Double Plan & Draw the Map

Cold sore almost invisible, actual onset of cold present.  Part of a new environment is exposure to new germs.  I've been sick way too much this year.  Time to clean up my stress level and my food act (no more coffee, too much acid, waaah).

Technique #10 is about visualizing how you, the teacher, are going to be in the room, and not only what your role in the lesson will be, but what the students should be doing while you are busy being teacher.  Seeing through students' eyes.  Double planning is planning for both parties.  This one is more obvious.

As an empathic person, I am pretty used to thinking about things from other people's perspectives.  Finally, a cookie for Emily.  However, I still need to have help in hooking students and pacing.  Even though I can sense what is going be a problem spot, I'm still working on finding ways around the potholes.

#11 Drawing the Map is about creating a classroom that functions on a physical level.  The layout needs to maximize on task student work and be structured for learning, not just socializing.  In my little rectangle of a room, I've come as close as I can to the book's model.  The model, you ask?  Yes, it's rows.  Good old fashioned rows of tables or doubled up desks.  Three wide and five deep with big aisle ways.  Not glamorous, but highly functional.

A lot of classroom management depends on a teacher's ability to work the room and access all students.  You should come see how limited my space is at my school--I've lost the battle before it's even begun.  Tripping over backpacks and having to butt check students to get access to the inner seats is not ideal.  Our building was designed for Salvation Army wayward pregnant teens, and I think my room was a dormitory room.  It seems perfect for bunk beds, not a classroom.  Note to self and administration: new room next year.  Let's hope.

Shortest Path

#9: Shortest Path quotes the principle of Occam's razor: "All other things being equal, the simplest explanation or strategy is the best" (64).

Direct routes, less clever, less cutting edge, less artfully constructed IF it will yield a better result.  Hmm, sounds boring, but effective.  Like an assembly line.  Here is where I fundamentally wonder about how I view education as a Montessori-reared kid vs. the demands of urban schools where poor kids are failing.  The shortest path seems contradictory to integrated, deep learning, but maybe it doesn't have to be.  Part of me does really value the clever, artfully constructed, cutting edge lesson plan.  What to do now?

I don't think I can always ascertain what the shortest path to meeting a learning/teaching objective will be, especially when student interest, motivation, and a change in pacing/tone has to be accounted for.  Need some examples to show what this would look like to really understand what they are driving at here.

The Two in One Blog

Technique #7 & 8: 4Ms and POST IT 

I've spent more time reading and revamping curriculum these past few days, less time blogging.  The next series of techniques have to do with planning.  Finding ways to create manageable, measurable, objectives that are getting students prepared for the path to college.  Then posting them in the room for all to see (administrators, peers, students), in plain English.

This seems like common sense, but if you take a look at the California Language Arts Standards, it's not always easy to figure out how to make these objectives manageable or measurable.  But, lo and behold, along will come state testing to make sure that these deeper level skills somehow boil down to multiple guessing testing.  Am I a little disgruntled about upcoming tests in May?  Nah.

What I appreciate about these two techniques is that they call for teacher accountability, and if I really am getting clear on what I want my students to understand, it frames the question better than, "What should we do today?"  Trying to find the harmony between engaging students and challenging them.  

 

Here's a quote for the day, courtesy of Henry David Thoreau:  "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." 

With that said, I'm going to go rock out to Glee and watch Rachel kick some ass.

Begin with the End

Another day, another dollar.  Back at work on an overcast Monday (an anomaly in LA).  Nursing this cold sore which led to an interesting discussion with my students who thought that :
1) I got in a fight.
2) I had a sexually transmitted disease.

Gotta love teenagers.  I finally started every class with, "Yes, this is a cold sore on my lip and you get them from stress.  This is only the second I've had in my life, so be nice today."  Better than the alternative: "What's wrong with your face, Miss?"

The next few techniques of Teach Like a Champion are about restructuring lesson planning.  I am an organized, but not structured person is what I've been realizing.  And, an important part of creativity is understanding structure, so I have more to chew on.

I plan out activities and try to mix the methods to reach learning styles, with goals in mind from the State Standards, but I am not creating enough of an infrastructure in my teaching such that each lesson builds on the next moving toward mastery. Trying now to find the objective first, activity second.  Does this sound like life?

Moral of the day: It's never too late to start again.  Just going to act as if I know what the end will be.

No Apology

So, I have a cold sore in the corner of my lip (it's crusty, rustic red, and only the second of my life–hello, stress?), and the more I read this book, the more I feel like a total loser.  The title of technique #5 is to teach with No Apology.  This is not an apology, just a judgment.  I am judging myself, judging myself, and feeling like a crappy teacher in a crappy state in a crazy school with chaos all around.  That's the honest truth.  By the way, if only my family are reading this, I might as well tell them how I really feel.

I started this blog because I was watching Julie & Julia on the same day that Teach Like a Champion arrived.  If I wanted to have more fun, I'd quote Julia Child and start cooking cannelloni and lobster.  At least there would be some good swag from readers and some fattening foods to cheer me up at the end of the day.  By the way, when I figure it out, I've decided to add a Paypal account to my blog, on my sister's suggestion, because she owes my parents an undisclosed amount of money.  Stay tuned...

Format Matters

Kids speak in fragmented sentences all day long. Trying to coach them into whole sentences takes work, lots of work. Some were getting the hang of it, and remembering for later turns. Overall, the quality of speaking is going up.

FORMAT MATTERS means setting an expectation for students to speak in complete sentences using correct syntax at an audible level. Sounds easy, not so much. Especially when they are unaccustomed to this level of accountability.

Here's my biggest issue--my 9th and 10th graders talk over each other like crazy. Interrupting is normal, cutting off even better. Steal the floor, steal the show. How do you create a discussion that flows? It's either too stilted when I try to wrangle them in, or breaks down into chaos when I don't. Only my Honors class seems to get the hang of this, most of the time. I'm hoping this will get smoother with more practice. In many schools, the classes that seem the calmest are often the ones where the teacher just dominates. I'm not a big fan of this, but know that participation needs to be more orderly and meaningful than I have it structured.

If you look at the videos for Uncommon Schools (the schools that inspired Teach Like a Champion), those teachers have their elementary kids whipped into shape with the classroom expectations. Their high school classes had only seven students. How does that work with bigger classes funneled into a small room? My room is a disaster for instruction. I have little access to students and we are all cramped into a small space. Questions, questions. If only I had a mentor to answer them.

Warning Label

This book should come with a warning label that reads: Do not attempt to utilize all these techniques too quickly or you may experience severe indigestion, disrupted sleep, frazzled nerves, and an overall sense of exhaustion. I'm stretching myself as much as I am using STRETCH IT to get my students to talk more.

I've been doing an overhaul and reading ahead while doing these daily techniques and trying to change too much too fast! I just read an addendum chapter on Reading (reading on reading, yes this is a teacher's life) last night and am integrating these ideas as we start Animal Farm. I am still pretty shocked by how my students struggle with reading aloud. Supposedly the gap in vocabulary between kids of privilege and kids of poverty is 10,000 words, and I believe it. This is the one area that I feel I have some strength; we read a lot in my classroom. If they did nothing else in school ever again, continuing to read would be vital.

Oh yeah, and if that wasn't enough, I have long realized that my planning is most definitely not organized enough. I have spatial relationship challenges, and mapping the year makes me feel lost in the desert with goat heads in my feet.

I'm like a first year teacher all over again. New school, new city, new grade levels, new books, new tests, new everything. It reminds me of my brother, a professional trumpet player who recently discovered that his embouchure was wrong. This was after almost 18 years of playing and performing this way. He had to start all over again, to learn it right. That's mastery. I'm taking his dedication as my inspiration. STRETCHING IT. Let's hope I don't injure myself.

I like the word implement

Apparently implement is one of my favorite words, glancing over these blogs.

With a few brave followers, I'm going to try to get spunkier with my writing and kill the closet academic. Here's a preview of techniques #3 and #4 to be "implemented" the rest of the week:

#3 STRETCH IT: Rewarding right answers with follow up questions so students get to be even bigger smarty pants and look cool in front of their peers (I don't care what anyone says, even "kids today" respect intelligence and a well spoken person).

#4 FORMAT MATTERS: All ye non English teachers take note--kids need to speak in complete, grammatically correct sentences all day long! Hoorah! Oh, and by the way, if we and/or the class can't hear our students, apparently this matters, gee whiz. A simple, one-word way to get 'em to speak up--use the word VOICE (while motioning to your ear if desperate) instead of taking a survey of the class and delivering a long monologue on the importance of being heard. Hmm....can't hardly wait.

Day Off

It's parent conferences today, and some genius planning landed this in the middle of the week; I'm easing into the Los Angeles morning--sunny (of course) and birds busy composing lyrics in our bugambilia bushes.

Reporting from yesterday and technique 2: RIGHT IS RIGHT

Setting a high standard of correctness in the classroom

While I am busy having pedagogical epiphanies with these simple but structurally profound techniques, some of my students are getting down right annoyed. Apparently accountability is boring and tedious to a select few 15 year olds. I think many many students are used to giving fragmented, surface level answers because teachers are so good at finishing and extrapolating to make their answers fully correct. I've definitely been guilty of this, and in lunchtime conversations with other teachers, most of us have been there. Big realization that I have often settled for ho-hum answers rather than pressing students to be fully right.

It's powerful to see how many more voices are heard by using NO OPT OUT in tandem with RIGHT IS RIGHT. I hear from pretty darn close to every student every day and can really see who knows and who doesn't. We are getting at more specific, complex answers as a class that use vocabulary and larger understandings. I can see light bulbs turning on in most kids, and listening behind the occasional complaining I hear a hunger for real understanding. Maybe learning will be its own reward (dare I dream?).

Day One

Coming home on the plane from an Eckankar seminar in Minneapolis last night, I digested the end of Catcher in the Rye and the first two chapters and 11 techniques of Teach Like a Champion. The guys over the aisle were digesting Bacardi at a rate equal to my reading and getting pretty spunky--made for an interesting trip home.

This book has made me reflect deeply on my teaching practices (and lack thereof), and while it is discouraging to see how futile much of my training was and how high the mountain looks in front of me, I am also encouraged to finally have concrete techniques to incorporate and more importantly, feel like I am shifting into a paradigm of measurability as an educator. The goal is to be able to measure my effectiveness as a teacher in practical ways by the end of this whole venture. I am finding respite from that inner critic already because my mind has something to noodle on instead of beating myself up for all the ways I feel I am failing as a teacher.

So here goes the first key idea: NO OPT OUT

This one is simple, but it is amazing how many teachers let kids slide so as to avoid making students uncomfortable. I've had students ask for a "pass" frequently when it comes to reading, sharing or answering questions, which is really code for skipping them never to return again. I have gone both ways in the past with this idea of letting students not answer, not sure which was honoring their needs the most. I can see, however, how the ability to opt out of answering is a way many kids cover their learning issues and try to just get by. NO OPT OUT means honoring the need to learn first.

I'm not going to lie to you: parts of this chapter were addressed in a New York Times Magazine article, so I've implemented this idea for a few days before spring break in addition to today.

When first implementing the technique, students were eager to help each other out--whispering answers or trying to take the skip me route. They quickly found out how tedious and annoying it was to have to answer the question again after another student gave the right answer. Busted. On the other hand, students who genuinely didn't know had their voice heard, and got to correct their understanding and even add on if they wanted. Some of the more shy kids are also the ones who don't become good speakers, and disengage. Losing that ability to opt out of participating helped me see how my students were gaining accountability and knowledge. I felt a little mean at first, but adapted my tone to still remain encouraging. Technique one, success! FYI--No, these people are not paying me, but I'm open to the possibility, ha.