Hello everyone,
My good friend and mentor Tom Woessner has said that "teaching is a calling."
(He might have actually said that "teaching at Garfield is a calling," but the difference between the two statements is insignificant for my current purposes.)
Teaching is something that many of us feel "called' to do. The voice calling us may be our personal deity, our country, our family, our sense of duty, our love of youth, or even our passion for our disciplines--but we hear the voice, and we have accepted it.
I am enough of a realist to know that many of us really just hear the voice of desperation--we have fallen back on teaching because something else in our lives has failed us. (Some of us have heard the voice of desperation and have had it turn to the voice of love of teaching, though.)
Some of us hear the voice calling to us, and we might be better off ignoring it.
But I think the majority of teachers take the calling seriously. The majority of us really want to do right by our students. And the majority of us are able to.
What does this "calling" mean?
It doesn't mean working in isolation. Teaching is a collaborative profession. Really. If you don't have students, you can't teach, which means at the barest level you need to collaborate with someone to even do your job. Accept the reciprocal nature of your relationship with your students; work with them, not against them.
Ditto with the parents. They pay you to be a support to their efforts to accomplish the difficult task of raising a decent human being; work with them.
You're not in competition with each other, either. I understand that, sometimes for your own health, you might insulate yourself from a toxic work environment; but there are friendships to be had and lessons to be shared. Don't let your insulation be impermeable--ever.
Most administrators want what you want. I have always believed that, even before I took an out-of-the classroom position, and even when I worked with some terrible incompetents. Administrators serve an important function in the school; their jobs are hard; their hourly wages are lower than teachers', which means that they have to work more for less (they work more days per year and more hours per day, so their yearly salary is higher). While I think a teachers' job is paramount--and the hardest in the school, I think that administrators perform a vital function. Collaborate with them; help them help you; be clear about what you need them to do and resist being unreasonable.
Some of the anger and frustration we feel in the course of our profession is directed at those we feel, rightly or wrongly, are interfering with our sense of the call. Because of the high stress that our jobs engender, we sometimes react powerfully to things that are not proportional to our reaction. Step back, take a deep breath, look at the proportions of everything, choose battles that are winnable with the fewest casualties (if you must choose a battle), and keep everything in perspective (ie., the kids really are the most important).
We are called to take young humans in varying levels of ignorance (a word which means simply "not knowing") and help them rise to the highest levels of understanding we can in the short time we work with them. We must be efficient, but realize that we aren't working with machines. We must be wise enough to know what we don't know. We must be above them to lift them, but humble in our height.
The "gnosis" (knowledge--the root of "ignorance") we are trying to give them is an agreed upon collection of facts, skills, and wisdom that society requires, combined with our own experience, understanding and wisdom (which should be constantly growing--indeed we will always learn more from our lessons that our students will), leaving out certain beliefs or wisdom that are considered too personal to share with children that are not our own (religion, sex, and politics, for example).
We practically have to be the supreme combination of diplomat, actor, motivator, psychologist, dictionary, encyclopedia, and surrogate parent to accomplish this.
We can't do it without help. We should seek help wherever we can get it, from whatever legal sources public and private we can find. (And if modern teaching is a calling, it's a mendicant calling. We beg for much of what we need.)
Given all of this, we can't forget that we are professionals, not volunteers; we have contacts to fulfill; we have families to support; we have outside interests and duties as well as what we face in school.
Above all we are called to do good--with limited resources, tough conditions, and conflicting responsibilities--we are called to be good.
Tom was right.
Jeff Combe
PS This is likely my last email. Some of you have asked me to continue writing. If it's possible, I will, but I don't know what responsibilities my job will impose on me from now on, so I can't promise. Keep in touch; my email address won't change.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The state of education (in California)
Hello everyone,
Allow me, please, to lament the state of public education, then offer a small suggestion.
It seems to me that the efforts to reform public education in California (and maybe throughout the nation) is the equivalent of trying to buy a Lamborghini with a dollar you found in the street, then demanding the Lamborghini vociferously, then legislating for the Lamborghini with penalties for not providing it but no money to buy it, then suing the Lamborghini company for not providing the car, criticizing the car dealership for not selling the car for a dollar, restructuring the dollar, publicizing how others own Lamborghinis, trying to substitute a Ford for a Lamborghini--which still costs more than a dollar, criticizing everyone who suggests that a Lamborghini really costs more than $100,000, then attempting a government takeover of the used car dealership that doesn't sell Lamborghinis.
Of course, the dollar to Lamborghini price is hyperbole, but the idea is similar.
A study by Stanford University suggested that it may cost more than a trillion dollars to get every school in California to an API of 800 or more. Then they quickly distanced themselves from that idea, suggesting that more efficient use of current resources would allow for lower expenditures. Still, the increase would have to be in the billions.
Since it is difficult to impossible to get the State to fund education the way it should be funded, we are left with a system that tries to reform on the cheap--blaming teachers and administrators for their failure to buy a first-class education at tramp prices.
Garfield, certainly, is fairly swimming in money, federal, state, and private. But what does that money do for us when we can't budget until just before the school year begins? or reduce class sizes for lack of space? or use the money in the way that seems best to the Garfield community? or start the school day at a reasonable hour? or provide sufficient parking? or give B-track a coherent semester? or do more than pay lip service to giving English language learners the individual attention that they need? or have sufficient bilingual teachers to teach students in their primary language when they need it? or prevent violence? or motivate more parents to be involved in school? or maintain our facility without disrupting instruction? or stop truancy? or provide psychiatric services to the students who need it? or stop drug use? or end gang activity?
If you read through the entire list, you know that it would take a huge influx of money to be able to do all the things we need to do.
So we keep trying to do it on the cheap.
Does that mean we should give up?
By all means, no.
But we could make it easier for us all to do our best.
We could relieve stress rather than cause it.
We could share our resources rather than hoard them.
We could allow for a multitude of visions rather than demand our own.
We should be grateful for volunteers rather than demand them.
We can demand more from our students even while recognizing the extreme difficulties they often work under.
I noticed a long time ago that listeners cared little if a pianist is playing in the key of C (easy) or Cb (difficult). If someone chooses to play in C, we should not find fault with their transposition; we should just enjoy the music.
By all means, let us transpose if necessary. And if someone doesn't know how, transpose for them--or teach them how.
It won't buy a Lamborghini, but who needs a Lamborghini if one has music?
Jeff Combe
California Education Reform Meltdown
by: K. Lloyd Billingsley, March 21, 2007
SACRAMENTO, CA ~Last week the capital was abuzz over Getting Down to Facts, the massive series of privately-funded education reports coordinated through Stanford University. The responses to these reports missed some key realities.
The reports confirm that California education is a mess, burdened with a complicated and counterproductive system of finance. To bring every student up to speed under current conditions would cost more than $1 trillion per year, according to one estimate from which the researchers have distanced themselves. According to another, to bring California students in line with the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act will require spending increases of 53 to 71 percent.
The full text of the report is at the link below:
http://irepp.stanford.edu/documents/GDF/GDF-Overview-Paper.pdf
Allow me, please, to lament the state of public education, then offer a small suggestion.
It seems to me that the efforts to reform public education in California (and maybe throughout the nation) is the equivalent of trying to buy a Lamborghini with a dollar you found in the street, then demanding the Lamborghini vociferously, then legislating for the Lamborghini with penalties for not providing it but no money to buy it, then suing the Lamborghini company for not providing the car, criticizing the car dealership for not selling the car for a dollar, restructuring the dollar, publicizing how others own Lamborghinis, trying to substitute a Ford for a Lamborghini--which still costs more than a dollar, criticizing everyone who suggests that a Lamborghini really costs more than $100,000, then attempting a government takeover of the used car dealership that doesn't sell Lamborghinis.
Of course, the dollar to Lamborghini price is hyperbole, but the idea is similar.
A study by Stanford University suggested that it may cost more than a trillion dollars to get every school in California to an API of 800 or more. Then they quickly distanced themselves from that idea, suggesting that more efficient use of current resources would allow for lower expenditures. Still, the increase would have to be in the billions.
Since it is difficult to impossible to get the State to fund education the way it should be funded, we are left with a system that tries to reform on the cheap--blaming teachers and administrators for their failure to buy a first-class education at tramp prices.
Garfield, certainly, is fairly swimming in money, federal, state, and private. But what does that money do for us when we can't budget until just before the school year begins? or reduce class sizes for lack of space? or use the money in the way that seems best to the Garfield community? or start the school day at a reasonable hour? or provide sufficient parking? or give B-track a coherent semester? or do more than pay lip service to giving English language learners the individual attention that they need? or have sufficient bilingual teachers to teach students in their primary language when they need it? or prevent violence? or motivate more parents to be involved in school? or maintain our facility without disrupting instruction? or stop truancy? or provide psychiatric services to the students who need it? or stop drug use? or end gang activity?
If you read through the entire list, you know that it would take a huge influx of money to be able to do all the things we need to do.
So we keep trying to do it on the cheap.
Does that mean we should give up?
By all means, no.
But we could make it easier for us all to do our best.
We could relieve stress rather than cause it.
We could share our resources rather than hoard them.
We could allow for a multitude of visions rather than demand our own.
We should be grateful for volunteers rather than demand them.
We can demand more from our students even while recognizing the extreme difficulties they often work under.
I noticed a long time ago that listeners cared little if a pianist is playing in the key of C (easy) or Cb (difficult). If someone chooses to play in C, we should not find fault with their transposition; we should just enjoy the music.
By all means, let us transpose if necessary. And if someone doesn't know how, transpose for them--or teach them how.
It won't buy a Lamborghini, but who needs a Lamborghini if one has music?
Jeff Combe
California Education Reform Meltdown
by: K. Lloyd Billingsley, March 21, 2007
SACRAMENTO, CA ~Last week the capital was abuzz over Getting Down to Facts, the massive series of privately-funded education reports coordinated through Stanford University. The responses to these reports missed some key realities.
The reports confirm that California education is a mess, burdened with a complicated and counterproductive system of finance. To bring every student up to speed under current conditions would cost more than $1 trillion per year, according to one estimate from which the researchers have distanced themselves. According to another, to bring California students in line with the goals of the federal No Child Left Behind Act will require spending increases of 53 to 71 percent.
The full text of the report is at the link below:
http://irepp.stanford.edu/documents/GDF/GDF-Overview-Paper.pdf
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Summer school experiments
Hello everyone,
In my most recent emails, I've been thinking in print about how I'm going to plan my upcoming summer school assignment at Lincoln High School and my regular school assignment at Wilson High School.
Summer school ("intersession" at Garfield) has always been a good time for me to experiment. The course is quick; there is flexibility in time (it's a two-hour block); the students are docile; the atmosphere is more relaxed. Over the years, I've worked my way to the philosophy that summer school needs to be a regular semester, but accelerated; it should not be noticeably easier than the normal semester; it's just leaner in terms of number of activities and assessments and the opportunity to reteach.
It allows a teacher to try a new method of pedagogy or management and see immediate, raw results.
I'm thinking I want to try a different sort of overview in my class this summer.
I always do an overview of what students should expect in the semester; I will keep that. I was thinking more of an overview of the English language. If students understand a little better where English comes from, they might understand better the levels of formality, diction, syntax, tone, spelling, and rhetoric that the California Standards require of them.
Those are things that I used to reserve for my AP class, but I think there's no reason why a regular 10th grade class can't have them. Give the overview, then work on the meaning and examples through the rest of the six weeks. Give them the foundation, and they can better build on it.
I will be working with an unfamiliar textbook, but I can't really experiment with that too profitably because Wilson uses a different text, and I will be teaching different classes. But I can experiment with new ways to use the text for the regular thematic progressions I prefer to organize around: words to phrases to clauses to sentences to paragraphs to essays to research papers; non-fiction to poetry to short fiction to drama to Shakespeare to long fiction (I'm chronological in American lit.); unedited writing to draft writing to edited writing; informal to formal communication; persuasion to exposition to literary analysis.
I've discovered that the McDougall-Littell text has a lot of activities in the text that integrate grammar and writing with the literature. I don't think I can master it fast enough, but being aware of it will allow me to play around with it this summer.
Adapting to new textbooks is an essential part of the life of a teacher. Summer school's short times allow for that.
This will also let me see if I still have the chops to teach this stuff without chasing them all away. Let's hope so.
Jeff Combe
In my most recent emails, I've been thinking in print about how I'm going to plan my upcoming summer school assignment at Lincoln High School and my regular school assignment at Wilson High School.
Summer school ("intersession" at Garfield) has always been a good time for me to experiment. The course is quick; there is flexibility in time (it's a two-hour block); the students are docile; the atmosphere is more relaxed. Over the years, I've worked my way to the philosophy that summer school needs to be a regular semester, but accelerated; it should not be noticeably easier than the normal semester; it's just leaner in terms of number of activities and assessments and the opportunity to reteach.
It allows a teacher to try a new method of pedagogy or management and see immediate, raw results.
I'm thinking I want to try a different sort of overview in my class this summer.
I always do an overview of what students should expect in the semester; I will keep that. I was thinking more of an overview of the English language. If students understand a little better where English comes from, they might understand better the levels of formality, diction, syntax, tone, spelling, and rhetoric that the California Standards require of them.
Those are things that I used to reserve for my AP class, but I think there's no reason why a regular 10th grade class can't have them. Give the overview, then work on the meaning and examples through the rest of the six weeks. Give them the foundation, and they can better build on it.
I will be working with an unfamiliar textbook, but I can't really experiment with that too profitably because Wilson uses a different text, and I will be teaching different classes. But I can experiment with new ways to use the text for the regular thematic progressions I prefer to organize around: words to phrases to clauses to sentences to paragraphs to essays to research papers; non-fiction to poetry to short fiction to drama to Shakespeare to long fiction (I'm chronological in American lit.); unedited writing to draft writing to edited writing; informal to formal communication; persuasion to exposition to literary analysis.
I've discovered that the McDougall-Littell text has a lot of activities in the text that integrate grammar and writing with the literature. I don't think I can master it fast enough, but being aware of it will allow me to play around with it this summer.
Adapting to new textbooks is an essential part of the life of a teacher. Summer school's short times allow for that.
This will also let me see if I still have the chops to teach this stuff without chasing them all away. Let's hope so.
Jeff Combe
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Thoughts on planning and process
Hello everyone,
In my preparation for my return to teaching, I'm at the point of doing the long-term planning for summer school.
The first thing I do is sit down with the calendar and plan out all the fixed dates. Summer school begins on July 7 and ends on August 15. The Mid-term grades are expected on July 24; textbooks are returned on August 14, and final report cards are due on the 15. There is an emergency drill that will take some time out of 1st period on July 17.
I mark all the fixed dates in red ink in my planner, and I try to plan around them in as practical way as possible.
I know that I will need about an hour on July 7 to set up the rituals and routines of my class; students need to know my grading procedures, my rules, important dates, and the overall direction of the class. The final will have to be given on August 13 or 14--I'm not entirely sure how Lincoln does textbook return. I think it could be done in about thirty minutes, which would give us sufficient time to take and grade the final (about 90 minutes). If their return is less efficient than that, I will have to give the final on the day before. I need to finish oral book reports (I can't count on Lincoln's possession and use of the Accelerated Reader) right before the midterm and the final, and they will take two days each time if everyone is ready, so my book reports are due on July 22-23 and August 12-13. Journals and essays are due on Fridays, which means that I need to have at least an hour's worth of independent work on those days for me to grade and return the journals.
Apart from those fixed things, I can start to fill in the blanks with a general structure of my curriculum. In grammar, students need to know clauses and their functions by the end of 10th grade, but they can't understand clauses if they don't know parts of speech and general sentence structure. I don't know how much grammar anyone will know until I give them a diagnostic assessment at the beginning, but I would be surprised if many summer school students are already grammar whizzes, so I'm going to plan to do grammar review of parts of speech and sentence structure for both 10A and 10B, then try to push 10B on to phrases and clauses.
I like to require a descriptive essay as a diagnostic at the beginning of any course. Because it's easy to do and hard to cheat on (they describe something they know personally), it gives me a fairly accurate benchmark of their writing ability. After the diagnostics, I can jump right in to persuasive/expository writing for 10A, and literary analysis for 10B.
It's important for the students to see good models, so I like to do a week of introductory non-fiction, then poetry, then narrative writing in 10A. Larger works (Shakespeare and a novel) in 10B ft the literary analysis requirements.
That's the way I think through a semester plan. I have no detailed lesson plans, yet, and I know that there may be some flexibility required. I'm not quite sure which shorter works I'll use because the textbook (Lincoln uses McDougal Littell) is unfamiliar to me. I'll need to do some reading and decide.
All of the planning took less than an hour, but it has left me pretty confident of my general path for six weeks. It's in pencil, however--life has a way of changing things.
Jeff Combe
In my preparation for my return to teaching, I'm at the point of doing the long-term planning for summer school.
The first thing I do is sit down with the calendar and plan out all the fixed dates. Summer school begins on July 7 and ends on August 15. The Mid-term grades are expected on July 24; textbooks are returned on August 14, and final report cards are due on the 15. There is an emergency drill that will take some time out of 1st period on July 17.
I mark all the fixed dates in red ink in my planner, and I try to plan around them in as practical way as possible.
I know that I will need about an hour on July 7 to set up the rituals and routines of my class; students need to know my grading procedures, my rules, important dates, and the overall direction of the class. The final will have to be given on August 13 or 14--I'm not entirely sure how Lincoln does textbook return. I think it could be done in about thirty minutes, which would give us sufficient time to take and grade the final (about 90 minutes). If their return is less efficient than that, I will have to give the final on the day before. I need to finish oral book reports (I can't count on Lincoln's possession and use of the Accelerated Reader) right before the midterm and the final, and they will take two days each time if everyone is ready, so my book reports are due on July 22-23 and August 12-13. Journals and essays are due on Fridays, which means that I need to have at least an hour's worth of independent work on those days for me to grade and return the journals.
Apart from those fixed things, I can start to fill in the blanks with a general structure of my curriculum. In grammar, students need to know clauses and their functions by the end of 10th grade, but they can't understand clauses if they don't know parts of speech and general sentence structure. I don't know how much grammar anyone will know until I give them a diagnostic assessment at the beginning, but I would be surprised if many summer school students are already grammar whizzes, so I'm going to plan to do grammar review of parts of speech and sentence structure for both 10A and 10B, then try to push 10B on to phrases and clauses.
I like to require a descriptive essay as a diagnostic at the beginning of any course. Because it's easy to do and hard to cheat on (they describe something they know personally), it gives me a fairly accurate benchmark of their writing ability. After the diagnostics, I can jump right in to persuasive/expository writing for 10A, and literary analysis for 10B.
It's important for the students to see good models, so I like to do a week of introductory non-fiction, then poetry, then narrative writing in 10A. Larger works (Shakespeare and a novel) in 10B ft the literary analysis requirements.
That's the way I think through a semester plan. I have no detailed lesson plans, yet, and I know that there may be some flexibility required. I'm not quite sure which shorter works I'll use because the textbook (Lincoln uses McDougal Littell) is unfamiliar to me. I'll need to do some reading and decide.
All of the planning took less than an hour, but it has left me pretty confident of my general path for six weeks. It's in pencil, however--life has a way of changing things.
Jeff Combe
Monday, June 23, 2008
Free association on beginning a new assignment
Hello everyone,
I've been thinking that for the next few days, I would let you into my thought processes as I transition back into the classroom after my two-year hiatus from teaching. I now many of the middle school teachers won't see this email until after the summer is over, and Garfield's C-trackers are still on vacation, but I thought it might be useful for you to know what goes through the mind of an aging veteran as he makes some major career changes.
Let me free associate, if you don't mind.
I'm nervous about going back. I expected that I would--maybe after five years instead of just two, but I missed teaching and have been thinking anyway about how I would go back. Still, I'm nervous. This will be a new show in a new town with a new script and an aging actor. Can I still hold an audience? Have I lost my chops? Are my organizational instincts in line with the new curricular changes?
Summer school will give me a chance to practice on my general pedagogy, but I won't be teaching the same subject at Lincoln's summer school that I'll be teaching at Wilson's regular school.
Wilson's on a "four by four Copernican block schedule" (if I understand it correctly) and my entire sense of timing must be readjusted. Luckily, it's similar to the summer school schedule, but I suspect that it will take me a year to get it down. I need to have "filler activities" in mind in case my timing is too short or too long.
I gave away most of my files because someone needed my file cabinet last year, and someone else needed my files. I will be rebuilding my file collection. That's not bad. Most of my files needed work anyway.
How much do I want to change my classroom practice? It causes me anxiety, but I think it might be fun to see what changes can do for me.
I have thought about my classroom rules. I like to keep my rules simple: Be respectful; do your duty; respect the community. The first allows me to have some flexibility on such things as raising their hands or talking in groups, but I can teach them what respect looks and sounds like. Doing their duty means being on time and doing their work. Respecting the community is a new rule for me, but I don't know the school rules at either Lincoln or Wilson, so it would allow me to give the general rule at both places without having to worry about specifics until I get there.
It might be more poetic to rephrase the rules this way: Respect the class; respect the community; do your duty. Easy to remember that way. I could make it a poster--a mantra--a slogan. Respect---respect--do. I think it covers everything.
I'm looking at planning for the fall. This will be the first time in 17 years I'll be on traditional calendar. I've done it before, but I'm having a really hard time fixing the semester break in my mind. It's supposed to be in February, but I'm used to thinking of at the winter break in December. I need to sit down with a calendar and work it out. That means that, under the Copernican system, I'll teach an entire year's worth of course work from September to February, with lots of holidays in the fall and a three-week break three-fourths of the way through the semester. I need to program some heavy review after Thanksgiving and again at New Year's. In the spring, I'll have a one-week break halfway, which should seem natural, but the rest will be long and tedious. I need to plan for that.
Grammar is always a problem in English. It's usually as boring for the teacher as it is for the students. I don't know how accustomed to grammar the Lincoln and Wilson kids are. Garfield never knew much of it. Here, I could pretty much start at the same grammatical place whether I was teaching 9th or 11th grade. Of course, it's easy to jump from parts of speech to subordinate clauses if the kids are ready for it. I'll have to see after my initial assessments.
I'll do some serious planning tomorrow.
Jeff Combe
I've been thinking that for the next few days, I would let you into my thought processes as I transition back into the classroom after my two-year hiatus from teaching. I now many of the middle school teachers won't see this email until after the summer is over, and Garfield's C-trackers are still on vacation, but I thought it might be useful for you to know what goes through the mind of an aging veteran as he makes some major career changes.
Let me free associate, if you don't mind.
I'm nervous about going back. I expected that I would--maybe after five years instead of just two, but I missed teaching and have been thinking anyway about how I would go back. Still, I'm nervous. This will be a new show in a new town with a new script and an aging actor. Can I still hold an audience? Have I lost my chops? Are my organizational instincts in line with the new curricular changes?
Summer school will give me a chance to practice on my general pedagogy, but I won't be teaching the same subject at Lincoln's summer school that I'll be teaching at Wilson's regular school.
Wilson's on a "four by four Copernican block schedule" (if I understand it correctly) and my entire sense of timing must be readjusted. Luckily, it's similar to the summer school schedule, but I suspect that it will take me a year to get it down. I need to have "filler activities" in mind in case my timing is too short or too long.
I gave away most of my files because someone needed my file cabinet last year, and someone else needed my files. I will be rebuilding my file collection. That's not bad. Most of my files needed work anyway.
How much do I want to change my classroom practice? It causes me anxiety, but I think it might be fun to see what changes can do for me.
I have thought about my classroom rules. I like to keep my rules simple: Be respectful; do your duty; respect the community. The first allows me to have some flexibility on such things as raising their hands or talking in groups, but I can teach them what respect looks and sounds like. Doing their duty means being on time and doing their work. Respecting the community is a new rule for me, but I don't know the school rules at either Lincoln or Wilson, so it would allow me to give the general rule at both places without having to worry about specifics until I get there.
It might be more poetic to rephrase the rules this way: Respect the class; respect the community; do your duty. Easy to remember that way. I could make it a poster--a mantra--a slogan. Respect---respect--do. I think it covers everything.
I'm looking at planning for the fall. This will be the first time in 17 years I'll be on traditional calendar. I've done it before, but I'm having a really hard time fixing the semester break in my mind. It's supposed to be in February, but I'm used to thinking of at the winter break in December. I need to sit down with a calendar and work it out. That means that, under the Copernican system, I'll teach an entire year's worth of course work from September to February, with lots of holidays in the fall and a three-week break three-fourths of the way through the semester. I need to program some heavy review after Thanksgiving and again at New Year's. In the spring, I'll have a one-week break halfway, which should seem natural, but the rest will be long and tedious. I need to plan for that.
Grammar is always a problem in English. It's usually as boring for the teacher as it is for the students. I don't know how accustomed to grammar the Lincoln and Wilson kids are. Garfield never knew much of it. Here, I could pretty much start at the same grammatical place whether I was teaching 9th or 11th grade. Of course, it's easy to jump from parts of speech to subordinate clauses if the kids are ready for it. I'll have to see after my initial assessments.
I'll do some serious planning tomorrow.
Jeff Combe
Friday, June 13, 2008
Some musings on Garfield High School
Hello everyone,
Two years ago, when I first started my current job as PSP adviser for Garfield, I met a PSP adviser from another school.
"You're from Garfield?" he asked.
"Yes. I've been there for 15 years," I said.
"You're the first person from Garfield I've ever met who wasn't angry all the time," he said.
I laughed, "You only caught me on a good day." We shared true stories of Garfield contention, and as the conversation turned to other things, I thought about what he had said, and I have thought about his (completely serious) observation many times. Now that I know I'm leaving, I worry, frankly, that I'm taking that contentiousness with me.
I think back on my seventeen years here, and a large percentage of my memories are about fights among the staff. Really. I have been both observer and participant. I've engaged in fights over the auditorium, over class schedules, over the school newspaper. I've been in shouting matches, memo blizzards, and grievance proceedings. I've gained and lost friends because I agreed with or disagreed with the wrong person at the wrong time (or the right person at the right time). I've been drummed out of the faculty cafeteria and drummed back in.
I've observed fights--spectacular matches: shouting both logical and ill, profanity screamed and spat, fistfights threatened and promised. I've seen secret meetings with whispered innuendos, conspiracies and conspiracy theories, grudges held and nursed for years.
Within my first semester here, I had seen so many arguments that I was a bit shell-shocked. A veteran teacher told me, "Just stay in your room and avoid meetings if you can. You'll need to do that to preserve your health." I have had that advice from veterans on more than one occasion and in more than one circumstance during my time here. Indeed, almost all the fights I've been in or seen on campus have occurred because I didn't always follow that advice.
It's clear from what I write that I can't excuse myself from culpability, and that my ability to point out the problem doesn't mean that I was never a part of it. Frankly, if I have seemed calm in the past few years, and if I have been able to laugh off the dysfunction of our large family here, it's because I have been outside it all with a different job. And I got help from a psychiatrist.
This email is intended for the new teachers, most of whom have had to be helped through the same shock I experienced, and often in the same way. But I expect that many others will read it, so--culpable or not--I would like to say something broadly:
It doesn't have to be this way. You can change this one thing--this constant urge to fight--you can change it to an urge to cooperate, to help, to forgive--and that change alone will open the way to great achievements at Garfield.
It doesn't take much kindness and consideration to help someone through a bad day--one or two words really. It's not that hard to disagree cordially. It's easier to forgive than to hold a grudge.
The Psalmist wrote, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." Even at Garfield, this most cantankerous of schools, I have been the beneficiary of that soft answer as often as I have felt the wrath, and I have learned I much prefer the softness.
In seventeen years of in-fighting, what has been gained? Is the school appreciably better than it was before? Wouldn't our little islands of excellence become continents if we just felt more comfortable joining shores? Is it really worth it to resist forgiving?
For those of you that I leave behind, I beg you to stay and "turn away wrath."
It's possible.
It's really the only way.
Jeff Combe
Two years ago, when I first started my current job as PSP adviser for Garfield, I met a PSP adviser from another school.
"You're from Garfield?" he asked.
"Yes. I've been there for 15 years," I said.
"You're the first person from Garfield I've ever met who wasn't angry all the time," he said.
I laughed, "You only caught me on a good day." We shared true stories of Garfield contention, and as the conversation turned to other things, I thought about what he had said, and I have thought about his (completely serious) observation many times. Now that I know I'm leaving, I worry, frankly, that I'm taking that contentiousness with me.
I think back on my seventeen years here, and a large percentage of my memories are about fights among the staff. Really. I have been both observer and participant. I've engaged in fights over the auditorium, over class schedules, over the school newspaper. I've been in shouting matches, memo blizzards, and grievance proceedings. I've gained and lost friends because I agreed with or disagreed with the wrong person at the wrong time (or the right person at the right time). I've been drummed out of the faculty cafeteria and drummed back in.
I've observed fights--spectacular matches: shouting both logical and ill, profanity screamed and spat, fistfights threatened and promised. I've seen secret meetings with whispered innuendos, conspiracies and conspiracy theories, grudges held and nursed for years.
Within my first semester here, I had seen so many arguments that I was a bit shell-shocked. A veteran teacher told me, "Just stay in your room and avoid meetings if you can. You'll need to do that to preserve your health." I have had that advice from veterans on more than one occasion and in more than one circumstance during my time here. Indeed, almost all the fights I've been in or seen on campus have occurred because I didn't always follow that advice.
It's clear from what I write that I can't excuse myself from culpability, and that my ability to point out the problem doesn't mean that I was never a part of it. Frankly, if I have seemed calm in the past few years, and if I have been able to laugh off the dysfunction of our large family here, it's because I have been outside it all with a different job. And I got help from a psychiatrist.
This email is intended for the new teachers, most of whom have had to be helped through the same shock I experienced, and often in the same way. But I expect that many others will read it, so--culpable or not--I would like to say something broadly:
It doesn't have to be this way. You can change this one thing--this constant urge to fight--you can change it to an urge to cooperate, to help, to forgive--and that change alone will open the way to great achievements at Garfield.
It doesn't take much kindness and consideration to help someone through a bad day--one or two words really. It's not that hard to disagree cordially. It's easier to forgive than to hold a grudge.
The Psalmist wrote, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." Even at Garfield, this most cantankerous of schools, I have been the beneficiary of that soft answer as often as I have felt the wrath, and I have learned I much prefer the softness.
In seventeen years of in-fighting, what has been gained? Is the school appreciably better than it was before? Wouldn't our little islands of excellence become continents if we just felt more comfortable joining shores? Is it really worth it to resist forgiving?
For those of you that I leave behind, I beg you to stay and "turn away wrath."
It's possible.
It's really the only way.
Jeff Combe
Monday, June 9, 2008
Summative assessment
Hello everyone,
Summative assessment is the sort of assessment that you give at the end of everything. It is the summation of the semester; it is the final.
When you give a summative assessment, there's is nothing you can do to use it to correct your teaching. It is the end of whatever you have been teaching. Summative assessments may help you plan for next year, or--if you had it all together--they have previously helped you to plan this year backwards, but there is nothing more you can do for this year's kids after the final test.
Setting up a good summative assessment is a difficult prospect.
First, you must be clear about what you intend to test. Are you testing your students on their skills or their knowledge? Do you want to know how well they read, or how much they know about something? How important is the skill of writing to your summation? Do you think it is important that your students' abilities in English affect their scores? How much will it affect their score if they know something but express it badly? Can you test them without requiring a performance?
The answers to those rhetorical questions will vary according to subject. In English, I test my students' reading and writing abilities as much as their knowledge of figurative language and literary movements. In drama, I test their speaking and listening abilities more than their cold reading. If I were teaching math, I might distinguish between the decoding essential to word problems and the understanding necessary for the order of operations. In social studies, it may be slightly more important that they understand history than that they be able to write about history, but I would want them to write. In science it is important that they understand certain concepts, but it is critical that they know not to hurt themselves in their contacts with science
You need to carefully construct your assessments so that they truly assess what you have taught and what you want the students to know. Never assess what you haven't taught; avoid testing fine points on anything but recent material; never try to trick them.
Some summative assessments are performance based. If the performances are group performances, you must set up the rubric to make every member of the group equally accountable. If the performances are individual, you must set up things in your classroom so that individuals are comfortable performing. (It's too bad when someone fails a final out of shyness, not lack of knowledge.)
I think high school students ought to have a final. They need that pre-college preparation. Finals in high school should be cumulative, but students will not perform well if you test them on intricate details of something you taught four to six months ago. Give them a general idea what will be required; give them time to review; don't try to trick them or sneak up on them.
And please, please, please don't let them cheat. There is nothing wrong with failing someone who cheats, but set up the final day and the final test in such a way that cheating is difficult, and make it very clear that you won't permit it. Don't back down on your threatened consequences for cheating, but try not to put your class in a position that requires heavy consequences.
It's possible to write a test that is difficult or impossible to cheat on, but it takes time and effort to do it. Long essays, for example, are very difficult to cheat on, but also very difficult to correct. Multiple forms of the same test, with the questions in different orders, are do-able with current software, but they are also difficult to correct. Seating the students far apart from each other is the best way, but some classes have too many students. Think it through and plan for possible cheating.
I personally don't think a test should make the difference between passing and failing for an average, motivated student. It may make the difference for marginal students--I don't mean them. Plan the test's value so that it can't drop or raise anyone's grades too much unless you are using performance-based assessment, and the performance represents the culmination of a long period of work.
You have one week to get your test ready, then one week to review for it. The third week from now is finals week at the high school. Think carefully, and plan to give a meaningful, summative assessment.
Jeff Combe
Summative assessment is the sort of assessment that you give at the end of everything. It is the summation of the semester; it is the final.
When you give a summative assessment, there's is nothing you can do to use it to correct your teaching. It is the end of whatever you have been teaching. Summative assessments may help you plan for next year, or--if you had it all together--they have previously helped you to plan this year backwards, but there is nothing more you can do for this year's kids after the final test.
Setting up a good summative assessment is a difficult prospect.
First, you must be clear about what you intend to test. Are you testing your students on their skills or their knowledge? Do you want to know how well they read, or how much they know about something? How important is the skill of writing to your summation? Do you think it is important that your students' abilities in English affect their scores? How much will it affect their score if they know something but express it badly? Can you test them without requiring a performance?
The answers to those rhetorical questions will vary according to subject. In English, I test my students' reading and writing abilities as much as their knowledge of figurative language and literary movements. In drama, I test their speaking and listening abilities more than their cold reading. If I were teaching math, I might distinguish between the decoding essential to word problems and the understanding necessary for the order of operations. In social studies, it may be slightly more important that they understand history than that they be able to write about history, but I would want them to write. In science it is important that they understand certain concepts, but it is critical that they know not to hurt themselves in their contacts with science
You need to carefully construct your assessments so that they truly assess what you have taught and what you want the students to know. Never assess what you haven't taught; avoid testing fine points on anything but recent material; never try to trick them.
Some summative assessments are performance based. If the performances are group performances, you must set up the rubric to make every member of the group equally accountable. If the performances are individual, you must set up things in your classroom so that individuals are comfortable performing. (It's too bad when someone fails a final out of shyness, not lack of knowledge.)
I think high school students ought to have a final. They need that pre-college preparation. Finals in high school should be cumulative, but students will not perform well if you test them on intricate details of something you taught four to six months ago. Give them a general idea what will be required; give them time to review; don't try to trick them or sneak up on them.
And please, please, please don't let them cheat. There is nothing wrong with failing someone who cheats, but set up the final day and the final test in such a way that cheating is difficult, and make it very clear that you won't permit it. Don't back down on your threatened consequences for cheating, but try not to put your class in a position that requires heavy consequences.
It's possible to write a test that is difficult or impossible to cheat on, but it takes time and effort to do it. Long essays, for example, are very difficult to cheat on, but also very difficult to correct. Multiple forms of the same test, with the questions in different orders, are do-able with current software, but they are also difficult to correct. Seating the students far apart from each other is the best way, but some classes have too many students. Think it through and plan for possible cheating.
I personally don't think a test should make the difference between passing and failing for an average, motivated student. It may make the difference for marginal students--I don't mean them. Plan the test's value so that it can't drop or raise anyone's grades too much unless you are using performance-based assessment, and the performance represents the culmination of a long period of work.
You have one week to get your test ready, then one week to review for it. The third week from now is finals week at the high school. Think carefully, and plan to give a meaningful, summative assessment.
Jeff Combe
Friday, June 6, 2008
Civil disobedience and education
Hello everyone,
Civil disobedience is a cherished American tradition. Indeed, it is embedded in our very consciousness, and is regarded as an important method of self-governance. The Declaration of Independence teaches us that we have a duty to rebel against oppressive government; the Constitution enshrines the freedoms of speech and assembly; the American Revolution, the Civil War, and centuries of struggle on behalf of religions, gender, and ethnicities have outlined our rights to foment social change through civil disobedience.
Henry David Thoreau defined civil disobedience as an open defiance of an unjust law, but the idea spreads to our concepts of protest, activism, and labor-organized job actions.
Civil disobedience is at once an American's most powerful tool for change, and a dangerous Pandora's Box of insurrection and anarchy.
We see that dichotomy most clearly in the classroom.
I grew up in the '60s and '70s, when teachers commonly kept posters on the wall quoting Thoreau, and when protesting was felt to be an obligation encumbent on all students who wished to be cool. We barely understood the forces we unleashed when we protested, but we enjoyed the heady fun of having classes cancelled and school officials nervous. We had been taught to protest, but not to think our way clearly through what we were protesting and what we hoped to accomplish by way of the protest. (After Vietnam, civil rights, and gender equality, what was left? The right to disco?)
When teachers engage in civil disobedience--or any kind of protest--they are wielding a sharp, two-edged sword, and it is impossible to predict exactly where the sword will cut.
I knew a teacher some years ago who constantly taught his students that they must question all authority, and that it was important for them to rebel against "the man." He got very upset, however, when his students rebelled against him. What he had meant to teach was, "You should think of me as cool and open-minded; you should consider me to be one who is not duped by the system; you should follow my instructions and nobody else's." What the students understood was, "We should rebel. This teacher is a fool to think that he is one of us, but his ideas give us authority to rise up against him and all others." The students were right.
I don't know if it's possible to teach students that rebellion is good, and that they must rebel--only that they should rebel against somebody else but us. Such teaching is bound to backfire.
However, we can teach them that there are always consequences to rebellion, to civil disobedience, to job actions. We can teach them that we cannot always predict what the consequences may be, and that they may sometimes be extreme--that people sometimes die as a result of rebellion. We can teach them to carefully think through rebellion, and that it is usually better to tolerate current ills than to unleash the violent forces that accompany open disobedience to established norms.
Our students must realize that whoever protests must be willing to accept the full range of consequences that may arise. I have had students in the past who walked out, then were angry when they were given truancies. They clearly had not thought through the consequences of their protest, and they may even have been improperly taught by teachers who romanticized protest to the point of making the protesters believe that they would automatically be rewarded, not punished, for their protest.
Teachers must also teach students that any sort of protest, including civil disobedience, must be understood and practiced on an individual level. When someone joins in a protest because there is pressure to do so, then it is no longer a protest but a mob. The fine line between the sort of rebellion enjoined in the Declaration of Independence and the sort of behavior that a mob engages in is crossed whenever coercion or unjust dominion occurs in any degree. There is, after all, no power of true change that can be derived from the forcing of conscience.
If you got caught up this morning in the heady excitement of joining with your colleagues in a large act of defiant theatricality, you must pause before your students and carefully help them know as many facets of the double blade you were figuratively swinging. They must know that for some of you the decision involved considering the agonizing uncertainty of whether or not you would face firing; for all it means loss of income and retirement; there have been threats (not widely believed) of loss of benefits; the entire protest may have been for naught, and we may still feel the draconian cuts planned by the state; and there may be short and long term consequences that we cannot predict. The excitement of rebellion must be weighed with the price of rebellion, and the decision to rebel must never be made while ignoring the responsibility of rebellion.
This is very nuanced thinking, and teenagers especially need to be guided through it.
Jeff Combe
Civil disobedience is a cherished American tradition. Indeed, it is embedded in our very consciousness, and is regarded as an important method of self-governance. The Declaration of Independence teaches us that we have a duty to rebel against oppressive government; the Constitution enshrines the freedoms of speech and assembly; the American Revolution, the Civil War, and centuries of struggle on behalf of religions, gender, and ethnicities have outlined our rights to foment social change through civil disobedience.
Henry David Thoreau defined civil disobedience as an open defiance of an unjust law, but the idea spreads to our concepts of protest, activism, and labor-organized job actions.
Civil disobedience is at once an American's most powerful tool for change, and a dangerous Pandora's Box of insurrection and anarchy.
We see that dichotomy most clearly in the classroom.
I grew up in the '60s and '70s, when teachers commonly kept posters on the wall quoting Thoreau, and when protesting was felt to be an obligation encumbent on all students who wished to be cool. We barely understood the forces we unleashed when we protested, but we enjoyed the heady fun of having classes cancelled and school officials nervous. We had been taught to protest, but not to think our way clearly through what we were protesting and what we hoped to accomplish by way of the protest. (After Vietnam, civil rights, and gender equality, what was left? The right to disco?)
When teachers engage in civil disobedience--or any kind of protest--they are wielding a sharp, two-edged sword, and it is impossible to predict exactly where the sword will cut.
I knew a teacher some years ago who constantly taught his students that they must question all authority, and that it was important for them to rebel against "the man." He got very upset, however, when his students rebelled against him. What he had meant to teach was, "You should think of me as cool and open-minded; you should consider me to be one who is not duped by the system; you should follow my instructions and nobody else's." What the students understood was, "We should rebel. This teacher is a fool to think that he is one of us, but his ideas give us authority to rise up against him and all others." The students were right.
I don't know if it's possible to teach students that rebellion is good, and that they must rebel--only that they should rebel against somebody else but us. Such teaching is bound to backfire.
However, we can teach them that there are always consequences to rebellion, to civil disobedience, to job actions. We can teach them that we cannot always predict what the consequences may be, and that they may sometimes be extreme--that people sometimes die as a result of rebellion. We can teach them to carefully think through rebellion, and that it is usually better to tolerate current ills than to unleash the violent forces that accompany open disobedience to established norms.
Our students must realize that whoever protests must be willing to accept the full range of consequences that may arise. I have had students in the past who walked out, then were angry when they were given truancies. They clearly had not thought through the consequences of their protest, and they may even have been improperly taught by teachers who romanticized protest to the point of making the protesters believe that they would automatically be rewarded, not punished, for their protest.
Teachers must also teach students that any sort of protest, including civil disobedience, must be understood and practiced on an individual level. When someone joins in a protest because there is pressure to do so, then it is no longer a protest but a mob. The fine line between the sort of rebellion enjoined in the Declaration of Independence and the sort of behavior that a mob engages in is crossed whenever coercion or unjust dominion occurs in any degree. There is, after all, no power of true change that can be derived from the forcing of conscience.
If you got caught up this morning in the heady excitement of joining with your colleagues in a large act of defiant theatricality, you must pause before your students and carefully help them know as many facets of the double blade you were figuratively swinging. They must know that for some of you the decision involved considering the agonizing uncertainty of whether or not you would face firing; for all it means loss of income and retirement; there have been threats (not widely believed) of loss of benefits; the entire protest may have been for naught, and we may still feel the draconian cuts planned by the state; and there may be short and long term consequences that we cannot predict. The excitement of rebellion must be weighed with the price of rebellion, and the decision to rebel must never be made while ignoring the responsibility of rebellion.
This is very nuanced thinking, and teenagers especially need to be guided through it.
Jeff Combe
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