Friday, October 19, 2012

EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Principal N., Part I

On October 11th, Principal N. was interviewed. This is the first ever posting of her responses.

What are 3 things setting our high school apart from others in New York City?

"We give students responsibility for their own learning and I think that's super unique. I think teenagers are treated like (older people in our school)...but I think our society turns them into useless people...and they're not responsible for their own selves. We actually hold them responsible for learning, for creating a safe school environment, for the behavior of their peers."

"I think teacher evaluation is a really big thing...an important thing..but I think we've lost focus from the point of how much learning is happening, who is responsible, and how well they are doing it. Teacher evaluation has something to do with that. But our rubrics put responsibility on students and teachers for quality of learning. Students have a huge responsibility for carrying out their own intentions and creating an atmosphere where people can speak freely and feel safe and learn."

"I think we have genuine distributed leadership. Our SLT (School Leadership Team) is a real leadership team. We have a system where people are empowered, where every adult is a leader in some way and it's not a top-down school. And kids take leadership in school structure--such as the Uniform Committee (student-led enforcement of uniform policy, class by class)."

"We didn't create a system where we hired more people to boss others around (for example, no Assistant Principal is to be found). Summer school is led by students. Their jobs are to teach each other. It's super fun to see all this and a majority of people seem happy. In general, people are very happy here."

What is 1 major thing that sets our school apart from other high schools nationwide?

"We believe in students' capacities to take responsibility for themselves. And we believe students can solve their own problems, with coaching and help with how to. Solutions nationwide are to have more adults solving students' problems."


FOR NEXT TIME: School goal for 2012-2013 school year & how school will implement the new national Common Core standards...




Thursday, October 18, 2012

What Will it Take...

...to engage a student brand new to the United States, who speaks no English and understands very little about what is going on in school?

A new girl from the Congo, D., broke down during my Global class yesterday. She was in tears and a fellow French speaker in class, K., asked if she could go out. I thought she was ill but it turns out she was very distraught about not understanding English, missing her home country, and being lost in her assignments. K was very promotive--talking with her, telling her how things were the same for her just one year ago. K now understands what I say to her though this time last year she says she spoke no English and could not understand.
Remarkable.

A Bengali-Indian boy in class, not known for always being especially promotive of others, also stepped in and told D. she needs to keep trying and not worry. He also knew no English when he arrive in New York.

D was back in class and on time, as usual, this morning. She answered questions on paper--although I know that must have been a struggle. But she made an attempt.

So many of our kids here really want to learn.
Today I posted up the new group leaders for next week. D will lead. She chose a reading today and folks signed up for their Unison Reading groups. I hope this experience will help engage her more in our "formats" and mission.

Next up: posting an exclusive interview conducted last week with Principal N.! Please stay tuned...

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

"Furthering..."

3 beautiful, large, new signs when up in school today. In purple, white, & gray (our school colors). We designed them as a staff a few weeks ago. The middle sign reads: "pro.mo.tive adj.: tending to promote. Contributing to the progress or growth of; furthering."
On the left: "Helpful," translated into eleven languages.
On the right: "Supportive," also translated.

Evidently, three boys were not so promotive earlier when they got to reading class late. Each boy was spoken with at the door and reprimanded. Although the reasons for their tardiness were innocuous by the standards of my old school, they missed several minutes of classtime--a cardinal sin here.
Leaving a binder in the bathroom is not a good excuse. Coming to class late requires a student to apologize to others.

The class was asked, what should be done about these boys?

Several students in class responded, they need to be there on time to be ready to work--for the teacher's mini-lesson and with the students around them.

Meanwhile, the principal's barren office space now has a lamp. A fairly nice one, at that. I've told her I'm getting worried. She may get too comfortable.
Alas, she responded, one of the (now) two filing cabinets in her office belongs to the secretary. The principal does not even have the keys.
Maybe I'll take the table and chairs out of the room at some point, she said, and just sit on a yoga mat.

After all, a dozen of our students have such mats available for a chosen enrichment class on Fridays.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Force Fed

Many students in American high schools are force fed.
Information is poured into them.
Especially in the inner-city, it is difficult to get the attention of many students as they wander into school from foster homes, shelters, jails, and the streets.
Although there is always a core group of students eager to learn & participate (with numbers varying wildly from school to school and neighborhood to neighborhood), the true challenge remains:

How do we get an overwhelming majority of high school students engaged and learning?

This is where my new school comes into play, above & beyond so many others.
We are testing the boundaries of that question.

One experiment (also read: possible solution):
"Independent Work."

Within our 70 minute periods, the teacher's mini-lesson at the beginning of each class is to last no more than 10-20 minutes. This is a tall order for teachers, like myself, trained more in the conventional, old-fashioned methods of both "chalk & talk" and even newer, supposedly different methods such as PowerPoint slideshows.
Even with much additional training & creative planning, " classroom museum gallery walks," "pair shares," & group readings only go so far. The end result remains largely the same: Students act at the specific directions of a teacher. Even with a certain amount of independence for walking around the room, posting comments on gallery walk chart papers, and sharing within pairs and groups, students still act mainly at the teacher's behest.

The new paradigm shift is this:
Each student is free to decide for him or herself what will be best to accomplish during the approximately 20-30 minutes of independent work time in every class, every school day.
A teacher may list several ideas, or options, on the board. Some may think of this as a "choiceboard," which I have employed in past years.

But the big difference is that this is not choosing a project idea.
This is truly a shift in the culture.

Yasmin must decide for herself: Do I stay with my Unison Reading group today, working with partners to complete Renaissance curriculum questions (which have been spelled out by the teacher on handouts posted on the front wall).
Or, would my time be better served by reviewing a PowerPoint--on a classroom laptop-- Mr. H. has e-mailed me?
Should I watch more of the movie clip on Renaissance architecture we didn't have time to finish during class?
Or, do I add more new words (as both a history student & English Language Learner) to the Vocabulary Log sheet I have out from Unison Reading?

The teacher observes students. Occasionally, in between individual conferences with students & formal observations of two Unison Reading groups per class, the teacher employs students to be promotive. Without spelling out exactly what students are or are not doing, the teacher motions toward a problem, compelling others to discern what potential problems may exist.
Oh, okay, students note. Willy is wasting his independent time.
A student or two talk with him about what it is he can be doing to make good use of his time.

If numerous problems exist, perhaps it's time tomorrow to put some content on hold for the mini-lesson and emphasize RASP--Routines And Social Processes. This could include projecting for students segments of a work rubric, specifying how students are to be held accountable during their independent work time.

In the end, our goal is for each and every student to not be an automaton. As William James once said, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

"Hey bro, that's not being promotive"

~freshman male student to fellow freshman male in hallway

Even if said in jest, it's still noteworthy to hear freshmen boys talking about being promotive. Perhaps our message really is sinking in.

Many of our students truly are promotive. I have two Dominican girls in class 10A who are so enthusiastic about learning it's contagious. This has to be filmed. One girl speaks little English while the other, written about in another posting, works extra super hard at everything--even while understanding extremely little English. In Unison Reading, both girls always have vocabulary sheets at the ready and are never off task. During the mini lesson both girls have taken to sitting up front, always alert.

Two other boys in the same class are not so promotive. Though they've been in our school and New York City the same length of time as so many of  our students--approximately 1-1.5 years, it seems to be--they remain largely disengaged and off task. Principal N. acted as supreme interlocutor yesterday as we sat in on their Unison Reading group. Student An. was the largely disengaged Group Leader (GL) who counted for the group to begin ("Okay, 1-2-3..."), but whose heart was otherwise not really in the work. Principal N. did not hesitate to stop the three boys in mid-sentence numerous times and interrogate them about how to help each other.

Student Ad. sat smiling, as usual, but otherwise remained silent. The principal really pushed back at him, wondering why he was not communicating with the other two. One lesson I learned is needing to really jump into the reading group more to help facilitate when students are not communicating well or helping each other effectively.

The bottom line here is to help make students into leaders. To help them learn responsibility. It's baptism by fire for many, as they learn a new language concurrent with leadership skills that so many adults do not have [just ask my father who is a management consultant & coach for corporate leaders].

Alas, our school's recurring statement about "being promotive" is not empty.
And many students are getting the message.
Although I've only been her for a month so far, the proof is in the vegan pudding, so to speak.
Today's attendance is 94.5%.
Overally average for school year so far is approximately 94-95%. That's about five kids absent per day out of about 170 students in our school (which is only freshmen and sophomores as of now).

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

No More Passing Out of Papers

That's what the principal just told me.
Students should take responsibility for getting handouts themselves.
Course outcomes will be posted on the walls, written on open folders which will also contain pertinent handouts.

"I feel like I spent 10% of my teaching passing out and collecting papers," Principal N. said.
She is very concerned about students and teachers not wasting time.

Another element which sets our school apart.

I was disoriented upon entering the principal's office for our meeting.
Before me was a conventional large wooden desk with desktop computer and stacks of important papers. Beside me were windows looking into a barren space. And there sat Principal N.

"Oh. I thought that (pointing to the conventionally large desk) was the secretary's and your office was in here," I said, entering the barren space.

"It is," she responded.

All that is contained in her office is a small round table, a laptop computer, a two drawer filing cabinet, & a clipboard in the window.
No pictures. No stacks of papers. No books. No desk.

The principal doesn't want to be comfortable in her office. She wants to be in the halls, in the classrooms, talking with students and teachers.

This is an interesting place indeed.