Tag: learning

Culture Will Eat Your Policy for Lunch

In preparation for our Academic Distinctions episode on Bloom’s Taxonomy, Stephanie and I read the work by Bloom et al. that started it all. One of my favorite quotes attributed to Bloom is that the taxonomy is “one of the most cited works in education which no one has ever read.”

So, it made sense we would get to work reading it. If you’re curious about the history of the taxonomy and how it went from trying to come up with a common way of naming the kinds to things educators were asking students to do on exams to the seed of objectives on the board and “higher-order thinking,” check out the episode.

What you won’t hear in there (and what has been hangng in my head since reading the book) is what I’d consider a key piece of how Bloom and colleagues envisioned the content of the book being used.

The philosophy of education of the school serves as one guide, since the objectives to be finally include should be related to the school’s view of the “good life for the individual in the good society.” What are the important values? What is the proper relation between man and society? What are the proper relations between man and man?

Finally, educational objectives must be related to a psychology of learning. The faculty must distinguish goals that are feasible from goals that are unlikely to be attained in the time available, under the conditions which are possible, and with the group of students to be involved. The use of a psychology of learning enables the faculty to. determine the appropriate placement of objectives in the learning sequence, helps them discover the learning conditions under which it is possible to attain an objective, and provides a way of determining the appropriate interre lationships among the objectives.

Can modern schools do this? Do modern schools have a shared philosophy of education? Do they ensure all educators on their faculties have our best understandings of the science of learning – what Bloom & Co. called psychology of education?

No, right? And, when we came back from emergency remote learning where every teacher had been operating on their own philosophy of education, we jumped back in head first and with both feet (I don’t know how that works) pretending normal hadn’t shifted.

If I may paraphrase Peter Drucker, culture eats objectives for breakfast.

Way back in 2009, Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” TEDx Talk started making the rounds in faculty and leadership team meetings around the world. Everyone and their intern was asked to talk about their “why.”

Sinek was re-imaging the work organizations had been doing for decades in drafting vision and mission statements.

Why are we doing what we’re doing?

The interesting thing in Bloom is the assumption schools and other organizations dedicated to learning were coming to learning objectives with shared philosophies of eduction and understandings of the science of learning.

Despite our compulsory viewing/reading of Sinek, we don’t have those.

We got close at the height of the charter school movement. I’d argue some of the draw of no-excuses schools was that we could look at them and know what they were about. They were/are built on a shared philosophy of education (so very distant from the science of learning).

It’s what Chris and I write about in Chapter 6 of the book, “Vision must live in practice. It’s also why it’s so early in the book. If we don’t start there, we will end so many unintended places.

Responding to a professor today in an online forum about AI in education, I realized we’re at another moment that is calling us to build practice on a shared sense of what we believe and know about learning. If we can’t name these things within our schools with a common voice, well, AI will be a mess.

Some states and districts have issued briefs and policies on the use of AI in schools. Utilizing the moment to say, “This is what we believe about the thing and we will all believe this about that thing.”

Great.

And what do we all believe about how people learn best and how schools can support that learning? Without shared understanding of those elements, well, culture’s happy to move on to policy after it’s finished with objectives.

Culture is insatiable.

What’s Happening with Superintendent Gill’s Goals?

As out local daily newspaper’s capacity to cover local news has been greatly reduced, I’ve decided to offer some minimal coverage of our local school board. The plan is simply to offer up things that could go unnoticed for folks who don’t tune in to things like local school board meetings. I’ll likely add context and some commentary where I think it might be helpful.

The Gist

  • Eight out of every ten district students test below proficient in reading.
  • Four out of every ten district high school students won’t graduate in four years.
  • The Superintendent made public six goals to improve these conditions and committed to four public progress reports on those goals.
  • Those reports never happened.
  • School Board members either forgot about the progress reports or ignored the fact they didn’t happen.

The Whole Story

This might seem like reaching into the wayback machine to find something to write about, but stick with me.

First, let’s start with some facts.

According to state data, District 186 had a 4-year high school graduation rate of almost 63% in 2023. Looking out six years, that rate improves to 72%. The four- and six-year rates lagged 25% and 16% behind the state average, respectively. Put differently, four out of every 10 students who started high school in Illinois’s capital didn’t graduate in four years.

Proficiency across ELA, math, and science gives some indication as to why District students may have difficult graduating on time. Not only do district averages continue to lag behind the state, but approximately eight out of every ten students failed to show proficiency in English on 2023 state assessments as well.

Eight out of ten.

I’ll likely be bringing up these and other data as I write about the Board.

For now, let’s let these two images ground the question driving this post: What’s happening with Superintendent Gill’s goals?

During the 1 May 2023 board meeting, Superintendent Gill outlined her six strategic goals for the district:

Goal 1 is to address with urgency the most underperforming elementary, middle and high schools, based on ISBE designations and other data sources such as attendance, assessment (both qualitative and quantitative) data, student conduct and support systems in place. Gill asked that a Board committee be formed to work with her on this goal.

Goal 2 is to examine research surrounding the data processes and the recommendation of retention or social promotion in District 186 schools. In particular, to analyze data surrounding students promoted to high school from 8th grade.

Goal 3 relates to Freshman on Track, a measure that is part of the overall school designation program for the ISBE School Report Card data released each fall. Gill noted this goal will monitor programming and individual growth of students in all high school programs to make sure 9th grade students are on track, as well as monitor student supports, as needed. These supports could include mentoring, tutoring, attendance supports, and so forth.

Goal 4 is to design communication and support structures for students to address graduation rates of all District 186 credit bearing programs.

Goal 5 is to conduct a study surrounding the issues of declining enrollment in district schools, utilize future forecasting of enrollment and analyze its relation to the community’s overall population. Gill noted that the analysis will be presented to the Board of Education by the end of the 2023-2024 school year.

Goal 6, to monitor and communicate with the Board of Education regularly on the hiring, recruitment, promotion, and support for all staff as the district navigates an overall teacher shortage in education. Additionally, Gill reported that as the Consent Decree, which is based on the Desegregation Order of 1976, is supported, she will communicate matters concerning minority recruitment, hiring, support systems and promotions.

In light of graduation and proficiency data, these goals align to pressing needs. Related to Goal 3, state data show 69% of district 9th grade students were on track to graduate in 2023.

In this same presentation of her goals, Gill committed to the Board that she would report progress toward these goals across four future meetings: Nov. 23, 2023; Jan. 16, 2024; March 18, 2024; and June 17, 2024.

Here’s the thing – she never did.

Not only do Board minutes show no record of any progress reports from Gill in those meetings, they also show no indication any board members inquired about this progress.

Eight out of ten don’t show proficiency in reading.

Four out of ten don’t graduate in four years.

Three out of ten aren’t on track to graduate.

No one checked to see if we’re making progress to help turn that around.

19 Aug 14 – District 186 School Board Meeting

As out local daily newspaper’s capacity to cover local news has been greatly reduced, I’ve decided to offer some minimal coverage of our local school board meetings. The plan is simply to offer up things that could go unnoticed for folks who don’t tune in to things like local school board meetings. I’ll likely add context and some commentary where I think it might be helpful.

Full video of the 19 Aug. ’24 District 186 School Board Meeting.

Following the Pledge of Allegiance, acknowledgement of board members’ with students who had their first days of school that day, and swearing in this year’s student representative on the Board, Board President Micah Miller turned the meeting over to Superintendent Jennifer Gill for her report.

Gill reported 13,004 registered students as of the meeting time and a 89.03% district attendance rate for the first day.

District Vacancies

Across the district, Gill reported 11 current certified teacher vacancies and 64 vacancies of the 309 paraprofessional positions in the district. Of the paraprofessional openings, 15 of the 111 classroom para positions were vacant and 49 of the 111 one-to-one positions. Gill noted several of the vacancies would be filled by Board approvals at the meeting.

Student First, the District’s student transportation contractor began the year short 13 drivers necessary for all routes, Gill said. To make up for the shortfall, 17 drivers from the District’s ELC would be handling those routes until the ELC opens Aug. 27. By that time Gill said the some of the 17 new hires currently training with First Student would be ready to take over.

Gill said anyone interested in becoming a bus driver ($25/hr) or bus monitor ($16/hr) should reach out to First Student and noted training time for new hires was compensated.

Celebrations

Gill began her celebrations noting the District’s theme for the year, “Level Up 186.” She said it was meant to connect to students’ interest in leveling up in gaming and also “taking their learning to the next level.”

Gill shared photos from welcome back celebrations for teachers and students across the district as well as photos from the “AVID District Path Training: Creating Engaging and Rigorous Classrooms” from Aug. 13 and 14 attended by teachers from Southeast High and Jefferson Middle. Gill said the training was of particular note because all schools are “focusing on AVID” across the District.

Read more about AVID here.

Approval Items

In addition to standard items such as payroll, the following agenda items were unanimously approved by the Board:

  • $55,000 to the National SAM (School Administration Manager) Innovation Project (NSIP) for a site license. The District has already implemented the SAM process with select schools and leaders.
  • $53,000 in federal Title I funds for the contracting of The Thoughtful Classroom as the State Board approved Learning Partner with Dubois Elementary School. Dubois is required to contract a Learning Partner by the State Board because the school earned a Comprehensive rating on its 2023 school report card.

Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA) provides supplemental financial assistance to school districts for children from low-income families. Its purpose is to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education, and to close educational achievement gaps by allocating federal funds for education programs and services. Title I allocations to state education agencies and local education agencies (LEAs) are based primarily on annually updated LEA poverty estimates produced by the U.S. Census Bureau. Then, within-LEA allocations to schools are based on school poverty rates, for which a common measure used by LEAs is the number of public school children eligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRPL). 

The Board approved up to $119,00 for “RSM US LLP to assist with consulting needs for the Fiscal Year 2024 Audit Preparation.”

Board members approved moving the maximum allowable reimbursement amount for staff and board members from $3,000 to $4,000 and increasing the per diem for food to $70. Gill said the increases were necessary to accommodate rising costs of travel and other expenses.

A final item on the agenda was adoption of new district language on personal electronic devices into the student handbook. Discussed and ratified over the course of the last few meetings, this new language moves to a centralized approach to policy and away from the previous freedom of schools to set individual approaches. Of particular interest were the universal consequences listed in the new policy:

  • 1st – Take phone for the day & send to the office, admins call the parent / guardian
  • 2nd – Take phone for the day, Parents/Guardians will be required to pick up the phone before the office closes and take the phone with them. The time should be communicated to the parent of when the offices closes. (If the phone is not picked up, it remains in the office until it is picked up).
  • 3rd – Restorative conversations and classroom detentions and/or administrative detentions will be issued.
  • 4th – Other disciplinary consequences will be issued for repeat offenders and repeat offenders can be required to bring the phone to the academic office with the appropriate grade level administrator each day if parents/legal guardians require their child to have a phone before or after school for safety.

Full minutes of the meeting can be found here.

The next meeting will be September 3 at 6:30 PM in the Board Room, at 1900 West Monroe, Springfield, Illinois.

7 Jan 21 – Have Them Write

Whatever other tools and resources and lesson plans we are using right now, we must have students write. Before class conversations. Before pretending we can just move back to in-person learning or beyond watching white supremacists parade the Confederate flag through the U.S. Capitol, have them write.

There will be time for biology, calculus, Spanish II, world history and the lot. Yes, we’ve already lost so much time, so it won’t make much difference to give 10 minutes to providing space for students to pause and put whatever they’ve been holding down on paper.

And, while they’re writing, let’s write with them. Use the time to put down some pieces of the load we’ve been carrying.

It doesn’t need to be graded, shared, discussed, or edited. It needs to be written. Each word put to the page is a brick removed from the walls we and our students have built to keep the world out and ourselves safe this past year.

We are foolish to think they or we will be able to do school until we’ve laid down what we’re carrying.

And, yes, we can have morning meetings, advisory, crew, and whatever other support mechanisms we’ve built. They will be a salve as we return to communities of learning and teaching. Even then, have them write first. Have them take the time to unjumble their thoughts and emotions in a way that doesn’t require sharing with anyone.

And then, tomorrow, have them write some more.

In which a district administrator and a classroom teacher have a civil conversation

Had a meeting with a middle school teacher today. He and his team were asking for a specific app to be moved into our self service directory for their middle school students. The app proports to help students develop their vocabulary skills, so it got funneled to me in the chain of command.

Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash

To be honest, this app has been a thorn in my side since I started the job. It’s not horrible, but it’s not great. When I’d been forwarded the initial request, I’d responded that I was pretty sure it was already in self service and, for what it’s worth, that I was reticent to recommend students using any app during class time which took away from real reading and writing.

It turned out, I was wrong.

It turned out, I was wrong. Not about the reading and writing, but about the app already being in self service. The last time I had this conversation, we were able to allow apps to be accessible at a school level. Now, we are not. This meant I would be approving access not just for one school, but for all middle schools.

What I’d considered as one kettle of fish had turned into a whole other of said kettles.

Thus, the meeting with the teacher. We started with him suggesting I talk through my thoughts on the app and then he’d fill in with his team’s plan. I laid out my concerns and he said, “Yes, we think exactly the same thing.” Then, he explained the team only wanted the app so students had something to use outside of class to think through vocabulary. Remember, it’s not horrible, and in the face of so many possible app which are horrible, the team was attempting to stem the tide of horrible.

“I mean, we’re professionals.”

“We want them to be doing real reading and writing as much as possible too,” he said, “I mean, we’re professionals.”

He didn’t say it defensively or as a form of semantic brinksmanship. He simply mentioned he and his team’s professionalism as a reason they too would not want their students using this app during class time or as a way to supplant real reading and writing.

I told him I understood exactly and had assumed as much. I then explained how our infrastructure had changed, shifting their ask from one of a single school to one of all middle schools. “Oh…” he said, “I understand.”

I explained that I had to consider inclusion of the app as possibly being interpreted as at least a tacit endorsement – something that particularly worried me when considering novice teachers who might be looking for anything to get them through their first few years. I went on to explain I’d approved the inclusion of the app and I’d be writing and sharing a blog post from the department blog outlining guidance and my reservations for other middle school teachers in the district.

He had told me early in the conversation that this app wasn’t a hill he was interested in dying on, and my explanation was meant as a signal the same was true for me.

I wish it didn’t strike me as so odd how civil and respectful our entire conversation was. Since taking a role in district leadership, my default expectation for the tenor of such conversations has shifted to one of combativeness. I work “downtown” after all or I’m from “the district” or “central office.”

I wonder if this teacher entered into the conversation with the same sort of expectations. Did he think I was going to issue a summary judgement or simply pretend to listen to his concerns and then make the same decision I’d planned on when starting the meeting? Perhaps.

That makes me a bit downhearted. When I talk to folks about what I do, I have and always will explain my job is to support students and teachers. I can only be successful at helping all of our students become fully literate citizens if I can also support all of the adults in our system get the learning and resources they need.

Understanding all of those needs means having as many conversations as possible like the one I had today.

The Joys of a Teacher Exit Ticket (27/365)

It’s an academic coda to a lesson where everyone played their part. It’s turning getting to the last page of a novel and realizing the plot is resolving itself in a way that is both exactly what you wanted as well as nothing you’d ever expected. It’s getting home from a first date and receiving the perfect text message. It’s finding out a meal you loved comes with a complimentary dessert.

I love a good exit ticket.

That love is why I spend so much time thinking about authentic, helpful, meaningful uses of this after dinner mint of learning.

It is also why I’ve started thinking about what teacher exit tickets might look like. I’m not saying exit tickets from professional development (though those are good too). Teacher exit tickets are in concert with student exit tickets, but they are the questions teachers must answer about what has happened over the course of a lesson. When schedules drown out professional reflection, teacher exit tickets can be moments where we get our heads above the water and survey the ocean around us.

Specifically, two questions stick with me as shaping thoughtful practice and looking for student progress:

  • What were students in this space curious about?
  • What did students leave knowing or able to do that they couldn’t do at the beginning of class?

For each, there is the implied, “And how do I know?”

A teacher exit ticket can act as the link between today’s enacted lesson plan and tomorrow’s aspirations. We know what we’re setting out to do at the top of a school day, but we rarely take the time to allow what actually ended up happening to directly and thoughtfully affect what happens tomorrow. Teacher exit tickets allow for this connective tissue to form.

What other questions would be wise to consider as teacher exit tickets? Add them to the comments below.

How We Tell Students Stories of Gender (26/365)

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I don’t follow sports. I can tell you the name of the Eagles’s backup quarterback, but I’ll be completely unaware when he’s replaced by the guy who is their usual quarterback. I know there are divisions and conferences. I know baseball has leagues, but I can’t tell you which team is in which. When watching the Super Bowl with friends Sunday, I knew the play immediately following a touchdown could result in two different point amounts being awarded, but I had no idea which plays got to which points. I cannot tell you how many points a field goal is worth.

I was supposed to get this information at some point in the growing up process. I graduated high school in the only state in the Union that requires four years of physical education. I remember when I realized I was missing a piece of being a guy when Mr. Allen set up stations during the basketball unit of P.E. and explained that Station 1 was where we practiced layups and every other guy around me knew what he was talking about and what to do. I was clueless.

At this point in life, I’ve done some things – some very cool things of which I am very proud. Still, I can feel the moment in conversations with new groups of other men where the conversation is about to turn to sports and I’m either going to have to admit I know nothing about sports or stay as quiet as possible while nodding along until the topic changes.

I hate this expectation.

I hate the other half of the expectation as well.

I hate the fact that I can throw out that I’m a queer man and it will absolve me of others’ expectations I’ll be able to hang in conversations about sports. It’s playing into a stereotype suggesting being queer means I’m not going to understand or have any interest in sports. Outing myself as queer and outing myself as sports illiterate feeds a social construct I’m not here for.

This is the story I bring with me when I look at assessment results along gender lines within our district and nationally. On average, our boys’ reading and writing scores are below our girls’. It starts in elementary schools, and leads me to wonder what stories we’re telling and perpetuating about boys as readers and writers. When sitting with teams of teachers I am often asking how they make sure boys see the men in their lives as textually literate. What strategic ways are they working to make sure boys see reading and writing as ungendered?

I worry in similar ways, at the other end of the spectrum, about the gendered stories we tell about math and science. What is it we are doing to uncouple these disciplines from male and masculine perceptions? Setting aside for the moment the pernicious structural and institutional biases at play in tech and STEM workplaces, how are we stealing identities of scientist and mathematician away from girls? Where are they seeing the women in their lives as capable and engaged science-positive members of society?

So, if we are to tell these stories better with a fuller set of voices, how might we proceed?

  • Avoid assuming someone’s already told the story. Whether it was Mr. Allen assuming all the boys in our class knew what a layup is or how to shoot one or assuming all girls in a class understand that just because their math teacher is male that doesn’t mean math is for men, examining and addressing our assumptions is a first step to broadening the learning narratives our students hear.
  • Prompt students to listen to how others tell the same stories. This means practices highlighted by people like Sunil Singh in this post. Singh mentions math teacher Peter Harrison who “used to give out these insanely hard math problem sets. However, he encouraged students to get help from any teacher in the school — or even outside the school. You just couldn’t ask him.” What might be the power of taking ourselves out of the narrative in order that students might write their own?
  • Remember language matters. In my own work with teachers and students I’ve been striving to eliminate a simple phrase from my lexicon – you guys. While I realize the shorthand is largely accepted as gender neutral in intent, I can’t believe it is neutral in how it is heard. Every time we say, “you guys” when we mean everyone, we are challenging anyone who doesn’t identify as a guy to find their way into the conversation. Once or twice it might not matter, but I’m imagining the deleterious effects of a lifetime of having to instantaneously recode your identity to find your place in a conversation.
  • Tell fuller stories. One of the most powerful takeaways I had from C.J. Pascoe’s Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School was the normative language we use throughout seemingly benign examples we offer students each day. How culturally-representative are the names we use in math word problems? How heteronormative are the texts we ask students to read?
  • Open the conversation for adults. My guess would be, if you sat down with your school or district and looked at the results from any assessment, you’d see some trends along gender lines. Fiats and banners about equality will not solve this. Instead, faculty meetings require the space to have honest conversations and to ask which systems and structures might be telling students unintended stories of gendered expectations.

Tonight’s Conversation about Curiosity (22/365)

Tonight, I’ll be moderating the EduCon opening panel at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Stephanie Sandifer, Antero Garcia, Rafranz Davis, and Milton Chen will join me for a conversation about curiosity with special consideration of how it relates to schools and education.

My hope is for the panel to be a true conversation. With such a varied and experienced group of folks, I’m more worried about how to get out of the way than anything else.
Below are some of the questions I’m considering. Please add your suggestions in the comments.
  • Is curiosity always good?
  • What are you actively curious about at the moment?
  • What key components of curiosity that traditional public education gets right?
  • How might a re-framing of how we think about curiosity along the lines of gender and sex bring equality to those narratives?
  • What are simple moments in regular practice where we could be leveraging the power of curiosity and are not?
  • What might be the effect of streaming and bingeability on the curiosity of children and adults?
  • If curiosity is free and cultivating it is free, why are we less likely to see students living in poverty be encouraged to follow their curiosity than their peers in the middle and upper classes?
  • Jal Mehta’s recent piece “A Pernicious Myth: Basics Before Deeper Learning” makes an argument for giving students bigger tasks or what David Perkins calls “the whole game” what would it actually take to move people in your various systems to embrace such a philosophy?
  • Considering the story of William Kamkwamba as recounted in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, as well as some remarks from this same panel a few years ago, is there an argument to be made that limitations are fertilizer for curiosity?
  • What’s to be done in encouraging teacher curiosity? Are their things you’d argue are most important for teachers to be curious about? What practical steps can schools and school systems take to make this happen?
  • How do we navigate our and our students’ curiosities about darker or prickly topics?
  • How do you keep your curiosity from becoming complacent?

We’re Producing a Season of Television to Help Our Teachers Learn (21/365)

I got to work on one of my favorite projects of the school year Tuesday. Our district is in the second year of implementation of a new set of elementary literacy curriculum resources. This would be enough pressure. Now, add the fact we have 26 elementary schools spread across 13 communities and 411 sq. miles.

Getting folks on a page around deepening their practice is exceedingly difficult. Scheduling professional learning classes after school works for some schools if they’re nearby and creates a hardship for others who might have to drive 30 minutes immediately after teaching.

That’s why, this year, we’re taking a new approach to professional learning, communication, and information sharing. We launched a television show. The fourth Tuesday of each month, we stream a live television show using Youtube live. The show itself is about an hour in length and teachers who sign up for credit then complete an assignment related to the episode’s theme.

In August, we started with an episode dedicated to routines and procedures at the beginning of the school year. Yesterday’s episode was about using mid-year data to form a body of evidence to meet students’ needs. Each episode features news and updates from the curriculum office, a listing of upcoming classes, and teachers from the district.

This month’s episode included a 1-on-1 interview with one of our district assessment coordinators, a taped segment from a kindergarten classroom leveraging student inquiry, and a panel discussion featuring a second-grade teacher, a third-grade teacher, their principal, and the school’s literacy teacher. For 25 minutes we all discussed the practical ways the school works to build a body of evidence for each student’s learning and how they respond to identified needs.

Participants logged in from across the district, including those featured in the tweet below. No one had to get in their car, and those who had scheduling conflicts can watch the episode later. What’s more, we work to catalog each resource mentioned within an episode and link it in the show notes. We’ve started to see resources from one edge of the district pop up in classrooms three towns away.

What’s more, we’re creating artifacts that can be utilized long after each episode airs. Principals looking for resources to use in staff meetings can pull one of the taped segments with accompanying reflection questions. They can zero in on a piece of the panel conversation to push their teachers’ thinking.

Come time for new teacher orientation next year, we’ll have an archive amounting to a full season of television to share with teachers new to the district.

The approach is not perfect. We’re certainly learning from each episode. But, we’re also hearing from teachers across our schools telling us they’re watching with their teams, streaming in their pajamas, and – in today’s case – gathering as a school to have conversations and learn from their peers.

My Best Moment of the Week: Picking Line Leader (5/365)

people standing in line on a paved lotMy best moment from this week happened this morning. I was in one of our district’s kindergarten classrooms as the school day began. As the students entered the room, they were greeted by their teacher, but something was different from every other classroom entrance routine I’ve seen this year. The students entered, put up their things in the cubbies and then made choices as to what they were going to do to start the learning for the day. They were all over the classroom, all practicing their reading, all talking. It was beautiful. And, as much as that was lovely, it wasn’t the best moment.

The best moment was when the teacher picked the popsicle stick from her cup to announce the day’s line leader. For the uninitiated (or those who have forgotten), line leader is a pretty big deal in elementary school. If you’ve got a lifelong thirst for power, it probably started with your first term as line leader.

Whereas every other teacher I’ve ever seen select the day’s line leader has simply picked a name, said the name, and moved on, this teacher did so much more.

“The name I’ve picked has one syllable,” she announced. The students, at this point assembled on the carpet, hushed for a moment as they thought. Then, without prompting, one student popped to his feet. Then a girl joined him. Finally, another boy stood. I realized, these were the three students in the room with single-syllable names.

Okay. That would be enough. She wasn’t done.

The teacher asked the class if the students were correct. As a class, they practiced saying each student’s name, checking to see if it was, in fact, a single syllable. Each was.

The teacher then asked the students to look at the alphabet on the back wall with each student’s name listed below its first initial. She went through each of the three students, asking the class, what letter their names were under. The class answered.

“Okay,” the teacher said, “this name has three letters.”

After a second or two, several students started voicing their guesses. They were correct.

She wasn’t done. One of the standing student’s names had 5 letters. “How many letters does her name have,” the teacher asked the class.

“Five!”

“Correct. Is that more or less than three?”

A longer pause, “MORE!”

She did the same thing with the third student, asking if his name of four letters was more or less than a name of three. The students all knew and each answer was a celebration.

The entire thing was a celebration, and it only took three minutes. In those three minutes, this teacher was able to ask her students to practice at least five different skills of varying difficulties, but all essential to kindergarten learning. She didn’t say, “Let’s practice syllabication,” or “Now we’re going to think about numbers.” She just gave them small, contextualized opportunities to put into practice the skills they’d learned together earlier in the year.

This otherwise perfunctory task was seen as an opportunity for learning. It was a master stroke by a professional focused on squeezing the fun and the learning out of each moment.