While waiting for change to happen...

In that I'm hoping to make both #ptchat and #sbgchat tonight, I was thinking about parents and what they're to do while waiting for schools to change practices over to methods that truly seem to be on their way. I'm also thinking about parents who are lost in the middle of debates such as homework and wondering, from their perspective, what can be done to help the students. Right now, I'd still bet that the majority of classes in the majority of high schools, for example, are assigning nightly homework, and yes, students are struggling with getting it all done. Nothing new there. This also means that there are a lot of parents out there who are going to be trying to help their kids. We could talk about political action and pedagogical reform, but I'm also wondering about helping today's parents, those parents whose kids are expected to do the work and will be "held accountable" for not getting the work done. There are also still - I'd bet - a tremendous amount of parents who want their kids to have a "solid amount" of homework. If you could talk to these parents and were to offer some practical advice for today, what would you tell them? Perhaps we can change the way it's assigned and used from our end in the future, but - for now - how can parents help high-school kids be more successful with homework? Your thoughts and comments, as always, are welcomed and encouraged.

PERSISTENCE - The state of my life in #oneword

It's 2014, and I'd love to think that this year will bring an end to the tumult that's defined my family's world for the past five or six years. We left Maine in 2009 when the recession dramatically shrunk my wife's company, she found a position in NYC. At the time, our children were very little (1 and 3), and we figured we'd be going on an adventure. While it certainly has been adventurous, what actually happened turned out to be an exercise in change, humility, reflection, rebirth, growth and survival. I'm a lot better for it all, but it's exhausting to now find myself in a new state without a position. Giving up, though, isn't an option that I actually understand.

Logistically, I have no intention of not working as an educator. My wife has a good job, and I've actually looked into a new line of work, but it would have been just that, work. I'm an educator. I will work in and/or with schools again, so I'm not going anywhere. I am a husband to an amazingly wonderful woman with whom I want to share a fulfilling and exciting and interesting and meaningful life, which means that I need to have a career that leaves me proud and provides and comes with a paycheck that's on "this side of livable." Most importantly, though, is that I'm a father, and my kids not only have a ton of interests I want them to explore, but also that I want to be the type of role model that shows them what it means to have a passion and overcome obstacles that may be in the way of achieving related goals.

Philosophically speaking, it's all wrapped up in something I read succinctly put on Twitter the other day: "You've only failed when you stop trying."

So I PERSIST.

It took 10 months to get all of my certifications transferred over from New York to Massachusetts, but it happened because I kept looking into regulations, taking (and passing) necessary tests, applying and following up. I had to apply twice to get accepting into substitute teaching pools in local districts, but that's also done, so I can at least make some money and be connected to schools in some way. I've written a bottomless amount of cover letters and application essays, and I need to keep at it until I connect with the right fit.

I know why a lot of people up on things in their lives and/or themselves altogether, but I'm not going there. A few weeks back, I wrote this post about my motto, "Fingers crossed, feet forward," which is essentially the same thing as saying that I'm persistent, but I wanted to write it again. It's not about envisioning the work I need to do or getting up and starting the work I need to do. For now, it's about staying with it, through whatever process turns out to be necessary, until I find a happy place. Once I'm there, I can work to make the most of my new scenario, which includes being in a new state, making new friends, helping my kids grow up happy and healthy, loving with my wife and kick-starting the next phase of my career.

Anatomy of Question-Driven Learning

For those of you who were kind enough to read my last post on reading and literacy strategies, you already know that I'm a tremendous advocate for using questions to drive growth, whether it's in a classroom or a professional development workshop (so I'm speaking to all sorts of educators and salespeople out there).  In case you missed the last post, which goes a bit into depth about the questions themselves, here a link.  In this post, however, I'm hoping to further the conversation about clarifying some best practices around using questions to drive pedagogy.

If used, I'm hoping it'll push learners' engagement, dignity, comprehension, creativity and standards mastery to the top levels we're looking for.  Of course, as always, I'd love your feedback and suggestions.

Anatomy of a Question-Driven Lesson

Strategies to Help Readers When They Struggle

My kids read well. I know it's awful to brag like that, but they've worked hard at it, and I'm proud of them. They're proud of themselves, which is even better. My daughter (8) is very casual and matter-of-fact about things, so she doesn't talk about much, but my son (6) is obsessive. He loves his teachers, and he loves talking about fun things that he's learned, especially when fun animals and their names are involved. Both kids love technology and love to teach, by the way, so creating this chart based on some of the literacy strategies my son came home with was a great time full of suggestions and giggles from each, with a bit of tech assistance from me. I am fascinated by elementary literacy work, believing that it's not only a true joy to share reading with young children, but also that there is no better gift we can give to kids than to help them access and truly revel in the pleasure of story telling, information consumption and the critical and creative thinking that go hand in hand with all quality text. If we could truly get to a place where we were universally getting early childhood literacy right - a place, I believe that the CCSS can bring us - kids would be in good shape. Helping them handle a trouble spot on a page, or a troubling page for that matter, is a first step that I hope the chart below can help with.

Elementary Reading Strategies

I spent a lot of my career working in and chairing secondary English departments. I am a tremendous proponent of schools guiding their practices around the inclusion of modern literacies. I cringe when secondary teachers say that teaching reading isn't their job, which I've heard from English teachers as well as other content area teachers. If we can't help students access, consider, make sense of and communicate ideas about information and people, we've lost the fight. So, I was thinking to myself about a secondary version of "Chunky Monkey," "Eagle Eye," and "Loggy Froggy." I'm not officially trained as a literacy instructor, but after some consideration and a bit of research, I came up with these seven components to literacy instruction.

Secondary Reading Strategies

These are all very important and highly useful. I would bet that they could play a role in just about any text you'd like your students to experience, or anything they find on their own. I'm sure you noticed, though, that I gave the most geography to "Asking Questions." This, in my opinion, is the holy grail of instruction. It allows students to engage each other and the text at multiple levels of abstraction. It creates a shared experience with a text. It helps students identify things that they are truly unsure of or curious about. It's the basis of inquiry and engagement. It's the reason why I love the follow-up chart so much. Looking it over for the first time, a major joy came over me when I realized that I could use this at any time for a host of reasons in a number of ways. I'll give you a few minutes to look at it and consider its potential before you scroll past and see the beginning of my suggestions.

DOK Questioning Chart.pdf

Can you imagine: Starting in the top left and moving around to the bottom right as a class is introduced to and then begins to grapple with new material? Students writing their own questions, some from each quadrant, as a review at the end of a unit or as a "do now" after completing a reading for homework? Including all of your students in a class discussion by allowing less confident students answer more accessible questions until they are showing a willingness to chime in during class? Formatively tracking which types of questions seem to be a struggle for which students and helping them focus on those problems in specific groups? ================================================================================================================================== I hope these charts have helped. As always, I openly welcome your input, additions, and - of course - questions.

Using Tweet Deck to Keep up With Chats

As I've become more invested in Twitter, the basic site became inadequate for a few reasons, mainly having to do with participation in chats.  If you haven't gone there yet, chats, I feel, are the best way to meet people, develop connection, find resources and truly leverage Twitter to its full capacity as a professional development tool.  The problems faced when using the official site stem from there being only one screen at a time, meaning that I can't view the chat's feed, my home feed and my interaction feed without putting each in a different browser tab and toggling between them.  This could work, but it's not ideal, and there are times when I want to take part in 2 or 3 chats at the same time.  That's when I found TweetDeck.  I feel a bit late to the Twitter world in general, so I wasn't on when this was independent of Twitter.  Now, the home page says "TweetDeck by Twitter," so it seems that even Twitter has realized that the original screen lacks a bit.

Please note that I'm a capable beginner.  I can do what I do pretty well, and I've learned a few tricks that I'll share here, but this is not a complete guide to TweetDeck.  Here's the basic screen.  The most important thing to know is that you'll now be working with multiple columns that are generated using the "add column" link on the left and then the "search" tool within that screen.  You can, if you'd like use the "search" tool first and then click "add column" once your search shows up.  

Once you have columns created, you can set up them and use them as you'd like, using the feature found below.  One of the things I'm most excited about is the "content" filter that can be set for each column.  While there are other options that I'm sure are powerful, this allowed me to keep spam from clogging up my feed during last week's #satchat.  For now there's just a lot of spam, but I'd bet - now that Twitter, like Facebook before it, is now a publicly traded company - that in-stream ads are coming, just like on Facebook since its IPO.  This language filter could help as Twitter and TweetDeck already tend to slow to a crawl during busy chat times, so cleaning out the spam (and potentially the ads) has been a big help.

 
These last two screen shots will show you what the "custom timeline" feature is all about:

Feet Forward...Fingers Crossed

There’s something about the moment when I ask my 6 and 8 year olds: “Who’s in charge of your behavior?” that makes me seem like I’ve been drinking the punch at some sort of professional development activity for social workers.  I wait for an answer with an overblown sense of anxiety over whether or not my kids are starting to internalize the amount of absolute agency and accountability that I want them to own in their lives.  Depending on the time of day, the amount of sugar they’ve had, the actual severity of the situation and how calmly I can ask them, I may have to redirect and add a prompt, but we’ve managed to get to a point where they consistently say: “I am.”

If all goes well, this will grow within them along an eight-fold path from a piece of knowledge to an understanding they work to act upon and on to something that they fully internalize in their future.  I want this for them because I know how important intrinsic control is to success.  Those people who believe they have the ability to shape their futures find much higher levels of success than those who think all or most things are out of their control.  Also, I philosophically believe it and - on a Dad level - hope that it will one day be one of those things they’ll proudly tell people I taught to them.   

We are always in charge of the way we act in the world and the way we react to what happens in the world.  And this covers the the first part of my mantra: Feet Forward.  I know that I always need to point my actions and beliefs (my feet) in the direction of what I want and move that way.  

What I haven’t told my kids yet is that I’ve found life in general to be rather random, quirky and outside of my ability to explain (I’m a lay-existentialist).  I keep my proverbial fingers crossed because I don’t think enough of the world happens in a predictably logical way for me to count on it.  Life certainly doesn’t always follow suit when I set the stage for things to happen as I’d like them.  There just aren’t any guarantees in life.  So, I hope some pixie dust falls and brings a bit of order to the chaos.  I hope for just a bit of luck to help me out because I know that even if there is a divine force of justice or a sense of karma and fate in the world, that my daily plans, needs and goals aren’t of enough universal consequence to get - or deserve, for that matter - any attention

These two pieces fit together simply and nicely to form advice that I not only live by, but also offer up to my children, friends, faculty and students.  Feet forward...fingers crossed.  I cannot guarantee or often even make sense of what’s going to happen in the future, but I can work hard to identify those things I control, work to accomplish them and give myself at least the best fighting chance I can to make things roll my way.  I’m not going to start picking up a bunch of bad habits just because my mother passed away from cancer after living a healthy life.  I’m instead going to realize that I’ll do what I can and life will happen as it does, often regardless of my efforts.

To bring this idea home, I’ll tell you a bit about my current job search and prompt us all to consider conversations we have with colleagues, families and students.  My family and I chose to relocate this year in order to bring what’s left of our family as close together as possible after a death in the family.  I gave up a great job in NYC schools to do it, but I didn’t count on good vibes to help get a new position.  I’ve been working on transferring my certifications for over a year now,  doing whatever I can to make connections and network on Twitter and LinkedIn, contacting people and meeting whomever I can in person and applying for a lot of positions.  The fact that I haven’t yet found a new position doesn’t mean that I’m not going to work again or that I’m going to give up trying and amp up a Second Life account; it just means that I need to keep mapping a road through the ever-changing landscape.  What can I do (Feet Forward) in a situation where what I’ve been trying isn’t working (still keeping my Fingers Crossed)?  

As for everyone else out here, think about the increasingly difficult and chaotic world in which so many are now living.  Even though the idea works for victims of horrendous disasters, it’s also helpful to realize that our everyday life is a tough place to be at times.  Are you an educator trying to figure out how to reach all of those students you see everyday?  An administrator stressed about testing data and RTTT compliance?  A parent whose child seems to be having a hard time, despite being in a creative classroom and a friendly school?  Are you out of work or wondering how to pay for housing or college or healthcare as the costs exponentially exceed inflation and the average workers’ pay increases?  Regardless of how tough things are, I’m going to suggest you seek out one thing you can do at time that will best position your situation to improve.  Find someone to help.  Do a bit more research.  Take care of a priority need.  Get some sleep for a change.  Chances are that there will be at least one thing you can do and that the paralysis you’re currently experiencing may have to do with your trying to fix too many things at once.  

For me, I’ve just applied to be a substitute teacher, after fourteen years in the profession, finishing up close to two advanced degrees (one formal and the other credits in MA level certification programs) and becoming certified all the way through superintendency in three states.   Substituting is not what I’m going to do forever, but it is once step in the direction to making that reality a reality.   I’m also not giving up on the big-picture search, but I need to be looking at both the forest and trees instead of losing one to the benefit of the other.  

Your thoughts, suggestions, and alternatives are always welcome.    

A Review of Starr Sackstein's TEACHING MYTHOLOGY EXPOSED

As a career English teacher and literacy advocate who started junior high school and continued through high school not reading, I firmly believe in the adage that says non-readers are actually avid readers who just haven’t yet found the right books.  There are a lot of tells regarding when we’ve found a book that’s for us, ranging from not being able to put the book down to the amount of notes we may scribble in the margins and the connection we feel with the author during and after we’ve read the book.  Some titles have worked for me because of the time and circumstances in my life, while others have a perspective that either reinforces something I’m proud of or brings me to a new and positive place.   Within the volumes of books about contemporary education and teacher practice that I’ve seen, skimmed and read, Starr Sackstein’s Teaching Mythology Exposed stands on its own for both its fully honest and transparent content and it’s particularly unique style.  

Part practical field guide and part guiding compass for those philosophical, political, and self-deprecating moments in all professionals’ lives, Sackstein here takes on a role of advocate, mentor, struggling colleague, humble practitioner, brazen realist, and tireless optimist that can only come from years in a classroom, a generous spirit, and a sense of honesty that constantly reminds the rookies and veteran teachers who are smart enough to engage with her that: “We mustn’t get discouraged with our mistakes, but rather use them to push harder and become better.”  And who else would we like that message to come from, than a National Board Certified Teacher with a dozen-plus years in the classroom, deep chops hewn by both suburban and New York City public schools, and a career-changer’s objectivity that helps her thread much-needed lines through the gap between the truths perceived by many as they enter and acclimate into teaching and the reality they find in schools.  

Sackstein’s book is too professional to be called a mere self-help book, but it’s structure is too interactive, and her tone is too personal for it not to be a contender for any teacher’s proverbial back-pocket, something to be kept close by through any situation.  It is essentially guided by “myths” about teaching and being a teacher, what she defines as “...the assumptions about our chosen path [that] can often derail the most motivated and productive educators.” Her invitation to “...transcend these misconceptions of face being buried by them” should be attractive to all of us, hopefully before a new teacher becomes part of the statistics about leaving the profession early or a veteran becomes pointlessly and/or fruitlessly embattled in a political standoff or pedagogical quagmire.  This book is the truth that the best intentions, technology, lesson plans or program of studies offerings can fail in a public school if we are smart about our approach to implementation and preservation.  It’s a complex, social profession, after all.  Context and relationships will always drive our success.  

Because Sackstein’s a teacher and not a soothsayer or a politician, she avoids prescriptions and, instead, approaches this material with anecdotes, humble reflections, questions, and examples.  Myths including “Teachers can prepare for everything, all the time,” “Social media doesn’t belong in school” and “It’s possible to reach every kid, all the time” are fleshed out in their own chapters with sections that define the myth, give an illustrative story from her own career, offer and explain solutions and finally - the most effective piece, I believe - offer up reflection questions so that teachers, teacher teams and classes of any sort could use each section as a discussion guide.  It’s also clear that while the book could be read start to finish, it would be just as meaningful if people engaged with whatever myth was most applicable to their work at the time.  And this, truthfully, is where the power of her book shows up.  I’m sure there were cathartic motivations for her writing, but the book truly comes across as the manifestation of her belief that “...every teacher needs a friend, a colleague and an administrator on his/her side.”  Since not all schools have a supportive environment open to discourse and reflection, Sackstein is offering herself as both a potential catalyst to that collaboration and an outlet for reflection in those times when too many educators feel too professionally uncertain or isolated.  

It isn’t surprising to me to have found this all in Starr’s book.  She and I have, after all, met on Twitter, where she has been an honest and inspiring part of my PLN for almost a year and a half now.  In Twitter world, that means that she and I have been in countless conversations and resource-sharing chats, challenging and learning from one another.  Being who she is, she also has gone on to push herself and others by leading #jerdchat, #sunchat, and guest moderating other national discussions such as #tlap.  For her, education is obviously a calling that requires more than the assumed depth of content knowledge.  Success as a teacher hinges on “...knowing that the top of the mountain is always just out of reach” and that as tiring as it gets, “Master teachers look at failure as a growth opportunity.”  

I know that “Education is arguably the most challenging and rewarding career in which to become enveloped.” I’m obsessive about my work and have been chewed up by it on mutliple occasions.  I’ve happily - and successfully, I’d say - made it through fourteen years as an educator in a variety of districts and a number of roles, but I would’ve approached much of my formative time with just that much more sensibility, compassion, and idealism if I had had Ms. Sackstein’s book with me for the ride.  Find her book, Teaching Mythology Exposed, here and all of her other writings here.