Examining the pedagogy of rti

I've thoroughly settled into my role as an intervention specialist. I do about 30 hours a week in Rural Charter School, doing direct instruction on reading and math at-risk kids in grades K-8. Then I hustle back into town to do an after school math intervention at Favorite Elementary. Then about three times a week I rush over to the local Young Adults Transitions House to tutor college kids who are in a residential treatment/ finding yourself/ figuring out how to grow up program. So it turns out that though I thought I was getting my master's degree to teach sixth grade, in fact it was so that I could work with all manner of at-risk youth, ages 6 to about 22.

The tutoring is quite simple; I just keep track of the students' syllabi, assign them the reading they're supposed to do anyway, make time management and study suggestions, edit papers, and give moral support. No outside prep required and I enjoy it.

The after school math at Favorite Elementary is slightly more complex because the goal is to boost kids who didn't pass their state assessments last year into the passing category this year. And this year  we have a fully revamped set of state math standards (finally aligned with NCTM standards and generally well thought out) and a new state assessment to go with it. So materials that worked well last year aren't quite right this year and I'm doing a lot of research and cross referencing to get the right stuff to these kids. But their attitudes after school is quite good and my Middle Kid gets to join us. So of course I like it.

My main job at Rural Charter is going well. I'm given a lot of autonomy and professional judgment about how to run my interventions and progress monitoring. The part that's on my mind right now is trying to be sure I'm following the spirit of the Response to Intervention model while working within the limitations of a tiny budget. I pretty much have one program for a given skill/grade level, and if it doesn't work the only response I can think of is trying to apply that program differently. I've managed to tweak the schedule here and there to give certain students one-on-one time. This works well, I think, for kids with certain distracting behaviors, or a certain type of noncompliance. I'm still relying on the same curriculum to reach them, so I'm pretty much just crossing my fingers.

I am seeing some gains though. A couple of seventh graders have been graduated out of my groups due to dramatic gains in their progress monitoring scores! And I feel like I'm hitting a good rhythm with the majority of the rest of my students; I can tell how to express to them that we're sticking with high standards. Basically, if you're not 6 or 7 with a certain level of unmedicated hyperactivity, I'm going to use that "SLANT" technique. In a nutshell, this is requiring students to sit up, participate, and show that they're paying attention. It's amazing what a difference in performance I see when I require them to scoot their chairs in to the table and sit straight.

Any thoughts or recommendations on RTI out there? I'm basically a general ed teacher by training who is sort of functioning as a special ed teacher, so I'm constantly looking for good ideas.

Assessment time: round two

Most of my time is being spent on test preparation for kids who didn't pass the state assessment the first time around. As is the case all over the country, these tests are high stakes; in some cases it seems the stakes are higher for the schools than for the students themselves. Because these are mainly the kids who struggle at least a little more than others, it's sometimes dispiriting work. A lot of walls get put up so these kids can reject the whole process, the whole idea of school, before it can reject them by informing them that they don't meet benchmarks. I wonder what the future holds for some of these kids; most will eventually master these skills but a few will end up dropping out or barely making it through school. And then what? Young people have few enough options these days; kids who self-limit by blowing off scool end up with even fewer. If only their frontal lobes were developed enough for them to comprehend the impact today's actions and decisions will make.

I have to both coach kids who need more work on test taking skills and convince the reluctant participants that it really is a good idea to take these assessments seriously and actually do their best. I go home tired at the end of the day.

Lots of number crunching.... is this teaching?

As a part of my job as Title 1 interventionist, I am also serving as the Title 1 coordinator for the school. This is by no means an official job title. It's just that now I am assembling/writing the school's Targeted Assistance School Plan. Seems that the person who resigned and who I replaced had not really assembled this year's binder of plans, schedules, data, etc that make up this Plan. So now I'm working on it in addition to helping students. Overall I have to admit that I kind of enjoy the work. Not that I'd like to do just this all the time, but it's informative and a good counterpoint to the hands-on work with kids. I think it's good for educators to have some insight into the needs and responsibilities of administrators, kind of like I think everyone should hold at least one service job. Gives you perspective. I'm not an administrator, but working with some of this federal government paperwork does give me a broader perspective on the work I do in the classroom. I just wish more pencil pushers had a chance to see how their work impacts children. It's a good experience overall.

job job job

I officially accepted the interventionist position. The only real drawback I can predict about it is that it's a bit of a drive from here, in the snow, uphill both ways. It's about 30 miles from my home, and I need to allow for at least 45 minutes to get there, especially in the snow and ice. And I have to call my husband each time I arrive at the school to let him know I got there OK (there are some notorious stretches of road along the way) and again when I'm on my way home. And I'll be doing it in the 20-something years old pickup truck with No Radio because he needs the Regular Car for in-town work and child chauffeuring. This will be difficult. I will have to Be Alone With My Thoughts for like two hours each day I go up there. Alone with my thoughts but unable to write down lists. Gonna have to fix the radio situation.

Anyway, I think it's going to be a good thing. If I thought teaching kindergarten on short notice was a challenge, how's intervention support for grades K-7 going to feel? I think it will be exciting. Reading is the main focus, but because of bureaucratic stuff it will be kept to less than half of my time there (probably hovering around 45%). For kids with tons of need in reading, I may be able to incorporate reading skills into some math work, as that will be around 45% of my time. Writing will likely round out the remaining 10%, and of course that's got some overlap with reading so it should be a system that can meet the kids' needs.

I want to start researching and preparing for this, but I'm not sure where to start. I don't know who the kids are, what they need, or what kind of work load I'm really looking at. I hope I can accomplish a  good deal of it within the alloted hours, as it doesn't appear I'll be paid for prep time. I'm already used to a lot of unpaid overtime, but when it's one's own (even temporary) classroom it's a little different. Then again, the director says I'll be free to craft my own program, and I'm sure I'll have a designated work area if not classroom, so I'll come up with a workable system. If I can just capture that commute time for productive lesson planning somehow, it could be great. I can't see myself talking into a little recorder, and obviously writing in a lesson plan book is out. Any ideas on how to work while driving and not end up in a ditch?

Mission Accomplished: summer birthdays all done!

Big news from the home front: all our birthdays for the year have been successfully accomplished! The eldest turned 11 this week, and our as-yet-unfinished upstairs made a fabulous roller rink for her party. The area will soon be our actual home, but for now it's one big big big room with no furniture and a nice smooth floor. Great fun was had by all.
In other news, I've got no news to report. Still job hunting, still looking at substitute teaching, still haven't heard from the charter school. Hoping I can stand the suspense until it all gets settled within the next few days.
Fingers crossed. At least they say I come highly recommended (they being people who've checked my references)! If it were a normal year I'd have a job or two by now. It's not normal, so I'm just grateful for the affirmations.
fingers crossed

And a big sigh of relief marks the vernal equinox

A few key points. The winter term has finished. I completed a 175 page work sample (sort of part 1 of my master's thesis- part 2 to follow in the spring term). I accomplished my research project on assisting students spiffy up their organizational skills, complete with cool graphs and charts. I finished the student teaching with the sixth graders, and only teared up that one time. I accomplished all nineteen credits, from Implications of Poverty to Human Relations to Special Methods in Science and Math to the aforementioned Action Research.

And here's the kicker: I still want to be a teacher! The winter term was full of twelve hour days, including many weekends when I had to leave the house to get work done. It was full of unwashed dishes and laundry. It was full of thirty distracted minutes a day with my kids. It was full of my husband getting really annoyed with me for being so busy and distracted and not asking for help enough! And then my car broke down! I certainly don't want to relive anything like the past three months, but I sure do still want to be a teacher.

So spring break is here. The weather is nice, sunny-snowy-sunny. I've been spending all day every day with my beautiful daughters. We made banana bread. We started digging our garden (a good faith move on my part, seeing as how we may end up needing to move away for work and I don't want to and maybe if I'm invested in the veggie garden that will somehow mean a school here will magically hire me). We walked to the library. In an hour or so we're going to visit my parents for a couple of days. In short, aaaahhhhhhh. Sure, I'm bringing the laptop along, so I can do some revisions on papers for my faculty adviser and streamline the social studies unit I'll teach in the spring. But I'll be doing it sitting in the sun by the creek on my parents' farm while the girls run around with the dogs!

Spring term will be a most welcome change, as predicted by faculty back in the summer when we first started this adventure. Student teaching for the whole school day (only a little more than I was already there, since the schedule ended up being about 2/3 of the day during the winter) and one class. One! And as much as I don't want to move away from my little town, my little hometown, my kids' only home, I am going to Portland in two weeks for a job fair (wow, we art majors never got anything like that!). I'll get to see old friends, and I'll get to give the whole applications to other towns' schools thing a shot. If we have to relocate, we're prepared for that (although packing up this house will be nuts). But I'm hoping that veggie garden does the trick.

focusing on poverty issues in education

I've been researching the effects of poverty on young children in terms of their experiences in school, academic achievement, and the correlations between low socioeconomic status and low achievement/graduation rates overall. This issue is of great importance to me because my community is not a wealthy one, and my children attend one of the region's highest poverty schools. That said, a warm, inclusive, and intellectually rigorous and stimulating atmosphere exists at that school; that's why we send our girls there.

As a soon-to-be teacher, I'm very interested in finding ways to address the needs of children from low income (and perhaps high stress) homes. There are as many reasons for the lack of intellectual stimulation and overabundance of stress that we commonly see in impoverished populations as there are families living below the poverty line in our country. This is not a blame game; this is about acknowledging difficulties in our own communities and identifying the tools needed to address them.

Recent brain research suggests that best practices in education, including as much family involvement and communication as possible, can stimulate young brains in productive ways to compensate for early years in which children may not have been read to or talked with as much as is needed for optimal neurological growth and development. Dramatic play, plentiful access to books, and ample opportunities for verbal self expression in the classroom can begin to rewire the brain; these are obviously conducive to enhanced further learning. In other words, we as teachers can somewhat make up for some of the deficits with which our neediest students come to us.

I can't do much of anything about a family's financial situation. I can, however,positively impact the mental and emotional resources of my students. I can offer them a positive relationship with a nurturing and productive adult. And I can help them learn the implicit rules, basically middle class values, that too often go unspoken and yet to which students are held accountable: rules about volume and violence and mental focus and taking turns, for example.

I really want to offer a rich environment to the children living in poverty in my community. I want my classroom and my techniques to stimulate their brains while establishing foundations of knowledge and skill upon which they will then build more and more understanding of their worlds. Because the tools exist to do so, and because educators can make up for an understimulating environment at home, I have a duty to use those tools and do that work. And it will be a joy to do so.

What a wonderful morning!

Yesterday morning, my seven year old popped up before the alarm clock and announced from the top of the stairs, "It's election day!". Like it was maybe that much awaited holiday in December or something!

By the time we were all home and able to turn on NPR, it was already being projected that Obama would carry Ohio, which would pretty much seal the deal. I began making dinner with a ridiculous amount of tears of joy interfering with my work. Later on, my husband and I watched Obama's acceptance speech, and I was again awed by his articulate delivery and inclusive, hopeful, organized message. What a refreshing change from the insulting and damaging idiocy and inadequacy of the Bush administration.

So I'm starting off this morning with, frankly, renewed faith in my fellow Americans. 2000 was an offensive coup, but 2004 just made me feel like I was living in some sort of twisted parallel reality where common sense was out the window and the worst available option had actually been chosen by our citizenry. No landslide, at least, but Bush was actually elected '04, not just appointed. But now, we've pulled our heads out of wherever they were lodged, declared that we no longer want to be the ridiculous yet dangerous nation we'd become. Obama has proven he can engage and inspire on the international stage, and at home he's offering us all the dignity and tools for betterment we desperately need.

In addition to economic revitalization, I look forward to changes in education policy under President Obama. Let's stay tuned to see how our nation can fulfill our obligation to our young people with extensive and authentic educations, instead of inch deep, memorized, discrete facts that are inapplicable to students' lives. Let's have vitalized educations for our children that truly prepare them to think critically and to become involved citizens of our United States, a nation that is flawed but full of promise.

Getting a Headache: thinking about the problems of inner city schools

Reflection on Boys of Baraka

Watching The Boys of Baraka was eye-opening. While the dire situation in America’s inner city schools is not news, it is something that many of us, even when dealing with the school system in general, don’t see very much. I was touched by so many moments in the film: heartbreaking scenes of parents separated from their children, kids shouldering awful burdens, whole communities turned into wastelands. Watching these shell-shocked boys venturing bravely out to the other side of the world was inspiring. These children knew exactly what was in store for them if they stayed in Baltimore, and of course it wasn’t pretty. Their courage in trying out such totally unfamiliar territory as a foreign boarding school put a lump in my throat.

Aside from the emotional aspects of this subject, I was also left contemplating the plight of our poorest urban schools, and was pleased to find some bright notes in researching the film updates. Because the home and community environment these students live in is at least as much of a problem as is their school, a new solution is being tried out now which looks very promising in the wake of the closing of the Kenyan school. The SEED Foundation is now operating a co-ed public boarding school in Washington DC, and a second campus in Maryland is opening this fall. Feasibility studies are going on for opening more campuses around the country. This organization focuses on urban youth in grades 6-12, who would benefit from a rigorous academic environment and a removal from their troubled homes in the inner city. The DC campus has been running since 1998 and reports that 97% of its graduates go on to college. In a community where just convincing kids to even bother entering high school can be difficult, let alone graduate, this school’s program is exciting. In addition to its academic credibility, I see a couple of elements of the SEED schools as beneficial. It is co-ed, meaning that more students are eligible and can take advantage of the resource, and for more years than at the Baraka School. Also, the campuses are relatively local to their students’ home communities, so family involvement is possible and highly encouraged. This ongoing connection with positive elements of students’ lives strikes me as healthy for both the kids and their families.

As we saw with the Baraka School, relocating at-risk students is a valuable tool for turning around their worldviews and getting them on track academically. For those students who remain in the conventional public school, clearly more must be done to facilitate learning and ensure safety. What is this “more” that is needed, though? Frankly, I don’t know. Obviously money is a factor, but throwing cash at an institution that is in such chaos that resources are likely to be squandered by the recipients is not reasonable. Some scenes in The Boys of Baraka suggest that this would be the case: kids hollering and carrying on, ignoring a teacher’s calls for order, fighting and spinning around on office chairs instead of having a conversation with an advisor. And ultimately, though the responsibility for children’s behavior rests on themselves, it’s not really their fault that things have broken so far down. Trapped in chaotic and dangerous circumstances everywhere they go, misbehavior and detachment from responsibility are pretty much inevitable. Those who stay on track and graduate from high school are applauded because they are noteworthy exceptions and because everyone knows what extreme dedication it takes in those circumstances, and therefore how uncommon it is. Exposure to a wider world, whether it’s through travel to Kenya or crossing the county to attend boarding school, is more than enriching for kids from the inner city. It could be life saving.

The project begins...

I'm off and running on this great madcap adventure called Becoming A Teacher! Graduate studies at Southern Oregon University began two weeks ago, and though a lot is being squeezed into this short summer session (as much work as a regular length term in only four weeks), it's doable as long as I don't spend too much time on other stuff. Like my kids, the family's online business, the renovation of a rental house we're working on, bathing, you know. While I'm a bit sleep deprived right now, I think it's under control.
So far, I have to say that I'm pleased with the direction my courses are taking. The curriculum design we're working on is pleasantly difficult. That sounds weird, but what I mean is that while it takes a lot of effort and a different way of looking at the material, it's fascinating to me to get into the methodologies behind unit planning. Even when dealing with the youngest children, it's complex.

And, I'm also happy to report that so far my suspicion seems to be correct: that the five years of elementary classroom volunteering I've put in have given me a pretty good idea of what I'm getting myself into, and so far I still feel prepared! Let's see how I rate that after the "September Experience": a month long practicum in an elementary classroom. Looking forward to it!