I Seem to Have Misplaced a Copy of My Brain

Those are actual words that came out of my mouth, and it was a true statement in multiple ways. In "Stepping Stones," which is what we call our reading block, we read a book called "My Brain." We send home copies of the books for kids to read for homework, and I was one short. However, on another level I really am losing my brain, as it were...I set stuff down and two seconds later can't find it again. And making it through the day--especially last Thursday and Friday--can be the biggest challenge.

"This business of training little humans for life is a mind-boggling process." -unknown

"The best part of teaching is that it matters. The hardest part of teaching is that every moment matters, every day." -Todd Whitaker

I feel like if I wrote a book, I could title it "Adventures of a First Year Kindergarten Teacher: Stress Eating Dove Chocolates, or How I Lost My Voice and My Mind."

Mind-boggling does not even begin to cover what it means to teach kindergarten. When you're new at a job, it's okay to make mistakes. Everyone does. When you're learning, you learn best when things don't go perfectly. The issue is that the mistakes I make, while they make me a better teacher, affect kids' lives. My mistakes impact someone's kindergarten year. I feel like I should be better prepared, given that I have 3 prior years of experience in schools. Yet here I am, wasting time getting kids to just sit and listen...and then running out of time to get any work done. I keep meaning to create new centers for early finishers, go back to my notes from classes last year and try new things. But I simply have zero extra hours in the day to do that.

I honestly feel a bit like I am failing, both at being an effective teacher, and failing my students. I'm working on progress reports, and I have so many students not on grade level. Some of this is because it's only been 30 days of school, and learning is not always a fast process! Some of this is due to behavior. Some of this is due to language. And some, perhaps most, is likely due to me. I'm still learning, and finding out new things about my school, my responsibilities, and what I need to have in my classroom. I can't look further than a day or two in advance, because I am barely hanging onto my day to day goings-ons.

I feel bad too, writing "N" for growth needed, when I feel like it's my fault. Or, for my ELL students, because it's a language issue, and it's going to be "N" all year. We really need to provide ELL students with bilingual education, because not only is it important that they don't lose their native language, but because literacy in a first language translates to better learning a second. And as for this year, well, it can take 2-3 years to master basic conversational ability in a second language, and 5-7 years to master academic language. So it's okay that my ELL students won't master English skills this year...but they still deserve access to the content, and I feel bad that I can't supplement that with their own language because I don't know Spanish. I worry though, that even though developmentally speaking, I shouldn't expect them to be proficient, because that's unrealistic, that seeing "N"s on all their progress reports will have some psychological effect. So I need to keep this in mind and discuss this with parents at parent-teacher conferences to assuage fears the parents may have.

Good thing I'm ever the optimist, because last week was full of me feeling like a miserable failure. On the bright side, I do know that some of my kids are picking up stuff. We have this alphabet with our curriculum that has a picture intertwined with each letter. We are supposed to go through the alphabet saying each picture name (which has the letter sound ie: apple, bat and ball, caterpillar, dinosaur).

When assessing my kids for progress reports, I asked them to name letters. A few kids could tell me the picture that goes with the letter-- tower, snake--but I got a blank stare when it came to letter names. They're learning what I'm teaching, I suppose. But now I'm practicing the alphabet with letter names and sounds, because otherwise their foundation for letters is going to be random nouns, and that's confusing.

Boys Will Be Boys....We're Just Not Letting Them

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” -Fred Rogers

“We need to make the schools ready for the kids, not make the kids ready for the schools.” -Carol Copple

Today I came across a piece called Pressure-Cooker Kindergarten, so naturally, being a kindergarten teacher, I clicked on the link. With the difficulties I am currently having with my students and listening and discipline, this article resonated with me. With all the requirements of us to complete during our school day, we had to cut out a recess. Our kids still get a recess at lunch time, but historically they've had another one...and this is not a good thing. 

It's heartening---yet disheartening at the same time--to see that research shows that this emphasis on testing and assessment and strict lessons is not developmentally appropriate for kinders. As the article eloquently puts: "there is a growing disconnect between what the research says is best for children -- a classroom free of pressure -- and what’s actually going on in schools." This is heartening because it means that my gut feelings and discomfort with my current curriculum/requirements are not baseless. Having just spent a year in grad school learning what research shows, and best practices, it becomes disheartening to see so little opportunity to utilize this knowledge.

I personally feel pressured to complete activities, and it is difficult to spend the time my kids so desperately need not only to explore and play, but to learn basic social and school skills. Some of my students--they're 5 years old for goodness sake--are unresponsive to teacher direction. I think we are asking too much from them too soon. What's the rush? We need to let our children be kids, and create supportive environments to grow at developmentally appropriate rates, not force student into sitting at desks for hours, where they are not really learning authentically or laying down strong foundations. (That said, they need the opportunity for meaningful play, not video games, ipads and TVs).

As a first year teacher, it's hard to draw the line between what's wrong with the system, and what I'm still figuring out/learning/currently failing at--I'm still figuring out my teaching style, my ideal management system, and the world of kindergarten, much less how to juggle all the other requirements of being a teacher that falls outside of the school day (and there are a lot). I keep telling myself it's got to get better, but I'm finding it hard to truly develop my own style when so much is dictated by my curriculum. It doesn't always feel authentic because I'm secretly questioning its effectiveness in the way we're using it, and that may come across slightly to my students. 

Parts of our curriculum is being implemented school-wide, and I get that it's important to keep certain things consistent. However, when using a curriculum that was created by someone far away from my school, and used across the country, it's hard to truly put my faith into 100%, because there is no one-size-fits all solution, and we have to change just enough of it to fit our schedule that it loses some of its effectiveness. I think common core standards are good to make sure expectations are the same across the US. However, just because a school is program improvement or "failing" or what have you, doesn't mean the teachers don't know what they're doing. It's more likely that the teachers are not given the freedom to provide the students the education they need, but rather prescribed a system to follow to increase "accountability". Which then creates this downward spiral, where it is very hard to get out of program improvement, and the schools that do well continue to because they have the resources and freedom.

I put "accountability" in quotations because that discussion regarding holding teachers accountable for student proficiency is, quite frankly, ridiculous. No amount of testing is going to hold teachers more accountable than teachers hold themselves. The kind of person who becomes a teacher believes in the power of education and their ability to make a difference, that they hold themselves to a higher standard than any testing ever could, and it kills me when I feel my hands are tied so I can't make the greater difference I believe I could.

I hope that right now my feelings are more a manifestation of my frustrations of my day-to-day teaching, and that as the year progresses, things will get better, and I will see better behavior, and more learning and improving.

Politics Shmolitics

It's a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. -Douglas Adams

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. -also Douglas Adams

I'll be the first to admit that I don't really understand politics, or how the budget works, or why our government functions the way it does. I don't understand how we got to where we are today--how illogical our politicians are and how a lot of America believes them. Most of all, I don't understand how politicians can say they love our country but are clearly working towards easy fixes and short term gains (ie getting elected). If politicians truly loved and wanted what's best for America, well, education wouldn't have all these budget cuts. And teachers would be paid what they deserve.

But it's not just teaching, it's early childhood education, providing resources and materials to schools, hiring reading/math/art/science specialists, having enough staff to give every student the attention they need and deserve, providing professional development to improve teacher effectiveness, keeping class sizes down, and actually use the information research tells us will help raise test scores. (hint: it's not teaching to the test and eliminating art).

 I've now begun reading the news enough to realize that there are a couple of NY Times columnists who I repeatedly read and agree with. Nicholas Kristof is one, and nearly a year ago I bookmarked this column that he wrote, intending to address it in my blog in a more timely manner. Oops.

But he makes a good point about the long term returns of investing in schools/early education. It just makes sense:

"Maybe it seems absurd to propose expansion of early childhood education at a time when budgets are being slashed. Yet James Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, has shown that investments in early childhood education pay for themselves. Indeed, he argues that they pay a return of 7 percent or more — better than many investments on Wall Street."

More recently, Kristof addressed the Chicago Teacher's Strike, bringing it back to early childhood education.

America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next. [...] The single most important step we could take has nothing to do with unions and everything to do with providing early-childhood education to at-risk kids. 

What I like about Kristof though, is he recognizes what our top priority should be: students. Unfortunately, politics often gets in the way. Yes, unions are important, but they get in the way sometimes too. You might remember the images from Waiting for Superman of the teachers who should be fired for ineffectiveness being sent to rubber rooms, where they are still paid because they are protected. That's not the way it should be. Judging teacher effectiveness is a whole other issue I'm not going to go into just now, but maybe if teachers were well paid and not expected to perform miracles in overcrowded, under-resourced schools--rather given plenty of professional development, we wouldn't have this issue. Teachers should definitely be held accountable for what they can be reasonably expected to do, and it should be easier to fire bad teachers, and hire good ones.

You can't just start giving students a test and claim some teacher is more or less effective based on the results. That's not fair. That's like giving an exam on the first day of a course, and basing your grade on that test before learning any of the information. The fact is, there are a lot of inequalities amongst schools, and it is unfair to judge two very different schools on the same test without first making sure both schools have the resources to reasonably have students at the same standard. So there's one reason why NCLB hasn't fixed our education system.

There is no easy solution, so politicians, journalists and the general population: stop pretending there is one. Stop pretending it's just teacher's unions, or the teacher's themselves who are solely at fault. They may play a small part, but so does access to resources, health, early elementary education, poverty, societal attitudes and a million other issues.

I don't have the answers, and I'm not sure anyone does right now. But we really need to start using the research that is out there, versus playing some stupid blame game. It's no one's fault, and it's all of our faults. Let's move on. I'm hopeful--every week I see more and more articles about what education can and should look like. But now we need to move from words on a paper to action. Yes we can!

Beyond The Numbers

Grown-ups love figures.  When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters.  They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like?  What games does he love best?  Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand:  "How old is he?  How many brothers has he?  How much does he weigh?  How much money does his father make?"  Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.  -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Children ask better questions than adults.  "May I have a cookie?" "Why is the sky blue?" and "What does a cow say?" are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than "Where's your manuscript?" Why haven't you called?" and "Who's your lawyer?"  -Fran Lebowitz

The 3rd-6th graders at my school took the MCAs recently, the required standardized test Minnesota uses to measure the success and progress of its schools. It's really not a measure of my school's success though, because half of our students are new this year. How can you say, oh, you're a good/bad school when some students have been with us for not even a year? Our scores are not a measure of what we're doing, but of our students, whether or not they've had the opportunity to learn much here yet.

Next year, we're getting a science teacher, as are a lot of St. Paul schools. I'm pretty sure the only reason we're getting science, is because we'll be tested on it. How sad is that? Yeah, there are some science standards, but no one cares if our kids are learning science, because we have to make sure they can pass the MCAs, which don't (but might in the future) include science. 

So much of a focus on the tests, that you lose what's important: instilling a love of learning and critical thinking skills necessary to problem solve on your own. There is something to be said for cultural literacy. Also, making school interesting. Some of the passages I sort through to read with my kids make me cringe. How can I get my students excited about reading when even I can't muster up the enthusiasm to read a boring "story." If you can call it that. My dad sent me this article that I think really speaks to this problem.

"Better yet, we should abandon altogether the multiple-choice tests, which are in vogue not because they are an effective tool for judging teachers or students but because they are an efficient means of producing data."

It's becoming very clear to me that the standardized tests we have in place might be doing more harm than good. I understand the importances of quantifying/assessing teaching, but it needs to be more comprehensive, and depend on more than simply one day in a year. Yes, that's more work, more complicated, maybe a little less objective than a multiple choice test, but it's more accurate, and more fair to teachers like these who put their hearts and souls into their work, see amazing growth in their students only to be told by some outside party who probably hasn't set foot in their school that they're failures.

Thinking about the MCAs versus the weekly progress monitors I've done made me realize that testing should be more ongoing, than based on one day. Even if my student doesn't do well one week, I have a lot more data and context to look at, and I can still feel like I'm a success as a tutor. So on this one arbitrary test day, a student doesn't do well. Is that a reflection of his school? Possibly, but maybe he was sick for a week and missed school. Maybe his grandfather died. Maybe he's not getting enough to eat. Maybe he had a rough morning. Who knows? Well, the teacher does. And if there were ongoing assessments, we would know that the trend of his learning may still be at or above grade level, even if this ONE specific day out of the year was below.

Plus I can feel happy knowing the difference that I made was significant, even if my students are still reading below grade level, because I know where they started. The gains they made are sometimes equivalent or greater than what an "average" student makes in a year, they just started way further back. If I just looked at the 3 scores from fall, winter, and spring, I think I'd feel like a bit of a failure. But when I take the time to look a little deeper, at my weekly assessments and at each individual kid's story, well, I feel good about what I've accomplished this year. I'm a success, and I've made a difference.

Probably one of my happiest-this-is-why-I-do-this moments in the past month was when the first thing one of my third graders said to me at the beginning of our session was "I like reading with you Ms. Amy." It was nothing extraordinary, and doesn't make for a great story. But it was the best thing I could possibly have heard, and made my day. I love my job.

Sharing is Caring

My first couple of weeks have been great, mainly because it's refreshing to be back with the kids at school. As much fun as I had in August helping out teachers and being around the school and not having to dress nice, and chatting with staff members, having students in the building reminded me why I am here. And it's so different coming in knowing kids and staff--I feel so much more confident going into this year than I did for the first half of last year. However, I've also had this slow-motion start. For a lot of different reasons, my first couple of weeks have been pretty unstructured and un-busy. This won't be for much longer-I'll start working with kids soon, and it'll all be good. But until then, I've spent some time making little tasks last longer than necessary, and reading up on some online news articles. Which I could argue are mostly education related, and so helps with my professional development, so it's okay that I'm doing this at work. Anyway, I thought I'd make this post a little share-fest, with no overarching theme.

*****

We should take great care not to kill the idealism of the younger generation. [...]  AmeriCorps is not a cure-all for that adversity, but it will give more hope, and research shows some impressive returns for the communities served by AmeriCorps, as well as for the members themselves. For a small living stipend and a scholarship after service is complete, AmeriCorps members meet pressing local and national needs. They invest in their country, and their country invests in them.

Let's think about this for a moment: America needs jobs. America needs to figure out its budget. But what the government wants to cut are programs like AmeriCorps. Well gee, that makes so much sense. Let's cut a program that not only provides jobs, but jobs where the employees are serving in tough areas for not a lot of money. And what is AmeriCorps reminiscent of? The Civilian Conservation Corps, which Franklin Roosevelt successfully started to address unemployment during the Great Depression.

*****

“This push on tests,” he told me, “is missing out on some serious parts of what it means to be a successful human.”  

“All kids this age are having mini-implosions every day,” he said. “I mean, it’s middle school, the worst years of their lives. But the kids who make it are the ones who can tell themselves: ‘I can rise above this little situation. I’m O.K. Tomorrow is a new day.’ ”

“The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure,” Randolph explained. “And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything.” 

Besides the sweet pictures that go along with this article (seriously, take a second look-they're way cooler than they seem), these ideas of character traits and success fascinated me, psych major that I am. What I think most interested me was the discussion of the difference between the population who attends expensive private schools and KIPP school students. 


When implementing a character curriculum, you could give KIPP students a "character point average," and it would be motivating to work on weaknesses because it's been shown that these traits help get into college. But for the private school kids, character would just become another test to beat. College wouldn't be the same motivation, because there is never any question about whether those kids are going to college. Either way though, character is important. Those who have certain traits--like grit or zest, are more likely to succeed and persevere through the challenges of college.

*****

The application of such research-based strategies to homework is a yet-untapped opportunity to raise student achievement. Science has shown us how to turn homework into a potent catalyst for learning. Our assignment now is to make it happen.

It's frustrating to see that there is so much research out there that helps illuminate how kids best learn, and what works and what doesn't in schools, but that for the most part, policy makers are running in the opposite direction, mostly for monetary reasons. 

*****

The most credible analyses have shown that the chief causes were not demographics or TV watching, but vast curricular changes, especially in the critical early grades. In the decades before the Great Verbal Decline, a content-rich elementary school experience evolved into a content-light, skills-based, test-centered approach.

Verbal scores on the SATs have been declining. Not just verbal scores--today we looked at our MCA test results and everyone in St. Paul declined in math. Reading was mixed. But no one was too close to the 100% NCLB wants for 2014. It's not realistic. Not if the results you demand basically ends up with teaching to tests. Tests that aren't necessarily fair in the first place. And now you're not fostering a love of learning, you're creating an environment where kids don't want to be. It's heartbreaking when every now and then a kid tells me he or she hates school. Yes, we need standards, and objective measures, but we also need kids to graduate--and be literate.

*****

“The real take-home message,” said Peter Ellison, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard who was not involved in the study, is that “male parental care is important. It’s important enough that it’s actually shaped the physiology of men. Unfortunately,” Dr. Ellison added, “I think American males have been brainwashed” to believe lower testosterone means that “maybe you’re a wimp, that it’s because you’re not really a man. My hope would be that this kind of research has an impact on the American male. It would make them realize that we’re meant to be active fathers and participate in the care of our offspring.”

 This article is about how fathers, especially those involved in their children's lives show lowered testosterone levels. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a teacher about one of her students last year. T can be a trouble maker, but he'll admit it. He knows right from wrong, he just has poor impulse control. He also looks up to his dad--last year he was almost in tears because his dad said he'd come to this school event, but hadn't shown up. Unfortunately, his dad isn't the role model T needs--seems to care more about his car than his kid. So his testosterone is probably as high as it ever was. It's heartbreaking, because there's so much potential, and so much a teacher can't control. Especially when most teachers are female--boys need strong male role models, and so many just aren't getting them.

*****

Spears and other researchers argue that this sort of decision fatigue is a major — and hitherto ignored — factor in trapping people in poverty. Because their financial situation forces them to make so many trade-offs, they have less willpower to devote to school, work and other activities that might get them into the middle class.

Decision fatigue is an interesting topic that is putting a name to something many of us already experience. The more decisions you make throughout the day, the less will power you'll eventually have. Once you've depleted those energy stores, there are two common responses. One, is impulsive--buy that Cosmopolitan or that pack of gum when checking out at a grocery store. Get some fries on your way home from work. Buy some shoes/books/movies that you don't really need online. Maybe this is why I (and my parents) often go to REI for one thing, and walk out with five. Spend enough time picking out the item we came for, and get distracted by that nice sweater on sale.  The second response is to maintain the status quo--stick with the default choice, or avoid making a choice at all. This is why people who are up for parole are more likely to get it if they're early in the day--once the decision fatigue sinks in, keeping someone in jail is the safer choice, and can be changed later.


And just like anything I post on this blog, there's the connection to education, which stuck out to me. Even though my kids may not be making most of their decisions--there parents are making those tough trade offs for them--the effect of decision fatigue is still going to hurt them. If their parents don't have the energy to focus on education, you lose some support from home, and parental support is a huge factor in success in school.

*****

The main reason I'm sharing this article is for the following quote:

When I asked Bogin to explain Shchedrovitsky, he asked a question. “Does 2 + 2 = 4? No! Because two cats plus two sausages is what? Two cats. Two drops of water plus two drops of water? One drop of water.” 

Bogin is the founder of the New Humanitarian School in Moscow, where the author sent his three kids while he was living in Russia as a NYTimes foreign correspondent. It was interesting to read about the challenges they went through--but also that this school was not like one you might expect from Russia. One small part of the article that struck me the most was the brief discussion of the almost rebellious success of the school, and the government's reaction-or lack thereof.

He had devised a compelling model that could help rescue the education system. But he was ignored [...] “The authorities do not prevent him from working, but they don’t have any use for him either,” Fadeyev said. “They don’t understand that education reform is the only real source for the revitalization of our country.”

And it struck me that maybe, as high and mighty Americans think we are compared to other countries in terms of democracy and freedom and such, maybe we're not that different from Russia in that we're overlooking education. Overlooking what works best for our children in favor of what looks best from the perspective of lawmakers, and in favor of not spending money.

*****

But how do we expect to entice the best and brightest to become teachers when we keep tearing the profession down? We take the people who so desperately want to make a difference that they enter a field where they know that they’ll be overworked and underpaid, and we scapegoat them as the cause of a societywide failure. 

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t seek to reform our education system. We should, and we must. Nor am I saying that all teachers are great teachers. They aren’t. But let’s be honest: No profession is full of peak performers. At least this one is infused with nobility. 

 Well, maybe if we start treating teachers with the respect they deserve, then the best and brightest may stick around. There are some amazing teachers out there--I work alongside many of them--but it's hard when everyone higher on the food chain beats them down and institutes policies that make them put in more work than necessary, you take some of their energy from pursuing their passion, and pour it down the drain of stupid requirements that takes the fun and creativity out of teaching. 


It's heartening to find articles that back up what I'm thinking about--it means that I'm not having these crazy radical thoughts, and that as it turns out I do, in fact, have a grasp on reality. It gives me hope that if others are thinking what I'm thinking, then these ideas should ideally trickle to the top, and change, for the better, can occur.

*****

Well, that may have been longer than intended. (Shocking, I know. I'm always so concise.) Gold stars to anyone who made it this far. I will literally give you a sticker if you read this whole post. One per article you took the time to read. Goodness knows I have enough stickers. A whole drawer full of them at work, just waiting for my kids (or friends) to do a good job. 

Parenting 101

"Children learn to smile from their parents." -Shinichi Suzuki

Teachers get all this flack for how our nation's youth are turning out. Probably it's because it's something you can (try to) quantify. Because it's more within the government's jurisdiction. Possibly because you can't tell a person they're a bad parent or don't have their child's best interests in mind. And there's really no "right way" to parent a child--after that whole Tiger Mom controversy it seems that much more clear that there's not really the perfect way to parent--every method has its pros and cons but each can produce successful children.

There are however, wrong ways to raise a kid, and several of the parents at my school are doing a great job of that. Like playing Call of Duty with their 2nd grader (true story) instead of, I don't know, reading with them? reinforcing how to be kind, share, and use words, not violence? Also by recognizing that their kid is not a perfect angel--and it's not always the other children's faults--their kid needs to learn to take responsibility for their actions.

Parents make a huge difference. I was reading a story with some first graders about dolphins. It starts out saying that they're mammals, just like dogs, or humans. And this boy, J, is just like, no, humans aren't mammals. And I'm like, yes we are. And we just read it. And J's like, no my mom says we're not animals and we were created by God. Whoa, okay. Bringing up God. What do I say to that? I didn't want to discredit his parents. And I didn't have time to talk about it--I had to get going to a different class, but I was just like, that may be so, but it doesn't mean we're not animals. And the other kids in the group were totally agreeing with me. But there was no compromise for J--he wouldn't even listen to what I was saying. On one hand, it's America--freedom of religion! But on the other hand, it's a scientific fact that we're mammals--we have warm blood, and live birth and all that jazz.

This kid has also had some issues getting along with other kids, and his teacher commented that there may be a little bit of a race issue based on the problems he's getting himself into (he's white, there are a ton of students of color at the school). And I know his older brother is often at odds with his classmates. The other day J did something rude to another boy, D (who has his own discipline issues but has potential and can be a total sweetheart. It may have been J who tried to tattle on D for something insignificant), and the teacher asks J to talk it out with D instead of fighting. And J says "Why should I talk to a bully?" And the teacher goes "Excuse me?" (as in, did this really just happen?" And J repeats it. And is immediately sent to time out until he is ready to talk it out and apologize to D. I got the feeling that maybe that was something his parents said--don't talk to bullies. Except that that was about the rudest thing he could have said at that point, in a situation where there was no way D was being a bully.

Some students' parents aren't supportive of the teachers' suggestions or discipline, which makes it very hard for a student to learn decent behavior. Home life is so important. A lot of the children with the worst behavior problems also have the least supportive parents. I don't necessarily know a lot about the families, but I know some of these kids are certainly playing against the odds to be successful.

The 3rd-6th graders are taking the MCA tests, which is a required state-wide test for reading and math. I helped proctor the test for students who are in special ed/ell who have special accommodations for test taking--extra time, reading of the instructions etc. As a result I sat right next to a student and glanced at his test a few times. Some of those questions are not exactly clear--not to mention almost opinion questions for multiple choice. And how can you really expect a 3rd grader to master some of this higher order thinking when they're dealing with neglectful parents, or homelessness or hunger? A lot of these kids have gone through so much just to survive, and when life is a challenge like that, it's hard to take some of what goes on in school seriously.

It makes me think about Maslow's Hierarchy--something I've read about related to education/psychology classes I've taken. The basic idea is that there is a pyramid of needs, and you need to fulfill the bottom before you can move to the upper levels. The bottom includes things like food, shelter and water, and it moves up through levels of relationships with others, and self actualization is at the top. Well, no wonder some of these kids aren't doing well in school. If they aren't getting enough of their basic needs, how can they concentrate on anything else? I guess it's as much a societal issue that set these kids up to be in the situation they're in. This one 3rd grader was offhand telling me about his neighborhood--that there were police on his street, and some man got taken away from that house and at one point the woman who lived there came out of the house and was bleeding. I didn't try to press the issue, but what kind of environment is that for a kid to grow up in? And there's a 6th grader whose dad apparently has a warrant out for his arrest. Another kid's dad is in jail. And nothing the government is doing is helping to end the cycle of poverty--cutting the education budget is going to hurt poor kids more because they don't have the money for private schools, or summer camps etc. Right now it seems like the government is set up to maintain the status quo in terms of wealth and quality education. (And it's clearly not working spectacularly--there was talk about a government shutdown after all).

Ultimately I'm not entirely blaming the parent for the way their kids turn out. They may be incredibly bad parents, but where did they learn it from? Not only that, but sometimes it's more of a time and money thing than bad parenting. I helped a girl out with the previous night's homework once because she didn't understand it--and no one at home had time to help her. I don't think her parents didn't care, but they were probably more focused on working and getting food on the table to be bothered by one homework sheet.

Anyway, I don't want this post to get too long (too late?), so I'll probably return to this topic again, because it's something that I think about a lot--and wonder about with a lot of my students. So I'll leave you with a video my dad recently forwarded to me:

A reminder about where our priorities are and where they should be...
The answer to the question "What do teachers make?"