In my quest to avoid all emotional thoughts at the moment, I thought I’d open the mail bag. There is a chicken wing in here that I wasn’t expecting, and three letters from men who want to “bring me to country for using my talents”, but I’m afraid of what they think my talent is, so I’ll leave those alone. An anonymous someone also sent me a $5 gift certificate from a place called TeaCuppa and since I enjoyed the Rooibos from Teavana, I ordered this one from TeaCuppa. Thanks, Anonymous!
Recently, I got some questions from Brenda about my job as a literacy coach. I’m especially pleased with the search that got her to my site. Pleased? Did I say “pleased”? I’m enormously tickled.
Part of her e-mail:
I’ve worked hard to build professional learning communities, develop formative assessments, implement data collection systems, etc. I just have so many frustrating days. When I read your blog, it seems that your district really has its shit together. I often wonder what kinds of interventions, reading programs, etc. your middle school is using to meet state standards and what you do to keep morale up in your building.
Even though I work for a large unit school district, we are given general guidance through an outside source and then left to make decisions about interventions and programs on our own as individual buildings. Middle school is a tricky place to “fix” their reading deficiencies, but my principal works very hard at finding quality programs to spend our Title I funds on and she asked that I help research them with her.
Mostly, however, we look at the Promising Practices that work. We try something, we measure the data we collect on how well the students are doing, and then we decide to keep it or throw it away. I’ll give you an example of one. We teach vocabulary strategies through the mastering of prefixes that our state says are important. This is crucial to us because if we teach a prefix well then it may just be part of a word, but it really opens up a plethora of other words they can figure out. If you teach one prefix, you’ve really taught about 50 new words.
Morale building is more difficult when you work in a tough school, but I would encourage you to celebrate every success. Every small thing that happens whether it’s the fact that student math scores went up 10% or that 85% of your students mastered the narrative essay, celebrate it. Post it, discuss it, brag about it. If it is that a student finally made it to school 5 days in a row, celebrate it. When a teacher tries a new strategy, celebrate them and point out that they tried.
Late last night I got two e-mails back-to-back about Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy. They both asked basically the same question: how do I feel about the fact that Oprah went to South Africa to open a school when she could have spent $40 million on schools here in the United States?
A loaded question.
The short answer: she didn’t consult me first.
The better answer: she opened a school for girls who live in poverty and have a chance to contribute to the greater society of the world through education. How could you argue with that?
To be honest, if she were to give money to schools in the U.S. I can tell you what we’d ask for: air conditioning, better food for the students, more books and posters and markers and technological advances. All noble desires in my view. We’d want A/C so we could have school in the summer, but really it’s just to make ourselves more comfortable. I can sweat for a few days in the fall when the temperatures are high. Being “cooled off” won’t make me a better teacher. These girls want an education. They just want to learn to read and do their math facts. I can’t say that most of the children I’ve come across have wanted that basic tenet.
I could make the same kinds of arguments for the other things, but sometimes it comes down to how we desire to be physically comfortable or use technology that is “fun” and makes learning more entertaining. There are plenty of schools in the U.S. that have all those things and more and then there is the stark contrast to what my school and Brenda’s schools have: very little.
Must we blame Oprah for this? Truthfully, I’m a little sick of the vilification of women in the media. The top newsmakers lately are Anna Nicole, Britney, and Oprah. Even when a woman does something for others she comes under scrutiny.
But back to education…
What if those affluent schools shared the wealth and built olympic-sized pools on our campuses? How about if they shared their computers with those of us who don’t have enough for every child? Could they donate half their libraries to the less fortunate schools?
Perhaps it sounds as if I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth saying that American children have enough and that South African children need more, but if we were to be shooting each other straight, let’s talk about failed referendums. Let’s discuss the fact that people constantly complain about their taxes that have to go to public education which doesn’t provide scores that are “good enough”. Let’s add one more comment to the “See? That’s why everyone is taking their children out of public school!” pile.
The pile is high enough.
To extend that longer answer I would say that we are collectively responsible for creating good citizens. Schools aren’t the only ones liable for creating productive residents. Everyone is in the “we”.
Oprah’s simply joined the “we” already. The “We” is waiting for the rest of the world to step up to the plate.
