Soapbox: The Way I see Things

Actually, if you had asked me at about 7:30 this morning, I couldn’t have told you. I was tired. Crabby. Feeling overworked, overweight, over-scheduled, and under-appreciated. In need of that last hug from my boys, hoping that extra squeeze could set me on the right path for the day. Close, but not quite.

On to a meeting. I think everyone else there had the same Crab Factor (it’s a technical term) as I did. Left with a cup of hot cocoa and a desire to go hide.

OK…before I go on, I have to say that you mathophiles out there will totally get this activity and maybe even want to try this out. You mathophobes out there…well, I promise there’s good stuff by the time you get to the end.

I love to play the calculator game with kids. It’s simple to learn, but oh so rich. (For those of you wanting to use this activity, I’ve typed up instructions and variations below.)

So that was my lesson plan with fifth grade today. To let them see the Great Unfolding of the Calculator Game. Of course they’ve played it before. But they didn’t know what it’s really ABOUT. And today I was not only going to teach them, I was going to give them time to practice these feats of superhuman intelligence.

My secret number was 120. And what did they pick? 150. And what did the calculator show? 1.25.

I was going to let them play the game out. I was going to let them just guess as they had been. I was going to move on with my lesson as planned. But my mouth worked faster than my brain. I told them that if they worked at it, they could get the secret number on the second guess – spot on.

You think the kids were going to steer away from a challenge like that, or hijack my lesson for the next thirty minutes? You guessed it.

It was interesting. Two children clearly had the concept and were trying to explain that the answer was 120. They were fighting an uphill battle against the kids who still were developing their ideas of number and percent, who felt that the group should guess 125. Believe you me, I learned a LOT about their understandings and misconceptions. Conversation went something like this:

“The number has to be 120 because 1.25 is 1/4 above the number. There are 4 30’s in 120 and if you add 30 to it it’s 150.”

“It’s 125 because 25 above the number is 150.”

“If it were 125, the calculator would read 1.2 when we put 150 in because 25 is 1/5 of 125.”

…and on and on. I reminded them that they could work on showing their thinking with a mathematical representation. Somehow, only those two students could figure out a way to mathematically show their thinking. They came up and showed their work: 25%=30, 50%=60, 75%=90, 100%=120, 125%=150.

The lightbulb went on. It was unanimous. All guessed 120. And all breathed a sigh of relief to know that they did indeed get the secret number – spot on.

Yes, I loved that they got the right answer. But what I really loved? Graduating from one level of listening to another. In the space of this conversation, students did away with the I’m-looking-at-you-and-demonstrating-listening-behaviors-but-really-not-caring-very-much habits of listening. So what did they do?

They listened and spoke with the goal of understanding and being understood. They asked each other questions, and forced people to explain further when they didn’t follow their reasoning. They discovered how tough that was – on both sides.

So why did I get up today? To experience the same joy that they do in learning. To remember the pride of making a discovery. To see what magic sometimes happens when lessons don’t go according to plan.

<<how to play the calculator game>>

Take a simple calculator. Secretly tap in a number, divide it by itself and press “=.” The display will read 1. Your opponent will then guess numbers. Tap in the number and press “=.” If the number’s too big, the display will show larger than 1. Too small, and it’s less than 1. Keep guessing numbers until the calculator displays 1. That’s how you know you’ve found the secret number!

Kick-it-up 1: Make a table of guesses and displays so they can track their thinking. (Good for learning greater than/less than)

Kick-it-up 2: Let them play each other. Even primary kids love this activity!

Kick-it-up 3: Let them play each other, but make them round to the nearest hundredth.

Kick-it-up to notches unknown: Do your kids know anything about fractions? Decimals? Percents? That’s what this game is really about. Does that calculator show 0.5? Then your guess is 50% of the secret number. Kids think I am TOTALLY whacked when I tell them I can deduce their number in 2 guesses (3 on a bad day). And then I prove it. Booyah!

So…how do I exactly know that I’m working with gifted kids? Well, let’s start with the kindergarten and first-grade students I’m working with, shall we? (For the uninitiated, that puts them at ages 6 and 7.) I gave them the following premise: “If you could spend all day studying about anything you wanted, what would you most want to learn more about?” Here is a sampling of responses:

Social studies (people)

How we can help endangered animals

History of the world

Geography

5 least busy airports in the world (followed by a list of them)

Presidents

Mummies

Tuberculosis

Pertussis

History (BC)

So yeah. It probably goes without saying that this group will keep my hands full.

P.S. For those of you who have been following the thread about how I’ve changed my grading practices, stay tuned. It’s been going well! I promise to write an update. Pinky swear, even.

Here I am, grading the latest round of tests. This time, it’s geometry. Last time, it was decimal multiplication and division, and I don’t know who wanted to cry more – the kids or me.

Those of you who read of my dream know I told myself that I’d put together a checklist (buzz-speakophiles will call it a “rubric”) highlighting the learning targets, then judge how far students were towards mastering those targets. Perhaps it would be easier for me to grade (read: I can sleep at night), and it would be better for the students.

If you’re curious how it looks

Drum roll please? Now, I’m a numbers person. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE numbers, and the ability to quantify a construct. But using this checklist to grade, rather than assign point values on each question, was about 500 times easier (oops! there I go, quantifying again).

Why?

For starters, just about anything you ask someone to do in mathematics requires more than one skill at a time. I have to say it’s already a habit of mine to conduct error analysis on just about everything my kids turn in to me. Did they make a math fact error? Are they missing a key part of the procedure? Did they just not read the stinking directions? I also encourage kids to keep an eye on their work so they can learn that same analysis.

Having this checklist allowed me to treat one problem as though it truly required more than one skill set. Take the first problem: “Identify two parallel lines or line segments.” If a kid missed the first problem, maybe it was because they didn’t properly notate lines. Maybe it was because the lines they wrote down weren’t actually parallel. I had kids miss for either reason. For both, I was able to accurately reflect where their skills were.

I found that it was far easier to decide if a student should be marked “developing” or “got it!” than to decide on a point value for a set of problems. For me, it feels like I’m establishing the difference between being evaluative and being constructive. For me, it feels like I am seeing kids for their strengths and needs. Correction: I’ve always intuitively done that. I guess now it feels like I’m putting my money where my mouth is.

What started to become difficult was to follow one reader’s challenge to also quantify a score. I’m still working on that. My first thought is to connect it to the checklist. I could also go by my standard test-scoring procedure.

What I want most is to have a student look at a graded assignment and feel that it’s an accurate reflection of the time, effort, and heart that they put in.

Tomorrow’s the big reveal. I’ll be bringing these to the kids for their responses. Tune in tomorrow, kids!

Maybe it was the barbecue talking.

Maybe I just had a lot on my brain.

But I woke up last night at 12:30 after the most puzzling nightmare.

It was at school. There I was, in the teachers’ lounge, and there were a couple of moms sitting down at the table. Of course I knew them; they are quite active in and around the school. It wasn’t a surprise to see them sitting there, but what they were doing blew me away.

Each woman had stacks of papers. They were already checked by teachers, but these women were grading them AGAIN. Only they weren’t grading the students. They were grading the teachers! There they say with red pens in hand, ready and willing to disagree or discount what teachers had put on the papers already. They then put those incredibly low scores at the tops of the pages in preparation for sharing them. (With the principal? With other parents? School board? Who knows? It was only a dream, you understand.)

I remember feeling so incredibly violated by the whole thing. The injustice of it all struck me most. I was angry about being ranked and rated so low despite my efforts. I remember wondering: To whom might I have gone? The principal? (How did I know that this wasn’t done with her collaboration or blessing?) Our union? (Wait, our district doesn’t have one).

I woke up then, my mind racing. What would I do in that situation were it to actually happen (because, you know, at 12:30 in the morning you can convince yourself that ANYTHING can happen)?

In the process of trying to calm myself down enough to sleep, I tried to figure out what about the dream bothered me so much. The helplessness of not having someone to go to? Sure. But beneath that lay the indignation I felt at seeing my work, slashed through with a red pen. It was the frustration I felt knowing I had only done my best, and to see that I only got a fraction of it “correct” according to their standards. There they were, judging me and the quality of my work. How would they ever know what heart went into it?

(Turn proverbial light on *here*)

Don’t I do that to my kids, though? Hadn’t I just returned a test to some of them, not so long ago, delivering grim news of their progress? It couldn’t have felt much better.

So here’s what I wonder. Here’s what my next experiment is going to be.

What if the next grade isn’t a fraction correct and a percent?

What if, instead, I were to attach a list of the learning targets tested, and note how far they’ve progressed in meeting those targets?

Would it lessen the blow? Would it encourage them to take heart in what they *can* do, rather than what their deficits are? Would it motivate them to take responsibility for their learning? Or would it continue to foster an environment of feel-goodism in a culture of overly padded self-esteem?

I’m going to give it a try. Perhaps it will crash and burn. But perhaps I’m onto something – something that just may change the way I do business.

Your thoughts? I’d love for you to weigh in on the scoring / grading debate.

…so get this. There was a story on the news today about a Florida school where kids run the place. No teachers, no curriculum – just a center of discovery. But that’s not the point here.

 

The point is that they asked Meline Kevorkian, who’s written several books about education, for a quote about how it wasn’t a standardized curriculum with testing. Here’s how she started out:

“Without testing, how will these kids know how good they’re doing?”

um, Meline? That’s “well.” How WELL they’re doing.

Sheesh.

…is also the one that I never got asked before I had kids. For that matter, I never got it before my kids started school. But here goes:

“You’re a parent. What would you do if you were me?”

Granted, I’ve been able to call on being a parent in so many ways as a teacher. It’s helped me to see that there’s only one child in the room: yours. Parenthood has helped me realize just how hard, how incredibly hard it is, to support our kids. I know that lots of teaching advice doesn’t work in real life. I understand how tricky it is to help kids navigate school, navigate life. Because I’m a parent, just like you.

What would I do in situations as a parent? You’re asking me for advice-as a parent? That’s when I get nervous. See, I’m a parent, just like you.

My kids are an extension of me, just like yours.

I correct their table manners, remind them to say please and thank you, and fight with them to take showers.

I worry about giving my children a balance between freedom and safety.

I check on them at night while they’re sleeping.

I cart them all over creation in my mama-mobile.

I worry that I don’t do enough for them, that I don’t spend enough time with them, that I don’t support their schooling as much as I wish I could.

I sneak kisses whenever I can.

I laugh at their terribly disgusting humor, all while hoping they don’t talk like that at school.

I worry about being “that parent”– a pushy, aggressive, helicopter mom.

I worry that in trying not to be “that parent,” I’m not a strong enough advocate for my child.

I worry that the decisions I make for them are the wrong ones.

Yep, I said it. I make decisions for my own kids all the time, thinking they’re the right ones. But who knows? I imagine my kids will be in therapy at some point in their lives; I just can’t predict what for.

I’ve been in this business for longer than any of my students have been alive. And yes, I joke that my students are “my kids,” and I am incredibly protective of them, much as a parent would be. I still keep in contact with kids who are out of college by now.

But I’m not their parent.

Listen, folks, I can give you as much advice as you want — as a teacher. As a parent, I can identify with many of your challenges, successes and hopes and speak of them firsthand. But advice? I’m as new to much of parenting thing as anybody out there.

The best I can do is to share with you what I know about your kid, what I know about teaching and learning, and work with you to help your child flourish.

I do the best I can do with what I have and what I know.

Just like you.

Ok, people. I confess! I confess! I am the one who went on the morning announcements this month – twice! – to encourage children to write a poem a day for National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo, not to be confused with November’s NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month). And I think I’ve started something good! I’ve gotten poems from kids K-5, and boy has it been exciting?

I guess you’re wondering where my stuff is, huh?

If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been writing too. Some of it’s been inspired by life as a mom, some of it comes from working with kids. Some of it’s good stuff, some of it – well, as they say: If you want to have GOOD ideas, you have to have a LOT of ideas.

Here’s what I posted on my other blog today:

The Eye of the Beholder

April 12, 2010 by Lainie Levin

“I’m a terrible reader. I mean horrible. Really, I’m glad my kids can read and they don’t need my help on homework because I can’t read for the life of me. And it’s a good thing that I don’t need to do it really well, because I’d be totally stuck.

I don’t know what it is. I’ve never been a good reader, and I’ve never liked reading. Letters  have never made sense to me, and they’ve never been useful. As long as I can get by, I really don’t see the point in learning to read. Some people are born with the ability to read and some people aren’t. I’m one of those people who aren’t.”

C’mon. Be honest. How many people are *that much worried* about the statement above? How many of you, parents of my students, might be just the least bit concerned if this were my admission? How many of you, friends or family, are wondering what the heck I’m talking about?

It’s not okay to say we don’t know how to read. Adult illiteracy is, at best, a hidden problem of society. Who wants to cop to not knowing how to read?

So why is it okay in other contexts? Substitute the word “math” for reading at any point in the paragraphs above.

Scarily, you’ll see how socially acceptable it will sound.

For those of you contemplating one-to-one computing programs in your district, you might want to follow this story.

Allegedly, a Pennsylvania school district equipped students with laptops. It was discovered that the district was remotely activating their webcams to monitor behavior.

Yikes.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/18/24789.htm

Let me get this straight: in order to become more competitive for federal grants, California has a new “parent trigger” law allowing parents at struggling schools to petition to (among other changes):

close the school;

turn the school into a charter; or

fire the principal and half the staff.

I would venture to say we’ve reached a new definition of parent empowerment in the schools.

Hold onto your hats, people. This is one story worth following. Want to read more? Click the link below:

http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_14306183