Oh Good... Are They Just Reading?

As  usual, I was in a  hurry and I knew I had just enough time to ask our Language Arts Department Chair a question before my next observation.  So I did my fastest principal walk to get to her class with the hope that she would have time to answer.  To my relief, it appeared she was available because her students were quietly reading during their sustained silent reading time and I smiled and asked, “Oh good, are they just reading?”.  As soon as the words came out of my mouth I knew they were wrong, but my intuition was confirmed by a first surprised and then scornful disappointing look from the ELA teacher followed by a question of her own that was really verbalized more like a statement, “JUST reading?”.  I thought, “Oh Shit”.
Luckily, I had taught with this teacher as well as been an assistant principal and principal in the same building, so she knew I found value in students being given the time to read in class.  As a result, she quickly forgave me, but has been sure to not let me live down my faux pas to this day.  Fortunately, this miscommunication was quickly cleared up, but I have the feeling that there are many other conversations between teachers and administrators or even teachers and teachers that leave the value of  giving students time to read in class in the dark.  In my mind, the value does not come so much from just setting aside the time to read, but rather in how the time is used and what the students are reading.   

Students sometimes need to just have time to read, especially when starting a book, in order to get into the flow of the text.  However, if they are only left to reading without being given time to share their reading through conversations they  run the chance of  falling into the habit of reading for completion (i.e. to get through the pages) rather than to read for meaning.  I think this is what causes teachers to fall into the trap of over teaching a text by creating questions sheets that go along with the reading or end of chapter quizzes to “make sure” the students are reading for meaning.  In my opinion, this also takes away from the flow of reading because, at best, it over scaffolds and, at worst, it over assess, leading to over teaching a text.  At the same time, teachers need to be careful not to under teach a text as well. As an example, asking a student to independently read a non-fiction article, a play by Shakespeare, or a complex novel like Fahrenheit 451 on his own without the valuable conversations, questions, or insight from a teacher under the premise that the students are reading is equally damaging to nurturing a student’s love of reading.  Neither of these address the fact that in order to really comprehend what they are reading students need to be able to read the text with at least a 90% accuracy.  In a class of 25+ students, with a varied level of readers, who have a wide range of interest, it is hard to find the perfect class book.  As a result, getting students in self-select high interest “authentic” reading is imperative, but how do you do that?  Somewhere in between all of these concerns lies where we want students to be when it comes to developing readers.  I am not saying we need to get rid of all class reads and I will be the first to admit I am not close to being the expert or even the one to propose a solution, but I have seen this working in pockets throughout our district through variations of a Reader’s Workshop model.

I say “variations” of a Reader’s Workshop model because the time constraints at the various grade levels, as well as the unique needs of the readers, will call for an amalgamated approach of  Fountas & Pinnell’s “Guided Reading”, Miller’s “The Book Whisperer”, Atwell’s “In The Middle”, and Gallagher’s “Readicide” depending on the students make-up in the class.  The common theme across all of these experts’ message is to get kids in authentic reading and get them talking about it.  In education time is currency, so where we spend our time demonstrates where we find value.  If we value the development of readers, not test takers, then we can justify the time spent on allowing students to have time to read and have conversations in class.  Those conversations should not only be with each other, but one-on-one with the teacher who is the “expert” in the room.  Being the “expert” doesn’t mean you know everything about every book the students read, but rather you are able to ask the questions that help a student to dive deeper into the book and to be able to help them to make connections.  It is easier said than done, but these experts give us a great place to start.  As an example, in Readicide, Kelly Gallagher breaks down the  four key elements found in schools that often lead to students’ avoidance of reading.

• Valuing the development of test takers more than the development of readers.
• Limiting authentic reading experiences
• Over teaching books
• Under teaching books

He goes on to give suggestions of how to avoid these pitfalls and instead nurture students as readers.  

The point with all of these is the common sense fact that if you want better readers you have to get kids to read more.  The more kids read the greater background or foundation they will have to build on which will allow them to construct new meaning.  The more that THEY can construct meaning and make connections the better they will comprehend and retain what they are reading or learning.  This is an important caveat for ALL educators to understand.  Without giving students the opportunity to build off their own meaning while reading, they will just turn to SPARK notes or, even worse, memorize and regurgitate for the test.  You don’t need to believe me, take it from the kids in this short video from Penny Kittle on the power of authentic reading.   Understanding the power of getting kids in authentic text  and giving them the time to do so just might help you the next time you find yourself walking into a classroom where you see kids sitting quietly all over the place because you can then ask, “Oh good...are they reading?”.  

What is the value of a public education?

What is the value of a public education?  I ask because we are about two weeks away from voting on a school levy in our community that could very well determine which path our district turns.  Our district’s “story” to be shared with the community does not worry me.  Frankly, I don’t think we could make up a better story if we tried.  Our district is in the top 1-2% in the state of Ohio in terms of achievement, we have been recognized at the national level by organizations such as Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Post, and the U.S. Department of  Education (three Blue Ribbon Schools).  Fiscally, we are a great value as we have the lowest expenditure per pupil ratio,  best administrator to student ratio, and the lowest taxes relative to 17 local school districts we compare ourselves against.  I could go on, but the point I am trying to make is that even with a great story, and in a community that values education,  it is a 50/50 coin flip to decide if we will pass our school levy and  therefore be able to continue providing the type of education our students are currently receiving.  I asked myself, “How can people not see the value of a public education?”, “Why is there even a question?” and then it started to hit me.

The original purpose for public schools was to educate a large population in order to get them ready to be part of a system during the industrial revolution.  The design of public schools served the purpose and “the value of public education” was unquestioned.  A little over 100 years later, a very similar system is in place yet we are no longer at the forefront of an industrial revolution.  On the contrary, the internet has changed everything,  we are now on the forefront of a technological revolution and the purpose of public education has shifted to  “preparing students to work at jobs that do not yet exist, creating ideas and solutions for products and problems that have not yet been identified, using technologies that have not yet been invented” (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 2).  In this new light, I am not as confident inquiring  “How can people not see the value of public education?” and “Why is there even a question?”.  However, I still believe public education is the pathway for our kids to be successful in the future, we just need to approach it differently which will naturally lead to there being no question of its value.

Earlier in the year I had the privilege of attending a lecture (which you can hear at this link) at the City Club of Cleveland featuring Yong Zhao (@YongZhaoED) in which he addressed Education in the Age of Smart Machines. I reflected on this earlier on a post titled Promoting NCLmB (No Child Left in my Basement) to support the Black Collar Class, but what I did not mention in this post was that, in his lecture, Zhao pointed out that we didn’t strap rockets to covered wagons in order to get to the moon.  Instead we had to come up with a completely different design to meet the needs of a new era.  Similarly, I believe we should question the current design of public education before we question the value of it.  Of course, I am not the only one to think that way and arguably  one of the most famous  is Ken Robinson (@SirKenRobinson).  

Robinson’s 2013 TED Talk on “How to Escape Education’s Death Valley” is probably his most clear rationale for the value of public education done right.  I went back and re-listened to it recently and I was amazed by how on target he was with today’s needs.  He points out that there are three principles on which human life flourishes and the current culture of education contradicts each.  The first is that humans are naturally diverse and schools emphasize conformity.  The second is kids are naturally curious and schools over emphasize compliance. The third is human life is inherently creative and that education is about learning and awakening those powers of creativity, but this is not supported by the current culture of schools.  In fact, Robinson goes on to discuss culture as something that is organic which reminded me of adopting a greenhouse philosophy for schools.  Robinson also points out in his 2009 book titled “The Element” that “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind...If you change your mind, you can change your life.” (p. 82).  I can’t think of a better argument for the value of public education than this statement.  Schools with the right culture can provide the opportunities for our kids to change their lives.  However, if that is the case, then  before we ask ourselves “What is the value of a public education?” and “Why wouldn’t our communities support our schools?” , we should ask ourselves “Where is the value of schools for our kids?” and  “Are the schools a place that nurtures the three principles under which human life flourishes?”.  Once we can address these questions the others will not need to be asked.

References

Darling-Hammond, Linda (2010).  The Flat World and Education.  New York, NY: Teachers College

Press.

Asking students the purpose of school led to more questions than answers

Earlier in the year,  after reading Warren Berger’s (@GlimmerGuy) “A More Beautiful Question”,  I posted this reflection and finished by asking, “What do you believe is the purpose of schools?”.  I asked my 16 year old daughter the same question and was also encouraged to get input from other students, so that led me to send out the question What do YOU believe is the purpose of school? (In your opinion, is this the same as or different  from your parent's or teacher's view?) to 527 students.  Lucky for me, the majority of the feedback came from three different grade bands.  Of the 527 students who responded to the question, 81 were 5th graders, 197 were 7th graders, and 150 were 11th graders.  As I read each of the responses, I started to notice the students feedback breaking out into five different categories.

For the most part, all of the students mentioned that learning, in some form, was a part of school, but as the students wrote on, you could start to see these categories emerge.

The purpose of school is for…

• Control = Students who mentioned this as the main part of their response made statements such as:  to keep kids under control; close to vest; out of trouble; required to go by law; give kids something to do.

• Test = These students said the main focus of schools was to prepare kids to do well on tests; Teach “stuff” we won’t use

• Prepare for next steps = If the students answer had more of an external focus, such as: focus on future steps; purpose was to get ready for next step; get you into college, get a good job, etc.; then I categorized the answer in this group.

• Smarter = If their answer was mostly centered on gaining education for  building knowledge; learn about things; get smarter;get an education; exposed to new things, but did not go deeper than that as a description then the answers were categorized in this group.  

• Life Skills = If the student’s answer had more of an internal focus on the bigger picture of education such as: prepare you for life; more than just knowledge; help you to think on your own; Find who you are; find a passion then I categorized these answers as focusing on life skills.

I should give the disclaimer that this was a non-scientific categorization of the statements and you might have organized them differently, so I shared the links to the breakdown of these three groups.

5th Grade Responses

Category	Raw Numbers	Percentage
Control	2	2.5
Test	0	0
Prepare for next steps	34	42
Smarter	28	34.5
Life Skills	15	18.5
Answer did not apply	2	2.5

7th Grade Responses

Category	Raw Numbers	Percentage
Control	0	0
Test	1	0.5
Prepare for next steps	54	27.5
Smarter	68	34.5
Life Skills	70	35.5
Answer did not apply	4	2

11th Grade Responses

Category	Raw Numbers	Percentage
Control	5	3.3
Test	5	3.3
Prepare for next steps	57	38
Smarter	42	28
Life Skills	40	26.7
Answer did not apply	1	0.7

I don’t know that the data leads to any answers, or necessarily should, but I suspect it has the potential to lead to more questions.  This is especially true if you pull selected thoughts, many of them outliers and some more common, from the students such as these listed.

Concerning Control

I think it is to make kids bored in specific subjects and force them to learn and do things you do not want to do. And my parents or teachers would probably disagree with me because they think learning in every subject even the ones you do not like is fun.   (5th grader)

The purpose of school is to educate and prepare kids for the future, but I think the real purpose of schools is to give kids something to do, without school, everyone would just be running around on the streets causing havoc, it gives kids meaningless busy work to keep us occupied so we don't start selling drugs or something. I think high school doesn't actually do that great of a job for preparing kids for the future, like high school work really doesn't teach good work ethic or motivation. So many kids come out of school hating hard work, and success isn't possible without hard work and sacrifice. also there should really be a better finance course that prepares kids for the future financial. (11th grader)

Concerning Testing

I think it is to learn which is the same and different from my teachers because we do a lot to just get ready for tests and we just try to do good on tests and we learn a little bit of the time but I don't feel like we are just learning we are just getting information to just do good on a test and we do a lot of stuff that I don't quite see how it will help us in our future. Some of the stuff we do will not always help us in the future so I do not really understand why we go over it. (7th grader)

Honestly, it doesn't prepare you for college. Everyone from college says that it doesn't help you at all. My parents think the same thing. the main thing it helps on is how to become a better test taker, and we don't do that in the real world.  (11th grader)

Concerning Preparing for Next Steps

I believe the purpose of school is to make us better at the subjects that we need to make it into Harvard university. I think this is different from my teachers’ p.o.v because they probably just want us to make it into a good college. They won’t be expecting some student from Aurora High school to go to Harvard. School is amazing for me especially if your top 3 colleges is 1 Harvard 2 MIT

3 Stanford!  (5th grader)

I think the purpose of school is to get a good education so you can go to a good college to one day get a job. You want to have a well enough paying job to support yourself and maybe even a family. To do so, usually degrees are required to get a good job, and the only way to get a degree is to go to college. My parents and I view it the same way. We both look at it as important, and that it is worth my time and effort. It is only going to get harder as I get older, so I need to start preparing for it now! :))))))))))))))  (7th grader)

I was told to be honest so excuse my blatant response but, to answer your question, I don't know. I know I come to school because I have to and I know that I most likely wouldn't get a job if I don't but beyond that, what is the true purpose of school? That I cannot answer. It should be to better and further yourself yet I feel as if it has become a sport, a competition among students and not a healthy one. Is the purpose of school to out do everyone else? Since I entered high school, i feel as though I am running and getting no where, working myself to exhaust everyday only to do the same the next and never seeing results. Is the purpose of school to push yourself to your breaking  point? To me, school has lost its purpose. Hopefully we can find it again. (11th grader)

Concerning becoming Smarter

I think that school is for learning getting good grades and having fun. I think that it is the same as my parents opinion and teachers opinion because they would say that school is just have fun or do good but sometimes there is pressure on like the AIR tests or anything like that or say you have a bad grade in school and you are taking the last test of the school year and that will help get your grade up that's what I mean by pressure. (5th grader)

School is to help us learn and get ready to go out in the real life, but what I don't understand is why we have so much homework if we come to school everyday. We come to school for 7 hour or more out of our day. Adding on homework after school that can take anywhere from 3 to 6 hour a day. If some kids do not understand what they are doing it can take them a longer amount of time to do there homework. That is 13 hours out of our day and there are only 24 hours in a day. People have to get 6 to 10 hour sleep a day that can be up to 23 hours in your day taken up already. That leaves you with 1 hour of free time to go outside, but kids have to have at least to have 2 hours outside each day so kids are not getting enough time outside because of the homework they have to do after school. (7th grader)

There are two fundamental parts of the purpose of school, 1) to teach things necessary for life generally and careers, and 2) to teach things that students are interested in or passionate about. Ideally there is overlap between the two parts.  (11th grader)

Concerning Life Skills

I think the purpose of school is to learn new things and become better at communicating with other people to help with understand the new things we learn. I also think the purpose of school is to prepare for real life related situations like having a job when you get older and knowing that mistakes are ok. I feel like this is about the same point of view from my teachers and parents because our teachers make us turn and talk to the person next to us a lot so we can compare our answers and fix things that we got wrong. (5th grader)

The definition if it is an institution for educating children, but that is not what you asked is it? School is a place where students go to be motivated to dream big, then it destroys our dream and tells us to be realistic. School supports individual thinking, but anytime we try to be independent we get punished. School is to teach us, but school gives us grades that tells us that we are not good enough. Us students come to school so we can learn how to be social, yet we are never allowed to speak. Sorry if you don't think this is the truth, sorry if this is a little harsh or unfair in someway, and I am sorry for speaking my mind because in school our thoughts are not always important. Teachers and parents think come to learn, but you should never judge a book by its cover.  (7th grader)

I believe the purpose of school was originally to create citizens with a better understanding of the knowledge presented in the world and innovative thinkers to better those around them. In today's society the purpose of school is to create students able to pass standardized tests of irrelevant information so the district is ranked highly . (11th grader)

I am still digesting this information , but some questions that came to mind for me were:

• Even though they are in smaller numbers, why are there students that feel that school is about control or testing?
• Why is there such a large percentage of 5th graders looking at external sources as the driver of schools?
• How can we help the students shift from a focus on external sources (getting ready for the next step/grade/school) to more of one focused on internal sources (preparing for being successful in life/passion/ independent)?
• Why does it seem like the high school students tend not to believe the adults think the same as they do about school, but the middle school students do?  Is it an age thing?
• How can we get all adults and all students on the same page, in terms of the purpose of school, so we are all moving in the same direction?
• Is there any one purpose/goal/focus of schools  that would meet the needs of all students?

These are just a few questions that popped in my head, and like I mentioned earlier, asking questions about the outliers is probably going to be the most beneficial.  More things to ponder.  :)  Here is the raw data from all the grades besides just the three mentioned if you are interested.  

Discomofort & Depth Will Work for a Team by any Other Name

This week I was wrestling with the fact that our PLC teams work well together, some better than others, but as a district we can’t seem to be able to take the next step with them.  Whether you call your collaborative teams PLCs or TBTs or WTFs it doesn’t matter, but what does matter is HOW you are using the time and WHY you are having the discussions and if you find your team’s discussions not going very deep you might consider reading on. In an earlier post titled “They do not understand shallowness because they do not experience depth” I focused on how our students benefit from going through productive struggle because it allows them to have a deeper understanding of the material even though they are more comfortable with wading in shallow conversations that have no depth.  It is this idea of comfort and lack of understanding of depth that got me thinking more about our collaborative teams.

Bill Eckstrom @billeckstrom addresses the idea that comfort can actually be a problem in his Ted Talk titled “Why Comfort Will Ruin Your Life”. In this video he talks about how being taken out of his comfort zone (even if it was involuntary) actually was important for him to grow as an individual. He used a great analogy about goldfish to emphasize how your environment can dictate your growth.  A high comfort/low stress environment will actually limit your growth as compared to a low comfort (relatively higher stress) environment.   High comfort environments have the potential to lead to “stagnation” or at best a feeling of “order” which can limit the way you think and act.  However, an environment that is too stressful has the potential to lead to “chaos” according to Eckstrom, so the sweet spot to shoot for is one of “complexity”.  “Complexity is nothing more than changed order, but when your order is changed it is no longer is predictable and this unpredictability leads to being uncomfortable” and ultimately an opportunity to grow (productive struggle).  So, I believe part of the reason we are not taking the “next step” in our PLC teams is because we are operating at a comfortable level with our shallow discussions and might not even realize it because we haven’t really experienced the depth needed to get into complexity.  This got me thinking about how can we support our teams’ ability to collaborate more and encourage deeper conversations during these professional development opportunities.  

In his book titled “In Praise of American Educators”, Rick DuFour points out “the most powerful avenue for developing educator talent is high quality collaborative, job-embedded professional development” (p.81).  He went on to state that there are three keys to building this collaborative culture: being part of a meaningful team, providing time to work together, and ensuring there is clarity in doing the right work (p.125).  I would argue that PLC, TBT, etc. do get people together in meaningful teams and, if supported correctly, can provide time within the day for that collaboration to take place.  However, it is the third part that we must work to focus on if we are to nurture this most powerful avenue for developing educator talent, that is to say, “doing the right work”.  

In my mind, “doing the right work” means that all of our conversations in this collaborative time together should be centered around pedagogy, data analysis, or common assessment development.  If we find ourselves discussing anything outside of these three during this collaborative time together we should STOP...PUT IT DOWN...and refocus on at least one of these three areas.  Here is a little “cheat sheet” that will hopefully encourage your team to move from shallow/comfortable conversations to more deep/uncomfortable conversations focused only on these three ideas.

Focus Areas: Please focus on one of the three areas for your PD discussions  

1. Pedagogy-Could include, but is not limited to, the following examples

• Sharing a best practice
• Collaboratively assessing samples of student work to discuss how to grade it (inter-rater reliability) and to refine the process
• Short videos of colleagues to analyze and discuss
• Practicing elements of an effective lesson based on a research-based strategy
• Identifying particularly difficult topic to teach and develop/share ways to teach it effectively
• Reading and discussing an educational/researched based article
• Discussing timely interventions that can be implemented for scaffolding learning

2. Data Analysis- Could include, but is not limited to, the following examples

• Analyzing data (as a class) to assess progress and identify areas that need improvement using hard data brought to the PD Discussion.
• Review of student answers from a test to dig deeper in order to determine where  students struggle.
• Utilizing a data analysis system to help identify areas of strength/weakness of a student
• Comparing school data with similar cohorts outside of the district

3. Common Assessment Development- Could include, but is not limited to, the following

• Creating deep lessons for particularly challenging topics or skills

• Developing and refining common, curriculum based assessments that emphasize writing and thoughtful engagement with content
• Creating “anticipatory sets” for specific topics, skills, and concepts to stimulate interest in the content
• Generating rich, thought-provoking questions for common text
• Building whole lessons as a team and practicing how to teach them
• Asking does a particular test question measure what we need to know about our students. (also a data analysis question)

Expectations

It is not expected that your team will cover all three areas for each PD Discussion.  The goal is to dig deeper into each of the areas, so you might find the team covers one area for the entire PD Discussion.  We would like your PD Discussion focus to be less of “What are we teaching?” and more of “How are we teaching?” as well as “Why are we teaching it that way?”.

If you find that what you want to cover in your PD Discussion focus does not fit into one of these categories, lesson planning as an example, then please avoid discussing the topic during PD Discussion time and meet, if necessary, at a different time. Email or Google forms will be especially helpful to disseminate  info to your team.  We encourage planning to take place during common planning time when possible.

When meeting in your PD Discussions, please try to avoid altogether or minimize topics such as:

-Lesson planning for the upcoming week(s)

-Updating Pacing Guides

-Discussing test format (diving deeper into a test question is great)

-Planning for a field trip

-Superficially covering many topics (mile wide vs. mile deep)

-Using the time to organize or sequence a unit.

-Spending time discussing dates and timelines.

-Specific building issues ex. special events, dismissals, playground/lunch issues, etc.

Having these discussion should not be about being accountable, but rather being responsible for being sure that we (teachers & administrators) use this time effectively.  The more we can stay in that “complexity” sweet spot the more we will grow and this can only take place if we challenge ourselves and our team to leave the shallow conversations behind and wade into deeper conversations which will ultimately help our students become learners.