Pulling down other teachers to get ahead?

There's a facet of Australian society called the Tall Poppy Syndrome, in which successful and/or popular people must be pulled down to be like other people. Bill Clinton calls our Prime Minister one of the smartest leaders in the world? Better make a joke about Kevin Rudd's big head. A scientist helps to find a vaccine which prevents cervical cancer? Report each and every adverse reaction to the vaccine. It's supposed to be related to Australia's equality . . .

The same syndrome seems to be ever present in teaching. Over the last two or three years I've read books by popular teacher-authors such as Nancie Atwell, Rafe Esquith and Ron Clark. I haven't always agreed with everything they've written, but there is a lot there I like. I've tried a lot of their techniques in my classroom - some have been a huge, raging success (Reader's workshop, levels of behaviour), some which have needed to be modified for my students/classroom/state requirements/country, and some have had to be put aside for further reflection/rethought. Most of all I have liked the way that these teachers have made me think, and have made me feel that it's ok to be passionate about teaching (or in Nancie's case in particular, teaching reading).

But I've noticed, whenever I've turned to the internet to learn more, that forums and blogs seem to want to tear down these teachers personally. They complain that they have specialised circumstances which would never work for the rest of us. They complain that these teachers are setting unrealistic or insane expectations which is just unfair. They nitpick every little detail, using the one or two things that don't work for them to dismiss the whole concept altogether. They call them 'super-teachers' (not in a nice way) whose ideas are instantly dismissable by mere mortal teachers 'just wanting to collect their paycheque'

The critics always leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, because at the root of Nancie and Rafe and Ron's work I see an absolute passion for teaching and a belief that education is a pathway worth following. And I can't, for a moment, understand what it so wrong with that. If you don't like part of what they do then adapt it, or exchange it for something that will work for you. Stop blaming them for thing that aren't working for you.

I, personally, see this too(on a different scale :) ). I am blessed, after three terms of work, with a class which lines up neatly, works hard, are considerate and seem to enjoy most learning situations. I get told that this is because they're gifted and therefore well behaved, or because they're not a real class, that I don't have to work hard to get this kind of behaviour, enthusiasm or results. Unsurprisingly, I find these comments difficult. I spent a good 3 or 4 weeks constantly drilling in my expectations of behaviour at the beginning of the year. I expect them to be lined up in two straight lines facing the front, and we will practice if it's not good enough (and we have practiced). I have very high expectations of behaviour, down to requesting students walk quietly up the stairs into our classroom (visitors are always noisier than we are now). And classroom work is aimed at the level of the students, often hands on, and surrounded in the expectation that the students can do well at it (and celebration when they do well).

Don't get me wrong, things definately go pear-shaped from time to time, but because we've built up a good classroom environment, things generally run smoothly. So to be told I've had no part in that, or it can never be recreated with another group, is frankly a little offensive.

Where am I heading with this? Well, the best teachers, as far as I can see, learn from each other, not by pulling other people down. I'd like to be one of those best teachers, so I'm going to keep reading books by Nancie, Rafe, Ron and others like them, because they've given the time to try to offer something to me. The considerate thing would be to take what they offer with an open mind.

One Term To Go

After a lovely two week break (hello sleep and relaxation and lots of reading) I'm geared up for our last term of the year. Term 4 is an interesting one, report cards, lead up to Christmas and all the awards etc that come with that, and then the joy of finding new classes and classrooms for 2010. So within all that madness, I should plan a nice calm term without a lot of excitement, right?

Wrong!

November is NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don't know about NaNoWriMo, it's National (actually international) Novel Writing Month, where a whole bunch of crazy people try to write 50 000 words in 30 days. I did it way back in 2003 and 2004, but real life kept getting in the way in November and I've been unable to do it since. That part of real life is no longer, and I am back. But this time I'm draging my students along with me. The Young Writers Program, associated with NaNoWriMo allows me to set this up in my classroom. Students set their own word count goals (they recommend between 5000 and 10 000 for Year 5 and between 6000 and 12 000 for Yr 6) and then set out to write their own novel in 30 days.

The website has some good ideas for teaching NaNoWriMo (though sometimes you have to look for it a little) and I'm pretty excited, because my students love nothing more than a challenge. I'm intending to have a kick off and finishing celebration, and we may also have some special events throughout the month (breakfast writing, come on down). Throughout October we'll do a series of lessons leading up to it, and then come November - writing time.

Along with continuing Reader's Workshop and going on with our unit it should be a fun term :)

Two Weeks Until Break

We have two weeks until we break for our two week long spring vacation. This means that the students are pretty tired, the teachers are pretty tired and we're slogging our way through to the end. On the other hand, my students and I are doing some exciting things, so we're tired but happy.

Some of the things we've been doing:

• Solar system in your pocket. This was an amazing way to really understand how BIG it is out there. The kids took these home and showed their parents and generally had a great time showing off their understanding :)
• Reader's Workshop. This week is the first week they need to write a letter to me about a book they've read, so we'll be going through that this week.
• Poem in your Pocket is this Friday, so we need to write and read some more poetry!

What do you do in the lead up to vacations? How do you keep the 'get me to the holidays now' feeling to calm?

Part of a Team

Yesterday we had parent-teacher interviews. At our school, we have one day of these a semester, beginning at 2pm and going through until 8pm with a break for lunch. Each parent who wants to come gets 15 minutes. How busy you are depends on your students, their ages and their parents, and I was pretty busy yesterday.

My thoughts upon finishing was how positive the whole afternoon had been. Two years ago at my first interviews, I was terrified. I was sure that the parents were going to tear me to pieces. Now, I've been fortunate enough to know some of these parents for a couple of years, as well as being more confident in my abilities and the results I get. So there was no fear going into this lot of interviews, and I was really pleased with how these conversations went. Some things that struck me:

• I'm getting better at really talking about the students. Because they're well behaved and high achieving, I used to struggle to know what to say and my interviews were about two seconds long. Now I realised I was talking for longer, the parents were talking for longer and I even went over slightly on a couple of interviews
• Reading was a massive topic. We talked about the books they were reading at school, the kind of books they liked, how to find books at their level, book recommendations, books they read at home, how much they read at home, where they read at home, and good websites to find more books. Parents were telling me that they were thrilled with how reading is encouraged, how pleased the kids were that I've allowed them to take books home and one (whose daughter I had last year) thanked me for the book recommendations I made last year.
• Little things I'd picked up at school had also been picked up at home. Makes it easier for us to come up with a plan to deal with it - we really are working as a team now
  
• I have two gifted profiles to put together for new students. Excellent!

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Photo:Book Accident by Photos8.com

Barbie Bungee: A Maths Investigation

Last week we completed one of my favourite maths investigations. Basically, we tied a string of rubber bands around a Barbie Doll's feet and threw her out of a really tall window . . .

In reality, it's a lot more sophisticated. Barbie Bungee is an investigation which covers a number of mathematical skills and strategies, but with my Year 5s and 6s really served to teach them that a) patterns can be graphed and b) predictions can be made from these graphs.

To complete this investigation the class was broken into four groups (I have 4 Barbie dolls), given a Barbie Doll each and a whole pile of rubber bands which were the same size. We then broke the investigation into steps which were completed over a few days.

Step One: Students learned about the investigation. They practiced tying the rubber bands (one looped around another then pulled through), thought about how they were going to take measurements (grabbing 30cm rulers, 1m rulers and tape measures) and practiced throwing Barbie from various places (important to get this need out of their system) We also talked about the goal - to throw Barbie from the sound box in our school hall, getting her as close to the ground as possible without touching . . .

Step Two: Taking our initial measurements. Students staked out the best spots and dropped Barbie with one rubber band, two rubber bands, three, four and five rubber bands (and so on). They were required to complete three tests at each stage and then find an average (for accuracy) and they had to record their information in a table. This took one to two days. The best thing I saw during this was the use of different measuring methods (sticky taping two measuring tapes together) and creative placed to drop Barbie (out the classroom window).

Step Three: Graphing the results: Students used their results to make a graph (number of rubber bands against distance fallen). They then used this graph with it's almost straight line to predict how many rubber bands they would need.

Step Four: Test Day. We took the students and an audience to the hall and each group had three goes at tossing Barbie from the sound box. The measurements (how close to the ground) were averaged and the closest to the ground won. All in all, very entertaining and a fabulous time. We did a small write up afterwards - what steps did we take, what maths was involved, but nothing too much.

A great investigation.

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Summer in Winter (and other stuff)

So, it's supposed to be winter here in Australia. Unfortunately, today's temperature is supposed to reach 33 degrees Celsius. Classrooms in my part of Queensland don't have air conditioning, and they're rarely well ventilated, so I'm afraid today might be a little uncomfortable.

Luckily, we're doing heaps of fun stuff, which makes it easier. In maths at the moment we're Bungee jumping Barbies. This is basically an exercise to show the children that they can graph algebra patterns, and that they can use these to make predictions. Then it's about throwing Barbie from something tall.

We also begin our astronomy Unit today in which the children will finish up by making a model of a community for Mars. Lots of science in this one, but today we're beginning by listening to famous 'space related' music and talking about what we know - should be a blast.

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Picture from http://www.public-domain-photos.com

Returning to class - again

So, I've been away at training to learn more about Coolabah Dynamic Assessment, which is, quite honestly, some of the most exciting stuff I've learned about in gifted education in the six years I've been reading and learning about it. But now it's back to school.

After three days away, I'm a bit nervous about what's been happening in my classroom. Will it be an absolute mess? Will the supply teacher have kept up the work while I've been away? Has anything happened that I needed to know about.

There's also the next, big thing I need to prepare for - our school's Poetry in your Pocket day. I need a funky way to announce it to the students and the teachers- and I must get it done by next week. Help!

Handling Something New

I'm off for three days training beginning today, and although I'm incredibly excited about it, I'm also rather anxious. I mean, I'm leaving my class in someone elses hands for three days. And I'm not 100 percent sure what I'm getting into. And what if I'm no good at this. How am I going to keep my notes organised? You get the idea.

This makes me wonder about my students. How do they feel when they are confronted with new things? Do they have the same mix of anxiety and excitement that I'm feeling at the moment? If so, how can I make sure that their anxieties are reduced?

Making sure they have a good understanding of the criteria would be one thing. Making sure the students know what is expected from them in order to achieve. Making sure they know this as early as possible.

What else would assist in reducing anxieties? What would you do?

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Image from http://www.public-domain-photos.com

Reader's Workshop: Part Three - How is it working

Read about the previous posts on Reader's Workshop here and here:

I know it's too early to make a full reflection on the Reader's Workshop (after three weeks), but there have been some early indications of success:

• There is an increased interest in books in the classroom. New books do not stay on the shelves for long, but are quickly passed from hand to hand. There's also talk about books and reading and lots of sharing of information.
• The students are thinking more about characters, the scenes, the symbols in books
• I'm hearing them read from books that interest them. One student read to me from a book which we both knew was below his ability as a reader. I listened to him, discussed how he was having no problems with it and asked him to read to me again when he'd finished the book - he got to finish a book he was interested in and we had a discussion about reading, and what he might be interested in next.
• The students are writing about books more coherently than ever before. One student was reading 'A Wrinkle in Time' and wrote me a letter about it. I wrote back to her about Meg and she noted:
  
  "I think she would make a bit of a dull friend, if you asked her something she would be thinking about something else"
  
  This was something I'd never considered, but the student made me approach the character from a different perspective. As a class they're making me do this an awful lot.

It hasn't been all peaches. I've had to revisit how to respond a few times to make sure all the students were clear on it, and I need to continue to have a clear focus of the week (this week is perspective), but so far it's working nicely and I'm really enjoying it. After all - we've created a reading community, how can you go wrong?

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Image from Public Domain Photos

Reader's Workshop: Part 2 - Introducing the ideas

It's all about reading - more

All the students in my class a capable readers and most of them enjoy reading. Therefore, when I introduced Reader's Workshop by mentioning they would be reading MORE, they were generally happy with the idea. Those that aren't enthusiastic readers did like the fact they could choose their own books, as well as the new graphic novels I had puchased (more on that later).

Each lesson involves silent reading. The students can read anything, anywhere. This means I generally have students lying on cushions on the floor, curled up in corners, sprawled across desks, grabbing my comfy chair, as well as taking advantage of the blue skies and sunshine of winter in Queensland. (Generally when all the kids are outside is when the Principal or Deputy will come along. The deputy was great, though and saw it as an opportunity to talk about the book (Inkheart) he was reading. )


Read and Respond

After silent reading most of the students go on to read and respond. Students keep reading, but may pause to write what they are reading, a line they really like, or some information about a character. There are question prompts in the front of their notebooks, as well as a weekly question and some additional questions (downloaded from Adrian Bruce's website) for students who are having a little trouble. Students aren't expected to write lots, though some do, but are expected to write a little each day.

Additionally, students are sometimes asked to write a letter to me. I then read them and respond with my own letter, asking questions, making recommendations and generally having an ongoing conversation about reading and books.


Explicit teaching and conferences

On some days, before silent reading we'll have a mini-lesson focusing on a particular skill or aspect. These are short and pretty much serve as reminders, or options for the students to use.

While most of the class is read-and-responding, I'll work with a small group on a particular book or skill. At the moment we're 'reading' the amazing Shaun Tan book, The Arrival, which contains no recognisable words at all. Student make notes on post-its as we go through it, and then write up their thoughts about the chapter afterwards. Lots of skills are discussed here, and it's more focused on the group needs.

While the small group are writing I move around the class doing individual conferences. I listen to the students read, talk to them about what they're reading and look at their work. I also collect five books a day to read and write in - which is managable and lets me get through the whole class in an average week. This way I know where the students are at and I'm able to guide them to do more.

It's only been three weeks, and I haven't dumped this all at once, but introduced bits at a time. Already, there are improvements in their work, but I've also made some adjustments.

Next post: how it's all worked

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Image from Public Domain Photos

Introducing Reader's Workshop: Part One - the Set Up

So, with the beginning of our new school term, just three weeks ago, I introduced a Reader's workshop into the classroom. This is a new thing to me, and a new thing in our school. Luckily, I had time to think about how it would work, and was able to set things up accordingly.

My ideas originally came from the website of third grade teacher, Beth Newingham. Although I had read about the ideas before, I had been lost at how to make it work. Beth demonstrated how it worked in her room, allowing me to see how it might work in my room.

The first step was organising the books. When I started in my own classroom, 2 and a half years ago, I had half a trolley of books. Now I have several bookshelves full. To organise them I purchased a tonne of cheap plastic, rectangular containers (sturdy enough to hold books of course) from local discount stores. I sat down and surveyed the books I had, dividing them into some basic groups. Each book was then labelled with a sticker reminding students what group it was from, and each container was labelled with a laminated tag.

The groups ranged from the basic (realistic fiction, fantasy, historical) to the more 'Mrs D' specific (CHERUB books, ballet books), but most importantly, in their containers the books now faced outwards, allowing students to see what we actually had. This meant new reading material to a lot of the students, and a lot more of the books were actually being read.

The next step took place over the two week break and involved the muscles of Mr D. I've never liked the set up of my crowded room, and I was determined to do something about it. My biggest move was shifting my desk to a spot where I use it more and it takes up less space. I now have a cleaner desk and more space in the room. We then moved the dividers (head height) most of the way across the room (I share a demountable teaching space complete with asbestos walls) to block out some of the noise and lined up the bookshelves so there was more of a book corner, with a large seating space in front of it. I then swapped a couple of tables which were being used for computers with desks, which also opened up more room. Suddenly I had more space - and I was happier with it.

Outside of school I did up a simple notebook for each child (stickytaped a picture on front and some info on the inside) and stuck it in a large plastic lunch bag (a baggie?) with a pencil and some post it notes. These went into some cardboard magazine holders (one between two students) which I had painted brightly. Each holder had a laminated tag with students names on them and became a place for their books and reading workshop materials.

Now we were ready for school to begin.

Next post - introducing the reader's workshop to the students.

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Image from Public Domain Photos

A good return

So, back to school today. I spent some time on the holidays rearranging my classroom, so it was cool to watch the kids reactions when they came in the door. General consensus is that they love the extra space, and the library is definately easier to use.

Overall, it was a great return to the classroom. Quite a few students mentioned that the day just flew by, and they weren't kidding. There were lots of outside lessons - phys ed, Chinese, religious ed- today, but the other lessons worked well too.

For maths, we're beginning a bit of investigating maths related to our bodies. Today we were revising measurement and changing millimetres into centimetres and metres (thank goodness we don't have to work with inches and feet in Australia :) ). The students worked in pairs to measure their height, arm length, leg length, hand span and foot length in centimetres. After they recorded them in a table, they then worked out the millimetres and metres. Then they used this to make their own word problems. What impressed me was the way some of the students worked to create multi-step problems without any prompting.

Then this afternoon we began our Reader's Workshop. The students like the ideas, but I need to work a little on the read and respond part - maybe some more guidance through small group lessons and one on one conferences. The small group I worked with today were marvellous with The Arrival, they were really beginning to tell the story. I tried to use questioning which would allow them to unravel the story, rather than telling them 'you're right' or 'you're wrong'. At first they thought the man was just going to work, then on a business trip and then they realised he was going away for much longer. Then the group worked on some questions, wrote a little, and used complex instructions to make paper cranes (I had different instructions when I learned, and I wasn't as impressed with some of these. I'll keep looking for better ones).

Before we knew it, 3pm was around and it was time to go home. Good day though.

Back to School

So, I've taken a bit of a break over the two weeks of school holidays. I've read, played computer games, read some more, gone shopping, slept in, taken my ballet classes and generally had a great time. But, alas, it is time to return to school.

I'm both excited and a little nervous about the coming term. Basically, I'm making the biggest change in my teaching since I began three and a half years ago. Fed up with the size of my classroom and filled with an urging to 'do things better' I've reconfigured my classroom, making it less centralised. Basically, this means that the attention has been drawn away from the blackboard. Instead there are small groups of seats, some individual learning areas, even a couple of desks set up to enable cooperative computer work.

My moving the attention away from the blackboard, I've been able to move my desk to a better place, where I have access to the power for my computer. In my old set up, it would have been at the front of the room, which I didn't like, but now it's just part of the room.

Other changes include extending the classroom library, creating a bigger sitting space, and giving better visual of the door (too many polite visitors wait near the door and we couldn't see them).

Of course this change means I have to change the approach to teaching. No longer can I bring all attention to the blackboard. I have already allowed for this in reading and writing with readers and writers workshop, but I'll need to continue to think about this when working in maths and other subjects.

This change also meant I needed to think about how to use this blog. The best way I can see is bringing it along on the ride with me - focusing on some successful lessons, reflecting on where things could work better.

What changes do you make when you come back from holidays?

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Photo from http://www.photos8.com

Things to Improve: Classroom Organisation

At the moment, I'm taking a bit of time to reflect on where I want to improve and what I'm doing well. You can find the master list of reflections here.

Classroom Organisation

I can never find anything in my classroom. Most of the time, this isn't a huge problem - I do a bit of searching, look around a bit, shift the piles of paper and books on my desk (must do something about this or that) and ask my students to help me find whatever it is I'm missing.

But recently, I had a supply teacher in who wasn't able to find my role - which was quite embarrassing. And I hate having the cleanliness of my desk being a joke around the school.

It's become a problem. It means I don't get things done properly or promptly. It's become a stress to me because things are always left to the last moment.

What can I do about it?

I have started to try to Write things Down, which is helping quite a lot - at least I'm not losing details as much as I used to. I need to take 5 minutes at the beginning and end of each day to make sure I have what I need where I need it. I've discovered that I use resources more when I can see them, so I'm going to invest in a file holder that puts things in front of me.

Sometimes, as well, I need to hand over some of the responsibility to the kids. There are parts of the room that they're responsible for. They need to see to that. I need to make sure that there's a system and time to allow them to see to that.

It's not going to happen overnight - and I need to stop expecting that. Small goals, small increments, will help an awful lot. Now I need to take a deep breathe, step out and try to reach them.

What organisation tricks do you use?


Image from http://www.4freephotos.com


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