4th Graders Wanting to Learn More = Productive Learning

I. And What Do You Mean By Learning?

I know the learning is going well when I top the staircase and enter into the hallway and from the distance of a city street I can hear the children's voices in Mr. Watson's class.  As I enter the classroom, this is what I see:

Purposeful Learning in Grade 4

Some students are illustrating myths, others are creating a comic series, Mr. Watson is engaged with a small group, while other students record a myth and on and on and on. The atmosphere in this 4th grade classroom in Newark, NJ is joyful, purposeful, and appropriate for children.

Earlier tonight during a Twitter chat, I had reason to mention Seymour Sarason's book, And What Do You Mean by Learning? Sarason defines learning as either being productive or not.  In the preface of the text, he writes:  

Learning is not a thing it is a process...And by productive, I mean that the learning process is one that engenders and reinforces wanting to learn more. Absent wanting to learn, the learning context is unproductive or counterproductive. Is it not noteworthy that the word or concept of learning probably has the highest of all word counts in the diverse literature in education and yet when people are asked what they mean by learning they are taken aback, stammer or stutter, and come up with a sentence or two which they admit is vague and unsatisfactory? (ix-x)

Mr. Watson reading aloud today in 4th Grade.

The children in this classroom want to learn more and do so.  Mr. Watson, his students, and I are exploring Greek myths by listening to texts being read aloud, reading myths in small (un)guided groups, independently reading written, audio, and visual texts, and doing lots and lots of talking, drawing, and writing. The children do this with and without their teachers. They use resources found in their classroom and at home to deepen their understanding of mythology and often to answer questions they pose as they learn.  I noticed today that squirreled away in their desks are books they are reading about myths, mythological creatures, plays, comics, cartoons, histories and more. Given that we usually work in a 2 to 3-hour block and the children do not seem to tire even a little--I know the work matters simply because they want to learn more. 

II. Reading Greek Myths

For the last week I have had the privilege to teach Dionni, Antoine, Luis and Kamila--all of whom are fourth graders in this public school classroom.  These children, like their classmates, are capable and motivated to read a Nathaniel Hawthorne text as all things Greek mythology are of interest. Their teacher has engendered a desire on the part of the children to want to learn more. There's not a child in the room who isn't turned on. Way turned on.

I like to think of the small group work I do with the children as being (un)guided. I call it (un)guided to suggest that the teaching is neither guided nor unguided, but rather both guided and unguided. I'm always looking for a space in the work we compose where I can bow out and the kids can take over. We shuffle control back and forth as needed. So it's not unusual that earlier today I found myself smiling as I realized I could sit back further in my seat and listen when Dionni said to the other 3 in her group, "There's one thing I've been thinking about that I just don't get. Why didn't Ceres just use her powers to find her daughter?" 

It's the command and tone that lets me know Dionni is on to something she values. We are at the midpoint of Hawthorne's story, The Pomegranate Seeds, which is his retelling of Demeter and Persephone that he published in 1853.  It's a challenging text.  Today it will be Antoine who will help us explore Dionni's question as he uses an example from his Minecraft play to help us contextualize why Ceres' powers cannot help her to find Proserpina.

Antoine tells us:

One time when I was playing Minecraft I used a portal and got transported to the Netherworld.  It's all lava there--like what I think Pluto's Underworld is like.  Anyway, the portal got damaged, it got shot, and I was stuck there for awhile. I had to make do with what was there. I couldn't use anything I had back in my chests. Finally, I  found a way out of the Netherworld by fixing the portal. You see what I mean? That's what it's like for Ceres. Her power works on Earth, but not in Pluto's Underworld. She can't use her powers to find Proserpina. That's why she's so upset. She's pretty powerless.

Dionni who is also a Minecrafter catches on immediately. "I get it.  She can speed up crops on Earth, get the animals to help, but she can't use those powers to help Proserpina because she's already in the Underworld with Pluto. It's like she doesn't have a Portal to get there or to get her power there."

"That's why Hawthorne says she's sad and anxious," says Luis reminding us of a section from the text we had just reread.

"Could you read that section to us?" asks Dionni.

He reads: "And when they saw only a sad and anxious woman, with a torch in her hand and a wreath of withered poppies on her head, they spoke rudely, and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon her."

"And she's a goddess and she expects her power to work and it isn't," adds Kamila.

"She's so ungoddess-like. The people in the palace want to set the dogs on her. That's not what she's used to," adds Dionni.

"I also notice the poppies which were fresh at the start of the story are now wilted, kind of like her  spirit," I add.


III. Why This All Matters

"I think we should read on," Kamila tells the group and they chat briefly, deciding to read the next few pages and determining a stopping point. They're used to taking charge and do so. A few minutes later, a music teacher arrives and it seems that everyone has forgotten that today is music.  There's a bit of a clamor as the children put away their books, roll up drawings, and leave the classroom. Mr. Watson and I are seated at a table in the room when the one remaining child, Xavier, whom I don't know well, makes his way to the table.

"Hey, you think I could be an expert tomorrow?" he asks his teacher. "I'm gettin' this Greek mythology." 

"Yeah, show us your stuff," Mr. Watson tells him.

"Yeah, I got stuff to show," he says with a certain pride before turning and leaving the room.

The child is fairly new to the city, the school and the classroom and he's got stuff to show. Thankfully he's landed in a place where that matters, where we're not confused about what we mean when we talk about learning.

BTW, I've blogged about this experience in these other two posts: 

• The Power of Reading Aloud & Comprehension Conversations in Grade 4
• Noticing: 4th Graders & Literary Language & Techniques

Learning That Gets Made in 2nd Grade (#SOL15, Day 5)

Stop Holding Us Back (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

I.

I spent yesterday teaching small groups of second graders from Newark Public Schools as their teachers and other visitors looked on. These are children I have taught before. We have shared good books together and so the work unfolds in ways that are both predictable and not. During the morning session, one group of children partner-read The Emperor's New Clothes and then independently wrote responses to three questions. The teachers and I reviewed their work during lunch. Rather than traditional guided reading, this type of guidance focuses more exclusively on comprehension. Reading their written responses allows me to see some of the confusions the children have about the text--and it is a complicated text to read--as well as what they seem to understand. This knowledge helps me to plan for a possible conversation the children and I will have after lunch.

II.

It's 1:30 in the afternoon when I meet with the children again and what is most noticeable, and not surprising, is that all of them from time to time offer responses that are not rooted in the actual text at all, but rather represent truths they know and want to apply. We talk for an hour and the children work hard to determine why the emperor continues parading without his clothing after he hears the child say he is wearing no clothes.  Edmund offers that the emperor doesn't believe the child. Juliana says that's not true and is able to locate in the text where the emperor directly states that he believes the child. This prompts all of us to reconsider what else might be influencing the emperor to continue doing something that is at best embarrassing. This is a challenging question and one that has caused each child to ponder what they know, what they know to be true about the emperor, and to consider what might be worse than parading without clothing.

"Why would the emperor do that?" asks James with a certain amount of indignity.
Why indeed? I think.

III.

In all the boisterous talk that follows, it is the quiet utterance that is most important to hear. Marc says the single word, dignity, in response to what the emperor loses. His statement catches the ears of his peers and they begin a heated discussion about the emperor, his relationship with his subjects, and how his actions protect his job, but cost him the respect of his subjects. I physically sit back in the chair as I know they will wrangle with this question and no longer need the language I was loaning them.  Now that language is too bulky, too much in the way. They have found their own words and are trying out some big ideas, such as:

• The emperor is a bad leader. He cares only about himself.
• He cares more about keeping his job than being honest with his citizens.
• The emperor is not courageous.
• The emperor would rather be without clothes than have his advisers think he is unfit for his job.
• The emperor is not honest.
• The emperor knows he is lying.
• The emperor has lost his dignity.
• The emperor has lost his money and he won't say anything to the swindlers because he has to keep up the lie.

IV.

I listen and when there is a lull in the conversation I ask the children, "Do you think if you reread the book tomorrow and talked a bit more about why the emperor makes the final decision to continue parading without clothes that you might be able to write a response to question 3?"  They wear big smiles on top of their confidence and nod their heads indicating, yes. I next ask them: "Would you agree to allow your teacher to send me what you write as I'll be in Boston tomorrow? I'd like to read what you had to say." Again, they indicate yes.

At that moment, it's almost as if their collective confidence was a living thing in the room alongside us. It's big. Present. Powerful. And I know they have caught fire when the school day ends and they will not leave the classroom.  Thirty minutes later and they are still trying to figure out where they can get their hands on copies of the book and other stories by Hans Christian Anderson so they can read it again at home. Juliana tells me she's going to go to the library as soon as her mom can take her.

"You can take out the book and they let you keep it for ten whole days," she tells me as only an 8-year-old can sound.  I listen and make a silent nod of thanks that we still have public libraries in our country.

Others in the group are already planning to borrow the book so they can bring it home to read again. And they look to their teacher who lets the know this is possible.  I listen as they finally leave the classroom and notice that they are continuing the conversation about the emperor and his lack of leadership on their own as they make their way down the long hallway.

V.

Learning requires the space to be wrong--as does good teaching. This shift from more traditional approaches to guided reading to guiding children's reading through conversation is challenging and necessary. When the teachers ask how they might best prepare for such conversations we talk about reading the text carefully, sharing your perspective with another teacher, preparing, asking, and answering good questions, recognizing that the conversation will take twists you did not plan for, and becoming comfortable as the lesson will not turn out the way you may have intended as the lesson no longer rests solely in your hands.

The learning is a made thing that happens among people. This is a liberating truth: the work that is made does not and cannot rest solely in the hands of the teacher. This is, in part, what makes it so powerful.

Network Improvement Communities: Teaching, Researching, and Designing Learning in Newark

Making Meaning with Paint (Robert Treat Academy Central, 2013)

I. Entering

It has been a most amazing year.  I am finally catching my breath and wanted to take some time here to discuss the work my company, Blueprints for Learning, has done with teachers, administrators, students and parents in Newark, NJ and what that work means.

This year we partnered with 7 schools in Newark focusing on K-2 literacy at four of the schools, K-8 mathematics and K-8 literacy at two of the schools, and 6-8 literacy at one school.  On every measure schools used, children at our partner school sites were able to demonstrate very significant gains in literacy and mathematics.  The vast majority of children at all of our sites will enter the next school year having met or exceeded all school and district benchmarks.

So what went right?



II. Working in Network Learning Communities

A principal and teachers from different schools work together to dramatize a scene from
a Barry Lopez essay. (Newark, 2013)

First, we have no set program, but we did create relationships with our clients.  It is in the context of these relationships that community knowledge was made. Making community knowledge allowed us to understand our work as flawed, flexible and (in)formed by emerging situations.  We revised our work so often that we understood this behavior as essential to creating conditions where effective learning most often happens. Alongside community knowledge, commitment arose. (I suspect community knowledge and commitment are co-specifying).

Administrators and third grade teachers from different
sites working together. (Newark, 2013)

One observation an assistant superintendent in the city made that I most prized was that everyone from Blueprints spoke with teachers and children with great respect and clarity.  I imagine this occurred a a norm because we experienced teachers, administrators and children as partners.  These partnerships allowed us to frame and respond to emerging situations.  Because we worked across 7 sites within a city, we also were able to leverage the power of that network, which formed and remade itself as different alliances and commitments grew.  The dynamic nature of network improvement communities allowed us to situate our work in the middle of learning spaces as teachers, researchers, learners, and designers.  I think here David Weinberger's observation that "...in a networked world, knowledge lives not in books or in heads but in the network itself" (p. 45).

Jal Mehta (2013) in The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling writes about network improvement communities (Bryk & Gomez, 2008) as promising practices in education improvement.  He says:

Here the idea is to bring together local practitioners, researchers, and commercial designers around a set of shared objectives and across a number of networked schools. Rather than stage the process in the usual way (first research, then policy, then implementation), researchers, practitioners, and designers work together in real time to develop, adapt, and revise knowledge to solve a problem of practice across a variety of institutions. Learning takes place at three levels: the classroom, the school, and across the network. This model is particularly promising because it expands upon the more familiar idea of individual “learning organizations” and provides a process by which we could capture and adapt knowledge across a diverse network of schools" (5342-5343). 

Teachers observe as a kindergarten teacher teaches
a high intensity literacy lesson to her students.
(McKinley Elementary School, Newark, 2013)

Rather than understand emerging conditions as being uni-dimensional (i.e., a reading problem, teacher x's problem) and solely the 'problem' or 'practice' of a school, classroom, teacher, or child--we were able to understand these situations through a variety of lenses as networked intelligence informed our understanding. This led us to routinely create occasions that situated consultants, administrators, researchers, authors, and teachers from different places alongside one another. This juxtaposition allowed all of us to better learn and problem frame and solve.

III. Looking Toward

As we think about next year, we will privilege designing ongoing occasions where learners (that would be all of us) connect, contextualize, collaborate and create in more idiosyncratic ways with one another, as well as with others beyond the city.  At a workshop I conducted during the last week of school, I was so pleased to hear teachers and administrators in attendance getting one another's email so that they could stay in touch and work together during the summer and next year.  They valued one another's work.  For next year I have tentatively designed the opportunity for 300+ educators to learn in cross-school PLCs focusing on mathematics and literacy instruction.

I'll let you know what emerges from that invitation...



Work Cited
Mehta, Jal (2013-04-02). The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling (Studies in Postwar American Political Development). Oxford University Press, USA. Kindle Edition.

Weinberger, David (2012-01-03). Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest People. Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

That Four Letter Word

1. Making Prevention Happen

1st grader, who had been struggling to read,
reading to the vice principal.

For the last four months, consultants with my company and I have been working in five inner city schools in Newark, NJ with K-2 staff and administrators.  The goal has been to ensure children learn to read and enjoy reading and teachers learn or refine methods  to occasion both consistently.  We have done this by  modeling, coaching and scaffolding educators' work, and directly teaching students.  We have provided KEEP books for children to take home to read and a few specific practices for teachers to learn and practice. We targeted what was essential to do in this first stage, learned where we were wrong, co-planned and revised as needed. We have measured and actually used what we measured to inform our plans.

1st grader rereading North, a text that had been read aloud.

The projects at each school have been significantly successful even though we began them in January  instead of September as originally planned.  I set the target at 90% of the kindergarten and grade 1 children and 85% of the second grade children would meet all of the district's exiting literacy benchmarks, including continuous text reading for all children who were present 90% of the time, regardless of heritage language, classification, etc. As I review data, it looks like we will meet those targets at most, if not all, of the schools.  Further, as progress is measured carefully now by teachers and attended to with clear responses, the children who are making slower, but nonetheless, progress (often ones who are new to the school or have had significant absences or began the school year well behind) have cogent plans to help them keep making progress.

What becomes clear when we look at data, is that without this prevention project, 40% to 50% of the children at these school sites would not have gained inner control as readers.  As these children entered the next grade, the content might well have been altered as a critical mass would not have had the minimal requisite skills, strategies or experiences to attend to the content.  As such, it is likely that even more children would have 'fallen behind' as primary and intermediate grade teachers would have been unable to teach the required content or in many cases mediate the range of needs. What little gains children might have seen the previous year could well have been eclipsed by lack of meaningful practice or by attending to the wrong content or impractical lessons.

Kindergartners posting mental images
they drew on an anchor chart.

Now add to this the expectation for capable writing and how impossible it is to write well without having secured competent reading skills and the large failure (70%+) on state tests that many of the children at these schools have experienced seems less nebulous.  Children write by encoding sounds as graphic symbol regardless of what fancy unit of study we call it.  They learn about the possibility of writing by hearing stories, drawing and painting, dramatizing and telling stories, observing adults and others read and write, and most of all by reading.  It is these combinations of factors--more so than any specific unit of study that has been taught--that lead to competent writing and equally important the desire to keep doing it.  I was reminded of this last week when I spent the day with a principal and she was reviewing student writing.  She showed me writing done by kindergartners from our project and third graders who are not in our project. The kindergarten children's writing was clearly better than the third graders' writing with regard to clarity, expression, mechanics, and syntax.  She asked me how this could be as we have not focused on writing directly. I didn't know what to say at the moment.  Later, I thought about how great reading instruction that pays attention to meaning, syntax, and grapho-phonemics helps to produce children with competent beginning writing skills. Add to that the emphasis on quality read alouds with comprehension and vocabulary instruction and children become well practiced in having something to say and being able to invent and/or borrow language to say it.

Kindergarten teacher sharing a chart she and her students created
in response to the text, Freedom Summer. K-2 teachers at this site are
exploring the use of African American literature with their
children and are also studying Gloria Ladson-Billing's
Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African-American Children.

 II. About Teachers and School Building Leaders

Next year we will continue our work focusing on composing as teachers, readers, writers, artists, and thinkers.  Prevention of reading and writing difficulties is doable and we do not need to go out and 'find replacement teachers' to do so.  By changing a few practices and supporting teachers by co-teaching when needed, the culture of the schools also change.  We are learners and this subtle shift from being the teacher to being a learner creates possibilities.

For the last two months I have been receiving or have been copied on emails by teachers in the project. This is one   a teacher sent to the principal at her school and it is similar to countless others I've received:

I just wanted to make you aware about how beneficial I have found Blueprints For Learning, this year. Ms. XXXX (consultant) , with the constant support of Ms. XXX (VP), has changed my entire outlook on the guided reading program, and implementing it into the daily lives of my students. Along with [the consultant's] guidance I have totally restructured my classroom and my daily instruction to meet the individualized needs of my emergent readers to advance them to the next level. She has really made an impact on not only my classroom, but my teaching style, as well. She has made herself available by email any day of the week to answer any  questions, and  is always willing to come in and demonstrate a guided reading or writing lesson. My children thoroughly enjoy her presence...It has been such a privilege  to be working with her this year.

1st grade teacher shares a method she is using to keep track of leaners' progress.

Each week I receive an email or am stopped at the school where a teacher, a VP, or principal tells me something similar.  This gives me pause, especially when I hear politicians bemoan the current teaching staff in public schools and talk about how they need to 'find great teachers.' 

Great teachers are not purchased.  They are made alongside other teachers at school.  They do not emerge from the university complete.  Being a teacher is work that is always in a state of becoming. We would be wise to understand that.  The culture of schools and school districts is most responsible for the quality of work that is produced than any greatness gene.  

If we want to improve the work we need to ask:

• How do the leaders show that they value risk taking, error making at the state, district and school levels?  
• How do we support innovation--of teachers taking the road less traveled?  
• If we want children to think, then how do we first ensure that teachers and principals are valued as thinkers?  
• Whats the tone of the lace? How do teachers speak with children? How do admins speak with teachers?  How does central office speak to and refer to teachers and school level admins?
• What policies do we endorse, insist upon that create the context and conditions for innovation? 
• How do we lessen the fear that arises along with new evaluation systems?
• How do we support the idiosyncratic need that teachers and principals have to create the unexpected? The unplanned? The unclear?  How do teachers do that with children?
• How is wonder and curiosity among everyone at school privileged?  
• How do we partner with parents? What does that look and sound like?
• How do we privilege mistake making in a time of high stakes testing?

Two teachers with Bernadette Kazanjian (seated in the
center, from Blueprints) observing another teacher at work.

III. On Love

At Blueprints and our newest endeavor, Middle Matters [yes, think rhizome] we believe deeply in making mistakes, of reversing plans, of courting the unexpected, of seeing possibilites, of designing futures.  Our work is largely about problem solving with clients and being responsive to emerging situations.  

We work in the middle of things alongside others.  
We practice being (other)wise.

Each consultant we hire is a learner we have known or have gotten to know and all are people we respect and love greatly.  Yes, love, that four letter word.  Our work is as much about love, as it is about technique.  We care for and about each other and the teachers and administrators we work with, as well as the children we co-teach.  I realize that references to love seem to be absent in much of the education 'reform' literature that is popular today.  And more's the pity, I think.

It's love that drives our work--that powers the inventing.

                             

Preventing Literacy Difficulties in Kindergarten and Grade 1

Child who had not been reading,  reads from his book box while his peers and teacher listen. 

In this post, I want to highlight through images some of the ways we are working with inner city public schools to help them prevent reading and writing difficulties in grades K-1. Specifically, we have helped teachers to strengthen independent reading and writing in their classrooms by organizing and supplementing classroom libraries, scaffolding reading and writing, developing individual book boxes/bags for children, instituting turning and talking about texts, providing high quality read aloud books and e-book guides, introducing interactive and shared writing, and supporting kindergarten and first grade teachers as they implement these practices and reading and writing workshop. It is important to note that many of these images were made in Lenore Furman's kindergarten class in Newark, NJ. Lenore is a nationally recognized primary grade teacher whose work with children is nothing less than inspiring.

Science observation.

Reading bag support.

Observation page.

Lenore confers with a kindergarten writer,
helping her to add a lead to her story.

Writing supports that are in each child's writing folder.

Kindergarten child takes control of the conference. Agency matters.

Table card to suport reading. These cards change based
on what supports learners need.

Child's painting, neatly displayed.

Pretend center mural. Murals change based on themes.

Pretend center materials.

Writing where you are comfortable.

Writing Where you are comfortable.

Anchor Chart 

Read Aloud Books

Read  Aloud Books 

Independent Reading Book Boxes

Read Aloud Books

Close up of Interactive Writing 

1st Grade Children's ThankYou to
Blueprint's Consultant via Interactive Writing

One section of Classroom Library

Sandy Heintz, an administrator, reads with a child.

Book organization

Kindergartener practicing reading.

Kindergartener practicing reading.

Word Wall words on popsicle sticks
that are used by children when writing.

Word Wall

Spacing tool that is included in students' writing folder.

Interactive Writing

Initial Chart for learning workshop structures.

Center Organization

Reading Goal Reminder that is placed in Reading Bag

Individual Reading Bag with just right books

Sign Up for Teacher Assistance

Anchor chart made with learners

Reading Goal Card

1st Grader's Story

Leveled Books are Color Coded

Suport Card in each child's reading box/bag.

Building Community

Table card (These change based on
what children need to learn)

Interactive Writing based
on Non-Fiction Study