"It's a Sin to Waste Teacher's Time"

     

Tanny's other book is Comprehension Connections

     You know it will be a good inservice when the presenter starts with that rule!  And trust me, she DID NOT waste my time!  Tanny McGregor was worth the entire time I put in watching her!  Let me tell you a little about who she is and what she shared!

      Tanny McGregor is a Heinemann author who was invited to my district by our AWESOME representatives, Trudy and Nancy!  And, to make it even better, it was a FREE event for us!  She is a keynote speaker and workshop presenter who focuses on metacognition!  I have been a firm believer in metacognition for about 15 years now.  I've read Mosaic of Thought and been a fan of Strategies that Work!  I was totally into the idea of seeing this presentation and it was worth every moment of my time!  

      Her presentation was entitled "The Transforming Power of Reflective Thinking", another thing I've really renewed my interest in since reading Learn Like a Pirate! The nice thing about Tanny's presentation is she focused on the THINKING aspects of reflecting. Teaching this skill is key to developing the comprehension of our students in ANY area!  She shared an example from recent research by Hattie and Marzano.  John Hattie's research says that metacognition is the 14th most important strategy to improve students learning out of 138 strategies!  That's a good place to be!  In Marzano's research, he calls metacognition the "mission control" of learning!  Tanny says it makes the student more "brilliant" than others.  Not the self-named brilliant, but the shining, thinking, wonderful brilliant that we want our students to be!  I like that!!  

       She also talked a bit about what kills our ability to really teach metacognition-mandates, strict standards, expectations, kids schedules that are filled with "other", and TIME!  All of these things rob us of what we used to do naturally in a classroom, which used to make the kids think deeply and "brilliantly" because we could take that time.  This was my last year.  I felt robbed by all of these things, robbed from teaching my students what they needed.  I promised myself this year that it wouldn't happen-and I'm keeping that promise!  Even more so now that I've heard it from Tanny! 

       She also reminded us to carefully examine our texts before teaching.  Do you remember a time where you felt like you can do that?  That you could really plan out materials and create those awesome lessons that lasted long enough to get good thinking!  She reminded us to do that because if not, you, the teacher are missing connections you can't get back!  The first read of a text is so important!  That's where you make the discoveries that you teach from, that you build from!  We need to slow down, just like the students do, not just in teaching, but in our planning.  I was so happy to hear her point this out-it's what I've been doing this year, slowing down.  I've also been doing her next point-Make it your own!  Take time, as a teacher, to create a system that works for you.  Use the spaces in your manuals, (which, I hate) the WHITE SPACES as my own! She recommends that students come up with their own coding systems, to make it their own and build their knowledge based on something they understand!  I say, let's take this back in our own planning, our own learning, our own classrooms and build thinking, brilliant students who do the same!  

       The final thoughts I would like to share from this awesome inservice are research findings that are the most current.  Tanny shared that the two most important findings are:

1.  Deceleration trumps acceleration:  This doesn't mean slow down a novel to the point of boring.  It means slow down your reading and teaching.  We need to make our teaching and learning mindful about reflection on what we've read and learned.  This means we need to stop the rush of learning and step back into quality! Standards won't be mastered if students can't think!  Period!

2.  Spacing is more effective than cramming:  YES!  Little things matter, like turning and talking, drawing about their reading, and anything that makes them reflect!  Tanny clearly said, "STOP thinking, "If I have time..."  We need to make the time!  The gains students will make by thinking trump the cramming of curriculum down their throats!  The following statement pretty much sums it up, "It helps at our heart level!"  Because, you see, if you don't read and take it from their head to their heart (18" problem as she calls it!) you won't improve their comprehension!  

       So, let's step out and make a "conscious choice in our lesson plans" and stop cramming and spamming them with useless materials that aren't making it the 18" it needs to go!  And let's thank Tanny for the research behind this choice!  (Trudy and Nancy-we owe you so much for this opportunity too!  Thank you will never be enough!)

P.S.  I'm looking forward to diving into her information on Genre Connections!  So blessed to have WON it at the presentation because Heinemann ROCKS!

Going Where No Teacher Wants to Go!

Disclaimer:  This in no way reflects upon my beliefs about my school or the district I work in.  I know that our administrators at the school and district level are feeling all of this in similar ways. I'm sure that if they could, they would agree with many of these points and more!  This post is aimed at my feelings about the current government system that is in place across America that is dictating things from afar and doesn't understand the classroom setting at all!  All links connected to this post support points through other's stories and research.  Be sure to read through some of those links as well.

Photo from "Make A Wish" bulletin board at my school.  

It was written by a student.  Everything speaks!

       As I sit and face another year of blogging and working, I find myself stifled for topics.   This is not because I don’t have them; it is because they are blocked. Yes, I tell you-blocked-from my true desire to write, explain, and enjoy.  What is blocking them you may wonder? Writer’s block you may think!  No, it’s the realization of where this career as a teacher is going!  The realization of where our students are going.  The realization that there is no end, but the end, may be coming!  So, I’ve decided to take a stab at it, to expose the deeper frustrations that are robbing my thoughts and fingers of other things, of helpful things, to further the good things still left!  Here’s what I’ve go!

The Two Kinds of Crying

        I have spent more time crying over my job in the last two years than I have in the entire 21 years prior to this combined!  I’ve cried before-over kids, over decisions I couldn’t control, over saying goodbye and job changes, but NEVER like this before.   A good cry can do a lot to get someone over something, but these are not good tears.  As more and more pressures and bad decisions are passed down from the government to teachers, to children, the tears are different.  It is a deep, soul problem.  So deep that one doesn’t want to go there or they may never come back.  It is a mourning of our teaching souls, knowing that there is nothing that we can ultimately do to change what is occurring, but with a prayer and a hope that someone, anyone will step in to stop this madness!  We can see the damage being done to both students, but, more importantly, the children involved in this madness!  There is a difference in those two!  The worst part of this is that the madness comes from industry-an industry that is exploiting children in the same manner that many of the human trafficking industries are doing-for MONEY!  They don’t care what they are doing to them mentally!  Their pockets are filling, they are making changes on a constant basis to refresh that cash flow, they are winning!  Winning in the same way that other children are being exploited across the world, only more “safely”, more hidden in the corners where parents can’t see or don’t want to see!  Isn’t this exactly what happens in the rest of the world but only with far more serious results to the lives of children?  I know there is a difference; I know that human trafficking is far more serious-but why does my teaching heart mourn for my students in the same way!  Why does this violation of their learning lives hurt in the same manner?  Something that cannot be undone or fixed.  We are loosing a generation of learners right now to an industry that is bent on one thing-profiting from their loss!

         How do I know-tears!  Yes, this time it is from my students.  These tears are from students who are babies and should be learning to love reading for the joy of reading.  Instead, there are tears.  According to the standards, students MUST respond to their reading in deep ways and in complete sentences (usually with the restated question) in FIRST GRADE!  “What, you don’t know what it means?  You don’t know what is being asked?  Sorry for you!  YOU ARE UNDERPERFORMING!”  WHAT!!  What about learning to read, what about learning basic comprehension, what about the joy….instead, tears!  I haven’t had a week yet that there were not tears about work that we have to do!  Without going into detail, my school is full of students who “CAN”!  There is lots of documented evidence through state testing and more to prove that!  But our kids CAN’T!  They are struggling and trying their very bests-which brings tears!  Heart wrenching, “I’m a looser” tears!  Why, oh why, is this right!  These children are not losers, they are smart and witty and fun and loving and caring and thoughtful…yet the work is speaking to them more than anyone of us can!  And so there are tears, with words such as, “Why do we have to do this?”, “It is too hard" (something that I would never accept in the past-but now, it’s truth!), “This isn’t something I’ve learned!" (Which is true on testing pieces that are based on “their” learning ability, yet ask a 5^th or 6^th grade level question as the SECOND question in their assessment!), and “I’ve tried my best, I can’t answer it!”  These are all things I’ve heard out of students’ mouths.  The worst thing is, I’d never accepted any of these in the past.  But, we have reached the ridiculous!  Now I have to hug them, encourage them, support them, and know that I am also, in a way, lying to them.  I can’t keep them from tears and I can’t protect them anymore from what is beyond their reach.  It has come and it is inappropriate.  So there are lots of tears, over and over and over…

Lack of Parent Support

            Then there are the parents!  Oh, the parents you say, they don’t do anything, they can’t help, they allow their children to do anything they want, they don’t help! Well, this isn’t true at my school!  So, let’s go there!  I have parent volunteers that come in and help with students reading-the foundations, just read to me!  I am so blessed to have them and would never give them up!   But here is what happens over and over again, “I’m an engineer, and I don’t get this math!”  “What in the world are they trying to teach?” “I spent two hours on -line trying to figure this out and I have no clue!”, and “I used to teach but I don’t know where to go with this or even what the right answer is!”  We are not talking about common folk! We are talking about college educated, extremely intelligent people!  THEY CAN’T HELP THEIR CHILDREN LEARN!  That is a real dilemma!  Talk about robbing a generation! I can’t even blame them when they hand me the paper and say they just couldn’t do it!  I’m as frustrated as they are!  I know the basic principal behind the idea, but I’ve read research too!  When a professor says it’s a good “idea’ but there is no way kids are developmentally ready for this form of algebraic expression in elementary school, don’t you think we should listen!  Don’t you think we should pay attention to the EXPERTS and RESEARCH! 

Impossible Goals Set by Impossible People

            And that statement leads to the heading above!  Who in the world decided that high-stakes testing should determine what the Common Core looks like?  Because, here’s the deal!  At the basic level, there are a lot of good Common Core Standards.  But they are being destroyed by the companies like Pearson and the consortiums like PARCC, AIR and SMARTT that are creating the guiding tests that determine the level of instruction that is expected.  I’ve taught a long time and I’ve seen a gradual shift to harder and harder work being passed down from one grade to another!  For instance, when I first started teaching, basic multiplication was in third grade. Master it, introduce basic division, and an introduction of 2 by one digit multiplication with basic mastery.  Today, basic multiplication is an expected EXIT SKILL of 2^nd grade!  They have to have their facts mastered and understand how multiplication works before they leave 2^nd grade!  That is just one example of how bringing it down works.  But this is an attainable example.  Now let’s talk about how kids need to know the CENTRAL MESSAGE in first grade.  This amounts to THEME!  Why not call it what it is!  It is not the main idea (they built a garden together) it is the theme (they shared-the idea, the work, the product) in first grade. Think that through people-they are 6!!!!  This is an example of what I mean about sneaking things in that are harmful-give it a different name, cover it in a pretty wrapper, but you better know it.  After all, you are SIX YEARS OLD!  These “people” don’t know what they are doing, nor do they care!  That is the real problem! They are lawmakers (Jeb Bush included) who have never stepped a foot into a classroom.  They are business leaders, like Bill Gates, who think that schools are a business!  They think competition is the answer for teachers!  It is NOT the answer!  It is what is messing up kids of all ages!  I’ve heard stories from every age group!  This is not a business!  We are talking about flesh and blood!  Brains that are forming!  The latest research shows that we are harming kids brain development when we force kindergarteners to read!  And these people, legislators and business men, are supporting this!

Lack-o-Fun for ALL!

            This mess has lead to a lack of fun.  Yes, I know, what job is fun!  Well, when you used to love what you did and had fun doing it, it made it worth it.  Trust me, we aren’t doing this for the money, or the “accolades”!  We are doing it because it is our passion, our calling, and our fun!  We like to laugh with our students.  We like to explore and learn with them.  We discover things every day we don’t know because of our students.  We like challenges that are creative and interesting and, well, challenging!  We like to set goals and attain those goals.  We live for this stuff.  Well, the stuff isn’t what it was, it isn’t, well, fun!  The challenges now are because a child isn’t attaining mastery at 80%.  In other words, C students are now “in danger”.  In danger of what!  I know plenty of professionals with huge degrees that will tell you they were C students!  Why!  Lots of reasons!  I know plenty of adults that were A students who have done NOTHING with their lives!  It amounts to NOTHING in the end!  But to sit there and say a C is now a kid in danger!! Who thinks this stuff up!  If I weren’t living it, I wouldn’t believe it!  So this goes right back to my previous point-who is the creator of this impossible?  Who thought this 80% rule up!  It is in plenty of professional teaching texts and I am NOT a fan.  I shouldn’t be sweating and having heart palpitations because a student got a 70% on a Unit Assessment that is totally out of the reality of a first grader!  And I am not alone!  I know a teacher/parent who is having the same concern!  So, needless to say, the fun is gone!  The glow is gone!  The pressure and the out of hand expectations are killing this job and it will, mark my words, do the total opposite than the expected-NO ONE will want to teach, anywhere! 

Crushed Creativity-FOR REAL!

             So where does that leave creativity.  Isn’t that the goal of our government?  Create independent thinkers that will bring creativity back to the American people.  Well, I see this time in education as a creativity killer.  Since when, in first grade, is the use of crayons and coloring against the curriculum?  Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t my school or district.  I do, however, know a teacher who has been told this very thing by a district level worker.  They were told to put those crayons away!  No where in the first grade curriculum does it say they can color!  REALLY!  The thing is, if it is happening there, it will slowly trickle all the way through the entire state!  Then, to the national level!  Put those crayons away!  Paint, oh NO YOU DON’T!  Create-where, where in the curriculum is that???  Why, because they need to attain that 80% success rate to be anything in life!  Or worse, because your VAM counts on it!  So, kiss creativity away!  It is a lie being told to society today!  You can still spot it here or there, but it will soon dwindle away into a thing of the past-no more construction paper, crayons, or paint-you have work to do!

Can I Just Go On! 

            Oh, and then there is VAM!  Oh yes, the Value Added Model.  The thing that will spur every teacher to the highest pay level and eliminate the bad eggs!  Well, all it has done is put undo stress upon all teachers.  We spend hour upon hour interpreting data that no one really understands, showing us that our students are low, asking us that unanswerable question of “how are you going to fix this”, followed by form after form to fill out telling how to “fix it” with NO supplies or materials to do so!  Isn’t this just so much FUN!  I can’t even get my grading done half the time because some paper or another is needing to be filled out, or run to this meeting on this topic, or go to this “optional” meeting on your planning time when you are supposed to be doing you real work!  (And by optional it means you better go or you won’t be able to understand any of the data that you are given!)  All of this so our VAM doesn’t suffer!  Our VAMS are suffering!  Our “Value All Marvelous Students!”  We can no longer just look at them as the ones we want to move along on this journey of life by giving them the foundation they need.  Now we have to look at them as a growth number!  Worry enters in and our thinking changes to “How am I going to get that child to do what they need to do on that assessment that is coming?”  This isn’t the education we want our students to face.  This isn’t the job we want to be doing!  This is NOT what we are made of!  This is a business decision!!!  This is…

            I don’t even know where to go next.  Time will only tell.  Choices will have to be made.  As more and more parents join our camp, we hope for change.  We hope for a return to sanity, to educating children to where success can be attained, students can feel positive again, creativity and fun can return to the classroom.  A time where real reigns again-real standards, real learning, real community.  We can all help.  One way is to write your legislators.  Call on them for a return to sanity!  Our children are worth it!  Their hearts and minds are worth it.  Join groups that are organizing movements against this trend!   They are working to save kids and teachers!  Speak out to local school boards and administration at the highest level.  They have to listen!  They have to act if enough people join together!  It is time to save this education system!  It is the time to save our students, our children! 

I know that this is a hot topic.  Please remember that appropriate comments are important.  Also, if you know an article that would be a great link up addition to my post, please share.  I will add it to the document.  

The Shouts and Whispers of Context Clues

           During a reading activity, I discovered something about my 4^th graders.  Most of them had no idea what to do when they came to words that they didn’t understand.  This, to me, was very surprising.  Surprising, because I know that they did receive instruction, but because it doesn’t stick.  That’s what’s been bugging me so much about returning to the upper grades after a number of years away-why isn’t instruction sticking the way it used to!  How come kids are not independent on strategies when they enter the next grade?  I have a number of ideas as to what it is, but that’s not for now. Right now we are talking context clues-so back to the topic!

            While we were investigating how text features work through our science focus of the nature of science, I introduced key words.  Key words are usually bold face, italicized, and/or colored.  In this particular text, they were colored.  We recorded our text feature in our reading journal, talked about what to look for, focused on the fact that these words WILL show up on tests, and talked about how, in the content area they must retain them because they will be expected to know them forever without review.   Then I got back to focusing on what to do with them.  I informed them that I was going to read the information after the key word and they were to let me know what the definition of the word was.  I read, I stopped, and I heard crickets when I asked what the definition was.  Crickets, nothing but crickets.  Most were looking at me like I had asked the hardest question in the world!  INTERVENTION TIME!   So, I asked, “What context clue do you see here?”  Crickets, again!  MORE INTERVENTION TIME!  Being the wise owl that I am, I jumped into my large, and I mean large, supply closet (Oh, trust me, you’d be VERY jealous.  I’m very tempted to write a post on it, but I think I’d get hate mail!) and pulled out my context clue signs.

I’ve had these for years, and they are showing it.  We turned our page in our reading journals and began to record the information.  

The kids obediently did so.  We returned to the book, repeated the same, and….crickets. Yes, at this point, I couldn’t figure out what to do, and then it hit me.  There are two types of context clues-whispers and shouts. 

            Kids need novelty. Brain research says that it helps them to remember and learn.  For some reason, I realized that these obvious, right-there context clues shout at us.  So, I began to explain that there was a word from our list on the page, and it was shouting to us.  I would shout when I got to the word, and that would signal the definition.  Every time I said shout, I shouted!  In fact, since then, I shout when I’m talking about shouting context clues.  It’s driving them nuts-but it’s working.  It’s really working.  It’s helping them pay attention when we are reading materials that have key words in them.  This is what I mean by how context clues shout-they are right there, on the page, giving the definition. 

            Next we moved onto the whispers of context clues.  When Scholastic had their awesome $1 sale, I thought it was worth the risk of buying a set of books on direct reading topics.  I picked up this one:

What I did was I ran copies of the teaching page for my kids at 86% reduction, making it small enough to fit their reading journal. 

On the teaching page are the whisper clues for words they don’t know.  That’s what I called these, the whisper clues.  And I whispered.  The novelty is there, again.  Whisper when you teach them; shout when you teach the others.  So, whispering, we moved on to learn about how to handle these.  This starts with identifying a word you don’t know.  You see, I know up until now, most kids have been just skipping over the words they don’t know.  They are almost doing context clues in reverse.  They skip the word they don't know, and use the context to build understanding.  But that won’t continue to work on the harder texts that they are reading.  They need to begin to pay attention to words and what’s around them-and to use the clues to figure out the word.  Once we learned the whisper clues, we started to practice.  This book comes with 18 opportunities to practice the skill.  We have been practicing!  What’s great about this, is it will help kids to move to questions like this:

1. Read the sentence below from pg. 25:

             “That man’s dotty!” muttered Grandma Josephine.

       In this sentence, what does dotty mean?

This question is styled like the FCAT 2.0 questions are written and, more than likely, how most of the Common Core assessments will be written as well.  This is a little sample of questions I’m working on for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  This is how the kids need to be able to handle context clues.   And, if you notice, the book also includes figurative language, and, yes, they are found on FCAT 2.0 and within the Common Core standards.  Is this worth the investment of time and effort to really teach and make the kids independent with-yes, it is!  Not just for FCAT 2.0 or other assessments, but because it’s a life skill for any reader!  Isn’t that what we are really striving for.  We might practice the style of question we need them to learn, but these skills are for life.  I want my students to walk away understanding that words matter, and to take the time to begin to understand them.   They need the shouts and whispers of context clues to do that! 

            How do you teach context clues?  I’d really like to have some additional ideas and resources that you use.  I know I will have kids I need to remediate this area in and would love some additional ideas.  Please leave me a comment about how you do context clues!

The Struggle to Keep Up!

     Sometimes, that's what life gives you.  A struggle to keep up. Between vacation, technical difficulties, and my son starting the adventure of his life so far, I just haven't been able to keep up!  My youngest is currently experiencing his first week in his new school.  His school specializes in autism, and so far, it's everything we had hoped it would be.  He's extremely happy and wants to go every day!  I've helped out a little, working to get the library back in shape.  It also gives me time to work on some reading materials to discuss here! 

     I am still dissecting Mechanically Inclined, and, have to say, it is really a wonderful source of ideas!  One of the best ideas comes in the form of brain based research. In our Quantum Learning training at my school, we learned the principle of 10/24/7.  This means that you review a concept within the first 10 minutes of the lesson, 24  hours after the lesson, and within 7 days of the lesson.  Anderson suggests the repeated use of grammar and mechanic instruction to build patterns.  The repeated exposure of the skill creates a pattern-share mentor text examples, put it up on charts, revisit often, and practice within student work.  He uses the first 5 minutes and the last 10 minutes of his language arts classes to do just that.  The amazing thing is he points to this use for only upper elementary and beyond.  However, this can easily be adjusted for any age group in my opinion.  The simple principle could be used for any type of grammar.  One of the best parts of this instruction is the fact that he targets skills through fun games and searches! 

     So, where am I going with this in my classroom. First, I will be devoting the large bulletin board in my classroom as a "Writer's Secrets" space.  This will become interactive, where kids can add to the information that will be displayed.  I am going to work on ideas for skills that do need to be covered in 4th grade.  That would be the only concern with the book.  I have discovered, though, that the lessons that are in there are not ones that can just be passed off as middle school skills.  They just need to be adapted to meet the needs of elementary students. I will also be searching out mentor texts. This is where the time out of my house during these summer sessions for my son will pay off.  I've been spending time at the public library!  That is a whole lot of available mentor texts! 

     Do you have a great mentor text??? If so, please add a comment about your favorite to get me started!

Summer Reading #2

      

     I’ve also been reading Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson.  There’s some really great stuff in here.  It also fits into the current trend of brain-based learning.  We are using this a lot on my campus.  Last summer, we were involved in a week long inservice based on how the brain works and best practices that follow this theory called Quantum Learning.  It was excellent.  I also participated in a number of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) on our campus where we learned more about this.   Anderson’s book touches upon a number of these concepts.  One is called the linguistic data pool theory.  (Harst, Burke, and Woodward, 1985).  This theory is about how all visual and aural language experiences flow into a personal data pool that they access over and over again.  They use this “data base” to pull past experiences with reading and writing to form their own.  I TOTALLY agree with this idea.  You can see it in so many kids writing.  Good readers write well.  Kids who read struggle less with writing.  It can even come down to they way they put words on the page.  Favorites go into that data pool and are pulled out as thought patterns for kids!  I just love this idea!

      Another really great brain idea shared is from Vogotsky.  This idea is that “conceptual development” (OH!  There it is again and I wasn’t even looking!) “evolve out of piles and heaps we try to form when grasping for meaning.” (1986) Wow, piles of information!  I totally want to check out this idea.  It may guide me to that knowledge needed to develop more knowledge about how our conceptual development works and grows!  Thanks Jeff Anderson!

      Anyways, I’m really enjoying Anderson’s book and plan to use some of his ideas this coming year.  As I try them out, I’ll be happy to share some successes, ideas, and even failures!   In the mean time, here is a freebie for writing.  I use this writing tracker with my kids.  They keep track of their writing scores.  There is a lot of research out there that supports the fact that when students track their own progress, they are more successful.  It also is a quick view for me as to who is growing, who has stabilized, and who needs intervention, including differentiation!