New Teachers

Posted on August 24, 2012 by sutterlearn

Being a new elementary teacher is quite possibly the most unsettling experience known to man (at least to this man) to such extent I cannot find a universal metaphor.  It is a total body insult.  Your self-confidence takes a hit, partially because the ideals you bring into your first classroom end up meeting reality and you feel like you’ve fallen short of your own expectations.  Your body fatigues from floor-to-feet transitions, temperature extremes, and bladder endurance tests.  Your mind tires from reading new material and figuring out how you will present someone else’s work.  Your emotions are rubbed raw by the perceived distance between your friends and loved ones and the consuming school world where there is always something to do.

I recall these feelings of inadequacy, irritation, striving to succeed, while feeling like I must be moving quite in the opposite direction, daily.  I have seen them manifesting in teachers working super-humanly hard to succeed for kids.  A new teacher, regardless of his or her age or prior experience, is bursting with creative ideas, innovations, and improvements, tempered by caution and awareness of one’s own naivety.

New teachers are not alone, though it often feels like it.  Surely there is a professional responsibility that comes with such a steep learning curve.  If you’re going to make it, you must put in the learning that softens that curve.  At the same time, colleagues with further experience have a professional responsibility to help navigate the treacherous waters of a new classroom, curriculum, or district.  Across the 50% turnover rate of new teachers within their first five years one of the primary reasons for this exodus, as cited by the new teachers leaving, is inadequate support by administrators (Ingersoll, 2003).  To me, this should not be an indictment of administrators, but further presses a case for all school staff to surround, embrace, and acknowledge new teachers’ concerns and challenges.  There is a profound difference in the supportive response of, “I know this is hard, but do your best…we all had to go through it.”  and, “I know this is hard, but let’s find one thing you’re going to nail…we all are getting better together.”

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Ingersoll, R. (2003). Is there really a teacher shortage? Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, Consortium for Policy Research in Education.

Posted in Coaching, Leadership, Teachers | 1 Comment

What I Did Last Summer

Posted on August 24, 2012 by sutterlearn

What a cliché title, eh?  I’m not a fan of the long summer breaks in this profession, probably because I’ve heard so much ridiculous commentary from friends who work less and earn more about “lazy teachers who only work nine months”.  If they only knew we squeeze 13 months of labor into that nine months of the calendar, but this summer was rich for me.  In July, I completely turned off the school machine for the first time since I started teaching.  I traveled.  I renovated my house.  I reunited with my guitars.  I had lots of ice cream.  And, I did most of these things with my family.  One of the most valuable parts of this summer was intently observing my children, realizing what dynamic people they are becoming.

My son, the inventor, got on a Bigfoot kick and read every book he could find on the creature.  I thrilled at watching him build traps in the yard, learning how tools work, and ultimately deciding to just build the menace himself, which resulted in a 12 foot tall stick figure from scraps of wood painted brown.  Bigfoot will stand proudly in my backyard to remind me of the glory of long summer days and the freedom of creation.

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Please, share with me something that moved you this summer or reminded you to live fully.

Posted in Parenting, Teachers | 4 Comments

CREACTIVE

Posted on June 3, 2012 by sutterlearn

I’ve spent years reading leadership books, articles, allegories, and parables about the virtues of “laser-like focus”, “courageous conversations”, and “unapologetic direction”.  I like getting pumped up by such inspiring clichés.  It seems part of our animal spirit that the strong and unwaivering receive the fellowship of followers.

The more I’ve thought about it, however, we are headed in an unapologetic direction with laser-like focus into times that require courage, but not just in conversation.  The times we’re headed into require the type of leadership that great teachers exhibit every day.

Miriam-Webster defines it as these:

Proactive – adjective relating to, caused by, or being interference between previous learning and the recall or performance of later learning

Hundreds of times each day, plans change, new questions arise, decisions must be made by teachers who more times than not foresee and adjust in advance.

Creative – adjective marked by the ability or power to create

Just as often as we must be proactive, resources are continually reduced and we must create new direction, alternatives, sometimes even our own luck.
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Try as we may, the future is complex and uncertain.  We can’t be prepared for everything so we must take the hand we’re dealt and make it better, or make the best.

Reflective – adjective marked by reflection: thoughtful, deliberative

Regardless of our circumstances, none of us can lead if we are unable or unwilling to learn from our circumstances.

Put all of these together and I’d like to introduce my newly coined term, CREACTIVE, to describe the type of leadership we need.  The good news, my teacher friends, is that creactive leadership is within each of us already and the time has come for us to use this trait to let our voices be heard, to own and shape the future learning environments for our kids!

Posted in Coaching, Leadership, Teachers | 1 Comment

Professional Learning Conception #8 – Creation

Posted on June 3, 2012 by sutterlearn

For the final post in my series on Professional Learning Conceptions, I want to echo off of the first one (Professional Learning Conception #1 – Managing Curriculum) where I wrote of either massaging a purchased curriculum into instructional shape or writing personalized curriculum for your team.  True professional learning demands that we ascend from Bloom’s basement to sophisticated synthesis and evaluation of our work and that of our students.  When I speak of “creation” as professional learning, it is not standing at the copier with your binder of blackline masters, changing bulletin boards, or running the scissors through miles of laminate.

Consider this:  Your team is facing some new requirements, perhaps different standards than you’ve previously taught, or maybe new content to your grade level or course.  There is evidence that change is needed.  You may need to revise assessments and rubrics so that you can collect appropriate data to see if your kids are “getting it”.  It could mean that you need a way to analyze the data more succinctly, such as redesigning your gradebook or spreadsheet to provide more accurate and instantaneous reflections of student achievement.  Perhaps the team uncovered an enduring learning from a recent lesson study (see Professional Learning Conception #6 – Lesson Study) that requires revision to instructional processes in future units. It might just be that you need to identify text from the library that better support your students’ learning.  Those books don’t read themselves and doing it alone nearly guarantees inefficiency for your purposes of gathering multiple sources that truly satisfy your need.

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How do you see implementing this model into your work?  What might enhance or inhibit it for you?

Posted in Professional Learning Conceptions, Teachers | 1 Comment

Professional Learning Conception #7 – Online Collaborative Learning

Posted on June 3, 2012 by sutterlearn

Online learning is pounding on the doors of public education.  There are still lots of question, such as: are we using technology to merely economize or make the same procedures more efficient; or are we using it as a tool with measured pedagogy that actually pushes the thinking and creative abilities of our students and ourselves? Either way, these tools are awaiting our careful evaluation to improve learning all around us, so why shouldn’t it start with our professional learning?

Consider this:  Your district has a subscription to a Learning Management System (LMS) or perhaps there’s a free one that you’ve heard about (eg. Moodle, Blackboard, Lectrio, etc.).  Initially your team thought this might be something you could learn to use to “flip” your classroom, extend homework projects, or play around with some blended learning during the school day.  Learning the tool to use it like a professional with all of your students is a chore that will take time.  To enhance this professional learning time, you agree to learn with another building or grade-level team by creating coursework for one another.  The first courses you plan and create are tutorials for some of the different applications and functions of the LMS itself.  With a little careful planning, your peers are developing lessons and activities about other functions of the LMS for you to learn.  In a few short weeks, you all see the utility this tool could have in engaging and teaching your students, plus you’ve now gotten so familiar with the tool that your anxiety is a lot less and your motivation to use it authentically is naturally higher.  By this point, you can hardly keep your team from developing online components that not only enhance your students’ experience, but also begin to address many of the technology requirements of the Common Core State Standards.

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How do you see implementing this model into your work?  What might enhance or inhibit it for you?

Posted in Professional Learning Conceptions, Teachers, Technology | Leave a comment

Does May Exist?

Posted on June 3, 2012 by sutterlearn

May could be the most elusive month of the school year.  November reels from the sugar-laden rise and fall of Halloween into the shortened week of Thanksgiving.  December can feel complete or not, simply based on when the holiday break falls and how much of a groove you can get into with your kids.  But May, of all the months in a traditional school calendar, always feel like the shortest or even non-existent month…at least in hindsight.

May speeds in after a weeklong Spring break, revealing what has come to feel like a finish line of a year’s learning pushed along by the overwhelming force of all the topics unexplored, final tests to give, check, reflect upon, report cards to be completed and cast blindly with no further conferences, piles of paperwork summarizing the individual experiences we’ve shared with each, and all, of our students.  Then there’s the personal side of May, also passing us so quickly, we might not realize all that goes through us…the retirement of friends, planning for summer escapades, unique challenges that may need some thought before the fall, let alone any of life’s personal dramas that unfortunately know no month.

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June brings peace to teachers.  I’m not talking about leaving our rooms for summer bliss.  The peace I find in June is that I’ve gotten through May.  In June, I see my classroom kids again as people whom I’ve cared for and learned with through the year, not the cogs helping me get through May’s wheel.  In June, I realize that many of my kids are acting differently because they realize that our secure place of learning and caring is about to change.  In June, I have reflected deeply on each child, writing long report card appraisals of their personal attributes, academic accomplishments, and targets yet to achieve that I will send as my final words to their homes.  Following my toughest years, June has brought me a solemn peace that I can only liken to a feeling I’ve experienced following hurricanes as a child, when I walked through debri-littered streets glad to have witnessed the power, to have lived through the destruction, and to face a fresh start.  In June, I happily mourn with a parent’s pride and try to tap into that mourning to understand the mixed feelings my students must have.  In June, I wish for you to seek this peace with your classroom kids and recognize how wonderful you, and they, really are before that last day of school when hugs, high-fives, and final waves make it not matter if May existed or not.

Posted in Leadership, Students, Teachers | 2 Comments

Book Review: Bob Marley – The Untold Story

Posted on June 3, 2012 by sutterlearn

In the summer of my 9th grade year, I had the chance to visit Jamaica on a mission trip.  Since that time, I have been a fan of Bob Marley’s music and his legend, but didn’t completely understand how he has become such an iconic symbol of the peace I strive for in the world.  After two library renewals, I finally finished Bob Marley: The Untold Story by Chris Salewicz.  If “overly descriptive” is possible outside of Dickens’ literature, this book comes close.  Hidden in the detailed and poetically connected recounts of concerts, conversations, and events from the entire life of this third-world rock star, is an understanding of Marley’s profound effect on the world.

Regardless of your position on his Rastafari religion and its associated methods of reaching reasoned enlightenment, Salewicz’ reveals humane and intellectual traits that made Bob Marley not only successful, but influential as a leader.  As our society begins to realize again that localism, eating healthy, daily exercise, and pursuing a passion with discipline, integrity, and intent are the routes to freedom and social improvement, Bob Marley lived those tenets for his whole existence.  I was dismayed with some of the choices he made in relationships (apparently he didn’t value monogamy).  However, it appeared that even in his infidelity he was forthright and took responsibility for the welfare of those around him. It hurts whenever you find a hero’s flawed humanity.  Salewicz’ concluding sentence concisely identifies why Bob Marley can remain on my hero list for creating social justice, despite any other inconsistencies in his person: “Isn’t it curious that Bob Marley is seen as a rebel because he had a genuine belief in peace and an end to oppression?”
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I’ll give this one 2 out of 5 SutterStars because it kept me interested in each next adventure and tactfully hid various song lyrics through the prose.  However, I found myself scanning paragraphs instead of deeply reading at times as the author’s intimate knowledge of the time period and various players, right down to record industry publicists or back-up keyboard players often took on their own storylines unrelated to Marley’s journey.

Posted in Book Reviews | 1 Comment

TEDx Lansing 2012

Posted on April 21, 2012 by sutterlearn

Last week I did something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time.  After posting links to a few different TED talks here on my blog, I took part of a day to attend the Lansing TED conference.  TED originally started as Technology, Entertainment, and Design, but has extended over its nearly thirty years into education, environmentalism, science, and social improvement.  The premise of TED is “ideas worth spreading”.  The purpose is to give radical, original thinkers 18 minutes to articulate their idea to inspire human improvement to an audience of like-minded souls who are prone to enact those ideas in their own environments, professional, personal, or community.  Sound like my kind of stuff or what?

Here are some highlights of the talks that spoke to me and public education:

Terry Link – “One Planet, One Family, One Future”

Terry admitted what so many leaders won’t these days.

  • The future is uncertain and will bring complexity beyond our comprehension.
  • Learning must be social and adaptable.
  • We must free our imaginations and question our contradictions.

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Jim Luke – “Will Plato Hack the iPad?”

Jim, an econ professor, scared me at first with his opinions of technology, then made it practical.

  • Bill Gates, Salmon Kahn, and Pearson Education are “telling, not teaching”
  • Teaching is interactive, involves individual’s schema, relationships, and synthesizing
  • Metaphors: Mom’s Homecooked Meal Education (Lessons planned for the masses; this is what I made, so this is what you’ll learn. Flipped classrooms, etc.) vs. McDonald’s Education (a lot of quantity, a little substance, and pick what you like)
  • Jim’s Preferred Metaphor: Potluck Education (Teachers learn their students, then used technology to create a wide menu of content crafted for each student.)
  • Stories and dialogue are strong learning tools:  “Those who tell the stories rule society.”
  • When everyone can create and tell their own stories, we will be closer to independence, equality, and personalized leadership.

Stephen Thomas – “The Comic Book: Mild-mannered Amusement by Day, Educational Superhero by Night”

Stephen, a zoology professor, examined brain-based research on using graphics to communicate scientific content.

  • Scientists talk brain to brain; the rest of us don’t
  • Emotional connections are stronger than brain connection
  • Visual representations promote higher-order thinking; when combined with text inference increases and cognitive load decreases
  • Narrative and importance of a story; connections lead to interest lead to understanding
  • The arts improve learning in science; research shows a high correlation of Nobel Science Prize winners who also showed high aptitude in the arts

These are just my takeaway notes for some ideas worth discussing in education.  If any interest you, the TEDx Lansing talks will be posted online soon.  Stand by for details!

Posted in Leadership, School Reform, Teachers, Technology | 4 Comments

Professional Learning Conception #6 – Lesson Study

Posted on April 21, 2012 by sutterlearn

In a former life, I was a quality manager where my job was to study things like kaizen, a Japanese methodology of “gradual continuous improvement”.  In my current life, a form of kaizen, also from Japanese culture is the structure of lesson study.

Consider this:  The team is faced with a learning challenge.  Data analysis identified the problem, student work reviews analyzed these kids’ particular misconceptions, the problem-solving process is underway to decide what to do and now you want to look at how we’re teaching to fix this problem.  Your team decides the next step is to actually plan, teach, observe, and analyze a lesson together to see what slight variables and improvements begin to really change kids’ learning.  After you’ve spent this time, you share what you learn in your own white paper so that other teachers might gain insight about their students.


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This one really sounds almost too simplified.  If you read the previous five professional learning conceptions posted here (Managing Curriculum, Peer Observation, Lit Review, Data Analysis, Student Work Review), lesson study could easily sound redundant. While each of these formats can be useful individually, any of them could consume the limited professional learning time allotted to teachers.  If you are interested in pursuing an ongoing structure for your professional learning, these are all embedded features of lesson study.  Here is a concise organization system for engaging in lesson study from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse.

How do you see implementing this model into your work?  What might enhance or inhibit it for you?

Posted in Coaching, Professional Learning Conceptions, Teachers | 1 Comment

Professional Learning Conception #5 – Student Work Review

Posted on April 21, 2012 by sutterlearn

Picking up from the last Professional Learning Conception (#4 – Data Analysis), it seems that prerequisite to having data worth analyzing, there is student work that results in the data.  Before “data-driven” became the overused cliché that it has in education, we looked at how our students performed.  Tables, graphs, and normed numbers, as we now call “data”, make that process a little easier, but do not replace the decision-making step of determining how students got to those easy summaries that are data.  This requires collaborative learning through the close examination of student work, a skill that should be close, perhaps innate even, to the heart of even the least data-minded educator.

Consider this: Your team has student assessment data clearly showing a deficit in a specific area or skill.  The skill is important because, not only is it listed in the learning standards guiding and binding our profession, but primarily because the skill represents significant academic preparation for the road ahead for students. To really get to the heart of what’s going on with their performance, your team chooses to look at a few of the key pieces of work that you jointly assign.  These could be classwork, assessments, exit slips, probably not homework.  You know it would be fruitless to each bring the entire class set of work.  This isn’t sit and grade together time, it is professional learning time!  Instead, you decide that it makes sense to select only a few kids’ work, not those who have bombed everything and not those who aced it all.  You want some of those border kids, maybe someone who usually does okay but didn’t on this work.  It could be that you have a mass of kids who didn’t do well, or even some who seem to always be just under par.  This is the student work you want to analyze deeply: first, to determine what and how the kids were thinking and approaching the work; next, to determine if the task was as true to the expectation as you intended; finally, you discuss what changes or additional instruction need to happen for your kids to hit it.  Between these three methods, your team identifies opportunities to improve teaching, learning, and perhaps the assignment itself.
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Examining our instruction through the lens of student work should be a regular activity that teachers do together in a self-sustaining school.  If it feels clumsy or misguided, there are plenty of protocols (Google: “examining student work”) that can help you structure these conversations in a variety of ways.  If student learning is what it’s all about, and I believe it is, then why wouldn’t we spend a good deal of our own professional learning studying the artifacts of theirs?

How do you see implementing this model into your work?  What might enhance or inhibit it for you?

Posted in Coaching, Professional Learning Conceptions, Teachers | Leave a comment