Preaching and Teaching (Both About Reaching)

I always enjoy visiting with my younger brother Jeff. He is a United Church Minister and we have wonderful conversations about the connections between his work as a preacher and mine as a teacher. Once we get passed the obvious difference, it’s amazing how similar our work is.

Today’s conversation was driven by a couple of questions I was mulling over during my run, which I sprung on him over breakfast (as an aside, older brothers always have to keep younger brothers off guard with conversation topics). I wanted to know what constituted a successful Sunday service for him and what he hoped to accomplish in a year in the life of a parishioner. I was hoping to relate that to a successful lesson and a successful school year. Our conversation produced some interesting connections for me.

Reverend Jeff’s notion of a quality Sunday service is contingent on two factors – how he feels at the conclusion and the feedback he receives. While he intends to “bring it” every Sunday he also recognizes his own capacity and knows that on the occasional Sunday his reserves are a little low and then he must do the best he can in that moment. I know that my intent as a teacher was always to inspire and create learning connections for my students. I try to do the same in my current role as a speaker and consultant but some days I need to rely more on my experience and learned skills. Those days do leave me feeling like I didn’t do my best but did the best I could.

I loved his response to what he sees as growth in a year for anyone in his parish. He wasn’t able to quantify it nor did he want to. “My push is to create the conditions where growth can take place, and to recognize that everyone is at a different place on their very personal journey”, is how he phrased his view of his role. As I think about schools today, I wonder if we might be able to embrace a similar view. Can we create the conditions where learning and engagement on a personal learning journey drive what schools are focused on rather than the rigid view that every fourteen year old must do grade nine Math and every other grade nine course? Can we connect purpose and passion with an eye towards future possibilities?

As always, our time to connect as brothers and colleagues concluded too quickly. I look forward to our next time in the same room together. In the meantime I’ll generate some more questions to explore. Feel free to share any you might want examined.

Learning From Failyour

“I’ve never made a mistake in my life”, he said quite proudly.

“Then how do you know how good you could be?” came the reply.

I’ve been thinking a lot about failure lately. Not just my own occasional mistakes, but instead in the broader sense and how we approach failure in our schools today. The above scenario played out at an event I was presenting at and gave me pause to reflect on why we often seem more interested to explore success than failure. A recent keynote by Mary Cullinane (Executive VP for Corporate Affairs and Social Responsibility at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) highlighted this for me when she expressed a reluctance to attend one more “best practices” conference. Instead, she wants to attend an “oops” conference where people share their failures and the learning that happened as a result. I think that would be a fabulous event!

Our schools and educators appear to be trending more towards the safe and cautious approach while lamenting the lack of engagement by students and the lack of teaching enjoyment by educators. Less risk taking and more covering of “important ground” has taken away the joy for both ends of the teaching-learning equation. Engaging in assessment practices that are more punitive than formative only exacerbates the problem. My visits to kindergarten classes are always a joy and I love the responses I get when I ask them what they want to be later in life. The options are endless and none are outside the realm of possibility to their young minds. The same question to a graduating class yields more puzzled looks and a reluctance to venture many options outside of a perceived strength. What has happened during the school years to limit possibilities and avoid taking the risk associated with pursuing something unknown?

Perhaps the solution lies in having our students learn to embrace failure as a learning experience by demonstrating our own frailties and highlighting the growth we experienced. Cullinane also asked why our school walls are often filled with excellent examples of products but rarely show process. I know it would be a challenge to display incomplete work or assignments that indicated improvements needed but is there a method teachers could utilize that would allow for failure to simply be redefined as a step along the way to quality outcomes? Our struggling learners become stigmatized by the notion of failure and our most able learners don’t venture into the realm of failure and instead practice those skills they already know (and often receive “bonus marks” for) thereby limiting their own potential growth.

          Whatever process we follow or steps we take, it ought to be with an eye towards nurturing and protecting our students’ capacity to dream about the infinite possibilities that exist for them. Every student is a success story waiting to be told. Some of the pages of their respective stories may speak to the struggles faced along the journey and the people who reminded them that failure was just part of the process. As Vince Lombardi said, "Failure is not getting knocked down, it's not getting up again."   

See A Penny

       

        See a penny, pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck.  So goes the old adage which has served as great advice for many over the years.  There have been articles in other formats that have highlighted the significant amounts of money folks have found while out enjoying the great outdoors.  Runners, in particular, seem to have numerous accounts of fortunes large and small they have uncovered while out for their daily run.  I have also experienced the joy of finding treasure this way on my daily treks.  

        Recently I was thinking about why these discoveries create such excitement.  I have a job I truly enjoy which generates a good wage.  Clearly the odd dollar found on the road isn’t going to lead to early retirement or put my grandkids through university.  Yet, there is that feeling each time I find money.  If these discoveries could generate this in me, I began to wonder what it did for others that came across this money in the streets.  

        This provided the opportunity I needed to create a whole new view of this money, that carries me through many of my runs today.  Rather than stopping to pick up the money I spot, I use the discovery as the start of another story.  One day I might imagine a young child coming across the coins on a hot summer day and enjoying an ice cream cone with her grandpa.  The next day it might be someone who finds the dollar and buys a winning lottery ticket and then donates money to a local charity.  Perhaps it will be one of the many homeless people I see who purchases a warm bowl of chili on a cold night.  I have created many scenarios and, depending on the length of my run, a myriad of possibilities.  It has afforded me much more than the accumulated wealth ever could have purchased.  On those days where I might be reluctant to head out the door, the minute I start thinking about the potential adventures waiting to be created, I can’t be held back.  

        I’ve also added a bit of a twist lately where I’ll pick up the money and then drop it in a different location.  Some times it will be a place where I know lots of kids will be like a school or park and other times it will be a high traffic area.  The danger in this is that you must ensure no one is following close by.  I had one polite fellow runner who picked up his pace to catch me and return the dollar I had dropped.  There are days when I have created such an engaging story that I want to stop at the sight of the coins and watch my drama unfold.  Of course, this would defeat the intent and instead I leave the spot with a smile on my face.  

        As for the old adage, I’ve modified it to see a penny, leave it there and think of all the joy you’ll share.

“The Time is Always Right to do the Right Thing.”

        I visited a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King recently and found myself transfixed on the quote shown above. As I looked at the statue and then back to the quote, I am not ashamed to admit I came to tears. In examining why I had that reaction (beyond being in awe of such a great human being), two things, one personal and one professional, emerged for me.

        On the personal side I was thinking of my fabulous daughter-in-law (the latter part of that title bugs me, she is my third daughter) who is African American and the mother of the two greatest daughters, and my granddaughters (bias intended), anywhere. I’ve heard stories from her about some of the negative experiences she has endured and admire her strength to just grow from those. For my son, the story is quite simple. He fell in love and nothing else mattered. Still, I worry for my granddaughters as I read stories, track Twitter feeds, and catch news items where race has been the central excuse for negative behavior. I wonder if there will come a time where they will simply be judged “for the content of their character and not the color of their skin”.  And I weep some more.

  On the professional side I continue to be disturbed by overwhelming statistics like these from the Census Bureau and the Department of Education:

➢ In 2005, the on-time graduation rate for black males was 48 percent nationally; for white males it was 74 percent.
➢ Nearly half of the nation’s African American students, but only 11 percent of white students, attend high schools in which graduation is not the norm.
➢ On average, African American and Hispanic twelfth-grade students read at approximately the same level as white eighth graders.
➢ The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that 88 percent of African American eighth graders read below grade level, compared to 62 percent of white eighth graders.
➢ More than 60 percent of black students attend schools where more than 50 percent of the school population is identified as living in poverty, compared to 18 percent of white students.
➢ In the forty-nine states studied, the school districts with the highest minority enrollments receive an average of $877 less per student than school districts with the lowest number of minorities enrolled.
➢ In high schools where at least 75 percent of the students are low-income, there are three times as many uncertified or out-of-field teachers teaching both English and science than in schools with wealthier populations.

        I’ve been working in schools where these statistics are the norm and drive the expectations for (lack of) success. Dr. James Norwood put together this infographic (http://bit.ly/M0Wlgf) that shows the devastating social and financial impacts of dropping out. The passivity and resignation that occurs when a black student is identified as struggling is mind-boggling. Are we harder on white students who struggle and do we try to push them to “get it”. Can any educator take solace in a graduation rate that suggests one in two students won’t be successful? Is our perception of low achievement for black students the cause or the byproduct? Or, as Rutgers-Newark professor Kent D. Harber suggests in this study http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120504143023.htm, are we giving inaccurate feedback that does not provide black students the same intellectual growth and foster achievement?  Have we institutionalized the very thing Dr. King was trying to eradicate? And I weep some more.

  In the midst of my despair, I find some comfort. Some other data emerges on the positive side of the ledger:

➢ Among blacks ages 25 and older, 82% have at least a high school diploma (as of July 2007) versus 14% in 1950.
➢ Among blacks ages 25 and older, 19% have a bachelor's degree or higher (as of July 2007) versus 2% in 1950.
➢ 95% of black children ages 5 and 6 are enrolled in school (versus 69% in 1954)

        And then I get a chance to talk to Carlos who is a young African American man and my seat-mate for the first leg of my flight home. He is a man of many talents and interests, polished and well spoken, and willing to share his perceptions on my concerns. He let me know about the struggles his folks went through in order to create a better situation for their children. Carlos talked about two challenges – the institutionalization of failure for black students (as illustrated above) and the lack of positive role models or mentors. He went on to describe the various ways he is involved to set a positive example by volunteering his time to work with black youth who come from poverty or lack of success to let them know what is possible. He felt this was a critical component that was lacking in the structures and systems that African American kids were exposed to. He insightfully suggested they needed more than rappers and athletes to identify with as their only career options. I begin to smile. Perhaps Carlos and his generation, which includes my third daughter Sabrina, are what Dr. King was alluding to. Strong role models that will guide the next generation to take pride in the content of their character and their color so that others may be able to do the same.

Zeroing in on the True Heroes

     Any time a topic can get educators communicating and the public fomenting, it must be a good topic right? The debate that has emanated from Edmonton has sparked much commentary, columns, blog posts, and angst. I purposely sat back and gave some time for examination of various perspectives. My bias is clear and this post will remove any doubt. Let me begin by highlighting three key comments that came out following the initial story. I’m thankful to Douglas Reeves for his message to me as I was thinking about the matter and sent a question to him, Ken O’Connor for his brilliant reply to the Edmonton Journal, and Bruce Beairsto for his excellent post. Here’s what I culled as essential pieces of their writings with my translation in italics below each piece:

The rationale for making grades accurate has absolutely nothing to do with "self-esteem" - but only about making grades accurate.  I believe in keeping score, including in children's sports, and I believe in giving them negative feedback when it is accurate.  But in things that society really values - like hockey - the consequence for missing a shot is not being kicked off the team, but rather the requirements for more practice and harder work.  That's all I'm asking for in the English and math class.  When students mess up, the answer is not the academic death penalty that the zero becomes, but rather the requirement that they DO THE WORK - before, during, and after school.

Douglas Reeves

The delusional smokescreen that some want to pass off as their rationale for doing the wrong thing, carries significant consequences. The only rational consequence for not doing the work is doing the work.

As soon as a student has one or two zeros they have no chance of success and as soon as students have no chance of success what do students do  – they give up trying and often become a discipline problem. This must be seen as unacceptable – schools are places of learning for children and thus it should ‘never be over till it is over;’ we must always provide hope and so opportunities for students to provide sufficient evidence of their knowledge and understanding of the learning outcomes must be available until at least the end of the school year.

Ken O’Connor

How’s that working for you as you have the most challenging students in your class disengaged for an extended period of the school year? Is there a better alternative?

Assessment is intended to provide students with feedback about what they know and what they do not yet know. Assessment is not about reward and punishment. It is not a motivational tool.  You shouldn’t get marks for trying hard, or being a great person, or complying fully with your teacher’s expectations and you shouldn’t lose them for being offensive or absent or even lazy.  You get marks for what you know, pure and simple. If a student knows absolutely nothing at all about the required content, then give him or her a zero.

Bruce Beairsto

Never mind bonus marks or penalty marks. Stick to the facts. If a student has learned nothingafter two weeks with their teacher, who is that an evaluation of? (Check out my post at http://umakeadiff.blogspot.com/2011/02/zero-really-they-learned-nothing.html)

     I have looked at some of the feedback the original story generated on the Edmonton Journal website and find some of the commentary incredulous. Two general themes emerged and I have summarized them here:

     1.  The “good old days”

     This seems to be the most familiar lament out there. Folks who continue the belief that it was “all so much better when…’ are suffering from what I term “nostalnesia” or the selective recall that prevents them from seeing the realities that also were a part of long ago. Schools of the past include lots of bad practice like the strap and exclusion of any students that were “different”. They also reflected higher failure rates and dropout rates than are present today. We also have higher graduation rates and tougher entry requirements for post secondary institutions. I know my marks that granted me easy access to university three decades ago would not measure up today. Despite these advances, we still have too many students not graduating or leaving schools without the capacity to take on the next challenge. Hitting these students with the inaccuracy of a zero for socially inept behavior (that’s what late assignments, skipping school, and cheating are) does little to help them identify strengths and weaknesses and even less to close the academic gap.

     2.  “Worked for me”

     Sometimes surviving a process leads people to believe the process must be okay. “I did okay in school so the system works.” “I took a number of zeroes and made out just fine.” “I got the strap and it taught me a lesson.” The question I have is “Did it really work or was there capacity to recover?” When I ask adults to describe their worst educational experience, it inevitably revolves around a poor practice inflicted by a teacher. My audiences mostly include people who have resiliency or talents or support that allowed them to overcome the poor practice but the scars are still there. What, then, for those who don’t have that capacity? Who is speaking for those it didn’t work for and what is the cost to society? I don’t think there were many letters to the editor from those whose school experience set them back. Let’s look at why 75% of inmates are functionally illiterate and see if there’s a connection to a negative school experience. It costs more to incarcerate an adult than it does to educate a child. 

     The other factor that’s important in this discussion ties back to the first section above in regards to the “good old days”. Once upon a time there were plentiful opportunities for unskilled labor and if you left school, you could still land on your feet. As recently as 1940 the manufacturing industry and the agriculture (including fishing/mining/logging) industry accounted for over 50% of the workforce. Today they barely combine to reach double digits and have been replaced by tertiary industries (service providers), which now account for 70% of the workforce according to “Clark’s Sector Model”. 

The “works for me” belief reminds me of the interview they always do with the world’s oldest man. Occasionally, a comment gets made along the lines of “I smoke a cigar and have a shot of whiskey every day”. That’s generally poor advice for the majority of us to live to be centenarians. 

     I am troubled by the notion that the teacher in this story is being lauded as a hero (it’s not worth my mentioning the teacher by name as he has exhausted his fame derived from ignoring the agreed upon practice and deserves the consequences of that decision). In reality, his comments speak more about a need for power and control than accurately relaying the progress of his students to the intended learning outcomes and helping them to get there. Granted, this might mean more work than just saying, “I taught, they didn’t learn”, but isn’t that what teachers are supposed to do? 

“When a teacher is a "hero" in the eyes of journalists for maintaining the right to inflict mathematically inaccurate and ineffective grading systems on children, then I wonder who the villains are.” (Reeves)

The irony here is that those who laud the teacher ignoring the rules of his workplace are often the same ones who want to inflict the zero on students who have done the same.

     Yes, we live in a day and age where superlatives are tossed out like beads at Mardi Gras  (“that was super, mega-awesome”) but let’s reserve the title of hero for those teachers who are overcoming major obstacles in helping their students achieve the impossible thereby making it possible. I firmly believe that every student is a success story waiting to be told. Thank goodness we have heroic teachers in classrooms everywhere who have chosen to push through the challenges and the easy excuses to help their students achieve. To set them up for future success rather than take the easy way out and wash their hands of their capacity to influence. Education is not about predicting the future; it’s about creating it. Let’s zero in on the true heroes in our schools – the teachers who inspire and don’t limit the potential of their students.

"I've Become Comfortably Dumb." (A First Year Student's Lament)

I know followers of this blog will recognize that the title of this post is a little tongue-in-cheek (a play on the title of a great Pink Floyd song) and not intended as a negative portrayal of every high school graduate’s experiences at college or university. As the school year heads to its conclusion, I’ve been thinking a lot about the transition that happens for some of our most successful students and reflecting on past conversations. 

Conversations that have occurred with top end academic students who have let me know halfway through their first year how much they are struggling and how they have received their first low grades. Or the recent conversation with a friend who let me know that his child was receiving a mark of 108% in a high school course. These have led me to consider if our current approach is doing enough for our most academically able students or if we are lulling them into a false sense of accomplishment. If we are, in essence, allowing them to become “comfortably dumb” knowing full well that what lies ahead will stretch their thinking and not reward “compliant behavior” or provide bonus marks.

According to a report by Statistics Canada, approximately fifteen percent of first-year students won't make it to their second year of university. Success in high school doesn't seem to translate to preparing students for university. A study by the University of Manitoba suggests that even former high achievers in high school, those kids who graduated at the top of their class with straight A's, are at a high risk. The study indicates that nearly one in four of those students will be asked to leave, thanks to failing grades. First year students are often shocked to see their marks drop as much as 15 percent from what they were used to earning in high school. Nearly two-thirds of students end up feeling uncertain about what to study, with many changing their majors.

And here’s the kicker from the Statistics Canada report - those high school students who tend to succeed at the post-secondary level are those who have already developed good work and study habits. It’s not the students we have over-rewarded and acknowledged for being very good at what we want them to do or what they already know. Students who receive 108% might be better served by being challenged and stretched in things they don’t know and get a lower grade rather than being given more of the same. The problem of grade inflation at the high school level suggests that students have been given an inaccurate assessment of their performance and the consequence of this is pretty clear early on in their post-secondary career.

There are also financial repercussions. In 2008, Maclean’s surveyed the rate at which students who received entrance scholarships kept the necessary grade point average to maintain their scholarship going into second year. The author’s (Ross Finnie and Felice Martinello) provide data showing the rate dropping into single digits for some institutions. These two economists state, “the highest achieving group (in high school) has the largest decrease in grades.” Students entering university with an average of 90 percent or higher experienced a drop of 11.9 points. Students with averages in the 60-79 per cent range had a drop of only 4.4 points. Of course, there are the significant challenges of the entry requirements to get into university. Twenty years ago a solid B average was sufficient. A decade ago it shifted to an A average. Today, an average in the low 90’s is not a lock for entrance. This may be a contributing factor to the push by a student to maximize their results and might be a part of the grade inflation conundrum. 

So, where does this leave us?  The more information we have before us, and the more accurate the data is, the easier it should become for us to change what we are doing. In my recent book one of the central themes is this – if we can predict it, we can prevent it. This theme might also hold true as we look to help our strongest academic students prepare for the challenges ahead.

“I’m just not used to being good at stuff.”

I spent two days visiting with the students and staff at the DSBN Academy. Regular readers of this blog will recall a previous post about this newly established school (http://umakeadiff.blogspot.ca/2011_11_01_archive.html) that lives and breathes the singular mission encapsulated in two words – “We Believe”.

I visited every classroom and watched kids in action, thoroughly engaged in their learning. At the end of each visit I spoke with the teacher and gathered perceptions on the year thus far, and their personal highs and lows.  I’m not sure what I expected as my previous visit had highlighted for me some of the challenges associated with starting a new school and particularly a school for students who had experienced limited success in previous locales. I also was aware that they had embraced the key tenets of “Pyramid of Behavior Interventions: Seven Keys to a Positive Learning Environment” and was interested to hear about some of the outcomes of their approach.

Once again I was deeply inspired by the passion and commitment of the teaching staff. This team of eight absolutely gives their all and were wearing both the joy and the anguish that comes when we heavily invest in students and their success. I heard what has now become my favorite analogy to describe this:

Every day is like being at the amusement park. 

You’re exhausted and have spent the day in long 

lines, ate great tasting (and largely unhealthy) 

foods, and been over-stimulated on the rides 

but you can’t wait to get back there the next day!

I also sat in on great group conversations where strategies were debated as the teachers contemplated next steps to ensure all of their students “finish strong”. We spoke of the remaining time in the school year being the true test of the commitment and desire to let students know that this year will be unlike any they had experienced previously. Success for all isn’t a trite saying but an absolute, embraced by all whom cross the threshold to the Academy each day.

Perhaps one of the more touching anecdotes was the one that concluded with the quote that is the title of this posting. A teacher had come across one of her students who was deeply engaged in work that she had not been directed to do, but had chosen to do during her break time. When the teacher complimented her and said how impressed she was, she was met with some shyness and withdrawal. This was a student the teacher would have described as having made great gains during the year, one who had taken risks in her pursuit of learning and put herself out there. The comment “I’m just not used to being good at stuff”, made by the student was a reminder that, despite all of the successes experienced over eight months, fear of failure and a return to previously held adult views of her, were not yet eradicated. The power of negative experiences resonate so deeply with some of our students that significantly more time, energy, and positive feedback will be required until they can completely let go and totally immerse themselves in the success ALL of our kids so richly deserve.

Thanks again Academy staff. You continue to teach beyond the walls of your school.