next ...in the city

I hugged a teacher friend on Sunday and asked how the first couple of weeks are going at school. "Fine, for me. So many teachers though have thirty students in their classrooms this year!"

(Anyone who works with human beings knows that complications are multiplied by the number of human beings involved. When human beings are below the age of 24, complications grow exponentially.)

"Kids have to be very well-behaved ... in charge of their focus, attention, and emotions to function effectively in academic learning groups of thirty!" "Are the kids able to handle this?" I queried further.

"Not really..." rolling her eyes. "Most classes include a dozen special education students as well," she tacked on in shared disbelief.

"Are teachers getting additional support in such conditions?"

"No."

In fact, my friend noted,"No one is even dealing with it! " Shell-shocked, teachers deal with whatever seems to appear on their plate...something like mothers and fathers. But let's be honest...when we have extraordinary conditions, we need complementary support. Or else discouragement rears its head...and "dropping out"in its myriad forms follow...for kids and adults...it's only human!

So let's hear from all the teachers who have worked with large groups of kids in need. I will begin the list of strategies and paradigms that can help shell-shocked teachers survive and support kids thriving under these currently extraordinary conditions:

Recommendation #1.

Investigate Peer Teaching ... i.e., students teaching their peers:

ASCD's September periodical (Educational Leadership) showcases the effectiveness of training student teams to present key lessons to their peers on a regular basis ... with professional teacher direction and guidance. Peer instruction becomes great pedagogy for multiple reasons...read about it! the goal is for all students to take the role of peer teachers. Contact www.ASCD.org for details and connections to this middle school program in Newark, New Jersey. Peer instruction is as old as formal education. Remember, we keep returning to the "classics" because they work.

Let's hear from parents and teachers everywhere ...

March moves us into the promise of spring once again. We might notice how the entire period of childhood resembles this changeable and inspiring season ... of new developments, new characteristics, first-time understandings, renewed efforts, directions, attitudes and behaviors. Every moment is an opportunity to take the better part of what our children present to us us and strengthen this!

Express appreciation for that part presented, give your expression the time and space it deserves so that its strength takes root in our children's awareness. As a privileged guide for each child in your charge, allow yourself the time and space you need to ensure that your words and actions truly reflect the good you believe can flourish.

This week make space and time throughout the day to pause, breathe, vision such good. Redirect yourself, selecting the posture, facial expressions, movements, and thoughts in alignment with this good. Elect to be this good in the space and time surrounding the children in your life here and now. Notice how your being matters for good for you and for them.

With gratitude we enjoy this greater good multiplying beneath the surface of all that is visible, the fabric of our eternal spring!

Professing with Parents and Teachers,
Heidi Bach, Ph.D.

In loco parentis...professing with parents and teachers

Dear One,
Where ever you find yourself in the day or evening, remember that now is your time for being fully alive, fully present to both yourself and the process of educating our young. Pause.
Breathe richly inward. Release any thoughts constrict or limit your fullest sense of Being. Continue the ebb and flow of breath and release. Draw sacred nourishment deeply within. Allow that Spark of Presence -the One who is you- to fill the space of your awareness.

Allow growing awareness of who you intend to be through those essential qualities of wisdom, order, and strength. Experience how your qualities can harmonize and balance the world around you here and now. Bring this way of Being into the world of children learning now the ways of the world, Breathe this very way of Being into the world children inhabit ... that of classrooms, schedules, curriculum, and standards. Know that your True Present Being becomes the way learners may well experience their wholeness above all else that might seem diminishing, illusive, of ignorance, error and discouragement. Know that one secure presence is all it takes for a child to sense the greater truth available in the world inhabited in any here and now.

In gratitude now, relish your adult capacity to Be the One Present. Enjoy such presence, moment to moment. Your eyes, your smile, your firm and caring tone, your hands, and your movements are all ways you express such presence. Know this and rejoice. And so it is!

With love,Professor and Friend - Heidi

Ambitious Teaching ... a relatively new thought

Ambitious Teaching is a term that describes the active development of dispositions to engage self and peers in the on-going examination of instructional practice (see Teacher Education Researchers: Magdalen Lambert, David Carroll, etc.).

Novice classroom teachers are invited to consciously develop a role-responsive personal identity and repertoire of practices based upon the norms and expectations identified by our professional community. When we engage this on-going process with peers, reflecting upon and refining our practice with children, their families, and our colleagues, we are practicing ambitious teaching!

Staff in the ER

The Carnegie Foundation made a very astute connection: that the preparation and development of teachers might be better conceived if aligned with the preparation and development of physicians. A supervised apprenticeship would then be in order, as is a medical internship. A case studies approach with ample, guided diagnostic experience would better support the development of complex proficiencies required by the circumstances of urban teaching. Guided and collaborative inquiry, reflective and revised practice, supported over several years, develops solid diagnostic dispositions.

The majority of alternative track novice teachers are placed in schools and classrooms analogous to "emergency rooms" (ER). With little systemic advance to create incentives that draw master teachers into ER sites, such placements remain "hard to fill." What an authentic community of master teachers could address deftly, is truly overwhelming to novices and their designated administrators. How are novices to survive such placements, and ultimately remain in the field beyond the average two year stay? Collaboration with peers and mentors, along with reliable and consistent access to on-going collegial support, seems to produce a culture of inquiry, support and revised practice. Researchers at the University of Washington have labelled this approach to teacher development, "ambitious teaching." Alternative route novice teachers are indeed ambitious! This blog site is intended to provide city teachers, and those who serve city teachers, with an informal, 24/7 "place to meet and share what works."

Nourished by nutrients of informed and consistent colleagial exchanges, ambitious teachers can more effectively, more easily, develop insight into themselves, their students, their conditions and circumstances. Through steadfast exposure over time to breadth and depth of the cases and classrooms sprawling within this complex field, practitioners can become masters.The issue though of longevity signals a current break-down of comparision between medical and instructional practitioners. By the time that medical professionals reach diagnostic and treatment mastery, their practice has skyrocketed. Society regards them with enhanced respect and remuneration. Conversely, by the time instructional professionals achieve such mastery, they are encouraged to take it easy, become an administrator, and/or retire.

What's the percentage of adults who engage a career whereby they invest energy and interest in the persistent dedication to unrelated offspring? Common knowledge indicates that most parents have affinity for certain children, but not everyone's children. It takes time for most adults to develop dependable bonds with "other people's children." On the contrary, teachers seem to form a self-selected exemplar set of highly altruistic individuals. The conscious choice to serve society as a professionalized teacher is then indeed noble. The choice to serve as a public school urban teach may be more aptly described as a special calling.

Moreover, as each state in our nation has its own character, challenges, risks and resources, so to we find that the nature of classroom teaching differs dramatically across contexts and circumstances. The choice to become a public school teacher in our nation's cities, becomes an ambitious journey at the very least. This is a call then to those ambitious ones engaging ambitious journeys. Enrich each other's journey through conversations that define terms and contexts. This qualitative inquiry invites us to extend our capacities to thrive, despite various odds that have persisted throughout the history of civilization. Public education is a gift whereby civilized world grows. When we grow without necessary and sufficient guidance, misconceptions and misperceptions develop like weeds. Restoring the dynamics of reciprocity and responsible citizenship can begin in our schools and neighborhoods...teaching the children well to become contributors, not simply consumers. To support this direction of healthy change, let us meet on the virtual sidewalks, riverbanks, and benches beyond the schoolhouse. There's no better time than now to get down to the basics ... identify our entry points, possible pathways, and the viallage dynamics needed to support this ambitious endeavor.

ambitious teachers...next in the city

Developing proficiency in urban public school classroom teaching requires individuals to engage a journey, like no other in the teaching profession. As all doctors and medical practices are not the same, all teachers and the practice of teaching are not the same. If we are to find solutions for our greatest educational challenges across our nation, it is time to go public with educators' conversations. We need to hear from teachers about teaching. This blog is to give voice to those who have embarked on the journey of "professional educator."

It's important to give voice to those who are contentedly teaching and those who left teaching earlier than they expected, novices, "journey men and women," and master teachers. It is important also that teachers actively seek perspective from related service providers - administrators, content area specialists and supervisors, coaches, social workers, therapists, school psychologists, specialists, paraprofessionals, parent liaisons, safety officers, support personnel. Certainly, it is imperative that teachers seek to engage parents in dialogue that not only clarifies family circumstances and perspectives, but clearly educates to bring about their strategic support of student productivity.

It is time to become explicit about what teachers know about children and adolescents in various contexts and circumstances (preK-grade 12), stages of development, learning motivation and special needs, environmental differences in discourse-print, social trends and acculturation. It is time to consciously and painstakingly examine and explore the conditions, terminology, systems, and dynamics present now in the on-going evolution of public education. We must identify where we've journeyed from to better understand the context of "now." In this process we must keep our eyes on the goal ... vision where we head and consider the best practices for getting there. If we intend to change course, we must listen to each other, helping each give voice to our experiences and interpretations of experiences.

Along this journey, we do best at the outset to define our terms and pinpoint our context ... clearly, carefully. If the general public (including commercial and government offices) are to obtain a more educated, conceptually refined, and differentiated view of what teachers know, do, and know how to do, then we must practice articulating knowledge and processes more explicitly among ourselves. Please use this site to further your journey, our journey, from vague and covert to refined and articulate.