Will a spoonful of sugar help?

I suppose today could be characterized as a small dose of my own medicine. Amber and I began our training today offering the same professional development agenda to a new group, the General Union of Teaching and Educational Professionals (GUTEP).

Our first day with our new group today was a little more raucous. I felt a little more like I was teaching 7th grade again because there were many points where adults from every corner of the room were vying for our interpreter’s questions, so he could not focus on any one of them let alone us. That classroom management issue was only part of our struggle, however. There were also lots of experts in the room who raised their hand for the floor to expound on what they had learned in their last graduate class. Folks who listened to our ideas and then spent a considerable amount of energy coming up with reasons for why it couldn't be done in their classrooms rather than brainstorming how they might actually apply the idea. We even got the classic “Do I have to work with this group?” which, trust me, translates without interpretation even through a veil. Of course, none of these behaviors are exclusive to Yemen. All of them deserve diagnosing and some of them even deserve ownership.

I intend to own some of this professional development misbehavior because I believe my students were telling me something. They were struggling in various places to connect to our agenda and to see how it is relevant to their professional lives. I made a classic teaching mistake. I didn’t differentiate my agenda and I did not take their place along the learning continuum into account when planning this agenda. The agenda that was like a hot knife through butter for last week’s group (because it hit their zone of proximal development I would guess) fizzled out a bit on the first day because their needs hadn’t been assessed beforehand.

We had been told (as those professional developers who are flown in from afar often are) that the assessment of what these teachers needed had already been done and they just needed us to deliver the content of what was needed. We just needed to develop a five day training on classroom management, interactive direct instruction, time on task, and (whew) teacher praise to deliver to 2 different groups. Well, like the oldest definition of accountability in the book, no one knows a lesson is bombing faster than a teacher 2 minutes into class with 30 pairs of eyes looking to be simultaneously educated and entertained and feeling like they are getting neither education nor entertainment.

Amber and I scrambled to retool during both of our breaks and we worked through tonight for tomorrow’s lesson, but we are left second-guessing whether this group is getting what it needs from us. Right now we will just have to create more of a connection at the beginning of each lesson when we assess their prior knowledge. We will have to scaffold a little more critically. I don’t think our agenda is fatal and I have confidence that we can salvage meaningful and relevant learning for these students.

I know I will have fresh appreciation for those emailed agendas of professional development days and comments at membership meetings from the members of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers. Additionally, if every experience, good or bad, is supposed to teach you something, I will make sure that this experience teaches me how to be an even better advocate for high-quality, meaningful professional development. Ultimately, for the members of SPFT that is going to include better contract language. Immediately, for the GUTEP teachers, that is just going to mean a little more work on my part. In the most delightful way.

What would we do if we knew we would not fail?

I have that phrase on some paper weight in my house. I bought it because I love the line it draws in the sand. It challenges me to be daring, creative, a little courageous everyday. I know that I am not daring, creative, or courageous everyday. Although, it’s a great day when I find out exactly what I cannot fail at. Union work is about knowing when to pick that fight and knowing when to save your energy for the fight you are going to have to pick. Union work is also about reacting to a fight that gets picked with you. Union work is knowing when to stand in solidarity with someone and knowing when to ask for help.

I didn’t start this summer thinking I was going to Yemen, that I would need to actively defend the Employee Free Choice Act, or that I would get so fed up as to wash my hands of any remnant of No Child Left Behind at all. I did know that I was going to spend the summer connecting members with each other and our national affiliates. I knew I was going to make our ambitious professional development goals a reality. I knew I was going to spend time building our union’s ability to endorse and campaign for key state house seats, Al Franken, and Barack Obama.

As full as that plate is for the summer, I think the St. Paul Federation of Teachers has just begun to uncover our potential to answer that question collectively.

Tomorrow, Amber Prentice and I are going to lead the official Yemeni teacher’s union (GUTEP) through a series of exercises that evolve from “What are some common concerns facing your teachers?” through “How can this professional development class help your union?” We hope we have set up the time to be transformative and to bring them a perspective on union work we have been told that they’ve never had. In essence, we are asking them to name what they would do if they knew they would not fail.

Professional development is a union’s work and it is impossible for us to fail at it. We have the talent, the tenacity, and the collective strength within our ranks to set up powerful learning communities because a union already is a professional learning community.

Which leads me to ask the members of SPFT, what else would we do if we knew we would not fail?

I’m looking forward to hearing your answers.

A Note to Yemeni School Teachers:

Seeing the culmination of your efforts today in your professional development presentations and plans was inspiring. I want you to know that you have much in common with teachers in St. Paul.

• You attend professional development and get excited about new ideas despite persistently large class sizes.
• You are eager to share ideas with your colleagues despite a demoralizing lack of safe and healthy buildings.
• You are eager to learn new ideas from your colleagues despite crippling financial shortages in education.
• You are not afraid of accountability despite administrative favoritism, student threats, and parental influence.
• You belong to your union and you look for ways that you can work as a union member to improve your working conditions and student learning conditions.
• You have entered the profession to make a difference to your community and the future of your country or as a way of giving back for what opportunities your community or country gave you.

I look forward to the day when I can introduce you to St. Paul teachers, and in solidarity, we can work together.

A Note to St. Paul Public School Teachers:

After reading a few emails from teachers about AYP scores and/or the coverage that came from them, I am compelled to talk about this measurement system. These scores are designed to fail more and more schools. They are not designed to be encouraging to anyone.

That is what leads good people to say things like “We'll have to do more faster,” as an apology for the gains that students of St. Paul Public Schools made as not being large enough. Just as an FYI, we’ll be doing more faster with less money. We’ll be doing more faster with fewer educational assistants. We’ll be doing more faster with fewer social workers. We’ll be doing more faster with some of the lowest morale these buildings have ever seen.

Our students will be doing more faster with less physical education, less music, and less art. Our students will be doing more faster with fewer properly licensed library media specialists and less library time. Our students will be doing more faster with fewer enrichment opportunities.

Designing a measurement system with 16 ways to fail and only one to succeed, with an artificially chosen end date, with mandatory implementation but optional and capricious funding is malpractice. We need to recognize this is a measurement system that was designed to kill public education.

Admitting anything else is educational Stockholm Syndrome.

Don’t forget to put “red cape” on your school supply list. Last time I saw someone do this much more faster he was battling Lex Luthor.

Measuring Progress

Today Adequate Yearly Progress(AYP) data was published for schools in St. Paul and across Minnesota, but that doesn’t tell the story of student learning. Unfortunately the scores that get reported are rather capricious, snapshots of a day. Many people will fret over these scores nonetheless, but I will focus on some encouraging news coming out of Ohio State University. It seems researchers there have studied a value-added way of measuring student learning that is promising and relevant to what matters in education. (www.plaind.com -for the archived story- Ohio State University researchers' study suggests new way of measuring school quality, by Scott Stephens)

While their study measurement is still intensively test-based, their rationale is student based. Test a student at the beginning of the year and test them at the end of the year. The end of the year measurement is then used to determine how well that school year went. When the student returns the next fall, the beginning of the school year test will be used to measure student learning over the summer or flag any student loss of learning over the summer so it can be corrected as soon as possible. This could be powerful information to a teacher just starting with the student in organizing group work, individualized instruction, and enrichment opportunities.

The test scores published today don't deserve the word adequate. Unless you like to punish people, then I suppose it is adequate.

Progress

Must of the time the statistics and situations I find in Yemen cause me to stagger a bit. The unemployment rate, literacy, lack of access to education for girls, but today I came across something that gave me perspective.

As it often does, this perspective made me very hopeful, in this case for the future of Yemen.

I was reading the August 2nd edition of the Yemen Observer, a weekly English language newspaper here, (www.yobserver.com or for the Arabic version try www.yemenobserver.net) and the front page story was about President Saleh using the occasion of celebrating a national college graduation to call for more education reform. I could have stopped at that headline, just assuming I could have written the article myself considering the plethora of ‘education reform’ headlines that have come and gone in the United States in the last 10 years. However, I’m glad I kept reading on.

Yemeni reporter Mohammed al-Kibsi quoted some fairly encouraging statistics. The president had said “that 46 years ago there was not even a single university in Yemen and that only a few people” even finished a high school program. The university graduation ceremony President Saleh presided over had 28,400 graduates just in 2008. Yemen now counts over 240,000 university graduates in their country. Up from zero 46 years ago. They now have 8 universities in Yemen, when 46 years ago they didn’t have any.

Yemen is still direly short of trained teachers. Girls are still dropping out of school at rates that should make all of us blush with shame. There is still a critical fresh water supply problem, but it was good to take a minute to celebrate this progress for Yemen.

As we have a habit of saying when we see good data, this is trending in the right direction. Yemen has an opportunity to set an ambitious goal of college access for everyone within the next generation. Maybe we can even be successful enough with our work in St. Paul to show them how it’s done.

Arabic Numbers

Maybe this is a question more for my dad than my blog in general, but here goes. Why was I taught when I was little that the numbers we most commonly use in the United States are called Arabic numbers?

Our numbers look not much at all like Arabic numbers and yet, I grew up calling them Arabic numbers.

Yesterday, Amber and I did, what we thought, was an extremely easy addition assignment of 8+8 just so we could demonstrate how to use some note cards as manipulatives to report answers. When we asked the teachers to hold up their answers, some held up 16, because, well that’s the right answer and, they wrote it in numbers that are commonly used in English. Many others held up what looked like 17 because they used Arabic numbers and the Arabic 6 looks like a 7. So these teachers had the numbers right, but as Amber looked around she started commenting that “some of you have the right answer of 16, but for those groups that have 17…” and I stopped her before the translation to say, “No, wait! Those are Arabic numbers Amber.” It only took her a second to recognize immediately what I meant.

Whew! Potential misunderstanding averted and yet the story is not quite over.

As I was talking about the incident to my interpreter Hallid today, explaining that the numbers I grew up calling Arabic sure don’t look Arabic at all, he told me that they also call the numbers we commonly use Arabic numbers and they call their numbers “Indian numbers.”

What?!

There is either a fascinating numeric-linguistic explanation for this or he is just pulling my leg. I’m not ruling either one out yet.

PD 101

Unmistakably, if you read on, I am a little rusty at both my professional development planning as well as my cultural competency.

This morning Amber and I launched into our first day of professional development with teachers from the Yemeni Teachers Syndicate and I completely forgot to do the most basic PD opening of all time: announcing where to find the bathrooms, where to get coffee, and … where to take your prayer break.

Now I may get sanctioned by the National Staff Development Association, lose a draft pick, maybe have to pay a fine, for the omission of the bathroom location because being out of practice is no excuse I am sure, but the prayer break was complete rookie cultural literacy. Especially for someone who went to sleep the night before so pleased that she had set up a TIME, from 12:20 to 12:40, in the agenda for a prayer break.

So there we are at about 12:16 and the call goes off. I can clearly hear it inside the Hotel Sana’a. I am scribing for Amber and the translator is speaking for her, so there is a lot going on in the room when I try to get her attention. When I get it, I ask both she and the interpreter simultaneously “Should we just quit here until the break is over?” Something gets lost in the request momentarily and the interpreter tells us just to finish, at which point Amber and I both ask “Are you sure?” and his eyes get very large as he says “No, no, no, no, no let’s break here and then we will come back.”

Whew. I think we are back on the right track when I notice that everyone is getting up to leave but they are looking around.

Ack!!!

Of course men and women don’t pray together and we didn’t designate where each group should go during this break. Someone more with-it than me settles the matter quickly in Arabic and just like that we are in an empty room and I’m feeling somewhere just south of Rookie of the Year.

What teachers talk about

Here is a summer quiz just to keep you sharp. Read the following list and determine if it was generated by:

A. St. Paul teachers, or
B. Yemeni teachers

When teachers have time to talk to one another, what do they talk about wanting to improve about teaching?
Crowded classrooms
Too much noise in the classroom
Discouraging environment inside and out
No ventilation, no lighting
Village schools have many different grade levels in the same room
Students drop out
Deficient curriculum
Lack of audio-visual aides
Weakness of some teacher’s performance
School buildings not suitable for teaching
Girls dropping out
Lack of modern technology
Syllabus much more rigorous than student ability
Students getting absentminded (day dreaming) in the afternoon
Lack of classroom space in villages so students study under trees
Students not interested in studies
Principals sometimes act like dictators with teachers
The new syllabus is not always suitable for teaching techniques needed in training
Scientific mistakes in books
Financial problems
Problems between teachers and principals and sometimes parents
Some teachers lack effective methods to hold student attention
Teacher training programs are inadequate
Social workers in some schools who don’t do anything
Families do not stress the importance of school
No specialization in some subjects
Some basic subjects in 1st-6th grade are too difficult
Lack of communication between school and family
The phenomenon of cheating
Some teachers interested in subject matter but don’t take responsibility to teach behavior
Syllabus not provided at the beginning of the school year
Teachers don’t do any professional development
Some colleagues spend a lot of time talking about negative things with nothing positive to say ever
Lack of access to teacher manuals—not given to the teacher
Some teachers are assigned to teach subjects that are not their specialty
School management does not cooperate with teachers; they interfere with a teacher’s work with students
Students fail, an influential person comes to school and the student is suddenly passing
School management deals with teachers according to political affiliation

If you picked “B. Yemeni teachers” you were right! You pass with honors if you used the testing strategies of context clues (the word “village”) and prior knowledge (knowing I am in Yemen) to choose the answer without even reading the passage carefully.

Of course, as I discussed with leaders and members of the Yemeni Teachers Syndicate today, it is easy to complain about our jobs. However, it is courageous and incumbent upon the richness of our union history to do something about it. That is exactly what each one of us can do as the voice of our union in our buildings, in our departments or grade levels, and in our district. We may not have every problem on this list, but each one of us can find one that we do recognize AND that we can collectively work to improve, whether it is 3 of us speaking up at a faculty meeting or 3000 of us standing up for each other.

Each act we carry out that improves our profession and the learning experience of our students makes us powerful.

Shoe Horn Professional Development

When the AFT trainers came out this past winter to ascertain what would be beneficial to the Yemeni teachers, a 7 day training was put together. As usual, money—not the needs of teachers—became a central issue and so we have that 7 day training pared down to 5 days. As we were going over the agenda with an official from the Ministry of Education who works with the Yemeni Teachers Syndicate he asked, “Isn’t this a lot of material to teach them in 5 days?” and so the realities of professional development cannot be escaped no matter where we are.

As someone who guides the budget for our union, I understand and have a healthy respect for budgeting, saving money, and offering the best quality for the value in all areas. However, we must very, very soon draw a line in the sand for low budget professional development with high stakes expectations.

If there are clear expectations for what teachers should know in order to start a year, or start the profession for that matter, in order to meet the needs of our students in the 21st century, why are we continually forced to cram them into 19th and 20th century school years and school days? Why are there corners cut in professional development but the same mile-long expectations and accountability?

Let’s leave the expectations and accountability alone for now, but let’s stop shoe-horning in an hour of mining test data here, and 54 minutes of professional conversations there. Our union needs to lead the conversation around a professional day and year that allows us to do our jobs and meet the needs of our students, allows us to talk to each other regularly and not on the way to the bathroom or just before basketball practice, allows us to build relationships with students in meaningful ways (another day I will talk about the lunacy of “fresh-starting” teachers in our most vulnerable schools), and allows us at the end of the day to feel that we had the professional voice to shape the day and year we have because we are the professionals who understand how to meet the needs of our students.

Some people might call that ideal; I want to call that reality. In St. Paul, and hopefully someday here in Yemen, too.