He writes about Education Secretary Duncan’s recent call for students to spend more time in school. He quotes both from a post from David Warlick attacking the idea in a post titled Let’s just put them all in jail 24/7 and one from Nancy Flanagan that is supportive of it.

Bill then asks a question (and answers it):

Does anyone REALLY believe that extra time will lead to anything BUT additional mind-numbing madness for our kids?

I don’t…

I have a different answer.

I think having students in school longer would help many of our students.  For many students,  especially in low-income communities like where our school is located, schools are a hugely stabilizing influence in their lives and, despite their verbal protestations to the contrary, they like it.  That’s one reason why over half of the 2,000 students enrolled stay for an extra one hour class each school day, and why so many of our students want to attend summer school (even though state budget cuts last year and this year have closed that option off for many).

There have also been plenty of studies that have documented the negative impact the “summer slump” has on students — again, particularly on students in low-income communities.

So if Secretary Duncan wants to provide money to schools to be open longer, that’s fine with me.

Listen, I know our schools have a lot of problems, and have a very long way to go. And I think there are a lot of valid constructive criticisms that can, and should, be made. However, in general, I think that many schools, along with a number of labor unions and religious congregations, are some of the few institutions that are doing a pretty decent job at helping people develop skills needed to actively participate effectively in public life.

Maybe I’m living in a bubble, and most schools really are in terrible shape, but it hasn’t been my experience.

Do I think that increasing the time students spend in school is the best thing that government can do to improve the education experience of our students?

Absolutely not.

Here are just three things that I think I think would be better (and I can certainly think of more, too):

Providing more resources to increase affordable housing, health care, and pathways to wealth creation for low-income families would certainly be a better way. Richard Rothstein has clearly identified how these kinds of changes are necessary to bridge the “achievement gap.”

Providing resources for, and pushing schools to,  engage parents more as partners and having, as the Industrial Areas Foundation phrases it, “two-way conversations instead of one-way communication.”  Schools can be important players in working with families on those housing, health care, and wealth creation issues.

Reducing the role of standardized test results as the ultimate evaluation tool for both teachers and students, and increasing the use and value of alternative forms of assessment, like student portfolios, would help focus schools on creating life-long learners instead of going for the short-term gain of test results.  One would hope that government and others have learned from the recent Wall Street debacle that increasing incentives for short-term pay-offs does not benefit our communities.

In organizing (as most readers know, I worked for the Industrial Areas Foundation as a community organizer for many years prior to becoming a teacher), we used to talk a lot about the fact that there’s the world “as it is” and the world “as we’d like it to be.”   It’s important to be pragmatic but, at the same time, recognize the tension between the two worlds — we don’t want to become hopeless sentimentalists, but neither do we want to become narrow-eyed cynics.

I’d like to have my three suggestions implemented right away.  However, that’s the world as I’d like it to be.

For now, though, if Secretary Duncan is going to find extra money somewhere to keep schools open longer, I’ll take it…

During my career as a community organizer, we used to say that successful organizing was just another word for relationship-building.

I believe President Obama, a former community organizer, understands the importance of these kinds of relationships, too.

David Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times (who I generally think is pretty thoughtful), appears to agree with this assessment. In a column last week, he wrote:

The Obama approach would make it more likely that young Americans grow up in relationships with teaching adults. It would expand nurse visits to disorganized homes. It would improve early education. It would extend the school year.

So far, so good.

Then he continues:

Most important, it would increase merit pay for good teachers (the ones who develop emotional bonds with students) and dismiss bad teachers (the ones who treat students like cattle to be processed).

Huh?

I’d sure like to know how in the world he expects to be able to fairly measure relationship-building and tie that into merit pay (Mathew Needleman recently wrote about merit pay in this blog).

A little later in the column, Brooks answers my question with what I consider to be faulty logic.  He claims that somehow test scores will be able to determine which teachers are effective at building relationships:

Today, tests can tell you which students are on track and which aren’t. They can tell you which teachers are bringing their students’ achievement up by two grades in a single year and which are bringing their students’ levels up by only half a grade.

I believe I have great relationships with my students.  And I believe that’s true with many other teachers at our inner-city school.  And, overall, I feel okay about the progress our students show on standardized tests (as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, our school is one of the few high schools in the nation that has escaped Fourth Year Program Improvement)

If we took the route, though, that the school recently featured by The New York Times did and our classtime was focused on test prep — day in and day out — I wouldn’t be surprised if some student test scores would be higher…in the short term.  I suspect their desire to become life-long learners, their intellectual curiosity,  and their emotional and moral development might very well suffer, however.

“Rigor” does not have to mean “testing,” as Brooks writes in his column.

I’m not afraid of standardized testing — to paraphrase a saying, I believe it has a place, but also has to be kept in its place.    However, I would say — unequivocally — that testing does not help teachers develop relationships with students and nor does it accurately measure the quality of teacher relationships with students (though I do have to say that I suspect some students might try a little harder on a test that they believe is important to a teacher who they like and respect).

It’s unfortunate that Brooks took the idea of building relationships — an important and under-discussed element in teaching and learning — and used it to come up with a non-sequitur related to merit pay and testing (and then even tried to tie it into the voucher debate).

A few days ago I wrote about Jim Burke’s great blog post on Metaphors We Teach By. In it, he wrote:

We are the metaphors we choose. If you want to change your world, change your metaphor. Don Graves, master writing teacher and mentor to so many, said we should read students’ work like doctors not judges.

What’s your metaphor and how does it shape the way you think about and do your work?

I’ve finally decided that trying to be an “agitational pit bull” is a good metaphor for the teacher I try to be.  Let me explain…

I like to see myself as a “Pit Bull” because I try to be relentless in challenging my students — no one coasts.  I try to make sure that students are actively learning at all times.

I emphasize the phrase actively learning because I think some teachers might be relentless, too, but might  use the word working instead.  I suspect we all know teachers, or might be ones ourselves, who are relentless in pushing their students to get the work done, get that assignment finished, get that chapter read, get the curriculum covered.

That’s where the word “agitational” comes in.

During my pre-high school teacher career as a community organizer assisting low-income people to build power and make social change, we talked about the difference between being “irritating” and being “agitating.”

The “irritating” approach was one that tended to cause displeasure, annoyance, and frustration to the people we were trying to organize.  We viewed irritation as telling people what they should want to know along with telling them how they should learn it.

We would contrast this with an “agitational” approach, one that would, as various dictionaries define the word, “stir things up” and “arouse interest,” with the goal of “putting things into motion to produce changes.”

I am relentless in pushing, or prodding, my students to do their assignments.  In addition, though, I strive (though often fail) to be equally as relentless in probing.

When students are not focusing on the assignment, in addition to prodding them to do it, I try (though often fail) to be equally as relentless in asking agitational questions — what do you think is making it difficult for you to focus?  Think about when you have been able to focus well and what made the different?  What can I do to help you focus better?

When a student is consistently having difficulty getting started doing an assignment, in addition to prodding him to do it, I try to ask similarly probing questions and/or offer agitational suggestions — think about times when you have been able to get started well on doing something — what helpful you then?  Start by writing one sentence — don’t worry about the rest of the essay…

When a student who has had difficulties in the past, but then has had a good day, I’ll ask him/her to reflect on how he/she is feeling now and to think about what made the difference.

And it’s not uncommon for their classwork on the official assignment to get somewhat shortchanged because of what a student might need to do to get answers to those questions — they might need to take a walk around the school, or put their head down for awhile, or go to the quiet school library for a few minutes.

If we give in to the temptation to relentlessly prod (and it’s not uncommon for me to do that, too),  I think we do a disservice to our students by not helping them develop their ability to reflect and become more self-aware.

Yes, I know, we are all under pressure to cover the curriculum and have our students perform well on standardized tests.  I’ve got to say, though, student test results from my classes and from the classes of my colleagues who I would also characterize as “agitational pit bulls” generally turn-out pretty well.

In The Metamorphosis by Kafka, it seemed to me that one of the reasons Gregor turned into a cockroach was because he felt he always had to get the work done and there was no time for self-reflection.

I know this post is about teaching metaphors, but, in terms of student and learning metaphors or similes, I’d like my students to stay away from being like Kafka’s cockroach…

I find it interesting that it’s being held at a time — all day on a Monday — when it will be difficult, if not impossible, for teachers or school administrators to attend. In fact, it’s even more interesting that the registration form for the event provides a number of different ways to label yourself, but neither “teacher” nor “administrator” is included.

I do believe that we “progressive” (for lack of a better label) educators can indeed learn from the experience and ideas from the people speaking at the summit.  Unfortunately, from what I know of at least some of their work, it doesn’t appear that many share that same openness about learning from others.  And from the way the summit is being organized, it doesn’t look like Kevin Johnson is interested in it, either.

As many readers of this blog and my own know, I was a community organizer for nineteen years before becoming a high school teacher five years ago.  For most of that time, I worked for the Industrial Areas Foundation, founded by legendary organizer Saul Alinsky over fifty years ago.  In his book, Rules For Radicals, Alinsky wrote:

“I detest and fear dogma…The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right..”

It’s a quote that all of us, including the people speaking at the Education Summit, might well want to keep in mind.

In that same post I just briefly mentioned that this year we also banned iPods from the school, though I didn’t go into the reasons why. Jim Peterson, an exceptional Assistant Principal at my school, recently explained the reasons for the ban in an email to staff, and I thought I’d share them in this follow-up post.

One reason, he wrote, was theft. Cellphones and iPods have been the two most frequently stolen items at our school. I can personally attest to the disruption, tension, and fights that can result from this problem.

Another reason for the iPod ban was safety. Jim writes “On a regular basis, administrators and monitors would have to chase down a student in the hall who could not hear them calling because he or she had the music cranked.” I, too, have directly experienced this problem.

Lastly, he writes about “Discipline: Faculty, monitors and admin used to have to spend time giving detentions, Saturday schools and suspensions for iPod-related incidents.” I’m very confident in my ability to engage students, and feel like I have excellent relationships with them. However, even though I never gave any kind of official consequence for a student listening to music when he/she was supposed to be doing classwork, on occasion it did happen. When it did, a quick private conversation worked fine. However, I’ve been pretty lucky in that I have generally either taught all ESL classes (where classroom management is really not an issue) or small double-period classes of mainstream students. If I, as many of our teachers have to do, had to teach five different classes each day with thirty students each, I know I would have quite a few students facing many challenges that even engaging content and good teaching could not solve alone, and being able to avoid one more possible problem by banning iPods would sound good to me.

And, yes, I do understand that iPods could have an effective educational use. When I was a community organizer in my nineteen year career prior to becoming a public school teacher, we would talk about the “world as it is” and “the world as we would like it to be” (Barack Obama has used that contrast in some of his speeches as well). We want to always strive towards “the world as we would like it to be.” In our inner-city high school, though, sometimes we have to make compromises with “the world as it is.”

Sometimes, though, as all iconoclasts do, I think he goes a bit too far. His critique of VoiceThread was one of those times, and his just-published post that begins “Brainpop gives me a headache,” I think, is another one.

He critiques the use of Brainpop animations in class (using their recent one on the events of 9/11) as simplistic and not worthy of use in a classroom.

I’m a big fan of Brainpop movies (and of Voice Thread) for English Language Learner students of all ages. They are accessible, especially now that they are all closed-captioned, engaging, and short. They provide listening and reading opportunities, along with imparting basic content knowledge.

I would say the Gary’s critique of the site holds true for most content on the Internet and elsewhere.   The key to teaching, and learning, in my view is what you do with students prior to and after their reading or watching the material.  Sticking a student in front of an individual computer without combining that action with activities that access prior knowledge, without including small group collaborative learning, or without adding other engaging questions to provoke higher-order thinking skills is just taking the “easy way out.”

Brainpop provides a nice little introduction to factual material — no more, no less.

And, in my opinion, it does a pretty good job at doing just that.

However, I’m still not convinced cellphone use in the classroom is generally a good idea.

I think having a zero tolerance for use of, and even seeing, cellphones during the school day has been a small, but important, element of the growing success of our inner-city high school. It has reduced the odds of students calling friends or family to come and participate in fights (or potential) fights. In addition, many of our students come from hectic home situations, and the added distraction and temptation of using a cellphone in class, I think, carries with it more negatives than positives (on another note, we’ve also recently banned students using ipods and mp3 players, and I’ve got to admit that I believe that this change has also been a positive development for our school culture).

I also want to note that our school certainly does not have a “police-state” mentality. We have a very relational culture, divided into small learning communities, and we overtly refuse to “teach to the test” and instead focus on developing life long learners. We have a very relational discipline system that tries to get to the root causes of conflict and does not just rely on punitive measures. We are recognized internationally for our creative use of technology in instruction. And we recently became one of the few high schools in the country to come out of Fourth Year Program Improvement status under No Child Left Behind.

I’ve been trying to keep an open mind on the topic, but still haven’t been convinced. I’m not sure where many of the primary proponents of cellphone use teach, and and wonder if any work in an inner-city high school environment.  I’d be very interested in hearing about their specific experiences if they do.

A good teacher….:

… does not have a whip as part of his/her professional “toolkit.”

… respects his/her student’s cultural background and doesn’t smash or abuse it, and doesn’t use it as a blunt force weapon against someone, especially not against their head.

… doesn’t necessarily hate snakes, but might feel that way about standardized tests.

… juggles a lot of balls in the air, but avoids having a humongous one that tries to roll him/her over.

… always keeps his/her eyes open to what’s going on (even if it might mean being turned to dust by malevolent forces)

… is willing to take risks, but isn’t reckless. Examples of being reckless might include jumping out of an airplane with an inflatable raft as a parachute, clinging to the top of a moving submarine for a thousand miles, or doing a science experiment that might result in an unhealthy explosion.

… believes that knowledge is gained through hard work, and not from beings from another dimension.

… hangs out with people who want to put their heart into what they believe, not take it out….

Other ideas?

Bill writes about Carl Chew, the teacher in Washington state who recently was suspended for two weeks for refusing to give his students a standardized test. In his blog, The Tempered Radical, Bill makes a number of very good points questioning Mr. Chew’s decision. I won’t repeat a lot of what Bill says (his post is definitely worth reading), and agree with much of it.

I don’t believe, though, that his final comment that “teachers like Chew show disregard for the values of the communities that they serve” is either fair or accurate.

I’m a veteran of civil disobedience from my seven years in the Catholic Worker Movement prior to my community organizing career (which both preceded my move into public school teaching five years ago).  I can say from experience that what is often called “prophetic witness” or “speaking truth to power” is a key part of our democratic history. I’d certainly include Mr. Chew’s action in that tradition.

At the same time, I think civil disobedience (as I’ve described educational technology) has a place, but also has to be kept in its place.

I think performing civil disobedience outside of the context of a strategic campaign is indeed often, to use the words in Bill’s post, “arrogant” and “egocentric.”  At the risk of sounding too harsh, I think it’s much easier to refuse to give a standardized test then to do the day-to-day and face-to-face organizing of listening and agitating people to develop an effective campaign for more accurate and just student assessments.

From my knowledge and experience, historically, civil disobedience has only been effective in making social change when done as a specific tactic in a well-organized and thought-out campaign where many people have been involved in its planning (nothing I’ve read about Mr. Chew’s actions indicate it was in his case, but, of course, it is possible that I don’t have all the information).

Which is not to say that there have also been important times in history, and there will be additional important moments, when individuals just feel that it’s critical to their own conscience just to say “no.”

Do I think Mr. Chew’s actions were or will be effective in making any sort of change in how students are assessed anywhere?  No.  Do I think they were probably arrogant and egocentric? Yes.

Do I think his action showed disregard for his communities’ values?  Definitely not.  In fact,   I’d say they might have been an extraordinarily accurate representation of the best values in our community traditions.

And I did — five new students that week.  Five new students who seemed to be facing some challenges.

Our classroom culture was much more fragile than I had thought.  It didn’t take long for things to deteriorate.  And I quickly turned-into more of a threatening and punishing teacher.  I wasn’t happy, and most of the students obviously weren’t happy, either.   Some learning, though not as much as before, was taking place, but there didn’t seem to be much joy in it for anybody.  And there were frequent student behavior issues.

One option would have been to just grit my teeth and bear it for a few more months — then it would be over.  That would have been doable, especially since my other classes were going fine.

Another option would be to try to turn things around.

I chose the second one.   Here are nine actions I took to turn my class back into a community of learners:

BEGAN REGULAR STUDENT REFLECTIVE ACTIVITIES:  We began doing short activities which included reading, writing, and sharing on topics like:

Are You A Positive Or Negative Person?

Are You A Good Or Ugly Listener?

Who Are Some People You Respect And How Do You Think They Act When Things Don’t Go Exactly The Way They Want?

Do You Think Intelligence Is Fixed, Or Can It Grow With Effort?

Each student would then write about how they saw themselves in the context of that particular topic, and if they were happy with themselves.  If not, how did they think they could change?

I shared research on the qualities of a successful learner, and students evaluated themselves and wrote what they would like to do better.

Each student began writing a goal on Monday that they had for the week, and would reflect each Friday if they had been successful in reaching their goal.

BEGAN DAILY EVALUATIONS: We discussed what would be important elements of a good classroom — respect for the teacher and other students, doing assignments, accomplishing their weekly goals,  etc.  I developed a half-page sheet listing them, and students began grading themselves on each criteria along with giving themselves an overall grade.  There’s a space for me to list what grade I believe they have earned, as well.  It takes them one minute to complete it at the end of class, and it takes me about two minutes in total to review and respond to them all.  I have yet to give a student a lower grade than they gave themselves and, in fact, have often given them higher ones.  I return the sheets at the beginning of class the next day.

STOPPED WRITING STUDENT NAMES ON THE BOARD: For the first time in my teaching career, I had begun writing names of misbehaving students on the whiteboard indicating that they would either be losing a break or have to stay and miss part of their lunch.   From the day I stopped doing that (after making it clear that, instead, it would be reflected on the daily grading sheet) , there hasn’t been a single repetition of the kind of behavior that had prompted me before to assign that punishment.

STOPPED CALLING HOME WHEN THERE WERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS: Instead of calling parents of a student who was not behaving well, I began telling students who were behaving inappropriately that I wasn’t going to call home that day.  Instead, I began telling them I was going to call their home in a week, that I wanted to just say good things about them, and they had a week to show me they could be the kind of student I knew they could be.

CHANGED THE CLASS SEATING ARRANGEMENT: The day I began this new strategy, I not only changed student seats to minimize some challenges, I changed the entire seating arrangement.  That helped students, and me, to see and remember that it was a “new day.”

EVERYBODY BEGAN WITH AN “A” AGAIN: The second semester was only a few weeks old when I began these new strategies and, since everyone always begins with an “A” grade in my class, it was easy for me to tell some of the challenging and struggling students that we were going to forget what had happened up to then and they were going to get a new start, too.   Since that moment, the vast majority of these students have done better work than I had ever seen before.

ARRANGED “SECRET” SIGNS WITH STUDENTS TO STOP: I had private conversations with a few of my more challenging students and we discussed that I didn’t expect perfect behavior, but that I wanted to reach an agreement of a “sign” I could give them that would signify that my patience was just about at its end.  And after receiving that sign, they felt that they could commit to stopping their inappropriate behavior.  Some students, for example, wanted me to tap their desk.

GAVE CERTAIN STUDENTS PERMISSION TO LEAVE THE ROOM, WITHOUT ASKING ME, IF THEY FELT THEY WERE GOING TO “BLOW”:  They would have to just stay outside the door, but just knowing they had that power has appeared to make a huge difference, and no one has exercised it.   Obviously, if a student did that, I would immediately following him/her out, but they wouldn’t get into trouble for leaving.  In fact, they would gain praise from me instead.

FOCUSED ON SMILING MORE AND SHOWING MORE PATIENCE: I am very intentional about smiling more in class (though I don’t think I ever have been a big “frowner”) and demonstrating more patience.  When students are reading the book of their choice during our “Practice Reading” time, and a student wants to put his/her head down for awhile, for example,  instead of operating from the assumption the student is being lazy, I’ll ask him/her if they rest for five minutes can I count on them to read after that.
I certainly did a number of these things before, but I let behavior issues lead me into a downward spiral of threats and punishment.

The difference in class is like night and day now.  There are regressions — it’s clear that pair work is the maximum for collaborative activities for right now, and they’re not quite ready for groups of three yet.  But there is no question that there is a sense of fun and joy in the learning that’s happening on our classroom again.