Change

I am about to step into a world of change. After years as a classroom teacher, I am moving into the role of learning support teacher and interventionist. Add to this that I’ll be in a new school with a new staff, and this fall (and likely whole year) can be expected to be an intense climb up the learning curve as I become familiar with the details of my new responsibilities, and the culture and politics of my new community.

A tangible difference leading up to the beginning of the school year has been this: an office instead of a classroom.

 

Standing in this room a couple of weeks ago, I felt a twinge of panic – what was I even supposed to do with this space? I’m used to setting up a classroom, labeling lockers and book bins and boot racks, putting up a welcome bulletin board. How would I set up this space to be functional? More so, would I know how to best help and support students in this room?

Those anxious feelings were a reminder that change makes one feel vulnerable. A quote I recently heard emphasized the value of that vulnerability:

Become a beginner again. We lose something wonderful when it becomes more important to us to be the one who knows than to be the one who is open to the every day wonders around us. (Dan Zandra)

And so on Monday I begin this new adventure. I am a beginner again, and through that vulnerability I will grow and learn, and I hope, appreciate all of the every day wonders around me.

Change is good.

Reading Culture

Reading Disrupting Thinking and tweets from #ILA2018 last week have focused my thoughts on reading cultures in schools.

In Disrupting Reading, Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst, make a case that “we read to explore, to wonder, to grow, to  become what we did not even know we might want to be. We read to change.” Powerful and capable reading skills are established through student choice, so that reading is relevant.  It is built further with talk – about the book, what students think about it, and how it has changed them (BHH – Book, Head, Heart). And there is a firm nod to a reading culture within a school, that the classroom and school should be a place where reading is valued and discussed by adults and students alike.

While I was working my way through the Beers and Probst book, I was reading tweets from those in attendance at #ILA18.  Two that stood out to me were:

This coming school year, 30% of my job involves “intervention”.  I know that the majority of this time will be spent helping readers grow, and I know the expectation will be to use a program that has been approved by our school division.  I’m wondering though if we’re missing the mark.  Should we be spending more of our time creating a stronger reading culture in our school?  Should students, especially our struggling readers, be given more opportunities to read those materials they are most motivated to read, and working on individualized strategies related to what they have chosen to read?  The answer to these questions seems obvious.

Thinking about the importance of student choice in reading reminds me of why I’ve always loved the Daily 5 and Cafe format in my classroom. They provide the structure to allow student choice, while providing the time to teach and practice the strategies a student or group of students requires.

This school year, I hope to persuade and influence the adults around me that the best intervention is “volume-based intervention”, and help to grow a positive reading culture in the classes I teach, as well as in the school as a whole.

 

 

 

The Uncertainty of Spring

There’s a certain restlessness and melancholy that comes over schools and classrooms in the spring, as plans begin to be made for the following year and staff and students alike prepare for separation.  In our province, spring means the unveiling of the provincial budget, that in recent years has not been kind to education funding.  Our school division subsequently scrambles to do as much as it can with less, but invariably there is stress about losing programs, losing staff, losing resources.

I considered this as I attended Nonviolent Crisis Intervention training a couple of weeks ago.  As we worked through the different sections of the course, we spoke of ways that students feel stressed, and how they sometimes exhibit that stress, whether through depression and retreat, or acting out verbally or physically.  I couldn’t help but think of all the stressful situations we put our students into multiple times a day, every day.  The stressful situations, whether crowded classrooms, or the lack of professionals such as speech language therapists and occupational therapists, or over-worked and stressed out teachers who are struggling with self-regulation themselves, are amplified with every budget cutback.

On the flip-side of crisis intervention are the many forms of positive behaviour reinforcements.  More and more there’s the expectation that students be given something for what was once a basic expectation of appropriate behaviour (doesn’t that make me sound like a grumbling old person!!).  I generally side with Alfie Kohn on this issue – extrinsic rewards bring fleeting cooperation, but do not sustain long-term citizenship qualities.  As Leanna Carollo points out in this post:

But are students truly becoming independent when they depend on external rewards for motivation? Extrinsic motivation is not just problematic for students with learning disabilities, it is problematic for everyone. A meta-analysis conducted by researchers led by Edward Deci of the University of Rochester indicates that external rewards often lead to poorer performance on activities and cognitive tasks. Participants focus more on the reward than the task itself. In other words, external rewards can hinder the potential for people to become internally invested in learning. For my students with autism, this translates to undermining their ability to become independent.

Are the positive behaviour systems just the flip side of the same coin:  are they our way of controlling stressed out kids in an easier and cheaper manner than actually alleviating the stress, or treating the stress?  And I wonder, when resources and services and people have been stripped away, is this all we have left?  Instead of giving students the help they need, the safe, happy, calm environments they crave, is all that’s left that we manage them with rewards, and failing that, restraints?  There’s a feel that sometimes we are only warehousing children, rather than providing them the safe environments in which they can grow and learn.

We know how to best help students who are feeling stress, but instead of putting real resources toward fixing the problem, we use quick fixes and coping methods.  Every spring, a little more is taken away from our system, and we feel the strain in our students.  I fear that someday we will be judged very harshly for this era in education, and I am distraught at the thought.

 

Twelve Year Internship

This post is part of a series inspired by the #IMMOOC book study of Katie Martin’s book, Learner-Centered Innovation.  

A few years ago, a friend was at a conference where a speaker commented that teaching is the only profession that has a twelve year internship.  The statement is both funny and painfully true.

So often in my career I’ve seen colleagues happy to stick with the status quo and do what’s always been done.  Behind closed doors they toil away as they always have, asking few questions other than wondering why there has to be change.  I agree with Katie Martin in Learner-Centered Innovation when she says, “when we work in isolation, we limit our potential to develop a full range of capabilities.  In contrast, growth is accelerated by guidance and peer collaboration.”

I cannot emphasize enough how my online life has enhanced my teaching, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of how the online world can impact me professionally.  I’m still somewhat of a lurker, but I love being able to look inside the classrooms of master educators like Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca), or glean ideas and new ways of thinking from ONTSpecialNeeds (@ONTSpecialNeeds) or A Kids’ Guide to Canada (@akgtCanada).  The Thursday night chats with the #saskedchat crew are becoming a highlight of my week.  Every single one of the people I interact with or read about online remind me that things don’t have to stay “the way they’ve always been done”.

Teaching in a small, rural school can be extremely lonely and can leave you feeling quite isolated.  I am so grateful for the PLNs I’ve been able to develop through technology, and that they push me to think beyond my “twelve year internship”.

 

Vygotsky and Me

This post is part of a series inspired by the #IMMOOC book study of Katie Martin’s book, Learner-Centered Innovation.  

Most people in education remember that Lev Vygotsky was the Soviet psychologist who developed the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).  ZPD is the sweet spot of learning between what the learner can do without help and what he or she cannot do, as illustrated in this diagram:

from “Innovative Learning”
http://www.innovativelearning.com/educational_psychology/development/zone-of-proximal-development.html

We often talk about ZPD in terms of students, and keep it in mind when developing activities and providing scaffolding.  It’s important to remember, however, that we all have a ZPD, and we need to be cognizant of that when seeking professional development opportunities.

Sometimes I read an idea or watch a video of something that is happening in another classroom, and I feel completely overwhelmed.  Where once I would have beaten myself up about being behind in an area of pedagogy or innovation, I now try to remind myself that the concept or skill is probably currently out of my ZPD.  I set myself incremental goals of how I’ll grow towards that new skill or understanding, and I’ve never failed to see growth.  As Katie Martin says in Learner-Centered Innovation, “supporting individuals requires moving away from the notion that we all need to (or even can) learn the same things at the same time.”

It’s important to remember that Vygotsky wasn’t only talking about students, he was thinking of learners at all ages and stages.  If we can recognize our ZPD and incrementally work toward a learning goal, we will always see growth.

 

Flipping the Org Chart

This post is part of a series inspired by the #IMMOOC book study of Katie Martin’s book, Learner-Centered Innovation.  

The organizational chart for the school division I work in looks like this:

It’s a pretty typical org chart with the Board of Education at the top, followed by the Director of Education, the superintendents, and so on.

A good friend and I have often speculated how education might change if the org chart were to be flipped, so that students took the top spot, followed by front-line staff, staff at division office, with the Board of Education at the bottom.  Would it change the outlook of the system in general?  Would having students at the top of the chart be the constant reminder that we are all there to serve them, and that our relationships with them are of primary importance? If nothing else, I believe the idea would produce interesting discussion.

My school division is a good place to learn and work, but I wonder if this one small innovation would make it even better. I’m not sure if this is “thinking inside the box”, but I believe that having students at the pinnacle of the organization would send a clear visual message that students are first and foremost in the work we do.

 

Producers vs. Consumers

This post is part of a series inspired by the #IMMOOC book study of Katie Martin’s book, Learner-Centered Innovation.

When I listened to the first YouTube Live broadcast with Katie Martin, George Couros, and A.J. Juliani two weeks ago, it made me consider two things:  compliance and creativity in kindergarten, and fighting trained compliance in middle years students.

Teaching kindergarten is a balancing act on so many levels.  Little self-centred human beings enter your classroom every September, and you have to mold them into a community of learners who share, take turns, and take care of each other, while still honouring them as individuals.  I’ve often thought this requires teaching a certain amount of compliance: When is it time to sit and listen to others?  How do we indicate that we have something to say and want a turn?  How are our personal and shared supplies stored and cared for?  In Learner-Centered Innovation, Katie Martin described her daughter’s third-grade teacher commenting that she doesn’t “have a lot of rules and consequences.  I respect students, and I hope they respect me.”  This comment re-framed how I think of my classroom.  I believe any success I have building community with my kindergarten students is firmly rooted in respect, not compliance.

One of the great pleasures of teaching kindergarten is that it is a play-based program.  A confident teacher is able to build on interests and ideas of students in order to reinforce the wide array of skills and outcomes required in the kindergarten curriculum.  As I gain more experience teaching at this age level, I find myself steering away from the “cute” Pinterest-type activities that I direct and manage, to letting students guide me with their interests and needs. Katie Martin describes in Learner-Centered Innovation that “educators who are providing learner-centered experiences have prioritized the learners’ and aligned learning experiences to meet and develop the desires, knowledge, skills, and mindsets.” Through the play-as-work model, kindergarten students are in many ways the greatest producers of learning in the school system, as they work their way through questions and problems every day.

On my non-kindergarten days, I’m a middle years teacher (teaching in a small school provides the privilege of teaching a wide range of ages and subjects).  The difference between five and 13 year olds can be stark!  My grade 7/8s are definitely less likely to take risks in their learning, and they’re definitely more likely to want to know exactly what the expectations of the assignment are, so they can do exactly that much.  Their light for questioning and inquiry seems to be almost extinguished by years of compliance, so that even when they are given the opportunity to participate in learner-centered experiences, they express that they’d really rather not because it seems like a lot of work.  As one grade 8 student said to me this year at the onset of an inquiry project, “Don’t you know the answers to these questions so you can just tell us?”  Where the five year olds are producers of learning, the middle years students are consumers of something they’ve been trained to call learning.

One of the big “a-ha moments” in my career was moving into the role of kindergarten teacher after years spent in middle years, and wondering how the joy and naturalness of learning found in five year-olds could be replicated in older students.  Of course the answer is to stay focused on the learner, to keep that sense of play and discovery, and to create conditions for students to have ownership of their own learning.  Our goal as educators should always be to encourage producers, not consumers.

Evolving

This post is part of a series inspired by the #IMMOOC book study of Katie Martin’s book, Learner-Centered Innovation.

This fall will mark 27 years since I first entered the classroom as a full-fledged teacher.  When I reflect on the journey, and how I’ve evolved as an educator in that time, I often don’t recognize the teacher I was then.  I know the young woman who enjoyed being with her students, dabbled in some early education technology, and strove to refine her skills and knowledge, but I don’t recognize the person who felt the need to be “in charge”, the “expert”, the perfectionist.

Part of my transition to the educator I am today was actually stepping away from teaching for a while.  After eight years in the classroom, including a particularly disheartening year at a school that offered little teacher autonomy and a very tight focus on rules, procedures, and testing, I took ten years off to stay at home with my children.  Coming back to the profession after a decade was confirmation that the job was right for me, but it also made me feel at a huge disadvantage; I felt that I had missed out on crucial discussions, learning about various ed tech advances, and developing updated teaching strategies.  With the support of a wonderful administrator, I threw myself into professional reading and various professional development opportunities, including a series of university classes.  Through these experiences and learning activities, I’ve been able to embrace the evolving role of an educator on several fronts, but still recognize where I have room to grow.

In Learner-Centered Innovation, Katie Martin outlines the four aspects of the evolving role of the educator.  A tweak I would make is to have a greater emphasis on being a Community Developer with students’ families.  Especially as a kindergarten teacher, it’s important to honour those first family relationships students have as they enter the new and larger community of school.  There is so much support and goodwill to be gained by having good working relationships with families, and students are excited and motivated to share their learning with parents and guardians. This is an area that I struggle with and constantly try to improve on, and I am grateful for apps such as Seesaw that make communication and digital sharing so much easier and more satisfying.

The world of education is truly always on the move, and it’s our professional responsibility to question our current practices, and move forward with research-based solutions to best meet the needs of our students.  I have changed so much in 27 years, and I know  – thankfully -the evolution isn’t complete. The ability to constantly evolve and improve is one of the things that makes this profession so exhilarating.

Crusher of Dreams

Whenever I tell non-education acquaintances that I teach kindergarten, the reaction is invariably, “Wow!  That must be so much fun!”  What few people realize is that as a kindergarten teacher, I’m actually a crusher of dreams.

Parents send their perfect, beautiful child to school full of hopes and dreams of the great potential in the child.  And each child is amazing, unique, and has so much to offer.  But sometimes the reality is that there are issues – issues with behaviour, or flags that all is not right with social interactions or a variety of language or academic skills.  It becomes my job to document my concerns and begin referrals, have those difficult initial conversations with parents, consult with other professionals at my disposal, and come up with a plan for the best way to support the child.  As the first teacher that most parents and children have contact with in the public education system, it is my job to set a positive tone for what may become years of interventions, meetings, and plans.

Parents react to the discussions differently.  Sometimes there’s a nod of recognition, the “oh, we’ve noticed that too” response.  Other parents reject the concern outright, the “how dare you think that of my perfect, beautiful child” response.  Then there are reactions that fall everywhere in between.  All parents go through what looks somewhat like the stages of grief though – there’s very often some denial and anger, and definitely sadness, before parents come to acceptance and are willing to be full partners in planning for their child.  Sometimes that acceptance is years away, and I never get to see it.

It is in these first, difficult contacts with parents that the knowledge and skills I’ve gained from inclusive education classes have become extremely helpful.  Being knowledgeable about an exceptionality, and how to best support a child with it, is comforting to parents.  It gives credibility to what I say to them, and provides me with the confidence to say the things that need to be said.

Teaching is all about relationships – with our students, their families, our colleagues – and relationships are never more important than when we are guiding parents through the initial snags on their child’s educational path.  It’s important to begin developing those relationships even before kindergarten begins, so that if there is a need for a difficult conversation at the beginning of the year, the groundwork of trust already exists.

And so, as I sit highlighting and making notes on my kindergarten students’ report cards, in anticipation of parent/teacher conferences tomorrow, I weigh how I can directly, but gently, discuss certain topics.  I know that crushing dreams comes with the territory, but it never makes it any easier.

 

Growth Mindset, or Settling?

This graphic came across my Twitter feed a few weeks ago:

I read it initially and retweeted, because who doesn’t want to have a growth mindset over a fixed mindset?

And then it started niggling in the back of my brain, and I began to feel more and more annoyed and offended by parts of the graphic.  The longer I considered it, the more infuriated I felt.

Why are we always encouraged to believe that kids aren’t worth it – the extra money, the extra resources, the extra well-educated personnel?  Why are we always encouraged to work with the minimum, rather than filling the classroom to the maximum?

If we really believe in inclusion, why aren’t we advocating rather accepting?  It can be viewed as a value judgement on the child if we choose to settle for what we have, rather than advocating for everything we believe he or she needs.  There’s an implication that our exceptional learners can “get by” if only teachers have a growth mindset.

I completely agree with the quote at the bottom of the image:  “When a flower doesn’t bloom you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”  And it’s because I believe that sentiment that I will never stop advocating for what I think is best for my students, whether it’s time, materials, or human resources.  Let’s stop trotting out the lack of support for our exceptional learners as something inspirational like having a “growth mindset”.  It denigrates them, and everyone who works tirelessly to make their school life a positive and rewarding experience.