“Kudzu is a climbing, deciduous vine capable of reaching lengths of over 100 ft. Preferred habitat includes open, disturbed areas such as roadsides, right-of-ways, forest edges and old fields. Kudzu often grows over, smothers and kills all other vegetation, including trees. Kudzu is native to Asia and was first introduced into the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. It was widely planted throughout the eastern United States in an attempt to control erosion.” (Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, University of Georgia)
A few weeks ago in an English Department meeting we were examining the results of the first Periodic Assessment. This is an exam the district requires every quarter to track student progress through the district curriculum. We had detailed results broken down by question and by student. We explored the district website that offered a wealth of activities to teach or re-teach each of the concepts and skills on the test. We were encouraged to analyze our students’ results in great detail and to return to those things they didn’t learn, since they would all be on the California Standards Test in the spring.
All of this was very impressive, and before long I found myself thinking that there was such a wealth of available material that I could spend all of my class time preparing for the next test, reviewing the previous test, etc. I could dig into the questions that many students missed and call up some of the remediation activities. I could administer practice tests and review the answers with them and....
WHAT!!?? Am I out of my mind!? Spend all of my time reviewing past tests and previewing future tests!? Devote every class to test preparation!? No! No! A thousand times no!! What about writing? and literature? and class discussions? There are a lot of trees in the forest of education, and I can’t let the kudzu vine of standardized testing destroy them!
In Part Two: How did we get into this predicament? The political and social context for the rise of standardized testing.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Sixth Street bustling
When I finally finished preparing for tomorrow at school I decided to talk a walk west on 6th St. I have been connected with the Wilshire District my whole life. My parents both grew up in this neighborhood in the 1920s and 30s, and my grandparents lived here throughout my childhood in the 50s. We visited them often, and I have many fond memories of family gatherings in their old houses (one gone and one still standing). My mother even brought us in from Van Nuys to see doctors and dentists in the area. I remember going to Ollie Hammond's Steak House at Wilshire and Hobart with my grandfather Ralph Williams, who was active in real estate in mid-city LA. My mother worked at Bullocks Wilshire during the war. My parents were married and I was christened in Wilshire Methodist Church. (That didn't really stick though since I've been an atheist most of my adult life.)
As an adult I have lived in Hollywood and Echo Park and passed through the Wilshire corridor regularly especially when I worked at Crenshaw HS. Then on the school board I represented this area. I fought hard for the Ambassador property (Victory!) and developed close relations with the Korean community. Now I teach in the heart of Wilshire, of Korea town. So I have a lot of affection for the Wilshire District, and I enjoy rediscovering the neighborhood.
Let me tell you that 6th Street is jumping! I was dazzled by the array of small businesses along this street. There are places to eat and socialize--coffee houses, Korean barbecues, sushi bars, Karaoke clubs, seafood grills, bakeries, and many more. There are all kinds of other shops--hair salons, spas, jewelers, dress shops. The venerable and elegant Chapman Market (1928 by Morgan, Walls & Clements) was an instant landmark and signaled the westward march of the city. Today it is filled with chic boutiques and cafes.
There is also a fabulous three level mall called City Center on the block behind the towering Equitable Building (1969 by Welton Beckett). This lavish collection of shops and markets is a bold post-modern deconstructed architectural statement that reminds me of Seoul.
And there were plenty of customers for all these places--almost all of them Korean. This was truly a little slice of Seoul (a vast metropolis that would tower above most of Los Angeles, by the way). I assume many of these folks live in the lovely old residential neighborhoods in the mid-city, while others work in the area and socialize before heading out to the Valley or Fullerton. Others may make the drive just to enjoy authentic Korean food and socializing. I remember that Seoul was an intensely social place and that Koreans there and here love to go out to restaurants and cafes. That was evident along 6th Street.
I was a lovely walk, and I recommend it to all of you whether or not you have a history in this part of town. It's even worth a drive into the city. Annyonghi kaysayo.
As an adult I have lived in Hollywood and Echo Park and passed through the Wilshire corridor regularly especially when I worked at Crenshaw HS. Then on the school board I represented this area. I fought hard for the Ambassador property (Victory!) and developed close relations with the Korean community. Now I teach in the heart of Wilshire, of Korea town. So I have a lot of affection for the Wilshire District, and I enjoy rediscovering the neighborhood.
Let me tell you that 6th Street is jumping! I was dazzled by the array of small businesses along this street. There are places to eat and socialize--coffee houses, Korean barbecues, sushi bars, Karaoke clubs, seafood grills, bakeries, and many more. There are all kinds of other shops--hair salons, spas, jewelers, dress shops. The venerable and elegant Chapman Market (1928 by Morgan, Walls & Clements) was an instant landmark and signaled the westward march of the city. Today it is filled with chic boutiques and cafes.
There is also a fabulous three level mall called City Center on the block behind the towering Equitable Building (1969 by Welton Beckett). This lavish collection of shops and markets is a bold post-modern deconstructed architectural statement that reminds me of Seoul.
And there were plenty of customers for all these places--almost all of them Korean. This was truly a little slice of Seoul (a vast metropolis that would tower above most of Los Angeles, by the way). I assume many of these folks live in the lovely old residential neighborhoods in the mid-city, while others work in the area and socialize before heading out to the Valley or Fullerton. Others may make the drive just to enjoy authentic Korean food and socializing. I remember that Seoul was an intensely social place and that Koreans there and here love to go out to restaurants and cafes. That was evident along 6th Street.
I was a lovely walk, and I recommend it to all of you whether or not you have a history in this part of town. It's even worth a drive into the city. Annyonghi kaysayo.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Vittoria!
Friday, Dec. 3: I have just completed my two best days yet at YOKA. All four of my seventh grade English classes had a narrative writing assignment. We had just finished the story “Amigo Brothers” by Piri Thomas. This short story tells about best friends Felix and Antonio who are paired up in a boxing championship. The story is more about their friendship than about the sport of boxing, and at the end, after a brutal fight, they embrace and leave the ring together. The story does not reveal the winner.
The assignment to my classes was to write “The Next Chapter” for these two friends. First they had to make a storyboard telling what happened in the year after the winner was announced. They did this in pairs, and when they finished their storyboard each pair got a laptop so they could go to the online writing program (MyAccess.com) and write a narrative based on their storyboard.
This was a substantial assignment with two major parts. They had to work with a classmate to get it done. It involved thinking up a story, rendering it into little drawings, logging onto an online program, and writing a narrative of 300 words. I was a little nervous about getting them through all of this, and so I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went.
First of all, the chance to work on the laptops was a great motivation for getting the storyboard done. The attraction of the computers is awesome. Second, they worked well in pairs. Some pairs were lopsided with one student doing most of the work, but even in those pairs both students were engaged in thinking up the story. Third, when they finished the story board and got into the writing program, they were actually enthusiastic about writing down what they had come up with.
I remain very impressed by the effect that computers have on these boys. The computers focus and engage them in a way that teachers and paper books do not. It isn’t just the games, although they love to sneak over to the games, but also the writing itself that they are more engaged in. They are also getting used to all of the corrections that the computer program indicates.
And so this lesson went very well in all of the classes, even my very difficult sixth period. I called the principal up in the middle of sixth period to invite him to come see how it was working. He has invested a lot of school funds in getting this online writing program for all teachers, and I wanted him to see how it could work.
I’ve done a lot of yelling at all these classes, so I took the time at the end of each period on Thursday and Friday to compliment them on how well they worked on this assignment. I was still exhausted, to be sure, but for the first time when Friday, 3:24 pm came around I felt very satisfied at how the week had gone.
The assignment to my classes was to write “The Next Chapter” for these two friends. First they had to make a storyboard telling what happened in the year after the winner was announced. They did this in pairs, and when they finished their storyboard each pair got a laptop so they could go to the online writing program (MyAccess.com) and write a narrative based on their storyboard.
This was a substantial assignment with two major parts. They had to work with a classmate to get it done. It involved thinking up a story, rendering it into little drawings, logging onto an online program, and writing a narrative of 300 words. I was a little nervous about getting them through all of this, and so I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went.
First of all, the chance to work on the laptops was a great motivation for getting the storyboard done. The attraction of the computers is awesome. Second, they worked well in pairs. Some pairs were lopsided with one student doing most of the work, but even in those pairs both students were engaged in thinking up the story. Third, when they finished the story board and got into the writing program, they were actually enthusiastic about writing down what they had come up with.
I remain very impressed by the effect that computers have on these boys. The computers focus and engage them in a way that teachers and paper books do not. It isn’t just the games, although they love to sneak over to the games, but also the writing itself that they are more engaged in. They are also getting used to all of the corrections that the computer program indicates.
And so this lesson went very well in all of the classes, even my very difficult sixth period. I called the principal up in the middle of sixth period to invite him to come see how it was working. He has invested a lot of school funds in getting this online writing program for all teachers, and I wanted him to see how it could work.
I’ve done a lot of yelling at all these classes, so I took the time at the end of each period on Thursday and Friday to compliment them on how well they worked on this assignment. I was still exhausted, to be sure, but for the first time when Friday, 3:24 pm came around I felt very satisfied at how the week had gone.
Friday, November 26, 2010
A perfect storm, followed by a calm sea and a metaphor for capitalism
I haven't commented in a while. I've been enjoying an unexpected week off. Because of unpaid furlough days, LAUSD like many districts just closed the schools for this whole week of Thanksgiving. It's been a salvation for me. Last week I experienced the "Perfect Storm" of obligations that left me staggering towards Friday.
I had a big housewarming party on Sunday Nov 14, so I was getting ready for that the whole week before. The party was a big success, but I should have been getting my grades ready since they were due Weds Nov 17. That realization hit me on Monday, along with the need to finish grading the written part of the periodic assessment and teach a class at National University Monday and Wednesday night. Whew! This is what made the week of Nov 15 the perfect storm of obligation, so I didn't sleep much and stumbled across the grading finish line a day late, on Thursday--just in time to collapse into this vacation week.
I know this sounds like more whining, so I want to counteract that with another burst of enthusiasm for the MyAccess online writing program. I had the laptop carts in my room for a couple of weeks, and the boys have been working on their essays every day. The more I use this program the more I like it. It leads the boys to correct errors in their writing and then gives them instant feedback in the form of a numerical score. As they make corrections or add more content, they see their score go up.
A high level of competitiveness is cited as one of the characteristics of the male brain (at least most of them), and one day last week some of the boys were actually competing out loud to see who could get the highest rating on their compositions. They even called out their scores in excitement as they made changes to improve their essays. That really sold me. I realized that this program had generated the elusive "intrinsic motivation," since the students wanted to improve their writing for its own sake.
Even if I graded in detail everything they wrote every night (something I have never been able to manage and few teachers do) I couldn't match the instant feedback they get from this program. They may groan when they see all of the spelling and other errors highlighted in their writing, but they can get to work and correct them one by one. That is what good writing requires--patient re-examination of what you've written in the form of correction, expansion, revision.
There's still plenty of work for the teacher in this program. The more generic recommendations about description, structure, and style will always require the teacher to illuminate and elaborate. This program doesn't replace the teacher as much as amplify what the teacher can accomplish. It is the best example I have encountered of how technology can make the teacher much more effective. I look forward to using it throughout the rest of the year.
Time for another little detour. I recently saw the movie "Unstoppable" with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. It's about a runaway train in Pennsylvania that is carrying a load of toxic chemicals and threatens mass destruction in a highly populated area. It's thrilling from beginning to end. The human characters, especially Washington as a veteran train engineer, are well done, but the train itself is the star--menacing, implacable, inexorable.
Afterward it occurred to me that this runaway train was a profound metaphor (I am an English teacher after all!) for the state of American capitalism--out of control, threatening to destroy millions of people, highly toxic, and driven by greed and arrogance. Without giving away the ending, suffice it to say that the golf-playing CEO who is more concerned about the stock price than the potential human suffering DOES NOT save the day. Anyway, I highly recommend it.
I had a big housewarming party on Sunday Nov 14, so I was getting ready for that the whole week before. The party was a big success, but I should have been getting my grades ready since they were due Weds Nov 17. That realization hit me on Monday, along with the need to finish grading the written part of the periodic assessment and teach a class at National University Monday and Wednesday night. Whew! This is what made the week of Nov 15 the perfect storm of obligation, so I didn't sleep much and stumbled across the grading finish line a day late, on Thursday--just in time to collapse into this vacation week.
I know this sounds like more whining, so I want to counteract that with another burst of enthusiasm for the MyAccess online writing program. I had the laptop carts in my room for a couple of weeks, and the boys have been working on their essays every day. The more I use this program the more I like it. It leads the boys to correct errors in their writing and then gives them instant feedback in the form of a numerical score. As they make corrections or add more content, they see their score go up.
A high level of competitiveness is cited as one of the characteristics of the male brain (at least most of them), and one day last week some of the boys were actually competing out loud to see who could get the highest rating on their compositions. They even called out their scores in excitement as they made changes to improve their essays. That really sold me. I realized that this program had generated the elusive "intrinsic motivation," since the students wanted to improve their writing for its own sake.
Even if I graded in detail everything they wrote every night (something I have never been able to manage and few teachers do) I couldn't match the instant feedback they get from this program. They may groan when they see all of the spelling and other errors highlighted in their writing, but they can get to work and correct them one by one. That is what good writing requires--patient re-examination of what you've written in the form of correction, expansion, revision.
There's still plenty of work for the teacher in this program. The more generic recommendations about description, structure, and style will always require the teacher to illuminate and elaborate. This program doesn't replace the teacher as much as amplify what the teacher can accomplish. It is the best example I have encountered of how technology can make the teacher much more effective. I look forward to using it throughout the rest of the year.
Time for another little detour. I recently saw the movie "Unstoppable" with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. It's about a runaway train in Pennsylvania that is carrying a load of toxic chemicals and threatens mass destruction in a highly populated area. It's thrilling from beginning to end. The human characters, especially Washington as a veteran train engineer, are well done, but the train itself is the star--menacing, implacable, inexorable.
Afterward it occurred to me that this runaway train was a profound metaphor (I am an English teacher after all!) for the state of American capitalism--out of control, threatening to destroy millions of people, highly toxic, and driven by greed and arrogance. Without giving away the ending, suffice it to say that the golf-playing CEO who is more concerned about the stock price than the potential human suffering DOES NOT save the day. Anyway, I highly recommend it.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Seventh grade lives 1
I've spent so much time complaining about the behavior of these boys that I don't think I have adequately conveyed how charming and likable they are. I'd like to share a couple of brief glimpses into their lives. Today a small group of students ended up in my room at lunch. They were all good students, and small boys. They just wanted to use the computers. I asked them why they didn't want to go outside for lunch. One of them, an especially small and very soft spoken boy, said something like, "There's too much going on out there at lunch. There are mean kids and bullies and we'd rather be in here." Hard to argue with that.
Later in the day another boy was talking to his friends in an intense way. Other boys really like this boy because he's funny and clever and outspoken, although that can make him a little disruptive in class. He said that he had a big problem--a claim supported by his friends--and would like to tell me about it. While we were walking out to play basketball during advisory period, he said that his father had been picked up the night before and was going to be deported. One of his friends walking with us said that had happened to him once too. I said that must be really terrible and that I was sorry to hear it.
We didn't talk much more since he wanted to play basketball, but I was left with a sad feeling. I have a hard time imagining just how terrible it must be at age 12 to have your father snatched away from you all of a sudden. It seems that any decent version of "family values" would allow for fathers to stay with their sons. This incident definitely puts a human face on the increasingly shrill calls to deport increasing numbers of people, many of them fathers who are needed by their sons.
As I get to know these boys, I expect to hear more stories about their lives. I'm glad I'm not so obsessed with controlling their behavior that I don't stop to listen to their individual voices. Vignettes like these surely lie at the heart of the teaching experience. They are probably the reason we put up with the impossible work load and time requirements of the job.
Later in the day another boy was talking to his friends in an intense way. Other boys really like this boy because he's funny and clever and outspoken, although that can make him a little disruptive in class. He said that he had a big problem--a claim supported by his friends--and would like to tell me about it. While we were walking out to play basketball during advisory period, he said that his father had been picked up the night before and was going to be deported. One of his friends walking with us said that had happened to him once too. I said that must be really terrible and that I was sorry to hear it.
We didn't talk much more since he wanted to play basketball, but I was left with a sad feeling. I have a hard time imagining just how terrible it must be at age 12 to have your father snatched away from you all of a sudden. It seems that any decent version of "family values" would allow for fathers to stay with their sons. This incident definitely puts a human face on the increasingly shrill calls to deport increasing numbers of people, many of them fathers who are needed by their sons.
As I get to know these boys, I expect to hear more stories about their lives. I'm glad I'm not so obsessed with controlling their behavior that I don't stop to listen to their individual voices. Vignettes like these surely lie at the heart of the teaching experience. They are probably the reason we put up with the impossible work load and time requirements of the job.
Internet to the rescue!
I have finally brought the boys to the internet for both reading and writing. Over the past few days they have taken a reading test to prepare them for the Accelerated Reader program in which they will read books at an appropriate level and take tests about the books on line. One advantage to this is that students can select books they are interested in, and the program will test them on their reading. I can assign them to complete a certain number of books on their own outside of class. This encourages independent reading, a good thing, although it sacrifices the group interaction about a shared reading experience.
They have also started on MyAccess. This is an online program which assists them in rewriting their assignments and keeps their work in an online portfolio. Rewriting is of course the downfall of most people who have to write something, both adults and children. My students are willing to write every day, but they never think about editing and rewriting. For me to get them to rewrite would mean correcting mountains of work every day, and that is not feasible. So this online program has a variety of devices to help them rewrite and improve their compositions. It gives them a score so they can measure their improvement as they follow the various suggestions from the program. I can monitor everything they write and add my own comments and suggestions. It's a fairly sophisticated program, but it still will take a lot of teaching to get them to use it effectively.
I feel good about getting them started on these programs, and the boys were relatively cooperative in the effort. There wasn't as much of a management challenge as I expected. There's a lot of logistical stuff to get through in issuing laptops to everyone, getting them (boys and computers) all booted up, logged in, and ready to go, but there's also something about using the computer that focuses them. I think this is the nature of the device, although they can also be distracting since there are always games to play. Plus, this is how we all write now. Many of my readers may remember the old system of handwritten drafts, with all their marginalia and cross-outs and arrows to move text around. But who writes like that any more? I wouldn't want to. Why should these boys use an antiquated technique for writing? So the last few days have gone pretty well, and I'm feeling just tired not exhausted.
They have also started on MyAccess. This is an online program which assists them in rewriting their assignments and keeps their work in an online portfolio. Rewriting is of course the downfall of most people who have to write something, both adults and children. My students are willing to write every day, but they never think about editing and rewriting. For me to get them to rewrite would mean correcting mountains of work every day, and that is not feasible. So this online program has a variety of devices to help them rewrite and improve their compositions. It gives them a score so they can measure their improvement as they follow the various suggestions from the program. I can monitor everything they write and add my own comments and suggestions. It's a fairly sophisticated program, but it still will take a lot of teaching to get them to use it effectively.
I feel good about getting them started on these programs, and the boys were relatively cooperative in the effort. There wasn't as much of a management challenge as I expected. There's a lot of logistical stuff to get through in issuing laptops to everyone, getting them (boys and computers) all booted up, logged in, and ready to go, but there's also something about using the computer that focuses them. I think this is the nature of the device, although they can also be distracting since there are always games to play. Plus, this is how we all write now. Many of my readers may remember the old system of handwritten drafts, with all their marginalia and cross-outs and arrows to move text around. But who writes like that any more? I wouldn't want to. Why should these boys use an antiquated technique for writing? So the last few days have gone pretty well, and I'm feeling just tired not exhausted.
Friday, November 5, 2010
SOS! Ship going down! SOS!
Well Gentle Reader, today was...how can I put it...a catastrophe! I think that's the mot juste, but I might also say disaster, debacle, massacre, etc. Every period was a crisis, except advisory when we went out to play basketball. (These boys have no physical education on Wed and Fri. There's lots of research on the beneficial impact of physical exercise on learning, and this flaw in the block schedule is unfortunate. To compensate, we often take them out for informal playing on those days.)
Second period had too much going on in the aftermath of the periodic assessment (some had finished, some hadn't, some were doing an alternate test, some making up work, etc.). The result was disjointed and disorderly. Fourth period resisted working until the very end when they managed to listen to a few speeches. Sixth period was just noisy for 90 minutes. Then I had a bunch come back for detention, adding 10 minutes to my day.
When the last student left, I sat at my desk, literally vibrating from the adrenalin that coursed through my veins....
Now the vibrating has stopped. I'm just sitting quietly listening to All Things Considered, beginning to contemplate the preparations I need to make for Monday....
Which are considerable....
Since I'm finally bringing in the computer carts....
To get the students into the Accelerated Reader system....
And into the online editing program called MyAccess....
Which I have high hopes for.
Deep breaths.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh.
More later.
Second period had too much going on in the aftermath of the periodic assessment (some had finished, some hadn't, some were doing an alternate test, some making up work, etc.). The result was disjointed and disorderly. Fourth period resisted working until the very end when they managed to listen to a few speeches. Sixth period was just noisy for 90 minutes. Then I had a bunch come back for detention, adding 10 minutes to my day.
When the last student left, I sat at my desk, literally vibrating from the adrenalin that coursed through my veins....
Now the vibrating has stopped. I'm just sitting quietly listening to All Things Considered, beginning to contemplate the preparations I need to make for Monday....
Which are considerable....
Since I'm finally bringing in the computer carts....
To get the students into the Accelerated Reader system....
And into the online editing program called MyAccess....
Which I have high hopes for.
Deep breaths.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh.
More later.
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