Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Nakkula Chapter 7

Hello everyone, I am attempting to play catch-up on my blogs.  I miss you all and I am so looking forward to June when we can celebrate at Rachel’s house that we all finished our four ASTL core courses!!

I found Chapter 7 to be enormously difficult to get through.  I don’t know if it was because of all the tables or if I was just annoyed about being sent back to Delpit and her views that white teachers find it difficult to teach black students and that black students don’t think white teachers can relate to them.  However, what I did like was when Nakkula said, “We can and should seek to have racially diverse students and teachers work with one another, but we also need to be aware of the ways in which those relationships are influenced by racial identity development and be prepared to respond in an informed manner when we recognize the need” (pg. 138).  So, of course we should be able to “all get along” but there will be times when teachers need to meet their students half way and remember students are still developing beings that need guidance in order to see the world through many lenses.  I think good lesson plans that focus on essential questions that don’t have a single answer, that spark inquiry, and that lead to “big ideas” are ways in which kids can try on multifaceted identities in a safe environment.   It is important to really know our student population because as they are differentiating between social groups and racial groups we have a unique opportunity (responsibility) to guide them through the process.

The following is a great lesson plan by Linda Christensen that allows students to think about who they are and where they fit in this big, bad world.  It also gives the opportunity for them to see, through peer review and classroom discussions, where their classmates are coming from as well.  This is a great lesson with which to start the school year.


Saturday, October 19, 2013

Homespaces


Reading the “Gender Identity Development” section of Nakkula’s Understanding Youth made me think of so many of my students.  Not only does society make assumptions about male/female roles, so do many schools.  I was interested in what the author’s said about girls of color, particularly African American girls.  I find African American female students tend to be so loud and actually aggressive sometimes that I have reprimanded them to cool down and to not get so fired up about everything.  But Nakkula mentions that “black mothers with their tongues of fire” have actually taught these girls to be aggressive and to fight for what they want and need in order to survive in a white person’s world (pg 113).  I never really thought about this before.  Delpit writes in Other People's Children about the black communication style in which mothers tend to bark orders at their kids in a loud, commanding way which explains why some students need that type of communication in order to get through to them in the classroom (Delpit, 2006).  However, I did not think about the black female student socially in regard to their aggressive type behavior until Nakkula.

When the author’s talked about the importance of “home spaces” and “homeplaces” I thought about all the school activities my school has to offer kids.  The Gay Straight Alliance has given kids that are gay and their friends that are straight a space to talk about where they are with their sexuality and how to navigate within a predominantly straight society (both in and out of school). This organization has contributed greatly to the accepting culture we have at my school.  Another group that was just started this year is the Nerd Herd which has 35 students that participate.  Yes, 35 and growing from what I here.  The Nerd Herd, in my opinion, is saving kids both academically and socially.  This group has a trivia question of the week that is usually related to a comic, graphic novel, superhero, Animee, or other such thing that these kids love.  I have learned about Cosplay and ComicCon and all kinds of things through these kids.  This school activitiy is the ultimate in homespaces!!  The teacher leader of this group is very passionate about all the same things these kids love and has coined himself as the Nerdiest Teacher in the building for many years.  What a win/win for both the teacher and the students.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Hope + Hard Work = Accomplishment (?)


As I was reading Nakkula, I thought about something that I feel is probably part of my teaching philosophy/belief in some way.  My job is to foster a sense of hope in my students.  If we expect students that have been passed along through No Child Left Behind to pass high stakes testing, these “high goals must be met by realistic hope – hope cultivated by successive, ongoing experiences of accomplishment” (pg. 63).  How can we expect our low performing kids to feel good about school and working hard when we really haven’t cared too much about that ourselves?  As a system, we have cared mostly about socially promoting students to the next grade level, at least that’s what I see has happened by the time many of my students get to the high school.  Then, all of a sudden the high stakes test comes along and we do so much ramp up that we lose them even more.   Many of my sophomores are taking three math classes just to get them ready for NECAP next year.  That means we have taken away their electives, their joy essentially.  The only way these kids can experience the hope that they matter or the hope that they can go to college or the hope that they are worthy of challenge is to give them an experience where they feel a sense of accomplishment.  It doesn’t have to be through core academics, it could be through sports, activities, a teacher or staff person that cares.  But somewhere along the line our kids need to feel there is hope for them.  Maybe it could be in the form of a writing assignment that might not be great overall, but has some great thoughts that can be cultivated.  Maybe a math problem doesn’t have the correct final answer, but by looking at the student’s work it is obvious that they are heading in the right direction.   Perhaps if a student hears they are on the right track, it may give them the hope to try harder. Then they have a sense of hope that the next problem or writing piece might be hard, but they know they can do it.

Additionally, in Chapter 4 Nakkula writes about Skill Theory and how through the experience of building skills, the student also builds their confidence and a sense of competence.  The more competent and confident a student is the more likely she is to venture into new learning activities.  At first I thought this was quite obvious but when I read this, I appreciated the reminder that hard work and seeing a task to the end is an accomplishment in itself for my students.  Especially if I can tell a student they did a good job.  It’s not always about the reward of the grade, sometimes it’s the reward of a teacher seeing a student’s hard work and giving them a verbal award that the hard work was noticed.  This made me think about the graphic novel and perhaps this is my belief (or part of it?):

“I believe adolescents learn by a challenging teacher that fosters a strong sense of emotional and intellectual hope in order for the student to feel a sense of confidence and competence.”  

Well, a work in process anyway … 

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Identity and Risk Taking

During my undergrad classes I remember learning about theorists Erikson, Piaget, Freud, etc.  I didn't really care about it too much then because, quite frankly, I was still an adolescent concerned mostly about what party I wanted to attend the next weekend.  I was a risk taker, probably more of one than I like to admit.  I was the "problem" child that caused lots of gray hairs for my parents.  I don't think I ever really did anything too horrible, just didn't fit the mold they wanted for me.  And, I hated school.  When I was in my teacher certification classes, much later in life, I was raising three kids, one very much in adolescence and two just out of it.  Man, those were trying years.  I appreciated learning again about all the adolescent stuff at that time because in some ways it gave me hope that I didn't really suck as a parent (ha!) and that our kids were actually normal-ish (double ha!).  All three kids came to Joe and I through our divorces so that added some interesting color to the adolescent drama as well.

Well, many more years later, it looks as though Joe and I successfully did it, we successfully raised these kids.  But I can't help but think it was dumb-ass luck.  Especially after reading Nakkula.  I think if I had read Lighfoot's research on the "culture of adolescent risk taking" it probably would have made me very nervous.  She doesn't argue that kids have to take risks to be healthy nor that kids have to challenge authority, what she argues is that high risk behavior is "common and deeply meaningful."  Yikes, glad I didn't read too much about this when I was parenting during this stage.

Parenting aside, I am finding Nakkula very interesting.  He and Toshalis pose some very interesting insights into the thoughts and actions of teens.  I like how they throw in the theorists but then add some resent research that in some ways contradicts the theorists and in other ways, enhances the research they did many years ago.  The most fascinating thing I read was on page 55.  Nakkula tells us that challenging our students more in school can actually reduce dangerous high risk behavior.  Really?  I'm hoping we have a chance to chat about this some more in class

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Relationship Building and the Reflective Teacher

After reading Duckworth, Campoy, and Nakkula I found myself thinking back to when I first started teaching which is only eight years ago.  These readings reminded me of the many students I have connected with along the way, many of which still send me emails and come into school to let me know how their lives are going.  Those moments are the ones I cherish because most of the students were difficult to reach.  The students that come to high school feeling discouraged, apathetic, and on the "low level track" usually are the students that have behavior issues and overall like to drive the teachers crazy.  When I first started teaching, they drove me crazy!  But through lots of reading and taking classes, I realized that the problem I was experiencing was mostly mine, not the student's.  I was not connecting with them and eager to learn about their lives.  I needed reminders as to why I went into teaching in the first place.  Somewhere along the line, we lost these kids.  Somewhere they were "told" they were not bright, they could not write, or do math or do science.  They were just pains in the asses.  And every teacher they came in contact with confirmed this self-loathing.  One year I decided to spend the first two weeks of school doing community building and I really tried to break through the barrier of "us" vs "them".  And it worked.  I couldn't believe it, but it worked.

I very much look forward to reading Nakkula from cover to cover.  On page 6, Nakkula writes that "no one is a solo author.  All life stories are multiauthored.  The adolescents with whom we work as educators are cowriting our narratives just as we are cowriting theirs."  What a powerful statement!  This is definitely true for me.  I feel as though I have learned as much from my students as they have learned from me.  Through teaching I have become much less judgmental and much more patient over the years.  I'm actually more judgmental and less patient with the adults!! Ha!!

Nakkula goes on to say that if teachers are not careful, because of the lack of extrinsic reward, they could find themselves burned out as they loose sight of their students as individual people.  It can't all be about the standards, curriculum, etc.  We really need to remember why we went into teaching to begin with.  Connecting with a tough kid and seeing that student light up when I tell him he is a good writer (after being told over and over both verbally and through bad grades that he sucks), one can not put a monetary value on that.  It truly touches the soul and helps me to get up and go to work the next day.  I'm not saying I give kids grades they don't deserve, but I think the community building also builds trust not just with peers but with me as well, which in turn motivates them to succeed.  Many of these kids have been taught not to trust.  Not to trust their parent, teacher, relatives, etc.  They have been let down so many times.

Although I have heard about and read about the zone of proximal development, I am not very good at judging where that is for some of my students.  Also, how do I make sure my students are getting pushed just slightly beyond their limits when my classes have such varied levels?  My sophomore college prep/advanced freshman classes keep me up at night as I try to make sure I am challenging and pushing the freshmen without losing the sophomores.  There are more sophomores than freshmen in each class but that really doesn't matter.  I hope Nakkula talks about that some more within the text.


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Journey to Teach, Part 2


I agree with Ayers’ statements at the end of the book regarding the challenges teachers face.  I wish my teacher training focused on the challenges and what to do personally and professionally when the challenges become overwhelming.  I know what to do now, but this book would have been helpful to me many years ago. 

Pages 96 through 99 offer interesting techniques and methods to help teachers with the challenges.  For instance, the “finding allies” technique talks about the importance of finding like-minded people.  I immediately thought of five or six teachers that have the same or similar philosophy on teaching as I do.  We tend to make sure that the teaching we do in our classrooms is research based, we attend similar English related professional development, and we are constantly helping each other with lessons, projects, assessments, etc.  These colleagues are a positive force in my work life.  In addition to finding allies, Ayers talks about finding the right "balance and clarity".  I tend to overly research things to the point where I get myself overwhelmed.  Finding the right balance is really tough for me.  I don’t feel as though I am a very creative person, as my LSI confirmed, so I find myself thinking everyone else’s idea is better.  But, when I just trust myself, it typically works out just as well and I save a ton of time.  These few pages offer interesting insight into the trials and tribulations in the teaching profession.  Teaching is a huge challenge, one many people outside the profession just do not get.  I also love how the book ends with graduation.  What a great way to end a book called the journey to teach.  I think all of us have the same goal, to watch our students cross the stage.  It is my favorite night of the year.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

To Teach: The Journey in Comics, Part I

When Dr. Horwitz came to our class in the spring and mentioned we would be reading a graphic novel I was really psyched.  I have a colleague at work that uses graphic novels in his classroom  and the two of us instantly started talking about this book and how much he liked the book.  So, instead of buying the book I borrowed it from him.  However, after reading the first few pages I went to Amazon and bought my own.  This is a book I want I my shelf that I can refer to from time to time.  Just a nice gentle reminder that all teachers question their practice as well as question the folks making decisions about our profession that have never entered a classroom.  Let me clarify, folks that have never entered a public school classroom.

I found it interesting how on page XIV Ayers called comics a medium and not a genre.  As an English teacher who loves graphic novels and have read many, I never really thought of it as a medium.  But when I look back on the many that I have read, such as Fun Home, they were non fiction stories in graphic novel form.

On page 20 and 21 Ayers points out that we must focus on what students CAN do and not what they CAN'T do which I found quite ironic.  Just yesterday a senior student showed me work I corrected four years ago that I had butchered.  There must of been 15 or more corrections just on the first page!  I was embarassed when I saw this because since I had her I realized that writing all over students' papers does not make them better writers.  I asked my student how she felt when she received this paper back and she said defeated and stupid.  If I had focused on what she did well, and gave her a goal or two for the next paper she probably would have become a good writer.

I loved how at the end of the section we were required to read, Ayers wrote about the importance of creating a community in the classroom.  Last year I got so caught up in Common Core State Standards and Teacher Evaluation that I did not take the time to create a classroom community.  I did a few things to get to know the students but not like I had done in the past.  I have to say, it was a difficult year, in part, because I did not establish a community of listeners and participators.

I look forward to the second half of the book ...


Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Week in Review


My class project.

I chose to do a Six Word Memoir using the web application Animoto because the Six Word Memoir is a lesson I have taught for a number of years and I have wanted to try Animoto.  The Six Word Memoir is a very short, but powerful, writing piece.  This type of memoir is fun to do at the beginning of the year as a way for my students and me to get to know each other.  The idea to use Animoto came from a student’s senior project presentation this year.  She used Animoto for both her introduction and her conclusion and the judges in her room were very impressed with it.  I also participated in a National WritingProject Webinar where a teacher in the Midwest talked about how much fun she had taking her Six Word Memoir lesson to the next level while presenting it using Animoto.  Right there, I was sold on the idea of using Animoto in my classroom this coming school year.

Animoto will enhance the Six Word Memoir because it allows the student to present the memoir creatively and in a more personal way.  A few years ago students took their memoirs and added a visual component to it, which basically meant they drew a picture.  A couple of students asked to use photos, either personal or Google images, and since I thought that was using technology I said yes right away.  The world has changed drastically and now there are so many ways kids can be creative in the classroom using technology.  As students use Animoto, they add images, as well as connect music, videos and background styles to their memoir.

In addition to connecting Animoto to the classroom curriculum, it is a tool that I think many scholars we discussed in this class would like.  As I began this class, I was intimidated by the technology component.  I am considerably older than many of the teachers so I certainly identified as a digital immigrant as coined by Prensky in his article, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”.  Prensky describes me perfectly when he writes, “Those of us that were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are … Digital Immigrants.” I am fascinated by technology but even though it intimidates me, I am not too afraid to take it on.  I was pleasantly surprised that most of the young teachers in our course identified as being an immigrant as well. 

Another scholar we discussed in class, Michael Wesch, would like Animoto because he proved through extensive research how important curiosity and imagination are to student learning in a digital world.  I can have students write Six Word Memoirs with a pen and paper, but to have them produce a video that goes along with the theme of the memoir giving them lots of digital choice in the outcome is a powerful assignment Wesch would like.  The technology is not replacing the content since it is still a Six Word Memoir; however, the technology enhances the lesson and the final assessment.  The kids will have fun using the tool allowing for a more enjoyable learning experience and I will have fun assessing the memoir making my teaching more enjoyable.  In John Waters article “MichaelWesch:  It’s a Pull, Pull World”, he quotes Wesch saying, “The new media landscape is a ‘pull’ environment.  Nothing is pushed to you from the Web, which makes it essential that we inspire students to seek out the knowledge that’s out there. The content isn’t fundamentally different, but the environment just demands more curiosity and imagination.”  I think  all the technology we studied in this class connects to Wesch  because we all need to use technology appropriately and students need to be taught how to do that.  Many times during this course I heard teachers say that they didn’t really know a particular web application well, but once they showed their students the basics, it was amazing what they produced.  I cannot tell you how exciting that type of teaching and learning is for me.  I love to watch my students grow while learning something new they discovered without me.  By using more technology in my classroom, maybe students will see the relevance of school and the skills we are trying to teach them.

But I do have some concerns about this new digital world with regard to my disadvantaged students.  The critical side of me questions the logistics of how technology will work in my particular classroom and in my particular school.  How do I require students to use technology outside school when a number of my students don’t know where they are sleeping on a given night?  In this course many teachers talked about how handouts and assignments on paper get lost in kids’ backpacks and there are some tools available online to help end the backpack-black-hole.  But if we require students to go home and post an entry on a blog and they do not have access to the Internet, how is that different from the backpack problem?  The disadvantaged kid is still disadvantaged.  I know some people will argue that most kids today have access in some way to technology, but that is not the case with many kids in my school.  In his article,  "Bridging the New Digital Divide" , Finkel raises many points about how superintendents and administrators are trying to grapple with technology while at the same time getting kids college and career ready in a new digital world.  Most of the article focused on teachers integrating technology into their classroom, but part of the article was about the student as well.  I think we all agree when Finkle quotes a superintendent saying, “[Technology] is an equalizer.  We’ve got to use the technology as a leverage or a force in the classroom to help focus on what people call these 21st-century skills, or soft skills: the ability to communicate with others, to think analytically.”  I guess I’m just looking for someone to really think about the kids and how the new digital world could leave kids behind now more than ever before.  The Sugata Mitra TED talk we saw during the course proves my point perfectly.  Once Mitra put a computer in a kid’s hands, anywhere in the world, he or she excelled. In my opinion, putting some form of digital device in kids’ hands is a high priority in America, not just for superintendents and administrators but politicians as well.  If America wants to educate all kids AND be on top intellectually, academically, and economically, then we must level the playing field for all kids by giving them full access to the digital world both in and out of school.