Outside the Cave

My big project for the year was to start a Critical Friends Group for small school Social Studies teachers in NYC.  The Critical Friends Group has had three formal meetings at this point, and has taken on a powerful life of its own.  Of the 12 members initially recruited, seven have been at all three sessions; where a very strong supportive, yet critical, community is developing.  Our last two meetings have included outstanding work from members of the group.  At the first, my co-organizer and myself presented, and last Monday, two of the other members of the group shared.  Two presenters brought their curriculum maps: one looking for general feedback, the other looking for ideas on how to serve the top third and bottom third of his students better (in a classroom of two teachers with 50 students, adding the opportunity for creative solutions).  Another ran a PD session that he is considering doing for wider audiences, and I brought in student work to get suggestions on helping my students move to deeper levels of understanding.

It’s been inspiring to see the work that other great teachers are doing, and it’s pushed me to think deeper about a lot of things, particularly the essential questions I use for historical inquiry.  At the same time, our group has not been shy about offering critical feedback, and it seems that all four presenters have left with strong suggestions for improving their work.  It’s the latter that has excited me the most, and seemingly other members as well.

The past meeting added a new level to the group that I had not thought of, but bodes well for its future.  Both presenters brought collaborators with them.  For the group to be sustainable, I think it will be imperative to organically bring in fresh blood in this manner.  One of the guests is teaching at the iSchool, which is doing some really innovative things (here is the class she talked about), and I hope she will join the group permanently to add a very different perspective into the group.

The one area where the group is not developing as I hoped in its writing component.  I had a vague idea of reflective writing being a part of it that never really crystalized.  Given the value of teacher’s time, I am wondering if it might be worth scrapping that component, or if its worth further research to make it more valuable.  It is also worth noting that we write for the first 30 minutes of our meetings, which a significant number of participants miss because of their travel time to our meetings.

Tuesday, I went and met with a group of student teachers up at Vassar. I hoped to share with them some of the many reasons that makes what we do the greatest job in the world, though part of me fears that a lot of what I said, particularly about how hard it is to find a teaching job these days, might have overshadowed what makes this job great. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here is a list, in no particular order, that highlights just some of the reasons I cannot possibly imagine doing anything else:

• Students come to me excited every morning to ask me if I “saw that on the news last night.”
• I work in an environment where collaboration with my co-workers is always valued more than competition with them.
• Each year, I get to meet and deeply know 100+ new people.
• I didn’t have to work my way up the ladder to do the work I want to do; I’ve been doing that work since day 1.
• Teaching is so intellectually demanding and challenging that it always provides new experiences to keep me interested.
• I get to work with adolescents at the moment when they are defining who they want to be for the rest of their lives, and to help them think about that.
• I get to see Facebook status updates from alumni that thank me for introducing her to Baudrillard so she was the only person who understood it in her class.
• I once got a letter from the worst behaved student I ever had on the day of his graduation thanking me for showing that I cared about him by not letting him get away with the behavior others ignored because they got tired of dealing with him.
• I often find out that a random remark I said off the cuff really stayed with a student.
• I have a job that makes me want to continue to improve constantly.
• I get to be humbled over, over, and over again.
• There are thousands of other people with the same commitment and thoughtfulness that I have working on the same issues.
• I get to help students understand the meaning of democracy.
• I get to help students learn to better express their selves.
• I get to make students complain regularly that their heads hurt because they’ve never used their brain in the way I’m asking them to.
• The letters I occasionally get from other teachers letting me know that my writing has helped or inspired them in some way.
• The letters or comments I get to write thanking other teachers for helping or inspiring me in some way.
• Constantly learning about new ways to be better at what I do.
• Being challenged by my students to learn new things and consider different viewpoints.
• I get to take students to Ellis Island, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and on college trips around the Northeast.
• I can honestly say I love what I do and would not want to do anything else.

At the beginning of the year, I set a number of goals for myself, one of which was to reflect on said goals every two months. My first reflections are in italics below.

Teaching 

I will improve the way I give feedback to students.  Formally, I hope to develop a system to give students feedback about writing that meaningfully a) tells students where they are, b) what they need to do to improve and c) is efficient enough that I can provide frequent and timely feedback to all students.  I also need to make sure I am giving informal feedback more frequently to all students.  (I hope that moving to a Standards Based Grading system will enable these things to happen organically).

While there have been some road bumps in getting students on board with SBG, I think they are starting to get the hang of it.  Thanks to SBG, students are getting clear feedback for each assignment on where they are and how to improve.  I need to create better systems to get students to make the effort to revise their work.  While still not where I need to be, I am doing better with getting students work back in a timely manner. 

Students will have multiple opportunities to rethink and revise their answers to large essential questions throughout each unit, and will also reflect on and revise all major work.

I wrote about this earlier, but I feel like I’m just starting and therefore haven’t really done much major work yet.  Students have returned to some essential questions, but with all the time I’ve spent on various current events, there hasn’t been much unity or flow from week-to-week.  I planned way too much for the course, and need to start thinking about how to pare things down for next year to focus on only a few questions, while still developing the wide range of citizenship-literacy that students need to thoughtfully and actively participate in our democracy. 

I will solicit bi-weekly feedback from my students to ensure they understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, and to give them a voice in what happens in the class.

I’m off on this goal, as I’ve only gotten feedback from my students twice to this point.  I’m not thrilled with the form I was using, and will create a new one to use with my students this week.

Leadership
The Social Studies Critical Friends Group will meet once a month, and will be valuable for its participants.

We’ve had two meetings so far, and things seem to be going really well.  I got a lot of positive feedback from participants after each the first two meetings, and am excited to see the group continue to develop and grow.

Advisory
100% of my new advisees will either graduate or earn at least ten credits by June.

Fourteen out of fifteen on pace.  I have a meeting set up with the family of the fifteenth for next week to come up with a plan to help get him on track.

100% of my advisees will be accepted to college, and will have a plan to pay for it or whatever else they choose to do next year.

Wonderfully, 3 of my 15 students have already achieved this goal.  My school is part of something called the Pipeline project for Southern Vermont College, which allows us to choose five students to send there with nearly-full scholarships.  I was very excited for three of the five this year to come from my advisory.    

Personal / Professional Development
At least once per week, I will write and publish a piece of writing about teaching social studies, be it about my practice or teaching in general.

I’m very excited to be on pace for this goal.  This is one I was worried about maintaining, but am happy to have achieved. 

Every two months, I will write and publish a self-evaluation of how I am doing on these goals.

Check.