Thursday, July 2, 2009
One-minute detention
If Maslow had applied a hierarchy to teaching then classroom management would be in the place of food/shelter.
My last year in the classroom I stumbled upon a very effective classroom management strategy: the one-minute detention. If a student broke a rule (I had two: one, be on time and ready to learn every day; and, two, show respect for yourself, your classmates, and the teacher at all times) then his name was written on the board. If he broke it again (or broke a second rule), he received a check next to his name. If he broke a third rule then he began getting (for each infraction) one-minute detentions. The instant his behavior reversed itself he could reduce his detentions by one minute at a time. He could never eliminate the final minute after he had earned it, but he could reverse the downward spiral if he got back on track.
Here's how it played out:
Troy: Shut up, girl!
Me: Troy, we show respect for ourselves, our classmates and the teacher in this class at all times; that's your warning. I'm writing your name on the board. [write name on board]
Troy: Man, I hate this class.
Me: Troy, that's your second warning. Stop right now and you're fine. If you choose to continue, you'll have a one-minute detention.
Troy: I'm not serving it.
Me: That's one minute.
Troy: Whatever.
Me: That's two minutes. Class continue reading silently on page 29 and be able to answer this question, what happens to Jeremy's dog at the end of the page. [quietly to Troy] Listen, Troy, this has to stop, and you can stop it right now. I know you are strong enough to control your behavior, so show me. One-minute is nothing, but you are going to have to serve it. Now, make good choices and let's carry on. I believe you can do this.
--
Me: I'm proud of Troy for earning one of the minutes off by being strong and getting himself together. Well done, Troy. [erase one minute]
Some things are too big to handle this way, but almost all big things start with small things like a "shut up" that goes unaddressed.
Labels: Education
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Take a hose to it
About a year ago I was painting and drawing in Big Sur, California. My vacation at the Esalen Institute allowed me to retreat from all distractions for a week. I learned more that week about myself than almost any single week of my life. One of the lessons came when I had just spent hours on a painting when our teacher, the imitable Leigh Hyams, told us to take our pieces outside and hose them off.
My heart stopped.
'Take a hose to it,' I repeated to myself. 'How could I?!'
Begrudgingly I did what Leigh told me to do, and to quote Robert Frost, "made all the difference." I'm choosing not to be didactic with everything I learned about myself and my work, art or otherwise, in those moments; needless to say, I learned a ton.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
"I just want to teach."
A very earnest man applied to teach at one of our KIPP schools in New Orleans last week. He was a graduate of an education program at a Southern university and had been a teacher for two years at a Catholic school in New Orleans. Due to budget cuts, he was laid off and was looking for another teaching position.
He was, I determined, not yet a KIPP teacher. I also thought he had vast potential so I invited to give him some feedback that, I hoped, could better position him to join our team in the future.
He pushed hard when we met to be hired immediately and I told him that wasn't what we were meeting to discuss. He reminded me that he had worked with urban students before. He told me he had good scores on the Praxis test. I was firm, naturally, and told him what he needed to do to be a candidate in the future.
I described a KIPP teacher to him - someone who believes deeply that every student deserves a chance at college and is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure he/she gets that chance. I gave him a story to read that Timara had written about the pain she had experienced in her young life.
He commented that the story was depressing. I countered that it was uplifting that she had written it and was moving past it. He said he didn't think he wanted to work hard enough to get her and others to that point. He said he had done it once and found it draining - the worst job he's ever had, he said. About being deeply involved in students' lives he said, "I just want to teach."
He concluded, "I'm just not what you are looking for. I've never said this to employer, but I'm just not what you're looking for."
He wants students to teach . . . we need students to learn. Big, big difference.
Is your class worth coming to?
A classmate today complained that "there are many factors, like attendance, that teachers can't control that effect student achievement." He went on to say that many of his students don't come to his high school class and that he is unfairly responsible for their achievement.
I couldn't help myself.
I replied, "I hope what all of us would do as leaders in that situation is ask the teacher, Is your class worth coming to?"
Sunday, June 21, 2009
To my father
Today is the second Father's Day without my dad. To honor my father and how I am feeling today, I am including below some of the speech I gave in January 2007 at the Broward County Teacher of the Year Luncheon. The remarks were my last as teacher of the year - a few minutes after I finished a new teacher of the year was named. I chose to talk about the best teacher I've known, a man whom I miss dearly everyday. I was able to read my speech to my dad before I gave it; eight days later he was gone.
. . . the most important man in my life is not here, and it is to him I have something to say that is more important than any message. I am saying saying thank you to a man who has given me everything and more. He is a man who taught me the importance of family by always putting his family first. He is a man who taught me about hard work by never resting when there were dishes to be done, clothes to wash, or a lawn to mow, although I don’t really know how to do any of those things, he taught me about why they were important. He is a man who taught me about courage by making a bold move at the very moment his life was becoming comfortable. He is a man who taught me about love by never hesitating to show affection and who has ended almost every conversation my entire life by saying, “I am proud of you.” He is a man who taught me perspective by reminding me about the beauty around us. He is a man who taught me about will and resolve by fighting for his life for seven weeks this summer. He is a man who has taught me devotion by unselfishly caring for his wife in her final months of life.
Friends, I am referring to the most honorable person I know: my father. As we celebrate teaching today, I want to say to him: thank you for being such a wonderful teacher.
What we teach others is our legacy, and although my father only stepped foot into a classroom for a few months as a teacher, his legacy will live beyond him in my brother and me because he has been a wonderful teacher. And the same is true for each of us – our legacy will live forever in the hearts and minds of those students whom we touch.
We, as teachers, are part of a grand and glorious circle of life as we interact with the young every day. They remind us that our lives are bigger than ourselves. So I am comforted, as you should be, the reach of all teachers – be they in homes or classrooms - extends and impacts far beyond the brief moments we spend on this planet.
Friday, June 19, 2009
KIPP's high school leaders
The leaders of KIPP’s high schools from around the country met last weekend in Houston. Missing was my dear friend, Carrie, but everyone else was there. Nate from Newark, Melissa from San Jose, Ken from Houston, Natalie from New York, the list goes on.
I am constantly humbled by the power of this group – and this organization. Each of us in our own schools and communities have made ambitious promises – in New Orleans our promise is to graduate 1000 students, almost all of whom will be the first in their families with college degrees - from college by 2022; the Delta has made an equivalent, though not equal, promise - so has Denver, San Antonio, the list goes on.
How do we do it? That was the topic of our discussion. From curriculum to instruction to assessment, from discipline to culture to grading to college counseling, two days of rich dialogue allowed us to share our best thinking and most promising practices with one another. The answers to some questions, like how do we really make a significant difference with ACT/SAT scores, elude us; other answers are there for us to apply.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
We're all hot
Our recent whirlwind college tour reminded me of an important lesson I learned from my father. At several of the universities we toured the campus at the height of the afternoon – sun blazing, humidity enough to choke an elephant. With no undershirt on, the tour of the Southeastern in Hammond left my dress shirt absolutely and entirely soaked with sweat.
Naturally some of the students complained – some of them incessantly. It was hard not to.
I remembered a time for my early adolescence when my dad, others, and I were doing something in similar heat and humidity. The contours of the event have escaped me, but what I remember is being hot and making sure everyone knew it.
My simple father whose strength and will was unmatched – and later proven again as he battled back from septic shock and seven weeks on a ventilator to walk out of the hospital – said something in response to my latest complaints.
“We’re all hot, Brian.”
He wasn’t angry or judgmental – at least neither his words nor his tone expressed so. In those few words, Dad reminded me that I had a choice. He made it known that everyone, himself included, was hot – almost unbearably so – yet, his words communicated, the rest had made a choice not to talk about their discomfort or complain about it. He taught me that I had a choice too.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The first person I hired for KIPP Renaissance High School resigned last month. Melissa, I’ll call her, was hired following a several month search to be the founding assistant principal. She was a strong candidate. Science teacher, charter school assistant principal, Xavier graduate, Melissa had many of the skills and traits I knew would be needed to have a strong high school. Her thoroughness, attention to detail, and level of preparation would ensure, I was certain, that KRHS had well thought out, well documented, and well understood policies and procedures about every possible detail.
I also found her to meet the two criteria of a KIPP teacher: conviction that every child deserves a chance at college and a willingness to do whatever it takes to give every child that chance. When she said in her phone interview that if there was a bad teacher in a class, she’d teach the class herself, I thought I had found a winner. Her lack of deep warmth I attributed to shyness and her subtle blame of parents I attributed to too much time in a district where such blame is common.
After too much time, Melissa connected with one of our middle school principals who agreed to hire her as a science teacher for the coming year. We began our weekly check-in calls. A major concern for me was raised when she requested to keep the title assistant principal for the next year despite being a teacher and assistant principal-designate. Not a fan of titles anyway, I was hesitant. Moreover, our schools reject and abhor the district mentality around titles. Nevertheless I told her if it was something important to her it was fine with me. Melissa raised a number of concerns about her salary. Again, we don’t desire to make anyone rich – especially administrators – are not going to be in the business of paying people for titles, degrees, experience when what they should be paid for is impact and effectiveness. I held the line there saying there was no flexibility with pay for a teacher; she seemed to understand.
In the middle of the following week I received an email from Melissa that seemed to be an advertisement for her consulting business. The email encouraged KIPP New Orleans Schools to contract with Melissa for certain services. It was a laughable e-mail on many levels.
For the next check-in, Melissa skipped our regular pleasantries and asked about the e-mail. I said we could talk about it, but I wanted to talk about the offer letter she had received first. From there Melissa launched into concern after concern about the terms of her employment including cause for dismissal, salary, etc. I sought to understand her points and positions and calmly outlined that many of the conditions distinguished KIPP from district schools. She said she understood.
Sensing her frustration rising, I said that we should continue the conversation another time. I added, “I think over the next few days you should really consider if KIPP is a place you can be successful and feel happy.”
I decided after we hung up that my next conversation with Melissa would end with her either withdrawing or saying that working for KIPP would be hard but something she was totally committed to doing and that she knew she had a lot to learn.
It didn't get that far. Before midnight that night I had a three sentence withdrawal letter from Melissa in my e-mail. I courteously replied and told her that I thought she made the right decision.
What did I learn? I shouldn't lower my expectations, i.e. warmth is important to me, blaming -even subtle - of families is unacceptable, complaining and deficit-mindedness don't build a great school. I also learned that staffing is going to be a lot harder than I thought. Time to start over.
The Katrina Class(es)
The media made a big deal about graduations this year – especially, interestingly, college graduations. Nicknamed the “Katrina Class,” the group that graduated this year was just unloading boxes, decorating residence halls, and getting to know their new homes when Katrina’s devastating fury was unleashed on New Orleans.
One of those class members is the daughter of my dear friend. Morgan was preparing to board a plane in Ft. Lauderdale for New Orleans – to begin her college experience at Tulane University. At the last possible moment Morgan didn’t board the plane and a few days later the wrath of Katrina’s path and aftermath confirmed that she made the right decision.
The university presidents in the weeks after Katrina traversed the country compelling, persuading, cajoling, and in fact commanding their students back. Other universities around the country welcomed the Katrina Class on their campuses and into their hearts; some stayed in their adopted home following Katrina, most – like Morgan – returned to New Orleans. Their contribution to the city’s rebuilding cannot be overstated. They were among the very first back in the city, and did a yeoman’s job cleaning debris, fixing homes, hauling trash, and in general slowly breathing life back into the city.
Other students in New Orleans are no less the Katrina class too. Our eighth graders who are entering high school from KIPP McDonogh 15 are also the Katrina Class having entered KIPP and fifth grade the year of the deadly storm. In fact, every one of our students in New Orleans is a Katrina Class. Even our KIPP kindergarteners. Most of our students who just finished kindergarten were born the year of Katrina. It will not be until 2022 when the final Katrina class graduates from high school.
Some of our KIPP team is part of the Katrina class too, having started teaching, like Nicole, the month Katrina exposed some of the deepest social, economic, and racial fault lines in America. The storm has had an indelible impact on our city our souls. It is part of who we are. For anyone who lived through it, for anyone who has been part of it, for anyone who has made a gesture large or small to address what it exposed, they are part of the Katrina Class too. And both our students and our team, Morgan and her fellow graduates, will – I hope – have used their status as the Katrina Class to make sure what Katrina wrought never happens in New Orleans – or America – again.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Why KIPP and why New Orleans, remarks to Leadership Florida
If Crystal or Tim or James or Raven or Kerron were sitting next to you, they’d laugh and say, “He’s not all that.” I cant imagine anything more humbling than teaching – that and having a brother like mine has always assured I don’t take myself too seriously.
I visited the University of Florida, my alma mater, about a month ago for the Orange and Blue game. One of my professors whom I haven’t seen since I graduated was around and said to me, “Brian, you look exactly the same.” I bragged about his comment that night to my brother and no doubt deserved his reply, “Brian,” David said, “He said you look the same – he didn’t say you look good.”
Class XXIV, three years ago in January 2005 in Tampa I shared the education panel with Dave Levin, co-founder of KIPP, the Knowledge is Power Program network of charter schools where I am now and Cheri Yecke, then the chancellor of K-12 education for the state of Florida. One my many but for Leadership Florida experiences was hearing Dave, someone who I had admired from a distance and whose work I had begun replicating in my own classroom, speak that day. Some of you may remember Jessica, a young woman who I talked about whose poem about her mother’s death touched many of you. Her mother, some of you will remember, was a drug addict who died on the floor of her jail cell when she had an asthma attack that went unattended.
I wish I could say, friends, that all is well with Jessica. That because of her teachers at Stranahan High School, that she is on her way to living the life every mother wants for her daughter. Since we spoke, Jessica became a high school dropout and has been in jail. She wrote me this e-mail about two months ago
I feel like i should begin this e-mail with an apology. The reason for this message bein so late, I got arrested on December 17, the day after we talked on the phone. For driving with out a license, With out registration, and driving with no insurance. I was there till January 25. I was in the excat buildin my mother had died in on her 5th anneivarsy. This now connected me to my faith. I took a Tabe test for the ged last week. At Mcfatter on Davie rd.
I have been living on my on since my 19th birthday. Which will be a year on Tuesday. I dont have a relationship wit any of my family, but the kids. I go to church every Sunday. Ged classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I do have a job wit pretty good benefits.
I read about wat you are doing in New Orleans. Im very impressed and proud of all you are doing. I admiit to write you and tell you that i was incareated for 6 weeks was something unpleasent. Even through we have not seen or spoken to each other. I still feel the need to impress you. For you being the only person in my life who showed me wat i could be.
One day you will be proud. I promise,
Love Always,
Jessica
I believe her; I really do. I’m optimistic. I am also certain that it didn’t have to be this way for Jessica. Something worked for her at Stranahan, and some thing didn’t. Jessica, while labeled a drop-out is really a push-out – one of hundreds of thousands of students at urban high schools in America who are over-age, under-credit, years behind in reading and math, and due to years of both willful and benign neglect at school pretty damn hard to teach. She was told, you should withdraw, the technical and nice term for drop-out, or we’ll begin working to expel you.
The culture, and by that I mean the culture of the adults in the building, in most urban schools in America is as intractable and contemptible as most of America now views that of General Motors. David Brooks’s recent column on General Motors could have just as easily described urban school districts as I have come to know and experience them:
“We have vastly underestimated how deeply ingrained are the organizational and cultural rigidities that hamper our ability to execute . . .Bureaucratic restructuring won’t fix . . . Clever financing schemes won’t fix the . . . core problem . . . its corporate and workplace culture — the unquantifiable but essential attitudes, mind-sets and relationship patterns that are passed down, year after year.
Who failed Jessica? Me? The school? The system? Her family? Her society? Her self? That in most schools the blame can be placed so many places also means that the responsibility is accepted in no place.
It was hard leaving Jessica and so many students at Stranahan about whom I continue to care so deeply. In my five years there I know that the difference I made was profound. But like so many bright-eyed, committed, resilient educators, I knew that I had made trade-offs and – worse – I was beginning to rationalize and justify those tradeoffs – beginning to place blame.
KIPP teachers, I have come to believe, share two very common, very core and very resolute beliefs: first, KIPP teachers believe that every child, every child deserve a chance at college; and second, KIPP teachers are willing to do whatever it takes every single day so that every student has that chance. When Mike’s co-founder asked me in my interview, “What makes you think you can start a KIPP school when you have never taught in one?” I said this, “I may not have taught in a KIPP school, but I have been a KIPP teacher.” There are KIPP teachers across America – some of you may be KIPP teachers, some of you may be married to them, certainly all of us have had KIPP teachers – those whom we remember to this day.
What I had to do, for myself and for Jessica, is recognize that I deserved to be in a place where people believe what I believe and are willing to work as hard as I was working. People who take complete and total responsibility for student achievement – against whatever odds. And by joining a team and family like KIPP, a team that runs what have been called by the Washington Post the most promising schools in America and what Oprah Winfrey has said is a ‘revolutionary new school system’ we have the chance to make a contribution to education that may allow – in our lifetimes – for our public schools to be a place worthy of all kids.
Jessica made reference to New Orleans so let me tell you what we are doing by telling you for just a moment about my new home.
People ask me, “How is New Orleans?” For some people, it has never been better. For low income children and families – those with whom I work – it is much much worse. No new people have had access to public housing since Katrina – four years later. Buses, the only source of transportation operate one third of the routes they did before Katrina. Charity Hospital, the major source of health care for the uninsured – our children, has not reopened from Katrina, and very little has opened to take its place. According to the FBI, New Orleans is the most violent city in America. (A great advertisement when recruiting people to join us.)
Historically, know this: In 1994, 5200 students entered high school in New Orleans Public Schools. Ten years later in 2004, the year before Katrina, allowing for four years of high school and six years for college, only 270 of that class – almost all of whom were African Americans – had earned a college degree. The educational attainment should provoke a moral outrage and represents a disaster greater in scale, scope, and generational impact than even Katrina.
KIPP, which Mike is going to tell you more about in a few minutes, including the school that I will start in 2010 with 125 ninth graders graders – students who had just started fourth grade the year of Katrina, will produce 1000 college graduates by 2022.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
On school reform . . . kind of
“We have vastly underestimated how deeply ingrained are the organizational and cultural rigidities that hamper our ability to execute."
Indeed, schools are dinosaurs, according to educator William Daggett, that resist every effort at change. They look the same way they have for over fifty years and continue to get remarkably the same (low) results.
Bureaucratic restructuring won’t fix . . . Clever financing schemes won’t fix the . . . core problem . . . its corporate and workplace culture — the unquantifiable but essential attitudes, mind-sets and relationship patterns that are passed down, year after year.
Schools continue to operate using an agrarian calendar, three months off in the summer; they function like an assembly line divided by years for grade levels and subjects for learning, rather than the outcomes that those metrics are intended to support. The constants are time and mechanism, like the assembly line, not the outcome which would be learning.
Over the last five decades . . . has progressively lost touch . . . Over five decades . . . has tolerated labor practices that seem insane to outsiders. Over these decades, it has tolerated bureaucratic structures that repel top talent. It has evaded the relentless quality focus that has helped . . .
Most states have allowed or erected so many barriers to education reform in the form of collective bargaining agreements, limits on charter schools, vouchers. A recent report from The New Teacher Project found that in the studied districts not a single teacher had been fired in the past year for poor performance; the study further found that teacher evaluation systems were completely disconnected from student outcomes/performance.
As a result . . . steadily lost U.S. market share
Charter schools are increasingly seen as the only hope for, and the most promising developments in, public education.
The problems have not gone unrecognized and heroic measures have been undertaken, but technocratic reforms from within have not changed the culture. Technocratic reforms from Washington won’t either.
Efforts to reform public schools have come to pass with little impact on student achievement, from national reforms like No Child Left Behind to state-wide programs like the A+ Plan in Florida, schools continue to improve only at the margins and continue to look and act the same way they have for decades. For poor and minority students the reforms have met very little; McKinsey and Associates recently said the achievement gap was akin to permanent national recession and The Education Trust has consistently reported that African American high school graduates read on the same level as their white eighth grade peers.
Financially, it is tough-minded. But when it comes to the corporate culture that is at the core . . the Obama approach is strangely oblivious. The Obama plan won’t revolutionize . . . corporate culture. It could make things worse.
In the New York Times on Tuesday, June 2, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was profiled for his crusade to close failing public schools as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/education/02educ.html?scp=10&sq=arne%20duncan&st=cse. and his plan to do so in the rest of the country. He closed "more than a dozen schools" (but presumably less than two dozen) in his seven-year tenure and intends to close 250 by 2010. The question rightly would be, does such reform change the corporate culture that is at the core of the problem?
Everything in bold is not about education at all; they are from a June 2 column by David Brooks on the bankruptcy and restructuring of General Motors titled "The Quagmire Ahead" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/opinion/02brooks.html. My observations about the vast connections between the problems with and plan for General Motors and education reform follow each of Mr. Brooks's points.
School's Out, Summer's Here . . . Not in NOLA
Driving to school on Monday I passed McMain and didn't have to slow down for the school zone, signifying school is out for the summer - at least there. KIPP is out too but Green and Sci Academy are not, and Walker started summer school.
New Orleans must be unique in the country as it relates to the timeless and iconic American tradition of Summer, almost so ubiquitous that it deserves to be a proper noun, with no clear start to - or end of - the season for vast numbers of young people and thus their families.
In case there was any doubt
that ignorance, racism, bigotry or prejudice was long banished, read this sentence from a man who applied for a job with KIPP New Orleans Schools after he was not forwarded to the second round of interviews, "Good luck changing education in the Congo."
Sad. So, so, so, so sad!
He also wrote, "Do not contact me again."
To which I reply, Don't worry.
Oops (or, the smell of pickles)
Loyal readers of my blog will remember my rant almost a year ago when I was forced to sit behind someone with a pickle on an airplane.
http://bdaz.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
Apparently other people feel similarly. When I spilled a bag of pickle juice all over the desk of my colleague and friend Nicole, as she hurriedly rushed to meet an impending deadline, I thought she was going to kill me.
Honestly, I'm surprised that I lived to write this blog.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
James, (or why I teach)
One of the things I say to teaching applicants sometimes is this, "Tell me about a student who keeps you up at night . . . a student whom you know you didn't do enough for and now you worry about."
James was, until last week, one of those students. I met James his freshmen year. He was bigger than most of the other 15-year olds in the class and, inversely to his size, less mature. James's mother died that year, in November, and I remember confiding in him that my mother was dying too.
I think part of my self-disclosure was pre-meditated - an effort to make James feel sorry enough for me to cut me a break in class. My effort failed. James was my chief antagonist that year. I could handle Brandy and Jude with ease, but James really made me crazy. And since he happened to be in my art and English class, I taught him twice per day.
Some of my early gray hair I attribute to James.
James's grandmother and I bonded somehow. We never met, but he would tell her about me and he would tell me about her. He admired, loved, and respected her deeply. I came to feel similarly. James transfered to another high school the next year, and until last week I feared his life had unfolded like that of so many other young men I have known and loved.
A Facebook friend request from James, you would therefore know, surprised me. I was a bit weary of the message at first, certain that my student tormentor had grown up to be an adult one. I needed not to fear.
James wrote back to my question about how he was doing this way,
I'm doing very good as a college football player but most important a COLLEGE STUENT. I'm maintaining a 2.75 GPA, I know it could be higher I just have to apply myself more. But it's great to hear from you Mr.Dassler, and I just want to take this time to thank you for every lesson you taught me and 9th grade, reason being it has made me a better student and a more mature person. And my grandmother still has that book that you gave her 5 years ago. I see you're in New Orleans; how did that come about?
If anyone ever wonders why I teach, this is why.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Injustices to teachers and principals
There are two great injustices to teachers: first, not providing a safe and secure environment in which to teach; second, not providing support to improve.
There is one great injustice to a principal: give her the responsibility for student achievement but not the authority of all aspects necessary to get it.
Where are you going to high school?
Saturday a number of KIPP Central City Academy students were featured on a radio show in New Orleans. They were being interviewed because they had created the winning invention in a school-wide competition. The interviewer asked, "Where do you think you'll go to high school?"
Mariah answered, "Well, Mr. Dassler is starting a high school for us, KIPP Renaissance High School, and that's where I am going to go."
I love it. Love it!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
There's no such thing as lazy.
I don't believe laziness actually exists. Laziness is, in my view, the absence of sufficient motivation. I've written at length about motivation which sometimes, often, requires external stimuli - either the promise of reward or the threat of consequence. A compelling enough reward can cause even the most 'lazy' person to do something he or she wouldn't ordinarily do.
How big are your classes?
I attended a recruitment fair in Boston last week on behalf of KIPP New Orleans Schools. The question that annoyed me most from prospective teachers was, "How big are your classes?"
Come on, of all the questions to ask . . .
The question suggests that the quality of one's instruction is dependent upon class size. True or not, legitimate or not, is that something an applicant wants to imply to a prospective leader?
I'll never forget what KIPP co-founder Dave Levin said about class size four years ago. Dave asked a group from Leadership Florida, "What would you prefer for your own student: a mediocre teacher and a small class or an outstanding teacher and a large class?"
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Reflections on my preparation as a teacher
I was asked last week about the best approach to teacher preparation.
I answered ungraciously and incompletely by criticizing the University of Florida's ProTeach program of which I am a graduate. I will maintain a couple of critiques of the program:
first, the program's and faculty's lack of diversity at all levels - racial, economic, linguistic, geographic, and experiential - does not prepare its graduates for the elementary and secondary schools most of them will enter (and then, for many, quickly leave), and,
second, the program does not intend to attract, and therefore does not attract, UF students who deeply believe in educational equality.
In the entire secondary education program in 2001-02, there were a handful of students of color, no faculty members of color, and most of the students shared common socioeconomic background and life experiences. In one telling night, my English education classmates and I enacted a mock school board meeting. The agenda item: ebonics. The location: Oakland. The year: 1997. See The Real Ebonics Debate for more background (1).
Some of my classmates served as parents, others as teachers, some were students, a classmate also played the role or principal, superintendent, etc. Every constituent group was covered. Time has erased the details of the night, but not the emotion. All I remember is being outraged and hurt by the level of judgment expressed by nearly every classmate. Under the guise of their role, behind the mask of their part, I heard most of my classmates speak violently against the language of love spoken by our students. There was little balance or nuance expressed regarding, as Lisa Delpit calls African-American English Vernacular, "the skin that we speak" (2).
Now for what I didn't say to the earnest undergraduate who asked for my opinion: I got out what I put into it.
I was a pompous ass during the program. Although it didn't happen much, one larger than life memory was me falling asleep in class one afternoon, a sign of disrespect that embarrasses me to admit. One of the kindest souls I have ever known, Dr. Bob Wright, our graduate advisor, gently asked me if I had too big of a lunch causing me to fall asleep.
To be honest, though, I learned some important lessons. I took the 'idea file' Dr. Wright insisted we make with me to Stranahan where it served me well. The biggest lesson I took from Dr. Wright was his model of honesty. He shared candidly with us about the grief he continued to experience due to the loss of his wife the previous year, his model served as a guide for me as a teacher as I painfully suffered through the illness and death of both my parents.
I'll never be able to apologize enough to Dr. Wright for my awful behavior, nor to the other good people whom I believe I disrespected by scorning the program and thus its leaders. I got good grades but didn't do my best work, I played small (3), and I knew it; I'm pretty sure everyone else knew it too.
For many reasons I continue to believe a graduate degree in education before one begins teaching occurs in the wrong order (4). And for many reasons I don't have a lot of faith in colleges of education to meet the needs of the students with whom I work. Nevertheless, I wish I could go back and do it again, to put more into it and thus get more out of it. I wish I could, more than anything, go back and be a more constructive - and less aloof or disdainful - member of the cohort.
1. http://www.rethinkingschools.org/publication/ebonics/ebotoc.shtml
2. http://www.amazon.com/Skin-That-We-Speak-Classroom/dp/1565845447
3. See blog, Playing Small.
4. I am a firm believer that some of the education coursework is essential for long-term success, see upcoming blog Millenial Teachers.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Testing and intellectual capital
I wrote this piece in 2004 in response to the continual uproar over standardized testing. At the time I only shared it with my students in Stranahan High School's Urban Teacher Academy.
Juan received an envelope– an envelope that told him a lot about himself. More importantly, Juan
thought looking at the envelope, ‘this tells others a lot about me too.’ Juan held in his hand a report
prepared by KE Systems, Inc. measuring his ability to produce, to imagine, to lead, to teach, to learn, to
create.
You’re thinking now, preposterous: No such piece of paper, no measurement, could do such a thing.
And you would be partly right in that thought. Partly. No measurement can YET do what Juan’s
imaginary report above purports to do.
The standardized-testing mania sweeping the United States, I am convinced, is an initial effort at doing
what Juan’s report attempts to do. The report is our first, and yes, inadequate and incomplete, effort at
quantifying intellectual capital in a knowledge-based economy.
Those who claim such a measurement is impossible would do well to place themselves in the moccasins
of eighteenth century farmers who were told that a piece of paper, a deed, represented their land – their
accumulation of capital. Can you imagine what a shotgun-toting, tobacco-spitting, cowboy would say to
someone who told him his land was represented by a piece of paper?
What about the textile manufacturer who was told that his accumulated capital, his wealth, was invested
in various stocks? He couldn’t touch it, he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t spend it, but nevertheless he was
told that his money was there. Where?
Yes, the US economy has gone through this before, from agrarian to industrial to now a knowledge
economy, it’s a cycle. And those who reject out-of-hand the FCAT, MCAS, and other state assessments
of student learning respond similarly as those individuals of an earlier era did to deeds and stocks. It’s
different; no, it’s revolutionary.
The other thing we do when we reject this idea is eliminate the possibilities this movement provides for
the young people who have been historically neglected by our public education system. If the US is to
thrive, let alone survive, in a knowledge-based economy, then the country cannot continue to support
dual systems of education. Make no mistake, we had one system for those who would be knowledge
workers and another system those who would be industrial workers. The industrial jobs don’t exist
anymore – they have either been taken over by computers (created by the knowledge workers) or
exported overseas.
So, unless we are content to send our industrial workers, our children, to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, then
we must prepare them for the new economy. That preparation starts with measurement and that’s why
we are manic about testing. We have to know where students are if we have any chance of knowing
what they need. We have to know if certain groups of students (poor students, for example) are not
doing as well as other groups so that we can address the specific and individual needs elucidated by the
measurement.
There are many imperfections in the testing, in the test preparing, in the teaching, etc. The stock market
was imperfect at first too, which is why we had the Great Depression at the beginning of the industrial
age.
Why is a touchdown worth six points?
Two news items this month, as well as earthquake after earthquake in the world's financial markets, represent a seismic shift in the global economy. The first story was an announcement from the Lumina Foundation that it would fund the development of learning standards for college degrees in three states (1). The second story was an announcement from the Associated Press that it would begin charging for web content (2).
Huh?
Let me take this from a different approach and come back to how these two seemingly different news items are in fact related AND how they are connected, in my mind, to our current recession.
What's a touchdown worth in football?
Six points.
Why?
Because we agree that a touchdown is worth six points.
But why? Because we agree. Somewhere along the line, (in 1883 to be precise) points were introduced in football. In 1912, according to Wikipedia, a touchdown was given the point value of six (3).
Anyway, a touchdown is worth six points in football because we agree a touchdown is worth six points in football. It's both as simple and confusing as that. (In class I used the terrible example of why we call a shoe a shoe and not a lightbulb. I wish I had been smart enough to use the football example with Camilo, DJ and their classmates.)
As we straddle two distinct eras: the end of the industrial era and the beginning of the knowledge era we are facing very serious questions about how to measure capital. In the industrial era, capital was measured by stocks and bonds and expressed with dollars. In the knowledge era, (intellectual) capital is increasingly measured by what one can create (innovate, build, etc.). I argued in a piece I wrote in 2004 (published on the blog prior to this post) that the standardized testing craze in the US is but one example of our imperfect efforts to date to measure intellectual capital - the currency of a knowledge economy.
The AP's effort to charge for web content is an effort - as I see it - to monetize and capitalize on, that is put a price tag on, it's intellectual property. It's no different than Eli Whitney seeking a patent for the cotton gin or Toni Morrison applying for copywrite protection for Sula.
The Lumina Foundation's effort is even bolder. As I see it, the Foundation is seeking with its initial grant to shift away from the industrial era conception of learning being equated to hours in class and credits earned (who says that 120 hours in college is equivalent to a bachelor's degree or that 10 classes in English qualifies me to say I have a degree in the field) to a knowledge era conception of learning equated to standards or skills mastered. According to Tamar Levin of the The New York Times
In the first American effort of its kind, universities and colleges in Indiana, Minnesota and Utah are starting pilot projects to make sure that degree programs in their states reflect a consensus about what specific knowledge and skills should be taught.
Instead of defining degrees by the courses taken or the credits earned, the three states will establish what students must learn. In the pilot project, supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education, a private group in Indianapolis that works to expand access to higher education, Indiana will draft learning standards for education, history and chemistry degrees; Utah for history and physics; and Minnesota for graphic design and chemistry.
This is a big step.
For perspective, it took 29 years from the day points were added to football in 1883 to the day in 1912 when six points came to be permanently agreed upon as the value for a touchdown. What happened in those three decades do you think?
Confusion, chaos . . .
Something like what happened when our country's conception of capital permanently shifted around, say, 1929 from an agrarian age to an industrial one? (1929 was the year the stock market totally collapsed and is officially seen as the first year of the Great Depression. [4]). Is that what we are experiencing now as we begin a permanent and painful shift from an industrial era to a knowledge era. (Note the connection to the GM post from last week.)
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/education/09educ.html?scp=1&sq=Lumina%20Foundation&st=cse
2. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/18/tech/main688996.shtml
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchdown
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
5. Credit for the initial thoughts for this post go to Ruby Payne who - years ago - helped me understand the ideas of economist Hernando De Soto whose book, The Mystery of Capital, I am reading now.
You look exactly the same . . .
I was back in Gainesville last week, the first time in a year, and got to catch up with many people I don't ordinarily get to see. One person, Dr. Albert Matheny, I haven't seen since 2002 when I graduated from UF and returned to South Florida.
At the party we were at together, Dr. Matheny said when he saw me, "You look exactly the same."
My immodest bragging about Dr. Matheny's statement caused my brother to remark, "He said you look the same, Brian, he didn't see you look good."
Friday, April 17, 2009
Harvard ain't all that . . .
Leslie also told the audience last night about how New Orleans has become a mecca for smart, hard-working educators committed to providing a high quality education in a place it has been long and willfully denied. We, I say we now, see this as a special moment in American history and see New Orleans as a special place in urban education. To illustrate her point, Leslie mentioned a panel she formed recently of six educators: half African American, half white; half men, half women. She said four of the six panelists had a degree from Harvard and half had an MBA or higher. As James Williams* might say, "Harvard ain't all that . . . but it's a'ight."
(James Williams was a student of mine at Stranahan who tragically died in a car accident three years ago. Upon finishing the Disney Marathon in a time considerably longer than Sean "P. Diddy" Combs's time in the New York City Marathon, James said to me, "Well, Mr. Dassler, you ain't no P. Diddy, but you a'ight." Rest in peace, James; you are missed.)
Murder
There seems to be a murder a day here lately. Leslie Jacobs, the firebrand former member of the Orleans Parish School Board and Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, pointed out in a forum at the Urban League of Greater New Orleans last night that both the assailants and the victims are older than they were before Katrina. She sees these data as evidence that school reforms are beginning to give young people in New Orleans options beyond crime and a belief that their life - and the life of others - has value.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Funny things my trainer has asked me . . .
In August, Danny said to me, "I picked my fantasy football team over the weekend. When do you pick your team?"
A few weeks ago Danny asked me, referring to the NBA Final Four, "How's your bracket doing?"
Does he really think I care?!
What GM means for American education
President Obama's directive to General Motors, reform or be reformed, should portend similarly iconoclastic changes in American education. Let's hope.
GM is American industry. The automotive industry drove (forgive the pun) the American economy for much of the last century. Henry Ford taught the world about an assembly line and improved the efficiency of car-making by doing so. Auto workers, seeking protection from adverse working conditions and unfair labor practices, organized and formed labor unions. The center of the industry, Detroit, became a major city - a capital of great wealth. From the executives at the top of the pyramid to the suppliers of small but significant parts at the bottom of the pyramid, the auto industry symbolized America's industrial age. The rest of the industrial age developed in its image. This industrial age that began collapsing decades ago and its collapse is only now, sadly for all of us, sounding alarms and provoking widespread panic and radical action.
Schools were created in the image of American industry too.
The assembly line became the model for K-12 schooling. When the wheel is put on the axle, the nascent car goes on to the next stage. When the student finishes first grade, he goes on to second. Make sense, I guess.
The biggest similarity is the similarity between teachers and autoworkers. One gets training in her specific field, elementary education or secondary mathematics, and begins teaching. If she gets more training she can make more money, just as a supervisor might on the Ford factory floor. For every year she teachers she can make more money. She's guaranteed benefits like health care and vacation, and in her retirement she'll be taken care of. Makes sense, too, I guess.
If it makes sense, then why has GM received a mandate from the White House to reform or face bankruptcy in sixty days?
We're in a new era, and the old rules don't apply. And despite the harbingers suggesting change, it's now up to an iconoclastic president to insist on it.
While GM continued doing things the way they had always done them, Japanese manufacturers - knowing that to get ahead, let alone catch up, they'd have to seriously innovate - began experimenting with faster and cheaper ways for making cars. GM's market share declined slowly. A slow decline is still a decline and after 15 years, GM's market share for American cars and trucks has gone from 33% to 18%.
One of the biggest weaknesses in my view of the auto industry is an emphasis on inputs rather than outputs. Here's what I mean: an assembly line worker gets paid for eight hours a day no matter how many cars he assembles. He is paid for his input of time and talent not for what his time and talent produces. The worker is paid a little more each year, whether he gets better at his job or not. He is paid for his input of years not for what his years mean for cars or drivers. If the worker takes a class on a certain safety procedure, she makes more money - even if the safety class does not improve her ability to do her job.
What could be more American than the auto industry? Public schools. What is in similarly bad shape as the American auto industry? Public schools, especially high schools - as we know them. The litany of evidence supporting this conclusion does not need re-statement.
Like my view of the biggest weakness in the auto industry, I think one of the biggest weaknesses in public schools is the emphasis on inputs rather than outputs. Sound familiar: a teacher is paid for hours teaching, not quality of student learning; a teacher is paid more for a master's degree even if student learning does not improve; a teacher is paid for years of experience even if those years don't show a positive difference in student achievement. (It should be noted that a 2004 report from the National Council on Teacher Quality shows no correlation between advanced degrees or years of teaching experience and increased student achievement.)
Moreover, the problem is greater in education than the auto industry. In addition to the labor being dominated by an input-based model so too are students shackled to the same thinking. Who says a five-year old is ready for kindergarten? Who says that at the end of nine months of teaching, he is then ready for first grade? Who says that a student who is taught an entire Algebra 1 textbook is ready for Algebra 2? We equate time-on-task to learning outcomes when in fact the time-on-task is our best estimate, a guess!, about the learning outcome. Since most five-year olds are ready for school, they all must start - just like the car moves down the assembly line as each part is added.
GM has been bankrupt for a long time, now someone powerful is saying so. (I'd argue that car buyers were saying so over the last two decades as they bought other cars in droves.) The restructuring will be hard but necessary. It will, I think, focus on shifting the belief and concomitant actions associated with an input-based model.
In some cities like New Orleans, Washington DC, and a few others, the bankrupt school systems of these cities is being called so by powerful people - and powerful restructuring is underway. More must change, however, if we are truly to move from an input- to an output-based model for education; only then can we complete the necessary, significant, and potentially painful move from an industrial to knowledge-based economy.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Response to the Annenberg Institute for School Reform's Case Study on New Orleans:
Thank you for the commitment you have made to being a part of the dialogue here. I must say, my perspective is very different from the Institute's. Unlike the Institute, I am not certain an 'education system' can be 'smart'. The bureaucracy and special interests, to name two, endemic of a system are - in my experience - un-smart. Because this case study views New Orleans through the prism of an SES - an ideal and perhaps unrealistic vision - it understandably finds our non-system undesirable, unfulfilled or worse.
What if a non-system is, in fact, the ideal?
Not included yet is the voice of students who are reading on grade level in this non-system, the voice of parents whose children are attending safe and effective schools that they, the parents, were themselves willfully denied, or the voice of teachers who are treated as the professionals they are. The voice this case study speaks of and to is an important, but by no means ubiquitous, point-of-view in post-Katrina New Orleans: those adults who have seen their power diminished and their view of what is possible upended by evidence of heretofore unimaginable student achievement in the non-system.
I would challenge the Institute to consider shifting its, or including an additional, paradigm. Perhaps what is happening here is indeed a promising practice, one that may - finally - shift the balance in urban schools so that they are places where equity and opportunity abound. If the Institute is to see the promise and opportunity of New Orleans, for our community as well as other communities then an additional lens will be necessary.
Perfect
My personal trainer and I have been having a conversation about positive reinforcement lately. Sometimes Danny will say after I have correctly done an exercise, "Perfect".
If I don't know what I did that he calls perfect then it doesn't matter a bit that he said it. For "perfect" to work as positive reinforcement I must know the components that made what I did perfect. I have to know that when I do a perfect bench press the bar lands at a certain spot on my chest, that I have breathed a certain way, etc. The positive reinforcement should come during the inputs that lead to the desired output/result.
In a classroom, that may sound like, "Thanks for coming in silently, sitting down right away, and getting right to work on your do now. That's perfect." Not only does positive reinforcement recognize the behaviors that are desired, it subtly corrects behaviors that are undesirable. This tacit correction allows for students to shift before negative reinforcement is applied to get a desired outcome.
To a colleague this week, I might share:
When someone does something to the satisfaction of another, it's appropriate to give positive reinforcement. For example, you might reply to my e-mail with notes from my interviews today this way, "Brian, thanks for getting the notes to me right after you completed the phone interviews. I know you have made a commitment to getting those out quickly so we can move on candidates immediately - I appreciate that you did that today.
And if you are hoping I will continue working on something, i.e. my assessments of candidates, you might add, "I also want to thank you for continuing to include as much detail as possible explaining your ratings of candidates. This helps school leaders really know your views on people with whom you speak, and since your view is so respected it helps them move forward in ways that meet the needs of their - and your future - students. You are the best."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Are you right- or left-handed?
"Are you right- or left-handed?" I asked my colleague Nicole this afternoon.
"Why?" she replied.
"Are you right- or left-handed?" I repeated.
"Why?" she said again.
Nicole is the director of high school placement and alumni support at McDonogh 15. She is single-handedly making it possible for dozens, and eventually hundreds, of students to successfully climb the mountain to college. In addition to being her boss, I am also Nicole's chief antagonist. Thus her reluctance to answer my question - believing that it was a trap of some sort.
Nicole had just finished thanking me for making her speak to a reporter. She was being sarcastic. She doesn't like speaking in public, she would tell you, and she doesn't like getting any kind of attention. Thanks to a certain maneuver on my part, Nicole talked to a reporter last week. She was still annoyed with me.
Finally Nicole answered, "Left," she said.
"If you had to write with your right hand, could you?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered sheepishly.
"And if you wrote with your right hand long enough," I continued, "could you get better at it?"
"Yes," Nicole told me.
"You wouldn't like it, but you could maybe even get good at it?" I pushed.
"Yes," Nicole said one last time.
"Right," I replied, "you can do just about anything. You might not like it at first, and it may not be comfortable, but you can do it and you can get better at it."
"So," I concluded, "talk to reporters!"
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
An opportunity for national standards
President Barack Obama gave a seminal address on education today calling for a "complete and competitive education" and outlining five pillars for moving beyond economic recovery to economic vitality. Obama, like the rest of us, knows that a complete and competitive education is the only national investment that can ensure America's dominance in a global, knowledge-based economy.
I was most struck by Obama's direct call for raising standards which I am beginning to believe may be the first subtle call for national standards, an effort I would applaud. Today, the president said, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-the-President-to-the-Hispanic-Chamber-of-Commerce/
Now, this is an area where we are being outpaced by other nations. It's not that their kids are any smarter than ours -- it's that they are being smarter about how to educate their children. They're spending less time teaching things that don't matter, and more time teaching things that do. They're preparing their students not only for high school or college, but for a career. We are not. Our curriculum for 8th graders is two full years behind top performing countries. That's a prescription for economic decline. And I refuse to accept that America's children cannot rise to this challenge. They can, and they must, and they will meet higher standards in our time. (Applause.)
So let's challenge our states -- let's challenge our states to adopt world-class standards that will bring our curriculums to the 21st century. Today's system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means 4th grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming -- and they're getting the same grade. Eight of our states are setting their standards so low that their students may end up on par with roughly the bottom 40 percent of the world.
That's inexcusable. That's why I'm calling on states that are setting their standards far below where they ought to be to stop low-balling expectations for our kids. The solution to low test scores is not lowering standards -- it's tougher, clearer standards. (Applause.) Standards like those in Massachusetts, where 8th graders are -- (applause) -- we have a Massachusetts contingent here. (Laughter.) In Massachusetts, 8th graders are now tying for first -- first in the whole world in science. Other forward-thinking states are moving in the same direction by coming together as part of a consortium. And more states need to do the same. And I'm calling on our nation's governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.
There are risks in the creation of national standards, Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, warns in a recent blog, http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/index.cfm?issue=472&edition=N. He concludes the risks are worth taking. I agree. And not only is the risk worth taking, it's also the best time in American history to do so.
Why might now be an opportunity for national standards?
Historically, education has been a function of state governments. It has only been in the last thirty years - my lifetime - that a federal department of education even existed. States' rights advocates fought fiercely for this autonomy and had to have been motivated on many levels regarding fears of what might be imposed on them. Desegregation, for example, was mandated insofar as states were denied federal funds until they complied with Brown vs. Board of Education.
The federal government's role, then, has been minor. The federal contribution to education is well under 10%. Even now, the threat of withholding federal funds may not be enough of a catalyst for many states or all districts to comply with federal education laws, i.e. No Child Left Behind (NCLB). (One state, Connecticut, actually rejected federal funds rather than comply with NCLB.)
The biggest monetary impact of NCLB occurs when schools fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). A school that doesn't make AYP must provide academic tutoring, access to other schools, etc. or be subject to reconstitution. If they refuse or are unsuccessful the result can be the withholding of federal funds. The only schools really effected by NCLB or AYP are schools that depend on federal funds, and the only schools in the country that really depend on federal funds are schools that receive funding through Title 1. (Title 1 funding is allocated to schools based on the percentage of students who receive free or reduced-price lunch.)
As the New York Times reported, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/education/28educ.html?ref=politics, the federal stimulus package more than doubles federal spending on education. Now, every school, district, and state in America will be much more dependent on federal funds thus giving the federal government leverage it has never had. Like NCLB served as a catalyst - for good or ill, depending on one's perspective - for reform in low income schools, so might this infusion of federal support act as a catalyst for education reform on a national level.
President Obama's remarks on standards, cited above, lead me to believe that one of his next education priorities will involve national standards. Given the leverage the federal government now has in the decisions of districts and states, it might be just the opening needed.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
My friend Carina insisted she was not a morning exerciser. Insisted. I said, "Okay, you're not a morning exerciser. What would it take for you to exercise tomorrow morning?" She said $100. I wrote her a check for $100 and told her she could cash it if she got up the next morning and exercised. She didn't get up. Why? Would she have risen early for $250? $500? If the life of her children depended on it? At some point the belief (mindset/narrative/mental model/muscle memory) she has about herself will be challenged by something bigger than that belief, i.e. a cash incentive or the rescue of her son and daughter. After her behavior has changed - with independent or guided reflection, and that's key - she can no longer say she is not a morning exerciser. She may not want to exercise in the morning, but she can be a morning exerciser if she chooses to be. She is response-able.
As for incentives for students, my parents refused to give me anything for good grades. I remember my dad saying, "We aren't giving you money for something we expect." That worked fine for me.
Did my parents' policy on paying for grades work as well for my brother? His grades in school weren't as good. Would they have been better with an incentive? Possibly. And if they could have been better with an incentive, why not provide the incentive?
If the desired outcome - good grades, morning exercise, etc. - is a worthy one , then why not create an incentive that would lead to its achievement?
Some points: first, get really clear about the desired outcome and make sure that it is damn worthy of every bit of effort and attention; second, identify who is reaching the outcome already and who isn't, forget about those who were already reaching it since they were fine without the incentive (I didn't need a grade incentive, David might have); third, identify the behaviors/habits/practices that can reliably lead to that desired outcome; fourth, create incentives that will motivate someone to engage in that behavior and put a timeline on how long the incentives will be in place since once the new behavior is a habit it doesn't need a further incentive; fifth, engage in dialogue or insist on reflection with the person whose behavior is changing so he/she knows that the incentive was an artificial device and that it was him/her who did all the work (not the incentive) - in other words, don't allow Carina to say, I can't get up to exercise without the money since she clearly CAN get up, she just may not want to; and, sixth, remove the incentive and check in on the progress.
Theoretically, the achievement of the desired outcome - or being in progress to it - will have reached the Good to Great flywheel stage. The success then can be self-perpetuating. This is what goes through a person's mind (sometimes a guide, i.e. teacher may need to say this) who was not doing his homework.
I don't like doing homework. Mr. Dassler said if I did my homework today that he would give me a sticker. Fine, I'll do my homework. He also said if I did my homework all week he'd give me a pizza coupon . . . Wow, my grade on the test Friday was a lot better. Mr. Dassler just asked me why I thought that it was better. I guess, I told him, it was because I did my homework this week. I guess that means, I told him when he asked, that when I do my homework I get better grades. When he asked me why better grades were good, I told him, when I get better grades I will be more likely to get into the college of my choice.
Flywheel. One more week of incentivizing homework, then, done! Behavior changed; mindset on the way to changing.
The New York Times (linked above) article that inspired this blog that discusses performance incentive programs - for students - reward outcomes without regard to the inputs necessary for achieving those outcomes. I think that's a faulty arrangement.
Should the student in question above want better grades, yes. If he thought he could get them now, wouldn't he? Probably. (In all likelihood there is a deep mindset/belief issue here about grades, worthiness, etc. which is causing the student to choose not to do his homework. This mindset has to change and to change anything deep requires a catalyst, i.e. incentive.) What's keeping him from getting them now? Who knows. Would doing his homework, which he is not doing now, lead to better grades? Most likely. Do we incentivize better grades or doing homework? We incentivize that which will lead to the desired result. In this case, then, we incentivize doing homework . . . better grades will follow.
Next up . . . performance pay for teachers.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Playing small, part 3 (Peggy)
I can relate to your story, I told Peggy this morning.
Peggy has been a friend for almost ten years. We met when we both were working at the week-long South Florida Leadership Training Camp in Davie, Florida. Our story is much more connected than just that, but that I will save for another entry.
Peggy is a super-saleswoman. She’s been selling since her freshmen year of college. That was her first year selling books door-to-door in exclusive suburbs in New England. Over the years she sold books she amassed quite a record – and quite a bank account.
Out of direct sales for a few years, she is back in it now. She works for a large and prominent medical supply company. The company is headquartered in the Northeast, and Peggy is based in Charleston.
At the company’s annual meeting Peggy was named – from among hundreds of salespeople – one of the top fifteen in the nation in 2008! The feat was remarkable, made even more so due to Peggy’s own admission that she hadn’t even tried. She has said before, my heart’s just not in it. Peggy, you will say by now, could see sand to an someone in the Mojave.
During her annual performance review last week, expecting praise from her supervisor for her stellar accomplishment, Peggy was told frankly that she wasn’t performing to her potential. She was told in a phrase, you’re playing small.
Peggy shared the story with me. I laughed out loud. I nodded at the grace and acumen of a supervisor who will look his best salesperson in the eye and say to her, ‘Your heart’s not in it; you need to decide if it can be or not.’
Now that is leadership. Peggy’s boss risked her walking out the door and the company losing one of its top talent. But if Peggy can be number one and she is the only reason she isn’t number one, he’s also risking that he can help her get there. Maybe or maybe not. At the very least Peggy’s boss gave her the gift of a mirror and a confrontation with honesty. Now Peggy has a choice to make: Do your best or go somewhere else. What a gift!
Playing small, part 2 (marathon)
Liston, I have to tell you something. I played small last month. Yes, I know: you’re disappointed. You should be. I’m disappointed too.
What happened, you ask.
You remember my commitment to running fifteen marathons before I die, right? And remember that I have already run two marathons, in 2004 and 2006. I decided to run number three this year, and I began training for the Mardi Gras Marathon on February 1 last September.
Most people think running a marathon is a big achievement. It is for most people. But running a marathon itself is no big achievement for me.
So when people started congratulating me on the marathon I actually had to hang my head a little. I didn’t train well. My time was slower than my second marathon. I didn’t take the race as seriously as I should have – and I definitely didn’t take it as seriously as someone who tells his students that ‘playing small doesn’t serve the world.’
What I began realizing during the race – in those miles when life sucks – and what became clear following the race is this, if I am going to run a marathon, I am going to RUN a marathon. I’m going to put my heart into training and only because of something outside of my control should my time be slower than my last. I don’t deserve the medal nor the commendations if I look in the mirror and see someone who didn’t do his best.
Playing small, part 1 (Liston)
Liston, an energetic, mouth-full-of-braces young man was in my ninth grade English class two years ago, wrote an essay that found its way to me in a Christmas card this December. The topic: The Most Impressive Person I’ve Ever Met.
Liston wrote about me.
Save the guffaws at Liston’s choice, and please don’t judge him too harshly for not having had experiences with people who really deserve to be called impressive.
The truth is, I think, Liston was writing about himself. Like other students I have discussed in the blog, Liston was in the class that looked deeply and carefully at heroes throughout the year. Liston remembers what he learned about heroes, writing, “It doesn’t take much to be a hero. You could have sheer determination or bravery, or even luck. Being a hero is about doing something for the greater good of the community or the world.”
He learned in my class that he is a hero too, and for that lesson he wants to credit me and label me impressive. I don’t deserve it. I went back and read my notes on Liston’s 15-page essay and found these words,
I’m proud of you this year, Liston. You are very smart and you have excellent energy. You probably feel self-conscious at times since you don’t conform to other people’s standards – I encourage you to continue not conforming. There’s nothing heroic in being like everyone else. I can tell you worked hard here, but you and I both know you could have done better.
He remembered it this way, “He told me . . ‘You’re playing small. That won’t do you any good in the real world. I believe in you.’”
Reading aloud
I was in yet another class today where a teacher was reading to her students. There are few instructional practices I find more maddening, not to mention fruitless, than this one.
Blah blah blah.
Students need to hear the written word expressed out loud. Fluency improves when students can see what words look like and hear what they sound like. So the research says.
Blah blah blah.
Ever consider what would happen if we gave driver’s licenses to 16-year olds even if they had never taken a driving test? And what about the teen who takes a driving test having never gotten behind a wheel, never parked a car, never used windshield wipers, etc.? He wouldn’t pass. He shouldn’t pass.
Reading out loud to students thinking it will improve their reading comprehension and fluency is akin to thinking a teenager can learn to drive having never practiced and having taken no test.
Here’s what I want to hear in English classrooms:
Okay, class, listen carefully to my instructions. I am going to read page 65. While I am reading, you are listening to hear and reading to identify the conflict between the two characters. Any questions? Again, while I am reading, you are listening to hear and reading to identify the conflict between the two characters.
[The teacher reads out loud. Students listen and follow along.]
Now, on your own paper, take one minute write a complete sentence about the conflict between the two characters. Any questions? One minute begins now.
[Students write.]
Thank you. Now, take one minute to share your answer with someone sitting near you. Any questions? One minute begins now.
[Students talk.]
Okay, class, let me have a few volunteers share what you wrote or talked about.
After a brief, structured, respectful sharing of ideas, students are instructed to read the next page on their own:
Okay, class, you are going to read the next page, 66, to find evidence of the main character being a hero, the essential question for the book and the course. I expect at least two pieces of evidence supporting a conclusion that the character is (or is not) a hero. Any questions? Take three minutes to silently read and write.
There are many variations and degrees of complexity or rigor that can be deployed here. For more reluctant readers it may be (initially) necessary to ‘chunk’ by paragraphs instead of pages. For more able readers, the chunking can be divided by chapter. The questions students are seeking to answer can be at the lowest level’s of Bloom’s taxonomy (knowledge/comprehension) or the highest (analysis/synthesis/evaluation).
The philosophy here should be clear. Students listening to a teacher read aloud are engaged in NO cognitive activity. They have to do nothing except listen. For anyone who has taught, we know what happens when students are engaged in no activity. At best, nothing happens – including learning, and at worst, chaos ensues.
The activity I am suggesting, commonly called Think/Write-Pair-Share, asks students to engaged in at least two cognitive tasks. They have to 1) write and 2) talk/listen. At the end of those few minutes students then have a chance to share with classmates what they are thinking. The practice students have before being asked to raise their hands to speak to the whole class has proved to assist in encouraging student confidence in classroom discussions. Even the most shy and reluctant has a vastly improved chance of sharing something with her peers.
As students are reading, writing, and talking quietly the teacher has the opportunity to check on (correct, extend, etc.) student understanding of the text.
Now, you tell me, what’s more likely to produce critical readers and writers, listening to a teacher read aloud or the process I’ve outlined above?
For those naysayers who will say, Brian, what you are saying will take too much time, I say this: there’s a reason we have a learner’s permit and a road test before teenagers get their driver’s license. The extra time involved gives us far more (but in no way complete) confidence that by the time students can earn their license they are ready to be responsible drivers. Likewise to taking the time learning to drive, I would much rather see good, but less extensive reading instruction than I would superficial instruction that does nothing to improve students’ fluency or comprehension.
At the end of the day, no road test before a license will lead to far more accidents just like no cognitive activity during read alouds will lead to another generation of illiterate young adults.
Reading aloud
I was in yet another class today where a teacher was reading to her students. There are few instructional practices I find more maddening, not to mention fruitless, than this one.
Blah blah blah.
Students need to hear the written word expressed out loud. Fluency improves when students can see what words look like and hear what they sound like. So the research says.
Blah blah blah.
Ever consider what would happen if we gave driver’s licenses to 16-year olds even if they had never taken a driving test? And what about the teen who takes a driving test having never gotten behind a wheel, never parked a car, never used windshield wipers, etc.? He wouldn’t pass. He shouldn’t pass.
Reading out loud to students thinking it will improve their reading comprehension and fluency is akin to thinking a teenager can learn to drive having never practiced and having taken no test.
Here’s what I want to hear in English classrooms:
Okay, class, listen carefully to my instructions. I am going to read page 65. While I am reading, you are listening to hear and reading to identify the conflict between the two characters. Any questions? Again, while I am reading, you are listening to hear and reading to identify the conflict between the two characters.
[The teacher reads out loud. Students listen and follow along.]
Now, on your own paper, take one minute write a complete sentence about the conflict between the two characters. Any questions? One minute begins now.
[Students write.]
Thank you. Now, take one minute to share your answer with someone sitting near you. Any questions? One minute begins now.
[Students talk.]
Okay, class, let me have a few volunteers share what you wrote or talked about.
After a brief, structured, respectful sharing of ideas, students are instructed to read the next page on their own:
Okay, class, you are going to read the next page, 66, to find evidence of the main character being a hero, the essential question for the book and the course. I expect at least two pieces of evidence supporting a conclusion that the character is (or is not) a hero. Any questions? Take three minutes to silently read and write.
There are many variations and degrees of complexity or rigor that can be deployed here. For more reluctant readers it may be (initially) necessary to ‘chunk’ by paragraphs instead of pages. For more able readers, the chunking can be divided by chapter. The questions students are seeking to answer can be at the lowest level’s of Bloom’s taxonomy (knowledge/comprehension) or the highest (analysis/synthesis/evaluation).
The philosophy here should be clear. Students listening to a teacher read aloud are engaged in NO cognitive activity. They have to do nothing except listen. For anyone who has taught, we know what happens when students are engaged in no activity. At best, nothing happens – including learning, and at worst, chaos ensues.
The activity I am suggesting, commonly called Think/Write-Pair-Share, asks students to engaged in at least two cognitive tasks. They have to 1) write and 2) talk/listen. At the end of those few minutes students then have a chance to share with classmates what they are thinking. The practice students have before being asked to raise their hands to speak to the whole class has proved to assist in encouraging student confidence in classroom discussions. Even the most shy and reluctant has a vastly improved chance of sharing something with her peers.
As students are reading, writing, and talking quietly the teacher has the opportunity to check on (correct, extend, etc.) student understanding of the text.
Now, you tell me, what’s more likely to produce critical readers and writers, listening to a teacher read aloud or the process I’ve outlined above?
For those naysayers who will say, Brian, what you are saying will take too much time, I say this: there’s a reason we have a learner’s permit and a road test before teenagers get their driver’s license. The extra time involved gives us far more (but in no way complete) confidence that by the time students can earn their license they are ready to be responsible drivers. Likewise to taking the time learning to drive, I would much rather see good, but less extensive reading instruction than I would superficial instruction that does nothing to improve students’ fluency or comprehension.
At the end of the day, no road test before a license will lead to far more accidents just like no cognitive activity during read alouds will lead to another generation of illiterate young adults.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Preventing burnout
I was asked by a prospective teacher this week, how do you prevent burnout? Here's my response:
To your question, I don't think we have any responsibility for preventing teacher burn out. Haha, how's that for an answer?! Forgive the fact that my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek as I explain what I mean. What we are 100% committed to is creating school environments where teachers can open their doors, work hard for something that matters, and join a family.
Let me say more about each one.
First, committed teachers of under-served students often have to close their doors in order to be successful. They create KIPP classrooms with high expectations, a focus on results, etc. but recognize that the next period, the next day, the next year may mean nothing for their students as students wander through places where other teachers may be at worst, un-doing what you did, and at best, simply not building on it. In a KIPP school, you're going to get better because you'll have principals and peers giving you feedback.
To think that the hours you spent planning a science lesson could make it even a little more likely that a student will be a doctor one day is something that KIPP can guarantee. We follow students until they are college graduates, providing support, encouragement, resources, etc. so students remain on the path to and through college. In KIPP New Orleans Schools specifically we expect over 1000 college graduates by 2021, a seven times increase for Orleans Parish from before Katrina.
Think about this: you are on a team, more than a team - a member of a family - where everyone 1) believes all students deserve a chance at college, 2) is doing whatever it takes to make sure he/she gets that chance, and 2) is constantly learning and growing and getting better so students have that chance. Sound appealing? It should. You would be part of a school-based family where people are planning together and sharing together, celebrating together and yes sometimes crying together. You are part of a larger KIPP New Orleans Schools family where you can share best practices with other teachers in your content area and grade level. And you are also part of a national movement that is redefining what is possible in public education; this movement connects you with a middle school science teacher in the Bronx and with the latest reading and research on promising teaching practices.
There are more nuances to this answer than I am sharing which especially include respecting where people are in the life paths including those paths that revolve around early adulthood, relationships, parenting, etc. As we mature as an organization I believe we are doing a better and better job at this fact and are committed to continuing our efforts here.
I want you to think hard about this question: What will cause YOU to burn out? Or, better, think about a time when you could have burned out and did not. Now, take a look at why you persisted. My guess is the answer has something to do with a combination of what I outlined above: you were doing the work you felt like you are meant to do, you were being challenged by the work and getting better, you were in community with others who fe
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Source of Success
When we externalize the source of our achievement - especially one that was large in dimension - we create a mindset/narrative/muscle memory that sets ourselves up for not realizing our own power when we have to in the future. The important thing is to realize YOU were the source of your success, with help that you sought and accepted, thus acknowledging that you can be that source again and again.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Our Higher Education Advisory Board
Monday was another great day in KIPP New Orleans! We hosted the first meeting of the Higher Education Advisory Board, a group that will be crucial allies in our mission of supporting students as they climb the mountain to college.
The board is composed of a distinguished and diverse group of individuals with higher education experiences that average 20 years. Representatives from each major unit of university life - from student affairs to financial aid and admissions to academic affairs - serve on the Board and will assist in the development of a college-prep curriculum and then the successful matriculation of our graduates to universities across the country. These individuals will also be the advisors and ombuds-people for the students who enroll at their institutions as they navigate what can be a difficult transition from high school to college.
A photographic update from New Orleans schools
http://americancity.org/site/page/1282/
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Nyeil and Jermaine
No sooner had I begun unpacking my first box a year ago this month than my phone rang. It was Todd Purvis.
Todd called to ask - sheepishly, as I recall - if I would co-teach a social studies class until the LEAP test with a new teacher at KIPP Central City Academy. Todd had taken over as principal of the school two weeks earlier and he needed my help, he said. Naturally I agreed.
Todd and I debriefed every afternoon for the first month, brainstorming ways to tighten up various aspects of the school culture. He did all the work, and did so remarkably I must say, and I mostly listened and learned. I helped teachers get things together and helped students keep it together. Sometimes I covered lunch, sometimes detention. Despite the lack of routine in my daily schedule, one thing was the same every day: I stood at the top of the stairs with music playing and greeted students as they came up with their breakfast.
So many students were struggling in January 2008, too many to name. Jermaine was as disaffected a young man as I have known, and Nyeil was as angry a girl as I have seen. He would stare into space. When someone called his name his eyes would look past the person to some unknown place in the distance. And Nyeil, oh Nyeil. She looked at me more than once with fire in her eyes telling me, "You're going to hell." The bruises on Todd's shins from her kicking him may still linger. A fifth grader, this was doubtless in her mind, going to soon be her seventh school in six years.
Last week I was at KIPP Central City with the three candidates from whom I will choose an assistant principal. Nyeil passed us in the hall, and I called her over. I asked Nyeil to introduce herself and tell them something about herself that they did not know.
Nyeil looked these three adults in the eye, extending her hand to each one, and said, "Hi, I'm Nyeil. I'm going to be the first African American woman president."
All of us smiled.
And then yesterday, leaning over the bannister of the second floor of the school staring at the beautiful courtyard that is every bit a celebration of childhood with its garden and green space playground and US map all bordered by the walls of the school, I saw Jermaine on the middle of the basketball court. He was jumping for rebounds and shooting the ball. He was holding his own.
I smiled then too.
What we do isn't easy. But it's not rocket science either. We start young. We teach the habits of mind, habits of work, and habits of character we believe can serve students well in college and in life, and then we practice them relentlessly. We don't give up. We keep the expectations high. We make them meet our expectations. We love them and honor them. That's KIPP.
Try
Fifth period. Ninth grade English. First week.
One of my students used the dreaded word try in responding to my request that he complete his classwork as homework. "I'll try," he said.
Keeping my cool, I summoned him to the front of the classroom. I held up a pencil and ordered that he try to take it from my hand. He went to grab it and I pulled it away. I told him I didn't say take it, I said, try to take it. I said again, getting louder, "Try to take the pencil."
He reached for it again, and just as quickly I pulled the pencil away.
This continued through several attempts on his part, until finally, exasperated and frustrated he looked at me quizzically. I finally said, "Take the pencil."
Overcoming his newfound fear of reaching for the pencil, he slowly, delicately took the pencil from my hand.
I shared with that student, his classmates, and everyone else that day what the Jedi Master Yoda says to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, "Do, or do not. There is no such thing as try."
When a professional e-mailed me today to say she would 'try and contact me tomorrow,' I wanted to reply with Yoda's words. I restrained my impulse and instead decided to direct her to my blog.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Seasons of love
With his labored breathing foretelling an exhale that would not be followed by another inhale, I sat next to my father's hospital bed two years ago today. David had left a few hours before and Dad and I were there together. For the last few hours of his life, the nurse told me it would not be long, I played inspirational music for him, sometimes singing to him - had he been conscious I'm sure he would have found my singing neither comforting nor soothing - and sometimes simply talking to him. I held his hand the whole time.
At a little bit after 1:00 a.m., the most recognizable song from the musical Rent came on. "Seasons of Love" asks how one measures a year . . . and concludes that one measures it in love. Knowing that any heave of my father's chest may be his last - sending us both into temporary deaths as each breath exited our body and before the succeeding one entered, I said to my Dad, the man who put me to bed every night with a kiss and the words, 'I am proud of you,' "That's what you have always given us, Dad, love."
His chest did not rise again. Mine didn't either as I held my breath watching, wondering, hoping, fearing, dying too. January 19, 2007.
Last night I was standing with friends at a bar in New Orleans when THE song began. Despite the campy songs - musicals and sitcoms, Madonnas and Chers - of Sundays at this particular bar, I had never heard "Seasons of Love" there.
Last night, however, I looked up and saw Katie Couric introducing the cast of Rent, which closed its long run on Broadway this year, to sing their most famous song on the Today show.
I didn't even think about the date at first; I just wondered if I was going to keep myself from crying in a public place, a crowded bar no less. And then hit me. I looked at my watch. It was 11:30 p.m. CST - 12:30 EST. It was January 19, 2009. Two years.
I felt warm and glad inside. I didn't cry. I smiled. I beamed. I breathed.
A BAR that had never - in my experience - played "Seasons of Love", the song I was singing to my father as he took his final breath, had just played it, and they did so on the two year anniversary of my father's death.
Unbelievable.
If I didn't already, Wally Lamb, then this would have been the hour I first believed.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Leaving the University of Florida
In August 2002, I graduated from the University of Florida with a master's degree in English education. I found the following reflection, a note I gave to the people who had made a difference in my life, this week as I was going through old files.The campus tour was steeped in significance. Taking my seventeen-year-old cousin and her family around the University of Florida campus – a campus I have come to know well over the last five years – I became part of a process that occurs annually at universities all over the country.
Former UF President John Lombardi named this tradition over ten years ago when he remarked on the University’s constant evolution – a reinvention in Lombardi’s words. The campus reinvents itself with the arrival of new students and with the graduation of others, Lombardi said, a constant cycle of growth and regeneration. My cousin and I represent this tradition perfectly.
And as much as I’d like to fool myself, this process will continue long after I leave – just as it began well before I arrived.
Graduating today, I leave an institution that is better than the institution I encountered when I arrived. The university is better because of me . . . it is better because of all of its students. We brought with us questions never before asked, ideas never before considered, and passions never before acted upon. My cousin and young men and women like her, will enroll at a university that has been shaped – indeed, has been changed – by this year’s graduates – as well as the graduates of all years previous.
My cousin will enroll at an altogether different institution- a university that has constantly reinvented itself. In five years the University of Florida has changed dramatically. I arrived and registered on Telegator – now an undoubtedly foreign word to my cousin and her classmates. Gatorlink was not yet mandatory, and we had no first-year experience course. There was one fewer residence hall, Hume Hall looked as it did when it opened in the 1960s, and my first year saw the introduction of DHNet and the university-wide computer requirement. The Keys and Springs halls were still called ARF and 95, respectively. There was no Gator Times newspaper (indeed, that has come and gone), and the women’s soccer team was looking good enough to win a national championship. (They did win, you know.) The football team’s national championship was a very recent memory, and no one would have guessed Steve Spurrier would one day wear garnet and gold.
If so much changes in five short years, imagine what the University of Florida looks like to those who graduated well before me. There is no University College and regular treks to the Marion County line are unnecessary. IFAS is more than agriculture and animal science, the dominant discipline in the unit for forty or more years. There is no alligator living below Century Tower, and computers fit in the palm of one’s hand.
In my view, the most remarkable and important change has been the university’s increasing diversity and its growing commitment to a multicultural community that honors and respects all of its members. The idea of a multicultural, pluralistic community threatens many in our society- men and women who would - and do - close the doors of opportunity. Opening the University’s doors was the right thing to do in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and it remains the right thing to do in 2002, 2003, and beyond.
If so much changes in such a short period of time, I wonder . . . how have I changed? How have I grown? How have I begun anew? How, in Lombardi’s words, have I reinvented myself?
I understand the world is much bigger and much smaller than I conceived five years ago. I am unable now to simply categorize people and actions as good or bad, fair or unfair. I know, thanks to my education here, there are problems in our society that need my time and my talent to overcome. I recognize for the first time my responsibility in being, as Gandhi put it, the change I want to see. And, I feel more confident today than I did five years ago in my ability to be, in Gandhi’s words, a catalyst for change.
If I’ve learned and grown in these remarkable ways, adding my knowledge of a discipline to knowledge of people and life, what then must I do? A visitor to our campus three years ago said it best, I think. Former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders said, “we must be content to plant seeds that will grow into trees under which we will never sit, whose limbs will never shade us, and whose fruit will never sustain us.”
I hope I will always commit to planting the seeds about which Mrs. Elders spoke.
I recognize the changes our campus underwent year in and year out before I arrived and has undergone while I was here. I recognize that this change has occurred because of me – because of all students - and recognize as well that other places on my journey can be changed for good or for ill because of me too.
As the cycle of orientation and graduation – the university’s annual reinvention – begins again with my cousin and students like her, as first-year students arrive with new questions, new ideas, and new passions I and others leave taking our new questions, new ideas, and new passions – all developed here – to all ends of the globe.
Whatever I encounter and wherever I go, I am certain the University of Florida has prepared me well. I am forever changed by and indebted to the many friends, colleagues, teachers, and mentors who have left an indelible mark on my spirit, my soul, my heart, and my mind.
To you I say thanks.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Louie
I recalled one of the most inimitable men I have known to several friends a few weeks ago. A mostly bald, short and squat 60ish man who wore a white cotton v-neck shirt, complete with the inelegant chest hair curling out, Louie taught me one of life's most important lessons.
The summer between my freshmen and sophomore years of college found me working in the school board's supply warehouse, the place I met Louie and Al and Bruce and many others. The day started early, 6:00 a.m., and ended early too. We had two 15-minute breaks each day, one mid-morning and the other in the mid-afternoon. Our 30-minute lunch was often spent in the only air-conditioned room of the warehouse, a needed respite from the hot air trapped in the warehouse during the Florida summer.
I had two jobs that summer. The first, delivering supplies to schools lasted long enough for me to accidently hit a parked vehicle, a school bust; the second, filling school supply orders, saw me through the rest of the summer.
Louie was the dean of the warehouse having worked there for longer than anyone could remember. Louie taught me that one can create beauty and order from anything and that pride in one's work was essential to one's dignity. For Louie that meant building the most flat pallets of school supplies possible.
Surveying a 13-page order that could have included 1200 glue sticks, 24 reams of paper, 1950 colored pencils, the list could seem endless, Louie would assess the list and begin building in his head the pallets that would hold these items as they were loaded on to and off of delivery trucks on their way to school supply closets and teacher's classrooms. Louie took into consideration the size of the boxes holding each item, the location of items relative to other items for ease of loading, and the necessary boxes that would allow for each pallet to have a strong foundation, necessary for keeping it steady during transportation. Like the Santa Clause figure he somewhat resembled, sans beard, Louie would scan his order and dash quickly to work, racing around the warehouse on a pallet jack, his sleigh, assembling the pieces that would arrive through hanger doors instead of chimneys.
In spite of my earlier auto accident, I was permitted use of a pallet jack too (not without great grief, and no little worry, from many). Few things in my life compare to whirring around seemingly mile-high shelves on the little contraption. Louie schooled, not so harshly mostly, me in its appropriate use (not the source of fun, he demanded, but a tool of labor.)
I never even rivaled Louie, in speed at assembling orders or in beauty or order of the final product, but I did get better, "not bad, kid," I remember him saying to me.
Louie did that job through marriage and divorce, heart attack and arthritis by finding a way to make it stimulating - the mental acuity of building the pallets in his head before setting out was extraordinary. He also took great pride in never making an error or building a pallet that could not withstand a sharp curve on the route to its intended school.
People who labor their whole lives like Eddie are smart, hard-working people, and without them, I would not have had the paper, pens, etc. I needed four years later when I started teaching for the first time. They are no less important to a student's education than I, the teacher.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Student teacher
My former student, Crystal, wrote me yesterday asking for advice as she begins preparing for her first day as a student teacher.
Crystal is a graduate of Stranahan High School's Urban Teacher Academy Program (UTAP), a unique partnership between Broward County and local universities that prepares traditionally underrepresented students for careers as educators and educational leaders. UTAP has received national recognition for its design; for example, the Ash Institute at Harvard University named it one of the seven most innovative programs in American government in 2007. I was the founding senior year teacher of UTAP and worked with my mentor Sara Rogers and dear friend and Superwoman if there is one Malease Berg in designing the capstone course for UTAP's seniors. Crystal was in the first class.
Crystal wrote in the text message (punctuation mine), "Hi Brian, I am so nervous . . . I'm supposed to be interning this semester, what should I do to get off to a good start?"
Since Crystal will undoubtedly receive a ton of advice from a myriad of sources, I decided to give Crystal some non-advice.
First, don't establish expectations, rewards, and consequences with your students from the very beginning. And if you do establish something, don't hold students accountable. If you tell students they should be working when the bell rings, DO NOT give a consequence on the second day when half of the class tests to see if you were serious. Also, don't come down too harshly on students who are disrespectful in the first few days out of fear they may not like you. And never, ever call a parent to talk about what happened in class if a student is defiant.
Second, do not get to know your students as individuals. It doesn't matter if they like boats or birds. Never, ever share with them information about yourself. Although my students carried me through the death of both my parents (and celebrated with me when I was named teacher of the year), I should never have let them into the darker and lighter moments of my own life.
Third, do not have high expectations for every student in spite of his/her circumstances. It's okay to accept excuses especially if they are good ones. Students have hard lives and they deserve leeway.
Fourth, do not plan your lesson carefully. A clear objective that is connected to a state standard or grade level equivalent is not necessary for learning. Forget about following a format that includes a do now, introduction of new material, guided practice, independent practice, and periodic and (a summative) checks for understanding. The most ridiculous thing I have seen is a teacher who plans his lessons in five-minute increments.
Fifth, don't worry about standards and state assessments. You don't have to make sure they are part of your lesson. Who cares if students are ready for the next grade or college. Eventually someone will get rid of those tests anyway.
Sixth, don't find a mentor at your school - someone you can copy right down to how he/she stands in class. You don't have anything to learn from anyone, so be yourself.
Seventh, don't search the Internet for interesting ways to teach new material or for resources to make you a better teacher. Teach the way you were taught - it worked for you, didn't it?!
Eighth, don't even dream of telling students when they have met your expectations, don't say things like, "I like how you came into class quietly and got right to work, just like I expect." And never say as students are entering, "Thank you, Derrick, and thank you, Rosa, for coming in silently and getting right to work."
Ninth, don't establish systems for things like entering and exiting class, getting into groups, passing back papers, taking notes, etc. Systems are meaningless, and it's much more fun when you wing it.
And tenth, don't keep a journal or write a blog where you reflect on what you are doing and what you learning.
I broke some of these rules regularly my first year and now I must say I endeavor to break them all. As I prepared this advice for Crystal I came across an e-mail from September 2002, my first full month teaching.
I wrote Ann Evans the English teacher who had the greatest effect on me. Ms. Evans was my eleventh grade American literature teacher. I remember her class clearly. I remember we experimented with portfolios in class, and I know exactly where mine, from 1996!, still is. None of my teachers in high school had a more profound effect on me than her.
I wrote after giving an update on my four other classes, "In the other English 2 class, I am at a complete loss. (They are even more reluctant than the class I just mentioned.) they are under control, no small feat, but they are really totally plank. they don't like school or reading and don't believe there is anything we can do here to help them in their lives. Of course their school experiences for the last ten years confirm all this. I am also struggling because I don't think I really know how to teach these students effectively in a 100-minute block . . . They know so much about life, and I don't feel like I am honoring any of that."
And Mrs. Evans's classic reply is as special today as it was frustrating then, "I know you don't feel this now, but you are lucky to have that challenging tenth 10th grade class. This is probably where you are really going to learn to be an exceptional teacher. Your instincts are great and your perceptions already are right on target. You will make it meaningful. It's through trial and error that you will really learn. Stay with it!"
I guess my last piece of non-advice to Crystal would be this: When it gets hard, quit. Your students lives are much easier than your life so you don't need to think about them more than you think about yourself. So, ignore Ms. Evans when says 'stay with it.'
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Get out
Can you imagine caring about a student so deeply that you encourage him to transfer . . . to leave your classroom and leave your school. With applications to a dozen other schools in a drawer by his desk, I met a teacher this week who does just that. He has to, he told me.
I toured the future home of KIPP Renaissance High School a few weeks ago. I walked the terrazzo floors of the school’s first floor and the wooden floors of the school’s second and third floors. I deciphered the original name of the school, Francis T. Nicholls, and compared that to the current name, Frederick Douglass. I peaked in science classrooms with laboratory equipment out and took a picture of the library. I imagined college-bound scholars sitting in classrooms designed and constructed nearly 70 years ago. The spring-loaded chalkboards, no dry erase boards here yet, and tiered seating in several classrooms certainly underscored a collegiate environment. The gym on the block behind the school, and the open field beyond that, complete the campus. The stucco construction and steal reinforcement, a modern design for 1940 when the school opened, all make for a perfect home for the first KIPP high school in New Orleans, the school I will proudly serve as principal.
The words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. already painted on the outside of the gym may say it all, "The hope of a secure and liveable world lies with disciplined non-conformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”
The most amazing moment of my mostly self-guided tour came when I stood on the steps of the humongous, art deco-style auditorium and pictured the day in June 2014 when KIPP Renaissance High School graduates its first students. The current seventh grade students of KIPP Believe and KIPP McDonogh 15 will be in the first class and imagining them in their caps and gowns accepting their diplomas, listening to their valedictorian, class president, commencement speaker, etc. and looking toward their future with confidence nearly brought tears to my eyes. Even more, I pictured their little brothers and sisters running around outside following the ceremony, playing on the same steps of the auditorium where families gathered for pictures of the special day, wearing their church clothes and full of excitement about the present accomplishment of their big brother and full of realistic optimism about how they too can achieve like their big sister. In those few moments I spent standing on the steps of the auditorium, I saw grandmothers and grandfathers celebrating the special day five years hence. Perhaps they were standing on the same steps where they stood as students or perhaps they were watching their children’s children prepare for a future – college and beyond – about which they could only dream.
That first class will be the first of many. And they’ll be First Class. They’ll be trailblazers and pioneers – dreamers and doers – risk-takers and radicals – leaders and learners. Those graduates and the hundreds and thousands who continue on the path with them to and through college will – by their inspiring lives – lead the way for others and opportunity – long denied – and hope – long promised – will be realized. It’s not KIPP that proves the possible in public education and it’s not our teachers who transform, rebuild, re-invent or reform, but our graduates. Their inspiring lives will inspire others, and the journey begins for some - and continues for others - on those steps.
With the approval by a committee of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education this week, that dream is one step closer to being a reality.
Show some grit
Akim and I spent a few minutes together this morning. I'm working at KIPP Central City Academy - preparing for the phone interviews I'll begin tomorrow with candidates for assistant principal, replying to e-mails, etc.
Looking at the reading board behind me, Akim said, "I am the third best reader in the fifth grade." I looked and confirmed his assessment.
I asked, "What do you have to do to get to Z?" (Student reading levels are represented by letters of the alphabet, Z being the highest and A representing the most struggling readers.)
Akim's reply was dense with meaning and power, "I have to push through, show some grit."
Grit is one of the character traits being emphasized at KCCA this year. Akim knows that grit will make him a better reader and keep him on the path to college.
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