Defeating the Undead

Kindergartners are in general not aware of the time on the clock.  They know the structure of the day, what happens when, and so on, but not the dismissal time.  So the hour chopped off each day during Parent Teacher Conferences week is disconcerting to them.

Getting packed up and out of the classroom is always an ordeal conference week; after many years I have realized it will just take longer since the kids' internal alarm clocks are not buzzing that the day is over.  However, today the class discovered a new and highly entertaining way to slow the process further: death.

STUDENT1: rolls onto floor. I'm dead.
ME: Oh no, STUDENT is dead.
Four more STUDENTS roll onto the floor.
STUDENT2: from prone position face down on floor We are dead.
ME: Oh no, many students are dead.
The dismissal bell sounds.
Several more students fall down dead.
ME: It is time to go home.
Ten seconds pass.
STUDENT3: rising jerkily from prone position on floor GRUEAUGHDGHGH.
ME: Oh no, a zombie.
REST OF STUDENTS ON FLOOR: GRUEAUGHDGHGH.  GRRAUGH.
Students rise and walk around the rug with their arms raised, their expressions vacant and their moans unable to distract the teachers from the possibility of a missed school bus.
ME: Oh, my dead students have reanimated.  Excellent.  Zombies, there are lots of brains outside.  Go get your backpacks so that you may go and feast upon them.
ZOMBIE STUDENTS: fall down onto the rug.
STUDENT 3: We are dead.  We cannot leave.
STUDENT 2: We will be dead here forever.
ME: The bell rang.  It is time to go home.  You must go.
STUDENT 1: We are dead.
ME: The bus will leave without you.
STUDENTS: silence (They are dead.)

It was a good thing that the bus has been really late every day this week, and that my ten-minutes-after-the-bell conference was very understanding.

Conference Week Cape Time

Conference week is always a little strange.  The children are startled by the early dismissal ("Why are we leaving?  We are not playing?  How come groups are so short?").  The longer afternoons feel lumpy; I had one conference yesterday, one today, and eight on Wednesday.  And despite years of conferences, and knowing that despite how it looks like two hours of prep time on your schedule but it's really drop-in conferences, paperwork, and sudden crises, I still planned two meetings and a mega-planning session.

Oops.

Plus side, Friday I went to Target and found little red capes on clearance, so this week we will spend one shortened afternoon completing our superhero ensembles.

The Scissors Monster

...Or, How I Became an Object Lesson on Scissor Safety for My Own Students.

Since I am attempting to have a more workshop-oriented writing program this year, I do minilessons with my students in which I teach something and demonstrate it in my own writing project.

The students are writing personal narratives, and we've been going through the process of revising and adding to a story.  I wanted to pick a high-interest narrative for my minilessons, one that would also allow for plenty of revision.

So I am telling the true story of the scissors monster.  When I was about four years old, I had a shirt and short set I really and truly did not like.  The shirt was a chenille tank top with horizontal pastel stripes.  I don't really remember why I loathed this shirt; it was probably itchy, but I like to think that I rejected it because it failed to meet with my already developed notion of taste and style.

Anyway, it was also the only errand-appropriate hot weather outfit I had at the time, and it was reliably clean since I wore it only under duress.  The day came when I was forced to wear it, and no amount of slumping, laying helplessly on the floor, pouty face, or stamping around was getting me out of it.

Alas, my mother got on the phone before we left to run errands.  Even worse, she left her sewing basket within my reach.  Already, my love of scissors was well-established; any number of important documents, harmless pieces of twine, and stuffed animals needing emergency abdominal surgery and/or amputation had been improved upon through the application of whichever household shears were left where I could get at them.

It took me less than a minute to liberate her sewing scissors (and her pinking shears, just in case) and cut the straps of my shirt.  Of course, straps are easily repaired, so I decided to complete my work by adding some holes.  Since it not occur to me to remove my shirt before improving it, this was a little dicey and took extra care, which is probably why I realized that two appropriately-placed holes would turn a revolting shirt into an awesome monster mask, complete with strap antennae.

So once the holes were cut, I pulled the shirt into position, tossed the scissors on the floor, and let myself out of the house to run up and down the block, half-naked and making monster noises.

Translated into four pages and about seven sentences, this is the narrative I am writing.  Despite having told the complete version only once, my students are more excited to revise this story and add more than I am and have all kinds of suggestions. And when my Resident teacher introduced a phonics reader that includes the line "To cut is fun, but not my rug!", to a one the class turned and looked at me.

Plus side, no one has felt the need to re-enact this story in their own lives; they see it as more a moral tale of woe to be avoided.  In fact, scissor protocols have been if anything more closely followed since they learned of my youthful exploits.

Precounseling Out

It isn't newsworthy that some schools in the District are wealthier than others, that some schools are segregated, that some schools have an overwhelming number of high-needs students, and so on.  If you talk to District employees about the issue, you are likely to uncover a related idea - that some schools are very good at shifting needy students to other schools.  In some versions, this is aided and abetted by the Educational Placement Center, which knows which schools are likely to receive (and hopefully support) high-needs students without complaint.

Personally, I doubt that EPC is adequately organized to manage such transfers.  And while I am willing to accept that some schools are more likely to counsel students towards a transfer than others - and that the schools less likely to recommend transfers may be more likely to receive such students - in most cases I want to believe this is unintentional.  After all, if a student isn't doing well at a school, the well-meaning adults at that school may truly believe that the student will thrive elsewhere (as opposed to thinking only of getting rid of the child).

I also think that this conspiracy theory arises at least partially from the reality that highly-mobile students are more likely to be high-needs.  If a family is moving a lot, the family is almost certainly having problems - financial issues, family violence, etc.

That said, I don't think it is controversial that some schools are more demanding on certain aspects than others.  At least one school in the district strongly encourages red-shirting in Kindergarten.  Others are extremely specific about their homework policies.  This article notes that the school in question tells parents not to enroll unless they can be 35 minutes early every day.

In some ways, this is useful information.  I personally am not a fan of big homework requirements and would not want to enroll at a school that had them; I would like to know about this in advance.  District schools have different start times; school hours are something a family should know prior to enrolling.  And the schools are not setting legal requirements; even if a school recommends red-shirting, it cannot bar entry to a child with a late August birthday.

Still, I think we need to accept that these school policies do impact who enrolls and who does not.  And more broadly, I think we need to find better metrics for quantifying the percentage of a school's population that is high-needs - and use that information to better fund those students who need more support.

That's the Way the Money Goes

I am gearing up to do a big unit on color theory with my class.  Let's investigate the necessary materials.

Generously Provided by Donors

• color blending glasses
• color wheels
• fingerpaint paper
• individual cups for portioning out paint
• prisms
• additional color paddles
• colored cellophane
• high-quality red, yellow, and blue construction paper
• smocks
• red, yellow, and blue finger paint
• paint brushes

Teacher-funded

• red, white, and black tempera paint
• additional finger paint
• sticky-back laminating sheets (fancy contact paper, basically)
• soap
• color paddles
• prisms
• CD/DVD of "Here Comes Science" (for "Roy G. Biv" song)
• TV/DVD player and wheeled cart (borrowed from another teacher, who purchased it herself)
• paint brushes
• heavy white paper (for tempera)

Generously Provided by the District

• yellow and blue tempera paint
• brass fasteners
• popsicle sticks
• paper towels
• tap water

Findings

• Donors Choose and similar sites are my primary classroom supply sources.
• Whether we consider it a state funding shortage or a district cash management issue, children are getting shorted on fairly basic materials.  (Do I need fancy construction paper?  No, it just makes better color blending lenses for the children to make and take home.  Do I need paint?  I teach Kindergarten, so yeah, I think I do.)
• The $250 federal tax deduction for teachers' classroom expenses is inadequate, and if California stays 47th of 50 in classroom funding, the state should really consider offering a deduction.

Somebody Went to All-Academic Kindergarten

and didn't learn that sharing is caring.

I've been learning a great deal from Inside Colocation, a tumblr maintained by a teacher whose school building is now shared with a Success Academy.  In addition to demonstrating just how inequitable conditions are, the blogger also shares images of charter school child training in action.

It is important to note that if children are unwilling or unable to be trained, Success Academy has no interest in educating them.

Enough Preschool Debate Strategies.

Spend ten minutes perusing education blogs and you will find some experienced PreK debaters defending charter schools:

A: Charter schools cherry-pick their students.
B: DO NOT!
A: (presents some data)
B: YOU JUST HATE CHILDREN!  AND SUCCESS!
A: (presents some more data)
B: (covers eyes, sings "Mary Had a Little Lamb" at top-volume)

This Reuters report seems pretty definitive, but then, so is the Nursery Rhyme White Noise Strategy.

Maybe Alum Rock Was On to Something

Way back in 2007, Alum Rock Elementary USD denied a charter to ACE Middle School, citing a number of concerns with their proposal for a middle school.

The San Jose Mercury News was very, very disappointed.  Apparently Alum Rock did not want its students exposed to rigorous education.  However, the Santa Clara County Board of Education was willing to overturn Alum Rock and provide reform to its students; ACE now has two middle schools and a high school in San Jose.

The Mercury recently visited the high school, which opened in August.  This article doesn't merit a link on ACE's own site, perhaps because all that rigor isn't going so well.  A plan for "blended learning" has been missing key ingredients since the school became internet-ready five months after opening.  Students don't have textbooks and two-thirds of the teachers do not have full credentials (I guess Williams complaints don't apply to charter schools even if they are located in Williams districts?)  The students are not going to graduate college-ready, given the lack of required courses offered, their teacher's lack of materials and skills, and their purportedly low level of skills on entry (this is based on a standardized test from the MAP people and ACE reported it; I have to wonder about its accuracy.  It appears that most if not all of the students are English Language Learners; this can mean that the test materials are exposing more of a lack of English rather than a lack of skill).

Perhaps the ugliest news item is that in October, most of the school's staff found their jobs posted on EdJoin.  The school's founder explained to the Mercury that this was merely an inspirational technique intended to raise expectations for staff commitment and student progress.  Indeed, those pesky union contracts do block motivational techniques like this one.

Even the Mercury concedes that these students are being badly failed, and that it is unlikely the months of education they've missed at ACE will be ameliorated (although I am sure the educators at Independence HS, where former ACE students are turning up, will do their best even without having their jobs posted on EdJoin).

Whether this will cause the Mercury to rethink its ardor for all charter schools, especially those in Alum Rock, remains to be seen.  I suspect the editorial board will decide that this is an anomaly, and that you've got to fail some kids on the path to innovation.

I am happy because my class is getting really good at managing their papers, making sure adults see the ones they need to, and getting those papers back: I got about three-quarters of my conference signup sheets back today (including all but one of the ones that require interpretation = got interpreters for all of those = more reasons to be happy).

I am not so happy because I have all of the report cards for those conferences to do before the end of the day tomorrow.  Eugh.

Millionaire Mercies

I disagree with many policy decisions the Board makes, disapprove of its general rubber-stamp of District initiatives, and am deeply suspicious about all the tears and verbiage in the name of equity  (Beyond the Talk: is More Talk, With Additional Blaming the Funding Crisis).

That said, I am eternally thankful that - at least as yet - our Board's inability to select CEO-turned-education-reformers as Superintendent and its disinclination to embrace each and every Rhee-esque school improvement strategy has at least kept Mikey One Percent from purchasing our school board.

I remember back when the evict-Ackerman school board election was (supposedly) a new national funding high.  Those days are over.  Apparently state control of school boards, national Common Core standards, nationwide testing schemes and so on aren't enough: our reformer overlords will now purchase for us the best Boards they can provide since we are far too foolish to elect the right people without their help.

V Week

Valentine's Day is a holiday that is far more exciting to Kindergartners than anyone else (well, except perhaps reporters writing about how single women should worry more about their fertility).  For the second year in a row, my Resident is soloing this week, so I will be in a support role on V Day.  (It is really good preparation for next year).

In honor of Valentine's Day, Donors Choose is having a 1:1 match.  If you would like to make a loving gift to a teacher, simply:

1. Find the project you want to support.
2. Click on the name of the teacher (this will take you to the teacher's personal page, and the match qualifies only if you make your donation through that page)
3. Enter the code HEART at checkout.

And in what I am claiming is in honor of Valentine's Day, the hen a. laid an egg that b. was collected prior to cracking open (my DIY nesting boxes have been having design failures).

Today I removed the ancient, decrepit, nonfunctional iMac and replaced it with a tank of frog eggs.

While I won't be meeting the Common Core standards involving technological applications, we will have AWESOME SCIENCE.

Not that the iMac could have met those standards anyway.

News Item!

Apparently I signed myself up for TFA Bay Area Alumni updates.  And look at what they have planned with the District!

 SFUSD In-Person Event (Feb 28th): Join SFUSD Assistant Superintendents Dee Dee Desmond and Karling Aguilera-Fort, senior level leaders, principals, and staff to discuss pathways to school and teacher leadership as well as how to become a teacher in the district.  This will be a chance to hear the perspectives of SFUSD’s leadership, learn about the technical requirements of each role, ask questions, and network with attendees.  The event will take place on Thurs, Feb 28th from 6pm-8pm at the TFA office (22 4th Street, 7th Floor).  Dinner will be provided.  Sign up here by Fri Feb 22nd to reserve your spot!  Feel free to pass this along to other TFA-ers who might be interested.

Neat!  I was under the impression that the District was moving away from its relationship with TFA, given its cost and it being kind of unpleasant that the District can only find uncredentialed, temporary employees for its Special Education classrooms.  But it appears that the relationship is merely moving into a new stage, one wherein I can look forward to legions of administrators with a third of my experience can opine on data-driven instruction and urgency and relentlessness while I cut laminated things out and try to keep from rolling my eyes too too noticeably.

My bet is that even if there is no new contract with TFA for next year, the District will be leaning on TFA and similar reform organizations to staff its Zone schools.  Newbies won't complain as loudly about curricular narrowing, or question an unending focus on test scores, or observe that poverty is an impediment to learning.

In other local news, the 49ers have declined to provide an example of determination, grit, and sticktoitiveness leading to eventual success.  I guess I'll read "Tillie and the Wall" instead.

What Am I Missing?

Apparently even Rocketship knows that its "learning labs" are not terribly effective for instruction (although plenty effective, one assumes, in teaching critical timewasting skills to youth and cutting wages in education).

But the lack of success won't stop Rocketship's cofounder from pursuing profitable opportunities in computer-based learning.  Indeed, it appears that Rocketship's failure is inspiring him to create the kind of online learning program that will make him a mint when Rocketship purchases it allow for the individualized instruction current software does not.

In other news, Tuesday is the release date for Michelle Rhee's autobiography, (Not At All) Radical.  It's also the release date for many exciting urban fantasy novels of mixed quality.  Actually, given Rhee's myriad exaggerations, outright lies, and the performance of DC schools under her tenure, I'm not sure why her book isn't considered urban fantasy.  Still, I know which titles are auto-downloading to my Kindle early Tuesday morning, and Rhee's sure isn't one of them.

Last week, I took a release day with my Resident.  The idea was to backwards map the Kindergarten year in English Language Arts with reference to the Common Core standards.  Any given standard has lots of little composite pieces - for instance, if you're going to teach kids how to read CVC words, you'll want to plan out when you are introducing various sounds.  Some sounds should be taught earlier than others (say, m before v); others should be separated instructionally (teaching short a and then short e is not a good idea, at least not in California).

This was my first time going deeply into these standards (as opposed to reading and looking for differences from the old state standards).  I was amused by the technology aspect (guess I will just fail to be effective there), and irritated by the constant opening phrase "With prompting and support", which is ridiculously vague.

Overall, though, I find myself much in sympathy with this.  These may or may not be good standards that describe a Kindergarten experience that is at once rigorous and achievable for all children.  (They're certainly rigorous.)  But they lack the wonder and creativity that five year olds bring to the classroom, and I dread their impact on Kindergarten.  I think it is possible to have high academic standards and lots of good play and social development - possible, but very hard.  And when all of our energy is pushing the former, the latter is going to be forgotten.

Trees die, writing improves.

I got a scholarship to go to a Teachers College Reading and Writing Project institute last summer.  I've been using (not to the letter, but fairly closely - rigid curricula doesn't create flexible learning) the Readers Workshop model for a few years, but hadn't been doing so much Writers Workshop.  Sure, I'd seen various books on how to do it, but found them opaque; Kindergarten isn't like any other grade and too many available books compressed K-2 into "early primary".

Anyway, this year I am using (again, with significant adjustment for my style, my students, and so on) more of a Writers Workshop model.  I'm pretty happy with the results so far; the kids write more and they seem more confident at it.  Part of the model is that they have largely endless quantities of paper.  Generally I give them a three or four page booklet.  They plan out what they want to write by touching each page and saying it (HINT: THIS TAKES SEVEN THOUSAND MINILESSONS, NOT THREE OR SO) to themselves before they sketch and write.  During revisions, they can add more pages if they need to.

The plus side?  Like I said, they write more.  Their writing is organized, too; some kids even use transition words on their own.  Some kids also are independently picking up story language or mimicking their leveled readers in their structure.  And as I get better at teaching writing this way, I'm sure the student results will be even better.

(Downsides?  They're taking longer this year to space words well, but it does seem to be shaking out now.  I'm also having to do lots of small groups and conferencing around spelling expectations - at this point, initial-letter-only spelling is not what want to see.  Still, this does seem to be working itself out and I'm trying to have faith in the process.)

But what I do find alarming is the sheer quantity of tree we're going through for writing.  When the kids revise, having the space on the page for adding more detail is great, but not everything gets revised.  It's also useful for editing, but again: not every piece gets edited.  Since the kids have a lot of choice about what they revise and what they don't, we have paper waste.

We are back-to-backing, of course.  I thought about trimming the size (half-sizing sheets and making little booklets), but this year I have a number of kids who are not developmentally ready to write that small (nor do I want to have this as an available choice/accommodation for a number of reasons).

I haven't been able to come up with anything though.  I suppose it's time for some websearching; I can't be the first teacher to fret over this.

It is probably a good thing that chickens are notoriously dim-witted, or the silkies would be demanding tribute after weeks of intense celebrity at school.

What You Don't Learn in Two Years

Whether it's Michelle Rhee demanding that arts instruction be reserved only for fluent readers or ten hour day charter schools with nary a minute for painting, the education reform movement is no fan of the arts in education.

This is not especially surprising.  It's not just the focus on test scores.  Nor is it solely a capitalist impulse against harder-to-monetize subjects or corporatist education focused on creating the service workers of tomorrow.

It's also that the education reformers who taught didn't teach long enough to teach the arts.

This is not hard to understand.  If you are a lightly-trained new teacher, you're going to teach subjects for which you are given the necessary materials.  Almost every teacher gets a full classroom set of math and reading materials - workbooks, alphabet cards, anthologies, and so on.  The materials are ready for you to use and easy for the harried and overwhelmed teacher to access.

Even easier to teach?  Test prep.  Every low-performing school is awash in practice tests, test strategy guides, computer-based testing, and test-taking curricula.  These are usually scripted, and typically based on a direct instruction model: you talk and the kids test.

Early in one's teaching career, when all teachers are learning how to manage a classroom, procedures, school policy, materials, assessment, and procedures, direct instruction with very clear instructions is a lifesaver.

Arts instruction, on the other hand, is a nightmare of preparation and management for the new teacher.  The materials are not provided, and a lot of planning is necessary just for getting the supplies to the students (let alone using and cleaning up the supplies).  Alternative certification programs do not cover arts instruction; teachers will have to find or create activities themselves.  Untrained first-  and second- year teachers are unlikely to be able to handle arts activities - and if they are disposed to consider the arts of minimal importance anyway, they won't try.

An example: if I want to teach a reading lesson on phonemic awareness, I group the kids together.  They sit quietly and respond to my oral prompts, which I can come up with on the fly (words that start with a certain letter sound, rhyming words, etc.).  Everyone starts and finishes together and the materials needed are minimal (at most, maybe some tiles for counting sounds).

If I want the class to watercolor, first I need to source the materials: paint, paper, brushes, cups for water, rags or paper towels for spills, and a place to dry the paintings.  I then need to figure out how to pass out these materials to the class, what to do when water becomes too saturated with paint and needs replacing, how to handle spills, what to do when some kids finish early...

And that's just procedures and management.  If I want the paintings to delight the artists, I will probably also need to figure out how to teach using watercolors: how to get bright, saturated tones, how to layer colors, how to make colors bleed into each other, and so on.  (At the least, you will want to teach the first of these, since it will save you the hassle of sopping wet, grayish masterpieces.)

Teaching the arts gets easier when you know how to handle a classroom.  After a couple of years, every plastic tub you empty at home comes to school to be repurposed for holding watercolor water.  You know how to get the cups emptied after the project with as few spills as possible.  And knowing this, you can plan a neat lesson for your class.

Early on, it's very hard to do this.  (This is why I invite new teachers over for shared crafternoons in my room.)  The difficulty is such that even when teachers try arts instruction, things are likely to go poorly - and that makes it harder to try again.

But if you're only in the classroom for a couple of years, you will never gain the experience necessary to have cool arts activities.  And without it, you cannot understand why it is so vital to children's education.  And should you go on to great things in education reform, it will be very easy for you to cut the arts out entirely.

100 Day Projects

These are the projects that I intend to do this year.

1. 100 Day necklaces: 10 groups of pony beads, each group containing 10 beads.  This requires a fairly large assortment of pony bead shapes and colors; the cheapest way to get the requisite materials is to purchase mixed bags and sort them yourself (or which child assistance; sorting by attribute is a Kindergarten state standard and an enjoyable short math center).
2. 100 Day sticker pictures - 100 color coded label dots and a piece of 9 by 12 paper.  It is a good idea to have a couple of samples available to give the kids some ideas.  We have also suggested telling stories using the label dots or recreating story events with them.  These labels fall off fairly easily, so if it is very important to you that every picture has exactly one hundred dots when it leaves your classroom, they need to be laminated or similarly treated.
3. Some kind of 100 day snack.  In the past I've done trail mix bags, but this year I think I'm going to some kind of salad or salad wrap, possibly along the following lines:

• 10 cucumber slices
• 10 baby carrots
• 10 celery sticks
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 10 lettuce leaves
• 10 red pepper rings
• 10 jicama sticks
• 10 zucchini slices
• 10 oyster mushrooms (we are growing these right now)
• 10 kohlrabi slices

The class can chop those things into smaller pieces, to be mixed with (probably) some edamame, topped with (possibly) a few sunflower seeds or cheese shreds and served in a collard green leaf.

Other project possibilities:

1. Handprint number lines - 20 handprints, skip counting by five to 100.  This project was time-consuming but a lot of fun.  I have also done this with hand die cuts, but it was less fun without being much less work.
2. Finger print number lines - 10 sets of all 10 finger prints, counting by tens to 100.  (Or one hundred prints of one finger). 
3. 100 day crowns - a sentence strip and 100 jewel stickers.
4. Coloring 100 stars (I made a 10 by 10 table in Word and used the draw tool to make and then copy a star into every box).

The One Project To Avoid:

1. Cereal Necklaces.  Sure, you can group any ring-shaped, fruit-flavored cereal into groups of ten and then string it.  But it's sticky, messy, and time-consuming (way longer than beading).  Also, it requires tons of cereal, because any given box only has a few hundred rings and many are misshapen and broken.  This project will also make your classroom smell like tutti frutti cereal for days.  It is not a pleasant smell.

Mythbusters

Work in a school district long enough (say, twenty minutes or so) and you'll be told that something is "legally required" when it is actually District policy.

Ask a few questions and you may find that out.  Generally though, no one will be able to point you to the policy.  It is one of those fantastic school urban legends, the unwritten policy.

Spend another twenty minutes working in a school district and you will find that as unwritten and unjustifiable as they may be, these unwritten policies are handed down from District bigwig to content specialist to administrator to teacher in hushed tones and serious voices.  This is received knowledge with mystical, near-religious status.

Sadly, it's often entirely made up, unethical, or of dubious legality.  These are the real reasons the policies are unwritten.  That said, they may as well be written on an ancient stele or tattooed on District employees, because they are very effective at keeping cash from being spent.

Along these lines: it is not actually the case that federal - no wait state, er, I mean...well, some law - bars direct services from being offered under a 504 plan.  Nor is it in fact the case that children with a 504 cannot be assessed for said services unless they also have an IEP.

The actual issue here is that the services provided under a 504 plan are paid for by a district, not by state or federal dollars.  So ultimately, this policy exists to spare the District from providing expensive services to children for which they will not be reimbursed.

Whether this enables the district to provide that Free and Appropriate Public Education, however...well, let's just note that lawyers are standing by to collect retainers on this issue.

The New Lunch Program

The District has a fancy new lunch program!  Some observations:

1. The kids are eating more.

2. They are also eating more vegetables, probably because of small things like the celery is actually crunchy and stuff like that.

3. The food is now served on these segmented Chinet trays.  The kids can manage these better and they're stronger: fewer catastrophic tray failures on the way to the table.

4. This means I need to stock up on old model cafeteria trays for craft supply dispersal.

5. Today's menu for lunch: chicken and waffles (or vegetarian breakfast for lunch).  Actual lunch: BBQ chicken wings.  Number of adults on campus intending to purchase school lunch based on the menu: at least four.  This kind of thing happened all the time under the old program too, but then, no adults were voluntarily buying those lunches.

Educational Technology Adventures of the 1980s

I attended elementary school during an ed tech boom.  And indeed, through the wonders of technology I learned many things.

Awesome Technological Advance: LOGO
Intended Learning Outcome: Learn all about shapes by programming the turtle to draw them.
Actual Learning Outcome: Programming the turtle to do things like

REPEAT 8763
FD 12398549
RT 34258943

will make the turtle go nuts.  This is very funny until you get caught and the teacher momentarily believes that you broke LOGO and the computer.

Awesome Technological Advance: BASIC
Intended Learning Outcome: Prepare children for the Jobs of the Future, because all future jobs involve programming in BASIC.
Actual Learning Outcome: By pecking laboriously and copying exactly, you can make the computer add.  Just like a calculator or your brain, except longer.

Like, hours longer.

Once you master this, you can go on to copy programs submitted to  3 2 1 Contact Magazine.  These programs are written by children who are way more ready for the Jobs of the Future than you are.  By laboriously copying, you will make the computer do other things that are easier to do yourself.

Given the horror that is BASIC, you become consumed by how terrible Jobs of the Future must be.  You wake up in the night to worry about your Job of the Future.  You resolve to seek out jobs that do not involve BASIC.  When you report this intention to your teacher when caught not programming in BASIC but messing around with the LOGO turtle instead, you are told that all future jobs will require BASIC.

You think about this for a significant portion of every school day.  It consumes you to the point that there is significantly less paper snow around your desk from illicit adventures in cutting (although you begin to get your finger stuck in your hair from twirling it repetitively).  You identify jobs that seem unlikely to ever involve BASIC:

• playing baseball
• becoming a member of a religious order
• driving a big rig
• cooking
• cutting hair (plus: involves scissors!)

and resolve to pursue these options.

Awesome Technological Advance: Oregon Trail

Intended Learning Outcome: Manifest Destiny is really hard!  You have no idea how much cholera and river fording it takes to steal territory.  Also, it is far easier to buy your way to Oregon as opposed to fixing and hunting your way there, so definitely aim for a high-paying career.

Actual Learning Outcome: Who wants to get to Oregon?  It's boring.  With your class, devise new ways to "win":

• spend an entire class period hunting
• Who can starve the fastest?
• Who can leave tombstones in the most locations?  (It's boring when everybody gets dysentery.)
• Who can give their pioneers the most hilarious names?

This game is so fun that you will go to great lengths to find a copy of it after one of your college friends finds an Apple II cleaning out a professor's storage room.  A party will be organized to enjoy the game, because almost everyone else also learned all about the importance of vaccination that death can be funny feeling bad about drowning your computerized oxen American history through this technological wonder.

Behold the Power of Education Reform.

(More serious discussion of the "data" presented in the MET Project's latest report can be found at Gary Rubinstein's blog.)

Please notice how the young and white educator is so innovative and driven that he can get today's computer programs to run on yesterday's computers.  I mean, that thing clearly takes floppy disks, but that can't hold the high expectations back!

All the problems I have with my eighteen year old eMac are due to my union contract and bad attitude.  If I were just younger and more committed, I could make it happen.  I should stop worrying about Smarter Balanced and how I don't have any internet (let alone internet-ready devices) in my classroom and just start caring more.

Obviously, there's a great deal more that can be said about this touching picture of education reform at its finest, but I'm hung up on that computer.  It reminds me of the machines I used for LOGO and Oregon Trail.  In the eighties.

And we're back.

The first week back after the break always feels like crunch time.  Generally I have a pile of adminstrative tasks - bus requests, updating RtI spreadsheets, etc. - that I figured could wait until January.  After all these years, I know this is a bad idea but somehow I can't resist.  Anyway, those things end up getting done the second week back, when things tend to calm down.

The kids come back from break raring to go, I find.  They get how the classroom is supposed to work (although they need proactive reinforcement on procedures) and since Kindergarten is fun they're happy to be back.  So it's a good time to start new things; I usually begin centers the first week back (they've been doing various small group structures all year, but not centers).  I also made some schedule changes, moved the furniture around, and brought in the chickens (who are spending their first weekend at school right now - inside, of course).

The chickens are extremely popular; the kids have gotten to pet them and feed them and will get to hold them next week.  Hutch cleaning is not quite the nightmare I imagined since it ends up all the science I do pays off long-term.  I cleaned the hutch with the assistance of some second graders I had in Kindergarten; they were not fazed by the reality that this meant seeing chicken poop (I do the hardcore scrubbing myself while they protect the chickens from predators in the garden but they do help me pull out the tray and scrub the feeder and waterer).

WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT SNAIL DIGESTION?  THEN KEEP READING!

I attribute this to Kindergarten science because of the snails.  All the Kindergarten science animals lead to discussions about excretion, but snails are particularly fascinating (to five year olds) in this regard.  For the most part, they eat greens and chalk or eggshells (for calcium).  You can tell exactly what a given snail has been eating most recently by the color of its waste products.  This is a subject of repulsive fascination to five year olds.  Snails are prodigious producers of waste, too, so there's plenty of reason for five year olds to discuss snail digestion all the time.

Anyway, over the course of six weeks or so of snail care, the kids tend to become nonchalant about the issue.  "It's just lettuce and chalk," they chide disgusted observers.  "And it's natural.  Part of life."  So when the kids made similar comments to shocked onlookers, I thought to myself, "Oh yeah.  Lifelong learning right there."

Not that I think snail excretion should be a Common Core standard or anything, but I do think that part of Kindergarten should be learning that disgusting things can be interesting (did you know pond snails can travel vertically through the water on their mucus trails?).  It's also confidence-building; it is really fun to see the child who would not look at the isopods picking up the ones that wander into the building and depositing them under leaf litter to save their lives.  If you can conquer your fear of the fourteen-legged, you can also try to read a new word.  And so on.

Anyway, what with all that it was a crunch time week and I'm looking forward to my Resident teacher soloing a couple of days so I can finish all the paperwork stuff and do the next F&P assessment run.

2013

This year is for some reason turning into the Year of Realized Projects I Have Idly Considered for Years on End.  Presently:

• The children are making enormous number lines by 5s to 100, using fingerpaint and handprints.  (They're over five feet long.  One per kid.)
• We are doing more writers workshop type stuff and they have published books.
• We're making spore prints from mushrooms RIGHT NOW.
• We have live adult chickens in the classroom.

Overall, I predict I will have mildly paint and/or marker-specked hands and clothes pretty much every day going forward.

Civility, Common Ground, Bipartisanship

I have mixed it up with any number of politicos, high-level District suits, non-profits, administrators, and elected officials in my time.  If necessary, I will destroy all of their arguments using facts and data.  I will insist that they explain their suppositions.  I will call them out for privilege.

And when doing this, whether face to face or by written communication, I strive to be professional.  I would say I succeed most of the time.  (I am giving myself credit for responding to the pragmatics of a situation here; what is acceptable in an open comment on Annual Pink Slip Vote Night is different than what is acceptable in an email requesting assistance.  That said, I'm not the kind of person who hisses or even rolls her eyes most of the time.)

(We all fall short of our higher selves now and again.)

(And obviously, my blog is my sandbox: politeness WHATEVER here.)

This is not just me saying so: I ask people for feedback on the issue.  I am smart.  I have a really good memory and I collect facts like a magpie.  I also have ADHD; I think fast, struggle to uphold discourse norms, sometimes lose focus, etc.: feedback is important.

All that said, I think it is often the case that calls for civility are really meant to silence.  Civil behavior is defined by those in power; those in power can be expected to uphold the status quo (or worse), and requiring that one's opponents be civil is an easy way to shut them up.

Somewhat related, I don't think finding common ground is as lofty a goal as some do. Education reformers are actively engaging in activities that make my life harder.  They are working very hard to pick my pocket and my pension.  They are demanding curricula, class sizes, technology and testing that narrow what I can teach my students.  They are silencing important conversations about the commons are, and about race and class in education.  They are attempting to hurt the kids I teach.

It is hard for me to assume best intentions about these people because the data are never in their favor.  Ignoring years of evidence in favor of progress strikes me as an intentional blindness.  I went to fancy college: I'm far too nerdy to accept that one can disregard all known evidence and still be a good bean.

Given all this, I wasn't that interested in watching tonight's Michelle Rheeathon.  She can't be bothered to treat anyone with professionalism, let alone civility.  She uses demands for civility to silence those who argue with her (also name calling and duct tape).  And the things she wants for schools are the antithesis of data-driven and horrible for children.  There's nothing to be said on her that is worth all that bile, blood pressure problem, and time wasted.

Billionare/Teacher Meet Up Service?

The thing I don't get about offensive claims like these (Joel Klein knows a bunch of teachers who share damaging information with him and him alone off the record) is where do these plutocrats meet these teachers?

Seriously.  Do they have some kind of Meet Up online?  Do low-paid mayoral aides set it up?  Because despite all they claim to know about teachers - that we're against our own unions, that we burnt out years ago and are only in it for the pensions, that we're none too bright and lazy to boot - means that they know some teachers, right?

They have all this secret, uncomplimentary information because their trusting teacher allies told them, right?

How many teachers do you know who hobnob with the 1% after work?  How many plutocrats do you encounter in your daily activities on and off school grounds?  Either Bloomberg et al. have a special secret way to meet teachers, or they're just liars.

Since I already know Michael Bloomberg is a hypocrite - 35:1 classrooms are great for NYC public schools but not for his daughters' private ones - I'm guessing he's fibbing here.  And this fib is awfully offensive.

It's Poisonous Because It's Not FOR THE CHILDREN.

Gee, if this story is true, I have to start giving the American Federation for Teachers national leadership slightly less of a hard time.

My favorite part is the Students First spokesperson whining about "poisonous discourse".  When they engage in it, you see, it's for the children and therefore okay. But when unions do it (and what is poisonous is apparently telling the truth), it's mean.  I find this a bit rich coming from an organization headed by someone who thinks it's okay to mock those who disagree with you by offensively imitating them to Newsweek and firing people on camera.

And you know, if Michelle Rhee doesn't like what her opponents have to say, she can just duct tape all of our mouths shut.

Poor Schools Are Not Flush With Poor School Cash

Every few weeks I read or hear that poor schools have all kinds of money wealthy schools do not.  It's true that certain monies - for instance, federal Title I funds  - are distributed based on a school's low-income student population.  It's also true that SFUSD uses a weighted student formula that in theory provides additional cash to high-needs schools.

To the extent that these programs are effective, this is equity in action.  Poor schools need more and they should get more.  Equality is not equity.  Since I believe that we should strive towards equity, I am not particularly moved by the plaint of the wealthy school.

That said, these programs aren't that effective and don't serve to provide poor schools with vast, Scrooge McDuck style cash swimming pools.  (NB: We are not talking about SIG schools here, but your everyday high-needs school.)  Some data contrary to the myth:

1. Federal funding is approximately 10-12% of a school's budget, so the federal Title I program isn't ever that enormous a sum.
2. The Weighted Student Formula also means that schools pay a set sum per teacher.  If your teachers are low-seniority and/or don't take some benefits, you are paying more than the actual teacher cost.  If your teachers are high-seniority, you are paying less.  High-needs schools in SFUSD have lower overall seniority.  Please note: I'm not taking a position on whether or not this is a good way to budget.  It has some positive effects.  I am saying that its costs are not shared across the District.
3. Certain District funds for high-needs schools (or at least the large subset with lower test scores) are restricted.  STAR money buys you a specific set of services; it is not unrestricted money to be used as the school deems fit.
4. School funding overall is lousy.  High-needs schools may be getting some extra cash (although locally, the teacher averaging offsets it).  That doesn't mean they are well-funded.

The other big issue for me is that in SFUSD, some schools are raising big funds - at times exceeding 40% of the school's annual budget - via Parent-Teacher Organzations/Associations.  Here's a link to a Guidestar search for San Francisco PTAs.  Not all list their actual annual funds, but a number do, and the numbers are big.

This is unrestricted funding, and it significantly impacts what schools can offer.  Among the things that these funds are providing at SFUSD schools:

• additional art and music supplies and instruction
• sensory-motor materials and instructors
• garden teachers
• reduced class sizes in 4th and 5th grades
• physical education
• language programming

Which is awesome for the schools that can raise this kind of money.  Of course, the schools that do are not high-needs ones.  So most schools not receiving Title I funding are more than making up for it.

I would like to specifically state that the entirety of my point here is that poor schools aren't rolling in piles of money.  (And also?  That the "poor school squandering money" image reminds me of the welfare queen myth.)  I believe that schools should offer every service they can, and I'm not bashing on PTOs for doing so.  But when we hear that a wealthy school just doesn't have the funding a poor school does, I think it's fair to ask to see the proof.

Come the Silkies

Last year, I hatched silkie chickens with my class.  Two hatched and survived, a rooster and a hen.  I took them home for the summer and for various reasons they haven't come back to school.

They're moving in on their newly-wheeled hutch this weekend.

Whatever else the New Year brings my classroom...well, this should be a lifelong memory for all involved at the least.

With any luck it will keep the class from asking where the isopods went (for environmental and cruelty reasons, releasing them is not an option, so using FOSS kit recommendations they were euthanized via freezer).