nothing short of a fundamental shift of thinking...

A fellow member of my PLC and I were invited to rub elbows with the big-wigs at the board office. We were to sit in and contribute to the conversation around the board-wide purchase of a new assessment tool for Math. What we are looking for, basically, is for a user-friendly tool for the average generalist teacher of math to administer several times throughout the year that would give us a snap-shot picture of how our students are progressing.

I sat in on two different presentations: Nelson Math presented their PRIME assessment tool, and I also sat in on the First Steps in Mathematics presentation. Both were incredibly interesting, comprehensive and very useful in terms of gathering information - however, both required nothing short of a fundamental shift of thinking... that’s all, nothing else really. I kept coming back to the picture in my head of my teaching partner (bless her soul, she’s great but...) who’s idea of math is still mired in an old-school philosophy, rooted firmly in an idea that good math starts with basic skills. This would be a HUGE undertaking to get her to the place where she can both think deeply and flexibly about mathematics, as well as moving all of her students towards that ideal.

These programs both require intensive teacher training: 3 - 5 DAYS of training just for the Number strand. To get the entire board on board (ha!) with this would be monumental. It would be a massive undertaking to train all of our teachers to become, basically, experts in mathematics, whereas most elementary teachers do not possess any degree whatsoever in post-secondary mathematics.

It would be hugely beneficial - and I, for one, cry out in a loud, earnest voice, that it is high time for a change in the way we teach math. We can no longer be shackled to the ideas foisted upon us by how we were taught math - it didn’t work then, in a world deemed rustic and antiquated by today’s standards, let alone what standards our future holds for us. When we are still slamming our heads against walls killing ourselves over teaching long division, when the reality is that most of us have never had to use that procedure outside of the 4th grade classroom where we (dis)learned it, why are still at it? What service are we doing for our children?

What we need is nothing short of a miracle: we need a quick and painless tool to deeply uncover and plan for our students’ incredibly diverse and complex mathematical needs. That’s all, nothing more. Perhaps it could take 5 minutes to administer, maybe 2 minutes to mark. Results could be colour-coded, graphs could be made, decisions made, money doled out... Is that really too much to ask for? Do we really need something that deeply and permanently disrupts and changes, thereby improving, they way we’ve been taught/teaching math?

The unsettling answer is:


yes.

...and *BOOM* - just like that....

Well, our new principal has been at the helm now for a little more than 2 weeks, and he is doing a fantastic job. This means that he hasn’t disrupted the flow of things too much, but added his little touches that make him the great leader he is. Clearly, I am loving this new guy. I had been waiting for the opportunity to work with an administrator who truly inspires me - one who could lead a group of people, who could find balance in his work, one who really appreciates and reaches out to his staff, one who truly enjoys his work - and I know it is early, but I think this guy is it.

I was reflecting on the process this "new guy" had to go through in order to take over a school in our position - a new school, a year and a half in the making, the recent bringing-together of two separate staffs, and the fresh move-in and all that entails - and I realized: *BOOM* - just like that we are an established school with an existing culture, with our own set of morals and beliefs. I had always maintained that starting a new school was exciting because we all came together and started something with no baggage, meaning that no one could stop something from happening with the simple, yet deadly phrase: that’s not how we are used to doing things.

We came together to start something fresh. Now it is no longer fresh - it is established, and at the risk of going stale. This new guy has to contend with how things we done, and even though we are new, everyone knows how set-in-our-ways teachers are, and how incredibly resistant to change we are. So he has to navigate our waters, and though he is our leader, he (wisely so, I believe) has to stay the course regardless of where he believes we should go (What a great nautical metaphor!). Thank goodness we are going in a good direction! :)

The one thing going for us, in terms of staying off the entrenchment, is that we are still, for the most part, figuring out our school culture. The walls between the two different sites are slowly crumbling, with people more-freely crossing lines drawn in the sand. We are still negotiating what it means to finally be together in our new building. So maybe this is best time to take over an established school.

We have a vision, but there is still opportunity for change.

Well, here’s to hoping!

I am Erin Gruwell

Okay - I really need to preface this (provocative) claim: I am not the brilliant teacher, the inspiration of the must-see film "The Freedom Writers". This movie, by the way, is so effective in cementing a teacher’s sense of righteousness and self-importance, that I am still decompressing my ego, having seen this film over two weeks ago.

No, I am Erin Gruwell for a different reason. Erin lived her passion. She poured her life into her class - and what a dream to have them for 4 years! She dedicated so much to those kids that her personal relationships suffered - almost to the point to total isolation (as the film lead us to believe). I am Erin Gruwell because I too live my passion for teaching, to the point of alienating my family. I dream about my practice at night, I wake up thinking about planning my day, how to more effectively reach certain kids, how to boost the self-esteem of my down-trodden cases, I fantasize about adopting certain kids to save them from themselves, I bring my work home, and the list of neglect of family goes on.

In the past couple of weeks, I have moved to a new school - and for a school already heavily time-committed, we gave up weekends and evenings to ensure that our new building/classes were ready. On top of that, I also had training at the university for an up-coming course I am facillitating. Needless to say (yet I am going to) considerable stress was place on my relationships with my family.

I caught the bitter tirades of my wife with her email buddies. She (and her friends) compared my profession with others, effectively reducing all that I do with the simple toss-off: He’s just a teacher! This says it all, doesn’t it? I furiously clung to my self-inflated importance of my job, holding up my new idol of Erin, claiming that I too do incredible work! I change lives!

Yet do I? The grim reality is that no one really remembers with fondness their grade 3 teacher, saying that it was this person who changed their life forever. There aren’t major movies out about the incredible work done with 8 year olds, and how these amazing teacher’s save all these kids from gang violence, from drug use, from abuse and neglect, all through some trick of sorts (perhaps I can teach them all how to play trombone, letting the music find their frozen hearts, teaching them to ballroom dance, play in an orchestra, act in a Shakespearean play, or write best selling books). Yet I cling to my delusions of grandeur. I secretly wish for the teacher of the year award, the million dollar contract, the whirl-wind book tour, the appearance on Oprah for the fantastic way I am teaching my kids how to visualize when they read.

Where is the balance? Where is the motivation coming from that makes me neglect my wife, leave the raising of my kids to others? What I do is good work, but what is the cost of this?

I am really good at my job. I love to teach because I am very successful at it. I am not so successful at being a parent/husband. It is a struggle, and often coming home, it is a brutal transition from successful teacher to screw-up family man. Perhaps it is this desperate clinging to success that makes me gravitate towards school. Maybe it is desperate need to feel good about myself that I have reflected my teaching onto my self. I am a good person because I am a good teacher.

Yet I am more than just my job. I am so much more. I have been blessed with a wonderful wife and two amazing girls. That is what I will be remembered for - not how I taught factions. That is why I no longer want to be Erin Gruwell.

Erin: You have done something amazing, but the price is something I can’t afford. Good for you. I’ll stay here.

Quality, not Quantity...

A colleague of mine ambushed me at lunch (mostly because she knew I would help her and then some) concerning an inquiry question she had to develop for that evening’s class. She had some up with one, but her instructor had told her (very last minute) that it wasn’t specific enough. So she was stressing over how to revamp her question, as to make it more specific, more measurable, more number-y...

Now, I am fully in support of quality educational change, and am at the forefront of data collection and analysis at my school (currently charting our school wide math data). Yet, I always have bucked at this data-eagerness, because I truly believe anything that is truly worth something within our schools, is not quantify-able (that’s a word, isn’t it?). I believe that we need to set goals within our schools, where everyone is working towards the overall student achievement. I believe we all need to work towards improving our own practices, thereby increasing student success (I even sound number-crazy!). Yet, not everything can be reduced to a percent, nor should it be.

Case in point: As part of our math committee’s initiative, I wanted to put problem solving as an INSTRUCTIONAL method at the forefront of our school’s math thinking. Research has shown that this instructional method works, and the benefits far out-weigh the traditional lecture methods. So, in my manipulating way, I demanded that all the teacher’s collect data on their students’ ability to problem solve. Tests were drawn up (by my committee), administered, data collected and returned to me. I then graphed the abysmal results which I will then present at our next meeting (Monday). However, the crucial step has not been made yet - the translation of our efforts towards ensuring that problem solving is truly ingrained within our daily instruction, not as some add-on at the end of our lesson.

The numbers are not what is important here - yet it is what will get all the attention. "Oh my!" they will say, "Only 17% of this class can problem solve at grade level! Whatever shall we do?" I do not anticipate the conversations to lean towards deep change in our instructional approach, but in remedial support to those poor, affected students. No one will say how unnatural it is to apply a quantity (number) to a judgement call like assessment. No one will say that perhaps my idea of grade level-appropriateness isn’t the same as yours. No one will deeply question this "data", because as we all know: numbers don’t lie (he says foolishly).

I do this because I see it as a way to enact change. I do this because I think it is important that we teach in better ways, and I’ll be damned if everyone else doesn’t see that. I’ve seen the research - and the way we do things isn’t working. Change needs to come quickly, in an institution notoriously slow to change. We need to understand that all that we do is a quality judgement call, and that nothing worth anything can be merely reduced to numbers.

We’ll see on Monday.

PostScript: Un(*frickin’*)believable!

Well, we are in the building for one day when our fear(ful)less principal calls a staff meeting before school. So on Tuesday morning, bleary-eyed and feeling hung over from our triumphant first day, we stumble into the staff meeting. There, our leader of a day has the audacity to announce that she has been promoted to superintendent.
Now - we all knew this was coming. She is driven in every sense of the word, yet I still had my money on her leaving us in September. Couldn’t she at least see us into our building for the year? Yet time (and I guess positions) wait for no man, so as of Monday, we have a new principal.

The funny thing about this is how little emotion I feel about this. There were a couple of people who were weeping openly during the meeting, speeches were made, promises to return were given, yet I could not muster up that emotion. I did feel the sting of the freshly-made foot print on my back, as she discarded us to further her career.

Now what?

I touched base yesterday with a couple of staff who had worked closely with her at the other site, and they were NOT emotional - good riddance I think was the thought. The point was made that as we come together to form this new school, it would be the perfect time for a new administrator. This person could start us fresh, without the obvious favourites and pre-determined scoundrels. We could be together.

She came by yesterday to announce to my class that she was leaving. She seemed emotional, yet my kids were all thinking: Who is this lady, and who the hell cares? She’s only been our principal for 3 days now. So what?

I couldn’t help but laugh.

So maybe we will get our lives back.

So maybe we will start to teach in a positive atmosphere.

So maybe we will begin to get our breathe back.

So maybe the footprint will go away.

It’s Good To Be Home!

Well, we made it. I secretly held out, only believing it when I saw it - when the kids past the threshold and sat down for the first time.

It was a day of firsts - first time ever someone had sat in the desks, first time we used our hooks, first time a Gr. 3 used the bathroom, etc. We celebrated all of it - even to the point to clapping in the first boy and girl into the bathroom (though somewhat inappropriate to celebrate the riddance of bodily waste, we still did it!).

It was an interesting time too as it was the first time we had seen big kids. At our rental site, the Gr. 3s were the oldest, and so were given various responsibilities reserved for the older students. Yesterday, we stopped at marveled at the size of them - like we were on some sort of safari.

We also were getting our first taste of bringing the two staffs together. We started the delicate dance around each other, trying to get our own way without offending, as neither of us knew how to deal with the other. That will break down soon, as we have our first together meeting today where we iron out the details of who goes where, when, etc.

Regardless of the bumps ahead, my god it is good to be home!

T-Minus 11 Hours and Counting...

I spent the large part of the past week thinking, planning, unpacking and setting up my new room - and I cannot get over how ridiculously excited I am about starting at my new school tomorrow morning. I was in for the day today, and was literally bouncing off the walls with excitement. The parent group has put red ribbon across the door for us to cut before we enter. I plan on getting all the kids to sit at the same time and celebrate how they are the first to sit in these desks. The day will be filled with firsts: the first time to line up, the first to use the bathroom, the first to use the fountain, etc... Very little curriculum will happen tomorrow, but so much learning will happen. They will be creating memories that will last for a lifetime. This is exciting stuff!

I don’t think I will be able to sleep tonight. I know I will be wound up - but I am prepared. The room is set up. The day is planned. I am good to go.

I do think I will be emotional tomorrow - just so damn proud to finally give this brand new school to my kids. Finally, we made it! We survived the experience, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We did it!