Where Do You Stand?

Read a brilliant article,  http://cloakinginequity.com/2013/09/27/taylor-v-dewey-the-100-year-trickle-down-vs-pedagogical-debatefight-in-education-reform/.

It is a somewhat satirical, but very serious piece about education reform, that got me thinking about conflicting philosophies, behaviors, and leadership in general. On the one hand, there are imposed standards, uniformity, codes, and control. On the other hand, there is thinking and respect for the individual. Both have education and student success as the goal. 

In organizations, such as unions, there should be unity of purpose, even though some may have problems with the managerial aspects. How does one decide what is right, what is pono? In the classroom, though I want to maintain control, I can appreciate when students call me on inconsistencies, even though it unsettles me, and few students have the gumption to do so. I try to provide a safe environment for them to tell me anything and I hope that I do. I try to make corrections based on the feedback I get from my students, either in their communication to me,  in their work, from feedback from colleagues, or upon my own self-reflection. 

For me, it's about consistency, honesty, and relationships. But I can only strive to be honest with myself and my core beliefs. I can not make others agree with me, but I want to be able to identify what the core belief is. If there is no way to agree on that core belief, then we need to just respect each other and honor this diversity of thought, peacefully and respectfully. I guess the idealist in me believes that the bottom line is, we are all one human family, and that there are very few exceptions of embodied evil. 

For example, in politics, I am a liberal and a Democrat. But I am disappointed in my party, and especially in my president's education policies, as well as other policies, such as drones, and too much cooperation with the 1%. I am disappointed in the National Education Association's support of the Common Core. I am disappointed that the largest union in the country has not been strong enough to fight the massive attacks on public education. I am disappointed because my party's and my union's stands are in conflict with my core beliefs, that liberals should be more compassionate, more about caring for the common good, more about addressing inequity and injustice, and less about serving the corporate machine, which is what the so-called education reformers are doing. 

In this crazy, mixed-up world, how can you be at peace? You have to stand up and speak up. You don't have to be mean and nasty, but you can stand up and say to people who want to bully you into compliance, this is not right. We must all do what we can to maintain consistency and authenticity with our values, and what is being demanded of us, even if it is not signing something that we don't believe is appropriate. Every time we give in, we diminish ourselves. When we diminish ourselves, we do not serve our students, and on a spiritual level, we do not serve our souls. 

Inspired and Energized by GLADness

How many teachers say this? "I'm glad I went to GLAD training." I earlier asked to decline the training because of the amount of time I would be out of the classroom. The first two-day introduction training was held last week and there will be another 4-day in December. My principal said that I was required to go, and that the trainings and the substitutes were funded by the state. So I went, leaving my students with a new, untried substitute, hoping this disruption would be worth the disruption of not being in the classroom. 

It was. This one, I like. This one, I don't put on my list of onerous mandates. Out of all the mandates being placed on us, this one seems to come from a good place - a place of respect for teachers and true concern for student learning and engagement. 

GLAD stands for Guided Language Acquisition Design and comes from Orange County, California. It was developed out of research-based practices of what works for English Language Learners, which turns out to be strategies that are appropriate for all students, in some way or another. One of our trainers was a real classroom teacher, who works in a year-round school, and on break. The other trainer also honed her skills in the classroom, but has moved on to higher education. Whatever the recipe for the training, I came away inspired and energized. 

It is not new nor ground-breaking, but it is new in today's context of high-stakes testing. The training reminds me of the time before No Child Left Behind and even before the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards. There was a time when we were told that social-emotional development was all-important. We had trainings on Spencer Kagan's Cooperative Learning strategies (I even had a job for a short time, training teachers on those strategies), and schools statewide were adopting the TRIBES program. I loved that time. 

         When I first took college courses in education at the University of Guam many years ago, when my now 30-year old daughter was a toddler, we were all about developing integrated cross-content units. I loved that time. It matched the way my mind works, needing context and connections in order to make sense of learning and teaching. It turns out, according to research, most minds work this way. 

So what I experienced with GLAD was like coming home. It was a refreshing validation of my core beliefs about teaching and learning. Though the research is not new, if this is the direction we are expected to take, it is a new chapter. If we only did this in our efforts to transform education, we would be doing a lot. Having been inspired and validated, the ideas are at the forefront of my mind when I plan or face blank looks of my students when I ask them a question. Instead of calling out names, I now more automatically say, "heads together." 

On Friday afternoon, it was hot, and the natives were restless. I looked around the room, with about 20 minutes left, and wondered if I should try to teach another math lesson. The answer was no, and luckily I had written a song, inspired by the training, about a science concept we have been studying. I quickly wrote it on my Promethean board, and we sang. What a great way to end a hot, restless, Friday afternoon.

Knowing that these strategies are encouraged, helps me to be the teacher I want to be. 

Is Unrest Brewing? Is it just me?

This past week's faculty meeting / EES (educator evaluation system ) training may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, or the spark needed to light the bonfire, or the tax on tea. I hope you get the idea. It's been piling on and piling on. And we are now feeling the weight of it. It's not that everything is so bad, it's that there is so much of it. And, like a box of chocolates, if you eat it all at once, you will be sick to your stomach. 

          So, though I am no longer on the Board of Directors of the state teachers union, I  find myself drawn into teacher advocacy, not from a union point of view, but from a teacher point of view. 

The latest training had to do with the Tripod Student Survey, which I had written about earlier on this blog. This past week, we were given a schedule in which we were assigned to "proctor" the survey for other teachers' students, for each other's students. There were many concerns brought up, having to do with special education students, and English Language Learner students, losing instructional time for this, and confidentiality concerns. 

My biggest concern is that we are being asked to do this, to play a part in carrying out this survey, that no one who I know really wants.  When we ratified, we agreed to the Joint Committee of HSTA and DOE, who finalized the parameters of this new evaluation system in the summer. That was a total leap of faith. I am not sure that the current form of the system really was an equal collaboration, or if it was a sell-out, a result of being bullied into it, a result of them getting their way, after all, as laid out by the Race to the Top application. 

I want to believe the Joint Committee did fight and will fight for us. I have written to several people I know are on the Joint Committee, and one staff person has graciously responded to me. I expressed to him my concern about the fact that we are being asked to proctor each other's students. One of our members, a counselor, was even asked to make the schedule. I asked if the Joint Committee had agreed to proctor each other's surveys. He said no. I suggested that there should be a cease and desist order to stop the employer from requiring us to do this. He did not respond to that. I told him that unrest was brewing and he asked me to explain what I meant by that.

Here's what I mean: the heavy lift of this new system is causing a lot of anxiety and stress. It will soon turn to anger if they believe that the union is either party to this mess, or not fighting for them. The Tripod survey is not the only thing that is feeding the fire, it is one of many incendiaries.      Those of us who are in tested grades will have 25% of our evaluation based on student test scores. But because it's growth rather than a cut score, it's supposed to be fair. I know my students grow in the time I have them, but now I find out student growth is in comparison to other students "like them," whatever that means. If they found a way to compare students who are not fluent in English, who live in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 families, whose parents work 2 jobs, who are cared for by grandparents, whose parents have rough marriages and eventual divorces, then wow, what a tool they have. But if you are comparing us to Asian/Pacific islanders in other more stable communities, then it's definitely not fair. 

We also have new standards (Common Core - CC) and a new curriculum, so there is the stress and learning curve associated with that. I will keep writing about my experiences with the common core. I have only touched the surface. For now, suffice it to say, I am skeptical that it is going to "transform" education; it has not been field-tested, and there are a lot of inconsistencies, not to mention departures from common sense and tested, professional practices. A lot of spin is circulating, disappointingly from our parent union, the National Education Association, who got big bucks from the Gates Foundation to promote it. 

Then there's the Student Learning Objectives, which gives a way for all teachers to be evaluated, not just the teachers of the tested grades. And is it simple, like IEPs for Special Education teachers, or basic goals, p like ability to do multi-digit multiplication and division. No, it has to have Big Ideas, and Higher Order Thinking, and all kinds of bells and whistles that will take time to develop and document. I am a big lover of Big Ideas and Higher Order Thinking. I think big and high all the time. Like I said, what we are going through is not all bad, it's just too much.

Then there's the issue of equity, why is it fair that my evaluation has a test score component and a kindergarten or computer teacher doesn't? I don't want them to, but I want what they have. I want to set my own goals, to work on my own portfolio, include things in it that are evidences of my professionalism, that I have control over. I don't think it's fair that we are weighted differently. 

Then there is the PDE3. Again, not a bad tool, but more on our plate to learn to navigate this online portfolio to which we are responsible to input all this data regarding our evaluation. 

Oh, and the there's the observation, which I haven't done yet, but is coming up shortly. I have seen my colleagues, who are good teachers, agonize before and after the observation, trying to fill out those online forms. The main complaint is the "paper" work (online forms). Teachers are not afraid of being observed if the observer is fair and trustworthy. So the observation itself is not a problem, but the unintended consequences, like agonizing over the questions for the pre-conference, and the lost instructional time when out of the classroom for the pre and post observation conferences, which are now to be done twice a year. 

The main effect of all of this is what is lost to our students. There is lost instructional time for tests, for the surveys, for observation conferences. There is lost planning time in the amount of documentation that we will have to keep up with. There is stress and anxiety over the weight of this that does not make us better teachers but feeds the bureaucracy.  

I am not afraid of evaluation. I love chocolate, but I can't eat the whole box in one sitting. What I am voicing is a human dilemma. There comes a point, like on a hot Friday afternoon, that you know you can not try to teach a lesson on solving story problems and instead you have to sing. Even brain research teaches us about the need for time to consolidate learning. Too much is too much. 

The teachers at my school want to do a petition drive and letter-writing campaign. They want their voices heard and want to know if the union is going to help. I sent a few letters, but if I'm the only one speaking, they will not listen to me. We need thousands of voices, thousands of emails. Is it just me? Is it just my school? I don't think so. Please give your input when asked and even when not asked. Sign petitions. Write letters. Share your thoughts and feelings. Send them to Rhanda Vickery, a teacher at Waikoloa School and on the Educator Effectiveness System Advisory Committee (lotus), your Uniserv directors, your chapter presidents, and Wil Okabe (wokabe@hsta.org). The focus for now is making sure HSTA hears us. 

Union Celebrations, Sibling Stories, and Honoring Non-tested Brilliance

Today I spent the day at the Big Island Labor Alliance Celebration of Labor held in Kona this year. It was a wonderful event organized by the labor unions for their families affiliated with the AFL-CIO, to which HSTA just became an affiliate.  The entertainment, Da Bradahs and some local bands, was awesome - kept you smiling and laughing and in a good mood all day. We all supported the Westside Eagles, a pop warner football team, for which a few of my students and former students play. The team sold plate lunches (Ono-licious pork and peas and smoked meat and cabbage) for a fund raiser and the unions bought plate lunches for their members who came. It was great to see several of my students and former students and their parents in such a relaxing environment. 

One of the activities run by Da Bradahs was for the kids to do a Simon Says game, which had a twist - if they laughed they were out. Difficult to not laugh at these funny comedians. There was a boy winner and a girl winner. A student that I have now ( a very good student by the way)  got to second place for the girls. A student that I had a couple of years ago, her brother, and a football player, (and not great academically) got to first place for the boys. That was a victory in itself. They were so focused and would not be tricked! Now that takes smarts and control. But on top of that,  there was a dance off, the DJ played all kinds of songs, from all different ethnicities and styles- Korean gangham, hula, Samoan, the Filipino duck dance, hip hop. The kids had to react quickly and dance to that style. This boy, was so good. I must say, he was brilliant. I love when I see kids who don't test well, who don't get good grades, who don't much like traditional schooling, but they shine in other ways. I love it, I love it. It only makes me more committed to be part of the recognition and facilitation of ALL kinds of brilliance. That's the kind of teacher I want to be. 

My Good Idea - littleBits

         On the first Saturday of the summer, the day after the last day of school, I was watching The Next List, hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, on CNN. The show tells about innovators in all kinds of fields, doing interesting things. This show featured a woman, Ayah Bdeir, a designer-engineer, who wanted to make building blocks for the 21st century, like Legos were for the 20th century. I also remember seeing her on a Ted Talk. These building blocks, called little Bits, are electronic modules that can be combined to cause different outputs, like light, motion, or sound. 

When I saw this show on The Next List, I knew that my students, particularly this group with challenging behavior issues, would love these materials. In the last month of school, I did more science than I had the whole year. I am not proud of this, as I chose to be a math science specialist because I love science. But it just happens - math is emphasized, science is not. Our school culture is test-score driven. However, that one month was a good one. I wrote about it in a blog piece at the end of the year. (dianehsta@blogspot.com) I did a simple activity in which I gave them a battery, a light bulb and wires, with holders for the battery and bulb, and they were to turn the light bulb on. It was such an engaging activity, with the leaders being the students who do not typically do well on tests and traditional school work.

        I knew about the Good Idea grants, offered by the Public Schools of Hawaii Foundation, and administered by the Hawaii State Teachers Association. I worked on the grant immediately, knowing I would be traveling all summer. In my grant application, I wrote that "my goal for teaching is that students have a sense of empowerment, that they can have an idea, and make it come to life." The students will be using the littleBits to create a "machine" of some kind at the same time learning about energy and energy transfer through magnets. But more importantly, they will be activating their imaginations, and making their ideas come to life. 

One of the parts of the grant application was "Curricular Need for Projects to Develop Innovation-Thinking."  Here is what I wrote: "The focus of education in the world of No Child Left Behind and now Race to the Top has been high-stakes testing. Lots of money has been spent on new math curriculum that is aligned with Common Core math standards. The mainstream focus on testing and standards does NOT lead to innovation and empowering children to have creative ideas and make them come to life. It is a struggle to go against the test-focused high tide, but I do what I can - swimming with the sharks, treading water, and in cases like this, making a life raft by doing hands-on projects. I believe that when they see what the students can create and contribute, I will gain support from administrators, colleagues, and parents, to support a more hands-on, student-centered, innovation-promoting education."

And that's not just fancy words to get a grant. I mean it. But it worked. I got the grant! 

From the website:

Hopefully, my students will be making creations like these.

Framing Change

This past week, we had our first Professional Learning Community of the year. At our school, we call them WOWs (working on the work), which is a pretty kid-friendly way to communicate to our students why teachers have this time every other week to meet. While we are meeting, the students have other classes, like PE, Hawaiian Studies, or guidance. 

A representative from our restructuring provider led our first WOW, was asked by our principal to explain the concept of Data Teams, which we have been doing for at least 2 years already. She framed it by saying that education is changing from a deficit model, which goes that students came to us with deficits, that our job was to teach and if they didn't learn, there wasn't much we could do about it. The change is away from that model into one where we believe that all students can learn and it is our responsibility to make that happen. I had never heard of that "deficit model." In my snarky way, I said to the group, I don't remember ever taking a class in Deficit Model 101.  

It struck me as a misleading frame, especially because we have been saying "all students can learn," as a frame since I entered teaching almost thirty years ago. As a model, it has been around a long time.  I guess her point was that we may say we believe that, but do we truly act on that belief? Perhaps her implied point was that if we truly believed it, we would have better results. And since our school's test scores (and yours in particular, the paranoid voices in my head say) are so unimpressive, maybe we do give up on the students, that we don't take responsibility for their learning, that we blame their test scores on their deficits. 

Perhaps there are teachers who would just rather teach subjects rather than students, and who don't think that all students can learn, but I don't know any. Most teachers make it their business to try to make an impact on their students, they want students to learn, they agonize over slow progress and all the obstacles in the way of that progress, and they keep trying because they do believe that all students can learn. They may not make it to grade level attainment, but if they come to you two or three years below grade level, and they progress a year or even two years beyond that, they did learn, but it would not show up in standardized testing. 

But yes, education is changing,  locally and nationally. We have almost national standards. We have a completely new teacher evaluation system based on federal guidelines via the Race to the Top competition. These are huge. But it has nothing to do with changing the belief that "all students can learn."

It is all experimental, both the Common Core and our Educator Evaluation System. We don't know if it will be good for education or not. However, we can make predictions based our background knowledge, our lived experience. Standards are great as a guide and to articulate ideals, but they don't improve the quality of education. Instead, they have a tendency to take you away from focusing on children as individuals. High stakes testing makes things worse, whether it is a growth model or a cut score model. Losing valuable class time to all sorts of things related to these changes - from mandated trainings, to student surveys, to pre and post observation meetings, to testing - may do more harm than good.  

I am not resistant to change. But not all change is inherently good. Change should not be the focus, being student-centered should be.  I will do my part in the year or two that I have them (I loop with my class, generally for two years) to help them to improve their math skills, to ignite their curiosity about science, to sharpen their thinking skills, to learn the content, to help them to be better communicators and problem-solvers, to encourage them to be good citizens, to cultivate confidence in their ability to learn, to guide them to know their strengths and to strengthen their weaknesses. 

I know I have room for change and growth. Lots. But I want to change and grow into my ideals as stated above.  I hope I will not be hindered by the powers that be, or by the need to focus on Data, the point of the meeting presentation. I want to be a teacher on fire. A call for data and false frames won't help me to be that teacher. What will? Truth. Authenticity. Respect.