Everyone needs a little reminder....

Dr. Rebecca Branstetter, who blogs on Notes from the School Psychologist, gave some excellent advice over the weekend in the first of a series on the things we've heard but never seem to remember, Did You See The Memo About...Interventions?  I love this advice coming at the beginning of the school year, when I know I am so excited about buying new pens and learning the kids names that sometimes I forget things that I've known since I was a wee new teacher, like documentation of interventions.

"I know the referrals come from a place of caring for the student and wanting to see progress. But let’s not be surprised when students have no intervention and do not progress. Friends, it’s not that your school psychologist doesn’t want to test the student for a disability, it’s that s/he doesn’t have any evidence that the problem can’t be remediated with a decent targeted intervention."

Filing this one in the little brain card-catalog drawer named "Durr, MIKD, Remember to Keep Your Head In the Game" (Isn't it weird that a diginative like me still has a card-catalog up there?  Probably left over from when I used to lovingly pat the one at the public library when I was little.).

Hot Child in the City

It's hard to believe that July is over and I'll be back to work in a month with all of my rock-star colleagues.  I lost June to work and travel, one of which was painful and drawn out and the other went to quickly, even though I was homesick toward the end.  I'll let you guess which is which.

Yesterday I met with a colleague who will also be teaching Honors 10 this year to plan.  With the schedule change, it's a little tougher to figure out the flow, but I'm looking forward to having more time with the kids.  One of the things I'm focused on is front-loading community building so we all still like each other by the end of the year.  We're planning our studies around the theme "Defining Identity."

Right now I'm listening to the book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us while I'm in the car.  While the end of the book focuses in on how to apply motivation theory to kids (I'm still wrapping up that section and didn't have to drive anywhere today), what's got me wound up is how totally wrong-headed performance pay is.  AArgh!  Even monkeys don't like to do puzzles for raisins.

Knock on wood (great beginning)

I started the year feeling confident enough, but not prepared.

Every June I swear to myself that I will set aside time everyday to work on curriculum and plan (I go through the same thought cycle every Friday on a smaller scale). Every mid-August, I start thinking something along the lines of frickfrickfrickfrickfrick, where did the summer go? I should have been working a little every day and now I'll have to work a lot everyday and I'll still never be ready. Frickfrickfrickfrickfrickfrickfrick.

I put in the 12 hour days during workshop week to get my room under control and left for the long weekend knowing at least I could put the kids in there without shame. I carried my planning materials back and forth over the long weekend, never looking at them once. Sigh.

The later start to our school day has been glorious for me. I'm actually conscious and prepared (mostly) when my second hour walks in (I have first hour prep). However, the later end to the day has been kicking my rear. With only half an hour of the duty day after school, I haven't been managing to get my planning for the next day done and answering emails, etc., etc. before quittin' time. I don't have any fantasy that I will always, or even frequently, be able to leave on time, but it would be nice to be working shorter than ten hour days and have more than three conscious hours at home before bed time.

Anywho, for the first time in my five-year-and-counting teaching career, I'm loving my job. I quit a committee that was alternately stressing me out and filling me with ridonkulous amounts of rage, which has been a huge load off. I'm planning for my eleventh grade Am Lit class without muttering under my breath about how much I hate early American literature--and actually liking what we're doing. My tenth graders are working with abstract ideas and analyzing them. I like the kids and I think I've finally found my stride; I'm not letting curriculum slip to build relationships, and I think we're really building a community.

In tenth grade English, I've been talking a lot about manners. I told the kids that it doesn't matter if they're nice or not: if they pretend to have manners, they will make life more pleasant for everyone. They greet me when I come in, which I LURV, and the other day I told them that I'm working on actually listening and responding thoughtfully (rather than automatically) when people ask how I am. Later that day, a friend-colleague popped her head in and all the kids greeted her after I introduced her. She was a little startled, and responded, "Why, good morning! How are you?" On cue, with no prompting from me, all 35 16-year-olds responded, "Fine, thank you. How are you?" It was totally glorious!

Pollack's Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time, Chpt. 2

Last Friday, I stayed up late to read all of Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time by Jane E. Pollock (I know, my social life is totally worthy of envy). The basic tenets of the approach look like this:

1. Choose clear and specific goals, called “targets” or “benchmarks.”
2. Plan instruction specifically to address your targets.
3. Target assessment using a variety of methods.
4. Record and report feedback that is directly tied to targets.

The first step (described in Chapter 2) is one I’m very familiar with. The backward design gospel according to Wiggins and McTighe demands that before any other planning takes place, the teacher needs to decide on the specific standards that will be addressed, and then filter those standards into understandings and skills that should be communicated to students. Similarly, Pollock notes that it is important to “Descriminat[e] between declarative and procedural knowledge” (28, 35-36). I found her explanation of a total curriculum document that includes a “philosophy document, course description document, standards for the subject area, grade level benchmarks…and specific content, unit titles or projects, unit plans with resources, [and] unit/project planned with lessons and assignments,” as well as ways for teachers to work together (with time lines, even—insert Snagglepuss voice here) on these documents, really helpful because they are concrete (Pollack 37-42).

Between each chapter and the next is a vignette from a teacher who is living the gospel according to Pollock. While less helpful than the chapters in terms of “how-to,” each account shows the different levels of finding the grail of improved student learning.

This Is So Deep I Can't Dig In Yet

Dina posted these gleanings from the Finnish Education Standards:

The need and desire of students for life-long learning must be reinforced.

Cooperation, interaction and communication skills must be developed by means of different forms of collaborative learning.

Upper secondary schools must develop students’ abilities to recognize and deal with ethical issues involving communities and individuals.

Education must help students recognize their personal uniqueness.

Education must stimulate students to engage in artistic activities, to participate in artistic and cultural life, and to adopt lifestyles that promote health and well-being.

Students will be capable of facing the challenges presented by the changing world in a flexible manner, be familiar with means of influence, and possess the will and courage to take action.

An upper secondary school community must create prerequisites for experiencing inclusion, reciprocal support and justice. These are important sources of joy in life.

Human beings must learn how to adapt to the conditions of nature and the limits set by global sustainability.

Upper secondary schools must reinforce students’ positive cultural identity and knowledge of cultures.

Technology is based on knowledge of the laws of nature.

Students will observe and critically analyze the relationship between the world as described by media, and reality.

They're so conclusive and inclusive and amazing...this is what American education needs. Where is the leadership to make this happen? I don't even know where to go with this. It feels so big and so important. I feel like I'm blowing circuits just thinking about it. I'm going to send it on to my congressional representatives, but beyond that, I just don't know what comes next.