Trial separation.

Notice how I haven't been blogging much about school lately? It's because I'm caught in a loop. Same shit, different day. So after 37 years, I've decided I need a trial separation. 

I've been agonising over this for months. In fact, it's the hardest decision I've ever made in my life. Getting evicted from 'our place' at school probably gave me the shove I needed.  So too did turning sixty. When you get there, dear reader, remember this: you still feel the same inside but everything around you makes you conscious of your age and time running out. Especially having a couple of dads die – mine and my husband's -  and a couple of eighty-something demented mums in aged care.  

Ah, normal vicissitudes notwithstanding I've had everything I've wanted in my teaching career. But it's really hard to give up something for which you intuitively prepared throughout your childhood. I liked the whole idea of teaching from the minute I became a student. Not a student teacher, a kid at school. School felt comfortable. I must have had some good teachers. Some weren't, but that's another story. 

A week ago, after much deliberation and an emotional pain in the core of my being - drama queen? - I called my principal and asked whether I could see him the next day regarding taking twelve months leave. After I made that call, I stood outside the green grocers in the local shopping centre hyperventilating. Because until I suddenly made the decision to make that call I had no idea I was going to leave.  

Despite having largely relished my teaching career, I'm generally under-stimulated by teaching year 8 and 9 students. Careful what you wish for. Back in 2011, I wanted an easier life – less responsibility and less marking. Thus I went part-time, relinquished English coordination – a role I was enjoying 'at the governor's pleasure' - and gave up teaching my regular allotment of two year 12 VCE classes. It was a great relief to reduce my full-time load to three days.  

Back to those year 8 and 9 students. I'm assuming you're all teachers reading this so you know how challenging class management can be at this level. Yes, I really like most of the students I teach but I teach about ten students over my three classes who are very difficult to manage. Of course they all have their own back story and we work with that as we try to educate. But really. Sheesh.  

Many middle school kids, even those without difficult home lives, are hard work. They are wrestling with hormones and drives they've never experienced before. They're emotionally charged, histrionic and will argue that black is white. (If they read that last line I'd be accused of being racist. I kid you not.) They argue and bicker amongst themselves and their allegiances are constantly shifting. Suddenly, almost overnight, they are sure they know everything, much more than any adult, particularly one of my gender and age. It is incredibly difficult  to educate these kids. But we do it, year after year. And when it's working – as it has been every day with one of my year 8 groups this year, it's magic. 

Then there are those adversarial -'oppositional defiant' - students. Usually it's girls in my classes. They're always there waiting to pounce on any perceived transgression. They can be downright rude, and when they gang up, holy mama, it takes all my wiles to ameliorate the situation. (I'm not bad at this. I can make them feel like I'm issuing a detention because I love them so much! You know the line: I care about you too much to let you think that your behaviour is in any way acceptable, and words to that effect.) One rude, bold student who's 'not afraid to express her opinion because she's going to be a lawyer and earn lots of money', can instantly destroy the learning of an entire class – sometimes for the rest of the year if it's not skilfully managed. (Ah, memories.) If one loses patience with this type of student, one is fucked. They can, and will do or say anything but one must keep calm and follow one's management plan, but by god they push the buttons. Some of them will grow out of this behaviour but some of these students will just grow into older ignoramuses, constantly convinced of their entitlement to their own opinion, loudly voiced, no matter how self-absorbed and ill-informed they are. You know the type. 

There's a lot of anxiety in a teacher's life, isn't there? You're constantly on stage and expected to perform. You're judged to within an inch of your existence. Anyone else have anxiety dreams at the start of a new term? You know the one. You're totally unprepared and you get caught out. Or is that just me? One of my recurring dreams involved variations on a scenario where Mr Incredible and I have been evicted from our classrooms and office. I've dreamt that our area has been trashed, bulldozed and reconfigured in some unsuitable way. Meanwhile I'm floundering around the campus facing the impossible goblin's riddle of trying to find my way home to my class, but my home is gone. 

Well, in real life on the last day of last term, my nightmare having eventuated, I'd packed my car with my swivel chair and boxes of stuff I thought I couldn't manage without. It was pouring rain and I was alone unpacking my car at 5pm, trying to make my new office – no heating or cooling but more space – look less bleak. There was something premonitory about it.  

First day of the new term, I didn't know where my period 1 class would meet. My nightmare again. Turns out my new classroom for six periods a week would be a windowless converted former locker bay. My challenging year 8s, in a classroom situated in what we call Siberia, went ape-shit in their new room with its different seating arrangement. One day I puzzled over the unusual absenteeism, marked the roll, wrote my goal – don't get me started – on the board, got twenty minutes into the lesson before about ten kids emerged bright eyed with hilarity from a back office where they'd secreted themselves.  (Everyone's a winner: I enjoyed the twenty minutes without them.)

But we all got used to it and life went on. On the up side, I probably walk an extra k a day getting around the campus. On top of my cycling commute to and from school that's a good work out. 

Now when I'm up at briefing in the main staffroom, I look out through the windows at my fenced off, former haven standing forlornly amidst the rubble incurred during a major school renovation. My nightmare realised. Having coped with that change I'm hoping I'll cope even more easily with a trial separation from teaching. 

I'm interested to find out who I will be if I'm not a teacher.  

GANAG

So hard to sum up the experience of being GANAG-ed. Let's say, initially, after the two day professional development with GANAG guru, Jane Pollock and her incredible below bum length blonde hair, I barely had time to reflect on what I'd been teaching. The hair comment suggests I'm taking the piss. I'm not, but her hair was a presence at the PD. In a fascinating way. (Sorry, Jane, if you ever read this, but you must know everyone was thinking it, if not chatting about it.)

I'd been quite cynical about my school's approach to GANAG. It's non-negotiable; part of our professional review. We are required to implement this teaching and learning methodology. You can read my previous whining here, if you haven't already. But given that I'm a cynic/zealot special combo, I put my hand up for the Jane Pollock PD, about which admin and several subject coordinators were singing the praises. Happily, I got to go.

There's almost too much irrefutable research informing GANAG. As I've written before, the research based text, Classroom Instruction That Works (CITW) 2nd edition, seemed to me to be a bit of a tedious read. How good it was, therefore, to have the information presented in a compelling, highly engaging way by the charming and unwreckable Pollock. I haven't read the first edition of the text yet, but I'm hoping it will be more readable because Pollock was a co-author. And here's a link to the PDF. Read the introduction to that first edition and it will sum up what GANAG is about.

Meanwhile, Pollock's PD training excited me. After the PD I couldn't wait to type up the notes I'd furiously made during each session. Couldn't wait to return to school and deliver lessons that were going to engage and inspire even the most reluctant kids.

That was eight weeks ago. GANAG initially made me work mind-blowingly harder as I tried to implement new systems, some of which have worked. So what's changed?

1.  I rearranged the desks in my room into rows of pairs to facilitate 'pair/share' - see CITW - because it's a 'high yield teaching strategy' which enhances students' learning. Students protested loudly. One year 10 boy almost cried and refused to come out of the corner. The year 11s got into one lesson ahead of me and returned the desks to their previous formation. I re-rearranged them and encouraged the pair/sharing so students, through discussion, could clarify and reinforce their learning.

I persisted for about two weeks before the resulting chaos started to seriously interfere with my chi - the energy force that runs through all living things. Call me anally retentive but I reverted to the previous 'horse-shoe' desk arrangement. Apart from my chi hurting, I was sick of looking at students' backs; found that students' talk was unrelated to my teaching goals; that I'd actually facilitated little gossip hubs and reduced the learning in the classroom. Was wasting time getting students to stop chatting and turn around so they could actually read the learning goal on the board.

Pair/share worked so well during Pollock's PD with a group of enthusiastic teachers. My kids thought it was party time; that their teacher had 'lost it'.

2.  The goal - the initial G of GANAG. At the start of each lesson, the learning goal, derived from the appropriate curriculum standard, is displayed on the white board . Students have been issued goal sheets and have immediately copied the goal and given their initial self-assessment of their effort and understanding.

No, I'm kidding. I write the goal on the board, then I have to distribute the goal sheets so students can copy out the goal. I collect the goal sheets at the end of each lesson because if the sheets leave the class room with the students several students won't bring them back next lesson. (Funny. They never forget their mobile phones.)

At first, when I distributed the sheets many students moaned. But I've persisted with this one and the students did indeed get used to it, as Pollock assured us would be the case. It's been a worthwhile process. Students know what they are supposed to be learning; they make honest judgments about their effort and understanding. Collecting the goal sheets each lesson allows me to quickly gauge students' learning. Yes, there are other ways of assessing this but the goal sheet provides an efficient record for me and the kids.

3. A is for accessing prior knowledge. This is the part where I begin the lesson by projecting a visual onto the front screen and writing a question next to it. For example, we'd been studying the text Chew On This. It's about the fast food industry. Prior to the lesson I Googled 'fast food images' and found a photo of an infant facing a huge plate of french fries. How does this relate to what we've been reading? I wrote on the white board.

Students instantly start talking about the image. They connect with their prior learning. Their neurons start making connections. They drop their gossip and tune in.

Have to say, this unfailingly works. Meanwhile, I mark the roll and after a few minutes we're into the lesson.

I thought this 'accessing prior knowledge' would be the most challenging aspect of GANAG for me; that it would increase my already heavy workload. In fact it's easy to find relevant images while I'm reading various media and social media on-line. I use Evernote and Everclip to save articles and images. It only takes a few minutes at the start of the day to set up my 'APKs' -  GANAG-speak - as open tabs on my computer,

As for the final NAG, I may or may not write about that later.

There is heaps more to being an effective teacher than GANAG, of course. However, I'm grateful for having participated in Pollock's GANAG in-service and love it when I learn something new that actually improves my teaching effectiveness.

Content or skills?

Should we teach content or skills?

My first impulse is to opt for skills. Teach the same skills to the students at a particular level. We must do this to make sure they can proceed to the next level and be on track with course requirements and their learning.

Part of the mantra at our school is 'Guaranteed Viable Curriculum'. I agree. We should aim to guarantee the learning. But I disagree with its interpretation at ours. And I suppose at many secondary schools. (It was on my list of reasons to leave the last private school at which I taught.) Guaranteed Viable Curriculum has been interpreted, in my words, as everyone lift your left bum cheek and fart at the same time. Crude and basic, I know, but not an inappropriate analogy.

It's about 'auditing' the curriculum - like accountants, no less - on a 'Scope and Sequence' grid. Thanks for that one assessment authorities. I can't even bear to hear certain people say it aloud with its Gollum-like sibilance.

Auditing is about filling in boxes on the Scope and Sequence grid, treating each AusVels outcome as a discrete entity then signing off, assuring 'prin class' that all elements of AusVels are accounted for.

Thus, every teacher at every level provides the same teaching materials in the same weeks as every other teacher, preferably on the same days. Thus, we are organised. And I've just remembered a few lines from Blake. He used the word 'charter'd' and was talking about something else, I suppose. But here it is, powered by Safari:

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. 

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

Certainly fits my mood in regard to our Guaranteed Viable Curriculum. 

Look, I totally get it. I'd say most teachers prefer this method of curriculum design. There's safety in numbers. And sharing; collegiality. Nothing wrong with that. It also works for those who like to be given a sheaf of materials - digital or otherwise - to deliver to their students - especially if they haven't read the book. (I kid you not.) Working on a 'team' designing such curriculum materials is mandated at our school. Means another hour meeting every week, of course. In an ideal situation, with abundant time that wouldn't be bad. Seems to me, though, that the only way to accommodate all these meetings is to continue working on one's own time. Which most of us do.

And therein lies the rub. The GVC is designed, amongst other reasons, to foil those teachers who err on the slack side in class. If they can be forced to attend meetings, forced to write each teaching unit according to a specific framework, forced to write their Learning Objectives on the whiteboard, forced to deliver uniform teaching materials to their students and forced to assess their students on a common rubric, then they will be better teachers.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. They continue along their way while others work even harder to meet the accountability requirements at their schools.

Meanwhile, creativity and spontaneity is stifled. Well, mine, anyway.

I actually like a couple of common texts to be taught at each year level in middle school. Wide reading, of course. Then I prefer to research widely to find appropriate curriculum material; content that inspires me so I'll be inspirational and fresh when I teach my students. As long as I'm teaching the same skills as my colleagues, what does it matter if I use different content? 

Fraud or maverick? Whatever. It's hard work.

My hope is that by thinking out loud I can stop worrying about it and get on with my job.

So content or skills? On reflection, special combo.

Comments?

Teaching Freedom Writers to Year 9s

Dear Diary

I’ve been teaching the film, Freedom Writers, to my Year 9 English students for a couple of years now. It’s one of those films about a charismatic young English teacher who, against all odds, works miracles with a class full of apparent misfits and delinquents, transforming them into model students. (See also To Sir With Love, Stand And Deliver, Dangerous Minds. The list goes on.)

Freedom Writers, with its action, rap music and sympathetic ‘gangsta’ kids, invariably engages every student. The students in the film are fourteen year olds; Freshmen; the equivalent of our Year 9. (Challenging to find a kid in Room 203 at Wilson High School who actually looks fourteen, but that’s Hollywood.)

And of course, Freedom Writers is a film. Easy. Students see this as a soft option. Oh how they curse me when I pause the film and ask questions about the mise-en-scene.

Freedom Writers is based on The Freedom Writers Diary, by ErinGruwell, the Ms G of the film. (Most of my kids might not be so thrilled if they had to read the actual book although some of them would enjoy it.) In the film, Ms Erin Gruwell, a first year teacher, is assigned to teach the ‘integration’ students: disadvantaged students who’re all together in their English class. No one wants to be lumbered with the class. The kids are seen as hopeless by the school admin. Then along comes Ms Gruwell.

It’s a really inspiring film. I tear up every time this particular boy reads his diary entry to the class. In it he describes his horrific life and how Ms G’s classroom is home. She certainly made a difference to those students.

However, teaching this text can be problematic. Beware if you’re past your prime. Your students are going to compare and you might not measure up.

Erin Gruwell is rendered delightfully by toothy, pretty Hilary Swank. Youthful, coltish vivacious, irrepressible Erin – Hilary Swank - Gruwell. She’s cool and she can really teach. Consider yourself warned.

Another problem I have with this film is its stereotyping. Head of Department, Margaret Campbell, looks to be in her fifties. She’s depicted as a frustrated crone who’s been unable to roll with the changes in her school. She guards class sets of books, not wanting to sacrifice them to Ms Gruwell’s students who she is sure will destroy them. Bitter, vicious and condescending, Campbell tries irrationally to thwart all Gruwell’s efforts.

Ms Campbell makes me sad though. In one scene she berates Erin. “I know what it’s like to be loved by a class of students!” She probably does, given she’s been teaching for thirty years. Whether she’s a composite of a few jaded old teachers or based on a real person, I do feel for her. In the closing credits of the film we find that Erin Gruwell only taught high school for three years before following some of her students to college. Ms Campbell, on the other hand, has endured. She may be afraid to teach ‘integration’ students, with their gang affiliations, but she’s probably been a decent teacher with the right sorts of students. That would be a different film though. In Freedom Writers, Ms Campbell is the archetypal harridan who shouldn’t be inflicted on any students.

There’s another thing I'm sceptical about in the film: the way those supposedly educationally delayed students take to reading and writing. I, too, have bought books for my students, sometimes out of my own money. I devote hours to matching kids to books to try to get them reading. I'm ecstatic when a student finally reads an entire book. It does happen occasionally. More often, I struggle to get most students to read anything beyond the classroom. So when I see Ms Gruwell’s students reading on buses, in locker bays, in squats, I'm cynical. Perhaps it’s different in the US.

I'm currently reading The Freedom Writers Diary and it’s incredibly articulate. Must have been some heavy-handed editorial assistance happening.

Perhaps it’s the Hollywood effect that allowed Ms Gruwell to have total success with all her students. I've witnessed some of our kids behaving badly on a visit to Melbourne’s Holocaust Museum. Have also had bored year 11 students moaning through Schindler’s List, complaining because there wasn't enough action in it.

Ah, enough of being Ms Campbell. I love teaching this film and I love the way all students respond to it, even those kids who don’t do a lick of learning. Freedom Writers may be Hollywood Over The Top but it’s so worthy. You'll find heaps of ready made teaching resources on line and your kids will love it.

Lazy teaching?

I'm mixing it up in the classroom. Again. 

I'm trying to make my Year 9 English classroom less teacher-centred as students develop and 'deepen' their understanding of the plot, characters and themes in their class novel, Phillip Gwynne's Deadly Unna?. I'm also supposedly being a 'lazy teacher', re-inspired as I am by The Lazy Teacher's Handbook, which I recommend, by the way. 

I'm employing  "a series of strategies that put the responsibility of learning directly and consistently onto the students... they learn to engage with their own learning, and not just in what they have learned but in how they learned it." That's from the introduction to The Lazy Teacher's Handbook. Hey, baby! Yeah! High five! Students taking ownership of their learning. That will look impressive on my Professional Learning Plan. I can write up my Understanding By Design unit plan and cite the relevant Australian Curriculum learning outcomes.  (All that onerous (unnecessary) extra paperwork is about accountability, after all.)

I've 'scaffolded' my students' learning; given clear instructions, a rubric, even. I've set clear expectations for the learning and behaviour. They've done their 'think, pair, square' and now they have to 'share'. The Lazy Teacher's Handbook, again. After they've completed their group work, students will present their findings to the group using ICT and presentation software. Don’t I sound competent? 

This, however, is what 'learning' sounded  like at about 2.45 yesterday arvo. Bedlam. Screaming. Shouting. Bursts of maniacal laughter, occasionally my own,  

'Learning', group work, looked like chaos. Scrunched up paper flew across my peripheral vision. It seemed to be snowing litter. Suddenly a pen skimmed across the asphalt outside my classroom door, closely followed by one of my students who'd darted out to retrieve it. Sorry, miss, she said upon re-entry.  

I circumnavigated the room again, swooping on groups. Interfering but trying not to because it seemed I was dominating again. At my approach, some students vaguely pretended to be on task, frowning at their computers, tapping a few keys, twisting their screens towards me so I could see a bit of allegedly legit 'work'. So what are we supposed to be doing again? asked a bright student. And this is their second session working in their groups.

I worry that no one is learning. I worry that students will see this as bludging. I worry that the principal will walk in and judge me.  I worry that the acrid smell in the room is me. I sneak a surreptitious sniff of my armpit. It's not. Hurrah. God knows I've worked up a sweat pacing around the room trying to look and feel in control.  

Five minutes before the bell I gathered the troops and assumed the position, barring the door.  I blew my whistle - now there's a useful teaching tool and not just in phys ed classes. "No one is leaving until the desks are straightened, the rubbish is off the floor and chairs are on tables." i bellowed. They complied and the natural order of my teaching world was somewhat restored, or so I told myself.

The positives? The students seem happy. They're not fighting me. They're not complaining of boredom, which many do if one reads sections of text aloud to the entire class. I'd like to think that they are working at their own level. Their presentations will demonstrate that, I expect. I've been able to 'differentiate' the learning and monitor individual students much more effectively that I can in a teacher-centred classroom. 

Lazy teacher? Not so much. And I'm still reaching for the wine bottle as soon as I get home.

Padlet in Year 10 English

The plan. Utilise Padlet - the web tool formerly known as Wallwisher - to engage year 10 students in a meaningful discussion about youth justice. Basically, with Padlet, you can create a 'wall' upon which you can post things.

At the end of the lesson, the teacher and her students will have created a number of discussion 'walls'. Students will have participated in on-line discussions on the causes of, and possible solutions to, youth homelessness. They will have shared their own opinions, as well as considering, and responding to, a variety of views from their fellow students.

Prior to the lesson, I'd played around on Padlet so I'd be confident with the tool. In class, we'd also discussed various issues concerning youth justice and had just watched the harrowing Oasis documentary. I'd prepared a few questions to promote discussion. (By the way, if you haven't yet seen it, the Oasis documentary is essential viewing.)

As a background to all this, I've done some school based professional development using Padlet. This involved participating in an educational on-line discussion with my school colleagues. We pasted a particular URL into our browsers then responded to a question. The 'wall' quickly filled with thoughtful, earnest remarks. It was the first day of the new year and the principal who facilitated looked pleased with the outcome. I think he mentioned something about aiming to be a paperless school somewhere down the track.

You see, we're in the 'one to one' age now. Every student from years 9 to 12 has been given, gratis, courtesy of the federal government, a netbook computer. What's more, we've been urged to use these computers, especially since the school is expecting years 7 and 8 students to buy their own. We don't want the older students telling the younger ones that the computers aren't being used, do we? That wasn't a question. It was a directive from an AP. Parents Will Complain.

So what happened in my classes today?

First, I had to send several students back to their lockers to get their computers. The government may have funded these computers to make our students the smartest in the world - whatever - but that doesn't mean the kids are going to charge them up overnight, or even bring them to school. (It's a discipline thing and we're working on it.)

Second, I recapped our previous lesson about youth homelessness to remind students of the gravity of the issue.

I gave them the URL for our first 'wall' and made a couple of rules. No anonymous comments. No profanity.

As if. (My favourite phrase.)

The wall was instantly and hilariously covered in totally inappropriate, often misspelled, sexually explicit posts. Students quickly discovered that they could also take photos of themselves and other students and tag them.

In nano-seconds I had a wall plastered in posts that had the students in hysterics. The comments were posted faster than I could delete them - it was my wall so I had some editing control for all the good that did me.

I suppose at least they were all engaged in the activity.

Seriously, I'd like to know what really happens in other teachers' classes when they do these activities.You know, teachers who work, like me, in western suburbs state secondary schools. During the PD session, this activity was presented as a highly effective teaching and learning tool and of course I can see its potential. But if kids can write anonymous comments - and get away with it because it's impossible to monitor - how does this occur?

Will it get better if I persist, once the novelty wears off?

Help.

Seriously, comment below. I really want to know.