Can one student threaten the stability of an entire classroom and prevent a teacher from being effective?

Is it possible to bridge the gap for EVERY child?

How can teachers and students keep from drowning in the sea of distractions that compromise learning each day?

These were the questions I was wrestling with during the four-hour drive to Orlando last month for the 2009 ASCD conference. A special group of students were weighing heavily on my heart…the ones who just can’t seem to experience a consistent measure of success in any area. Even though it’s springtime, adhering to the well-established group norms has proven too great a challenge because of the extensive issues these children bring into the classroom: learning disabilities, emotional impairments, social difficulties resulting from bizarre and dangerous home situations, and personal wounds that run far too deep for my comprehension.

Every teacher has these students, and those in high-poverty schools usually have the most. The neediness of these children wears us down, their lack of progress causes burn out, and their unresponsiveness to traditional teaching methods makes us feel like educational failures.

I kept these children—and their loving, frustrated teachers—in the forefront of my mind as I chose conference sessions. Sure, I’d love to attend a workshop on 25 new strategies for teaching vocabulary, but I don’t NEED that. What I need is strategies for helping special needs students (diagnosed or not) attend to my present variety of otherwise effective lessons instead of constantly sabotaging them. What can I do to keep ‘Jose’ from banging his head on his desk and sobbing every time he gets a wrong answer? How can I help ‘Sara’ compromise when doing cooperative work, instead of resorting to violence or a string of four letter words whenever her partner expresses disagreement? Is there some way I can convince ‘Deshaun’ that he’s a capable reader so he’ll stop defiantly tuning out before I can even explain the assignments?

An outside observer might have noticed only the slightest continuity between my session choices: neuroscience and its implications for learning, personal efficacy, strategies for challenging students, successful traits of high-poverty schools, using rap to teach literacy skills, alternatives to suspension, and incorporating humor in the classroom. However, each session I attended was a deliberate choice that brought me one step closer to answering my own essential question: How can we as teachers have the fortitude to continue reaching out for the unreachable?

I mulled over several important understandings garnered from my conversations, studies, and reflections during the conference weekend and the weeks that followed:

-The opportunity for students to actively construct knowledge MUST take precedence over the need to cover curriculum. Not in theory, in DAILY practice. Learning takes place through personal involvement and discussion, and attending this conference shamed me into realizing that I simply MUST let my students TALK. Conversing with other conference attendees (and synthesizing what I learned via the internet for those who weren’t present) made the greatest lasting impact on my own learning: why would this not hold true for students? As a teacher, I cannot afford to skip this step, cutting off children’s discussions in an attempt to impart a few more facts before the hour is up. I am now focused on going narrow and deep rather than wide and shallow, and I am consciously slowing down my instruction so that kids can share more. I am choosing to forgo the whirlwind review of an entire page of problems so I can allow my students to actively reflect on the strategies they used for the first few. I’ve always known this is best practice, but allowed myself to be intimidated by the sheer amount of curriculum I’m expected to teach. The increased student involvement I’m seeing confirms that I should have prioritized my kids’ need to interact many years ago. I’m also establishing a deeper personal connection with my most challenging students, and forging a greater bond with those children that I simply had not listened to enough.

-It seems like teaching is getting harder because it IS: we’re attempting to reach more kids than we used to, and address a wider variety of issues and needs. It’s critical for educators to understand the magnitude of what we’re attempting without letting the results overwhelm us. Low-performing students from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’ and those with learning problems are no longer siphoned off into special education classrooms while we wait for them to drop out. As much as we bemoan the pitfalls of NCLB, in our daily practice we are in fact attempting to leave no child behind—not even the ones who WANT to be left to their own devices, or who don’t have the cognitive or emotional capabilities to try. And the 3 R’s are just the tip of the 21st century iceberg: we want our kids to graduate with technological and communication skills, well-developed creativity, interactive problem-solving abilities, financial savvy, an applied understanding of personal health and nutrition, environmental awareness…and the list is growing every year. We are trying to do it all, and we’re expected to succeed. Yet we cannot become discouraged when our students, our administrators, or we ourselves fail to achieve an increasingly impossible mission. When teachers become overwhelmed, the cycle of learning and growth is stopped cold.

-Students from impoverished backgrounds and those with other learning challenges can be reached, but their success is most dependent upon the fostering of a personal and collective vision within the school community. Are high behavioral expectations and consistently-enforced disciplinary actions important? Yes. Should there be strong administrative leadership with substantial teacher input? Definitely. Do we need ongoing school-wide activities that build a sense of pride and accountability in students? Of course. Other measures such as school uniforms and single gender classrooms also frequently contribute to success. But there must be a pervasive shift in perception amongst faculty and students if significant and lasting improvement is to take hold. Everyone involved must develop both the desire and plan for mastery and personal efficacy. Without a vision, the sense of purpose becomes lost among the innumerable day-to-day problems that exist in a high-poverty school.

All of the other issues on the table pale in comparison to this single truth. The commitment to a personal vision is what ensures success and brings both the teacher and student back into the classroom each day. And while it’s critical to create buy-in among students, the concept of a personal vision must originate within the teacher. It is the teacher who creates the classroom environment and community, and so it is the teacher who holds real power for systemic change.

I am convinced that the key to personal efficacy, effectiveness, and longevity in the classroom has more to do with a teacher’s internal state of mind than any outside attribute. Efficacy is impossible when a teacher is distracted by personal issues, taking offense at student misbehavior, holding onto grudges against administration, and constantly judging parents for the way students are raised. These poisonous attitudes will slowly destroy a teacher’s vision…and the phenomenon is pervasive. Even the most self-aware amongst us fall prey.

There are certain internal attributes–a mindset for successful teaching–that must be developed for a teacher to be effective for any sustained amount of time. Now more than ever, I attribute my own success to these unarticulated traits and trace my shortcomings back to the attributes that I have not sufficiently developed. This visionary mindset is the key to avoiding burn out and staying motivated…and of course, to getting even the most challenging students to become motivated and engaged in the learning process.

My time at the ASCD conference reinforced the inestimable value of interaction and discussion that makes every in-class moment dedicated to those activities worthy of the investment. And it solidified my belief that social media tools are astoundingly powerful and almost fundamentally important ways for educators to connect with one another and extend their learning. To an increasing extent, this holds true for students as well. But most importantly, attending this conference caused me to reflect on personal efficacy. It has triggered a desire to learn more about the mindset of successful teachers and to help other educators find and sustain their personal vision.

What IS the mindset of a successful teacher? How can educators create a personal vision? What keeps you going back in the classroom day after day even when faced with insurmountable odds? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

More of my reflections on the 2009 ASCD conference, including notes from 3 of my favorite sessions:
ASCD Summary Part 1: Observations and Analysis
Notes on Pushing the Effects of Poverty Out of the Classroom
Notes on Maintaining Efficacy in Difficult Situations
Notes on Teaching Strategies That Reach Challenging Students
My notes from all sessions

The ASCD conference was held this year at the Orlando Convention Center, which is a facility of astronomical proportions and completely devoid of moving walkways. The journey from the parking lot to the exhibition hall is a good fifteen minutes at a very brisk pace, and it could easily take that long to get from one session to another if you don’t understand the building’s layout.

I think my car was parked on the other side of that lake.
At least, that’s what the soles of my feet said.

During the first few hours of the conference, I found myself wandering a bit, trying to get my bearings and figure out how to get from point A to point B. I would have liked an ASCD rep or volunteer to be stationed on each of the three floors to help participants find rooms and locations in the building, at least for the first morning of the conference. (There was an excellent and well-marked information booth, if you knew how to find it.) Because of the vastness of the facility, it would have also been helpful to have conference doors labeled with the name and time of the current session. I noticed many attendees squinting around as they wandered into rooms, trying to determine if they were in the right place. And since there were many sessions that overlapped, not having marked doors made it difficult for participants to try to catch the last forty-five minutes of a different session without consulting the massive program book.

There were an astounding number of concurrent sessions at almost any given moment during the day, and all of us carried those program books around like they were the ASCD Bible. A CD-ROM was included this year (which was a very welcome addition, despite the fact that it did not run properly on Macs) and of course the guide was available online. One highly notable presenter admitted to me that she was a bit ticked off that the guide was not searchable by presenter name (you could find the names of those presenting in an index, but there were only session numbers, no page numbers, days/times of sessions, or session titles). I am confident that her session would have been standing-room-only if participants had realized who was presenting. In addition to featuring the presenters more clearly, I also think it would have been helpful if the program book had labeled certain sessions (especially tech workshops) with icons to specify the level of expertise so participants could find sessions with a good personal fit.

I spent an hour and a half on Saturday night with my new best friend, the ASCD program book, trying to plan where I wanted to be on Sunday. My intense micro-management was ludicrous but effective: 2:15 stop by this room to meet a favorite author; 2:25 talk with rep at publication house about collaborative work; 2:45 check out the beginning of one session and live-blog, 3:15 duck out and catch the end of another before interviewing a presenter at 4:45. Every moment was filled with the opportunity to interact with and learn from some of the greatest thinkers in the field of education, and I didn’t want to waste a second. This was especially true since 2009 was the first year that non-traditional media (i.e. influential bloggers) were given press passes, and I wanted to take full advantage of ASCD’s gracious invite.

My hot date on Saturday night.

I sat in on at least 16 sessions, and all provided genuinely useful information in a polished, professional way. Participants pay a lot of money to attend ASCD events: they expect high-quality professional development, and in my observation, they got it. (You can read some of my session notes here at In Practice.)

The only significant flaw I noticed with some of the sessions was the disconnect between the title/description and the actual content of the presentation. Because proposals must be submitted 10 months in advance, it’s logical to presume that presenters will modify and improve their work prior to conference time. However, some presenters seemed to change the content and delivery to such an extent that the original topic was barely discernible. A few may have written the proposal that ASCD wanted, and then proceeded to implement whatever they felt like doing (sound familiar, classroom teachers?). This was a concern with nearly every participant I spoke with. An attendee from Ohio told me, “It was disappointing to waste time with something that wasn’t what I thought, when there were so many other options.” Many presenters did not have enough handouts for every participant, which made it even more difficult to track the sessions’ focus and direction.

Nearly all of the sessions included multi-media presentations, and about half of the trainings I attended included short video clips from YouTube and other video sites. Sometimes this added value to the session; many times it served only to give participants a break from lecture. There was a wide variety of teaching styles amongst the various presenters, and the program book helpfully specified what percentage of interaction each presenter would include. In the highly interactive presentations, participants were required to talk about what they were learning. Most people were amiable about this, but some around me were irritated. At one point, I was sitting near a curriculum specialist from Texas who rolled her eyes and said, “I paid money to hear [the presenter] speak, not to hear myself talk. I want to know more about this topic, but I don’t want it to be so interactive.” Personally, I felt the same way: I like presentations to be fast-paced, hard-hitting, and full of information. I don’t like a lot of jokes, asides, activities, or pauses for reflection and interaction.

Wait, which room am I going to again?

But my experience was markedly different from that of non-bloggers: I didn’t have to wait for a presenter’s prompt so I could actively construct knowledge. During most sessions, I was doing the following things concurrently (listed in the order of priority):

1) listening to/watching the presentation
2) live-blogging
3) scanning Tweetdeck
4) following #ASCD and #ASCD09 hashtags on separate twitter searches
5) tracking other ASCD live-blogs/Ustreams and commenting
6) viewing wikis from other sessions

This is in addition to responding to email, moderating blog comments, posting Facebook updates about the conference, etc. So naturally, a directive to “stand up and raise your hand if…” was a bit of a distraction for me. I’m sure those activities (which were perfectly valid and research-based) were more valuable for those participants who were attending solely to the presenter.

Live-blogging was an amazing experience that fit well with my personal learning style. It was so valuable that I can’t help but consider how much deeper the learning would have been for other (like-minded) participants if they were synthesizing while learning, instead of sitting passively until commanded to interact. Taking the initiative to interact on one’s own, at a level of engagement appropriate to the individual, seems like a more beneficial practice. Of course, there is something to be said for focusing deeply on one thing at a time, and some people don’t learn well when their attention is divided. But I believe there are many people who process information the way I do; they just haven’t been shown how to incorporate online communities into their current learning habits and processes. I hope that in time, as educators become more comfortable with technology, professional development will move down this path.

Imagine a workshop in which participants don’t have to raise their hand and wait to be acknowledged by the presenter in order to share an idea or ask a question. Picture a session in which both literal and virtual participants are reflecting constantly with one another and collaboratively making connections to their own understanding. Because of social media, I had a glimpse of this experience at ASCD09, and it was absolutely exhilarating.

The association went to great expense to offer wireless Internet service throughout the conference facility, and we techies absolutely RAVED about this provision in a meeting with some of the organization’s leaders. I am thrilled to know that ASCD has every intention of providing wireless service at future conventions, because I am confident that with each gathering, more and more educators will be engaging online.

It took HOURS for me to visit every vendor in the exhibition hall.
Newsflash: Teachers will take anything that’s free. A paper clip? I’ll have two!

In the meantime, I am acutely aware that the experience of those who were offline (the vast majority of participants, at least during sessions) was vastly different from my own. I viewed the conference through the lens of someone connected to the online community, and it enhanced my experience of this conference tenfold. Like many participants, I attended the conference by myself. But I was able to connect with new people at ASCD by following their tweets, then arranging to meet within the convention hall. What about the 98% of attendees who weren’t doing this? What about those who attended the conference with their co-workers, staying in their own little cliques and conversing mostly with people they already knew? They didn’t have any method (that I’m aware of) for casual networking, and as a result, I missed out on connecting with them. We were ships passing in the night: unless we struck up a conversation randomly (which is hard for a lone individual to do when approaching a group), a real connection was difficult to make.

What if there was some sort of forum for participants to interact informally with one another outside of the sessions? A social networking place, a Twitter in real life? Or, as another attendee suggested, what if there was more of an effort to draw the off-line attendees in, a blogger cafe similar to the one at NECC? This would help bring more educators into the 21st century fold, familiarizing them with and helping them implement the instructional technology ideas they can learn in the conference.

The dilemma of how to connect participants to one another so they can share in learning isn’t a new one, nor is it an easy concern to address, but it’s certainly worth considering. I believe that the Internet will play the primary role in this advancement. And the best part is, ASCD is totally on board and excited to be doing whatever they can to promote social media amongst educators.

Does a drawing of a paper airplane really connote learning beyond boundaries?
I’m just saying.

The participants, presenters, and exhibitors as a whole were were an amazing group of people. It was inspiring to be surrounded by so many incredibly accomplished and knowledgeable educators. The type of thinking that goes on at an ASCD conference is truly astounding, and it will take much longer than two days for me to really absorb and process everything that I learned. There was a intense meeting of the minds at this conference, and the exchange of ideas we’ve experienced has the capacity to transform our educational communities in a powerful way.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my big take-away from the conference. I’ve definitely come back with some new understandings that influenced my teaching the moment I stepped back into the classroom…and I’ve seen immediate results in my students’ behavior and depth of understanding. Even more than that, I’ve experienced a shift in what I see as my personal vision and plan for mastery. There’s been some cognitive dissonance this weekend, and that’s resulted in some deep shifts in what I believe and how I plan to influence others.

It all comes down to this: I’m asking better questions, and I’m more connected to people who can encourage and inspire me to discover the answers. I don’t think I could gain anything more important from a conference.

This post was cross-posted at my own site, The Cornerstone Blog. Please check back for part two of the ASCD summary, in which I’ll explore what I’ve learned personally from attending the conference and how I’m changing my perspective and instruction.

This session will focus on relationship strategies for maintaining teacher efficacy during student outbursts and power struggles. Participants will discuss the following strategies developed by veteran teachers for use with emotionally and behaviorally disturbed students: developing resilient responses to violent situations, succeeding when other teachers give up, and creating unorthodox mentoring styles.

Here are my notes from the session:

Successful teachers of the emotionally disturbed have strong efficacy and are professionally adaptable.

Resilience to violence developed through:
-restraint training-standardized protocols-support from other school staff
-successful handling of past violent situations (willingness to try, learn from mistakes)
-rational detachment (look past negatives)

They succeed in jobs others are afraid to hold. They have an honest appraisal of school/non-school environments. They are willing to use unorthodox methods to have success with unorthodox students.

Determining whether to remove a student form the classroom is stressful in itself. This was true especially because nonviolent students could physically lash out. Teachers did not want to create more violence by physically removing the kids. You worry that someone will get hurt.

Many participants are asking why such violent students are allowed back in the classroom even as often as the next day. The presenter gave multiple reasons why this may happen, from a legal perspective, but agreed none were true validations of that practice. It’s just a reality.

Talking about the importance of rebounding after a violent event, getting right back in the classroom, and communicating to kids that the event is no big deal. I agree, and do that myself in the classroom, but it also makes me wonder if that’s the wrong message to send to kids. Violent behavior in the classroom IS a big deal, and should not be emulated.

Some of the happiness results from a sense of purpose, that “this is where I am supposed to be”. The sense of purpose was strong despite uncooperative and unsupportive aides and parents.

Successful ED teachers use un-traditional methods that are not limited violent situations, and are extended to students’ non-school situations. They also extend beyond mere punishment and improving students with non-punitive means. (Did you take a shower last night? Brush your teeth?) They give positive rewards at school to show that all behaviors were a concern of the teacher.

The teachers in the study used techniques that were not “by the book”, but they were all honest with parents about the unconventional behavior alteration techniques. They explain to parents that doing everything by the book doesn’t work with their children.

Professional rational detachment: ability to stay in control of their emotions in crisis moments.

Preserving objectivity allows teachers to mentally distance themselves so they could view the situation objectively, avoid becoming stressed, keep from getting emotionally hurt, and continue to treat their students objectively.

Quote from a teacher who manages to keep professional rational detachment:

Realizing that there are some kids you just cannot reach, despite what the legislature tells you [is important]…You have to keep the outlook that these are the kids that no one else wants. So whatever social and academic games you make with the kids, those are gains that someone else wasn’t even willing to try and work on. So I mean, if you make some improvements with one, it is important, but if you don’t make improvements, you made an effort. Others didn’t even want to try. So stay optimistic, but keep it real at the same time. You win some, you lose some, and you’re not dealing with a winning hand to start with. Whatever you can scratch out, you are doing all right.”

Rational detachment being the result of teachers’ connections with students may seem like a contradictory phenomenon, but it allowed participants to remain involved in students’ lives.

A teacher in the study heard this from an instructor in police basic training: “Don’t spend your time trying to dwell on why our clients do what they do, and say what they say, because you as a rational person trying to understand irrationality will drive yourself crazy. Just accept what the behavior is, and don’t rationalize everything and try to fix it. You are not going to be able to fix everything.”

Resilience to violence can be developed through: thinking about potentially violent situations and then mentally working through them beforehand, and making colleagues aware of how you plan to handle potential situations. Make plans to support each other, be willing to learn from mistakes, and develop professional rational detachment to look past the negative.

Presenter says there are no ‘aha moments’, that this is stuff you basically know. But it is that professional rational detachment that will allow you to remain mentally uninvolved during violent times.

I’ll be posting summaries of additional sessions as well as a reflection on the conference in the next few days. More ASCD interviews and musings will be posted on my own blog, The Cornerstone.

The event below was hosted by Spence Rogers of Peak Learning Systems. Some of the exhibitor’s sessions are like long infomercials: this one was excellent, full of quality content and take-away ideas.

I am honored to be covering the event as a member of the press for the In Practice blog. Because of the blog’s outstanding reputation, its contributors were invited to attend the ASCD conference as members of the media. So in a wonderful stroke of providence, I have the opportunity to represent the blog and cover the event as a journalist. Ahh, the benefits of living three hours from the conference location.

I’m currently in a rather dull general session (which, so far, has been only a bunch of awards and acceptance speeches). I understand the New York Times #1 bestselling author Greg Mortensen (3 Cups of Tea) is about to speak, so I’m sticking it out.

HOWEVER this morning I attended an amazing presentation about counteracting the effects of poverty in the classroom. I live-blogged the event using it Cover It Live, meaning that readers can follow along with the conference session as it happens. And because most of you have more relaxing ways to spend your weekend, each live-blog event is archived so you can peruse my notes at your leisure. It’s unedited, so you can read exactly what I was learning and thinking as the session progressed.

The preview you see below is NOT my session. Click it to view my actual notes.

The presenter was absolutely amazing, deeply grounded and focused on her vision and helping others create their own. We had an immediate connection, and I am thrilled to have secured an interview with her tomorrow morning! I’ll post info on that later.

Be sure to check back for other live events, summary recaps of conference sessions, and more as the weekend progresses. I’ll also be posting some reflections on my own blog, The Cornerstone.