It sounds odd to me to begin any message with the following phrase, “When I was a younger teacher.” Yet, I find myself having to do that in this particular instance.
When I infact was a younger teacher, I detested the notion of professional development. I felt that I had reached a particular point in my life where learning had reached its natural end. It is worthy to note that I experienced this when I was working at schools that were not middle schools. I have experienced the diametric opposite during my time at a middle school that stresses the whole development of the child and the notion of the “lifelong learner.” It would be a contradiction if I were to zealously advocate this to my middle school students and then not follow the same premises myself. Over the last seven years, professional development has helped to take my curriculum to new levels and broaden the reach of my instruction, students’ learning, as well as the methodology inherent within both domains. One element of this evolution has been the notion of validating one’s experience through internal reflection and external criteria. Simply put, it suggests that a middle level educator must constantly scrutinize their practices through their own eyes as well as the multiple gazes of “the other.” This postmodern web of analysis provides a prism where student learning can be maximized for one is constantly in search of how to enhance pedagogy and understanding, another essential component of the independent learner.
Bearing all of this in mind, I thought I would turn the “high powered laser” of reflection upon the chapter 6 writing assessments, our latest foray into the harrowing world of scholarship. Simply put, I used my own observation of student experiences as well as The National Middle School’s “14 Characteristics” of successful middle schools to examine my own curriculum. The results proved illuminating in terms of content, student learning, and pedagogical enhancement.
One of “The 14 Characteristics” centers on the idea that curriculum must be relevant, challenging, integrative and exploratory. Within this domain, the assertion is that successful learning activities “create opportunities for students to pose and answer questions that are important to them… Such a curriculum provides direction for what young adolescents should know and be able to do and help them achieve the attitudes and behaviors for a full, productive, and satisfying life.” Over the last week, I have witnessed students engage in thoughtful analysis as to which of the five writing tasks would best suit them and which would be the best to complete. In this vein, I had a moment of illumination on Monday. After divulging the writing tasks to students, I was approached by three students, who asked me to spend my lunch with them. I had little idea as to why these particular students would want to spend their lunch period with me and when I asked them, I was surprised to find out. After a period of brief silence, one of them spoke: “We want you to help us pick which of the writing assignments to do. This is like really big, and we want you to help us choose- whatever you think we can do, we’ll do.” I pretended not to be excited, thrilled, and completely overwhelmed. I have had some great moments in teaching, and at that moment, I could tell that this was working its way up that list: Three students that had never volunteered a lunch period throughout the year were approaching me about counsel on a writing assignment that was due three weeks in advance. We worked out a plan, developed a prewrite, and talked out a particular writing task. The discourse was intellectual, academic, and collegial. Naturally, whenever students take an active role in what they should do, it is inspiring. Yet, when middle school students take steps that will reveal hopeful patterns of success in life, one is awed. In another experience, a student said, “My mom wants you to listen to me explain why I should choose the ABC summaries over the letter.” In other instances, different levels of students have struggled with the element of choice and made peace with their decision, or found what could yield the best level of success for them. To witness these behaviors and attitudes enhanced through this particular task has been most gratifying.
The notion of dialogue with students is another characteristic of the successful middle school. I believe that the conferencing format with students over the next week will continue what has already been started: A work- based discourse between students and teachers. Engaging in dialogue with students about their work, their choices, their concerns, and their possibilities is a benchmark of my instruction. It has become more valid with the writing tasks on chapter 6, as students have understood how difficult the problem of choice is and how challenging it can be to navigate. A component of “The 14 Characteristics” is that “Since young adolescents learn best through engagement and interaction, learning strategies involve students in dialogue with teachers and one another.” Hearing students talk with me, and infinitely more important, themselves, has solidified my belief that learning at this particular age is a social construct. The idea of solidarity cannot be vitiated when one conceives of the best ways for a middle school student to learn. This social aspect is rooted in the idea of talking about the work, centering a dialogue on academics, and transforming a traditional school climate of opposition and boundary to one of collaboration and partnership.
A final component of “The 14 Characteristics” helps to articulate the best conditions to maximize student learning. This notion of assessment is critical in understanding quality instruction and learning at this age. It stresses that “continuous, authentic and appropriate assessment and evaluation measures provide evidence about every student’s learning progress” are primary components of a valuable middle school education. When I examine how students are encountering challenges and difficulties each day with the completion of this task, how the level of questioning is becoming more specifically intellectual, and how students are attempting to develop a level of greater understanding about their particular task in how it is linked to American history, I can sense that students are becoming stronger about the content of the American Revolution. This is an ongoing process that seems to develop momentum with each day of in class work. When the NMSA argues that “grades alone are inadequate expressions for assessing the many goals of a middle school education,” I understood this as a description of what we best do as a Middle School. In trying to address the needs, promises, and possibilities of all children, we create a setting that stresses academic importance, but does not do so at the cost of the understanding of a specific child. This notion of creating an experience that represents the “whole child” in all children is an absolute. In these writing tasks, their process of composition and their intrinsic dialogues, I believe that meaningful relationships between students, content, and teacher emerge. Within this cocoon of safety, the NMSA suggests that “intellectual risks can be taken.”
Journalists live by the doctrine of examination and reexamination. I am reminded of the veteran Chicago journalist slogan that opens this missive. In this connective thread, I believe that “checking out” what one does in the eyes of the inescapable “other” can yield a great deal of meaning. “Checking out” what we do as a Middle School can help to validate our practices and remind us of “those things that are best”. In the final analysis, the element of risk taking becomes an essential component of the Middle School conception of education. When placed in the context of this past year’s experiences, it is a logical component. Graduated difficulty, Don Quixote, Sancho, multiple learning styles, the metaphors of inevitability and midnight in conjunction with writing tasks and assessments have all formed the setting where risks can be taken. When I examine what we have done and what we will do, I understand that the Parthenon of greatness, to which I hope all of our students and emerging scholars aspire, will be within reach. The garden is still brimming with songs being sung and those waiting to be sung.
All best, happy hunting, and even merrier writing.
Mr. Kannan
When I infact was a younger teacher, I detested the notion of professional development. I felt that I had reached a particular point in my life where learning had reached its natural end. It is worthy to note that I experienced this when I was working at schools that were not middle schools. I have experienced the diametric opposite during my time at a middle school that stresses the whole development of the child and the notion of the “lifelong learner.” It would be a contradiction if I were to zealously advocate this to my middle school students and then not follow the same premises myself. Over the last seven years, professional development has helped to take my curriculum to new levels and broaden the reach of my instruction, students’ learning, as well as the methodology inherent within both domains. One element of this evolution has been the notion of validating one’s experience through internal reflection and external criteria. Simply put, it suggests that a middle level educator must constantly scrutinize their practices through their own eyes as well as the multiple gazes of “the other.” This postmodern web of analysis provides a prism where student learning can be maximized for one is constantly in search of how to enhance pedagogy and understanding, another essential component of the independent learner.
Bearing all of this in mind, I thought I would turn the “high powered laser” of reflection upon the chapter 6 writing assessments, our latest foray into the harrowing world of scholarship. Simply put, I used my own observation of student experiences as well as The National Middle School’s “14 Characteristics” of successful middle schools to examine my own curriculum. The results proved illuminating in terms of content, student learning, and pedagogical enhancement.
One of “The 14 Characteristics” centers on the idea that curriculum must be relevant, challenging, integrative and exploratory. Within this domain, the assertion is that successful learning activities “create opportunities for students to pose and answer questions that are important to them… Such a curriculum provides direction for what young adolescents should know and be able to do and help them achieve the attitudes and behaviors for a full, productive, and satisfying life.” Over the last week, I have witnessed students engage in thoughtful analysis as to which of the five writing tasks would best suit them and which would be the best to complete. In this vein, I had a moment of illumination on Monday. After divulging the writing tasks to students, I was approached by three students, who asked me to spend my lunch with them. I had little idea as to why these particular students would want to spend their lunch period with me and when I asked them, I was surprised to find out. After a period of brief silence, one of them spoke: “We want you to help us pick which of the writing assignments to do. This is like really big, and we want you to help us choose- whatever you think we can do, we’ll do.” I pretended not to be excited, thrilled, and completely overwhelmed. I have had some great moments in teaching, and at that moment, I could tell that this was working its way up that list: Three students that had never volunteered a lunch period throughout the year were approaching me about counsel on a writing assignment that was due three weeks in advance. We worked out a plan, developed a prewrite, and talked out a particular writing task. The discourse was intellectual, academic, and collegial. Naturally, whenever students take an active role in what they should do, it is inspiring. Yet, when middle school students take steps that will reveal hopeful patterns of success in life, one is awed. In another experience, a student said, “My mom wants you to listen to me explain why I should choose the ABC summaries over the letter.” In other instances, different levels of students have struggled with the element of choice and made peace with their decision, or found what could yield the best level of success for them. To witness these behaviors and attitudes enhanced through this particular task has been most gratifying.
The notion of dialogue with students is another characteristic of the successful middle school. I believe that the conferencing format with students over the next week will continue what has already been started: A work- based discourse between students and teachers. Engaging in dialogue with students about their work, their choices, their concerns, and their possibilities is a benchmark of my instruction. It has become more valid with the writing tasks on chapter 6, as students have understood how difficult the problem of choice is and how challenging it can be to navigate. A component of “The 14 Characteristics” is that “Since young adolescents learn best through engagement and interaction, learning strategies involve students in dialogue with teachers and one another.” Hearing students talk with me, and infinitely more important, themselves, has solidified my belief that learning at this particular age is a social construct. The idea of solidarity cannot be vitiated when one conceives of the best ways for a middle school student to learn. This social aspect is rooted in the idea of talking about the work, centering a dialogue on academics, and transforming a traditional school climate of opposition and boundary to one of collaboration and partnership.
A final component of “The 14 Characteristics” helps to articulate the best conditions to maximize student learning. This notion of assessment is critical in understanding quality instruction and learning at this age. It stresses that “continuous, authentic and appropriate assessment and evaluation measures provide evidence about every student’s learning progress” are primary components of a valuable middle school education. When I examine how students are encountering challenges and difficulties each day with the completion of this task, how the level of questioning is becoming more specifically intellectual, and how students are attempting to develop a level of greater understanding about their particular task in how it is linked to American history, I can sense that students are becoming stronger about the content of the American Revolution. This is an ongoing process that seems to develop momentum with each day of in class work. When the NMSA argues that “grades alone are inadequate expressions for assessing the many goals of a middle school education,” I understood this as a description of what we best do as a Middle School. In trying to address the needs, promises, and possibilities of all children, we create a setting that stresses academic importance, but does not do so at the cost of the understanding of a specific child. This notion of creating an experience that represents the “whole child” in all children is an absolute. In these writing tasks, their process of composition and their intrinsic dialogues, I believe that meaningful relationships between students, content, and teacher emerge. Within this cocoon of safety, the NMSA suggests that “intellectual risks can be taken.”
Journalists live by the doctrine of examination and reexamination. I am reminded of the veteran Chicago journalist slogan that opens this missive. In this connective thread, I believe that “checking out” what one does in the eyes of the inescapable “other” can yield a great deal of meaning. “Checking out” what we do as a Middle School can help to validate our practices and remind us of “those things that are best”. In the final analysis, the element of risk taking becomes an essential component of the Middle School conception of education. When placed in the context of this past year’s experiences, it is a logical component. Graduated difficulty, Don Quixote, Sancho, multiple learning styles, the metaphors of inevitability and midnight in conjunction with writing tasks and assessments have all formed the setting where risks can be taken. When I examine what we have done and what we will do, I understand that the Parthenon of greatness, to which I hope all of our students and emerging scholars aspire, will be within reach. The garden is still brimming with songs being sung and those waiting to be sung.
All best, happy hunting, and even merrier writing.
Mr. Kannan
1 comment:
Isn't it too bad that the mission to educate each child to be a "life-long learner" has been eliminated from our new District 97 mission statement?
Keep up the good work, Mr. Kannan.
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