A License to Teach

When I moved to Denver from Portland and started working at Lake International School, I thought I had a good sense of how to do this teaching job right.  I had 8 years under my belt in rural, suburban, and urban schools, though most in rural.  I was appreciated by colleagues and administrators at these schools, at least partially due to my skills as a teacher.  I had finished my master's degree, had a reading specialist endorsement, and taught a successful model lesson at Lake, an inner city school with over 95% of their students on free or reduced lunch.  I had two job offers on the same day and jumped at Lake because I hadn't done it, the model lesson went so well, the school was beautiful, and it was a middle school, which I've wanted to teach in since I was in middle school.

The principal asked me a question after I did my model lesson: "You used a number of cues to get students' attention or to get them to do what you wanted them to do.  How do you set that up at the beginning of the year?"  I didn't have a good answer for her, but she said she was willing to take a "leap of faith" for me.  The right answer now (I think, or a part of the answer), almost two years later, is to expect 100% compliance every time.  When I taught at St. Helens, I could get 70% on day one.  At Lake, I got 80% during that first month.  And it steadily decreased from then on.  I am certain my principal regretting taking that leap of faith.

I spend a lot of time in my classroom building community.  At Health and Science School, the public magnet school I worked at, I spent the first month on nearly nothing but that, and reaped the benefits.  But I think doing that at Lake gave the students the idea that it would be all touchy-feely all the time.  I should have done a little bit of that each day, but I should have shown them how hard we could work, because by the time I was ready to do work, I'd already lost their respect (or, rather, hadn't earned it to begin with).

The biggest thing, though, the number one cause of my failure as an inner-city teacher, is going into the job with guilt.  I reasoned, both consciously and unconsciously, that I lived a childhood of privilege.  There was always food on the table.  My parents only had to work one job.  I lived in a safe neighborhood.  My brother didn't deal drugs. So what right did I have to tell someone without all those supports what to do?

My right came from two college degrees and a teaching license.  But instead of exercising that right, I gave them the idea that I didn't care.

Both my coach and my principal tried to tell me that.  But it took 10 weeks of summer to get it through my thick skull.

I didn't get the chance to continue at Lake, which is probably good.  I'm not ready for the big leagues.  But I did learn a lot that has improved my practice this year:

• No nonsense nurturing
• The skillful use of sentence frames
• Focused Rove
• Extremely useful lesson planning that doesn't create an overwhelming workload
• Planning ahead be creating exemplars
• Brain breaks

And I imagine I'll add more to this list as I think of it.  And link to posts about each one from here.

I can feel a divide developing in my career between pre-Lake and post-Lake.  Pre-Lake, in Oregon, I presented lessons, provided feedback, retaught what I needed to, graded summative assessments; I did everything to make me good teacher, and enough to score "effective" on my districts' evaluation rubrics.

Post-Lake, I make students learn¹. And I've seen sometimes this year, I can make them like it.

And that's why this is my anthem this year:

1. Not that the students aren't due the credit. They've worked for it. (I just made them. Bwahahaha!) Go back.

New Year Resolutions

As winter break approached, I noticed that I had become complacent with some areas of my practice.  I don't think that this is the complacency that comes with too many years of experience¹.  I think this is the complacency that comes with figuring out how to be both a good parent and a good teacher simultaneously.

At the same time, I came across this post by Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris via my undergrad education professor, @CindyOA.  I walked away thinking about this:

If you were to draw your inner teacher, what would he/she look like? How does he/she feel? Excited? Nervous? Overwhelmed? In reading the work of Martha Beck–which encourages us to pay close attention to our emotions because they are our inner compass–we’ve discovered that our inner teacher’s emotions can serve as our teaching compass. After teaching, thinking, feeling, writing, reflecting–lather, rinse, repeat–we’ve learned to trust our inner teacher, and to understand that, when she is lethargic or angry we need to adjust something in our practice or our thinking, or even both. As we have explored the connection between our energy, our effectiveness, and our teaching, we have arrived at a four big principles that help our teaching compass stay on true north. We call these four guiding tenets “The Four Intentions” and, if we are mindful of them, our inner teacher feels like this:

We use these intentions to plan lessons, purposefully considering each tenet as we design instruction. We also use them to reflect on lessons we teach. These intentions have become the framework for all our thinking about instruction, even about education in general. Here is an explanation for each intention, and questions you can ask yourself to reflect on how well a particular lesson or some other work addresses “The Four Intentions.”

Intention 1: Alignment (with our inner teacher)

In these days of aligning curricula, instruction, and language with performance standards, we offer, instead, as our primary teaching intention alignment with our highest purpose for teaching–that is, a focus on lifelong learning. This includes a reconnection with our original visions for our teaching selves and a reawakening of our loftiest visions for students as learners [emphasis added].  Staying true to the alignment intention means keeping our sights set on our long-term outcomes and the ways in which our instructional decisions can affect who children will grow up to become. The alignment intention is all about recognizing and action on our agency as teachers, and using this agency to empower students. To evaluate your work against the alignment intention, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does my inner teacher, my highest teaching self, feel safe (even happy) with this instructional choice? How do I know?
• How does this work/decision/lesson  show students their power as learners?
• Am I excited about this work/lesson? Why?

While flying through all parts of life by the seat of my pants for the last two years, I've lost some of the practices that make my inner teacher happy.  He isn't "lethargic or angry," but he is . . . uncomfortable.  Unsatisfied with his current performance.  I've let some things slide, and he doesn't like watching them slide.

So.  Here's what I'm going to do about it.

Build Better Relationships

Back when I was a second year teacher and struggling with classroom management, I began using conversation calendars (Tovani, 2004, p. 106-110) with my students - exit slips that allow me 15 to 30 second one-on-one conversations with each of my students.

In 2009, when I was only working half-time, it was no problem to go through 90 of these each afternoon.  With six classes, however, I need to set up a rotation through my classes, hitting two per week.  Logistically, this has been a little bit more than my toddler-fried brain could handle.  But I'm recommitting myself, setting reminder alarms on my phone if I need to, because the written conversations I have with students make a huge difference in my student-teacher relationships.

When I was a fourth-year teacher, I wrote and responded to student letters quarterly, asking students how the units of study went for them and what I could do as a teacher to help their learning.  Every year, I try to respond to letters my students write at the beginning of the school year where they tell me a little bit about themselves.  Lately, I've been getting through five in one class, maybe 20 in another, but in a majority of classes, zero.

I'm going to end first semester (February here in the Pacific Northwest) with teacher evaluations for my students to provide me feedback on how I can improve, and start second semester with letters from my students that I'll write one group letter back in response that explain my rationale for any disliked activities and address student suggestions.

Emphasize Proceedures

When I was a younger teacher, I was much more of a control freak.  Things had to be done a certain way.  If one student spoke out of turn, it felt chaotic to me.

Thankfully, I've mellowed², but I'm a little too far in the other direction.  It takes my juniors five minutes of reminders at the beginning of class to start their sustained silent reading.  Often, I have to threaten lunch detention in order to get everyone quietly reading.  That's silly.

I listed proceedures in my syllabus - the same ones I've had since my second year of teaching.  I just need to refresh my students on them, and start enforcing them.  (I haven't been.  At all.)

When entering the classroom: Get your materials from the filing cabinet in the room. Be in your seat with all your materials when the bell rings. When the bell rings, immediately and quietly begin the warm-up exercise.	When reading: Reading is thinking.  It is easier to think when it is silent and there are few distractions.  Do not talk when reading. When you do need to talk to the teacher or a partner, whisper. Fully focus on reading during silent reading time.
When writing: Writing is thinking.  It is easier to think when it is silent and there are few distractions.  Do not talk when writing. When you do need to talk to the teacher or a partner, whisper. Use the entire writing time working on writing.	When leaving the classroom: The teacher dismisses, not the bell. Leave your workspace cleaner than you found it and return all materials to the right place. When your workspace is clean, sit in your chair and wait to be dismissed. When dismissed, push your chair in if necessary. Turn in calendars and any other assignments on your way out the door.

Grade During Block Prep

This is my seventh year teaching, and I'm back at the school where I started my teaching career.  I work with a fantastic department and have a great administrator.  So this year I felt comfortable playing a role as a small, unnoticeable agent of change.  Most of them have to do with reading - posting student book reviews on a Twitter account other students can follow, creating and distributing book review index cards that sit in the back pocket of library books.

These small crusades³ are fun.  And often take place during my prep time.  And then I have a toddler at home.  Which means I've gotten behind on grading.  I even got a holiday card from a great student that encouraged me to have a nice break and enjoy the time off but also to grade her writing.

Thus my 88 minutes of Thursday prep⁴ shall find me at my desk, grading the papers that are so much less fun than crusades for changing school culture.  But feedback is important too, so I'll do it.  (And during my Monday prep, I'll make stickers with qr codes that lead to book trailers for the library TAs to put on books.  Bwahahaha!)


Footnotes
1. If it is, then I need to find a new job.  Go back.
2. It's all about the yoga.  Go back.
3. That only I am noticing and pretending is worthwhile, I'm sure.  Go back.
4. And weekend naps.  And evenings.  Go back.

The Best of Pedagogy in Practice

If you've come here because you're looking at my application to work in your school, I've put together this post with links to a few of my posts that I consider to contain my best thoughts on education.  Being push-button publishing, blogging doesn't always produce fully developed thoughts; however, I strive to publish my best reflections using this medium.  I hope you enjoy them, and thank you for your interest.

I hope my regular readers will enjoy this updated trip into the archives as well.  And now that summer vacation has started, look out, because I've got at least five drafts just screaming to see the light of day.

Why I Blog
It's About the Teaching

Reflections
Enthusiasm
A Conversation With My Wife
One Trick Pony

Reading
Explicit Reading Instruction
Teaching Reading: A Reflection and a Way Forward
Book Clubs
Multiple Intelligences of Teaching Poetry

Vocabulary
Rethinking Vocabulary Instruction
Semantic Mapping Website
Human Brain Cloud

Writing and Grammar
Giving Feedback
Correcting Writing Errors
Teaching Grammar

Classroom Management
Learning Students' Names
Disciplinary Interventions
Conversation Calendars

Assessment
Individual Formative Assessment with Graphs

Professional Development
Summer Reading 2011
Welcome OCTE Conference Colleagues
Readicide Book Review

General Pedagogy
Third Times a Charm: IEP Assignment
WebQuests Are So Cool!
IEPs for Every Student
Classroom Community Building

Blast from the Past: In Pentameter

I was digging thorugh some files in the basement today and came across a piece of paper with this sonnet on it, which I'd date from my student teaching days.

My students do not feel motivated:
She falls asleep, he stares and yawns and stares.
Sometimes I feel as if they are fated
To sit, quiet, apathetic in chairs.
I praise them, give them fun work to complete:
"Good job, Johnny!" "Keep working hard, Susan!"
But the enthusiasm fails.  'Tis feat
To win my students' hearts; I am losin'.
Yet just as a fair maiden requires
Specific commentary to be wooed,
Likewise learners will light their own fires
Of motivation and curious mood.
The difference 'tween Encouragement and praise
One is specific, one an empty phraise.

(Though, I'd say now, motivation is just a little more complex than that . . .)

Fun Fact: The other half of the paper this sonnet was found on contains ideas for a graphic novella about a mind reading super hero turned teacher who uses his powers to determine what would motivate his students until he's involved in a violent car crash and loses his abilities.

Ben 365/11

For those interested, I'm doing a photo-a-day blog with the camera I got for Christmas.

Pass / Fail Assignments

My wife recently started her masters of social work at Portland State University.  Her first major assignment was a paper connecting her bachelor's level experience and learning with what she has now begun at her master's level internship.  The paper is a pass / fail assignment (as is the class).

The result I see is that she is less stressed during the writing of this paper than she has been with her entrance essay, scholarship essays or any of the other countless pieces of writing she needed to complete to get accepted to the university.  The stakes were so much higher.

Since my wife is a member of the "new" or "knowledge class" (a term from one of her social work readings), she didn't cut corners on her paper.  I'm wondering what balance I would have to strike to get my student's best work and also offer this nerve-liberating form of grading for papers or assignments.  I could always ask students to revise specific pieces of a paper to get it to a passing grade, but at what point do students say "why bother, I'm never going to get it good enough for him to be happy."  And I can think of a few students who would cut every corner they could - some of them did it last year.  But then again, maybe they shouldn't have passed because of it.

Let Parents Know About Homework

I've been absent from posting over the last four months because I started teaching half-time at St. Helens High School in St. Helens, OR in addition to substituting at 12 districts in the Portland area.  How I'll continue blogging when I am teaching full-time is a mystery to me, but I'm hoping to make some posts over the next few weeks reflecting on my teaching since January thus far.

One successful strategy I've used is updating parents on student's homework assignments.  I created three blogs for each of my classes, although it's turned out one for each preparation would have been enough.  Sending home a letter at the beginning of the year, I offer to e-mail or text daily homework assignments to parents, keeping them in the loop so they can check up on their kid if they want.  Then I simply sign up parents for feed updates from the blogs using Feedburner for e-mail and Pingie for SMS.  Pingie will only forward the post title to the phone and give a shortened URL to the entire post, but at least parents will know whether their kid has homework or not.  Updating the blogs each day takes about five minutes total.

You may have noticed I also offered to contact parents weekly with grade updates for their students.  That takes significantly longer, and I question whether I will do it next year.  What I need is a grading program that offers automatic e-mailing or texting options, rather than requiring parents to log on to a website to check their child's grades.

My Philosophy of Education

On my first day of middle school, I wore my boy scout uniform.

To my innocent, sixth grade mind, this seemed like a logical idea.  In elementary school, I wore my scout uniform every Monday, because Monday was the day we had den meetings.  When I graduated from cub scouts to boy scouts in February of my fifth grade year, boy scout meetings continued on Monday.  So I continued to wear my uniform.

I liked wearing my uniform.  I was proud that I was in the boy scouts.  Proud that I knew how to camp outdoors, how to cook, how to use a map and compass.  Proud that the experiences I had were making me a better person, though maybe I wasn’t fully aware of it yet.

Wearing my boy scout uniform on the first day of middle school was probably one of the worst decisions I could have ever made.

Most teenagers know the detailed social rules and taboos of middle school culture would not permit the average student to wear a scout uniform, unless it could be construed as an anti-establishment statement.  Instead, I was embracing the massive organization and the recruitment visions of my scoutmaster by wearing my earthy tan uniform with its bright badges and neckerchief.  Unlike most teens, I had not yet learned those social rules.

I tried to be brave.  A week after that first day the initial pain had dulled and my resolve had hardened.  I wore my uniform again, thinking I or they would get used to it.  I told myself that I couldn’t be the target of their emotional insults or physical assaults forever. 

Eventually, however, I learned that the best way to avoid social conflict was to blend in, or better yet, disappear.  It wasn’t just wearing my uniform that taught me this.  But when I think of those first few days and wearing the uniform, it embodies that feeling of alienation I felt throughout middle school and struggled to overcome in high school before ultimately and finally defeating in college.

I teach to break down social barriers.  To linguistically redefine the common usage of “gay” as an individual’s sexual orientation, rather than the superlative opposite of cool.  To encourage the jock and the nerd to empathize with one another.  To put the Latina and the White girl in each other’s shoes.  To make the 6th grader in his earthy tan boy scout uniform feel that his individuality is valued and that his opinions and voice are an important contribution to his community and have the potential to change lives.  All this can happen in the books we read and the thoughts we write and the discussions and interactions we have as learners inside and outside of the classroom.

While the social aspect may be what drove me into pursuing education as a career, I have a commitment to my chosen profession that makes me yearn to do it exceptionally well.  Before studying education, I thought teaching was a simple mix of presenting information with enthusiasm.  Mr. Keating from Dead Poets’ Society was my idol.  When I took my first real education courses, I learned that while there is an art to teaching, there is a critical science that one cannot successfully teach without.

As the importance of pedagogy became central to my teaching, I began contributing to discussions with other educators online by writing my own blog and commenting on those of other educators.  Edublogging has become my personal form of professional development where I can reflect on my teaching ideas and receive constructive feedback from peers.  By writing about my thoughts on education, I’ve been able to process many of the methods I want to implement when I am a full-time classroom teacher.

Upon completing my college’s professional development program and graduating, I had had the opportunity to practice multiple intelligence theory, differentiated education, applied Bloom’s revised taxonomy, and other pedagogies in a number of classrooms in the middle and high school setting.  My wife and I had applied for the Peace Corps, and I taught as a substitute while waiting for an invitation to serve, expecting a chance to teach English in another county.  Instead, we were assigned to South Africa, where volunteers help to educate primary school teachers.  Although we accepted the invitation, I was terrified – I was supposed to “teach” educators who had been working for up to 30 years when I had just finished college.  What could I possibly teach these experienced instructors?

I arrived in South Africa to find that the majority of teachers received training from an Apartheid led government over 15 years ago.  Those educated after the end of Apartheid fell to a similar fate: they teach as they had been taught.  In a culture where age and experience is respected more than education, I had to be mindful of my youth and race, humble in my interactions with professionals who felt understandably vulnerable, and advocate for pedagogically sound methods.  I had to teach proven methods to the toughest of critics, which further solidified for me the importance of pedagogy and its practice.

I believe I can best continue to explore my philosophy of education in a school environment as a classroom teacher.  The coming of age social struggles drove me to education, but the study and implementation of pedagogy is what intrigues and sustains my love for it.

Bullied Then, Successful Now

I went to all the trouble to create a podcast in response to Clay's meme and only then, as I was browsing for the file over at Switchpod, remembered that in South Africa I don't really have the bandwidth or the speed to upload a 16 megabyte audio file.

This is the first meme I've participated in the two plus year's I've been writing here. I was never tagged, and I wasn't always sure readers would be interested. I understand part of the purpose of a meme is to let people know more about yourself. I guess since I don't write annoymously, I feel that there are some things about myself I don't share online. I don't know.

But Clay's meme has to do with the reason I teach.

I was a pretty cool kid in elementary school. Not because I listened to The New Kids on the Block or MC Hammer. I was the smart kid. If you and I were working on a project together, we were going to take out the trash.

I was so popular in fifth grade, I was even elected mayor of Ameritown. Each week we had a business professional come teach us how to fill out a checkbook and how much of your income should go to savings - basic capitalist education. It all culminated in a day at this simulated city in downtown Denver - Ameritown - where everyone had a job. There were police officers, bankers, a television studio, and city hall. And I was elected mayor.

My speeches are what won it for me. I used a famous line from one of Shakespeare's plays to lead each one. My first speech started something like "Friends, students, teachers, lend me your ears." I won the first round with that. I used another one in the final round, but I don't remember what it was. They made me sound smart enough to win though, everyone whispered "oh my, I believe that's Shakespeare, isn't it?" At least that's how I envisioned it. My inarrgural speech began "to be Ameritown, or not to be Ameritown?" before launching into a talk about how unbelieveable it was that we were there. In each of my speeches, Bill came to my aid.

Everything changed on my first day of middle school. There were about three others from elementary school joining me on yellow track at Mrachek Middle School. The rest were on different tracks (meaning somewhere else in the school or on vacation - I would never share any classes with them) or going to Aurora Middle School on the other side of town. All the friends I had were gone and I was back at square one.

On the first day, I made the crucial cultural fopah of wearing my Boy Scout uniform to school. Apparently what was cool at Tollgate Elementary did not fly at the bus stop.

Riding the bus was the worst. It picked us up at 7:00 outside Tollgate. Maybe it was the boy scout uniform from that first day, maybe it was because I didn't put up a fight, but I was the punching bag for a number of my fellow students.

It got so bad, I started walking an extra mile to ride another bus. One day, walking home, three of my old bus-mates stooped in waiting behind a parked car. One jumped up too early and I was able to run home by a back way. I don't know what I would have experienced if I hadn't been warned.

In class, I was belittled and harrassed. My grades dropped. And my reaction to all this was to put up walls around myself. I stopped answering questions in class. I stopped participating openly in group work. I didn't even try to make friends anymore.

After the worst three years of my life, my parents enrolled me in a private Cathoic high school. But I had learned my lesson. From the start I didn't do anything that put me at risk. I kept myself socially baracaded until junior year, when a really excellent retreat built enough community between myself and classmates that I started to open up again.

I saw college as a fresh start. In the first few months, young and idealistic, I rolled a trash can out in front of the student center and began collecting money for UNICEF. I held a giant sign that said "everytime the horn honks, a child dies" and distastefully squeezed a bike horn every 15 seconds. Some people thought I was combating abortion, and being on a politically charged college campus, some of the glares I got eventually deterred my efforts. But I raised $20 and $50 more when I did Trick or Treat for UNICEF in October. It was better than I expected.

In January of my freshman year I met my future wife, sitting directly behind me in a literature class. We ended up doing a lot of group work together and shared a poetry class next period. I had an assignment to read a poem for a class poetry slam. Choosing Shakespeare's sonnet 18, I read it with a little guitar accompaniment I composed myself. I made eye contact with Jennie at key moments in the poem. Of course, Ol' Bill didn't fail me then either.

Years later, a professor asked me why I was going to be a teacher, what was my philosophyof education. I told him I'm going back to middle school and I'm going to get my revenge. I will teach to help students discover the skills to create healthy social relationships. My first month in any classroom will be spent on community building. Before we go after parts of speech or young adult literature, very student will feel welcomed and safe - physically, mentally, and emotionally. And we won't fall behind in material. Because after that first month, we will be in the zone. We will learn together like a well oiled machine - we will each know each other on a level that we can discuss with respect, deliver deserved praise to each other, and admit a change in thinking without embarressment.

A Confession

I came to a realization this morning. (I know, such a dramatic opening, huh . . . I'll make a point about this later.)

Dana recommended Classroom 2.0 in this post, and I thought I'd check it out. I've been on a bit of a social networking binge lately - I've used Facebook for a while and just started using MySpace, and my brother created his competition site meetsoup.com (which I plugged for him briefly here).

When I first logged on, there was a big discussion going on regarding a post Miguel made on his blog regarding Classroom 2.0. At the risk of offending someone by attempting to sum up the debate, what I read into it was whether blogging or social networking sites were better.

I agree with you in part; it is definitely a good thing to have a support system of teachers who have a similar perspective on education, and who are interested in trying new things.

But I think it's also important to hear new ideas as well. This is something that can happen in a discussion, but reading blogs offers more of a shmorgish-board of ideas that can spark something new. I read about Classroom 2.0 on Dana's blog. I started thinking some more about by book clubs on Cindy's blog. And I rethought my entire approach to education on Karl's blog.

That being said, I can agree with some of the concerns about blogging posted here. I've been blogging since fall of 2006, and while that's one year less than Miguel, it gets distressing post after post without any readers or comments. Some would probably point out that I'd have more readers if I posted more often - but I'm not going to write to a brick wall either. I know I have some readers, but not enough to generate the kind of feedback that will help me really think about my teaching.

Anyway, I think Carolyn makes a good point above. If it's helpful, we'll use it. If it's not, we'll find something else.

It was around the second to last paragraph that I consciously realized what I've been doing unconsciously for the last two years: I started blogging because my professor Cindy brought in Bud as a guest speaker to talk about integrating technology with learning. It seemed like I better get on the boat or get left behind, if that makes sense. Blogging was a way for me to learn more about the leaps and bounds technology was taking, and join a community of educators who were thinking about their teaching openly. It was my own form of continuing education, something to help keep me honest.

I've been so concerned with the whole audience piece that I don't think I've been honest with myself (or my few readers). I've been so concerned with sounding like a good teacher and sounding smart (like that dorky, overly dramatic introduction). I've hesitated to blog about things because I'm not sure what others will think of them. I've gone back and read previous posts to try to decide if I'm being judged by them - if I feel that I am, I edit or delete them. I'm more concerned with appearances than with using the tool as I intended too. I don't speak genuinely all the time, only if I think people will approve of what I have to say.

I think I've been trying too hard and worrying too much about site visitors and getting comments. We all want approval, and bloggers thirst for comments. And we want to show our mentors that we've learned from them. We want their approval especially.

I want to know my writing is finding an audience - but I should write without being so conscious of the audience. Audience and purpose are important pieces in the writing process, but they shouldn't control every aspect of one's writing.

My point is that one finds the community one wants and needs to be apart of by being genuine. You can't choose the community first and try to fit into what you see as their mold. Maybe that's a benefit of Classroom 2.0 - the discussion decentralizes the conversation, whereas on a blog, my own writing is all you see when you first arrive at the site.

Blogging about the Peace Corps

For those interested in my personal, non-education related experiences in the Peace Corps, Jennie and I are blogging about them at http://bjsouthafrica.blogspot.com

Meet Soup . . . mmm, mmm, good.

My younger brother has just launched a website/project he's been working on while at college, and I think it's one that has some educational uses:

meetsoup is a site for making contests --- meets, if you will. You can make a meet that gives your friends a month to write poetry about fish, for instance, and let anyone and everyone judge your work. Or perhaps you want to enter a meet that tells you to, in six months, make a drawing only one inch square, that will be judged by an art critic. Or you could read short stories written in just five minutes, with no judging at all. You make the rules, you set the deadlines, you judge the results. It's a big old bowl full of all sorts of meets: it's meetsoup.

Here are my thoughts: writing workshop with classroom, grade level, school-wide, or district-wide, poetry, short story, and essay contests. This initial encouragement to enter in a school contest on meetsoup.com will lead students to other contests outside of the school with a potentially wider audience. Since their clever teacher did a unit on safety with technology and internet use, students could participate in those contests in a safe manner.

My other thought I've already started: educators can share lesson plans, with or without the judging session. I've already started a meet for educators to contribute their best sentence fragment mini-lesson. While sharing lesson plans, we might all get some ideas on how to enhance our teaching of a similar, or completely different lesson.

Hiring Teachers by Multiple Choice

I'm a little torqued off.

I received an e-mail today from Poudre School District, asking me to complete a survey by the Gallup Corporation as a step in the application/hiring process. I'm happy to take any steps they ask me to keep my application at an active status.

I was expecting some essay questions that one might be asked in person at an interview. Instead, I'm asked to answer somewhere around 50 multiple choice questions.

Is the teaching profession the best profession on the planet? [worded more eloquently]

a. Yes.
b. Teaching is one of a few noble professions.
c. All professions are equal - each one serves a purpose.
d. It depends on the professions being compared.

Is this supposed to show how dedicated I am to teaching? I have to think that I'm better than everybody else because I teach? I think teaching is pretty cool, but I don't have the authority to say it is the most noble profession of all.

I am always positive.

a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly disagree

I'm sorry, but human nature isn't going to allow me to be positive about everything, all the time. Yes, I'm going to be bummed out when a student fails - or when I fail a student. And I'm not going to blindly follow the decisions of administrators if I disagree with them. But yeah, I like to be positive and have a positive outlook in my work.

I like working with negative people.

a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly disagree

Oh, very clever. I feel great now.

I wish I had taken the time to copy some of the questions down, but since I was only allowed 15 seconds to respond, it's probably good that I didn't. What bothers me the most is that my abilities and attitudes as a teacher have been reduced to a multiple choice quiz. I don't get to ellaborate at all about why I might "break the rules so a student can achieve" or what rules those might be (district wide required reading lists). And yes, there are times I "don't like calling parents on the phone" - like the one who told me it was my fault his child was failing and that I should have called him sooner - but I do it anyway, and I continue calling that parent every Friday like they ask because I want my students to succeed. And yeah, sometimes "it is difficult for me to talk to new people" because I'm shy and a little bit of an introvert - but I force myself to open up and be louder and wilder and zanier because I'm a teacher and I have to and I want to. I want to be a good teacher and I'll do what is necessary to get there. Somebody in human resources is going to judge me by a multiple choice test that doesn't say anything about how I teach or what my philosophy is - but they're going to think it does.

Whew! Complain, complain. Doesn't he ever shut up?

I guess with the number of applications PSD probably gets, they need to narrow it down somehow. But I have half the mind to send them a letter of "disappointment."

(Gee, a lot of personal tagged posts recently. I'll finish my Glasser book and post something more pedagogical soon.)

A Little More Job Networking

I'm in the substitute teacher pool. If you're a teacher in Poudre School District or know one, I appreciate any recommendations you feel comfortable giving. My substitute id # is 5818841. I sub all grades in English, ESL, and social studies.

Some Job Networking

I doubt the few of you that read this will be able to do much, but I firmly believe that half of finding work is through networking.

I'm doing some tutoring in Fort Collins, if anyone out there is interested or knows someone who is interested.

In other news, I've just applied for a job at Lincoln Junior High School teaching (I think) remedial reading (my dream job at my dream school). Keep your fingers crossed for me.

First Day of School

Tomorrow is the first day of school for Poudre School District and CSU, here in Fort Collins.

I'm jealous of my peers who will begin new semesters tomorrow, who have developed lesson plans and are ready to meet their new students. I'm having my own little pity party, wishing I had another chance to teach in a classroom, even student teach again.

Instead, I'll be returning to school tomorrow to take a linguistics/grammar class that was so boring last year that I skipped class. Numerous times. So, granted, it is my fault I'm where I'm at. But if I understand the material, should I have to go a listen to a professor read the chapter we read for homework? As an educator, isn't part of my job to make my students want to come to class? Shouldn't I want to make my class an enthralling and exciting place?

So I'm stuck putting off my career for another year, and working as a marketing assistant for a travel company. Yuck.

I can critique my college professors all I want. But, I have no one to blame but myself.

What I Do Now

I don't usually write about my life outside of education in this blog. But then, I haven't had much of a life outside of student teaching until this summer. I had hoped to keep up with my education by doing a podcast each week, but as you can see that didn't make it very far.

I just started a new job as a marketing assistant for Exito Travel. Definitely not something I ever thought I'd be doing. But it's a good job for the next year since I have to go back for one more class in the fall before Jennie (my spouse) and I head off to Africa with the Peace Corps next May. I've also been doing a lot of work with some friends starting a local chapter for the ONE Campaign.

Since finishing up student teaching I've had some time to think about the semester and what I learned a little more in depth. The majority of my students really didn't like me very much at all. I left Boltz with some nasty notes in the giant all class thank you cards. I did have one student who I had worked some with who said she had never gotten an A in English before my class. That made up for all the other notes.

Nancy Beauprez is an amazing teacher. Seriously, she is incredible. Watching her during my last week I was able to see all the things she was doing with the students and all the dynamics and how she dealt with them. A big part of me wishes I hadn't been so gun-ho! at the beginning and could have watched her for a while before I started teaching, but I also realize that I wouldn't have gotten to know the students and wouldn't have noticed the way she dealt with all the dynamics.

I also think maybe I wasn't true to the kind of teacher I am, even though that is still developing. It's interesting, I am a totally different teacher when the "real" teacher is in the classroom and when I'm "in charge." It's like I think I have to completely change my persona when I'm alone with the students. I think maybe the discipline scares me or something, or maybe I'm just trying too hard to be the kind of teachers I've had in the past. But it's definitely something I have to be mindful of in the future.

I think a lot of us student teachers, or at least me, get real psyched about getting into the field and we've been in school for four years and we think we know all our pedagogy and all this awesome theory and we're going to go out there and take out the trash. And then we do get out there and reality hits and we really don't know hardly as much as we thought. It's kind of heartbreaking in a way. A real innocence to experience archetype.

But here's a thought. Instead of Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs, maybe a network should make a show about student teachers. It's pretty much the same thing, students practicing in the field. Just without the extra 8 years of school and all the drama of hospitals (but I've been in hospitals, and personally, I think the classroom has way more drama).

About Pedagogy in Practice

My name is Ben Bleckley and I am a teacher. I have a spouse of 12 years, Jennie, a seven-year-old, Fletcher, and a four-year-old, Alder.

I started this blog as an English education student at Colorado State University in 2005. My initial goals were to learn more about educational technology and its use in the classroom. It has evolved to become my own form of professional development; writing and reading education blogs makes me a better teacher. My purpose on this blog now is to write about the science of teaching English language arts.

In spring 2006 I taught eighth-grade English and seventh-grade study skills at Boltz Junior High School in Fort Collins, Colorado as a student-teacher. I returned to school in the fall to complete a linguistics class. In spring 2007 I was a substitute teacher in grades K-12 for Poudre School District.


In July 2007 I departed for South Africa where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Schools and Community Resources Project. I helped teachers implement the government's Outcomes Based Education and Revised National Curriculum Statement, improve classroom management and instruction, and share American culture with South Africans.  In other words, I played soccer, ultimate, or blob tag [pictured] with a bunch of kids every Saturday.  You can read more about the projects Jennie and I completed at our Peace Corps blog, Jennie and Ben's Excellent Adventure.

During the 2008-2009 school year I was a temporary language arts teacher at St. Helens High School in St. Helens, Oregon, about 30 miles north of Portland along the Columbia River. I taught 9th grade language arts and 11th grade American literature half-time and continued to substitute in Portland area districts for all subjects and grade levels.

In the 2009-2010 school year I taught a literacy workshop course at St. Helens High School to incoming freshmen for three periods each morning and began my graduate degree in education and reading at Portland State University.  I taught for six years total in St. Helens School District, with brief stints at Health and Science School in Beaverton, Oregon and Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon.  While I've taught language arts in all of these schools, I have also taught reading intervention in many.

To be closer to family, we moved to Colorado in the summer of 2016 and I worked for a year at Lake International School in Denver.  Since 2017, I have been working as a 9th grade language arts and reading teacher at Lakewood High School.

Thank you for visiting Pedagogy in Practice. I appreciate your readership and your comments. Feel free to send me an e-mail at benbleckley [at] gmail.com, follow me on Twitter, or be my friend on Facebook or Plurk.

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