ESOL Activists Asked to Clear Out

On Monday evening dozens of parents, teachers, counselors and advocates for English Language Learners showed up at the Montgomery County (MD) Board of Education meeting to support testimony on the questionable restructuring of the ESOL Department.  We so overwhelmed the board members that they asked us to move into the overflow seating in the auditorium.

My concerns are personal. Yesterday I covered a regular 9th grade classroom while the teacher was on a field trip. I could see a stark contrast between these students and my own. The 9th graders entered the classroom in an orderly manner, got their laptops and began working on their assignments before the bell rang. I had to quiet them down a little to take attendance, but everyone was working or talking quietly for the entire period. Three students asked, one-at-a-time, for passes to the restroom, and one girl braided another girl’s hair. In contrast, students in my class entered the room jostling each other, pushing, mock fighting (one guy grabbing the other around the neck), throwing things, shouting loudly, and sitting down with earbuds at an empty desk — no folder, no book, no notebook, as is (supposed to be) our routine. One student turned the light on and off to get attention, another went directly to the heater by the window and sat on it, checking his phone. They didn’t hear me after the bell rang when I asked them to get their folders and sit down.

Social-emotional learning is one of the most critical areas of need for ESOL students, especially those with interrupted formal education. I teach high schoolers from Central America who have a 5th grade education. They do not know how to be students. In addition, many are dealing with family-reunification issues: They have just arrived in-country to live with mothers or fathers whom they haven’t seen in years. While they are adjusting to a new family, new food, a new house and a new country, it is my job to teach them academic language. But they need so much more. That is why I am worried about the changes in the county ESOL program. Who will guarantee that my students’ needs are being met? We need more bilingual counselors, more Parent Community Coordinators who can visit homes and meet with families. We need a sensible pathway to careers for students who may not make it to college. We need a serious drop-out prevention program, like paid job internships that also give course credit. (I would love to coordinate such a program!) We need less emphasis on graduation in four years. Many ESOL students require more time and direct instruction to become proficient in English. We need fewer standardized tests and less disruption to our weekly schedules. (Thank you state legislators — it looks like we won the Less Testing battle!) We need cultural competence training  like this program for regular classroom teachers.

This video shows all the homemade signs we brought to the Board of Education meeting on Monday evening. They say, “I stand for students,” in the different languages – Spanish, French, Amharic, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, etc. that our students speak. We are worried that the changes in the countywide ESOL program may mean that critical services will be cut.  I had no idea what to expect when Kristen and Margarita asked us to support them and their testimony. Our strong concerns were voiced. “I stand for students” was more than a slogan. We spoke up for the most vulnerable and at-risk students in Montgomery County Public Schools. Now it is up to our elected officials to take action.

I am proud to live in a state that takes care of its students and invests in their future. I am optimistic that our voices have been heard.

 

U.S. graduates are last place in technology education

America’s high school graduates look like other nation’s dropouts. Check out this NPR story about how we are failing our students, especially in Technology.

At my school, a public high school in one of the wealthiest districts in the DC suburbs, my students have limited access to computers. Sure we have computers in the school – something like 10 different computer labs, and three or four carts of laptops. But with 1,700 students in one building, it’s often impossible to get access. When testing season starts on May 2, it will be out of the question. I’ve tried to incorporate technology into my instruction, but if I rely exclusively on smart phones, there are always kids who don’t have them. My students are all English Language Learners. This is a serious equity issue.

A few short years ago, computer skills were not part of any curriculum. Now they are critical to being successful. Whose job is it to teach students how to use email, use a drop-down menu, and save and name a file? How is it possible that students can graduate from high school not knowing how to do these things? Many teachers assume that students are acquiring these skills outside of the classroom. Just because they own smart phones doesn’t mean they know how to use them for academic purposes. When I take my ESOL 1 & 2 students to the lab, it is clear that I have to start from scratch: how to log in, how to press the Return/Enter key to go down a line, how to click and drag, use a scroll bar, create a document, how to navigate a website. Over the last few years most high-stakes tests have moved online. Students learn quickly, but with limited access to technology many are at a serious disadvantage.

We were supposed to get Chromebooks last year (inexpensive laptops from Google), but Governor Hogan’s budget cuts made that impossible. So only Social Studies departments got Chromebooks. The problem is that they’re only available to students enrolled in Social Studies classes. My ESOL 1 students (newcomers) do not take any Social Studies classes their first year, so they miss out. This problem may just be more pronounced at my school. Colleagues at a recent district meeting all said they could get computers for their students; it just took a little Personal Persistent Operating. (One district administrator suggested that I write a grant or put out a Go Fund Me request. Why should I have to beg to get essential materials to teach my students?) Maybe I need to be more pushy. I’m writing this blog instead.

I have so many online resources at my disposal, thanks to MCPS. I’m feeling the pressure to get my students before a screen as much as possible before testing season begins.

Choosing Board of Education Candidates

I was privileged to be part of a MCEA panel that interviewed candidates for the Montgomery County Board of Education At-Large seat. I’m an Elected Faculty Representative at my school but as far as I know, this was the first time that ordinary teachers were asked to participate in such a forum.  It was tedious but thrilling work, and we all took it seriously. Somehow it reminded me of serving jury duty. Even with a light dinner and an opportunity for small talk with colleagues beforehand, it felt like an important obligation. I was impressed that we stayed well into the evening debating who to support.

Five candidates submitted answers to a questionnaire in advance, which we read and then scored, kind of like grading papers. Then we met with each candidate for 30 minutes, heard their prepared statements, and asked them the same questions in the same order. We made our recommendations to the Executive Committee, who then made recommendations to the Rep Assembly, which voted with more than 58% to NOT endorse a specific candidate for the April 26th race.

I’m reluctant to say more but I have to get it out there — teachers were wowed by Sebastian Johnson, the well-spoken young man who presented himself as an exciting, viable alternative to the incumbent. It is my hope that he’ll be one of the top two vote-getters and will run against Phil Kauffman in the fall.

This article in Bethesda Magazine says it all better than I can.

And now this post from the Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County about the MCEA Political Action Committee. I have no idea what this is all about. I’m just a classroom teacher interested in helping elect Board members who listen to me before making decisions. I feel that I’m taking a risk even posting this.

Need for trauma-sensitive schools

I sometimes feel like I am on the front lines all by myself, defending my students from further trauma at the hands of the school system. No! I said recently when my Department Chair asked when I “wanted” to give my students the mid-year MAP-R test. I had to convince her that it was optional, really. I didn’t want this test because, even though the data is mostly useful, ESOL teachers have been testing just about every period, every day since January 6th. ( We test four areas of language proficiency: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing – we don’t know how the scores are calculated and we don’t even get them back until June AND to make matters worse, we have to test 60 students who are no longer getting ESOL services). The testing windows closes at the end of the week. What this means for people on the outside is that I, personally, have watched students take a test for more than 35 hours in the past six weeks. This does not include a week when we had no school because of snow. I have five colleagues who have each performed a similar number of proctoring hours. We cannot get back the 200+ hours of missed instructional time. These are the students who most need consistent and appropriate instruction in order to succeed in an English speaking world.

This excellent interview in Education Week Teacher doesn’t even mention testing; I just had to air that complaint and get it out of my system. In the interview, author Susan E. Craig mentions that adverse childhood experiences can impair a child’s cognitive abilities. She says that teachers and schools need to be more “trauma sensitive.” Those of us on the front lines are doing a face palm at the obviousness of this statement. Instead of zero tolerance and punitive measures that can force the child to reenact an earlier trauma, some of us have perfected the “warm demander” approach, where we kindly and with a sense of humor try to talk them into doing their homework or coming to class. If you saw my grade book this marking period you’d wonder how well it’s working. Sometimes my goal for the week is to keep one student from dropping out.

I don’t mean to make light of a serious topic. I commend Susan E. Craig for focusing on this issue. I have advocated for trauma-sensitivity in something as simple as a Code Blue drill. Some of our ESOL students have lived through war-like situations – so don’t yell at them to “get down” and “cover your head” without giving teachers a heads-up so that we can provide some context – the buffer that Ms. Craig is talking about here . One thing she says that I cannot repeat enough: students who have lived through trauma need consistency and predictability. All this testing disruption undermines the very nature of cumulative progress.

And can I add one more thing? I have posted about how stressful this year feels. Recently a friend suggested that I stop caring so much! At least now I have some back up. See the quote below from the Ed Week interview with Susan E. Craig, author of Trauma-Senstive Schools: Transforming Children’s Lives (Teachers College Press).

Another challenge is giving teachers enough information and support to avoid being traumatized themselves by their over-exposure to the trauma children. It’s a very serious mental health issue that can come up for people that work with traumatized populations. I don’t think we do enough to help teachers recognize that and get the support they need to avoid having their own mental health compromised because of how stressed they are by the lives of the kids they’re working with.

To Bill Gates: Children are not apps

This article is long, but it’s too good not to share. The public has been duped by corporate messaging. This is a thorough, brilliant expository. Thank you for sharing, Diane Ravitch!

Economic reform is being driven by 3 things: economic self interest of the white middle class, racial and ethnic antipathy, and corporate profits.

Did you know that America is growing browner, older and deeper in debt? Who do you think feels threatened by the fact that 25% of all children under age 5 are Hispanic?

Bill Gates wants to unleash “powerful market forces” on public schools. In other words, he wants a piece of the profits to be made while testing our public school children into oblivion. Thank God Pearson stock and Arne Duncan are in a downward spiral.

Can we get back to teaching now?

Talking Down to Teachers

I haven’t read The Smartest Kids in the World, mostly because the title is such a turnoff, but I loved Amanda Ripley’s Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes. So when I saw her “Talking Down to Teachers” article in the February 2016 Washingtonian Magazine, I was fascinated.

Thank you Ms. Ripley for praising teachers’ professionalism and intellect, and making an effort to change the dialogue about teachers-as-missionaries. But I want to know: Who are the “highest performing teachers” being honored at the Standing Ovation event you described? What is the criteria for selecting these teachers? We should be questioning the value of elevating teachers based on artificial measures, like test scores of children, when most education professionals recognize that external factors (like wealth & poverty) are far more influential on student success than any one teacher.

When people hear I’m a teacher, they say “that’s courageous” and imply that I am making a sacrifice to do what I love. Like the DC teachers she quotes in the article, I am not a volunteer; I am a well-paid professional. Yes, it’s hard work. Yes, I work very long hours. But what I (we) really need is respect. Respect from the parents who entrust me with educating their children, trust from my administration that I am doing my job, trust from the School Boards and the taxpaying public that I am a well-trained professional making good decisions and making a difference every day.

And by the way, not once in my 15 years of teaching in MCPS has any parent group passed the hat to buy me a gift. All my students are immigrants and they don’t know this American practice. I think it says more about the parents in Ms. Ripley’s school district than anything else. I’d be happy for thank you from the students at the end of the year!

 

Snow Day, Good. Timing, Bad

Usually snow days are a teacher’s best friend. However, like most teachers at the end of the semester, I had a long list of tasks to accomplish and was looking forward to two days alone in my classroom with no students to distract me. WiDA ACCESS testing has taken up every testing block — that is, when I wasn’t giving a Semester Final Exam — and I had zero time to grade papers and plan for next semester. I was also looking forward to clearing out old papers, cleaning and getting materials organized. I’m going to be sharing my classroom now with another teacher because we’ve got 18 newcomer students and her classroom is too small. So she’s moving into my classroom during my planning periods, and I will be exiled to the office. I don’t mind, but my clutter is an embarrassment.

When I heard the weather forecasts, I stayed late on Thursday and graded all my semester exams — including the exam for a student who showed up late for a “make up exam” without any warning. Even though she had failed the first quarter, had failed the second quarter and had 19 absences, my department chair and my administrator both said to let her take the test. I was feeling conflicted about the whole thing, but they confirmed my natural instinct to give students the benefit of the doubt. Our grading policy says that a student who gets a C on a final exam can still pass the semester, even with the above profile! On the one hand, I want to ask: Why bother coming to school? Why bother doing any work? On the other hand, I understand the difficult circumstances of some students and how my giving her a passing semester grade might make her life just a little easier; maybe this will be the little break she needs in order to succeed next semester and in life.

So I sit at home watching the snow fall, trying to catch up on my reading-for-pleasure, all while feeling a little guilty that I’m not preparing a scope-and-sequence for the three different classes I will teach starting on Tuesday. And what about my reflections on the Student Learning Objective that is due January 29th? And did I file the quarterly COSY report?

I think I’ll go shovel some snow and curl up with Gone Girl, which I’ve been wanting to read forever.

 

Worried about security abroad?

I heard about last Friday’s attack at the hotel in Burkina Faso from my sister. She texted to ask about my husband, who travels all the time — often to countries where the color of his skin could easily make him a terrorist’s target. “Is he safe?” she asked. It’s a question I ask myself every time he travels.

On his most recent trip to Northern Nigeria — the heart of Boko Haram territory — I worried that he might be victimized. Instead of being taken hostage, he came back with amazing photos of himself surrounded by community elders wearing long robes and local leaders in colorful scarves, who welcomed him warmly and praised the work his organization was doing. He interacted with them in the local language, Hausa, which he learned years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Every time there is an overseas attack in the news I don’t have to wonder why international nonprofit organizations keep sending staff and volunteers to work in developing nations. My husband’s and my own experience make me understand how important it is to share medical advances, expertise, and knowledge. The extremists who commit these violent acts do not represent the people, religion or places they come from.

I was also a Peace Corps volunteer and have lived, worked and traveled in developing countries. My Peace Corps service was a long time ago in a different international climate. Back in the 1980’s I never felt that I was in danger. In the 1990’s I lived through a coup d’état and an outbreak of Ebola, but I never felt the fear that more recent attacks want to promote. Last summer I traveled to Southeast Asia with a group of educators, and felt a warm welcome from people whose language I did not speak. I met with fellow teachers and visited schools. They made us friendship bracelets and we donated books to their library. In 2014, I traveled to Central America with a church group to work on a school. Instead of being harassed, we shared in a powerful community-building project that was part spiritual and part practical. I gained a deeper understanding of their families and culture, and they of mine. It is through the act of meeting people, sharing stories, and performing public service together that we break down the walls between us.

Now that American aid workers, missionaries and volunteers have actually been targeted, I can no longer naively believe that there’s a sort of immunity for doing good deeds. But the risks of sending Ameritans overseas can often seem exaggerated in the wake of unexpected violence. Don’t we have an obligation to continue our support of people in faraway places who live with this threat of violence every day?

My husband is traveling to Kenya next week. I know that there is always a risk of danger, but I have to trust that he will be safe.

Absorbing student stress

This is my 15th year teaching English Language Learners in Maryland public schools. Why does it feel so much harder than last year? I have small classes and no new curriculum to pilot. I have access to excellent bilingual counselors and parent community coordinators. I have hard-working colleagues and a supportive administration. The workload is tough, but manageable. I should feel lucky, but I think the problems that students express to me are greater this year, and I seem to be absorbing more of their stress.

Challenges of immigrant families are making headlines this week, as deportations increase. But the news reports don’t tell you about other issues that bleed into the classroom. One student is in the hospital because he was in a serious car accident (was he driving?), another is out because a family member passed away, a third student was crying in class (different from the one I mentioned last week) and could not concentrate, a fourth student wrote an essay about witnessing a murder. Any one of these incidents would be a major life event for a typical teen. For immigrant children, their problems seem to be magnified by low income, family instability and lack of background knowledge. So often I act in loco parentis that I believe that I am the only advocate that they have. Two students welcomed new baby siblings this week and I made sure other teachers knew that’s why A’s behavior was a little off and K was absent so much. I bought a condolence card on the way home so that all the students can sign it before Y comes back to school.

In each class, I have at least one older student who is in this country with no family. D. crossed the desert on foot when he was 15. A “coyote” was leading his group from El Salvador. They walked at night when it was cool and dark. He slept in the sand during the day with tree branches covering his body so that the police wouldn’t find him. One day he woke up and all of his group was gone. He was hungry and thirsty. When the Border Patrol found him, they took him to jail and connected him with his aunt and uncle in Maryland, where he would await a court decision. He’s still waiting. In the meantime, he’s living with some friends (a girl who dropped out last year). One day he said to me, “I wish you were my mother.” I don’t know if deportation is on his mind, because he doesn’t linger after class any more to chat; he’s working full time.

In 2014, we welcomed a huge new group of newcomers to my school — students whose stories are beginning to come out as their language skills evolve and the trauma of leaving home starts to fade. When I ask these students to write about the family, they write “my beautiful mother,” and put “meeting my mother” on their autobiography project timelines. At least five students in each class moved to Maryland to live with a parent whom they haven’t seen in many years. One girl was ecstatic because her mother and sister were about to arrive. She hasn’t seen them in nine years. My typical student is living with a parent who is remarried and has little American children with a step-mother or step-father, all of whom speak better English than my newcomer student.  Sometimes the missing parent is put on a pedestal for so many years that the real version of Mom or Dad can only be a disappointment after so much fantasizing and anticipation.

As the semester is wrapping up and we enter testing season, I notice the disconnect between where students are and where we’re supposed to be. I’ll have to admit that I don’t like the new Pearson book that is a substitute for our curriculum. I used to teach Romeo and Juliet, The Giver and Of Mice and Men. We used language structures to discuss the bigger issues that these classics addressed. Some of it was relevant to students’ lives. Now we read excerpts from texts and we compare them to nonfiction pieces with the same theme. I teach language structures without the benefit of context because I know that grammar and vocabulary will appear heavily on the multiple choice exam. How am I going to ask students to make personal connections to Mendel’s Laws of Heredity? I put them in cooperative groups to answer a question and create a visual using academic language. How do visuals support the main idea? Discuss with your peers.  It’s partly what they need in the real world, but I really miss reading about their personal experiences.

By January, I usually know my students pretty well. This year, my grade book indicates that school is not a priority. I don’t think it’s pure laziness — although that’s certainly a factor. Students don’t see the big picture. I have to explain how semester grades are calculated and why it’s important. I assume that no family member can help them. I ask warmly for overdue assignments, create multiple opportunities for reassessment, and allow students to hand work in past the deadline.

Today I had a guest speaker, a vibrant young Latina student who is the first in her family to attend college. She talked to them about the importance of making a plan, discovering some internal motivation and using their time wisely.  They were polite and attentive. But as soon as she left, I had to reprimand A. for pushing another student.

Sigh. It’s all worthwhile, though, because one day soon I’ll watch them walk across the stage at D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, DC and the principal and superintendent will shake their hand and it will be the proudest moment in their lives. An American diploma. And I’ll help them get there no matter what it takes.