Freedom of Speech

I was shocked and fired up by an article in this morning's Chronicle about a teacher in Indiana who was fired for expressing her opinion on the Iraq war in her 4th-6th grade class. (Check it out at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/14/MNG9PPQGVV1.DTL). Yes, I know it was in a more conservative part of the country than the Bay Area and in a classroom of children younger than those we all teach. Still, it is worrisome.

Two quotes from the article were particularly galling:

1. A teacher's speech is "the commodity she sells to an employer in exchange for her salary." So said an appeals court in Chicago ruling in favor of the school district.

2. "Public education is inherently a situation where the government is the speaker, and ... its employees are the mouthpieces of the government." So said a professor of law at UC's Hastings College of Law discussing the issue of a teacher's freedom of speech in the classroom.

Even as we steer close to the state and district standards as we plan and teach, don't we express our opinions in all of our instructional decisions? Just because a text in on the district approved reading list doesn't mean that it teaches itself.

And what are we to do if students ask us our opinion on a "controversial" issue? Demure because we might lose our jobs? Express our opinions with a clear disclaimer (as NPR does: "The views expressed are those of the speaker and not those of this radio station, National Public Radio or its funder.")? Answer with a question and ask them what they think?

And just where is the line between a safe and a controversial issue? Is the enviroment controversial? Homelessness? Government funding for education? And do districts really have policies on each of these issues? If so, I'm in trouble because I'm honestly in the dark.

If we are trying to teach students to be independent thinkers (and dare I say it, a bit open minded) and evaluate different points of view on issues in order for them to learn how to make up their own minds, isn't it enough that we provide opportunities for them to interact with texts whose authors present a variety of opinions?

I firmly believe that we have NO right to to use our position as teachers as a bully pulpit, but isn't there a middle ground between being the mouthpiece for the government (yikes!) and being irresponsible and unprofessional?

Thoughts on Looking for a Job

Perhaps the morose tone of this post is due to an exhausting Wednesday, the pile of grading I have to do, the grades due next Monday, and the final assignments for my credential classes. Or perhaps I just hate looking for a job.

Those of you who read this blog know that my school is closing at the end of the year due to low enrollment and financial difficulties. (I've already written about this in an earlier post.) So, I've been looking for another teaching position for the last month or so.

While the job search has its high points (finding a announcement for a position you really want, getting a job offer for that position), it can also be wearying and frustrating. (Not to mention time-consuming.) At the moment, I am tired of sending out cover letters and resumes, having phone and face to face interviews, teaching demo lessons and waiting to hear back from principals. Mostly I'm tired of trying to present myself accurately in the space of a 30-minute interview or a 30-minute lesson. I generally know what questions I will be asked and I know what administrators what to hear. But it seems like such a game at times. And although I have done this before, I can't help taking the throw away comment "We are impressed with your background and experience and you taught a dynamite lesson, but..." personally. Yes, I know I shouldn't.

In truth, I don't think my feelings about looking for a job will change once I sign a contract. (Well, I know I'll be happier and less anxious, but I won't think differently about the process.)

Another Student Who Puzzles Me

Finding the piece of student work that I shared in class on Tuesday brought back a flood of memories, frustrations and feelings of inadequacy as a teacher. It's startling how a student whom I haven't seen or taught in months can still have such power over my psyche and my sense of myself as a teacher.

Before I read the personal narrative that Ellen (not her real name, of course) wrote, most of what I knew about her came from her disruptive behavior or her almost total lack of engagement in class. I knew that she used to live with her mother in Northern California and then left the area to spend time with relatives in 2005-2006, but I certainly didn't know the circumstances that lead to her being separated from her mother. To be fair to myself, when she joined my class late in the first quarter, I asked her (as I did all my students) to write me a letter of introduction. The letter, one of the few assignments she completed, contained none of this personal detail. To be hard on myself, I never read between the lines.

In her letter, she told me that she had already completed 10th grade but that her coursework hadn't transferred. When I spoke to the dean about this, she said that Ellen's grades were in fact, quite poor. Although Ellen was clearly bright, she and her mother had had to convince the dean that Ellen would take her second sophomore year seriously. Instead, she appeared frustrated, angry, and motivated by few class activities, assignments and projects. In several cases, I offered her alternate (but equally challenging) assessments in the hopes that something would engage her . Variations on "I don't want to be here.This is boring," is what I got in response. The few assignments that she began with promise were turned in late or incomplete. Over the course of the four months she was at school, her teachers and the dean has several meetings with Ellen and her mother. Sometimes, Ellen wouldn't answer our questions; sometimes, her answers were dripping with contempt.

In truth, I took her in your face lack of effort entirely as a reflection of myself as a teacher. "Surely another teacher (more sensitive, more creative, stricter, cooler...) would be able to reach her, find a way of getting her do to the work of which she was clearly capable." Maybe. But can we as teachers compensate for and erase a student's poor home life, the fact that their parents lose a job, the fact that their family is evicted from their apartment? Maybe not. But in retrospect I still feel I could have done more. If I had been able to step back from the relief I felt on the days she was absent I may have found a way to help her: a learning contract, a recommendation for counseling?

I saw little of Ellen's gifts until she wrote her personal narrative (a perceptive remark here and there, creative sketches and doodles in her binder) and then, after she had offered me some precious insights, she was gone, expelled for unleashing a string of foul language directed toward a teacher in another class. As my classmates know, her writing was fiercely honest, poetic and original. Not perfect, but clearly the work of a writer. I don't want to overstate the value of the story she shared with me, because knowing her background may still not have been all that was necessary for me to connect with her. But it would have given me a chance to. And I feel robbed of that.

So, Ellen, I'll be returning your story with my comments. As NG said, maybe knowing that your last assignment blew me away and could have been the beginning of something will mean something to you.

A Student Who Puzzles Me (or Where Is This Writing Coming From?)

David (not his real name, of course) is a student in my 10th grade class. What puzzles me about him is his writing, which varies from fluent to very weak (grammar, spelling, organization, development of ideas etc.). Whenever we do in class writing (journal entries, peer editing, project reflections, essays etc.) he produces very little compared to his peers and what he writes is muddled. He often asks to finish assignments at home. (Since he has an IEP, he is allowed extra time to complete work.) When he turns in these assignments, they are not perfect, but they are very well-written.

Here's what troubles me... I would love to believe that the extra time David spends on his work at home is the reason for the remarkable improvement in his writing. However, there is a part of me that suspects that he is getting help at home (but from whom?) and that the "stronger" writing is not (entirely) is own. He seems to do less writing in his other classes (Spanish, Math, Chemistry) so his teachers, all of whom I have spoken to, have less evidence of the difference in the quality of his work. We have not received the CAHSEE scores yet (he took the test untimed), and I am very interested to see if he passed the writing sample portion. I've mentioned my concerns to the Special Ed. coordinator and she understands my dilemma. How do discuss my suspicions with his parents and with him without seeming as if I am accusing him unjustly?

More about Technology in the Classroom

As some of you know, I teach at a project-based charter school. Rather than final exams at the end of the year, all students have what we call TPOLs, or Transitional Presentations of Learning. These required, rubric-based presentations to faculty, parents and peers are intended to offer the students a chance to reflect on and demonstate how they have grown as individuals and learners over the course of the year. (Our students are used to reflecting on their work and the "process"; self-assessment and reflection are part of every major assignment or project they complete.) The TPOLs are based on digital portfolios, or DPs, that the students create and update by adding assignments and projects they have completed in their classes. Their DPs must include links to a personal statement, a resume and to each of their classes. For each of the projects they include on their "class pages," students need to include a description, an analysis and a reflection. These project become the "evidence" they present during their TPOLs.

I am really enthusiastic about my students creating a digital record of year-long learning and having the chance to reflect on how they have grown by sharing concrete examples of their work with members of their school. During the TPOLs, the students' goal is not to demonstrate how much content knowledge they have gained from a particular project; rather, it is to think seriously about the process of their learning. In this spirit, we encourage students to share both successful and challenging learning experiences (for example, working in groups, using new technology, prioritizing parts of a project and managing their time etc.) During their TPOLs, the students must reference specific grade-level and school-wide learning outcomes and explain to what extent they believe they have achieved them.

As a classroom teacher, my responsibilities include helping my students create and periodically update their DPs (although most of them know far more about DreamWeaver than I do) and to preparing them for their TPOLs (by thinking about questions such as: How does one reflect on growth and learning? What do the learning outcomes "mean" to them? What makes evidence relevant and persuasive? etc.) It is a lot of work and takes up a great deal of class time. In theory, I am all for what seems to be a comprehensive form of authentic assessment; I am anxious to see how it turns out in practice.

Using Technology to Motivate and Facilitate Writing

During our last literature unit, in addition to several forms of "individual" writing (reader response logs, reader sketchbooks, and dialectical journals), I asked my students to engage in a thoughtful bi-weekly email dialogue with a classmate in which they reflected on the reading, discussed ideas, questions, confusions and shared successful comprehension strategies. Over the course of 6 weeks, they were required to send each other 12 emails of about 150 words each. I checked the students' work the first week, and then every other week, for completion, genuine effort, depth of thought, analysis of their reading strategies etc. and gave them ongoing feedback to help them improve their writing and gain more from the experience.

The students seemed particularly engaged by the online nature of the assignment, by the chance to exchange ideas with a peer and by the relatively open-ended format of the writing they had to produce (although I gave the guidelines, they had a choice of what aspects of the reading to discuss). Most of the students took the assignment seriously, but some saw the email format as a way of using an overly informal style (abbreviations, slang and emoticons). The next time we do a similar assignment, I will need to rethink how formal or casual I expect the students' writing to be.

Before the end of the year, I'd like to set up an asynchronous chat in my class (similar to ours, with the students divided into groups of 4 or 5). I'll keep you posted. Nelson mentioned MOO's in class, so I intend to check those out, too. In the future, I would like to explore the idea of a class blog (but would it be academic? personal? both?).

"Required" reading

I've still been thinking a lot about reading this week. In my sophomore class, we are in the middle of a novel which some students are enjoying and some are not. Although it describes a culture and a time period (pre-colonial Africa) which are both unfamiliar to my students, the novel contains universal themes (individual vs. society, gender stereotyping, tradition vs. progress) which are important for my students to grapple with and, I believe, are relevant to their lives.

Before we started, I did a number of pre-reading activities (opinionnaires, anticipation guides, "word walls" -- small groups of students respond to key words that reflect the themes of the novel, e.g. tradition, honor, freedom etc.). Their reading assignments consist of about 25 pages every other night -- which seems pretty light for the average 10th grader -- and we are doing a number of different activities to discuss and engage with the novel ( a sampling: small group discussions, whole class discussions, small group presentations, watching relevant film clips, choosing songs to reflect the themes of each chapter, writing original titles for each of the chapters, writing original animal myths etc.) My goal is to make explicit connections between the world of the novel and the lives and experiences of my students.

There seem to be three groups of students in the class: 1. those who do the assigned reading, enjoy it and actively engage with the class activities, 2. those who read solely to pass the reading quizzes and at times engage with the class activities and 3. those who don't like the novel or find it boring and see no reason to engage with the class activities.

What more can I do to engage groups 2 & 3? Is it naive of me to think that there is something I am missing or not doing that would make their experience of reading more fruitful and enjoyable?

Reading for pleasure?

Over the last week, I have been thinking a great deal about my students and their relationship with reading. This was prompted by the discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of reading quizzes we had last Tuesday in class. I don’t want to focus on “required” reading for class, but rather reading for pleasure, which, unfortunately, seems to be a contradiction in terms for some of my students.

One day a week my school has a special schedule, which allows for half an hour of SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) for everyone, teachers included. As long as the students are reading, they may read anything they want: books, magazines, newspapers, anime etc. All teachers have class libraries so students who forget to bring something have a choice of reading materials. Although we urge them to read something at their reading level (so, no Cat in the Hat), we don’t tell them what to read.

Some students relish the time to read, and others cannot refrain from talking, sleeping, writing notes, in short, doing anything but reading. It amazes me that some students cannot find anything to read for fun or pleasure. I have asked my sophomores what they like to read (or what they have read and enjoyed in the past). I have used their reponses as a guide to enriching my classroom library. Still, there are some students who refuse (or pretend) to read. Does the fact that they have to read for half an hour once a week sap the “pleasure” from the reading? Is it impossible for them to read surrounded by peers who are doing the same thing? Is reading, even for for pleasure, less important that sleeping or writing to their friends? Is it the timing (Friday right after lunch)? Is it the age of the students?

Admittedly, I have some data for assessment (what I have observed), but I have not asked my students these questions directly. I know that’s where I should start. And I’d love to hear from those of you who have ideas or suggestions or observations regarding SSR that support or refute mine.)

Realism/Idealism

This week brought shocking news: in all probability, the school at which I teach will be closing at the end of the year due to lack of funds. The school has been under-enrolled from the start (three years ago) and the school building, which we rent, is being sold and we don't have the money to buy it. (I should explain, for those of you who are confused, that I teach at a charter school.) The fact that I was stongly considering not returning in the fall (primarily because of the 40-minute commute each way) didn't lessen my surprise and disappointment upon hearing the news.

The students and my colleagues reacted very strongly and with a range of emotions: shock, like me, sadness, anger, resignation, but also a strong sense of determination. The day after the news broke the faculty met to discuss how to best support the students in dealing with their emotions, but also in finding each of them a suitable school for the fall. Early the same day, a group of students met to plot their own strategy. Emails were sent out (to friends, former teachers, rich celebrities and the media) to spread the word and request money. These kids weren't going to let the first school at which many of them felt at home just close down. And if it was, they weren't just going to sit around and wait for the last day of classes to come around.

I was so moved and impressed by how deeply the students took the news and how swiftly and idealistically they mobilized. When I was asked what I felt and thought about the situation, I faced a dilemma. On the one hand, I thought that all of this effort was probably for nothing (the building is worth several million dollars, which would have to be raised in only a few weeks and celebrities don't just give money to kids because they ask nicely, do they?) and that after all their hard work the students would be terribly disappointed if they didn't save the school. But on the other, how could I give up all hope, if only for the sake of the students.

It occurred to me that I have never given up on a student. There is a chance that even the worst behaved or weakest student will turn things around and improve. I wouldn't be a teacher if I didn't have hope. But there was more to it than hope. I would be a hypocrite if I taught students about a single person's power to change the world, and tried to convince them that social justice began with them, and yet didn't let them try to put what they had learned into practice. Even if I was less idealistic than them in this case, I couldn't let them know it. My mission would be to do what I could to help them achieve their goal (and help them find another school for the fall, just in case), provide them with any resources I could, and be there to celebrate or commiserate with them in the end.

Diversifying instruction

Although enlightening and inspiring, the articles by Bro and Brimijoin et al. raised some questions for me. I see fully the necessity and benefits of diversifying instruction. What I am not clear on is how to avoid pigeonholing students into thinking of themselves as particular types of learners. As Bro notes on page 85 (quoting Freeman and Freeman), “students who are labeled “begin to see themselves as labeled.”” As teachers, how do we support the needs of all of our students without giving them the sense that they cannot master certain skills? For example, how do we allow students who are shy and prefer to demonstrate their understanding in writing the right to listen during class discussions, yet encourage them to take greater “risks” in this area as the semester/year progresses? Furthermore, what can we do to help our less vocal students meet the required “speaking” standards?

I was impressed by how smoothly student self-assessment, teacher formative assessment and instruction are combined in Ms. Martez’s classroom. As a sophomore teacher, I wonder how open 15-year-olds would be to being divided into three groups according to their learning style or level of mastery. Perhaps I am being cynical, but wouldn’t many of them they choose what they perceived as the most fun activity, or choose to be grouped with their friends? It seems like a very effective system; I just do not how I would make it work in my classroom.

First Post

Here we go again... This will be a lot of fun! I look forward to reflecting on my teaching and getting feedback from my peers. Onward.