Telling Our Own Story

Convocation Message to the Litchfield Staff on Opening Day

August 28, 2015

My theme for the coming year, something you’ll very likely hear me repeat over and over, almost a mantra is:  “This is our year for Telling Our Own Story.”

A Story

And so to begin, I’m going to tell you a story of my own.  This is my granddaughter Ella.  She’s five.   “And a half!” she will tell you. “But, I’m more on the half towards six than five!” she’ll add with an emphatic series of karate chops, as if to cut off the remaining time.  She’s in a bit of hurry to grow up! 

This summer, Ella and I were returning from some errands out past Worchester, Massachusetts.  We got on the Mass Pike, (which is a toll road), at I-495 … and, since I was not driving my own car with my EZ-Pass, I had to stop and pick up a toll-ticket.   Ella asked about it… what it was for and so on… And I told her, looking at her in the rear-view mirror.   

When we got to our exit at Rt. 84, the traffic jam was ridiculous. If you’ve ever been in that area of the Mass Pike on a Sunday evening, when all the summer Cape Cod traffic is headed west, you know that if the exit for Rt. 84 is extremely backed-up, they start waving cars through the toll booths until it clears.  We had that luck.  I had the ticket in my hand, ready to turn it in, when we were waved through.
 
From her car seat in the back, Ella said, “Oh good!  Can I have it?” 

“Sure,” I said and handed the ticket back to her. 

“Thank you, Gramma!” she exclaimed, as if I had given her the deed to the Taj Mahal.  She held onto it, and when we got home, she set-up a pretend game on the kitchen floor, with all of her many horses and one two-foot Tyrannosaurus Rex crossing over the raised wooden threshold between the kitchen and living room.   When each animal crossed over, they had their names spoken aloud, and they got a little circle colored-in on the Mass Pike toll-ticket. 

Why is this story important?  Because this year Ella starts kindergarten.  This year, her family turns her over to the teachers in Southwick, Massachusetts, in a school system that’s not very different from Litchfield’s.  Over the next thirteen years, through their lenses, and of course, through her family’s as well, Ella is about to learn that this toll ticket (with its colorful crayoned dots) has absolutely no real value – and this, a crisp $20 bill, does.  How that ‘introduction to the real world’ and how that ‘education’ take place is of vital importance to all of us. 

It is, of course, important that our students learn math and can wrestle with difficult reading passages.  It’s important that our children learn money and time and the notes on a C-scale.  It’s important that they know what an anecdote is and how to use a microscope.   But, it’s also important that when they see a friend in need, they stop to help.  That even though their T-shirt reads “It’s all about me!” – it really isn’t.  That they learn to understand, and even predict, the impact of their decisions.  It’s important that they sometimes live in their imaginations. 

Teachers do ALL of THAT so very well.  For that reason, it is important we tell our own story.  
Every child, in every one of our classrooms, is an Ella.   A child loved by his or her family and entrusted into the hands of educators who hopefully understand that “in loco parentis,” which in Latin means “in the place of the parents,” in parent-language really means, “Please be kind to my child, kinder than I am when I lose my patience … And, therefore, please, be patient … And, please, please, please be better than I am at translating this crazy world we live in into something meaningful my child can use.”

Fortunately, you’re up to the challenge!  And that too is where “telling our own story” comes in!

We can’t control what happens around us in the educational setting.  We can’t control state mandates for teacher evaluation or for SBAC.  We can’t control ‘opting-out.’  We certainly can’t control what comes into our environment from the outside – our students’ broken home-lives, the prevalence of drugs and alcoholism their culture, or domestic violence. 

That is primarily why my goal for this school year is to improve communications and, through communications, to control our message that we send out into the world!  I want a better and more interactive webpage where it becomes easy to post a picture and a headline… or, a sound bite of kids at work and a sample of their accomplishment.  I want a webpage with a calendar we can trust to be up-to-the minute, menus, and a link to the CIAC, so we can use those kinds of features to draw parents and the community in.  Then, I want rss-feeds and links to Facebook and Pinterest for even more sharing.   I want a place to brag about our teachers and our programs.  I want our positive message, about all the good things we do, to be louder, with a more memorable melody and a stronger cadence, than the voices of the dissidents.

Our communications can be our fight song. 

In Our Classrooms
First and foremost, we can control to a great degree (because it is solely our domain), how we treat each other in our classrooms.   How we treat each other in our classrooms matters.   Sarcasm, (even when gentle), teasing, and insensitivity have a way of chipping away at everyone’s health – ours, the target’s, and the bystanders'.  Kindness and thoughtfulness lift people up!  Incivility holds them down.

Words, when they are not carefully and thoughtfully chosen, make people feel small.  I remember reading a study in Psychology Today which said that emotionally healthy children can receive up to 11 negative messages to every 1 positive.  A negative message could be anything from an emphatic ‘Shhhh!’ to ‘Can you do something with your hair?’ to ‘How many times do I have ask you to take out the garbage?’  ALL messages which adults have long-ago ceased to consider negative.   Imagine, 11:1 -- and that’s the emotionally healthy kids.  The damaged kids received as many as 56:1; and because of their circumstances, many of their negative messages are self-generated: “I’m such a loser!” “Why is everyone prettier than me?” “No one likes me.”

That’s an important set of statistics; but, whenever you genuinely ask a student, ‘How is your mother feeling this week?’ or ‘How many kittens did the cat have?’ or ‘What did you like best about your trip to San Antonio?’ you are showing you care about what's important to them.  When you focus your classrooms on respectful discussions and ask kids to acknowledge another student’s point before they disagree… or, when you consistently reinforce, ‘mean behavior is not tolerated here,’ you are lifting your students 12 feet off the ground!

This year, in addition to talking about math and AP scores and awards, I will try to communicate all of those fabulous activities in your classrooms and our schools which focus on building our students’ respect for others and their own personal dignity. 

In Our Faculty Rooms

No, we can’t control many of the most recent variables of our profession.  But, neither can today’s nurses … or airline attendants … or policemen… and so on.  We are all living in a dramatically changing world.  People in every profession, in every walk-of-life feel the impact of change in their lives.  No one can control the speed of change.

But, we can control how we treat our colleagues in the workplace and how we communicate with each other.  A generalized dissatisfaction with our profession and an insensitivity to the virtues of teaching and teachers chips away at everyone’s well-being.  In the spirit of our colleague-to-colleague communications, reach out to the new teachers we have hired this year.   Share your materials, your ideas, your anecdotes, your legacy, and how our late-openings and snow days work.

Be present, in mind and spirit, when your grade-level teams meet.  Bring your best self to professional development, to SIT Team and PPTs.  Support your principals in faculty meetings.   Advocate for, and be a champion of, teachers and education.  To the degree that you can on any given day, take a deep breath and smile at change because we’ve seen it before and it didn't deterred us then, nor will it now.

In Our Wider Community

I’m asking that you please be thoughtful about how you represent your school and your colleagues outside our doors, as well.   Always remember there is a text … and a subtext.   You might say to a parent, “Wow, we’re having a hard time getting the tech up and running this year,” and what someone in the community eventually passes along to their neighbor is, “That school is a mess and no one knows what they are doing…”  An off-the-cuff remark that “the early release days for PD make the day feel longer, not shorter” later gets translated in the community as, “The teachers hate the PD days, so why do we need them?”  Everyone knows how the negative flows.  Everyone understands the nature of ‘scuttlebutt.’   So, kindly be ambassadors for your schools.  Brag, celebrate, congratulate, and think about the powerful subtexts of those positive messages and stories you can send forth.

Conclusions

Teaching is a challenging job with many unique frustrations, but the rewards of teaching are innumerable.   Remember Ella?  This year someone just like you is going to teach her that while a $20 bill ‘buys her things’ that ‘Mass Pike toll ticket,’ which represents her imagination and story-telling, can take her places too.

That is a powerful… awesome! … responsibility.  And it is ours!  Relish in it!  Celebrate it! 

Do what you can to tell our story!

There’s a Lot to Like about Common Core

There’s a Lot to Like about Common Core

So much has been said and written about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS); and, as with any new and controversial idea, the public is left with the task of separating the truth from the hype -- on both sides.  I like the Common Core, however.  I’ve ‘met’ the standards, and there isn’t one I don’t like.  I contend that the best of our country’s teachers have been teaching common-core-style for years.   

To illustrate, I picked two examples, somewhat randomly, from the English Language Arts CCSS.  Meet “Read closely to make logical inferences” and “Describe the logical connection between particular sentences and paragraphs in a text.”   I wouldn’t mind going to work with either one because they are more authentic and more demanding than some common educational practices in the recent past. 

Let me explain.  As the English Department Chair and a strong curriculum leader in my past, I cringed when I saw students taking reading quizzes.  ‘Where does Of Mice and Men take place?’ ‘List the main characters in Romeo and Juliet who are dead at the end of the play?’ ‘In Cather in the Rye, why does Holden go to New York?’  Questions of this nature measure either compliance or memory, not comprehension.  The students have either read (or at least read the Cliff Notes) … or they haven’t.  They either remember the intricate details or they don’t.  

The Common Core State Standards for Language Arts demonstrate to me just how far we have come from a “Trivial Pursuit” style of learning in this new century.  I also like the CCSS’ potential to affect changes in instruction – particularly to change the level and depth of the deeper questions we ask.

One argument against Common Core states that the emphasis on close reading strips children of the joy inherent in reading.  Studying the text ruins the experience.  The opponents ask if it isn’t important to help children develop a love of reading … and not just read for information or to evaluate, critique, and compare?’  The ‘just’ is my emphasis because the argument isn’t either/or –either you read closely or you enjoy what you read. 

Let’s look at the first CCSS above and consider “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a story with which most people have some familiarity. Typically, a teacher might want to assess whether or not students comprehended the story: ‘What did Jack get when he traded the cow?’ (Magic beans.)  ‘What did Jack find at the top of the giant beanstalk?’ (The ogre. ‘What is an ogre?’ might be a logical follow-up question.)  ‘What was the first thing Jack stole?’ (A golden egg.)  ‘The second thing?’ (The hen that laid a golden egg every day?) ‘The third thing?’ (The golden harp.)  And so on.

Common Core, however, expects teachers to change their style of questioning and pursue concepts which are not obvious or can’t be found through skimming the text -- concepts which require close-reading.  These questions require kids to both reread and to read between the lines.  A good Common Core question asks, “If Jack already has the hen that lays a golden egg each day, why does he go up the beanstalk for the harp?”  I would contend that as a young reader I would have been much more fascinated by the ‘why?’ than the ‘what?’  Asking me to reread and go back to the earlier pieces of the story for a closer look at Jack would not have ruined it for me.  It would have given it ‘dimension.’

Another argument against common core is that it is too often expects students to fill in the missing pieces when a text is not explicit. ‘How can they do that?’ critics complain.  Kids can’t know what isn’t there.  I once read this example about building bridges in America and it resonated with me.  The first paragraph told about building the Brooklyn Bridge, a suspension bridge, across a large expanse of water, with its pylons under water.  Another bridge crossed the very expansive Mississippi River; and another, ridiculously high in the air, crossed the Rio Grande.  Each paragraph gave details about how the bridges were built.   

In the second CCSS above, we see that excellent readers sometimes need to connect a series of ideas to arrive at the author’s purpose.  In this example, in each case, the bridge was built despite the difficulties each unique setting presented.  So, the author’s purpose was not “to show how hard it is to build bridges” but “to show how American ingenuity overcame obstacles to get the job done.”  There’s a subtle, but important difference.  It’s our job to make sure our children have opportunities to talk about and refine their conclusions. 

Because I’m in the business, I frequently read and think about the CCSS, which expect kids to think deeply and problem-solve.  I know the standards are challenging, for students and teachers.  But there isn’t one I would dismiss as nonsense. 

[If you would like to read the CCSS yourself, click HERE.]

Budget Season is in Full Swing

Budget Season is in Full Swing

To date, this year's budget season has been both challenging ... and rewarding.  The challenges have been coming quickly to grips with the existing line items, from personnel to paper clips, and understanding the needs behind any new requests.  The rewards have been realizing how caring and supportive of staff and children the Board and the Litchfield community have always been.  I appreciate that the community wants to be both conservative with spending and generous in support of kids' needs.  The administrators and Central Office staff have been thoughtful.  I ask a million question, all of them beginning with 'why?' and they are still thoughtful.

The budget supports current staffing and benefits (77% of the budget) and fixed costs such as utilities and transportation (13%).  The remaining 10% supports programming, curriculum, materials, and supplies.  In addition to meeting our contractual obligations, here are the three priorities of the 2015-2016 budget: 

First, a new Math curriculum for grades K - 5.  

We are investigating a Common Core aligned program that is rich in differentiation materials and teacher and parent resources.  Common Core is not the demon so many groups paint it to be.  It is a rigorous set of standards that expect hands-on learning, complex problem-solving, and communication of ideas.  As with any new change, it's what you do with it that counts.  Litchfield’s previous math program was aligned to the requirements of the old CMT with 26 different content strands each year.  We’ve come to call that approach ‘a mile wide and an inch deep.’   The new Common Core State Standards require far fewer concepts per year and a much deeper level of understanding.  The new requirements also add ‘math practices’ to the core content expecting teachers and students to change their old strategies and incorporate more hands-on problem-solving, more conversation about how and why an answer is right, and greater fluency and facility with number sense.  The math practices expect students to persevere if a multi-step problem is difficult.

Second, the technology to support a new Math Curriculum.  

Any math program worth our investment will support this new Common Core math content and a student-centered instructional approach.  Any worthwhile program will also offer rich technology supports such as pre- and post- assessments, online skills work with opportunities for immediate feedback, teacher resources for differentiation at all levels, SmartBoard-ready lessons, and online parent supports.   We’re looking at programs which offer computer-adaptive activities that look like games, but are individualized to each student’s ability.  They repeat skills the child is struggling with until they are mastered… or escalate the skills until a child is being challenged.  The data is readily available to teachers and paraprofessionals.  We've looked at one program which when parents scan their child's homework from a device, an instructive video opens re-teaching the lesson.  The same videos are available through online links.

Finally, retaining the class sizes at the elementary schools and the diverse program offerings at the high school. 

At the elementary schools, class sizes average at or below 20.  Caseloads in Special Education are also very manageable at about 12 - 15.  We are expanding pre-school for 3’s and 4’s, but keeping classes at or below 12. 

In a small high school such as Litchfield’s, class sizes are much more variable.  Several factors play with simple arithmetic:  number of students who elect a class, weighted classes (AP, Honors, and Academic); heavily-enrolled core classes (band and chorus), and specialty courses with only one section, called singletons (AP classes, Tech-Ed, World Languages, art).   

This is easier to see by example.  Imagine this year’s junior class, for example, with 84 students.  Simple division would yield four English classes with 21 students each.   But, there may be only 12 juniors who elect AP Language and Composition and 48 students who want Honors English.  The schedule then becomes further complicated when, of the 48 students taking Honors English, 20 are in Band and cannot take English during that particular Band block.  If 14 of the 20 Honors/Band students are also taking AP US History, another singleton class, an extra section of English may now be needed to cover the inflexibilities caused by selecting these three classes in combination.  Litchfield is committed to providing programming which does not cause a junior to choose between AP US History and Band.  We do the best we possibly can in honoring students’ individual program needs through flexible scheduling and recently through the flexible (asynchronous) scheduling of a few virtual high school courses.

The Board of Education budget is understandably a collection of static numbers with a bottom line.  But, more poetically, it is the foundation on which we are building our future through the education of our children.  So side-by-side with our analysis of the figures, we should remember our accomplishments throughout the district and celebrate our children and teachers at work.  Ours IS a people business, and this budget continues Litchfield’s tradition of supporting the individual growth and development of every child.  Simply put, it’s what’s best for kids.

To view the budget presentation in easy-to-read slides, click HERE.

Connecting Reading to Real Life

Connecting Reading to Real Life

Yesterday, I was taking my 13-year-old grandson to an away soccer game which gave us that momentously valuable opportunity for a car-ride conversation.   Anyone who loves a child knows that sometimes the best conversations can happen in the midst of everyday activities when we are not eye-to-eye.

I wanted to discuss a bullying scene from a movie we had been watching just before we left, and I asked him what he would have done if he had seen the same thing happen at his school.  “Gramma,” he said.  “It’s fake!  It’s only a movie.”  I was struck once again with the difficulty we have as parents and educators helping kids connect to what they read, or in this case, view.  It’s the difference between merely seeing the picture and internalizing what that picture means in terms of being human. 

Readers may already know that helping kids connect the text and their outside experiences is a tough challenge.  But, much more important than mere reading comprehension is the need for a child to connect with what he or she reads or views simply because empathy is a significant life-long success factor.  The best leaders, (as well as spouses, friends, and parents), have the ability to understand the patterns of human behavior and what motivates others.  In addition, people who connect with others and feel empathy are better able to withstand adversity.  Connecting with others provides a feeling of belonging and reduces feelings of loneliness.

Typically, our students connect to the events in a story or a show, and if they have never experienced that particular series of events themselves, they have difficulty imagining themselves in the same situation.  Our job as teachers and parents is to help children move beyond the situation itself and explore the elements of human nature embedded within.   This human connection can come from connecting with pictures in magazines, television, books, and movies.  It involves considering what the people are thinking and feeling, and why.  It involves asking kids important questions about what they read and view.

Try this out with your child.  Use the picture below and ask a few questions such as:   How did the boy get into this jam?  [You don’t want the obvious: ‘He put his head through the chair.’  Rather, and answer such as, 'Maybe someone dared him to do it.' Or, ' Maybe he was showing off for his friends.'] What is the boy thinking?  [He might be embarrassed because everyone knows he did something foolish.  He might be afraid of getting in trouble.  He might be afraid of getting hurt.]  What do think is going through the mind of the lady in the tan jacket?  [She might be afraid … She might be angry …]  How about the man in blue with the saw?

Any example of human experience will do, but if you’re game there is an incredible video on youtube.com at “Sailor Surprises His Son.”  After viewing, ask your child: If the boy is happy, why is he crying?  How does the father feel?  Why do you think the surprise was a good one?

Even our littlest readers and viewers can begin to connect to what they read, hear, and view with practice.  Good connection questions help us draw conclusions about people in general.  They help us understand jealousy, loyalty, shyness, embarrassment, and a whole wealth of feelings humans share in common.  They also enable us to understand reactions which are not common to most people.  Next time you’re reading a story or watching a movie, ask your children to think about whether or not they would like to be friends with a particular character or person.  Ask them what they might have done in that same situation, if they would like to visit that place or to meet that person you read about.  Ask which part of the story or movie they liked best, if one of the characters reminds them of anyone they know... and, of course, always ask why.