Happy New Year!  In the vein of starting off 2012, I’d like to volunteer one of my personal resolutions:  to try and break the automaticity of writing ‘2011’ on any writing surface, paper or otherwise, by the end of the month.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  (Riveting, isn’t it?)

Now let’s get to the good stuff.

For the last two column articles, I was happy to present interview responses from our union president Richard Stutman, as well as forty-two year teaching veteran Jerry Howland of Another Course to College.  I have another two, excellent interview transcripts forthcoming as well, one from a senior policy advisor to Secretary Duncan and one from another teacher-leader in BPS.  Both had thoughtful, provocative things to say.  Definitely stay tuned.

Dividing Lines in a Road, Dividing Lines in our Profession?

This month though, I wanted to spend some time in consideration of the Other.

What do I mean by that?

Consider the multiplicity of the typical, practically pre-folded divisions that can be named right off the bat in the realm of public education.  Younger teachers and what they want, as opposed to veteran teachers and what they want.  Traditional public schools versus charter schools.  Schools and students with good test scores on one side, and schools and students with poor test scores on the other.  Labor interests as represented by the Boston Teachers Union, versus management interests as represented by the Boston School District.

Lines drawn, sides identified and positions hardened.

And doesn’t the capitalized Other almost bring alien-like beings to mind?  It emphasizes a particularly formed set of opinions, biases and positions with completely oppositional characteristics—as if the Other is a golem formed from an entirely different river’s clay.  (That one is inspired from Michael Chabon’s excellent book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.  Do check it out).

The Other, in other words, is the result of a kind of groupthink that’s substantiated, and then perpetuated; it’s a way to make sense of a complex environment.  We all do it.  It’s about identity, about orientation and even can stretch to moral convictions of what is right and what is wrong.  Politics, anyone?

The problem, however, is the following: while identifying Otherness can help us begin to make sense of complexity, it does very little to meaningfully resolve it—or perhaps more accurately, to build (as opposed to tear down) within that complexity.  Effective and meaningful change, one that keeps students at the center of the conversation, while also balancing the needs and interests of multiple constituencies, has to lie in the vast area between the drawn lines of Otherness.

So what can we do about it?

It’s no secret that I’m a believer in collaboration, as both an operational tone and strategy, to effectively improve our work in our classrooms and schools—and beyond that, in our school district and the public education system at large.

The Roads We Travel

I also know, like you certainly do, that it’s a lot harder than it sounds.  It’s not simply a matter of scheduling an extended group hug, afterall (although I think that would be something else to witness.  Everyone put your arms around the person next to you and smile!  Squeeze gently!  Do it again!).  And just consider the complications and mistrust that always swirl around education policy concerns, in particular the translation of education policy to its often-unsteady manifestation on the ‘shores of our classrooms.’

I do want to suggest, however, that positive momentum builds off of small, core successes and exemplars.  And that if we as teaching professionals want a place at the decision-making tables, our union itself needs to reflect collaborative, barrier-reducing approaches as central to the professional organization.  There are potent opportunities for our union to make collaboration around teaching and learning a true hallmark of our work together—collaboration that involves, and even depends on, participation from and partnership between all teachers, new and veteran.

BPS teacher Robert Tobio of the Mary Lyon pilot school and Bill Madden-Fuoco of the Urban Science Academy suggested the same in their Diary of a New Teacher articles from the AFT Advocate earlier this year.  Reflecting on his initial mistrust of the union, Robert concluded with the following:

…We have a responsibility to our students. I still believe education is the single most important variable in many kids’ lives. But now I believe in being part of the union—union, not just in name but also in action. We need to support each other and to push each other. We don’t need public outcry or district evaluations to improve. We need to share our successes with our colleagues and to improve our weaknesses by learning from colleagues. Every teacher has something to offer and every teacher can improve. We need to continue to improve, as a strong union of professionals.

We are part of a union, we benefit from our fellow union members, and we need to ask if they are benefiting from us.

Compelling, isn’t it?  What opportunities and structures can our union create to facilitate this type of sharing and learning within our schools, and between them, across the city?

I, for example, would love to hear how Bill is doing with vocabulary instruction improvements that he referred to in his own article, and his newly adopted ‘Flagged for Success’ experimentation related to student data and strategic intervention.

In language, in structure and deed, let’s do something to address one of the core question of this Teaching Pulse forum:

How can we build membership interest, involvement and investment in the Boston Teachers Union as an organization focused on teaching and learning in the classroom?

As Bill similarly ended his own written reflections, Let’s talk about that.

***

As always, please consider visiting the online forum at www.theteachingpulse.org to offer your reactions, thoughts and suggestions.  All the best and here’s to a great beginning of 2011…, er, 2012.

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You’ve heard the adage before.  Money can’t buy happiness.  But it seems like we’re always giving that old saw a run for its money–as if we don’t quite believe that to be true.  As a general principle, sure, our internal monologue might go, but for me, having a few extra bucks to get that fancy coffee drink or to jet off to that faraway vacation place sure sounds like a plus.  A happiness inducing plus…  and double that ability?  Double the happiness, right?

Stanford’s Nobel winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman offers a different assessment, arguing that a principle called a focusing illusion misleads people into believing that having more money makes them happier, especially as scientific studies have shown that there is little to no difference in a person’s moment-to-moment happiness as a result of overall wealth.

An Illusion for Illustration

An interesting idea, for sure.  He also extended this idea, one that suggests that nothing in life is as important as when you are actively thinking about it, to the realm of education. He explains:

Education is an important determinant of income–one of the most important–but it is less important than most people think.  If everyone had the same education, the inequality of income would be reduced by less than 10 percent. When you focus on education you neglect the myriad of other factors that determine income. The differences of income among people who have the same education are huge.

One wonders how this understanding might change the urgings that parents and we as teachers continuously message to the assembled students in our classes year after year.  Aspire and focus on your education, absolutely… but also understand the other factors and circumstances, some within your control and some outside of it, that will also play a role in your potential economic success.

Somehow, the message loses its edge and promise, doesn’t it?

I’d like to apply the concept of the focusing illusion a bit further.  Consider the current emphasis, from both sides of the political spectrum, of the importance of the teacher as the most important determinant in students’ academic success.  Teach for America is predicated on this idea and individuals ranging from Michelle Rhee to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have also emphasized the same message:  nothing is more important than having a good teacher in front of kids.  And while there is absolutely truth to that idea, the end result of this focusing illusion is that teachers, and solely teachers, are ones who should be offered all the glory or made to shoulder all the blame in public education.

And the myriad of other factors that we know so significantly impact the day-to-day effectiveness (or at times, lack thereof) in our classes?  Ranging from class size and attendance issues, to parental involvement, to the complex socioeconomic effects on students from disadvantaged households?

Decidedly out of focus.

So I have to wonder: are the complex workings of a public education system too large a target for one particular focus?  What should the focus be to adequately bring to light possibilities of steady improvement without inappropriately burdening one individual cog in the machine, no matter how important that cog may be?

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You might have seen the recent series of Boston Herald articles focusing on what the paper called BPS School Success stories.  These pieces were also highlighted on the Boston Public Schools website.

So how to describe the mixed feelings reading them?  Because for sure, no one wants to hear that a school is doing poorly and it’s certainly important to rally around success stories of school leaders, teachers, parents and students doing well in a school community.  But when simplistic articles like these reinforce the divisive dichotomy between ‘good’ schools and ‘bad’ schools, and ‘good’ kids and ‘bad’ kids, particularly by often roundly associating charter schools and ‘mid-20 something teachers’ with the good, and the unnamed and undifferentiated mass of district, unionized schools and their teachers with the bad, it just rings terribly, terribly wrong.

Other thoughts and reactions to the article series, including the one on UP Academy below?

Rejuvenated school helps kids reach new heights

By Jessica Heslam  |   Tuesday, November 29, 2011  |

UP Academy photo

The Herald is showcasing four standout Boston public schools that are operating largely under the radar with a five-part series on innovative efforts to boost urban education. Yesterday, the Herald profiled TechBoston Academy, which President Obama visited in March. In the second part today, the Herald visits South Boston’s UP Academy.

School cop Victor Ortiz was the only familiar face from the former Gavin Middle School who was still in the building when it reopened as UP Academy this school year. Ortiz, who has been at the South Boston school for seven years, says he already sees a difference.

“The kids have more structure in place,” Ortiz said. “Overall, there’s a very positive vibe. It’s a good change.”

The academically floundering Gavin was shuttered last June. Unlocking Potential — a nonprofit, Boston-based organization that whips failing schools into shape — was tapped to reopen the building as a semi-autonomous in-district charter school that serves grades 6 to 8.

Teachers from the Gavin were invited to reapply. Five did, but none were re-hired. More than 4,000 people from around the globe applied for 57 teaching and administrator jobs.

Over the summer, the building underwent a massive clean-up, with more than $150,000 in renovations, including money spent on new furniture and technology.

The new teachers — mostly mid 20-somethings — showed up Aug. 1. Students returned on Aug. 29. The school year is longer and so is the day, which starts at 7:30 a.m., with dismissals at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Students wear name tags because all their teachers are new.

At age 33, principal Amanda Gardner had already spent seven years as founding principal of Boston Preparatory Charter Public School before coming to UP Academy.

Students just took their first round of math and English interim assessments, given by the nonprofit Achievement Network. Gardner said they were at the network’s average or right above it.

“Given the schools that are in this network, that’s a really powerful sign,” Gardner said. “That was a pretty substantial improvement from where Gavin had been performing on those assessments in years past.”

This is Unlocking Potential’s first school. Gardner said UP Academy’s ability to hire its own staff and choose curriculum — as well as the longer school day and year — are major factors for success.

“We sweat the small stuff all the time,” CEO Scott Given said. “We consistently hold our students to very high expectations, both behaviorally and academically.”

Every classroom in the pristine school is named after a college attended by teachers and staff members. And when the bell rings, students don’t pour into the hallways in a massive mob — the teachers change rooms. When youngsters do switch rooms or head to lunch, they walk in single file, eyes focused straight ahead.

So far, overall, Gardner said her sense is that students are “really happy,” getting to class on time and respecting their teachers.

“We all know that people are watching us to see how it goes,” said Gardner, “and we’re excited about that.”

Tomorrow the series continue with a focus on Orchard Gardens in Roxbury, a turnaround school that is already making strides.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1384488

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Happy December, everyone!  I don’t know about you, but there’s always something disconcerting about how dark it gets by late afternoon this time of year.  Full darkness by 5PM?  It’s enough to make you want to stay under the covers for a month or two straight.

But we don’t.  And this month’s first teacher interviewee Jerry Howland definitely doesn’t.  A teacher and school leader for the past forty-two years, including years at the McCormack Middle School, the former Jamaica Plain High School and currently, the pilot school ACC (Another Course to College), Jerry has been honored as the 1994 state teacher of the year and was one of four finalists for the national teacher of the year award.

Teacher Jerry Howland, Another Course to College

But what comes out in this interview, even beyond these highest of honors, is his continued sense of mission, humility and a palpable belief that what makes the day-to-day work most worthwhile, is the opportunity to engage and challenge his students day in and day out.  And if his students and colleagues are any indication, he’s certainly been making the most.

***

First of all, thanks for taking the time to meet and talk a little bit about yourself as a teacher.  You were honored as the state teacher of the year in 1994, and I believe you were one of the four finalists for national teacher of the year?

I was one of four finalists, but I lost the swimsuit competition…

I’m sure it was a close call… (laughing)

(Jerry laughs)

You also mentioned that you are now in your 42^nd year as a teacher—an incredible achievement.  And I’m sure there are many, many other achievements and accomplishments that others, like [fellow ACC teacher] Chris Mee, would be quick to mention as well.

Chris credits me…but have you seen him?  [It’s] amazing what he does with the 9^th grade mind.

One of the key themes of The Teaching Pulse is an attempt to make conversations around best teaching practices a central focus of our professional organizations.  And one way I’m hoping to do that is by talking to some of the best teachers in the district and sharing those conversations with other teachers across the city.  I hope that these questions help guide us into a great conversation.

How would you describe yourself as a teacher? Can you give me a picture of how you approach your work as a teacher in BPS?

Chronologically, I started out as a math teacher and I was teaching at the McCormack Middle School in Columbia Point through the 1970s.  I went to Harvard, did a masters in the Education program, and then I went to Jamaica Plain High School as a housemaster (still teaching, but also doing discipline), and then I became a department head of math, science, health and physical education.

I was still primarily teaching math until the mid 80s when they asked me to teach a law class.  In fact, the person who was teaching that class got sick and I took over for the year and started teaching the law program.  And by the time English High School moved in, I stayed and I switched from teaching four math and one law [class], to teaching four law and one math [section], just the calculus class.  The law [course] became a very popular class.  And it’s a great course to teach because teenagers have a genuine interest in the law and [to know] what’s fair and what’s right.

Jamaica Plain High School History Faculty, 1982

I began doing mock trials after a few years.  And the excitement [they] generated because of the competition and drama was a clever way to engage kids without them [immediately] realizing that they were doing reading, writing, speaking and critical thinking.  And then [there was the opportunity] to take kids beyond that for those who wanted to do more.  We have [for instance] extracurricular interscholastic competitions with Harvard Law School and Suffolk Law School.

In the summer, I do an internship program called the Judicial Youth Corp.  It’s with the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts and that’s where we get usually about twenty kids [participating] from the city.  They work four days a week in the courts and I get them on the fifth day.  It’s an ideal way to teach—they’re in the real world, and then they come to me and I can [match] the theory with the practice.  And we end up at the end of the summer doing a major mock trial in a real federal court.

What would you say is your favorite part of teaching now?  What sustains you from day-to-day?

It’s the same… people ask me a lot of kids [if] kids are different today.  And I don’t see that.  I see the kids as almost exactly the same as they were forty years ago.

What got me engaged in Boston my first year was my assignment to the McCormack Middle School.  What they did then [during the desegregation of the city schools], if you were a first year teacher, they would assign you to an all black school and as you got seniority, they could transfer to the white schools.  So in the black schools, there was a turnover and they kept on getting brand new teachers.  That’s how I ended up there.

But you remained there.

I remained there.  And when I went for the interview, the principal told me ‘you don’t want to work here’.  [The Columbia Point] neighborhood and the housing project there had the 3^rd highest crime rate of any neighborhood in the country.  And actually at that time, I wasn’t planning on being a teacher.  I was just going to go teach during the day to go to law school at night.  I thought teaching would be a part time job, and no problem (laughing) … little did I know.

But when I taught there, I found the kids were very different from what he had described.  Kids had a lot more potential that they weren’t achieving.  I didn’t help them the first several years; it took me several years to make any kind of in-roads.  But I really enjoyed it.  And I decided to finish law school anyway but to stay in teaching.  So I ended up staying in teaching.

I took the bar exam.  And said just in case… in case I no longer enjoyed it, I could find something else to do.

That still hasn’t happened yet.

If I had started teaching in Newton North high school, I’d probably be a lawyer right now, because what attracted me to teaching was the social justice aspect.  And for me, I grew up in the city of Boston.  I grew up in a housing project right up the hill here, [on] Fidelis Way.  And it wasn’t until I was 21 years old and I was at the McCormack Middle School that I realized and understood what it meant that Boston was a dual school system.  And it was happening right before my eyes.

That was the first that I saw I was doing something worthwhile.  [It] was the first time that there was something that I thought was important.

[The] kids say “I want to be like you because you know everything.” So I say, “No, no, no… I think I know everything. There’s an important distinction”

A lot of folks I’ve talked to, including myself, are hungry to learn from master teachers.  Is there a specific “Jerry Howland” approach or a transferable practice that you can share with us?

The most basic thing is [to actively utilize] trial and error.  The first time you go through [a course] I may say ‘that worked, that was great so let’s save it in the program/curriculum for next time’ or ‘that didn’t, so I’ll either change it or [remove] it from the curriculum.’

It’s like you continually refine and you’re responsive to what’s working or not working.

[Another] thing that I thought was very effective was having the kids fill out evaluations at the end of each term.  And one of the best things about kids is that they’re painfully honest. (laughing)

How do your students describe you?  How do they describe Mr. Howland?

That’s interesting.  One that I get a big kick out of, because I’ve heard it a lot this year already, is that kids say “I want to be like you because you know everything.”  So I say, “No, no, no… I think I know everything.  There’s an important distinction”  (laughing).  That’s just an advantage of being around a long time.

Is there one particular moment in your many years of teaching that stand out and encapsulate who you are or who you strive to be as an educator?

Anytime you see a student doing and being successful at something that they didn’t think they could be successful at.  The most recent was a girl we had last year and that I had in the law class, who at the beginning was a typical high school public speaker but by the time she finished, she was so impressive.
When mock trials are over [for my law classes], I have the students face each other and I tell them to pick someone and tell them something they did well and why.  And so the kids usually put out everything that I was going to say and I only need to add, if anything, a few things.

My favorite thing to do though is to call the parent when something [really special] happens.  I call and I say hi, this is Mr. Howland [and] I have your son in my law class.”   You can hear the person suck and hold their breath; you can audibly hear it.  “I just want to let you know that your son did the closing argument in the trial today and did fantastic”, and then give details about why it was great.  And then you can hear them exhale in relief.  Because usually, no parent gets a phone call with good news.

So I love making those phone calls.  And I’m particularly eager to make them for those kids who were unusually successful where they hadn’t been successful before.

What are your thoughts on the BTU as a professional organization?  What role do you feel it’s played to support you as a teacher or should it play to support teachers like yourself or other teachers?   Who should we as teachers look to in order to sustain ourselves?

There’s definitely a need for the Boston Teachers Union.  Whether you agree or disagree with what they do, even if you don’t study history, you know there’s a definite need for someone to bargain on the behalf of the teachers.  Now you may disagree with some of the things that they prioritize, but I think the union has evolved over the years since 1970.  They’ve walked that line between doing both… what’s best for the students and best for the teachers.  They are primarily working on behalf of the teachers.  But I think they’ve done some things over the years that have benefitted both.

Economically, any time the economy turns bad, people start turning against each other and competing for fewer resources.  So that’s part of the issue now.  And also when you negotiate, it’s one of those things where when it becomes public, [a position] may sound absurd because you don’t start with what you want, both sides are thinking they are going to come to the middle.    It’s the nature of negotiations.

But there’s definitely a need for the union to protect the rights of teachers and the issues that are going on now with merit pay and those things.   I would be in favor of merit pay if there was a system to determine it.  But there isn’t.  They can’t design one.  It’s not possible.  It would create a lot more problems than it would solve.  Because they can’t give people enough money to make it a viable incentive and to get you to do something that you weren’t going to do anyway. And on top of that, [the exceptional] teachers do [all the extras] anyway.  So it’s not going to provide incentive, [but actually] a lot of bad feelings.  It’s going to create a tension and dynamic that’s not going to be productive.

And it’s all over a couple of thousand dollars. And then there’s the means for doing it.  With standardized test scores, there a very few standardized tests that relate directly to what someone is [teaching] in the classroom.  Take the 10^th grade math [MCAS scores] for instance.  Who’s responsible for that?  The teachers [who have taught the students] leading up to [that assessment], or the teacher that year?

When I was a headmaster here [at ACC], I told the English teachers here:  Teach a college level curriculum and don’t teach to the MCAS.  If you’re teaching a college prep curriculum, then the MCAS will take care of itself—you don’t need to worry about that.  And it’s not something we want to be judged by anyway.. it’s a low level test and if you want to teach the high level college level analytical writing skills, work on those.

I’d love to hear your perspective in your roles as a teacher and also as a principal/school leader.  What have you learned from those dual experiences?  What implications have your experiences had in shaping what you think it takes to have a collaborative school environment?  Are there any lessons that you think could be extended district-wide?

My philosophy as an administrator was to hire good people, and then to give them complete freedom to design and teach the curriculum, even [if their approach] was different from [my own personal way] to teach it.  We had the flexibility to do this because we are a pilot school.

The reason I did that was [in consideration] of the schools I worked at as a teacher.  The people I worked for at English High and JP High gave me complete freedom.  They let me do whatever I wanted and because they did that, it was my program.  So I did more than I would have [than] if I was [just] following someone else’s directions.  So I put so much more into it.  And I wanted to create the same opportunity here.

Are there any final words you’d like to end with?

I’d say in general, the teachers today are so much better than the teachers through the 70s and 80s; so much better.  [They’re] much more dedicated, more talented… and a big part of that has to do with the desegregation of BPS.

When I started teaching, people were in either all white schools or all black schools.  And when they were started to be desegregated, [white teachers] started getting kids of color, and a lot of them were unhappy about it.  It affected their teaching as they didn’t have expectations for those kids.  [It was] pretty ugly through the 70s and 80s.  Because of low expectations for them, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Some pretty ugly things were going on.

But those people are gone now.  And the people who are coming in?  We’re getting a lot of really, really talented people.

And maybe the question is how to get those teachers to remain and continue to have opportunities to grow.  But one thing that I’ve always felt is that I’ve always disliked that divide between newer teachers and those who are veteran teachers.   If there’s anyway to better connect the two groups, I hope we do it.  Hopefully this is a venue that helps to do that—to say we’re all teachers in the Boston Public Schools and this is what we’re here for.

I hope this also bridges the gap because people don’t get the chance to see what other teachers are doing.  You know how your day goes (laughing).

***

Yes, I absolutely do.  Thanks again, Jerry, for taking the time to do this interview.

For comments and conversation around any issues that Jerry raises, please visit the online forum at www.theteachingpulse.org.  And if anyone has one of those indoor sunlamps I can borrow in the meanwhile, give me a call?

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In case you might have missed it, please do take advantage of the opportunity to talk with other teachers and Superintendent Johnson around your daily work and ideas for district-wide innovation/collaboration.  Sponsored by the Boston school district and Teach Plus, it’s a great chance to voice your ideas!

***

Talk with Superintendent Carol Johnson during the Superintendent + Teacher Share event Tuesday, December 6^th. At the event, teachers will have the chance to tell Dr. Johnson how BPS can best support effective teaching.

Superintendent and Teacher Share Opportunity

Last year as a result of these sessions, which focused on evaluation and PD, BPS heard what you had to say and made changes.

• Cross Site Visits pilot initiative: An effort to encourage collaboration and learn from other teachers and schools by sharing best practices.
• PD Evaluation tool in MLP: this new evaluation tool will allow the district to collect data and help identify and expand successful professional development and improve what’s not working well.
• Professional Development Advisory Team: consisting of teachers, school leaders, and central office personnel, the team will help direct BPS’ professional development work.

RSVP today at www.mylearningplan.com and encourage friends and colleagues to attend with you.

This event is part of an ongoing discussion series with Dr. Johnson, save the date for February 7^th and May 8^th.  This series is co-sponsored and run by Boston Public Schools and Teach Plus. 

Upcoming Event Information:

Tuesday, December 6^th

Madison Park High School Auditorium

4:30pm – 6:30pm

4:30 – 5:00pm Refreshments and time for networking with other teachers and district leaders

5:00 – 6:30pm Program

The field of social psychology perhaps needs a bit of help with the acronym naming in this instance, but BIRGing and CORFing are interesting ideas to consider.  BIRGing?  Basking in Reflected Glory. And CORFing?  The opposite scenario, Cutting Off Reflected Failure.

BIRGing in Action

The ideas, which emerged from social experiments and observations by Arizona State University professor Robert Cialdini, describe the tendency for individuals to associate with others’ success so it becomes their own, or in the opposite situation, for individuals to distance themselves from disaster or shame.

Yahoo Sports writer Karie Meltzer (alright, Yahoo Sports!), recently described its application to a sports fans’ allegiance and identification with his or her chosen team:

[With BIRGing], fans of a football team, for example, want to identify with the players’ success. Decked out in team gear, they’ll say, “We had a great win. We were awesome,” when in reality the fans had no part in the win. Cutting off Reflected Failure happens when a team makes a mistake or loses, and fans blame it on an external factor to distance themselves from the defeat. “The refs were biased. The weather’s bad.” The true blame doesn’t lie with the team.

Meltzer used these terms to try and make sense of the varied reaction of Penn State students in the wake of their football coaches’ shameful, fall from grace and the slow, awful realization of their alleged crimes.

Thankfully, applications to our work in the Boston Public Schools are less traumatic.  But still, it’s helpful to consider.  What are the BIRGing opportunities around which all of us–teachers, administrators, parents, students and community partners–can rally around and claim as our own?  How can the impulse to CORF be replaced with the impulse to reset and try something different?

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This is the first entry of a new topic category for The Teaching Pulse which I’ll initially categorize as ‘Buzz.’  I hope it allows more flexibility in raising issues, news and conversation that don’t always fit in the core topics of The Teaching Pulse.  I’d love to hear what you think.

Signs From Demonstration This Morning

It was great early this morning, a shade before 7AM, to stand with a number of other teachers and staff from the Irving Middle School, holding the sign above, handing out this Why Talk to Teachers Flyer, and waving to honking passersby along Cummins Highway in Roslindale.  Talk to Teachers.  Absolutely.  That’s a general message that I can stand behind.  I, among many others I know, am glad for the opportunity to organize and get behind initiatives that raise some important questions and get stalled processes going.  And while the unresolved contract concerns are not the only thing I think we should be talking about, they are certainly important ones.  And as teachers, if you respect us, our work and the work of our colleagues in schools across the city, we should be moving forward in good faith towards a fair and reasonable contract.

Still.  I can’t help but pause and cringe at some of the messaging that I believe unintentionally continues to undermine the very message that we held in our hands this morning.

Here are the titles of some recent articles and e-bulletins that we’ve gotten from our union:

• Superintendent Speaks on Extended Day While Undercutting Same at Negotiating Table

• Superintendent Distorts BTU Position in Attempt to Undercut Picketing

• Superintendent Johnson Continues Public Misinformation Campaign on BPS/BTU Contract

• School Closing Proposal: Lessons Unlearned

And what do we hear in response from school district officials?

A press release headline from this Thursday evening on the Boston Public Schools website, along with a quote from Deputy Superintendent Michael Goar.  The distorting press release title:  Boston Teachers Union cancels planned contract negotiation session.

And the quote:  “We thought the Union was ready to create a contract that improves our schools,” said BPS Deputy Superintendent Michael Goar. “We are still waiting for them to return to the table.”

Really?

You tell me.  Does it feel like the tone is being set for a good and respectful conversation with teachers?  So yes, while the politics can be complex, it does seem as if the steady escalation of rhetorical tension between labor and management is a refrain we have to learn to change.  Otherwise we may end up just talking, or should I say grumbling, to each other.  On both ‘sides’.

Thoughts?

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Congratulations to Waltham history teacher Derek Vandegrift for his selection as a Milken Educator!  I think we all know colleagues or have had teachers who distinguish themselves quite simply, as excellent educators.  These are the individuals who just have that particular mix of passion, gift, knowledge and skill to make the classroom come alive.

I’m reminded by one particular trajectory that can trace the development of successful teachers into four phases.  Check them out and let me know if they ring true to you.

Vandegrift, Milken Educator Award Winner

Stage 1:  Unconsciously unskilled.  Here’s where you begin.  You simply don’t understand (or underestimate) all the skills involved in teaching and teaching well.  This stage helps to describe the attitude represented by the quote ‘those you can, do, those you can’t teach’ or those starry-eyed idealists who are going to immediately transform all the kids who are in front of them a la Dangerous Minds.

Stage 2:  Consciously unskilled.  Are you in your first few weeks (or years) in the classroom?  Here’s where after a bit of experience, you quickly understand how many skills you don’t have and need to development to survive, let alone thrive.  There is a constant struggle and work to identify and develop those skills.

Stage 3:  Consciously skilled.  After some time, hard work, reflection and experience, you develop specific skills and strategies that are very consciously and deliberately researched, implemented and refined over time to improve the quality of instruction in your classroom.  Think late nights, long conversations with fellow teachers and those sweet episodes of success when all that hard work and planning pays off in a killer lesson.

Stage 4:  Unconsciously skilled.  Ultimately, over time and with increasing experience and expertise, you ‘just teach,’ with so many skills, actions, and interventions implemented at once, that they happen almost automatically.  And then you do it again, and again, and again.

Mr. Vandegrift?  I think we know what stage he’s in.

An ‘Oscar’ for Waltham teacher:  National Award Cites Vandegrift’s Compelling Style

By Lisa Kocian
Globe Staff / November 10, 2011

“That’s what you give me?! I’m holding a dramatic moment here, people.’’

In a voice that is one part smooth radio announcer and maybe three parts dynamic stage performer, Waltham High School teacher Derek Vandegrift is giving his students a hard time, and they are giggling and – most importantly – responding.

He is asking what the “Iron Horse’’ nickname for baseball great Lou Gehrig might mean. Students throw out a couple of synonyms for iron but he’s jockeying for more, trying to convey the emotional contrast behind Gehrig’s rise to fame as fearsome hitter followed by his sudden decline from the illness that now bears his name.

Vandegrift’s style is compelling. So much so that last month, he was among 25 educators across the country, and the only one from Massachusetts, to receive one of the so-called “Oscars of Teaching’’ from the Milken Family Foundation so far this year.

The Milken Educator Award, which is accompanied by a $25,000 check with no restrictions on its use, is shrouded in secrecy. The foundation does not accept applications, and does not identify the people who recommend recipients in each state. The criteria for winning include an “engaging and inspiring presence’’ and an “exceptional educational talent.’’

That means the foundation looks for elementary and secondary school teachers, principals and other educators who know how to make content “jump off the page,’’ said Jana Rausch, spokeswoman for the Milken Family Foundation, which is based in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Vandegrift, 33, was chosen, in part, because he shows students that history is a continuum, she said.

“He makes them think,’’ said Rausch. “He relates the lessons to real life.’’

Vandegrift, who has been teaching in Waltham for 11 years, said he hasn’t fully decided what he’ll spend the award money on, but some of it will likely go toward paying off student loans from his alma mater, Boston College.

Waltham High junior Michael Gelineau, 17, is in Vandegrift’s modern US history honors class, which is studying Gehrig and other personalities of the 1920s.

“Clearly he’s the man of the school right now; he’s pretty humble about it though,’’ Gelineau said of his teacher. “He makes the class fun. You still learn, but you have a good time.’’

Class may start with a brief YouTube video made by one of Vandegrift’s former students summarizing 1920s pop culture, or “The Age of Ballyhoo,’’ the subject of the day’s lecture.

It’s the age of Steamboat Willie and jazz and, inscrutably, goldfish swallowing. Vandegrift takes his students through a lecture and slideshow that touches on some key historical events, like the Scopes Trial, where a teacher got in trouble for teaching evolution.

But one of the first stops is sports, and – in addition to some light teasing for the only admitted Yankees fan in the room – Vandegrift has his students talking about recent events (think Theo Epstein and chicken and beer in the Red Sox clubhouse) before taking a look at the 1920s. He calls on Gelineau, who plays golf, to talk about Bobby Jones, the most famous golfer of the era.

This is a traditional lecture, but Vandegrift is also known for getting students up and moving. And he is a performer.

When talking about “island hopping’’ in World War II (when the Allies strategically took only certain Pacific islands from the Japanese), Vandegrift likes to throw old textbooks around the room and hop from one to another in a demonstration. The students love to root against him if his book hopping gets too ambitious, he said, and they loved it when he once slipped and hit his head.

“If it’s them thinking I’m nuts that keeps their attention – fine,’’ he said. “A perfect class is an engaged class.’’

Vandegrift said he is humbled by the award and hopes it will also shine a spotlight on his talented colleagues.

“We’re all very proud of him here,’’ said Stephen Goodwin, the director of history and social sciences for the Waltham school district. “He’s an excellent teacher. He believes in interactive education. Students in his classes are up and participating in the lessons . . . his classes are in great demand by students.’’

Rausch, from the Milken foundation, emphasized that the award is not for lifetime achievement, but instead goes to educators early or midway through their careers and who show promise for attaining even more success with their students.

And the surprise element is fiercely preserved – recipients are always revealed in a schoolwide assembly that is arranged without the winner’s knowledge, Rausch said. There will be up to 40 recipients nationwide this year, she said, but not all have been announced.

“The idea is to really excite young people and have them see if their teacher can be honored and revered in that very public way, that will then inspire them to want to be a teacher also.’’

Lisa Kocian can be reached at lkocian@globe.com.

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I’m happy to present the first of an ongoing series of interviews with selected education and civic leaders in Boston.  (Karen, I echo your interest from the September column in hearing from our district and organizational leadership).  With this column, I think we’re off to a great start.  Thanks, Richard, for responding so readily to the interview request this month.

What’s the ultimate goal with these leadership interviews?

On one hand, it’s an opportunity for the larger membership to learn more about key individuals’ opinions and stances around the educational policies and issues that are currently shaping the Boston Public Schools.  And by learning more about these opinions, we as teachers in BPS can share our own thoughts and pose our own questions through ongoing, online discussion.

Perhaps more importantly though, once the conversation gets going, the hope is for district, union and other civic leaders to be responsive to these conversations, opinions and the ‘pulse’ of what we teachers are saying in our classrooms across the city.  They are our leaders, after all, and the responsibility falls on all of us to make sure they represent us well.

Let’s give it a go.

In this interview which took place on Friday October 14^th, I asked a series of questions that focused on three main areas:  1) the current climate in public education from the perspective of our union president, 2) ways to encourage more participation and engagement from teachers in the BTU and 3) thoughts on what it would take to foster a more collaborative relationship between the teachers union and the school district.

How would you describe the general climate in public education and the Boston Public Schools from your perspective as the president of the Boston Teachers Union?

I would say that the current climate is not great, and I think what precipitated that are a couple of things, including RTT (Race to the Top), the new Ed reform law, the shrinkage of the economy and the consolidation of school buildings… and the end result of all that is they become contributing factors.  The fact that we don’t have a [currently-negotiated] contract is part of this.  Regardless of what side people go to, the fact that we don’t have a contract is a hindrance, [even beyond] the facts that there is turmoil over the student assignment plan, the school closing issue, [and] the late busses [issue].  I think these are [all] symptomatic…they don’t come out of thin air.  It’s not a climate that’s conducive to taking a step back and trying to figure out which is real and which is not.

It sounds almost as if the climate is being dictated by the economic environment as much as specific policies that are being put into place.

I think that’s the overwhelming reason behind it..  I think that’s what much of the theory is being driven by in education circles in terms of what works and what doesn’t work.  [There’s] no doubt in my mind that that’s instrumental.

How would you describe the overall ‘health’ of the BTU and the engagement of the membership?

Well, every major union in the country is having what I would say are transition problems.    There’s a huge turnover in the work force.  So I don’t think that’s unique to Boston.  I think society has changed and teacher unions have changed.

What do you think we’re transitioning from and what do you think we’re transitioning to as the BTU or for unions in general?  Because I look at studies sometimes, I look at schools I’m in, I look at my own school experience and sometimes I wonder if, as you were saying, the nature of the teaching profession has changed where there isn’t an expectation that teachers stay as teachers for the length of their careers.  Does the union need to respond to that shift?

I actually think that some of this is going to go backwards.  We are going to undo some of this as things destabilize economically.  There is nothing inherently wrong with staying in the career a little longer than anticipated.  When I started teaching in 1972, I was positive I would do it for five years.  Absolutely positive.  I was going to be a mathematician.  That was my field.  And it turned out I liked teaching.  I enjoyed it and I felt I was accomplishing something.  So I stayed in it.  But I think what has changed [is that] there is more of a mobility now.  People are emboldened to do new things, try new things and can have a much wider experience than we ever did. Some of that is borne, too, by economic necessity.

I do think that when the economy improves, we’re going to bring back some more normalcy.  I also think that it’ll never be the way it was because of increased mobility.

Do you feel that  the BTU is doing a good job engaging the membership right now?

Are we trying to engage people, yes.  Have we been successful, certainly not totally.  It’s hard in a way to catch a moving target with five hundred to six hundred new hires every year; it’s very difficult.  Similarly, the school department has difficulty with catching up and hitting [this] moving target.

You’re not going to find an industry in the world, a professional industry, that has a turnover of 10% a year [like we have in public education].  You’re not going to find that with a law practice, a medical practice or an accounting firm.  10% [of employee turnover] year in and year out is very difficult to handle and it’s to the detriment of the schools.

So do you think the lack of engagement of teachers in their own professional organization is mostly because of the fact that they’re highly mobile and they haven’t had the chance to settle and have their own families?  Because I also know a number of folks whose affect is what I’d described as frustrated.  They’re frustrated about not knowing who to go to, or who to talk to.  [There’s the feeling that] the BTU [leadership] is not listening to me or asking for my opinions and thoughts about things, or I can’t go and speak here because I feel intimidated. 

What are the things that you as a president can do to reach and out and quell those fears?  Because we want to welcome people, right?

Well I don’t know if there’s a fear [or not].  I think our membership meetings are reasonably welcoming.   There’s not a quick gavel [and] we try to plan different activities that interest a variety of people.  I won’t say we do a great job of that.  I don’t think we’ve ever done a great job of that.   And from my conversations with other union leaders from around the country, everyone is grappling with the same issue.

I think one of the main issues is that people don’t have a lot of time. At the same time, the union hasn’t reached out.  [It] hasn’t kept up with the times and I think we’re playing a lot of catch up.

So what’s the strategy to do that here in Boston?

Well in Boston, we’ve done a number of things, from the social to the political.  We have a lot of younger leaders that we have tried to get involved in the BTU and we’ve tried to expand the scope [or our organizational goals] so we are more embracing.  And the difficulty is in maintaining that and growing that.  I mean I was in a meeting the other day of labor leaders and I was the youngest person there and I realized that that body, as bad as the BTU might be as far as reflecting all age groups, that body was a heck of a lot worse.  Trust me [laughing], it’s a common experience.  Not a comforting one.

We have tried with the different committees [such as] the COPE committee and the Executive Board committee.  I don’t take any false credit for this.  It’s been an uphill struggle, and we are still working on it.

If there were a way to get more people to participate, it would make us a stronger union.

The Teaching Pulse is predicated on the idea that collaboration is something that’s complex but a very possible way of going about our work in public education.  And I don’t pretend to think that it’s easy or efforts haven’t been made, but right now from my perspective and from others, the rhetoric and conversation often comes across as pretty defensive or strident.  “The superintendent is not telling the truth about this issue”, or “the superintendent fails to do such and such,” in many ways representing the other side in a negative way. 

So how would you describe the current relationship between the school district, the school committee and the teachers union?  What accounts for that?  What do you do in your role as BTU president to actively shape or dictate that relationship?

Well, we’ve had countless private conversations with the superintendent, that pretty much everything she writes that has anything to do with the BTU contract should not be written.  And vice versa—I would not rather write public statements about the ongoing negotiations..  And I suggested to her that it serves no good purpose to publically quarrel.  She has resisted that… She shouldn’t take private matters public.

I don’t think the classroom is affected directly by the day-to-day tensions.  I think people do the best job they can and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be teaching.  I don’t think there’s a dispute on that.

Now at the same time, the teachers that I represent, and I believe this to a person, they want as much as we can get for them while protecting their best interests and making sure the schools are as good as they can be.  They don’t want one or the other, they want everything.  They recognize that to do that, there has to be some… fighting.  I mean, if that weren’t the case, it would upset the whole dynamic of labor management.   That’s the way it works.

Now, no one enjoys arguing.  We don’t want to argue, we want to accomplish things.  But the things we want to accomplish [can’t be done] until we resolve [issues like contractual ones].

Would you say that the relationship between the BTU and the school district in particular is one that can’t be fixed?

I don’t think it’s impossible.  I don’t even think it’s impractical.  I just think we just go through some rough spells.  There is a schism on certain things but there’s not a schism on what’s best for the schools.

To say we don’t an opinion [about what’s best for our schools] is insulting.  We’re not going to cede total control to the district over educational decisions.  I think it’s absurd not to rely on your best source of information for good ideas.  I just think it’s totally absurd.

From what you’re saying, it’s a really important time for teachers to get involved—to get involved in the union, to speak to the district leaders, to speak for the best interest of teachers and the kids.  What’s the action plan and vision for moving forward?

To some extent, we have to continue what we’re doing and do it smarter.  I’m not going to give up trying to get more of a place at the table with the superintendent and to try and get more involved in the district work.  And I think that’s an essential.  I think if the economic and political climate were better, I think we could sway the district to be a little more embracing.

***

Much food for thought, for certain.  As usual, please consider visiting the online forum at www.theteachingpulse.org to continue this conversation and weigh in from your perspective.  Have a great month and see you online!

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Here’s an additional concept to consider for our collective, cognitive toolkit:  confirmation bias.

From the fields of psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias describes a person’s tendency to find and make sense of information in a way that further confirms one’s own preconceptions and existing ideas.  So when we all make decisions, we tend to actively seek out and overemphasize evidence that more strongly supports what we thought was right in the first place.  And on the flipside?  We tend to underweigh or disregard the evidence that goes against what we originally thought.

An illustration:

What does this mean for us as teachers?

You might see how this might play out in our classrooms.  If we hold true to the maxim and belief that all students can learn and teachers maintain the biggest influence on their learning, nothing will stop us from working and reworking our lessons, approaches and interventions to make sure they all achieve.  And if some don’t, that underlying bias and belief will keep us up late at night and up early in the mornings, reaching out to colleagues and community and doing whatever we can to get them there.  And conversely, if we believe that some students just won’t ever get it, that some kids are just hard-wired to be difficult, or combative or non-responsive learners, all difficulties we encounter with those students will confirm that original suspicion:  that kid just isn’t supposed to make it.

And how might confirmation bias shape the often tense dialogue between labor and management, between labor organizations and charter school enthusiasts, and between reformers and the ‘targets’ of reform?

If we as teachers collectively believe that the root issues and challenges of our work lie in the ineptitude of the building administrator and out-of-touch central office bureaucrat, any problem we come across in our daily work (whether a scheduling hiccup or slow response time to an emergency in the classroom or an ineffective professional development session) will confirm that original suspicion:  if our principals and central office staff had a clue and just got out of the way, we’d be so much more effective at the real business of teaching and learning.

Similarly, if central office staff and principals see the biggest issue as the difficulty in removing and shaping a recalcitrant, reactionary and undifferentiated teaching staff, any issue with budget concerns, student test scores or challenges in successfully implementing a new program will confirm yet another original suspicion:  if teachers and teachers unions really cared about kids and student learning, they should be way more willing to relax on those pesky contractual issues and concerns that demonstrate why they’re in it anyway–for their own job security, not the kids.

How can ‘original suspicions’ like these, and the tendencies of confirmation bias that further solidify them in their holders’ minds, ever begin to break down?  I would imagine finding and highlighting the instances (whether in specific schools or in various district initiatives) where they simply don’t hold true would be an important place to start.  And from these examples, to establish new ground and principles from which confirmation bias can play a more positive role:  that positive collaboration among labor and management, with a focus on student learning, is not only possible, but perhaps the only way to go.

Thoughts?

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