Now That We Know, What Do We Do?

There's this school that I heard of. One September they ran some tests to find out where the students sit in their Mathematical skills and abilities and their reading comprehension abilities. This school was able to pull results for entire grade levels and for individual classrooms.

This hypothetical school had some revealing and important results.

I will leave the chart untitled to protect the identity of the school and the classroom, but suffice it to say that the majority of the diagnostic results for both Math and L.A. across the grades and classrooms revealed similar results.

This particular school had a majority of students within each classroom that were reading below grade level and performing mathematical skills well below grade level.

This school and it's teacher were thus left with a dilemma Now that they know the results what do they do with the students?

The answer was not as complicated as it first appeared.

The answer lay in the minds and will of the individual teachers. The answer was indeed completely liberating. The teachers in this school rejoiced at the freedom they were given to operate and experiment at this school.

The answer, for the teachers was that they could Do whatever they wanted!!!

As most people could tell from the results this was not a typical classroom, not at all.
What a school to work in? It was practically risk free and it quickly became a breeding ground for the best and most innovative educational ideas. Consider the following argument, that led to the innovation:

1. The teachers assumed that most of these students had been taught in classrooms that were segmented into age directed grade based levels, broken up into pieces of disciplinary segments (math, social, science, L.A.) where students sat in rows or groups of students and attempted to learn what a teacher gave them to learn. 
2. The teachers also assumed that the students in this classroom had a variety of learning barriers, gaps in their learning, a deficit in the family support system and less than perfect attendance (read: a horrible attendance problem that proved to be a major barrier).
3. The teachers then concluded that if they were to continue to teach the students in the same method detailed in assumption #1 and there was no meaningful progress in alleviating the barriers outlined in assumption #2 that they could reasonably expect that there would be no real change in student results: a majority of students would continue to perform underneath "grade level" expectations.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

My Message that I take away from the school in the above story: We can do anything we want with these results.

We can innovate. We can teach individual students. We can allow our highest achievers the freedom to grow at an accelerated pace. We can slow things down and start motivating students to want to learn. We can throw out the curriculum and focus on literacy. We can meet the students where they are and raise them up. We can spend half a day bonding with students because we know that when they feel safe, then they feel safe enough to learn. We can turn the bells off or we can keep them on. We can give students play time. We can show kids why we learn math, and why it is important. We can ignore the judicial branch of government unless a kid cares about the judicial branch of government. We can stop making thirty different kids read the same damn book, unless, of course they want to learn in a community book club. We can let the kids that hate volleyball play around and wrestle instead. We can give ourselves the freedom to care a little less about structure and a little more about learning. We can stop worrying about things we can't control, like families and previous learning experiences, and chronically poor attendance, and we can start caring more about the things we can control, like helping kids see the joy in learning and helping students see the importance of growing through academic pursuits.

By avoiding the status quo it would, at least, be possible to succeed. Honestly, turning the whole school upside down seems a lot less insane then keeping things the same way.

Are you with me?

In Solidarity

I am in more than a little torn about the idea of unions. I appreciate the idea of a strong union for the obvious reasons, and I also acknowledge the periodic necessity of the institution, but I also appreciate and acknowledge the obvious and oft-repeated criticisms of unions. This post is not necessarily about unions, but I wanted to make clear my position as a member in good standing with the ATA, but also as an, at times, critical member. Let's be especially clear (in order to avoid these words coming back to bite me). Unions are effective, and often necessary, but they, like any institutional organization, deserve to be regarded thoughtfully and, at times, critically. I reserve the right to question the actions of my union. Have I covered my ass enough yet?

EA's are able to bond with and give so much to special needs students. 

This article isn't about unions, it's about school support staff. Most particularly this is about Educational Assistants. I'm not going to lie. I am grossly uninformed about the supposed strike that the Catholic School Board Support Staff is undertaking right now. All I know is that on Monday hundreds of support workers for Edmonton Catholic Schools walked off the job.

I also know that Edmonton Public School support workers are currently in contract negotiations. This got me to thinking. What if the same happens here at my school? I have worked closely with the EA's in my school and I do not think there is a more underpaid, overworked group of intelligent, effective and caring people in this school.

Could I cross their picket line? Not in good conscience. Could my union make me cross their picket line? Probably, but isn't that hypocritical? Do I support the women that I have worked with closely in the last two years? Wholeheartedly. If anyone deserves more recognition, more hours and higher wages it is the EA's in this school.

Even while writing I have a curious feeling. I can write honestly about any number of educational issues and I never hesitate to click publish. But talking about unions, and talking honestly about working conditions... can I publish?

__________ right I can

Can You Work More For Me?

Well we all survived the first day of school. I have a new position in school leadership, but I am worried about one thing in particular: Can I Ask Teachers to Do More Work?

September workload can be overwhelming.

The nature of leadership requires me to ask staff to do things. I don't have a problem asking them to do reasonable tasks, but asking them to do extra work is difficult. Teachers have the most tasking and time consuming job in the school. I can't, in good conscience, ask them to do extra work on top of their already immense workload.

So what can I do when I need the teachers to do something for me?

The answer, as I realized while running last night, is not as complex as it appears. If the time needed from a teacher to complete a task is greater than the combination of the time gained by a teacher plus student achievement and growth then I can justifiably ask a teacher for help. This can actually be expressed in a formula.

If T (needed) < T (gained) + Student Achievement then ✓

If T (needed) > T (gained) + Student Achievement then X

This is not some floofy fake formula (alliteration not intended). This will actually guide my formal interaction with staff throughout the year. Admittedly the student achievement is difficult, but not impossible, to measure.  For this to work I need to test the formula for validity. So here is my first test:

I asked and expected all of the teachers to administer an exam to students in their homeroom. This was part of the first day package and the office was able to have all of the exams printed and handed out to the teachers, so there was no work required there, but I also asked the teachers to grade and record the exams, so here I am asking them to do more work. I need to ask myself, is it justified? 

Time Needed from Teachers = 30 minutes to grade on scantron and record the marks.

Time Gained from Teachers = 10 minutes of planning time for the one hour of class to write exam

Student Achievement = Use results of exam to track student growth over the year, identify outlying high performing and struggling students on the first day of school, use this data to help teachers plan intervention strategies.

30 min. < or > 10 min. + Early Identification\Intervention Planning?

The third variable in the equation is not yet measurable, so the formula is still of the typical floofy education variety. How much time would it take for a teacher to identify and begin planning intervention strategies for the outlying high and low performing students in their classes? An experienced teacher could have this accomplished in one class period 40 - 50 minutes. They would not, however, have comparable school wide data that could be used across their teacher teams. They would, most likely, have a sample of student work and their own professional anecdotal evidence about the students. Even if I ignore the last point and use the smaller number the answer is clear. I am justified in asking teachers to grade and record the student exams.

30 min. < 10 min. + 40 min.

I am justified in asking teachers to grade and record the student exams because it will actually save the teachers some time in the long run.

It is my promise to teachers that I will not ask them to do anything that will only create more work for them. If I ask anything of teachers this year it will be under the auspices of this formula.

You can hold me to this.