What is Wrong in Education

People don’t like change. I know that. I experience it all the time when I have a conversation with parents about the grading policy at my school. Or when I explain that students have to meet standards in order to move on to the next grade. Parents really don’t like change because they don’t understand it. And when people don’t like change they always go back to the same phrase, “If it ain’t broke, then why fix it.” The thing is, public education in this country is broke. And it has been for a long time. Deep down inside people know this but they don’t want to acknowledge it because they don’t want to change. Or because they don’t know how to make things better. Or because they know something isn’t right with our educational system but they don’t know what it is. It can be very hard to make the changes necessary when you don’t know exactly what the problems are. So let me help you. Below you will find a list of all the things that are wrong with education.

1) Poverty.

Education is supposed to be the big equalizer. By providing a free public education to all we are ensuring that everyone in our country has the opportunity to get out of poverty. The problem is that it is extremely hard to get an education when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from or where you are going to sleep that night. Schools try to help mitigate this by providing free and reduced lunches to students. Some schools have even started food pantries. But there is a lot more that needs to be done to help our poorest students succeed. They need to have safe homes. They need a quiet place to complete their homework every night. They need to have time to balance school and their after school jobs. They need clothes that fit, warm jackets for the winter, running water for a shower, and deodorant. We can’t expect anyone to learn if their basic needs are not being met first and foremost.

2) We need laws that ensure students are in school.

There is no one to enforce truancy laws. Schools have no way of ensuring that kids come to school. It is a fact that when kids don’t go to school their grades suffer.

3) When this year’s middle school students are ready to enter the job market the jobs they will be applying for do not even exist now.

Technology has changed everything in our lives. It has especially changed the job market and the kinds of jobs that are available to people. Gone are many factory jobs. Who knows what other jobs might follow? But even as these jobs disappear new jobs, jobs no one has ever had before, are created. Companies everywhere are discovering they have a need to hire people to do tasks they have never needed done before. And they are finding that no one is trained to do these tasks. Why would they be? Five years ago these jobs didn’t even exist! Teachers can no longer simply teach content. Teachers must now teach students how to think, how to problem solve, and how to learn. We can’t be certain what content students will need for the jobs they will enter but we can be certain of the skills.

4) Money (or more education around why budgets go up every year).

Every few years teachers become more expensive. They earn a pay raise based on their classroom experience because research says the more experienced teachers are better at their jobs. This means that school budgets rise. So school districts need to either ask for more money from the town or they need to make cuts. Our economy was in the tank for a long time and many people still believe it is. So no one feels they can afford to have their taxes go up and so school boards make cuts. This needs to end. This has led to less funding for the arts which studies show help keep kids in school. This has led to teachers jobs being cut. This has led to classes of 30-40 instead of 15-20.

5) Larger class sizes.

The larger to class the less time a teacher has to spend with each students one-on-one assessing what that students needs to succeed. More students also leads to louder classrooms and more problems concentrating for kids who need a quiet environment to learn.

6) This image of teachers as either saints or villains.

We have all heard stories about teachers who yelled at and belittled a student for forgetting a pencil. And we have all heard stories about teachers who hid students in a closet and were gunned down themselves in a school shooting. Both of these are true. They might even be true of the same teacher. Teachers are neither villains or saints. They are human beings. They make mistakes and have bad days just like the rest of us. People need to remember this.

7) Parents who don’t stress the importance of education to their children.

Children sometimes get bad grades because they don’t understand the material being taught to them. More often than not students get bad grades because they chose to not ask for help or because they chose to not do the work or they chose to not take the teacher up on a retake. It might surprise you to know there are people out there who do not stress the importance of education to their children. There are parents who don’t even look at their child’s report card. Parents who show their child that it doesn’t matter how they do will have children who don’t try. Children who don’t try, don’t learn.

8) Bullying and cyber-bullying.

Yes, this is real. Yes, schools do everything they can to put a stop to it. Yet, in public schools it continues and it dramatically affects how a student does in school. It changes how safe they feel and when a student doesn’t feel safe in school it is incredibly difficult to learn.

9) Testing has taken all of the fun out of learning (or has tried to).

We know that students learn different things in different ways and at different rates. However, we still give them tests where we make them prove they are on grade level even if they might not be ready for the test. We then measure the worth of a teacher based on these tests without taking in any of the above circumstances which could be impeding the student’s success. No one can solve all of these problems on their own but somehow we expect teachers to work miracles and make all students successful without removing all the obstacles standing in the way. And on top of that the tests are long, hard, and boring! We make kindergarteners who are just learning to use a mouse try to type paragraphs on keyboards with their tiny fingers. The test takes hours to complete. We expect them to sit and take these tests for days on end. This ruins their love of school forever.

10) Students are supposed to be motivated to succeed by grades.

Our letter grading system is a joke. It requires students to memorize a bunch of content they are never going to remember and that in the future they will probably just google anyway. Or it asks them to learn processes and skills but it doesn’t check to make sure the student is proficient at the skill before moving on. Get a D, C, or B and you can move on. But the only person who really knows the skill or the process is the student who got an A. So why are we asking the rest to move on to the next, more difficult task before they are ready? Are we asking them to move on before they have completely mastered this skill? And none of these grades represent learning. You don’t get an A when you learn something. You get an A when you prove you know it. Why should a student who already knows the content of a class have to stay in that class all year and prove they know that content? Why shouldn’t they be moved on?

11) Students are not motivated to behave by detentions.

When a student misbehaves they get a detention. The thing is detention is not that bad. The student sits in a room, silently, and thinks about what they did. Once a student knows this, detention isn’t scary anymore. So what’s to stop them from getting more? Nothing. We need to stop thinking that punishment can always correct a student’s behavior. Students need to be engaged in the learning so much that they want to be involved in the class. That they want to behave so they can participate.

12) Everyone thinks they can fix schools simply by changing one thing.

NO! Before education can improve we need to accept that all of the above problems have to change. Our philosophy about what schools are needs to change. Our vision of what schools look like needs to change. We need to be brave and more forward purposefully. There is a lot of research out there about what is best for students but until these problems are addressed we can’t implement any of that research successfully.

Teacher Exhaustion

When I come home at night all I want to do is make dinner as quickly as I can so I can eat and then sit on the couch until bed. If I could skip the part where I sit on the couch and just immediately crawl into bed after dinner every night, I would, but I can't.

I have a husband who needs me to be present. I have friends who live out of state who I text every night. I have this dream of being a paid writer which I am trying to indulge. And so... I make myself sit on the couch with Garrett and stay awake as long as I can. More often than not I fall asleep at least once some time around 7 or 8. 

At 10 pm I drag myself to bed and fall asleep immediately. 

Every one tells me I should work out because I will have more energy if I do. I wonder at their ability to stay standing after they come home.

People say that I should eat better. Some days eating at all seems like a chore. Some nights I ask Garrett if I can skip dinner and go to bed. He is the reason I eat at all.

In the morning I struggle to get out of bed. At least two alarms go off before I open my eyes. And then I lay in bed for at least 15 minutes willing my limbs to move. I often skip breakfast so that I can get a little more sleep. Luckily, I take my vitamin D in the morning and it usually kicks in it right as students are arriving. 

I sleep well. I always get at least 7-8 hours of sleep which should be plenty. I don't wake up repeatedly at night. 

At least one night every week I almost fall asleep standing up, cooking dinner. This is usually followed by an extreme bout of crankiness where I want to punch (I don't, but I want to) every one and every thing that stands in the way of me and my bed. This week this level of exhaustion arrived on Tuesday. 

One time I fell asleep in the car after pulling into the driveway.

I have been thinking about this exhaustion a lot lately. Is this what other teacher experience on a day-to-day basis? Is this what other professionals experience? If it isn't what others feel, then why do I feel like this? And if it is how all other adults feel, how do you overcome the exhaustion so you can work out, take night classes, have second jobs, raise a family or etc?

Why I Am A Teacher

I remember the day when I asked my mom why. "Why mom, why are people so cruel to each other? Why can't everybody just get along?" I remember her response.

"Dani, they are just ignorant. It is just ignorance. They don't know any better."

I remember when I learned what ignorance meant; the lack of knowledge or information.

In high school I realized that meant that people could be taught to be different. If ignorance caused hatred than education could create kindness, compassion, and peace. If ignorance caused people to despise difference than education could help people understand. If ignorance caused people to be unambitious than education could inspire them.

To me this is what it means to be a teacher. Our teachers are our first line of defense against prejudice and bigotry. The first people who tell us that not everyone is like ourselves and that is a good thing. And for some teachers are the only people who will ever tell them that they can be anything if they work hard enough.

I didn't get into teaching because I wanted to torture kids or because I loved school but because I thought I could make a difference in the world. I realized before I even started that our system is broken. I know which kids almost didn't graduate high school with me and I know why. I know it had nothing to do with their ability or their intelligence. I know which kids school didn't work for.

I thought I could make school work for them.

7 Must-Read Books for the Proficiency-Based or Mass-Customized Classroom

All public Maine schools must be making progress towards handing out a proficiency-based diploma at the end of high school. This means that all public school teachers must be transitioning to PBL or MCL in their classrooms. Now we are teachers, which means that often we learn best when we have something to read. Below you will find 7 books, all of which I personally own, and all of which have helped figure out what PBL should look like in my classroom.


1) Inevitable: Mass Customized Learning: Learning in the Age of Empowerment by Charles Schwahn & Beatrice McGarvey
My first year of teaching the school I was at did a book study on this book. It was a great introduction to the vision of learning that the district wanted to move towards. After reading this the staff was able to develop a new mission statement and a vision of what PBL would look like in our school. This makes for a great introduction for any one, not just teachers.

2) Dimensions of Learning: Teacher's Manual by Robert Marzano and Debra J. Pickering
The school I was at the longest was a member of the Maine Cohort for Customized Learning. This cohort believed that learning took place at the intersection of complex reasoning, habits of mind, and content. Dimensions of Learning is a manual on how to deliberately teach complex reasoning skills to students and in doing so up the rigor of any assignment or assessment.

3) Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success by Arthur L. Costa and Bena
Schools are responsible for teaching more than just content. We are also responsible for teaching students how to be successful. This book is about the 16 habits of all highly successful people. There are excellent explanations of each habit and ideas for how to help students learn these habits.

4) Students Taking Charge: Inside the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom by Nancy Sulla
This book completely changed how my co-teacher and I structured all of our units! For the longest time we struggled with how to organize learning in our ELA classrooms without packetizing every thing. This book was the answer. It tells you step-by-step how to design all the pieces you will need to turn your classroom into a learner-centered, PBL or MCL room. Warning, it does require a lot of time, energy, and patience on your part. You will need to be willing to let the students struggle some. There is a steep learning curve in your first unit for both you and the students. However, I encourage you to not give up! As Nancy Sulla says in this book, "If something isn't working then add another structure."

5) Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams.
The "Nancy Sulla Method" requires some flipped classroom pieces. As such this book about the flipped classroom model is a must. This will help you figure out which pieces students absolutely need you for and which pieces they can do without you, thus freeing up time to work one-on-one with students.

6) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: How We Can Learn to Fulfill our Potential by Carol S. Dweck
Again, schools need to teach students how to be successful. This book will change your perspective on what it means to persevere.

7)  The Art and Science of Teaching by Robert Marzano
This book is the foundation for MCL, PBL, and teacher evaluation. Therefore it is a must-read for every teacher.

I hope that this list is helpful to you. Please comment any other books you feel are musts for PBL and MCL teachers to read.

What No One Really Knows About Teaching Until They Try It

I decided I wanted to be a teacher when I was in 7th grade. Here were my reasons when I was a 7th grader:
1) I liked books and reading books.
2) I liked to teach my brother things.
3) I liked kids.
4) I would have summers off which would give me plenty of time to work on writing and publishing my first book.
5) I wanted to travel and I could do that in the summer too.

At first I thought I wanted to be a math or social studies teacher because those had always been the subjects that came easiest to me. When I was in high school I took AP Language with Mr. Wells. That was when I realized I couldn't ever be a math or social studies teacher. I have always loved reading and writing. Ever since I learned how to read I haven't been able to read enough. And once I figured out that I could create my own stories, I never wanted to stop! I loved Mr. Wells' class because he was just as passionate about language as I was. His passion made me want to be a better writer and a better reader. I enjoyed his class because he enjoyed what he was teaching. I did not have that kind of passion for math or social studies. They were subjects that just came easy to me. I also realized that the best part of reading and writing was sharing it with others. I wanted to to share my passion with students who would understand it. I knew then that I wanted to teach English and that I wanted to work with students who were in middle or high school.

My reasons for teaching when I was in high school were:
1) I LOVED reading and writing and I LOVED talking about reading and writing.
2) I wanted to be surrounded by books ALL day!
3) I liked kids and I thought that I might be able to inspire them.
4) I would have nights off to be with the family I would eventually have.
5) I would have weekends, school vacations, and summers to write and to travel. I still hoped to publish a book some day.

So I went to college and majored in Secondary Education with an English concentration. I felt that I was learning from some amazing professors who were all former teachers, principals, and/or superintendents themselves. And I finally entered my first classroom and made my first attempts at teaching my sophomore year.

It was hard. I saw a lot of kids who needed love and expressed that need in some of the worst ways. I saw a lot of kids who were just goof balls. I saw a lot of kids who wanted desperately to do well but had given up because they never thought they would succeed because they never had before. I spent an hour every day after school napping because I was so drained of energy. They just needed so much from me and I wanted so badly to every thing that I could for them and I just couldn't do enough.

My reasons for teaching when I was a sophomore in college:
1) I LOVED being around the kids. They were so much fun.
2) I LOVED teaching them something new about reading and writing.
3) Kids need someone who cares about them to be their teacher.
4) I had personal experience and could relate to what some of these kids were going through. I wanted to help them.
5) I was enjoying what I was learning in college.

My next experience in the classroom was way more intense and required me to be an even bigger influence in the every day. I needed to plan every day, grade every day, make copies every day, attend meetings, and be a teacher as much as possible. I became even more certain that this was what I wanted to do. I came home every day wanting to talk about my kids. Wanting to think about new ways to teach them. Wanting to plan another unit for them. Every minute I spent thinking about teaching was the best. I was exhausted All. The. Time. But I LOVED it. I could not wait to get my first job as a teacher.

My first year as a teacher was hard. I had a group of kids who while not considered by other teachers to be overly naughty, needed a firm hand in order to stay on task and unfortunately, my first year, I was not a "firm hand." For the first month I came home once a week thinking that I was going to get fired. But this lessened gradually until by the end of the year I was confident in my abilities. And even though there were some rough days, overall, the experience was positive and I couldn't wait for my next year.

As the years have gone on I have continued to love working with the kids. I have continued to love the professional development I have had and have continued to enjoy my fellow teachers.

But here is what no one knows until they try teaching. There is no such thing as "non-teacher" time. When you work as a customer service representative, a CNA, a secretary, etc you get to go home, forget about work, relax and enjoy some time off. This is not true of teachers. Sure the kids are gone by 3 or 3:30 but very often the teachers are still in the building working or they have taken the work home and are doing it at home. If you are a teacher you might get an angry email from a parent at 5 or 6 and you feel obligated to answer it. If you are a teacher you probably spend at least one day every weekend grading, planning, and generally prepping for Monday. If you are a teacher you probably spend at least one day out of every school vacation grading, planning or prepping for school to resume. I usually drive to school two days of vacation for work on unit plans and then spend one additional day grading and planning. In the summer you take classes, go to workshops, plan units, and work on your classroom. One summer I went to school three-four days out of every week to work on new units and to put my classroom together. That summer I also lead one workshop that was three days long and attended a two day workshop.

My life has been consumed with teaching since I took my first job. And before that it was consumed with doing everything I could to land myself that first job. I have probably thought about this career choice almost every day for the last eight years.

I hear so many people say that they plan to teach when they retire from their current job. That sounds crazy to me!

I know that there might be those out there who are reading this and thinking, "Why don't you just work what the contract demands of you?" or "Why are you putting in so much extra effort? You aren't going to get paid more for doing more!" You know I could try to do that. But I am best at my job when I am prepared. Which means that I need to know what I will be teaching Monday morning before Monday morning rolls around. This means staying late on Friday or figuring it out Sunday. It means having my units planned out ahead of time so that I know I am hitting all the learning targets I need to over the course of the year. I also teach reading and writing. This is one of the subjects with the most grading. If you disagree then you should try reading and grading fifty short stories on top of fifty reading logs. You will see that there is no way you can complete all of that during your one forty-five minute prep period every day. Which means you are going to have to do at least some of it in your own time. Yes, you have to grade. And the workshops have to be taken in order to keep your certification up to date and to help you ensure you are staying up on the latest and best educational practices. Some of those can be done during the school year but that means writing sub plans and filling out the paperwork to be out. And then it means trying to figure out where the classes are when you return and taking care of behavior problems that cropped up because you weren't there.

And there is simply the emotional and mental toll this all takes. It isn't just the amount of work that teachers put in outside of the school day. Some teachers have found ways to mitigate that and that is awesome. But what about seeing kids every day who don't have proper shoes? Or who don't get enough to eat? Or who are bullied at home? Or who are neglected? Or who don't have rules enforced at home? Or who don't know how to tell you that they need help? Or who don't have a quiet place to sleep, let alone to do their homework?

It is heart wrenching to know that I am responsible for these kids from 7:30-2:30 and they have all of these things going on outside of school that they need help with that no one can help them with. How are they supposed to care about oppressive governments, fault lines in the Earth, genetics, or algebra or any other school subject when they aren't able to be kids at home?

And there is nothing I can do to change the fact that I care about them. I have to care about them. I also have to tell them to do their best to leave it at the door. But how can they? Adults facing some of these issues can't leave the problems at the door and we are asking children to?

I have to ask them to not worry about their non-school problems because I have to teach them a certain set of standards in a certain set amount of time. They have to show mastery of these standards to graduate from high school. If they aren't progressing then it is my fault.

Teachers are blamed every day for the failing schools systems.

But really it is the society we live in that is failing them, not the schools, and not their teachers.

What is the Flipped Classroom?

There is a lot of buzz lately about the flipped classroom. So what exactly is it?

In 2007 teachers Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams at Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado discovered software that recorded PowerPoint presentations. They used this software to record their live lectures and then posted them online for students who missed class. These online lectures began to spread. And this was the start of the flipped classroom model.

The idea here is that students don't need to be in the classroom to listen to a teacher lecture. If the teacher has prerecorded the lecture or found a youtube video, or a reading passage of some kind to get the content to students then students can access that content from anywhere (or at least anywhere with an internet connection). If this is true then there is no reason for the content delivery to be done during class time. Instead students could get the content outside of class (usually as homework) and then class time would be freed up for other things such as answering questions students have about the content, conducting an activity that will better help students understand the content, asking students to use the content in some way during class, etc.

There are several benefits to this model:
1) Students are able to access content whenever they are ready for it. There is no need for them to wait till the teacher is ready to deliver the content.
2) The content can often be accessed at home and so if the student is sick, as long as they have internet they won't fall behind.
3) This increases the amount of class time that can be spent on collaborative work, student-teacher conferences, and other things that students require an adult or peer for.

There are a few hurdles that teachers will need to overcome if they decide to implement this model:
1) Some students may not have internet at home. In this the work would need to be done during a study hall or the teacher would need to provide a way for the student to access the content without an internet connection.
2) If a student does not review the assigned materials before class then they will need some class time to do the assignment before being able to participate in the classroom activities for that day. This though should not be a huge inconvenience if the assignment takes ten minutes or less.
3) It does take time to record the lectures or find videos online.

If you are interested in learning more about the flipped classroom here are some online resources that might be helpful to you:
Flipped Classroom Infographic
Edutopia: The Biggest Hurdle to Flipping Your Classroom
20+ Tips on How to Flip Your Classroom
The Teacher Report: Portrait of a Flipped Classroom
Flipping with Kirch
What a "Flipped Classroom" Looks Like

If you like to learn by reading books then here are a few for you to check out:
Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams
Flipping 2.0: Practical Strategies for Flipping Your Class by Jason Bretzmann

If you think you might want to try out flipping then here are some technologies that can help you get started:

Quicktime - This is a voice and screen recording software that comes with all computers.

Voice Recording over Keynote slides - If you have Keynote (comes standard with all MacBooks and iPads) then you can record your voice to play over the slides.

iMovie - This software can be used to record a video of yourself using your laptop or you can record with a camera and then edit the video (comes standard on all Macs, iPhones, and iPads).

Garage Band - This software can be used to record your voice (comes standard on all Macs, iPhones, and iPads).

Khan Academy - This website is full of helpful videos and tutorials. You might find a video that help you teach your students already created here.

TedTalks - Another website filled with videos that will teach you something. You might find a video here that will meet your needs.

If you have tried flipping and know a resource or technology that you have used successfully in the past then please feel free to post it in the comments!

How to Make Multiple Choice Tests Work for You

The Maine Cohort for Customized Learning (MCCL) is teaching teachers that content is not enough to drive instruction. Instruction must include three things: content, complex reasoning skills, and habits of mind.

This is great when it comes to designing units that teach students the skills they will need to thrive in the work force or college after high school however, it can make assessment difficult. How can you tell the different between a student getting the question wrong because he/she didn't understand the content and a student getting the question wrong because they failed to use the complex reasoning skill correctly?

Well, in an assessment literacy workshop I took with Anita McCafferty and Jeff Beaudry last year I learned how to make use of my distractors on a multiple choice test to get a better idea why a student got a question wrong.

It's all about how you write the question. Ideally your question should include the correct answer and the following types of distractors:

1) Faulty Reasoning
2) Partial Understanding
3) Misconception

By setting up your multiple choice questions with these types of distractors you can get a relatively good idea why a student got a question incorrect and adjust your teaching accordingly.

If you would like to see an example of a question written like this then click on this link. This will take you to a multiple choice question, the poem the question is about, and a detailed explanation of my thinking process in picking the distractors.