My students are someway between children who hide from thunder and teenagers who stuff each other in lockers. They are tough, 11 going on 17 and they are streetwise and savvy. Some of them have a better handle on makeup and manicures than I ever will.

But, there is one thing that leaves them quaking in their shoes: the problem solving strategy. My school requires the students to make their thinking visible and to write down how they came to the answer.  We use the acronym R.U.B.I.E.S. to do this.  The goal is to force the students to slow down, consider the critical attributes of the problem, make a plan, explain their work/show their work and prove that they are right.

There are as many named strategies to accomplish this as there are named school districts in the United States.  You can pick your favorite and ask your students to do it. However, unless you are able to some how hold them accountable to it, your strategy will be as useful as trying to put out a fire with an eye dropper.

We have gone over and over how to use RUBIES. We have gone over why and how to use it. The teachers from last year taught the kids how to do it and told me it was reliably used.  And yet…the kids write the acronym next to every problem, cross out the letters and then guess the answer. Sometimes they choose B on Tuesday and sometimes they decide that they like F better on Tuesday because “F” is for Friday and they want it to be Friday.

Yesterday, not for the first time, I wrote a word problem (oh the horror!) on the board. This problem was a two step problem involving subtraction and addition. I wrote it on the board with the numbers missing. We talked our way through the problem, discussing the important words (verbs) and what the author wanted us to do with the problem. I explained, again, that they needed to actually complete the process and make it known to the reader (me, the teacher, the woman who decides their recess fate).  Several students had that light bulb moment that makes teachers come to work every day.

The other students continued to look at me as if I wanted them to spend all their soccer time doing subtraction computation work sheets.

There are two ways to think about this. The first is to say that the kids are lazy and recalcitrant and that you can’t make the horse drink the water.

The other is to look at their fear. Why are they so scared to reveal their thinking? The steps are simple enough, so it can’t be that they are unable to do so. Some of the kids may have low level reading/computation skills, but not as many as seem to refuse to complete the strategy.

It terrifies them to explain their reasoning. It’s not that they aren’t reasoning. They are. They are thinking. They are synthesizing information and making decisions. I have shown them alternatives to the traditional American algorithms and their eyes have lit up with the idea that they have options.  This is a clear indication that in the past, they have not been encouraged to explain their reasoning when it conflicts with what their teacher (or parent) expected to hear.

If students hear confusing messages, their response is to shut down.  This explains their hesitation to make the unseeable seen. If they don’t show their work and they are wrong, they can claim they guessed wrong.  If they show their work and no one understands what they did or why they did it, they are likely to get an earful and still get marked down.

It is frightening to open yourself up to criticism from a superior; think about how devastating it is to have your boss criticize your thought process: it’s one thing to be wrong, it’s quite another to be asked to explain why you are wrong to the person in charge. Kids can be cruel to someone whose thinking and way of being makes no sense. Teachers can be too.

I am hoping that as the year goes on, and community builds, the students will gain confidence in themselves and trust in me to the point that it is not frightening to make their thinking and their reasoning known. And they will start to share with me and with each other.

To this end, I have started a classroom economy. If you “google” classroom jobs, there are about 35,600,000 results. If you search by “classroom economy” the results are narrowed to 12,400,000. As you can see, I am not alone in this thinking. I have taken lots and lots of ideas from talented teachers and put a Nguyen spin on them.

My students do most of the mundane tasks in the room: they turn the TV on and off (and change the channels so that we get closed circuit information as needed), monitor computer use, turn those on and off, check for parent signatures, check for homework completion, check dress code infractions and much much more. They do everything that I hate doing and feel like I don’t have time to do. We eat breakfast in the classroom, so everyday while the kids are eating, they are also doing 90 % of these mundane chores.

Mundane is key. To mis-quote a favorite book, “The longer the list of  ’I can do that for you teacher.’ gets, the more time I get to teach.” I will add to the jobs list as time goes on. (I envision at some point being able to have some one in charge of displaying kids’ work on the wall)

In the real world, money comes in and it must go out as well. In my little world, the kids get paychecks. To keep the balance, they are paying rent on their desks. They are eligible for eviction too. Now, before anyone starts to call CPS on me, the kids only have assigned desks for all content area times.  During home room, they can sit where ever they would like.  This is the time in which they would have to sit on the floor due to eviction.  (Those who sit on the floor will pay a lesser rent amount for the ‘lot’) The kids are also paying fines for infractions ranging from not wearing a belt to lying.

The kids are the bankers, payroll officers and property managers. There are ziplock bags to keep the money in. The bank is super high tech- a gallon sized zip lock bag. Friday was our first payday and we took care of several economics related chores that day: paying the kids, collecting rent and collecting fines.  It took an hour and a half to complete the process. The banker was overwhelmed when she realized that there was no $30 bill although several students get paid $30 per week.  The banker also had to make change for fines and rent. My property manager said that it would “get faster as I get better at it.”, which should result in improved addition and subtraction skills.

Every time money changes hands, the banker has to sign off on a tally sheet. The total on the tally sheet has to match the amount of “cash” being turned in. The students sign for their paychecks. It’s fairly close to real life I think.

As the fine collector came around, several students realized that they were broke or didn’t have enough to pay their entire fine. Suddenly, from the corners of the room, came the money lenders. From one such entrepreneur: “Okay, I’m going to lend you money, but I’m going to do it like my mom and the bank and her car. You have to pay me back and you have to pay me more. It’s called interest. You have to pay me $5 more than I am going to lend you.” The property manager wants to know if he can charge a fee for people who didn’t pay rent this week. I am considering it.

The positive comments were amazing. One girl, who has a checkered academic past, managed to pay her rent and her fines and still have money left over. Her comment was: “I can’t believe I have money left over.” When I helped her to understand why, I asked, “Doesn’t it feel good to be responsible?”  She said, “I’ve never been responsible before!”

In the future the desks will all be rated with a different value, depending on how ‘cool’ they are determined to be. The desks closer to the front of the room will cost more than the desks closer to the back of the room. Students will also be charged income tax. Some students, with learning difficulties or RTI designation will have “rent controlled” desks so that they can sit near me or near the front of the room. I am considering allowing them to buy their desks out right, and like other property games, to buy more than one desk.

The kids can earn bonuses, just like dad at the sales office. They get bonus pay for having their parents’ signatures 5 days in a row, for doing something outstanding, for receiving a compliment from any other teacher in the building and for their grades. Many people are bothered by the idea of paying students for their grades. I am not. I think that in the same way adults are recognized with merit pay for good work, I think students should also be compensated. Students who get a 90 on any test (and this includes ‘proving’ their answers and demonstrating their thinking) receive $25.  A grade of a 100 will earn the students $100.

Today I handed out the bonuses. Right now, it seems too much to have payday and bonus day be the same day. I asked each student receiving a $25 bonus to stand and be recognized. Then, the few $100 were recognized. We all applauded. One former slacker kid, too cool for homework or for studying, was overheard to say, “I need to study my math facts so that I can get a bonus next week” Intrinsic love of learning will come, I feel, as their confidence and their skill level improves.

Already, the desire to study is beginning to arrive.

Education is chock full of mandates and initiates and non-negotiables.  The legislatures at the state and federal levels are infamous for setting them up and the failing to fund them or provide training. Technology is one such area; often, the students know more about the technology at hand than the teachers do. Their trouble shooting is faster, cheaper and more accurate than the IT departments of many schools.

Luckily, while this is true for me, it is not true for my school. Out teachers are well versed and comfortable with technology. The technology teacher is an angel- warm, supportive and excited to bring technology and teaching together. The other fifth grade teachers had a marvelous idea that was implemented (with great success) by our Technology Teacher.  The idea was to hide science tools around the building and let the kids use the GPS units to find the tools.  Then, they needed to complete an activity at each station related to the science tool at hand. When you leave hints or a map, its called a scavenger hunt. But, when you use a GPS, its called Geocaching and is the coolest thing since letterboxing.

Before we let them loose on the school grounds with the GPS, we ran around the school setting the sites up.  We walked to a particular tree or swing or drainage pipe and “marked” the “waypoint” on the GPS and left a clue.  The clues (and activities) were left in camouflaged empty medicine bottles, film canisters and even one juice box.

The next day, the students attended a Geocaching orientation in the computer lab.  Our technologist had put together a power point (complete with video) to explain the idea to the kids. They got more and more excited as the presentation went on. The power point was projected onto the smart board and the kids were able to come to the board and touch the screen to manipulate the video and the power point.

When we finally passed out the GPS units, one of the kids said, “This is cooler than GameBoy!” They were so funny to watch: heads bent over the units, walking at a “brisk” pace so that the satellite could find them, and shouting at each other that they were heading “West at 3.4 mph!” Even though we had repeatedly told them, they still imagined that the GPS would take to the exact place where the cache was hidden. To the point that they nearly refused to look up from it.

We finished the activity (which did allow them to review the different science tools and their uses) and came inside. Each day since then, they have asked, “When can we use the GPS again?”

Days later, we got to use the smartboard again.   This time it was to complete a very mundane activity: shelving non-fiction books.  We had been reviewing decimals and discussing how to order them. This is really hard for kids. I can relate, it’s hard for me. When looking at tenths and hundredths, the numbers can be related to money and so that resonates with them.  However, when you start looking at thousandths, the numbers loose all meaning and they start to guess. Guessing, as any fifth grader can tell you, should only happen with the lottery.

I have a fantastic librarian who shelves cart-loads of non-fiction books every day. I asked her if she wanted some help and between the two of us came up with the following lesson: take 5th graders to the library, explain the Dewey Decimal System to them, let them shelve animal books.

Would that it were that it was that easy! The idea that books were on the shelf in order from least greatest decimal order was beyond mind boggling for them.  Luckily, the librarian had a game set up through the smart board to teach this concept.  The students were taken through the system category by category looking for a particular soccer book. There was discussion at each stop about each category as well as a lot of math focused on the changing values as you move through the system.

Then, and this was super cool, the kids had to order decimal numbers on the smartboard. There was a list of numbers on the board (that were projected from the computer) the kids touched the numbers and then dragged them to the right spot in line.  The board has “markers” that write on the board and they were able to scribble on the board to help themselves look at the numbers.

Finally, they got it! I think it was the combination of good teaching and new gadgets, but it worked! The kids jumped into shelving the books and the librarian was able to take her lunch break.

We’re geochaching again in two weeks: this time we’ll be looking for the different kinds of rocks (both planted and naturally occurring on our playground). It’s on the calendar, so while they should stay excited, I shouldn’t be asked about it everyday.

The test on decimals is tomorrow, so we’ll see if the ideas stuck or not. They all wanted to know if the test was going to be on a smartboard!

This is a gift that should show up in my stocking this year, I think.

The first week of school was spent getting baseline’s on the kids’ math and science levels. These were astonishing. The kids either are very bad at standardized tests or they were not careful with their answers. I can’t believe that the tests accurately reflect what they know (I am crossing my fingers). In addition to baselines, I am building community, work ethic and work group norms with the students.

We use Thinking Maps in my district to help the kids verbalize their thinking. Anytime that the kids can demonstrate organized, logical thinking, I try to add into the mix a ‘group work’ dynamic. I want them to begin to share with each other their thinking processes and to (hopefully) support each other as their awareness of their metacognition grows.

Group Work is hard. Fifth graders are beginning to recognize gender differences and that can make them uncomfortable.  This discomfort can manifest itself as flirting, meanness or pretending that the boys aren’t really in the group.  the boys then goof off or tattle that the girls aren’t letting them work. When work breaks down for these reasons, the kids need the skill set to get back on track and get stuff done. This will be an ongoing learning goal.  I will keep you guys posted!

Early into the school year, I like to complete a Draw Test, which has been published in the past and was recently republished in Science and Children.  The Draw Test asks students to draw a scientist at work and then the teacher uses a rubric to “grade” the drawing.  The goal is to bring in the “Human Element” of science: the history and nature of science (NSES Standard G) The assignment is simple: Draw a scientist at work and then write a short paragraph to explain the critical attributes of a scientist. Then, the next day, I did the same thing with mathematicians.

My goal is to keep these and, at the end of the year, have students redraw and rewrite. Then, we’ll compare the beginning to the end.  I had a great time reading the list of attributes out loud with the kids. We all had a good laugh. The kids also showed their pictures to each other.   We enjoyed the experience. The pictures all showed their scientists as: teachers, mad scientists, or terrorists. Occasionally, there was an alien for good measure.  We used this experience to talk about respectful laughter, support through misunderstanding and asking the all important question, “Why?” These are skills will keep working on throughout the school year.

While the kids had a good laugh, my brain was screaming. I was appalled. My students, the future, thought that scientists were evil, freaky and out to ruin the world. Mathematicians are either teachers or cashiers and no one likes them.

I pulled out the rubric, hoping that I wasn’t over-reacting. The rubric scores appearance, location and activity of the scientist.  Each attribute is scored on a scale of 0-3. 0 is an item that can’t be categorized, 1 is sensationalized, 2 is traditional and 3 is broader than traditional.   The goal is to have many ‘3’s and very few ‘0’s or ‘1’s.  My kids consistently scored 0s or 1s.  The scientists were: their teacher, Einstein or an alien: score, 0.  Stereotypical crazy hair, eyeglasses, cape: score, 1.  Their locations were: basement or caves and elaborate science-fiction style equipment: score, 1.  Their work: magical or destructive: spying, stealing, killing or scaring: score, 1.

I wasn’t imagining. These kids had a lot of work to do. I, as their teacher, had even more work to do.  My first step was to give the work group names: Volcanologists, Engineers, Zoologists and Pathologists. I’ll change the scientist each six weeks.  We had a discussion about what each kind of scientist did and now I ask, “Where are the Volcanologists? We need the materials for the lab.” instead of just asking for group 2. I am also going to make sure that each science topic covered (and math topic for that matter) is linked to a specific field of study and the scientists who do the work. With any luck, I’ll be able to start including basic biographies of well known scientists with images of them in their “natural habitat”.

To be something, you have to be able to imagine it, in order to imagine it, you have to know that it exists. Step one accomplished: 36 fifth graders now know 4 new kinds of scientists and the work that they do.

Step two: begins tomorrow.  I’ll keep you posted.

Just to set the context, I do not cook. At all. This means that when it is time for dinner, I either dial for chinese or my husband cooks. Just to set the context, I have been known to ruin pots trying to boil water for tea. So, what I know about how to cook comes from movies, Top Chef and the take out menu for Royal Jade Gardens.

Several years ago, when I was a third grade teacher, a committee was formed of teachers who were interested in collaboratively writing lesson plans.  These plans were to be vertically aligned and use the Understanding by Design (http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/103055/chapters/Introduction.aspx) format.

I was part of the science group and after careful consideration, we decided to work on the concept of renewable/non-renewable and inexhaustible resources.  This is a very difficult concept for students to understand. Many adults don’t understand the difference between the three and it’s rare for kids to be able to touch an inexhaustible resource.

One aspect of this is knowing where to find the different kinds of resources.  In a flash of brilliance I decided to teach the students how to take core samples, look for what they might have in the sample, map out their findings, create a dig plan and then report back to their classmates what natural resources they had been able to find in their core sample. This was my plan: each group of kids would get a plot of “land”, use string to grid it out and then use overhead projector transparencies as core samplers. I decided that Hershey’s kisses would be the coal, chocolate pudding would be crude oil and Twizzler’s (because they are hollow) would be the pockets of natural gas. For reasons I can’t recall, I volunteered to teach this lesson to the whole third grade.

During my planning period, I went to Wal Mart with Purchase Order in hand and my shopping list. It was written on a scrap of paper: Kisses, Chocolate Pudding, Twizzlers, different colored jello. As I was standing there, it occurred to me that I should buy some pans. Deep pans so that I could layer the jello to represent the layers of the Earth’s Crust.  I have no idea now the formula that I used then to decide how many boxes of jello I would need. I came home with what I thought would be “extra” boxes. (In retrospect that is funny because there were no left overs.)

After a full day of teaching, I went on a walk with neighbors at about 5 pm. I told them of my mad scheme to make jello “land” for 7 sections of third graders, totaling 80 pans of jello. I excitedly shared the candy I had chosen and the different colors of jello that I was going to use to represent different layers of the Earth’s crust.

“You’ve already started,right? You’re just taking a break now, right?” I was asked. And I, the teacher who doesn’t cook replied, “No, not yet. How long can it take to make jello?” I had bought all the jello and not bothered to read the directions. They informed me that making jello takes hours. I laughed, thinking, ‘Bill Cosby makes Jello on tv all the time.’

My husband, Duc, got home and asked what I had planned for after dinner. I said, “I need to make 80 pans of multilayered jello.” The look on his face was priceless. Rather than bore you all with dialogue that I can’t write well, let it suffice to say that the conversation ran along the lines of “–You never think things through or plan. –Yeah? Well you never give me credit for cool ideas.”

After dinner, I opened up the first box of jello and read the directions. I thought I might cry. Ever the optimist, I pulled every pot out from under the cabinet and started in. Duc just stood in the doorway watching.  Every once in a while, he offered a suggestion or a tip. Then he just went away to leave me to it. (This was probably the safest move.)

At 10 pm, more or less, the manufacturing engineer and the inner nice guy had gotten the best of Duc and he came back into the kitchen and asked what my game plan was. I had none. I had pans of jello on the cabinets ‘cooling’ over bowls of ice. I had 4 pots of jello going on the stove. I was franticly trying to get the jello to cool enough so that I could add the natural resources to without them melting.

Duc sprung into action. He just started ordering me around. Normally, this is cause for a shoe to the head, but I knew that I had been beaten. We emptied out the stand up freezer in the garage, the freezer in the kitchen and the refrigerator. All of these were filled with pans of jello.  Then, he went into the garage and got every folding table we had in there. He set up the tables in a long, connected row and then put fans on them.  He set up a rotation based on a time schedule:

(1) Liquid Jello poured into pan.

(2) Oldest pan removed from Stand Up Freezer and placed in front of a fan on the table.

(3) Oldest pan moved from refrigerator freezer to the stand up freezer, pan moved from refrigerator to the refrigerator freezer.

(4) Liquid Jello placed in refrigerator.

As they cooled enough, I added the natural resources.  We kept this up for hours and at 3 am, he sent me to bed and kept rotating jello pans. I “slept” until 5 am and then realized that I had no plan to get the pans to school.

Duc went into the garage again and returned with big plastic storage boxes. I started stacking frozen jello into the boxes. We loaded up boxes and I drove to school. I got to school, got into the teacher’s lounge and realized that there was so much food and etc in the two refrigerators that I was going to have to empty at least one of the refrigerators and one of the freezers. I stuffed everything into the other refrigerator and unloaded jello. As I was leaving to go home and reload, my principal walked by and handed me a Dr. Pepper. And smiled.

I made that trip 4 times. Then, I taught. I taught some of the other classes the lesson and I taught my class something. Duc stayed home from work and slept. At about 11:00 my teaching partner and I are standing in the hallway and I realize that I have nothing for lunch and I  have lunch duty. From around the corner,there is the smell of food and there is Duc. He is carrying Wendy’s and the biggest Dr Pepper that you can buy in the free world.

Have you picked up on how great he is? The story isn’t over yet. He stayed to eat lunch with me and then ended up covering my lunch duty: he manned the ketchup dispensers, told students they were being too loud and told one kid to clean up the mess he had made.

When I got home, he had blocked all the windows in the bedroom and threatened all the roommates with death if they woke me up.  I think he even managed to refrain from saying, “I told you so” for several days.

The lesson was great as well. All the kids loved it, their core samples were awesome. Except for one small thing. You know how on TV, Bill Cosby’s jello creations wiggle and jiggle and are thick? Apparently that doesn’t happen with store brand jello. There was a lot of disintegration as the frozen jello melted. It was much more messy than I had imagined. In the end, though, they did understand that different resources are located in different areas and that scientists take core samples to decide where and how to dig.

Someday, I will teach this lesson again, with a bigger budget and the right kind of jello. And some kitchen elves.

It’s hard to ask people to really look carefully at what they do everyday. You can couch it in phrases that sound supportive or that sound as if  there is only a small change to be made, but in the end, the very dynamic of a training session implies that changes need to be made.  The bald truth is, we all walked into the training hoping to change the way that those teachers taught science, even if we didn’t believe that they are bad or neglectful teachers.

By asking teachers to change the way that they approach content and materials in a classroom, we asked them to relearn how to teach. Most teachers approach a lesson by either pulling it from the state approved textbook or by teaching the content in a way that someone they know and respect has taught it in the past.

I said, many times over, the phrase “subtle shifts”, “deepen your existing efforts” and things like “we’re not asking you to throw your existing lessons in the trash and start over”. I looked out at the assembled teachers and watched their faces while we said it.  Some participants believed it, and looked relieved; some participants really felt overwhelmed and as if they could never do it; and some looked as if nothing I could talk about would be more interesting than their plans for lunch.

The women that ran the training with me were so very good, both in the way that they handled specific participants and in the way that they addressed the changes that were taking place in the participants.  By the end of the week, we had many teachers who were ready to look at lesson design and underlying concepts in their grade level.

Today, I started a week long training, as a participant, on English Language Learners and the regular classroom.  This training is going to ask us to examine our lesson design and our classroom culture as well.  Participants in this training seem to have the same glazed over eyes or panicked facial expressions as the participants in my training did. This group, though, has another more insidious expression: anger.

It would be very easy to get distracted at this point and try to examine the anger, where it comes from and to be righteously indignant about it. These teachers are angry that they are going to have to examine their teaching and classrooms because of “those” kids. That’s important and bears examination, but not here and not today.

Today, I want to ask why the teachers in my science training weren’t angry.  Yes the anger that comes from racist or semi-racist thinking is unsupportable, but some of the anger comes from teachers believing they are already doing everything they need to do to be good teachers. Where was that same conviction in the science teachers?

There is so much focus in teacher prep programs on language arts and literature that teachers feel secure and feel empowered to be angry when challenged in the way that they teach. Science and math? Not so much. Until that attitude changes and elementary teacher prep programs address the need for their pre-service teachers to feel comfortable in those subjects, I fear that I will continue to confront apathy and anger.  I fear as well that our students will continue to fall behind in math and science.

As the week goes on, I will be curious to see if the anger continues to simmer or if it cools down. Either way, it should be interesting to compare the two weeks.

I am beginning the official end of year process in the classroom.  We are required to pass along to the second grade teachers a cross-curricular portfolio, the reading level of each student and the results of the state approved standardized reading test for first grade.  These give me standard and measurable benchmarks for each student. Based on these results, second grade teachers will be able to better meet my students where they are and take them to where they need to be at the end of next year. It is very civilized and it is very standard.

It is also very dull. If I relied simply on the results of the portfolio (too numerous to be useful to anyone), the reading level of the students (useful only to teachers who are going to teach reading the way I do) and the results of the state standardized reading test (in first grade? Who are they kidding) I would have to pull my eyeballs out and find a new job.

Luckily, I know better. After ten years in the classroom, I know that phonemic awareness is important but that it develops with time.  I also know that portfolios are useful only if everyone agrees on why the items included are important. No one outside the rubric- writing committee can tell you why the items included are important. The reading level is very important if one knows how to parse out useful information.  For example, if the reading level is given without an analysis of miscues, the next teacher won’t understand  why a child is at a particular reading level.  We might as well use Reading First and Harcourt as actually teach reading in that instance.

At the end of the year, I measure success based on student conversation.  I’d like to share snippets of conversation heard since Spring Break with you.  Some of these will sound like pale renditions of “Kids say the darndest things…” but to me they  aren’t cute so much as they are evidence of hard-won academic growth. Remember, they are 6…

During Reading…

“I wrote a sticky note in the book.  It says, ‘I think Tikki Tembo fell in the well because he slipped.’ It doesn’t tell you that in the text, but I inferred it by looking at the picture and thinking about the last time I fell down.”

Student: “Our poster is funny. This is our favorite part in the book.  The witch starts out all black and mean and at the end, she’s learned her lesson and so she is wearing colors and her house is pretty now. She’s nice now.”

While holding up a non-fiction frog book and a fiction story about a frog: “Look at these books, this one tells you all about the facts.  This books tells you a story using facts.  That’s what I do when I write. I use facts.”

and my favorite quote from reading: “I love this class because we read and read and read.  That’s how you learn. When I grow up, I am going to read just like you do.”

During Math…

“This is math and science together.  When we studied deserts, we measured sand.  We used this <measuring cup> but I didn’t know what to call it. Now we are using the measuring cup to measure capacity. Did you know that we can have math and science together?”

Student 1 : “That can’t be a subtraction problem! <looking at a problem where the starting number is unknown> It says, ’some more rabbits came’ and that means addition. ”  Student 2: “That’s why you have to think about what’s in the problem.  It is subtraction because we only have the biggest number and another number.” Student 1: “Mrs Nguyen, can I build it to find out?”

and my favorite…”I like math because you never guess.  We aren’t playing the lottery, you know!”

During science…

“This is where I drew the male and female ducks.  And  here, this is where I drew the nest. I know we didn’t see the nest, but that is where it would be safe from predators and close to the duck’s prey. They eat bugs.”

Pointing to a poster that they made showing a forest turtle’s life. “It says: ‘The Galapagos turtle has elephant legs.’ That’s a good connection I made there. The turtle is a reptile but he has a mammal’s legs.”

“Snakes aren’t mammals. They lay eggs. The doctor doesn’t go to their house and tell the mom to breathe hard and he doesn’t make the dad wait in the living room. Just think of a snake doctor trying to catch the baby! He wouldn’t go into the living room of the madriguera to tell the dad snake that everything was okay.”

There are a lot of other conversations that go on during group work times. I sometimes wish that I could record what they say because I know that I forget more subtle comments. As the year winds down, I have to remind myself that they are six and not 8 because they have worked so hard and learned so much that I am startled by the academic conversations we have. 

I love this time of year. We kicked academic tail all year and now they are soaring. I am just watching them go and enjoying them. Reading and science are real to them.  They interact authentically with text and with the science experiences that are available to them.  

What about your students? As you all start to plan your summers and the time that you desperately need and deserve to recharge, take a moment and look at each kid in your room and consider how far they’ve come. Enjoy them, you’ve all earned it.

Step 1: Load bus, with students, lunches and teachers.  (20 minutes)

Step 2: Drive slowly through traffic to the site of the field trip.  Really, Really slowly. On a bus with about 130 kids and their parents. (an hour sometimes)

Step 3: Arrive and do cool field trip thing.  (an hour, maybe an hour and a half)

Step 4: Drive to lunch location.  (20 minutes)

Step 5: Eat lunch and play on the playground. (two hours)

Step 6: Load bus and drive home (an hour)

Total Hours: give or take 6…depending on traffic.  Ratio of hours on non-academics to academics:

3 hours, 40 minutes:: 1 hour (generously: 1 hour, 30 minutes)

This is more of a problem in the lower grades, but it does happen in the upper grades as well.  And while there have been shining examples to the contrary, this is the norm.

This year, the bulk of the time on the trip must be spent on academics. Which is great, I think.  Also, administration wants to know what you’ll do before, during and after the field trip in order to connect it to the approved curriculum.  This should be normal or expected.

The idea is to shine a light on the time spent and make certain that all time is efficient.  It also has to shine a light on the cobwebs and muddled thinking that happens at this time of the year

There are two drawbacks to this. The first, of course, is that it is a lot of work.  The second, surprisingly, is that the teachers are resistant. Partly, they are resistant because the parameters within which the district is working continuously change.  Partly, they are resistant because this is new and new is scary.

I am gleeful.  The only reason to go on field trip is for field experience, to get experience that you can’t get in the classroom.  The United States education system gives precious little time to educating children and demands a remarkable amount of learning in return.  Kids have time for picnic lunches and playgrounds on the weekends and in the afternoon.  During the school day, I need their brains for as much of the day as possible.

We submitted to take the first grade to the Ft Worth Nature Center to tour the river bottom forests that grow in the area. We’ll see if we jumped through all the hoops in the right order or not.

I think I remember Open House from when I was a kid and I think I remember the teachers complaining that no one came. I think we did one or two special activities for the day. Maybe.

I don’t remember open house from the first year I taught.  I’m sure we did have one, but I don’t remember it. Other things stick with me, which means Open House must have been “just another night”.

The second year I taught, my mentor teacher (God Bless Her) walked me through open house.  These were her firm rules: 

(1) Every parent gets a hand written (from their child) invitation to Open House.  It is sent two weeks before the date.  

(2) Parents are given  a Scavenger Hunt form during the Open House so that they didn’t focus on the teacher, but instead focused on their kid and the kid’s work.

(3) Anything that the kids did reflected new content, not a new skill. Open House was not to be a dog and pony show, it was a chance for the kids to show off what they could do.  For example, we had worked on making models of the human body from construction paper in the fall and so in the spring, we did construction paper models of ocean animals or farm animals.

(4) Everything fit into a theme and most of what they did went on the wall. It was arranged artistically.

8 years later, I still try to follow those rules. This year, though, is different.  Most things feel different this year.  I can’t put my finger on why, but Open House is an emotional issue for me and for most teachers. The other teachers on my team did not like what I did last year. I was informed of that today. When I asked why, I was told it is because my room and my kids’ work didn’t look anything like their rooms or their kids’ work.  Last year, I did offer to share what I was doing with them and was turned down. “We have our unit finished.  We don’t need anything. Of course, you can do that in your room if you’d like.” 

This year, my Team Lead keeps saying, I don’t want to do a dog and pony show, I want it to be really what we do.  She also keeps saying, it should all be the same. Parents are going to flip out if all the classrooms are not the same.

I am feeling torn, some moments, I want to be really angry that I am being told to hide who I am as a teacher.  Some moments, I don’t care what the other teachers or students do.  Right now  though, I feel confused.  Nothing that I have done all year looks like what they have done.  I have no idea how to look like them or teach like them.  Some of the things I have displayed in the hallway have inspired them to ask about what it is or how to do it, but not many.  This is true on the other side as well: some of their displays have been inspiring, but not many of them fit with my style.  Pretending that we are all the same would be a dog and pony show. From whom does my Team Lead not want a dog and pony show? The students or me?

It leads me to ask: Even if the work that the kids do “for open house” would be done anyway, does the way it is displayed make it a dog and pony show?And (as a related question) how much of this would I do without the pressure of Open House? 

What is Open House for anyway? Is it to bring parents into the school?  Is it to involve the parents in their children’s education? Or is it intended to be a museum style show?

I have had parents in and out of my room a few times already, and the parents have been ‘included’ in the curriculum of the classroom through a “Family Traditions” unit study and a “Who am I?  Who are we?” family unit study.  The families and parents have been asked to help their children by teaching them about family history or family traditions.  The students have shared these interviews and books with their classmates with and without their parents as audience members. Parents are welcome anytime, and often drop in before school to chat with me about what’s going on in the room.

The benefit of Open House is that it allows the students to focus on a theme for several weeks and show off what they have learned to do.  It also allows parents to come and peruse student work at their leisure without interrupting flow of the academic day. It allows the parents to compare their child’s best work against the best work of other students. And see what they can really do when they put their mind to it.

The down side is that it can feel contrived and it relegates the students and parents to exhibitor/patron status and doesn’t really involve parents in the learning process.  In Utopia, parents are involved, authentic contributors to the learning process.  These parents are able to tutor, work with small groups and do more than cut things out. I have yet to meet more than a handful of these parents.  

Is there a way to have Open House be more interactive?  To have it showcase the parents as true partners in their child’s education?  Would parents even want to do so? There always seem to be more questions than answers …

I wasn’t sure where to begin, so I decided to start at the beginning. In the fall, the school district organized an on-line mock election for all students: pre-k through 12th grade.  Teachers were encouraged to talk to the students (as age appropriate) about the issues, the candidates and voting rights.  A permission slip was sent home and all students whose parents did not return the permission were expected to vote. 

My students come from a mixed background of native born and immigrant families.  Many of them think that Mexico and Texas are the same place, the way that many people think that New York and New York City are the same place.  We talked and talked about what voting was, what responsibilities people who are in office have and just who, precisely, would the president of the United States be able to “boss around”.

We read a lot about the two main presidential candidates (after the primaries).  The news stories that we read came from classroom magazines and focused on favorite foods, family members and what sports they liked. First graders think that those are very important issues. 

Imagine my surprise when we walked into the mock election with the kids’ voter registration cards and discovered that the kids (even pre-k students) would be voting for president, vice president and every other elected office that adults would be voting for in November.  I had been prepared to talk about the presidential race and even the mayoral race, but I know adults who don’t know anything about the candidates running for County Recorder. The kids had to cast their ballot for each and every official before we could leave the room.  The stellar moment of the day came from Ria (names changed to protect the innocent) who is from Puerto Rico.  She cried across the room: “Which one is the brown boy? I need to vote for the brown boy because he’s Puerto Rican too!”  To this day, she insists that Bracka Omabamama is Puerto Rican because he “looks like my dad.”  Which is as good a reason to vote for someone as any when you are 6.

After the mock election, the district wide results were announced.  After the national elections, the kids knew who won but it didn’t come up often in class.  Ria was thrilled that the “brown boy” was president. 

We moved on with life in first grade and studied rocks and soil and maps.  Fast forward to January 13th. The teacher lunchroom question of the day: “Have you seen the news? Keller was in the news!”

I don’t watch the news, so if something doesn’t rate NPR, I often don’t hear about it. I asked, and was told that Keller ISD had decided that students would not be allowed to watch the inauguration during school.  See the complete story here: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/14/No_inauguration_show_for_school_district/UPI-60961231953780/.  

Teachers had approached the district to discover which news sites would be available for viewing during the inauguration and were told : ”We’re not going to view it. We’re just going to stick to our instructional program,” Lopez said. “Because there is so much technology and media coverage, we feel that students will be able to go home and view it at home with their families.”

I was stunned. The district had “viewed” the Bush inaugurations.  So, why not this one? Over the next few days, the story was picked up UPI and MSNBC and local television news. If you type into your favorite search engine “Keller ISD Inauguration” you’ll see that it was even picked up by blogs and forums not related to education at all.

The reason is that school officials didn’t want the inauguration to cut into instructional time.  After public outcry and a call from the teachers’ union and the Texas Education Agency, the school district adjusted the decision to allow all students to watch parts of the inauguration live as appropriate to class schedule, technology and age.  Essentially, that meant that in the elementary school, no one saw it live. We all watched a pre-recording of the speech only.

http://cbs11tv.com/watercooler/Keller.Independent.School.2.908144.html for the entire story.

For my students, we started the afternoon reading a classroom magazine that focused on Barack Obama’s life from childhood to adulthood.  There pictures of him as a kid, teaching and hanging out with his family.  The kids were so excited to see pictures of Barack Obama and were overwhelmed when I told them we were going to watch his inauguration on tv.

We all settled in front of the monitor and I hit “play” on the recorded feed.  When Dianne Feinstein introduced Barak Obama, my kids cheered.  You would have thought that were watching the winning touchdown at the superbowl.  Two kids jumped up and did a fist pump.  I am not going pretend for a moment that my students, who kept asking if this was going to be on tv in Spanish when they got home, understood the words of the speech. 

This I know though, they watched the moment when, as Ria put it, the man who “looks like my daddy” got sworn in.  Several of them looked at me and said, “That could be me!”  All their friends joined in the refrain, “That could be me!”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call an efficient use instructional time.