Many, many thanks to Mindstep blog for the wonderful post "Why Getting Rid of Bad Teachers Creates More Bad Teachers."  

Not only does the writer challenge the too long unchallenged myth that the majority of practicing teachers are "bad" or at least incompetent, but also hints at what might be one of the major causes of poor teaching in America: ill-conceived administrative restrictions.

It sounds paradoxical that those charged with being educational leaders in their buildings or districts may actually be impediments to quality instruction, but that is a truth many of us in the field have to deal with daily.

I've had many discussions with outstanding teachers around the country (Teachers of the Year, Milken Educators, NBCTs, and so forth). It always amazes me how few of the teachers being recognized for their accomplishments in the classroom can brag on the support of their administrators. Much more common are stories of subversion, sneaking around policies, breaking the rules, being the "odd one" on the faculty. 

Those of you who've been in that position know what I mean. I've been in it myself many times. I remember one year being commended because a higher percentage of my students had done well on the state literacy test than the previous year and the average score for the group was higher as well. Yet, within a few days, I received a memo that the district had hired a new consulting firm, and I was to stop doing what I had been doing and follow only the classroom activities in their manual. When I reviewed the items, I realized they were of poor quality, and would probably set my students back from where they were. I made a conscious decision to ignore the directive. Now, that's not a light decision in a place where collective bargaining is illegal and there is no tenure for teachers. I had to use a good deal of subterfuge to get through the year, fortunately (actually unfortunately) my administrator did a lousy job of supervising and really didn't know what I was doing most of the time. That year, my students performance got even better; and the consultants got all the credit.

I don't disparage those teachers who do what they're told. It's no small thing to ask people to risk their livelihoods and their families' financial well-being or health benefits.

The real question is: Why should teachers, especially those who have proven themselves effective, have to choose the path of civil disobedience to do what we have been trained and hired to do?

Anybody know the answer?

The first days of school are among the most work intensive for me as a teacher of English. One of my primary goals is to learn about my students, in order to determine how best to teach them. 

I don't teach by recipe. Thorough knowledge of subject matter or the curriculum is an important part of every teacher's work, but it is only a part. Every student, every class presents different challenges, different dynamics, and different strengths. Discovering, organizing, coordinating, and using that information effectively in the classroom takes skill and experience.

It takes a teacher.

I know some schools use various software programs to "pretest" students and gather performance data around which they plan instruction. Others, like my former school district, do a detailed analysis of the most recent state test data and prepare maps or charts on each student.  All that sounds impressive, and may actually be of some value to somebody, but I found most of it useless and even inaccurate when it came to planning for instruction in my classroom. Most of the test data was too general (e.g., "Johnny needs help with grammar.." well, duh!). Some of the more topic specific grammar testing software or web-based programs can be of limited help, but with an important caveat (I'll get to in a minute).

When I taught exclusively high school, students entered class the first day and immediately began writing me a letter. One of their favorite topics was to imagine it was 10 years after their high school graduation, and they were writing back to their old English teacher to let me know what had happened to them since I last saw them in school. Today, with my college students on the first day of class, as soon as they walk in my students are writing a letter to me; introducing themselves, their past experiences with writing, as well as their dreams for the future. Both work extremely well as a pretest and a way to get to know the people with whom I'll be sharing space for the next several months.

These writings are intentionally raw; I give very little instruction or guidance on either content or format, except for the topic on the board. I want to see what they will produce left to their own sense of what writing should be. First, I want to know who they are; what are their dreams, goals--do they have any? Next, I want to see for myself what their writing skills are. While they're composing, I'm taking notes on how they write: Who is making notes or lists; who is balling up paper because their handwriting isn't neat enough; who's drawing pictures; who looks terrified. This is a timed writing, so that I'll have time to introduce myself and give them the opening day talk and walk through procedures.

What comes next is key. I'll spend hours, sometimes days reviewing those letters. I write a personal response to each student. Students are used to us reacting to how they write, but not many are used to someone (at least not a teacher) responding to what they said or felt.  I develop the draft of a profile on each student as a writer in terms of content issues and grammar ones. With the high school students, it was always interesting (and frustrating) to see how students' actual writing contradicted their standardized test results. I may or may not give a follow-up grammar pretest, but usually not a multiple choice one (although I know how to write those and have written them for testing companies in the past). More often it is a test I designed using sentences from previous students that they must analyze and revise or edit if needed. This, in turn, will be followed with an individual conference during which I may ask, "Why did you think this sentence needed to be changed in this way?" Each student would then develop his/her personal learning goals for the year. The best part of all comes at the end of the school year, when the student revisits those pretests and explains to me (in writing) how s/he has grown as a writer.

Did I mention this was labor intensive? It's also extremely valuable from a teaching standpoint and makes all the difference between a school year in which I just "cover" the curriculum, and one in which students learn how to effectively and confidently handle academic writing. In the best of worlds, highly effective teachers are allowed and supported in doing this type of professional pre-assessment, and better yet, get together with their colleagues, parents, and other members of the educational delivery team to develop even richer learning environments for all students.

Over a ten year period, I studied the thorny issues surrounding the teaching of Standard English to rural African American students (Culturally Engaged Instruction); much of what I learned and did is recorded on my research site (including videos of me in classroom, interviews about my approaches, the theories behind them, and the background references).

What about you other teachers? How important is it to get to know students (personally and pedagogically) at the start of the year? What strategies do you find most effective to accomplish that?

In a great blog post, Scott Elias at EdWeek's Leader Talk, asks why we can't be more logical and pragmatic when it comes to professional development for teachers by doing something truly radical--asking the teachers what they already know and what they need to learn.

Those of you parents or non-educators in the audience may marvel at the need for anyone to even have to bring this up, much less argue for it's implementation. Sadly, educators all over the country have suffered from lousy, ineffective professional development thrust upon us by well-meaning administrators, or in some case legislators.

Scott does a great job of exploring some of the main causes of useless PD in his piece, so I won't repeat them here. One that he does not address, however, is financial. In the poor rural school districts in which I have taught there was either no money allocated in the annual budgets for professional development or very little (1-2%). Surely in education, more than any other profession, we would value our own learning enough to set aside time and money for it? Nope.

Most of the district/school provided professional development to which I have been subjected was the direct result of the district being awarded another grant. Poor districts are always on the hunt for grant funds of any kind. They help shore up the anemic local budgets based on non-existant property taxes. Problem is grants are by defintion short-term in focus and duration. New grant, new round of PD sessions on whatever philosophy, technique, or corporate sponsored products propelled the grant.

In my last school district, the administration applied for and received five separate reading program grants during the same school year. Each program had its own favored reading series/program/technique. Each came with its own mandatory training and PD. Several of these methods were contradictory; one was downright silly.They were all for the same grade level children, with copious amounts of recordkeeping. Some teachers refused to come back at the end of that year; others took early retirement; at least one became physically ill. The children were confused, and at the end of it all, the reading scores remained flat or dropped. Why did the district leadership put us through all that: the grant money helped pay the salaries of three teachers, two central office staff, and got us some new computers and software we could keep after the grants expired, and--oh yeah, the PD was included.

Where was the pedagogical integrity? Where was the planning and coordination? Professional development is still viewed by some administrators as either a luxury or a necessary evil rather than an opportunity to allow professional staff to grow. Which is why more and more quality teachers are choosing to pursue their own professional development apart from their schools or districts, and more of that is being increasingly accomplished via virtual networks and tools.

That's good in one sense--teachers are professionals who should take initative to advance their knowledge and skills. What's not good is that individual pursuit of professional development further weakens the collective fiber of the school. Close collaboration and coordination among teachers within a school are hallmarks of the most successful schools for students. Genuine, teacher-driven professional development helps make that happen. The schools, for example, that actually get professional learning communities (PLCs) right, see tangible results of what grounded professional development can do.

The rest of us are still trying to get through another year of (not) motivational speakers, high paid consultants, and a lot of wasted time.

As the end of the semester approaches, too rapidly for some of my students and not nearly fast enough for others, I brace myself for "the push."

The "push" is one of the more affectionate names for the end-of-the-semester reading marathon that confronts most English teachers. Like many of my colleagues, particularly those of us in high needs schools, I'm looking at somewhere between 100 - 150 pieces of student writing for this last regular assignment. That translates into a minimum of 12-16 hours (outside of classroom time); time I won't be spending with my own family. Since I now teach Freshman Composition at the community college for college and high school students, the final exam is also a mandatory department-wide essay. So, double that reading and grading time over roughly a two-week period.

Granted the push goes faster than it did when I was a rookie. Now, I know to stagger due dates, and more important, to help my students help each other as they work through the process of writing. The quality of their "final" versions is measurably better than when I simply assigned and collected.

To help me through the push and other less-then-exciting aspects of teaching writing, I think about what my students and I share as fellow writers. I frequently bring my own work to class, pieces I'm developing for publication, and show them the notes from my editors or my own, often more vicious, critiques. Some of them, especially the older, non-traditional students, are visibly relieved to know that even experienced, published writers have to work at putting thoughts together clearly for an audience.

It has also helped my students and me that more of our work is now done digitally. No more lugging home those large cloth tote bags full of papers. My students submit all their work through our website-where we also discuss it and help each other. I view and respond to their work in digital formats (sometimes as simple as highlighting or commenting on Word documents).

What hasn't changed are the challenges and hard work it takes to help each individual student identify his/her strengths and weaknesses as a writer; to push them to take the risks inherent in putting one's thoughts on display for public response; to uncover and recover from years of poor writing, little writing, poor instruction, no instruction, and almost incapacitating self-doubt. 

The payoff, though comes at the end. No, not financial; I took a $7,000 base pay cut to move from the high school to full-time at the community college--but that's another blog. For their final exam, each student receives an individualized prompt about his/her own development as a writer over the course of the semester. On one level, it is usually the best thing they've written all semester; on a deeper level, it gives them and me a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what has happened among us and what those changes have made possible.

It's why I love what I do.

Great, big digital high-five to Ted Nellen at CyberEnglish for his detailed post on how English teachers can spend less time reading and grading all those essays and more time actually helping students learn how to write well. 

Actually, what Ted describes (in vivid, step-by-step detail no less) is not new but rather a great example of an approach to writing workshop. It also helps that his classroom is entirely digital and has been for decades. However, for those of us still stuck in the paper-pencil dimension, the methdology is also highly effective and adaptable.