Distracted by Shadows

   The days are short. The sun rises quickly and falls just as fast. Our time each day becomes more precious as the days move quicker. Gone are the long evenings sitting by the barbecue as it slowly cools through the evening. Gone are the early mornings with birds chirping and dew out in front. It is Autumn and here we are in the hustle and bustle of life. Here we are with this person needing this and that person needing that. Our children come home with a variety of assignments. Their lives filled with activities and tasks. It is in this time that it is easy to be distracted by the shadows.
    We live busy lives. There is always another assignment, another email, another group we need to help. It's easy to run from place to place to help out wherever you need to and to lose track of what is truly important. This running from place to place, these things we do. They are simply shadows, calling us, flickers of light that pull our attention from what is really important. We lose meaning by looking at the shadows and not seeing the light.
    I was a teacher once. I'd like to think that I still am, but in reality I know that I'm not. I taught children wonderful content that made me marvel. As a Chemistry and Modern Political Systems teacher we had fabulous discussions, we experimented on peeps. We read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. We discussed the Taliban before anyone had heard of the Tailban (this was between 1995-99). We learned about ions, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and electronegativity. I enjoyed it. Children learned it. It has been over 15 years and we all have forgotten most of it. This content was only shadows of important value. Meaningful for the moment. Lost as time ticked forward. Meaningless in a world of "Ok, Google" and "Hey, Siri" where content is available in a moment.
   The common reflection of learning in the United States was that it was that the curriculum was a mile wide and an inch deep. The Partnership for 21st Century Schools analyzed what we needed in order to prepare learners for jobs that didn't exist and a world that was changing by the moment. It provided the following framework for learning:

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

   In a the hustle and bustle world, one of movement and action it is easy to only focus on the center. The shadows move so quickly that for many it is easy to lose the outside and only see the core. We do this in our lives and our national leadership has done this in education. Common Core State Standards, PARCC, and SmarterBalance may claim to do more, but in reality they are simply core subject content, standards, and assessments. No more, no less. In reality they are meant to be the stepping stones from which we help students develop life and career skills, through which we explore creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication, during which we apply information, media, and technology skills. Content and standards are meant to be springboards from which learning lifts off into meaningful experience not foreboding anvils that drag us down. 

   We have become distracted by the shadows in both life and learning. Over time I have realized that the value I brought as a teacher was through our conversation, relationships, and collective exploration. It wasn't that they learned who Peter Stuyvesant was or did the flame test in my class. In our world, these are just shadows, little bits of activities, not necessary information. We could have just as much had amazing argumentative papers and expository videos regarding the plethora of effective techniques in performing underwater basket weaving. For the value is in the conversation and exploration and not the distraction of the content itself.

   Our time is short in this world. Each day life moves fast. It is so important to grab onto what is meaningful and to avoid being distracted by the shadows.

Life Moves Pretty Fast

 


 

Now and In The Future

   Wait until next year. Wait until you get there. That's where it's hard. You know, if we coddle you here and help you out, we are just enabling you. We can't do that because you will never learn to be successful. It always seemed that our current year teacher always needed to toughen us up for the big scary future. You remember, you heard the calls, you've seen the long assignments, you've smelled the fear. Around the corner is always the big scary year of high expectations.

   In my travels, I have worked in five different districts, two k-12 districts and three k-8 districts in two different states. The underlying themes from the leadership in every district I have been in, we want the students to succeed and if they fall, figure out how to help them get back up. I've seen teachers give incomplete grades for a month after school ended, come in throughout June to ensure a child understood a concept. I have seen children lining the walls of swim pool, coming in at 5:30 in the morning to get extra assistance because they knew the coaches would help them in whatever content area they needed assistance. I've seen math teachers extend hours every single day after school and chase children down the halls to ensure they figured out how to multiply by the reciprocal. The reality at every single level of schooling is that for the most part teachers regardless of children's ages want the student to get it.

   Lets start at the top and look at the university level. I have the opportunity to take a graduate level class this fall. The professor for the class has three students who's professional role does not match those of other students. Instead of requiring the exact same product, so that the grades and rigor can be the same, she is modifying products and learning experiences in order to meet the needs of the each constituency. She presents flexibility regarding when assignments are due but also requests two-way understanding that she also has obligations to complete. There are no lines in the sand being drawn but rather individuals listening to each other to maximize the learning and increase the value of the experience. Clearly present in the class is a sense of human worth and as such we all work to learn more and cultivate value in the class.

   When applying to colleges, admissions departments brag about the wide-range of supports available to students. There are learning labs, tutors, flipped videos. You walk down the hall and three other people have taken the class. Sure there may be that one or two that has their "strict requirements" but generally, it is that individual that lacks understanding and the leadership, the person's colleagues, and just about everyone else knows its an individual's issue not the tone of the university. Go on tour some day on a college campus, you will be amazed at the level of supports available. Personally, I remember struggling in Calculus 1 and 2. I spent hours, week after week, meeting with Professor Fink getting support. I learned far more from him about how people support people than I remember about Calculus. His patience, his understanding, and his willingness to help me look at problems from a variety of perspectives has influenced me in so many aspects of my career. What must have been simple for him but was difficult for me, he explained through 16 different lenses. Those courses could have been, you need to toughen up, but instead they were ones of lets find the path.
   In Downers Grove, we have both a k-8 district and a 9-12 district. The High School District has more than 15 feeder school districts. Each school is large, containing over 2000 people. They could be ominous places. However when you go inside they are full of energy and spirit. We meet regularly with leaders from the High School team. Our learning coaches meet with their coaches, their department chairs help us with our committees and learning, the leadership team and ours talk, share, and support each other. When we meet with them, the conversation is never we need you to have the children prepared for this, but rather this is what we are working on how is it similar to what you are doing. While we are truly two separate entities, we have more k-12 alignment than any place I have worked. The reason for this is simple, the high school believes that if you prepare and support children for the experiences they are ready to learn now, then they will be more than prepared to be successful in high school. Furthermore, if they stumble at high school there are a plethora of resources to support them there also. The math department chair, Jon, came in and willingly shared how they are focusing on deepening Math practices. He talked about how sometimes they don't get to all the content and that's ok. He shared that there are times a single problem is focused on for several days. His focus, deep understanding not a race to cover with stringent explanations. The English-Language Arts chair, Chris, came in and shared conversations regarding exploration, thought, revision, and reflection. He talked about having far fewer grades in the book and high quality work that requires personal exploration, deep thought, and revision prior to completion. While large in size, the feeling we left with was leadership desires personalization of practice.
   And so the story goes, level by level, we need to understand that we don't need to prepare children for an ominous future of insurmountable expectations but rather meet them in the present. We need to give learning opportunities at their instructional level. Request products that encourage their development realizing that not every child needs to complete the same task but rather each child needs to forward their learning journey. Learning is not an exercise of power and control but rather a journey of discovery, synthesis, and communication. We need to stop worrying about preparing them for next year and provide the learning opportunities and expectations that are appropriate for today. By doing that, they will be ready for whatever the future brings when it arrives.

Does This Teacher Still Exist? Should He Ever Have?

Right of Verticality

   Learning has not always been synthesized in age-based chunks. In many aspects of life, achievement earns the next set of opportunities not age. Students are neither extended nor denied additional opportunities due to their age but these decisions are based on merit. The most famous of these processes is the learning of all martial arts. There is no set entry age for martial arts, there is no set date of achievement, status is made step by step, unit by unit as the student learns the necessary skills and concepts to achieve each belt. The learning itself is a journey.
   The report card is a challenge for many in our system. I was so proud and jealous of my son's district, when I received an email this week from their Assistant Superintendent indicating that they were eliminating grades k-5 and moving to a standards-based document. I applaud their effort and wish I was willing to pull the band-aid in the way they were. They have renamed their document Progress Report instead of Report Card. Their steps are ones we all need to make. I can't wait to see their format.
    Our district began this journey before I arrived and landed with a document that has both standards and grades. Many on the committee openly agreed it was a document that would not work for standards measurement is a task of achievement regardless of time and comparative rank whereas grades, from the word gradient, openly means to rank in status. They are two conflicting systems.
   The challenge is, this is where we are at with Common Core Standards and Value-Added Measurement Evaluation. The Common Core Standards are theoretically steps that should be progressions achieved over time that each individual should make. They are flawed, gradient by age, assuming minimally each child should step each point up the ladder by the end date of that age's step. Value-Added Measurement Evaluation points that we must move each child forward at least a step regardless of how high they are. The teacher is judged if they are not able to push the majority of their children forward at least one step. Like our report cards with standards and grades these ideas are in conflict.
    In the NBA, they have a rule of verticality:
"A player is entitled to a vertical position even to the extent of holding his arms above his shoulders, as in post play or when double-teaming in pressing tactics."
    The player is allowed to move into the space above them as high as they can reach. There are no ceilings in the NBA, on floors to catch their fall. Perhaps this conflict between Common Core Standards and Value-Added Measurement Evaluation is the same stage as we are with the report card, stuck between standards and grades. Perhaps the next iteration of standards and evaluation will be the place we are striving to move forward to in our district, vertical learning. In a standards-based vertical learning model, parents, teachers, and students are provided a rubric of curriculum outcome steps they need to achieve. Learning is modular and children's opportunities, progress, and outcomes report indicate where the child is at in a standards area and where they need to go next. It informs all parties of the successes and the opportunities. Here is an example:

Children are able to tackle any unit they are ready for. Teachers are provided modular units of learning, the standards of achievement are dictated by the state, the curriculum objectives and modular resources dictated by the district, the learning opportunities designed and implemented by the teacher, and the progression through the curriculum objectives is dictated by the learner. Children can be grouped to take on appropriate task challenges together as merit demonstrates. 

   I have sent two different children to school. Same genes, same background, same parenting, same opportunities, but two completely different learners. I believe that they will both become happy, successful, high achieving adults. They need different learning opportunities at different times. No set of age-based curriculum, standards, or assessments could accurately measure their strengths and growth areas. For all of us, students, teachers, parents, administrators, and community members, we need to give up the fallacy of grades and age-based standards and admit, we have different kids each with their own-right to verticality. Once we do this, we can design, just like martial arts, levels of achievement based on skills, merit, and outcomes. It will take some thought. High schools will not have everyone achieve the standard diploma. They may need to have different types of outcome diploma's (ie. Associate's Diploma, Math and Science Diploma, Engineering and Design Diploma). They will not all "graduate" at 18. However each of them will leave with skills and capacities to help lift us as a society. Instead of choosing the fixed-mindset of ranking through age-based standards and grades let us move to a growth-mindset of vertical learning, a model in which all can achieve.

Learning Can Begin At Any Age

Stuck In Time

     So I am a parent of a middle schooler. It's all there: the gym uniform, the locker, the passing periods. I am not sure how it happened as I keep trying to convince my self that he hasn't been around the house  long enough to be in middle school, but he has. Somethings haven't changed. There is still a lot of math homework each night. The assignment is different. We always had 1-30something the odds, because the answers were in the back of the book where now he needs to do almost all of the problems. His teachers are far more human and caring than I remember mine to be, in fact, I remember so few of mine its scary.
     Sometimes I question, what is it that we are exactly doing here. The structures of most schools feel ancient. The grades, the subjects, the assignments, what's the difference between 1954 and 2014 other than we teach it earlier, children get more of it, and its more likely that the parents won't understand either the content or the process. My mother shares stories of her Grandma Fritzie complaining about "new math" in the 1950's. Scott, who went to high school with me, posted this picture of his child's 2nd grade homework on Facebook:

I was on the floor laughing not because it was "Common Core" math, but because my 2nd grade student had essentially the exact same problem on the exact same day as his child. We live in different communities. We have different teachers. Our school's use different publishers, and yes Pearson has not purchased every publishing firm yet. Our children have never met, yet they are learning the exact same thing on the exact same day.

Slowly we need to break out of this concrete confine of educational structures. We need to recognize that our children our different. They are not better, not worse, not stronger academically, not weaker academically. They are academically different. I know my children are. I have two boys, each with strengths and challenges. One who will be able to do discuss any academic assignment you ask and one who will look at you and be bothered that you are asking him to do an academic assignment. One who can't often put his shirt on in the right direction and one who insists on selecting his outfit in just the right manner. They are different and to assume they both need the exact same assignment on the exact same day as Scott's child is a waste of everyone's time.

      The real education reform needs to come from within. It is about communities, schools, parents, teachers, and students understanding that we have different children and each day we need to help students continuously grow and improve. It isn't about how we rank them but rather how fast we can help them understand the next concept. It isn't about if they were graded fairly but rather did they have room to create a meaningful product that demonstrated the concept but also encouraged them to demonstrate innovation and creativity. It isn't about which homeroom they are in but rather is the school working together to make groups of significant enough scale that allows EACH child to have learning experiences at their instructional level and pushes them forward to the next concept. The whole concept of "graded" bothers me. To grade is not to assess in order to determine what the child needs support with and what to teach next but rather to rank against a scale. It in itself is an output of comparison not learning. My biggest worry is that we will have a child sit for two or three years in that math class and not understand a single thing. The push to strive forward and cover the concepts will leave that child hating math and hating school because its a machine not a journey for them.

       We are stuck in time. No Child Left Behind, Common Core, Race to the Top, SmarterBalance, and PARCC, are simply tools to reinforce the factory line instruction of children. Interestingly enough only "Value-added Measurement" - growth based teacher and administrator evaluation, challenges the concept that all children need to learn the same and encourages us to push all children at their level forward. While I think the tools behind this may be wrong, at least the concept that all children need to improve and grow is encouraging. We are stuck in time. I need to go now and look at my child's grades on Skyward to see if he is missing any assignments. Those missing points will affect his grade and his ability to get into that next level class. Clearly this is all about what he has learned and what challenge he is ready for next. Stuck in time!

Is Mr. Vernon Still There?