Evan and I honor your hard work and dedication to your students throughout the 2017-2018 school year! We both know you faced many challenges and dealt with each one, always keeping your students at the center. You are the unsung heroes of our country, teaching new generations to read, write, think creatively, innovate, and problem solve. We want you to know the depth of our respect for your diligence, for the classroom communities you worked all year to build, and for the support you’ve offered each child! Now it’s time to take a deep breath, relax, and use your short break to care for your wellbeing and to continue to reflect and learn.
Evan and I believe that balance is the key to utilizing free time well. Some of you will take classes relating to your discipline, others already have stacks of professional books on night tables and desks for summer reading. All terrific goals! However, we both urge you to set aside time to read for pleasure, to do what you love—long walks, hiking, relaxing on a beach, catching up on missed movies, spending time with family and friends. Though teaching is one part of your life, it can be all-consuming during the year. So, yes, do continue to learn! But also reserve time to do what you love and find difficult to fit into your daily teaching schedule.
“Comprehension” is a word that teachers use all the time: Jake’s comprehension is weak; Talia can’t comprehend nonfiction; David comprehends everything he reads. Comprehension refers to what readers understand in a text while comprehending is the process readers use to develop comprehension. It’s helpful to confer with students to discover their comprehending process and feelings toward reading. Analyzing students’ writing about reading also provides teachers with a window into students’ thinking and level of understanding.
There are many levels to assessing students’ understanding of a text. Proficient and advanced readers automatically do the following while reading.
Interact with the text by conversing with the author: raising questions, predicting, and commenting.
Connect parts of the text to their experiences and background knowledge.
Connect information and narrative elements within a text.
Use context clues to figure out the meaning of difficult words.
Transfer what they learned and understood to other learning situations.
Recall of Information
A common sense belief I always share with teachers is that it’s pointless to ask students to read and reread a text at their frustration level. Recall implies that the learner is able to decode the text, understand, and then remember the information. That will happen when the student has enough background knowledge and the text is close to his or her instructional reading level. Valentina’s story illustrates how frustration reading affects students.
Conferring: A Snapshot of Valentina
Before administering an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) to Valentina, a sixth grader, we spent time chatting about her interests. Valentina loved playing basketball, texting friends, and hanging out with them. When I asked her how she felt about reading, she volunteered this statement: “I hate reading. I suck at it.” Her reasons were candid, logical, and on point. Reading three years below grade level, her ELA and content teachers required Valentina to read and reread grade-level texts. Her words reveal her feelings about these tasks: “If I have to read again and again and can’t understand it, what’s the point?” She shrugged and added, “ They [her teachers] get mad when I write nothing about reading. I can’t write if I get nothing [from the reading].”
After completing and analyzing Valentina’s IRI, I suggested two actions that could improve her reading:
Have her read and learn from material at her instructional reading level—preferably books she chose. Then involve her in meaningful book discussions with a partner or small group who discuss questions they compose.
Accelerate her reading stamina and achievement by teaching her how to self-select books for independent reading because often students like Valentina select difficult books to save face with peers.
Volume Matters
Researchers agree that volume in reading matters. First, volume can develop a student’s personal reading life which means he or she chooses to read at home. In addition, volume can enlarge a student’s vocabulary and background knowledge, build fluency, and develop a deep and lasting love of reading.
There are school districts that require students read grade-level texts even if they can’t comprehend them. Often these students listen to a book on tape or the teacher reads the book aloud to the class. The problem here is that students aren’t reading and that’s why they slide backward. Continuing on this trajectory will not support the Valentina’s of this world and will increase the number of students who don’t read and dislike reading.
Reflecting on Valentina’s Story
Fortunately for Valentina, her ELA teacher, received permission from the principal to abandon the district requirement of every student in a grade level, complex text. Valentina could choose from alternate books her teacher suggested for each unit of study. She began to self-select books for independent reading and read them. In the past, Valentina was an ace at fake reading during free choice independent reading time. Adjustments in her ELA class are definitely a positive step toward supporting Valentina’s reading life, but many questions remain:
Would her content teachers find materials she could read and learn from?
Were enlarging classroom libraries a top priority?
What kind of feedback did Valentina receive from her teachers to increase her efficacy and self-confidence?
How often did teachers confer with students like Valentina to continue to monitor, support, and celebrate her progress?
What kinds of direct instruction in all classes did Valentina (and other students) need to practice and internalize what good readers do?
Closing Thoughts
We all want our students to love reading. Alas, roadblocks such as limited or no class libraries and a lack of alternative texts and materials for striving readers derail our wants. Yes, it’s heartening to observe ELA teachers and school administrators adjust instruction. However, until teachers in all subjects have access to books and materials that meet the instructional needs of their students, progress will remain slow. We need to bring common sense back to our teaching practices and ensure that we reach every reader in our classrooms and support them on their journey to developing a personal reading life.
It’s better to burn out than to fade away- Neil Young
I have always been fond of Neil Young’s quote. I have never had any interest in fading away and by seeking out this blog, you probably feel the same. Burnout is an overused expression in our field and often an excuse for less than stellar work. There is an old saying that speaks truth: It’s hard to burn out if you have never been on fire.
Students deserve our best. In this post, I am going to rant a little about a few peeves I have with people who seem to constantly be burnt out, and I’ll wrap it up with some ideas on how to turn some negative behaviors around.
Recently I went on a cruise. Yes, I had a great time. However, one aspect I noticed was how upbeat and energetic all the crew members were, even though they all were far from home, worked very long days, and most were not highly paid. The crew was professional: well dressed, mannerly, and customer focused. As Laura, my wife, and I left the boat we wondered why some staff in schools are so different. It is not easy to answer, but I believe the answer is found in the culture of the school and what the leader is willing to tolerate.
Have you ever had a staff member come up to you or be in your presence to announce 179 days left after the first day of school?
Or, do you have a staff member who always states how many days until Friday?
What about your perpetually tired staff member whose lack of energy is freely communicated? You know, the person who says, “I’m so tired” when you ask them how their day is going.
Finally, the person who gripes how cold it is during winter and then complains about the heat in late spring.
Here are a few tips you can use to bring passion to those who have rarely been on fire.
Tell them to stop. Yes, this is blunt. But a school will never become a great place for all students if some staff are allowed to wallow in their personal misery. I actually had a staff member years ago who made the 179 days left claim; I told the staff member to stop and never to reference the countdown in front of me. This was an awkward encounter, but my point was heard and it stopped.
Always be positive! The principal sets the tone. It is a mistake to join into T.G.I.F conversations. If you join in, staff assumes permission has been given to speak this way.
Set the tone for your school, model the behaviors you want to see.
Do not let yourself go down the rabbit hole called negativity. It is always present and there are always people in the hole who will be happy to see you there. Misery loves company.
Never hire a person who appears burnt out in an interview. How a person presents himself or herself in an interview is the best you’re gonna get!
Students deserve the best! Join me and take a stand to bring energy and positivity to your school. Do not tolerate negative people. Negative people hurt the culture of your school and negative people harm students. Recognize and support the many positive people on your team. And realize your positive staff has long known who the negative staff members are, most will appreciate you helping those staff find some passion and energy for the work they do!
Let this phrase guide you: What the leader permits communicates to others what the leader will tolerate. Every day people ask me how I am doing, and everyone who asks gets a big smile from me and hears, “I’m doing great!” Students and staff deserve my best. Join me!
In making the case for humane teaching, I open with the courageous words that I have heard students say to their teachers:
A kindergartener: When you yell, it makes me sad and afraid.
A second grader: Please, please don’t dump my desk when it is messy.
A fifth grader: When you announce the highest test scores with a drum roll, it makes others feel bad, especially those who work hard and will never score the highest.
A seventh grader: I am having trouble learning in your class because I am afraid you are going to embarrass me by throwing my binder on the floor, too.
A tenth grader: The fact that my paper was the most marked up in the class does not mean I should read it aloud to my classmates.
These are just a few of thestatements I have heard in the past few years. Students shouldn’t have to self-advocate in these ways. These pleas for compassion compel me to say:
We are experiencing an epidemic of inhumane teaching.
I state this bluntly because I cannot circle around this issue for another moment. Through actions and inactions, spoken words and stony silences, teachers are creating a hostile learning environment, whether they realize it or not. Too many students endure school days punctuated with inhumane experiences, either directed at them or their peers. Whether it’s intentional or not, and whether it’s a byproduct of being saturated in an uncivil media culture, inhumane teaching is suffocating our children. In Alfie Kohn’s description of this epidemic, he writes, “Students tend to be regarded not as subjects but as objects, not as learners but as workers. By repeating words like ‘accountability’ and ‘results’ often enough, the people who devise and impose this approach to schooling evidently succeed in rationalizing what amounts to a policy of feel-bad education.” (Kohn 2004)
Unrealistic expectations are being heaved onto educators, no doubt about it. It’s understandable to bristle and buckle under the pressure of accountability and raising the bar mandates. This pressure, however, does not give us educators permission to fuel inhumane learning environments. Yet it is happening. Educators have become far too comfortable saying damaging statements within earshot: These kids will never be ready for the test next year; high school is going to be a rude awakening; he is so low in math. It is hurting our students. Ultimately, it is hurting ourselves too. When we diminish students, we feel diminished.
I say this as someone who is guilty of misusing my power as an educator. I have outwardly shown frustration at answering the question that I already answered a half dozen times. “Okay, everyone, I am going to say this one more time. Jack, Jack, are you listening? I don’t think you are.” Even when I perpetuated seemingly neutral habits like naming students by their reading level, I was undermining learners’ confidence and capacity to learn. And every time I did something like this, whether during whole class teaching or with individual students, I felt a nugget of yuck in my gut. I am not sure I could have articulated it at the time, but now I see that it felt wrong because it was going against the very grain of my beliefs. Those were stress-fueled power plays, cheap shortcuts, and honestly, authoritarian acts.
It is time to commit ourselves to what feels morally sound: humane teaching.
Humane teaching is teaching with recognition of the learner. It springs from our own self-respect and professionalism, and an awareness that students thrive when teachers bring to their role a sense of stewardship.
Carl Rogers, grandfather of positive psychology and one of the great humanitarians of our time, describes this approach as “prizing the learner” and it is remarkably impactful on learning. “It is an acceptance of this other individual as a separate person, having worth in her own right… a prizing of the learner as an imperfect human being with many feelings, many potentialities.” It is the belief that all learners possess the innate desires to grow and yet are grappling with growing. “Learning is increased…. when they are simply understood – not evaluated, not judged, simply understood from their own point of view, not the teacher’s.” (Rogers 1967 304-311)
In line with Carl Rogers’ thinking, I am not suggesting we approach our students in a fluffy, sugary-sweet, singsongy way. That’s just nonsense and all students see right through it. Instead, I am urging us to take on courageous, brave teaching. Embrace the difficulties and the struggle of learning; accept the many complexities manifested in students and teaching without finger-pointing, blame, and humiliation. This is integral in the work we do: namely, teaching with compassion and esteem.
So just how do we teach with compassion and esteem? I am tempted to succinctly tell you in the numbered tips style so prevalent in all media, designed to hold the attention of a distracted population, but it’s not possible to squeeze this issue into such a format. There are no capsulized solutions.
So, instead, I reach out to you, requesting you to draw in close for just a bit longer so I may share a bigger message here. YOU are not the problem. If you are reading this blog, you are likely an enlightened educator who doesn’t shame students. But WE are all the problem. Let me explain. We can post, read, like, share, retweet these blogs till the cows come home, but that doesn’t seem to be stemming the tide of inhumane teaching in our schools. Instead, I want to crowdsource us and our own passion and smarts and outrage so that together, we recognize it’s time for greater collective action.
Within our schools, how might we use our insight and energy to help fellow educators learn more compassionate ways of interacting with students? How do we help us all be more compassionate with ourselves? It seems to me it’s done by way of a paradox— a pairing of zero-tolerance and generous, abundant curiosity about why we are resorting to those behaviors and how we might search out alternatives. It is a strict, daily commitment to prize the learners within our fold in the manner of Carl Rogers. We also must, every day, recognize and prize ourselves and our fellow educators. And when this does not happen, we act. We do not let discomfort dissuade us from addressing inhumane teaching.
Instead, we might choose to do what one educator, a principal who has taught me much, did to face inhumane teaching head-on. First, she acknowledged the feeling in her gut that said, “No way. These words are callous and cruel. This is not who we are.” Second, she recognized her role in the situation. She owned that in some way, shape, or form she contributed to the way teachers were speaking about students. Bravely, professionally, and compassionately, she spoke to the educators about her expectations of humane teaching and how all must grow (including herself) to prize their students, especially those who seem most challenging. From there, they all made a plan of action to study together— to study ways of educating humanely. Most importantly, they followed that plan of study together by reading, talking, teaching, and supporting one another in this work. May we all be inspired to follow this same path when advocating for educating compassionately.
This is brave, challenging work that requires persistence. Committing to humane teaching helps us ground ourselves in the greater purpose of the work we have been called to do, and helps us to teach from that sacred space so that learners no longer need to self-advocate for dignity. WE are the answer.
