Hello everyone,
I'm a pretty good pianist. I've been playing the piano for more than 40 years, and over that time, I've become a high-end amateur who occasionally gets paid to play. I'm confident at what I do, usually; I'm a good sight reader, but I know when I have to practice; I also know when I am not competent, and I'm pretty skillful at avoiding situations that would make me look bad, though I'm also willing to take a chance if the circumstances are right.
In other words, I have good self esteem.
Having said all that, I remember the process of learning to become a good pianist. I remember the frustrations I felt when my fingers wouldn't go where they were supposed to go, even after the tenth repetition; I remember how clumsy I would feel in front of an audience when I was too nervous to play well; I remember how angry and defensive I would get with my piano teacher when she demanded higher standards from me than I was willing to practice for. I also remember many times in which I have played poorly in public, and when people have been less than kind in their assessment of my playing.
In other words, my self esteem--as far as piano playing goes--has not always been high.
What has made the difference?
I had at least one teacher who helped me have a vision of what great piano playing looked like, and then believed that I was capable of arriving at that level. (Frankly speaking, I have never gotten as good as she wanted me to be, and she had other students--less lazy than I--who are far better pianists than I am. However, I am easily a hundred times better than I was when I first went to see her simply because she believed I could be.) When I did not achieve at the level she expected, she didn't find excuses for me, nor did she give up on me. She showed me how to do it, then worked me until I did it.
My teacher helped me to set both long term and short term goals. She expected my long-term goals to be very high; my short term goals were only as high as they needed to be to achieve the long term in time.
Someone was always there to guide me through the rough periods when I didn't believe in my ability. That included close monitoring of just what I was doing wrong. If my fingers weren't as pliable or as strong as they needed to be, I was shown strengthening exercises. If I wasn't ready for Grieg, I was given Bach.
I was allowed to fail, then shown how to learn from my failures. This was an important part of teaching me to avoid self-delusion.
The result is, I have a skill I didn't have before; I have learned that hard work pays off; I have learned that I am capable of that level of work; I have been stripped of my delusions; I am filled with a realistic self esteem.
My self esteem is the result of the process, damaged though it sometimes was DURING the process. To have wasted time trying to build my self esteem without the process of teaching me to play the piano would have been counterproductive.
There you go: strong mentoring, high expectations, guidance through difficulty, and teaching through failure, never leaving out the occasional encouragement or reprimand as needed. The result: high skill level; high self esteem.
Jeff Combe
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Self Esteem vs. Self Delusion
Hello everyone,
When I was just getting started in education, the self-esteem movement was in its ascendancy. Everything, it seemed, was geared toward helping students feel good about themselves. The theory was that poor self esteem lay at the root of much of the failure of students; if they saw themselves as successful, they would rise to the self perception and become successful.
Now, almost thirty years later, American students are among the worst in industrialized nations, yet they think of themselves as the best. Their self esteem is quite high, but their actual achievement is low. (See the Washington Post news story about the 2006 Brookings Institute study at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701298.html.)
On the other hand, undiluted reality is so unpalatable that neither students nor their teachers will address it without the rebellion that follows insult.
Some years ago, a student of mine, undersized but moderately talented, announced in class that he did not have to study in English because he was going to be in the NFL. When I told him that, unless he grew a lot, he wouldn't play in the NFL because he was too small, he objected to my taking his dreams away, and his parents had him transferred out of my class. (He never played in the NFL.)
A drama student announced that he didn't have to memorize scripts because he was going to be a great star, and great stars didn't memorize. He couldn't be trusted with any but negligible roles because he was impossible to work with. He dropped out of school to become a great star. He isn't. When Garfield's many teachers with experience in drama tried to give him good counsel, he complained that we were interfering with his dreams.
Another student announced that he didn't need to study because his family was going to win the lottery. He complained that his dreams were being challenged when he was told to study because the odds were against his winning the lottery.
Still another student announced one day that his goal was to become the greatest drug dealer in LA. When he was told that that was not a good goal, he complained, "Are you taking my dreams away?"
I tell you all that to tell you this: Self esteem and self delusion are not compatible. Self esteem is good; self delusion is bad. True self esteem is born out of real achievement; self delusion is only a figment. It's true that teachers sometimes underestimate
How to build true achievement, and its correlative self esteem, will be the subject of the next few emails.
Jeff Combe
When I was just getting started in education, the self-esteem movement was in its ascendancy. Everything, it seemed, was geared toward helping students feel good about themselves. The theory was that poor self esteem lay at the root of much of the failure of students; if they saw themselves as successful, they would rise to the self perception and become successful.
Now, almost thirty years later, American students are among the worst in industrialized nations, yet they think of themselves as the best. Their self esteem is quite high, but their actual achievement is low. (See the Washington Post news story about the 2006 Brookings Institute study at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/17/AR2006101701298.html.)
On the other hand, undiluted reality is so unpalatable that neither students nor their teachers will address it without the rebellion that follows insult.
Some years ago, a student of mine, undersized but moderately talented, announced in class that he did not have to study in English because he was going to be in the NFL. When I told him that, unless he grew a lot, he wouldn't play in the NFL because he was too small, he objected to my taking his dreams away, and his parents had him transferred out of my class. (He never played in the NFL.)
A drama student announced that he didn't have to memorize scripts because he was going to be a great star, and great stars didn't memorize. He couldn't be trusted with any but negligible roles because he was impossible to work with. He dropped out of school to become a great star. He isn't. When Garfield's many teachers with experience in drama tried to give him good counsel, he complained that we were interfering with his dreams.
Another student announced that he didn't need to study because his family was going to win the lottery. He complained that his dreams were being challenged when he was told to study because the odds were against his winning the lottery.
Still another student announced one day that his goal was to become the greatest drug dealer in LA. When he was told that that was not a good goal, he complained, "Are you taking my dreams away?"
I tell you all that to tell you this: Self esteem and self delusion are not compatible. Self esteem is good; self delusion is bad. True self esteem is born out of real achievement; self delusion is only a figment. It's true that teachers sometimes underestimate
How to build true achievement, and its correlative self esteem, will be the subject of the next few emails.
Jeff Combe
Monday, January 28, 2008
The importance of parents
Hello everyone,
I may have said this before, but it bears repeating:
Parents are the most important people in the lives of children.
If I need to put it more specifically, let me say that parents are most important people in the lives of teenagers, too.
No, really. Recent research confirms it. Parents are even more important than peers. Parents are more important than friends or drugs or sex or rock and roll or any of the cliched things in a teenager's life.
I know they don't act like it sometimes (the teenagers I mean), but they really value their parents.
This includes lousy parents, outstanding parents, and all the parents in between. It includes angels and abusers, and everything in between.
Teachers are important, but we are never as important to our students as their parents are.
What this means for us is that we really will do our best work when we collaborate with the parents.
Most of the time this collaboration is tacit and unspoken. Parents entrust their children to us, and we stand "in loco parentis" (it means "in place of the parent," not "the parents are crazy")--we treat the children as we would treat our own children. (Many of the restrictions we have, by the way, are because some colleague or another has abused this trust--or has been perceived to abuse the trust--and legal or legislative recourse was necessary to protect the children or the parents' rights.)
Some of the collaboration is routine, such as when we send grades, have parent/teacher conferences, or make routine positive phone calls .
Occasionally the collaboration needs to be explicit and immediate. We need to call the home and report some misbehavior that must be handled collaboratively.
This last is the most important tool a teacher has to control student behavior. I wonder that teachers hold it as a threat, or delay using it. Frequent contact with parents (both positive and negative, both written and verbal, in person or on the phone) are indispensable. If you suspend a child from class, which you have a legal right to do for certain offenses, you MUST conference with the parents, either by phone or in person (unless they refuse).
It's true that parents are sometimes dysfunctional. The exceptional parent may scare you; a few times in your career, you may witness the removal of a child from the home; you may be aware of abuse, drug use, alcoholism, or mental illness. These are rare, however, and the possibility should not deter you from making a strong relationship with as many of your students' parents as is possible for you.
I'm both a teacher and a parent. I try to treat my students the way I wanted my children to be treated (my children are all adults now, but the feeling hasn't left me). Above all, I wanted my children to be well protected and well educated.
Don't forget the importance of your students' parents; collaborate with them; you will all be better for it.
Jeff Combe
I may have said this before, but it bears repeating:
Parents are the most important people in the lives of children.
If I need to put it more specifically, let me say that parents are most important people in the lives of teenagers, too.
No, really. Recent research confirms it. Parents are even more important than peers. Parents are more important than friends or drugs or sex or rock and roll or any of the cliched things in a teenager's life.
I know they don't act like it sometimes (the teenagers I mean), but they really value their parents.
This includes lousy parents, outstanding parents, and all the parents in between. It includes angels and abusers, and everything in between.
Teachers are important, but we are never as important to our students as their parents are.
What this means for us is that we really will do our best work when we collaborate with the parents.
Most of the time this collaboration is tacit and unspoken. Parents entrust their children to us, and we stand "in loco parentis" (it means "in place of the parent," not "the parents are crazy")--we treat the children as we would treat our own children. (Many of the restrictions we have, by the way, are because some colleague or another has abused this trust--or has been perceived to abuse the trust--and legal or legislative recourse was necessary to protect the children or the parents' rights.)
Some of the collaboration is routine, such as when we send grades, have parent/teacher conferences, or make routine positive phone calls .
Occasionally the collaboration needs to be explicit and immediate. We need to call the home and report some misbehavior that must be handled collaboratively.
This last is the most important tool a teacher has to control student behavior. I wonder that teachers hold it as a threat, or delay using it. Frequent contact with parents (both positive and negative, both written and verbal, in person or on the phone) are indispensable. If you suspend a child from class, which you have a legal right to do for certain offenses, you MUST conference with the parents, either by phone or in person (unless they refuse).
It's true that parents are sometimes dysfunctional. The exceptional parent may scare you; a few times in your career, you may witness the removal of a child from the home; you may be aware of abuse, drug use, alcoholism, or mental illness. These are rare, however, and the possibility should not deter you from making a strong relationship with as many of your students' parents as is possible for you.
I'm both a teacher and a parent. I try to treat my students the way I wanted my children to be treated (my children are all adults now, but the feeling hasn't left me). Above all, I wanted my children to be well protected and well educated.
Don't forget the importance of your students' parents; collaborate with them; you will all be better for it.
Jeff Combe
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Teaching vs. tutoring
Hello everyone,
What's the difference between a teacher and a tutor?
To a large extent, I'm asking you to draw a distinction between connotations in our specific circumstances, and I may be defining jargon. The two are often interchangeable: tutors teach and teachers tutor. Even so, it seems to me that there are differences, and the biggest differences lie in planning and scope.
The teacher is responsible for planning the curriculum; the tutor helps students cope with the curriculum the teacher has planned.
In LAUSD general education classes a teacher is responsible for a large group of students. Tutors are generally responsible for single students or small groups. The teacher must push the curriculum as much as the majority of students can take it. The tutor helps the stragglers catch up or get ahead.
Special ed. classes and RSP teachers combine the qualities of teacher and tutor--you may have to translate what I say for your particular circumstance if you teach special ed. Special ed. teachers provide all the best qualities of both teachers and tutors.
Now, why am I bringing this up?
Frankly speaking, many teachers view themselves as tutors rather than teachers. Making and executing plans are difficult; so is managing a large group of adolescents. In many ways it's easier to focus on an individual student--especially one who wants to learn--and let the rest keep themselves occupied however they want. You can't do this.
If you have a class of 40 students (the norm for most classes in the high school), and if you spend all of your class time tutoring, you will be able to work with each student for only 90 seconds in an hour-long class.
You can't tutor a class of 40; you can't even tutor 20 at once. 8 is really pushing it, especially if they are at different points in their understanding. You must be a teacher not a tutor; you must plan your curriculum so that the majority of your students will understand--if they don't, you need to re-teach, not just tutor them individually. Further, when most of them demonstrate understanding of your objectives, you can't hold them all back while you tutor the stragglers.
If you teach well, many of your students can tutor each other, and you can spend your guided group practice time clarifying and helping, rather than tutoring. If you discover during guided group practice that most of the class needs tutoring, then revert back to direct instruction and re-teach; don't make an attempt to tutor everyone in class. (There's no sin in re-teaching; in fact there's no sin in tutoring either--it's just that tutoring is impossible to do on the scale you're working at.)
What do you do if you have a student who needs tutoring? Help the student to get it. Don't sacrifice all the other students' education while you tutor a single individual. (Tutor individuals or small groups during your lunch or after school; invite them to be tutored in the library; arrange to have an RSP collaboration to tutor them if they qualify for special ed.; if you have a TA who is strong in your subject, the TA might tutor; encourage peer tutoring.) Rarely, circumstances will allow you to tutor during your teaching time; mostly they will not.
Jeff Combe
What's the difference between a teacher and a tutor?
To a large extent, I'm asking you to draw a distinction between connotations in our specific circumstances, and I may be defining jargon. The two are often interchangeable: tutors teach and teachers tutor. Even so, it seems to me that there are differences, and the biggest differences lie in planning and scope.
The teacher is responsible for planning the curriculum; the tutor helps students cope with the curriculum the teacher has planned.
In LAUSD general education classes a teacher is responsible for a large group of students. Tutors are generally responsible for single students or small groups. The teacher must push the curriculum as much as the majority of students can take it. The tutor helps the stragglers catch up or get ahead.
Special ed. classes and RSP teachers combine the qualities of teacher and tutor--you may have to translate what I say for your particular circumstance if you teach special ed. Special ed. teachers provide all the best qualities of both teachers and tutors.
Now, why am I bringing this up?
Frankly speaking, many teachers view themselves as tutors rather than teachers. Making and executing plans are difficult; so is managing a large group of adolescents. In many ways it's easier to focus on an individual student--especially one who wants to learn--and let the rest keep themselves occupied however they want. You can't do this.
If you have a class of 40 students (the norm for most classes in the high school), and if you spend all of your class time tutoring, you will be able to work with each student for only 90 seconds in an hour-long class.
You can't tutor a class of 40; you can't even tutor 20 at once. 8 is really pushing it, especially if they are at different points in their understanding. You must be a teacher not a tutor; you must plan your curriculum so that the majority of your students will understand--if they don't, you need to re-teach, not just tutor them individually. Further, when most of them demonstrate understanding of your objectives, you can't hold them all back while you tutor the stragglers.
If you teach well, many of your students can tutor each other, and you can spend your guided group practice time clarifying and helping, rather than tutoring. If you discover during guided group practice that most of the class needs tutoring, then revert back to direct instruction and re-teach; don't make an attempt to tutor everyone in class. (There's no sin in re-teaching; in fact there's no sin in tutoring either--it's just that tutoring is impossible to do on the scale you're working at.)
What do you do if you have a student who needs tutoring? Help the student to get it. Don't sacrifice all the other students' education while you tutor a single individual. (Tutor individuals or small groups during your lunch or after school; invite them to be tutored in the library; arrange to have an RSP collaboration to tutor them if they qualify for special ed.; if you have a TA who is strong in your subject, the TA might tutor; encourage peer tutoring.) Rarely, circumstances will allow you to tutor during your teaching time; mostly they will not.
Jeff Combe
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Adolescent slang
Hello everyone,
A final word (at least for now) on language.
When we were all teenagers, we had our slang. Indeed, it was part of our identity as teenagers. It is the nature and disposition of teenagers to rebel and pull themselves away from adults; teenage slang is, at least partly, an effort to define that rebellion.
Adolescent slang could almost be called "cant" (the specialized jargon/slang of the underworld), and cant by its very nature must be fluid and changeable (part if its purpose is to obscure the language to avoid detection).
That means as soon as you turn twenty, you're out of the loop. You're no longer a teenager; the slang has moved on, and you are no longer a native speaker. Before you know it, if you're not careful, you're sounding like a TV commercial using slang from five years ago as if it's current in an effort to sound current, but sounding hopelessly out of date. (Ironically, by the time most adolescent cant/slang reaches the airwaves, it has long ago lost its currency.)
The lesson behind all this is that teachers should not speak to students in their own language. Really.
This is not to say that you shouldn't try to translate something, or that you shouldn't understand what they are saying. Translation is sometimes very useful.
It is also not to say that you should pass up a good, honest, clean laugh when you can get it. I loved to dryly use a slang term that my students didn't know I knew, just for a laugh, or for a funny translation.
My students always thought it was funny if, when they greeted me with a cheery "'Sup, Combe," I said, in an unemotional voice, with perfect diction, something like, "'Sup, Dawg." Or I translated Shakespeare this way: "Romeo is going to, as they say, 'bust a move.'" It didn't remove my status as an old fogey; it just played on the fact that I knew I was an old fogey, and that I was not too much an old fogey to know what they meant. They understood it as a joke, not an attempt to be one of them, and they mostly got a kick out of it.
If you know what "bathos" is (deliberate drop in tone), then you can use it as bathos. (If you don't know, that's all right, too, but I think it's always better in these matters to know what you're doing.)
But if I really try to speak as one of them--thereby trying to become one of them--I will only open myself to all sorts of problems. They have certain expectations of how one speaks when one knows what one is talking about. They don't speak that way; when teachers try to speak like students, it might mean that the teacher doesn't know what the teacher is talking about. Besides, it sounds pathetic whenever someone out of the circle tries too hard to be someone in the circle.
Learn their slang; re-learn it every few years when it changes; understand it; but use it carefully and sparingly. Let them be who they are; you have not been one of them since you turned twenty; it's a mistake to try to be.
Jeff Combe
A final word (at least for now) on language.
When we were all teenagers, we had our slang. Indeed, it was part of our identity as teenagers. It is the nature and disposition of teenagers to rebel and pull themselves away from adults; teenage slang is, at least partly, an effort to define that rebellion.
Adolescent slang could almost be called "cant" (the specialized jargon/slang of the underworld), and cant by its very nature must be fluid and changeable (part if its purpose is to obscure the language to avoid detection).
That means as soon as you turn twenty, you're out of the loop. You're no longer a teenager; the slang has moved on, and you are no longer a native speaker. Before you know it, if you're not careful, you're sounding like a TV commercial using slang from five years ago as if it's current in an effort to sound current, but sounding hopelessly out of date. (Ironically, by the time most adolescent cant/slang reaches the airwaves, it has long ago lost its currency.)
The lesson behind all this is that teachers should not speak to students in their own language. Really.
This is not to say that you shouldn't try to translate something, or that you shouldn't understand what they are saying. Translation is sometimes very useful.
It is also not to say that you should pass up a good, honest, clean laugh when you can get it. I loved to dryly use a slang term that my students didn't know I knew, just for a laugh, or for a funny translation.
My students always thought it was funny if, when they greeted me with a cheery "'Sup, Combe," I said, in an unemotional voice, with perfect diction, something like, "'Sup, Dawg." Or I translated Shakespeare this way: "Romeo is going to, as they say, 'bust a move.'" It didn't remove my status as an old fogey; it just played on the fact that I knew I was an old fogey, and that I was not too much an old fogey to know what they meant. They understood it as a joke, not an attempt to be one of them, and they mostly got a kick out of it.
If you know what "bathos" is (deliberate drop in tone), then you can use it as bathos. (If you don't know, that's all right, too, but I think it's always better in these matters to know what you're doing.)
But if I really try to speak as one of them--thereby trying to become one of them--I will only open myself to all sorts of problems. They have certain expectations of how one speaks when one knows what one is talking about. They don't speak that way; when teachers try to speak like students, it might mean that the teacher doesn't know what the teacher is talking about. Besides, it sounds pathetic whenever someone out of the circle tries too hard to be someone in the circle.
Learn their slang; re-learn it every few years when it changes; understand it; but use it carefully and sparingly. Let them be who they are; you have not been one of them since you turned twenty; it's a mistake to try to be.
Jeff Combe
Friday, January 18, 2008
More on language: teaching difficult texts
Hello everyone,
So, what do you do when you want your students to read a difficult passage, but you know that they won't get it because their vocabulary is insufficient.
You could just summarize the passage, but that cheats them out of the reading practice that they so desperately need.
You could assign them to read the passage at home, using a dictionary to look up words, but that's the same as assigning them to skip the assignment. They won't do it (one rare student in 200 might; an AP class has a rate of about one in 20; English Language Learners will give up before they begin).
You could assign them to read in class using a dictionary, but there are few dictionaries available to the schools that are comprehensible to the students of East LA. (They are either too esoteric or too infantile.) A group of very motivated kids could maybe cipher it out, working together with a dictionary among them; if you teach that group, let them do it by all means; it will help their reference skills, and they might understand the passage after referencing the dictionary three or four times a paragraph.
You could assign simpler passages, but what good is it to teach elementary levels in middle and high school? It makes my skin crawl to think about it. (There are simpler things that a high school student may have to read. I am not saying that a high school student should never read anything simple. I am saying that, when you need to have them read something difficult, you shouldn't skip it.)
This is what I think you are left with:
Read the passage out loud together. It may be tedious, but it's the only way I could ever devise that would ensure that the reading of difficult passages would be done. There will be a multitude of words they may not get. You will not have the time, and the students will not have the inclination, to look up every single word they don't know. Simply tell them what the words mean when you get to them. If there are too many words, wait until the end of the passage, and paraphrase it in easier language. This allows them to have the flow of the passage, but learn what they just read.
There may be important words, key words, or academic words that you will want them to know. Teach them these words as a separate part of the lesson. When you read the passage, you will point out how the words are important to the passage. Don't, however, fall into the trap of trying to teach them every single word that you guess that they won't know. Especially don't try to teach them uncommon words that they are unlikely to hear more than a few times in their lives.
If your students are exceptionally poor readers, you may have to have them read excerpts only, and you might paraphrase the rest, but don't take away from them the important task of practicing the decoding of a complex or difficult passage simply because you're afraid that it's beyond their skill. Just as with any other essential task, you may just have to (figuratively) hold their hands through the toughest part, but don't take the toughness away.
By the way, if you are a good reader and you have an interesting voice, you may read out loud to them. You will be surprised how often high school and middle school students like to be read to. Some poor readers have problems with word attack (recognizing the words on the page), but have good comprehension when they hear it, and simply reading aloud to them helps them to comprehend. Have them follow along so that they have the chance to see the words they are hearing.
Some things in the education of a human being are tedious and difficult. Learning to read difficult text is one of those things. Don't avoid it just because it's difficult. It will pay big dividends later.
Jeff Combe
So, what do you do when you want your students to read a difficult passage, but you know that they won't get it because their vocabulary is insufficient.
You could just summarize the passage, but that cheats them out of the reading practice that they so desperately need.
You could assign them to read the passage at home, using a dictionary to look up words, but that's the same as assigning them to skip the assignment. They won't do it (one rare student in 200 might; an AP class has a rate of about one in 20; English Language Learners will give up before they begin).
You could assign them to read in class using a dictionary, but there are few dictionaries available to the schools that are comprehensible to the students of East LA. (They are either too esoteric or too infantile.) A group of very motivated kids could maybe cipher it out, working together with a dictionary among them; if you teach that group, let them do it by all means; it will help their reference skills, and they might understand the passage after referencing the dictionary three or four times a paragraph.
You could assign simpler passages, but what good is it to teach elementary levels in middle and high school? It makes my skin crawl to think about it. (There are simpler things that a high school student may have to read. I am not saying that a high school student should never read anything simple. I am saying that, when you need to have them read something difficult, you shouldn't skip it.)
This is what I think you are left with:
Read the passage out loud together. It may be tedious, but it's the only way I could ever devise that would ensure that the reading of difficult passages would be done. There will be a multitude of words they may not get. You will not have the time, and the students will not have the inclination, to look up every single word they don't know. Simply tell them what the words mean when you get to them. If there are too many words, wait until the end of the passage, and paraphrase it in easier language. This allows them to have the flow of the passage, but learn what they just read.
There may be important words, key words, or academic words that you will want them to know. Teach them these words as a separate part of the lesson. When you read the passage, you will point out how the words are important to the passage. Don't, however, fall into the trap of trying to teach them every single word that you guess that they won't know. Especially don't try to teach them uncommon words that they are unlikely to hear more than a few times in their lives.
If your students are exceptionally poor readers, you may have to have them read excerpts only, and you might paraphrase the rest, but don't take away from them the important task of practicing the decoding of a complex or difficult passage simply because you're afraid that it's beyond their skill. Just as with any other essential task, you may just have to (figuratively) hold their hands through the toughest part, but don't take the toughness away.
By the way, if you are a good reader and you have an interesting voice, you may read out loud to them. You will be surprised how often high school and middle school students like to be read to. Some poor readers have problems with word attack (recognizing the words on the page), but have good comprehension when they hear it, and simply reading aloud to them helps them to comprehend. Have them follow along so that they have the chance to see the words they are hearing.
Some things in the education of a human being are tedious and difficult. Learning to read difficult text is one of those things. Don't avoid it just because it's difficult. It will pay big dividends later.
Jeff Combe
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Academic vocabulary
Hello everyone,
I have always struggled with deciding how much time I should spend on teaching vocabulary. The latest research I have heard has said that normal humans need at least six different contacts with a word before the word enters their vocabulary. Keep in mind that there is a difference between the vocabulary we passively recognize and understand, and the vocabulary we actively use. The six contacts usually only bump a word into our passive recognition.
If normal high school students should have a vocabulary of around 10,000 words by the time they graduate from high school, and if our students have a working English vocabulary of between 2000-4000 words, then we're asking them to gain between 1500 and 2000 words per year just to catch up with the rest of America. That comes out to 9000-18000 contacts with new words alone, not to mention reviewing old words. And this leaves us able only to passively recognize words, not actively use them.
What that means to me is that I have to decide what vocabulary development is going to give me the most bang for the buck, and what vocabulary techniques will provide the most efficient way of acquiring new vocabulary.
There are certain words that MUST be taught in any given subject. These are the words for which sufficient class time must be set aside for the introduction to a given word and a full comprehension of that word must be gained. These are the so-called "academic words" that are talked about so much. Words like "metaphor" and "narrative" in English; "numerator" and "congruent" in math; "mole" and "plate" in science; and "macroeconomics" and "legislative" in social studies.
The words must be taught on their own terms. It is wise to use a variety of approaches to each word (graphic organizers and word walls are two very useful techniques after direct instruction), but they may also be taught in their contexts with language in general. Prefixes such as "meta-" ("over"), "con-" (reminding students that it can mean both "with" and "against"), and "macro-" ("large"); and root words such as "-num-" ("number"), "-gress/gruent-" ("go" or "gone"), and "-legi-" ("read") would make some of the above words jumping off points for a large number of other words.
Teaching the various meanings of common words like "mole" and "plate" expand both the richness of the words, but the students' understanding that most words in English have multiple meanings--and sometimes those meanings are widely variant. Both those words are homographs--they are spelled one way, but they have multiple, unrelated meanings. "Mole" is an animal, a spy, and a blemish, besides being a number in chemistry. "Plate" is something you eat from, a valuable object, and a dental appliance besides being a portion of the earth's crust. You will need to give the entire picture sometimes, just so your students will understand the part of the picture you're teaching.
By actively teaching the important academic words in your curriculum, and by teaching the etymological reasoning behind those words, you empower your students to continue gaining words on their own, which could save you 18,000 lessons.
Jeff Combe
I have always struggled with deciding how much time I should spend on teaching vocabulary. The latest research I have heard has said that normal humans need at least six different contacts with a word before the word enters their vocabulary. Keep in mind that there is a difference between the vocabulary we passively recognize and understand, and the vocabulary we actively use. The six contacts usually only bump a word into our passive recognition.
If normal high school students should have a vocabulary of around 10,000 words by the time they graduate from high school, and if our students have a working English vocabulary of between 2000-4000 words, then we're asking them to gain between 1500 and 2000 words per year just to catch up with the rest of America. That comes out to 9000-18000 contacts with new words alone, not to mention reviewing old words. And this leaves us able only to passively recognize words, not actively use them.
What that means to me is that I have to decide what vocabulary development is going to give me the most bang for the buck, and what vocabulary techniques will provide the most efficient way of acquiring new vocabulary.
There are certain words that MUST be taught in any given subject. These are the words for which sufficient class time must be set aside for the introduction to a given word and a full comprehension of that word must be gained. These are the so-called "academic words" that are talked about so much. Words like "metaphor" and "narrative" in English; "numerator" and "congruent" in math; "mole" and "plate" in science; and "macroeconomics" and "legislative" in social studies.
The words must be taught on their own terms. It is wise to use a variety of approaches to each word (graphic organizers and word walls are two very useful techniques after direct instruction), but they may also be taught in their contexts with language in general. Prefixes such as "meta-" ("over"), "con-" (reminding students that it can mean both "with" and "against"), and "macro-" ("large"); and root words such as "-num-" ("number"), "-gress/gruent-" ("go" or "gone"), and "-legi-" ("read") would make some of the above words jumping off points for a large number of other words.
Teaching the various meanings of common words like "mole" and "plate" expand both the richness of the words, but the students' understanding that most words in English have multiple meanings--and sometimes those meanings are widely variant. Both those words are homographs--they are spelled one way, but they have multiple, unrelated meanings. "Mole" is an animal, a spy, and a blemish, besides being a number in chemistry. "Plate" is something you eat from, a valuable object, and a dental appliance besides being a portion of the earth's crust. You will need to give the entire picture sometimes, just so your students will understand the part of the picture you're teaching.
By actively teaching the important academic words in your curriculum, and by teaching the etymological reasoning behind those words, you empower your students to continue gaining words on their own, which could save you 18,000 lessons.
Jeff Combe
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
More on language and East LA
Hello everyone,
I'm going to talk about the history of English first (briefly--don't lose me here), and then I'm going to tell you how that applies to English learners in East LA.
The earliest inhabitants of what is today Great Britain (at least that we know of) spoke something like Gaelic. They were conquered by European invaders who spoke German (Anglo-Saxons). Those invaders were later conquered by Europeans of Viking heritage who spoke French (Normans). The mixture of the languages of those invaders became Modern British English. American English also adds American Indian, Asian, and Spanish words.
Within this gradual evolution of the language are strong hierarchical feelings. For centuries after the Norman invasion, the British monarchy and aristocracy spoke French and the conquered peasantry and former aristocracy spoke German (actually called "Old English"). That means that, built into English, are the feelings that Latin-based words (French) are upper class, and Germanic or Gaelic words are lower class.
Now, how does this affect your students?
Since most of them come from a Latin-based background (Spanish), the common, ordinary words that they are accustomed to hearing at home and around the neighborhood correspond to the highest priced words in English.
That means that, if you assume that your students are going to struggle with Latin-based words and do well with Germanic words (as most English speakers do), you're probably wrong.
For example, in a sentence such as, "His level of comprehension left me in awe," the word most likely to give your students problems will be the old Anglo-Saxon "awe." "Comprehension" will be easier for them than for a young English speaker who might prefer "understanding."
Teachers sometimes will prepare a list of words that they think might cause problems for their students in the upcoming lesson, and they will choose out all the long, highfalutin Latin words to explain to their students. They ought to look to the lowly Anglo-Saxon words as being the more troublesome. In the sentences I just wrote, "upcoming," "highfalutin" (a long word, but considered very low class in English, and one that--though not often used in California--most native English speakers have heard; most ELL students have not heard), "ought," "lowly," and "troublesome" (in fact, "-some" as a suffix is often hard for them) are the words likely to be misunderstood.
Teachers will sometimes think that they are speaking very simply, and that their students should understand them; but if they are using a lot of Anglo-Saxon words, they may be more misunderstood than they think.
Until you get very good at it, do not assume that your language is easily understood by your students. Even if you think your students are native English speakers, there is a good chance that they will miss the meanings of many simple Anglo-Saxon words while they grasp the meanings of the more "difficult" Latin words. I was constantly surprised to find that words I grew up with--like "still" (meaning quiet), "beset," "bewitched" (indeed, almost any word with the prefix "be-"), "apron," "attic," "basement," "dreary," "dismal," and so on to the end of the alphabet--were frequently misunderstood by my students.
Further, keep in mind that words that have to do with any part of American culture not found in sunny, urban Southern California are difficult for them (words like "sleet," "venison," and "elm," for example, are incomprehensible).
Greek-based words, for anyone but Greek speakers, will be difficult.
As you work with them, revise your assumptions about what they understand and don't understand. You might find yourself better understood.
Jeff Combe
I'm going to talk about the history of English first (briefly--don't lose me here), and then I'm going to tell you how that applies to English learners in East LA.
The earliest inhabitants of what is today Great Britain (at least that we know of) spoke something like Gaelic. They were conquered by European invaders who spoke German (Anglo-Saxons). Those invaders were later conquered by Europeans of Viking heritage who spoke French (Normans). The mixture of the languages of those invaders became Modern British English. American English also adds American Indian, Asian, and Spanish words.
Within this gradual evolution of the language are strong hierarchical feelings. For centuries after the Norman invasion, the British monarchy and aristocracy spoke French and the conquered peasantry and former aristocracy spoke German (actually called "Old English"). That means that, built into English, are the feelings that Latin-based words (French) are upper class, and Germanic or Gaelic words are lower class.
Now, how does this affect your students?
Since most of them come from a Latin-based background (Spanish), the common, ordinary words that they are accustomed to hearing at home and around the neighborhood correspond to the highest priced words in English.
That means that, if you assume that your students are going to struggle with Latin-based words and do well with Germanic words (as most English speakers do), you're probably wrong.
For example, in a sentence such as, "His level of comprehension left me in awe," the word most likely to give your students problems will be the old Anglo-Saxon "awe." "Comprehension" will be easier for them than for a young English speaker who might prefer "understanding."
Teachers sometimes will prepare a list of words that they think might cause problems for their students in the upcoming lesson, and they will choose out all the long, highfalutin Latin words to explain to their students. They ought to look to the lowly Anglo-Saxon words as being the more troublesome. In the sentences I just wrote, "upcoming," "highfalutin" (a long word, but considered very low class in English, and one that--though not often used in California--most native English speakers have heard; most ELL students have not heard), "ought," "lowly," and "troublesome" (in fact, "-some" as a suffix is often hard for them) are the words likely to be misunderstood.
Teachers will sometimes think that they are speaking very simply, and that their students should understand them; but if they are using a lot of Anglo-Saxon words, they may be more misunderstood than they think.
Until you get very good at it, do not assume that your language is easily understood by your students. Even if you think your students are native English speakers, there is a good chance that they will miss the meanings of many simple Anglo-Saxon words while they grasp the meanings of the more "difficult" Latin words. I was constantly surprised to find that words I grew up with--like "still" (meaning quiet), "beset," "bewitched" (indeed, almost any word with the prefix "be-"), "apron," "attic," "basement," "dreary," "dismal," and so on to the end of the alphabet--were frequently misunderstood by my students.
Further, keep in mind that words that have to do with any part of American culture not found in sunny, urban Southern California are difficult for them (words like "sleet," "venison," and "elm," for example, are incomprehensible).
Greek-based words, for anyone but Greek speakers, will be difficult.
As you work with them, revise your assumptions about what they understand and don't understand. You might find yourself better understood.
Jeff Combe
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Some thoughts about language and its problems
Hello everyone,
If you didn't grow up in East LA, or if you're new to the area, by now you're noticing the peculiar struggles with English that the students of
The kids are designated with a variety of labels that are supposed to give an accurate assessment of their level of English ability, but the truth is that, with few exceptions, they all struggle with standard English. Students designated as native English speakers have many of the same difficulties that ESL students will have. "Bilingualism" (the unconscious mingling of two languages) is common; a large variety of shibboleths (pronunciations and expressions peculiar to a certain region) are used by the entire population; many lack variety in their vocabulary, and most have problems with multiple meanings of words; homonyms (different spelling, same pronunciation), homographs (same spelling, different meaning), and homophones (same sound, different meaning) are particularly difficult.
We need to understand where our students are linguistically (not only where they're designated or even where they should be), and we need to teach them from that place.
Part of this is not making any assumptions about their intelligence or ability to learn.
When I first learned a foreign language well enough to communicate with someone in that language, I remember having a variety of feelings associated with the process. My first feeling was associated with the realization that I spoke like an idiot, even though I knew I wasn't an idiot. When I first began to speak with other people, I was completely aware that they thought I was a bit of an idiot--maybe a child. They weren't in the least impressed by my facility in English, and they were only mildly impressed by my efforts to speak another language. It didn't help that I had excellent pronunciation but poor vocabulary, which meant that I sounded like a native idiot, not a bright foreigner.
I also remember the shock of speaking to people in both languages--English and my foreign language--and finding that I had a sudden understanding of their intelligence communicated in their native language, opposed to my previously incorrect assessment of their intelligence in English. It's a normal phenomenon, but it needs to be consciously avoided.
When I got my doctorate, I was required to read a lot in the target language. I can speed read in English with a decent level of comprehension. In any other language, I am slow, and I still have to sound out many of the words to help my comprehension. In fact, I often read in foreign languages by pronouncing aloud in my head.
Most of our students either approach English as a second language, or come from homes in which English is the second language. I believe that they feel many of the same feelings I felt, especially in their sense of knowing the complexity of their thoughts, but being unable to communicate that complexity. I think they are often frustrated and bored by language that is too fast or too difficult for them, but that they would be able to comprehend completely with only a little help.
It's true that to help them with the language takes time out of other things, but it's also true that to press on with other things when they aren't getting our language is not productive.
I want to spend the next few days talking about some specific language issues.
I would say the same thing in French, but I can't spell it.
Jeff Combe
Monday, January 14, 2008
How to manage a rigorous curriculum (some tricks of the trade)
Hello everyone,
I know that, from the point of view of an English teacher at least, the idea of rigor includes the idea that students will actually do more reading and writing, which means that the teacher will do more reading and correcting. For English teachers, working to make adequate writers out of poor writers requires a lot of extra work, and this can be daunting.
I must assume that what is true for English teachers is true for teachers in other disciplines as well. If literacy is taught across the curriculum, there will be reading and writing across the curriculum, and that means correcting essays across the curriculum, which is difficult and time consuming.
Rigor also means that tests will be more demanding and harder to cheat on; it means that students will be doing more group presentations that require them to have a better grasp of the material; it means that there will be careful analysis of just where the mistakes are happening in students' calculations; it means that students will be required to memorize material and then demonstrate that they can synthesize what they have memorized.
If you are starting to sweat or feel anxiety or rebel at the increased workload, then you are normal.
So, if you are going to demand more out of your students, you must find practical ways of dealing with it so that you are not having to use more time than you have, burden yourselves more than you are actually burdened, or sacrifice your own children on the altar of someone else's children. I want to suggest a few tricks of the trade that might help you push your students without killing yourself. Feel free to use them or not, to adapt them or not, and to make them your own.
1. Don't grade everything. Always grade major projects; always grade tests; always give sufficient attention to something that has cost your students significant time. Routine assignments don't require the same amount of attention.
2. Have the students grade everything that can be graded by students. Make sure that no cheating happens: have the students write their names on papers ("corrected by . . ."), then hold them accountable for any changes to answers; do not always allow them to choose whose paper they will grade; have them grade assignments that don't require accuracy in the grading; have them grade their own assignments when cheating doesn't matter. Let the grading serve multiple purposes: do this grading quickly; use the grading time as review time.
3. Never grade more than one draft of an essay. You might check that the outline and early drafts are done, but you don't need to seriously grade more than the final draft.
4. Read essays out loud and grade them in front of the students. Keep them anonymous; read them exactly as written; liberally praise what is good and condemn what is lazily done. You'll find that it saves some time in grading essays, and it teaches the kids to find their voices.
5. Collect everything, but don't put everything in the rollbook. You must have at least one assignment per week; you should have two; all major or significant assignments must be given attention and credit, but routine assignments could be grouped together as "participation" or "classwork."
6. Assign students as assistants. Have equipment monitors, lab assistants, peer tutors. Offer extra credit. The more the students do, the more they learn, and the more you are freed to handle the very difficult things that a rigorous curriculum demands.
7. Practice "holistic" grading when appropriate. I always graded essay tests or "quickwrites" in this way. This is the way AP, CAHSEE, and CST essays are graded. You rapidly read the essay, then assign it to a pass/fail standard based on a rubric you've made out for the students. After that, you assign how high a pass or fail the essay gets based on your rubric. You might use numbers or letter grades. Numbers could correspond to letter grades or actual raw point values. For example, I may grade an essay test with two essays worth 50 points each. I read the essay quickly, and determine if it's a pass (above 30 points) or a fail (below 29 points). If it's a pass, I can easily judge the thoroughness of the answers, the depth of the analysis, the organization, and the relative lack of mechanical errors. I don't have to judge every single possible correct answer or inclusion of a large number of specific facts. (Practice makes this a very useful technique.)
Don't resist a rigorous curriculum because it is more difficult for the teacher. Manage your time and resources intelligently, and you will be able to lift the students without bringing yourself down.
Jeff Combe
I know that, from the point of view of an English teacher at least, the idea of rigor includes the idea that students will actually do more reading and writing, which means that the teacher will do more reading and correcting. For English teachers, working to make adequate writers out of poor writers requires a lot of extra work, and this can be daunting.
I must assume that what is true for English teachers is true for teachers in other disciplines as well. If literacy is taught across the curriculum, there will be reading and writing across the curriculum, and that means correcting essays across the curriculum, which is difficult and time consuming.
Rigor also means that tests will be more demanding and harder to cheat on; it means that students will be doing more group presentations that require them to have a better grasp of the material; it means that there will be careful analysis of just where the mistakes are happening in students' calculations; it means that students will be required to memorize material and then demonstrate that they can synthesize what they have memorized.
If you are starting to sweat or feel anxiety or rebel at the increased workload, then you are normal.
So, if you are going to demand more out of your students, you must find practical ways of dealing with it so that you are not having to use more time than you have, burden yourselves more than you are actually burdened, or sacrifice your own children on the altar of someone else's children. I want to suggest a few tricks of the trade that might help you push your students without killing yourself. Feel free to use them or not, to adapt them or not, and to make them your own.
1. Don't grade everything. Always grade major projects; always grade tests; always give sufficient attention to something that has cost your students significant time. Routine assignments don't require the same amount of attention.
2. Have the students grade everything that can be graded by students. Make sure that no cheating happens: have the students write their names on papers ("corrected by . . ."), then hold them accountable for any changes to answers; do not always allow them to choose whose paper they will grade; have them grade assignments that don't require accuracy in the grading; have them grade their own assignments when cheating doesn't matter. Let the grading serve multiple purposes: do this grading quickly; use the grading time as review time.
3. Never grade more than one draft of an essay. You might check that the outline and early drafts are done, but you don't need to seriously grade more than the final draft.
4. Read essays out loud and grade them in front of the students. Keep them anonymous; read them exactly as written; liberally praise what is good and condemn what is lazily done. You'll find that it saves some time in grading essays, and it teaches the kids to find their voices.
5. Collect everything, but don't put everything in the rollbook. You must have at least one assignment per week; you should have two; all major or significant assignments must be given attention and credit, but routine assignments could be grouped together as "participation" or "classwork."
6. Assign students as assistants. Have equipment monitors, lab assistants, peer tutors. Offer extra credit. The more the students do, the more they learn, and the more you are freed to handle the very difficult things that a rigorous curriculum demands.
7. Practice "holistic" grading when appropriate. I always graded essay tests or "quickwrites" in this way. This is the way AP, CAHSEE, and CST essays are graded. You rapidly read the essay, then assign it to a pass/fail standard based on a rubric you've made out for the students. After that, you assign how high a pass or fail the essay gets based on your rubric. You might use numbers or letter grades. Numbers could correspond to letter grades or actual raw point values. For example, I may grade an essay test with two essays worth 50 points each. I read the essay quickly, and determine if it's a pass (above 30 points) or a fail (below 29 points). If it's a pass, I can easily judge the thoroughness of the answers, the depth of the analysis, the organization, and the relative lack of mechanical errors. I don't have to judge every single possible correct answer or inclusion of a large number of specific facts. (Practice makes this a very useful technique.)
Don't resist a rigorous curriculum because it is more difficult for the teacher. Manage your time and resources intelligently, and you will be able to lift the students without bringing yourself down.
Jeff Combe
Thursday, January 10, 2008
More on rigor
Hello everyone,
You must forgive my continual return to the idea of rigor.
I was in a special day class at a middle school today where the students were reading THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET. I couldn't help but think about how popular the book is in the regular (and sometimes honors) English classes of Garfield.
I remember the slap in the face I felt when I was teaching honors English 10 for the first time. A girl from my class transferred out to Shurr High School, then transferred back. In the interim, she had read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in both Middle and Modern English--as a classroom assignment.
Our students are sometimes resistant to rigor, and they will try all sorts of strategies to avoid the sort of rigor that is common in other school districts. This is understandable; when I was a teenager, I never wanted to work hard in the subjects that weren't my favorites. I avoided hard work in everything except what I liked the best.
The biggest problem comes when, rather than give them what they need, we give them what is easiest to give. We look at the state standards, and we know that--for whatever reason--the kids are below the standards, so we assume that they are incapable of the standards completely, and we teach what is easy to teach.
What I see in all sorts of special ed. classes is the concept that the kids are able to learn anything (usually), but they need help with it. I think that's a good concept. The kids can learn anything. Nothing is beyond them (speaking of the generality, not the individual). What our profession is supposed to do is break difficult things down into acceptable chunks (it used to be called "chunking," in fact; now it's called "scaffolding"; the concept is similar: they end up at the place they are supposed to be, but some take a few big steps and others take a lot of little steps), and serve them up in a way that is digestible.
We are not supposed to wheel ourselves around like a dessert cart, placing ourselves in front of them until they eat all our sweets. That's not what I mean by "digestible," and I deplore the practice of pandering to our students tastes for sex, or glorifying thug culture, or fomenting rebellion in naturally rebellious teenagers (a colleague of mine some years ago told students that they should never believe adults, but he never understood why his students doubted him--he thought that encouraging their rebellion would make him one of them, even though he was more than 20 years older than the oldest student).
The best way to get students to rigor is to set a tone of rigor in the first day of class. Avoid parties and free days. Avoid teaching them things they have already been taught (review, yes; completely re-teach, no). Take them in orderly fashion from low to high. Enhance their vocabulary. Remember what college was like, and prepare them for it. Demand high standards.
Jeff Combe
You must forgive my continual return to the idea of rigor.
I was in a special day class at a middle school today where the students were reading THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET. I couldn't help but think about how popular the book is in the regular (and sometimes honors) English classes of Garfield.
I remember the slap in the face I felt when I was teaching honors English 10 for the first time. A girl from my class transferred out to Shurr High School, then transferred back. In the interim, she had read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in both Middle and Modern English--as a classroom assignment.
Our students are sometimes resistant to rigor, and they will try all sorts of strategies to avoid the sort of rigor that is common in other school districts. This is understandable; when I was a teenager, I never wanted to work hard in the subjects that weren't my favorites. I avoided hard work in everything except what I liked the best.
The biggest problem comes when, rather than give them what they need, we give them what is easiest to give. We look at the state standards, and we know that--for whatever reason--the kids are below the standards, so we assume that they are incapable of the standards completely, and we teach what is easy to teach.
What I see in all sorts of special ed. classes is the concept that the kids are able to learn anything (usually), but they need help with it. I think that's a good concept. The kids can learn anything. Nothing is beyond them (speaking of the generality, not the individual). What our profession is supposed to do is break difficult things down into acceptable chunks (it used to be called "chunking," in fact; now it's called "scaffolding"; the concept is similar: they end up at the place they are supposed to be, but some take a few big steps and others take a lot of little steps), and serve them up in a way that is digestible.
We are not supposed to wheel ourselves around like a dessert cart, placing ourselves in front of them until they eat all our sweets. That's not what I mean by "digestible," and I deplore the practice of pandering to our students tastes for sex, or glorifying thug culture, or fomenting rebellion in naturally rebellious teenagers (a colleague of mine some years ago told students that they should never believe adults, but he never understood why his students doubted him--he thought that encouraging their rebellion would make him one of them, even though he was more than 20 years older than the oldest student).
The best way to get students to rigor is to set a tone of rigor in the first day of class. Avoid parties and free days. Avoid teaching them things they have already been taught (review, yes; completely re-teach, no). Take them in orderly fashion from low to high. Enhance their vocabulary. Remember what college was like, and prepare them for it. Demand high standards.
Jeff Combe
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Making the transition from discipline to instruction
Hello everyone,
There is a large, fuzzy line of demarcation between techniques to manage behavior and techniques to improve instruction. Some days, it seems you can hardly teach because the students behave so badly, and other days, the students behave badly because you haven't planned your lesson well. There are periods during the school year when the majority of your attention is focused on getting order in the classroom, but what do you do when you have order? Sometimes your students are disorderly because it is in their nature to rebel, but sometimes they are disorderly because the lesson is either too hard or too easy.
The truth is, you cannot wait to teach until you are satisfied that the students will not rebel at all, nor should you dumb down your curriculum because your students are reluctant to be challenged. (I have known teachers who found a silly, useless activity that kept the students quiet, but the students never learned anything except how to do quiet activities that required no thought. Avoid busy work for its own sake. I confess, I write this partly out of personal animosity for busy work. My own teachers suffered from my repeated rebellion--rebellion that I am proud of to this day--whenever they insisted on my doing work only to keep me busy and quiet. I could tell stories . . .)
As you are gaining control over the classes, you need to give them a steady stream of meaningful activity that teaches them to the standards or above. (The standards to me are a minimum, not the opposite.) You may have to break the activities into shorter segments to accommodate shorter attention spans, but you should avoid things that are meant to just keep them quiet. (In the warmups, you certainly want something easy enough for them to be quietly engaged while you take roll and manage the classroom paperwork, but if you give meaningless busywork just to keep them quiet, you must expect an eventual rebellion.)
How do you know whether the work is too hard and needs more scaffolding, or not hard enough and needs to be strengthened?
The students' behavior will give clues. If they finish rapidly and mess around, the work was probably too easy. If they don't start at all but mess around, the work was probably too difficult. If they complain the work is too easy or too hard, they are probably telling the truth. If you have to tutor every one of them individually, the work is too hard.
And what do you do if the work is too easy? You skim or skip over what they already know. There's no need to reteach it, though a light review won't hurt. You might give a preliminary test to find out what they know or don't know, then skip what they know (or review it lightly). Start just before the point they are really having trouble, and let that be your curricular jumping off point.
What do you do if the work is too hard? That should be the subject of a series of emails, I suppose, but I can keep it short here if I speak generally and metaphorically. Here's the metaphor: You are entrusted to give a full, nutritious meal. You should give emphasis to calories rich in nutrition, and avoid empty calories. Very little dessert; no junk food. If you are feeding some dense, chewy protein to someone with underdeveloped teeth, you cut it up into bite-size chunks or puree it. Make it taste as good as you can make it taste, but make it edible for immature appetites if necessary, and don't let it slide just because they don't like it. Skipping the vegetables for tastier fare may make you a temporary hero, but it will stunt their growth later on.
Jeff Combe
There is a large, fuzzy line of demarcation between techniques to manage behavior and techniques to improve instruction. Some days, it seems you can hardly teach because the students behave so badly, and other days, the students behave badly because you haven't planned your lesson well. There are periods during the school year when the majority of your attention is focused on getting order in the classroom, but what do you do when you have order? Sometimes your students are disorderly because it is in their nature to rebel, but sometimes they are disorderly because the lesson is either too hard or too easy.
The truth is, you cannot wait to teach until you are satisfied that the students will not rebel at all, nor should you dumb down your curriculum because your students are reluctant to be challenged. (I have known teachers who found a silly, useless activity that kept the students quiet, but the students never learned anything except how to do quiet activities that required no thought. Avoid busy work for its own sake. I confess, I write this partly out of personal animosity for busy work. My own teachers suffered from my repeated rebellion--rebellion that I am proud of to this day--whenever they insisted on my doing work only to keep me busy and quiet. I could tell stories . . .)
As you are gaining control over the classes, you need to give them a steady stream of meaningful activity that teaches them to the standards or above. (The standards to me are a minimum, not the opposite.) You may have to break the activities into shorter segments to accommodate shorter attention spans, but you should avoid things that are meant to just keep them quiet. (In the warmups, you certainly want something easy enough for them to be quietly engaged while you take roll and manage the classroom paperwork, but if you give meaningless busywork just to keep them quiet, you must expect an eventual rebellion.)
How do you know whether the work is too hard and needs more scaffolding, or not hard enough and needs to be strengthened?
The students' behavior will give clues. If they finish rapidly and mess around, the work was probably too easy. If they don't start at all but mess around, the work was probably too difficult. If they complain the work is too easy or too hard, they are probably telling the truth. If you have to tutor every one of them individually, the work is too hard.
And what do you do if the work is too easy? You skim or skip over what they already know. There's no need to reteach it, though a light review won't hurt. You might give a preliminary test to find out what they know or don't know, then skip what they know (or review it lightly). Start just before the point they are really having trouble, and let that be your curricular jumping off point.
What do you do if the work is too hard? That should be the subject of a series of emails, I suppose, but I can keep it short here if I speak generally and metaphorically. Here's the metaphor: You are entrusted to give a full, nutritious meal. You should give emphasis to calories rich in nutrition, and avoid empty calories. Very little dessert; no junk food. If you are feeding some dense, chewy protein to someone with underdeveloped teeth, you cut it up into bite-size chunks or puree it. Make it taste as good as you can make it taste, but make it edible for immature appetites if necessary, and don't let it slide just because they don't like it. Skipping the vegetables for tastier fare may make you a temporary hero, but it will stunt their growth later on.
Jeff Combe
Friday, January 4, 2008
How Do You Know You're a Good Teacher?
Hello everyone,
Last month, in the middle of the holiday blur of activities, someone asked me, "How do you know when you're a good teacher?"
I think it's a question worth considering, here in the middle of the school year.
While it's a good question, the definitive answer usually won't come to you for anywhere from one to twelve years:
The best answer to the question comes when a student returns from college--sometimes at the end of college--and tells you that you did a good job of preparing him or her for college. Or, the student may return to you from the workforce and tell you that you helped him or her be ready for a career.
It meant a lot to me as an English teacher to have students report that they didn't need to take remedial English in college, and that they got high marks in their college English classes. It meant a lot to me to hear that my film students got jobs editing right out of high school, or that my English students were able to pass the reading/writing entrance exams necessary for admission into a field of work.
Conversely, I felt terrible when I learned that one of my students had to drop out of college because it was too difficult.
Barring the college/career indicator, you will have to turn to other things to let you know how you're doing.
There are little hints and clues that may suggest that you are doing well as a teacher. How many of your students pass the CAHSEE, or how well your students do on the CSTs or periodic exams can help. There are a variety of factors that you might not have control over that may affect the outcomes of those tests, but they may be very helpful anyway. (The CAHSEE is a very good indicator of how you're doing, especially if you teach non-honors 10th graders in English or math.)
Post-year interviews help. I have spoken of these before: these student/teacher interviews occur at the end of the school year after grades have been submitted. Students will be very honest with you then. You must acknowledge, however, that the interviews may be colored by the students' unwillingness to hurt your feelings. If you want them to be very accurate, let them be anonymous.
I got a lot of information about how I was doing from the freely written journals that my students were required to hand in. If you use this tool, it is very important that you resist the urge to make excuses for yourself or comment on what the student is saying if you want an honest appraisal. More than once I altered my classroom practice when a student complained in a journal about how I was teaching. More than once I shut down the appraisal (the student refused to say anything) because I commented on it defensively. Sometimes, I didn't alter anything because I couldn't consider the student to be a reliable describer of my practice. There are problems, but the tool is a good one.
You will notice that there is nothing here about how popular you are. Popularity among the students is at best a tangential indicator of how good a teacher you are. If you are exciting and interesting and funny and good looking, and your students love the subject you're teaching, you're likely to be popular, whether or not you teach them anything at all about the subject at hand. Now, if you're all of those things, AND you teach them the subject, preparing them for college and careers and using your social power to do great pedagogical wonders, then it's a different thing all together. That, however, is unmeasurable in and of itself, and many teachers mistake popularity with pedagogy. I think you should never alter your practice just to be considered "cool."
It's true that students learn better when they have positive feelings about you, but those positive feelings can come from a variety of places. (The best place for positive feelings is when the kids want to learn, and you really teach them.) Frankly, many students will not enjoy being pushed to work hard, and you may lose popularity points by requiring your students to think deep thoughts and do difficult tasks, which you should do. If you're a good teacher, you're able to persuade them to do those things regardless of whether or not you're their favorite teacher.
Good teachers are good motivators.
Good teachers make difficult things seem do-able--even easy.
A good teacher is able to ask for silence and get it, but rarely wants it.
Good teachers know what it looks like when the little light bulb goes on above a student's head, but they don't get discouraged if it takes a long time for the bulb to warm up, and they are patient if the bulb flickers.
Jeff Combe
Last month, in the middle of the holiday blur of activities, someone asked me, "How do you know when you're a good teacher?"
I think it's a question worth considering, here in the middle of the school year.
While it's a good question, the definitive answer usually won't come to you for anywhere from one to twelve years:
The best answer to the question comes when a student returns from college--sometimes at the end of college--and tells you that you did a good job of preparing him or her for college. Or, the student may return to you from the workforce and tell you that you helped him or her be ready for a career.
It meant a lot to me as an English teacher to have students report that they didn't need to take remedial English in college, and that they got high marks in their college English classes. It meant a lot to me to hear that my film students got jobs editing right out of high school, or that my English students were able to pass the reading/writing entrance exams necessary for admission into a field of work.
Conversely, I felt terrible when I learned that one of my students had to drop out of college because it was too difficult.
Barring the college/career indicator, you will have to turn to other things to let you know how you're doing.
There are little hints and clues that may suggest that you are doing well as a teacher. How many of your students pass the CAHSEE, or how well your students do on the CSTs or periodic exams can help. There are a variety of factors that you might not have control over that may affect the outcomes of those tests, but they may be very helpful anyway. (The CAHSEE is a very good indicator of how you're doing, especially if you teach non-honors 10th graders in English or math.)
Post-year interviews help. I have spoken of these before: these student/teacher interviews occur at the end of the school year after grades have been submitted. Students will be very honest with you then. You must acknowledge, however, that the interviews may be colored by the students' unwillingness to hurt your feelings. If you want them to be very accurate, let them be anonymous.
I got a lot of information about how I was doing from the freely written journals that my students were required to hand in. If you use this tool, it is very important that you resist the urge to make excuses for yourself or comment on what the student is saying if you want an honest appraisal. More than once I altered my classroom practice when a student complained in a journal about how I was teaching. More than once I shut down the appraisal (the student refused to say anything) because I commented on it defensively. Sometimes, I didn't alter anything because I couldn't consider the student to be a reliable describer of my practice. There are problems, but the tool is a good one.
You will notice that there is nothing here about how popular you are. Popularity among the students is at best a tangential indicator of how good a teacher you are. If you are exciting and interesting and funny and good looking, and your students love the subject you're teaching, you're likely to be popular, whether or not you teach them anything at all about the subject at hand. Now, if you're all of those things, AND you teach them the subject, preparing them for college and careers and using your social power to do great pedagogical wonders, then it's a different thing all together. That, however, is unmeasurable in and of itself, and many teachers mistake popularity with pedagogy. I think you should never alter your practice just to be considered "cool."
It's true that students learn better when they have positive feelings about you, but those positive feelings can come from a variety of places. (The best place for positive feelings is when the kids want to learn, and you really teach them.) Frankly, many students will not enjoy being pushed to work hard, and you may lose popularity points by requiring your students to think deep thoughts and do difficult tasks, which you should do. If you're a good teacher, you're able to persuade them to do those things regardless of whether or not you're their favorite teacher.
Good teachers are good motivators.
Good teachers make difficult things seem do-able--even easy.
A good teacher is able to ask for silence and get it, but rarely wants it.
Good teachers know what it looks like when the little light bulb goes on above a student's head, but they don't get discouraged if it takes a long time for the bulb to warm up, and they are patient if the bulb flickers.
Jeff Combe
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Documentation
Hello everyone,
I once learned a valuable lesson in an embarrassing way.
I was working with some students on a film, back when I taught film production. We were making a film on violence in the schools, and we wanted to show a boy who got in trouble for bringing a weapon to school. We wanted to bring a prop gun to school.
That, in case you didn't know, is a VERY BAD thing to do. I came this close to getting myself arrested. (Imagine two fingers almost touching.) (Also, imagine an exponent after VERY, so that VERY is multiplied by the x power, and x is very great number.) I explained to the administrators in charge, showed them the script, and did everything I could to placate, as well as convince them of the necessity for the prop in light of what we were trying to teach.
This was in the years before Columbine, but there had been some recent campus shootings, and the administration could not afford to allow a prop gun. I wasn't allowed to show any weapons in the video at all, and I was required to document every detail of what happened. "CYB," the administrator taught me. "Cover Your Butt." One might finish the thought: "Cover your butt with documentation."
The valuable lesson I learned (besides, "You can't bring props to school that look like weapons unless you have a special dispensation from top people at the school, in the district, and with the police first--in writing") was "Document."
It is important for you to document
When someone does something in your class, document it. When you call home or send a letter home, document it. If you have to send a student out of class, document it. If something unusual or very odd happens, document it.
The immediate problem is how to keep from getting snowed under by documentation.
I keep a personal journal, and much of my documentation is there. My emails are documentation. If I'm using Easy Grade Pro, it's very easy to double click on a date box next to a student's name and write my documentation in the Note feature that will come up. (Contact me if you want me to show you how to do this.) Your roll book, with all the assignments, is documentation.
The latter is important, legal material. Make sure that whatever grade you give is easily proven through the documentation of your roll book.
Indeed, proper paperwork and documentation is a contractual obligation. Besides covering your butt.
Oh, by the way, without showing any weapons, our film won first place in a national contest, and we were flown to New York City for five days, all expenses paid. Later, in a different climate, with special permission, and under supervision of the school police, we used a prop gun in a school play--fully documented.
Jeff Combe
I once learned a valuable lesson in an embarrassing way.
I was working with some students on a film, back when I taught film production. We were making a film on violence in the schools, and we wanted to show a boy who got in trouble for bringing a weapon to school. We wanted to bring a prop gun to school.
That, in case you didn't know, is a VERY BAD thing to do. I came this close to getting myself arrested. (Imagine two fingers almost touching.) (Also, imagine an exponent after VERY, so that VERY is multiplied by the x power, and x is very great number.) I explained to the administrators in charge, showed them the script, and did everything I could to placate, as well as convince them of the necessity for the prop in light of what we were trying to teach.
This was in the years before Columbine, but there had been some recent campus shootings, and the administration could not afford to allow a prop gun. I wasn't allowed to show any weapons in the video at all, and I was required to document every detail of what happened. "CYB," the administrator taught me. "Cover Your Butt." One might finish the thought: "Cover your butt with documentation."
The valuable lesson I learned (besides, "You can't bring props to school that look like weapons unless you have a special dispensation from top people at the school, in the district, and with the police first--in writing") was "Document."
It is important for you to document
When someone does something in your class, document it. When you call home or send a letter home, document it. If you have to send a student out of class, document it. If something unusual or very odd happens, document it.
The immediate problem is how to keep from getting snowed under by documentation.
I keep a personal journal, and much of my documentation is there. My emails are documentation. If I'm using Easy Grade Pro, it's very easy to double click on a date box next to a student's name and write my documentation in the Note feature that will come up. (Contact me if you want me to show you how to do this.) Your roll book, with all the assignments, is documentation.
The latter is important, legal material. Make sure that whatever grade you give is easily proven through the documentation of your roll book.
Indeed, proper paperwork and documentation is a contractual obligation. Besides covering your butt.
Oh, by the way, without showing any weapons, our film won first place in a national contest, and we were flown to New York City for five days, all expenses paid. Later, in a different climate, with special permission, and under supervision of the school police, we used a prop gun in a school play--fully documented.
Jeff Combe
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Mid-year Course Corrections
Happy New Year to everyone.
You're all back, feeling a variety of post-holiday feelings. Some are rested; some are tense; some are ready to go; some are panicked.
Do not pass this opportunity, no matter what you feel, to project feelings of hope and confidence to your students. Give them the feeling that you intend for this to be a productive semester.
Treat today like a major course correction on a long rocket voyage.
Think about it this way: If you are in charge of calculating the course for a payload carrying rocket, you know that, at the beginning of a voyage, a few millimeters off course may not seem like much, but will end up missing the target by thousands of miles over a lengthy voyage. You should assume that you will need frequent course corrections at the beginning because the lift off alone will have disrupted your trajectory. (You will need fewer course corrections later if you planned everything very well at beginning, but you will still need corrections.) At the great midpoint of the voyage, you've had some time to re-calibrate, and you should be ready for the corrections that may be required. Assume that corrections are necessary.
If you continue on exactly the course you were on before, you will end up with exactly the same conditions, but those conditions will worsen throughout the semester unless you correct them. Failure to make corrections now, will create conditions that will require you to have to do major changes later, and may cause the voyage to fail. If you were the least bit off course last semester, you will be light-years away from where you need to be by next June.
Some of what you're looking at, of course, is student behavior. If, last December, you were struggling with problems with student behavior, you may find today that it's briefly not too bad. (They've "recalibrated.") Let them know you mean business while they're "recalibrated," and you will save yourself trouble down the road.
If you were spending more time on discipline than instruction last month, you might take advantage in this brief lull to get them into an instructional mode more easily. Later, you will have to nudge them back into instruction, rather than force them back.
Best of luck in all your course corrections.
Jeff Combe
You're all back, feeling a variety of post-holiday feelings. Some are rested; some are tense; some are ready to go; some are panicked.
Do not pass this opportunity, no matter what you feel, to project feelings of hope and confidence to your students. Give them the feeling that you intend for this to be a productive semester.
Treat today like a major course correction on a long rocket voyage.
Think about it this way: If you are in charge of calculating the course for a payload carrying rocket, you know that, at the beginning of a voyage, a few millimeters off course may not seem like much, but will end up missing the target by thousands of miles over a lengthy voyage. You should assume that you will need frequent course corrections at the beginning because the lift off alone will have disrupted your trajectory. (You will need fewer course corrections later if you planned everything very well at beginning, but you will still need corrections.) At the great midpoint of the voyage, you've had some time to re-calibrate, and you should be ready for the corrections that may be required. Assume that corrections are necessary.
If you continue on exactly the course you were on before, you will end up with exactly the same conditions, but those conditions will worsen throughout the semester unless you correct them. Failure to make corrections now, will create conditions that will require you to have to do major changes later, and may cause the voyage to fail. If you were the least bit off course last semester, you will be light-years away from where you need to be by next June.
Some of what you're looking at, of course, is student behavior. If, last December, you were struggling with problems with student behavior, you may find today that it's briefly not too bad. (They've "recalibrated.") Let them know you mean business while they're "recalibrated," and you will save yourself trouble down the road.
If you were spending more time on discipline than instruction last month, you might take advantage in this brief lull to get them into an instructional mode more easily. Later, you will have to nudge them back into instruction, rather than force them back.
Best of luck in all your course corrections.
Jeff Combe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)