Ryan's Writes #4: Step away from the scaffolding

Today I witnessed something happen in my classroom. All of the dull days of just rote reading, struggling to get through the key ideas, answering questions that nobody wanted to talk about gave way to a phenomenon of understanding and engagement. My students' assignment was to conduce a "reader's" theater and then discuss the key facets of the story "Harrison Bergeron" in groups. What I saw was a class filled with energy and enthusiasm for learning. The reading was done with passion and the discussions were very engaging, and my mentor teacher just sat back and watched as the whole scene unfolded.

How did this happen? For weeks it seems that my mentor teacher has been planning and preparing for this very outcome. I just didn't see it until I finally stepped away. The technique of "scaffolding" is the practice of making sure all the basic techniques and content knowledge has been taught so that students may engage in higher order thinking and learning. For students to have engaged in the discussions that I was hearing today, it was necessary to understand the unfamiliar vocabulary, read the story thoroughly, and come prepared with some ideas or notions about the themes prior to the discussion. All this was achieved through weeks of scaffolding, the boring and tedious stuff that I felt was dragging on and unnecessary. However, if this did not occur, then the scene today would have looked more like the teacher leading a bunch of clueless students into a discussion with him/herself. They would have done no work or thinking for themselves because they were not properly prepared for it. I wonder if any of the students see the method to a teacher's madness. After all, if you are the one scaling the scaffolding, how could you possibly see all the rungs and ladders that have brought you to where you currently are.

Ryan's Writes #3: Assess the Situation

Today we watched this in class. Can you guess what the topic of discussion was? ASSESSMENT!
Dear Lord I never appreciated my statistics AP class more than I do now.

Testing students is part of the profession. Sometimes, we do so much, I don't know why they don't call us "testers" instead of "teachers". Maybe "dementors" is more appropriate for what we do to these kids. Then again, when we try to herd cattle and get them all going in the same direction, I'm sure some coercive tactics are necessary. Testing is necessary to evaluate all students on the same standards and hold teachers accountable for what is taught in the class.

There are two major types of tests: Summative Assessments and Formative Assessments.

Summative Assessments are typically high-stakes, meaning that there is lots at risk depending on the result of this test. This type of test could be a major portion of the grade, a state mandated test for all students, or even a test to determine their fitness for graduation. This is because a summative assessment is a comprehensive examination of what the student has learned and/or failed to learn. This is the final exam, the proficiency, the standardized test.

Formative Assessments, on the other hand, are much less extreme. These tests are smaller and typically more informal, more with the purpose to inform the teacher where the students are in relation to the lesson. Are they keeping up? What do they understand or what are they not getting at this point? Is my strategy working? Formative assessments occur to give the teacher real time information about student performance. It does not account for much of a student's grade or graduation, but plays a crucial role for an educator's lesson plan. These assessments happen quite frequently and can take the from of a simple cold call question in class, exit ticket questionnaires, pop quizzes, etc.

The Summative assessment in question is a standardized test. Governments have become more hands on with our students learning since No Child Left Behind and (long story short) schools must have students pass a standardized test and be ranked. I don't know if lower performing schools get less government money or whatever, but if I were an administrator I would be scared. There are so many arguments for and against standardized testing that to begin now at 1am ( I can't get out of this late night writing funk) would mean I wouldn't sleep...and I like sleep.

The video made some points I would like to hit on though...

"Maybe more emphasis should be put on the learning process and less on the testing process"
  Right now, testing is regulated. There are standards a student has to meet and that's the bottom line. The teacher is free to choose whatever method they can to get them to that standard. What this message seems to me is that the government should focus more on controlling what is being taught in the class and how it is being taught. The Common Core standards seems like the response to this, as teachers around the nation are falling into the same mold. As with this concept, there is more debate and arguments. Why should the government control what goes on in my classroom, especially considering the fact that each child learns differently and behaves uniquely?

"Life will slap these kids in the face. They aren't prepared to take it."
This is a comment one of my colleagues made....paraphrased as best as possible. I chuckled to myself in class because the only response I could think of was "let's start slapping them in high school so they can be ready then. Oh? They don't like that? I could get fired....well, damn."

The debate rages on and I can't say I have a firm understanding or stance on it yet. I have yet to read the book The Teacher Wars, but maybe it will shed some light on teaching as a profession and our current battle with standardized testing.

Also, I went ahead and read some of the video comments. I had to stop. If you are going to post publicly, at least make an effort to fix your grammar. It's a pet peeve of mine now because I am going to be an educator, but I think that it just makes you look uneducated. We live in a fast paced world where time is money, but it doesn't take too long to "cross your t's and dot your i's" as Mrs. Czerniecki would say. If you aren't going to check your argument to see if it is sound or could use more support, at least fix your typos before you hit submit so you can at least look like you tried posting meaningful content instead of merely adding to the flame.

Ryan's Writes #2: Bruised but building stamina

I sat in the classroom today reading my novel for homework - Earnest Hemingway's "In Our Time". I was quite enraptured by the short stories so I was slightly irritated whenever my mentor teacher decided to give me input about the class or her teaching strategy...you know, the stuff I'm supposed to be listening to. In those brief moments when I was able to pull myself out of the little worlds I was reading about, I noticed the students struggling to focus on the page. I chuckled to myself thinking "these kids are so weak they can't finish a 3-page short story". Students were tasked with reading "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut and answering the Key Idea prompts in the margins of their SpringBoard workbooks. I read the story quickly to get a gist of the assignment and was frustrated that many students failed to make headway at all in reading much less providing intelligent responses to the prompts. I sighed to myself as I watched the teacher pass out the results of the "Discovery Education" assessment they took last week, most of which carried the "below standard" result for the student. "These kids just don't have the stamina to read"

Fast forward to later that afternoon. I just get home from tutoring. I want to play Destiny so bad. I start reading the final chapters of "In Our Time". Can't focus. Keep getting distracted by brothers watching RWBY. I find myself having to reread pages because all I've done is scan them with my eyes and not my brain. I'm falling asleep. I choose to play Destiny for a while...

Now it's almost 1am. I'm supposed to have read Stephen King's "On Writing" and have a report on it by 1pm tomorrow. My progress is laughable. Instead, I've watched an episode of Naruto and caught up on my webcomics. I'm reminded of my students whom I have criticized for not being able to hold their attention on an assignment. How can I teach them if I can't control myself. If anything, I should be able to at least model the way for them. BS'ing last minute is not the way any professional should be.

At the very least, I have completed day two of my challenge. Cheers!

Ryan's Writes #1: Start Bleeding

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed" - Ernest Hemingway

This is day one. I just have to write. That is all. Every night before I sleep. Or maybe every morning when I wake. Walking on my phone to class, absentmindedly tapping the screen until something makes sense.

A published author said that he would dress up as if going to work, and hit the space bar hundreds of times before he was hit with the motivation to write.

Stephen King holed himself up in a corner of the room to write. "Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." I haven't finished the book yet, but I intend to before it's due...36 hours from now. Maybe then, I'll get what that means.

I am addicted to laziness. I'll admit that. Writing is hard because it requires mental strength and stamina. I lack severely in the physical department of strength and stamina, sure. But mentally, damn am I out of it. I have trouble focusing on any one thing for any period of time. Damn buzzfeed and all those FB clickholes. Lists for everything, no longer than a paragraph. Short status updates. Short sentences. Damn.

I go to my school of observation twice a week, and more often then not, I hear the same thing from my mentor teacher. "These kids don't have the stamina required to read, much less study." They don't, and I sympathize with them. I know that it is difficult to do something you don't want to do. Hell, I've been putting off graduation for many years now. But....it has to be done, and the only way that you can really do it, really achieve, is if you push yourself to do it. Look, kids, in order for you to be better readers, you have to read. Just like if I want to be a better writer, I better damn write.

I've heard the same lesson over and over again, and it's about time that I just do it. I've told myself this over and over again, but I just need to do it. I've started this writing project over and over again, so I just need to do it until it is done.

This is day one. I am bleeding. It is raining in my desert tonight, but after the rain is gone, my blood will wet the sand for forty days. This is my challenge.