Which I guess is what I officially am now. Last night I finished teaching my second teacher credential course. I love teaching credential courses because the baby teachers who inhabit these classrooms are often wildly excited about their new profession, and have a genuine desire to change the world. It’s awesome fun to help them learn about classroom discipline, lesson planning, and relating to students. It gives me an even brighter hope for the future.
Teaching these courses adds to the length of my teaching day twice a week for five weeks stretching it from 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM, with a break between 2:30 and 5:30. Marathon days in front of people teaching le subject de jour. It’s exhausting, but worthwhile. At my high school I now run into student teachers that took my course last fall. We stop in the halls to chat, catch-up, and share funny stories. It’s very rewarding to see a "baby teacher” evolve into a “student teacher,” and continue to be fired-up about teaching. Very cool.
Last year about this time I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to pursue administration, or teaching at the university level. It’s obvious how that went. I actually enjoyed teaching these last two credential courses so much that I am now toying with the idea of chasing down an EdD. or PhD. in education. That way when I’m finished I can teach at the university full time. Part of me says that if I go to the university level full-time and stop teaching at the high school level that I will lose my effectiveness as a teachers’ teacher because I am no longer teaching non-teachers. (Does that make sense?) But a larger voice inside of me shouts out the need for change and growth. Change and growth that may be satisfied by even higher education. But, seriously, I don’t know if I can survive a three to four year program as a student along with everything else that is going on.
At the high school I am trying to get funding for my computer classroom. The machines my students and I use are antiquated, and in disrepair. Our principal has committed to replacing the old equipment with new machines, but the expense of doing so continues to be a challenge that is not easily met on a public high schools budget. At least not the way our budget is structured. I’m forced to make sacrifices and figure out how to make-do with what is available. I understand that computer courses are much, much more expensive to support than a standard course that does not use technology, but this generation needs to be technology literate, and without the technology to make them literate, well, you get the picture.
Perkins IV money is being made available to elective programs that appropriately prepare students for careers and follow a recommended sequence of courses, include a minimum number of hours in those courses, a connection to a post-secondary program, and that address not only the K-12 Content Standards put also the California CTE Pathway standards. Sequences of elective courses that satisfy these requirements are eligible for funding. Other elective courses that do not are left to fend for themselves and in the current environment of moneys being focused away from electives and into remedial courses for students needing to pass the required exams.
One of the changes I’ve been considering is the subject matter I teach at the high school level. I am a credentialed English teacher who is NCLB compliant in Theatre. I started off teaching theatre for two years before the computer opportunity pulled me away. I miss teaching theatre and I’ve been thinking a lot lately (really a lot) about going back to teaching theatre. I even applied for a theatre job with another school district in an area I’ve always dreamed of living in. I didn’t get the job (BTW, is being called an “enthusiastic guy” a good thing or not?) I’ve had a few opportunities this year to put my earring back in my left ear and work with theatre students. It was a real blast. I found myself working from place a passion that I’ve not visited in a very long time.
At the same time I am heavily entrenched into the foxholes of school reform working on our SLC (CASLE) model. A model we are planning to implement for next school year. Major restructuring of the high school, the campus, the school day, and the way students and teachers relate to each other. I firmly believe that if done right, we will be able to seriously improve and enhance the students’ educational experience. But this will require a variety of paradigm shifts that won’t be easy for the staff and students of the oldest high school in California still operating at its original location.
One of my ideas for our SLC will be a school of Arts, Media, and Entertainment. I want to combine both the multimedia production discipline with the theatre discipline and create new opportunities for kids to not only experience the creative process, but also participate in even more authentic “real-world” experiences that will help them learn vocational as well as academic lessons. I can envision theatrical productions that include not just the drama kids, but students from the whole school of Arts, Media, and Entertainment including obvious groups like band and choir along with kids from art, video, drafting, and even woodshop. Yes, woodshop. How cool would it be for art students to draw the set, the drafting students to draw up the plans for the set, and the woodshop students to build the set? I realize that you don’t need a smaller school to get the woodshop program to work with the drama program, but it seems like it would be a lot easier with a smaller, more familiar population of students and teachers.
Spring is a busy time of year for teachers.
April 20, 2007
March 03, 2007
Smaller is better?
The future of public schools in California is getting smaller, not bigger. Our high school is in the early stages of creating a Small Learning Community or SLC. We’ve received grant money and are now in the first year of the process making structural plans for next year. As each high school is unique based on the needs of its students, our high school has its own unique challenges when addressing our students’ needs. What works as an SLC at one campus may or may not work at our campus. Being a veteran teacher I have seen the pendulum swing back and forth a number of times on a variety of issues, but this is the first time that I have been involved in the process of making a school smaller.
Some research shows that lower achieving students accomplish more and increase their feeling of connectedness to their teachers in smaller educational environments. However, the research also shows that just changing the structure of a high school to create smaller and more intimate learning groups is not enough to improve student performance. To me it’s really about student connectedness and teachers taking a more active role and interest in the lives and success of their students. My question is: Do we really need to restructure the whole high school experience just to get teachers to pay more attention to their students and students to pay more attention to their studies and invest in their own educational experience?
It sort of sounds like I’m saying that the key to student success is simply more caring teachers. That’s nutty. Caring is not enough. The key to student success includes teachers who are invested in kids, and kids who are invested in their education. But is it possible that there are more investment opportunities in a smaller setting? Maybe. Some classes are already staffed at 20 students to 1 teacher. Teachers in these 20:1 classes express a greater satisfaction with the performance of their students. Students feel like they get more and better attention from their teachers. So there is a starting point.
It seems to me that no major changes are needed for the students who are already high achievers. I believe that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That approach can be applied to the programs (i.e. AP) and structures (bell schedule, subject alike departments, and classrooms) within which the higher achievers currently participate. These students perform well in their courses earn high marks and outstanding test scores with the opportunities that are currently available.
However the lower achieving groups need some more attention if they are going to begin to perform like the higher achievers. Our task is to figure out how to best assist them in their development. Our high school currently addresses the challenges of the 9th grade middle and lower students by placing them in “houses” where three core teachers are joined to teach a specific group of students. After a year and a half of application, the results of this type of consortium appear to be positive. We are now looking for a way to expand on this model and carry it into the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. “Aye, there’s the rub.”
Master schedule. What changes do we make to best help the 10-12 population of middle to lower achieving students that take advantage of smaller learning environments that will still work with our master schedule? The logistics are challenging here. I am not an AP nor have I ever had to create a master schedule for a school of any size, much less one of 3400 students. I can imagine an approach that includes chicken bones and tea leaves in order to make it work. Scary. I believe its more possible to design a working schedule then to implement one, especially with a veteran staff who is more than comfortable with the “classic” 6-period day. I recently became aware of a high school that offers 8 extended periods to their students swapping odd and even periods on alternate days. Hmmm.
But working out the schedule is the easy part. The difficulty lies in providing time for teachers of like populations of students to collaborate, and then getting them to actually work together on thematic units, projects, and assessments. I think that all teachers would agree that this type of teamwork is a fine idea, but getting it to actually work is an entirely different story. The day of the maverick teacher is gone with the old west. Once upon a time we teachers were in charge of our classroom curriculum, we could choose our own assignments, and created our own assessments. If we wanted to spend a semester on Hamlet, we could. Now with NCLB, CSTs, CSTPs, CAHSEE, and the curriculum standards combined with district pushed scope and sequence documents the “Art” of teaching is quickly being replaced by the “Science” of teaching. I can’t argue the positive results as measured by API and AYP, but it feels like more and more the individuality of the teacher is being ignored.
But teaching isn’t about the material, or the delivery, or the assessment. It’s about the people, the students. Teaching is about building people, and making connections between people. Our job as teachers is to be respectable role models for our students, to share our passion for learning, and to let them know that no matter what difficulties they may face, they too can be successful in their lives. To help them find their voices, and express themselves. To help them achieve their deepest desires. To assist them in realizing their dreams by giving them the tools they need to be successful. Everything else is just the pedagogy we use to achieve these goals, and pedagogy should not get in the way.
If a smaller learning environment can better help build people then I am in favor of exploring the idea further, and will continue to volunteer to work with the exploratory design team.
Some research shows that lower achieving students accomplish more and increase their feeling of connectedness to their teachers in smaller educational environments. However, the research also shows that just changing the structure of a high school to create smaller and more intimate learning groups is not enough to improve student performance. To me it’s really about student connectedness and teachers taking a more active role and interest in the lives and success of their students. My question is: Do we really need to restructure the whole high school experience just to get teachers to pay more attention to their students and students to pay more attention to their studies and invest in their own educational experience?
It sort of sounds like I’m saying that the key to student success is simply more caring teachers. That’s nutty. Caring is not enough. The key to student success includes teachers who are invested in kids, and kids who are invested in their education. But is it possible that there are more investment opportunities in a smaller setting? Maybe. Some classes are already staffed at 20 students to 1 teacher. Teachers in these 20:1 classes express a greater satisfaction with the performance of their students. Students feel like they get more and better attention from their teachers. So there is a starting point.
It seems to me that no major changes are needed for the students who are already high achievers. I believe that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That approach can be applied to the programs (i.e. AP) and structures (bell schedule, subject alike departments, and classrooms) within which the higher achievers currently participate. These students perform well in their courses earn high marks and outstanding test scores with the opportunities that are currently available.
However the lower achieving groups need some more attention if they are going to begin to perform like the higher achievers. Our task is to figure out how to best assist them in their development. Our high school currently addresses the challenges of the 9th grade middle and lower students by placing them in “houses” where three core teachers are joined to teach a specific group of students. After a year and a half of application, the results of this type of consortium appear to be positive. We are now looking for a way to expand on this model and carry it into the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. “Aye, there’s the rub.”
Master schedule. What changes do we make to best help the 10-12 population of middle to lower achieving students that take advantage of smaller learning environments that will still work with our master schedule? The logistics are challenging here. I am not an AP nor have I ever had to create a master schedule for a school of any size, much less one of 3400 students. I can imagine an approach that includes chicken bones and tea leaves in order to make it work. Scary. I believe its more possible to design a working schedule then to implement one, especially with a veteran staff who is more than comfortable with the “classic” 6-period day. I recently became aware of a high school that offers 8 extended periods to their students swapping odd and even periods on alternate days. Hmmm.
But working out the schedule is the easy part. The difficulty lies in providing time for teachers of like populations of students to collaborate, and then getting them to actually work together on thematic units, projects, and assessments. I think that all teachers would agree that this type of teamwork is a fine idea, but getting it to actually work is an entirely different story. The day of the maverick teacher is gone with the old west. Once upon a time we teachers were in charge of our classroom curriculum, we could choose our own assignments, and created our own assessments. If we wanted to spend a semester on Hamlet, we could. Now with NCLB, CSTs, CSTPs, CAHSEE, and the curriculum standards combined with district pushed scope and sequence documents the “Art” of teaching is quickly being replaced by the “Science” of teaching. I can’t argue the positive results as measured by API and AYP, but it feels like more and more the individuality of the teacher is being ignored.
But teaching isn’t about the material, or the delivery, or the assessment. It’s about the people, the students. Teaching is about building people, and making connections between people. Our job as teachers is to be respectable role models for our students, to share our passion for learning, and to let them know that no matter what difficulties they may face, they too can be successful in their lives. To help them find their voices, and express themselves. To help them achieve their deepest desires. To assist them in realizing their dreams by giving them the tools they need to be successful. Everything else is just the pedagogy we use to achieve these goals, and pedagogy should not get in the way.
If a smaller learning environment can better help build people then I am in favor of exploring the idea further, and will continue to volunteer to work with the exploratory design team.
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