Should We Pay Teachers More?

Recently, Time Magazine ran a cover story that illustrated the financial struggles that American teachers face. Some of the quotes from that story have gone viral on social media. 

"I have a masters degree, 16 years experience, work two extra jobs, and donate plasma to pay the bills."

"I have 20 years experience, but I can't afford to fix my car, see a doctor for headaches, or save for my child's future."

"My child and I share a bed in a small apartment, I spend $1000 on supplies, and I've been laid off three times due to budget cuts."

Perhaps in reaction to that story, I was recently asked the question, "If we make teaching a more financially attractive career will it improve education?"

The simple answer is, "Yes."

But, when we hear this question, I don't think it's really asking what we think it's asking.

Of course, making teaching more attractive will lead to more qualified people choosing to teach. It will lead to greater respect for the profession. If teachers don't have to take on second and third jobs to pay off their student loans, they'll be able to focus more energy on their students.

I believe the real, unspoken question that is being asked is, "Is it worth investing in our teachers?"

Those who ask this question really want to know, "Is it worth taking money away from all the other places we spend it in order to pay teachers more?"

The only way to answer those questions is to examine what the trade-offs would be.

In the United States, the amount of money spent by states on standardized testing each year has been estimated to be $1.7 Billion. It is also estimated that American parents spend about $13.1 Billion on test prep, tutoring, and test fees each year.

Standardized tests are a great way for companies to make profits off education. They are also wonderful for generating data that can be analyzed in order to figure out how to make even more profit off education.

They are not much use for those of us who are trying to help children actually learn.

The United States has about 3.8 million teachers.

Reallocating money being spent on standardized testing toward teacher salaries would lead to an average increase of about $3900 per year, approximately a 7% raise.

US schools also spend about $7 Billion each year on textbooks, many of which are out of date before they are even published due to the exponential growth of human knowledge.

In addition to their lack of relevance, textbooks often come with scripted lesson plans and standard assessments which prevent both teachers and students from being successful. The importance of creative thinking, collaboration, and personalized learning in our future society are well documented. These textbook programs often create environments void of those skills. A teacher reading from a teachers' manual is not modeling the creativity we need in students and has no need to collaborate in designing better lessons. Standard assessments prevent us from ensuring every student is getting his/her needs met. In fact, many schools tell teachers to stick to the textbook programs "with fidelity" in order to make the data from standardized tests just a little less meaningless.

This is not to say that schools should not purchase books. They should. Books will always be an important aspect of education.

Expensive textbook programs that undermine teacher autonomy are not.

When schools are spending billions on textbooks that prevent teachers from growing and students from learning, while at the same time teachers are forced to work second and third jobs in order to pay their bills, we have a problem.

We could look at how schools purchase technology that is not used effectively, spend millions of dollars on athletic fields, and dozens of other ways that we spend money in education on things that are not nearly as important to our student's future success as their teachers.

Our priorities are clearly askew.

If a society values having an educated populace, a strong democracy, a thriving economy, and healthy citizens, it must put adequate resources into it's public education system.

And, if that society wants that system to be successful, it needs to demand those resources are being used to recruit, retain, train, and support the most important in-school factor in determining the success of our children: their teachers.

Michael Soskil is a dynamic speaker, professional learning facilitator, author, & one of the most highly recognized teachers in the world. The book he co-authored, Teaching in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has been called "an authoritative guide to teaching practice over the next three decades" and has been endorsed by world leaders in government, education, & business. To learn more about Michael's work or to book him as a speaker for your next teacher workshop or event, please visit his website at MichaelSoskil.com.

It's Not the Amount of Time, It's What You Do with It.

When I was a student in elementary school I hated writing. Heck, I pretty much disliked most of the activities in school that weren’t recess, lunch, and gym class.

I still have some of my old report cards. My teachers’ comments are pretty telling.

“Does not work to his ability.”

“Shows serious lack of effort on writing assignments.”

“His grades do not reflect his ability.”

It’s not that I didn’t have the talent to be a good writer. I’m now a published author and have had articles I’ve written appear in numerous publications. The problem during school was that I didn’t see any relevant reason why I should write about boring stuff I didn't care about.

The issue was certainly not that we didn’t have enough time to learn writing in schools. Forcing me to do more of it without finding different ways to motivate me would have made me hate writing even more.

Here in the United States we seem to have no limit on the number of education decisions we make that fly in the face of what we know about learning.

For over a decade now, there have been calls to extend school years and school days as a way to improve America’s international education ranking on PISA tests and to close achievement gaps.

In the past two decades No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT) have caused schools to adopt educational practices that contradict what we know works in the most highly performing education systems in the world.

We have evaluated teachers and allocated school funding based on junk science standardized test data.

We have pressured teachers into using pedagogical models in classrooms that reduce learning.

We have narrowed the curriculum and eliminated history, science, the arts, and humanities – especially from schools in high-poverty areas.

Extending the amount of time that students spend in schools will not solve these problems. It’s not as if our American students do not spend enough time learning.

American teachers already spend among the most time in the world teaching students. Other countries may have more school days, but American teachers are among the world leaders in instruction time.

It’s time to use what we know about learning, what we’ve learned from highly-successful school systems, and input from teachers in the classroom to drive our educational decisions.

We need more humanities, arts, and creativity in schools. This is what allows us as humans to see beauty in the world. It’s what allows us to make connections between subjects. It’s what makes us create the emotional connection with content that allows us to store learning in our long-term memories.

We need to shift accountability measures from standardized test data to measures that ensure all of our students have access to quality educational opportunity. Our relatively low ranking on international tests is driven primarily by the inequities in our system and our society. 

We need to focus more on intrinsic motivation and less on extrinsic rewards in schools. Our school mission statements talk about creating “life-long learners,” yet our schools are driven by grades and test scores. We know that extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can be inversely correlational. As we rely on rewards to motivate kids we destroy their ability to become the life-long learners for which we strive.

If we really want an excellent and equitable education system we need to focus more on what our students are doing in school instead of how much time they spend there.

Why I'm off the Data Bandwagon

I'm a math guy.  Numbers appeal to me, and I tend to see the world in mathematical terms.

It's a blessing and a curse.  There's lots of problems that I face in my professional and personal lives in which thinking mathematically allows me to see things from a point of view that makes analysis, problem solving, and innovation easier.  I naturally see the connections between the beauty of art, music, architecture, science, literature, and math.

But, very few other people I know yell at their kids when the windshield wipers are on in the car because trying to calculate the number of wipes per minute for no reason while the kids are talking normally can be incredibly distracting.  And, I learned a long time ago that discussing math at a party is more dangerous to one's social standing than discussing religion or politics.  Partygoers rarely care that my favorite number is Phi.  It's as if me going on about it forever makes them think I'm irrational or something.

Image Credit:  Wikipedia

So, you can see why I was naturally attracted to the obsession with data that we've had in education for the past decade and a half.  Playing with numbers was fun.  Plus, there had to be a way to organize and analyze standardized test data into something meaningful that was good for students.

For years I was a data fanboy.   I've left that bandwagon behind, though.

What I've come to realize is that all the analysis, organization, debate, and discussion of data is meaningless if you are looking at the wrong data for what you are trying to accomplish.  Police departments don't check to see how many library books were checked out each month to reduce speeding on Main Street.

Here are a few of the realizations I grew into over time:

• No matter what the standardized test data says, the best remedy for any shortcomings will always be better teaching and/or helping kids with rough home situations get their basic needs met.  Always.  As a teacher, there's a whole lot I can do about making myself a better teacher.  Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, there's often little I can do about the latter.
• Looking at individual student scores on standardized tests is pretty much worthless.  If I'm Johnny's teacher and I don't know his weaknesses long before the state assessments, I'm not doing my job effectively.  Daily, in-lesson informal formative assessments should be giving me that information on a regular basis for every students so that I can meet each one's needs.  If I do know Johnny's weaknesses and strengths before the state tests, the assessment data won't tell me anything I don't already know.
• If teachers in a district/school aren't regularly using the data from daily in-lesson informal formative assessments to make course corrections to their teaching and their students' learning, that's where a district should be focusing its resources - teachers should be discussing best practices, how to replicate amazing lessons, analysis of awful lessons, etc.  And they'll know what lessons are amazing and which ones bomb by whether or not kids learned as evidenced by the daily formative assessments they are giving.  Discussing test data until the cows come home isn't going to help those teachers learn better pedagogy. 
• Standardized test data is useful for seeing curriculum gaps, large trends, and other more global issues in a school or district and it does have a use.  With that being said, focusing on standardized test data usually comes at the expense of focusing on formative assessment and pedagogy.  And the latter are the whole ball game when it comes to student learning.
• Value Added Models used to measure student growth are junk science.  I've never had one person be able to explain to me in any kind of clear terms what the formula is for figuring out such models.  More importantly, anyone who's ever done a science experiment knows that your data isn't valid unless you can isolate a variable.  It is impossible to isolate a variable using these Value Added Models.  You can't isolate a teacher's effectiveness when you can't account for home situation, hunger, hormones, apathy, drug addiction, abuse, etc.  So, basing decisions based on this data is absurd.  Value added models are an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable.   
• You value what you measure.  State tests do not and cannot measure the things our students most need to learn in school:  critical thinking, innovation, empathy, adaptability, and learning to love learning.  Focusing on standardized test data moves our values away from that which is most important for our students.

I guess I'm not truly off the data bandwagon.  I'm just off the test data bandwagon.  I still believe that data is incredibly valuable and should guide our decisions.  I just believe that the data we need to be looking at most is in-lesson formative assessment data that allows us to help each student grow in the best possible way.  Using that data to guide our decisions maximizes student learning.  

I know that fact is inconvenient for those still on the big data bandwagon.  You can't put every teacher's formative assessment data in a spreadsheet for all to see and discuss the way you can with state test scores.  And, trusting teachers to do their job seems like an unpopular position in today's educational climate.

Growth is hard, and change is messy.  If we really care about students learning more and being prepared for their futures, we'll start shifting our focus toward the data that really matters. 

Testing: The Enemy of Life-Long Learning

This morning, as I was watching my wife make pancakes for breakfast, I started thinking about the absurdity of testing.  Lori is an incredible cook, but has never once taken or passed a cooking test.  She just learned because she enjoyed it.  She tries new recipes, and we give her feedback on those recipes, which she then uses to learn more.

This got me thinking about how harmful a testing culture is for our students.  I'm not just talking about standardized high-stakes tests, but all tests that are designed to measure learning out of the context for which that learning needs to be used.

Photo credit:  Wikipedia

People always say, "We need tests because life is full of tests."  That's nonsense.  Life isn't full of tests.  It's full of assessments.  As an adult, I can count the number of tests I've had to take since college on 1 hand.  As adults, we do stuff and either succeed or learn to do something differently the next time.  If I make pancakes for my kids, I don't need to pass a test first to do it.  I just make them.  And if they are awful, I either fix the recipe or get asked to make omelets next time. 

That's life.  Trial and error.  

The vast majority of adults don't take tests, but we are constantly tested (assessed would be a better word), and we get lots of feedback. When we prepare kids for a world of taking tests, we don't prepare them for the real world which will require them to process the feedback they constantly get from their assessments. Testing forces them to see things as black and white, success or failure. It teaches them that either they know something, or they don't. It doesn't teach them to learn what they don't know. 

Testing teaches our students not to be the life-long learners that we so often preach about in schools, but upon which we so rarely focus our efforts.  

If we really care about our students being life long learners, we need to start assessing them in a way that encourages them to learn from their mistakes.  We need to move away from a culture of testing and towards a culture of meaningful, relevant assessment that mirrors what students will see when they leave our schools.  

Preparing our Students for the (1950's) Workforce

This morning, while getting ready for school, I was getting my daily dose of news by flipping through different stations on TV.  One station shared a Forbes report of the top 10 skills you will need to find employment in 2013.  They were:

1. Critical Thinking
2. Complex Problem Solving
3. Judgment and Decision Making
4. Active Listening
5. Computers and Electronics
6. Mathematics
7. Operations and Systems Analysis
8. Monitoring
9. Programming
10. Sales and Marketing

Watching this list unfold on the screen a belief that I've had for a while was reinforced.  Out of those 10 skills that are being sought in the workplace, we focus on exactly one of them in our schools.  And the way we go about focusing on mathematics is so damaging that the majority of our students graduate without a real knowledge of what mathematics actually is, let alone the ability to apply it to real situations.

We talk about graduating students who are college and career ready, yet we focus almost all of our time, energy, and resources on things for which neither colleges nor employers are looking.

Not only are we not preparing our students for the workplace of their futures, well beyond 2013 and the list above.  We're still preparing them for the factory jobs of the 1950s in which compliance, basic reading and writing skills and the ability to calculate were all you needed to be successful. 

The more we focus on standardized tests as the driving force in education, the more we make it impossible for our students to develop the skills they most desperately need.  You cannot measure critical thinking, active listening, complex problem solving, or any of the above skills on a multiple choice test.  As much as the corporate reform movement of the past 15 years has complained that schools are not properly preparing students for the workforce, nothing has forced schools to shift focus away from those skills our students most need more than the corporate reform movement. 

Our students need to be able to critically think, problem solve, evaluate difficult situations, and actively listen, yet we continue to put the greatest importance on multiple choice tests, ensuring that none of those things can be a focus in schools.  Our students need to learn to use computers, electronics, and to program, yet we put policies in place to prevent them from even taking the electronics they already own - the very electronics they will need to utilize in the workforce - out of their pockets. 

Basically, we have turned schools into places where we prepare students for the realities of our past.  While some overcome this insanity to become successful, pointing to them as a reason to continue with this broken system is like pointing to the 90 year old smoker as a reason to give our children cigarettes. 

It is time to confront the realities of the 21st Century.  We don't know what jobs will be available to our students in the future.  Many of them don't exist yet.  We do know that skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making are becoming more important.  That should drive what we do in schools.

Ten years ago, the world was very different than it is right now.  The phone in your pocket didn't exist.  No smartphone did.  There was no such thing as an iPad or a digital tablet.  Now, those items are ubiquitous. 

My fifth grade students are 10 and 11 years old.  What will the world look like when they are looking for jobs?

I don't know, but I do know it won't look like the 1950's. 

So stop trying to force me to prepare them for that.

Why Don't Parents Appreciate "Reforms"?

We keep hearing over and over again that recent education "reforms" are good for children.  Proponents of this "reform" movement will say, "Sure, selfish teachers and those nasty unions hate what we're doing, but it's good for students and their parents."

I find that a bit curious.  In my 16 years of teaching I've never had a parent say any of the following things:

• "I really wish my child had more students in their class.  She is getting too much attention from her teacher."
• "My child is too engaged in your class and has too much fun learning.  Please do more test prep with him."
• "I'm really upset that my child is becoming too well rounded.  I'd really appreciate if you stopped teaching her anything but reading and math."
• "My child's school has too many resources, the facilities are too nice, and I hate that it's so easy to learn in that environment.  I wish they would let the place get run down a bit."
• "Kindergarten was terrible for my child.  She would have been so much better off if it wasn't available.  My child would have been so much better prepared for first grade if there was no kindergarten."
• "It would be so much better for my child if they eliminated all of those extracurricular activities."
• "Instead of spending money on children, I wish the school would give more to companies that publish test-prep materials."
• "All that learning time is bad for my child.  I wish you would spend less time letting them learn, and more time testing how much they learned."
• "I love the stress my child feels during the three weeks the state tests are given."

You would think if these "reforms" were making our schools so much better that parents would be more aware of the great changes going on.  Maybe they just don't know what's good for their kids as well as legislators do.

I don't fight against high-stakes standardized testing, budget cuts, allowing for-profit charter school management companies to siphon public school funds, and the influence huge test-prep corporations have over legislators because I'm a member of a teacher's union or because I am worried about my job.  There's a much more important reason.

Like every other teacher I know, I chose my career because I wanted to help help kids find the potential inside themselves so that future generations are better than mine.  I want kids to love learning, and to develop their talents so that they have every opportunity to be successful in their lives.  Like every other parent I know, I want the same things for my own children. 

I fight because "reform" is stealing the future from our students and my children.

If Testing is So Great for Kids...

Imagine a situation in which you have the option to send your child to two schools.  Here are the two schools' mission statements:

School #1 - Our goal is to ensure each student in our school learns the standards that have been developed by our legislators, so we test them at every opportunity to measure their progress.  In order to prevent students from failing to meet these standards we eliminate music, art, physical education, and any other non-tested subject for students who don't test well in order to give them additional instruction on test preparation.  

School #2 - To meet the needs of an ever changing society and develop each student's natural potential, we strive to foster the unique talents of each individual through a comprehensive program of academic, cultural, and physical development.  Our collective goal is to develop life-long learners who can work cooperatively and collaboratively, respect and value the uniqueness of others, and think critically to meet the challenges they will face in their lives.

In which school would you enroll your child?  In which school would your child be more engaged?  Which would be more likely to provide an environment in which learning thrives?  Which would prepare them for their future better?  

Then why are we spending so much time and money trying to force our public schools to be more like school #1?  

If testing is so great for kids, why aren't the expensive private schools that legislators and CEOs send their kids to demanding more testing and changing their mission statements to be more like school #1 above?

Maybe it's because the standardized testing movement has nothing to do with what's best for kids.

Seeing Reform Past Our Own Noses

It's been about two weeks since I wrote my last post.  It's not because I haven't had ideas.  On the contrary, I've had about five topics I wanted to write about in the past couple of weeks and couldn't find the time.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was hoping that I'd be writing a post today summing up my experiences at EdCamp Philly.  I was really excited to go to my first edcamp, and had it on my calendar since the day they announced the date.  Unfortunately, the fan belt in my car broke about 20 miles north of Allentown on the way down.  Instead of collaboratively learning about assessment practices and pedagogy, I learned that to make sure when Toyota says they checked your belts and hoses that they really mean it, and that the Chestnuthill Diner in a town called Saylorsburg, PA serves a really good breakfast for an amazingly cheap price.  You can't beat eggs, homefries, corned beef hash, coffee and toast for less than 6 bucks.

What I do want to write about is how we sometimes stumble to see educational reform globally.  I've noticed in many education conversations I've had recently in person and on social media sites that we each tend to see educational reform through the lens of our own experiences when we were in school.  I guess this is natural, and I'm sure that I'm guilty of it at times.  But, it's also dangerous if we are trying to build an educational system that meets the needs of all students.  

Because changing the system based on what would have worked for you or me is only a move forward if it doesn't infringe upon someone else's opportunity to be successful.  The problem is not that the system wasn't designed to do what would have been good for you or me.  The problem is that the system didn't allow for teachers to meet the needs of every child, including you and me.   

Standardizing education, whether it's through nationalized curriculum, standardized testing, coming up with standards for "college and career readiness", or any other means eliminates our ability to customize education for all students.  No matter what we change those "standards" to, there will always be kids whose needs aren't met by them.  Most people aren't "standard." Until we allow for and encourage customization, there will always be a pretty significant population who leave our schools with a legitimate complaint that the system didn't work for them.

And it's not acceptable to deny a percentage of students the opportunity to learn because their talents don't match what is easily measured.

On a separate note, this is the 100th post since I started the blog a little over a year ago.  Thank you to all who read, comment, debate, and share.  I hope that you've had as much fun and gotten as much out of reading as I have from writing.

Friday's Five - Assessment: Our Students Deserve Better

I've been thinking a lot about assessment lately.  Not "assessment" in the narrow term meaning the high-stakes tests to which we are forced to subject our students, but assessment in the more global sense: how we determine what our students know and change our teaching to make sure they are learning.  That's what assessment is for, isn't it?  Despite the nonsense that is being thrown around by non-educators about the need to test kids to identify bad schools, bad teachers, bad kids, bad administrators, etc., assessment is really about identifying how we can help kids learn more.  The rest is all political mumbo-jumbo that's hurting our kids because it takes the focus off where it should be - student learning.



There are a few reasons that assessment has been at the forefront of my mind lately.  The most obvious is that the last month of school has been a fragmented mess of teachers struggling to promote real learning in the wake of schedule changes, lost teaching time, and stressed students due to mandatory state "assessments."  I've also spent a lot of time reflecting on my own assessment practices as part of my PAEMST application (one of the more grueling and beneficial experiences I've done as a teacher), which is due on May 1st.  Finally, this is the time of year that we place students into their courses for the next year - a practice that has increasingly become dependent on "data" instead of teacher recommendation.

In order to use assessment properly, to increase student learning, here are five things we need to keep in mind:

1. Use the right tool for the right job.  Often we are told as teachers to "use assessment data to drive instruction."  The problem is that by "assessment data", those making this demand are talking about state assessments, benchmarks, or diagnostics.  You can't make day to day changes that benefit students based on this data.  Learning that one of my students scored low in the "geometry category" five months ago on a state assessment is worthless to me compared with the exit card that showed me that he/she didn't understand that area was a two-dimensional measurement.  The latter allows me to correct the misunderstanding immediately, thus leading to greater learning.
2. I've heard Chris Lehman say before that educational technology should be like oxygen - imperceptible, ubiquitous, and necessary.  The same can be said for assessment.  We need it and should be using it all the time as a way to guide our students, but if our students are stressed about how they are being graded, ranked, sorted, or judged, they aren't focused on learning.  And learning should be our goal. 
3. "Assessment" and "Grading" are not interchangeable terms.  Often they are used that way because we tend to want to make everything measureable.  Data doesn't have to be numbers to be useful.  Again, learning should be our focus, not ranking or judging students.  Tests and quizzes will, for better or worse, always likely have a place in schools.  What is more beneficial for students, though:  giving them a 30 on a quiz in which they got 7 out of 10 questions incorrect, or sitting down with that student to discuss their confusion and helping them identify ways to learn what they haven't yet?  "Grading" is something that is done for the benefit of teachers, parents, colleges, and others.  Good "assessment" is done for students. 
4. Standardized tests, benchmarks, and diagnostic tests are not bad assessments unless we use them in ways for which they were not designed.  When we start using data from a benchmark or diagnostic tests to determine a student's placement in basic or advanced math classes or data from student standardized test scores to judge teacher efficacy and school quality we fail our students.  Arguments that my car got great gas mileage because it goes from 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds or that my brother is a great basketball player because he has can punt a football 60 yards would be dismissed as absurd because those aren't valid metrics to use to judge such things.  Why aren't the conclusions we are erroneously drawing from bad metrics in education being dismissed as absurd?  I believe, as Joe Bower put it so well, we can't measure what's important, so we are putting importance on what we can measure.  It needs to stop for the sake of our children.  They deserve better.
5. We need to do a serious cost/benefit analysis of how we assess students.  The assessments that are given the most importance in schools right now are also the most costly in terms of time and money that have ever been given in schools before.  We spend billions of dollars as a country each year on the tests themselves, test prep materials, and resources to meet the logistics of administering the tests.  We spend weeks of time that could be spent on learning critical thinking and innovation demanding that kids learn test taking skills and low-level thinking facts so that they can pass the tests.  And what do we get?  Lousy data.  Data that is far, far inferior to the formative assessment data I could have collected in much less time and that could have been used immediately to teach students. 

Some will say, "but scores have gone up since we started testing kids, so there must be some benefit to all this testing."  While scores on state tests have gone up, this argument is totally false.  We, the public are being manipulated.  Politicians have made the tests easier over the years to show how wonderful they (the politicians) are at "improving education."  Anyone who has compared state tests from 7 or 8 years ago to current tests can see this easily.  Our students score almost exactly the same on international tests as they did before we implemented high-stakes testing.  We've spent trillions of dollars and countless hours of time that could have been spent on real learning for nothing.  Actually, it hasn't been for nothing.  We've spent it to make politicians look good and to help their buddies who own stock in companies that produce testing materials make a buck.  We could have gotten so much more for so much less.  Maybe it's time to let educators determine how to educate our kids. 

Friday's Five - I'm Not a Trained Monkey! (and other thoughts)

Some Fridays it's hard to come up with a topic about which to write.  Others it's hard to choose one topic because there are so many ideas I have floating around in my head.  Today is the latter.  I guess that means I should have blogged more during the week.  In any case, I'm going to share five thoughts that I've had the past couple of days.

Photo Credit: C. Frank Starmer

1. I'm not a trained monkey.  It's state assessment week(s) here in Pennsylvania.  The majority of my time in school has been spent watching students fill in bubbles with a #2 pencil.  Any trained monkey could do this.  I want to teach.  I want my students to learn.  The purpose of assessment is to guide teaching so that students learn more.  I won't get the results of this assessment until these students have moved on from my classroom.  It's a political shell game that doesn't benefit my students, and all the free snacks in the world won't convince them differently.  I'm a teacher, not a trained monkey.  Let me teach.  Let my students learn.
2. About those free snacks during state testing time - If research shows that kids' brains work better when they are well fed, have snacks, etc., shouldn't we be giving them the snacks during the learning and not during the assessment?  Funny how something as simple as a snack can illustrate so perfectly how out-of-whack our priorities have become.
3. Yesterday in the faculty room, someone was complaining that our elementary school pedagogy is too driven by the demands of colleges.  When talking about being more innovative with how we assess, teach, and organize schools, the counter-argument is often, "But what will happen when they get to college?  They'll be expected to listen to lectures and learn on their own."  Here's the thing: sticking 50-200 people in a room, lecturing at them (whether you use a PowerPoint presentation or not), and telling them to read textbooks in order to find additional information is not good teaching.  It's not the best way for people to learn.  I don't care how much people pay to subject themselves and their kids to that nonsense, it's still lousy pedagogy.  If colleges really cared about student learning and not their profit statements, they'd tailor their pedagogy to be more like kindergarten.  More play.  More investigation.  More collaboration.  More learning.
4. The difference in the restlessness of elementary students after changing the clocks for Daylight Savings Time in the spring is stark.  It's like they know they should be outside now.  After hearing John Medina explain during his ISTE keynote last summer how the human brain performs optimally outside, while the body is in motion, and in changing meteorological conditions, this restlessness makes a whole lot more sense.  
5. I've been lucky enough to be nominated for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST) this year, and a whole lot of my energy has been spent the past few weeks preparing my application.  The application is extensive and overwhelming, but I'm benefitting a great deal from the reflection and introspection into my practices that is required.  Part of that reflection has made me re-realize how much I benefit from all of you out there in my PLN - on Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, and those who I connect with in the blogosphere.  I am sincerely grateful to all of you for helping me better myself and my teaching.   

Friday's Five - Teaching Reading without Putting Students in a Coma

Every teacher has had moments when they realize that their students have a glazed look in their eyes, are drooling on their textbooks and are on the verge of slipping into a boredom coma.  We strive to make our lessons interesting, fun, and engaging, but sometimes we fail.  Sometimes our hands are tied because we have been told by our superiors that we need to use scripted lessons from XYZ Textbook company because such lessons are backed by research, aligned to our state's standards, and helped a neighboring district increase state test scores by 3% last year.

I seem to get that glazed, drooling, semi-comatose look from my students at times when I am teaching reading.  I love teaching math, history, and civics.  I've gotten quite good at ditching the textbook in those subjects, letting students have more autonomy over their own learning, and creating lessons that are engaging.  Reading is another story.  I'm the rare elementary teacher who dislikes teaching reading.  Because of that, I've lacked the confidence to totally ditch the textbook like I do in other subjects.


Photo Credit:  David Castillo Dominici


It's not that I don't believe reading is important, or that I don't like to read.  I do.  My problem is that I've found it difficult over the years to find ways to make the required reading series interesting in any way, and I've had difficulty identifying ways to ensure my students will pass state tests without it.  Lately I've made a great effort to devise ways to both become more textbook free, and make our reading series/textbook tolerable.  I've still got a lot to learn, but here are five ideas that I've used with some success:

1. Teach non-fiction reading skills in other content areas.  Educational research has shown for decades that students learn best when reading is taught within content areas.  Why school districts are ignoring this research and cutting social studies and science classes in the hope of increasing reading test scores is perplexing to me.  A much better strategy would be to provide professional development to science and social studies teachers so that they can teach reading skills.  I've found that once I get my students engaged with topics in those subject areas, reading information about those topics becomes more relevant to them.  
2. Let students choose the subject matter of their reading choices.  A few weeks ago I told my students to read the next story in our textbook, which was a narrative about a paleontologist.  Three students looked interested.  Seventeen moaned.  I moaned.  I don't really care if my students know about paleontology, dinosaurs, or anything else in that story.  What I need them to know is how to identify setting, conflict, etc.  Why should I force them to read something that they hate?  I changed the assignment on the spot.  Each student was allowed to pick one of six topics, and I handed them short books on those topics.  They still learned what they needed to and were much more interested.
3. Don't make students take a test on everything they read.  I read a lot.  If someone forced me to take a test on each article, blog post, book, and magazine I read, I'd probably read a lot less.  I'd imagine our students feel the same way.  It's hard to build a love of reading in our students if we don't allow them to love reading.  Isn't that the reading skill that's more important than all the others?
4. Use technology to give students purpose for reading.  Writing the main idea of the passage they read in their notebook is not purposeful.  Just typing that sentence makes me one step closer to the semi-comatose state I described earlier.  Let them publish a book review on your class website or wiki.  Let them create a study guide.  Let them share their opinions about what they read in a blog post.  It is impossible to create such things without comprehending what you read.  If students have a purpose they care about for reading, they are much more likely to practice good reading skills like re-reading, deciphering the meaning of words, etc.
5. Allow students to get creative by incorporating the arts into reading class.  Forced to read a boring textbook narrative?  Ask students to create a comic book representation of the story that includes the rising action, conflict, climax and conclusion.  Have students turn the narrative into a screenplay and then videotape themselves acting it out.  See if students can create and record a ballad that tells the story in song.  Better yet, give them the option to choose any of those three, or another creative way to retell the story.  For informational/persuasive writing, product advertisements, commercials, and pamphlets can be great opportunities for students to get creative. 

The biggest issue I run into when trying to implement some of the above ideas is time.  We are supposed to read one textbook story per week.  Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing my job if we spend three weeks exploring one topic.  I have to remind myself that students are learning more when they are emotionally connected to the material they are studying, and that quality always trumps quantity when it comes to learning.  It would be a lie to say that I don't fall into the trap of "covering" material and topics at times.  Perhaps that's why I find teaching reading more difficult than math and social studies.  I don't find myself falling into that trap as often in those subjects.

What are some ways that you keep students engaged when learning to read?  Have you done any of the above activities?  Do you have suggestions to improve them?  What have you tried that didn't work?  What are some stumbling blocks you face when trying to make reading fun and interesting for your students?  I'd love to hear your ideas.  Please share with us in the comment section below, and pass this post along to others in your networks so that we can get their ideas as well.

Friday's Five - Misconceptions About Math

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page. 

Flickr/Vlastula

I believe that as we move further into the 21st Century, understanding mathematics is more vital than it has been at any time in history.  Math at its very nature is problem solving and critical thinking, skills that are sorely lacking in many of our students due to the pervasive culture of standardized testing we are forcing them to suffer through.

Here are five fallacies about math that too many people believe to be fact:

1.  Math is a series of rules to be memorized.  Too many times we teach math as something to be done in order to get a correct answer.  (i.e. Divide, multiply, subtract, and bring down in order to get the right answer to a long division problem.)  Students start to believe early in their school careers that the key to learning math is to memorize these rules.  The key to learning math is understanding why those rules work, though.  It's much more important for kids to understand that division means we are putting things into equal groups than the rule mentioned above.  The best math students are those who can creatively find different ways to figure out problems.

2.  Creativity is important in other subjects, but not math.  True math is creative.  Rarely do we give students the chance to be creative in our math classes, though.  I can't count the number of times I've heard stories of teachers taking points off (we'll save the discussion over the worthlessness of grades for another time) for doing a problem wrong, or not using the correct method to solve a problem.  At its very nature, math is about creative problem solving.  As Michael P. Goldenberg pointed out, Mathematicians don't calculate.  They have computers and calculators to do that for them.  Mathematicians solve problems.  In our math classes, we should expect and demand that our students act as mathematicians and not calculators.  We should allow them to explore different solutions, to fail, and to learn from that failure.  We should give them problems that may not have a clear cut answer.  We should have them identify problems in their community and try and solve them.

3.  Our best math students are the ones who score highest on our state standardized math tests.  Those are the students who are best at calculating and memorizing.  They are not our best math students.  Standardized tests comprised of multiple choice questions and a few short answers cannot measure the understanding of mathematical concepts or the ability of a student to see the world mathematically.  While on this subject, it's terrible that we punish kids who do poorly on standardized math tests by forcing them to endure additional bad instruction in math (standardized test prep).  We should be teaching them to understand mathematics, not decipher test questions by looking for keywords, finding shortcuts to calculations, and how to format short answer responses.  That just makes it harder for them to actually think mathematically.

4.  It is acceptable to joke about not being able to pass an 8th (or 5th) grade math test.  At least once per week I hear a teacher, parent, or member of the community make the statement that they couldn't pass a middle school math test, don't understand "that math", or say with a smile that they aren't good at math.  Why do we, as a society, find this acceptable?  A person who can't read on a middle school level is almost illiterate.  They would never brag about it in public, and we would never want them teaching a group of students.  Math ineptitude is not cause for pride.  When students see adults display it as such, they are given silent permission to be prideful of their own stuggles in math.  Is that what we want to promote? 

5.  We should teach things the "traditional way" because that's what parents understand.  If parents really did "understand" math, they wouldn't have such a problem with their students actually learning it instead of just doing it.  Many times at a parent teacher conference I've had a parent tell me, "I hated math when I was in school and never understood it.  I'm bad at math."  Then, 30 seconds later they are demanding that I teach their kid the same way that they were taught.  Seriously?  If you hated math and never understood it, why on Earth would you want your kid to have the same experience?  For the past few years I have tried to keep an open line of communication with parents so that when they don't understand something we are exploring in class, they can notify me.  When that happens I try to put a video demonstration by myself or a student on the concept on our class wiki so that the parents can see what we are doing.  This has worked beautifully; parents and students end up watching the video together and the kids are able to teach their parents about the concepts to reinforce their learning. 

Now it's your turn.  What are your thoughts on teaching math, misconceptions, and the above thoughts?  Have you had some of the same experiences?  What other misconceptions do you think are out there about mathematics?  Please share with us in the comment section below, and pass the post on to others using Twitter, Plurk, Google+, and Facebook so that we can hear their points of view as well.   

  

Open Letter to Legislators

The following is a letter that I recently sent to a state legislator.  I believe the sentiments are applicable to many locations and not just Pennsylvania, so I am publishing it as an open letter here.  Individual names have been eliminated from this version.

Dear Legislator,

Thank you for your e-mail keeping me updated on the status of the current legislation and your views.  I appreciate that you are looking at the legislation from many different points of view and that you have seen some of the ways vouchers will hurt the students in our district.

I would like to share the point of view of a classroom teacher with you, however.  I enjoy debating politics as much as anyone else, but I assure you the following sentiments are based on what I have come to understand as a teacher who is committed to inspiring my students to develop the attributes they will need to succeed in life.  These comments are not motivated by a desire to protect teaching jobs, or any other union agenda.  They are simply what I believe is best for students.

Any legislation using standardized test data in a punitive way will have a negative effect on students.  This includes legislation that allows students to use vouchers to transfer from "failing schools."  Even though there are no such schools in our district does not mean that students here will be immune from the detriments of such a law.  Administrators, teachers, and students will still face pressure to "pass" tests that do not focus on 21st century skills our students need.  Those skills will continue to be ignored, and our students will continue to graduate unprepared for the world into which we are sending them.

In the past decade we've seen a great change in the world.  As the internet has evolved, computers have become ubiquitous, and portable devices have become more prevalent, information has become easy to obtain instantaneously.  Preparing students for this world in the same way we prepared them before it is negligent and harmful.

I have also seen a change in my students.  They are increasingly unable to think critically.  They are less creative.  They are less comfortable working with others to complete tasks.  I believe the majority of teachers would agree with these observations.

For those of us working directly with students, it's easy to see the correlation between the above statements and the increased focus on standardized test scores.  I am not writing this because I am forced to teach to the test.  I am not.  I choose not to.  I choose to teach my students to learn 21st century skills like collaboration, innovation, critical thinking, and digital communication.  Most teachers are not as fortunate as I am.  They either lack the support of administration or lack the confidence to take a leap of faith.  In either case, good teaching is prevented by fear of a test that provides data which cannot be used to guide the teaching of students until months after the test is taken.

I am a huge proponent of data-driven assessment.  The assessments and data must be much more immediate than that which we get from standardized tests to have any impact on student learning.  Data must be collected within lessons and days.  There is much research to support this.

Just because data is easy to collect and organize does not make it the best data to use.  Standardized tests were put in to place to benefit many people.  Students were not among them.  Anyone who believes otherwise has either not spent enough time working with students or has a political agenda.  It is time we focused on what's best for students in education.  Any reform that doesn't is destined for failure.

Thank you for your attention and for your consideration of the above ideas.

Best Regards,
Michael A. Soskil
5th Grade Teacher

Standardization is the Death of Excellence

The push in education for the past decade has been to standardize.  We have standardized tests for students.  Teachers are being asked to standardize their lessons, grading practices, and the pace that they teach.  States have made a push to standardize curricula by listing state standards in each subject.  Now the Common Core will standardize curricula in the entire country.

It's time to stop standardizing.  Standardization is the death of excellence.

Photo Credit: Jei-Are

Nobody goes to a car show to see standard models that rolled off a factory assembly line.

In a science lab, standardizing the experiments that all scientists are doing would be foolish and would prevent new discoveries.

You don't want all players on your favorite sports team to play at a standard level.

Nobody ever won an award for being the most standard in their field.

Standardization is not compatible with the world for which we are supposed to be preparing our students.  Innovation isn't standardized.  Critical thinking isn't standardized.  Students who are forced to focus solely on standardized testing in their school careers are prevented from excelling.  Teachers who are forced to standardize their teaching are prevented from being excellent teachers. 

In either case, innovation is impossible.

It's time to move in another direction.

Friday's Five - Make Schools Better without Spending Money

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you, my readers, to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page.  If you'd like to make suggestions about future topics or discuss topics I bring up on the blog with others, make sure you click the "like" button on the right hand side of the page to join A Teacher's Life for Me on Facebook.  Don't be shy about sharing the blog and Facebook Page with others.  Each post has a "Tweet" button on top and buttons on the bottom that allow you to share in several ways, including e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

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As educators, we should always be looking for ways to make our schools better learning environments.  Every day, new stories are surfacing about how school funding is getting cut.  In this post, I'd like to examine five ways that we can improve the educational experience for our students without spending a lot of money. 

1. Start school later in the day.  This change would cost nothing, and undoubtedly lead to increased learning for our students.  According to the American Psychological Association, adolescents need 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep per night.  With travel times in some rural areas of over an hour to arrive at school in the morning, sports and activities that often last late into the evening, and school start times before 8AM, most students do not get the required amount of sleep.  Pushing back the school day by an hour would leave less students in a constant state of exhaustion, and more learning would occur.
2. Allow teachers control over their own professional development through PLNs.  Instead of paying for expensive "experts" to come into schools to deliver professional development to teachers, allow teachers to model life-long learning to their students through the development of Professional Learning Networks (PLNs).  In this way, teachers can learn about the topics they feel are most important from others in the field through professional blogs, social networking sites like Plurk, Twitter, and Google+, and other resources.  The reality is that most school/district sponsored professional development does not trickle down to changes in classroom pedagogy.  Networking with other professionals is something that is critical to growth in any profession, and something that has been lacking in the field of education.  
3. Buy fewer textbooks.  Textbooks are so 20th Century.  The textbook selection process in larger states all but guarantees that any controversial, thought provoking, or polically charged topics are left out.  There are problems waiting to be solved all around us that require research, writing skills, and mathematics.  We live in a time when information is ubiquitous and free.  Textbooks hold back students from having to think and teachers from having to be creative.  
4. Eliminate Standardized Test Prep.  Despite what the companies that sell test prep materials tell you, there are many studies that show that special test preparation classes and lessons lead to no additional learning.  We know from countless brain researchers that learning can only happen when students have an emotional connection to the material they are learning.  I've seen fewer things in my teaching career that are less emotionally engaging than test prep materials.  Requiring students to take time away from engaging, authentic learning to drill and practice using test prep materials is not only boring for the students and teachers, but it's ineffective and expensive. 
5. Involve students in the community.  In these rough economic times it is vital that we maintain a good relationship with the community, since a large part of public school funding comes from local taxes.  In addition, there are increasingly more community members that need help.  Students need to learn the value of helping others and the rewards that come with service.  Helping others in the local area is an opportunity for our students to solve real world problems with the skills they've learned in school, while also building a stronger bond between school and community. 

Now it's your turn.  Has your school adopted any of these changes?  Are there other ways we could increase learning without increasing the budget?  What obstacles would we face in implementing the above suggestions?  Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and pass the blog on to others via Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, and Google+ so that we can hear as many points of view as possible.

A Response to the Atlanta Cheating Scandal: Nonviolent Protest

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I've read several blog posts and articles in the past few days on the standardized test cheating scandal in Atlanta.  Most fall into one of two categories.  Either those who cheated are being vilified as criminals, or their actions are being touted as an inevitable result of high-stakes testing.

Those viewpoints are not exclusive.  What those educators did was reprehensible, and did a disservice to those of us trying to fight against the damage the current standardized testing culture does to our students.  It gave another reason for people to bash teachers and education.  Those whose minds can be changed are not going to be swayed by immoral behavior.  This kind of wide-spread cheating was also rather predictable.  I've covered the absurdity of tying student test scores to teacher and school evaluation in past posts.

In order for the general public to listen to those of us calling for real educational reform, we must hold ourselves to the highest of moral standards.  Cheating on tests cannot be an option.

Instead, school districts should simply refuse to administer the tests.

We know that they are harmful to our students.  We know that they are harmful to our schools.  We know that they have been harmful to our profession.

Don't we have a moral responsibility as educators to not harm our students, schools, and our profession?

JEFF WIDENER/The Associated Press

Think about what would happen if dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of school districts started refusing to give state tests and instead simply focused on good teaching.  What if the message we sent was, "We understand that you may fire us or cut our funding, but we refuse to harm our students any more for your political benefit."  This is the kind of message that resonates.

This is the kind of movement that led to Civil Rights reform, gave women the right to vote, gained India it's independence from Great Britain, and has changed the political landscape in the Middle East in the past 6 months.  Certainly it can help us change the system so that our students start receiving the quality education and opportunities they deserve.

Truth is Truth.  Let's start doing something about it other than cheating or complaining.

Friday's Five - What We Should Be Teaching

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Friday's Five is a feature every week where I pick a new topic and list five items that I think fit best.  Then I ask you, my readers, to share your thoughts in the comment section.  For an archive of past topics, check the Friday's Five Page.  If you'd like to make suggestions about future topics or discuss topics I bring up on the blog with others, make sure you click the "like" button on the right hand side of the page to join A Teacher's Life for Me on Facebook.  Don't be shy about sharing the blog and Facebook Page with others.  Each post has a "Tweet" button on top and buttons on the bottom that allow you to share in several ways, including e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

Chris Poulin/USFWS

Ask a parent what qualities they want to see in their children when those children become adults.

Ask a teacher what qualities they want to see in their students when they graduate high school.

Ask your neighbor what qualities they want to see in the next generation of young adults that will be living in the neighborhood.

Ask a businessperson who is looking to hire someone to work at their business what qualities they want in their employees.

I can guarantee that none of them will respond that they are hoping young adults will be able to find the main idea of a passage, identify the author's purpose for writing a poem, or be able to calculate the mean of a series of random numbers without context.  With that in mind, today's post will focus on five subjects that are largely ignored in schools today due to the culture of standardized testing and the push for "accountability."  I don't think that one can argue that a focus on the following five areas in schools would not be beneficial to our students, our communities, our country, and the world as a whole.  If our students were "proficient" in these areas, everything else would take care of itself.

1. Innovation - We are robbing students of motivation and an understanding of what they are capable by forcing them to only perform tasks related to multiple choice questions on reading and math (those terms are used loosely) tests.  It used to be that "creating" meant that students would glue cutouts from a magazine in a shoe box.  Now, technology gives students the ability to share what they've learned in many ways instantly.  Their writing can be published instantly on a blog for the world to read.  Their videos can teach children thousands of miles away.  The possibilities are vast and numerous, and we need to take advantage of them.  
2. Empathy - The ability to understand others emotions and be compassionate is something that is rarely focused upon and is of paramount importance for our students.  There are numerous studies that show that empathy and success in business are closely linked.  A Google search for "empathy and success" produces over 770,000 results.  Even more important than business success, however, is the fact that being able to empathize makes one more able to help others.  
3. Service - In my experience, nothing gives a person a feeling of self-worth and a satisfaction of having filled one's purpose more than the act of helping others in need without expecting a reward in return.  We should be giving our students opportunities and encouraging them to find ways to provide service in areas about which they feel strongly.  
4. Critical Thinking - This crucial skill, which is closely related to innovation, is the one that has been most ignored due to our current standardized testing craze.  There is simply no way to truly measure the ability to problem solve and think critically on an easily scored multiple choice assessment.  Teachers don't demand critical thinking because they don't have time; they are forced to teach students to interpret test questions that measure low-level thinking skills instead.  Teaching critical thinking takes time, leads to unpredictable lessons, and puts students in control - all things which are frowned upon in many of our schools.
5. The Love of Learning - We have to stop using our schools as places where we fill students' heads with facts.  Unfortunately, most of what we teach can be Googled in less than 30 seconds on their phone, which too often we won't let them take out of their pocket.  Our students have figured this out and largely find school to be irrelevant.  I wish I could say that they are wrong.  We need to start using schools to show them the power of learning.  If we combine the above four subjects and teach our students to empathize with others, allow them to find ways to help others they can become passionate about, and give them opportunities to develop their creativity and critical thinking skills, what we will start to see is students who take control of their own learning.  They will learn without us asking them too.  How often do we hear complaints that students don't study?  What if they were so engaged and passionate about a topic that they didn't view learning outside of school as studying, but rather as necessary to fulfill a desire deep inside of themselves?  

Is what I describe above possible?  Yes, but not in a culture based on assessment and test scores.  It's being done right now in several amazing schools.  Unfortunately, those schools are the exception.  We need to change the culture of education so that this type of education is what is expected.  What if we defined success by the positive impact we have on others rather than by how many low-level thinking questions one answers on a once-per-year assessment? 

Now it's your turn.  Are there any important skills that you think we are not teaching our students?  What are some ways we could teach these topics in our schools?  Should schools be teaching the above qualities?  Would our society be better served if we left the development of these qualities to parents and continue focusing on reading and math?  Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below, and share the blog with friends and colleagues.  We'd love to hear their opinions as well!

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.