The Most Important Things

Today I sat in a very productive meeting with colleagues and administrators trying to prioritize ways to improve what we do as a school district.  We looked at data, had philosophical discussions, and talked about what we can do to meet the needs of all students.

At the end of the day I was getting a few things together and another teacher asked me to speak to a student who had gotten in trouble a few times during the day.  Without going into details, he shared with me some of the issues he's dealing with at home, and explained how those frustrations are boiling over at school.  After listening to him and talking with him for a few minutes, he calmed down and wrote down some of the things he could have done differently.  It was a good conversation, and clearly one that he needed.

I realized that the most important thing I did at school today had nothing to do with data, philosophy, or a general discussion of "students." 

The most important things we do in school happen one student at a time. 

First Reflections

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At the conclusion of a school year, it's natural and professional to look back at what you did right, what you did wrong, and what can be improved.  An honest reflection of our practices is the one of the most powerful tools we have in improving our craft as teachers.  Below are some things I've thought about in the past few days, now that I'm on summer vacation.

Here's what the standardized testing data says:  84% (16 out of 19) of my students passed the state reading test.  One student missed passing by one question.  The same student had passed in 4th grade by one question.  100% of my students passed the state writing test.  I was slightly surprised and very happy about that.  It's not a surprise that all of my math students passed the math test, but 2 students fell from "advanced" in 4th grade to "proficient" in 5th grade.

I've been pretty vocal (or whatever the blog equivalent is) about the evils of standardized testing.  The way we use tests to evaluate teachers, judge schools, and drive every aspect of our school day from recess to pedagogy has been devastating to our educational system.  However, standardized tests do have a small purpose in education.  Using the data generated to see students' strengths and weaknesses, and then help those students overcome their weaknesses has been done successfully for decades.  State assessments don't measure what's most important, but the data they generate shouldn't be totally ignored.

This year I think I did a good job at expanding my use of technology to effectively teach collaboration and creativity.  Our class wiki received over 15,000 hits during this school year alone and now has had visitors from 122 countries.  Most of those hits came from people searching Google or Bing for information and getting it from the content my students created.  That's a pretty powerful thing for a bunch of 10 and 11 year olds in a tiny town in Pennsylvania.

I demanded more critical thinking from my math class and saw more learning from this group than any other math class I've taught.  The results on the math final exam were excellent (all but one student scored a 91 or higher), but what really exited me was the one question I gave them after the final was over.  It basically asked, "Joe Smith ran his best mile in 6 minutes.  Later that month he ran his first 26 mile marathon.  How long did the marathon take him?"  Almost every one of my students resisted the urge to multiply 6 by 26 and added on time to account for fatigue.  They thought about the problem instead of just manipulating numbers.  (Thanks to Dan Meyer for that problem.)

As the Head Teacher in the building, I'm proud of the way our discipline program has continued to evolve and the leadership role that I've been allowed to take.  Our office discipline referrals fell 30.1% from last year.

I'm extremely proud of some successes that I've had with students in tough situations and personal triumphs that I've seen in some of our students in different aspects of their lives that I can't mention here.  If you are a teacher, you can imagine the types of situations to which I refer.

I continue to feel unsatisfied, however, with my pedagogical practices when I'm with my reading class.  I love teaching math and American history.  I can't say the same for reading, and I think that comes across to my students more than it should.  In math, I have the confidence to let the textbooks gather dust while I focus on good teaching and learning.  In reading, I don't have that same confidence.  I'm hesitant to stray from the textbook, although at the end of the year I used our wiki to create book clubs based on interest that went very, very well.  You can see the results here.

Since I am well aware that the best way to teach reading is in the content areas, I'm a bit disappointed in myself that I did less direct reading instruction this year within American History that I've done in the past.  Those subjects had a lot more separation between them than I would have liked.

I need to get better with passing control in the classroom to my students.  This is difficult for me.  I want my students to be able to work the way adults do.  Right now I'm typing in a comfy chair with my feet up.  Most of the time when I read it's while relaxing on the couch or lying on the floor.  When I do my taxes, I usually have a snack and a can of diet soda next to me.  But in my classroom, I demand that my students sit in those ridiculously uncomfortable blue plastic chairs for much too long.  They may have the snack they brought only at 9:30.  I think my students would learn more if I gave them more freedom, but I've found that hard to do.

Bully-Free Schools

My students are in the process of writing essays for a contest in conjunction with our school's annual Peace Day celebration, which will be held on Tuesday.  The topic of the essay is "Bully-Free Schools."  I thought it fitting that I, too, share my thoughts on the subject.

Bullying is a hot topic.  Recently we've seen suicides and school shootings that resulted from students being bullied, an increase in cyber-bullying as students spend more time on-line, and new laws passed that give more responsibility to schools in stopping bullying.  No longer can a school claim that what happens outside of school is the responsibility of parents to deal with.  Any bullying that affects a student in school, regardless of where the bullying took place, must be investigated by the school.

Unfortunately, schools will never truly be "bully-free" because it is in the very nature of children to establish hierarchies and test boundaries.  It's naive to think that we can totally stop this from happening, and dangerous to get complacent.  We can certainly reduce bullying in our schools, though.  That's one reason that we need to focus energy on teaching students to respect each other.

We can start by modeling respectful behavior for them.  Unfortunately, many of our students are not fortunate enough to have this modeled at home.  If they cannot count on school being a place where adults treat each other with the utmost respect and professionalism, they may never see that modeled.  We should never underestimate our position as role-models for our students. 

It's also important that our students receive explicit instruction in how to handle conflict with others.  For the students without these skills being modeled at home, it is unreasonable to expect this skill to be present unless we teach it.  Emotional maturity is one of the most important skills that people of any age need to be successful.

With the increase of cyber-bullying, this explicit instruction must include on-line safety, proper digital citizenship, and lessons on how to resolve problems confronted in the realm of digital communications.  Parents must be made aware of the risks to their children, both from others and the danger that their child could harm him/herself.  Many students and parents are unaware of how easy it is to commit a variety of serious crimes by texting with a cell phone or communicating in a chat room.  Many are also unaware of how permanant those electronic communications are, and how they can have massively negative effects down the road.   

Finally, every adult in a school must make a commitment to protecting every student in that school.  All schools have anti-bullying policies.  The difference between the schools that have bullying problems and those where bullying is effectively handled is the enforcement of those policies.  Students learn quickly who will allow them to get away with bending the rules.  If there are weak links in the chain of enforcement, those students who have tendencies to bully will quickly find the places and times in school where they can belittle others.

While our schools will never be free of bullying, our students should know that we will make every effort to protect them, and that every incident of bullying in our schools will be addressed.  The more we create a school culture where respect is the norm, the less likely we are to have students acting in ways that are disrespectful.  The more everybody in a school teats others with respect, the less bullying will occur.