what we need more of is science

The middle of October is an odd time in the first grade science classroom.  There are many, many short weeks and lots of meaty science topics. This gives you the feeling that at any moment you are going to ask an innocent question and discover that the students believe that the earth is flat or that the seasons are caused by the sun moving closer or farther away from the Earth.  (You know like some sort of yo-yo with the sun standing in for the hand.)

There are as many philosophies for teaching science as there are teachers who teach science.  I fall into the Inquiry camp.  Other teachers fall into the Hands-On Science or Reading about Science camps.  Inquiry allows teachers to give their students the latitude to create their own fields of study while complying with state and local curricula requirements.  The students are taught to create all aspects of a scientific study- from creating the questions to planning and carrying out the experiments to publishing their results.  This takes some time. Honestly, it takes a lot of time.

It requires that teachers really know their students.  They have be flexible.  They have to plan ahead.  They have to have a lot of junk. They have to know the material- not so that they “know all the answers” but so that they understand the concepts of the material.  When students ask questions, the teachers need to be ready to guide them to the right answer, even if the answer is unknown to both teacher and to student.

This is beyond hands-on, hands on asks the students to do a few activities within a larger unit of study. For example, the students might read about photosynthesis and then do an experiment with bean plants. These classrooms are the ones wherein the students “Can’t handle experiments.  They get too excited and can’t follow directions.” 

Inquiry takes time.  It takes time to develop the skills and the procedures. Students need to learn how to ask questions that are investigable.  This takes time too.  There is a gradual release of responsibility, gradual and strategic.  Each aspect of the Scientific Method needs to be taught and practiced before students are expected to be successful with their own experiments.  

Teachers can’t force the experiences into neat 40 minute blocks each day. Nor can units of study be confined to a few days or a week.  The students need to be able to explore, experiment, mull over what they learned and then publish their findings.  To start, students explore objects or pictures related to a concept.  These objects/pictures are carefully chosen by the teacher to foment specific types of questions that will lead to specific learnings.  Then, the students are encouraged to create questions and carry out experiments with the help and guidance of their teacher.

This kind of science requires that worksheets and reading material stay in the reading block. Or, if they merge into the science block, they don’t do so at the expense of “doing science”.   Science Journals are paramount.  They give the students the chance to express themselves and to learn how to take notes and communicate scientifically.  It is here that the students grow into scientists, where they become confident in their knowledge.  

We need more of it. The teachers on my team want to do worksheets and watch video clips and call that science.  Truly.  They don’t want to do this alongside the inquiry, they want to do this instead of inquiry, instead of science.

Why? Here are the reasons: 

1. Our students can’t do that, you are expecting average kids to do GT work.  (My students can do it. My students who are all low SES, second language learners can do this successfully.)

2. That isn’t science, I’m not teaching anything. (Really? Then why do my kids know all the content? Why does teaching mean pontificating to you?)

3. That’s over their heads and isn’t what they need to learn. You aren’t covering the basics.  (What? I am not even sure how to answer this one)

4. We only have 2 45 minute blocks a week to teach science in. (Hmmm, integration anyone? I am getting it all in.  The science journal counts for writing, during Guided Reading, we read science texts…)

Can you read the frustration? I blame the Republican war on science for this. Teachers feel like they can cut science in favor of pep rallies, recess, video clips or whatever else may come along.  Or, if they put in the correct number of minutes, they want to have a few hands on activities and a lot of direct instruction. The reality is, for many of these teachers, there is no accountability to science and they are themselves scared of it.

One of my colleagues has said that it is hard to be a prophet in your own land.

For more reading and to have some fun on the internet, visit: http://www.exploratorium.edu/ifi/

The End of the Year

The beginning of the year is crazy.  A lot of the time, I feel like I just start the thing off and then roll down hill while hanging on for dear life. The end of the year is more like trying to get merry-go-round to stop on a dime.

This year was a little different than years past of course. It was a new district and I was back in first grade. Last year was my second year in third grade. The end of the year last year was crazy.  The paperwork involved was overwhelming, getting the kids to the right classroom setting was an involved process and I thought it might never end.  This year was very different. 

By the nature of the grade level, first graders have less paperwork.  They are easier to place in for the following year.  All of my students were very successful and worked hard all year.  They all moved fair and square into second grade.  And since the district that I am in has a very well informed bilingual outlook, there was no question about where the kids would be placed. It took a lot of the pressure off and let me just enjoy the end of the year.

Which let me, unfortunately, get caught up in all the drama involved in end of the year staffing placements. It’s like watching a game of chess between two masters.  All the teachers are maneuvering for a new teaching assignment, or a different classroom or a different school.  The principal is trying to make moves that the school needs that won’t result in too many teachers leaving.  If too many teachers leave, then it’s like starting all over again.

My principal said in March that he was leaving. He lives in a city about 45 minutes away from where I teach and he wanted to be closer to home.  All of which makes sense, but it started an unforseen dominoe effect.  The Vice Principal, the Counselor, the Student Support Specialist and the office staff all decided to leave as well. 

Teachers don’t like change. It frightens them as a group. We think that change and an examination from the outside means that we are being criticized.  So, with a new principal on the horizon, bringing Change, about 15 teachers decided that it was their time to go to a new school to a principal that they knew already.  Then about 5 teachers needed to find a new school based on the enrollment numbers.

The rest of us are settling in to see what happens.

Same School District, different Classroom

It is early October, and I am teaching in the same school in the same school district as last year but this year I am in the first grade hallway and am teaching first grade.  There were moments over the summer when I questioned the sanity of this decision.  There are moments daily when I still question the sanity of this decision.  

We are a little over 6 weeks into the school year. I can’t help but compare one year to the last.  Last year I started the year in a multi-grade classroom, which didn’t function the way I had imagined.   After Thanksgiving all my second graders were transferred to a new classroom with  a newly hired teacher.  The other first grade classroom was split and half of those first graders joined my classroom.  It was a lot like joining a movie already in progress.  I was adjusting to a new team, new district, new administration and etc. All was change.

This year I am teaching first graders only! I won’t get an influx of someone else’s students. I have 17, which is a good number, and I think I will keep them all.  I have been moved down to the first grade hallway which has its downsides: everyone can see what I am doing and I have to be a team player.  The upside is that I don’t feel as physically isolated.  I am adjusting to being on this new team (including three brand new teachers), new administration (our principal, vice principal and counselor from last year all moved) and some changes in the curriculum.  All is change.

I like the new administration a lot.  The principal is very serious about teachers being involved in the school community and in the collegiate aspects of the school. She wants a congenial faculty, but she also wants a collegiate faculty.  There is no small amount of stress in that change.  In the past, the teachers were all able to function more or less as they wished and there was little to no accountability to the “team”.  As long as there was evidence of student learning, it didn’t matter what the individual teachers were doing. When you walk through the door, you can feel the stress of “having to work together” as opposed to “choosing to work together.”

The new vice principal is Hispanic and speaks Spanish. That is no small matter.  She is able to relate to the parents and we are no longer having to have a separate person in for discipline discussions to act as a translator.   She has taken on hallway behavior (which was embarrassing last year) and the behavior in the cafeteria.  The cafeteria aids have been switched out so that the new workers are more cheerful and the expectations are more realistic.  While no one is learning table manners, everyone is learning civility.

We have also added a “Rise and Shine” each Friday.  This is a fifteen minute pep rally each friday morning.  It starts with the pledges to the American and Texas flags.  Then we move onto a recitation of the 8 Expectations (indoctrination at its best).  For those of you who are not aware of what a Great Expectations school is, count yourself lucky.  In our school, it seems to be code for ‘If the kids aren’t aware of the natural(intrinsic)  consequences, you can’t give them demonstrable (extrinsic) consequences.’  This results in a lot of students with no consequences. Nonetheless, we recite our expectations every Friday.

I could do without the Rise and Shine, but the kids enjoy it immensely. It makes for a rousing start to the last day of the week: brings us all together for happy songs, a few jokes and announcements.  

There have been a lot of changes this year, both in the culture of the school and the personalities of the school faculty.  Each year I think that I am going to get a handle on change- it is after all the cornerstone of education. Change happens all the time- the rooms, the administration, the curriculum.  If I ever do get a handle on it, I’ll let you know. 

New Pictures…

I need to update the information as well…great things have been happening at school this term, but uploading the pictures took all of my energy!

Enjoy!

Freire and Escamilla

Earlier this fall, my colleagues and I attended the Texas Association of Bilingual Educator’s Conference.  TABE is a place that I love to go to.  I hang out with well known and  influential professors and teachers; I hang out with teachers who are influential and not well known. I learn so much from everyone.  I add to my list of books I need to read and add to my bag of tricks for the classroom. I eat.  It is great to go with people from my school so that we can build those congenial ties that are crucial to collegiate ties.

I also present.  This year, thankfully, I presented with one of my best friends and a great teacher.

Presenting at a conference like this is nerve-wracking and I have to ignore that feeling in order to be successful. I present often and I don’t take the experience for granted. This time I was presenting on immigrant parents’ views of reading comprehension and of the TAKS test, which is Texas’ answer to high stakes testing. Rigor, High Stakes Testing and Comprehension make up my very own Axis of Evil. 

For my students and myself, it isn’t so much that the test is unfair or unflattering, although in  many instances it is; it is that it is completely unknown.  Their parents haven’t lived it, their older siblings haven’t lived it and it is a terrifying, do or die test.  The presentation was about how to “bridge the gap” between the experience of everyone involved and the test.  Specifically, we looked at how everyday activities support true reading comprehension regardless of the level of the student.

I always arrive at the conference thinking that someone, at some point before I present, will say something that I can refer to in my opening. I haven’t been disappointed yet. This habit of picking up other people’s words helps to keep me focused in sessions and, I think, honors other presenters as well.  I always give the original speaker credit. 

This time it was Kathy Escamilla referring to Paolo Freire and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  She spoke as a keynote the opening morning of the conference and by the end of her talk, it was everything I could do not to jump up and down while shouting “Say it, sista!”.  I have heard her speak before, but each time I find something new to inspire me.

She spoke at length about how decision makers who are nervous because the status quo  is changing (aka oppressors) use language that at first startles those with a different view (aka the oppressed or those who speak on their behalf).  After listening to the language for months or even years, those oppressed individuals adopt the same language and use it for themselves. This is done without any rancor or malice on anyone’s part.  I read Freire in college and have carried his writings with me ever since and the idea of education for social change is what gets me up in the morning.  His books spend chapters explaining how language is used by individuals to wield power, or to strip it from others. 

The phrase that Kathy used over and over again that has stuck with me over a month later was, “Good teaching is good teaching.”  It is such a benign phrase.  The implication is that if you are teaching well, everyone in your class should be learning and if they aren’t, it isn’t because of your teaching methods.  Unfortunately, many teachers and principals who use the phrase haven’t looked at their teaching methods critically in several years.  It worries me that as the jargon around Best Practices and Rigor weaves an even stronger net cookie cutter methods will continue to be used under those guises.

How often have I used that phrase myself, always in an attempt to persuade someone to change the way that they are approaching a “problem child”.  Looking back on it, it seems apologetic.  I wonder if it was or if it only seems that way after having heard her speak.  The conversation usually started with an appeal from the other teacher and I would dutifully create a laundry list of suggestions, only to be speared with a scathing look or the phrase, “What am I supposed to do with the other students while this one receives special treatment?”  To which I would reply, “Good teaching is good teaching and it can only benefit the other students in your room.”  As if doing it for the benefit of one child wasn’t enough.

I did incorporate that phrase into my opening and borrowed another from Susan Ohanian, “One size does not fit all.”  We have to teach the kids the way that they learn, and that sometimes means that good teaching is good teaching, even if it is a phrase borrowed from the oppressors. 

A second wind after Thanksgiving Break

During the summer I decided that I needed to re-examine the Texas TEKS and make sure that I was actually covering them.  I was surprised to discover that there were technology TEKS that I was responsible for teaching. 

After some searching on the web, I discovered this thing called “Blog”.  I thought that I would be able to use it to kill two birds: technology and writing.  I am not a writer and I am not a good teacher for teaching writing.  Everything the kids write sounds akward to me and I am not certain how to fix that.  So, this seemed perfect.  They could write often about their lives and hopefully for an audience of other kids and then they could read other kids writing and have attainable goals.  Too often, kids try to write like their favorite authors and not like thier peers and they can’t.  They aren’t 40 year olds. 

There were two flaws with that master plan: can first and second graders blog? Are they allowed to in my district? I had three computers, but one didn’t have a hard drive.  I was told that first and second graders are not allowed to blog. I just got the hard drive two weeks ago for the third computer.

So, in the meantime, I bought a digital camera by Fisher Price that I thought we could use as a way to jumpstart journal entries and moved on. The kids have had a great time taking random pictures during recess and lunch.  I have had a great time looking at them, but I haven’t found the time to teach them how to upload them or then to use them to write with. 

This is frustrating.  Having the multi-age class has led to a lot of frustration with my expectations.  The first graders are outnumbered and I tend to forget that they are first graders and then I give them an assignment that they can’t handle. The balancing act is difficult and given that, technology just seems like too big a hurdle.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though-my class is being separated into first graders and second graders and the district will allow first graders to blog now.  I am hoping that that will give me a second wind.

Go and Read this Now

I just read this blog and wowza it is a good one.

so, I recommend going and reading this now.

http://borderland.northernattitude.org/2007/08/05/like-cranky-talk-show-hosts/

900 kids

I went to my new school today to check it out.  I haven’t been back since I was interviewed and I was curious.  So, after some technology training (Mantra: This wasn’t working this morning, so you may have to watch me do it), I decided to drive by.  I don’t have a security badge and I was hoping that someone would be there and would believe my story and let me in.

I was lucky, one of the crew let me in.  I wandered around a bit and ran into two teachers, neither of whom are on my team.  They had news about the portables: they haven’t arrived. No one knows when they will arrive.  This means that the teachers who will move into them haven’t moved yet.  For me, this means that I can’t move into the school because I will be moving into one of the displaced teacher’s classrooms.  My garage is stuffed with school supplies that are waiting to be moved.  I am in a more enviable position than many of the teachers as I don’t have anyone waiting on me!

There will be 900 students this year.  900. I can’t get over it.

I do not envy my principal this management job: organizing the school’s day. I am not a schedule person, subjects and activities ebb and flow. Unfortunately, lunch can not ebb and flow, it must march forward. I can’t fathom how he will organize 900 students into lunch, PE, art, music and recess.

The school is a Title I school, which means that a certain percentage of students live at or below the poverty line.  A large percentage of them are second language learners.  Many of them have learning differences or behavior difficulties.  These kids are the ones who most need small, supportive communities. 

I worry about this.  Will my new school prove to be such an environment in spite of the chaos that 900 students inevitably bring? 

Linking Literacies

The signals are all around us: school supplies on sale at Target, commercials about having cool new school clothes are on TV and pre-school staff development has begun.  School is about to start! (It may even cool off soon)

Today, we had the second of a three day Linking Literacies conference.  It was great to walk around the halls and chat with my fellow teachers.  It felt for me the way the first day of school must feel for my students: catching up, making social plans and finally getting to the business of work. 

My piece of the presentation was on Content Area Literacy.  It was so much fun to be able to share tools and strategies to deepen understanding that I’ve used over the past years with other teachers.  There was some reciprocal sharing: teachers adding to what was presented based on their own experiences.

The presentation was framed by Thinking Processes: Summarizing, Inferring, Questioning, etc. We asked the participants to consider two questions with regards to that after we presented each strategy:

What Thinking was fostered by this strategy?  and How can you make this Thinking more transparent for your students?

While we knew that these questions were very deep, we hoped that they would settle into participant’s subconsciousness and be examined periodically throughout the year.  Not only to answer the questions, but to let the questions inform their lesson design.

I know that I will!

Being In-Between

I have been involved in many conversations over the course of the summer with people about growing technologies and their impact on life. 

Some of this has sprung forth because I want to use more technology in my classroom and a few of the conversations have come from listening to the radio or watching stories on the news.

It’s odd to be in between: when I was a kid, we had “computer” classes that used Turtle.  We were supposed to type in commands and make the Turtle move across the screen.  My turtle never went anywhere near where I’d wanted it to go. My sister, two years behind me in school, always had success.  It seemed that she intuitively understood how to program that Turtle to move.

I ignored all computer classes offered in school until my senior year, when for some reason, I decided to take Pascal. It killed my GPA and convinced me that computers were not usefull beyond writing papers.  I continued to ignore computer classes until Grad school where I completed Intel’s Teach to the Future Program.  Which taught me that computers were fun and maybe were useful in middle school classes.

Now, according to this story from NPR’s Marketplace (http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/07/27/PM200707278.html), little girls are using social networking sites to play house.  My students are expected to use Excel, PowerPoint and Access in third grade.  They deftly maneuver around the computer and even if they can’t articulate what they are using, they are flexible and competent.  When 5th graders are breaking through the ISD’s firewall to get onto MySpace, I know that these kids will always know more than me.

My parents’ generation is concerned that this new style of play  and interaction will prevent kids from learning how to work with each other.  My students look at me as if I have three heads when I mention that I didn’t have email until I was in graduate school. This is unfathomable to them.

Here I am, stuck in the middle again!