Back in the saddle

 Hi all,

I've been away from thinking about education for a bit - gaining perspective by being education adjacent.  Perhaps Upward Bound gave me the ability to see what students need that teachers can't always provide.  My Upward Bound classroom became a cute little coffee shop, staffed cleaned and set up by students who just wanted a home away from home.  They  made soup nearly every day, cared for each other and me, and ensured everyone felt safe in the space.  I wasn't responsible for their education, but I tutored them in whatever class they were struggling in, helped them learn about college and life, and filled in the gaps in their educations as best I could.  

I'd like to say I added to the school and the program, but one can never really know.  I recruited a few good teacher/tutors and planned and executed a trip to some colleges they  might not have considered otherwise.  This included Bates, Dartmouth and UMass Amherst.  

Anyway, the pay was too low for me to stay in the nonprofit sector.  So I am back to teaching math full time, at a great magnet school with caring staff and students who (sometimes) want to learn.  I am hoping I bring to that assignment some of the socioemotional learning lessons I took from my time at Upward Bound.  

How to hire (and keep) great teachers

 When working in my large, urban school district, we went through maybe 5 teachers per year.  We were a good school, with caring adults, nice students and parents, and supportive administration.  Some retired, some quit, some didn't make it, and some left for other opportunities.  This is a national crisis now, with a looming teacher shortage and no one stepping in to take their place.  

To be fully upfront: I taught from 2005-2019 in an urban magnet school, then tried a few years at two separate suburban schools.  I now work at Upward Bound as a mentor, and online as a tutor for students who require at home services.  I am still education adjacent, but I am no longer in a classroom teaching mathematics.  

What drew me to education in the first place was helping students.  I loved it when I started in the magnet, because I felt like the students, other staff and the administrators truly appreciated what I was doing for the students.  Because of that, I was willing to work.  I probably put too much into it - teaching a full load of courses with 3 or 4 preps, coaching 2 or 3 seasons, and saying yes every time I was asked to chaperone a dance or activity on the weekends.  I was definitely prioritizing my work life over my social life or family life, and it eventually burned me out.  

Here is what burned me out:

a) Students over my 17 year career became less and less motivated, and seemed to need more positive feedback and immediacy of reward in order to continue to work.

b) Parents raised expectations about communication, individualized feedback about their child, and shifted blame from their students' lack of work ethic or apathy about their grades to me, the teacher, for not making their student interested enough or good enough at my subject.

c) Principals and administrators forced me to reduce my high standards for student achievement.  In the worst case scenario, I was told that I had to pass students during the pandemic who did not show up to meets, come to school, do a single assignment or even reply to any emails or calls.  I literally did not know whether or not they were alive, and I was expected to pass them.

d) Maybe 3 of my 17 years in the classroom, I had enough supplies to do my job well.  My technology needs were never met, and there was no upgrade plan.  A few years I used donorschoose.org and because I have generous friends and family, I got a new printer and a few calculators, one year a laptop.  But I should NOT have to ask friends and family for supplies.

e) Trust.  I was hired to teach mathematics, but instead of being allowed to do so in the way I thought best, I was forced to use district curriculum and do things in a certain, prescribed way that I knew was not as effective as what worked for my students.  

There are many other reasons why I do what I do now - I am able to work one on one with students to help them achieve mastery of whatever topic they'd like to work on, I can give them career and college advice, and I'm not standing at the front of a room trying to entertain students with a lesson about math (which they hate) and convince them my subject is important.

But it can't just be me.  There has to be some real change in educational policy and the system has to adapt to meet the needs of our new learners, as well as to think about the needs of teachers, in order to survive.

Philosophy - are we teachers, or lifelong learners?

 Hi all,

As I ponder my 17 years in education (more if you consider all the years I was a student in academia) I notice that I am at my best, as an educator, when I consider the possibility that I might learn from my students.  What might I gain, if I was open to their sense of wonder, to their knowledge about life from their perspective?  

To be clear: I know I'm a subject matter expert and that this means that I will be more often correct about math or computer science or grammar.  However, being open to potentially learning from my students also means I am open to their experiences, and they might consider sharing things about their life with me.  I also, sometimes on purpose, commit small faux pas, small mathematical blunders, just to let them know it's ok to do so and make sure they are paying attention (sometimes they even catch me, lol).  This vulnerability leads directly to the growth mindset, to the idea that they can also learn and grow and improve, and that mistakes can teach us how to do so.  

Communication

 

Good morning,

I'm not sure this hasn't been said before, (actually, I'm sure it HAS been said before).  In my book club, I'm often the one advocating finding middle ground, finding ways to communicate with folks who don't agree with us.  The book club tends left/liberal, and my family and immediate surrounds tend very right.  I think my value, such as it is, is to bridge that gap.  I see reasonable republicans like my parents, and leftists who aren't communists, but prefer a social safety net for those who can't work.  Often, they see the problems as the same, and just have differing solutions.  

Anyway, I think I'm able to fill this role because I try to listen to both groups.  Some of my leftist friends say that's shitty - that all republicans are racists and that being around them or calling them friends is bad.  However, I think being around varying perspectives is ok, as long as it doesn't make me lose track of or sight of my own moral compass.  It also helps to know another perspective.  

I generally think of this as the George approach.  This man is a Harvard educated doctor, who has been serving the world in all sorts of ways his adult life.  He has treated hippo bites for doctors without borders.  But to meet him and have a conversation, you'd think YOU were the expert.  He lets people speak, and in doing so, creates this ability for people to express themselves and learn.  Sometimes, I learn about myself, and sometimes I learn about him by the infrequent and subtle statements he makes.  He asks clarifying questions, but never really tries to relate it to his own story, or make it anything but yours.  The speaker ends up feeling heard, but also leaves feeling that this is a wise man.

Another version of wisdom is another chosen father figure, my friend Mark.  He is well versed in a huge variety of topics, and can inject that knowledge into whatever it is I'm speaking about.  He is ebullient and humorous, and able to make conversation with just about anyone, as well as being able to "run a room" no matter how big the room is (for example, a cafeteria packed to the gills with raucous 8th graders).  He still listens, but in a different way, and lets me examine my own story though the way it is connected to his.  

My method for this kind of listening is asking questions about things people are excited about or are experts in.  For my friend Bill, this is machinist/engineer things as well as hobby farmer things.  This is partly because he can make his own pieces to the antique machinery he uses, and partially because he is a meticulous maintainer of those machines.  I love learning about the machines, and tried my hand at making hay myself this year.  In general, people like talking about things they know about and care about, and I like learning.  Win/win.

This doesn't work for everyone though - there are some people who can't or won't share their expertise.  Or, they need their entire focus to do the job, and can't or don't want to handle questions.  So for them, I watch and learn and try not to interrupt.

Something else?

 Good morning all,

I'm having really mixed feelings about continuing in education.  I love my students, even/especially those that are difficult sometimes.  Humans, all of them, are difficult sometimes.  But the overhead that comes with teaching , especially pandemic teaching, is sometimes too much to bear.  It caused me to sleep away my Friday night, much of my Saturday, and be up worrying again at 2:30 this morning.  

Maybe I'm just bad at this job.  Maybe pandemic teaching is too much.  Maybe I'm not putting enough effort in, but I can't put more in without reducing my self care to dangerous levels.  As is, I come home emotionally and physically tired, so tired that I almost immediately nap when I arrive home.  I'm running from student to student, responding to questions in my headset as I run from physical student to physical student, answering questions on the google meet chat, the goguardian chat, emails, physical students and virtual students speaking in my headset.  I clock more steps than I ever have before in my career.  And yet my students aren't doing the assignments.  My grades are too low.  I arrive at school at 6:30 am and tutor students before and after school almost every day.  Yet this isn't enough, or isn't working.  Their grades show growth in the Iready assessment, and their assessments, when students take them, show growth too.  But they don't do the Khan or Quizizz assignments that they have time to do during class, even when I monitor them on goguardian.  They don't have homework, not really - 30 minutes of Iready Mypath which they have time to complete in class.  I'm running out of ideas to engage them, and I'm feeling pressure from above, below, sideways and upside down to pass more students even with literally 0 evidence of their existence, never mind understanding of my curriculum.  Some of them never join the meet, and those that do sometimes, "log in and walk away/become unresponsive."  This was joked about by my students attending physically in class Friday - they said knowingly that those at home are probably not even near their computers anymore.  Add this to the pressure I already put myself under to make sure that all students learn, that they are safe and happy and healthy and that they enjoy my class - and it may just be too much.

I'm seriously considering other careers, and I'm worried that far too many educators feel the same after this year.  I'm a 15 year veteran and I like technology.  But hybrid isn't working for many students, because the students in the room don't get the full me, and neither do the students at home.  It's not working for me either, since I haven't the energy to do both jobs at 100%.  

This year, most of my parental feedback has been positive.  They like the way I speak to their students (my audience is their whole house/living room in many cases), and their students seem to enjoy my class too, which is not something that 7th graders would usually admit.  Why, then, do I feel like such a failure?  Why am I feeling like I'm failing, when evidence both statistical and anecdotal tells me otherwise?  

If you've read this far, I really would appreciate feedback.  Am I doing it wrong?  Should I be satisfied with the success that the students who ARE paying attention are achieving?  Should I be happy that they seem to be meeting socio-emotional learning goals?  Are you an educator who has ideas that have been more successful?  Please share them.  I read a quote recently - "be teachable, you aren't always right."  I firmly believe the motto of my old school, "we learn not for school, but for life."  I want to continue learning and improving my craft.  I want to not give up.  

I hope all of you are having a great morning so far,

~Mark

Test taking tips (for all ages/grades/even adults)

Hi all,

Here are some things I’ve noticed in myself and my students over the last few years (I won’t say how many) of teaching and learning.  Maybe they’ll help you do just a bit better on your next assessment, or as I like to think of them, chance to prove just how much you know.

1. Be rested.  If you have to choose between cramming more information into your head and being rested, I always choose rest.  

1. A quick aside - I have numerous examples of folks who would spend hours upon hours in the library instead of sleeping, and I think it helped them, but not as much as it would have helped them to get real rest before the test so they could focus.

2. Be calm.  Bring your yoga breaths, your deep breathing, your sense that “it will turn out however it turns out, let me just do the best I can do.”  Focus on your breathing during the assessment and consciously take some really deep ones.

3. Write work.  Show anything that you’re thinking, even if you aren’t sure it’s right.  That helps your teachers to see your thinking, and most teachers will award partial credit if they see anything that seems like the student is trying or has some idea what to do.

4. Annotate.  This is a close reading strategy, but it helps no matter what level you’re at and whatever the question is asking.  I circle the most important information and underline what I don’t understand after the first read, then I look at it again and see if I can make more sense of it.  I also am careful to answer the question they are ASKING, not the question I think they’re asking.

5. Skip around (if you can) to the questions you can do with ease, then go back and spend time on the ones that you struggle with.  This strategy works in standard tests, but not on adaptive tests like I-Ready.  I star the ones that need more attention and come back to them after I’ve answered all the ones I know.

6. Avoid any distractions.  This includes hunger, other situations in your life, anything that could make you focus on anything but the assessment at hand.  This isn’t always possible, but I would say do whatever is in your power to put these things aside for a few minutes, even if you can’t fully control them.

1. If you have concerns about food insecurity, please ask someone at your school and see if they can help.  Many teachers and professors will listen to this and do their absolute best to help.

2. If you have other things going on, again find someone you can confide in about it.  This doesn’t need to be someone at the school, the teacher or professor, or a family member.  It could be anyone you trust.  Just sharing it usually helps, even though that’s risky.  If it’s someone at your school, they usually have resources to help or know who to have you talk to in order to find more information.  If it’s your teacher or professor, sometimes they can help you take the test another time or in a separate space where you can focus.

7. Pursuant to #6 - I find that for myself I can focus better when I have had exercise.  I have a hard time convincing myself to do this, but if I can get a morning workout in I do a better job teaching, as well as on whatever tasks I need to accomplish, up to and including the assessments I have to take from time to time.

8. Take practice tests.  Even if there isn’t one provided by the teacher, school or built with other classmates, there probably is one on Khan Academy or somewhere on the internet.  Quizizz and quizlet are other good sources.  If there isn’t one, make one and share it with your classmates.

9. Form a study group.  If each of you comes to a study session with a few problems you don’t understand, you have essentially done #8 and made an impromptu study guide.

10. Make a formula sheet.  Even if the teacher or professor doesn’t let you use it, making a 3x5 index card of formulas or main ideas or important information will help you to focus your studying on the stuff that is most essential.

 

Same lesson, different classes

Good morning everybody,

Sometimes I notice that the SAME EXACT lesson, with my approach being the same (I'm pretty sure) go differently based on the students in my room or the time of day.  I am really interested in why that happens.  I know classrooms are dynamic, heterogeneous places with lots of different students in each room, making a unique environment in each room and time of day.  However, it still boggles my mind that my period a class can be so different than my period f class.  Of course, this time wasn't a great comparison, since one was hybrid so i had students in the room paying attention (and whom I could monitor and engage more readily).  But the same questions, the same engaging questions and inquiry based learning and real world connections, totally flopped and/or received no response from the folks at home online.  The in class discussion as well as the at home discussion during the other period, with the same approach and delivery, went swimmingly the day before.  

EDD reasearchers, or folks doing inquiry projects - has anyone studied this effect?  It can't be something that only I notice.  I'll bet that there are tons of reflective practitioners out there experiencing similar stuff.  I'd welcome your comments - likes and shares or just feedback on this blog or on my social media share of the blog.  Extra points and appreciation if you can link to scholarly articles or your own experiences of the same or similar situations.

Have a great day all!

~Mark