LitLife Blog

A few months ago, President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced the Race to the Top Fund for Education. Key elements to receiving some of the allocated four billion dollars are the recruitment, development, reward and retention of effective teachers.

This requirement poses a confounding conundrum. How is it possible to measure something or someone whose value cannot be entirely proven or seen for sometimes years after the first impact is felt?

As a teacher educator for the past two decades, I see administrators struggling with this dilemma. For while test scores tell part of the story, they by no means tell it all. An effective teacher is an amalgam of coach, supporter, knowledge bearer, information sharer, community builder, reader, writer, mathematician, wise seer and humorist.  We’ve all seen and known effective teachers, but when it comes to assessing qualities, the essence of an effective teacher is maddeningly hard to pin down.

Mrs. Kovacs was my third grade teacher. Each student was the beneficiary of her many gifts. My reading level was high, but I was shy.  My classmate Robert was social, but his painful secret was that he could not read. While Mrs. Kovacs helped me write my first “novel” in her class (“Thunder: A Horse”; a thinly veiled homage to Black Beauty), Robert read a sentence for the first time. I read my story aloud that year, the first time most of my classmates ever heard my voice. Robert learned to read books independently. She expressed joy in our successes, and an intuitive understanding of what each of us needed.

Each of us can recite the names of our favorite teachers from childhood. Those from whom other teachers could learn and emulate. By whose example the child’s life is forever touched.

The child’s own test data won’t tell that whole story, the story of all those tomorrows.

Teaching is, after all, a deeply human endeavor. It is hard work alongside children with complex lives, to nurturing them equally and profoundly, both intellectually and emotionally. The elusive qualities that add up to lifelong success belong on the assessment grid too. So young teachers entering the field have a more specific road map for their own successful journey. So longtime teachers can change course if necessary to fulfill their professional responsibilities.

I propose Six Standards for TE (Teacher Effectiveness) Measurement that would be used in addition to the students’ standardized test data in identifying and assessing the qualities of a truly effective teacher. The teacher him or herself would be assessed by a combination of administrators, peers and students.

Professionalism
Reads professional books and visits relevant websites, receives ongoing training, participates actively in on site professional development opportunities: mentors other teachers, receives mentoring willingly and openly. Assessment rubrics conducted by administrators and through a peer review.

Knowledge
Builds on curricular knowledge through ongoing professional development opportunities, online and otherwise, refreshes knowledge constantly. Is open to technology and incorporates it into classroom practice. Assessment rubrics conducted by administrators and students.

Humanity
Relates to children, creates an atmosphere of learning and peace in the classroom. Assessment rubrics conducted by students (or if K-2, interviews of students by administrators) and in observations by administrators using assessment rubrics.

Inspiration
Motivates students on a daily basis. Assessment rubrics completed by students.

Management
Classroom environment reflects active learning; rigorous and collaborative environments are structured and organized; time is managed well and there is a clear understanding of use of time and what is being taught within those time frames. Assessment rubrics conducted by administrators and peers.

Discipline
Creates and enacts structured lessons, lessons are part of an articulated vision of the desired outcomes for the year; each week is formally organized and can be clearly understood by students. Assessment rubrics conducted by administrators and peers.

Recently, I called my old school district to find out if I could thank Mrs. Kovacs. I was told she had only taught for two years before she was killed in a car accident. A day later I received a call from the school. They told me that within that same week I had called, a man, another former student, had also called asking about her. Since she’d only taught those two years, they thought I’d appreciate the coincidence. But they didn’t know his name. My guess is that it was Robert.

My vision for language arts educators is that they are intensely equipped with the skills and tools that they need for teaching the children of tomorrow.  Included in this is the ability to truly see, and meet the needs of each and every student.  That these teachers are able to look at their students and imagine levels of support that are in direct response to what each student needs.In addition, my vision for language arts educators is that they maintain a burning desire to be active learners who continually look to educate themselves.  Teachers of reading and writing should be that- readers and writers, so that they can speak to students in authentic and effective ways.  Life-long learning is at the heart of true teacher of language arts.

Lastly, my vision for language arts teachers is that they continually strive to create an environment that motivates and engages students to pursue interests, passions and ideas inside of reading and writing- an environment that respects each individual and leads them to their highest potential- an environment that builds the individual independently and builds the community collaboratively.

You can download copies of the handouts from Pam’s presentation from LitLife’s website at:

http://www.litlifeinfo.com/innovations_in_professional_development/seminars.html

Or simply go to the LitLife website at www.litlifeinfo.com, click the Innovations in Professional Development box, and click Seminars.

Please also feel free to contact Pam at pallyn@litlifeinfo.com, and she can arrange for copies to be emailed to you.

Kolmanskop, Namibia was settled during the diamond rush in 1908. In a few years, a bustling town with a casino, school, hospital and a theater, sprang up. In the 1950s, the diamond fever in the area slowed down and, abandoned, Kolmanskop became a ghost town. The desert dunes swept back into the buildings, including the school.

Photographs from the town show sand holding open doors in old houses, and dunes covering what were once gardens. Old bathtubs and wagon wheels rest on the sand. The town seems to show in real time how something becomes a relic, treasured by archaeologists.

Where it is: Kolmanskop is open to tourists. It is located in southern Namibia.

Bring it to the classroom: Use pictures of Kolmanskop while talking about archaeology. Discuss the magic of uncovering something from the past. Since your archaeologists can’t set off across the ocean quite yet, make a time capsule from your classroom. Or have your students write a letter to themselves, address it, and then seal it up. You (or their parents) will mail it to them in one, five, or even ten years.

Your own learning life: Kolmanskop shows what happens when humans abandon an area. Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us asks what happens when humans abandon a planet. In the book, Weisman describes how nature would take over our houses, bridges, even cities if humans were to suddenly disappear. In this timely book about how humans affect our environment, Weisman asks, “Is it possible that, instead of heaving a huge biological sigh of relief, the world without us would miss us?”

The Museum of Jurassic technology is unlike any other museum. For one thing, it resides behind a small shop front on a busy street in downtown Los Angeles. On entering, you walk through a catacomb of dark rooms, each highlighting an exhibit stranger than the last.

The collection has exhibits on topics including: the ability of bats to fly through concrete walls, a theory of memory inspired by an amnesiac opera singer, a fruit pit carved with an elaborate scene, a stink ant from Cameroon, and the dogs of the Soviet Space Program. Every exhibit has a different approach for viewing. There are microminiature sculptures the size of a hair that you can only see with a magnifying glass. There is a hall of “Floral Stereoradiographs” which you view with 3D glasses so they seem to hover, filling the hallway.

As you walk through the halls, you think, this has to be fake, some kind of a joke. But curator David Wilson is absolutely serious in his mission—making us wonder at the world around us.

Where it is: The MJT is located in Culver City, California. You can also find it online at http://www.mjt.org.

Bring it to the classroom: Even if you’re across the country, you can bring the magic of the Museum of Jurassic Technology to your class. Share images from some of the exhibits, and begin a discussion about how what we think of as “real” has changed over the years. Older students might enjoy a documentary about the MJT, available from its website. Also, check out Pulitzer Prize finalist Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders by Lawrence Weschler, about the MJT and its mysterious history.