This One Time, At NCCAT…We Turned the World Around

            With a title like that, this post has a lot to live up to. I want to preface this post with a disclaimer that no American Pie-esque adventures happened at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) in Cullowhee.  What did happen consisted of seventeen outstanding teachers, the majority of whom were Teachers of the Year from their districts, including six regional finalists, meeting at the top of a mountain to hone their leadership skills in their classrooms, in their schools, and in their communities.  Each teacher left feeling empowered to return to his or her school district and work on implementing positive change to help reform curriculum in our schools, improve teacher morale, and most importantly, impact the lives of the students we teach. 

            So often when you hear people talk about NCCAT, you hear them talk about how rejuvenated they feel when they return, how delicious the food was, and how much fun they had being with other teachers.  While those descriptions do describe NCCAT, the experience is about so much more than these more surface-level descriptions.  I think one reason why so many teachers speak about NCCAT in generalizations is that the experience touched them in too profound of a way to completely verbalize those experiences to others who were not there.  Therefore, it becomes much easier to talk about the tangible experiences that all people can understand—educators and non-educators.  Today, I want to put forth my best attempt to describe what NCCAT is really about.

            The one word that best describes my experience at NCCAT is “OPEN.”  Both of NCCAT’s campuses are in open, beautiful, serene, natural surroundings—the mountains and the sea.  The openness of the locales is further fostered by the openness of the instructors to shape and mold the agenda based on the needs of the teachers who are there.  The experiential learning style of NCCAT encourages and fosters this fluid scheduling.  We completed every activity planned for us during the week, but our questions, concerns, and other professional objectives were also valued and inserted into our schedule in order to give us the best possible professional learning environment. 

            Not only was the environment open, but the required homework we had to complete prior to attending, the activities, the reflective writing, and small group discussions helped to foster an open mind in all of the attendees.  If you arrive at NCCAT (or anywhere associated with education) with a closed mind and are unwilling to open it to new possibilities in your classroom, then you are really going to miss out on a critical component of teaching—you should never stop learning.  Every person in attendance during my week at NCCAT left with numerous ideas about ways to connect with students, parents, and other educators.  We learned how to lead by being a part of a team, how to facilitate and encourage support from others, and how to provide essential feedback and foster relationships to help all of our students succeed.  These are concepts that all teachers know on paper, but once you actually experience these concepts, it suddenly seems much more important to implement them in your own classroom.  It forces you to take theory and turn it into practice.

            One of the most impactful experiences with these concepts occurred during an experiential learning activity based on some of the classic team building exercises: getting all members across a series of stones without ever having a stone without a foot on it, moving a tennis ball by pulling on a series of strings to support it, etc.  For each activity, two team members were placed at a distinct disadvantage—one was blindfolded and one was not allowed to speak.  Upon completing these challenging exercises, we reflected on what we experienced.  We all realized that we devoted our time to the person who was blindfolded to help them with the task, but almost always ignored the person who could not speak.  Think about how true that can be in a classroom with students or in a school among coworkers.  We often devote our time and efforts to the students or coworkers who make it clear that they are having difficulty or are incapable of completing something without assistance.  There are so many other students and coworkers who need assistance, but are unable to voice their needs for different reasons, whether due to a disability, fear, shyness, or lack of information.  We all started to reflect on the students and teachers who don’t always speak or get to speak in our lives, and thought about ways that we could reach out to those people so that they do not fall through the cracks.  It was only through an open mind that we were able to examine the flaws within our own practices as teacher leaders.

            The last area where we learned to be open was with our hearts.  I don’t know if our group was particularly united due to increasingly low morale and a feeling that teachers must unite together in order to change some negative portrayals of teachers in the media and in legislation, but everyone was so open with their struggles, fears, concerns, and accomplishments during the week.  We laughed, we cried, we hugged, we conquered a whitewater rafting trip as a team, and we broke through one-inch thick pine boards with our bare hands to symbolize our desire to break through our personal barriers to success.  I heard teachers share concerns about devoting more time to their students than their own children; teachers who were struggling to take care of aging, ill parents; teachers who were adopted at an early age; teachers whose children were recently diagnosed with different spectrums of autism; teachers who were debating about leaving the profession or moving to another state; teachers who grew up with a parent in jail; and teachers who suffered from severe illnesses during the past year and felt guilty for not being with their students. 

As we shared our stories, I immediately thought of how different and how similar we all are.  Our personal experiences are not unique just to this group of teachers, but can be found among teachers across the state.  Perhaps most significantly, this range of backgrounds also represents the diverse students we serve in public education in North Carolina.  Inspired by our mountain surroundings, I couldn’t help but to use the metaphor of a patchwork quilt to describe the teachers at NCCAT, the teachers in North Carolina, and the students and families we serve in this state.  Like the varying fabric squares on an old-fashioned patchwork quilt, each educator brings a unique backstory, a unique set of skills, and a unique pedagogical goal to the hodgepodge of public education.  Our students and their families also bring a unique story, culture, and set of needs.  It is only through our unified effort that we can stitch together all of the disparate pieces into a true masterpiece—a masterpiece that is one finished product but also recognizes the true beauty in allowing each piece of cloth to bring its own irreplaceable contribution to the greater educational fabric.  Being at NCCAT made me realize that while we certainly need accountability and consistency in education, we also need to recognize and make the most of the varied strengths that we all bring to the masterwork.

Finally, I would like to end with the words of the song we sang at NCCAT that truly represent what we all took from our experience there and our goals as we return to our home school districts:

            “ We come to the mountain, the mountain, the mountain

              Go back from the mountain,

              Turn the world around.”

Greensboro Grimsley High

On June 9 I sat on stage during the seventh graduation at Grimsley High School that I have attended.  I had an exceptional view of students as they walked across the stage and received their high school diplomas.  As these students that I taught in a variety of classes walked across the stage, I felt a little like I was graduating with them.  I felt the same mixed feelings of excitement and fear of the unknown that many of them experienced Sunday night.

Grimsley High School has really been a home to me.  After teaching for a semester at Rockingham County Middle School, I found myself as a very new lateral entry teacher at Grimsley High School.  When I first arrived, we were a school in transition.  We found ourselves precariously placed on the edge of a tradition of academic excellence but also with the unknown before us due to redistricting within our county and due to administrative changes.  During my first two years at Grimsley High School, I served under four different principals, and I witnessed firsthand many new teachers leave our school and the profession because the struggles seemed too difficult to overcome.  The edge of the cliff of change seemed too dangerous, too frightening, and too steep. 

For those of us who stayed, we formed a sense of community.  The teachers rallied together and offered support and social opportunities both inside and outside of school.  We informally collaborated across departments and formally collaborated within Professional Learning Communities to reach out to all of our students.  Slowly we began to build a bridge over that chasm below the cliff and began to find a way to give our diverse, varied population the best possible education that we could.  In the end through our construction and reaction to these changes, we formed a community of educators, students, parents, and alumni.

As I sat on the stage at graduation and saw such a diverse group of students graduate, I felt proud to call Grimsley my home.  I knew that I will always be a Grimsley Whirlie (even though no one really understands what a Whirlie is unless you’ve been there…a Whirlie is a state of being).  Like the students graduating that night, I knew that this year would mark the end of my current journey at Grimsley High School as I step out into the unknown and travel the state as North Carolina’s Teacher of the Year.  Like them, I was sad to leave my home, but excited to venture into the future.  Perhaps, most importantly, as I looked out at the students, parents, and coworkers in the Greensboro Coliseum, I realized the most important concept of home: it is a place where you can always return, whether in your heart or in person. 

Tears filled my eyes as I sang the Grimsley Alma Mater for the umpteenth time since I arrived at Grimsley.  However, this time the words rang truer than they ever have before:

            All hail to thee,

            Our Alma Mater strong.

            We’ll pledge our faith and love and loyalty,

            Greensboro Grimsley High.

Thank you Grimsley High School for being such an important part of my life, and know that you will always be my home. 

For the next year, my home will broaden to include all of North Carolina, and like our graduates, I step off the stage into the world beyond, eagerly awaiting what the future will have in store for this Whirlie.

Assessing the Assessment

                Today I finished grading my last student assignment this year.  As I finalized my students’ grades, I pondered over my personal views of assessment.  The truth is I HATE GRADING.  I love planning exciting, engaging lessons.  I love giving students valuable feedback about the quality of their speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills.  I love using assessment as an instructional tool to help me determine what students need more of and what they need less of in the classroom.  But, I HATE GRADING.  I hate the sometimes seemingly arbitrary numerical grade that is assigned to a student’s work that can, for some students, seem like a number that is assigned to their sense of worth.

                  In this age of high-stakes testing and a more materialistic society, extrinsic factors are often more motivational than intrinsic ones.  How do you explain to students, parents, other educators, and stakeholders that learning is about the process more than the outcome? Furthermore, how do you communicate that a grade is not an indicator of self-worth?  These questions plague me at the end of every school year.  Whether calculating grades for my grade-focused International Baccalaureate students or my inclusion English II students, I observe the different ways that each student deals with the concept of grading.  Some students are devastated not to receive an A in a class, while some students celebrate merely passing.  Some students use a failing grade as justification for giving up, while others use the failing grade as motivation to change their study and attendance habits.  In this educational world centered on testing, I can offer no concrete, clear-cut solutions, and can only provide general inquiry.  Fundamentally, I think inquiry is the best way we can teach our students to understand their grades.  Now, I do not advocate inquiry in the form of “Why did I get such and such grade?” or “What can I do to get an A?”  Instead, I advocate the inquiry that comes with reflection. 

                  I would love to see us shift our focus in public education away from grading and onto assessment and feedback.  Just as I would like for my students to view grades as a starting point for thoughtful consideration about what their strengths are and what areas they need to improve, I also view each school year as an opportunity for reflection and growth.  While I do receive some “grades” in the form of teacher observations, parent communication, and peer and student feedback, the most useful tools for reflection come from my own assessment of these outcomes.  I ask myself, “What worked well?  What could I do better next year?  What do I need to change?  What new resources do I need to reach out to my students?”  The key point in my personal assessment is that I consider multiple measures of mastery for myself, and I always put the ownership of my actions back on me.  Even when assessing why the student who missed forty-five days of school failed, I still have to ask myself what I could have done differently.

 I want to teach my students the same strategies for viewing grades and feedback.  I want to see them shift their focus from “Why did you give me this?” to “What can I do to improve?”  I try to provide these opportunities for self-reflection as a part of major essays and assignments, but I often see students diminish the importance of self-reflection as just “filler” or a “waste of time.”  What they are really concerned with is the grade that I will assign them on the final product.  Thus, we come back full circle to the necessity of grades, even though I absolutely HATE GRADING. 

 Unfortunately, as we continue to focus on numerical and letter grades with EOGs, EOCs, Common Exams, and School Report Cards, I don’t know if we will ever be able to shift fully to a system where assessment is more important than grading.  In keeping with the spirit of inquiry, I would like to pose a few questions for you: How do you feel about grading?  What purpose do you think grades serve? Please post your comments and see if we can get a discussion started on grading!

The Times They Are A-Changin'

“The Beginning of Speech” by Adonis

The child I was came to me

once,

a strange face

                He said nothing              We walked

each of us glancing at the other in silence, our steps

a strange river running in between

We were brought together by good manners

and these sheets now flying in the wind

then we split,

a forest written by earth

watered by the seasons’ change.

Child who once was, come forth—

What brings us together now,

and what do we have to say?

            Change seems to be resonating across public education classes in North Carolina right now.  Some schools districts just finished their first year with the new adopted Common Core Standards, and other school districts are just getting started with their first administration of Common Exams for students.  Amid hallways, teacher workrooms, online discussion forums, and different forms of media, change echoes loudly and at times can drown out many of the other voices, including the voices of our students. 

            There are two ways to approach change: to resist it, heels firmly dug into the ground and to refuse to give way, or to embrace it as an opportunity for personal and collective growth.  Sometimes it is extremely difficult to determine which response is the most appropriate.

At my school this week, we issued Common Exams for the first time.  We tried a new schedule to accommodate for Common Exams and EOCs separately, and during each of the three days of Common Exams, we kept modifying and changing the new schedule.  Teachers and students were frustrated, weary, and resistant to the changes that occurred in classrooms across our school.  Are Common Exams new?  Yes.  Are they challenging for students?  Yes.  Are they part of high-stakes testing for teachers and students?  Yes.  Are they perfect at this point?  No.  Do they serve a valuable purpose in the education of our students?  Yes.

You see, I believe that the new Common Core Standards and the Common Exams have the potential to be great assets in education.  They encourage students to develop their higher-order thinking skills and encourage reading and writing across the curriculum.  As an English teacher, I can’t help but to rejoice at any educational plan that promotes literacy!  At the same time, I understand that they create an incredibly terrifying moment of change: we are asking more of our students than ever before and are using these higher standards to determine if educators are effective.  We are asking students to jump from point A to point Z in a year without the scaffolding that is part of the Common Core.  That is initially a very scary prospect for all stakeholders in education: students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and state officials.  But, change is often distressing.  We are creatures of habit.  Once we get used to the new exams and standards, we can see that they have outstanding potential.  Who doesn’t want to push students to think critically and to navigate an increasingly complex world?  Who doesn’t want consistency across classes in schools, the school districts, the regions, and the state?  Who doesn’t want to see students achieve more than they ever dreamed?  The answers to these questions are easy for all educators.  In time, the changes will no longer seem terrifying and will only become exciting opportunities. 

However, there are other changes creeping in to education that are tougher to handle.  New Senate budget proposals indicate much change that would only continue a lack of funding for our students and for the educators who work with them on a daily basis.  Eliminating class size caps in schools, reducing funding, eliminating teacher assistants, and stopping master’s degree pay increases will not improve education for our students.  If we talk about education reform, let’s make our reform be about providing more quality teachers, more quality resources, more quality technological access, and more quality opportunities for our students—all of our students in public schools.  Perhaps a major change that we need is in how we view the most important area of our funding: the future of our towns, our counties, our state, and our nation.  If we are going to look to businesses as a model for educational reform, then why not put our most precious goods, our students, and our most precious commodity, education, back at the forefront of our discussion of change?  Why not listen to the voices of our students as much as our own?

On a more personal note, I also face a moment of great change.  As this school year draws to a close, I grade my last essays until 2014 and start to pack up my classroom in preparation for my journey as North Carolina Teacher of the Year.  While part of me wants to dig down my heels in my amazing classroom (complete with a small stage that is a relic of when it was part of the media center when the current school building was first built in 1929!), I also look eagerly to the opportunities that I will have to advocate for education, to meet with prospective and current educators across the state, and to witness the outstanding teaching that occurs in classrooms in North Carolina daily.  As I start to accept the change that the next year will bring about for me personally, I also acknowledge that educators as a whole sometimes have to be willing to accept some elements of change that might initially frighten us in order to bring about more positive, impactful change for all.  I just hope that we can work together to bring about the right changes for our students and all our voices can unite with “what...we have to say.”