Teacher Leadership Today

Once You're Stuffed with Turkey and Dressing...

Once you're stuffed with turkey and dressing and Uncle Earl has begun to repeat stories from his oh-so-distant childhood, push back from the table, excuse yourself for some "Internet research," and partake of these recent writings by teachers in the Teacher Leaders Network. 

Cindi Rigsbee gives thanks for being "Called to Teach" in this Teacher Magazine essay from 2008, which we've asked our Education Week partners to repost during the Thanksgiving holiday. Cindi, one of four finalists for 2009 National Teacher of the Year, is currently a middle school literacy coach in Orange County, NC.

High school English teacher David B. Cohen offers tongue-in-cheek thanks to those teachers from his past who ignored his "whole child" in favor of rigor and regimentation in "A Rigorous Thanksgiving." You'll find his essay at our companion blog TLN Teacher Voices.

In case you missed them, two recent Teacher Magazine contributions from the Teacher Leaders Network feature dialog excerpts from our never-ending TLN Forum conversation. In "The Experience Factor" (11/11), TLN members from the Baby Boomer generation explain why they'll postpone retirement to reap the benefits of their hard-won knowledge and skills. And in the article "Should Teachers Sell Their Classroom Materials?" (11/18), our members offer a variety of opinions about a recent New York Times article reporting on teachers who sell their lesson plans and other intellectual property via the Internet.

Uncle Earl still telling the one about chasing the Thanksgiving turkey around the barnyard with a hatchet? Keep your seat – we've got more! Among the blog offerings at our Teacher Leaders Network website:

Nancy Flanagan (Teacher in a Strange Land) believes that "It's a good week for thinking about what makes us happy--and how we, the village, can raise our collective children to pursue the kind of happiness that matters, while simultaneously being aware of and grateful for their many blessings."

Dan Brown (Get in the Fracas) acknowledges that "Keeping a sharp eye on what isn’t entirely working is a crucial piece of the reflection process, and an indispensable facet of teaching well." But this is a week, he says, to celebrate "the good classroom moments, the tiny breakthroughs, [that] are everywhere…."

Renee Moore (TeachMoore) offers her own selection of good Thanksgiving weekend reading, as she enumerates "A Few of My Favorite Things" -- in her case, committed colleagues. "Contrary to myth, there are many successful educators among us, some of whom are pointing us toward a promising future."

Ariel Sacks (On the Shoulders of Giants) has been reading the recent research about the attitudes of today's teachers toward their profession -- and "questioning whether I fit into the contented, idealist, or disheartened category of teacher." She suspects she's leaning toward "disheartened" and would be thankful for any and all advice.

Bill Ferriter (The Tempered Radical) is not thankful when faced with "blocked websites, antiquated tools, or technology decisions that are not aligned with a new vision for teaching and learning…" But he's determined to be Digitally Resilient on behalf of his students, for as long as he can stand it.

Finally, your delicious reward for reading this far: A series of blog posts detailing the Pow Wow unit taught each year at Chets Creek Elementary in Jacksonville, FL. You'll find it at the blog of Dayle Timmons, TLN member and former Florida Teacher of the Year. She recounts:

About six years ago Kindergarten teachers became uncomfortable with their generic "Indian" Pow Wow celebration around Thanksgiving where all the little "Indians" wore brown pillowcase garb with feathers and pounded homemade drums. The teachers began researching Native American tribes as a professional learning community and decided that each class would research a specific tribe and bring those traditions to our annual Pow Wow celebration.

Dayle's commitment to capturing the instructional life of her school is unmatched, in our opinion. Follow this link to a collection of Pow Wow posts and see for yourself. You can begin with this year's first entry (Nov. 10) or view posts from the very beginning in 2007.

Happy Thanksgiving! Is that slamming car door we hear the sound of Uncle Earl heading home? Wonder if he ate all the dessert?

Dan Brown Tells All

In a new interview at the TeachersCount website, TLN blogger and teacher-author Dan Brown tells of his early teaching experiences in inner-city New York, his decision to write a well-received book about his first year, and his eventual move to the District of Columbia, where he teaches English/LA at SEED, a public residential charter school with open enrollment. Here are several excerpts:

On charter schools:

Every public charter, by definition, is its own little bubble universe. Of course, all publicly funded schools share state standards and the state exams, but otherwise I see charters as individual, self-contained environments. This can be wonderful or terrible. For example, some charters are started up by people in over their heads, and you've got bedlam. It's unbelievably hard to build a successful school. Other charters are great ideas when conceived, but they can't draw students or a workable site.

I love my charter school, because I see the school environment as liberating and an improvement over the DCPS norm. My classes range in size from 11 to 15 students; that alone is a ringing endorsement. I also get a lot of autonomy in shaping my curriculum. My colleagues are great and the atmosphere of the school is generally positive. However, despite my positive experience, I don't see charters as a panacea for education reform; they're an alternative option for some parents. Across the country, the regular public school system still serves the overwhelming majority of students and that's not going to change.

On writing a book about his first year:

At first, I wrote for the eyes of my compatriots. I felt like we had been through something dramatic and important together, and I had the tools and the time now to set it down on paper and tell the tale. I banged out 60 or 70 pages in less than a week. My fellow Fellows were so positive about it that I convinced myself that this story could find a readership. For one thing, it had all the ingredients of gripping high drama and it was all real. Also, I could find very few teacher memoirs in the bookstores. There are very few book-length unfiltered accounts out there of what it's really like to teach.

On the challenges disadvantaged students face:

When students start the race several years behind, frustration follows. That frustration can manifest in oppositional behavior ("I don't care about school!"), fear of failure and lack of trying, and low self-esteem. Then the students can't catch up because they're really down on themselves and on school in general. Even if they were fired up, they may also have lousy access to the resources needed to make such an intense academic leap

Of course, this is not at all the case for all students, but I think the large-scale effect of unequal access (based on income) to academically supportive environments for young people foments an opportunity gap.

On improving teacher and teaching quality:

I'm worried that policy-makers are out of touch with the realities of classroom life. If you don't spend time in classrooms with students and teachers, it's too easy to push an ideology of more and more high-stakes testing, which is what's happening. It's gotten to the point where "test scores" and "student performance" are used interchangeably.

Teachers ought to have more of a voice in crafting accountability tools. Unfortunately, our culture does not respect teachers enough to demand that they receive this seat at the table…. It takes a village to truly boost student achievement, and teachers have a major role to play in that, and they should be held accountable for their work. Regrettably, it's not so easily quantifiable to measure short- or long-term teacher effectiveness once accepting the truth that test scores only don't equal the sum total of student achievement. We're nowhere near figuring out that kind of authentic measurement.

Read the entire interview at the TeachersCount website.

Will Retiring Teachers Take All They Know with Them?

Here's one of a dozen comments posted on a recent Teacher Magazine article contributed by the Teacher Leaders Network. "The Experience Factor" features several older teachers talking about why they continue to work in the classroom. The comment below was contributed by Anne Jolly, a former science teacher and Alabama teacher of the year. Read other TLN essays at Teacher here.

Do you know what I think the biggest problem is with the Baby Boomers retiring? I think it's the Mrs. Kellys of the teaching world.

Mrs. Kelly was a wonderful language arts teacher. Kids flocked to her like iron to a magnet. In her classroom, ordinary students morphed into creative geniuses who wrote amazing short stories and became eager readers. But Mrs. Kelly turned 65 and retired . . . and when she retired she took all of the knowledge, skill, and insight she'd developed over her 40-year teaching career with her.

During her long teaching career there was no regular time for her to share and work with other teachers. No regular time for teachers to meet, problem-solve, and learn with one another in teams. No opportunity for Mrs. Kelly to pass her wisdom to the current and new generation of teachers. How did Mrs. Kelly make such a difference for so many students? I taught three doors down from her, and I have no idea.

The problem with the retiring of the boomers is that such a considerable body of knowledge and skill retires with them. And that could be avoided if teachers worked together and grew together in teams throughout their careers. Looking at (a map of teachers over age 50), it's inevitable that lots of teachers will be retiring. What will they pass on to the generation who replaces them?

I remember cleaning out my room and meticulously organizing activities and lesson plans for the unknown teacher who would take my place. As I closed my classroom door for the last time, the knowledge and wisdom I'd gained during my teaching career rested in a dented metal file cabinet. It should have rested instead with caring colleagues, and incorporated into a collective body of knowledge about teaching and learning that we developed together as teachers.

Just think of the collective knowledge retiring in the next few years that we'll never know about.