Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

 We are perched on the possible edge of change. At no other point in our history have we been so ready to examine our beliefs and work to try and create a more perfect nation. Social change is in the air. Will it come to fruition or will it subside to lie in wait for the next group to grab its mantle? Time alone will tell. What we do know is that social change is hard. Even Hitler who was a master at social change was not able to convert the minds of all the Germans and he was willing to use the most brutal methodologies imaginable.

Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi crafted the young adult version of Kendi's book Stamped from the Beginning in a book entitled Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. This book was, at times, very disturbing to read. It made me want someone to wrestle some the ideas with. The authors characterize their book as not a history book. It is, however, a book examining history through a very different lens than I have. I can see how it would be a great book to share with students as they come to terms with who they are and what America is and should be. 

The only part that I really took exception to was the idea that racism had a date of beginning. In 1415 Gomes Eanes de Zurara published a book justifying slavery of blacks as missionary work. I would argue that racism has a far longer history than that.  3000 years earlier, Ancient Egyptians treated people of different origins as not worthy of the benefits of the Egyptian civilization. Ancient Chinese had a similar approach. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tried to conquer the world to spread their brilliance, religion and civilizations.  You were not worthy, if you were not from the right racial and cultural group.

As humans we are programed to think that people like us are good and those unlike us are suspicious. This was an early survival trait. Our society has, however, outlived that instinct and we need to do better. We can open our minds to the possibility that not only is there no inherent goodness in looking like us, there is residual impact of generational mistreatment to groups of people. We can acknowledge our past, but we must work to be better. Reading and discussing books like this one allow us to become better people.

What Great Teachers do Differently

 Todd Whitaker's What Great Teachers Do Differently: 17 Things That Matter Most showcases things that great teachers do from his experience as a teacher, administrator, researcher, and presenter. He sees the important things as:

1. It's people not programs- new programs do not improve teachers or solve problems. People solve problems and improve teaching. He recommends spending time developing skills in teachers on a consistent basis. Every teacher has place to improve. The best ones know where they need to develop.
2. It's not what you do but how you do it- Every teaching strategy can be used effectively or ineffectively. Every program is the same. Effective is effective.
3. the power of expectations- Rather than rules, use expectations. Present modes of behavior that so that children can be treated individually and their behavior in general, improves. We are learning whatever because it is fascinating and important.
4. if you say something, mean it- so important. With my son I learned this lesson and became uber-consistent. Never say anything you do not mean. If something comes out of your mouth, be sure you can follow through.
5. prevention versus revenge- consequences are often part of revenge. Set up your class to prevent behavior problems (engaging lessons, well- established norms, respect). 
6. high expectations ... for whom- for everyone. If a student cannot be expected to behave or learn because of poor home life, learning problems, physical problems not understanding English, or something else then you are not holding high expectations.
7. the teacher is the variable in the classroom- Children act differently with different teachers, adults or peers. In school it is about the teacher. Great teachers know that their students' success is their responsibility. It is not those kids.
8. focus on students first- do what is right for kids, NOT the adults. I think this is most important now during our COVID reality. We need to do what is right for kids. Learning environments that are ideal for them, not for us as adults. Assemblies mean we sit with the kids- the ones most likely to act out so that our proximity can help control behavior. Great teachers agree on change that improves education
9. praise- personal and private. Praise also should be frequent and specific. 
10. be the filter- hold on the negative thoughts. Express the positive and focus on problem solving. The Debbie Downers need to minimized in their ability to influence. People who focus on complaining are not the best people. 
11. don't need to do repair...always do repair- Never avoid an opportunity to apologize. Be genuine and sincere. Teach kids how to do this with scripts and suggestions. 
12. ignore minor errors- prioritize. 
13. plan- Good teachers plan and implement. This is different from writing beautiful plans for administrators. 
14. base every decision on the best people- do not worry about what the downers and middling people think. Worry about the best people. Best people embrace good ideas and change for the better. The negative Nellies will complain about everything. Do not worry about their reactions.
15. treat everyone as if they were good- this is related to the high expectations listed above. 
16. model the behavior you expect- We are starting on overlapping ideas. If you want students to respect each other- respect them. If you value life long learning, you better be learning.
17. keep testing in perspective- It is not about the test, it is about good teaching. Good teaching results in good result.
18. make it cool to care- Blasé is not acceptable.

This list seems more focused on what administrators can do and focus on than on what teachers need to do. Some of the advice is common to every experience on good teaching. 

I read this as an audiobook. Not a bad one to listen to because it is not super information intense. 

Distance Learning Worksbook

 Kharen Minasian and Debra Kidder's short text, the Distance Learning Workbook: Hands on Approach to Virtual Teaching, is an accessible and easy to read. It's 34 chapters are mostly two pages each. They are to the point and full of first person experiences. It starts with how to approach day one and goes on from there. Importantly, the authors would suggest that any day could be day one of virtual instruction. While consistency is important, improvement is worth the change.

The authors are proposing work for fully remote classes, not concurrent ones. Since my district and many around me are running concurrent models, I read it through that lens. They suggest that students not spend all day in front of the computer, a factor many synchronous programs are requiring. In my district where we are allowed to let students go for independent work after the midpoint of the class, students generally remain tuned in for support with independent assignments. Some of the ideas would work if everyone, regardless of whether they were in a brick and mortar or virtual setting were sitting in front of their device and working. Some of them are just impractical for concurrent programming and need adjusting.

The first thing that the authors assert is that SEL and relationship building take prominence, especially in the beginning of the year. This could become a question of the day- What is your favorite pizza topping?- a Jamboard four corners what you think about x, or write three words that describe how you are feeling in the chat box. The authors assert the importance of saying every child's name every day before lunch, or every period. I have used a roster to make sure I address everyone, but popsicle sticks, random name selectors and moving through the list of names of participants can all be effective for getting to everyone.

The authors argue that virtual instruction truly should be student centered, focused around peer to teacher relationships and real world connections to content. Activities like breakout room discussions, choice boards and virtual fieldtrips allow for students to work collaboratively with choice. Feedback, they argue, should be specific, especially in a space where so much nonverbal contact is absent. Writing feedback should be focused on how to improve- everyone can and should.

I really liked the questions they pose for students to provide feedback to teachers.

• Can you easily find what you need in the digital classroom?
• Have you had any technical issues and do you know how to report them?
• Are my lessons, assignments, and due dates clear to you?
• Do you feel comfortable asking questions?
• Do you feel like you're being heard in this class?
• How would you improve the distance learning experience? (p. 64)

I would like to make the questions a little more open ended, like what makes it easy to ask or what makes it hard to ask questions? While these sorts of questions should not be a daily ask, regularly checking in with student perceptions helps to make the experience more valuable to the students.

Distance Learning Playbook

 Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher are two of my favorite educational authors. They prolifically write easy to read material that has a sound research base filled with practical examples and experiences from teachers in the field. They joined forces with John Hattie, Visible Learning's meta-analysis guru, to write The Distance Learning Playbook Grades K-12: Teaching for Engagement & Impact in any Setting. The first premise is that we are in unprecedented times- virtual and hybrid learning, not for a brief period like in our more traditional crises like a hurricane, but for extended periods of time. Research about how best to provide instruction in these times is not well researched, so we must draw from what we know about sound research.

This book contains 9 modules focused on self-care, the first day, relationship building, teacher credibility, teacher clarity, engaging tasks, planning instruction, feedback and assessment and learning. Each of these modules includes many video segments accessible through QR codes or the publisher's site. The book is also full of places for notetaking, thinking about personal practice and planning. These resources are also available at the publisher's site. By driving people to closely examine personal practice and plan for integrating elements described, they model some best practices for learning from reading.

 Effect size is a statistical measure of impact of an intervention. .4 is the effect size of a typical teacher over a typical year. Higher numbers represent increased learning and lower numbers, decreased learning. When it comes to digital technology, the overall effect size is .14- not very promising. That being said, there are activities that do increase achievement: interactive video at .54, intelligent tutoring systems at .51 and writing at .42. The most disastrous thing- the presence of cell phones at -.34  (7% of the book, the digital book uses this reference and only notes include page numbers p. 5).

One early thing the authors suggest is to establish norms like you would in any face to face teaching experience. Examples might include:

• Be open to spend the time it takes to learn.
• Embrace that learning is food for the mind.
• Understand that learning is a process that requires  patience with yourself and others. (17%; p. 27)

I especially like the middle one. All too often we are asked why are we learning this and the worst response is because I said so or it is on the test. I have previously used it is exercise in thinking and problem solving and we all need to do this every day.  This addresses the boredom factor ( -.47 effect size) by helping make things relevant (53%; p. 98). No, it is not adequate for relevancy, but it is a starting point. The authors note that "Students who have low levels of self-regulation need help finding relevance" (53%; p. 98). So many of the students I work with have disabilities that negatively impact their self-regulation. ADHD, ASD, FASD and many other diagnoses abound in our learning environment. These students need extra help seeing how the learning at hand is important to them.

I found their steps for think alongs (alouds) broke the process down well. 

• Name the strategy, skill or task (this provides your focus and all comments should center on this idea, even if there are other compelling or interesting ideas in the activity or passage.)
• State the purpose of the strategy, skill or task (Why are you doing it)
• Explain when it is used.
• Use analogies to link prior knowledge to new learnings (this is how we put things into our brain- linking to what we already know)
• Demonstrate how it is completed.
• Alert learning to errors to avoid (common mistakes and pitfalls).
• Assess the use of the strategy, skill or task. (68%; p. 127)

Think alongs can and should be interactive. It does not have to be all the teacher's script. Questions to students can help guide or inform the process. While a first person approach is used, other input helps to engage the students.

Frey and Fisher teach in a school that uses competency based grading- the report card lists two grades per class. One is solely the result of summative assessments. Students who score lower than a 70 must engage in a learning task and then retake the assessment. If report card time rolls around and the scores are not above a 70, an incomplete is given. Summer school is a process of resolving incompletes and consequently does not have a set timeline- just a set objective. The second score students receive is about the other things frequently included in the grade- organization, effort, and participation. This sort of approach emphasizes learning rather than compliance. The authors argue that using a competency based grading system makes especial sense with remote instruction because students are compelled to achieve not merely go through the process. It encourages personalization where  well understood, high leverage standards are the focus of instruction, students get extra instruction when their formative  assessments demonstrate they need it, and feedback helps students to know where they need to grow.

Lots of attention is given to feedback. A personal pet peeve of mine is generic, unuseful feedback. "Good job" does not tell me anything. "You did a great job showing the steps to solve the problem" or "Your identification of Lennie as slow is correct. Now you need to add an explanation of how your quote demonstrates it." Give great guidance as to what to do in the future. The authors highlight the ability to use vocal feedback through digital platforms as especially helpful. It can help build on connections (use the student's name), provide inflection cues and support weak readers to understand your input.

The authors wrap up with a statement about teaching in a time of crisis. Students can actually learn more in these times when teachers target what the students know (an do not) what students know as opposed to teaching what the curriculum says or what teachers think students need (88%; p. 169). When we really focus our instruction through small groups, individually assigned tasks  and highly directed feedback we grow our students. When I have done home instruction I have found that a days worth of school can be completed in 2 hours of instruction. We have come to see this idea played out on the large stage as teachers are given short minilessons and students are left to complete assignments independently  in a fraction of the typical school day or class. Crisis is an opportunity to grow. Lets do it.

Co-Teaching, Do's, Don'ts and Do Betters

Toby J. Karten and Wendy W. Murawski's book, Co-Teaching, Do's, Don'ts and Do Betters, offers many suggestions for improving co-teaching. This book with it's large font, and low density is an easy read. They suggest looking at co-teaching as an activity with many components or spokes that need to be addressed to optimize effectiveness.  Understanding by Design, differentiated instruction, positive behavior interventions and supports, universal design for learning, multitiered systems of support, co-teaching models, social emotional learning, and  specially designed instruction are, however, more than the spokes of co-teaching, they are the spokes to good teaching and schooling. Placing this at the feet of of co-teachers simplifies the roles of other teachers and magnifies the role of co-teachers.

From a co-teaching model standpoint, they highlight the traditional models: one-teach, one support; team teaching, station teaching, alternative teaching, and parallel teaching. They strongly encourage the use of all these approaches over time. Sticking to one approach is not as effective. They discuss the prominence of one-teach, one support because of it's reliance on traditional roles, but note how it emphasizes only one adult is the teacher here. It is the method that requires the least co-planning, a commodity that is often in short supply in schools. Even when co-planning time is available, it is often used as "let me tell you what is going on" time.

A key component of co-teaching is co-planning. They offer suggestions for in person and virtual approaches. Ultimately, it may require more of the partners than a traditional teacher needs to put in. 

Of great interest to me was their comment, "Don't minimize the impact of class size and the degree of heterogeneity" (p 161). They cite meta-research by Mathis (2016) that proposes small class size is an important indicator of improved results. Upon deeper review, the research is heavily focused on early grades (K-3) and demonstrates positive impact through graduation. The last grade where reduced class sizes were examined was 8th. They defined small class sizes as less than 15 and large ones as 22-28. Interestingly, many places today have class sizes well over 30.  While small class sizes have real economic impact to children well beyond their grade, because the the impact is well beyond their grade it is an upward battle to require them even in the early grades.

Similarly they suggest keeping percentages of identified students to under 30% (p. 161). When I first started teaching, I worked with a high school business teacher who commented that she had a class that was 90% students with disabilities and she had no consultant teacher support. This phenomenon has changed somewhat in some places, but certainly not all. In New York we try to keep the balance at 50%. What that means is classes become large to accommodate the students with disabilities. Further they load these classes with struggling students who have 504 plans or just are struggling. By having such a high percentage of high needs students, you detract from the ability of the teachers to meet the needs of all. Of additional note, mixing 50% students with labels with 30% high ability students, you create a class that is highly difficult to teach. UFT (teacher's union) suggests the percentage be capped at 40% with a class size cap of 25 but no more that 10 students with disabilities in the space. NYS posits a limit of 12 students with disabilities in an integrated co-taught class with a recommendation that there be more than or an equal number of students without disabilities in the class. Gifted advocates would argue for clusters to be formed and groupings of high and middle or middle and low students to increase teachability of classes.

The text is full of charts and sample forms that could be used or modified for use. They include many vignettes, mostly from K-8 experiences. I think things get trickier at the secondary level with many special ed teachers co-teaching with many teachers. The dance gets more complicated as you have to learn the styles and approaches of multiple general ed teachers. I know that Murawski would suggest working with a maximum of two teachers, but that is simply not in the cards in many places.