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98/365 Bullying in Colorado: Part 2 of 7

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This 7-part series will cover the history of bullying legislation and anti-bullying efforts within the state of Colorado beginning with the first definition of bullying by the Legislature in 2001.

Colorado’s Opening Volley

While it was certainly present within the state prior to legislative mention, bullying was first mentioned in by the Colorado Legislature in 2001 with the passage of Senate Bill 01-080 (SB 01-080). This bill revised state statute 22-32-109.1 (2) by adding a new subparagraph which defined bullying in Colorado as “any written or verbal expression, or physical act or gesture, or a pattern thereof, that is intended to cause distress upon one or more students in the school, on school grounds, in school vehicles, at a designated school bus stop, or at school activities or sanctioned events. The school district’s policy shall include a reasonable balance between the pattern and the severity of such bullying behavior.”  This new subparagraph also instituted a requirement of schools’ Safe School Plans in that they would now need to include “a specific policy concerning bullying prevention and education.”

This initial legislative effort to address bullying can be characterized as a first try ample in good faith but insufficient in action. In its analysis, the USDOE stated, “[L]egislation that defines prohibited bullying behaviors, and specifies graduated and substantial sanctions, will often require extensive implementation procedures, such as reporting requirements, investigation, and procedures for implementing the sanction (e.g. expulsion)” (xvi).

Colorado’s 2001 measure defined the behaviors to be understood as bullying, but left specific sanctions to school or district level decision-makers with the only guidance that there should be a plan and it should include considerations of patterns and severity of bullying behaviors.

As it went into effect August 8, 2001, SB 01-080 made bullying a legally identified offense in Colorado schools and required schools to include plans to keep their students safe by preventing and educating them about bullying.

It did not identify means for or require the reporting of bullying incidents in schools, take steps to provide Colorado youth with an avenue to report bullying, or make any mention of the inclusion of research-based methods of bullying prevention.

Perhaps most disconcerting was the lack of any mention of protected classes within this initial bill, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Romer v. Evans in 1996 (517 U.S. 620) which allowed for the inclusion of protected classes in such legislation. Specifically of interest here were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth.

According to the results of the 2011 School Climate Survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), “56% of students who were harassed or assaulted in school never reported it to school staff, and 62% never told a family member about the incident. Among students who did report incidents to school authorities, only 34% said that reporting resulted in effective intervention by staff” (p. 1).

Such bullying reflects not only a hostile environment for these students, but the unwillingness to report such incidents to their families exemplifies the double isolation of this group of students as well. Doubtless, other instances of feelings of depreciated safety exist among students in other protected classes, but no statewide school-based statistics are available at this time.

In short, SB 01-080 took steps ostensibly intended to reduce bullying and increase student perceptions of their safety within Colorado schools, but did not take advantage of the Legislature’s full power nor did it move to help schools and districts understand specifics of what they could do to protect students.

94/365 We are not Saving Starfish

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We need no martyrs here.

It’s easy, in the conversation about education, to point to the martyrs. The system is set up to invite martyrdom.

“Do more with less,” say states, districts, and principals say (outright or otherwise), “Teach these students with books from two decades ago, no classroom supplies and a drive toward academic standards but a neglect of standards of humanity.”

Structurally, teaching looks like it should be a breeding ground for martyrs.

As contracts around the country are calling for extended days without additional pay, value-added models are include values not directly in teachers’ control, and communities are asking schools to do much more than imprinting the three Rs, it is little wonder martyrdom is a main activity of a teacher’s prep period.

The teaching load is getting heavier, class sizes are expanding, and the mission is more complicated.

Teachers have every reason to complain about pay, workload, the demands of the job.

But there’s a difference between complaining and protesting and martyring ourselves. The most important difference? We don’t need another martyr. Teaching doesn’t need another person who steps away from education and says, “I gave everything I had to that school and those kids, and I just can’t do it anymore.”

We’ve had enough of those.

We also don’t need another story of “Nice White Lady” syndrome where the fresh-faced teacher walks into the class of marginalized students. She’s determined to make a difference no matter the odds or cost to her personal life.

Teaching isn’t an all or nothing proposition, and we are building an unsustainable system each time we perpetuate the idea that it is.

You are not saving students. You are not the savior of students. You are not the one they have been waiting for. No prophesy has fortold your coming. You are a person of passion and training who is working to help other people learn. That is good, and it should be enough.

The first step to moving away from a martyr mindset in education – you’re not the only one.

If you weren’t in your classroom, someone else would be. They wouldn’t approach things they same way you do. They wouldn’t have the same inside jokes with students, and they wouldn’t challenge authority with the same vigor, to be sure. Still, someone would be in there, and their time is just as valuable as yours. If you think you are God’s gift to teaching, you haven’t been teaching long enough.

Also, if it costs you everything, it’s costing you too much.

If the second largest drain on your paycheck is supplies for your students, if your personal relationships outside of school are suffering because you can’t talk about anything other than your students, if you have to get a second job to support your teaching, then you’re doing it wrong.

Teachers deserve a fair wage. They should be able to teach and support themselves without fear of worrying whether they’re going to make the rent. To accept anything less as a teacher is to contribute to the deprofessionalization of the practice. Accepting a position teaching for anything less than a living wage hurts us all. It makes teaching seem expendable, it discounts the investments we’ve made in our own learning, and it tells schools we’re willing to settle. We aren’t. If a school or district isn’t willing to pay what you need, go somewhere else (and know that somewhere else might be many miles away).

Third, you’re not saving the children.

You are helping. You are the shoulder on which to cry. You are the one who connects your students with the resources they desperately need. You will not be the one who “saves” them.

To suggest as much ignores the first point above and it robs students of their resiliency and agency. It assumes your world is better or worth more than their own. It assumes a lot, and ignores many important questions. Millions of students who have survived horrible existences have made it through without you. You can help, but they are not waiting for you.

This doesn’t mean you’re not making an impact or providing help when it is needed. It only to say you are not the savior of students, no matter what you were told when you were hired or how much you’re sure your students love you. They might, and you were probably hired because you were highly qualified, but you are not and will never be the savior of your students.

To think otherwise is to pin a deficit on your students and take a load on your shoulders that are both unfair and uncalled for.

Teaching is an amazing profession. It affords adults a window into and a hand in the construction of discovery and learning like few other professions. It is a noble and necessary profession that requires the most caring, prepared, intellectual people it can find. It is not, nor should it ever be, a place for martyrs or those looking to carry a cross.

Anyone who stands in a classroom (of whatever sort) is to be honored by the surrounding community. This person deserves respect, a fair wage, and access to the resources necessary to making our schools temples of discovery and learning. Those temples, though, must not require anyone to bear a cross.

17/365 Back to Dewey 1.5 – ‘The Nature of Freedom’

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It may be a loss rather than a gain to escape from the control of another person only to find one’s conduct dictated by immediate whim and caprice; that is, at the mercy of impulses into whose formation intelligent judgment has not entered. A person whose conduct is controlled in this way has at most only the illusion of freedom. Actually forces over which he has no command direct him.

- John Dewey

Experience & Education

This post continues a mini-series examining John Dewey’s Experience & Education chapter-by-chapter.

Though one of the shorter of the 8 chapters in this already-short tome, no. 5 packs a punch as I Dewey takes a moment to extoll the virtues of freedom – particularly freedom in schools.

Enforced quiet and acquiescence prevent pupils from disclosing their real natures. They enforce artificial uniformity. They put seeming before being. They place a premium upon preserving the outward appearance of attention, decorum, and obedience. And everyone who is acquainted with schools in which this system prevailed well knows that thoughts, imaginations, desires, and sly activities ran their own unchecked course behind this facade.

What sells this passage for me, which ultimately sums up the chapter perfectly, is Dewey’s own wink to the idea that, “We’ve all been there, right?” While the vast majority of his arguments and reasoning have been rooted in the language of philosophy up to this point, in Ch. 5, Dewey pulls back the curtain a bit to acknowledge that, in progressive education, he’s also describing the types of schools he would have liked to attend.

Freedom in learning, Dewey is writing, allows for action in learning. This, stands in stark opposition to the passivity he identifies in traditional school experiences.

And just as I was starting to wonder about this constant action and the criticism I could see it inviting, Dewey paused for a moment to speak to the importance of pausing. Learning, (true, active learning) my should be followed by moments of stillness and reflection so that students can take the information and knowledge they’ve gathered in their actions and organize it in a way that makes their experiences meaningful and opens questions for further experiences.

Freedom, yes. Freedom without organization and reflection, no.

15/365 Back to Dewey 1.3 – ‘Criteria of Experience’

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The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning.

- John Dewey

Experience & Education

This post continues a mini-series examining John Dewey’s Experience & Educationchapter-by-chapter.

If Chapter 2 saw as its purpose the definition of the need for a theory of experience, in Chapter 3, Dewey sets about defining what need happen in education experiences. Before he can do that, though, he sets the “autocratic and harsh” practices of traditional schools in relief against the democratic goals of progressive education.

For me, the poster-worthy section of the chapter comes as Dewey asks whether we would prefer democracy to something else:

Can we find any reason that does not ultimately come down to the belief that democratic social arrangements promote a better quality of human experience, one which is more widely accessible and enjoyed, than do non-democratic and anti-democratic forms of social life? Does not the principle of regard for individual freedom and for decency and kindliness of human relations come back in the end to the conviction that these things are tributary to a higher quality of experience on the part of a greater number than are methods of repression and coercion or force? Is it not the reason for our preference that we believe that mutual consultation and convictions reached through persuasion, make possible a better quality of experience than can otherwise be provided on any wide scale?

Were it not so lengthy, I’d say I’d found the premise of my next tattoo. Schools, Dewey is arguing, should be the training grounds of citizenship and act as the vanguard of humanity and freedom. These are better goals than adequate yearly progress.

If these are our goals, Dewey moves on to explain the types of experiences necessary to help students reach those goals. They must be continuous and promote growth in general.

Those experiences Dewey is attempting to define? They must arouse curiosity, strengthen initiative, and set up desires and purposes sufficiently intense to carry a person over dead places in the future, continuity works in a very different way. To judge this, we need only ask toward and into what an experience moves an individual. Simple questions, again, with no easy answers.

Here too, Dewey argues the importance of the adult in helping to shape the experience. There’s no point to having maturity, he writes, if we are not to use that maturity of experience to help craft the conditions whereby students might better learn. It is not enough to say, “Go, have experiences.” Adults are beholden to draw on their knowledge and their own experiences to help turn students toward experiences that might fulfill our democratic goals.

All of this must ask the question, “Have I created something that increases the innate curiosity of my students?” rather than depletes it as is often the case of traditional schooling? This, in the end, is Dewey’s primary criterion for experience. The only way to accomplish this is to understand the student in the moment and work to craft experiences that build on a continuity of understanding toward the goal of increasing that student’s drive to ask and seek more.

Traditional education, Dewey writes, asks students to adapt to school, but fails to adapt to the students.

This is more to do with listening, it seems to me, than speaking. If we wish for our students to ask questions of the world, we must ask questions of our students. Often, when we speak of modeling, we have no trouble modeling how we get to the answer of a problem or how we build the finished product.

What we’re not great at, where teachers are found lacking, is the modeling of how we got to the questions and how we came to shape those questions in useful ways. If we want our students to be the builders of great ideas, they must be the askers of great questions. Too often, classroom questions fail to move past the meager, “What are we supposed to be doing?”

Dewey’s idea of “collateral learning” is diminished as a possibility when this is the case.

A letter from a student teacher to a student teacher

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As a final activity, I asked the four student teachers I had the pleasure of supervising write letters to next semester’s group. The instructions were something like, “Write what you wish someone had said to you at the beginning of this experience.” Below is the letter from Jessica Post to those who follow. Jessica is an amazingly creative teacher who is dedicated to improving her practice and connecting to kids. Here’s what she had to say:

Dear Future Student Teachers,
I was very apprehensive before student teaching and was not sure I was
entirely ready for such an intense experience. All I heard from people about this
necessary step in the process was how much work it is and several unfortunate
stories. The thought of planning and teaching four classes was incredibly daunting
and my confidence was shaky. Time flew and before I knew it I was preparing to say
goodbye to the students whom I had grown to know and love. I feel guilty
sometimes when I think about how my 130 students probably taught me more than
I could ever hope to teach them. They continued to show up everyday and stayed
with me when lessons fell flat. They tolerated my cheesy jokes and random
tangents about my pets. They saw me as a teacher before I ever saw it in myself.

Sure, there were days I was tired and dreaded teaching and I imagine, some days,
the students felt the same. But I made it and more importantly I enjoyed it.
Currently, I feel invigorated and excited to have a classroom to call my own. Job
searching and planning for the future is now more daunting than student teaching
could have ever been.

Student teaching gives you the unique opportunity to talk through lessons,
try things you learned in class, and observe the inner workings of a school while
having a plethora of support. I had a wonderful and educational experience and I
sincerely hope that you have similar journeys. I have learned more about myself,
both as a person and as a teacher, during student teaching than I could have learned
in any class. Looking back on the past four months I can pinpoint some key things
that I believed helped me have a positive experience. I share these, in hopes that
they may be of service to you as well.

The most important thing is to accept and remember that everyone’s
experience is different and you should not feel pressured to do things a certain way
or at a certain pace. I observed and co-taught with my CT longer than some of my
colleagues. I had a very gradual transition into solo teaching while other members
of my group jumped in right away. At times I felt slightly inadequate for my sluggish
transition. Did my CT not think I was capable? Am I not qualified to do this? I
pushed my self-doubt aside and accepted the fact that this is what I am comfortable
with and how I learn best. Looking back I am glad I did it this way.

Secondly, make sure to continue doing things you enjoy and ask questions. I
was very busy but I made it a point to hangout with my friends and continue to be
active. This provided some much needed stress relief and made me a more amicable
teacher. Zac and your CT are here to help you and they are really good at answering
questions-especially Zac, he is awesome and you are lucky to have him as a
supervisor. Listen to their suggestions but always be yourself. If something doesn’t
feel right, even if it was their suggestion, don’t do it because if you’re not invested in
it or believe in it, neither will your students.

Accept that some lessons are going to be awesome and others will fall flat.
Always be reflective and critical and write down suggestions as if you were going
to teach that lesson again. I kept sticky notes and stuck them to my lesson plans
to remember what worked, what didn’t, how I would change it, and if the students
liked it. I also went through my CT’s file folders (with his permission of course) and “borrowed” lots of project ideas, rubrics, and assessments. This will undoubtedly be of service to me when I land a job of my own.

For some weird reason I cannot explain, my friends do not find my stories
about the student building forts in the corner of my classroom or my really engaging
lesson that mimics Tosh.O’s web redemptions amusing. Therefore, I befriended
the other members of my cohort and we met every weekend for breakfast. The
first hour we were at the restaurant consisted of eating and sharing stories from
the week. I found these friends are much more responsive to my stories. Then we
would lesson plan, bounce ideas off each other, complain about the TPA, or grade
papers for 2 or 3 more hours. I suggest finding a restaurant is not incredibly busy
and does not mind if you camp out for several hours (I was a server for a long time
so I am very sympathetic to the server’s plight and customer dining etiquette).
Always let them know you intend to stay for a long time and tip your servers well.
Serving PSA aside, this was very beneficial and it provided some much needed help
and support. I strongly suggest this.

Nearing the end of my experience I visited other teachers I have come to
know and respect throughout the school. I observed them and took pictures and
notes of things I liked in their classrooms. In particular I focused on daily routines,
resources, and classroom management. These observations were much more
fruitful than the ones done in practicum because I have experience and specific
things I am looking for. It was also fun to see students with other teachers. Some of
them act completely different than they did in my class. This was very helpful and
allowed me to see other teachers in action (something we won’t get to do as much
when we have our own classrooms).

Try not to get overwhelmed and remember that you are in control of what
you get out of this program. I sincerely wish you the best and I am very excited for
you. I hope you have a wonderful time student teaching and learn a lot from the
experience.

The IRL Fetish – The New Inquiry

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Nathan Jurgensen:

Twitter lips and Instagram eyes: Social media is part of ourselves; the Facebook source code becomes our own code…

Many of us, indeed, have always been quite happy to occasionally log off and appreciate stretches of boredom or ponder printed books — even though books themselves were regarded as a deleterious distraction as they became more prevalent. But our immense self-satisfaction in disconnection is new. How proud of ourselves we are for fighting against the long reach of mobile and social technologies! One of our new hobbies is patting ourselves on the back by demonstrating how much we don’t go on Facebook. People boast about not having a profile. We have started to congratulate ourselves for keeping our phones in our pockets and fetishizing the offline as something more real to be nostalgic for. While the offline is said to be increasingly difficult to access, it is simultaneously easily obtained — if, of course, you are the “right” type of person.

via The IRL Fetish – The New Inquiry.

Learning Grounds Episode 002: In which Anesha discusses her learning around school choice and cultural competency

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For this week’s episode of Learning Grounds, we sat down with Education Policy and Management candidate, Anesha, to discuss what she’s learning about ideas of school choice and policy’s role in creating equity in the opportunities facing kids today. We also had time to talk about the role of schools in cultural competency.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Things I Know 364 of 365: This is my 14th post of the day

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Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

- Pres. Woodrow Wilson, “Fourteen Point Speech,” Point 1

This is the fourteenth post I’ve written today. It is the penultimate post of the series. Tomorrow’s post will be all, “Here’s what I’ve learned by looking at what I think I know.” Today was clearing out the closet of ideas I’ve been stowing in the corners of my computer and my brain this year. And I’ll happily admit feeling some strange, nerdy camaraderie with Wilson’s 14 Points as I wrote.

I’m a little surprised I’m still up writing, that I didn’t head to bed half a dozen posts ago and decide to finish the rest of the bunch tomorrow.

It became clear to me around today’s 4th post that I would be writing all 14 today. I needed to wake up tomorrow knowing the 365th day of this endeavor meant I needed only to write the 365th post. I needed the last post to have its own day, the way it all began.

For anyone following along this year, or simply by looking at the title of the series, it would seem as though I would only need to write one post each day anyway.

That would be true, had life not gotten in the way. The changes and moves of this year (stuff I’ll write about tomorrow) meant some days (quite a few, in the end) didn’t include blogging as a priority.

That is fine with me. I sad a hundred days ago or so, that I’d come to the realization that the rules of this enterprise were my own and that breaking those rules wasn’t cheating, but adapting.

So, as the Postal Service’s “Sleeping In,” plays on iTunes, that’s what I plan to do tomorrow, knowing today I handled the heavy lifting of holding myself accountable for meeting a goal I set for myself almost a year ago.

Today was a goal in itself – Find 14 ideas worth sharing and keep the writing cogent. I hope I’ve succeeded. I think I have.

Things I Know 316 of 365: It’s best to teach two types of writing

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Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

- Benjamin Franklin

Yesterday, I was listening to and interview of one of my favorite television writers, Steven Moffat. He’s the head writer and executive producer of Dr. Who and Sherlock and one of the screenwriters of The Adventures of Tintin.

Moffat has been a fan of Dr. Who since he was a boy and was asked when he wrote his first script for the show.

I expected mid-20s.

Moffat answered 10 or 12. He and a friend scripted a 4-part series of the show on their own, in their free time.

My mind immediately went to how that interest could have been leveraged in school. The voice in my head sounded something like, “I’m sure they didn’t, but Moffat’s school should have had a program for script writing. He could have latched on to his passion much earlier.”

Thinking it over, I’m glad they didn’t. We might have ruined him. This was a boy so enamored and passionate about writing – this kind of writing – that he spent his free time playing with the form and structure.

While school could certainly have been the place for the development of his talent, it seems unlikely they would have given it room to breathe and time to develop.

I’m so tempted to argue that we should be teaching more forms and genres of writing in school aside from the expository and persuasive essays required by standardized tests. In the current curricular climate, though, we would teach those things in pieces with restrictions and a tone of teaching that says, “This is the way you do it.”

What I love about Moffat’s writing is how far he strays from the expected and how often he breaks the rules. It makes for interesting storytelling.

When I started my students on story slams, my guidelines were purposefully vague – tell a story, make it interesting. The judges in the audience were given two measures – content and presentation. We never stopped to define what a top score in either of those categories would look like. Rather than looking for certain characteristics, I relied on the idea they would know quality when they saw it.

If we could teach writing like this – if we could say, “Work until you think you’ve gotten to quality” – then I’d say we should carve out space in classrooms for our future-Moffat’s. Until then, their curation of their passions is safer in their free time.