On Tough Days

There are some days that leave you wondering if you have enough reserves to do your job.  They aren’t the crises that make the news, but they touch us deeply enough that we are still deeply shaken.  They are the days we have to call child protection because we learn a student has been horribly abused.  It is on the days when a student threatens us and we fear for our safety.  It is when a student attempts or maybe succeeds at suicide.  We may become aware of the self-abuse of a student who is cutting.  Or the more subtle abuse of parental neglect.

Schools all have crisis plans, usually for everything from school closings due to bad weather, to school intruders, to the death of a student.  Some of the crisis responses are pretty straight-forward.  If you live in a northern climate and you have steps to follow in the event of a significant snowfall, you follow procedure.  If there is a fire and you need to evacuate the building, you do so.  When it comes to emergencies involving people, however, the variables increase and it gets harder to plan for every possible contingency.  It’s more important for staff to know general protocols, who is responsible for what, when to contact emergency responders, and how.  People need to be able to think on their feet and not be afraid to act.

When a teacher or administrator is dealing with the well-being of a student, in instances of abuse or neglect, in instances of attempted or completed suicide, the average school employee is woefully under-trained.  For all the drug and alcohol prevention teaching we provide our students, these do not even make the top five causes of teen death.  Motor vehicle accidents takes the number one spot, accounting for 73% of all teen deaths, followed by homicide (13%), suicide (11%), cancer (6%) and heart disease (3%) according to 2010 figures released by the CDC.   One online resource that has good information is http://www.sprc.org/sites/sprc.org/files/Teachers.pdf

When an administrator has to tell staff about a student death,  consider the following:

• What information is the family willing to let you share?
• Is the local police department or a counselor available to talk to the staff?
• Allow a few moments for the news to sink in before continuing with additional information.
• Have a plan ready as to how staff and parents will be told and what they will be told.  Understand that some parents will consider it their prerogative as to what to tell their child.
• If possible, have counselors available for students and staff to talk to.
• Talk to staff about how to manage their own feelings while assisting students.
• If the death was a suicide, avoid vigils or activities that glorify the suicide in the eyes of their peers so as to avoid copy-cat reactions.
• Be clear who will talk to the media, what will be said when answering phones, and what staff can and cannot say with respect to student data privacy.
• Understand that emotions will continue to surface for some time to come, especially at milestone events such as holidays, graduations, etc.

When an educator becomes involved in an abuse-reporting/support situation, consider the following:

• In most instances it is not up to the school employee to determine if abuse occurred, it is up to the employee to report the abuse and let the professional (usually the county or state social worker) make the determination.
• Report what was observed, not what was surmised (e.g. the student had three bruises on his back, not I think his dad is beating him).
• Document, document, document.  You never know when your information may become part of a court hearing.
• Maintain student data privacy, sharing the information only with the appropriate persons.

In all instances, make sure you are getting the emotional support you need.  All good educators make emotional investments in the children they work with.  They need to be able to process, step back, and ask for support when the going gets tough.  It’s a sign of strength to do so,  It’s what allows them to keep going so they can be there for the kids who need them.

Core Documents

Does your district have a mission statement?  A vision statement?  Core values?  Norms?  A strategic plan?  If you do, does everyone know them?  Are they posted conspicuously?  Are they used as decision-making tools?  Are they revisited regularly and updated as needed?  These are core documents that every district should have, documents that should be in alignment with each other, and should be used to set priorities and move the schools and district forward.

A mission statement should be a tightly worded statement of purpose that identifies the school's key stakeholders and reason for existing and, if appropriate, what sets you apart from other schools.

A vision statement one sentence (not more than a short paragraph) that communicates what you want to accomplish.

Core Values are the attributes (in either the students, staff, parents, or any combination thereof) the district will recognize, encourage, and actively grow.

Norms are the conditions under which employees (or board or any subset) agree they will conduct business.

A strategic plan is the process of defining the organization, the direction the organization will move in, and the strategies and resources needed to do so.  It usually involves many stakeholders and is a multi-faceted, multi-year document.

Ideally, these documents are created with a variety of stakeholders – students, teaching staff and administrators, parents, and where appropriate, community members.  The process may be short and relatively straight-forward, or may be complex, involving many meetings, focus groups, sub-committees, and so on.  However, the ultimate goal is to have a set of documents that are aligned and from which the school community can come together for purposes of creating a high-performing school district. 

As ideas, projects, and programs come down the pike (and there are many!) these documents can be used as a marker for evaluating priorities and weighing new programs.  They can be used when differences of opinions arise and things feel “out of alignment”.  They can be used as a references when there are disagreements between staff  so the argument doesn’t get personal.  They can be used to help our students understand these are the values we model and why.

It takes time to create these documents.  It’s hard working through differences of opinion when people come to the table with opposing opinions.  But the end it results include a deeper understanding of others’ needs, new-found collaborations, and puts the district in a position of being proactive instead of reactive.

Coaching vs Evaluations

How many educators have been part of an evaluation process where they plan a most fantastic lesson, meet with an administrator to explain the lesson ahead of time, then the administrator comes in to observe the lesson, and then meets again with the administrator to debrief?  

How many educators have been faced with lessons they know are no longer relevant  by the time the administrator comes in, because of this drawn out three-step process and the informal ongoing assessments teachers do in the meantime that requires they adjust what they had planned?  

How many educators pull out all the stops, add all the bells and whistles to this lesson because they’re being observed and both the teacher and administrator know this isn’t the way the teacher really teaches?

How many educators put the fear of God in their students to behave for that one hour because their “boss” is coming in to watch the lesson?

How many educators put their score or feedback in their drawer or filing cabinet until the next time they’re about to get observed and just go back to the way they usually teach, waiting to incorporate the feedback until they have to plan their next observation?

If this sounds like your school, here are some TIPS that discuss coaching as an alternative to evaluations.  The Uncommon Schools, in Newark, New Jersey have developed a teacher coaching program that is described in the book Leverage Leadership, by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo.  The premise is that all teachers are regularly observed (ideally once a week) by an administrative support person for a short period of time with no advance planning or meeting.  The observation may be planned or not, but the admin support person is looking a real teaching, in real time.

The teacher and admin support person then have a regularly scheduled time to discuss the observations (usually 20-30 minutes) each week and identify teacher-driven areas for professional improvement with bite-sized suggestions from the admin coach that can be implemented in one week’s time.  The three key elements are:

The teacher suggests what he/she would like the coach to watch for….such as “please help me with my transitions” or “I’m struggling with teaching two-digit multiplication” or “I don’t know how to keep Johnny on task.”  Only in rare instances does the coach intervene and tell the teacher what needs work.  Usually the teacher is well aware of areas for improvement, and when it’s teacher-driven, there’s much higher buy-in.

Suggestions are bite-sized, and can be implemented in one week’s time.  If they can’t be implemented in a week, the suggestions aren’t small enough.  And if they aren’t small enough, teachers often feel overwhelmed with everything else they need to do.   A series of many small steps add up to more progress than lots of suggestions all at once.

Positives of this kind of coaching are that teachers feel valued for what they do, and they feel ownership of their own professional growth and development.  One sixteen year veteran commented she learned more as a professional with six months of this kind of coaching than she had in her entire sixteen years!  It also establishes a positive relationship with their administrative support person that extends far beyond the coaching.  For more information read Leverage Leadership or visit http://uncommonschools.org/

Great Games

Good games not only keep students engaged, they stretch their thinking and challenge them to think at higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy....not just recalling information, but creating and synthesizing ideas and information to solve puzzles and strategize wins.  Here are some of my TIPS for favorite games that can easily be purchased, taught, and played.

GUESS WHO
(ages 5-10) Two players face each other with a game board consisting of 24 faces that flip up/down.  Both start with all faces in the up position.  Each person selects a character the opponent must guess by asking questions such as "Does your person have brown hair?"  or "Does your person wear glasses?"  Depending on the answer given, the person flips down the characters who don't match the description, thus eliminating choices until they feel they can guess the answer.  The game teachers students to form good questions, and teaches process of elimination.

LABYRINTH
(ages 7 and up) A game board grid with some stationary tiles and some columns and rows that move.  Players take turns inserting an extra tile in one of the moving rows or columns which pushes out the tile on the other end of the board thus becoming the extra tile for the next player's turn.  Meanwhile, each turn shifts the pathways on which the players can travel to various treasures to be collected.  The game teaches spatial skills and reasoning skills.  Incredibly simple rules and a very complex game!

BATTLESHIP
(ages 8 and up) Students place ships on a 10x10 grid.  Opponents randomly name coordinates on the grid trying to find and then "sink" their opponent's ships.  The game teaches graphing and logical thinking skills.  Can be replicated on graph paper using a simple 10x10  grid.

SCATTERGORIES
(ages 9 and up) This works best in groups of 4-6, although the classroom teacher could roll the master di and manage the timer while several groups play at once.  A multi-faceted di is rolled so one letter of the alphabet is chosen.  Players have cards that list ten things students must list that begin with the letter rolled, in the time allowed by the timer.  Once the timer goes off everyone in the group reads their answers and duplicate answers are crossed off, giving points only for those who have original, non-duplicated answers.  The game encourages vocabulary use, and original thinking.  Once students understand the game, the teacher can create scattergory cards to fit topic of study.

APPLES to APPLES
(ages 10 and up)  Players are dealt 7 red cards each.  Whomever is IT turns up one green card for all to see.  Then each player contributes a red card from his/her hand they feel describes the green card.  The person who is IT then chooses the red card he/she feels best describes the green card.  Builds vocabulary.

BANANAGRAMS
(ages 10 and up)  Players draw 15 tiles and create their own personal crossword puzzle.  Every time a player uses all their tiles, the group is required to draw another tile from the center and keep adding to their personal puzzle until the middle pile is gone.  Then the first person to use all their tiles after the center pool is gone wins the round.  A fast-paced game that helps build build vocabulary and spelling skills.

SNATCH IT
(ages 10 and up)  Players take turns turning over letter tiles in the center until a 3 letter word (or larger) can be formed.  Whoever calls out the word gets the tiles/word.  As more letters are called out, the words are collected.  Or, if you can add a single letter to someone else's word, you can "snatch" their word.  For example, with H-A-T person 1 cam claim the word "hat" but if an M is turned over, person 2 can claim the word "math" and take the tiles.  Then if a C is turned over, person 3 can claim the word "match" and now takes the tiles.  A fast-paced game that helps build build vocabulary and spelling skills.

CARCASSONNE
(ages 10 and up)  Players build roads, castles, and monasteries by playing square tiles and placing pieces on the game board as they go.  Builds spatial concepts and math skills as students keep score.

CHESS
(ages 10 and up)  The traditional classic.  Students at a young age can be taught to play if they are given a cheat sheet on how the pieces move.  Once they have the basic game down, encourage strategic thinking, planning for opponent's moves, and multi-move planning.

CRIBBAGE
(ages 11 and up)  Students work with hands of six cards, discarding two to a "crib" that the dealer will get as a second source of points at the end of each round.  Then each person alternates laying down cards tallying the points to totals of 31, while garnering points for pairs and combinations of fifteen.  Then separately each player tallies points in their own hand for pairs, runs, and combinations of 15.  Strategic thinking required to minimize partner's ability to "peg" points while maximizing one's own points.  Also teaches thinking in patterns.

PANDEMIC
(ages 12 and up)  This is not a short game but well worth it!  If you've never played a cooperative game before, this will be a change.  Players cooperate and strategize to eradicate any of four different disease outbreaks before it's too late.   They are playing against the board, not each other.  Teaches geography skills,-level high strategic thinking, and cooperation.

Teaching By Proxy

There are many articles written about “helicopter parenting” that describe the parent who hovers around their child making sure the child is well-taken care of and has every advantage.  Some articles describe extreme cases that carry into high school or even college such as the mother who tracks down the college president and asks him to make sure her son wears his sweater that day.  After all, it is chilly according to the weather report.

This is not one of those articles.  Instead, it is about what I call “teaching by proxy” or TBP.  These are the parents who are in frequent, or even constant, contact about how the classroom should be run, how lessons should be taught, and how homework should be assigned.

This is about the parent who contacts you because she feels your seating arrangement is not conducive to an orderly learning environment.  Or the parent who starts an online discussion comparing the bulletin boards and classroom decorations the teachers in a particular grade level have (or don’t have).  Then there is the parent who informs you that you can’t assign homework on a particular night due to sports schedules, religion classes, scouts, or other commitments.  There is also the parent who is never satisfied with their child’s special ed learning plan and instead of signing off on it, keeps sending back revision after revision after revision.  Or the parent who emails daily about what their child (and maybe even others’ children) reported and has suggestions on what you can do about it.

What do you do about it, especially when your school has a policy of responding to parent emails and phone calls within a defined period of time?  What do you do about it when you truly care about the student but the parent is driving you crazy?  What do you when you have a TBP parent , need to set some boundaries, and need a tactful but firm way to do it?  Here are some TIPS you may find helpful:

• Respond with, “Thank you for letting me know.”  Repeatedly, if necessary.  In many instances, you do not need to promise a particular course of action, but you can be polite in thanking them for letting you know, then move on to another topic, or let them know if there’s nothing else, you need to go.

• Set time limits if you are going to be meeting with the parent.  Tell them, “I have 20 minutes, but then I have another meeting to get to.”  Or have a colleague come rescue you at the end of the 20 minutes.

• Set boundaries.  “I cannot talk about other students.  Did you have a question about your own child?”

•  Set parameters for the frequency of communication.  Tell the parent to jot down anything they want to discuss with you and put it in an email that they send to you only on Fridays.  You’ll read over the weekend and get back to them.  Or whatever dates work best for you.  The point is you are corralling their communication to once a week, and in doing so the parent often sees that what was worrying them on Monday no longer matters by Friday.

• Refrain from answering emails point by point.  Instead respond to the larger issue.  “I can see you’re worried Johnny is not keeping up with his homework.  I’ll send home a list of his missing assignments and a parent info sheet I have on homework tips.”
  
• Respond to the emotion behind the email.  “You’re upset that Susie doesn’t want you to volunteer in our classroom.  This is typical for students her age as peers become more important than parents but it doesn’t mean you aren’t important in her life.  I would encourage you to do some reading on this topic as well as talk to other parents.

• Be direct.  Explain to the parent that it’s your job to balance the needs of his/her child along with all the other students in the classroom while following the curriculum, procedures, and policies of the school.  You need them to respect your role as a professional in doing that.

• Partner with them.  Explain you value their assistance in supporting the school, their child’s grade level, your classroom, etc., and that their positive comments will go a long way in doing this.  This is especially helpful when parents are engaging in social media in counterproductive ways.

•  Enlist their help.  These are often the parents with the most time on their hands and channeling it constructively often takes away the inclination to bombard you with questions and advice.  If you can, invite them in and keep them busy!

More Differentiation

Here are some fast and easy TIPS for differentiation that can be used at any time for almost any subject:

Use blank cards, spinners, or large foam dice and print on them the words Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?  Spend one lesson teaching students how to create their own questions for each other in any given subject such as “Who shot Abe Lincoln?”  or “What is the process called by which molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a semipermeable membrane?”  You can then use this as a time filler, a review method, or part of any lesson plan.  The students benefit from being both the questioner and the answerer.

Use the same activity noted above but step it up a notch by using the value-added question words Should? Could? Would? What If? How Would? When Would?  Such as "Should Europe have done more to stop Hilter?" or "How would you protect the habitat of the endangered frogs?"

 Tic-Tac-Toe Variation:  You’ve seen the Tic-Tac-Toe board where the teacher creates 9 activities and the student can chose any 3 as long as they draw a straight line and go through the middle?  Make a generic one that you can use over and over on the overhead or SmartBoard as follows:

• For Phy Ed it could be a warm-up routine with the middle box being the initial stretching you want them to do with the other boxes being various other warm-ups (push-ups, jumping jacks, etc.) and students move through them in whatever order they choose.
• For English the middle box could be the daily reading assignment with the other eight boxes being  generic questions such as What is the main idea of this section?  What was your reaction to this section?  What do you think will happen next?  You can assign or students may self-select the questions they answer.  Then pair them for discussion.
• For Science:  In the middle box you have the student describe what they read or observed.  In the surrounding boxes list questions like What is one thing you could do differently next time?  What is one question you have after reading/doing this?  What do you think the same thing would happen again next time?  Why?

Worksheet Cut-Up:  Print only three or four copies of the worksheet.  Cut it into strips (or sections) pass them out according to ability.  Students with the same question/problem work together to answer it, they then come together to explain their answer to the rest of the class.  This works especially well for Math.

Beginning Differentiation

There are dozens of books written about differentiating instruction, and lots of handy tools to make differentiation “simple”.  This implies, however, that differentiation is something that is complicated and involves a lot of time.  It isn’t.  In fact most teachers do more differentiation than they realize.  The focus should be to keep it simple.  If the teacher is spending hours and hours on lessons in order to differentiate, something needs to be readjusted.  Here are some examples of ways you can differentiate and TIPS for keeping it simple.

Differentiate by CONTENT

•  You’re doing a unit on volcanoes, get books at different levels of reading difficulty, group your students accordingly (or let them self-select the books) but all students answer the same set of 3-4 questions.
• Each student must choose a historical figure to report on, the elements of the report remain the same.
• Some students are working on 2 digit subtraction, other students are working on 3 digit subtraction.

Differentiate by PROCESS

• Some students are using manipulatives to solve math problems, other students are drawing graphs to represent the math problems.
• Some students are doing dictionary work to define words, other students are quizzing each other on the meaning of words.

Differentiate by PRODUCT

• Some students are writing a summary of what they read, other students are writing a new ending to the story.
• Some students are demonstrating understanding by doing a painting, others are doing a sculpture.
• All students do Item A, then they may choose between B and C.

You can see that none of these takes a great deal of time on the teacher’s part.  And yet they can be effectively used to differentiate for students who need more challenge or students who need modifications.  Getting comfortable with these easier forms of differentiation will allow the teacher to then move into more involved forms of differentiation.