Life Style Change is Not Easy

Each time a charter school or a magnet school opens in a neighborhood and academically vastly out competes the existing neighborhood school there is great excitement over what has been accomplished by this new school that apparently the existing neighborhood school could not accomplish. Little good comes from such comparisons. For the most part the teachers in the existing school are made to feel as if they failed with those very same "neighborhood kids". The administrators take their fair share of heat as well, and that generally translates to greater pressure on teachers from the administrators.

Let's look at what is really going on and how this informs teachers in terms of better understanding their "remaining population" that did not choose to move to the magnet or charter school. The issue is really about opting for a life style. This can be brought into perspective by examining Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives of the Affective Domain.This taxonomy is much like the Cognitive Domain Taxonomy as there are progressive stages of increasingly sophisticated behaviors. This time however, the focus is not on how students operate with school lessons and learning, but rather their perceptions, interests, and values. It is about changing attitudes and developing positive behaviors that are pervasive.

Without working through the Affective Domain, working through the Cognitive Domain is much more difficult. The Affective Domain at its lowest level is concerned with students receiving information, then responding to it, moving on to organization, then and ultimately valuing. At the highest stage of valuing, a life style has been influenced. This is a complex instructional progression and well worth becoming very familiar with. What many teachers find is that they intuitively know these things, but knowing that there is a formal framework to work through defines the their work more accurately.

The bottom line is that the teachers in the existing school are working with the remaining population that has not made the life style choice of embracing school as those who have left for the magnet or charter school have. Of course the standardized test scores will be lower, the behavioral problems more frequent and the home/parental support less. The good news is, many teachers prefer the challenge.

Comments welcomed as always.

Stef

Suck It Up

The other day I was speaking with a colleague of mine about the nature of our work in classroom instruction at the university. She brought up an interesting point about certain jobs being demanding, like surgery and the fact that if you're having an "off day" it could have serious consequences for the patient. She went on to say that if we have an "off day " and deliver a so-so lecture, no real harm, no one dies, the next lecture will be better.

It's true, university students are forgiving. I've even shown a time or two to class with serious laryngitis and virtually no voice and somehow the content got delivered, students helped out and I made up for lost time the following week. The same luxury simply does not exist for K-12 teachers. The work of K-12 teachers is so critical that they need to be substituted if they are ill or need to be away. At the university, we simply cancel the class. Imagine that, canceling something people have already paid for. Funny, no one complains, most even celebrate. This supports my theory that education is the one thing where people want less for their money. Odd phenomenon.

So, now for the point of this rambling. In the vast majority of the regions where teachers practice their craft (I get to be one of those teachers again this year at a middle school, teaching some science sections) the students come from low socio-economic circumstances. Their lives are fragile and resilient at the same time. There is high need on the side of the students. Many come from environments where the adults in their lives are unstable, under prepared for parenting and just plain overwhelmed. Their behavior in the home can be unpleasant, there is alcohol involved, sometimes drugs and violence. The last thing these students need is for their teacher to have an "off day".

In K-12 classrooms "off days" do have serious consequences. Maybe the consequence is not immediate, but add up enough of those types of days and somebody can't read, somebody never got past the "algebra gate keeper", somebody else can't pull a paragraph together—let alone the pain of low Standardized Test Scores, API's, and AYP's. O.K., long term pain isn't that bad, besides you get to share it with other teachers. Let's talk "short term" pain.

If the K-12 teacher is a little "off" the energy just isn't there. In a well managed classroom, especially one with high achieveing students, there will be forgiveness. However, in a classroom with lower achieveing students where the behavior issues are still teetering somewhere between stepping on an ant hill and losing the brakes in your car, forget about about creating an environment condusive to learning—pray there are no classroom visitors with any influence over your career.

Suck it up. Whatever is going on in your life (and yes, kids do need to understand that teachers have lives—but that teachers are in control of their lives) back burner it or stay home. Remember, you're important enough to be substitued.

As always - comments and stories welcomed!

Stef

The Code

Break the code, know the code, live by the code. I think from my observations of secondary students that they have codes, very well defined codes they live by. There is something noble in that. They are strict and quick to call each other on code violations. The neophytes are also quick to the learn the codes.

So, capture that code stuff and make it work for you as a teacher. I realize that they sometimes use their code for evil, instead of good—that's where you come in. Let's do some more thinking on this.


Stef

Emotion is Memory Glue

Few would argue that emotion is the single strongest element of the human condition. Most of us remember what we ate for breakfast or what were wearing (things we normally forget) on a day when something truly emotionally impactful occurred. We know where we were when Niel Armstrong walked on the moon, the 911 attacks happened, the day someone we loved or admired died. Noting cements a memory like emotion. This phenomenon has serious consequences in the classroom.

Knowing this we need to remember as teachers that we have the power to emotionally heal, scar, or bolster students. This is especially true of those who come from fragile home situations. Many times it is the troubled ones who give us trouble. It is their way of letting us know how much they need us. We need to think hard about our responses to students, in particular when they cause a disruption or disappoint us in some way. You probably have a memory of a teacher's retort—whether it was directed at you or a classmate.

In another posting I'll write about severe conduct disorder and other antisocial personality disorders in students. Those are important topics for teachers, but that's not what I am referring to here. This is about the day to day that sometimes runs into a blur where we overlook the details of our own behavior.

As always, interested in your thoughts.

Stef

Button Pushing

Students who act out really do not care about your feelings. If they did, they would not act out for fear of offending or hurting you. The "good kids", on the other hand, do care about your feelings and do not want to offend or hurt you, so they comply. This means it makes little sense (and perhaps could exacerbate the situation) to let your feelings be known during a classroom management difficulty. Don't tell them what makes you mad, your blood pressure rise, or gives you a twitch (above all, don't cry or scream). If you do these things you just lost points and they just gained points—yes, it's their game.

I have to say, we learn little from the good kids. This is why I am so grateful to the students who do act out. During an episode there is much to learn about ourselves, the group dynamic, and the individuals at the core of the problem. I love walking into a troubled classroom, I have little purpose in a tranquil environment—unless it's to give input on the quality of a lesson design.

So bottom line, keep your feelings to yourself (I guess you could engage in primal screaming in the solitude of your car on the drive home to relieve pent up feelings). Breathe deeply, constantly remind yourself that they are kids, they need you, and you are exactly where you need to be. Pretty empowering, huh?

What all kids care about the most is whether or not you care. Many of them build walls around themselves just to see if you'll break through.

As always, your comments are encouraged.

Stef

Health, Why Wait?

We would teach a lot about health if there were a state standardized, high stakes test associated with that content. As it stands we just have the high stakes of students under-educated in healthful eating, exercising, life style, and self-reliant general personal health maintenance. High blood sugar, low levels of protein, irregular eating patterns, and inadequate water consumption in concert with sporatic (if any at all) heart-pumping excercise lead to behavioral challenges in the classroom and a long term societal burden.

So, if we know all of this, why are we waiting for a standardized test to move us forward? Why wait for legislation to force us? We're teachers, we have a moral obligation to model and teach proactive health maintenance. We are already witnessing grossly over-weight teen girls opting for lap band surgery when such conditions could have been avoided by simply knowing how to eat and exercise. We see young men, really young men, O.K., kids with their bellies wabbling over their pants.

We live in a country where there is a gym every few blocks, dozens of over the counter diet aids, and lots of out of shape people wandering around. When I was a kid growing up in the sixties, there were no gyms, well just those "body-builder" places, I didn't even know anyone using a diet aid, and everyone was thin. Back then folks probably smoked and drank too much, but that didn't apply to middle schoolers, but it does now.

Teachers can, and I predict will turn this around. Apparently, parents can't, the government can't, I don't see anyone from private industry stepping up. Teachers will do it.

Stef

Creative and Successful Beyond School

I now know what it would take to get rich. All I need is a nickle for every story I have read or heard about an individual who is anywhere from mildly to wildly creative and successful who has tales of frustration in K-12 school. Don't get me wrong, most of these stories include that "one teacher who . . ." Not all of them, but most of them speak of the teacher who recognized and developed the talent, the spark, the what later became a life story of creativity and success. I am reminded of movie producer Spielberg who needed to skip school to take photographs at sunrise in the desert, so his mom drove him to do that. Country singer, Marty Stuart tells a story of getting in trouble in a history class as he retorted to his teacher, "I don't want to read about history, I want to make history!" He went on the road at 13 years of age to start a prolific music career. In a hospital emergency room, the physician was chatting it up with me about what I do for living and then went on to tell me it wasn't until he was in 7th grade that he earned his first "A".

This tells us a few things. It tells us as educators to be that "one teacher who . . ." It tells us that there is bubbling potential in students that goes unrecognized and later erupts as undesired classroom behavior. It tells us that the "one size fits all" approach to education is about as realistic and attractive in our industry as it is in the fashion industry—it's not.

We have the power to customize.

As always, comments welcomed!

Stef