Orientationism

Three days of school behind me, three days of weekend ahead of me.

This week we had "new student orientation." Working in a high school makes me so happy that I am no longer in high school. High school is tough! Especially when you're a new student. You're either a) trying to let everyone know real quick who you are and what you're all about, or b) desperately trying not to be noticed so that people won't figure out too soon who you are and what you're all about.

Meanwhile I planned an activity for them today where they worked in groups to create a three-minute presentation, which they then presented in front of all 40 new students. What you guys are probably thinking, which didn't occur to me, is that no high schooler is going to want to a) work in a group of strangers and b) do a presentation in front of a huge group of strangers. Oh my god, it was awful. Bless them, they all did the best they could, but I have never seen such mass anxiety.

Fortunately they all have three days to recover before they come back on Tuesday, where they'll be joined by a whole bunch of returning kids for the whole-school orientation.


High school: Less like this .....



... than like this:

Continuing to pee in my pants with excitement

Good food for thought as I start my job as a career advisor: Minnesota teens do well on the ACT, but contrary to what the research department at ED thinks, most of the fastest-growing careers don't require a college education. Of course fastest-growing should never be confused with highest-paying, as University of Minnesota students will soon find out.

Monday and Tuesday we have parent-teacher-student conferences. Historically the school has had 100% attendance at these conferences, which is amazing considering that when I was in high school I would rather die than have my parents meet my teachers. Since I'm not a "base group advisor" I do not have to attend conferences, but I'll be on hand to answer questions about things like PSEO and college admissions, as well as the seminars I'll be teaching.

This time tomorrow I will have actually met students and families!

Charters in N.O.

In the most recent edition of The Nation, Michael Tisserand takes on the state of Louisiana's attempt to salvage public education in New Orleans through charter schools. One particularly poorly managed charter school is "but one battleground in what some are calling an education revolution." He goes on to imply that charter advocates jumped in to take advantage of an apocalyptic event and further their own goals of the privatization of public schools:

More recently, some advocates have argued that charters represent a superior way to run all public schools. Yet the results of national achievement tests have been inconclusive at best. Those wishing to forge ahead with a full-tilt charter revolution have also lacked a platform from which to launch their crusade. Then the floodwaters rose over New Orleans, sending some 65,000 public school students fleeing.

I tend to agree with Tisserand. The New Orleans charter move came from a sector of policymakers who view charters as "half a loaf," the whole loaf being vouchers and total school privatization. I think putting New Orleans public education in the hands of any nonprofit who stepped forward during a very traumatic time was an extremely misguided, but politically driven, thing to do.

What I don't like about this article is how familiar it sounds. It is basically an illustrated version of the AFT's talking points on charters (and I should know because I used to help write them). Take the argument that powerful people are intentionally starving non-charter public schools and fattening up charters, which don't educate the poorest kids, and which therefore have an unfair advantage in the school market. Tisserand writes that

By selective admissions, parental contracts and grade requirements, charter schools are able to "cream" their students not just by race and class but also by levels of parental involvement.

The New Orleans project, AND the Nation article, represent to me the worst thing about the charter movement in the U.S.: the partisan, Us vs. Them, unions vs. kids, private vs. public discussion. While accusations are being thrown around the think tanks of D.C., charter schools (as well as non-charter public schools) are quietly doing their thing for the benefit of countless needy kids. I'm afraid the lessons of N.O. will get lost in this discussion rather than contributing to a challenging discussion about how charters and districts can work together.

UPDATE: Please take a look at the thoughtful comment left by writer Michael Tisserand. Thanks, Michael, for pointing out where I quoted you out of context.

Staff development

Day 4 of staff development. Kids start making an appearance next week with parent/teacher conferences and a three-day new student orientation. I came home to work since my school is having computer issues and thought I'd write a quick little update.

I am peeing in my pants with excitement about the new school year. It's a new feeling for me to be overwhelmed with stuff to do, but not feel stressed or depressed about it.

During new student orientation, I will be subjecting some kids to the story "Everything Will Be Okay" by James Howe from the collection of memoirs When I Was Your Age. This collection is used a lot in reading-writing workshop, so some of you may have read the story. If you have, you know it is one of the saddest stories ever written. If you haven't, I'll limit myself to saying that it involves a boy who finds a sick, dying kitten in the woods. As Michael Vick could tell you, stories about the suffering of animals are MUCH sadder to the general public than stories about the suffering of humans. I read this story for the first time in a class full of eighth graders, and was only saved from bursting into tears in front of all of them by the lunch bell.

Anyway, that and many, many other things have to be planned, so I'll post another update when I can!

Eine kleine history lesson

The school of bloggers saw the musical 1776 last night at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. It was very, very good – surprisingly funny for a musical about the Second Continental Congress debating whether or not to declare independence from the British Empire. The best performance was by the guy playing Edward Rutledge, the delegate from South Carolina, in a number that charges the New England delegates with hypocrisy for condemning slavery, when they themselves profited from the Triangle Trade.

The production also included this great number, which was taken out of the film version at then-President Nixon’s request:

One more thing - an illustration of what one of my NYU profs called “the New York discount:” after we got our $20 rush tickets and were walking to the theater, I looked down at the tickets and noticed with dismay that their regular price was only $47. They can’t be very good seats, I thought. Then we got to our seats and they were four rows from the stage – we could see the spittle mists coming out of the actors mouths’ and the seams of their powdered wigs. Pretty amazing.

Check in

The School of Bloggers' hearts go out to everyone affected by the I-35W bridge collapse. Thankfully, Chris and I were at Yosemite that day, and no one we know is missing.

It has been a busy summer, which is my only excuse for being such a slacker blogger. I did attend a week-long conference on the EdVisions model of project-based learning held at the Minnesota New Country School. I met some amazing educators and can't wait for the school year to begin. But before that I'll be spending a week with my sister and new baby niece, Lila!

Dig if you will the picture

After three days of packing, two days of driving, and one day of puttering, I am here in my new apartment in Minneapolis. First thoughts:

• Why don't there seem to be any banks in Minnesota that also have branches in New York? This is frustrating, but it is also oddly consistent with the fact that Minnesota does not have teacher certification reciprocity with any other state (certainly not New York).
• I may have left Brooklyn, but I'm living in a neighborhood called Prospect Park and teaching in a suburb called Brooklyn Park.
• In New York, where there are only a handful of Targets, my closest Target was a mere three subway stops away. In Minneapolis, the breeding ground of Targets, it's impossible to get to Target without a car. (Or bike, Chris says.)

Meanwhile, the weather is gorgeous, my new place is wonderful, the people are friendly, and the locals are concerned about the integrity of their children's small intestines. (And oncoming saw blades.)

Who's the boss?

I think this is fascinating but I'm going to refrain from commenting on it, at least for the next two days.

The hardest thing ...

... about planning for the upcoming school year is knowing I won't be able to do everything in my first year that I've always wanted to do. I'm sure this is one of those times where I'll look back and laugh at myself for thinking so naively that it's going to be so easy to implement all these grand ideas, that the kids are going to love them, etc.

But for now I'm psyched. Stay tuned and maybe you'll get to see my descent into total cynicism and despair.

Anyway, one of my grand ideas, encouraged by NYU professor Diana Turk, is to base a quarter-long early U.S. history seminar around the study of material culture. The teacher finds a few really, really good artifacts and brings the objects (or good, clear images of them) into the students so that they can hold them, discuss them, write about them, and learn history through them. The idea is that kids will become experts in this particular method and will be psyched about doing the work of "real historians."

What I need to find are some really, really good artifacts. The class will cover the Americas: pre-colonization, colonization, and slavery. The Minnesota Historical Society has an online catalog of its holdings, which include numerous Ojibwe artifacts, but I haven't found anything quite awesome enough. I have a box of cotton bolls that I used in the eighth grade slavery unit, and it would be great to get a hold of some sugar cane. eBay has a lot of historical replicas, but I'm not sure if that will really do it.

So basically, this whole endeavor won't work if I can't find awesome enough items. Any suggestions you might have, any at all, would be extremely welcome!

Live Free or Die Hard

Prediction: this movie is going to keep New Hampshire social studies teachers busy clearing up confusion for decades to come.

It's hard out there ...

I saw a lot of cute and funny things yesterday as I was helping to score the DBQ/essay section of the eighth grade social studies test. The DBQ had to do with the Great Depression, and students did a great job of bringing in outside information. One kid, when discussing remedies to the Depression, repeatedly made reference to an economic strategy called "pimp-pump priming."

Her teacher remembered teaching them about "pump priming," but couldn't guess how the pimp got in there.

All opposed, say NAEP

... sorry, that's the best NAEP joke I could come up with at 5 a.m.

Via Eduwonk, this post shows how the NAEP history test prepares students for the real world.

Seriously though, I think it's a bit of a stretch for ED to pat itself on the back for rising NAEP social studies scores. It's clear to anyone who's seen standardized social studies tests that they are 90% a test of literacy skills and 10% a test of social studies skills/content knowledge. But does ED really want to admit that? Also, in this statement Spellings is basically crowing about how social studies scores improved despite NCLB. But doesn't that raise the question of whether reading and math scores are improving despite NCLB as well?

On a related note, I'm going to be spending the day on Thursday helping to score New York State eighth grade social studies tests. I'll let you know how it goes.

Podcast update

We've spent the past two weeks putting together the WWI podcasts, and I think it has been a really good way to end the school year. Some kids weren't that into pretending to be reporters from the field, but a lot of them really got into it. They loved using Audacity, the (free) audio editing software we used. One student, who struggles in every one of his classes (and will not be moving on to 11th grade next year), shone on this project. Kids who otherwise would not be coming in for the last few days of school said they came in just to record.

Most groups have finished recording, editing, and adding sound effects, and are now working on the self-evaluation component. On Monday they're going to present them to each other.

The Treaty of Versace

... is going to be the title of the book I write someday aout funny ways kids mispronounce things in Global Studies.

Very exciting

I've accepted an offer for a social studies teaching position in the Twin Cities! My very first teaching job. It's at one of the project-based schools I was describing before, and I'll be teaching several seminars, including team-teaching a global studies humanities class.

Spellings and Stewart

This was surprisingly bearable. I still appreciate that she talks about "poor kids" but thought the way she and Stewart talked about teachers was weird.

More on how people learn ...

I am so psyched about the project-based schools that are doing some really wonderful things for students in the Twin Cities. So far I have visited five of these schools, and I've been consistently impressed with the intelligence and collegiality of the staff, the high-level work and maturity of the students, and the general positive vibe at these schools.

Here's how it works: students enroll in the school (often after being unhappy or unsuccessful at a more traditional school) and are assigned an advisor. The advisor works with that student to come up with a "personalized learning plan" for how they're going to meet all the requirements for graduation. To meet those requirements, students must complete a certain number of projects that tie into specific standards and/or attend faculty-led "seminars," which are also project-based.

On a typical day, a student might come in, check in with her advisor, and then make herself a schedule for the day to indepedently work on her projects. Many of these schools also have required, structured math classes to make sure that students can pass the graduation test.

At a school I visited yesterday, one of the projects students had initiated and implemented was creating a student-run library. Global warming also seemed to be a common theme for projects this year.

"Truancy court"

Via the PEN NewsBlast, a very interesting feature about Seattle's answer to truancy, and more fodder for this discussion.

Plea

Hey -- has anyone out there ever worked at, gone to, or sent a child to a Core Knowledge school? If so, please please email me at theschoolofblog AT gmail DOT com.

Thank you!

The purpose of public education

Via Eduwonk, a column by Diane Ravitcb against the Khalil Gibran International Academy charter school that will focus on Arabic language and culture in Brooklyn. Ravitch writes that

Our city contains immigrants from every nation in the world, who speak many different languages. If we were to create special schools for each group that wants to preserve its cultural heritage, it would be the end of the historic ideal of public education as a common training ground for future citizens.

First of all, I think it's important to note that this is already happening, de facto, in charter schools (and probably non-charter public schools) in New York City. I've written about this before -- sometimes groups tend to flock to certain schools, and those schools end up having a distinct ethnic or cultural character.

Second, this is also happening in charter schools around the country. I worked with a group in Philadelphia that was trying to start up a charter school to meet the needs of a large African immigrant population in West Philadelphia. The kids' needs were simply not being met in the traditional public schools.

And this seems to be what charter schools in the Twin Cities are all about. I visited a school there that was, as the director kept telling me, "100% Hmong"; a school where special hand-washing stations were built to facilitate the religious needs of Somali and Ethiopian students, who were a majority; a bilingual charter school created to celebrate Latino culture.

I felt that each school was teaching kids, as Ravitch says it is public schools' job to do, "to think critically about the world they live in and at the same time to prepare them to take responsibility as American citizens." But they also do what, in my mind, charter schools are supposed to do -- they meet the educational needs of kids whose needs aren't being met in the non-charter schools, as a result of a grassroots, community effort.