It's OUR Table

How many of us have heard (or said) some variation of the phrase, "We want a seat at the table." Often as educators, we feel excluded from the decisions being made that have a direct impact upon our ability to teach our students in the way that each learner needs. Policy and decisions are made almost daily about students learning by those who often have never been in a classroom or whose experience is a far distant memory. For educators, it's disempowering and frustrating, leaving us wondering about the direction that education is headed when often student learning is not the central focus of these policies. I think I'm like so many of you. I'm passionate about educating students; every student, regardless of the challenges they may face or the support they may need. That's why I became a teacher, not a politician. I wanted to empower students. So, I began asking for a seat at the decision making table in order to speak up for my students.

Then, my thinking shifted. A lightbulb turned on. I was at a professional learning event in panel discussion on Teacher Leadership. Laren Hammonds (@_clayr_) made the statement that as teacher leaders,  we need to have our own table and invite policy makers to join us. As I reflected up this idea, I realized that somewhere in the past, as teachers, we have been giving up our seats to policy makers. As a profession, we bought into the false idea that we are "just teachers" and that elected officials, and those appointed by them, had more importance than us. We gave up our seats (because we'd rather be in our classrooms), decisions were made without us, we grumbled among ourselves and moved on back to teaching our students. The process just continued to escalate, which drove many teachers away from classroom or education altogether. After all, what could we do? They were elected or appointed and we are "only teachers."

As teachers, there are several things that we need to do in order to claim our table and directly impact the policy that can dictate how we reach our students. We need to realize that we are the one in the trenches with students every day. Our voices, and our students' voices, are the ones that are the most relevant. The elected officials and their appointees are there because we put them there. Let's take the time to educate them about what student learning looks like in 2015. We can send them emails and letters [even in 2015 handwritten makes the most impact] with stories of student learning. Invite them to our classrooms and large learning events. Connect with them through social media by posting photos of the phenomenal learning taking place in our classrooms every day.  If they are not willing to listen to us, then we need to elect officials who will support student learning. The mentality that we are "just a teacher" or "only a teacher" must die within all of us.

We also must realize that while a one-time email, letter, or conversation may lay a foundation, we  need to develop a relationship with policy makers. The repeat contact and follow-up solidifies you as an expert in the education field. Inviting them to join in education conversations held in OUR classrooms and schools at OUR table reshapes their thinking and puts student learning at the forefront of their thinking. In the fours years that I have been advocating for student learning, I have never had a policy maker, committee, or council ever ask me to leave. They may not have joined OUR table, but that doesn't mean that we stop extending the invitation. After all, this is OUR dinner party. We want for them to join the conversation because all of OUR futures are at stake. Leaners are our future's most precious commodity. And without these conversations, we are doing a great disservice to ourselves and future generations.

So let's send out invitations, pull out a chair, and have a seat. It's time we start facilitating these conversation and decisions based on what's best for our learners. The students of today and tomorrow are depending up on us.

Alabama NBCT Week: Alabama Statistics

This week has officially been declared Alabama NBCT Week by Governor Bentley. This week has been filled activities and events that recognize the teachers in Alabama who have earned their board certification. I found the following statistic very interesting.

• ·       There are 47,723 public school teachers in AL including 2,313 NBCTs – 4.8% of AL teachers are NBCTs.
• ·       In Alabama, 744,621 public school students are served by 47,723 teachers including 2,313 NBCTs.
• ·       Alabama ranks 15^th in the nation with its # of NBCTs. The states with the most NBCTs are NC (20,611) FL (13,637) SC (8,820) WA (8,196) and CA (6,249). MS has 3,740 NBCTs.
• Alabama has 133 school districts –
• o   School districts with highest # of NBCTs: Jefferson County - 236; Hoover City - 185; Birmingham City – 152
• o   12 Alabama school districts have 0 NBCTs – I have the school district names if we want to include that info
• o   86 Alabama school districts have 5 or less NBCTs
• o   102 Alabama school districts have 10 or less NBCTs
• ·       Research shows that students taught by NBCTs gain an extra 1 – 2 months of learning each school year. That adds up to an incredible amount of learning time for our students!
• ·       The positive impact of having an NBCT is even greater for minority and low-income students.
• ·       There are 110,428 NBCTs in the US.
• ·       Alabama NBCTs receive an annual $5000 stipend for 10 yrs and can recertify; if you are an NBCT for 20 yrs, you can earn an extra $100,000 during your career.
• ·       Over 4,100 educators nationwide achieved NB cert in 2014; in Alabama 62 educators earned their NB cert in 2014. MS had over 200 new NBCTs in 2014 and over 500 of their educators have achieved in the last 5 yrs.
• ·       The Alabama NBCT Network currently has 280 members. We would like to double that number by the end of 2015.
• Compiled by Valerie Johnson (@JohnsonValAL)

Personally, I can say that earning my certification in 2007 proved to be the most challenging and rewarding professional development that I have ever done. It helped me to sharpen my practice and become highly reflective on the choices that I make and how they positively impact student learning. NBPTS has now revamped the process, lowering the cost and extending the time frame that one has to complete the process. If you are considering board certification and you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I will be completely transparent and honest with you.

Fairy Wings, Time Portals, and Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

Like many classroom teachers, I will do whatever is in my power to provide my students with the level of support and challenge that they need to meet their goals. I strive to put the fun into every day. There is plenty of research that supports that fun is a legitimate, pedagogical choice in teaching a person something new. It removes fear from trying something new, produces dopamine and endorphins in the brain causing conenctions, and opens the gateways of moving new ideas into cognition. Recently, I have been in a search for new ways to bring fun into my classroom. I say new, but what I discovered in my search was something that I did as a new teacher; somewhere along the way, it dropped out of my practice. What was that? you may ask. That was the joy of bringing "guests" into my classroom...guest as in me dressed up in a costume and interacting with my students from a different perspective.

This idea occurred to me as I faced the grand task of teaching A Christmas Carol to my sixth grade students. I have been very fortunate to collaboratively plan with my ELA colleagues this year. They had done a unit centered around A Christmas Carol in past that had been extremely successful in helping students master multiple standards. I immediately began to question my ability to not only effectively use the text to provide modeling of literacy standards but also and adeptly scaffold their learning within this complicated text. Furthermore, I was keenly aware that this would be their first experience with classic literature. I want my students to LOVE literature as much as I do and I didn't want build up negative opinions about these texts years before they would tackle them in the future.

While I was racking my brain, an idea crystallized. Wouldn't it be cool if kids could travel through time to see how different life was during the 1840s and 1850s in England and how that directly impacts the writing of that time? Since I found myself lacking a working TARDIS of my own, I decided to bring history to them. I decorated our classroom like Victorian Christmas time and came to school as "Clara Bennett" from 1852 England. I dressed like her, spoke like her, and created a deep history that wove together Victorian life in England and the United States (which included their 6th grade history content; fortunately, Dickens did a tour in the US which lent itself perfectly to my story).

When student arrived, they travelled through our "time portal" and then we began our conversation. Now I knew this would be fun for them, and I expected it to last for about 20 minutes of class. What I didn't expect was how engrossed in it my 6th graders would become. They asked endless questions. They had to learn to accurately describe and explain things during their time (microwaves, cell phones, televisions, video games, etc.) to someone with no background knowledge. This honed their communication skills better than any activity that I could have designed and they were totally hooked on Victorian England. 

The next day, when class began they told me about my ancestor (their conclusion), Clara Bennett, and in detail about the life of Charles Dickens and Victorian life in England and America. When I asked if they wanted to read some of Charles Dickens' work, the answer was a resounding yes.

I had forgotten the impact that a costume could have upon students. Since then I have dressed up as "Faire E. Wiing" a travel consultant who connects students with a personalized travel adventure in the Fairy Tale realm. I've taken on the persona of the Mad Hatter when students shared their narrative writing projects. Each time, the students treat our learning as something special, out of the ordinary. For them it's a time to sit up, take notice because something special is going on that they don't want to miss. And true to that brain research, my students gain a deeper understanding of whatever content we are discussing and adroitly apply it to future learning.

Last week, we had several guests come to our classroom and I overheard one student tell one of our visitors, "You better keep your eyes open and be ready in Ramsayland because you never know who is going to show up to take us on an adventure." With that endorsement, I know I need to continue to look for other ways to purposefully bring the fun to their learning. I realized that as educators, we need to be willing to fall down that rabbit hole and embrace whatever method we find in meeting the needs of our learners. 

photo credit: Time & Money via photopin (license)

Once Upon a Time: Student-Run Book Groups

Upon returning to middle school last year, after some time in a self-contained fifth grade classroom, there was one challenge that I observed. In middle school, students are placed in honors (pre-AP) classes or in on-grade level classes. What I truly missed was the ability for students on different places in their learning journey to learn from one another. My on-level group was not being afforded the opportunity to participate in literary discussions where there was deep analysis coupled with life applications. They didn't have student models in the classroom who were extremely adept in writing, editing, and communicating ideas using a broad vocabulary. Conversely, the students in my honors classes were being denied the opportunity to break down and articulate their learning so that another person could learn from their expertise...this "why" is a vital part of the learning process. Yes, my students were connected via digital means such as their blog, but that one-on-one, synchronous conversation was lacking. Then a light bulb went off. The other full time 6th grade ELA teacher, Lindsay Kilgore, had a reverse schedule. When I had an honors class, she had an on-level class and vice versa. After a little celebration that scheduling worked in our favor, we began looking at our students' interest and needs.

We noticed that our students this year were really interested in fantasy books and narrative writing. Also our students really enjoyed our A Christmas Carol unit, their first foray into classic literature. Couple that with a local production company doing a performance of Alice in Wonderland, our fairy tale unit was born. Now, to be truthfully honest, I never thought I would be doing a fairy tale unit with my middle schoolers. This time last year, we were doing a huge mystery unit designed by my students. [Student Motivation: It's No Mystery and Saying Yes: Making Their Ideas Reality]. However, I've come to expect that no two years will be the same because no two groups of students are the same.

For this fairy tale unit, we decided that we wanted to provide students with plenty of voice and choice. Since we had a much more diverse population by joining our two classes, we knew we would need to provide some chapter books for them to select from with an option to make another choice on their own. I reached out to my PLN for suggestions on middle level reader fairy tale books (or books write fairy tale elements). After a lot of marathon reading, the books that we settled upon were Cinder by Marissa Meyers, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone/Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, A Tale Dark and Grimm/Through a Glass Grimmly by Adam Gidwitz, Far Far Away by Tom McNeal, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. When reading, we looked for challenging and exciting text that would interest a wide range of students. We wanted to break the Disney stereotype of fairy tales and really provide our students with texts that brought in strong themes, multiple cultures, history, and strong protagonists. 

When we presented these to students, we themed this entire unit as travel packages, complete with their travel consultant "Faire E. Wiing." Students made choices and then Lindsay and I set about creating diverse, heterogeneous groups a.k.a. travel companions for their adventure. Before students met in their groups, each one of us took a reading survey to gain insight about our specific reading strengths, challenges, likes, and dislikes. Lindsay and I modeled with one another how to be transparent in a conversation with others. Then our students met together and shared with their groups their reading identity with their new book group. As Lindsay and I travelled around listening to their conversations, we realize how transparent they were being with one another. We realized that this was a crucial part of laying the foundation for the success of the next five weeks.

Once our students got to know one another, they were given the task of setting their group norms. They outlined exactly what they expected of one another on their adventure. What will our discussions look like? How will we treat one another? How will be address any challenges? This opened students up to transparently sharing their apprehensions about working with students with whom they were unfamiliar. They had crucial conversations and addressed all of these while putting it in writing as a reminder throughout the five week journey.

Then students received a calendar. Using their books, they set goals and identified when they would hold a weekly synchronous conversation. It was up to each group how much they read each time they met. The only requirements that we gave them were the date of completion for their reading and that they had to discuss their book at least once a week. With these foundations in place, the student groups set off with their plan and an exciting adventure in hand.

Students were given a little over three hours a week to work together. Lindsay and I would rotate through the groups to observe and listen to their discussion. However, what we quickly learned was that they had taken ownership over their reading groups. They wouldn't stop and expect us to take over the discussion. Our readers would ask us questions to draw us into their discussions. It was thrilling to see them work through challenges, grow as readers and communicators, and totally drive their learning. Students who struggled to get through a couple of pages in a book, tore through three-hundred page books and wanted to keep going. (We intentionally chose books that were a part of a series or from a author who had a lot of other books.)

In total, these book groups impacted about one-hundred sixty students. In five weeks, we only had to step in with two students. After an honest conversation with each of these individuals, we guided them into finding a way to address their concerns and rejoining the group as a productive member.

As a classroom teacher, it's exciting to see the success that students reach when they are empowered to make choices about their learning. The ultimate compliment that we received was when students asked when we could do this again. They built new friendships, grew as learners, and they were hungry for more. For me and Lindsay, that endorsement was our "happily ever after" and like the kids...we can't wait for our next adventure.