The Line

Not PBS, but rather this.

I mentioned it in my last post, stating (prematurely, as it turns out) that I was going to join the committee to help implement this program in our building next fall. After doing some reading on the website, though, I sent this email to our vice-principal today.

Thanks for being so thoughtful and generous with your time and information regarding PBIS. Unfortunately I have to go with my gut on this one and decline participation, for a couple of reasons.

First, in looking closely at the PBIS website, it’s clear the research-based evidence supporting the efficacy of this model is in its infancy. I’m quoting the PBIS documentation verbatim there. (On a side note, I mistrust how the site creators have buried this actual fact such that you have to sift through several webpages and a 16-page Word document to figure it out.)

Secondly, exactly because the model is not yet supported by robust research, it is my strong feeling that it’s going to be very important to our higher-ups to do it “by the book,” without modification. And as you know from our conversation, my own research reading on democratic schooling and intrinsic motivation leads me to believe that significant modification is already called for in PBIS in order for it to work in the long term. In otherwords I’m not convinced that any suggestions to change or examine the implementation of PBIS from a critical perspective will be supported by the district.

I wish you the best of luck. There’s many positive aspects to the program and I hope they play out. I will do my best to support them as a teacher in the building.

Sincerely,

Dina

I hope I’m being pessimistic, reactionary, and ill-informed. I really do. Anyone out there willing to comment on this program or his/her experiences with it?

And is it too soon to start talking about next year? Man. I must be a teacher.

09-10: A diverse sparkling range of challenges and opportunities, including our team’s first four high *high* needs special education students, a passel of Beginner English Language Learners, the second half of blogging at ASCD, a Literacy Coach and new E/LA director who fully support the workshop approach I’ve been hiding for the past two years (and hopefully no longer, right, Doug?)… and a new building culture program for which I’ve been recruited. (We’ll see about that last one. I’m joining the committee to be the Pain in the Ass about insuring kid presence and the Voice for Intrinsic Motivation.)

But for now, looking forward to a quiet summer, for once, pulling my pieces together and nestling into family, friends, berry-picking and coddled tomatoes.

Thanks to the readers as always for making this blog such an amazingly rich part of my professional life. If you had told me last year that I’d have over 100 people out there in the world consuming my musings about education, I truly would have laughed. But today, I’m just grateful.

We had two stellar musicians in to play Civil War-era bluegrass music for our kids today. I sat in on two tunes– a privilege.

Halfway through a soft, sweet piece on mandolin and banjo, our math teacher taps me on the shoulder and shows me that our two worst-behaved boys, whose home lives are wrecks, who scatter their wound-up energy and baggage through every school day– both these boys had succumbed to the peace of the music, and fallen fast, sound asleep.

Not to put too fine a point on it. Nancie doesn’t have a desk in her classroom (as I have tried to emulate this year, with limited success). She treats this fact as a sign of how a classroom space should be devoted entirely to kids.

Her books, while brilliant and not intended as word-for-word teaching manuals, cannot escape this certain didactic tone. As with most publications by hero teachers, their own particular circumstances are meticulously documented– but not with nearly enough discussion as to how their recommendations might be modified to work in other situations. That’s left to the rare educator who recognizes right off the bat that such teaching manuals are not, and never will be, magic bullets. (I’m not one of them.)

The classroom should belong to the children 100%? As it should be, Nancie, as it should be. Only one problem, though. I didn’t found the school I am in. How’s that office space of yours? I’m sure it’s gorgeous. Plants, Persian rug, dedicated phone line, lots of shelf space for your laptop, files, teaching references, and student records?

I thought so.

Enjoy. I’m proud of this one.

Tom Hoffman sent me a link to the Finn’s national standards for education in response to a post I put up recently about searching for higher purpose in English. I didn’t even get to the Finn language arts standards. I arrested on five pages describing “cross-curricular themes” that apply across all disciplines in Finland. These themes are clarified, in the most firm language, before anything at all related to specific curriculum is addressed.

I’ll just quote some of them here. They are verbatim: 60% of Finnish adults are English-literate. Read these. Take some time to ponder them. Chew on them.

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The need and desire of students for life-long learning must be reinforced.

Cooperation, interaction and communication skills must be developed by means of different forms of collaborative learning.

Upper secondary schools must develop students’ abilities to recognize and deal with ethical issues involving communities and individuals.

Education must help students recognize their personal uniqueness.

Education must stimulate students to engage in artistic activities, to participate in artistic and cultural life, and to adopt lifestyles that promote health and well-being.

Students will be capable of facing the challenges presented by the changing world in a flexible manner, be familiar with means of influence, and possess the will and courage to take action.

An upper secondary school community must create prerequisites for experiencing inclusion, reciprocal support and justice. These are important sources of joy in life.

Human beings must learn how to adapt to the conditions of nature and the limits set by global sustainability.

Upper secondary schools must reinforce students’ positive cultural identity and knowledge of cultures.

Technology is based on knowledge of the laws of nature.

Students will observe and critically analyze the relationship between the world as described by media, and reality.

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I feel as if I have been handed something which, in this climate of national standards development, needs to be on Arne Duncan’s desk tomorrow, and I’m going to be messing around with my blog and personal contacts to see how far I can get with this ridiculous and lofty goal. Suggestions, comments, forwards, and general publicity from readers would be most welcome.

The whole Finnish document can be found here.

The Baltimore Sun characterizes the four rogue states who are not on board with national standards, tantalizingly, as “more conservative.” True? Not true? How true? I shot an email this morning to Alaskan longtime amazing educator Doug Noon, blogging at the New York Times and Borderland. He writes this in response:

There’s a sentiment in Alaska - people say this - we don’t give a damn how they do it Outside. If you’ve read John McPhee’s Coming Into the Country you’d know that ‘Outside’ is anywhere other than Here. It’s provincialism, pure and simple. But in a place populated by a rag-tag assortment of transplanted end-of-the-roaders and a loose confederation of indigenous people who’ve endured a long, sad (and continuing!) colonial experience, the one thing we can agree on is that we won’t agree on much. Seriously,  the practical challenges of daily living encourage duct-tape innovations, and we’re skeptical about any set of ready-made solutions.

Provincialism may be in play, but it also strikes me as, potentially, an authentic return to the real meaning of conservatism. Not something I subscribe to 100% of the time, but nevertheless– a necessary corrective to the bandwagon feel of national standards? I’m not prepared to say no.

I can’t find them. I’ve looked everywhere. New York State English standards kind of get there, but not really. National Council of Teachers of English doesn’t do much better. They focus on means. I want to know what the END is. Why do we make our kids sit there and cram language, from the alphabet to iambic pentameter, down their throats? Who is talking about this in our schools?

I am.

Try these on. They’re rough and raw, and the more feedback I get on them, the better.

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1) We read and write to satisfy our basic needs: to survive.

2) We read and write to explore our universe: to reflect upon our past; to compare, refine, and imagine ideas in the present; to dream and hope for the future.

3) We read and write to think critically: to understand the sources of ideas, their influences, and their intent.

4) We read and write to communicate: to document our experience in and with the world; to foster compassion and understanding for that experience; and to participate fully in the community of human beings.

5) We read and write to act: to challenge, change, and improve our world.

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A last note: Deb Meier teaches her students via a framework of the Five Habits of Mind: Evidence, Viewpoint, Conjecture, Connections, and Relevance. I think I’ve hit all of those in the proposed Big Ideas above, but…?

What have I missed? What needs elucidating? Comment, comment, comment.

I’d rather read this series in the Christian Science Monitor than cute but ill-informed pieces by pseudo-scientists. (Don’t get me wrong, though– I love Malcolm Gladwell’s books.)

Just gorgeous. I always fall for good interpretations of old classics. Probably why I liked JJ Abrams’ Star Trek so much.