Romney and Class Sizes

Okay, time to commit some blasphemy: The Republican candidate for president might just be right when he says that class size doesn't matter. I'm a teacher, so I'm supposed to disagree. I'm a teacher so I'm supposed to vote Democratic. I'm a teacher so I should seek a refund for the $25 donation I made to Governor Romney's campaign. His class size comments don't make me regret doing that (his comments on pay for public employees is another story).

My best teaching came when I taught an extraordinarily large class, a 34-student section of AP U.S. History. If one measures my teaching of them to other AP U.S. classes by way of AP Exam scores, it would seem like we didn't achieve as greatly. But the sample size isn't big enough to draw that conclusion. More importantly, the tone that I established in that class, as I deduce from anecdotal evidence, set those kids up for greater success down the road. Many of them translated the skills and habits of mind I taught there toward high achievement in other elite classes. A colleague who taught many of these kids in an AP English class this year had a similar experience.

I think we need to look at class sizes a bit more flexibly. At the elementary level, we should pour in the resources to keep class sizes small. I don't think there's a place for classes larger than 24 before adolescence. In fact, we should keep class sizes there until high school (9th grade). But once we get the students to high school, is it necessary. Maybe it would do the kids a service to assign them to one or two sections that were more like 40 or 50 students in size.

The adults are doing too much to own the problem of lackluster student achievement at higher grade levels. I think it's necessary to closely monitor the underperforming 6th or 7th grader: they're too young to weigh the consequences of not completing their work and not focusing. However, a 10th grader is ready to begin experimenting with the consequences of willfully underperforming, even if it is at risk of not graduating on time. We have a duty to keep kids on track and doing everything possible to guarantee proficiency until high school. Yet in high school I think it's time we let kids court danger, and even occasionally have to repeat a class or grade level. For the high school student graduating on time is a great motivator. Repeating a class when one is 16 or 17 is a lot better than getting to age 20 and floundering in a college program for which one isn't ready (and when there is no support network).

So, I guess I'm advocating that we, as teachers, start to make concessions at the upper grade levels in the interest of flexibly meeting students where they are. Class sizes should start to vary in size, the school day might need to go beyond 3pm, and we might need to let the students fall so that they have the chance to get back up. I'd rather see a system in which teachers are there to help the kids who take the initiative to ask for and commit to that help than a system in which we work feverishly to make sure a kid passes but doesn't necessarily have the learning that the credits would imply they have learned.

Taking Pieces of a Good Idea

A friend who works in staff development sent me an article about how one can approach the school house once a bring-your-own-device policy has been enacted.  It's worth reading.

I have a tendency to sometimes jump too aggressively on an idea without really absorbing what pieces of it work and which don't.  I was close to forwarding this to my own principal when I decided to re-read it.  I'm glad I did, for while the author has good ideas, some I think are impractical in our situation.  I don't, for instance, like her idea that teachers should engage in conversations via text message with students.  The advent of a technology doesn't necessarily mean it's time to breach the formality that should characterize the adult-child relation.  Also, one of the blogs to which she refers advocates teachers taking cell phones from students engaging in misconduct, something we have been told is legally out of bounds.

Instead, it's worthwhile mulling over the provocative point she raises that it's time we revise our classroom management practices.  Students aren't going to learn how to courteously conduct themselves in an academic setting if we don't take the time to teach, model, and reinforce mature expectations. 

Are we afraid the cell phones are going to be more interesting that us?  Are we afraid the cell phones are going to be more interesting than our lessons?  If so, can't we and our teaching strategies win most of the battles with the cell phone?  I think we need to accept the dare. 

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Another good read I had recently was from a Chicago area English teacher who called for ditching the five-paragraph essay.  You can read this essay by Mr. Salazar here.  Again, I was ready to jump all over his idea, but then I wondered about the role teaching the five-paragraph form plays in the formative years of a writer.  Coaching a fifth- or sixth-grader to do this seems quite appropriate.  Building a middle schooler's ability to write it seems appropriate to.  I propose that teaching the five-paragraph form is critical to nurturing functioning skills as a proficient writer.  Where we make the mistake is when we fail to stretch the kids beyond that form in high school.

And with that I need to pat myself on the back, for I've been waging war against the five-paragraph form in high school for years.  I just didn't know it.  For years I've been teaching my AP kids to do more with the introduction and summary than they are accustomed to doing.  I've been coaching them to write two-part arguments in five-paragraph form.  I've been teaching them to go beyond the ABC thesis to create ones that are compound and complex.  I have fought many of these battles in my academic classes as well. 

Perhaps to sell myself it's critical that I find kernels in what others write, and sometimes seek vindication and articulation for practices that I have already adopted. 

Now for the next challenge: BYOD

We took a decisive step toward the 21st century today by inaugurating a bring-your-own-device policy to the school.  From this point forward, students will have access to the wireless internet service at our school.  Use of cell phones, tablets, and laptops will be permitted.  I think it's been a long time coming.  It's a good change, filled with a lot more good than bad.  I can see our challenges being as follows:

• Bandwidth and other infrastructure limitations: I don't know if the grownups of schools realize how video-rich the content our students use is.  Even with legitimate school projects, students are accustomed to video rather than straight text.  Also, a lot of our kids might rely on their devices to stream Pandora or Spotify as they work.  I think we're in for a shock as to how much our kids will consume.  
• Modeling how responsible grownups use technology in a social setting.  Of course, we don't really have a firm set of rules for ourselves.  We trial-and-errored it throughout our own 20s and 30s.  The presence of kids' devices in our classroom will force us to think deliberately about what habits and manners we want to see. 
• The divide between haves and have-nots.  We've moved toward the laptop being an essential item for an adolescent.  But many of our kids come from households than cannot afford this accoutrement.  Those without the devices are going to feel like a lonely minority.  Inevitably, there will be a low-cost device kids can buy, rent, or borrow.  But it's a few years until we'll see it as a merit good, an item for which all are deserving.

But, again, there's so much more potential for good here.  I'll be able to move toward a paperless classroom.  I'll be able to more flexibly assign work and guide research.  Further, I'll be able to have students send me that work that somehow doesn't get through from home.  This really could clear up a lot of problems. 

Career Goals

Does this make sense?

Three interrelated career goals for the intermediate term: excellence at teaching history, elevating the craft of my colleagues as a staff developer, curriculum leadership.

Developing presentations and workshops for . . .

• teaching research skills
• alternative unit assessments
• teaching writing in the content area
• incorporating current events into the classroom

So, what I do outside the classroom must . . .

• elevate my craft in teaching history 
• serve my colleagues as a staff developer
• further my credentials, experience, and knowledge base as a staff developer

The troubled 2011-12 school year has given me time to reflect on my need to focus and specialize.  Jacks of all trades are useful.  I'm looking to become valuable.  

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It's been a long school year.  But I can tell that I'm moving beyond the personal and career frustrations that dogged me for much of 2011-12.  Recently, I've started to re-think my mood for school and it dawned on me the privileged nature of what I do.  I teach in a school where students largely behave.  I teach students who are literate, intelligent, and generally well-mannered.  I have a paycheck that I receive consistently.  I have colleagues who are intelligent and good-willed.  It's a privilege to teach in such a setting. 

I'm reminded of how older men and women, when talking about the good old days of the Greatest Generation, discuss how work was considered a privilege.  I think it's helpful for more of us to look at our occupations in that way. 

Now, if I could just extend that philosophy to my students.  Today was the Monday following the senior prom.  Attendance: 42.2% in my classes. And that 42% includes an AP class where more than half the kids were present.  My two academic classes: only a 30% attendance. 

So, let me offer this point of view to my students (and their parents who condoned their absences):

• Though attendance is supposedly compulsory in the U.S., going to school is a privilege many kids in the world do not get. 
• You get the privilege of coming to a school where your safety is not threatened.
• You have teachers who are trained, talented, intelligent, and kind-hearted. 
• You are in one of the highest-achieving schools in the state, the region, and the country. 

Millions upon millions of children would give anything to have the educational experience you have by right of birth, citizenship, and residency.   If these millions knew that you had blown off this day, they would likely laugh at, scorn, or resent you. 

A Credo

I'm working on a code to guide my conduct at school . . .

I need to offer my students an experience in class that cannot be duplicated.  A class is something that cannot be simulated by someone else.  And when one misses a day in class, they will miss out on something that was unique and personalized to who was in the room that day. 

To these ends . . .

• I will use video in only the most judicious and careful ways.  Why show the kids a film they've probably seen.  If I show a video resource, it will be something the students otherwise wouldn't have found on their own or have learned from the way they'll learn from it in my room.
• My presentation of information will be centered on visuals, concepts, patterns, and quotes.  The day of the text-heavy slides are done.  Slides can be rich in content without being laden with words.  
• I will personalize the experience for my students.  They will feel like the teacher likes them and knows them.  They will know the teacher cares about their growth.  
• Content comes before skills.  The students have a unique opportunity to be in my classroom.  They get the chance to tap into my considerable wealth of knowledge about history.  They get the chance to engage with an adult who diligently keeps track of the news.  Every day they have the chance to know more that helps them make sense of their world.*
• Skills have a place.  We practice skills while mastering content (rather than use content to master skills).  
• I'm an important model.  From me kids can learn the integrity, honesty, and courtesy that poised adults demonstrate.  I show them the role passion plays in igniting the intellect and objectivity plays in making sense of our contemporary world.  I show them how one can find meaning in great works of literature, great works of film, and the great figures of our past.

*Is this particular credo arrogant?  Perhaps.  However, I think more of us in this profession need to start adopting an intellectual swagger to our time in the class.  

The Imagination of Teaching

I heard recently of some student teachers from a program complain that they had had too little coursework on instructional techniques.  They complained that they felt they went into the classroom with an empty toolbox of techniques for teaching their students.  I didn't have the heart to answer them honestly. 

Their comments worried me because they might be right that they're not exposed to enough ideas on how to engage students. 

Their comments worried me more because they might not be accustomed to thinking creatively about solving a problem.  There is a tendency toward standardization and script-reading in my line of work.  There has been a de-emphasizing of teacher creativity in instructing teachers-to-be.  The instruction now seems to be more about essential questions, enduring understandings, and dense, script-like lesson plans.  The desire to capture a spark or pursue a teachable moment is downplayed.

Their comments worried me the most because, when desperate, one can hopefully fall back on memories of how great teacher solved problems.  Might these young teachers not have such great examples to fall back on?  Was there no one who inspired them like I was inspired by that constellation of great high school and college teachers? 

Do they feel gun shy about just telling the kids about the past?  About our government? 

Are they afraid of delivering a lesson that might flop?  Are they so fearful of the error part of trial and error that they won't give a possibly good idea a try. 

I'm worried that the newest teachers coming into the field have not been pushed or mentored to look for the moments of this job that are creative, awesome, spontaneous, and messy.