Teachers Who Make a Difference

I've just completed my first ever Book Tour which included four states, six television interviews, a radio interview, and three book signings. But after all of that excitement, I was inspired when I checked my email after my trip. At the end of my book, Finding Mrs. Warnecke, I ask for readers to write me and tell me about their own "Mrs. Warnecke," the teacher who made a difference. I returned from my trip to hear from Susan, a teacher in the Virgin Islands:

Hey Cindi,

I tore through your book lent to me by my boss, Edney Freeman, Virgin Islands Teacher of the Year, and enjoyed it thoroughly. My Mrs. Warnecke was a teaching nun, Sister Mary Remy Revor, who I didn't encounter until I was 30 years old. She taught fabric arts at Arrowmont School of the Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and in two weeks was able to undo all the negative messages I had received over the years about what art is supposed to be. "Never use pink and yellow together," was the rule according to my elementary school art teacher. The unspoken lesson in college was that men are the artists and women are the models. I dropped out of college after three years because I couldn't see the point.

Sister Remy taught me to take pride in my own work and to believe in myself. She shared everything she knew, no holding back secret tricks. With that positive experience under my belt, I continued taking art classes during the summer and eventually returned to college where I earned BFA Honors, was accepted into the MFA program as a teaching assistant (they paid me!) and started teaching high school art. Certification courses led to an MAE, but all the pedagogy in the world pales in comparison to the example set by Sister Remy. This is what I bring to my students.

Susan Edwards
Charlotte Amalie High School
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

(Thank you, Mrs. Warnecke and Sister Mary Remy Revor!)

The Forgotten Middle

Once I was told I had to attend a workshop on reading instruction. Having just earned my master's degree in K-12 literacy, I was looking forward to the opportunity. Soon the text for the training arrived, and it was subtitled "Strategies for K-5 Reading," and somehow I knew - this would not the best workshop for a middle school teacher.

It happens time and time again. Middle school teachers continue to attend trainings that are geared toward elementary readers. I sat through another one today...learning about cute little phonics activities that aren't appropriate for eighth graders. Interestingly, the International Reading Association lists Adolescent Readers as a "very hot" topic. So why can't we go to a conference and find more than one "very hot" breakout session?

Today I returned home from the conference to find an interesting brochure in my mailbox; I saw the title "Units of Study for Teaching Reading." Then I saw the subtitle: "A Curriculum for the Reading Workshop: Grades 3-5." Ahhh. Again.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to look at the President's blueprint for the reauthorization of ESEA - aka NCLB. I have been looking forward to a new version of this legislation, a version that wouldn't be punitive to the hard-working teachers of this country. What I wasn't looking forward to is that during the discussion of preparing students for college and beyond ("all students graduate high school on time prepared for at least one year of post-secondary") middle school students are lumped together with high school students in a group called "Secondary 6-12."

I'd like to offer that a sixth grader and a twelfth grader have drastically different needs when it comes to graduation preparation and college readiness. A sixth grader is more concerned with remembering a locker combination than remembering to complete a college application. And although we are certainly focusing on the "pre" part of "preparing" our students for college, our focus is more on the organizational and study skills needed to master the rigorous coursework that will enable kids to be competitive when it comes to college acceptance in the future.

So for that reason I'd like to ask for the middle school to have its own category: "Middle School 6-8" so that we can focus on what needs to be done during those all important years, those three years when children change the most - from loving, sweet elementary children...to independent, thriving adolescents excited about high school. Add to my list of requests some breakout sessions at a reading conference that relate to adolescent readers.

It's a hot topic to the International Reading Association...but only lukewarm to the rest of the world.

Shades of Teaching

I first heard the word "hybrid" in biology class in tenth grade. For some reason, there is a pea in my memory that has two different hues of green. But have I ever heard of a "hybrid pea"? Maybe hybrid corn? And more recently...hybrid car?

But as an educator I never thought about a hybrid position, until this year, when I was assigned to do two jobs at once. Back to that later...

The Metlife Survey of the American Teacher: Collaborating for Student Success has released the third part, "Teaching as a Career." In it, more than half of the teachers (56%) surveyed and half of the principals (49%) report that teachers in their schools combine part-time classroom teaching with other roles in their school or district and four in ten teachers say they are interested in such a position. Hybrid teaching roles are particularly appealing to new teachers (46%) and those who are less than satisfied with their current careers (42%).

I have been a strong advocate for looking at schools differently. We need to think about scheduling, grading, and school calendars in a way that doesn't replicate the past one hundred years of public school. In the same way, we need to look at teaching in ways that capitalize on the strengths of our educators without overburdening them with too many duties. Here are my thoughts on hybrid positions in education:

On the positive side, any job in education, from the school custodian to the superintendent, would be more meaningful if part of the day is spent with kids. Plain and simple. They're the reason we're all there, and they make it worth the long hours. Spending time in a classroom of students also is the best way to maintain credibility with other educators. How many times have we heard teachers say that Central Office staff members don't "get it" because they aren't in a classroom? In addition to credibility, being in a classroom also is important so that the educator's views are authentic and not based on what they remember about teaching or hear from colleagues.

At the same time, hybrid roles can be difficult. Take mine, for example. I am currently the Literacy Coach for my school and the Beginning Teacher Mentor for my district. Suffice it to say that my two 50% jobs are really two 100% (or more) jobs and that I feel that neither the teachers I should be coaching nor the teachers I should be mentoring are being served as they should. Luckily, my administrators are eager to look at ways to make my "jobs" more doable next year.

A common mistake I see when hybrid roles are developed occurs when teachers are pulled to do administrative/Central Office-type jobs but are paid teacher salaries. I have seen numerous "teacher-on-loan" style positions where the work is overwhelming, but the pay isn't higher. Educators must be compensated for the work they do as professionals, and school districts need to resist the urge to get "cheap help" from teachers they can pull from classrooms.

As for my job... it's true, my roles do utilize two of my passions - literacy and beginning teacher support; so in that way, it's perfect for me. That's what we should focus on when it comes to hybrid positions: begin by looking at educator strengths....then continue by planning a schedule that's feasible and capitalizes on what's best for kids. And the finishing touch is a salary that's commensurate with the work.

It should be like that pea - different shades...but still a pea.

Realizing Dreams

My Daddy was a hard working man. He was also brilliant when it came to ideas that required common sense. (My mother always said he could hold an entire Chevrolet engine together with electrical tape.) He was no academian, though, and was actually a junior high school dropout. I remember every year I would take home the Student Data Sheet that my mother would complete on the first day of school. It always had a category for "highest education of parents." My mother would check "associate's degree" for herself and whatever random school year she would decide on for my Daddy. Sometimes she'd check 11th grade, sometimes another one, but she knew better than to check the box beside "high school graduate."

It wasn't until one of Daddy's many hospital stays on the cancer floor of Duke University Medical Center that we finally learned the truth. The nurse methodically asked each question on the patient intake form, and when she got to "highest level of education," my very sick father answered, "Seventh."

Had I not been so concerned over his health and totally committed to his care, I may have fallen out the door of that extremely small hospital room. Seventh grade. The very ages of the students I was teaching that year! I imagined my students, any one of them, being on their own at that moment. It was beyond imagination.

I've heard romanticized stories of my Daddy having to drop out of school to help support the family (not unheard of back in the 1940's), riding on the back of a milk truck, delivering milk to rural North Carolina. However, truth be told, I bet my Daddy left that junior high hooping and hollering, happy to be away from the requirements of school work.

I have more than one memory of Daddy handing me the newspaper and asking me a word or two. I tell my reading students about him, about how he worked hard to compensate for what he didn't have in book smarts, and how surprised I am that I grew up loving to read and write.

But I didn't grow up with an extensive vocabulary or skill in writing technique - I've tried to pick up a few things along the way to my master's degree. That's why today, when my book hit the shelf at Barnes and Noble, it was a special type of dream come true.

From my first essay (on the Vietnam War) that won an honorable mention when I was, myself, in seventh grade...to the personal writing I share with my students, including lamentations over my father's death...to this blog, I have always loved to write as a way to express my feelings...but I'm no J.K. Rowling. What I do is write what I know, stories about my students, my family, and me...topics that don't require too much imagination because I lived them.

So it'll definitely be a dream come true when I see my book on that shelf. It's a long way from that seventh grade essay...

Teacher Collaboration Past to Present...

Teacher voice. We've been complaining about the lack of it for so long: I just spent a year traveling the country to speak on behalf of teachers, and there were many times when I felt that my message fell on deaf ears, that I was merely the "token teacher" in the room. However, I'm encouraged today at the release of the results of the Metlife Survey of the American Teacher. This year's title is Collaboration for Student Success, and like the North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey in my state, the Metlife Survey provides feedback on what's going on in schools so that all stakeholders, and policymakers, can gain a better understanding of what we, as educators, experience every day.

Last night I had the opportunity to speak to a room full of future school principals on the topic of beginning teacher support. Not suprisingly, the subject of this year's survey was at the top of my list of how to support beginning teachers: foster an atmosphere of collaboration. The first part of the Collaboration for Student Success survey is entitled "Effective Teaching and Leadership," and one point we discussed as a group last night comes up again: "While we are meeting with other teachers, we aren't observing other teachers." Less than 1/3 of the teachers who responded to the survey indicated that the practice of observing other teachers occurs at their schools.

I told the group about an opportunity I had once to cover a classroom for a beginning teacher so that she could observe her mentor. All agreed that this is a good practice. But I ventured on into the conversation to say that not only should beginning teachers be observing others, the rest of us could learn a little something from the practice as well. Not only could we pick up management tips and ideas for what works with certain students (students we may teach as well), we could also be more informed about what others are teaching so that we can plan collaboratively.

Oh, there's that word...the one in the title of the survey..."increased collaboration."

Last night I shared the story of my first year teaching - 1979 - and how in that high school every classroom door was closed. Every teacher taught in isolation - there was no sharing of plans or resources, no discussions of student needs, no back and forth on what was working or wasn't. I spent my days talking only with children and found little avenues for getting any better at what I was doing.

As the years went by, those doors opened a little, but for the majority of my career there was still a mentality in the hallways and common areas of "I'm only going to address my own students, the ones I know, and leave the others to the teachers who teach them."

But now, according to the Survey of the American Teacher, 67% of the educators who completed the survey believe that increased collaboration has a direct effect on student success. And 80% strongly agree that teachers share responsibility for achievement of all students. We're in this together, folks, and I'm delighted to see that a majority of those questioned agree.

And although in many schools, there's still some "door closing" and collaborative planning is not a seamless part of the day, we have come so far in our understanding of purposeful instruction. My school has 1 1/2 hours of common grade-level planning daily and fully equipped team rooms for meetings (fully equipped = tables, chairs, and internet access...there are also bathrooms and a functional stove, but we don't seem to fit "cooking" in to the planning meetings).

At my school, collaboration is such a part of the culture that I see discussions about instruction everywhere - the halls, the cafeteria, the car rider line - and just last summer, while my entire faculty attended a graveside funeral, the math teacher I was talking to after the service excused herself on the lawn of the cemetery: "I have to plan a math lesson," she said as she walked across the grass to meet with her grade-level teaching partner.

I looked at my principal and said, "We're having PLC meetings in a cemetery...in the summer...when school's out."

I know this type of collaboration is the exception and not the rule, but I can tell you that it works, it's the best for students, and it fosters an atmosphere of family in a school.

The Metlife Survey of the American Teacher can tell you that, too.

Super Teachers!

The Super Bowl is on - a huge event that's being broadcast all over the world. Last weekend I attended the Pro Bowl, another exciting football game where professional athletes were celebrated and honored.

I watched them on the practice field and during the game, paparazzi flashing, and tried to picture them all as seventh graders, the ages of my students. I thought about them before they became football heroes, before they earned million dollar salaries and bought million dollar houses. I thought of them as middle school football players, dragging their practice clothes around school in bags, like my students do, working hard to balance practices and school assignments (and sometimes not making that work at all.)

And then I thought of their teachers. They all had them. Julius Peppers, for example, a defensive end for the Carolina Panthers, made 18 million dollars last year. But once he was sitting in classrooms in smalltown Bailey, N.C. He probably had an elementary school art teacher, a middle school algebra teacher, and maybe a high school chemistry teacher. Kurt Warner, retired quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, once looked shy at a school dance in Iowa, a middle school kid from an abusive family who beat the odds and made it big. He surely had a teacher, or several, who encouraged him to pursue his dreams, who pushed him to greatness.

It was at the Pro Bowl last week that I looked at all of those heroes on the field and thought of my own students. Who are the future professional athletes, scientists, soldiers, and even teachers sitting in my classroom every day? What words can I say that will make a difference in the direction their lives take?

It's a tremendous responsibility we have, as teachers, to say and do what needs to be done to ensure that our students go on to greatness.

My hope is that I say it tomorrow...and do it the next day...and say it again the next...what an amazing honor...

Is Technology the Most Efficient Way?

My husband just bought a new truck. He's really proud of all the bells and whistles. There are read-outs to tell him how much gas he has left, what the oil is up to, and which way he's going. I told him that while all the technology in automobiles today is impressive, gone are the days your Uncle Floyd can walk over with a screwdriver and fix your car in your own driveway. Technology like this requires a more sophisticated means of repair. My mother used to say that Daddy could hold an entire car engine in place with electrical tape. That wouldn't work now.

Last week I visited a school that had more technology than I've ever seen. Recipients of a grant, the teachers all had document cameras (that looked like reading lamps) in their classrooms. There were interactive white boards and hand-held touch devices meant to make learning fun. I observed as students plugged headsets into the devices and watched and listened to podcasts about World War II.

I wondered who loaded all of those little movies onto the devices. And I thought that it would have been just as easy, and a great deal faster, for the class to watch the movie on the whiteboard...just pull it up on the computer and project it. There would be no need to take the time required to load the movies, pass out headsets, and wait for individual students to finish the same movie. A teacher could even pause the clip at different intervals and elicit classroom discussion.

I don't know - call me a fuddy-duddy, but as impressive as technology is...is it always the best means of instruction? I saw 30 kids sit like zombies and watch their own personal movies. Sure, there was no misbehaving and no talking. But the room was dark and the students (and this observer) seemed sleepy.

And what about the three hours it took me to develop a compelling PowerPoint lesson on writing a couple of years ago? I kept thinking that I could've written the same information on the board in about five minutes.

So I have to ask, is the use of technology, with all its bells and whistles, always the best way ?