Get Out! (outside, that is)

Bodies need to move and stretch in order for the mind to be productive, especially kids.  “Asking students to simply stand up increases blood flow to the brain by 10-15%...there is a direct link to the cerebellum, which coordinates muscle movement to the pleasure centers in the emotional systems” (Gibbs, 2001).  This blog will be peppered with quick energizers I use whenever the class has “the tireds” or conversely are “too hyper.” They all allow time for the students to move while making personal connections with their peers.

This proactive tool for classroom management keeps their blood moving and brains engaged while building and strengthening personal relationships:  a win-win for all!  When they can see connections and similarities with others, the human condition is celebrated and walls begin to break down.  Today, however, let’s talk about the breakdown of literal walls.

Go Outside Sometimes.  Create lessons that take your class outdoors occasionally.  For some students, simply appreciating the sky, the landscaping, the clouds, and the trees is a privilege they do not encounter often enough, especially if you work with a lower socio-economic community.  “Higher poverty neighborhoods ... are less safe, less comfortable, and less pleasurable for outdoor physical activity, and have less favorable social processes” (Franzini, 2010).

Sample Activities:
-A simple walk around the center quad can be energizing and life-affirming.  We are moving through the campus as a class, a team, a unit, a family.  Stay together and don’t let anyone fall behind or get too ahead.
-Have kids take pictures with their phones of their favorite spots on campus.  When you get back to the classroom, have them show the picture and explain why that spot is special (the G rated version, please).
-Descriptive journaling: everyday scenes placed under a writer’s magnifying glass.
-Socratic seminar - circle up and discuss yesterday’s lesson
-Homework questions
-Celebrations
-Struggles
-Ball toss: toss a stuffed animal or ball around the circle and the one who catches it says anything that is on their mind.

Going outside is an energizer in and of itself. It doesn’t need to be elaborately planned or take up much time to be effective. Unfortunately, many classrooms still lend themselves to mostly sedentary work with little movement.  If we can build some in, we can hopefully buy more engagement time with the kids...and maybe even see a cool looking bird.

No One Did Their Homework

Ever have one of those days where no one does their homework?  I did last week.  Actually, I'm exaggerating:  three kids did their homework out of 28 (my smallest class).

Three kids.

My whole two hour lesson plan hinged on the teetering precipice of homework being done...and it wasn't.  My feelings were hurt.  I even had a couple of kids apologize sheepishly, eyes dragged down to the dirty tiles of my classroom floor.  They couldn't look at me and say it.  

What could possibly be more important than MY homework...oops, did I use the wrong pronoun?  I meant their homework...whose homework is it actually?

This seemed to be the perfect storm, my college bound had more pressing university applications due, my student athletes had traveled three hours away to represent our school in state basketball games, and my fringe kids had myriad issues:  one moved out of his abusive household and into an Aunt's house that is now one hour away from campus...a transportation nightmare not to mention all of his "stuff" is still at his mother's home.  Another moved into a cousin's house because her "sober" father is dabbling with weed again because it "mellows him out since he can't drink."  Another, had an uncle die in his sleep at the age of 45...my age.

What is a teacher to do?  Do I place the smack-down on all of them because that is what the "real world" would do?  Is this the only way responsibility is taught?  Do all receive an "F" because allowing late work should show weakness in me as a leader?  Do I play hard ball or get soft?

I started with rewarding my three who did do their work a bonus 10 points on top of the A+ they were about to receive.  I also invited them to put their ear buds in and get a jump start on the work for today.

For the "naughty ones," I had them all take out pen and paper.   I powered up my old school boombox and pushed play on my Coldplay CD for some mellow background music.  I then projected my Ipad timer for a 20 minute countdown.  "This is your get out of jail free card," I stated.  "Write.  I don't care if you think you have nothing to say...write for 20 minutes and don't stop."

Some did stop.  Some wanted to write for more than 20, but they all stay engaged with the the process.  Did I give them full credit?  Yes.  Did I tell them how disappointed I was in them?  Yes. 
But, in this moment in time it was far more important that they produced something more than an "F."

I know homework is a controversial topic (future blog!) and how we handle it varies greatly.  Ben Johnson's article for Edutopia does a beautiful job Debunking Homework Myths, but the bottom line is although some are very, very good at it, I would like to make it as difficult as possible to fail my class.

Embracing Data

Last week, I sat in a room, in front of my Ipad for five hours being trained on a website that creates assessments and then analyzes the data from assessments.  It was organized, specific, thorough, systematic, and probably valuable, but definitely not my normal data collection process. 

My process is messy:  talking to kids, sitting in on small group discussion with my clipboard as I take notes on their comments, having them rewrite a specific body paragraph in their essay, or observing them look away sheepishly when I know they didn’t read last night’s homework assignment.

I guess I need to change my attitude.

The intellectual part of my brain realizes that analyzing data on my students should inform my instruction, fill in the holes, make the classroom experience complete.  As part time Literacy Coach next year, I will be the cheerleader for these homemade scantrons and the pie charts and bars these scantrons produce.  I must energize my colleagues that this is good stuff.

Why is that so hard for me?

Maybe I see the hours of work that it will take to create all of these tests, hours that will take me away from planning invigorating lessons that include movement, talking, writing, responding, and deep levels of analysis.  Instead of cutting butcher paper for a gallery walk and setting up chairs for a Harkness discussion, I will be grappling with pulldown menus offering randomization of bubble answers, so if my kids do cheat they will be screwed.

Oh no, I got all negative again.

I just see the joy sucked out of room 208 when administering these cold, calculated tests.  I see them love English just a little less or hate it a little more.  Many, many of my kids will go on to lead happy lives, yet not go on to college.  It is not where their heart takes them.  

Yesterday, I had my oil changed by a handsome 22 year old who had been a handsome 14 year old in my freshman English class.  He manages the local Valvoline, has plans to get married and buy a house.  He told me he “misses Mission Oak High School” and asked me if we still read A Midsummer Night’s Dream because he still remembers how funny it was that we got to say the word “ass” a million times.  He didn’t bring up the awesome CST tests or my multiple-choice benchmarks that I was mandated to use.  He remembers Bottom and the forest of fairies. He never wanted to go to college and never will; he makes a good salary and has plans to franchise the business.  I didn’t need to analyze his data; I needed him to love reading, if just for a minute.

I will make the assessments, I will give them, and I will run the Scantrons with their carefully #2 pencil colored orbs.  I will see if we should spend a little more time on point of view, or elaboration of evidence, or word choice.  I will then create juicy engaging lessons to address the holes, and desperately corral them back into loving my class...because that is where the real data collection begins...

Learning Lab & Communication Station: A Physical Space for Collaboration

Below is a proposal I wrote to my principal and superintendent to institute a “learning lab and communication station” on our campus next year.  I will be a half-time literacy coach/half-time teacher and have dreams of creating a space that is innovative, brings teachers out of isolation, and honors their craft in a collaborative way.  Please let me know what you think (or if you have something like this on your campus!)

Learning Lab & Communication Station

The implementation of a Learning Lab on campus allows the faculty a space for active, built-in, ongoing professional development without leaving their students or taking up any precious prep time.  

The Learning Lab acts as a hub of creativity, a place we - teachers, students, administrators - are all learning - myself included.  It is a “lab” where we are experimenting with teaching techniques and pedagogy we have not tried before:  we can take risks while celebrating the power of communication and collaboration.  

Trying something new is scary and teachers no longer have to be alone in this experiment.

Learning Lab Menu:

Academic Discussion Date:  Teachers with little to no experience with academic discussions now have a dedicated space where they can use the modular furniture, observe me with their class, or co-facilitate one of the following (see below) without the disruption of rearranging their own room:

Examples:

1.) Harkness Room:  Filled with 40 movable and modular desks and chairs (ex: SmithSystem furniture), the Learning Lab can be arranged in variety of discussion formations, including Harkness:  one large “table” seating 15-18 with surrounding observers.  

2.) Debate Settings:  with two lecterns and movable chairs, the room can be split into two

intellectual factions debating any given issue

3.) Socratic Seminar Scene:  The movable furniture can also be moved into a variety of  

Socratic Seminars:  Pilot-Co-Pilot, Fishbowl, or whole class circle-ups.

Co-teaching Cafe:  Teachers experimenting with academic discussions, can book the lab and have me set up the classroom with any form of discussion they prefer.  Benefits include:

Examples:

1.) Supplying name tags and paperwork to support the academic discussion

2.) Some of our classrooms have immovable tables or desks that are not easy to rearrange.

3.) The reorganization of desks is disruptive and a classroom management issue for some teachers, making them NOT want to do it.

4.)   Wouldn’t it be nice for a teacher to be able to walk into a room that is set-up and ready to go, wasting no instructional minutes?

5.) I would be there to either help facilitate or observe and give feedback: whichever the

teacher prefers.

Teaching Demos:  For close reading activities, varieties of writing instruction, and classroom community building, teachers may book the learning lab for specific blocks of time

(30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours) and have me demonstrate a lesson.  

Examples:

1.) Close reading - academic articles in all subjects

2.) Writing Instruction across the curriculum

3.) Public Speaking preparation

4.) Classroom energizers

5.) Improv exercises for creativity

6.) Brain games

7.) Small, medium, and large group discussion

8.) Community Building activities

9.) The dreaded college essay for seniors

10.) Poetry analysis (including poetry across the curriculum)

Mixed-level Magic:  Collaboration between upper-classmen and the under-classmen holds a power that is palpable, and it is right at our fingertips.

I have had success co-teaching with colleagues mixing both grade levels and ability levels.  For example, one year my amazing colleague, Carrie Linder, and I mixed her seniors with my freshmen for the “Success Project.”  The seniors mentored the freshmen for two weeks on “how to succeed in high school” and “how to make it to graduation.”  We also invited guest speakers to inspire on a panel as they fielded questions from students (administrators, coaches, board members and even our superintendent joined us).

Just last year, I joined forces with Jeff Conn and Tim Ducey and we watched my AP Lit students work some magic with their at-risk freshmen.  It was really beautiful.  For some reason, the seniors had a greater impact than the adults!

I would love to help teachers develop and organize some of these dynamic blended learning partnerships and the Learning Lab would provide a space to do it.

Mentoring New Teachers:  According to The High Cost of Teacher Turnover from the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, “20% of all new hires leave the classroom within three years and in poorer districts close to 50% leave during the first five years.”

It’s hard.  That’s all there is to it.  Teaching is hard, and our new faculty gets very little assistance in managing and running a classroom, let alone being creative in one.  This is no one’s fault; it is simply the nature of this autonomous profession.

In the Learning Lab, new teachers will now be able to have a space to meet confidentially and explore the following:

Examples:

1.) How to physically set up a classroom that is efficient and builds community

2.) Prepare lessons for observation and evaluation (some of the scariest and most

intimidating moments for a new teacher)

3.) How to set up and run academic discussions without disrupting their own space or

someone else’s (if they are sharing a classroom)

4.) A place to find resources on classroom management, community building, and

instructional strategies

5.) Supplies to support instructional strategies:  white-boards, popsicle sticks, name tags

butcher paper, markers, post-its, index cards, class sets of articles, sample student essays etc.

6.) A professional development library: books on classroom management, instructional

strategies, reproducibles for community building, and graphic organizers etc.

District Writing Prompt Scoring Days:  We would now have a dedicated space to score student writing that is secure, comfortable, and confidential.  We could accommodate larger groups of scorers and would not be taking up another valuable space on campus with all rubrics and paperwork at our fingertips.

We would also now have a larger space to store the mountains of student writing samples in an organized fashion and keep it secure for the entire school year without risk of it being moved or getting lost.

Instructional Rounds/Mini Rounds Gathering Place:  The Learning Lab could be the gathering place for all Instructional Rounds.  There is more space, it is filled with resources, and it is a confidential, quiet environment.  There is also something powerful about it being in a classroom and having the ability for everyone to literally visualize students and teacher in the physical space of learning.

Writing Center/Tutoring Lounge:  Stocked full of resources, what better place to house a collegiate-style writing center and tutoring lounge.  Our stronger students (CSF scholars/AP kids) could rack up community service hours while helping our struggling learners.  

Stuff to Support Student Success - (Instructional Resources):  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a dedicated space for “the stuff” (teacher tools) that enhance dynamic instruction?  

Here is a list of what could be housed in the Learning Lab/Communication Station.  I know some of these things sound so basic and simplistic, but in a busy teacher’s day, these are the little things they simply can’t get to:

The fun stuff:

1.) butcher paper

2.) name tags

3.) post-its

4.) index cards

5.) markers

6.) popsicle sticks

7.) community building props (balls, dice, cubes, stuffed animals, playing cards, paint chips etc.)

8.) Music

Paperwork:

1.) Common Core curriculum support

2.) copies that facilitate academic discussions

3.) class sets of rubrics

4.) class sets of graphic organizers

5.) sample essays & prompts

Living Library:  Instructional Resource Books & Journals:  The Learning Lab could house teaching resources - both current and classic books and journals - that support different pedagogical methods.  These resources could be checked out to faculty.

Examples:

1.) Books housing reproducibles for argumentative and informational writing

2.) Graphic organizers that support close reading, critical thinking, and writing

3.) Literary magazines

4.) Educational Journals

5.) Poetry anthologies

6.) Short story anthologies that support reading across the curriculum

Technology, too! (Ipad/Tablet/Laptop Cart):  The Learning Lab could also house technology carts to support solid instructional strategies.  The technology coaches could also share the space for Professional Development, when needed.

I envision a collaborative relationship between the tech coaches and the lit coaches;  these positions should not be isolated from one another but rather work in sync to make teachers’ jobs easier!

This is a dream of mine. Of course, as all of us in education know, many of these ideas come down to logistics before instituting: space on campus, teaching sections, number of teachers travelling or needing homes and the dreaded dollar.  

Yet, we must keep asking, pushing, and creating. The kids are worth it.

FUNiture? Fun + Furniture: Classroom Design Psychology & FUNction

Seven years ago, I helped open the doors to the first new public high school our little town has seen in over 50 years:  Mission Oak.  The architecture was stunning:  mission style inspired buildings with creamy white walls and reddish brown ceramic tile rooftops.  The interiors include wide hallways with deco-style lighting fixtures and large see-through cabinets for safe flyer hanging.  Classrooms are spacious with picture windows overlooking our spacious quad and circular planters filled with native Central Valley plantings.

And then came the desks.

Most of our student desks were borrowed from our sister school across town.  And, boy, you can tell they were hand-picked with love.  The maintenance guys rolled them into our perfect classrooms complete with a rainbow colored underbelly of ABC gum and a peppering of gang territory establishing “13s” and “14s” etched into the faux wood desk tops.  They were the last things added to my pristine room:  I had covered my walls with purple paper and zebra striped borders (our school colors) and set up my spaces for student work, prideful newspaper articles, and, of course, my personal effects like my Cyndi Lauper barbie doll and Rocky Horror Picture Show rubber duckie.  

The desks are, as the kids would say, ghetto.

I was heartbroken.  Manufactured circa 1980 with the deathly teacher lecture in mind, they were like little prison cells, each and everyone of them, littering my learning environment with their years of abuse.  The ghosts of apathetic teens arrived with them, hovering over their “artwork” and memories of the “boring” 5th period (insert class here) that held them captive when they would rather be at a house party, red cup in hand, flirting with (insert name here),  

Seven years later, I still have those desks:  38 of them.

I have arranged and rearranged them in every possible formation my limited classroom size can support.  I have done tilty rows of four facing both each other and the whiteboard.  I have done scary rows for the California High School Exit Exam testing.  Most recently, they are in pods of 4s and 6s that can face forward for speeches and then flip into collaborative groups.  However, these desks were not made to do this, so anytime we “switch it up” and move them into new formations, my downstairs colleagues say it sounds like a herd of rhinos are galloping across the 2nd floor, which they are gracious about, but, of course it disrupts their classroom: I’m not cool with that.  On Pinterest, I tried a “cheap fix” for sound muffling and making the heavy 1980s desks mobile:  Take a square of felt and a rubber band and secure one onto each leg of each chair.  They then can slide across the tile effortlessly.  It was okay; however, I didn’t anticipate each piece of felt to pick up every piece of dirt and hair in the room.  Now, I had four “hairballs” at the bottom of each seat...yuck.

Another problem is, they are small and tight and don’t fit many of our bigger students.  The traditional desk-connected-to-chair actually cuts into some of my kids’ stomachs as they squeeze in.  Also, it does not allow for any discussion formats without a “barrier” between the kids: the big fake-wood, grafitti-covered square.

SO, with the news that I will be taking on a hybrid position of teacher and literacy coach next year, I’ve been on a quest...a quest for desks.

I found some “21st Century Classroom” furniture companies and started gathering catalogues. The student desks are A-MA-ZING.  The chairs and desks are...wait for it..not connected, so you can pod them up into any formation you need:  pairs, triads, quads, or circle up for Socratic Seminar or even inner/outer circles for fishbowl discussion.  The chairs are made from ultra-light materials for easy movement or for maximum mobility you can order the ones with wheels on the bottom (I know, I know,  a little scary).  They come in myriad bright colors with cool names like “mint,” “clementine,” and “champagne.”  The desks, creamy neutrals with soothing titles: “new age oak, “tan echo,” and “fusion maple.”  Just that alone gets me all tingly inside.

Now, they ain’t cheap.  Therein lies the rub.  

That’s where I am right now...about to pitch (to my fiscally conservative board) why we should invest in furniture.  My dream, of course, would be to fill every classroom but, for starters, I want to propose a “Learning Lab” (next blog post!) - a shared common space filled with 38 of these stunning pairs that we can all share when we want to engage in academic discussion with ease.  I feel like if we could experiment and model for the powers that be how important physical space is for the learning environment, the purse strings may start to loosen.  

Wish me luck...the quest begins next week...

I Want Candy: Sweet Classroom Management

I Want Candy: Sweet Classroom Management

Candy.  After each major holiday, run (don’t walk) to the 50-75% off sale section of your local Rite Aid, Target, or Walgreen’s and buy candy...lots of it.  

First of all, it’s just fun.  Secondly, it’s pretty.  If you can find a glass jar to place behind your desk and fill that sucker to the top with Nerd boxes, Starburst, or Sour Patch kids, I dare you not to light up when you look at it.

Now, I know we have a childhood obesity epidemic and that candy can be a no-no, but as with all things naughty, we teach moderation.  Maybe during a review quiz, you toss some out to the crowd for “highly engaged” students.  Maybe you ignore the person that blurted out the answer, and reward the kid with the pensive face who was deep in thought honoring your “wait time.”

One of my inspiring colleagues in the English department gives one Red Vine per kid and has them eat the whole thing while pondering an argumentative writing prompt.  They are not allowed to start writing until the licorice is gone, forcing them to “think” before their pencil hits the paper. It’s cute. It’s fun. It’s candy.

When I really want to get crazy and splurge, I buy the huge box of giant Pixie Sticks at Smart-n-Final.  I keep them on the top of my highest book shelf. Those don’t emerge very often but they just LOOK cool spiking out of my thrift store flower vase.  It acts as a beacon of hope for the students:  will they one day be worthy of a giant Pixie Stick and get to walk around campus all day wielding their sugary sword?  Our inside joke is if anyone asks you where you got it, you must say Mr./Ms.__________ (insert any teacher name here other than Mrs. Jones!).  

We must work hard, and we must work bell-to-bell (future blog post there!), but fun and frivolity cannot be compromised.  It’s high school, they are kids, and then need to have fun.  Candy = fun. The end.

I Would Like to Thank the Academy: Building Classroom Community, Hollywood style!

Two days ago, my beginning Speech class did an assignment entitled the “Podium Awards.”  It started with interviewing a partner with 10 questions ranging from silly (What is your most embarrassing moment?  What’s your favorite food and how much can you eat of it?) to more poignant (What are you most proud of?  What do you love or hate about yourself?)

The interview was my favorite part.  Some kids lit up because they are being asked about themselves.  Quieter students became animated, using hand gestures as they told stories about peeing on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Tulare County Fair or visiting their dad in Corcoran Prison for the first time.  Others, my wild ones, became more introverted, feeling awkward because they had the full attention of one person rather than the safe “distance” of the entire class. The eye contact from partners “freaked some of them out” and they turned their desk tilty, so they didn’t need to look right at them.  Some students asked follow-up questions ala Diane Sawyer while others acted like they were in a speed reading competition.  (Pssst...I’m collecting “data” right now.  Can you feel it?)

I know it’s already March (How?!?) and I’ve been hanging out with these crazies since August, but I was shocked how much more I learned about them as I roamed the room during the 20 minute interview process.  20 minutes.  In 20 minutes, I learned that Luis takes care of his five younger siblings after school every day and doesn’t want them “to turn out like him.”  I learned that Ashley’s mom is on her 3rd marriage and she hates the guy.  I learned that Juan got accepted to UC Irvine and his parents don’t want him to go because it’s too far from Tulare while Simone is going straight to Milan, our local beauty college, and can’t wait to get the *&^% out of high school.  

20 minutes.  Now, I have two hour blocks, which is a luxury (and torture some days!), so my wiggle room for community building exercises is rich - and a must.  Two hours of pure academics for a teenage head...can you imagine?  In 20 minutes, I learned a valuable new layer of “stuff” about my students.  Stuff I can pull out whenever homework isn’t turned in, tears are shed, or chronic absences emerge.  When I am able to ask about their baby sister or tell them how clean of a city Irvine is, I have my claws in a little deeper.  The next time they roll over in bed and turn off the alarm on the iphone, they may think about those conversations and groan because if they miss my class, I’m going to be all over them.  My little face waiting with questions about little sis, the Corcoran prison, or pee on the Tilt-a-whirl.  I know them a little bit more and that will make it just a hair harder to ditch my class.  They still will ditch - don’t get me wrong - I hold no super powers.  But, it will make it harder, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is my true job.  

The awards took place next.  Once the interview was over, they had to hide from their partner and create a secret award based on information gathered in their interview.  The awards ranged from “Best Taco Eater” to “Most Caring” to “Best OverComer of Crappy Life.”  One stoic basketball player found herself in tears accepting her silly award; she didn’t know where they came from...it caught her off guard and the class melted.  It was one of “those moments.”  

A bonus part of the day is when a quiet underclassman volunteered to be on sound effect duty.  He plugged his phone into the speaker and played applause, a laugh track, and bad acceptance music as kids walked up to the podium (Seriously, how does a 16 year old know Wham’s “Careless Whisper”?  I was cracking up!)

It was no-brainer assignment for Speech class, but couldn’t this interview/awards process be adapted for any subject simply to break up the year.  One of those days where you have a football rally or Spring Break starts on Monday, or you have just been testing for two weeks, and everyone is kind of “over it.”  Think about it...you learn more about them than they even learn about each other.  So, who does the award really go to?