Imagine Help for Newcomers

You may have read a thing or two on this little blog about CR Part 154, the idiotic state regulation that cuts direct English instruction to newcomers and substitutes it with, well, less than nothing. Instead of direct English instruction, a newcomer may have a social studies class with an ESL teacher to help, or a dually-certifed ESL/ social studies teacher. Supposedly, this teacher, or pair of teachers, will teach newcomers both English and social studies in the same time it takes an American-born student to learn social studies only.

Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa told me that this rule was made with the best of intentions, and I'm sure she's right, but that's a weak argument indeed. I think everyone does everything with the best of intentions. Michael Bloomberg closed schools with the best of intentions, and hired Cathie Black with the best of intentions. He felt that people who had a lot of money knew better than those of us who don't, and acted accordingly.

But everyone knows the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so why don't we focus on taking newcomers somewhere else? One of the things I've learned from being chapter leader is that it's best to come not only with a complaint, but also with a potential solution. So if anyone actually knows Betty Rosa, maybe you can present her with it.

The other day, a social studies teacher looking to get ESL certification observed the first period of my double period class. I was showing a Powerpoint explaining vocabulary. She wrote that she saw a preparation period for the class that follows, which was accurate. So why not, instead of taking away an ESL period, add one? I'm not a social studies expert, but I could easily read the text and prep students for whatever the lesson may be.

I could easily identify key vocabulary and fill them in before the class. I could identify key concepts and make sure they are familiar with them before they walked in there. I could actually offer students more support rather than less. Is that such a revolutionary concept? I don't think so.

Of course I'm just a lowly teacher who spends each and every day of my working lives with these kids. I'm not an expert working in some office tower in Albany making decisions about children I never see and will never know. Eveidently they keep teachers out of such decisions and keep them pure, under the direction of folks like Reformy John King, who regards parents and teachers as special interests, or MaryEllen Elia, who loves her some Gates cash and programs.

Honestly I have no idea what anyone was thinking when they rewrote Part 154 like this. I have no idea what drugs they were taking, or why they thought this would benefit anyone. They certainly couldn't be bothered investigating research or practice, none of which would support this. My personal feeling is they felt teaching students how to communicate in the English language was simply not Common Corey enough, and decided to do away with conversation in favor of answering questions about Hammurabi's Code, and other things about which teenagers don't give a crap.

But the David Coleman approach of shoving things down children's throats whether they like it or not is not only counter-intuitive for teaching reading, but also for teaching English. These are subjects in which affect plays a great role. For example, I don't love reading, say, the UFT Contract, but because I'm a reader I can plod through it and understand what I need to. If you want me to go the extra mile and learn a foreign language, there'd better be someone or something I love where they speak it. In lieu of that, there'd better be a teacher to trick me into loving it.

Because I can tell you for sure, this Hammurabi's Code stuff isn't gonna cut it. Nor is Part 154. 

In the Darkest Times

Reforminess is everywhere. Every place you turn there's a Campbell Brown or Mona Davids crawling out from under a rock and blaming you for every ill in creation. The solution, they say, is for you to be summarily fired if the principal doesn't like your haircut. The proof, they say, is for kids to pass some test that is not only utterly inappropriate, but for which they are totally unprepared. The only way you should get a raise is if you are a miracle worker, overcoming poverty and special needs solely by means of your radiant smile.

The politicians are available to the highest bidder, and your union can't compete with the Koch Brothers. Were that even possible, the leadership can't wait to jump on the reformy bandwagon to show how flexible and reasonable they are. So what if everyone else got an 8% raise four years ago with no concessions? We can not only wait ten years for the money, but also throw our ATR brethren under the bus, seriously diminishing their due process. Our nominal leader, elected by a sliver of active membership, states publicly they can be fired if they shout in the hall twice. Your school is so overcrowded you can't envision communication during passing without shouting in the hall on a daily basis.

But in the classroom are dozens of kids who depend on you. They may or may not have role models in their homes, but you're their second best bet. And you can show them that life has beauty, humor, depth and possibility. You can do this even as you teach them English, math, history, music and show them the greatness of which people are capable. You are subversive, because the likes of David Coleman would have you read scripted nonsense and be nobody. But they haven't yet been able to pull the wool over the eyes of John and Jane Q. Public, so there you stand, showing another world to kids whose parents, likely as not, work 200 hours a week to keep up.

But those kids have hope, and it rests in you. Those kids have opportunities, and it's your job to let them know that. Those kids can grow up and be you, and inspire future generations, and you have to let them know that too. Not only can't you give up, but you can't allow them to give up either. If they want to be teachers, if they want to shine a light toward those who follow us, you need to let them do that. You not only need to encourage them to do that, but you also need to do what you can to enable them to do it.

I know that my kids, who've been here for two weeks or one year tops, can learn English, figure out what they have to do to graduate, and scrape together enough money to go to CUNY and take my job. One of my former students is running around my school as a student teacher and I couldn't be more proud. I'll do what I can to help her get a job and I'll even try to get used to her calling me by my first name.

If my kid wants to be a teacher, I will encourage her. I'm not going to tell her how awful it is. I'm gonna work to make it better for her, for my students, and for yours. The pendulum swings both ways and I will do everything I can to make it swing toward sanity and justice once again.

Join me. If you're a teacher, part of your job is helping future teachers. We can't just say, "Everything sucks," and turn our backs on them. If we do that, we're making it true.

That's not remotely why I do this job.

Uncommon Kids Need More than the Core

Principal Carol Burris is a local hero, frequently writing in Valerie Strauss blog. Most recently, she wrote about the incipient disaster that is the Common Core. They're raising the bar, making everything rigorous, and making sure my ESL students don't get out of high school until they're senior citizens. This is because what the world needs now is rigor, sweet rigor, according to great minds like David Coleman and Reformy John King.

If these scores were used last year, the New York four-year graduation rate would have dropped from 74 percent to 34 percent. But even that awful rate would not be evenly spread across student groups. A close look  demonstrates just how devastating the imposition of the Common Core scores would be for our minority, disadvantaged and ELL students, as well as our students with disabilities.

Because widespread failure is good for everyone. I mean, sure, kids don't like it, and parents don't like it, and teachers don't like it, but we can't focus on special interests. The important thing is to produce the tests, material to support the tests, and privatized empires like that of Eva Moskowitz so that folks of her ilk can continue to bring home the big bucks.

My attention was caught by another point. Over and over, we hear that we need to make kids "college ready," and evidently those of us educated before the magical Common Core are all a bunch of knuckle-draggers, unable to carry on a discussion about anything whatsoever. And yet, despite all the talk of tests, here's something we already knew:

A study by the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) looked at the college performance of eight cohorts of students from 33 colleges and universities...The findings were that student college success was better predicted by high school grades than by test scores.

Well waddya know? Our grades, often made up (gasp!) without even a rubric, are better predictors of how kids will do in college than standardized test scores designed by Common Core geniuses. It turns out that you and I, who see and feel the enthusiasm and competence of certain kids, might actually give them credit for it. And it's entirely possible that college professors may note practical intelligence and competence even if a student wrote C instead of D!

Because you know what? While David Coleman may believe no one gives a crap about how kids think of feel, many teachers do. And those of us who wish to elicit worthwhile discussion from kids had better give a crap too. Because who on God's green earth wants to talk to someone who doesn't give a crap how you think or feel? Who wants to analyze a train schedule? Who wants to spend a month analyzing the life out of a short story? Who wants to eat lunch with the likes of David Coleman?

Not me.

Empathy is a great quality. Understanding and getting along with others is a great quality too. They will help you get through school and to have a more productive life. I see kids who are good at this and I believe they will excel at whatever they choose to do. I give them higher grades for making my class a better place to be, and you'd better believe their employers, if they're smarter than David Coleman, will pay them better and fight to keep them.

Because we look at people, not just test scores. A student who scores a hundred on every assessment and never interacts with anyone is a student who needs better prep for college, and for life. We, as teachers, know many things David Coleman doesn't know. We, as teachers, have to help and guide those kids even if it won't help our value-added ratings.

That's why it behooves us to stand with our students, and with their parents, to fight this corporate outrage known as the Common Core. It doesn't just need to be slowed down. Like every other fruitless core, it needs to be tossed in the compost heap.

What Will Your Students Remember About You?

I wish I'd written this piece. It's perfect. As we struggle through the nonsense of corporate reforms favored by our billionaire ex-mayor, as village idiot John King musters the audacity to suggest his baseless untested programs would please Martin Luther King Jr., as Arne Duncan plays basketball somewhere and pretends he cares about public school children rather than his billionaire BFFs, this says pretty much everything.

How many kids, in ten years, are going to be saying, "I had Ms. Two-Year-Wonder and she gave the most rigorous lessons I ever had in my life."

"Yes I will never forget the time we spent twenty-six days discussing a short story."

"The best part was it was all about the Civil War and no one told us."

"I'm a much better person now that I've analyzed a seven-page story for forty-six hours with no idea what the hell it was about."

Kids, as the writer says, remember you. Genius non-teacher David Coleman, who created the Common Core, says no one gives a crap how kids feel. I'm certain, if we put Coleman in a classroom, the kids would notice right away he doesn't give a crap how they feel. For goodness sake, the man boasts about it.

But for real teachers, kids remember things. I was working at Queens College when a couple of my former students complimented me for actually having read everything they'd written. Apparently that meant a lot to them. I'm glad it did, because I spend a lot of time doing that. And those were kids who were stuck in my Regents prep class, which was likely as not the worst class I've ever taught.

I have gone to PDs where teachers, teachers, said they no longer bothered to actually have kids read the stories they were sharing with their classes. They just had them find setting, theme, tone, and whatever other things the test wanted. They wanted to make the whole process as meaningless as possible. I was pretty sure, bad as my classes may have been, that theirs were even worse.

I do believe, though, that kids will remember your kindness, caring, or lack thereof a whole lot more than whether or not you gave a mini-lesson, wrote an aim, or did whatever it was they were clamoring for that year. These things stay with you even as the Pythagorean Theorem fades into a blur.

And these are the things we teach kids. We are role models. We show them what adults can be like, what life can be like, that happiness is an achievable goal. Sure we teach our subjects, but it's our job to trick them into loving these subjects. We picked them, so we'd better have that love, and model it too.

And we'd better model a love for the kids we serve too. If we can't do that, we're no better than David Coleman, John King, Arne Duncan, and the other sanctimonious morons who wouldn't know a good teacher if one were beating them over their empty heads.

Does Common Core Align with Danielson?

I look at the Danielson Rubric and I see an awful lot about engaging the students. Active, happy kids are a big plus if they're using the Danielson Rubric. You want them to be asking questions on their own, to know there are procedures in place, and to remind one another what they are. You want them in groups, and you want the groups established for some reason or other.

And yet, Common Core is all about rigor. You read how David Coleman, or whatever expert they have this week, says no one wants to know how kids feel. That's not important. The important thing is to get them to read archaic documents with language no one uses anymore, and to have them answer incredibly difficult questions. And just in case they accidentally slip in anything that's fun in any way, you will analyze it so deeply that every last drop of fun will be utterly squeezed out of it.

I always thought how people feel is important. In fact, I thought if you read things that touched your feelings in some way, you'd like them better. I always try to find things like that for kids to read, so that reading becomes a positive experience for them. Yet now, with Common Core telling us that To Kill a Mockingbird is for fourth graders, we need to have them read incredibly tedious and difficult things or it won't be rigorous enough.

I love to read. Left to my own devices, I prefer fiction. I can do non-fiction too if I'm interested. In fact, if I'm not interested, I can plod through whatever. I read quite a few things for college that I didn't particularly adore. Beowulf springs to mind somehow.

I'm trying to imagine how I'd run an exciting or interesting class if I had to teach Beowulf to ESL students. Or if we sat and read train schedules. What time will NYC Educator reach the moon if he forces 34 teenagers at a time to read tedious crap? What sort of message are we sending our kids if we force them, from the time they're children, to read tedious crap?

The best readers are those who love to read. I don't know of little kids who fantasize about reading law books. I do know people who want to be lawyers, people who read everything, and then read the law books when they're required. But before you make the kids read "rigorous" (read "tedious") things, it's smart to make them love reading rather than hate it.

Then they'll be successful, instead of bitter and frustrated. That's why Reformy John King sends his own children to Montessori Schools, that's why Obama sends his to Sidwell Friends, and that's why Merryl Tisch pays private school tuition, even for the offspring of the help.

NYC to Great Literature--Drop Dead

The geniuses at Tweed have done it again. They've managed, pretty much, to exclude literature from ELA curriculum. Better our kids should read political speeches, newspaper articles, and train schedules. After all, when you're training a generation to work in Walmart, how can reading Tom Jones help you to fold a sweater?

The important thing, in Mayor Bloomberg's New York, is that kids read things no more interesting than the textbooks they must plod through. After all, how better to train kids to plod through tedious textbooks than to make them plod through other tedious crap? And certainly, getting through tedious crap is great prep for getting through tedious lives folding sweaters.

Why waste time making kids love to read when there will likely be pictures on the menu at McDonald's anyway? And even though Walmart has lost the fight over paying a living wage in DC, there's no such legislation in NYS, and city residents need not travel far to get a crappy Walmart job. And there will be no need for reading on their commute when they can simply Facebook on their smart phones.

It was instructive to read David Coleman at Diane Ravitch's blog saying that this would not happen, that the bulk of fiction reading could and would take place in ELA classes, and that we need not worry. Fortunately, since being reformy means never having to say you're sorry, the Tweedies can do whatever the hell they feel like. And best of all, there are no consequences, since this brave new world means "accountable" applies only to unionized teachers.

Don't miss Perdido Street School on the same topic. As an ESL teacher, I fully expect the innovative Tweedies to move to preclude my teaching newcomers English, and force me to give them tedious non-fiction they can't possibly understand.

That's gonna be the day I resign.