On the Shoulders of Giants
My first year teaching I was astounded by the fact that we had only one prep period per day and at least four teaching periods each day. I was trained at Bank Street to plan thoughtful engaging lessons, and did so meticulously. One period just wasn’t enough. And then I realized something even more startling…there was NO time built into the schedule to assess and grade student work. I mean, not even one period, ever. I asked my union-savvy colleague about time for grading. She had gladly lamented with me the injustice of our one inadequate period to prepare lessons, maintain a classroom, and make copies; but she answered matter-of-factly, “Oh, grading? You’re on your own with that. Teachers have always done grading on their own time.” Of course! I thought sarcastically. What was I thinking? I guess it’s just our fate to work overtime for no pay. Even the union thinks so.
I recently noticed that the New York City School Quality Review process—one of the many “high stakes” evaluations that schools now undergo—emphasizes evidence of differentiated instruction in the classroom. I know that differentiation is one of the things that teachers across the city are struggling to understand and implement, and its something I’ve been taking some “extra” time to read up on. The most important thing I’ve learned about successfully differentiating instruction is that it must be done hand in hand with careful assessment of student work. Teachers need to assess work at many points throughout a study in order to determine what directions to take with the whole class, small groups within the class, and individual students.
Differentiation is not just some meaningless jargon sent down to teachers by the department of education. It is, in the words of expert Rick Wormeli, “…what works. It’s highly effective teaching.” So…front and center on my mind is, where is the time for this essential work?
Right now, I have a teacher-bag full of my eighth grade students’ ten page first drafts of original fiction stories. They are very proud of them, and so am I. But I know they need work, and they don’t all need the same thing. Maybe in the old days I could have just quickly checked each student off in a grade book as having completed the assignment. But not today, in the age of data-driven instruction, differentiation, and curriculum as conversation. I know what happens if I don’t read these stories carefully. My class becomes a one-sided conversation. My students have spoken and I don’t respond, or I respond with empty catch-phrases, which they spot like detectives. The next thing I know, I say something I think is important in the classroom, and…they don’t listen! This is the particular brand of justice early adolescents dole out to the adults in their lives.
If I rush, each story will take me about twenty minutes. I have 55 stories, which adds up to 18 hours of grading and responding to stories. I know there are some tricks to cut down on this time; I’ve already employed students as peer editors, and done many relevant lessons throughout the writing process. At some point, though, the teacher needs to weigh in and guide students toward their next steps. That time is now and I’m totally drowning.
I know lawyers and investment bankers, doctors and scientists, who at times work outrageously long hours just to get an important job done. However, these professionals start with six figure salaries and get raises in the hundreds of thousands for their hard work. I, on the other hand, make barely enough money to go on a proper vacation or pay for cable television. And my salary with its slow raises will be identical, whether I engage in true conversation with my students through their work, or simply check them off for completing the task.
If the city wants to review schools and teachers for quality and counts differentiation as an essential element of this quality, we ought to be asking for real time in our schedules to do it right. Otherwise the city is just having a conversation with itself.
[Graphic found at http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/d/df/Roy_Lichtenstein_Drowning_Girl.jpg]
On April 25 the three police officers who killed Sean Bell of Jamaica, Queens were acquitted in NY State Supreme Court of all criminal charges. [For anyone unfamiliar with the case, the plain-clothed police officers—two black and one white--shot Bell fifty times, as he and his two friends left a nightclub in Queens. Bell would have been married the next morning. Apparently the officers thought they were in danger. One officer fired 31 bullets at Sean Bell, which required that he actually reload his semiautomatic pistol.]
I understand that police officers deal with an extreme amount of stress in their jobs—probably even more than teachers. Mistakes are inevitable when humans are involved, and the realm of human error for police officers may at times involve the wrongful use of a weapon. I do not understand, however, how it is possible to mistakenly shoot an unarmed man 50 times. I also thought that when an individual unintentionally caused another person’s death, the law called it manslaughter. But the State of New York has decided that the shooting rampage that left Sean Bell’s fiancée and daughter to live on without him was completely lawful.
There is an awkward silence that surrounds the verdict here in New York City. People seem to be swallowing their hurt and anger, awaiting further news—a sign that justice may be served somehow after all.
I myself am stunned by the implications of the case. As a teacher in a New York City public school, I work for and represent an arm of our government. I have been trying to compel my students, all of whom are black, to participate wholeheartedly in their education through the public system. I want my students to believe that if they continue on in school and go to college, the world holds unlimited opportunities for them. And it does… except that the verdict in Sean Bell’s case reminds us that this same system does not feel obliged to protect black citizens from violence perpetrated by the very people it hires to keep people safe. How can my students not feel betrayed by this decision? (I do believe that if Sean Bell had been white, he would likely not have been killed, and that if he had, the officers would have been held criminally accountable.)
Lately on the Teacher Leaders Network, following the refusal of teacher Carl Chew to administer a state standardized test to his students, teachers have been discussing civil disobedience and its role in a democracy. Some expressed concern that Chew’s actions did not set a good example for his students of responsible disagreement with authority. I've been asking myself, how DO we tell our government in a responsible way when we find its actions unacceptable? And how do I model this for my students?
[photograph of Jada Bell, Sean Bell's daughter, found at http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/11/27/rallyseanbell_wideweb__470x317,0.jpg]
Perhaps the most difficult piece of teaching for me has been grading. Every teacher I know has his or her own method. These are often influenced by school-wide grading policies, tempered by each teacher’s priorities and garnished with tricks that ensure a reasonable pass (and fail) rate. For example, in the middle school where I taught for my first three years, teachers were encouraged to use this simple grading schema: 20% homework, 20% class notes, 20% class participation, 20% projects, and 20% tests and quizzes. (So here's a trick: when a student did NO homework, you had the option to give a 0% or a 55% for that category, depending in part on whether you thought the student should still have a chance at passing.)
I adopted my school’s policy. It seemed reasonable to me, and--straight out of Bank Street College--I had no feasible alternative ideas about grading. I had been trained to look closely at student work and tailor instruction to student needs; I had also learned to write rubrics based on goals for individual assignments. But when it came to assigning grades at the end of a quarter, I was at a loss. Teachers at Bank Street’s own School For Children wrote lengthy narrative evaluations twice a year, but gave no letter or number grades. And then there was Alfie Kohn’s book, Punished By Reward, which posits that grades and other external motivators, used mostly to reward good work and punish bad work, serve to alienate students from the real satisfaction and benefits of learning, thereby diminishing their intrinsic motivation to engage in the learning process.
Today, testing has been thrust into the position of Single Most Important Measure of Student Learning in the life of a school, and I’m wondering, what kind of assessment would I put in its place? Would I prefer to rely instead on my own classroom grading system? If not, what is its purpose? And what am I really grading?
Recipe formulas for calculating grades tend to turn out numbers that represent a mishmash of student effort (as perceived by teacher), task completion (which may not require effort for all students), knowledge acquired, and skill development (both evidenced in student work).
Lately I’m struggling with the creeping notion that the net result of this mishmash is a totally inadequate measure of student learning. In effort to grade almost every aspect of a student’s involvement in my class, in the end I’ve graded nothing in particular! I am fairly confident that if a student gets an A in my class, he or she has demonstrated mastery and growth in all areas of our studies that quarter. And if a student fails, he or she most likely didn’t do any substantive work, and therefore didn’t grow substantially in any of the areas we studied. Anything in between A and F, however, is anyone’s guess.
At the same time, ask me to talk to you about any of my students’ skills, knowledge, and growth this year in any area of English Language Arts class (including being a member of a learning community), and I can tell you a lot—I can also use evidence to support what I say. I need to find a way to organize my grading practices around the key elements of student learning that occur in my class, in different ways and at different rates for each student.
In my quest toward this goal, I was inspired by a suggestion made by Barnett Berry in "Five Big Stories About the Future of Teaching" a podcast featured on the TLN homepage. He talks about students using handheld portable computer devices to store important evidence of their learning. These would be carried from class to class by each student and accessible to all members of a teaching team. The evidence could be organized into categories based on the content and standards of each class. Students could photograph pieces of work that demonstrate development toward mastering a particular standard. Berry maintains that this would help students take charge of their own learning. It would also provide a much fuller, less paper-heavy picture of a student's academic process for teachers, parents, and other interested parties.
By itself, this does not answer the larger questions about grading practices; but sometimes a powerful organizational tool can help to clear a lot of the brush away, revealing a more manageable problem and a visible path toward solving it.
[images found at http://www.omaksd.wednet.edu/rmccormi/teacher%20website/Grading%20Scale....
and http://foodthought.org/uploaded_images/ben's-recipe-766269.jpg]
As I consider the meaning of teacher leadership and the shape it might take for me as I move forward in my career, I look to the “giants” in my life, on whose experience and wisdom I rely. One such person is Madeleine Ray, my advisor and instructor at Bank Street College. She taught me—and reminds me often--that a teacher is, first and foremost, a group leader. As a leader in my own classroom, it’s my job to know my students as thoroughly as I can, and to put their needs first. In the face of difficult conditions, which often seem to ask that I push aside or downplay the needs of my students, I must demonstrate the courage to stand up for them and for what I know to be true.
As I develop a voice within the larger space of the teaching profession, another “giant,” on whose wisdom I draw, is my father, Frank Sacks. As a young man in the 1970’s my father was among a minority of people who believed that diet was far more influential to health than was commonly realized at the time. After earning his MD and paying his dues in the ER, my father has spent the last thirty years exploring the relationship between diet and health through both research and practice. Many of the things he initially suspected about the connections between diet and health turned out to be true, and have now entered the realm of conventional wisdom; but, he emphasizes, it took many years to find all that out. My father’s career path was also not conventional for either doctors or researchers. Since he was carving his own way, one of his biggest challenges was maintaining focus on his original purpose and not getting distracted along the way.
One afternoon in my father’s kitchen, after I had recently finished my undergraduate studies, I told him I was considering temping in an office while I figured out what else I wanted to do. He frowned. “Is temping in an office something you’re interested in?” he asked. No, it wasn’t. He and I both knew I was interested in teaching. He said, “Whatever doesn’t help, hurts,” a piece of advice I have never forgotten. My father was right. Temping in an office did hurt! I lasted only one day; shortly thereafter, I began my first teaching position.
When I was asked by the visionary people at TLN to write this blog, I was excited, but frightened. I worried about how to balance the time and mental space needed for both teaching and writing. I was scared of what people might think of my ideas, and of my words being misunderstood or misconstrued. Then I thought, “I don’t help anyone by declining an opportunity out of sheer nervousness.” In fact, in some way, I hurt my chances of making a difference in the lives of children if I cannot show courage in my own. I ask my students every day to be courageous in their studies and to stand up for what they believe in.
So here I am, going public with my teaching practice…
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