Challenges 1 and 2

Help!! I need lesson plans for the first week of school and have no clue what the curriculum is or how to create a lesson plan that supports the district philosophy. Where do I go? Who do I see?

Well to begin I would venture to say that the district philosophy is to ensure that students know what the big picture is and what they need to do to understand the material. A lesson plan that supports this philosophy would have students engaged in a variety of instructional methods. Some direct instruction, some hands on, some individual, some in groups. The teacher would frequently check if the instruction was working and take corrective actions when necessary. Remember what Chris Demers said—we need to teach more like art teachers and coaches—with corrective action coming immediately not delayed till a test.

To find what the curriculum is teachers, even veteran teachers, should consult the teachers in the building who have gone before them. Lesson planning alone should be avoided. There is someone in your building who has taught chemistry before and someone who has taught second grade for 25 years. My mentor didn’t tell me what to do but she did provide every single activity that she had used the previous year. That meant that I began my teaching with activities that were created after 16 years of teaching experience. Why would we want to do it any other way? She sat with me and explained how she had used each one and made suggestions for how I might use them. She provided samples of the notes she had given and let me know about possible pitfalls I might encounter. When I had difficulty I went to her and said—this didn’t work…what did I do wrong. And I would go into her room and watch her teach something that I had never taught before. I hope this is how it will work for you.

I’ve noticed that after lunch, my students are dozing off in class… What can I do to keep them engaged?

My high school students do this because they often consume lunches consisting of ketchup packets and energy drinks loaded with sugar. I’m not kidding by the way, I can’t tell you how many boys come in and tell me that they were in a ketchup packet eating contest at lunch. This inevitably leads to a crash at some point.

Research on high school students tells us that we should never go more that 20 minutes on one activity. Even in AP Biology where we think the kids might be able to take longer—go for 20 minutes only. At the younger grades the time goes down accordingly. This approach also makes sure that you are varying your teaching style and approach during the class or day.

Rick Wormeli, a leading speaker and writer on assessment and instruction, cites research showing that tiredness is often caused by dehydration. Seems silly but it is really important to allow water breaks often during class. At the high school level if I see a sleeping or nodding student I make them get up and go get a drink. The walk wakes them up and it alerts me that I may have gone on too long with my talking.

Finally, don’t be offended by a child who is nodding off—unless they do it all the time. Use it as a sign that tells you—if this kid can’t even stay awake then I bet the other kids aren’t super engaged either. Use it as a critique of yourself and say, “Why aren’t the kids engaged with what we are doing right now?” You can use simple techniques like popsicle sticks to make sure everyone is listening. Write down every student’s name on a popsicle stick and pull them out of a can when asking questions. Dylan Wiliam has shown that this simple approach can increase engagement from a handful of students to nearly everyone in the class.

Arne Duncan on Ed. Reform

I was reading through Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's speeches on education reform. I got tenure after two years and didn't have to do too much to earn it so I read the one on tenure and unions first. This caught my eye.

I linked to all of the speeches below. The over riding theme is that we have to face out tough problems and to do that we are going to have to make some changes. Duncan squarely keeps the focus on children and that is definitely where it needs to be.

Take a read for yourself and let me know what you think.

• adopt rigorous standards that prepare students for success in college and the workforce at the 2009 Governors Education Symposium
• recruit and retain effective teachers, especially in classrooms where they’re needed most, at the National Education Association annual conference
• build data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness at the annual conference of ED’s Institute of Education Sciences
• turn around low-performing schools at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools Conference.

Collaboration and Communication

This is a section from the “synthesis” paper I have been working on. It is a first draft and I would love comments and suggestions.

Collaboration and Communication
When we had our first child my wife was in labor for 12 hours. During the 10 hours of that that we were in the hospital we must have seen 15 or 20 people. There was one wonderful nurse, Heather, who was assigned to work with my wife and I. But there were also other key people involved in the birth. Dr. Heidi, our obstetrician was there, of course and there were many other nurses and specialists.

If we compare the day to education Heather the nurse was like the classroom teacher and Dr. Heidi was the principal. The other nurses were like other teachers in the building. The people who drew blood were the specialists. The main difference in how they worked and how a school works is how they worked together. When Dr. Heidi would come in Heather wasn’t scared—she was excited. She would ask questions and make sure that she was doing all that she could for my wife and I. In turn, Dr. Heidi didn’t shout demands or give orders, she conferred with Heather and made suggestions about what might work in given situations. When my wife requested an epidural Heather, Dr. Heidi my wife and I all talked about the positives and negatives. They even suggested an alternative that we tried first. It wound up not working but we were glad we had tried everything before going to the drugs. (Once we went to the drugs my wife was quite happy.)

When our baby was born Heather stayed with us until the next nurse came on. Before leaving to go home she talked at great length with the new nurse and told her everything about us and our baby. The baby was five weeks early but was otherwise fine, vital signs, etc. Only then did she leave us. Since the baby was five weeks early a special nurse was called in. This nurse took a look at our child and concluded that our baby didn’t need extra help so she didn’t need to stay.

The analogies to education are obvious but the key thing we can learn from the medical profession is how they communicate profusely and how they collaborate with the interest of the patient foremost in their minds. As teachers when we collaborate (if we collaborate) it too often becomes a game of who is the better teacher. This thinking needs to go away. The vast majority of teachers are good, just in different ways. We need to lean on the strengths of other teachers to improve in the areas where they are a little stronger.

A few years ago someone told me how much work they had to do over the summer because they were teaching a new course. I asked them if anyone else in the department had ever taught it. They replied that about 6 other teachers had taught the course. It was clear from the rest of our conversation that the teacher wasn’t going to get much help from the other teachers on planning the course. Why? Imagine two dentists working in adjacent rooms. One knows a new tooth whitening technique, the other does not. Would the first dentist tell the second dentist to read about the technique to figure it out themselves? Of course not. So why do we have to behave this way in education.

Someone once told me that a new teacher was hired who had previously taught in Japan. She was told to come up with a lesson plan for a particular unit and said she couldn’t do it. When asked why she explained that she had never planned a lesson by herself—they just don’t do it that way in Japan. Doctors and nurses have learned that their collective knowledge is much more useful when there is a great deal of sharing and communicating. As teachers we need to work in the same way.

Learning

I have been musing about a post on learning--that the focus of education needs to be on learning. It keeps getting longer but the basic pieces are:

• Learning must be the focus of everything that everyone does.
• Hiring must be driven by a need to get the right people on the bus.
• Leaders must ensure that the focus of the school is learning
• Teachers must ensure that they are focusing on the most important learnings every day.
• Collaboration--teaching should not be an individual activity. Teaching should be an activity that is done collectively similar to how medical professionals work as a team to make you better.
• Special education is one tool to help students but there must be other tools that are equally robust to help students.
  

I've been trying to make it post length but it keeps getting longer. I'm thinking that the six things listed above might be a sort of synthesis for what schools and districts need to do to improve.

Harlem Children's Zone

On the Talk of the Nation today the program focused on "What Works." This whole week they have been focusing on seemingly "intractable" problems that have been solved in certain places.

Their guest today was CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, Geoffrey Canada. I heard about Canada sometime last summer and I have a ton of respect for his dedication to poor students in Harlem.

Earlier this year Paul Tough put out a book called "Whatever It Takes," that chronicles Canada's nearly 20 years of working with the Harlem Children's Zone. I recommend it but if all you have is 1/2 an hour consider downloading the talk of the nation program from today. It will be 1/2 an hour well spent.

Some big points about the Harlem Children's Zone and Canada:

• They do everything at once--it isn't just about being poor. They have partnerships with hospitals, obesity clinics, diabetes clinics, drug and alcohol treatment places, block watchtes, etc. They knew the research and the science and they just did it all at once.
• The first kids to go through the program are currently in 5th grade. They began the program before they were even born. There is currently no gap between their achievement and the achievement of their peers.
• A second group who were behind in grade 6 are now in college. There is no gap for math and a slight gap for English Language Arts.
• Baby College is for 0-3 education. There is nothing special about this. Canada himself explains that 0-3 eduction has been done for decades--in the middle class. He is just taking what works there and educating poor parents about the methods.
• Why is 0-3 important. By age three, with no intervention, children who are poor know 800 fewer words than middle and upper class children. The gap continues from there.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has launched a plan to replicate the HCZ approach in 20 big cities. The funding is big upfront but if you can break the cycle of poverty--poor parents raising poor children who don't finish school and then raise more poor children--the payoff will be great in the end.

Canada uses himself as an example. He was the first person in his family to go to college. But for his kids it was obvious that they would go to college--and they have. For his grandkids there won't even be the slightest question of whether they will go on to college. Like middle class families all over the country--the choice of not going to college won't be a choice anymore.

So why am I so excited about a program that works in Harlem--where poverty rates were in the 90 percents? If Canada and his team can turn it around for thousands of students in Harlem then districts with smaller numbers of students who are poor certainly have something to learn from him.