Congrats, Rookie

"You give us cause to laugh and groan when we realize you are younger than the songs we listened to in high school."

This May the graduates of 2014 will rightfully be the center of a lot of attention; however, there's another group in the school community who deserve recognition as well: first year teachers.

When the final bell rings on the last day of school, and everyone exhales fully for the first time since August, take time to find the first year teachers in your building and give them a well deserved pat on the back as they reach the finish line for the first time.

Here are four bits of insight to share with those finishing the first year of this crazy, demanding, exhausting, frustrating, exhilarating, rewarding, and important job.

1.) If you had moments in the classroom this year that were less than perfect, you're not alone. Within the first ten minutes of the first class I taught, I spilled coffee on a student in the first row. I'd like to be able to say that from that moment I had no where to go but up, but that just wouldn't be true. Most honest teachers have similar stories to tell.

2.) There have been folks rooting for you along the way. Your victories have been celebrated, and your frustrations have been shared, by mentors struggling to ration out the proper amounts of support and space. Mentoring first year teachers is akin to teaching someone how to ride a bike. When the training wheels come off, there will be bumps and bruises, and increasing protection limits skill acquisition.

3.) You have inspired the other teachers in your building. You remind us why we started in this profession. You expose us to new ideas and challenge us to examine our own through a new perspective. You give us cause to laugh and groan when we realize you are younger than the songs we listened to in high school. Your presence is appreciated.

4.) A promise. Next year will not be easy, but it won't be nearly as difficult. Going into next year you will have much clearer expectations. You've made your first office referral (and maybe a couple others), your first parent phone call, and your first sub plans. You've probably had one hundred experiences that threatened your calm beforehand, but turned out to be much less dramatic that expected. You will be going into next year in a much better position. Your second year will not be easy. In fact, it will be hard. Every year you teach will be hard. This job is great because it is hard.....and important.

The good news is, you can handle it.

Vote For Left Fielders Not Lawyers

"Baseball is like church. Many attend. Few understand," Leo Durocher.

As a ball player who retired after the eighth grade, about the same time cuts were introduced, I am admittedly the type of fan Durocher described. When I watch our high school baseball team play, I know I don't appreciate fully the game's intricacies. I do, however, recognize one quality of the competition I appreciate a great deal: the opportunity it presents to develop leadership skills.

The character grown inside the chalk and in the dugout serve us well when we find them in our leaders. If given the option between a lawyer and a left fielder in the next election, I would choose the latter.

Responding to Forces Beyond Your Control
To borrow from Yogi Berra, leadership is about ninety percent being proactive, and the other half is reacting. The same is true of baseball. Baseball is a game of initiated strategy, but it is also a game of responses. Ballplayers are constantly required to control how they respond. JV hitters must respond to strike zones that grow as the umpires feel it getting late early (last Berraism...maybe). Fielders must respond to bad hops. Everyone must respond to the weather. Being a high school baseball fan in early spring requires the preparation skills of camping.

High school baseball players learn how to respond with efficiency and poise. If only our elected leaders could do the same.

Mentoring
True leaders know how to mentor. They aren't so afraid of losing their spot in the line up that they won't help a back up. True leaders also know how to allow themselves to be mentored. They're humble enough to learn. I see this in baseball.  This is particularly true for small school high school baseball where underclassmen fill starting varsity positions, and the amount of facial hair seems to have a correlative effect on position in the line up. Older players have no choice but to invest in younger players.  Their success depends on their success. Younger players have no choice but to accept the fact that pressure really is a privilege. This is how leaders are born.

I've watched a lot of baseball this spring. I don't know if I really know the game any better, but I think I understand the value of the game better for watching.

As a wise man once said "You can observe a lot by watching."

Honoring Art as MU's Program is Suspended

     The University of Missouri has suspended its art education program. With declining enrollment, Mizzou faced a tough decision.  The moment should make us question how we will fill art teaching positions in tomorrow's classrooms, as we honor those doing this important work today.

     In our building our art teacher receives compliments on a daily basis from visitors who are greeted by the work of her talented artists.  She brings out the best in the students who work every day under the mural she created of a Dostoevsky quote.

As an educator I admire teachers of the fine arts.  As a parent I appreciate them even more. Some of my proudest moments have been watching my children perform and create under the guidance of an art or music teacher.

    STEM education rightfully receives a great deal of attention, but we must be careful not to create false dichotomies. The examples of three astronauts serve as reminders: Chris Hadfield's musicianship, Alen Bean's art, and Sally Ride's poetic writing.  These talented scientists remind us of our deep need for the beauty of art. 

      I don't know that beauty alone will save the world, but I do know the world is a better place where talented art teachers are at work.
     Those teachers need a place to prepare. 

On leadership: mistakes

Like some of the happiest humans on the planet, I park in a gravel parking lot. This fact delayed the discovery of one of my most embarrassing mistakes this past year. I had taken several steps before setting foot on an even, firm surface. When something felt off, I looked down and saw this.

Yes, I made it to school wearing two different shoes. At that moment I had to choose between the two options all of us face after making a mistake.

1. Try to cover it

2. Own it

Folks in leadership are bound to make mistakes. Information is spread clumsily. Stakeholders go unconsulted. Words are spoken hastily. Afterwards, the same choices present themselves: own or cover.

Similarly, leaders must choose how to respond to the mistakes of those with whom they work. Leaders must chose to respond with one of two attitudes.

1. Empathy

2. Criticism

How leaders respond to their own mistakes and the mistakes of others has tremendous effect on the culture of the organization.  Three question prove helpful in deciding how to respond to mistakes.

1. Do the individuals in the organization trust each other? 

2. Are the individuals in the organization primarily motivated by internal or external factors?

3. Does pressure tend to improve the performance of the individuals in the organization?

Personally, I think the most effective organizations are those where individuals trust each other enough to own their own mistakes because each person is motivated by an internal desire to succeed rather than a desire to avoid the external pressure of shame. 

In my mind the most effective organizations are also those where it's appropriate to laugh at the guy who shows up occasionally in non matching shoes.

Confidence: The Key to Differentiated Instruction

Most individual growth, whether it be in knowledge or skill, begins and ends with confidence. The confidence required to attempt. The confidence gained with success. Last weekend I watched my eleven year old daughter make an advancement in two important skill sets, at least for our family: canoeing and fishing. Before that afternoon she spent many hours in the bow of our canoe fishing for bass while I paddled and coached, but that afternoon she made it clear she was ready to pilot alone.

There were risks she had to weigh, the most likely drifting to the far side and being forced to walk home through brush and tall grass, but she had just enough confidence to try. 

There were factors in place that buoyed her confidence: getting the opportunity on a calm night when the water lay like glass, a heavy rock placed in the empty stern to counter balance, a voice of encouragement from the bank. The accommodations gave her confidence, which led to her success, which in turn led to greater confidence.

And so it is with differentiated instruction. Students need to be challenged in environments where they feel influences they know will contribute to their success. This is what I see everyday in classrooms. Teachers allowing the counterbalance of a calculator, so a student, still working toward automaticity with math facts, can begin learning the concepts of an equation. Teachers requiring, not just allowing, a test to be retaken on a day when the waters of a student's life are more still. Teachers encouraging, always encouraging in a voice with the perfect mix of challenge and support. The result of meeting students where they are, a tough task even for talented teachers, is greater student confidence.

Differentiated instruction begins and ends with confidence.

Troy

Will Common Core be the end of National Poetry Month?

April is an interesting month in a middle school. Weather and students undergo dramatic changes. Forces of meteorology, biology, and accountability, in the form of state assessments,  all threaten the calm of a building. Fortunately, this month I've watched an equally powerful opposite force push against Spring Fever's inertia: National Poetry Month. The ELA teachers with whom I work dedicated a great deal of class time to poetry writing this April.

Our building is better for it.

Here are three reasons why the practice should continue even as standards change.

1.) The Common Core does not prohibit poetry.
Seventh grade ELA writing standards make no mention of poetry writing, and while there are voices making logical connections between CCSS and poetry, the standards clearly emphasize informational and persuasive writing. There are good reasons for this; however, as the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education  states the standards are not the only concepts that should be taught.

"The aim of the Standards is to articulate the fundamentals, not to set out an exhaustive list or a set of restrictions that limits what can be taught beyond what is specified herein."

Removing poetry writing from ELA curriculum in the name of CCSS is unnecessary.

2.) Poetry writing promotes intellectual development.
Rigor is an impossible word to avoid in conversations regarding CCSS. A clear treatment of rigor can be found in Justin Tarte's blog. Poetry writing, as much as any other classroom activity, addresses qualities of rigorous instruction. Few activities require more complexity and depth.

3.) Poetry writing promotes interpersonal development.
A peer editing session of robust persuasive essays will not cultivate relationships as well as a peer editing session of meager poems. This is true even for poetry written by the uninterested, but as ELA teachers know there are middle school poets who take great interest in their work. Often these are the students who miss deadlines. Some of the best middle school poems written are submitted after the due date. Praise to those who accept this late work! In these poems, students reveal themselves. And their struggles. Poetry writing, as much as any other classroom activity, has the power to close what John Hattie calls the empathy gap.  There is much value in this.

There are good reasons to support the CCSS, but I do not think CCSS should be the limit to what is taught in an ELA classroom. In spite of, or better said because of, CCSS's omission of poetry writing, teachers should be diligent in their efforts to include it in their curriculum.

Troy

Four Reasons Common Core Should Stay

"When I was in kindergarten I ate glue."

Many people in my circle of friends hold a negative view of the Common Core State Standards. While I respect differences of opinion, I feel compelled to offer my thoughts on why I support the Common Core State Standards. As an educator, and as a parent, I have a unique interest in the shift to the new standards. As the Curriculum Director for my school district, the last year of my professional life has been spent wrestling with the standards in fairly intense ways. I believe I know what the standards are, and I believe I know what they are not.

Here are four reasons I support the standards.
1.) Standards vs. Curriculum: The difference between standards and curriculum is important. Standards refer to specific content and skills. A curriculum details how those standards are taught. CCSS does not mandate how the content knowledge and skills should be taught. Such decisions are left to teachers and leaders at the local level. While many criticisms I see focus on perceived weakness of a curriculum from an anonymous or distant school, I see few criticism of specific standards.  Criticizing specific standards amounts to saying students should not be required to memorize multiplication tables, or spell words correctly.

multiplication standard
spelling standard

2.) The Value of Clarity: One value of the Common Core State Standards is that they are clearly written, and compared to other sets of standards I have seen, they are fairly limited in scope. In thirty minutes a person could read all of the standards for their child's grade in mathematics. The language arts standards could be read in an additional thirty.

mathematics standards
English language arts standards

I will be the first to admit that I have reservations about the role of standardized testing in America. Many attempts to hold schools accountable seem misguided to me. However, if we must have tests, it is only fair to our students and teachers to have clear standards for what is to be tested.

3.) Effects of Disruption: The Common Core State Standards have been influencing educators since they were first introduced by Republican governors in 2009. Teachers have expended tremendous amounts of effort aligning curriculum and assessments to the standards. If political leaders were to force an abandonment of the standards now, for reasons having much more to do with political strategy than regard for students, the efforts of those teachers would have been wasted. The disruption would be compounded further because most opponents of the core have no suggestion for replacement standards. The disruption would negatively impact students.

4.) Benefits for Kids: One final reason, perhaps the most important reason, why I support the Common Core State Standards is that I believe the new standards can be good for kids. The new standards are more rigorous, but our kids will benefit from being challenged to engage in a greater complexity of thought. I'll close with examples of two specific students, a kindergartner and a fourth grader.

In a recent professional development session I led, I used a video of a kindergartner reading a paragraph she wrote explaining why she would choose to have Bengal tiger teeth, if she had to have animal teeth. When I was in kindergarten I ate glue and slept on a mat. Now students are writing paragraphs. This is a direct response to this standard.

The fourth grader wrote a multi-page essay about Scott Joplin. The essay was typed and distributed digitally to her father, who was proud. The length of the essay was a response to this standard.

The technological component to the assignment was a response to this standard.

That fourth grader is my daughter, Laney. The Common Core State Standards, taught by a truly talented teacher forced her to stretch and grow.

Before doing anything to disrupt that kind of experience, we should all pause.

Troy