Posts Tagged ‘teacher’

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The Tony Danza Teach(ing) "Experiment"

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

As you may be aware, the A & E television station is running a new show called “Teach” on Friday nights. It is TV’s latest reality show, starring Tony Danza (of “Who’s the Boss” and “Taxi” fame). Danza is teaching English at a “tough” public high school. For real. Unlike the other reality shows out there, in “Teach” children’s education is

at stake. It’s one thing to have “the biggest loser” because the “results” only affect one person–the “loser.” With “Teach,” many children are affected.

Danza tells us that it had always been his ambition to teach, but he got sidetracked by a career in acting (not too shabby). He is assigned an English class. We don’t know if he has received a teaching credential or has an emergency permit of some sort. The class is filmed, as are meetings with parents, instructional coaches, students and even the principal. Danza also takes on some sports coaching opportunities at the school. While alone, Danza film-documents his afterthoughts about what has just happened. He might be reflecting in the classroom, or at home grading papers, or talking about the excitement of the “first quiz” that he is giving.

Clearly, the students have been told to speak their minds, and that they do. Some praise him, while others have concern about his abilities, credentials and practices. We see Danza laugh, be frustrated and even cry (quite a bit). All things we’d see if following almost any first-year teacher. This is most certainly reality.

I’ve seen each of

the first three episodes and find myself engaging in a self-debate about the ethics of this experiment. Should this be happening at all? After all, I began my career twelve years ago in a tough inner-city school, having an emergency teaching permit and having not yet completed a credential program. In this respect, Danza and I are/were equally qualified. He may even have an edge–he’s a good thirty years older than I.

Knowing that kids’ futures are at stake, I had wondered how good an idea this was. Then I thought about myself, and the fact the school they show probably has a tough time attracting qualified teachers. At that point, I concluded the experiment was ethical.

I eagerly await the conclusion as I find myself glued to the TV every Friday evening (I haven’t been this interested in a TV show since the 1980s). The show was filmed this past school year, and we’ll have to wait till the season finale to see the results of the real final exams the students take. Until then, I find it ironic that the teacher is in reality a student too. I hope nobody fails.

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Mr. Franklin is a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is an eleven year veteran and has won District and County Teacher of the Year awards. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Bank of America Community Hero award. Before teaching, he spent five years at Learning Forum, which runs summer camps designed to increase student academic potential. It is a world-wide program.

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Building Student Confidence: Part 5

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

This

is the fifth installment in the confidence building series. Click on the links for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “Imagine what you could do if you know you wouldn’t fail?”

Most of us have notions that there are challenges/tasks/activities that we incapable of doing successfully. This mental barrier is often wrong. Board breaking (see part 3), the ropes course (see part 4), and various other activities are designed to show people that the barriers to success are often psychological.

For schools/classes that do not have access or the means to do board breaking and/or ropes courses, there are most certainly other ways to help students build confidence. Every success is a step toward confidence. I think that in many classrooms, there are few opportunities for the types of challenges students need to build complete confidence.

In a data-driven/test-scores oriented culture, success on standardized tests is the most common instrument used to measure success-outcomes. Test scores (a topic of national debate right now) are, in my opinion, not necessarily a good indicator of measuring what has been learned, and they most certianly aren’t useful for real world confidence building. Whereas it is true that seeing ones’ test results can be a nice confidence boost, they make up only one of many areas in which students need confidence.

Working within the framework of state curriculum standards, there are many opportunities for students to build confidence for the “bigger picture.” Another favorite quote of mine is this: “if you are afraid of something, it is exactly what you should do.” Going with this, I try to incorporate into my classes activities that students tend to fear. Interviewing experts, oral reports, working with others to accomplish a task.

For my school’s student body elections, I have candidates give speeches to a full auditorium (600 people). My leadership students take turns doing morning Public Address (PA) announcements (to 1300 people). At assemblies, my elected class officers lead the flag salute and introduce speakers. My leadership class gives incoming fifth graders tours of the school.

I try to give students as many opportunities as possible to work in environments that are often uncomfortable for them. As humans, we generally  like stay within our “comfort zones.” We want

to do things that are easy for us, or come naturally. The idea is to expand ones’ comfort zone to include things we used to classify as things we feared (i.e. public speaking, interacting with strangers, etc.).

The larger our comfort zone, the more interesting and exciting our lives will be. Giving students opportunities to expand their comfort zones while learning curriculum is possible. It might take some planning, and it might take some time to properly do so, but the reward is well worth the price.

Read Part 6: parental tools here and Part 7: volunteering here

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Mr. Franklin is a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is an eleven year veteran and has won District and County Teacher of the Year awards. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Bank of America Community Hero award. Before teaching, he spent five years at Learning Forum, which runs summer camps designed to increase student academic potential. It is a world-wide program.

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Building Student Confidence: Part 4

Monday, September 13th, 2010

When I first began to work with kids, it was for a company that ran summer camps for teens. On various college campuses throughout the world (yes, world), the camps would set up shop and prepare to help teens succeed in school. There was a focus on strategies to help students in the classroom. Test taking skills, tapping into personal strengths, becoming creative and learning to express thoughts and feelings were all part of the ten day experience.

Staff training lasted about a week, and we as counselors (they called us team leaders–there was a great emphasis on teamwork) were put through the same curriculum that our soon to come campers would experience. Among other things, we were exposed to the confidence building activities–such as board breaking (see Building Student Confidence: Part 3).

We learned to work as a team, solve problems, think in the most positive terms about our progress as people, and use language to reflect that positivity (see Part 2). We were told that what we may perceive as a “failure” was better termed an opportunity for success (see Part 1). There is no question I was a bit surprised about doing activities such as board breaking. I would have never imagined that there was a connection between breaking a piece of wood and success in math.

The ultimate experience at the camp was the most unexpected of all things. This academic-themed camp had a ropes course element. I had never heard of such a thing, but I got to take part of it during staff training and later took the campers through the process.

A ropes course is an outdoor experience which involves activities such as climbing, jumping out of trees and walking on wires, all done high above the ground (maybe 40-50 feet). Some tasks were solo and some with a partner.

I came to learn that this was the ultimate experience in confidence building, a physical metaphor of “if I can do this, I can do anything.”. I had a great fear of heights, yet I did it, and I haven’t been the same since. My confidence level (and also the values of teamwork and trust) was propelled to a new height (no pun intended).

I have seen schools that have their own ropes courses, most often run by the physical education department. There are also companies that can come to various locations and set up a temporary course. The best experiences are the permanent courses/companies located in various cities throughout the country.

I take my Leadership class to a fantastic permanent course each year. Taking a group of 30 is a full day experience, and there is much emotion as students go through the process. Some “succeed” more than others, and students are asked to at least try what they think they can’t do or are afraid to do. “Come on, just take one more step up the ladder–you can do it!” is a very common phrase throughout the day.

Fees

for professional courses I have seen are about $60 per person. I’m sure this varies. It is quite the investment, but is worth it for the life-changing experience. Suceesfully jumping out of a tree to catch a trapeze or falling from a platform, backwards, into peoples’ arms gives a person quite a confidence boost.

Having done courses since 1993, I can say there are only a handful of times where students weren’t able to accomplish a challenge on the course. What I have seen over the years, with much more frequency, is students telling me (usually years later) how much the ropes course  helped them to overcome barriers to

success, whether it be passing a science test or interviewing for a job.

I would love to see all students be able to partake in such an experience. There’s no harm in inquiring whether your school can do this in some capactity. You never know what the response may be. As I tell my students, “you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” Take a shot at the ropes course.

Click here for Part 5 of the series, here for Part 6, and here for Part 7

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Mr. Franklin is a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is an eleven year veteran and has won District and County Teacher of the Year awards. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Bank of America Community Hero award. Before teaching, he spent five years at Learning Forum, which runs summer camps designed to increase student academic potential. It is a world-wide program.

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Essentials of Communicating With Parents

Friday, September 10th, 2010
Tyneham - old telephone

The biggest change I’m making in my planning for the start of the new school year is in how often I will communicate with parents. Communicating with parents requires effort, openness, clarity, and regularity. Let’s examine each of these.

Effort

Communicating with parents is not in the curriculum and not something taught in education classes. Too often, the only times teachers communicate with parents is when something is wrong; a child misbehaves or is injured somehow.  It is important to work at spreading good news, too.

But teachers already have so much to do. Where are we going to find the time to communicate with parents? Build it in to what you already do. Are you on Facebook or Twitter? Start a Facebook list of parents and limit what they can see. One post a week is all it take. Or start a Twitter account and only let parents see those tweets.

And, of course, there is Parentella. Parentella is a private parent-teacher social network. Teachers can create their private online classroom and invite parents to the class. Teachers can post homework, class news, events, and reminders to keep parents engaged in their kids’ educational lives.

Openness

Communication is a two-way street. When information flows in one direction only it is a lecture or an advertisement, but it is not communication. Good communication is about receiving information or other feedback as much as delivering information.

Listening with attention is a skill we ask our students to master and we have to do it also. As we teach our students, listening is more than keeping one’s mouth shut while someone else is talking and it is not planning what you will say. Listening is hearing, processing and considering what someone else has to say. We need to model it in our interactions with others.

Clarity

Like any other area of human endeavor, education has jargon. I wrote a paper as an undergrad in which I speculated that education in a particular field is merely the process of coming to understand what the jargon means. Parents don’t understand education jargon.

Practice clarity. Write and speak in clear, jargon-free English (or other language you share). Don’t sound like an education jargon generator.

One more thing, proofread! My wife is a copy editor and she catches every error in the notes and notices that come from our son’s school; there are far too many and some of the most aggravating ones would have been caught had the writer just read the item out loud. Trust your ears, if it sounds wrong, it probably is wrong.

Regularity

I have a colleague who teaches some children with very challenging emotional and behavioral issues. She is one of the few teachers I know who talks to parents with regularity; she calls the parents of all nine of her students every day. It needn’t be that often, but it is important to contact parents on a regular basis.

When my wife or I would pick up our son at the end of the school day and ask him what happened he’d respond, “stuff.” He’s going to be a junior in high school this year and all that’s ever happened at school is ‘stuff.’  Parents want to know what’s going on in class, what the class is studying, what’s coming up next, and more.

In the past I’ve given the parents of my students my email address and my cell-phone number, and I’ve left it up to them to contact me. This year I’m going to be more proactive. I’m going to email or call all parents at least once a week with general information about school and class events, also with information about all the great work their child is doing. Parents need to hear good news even more than they need to hear all the trouble their son or daughter causes.

Students are Crossing - Buckman Elementary-3.jpg

When I was student teaching in a 2nd grade class, the teacher guided the students in the collaborative writing of a weekly newsletter. Every Friday after lunch, the boys and girls would draw illustrations for the missive. I wonder if that would work in 7th and 8th grade. Hmmmm.

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Building Student Confidence: Part 2

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Their ability to work independently on tough jobs, with sophisticated equipment, requires much confidence.

Anything we do is enhanced with confidence and self-esteem. My last article focused on positive talk and feedback. I stressed that criticism is okay, but should be accompanied by positive “gems.” This article continues with the theme of building student self-esteem.

Praise is great, and the more the better. If you are not sure what the rights things are to say, here is a list of 101 Ways to Praise a Child, which is one of many articles found on the Internet that focus on positive “languaging” for kids.

I have also found that “I messages” are helpful when communicating with kids (and other adults for that matter). Nobody likes to be given orders or told what to do, yet as teachers that is part of our job. “I messages” are a communication tool which I’ve found to be a great compliment (no pun intended) to praise. Here are some examples of common instructions and alternative “I messages…” The “I message” alternative in is parentheses:

1. YOU NEED TO STUDY MORE (I need you to study more so you can be successful)

2. YOU NEED TO STOP TALKING AND GET TO WORK (I need you to please focus

on your work so you and the rest of the class can do their jobs)

3. YOU NEED TO READ CHAPTER THREE FOR HOMEWORK (I need everybody to be ready for tomorrow. Let’s make sure we all read chapter three and tomorrow we’ll have an awesome discussion).

4. YOU’RE JUST NOT GETTING THE MATERIAL (I know that you are so close to mastering this. You’re a step away from being an expert!)

5. YOUR BEHAVIOR IS OUT OF CONTROL (I know you want to learn, and it’s not fair to you, me or the class if

this is happening. Please help me out by trying to focus)

You might be shocked about how the simple phrasing of “commands’ affects student performance outcomes. I teach this to my leadership students and tell them to try it with their parents and other adults. They come back to me with very interesting feedback. Doing this is a way to stop the “us vs. them” atmosphere in the classroom. When I give instructions, I do it in such a way that shows we’re working as a team in the classroom (see the “read chapter three” comment above).

The next set of articles will focus on self-esteem/confidence building techniques that I have seen work wonders. Part three utilizes karate board breaking, part 4 a ropes course, part 5 leadership opportunities on campus, Part 6 Parental Tools for Building Self Esteem and Part 7: Volunteering.

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Mr. Franklin is a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is an eleven year veteran and has won District and County Teacher of the Year awards. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Bank of America Community Hero award. Before teaching, he spent five years at Learning Forum, which runs summer camps designed to increase student academic potential. It is a world-wide program.

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Posted in Steve Franklin | 10 Comments »

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