As I read this chapter I couldn’t help but think of when we first started this program and were introduced to Margaret and Claire.  When was that…oh yeah!  ALMOST AN ENTIRE YEAR AGO!  (Although it doesn’t seem so long ago now.)  I know that looking back to where I was then in my career to where I am now is very different.  This program has brought to light a lot of the ins and outs of teaching that I somehow knew but were lost somewhere along the way.  I truly believe that I can be an agent of change in my school as well as my community.  I think that by starting small I can see changes taking place.  As a member of my building leadership team as well as the grade level manager, I have already begun to plant small seeds of change.  I really felt connected with Michelle Calva’s story on page 485.  She states “It’s easy to get caught up in the hectic pace most teachers (including me) keep without stopping to consider the real goals that motivate us.”  I feel that this has been true for me as well.  In order to make the change, I have made a conscious effort this year to consider those “goals that motivate” me and be a role model for my students and for my fellow teachers.  She goes on to say “I seek to keep my classroom practices grounded in the philosophies that I believe” which is exactly where I am going now with my career.  I feel that overall this chapter sort of summed up what the teaching profession has to offer, whether it be good, bad, or ugly.  Right now I feel empowered by this amazing year I have spent living, learning, and growing and I am looking forward to further growth in my career during the next school year.  Thank you, Ed.S program and fellow classmates for helping me along the way!

When did there become this huge push for standardized testing?  I don’t remember this type of push when I was in school.  Did it come with the implementation of NCLB?  I know that I am NOT a good test taker.  I get anxious, and nervous, and I feel sweaty, I don’t sleep the night before, and I usually experience fatigue and nausea the day of the test.  At our school there is a HUGE push for CRCT.  There’s a pep rally to boost enthusiasm over CRCT, there’s an attendance race to see which class(es) have perfect attendance during the week of CRCT, and EVERY student receives free breakfast each morning the test is given.  The principal also insists on knowing EXACTLY what you are doing in your classroom to prepare students for the CRCT and what test preparation skills you are teaching DAILY as well as how long you are spending on it.  Now ‘the powers that be’ are implementing GKIDS next year for ALL kindergarten students to track their progress and this will be done online—so it’s just about the same as the standardized tests being given to the upper grades, with the exception of the fact that it is oral and not written.  What’s wrong with allowing the teachers—the EXPERTS—to decide what type of assessment works best for their students and then administering that assessment accordingly?  If we all assess on the GPS then what’s the difference?  I think that ultimately some of the power needs to be given back to the teachers—the ones who are with the students ALL DAY, EVERY DAY—where it needs to be!

When I read through this chapter, I couldn’t help but think of Paul Gorski.  One quote in particular that made me reminisce on his speech was…

“Poor parents and wealthy parents share the exact same assumption about schools:  “The school’s job is to see that my child succeeds.”  Where parents differ is in the kind of critique and empowerment that they bring to their relationship with the school.  Wealthly parents have enormous social capital and leverage, and they believe that they are entitled to use it.  Schools respond to them.  Poor parents, for a multitude of reasons, do not have that sense of empowerment and entitlement, and it makes little sense to equate the respectful “distance” they keep as not caring.  The result may be a school view that parents don’t care about education and a parent view that schools don’t care about kids.” (p.385)

First of all how can one assume that poor parents and wealthy parents share he EXACT same assumption about schools?  Just because a lot of poor parents aren’t as involved in the school community as we think they should be does not mean that they don’t want to be.  I agree with the author that “it makes little sense to equate the respectful “distance” they (poor parents) keep as not caring”.  I have been guilty myself of assuming that they don’t want to be involved or don’t care.  The truth is that I don’t know why poor parents are not involved.  Is it because the parents cannot find the time because they are too busy working two jobs to make ends meet?  Is it because they are ashamed because their own education level does not go beyond eighth grade?  Is it because they don’t care?  I’m not saying any of these statements are or are not true, the truth is I do not know and assuming does not help.  I believe that we as educators (as Paul Gorski put it) need to provide every opportunity we possibly can to invite parents into the schools and get them involved in the school community.  If we want parents to feel truly welcomed then we can never stop trying to get them involved.  I work at a school with low SES.  The majority of our students are on free or reduced lunch.  This year I have changed my outlook on the parents I serve.  I have tried to accommodate each parent when scheduling conferences, even providing an opportunity “after hours” on the phone if needed.  I know a lot of my parents work around the clock so I adjust my way of thinking to be accommodating to them.  I try to treat ALL parents the way that I want to be treated as a parent.  When my son goes to school, I will not be able to be as involved as I would like to be in his classroom because I am a teacher myself and my hours will be the same as his.  The bright side is that there are a number of ways to get involved.  Some parents just make sure that they’re children are doing their homework or bringing in items requested by the teacher.  Some parents make certain that their child shows up to school on time everyday.  I think that if we want the community of our school to include parents, then we have to simply change our way of thinking and make every effort to never stop trying to include and get EVERY parent (regardless of SES) involved (no matter in what way) in their child’s education!

Forgive me if this is wordy.  I found so many great quotes within this chapter and wanted to utilize them in my reflection.  I hope you enjoy reading it.  J

 “Good schools have cultures where it makes sense for faculty to teach all students well and for all students to learn well.” (p. 341)  Doesn’t this quote sum it up?  I don’t really know.  I tend to look at wording and opinions of others a little more critically since taking Rhina’s class this year.  What makes a school a “good school”?  Shouldn’t it just say “schools” and not “good schools”?  I think maybe so.  School culture should foster community among staff and the staff should take pride in educating the students well.  At least that’s how I feel.  I believe that to be an educator means that you take pride in educating each child to the best of your ability.  “…There is a strong likelihood that highly trained and experienced teachers are valuable resources.” (p. 351), which I firmly believe.  They are the ones responsible for the school culture.  However it cannot be done by teachers alone.  Administration is the backbone of school culture and if the backbone is missing, nothing else matters.  “All students at a school—not just the highest achieving ones—need access to the best teachers available.” (p.351)  Shouldn’t the best teachers available be the best trained and most experienced?  I think not.  As it states in this chapter experience is great and it helps us become better if not our best, but it is not everything.  I think that to be a well trained teacher you have to use every opportunity to learn from your experience and most importantly your students.  However, if the school administration is not supporting these experienced and well trained teachers, high rates of teacher turnover happens and the “good ones” go elsewhere.  “All schools say they are committed to all of their students’ learning; and some schools do translate this spoken value into a school-defining theme.  When schools offer all students an intellectually rich curriculum and expect all of them to perform well, students get the message, “We believe you can do it”. (p. 345)  To sum it all up, I believe that it simply goes back to school culture beginning with and being fostered by the faculty and staff of that school.  The administration is the role models for the teachers, who are in return role models for the students who then set standards for learning based on their students and their needs.

I was very excited to hear Gorski speak, especially once I read his articles.  He has a lot of valid points that I had not thought of prior to this.  I had the sense as I was reading that he was someone famous–which I realize now that was a little silly of me.  He is just a person like you and me.  He’s an advocate for education.  Which ALL of us in this Ed.S program are!  There were so many statistics that really backed up a lot of what he had to say about children in poverty.  I know that I have heard certain stereotypes associated with children/people living in poverty and it is so disappointing to know that there are some educators and politicians who buy into these stereotypes.  I think that everyone who is in education could benefit from hearing Paul speak.  As a matter of fact I’m thinking of speaking to my principal about having him either come to our school or at least having her look at his website and power point.  Make one small change at a time, right?  Well this will be one step towards my change.

To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of Ruby Payne until Ed.S.  Since she is supposed to be this poverty-educating guru, I was a little suprised that I had never heard of her until now.  After reading the words of Anita Bohn I was a little shocked.  How can someone claim to be so knowledgeable on the area of poverty, yet have no research to back it up?  And then to learn that she publishes her own work so she doesn’t even have to have the research to back it up made it even worse.  I think that so many people buy into what she has to say simply because they are desperate to seek some kind/any kind of help to better their teaching situation.  I don’t think that children in poverty are any less intelligent than any other student.  If we treat them like they are incapable, we are just hindering them from the start.  I was truly appalled at her “hidden rules for lower class and hidden rules for middle class”.  Does every person in a poverty situation really know how to get a hand gun if the have a police record?  It is almost as if she was implying that simply living in poverty one will eventually have a police record.  I truly try hard not to pass judgement on someone unless I’ve done the research myself, but the things that Anita Bohn points out in her article are just too huge to overlook.  You better believe that I will now think twice before attending a Ruby Payne seminar or purchasing a Ruby Payne book.

When I read the numerous articles this week, I did a lot of thinking about my own classroom and especially the school in which I teach.  I think that I am developing into a very culturally responsive teacher, but I still have a long way to go.  I am here to tell you that I did not always think as I do now.  Being in this program has retrained my thinking when it comes to culture.  I don’t think it was intentional that I didn’t think about each individual student’s culture, I just believed that it never occurred to me that I needed to.  I thought that when I taught each student was equal and I would teach all children the same, but I now know that expressing culture is just as equally important as expressing knowledge in general.  It is a huge part of each person and needs to be acknowledged and celebrated. 

As I read through these two thoughts came to my mind.  The first thought came from the article Evaluating Children’s Books for Bias.  Even though there are more and more books available for classroom usage, there are still not nearly enough.  As I read through some of these “things to check for” like omissions, illustrations, copyright, and authenticity, I see myself doing these exact same things.  I am proud to say that our current librarian (who is fairly new to the school) thinks in this same way.  As she is ordering books for the library, she takes time to review literature and provide a variety of genres with a wide range of cultures represented all copyrighted within the last few years.  I think that this helps us all have literature readily available on a wide variety of topics and age appropriate levels because many of us do not have the money to provide these types of books for our own classroom libraries.  I still think that there needs to be more.  Again, my thinking has been retrained (so to speak) and I’m thinking more about culture.  I feel like this year beginning the Ed.S program was a blessing in disguise.  I am teaching a heavy ELL class this year for the first time in my career and I have a LOT of cultures represented (not just African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic, but Asian and Indian as well) in my own classroom.  I cannot say for certain, but I don’t think I would have been as conscience about incorporating and celebrating culture as I have been this year if it wasn’t for the Ed.S program.  It’s like Charlotte Tyson has said over and over again, “my thinking will never be the same again”.  I know these children are proud of where they come from and I should be willing to help them celebrate that in our classroom.  So, I make an extra effort to take the time to make certain that we are celebrating every culture every day (as much as possible) through literature and class discussion.

This brings me to my next point.  As I was reading the article Stages of Multicultural School Transformation I couldn’t help but think of my school and the current school year.  At the end of February prior to winter break, our school had a HUGE week long Black History Celebration which was concluded by a forty minute rally for the students and a “Soul Food Luncheon” for the teachers.  It was a wonderful program and really focused a lot on African American achievements which our diverse population needs, but I feel it was too much like the Heroes and Holidays section in this article.  I know that February is Black History month, but isn’t September Hispanic History month?  Stockbridge Elementary School has the highest Hispanic population in the county, yet we celebrated nothing in reference to that.  I think at our school there is still too much emphasis on celebrating culture in isolation (like monthly) instead of on a daily basis which is the way it should be celebrated.  This topic has been brought up with administration and staff a number of times, and there was a bulletin board created at the beginning of the year for students to display culture quilts and bios about their culture.  However, that soon fizzled out.  I think it will just take some time to make a huge change.  After all, it takes time to change the way people think about culture.  I guess all I can do is continue to push the issue myself (with my SES girls by my sideJ) and start small…like in my own classroom!

When we discussed this topic on Thursday, I had to really take some time to think about it before I blogged my thoughts.  I tend to agree with Teresa, Caren, and several others who mentioned positive discipline and Love and Logic.  I always seemed to use positive reinforcement tactics in my classroom since the beginning of my career with great success.  However, I feel that no amount of positive reinforcement can work if a child is bored–as Jacqueline mentioned.  One of the things I told my student teacher when she arrived and we began planning is “if the you’re bored, the students are more than likely bored”.  This is a philosophy I developed in my first year of teaching.  The things the grade level did my first year of teaching were boring without any change or refreshing ideas.  I was new to the profession and it was hard for me to “go against the grain” so to speak but every day seemed the same.  I felt like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day.  I was bored out of my mind and I vowed never to teach that way again.  The next year and every year since I try and do something new.  I also create a tentative schedule at the beginning of the year and alter it as needed based on my class and their needs.  For example, last year’s class learned better in a whole group situation where they could interact with all of their peers more frequently.  This year’s class is completely different.  With so many ELL students in my classroom, small group learning fits them best.  I honestly can say that I haven’t had many major behavior problems as long as I keep the students actively engaged at all times.  This is EXTREMELY hard for me with kindergarten children, but I spend all day constantly moving and engaging the students.  I think that yes, as Cindy said the students should behavior appropriately because those are the expectations you set up from day one.  But I still feel that if you reward the positive behavior, not all the time but some of the time, it creates a goal for the students worth working towards.  I mean who doesn’t like working for a reward even if the expectation is there.  For example, the expectation for me (made by my husband) is that I am supposed to complete this Ed.S program with good grades and a lot of knowledge that I can take back and apply in my classroom…but I sure am looking forward to the reward awaiting me in June if and when I’m finished (7-Day Cruise)!

February 11, 2008

As I read this article I was thinking of my experiences with teaching.  While still young in the profession having only taught seven years, I still believe that I’ve had a lot of experience.  I have taught only kindergarten and I have been at three different schools in two different counties (Clayton and Henry) since beginning my career in 2001.  I began my career with a principal who allowed those of us in kindergarten to teach the way we saw best fit for the students.  (I cannot speak for other grade levels.)  We were to use the TE and supplemental materials as we saw fit.  I believe at that time the only program we were required to use was the Saxon Phonics Program.  The next school I was at was pretty much the same way with a different principal.  Both of these schools were in Clayton County.  Both were Title One schools as well.  I made the switch to Henry County when Clayton County schools were in jeopardy of losing accreditation.  I have now been at SES for four years.  The switch was had its positives, but it also had its negatives as well.  I am very much a developmental teacher.  The school I am currently at I feel is not developmental.  Instead there is an extreme push for academics beginning in kindergarten and up.  We are a title one school and AYP is a constant concern for us.  Teachers in grades first through third (we are only a K-3 school) are pushed to “teach to the test” or at least the material they think will be on the test.  As I read what Goodman wrote about teachers forming their own “knowledge base to free themselves from textbooks and standardized tests” (p.1) I felt happy to see that someone shared my viewpoint.  I mean shouldn’t we focus on individual needs and not so much on standardized tests.  Isn’t that what we were all taught in school?  I mean I remember when I was in undergrad I was so excited at the thought of teaching students based on their needs.  I don’t think I was ready for the shock of the “real world” expectations put on teachers.  I wonder what it would take to get us back to (or even at) the point where we as educators can make decisions for individual students based on classroom assessments and teacher observations and stop focusing on standardized tests.  Maybe we should just band together and form our own school…what do you think?

February 11, 2008

“Instead of learning rules and formulas, her son and his classmates were presented with problems and expected to invent their own ways of solving them.  “He was very frustrated,” McDaniel says.  “I’d say, ‘Look in the book, it will explain.’  He’d say, ‘Mom, there is not a book.” 

I took this quote from the excerpt on p.123 where Madalyn McDaniel was describing The Interactive Mathematics Program she signed her son up for.  She felt betrayed that the students were supposed to ‘think’ for themselves and devise solutions to mathematical equations on their own.  Isn’t that what we as educators are trying so hard to do now?  I think that society in general just has this mindset that teachers are there to give answers and that is how the students are supposed to learn because that is how they learned as a child.  I remember learning that way as well.  My teachers would sit at a stool in the front of the room, the desks all in neat little rows, teaching from the text about American History or Life Science.  There were correct and incorrect answers with no in between.  No hands on and no thinking for ourselves.  The questions at the end of each chapter were not based on comprehension but fact recall instead.  I can see how some people are comfortable with this type of learning, but isn’t that what Gatto called “Confusion” in his book Dumbing Us Down.  In our group discussion, I spoke about how when I read this in chapter one I agreed with Gatto in that at times we as teachers “teach confusion”.  It is impossible to make a connection with EVERYTHING that we teach.  Thus we teach some things in isolation where students never make that “real life” connection that they sometimes need to make sense of the material.  For example, I teach space in kindergarten as we talk about gravity and motion.  Can I ever make a “real life” connection with space?  Probably not.  I can show video, share non-fiction texts, but I can never bring in the real life connection that they might need.