Why do I Need to Know This?

For the most part students will go along unquestioningly with the tasks we ask of them. They are acculturated in the system to comply and "just do the work". The occasional question posed "Why do we have to do this anyway?"  can seem disrespectful, even defiant. But I am seeing better now that unless I take the initiative and have the foresight to clearly state at the outset why this lesson or task matters, it is in fact surprising that the challenging question is not being asked more often! 

A good start to a key lesson or unit means stating the BI (Big Idea), the LG (Learning Goal) and the SC (Success Criteria). These three things may seem superfluous when we are in the middle of a busy season of covering the curriculum. But they provide the foundation and energy for raising the level of understanding and motivation. Students have a right to see the relevance of what they are being asked to do. By making a connection to their lives they will be motivated to become more engrossed in the learning. Too often students are detached and disinterested and I as the teacher accept that as normal. As long as I have something to grade and the task is completed, life in the classroom goes on. But the norms of schooling are often at odds with the norms of life-long learning. So it's worth spending an extra few minutes working out the BI, LG and SC clearly and in language students can understand. Without these in place the level of engagement runs the risk of flat-lining or even spiraling downward. It could mean the difference between the appearance of learning and  learning for life. 

Managing the Troublemaker

As teachers we might be better off expecting a non-compliant student to show up in our classroom rather than dreading a situation where that student comes under our care. There are many reasons for this type of behaviour. An Identified condition such as ADHD, ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), or a range of other causes like attention-seeking behaviour, anger, peer rejection, etc. 

What I've found to be most challenging has been to separate my personal feelings (fear, anger, frustration) from the needs of the troublemaker and the needs of the rest of the class. When I have taken defiance personally I have not been able to feel or show genuine care for the student who has, for example, defied me in front the the class. Caring for the unruly student is not the same as letting him or her carry on with the disruptive behaviour. I can show care for the student as a person while I calmly implement  clear, objective procedures such as redirecting, counting down, restating agreed-upon incremental consequences   (not "to the office!" on the first trigger), and lots of opportunity for deferred conversations ("We will need to chat after class"), I can maintain control of myself and consequently of my teaching goals and students without giving in to negative emotions. 

I need to recognize that most troubled students are carrying wounds from their home environment to school. Obviously, I want to win the battle in order to maintain order and respect. But I have to be careful not to resort to power tactics that only fuel resentment on both sides.  If the student needs to be removed from the classroom in the end, let it be in sync with a consistent attitude of caring firmness. 

Am I Teaching or Babysitting?

I can think of three reasons for not actually teaching i.e. conducting a lesson by talking, demonstrating, interacting pedagogically with the students. One, the students are engaged in a follow-up activity stemming from a lesson already given. Two, I am unprepared or unwilling to teach, so I assign seat work. I am either tired, stressed, or making a political statement that demands being made on me are unreasonable. Three, I believe in the philosophy that students' learning should be self-directed. 

I can accept the first reason, as long as the activity continues to be a meaningful extension of the lesson taught. I can understand the second reason too as there are days that I experience fatigue or discouragement. Not as the modus operandus of my classroom, though. I hope this decision not to teach is incidental, not recurrent. I also understand the third reason, but only when it is done with careful intention and includes lots of interaction and processing checkpoints along the way. The problem is when the second reason is used as an excuse for the third. Busy work is a form of babysitting, so is unengaging seatwork. It takes MORE preparation to carry out student directed learning well, not less. 

Lessons from Losing Oneself

When my student teacher went to her second placement school, she was enthusiastic. Early in her teaching block I observed a creative math lesson with manipulatives and interactive technology. Over  the course of subsequent weeks she shared with me that her associate teacher taught by giving out handouts and requiring the students to do seat work without much of any formal, let alone engaging, lesson times.  I encouraged my student teacher to negotiate with her AT so that she could keep introducing new teaching strategies and trying new things with the students for the purpose of engagement. However, by the third visit I observed a lackluster, fairly disorganized lesson. Then, two weeks later during my fourth visit, the student teacher led the students in an educational game she had personally designed. There was laughter and full engagement from the students. I debriefed with her afterwards. What could account for this recovery from the third visit? She explained that she had complied for a while with the AT's style and expectations of herself and her students. She had begun to yell at the students ( like the AT), give minimal direction to them, keep them in their seats, and not smile. On one occasion a student jokingly held on to the sheet she was collecting, thus provoking a minor tug of war for the paper. This upset her to the point of tears. She felt she had no respect from the students. By conforming to her AT's style and manner she had lost herself. She came to that realization, decided to pull herself back together, and began to prepare and execute lessons she knew she could be proud of. I commended her for her insight and personal recovery. Sadly, many teachers let their ideals and personal best slide over time due to the pressures of the job. In the end, my student teacher demonstrated that giving our personal best in teaching is a choice and that often it flies in the face of the ambient culture. Let's make the decision to persist in giving our best! 

Uglifying Aspects of Collective Agreements

School atmospheres get ugly when

1. the us-them mentality becomes more pronounced. Teachers suspect administrations and boards of "taking away" from their contractual rights and freedoms. This can give rise to bean counting menial things like minutes per week of supervision duties.

2. no matter which government is in power, the money is no longer available to increase pay and bank sick days or maintain small class sizes. Suddenly the government teachers may have voted for is the enemy and strike action becomes the go to strategy to provoke a return to bettering working conditions. Teacher unions make the case that if concessions are made to the government, no matter how small, the "claw backs" will be unending after that. 

3. teachers don't want to go on strike, but typically vote overwhelmingly in support of strike action in order to apply pressure on the  board / government and thus, according to union strategy, avoid a strike! When the strike is eventually launched, teachers feel compromised and feel confused about who to blame: the board / government or the union? 

4. the public, especially the private sector, has no patience for the claims teachers are making. This creates in teachers a defensive attitude, and a need to huddle, to resort to group think, and think less for themselves. 

5. although ethically, teachers who disagree with the union have a choice to stand against the majority vote, politically, are afraid to stand alone and speak out on behalf of the needs of the students. 

6. teachers work to rule or because they are demoralized, do the minimum legally required, complain about any requests for additional duties. The school as a work place becomes an "in and out" place, where teachers arrive at the last minute and leave as soon as their teaching day is done. 

7. students are not served. They are tolerated, taught formally, but no extra efforts are made to help them grow beyond the basic expectations of the curriculum.

Teacher in Training Trauma

Lydia was enjoying her practice teaching weeks until her associate teacher was absent due to illness. Her first supply teacher "cancelled" some lessons due to what she deemed to be unacceptable noise levels in the classroom. Lydia was shocked, as the noise level in her opinion was no louder than when the associate teacher was present. She deferred to the supply and asked her what they should do if the lesson was to be cancelled. The supply said she didn't know and eventually let Lydia teach the lesson anyway. 

Then a friend and colleague of the associates began dropping in to check in on things. She began to comment that the lesson Lydia was teaching was not what she should be doing, although Lydia had already received the approval of the associate by email for the lesson in question. 

When the associate returned after a number of days off sick, she filled out Lydia's evaluation report with a number of low performance levels, stating she had a lot to do to improve. Lydia was crushed. What are her options? 

Countering the Almighty Mark

Heard the story of the teacher who said as the student waited for her test results: "You're a 70 percent so it doesn't matter what you got on this test"? How many of our students know they're labeled, stuck based on their average marks? A few are resilient, with enough home support emotionally and sense of self to be able to keep trying without being crippled by poor grades. Many consistently feel they are "stupid" and allow that thought to condition their self-perception. 

Because quantifying student performance is here to stay, what can be done to dull the pain and minimize the negative impact of the almighty mark? Here are some methods and I am interested in your thoughts as well: 

1. mastery learning, where the task isn't complete until it is the very best the student can do 

2. formative assessment overrides summative evaluations: our marks recording should have a few results for each category and a lot of practice tasks that lead up to those few results.

3. stating the big idea for each cycle in terms that the learning goal has relevance to the students' experience. The big idea should answer the question "why should  this be important to me?"

4. selecting content that has intrinsic beauty, appeal. For example, spend the time finding a text to read that illustrates the content of the language we have to teach as well as style, images, topics, point of view that is just fun to read! 

5. designing tasks tare geared to the student's personal interests as well as displaying competency of the required skills  

6. using rubrics that describe the criteria in language the students understands  so that they have a clue as to how to improve without our "professional" interpretation

7. taking the time to write anecdotal, personalized comments on the report card 

8. offering alternative testing procedures besides pen and paper, such as oral questions, multiple intelligence tasks, one on one student presentations instead of in front of the whole class, extra time, etc. 

9. never using the fall back phrase "you have to know this for test". Instead, use phrases like "this is something you can use when....."

10. only testing what you have worked on AND PRACTICED with the students. Resist pulling an old test from the drawer for expediency, regardless of its current validity.