Today is a collection of reasons I'm glad I'm not currently teaching.
If I was teaching today, it would be the most stressful and busy time of year: A couple days before finals start. I most likely would be swamped with essays and dreading the in flux of final exams, which would most likely be essays. I'd be considering when I could go without sleep, if necessary, and dealing with concerns about final grades.
If I was teaching today, I would have had to get up at least at 530, if not early to get in some grading. This morning, Natalie slept until 6, allowing me a nice reprieve from her early awaking the last two days.
If I was teaching today, I would have been stuck inside a classroom instead of going out for a nice walk this morning enjoying the 65 - 70 degree weather, slight humidity, birdsong, and smell of flowers. In my classroom, it could have still been stifling from the day before and it would smell like pencil shavings, sweaty kids, and possibly spoiled milk from locker clean out.
If I was teaching today, I would be dreading the foretasted 90 degree weather this afternoon (and almost 100 tomorrow!). Forever ingrained in my mind is DC's sweat dripping off his face on to his final exam on one of these unseasonably hot days during the last week of school. I'd be fielding complaints about the heat from kids wearing hoodies and dealing with begging for me to have fans in the room, though they do not cool the room, only create noise. Here at home, thanks to Mike's awesomeness last night, we now have AC in the living room, where Natalie and I can hide and watch TV all afternoon if need be.
In general, I'm glad to be home so that I can spend time with Natalie. So that I can see her blossum first hand all day long, instead of trying to squeeze all our interactions (plus grading and chores) into a few hours at night and on weekends. Thought today hasn't been anything magical - no huge skills mastered or showers of spontaneous kisses - its still nice to be home with Natalie caring for her myself. If I was teaching, I would be wondering what Natalie was doing right now. But, since I am home, I know she is standing 6 inches from the TV watching Kai-lan and chewing on her stuffed kitty. Since I've been home, I know that she's stacked play-doh balls, shared stickers and toast with her toys, and been sad when her dandelion broke.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The Read-Aloud Handbook
Note: This still needs some editing, but with all the effort I've put into this post (four hours just today!), I really just wanted the satisfaction of publication. I'll be back to polish it up!
The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
3rd and 6th editions
General Review:
Trelease's general premise: Read to your children 15 - 20 minutes a day from birth. He spends a whole chapter explaining why reading is important, why reading aloud to a child is important, and why reading now is so important. A sampling of his support includes:
I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the stages of read-aloud, which discussed topics like bonding with your children over stories, why its good for toddlers to hear the same book a million times, how to move to chapter books, and more. (Though, the reader more intent on getting to the heart of the matter quickly, might want to skip right to the Do's and Don't chapter). The libraries and Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) chapters also contained a lot of interesting points.
Trelease discussed home, school, and public libraries. Of course, he mentioned that its been discovered that the number of books in the home is said to directly correlate with student success. But, I'm still left wondering why that is. I personally think it is not because of the books themselves, though wide access to print is important; I believe that it is the values and attidutes connected with reading in homes with many books that makes the difference. And what about those who are poor who use the library so well but own few books? Are they a rare minority and thus don't affect the numbers? Even still, with $1 books available at The Dollar Store and Target, and even cheaper or free books available through other charitable sourses, there isn't much reason for a child not to receive at least book or two a year. Even with the youngest children, Trelease states that ownership is important. Not only does the child get to mangle the book with love, but under the age of two it is important to build a relationship with the same few books versus the constant flood of different books one might get from a library.
For classroom libraries, there is also a connection between numbers of books and achievement. Most notably, classrooms with libraries report 50% more books read. Yet, sadly, the older students get, the less likely it is for them to have access to classroom library. But, as my personal experience can support, its not enough to just have the books. Teachers must advertise them. Book talks, reading aloud, and cover forward shelving are some of the methods presented. All these books aren't cheap though. In a time where school funds are cut in all areas, Trelease takes a strong stance I'm completely behind. He says to cut sports funding. A community will not allow its sports to be underfunded. But, if the library funding is cut, no one rallies enough to make a change. (As he states about the funding of public libraries later in the chapter, we don't miss what we don't use, and less than ten percent of Americans are regular library patrons. Thus, its not a huge leap that these same adults would allow a school library to be underfunded). I'd add that the school library benefits all students. Not only is the best opportunity for independent reading then present for all students, but all students use the school library in connection with their classes. Meanwhile, sports are not designed for all students, just based on the number of students. Furthermore, I was shocked by the statement that the higher a communities sports scores, the lower their reading scores.
While I have fond memories of teachers reading aloud to me, I don't have any postive memories of SSR. I don't believe I disliked it, but the power of aloud reading left more of a lasting impression. However, I agree with Trelease that SSR goes hand in hand with aloud reading, and I was very impressed with the results I saw implementing daily it in my high school level classes my last year of teaching. (Though I did disagree that reading in class should come before writing in class, because students are more likely to read at home than write at home and writing is a more social process needing the classroom environment to flourish. Ideally, it would all fit, but a secondary teacher can't lengthen the period). I would have loved for SSR to have been daily and school wide, but once students move to a schedule where they have many teachers, SSR starts to become more about policing the students, and only English language arts teachers are left on board. But, how can we expect students to spend time on something academic that we won't spend time on in school? The studies cited state that 90% of students spend only 1% of their free time on reading. Additionally, 90% of students read for less than four minutes a day. (And this is not even mentioning the summer loses children make. I was surprised to hear that it is the summers that widen the gaps in the highest and lowerst studnets).
When SSR is instated in a home or school, there is then a battle about what is acceptable reading. I love Trelease's stance that pretty much anything is allowed. Not only newspapers and magazines of all sorts allowed, but he strongly believes in the value of comic books, series, and even Where's Waldo. In discussing series like Babysitter's Club and The Hardy Boys, which are so often sneered at by many adults and teachers, he states that there is a time when "non-threatening, immediately accessibly reading" is needed. I couldn't agree more. There is a point in most reader's lives where what they need is to read a lot of text to gain fluency and improve on all sorts of basic reading skills. A lite youth series is perfect for this purpose because children and teens are engaged by the plot lines and plow through the texts with huge motivation. My only problem with series like Cirque de Freak and Clique are when a high school freshmen or sophomore still resists trying a book outside their comfort zone. Otherwise, I know their importance. For me it was The Babysitter's Club, closely followed by all of Judy Blume. Another important item in my reading at this important time was Calvin and Hobbes collections. Trelease fully supports comics and comic books, and even explains that their structure and vocabulary can be more complex than other texts. The type of text that Trelease is hard on is the classics. He points out that these books traditionally read in school are not only dated, but often weren't intended for child or teen audiences. He continues on to explain how the cirriculum of only reading the cannon of dead white guys has left generations increasingly more disengaged adult readers. Over the years, I've come to agree with Trelease that the classics aren't the best way to engage all students. But, I have an obligation as an English teacher to expose my students to these texts and teach them how to do my content of literary analysis. My compromise my last year of teaching was to let free choice reading reign most of the year, and then two or three times we read a classic together to practice close reading, thesis writing, and the other English class skills that used to bog down every text.
The information about television in both editions spurred the most conversation between my husband and I. While we both read for recreation, it is not in the same amounts. Recently, I only watch TV if its on for my daughter or if my husband and I are watching a specific show together in the evening; I almost never turn it on for myself anymore. In the past, I used to turn the TV on upon arriving home from school, and I would read and often grade with it on as background noise. My husband is involved in more weekly shows than I, as well as watching the news and sporting events. This means he in general watches more than I do now. But, do either of us feel that Trelease's discussion apply to our home? Are we addicted to television? Are we making a serious mistake by allowing our daughter, who is still under two, to watch about between 2 to 4 hours of TV a day?
At present, we don't feel we are the parents that Trelease reprimands. We do set viewing limits for our daughter. With the exception of a few Disney movies and old cartoons like the Smurfs, Natalie watches only shows directed at preschoolers, all of which have some educational value, even though we know that television only offers passive learning. (I did find the direct quotation implying TV addiction from the president of Nickelodeon shocking, no matter how much I love their subsequently created commercial-free, preschooler channel). Not only are shows monitored, but the times she can watched are set by us, and generally are an hour or so in the the morning and no more than three hours in the evening. However, we wouldn't feel comfortable with these time limits if our daughter just sat and stared the TV the whole time. She stares some, but usually only 10 or 15 minutes at a time before she interacts with us or starts playing with a toy. Additionally, she is still home all day. Even with four hours of a day devoted to TV, she has all the rest of her awake hours to play, socialize, and learn. I'd feel differently is she were away from us at day care for eight hours, or when she starts school. However, I don't claim to be an expert on children and television. The controls we have set in our family have thus far worked. Could she spend more time running and climbing? Yes, but at the time of writing this, we were exiting the winter with me half way through a pregnancy. We all do what we can. And what we've done thus far has given us a well rounded toddler who loves singing, letters, colors, and animals as well as splashing water, climbing stairs, running down ramps and is everywhere commented on about her outgoing personality and verbal abilities. At this point in time, I'm not going to let Trelease's experts scare me into changing our way of life. But ... Trelease expects this reaction from parents; he doesn't believe most parents would attempt or succeed in a TV turn-off project. So, he totes that setting limits, on content and quantity, and teaching critical viewing skills in school is very important, both points I agree with fully.
However, I find myself more educated than the average parent, especially in terms of reading. Some of that comes from teaching high school English for five years and having a Master's degree in Literacy Education, but, surprisingly, my undergrad degree contained absolutely no information on how children learn to read and my master's program, which certifies me K-12, only required one course. Even that one reading development course spent almost no time on babies. So, where did I gain my knowledge of how to develop my daughter's literacy? Two places: 1) my own childhood experiences and 2) doing my own research. Because of these factors, I didn't need Trelease telling me to read aloud to my child from birth or to not let her watch adult television for hours on end. I was excited to read to her the moment she was born and brought her to story time for the first time at 3 weeks old. But, this is not the case for every parent. And after reading this text, I'd say its not even the case for the average parent.
One of my most common wonders while reading this book was are parents uninformed, or do they just not care? More than once Trelease mentions that parents say there isn't time for reading aloud. He sites a study that shows stay-at-home mothers only spend a minute more on one-on-one conversation and educational interactions that working moms. This clearly shows that it isn't a matter of time. Later, Trelease asks parents to think about the amount of time they spend letting their child watch TV or running errands at the mall? The time is there, parents just seem to not know any better. Trelease addresses that a lot of it boils down to how we tend to parent the way we were parented. In my home, reading, books, and education as a whole were highly regarded; father read aloud to us frequently until I was an early teen, all kinds of reading materials were everywhere, and library trips were frequent. Thus, it was natural for my home and my parenting to reflect these values. But, this is not the experience of every child and family, especially those with roots in poverty. The differences in family attitudes on education and reading was the biggest culture shock for me when I began teaching. Thus, this book strives to be a force to educate parents, as well as teachers, librarians, and anyone else who works with parents and children, about the extreme benefits and low time and monetary costs.
Other than TV, father's reading is one of Trelease's big causes. I'm very glad that over the ten years we've been together, Mike has started to read for recreation. (I give Harry Potter full credit; more on the boy wizard below). When Natalie was a newborn, he didn't read to her much. But, within a few months we got into a bed routine that had him as the primary reader. As she got older and grew a strong bond with her Daddy, she now asks him to read to her as often as she asks me. Knowing we have a son on the way, I'm very glad for this positive male role model. Of course, there are many ways for a father to be a strong male influence, but Trelease's book outlines how rarely reading is within the father's arena. So many males aren't recreational readers (because their father's weren't and so on?), so they feel that either the mother's influence is enough, or that it is fine for their sons to not love reading either. The line of thinking "If it was good enough for me, then its good enough for my child," is often valid, but what if you could make things better for your child, and all it took was a library card and 15 minutes of your attention a day? If for so little time and no money you could: improve attention span, enrich language, build world knowledge, share values and morals, teach cultural background, and set the paving stones for independent reading, which is the most important school skill all the way through the grades, why wouldn't you? Again, it leads me to wonder if parents, both fathers and mothers, are ignorant or stubborn.
One of my favorite subjects that came up over and over in this book was Trelease's comments on how literature and reading are about more than the building blocks of academic education. Frequently in his discussions, he comment about how literature helps build our soul as well. For example, he discusses how fairy tales prepare children for the harsh realities of the world. Other times, he mentions how reading teaches us about our culture, both modern and ancient, and is a strong way to teach morality and humanity. Trelease explains how a Havard Business professor teaching ethics had a syllabus full of nothing but literature. Many a time I found myself commenting that these were the real reasons we read. These are the reasons one decides to teach high school English, not to improve test scores or prefect the nation's grammar.
What about all the other teachers? Trelease makes a very strong agreement for why ALL teachers, even the secondary math and science and art teachers, should read aloud in their classrooms. A love for reading affects a child's view of the whole curriculum, and all subject teachers should seize the opportunity to spread that enthusiasm by sharing good titles about their content. Reading aloud to the students gets them interested, and then they strive to read more to learn more, which then improves their vocabulary, spelling, and writing skills. (Yes, its true, reading is the best way to improve spelling and vocabulary, NOT looking words up in the dictionary!). Furthermore, people tend to love fiction; teaching content through story is a great way to hook students.
Differences between 3rd and 6th Editions:
First, I want to note that I read the bulk of the text out of the 3rd edition because it my library had this edition. But, after reading the chapter on television, I searched for a newer edition and got it through inter-library loan. There were big differences between the two editions, but the general message was still the same. The 6th edition had been completely reformatted. Not only was a new font employed and some photographs added to spice it up, but the headings were all turned into questions. I didn't like the heading change, or maybe it was that it seemed the text was generally parred back (about 60 pages shorter despite the room new photos and charts take up in the newer edition). I believe these changes were made to make the text more parent friendly, but as a teacher as well as a parent, I didn't need those changes. Having question headings like a What to Expect parenting book wasn't a plus for me. A change that I did enjoy was to the treasury of read aloud texts at the end. The slight formatting changes made it much easier to read the titles and ages at a glance.
As far as content changes, there were a few fields: technology, titles, and studies. Since I did not reread all of the 6th edition, I didn't see many of the newer references to studies, but I specifically sought out the new titles and technology info. The third edition was published in 1995, and the 6th in 2006. This is a huge difference in terms of new children's titles and technology changes. The treasury of read aloud texts was completely revamped to include many titles from the 10 years between the editions. But, the technology section's revisions were the most needed. In the 3rd edition, there is no mention of the internet and video games are only mentioned in passing. The technology chapter is about television almost exclusively, which makes sense for 1995. But, in 2011, television is not the lone detractor for reading time. Now, the games, social sites, and streaming video the internet offers pose a stronger threat, in my mind, than television alone. If Trelease is ever to publish a 7th edition, he needs to spend even more time on this topic. But, as it is now, the 6th edition does a much better job addressing the technology that interferes with reading. The 6th edition brings many new statistics about television viewing to the plate. (However, I'm not sure that I believe that there is a connection between young TV viewing and ADHD without some rational). Trelease also offers ideas on controlling TV that are more modern, but nothing as modern as the parental controls built into digital TV boxes.
The sixth edition had a chapter dedicated to three new phenomenon: Oprah's book club, Harry Potter, and the internet. I found the ideas about Oprah and Harry most interesting. He looked at both of these cultural reading rockets and explained why they were so successful, versus the interventions that are often forced in the classroom. The four lessons we've learned from Oprah's book club are:
The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
3rd and 6th editions
General Review:
Trelease's general premise: Read to your children 15 - 20 minutes a day from birth. He spends a whole chapter explaining why reading is important, why reading aloud to a child is important, and why reading now is so important. A sampling of his support includes:
- Since humans are pleasure centered and reading takes practice to be done well, reading must be pleasurable for us to want to put in the practice. Being read to from a good book is pleasurable right from birth. Babies enjoy the sound of your voice, toddlers are curious about everything, and the older we get the more we love the conflict, emotion, hope, and escape offered by fiction. Reading is pleasurable, unlike the 1,000 worksheets your child is likely to encounter annually in elementary school.
- Reading to your children (as well as traveling with them) builds background knowledge. A huge part of background knowledge is knowing our collective culture. We encounter such references as the Trojan Horse, Noah's Ark, Paul Revere, and countless others daily. Without this knowledge, we don't get the point, or often, the joke.
- Adults, parents in particular, are role models. If a child sees and hears adults reading daily, he will expect that reading is part of adult life. Reading aloud is the perfect advertising for the product of reading.
- The cost is very low: Some time, a library card, some second hand books, and a basket or shelf for the child to keep the books. A bed side reading lamp is a plus if you can swing it.
- Reading aloud to a child starting at young age prepares your child for school by exposing him to rich, formal language not used in every day conversation and by increasing his attention span.
- Experts believe that the amount of exercise the speech centers of the brain receive between 12 to 18 months directly affects the lifetime potential of that person in that area. Parents are therefore most important in providing that stimulation.
I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the stages of read-aloud, which discussed topics like bonding with your children over stories, why its good for toddlers to hear the same book a million times, how to move to chapter books, and more. (Though, the reader more intent on getting to the heart of the matter quickly, might want to skip right to the Do's and Don't chapter). The libraries and Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) chapters also contained a lot of interesting points.
Trelease discussed home, school, and public libraries. Of course, he mentioned that its been discovered that the number of books in the home is said to directly correlate with student success. But, I'm still left wondering why that is. I personally think it is not because of the books themselves, though wide access to print is important; I believe that it is the values and attidutes connected with reading in homes with many books that makes the difference. And what about those who are poor who use the library so well but own few books? Are they a rare minority and thus don't affect the numbers? Even still, with $1 books available at The Dollar Store and Target, and even cheaper or free books available through other charitable sourses, there isn't much reason for a child not to receive at least book or two a year. Even with the youngest children, Trelease states that ownership is important. Not only does the child get to mangle the book with love, but under the age of two it is important to build a relationship with the same few books versus the constant flood of different books one might get from a library.
For classroom libraries, there is also a connection between numbers of books and achievement. Most notably, classrooms with libraries report 50% more books read. Yet, sadly, the older students get, the less likely it is for them to have access to classroom library. But, as my personal experience can support, its not enough to just have the books. Teachers must advertise them. Book talks, reading aloud, and cover forward shelving are some of the methods presented. All these books aren't cheap though. In a time where school funds are cut in all areas, Trelease takes a strong stance I'm completely behind. He says to cut sports funding. A community will not allow its sports to be underfunded. But, if the library funding is cut, no one rallies enough to make a change. (As he states about the funding of public libraries later in the chapter, we don't miss what we don't use, and less than ten percent of Americans are regular library patrons. Thus, its not a huge leap that these same adults would allow a school library to be underfunded). I'd add that the school library benefits all students. Not only is the best opportunity for independent reading then present for all students, but all students use the school library in connection with their classes. Meanwhile, sports are not designed for all students, just based on the number of students. Furthermore, I was shocked by the statement that the higher a communities sports scores, the lower their reading scores.
While I have fond memories of teachers reading aloud to me, I don't have any postive memories of SSR. I don't believe I disliked it, but the power of aloud reading left more of a lasting impression. However, I agree with Trelease that SSR goes hand in hand with aloud reading, and I was very impressed with the results I saw implementing daily it in my high school level classes my last year of teaching. (Though I did disagree that reading in class should come before writing in class, because students are more likely to read at home than write at home and writing is a more social process needing the classroom environment to flourish. Ideally, it would all fit, but a secondary teacher can't lengthen the period). I would have loved for SSR to have been daily and school wide, but once students move to a schedule where they have many teachers, SSR starts to become more about policing the students, and only English language arts teachers are left on board. But, how can we expect students to spend time on something academic that we won't spend time on in school? The studies cited state that 90% of students spend only 1% of their free time on reading. Additionally, 90% of students read for less than four minutes a day. (And this is not even mentioning the summer loses children make. I was surprised to hear that it is the summers that widen the gaps in the highest and lowerst studnets).
When SSR is instated in a home or school, there is then a battle about what is acceptable reading. I love Trelease's stance that pretty much anything is allowed. Not only newspapers and magazines of all sorts allowed, but he strongly believes in the value of comic books, series, and even Where's Waldo. In discussing series like Babysitter's Club and The Hardy Boys, which are so often sneered at by many adults and teachers, he states that there is a time when "non-threatening, immediately accessibly reading" is needed. I couldn't agree more. There is a point in most reader's lives where what they need is to read a lot of text to gain fluency and improve on all sorts of basic reading skills. A lite youth series is perfect for this purpose because children and teens are engaged by the plot lines and plow through the texts with huge motivation. My only problem with series like Cirque de Freak and Clique are when a high school freshmen or sophomore still resists trying a book outside their comfort zone. Otherwise, I know their importance. For me it was The Babysitter's Club, closely followed by all of Judy Blume. Another important item in my reading at this important time was Calvin and Hobbes collections. Trelease fully supports comics and comic books, and even explains that their structure and vocabulary can be more complex than other texts. The type of text that Trelease is hard on is the classics. He points out that these books traditionally read in school are not only dated, but often weren't intended for child or teen audiences. He continues on to explain how the cirriculum of only reading the cannon of dead white guys has left generations increasingly more disengaged adult readers. Over the years, I've come to agree with Trelease that the classics aren't the best way to engage all students. But, I have an obligation as an English teacher to expose my students to these texts and teach them how to do my content of literary analysis. My compromise my last year of teaching was to let free choice reading reign most of the year, and then two or three times we read a classic together to practice close reading, thesis writing, and the other English class skills that used to bog down every text.
The information about television in both editions spurred the most conversation between my husband and I. While we both read for recreation, it is not in the same amounts. Recently, I only watch TV if its on for my daughter or if my husband and I are watching a specific show together in the evening; I almost never turn it on for myself anymore. In the past, I used to turn the TV on upon arriving home from school, and I would read and often grade with it on as background noise. My husband is involved in more weekly shows than I, as well as watching the news and sporting events. This means he in general watches more than I do now. But, do either of us feel that Trelease's discussion apply to our home? Are we addicted to television? Are we making a serious mistake by allowing our daughter, who is still under two, to watch about between 2 to 4 hours of TV a day?
At present, we don't feel we are the parents that Trelease reprimands. We do set viewing limits for our daughter. With the exception of a few Disney movies and old cartoons like the Smurfs, Natalie watches only shows directed at preschoolers, all of which have some educational value, even though we know that television only offers passive learning. (I did find the direct quotation implying TV addiction from the president of Nickelodeon shocking, no matter how much I love their subsequently created commercial-free, preschooler channel). Not only are shows monitored, but the times she can watched are set by us, and generally are an hour or so in the the morning and no more than three hours in the evening. However, we wouldn't feel comfortable with these time limits if our daughter just sat and stared the TV the whole time. She stares some, but usually only 10 or 15 minutes at a time before she interacts with us or starts playing with a toy. Additionally, she is still home all day. Even with four hours of a day devoted to TV, she has all the rest of her awake hours to play, socialize, and learn. I'd feel differently is she were away from us at day care for eight hours, or when she starts school. However, I don't claim to be an expert on children and television. The controls we have set in our family have thus far worked. Could she spend more time running and climbing? Yes, but at the time of writing this, we were exiting the winter with me half way through a pregnancy. We all do what we can. And what we've done thus far has given us a well rounded toddler who loves singing, letters, colors, and animals as well as splashing water, climbing stairs, running down ramps and is everywhere commented on about her outgoing personality and verbal abilities. At this point in time, I'm not going to let Trelease's experts scare me into changing our way of life. But ... Trelease expects this reaction from parents; he doesn't believe most parents would attempt or succeed in a TV turn-off project. So, he totes that setting limits, on content and quantity, and teaching critical viewing skills in school is very important, both points I agree with fully.
However, I find myself more educated than the average parent, especially in terms of reading. Some of that comes from teaching high school English for five years and having a Master's degree in Literacy Education, but, surprisingly, my undergrad degree contained absolutely no information on how children learn to read and my master's program, which certifies me K-12, only required one course. Even that one reading development course spent almost no time on babies. So, where did I gain my knowledge of how to develop my daughter's literacy? Two places: 1) my own childhood experiences and 2) doing my own research. Because of these factors, I didn't need Trelease telling me to read aloud to my child from birth or to not let her watch adult television for hours on end. I was excited to read to her the moment she was born and brought her to story time for the first time at 3 weeks old. But, this is not the case for every parent. And after reading this text, I'd say its not even the case for the average parent.
One of my most common wonders while reading this book was are parents uninformed, or do they just not care? More than once Trelease mentions that parents say there isn't time for reading aloud. He sites a study that shows stay-at-home mothers only spend a minute more on one-on-one conversation and educational interactions that working moms. This clearly shows that it isn't a matter of time. Later, Trelease asks parents to think about the amount of time they spend letting their child watch TV or running errands at the mall? The time is there, parents just seem to not know any better. Trelease addresses that a lot of it boils down to how we tend to parent the way we were parented. In my home, reading, books, and education as a whole were highly regarded; father read aloud to us frequently until I was an early teen, all kinds of reading materials were everywhere, and library trips were frequent. Thus, it was natural for my home and my parenting to reflect these values. But, this is not the experience of every child and family, especially those with roots in poverty. The differences in family attitudes on education and reading was the biggest culture shock for me when I began teaching. Thus, this book strives to be a force to educate parents, as well as teachers, librarians, and anyone else who works with parents and children, about the extreme benefits and low time and monetary costs.
Other than TV, father's reading is one of Trelease's big causes. I'm very glad that over the ten years we've been together, Mike has started to read for recreation. (I give Harry Potter full credit; more on the boy wizard below). When Natalie was a newborn, he didn't read to her much. But, within a few months we got into a bed routine that had him as the primary reader. As she got older and grew a strong bond with her Daddy, she now asks him to read to her as often as she asks me. Knowing we have a son on the way, I'm very glad for this positive male role model. Of course, there are many ways for a father to be a strong male influence, but Trelease's book outlines how rarely reading is within the father's arena. So many males aren't recreational readers (because their father's weren't and so on?), so they feel that either the mother's influence is enough, or that it is fine for their sons to not love reading either. The line of thinking "If it was good enough for me, then its good enough for my child," is often valid, but what if you could make things better for your child, and all it took was a library card and 15 minutes of your attention a day? If for so little time and no money you could: improve attention span, enrich language, build world knowledge, share values and morals, teach cultural background, and set the paving stones for independent reading, which is the most important school skill all the way through the grades, why wouldn't you? Again, it leads me to wonder if parents, both fathers and mothers, are ignorant or stubborn.
One of my favorite subjects that came up over and over in this book was Trelease's comments on how literature and reading are about more than the building blocks of academic education. Frequently in his discussions, he comment about how literature helps build our soul as well. For example, he discusses how fairy tales prepare children for the harsh realities of the world. Other times, he mentions how reading teaches us about our culture, both modern and ancient, and is a strong way to teach morality and humanity. Trelease explains how a Havard Business professor teaching ethics had a syllabus full of nothing but literature. Many a time I found myself commenting that these were the real reasons we read. These are the reasons one decides to teach high school English, not to improve test scores or prefect the nation's grammar.
What about all the other teachers? Trelease makes a very strong agreement for why ALL teachers, even the secondary math and science and art teachers, should read aloud in their classrooms. A love for reading affects a child's view of the whole curriculum, and all subject teachers should seize the opportunity to spread that enthusiasm by sharing good titles about their content. Reading aloud to the students gets them interested, and then they strive to read more to learn more, which then improves their vocabulary, spelling, and writing skills. (Yes, its true, reading is the best way to improve spelling and vocabulary, NOT looking words up in the dictionary!). Furthermore, people tend to love fiction; teaching content through story is a great way to hook students.
Differences between 3rd and 6th Editions:
First, I want to note that I read the bulk of the text out of the 3rd edition because it my library had this edition. But, after reading the chapter on television, I searched for a newer edition and got it through inter-library loan. There were big differences between the two editions, but the general message was still the same. The 6th edition had been completely reformatted. Not only was a new font employed and some photographs added to spice it up, but the headings were all turned into questions. I didn't like the heading change, or maybe it was that it seemed the text was generally parred back (about 60 pages shorter despite the room new photos and charts take up in the newer edition). I believe these changes were made to make the text more parent friendly, but as a teacher as well as a parent, I didn't need those changes. Having question headings like a What to Expect parenting book wasn't a plus for me. A change that I did enjoy was to the treasury of read aloud texts at the end. The slight formatting changes made it much easier to read the titles and ages at a glance.
As far as content changes, there were a few fields: technology, titles, and studies. Since I did not reread all of the 6th edition, I didn't see many of the newer references to studies, but I specifically sought out the new titles and technology info. The third edition was published in 1995, and the 6th in 2006. This is a huge difference in terms of new children's titles and technology changes. The treasury of read aloud texts was completely revamped to include many titles from the 10 years between the editions. But, the technology section's revisions were the most needed. In the 3rd edition, there is no mention of the internet and video games are only mentioned in passing. The technology chapter is about television almost exclusively, which makes sense for 1995. But, in 2011, television is not the lone detractor for reading time. Now, the games, social sites, and streaming video the internet offers pose a stronger threat, in my mind, than television alone. If Trelease is ever to publish a 7th edition, he needs to spend even more time on this topic. But, as it is now, the 6th edition does a much better job addressing the technology that interferes with reading. The 6th edition brings many new statistics about television viewing to the plate. (However, I'm not sure that I believe that there is a connection between young TV viewing and ADHD without some rational). Trelease also offers ideas on controlling TV that are more modern, but nothing as modern as the parental controls built into digital TV boxes.
The sixth edition had a chapter dedicated to three new phenomenon: Oprah's book club, Harry Potter, and the internet. I found the ideas about Oprah and Harry most interesting. He looked at both of these cultural reading rockets and explained why they were so successful, versus the interventions that are often forced in the classroom. The four lessons we've learned from Oprah's book club are:
- To instill the love of reading, you must be an avid reader yourself. However, most teachers don't read any more than the rest of the population.
- The idea of a book club works better than a class.
- There should be more discussion of books, and less writing about them. Talks about books should be open (again, more like a club than a class).
- Put these all together and you get the final lesson: A love of reading is more caught from others, than taught.
- Not all series are created equal. Harry had children highly motivated to read books nine times as long as lite youth series like Goosebumps.
- "Children want page turners, just like grown-ups do."
- When meeting censorship in the name of religion, remember "Christ came to take away our sings, not our minds."
- There is no reason to fear series books as trash. Even the ones with less quality than Harry Potter have their place.
- Much research has shown that successful and avid readers enjoyed series books as children, too.
- Use movies to promote sequels or other books by the same author. (It was the marketing for the first Harry Potter movie that got both my husband and I to start the series. After getting the last three books on publication day and reading most of the series aloud to our infant daughter, we are currently planning on celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary by seeing the last movie installment).
- Giving someone a computer doesn't make them more responsible. Kids will instant message in class and go to all manner of inappropriate cites. Who are we kidding? Adults do to on their jobs! I know for a fact that many of the teachers, myself included, I know would use their computers for non-work related purposes during meetings and master's courses. A computer doesn't make someone instantly engaged in the subject and thus immune to the fun allure of the internet.
- The internet and a good library should work together. When you need an in-depth, reliable answer, you need more than Wikipedia.
- Reading from a computer screen (at least in 2006) was slower than paper due to the quality of the image. Also, the embellishments possible on a computer can hide lack of content or creditability.
- Email does not help writing skills.
- Time on the computer isn't any better than time in front of the TV when that time is detracting from reading, socializing, or exercising.
Monday, February 7, 2011
So, What Happened?
Well, what happened is that first of all, Tony Danza's show was canceled, so when I got behind on reviewing there wasn't any point in catching up. We really liked that show and wanted to see it through to the end. Second, we found out we are pregnant with our second child Christmas morning, which means that my non-fiction reading is very much centered on parenting books at the moment. I hope to get in a couple more education titles before the chaos of the new baby this fall. I had also hoped to tutor some this semester, but even though my old school's guidance counselor was very enthusiastic, there hasn't been a call.
This morning in the car on the way home from play group, I was thinking about the day that I go to my last play group session. We think that will be in about four years when number 2 starts preschool, though depending on what days it meets, we might still go. Definitely though, in five years, we will no longer go and I will return to work. It was sad thinking of leaving something I'll be doing twice a week for seven years! That's longer than I taught for! As for starting back to teaching while being a mom, I don't think about that too much. Its so far away that it doesn't make sense to envision what my classes will be like or even what school I will be at. I do know that I will have to stay after school much, much less and be more organized about the due dates of essays, and give slightly fewer of them.
The only other teacher news I have currently is that my form to renew my teaching license came in the mail. I didn't think I'd be seeing it for months since it is good until July, but I guess if you hadn't done course work you would like some notice. I'm not looking forward to figuring it all out. When my initial license up after two years, the guidance office took care of all the paper and I just handed them a check. I'm a little worried about messing this up or just be frustrated. Luckily, I'm pretty sure that my friend is renewing hers now, too, and we completed our Master's together, so we should have similar things to take of. I also plan on taking a trip to the high school to speak with the guidance worker who did it for me last time to ask questions and I might need to get paper work from her to, not sure since I can't deal with formal paper work.
This morning in the car on the way home from play group, I was thinking about the day that I go to my last play group session. We think that will be in about four years when number 2 starts preschool, though depending on what days it meets, we might still go. Definitely though, in five years, we will no longer go and I will return to work. It was sad thinking of leaving something I'll be doing twice a week for seven years! That's longer than I taught for! As for starting back to teaching while being a mom, I don't think about that too much. Its so far away that it doesn't make sense to envision what my classes will be like or even what school I will be at. I do know that I will have to stay after school much, much less and be more organized about the due dates of essays, and give slightly fewer of them.
The only other teacher news I have currently is that my form to renew my teaching license came in the mail. I didn't think I'd be seeing it for months since it is good until July, but I guess if you hadn't done course work you would like some notice. I'm not looking forward to figuring it all out. When my initial license up after two years, the guidance office took care of all the paper and I just handed them a check. I'm a little worried about messing this up or just be frustrated. Luckily, I'm pretty sure that my friend is renewing hers now, too, and we completed our Master's together, so we should have similar things to take of. I also plan on taking a trip to the high school to speak with the guidance worker who did it for me last time to ask questions and I might need to get paper work from her to, not sure since I can't deal with formal paper work.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The Homework Myth
As mentioned in a previous post, I did not take notes while reading this book, so I expect this review to be less detailed than my review of Fires in the Bathroom.
While reading Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth book, I got into debates about its content many times. Here is a compilation of my discussions:
Me: Why do we need homework?
Them: Homework reviews important skills.
Me: Why can't that be done at school? Wouldn't class time be better spent on that practice where the students could get help?
Them: But there isn't enough time to do all that practice and cover the content.
Me: If you understand how to do the work, you don't need to do a lot of practice. If you are lost, then you need instruction, not practice. Also, this would streamline your ability to get through content faster because you wouldn't have to back track when kids don't have homework done.
Them: Well, homework teaches you responsibility. It teaches you how to do work for when you are in high school or college.
Me: No studies actually show this. Aren't their better ways to teach responsibility that don't undermine a child's natural curiosity? Is all that practice really necessary when there isn't a large correlation between homework and high school student achievement either?
Them: Well, we did homework and turned out alright.
Me: Just because we did it doesn't make it good for students, especially since younger and younger students are being assigned more and more work.
Them: Other countries give lots of homework and we need to catch up to them.
Me: Actually, it isn't true that lots of other countries give a lot of homework. In fact, Japan has ended homework in some places. Instead, some places have more class time for instruction and support instead of encroaching upon the family.
It is usually at this point (if not sooner) that whoever I was talking with got frustrated with me and changed the subject.
What impressed me was how thoroughly Kohn presented his argument against homework. Every counterargument that someone mentioned in my conversations, Kohn addresses. Kohn's research on homework is extensive, which makes him very creditable. He cites many sources, as well as providing a list of those sources and about 40 pages of notes at the end of the text about the cited research. Also, Kohn's writing is very well organized. He breaks the content into many chunks making it very easy to follow his ideas. This style furthers the feeling of thoroughness. But, his writing is repetitive. He is constantly adding that research does not back up giving homework for academics, but actually shows it may be harmful. This gets old by half way through the book. I felt that anyone interested and intelligent enough to make it that far in the book had gotten the point by then.
Most interesting to me was the early discussion on the negative effect that homework has on children, particularly the family. Since when I was teaching, I didn't have a family per se, I didn't understand this. Furthermore, growing up my family didn't spend much time together, so homework didn't affect us much. I do remember my parents investing time into our homework though. I don't remember many of these exchanges being tense, but they were time consuming. So as a teacher, I didn't have a lot of personal experience of homework ruining family time and twisting family relationships. Reading this section gave me insight into how homework affects a wider range of families outside of my direct experience.
I was left at the end of this section feeling powerless. I am on board with Kohn that homework should be for older students, and then we should modify how we think about it (more on that in a minute). But, my feelings as a teacher will most likely not affect my child's experiences throughout her eduction. I was left feeling very sad about my poor little girl facing hours of mindless, yet frustrating homework that eats up her evening hours with her parents and her time to relax. I found myself actually thinking I would ask teachers how much homework counts towards final grades to determine if the percentage was worth us just not doing it in our home if we didn't feel it was necessary. I was also contemplating calling Natalie's future school and asking about the homework policy, even though Kindergarten is still about four years away for her.
What I did feel good about was the section where Kohn describes how we should rethink homework. First, he states that we should reset the default so that homework isn't a given. I know as a teacher I though of homework as a given when planning, but mostly so I could fit in as much as possible. When I switched to Nancy Atwell's reading and writing workshop, I didn't do that anymore. And that is the type of homework that Kohn recommends. He strongly recommends free reading. Also, continuing projects not finished in class when students choose not to use class time is another new form of homework that Kohn recommends that I used in my classroom with writing workshop. Choice is a large factor in Kohn's new vision of homework; his endorsement of choice also made me proud of that amount of choice I gave students in reading and writing.
While reading The Homework Myth, I was tempted to buy copies for the superintendents of the school districts I plan to be in contact with in the future. In my mind, that is a big endorsement for Kohn's ideas on homework.
While reading Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth book, I got into debates about its content many times. Here is a compilation of my discussions:
Me: Why do we need homework?
Them: Homework reviews important skills.
Me: Why can't that be done at school? Wouldn't class time be better spent on that practice where the students could get help?
Them: But there isn't enough time to do all that practice and cover the content.
Me: If you understand how to do the work, you don't need to do a lot of practice. If you are lost, then you need instruction, not practice. Also, this would streamline your ability to get through content faster because you wouldn't have to back track when kids don't have homework done.
Them: Well, homework teaches you responsibility. It teaches you how to do work for when you are in high school or college.
Me: No studies actually show this. Aren't their better ways to teach responsibility that don't undermine a child's natural curiosity? Is all that practice really necessary when there isn't a large correlation between homework and high school student achievement either?
Them: Well, we did homework and turned out alright.
Me: Just because we did it doesn't make it good for students, especially since younger and younger students are being assigned more and more work.
Them: Other countries give lots of homework and we need to catch up to them.
Me: Actually, it isn't true that lots of other countries give a lot of homework. In fact, Japan has ended homework in some places. Instead, some places have more class time for instruction and support instead of encroaching upon the family.
It is usually at this point (if not sooner) that whoever I was talking with got frustrated with me and changed the subject.
What impressed me was how thoroughly Kohn presented his argument against homework. Every counterargument that someone mentioned in my conversations, Kohn addresses. Kohn's research on homework is extensive, which makes him very creditable. He cites many sources, as well as providing a list of those sources and about 40 pages of notes at the end of the text about the cited research. Also, Kohn's writing is very well organized. He breaks the content into many chunks making it very easy to follow his ideas. This style furthers the feeling of thoroughness. But, his writing is repetitive. He is constantly adding that research does not back up giving homework for academics, but actually shows it may be harmful. This gets old by half way through the book. I felt that anyone interested and intelligent enough to make it that far in the book had gotten the point by then.
Most interesting to me was the early discussion on the negative effect that homework has on children, particularly the family. Since when I was teaching, I didn't have a family per se, I didn't understand this. Furthermore, growing up my family didn't spend much time together, so homework didn't affect us much. I do remember my parents investing time into our homework though. I don't remember many of these exchanges being tense, but they were time consuming. So as a teacher, I didn't have a lot of personal experience of homework ruining family time and twisting family relationships. Reading this section gave me insight into how homework affects a wider range of families outside of my direct experience.
I was left at the end of this section feeling powerless. I am on board with Kohn that homework should be for older students, and then we should modify how we think about it (more on that in a minute). But, my feelings as a teacher will most likely not affect my child's experiences throughout her eduction. I was left feeling very sad about my poor little girl facing hours of mindless, yet frustrating homework that eats up her evening hours with her parents and her time to relax. I found myself actually thinking I would ask teachers how much homework counts towards final grades to determine if the percentage was worth us just not doing it in our home if we didn't feel it was necessary. I was also contemplating calling Natalie's future school and asking about the homework policy, even though Kindergarten is still about four years away for her.
What I did feel good about was the section where Kohn describes how we should rethink homework. First, he states that we should reset the default so that homework isn't a given. I know as a teacher I though of homework as a given when planning, but mostly so I could fit in as much as possible. When I switched to Nancy Atwell's reading and writing workshop, I didn't do that anymore. And that is the type of homework that Kohn recommends. He strongly recommends free reading. Also, continuing projects not finished in class when students choose not to use class time is another new form of homework that Kohn recommends that I used in my classroom with writing workshop. Choice is a large factor in Kohn's new vision of homework; his endorsement of choice also made me proud of that amount of choice I gave students in reading and writing.
While reading The Homework Myth, I was tempted to buy copies for the superintendents of the school districts I plan to be in contact with in the future. In my mind, that is a big endorsement for Kohn's ideas on homework.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Teach: Tony Danza Episode 2
We managed to fit the new episode of Teach: Tony Danza in during Natalie's afternoon nap. Afterward, Mike asked me if I like this show so much because he is teaching English. I think that I like it more because I identify with the content, but the show is doing an awesome job focusing on general challenges in teaching.
I really liked how this episode showed the chaos of teaching. He has three students he's having trouble with because of dealing with special ed accommodations - their legality versus his ideals. Then, there is a student who he is riding because she isn't working to her potential, yet she is completely resisting him. Also, there is one student begging for more challenging work, while another student listed as gifted is complaining about being lost. This was a very realistic picture of what a single class can be like and I think the producers did a great job of portraying this.
This episode focused mostly on issues surrounding special eduction. Tony had three students who wanted to use the Resource Room for their quiz, but he asked them to stay instead. I still think that his line of thinking came from the best of intentions. He thought, "Let's try it here first, where you are part of the class, and if things go poorly, we'll address it." He saw sending them out of the class as either him passing the problem along or their using it as a crutch to not try harder, both of which can happen with special ed students. (I say this from experience. I once had a student who's mother brow beat a new special ed case worker into getting it on the IEP that her son only had to write something like 5 sentences for assignments. Five sentences for a high school essay? That student had already proven he could do more and his mother was using his disability as an excuse. As to Resource Rooms sometimes not providing the most productive kind of support: A fellow teacher once had a student who was allowed to use a dictionary on a vocab quiz she took in the Resource Room). After an intervention from his coach, attending a mini seminar on the resource room (was this already scheduled or was it planned for the benefit of Tony and the show?), and talking to the principal, Tony gets it. It doesn't matter what he thinks on the matter; legally he must accommodate for these students if they ask for it.
While I thought that Tony's idea of trying the quiz in the classroom first and him giving them extra time and effort was noble, he didn't handle the quiz debriefing well. He strongly gave the impression that the thought everyone did poorly because they weren't trying. While that is definitely the case for some students, it wasn't for all, especially the special ed students who were trying to explain to him their difficulties. Tony was left not asking the right questions. He trying to be very supportive and reassuring, but he didn't get down to the problem at hand much. What I saw the most was students saying they were stuck, but he didn't ask them more specific questions or pull out the text and get into working through it. I saw a lot of the same problems I've encountered with students, such as smart kids reading but still being confused and other kids unable to engage with the text.
I found the way Tony dealt with Paige (a student who was doing poorly and resisting his help) both commendable and pushy. I have never been able to go over to a student and talk to him or her face to face the way Tony was. I always feared pushing too hard or singling the student out, which is exactly what Tony did. Paige pulled back more and more as he pushed. I personally don't think that he should have discussed her grades with her at her desk where other students could hear them so easily. That was something I always tried to avoid. (In fact, a lot of his debriefing of the quiz got too personal about students' individual problems). But, I do think that Tony was right to call home, and that Paige was starting to come around by the end of the episode. She did participate in the activity for him. Showing students you care about them on such an individual level is amazing stuff if you can pull it off correctly.
Monty is another story. I don't understand why he agreed to be on the show if he wanted an advanced class experience. Did he really think that if he was in a mixed class that the class would go at the pace of the top students? I really disliked watching his monologues about the class since he was so single sighted and critical, claiming that it was all in the name of his education. However, he was very much like many advanced students I've met in the past. Its just a side of that type of student that I don't much enjoy. I have to give him props though for asking for extra work. It was a great idea. But, I do feel sad that he only waited a week (if that) before asking his grandmother to go in and talk to Tony about it. As viewers, we know the kind of week that Tony had, and he probably didn't have much mental energy left for coming up with extra advanced assignments.
Near the end of the episode, he breaks down after talking to his coach and the coach sends the assistant principal (because she is a woman I wonder?) to talk to him. An assistant principal needs to be able to deal crying from all sorts, and she did a wonderful job talking him through it. Another person who was rather impressive in this episode was Paige's friend, Tiana (I think that was her name). She did an excellent job telling her friend the truth about the situation with Mr. Danza nagging her and singling her out and it was refreshing to see a student conversation where the student helping her friend really understood the teacher's motivates and stuck up for them.
Next week's episode appears to deal with one of my biggest challenges: Classroom Management.
I really liked how this episode showed the chaos of teaching. He has three students he's having trouble with because of dealing with special ed accommodations - their legality versus his ideals. Then, there is a student who he is riding because she isn't working to her potential, yet she is completely resisting him. Also, there is one student begging for more challenging work, while another student listed as gifted is complaining about being lost. This was a very realistic picture of what a single class can be like and I think the producers did a great job of portraying this.
This episode focused mostly on issues surrounding special eduction. Tony had three students who wanted to use the Resource Room for their quiz, but he asked them to stay instead. I still think that his line of thinking came from the best of intentions. He thought, "Let's try it here first, where you are part of the class, and if things go poorly, we'll address it." He saw sending them out of the class as either him passing the problem along or their using it as a crutch to not try harder, both of which can happen with special ed students. (I say this from experience. I once had a student who's mother brow beat a new special ed case worker into getting it on the IEP that her son only had to write something like 5 sentences for assignments. Five sentences for a high school essay? That student had already proven he could do more and his mother was using his disability as an excuse. As to Resource Rooms sometimes not providing the most productive kind of support: A fellow teacher once had a student who was allowed to use a dictionary on a vocab quiz she took in the Resource Room). After an intervention from his coach, attending a mini seminar on the resource room (was this already scheduled or was it planned for the benefit of Tony and the show?), and talking to the principal, Tony gets it. It doesn't matter what he thinks on the matter; legally he must accommodate for these students if they ask for it.
While I thought that Tony's idea of trying the quiz in the classroom first and him giving them extra time and effort was noble, he didn't handle the quiz debriefing well. He strongly gave the impression that the thought everyone did poorly because they weren't trying. While that is definitely the case for some students, it wasn't for all, especially the special ed students who were trying to explain to him their difficulties. Tony was left not asking the right questions. He trying to be very supportive and reassuring, but he didn't get down to the problem at hand much. What I saw the most was students saying they were stuck, but he didn't ask them more specific questions or pull out the text and get into working through it. I saw a lot of the same problems I've encountered with students, such as smart kids reading but still being confused and other kids unable to engage with the text.
I found the way Tony dealt with Paige (a student who was doing poorly and resisting his help) both commendable and pushy. I have never been able to go over to a student and talk to him or her face to face the way Tony was. I always feared pushing too hard or singling the student out, which is exactly what Tony did. Paige pulled back more and more as he pushed. I personally don't think that he should have discussed her grades with her at her desk where other students could hear them so easily. That was something I always tried to avoid. (In fact, a lot of his debriefing of the quiz got too personal about students' individual problems). But, I do think that Tony was right to call home, and that Paige was starting to come around by the end of the episode. She did participate in the activity for him. Showing students you care about them on such an individual level is amazing stuff if you can pull it off correctly.
Monty is another story. I don't understand why he agreed to be on the show if he wanted an advanced class experience. Did he really think that if he was in a mixed class that the class would go at the pace of the top students? I really disliked watching his monologues about the class since he was so single sighted and critical, claiming that it was all in the name of his education. However, he was very much like many advanced students I've met in the past. Its just a side of that type of student that I don't much enjoy. I have to give him props though for asking for extra work. It was a great idea. But, I do feel sad that he only waited a week (if that) before asking his grandmother to go in and talk to Tony about it. As viewers, we know the kind of week that Tony had, and he probably didn't have much mental energy left for coming up with extra advanced assignments.
Near the end of the episode, he breaks down after talking to his coach and the coach sends the assistant principal (because she is a woman I wonder?) to talk to him. An assistant principal needs to be able to deal crying from all sorts, and she did a wonderful job talking him through it. Another person who was rather impressive in this episode was Paige's friend, Tiana (I think that was her name). She did an excellent job telling her friend the truth about the situation with Mr. Danza nagging her and singling her out and it was refreshing to see a student conversation where the student helping her friend really understood the teacher's motivates and stuck up for them.
Next week's episode appears to deal with one of my biggest challenges: Classroom Management.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Lesson in Practice
As I read The Homework Myth and Fires in the Bathroom, I inadvertently put one of my major classroom lessons into practice.
I went into reading each of these texts knowing that I wanted to write a somewhat detailed review of each book. But, for some reason, I decided to only take notes on one of the books. As I read Fires in the Bathroom, I stopped to use post-it notes (since I didn't own the book), but I didn't take notes on The Homework Myth.
Now I have finished both books, but I am slacking on writing my review of The Homework Myth. Is it because I liked Kohn's book less? Is it because I was less interested in the material? Was the writing enjoyable? NO, in fact, to all these questions. I very much enjoyed The Homework Myth, while Fires in the Bathroom was just alright. But now that I have completed the second book, I don't have anything to look back on to help me write about it. When I did my first review, I flipped through the text and pulled out each post-it and decided whether to use it in the review. Drafting the post was a breeze. Conversely, now that The Homework Myth is done, I'm having a hard time remembering all of Kohn's points. In fact, when I was asked a question about the book near the end of my reading, I struggling to respond.
Also interesting, I didn't talk about Fires in the Bathroom at all. But, particularly for the first half of the book, I debated homework with my husband almost daily. These were sometimes heated conversations where I referred back to specific passages of the text, but now I can't remember exactly what we discussed. What is interesting about this for me is that just talking about the text wasn't enough for me to remember it.
So, I have learned a few things from accidental experiment:
Also, I must not forget the kind of notes I am asking students to take, and I took myself in this accidental experiment. I did not note the content. I noted my reactions to the content. While it is often easy to remember your strongest reactions to a section of reading or a short text for a short period of time, as I've proven to myself, its hard to remember your reactions over the course of a whole book that is read over time. A record of those ideas would prove useful for generating writing topics or for gathering evidence to support an overall opinion. Thus, this type of note does serve two functions. They do force the reader to engage with the text on some level, hopefully one that is personally meaningful. But they also do leave a trail to follow when one has free choice on how to respond to the text once it is through, which traditionally is an analytical essay in the high school English Language Arts classroom.
I went into reading each of these texts knowing that I wanted to write a somewhat detailed review of each book. But, for some reason, I decided to only take notes on one of the books. As I read Fires in the Bathroom, I stopped to use post-it notes (since I didn't own the book), but I didn't take notes on The Homework Myth.
Now I have finished both books, but I am slacking on writing my review of The Homework Myth. Is it because I liked Kohn's book less? Is it because I was less interested in the material? Was the writing enjoyable? NO, in fact, to all these questions. I very much enjoyed The Homework Myth, while Fires in the Bathroom was just alright. But now that I have completed the second book, I don't have anything to look back on to help me write about it. When I did my first review, I flipped through the text and pulled out each post-it and decided whether to use it in the review. Drafting the post was a breeze. Conversely, now that The Homework Myth is done, I'm having a hard time remembering all of Kohn's points. In fact, when I was asked a question about the book near the end of my reading, I struggling to respond.
Also interesting, I didn't talk about Fires in the Bathroom at all. But, particularly for the first half of the book, I debated homework with my husband almost daily. These were sometimes heated conversations where I referred back to specific passages of the text, but now I can't remember exactly what we discussed. What is interesting about this for me is that just talking about the text wasn't enough for me to remember it.
So, I have learned a few things from accidental experiment:
- I reinforced my knowledge that I remember information better if I write it down.
- I used to think that I remembered information from lectures and discussions in courses well because of my listening skills, but I'm wondering if it really was my note taking that made the difference. Even if my notes weren't excellent, they were enough to jog my memory later.
- I don't remember non-fiction texts anywhere near as well as fiction without the use of notes.
- What I've been telling students for years is true (at least some of the time, for some people). If you are planning on using a text for more than a pleasure read, taking notes of some kind is to your advantage. They are even more advantageous if you are going to use the information in another way, such as a report.
- Talking about a text right after reading it isn't necessarily enough to commit it to memory.
- Liking a text doesn't necessarily mean that you will remember it later either.
- I should pass on to students that this process also works with non-fiction. This could be particularly useful to help students figure out how to write about a non-fiction text for another course, especially since content area teachers often don't give a lot of direction about how they want their papers written.
- How can I teach this lesson to students? I am glad to have this experience to share with them, but it is unlikely that just the story of my experience will motivate many of them to give it a try. Could I challenge them to try it out with two texts? Maybe we read two short stories and return to them a while later. One has notes and the other doesn't.
Also, I must not forget the kind of notes I am asking students to take, and I took myself in this accidental experiment. I did not note the content. I noted my reactions to the content. While it is often easy to remember your strongest reactions to a section of reading or a short text for a short period of time, as I've proven to myself, its hard to remember your reactions over the course of a whole book that is read over time. A record of those ideas would prove useful for generating writing topics or for gathering evidence to support an overall opinion. Thus, this type of note does serve two functions. They do force the reader to engage with the text on some level, hopefully one that is personally meaningful. But they also do leave a trail to follow when one has free choice on how to respond to the text once it is through, which traditionally is an analytical essay in the high school English Language Arts classroom.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Teach: Tony Danza Episode 1
My husband stopped on Teach: Tony Danza while channel surfing. I was immediately intrigued. In fact, I swear it was just the day before I was thinking about how difficult it would be to do a reality TV show of a classroom or high school. I couldn't sit down and watch since we were getting ready to go out. Luckily, A&E has the full episode on their web site, so we watched it that evening instead. The DVR is now set to record the whole series.
Overall, I felt bad for Mr. Danza. The first few days of teaching are so difficult and embarrassing and to be scrutinized by so many venues made it almost painful to watch. Watching a show like this, viewers are waiting to see him make a huge mistake that a real teacher wouldn't do. Viewers expect the big celebrity to come in and say how difficult teaching is. But, Tony Danza isn't just waltzing in there. Unlike Paris Hilton's silly little TV show from a few years ago, he has a degree in eduction and has taken every step of the process seriously. There is footage of him scrubbing his classroom (which is something that I didn't always know that some teachers have to do themselves), putting up his bulletin boards, and attending teacher orientation.
Watching him over the first week, he makes mistakes that are common for all new teachers. But, he is lucky that he is being told about them. I went maybe two months or more teaching at my first position before I was observed and received feedback for improvement. He is getting valuable feedback so early that he can make adjustments the second week of school!
The major piece of feedback Danza receives is that he talks too much. Even though I'm sure that he isn't the first teacher to get this criticism, it hits him hard personally. But often criticism of teaching is hard not to take personally. That just seems to be something in the nature of teaching. Especially when the teacher is as enthusiastic as Danza, the teaching is personal because so much hope and passion have been put into it. But, the viewer can really see that by the end of the week, he's gotten the message. Now the challenge will be how to relinquish control over to the students, because right now he is doing all the work. Like he said himself, he feels he is preforming for them. While teaching is preforming at times, it is also a lot of guiding and weaving student input together.
Meanwhile, he appears to have no business being involved with the football team. I personally think the producers of the show had something to do with that move. Otherwise, both he and the head coach were real idiots thinking he could coach without any knowledge on the subject. That's precisely why I never volunteered to do anything with sports. I never played sports or even really watched them. How could I possibly help coach? I think that Danza's interest in the band will be better placed because he at least has some music background. But, from the previews, it looks like he is helping a new extracurricular each week. This feeds my idea that this is to make the show more interesting. However, Danza's work with extracurricular activities does show the habit new teachers have of taking on too much, too soon.
My only other criticism of this show is that it appears that Dana only has one class. A&E's web site says that he was a full time teacher, but only one class is seen on the show. Is it because he had only one class? That's not full time then. Is it because they could only get one class worth of students to participate? That is very possible. Either way, I dislike that only one class is discussed. Even if the producers can not legally show those students, Danza should at least make reference to the fact that he has other classes. He isn't taking on the full role of a teacher with only one class. While everything so far has been very real, the fact that he only has this one class, makes the intensity of it so much less for me, because in real life, that experience is multiplied 5, 6, 7 times. Parring down a teacher's class load to one group of students is very popular in media, though. In fact, I can't think of a single movie or show that really shows a teacher dealing with more than one class at a time. I understand that this makes it easier for the audience to follow, but it doesn't depict reality. I don't expect viewers to keep track of 100+ students, but there should be a happy medium.
I am very interested in the topics raising in the previews and I'm excited to watch the rest of the series.
Overall, I felt bad for Mr. Danza. The first few days of teaching are so difficult and embarrassing and to be scrutinized by so many venues made it almost painful to watch. Watching a show like this, viewers are waiting to see him make a huge mistake that a real teacher wouldn't do. Viewers expect the big celebrity to come in and say how difficult teaching is. But, Tony Danza isn't just waltzing in there. Unlike Paris Hilton's silly little TV show from a few years ago, he has a degree in eduction and has taken every step of the process seriously. There is footage of him scrubbing his classroom (which is something that I didn't always know that some teachers have to do themselves), putting up his bulletin boards, and attending teacher orientation.
Watching him over the first week, he makes mistakes that are common for all new teachers. But, he is lucky that he is being told about them. I went maybe two months or more teaching at my first position before I was observed and received feedback for improvement. He is getting valuable feedback so early that he can make adjustments the second week of school!
The major piece of feedback Danza receives is that he talks too much. Even though I'm sure that he isn't the first teacher to get this criticism, it hits him hard personally. But often criticism of teaching is hard not to take personally. That just seems to be something in the nature of teaching. Especially when the teacher is as enthusiastic as Danza, the teaching is personal because so much hope and passion have been put into it. But, the viewer can really see that by the end of the week, he's gotten the message. Now the challenge will be how to relinquish control over to the students, because right now he is doing all the work. Like he said himself, he feels he is preforming for them. While teaching is preforming at times, it is also a lot of guiding and weaving student input together.
Meanwhile, he appears to have no business being involved with the football team. I personally think the producers of the show had something to do with that move. Otherwise, both he and the head coach were real idiots thinking he could coach without any knowledge on the subject. That's precisely why I never volunteered to do anything with sports. I never played sports or even really watched them. How could I possibly help coach? I think that Danza's interest in the band will be better placed because he at least has some music background. But, from the previews, it looks like he is helping a new extracurricular each week. This feeds my idea that this is to make the show more interesting. However, Danza's work with extracurricular activities does show the habit new teachers have of taking on too much, too soon.
My only other criticism of this show is that it appears that Dana only has one class. A&E's web site says that he was a full time teacher, but only one class is seen on the show. Is it because he had only one class? That's not full time then. Is it because they could only get one class worth of students to participate? That is very possible. Either way, I dislike that only one class is discussed. Even if the producers can not legally show those students, Danza should at least make reference to the fact that he has other classes. He isn't taking on the full role of a teacher with only one class. While everything so far has been very real, the fact that he only has this one class, makes the intensity of it so much less for me, because in real life, that experience is multiplied 5, 6, 7 times. Parring down a teacher's class load to one group of students is very popular in media, though. In fact, I can't think of a single movie or show that really shows a teacher dealing with more than one class at a time. I understand that this makes it easier for the audience to follow, but it doesn't depict reality. I don't expect viewers to keep track of 100+ students, but there should be a happy medium.
I am very interested in the topics raising in the previews and I'm excited to watch the rest of the series.
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