The Agrarian Model Myth

The model of public education is not primarily agrarian, although the needs of a predominately rural population may have influenced the school calendar back in the beginning. It is not even predominately industrial, although the way factories were organized strongly influenced the organization of schooling.

The most salient model of public education is the model of the mind we inherited from the Age of Enlightenment.

Without further ado, I give you the animated illustration of an intriguing talk by Sir Ken Robinson.








Education reform is stuck in a rut because society has not confronted its most basic unexamined assumptions. I have often said we need a complete systematic overhaul. I was satisfied to mod the car, but no longer. Sir Ken goes further and says we need a new paradigm. He wants to throw the car out completely. Furthermore, he does not want to buy a new car. He wants to build something a completely different vehicle, perhaps one we have not imagined before.

Teach Tony Danza, Episode 2

In the second episode, Tony Danza gives his first quiz which half the class fails. When he hands back the quiz, a clash of expectations occurs. He expects the students to support their answers to the opinion questions. They complain that it is unfair for him to mark them off because opinion questions “do not have a right answer.” I do not blame the kids. Many years of lame critical thinking lessons have taught them that there is no wrong opinion, and that variations of the very popular “I think (fill in the blank) because I think (fill in the blank)” formulation is adequate support for an opinion.

Tony is sure they failed the quiz because they did not read the material; they insist they read it “five or six times.” He says out loud he does not believe it. Oops. But he knows they did not read because when he was in high school he did not read. One girl cries. Tony approaches her as if there is not another person in the room. If the class was inattentive before, they are all ears now. Tony has a lot to learn.

I am not impressed with Tony's instructional coach. He seems unwilling to give Tony any affirmations, is somewhat argumentative, and chooses to open emotional wounds, “Have you cried yet, Tony?” he asks. I am not impressed with the needlessly nasty assistant principal. I am not impressed with the overly harsh principal. Although they promised to support Tony, clearly their idea of what constitutes administrative support is far different from what teachers expect. The distinction is important because the number one reason teachers leave is lack of administrative support. “Mary,” a teacher quoted in the Chicago Studies, described what administrative support incarnate looked like.

I appreciate his early morning visibility and constant presence in the hallways every class period. He stands during all three lunches while we sit and enjoy our 30-minute meal. He writes personal notes when you do an excellent job on a project; he is open to suggestions that are results-oriented, and he chides negativity for negativity’s sake.

He keeps to the middle of the road and even if he has favorites, his choices are based on performance, not personality. In staff meetings, he does not preach, he shares. He has a sense of humor and attends most after-school functions.

He always greets you, and when he evaluates your instructional delivery, he stays the full 90 minutes. He actually reads over your plans to check for evidence of quality instruction, multiple tracks of learning, and assessment within your plans.

He learns the students’ names and jokes with them on their way to class or at lunch. At the same time he is firm and does not think twice about taking real troublemakers to our nearby town in handcuffs. He allows for flexibility some times in the teaching schedule to let kids display their talents, even in the midst of teachers complaining about instructional time lost. We are in a rural setting, so he realizes that for some students, school is the center of their total existence when it comes to cultural diversity and showcasing talents.

He reads a lot of different research and shares it with staff; he strives to establish some form of professional learning community in a school that knows very little about how it works. He meets with various groups repeatedly and has a 100% attendance rate except when he is at a workshop.

I have a different attitude about working for this principal because he actually notices how hard I work and lets me know that he sees what I do. He meets with every department to ask, what can I do to help you do a better job? What does your department need? How can we accomplish this or that?

In other words, supportive administrators act more like the teachers' servants than their overlords.

Reality Education: The Teach Tony Danza Show, Episode 1

Tony Danza, TV personality whose most memorable shows were probably Taxi and Who's the Boss, is only a couple years away from qualifying to draw his Social Security benefits. He says he always wanted to be a teacher, but boxing and acting derailed him. Quoting Robert Frost, Tony Danza is finally returning to the road not taken. He has become a 10th grade English teacher in an urban magnet school in Philadelphia. His road is a little different from most first year teachers. His first year is the subject of a reality TV show. He says he is terrified and he looks it.

We all know good and well that most reality shows are not really undirected slices of life. Real life is generally pretty uneventful, and in fact, we are shown less than twenty minutes of one week's class time. Although we abhor stress in our own lives, we love it other people's lives, even if the producers must create the conflict. Thus we have the scene starring the pointlessly nasty assistant principal. None of us knows what is going on “backstage” or what “stage directions” the students who volunteered to be in “Mr. Danza's” class have received.

Most viewers have never experienced the so-called reality of most reality TV. How many viewers have ever attended chef school, much less been stranded on an island? However, everybody has been to school. Everybody possesses a lens of personal experience, a frame of reference when it comes to education. Everybody's an expert. Funny thing is, we all have a different lens, and that makes the comments (on Hulu) about Tony Danza's show as interesting as the show itself. Furthermore, most people have a rather limited frame of reference, but that does not stop people from overgeneralizing, like the commenters who claim he should have picked a school more like their school if he really wanted to show what education in America is like. Nevertheless, as the show progresses, the comments should provide an interesting cross-section of society's attitudes toward education gathered together in one place. One thing I have already learned from the comments is that the general public does not know the difference between certification and an education degree.

When it comes to sheer numbers of frames of reference, I have more than most. I have taught in urban schools, suburban schools and rural schools, American schools overseas and in the good ole USA, Japanese schools, public and charter schools, religious schools and boarding schools, elementary, secondary, and post secondary schools. The show and Tony Danza have taken a lot of undeserved heat. I mean students do not usually sit around a cafeteria table and complain that they have not seen their teachers' resumes (as they did in this show). Every teacher has a first day, so whining about a teacher's lack of experience sounds specious. Students and Tony's colleagues complain about Tony talking too much, as if most classrooms are not dominated by teacher talk. When Tony is entertaining, students complain that it is not a teacher's job to entertain them, as if they have never complained about being bored to death by un-entertaining teachers.

Then there are those who resent the fact he is teaching without a state credential. A certified teacher sits in the back of the class every day, so it is more like an extended student-teaching placement . Did you know Tony is paying the school $3500/per class for the privilege? Mr. Danza's first day was no worse and no better than the first day of many, if not most, first year teachers. Many people seem invested in Tony's failure—but spoiler alert, the reviews are out, and his principal has gone on record saying she would hire him for real in a heartbeat because he proved to be a caring, gifted teacher. Apparently his on-the-job training was at least as effective as the course work for a state credential, maybe because the schools of education focus on the theoretical and neglect the practical aspects of teacher training. I am not willing to write off Mr. Danza. I am curious to see how he develops. He has the potential to do more for education in this country than all the PhDs put together.

Chancellor Rhee's Rock and Hard Place

When it comes right down to it, a lot of education stakeholders have an interest in preserving the status quo. Witness turf wars like the acrimonious debate about charter schools where one camp actually accuses the other of willfully intending to destroy public schools. All kinds of band-aid approaches have been tried and abandoned. Fads have come and gone. The window of opportunity for educating young children is quite small, and routinely squandered by partisan reformers. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that 58% of Americans do not like Democrats and 68% do not like Republicans. Obviously partisanship is a lose-lose proposition. So is framing every issue as an either-or dichotomy.

The public constantly seeks to attach a label even to nonpartisan educators. Those whose views are clearly not partisan, usually because they regularly and alternately offend one side or the other, get painted as wishy-washy wimps. I know because critical emails I receive fall into one of three categories: You Closet Liberal, You Closet Conservative, or You Fence-Sitter. Rarely are my positions critiqued on their merits, pro or con.

Education issues are systemic, and systemic overhaul requires someone with knowledge of the interrelationships between system components. Chancellor Michelle Rhee may not have many years experience as a teacher, but she has as much as many principals and administrators. In the partisanship climate of education today, whoever is serious about education will make bitter enemies in one camp or another. Guaranteed. They, like Rhee, will be damned if they do and damned if they don't. They will likely make many mistakes along the way. It is difficult to be your best self in the adversarial climate of education reform. Entrenched interests fight tooth and nail.

I have my own Rhee-like experience. More than ten years ago, in a county where there were serious problems with special education, the county superintendent of education approached me. He wanted to appoint me the county administrator of special education. I described my plan for reforming the county's special education programs. He loved it. Then I warned him to expect a political firestorm because what I was proposing would upset a lot of complacent and comfortable apple carts. I might not only rock a few boats, but capsize them. Unlike Rhee's boss when she similarly warned him, my prospective boss backed down. With an election coming up the next year, he decided he did not want to imperil the chances of his hand-picked successor. His designated successor won the election and decided he did not want to upset apple carts either.

Effective education reform requires a comprehensive overhaul of the system on a foundation of relational trust. Rhee pretty much admits she did not develop sufficient levels of relational trust. Ten years ago, if that superintendent had appointed me, I might have made the same mistake in my good-intentioned zeal to get things done yesterday with a minimum of schmoozing. I do agree with Rhee's critics that reform should not be something done to teachers. Teachers should be leading reform, but their efforts, and even their access, is blocked every day by administrators and researchers with minimal, even zero substantial, in-the-trenches responsibility for the academic achievement of students.

Reform is dangerous stuff. Teachers who drive small-scale reform in individual schools often become targets of not only the students and administrators, but even other teachers. Most schools have one or more teachers who are too busy being under-appreciated great teachers to be politically active. Some of them do not even have the time to write the multiple essays, arrange video-taping of their classes, and take time off to attend interviews in order to compete to be named Teacher of the Year. Teachers of the Year cannot simply be excellent teachers day in and day out, and be recognized. I admire Chancellor Rhee for stepping into fray. In the current political climate, it is not possible to be both serious about reform and harmonious with all stakeholders.

Effective ELL Science Intervention

My son read this article and said I was ahead of my time yet again. Fifteen years ago, I spent an important chunk of my career as the middle school science teacher in an international school whose students were 49% ELL. Although none, not one of the ELLs, spoke Spanish, they spoke many other languages, mostly East Asian languages. I quickly realized the old, time-tested sequence of “read the textbook, do a few labs, test the material” would not work. I created several interventions, all of which leveraged the native speaking skills of peers.

First, I started every unit with a series of labs, an intervention similar to having "students initially observe the process of osmosis with a tea bag and water" as the opener to a lesson about osmosis. Each lab team consisted of one native speaker and one ELL. The effect was that students gained experiential understanding of new vocabulary or schema before they encountered the vocabulary in printed form. Schema is the set of experience that informs comprehension. It is the frame of reference. For example, I would venture to guess that if you do not possess the schema of engineer, this sentence is gobbledygook, "A duct-less split can produce the exact amount of energy needed to temper an envelope.”* Developing schema is crucial to first language acquisition and just as important in second language acquisition.

Second, I adapted a primary school literacy program for use in my science class. The program came from Johns Hopkins University with the acronym CIRC (Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition). I used my science text as a "basal reader" to create "Treasure Hunts" and other CIRC-based materials. Every student, even the native speakers, used these materials.

(The original design of CIRC provided templates for teachers to adapt their own school-adopted texts. It was later found that teachers lacked the will or the ability to create their own adaptations, so CIRC was reincarnated as the now-famous Success For All program. Today, teachers complain about expensive, scripted curriculum, but they did not take advantage of inexpensive, non-scripted curriculum when they had the chance. The creators of CIRC had no original intention of usurping teacher autonomy).

Third, I had students read their text aloud in class CIRC-style. Each lab team sat with their chairs next to each other and facing opposite directions so that the right ear of one student was close to the right ear of the partner. Each native speaker read one paragraph to their ELL partner, and then the ELL student read the same paragraph to their native speaking partner. The native speaking partner would supply words or correct pronunciation as needed. The team then repeated the process with the second and subsequent paragraphs. Thus, no student was a passive listener. At any moment, half of the students were reading aloud, and half were actively listening, either as ELLs preparing to read the same paragraph, or as native-speakers assisting their ELL partners.

Researchers say that the most valuable education research comes from teachers testing strategies in their own classrooms and reflecting on the results. However, when teachers report their own classroom research, it is often denigrated as being merely anecdotal or lacking sufficient sample size. Whatever. I am going to go ahead and report my results.

I gave the same unit tests to all students, native speakers and ELL students alike. Every single ELL student passed the tests, sometimes exceeding their own expectations. Even more remarkable, the native speakers' achievement skyrocketed. I was appalled to find that in the past I had denied native speaking students such high levels of achievement. The interventions worked so well with the first unit that they became my standard operating procedure ever after.

* Example from Marilee Sprenger, "Teaching the Critical Vocabulary of the Common Core"

No Swimming: Classroom Management and Rules

Have you ever read something, and then weeks later found that the author had made a bigger impression than you first believed? Sometime ago, I read the story of a teacher whose first name I believe was Deborah. She has one classroom rule, just one, which she absolutely insists upon, a rule she resolutely refuses to negotiate. What is her one ironclad rule? No swimming during class. That's it. She says she was thinking of an Anatole France quote, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Deborah's point is that it is counterproductive to make classroom rules out of everyday courteous behavior that applies whether in or out of school. Students, as reasonably socialized human beings, already know they are treat others with respect, keep their hands to themselves, etc etc etc. According to Deborah's imperfect analogy, the students are, or should be, the rich to whom such classroom rules apply. To illustrate her point, Deborah created a rule no one could break.

The very act of writing down and posting the rules of civilized behavior may invite rebellion. At the very least, it sends a subliminal message that the teacher expects these rules to be broken. As we know from Pygmalion effect research,students tend to rise (or fall) to expectations. The older the student, the more confidently the teacher can assume the student knows the norms of public behavior. After a cursory review, consequences should apply without the expectation of (sometimes numerous) second-chance warnings.

There is another kind of subliminal expectation, and because it is subliminal, it rarely rises to conscious realization. I first became aware of the power of these types of expectations while I was in Japan. There is a rule that shoes are to be removed whenever entering a home (and some other places, as well, the tip-off is usually plastic slippers in the entrance). In the twenty years I spent in Japan, I never saw anyone break this rule. I never heard anyone remind a child more than about three years old to “Take off your shoes” the way we routinely remind them to, “Say thank you.”

People do not often violate such “given” rules, or norms of behavior. I successfully used my observation of the power of “givens” with my own children. I established givens partly by modeling desired behavior and partly by sending non-verbal messages. In this way, I communicated to my kids, for example, that making a ruckus in public was unacceptable. Thus I never dealt with screaming kids in the grocery store, or anywhere else.

I tried to communicate certain so-called classroom rules the same way. For example, as a science teacher I mindfully and intentionally set up the room. I situated my desk so the back of my chair faced a wall and placing the chemical cabinet against that wall, so that chemical cabinet fairly screamed, “Off Limits!” Students do not like to go behind the teacher's desk. I wore my lab coat starting from the first day, and students “somehow” knew they would be doing real and serious science in my class. Similarly, this English teacher has her own ideas (such as the way she uses a seating chart) to non-verbally establish herself as the classroom manager.

Another problem with classroom rules is that rules, policies and routines are lumped together. Individual teachers may have different policies, but they generally share the same rules. A routine is not a rule; it is a procedure for efficiently accomplishing some repetitive task. The first day of class is the day to establish order from the outset by reviewing rules, communicating policies, and practicing routines. Classroom rules, policies and procedures are most effective in a climate of relational trust such as Dr. Pezz, who has no "rules," tries to establish.

...rules may not be necessary.
This may sound overly simple, but I tell my (high school) students that I only create rules if we need to have them. We only have them in my classes if students can’t respect one another and me.

How to Write Effective Progress Reports

"Parents these days just don't care,” a colleague complained to me one day. “I sent home progress reports two weeks ago, and so far only one parent has come in." The problem may not be the parents; it may be the progress reports.

Writing progress reports four or more times per year is probably one of the most time consuming duties teachers have. Ideally, every student should get a progress report, those that are doing great as well as those not doing so great. However, sending a progress report to every student is not always practical. If the student is doing well, the parents would love to hear it. Teachers may genuinely appreciate the chance to praise high-achieving students, but let's be honest. The main reason for progress reports is to alert parents that their student is on track to receive a poor grade come report card time. In some schools, progress reports are even called "deficiency reports." Supposedly if parents are notified in a timely matter, they will take steps to correct the problem. Yet most teachers do not expect, nor see, any real results in terms of student achievement.

How do you write a progress report that gets results? The secret is to write reports that are SPECIFIC and OBJECTIVE. This following sample progress report is easy to fill out, gets results and can be readily adapted for regular notification to parents even outside of progress report “season.”

A typical progress report might read, "Johnny is not doing well in class," a statement that is neither specific nor objective. It is not specific because a parent cannot tell from this report exactly what the child's problem might be. More than likely the parent will find getting additional accurate information from the child quite difficult, if not impossible. Such a report is also not objective because it expresses a judgment. It is possible that the parent has different goals than the teacher or draws a different conclusion from the same circumstances.

I once had a child from special education mainstreamed into my class without my knowledge. From the parent's point of view, this boy was "doing well" if he got through a school day without a violent outburst. His mother told me, "You should have seen him last year. He has really come a long way." The parent did not particularly care whether the boy did his homework or paid attention.

A better progress report might read, "Johnny isn't turning in his homework. He is disruptive in class." This report may seem to be both more specific and objective than the first one, but it actually gives very little useful information to the parent. If Johnny has turned in even one or two assignments, he will insist to his parents that he did so turn in his homework. If the parents come in at all, they will say, "But he says he has turned in his homework." The parent will likely have trouble dealing with the report of class disruption. The child will insist he has done nothing, or that the teacher doesn't like him. Parents need to know exactly what the child did that was disruptive in order to effectively discuss it with their child.

Some teachers are reluctant to be explicit because they do not want to drag out the heavy ammunition. They hope that a gentle, diplomatic hint will be enough, but it rarely is. I have read cumulative folders of troubled middle schoolers with copies of notes the first grade teacher wrote saying, "Sarah is working on socialization skills." Parents read that and think, "That's wonderful. Sarah is working on socialization skills. Very good." They often do not realize that the teacher is trying to say that Sarah is not getting along well with other children, or worse.

What can a teacher do to make sure progress reports get results?

1. HAVE A PLAN

Progress reports should be just one element of a well-thought-out classroom management plan, not an add-on. Some extra work in the first quarter will pay dividends the rest of the school year. Before the first day of school, write out your classroom policies, grading policies and consequences for misbehavior. Send these home with students with a tear-off slip at the bottom for parents to sign. Make the return of these signed slips the first homework assignment.

Ask the school to print three sets of class mailing labels for you. Or have the students address three envelopes to their parents. Or collect the email addresses of the parents as part of the contact information. There is really no point in sending a progress report home with the students; parents may never see them. Snail mail is only a little better, but it depends on who gets to the mailbox first.

2. COLLECT DATA

Teachers have usually figured out the class dynamics within the first couple weeks of school. Document this knowledge by keeping a record of who has their materials, who turns in their homework, who pays attention, etc. Make an informal tally sheet for checking off observations. Keep an anecdotal record of specific offenses, either written down or dictated into a tape recorder. It may sound like a mammoth bookkeeping job, and one thing teachers do not need is more paperwork. I give each student two lines in my grade book, one for grades and one for my private data coding and reporting system. It can be difficult in the beginning to keep the grade book handy and quickly code your observations as they occur or immediately after class. With time and practice it gets easier.

3. OFFER HELP EARLY

After two or three weeks, give students with missing assignments an opportunity to make up the work. Offer tutorial sessions for students who are behind. Keep a record of who comes in and what they accomplish.

4. PRE-FORMAT THE PROGRESS REPORTS

The progress report forms provided by most schools are inadequate. Design your own customized forms with fill-in blanks. Include the school's phone number and invite parents to make a conference appointment. If using email, it is a simple matter to attach the progress report to an email. Feel free to adapt the sample form below.

5. WRITING THE REPORT

The key is to be objective and avoid passing judgment. Give parents enough information to make their own judgments. Use the sandwich approach for criticisms: something positive, something negative, something positive. Be as specific as possible:

"Johnny did not bring his textbook to 4 out of 15 class meetings." NOT "Johnny comes to class unprepared."

"Peter threw spit wads in class on three occasions." NOT "Peter is disruptive in class."

Use positive sentence constructions whenever possible:

"Sarah has turned in 5 out of 20 homework assignments." NOT "Sarah has failed to turn in 15 out of 20 assignments."

"Sean has passed 4 out of 6 pop quizzes." NOT “Sean has failed 2 out of 6 pop quizzes."

Refer to the policy letter you sent home at the beginning of the school year. Tell parents whether the signed slip was returned or not. Mention any special efforts to help the student and the student's response:

"Mary attended 2 tutoring sessions during lunch and made up 3 missing assignments."

Even if the progress report is positive, be specific. Show, don't tell. An opening such as "Johnny is a pleasure to have in class" should be followed by an example, "He pays attention and asks insightful questions." An illustrative anecdote is best. “Johnny invented a creative new way to model negative numbers with the Algebra Lab Gear.

6. MAIL THE PROGRESS REPORTS

The whole point of progress reports is to keep parents informed. Therefore mail them directly instead of sending them home with students. Or email them. Your school may have its own progress report policies. Many schools require the distribution of hard copy progress reports to be signed by parents and returned. Normally you can customize your progress reports while accommodating school policies.

The first time I sent out progress reports according to these guidelines, the reaction was swift and sure. The day after the reports arrived home, several students appeared in my room at lunch time, lunch bags in hand. "My dad says I have to eat lunch with you until I catch up on all my homework," said one. "Yeah, me too," said another. The students came because their parents had sent them, and they came every day until the zeros were gone. They took their new-found diligence into the regular class as well, and they were rightfully pleased when their quarter grades showed it.



Sample Progress Report (on school letterhead)
PROGRESS REPORT TO PARENTS

STUDENT'S NAME: ______________________________ SUBJECT: _______________

DATE:___________________ GRADE TO DATE: _________
-----------------------------------------------------------------
CLASSWORK:
____ out of ____homework assignments completed.

Returned signed policy slip? ____Yes ____No

Passed ____ out of ____ quizzes.

Make up work: ____Completed ____Incomplete ____NA

Has participated in tutoring sessions? ____Yes ____No

Test Scores: ________

Participation:
____Excellent ____Satisfactory ____Needs Improvement

ATTITUDE AND CONDUCT:
____Well-mannered and courteous:
____Disruptive:


ATTENDANCE:
____ Unexcused Tardies ____Unexcused Absences

COMMENTS:




If desired, call xxx-xxxx to arrange a parent-teacher conference.

Date:__________ Teacher's Signature:____________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I have read and understood this progress report.

Student's Signature:________________________

Parent's Signature: ________________________

Date: _______________