Communities Compromise Schools and Good Living

Many communities compromise the success of schools. This does not have to happen. Here are a few ways that every community can work to elevate the success of their schools.

Adequate Staffing
Most schools are understaffed. Way back, when communities were filled with at-home moms, grandmothers, grandfathers, and women who didn't have children, there was lots and lots of support for children. Nowadays, most neighborhoods are empty during the work day because most people are working to support their lives, and that means there simply is not the support needed for children--children require lots and lots of positive support to grow with strength and care. Filling classrooms with twenty or more children everyday with one teacher is not adequate support. Children will thrive if we double or triple supports in schools everywhere. If we double or triple the numbers of well-paid, well-trained staff in schools, our children's lives will be greatly enriched. One of the greatest challenges in schools today is staffing--we simply do not have enough people to serve the needs and potential that children bring to school each day.

Adequate Learning Environments
Too many school buildings are outdated, inhabitable, and insufficient for modern day teaching. It's a crime that wealthy businesspeople go to work in luxurious offices daily while our nation's children are squished into inadequate learning facilities. This is a crime that does not have to happen. Schools everywhere need to be updated to become welcoming, modern, spacious indoor-outdoor learning facilities.

Update School Schedules and Programming
Many schools stay mired in old fashion teaching and learning because of lack of resources and time for worthy professional development and teaching efforts.

Elevate Work Conditions and Salaries
Too many school workers are underpaid and overworked. Teachers are often very tired because they work ten-twelve hour days six to seven days a week with considerable time-on-task with lots and lots of children. Many teachers also work second jobs to be able to afford child care, mortgage payments, transportation costs, and other life necessities. Further, many, many teachers buy their own supplies for classrooms because it is very difficult to purchase materials for schools via school processes for countless reasons. So to teach well, many teachers use their own money to buy needed supplies everyday. When teachers are underpaid and working in subpar working conditions, they become tired, cranky, and discouraged which does not translate into optimal teaching and learning.

Just this week, work conditions that impeded my ability to teach included the fact that one bathroom has become a place for new mothers to pump breast milk. This reduces the number of bathrooms which means you have to wait to go to the bathroom. First, new mothers, in my opinion, don't have enough paid time off and also should not have to pump in a bathrooom--women have been having babies forever, and we still don't make room for what's needed in school buildings for new mothers. That's a crime. Also because I am working on a number of new curriculum initiatives, I had to spend my entire day on Saturday working--there simply isn't time for that during the school day. Then, on our one working day this week, only one copy machine worked which meant that multiple teachers were stressed out because they needed the copy machine during valuable prep time. And, when children worked tirelessly on a creative climate change project, they could not access the printer to print their good work because one available printer that doesn't work well is simply not adequate for the rich, deep work students were doing. Then, when I learned that a colleague's 22-year old son is making more money than me on his first years of the job, that was discouraging too. Why would people continue to choose to teach when the money is simply not there. Teaching salaries and working/learning conditions have to rise because to educate our nation's children well is critical to the well being of our country--Americans have to recognize and support this.

Time for USA to Invest in Social Services including Education and Health Care
The United States is not investing in its most critical resource which is the people. Instead the Trumpian survival-of-the-fittest mentality is trickling down to all communities and resulting in a lack of support for the people, work, and activities that most create a strong, vibrant, and successful country. We need to do a better job creating a good country with adequate supports. We can do better--it's time.

Crafting a learning schedule

I spent the morning crafting a learning schedule from now until the end of the year. Always, as I approach the last third of the school year, I am thinking about what goals we met and what is still left to do. I want to make sure that I teach all that is expected with as much depth and breadth as possible, but how do we fit it all in?

Integrate
One way to fit it all in is to integrate. For example, I melded fraction standards with measurement and geometry standards to teach both concepts at the same time. That will be interesting and very helpful when it comes to fitting it all in.

Simplify
Sometimes if we simplify learning experiences, we are able to hit the priority points in meaningful, but more efficient ways. That's why I'll turn a number of science lessons into collaborative science-in-a-bag projects. I'll put the scaffolded main ingredients of the project into a bag with an instructions card and an exit ticket. Students will be asked to work independently with peers to follow the instructions, complete the simple standards-based project, and fill out the exit card. There will be time at the start and end of each project session to discuss the main points and probably watch a short video on the topic. This will be lots of fun for the children and ensure we hit the main points we are expected to teach.

Realistic Expectations
As a wise colleague remarked recently, we simply sometimes strive for too much--our expectations are sky-high. Typically this is very good, but it can be overwhelming for teachers and students alike. So as I work to fit in all the standards, I can lower some expectations in order to teach the material, but perhaps bring it down from the enrichment level I often teach at. If a simple project whets a student's appetite, they will most likely continue that study on their own time. For example, this week one group who worked tirelessly on their climate change project told me that they would continue their efforts over the weekend. They will bring the project to the enrichment level.

Choreograph
To fit it all in demands optimal curriculum choreography. That choreography ensures that more intense objectives are taught at high-energy, high-focus times and lighter expectations are taught at times of the day or week when students have less stamina and focus. This also demands that learning experiences are scheduled for the best times, times that may support an upcoming test, special event, or school-wide event.

I came up with a good road map for the days ahead, so now, rather than worry about how to fit it all in, I can focus in on the actual learning experiences and students' needs/interests instead. Onward.

Friday Musings: March 6, 2020

It was a very busy and productive school week--lots of positivity! Yeah!

As we head towards weeks with lots of testing, there are many standards to master in meaningful ways. The challenge is how to creatively fit all this teaching in with creativity, engagement, and a students' first mindset.

What will we do?

Climate Change Projects
Today we'll finalize those projects--there has been a lot of student agency in this project work as students research and craft climate change actions that will educate the school community as well as move them to act in ways to protect our local SUASCO watershed and support our beautiful planet Earth.

Fractions
This study has begun with lots of models, coloring, conversation, and working together to learn. There are many learning experiences ahead to deepen and broaden students' understanding.

Math Review
With tests coming up, students will engage in many math review activities online and offline to refresh their memories with regard to math standards they've studied in the past.

Field Studies and Special Events
We are finalizing plans for multiple field studies and special events. These activities energize all of us. For example, this week an Acton Discovery Museum presented an interactive discovery program about states of matter. Students loved it. Upcoming events include a sound presentation, author visit, theater presentation, nature hike, historic tour, music performance, and more.

Social-Emotional Learning
We are having lots of open circle time these days as students navigate many, many social/emotional opportunities and challenges related to their age, friendships, tests, special events, and upcoming transition to the Middle School.

Portfolios and Student-Led Family-Student-Teacher Conferences
Once the Climate Fair is complete, students will update their portfolios and prepare for student-led conferences during the end of March.

Science Learning
We have lots of hands-on science explorations planned for the weeks ahead. As the teacher, I have a lot of prep to do to prepare for these investigations.

Professional Learning
Next week I'll spend a day with colleagues reviewing the fifth grade science curriculum and the following week I'll spend a day with educators across the state focused on safe and supportive schools. This is positive professional learning.

MCAS, Fifth Grade Play, and Biography Projects
Just before and after April vacation our collective focus will turn to these big events.

This is the time of year when it staying the course planned is the way to go. Onward.

Climate Change Fair Preparation - March 2020

Next week students will present a Climate Fair to the school community. At the Fair, teams of students will display and discuss information related to actions they are promoting to slow down climate change, protect and specifically support the SUASCO Watershed ecosystem, and educate the school community. Students' projects range from public service messages to walk-to-school, do-not-litter, less chemicals, less plastic and more initiatives.

Last year, instead of a fair, students created a movie to demonstrate their learning and actions. Our grade-level team and school colleagues have been working to educate students about their local environment and climate change. This study has included education about the local ecosystem including what makes up the ecosystem and how the ecosystem works. This learning has included reading, research, videos, and hands-on exploration both in the classroom and in nature. The study has also included many social-emotional learning goals such as self advocacy, teamwork, independence, and asking questions.

Today after our math lesson and recess, we'll begin the project with an inspirational student advocacy video from Young Voices from the Planet. Then we will have a discussion about what climate change teams need to continue their project work. The emphasis of the discussion will be that their project display should illustrate their project story including their essential question, how their project will positively affect the SUASCO watershed and slow down climate change, and a clear explanation with words and pictures about the action they have done or plan to do. After that, students will get busy with their project work. My challenge will be to get around to each group to provide the support they need. We are mainly dedicating the next two school days to this project work.

The strength of the project to date has been the interdisciplinary and interactive manner with which we have presented the learning. Students have been enthusiastic about this multi-month and varied learning experience. Successful learning has also been evident in their increased awareness of the environment, climate change, and what they can do to make a difference. This is good.

The challenge with the project to date has included the perennial challenge which is time--how do we fit in this rich learning experience amongst all the other standards and goals we have? In part, we have met this challenge by weaving in standards from all parts of our curriculum program. Another challenge we face is how to best teach and promote optimal social-emotional skills and learning. Each year we get better and better at this as we integrate more and more strategies, discussions, and activities that help students build this capacity, and the last main challenge is making sure that children gain a good foundation of environmental science facts, figures, processes, and practices. We are always working to develop our ability to meet this goal.

Tomorrow when I continue this effort, I'll spend the first part of the project work reviewing the environmental science information we learned earlier in the year so that students remember the main facts related to climate change and environmental science that this project is based upon. In our end-of-day discussions both today and tomorrow, we'll likely revisit the social-emotional skills of teamwork, perseverance, advocacy, and presentation skills to help students prepare to do their best positive work during our Climate Fair next week.

Teaching fractions and dealing with common misconceptions

When we move from the study of the base ten numeral system and decimals to the study of fractions and negative numbers, students mix up the decimal point and zero. Why do they do that?

When we teach place value, the decimal point lies in the center with whole numbers to the left and decimals to the right:

That matches the way we write numbers. For example we write $1.25 with the whole number to the left and the decimal number to the right.

Yet, when we move to the study of fractions and negative numbers, we often use a number line. Number lines place the zero in the center with negative numbers to the left and whole numbers to the right:

Since the zero and the decimal point sit in the same position in both models and both decimals and zeros are circles, students begin to mix up the meaning and purpose of the two.

How do we demonstrate the difference and show students that decimals and fractions are actually positive numbers equal to greater than zero. Today I'll work to dispel the misconceptions as we enter our unit on fractions. I'll use the model below. I'm curious as to how others demonstrate this difference. Let me know?