Student Visits

I have an old student who has been making it a tradition to come back and pay a visit at the end of each school year. I can tell he enjoys bragging about his exploits on the football field. You would think this would bring him by during football season but it is always the last week of school that I see him stroll in my classroom to the wide eyed awe of each class each year.

This year he brought with him a couple of his jerseys to show off. He handed me his home jersey and I held it up admiringly noting his last name on the back. Then we traded and I did the same with his away jersey.

We talked a little about his junior season. I asked what position he plays. Any. So I prodded a bit for specifics and he narrowed it down to quarterback and safety. Then I asked about the kind of offense they run and what he felt was his strengths and so on.

He can do it all, pass and run.

I have a feeling there was some embellishment taking place but I enjoyed it and allowed him to continue with little or no skepticism from me.

This continued as he talked about his future prospects. He says he has been hearing from the University of Cincinnati, University of Toledo, Ohio University and even Michigan State University.

Naturally I followed this by inquiring about my alma mater, Ohio State. Or O state as the kids say these days. Apparently, he is attending a camp at O State this summer and confidently expects some interest following said camp.

He is a great kid. I thoroughly enjoy his visits. He is still the same laid back guy he was in 4th grade seven years ago. He is physically larger than most of his peers just like his days in my class, but he never tried to intimidate. He just keep to himself and handled his business.

We talked football back then and we talk football now. Obviously. I also pry enough to make sure his grades are cool. I want to hear he still is working hard and managing well. Math was his thing. It sounds like it still is.

I trust he isn't just saying this to get me off his case and get the conversation back to his football accomplishments. I trust he is getting by like he did back then. It always took work but he never bowed out to it.

I would love to hear his name someday as I watch a game. The odds are against it. But at least I would know if he is anything like he was in 4th grade, he is one of the cool players I can be proud to cheer for.

Unless he goes to the "other" Michigan.

Looking Back at Linden

My 11-year era at Linden will come to an end this June. After I made it official, I needed to inform my principal that I was leaving. Her reaction was expectantly surprised.

She made a formal announcement to the rest of the staff that I and two other colleagues would not be returning. This would allow the staff to be aware of the openings for the next school year. I had to leave the meeting early to pick up my daughter so I missed the reactions of the staff.

This was probably a good thing as uncomfortable as it would have been.

In all honesty, I didn't anticipate many of the teachers would have more than a superficial eyebrow raise at the announcement.

I doubt there was much more than that.

But the next morning I was approached by a number of staff with whom I worked for the majority of my 11 year run and received numerous heart warming comments and laughs.

There was one encounter I was most interested in experiencing. It was the moment that I would have to approach my teammate Deb Yetts.

And here my egocentric post ends and I begin to focus on this amazing teacher and how fortunate I have been to work with her. I have bragged profusely about her in past posts. Here we go again:

I was not looking forward to telling her I was not going to return. I felt like I was selling her out. I felt like I owe her more than that. It was like I was abandoning a teammate.

We have worked together eight or nine of my 11 years at Linden. I planned on writing that I have learned so much from her but I think it is more accurate to say I learned so much with her.

We were truly a team. Our chemistry was remarkable.

We gave and received with each other. While we played up our similar competitive tendencies, we never really competed with each other in a harmful, degrading manner. We understood the better the other did, the better we did.

She always had her head on straight and priorities right. It was always about the kids and what mattered most to increase their ability to achieve.

She was never afraid of work or leading the way. She always complimented and valued other people's suggestions and ideas, especially mine. She made me feel as though I was an important contributor to all we did as a grade level. This has been extremely motivating for me.

We took pride in our style and camaraderie. We brought our own strengths to the table, shared them and respected them. We maintained a safe, professional relationship that allowed admission of our shortcomings and freedom to seek assistance to compensate for them.

Because, once again, it wasn't about us and our prestige. It was about student achievement.

I could continue with examples of the amazing way she works her magic in her classroom or the energy she teaches with. She had a way of bringing our discussions,plans and ideas to life in a way I wanted to imitate.

But she was so humble and never ceased to mention that she got many of her ideas from me.

That meant an immeasurable amount to me.

"Less is more, Mr Huey" she'd say.

This was our motto when we wanted to remind ourselves to focus on what counts.

I'm going to miss Ms. Yetts. I admire her greatly.

When the moment of truth finally came and we talked about my upcoming departure, it was very difficult not to get emotional.

Once again, she showered me with praise responding to every compliment I directed toward her with a equal or greater compliment back.

I hope she understood how much I respect her and meant what I said about how meaningful my professional relationship with her has been.

I'm immensely grateful I was fortunate enough to teach with her. I am sure I am a better educator today than the day before I met her because of her.

She may have come in my room asking "What would Huey do?" But I will be asking myself repeatedly, "What would Yetts do?" for the rest of my career.

WWHD

Yesterday a highly respected colleague of mine walked in my room after dismissal and the conversation went something like this:

"Huey, I had moment today."

"Uh oh what happened?" I responded.

"I had too much going on and I was trying to get all of this stuff in during Reading and it was falling apart in front of my face," she said sounding rather exasperated.

"Then I thought to myself, 'What would Huey do?'" she continued with her hand on her forehead with a look of consternation.

"Oh yeah?" I asked. "And what did Huey end up doing?"

"Stopped. Thought, 'Less is more. Work smarter, not harder.'"

"Ahh, so you streamlined the lesson and focused on what makes the most impact?" I though it would be wise to paraphrase back what she said to demonstrate my understanding.

"Exactly. Thank you Mr. Huey. Thank you."

The colleague with whom I had this conversation is an amazing woman who I hold in extremely high regard. I try to emulate her on a daily basis. The things she does in her classroom are truly remarkable.

Although I have worked next door to her for almost a decade now and have a clear idea of how she works, I am not the only one who has noticed her success. Any time there are important people in our school to observe how things work, her classroom is the model to which we hold ourselves and it's her room our administration takes the visitors to see first.

But the quality I find most appealing is her humility. Despite the accolades and praise we all shower upon her, she gets it. She understand that she is a product of others. Every time I compliment her or thank her or refer to her strengths, she immediately returns with a reference to something I have done that she has copied or taken from me.

She is extremely supportive in her language. She never offers help in a condescending manner. In meetings, she publicly praises me and brags about things I have done or that our grade level as a group has done.

So when someone like her recognizes my greatness, it means something to me. It is a legitimate comment that I take to heart.

I realize greatness isn't usually appreciated in its time, but she has appreciated mine ....if I do say so myself. And that is something people in my profession need more of, more often.

Especially when you end the day with bold, angry, little fourth graders calling you an idiot and intentionally jamming their should in your gut.

This Is Why I'm Awesome

I began last school year with a challenging group of students. The testing I administered in the beginning of the year showed that 0 students were reading at or above proficiency. Zero as in none. Nobody.

Our grade level ended the previous school year with 46% of the students reading at or above proficiency. That number is abysmal but it looks awfully large when compared to 0.

The government, through No Child Left Behind, has set particular standards for schools and their districts to meet in order to be deemed successful. As I have written a number of times in this blog, my school is one of the low performing schools. We need to make significant increases every year or risk a number of changes.

It is a long, complicated set of standards and criteria that I am not looking to detail right now. But it is important to understand the general idea that I have certain numbers I need to reach each year to contribute to this gain as a grade level, school and district.

0 students reading proficiently is a low, discouraging starting point. I walked out of numerous grade level meetings dragging my heart and soul behind me on the ground. Each meeting I stared at a score sheet drowning in red ink. My roster had circled names, question marks and arrows pointing in the wrong direction littered through the list. My colleagues were there looking at it too.

"Mr. Huey, what are you going to do to fix this?" I would hear on the verge of panic. Then I had to look to my colleagues for help. It was humiliating to sit there and depend on the services and assistance of others to do my job.

"What is my plan?"

"What research based strategies do I plan to implement in order to improve my scores?"

"What's my relevance and rigor?"

"Problem of practice."

"Differentiated learning"

"Small group...blah blah blah BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Meanwhile, the kids looked as though they could have cared less. I was busy putting out fire after fire hoping some of them were paying enough attention to get something out of the lessons.

Today I met with the staff to prepare for the upcoming school year. We received raw test results from the Ohio Achievement Test. My colleague put his spreadsheet fetish to work and graphed the scores of each of our classes from the past school year.

My grade level improved our percentage of students who passed the Reading OAT from 46% in 2008 to 59% in 2009. When you look at the same classes scores from 3rd grade, we improved that group's percentage of passers from 42% in 2008 to 59% in 2009.

What about my class with the ZERO proficient readers?

More than 55% of my class ended the year reading proficiently or above. I caught up with the other classes. My class had the most students improve more than a whole grade level in our reading program. This means one could say they grew academically more than a years worth in a school year.

How did I do this you might ask? I put on my hard hat, grabbed my lunch pail and went to work.

Believe it or not, it was not with any more assistance than we normally give each other. After we left the meetings, the three of us would meet together and discuss what we were planning and how things were working and agreed to keep doing what we were doing.

The three of us have worked together in the same grade level for 8 years now. We all know how we tick. We know our strengths and weaknesses, comfort zones and anxious areas. We have consistently shown increases in test scores. When I arrived less than 20% of our students were passing the reading standardized tests at that time. We are the only grade level that can say that.

So when it came down to it, it was me in that classroom with those students making it happen.

I tore up the plan so to speak and I pulled out what mattered most and did it my way. I picked out all the components that actually involved the students reading texts. The more varied the texts, the better. We didn't just do fiction everyday.

Their fluency was horrible. So we worked on fluency directly.

Their comprehension was awful. So I pounded them over the head with extended response questions which required them to write out answers. Everyday they had to answer these questions until they were blue in the face. They had to think the right way and then write the right way.

So I also modeled everything everyday. I modeled how to think when they read. I showed them how to do it over and over again. I read out loud to them so they had an example to follow and we discussed the book the way I think about books when I read. Then I showed them how I applied this thinking to the questions. Then they did it the same way.

I did much more, but these were the big things.

Bottom line...I kicked some ass last year. I'm much better at this than most people or tests scores may think.

Failed School Levies Will Have A Negative Impact On My Family AND YOU!

Fortunately, it looks like a number of school levies in central Ohio did pass yesterday in the May elections. But the two levies my family was affected by failed.

Individually, I am not affected by either of the levies because I do not teach in either district. But my wife does and my daughter will most likely attend a school in the other district next year.

With two teachers in my household, we obviously have a biased view on this topic but I still believe I would be pro-schools had I chosen a different profession. I was raised by two parents who always supported public schools despite the fact that my siblings and I attended Catholic Schools for much of our early years. I also understand the importance of strong schools in a capitalistic society.

There are a number of specific reasons I pledge my support to public schools beyond the well being of my job. As a citizen of this area, I am counting on the youth to grow and learn and become productive citizens contributing to my well being. We all need each other to perform our jobs well whether it is digging a ditch, working on our roads, running our government, developing new technologies, taking care of our children, running our businesses and so on.

I also prefer that the youth is not out causing problems or committing crimes. In fact, even grown adults will commit less crime if they are more educated. Less crime means a better overall well being for me and my family. It means a safer place to live and usually, a cleaner place to live.

Generally speaking, I think we should support sports and unified arts in school. These outlets and opportunities provide children with talent in these area a chance to foster these talents and grow and become contributing citizens. Without them, they most likely struggle in the traditional classes and become frustrated, disenchanted and more likely to become a burden on their fellow citizens instead of a contributor.

In my specific case, I have a daughter who is cognitively impaired and needs as much intervention as she can get. Her mother, stepmother and I intervene as much as we can but we need the schools to contribute. Her significant advancements this school year are a direct result to the number of specialists and assistants that work in her room with her teacher. Her small class size allows her teacher to give her more individualized attention. All these things have helped her tremendously and they cost money. These services are high on the list of services to be cut when levies don't pass.

Imagine children who are in more need than my daughter. Not every child with cognitive impairments has three teachers in their life. Some don't even have two parents who care that much. If they fall through the cracks, it means more money from us later to jail them or keep them in a mental institution like they did before special education and MRDD were created to help.

That is not a kind of life I want my daughter to live or anyone for that matter. We have moved away from that for a reason.

I am willing to pay to intervene early through the schools.

Times are tough. People do not have the money to pay even more taxes. It seems like we have "bailed out" every industry that exists and it is frustrating that things only seem to get worse.

My point is that education should be a top priority on the list regardless of whether we have kids in the school system or not. We are all affected by it. The good of our country and society depends on it. We will not be able to brag about how great our country is if we can't compete with the China's and Europe's of the world. We need smart people to deal with diplomacy and figure out new ways to fix the economy and new energy and a way to release from our dependency on oil and fossil fuels.

Everybody loves to blame schools, but when it comes time to help, they refuse to help. It is not fair to complain and then do nothing about it. Either vote for levies so you have a right to complain, or shut up!

Just Tie Your Shoes!

The other day I noticed a student had their shoes untied. This could lead to some unfortunate things like falling down the stairs and getting seriously hurt or beginning an escalating series of events between students ultimately ending in a fight and missed class time as well as another headache for me and administration to deal with that doesn't involve educating our youth which we are primarily paid to do.

You may think I am making too much of a simple untied shoe, but after a decade in the classroom you learn how "little thing" lead to big things more often than not. In this case, a loose shoe string may be stepped on by another student intentionally or unintentionally angering the student with the untied shoe. This leads to words of frustration towards the "culprit" creating a response that is rarely positive. Next thing you know people are talking about the other's mother and pushes follow with punches next and we end up with some conference in the office over all this stuff that has nothing to do with an untied shoe.

But to be completely honest, when I told the girl that her shoe laces were untied and she should tie them, I was thinking it was just a safe thing to do. I didn't want her face first in the ground at some point.

Well, God forbid I tell another person to do something!!! The look of disdain and complete resistance I received from this child was out of line. By no means was I disrespectful to this child. In fact. I thought I was helping her. How do I deserve this?

Here is my other problem: Let's say I didn't say anything. Or let's say I didn't persist until she finally tucked the lace in her shoe (mainly because a peer finally stepped in and said the obvious, "Just do it, it's not that big of a deal"). If she did end up tripping and falling down the stairs or getting in a fight because another kid stepped on the lace while she tried to take a step, who would mom or dad come barreling into school to blame? Me. Or her teacher. Or the principal. Oh, that wouldn't happen all the time, Huey. Uh, well, it happens a lot. It happens often at my school anyway and has for 9+ years at least. The majority of the time a student gets in a fight, the parent storms in and wants to know how we disciplined the other party in the fight. Their main focus is not on holding their child accountable for their part in the altercation, but in keeping us in check and making sure we are fair. It goes back to the lack of trust in our schools and the disconnect between parents and teachers.

I can only look at me. I can only control me. I need to focus on what I am doing. So i need to make sure I am putting forth the effort to communicate with parents from day one to help create the connection myself. There are things I can and need to do to fix this kind of problem. But to be honest, when I get the treatment from those students like this on a daily basis I just lose my motivation. I internalize the negative feelings I just received and feel horrible and downright apathetic. It becomes that much harder to go the extra mile. And I have a family. I want to spend my evenings with my wife and daughter. I need to spend time with them.

This is what cuts to the core of my displeasure with the current state of affairs in my life right now. I am tired of doing the right thing, or trying to, and somehow getting blamed for other people's lack of effort or resistance to me. I am tired of the resistance period. But then to get that resistance reinforced, frustrates me even more.

I mean, all I am doing is telling someone to do something that will benefit them! Why am I the bad guy here?

Power of Words

Today marked a perfect example of how the things people say to me can take me from one extreme emotion to the other. I bet it has more to do with my weak inner fortitude, oversensitivity or codependent personality. I should care far less than I do about what people say to me, but the facts are, the reality is, I do care. It bothers me. It makes me feel estactic. It makes my day and it ruins my day. You know how coaches say their teams shouldn't get too high after a win or too low after a loss? I am the antithesis to that to my own dismay.

Here is my example:

I open the day like any other day dropping off my daughter at school and heading to my place of employment to hack out another day trying to educate our youth. Usually, it means more of listening to a barrage of disrespectful responses and dealing with complete apathy. Anyway, a colleague comes to me in the hallway to "thank" me. Thaaaaaaaank me. I sigh, knowing what was about to come. Apparently he felt bad about his class' test scores from last year as they were not showing the kind of results he wanted for his Master's project. But after he look at my and another colleague's class scores, he didn't feel so bad. So he thanked me for basically failing worse than he did. What am I supposed to say to that? I felt like crap. I already deal with enough feelings of failure at my job, another blow to the head from him doesn't help.

This comes after I consistently speak up in his and other's defense at grade level meetings with the principal. I huddle my team in the morning to pump each other up after compliments or evidence of something going well. I include his condescending rear end in that too. I overlook his shortcomings because quite honestly, we all have some. So I was pretty down and angry. Fortunately (????) for me, I had a class full of rowdy kids coming who quickly get my mind off of everything that takes place outside the classroom doors. So no sooner did I process what just went down did I focus on something else.

After another exhausting day, I was preparing for next weeks lessons when I ran into another colleague who asked me how my daughter was doing. My daughter is well known at my school from her frequent visits and her attendance last year. She was hard NOT to notice for reasons I'll choose to avoid this time. I love talking about her and I think it is noticeable because everybody asks me how she is doing out of kindness and small talk if not genuine interest. My colleague proceeded to speak very highly of my girl which felt nice but it led to more talk about special education. This colleague is currently pursuing a degree in special education. With a daughter in special education, not to mention a wife who teaches it, I have read a ton of stuff regarding it, talked to a number of people about it, and experienced a ton of it from the parental angle over the past 6 years.

It was a good discussion. Coincidentally, another colleague who I have worked with for a decade now was just around the corner and overheard the whole conversation. She, too, has a background in special education. This is a woman I wanted to compliment earlier in the day about how open she is to other teacher's ideas and strategies. She has no ego. But she was with a close companion to the degrading, hurtful colleague at the time and I decided to pass. Well after missing my opportunity to pay her a compliment I felt she deserved, she took a minute to praise me for how much I knew about special education. She said I pretty much hit the nail on the head and she could tell by the words I used that I knew what I was talking about.

That felt good. That felt damn good!

So I went from one extreme to another today. I really need to learn to even things out.

Teaching Social Studies

I just finished a unit on Government with my fourth graders. One of the lessons was How A Bill Becomes A Law. It brings back those old Schoolhouse Rock songs we would listen to doesn't it?

As I looked out to a classroom filled with bored, quiet, inattentive students I realized nothing was hitting home with them. Nobody cared. I had to spice it up a bit. I did not have my handy dandy copy of the Schoolhouse Rock video on hand. So instead of continuing with the introduction of the concept, I skipped ahead to my little example.

My class is divided into six groups of four or five students. Each group has their own table. The tables are set up in 3 pairs. Conveniently, there are three branches of government. So I made each pair a particular branch: the legislative, executive and judicial. The two tables that made up the legislative branch were divided into one table as the Senate and the other as the House of Representatives. Side note: Can you believe my students cannot pronounce Representative to save their life? Executive, and Judicial also present problems. But they have no problem saying Legislative.

So I specifically picked the pair of tables that had 3/5 boys as the Legislative Branch for a reason that you will read in a minute. I proposed a law to the General Assembly (in Ohio our 4th grade standards state that we focus on State government) that girls would no longer be allowed out of their house after 6 pm. See my 3/5 boys reasoning now? I intended on picking some inflammatory , ridiculous law to wake them up so since I am a man I figured I'd play the "Boys rule, girls drool" card. They love it when I play like that. "You play too much Mr. Huey."

It worked.

So we voted in the "Senate" and it naturally passed. Oh the girls were steaming. Then the "House" passed it. Then it was really getting fun because the boys were loving it and the girls were not happy. 100% engagement baby. Full on attentive, listening. I am not exaggerating. Of course, it had to be approved by the Governor. Well, the Executive pair had more girls. So they got theirs. The bill was quickly vetoed. So we sent it back to the General Assembly. We needed 3/5 to pass it. We got it!!

Noooooooooo cried the girls! That's not fair they screamed. Well, after a discussion how that law seemed to go against the spirit of the liberties given to us by the State Constitution, I suggested the girls take it to the State Supreme court and get a ruling that this law was unconstitutional. So they did and the Chief Justices (mostly girls due to my careful selection) agreed and the law was dropped.

I understand there may be some missing elements here but I was thrilled how much the students enjoyed this lesson and how engaged they were. We reviewed the whole process in time to be finished by the time my administrator came in. Ugh!! She has to wait until the end to check out my hard work? So I HAD to get them to tell her what we had just finished. They explained it perfectly! I was so proud of them. And I was pretty pumped that I got some brownie points.

Later, I gave them an assessment. And of course, I get one blank paper and another describing how you put bills in the bank. And I only figured that out after 10 minutes of deciphering the illegible handwriting and fragment sentences tripping over themselves with misspellings.

Sigh.

Looks like my supposed success was a farce. But I am still sharing this with you in case you can use it in your classroom or with your child when they are learning how bills become laws. Maybe you will have more success than me.