Day in May: Be Kind...

Twitterpated, spring-fever, unruly. Take your pick,
May is loaded with behaviours sure to cause frustration.

May in all schools, and dare I say esspecially middle school, is a tough time of the year. Students are struggling to meet behavioural and learning expectations more than they were in September. It is easy to throw myself a pity-party and look at the world around me for the greener grass. Earlier this week I found myself envying the labourers building houses in my neighbourhood. (A concept my wife, daughter of a carpenter, found laughable!)

May is alwyas tough, and the problems are always the same. Students and teachers are both tired: in this ninth month of learning the end is close enough to see but still too far away to keep focus us in the same way.
Students start to balk at the idea of learning anything new. "What's the point of all this?" becomes the rally cry of children whose brains are tired of decoding and processing new imformation and skills.
"Shut up! We don't have time

Taken from Mission Galatic Freedom
https://goo.gl/EyZWu8

 to waste!" "Don't stop now!" becomes the mantra of the teachers feeling the pressure to tie up those loose curricular ends before June comes. The temptation from both groups is to be short and even mean with one another. The difficulty of learning is further challenged by the difficulty of staying calm and patient.

"Instructions for a Bad Day" by Shane Koyczan is a good reminder to me that I can survive May. Even more so, it is a good reminder to me that I have a responsibility to role-model a way through this tough time of year. A reminder that my actions do have an impact and influence over those students who have spent 33 weeks with me are going to leave remembering the last 6 weeks more than the first 6 weeks. That my instinct to protect my self with cutting sarcasm, public scathing truth and uncompromising black and white judgement will not help my students to achieve the growth mindset.

Koyczan's poem reminds me to cling desperately to one of my goals for the year: Be vulnerable, be kind, I can take it.

This goal has made this May particularly difficult. By presenting myself as kind and leaving myself vulnerable, I have to resist the urge to feel like I'm being taken advantage of. So, I am making it a priority to remind myself that kindness during this stressful time of year is a lesson that my students need to be shown. There will be bad days (and weeks and maybe even all of May!) but kindness is a way to get passed that. I am remeinded that we all have bad days. More importantly the video below, made in colloboration with a Pink Shirt student group, remeinds me that while I mostly just need a reminder as to how to get passed these times, some students will need a guide. I have the responsibility to role-model kindness for students who may not be able yet to recipricate that kindness to me or others around them.

It is my job to maintain a high level of behavioural expectations, to tie up the loose ends of curriculum that exist in May but, above all else, I want to remind myself to approach these responsibilities with compasssion and kindness at center of my being. As the poem says, "If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can - do more."

https://youtu.be/V7OGY1Jxp3o

Day 12: Assessment - Clarifying my thinking

Before you start reading this post, let me warn you: I am writing about a huge topic in education and I struggle to articulate my thoughts in this area. Part of my reasoning for writing this post is to clarify my own thinking. I have revised this post several times, but there are still many gaps left to fill in and questions left unanswered. 

An analogy that really brings my thoughts about assessment into focus is learning to ride a bike. My principal told our staff this analogy in the spring. It's a message that stuck with me, especially since my daughter learned to ride a two-wheel bike early this summer. When a my daughter learned to ride a two-wheel bike. It didn't always come easily. She jumped on her new bike and said, "I want to start riding!" but, as you can imagine, the falls that ensued quickly softened this enthusiasm. In some cases, she was hesitant and the falls aren't that bad; other times the falls were traumatic events that took several days to get over. However, she persisted. After watching her progress, my wife and I took to reading blogs and watching Youtube videos for tips and passed on what we thought would be useful. Some helped, some didn't. After many weeks of attempting to ride (and my wife's back getting really sore), my daughter rode off down the path - yahoo!
From that moment on, my daughter was a "bike rider". Soon her bike riding skills improved - she was turning, stopping and even starting on her own. This improvement in abilities led to more risk taking, which in turn led to more falling, but never once did my wife and I consider that she might be failing, just experiencing learning.  Now, as we hang up her bike for the winter season, we celebrate her ability to ride around the block by herself and her determination to complete a 2 mile ride with her  mom, while looking forward to seeing her finally learn how to ride all the way up the driveway without stopping next year.

Compare this experience to the way bike riding would be taught and graded traditionally at school.

First, we would probably feel the need to "front-load" the experience. This would probably mean a lot of reading about bike-riding, maybe a video and definitely a worksheet on vocabulary and proper techniques. Once we were sure she had the theory, we might allow them a few periods (if they were lucky) to practice riding before we started grading her. Traumatic falls would be failures, falls that were adverted into saves would be satisfactory (50%), riding in a straight line to the block before bailing into the neighbour's grass would be a little better (60%), riding in a straight line, stopping, turning around and riding back better yet (70%) and so on until she could ride around the block, stop on demand and ride up a driveway without stopping (100%). My wife and I would still be reading and searching for resources, but ultimately these would be more steps in the process and may not be based on my daughter's experience so much as our initial plan. At the end of the season, we would average these scores and then gave my daughter her final grade.

In this model I'd predict that my daughter would be lucky to leave the season with a passing grade. More likely than not, we'd "push her on with serious hesitations." Never mind her accomplishments - there are just too many falls and traumatic moments early on combined with her struggles later to ride up all the way up the driveway for the math* to work in her favour.

For years as a teacher, I practiced the model** that would have left my daughter feeling like she could barely ride. No matter how hard I'd plan, inevitably this model left many of my students and me feeling frustrated. At the end of the unit, term, semester or year I was forced to give students an average grade including assessments from the very first time the students attempted to demonstrate skills and knowledge right up to the very last time. The only students who were able to achieve success in this model were those who never had to struggle (something I believe is essential to learning), which then lead to a focus on the number or grade instead of a focus on the learning. After all, who cares about trying to figure out how to learn, when failure to learn "correctly" hurts your average in the long run?

I'm not going to pretend that I'm at the end of my assessment journey - I still have a lot more questions than answers- but my colleagues and I are making strides this year. We have moved to an objectives-based reporting system which extends all the way to the report card. By breaking down, the "average" into manageable chunks, my students and I are able to better describe the learning which has occurred so far this year. The marks delivered on the report card were a reflection of my professional judgement and of the students' own self-reflections on assignments that we moved into a portfolio together. It was interesting to see how many of my students inherently understood how well they were doing and where they needed to improve after going through the portfolio process; the reflections, and subsequent assessments, of their learning were incredibly close to my professional judgement most of the time.

What I really loved about this process is that students were able to take charge of their learning. They knew, and recorded, how they did well and how they needed to focus their efforts to improve. Like my daughter, my students know whether or not they were successful, and they had the evidence to support this opinion. Looking forward, they also know that they can be risk-takers in and that in some areas of their learning, they need to slow down and ask for help. Together we can celebrate their success and look forward to improvement without the worry of being dragged down by a first attempt in learning.


Footnotes:
As I've indicated before, I'm a rambler by nature. This post was a long one after I revised it multiple times. The following footnotes are sections that I didn't want to include, but couldn't bring myself to cut either.

*Here's a hypothetical sample of the math:
(25% +  0% + 30% + 40% + 25% + 25% + 35% + 40% + 75% + 60% + 80% + 85% +90% + 90% + 90%) / 15 = 53%

**In preparation for this blog entry, I stumbled on one of the reasons why I believe I continued to practice this model long after I stopped believing it worked: one of definitions of grading (from a simple Google Search) is, "to reduce a road to an easy gradient". While this definition is not specifically connected to educational assessment, I believe the word easy is very revealing. Many people want learning to be easy: easy to achieve, easy to understand and easy to evaluate. No matter the inaccuracies of an average based system it is difficult to argue with its ease-of-use. As long as math doesn't frighten you, it is easy to employ, easy to read and easy to manipulate.

Day 11: About me

Today's post is supposed to be fun. It sure took a lot of thought. I hope you enjoy!

Five random facts about me:

1. I'm a rambler: I often need to talk or write in order to make my thoughts concrete. Unfortunately, that also means that I regularly go over my quota of words during any conversation (I rewrote the introduction 4 times and eliminated about 10 lines of text!)
2. I'm a cat person: I like how cats are self-sufficient and I also like a purr-filled cuddle at the end of my day.
3. I'm a natural pragmatist who strives to be an idealist: Confused? I know I am, but I'm trying to find ways to balance these parts.
4. I love fantasy and science fiction: My go-to genres for books and games. When I can't sleep, I often picture the scenes from these books or make up my own in head to help me relax.
5. I have poor hearing: I don't hear great with my left ear and hear even worse with my right ear. It's something I've struggle with since birth. As of yet, no one seems able to present a solution, so I have to stand and sit on your right side if you want me to hear you fully.

Four Items from...

1. Italian Food Trip: My wife and I have talked for years about this dream. We would map a trip throughout Italy based on food. Our dream would be a long ,relaxing trip filled with culinary delights.
2. Sky-diving/bungee jumping: I can't really explain this rationally, but the urge to do something that feels absolutely dangerous and walk away has always been a dream.
3. Hike the Inca Trail: I love hiking and this route looks amazing!
4. Take voice lessons: I love to sing. Unfortunately, I don't have much training. This would be a great way to work on me.

3 things I'm hoping for this year:

1. To try out new ideas. To fail and get back up. To grow.
2. To find a better balance between work and home. 
3. To engage my students as active participants in their learning.

What's  made me laugh or cry as an educator:

As an educator I am often frustrated, regularly excited and increasingly overwhelmed,
but I am never bored

1. I was once a part of a group assembled to assist a student with severe needs in the classroom and at home. After a long discussion the expert in the room stated frankly that our community did not have the resources necessary to truly help this child and that the only thing we could do was wait until things got so bad that we could send him to a community that did. I've never felt so useless as an educator.
2. I work in Middle School so I laugh all the time at work. I laugh because middle schoolers are a strange combination of mature and immature and this leads to some of the most ridiculous situations and statements you can imagine. I also laugh to extend my patience, a trait that is always in short supply.

1 Thing I wish more people knew about me: 

I am an extrovert. I really like spending time with people. As my daughter would say, "It fills my bucket." However, background noise makes it hard for me connect well with people sometimes. This disconnect frustrates me and makes me further withdraw. I really want to get to know you, but sometimes I find it so hard that I will stay back to avoid disappointing myself.

Day 10: Inspirational Colleagues

This quote really summed up my experience with this blog post. When I considered trying to choose just one inspirational colleague, I realized very quickly how fortunate I am. I have been surrounded, from the very beginning, with amazing colleagues who were willing to support, assist and teach me. If I can in any way consider myself a good teacher, these people deserve a lot of the credit (and all the remaining belongs to my amazing family!).

The following is a list of only a few who deserve this credit. I've chosen to reveal their initials only.

P.M. - This colleague showed me early on how great a school can be when we treat each other as family. When my first vehicle ('85 Plymouth Voyageur SE) died it's final death, he lent me his truck without prompting so I would be able to drive around that weekend and get a new car.

B.M. - He showed me the power of a strong relationship with students. I remember students stopping him in the street to tell him how much of a difference he had made in their lives. How he was the reason they were able graduate.

E.D. - I have never known a more critical thinker in my life. Seriously, this guy showed me how to think about everything. With thinking at the forefront we created amazing lessons and assessments together; we ever came up with, designed and built 2 Game-based Learning Units (1 of which he helped build after retirement!)

K.G.(W.) - There are some people who you just have to listen to. When this colleague channeled her righteous indignation or her fiery imagination I (and her students!) couldn't help but learn. She was the one who helped me realize the importance of the term "different not dumber" and convinced me that teaching could be more than just the way I'd been taught.

L.M. - Inspiration comes from vulnerability. This person allowed me to see that by being vulnerable herself. We spend hours of time talking about teaching and philosophizing about life. I can't count the amount of her time I must have wasted, but she's never made me feel like a bother. Through years of quiet talks about the possibilities that surround us in Education, this colleague helped me develop and refine my pedagogy in ways that I can't thank her for enough.

L.P. - Sometimes in life, we find those people with whom you just click. This colleague always made work feel like a home away from home. Her humour, her passion and her drive to be the best are outstanding. Her kindness, compassion and willingness to reach out to those around her are honed to a level that I strive daily to come close to.

J.K. - When I was in grade 5, an experience at school convinced me to keep my emotions hidden - just play it cool and nothing could bother me. Over twenty years later, this inspirational teacher showed me just how powerful a tool genuine emotions, interests and enthusiasm can be. Though younger than me to the profession, she was an inspiration to me every day we worked together and I still look to her as a role model.

Ultimately there are more who belong on this list. I have often imagined myself as a sponge trying desperately to soak up all the greatness that I've been blessedly surrounded by. If I missed you, I'm sorry. You are important too.

I am still privileged to be surrounded by greatness. My new role, school and colleagues have an amazing wealth of greatness and inspiration. I try desperately to absorb what I can and be worthy to be so close on a daily basis.

Day 9: Report Cards are done! (aka I'm baaack!)

"Man, it's been a long day

Stuck thinking 'bout it driving on the freeway
Wondering if I really tried everything I could

Not knowing if I should try a little harder

Oh, but I'm scared to death

That there may not be another one like this

And I confess that I'm only holding on by a thin thin thread

I'm kicking the curb cause you never heard

The words that you needed so bad

And I'm kicking the dirt cause I never gave you

The things that you needed to have"

OK, so I'm being a little over-dramatic with the whole Maroon 5 intro here, but I gotta tell you it was a long couple weeks leading up to the finishing of my report cards this term. Not that they were bad either. The Faction (the name my Grade 7 colleagues and I have given ourselves) decided to attempt creating our own report card system this year. So, with the blessing of a very supportive administration, we've spend the last few weeks making our vision a reality. However, I'll save the details of this development for another time. Instead I want to spend this post reflecting on my goals and learning so far this year.

1. Growth Mind Set - So far this goal has been one of my stronger areas. I feel pretty proud about the way that I've maintained the mindset that I have the ability to improve my teaching this year more than ever before. I've been working to pass this on to my students and, with the help of the Faction, have been able to lead them through some pretty authentic lessons so far.

2. Organization - As always this one is my sore spot. It's funny because I think that I'm actually doing better with this than I ever have before (hurrah for those proactive ideas that I put in place quickly this year!). Still, I notice that my natural tendency to hoard and stack papers instead of dealing with them leads to a lot of clutter in my room. That being said, I'm trying to celebrate the small steps and keep with it.

3. Finish strong* - This one is interesting. I just now realized that if I'm not successful with this goal, I can probably write off the other two! I think I'm doing pretty well here. I do need to remind myself that I (and the Faction) started this year with an almost boundless energy and that maintaining that pace would lead to a breakdown sooner rather than later. So, instead of trying to finish the year with the same level of production and creativity that I started, I'm going focus on making sure that my pedagogy stays forefront in my planning and assessments. Less is more when done well.

4. Healthy living - This one's been tricky. In achieving those earlier goals (and keeping my closest relationships healthy), I've been spotty at best with healthy living. I did make the gym a few times, but have yet to get the rhythm. I have maintained my weight though, so  I'm feeling good about that. Definitely hoping that as I find a better rhythm at school, I can increase my focus in this area.

*I fully appreciate that the one area that I really haven't had success with this goal is in my blogging. Staying in the growth mindset does allow me to accept that reality and move forward. Trying not to beat myself up over this too much! :)

Day 8: What a Day!

*This post is actually based on an experience at the end of September. Sorry it took so long to post!

I teach Grade 7. I teach it because I want to. I teach it even though it can be frustrating, daunting and draining. Yesterday I was reminded of the rewards that come from this choice.

My school is experimenting with Flex Time this year. What this looks like on paper is every Wednesday afternoon is blocked off for this opportunity for the students to pursue Learning that inspires them. What it looks like in reality is my colleagues and I working frantically after school Monday and Tuesday trying to plan out and prepare for this time.

One of the struggles we have being a brand new school is that so many of our spaces are still not ready to invite learning. What makes teaching grade 7 so amazing is that our students allowed us to turn this struggle into something awesome.

By using Google Forms and quickly cramming some intense online collaboration into the lunch hour, my colleagues and I were able to organize close to 100 grade 7's into groups that made our school a better place for everyone. We had teams of students:

• cleaning the field that has yet to receive any garbage cans
• collecting & organizing recycling from around the school (a huge job when you consider how many boxes and other packing materials a new school can produce)
• rearranging furniture and reorganizing recess balls
• compiling data on our unique spaces (generated by every class in the first few weeks, but still awaiting retrieval)
• unpacking and organizing the Science Prep Room
• unpacking and organizing the Foods Lab
• researching basic pantry necessities and pricing out a shopping list
• assembling Ikea tables and storage units

I'm not going to sugar-coat it. It was an exhausting day for me. We had only 5 adults (4 teachers plus an EA) to supervise all of these groups.* We gave every student who filled out the Google Form (88 out of 93), an activity of their own choosing. We had to direct, assist and then move on to the next group quickly. Some teams needed a permanent supervisor, while others were spread across the school and could only be supervised in intervals. 

At the end of the day all of the teams had achieved something. They had tangible results to prove it. Truth be told, there is still recycling to be done, only 1 piece of furniture make it all the way to completion and we still don't know where all the balls for recess are, but this is easily outweighed by the feelings of success, the spirit of community and the understanding of how small actions can have a large impact.

So, why did it work? TRUST. We trusted the students to choose wisely; they trusted us to honour their choice. They trusted us give them tasks that they could handle to assist when they were stuck; we trusted them to work hard, to struggle when they encountered challenge and to be on task. The school trusted our students had a purpose and were out in the hallways to make the building better.

* In actuality this turned into a few more. Our day-custodian dropped his regular duties to help the recycling team create a better system. Both our Principal and Vice-Principal were very visible in the school and interacted with the teams and supervisors regularly. Our amazing secretaries answered questions and helped direct everyone to supplies and organisation systems. A huge thanks to all of these people who increased our success tremendously.

   

This book __(blanked)__ my life.

Literacy has an amazing impact on people. I believe that working to increase students' levels of literacy is the most valuable learning I can assist with. While reading is not the only aspect of literacy, I also believe that people love to read have an easier time improving all of the other aspects of literacy.

   With this in mind, a few colleagues and I have made it our mission to help students learn to love reading. This means removing restrictions that force students to read books that hold no interest for them personally and providing opportunities for students to see the impact that a good book can have on a person's life. The former we are doing in our classrooms, but the latter we can't do alone.

That is why we are asking for help from you. Whoever you are, we want to hear your story. How has a book impacted your life. You can write, you can tweet, you can make a video. Whatever fits your story and style. Just rememeber to tell us the title and author of the book and what kind of impact this book had on your life.

Here's some examples: