Good Luck Tomorrow

No fancy way to say this, so I'll just say it...

All the best to all my colleagues, readers, and friends--the ones I've met and the ones I haven't. I hope for every success for all of you and your students this year. I'm excited to meet my new students tomorrow, to start being a teacher again. Summer vacation is nice and all--and, as I've said before, you'll pry it from my cold dead hands!--but I'm more than ready to hit the ground running tomorrow.

May PDs be brief and painless, may parents be understanding, may kids be funny and sweet (and compliant), may unannounced observations be rare, a happy school year to all and to all a good night.

An Auspicious Day

According to our Jewish and Chinese friends:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/090909-an-auspicious-start-to-school/

I knew that 9 was considered auspicious in China and was planning to share this fact with my students on the first day anyway, but the article in the Times might be an even better thing to have. I could make copies and we could do a little activity with it.

Hope this is a good sign! I was lesson planning today and I'm so very excited. Now, a long weekend full of staycationing fun in the city and upstate awaits me. Enjoy this one!

I Got Picked Up by GothamSchools!

Woot woot! In the "Remainders" section, all the way down:

http://gothamschools.org/2009/09/03/remainders-obamas-back-to-school-speech-igniting-conflict/

Another day of classroom setup. I'm finished enough that I think I'm going to have myself a four-day weekend. It's looking like a very happy and cozy place.

The Ego Book

I went back to school today to start getting my classroom ready. Not all of my colleagues came today, and the ones who did came in several hours after I did, so I had a few hours of total solitude to begin unpacking.

Towards the end of the year, I took a number of letters, cards, pictures, and the like given to my by students over the past few years and asked one of our school aides to laminate them for me. (The poor woman was laminating everything in my room that wasn't nailed down anyway.) I never cut apart the laminating film or anything after she gave them back to me, just rolled them up and put them in my closet, because I was running out of June by then.

Today, I cut them all apart and put them in a nice pile, and reread them. One of my favorites was from a student of mine from two years ago whom I'll call Jasmine. I would never have forgotten this letter from Jasmine even if I hadn't had it laminated. The letter goes something like this (paraphrasing):

Dear Miss Eyre:

Do you remember that day that Mrs. Brocklehurst yelled at me and made me cry because I forgot my notebook? I was so upset that I came and ate lunch in your room. You said I should tell the nurse I was sick and I should go home. I went home and I felt better later that day. Thank you for caring about me.

Love,
Jasmine

I don't know if I should feel particularly proud that this student remembers me so fondly for encouraging her to fib to the school nurse, but this letter always makes me smile.

Anyway, I have this collection of lovely notes from former students, and I'd like to put them together in a binder or a photo album. I hope it doesn't smack too much of an "ego book" type thing.

I also had fun decorating my room today with a few mementoes from last year's students, silly little things mostly, the kinds of things they probably expected me to throw out--art projects they gave me, paper flowers, snapshots from field trips. I've tried to save a few things from each school year. Last year's objets d'arts in particular bring back beautifully sweet memories.

It was a nice way to start preparations for the new year.

A Modest Proposal Part 2: Intervisitation and Peer Colleague Professional Development Working Groups as Components of Teacher Evaluation

I've been thinking about the issue of teacher evaluation much more than I've been writing about it. It has not left my mind. I recently earned tenure, and I'm very proud of making it through the Fellowship, sticking around for another year to get tenure, and coming back to do it all again. That's all well and good. But I'm not persuaded that I'm now as good as I'm ever going to be as a teacher; this year, I plan to be much better than I was last year. But here's the problem: What constitutes "good," "better," or "best" for teachers? Can it be measured and evaluated? I think it can, and it can be measured more precisely and meaningfully than it is now. In my last post on this issue, I suggested peer review as one component. Another component of how to evaluate teachers might be through intervisitation and professional development working groups.

I recently read Why Don't Students Like School? by Daniel T. Willingham, a book I would recommend for any number of reasons, but I'll focus briefly on Willingham's suggestions for improving pedagogy. He suggests videotaping yourself teaching (augh!, I mean, still a good idea, but AUGH!), observing other teachers at work, and meeting with this partner or small group of "critical friends" to discuss what's going on. (Note the absence of an administrator in this equation. I like it!) These strike me as sound and sensible ideas. I really enjoy intervisitation, and I'm lucky to have a few colleagues who have warmly encouraged me in visiting their classes. Heck, even when I ended up substituting for an elementary class during The Great Swine Flu Panic of May '09, I learned a lot by poking around my colleague's classroom.

Willingham's suggestions aren't exactly new, but they do matter in two important ways. One is his own inclusion of his tips in his book on brain science and pedagogy. His message is that teachers think and make decisions so constantly and, as such, contrary perhaps to what some people believe, teaching children is an intellectually lively and challenging pursuit. We as much as the children need to monitor our own thinking and reflect on what we are doing in the classroom to critically engage with our actions and square them up with what we think and know.

The other is what he doesn't say in the book, but what I'm going to suggest here: The ways in which we seek to learn more about our practice, specifically through working with peer colleagues, can be a component of teacher evaluation. Attending professional development workshops is fine, and the better ones can certainly be helpful (sometimes they feed you and give you free stuff, for example), but there is no substitute for working with peer colleagues. These are the people who work with the same administration in the same building at the same time as you do. They teach, have taught, or will teach some or all of your same students. Thus their experience and feedback will match up most closely with what you need to be thinking about and doing in your own classroom. We can all think of one or two or a hundred workshops that were perhaps well-intentioned, but not exactly positioned to be of immediate and real value to our own classrooms. Intervisitation and peer colleague professional development working groups, on the other hand, do serve that purpose.

How could they be used as a component of teacher evaluation? A journal or log of meetings may be kept, or the group could form one or two particular goals at the beginning of a term or year and observe how each member is working towards those goals, or the group could form recommendations for each other based on what they see. Or, GADZOOKS, teachers could themselves discuss and resolve towards how they will use their work to evaluate themselves and each other. (I know. Letting teachers make decisions about how they will be evaluated sounds very scary. Hold on. It'll be okay.)

Of course, we're all seeing one immediate drawback: When, exactly, are we supposed to do this? Our vast reserves of free time? Well, this criticism is spot-on, of course. Three Standard Deviations to the Left had a great post on this issue recently, observing how few hours teachers in the U.S. have to plan and collaborate as compared to other nations. Mrs. Bluebird also mentioned that when she and her colleagues were actually given, in the school day, more time just for planning, lo and behold! their students showed improvement. I'll admit that, other than saying, "Well, we need more planning time," I don't know how to solve that problem. We do need more planning time. But proposals to lengthen the school day are currently coming with more instructional time and no extra money. That, frankly, is kind of a problem for me. My kiddies are already wastes of space by 3 p.m. If a longer school day came with more planning and collaborative time, and more breathing space for the kiddies, and, oh, I don't know, maybe a dab more money, I might get behind it. But more instructional time? I think most teachers are already spread pretty thin in that sense. And, as NYC teachers, let's not lose sight of the fact that in some states, teachers are carrying even heavier course and student loads than even our contractual maximums.

That's the crux of the biscuit for any kind of teacher evaluation reform, incidentally. I believe the best, most meaningful, most effective reforms will come from teachers working together, reflecting, and supporting each other. But we need time to do that, and lots of it. No surprise, then, that most teacher evaluation reform ideas are top-down, computerized, checklist-type things rather than holistic and engaging processes for teachers.

Nevertheless, I plan to soldier on with this idea. My guestblogging over at NYC Educator is going to two days a week for the fall, but I think I'll keep these thoughts on my own blog.

Oh yeah, school starts again soon, right? (Kidding.) I suppose I should post about that, too. Maybe tomorrow.

A Modest Proposal: Peer Review as One Component of Evaluation for Teachers

*I originally wrote about this as a comment on the Core Knowledge blog, one of those blogs you should be reading if you're not already.

One of the biggest complaints about teachers is tenure, folks, right? "Lifetime job security." "You can't get rid of the bad ones." This is a small beef of mine. On one hand, some of the detractors are at least kind of right--it can take a long time to fire even a patently, obviously terrible teacher, by which I chiefly mean a teacher who poses a physical and/or sexual danger to children. That person can be removed from the classroom quickly--hola, rubber rooms!--but actually fired, yes, that can take a long time. And that's crazy. Be assured that no one here is an apologist for people who hurt children.

But I would like to defend the idea of tenure despite its faults. Tenure is supposed to mean, above all, academic and intellectual freedom. This should mean that teachers are free to speak truth to power, to defend unpopular ideas, to elevate the pursuit of knowledge above all else. Sometimes I have to remind myself that that is my actual job, but, you know, I guess it still is, even these days. This should mean that teachers are protected against firing because, for example, they hate TCRWP (not that I am referring to myself here or anything) or Everyday Math. This should mean that if a teacher wants to do something unpopular or out-of-fashion that is nevertheless effective for him/her and his/her students, he or she should be able to do that without fear of losing the job. Since people always want to compare teachers to doctors and lawyers, imagine that a fancy new drug has come along that lowers fevers. It seems like a pretty good drug, but it's $50/dose. A doctor wants to continue to prescribe Tylenol because it's 5 bucks a bottle and does the same job. But the doctor's bosses think the $50/dose drug is better, so they fire the doctor. If that doctor had tenure, he or she wouldn't have been fired. That, to me, is how tenure should work.

Tenure should not mean that if you are bad at your job, you should stick around anyway, just 'cause it's too much of a hassle to fire you. A lot of people think that's what it means. Maybe, in some cases, that is what it means. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let's think of some constructive ways that we can keep tenure in its purest form--as a crucial protection for otherwise good teachers who are simply on the "wrong" (read: unpopular) side of certain issues--and prevent it from protecting those who maybe should find another line of work.

First, tenure should not be automatically granted. Detractors will point to statistics suggesting that in NYC, I believe 97% of probationers are granted tenure. Well, if we go with Norm's estimates, that still means that some lousy teachers get tenure. To me, this is the fault of lazy administrators and should not be blamed on the other, hard-working teachers out there, but whatever--there you have it. A more rigorous evaluation system for probationers and tenured teachers would help this system, but primarily for probationers. You want to extend the probationary period? Do it. A good teacher is only going to be better after four or five years. I think that's pretty reasonable.

Second, maybe we need a more rigorous evaluation system for teachers. I have quite a few ideas on this (CONSULTING FIRMS: I CAN HAZ GREAT BIG PAYCHECK?), but the one I want to focus on today is the idea of peer review. Peer review can be part of a more rigorous evaulation system. But it has its pitfalls too, right? I mean, imagine a teacher who's being a thorn in the side of a faculty that has, for the most part, chosen to roll over and play dead for their administration. Peer review? For this teacher? Forget it. He or she could be Frank McCourt (not that HE'D last long in BloomKlein's DOE, but never mind) and still get a lousy review. No, we need a better way. Here it is: JURY DUTY!

What? Jury duty? Yes. You get called for jury duty, right? Your principal HAS to let you leave work for the day and go on down to the courthouse, and unless you can wiggle your way out of it, you spend a day or two hearing a case and rendering a verdict. Peer review for teachers could work the same way. A pool would be formed across a reasonable geographic area--in NYC, it could be district-wide or maybe borough-wide. This pool would be comprised of a good assortment of teachers--let's say each school would be mandated to provide a certain number based on their size, chosen by SLT or maybe by a chapter election. Then, out of that pool, teachers would be pulled, at random, for a day or two here and there, or maybe a week at a time, to observe teachers they don't know in other schools. (For those of you who are appalled at the idea of teachers being out of the classroom for this long, to you I say: Please figure out a way to have me not have to go and grade the state ELA exam for a week ever again, either.)

For schools with overburdened admins, this is a blessing. Teachers could be observed more often. And for teachers, I don't see how this isn't a win. You're being observed by someone who is much more in touch with day-to-day reality in the classroom. You're probably more likely to accept constructive criticism from a peer and, conversely, praise means more from a peer as well. And for those who go on "jury duty," they get the benefit of "intervisitation" with their class covered for a whole day--they can see what other teachers are doing well and identify good points they can take back to their own practice.

This could be part of a more rigorous evaluation process for teachers. Part. But what about other stuff? Like administrative observations and test scores and student evaluations and parent evaluations and committees of other peers in one's own school? Mmmmmm...I smell a series...

It's the Teachers, Stupid...Right?

Well, if this is what Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism looks like, apparently the Pulitzer folks have fairly low standards.

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom. That means that my satisfaction with my education overall, if it was based solely on the quality of my teachers, would be over 99%. And I went to a large, comprehensive, public high school with a substantial population of students in poverty, so I think it's safe to say that my experience is not atypical.

I know I'm just one person. But I've also made teaching my career, and I can say with some certainty that even high-poverty schools in New York City are not overburdened with terrible teachers. I've seen some teachers who don't do things the way I'd do them. I've seen some teachers--a lot of teachers, actually--who are young, inexperienced, naive, and tentative. That group once included me, after all. And, yes, particularly when I was out scoring the ELA exam, I saw a couple of teachers who were perhaps not quite right for this particular line of work. But are there hordes of lousy teachers who need to be gone yesterday? I was sold that myth when I joined the Fellowship, but I don't believe it anymore. I've met way too many teachers who tried every fad that came around the block and eventually rejected them all because they knew that what they did worked for their kids. I've met way too many teachers who have been at this for a long time and still do professional development and retool curricula all summer because they want to be better. I've met way too many teachers who spend hours on the phone with parents and tutoring kids, and too much of their own money on books and supplies in the hopes of reaching a few more kids.

Here's the kicker: The article I linked above wants to blame unions for low pay and low motivation for excellence among teachers. Tell me some local governments wouldn't pay teachers minimum wage if they thought they could get away with it these days! I get what he's trying to say, in part: Low pay and low prestige doesn't attract the "best and brightest." And while I certainly wouldn't mind getting paid more, it bothers me that people think there are no "best and brightest" in the teaching corps. I could tell you my college and grad school GPAs and my GRE scores, awards I won and honor societies I belonged to, but I could also tell you that I'm not alone. I know a great many very bright teachers. We'd like to get paid more, sure. But I'm not sure that trying to attract the same bozos who sold exploding-ARM mortgages to poor people into teaching is the answer, either.

Robert Pondiscio at Core Knowledge and some other bloggers are starting to spread the message that the myth of great unwashed masses of lousy teachers is just that: a myth. I want to be part of spreading that message, too, though I suppose the best way to spread it is to come back in the fall as an even better teacher.