TLN Teacher Voices

"Why Boys Like to Sew in My Class"

Susan Graham blogs under the TLN brand at Teacher Magazine. Her blog A Place at the Table offers a wonderful mix of reflections on education policy and practice, spiced with savory observations on the teaching life. This article for the ASCD Express online magazine draws on Susan's three decades of experience as a middle school home economics teacher who survived the transition to "Family and Consumer Sciences." In the Express's recent themed issue on Teaching Boys, Susan reveals that she actually has more males than females in her FACS classes these days. Quite a few more, in fact. And here's why:

The terms "machine" and "construct" provide insight into why my boys like to sew. At the risk of stereotyping by gender, boys are more likely to be kinesthetic learners; they are concrete, independent learners who are much more interested in solving problems than in absorbing content. Most students are more motivated when they "do" rather than when they are told, but a 13-year-old boy often really needs hands-on experiences at school. A sewing project requires students to read and follow sequential instructions and translate words on a page into a three-dimensional object. A boy who is resistant to literature often finds technical reading more engaging and more aligned to his long-term literacy needs. The mechanics of the sewing machine are a real-life lesson in the physics of interconnected simple machines.

However, workplace readiness skills are the core of my curriculum, and workplace readiness skills seem particularly appropriate for middle school boys. Although the adolescent transition of middle school girls may be dramatic, it is usually gradual. But middle school boys frequently explode into young adulthood in a period of months rather than years. They are impatient to be men, but they retain the impetuousness of childhood. Their enthusiasm to test their newfound skills and ideas is too often perceived as defiance or disruption.

They want control and independence, but rather than providing opportunities to develop responsibility and personal accountability, these boys are held to expectations that reflect values, priorities, and goals set by adults who never ask the boys what they thought was important. Adolescent boys tend to have more self-confidence than judgment, and they need to learn to assess their own level of competency. Working independently or in a small group to produce food or clothing is about as personal and immediate as learning can get. And performance is measurable when it goes in your mouth or on your back.

Great insights that reveal (once again) what the folks over in "electives" and "voc-tech" have to teach us all about engaging curriculum. Read more of what Susan has to say at the ASCD website.

Is current school reform undermining our democracy?

TLN member Ken Bernstein, blogging as "teacherken" at DailyKos:

I most often write about schools. I have often mentioned that I think we need a radical rethinking of the purpose of our schools, because the way they are structured and what we are doing with them is undermining our democracy and ultimately will also undermine our economy, not as the "reformers" would have you believe, but because we will be training drones, not educating creative thinkers who can add to our society and our economy.

via www.dailykos.com

RTI: It's about Instruction, Not Just Intervention

Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction & Intervention
By Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
(ASCD, 2010)

Reviewed by Elizabeth Stein, NBCT
Special Education Teacher (NY)
Teacher Leaders Network

It's easy to get lured into Enhancing RTI: How to Ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention, by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey.

Within the first few pages, the reader is asked to “choose an adventure” that begins with a brief profile of Adam, “a fifth grader in a public school somewhere in the United States.” His educational experience is put in the hands of the reader, as we decide which learning conditions will serve Adam best. It isn’t too difficult to figure out — so long as the reader has moved beyond the traditional teacher-centered, “students as passive learners”, mentality.

Authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey combine their expertise to share knowledge and practical ways teachers can plan the learning experience within positive cycles of instruction. “This cycle—from assessment to instruction—enables teachers to observe students’ responsiveness to the targeted interventions and to proceed with instruction that is supported by ever-evolving performance data.”

Throughout Enhancing RTI, the authors make a clear and comprehensive case for the value and necessity of not only adopting an RTI mindset, but a strengthened model of RTI, so students can succeed. And their backgrounds and in-depth experience in the area of literacy add to the book's practical approach.

One of the many valuable points the authors make clear is the distinction between intervention and instruction. As I read, I was reminded of the many discussions I’ve had with colleagues who have felt that RTI is all about providing interventions to those students who struggle. This book reminds teachers that the thrust of RTI is really all about high quality core instruction at the whole class level before students struggle.

The authors introduce readers to a powered up model of RTI that shines a spotlight on formative assessment and high quality core instruction. The focus is on effective whole-class instruction that can minimize the tendency to fall back on various layers of intervention. The authors call this more unambiguous model of RTI, "Response to Instruction and Intervention."

They suggest that teachers should not wait to see if students will eventually respond to intervention; they must first become aware if students are responding to everyday classroon instruction. I think this distinction is critical for teachers who may not have a clear understanding of the premise of RTI. The authors include the following components for their strengthened model of RTI:

• Making sure that the core instruction (at the Tier 1 level) is responsive, standards-based, and data-driven;

• Making sure that Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions provide a continuous flow of instruction that is aligned to the core instruction;

• Analyzing instruction around a three-way feedback loop that incorporates formative assessment results that inform the teacher and the students;

• Making sure that collaborative efforts are established so educators and families work together successfully.

Each of the eight chapters is like a rung in a ladder leading to complete awareness of the RTI framework. Some chapter topics include:

Defining and refining the RTI process
Quality core instruction (Tier 1)
Supplemental Interventions (Tier 2)
Intensive Interventions for high risk learners (Tier 3)
The role of sssessment and necessity of progress monitoring
Progress monitoring in action

Each chapter ends with a summary, or what the authors call “the takeaway.” This takeaway allows the reader to validate his or her reading of the text and begin to build a deeper understanding of what it takes to apply the comprehensive cycle of instruction described here.

After reading this book, the reader is ready to implement RTI with a clear focus and understanding that high quality core instruction is at the center of it all. The authors provide instructional planning tools, assessment rubrics, and pacing guides that are sure to make readers confident and ready to apply concepts right away. This book is perfect for those with and without a prior understanding of RTI. It will deepen any reader’s understanding and ability to implement the instructional cycles that define the RTI process.

The close of the book also brings to a close the particular adventure the authors have encouraged their readers to take. Adam, now entering 6th grade, has developed into a confident student. Adam's story serves as an apt metaphor for the deep learning that can take place for every student when a school’s mission becomes aligning instruction, assessment and intervention to drive the learning process.

A Book of Clever, Relevant Strategies to Inspire More Reading

Igniting a Passion for Reading: Successful Strategies for Building Lifetime Readers
by Steve Layne
(Stenhouse, 2009)

Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
High School English and Drama (IL)

Teacher Leaders Network
 
With standardized testing, core curricular standards, and increased accountability urging administrators or pressing teachers to examine pedagogical minutae in multiple areas, some scholarly works tend to the anxious and pedantic. Steven L. Layne's Igniting a Passion for Reading is a fast-paced, interesting, and — most important — relevant burst of fresh air.

Cleverly written and saturated with snippets about inspiring educators and students inspired by reading, the book can be enjoyably devoured in one sitting. When was the last time you read a "strategy book," with a smile on your face and ideas for your classroom, in one sitting?
 
Unlike some works, Layne's conversational style, academic anecdotes, and use of humor are not intended to disguise a lack of scholarship. Instead, they highlight the many excellent ideas within the book with reminders that strategies cannot be successful without an emphasis on students as individuals with needs specific to their situations.

Why is this book so revolutionary? Does it espouse some new program, training, or method based on an educational trend of the minute? No! Instead, Layne focuses the reader's attention on the issue of aliteracy: that students may have the skills to read but not the will: "It's not necessarily that students can't read, it's that many of them don't.”
 
Even though policy makers may focus on the reading skills which are more easily assessed, such as phonetics, fluency, comprehension, semantics, and syntax, an emphasis on interest, attitude, motivation, and engagement will positively influence the student as a whole reader. Therefore, Layne argues, teachers must use strategies to encourage students to become recreational and lifelong readers. Some of the strategies discussed include the teacher’s use of the magical phrase "I thought of you," book chats, modeling reading, author visits, reading aloud, and others.
 
Organized into easily accessible sections, each chapter opens with a memory from a current leader in the field of reading and education, explores a strategy, and ends with a section called In the Trenches, containing relevant anecdotes. The information is provided with various examples, friendly for elementary through the high school classroom and easily adapted to individual situations.

The book not only offers an excellent writing style and a plethora of strategies, it includes useful charts, rubrics, and appendices. In addition, Layne created quarterly and weekly schedules to assist teachers in their incorporation of strategies. With these elements, teachers can avoid a common worry of professional development: that they will start off strong with new strategies but neglect the follow-through. The book allows for a strong foundation that teachers can craft to their own classrooms and the needs of their students.
 
Although hopeful about the contents, I originally (and jadedly) feared another retread of various party lines or advice from someone who had forgotten that some students choose not to read. Instead, I found within the covers a kindred spirit who believes that every child can be encouraged to read interesting books and who understands how encouraging recreational reading can positively influence the child's life, not only through test scores, but through lifetime achievement.

Aliteracy — Steven L. Layne has your number. And thanks to Igniting a Passion for Reading, I'm starting to as well.

I cannot say enough about this book; it contained so many amusing, heartfelt, and — most important again — relevant quotations I would like to reiterate. However, I must resist and, in the tradition of one of the best youth-based book chat models, Reading Rainbow, I remind the reader that "to find out more, you've got to get the book!"

Vicky Gilpin is an English teacher at Cerro Gordo High School and Richland Community College, in Illinois, and was chosen as a Phi Delta Kappa national Emerging Leader in 2009. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership.