.
Today as I pedaled along the tow path, it occurred to me that special education is the canal that makes the curriculum navigable. The destination is the same for all who travel this route, and not everyone is an expert kayaker or a mountain biker. In fact, in the case of the Potomac, there are places when the canal is the only way to make it through. It was to the advantage of many that the barges were able to reach their destination; surely, we can say the same for our students?
These days, the river is high and muddy because of all the rain. It's a challenge to experienced kayakers, and even then, there are areas such as Great Falls, that are always too dangerous for those boats; it's easy to see that a barge would never make it through. When you consider the hilly terrain that surrounds the canal, the tow path becomes an ideal destination for a nice, flat, bike ride, too. You can spin hard for miles in the shade getting a pretty good workout, and, in many places, enjoy that view of the wild, brown Potomac.
The special education teachers in our building often face resistance from their general education colleagues when it comes to the issue of putting accommodations in place for their students. Many regular ed teachers feel that accommodations "dumb down" the curriculum and make it "too easy" for the special ed kids, so they ignore the fact that the IEP (individualized education plan) is legally binding.
Today as I pedaled along the tow path, it occurred to me that special education is the canal that makes the curriculum navigable. The destination is the same for all who travel this route, and not everyone is an expert kayaker or a mountain biker. In fact, in the case of the Potomac, there are places when the canal is the only way to make it through. It was to the advantage of many that the barges were able to reach their destination; surely, we can say the same for our students?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
An Interesting Calculus
So, I wanted to know why so many of our sixth grade students couldn't do sixth grade math. As a language arts teacher, it's hard for me to figure out, not because I don't know math-- believe me, I've been in sixth grade a long time, and I'm down with the curriculum-- but because I don't know the kids as math students. We disaggregate the data by race, ethnicity, gender, special needs, and socio-economic status, so I understood the profile of the kids who failed, but I wanted to know why. Is it developmental? Intellectual? Cultural? I asked the math teacher what she thought.
We talked a bit, and she was fairly non-judgmental in her description of what she saw. Her theory was that it was SES more than anything else, and related to that was the level of those students' parents' education, as well as their knowledge of English. (Yeah, a lot of Latino kids failed.) One point she made was very thought-provoking to me: When parents of struggling students sit next to their children in meetings with the teacher and admit that they can't help with math, because they don't know it themselves, it sends a powerful message to their kids. If this math is too hard for their parents, who are successful, working adults, how can the kids ever learn it? And, on some level, why should they bother?
It's not the full picture, but it is an interesting piece of the puzzle, and I still think that we need to understand any problem as fully as possible before we start proposing answers.
We talked a bit, and she was fairly non-judgmental in her description of what she saw. Her theory was that it was SES more than anything else, and related to that was the level of those students' parents' education, as well as their knowledge of English. (Yeah, a lot of Latino kids failed.) One point she made was very thought-provoking to me: When parents of struggling students sit next to their children in meetings with the teacher and admit that they can't help with math, because they don't know it themselves, it sends a powerful message to their kids. If this math is too hard for their parents, who are successful, working adults, how can the kids ever learn it? And, on some level, why should they bother?
It's not the full picture, but it is an interesting piece of the puzzle, and I still think that we need to understand any problem as fully as possible before we start proposing answers.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Testing Season
It's that time of year when teachers, even those who don't "believe" in standardized tests, talk standardized test results. In this world of miraculous modern technology, kids take all of their tests on the computer, and in theory, they could get immediate results. In practice, it takes a couple of days, at least in our state, and then the news goes to the teachers. At sixth grade in our district, students take reading, math, and U.S. history through 1877. We're done with the first two, and the last is on Monday, so the conversation has turned to percentage passing, and the students who failed.
Who are they, these kids who don't meet the minimum standards of our state? For reading, on my team of 99 kids, with the exception of two, they were all special education or second language, and all were minority students. As a language arts teacher, I know these kids as students in my discipline, and so I have an idea of their strengths and weaknesses, and therefore, I sort of understand what went wrong. That's not true for math.
In our state, once past 5th grade, students don't take a grade-level test for math, they take the test for the class they are in. So students who are in the advanced class in 6th grade take the 7th grade test, because that's their curriculum, and students who are in the next level up take the 8th grade test, again, because that's where they are. That leaves only the kids who are at or below grade level to take the 6th grade test, and as a consequence, those results are awful. It's less than a 60% passing rate.
I asked the math teacher today, because I really want to know, what's going on that these kids can't do math? I'll tell you what she said tomorrow.
Who are they, these kids who don't meet the minimum standards of our state? For reading, on my team of 99 kids, with the exception of two, they were all special education or second language, and all were minority students. As a language arts teacher, I know these kids as students in my discipline, and so I have an idea of their strengths and weaknesses, and therefore, I sort of understand what went wrong. That's not true for math.
In our state, once past 5th grade, students don't take a grade-level test for math, they take the test for the class they are in. So students who are in the advanced class in 6th grade take the 7th grade test, because that's their curriculum, and students who are in the next level up take the 8th grade test, again, because that's where they are. That leaves only the kids who are at or below grade level to take the 6th grade test, and as a consequence, those results are awful. It's less than a 60% passing rate.
I asked the math teacher today, because I really want to know, what's going on that these kids can't do math? I'll tell you what she said tomorrow.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Whatever
I read today on another blog what Suze Orman said about teachers in the NYTimes Magazine a couple of weeks ago. I get the Sunday Times, but I hadn't had a chance to read that article before today. It's really less than a paragraph in a 5500 word piece, but the author characterizes Orman's opinion as follows:
...students can’t learn empowerment from people who aren’t empowered, and teachers, she says, are too underpaid ever to have any real self-worth. She told me: “When you are somebody scared to death of your own life, how can you teach kids to be powerful? It’s not something in a book — it ain’t going to happen that way.”
You can imagine that this has caused quite a stir in the teacher blogosphere: many voices have risen in rebuttal, but even so, I'd like to comment briefly...
...a roll of the eyes, a shake of the head, a sharp exhale, and now, back to work.
...students can’t learn empowerment from people who aren’t empowered, and teachers, she says, are too underpaid ever to have any real self-worth. She told me: “When you are somebody scared to death of your own life, how can you teach kids to be powerful? It’s not something in a book — it ain’t going to happen that way.”
You can imagine that this has caused quite a stir in the teacher blogosphere: many voices have risen in rebuttal, but even so, I'd like to comment briefly...
...a roll of the eyes, a shake of the head, a sharp exhale, and now, back to work.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The End is Near
"What are we going to do for the end of the year?" one of my students asked me today. "Can we have a party?"
Maybe it's my personality, but I like the year to end with as little fuss as possible. (For the record I hate any good-byes, especially long ones.) If it were up to me, we would follow our regular schedule until the very last day, and then I could bid each class a warm farewell; perhaps instead of my usual, I had fun today-- thanks for your hard work and enjoy the rest of your day, I could substitute "this year" and "rest of your life" and call it a year.
Somewhere along the line though, the students have gotten the idea that June is a non-working month of celebration. Not only that, but since the advent of extensive standardized testing, they feel like they should be rewarded after each and every test, as well. Some teachers oblige, but I don't share this view. I believe that it's our job to help the kids understand what the tests are: simply a measure of what they know and can do, data that we will very likely use to figure out their placement and instruction. When we explain it that way, there's no reason for students to do anything other than their best, and there's no reason to look at the tests as anything but another day at school.
Maybe it's my personality, but I like the year to end with as little fuss as possible. (For the record I hate any good-byes, especially long ones.) If it were up to me, we would follow our regular schedule until the very last day, and then I could bid each class a warm farewell; perhaps instead of my usual, I had fun today-- thanks for your hard work and enjoy the rest of your day, I could substitute "this year" and "rest of your life" and call it a year.
Somewhere along the line though, the students have gotten the idea that June is a non-working month of celebration. Not only that, but since the advent of extensive standardized testing, they feel like they should be rewarded after each and every test, as well. Some teachers oblige, but I don't share this view. I believe that it's our job to help the kids understand what the tests are: simply a measure of what they know and can do, data that we will very likely use to figure out their placement and instruction. When we explain it that way, there's no reason for students to do anything other than their best, and there's no reason to look at the tests as anything but another day at school.
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