Month: August 2011

Things I Know 214 of 365: I’ve been thinking of two superintendents

Whatever you are, be a good one.

– Abraham Lincoln

In the span of a few weeks, two superintendents have popped up on my radar.

The first was out-going School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Dr. Arlene Ackerman.

Over the last few contentious years, Dr. Ackerman has pushed some drastic reforms in Philly schools, ruffling more than a few feathers. As was reportedly the case in her former tenures as the head of schools in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, Dr. Ackerman chose to push rather than negotiate.

Her unwillingness to collect political capital meant hers was quickly spent like so many of the district’s budget dollars, and the city’s School Reform Commission moved to buy out Dr. Ackerman’s contract.

The cost was $905,000 made up of $500,000 in district funds and $405,000 in private sector donations. According to her contract, more money was due Dr. Ackerman, but she gave it back to the district with an earmark for the Promise Academies she spearheaded over the last few years.

The second superintendent I’ve been paying attention to has been Larry Powell, the head of Fresno, CA schools.

Powell, who will be retiring at the end of the 2015 school year asked his school board if he could retire for a day and then be hired back at a salary of $31,000 per year. In turn, Powell will give back the “$288,241 in salary and benefits for the next three and a half years of his term.”

It all adds up to about $800,000 and TheRoot.com reports Powell’s move is designed to ensure programs he’s started in the district survive past his retirement.

Talking to The Root, Powell said, “My wife and I asked ourselves ‘What can we do that might restore confidence in government?’”

These two superintendents paint different pictures of public service for me.

When I first read about Powell’s move, I posted the story to twitter and Facebook, prompting Gary to reply, “All government services may be replaced with charity.”

His point is well taken. Powell’s move could be perceived as a tip of the hat to a privatization or de-democratization of services for the public good.

I see where he’s coming from, but I don’t think that’s what this is.

Powell’s move to return $800,000 he would otherwise be earning while serving the remainder of his term stirs strong cognitive dissonance as Dr. Ackerman receives $905,000 to leave the School District of Philadelphia.

My initial reaction to the news of Dr. Ackerman’s buy-out was a knee-jerk, “She should donate the money to the district.”

After all, Philadelphia schools have been slashing at budgets to make up for a $640+ million shortfall. This has meant huge difficulties in maintaining (forget about improving) the education of the city’s children.

This reaction was tempered as I realized the intense difficulties I would have trying to convince myself to give up nearly $1 million.

It occurs to me, though, that I am not the leader of a school district who made decisions that (rightly or wrongly) led to some of that district’s darkest financial hours.

I understand the money here is rightly Dr. Ackerman’s. It is the end result of contract negotiations and money to which she is entitled.

Still, as she leaves, I cannot help but think of the teachers’ salaries she is taking with her.

Things I Know 213 of 365: Our reported diversity is…well…diverse

Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

– Michael Palin

Wednesday included orientation for all new Harvard Ed School students. Rather than commentary, which I’m sure will work its way in here eventually, I thought I’d blast out some of the demographics shared with us by Associate Dean for Enrollment and Student Services Mohan Boodram.

Admissions Committees: 15

New students: 685

New master’s students: 620

Certificate of advanced studies students: 11

Ed.Ld. students: 25

Ed.D. students: 29

U.S. Students: 86%

States represented: 43

Countries represented: 38

Students of color: 31%

Female students: 73%

Avg. work experience: 5 yrs.

Median age: 28

Students who are parents: 9%

Most common male name: Christopher

Most common female name: Jennifer

Those were the pieces formally reported to and compiled by the admissions office.

As part of an introductory seminar on multiculturalism, clickers were handed out and we self-reported on our demos.

Students who studied at public schools: 66%

Students who studied at private religious schools: 10%

Students who studied at private non-religious schools: 23%

(I’m fairly certain those were in reference to our K-12 education.)

We also learned how those number settle across the U.S.:

Public: 89%

Private religious: 9%

Private non-religious: 2%

First in there family to earn a bachelor’s degree: 16%

Across the United States, 27.2% of people have a bachelor’s.

Sexual orientation:

Straight: 90%

Gay/Lesbian: 4%

Bisexual: 2%

Transgendered: 0%

Questioning: 3%

Political make-up:

Very Conservative: 2%

Conservative: 10%

Centrist: 24%

Liberal: 49%

Very Liberal: 16%

Across the country:

Conservative/Very Conservative: 42%

Moderate: 35%

Liberal/Very Liberal: 20%

Charter opinion:

For: 57%

Against: 11%

Undecided: 32%

(I’ve got some thoughts on how this question was asked, and I’ll share those later.)

The whole process was fascinating. I’m still working out what it means (if anything) to be a part of this specific mix of people.

Oh, as an added bonus, we later got the breakdown of students within the Education Policy and Management program:

Average work experience: 4.6 yrs.

Age: 27

Students of color: 34%

International students: 3.1%

States represented: 29

Female students: 64%

Total students: 88

Part-time students: 2

What are the implications of all of this? Does it help me understand anything that’s about to happen in the next 9 months, or does it give me a false sense of understanding the people with whom I’ll be studying?

Things I Know 212 of 365: It’s good to experiment with breaking the rules

If you weren’t paying super close attention, you probably missed the story of the guy shared the screen shot of his mobile Starbucks card, letting it lose in the world as an experiment in giving and common good.
Those who downloaded the image to their mobile phones were able to make Starbucks purchases using the account’s balance.
Think of it as a global gift card.
The balance worked both ways. Not only did strangers several degrees removed caffeinate themselves on someone else’s dime, they through their dimes into the mix as well.
Jonathan Stark said he hoped the experiment prompted other acts of kindness for the general good.
What impressed me most about this story and what has shifted some of my opinions as a consumer was Starbucks’s role (or lack thereof) in the entire episode.
Eventually, the company pulled the plug on the common giving when another customer with a mind for experimentation revealed a way to hack Stark’s card.
Until that point, they were just watching.
It makes sense.
While I’m sure someone at corporate HQ wishes they’d come up with the whole thing as part of a guerilla marketing campaign, they didn’t.
But it worked just as well.
The company was in the news and making a profit for a news story that was essentially about people buying one another coffee.
Most impressive was Starbucks’s restraint.
What Stark did broke the company’s usage rules. They were well within their rights to shut the whole thing down as soon as news broke of Stark’s experiment.
They didn’t.
They realized someone was doing something they hadn’t anticipated and that the act was working toward their goals. At some point, someone made the call to see how it all played out.
While this is exactly what one would hope from corporations or anyone in a position of power, really, it’s often not the case.
Thanks a latte, Starbucks.
Really.

Things I Know 211 of 365: Unions hold two sets of truths for me

The only sound approach to collective bargaining is to work out an agreement that clarifies the rights and responsibilities of the parties, establishes principles and operates to the advantage of all concerned.

– Charles E. Wilson

Earlier today, I was reading this Daily Kos column from Marie Corfield announcing and explaining her campaign for the New Jersey State Assembly.

I’m not sure what rock I was under when Corfield started making waves last September when she confronted Gov. Chris Christie.

Perhaps I was in my classroom teaching.

To get up to speed, I watched the video of Corfield and Gov. Christie’s exchange.

While I am still no fan of Gov. Christie’s rhetorical style, I did find part of his rhetoric interesting.

In response to Corfield, Gov. Christie says, “I have not lambasted the public school system in the state of New Jersey.” He takes a break there to chastise Corfield for her body language and later picks up, “My lambasting and my rhetoric is directed very clearly at one set of people, and that is the leaders of the teachers’ union in the state of New Jersey.”

It’s an interesting distinction.

I can see how Gov. Christie sees it.

“I’m not against New Jersey schools or teachers,” he seems to be saying, “I’m only against the heads of the teachers union.”

It almost sounds as though his explanation is expected to assuage Corfield’s worries.

Strangely, had he been speaking of the leaders of some of the Philadelphia teachers’ union, it might have come close to assuaging mine.

My first union meeting in Philadelphia felt like a bit of a repetitive kick in the groin of my idealism.

The union negotiates fair wages and equitable labor practices, secures health benefits and paves the road for the retirement or pension fund teachers work toward in exchange for salaries that continue to remain out of step with the services they provide.

In a profession where the easiest thing to do is lose yourself in what you give to your students, the union remained an anchor ensuring teachers didn’t lose the pieces that kept them housed, fed and healthy.

This was the image in my head.

The picture that unfolded in the meeting of thousands of teachers was one unmindful of the best possibilities of what it meant to be part of the union. The tone was adversarial and the words were devoid of the passion for teaching.

My feelings at the end of it all existed somewhere between the cliché about never wanting to see how sausage is made and Grocho Marx’s never wanting to join a club that would have him as a member.

I didn’t turn away from the union after that, though it likely sounds as though I would have. I didn’t even want to.

The truth of what I witnessed in the meeting was no greater than the truth behind the union securing a wage and pay scale long before I arrived in Philadelphia that made it economically feasible to move to and stay in the city. It was a truth no greater than the fact that the union worked to negotiate a sick bank so that district employees could invest their unused sick leave so that they or their colleagues were more secure should they be stricken with a chronic illness. It was a truth that couldn’t overshadow our ability as a site union chapter to govern ourselves in a way that allowed for the structure and schedule necessary for SLA to work best for students and teachers.

Both truths existed and still do.

And this is the piece that makes the specificity of Gov. Christie’s response mute in the ears of many teachers. While I’m certain many, if not all, teachers would denounce one local union head’s urging of member to pray for the governor’s death, when Gov. Christie lambasts the heads of the New Jersey teachers’ union, that’s not what members hear.

They hear the governor attacking those whom the teachers have elected to protect their salaries, the medical coverage of their families and the guarantee of fair working practices.

What’s more, rhetorically speaking, when Gov. Christie allows those with whom he disagrees to dictate his tone, he chooses a road that makes it all but impossible to hear him as a statesman.

Things I Know 210 of 365: I’m an intellectual hoarder

To understand how hoarders can end up in such dire straits, you need to understand how the process starts, and that begins with understanding one central concept: To hoarders, none of that stuff is trash.

– TLC Network Website

George Siemens wrote a thoroughly interesting post about meeting up with Alan Levine and being introduced to Levine’s Piratebox/Storybox.

The post and the box – be it of the pirate or story variety – are both incredibly interesting and should be read and pondered.

The piece that stuck me in Siemens’s post had everything to do with his thinking around the potential uses of the box. Actually, it was his thinking on his thinking:

I’m not sure how to apply this to teaching/learning (why is that always the measure of an idea? “Hmm, how can I use this with students”? Why can’t things just be sometimes?). Something like a learning box? I’m grasping here.

The question of why things can’t just be scuttles around in my brain constantly.

Movie, book, song or conversation…anything entering my field of thinking is primarily analyzed for education.

No matter its origin or intended purpose, I find myself questioning how the object or idea can make teaching and learning better.

It’s a sickness.

Oddly enough, it’s a sickness I once pitied in others.

In college, as a member of the campus improv troupe, I was close friends with many theatre students. It was a whole other world from the close reading, critically theoretical, OED-loving one I knew as an English major.

Fortunately, all my theatre friends were tremendously talented and consistently found themselves cast in some production or another.

Dutiful friend that I was, I often found myself in the audience.

After a few shows, I noticed something.

While I was sitting in the audience submersed in the world of the play, whichever theatre friend was sitting next to me was seeing a different show altogether.

They saw colleagues on the stage practicing their art.

Where I saw story, they knew the backstory of how an actor moves from part to character to production. The knew and saw the pieces.

After the show, my basis for judgement was how much I’d lost myself in the world of the performance. Their bases for judgement were a million subtle metrics I would never understand.

The closest thing I have for comparison is where my mind goes when watching Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds or even Matilda.

This is also where my mind goes when it finds something novel, new, interesting or important.

I hear Siemens’s question, “Hmm, how can I use this with students?” or some variation of it.

Everything strikes me as an avenue for building conduits of understanding. If I need to use Lady Gaga to show what it means to look deeply at a text, so be it. If I need to compare allowance and birthday money as a means for explaining gross mismanagement of educational funds, superb.

Different from Siemens, my brain doesn’t limit itself to students, but asks how anything can be used to build understanding for others. Even if an immediate use can’t be found, I’ll squirrel the new bobble away like an intellectual hoarder.

Every once in a while, I’ll hit a moment of frustration.

“Why does everything have to be about learning?” I hear from somewhere in my mind, “Why can’t things just be sometimes?”

In these moments, I hear a chuckle from somewhere else in my mind, “You’re cute,” a voice says, “Now, back to thinking.”

Things I Know 209 of 365: Teachers neglect their Teacher Voices

There is no index of character so sure as the voice.

– Benjamin Disraeli

More than once when speaking to a room crowded with non-students I’ve forgone a microphone and decided to use my “teacher voice.”

I usually make reference to my choice, and people chuckle and nod knowingly.

Everyone knows the teacher voice.

In all the talking of toolkits and techniques, the teacher voice rarely, if ever, comes up.

We’ll discuss cooperative learning strategies and phonemic awareness until we’re offered early retirement, but the teacher voice gets no play.

Until Monday when Chicago school teacher Adam Heenan launched his “Use Your Teacher Voice” campaign.

Heenan is asking teachers to create 30-second videos in which they talk about any edu-topic they’d like. His only requirement, they use their teacher voices. (He’d also prefer they remain civil.)

Heenan claims “our authority, our teacher identity has been taken away or stolen from us. In others cases we just haven’t capitalized on the opportunities to say what we love about teaching and what we believe needs to change in ways that are best for teaching and learning.”

I agree.

As of this writing, Heenan’s Teacher Voice channel on Youtube has only two uploads.

But, word is spreading.

I’m excited to see more.

I’m excited to make my own.

Everyone has an opinion about public education, and most people see themselves as education experts because the majority of Americans spent around 13 years of their lives in public education systems.

Still, teachers are the authority.

They know classrooms and the work it takes to make them places of safety, learning, creativity and community better than anyone else.

Heenan’s campaign encourages teachers to speak with authority to their own authority.

It’s a great way to spend 30 seconds.

Things I Know 208 of 365: Let the teachers teach

The only way to predict the future is to have the power to shape it.

– Eric Hoffer

Ironically, though I won’t be teaching this year, I’ve attended or been party to more district commencement events than any single year I’ve been teaching. Most interesting about each of these events are the similarities I’ve seen across districts.

With only Sarasota and Philadelphia to use as my in-person barometers of district cultures, I’ve relied the last few years on what I’ve read on the edublogs I follow.

When those posts have echoed experiences similar to my own, I’ve written it off as an expected consequence.

Of course these people would have similar thoughts to mine. I’d chosen to follow them, hadn’t I?

This year’s commencement sampling has included reports from Nebraska, New York City, rural Texas, suburban Ohio and Chicago.

I’ve gone back to school virtually or physically all over the country.

Outside the realm of my usually reading, the sentiments of teachers are remarkably unified – let us do our job.

At least three of the districts a bracing for new state-wide standardized tests.

As one teacher put it, “We’d just about figured out the old test and now we’ve got to figure out a new one.”

I suppose one way to make sure teachers aren’t teaching to the test is to completely revamp the exam when students start to experience success.

Very tricky.

Five points to Slytherin.

In almost all of the schools and districts I’ve connected with, I’ve heard some variation of the phrase, “We’re in a transition period right now,”

This has meant anything from the traditional superintendent shuffle (no less off-putting than the Super Bowl Shuffle of the 1985 Chicago Bears), massive layoffs, the adoption of new store-bought curriculum (rhymes with “Fearson”), or re-structuring to bring a district into compliance with a newly-chiseled state commandment.

What strikes me with particular force as I encounter these stories is the fact that none of these changes are coming from the school or teacher level. All of them, without exception, are being handed down with compliance as the expectation and termination as the unspoken stick.

I have this notion that teachers can have some pretty innovative ideas and be tremendous forces for positive change if well-meaning, but misguided leadership got out of the way.

It’s just a theory. I’ve only ever seen it work two times.

My favorite line across state lines when it comes to commencement has been uttered by every superintendent I’ve encountered – “We are not teaching to the test.”

Really?

Are you sure?

Because you’re certainly not teaching away from it,

After a speech I gave recently, a teacher came up to me to explain why no one had engaged when I opened the floor up to Q&A, “Plenty of people wanted to,” she told me, “but we’re on lockdown with scripted curriculum. We like the ideas you talked about, but we can’t talk about them with the administration in the room.”

They were so frightened of getting in trouble for doing their job that they couldn’t talk about doing their job.

As she walked away, the teacher turned and said, “I wish they’d just let us do our jobs.”

Five points Gryffindor.

Things I Know 207 of 365: We might have First World First World Problems

She dropped her Kindle into the foot tub when she nodded off during her pedicure.

– First World Problem

Normally, I’m a fan of first world problems. Without them, we would be without series such as Seinfeld and Curb Your

Enthusiasm (both of which I’m told are quite good).

First world problems, when you take notice of them, help to put perspective back in the daily game.

“My online grocery order is late,” or “The projector isn’t working properly during the trailers for the movie I’m watching.”

These are problems of the First World that set people’s blood pumping.

(Let me add to those first two, “I can’t think of suitably ridiculous first world problem examples.”)

Pointing out sadly ironic first world problems is one of those gifts of privilege given by being fortunate enough to be born into the First World.

For those who are self-aware enough to note such problems when they arise, such realizations can serve as suitable gut-checks to the consumption-induced cloud of modern consumerism.

A danger lurks in such global mindfulness.

In making a distinction between the “worlds,” it’s easy to discount the strata that divide citizens within whatever world of development we live.

As I sat with my dinner tonight in the airport, I watched the following exchange between a restaurant cashier and a visibly disgruntled customer. The customer had breezed his way to the register, but his continued look of concern gave the cashier reason to pause.

“Is something the matter, sir?”

Grumble, grumble, grumble. “Yeah, I’ve got a four-hour flight.”

“Well, I’ve heard of bigger problems. Have a safe flight.”

Exchange complete.

Now, bear in mind, the cashier’s last line with spoken with a tone of complete empathy and frankness. It was a sort of “Gee, buddy, that’s tough” line.

The customer’s huff arrived, and he left in it.

I was left behind wondering about what had transpired and what happened in the minds of both men.

Did the cashier hear a whiny voice in his head, “Oh, poor baby, got to sit on a plane for four hours while I keep the beverage cooler full”?

Did the customer realize his complaint and accompanying frustration were first world problems?

Obviously, there are many pieces to this puzzle to which I will never have access.

What I saw were two men separated by station, one relaying a problem of privilege that the other, in that moment at least, did not have access to.

It wasn’t about access to privilege, it was about access to the problems of that privilege as well.

Compared to someone who must struggle each day for access to clean water or suitable nourishment, these men stood together a world away. Compared to one another, they stood a world apart.

The entire exchange has been filed away under the archive of Types of Moments in which I will Keep My Problems to Myself.

I’m a firm believer in the idea behind “Think globally, act locally.”

After today, it might not be a bad idea to make sure I’m thinking locally as well.

Things I Know 206 of 365: I’m going back to school

He who opens a school door closes a prison.

– Victor Hugo

I’m flying to Alice, TX at the moment. The good folks of Alice have invited me to speak at their back to school commencement.

This, to me, it weird.

I’ll be speaking about my work with the Freedom Writers Foundation. Specifically, I’ll be talking about what it was like to write and edit a book with 149 other teachers and what insights the process and the content of the book provided. I’m also trying to think about what I wanted to hear at the beginning of my school years.

Without fail, before heading back to the classroom, I consulted the writings of Harry Wong in The First Days of School. The first two years I read the entire book, sure what I needed to be the best possible teacher was contained within those pages.

It wasn’t.

Before my third year of teaching, I read only one section of the book. In fact, I read only two pages of the book – the section titled seven questions students have on the first day of school.

It’s only as I write this that I realize the help Wong provided was rooted in my answering of students’ questions, not his answering of mine.

In shifting my thinking toward anticipating and answering those questions for my students, Wong shifted my thinking from my summer mindset of paying attention largely to my own needs and wants to those of my students.

It started the ignition of my teacher brain.

Yes, I would need to be challenged and cared for throughout the year. I would have my own questions that needed answering. Those six questions, though, reminded me that even the toughest, most frustrating students entered my classroom trepidacious about what they were getting themselves into,and it was my job to start the year by anticipating and working to meet their most basic needs – to start our time together by assuaging as much of their fears as I could.

I’m not one for the customer service model of education. The adoption of any type of capitalist thinking into a realm that is only at it’s best when everyone is supporting everyone else, muddies the waters in a way that is counterproductive to the mission of a democratically educated citizenry.

We do not work to anticipate and meet the needs of students because of the gains it might garner down the road. We anticipate and meet the needs of students because they are people and we care for them.

I suppose that’s the larger message for tomorrow – I do not matter. More to the point, any advice I give does not matter. If I can ask the right questions and encourage the teachers of Alice to ask the right questions of how best to see and serve their students,  perhaps I will have done some good.

Things I Know 205 of 365: There’s a new poet in town

The truth of poetry is not the truth of history.

– Philip Levine, United States Poet Laureate

We’ve a new poet laureate.
We had an old poet laureate.
Digest it quickly,
Move on.

No hippy, liberal elitist.
No ivory tower academic.
He’s from Detroit.
He worked the line.
He’s gotten his hands dirty.
Some of it rubbed off on his soul.

America has a poet.
This feels right.
At it’s best,
America strives to be poetry.

At our worst,
We clunk along like prose,
In a technical manual,
From when we needed stereo instructions.

I met a Poet Laureate once.
He shook my hand.
He signed my book.

Later, before sleep,
his words filled me with the capital “T”
Truth
Only poets can tell.

If we wanted School Improvement Plans
That told us where we’re going,
That reminded us where we’ve been,
That showed us the best and worst
Of who we are and what we could do,
Every budget would include

… a Poet Laureate.