Citizenship in the classroom

This past week we witnessed history in the making. Not only did we have record turnouts for an election but we also elected our first African American President. I will be honest and say this makes me proud to be a citizen of this county. I hope that you took part in the election by voting, volunteering for your candidate, and possibly hosting a mock election in your classroom or school (if you work in the education field). I held one in my tech classes and the school did one on Election Day. The comments by the kids were both interesting and insightful.

I like talking with students about election time about their thoughts and feelings. In the past many really didn't care about what was going on and wondered why I was even bothering to do a mock election (although they sometimes wonder why we do anything but play games and chat). During this lesson/time I encounter all sorts of comments and reasons for supporting candidates. These comments range from those students who choose their candidates based on what parents/guardians have said, to the more informed ones, to my favorite (and new this year) reason of "I am voting for him because he is hot!" There are the usual arguments/discussions about the popular candidates in which I need to step in to make sure feelings are not hurt and political neutrality is respected. There are all during all this I have to very artfully dodge the question of who I am voting for, although it does lend itself to a nice discussion about privacy and why voting is done in private. It is an interesting time during the election process but this year I surveyed my students after the election process on the thoughts, feelings, etc. and received some interesting comments.

I found the comments of students who voted (and those who didn't) to be very interesting and insightful. I asked my kids how they felt and their thoughts about the voting process (regardless of the outcome of the election). Here are some direct quotes:

• "I didn't vote because I knew it wouldn't have an effect"
  
• "I didn't get any of the candidates"
  
• "It was frustrating having to register" (I use a website that requires a simple registration process)
  
• "What are initiatives?"
  
• "Why were all the drop outs listed on the ballot?"
  
• "I wish I would have had more information" (Even after pointing out where they voters pamphlet was)
  
• "I gave up after X position because it took too long"
  
• "I was sick so I didn't get a chance to vote, Can I still cast my ballot?"
  
• "What is a Superintendent of Public Instruction?"
  

What I found interesting about these comments is that I could relate each one to a frustration or reason one of us would give for being frustrated with the voting process. It lead to some great discussion on voting and why it is important to vote. This eventually led to the topic of them being just students who couldn't vote so why should they care. In talking about this I encouraged them to find ways to get involved with the political process whether it be something simple like talking to their family members, to running for an ASB office, or something more advanced like starting up a club. It will be interesting to see what grows out of this simple lesson.

I am curious to hear from you how you worked this year's election into your teachings?

Listening to the little voices in your classroom

This year our district is focusing on capturing student voice as it relates to education and the work we do. We are looking at how we can use student voice to design more engaging work for students. We I say engaging work I am not just talking about work that is fun and exciting but work that truly captivates students interest, whether it be hard or easy, and forces them to think and persevere. This definition is part of the work Phil Schlechty has done on school reform. This year I have stepped out on a limb when it comes to student voice in allowing them to have a say on how I changed my curriculum.

Last spring I surveyed my 6^th and 7^th grade technology students on what I was teaching and how I was doing as a teacher. I asked their thoughts on my teaching style, curriculum, and what their suggestions were for improvement. This is something I have done in years past but stepped away from for awhile as I worked through my administration program and grew my family. After looking at the surveys I found that there was a resounding need to retool my curriculum as students were bored with what they were doing. For the most part their suggestions were the typical ones of "don't talk so much", "We need more work time", "You are such an awesome teacher", "Why can't we play games"; But others were more insightful like "I want to do animations", or "why do we don't video". Now I didn't base my curriculum changes solely on what the students said but I looked at what they were doing both in my class on current projects I was having them do as well as what they were doing outside of class during their free time. What they were doing in my class as well as during their free time mirrored what they were asking for. So using that small bit of data I retooled my curriculum to fit with what they were asking/showing they wanted/needed.

To this end I am incorporating the use of typing games to teach basic typing skills and reigning in the amount I talk by showing kids free online training exercises on the programs we use (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/default.aspx), showing them how to use the help features included on the programs they use, as well as seek out classmates with the expertise they need (thereby reducing my talking in class). I will be honest to say it is rather hard to make these changes and I am not having all the success that I had hoped for but I am seeing some positive results and much more satisfied students. The one major success story I have had is with the use of Digital Stories.

In my tech 2 class I am having students create a digital story on social issues facing 10 to 13 year olds today. For this project students have had to: write a contract, think about resources needed (training and physical), write a story board, give a pitch on their idea, and edit their pictures. Now I am sure I am not doing this in the official digital story telling way but the point is that students have and are doing a lot of work to get their story done before the deadline of 10/31. It is interesting to watch them work on these stories and go through the process of creating their story. Some straight through the period while others work for a little bit then take a couple of minutes to chat with friends but the work gets done. The conversations are even more enlightening as they are talking not only about what is going on in school and in their lives but also about the project. They bounce ideas off of each other, they ask for help intertwined with conversations about math tests, boyfriends, etc. It is amazing to watch this take place and I can't wait for the end result.

To Tech or Not to Tech

Welcome back to school for most everyone if not everyone. I am officially one week in to the New Year and looking forward to another high energy year with high energy students. It is always nice to come back and see all the bright, eager, young faces ready to learn. I was fortunate this year to run part of our annual staff retreat where we prepare for the upcoming year and develop our focus for the year. This year we are focusing on student voice as a way to foster engagement in students.

My presentation and activity centered around the research of Marc Prensky, Daniel Pink, and others, that say we should be including students in lesson planning as well as activity design. As a staff we focused on looking at not only who our client is but how they learn best, what are their needs when it comes to effective teaching. The outcome of the activity was fascinating to say the least. Teacher groups identified characteristics of our students and then watched the video "Our Future". They then talked about and recorded effective and engaging teaching strategies for middle level learners. The reactions to the video were priceless and well worth the time spent. The reaction of some of our more veteran staff was that the video was good but it went too fast and they wanted to see it again to get what they missed (frustration level of learning). Our younger teachers thought the video was right on in length and speed and message. They were able to pick up on the more salient points. Those of us who are tweener teachers (7 to 15 years) identified with both the opinions of the younger and veteran staff. My challenge to all, especially our veteran staff, was to think of this from the student point of view. Thank about the activity and teaching they are doing and how their students are feeling as they sit in the seats in their classrooms. The end goal of this activity is to hold some focus groups of students and have them check over our work and give us some feedback on how we did. They share this feedback with staff and use it to direct professional development and curriculum development throughout the year and beyond.

As I move along the journey of incorporating student voice in the shaping of professional development I read a post and video on the following blog (By The Way). In the video students share phrases on their laptops about learning and how they learn best and the message is quite clear, Tech is it. They make no bones about hating learning through worksheets, reading chapters and answering questions at the end. They want/crave problem solving and working together in teams using technology as their paper and pencil. After viewing the video I found myself asking the question "What about those teachers who insist on worksheets and paper and pencil activities?" I have talked with these teachers about incorporating technology or at the very least having my more tech savvy students create self correcting online worksheets all too little or no avail. They cite study after study that say students learn best when they write it out, put pencil to paper, etc. The funny thing is that most of the kids I have talked to about these teachers really love them. It says a lot about their teaching style and how they interact with the kids, so they are doing something right, they are making learning fun. However my question still remains "How do I engage these teachers to look at integrating technology into their paper and pencil world?"

Year Round Schooling

This posting may be a repeat but it is an issue I am starting to feel stronger and stronger about, Year round schooling. Yes, yes, yes I know how dare I mention this. I have heard the arguments about kids need time off to work in the fields or family business (and yes I know I am contradicting myself but hear me out), to explore alternatives to traditional schooling, go on the family vacation (or staycation), etc. Yes we need to take these things into account when we talk about year round schooling but we also need to look at what research says about learning and retention with long breaks in schooling.

In many states year round schooling is already going on with some degree of success (http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin137.shtml). There are also studies out there that claim mixed or even negative results of year round schooling, however in a cursory search using Google most of the articles I found were by organizations supporting summer vacation. The one telling article I found on ERIC (http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED399661&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED399661) found that if Year Round Schooling is "…carefully planned and implemented…" it had "…high levels of satisfaction for all stake holder groups." To me this says a lot about the direction we should be headed in education.

Now don't get me wrong, as a teacher I do enjoy the time off that I get (after all it is one of the hidden benefits of my job). Although I do get burned out on breaks especially summer vacation. By about mid July I am ready to head back to work as I have finished most of my honey do list, and/or other projects that need my attention. As a new parent I am learning the benefits of year round schooling from my daughter's day care. They offer a year round program for the younger kids (toddlers) and some type of summer program for the older kids (pre-kindergarten and kindergarten) albeit at a reduced day. She has been in this school for a year and a half now and I am seeing great strides in her learning. Now some of you may be thinking what am I doing with a 2 year old in school over the summer. Why am I not taking time to be with my daughter and enjoy the lazy days of summer playing and exploring the world with her. To you I say I am. So far this summer we have gone to the Aquarium, Fishing, the Pacific Science Center, the Oregon Coast, Geocaching, and numerous other activities. But on the days she goes to school her mother and I are able to work on home projects (landscaping, remodeling) and a small business (my wife) as well as take care of our two 9 month old twins. Without a year round school for our 2 year old we would be going bat crazy by now not to mention having a failing business. It has allowed us to be flexible and the type of year round school I would like to see is a flexible one as well.

I have read about two main ways of scheduling year round schooling, one being the "single track scheduling" where all students are on the same track with the same vacation schedule and the other being "multi-track scheduling" with various tracks for students and teachers and both have their pluses and minuses. Of the two I think single track is the most workable and the one that fits my view of year round school, although the multi-tracking system certainly is appealing from a cost saving point of view. My idea hopefully takes all stake holders accounts in to consideration. I would like to see us move to a university type system.

In the university system you have, for the most part, 4 quarters of schooling, fall, winter, spring, summer with the most heavily attended being the first 3. Most students take the summer off to work, vacation, relax, etc. but there are those that do take summer classes for various reasons. Some want to finish early, some are looking for enrichment or remediation and therein lies the key to my plan for year round schooling. In this day and age of budget cuts, high stakes testing, accountability, and program cuts. Year round schooling offers a viable solution for everyone.

With the university model of year round schooling you have the major areas of academic study (math, reading, writing) be mandatory but also sprinkle in some of what I will call the enrichment type courses (shop, art, music, etc.) but the focus is on the basics. Over the summer quarter you offer remediation and enrichment type courses. By having a semi-optional summer quarter you are giving parents a place for their kids to go, you open up your academic offerings for students, and you give teachers the ability to teach more and time off for those that want it. Not everyone would have to or need to attend the summer quarter only those that wanted to or needed too hence the semi-optional. For those students in need of remediation they would need to attend over the summer to boost their skills, unless they could show evidence of work towards improving skills areas needing remediation.

But what about vacations I am hearing some of you say. Well you would get more vacation throughout the year during the quarter changes. There would be 4 natural breaks around each quarter. How much time for each break would need to be hammered out but should be no longer than one month at a time to minimize academic loss.

I welcome your thoughts and comments on this post as always. I know there are a lot things I haven't considered and I would love to hear from you about those things.

Blogging: The New Professional Development

In reading a recent post on edutopia (www.edutopia.org) today by Anthony Cody I was struck with an idea for simple yet effective professional development. In reading the reply to his posting on advocating for education by Bill Ferriter my idea started to take shape. Bill mentioned that he tries to read and respond to three educational blogs/postings a day. In doing this he mentions that he is able to stay up on current research, seeing other points of view, and sharing his point of view on topics. I believe this is not only at the heart of education but is essential to keeping education alive today. I also believe it can help educators meet if not exceed their needs for professional development.

In this day and age of NCLB and high qualified we as teachers need to be on the top of our game when it comes to our knowledge about our subject area. You may say what you will about NCLB and highly qualified and the nightmare it creates and I would support you on that; however I think there is a good side to it as well. What I think is a good idea is for us as educators to stay current on what is going on in our field whether that is instructional strategies, new research, new books, and/or new technology. That can be very hard given with trying to minimize days out of the classroom, shrinking budgets, lack of time in the day, etc. The traditional ways one can get information on current research are reading books or journals, attending in-building/district level professional development, attending classes or attending local, regional, and/or national conferences. All of these can be time consuming and in some cases expensive and in the case of reading no way of getting credit unless it is part of a class. For the later three one can apply for educational credit that can be helpful in moving them along a salary schedule, but often times these classes or conferences cost big bucks on top of the cost for credit. This is where blogging can come in handy.

Blogging is a great and inexpensive way to conduct professional development in the area of current research. It has all the elements of classes and/or conferences without the costs associated. You have experts in the field sharing their knowledge and/or research in a targeted forum (similar to a class on a specific topic). You have a somewhat captive audience participating engaged in an ongoing discussion of the topic as well as a recorded record of the discussion that one can refer back to. The only thing you have missing is the large entity asking for your money and giving you a grade. I can hear the skeptics out there crying hold on a minute you can't give credit for blogging. How will we know they are participating in the blog? How do we know if the blog they are participating in is credible? How do we assess what participants have learned? How do we account for everything? These are good questions posed by the skeptics but are answerable using the current system we have in place for recognizing classes and conferences. If teachers are participating in a blog, and they must for it to be effective, their posts are recorded. Districts can work with unions to develop criteria for which educators get credit for participation. In regards to the quality of information in a blog the moderators and bloggers are pretty good at policing inappropriate/inaccurate information. Districts in most cases have lists of organizations that they recognize as valid education/professional development providers. Why not add entities or individuals that maintain a credible blogs to this list? In the area of assessing what is learned you need to look no further than the classroom, staff meeting, lunch room, department/grade level meeting. One thing I have learned about educators is that when they have learned something good or that works they can't wait to share it. If they are sharing it with other educators and/or using it with their students then you can see that they have learned something. Yes this is anecdotal and subjective measurement but some of the best learning is measured in this way. I also am hearing all you teachers out there saying when will we have time to do all this. I would answer this by saying it is your choice to participate or not but if you are getting credit for participating why wouldn't you? I was a skeptic on blogging when it first came out. I thought it was just a fad that would come and go, I also thought that it was just another form of chatting online and that may have been what it started out as but it has morphed into a way of cataloging and sharing knowledge in real time. I have been blogging for going on 2 years now and I can say that I am convinced it is here to stay.

I am curious to hear your thoughts on this idea of allowing blogging as a form of professional development. If you and/or your district are doing this what can you share on how it is going?

Summer Vacation in the Era of NCLB

As no doubt most of us are enjoying summer vacation an interesting question was posed at our school the last few weeks of school. The question centered around what to post on our website in the way of resources/activities for students to do over the summer. It sparked some interesting debate between all of my colleagues. All were in agreement that students lose some of what they have learned over the long break. Where we differed is in what if anything we give them to do over the summer.

There was a lot of debate on what children needed over the summer to help them retain their learning. One camp said we needed to encourage basic reading skills in the area of novels. Another camp said students needed to be able to relax and do more free form learning in the form of enrichment type activities. Yet another camp wanted internet resources parents could go to if they wanted something for their kids to do to stay academically sharp. As you can imagine each had their research to back up their claim, but the one thing that was said that I think rang true the most was the individual(s) who stated that not all children are the same and need the same things in the way of instruction. There are those kids who need a little bit more academic support to stay at grade level over the summer, and there are those that need more enrichment type activities to stay at grade level and keep them interested in school. I believe that sometimes we get so caught up in NCLB, worrying about performance pay, being compared to other schools in an apples to bolts kind of way that we forget who we are dealing with, individual kids. In the Era of NLCB and education reform we often times get so caught up with looking at groups of students and what they need or don't need that we forget about the individual students unless they are below grade level. Summer time would be a great time to encourage some individualized instruction whether it be in the form of summer school or resources for parents, summer work packets, reading lists, etc.

One idea would be to take advantage of the family vacation as an enriching opportunity. In the fall often times we ask kids to report out on what they did over summer vacation as an entry task, why not reverse this and ask them what they are going to be doing over the summer. By knowing what they might be doing over the summer we could tailor some enrichment activities for parents to work on with their kids. These don't have to be anything snazzy or sophisticated just something to engage students while on a trip. This would help us make education come alive for a lot of kids which is often times hard to do in a classroom. How cool would it be to have a student going to Boston for the summer grab some digital pictures of historical sites, or have a custom tour designed for them based on their social studies text or lessons? What about the student going camping to Devil's tower? They could examine first hand some of the geology that created the tower. The possibilities are endless

Now I know that some of you would say this would take tons of time that we don't already have or have allocated to other more important things. Well I would say what about the parents who don't have the time or ability/access to the resources we have as teachers? In a lot of the texts we use or the websites we use for research there is enrichment type activities that are often time tailored for this kind of activity. Just some simple tweaks here and there and it is ready to go out with the report card or final grade. It may take us some time but I believe it would be time well invested.

Education Funding

One thing that really gets my stomach in a knot is that state of education funding in my state (Washington). The district I am currently working in is facing some pretty steep budget cuts as are many other districts in our state. By no means is this a rant against my district as I feel they are doing and have done an admirable job of keeping these cuts away from the classroom. This is more a rant against those out there who can't seem to figure out how to properly fund education.

I am by no means and expert on the fiscal policies and procedures of the State of Washington, but I do have some observations to make and hope to receive comments or corrections on. Our education system is funded through various taxes and lottery earnings which go into the states general fund and sent out to the various districts in the state based on a student formula. This coupled with local property tax levies are the main ways schools are funded in our state. One thing both voters and legislators can agree in is that the system is not fully funding educations needs but that is where the agreement ends. On the one side you have voters who are feeling over burdened with a multitude of taxes and on the other side you have the legislators who are busy fighting over various issues ranging from transportation, to the environment, to security, and to education. They all have their own opinions on how to solve the education problems of our state. They range from moving away from public education to charter or private schools, to reforming schools to be more business like, to home schooling, to various other reforms. The two things they all have in common is that they all have their "experts" they cite as to why they will work better than what we currently have. The second thing they have in common (for the most part)is that they leave out the opinion of the real experts in the field, the teachers. I know some of you will tell me that educators are consulted and I would agree that educators are consulted but who are these educators? Are they actual teachers or are they people who work in the field of education such as front office people, administrators, district budget personnel? I agree that we need to talk with these people but we also need to talk with actual teachers as well so we get all sides of the story.

There are currently some really bad plans out there to solve the funding of education. You have one plan to privatize education and make it a for profit company that runs the school. Where should I start on why this is a bad idea? I will simply say that a school is not nor will it ever be a good for profit business. Another idea is that districts and schools need to be more business like in that they need to offer up incentives for those who turn out the best students, the good old corporate mentality. This sounds good on the outside but as you dig deeper into the practice it could make things pretty ugly. You can't apply a for profit corporate business model to an industry that deals with human nature. The mind is not a blank slate that you can imprint knowledge on like a circuit board. It is a plastic entity that is ever changing and responding to its environment in unpredictable ways. This plan would send education back to the dark ages of having teachers shut themselves in their classroom and not share out ideas for fear of losing their "bonus". You have charter schools which is a melding of private and public which can be a good thing but you need to make sure that they don't take us back to education before Brown vs. The Board of Education.

I am not one to gripe about something and not offer up a solution as well. I will be the first to admit that my solution may not be the most wise or perfect solution and there could be better ones out there but I will say that it comes from a certified teacher who is in the trenches day in and day out. Currently we have a system where states are responsible for funding public education and I say it should stay that way as different states have different needs. However it needs to a priority for states to fully fund education from a separate account outside of the general budget. This would give legislators the ability to separate out cuts on frivolous spending and necessary spending. It would also make sure that money that is meant to be spent on education is spent on education and not diverted elsewhere. The other part would be to fully fund mandates. Currently there are several unfunded mandates that are diverting resources from non-mandated areas. By requiring a funding requirement to every mandate it will reduce the number of mandates to those that are very important to have. With a reduced number of unfunded mandates money will be able to flow down to where it needs to be.

I know my solutions may seem simple and from a naive point of view. My intent is to stimulate some conversation around the issue with the hope that it will end up in the hands of those who are making decisions on how to fund education.