Peabloggy

Writing is (most often) a painful process. We procrastinate, stumble around our ideas, fumble through drafts, and still have to proofread. But most of our jobs and degrees require that we write - and write well. I’ve been writing for school, work and personal expression for over twenty years, and I’ve been fortunate enough to get paid to write for well over two years. But I still procrastinate and stumble around my ideas, concerned that I don’t have anything intelligent to say.

This fall, I will be working part-time as a consultant at the Vanderbilt Writing Studio, a place of support for students as they organize ideas and work to complete writing assignments. As I consider how best to support students, I’ve been thinking about what helps me feel comfortable enough to actually start writing. In addition to a fresh cup of coffee, good lighting, and a moderate amount of low background noise, I’ve found that two things help me focus and accomplish the task more easily.

First, it helps to feel that my writing is, on some level, a collaborative process. Even though I know I’m the one who has to put the words to paper (or screen), talking through my ideas or writing with others in the room keeps me from feeling so isolated by the blank page.

Second, my writing is easier (and better) when I know that it will find an audience. When I’m afraid no one will read it, my motivation plummets and the writing suffers.

As I consider the ways we teach writing, those would be two of my main goals for students: encourage them to collaborate (at least in the prewriting stages of generating and organizing ideas) and provide as wide and positive an audience for their writing as possible.

Anyone else have any other “conditions” for writing that make the process less grueling?

- Rachel Bowers

Many educators argue the importance of students learning the arts in school. Today, I ran across an article in a publication from my undergraduate alma mater that invoked the issue in a new light for me. The article and its subject matter appear to have more to do with the academics of a college-level, music-focused education, but I think can be applied to the arts in elementary school discussion.
At Peabody Conservatory, new undergraduates are now required to take a seminar focused on analytical thinking and the art of rhetoric. Says Hollis Robbins, the course’s co-instructor: “There is a growing sense here, and at other music conservatories, that you have to be able to talk about your music and argue about your music, not just to, respectfully, sit down, play a sonata and leave.”

As a student of music, I think this perspective — and its practical application as displayed in this class — is important. From personal experience, music sticks better when placed in context or presented with historical set-up. The greater the ability we have to argue intellectually about the merits of music in schools an the music itself, the greater chance, I hope, we will see arts thrive as a priority in the classroom setting. At a first glance, it does not seem as though Blair offers such a course, though “Music, Arts & Ideas” may touch on similar subjects. (Does anyone know?)

I would be interested to hear students’ thoughts after this course is officially underway. I know several Peabody graduates — all of whom play skillfully and discuss their music with intellectual thought. The introduction of this class appears to be a step in the right direction — if not for the students but certainly in building the case for teaching arts at an early age.

~Kristen Hayner

Courtesy of a recent tonsillectomy, the past few days have afforded me the opportunity to catch up on movie watching (in between naps and jello). Tonight, I watched The Freedom Writers in which Hilary Swank plays the role of Erin Gruwell, a first-year teacher who steps into the racially charged classrooms of Long Beach, California in the 1990’s. Several months ago, I read an op-ed in the New York times written by a concerned teacher who challenged the way that feel-good movies like The Freedom Writers (2007) and Dangerous Minds (1995) may tend to oversimplify the many obstacles that students and teachers in inner-city and “under-resourced” school districts may face. In many ways, the writer of that op-ed echoed my concerns about the challenges teachers face in the real day-to-day of the classroom and their personal lives.

I admit that Hilary Swank makes it look easier than it probably is to teach in such an environment. And yet, I found myself completely absorbed in the story - and amazed that it is was based on a true account. Though Gruwell sacrifices time and energy - and ultimately, her marriage - for the sake of her calling, the impact she has on her students is inspiring. Gruwell went on to found the The Freedom Writers Foundation to promote an educational philosophy that honors diversity and empowers kids in difficult circumstances.

Although I’m kind of without a voice while I wait for my throat to heal, this film reminded me of what I most want to do with my voice. I give it two thumbs up.

- Rachel Bowers

A very interesting article in Teacher Magazine online by a teacher named Anthony Cody provides some helpful hints for new teachers. The essence of the article is contained in this passage:

The secret to behavior management is really about having the students fully engaged in the learning process, and it involves more than just rules and office referrals.

I completely agree with Mr. Cody, and with the large majority of recommendations he makes in his article. The interesting thing is, the points are not highly intellectual, nor are they counter-intuitive, yet they are so important for new teachers to learn. What’s more, it seems that in the years I’ve taught, new teachers rarely, if ever, arrive with the simple set of skills Cody tries so fervently to drive home.

Where I come down on the issue is this: notwithstanding the fact that Cody’s “tricks” of behavior management sound like common sense, in practice they are quite difficult to achieve. In many cases, it’s much easier to hear about them than to do them, and the averse reactions that come from students when behavior expectations are enforced often serve to negatively reinforce progress in the arena of behavior management.

The topic has become a passion of mine as I’ve reflected on my own progress as a teacher, particularly when it comes to working with children who have severely challenging behavioral issues. For me, it took sincere, focused, hardlined supervision - functionally, the kind that put my very career on the line - to push me far enough into my challenge zone that I really engaged in the kind of change that needed to happen within myself before I began to see change in my students. Once I learned to engage myself - my weaknesses, my reluctance to do the work that I needed to do - my students began to engage me. Once I and my students moved from being adversaries to being partners with a focus on behavior change, I found they were able to engage themselves as well.

In my book, a teacher is only a teacher who teaches others to teach themselves -

- Peter Beddow

Today is the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the compact disc. I wonder how much longer we’ll have CDs, particularly in consideration of the fact that flash memory is highly reliable, scratch-proof, and getting really cheap. Most Vandy students seem to have some kind of iPod, many of which use flash memory (the iPod Nano and Shuffle) and with the iTunes Music Store, CDs appear to be on their way out. Now that John Lennon’s solo collection is available online, it’s only a matter of time before the Beatles find their way there as well. After John, Paul, George and Ringo go digital, what else is there to wait for? Touchable media is out, man…

What was the first CD you bought? Mine was the Phantom of the Opera Original Broadway Soundtrack (1986), when I was going into 7th grade.

Hat tip: Gizmodo

- Peter Beddow

In the arena of education politics, the debate about national curricula is one of what is arguably a herd of elephants in the room.

From EdWeek:

The National Conference of State Legislatures has taken a hard line against any form of national academic standards, declaring last week that any national attempt to unite school curricula across states would be unacceptable until perceived flaws in the federal No Child Left Behind Act are fixed.

The interesting aspect of this debate to me is the tug-of-war between those who perceive a massive nationwide effort to develop national standards as a necessary step toward global educational competitiveness and those who see the federalism of education as unconstitutional and a threat to the existence of our representative republic.

I tend to straddle the fence on this one (it’s easy to do of course, being a student of these issues and not a primary decision-maker.) First, what most people fail to mention is that nearly all states’ academic content standards already are derived from a single source (though they are not federally mandated to do so). My view, then, is that whether the government prescribes this unity or it comes about as a result of research, it’s bound to happen. The effort it takes to develop a set of content standards needn’t be repeated ad infinitum. Where there is disagreement, of course, states are free to adapt the standards to their needs.

On the other hand, without resistance to federal control, states run the risk of being drawn passively into the wrap of federal legislation that may restrict their freedom to decide their own standards. In general, people tend to want to cooperate and organize - if only to reduce work. In my view, the government does not need to force this kind of cooperation.

The CAAVES project at Vanderbilt is one example of six states collaborating to improve the validity of their assessments, without being required to do so. The research project benefits everyone involved - while contributing to the body of knowledge that informs assessment and lawmaking (namely NCLB). These kinds of consortia should be lauded and encouraged, because they remind us that progress can be made independent of government control.

- Peter Beddow

Over at EdWeek (free subscription required), two Virginia teachers have written a thoughtful commentary about the notion of “teaching to the test”. After learning that their school did not meet AYP requirements of NCLB, they describe the following observations:

Our passionate and progressive staff was stunned. Not making AYP meant that parents could send their children to other schools. We never doubted the potential and abilities of our students; we knew the problem lay elsewhere, and, as a staff, we knew we had to take a long, hard look at our attitudes and approaches to the test.

Rather than move completely into the territory of critics of the law itself (where indubitably they would have had much company) they determined that “state and federal pressures were not the only reasons students needed to learn to pass tests. Test-taking is a life skill.”

The two teachers go on to make several interesting observations. In conclusion, they write:

After so much hard work, we were frustrated and confused by our drop in scores. Then we remembered what we’d learned in the classroom and through our research: Education is not an exact science. Real change and success take time. But we see the difference in our students every year. They’ve gone from fearing tests to approaching them with confidence, excitement, and a set of skills and strategies to use. Now they view the test as a reading challenge for which they are well prepared.

Their commentary is worth reading in its entirety.

- Peter Beddow

A recent article in Cleveland’s Plain Dealer online was entitled Rule lets schools not test disabled.

New No Child Left Behind Act regulations (published in April) allow up to 2 percent of students to take a modified version of the state assessment. The modifications are intended to provide a valid assessment for students who are ineligible for the alternate assessment but for whom the general assessment would not yield valid results because of a disability.

Scott Stephens, the author of the article, draws what strikes me as a glaring misconstrual of both the intended and the likely consequences of the 2 percent regs:

Whatever you call it, the change allows schools to exempt more of their hardest-to-educate children from standardized exams. Officials in school districts with high percentages of those students believe the exemption could provide a more accurate reflection of their progress.

For some special education advocates, that low-hanging fruit is more like the biblical apple, a temptation that has more to do with raising a school’s ranking than providing children with disabilities the education they need.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks back, this summer, researchers convened at Peabody for the second phase of a major project aimed at validating the 1 percent “alternate” assessment from seven states and modifying general assessments to satisfy the validity requirements of the “2 percent” assessment.

The primary form of modification the participating state assessment experts plan to use is to reduce the number of distractors - or wrong answers to a multiple choice question - from 4 to 3. Other common modifications are increasing the size of the text, adding pictures (e.g., if the question refers to 7 pennies, a drawing of the coins might be included to the side of the question). A third modification may involve reducing the number of items on a page for easier readability, ensuring text is written concisely and with grade-level vocabulary, increasing color contrast, implementing simple interfaces for computer-based tests, creating Braille versions for blind students, etc.

Despite Mr. Stephens’ implication, the 2 percent assessments are standardized. In fact, the questions for the modified assessment are drawn from the exact same standards as the general assessment. In other words, the material being tested in the modified assessment, if the test is valid, remains the same. To as large an extent as is possible (due to the fact that the test is being altered), the skills being assessed are not what is modified. The test is simply being filtered through a strict set of accessibility checks that ensure the test measures only what it purports to measure.

In all of the conversations I’ve heard in meetings with state administrators from Hawaii, Indiana, Idaho, Arizona, Mississippi, and Nevada, no one has ever mentioned wanting to generate a test that increases their state test scores. In fact, recent validity studies have shown that the rate of students reported as proficient is actually lower for students who took alternate assessments than for students who took the general assessments.

In short, extant evidence does not support the notion that states are designing assessments for students with disabilities with the aim of increasing their proficiency rates.

As I’ve mentioned previously, there certainly are problems to be found with No Child Left Behind. Simply hearing the word “modified” and making inaccurate assumptions as Mr. Stephens has done, however, precludes honest debate from occurring.

-Peter Beddow

Previous:
From taking tests…
NCLB: Creating a new gap?
NCLB: When in doubt, bake cookies
Investigating the validity of alternate assessments

Bindi Irwin, Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin’s precocious little daughter, just turned 9, and she remains a most remarkable young lady. I had wondered prior to her father’s death whether his arguably loony behavior with wild animals would have unhealthy effects on his daughter, and when he passed away last year, I was interested to learn how she would fare. An ordinary little girl would probably retreat into her mother’s arms and it would be a long time before things were “normal” again. To the contrary, Bindi has stunned the world with her charisma, innocence, and drive to continue her father’s legacy. Recently, she made the decision to continue with a television series that had been planned prior to her father’s passing.

According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, an estimated 24.7 million children (36.3% of the U.S. population) live absent their biological father. U.S. Census information reported that 57.7 percent of all black children, 31.8 percent of all Hispanic children, and 20.9 percent of all white children live in homes with only one parent. A literature review by Denton and Kampfe (1994) reported that children from single-parent households are at significantly increased risk of teen drug abuse. Another study reported 75 percent of teenage suicides occur in homes where at least one parent is absent (Elshtain & Bethke, 1993). McLanahan and Sandfeur (1994) reported that children growing up in single-parent homes had lower GPAs, decreased educational aspirations, poor attendance, and higher dropout rates than children living with two parents. Dafoe (1995) reported that a white adolescent girl growing up in an advantaged household is five times more likely to become a teen mother if her father is absent.

Bindi’s story should be an inspiration to anyone who is forced to grow up without a father.

Credit and sources: Father’s Love Letter and fathers.com.

By the way, as I alluded to in the title of this post, what is the definition of precocious? It’s embedded in this video:

-Peter Beddow

If you get a chance, check out the website of the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI). Housed in the Wyatt Center at Peabody, NCPI has designed an enormous experiment, in the true sense of the word, to investigate the extent to which paying teachers for their performance effects change in achievement of students in their classrooms.

As I wrote a while back on Peabloggy, Dr. Dale Ballou visited our HLM class last semester and addressed the concerns of a number of doctoral students. One of the most intriguing answers he gave was in response to a question concerning whether the control group (those teachers who will not receive differential pay based on their performance) will decrease their effort because of “sour grapes”. Admittedly, it would be difficult, when some of the awards are up to $15,000 for teachers in the experimental group, not to feel even a little upset for being assigned to the control group. Dr. Ballou responded by essentially saying that this whole project is a true experiment, and the outcome is anybody’s guess at this point.

I was intrigued by this question when I was in 7th grade and my dad was on the school board of our little town of Shelburne, Vermont. At the time, he believed in the notion of pay for performance and spoke his mind about it. Now, nearly two decades later, the sole aim of this project is to provide answers to a serious question that has remained at the forefront of education for many years. Keep an eye on the NCPI website over the next few months to see what they’re up to. I suspect some of the work these researchers are doing now is going to get a hefty amount of attention in the years to come.

Update: Education Week has more coverage on the NCPI. Seems everybody’s talking about pay-for-performance again.

-Peter Beddow

Previous:
Who said we don’t need another hero?
Teaching: a quixotic endeavor
Another Ed week
The “value” in value-added