On EDLD 5388 - Selected Instructional Topics

The greatest application in my professional life for the knowledge and skills I gained in this course will be the consideration of cultural indicators beyond race and ethnicity.  In our society today, we become easily embroiled, still, in issues regarding race, ethnicity, and religion, but there are inequities of other kinds and students who need champions in order to ensure their free and appropriate public education.

In the current climate built around the mania of standardized testing, children who have no choice but to live at the fringes of our society are increasingly marginalized in favor of high performers who can consume and regurgitate material in pat formulae and demonstrate their ability to follow the rules, the leaders, the instructions, etc.  Children who can sit still, read well, write serviceably, and remember what they are told for the necessary duration are increasingly becoming the darlings in a world ruled by the almighty test score.  Their fate is assured since colleges and universities, for the most part, reward these same children with acceptance, funding, and eventually, degrees.

The only problem with this scenario is the inevitable stagnation of our society.  Without the child who has a subpar intelligence quotient but the ability to draw anything she sees and then draw endless manipulations of that character, we would not have animators, cartoonists, and illustrators who give imagery to our world and give us the stories that make life interesting, amusing, and colorful.  Without the dyslexic child who thinks outside the box as a result of having to learn a completely distinct way to deal with the world around him, we wouldn’t have a theory of relativity, electromagnetic induction, or IKEA.  Without the gifted child who has so many channels going on in his brain that he cannot shut off the noise long enough to sit still for a lecture or test, we would have no iPhone, no NASA, no Windows, no wireless technology, no innovation, no invention, and no discovery.

Until we build an education system in which every child is appreciated for who he or she is, understood at the very level at which he or she was designed by God or nature or what have you, and taught from the level of his or her greatest ability to the level of his or her highest potential, we will have a broken system in which those students who do not fit the mold by virtue of color, talent, intellect, race, age, nationality, language, belief, sexual orientation…those students will be pushed aside in favor of the middle-of-the-road, and we, as a nation, will be poorer for it.

I learned in this class that, as an educational leader, it is my job to be those children’s champion.  To stand up for the right of the poorest child to get the interventions he or she needs in order to have the same shot at success as the richest.  It is my job to champion the gifted and the disabled and those who straddle both those fences and live at the risk of being ignored by the champions of each.  It is my job to teach equity to adults who, perhaps, should know better, but who have not had a life-altering experience to jar them from the comfort of the cultural cocoon into which they were born and within which they were raised.

I have learned that one can learn these lessons from a well-made film that is older than I am. I have learned that these lessons can be reinforced by reflecting on our relationships and on the moments in our lives that make or break them. I have learned that we are all on a cultural journey, and while some people may take only baby steps along the path despite a lifetime of experience, we, as educational leaders in this freedom-loving nation's public schools, must take the greatest strides so that we stand as testimony to the fact that all men and women are created equal and deserve the same opportunity to learn, to grow, and to succeed.

On Civil Rights in Education

     It is so easy when we have conversations about cultural issues to forget that race and ethnicity do not hold exclusivity over the need to ensure civil rights for everyone.  This week, I would like to talk about civil rights for students who learn differently than average students. There are states in our nation, to an extent Texas included, where students with learning differences are often marginalized through policy, the nature of standardized assessment, or funding.
      For example, I heard from a parent this week in Florida whose son is severely dyslexic and gifted. The board of education in Florida has, in the past, recognized and provided services for both his dyslexia and his giftedness. Changes to the state's standardized assessments, now in line with the CCSS, have caused the state BOE to discontinue support for children in the two extremes on the continuum of learning differences.  Gifted children no longer receive services in favor of bright children, or "high achievers", who are strong test-takers, and dyslexia has become a taboo that is not funded nor protected by law or policy. Her child will languish under this new system.
      Here in Texas, we are fortunate to have dyslexia protocols established by the state, but these protocols are left to individual districts to enforce, and they are enforced with varying diligence.  Similarly, the state published a plan for gifted and talented identification and education years ago, but this plan, too, is left in the hands of Independent School Districts.  Without oversight, this leaves gifted children throughout the state of Texas a toss of the dice.  If a child is fortunate enough to grow up in a community where gifted education is important to parents and the community, that child stands a strong chance of receiving the kind of education his learning differences demand. However, if he grows up in another community, where parents are less informed or interested, he will not stand a chance at reaching his full potential.
      I see many gifted children suffering in pre-AP or even regular classes because their educators do not understand enough about the nature and needs of someone with such a learning difference. All of this is nothing next to the injustice proffered upon a twice-exceptional child like the boy from Florida mentioned above.  In many districts, a child can be tagged as dyslexic or tagged as GT, but he cannot be tagged as both. This despite the abundant research that demonstrates that dyslexic children typically exhibit above average or higher intelligence.
      As we move into leadership roles in this era marked by standardized assessment, we must be cognizant to remember that it is our charge to advocate for and teach all of our children.

A bit on collaboration and Web 2.0 tools

The most important rationale for a focus on classroom collaboration stems from the notion embedded in Response to Intervention theory that all students should receive differentiated instruction at Tier I.  Without this foundation, a school’s entire framework cannot hope to support the diverse learning needs of any student population whether it’s Dripping Springs ISD or Port Arthur ISD.  Collaboration is one of the absolute surest ways to ensure that one’s classroom instruction will be differentiated in such a way that each student can rise upon his or her strengths and rely on his or her colleagues’ strengths to take the whole group further than any one of them could have gone on their own.

Web 2.0 and similar technologies allow us to avail ourselves of the opportunity to reach out from home to home, school to school, city to city, and even nation to nation as we teach our students (and our teachers) that these tools are available, often for free, and can be leveraged to multiply the opportunities our students have to collaborate with others whose strengths will compliment their own.

Like anything that exists within the world of the Internet, however, Web 2.0 tools are myriad, and it becomes difficult to keep up with the new while trying to find and then master that which grows old within days or weeks rather than months or years.  This is where curators come in.  According to Rosenbaum (2012), “Curation is the act of individuals with a passion for a content area to find, contextualize, and organize information. Curators provide a consistent update regarding what's interesting, happening, and cool in their focus. Curators tend to have a unique and consistent point of view--providing a reliable context for the content that they discover and organize.”  He mentions sites like Pinterest, Flickr, and Tumblr as websites that allow users to specialize in or curate a chosen field of interest (Rosenblaum, 2012).  Thus, curators help the rest of us find a more organized well of tools and information from which to choose.  And, of course, many individuals use Web 2.0 tools to curate Web 2.0 tools themselves.

LiveBinders, one such Web 2.0 tool, has created a way for people to collaborate, curate, and present information that lends itself especially to the field of education. From sharing resources in a professional development session to creating data packets for students to research, study, or even contribute, LiveBinders allows a user to create a virtual binder that can contain anything from editable documents to .pdf documents to Internet links to graphics.  Teachers could conceivably set up a binder filled with information that is difficult to print or display and have students answer questions about the material, discuss it with their classmates, or use the material to collaborate on a related project of their own.  Teacher leaders could create a binder filled with content area resources, classroom management tools and/or information, research, and any other thing that anyone has put on the Internet for all of us to share.  Finally, administrators could use LiveBinders to collate material about their campus; to collaborate with administrators throughout the region, the country, and the world; and to keep an organized collection of useful information, research in response to their reflections, and projects on which they intend to follow up.

It is easy to see that these tools unleash a monumental amount of power and possibility. Maybe enough to make FableVision’s (2011) silly cartoon about the flying soap box racer make a little bit of sense.  Now we just need to get our profession over its fear of reaching out from the chalkboards and paper gradebooks in which so much of it is mired and look forward to the possibilities this technology offers.

Reference

FableVision. (2011, July 27). Above and beyond [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KMM387HNQk

Rosenbaum, S. (2012, April). Content curators are the new superheros of the web. Fast Company. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/1834177/content-curators-are-new-superheros-web

On the Importance of Reading...as a Parent

This is a piece that was originally published in this summer's issue of the Beaumont Insider, a small paper our school district publishes once a year to show off the highlights of the last school year and to disseminate information about the upcoming year.

Reading is arguably the most important skill a child learns in school. We use reading every day. We use it in math and science. We use it to pay bills and fill out job applications, to stay in touch and to stay informed. And while children learn concepts, processes, and knowledge in the classroom, they also learn from us – their parents, guardians, grandparents, and role models.

So how can we best support our children’s struggle to attain the one skill that unlocks all the rest? In short, we must communicate to our children in some way, every single day, that reading is important, that reading is enjoyable, that reading is essential. By modeling fluent reading regularly, giving reading a share of our time, and demonstrating that reading is important to us, we will help our children recognize the value of reading through the example of our own lives.

Modeling fluent reading

In order to learn how to read, children must go far beyond the rudiments of merely “sounding out” the letters and letter combinations they see with their eyes. They must hear what fluent reading sounds like so that they learn the appropriate cadences of phrases, the natural pauses signified by punctuation, and the voice that writers give to their characters and narration. As their parent, they will look more forward to sharing this experience with you than with anyone else in their lives. You have been their first teacher since they learned to walk and talk, and when you read with them, you maintain that role.

Giving reading our time

Our children share our values, especially at the age at which they begin to learn to read.  If you take time to read to your children and continue to take time to read with your children, they will begin to value reading as something that is worth a portion of their time.  We all get busy and tired from long days at work and around the house. That makes the time we spend reading with our kids even more precious and valuable, and kids come, in time, to recognize it as such.  In fact, the busier our lives get, the more value our children will place on reading when we show them how important it is to stop the bustle at least once every day and make time to read.

Demonstrating reading’s importance

Children learn by emulating us.  They act the way we act and say the things they hear us say. When our kids come bounding in from outdoors and find us sitting in a comfortable chair reading a book, they process that as something that their role model feels is important.  When we tell them how much we loved a certain book when we were growing up, they learn that it is important to read a lot of books and to judge them and find ones they can love, too. When we take them to the library and spend time thoughtfully choosing books for ourselves, they see that even as adults, reading continues to be an important, beneficial part of life. By modeling a love of reading for our children, we help them to foster one, too.

Read every day. Read with your kids every day. Visit the library every week or two. Talk about books with your kids. Teach your children that reading makes them stronger, and you will have given them the greatest gift imaginable.

 

Boy Scouts of America vs. Church, unfortunately

I wrote the following a few weeks ago as a guest column for the Beaumont Enterprise, a Hearst Publication.

I didn’t know exactly what I felt.  The maelstrom swarming in my brain included anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment, confusion, and disgust.  The morning paper carried a title on the front page: Orangefield Church Drops Boy Scout Ties.

Reading further, I learned that the First Christian Church of Orangefield had withdrawn its sanction of BSA Pack 125 in response to the national organization's recent decision to allow openly gay boys to participate in scouting. 

Reading on, Section A later included a letter from a Mr. Radley of Sour Lake in which he condemned the national organization and made a baseless and illogical leap from the effort of some to push toward inclusion of openly gay adults to pedophilia.  It seems that the lack of foundation in his semantics should be enough to dismiss his allegation, but if you require more facts, look at the studies conducted by Groth and Birnbaum (1978), Freund et al. (1989), and Jenny et al. (1994).

None of these studies concluded any connection whatsoever between homosexuality and pedophilia.  Radley's fear is as baseless as his argument.  The anecdote upon which he claims his fear is based only supports the fact that pedophiles have, according to Radley, long been involved in scouting despite the fact that openly gay men have not.

I feel compelled, though, to return to the original reason for my dismay.  Daily, I struggle with the inconsistency of so many people in my midst who call themselves Christian.  I fail to understand the decision-making paradigm of an individual who wears a bracelet or displays a bumper sticker touting the slogan "W.W.J.D." while ignoring the very things that the Bible teaches us Jesus did actually do.  Jesus accepted.  Jesus included.  Jesus welcomed prostitutes, thieves, pagans - none were exceptions to His grace and hospitality.  He most decidedly did not turn away the children (Mark 9:37).

My tendency, as a Christian, is to place greater emphasis upon the edicts in the New Testament than upon those in the Old Testament.  In His wisdom, Jesus crushed much of the old law in favor of a new life built upon love.  I can find only one reference to homosexuality in all of the New Testament, one I have heard espoused in arguments forbidding the acceptance of homosexuals in the church.  In Paul's First Letter to Timothy, he writes that the "...law is made for the...ungodly and sinful...for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality..." (1 Timothy 1:9). 

But quoting scripture has, in my experience, often been the hallmark of persons desiring to make a point by taking a handful of words out of their proper context.  This is a case in point, for in that same letter, Paul says that the goal of his command is love (1 Timothy 1:5) and that he is grateful to God for His mercy (1 Timothy 1:13).  Shouldn’t we endeavor to follow the examples of love and mercy rather than holding strictly to a single tenet of a system of laws with which even Christ often took issue?  Read Paul’s letter to the Galatians and consider.

When I, in my life, ask the question "What would Jesus do?", I consistently come to a number of like-minded conclusions: He would welcome, He would love, He would not judge, He would not expel, He would include, He would embrace.  I find it morally inconsistent and socially reprehensible that the First Christian Church of Orangefield has the audacity to continue its existence with the word "Christian" in its name given its intolerant response to the BSA's decision to include.  It would be inconsistent for me to condemn the church for their response, but I cannot in any way support, condone, or appreciate it.

My wife and I have many openly gay friends - men and women.  Each of these is among those whom I hold in the greatest esteem and highest regard.  We have trusted an openly gay couple to supervise our children.  If they remain open to it, we will do so again without hesitation.   On the other hand, I know a number of heterosexual individuals to whom I would not entrust the security and well-being of our houseplants or of a pet goldfish.  Where does that leave the question of sexual identity and trust?  It's very simple.  One has nothing to do with the other.

Research has not been able to support the myth that gays or lesbians pose any threat to the safety and security of our nation's children.  Exclusion is the product of fear and ignorance, and it leads to malice and hatred (see Mein Kampf for one historical exploration of these ideas). 

Based on these tenets, I remain at a loss with regard to the actions of the First Christian Church of Orangefield except that I would apologize on behalf of all Christians to the boys of Pack 125 who endeavor to better themselves and their communities but are left with nowhere to do that because of the insecurity of a group of misguided adults.  My prayers are with them all.

Dan Pink's "Drive"

The following is a reaction I wrote after watching the video located here: Dan Pink's Drive

Regarding the experiments to which Pink refers and the conclusions the scientists reached, I am reminded of Ayn Rand's character John Galt who posited that one can buy the physical productivity of another human being or even "steal" that productivity at the point of a gun, but only a human being who wills the use of his or her own mind can sanction the trade of his or her mind's product. The mind cannot be forced, and apparently, neither can it be bought.

The conclusion that motivation can be narrowed down to three decisive factors - autonomy, mastery, and purpose - is easily translated to the education paradigm.

First, it is important that we give our students (by way of training, coaching, and otherwise developing our teachers to offer and encourage) some degree of choice in both the processes and products we make available in the classroom.  Myriad ways exist for integrating student choice into lesson design.  Teachers can use menus, point "score" tables with different combinations of assignments adding up to the student's chosen point goal, or group work wherein students can take on chosen roles in the group that best suit them, to name just a few. By encouraging our teachers to offer their students choice, we will increase the buy-in from students with regards to their own educations as they begin to feel and cherish the autonomy that guides that experience.

Second, it is imperative that we create a climate in which differentiated instruction is not just something that great teachers do from time to time but rather the order of the day, across the board for every child in every classroom. Differentiated instruction allows students to demonstrate their mastery regardless of their starting point. Through solid, research-based differentiation strategies, students find ways to use their strengths to accomplish goals, to practice their areas of weakness, and to accomplish the objective at the highest level of which they are capable. In this way, we give children opportunities to progress toward and demonstrate the mastery that Pink concludes is pivotal to success.

Finally, as educators, we must make the learning in our classrooms relevant to our students. In this, students will see a purpose to the learning and learn to explore their own inner purposes through the classroom work.  When we present students with lessons and materials that speak to them, we show them the purpose of our day's objective. When we go a step further and let students bring their own interests into the classroom (song lyrics during a poetry unit; receipts from a shopping trip while teaching percentages, decimals, or tax), we show them that the purposes that are important to them are the very reason that we strive to teach them to think more critically, evaluate more objectively, and produce with more investment and profit.

I can see where one might watch that video and think that it only pertained to business and the world of workplace organizational theory. Presenting it here, however, in our context, made it impossible to think about anything but how to motivate students to reach out and grasp the education we make available to them and to squeeze the very marrow out of it of their own volition.