Teachers, Keep Your Foot on the Gas

I know this post is going to anger some and perhaps alienate others, but I’m feeling bold.

“I gotta hand it to you, Ms.Teague. AP exams are over and we're still going. You’re the only one who hasn't let off the gas.” The student went on to explain how he wasn't doing much of anything--academic or otherwise-- in most of his classes. Now, I think he is exaggerating but I also believe that the notion of “teacher as performer” is real come May and June.

I get it.

The end of the school year is a challenging time. Sun’s creeping out, honeymoon is long gone, testing season is draining to everyone, and no one knows what bell schedule we're on.

I get it.

The light at the end of the tunnel is shining brightly. No one wants to assign work because it will need to be graded. You've worked really hard and students are exhausted. Heck, we're all beat and ready for summer.

But the longer I'm a teacher, the more frequently I hear weird excuses for the lack of engaging, thoughtful, relevant curriculum the last month of school.

Can't be creative when there’s so much testing happening.

It's a Monday!

Gosh, Wednesday-- hump day!!

Since it's Friday we'll just have a free day.

Now that AP exams are over, we’ll just...

If I had a dollar for every excuse tweeted, posted, or uttered in the hallway,  I'd have paid my student loans off much sooner.

Here's the deal: when we throw in the towel, students do too. More skipping. More fights. More time for drama that gets in the way of learning. Packing up my classroom (even if I have to move), tells students I’m done. Showing a movie for a whole class period (or days) with no connection to standards, assessments or higher level thinking--let alone actual relevance--tells students that I’ve become a glorified babysitter. I’ve now become an anecdote in Conservative Cousin Conner’s rant about wasted tax dollars and teacher summers.

If education is the great equalizer, how are we providing opportunities for our students to learn all year long. If we stop writing lesson plans three or four weeks before the end of the semester, we're telling our students their education doesn't matter. If we let all our routines go out the window, we’re telling them that we have low expectations for their behavior.

I find this especially problematic from an equity point of view. If a student is long-jumping over benchmarks, then we should keep the challenges coming, preparing them for post-secondary academic experience. If a student is behind in reading and writing, we ought to be milking every last minute with them in order to help them get to grade-level.

I can’t help but wonder how much less remediation might be necessary if teachers used their class time more efficiently. I also can’t help but wonder how much unconscious bias plays a role. John Hopkins already proved that white teachers expect less of their Black and Brown students. Knowing this research and the history of gate-keeping, our choice to call it quits when we still have over 1,000 minutes with students is shameful. This is especially essential for White teachers who espouse ideals of racial and social justice.

Bottom line: our baggage can’t matter more than their learning.

The end of the year is an opportunity to ensure that all students have exercised their academic muscles as much as possible. As an ELA teacher, I'm pressed to hit all my standards (reading, writing, speaking & listening, and language). Districts develop power standards for this very reason. So, at the end of the year, teachers should be digging deeper or going into skills and content that is perceived as “extra”.  

The end of the year is the perfect time to try a new strategy (dice!) or assessment tool (Kahoot! Socrative!). This is the time of year when my student relationships are the strongest--I’ve spent all year cultivating community and have the most buy-in. I can ask them to do almost anything. But, they have to see the reason and have choice.

I look to several colleagues for examples of this. A couple of English teachers I know built student-interest driven units based on Google’s 20% approach. After the AP exam, my husband teaches two units-- Mock Congress and How to Handle the Police. I collaborate with my 10th grade ELA team and World History teachers to create an interdisciplinary inquiry-based research projects. Each of these units has a clear connection to future academic needs or personal relevance to the student, elevating student autonomy and student voice.

I’m not going to pretend all my students are excited about my approach, but for the most part it is how I frame the conversation. I am honest about how we all feel, but I am positive about the final days of the school year. I explicitly discuss the connection between the unit/assignments and the real world, their personal lives, or the longer term trajectory (this will give you a leg-up Junior year). Most importantly, I expect all my students to arise to the occasion and I support them with my scaffolding.

We must overcome our lethargy, embrace a “fake it till you make it” mentality, and keep our foot on the gas the entire school year.

Educators Can’t Ignore Immigrant Rights Issues

Who can focus on Okonkwo’s motivations, SAT prep, or how to write a rhetorical analysis essay when you’re worried about whether or not your family will be picked up in an ICE raid at your apartment complex? Certainly, not any student who is directly or indirectly impacted by Trump’s executive orders on immigration (read this annotated NPR analysis of the January order or NY Times take on the revised travel ban).

Some educators think that students are over-reacting, that ICE agents won’t arrest parents or someone who is minding their own business, or that a school cannot be raided. These beliefs stem from misinformation and--to a certain extent-- chosen ignorance. After all, it’s pretty clear that immigrant rights are under attack. Yet hiding behind our citizenship privilege is much easier than searching the internet for data to triangulate or trying to understand why a student from a mixed-status family might be breaking down in your classroom.

If we care about students, then it’s worth taking the time to do what teachers do best--learn and advocate!

It was the desire to know more and to protect our students in an emergency that led my co-teacher, Monique LeTourneau, to appeal to our district school board shortly after the first executive order was signed. This resulted in a declaration from our board and a letter from our Superintendent announcing that Tacoma Public Schools is a safe zone for immigrant students. But many of us knew this wasn’t enough. Our students weren’t feeling safe. Parents were keeping their students at home. And fear was coming to the surface.

We knew we needed to do something else. Ideas evolved over collaborative lunches. The end result was a multi-pronged approach--to move what we could influence and control. As teacher leaders we knew we could speak with our principal to make an emergency plan and meet with our classified and certificated staff to ensure we all understood the basics of the issue and how to protect students. In our building we are implementing the advice from the AFT handbook. Meanwhile, my partner and fellow educator Nate Bowling began to dream of a teacher town hall where 100 educators could receive legal advice for how to support our undocumented students.

That dream came to the fruition. The Tacoma Education Association provided the space to meet. Nate and Monique compiled a stellar panel with representatives from the ACLU, Washington Dream Coalition, and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. They shared their wisdom and knowledge and answered questions for the 130 educators in attendance and over 3,000 online viewers of our live feed.

My Takeaways from the Teacher Town Hall:

1. Immigration enforcement isn’t new. The Obama administration deported more immigrants than any previous president.

2. While the law is consistent, it seems like local authorities and laypersons alike don’t know what it says. There is a ton of misinformation circulating, but experts like the ACLU are current on the issues. Read and know your rights.

3. Enforcement of immigration laws seems left to the interpretation of enforcing authorities. I learned that it’s a federal misdemeanor to enter the US without documentation, but you can be in the US without official papers and it’s not a crime (CNN explains it pretty well here). Furthermore, authorities such as ICE and the local police department could interpret the notion of "criminal" completely different and enforce immigration laws in contradictory ways.

4. Always get a lawyer. While the state is not required to provide a lawyer (even if you ask for one), a lawyer is the only one who can really do anything for an undocumented person in custody---not parents, friends, or advocates...only the lawyer. It's recommended to keep an immigration lawyer's contact on hand.

5. Mixed status families experience a unique kind of fear due to the fact that they will literally be ripped apart with parents and children being separated from each other.

6. It will probably get worse before it gets better. Nuff said.

7. You can't do this work alone, but you can't wait for someone else to do it. We are in unprecedented times in our country. We cannot allow fear and uncertainty to immobilize us. Rather, we must maintain hope and organize for what we know and believe is right.

The last few months I’ve been inspired by my colleagues who strive to keep abreast of the changes in immigration policy in order to alleviate student fears and prepare to protect these children. I encourage you to do the same by organizing your own forums or reaching out to your school district to make a statement in support of your immigrant and refugee students. Start by reading the materials and watching the video from our event.

Goals for a New School Year: #ObserveMe

Note: I started this site for more personal musings on education but I also write for the Stories from Schools blog. Here is an excerpt of a recent post on my goals for the upcoming school year. 

I first spotted the #ObserveMe hashtag on a leisurely scroll through my Twitter feed. This piqued my curiosity. Who’s observing me? What are they observing? As I spiraled down the internet, I found that Math teacher, Robert Kaplinsky, is challenging educators to rethink the way we pursue feedback by making it easy and immediately obtainable. It’s simple. Make a form that says something like “Hi I’m ____. I would like feedback on the following goals:_____”. There is no right way to set up your #ObserveMe sign. Then, adjacent to this invite place a reflection tool. From reflection half-sheets to QR codes connected to google spreadsheets, a teacher can embrace any way that is easy (and I’d argue most meaningful) for them to receive this feedback.

I discovered that while #ObserveMe isn’t quite trending yet, it’s catching fire even at the university level. In teacher prep, some professors are using it as a way to model to preservice teachers the need for a clean feedback loop. Today's teachers are constantly working to fight the isolation that can happen in this profession. We are also always looking for ways to improve and receiving meaningful feedback on our instructional moves is hard to find. Here’s what I like about Kaplinsky’s challenge to teachers.

It increases the frequency of feedback. With #ObserveMe, I don’t need to wait for my administrator’s scheduled visit. I don’t need to wait for end of unit or end of course student reflections. I don’t need to wait for my instructional coach to find time to come into my classroom. I don’t need to wait for a colleague to get a sub so they can meet with me about student learning. In fact, this has the potential to give me more, real, immediate feedback from a variety of perspectives than anything I’ve seen this far in my eleven years of teaching.

For more click here.