I've been reading over the results of the 2009 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher.  One result which did not surprise me was that the majority of teachers and principals believe "greater collaboration among teachers and school leaders would have a major impact on improving student achievement."  

The details about the kinds of collaboration, however, are pretty interesting.  The types of collaboration that are reportedly most common in schools today: "teachers meeting in teams to learn what is necessary to help their students achieve at higher levels; school leaders sharing responsibility with teachers to achieve school goals; and beginning teachers working with more experienced teachers."

The least frequent type of collaborative activity? "Teachers observing each other in the classroom and providing feedback. Less than one-third of teachers or principals report that this frequently occurs at their school."  This gave me pause... Maybe because it hits close to home.

I personally believe teachers observing each other and providing feedback could lead to great progress. Administrators at my school often encourage teachers to visit one another in the classroom, both formally and informally.  Though it has happened before on various occasions, it never seems to stick as a practice.  

Right now, I facilitate regular meetings among the middle school English teachers in my school.  We have recently discussed the idea of conducting inter-visitations.  We all agree it is a good idea, but admit that we somehow never get around to it.  Time is always the excuse, but I'm not sure that's really why, since we can easily cancel a meeting, as we've done in the past, to make time for it.    

Since the survey suggests that this roadblock exists on a national level, I'm taking some time to unpack my thoughts about what could be impeding the development of peer observations among teachers.

1. History: First, consider the history of classroom observations.  Teachers have taught in isolation from one another.  The only people who generally came into classrooms were the principals. The purpose of those visits? To "supervise" the teacher most likely. Such visits had all the potential to undermine the authority and/or autonomy of the teacher, in ways both subtle and explicit.  Many principals have changed to a more supportive, less authoritarian approach to supervising teachers, but the taste of so many years of hierarchy lingers.  

Even though peer-to-peer observations would seem to have nothing to do with this history, I have a hunch that most teachers still have "the principal's visit" as their only frame of reference for hosting another adult in their classroom.  And frames of reference do matter.  

Let's pretend that the only pet you've ever known was a dog and that dog attacked you, more than once. Since that day, you haven't liked dogs.  One day, your partner brings home a cat and tells you, "Relax, this is a completely different animal."  Don't you think you might be a little mistrustful, at least at first?  Better yet, let's say your partner simply suggests that you get a cat.  Is it understandable that you'd be a little reluctant, or that perhaps, it wouldn't be at the top of your list of things to do?

Art: Next, we have to come to terms with the fact that, as much as we'd like to treat teaching as a clinical practice--which is a helpful model in many ways--teaching is also extremely personal.  There is an art to it, and in the words of the great singer, Erykah Badu, "I'm sensitive about my sh**!"  We are sensitive about this work we put our heart, souls, and imagination into, as well as our brains.  Although there are many best practices from which we can learn, there is also the reality that what works in one moment might not work in the next.  What works for one student might not work for another.  What works for you might not work for me.  

We teach in public schools, but having someone come into your classroom often feels more like having someone come to your home.  You want to make sure your dishes are done, dirty laundry is not lying around, etc.  You want to be ready.  I can't fully explain why, but even when the plan is exactly the same, the art is a little different when it's not just you and the students.  

Spirit: Finally, we need to recognize that every single person in the room has a presence that affects the dynamic of the class.  The spirit with which a visitor enters a classroom can matter greatly, and the spirit with which the teacher responds to the visitor matters too.  Kids have keen observational skills, and they know when a visitor is judging them, or judging their teacher.  When a visitor enters and the teacher becomes nervous, kids know it.  Likewise they sense when an adult is there to support them and support their teacher.  When the teacher and students feel "seen" in a positive way, everyone responds in kind.  

For example, my advisor from Bank Street College observed me regularly in my classroom through my first and second year of teaching.  She always brought such a positive attitude into the classroom and interacted well with my students.  She made us all feel like we were doing something important and special.  Even when things seemed to be going badly, she found positive things to focus on, as well as asking me questions about what I thought had gone wrong. This was tremendously helpful and gave me confidence with my students.  After a while, I learned to deliberately build on what was working, even when she wasn't there to point it out.  As a mentor to a new teacher, I tried to emulate my advisor's approach, always attempting to have a positive effect on her classroom while I was there.  This way I would see her at her best, and she would feel comfortable talking openly with me about her practice.  

I have also been a subject in a number of research studies on teaching.  Mostly the observers have come in with a positive outlook that has a slightly positive effect, if any, on the classroom environment.  But I'll never forget one researcher, who came in every week for a few months, and always sat with a scowl, taking notes furiously.  I had the feeling I was being judged, and I'd often feel angry after she left, though I never said a word about it.  Coincidentally--or not--it also seemed that class never went as well as I hoped when she was around.  After a while, my students started to feel judged as well. Even though she had introduced herself to the class at the beginning of the study as a researcher, my students started asking with a scowl that matched hers, "Who is that lady?"  Once a student asked her straight out, "Why are you here?"  

All this is to say that if we want to move in a direction where teachers are observing one another regularly, we need to do so in a way that recognizes all the layers that are at work in this shift.  

Back at my school, the English teachers and I have decided that we will visit one another on an invitation-only basis.  That way we are each mentally prepared for the visit, and we can select lessons or classes we may want specific feedback on, rather than having someone pop in at random.  I think it's important that we made that decision together, and that no one is forcing anyone.  I am curious what we will learn.

[image credit: websofvegas.com]

I happened to have a conversation with a stranger this past weekend at a friend's get-together.  She is a middle-aged woman.  When I told her I was a teacher, she smiled. "How long have you been teaching? she asked.

"Six years," I said. 

    "Oh, wow," she said surprised. "That's a long time." 

        It is? I thought. 

        "Do you like it?" she asked.

        "Most of the time," I said. "It's very hard work, but I do like it."

        "You like the kids, I mean?" she asked.

        "The kids? Oh sure! Adolescents can be trying, but they're great!"

        "That's wonderful," she said. "Some of my friends who are teachers are just so unhappy with it; with the board, I mean..." 

        "Well, I can understand that. There are a lot of problems with NYC public schools, but I don't think it's the kids."  

       "What is it then?" she asked.

        I thought about it. There were so many answers to that question, but this is what I came up with.

        "Two things come to mind.  First, the schools are very outdated.  We are still trying to get every kid to learn the same arbitrary things at the same arbitrary time in lock step, as if they were factory workers on a conveyer belt and learning were as simple as fastening one metal piece to another and passing it to the right. Research shows that humans really learn through experience, yet it is very hard to find a classroom where there are authentic experiences for kids to learn from.  On top of that, kids today are also experiencing the world in new ways through technology and internet connectivity, but we mostly shut off those modes of experience in classrooms.  We have to update our classrooms and pedagogy to capitalize on what we know about how the human brain works and how kids today are interacting with the world that will soon be theirs.  

    "The second problem is the way decisions are made within the education field. Teachers are the single most important factor in a child's learning, and we are the ones who make a million decisions daily inside our classrooms.  Yet we are given next to no input into the larger-scale decisions designed to impact our teaching and our children's learning.  In fact, the people making those decisions--politicians, policy makers--usually have little or no actual teaching experience, yet they operate under the assumption that they know what's best for us, our students, and our classrooms. Why?  Where is the logic in that? There is a huge disconnect between the board of education at the city, state and national level, and classroom teachers, which is keeping education reforms from bearing any fruit for actual students."

        I was glad that what I was saying seemed to make sense to her.  She explained that her teenage son had a lot of trouble in NYC public schools.  This year she had finally made the decision to send her son to a boarding school for kids who had failed in traditional school settings.  So far it was going well. Luckily, she had the financial means to do this.  

        What will happen to all the other kids who are failing in/being failed by our outdated school system?  Does anyone really believe that all the government funding being pumped into testing and data systems is going to give failing kids a better chance?

[image credit:fotosearch.com]

A fantastic conversation is happening right now at Dan Brown's blog, "Get in the Fracas," about reading for pleasure as key factor in student success, especially on standardized tests.  He draws on research by Veda Jairrels about how voluntary reading is the crucial piece that is missing for many African-American students and accounts for the "achievement gap" between black and white students.  I highly recommend reading the post and comments. 

I just posted this response:

Reading for pleasure is such a key factor AND indicator of learning and intellectual growth because when a child reads voluntarily he or she is focused on the reading experience and not the grade, desired test score, or approval of the teacher. Our schools and school system are built around the idea that kids will respond to extrinsic motivators to learn. Research shows that extrinsic motivators (incentives, grades, etc.) work when the task is very simple, not requiring critical thinking. But when the task is more complex and requires critical thinking, the extrinsic motivator has a negative effect on the learning. That is because it moves the child's focus to the grade or desired outcome, instead of the content and experience itself. (See Daniel Pink's new book, Drive, for this research. Also this Ted Talks video.)

Back to reading for pleasure: the Readers (as Brown describes--those who read for pleasure but often do not complete class assignments) are building genuine intellectual experience in their reading, whereas the Worker Bees (those who complete all assignments but understand very little) are just trying to earn the grade and/or please the teacher and other people in their lives.  They are far removed from the real process of learning. 

I believe that intrinsic motivation to learn is the crucial factor in academic success. Reading for pleasure is not the only way kids can develop and work off of intrinsic motivation, but it is a really important and rewarding place to start. I agree with Jairrels that including the parents in the process is extremely valuable. [I want to say it is essential, but some students really do not have family situations that allow this, though they can definitely still become readers.  Parent involvement also becomes more complicated when parents do not speak English or are not literate themselves-nonetheless, I have not found this to be a barrier to students developing a love of reading.] Some of my most rewarding experiences as a teacher have been when I've connected with parents around my reading curriculum, so that parents understand their child's reading interests and actually get involved in their reading lives directly, by reading together, or through conversation about the reading. 

Last year I had a student I'll call Jamar.  Jamar was a sweet, very sociable kid, who always expressed a desire to do well in school, but who, in reality, was pretty disengaged with his school work.  He had a lot of trouble focusing and following through on assignments.  His grades in most classes including mine regularly hovered between a D+ and an F.  His skills more or less matched those grades.  My homework all year long is reading.  We alternate between students choosing their own books and me assigning whole class novels.  Every night, students are to read at least 10 pages and write 3 post-it notes inside the book with their responses.  (I also allot class time for this.)  I make lots of phone calls home to let parents know what students are reading and especially to alert them when their child is not doing it.  

Jamar was reading very little, especially at home. I had made a few phone calls to his mother about it. As it turned out, she was out of work on disability and so she had plenty of time to spend with Jamar in the evenings.  This time I was calling about a novel the whole class was reading, The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers.  It was due in two days and Jamar needed to complete it in order to participate in seminar-style discussions.  His mother said, "That's it. He's gonna read this book."  The next day, Jamar skipped into school early.  "Ms. Sacks, you're not going to believe it. I am SO tired. I was up til 2am reading that book with my mother!  But you know what?  The book is really GOOD! And you're gonna love reading my post-it notes!"  

The following day the book was due, and Jamar came in boasting to everyone that he'd finished.  His participation in discussions that week was exemplary.  His insights into the book were deep and well-evidenced.  A new voice--both knowledgeable and inquisitive--emerged from him that day.  I called his mother to tell her how wonderfully he'd done with it and thanked her for her help. She said, "You know, I'm home with him every day. I always ask him what homework he has and he says he already did it.  This is the first time I got to really work with him on anything."  She also told me how much she'd enjoyed reading the book with him and asked me what other books I had that might be similar that she could read with him. 

The amazing thing was that Jamar was not the same student after that moment.  Something had clicked. He became much more engaged with his work, not just the reading, and not just in English class.  He had benefitted from the real intellectual experience of reading and was able to speak from that experience in an academic context.  The power of that work and the deepening of his relationship with his mother was great enough to turn him on to learning.  

[image credit: homelink.cps-k12.org]

 My wonderful colleague, who teaches 8th grade science next door, got a parakeet for her classroom this year.  It is small, cute and yellow and sings songs softly. Students were very excited when she introduced him and they have treated him with care for months.  Students especially love the privilege of having the bird cage rest on their table while they work.  

On Thursday afternoon, my colleague was at a PD and a substitute covered her class. Sometime during that class, a student sprayed the bird in the face with white-board cleaning fluid--which is basically alcohol. The bird's eye became red and enflamed, the area around it was swollen, and it's body language indicated it was quite sick.  

Students were upset and anxious about the situation.  Many thought that the bird would die. But no one owned up to the deed.  The majority of the class seemed unsure which of 3 or 4 boys who were goofing around near the bird had done it. 

The deans and principal investigated and narrowed it down to two boys.  Neither of the boys is an extremely malicious or violent student.  It seemed to have been a matter of extremely poor judgment, a negative response to perceived lack of boundaries, and lack of self-restraint. 

One of the boys, while being questioned, said, "It's not that big of a deal. We can just buy her another bird; they only cost 8 dollars."

This response caught my attention.  Mind you, this is a student who lacks impulse control, but who is very bright and who shows care for others.  Though a bit of an enigma, (his writing is, without fail, no matter what I try, the longest, most interesting, run-on sentence you've ever read) he is one of my favorite students.  How could he so totally miss the point here? 

On the one hand, this was a thirteen-year-old child's attempt to right a wrong situation.  On the other had, I also wonder if his sentiment is symptomatic of today's out-of-control consumer culture and the disconnect of the urban environment from the natural world.  

Broken bird?  Buy another one.  

As it turns out, the bird is recovering... but I'm a little concerned for our children.  Are they getting the message that anything in the world can be bought?  That problems--crimes, even--are easily fixed with money?  And that the price of something dictates its worth?

[image credit: blogs.thatpetplace.com}

Over Thanksgiving break, I planned to launch a new novel study. Boys will read The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers and girls will read Like Sisters On the Homefront by Rita Williams Garcia.  This is always a very successful study for the students, because they find the novels compelling and the gender split adds some developmental dimension to the experience (This is the only time in the year I split by gender. More on that another time.)

As excited as I was to start the novel study, I felt that over the last month or so, things had gotten too ragged in my classroom. Students seemed lax about their own behaviors--in conversations with them later, students knew exactly what they had done wrong, but just seemed to lack self-consciousness or motivation to act appropriately in class. I'm talking about the usual 8th grade stuff--socializing excessively during class, antics that interrupt lessons or set off other students, etc., etc., etc.  These behaviors were upsetting the momentum of the learning and the group dynamic.  

At the end of every period I have the class assess itself as a group in 5 categories on a scale of 1-4: 

• Agenda (did we complete it?), 
• Quality of Work (this is for the class as a whole, not individual students)
• Jobs (official jobs in each class are Teacher's Assistant, Supply Manager, Director of Maintenance, and Librarian--did they do them?)
• Golden Rule (Harm no one in word or deed--did we follow it?)
• Neatness (how did we leave the classroom?)

The self-assessment chart serves as a good data source for me.  Students are very honest when completing the self-assessment, because it doesn't count as a grade, so there's no motivation to cheat.  I saw the scores decreasing and decreasing--and it was only November.

20% of my students' final grade is reserved for a category I call "Member of a Learning Community."  In my mind, it's very clear what this includes: coming prepared to class, participating in lessons, meetings and discussions, active listening, supporting peers, following the Golden Rule, good work habits, professionalism, etc., and I have communicated this to students.  However, I needed to find a way to make students' individual grades in this category more visible to them, more immediate and short-term, and empower them to improve in specific ways.  But logistically this can be challenging. 

I remembered something a student teacher I had last year from Bank Street College shared with me from another cooperating middle school teacher she'd worked with that year--Sharon Kramer, also a Bank Street-trained teacher who teaches in NYC public schools.  I had debated implementing it in September, but thought nah, I'll be alright without.  Now things are falling apart a little bit, so it's time for a change.  

So it's only been 2 days, but this new system has been really positive.  The atmosphere of the class is quite different.  Kids are more focused, more self-aware and we've picked up the pace a lot.  Maybe it's the new novels, or the new system, or a combination.  Any which way, I'm happy about the change. I'm happy I found the courage and time to take a risk and switch things up.  

The new system: Each table has a student leader who keeps track of participation points on a chart using a code for the members of the table. Every student begins every period with 60 points.  Positive behaviors and negative behaviors are assigned + or - point values and a code letter.  For example, coming to the meeting area within 60 seconds of the bell ringing (M) is worth 10 points.  Cursing (C) is worth -10 points, and so forth. Students gain points for great group work, helping another student, leaving their table area beautiful, etc.  Students lose points for eating in class, coming late, not having a writing utensil, breaking the Golden Rule, etc.  I made it so there are equal number of positive and negative behaviors.  (I've been training students to calculate grades based on those letter codes, which as some basic math value as well!) 

The table leader rotates weekly. At the end of the day I tally up the points and make any corrections if need be.  Every day students see their official grade from the day before. At the end of the week each student averages their scores from each day together and gets a grade out of 100, which I will enter into my online grade book.

It's not rocket science, but I think it helps kids be clear on what they are choosing to do and the consequences of those choices, good or bad.  Also, there are many ways within a single period to redeem a falling grade, and this makes that visible.  However, if a student has made poor choices throughout a period, it also becomes clear that he or she can't simply work for 5 minutes and redeem the grade.  It helps kids check each other, which is much much better than me playing the cop.  I hope and suspect students also see more clearly how their actions affect their learning and the rest of the class.  Maybe that's something we could have a class discussion about soon.  

I've never really been a fan of point systems for behavior.  Ideally, we will use this for a while and then outgrow it.  But for the moment, it's the structure and clarity my students need in order to do their best work and become members of a learning community, not just students in a class. 

[Image credit: a student deep in thought on a trip to study the neighborhood. This is how I want my students to feel in class every day!]