The One to Blame or Thank?

In the hallway, she muttered about teachers who spend too much time cutting out elaborate bulletin-board decorations or chitchatting at “morning meetings” with their third-graders before the real work begins.

This is the problem with so many articles on education for the general public. Most everyday-readers do not know what morning meetings are, and here their purpose is compared to bulletin boards and chitchatting. Yes, it’s a throw-away quote in a sense, used to introduce the person being written about, but it invites the unknowing reader to think, “Oh, yeah, she must be a no-nonsense woman who has some good, controversial ideas I might like – that call for ‘real work’.”

The “she” in that quote is Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of Education, and the quote is from a brief piece Time magazine published on her last month, making me aware of her name and existence for the first time. And I must say, the article left me uneasy. Not simply because of Rhee’s beliefs and approaches but more so because of the article itself. Rhee is portrayed as a rebel, and her ideas are constantly pitted against teachers in an oversimplified “heroic” way.

There’s always this morality play that unfolds in articles like this – the veteran teachers who just want to love the kids and let them do arts and crafts because she instinctively knows what’s better, and the ambitious, research-focused and data-driven authority who is trying to save students from a “touchy-feely” education.

In my first read of the article, I drew the conclusion that it is the kind of philosophy she espouses that has landed so many of our public schools in this factory-producing-the-best-products approach to education that is deadening and sickening. A philosophy that demands teachers differentiate but then re-mold the students through undifferentiated standards and standardized tests that insist on and reinforce inequality and setting students up for failure. And then giving raises or pink slips to teachers based on those same test scores.

Back to the quote above.

Differentiation: Just Another Weight On Teachers?

At teachermagazine.com, an interview with the mother of differentiated instruction, Carol Ann Tomlinson, has inspired an uninspiring discussion (two comments). One person says that differentiated instruction is simply “nothing more than really good teaching” and another says, “It seems that Tomlinson is definitely in a minority position in believing that differentiation is working in US classrooms.” (Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: Making a Difference)

I think they’re both wrong.

Not that differentiated teaching isn’t really good teaching, it’s just really off-putting to describe it that way. And it’s just not that simple. I have had amazing teachers in my life, none of whom differentiated. In fact, I was always several grades ahead of the rest of my class when it came to reading (I read at all 11th grade level when I was in third grade), so they would send me one grade up during reading. Not a solution. it really wasn’t until I went to a non-graded school that I was able to move myself forward in reading unhindered. And I know really good teachers now (and brand-new teachers like me) who are having a hard time trying to figure out how to differentiate.

But, first, I want to address the person with the last quote I mention above. They quote research and statistics to “prove” their position that most teachers don’t think differentiation works because they prefer homogenous grouping since those who are not functioning at grade level require so much attention that those who are advanced get brushed aside.

Well, that’s the problem with research. Or, rather, that’s the problem with those who don’t understand research.

Like any other approach, differentiation has its talented practitioners and its weaker ones, and cannot be judged solely on how it gets implemented. If you try something and you don’t do it well, it’s far easier to say it doesn’t work, than you couldn’t do it.

Also, I think there are things teachers do that they don’t interpret as differentiation. If you notice a struggling (or advanced) student likes Spiderman and you get him a copy of some of the comics to read, that is a form of differentiation.

For those who are unfamiliar with this topic, here is a conceptual map of differentiation from the NYCTF.*

I think a lot of teachers are reticent toward differentiation because it requires getting to know 30-150+ kids (depending on whether you teach elementary, middle, or high school) really well and teaching to each of them, as opposed to teaching a single subject one way to a generic audience.

In a sense, that is what differentiation is — knowing your audience and developing what you do to meet them where they’re at and take them where you want them to go.

What do you do to differentiate in your class? Who do you tend to agree with more – those who think it’s a necessary pursuit, or those who say it’s a bunch of crap?

*I am in the process of finding out if the copyright prohibits me from sharing this.

Be The Kid

Recently the ESL Department at my school had our first (since I’ve been there) departmental meeting with our supervisor. In the lead up to it, the veteran teachers groaned and warned about how “there’s always something” and were not looking forward to it. I didn’t really know what to expect.

As you may know by now, NYC Public Schools now receive a progress report that rates a school for the percentage of progress students make. Our school scored an A, and this meeting discussed some of the weaknesses and where we, as a school, needed to improve. One was in terms of data, so now we have to carry around the most recent running record for our students, for example.

Our supervisor also detailed some ideas she’d gotten from going for some professional development with Teachers College, with which our school is affiliated. One of the things was the suggestion to “be the kid” — during a read aloud that the classroom teacher is doing, rather than being in the front of the classroom, sometimes we should sit down with the kids and get a better sense of how they’re seeing/hearing/interpreting/discussing things. The other new teacher (more on her later) and I were really jazzed by this. The veterans were kind of like, “more work?”

This seems to be an essential question and crossroads for what kind of teacher I will become. It comes down to why someone I am a teacher and where I see myself in this career.

Bloom’s and ELLs

I’m sure for most of you Bloom’s Taxonomy is nothing new, but as someone new to pedagogy/the science behind teaching, it’s really thought-provoking (no pun intended). I really appreciate the way it classifies thinking and levels it — along with looking at learning styles, Bloom’s Taxonomy helps me to assess whether I’m appropriately challenging my students, and if I’m doing it in an academically-sound way and in more than one way. So, here’s an article I’d like to share.

I was actually thinking about it in kind of a spontaneous way today. I was doing guided reading with one group in one of my 1st grade classes, and I realized the book we were reading was probably too low for them, so I quickly had them work with me on creating a Venn Diagram. The book was called What Animals Do, and had things like, “A kangaroo hops.” As they were reading, they were already calling out things like, “I can swim (like the crocodile)!”So, when they were all done and we discussed the book, we listed what animals do that people can’t (like fly or slither) in one circle, what people do that animals can’t do (cute example: share snacks), and then in the center were things they both could do (like swim). I was excited at how quickly they got the concept of the Venn Diagram – including one student who has great phonemic awareness but is still in the Silent Period of language acquisition and speaks 99.9% in Spanish.

What are some great ways you’ve surprised yourself, using Bloom’s Taxonomy in your class?