Shortened Biographies

Posted on December 18, 2012 by sutterlearn

Watching people try to understand the mass shooting of children is a painful human study.  I heard the news during an elementary school Christmas performance.  I watched men at the barbershop try to make sense of the endless television reports.  I talked my kids around the horrid details.  My wife cried us both to sleep for the sakes and souls of Newtown, CT. For the first time ever, each national news anchor I’ve seen for days  has had wet eyes, finally seeming affected by the sensationalism that is part of their work.

Despite the self-centered nature of blogs and social media, this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with twenty kids, twenty families who will never be the same.  On Friday, ten days before Christmas, every parent, educator, and emergency response person was punched in the gut, harder than we have ever been.  Should we hesitate to compare this to 9/11?  Will we remember where we were?  Do we accept a world where another mass killing is just another mass killing?

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We must somehow take these biographies that are all too short, the stories of these children’s lives, and use them as fuel.  We must realize that the sincerity and innocence with which these first-grade souls approached each day is the same genuine care that we must use to approach one another.  We must not do this just in the wake of a tragic event in December, but every day with every person who may or may not be our favorite classmate, co-worker, neighbor, or stranger on the street.  We must shorten the biography of this stage of humanity where people are driven and enabled to disregard human life.  We must, as a society, learn to understand so we can learn to care for the mental and emotional health of our people…all people.

Posted in Parenting, Politics, Students, Teachers | 1 Comment

Book Review – Focus: Elevating the Essential to Radically Improving Student Learning

Posted on December 4, 2012 by sutterlearn

Although it’s been out for over a year, I finally got around to reading Mike Schmoker’s latest book Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improving Student Learning and it hit the mark.  Schmoker is somewhat of a folk hero to me when it comes to my passion for making practical the heady and complex academic work of human learning.

It would be easy for a critic to say, “If you’ve read one Schmoker book, you’ve read them all”, but such an insult overlooks the brilliance of a leader who knows the dire need in public education to stay on message, driving home a few solid principles that people can rally around.  Focus returns to these repetitively without being redundant, by citing multiple pieces of evidence across decades of research. There is a solid connection between the strategies advocated for all students in Focus and research on closing the achievement gap for students of disadvantage.  If it resonates with you that holistic, good teaching isn’t segregated into subgroups, check out this book.

For me, the most compelling reason to deeply explore Schmoker’s rationale with your peers is how his arguments for sound instruction complement current directives of the Common Core State Standards.  I find myself frequently discussing the Common Core cycling between “the what” and “the how” we teach.  That ended up being the incidental lens through which I read this book. Here are some key points, or teasers, that to give you a taste of Schmoker’s logic:

The What

  • Teach topics, not verbs when looking at standards
  • Identify power standards from those topics
  • Use common scoring guides (rubrics) for writing across all content areas
  • Increase the number of quick writes using these guides and collect formal samples

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The How

Simple, effective lessons look like this:

  1. Clear Learning Objectives
  2. Teaching/Modeling/Demonstrating
  3. Guided Practice
  4. Checks for Understanding/Formative Assessment

In an overwhelming time where we’re grappling with “key shifts”, “what”, and “how”, what we need is inspiration, depth, and focus.  This easy read provides all of the above and gets 5 of 5 Sutterstars!

Posted in Book Reviews, Teachers | Leave a comment

Bowling with Jesus

Posted on November 29, 2012 by sutterlearn

Here is a transcript of a conversation I had with my seven year old this week:

Dad: Please don’t bowl with the baby Jesus.  That might not be real respectful to God.

Son: Can I use the donkey?

Dad: No, and the wise men aren’t bowling pins.

Son: Why are they called wise men?

The drug viagra online sample will enhance your sex power by the super fast action of Sildenafil citrate. This prices for viagra way, you can increase your semen count and improve sperm motility. It is important to emphasize that type III dysfunction often affects all three segments of the posterior leaflet. online purchase of cialis If you have erectile problem that stops you to perform during the love-game. tadalafil online Dad: They’re wise because they found the baby Jesus.

Son: I thought Mary found him.

Dad: Mary had the baby.  The wise men followed the star and found where he was.

Son: So if I follow a star, will I find a puppy?

This is what happens when Fisher Price makes a Nativity Scene.

Posted in Parenting | Leave a comment

Servants Hearts

Posted on November 29, 2012 by sutterlearn

The following is a journal entry my daughter wrote during our family trip to New York:

“I feel that being thankful is important because it makes you stop and think about how blessed and lucky we are. We take for granted the simple blessings in life like our food, our adventures, and our clothes. What we don’t notice are the poor ones.  For example, in New York I saw a man walking along the cold sidewalk without shoes.  He had long yucky hair and a t-shirt with dirt and rips and holes in it. His beard was ever so long and his pants were nothing but rags. In one hand was a grocery bag.  In his other hand was a jar with a dollar or maybe two.  That was the time I thought most about how thankful I am.”
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Irony of ironies, the very man she documented so well was later served by one of New York City’s finest in this story we found online today: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/nypd-boots-homeless-man-photo-145219581.html

Posted in Parenting | 1 Comment

Book Review – How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

Posted on October 14, 2012 by sutterlearn

Paul Tough’s recent book, How Children Succeed, received all sorts of press from the New York Times to Time magazine and plenty of bloggers in between, almost before it was released on September 4, 2012.   What initially drew me to teaching was a perception that building character in children had been overlooked as reformers explored instructional and curricular angles in earnest, so it was obvious that this title would lure me.  If you’ve ever read Jonathan Kozol’s work, Tough brings a similar ethnographic, journalistic, and humane, middle-class re-awakening to challenges we do not all share.  The difference is in how Paul Tough ties together the qualities we humans do all share that drive us to the definition of success created by mainstream middle-class America.

Reading this book is like being at a cocktail party where 40 years of research in education reform, positive psychology, economics, and sociology, are condensed into their immediate connections with one another.  Tough weaves together the influence different researchers have had upon one another, how they’ve stumbled into each other’s work, and how the very different fields are distinctly related to the human psyche for success.  The conversation at this party surrounds a handful of special guests who are the children of seemingly hopeless context, thriving due to dispositions and developed executive function that all of the researchers have explored in unique, sometimes inadvertent ways.  Also present at this party are fervent educators, community activists, and physicians discussing different models of support they have used for both low and high socioeconomic populations, creating an interesting juxtaposition of how the same character traits are built and manifest differently in varying contexts.

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In reflection, my two previous paragraphs were harder to read than Paul Tough’s eloquently braided prose.  The layout flows naturally, bridging seemingly different subheadings into coherence.  Without much editing this book could become a great documentary film.  If you enjoy being around great thinkers and someone who facilitates a connected discussion that is truly important to the success of people, grab a copy of this book and join the party.  I give this one 4 of 5 Sutterstars.

Posted in Book Reviews | Leave a comment

Subtract Pride, Multiply Learning

Posted on September 26, 2012 by sutterlearn

Most times I will let something simmer before writing on it.  Perhaps it wasn’t as inspirational as at first glance, perhaps the inspiration needs to grow as I process the event.  Today, there was no mistaking the inspiration I received from an elementary school professional learning meeting!

Here’s the context, a new Problem Solving process was developed by our district and is being introduced to staffs K-12.  The staff at this building chose to “fishbowl” (enact the process in front of the whole staff as an audience) their actual first meeting of the Problem Solving Team, analyzing interventions for a real student.  Talk about doing something meaningful…using precious time to learn as a team…teachers voluntarily leading the learning…solving problems for a real student…how many birds can you hit with that stone?

To be fair, the meeting wasn’t rehearsed.  The brave team of teachers doing the problem solving went commando, putting themselves completely out there as they learned a new process and discussed the student data, created a hypothesis, and defined measurable interventions.  That’s the process in a nutshell.  But there was nothing that easily summarized in the dynamic learning that took place thanks to the audience of teachers.
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As the group on stage neared completion, hands began to go up, foreheads wrinkled, the audience came alive.  Teachers in the audience took advantage of their temporarily objective position to ask, how is that intervention different, how will staff interact uniquely with this goal in mind, what is the child’s role in this…a litany of questions probing deeper into the nature of true intervention, not merely structural refinement or protocol adherence.  Ultimately, the whole staff of this school not only witnessed, but participated in how problem solving can float at the surface or plunge deeply into effective change on behalf of a child.

Should I credit the principal for solely creating this environment or the team for shamelessly, publicly fumbling through a foreign process?  I suppose I could, but that would only be at the surface.  When I look deeper, I see a staff that has created a sufficiently safe environment for adult learners that all of them deserve credit as participants in a professional learning experience that emphasizes the innate power of teacher leadership.  When pride is shelved, learning is exponential.

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

CCSS Movement at 10,000 Feet

Posted on September 22, 2012 by sutterlearn

In response to questions I’ve had from multiple teachers, this is my attempt at summarizing the landscape that will affect our classrooms over the next few years:

CCSS – The Common Core State Standards were written for English/Language Arts and Mathematics by a collection of academics, teachers, parents, and policymakers.  Michigan adopted these in June of 2010.  To date, 47 states have adopted these standards with districts creating their own implementation plans.  As you can imagine, every publisher and PD consultant is renaming their product or service to be “aligned with the Common Core”, even as we are all learning what that means together.

Standardized Tests – There are two consortium groups creating computer-based tests to measure the standards nationally, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.  Michigan, with 24 other states, is a member of the latter (Smarter Balanced).  PARCC has 23 states participating.  Both groups are fed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top program, to the collective tune of $360 million.

MEAP – The Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) is the state standardized test upon which many decisions are made from school funding dollars to real estate values.  The plan is to replace this test with an online version that matches the CCSS, created by Smarter Balanced, by Spring of 2015, changing Michigan’s current fall testing schedule.  This may or may not mean double testing that year, fall 2014 and spring 2015.
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Smarter Balance – Until Smarter Balance is fully implemented, MEAP will continue to test on Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCE’s).  Conventional wisdom seems to be leading districts to begin working with and teaching CCSS as the overlap is nominal and the endgame is a CCSS curriculum assessed by Smarter Balance testing, which will not be limited to the single annual high-stakes test, but is rumored to also include formative and interim assessments, the results of which can all be stored in one data warehouse, making individual student data on these national standards portable across districts and participating state boundaries.

Recently, Smarter Balance has been considering a full-length online assessment ranging from 4-6 hours of computer time per child to an abbreviated version ranging from 3-4 hours of seat time.  Immediate implications of this as a teacher are obviously the technology skills children will need for 21st century testing, the technological infrastructure districts will need to test this way, and then the validity and reliability questions of different levels of testing, knowing that we are in a state that is struggling economically and a shorter, lighter assessment may be the default deciding factor.

All testing arguments aside, online learning and deeper, more pragmatic thinking are core (pardon the pun) to the CCSS movement.  As we navigate these waters together, it should never be our intent to teach to a test, but to help students learn the skills of success, which we will continually redefine through great conversations about the standard of coherence.

Posted in Politics, Teachers, Technology | 2 Comments

What’s going on this year?

Posted on September 22, 2012 by sutterlearn

Enacting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a big part of my current job as a Transformational Coach.

  • Do I completely understand them or their implications?  No.
  • Do the people who wrote them?  I’m not confident.
  • Are they clarifying or further muddying instructional waters? Perhaps, depending upon how you approach them.

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One thing I recognize though is the opportunity for teachers to use this different breed of standards to create cohesive and coherent curriculum, not so we can better measure things, nor so we can make all classrooms look alike.  Don’t be fickle.

A recent editorial in Ed Week by 5th grade teacher Christine Newell about online communities of educators learning about the CCSS intended to highlight the utility of digital tools (blogs, wikis, and social networks) in connecting teachers toward this end.  While the medium is useful, the message must be our primary concern.  Reading her commentary, I felt grateful to work in a district with teams of K-6 teachers who realize a change has got to come and we can create understanding together on how to enact these standards so that we serve kids.  Ms. Newell doesn’t sound as lucky, which is perhaps why the online communities are her domain of choice.  Still, she articulates the answer to a question recently asked of me, “What is your focus as a coach this year?”  If I can borrow her answer, “The success of our students depends on our ability to facilitate the standards-implementation conversation.”  That conversation is what’s going on this year as I seek to support teachers’ understanding and creation of cohesion and coherence for kids.

Ms. Newell, thanks for helping me clarify what I need to be about this year.  I invite you to work and learn with us!

Posted in Coaching, Teachers | 3 Comments

Keep a Smile On!

Posted on September 22, 2012 by sutterlearn

The first full week of school runs everyone ragged, adjusting schedules, teaching routines, and learning your place in a new communal order; kids and adults.  My son must have seen this on my face from across the field during his Friday evening flag football practice. My wife and I sat there talking, mindlessly watching the plays and drills when our little man caught my eye and screamed to me, “Keep a smile on!”, then caught the hiked ball and threw it with all his second-grade might, proudly smiling himself as his teammates clamored over it.

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Posted in Leadership, Parenting, Students | 1 Comment

Classroom in a Closet

Posted on August 24, 2012 by sutterlearn

This August I had to pack my classroom up into a closet.  Last year was my first as a cross-district teacher/coach, but I left my classroom intact, expecting it to be a one-year assignment.  Having learned that God often laughs when you try to live out your own plans, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.  Packing up was bittersweet as I considered how fun it would be to open that closet and set up a new classroom in the future, but lamented the losses that are so much more real in the waning days of summer before school starts.

The whirlwind of classroom set up includes hot hours in a stuffy room, moving furniture hither and yon to just the right configuration, knowing that you’ll probably change it in a month once you get a feel for your new kids; remembering passwords and routines that you rely upon; purging, finally, things you kept for a year (or more) thinking you might use them next year; miles of lamination and stacks of copies to make sure that first month is not so rushed.  There’s a strange, private peace and satisfaction that comes from setting up your classroom even if it’s rushed.

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Just writing about it makes me excited and sad for the promises that come with a new year and a new classroom.  While my classroom is temporarily in a closet, I ask for invitations to share these kids and experiences in yours as a new year unfolds.

Posted in Coaching, Students, Teachers | 1 Comment