Worth It

Anyone who has followed my Twitter or the very occasional post here on the blog knows that it has been a rough year for me.  There are a myriad of reasons for that, I had to pick up the department chair spot at my school, there are 4 new to the building folks in my dept, I spent all of last summer and some of the fall being a common core coach.

And...due to a teacher leaving about a week before school started, I took on a 7th class of 34 kids.  That I think was the real difficulty for me, even though I am still glad I did it, I didn't want those kids to have a month or two of subs before a teacher got there.  I've drowned this year in grading, even with only grading SBG style.  My self paced efforts fell short, I have barely made any new content, we probably did about half of the fun activities as last year. In short, it was that year that just about every veteran teacher has every 5 or so, the doom year.

The thing is, I teach at the most amazing school, filled with amazing people, from my fellow teachers, to administrators and the students, most especially the students.  We are an insanely quirky school.  We are in our third year, and we put a lot more focus on our Robotics team than any of the few sports we have.  I guarantee that we have more kids that play Minecraft 2 or more hours a day than have any clue about the upcoming NFL draft.  Nerd is not a slur, but a badge most of our kids (and staff for that matter) wear with pride.

In short, we go to a school that I wish I had been at as a kid.  That was really proved to me last week when I got one of those phone calls as I pulled into the parking lot and got the text that meant I had to leave to pick up my son asap.  We had been doing an inquiry lab in my AP Chem class and I figured they had most of their data and could do their discussion and complete the lab.  Well, they had the discussion and then I got an email while I was at home trying to prep a last couple of review videos before the AP test.  The email said essentially, hey Mr Arnold, we discussed it, but we really feel like we need to run a couple of more tests, we've narrowed it down to those two things, can we run the tests?

Any good science teacher knows that you can't let even the best class actually do any lab without being there for safety reasons.  So I texted the teacher in the next room, asked him to switch out with my sub for 10 minutes to let them do the tests.  He did and they did, and it was just amazing.

Here's what it comes down to, I've had most of the kids in that class for 2 straight years, and we have a good relationship, which is of course the mantra of a lot of progressive educators.  It really makes a difference, I feel like these kids would run through a wall for me, and I would definitely take a bullet for them.  Some folks might see that and say, well you only have great kids and you're talking about your AP class.  Fair enough, but I teach at a public high school that works through a lottery, we don't select the kids at all, we take em all and love em, educate em.  But we are making a place where it is not only to ok to excel, but preferred and I'd argue, expected.

And I love this school...If someone offered me a job for 10k more tomorrow, I wouldn't take it.  And last night, the hard work was really rewarded.  I've been teaching for 14 years now, and have always thought of myself as a slightly above average teacher with a slight gift for building rapport. I think this is built around the fact that I love being in the classroom, that I am willing to treat students for the young adults that they are, smart, with ideas that matter and yet accept the fact that they are indeed, still teenagers and it is ok for them to mess up. My students probably won't ever get the district highest scores, but I've sent a lot off to be engineers, doctors and english teachers...

So last night I was voted our school's teacher of the year by our students.  And our school being what it is, we don't just have them vote, they have to provide evidence, the have to write in why they think a teacher should be teacher of the year.  And man...I almost cried...in fact, when I had to go up to get the award, I had to get off the stage pretty quick so I didn't cry.  It meant a lot more than I can ever express.  I know that a lot of folks think that what students say about teachers doesn't matter because they just hate the hard teachers or whatever, but I've always thought that HS students are great BS detectors. They know who cares and who doesn't, who cares about their test scores for the evaluation and who wants to actually prepare them for college and or the real world.  The things they said made the whole year worth it....the dozens of kids who came up to me today and congratulated me, said they had voted for me, said I was the best. (also, I got serenaded by our Dean in the lunchroom, delightfully awkward like most social interactions at our school.)

I'm not saying that it is all true.  I don't think that I'm the best teacher at our school by any stretch, we have a ton of amazing teachers, because a great school with amazing administrators attracts good teachers and students.  But I'm so pleased to be here, and so ecstatic to even be in the running. I'm overjoyed that I've made enough of an impact on some of our kids to be "that teacher".  If anything, it just motivates me to want to do more for these students next year.

And it occurs that it is so true that educators don't work for the money (though it would be nice to have more!) but for this feeling, not that "you are the best", but just, hey, you made a big difference in my life, I'm going to tell my friends to take your class too. It is so amazingly true, and I don't know that ever felt that as strongly as I did last night.

PS...I love my school, the students, parents, teachers, and administrators at it. It is the best!

Crisis of Faith

So herein is the post where I admit that my fancy philosophies and attempt to do things as student centered have not been terribly successful.  I suspect that most of my twitter friends who have much the same philosophies as me will just tell me it is a rough year and to "tweak" what I've been doing.  Those who hate one of the many new things I've tried this year, flipped, SBG, self-paced, etc. will probably say it is my own doing that I should have stuck to the tried and true molds.  I'm open to criticism, but would much rather have some positive ideas.

A quick outline of how I've been running the bulk of my classes this year.  I run a full flipped classroom, meaning that I deliver little direct instruction in class, rather I pre-record my "lectures" for the students to watch.  Sometimes that happens at the beginning of the cycle, sometimes in the middle, depending on the inquiry (or Explore) phase.

I use what I think of as a modified Standards-Based Grading model, where I still give 100 point grades (as this is what parents and students most readily understand), but I don't count practice problems, etc for a grade, I just grade something like 50 standards based assessments and the occasional bigger cumulative test.
For most of this year, I've also been allowing self paced in my classroom.  What this means is that students have an outline of things they need to get done, some optional, some not, and target dates.  There are also some other deadlines that are a little stronger, but those are typically weeks past the target dates to accommodate for students who need a bit more time. It also allowed students to work ahead if they chose to, or to take an extra day or two as needed to get the material.

I also have a pretty generous retake policy (I think) as I allow students to take any of the SBG assessments over twice, for a total of three attempts.  It is not the same assessment each time, I have multiple versions of each of these.

My goal behind all of this is manifold, but to shorten this I'll bullet point my reasons for making these big changes (gradually over the past 3 years):

• As a parent of 3 young boys, I believe that as much as possible, home time should be home time.  While the videos are supposed to be watched at home, this 20 or so minutes two, maybe three times a week doesn't seem too excessive to me.
• Chemistry is hard, and if students have to struggle at home, they often don't get past the first problem.
• I am much more concerned that they learn the material at all than they get it right the first time.  If a student bombs a test the first time and there is no chance for redemption why learn that material other than for the final?
• I want students to learn to manage their time and learn at a pace that is comfortable to them.  From the very beginning of my first forays into "flipping" or "21st Century Ed" or whatever buzzword we're calling it this week, I wanted it to be about the students taking charge of their own learning, being as student centered as possible, while still under the umbrella of my state and county standards.

I suspect that all of this sounds like the party line to both those in the party and out.  And I'll be honest, I really believe it.  I want my students to be able to acquire knowledge and to be able to apply it.  I didn't switch over from being a largely lecture based teacher to a constructivist (still not sure I'm that) or 21st century teacher or whatever.  I was a very successful lecture based teacher for years, with a lot of students that tell me I inspired them to go on to careers in engineering, science, and medicine.  I suspect I could have remained that way and still influence a lot of students in a positive way.  A fear has nagged me all along that folks who want to try out "new" (not sure that they are all new) methods of teaching have a tendency to run down teachers who still teach the old way.  That's ludicrous as I had a lot of amazing teachers and there was no SBG, videos, workshop model or any of that.  

Back to my current crisis of faith.  I sort of want to go back to the old way, because the new way is driving me nuts.  A lot of my kids love it and rave about it to visitors to our school, which are frequent.  I talk to prospective parents, community leaders and educators about my methods fairly often.  But I look at my gradebook and see a lot of Fs....to my friends who don't believe in grades, I have a lot of students who don't know the material either, who don't produce amazing projects, who just want to work while I'm standing over them and then go back to watching videos on their ipads (not chem videos!).  I spend hours upon hours grading retakes, mostly for the students wanting to go from a C to a B or a B to an A, rarely from the students failing.

Here's the kicker, it is largely my fault.  I teach at a pretty high flying school.  I love this place with everything that screams teacher in me, I love the kids, the staff, the gosh-darn buildings.  We have some amazing rockstar teachers that really get a lot out of a lot of the kids.  Almost none of them do retakes, I know maybe 2 or 3 that do SBG. One flips in a manner somewhat similar to me.  

So if you are a 14 year old kid, and you have a 10 point assignment due for French class the next day and an assessment for Chemistry that you could take the next day if you weren't ready, which would you do.  Never mind that as an adult you know that the assessment in Chem is worth 100 points and the 10 point assignment might be meaningless busywork.  Never mind that you want to be an engineer when you go to college.  What matters is that the French teacher doesn't take late work and the Chem teacher just wants to check your work personally to see if you did it right.  And if you did, then you can take the assessment, but you don't want to take it anyway, so you put it off.

I'm totally a victim of my own policies taken to their logical extension, do what you have to for now, put off what you can put off.  

Yes, I put in deadlines, but if you've put off 4 assessments and try to cram them in, what happens...you bomb them all, because you don't know squat.  No big deal, because you can do retakes....only you forgot to do the retakes, or never studied to prepare for them, so you do worse the 2nd time.  You'd like to do it the 3rd time, but you have an English project due, so it falls by the wayside.

To forestall some of the obvious, yes, I have good relationships with my kids.  I make every effort to speak to every student every day about their progress, to nudge them, admonish them, to pull them into my sort of office and let them know this can't work.  They assure me they will do better, then don't.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't my first rodeo...this year marks I believe the 13th year I've taught Chemistry I, and the 3rd year I've been in full flip mode.  I know that even the best teacher doesn't reach every kid in every class every day, despite all contrary intentions.  As a friend of mine says, sometimes it is hard to get between a student and their F, even when you love them and work hard for them.

I'm really just so frustrated and I don't want to wait til next year to change things up.  I love the kids I have now, and don't want them to miss out on a single thing because I was beholden to a philosophy, as right as I might think it is.

TVAAS at least being considered

This post in in response to the news today here  about the state BOE in Tennessee at least at the moment, apparently removing the requirement for a teacher to have a 3 on TVAAS for 2 out of 3 years for professional licensure.

I'll say in short that this is good news, for teachers, for teacher morale, and by extension, for students of good teachers throughout the state.

I know that the immediate response would be that we need ways to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom.  I've taught for 14 years now and have definitely seen/worked with a few teachers I wouldn't want my children to be taught by.  Emphasis on a few.  In that, I agree that bad teachers should be removed, but what I would disagree with is that you need a bogus number whose statistical validity for the use that Tennessee applies, i.e. hiring and firing of teachers, to it has been disputed by the very person that came up with the measure.  My solution for the problem of bad teachers is to not hide behind a bureaucratic numerical rationale, but rather to have administrators at the building level make the call with due process involved.

Let me throw a few things out there about why TVAAS is bad, from my own mouth, but also from others I've spoken to or been emailed as a result of being on the Teacher Working Group:

• TVAAS is a black box.  I've heard this from a ton of folks at all levels.  I read through the powerpoint of a presentation given by someone behind TVAAS explaining how it wasn't a black box (in fact, that was a bullet point on a slide).  They gave a formula and explained the variables.  Except one, which had proprietary algorithms, so they couldn't be explained. That folks, is a black box.  Just like chemical companies with their proprietary surfactants, I understand protecting trade secrets, but don't tell that something isn't a black box but then don't let me see how it is calculated.  I'm no statistician, but I think I have enough math to figure it out if shown it all.  I suspect I have more math in my background than a few of the folks deciding if it is right for everyone.
• If someone gets a 4 or 5 on their observations, but gets a 2 on the TVAAS, why do we assume that that it is the evaluator that needs calibrated, rather than the data.  I'd rather trust my principal to make an informed decision about my teaching as opposed to TVAAS data. (as would almost everyone I've talked to about it).
• I don't know this for certain, but from all accounts I've heard, TVAAS counts outliers.  Again, I don't know a lot of statistics, but outliers aren't usually the basis for these types of decisions. I have a teacher that had one student of 67 account for 50% of their TVAAS score by blowing off the test.
• Hand in hand with that is that TVAAS has an unfair effect on teachers, especially as you get to higher levels.  If you teach Biology and the teacher next to you teaches Physics, and you both had the same kid who blew off a test, it hurts you as a Bio teacher because that is a TVAAS course.  On the other hand, it doesn't do much of anything to the Physics teacher as that is not a TVAAS course.  Most courses in High school are not, thus providing a disincentive to teach those classes.
• That same one student blowing off a test could then bomb another teacher the next year in the SAME CLASS as TVAAS doesn't take that into account.
• If you teach HS and have 6 classes, but only one is a TVAAS course, that one class is 35% of your evaluation (more if it happens to be where your observations are, but who knows).

Ironically, despite this tirade, I'm ok with getting TVAAS data, I just wish it was explained more.   Tell us what the expected gains are.  In the case of a firing level score (1 or 2 the way it was) have a committee at the school sit down and see what happened.  Was it one student drawing a pot leaf on their assessment (happened to me one year btw)?  Did say, a school lose two weeks to snow the semester that exam was given?  Was the teacher pulled out for a lot of meetings?  Was their plan time constantly eaten up with meaningless PLC time? 

What is to keep teachers from fleeing schools where they fear a student not taking the test seriously and thereby harming their entire career?  What is to stop the inner circle around any principal from making sure they cherry pick the classes for themselves or make sure they only teach non-TVAAS classes?

Again, I understand the thought behind objective data behind decisions in education.  But I question whether the data in this case (TVAAS) is objective.  Trying to reduce education to numbers when it is both an art and a science is futile, like trying to assign numbers to art.  Train good principals (I have an awesome one), and empower them to shape the culture of their schools, trust them to let you know if their are teachers that don't fit that culture.

So I will applaud the state BOE for at least considering things, for having the wherewithal to change their opinions as warranted.  As for the flummox situation, speak to ordinary teachers in a variety of schools, ask them what they think, pros and cons.  Don't surround yourself with people only like yourself or make educational decisions based mainly on a political predisposition.  And recognize that things change as we learn more, that is what education is all about.

Teacher Revolt pt 1: Choice

My district has undergone what many are deeming a teacher revolt in the past few months, bringing to the surface a lot of what I think are long-standing concerns among teachers.  I'd like to preface my comments here by noting that unless noted, my thoughts are my own, not those of my district, nor of the Teacher Working Group of which I'm happy to be a part.  That group is set up to bring teacher concerns directly to the school board and the superintendent without any middle men and I think is a great first step in acknowledging that there are serious concerns.

I'd also like to say that many of the things I write I believe are true of the county as a whole (and in some cases, education in the US as a whole), but many don't actually apply to me directly.  I love the school I'm at, my principals are truly amazing, encouraging and willing to listen.  Not that they have a lot of choice but to listen with me around...I have a big mouth.

I plan on writing up a few posts on this topic of the unrest that teachers I believe all over are feeling.  I'd like to start though with what I think is the simplest fix of all, choice...

Choice is almost at the point of fitting on edubabble bingo cards at this point (or it may actually be).  Many want parents to have choice of what school to go to, as teachers we are admonished and indeed docked points on evaluations for not offering students choice in their learning.  A lot of that makes total sense as in our society, personal choice reigns supreme, even if the choice is over a meaningless sugary beverage.

The fact of the matter though is that most teachers either don't have choice or feel that they don't.  On the former of those, in many circumstances what teachers do in their class is almost fully dictated by the "programs" that counties purchase.  This may be a reading or math curriculum or an assessment system like Discovery Ed.  Many of these programs are probably great, many are vetted by psychometricians, many have shown statistical gains for schools using them (I'll come back to statistics in another angry post).  Teachers are told that these assessments will be given on certain days regardless of what else may be planned for that day.  The programs range from guidelines to scripted where you are told exactly what to say in what amount of time.  When I was a common core coach this past year, we were encouraged to stick to the script and indeed, to carry around a timer to make sure we were using time effectively.

The real killer is that there are tons of these programs/assessments/etc for teachers, especially in the lower grades.  Their use is mandated by either the school or the district. What that means is that someone outside of the classroom has determined what is right for that teacher's class of 20-30 kids.  That someone is typically many layers of bureaucracy and several years removed from actual teaching.  In addition, they rarely get feedback or input from anyone outside of a core inner circle of like minded educators.  A teacher is not allowed to deviate from the guidelines unless say, their literacy coach comes in and mandates that they spend 30 minutes of reading time with 2 students, 25 with another 4 and whatever is left for the rest of the students. God forbid the kids are at the water fountain for 2 minutes over their time back from recess, the teacher is in hot water then for losing instructional time. (true story btw)

On top of that, all of these mandates are often contradictory. Many departments/schools have very strict pacing guides.  I was told at one point that I better be following it strictly, that someone should be able to walk in my room any day and know from the pacing guide exactly what I'd be teaching.  Was that pacing guide adjusted for ACT testing, Discovery Ed testing, CRA practice or even more mundane things like school pictures, pep rallies, etc?  Of course not...

At most schools teachers have little to no say in what they teach, in grade level at elementary, in subject (other than their certification) in other grades.  Then, once they are in a class, they are told not just what to teach, which in the form of curriculum or standards is acceptable, though there are issues there, but more offensively how to teach.  Ironically, very few of those telling them how to teach were effective classroom teachers at least in my experience.

Here is my proposal...Give every teacher their standards, ask them if they want/need a prepackaged program or assessment modules.  If they say no and their students don't seem to be learning, then ask them to reconsider or at that point explain that something has to change.  In other words, tell me what to teach but not how.  Don't tell me I can't count zeros, don't tell me I have to use videos or PBL or for that matter that I should straight up lecture.  You want me to differentiate for my students? Great, I do...I think that is my best attribute as a teacher.  So do the same for teachers, give us choice, let us be the professionals that we are.

Disclaimer part 2: Again, this is a general statement, not aimed specifically at my own district, though the problems there bring this to mind.

The Halfway Point

Side note: I mistyped the title as the Halfway Pint the first time through, that probably says something...

As I sit down to write this post, I realized that I haven't posted anything to my blog since before school actually started when my intent this year was to do so weekly.  I had a couple of draft posts in September, but never went back to them, which is probably all for the best.  But as with many others, I think that this is a good point to decompress and re-evaluate as I head into next semester.

A quick comment about partially explaining why I haven't been blogging, or even tweeting as much as I did last year. I think the more I'm trying to innovate, the more I'm looking to bounce ideas off of folks, the more I feel the desire to tweet, to blog, to get my ideas out there, not only as an outlet for me, but to get some feedback from people I trust (and some that I don't...).  But the year has been rough, I'm teaching 7 blocks instead of the usual 6, I'm trying to develop an Organic/Biochem class from scratch and teaching AP Chem after a year off with some new standards.  All of that plus a house that literally tried to fall down on us this year has led to some days where it was all I could do to stay two days behind, much less to really blog or interact.

Enough martyr talk, on to the real stuff, the classroom and the kids.  First off, my IOB (organic/biochem) class has been a great bunch of kids who didn't know what they were getting into.  We've definitely struggled in there, to no small degree because I'm developing stuff as we go.  My AP Chem class is the best I've had in 5 years of teaching AP, I expect some really great things out of them, even as they have probably felt like the material kicked them in the teeth everyday.

The real heart of my concerns is my 4 sections of Honors Chem I.  Chem I is my jam so to speak, I feel like you could drop me in a Chem I class just about anywhere and I could just teach if need be.  This would be my 3rd full year teaching Chem I under the flipped classroom model, so I really thought with some minor tweaks that this would roll easily so I could put a lot more effort into the other newer classes to me.  That of course was at the beginning of the year when I had 3 sections of HChem.  Due to some difficulties with a teacher leaving us the week before kids came back, I decided to pick up another section as I didn't want those 34 kids to have a long term sub and be behind.  I mean, it was the same prep, so no worries right.... (pause for laughter).

Oh, I didn't mention that these classes were full of our experiment to put our advanced freshmen straight into Honors Chemistry I....in 9th grade....Since I haven't really taught freshmen since my first year of teaching 14 years ago, that was going to be a change.  I decided that I'd slow stuff down for a while from my normal pace, which was okay as I wanted to integrate some of the Common Core stuff I'd learned over the past year as well.

Actually, the freshmen for the most part have been fine...I'm still not sure if this is the best plan overall for them, but they can hang and thrive, no real issue.

Once we had things firmly established (so I thought) I implemented the new part of Chem I this year, which was a full on self-paced classroom.  I had everything set up for the students, had suggested timelines and they had the freedom to learn at their own pace in the classroom.  From a lot of students, they found it incredibly freeing and really wanted to jump up and sing its praises to the frequent visitors in the classroom.  Another block of students were fine with it, but they would have been fine if we all went at one pace (as far as their preferences went).

The last block of students though...I would estimate 10% or so of my students just could not handle it.  They would chat while working on 2 problems for a 90 minute block...they would work on an English assignment.  And while I did have a good time photobombing their occasional snapchat forays, I was really pretty ticked. I discussed it with them on a near daily basis, so they would start to work, then fell off.  Another 10% of my students just blew me away with the incredibly slow pace of their work.  They were for the most part working the whole time, but at such a slow pace that they were essentially a unit behind by midterm time (out of two self paced units).

In analyzing the situation as it went on and now with 2 weeks of peaceful distance from it, here are my takeways (yes, some of which I knew beforehand):

• A certain block of students is unwilling at this point to self-motivate.  What kills me is that it wasn't really my freshmen as you might expect, but my sophomores, most of whom have been at our weird, quirky school for a year already.
• I had too high an expectation of what students could accomplish each day.
• Students do a terrible job of picking their own groups/seating partners.
• A 1:1 environment should be perfect for self pacing, but even after a year and more of having the iPads, a lot of kids can't self-regulate their use.  Granted, the freshmen boys were probably the biggest culprits here, but a lot of the sophomores have serious issues with constructively using their devices and their time.
• As much as I want to do things a certain way in the class, I'm going to have to flex and change a few things this term to get my students to learn.  

That last one is vital to me.  I have worried a lot this year about not being as innovative or forward thinking as I was the last two years.  As of this break, I decided that while I believe in all of the innovation and my reasons for it, ultimately, I have to bend a little to accommodate the needs of my students.  That was my original reason for the changes and I don't want to be caught in trying to prove a model or way of thinking at the expense of my students.  

I don't think I've actually done that at all over the past 3 years, but as part of my over-analyzing myself as I do, I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen.

More on the concrete changes in the next post...which will hopefully be in a week and not in a semester :)

Teaching and Dragons

Confession time here, which will no doubt shock no one.  I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons in Middle/High School and College.  At the very least, my nerd/geek cred should be boosted a lot by this fact.

To be honest, I was not only a player, but in my circle of nerds, I was generally the Dungeon Master, i.e., the nerd who runs the games.  For those of you uninitiated, the job of the Dungeon Master was to run the adventures, setting up scenarios for everyone else (the player characters).  As a DM, you controlled all of the NPCs (non-player characters), monsters, made the maps/dungeons, etc.  You were the director of the movie, as well as all of the bit parts, as well as possibly the antagonist.

As I prep for the new year I was drawing some serious parallels between DMing and being a teacher, particularly with regards to some methodology behind both things.

Monty Haul DMs were those that essentially just kept everyone happy by throwing tons of loot their way.  Everything was sort of set up to get to the treasure as quickly as possible.  And those treasure piles were typically full of massive amounts of gold and magic items.  Characters leveled quickly and were super powerful pretty fast.  The problem is that when you get that powerful that quick, it gets boring really quickly.
To relate this to teaching, think of the teacher who wants nothing more than to make students happy all the time.  Candy is doled out, assignments are easy as crud, everyone makes an A as long as they go along with the program.  Anyone who has been teaching for a few years knows a teacher or two like this.  The kids love them, but it is at the least highly questionable if any actual learning is going on in that room.

Another type of DM can be best described as an oppositional DM. See this Penny Arcade strip for details (note, there is some nsfw and offensive stuff on PA, though not this strip)This DM believes that their role in the game is actually oppose the players, to make life as miserable for them as possible.  No treasure is doled out, monsters are powerful and ubiquitous, every trip into town results in characters being driven out and hunted. It isn't boring, but it is painful as all get out.  After a while, the players wonder why they show up week after week to be humiliated and depressed.

Some of you may not see the parallels to education, but I see an awful lot of teachers who relish the oppositional roles.  They love to yell, their tests are brutal, HW loads are true unrelenting loads.  Generally this is done under the guise of "it's for their own good" or "I have to prepare them for college".  Students tend to respond in one of two ways.  The first is to suffer through it because they have to get the grade.  The second is to tune out and fail.

I'll be honest here and say that I've probably been a bit of both at times in the past (and possibly present).  But what I always shot for as a DM was sustainable enjoyment in my players.  I wasn't against them, we were playing D&D together.  And while I had the module and all the books in my hands (teachers, read the curriculum and the answers), without them, I was just a sad teenager reading rulebooks for no reason.  The game needed to be interesting and challenging or there was no point in us getting together to play.  But at the same time, the rewards needed to be obvious and frequent enough to keep them (and me) going.

Ultimately, in a good campaign, it wasn't about the treasure or rewards though, it was about the journey, the time we spent together, the destinations were many and rarely final.

I am not really a hippie teacher who believes it is all about the journey, that students don't actually have to learn the material in my class.  I know that there are EOCs to take and I think that most of my students would not really describe my class as a piece of cake.

What I do believe though is an analogous thing though is that I don't see my students as my enemies.  We often have these battle lines, teachers vs students, teachers vs admins, admins vs students.  I am not the Final Boss, a fire breathing dragon, and if they make it through the tricks and traps they get to slay me (or my material).  I prefer to think of myself as Gandalf (who wouldn't), there when most needed, advising, sometimes blowing stuff up in some cools ways.  But ultimately, I'm not the hero of the story...

And contrary to what some think, I'm not Sauron either...

Core Thoughts

I spent 4 weeks this summer (and two looong) weekends in the spring as a Common Core coach for the state of Tennessee under their TNCore department, and I have some thoughts I need to get out there after a day of decompression.

As I make this post, I want to get out there the idea that I approached this with a bit of trepidation.  I am in general against heavy corporate manipulation of Education.  There is definitely some conflict here.  As one of my participants noted, of course the new standards with help with ACT, those folks were involved with Common Core.  That is an enormous point, and I could probably rant about it for a while, but I won't today.

Let's instead focus on the actual experiences and just briefly hit some bullet points (the core one might say):

• This training was enormous, and I give the state DOE enormous props for pulling it off so smoothly and I think very effectively. Large bureaucratic agencies usually rank with corporations for me, but even when things hit a snag they were resolved swiftly and efficiently.
• Many participants approached it as though it were going to be indoctrination, and that definitely was not the case.  It was a sell no doubt, but a soft sell, no gimmicks, threats, mandates, etc thrown down by the state (or the feds for that matter).
• Several folks over the three weeks of my presenting noted that most of what we were talking about was "just good teaching", which can be nebulous and encompass a lot of things, but I would agree, the Common Core lessons and tactics we talked about were all "good teaching", I think specifically under the umbrella of "student-centered" teaching that is going to continue to be my focus.
• Testing, be it the PARCC that is upcoming or just our usual suspect End of Course exams occupy way too darn much of our teachers' braintime. As expected, perhaps 50% of worries were how to find time to do this stuff when the All Seeing Eye of EOC was bearing down on them. If teachers are afraid to spend time doing the stuff we discussed because they have to "cover content" then our students aren't getting all they should. (I totally get why, just saddens me)
• Teachers are jaded as all get out. Anyone with 10 or more years of experience (me included) has to restrain the eye rolls as new things like this get rolled out, because we want to know if it will last beyond 4-5 years before the "next new thing" comes along (and we suspect it won't).  That may very well be the case, but see bullet 3...if this stuff is just good teaching it doesn't matter what we call it.
• Overall, for me, the best part of the training was just seeing teachers really engage in material that will help their students, to see them see the value in it.  I, like many of them was skeptical at first, but warmed as we went through it.

Finally, I still have some concerns about the text selections, about continued training and development (RTTT money was used for this), and as with my fellow teachers the expectations and wondering when anything will be removed from an overloaded plate to make room for all the new stuff.

At the same time though, I love the idea that so many people across the state are making a focused effort on raising literacy in a variety of subjects.  Not in a lockstep manner that I would immediately reject out of hand, but in many ways specific to their students, but within a common framework of ideas that I think is more about successful "good teaching" than the specific idea of Common Core.