Paradise of Educational Environments

I hope everyone had a great vacation.  I spent time with my family which was fantastic, even though the weather was just as cold or even colder than it is here.  That didn't matter, because being with my children and grandchildren is like being in paradise.

So- upon my return to school I discovered that next Wednesday there will be a public forum about standards based reporting.  There are parents who struggle now with the changes in grading and teaching at the middle school and they have a forum on Facebook where they discuss their problems and questions and challenges with it. They will be challenging all we do and have learned to do.  I am not privy to any of the discussions on FB, and I am happy that I have no idea what is going on.

Politics will kill any experience that you ever have.  This is no exception.  Those people who are regularly reading what these vehement parents have to say are anxious, afraid, and feel dismissed and disrespected.  Some teachers plan to go to this meeting and share their successes with the new grading and teaching at York Middle School.  Some teachers are writing letters to the local papers to share their feelings.  If you have been reading my blog all along, you know how I feel.  

I don't mind telling you again, however, and since it is all the buzz this week, I might as well address it again.  My teaching has been re-energized by this process of of renewal and discovery.  I have been figuring out new ways to connect the standards to the learning and to my projects.  I have designed new projects that I love that have engaged children in ways I have never experienced before.  Without the fear of reprisal if you don't get it completed all on the same date, I see students working harder and longer and better than ever before.  I have always struggled with giving students number grades, so the idea of giving them a meets or exceeds in the end of a unit is much preferable in every way.  It was hard to learn the program at first, but once we got it down, it has been much better for teaching and learning.  We are all still learning, and there is no end to what can be accomplished if we have the time, the support and the motivation to do it.

Finally, I believe that people should trust that teachers and administrators know how to do their jobs. They should trust that teachers have the experience and the understanding to make the right decisions for their children.  They should know also that the school is not working in a vacuum, we are implementing changes that are generated from a state and a federal level.  We are not renegades, we are all about making changes that will benefit all children for many decades to come.  Let us hope eventually parents will see we are buying our tickets to the paradise of educational environments for children, not drinking some "koolaid" as they call it that will leave everyone high and dry in the end.  Patience, compassion, listening and empathy would be the cocktail we would all be seeking, in the end.  

Communication without words

Today is the day before the last day of school before February vacation..the penultimate day of school.  The sky is getting lighter in the morning, and the days are getting longer.  And yet, another storm is predicted for this weekend of up to two more feet of snow!! Are you tired of my blogs talking about the weather?  I am tired of talking about the weather too, so I will leave that idea for now...

I am slowly getting to know my fifth grade classes.  They are an energetic bunch!  They are a creative group!  They challenge me every day.  One student was gone yesterday and arrived late this morning.  He had spent the night outside in the woods in a special snow cave that he and his friends at White Pines had built. (A Qynzy?)  Two degrees last night, and he didn't look too much the worse for wear.  He was able to notice that "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child" was in minor key, and that is why it sounds so sad.  Very impressive.  Some years I spend many class periods trying to explain the feeling, the sound, the reasons we compose in minor keys.  These students seem to understand use of the minor key already.  They also know why this song is so incredibly sad.  They always notice how Mahalia Jackson hums a lot and doesn't actually say a lot of words, but there is so much communicated through her voice even with just humming.  They notice how much power her voice has, and they realize how low she can sing, which is rare.  I find it amazing what ten and eleven year olds notice when hearing her powerful voice for the first time.  I love to watch their faces, and I love to hear their reactions to the music.  All you have to say to them is "She sang for Martin Luther King, Jr. when he gave his "I have a Dream" speech" and they are riveted.  History through music is a great form of communication and learning.  Mahalia Jackson Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

But I never allow them to leave the room with this heart-wrenching spiritual as the last tune they hear.  I end this session with Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington singing "Don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"   We read about Duke Ellington and his band that played at the Cotton Club in Harlem, and we listen to this song, and talk about scat singing.  Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington  It was invented by Duke Ellington, they say, when he dropped his music and forgot the words so he just kept singing nonsense syllables..but it really makes the singer sound like one of the jazz instruments, less like a voice.  It is amazing how much emotion can be shared without words, how much can be communicated with humming, and just making up sounds as you sing the notes.  No one did that better than Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington.

Are there other ways I have been teaching my students this week to communicate without words?  Why, as it turns out, YES!  In my creative drama class I began a process called Draw How to Make Toast.  Students must draw pictures of how you make toast.  No one can talk, and they have to communicate just through their pictures.  They learn about how different people see a new task, and they learn a great deal about their own personalities and how they differ from other people's personalities.  They learn how to communicate through pictures and links and  nodes.  http://www.drawtoast.com/

I hope you all have a great February vacation!  I am going to visit my family, and I will be communicating in many ways with them, through singing, talking, gesturing, drawing pictures, reading stories, and laughing and laughing!!  See you all upon my return!

EXCEEDS OPTIONS

I have been struggling all week to figure out what to write about for my blog.  I think part of my problem of inspiration is the amount of snow I have been shoveling since I last wrote.  Also, we have had another snow day since the last blog, and I have already written about snow days and the reflection time they allow for me.  It occurred to me that during our teacher inservice days we discuss many interesting topics.

I thought perhaps I would take one of those significant topics and I would "riff" on it.  Well, the term "riff" is a wonderful jazz word that means to improvise on something.  I actually would not be doing that, as I know a great deal about this topic, and have worked with it long before we started to use the standards based reporting system, and long before we let go of a 1-100 scale and a,b, c, d, and f grading system.

As you can see by the title, I will be talking about the "EXCEEDS" options when it comes to projects and assessments.  We are working today on creating those "EXCEEDS" options in the assessments in different curriculum areas.  I am the only person who teaches general music for fifth and sixth grade, so my "EXCEEDS" options are my own ideas or they are taken from other sources.  All of my projects have an exceeds option on them.   It is way above and beyond what is expected of the student who might be working on the project or assessment.

 Every week, at the end of the week, there is some assignment or project that is due so the students will have accomplished something before they leave music for a whole week.  Take, for example, the "DYNAMICS" project that they worked on and performed last week.  To get a "3" or a "meets" you have to create a one minute composition that uses pianissimo-fortissimo and shows an understanding of all those dynamics.  Everyone must be involved in the group, and the group must collaborate together throughout the process.  To get a "4" or an "EXCEEDS" on this project it is much more difficult.  A student needs to compose music using treble and bass clef, for a specific instrument or instruments, and needs to be able to use standard notation correctly and also add to that the use of subito forte and subito piano.  It is not just "more of the same" it is a more complex version of the project.  Students need to be thinking at a higher, more sophisticated level of music-making to create this composition and to perform it.

It is very complex to re-think your whole idea of "grading" and "assessment".  A four, I will repeat, is not an "A" or an "A plus".  A four or "exceeds" is also not "extra credit".  A four, or an "exceeds" is the option that some students will choose to do or be encouraged to do, because they are capable of thinking at a higher level.  We always used Bloom's taxonomy to understand the different levels of

thinking.  Now they use Marzano's taxonomy,

which actually is not that much different from Bloom's but has a few more parts to it.  If we study these different options, we can be pretty confident that we will be challenging our students and giving them many opportunities to succeed in our classes.  

Yesterday my fifth graders were writing new lyrics to "Down By the Riverside".  When they finished the three verses that were required, they asked if there was a way to get an exceeds for this project, since they had more time.  My immediate response was, in my head was, "more verses?"  However, that clearly is not asking them to think at a more complex level.  What if these students were asked to teach someone else the way we write lyrics?  That involves a transfer of learning, more decision-making, collaboration and more problem-solving, without giving the students the answers.  Then, I thought, what about writing a new song from scratch?  About freedom, peace, and laying your sword and shield down?  That would be another option for exceeds. 

 I think there are a few important final ideas about this subject that I want to re-iterate.  First, we cannot get bogged down in asking our quicker students to do more.  More is just that. More, it won't teach them to think at a higher level.  Second, we cannot correlate "Exceeds" with "extra credit" or "A plus".  It is definitely not extra or plus.  For some students, they are starting at a different point than others.  The bottom line is, this is that wonderful word that I have been plugging away at since I began teaching, and this "EXCEEDS" option keeps us honest and accountable: DIFFERENTIATION!!!!

AHA MOMENT!!! 

WIKEPEDIA ON DIFFERENTIATION 

I LEAVE YOU HERE..Check out Lennon and Maisy singing Jason Mraz..if you had these kids in your class you would have to find some serious exceeds options for them..Lennon and Maisy