Framing my Argument and Word Choice

I am a big believer in the ideas George Lakoff has espoused concerning the abilities word choice creates for people to impact the way we perceive an issue. He had written a lot on how the Republican party has put significant effort into word choice to manipulate the way Americans think of and construct political issues. As I was writing I realized that this is something I also need to consider. It is common to refer to high poverty and minority students as, "at-risk" or requiring, "tolerance" but these terms imply that high poverty students are somehow deficient. Right now I am trying to get all my ideas out, but as I go back and critique what I have written it will be important to make sure my word choice and that of quoted academics reflects the appreciation for difference that I am trying to encourage in my argument.

Seeing Theory in Action

I was meeting with the principal at Wright Elementary and talking to her about staff development. For the past two years the district has reorganized the monthly, half day, staff development meetings so that teachers from all school meet according to their grade. Prior to this schools met at their own site and the principal and liason presented whatever topics the district wanted them to address. The principal at Wright sites this time, when the school met as a whole, as a critical part of the work she did in her first three years to pull up Wright's test scores. They did alot of work addressing poverty issues and other problems relevant to their school. The staff also covered the topics assigned by the district (at that time their was a big change in the reading program so most centered on that) but were able to do so in a way that was relevant to their school.
What I thought was the most interesting is hearing how the sense of community and team building was lost when they switched over to the staff development organization in place now. I think alot of teachers are growing more isolated in their classrooms at Wright, particularly because the staff meetings now provide very little time for interaction where teachers can discuss what they are doing in the classroom. It is interesting to hear how much this can change a schools potential for successful staff development.

Writing Decisions

I am working on writing now and running into some difficulty. I am trying to combine anecdotes from my time spent at Wright Elementary with research I have done. So far I am intertwining the two as I write. I can't decide if it would be more beneficial to begin the paper with an overall description of all my observations, or describe as they apply to my research. I am also considering breaking the paper into sections, with a relevant description from Wright at the begining of each. Any thoughts on structure would be helpful.

Reflection on My Staff Development Session

The Beloit school district sends their students home early one Wednesday of every month. The choice has been made to dedicate one afternoon to training and development for their teachers. As a student teacher I have gone to each of the monthly meetings which are organized based on the grade level each employee teaches at. Therefore, my previous experiences have been entirely with second grade teachers like myself. The meetings are taught by liaisons, teachers who have elected to spend additional hours working on curriculum development for various subject areas. As a Duffy intern I had the opportunity to attend a staff development session with a different group of teachers than I have previously, and I chose the fifth grade social studies meeting taking place at McNeel.
The session was lead by the ESL Coordinator and social studies liaison at Wright, as well as another teacher who acts as one of the two social studies liaisons for her school. The two had attended a meeting with the creator and manager of the new curriculum at Kolak, the district office. They had been instructed on what information to present, and had designed their own activities and method of presentation for their fellow teachers. The social studies curriculum was first implemented last year and a third of the staff development meetings have been dedicated to it. The other curriculum changes in math and writing, are the focus of all other development meetings. The meetings have been difficult in the past year since many teachers are responding very negatively to the new curriculum approaches. On the drive over to the development session the ESL Coordinator from Wright had told me about how hostile some of the meetings had been. Apparently the kindergarten teachers were the worst, and their meetings had been broken up into two groups with additional district members helping teachers run the meetings. Apparently, this would ensure they kept calm while they were being spoon fed the pre-planned curriculum instructions. I was lucky though, the group I was attending a session with was apparently slightly less intimidating, though they had gotten disgruntled at a few of the meetings.
The session began with the teacher on an overhead describing the theory behind the social studies program. She re-emphasized for the teachers what a concept based approach should look like, reviewed the strands the social studies program was based around, and went over suggestions for how to tie the strands into lesson plans. The teachers had been instructed to bring examples of their lessons, and at this time one of the fifth grade teachers brought up a concern she had with the information in the presentation. This merged into a discussion of her lesson, which she shared with the other teachers. They discussed the ideas she shared, many exclaiming as they went, "That's a great way of doing it," "I should try that with my kids," or "I never thought of that before." I was happy to see, but not surprised at the comparison of ideas and the excitement elicited by teachers once they began swapping stories. However, once this ended it was back to the pre-planned material we needed to cover.
We broke into groups to discuss one of the strands and link it to the historical events students would be covering in the next unit. I was placed with two teachers who taught together at another school. They were quite negative and un-enthused about the activity. After learning that I was an intern one of the teachers asked me what I thought of the staff development in Beloit. I responded that it seemed fine, and asked him what his feelings were. He was not at all hesitant with his response, "I think its the worst I've ever seen," he responded. He stated that he thought he could do a far better job. I thought this was an odd statement since all teachers were given the opportunity to act as liaisons and take part in staff training. However, he also indicated that it was the decisions made at Kolak about what content the teachers at the meetings had to cover that he was frustrated with. Apparently the basic concepts behind the social studies program have been regurgitated in development meetings repeatedly all year. The two teachers and I discussed the benefit that teachers would gain out of instead spending this time working together to create lesson plan ideas, and this is what we ended up doing.
It is remarkable to see the change that came over teachers at the meeting, including these two once discussion moved to practice instead of theory. These two listed off several of their favorite lessons they had done in the past. The conversation ended with both of them agreeing on how much fun it was to work with kids. "I just love it, even after all these years," one of them concluded. At this point the groups were instructed to come back together to discuss what we had done in our groups, and the sour attitudes and boredom returned.
The problem that I have often encountered with education policy is that their is an underlying assumption made by its creators that they need to, "teacher-proof" the system. Packaging curriculum in a way the relegates teachers to the position of mechanically carrying out orders. The new social studies program allows teachers the valuable decision making power in lesson planning, but the new standards and method of approaching the subject matter is very different from what they did before. To assist teachers with this, and ease their frustrations the material does not need to be repeated, it needs to be internalized through comparison of ideas and discussion with their colleagues. Coming up with ways to implement the new program together is the best pedagogical approach to teaching a new idea. Ironically the district is short changing these teachers by trying to make them learn through rote memorization, the exact opposite of the concept based approach and higher thinking they are telling these teachers to encourage from their students. Sadly they have yet to realize that all teachers want to learn about better ways to teach, they just want to be able to do so in a way that maintains their professionalism and dignity.

Creating defenitions

This week I have been thinking about two concepts I am using in my thesis and how I want to define them. The first is "development" and the second is, "cultural awareness". I am focusing my research on teacher development but I think when this is talked about the term commonly draws to mind the sort of staff development meetings that the Beloit school district creates half days for once a month. But according to my research this sort of prescribed development at a district wide level, which has been created and handed down to teachers from Kolak is the least successful approach when it comes to development. I am trying to ensure that my research embodies considerations at both the macro- and micro- levels of teacher development. Not trying to down-play the importance of these meetings, however, I want to make sure to appreciate that development includes, interactions with colleagues, reading education magazines, and meetings among fellow teachers at a school. Development can also be done at a school wide level through actions taken by the principal. The sort of development I want to focus on is also genuine, self-motivated development that teachers are open to and will experiment with in their own classrooms.
One important thing I have come across in my reading is the necessity for teachers to engage with each other continually after they have been introduced to new methods. Looking at some of the schools I have been in, isolation between teachers where they are not consistently involved in positive discussion of methods to evaluate and improve daily classroom practices is a problem.The greatest amount of teacher frustration seems to come from feeling alone in the classroom with ineffective methods to teach your students. So when I discuss issues of development in my paper I am trying to be clear on the depth and diversity of methods this topic entails.

The second focus of my research that I am just beginning to focus research on is, "cultural awareness." I am not sure if this is really the term I want to use for this, but what I am trying to convey is the fact that recently I think there has been a new focus on the, "culture of poverty," and how this inhibits a student cognitively and socially in a school. I think that there is a lack of training and development for teachers that focuses on this, and it may be one of the reasons for high attrition rates in high poverty urban schools. I am currently having trouble finding as many articles as I would like to on this topic though, it seems that a lot of the work done on it is within the past few years and it is not available on JSTOR so I have to use inter-library loan for it.

Collegiality and professionalism is best

I have been thinking about what types of teacher development I want to focus on. It seems that there is an ongoing push for greater staff development. Title I schools are required to demonstrate staff development and are even given money to attend conferences and other programs. However, I think the real problem with teacher motivation and development is not access to strategies but ways of sharing and discussing strategies with trusted peers. It seems like the teachers who struggle the most are those who are most isolated in their classroom. The greater the informal talk and sense of collegiality among a staff is the better. However, informal interactions among teachers must also incorporate strategizing, not just comparing notes about the weekend. It seems teachers benefit the most when they can compare strategies regarding teaching of the same topics or subjects- which is why grade group meetings seem important. The other way is through direct observation of other teachers. With a busy schedule it does not seem that sitting in the back of another teachers class to pick up tips is the top thing on a teacher to-do list. But I think in schools where allowing time for this, and encouraging teachers to share resources and ideas is one of the key things to creating an environment for genuine teacher development.
I also think schools can make access to literature and resources greater so that teachers know how to seek out ideas and improve their strategy through academic texts. Both this and the importance of collegiality are backed up by all the reading I have come across. It is interesting to see the way these play out at Wright Elementary, where I am doing my Duffy internship. Their staff library is incredibly organized with a system for checking out books, and it is very easy to find things. Similarly all the books and classroom resources that the school just got for the new social studies curriculum are shared among grades and are neatly organized and easily accessible in the library. In comparison when I was at Todd I had to hunt through bookshelves and non of the teachers seemed to know where anything was. The easy access of teacher resources and tools for development is a perfeect example of creating an 'environment that fosters development'.

Research, and connecting it to the Beloit school district

I have finished a pile of articles regarding various approaches to teacher development. After doing this I feel like I can organize these into a few groups. Those who focus on specific teacher motivation, individual school environment, or those who focus on leadership at either the district, state, or national level. So I have alot of different policy suggestions and frames for understanding one issue. I found the articles on what created teacher development that was self-motivated to be the most interesting. However, since I am trying to look how different parts of the system interact I also want to understand what best practice at the district level looks like.
Today I met with Carol Heallis (sp?) and Tracy Stevenson who organized the new math and social studies curriculum in the Beloit school district. I was interested to see what made them choose the curriculum approach for Beloit and what implementation of the new curriculum has been effective and ineffective.
The math curriculum was radically different from the way most teachers are used to teaching and I think there are still alot who resist the new program. I was interested to hear her opinion that the majority of teachers now support the curriculum. I also thought it was interesting that from the outset, the math approach they are trying to encourage is meant to take 5 years of more before it is fully and successfully implemented. The social studies program seems to have the same ideas behind it, but unlike the math there was no packaged curriculum they could adopt to achieve their goals. Both really seem to rely on the effect ongoing staff development will have.
The other concern I had was why these two subjects have been such a huge focus as opposed to literacy, science, or just classroom management. I am not sure I was satisfied with the answer, but I do agree that this new program deserves ongoing attention, it just seems it may be at the price of other things teachers could benefit from.
I asked both of them what the one imporvement they would want to see was. They both agreed that common prep periods for teachers is key. At this point elementary teachers only have thirty minutes of prep time in the day. It is critical that teachers have scheduled time to share strategies and ideas. I have found this in my research too, apparently 90% of improvement in teaching practice is fostered by another colleague. I just don't see teachers being able to give up their meager thirty minutes for forced prep-time. It should be something that is done in addition to their prep, or after school.

Interesting Article

One of the readings I just got from EBSCOHOST keeps coming to mind when I think about this issue. It criticized the tendency to try and fill the gaps in quality educators for high-poverty schools by filling positions with Teach for America volunteers or others who use alternative licensure methods. I think a lot of states fail to appreciate the value of having highly qualified teachers in all their schools. The only way to correct this seems to be to provide greater monetary incentives for teaching in high-poverty schools, and providing grants and scholarships to help teachers meet more demanding licensure requirements. Finding the political will to pay for this seemed unlikely when I was reading this at first, but apparently high rates of teacher attrition costs states 2 billion dollars annually so it a far better use for these funds. I am trying to balance studies of teachers with some literature on policy suggestions to get a better idea of how education policy in the US is impacting teacher development.

Goals for my second week

After meeting with Bill I decided that a lot of what I am interested in is pretty broad and there is a lot of literature, more than I can include in one semester. So rather than getting bogged down in one aspect of this issue (such as all the literature on staff development, or all the literature on school leadership, or all the literature on teaching methods in high poverty schools, and on and on) I am trying to consider the system at a macro-level. How do all the components come together to create quality, motivated teachers who won't get overwhelmed and disillusioned?
I am going to add work by Any Hargreaves, Michael Fullon, and Anette Lareau to my list for this week and see how this adds to my understanding of the overall beurocracy of the school system.

Intial research

I spent last week going over alot of reading that focused mainly on what creates quality staff development. They were mostly JSTOR articles from various education research journals. Two of the studies I looked at were done in England. However, I still think they're reallyl helpful because NCLB was actually influenced alot by the education policy in England. The whole accountability and high stakes testing atmosphere that has been created in the US has alot of its roots in policies that came out in England several years before NCLB. So it was interesting to hear the studies talk about the impact of 'accountability' measures and how they influenced staff development. Some of the important ideas I got from these articles was the difference between self motivated development versus enforced staff development. Teachers are less likely to integrate methods taught to them when they are not the result of less formal training. More successful methods of encouraging teachers to continue to develop their teaching methods is through informal mentoring from fellow teachers. Also academic theories were also successful when teachers then applied them in the classroom through trial and error, but the bottom line is that requiring teachers to attend staff development meetings dosn't mean it will impact their teaching style.
One of the key problems with education policy and attempts to improve teacher quality is this idea that curriculum needs to be 'teacher-proofed'. Assuming that teachers are not capable of making decisions about what affective pedagogy is. So all these curriculum ideas get forced onto a district with very little teacher input. The disconnect between the ideas behind the content makes it unlikely that teachers will accept or be able to properly teach all this new curriculum. So as I keep researching I want to focus on two things. What are successful ways to encourage ongoing development in a way that will actually create change that does not degrade a teacher's sense of professionalism. Also, I am particularly interested in teachers in low-income school districts so I also want to keep in mind what good curriculum and development should be encouraged? Even if teachers are using the methods encouraged in staff development programs dosn't mean they are good ones. So what will effective and quality staff development look like and encourage?

Research Ideas

Alot of my interest for this thesis is based on experiences during student teaching. One of the things that particularly struck me was the difficulty the district has with choosing and implementing new curriculum. It seems that teachers get inundated with new theories and approaches until they finally stop paying attention. Seeing the jaded view many teachers at my school had toward new district policies and curriculum approaches made me interested in professional development and motivation. I want to know what strategies are the best way to reach students and how to integrate these research and theories in a way that is useful and accessible to teachers. So far my reading is based on what I have already done. I am using my literature review from my last semester in the Duffy program. I read alot of studies on reasons why teachers choose to leave the teaching profession and why they stay when they shouldn't. Recently, the most interesting thing I have read is Jonothan Kozol's "Shame of the Nation" (I can't find the underling tool so I am using quotes instead). One chapter focused on the Success for All Model that has been adopted in some failing schools in low-income areas. I really disliked the approach because, according to Kozol's description, it takes away a teachers ability to make decisions on how any aspect of their class is run. I feel this approach to improving education deprives teachers of any sense that the district believes they are at all competent, and drives away the most motivated and talented teachers. I think alot of teacher motivation is based on their belief that they are given the time and tools they need to reach their students, but in a way that does not degrade their sense of pride as an educated professional.
I want to find more research on strategies for encouraging teacher development. Both what curriculum and strategies should be available for teachers and how it can be presented in a way that is usable. I am particularly interested in teaching strategies in low-income communities since I think this is where teacher retention and motivation is currently suffering the most.