A Sad Day for Shaw @ Garnet-Patterson, DCPS

I decided to read the Post before bed and I was so sad to read about Principal Brian Betts' murder.

About two months ago, I got off the U Street metro stop and headed to Shaw @ Garnet-Patterson for my DCTF interview. I was so excited and I thought that U Street was adorable. Upon entering Shaw, I noticed that the walls were covered in graphs that showed increases in progress for every class as well as pictures of outstanding students. I really enjoyed my day at Shaw, but I didn't realize its uniqueness until I later read that students had actually petitioned to stay at the school for one more year.

I knew that this school had something right.

It broke my heart to find out that their inspiring and innovative principal was found dead in his Silver Spring home yesterday. He was changing the culture of the school, though he was only at it for two years. DCPS needs more people like Mr. Betts. I imagine that come Monday the entire school body will be heartbroken, but I can only hope that they will continue their journey to become a better school.

TfSA Introduction

"Teaching for Student Achievement [TfSA] is about ensuring that your students make dramatic academic progress. It's not about getting them to "like" school. It's not about making your students happy. It's not about getting them to think you're cool, boosting their self-esteem or even fighting racism, poverty or injustice. While effective teaching may result in any - or all - of these occurrences, they are not in and of themselves your main objective."

• This paragraph rubs me the wrong way. When I got to the end of it, I thought to myself, wait, that's not what teaching's about? If I could only choose one goal to complete at the end of the year, sure, it would probably be TfSA for me. Maybe I'm too new at this (but hopefully getting trained won't change my opinion; I'm not being stubborn, I just want to stay positive), but I think teaching is totally about getting your students to like school. To me, teaching is not about getting them to achieve in your class. It's about getting your students to find a love for learning so that they continue to do it, class after class (and maybe even beyond formal schooling!). And it is about making them happy. In my experience, students (or anyone for that matter) are happy when they "get" things. (Think: lightbulb) And it's totally about boosting their self-esteem - getting them to believe they can achieve great things and then seeing them do it. And it is about giving them a fighting chance in spite of their circumstances. That's why Fellows are placed in the districts they are. To me, if a teacher focuses on these aspects, s/he can impact student achievement just as well as if s/he focused solely on increasing achievement. (And just for the record, I totally want my students to think I'm cool.)

[addressing the achievement gap:] "...many people tend to blame the low-performing students, their families, or their circumstances... few hold the teachers or the schools... responsible for providing sub-par education... students directly fault their teachers and their schools... struggling students believe they could be better students if they had better teachers and attended better schools."

• Whoa, whoa, now. Everybody loves to play the blame game. As both a teacher and a student (I feel like I'm in some parallel world between the two) I can relate to both "sides", but the first thing I want to address is the fact the phrase "sub-par education". In my opinion (should I say that? It is my blog after all, so that's to be assumed), low-performing students do not always signal a sub-par education. A teacher's job is to relay information to their students as best they can. While I also think teachers should play a supportive role in students' lives, I ultimately think that a teacher teaches information clearly, simply so a student can learn it if they so choose. To do this, teachers often have to be creative in their thinking (What are different ways to teach this so every student gets it? Is there an easier way to teach this material?).
• However, a teacher's job is not to lasso their students who are resistant to paying attention in class or cooperating one-on-one and continuously push the information on them. Maybe the teacher is great at explaining, but the student just wants to go outside and play. Is it, ideally, a teacher's job to convince these students to learn? I have had some great teachers, and when I didn't want to learn something, I didn't. I don't blame my teachers at all for my disinterest in fractions and decimals and my conscious decision to avoid them. In this case, I blame my lack of motivation. I also had some not so great teachers, where I really feel that I could have learned the information better had they taught it in a more tangible manner. Still, in this case while I can place more blame onto these teachers, I ultimately feel like it is also my job, as a student, to put in additional time into learning the material.
• TfSA also says that struggling students think they would achieve more if they went to a better school with better teachers. (I wonder if there is any school in the U.S. that is totally devoid of good teachers.) I can totally resonate with this thought. My high school was not the best school in the area. Many schools surrounding it were newer and were more technology infused. I thought it back then, too, that going to a shinier school (presumably with more "expensive" teachers) would somehow make a significant difference in my learning. I'm not really sure it would. However, when we are speaking of really struggling schools (mine was average in one of the nation's best school districts), the disparity is much greater so I get where these kids are coming from. It's harder to complete an essay when your school's computers don't work or there are few of them.
• I know it's been found that a highly-effective teacher is the most important factor in raising student achievement. I think it's true. But I also believe that education is a shared responsibility - among students, teachers and parents. Everyone has to be willing to work at it. It can't be one person's job the whole way through. And perhaps because struggling students have been neglected for so long, it takes a persevering teacher to remind them that they can learn.

"...71 percent of all secondary students said they wanted to attend a four-year college. Their parents expected 52 percent of them to do so, while their teachers only expected 32 percent of them to do so."

• TfSA says that these teachers lack high expectations of their students. Very possible. But what about this: these struggling students often do not know many people who have attended college and their parents often did not attend college either. It is likely that the teachers, however, have and understand the magnitude of motivation that one is required to have to make it through college. Perhaps the teachers do believe in their students, but understand that many of their students currently do not possess enough intrinsic motivation. Just a thought.
• I bring this up because in college, professors don't really care if you get it or not. Well, they care, they want to be good teachers, but they're not going to come up with different teaching methods for every student in their class unless every student seeks them out after class. And they certainly will not fuss about it when you don't come to class. No one forces you to learn anything you don't want to in college. This brings up one of my all-time biggest questions: between high school and college students gain a lot of independence. I think it's too abrupt. When is a "good time" to make the transition into the "college mindset" where students are largely responsible for their own learning and classroom success? I didn't practice this kind of independence in high school and I fell flat trying to fly on my own when I came to college (too much free time is a killer!).

And then comes this: maybe some struggling students have learned the routine in their low-achieving school system. Their teachers are not great teachers who often resort to not teaching anything in class because s/he has decided that their students are unteachable. They're used to not learning so they don't. I've seen it in PG County and it breaks my heart. I see all these kids with potential and I wonder how they're going to figure out that they've got it. Not from their teachers. Which brings me to my opinion that we need to have mandatory, regular, unscheduled teacher evaluations country-wide.

I wonder how some students who grow up with difficult circumstances, with less than stellar teachers find the inner will to rise above it all and stick it to their environment by becoming successful individuals.

Teaching for Student Achievement

PGCTF (and I assume all other New Teacher Project Teaching Fellows) provide Fellows with a handy guidebook called Teaching for Student Achievement. The book is pretty massive - almost 500 pages for Gen Ed and 600 pages for Special Ed. After enrolling, Fellows receive an Independent Study Guide (ISG) which details assignments to be completed prior to the beginning of Institute. One of those assignments is to read the guidebook in its entirety. It's a pretty daunting task to me, because I have never read what is basically a textbook from cover to cover. On the other hand, I am very excited for this book to tell me all the secrets to being an awesome teacher. Of course I know that it isn't going to do that, but I like the idea of it.

I keep meaning to start reading the book, but I keep going over the introduction chapter each time I pick it up because each time I skim, rather than read, the text. To be honest, it's not that riveting (yet). And because of that and the fact that I hate reading information I need to know (i.e. for school or for Fellows) without taking meticulous notes, I decided that I would blog about important things I'm reading as I go along - both to entertain myself and to retain the info.

I hope everyone enjoys going through the guidebook with me! :o) I imagine these blogs will be very long...

A little information on the guidebook: it was written by TNTP in collaboration with TFA and is a "research and data-driven device" (in other words, they study what works and pass it on). Also, in the first few sentences, it stresses that my primary responsibility as a new teacher is to immediately increase student achievement. I'm down with increasing student achievement and hope to be as immediate in doing so as soon as possible.