TLN Teacher Voices

Once again, the Elephant

Becoming a Great High School: Six Strategies and One Attitude that Make a Difference
By Tim R. Westerberg
ASCD (2009)

Reviewed by Mary Tedrow, NBCT
High School English/journalism (N. Va.)

Becoming a Great High School: Six Strategies and One Attitude that Make a Difference is full of familiar information since, as a classroom teacher, I have been on the receiving end of many of the innovations cited by Tim Westerberg as means to move a high school from “good to great.”
 
Westerberg’s thin text (i.e., “a quick read for busy administrators”) outlines methods to change the attitude of the professionals in the building to a we-can-do-it mindset as the professional team moves schools from okay to wowser. Westerberg leans heavily on the business management text Good to Great that was making the rounds in my system in 2000. Westerberg’s text is essentially a roadmap for where to drive the building-level bus of reform, in Jim Collins' Good to Great terminology.

Citing Robert Marzano as the wellspring of his ideas, Westerberg employs another education buzz-term, the writing standards mnemonic 6+1, to outline what a school can and should do to move a high school to greatness: Follow the six strategies and couple them with a can-do attitude, the plus-one aspect of the formula.

Many of Marzano’s points are incorporated here:  Too many standards are taught. Focus on the Power Standards. Administer frequent common formative assessments to assess student learning.  Encourage collaborative work among the professionals to create standards of teaching and learning.  Define rigorous teaching to encourage a culture of success and foster the mood that “what we do here is important” to the student body at large.

What about the elephant?

There is little to argue with in this text as it sets clear guidelines for professional improvement in a building where the success of each child is paramount — also my classroom goal. I agree we need alignment from top to bottom.

The book outlines the role of administrators in this framework. Rather than just read it, I can imagine an administrator referring to it from time to time to check in on where and how the strategizing is going.

I’ve no beef with the content.

I do have a beef with the elephant in the room.

Westerberg gives only a nod to the need for the professionalization of teachers in his afterward, where he references the work of the Center for Teaching Quality and its 2008 TeacherSolutions report about the teachers’ role in improving the nation’s schools (Measuring what Matters: The effects of National Board Certification on advancing 21st Century teaching and learning) on page 112 of 114 pages.  He acknowledges that teacher leadership is the next step in reform.

It should be the first.

The outline for effective teaching and learning ignores two essentials that would make such a plan truly great: empowerment of both students and teachers through ownership of goal setting and self-evaluation and assessment, along with the time to do so.

A bulleted list on pages 57-58 outlines eight ways to find time for teachers to do the essential work of collaboration.  Many items on the list have been promised to those of us who yearn for collaboration with peers (but never considered in my working experience is bullet #1, a huge insult to professionalism: eliminate duty periods). Only one suggestion has been acted upon in my workplace: provide substitutes so teachers can work together.

This has happened twice in the past year.

Meanwhile, directives based on Marzano have added a burden to already burdened teachers who must delay their “own work,” in the form of lesson planning and assessment, to do the work of the building.  This creates a resentment that places any improvement program at risk. 

Unwillingness to comply with change is often dealt with in high school reform books in a chapter titled “Dealing with Difficult Teachers.” (Though, thankfully, Westerberg has not included that chapter.) Yet, as each new directive comes from above, teachers are tasked with building the plane while flying it, and recently this has been occurring in shorter and shorter time frames.
 
It is exhausting.

Veterans get good at fending off the change-du-jour. Teachers learn to shrug, shut the door, or risk getting worked to death over every new initiative.

Great schools will be a fact of life when great working conditions are standard and teachers are provided with time and resources to enact deep and lasting reform. Piling more work on already over-worked teachers continues to thwart the best intentions.
  
Westerberg’s plus-one attitude adjustment at the building level comes from celebrating success. But whose success is being celebrated?  No matter how noble, celebrating your goals is not the same as setting and reaching my own. Neither is it the same as the sense of pride and self-satisfaction when the self-identified work achieves measurable change.

Thus does corporate partying make cynics of us all.

Both Marzano and Westerberg would do much for the education field if they first wrote the book on acknowledging and providing space and time for teacher knowledge and growth, rather than on how to manage change in a non-conducive environment.
 
That would be revolutionary.

Top 5 Reasons Teachers Don't Get Involved in Education Policy

Teacher Ariel Sacks blogs at the TLN website under the banner "On the Shoulders of Giants." In a recent post she identifies the top five reasons teachers avoid contact with education policy -- and refutes each one. Here's the first:

* * * * *

Recently on the Teacher Leaders Network, I landed in a discussion about the many great teachers we know who, for a variety of reasons, stay far away from education policy.  In this post, I'm trying to respond to what I see as the top five reasons teachers tend not to get involved.

One: It's not my job to be involved in education policy.  

My Response: While it's not in our job description to be involved in education policy, it is in our best interest to voice our perspectives, because policies directly affect the conditions of our work, our ability to do our best for our students, and our willingness to stay in teaching. 

Historically, teachers have been the recipients of policies written by outsiders, higher up on the ladder than we are. We experience the results of decisions and usually have plenty to say about how they play out in our schools.  How many times have you issued some choice words about the latest education legislation at lunch with a group of colleagues?  Why not hone that message and share it with a wider audience?  Also, if the policy makers are at the top of the education pyramid, who does that leave at the bottom?  Students and parents.  And that's just not right.  We need to challenge the current hierarchy so that the people who matter most in American public education, students, parents, and teachers, have a bigger voice. Teachers, especially, who are most directly responsible for the' education of students, need to be heard on the issues. 

via teacherleaders.typepad.com

Backward Education Funding

TLN blogger Renee Moore (TeachMoore) writes of miguided education funding priorities and their impact on those citizens who most need access to a quality educational experience:

As our state and federal governments put less funding into education generally, they insist that our nation must rise again to the top of global educational attainment. The Secretary of Education proclaims we must learn to do more with less. I know I'm not alone in finding that statement deeply disingenuous, if not downright insulting to those of us who have never been given proper or equal resources with which to educate the children for whom we are responsible. 

When children at one elementary school in town can have a library with books and computers, while those across town have to settle for some donated older books on a cart — when one high school has a fully functioning science laboratory where students can engage in hands-on learning — while at the other, teachers have to buy a single lab kit out of their own pockets to show their classes an experiment — as long as these and many other inequities are allowed to continue unchallenged, we are lying to those children in those poorer conditions when we tell them we value them or their education.

Read her complete post at teacherleaders.typepad.com

Inside NBC's Teacher Town Hall

Elizabeth Stein, a special education teacher from Long Island NY, was invited to attend NBC’s Teacher Town Hall on Sept. 26. Stein, who is also National Board certified in literacy, shared this report with colleagues in the Teacher Leaders Network. (For another TLN account, see this blog post by Ariel Sacks.)

I consider myself lucky to have been one of the teachers in the crowd yesterday at the Teacher Town Hall. I’m still trying to make sense of the experience.

I actually experienced a full range of emotions. It was exciting to be around so many educators with a mission. It was exciting to speak with many teachers and get involved in some meaningful discussions. And I have to say, the energy in the place was riveting. However, frustration wins as my emotional theme for the day. I went in energized…and left even more so…
 
Interested and curious, I entered the makeshift studio of the NBC Teacher Town Hall (on the spot of the actual skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza). I had no idea what to expect.  According to the invitation, the Education Nation website, and all of the advertising leading up to the moment, there was that hint of hope that teachers would have a chance to make their voices heard.  

To register, participants were asked to think about and be ready to “brainstorm” what works in the classroom and what are the challenges in education today. In addition, teachers who registered for the online chat were asked to submit a brief (about 100-200 word) response to identify “one change you think could help to transform education in America.” I still was not sure how the actual experience would pan out. But I was ready. I was in the moment.

Just to be in a room with fellow educators was really a gratifying experience. And as Brian Williams came out five minutes before we were to go on air, I was still hopeful that we would have a chance to have our voices heard. And many did. Yet, as it unfolded I found, too often, that my hope got swept up in the messy swirl of frustration. What I thought would be a coming together of the minds turned into teachers sharing the challenges—with no opportunities for brainstorming and seeking solutions. (Ok, so I tend to be a tad idealistic at times.)

The best part was when Brian Williams introduced the “lightning” mode. He tried to allow the long line of teachers who stood waiting for their turn at the microphone,the opportunity to fit in whatever they could say in 15 seconds or less. I couldn’t help but wonder, what was the purpose? It seemed to be just to appease the teachers as if to say, "see you had your chance for your voice to be heard." Yet, I couldn't help but think, "sure these teachers are being heard...but who's really listening?"

It also seemed to me that the teachers who were able to share just validated points that we are all aware of. Or they shared personal stories that served to make them feel better for the moment. That's fine, but I continue to wonder, what about some real solutions?
 
Brian Williams definitely had a pre-determined list of topics that he was determined to mention. These topics included teaching with passion (teaching as a calling), recruitment and retention, low income schools, summer school, STEM, and teacher evaluations. Yet that’s all it seemed to be — fragmented mentions. Each teacher who was able to find his or her way to the microphone had a chance to mention whatever was on his or her mind. It was all just so fragmented. From where I sat, it felt like a venting session… some valid thoughts, but with no solutions in sight. And no one to really listen anyway.
 
I'd love to return to what the registration form claimed we'd discuss, but never really did.
 
What is one major change you think could help to transform education in America?
 
I'm still ready to discuss...and dare I say, hopeful?

Ravitch Book Well-Argued, Thought-Provoking, and Short on Solutions

The Death and Life of the Great American School System
by Diane Ravitch

(Basic Books, 2010)

Reviewed by Sarah Schumacher
Secondary Literacy & Social Studies (WA)

TLN New Millennium Initiative

Why would a powerful, successful advocate for what amounted to a revolution in our education system completely change her mind about the initiatives she once supported? And what happens when she does? What do we do next? Those were the questions on my mind as I picked up Diane Ravitch’s newest book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. I had heard of Diane Ravitch and her ideas many times in my career and had heard rumblings about her so-called ‘mea culpa’, and so was excited to find out what her motivations were, what she had seen that so completely changed her mind.

There are no sacred cows in this book; Ravitch pulls no punches. She systematically goes after many of the initiatives and policies that have been held up in the last years as cure-alls for the ills of our education system: testing, tenure, charter schools, Teach for America, vouchers. . .the list goes on. As she says late in the book, “American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas.” As educators, we see so many initiatives rolling through that are promised to be panaceas that we often know will lead to nothing. So it’s refreshing to hear someone speaking so candidly and with so much depth. On the other hand, as you read the book you’re left wondering what else is there? If these things aren’t “magic feathers,” then what should we be doing instead? We definitely learn the ‘why’ of her transformation, but not so much the ‘what next?’

Her first chapter, “What I Learned About School Reform,” outlines Ravitch’s career as an educational researcher and writer and subsequent ascension to the position of assistant secretary of education in the George H.W. Bush administration. One thing I respected immediately about her arguments is that she doesn’t let herself off the hook for the role she played. She admits that, “I began ‘seeing like a state,’ looking at schools and teachers and students from an altitude of 20,000 feet and seeing them as objects to be moved around by big ideas and great plans.” The chapter then chronicles her change of heart as she realizes the initiatives proliferating education are not getting the results they should. She ends by beginning her argument that in the era of NCLB education was beginning to be viewed as an institution that could, and should, be run as if it were a private, for-profit enterprise. However, she emphasizes that she does not have clear alternatives of her own. More about that later.

The second chapter, “Hijacked! How the Standards Movement Turned Into the Testing Movement,” continues to set the context for NCLB. It is in this chapter that you learn three things about Diane Ravitch. First, she strongly dislikes NCLB and all its progeny: testing, so-called accountability, choice, etc.. Second, she appreciated the 1983 report A Nation at Risk and the prescription it gave the nation’s education system. Third, and most of all, she likes strong standards and curriculum, believing that they lead to more well-rounded, deeper thinking students. Take note, because that’s about the only thing she appears to like in the entirety of the book.

The book then becomes a whirlwind of detail in a House-That-Jack-Built layered style of argumentation. In other words: She really makes her case. The third, fourth and fifth chapters tell the stories of three different school districts and how fundamental changes to their organizations and policies in the mode of NCLB-era ideas led to uncertain outcomes. Those uncertain outcomes are a theme throughout the rest of the book. It seems that for every initiative there are a thousand studies, all of them reaching a different conclusion.

The next three chapters form the crux of her argument: “NCLB: Measure and Punish”, “Choice: The Story of an Idea”, and “The Trouble with Accountability.” In these chapters she outlines, detail by detail (by detail) the case against No Child Left Behind and its policies. In “What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do?”, she talks about the growing movement to link teacher evaluations to test scores and wonders if her own favorite teacher, Mrs. Ratliff, would be considered a great teacher today, she of the red marking pen and nineteenth-century poetry. Sadly, she probably wouldn’t.

Finally, the next to last chapter, “The Billionaire Boys’ Club” is aimed directly at those large foundations and endowments that, Ravitch argues, are driving education reform with their own agendas instead of seeking out innovators already in the field. She talks at length about the Gates Foundation and its small schools agenda and how the Broad Foundation is supporting the movement to turn school administration into a business. This seems to be the core of her argument, that the more the powers that be have treated education as a business, the more detrimental it has been to our nation’s students. She makes this argument thoroughly and leaves no question marks about any of the major factors impacting education today.

Given that, what was unexpected for me was that there are many questions left unanswered at the end of the book. I finally reached the chapter I’d been waiting for, “Lessons Learned,” and found it pretty unsatisfying. Throughout this shortest of chapters, she uses the refrain “Our schools will not improve if…” to share what she thinks should be the priorities of our education system. She brings up national standards and common curriculum and talks about what the goals of testing and teacher evaluation should be, but gives very few specifics.

I guess I’d liken it to hearing a firebrand speaker and getting passionately excited about the cause only to be given a tin sword with which to go start the revolution. We need much more than lofty generalities to fix what is broken about our system. In all, though, I found this book incredibly well-argued, thought-provoking and interesting and would recommend it to anyone who wants to know the other side of the story of education in the last decade.

Sarah Schumacher is a secondary literacy coach and social studies coordinator in the Edmonds, Washington School District. She’s a member of the New Millennium Initiative teacher team exploring teaching policy issues in her state.

A Practical and Profound Look at Testing and Assessment

Instruction That Measures Up: Successful Teaching in the Age of Accountability
by W. James Popham
(ASCD, 2009)

Reviewed by Kenneth J. Bernstein, NBCT
High School Government & Social Studies (MD)



Teacher Leaders Network

This is a book by one of America’s acknowledged experts on assessment: now emeritus from UCLA, Popham has been a leading figure in research (having served as President of the American Educational Research Association), in publication (of his many books and articles, and as editor of a major journal on evaluation), and as a person whose opinions on matters educational are always worth considering. For those interested, you may read a professional bio here.

Popham has in recent years been critical of how our educational policies have approached the matter of tests, assessment and evaluation. This book therefore may catch some off-base, because Popham now moves beyond criticism to try to help those in the classroom deal with the reality of test-based accountability, something to which the current national administration has made clear its commitment.

The purpose of Instruction That Measures Up can be clearly understood from one paragraph in the preface, which appears on p. 2:

I believe the best way for teachers to deal with test-based accountability pressures — the way that benefits students — is to accept those pressures as a given, then plan and carry out instruction knowing that it will take place on an accountability-spotlighted stage. What teachers must do is focus on providing instruction that measures up: to the expectations of administrators, parents, and taxpayers; to their own professional standards; and, most essentially, to the needs of their students.

The book is divided into 7 chapters:

1. Teaching Through an Assessment Lens
2. A Quick Dip in the Assessment Pool
3. Curriculum Determination
4. Instructional Design
5. Monitoring Instruction and Learning
6. Evaluating Instruction
7. Playing the New Game

There is also a two page list of resources, an index, and some background on the author, with a total of 174 pages.

For those who are not all that knowledgeable about matters of assessment — which not only includes many of those in the classroom, but far too great a percentage of those involved with making educational policy — the second chapter by itself justifies the book. Popham divides the “Assessment Pool” into four broad categories: Testing as Score-Based Inference Making; The Core Concepts of Assessment; The Categories of Educational Tests; and The Summative and Formative Functions of Educational Assessments.

He provides clear explanations of the meaning of terms. Where necessary, he offers a great deal of detail with easy-to-comprehend explanations. A reader who pays attention will begin to grasp the importance of how psychometricians understand key terms.

The four core concepts Popham addresses are the key ideas of Reliability, Validity, Assessment Bias, and Instructional Sensitivity. Any assessment that fails to take into account these core concepts, whether it is designed by a classroom teacher for instructional purposes or by outside organizations and imposed from above for purposes of accountability, will by definition be at risk of being unable to provide sufficiently accurate information to allow one to draw appropriate inferences from the data.

Popham offers a number of blunt statements about problems with our current schemes of assessment, and a number of key warnings, of which one on p. 29 caught my attention: “It serves no one to ascribe unwarranted precision to educational tests.” Unfortunately, our national obsession with numbers and our desire to rank and compare means that it is precisely ascribing too much precision to the data we obtain from tests that has been distorting much of our educational policy for the past several decades.

With Mike Rose, We Should All Be Asking - Why School?

Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us
by Mike Rose
(The New Press, 2009)

Reviewed by Kenneth Bernstein
High School Government & Social Studies (MD)


Teacher Leaders Network

How we think about and voice the purpose of school matters. It affects what we put in or take out of the curriculum and how we teach that curriculum. It affects the way we think about students — all students — about intelligence, achievement, human development, teaching and learning, opportunity and obligation. And all of this affects the way we think about each other and who we are as a nation.

Perhaps it may seem odd to begin the review of a book with its final words. Yet is also appropriate, because to answer the question Mike Rose poses in his title, it is necessary to consider the destination towards which we head. It is especially appropriate for this book, because this final observation explains succinctly the concerns Rose attempts to address in Why School?:

• what is in the curriculum and why
• how we teach
• how we frame what intelligence is, what we value, in school and society
• issues of opportunity for all, including appropriate remediation
• issue of common obligation that should be part of our culture as a democratic society.

Rose is in many ways uniquely qualified to take on this task. He teaches in the Graduate School of Education at UCLA. He has taught at many levels. His personal background is from working-class roots and he has maintained a sense of respect of the requirements — including intellectual — of what too many dismiss as manual labor. He is very committed to the democratic ideal that allows people to rise above their origins as he was able to do. He is a superb writer and an even better story-teller, not afraid to use stories to teach, to help us understand.

Before going on, let me provide some specifics. Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us is published by The New Press, which is based in New York City, and which was established two decades ago as a not-for-profit alternative to large publishing houses. The publishing house

operates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable.

I quote those words from the page containing the copyright information for several reasons. First, this book definitely meets the test of educational and community value, as I hope this review will demonstrate. Next, the mission of the publisher is very much in conformity with both the purpose of this book and the focus of Mike Rose’s life work, which is to have us committed to a broad sense of common purpose. And finally, I truly think this book may well disprove the notion about being "insufficiently profitable."

On that same page Rose informs us that the essays in the book are reworked from a number of previously published pieces on which he holds the copyright. Had one not read those words, or the words in the introduction where he explains the purpose of the book, one might well think this was a book written at one time with one purpose. In that sense it is consistent with much of the work of Rose in his writing and his teaching.

Reviews: Caring Teachers and Confident Students

Teaching as an Act of Love
by Richard Lakin
(iUniverse, 2009)

The Complete Guide to the Gap Year
by Kristin M. White
(Jossey-Bass, 2009)

Reviewed by David B. Cohen, NBCT
High School English & Counseling (CA)
Teacher Leaders Network

Newspapers (for those of us who still read them) and online reports provide a steady flow of stories that might induce stress in teachers and students. I find I can immerse myself in this constant stream and become dizzy — or step aside and feel marginalized when the education policy conversation is dominated by talk of data systems, national standards, and racing to the top without leaving a single child behind.

Meanwhile, the juniors and seniors I advise at my high school, and their families, are looking at the spiraling costs for public and private higher education and reacting with anxiety as they hear about increasing competition in college admissions.

With that backdrop, I’m glad I took the time to read a pair of books that were recently sent to me. Richard Lakin is a former teacher and principal whose self-published collection of anecdotes and reflections seems almost provocatively titled in this educational climate. Teaching as an Act of Love (iUniverse) provides a variety of vignettes and affirmations that span 40 years of educational experience. For the high school student and family, Kristin M. White’s The Complete Guide to the Gap Year (Jossey-Bass) provides plenty of information and resources to encourage students to look into other options besides heading straight to college after high school — options that can lead to greater confidence and maturity.

It’s sad to think how it almost seems trivial, if not frivolous, to talk about caring or love in education today. Richard Lakin challenges this trend toward emotional detachment in education by illustrating what teachers know and what so few non-teaching education reformers seem to realize: When relationships of caring and trust are in place, pedagogy and curriculum are much more likely to achieve the results that reformers demand. Without those relationships, there is no perfect system, no foolproof textbook or software, no scripted curriculum that will yield the broad and lasting effects we all want for our youngest citizens.

The bulk of Lakin’s book focuses on his experiences as an elementary school principal. His approach to problem solving and school improvement featured an admirable balance of practicality and humility. Small stories about seemingly inconsequential matters like a class pet may seem uninspiring at a glance, but as the parent of a third-grader and a first-grader, I am often reminded that Carmel the Guinea Pig and Jake the Snake figure much more prominently in my sons’ minds than do any state standards or publishers’ pacing guides. Thus, when Lakin describes how he negotiated with students and their teacher to reach a mutually acceptable solution to a problem with pet mice, we can see the benefits that follow from his willingness to change his mind and to consider the children’s feelings as a relevant factor in running a school. Lakin continuously asserts that his success in this situation — and in the larger context of promoting goals like conflict resolution and school literacy — came not from having guidelines or standards that were handed down “from the office,” but from remaining faithful to a belief that we must educate from the heart.

Lakin’s commitment to parent-school partnerships also resonates. He recounts the efforts that went into transforming a school culture of distrust into one of caring and communication. After describing what it took to be successful — detailing both the improvements and a few mistakes along the way — he concludes by noting that the effort took three to four years before really taking hold.

I paused for a few minutes after this chapter and reflected on the current climate I see and hear about in education. First of all, in those three to four years, many of our struggling urban and rural schools might see more than a 50 percent turnover in staff and families. Yet we know that building trust depends largely on stability. Secondly, I’m concerned that our systemic obsession with data actually becomes an obstacle to trust. While it is true that we must rely on more than feelings to measure educational outcomes, my trust in a school or teacher is rooted in my belief that they know more about my child than his test scores. When we churn through teaching staff and make a fetish of test scores, we do not arrive at a system that knows and cares about children as people.

The rush to college

Fast forward eight to ten years, and you’re looking at high school graduation. If you know any college-bound high school seniors, or remember being one, you know that there are three questions that dominate the senior year — questions that you may not want to ask but can’t help yourself. Where are you applying? Where did you get in? Where are you going?

I wish more of our high school seniors were able to subvert this ritual of interrogation by answering those questions in unpredictable ways. To help out, I’ll be recommending Kristin M. White’s book on gap-year programs. Maybe we’ll start hearing: “I’m spending a year in AmeriCorps to support local non-profit groups and gain some job skills.” Or, “I’m going to do a field research expedition in Brazil.” Or perhaps, “I’ll be earning credits at Portland State, but living, working, and studying in East Africa.”

For most students and parents, the idea of a gap year between high school and a traditional college experience is relatively new and full of uncertainty. White is an experienced academic advisor and counselor, and her book provides a concise examination of the reasons to take a gap year, and many different ways to go about it, depending upon the student’s goals, personality, and financial situation.

White has anticipated all of the main concerns that I would have and would expect to hear from students and parents. She cautions that a gap year is ideally not a “year off” to hang out or to travel without some aim, purpose, or structure. But what if students lose academic momentum and be less successful in college, or not even return? Will colleges let a recently admitted student defer matriculation? Will admissions offices look favorably on applicants who have taken a year off?

White supplies ample information to reassure readers on every count. The book is full of positive comments from students, parents, gap-year program staff, college admissions staff and instructors. As one of her final thoughts, White offers that “I never came across anyone who expressed regret over doing a gap year. Even students who had a traveling disaster or a challenge abroad or went on a program with a difficult community service all reflected on their year positively.”

Parents seem to be the main group in need of some convincing. After all, she writes, “Parents have spent the last eighteen years saving and sacrificing for their child’s college education. They have evaluated every cultural and extracurricular opportunity with a view toward college. They may even feel that their success as parents is measured by their child’s acceptance (or lack of acceptance) to a good college.” This particular comment seems aimed at a particular demographic – middle and upper-class families – but it rings true in my experience and shows that White understands why parents might resist the idea.

While she does caution that a gap year is not for everyone, White clearly suggests that more students would benefit from trying it. Why? “The generation that is in high school today is going to need more than a college degree to be successful. Developing a worldview is crucial to being able to thrive and prosper in a global economy. A gap year experience can set you on a path to seeing your world in a different way.”

I might not couch the argument simply in terms of economic prosperity when talking to my own students or family members, but it’s hard to disagree with the final part of the statement. Achieving a broader world view can help a student mature, which may also aid the transition to college in social ways. White invites readers to “imagine how the independence and self-esteem building of a gap year would positively affect the maturity and confidence of those who were likely to be influenced by the college party culture.”

The second half of the book is made up of listings and resources for every type of gap year experience or program you might think of, and many that you would not have considered. A few options are free to participants, covering all expenses and providing a modest stipend or education award, while some others are essentially private school or international study programs with costs in the neighborhood of $40,000. However, the majority of gap-year options entail costs nearer to the middle of these extremes, and they tend to offer experiences that last weeks or months rather than a full year.

Kristin M. White’s book is an outstanding resource for high school students and their families, and would be an excellent addition to high school libraries and counseling centers. Whether the student’s goal is academic maturation, cross-cultural immersion and language development, volunteer work, community development, or career skill-building, there are opportunities worth considering for those willing to venture off the traditional educational track in search of something more.

David B. Cohen is a National Board Certified Teacher at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto CA. He is a co-founder of the Accomplished California Teachers leadership network.

[NOTE: David Cohen received a complimentary review copy of Teaching as an Act of Love from the author. Kristin White's book was sent to TLN Teacher Voices. See our book review disclosure here.]

Teachers as Senior Education Leaders

In a recent blog post at On the Shoulders of Giants, TLN member Ariel Sacks reflected on a new program planned by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, aimed at producing 21st century education leaders prepared with the business skills and the understanding of teaching and learning necessary to successfully lead schools.

Ariel cross-posted her blog entry in our TLN Forum discussion group. It sparked a LOT of conversation, some of which we share here. To get the most out of this dialog, read Ariel’s blog post first: Can Teachers Be ‘Senior Education Leaders’?

In her conclusion, Ariel writes:

…Coming from the opposite angle, could a classroom teacher--or group of classroom teachers--become a major force in education reform? I think yes…

I'd love to see a group of teachers enter Harvard's doctoral program and graduate having created and prepared themselves to take on hybrid roles--splitting their time between actual classroom teaching and working closely with senior "educational leaders" to help transform education.

If Harvard won't, can we create that program?

Anne replied:

That's an excellent suggestion, Ariel. I do some curriculum writing for middle schoolers. No matter how carefully and thoroughly I think it through, until I get in the classroom and teach it I don't know just how many changes I need to make! Nothing takes the place of the classroom reality check.

I especially like the idea of education reformers living and teaching the changes they recommend. Either that, or get out of the education reform business and let teacher leaders be in position drive the necessary changes. Actually, I like the last idea better, anyway!

Bob wrote:

Our educational system is yet to be widely structured in a way to tap into the leadership of classroom teachers or financially compensate classroom teacher leaders who remain in the classroom. I am unsure as to whether we are going to win over politicians and central office administrators in sufficient numbers unless some of us move into those positions while staying grounded to the experiences of the classroom.

I have a principal certification and am not tempted to use it right now because I love teaching. Financially it is a stupid move because I spent $15,000 for a second masters that did not increase my salary. I am not jumping in because when I went up to the front office and was a principal for short periods of time during my internship, I thought I was doing work that was far less rewarding than teaching. Part of the reason is that internships usually touch on discipline and procedures much more than instructional leadership.

I find far fewer administrators passionate about their job than teachers. Once exception is a principal I met by the pool at a San Diego principals' conference last year. He gave a passionate endorsement for becoming a principal. I remember his words clearly: "If you are a good teacher, ok that's something, but what does it amount to in the big picture? …But if you are the principal, you can really do anything. You can change a whole school. You want to teach a class, no problem. You’re the principal.”

Some experienced teachers need to become the prominent politicians, superintendents and principals in a way that they are still grounded to the classroom. Those that try will likely be criticized because it is not a common practice right now. I am looking forward to stepping into my classroom tomorrow morning. That is where it is at for me at this moment. So I do not know if we need to draw straws and have those that lose pursue the prominent positions, but we need more teacher perspective in those positions.

Ariel replied:

I keep thinking that principals are not really the education leaders that Harvard is thinking of--or many people think of when we say policy makers. I see principals as much closer to teachers because they are in schools every day and in contact with students every day. Superintendents probably do count as policy makers, but there are lots of other players in the game. Foundation people, leaders of organizations like TFA and New Leaders for New Schools, etc, and also politicians like Arne Duncan and Joel Klein and everyone who works for them. It would be very interesting to see how many have teaching experience and if they do--would they be interested in teaching in a public school classroom once a week, for example.

Chances are it would have to happen the other way, where teachers lead the way by moving into hybrid roles.

A Rigorous Thanksgiving

David B. Cohen, NBCT
Teacher Leaders Network 

With Thanksgiving arriving, we begin to hear and read commentaries about all that we are thankful for. As a teacher, I am mindful of the role teachers have played in my own life. Of course, the climate and values in education have changed somewhat since the 1970s, and what I once may have believed about schools and teachers when I was a naïve child must be tested against the rigorous standards of today.

 
I attended two different American military schools in Germany for kindergarten through second grade. Perhaps due to moving around a fair amount as a child, I find it hard to reconstruct memories of the teachers from those years. I’m told I was a skilled reader at an early age. Had anyone asked at the time, we would have likely attributed my facility for reading to my parents’ constant encouragement and the many high-interest books in our home. I now have to assume that although I can’t remember my earliest primary-grade teachers, they must have been brilliant educators. As we are frequently reminded in education these days, “the teacher is the most important factor in student success.” Thank you to those Armed Services teachers, whoever and wherever you may be.
 
In third and fourth grade, I was living in Colorado Springs. My dominant educational recollection is that my fourth-grade teacher punished me harshly whenever I held my pencil the wrong way. I was confused and humiliated by the insistence that I meet the highest standard of pencil-gripping and meet it immediately. But now, immersed in the field of education myself, I’ve learned that we have to be tough, we have to produce results and keep students progressing on schedule. And this teacher certainly produced results: I ended up in a program for gifted students when I reached fifth grade. The fact that I felt no connection to my education or my peers is far less important than the fact that my skills were far above average and growing. My tears and alienation were inconsequential, non-measurable and non-educational outcomes, so let me now give thanks for that fourth-grade teacher. I’m only sorry that my pencil grip never changed.
 
For fifth and sixth grade, I moved to Los Angeles and attended my fourth elementary school. I thoroughly enjoyed those years and imagined I was having a wonderful life. By today’s standards, however, I suffered from a conspicuous lack of measurable progress. I am sorry to say it, but my fifth and sixth grade teachers did not fully embrace accountability. The gifted program involved exciting enrichment activities but no summative assessments. Though I didn’t mind at the time, I can see now that those years represent a wasted opportunity. Where was value-added measurement when I needed it most?
 
Instead of helping me continue to make more than a year’s progress in each grade level, these teachers tried to promote “love of learning” and “personal responsibility.” Not really the school’s job, was it? In the absence of clear and rigorous state or district mandates, they had me reading Ray Bradbury in fifth grade and J.R.R. Tolkien in sixth. To make matters worse, my sixth grade teacher had us discuss the books without a single worksheet or objective assessment tool in sight. Open-ended conversation about The Hobbit made for pleasant class time, but did little to guarantee that I could have passed a rigorous, standards-based assessment. From a contemporary educational perspective, I have to ask, what was the point?
 
There were other signs of trouble, too. We memorized and recited poetry in class, and sang songs for no apparent reason. My fifth grade teacher even came out to the playground and taught us new games, organized a class Olympiad, and fostered friendly competition and sportsmanship. What exactly were the learning objectives and intended outcomes here? Where was the accountability? When I think of all the better ways that time could have been spent, I know now that some benchmarks must have gone unmarked. My inclination to give thanks is lessened somewhat at that realization.
 
I must concede that in fifth and sixth grade I thoroughly enjoyed school -- but not in any measurable sense. I made many friends, and even still keep in touch with a few of them, but what of that? As a professional educator in the 21st century, I am often reminded that I need to be data-driven. I don’t have time to waste on ephemeral pleasures or concerns about social and emotional matters. Performance counts.
 
Thanksgiving this year has made me realize that some of the blessings in our lives are obvious, but some warrant deeper examination. Looking back on my early education, I am thankful for those teachers who put academics (and pencil-gripping) first -- and thankful that those teachers who tried to reach the “whole child” didn’t harm me irrevocably. They may have shirked their accountability and neglected rigor now and then in their reckless pursuit of the joy of learning, but somehow it all worked out in the end.
 
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
 
David B. Cohen teaches English and serves as an academic advisor at Palo Alto High School in California. He is a National Board Certified Teacher and a co-founder of the Accomplished California Teachers (ACT) organization.