Most Likely to Succeed Film and Book

More than a half-dozen times now I have watched Brian's eyes light up with an I did it--I created something that works expression, and I have watched Samantha's confidence shine as the all female play she directs garners applause from an audience of family and community members. I have also watched Scout's father, film director Greg Whiteley, acknowledge his daughter's feelings that "this whole thing called school is B.S."

The compelling storyline in the film Most Likely to Succeed speaks to me as a parent, educator, and community member. I've sat in parent/teacher conferences not unlike the one Whiteley's daughter and wife endured and even once was told by an administrator that I should have my son read boring books at home so he would be better prepared to read the boring texts on the state standardized tests. More positively though, I have also observed the I created something and it works look in my son's eyes when he built a computer.

As pointed out in the beginning of Most Likely to Succeed, our education system was designed in 1893 by a Committee of Ten men who wanted more efficient, compliant, and educated factory workers for the industrial age. A standardized education system with a teacher who dispensed knowledge provided what the economy needed at the time and guaranteed workers "a perfectly average job, with a perfectly average family, a perfectly average home, and a perfectly average life, and a perfectly average funeral."

We no longer need as many factory workers because more and more jobs have become automated. We have knowledge at our finger tips as we consider access to the Internet a basic right in our developed country. We need students who can think critically, communicate effectively, solve problems creatively, and collaborate productively to make our world a better place. Most Likely to Succeed does not offer a panacea for the issues in public education, but it does open eyes and convey a sense of urgency needed if we are going to make sure kids receive the education they need in our ever changing world.

In addition to seeing the film multiple times, I have now also read Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith. I am encouraged, empowered, and more ready than ever to continue my personal and professional mission of
 re-imagining public education.

As Dintersmith and Wagner acknowledge in their book, we could have completely redesigned our education system, the position advocated by Ted Sizer founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools, as we headed into the twenty-first century. Instead, our country chose to "push for incremental improvements and rely on policies calling for curriculum homogeneity, more pervasive standardized testing, and teacher accountability tied to student test score performance (26)."

Unfortunately, we are paying a price for this choice as "student and teacher engagement levels have plummeted in the face of a steady diet of test prep (27)." We've turned public education into a series of hoops to jump and games to play (just ask my 9th grader). The book is not all depressing though; the authors offer examples of how we can re-imagine school. Think about their suggestion of what we might consider as the purpose of education.

"The purpose of education is to engage students with their passions and growing sense of purpose, teach them critical skills needed for career and citizenship, and inspire them to do their very best to make their world better (44)."

If we decide this is our purpose, then we must respond as such and we must offer students--
choice, opportunities to learn from failure, lessons that require critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. We must also teach students to communicate effectively both in writing and in speaking. I've written on this topic previously.

Dintersmith and Wagner don't stop their conversations with K-12. In fact, one entire section of the book is devoted to ideas about college degrees. They say they "don't subscribe to the view that a college needs to revolve around practical courses (169.)" Rather, they give college faculty, administration, students, and parents plenty to think about. As a liberal arts graduate, I was pleased with this perspective--

"Today, employers look for graduates who exhibit critical skills, ask great questions, and demonstrate perseverance and grit. These critical skills can be taught in traditional liberal arts pursuits as well or better than in business courses (170)."

Re-imagining public education has been on my mind for nearly as long as I've been out of college. It started in graduate school when I read works by Ted Sizer, John Dewey, Deborah Meier, John Goodlad, and Maxine Greene. I began teaching in a high needs school in North Carolina and committed myself to teaching with intentionality, even writing "purpose in instruction" at various places around the classroom as a reminder to myself to keep our studies, projects, and lessons meaningful.

Read about how I helped arrange Ted Dintersmith's visit to KY

I'm not alone either because I know dozens of committed teachers throughout the United States who work diligently inside our flawed system to provide students the deeper learning experiences they need. I also know parents who advocate for change and who work together on re-imagining the system. I'm optimistic about what we can do when we work together.

In the past nearly four years, I've used this blog as a place to share my voice about how we need to re-imagine curriculum, instruction, assessment, and the overall system. Blogging has connected me to others and taught me more about what we can do if we speak up and work together. We need to remember that all of our voices can have impact. We can, together, make a difference to bring the change we need in public education. We no longer live in 1893. We need a bottom-up approach led by teachers, students, and parents demanding change to the system.

I urge you to see the film and read the book Most Likely to Succeed because once you do I guarantee you'll be ready to join me.

Kentucky and Colorado Teachers Collaborate to Create Units of Study with LDC Modules Embedded Within

Seattle, Washington

From Seattle to Colorado to right here in Kentucky the collaborative spirit has been an important  productive struggle for teachers and partners participating in the Common Assignment Study (CAS). In the CAS, Kentucky and Colorado teachers continue to lead the way with the implementation of new standards in both states.  For the past year, teachers from Kentucky and Colorado have been collaborating to create units of study containing embedded Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) modules.  Hundreds of students in each state have been impacted by these high quality units, and dozens of teachers have learned from one another about what makes an effective unit and what quality student work looks like.

This summer we expanded our participation from 24 Kentucky teachers to 64 from five different Kentucky districts. Colorado has similar numbers of teachers from multiple districts participating in the study. To launch the expansion, The Fund for Transforming Education in Kentucky hosted Colorado educators and all our CAS partners twice this summer. We held the first session in northern Kentucky at Dixie Heights High School in late June. High School English Language Arts teachers and middle school history teachers joined forces to revise the units they implemented in 2013-2014 based on the results of student work they analyzed together using CAS partner created protocols. Joining us at this work session were school and district leaders from participating sites because we continue to learn the importance of school and district leadership with ensuring successful implementation. The leaders need to hear from teachers about what they need (time is always a big one) for collaborating with colleagues.

My son running XC on beautiful day in Lexington, KY

Our second session, in mid-July, was held in Lexington at Edith J. Hayes Middle School, and included a larger group of high school social studies, middle school English language arts, and both middle and high school science. Following the same protocols used at the June convening, teachers again worked to refine lessons and collaborate with teachers experienced in the CAS project and teachers joining new for the first time this year. This intentional design allowed teachers new to the project this year to work collaboratively with teachers who created the initial units last summer. This approach, though not easy, encouraged the newly joining teachers to take equal ownership of the units they will teach in 2014-2015.

As The Fund's Initiative Director for this project, one of my favorite parts is the equal focus on process and product. Yes, we're working to create units, rubrics, and protocols, but we are also experimenting with collaborative processes across school, district, and state lines. I'm not alone in thinking collaboration is a valuable part of our Common Assignment Study.  When asked what they liked about the collaborative process at the summer convenings, here's what we heard from some of the teachers...

"collaborative efforts of a lot of great minds"

"I liked that we came from different backgrounds"

"multiple perspectives"

"Collaboration was streamlined, and everyone was more comfortable speaking up"

"Again, collaboration with like minded experts always leads to new and productive ideas.  I always get better with my craft when surrounded by comrades."

Loveland, Colorado

______________
Other posts about this project by me & by others

Common Assignment Study Gears Up for Second Year

Online Tools for Collaborating Across States

Common Assignment Study Post 1

Bridging the Digital Divide in Classrooms by Brison Harvey

Introducing Common Assignment Study  A three part post by Brison Harvey

A Storify all about the HS English Spring Unit by Colorado Teacher, Danny Holloweg

Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teachers and Teaching in Kentucky

Just under a year ago, a few educator colleagues and I had a dream, and it all started with my friend, Sherri, telling us about what we were about to experience as we prepared to attend the national ECET2 conference in California. At this national conference, I met a fellow Kentucky educator whom I had never before met because he was from another part of the state.  When we returned home to Kentucky, many of the Kentucky ECET attendees began a twitter campaign and tweeted our hearts out because of Sherri's inspiration before we even attended the conference.  Sherri had a dream that we would put on a similar conference here in Kentucky for our teacher friends.  Today, that dream became a reality.  Even in the midst of a Kentucky snowstorm, teachers braved the elements to come together in Lexington to elevate and celebrate our profession.

Classroom teachers led our day, from our Master of Ceremonies (a high school social studies teacher) to our opening keynote (Sherri) to our breakout sessions (teachers from all subjects and grade levels), to our colleague circle groups (teachers from all grades and subjects) to our lunch keynote speaker (Florida 2010 Teacher of the Year, Megan Allen) to our closing speaker, a 6-12 science teacher from Robertson County, Kentucky.

Sherri encouraged us to get up, team up, and speak up because our profession depends upon it.  As

educators in all capacities, we do what we do for the sake of students, and it's important that we not do it in isolation.  By collaborating and using our voices, we can make a difference.

Sherri Presenting.  Photo by Amanda Riley

Irvin Scott led us in song, and together we began the togetherness Sherri mentioned in her speech.  Imagine a room full of teachers singing (to the tune of the Black Eyed Peas song--I've got a feeling) "I've got a feeling that I'm making a difference in kids' lives."

Venturing into colleague circle groups, teachers from around the state gathered in small groups of eight to discuss important issues around education in our state right now.

• What obstacles have you as teachers faced in becoming a leader in your school or district?
• What successes have you achieved in teacher leadership recently?
• What can be accomplished in your school, district, and/or state to encourage teacher leadership?
• What steps can you take in order to help more teachers become leaders?
• What and how will you share materials from this conference with those in your school/district?
• What does teacher leadership mean to you?
• What does teacher engagement look like in your classroom/district?
• What are the best mechanisms/social media outlets to continue the discussions/interactions/work of the Colleague Circles?

Not all of these questions were discussed at once, obviously.  In between break out sessions, teachers returned to their colleague circle groups to talk, network, and collaborate on building one another up as a teacher.


Break out sessions (led by teachers) included

1. Learning and Improving Practice Through Collaboration
2. Leveraging your Voice
3. Teacher Leadership that Transforms
4. Fireside Chat:  Personal Journeys in Teacher Leadership
5. Your Voice Matters:  Reimagining Teacher Preparation
6. Google Apps in Education (cancelled due to a new baby being born by the presenter's wife)

At each breakout session we attended we met new colleagues and actively participated in the conversations around each of the presented topics.  These were led by teachers; they were not "sit and get" PD sessions.

We sang, we laughed, we grew teary eyed from stories, we shared and collaborated, and we left feeling inspired with our teaching souls nourished.

Kentucky Educators Collaborating with Colorado Educators to Implement Common Core

After an amazing week in Colorado, I can honestly say I'm completely grateful for my job and the opportunities I have to work with educators in Kentucky and across the country.  Each morning last week as I drove to the beautiful Thompson School District Training facility, I drove toward the Rocky Mountains and past a beautiful lake.  The scenery wasn't the only amazing aspect of the week, I worked with excellent educators who all desire the same thing for all students--an equitable opportunity to learn and grow.

This meeting was exceptional because after one face-to-face workshop last summer and a full semester of virtual collaboration on the creation of a unit, teachers were again face-to-face to create new units for the spring semester.  They are creating common units around common content standards, but not scripted step-by step standardized units.  Each teacher contributes to the lessons and makes appropriate adjustments to meet the needs of individual learners in each class.  Teachers are encouraged to think beyond multiple choice tests and toward performance based assessments that will measure deeper learning.   Importantly, teachers lead the unit design and make decisions about the units; their work is facilitated by content experts from Stanford's Center for Assessment Learning and Equity. 

The groups begin by creating Enduring Understandings as learned in our work over the years with Understanding by Design.  These guiding questions serve as a driving force for the the unit of study.  The focus on larger concepts, principles, and ideas keeps us away from a focus on discrete skills alone and helps us consider ideas that will be more engaging to students.  For example, the high school English Language Arts group is looking at the impact of social media on language, and the high school science group is thinking about how humans affect biodiversity. 

Within these larger units of study Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) modules are embedded.  LDC offers an instructional ladder (with mini tasks developed by teachers) designed to help students attain and surpass the demands of the Common Core literacy standards in each subject area.  Effective implementation is vital with both LDC and larger units for teaching the Common Core State Standards.   That's why our Common Assignment Study is exciting.  We have selected top notch teachers who know how to meet the needs of their students and who are always seeking to grow as learners and professionals.

As a former teacher, I know I would have enjoyed an experience like this, so to be there in a support and leadership capacity, was interesting and invigorating in a new way.  I collaborated as a leader because leaders also have to be willing to work together to create the systems and structures we need in schools, districts, and states to support the work of teachers and the learning of students.

5 Things I've Learned In Two Years of Blogging

On a similar winter day two years ago, I started this blog as a way to reflect and voice my thoughts on

Our backyard in Lexington, KY

education, teaching, and learning.  I selected the title--Learning to Muse--with great thought and consideration about my mission.  My mission is not only to reflect but also to encourage conversation about education re-design, to share thoughts about learning and teaching, and to encourage parents and community members to be involved in public education.

1.  Optimism is essential.   The blogs I most enjoy reading are those that look at life through a positive lens, so I aim to stay as optimistic as possible when I blog too.  An ongoing post I try to write (but haven't been able to complete yet) is about being an idealist who's also an optimist.  Nevertheless, I have written multiple times this past year about dealing with negative people, about looking past complacent people in the workplace, and about staying positive about the work teachers are doing to educate children. 

2.  Writing takes commitment.  I guess I didn't learn this only through blogging, but the persistence required to maintain a blog has been more readily revealed to me.  I've read many other bloggers who write about the importance of a blogging schedule (I'm still working on that one).  The first year I always made sure to post at least one new blog entry per week.  This year I let a few weeks slip by without posting something new, and I always felt a twinge of guilt because I really wanted to write and had plenty of topics, but neglected to follow through every week.

3.  Collaboration beats isolation.  From teaching ideas to parenting tips, any time I can collaborate my life improves.  Sure, collaboration is messy and sometimes difficult, but the benefits far outweigh working or living in isolation.  This past year I had numerous opportunities to collaborate with colleagues on a number of projects, and I even started a new job focused on collaboration between Kentucky and Colorado educators.  This year also marked a turning point in my social media use and the building of my online professional learning community (PLN).  In 2013 I also had more time with my little family of four, and this made the collaborative parenting approach my husband and I enjoy all the better.

4.  Teaching and leading can happen together.  My post about leaving teaching continues to be one of the most popular posts on this blog.  This year, in particular, I spent a lot of time thinking about teaching and leading and how they can happen together.  I also made my foray back into the classroom, only this time at the university level teaching future teachers (part-time--love it!). 

5.  Lexington is a cool place to live.  This year marked our ten year anniversary of living in Kentucky, USA.  As you will read in this popular post, I was never really excited about moving here.   Becoming involved in my community is what changed my view, and this year a highlight of my involvement was when I served as Movie Captain for Girl Rising and gathered nearly 200 people from Lexington and the surrounding areas together at the historic Kentucky Theatre for a viewing of this important film about girls' education.  Now, I can't imagine leaving Lexington, and I find myself hoping my husband might miraculously find full-time work here.

"I Choose C:" Common Core, Collaboration, and Creativity

The first time I saw this video it was shared by our superintendent with a group of instructional leaders, and you can only imagine how I laughed and also cringed at the reality.  Just like the girl in this video, too many of our students are not ready for life beyond our public schools.  As educators, it's up to us to provide opportunities that move beyond simple multiple choice tests which do not always promote the thinking and reasoning required of us all throughout life.

I have shared this video widely with teachers who feel they are doing all they can to prepare students but also often feel bound by high stakes assessments and other mandates from well-intentioned reform specialists.   Thankfully, LDC performance based tasks ask more of our students than a multiple choice test.  My friend, Sherri, has even mentioned after using LDC to implement the Common Core in her classroom, her students perform better on high stakes multiple choice tests, and they leave her classroom able to create, think, discuss, and perform well for job and/or college interviews.

At a recent  TALK (Teaching Advocates Leading Kentucky) conference, Sherri and I presented a session on using LDC (Literacy Design Collaborative) to implement the Common Core.  Another colleague from Colorado attended the session and asked me to share with our ECET2 Colleague Circle group.  Although flattered, I also realized I wasn't sure how to share the face-to-face conversation with an online audience.  My Colorado colleague suggested I start with anecdotal narrative, so here we go...

Session Goal:  Reflect on effective teaching of Common Core State Standards by delving into practical resources, collaborating with colleagues, and networking through social media. 

We opened the session by playing this video and asking participants to fill in this graphic organizer.  The debriefing following the video set the context for a session focused on Common Core, collaboration, and creativity.  All important topics to Sherri and me.  We both believe rich text-based discussions are one way to promote critical thinking and creativity; therefore, we transitioned into a Paideia Seminar led by Sherri.  We asked volunteers to come to the round table in the center of the room where they quickly made name placards and then read the text we had selected for discussion. The text open for discussion was an excerpt from Malcolm X's autobiography, a section where he writes about learning to read and practicing his writing.  Sherri began by asking each member of the circle to share a most important line from the text and to articulate why it was most important.  In addition to facilitating and mapping the conversation, Sherri stepped out of her role as facilitator to explain logistics of leading a Paideia Seminar in a classroom.  All told, the discussion was shorter than it would be in a classroom since we stopped it to move on to other parts of our session, but the participants seemed to get a feel for why text-based discussion is an integral part of LDC modules.

Because non-print text is also an important part of the Common Core, we transitioned to an analysis of an image of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X together and surrounded by people.   I shared with the group various strategies for analyzing non-print text, including my favorite process where we move carefully through a few steps.  (Note:  This is by no means the only way to analyze an image.  However, I have found this step by step process is helpful when working with people who have little experience analyzing images.)

Step 1:  Describe and identify everything you see in the image (it works nicely if you cut the image into four quadrants and show one quadrant at a time before displaying the entire image all in one piece).  This step ensures you look carefully and study what's in the image before you begin making interpretations and/or evaluations.

Step 2:  Interpret (think about) what you see in the image and provide justification for your interpretations.  For our session, we asked participants to share their interpretations using electronic post-its on a Padlet wall  created for this session.  

Step 3:  Reflect.  We talked about how these interpretations or even quotes from the text we read prior could be used in the essays for the LDC task. 

We wrapped up our session by asking participants to share and network via other online collaboration tools (Linoit.com) and a document in Google Drive that lists websites for tools related to Common Core implementation and also with twitter handles and hashtags for people to follow.

So, Learning to Muse readers--please continue sharing ideas and resources you have for implementing the Common Core or for great teaching strategies that will ensure our students recieve an education focused on critical thinking and creativity.

What I am Learning from Design Thinking

For the past two years, I have had the great privilege of participating in several design thinking workshops as a way to seek solutions to barriers and issues in education.  I have left each workshop feeling invigorated, motivated, and ready to continue pursuing solutions in re-designing public education.

Human-centeredness is essential.  We know this, don’t we?  But do we listen and remember why we do what we do and why we make the decisions we make?  Do we stay focused on the needs of the students?   We can do this by listening and showing empathy for given situations.  In one of the design thinking workshops where I participated, students sat with us as we practiced our listening skills.  Students told us about their own dreams for ensuring girls in their rural school possessed more positive body image.  Together, adults and teens brainstormed ideas for solving the problem the girls identified.  The teens and their principal left the workshop with concrete possibilities after the groups prototyped several of the ideas generated during the brainstorming session.

Facilitation skills make an enormous difference.  In my early years of learning to teach, I wrote my philosophy of teaching and included language such as “I am a facilitator of learning… .”  Over the course of eleven years in the classroom, I fluctuated on a continuum of facilitator__teacher.  The constant was always a focus on maintaining a student-centered classroom (thanks to my teacher preparation program).

Facilitating meetings with adults is only slightly different than facilitating learning with a group of teenagers.  It helps to utilize an inquiry approach and to remember the facilitator shouldn't be seen as the expert, but as someone who is curious about the topic/question of study.  Last week I participated in a design thinking workshop in Chicago, the facilitators possessed excellent facilitation skills as they led a group of educators from Colorado and Kentucky through six workstations where we considered potential barriers to collaboration among teachers across the two states, and then we worked to create possible solutions to

these barriers.  With this topic being so heavy and with a need to end the day with solutions, one might expect that we were exhausted at the end of the day.  On the contrary, we left the downtown Chicago studio feeling invigorated and excited about our next steps for our collaborative project.  The facilitators led the group process, helped us improve our communications, examine barriers, and achieve our outcome of creating a community of practice.

Prototypes are a vital part of the process.  Just like in brainstorming, there are no rules while creating a prototype.  Instead of asking, can I _______?  Ask, how will I______?  This is when we test out our ideas, so we can refine them and improve the process and/or product we are creating.  For our day in Chicago, educators from Colorado and Kentucky were coming together, but before we convened, our facilitators prototyped the process with teachers from the Chicago area.  Then those teachers joined us for the day, bringing new perspectives to our planning.

Collaboration is key.  Maybe this is one of my most favorite parts of design thinking because I have long sought collaborative opportunities in education.  Bringing different perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches to learning enhances the experience for all involved.  Who says educators have to stay within our isolated towers of subject area?  Who says students have to learn one subject at a time?  Design thinking encourages collaboration across disciplines, professions, and demographics, recognizing each individual and promoting listening and equality.

I suspect my foray into design thinking has only just begun because I see it as a way to discover, imagine, create, research, renew, and re-focus public education for the very people it’s intended to serve.

The Common Core is Not the Problem, Nor is the Common Core the Solution

Write the spelling words 3-5 times each on Mondays, write them in a sentence on Tuesdays, complete a spelling worksheet on Wednesdays, take a practice test on Thursdays, and a final test on Fridays.  Take a practice on-demand writing assessment once a month in every class.  Read the same book as everyone else in your class, answer questions about the book and write an open response question.  Copy notes from the teacher’s power point, memorize the facts, and respond to multiple choice tests about the facts.   Complete all the even numbered problems in the pre-algebra textbook for homework.

This is not the way to educate our children for what they need in our world now or what they need in the world when they graduate from high school. The common core does not suggest these approaches be utilized nor does it dictate these approaches not be utilized.

So let the naysayers complain about the common core and let the dreamers rejoice for the common core. But understand this—the common core is not the solution nor is it the problem. Students need dynamic and engaging learning experiences every day in their schools. They need to be taught by teachers who are qualified and accomplished and always looking for ways to fine-tune their practice. Students need to engage with principals, assistants, counselors, and deans who honor teachers and give teachers time and support in their quest to reflect upon and improve their practice.

Education news media and social network sites are bombarded by statements from people either loathing or valuing the common core. As a parent of school-aged children, an educator, a community member, and a citizen of the United States, I am here to support teachers and administrators in the implementation of standards which are more rigorous than standards we used previously in our country.  Spending my time and energy to support better practices makes more sense than spending my time and energy complaining about standards which in and of themselves will not improve the educational experience for students, nor will they harm the educational experience for students.  One blogger opposed to the common core states “The future needs passionate, creative, collaborative innovators and entrepreneurs, not compliant, uniform test takers.” I couldn’t agree more, and guess what? The common core does not mandate that we create compliant, uniform test takers.

Misunderstandings and misinformation sometimes lead people to believe the common core demands such practice, but this is simply not the case. Everyone I have met on the state and national level who has been involved with common core implementation agrees that American students need to innovate, collaborate, and create.  Our teachers need this too, which is why many of the same common core advocates promoting common core implementation are also supporting opportunities for teachers to innovate, collaborate, and create the types of learning experiences our students need. Standards alone will not improve the learning experiences for students.  Instead of blaming one group or another, and instead of complaining about what will or will not work, we must work together to provide students the experiences they need.

NCTE 2012 Allowed Me to Dream and Connect

Becoming a Connected Educator

Late last fall just before NCTE 2011, I was working on a project with an educator who was then working for SREB. This man is a dynamic leader who is very active on twitter. He encouraged me to join twitter and create my own professional learning network. I have to admit I was skeptical at first because I was concerned about the time involved. However, because I respected this education leader and because I was on my way to Chicago for NCTE, I acquiesced. My first tweet included a NCTE hashtag. Because I was just getting started, I messed up the hashtag, including 20 in front of the 11 instead of just #NCTE11. I didn't realize my error until after I left Chicago and the convention. Typical of my personality, I persisted in my pursuit of learning and networking online, and I became a more connected educator.  Being more connected at NCTE 2012 in Las Vegas allowed me to experience the energy and excitement of more sessions than there was time to attend because we could follow the events and quotes happening all around the convention center. It was invigorating to follow but also to be retweeted or to have my tweets favorited a time or two.  Connected.

Dreaming about a Focus on Creativity

Connection and collaboration are increasingly important in our education world today. As I've blogged about previously, we have to team up and use our voices to stop the crushing focus on standardized testing.   Sir Ken Robinson's opening session on Friday morning was a highlight for me.  Hearing him speak was energizing and invigorating, a perfect lead into a session I presented with another colleague. Our session"My Administrator won't Let Me" Media Literacy and Core Standards was inspired by a Kentucky teacher who was fighting the good fight toward teaching students some of the skills that receive less emphasis in the common core, but he was not feeling supported by his administrators.  Unfortunately, our session had small turn out, but we enjoyed sharing our inspired session with the educators who attended and have made plans to present a similar session at our Kentucky Council of Teachers of English conference in the winter.  Naturally, we'll tweak our presentation based on feedback from participants and based on other things we learned at NCTE.

While at NCTE 2012  one of my biggest claims about the teaching of writing was supported in a round table session with Jim Burke who stated--"If kids show up to college only knowing the 5 paragraph essay, they will be inadequately prepared."  In the district where I work, this is a hot topic which doesn't yet have many believers.  By learning Jim Burke's approach,  I'm hoping I can share his well received advice with teachers who are more likely to believe an expert such as Jim Burke.  In fact, I don't think it's that they don't want to believe me, I think it's that they don't feel there are other options.  I'm hoping to show them other options do exist.

National Writing Project sessions were another hit for me.  In one session from the Bay Area Writing Project in California, we learned from three practicing teachers the ways they are meeting the needs of English Language Learners in their schools.  ELL students are another growing population in our district as schools continue to enroll refugees and immigrants due to Lexington being a refugee resettlement center.  We are all learning and growing together as we determine the best ways to meet the needs of all students in our district.  Thankfully, this session provided some practical tips and resources for me to consider as I work with teachers and students.

One of the Ignite sessions I attended was especially exciting.  Sara Brown Wessling opened the session and included artwork to talk about ways teachers can be uncommon in an era of common core.  She effectively set the stage for the speakers who followed with their 20 slides in 15 seconds.  Each speaker made my eyes sparkle a little more and my smile widen because I felt connected to other educators who also believe we need to cultivate creativity and innovation in our schools, classrooms, and districts.

I can't possibly write about every session I attended and have any hope of this blog post being a reasonable length, so I'll end by mentioning the connection I experienced when I attended the reception hosted by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and organized by Sandy Hayes.  Sandy's focus on continued collaboration between NCTE and NBPTS sings my song of collaboration.  Before I even left Vegas, I was dreaming of a creative year and planning my proposal for NCTE 2013.

Here Come the Test Scores--My Hopes and Fears

In my state people are awaiting the public release of standardized test scores this week; students in Kentucky were the first to be tested over the Common Core State Standards last spring. Officials across the state have been warning the public of the potential results because the tests were new, not comparable to previous tests, and based on much more rigorous college and career ready standards.

If you’ve been reading my blog since its creation ten months ago, you likely remember my previous posts on the topic of standardized testing. If you haven’t been reading, you can read those posts here, here, and here.

I have a fear, a fear that the shock of the test results will move people to even more drastic measures and more harmful test preparation as the primary means of teaching students during the school day. We have much to lose if educators resort to more test prep and skill/drill approaches to instruction. We risk higher drop out rates because we are likely to find students disengaged, uninterested, and fed-up with school. We risk the loss of effective arts programs, healthy habits of mind, and understandings of success. In short, we risk the opportunity to prepare students for the life which awaits them beyond K-12 schooling. Sure that’s the intention of the CCR skills—to prepare students for life beyond high school—but the CCR skills leave out creativity and innovation, for the most part.

Being a generally optimistic individual, I also have hope—hope that we will remember the importance of creativity, collaboration, and innovation this week when the standardized test scores for students in Kentucky are released. I hope we facilitate learning opportunities and provide personalized learning based on students’ interests and passions. I hope we continue to promote the arts embedded into problem solving and project based learning. I hope that we will encourage creativity, not squash it.

 

 

Ironically, I presented at an assessment conference this week and upon my return home, my 9 year old reminded me that book character dress up day at his elementary school was the next day.   We had discussed this event previously, so I knew he was interested in dressing up like Hiccup in How to Train a Dragon.  However, at 7:00 pm the night before the event, we needed a burst of creativity to make his plan a reality.  The whole family contributed to this creative endeavor.   My older son offered his advice for making the horns from aluminum foil, while my husband searched for an old black tee shirt we could cut up for a tunic.  When it was all said and done, the whole family felt a sense of togetherness and a sense of accomplishment—collaboration and creativity!  Keep it coming.

Rewards and Challenges of Working for the State Department of Education

When I left the classroom for a position as a state literacy consultant with the department of education, a mentor advised me to pay attention, to listen, to learn, and to reflect.  And, that’s exactly what I've been doing for the last 3 ½ years.  Monday is my last day at the state department of education, so I thought it appropriate to share my musings here at Learning to Muse, the blog I started to encourage myself to continue reflecting on teaching, learning, literacy, life, and public education. 

Rewards

Working for the state certainly does not bring monetary rewards of any sort, so it’s a good thing I entered the position with a teacher mentality of being willing to learn and give of myself.   The professional learning opportunities were my biggest reward; they were job embedded, ongoing and collaborative.

Washington, D.C December 2010

Working in a collaborative setting was a highlight for me.  We had a rocking literacy branch led by a literacy leader known for her work nationally.  We contributed to the writing of grants for literacy work, developed models for adolescent literacy intervention, presented at state and national conferences, delivered webinars, met with nationally known literacy researchers, developed a state literacy plan,  updated a literacy effectiveness review system, collaborated with the Kentucky Writing Project network, interacted with the Bread Loaf Teacher Network, supported speaking and listening programs through forensics, encouraged multi-modal literacies to be taught in Kentucky schools, facilitated content leadership networks, collaborated with faculty in higher education, facilitated cross-disciplinary workgroups to develop units of study aligned to the CCSS for Literacy in content areas, provided input on the review of items for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), provided content consultation for Kentucky’s new assessment system which assesses the Common Core State Standards, provided feedback and representation at national assessment convenings (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers PARCC), contributed to the best practices applications for work with the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, collaborated with other states at the SCASS groups and probably more that I’m not even remembering.

Whew!  We accomplished much in 3 ½ years, and I am grateful for the opportunities to learn, to lead, and to contribute to public education.

Challenges

Even with all the accomplishments of our office, there were also challenges in working for the state department of education.  Challenges I faced included: representing the agency not myself or my own professional expertise, adhering to the strict rules and procedures in state government, accepting decisions which were not always congruent with my professional judgment , not getting to interact regularly with schools, teachers & students, and listening to people complain about the state department being out of touch and unrealistic. 

It’s not a perfect system by any means, but what I’d like others to know about the state department of education is that there are competent, intelligent, and committed people toiling to improve public education for students in our state.  

What a Liberal Arts Education Did For Me

 With all the talk about College and Career Readiness in our nation, I have been thinking  intentionally about my own college experience at a small liberal arts college in northeast Georgia.   My liberal arts education was not intended to train me for a specific job, nor did I even dream I would become a teacher until after I graduated.   A liberal arts education prepared me for life beyond the world of work because it taught me the benefits of lifelong learning and much more.

My values of tolerance, sympathy, and respect for others were enhanced in courses, internships and service learning projects where we studied cultures, people, humanity, literature, sciences, music, art, and philosophy.  At Piedmont College I learned to think critically and analytically, to communicate effectively, to solve problems, to collaborate, and to create--all integrated (not isolated) skills which are never obsolete; these skills allow me to thrive in an evolving global society.  These skills and the desire to continue learning enabled me to become a teacher who--

• Established rapport with students
• Engaged students in authentic learning opportunities
• Employed effective instructional strategies
• Empathized with students, parents, and colleagues

 Since I'm not currently in the classroom, these same skills--Critical thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, Problem Solving, Communication and a desire for lifelong learning allow me to provide leadership and oversight of projects in education.

Sometimes I question myself and my choice for leaving the classroom, as I've blogged about previously, but colleagues and former students remind me of the possibility for impacting change in public education.  And, thanks to numerous esteemed colleagues, I am reminded that we need more lifelong learners making decisions.

What Being a Classroom Teacher Taught Me about Being a Leader

In January 2009 I left the classroom and have been working in various leadership positions since then.  Even though I long often for the classroom, I have found if I remember these ten things I did in my classroom, I am more successful as a leader.  I only wish being a leader hadn't meant having to leave the classroom because it shouldn't have to be that way.  Teachers are leaders too!

1.  Value each individual.  No matter how busy my schedule became or how many students there were, I found it important to treat each unique individual with respect because respect goes a long way in building student/teacher working relationships. 
2. Provide choice.  Student choice in learning was by far one of my favorite tricks in my teacher goody bag.  When people feel they have a choice about what they need to do, they generally enjoy the task and learn in the process.
3. Provide frequent feedback.  Frequent, descriptive feedback has been shown to be one of the greatest factors for improving student achievement. 
4. Use passions positively.  I entered the teaching profession because I am passionate about teaching and learning.  Sometimes these passions cause me to react emotionally to imprudent decisions made in public education. 
5. Be creative with resources.  I spent my entire teaching career in Title 1 eligible schools, so we always had to be creative when looking for books, supplies, and equipment.  It’s amazing what you can get when you ask for help from the community.
6. Encourage collaboration and creativity.  These skills are supremely important for living a productive life, so I always liked to provide students opportunities to collaborate with one another and with opportunities to express their understanding of text in creative ways (e.g. through creating a painting, a poem, a song, a movie, a skit, etc.).
7. Listen more than talk. This goes back a long way for me.  As an undergraduate, I practiced Rogerian Therapy (Person Centered Therapy) for part of my graduation requirements for a B.A. in psychology.  This was all about listening to the client.  I employed similar listening skills in my classroom.
8. Provide experiences. As a believer in John Dewey’s philosophy of education, I believe students should experience positive interactions and learning opportunities which will prepare them to be confident and capable citizens in society. 
9. Don’t try to do everything because I can’t and shouldn’t.  This theory applies in the classroom and in the work place.  For a smooth running classroom where learning was happening, I needed the students to work harder than me.  This took a ton of up-front preparation, but my classroom always ran itself when I was a facilitator of learning rather than a deliverer of knowledge.
10. Set specific and measurable goals, but don’t forget the stuff that can’t be measured. While achieving success and reaching goals often meant I needed  to have numbers or measurable data for my students, I believe we must remember that being human centered doesn't always equate with measuring in numbers.