Fear of failure cannot stop us...

Just had a great couple of days at the Wisconsin Math Conference last Thursday and Friday (#wismath17).  I was able to present and get ideas from other math professionals (and computer science).

And I love this conference - I heard someone say "these are the people who drink the Kool-Aid"  and that is definitely true.  These are the professionals who ask for the PD time, prep the speeches and put themselves out there with their peers!

Yet....     Often we hear a ton of good stuff but it becomes so hard to implement...
time, administration, testing requirements, fear of moving backwards....
Where our only question should be "Is this best for students for actually learning math (not tests or college readiness, or state report cards).

I have almost always moved on good ideas and adjusted as I go.  I commit to changing a minimum of 10% of my practices (sometimes I try and go-back)  But if you don't try you are stagnate.
And I believe you cannot plan perfect transitions and by trying to, you end up not moving - your practices don't improve.  And that is worse than moving with some errors - I am willing to try/fail/revise/try/fail/revise.... to improvement.  And it works - we must remember that 2% improvement per year leads to great gains in just a few short years.

That said so many of us want all the steps and answers and I believe that over-analyzing slows us all down to no movement.  Many teachers ask about how I decided to move to a retake system and a homework system which uses no class time.  How did I get my admin on board?  (Did not ask) What plans did you do ahead? (Just started and fixed as I went) Etc.  I did not plan them completely - I just kept making small truly new adjustments - then one day a new system was there.

I definitely make mistakes - but my overall trend is 2% positive - which is best for my students.   I want my peers to know that the path is not straight or without pot-holes...  but we must walk the path.

Just too impatient for real gains

Big news in Wisconsin this fall, we have a (another) new power test this school year - the Wisconsin Forward Exam.   Replacing the long used WKCE and the 1 year used Smarter Balanced.  For years the WKCE was given and basically ignored by many educators, what do you do with a test given in the fall with results returned in the spring.  It never tested problem solving, collaborating, revising, either.  Then....

We worked for multiple years to shift to the CCSS and a new test.  A test which was suppose to be easier to use data from and provide a better picture of whether our students were learning the necessary problem solving skills.  Big change, new way - new things to do.  And then, boom, we moved away from the Smarter Balanced assessment after only one year (yeah the roll out was bad).  Maybe it is the right move, I am not sure, but it really shows how easily education drifts with the winds.

Now the Forward test is coming, and it has to hurry for spring; rushing  from the normal 12-18 months, it is being made in about 9 months.

Removed are the performance tasks from the Smarter Balanced, which did have some issues last year.  But the move makes sense because we all do so much scan tron work in the real world....
Now I had not been a fan of the Smarter Balanced assessment performance tasks.  But again - we don't revise, we don't correct - we remove, thus a new wind and another new direction.

So a rushed test, with a different format.  Good, bad I don't know.  Are we really going to have useful data?  Again, not sure.  But it simply shows we have no long term goals for real improvement.  We have no backbone for our vision and path.

Worst of all, we have armed a small, very small, but vocal minority of people whose rally cry is don't change.  Why work at the new things?  So initiatives simply disappear - we don't revise in education we replace.

This all is part of the perfect storm of education, it takes years in industry to run long range plans, you set it and hold it.  Little bumps are expected and dealt with - education does not have that resiliency.  And now for the first year our national scores dipped in over 2 decades - it is not isolated.

I truly believe that dip is because of the lack of professionalism shown the teaching profession coupled with a vision that changes with the wind.  We are simply not doing the right things long enough, we are just too impatient for real gains.



(FYI - I started this blog weeks ago - when the news was fresh - I was just raging too much to make a readable post until now)

No more paper/pencil homework --- Using Donors Choose: Post thoughts, find solutions

Like many teachers the ideas I have do not match the budget of our school.  And when the story becomes interesting - I tend to chase the projects  -- one of the places I use is Donors Choose.

I have just used it again to help fund four Chrome Books for my room.  This is not the first time I have used the site - it is the third.  It helps close the gap between what the school can supply and things I want to do.

And now the Gates Foundation is matching funds - so all projects are "half-off."   And like so many things in this world it just takes promotion to cause motion - I think the project has real possibilities in making my class different.

My plan is to use the Chrome Books as a workstation with Khan Academy versus traditional homework.  The station is to get students to practice concepts and ideas correctly that are targeted to that student's current level -- allowing brave students to get ahead and helping others be secure in their concepts.  And I remember being one of those students who really did not care if I got the right answer - just that I had one -- Khan does not allow that (and what hypocrite I am too!).

So if you have parents/community/businesses who will support your school and you have a good idea & story try Donors Choose.

Commencement Speech 2014

This year I had the honor of being asked by the graduating class of 2014 to give their commencement speech. And the "techie, progressive" math teacher did not record it.  (Hopefully someone with forward me a copy and I will get it on youtube).

But I think it would be good to capture the highlights of the quick speech.  And the easiest way is to give the major ideas,  I speak from an outline, so there is no speech to post.

I welcomed the class and audience and joked about being memorable - which is difficult because I don't remember who spoke at mine or what was talked about.  Heck, I spoke at my HS graduation and I don't remember what I said!

I talked about change being a good thing and this success, their graduation, was just the start of something else, but this is only change to them - others have done the "change."  And they were ready, mostly, and more important than book skills - they knew how to tackle projects and could do stuff - through three Ps -- Passion, Problem Solving & Perseverance.

I spoke about those skills and honing them and not accepting the status quo.  I requested them to be "Law abiding, Good Mannered, High Character, Golden Rule Following Troublemakers."  I want them to cause trouble to the status quo.  I want them to make real change in the world.

Moving on - that is a change, but I want them to shake the foundations of the status quo and make real changes.  We talked about Juda's green initiative, talked about not accepting - questioning.  I explained that my request was difficult, but ended on a quote from Archimedes.

I explained that Juda Community and school has given them a fulcum --  their education, abilities and the 3Ps.  And that the graduates were lever. And as Archimedes said: 

               "Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum and I shall move the world."

I ended with "You can too."

Wanting to become a teacher - Planning Time (Part 2 of ?)

So I knew I wanted to be a teacher.  I knew that there were two things to get done, one, find a route to becoming a licensed teacher,  my Mechanical Engineering degree was not going to do it.  And two, plan our family's finances so we could survive the first few years of teaching which were going to be extremely lean pay.  (This comes back to the question of who do we, John Q. Public, really want to teach, the low pay keeps great people away - period.)

I knew that my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering would not allow me to teach, but I hoped to be just a few courses short - like 36 credits short.  But the first couple of places I check wanted me to finish a Bachelors in Education, well over 75 credits plus a math major degree (another 24).  Darn hard to work and go to school for....  -- well forever.

Then I found St. Mary's second career education program in Minneapolis, Minnesota, it gave credit for my BSME and was a masters program - I simply had to take 36 credits and complete my math minor (5 courses).  It gave some credit for my real life experiences as a manager and had the simple goal to put good people, who would do the work, into the classroom.  The best part is it had night and weekend courses, so I could work and do school.

But to do this the family and I had to live in the Twin Cities.  So I begin to unwind my emotional attachment to the company I was working for, because while I could not see anyway out of their impending bankruptcy, my heart pushed me to hang on.  (The question about I would have ever become a teacher is fair at this point, I think yes - but my kids would not have been toddlers.)  But I started searching for employment in the Minneapolis area with the thought that it had to be perfect,  it had to be win for the employer and myself, that was spring of 2003.

As things became worst at my job, my desire to teach increased and in the summer of 2003 I found a company searching for job shop manager where my engineering background had value.  The plan was to take about 7 years for me to complete the course work and save upto 40% of our salary, we (my wife and I) figured that would make a nest egg so we would be okay the first 5 years of teaching. 

My wife and I then downsized everything.  Any cost was cut, every dollar we saved. We knew we would need for her to be back to work (at this point my 3 children were 5,3, and 2 years old).  We knew we had to not "keep up with the Jones," we bought a cheap house, removed car payments, made vacations no thrills (little kids don't need thrills anyway), etc.  We just made ourselves live on 40% of my salary, period.


 And I signed up for one night course - a Foundations of Education course, the first course of what I thought would be long process.  I attended the first night and was so excited about the passion of the instructors that I immediately marched down and signed up for enough classes to cut my college time from about 7 years to about 3 years.

So instead of two days per week, I went to four -- that is where we will pick up in the next post, working and taking 9 credits per semester.

Wanting to become a teacher - How I changed careers (Part 1 of a few?)

So I have been asked about becoming a teacher from another career (Engineering to math/science), what it takes, why I did it, am I happy, etc.  So this is the first post of a multi-part post in how I moved.  First, if you are moving for the number one joke -- "The 3 best reasons to teach - June, July & August"; DON'T do it.  Teaching takes a desire, it is hard work from September to June, and you spend plenty of time in July and August working on curriculum etc.  My hours per year are most likely surprising.

I worked less total hours in my 12 month, 50 hour per week engineer/manager job then the 9.5 months of teaching and summer curriculum.  But also don't let hours stop you from moving, changing to a teacher has been the single best career move of mine in the 20 years I have worked.  I am more than happy (though like every job there are hard moments).

And if you think you can just get in front of class and do it, and a lot of people think that, you are most likely sorely mistaken.  (I am sure someone can, but I know most cannot).  Though I am not sure education programs really get you 100% ready either -- depends on the program.  It is really a journey you must want to do -- a desire to be beyond mediocrity, when I came into teaching as a second career simply being a teacher for me was not enough.  I wanted to be excellent at the craft.

A little history, I was a young man who believed the cliche "Those that can do, those that can't teach."   So as I went to college at 17  and selected the the most well paid career in my fields of interest, math & science -- Mechanical Engineering.  I liked math and science and thought teaching was interesting but its salary was about 18K starting where engineering was about 42K starting.

So I took the money path, graduated and took a job in engineering within a manufacturing environment.  I liked the problem solving but every time the "new-ness" wore out I found myself looking for another challenge/opportunity.  I move thru 5 engineering/managing jobs in about a decade with 3 different companies -- I always moved up but I was always moving.  The reality of my life for me occurred after 9/11, as the small business I worked for struggled with lagging sales and eventually went into bankruptcy.  I worked my ass off trying to keep the business afloat, but after laying off over 100 people, having an ulcer and really soul searching I knew I wanted a change.

At this point, at about 33 years of age, I sat back and said what do I really want to do....  At any point in my career I felt I had been successful, I am a problem solver by training (and nature).  But when I thought about my accomplishments they were all general.  I knew that in any given year, month or day I was part of a team that fixed this widget or that widget. But when I tried to remember the actual widget - rarely could I describe it with any detail.  I was missing the human touch.  I was missing the feeling of having a truly lasting impact on the world.

So once I admitted that money was only as important as the need to be "comfortable" - I saw myself working with young adults.  But a family of five with three kids under 5 cannot live on a starting teacher's salary...  Anywhere...  So there would need to be planning.  So how do I get there from here. 

I had to get my teaching certificate in Wisconsin which required college courses, plan on how to student teach, and all the while support my family during the college portion but also save for the truly lean years of pay during the first few years of teaching.

My next post will weave how I looked at colleges, and what my thoughts were on student teaching.  It will be on my first steps of action.

Flipping

I had a training session on Monday at our local CESA (a regional educational support building/system with consultants for a number of high schools) with Jon Bergmann about flipping my classroom.  It really reinforced my belief that it is not just technology but about relationships and best use of time.

My big challenges remain the same.  How to get students watching videos, how I make sure they are watching videos and how I change my class.  And that is the rub for me, I rarely lectured before.  About 10 minutes out of 45 in the past, and then we worked together -- it may have been large projects, small practice problems, sometimes now I use Khan in lab so students practice what they are still mastering - but it was always doing.  But this 35 minutes of time on problems is not greatly differentiated, so that is the next step.  How do I get the spectrum wider, handle the management and get better growth in my students (and growth is not some CCSS test). 

Again is slow incremental change, slightly better tomorrow than today.

Changing - The goal is to be better.

We are in the middle of a shift or moving towards the extreme end of a pendulum swing currently with the Common Core Standards.  We can already see people now moving against the core and I don't think it is bad or good - it is too much too fast.  And that is the problem with education - lets be great tomorrow - students must get there and be great - immediately.  But my goal has never changed in my eight years of education since I came from private industry - I simply want to be slightly better tomorrow than I was today. 

Personally I have worked hard at making my curriculum "college and career ready" - using the ACT as my guide (an Aligned by Design mentality).  It is the test that about half my students need to do well on and does indicate whether they are ready for college math or not.

 I started this mission on college readiness in 2010 following a conference (another subject another time).   And the mission was simple and small, to start reducing the percentage of students taking remedial math in college.  My mission, now three years later, is for all my Algebra 2 students to test into credit math at college or tech school, which is something education currently struggles with - somewhere from 33-40% test into remedial, non-credit college, math.  I have had success in this by making my students accountable for all math - at all times.  So Algebra 1's grade is 50% pass material, Geometry is 50% Algebra, Algebra 2 is 50% Geometry and so forth.  We don't take time on the material but simply use recursive assessments to make sure students use it enough not to lose it.  I think of it as two, 15 minute power review sessions during the week -- except the review session is just a quiz.  But the important thing is, it is one small thing to be just a little bit better tomorrow than today.

Either way, no matter what I do or how I do it - I just want my students to be better than yesterday.  Just to progress  daily - 2% improvement year after year is the goal.  By doing that I have had success, so my question is not what is the next big thing I am doing - but what is the next small thing.  The large pendulum swings just does not work.

Turn-over today feels different. Has teaching lost respectability?

So another staff member is on the move again.  Small schools are accustom to it.  In a small district you find yourself with more preps and less pay.  It is simply more work for less money.  Thus there is a lot of turnover.

Those that work in a small school do it for a variety of reasons: young staff gaining experience so they can move on to more money, local people who live in the area (that can be hit/miss on quality - really lucky at my school), or the truly power hungry (like me - I love teaching it all and making the final decision on how to deliver curriculum, 9th - 12th).  Fortunately in the past we were respected and appreciated by the super-majority of people which is a fringe that made teaching worth it, that though is slowly back-sliding to a simple majority.

And without a super-majority the fringe value disappears, I end up dealing with people that think you teach because you are inferior at your trade, or that anybody can teach, and those moments are some of the most infuriating/depressing moments of my year (a super-majority suppresses these people).  Without the super-majority the year after year raises that kept pay stable (based on real buying power) are gone; raises when they are not frozen are less than cost of living.  That drives people to make decisions on finances, because bad pay and bad public perception is a horrible combination.  And though we say we want the best in education, we pay for mediocrity.  And as we backslide more, the number of people who will work for less and feel like "getting their ass kicked by public perception" keeps decreasing (and professionalism will disappear too, people act as expected).

And I feel it is that backslide from a super-majority supporting education to a simple majority that contributes to the number of staff moving on to non-teaching positions -- the percentage of staff leaving education as a whole seems to be quickly growing.  When I started 8 years ago staff left for one of two reasons -- a new teaching job or retirement.  But that seems to be changing, now a small district cannot be called a statistical significant experiment, but this year 50% of the staff that resigned has left the teaching profession.  And this is not because of our local district or board, but a nationally undermining of education.

More decisions about what is important, how we teach and how we test are happening further and further from our district.  More of my dealings are with 'people' (or departments, state agencies, etc) that want to hold me accountable but limit my tools.  People in my area, Board members, parents, school supporters want to give me the tools, but the funding occurs way above them.   And the further away you get from our district the less the minority thinks about education, and all it takes is a simple minority to rule education through misinformation, when there is no super-majority supporting education it starts to lose.  Everywhere I hear education as a whole is broken, but my kid's school is good -- that is the minority selling snake-oil; schools need to be more responsive and work harder on continuous improvement but that is a detail, not a reason to rail against public education (or to simply starve it which is what I think is happening).    Soon what the minority screams about education will be correct because we will have starved it of its good people.

It is the perception that the minority is selling that all education is broken that is breaking all schools.

Trickle down Training?

"As principal of one of the highest poverty schools in the area, Sherlene McDonald knows the value of professional development training for teachers.
School leaders and district leaders, such as principals and superintendents, also benefit from training as that trickles down to the classrooms, she says."     http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/professional_development_a_mus.html   October 9, 2012

Really trickle down training?  Coming from industry to teaching I believe in train the trainer, leadership training, and other professional growth things, but come on - trickle down training may be the worst phrase I have every heard.  It sounds like it comes from someone who has a really high opinion about what a curriculum leader, a principal, a director or whatever title you want to use can really accomplish in changing teaching.   In fairness I included the phrase about it being important for teachers to get training but talk is talk - the average school does very little to nothing to protect professional development time and administration is usually the worst offender for chasing big changes.  What we (schools) need is incremental change - we need a 2% continuous improvement attitude!

We really need to step back and realize that to affect student learning we must train the teacher -- relying on trickle down means money spent and little changed.  It is the lessons that the teachers need to work on; so have the principal cover a class, correct a test and make that time for the teacher to make a good lesson. Hold that teacher accountable but give the teacher the tools and time and expectations.

But as a teacher I am unwilling to let a phrase that training an administrator really works.  It most likely means a shift in the pendulum (chasing the next big thing), time wasted chasing a big dream and no real measurable improvement.   We need to stop the idea that we can change overnight and just continually change for the long term.

Continual Improvement is the best for the students today and tomorrow....

3 minutes....

So my school change the bell schedule this year from 48 minutes per class to 43-44 minutes per class.  Our 8 hour class schedule now includes a Homeroom silent reading time (which is working great!), but this old dog is having a tough time with the new trick.

It is funny after 6 years in the same school where I have worked hard on developing curriculum based on concepts not texts I have developed lessons that are 47 minutes -- and I find it hard to get down the 3 minutes!  I use to have timing and would end with just a few seconds to go, I had a feel for the bell schedule and what we could finish so there was limited idle time (I believe in no HW time in class -- it is just a waste).  Now I am running into the bell 2-3 times per day, we are working on a project, or a discussion, or practice problems....  I just have no feel anymore.

I am sure I will adjust - I think it is just funny how engrained I have become really and I think it is a good example of how easily you can get into a rut teaching.  I have thought/reflected on this and don't feel this is a rut, but it is comparable.....