Struggling with Struggling Readers? New Book: The Reading Turn-Around

Finally…these things take so long…

but the book I wrote with Lane Clarke and Grace Enriquez is finally in print:

The Reading Turn-Around: A Five Part Framework for Differentiated Instruction (Teachers College Press)

and you can even pre-order at Amazon for a great price!

And here’s what some really smart folks are saying about it:)

“This is a masterwork that is simultaneously practical and groundbreaking…The model these authors use to familiarize teachers with the essential elements of reading practice is clear and beautifully illustrated with stories of children you’ll swear you know.”
—From the Foreword by Ellin Oliver Keene, national staff developer, co-author of Mosaic of Thought: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction

“This deeply intelligent and compassionate book provides teachers with detailed classroom scenarios and dozens of teaching tools for engaging all readers. The authors demonstrate how to help all students become motivated and powerful meaning-makers of a wide variety of texts.”
—Katherine Bomer, Literacy Consultant, K-12, author of For a Better World: Reading and Writing for Social Action

“Unlike the plethora of books that claim to provide teachers with powerful teaching strategies to help children who struggle with reading, The Reading Turn-Around actually accomplishes this. The book is full of detailed case studies of students that teachers will recognize and strategies that teachers can use. There is no other book like it in the field.”
—Catherine Compton-Lilly, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison

congrats – this is the first time I’ve liked the readings

…said a grad student in a recent class (on teaching in the elementary grades) meeting after reading the first week’s assigned readings. my response? congrats to you:) several other students “admitted” to usually skimming readings in the past but said they couldn’t take their eyes off these readings they were so interesting.

and what were we reading?

two chapters from mike rose’s The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker

maxine greene’s The Ambiguities of Freedom

a long chapter from the incredible (and gorgeous) 1978 book by michael thurmond: A Story Untold: Black Men and Women in Athens History

and a chapter from To Remain an Indian by  K. Tsianina Lomawaima and Teresa L. McCarty

You might be wondering what these readings have in common to be assigned in the same week…our question was “What is the purpose of education?” – and these pieces together provoke lots of great dialogue.

Cheating on State Tests? Are We Surprised?

A friend in Dallas sent this article to me today:

All 8th graders in a Dallas school district must retake the state test because of “irregularities.”

And it reminded me of the probe in Atlanta this year as well as across at least four districts across Georgia:

Principal resigns and Assistant Principal is re-assigned during investigation into cheating on the state tests in Atlanta

State of Georgia says students didn’t cheat but were cheated by adults who did change answers in four districts

When any one “test” is valued higher than other measurements, you can guarantee that test will be corrupt and invalid from the beginning. The cheating by adults doing whatever it takes to save their jobs and their schools in this ridiculous historic moment we find ourselves in has been going on since the beginning of the No Child Left Behind Act:

And we thought cheating was bad in 2007?

And with my own daughter telling me that one of the reading passages was “just too long” so “I decided to guess the answers” – we see why teachers and other adults would WANT to cheat. They know what kids can do – they know kids are smart – they know that the stupid test with its insane rigidities, weirdly stated questions, strange reading selections, and “regularities” such as no talking, no vomiting, no looking around, no eye-balling, no gestures, no crying, no walking, no peeing, no eating, no drinking, and you must wait for everyone to finish before you move, create a context where most kids cannot, and do not, perform their best.

Can we just admit that we’ve made a huge mistake by tying these state test scores to federal rewards and punishments – and to children’s promotion or retention fate?

If you don’t know about Fair Test already – check it out. It’s one of dozens and dozens of organizations working against the misuse and abuse of testing instruments and test-takers.

How to Make School Not Suck #2 – Awards

#5 Stop singling out the same kids over and over for school awards. You know exactly the kind of celebrations I’m talking about: a very small number of well-dressed, submissive, overly-willing-to-please kids get all the recognition in a class-wide or even school-wide award ceremony. If the other kids are lucky, they might get their names called out, but then some sit there never having had the thrill of being publicly recognized for their gifts and talents. Do this: if you or your school gave out awards for the end of this year, ask yourself some tough questions: a) who were the kids that never got recognized? b) how many of those kids are from middle-class or wealthy families? c) how many receive free or reduced lunch? d) how many of those kids are white? African American? Multiracial? Latino? Asian American? e) how many of those kids have already had the privilege of “special programs” such as the gifted program? f) is there any evidence in your answers that you are, or your school is, perpetuating stereotypes and expectations for kids based on race and class?

If you know anything about how children build personal connections with school and develop motivation in school, then you’ll already know that the kids who never get recognized are the very ones who will decide to quit trying. When you reward everything they are NOT, and nothing that they ARE, you send very clear messages about whether they even belong in the school setting. Shame on anyone who does this.

And – we’re sending horrible messages to the kids getting all the recognition as they sit and watch their classmates’ eyes well up with tears and yell and lash out at students and teachers: You deserve praise and they don’t. And when they can see traces of racism and classism in those decisions (even if they can’t articulate it that way – my own daughter said, “all the kids who didn’t get an award were _____” – she knew), they can begin to adopt those same racist, classist beliefs about school and society at large.

And what about the parents of children who attend such events whose child never gets recognized? Well, they probably already hated school and you because they have read through this bullshit long ago. But you surely didn’t help things.

Every single child has something worth valuing publicly.

Period.

Recognize and reward the wonderful talents and gifts of every student and you will create a better world, starting in your classroom, school, and then beyond.

Stop repeatedly making some of your students Powerful and others Powerless in school settings. Rethinking awards is one place to start.

Besides, without knowing it, you might be publicly and proudly revealing the racist and classist practices that are already at play in your classroom or school, and surely, surely, no one would want to be caught in THAT situation.

God, Politics, and Public Schooling: Interrogating the Separation of Church and State

This is such a hot issue in the media lately…perhaps we can all take advantage of it and help our students explore what the separation of church and state means on paper and how messy things play out in practice. A bit of personal commentary then onto some great resources to use with students, family, friends, and foes:

For several years folks have been telling me that right-wing Evangelicals were getting themselves into strategic positions to influence federal policy. Call me slow, but I shrugged a lot of this crazy talk off. We have a separation of church and state in our nation, right? Don’t most people respect that separation? Didn’t people flee to our country to escape religious persecution? Isn’t this the land that is open and respectful of all religious beliefs (including the belief that there is no God)?

Religion and national politics, however, seem to go hand-in-hand nowadays. Obama was practically bullied into outright separating himself from his church because of comments made by the leader of that church, and now there are videos all over the web of Palin giving a speech in her former church talking about “God’s Will” and “God’s Plan” regarding such things as the Iraq war, the pipeline in Alaska, and the need for Alaskans to be right with God in order for good things to happen there. Really? Really?? And is it God’s Will that our society be so devastatingly unequal that little children are going to bed hungry tonight in all of our cities? Is it God’s Will that Cubans are fighting for their lives tonight because of the devastation they’ve experienced this hurricane season? And what about those innocent Iraqis and Pakistanis that suffer because of world politics?

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about the hypothetical separation between church and state, and I offer some food for thought in the following resources – some of which I’ve used in courses and others I consider in the privacy of my own home:

An excerpt from Our Spirits Don’t Speak English - a brilliant film about Indian Boarding Schools and the explicit intentions to civilize and Christianize U.S. indigenous people from the 1600s through much of the 1900s while stripping them of their native languages and forcing English-only policies and practices. I have used sections of this film in a course to consider whether and how these three purposes of education still operate in public schools today.

An excerpt from Jesus Camp - another terrific film documenting the inner tensions of Christianity in the United States between what I would call “radical” God-fearing right-wing Christians and Christians who strongly disagree with the former group’s teaching of hatred, fear, and even violence to young children. Connecting such radical beliefs to advocating for right-wing policies (including appointments to the Supreme Court) and “preaching” in church that tells members of the church what they should do with their personal votes is clearly action against the separation of church and state. I particularly enjoyed the insightful comments of the Christian radio talk show host in this documentary as he tries to make sense of how the roots of Christianity has bred such hate. Disclaimer: I have not used this in any course…I’ll let you know if I decide to.

And “Shouting Across the Divide” from This American Life - A heartwrenching audio story of a Muslim family’s experience with a public school teacher, principal, and system following September 11, 2001. I have used this in a course (thanks to my colleague Amy Parks!) and it provoked lots of important discussion around religion, politics, public education, and Christian-based public school curricula.

I’d love to know what you folks do with students around these issues…

Anonymous adjunct paints himself into a classed corner

This article was first printed in the Atlantic Monthly in June and then reprinted in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (where I first read it) on Sunday June 15, 2008. There’s already a bit of discussion about the article on blogs including Education and Class and Mike Rose’s blog so I have to add some here myself.

As you read the article and various comments related to it, think about social class, opportunity, privilege, and marginalization. And don’t forget Power. The anonymous writer who describes himself as an adjunct working two jobs claims he doesn’t want to seem “classist” like the Brits or “sexist” but yet continues to paint a picture of his first-year-college-students (and perhaps first-generation college students) as uneducated, disengaged, and unable to absorb even the most simple concepts from his course. Never once does he consider that it might be his own “deficits” (a word he claims to like) about teaching and learning and his own underpreparedness and miseducation that might have led him to this impasse with the students sitting in his class.

Isn’t it just like the archetype “teacher” in our society to fail at teaching and then blame the students?

Get a grip pal. The second job you took on to pay your bills is one that comes with much privilege and power and it seems you are failing miserably at using yours in the best interest of hopeful, faithful, tuition-paying students who are looking to you for some leadership, guidance, and education. When did teaching stop being inspirational? Motivational? Energizing?

If you just needed a second job, go get one where you’re not messing with people’s lives.

Truth is, you are classist, just like most folks in the U.S., and it sounds like you are doing much more damage than good to the students, their experiences with institutions, and to the institution itself.

Do us all a favor: learn to teach or get out.

And don’t write anonymous articles that only further inscribe society’s classist perceptions of success, failure, and the value of human beings.

French movie pushing issues of class, geography, and stereotypes

This movie sounds fab!

If I get a chance to see it I’ll post my own tidbit…

Fabulous new film

La Misma Luna/Under the Same Moon This fabulous new film in independent theaters portrays the life of a young boy in Mexico living without his mother who has illegally immigrated to the U.S. I won’t give away any details, but bring your tissues and rally signs. It could make even the most conservative anti-immigration person reconsider dehumanizing laws that break the hearts and spirits of tenacious, driven, hard-working Mexicans. I haven’t yet used it with any of my courses but I will – and I will ask students to pay close attention to issues of language, literacies, and power within the intricate complexities of U.S.-Mexico relations. I will also ask students to consider the broader context of contemporary immigration around the globe and how capitalist economies and globalism is impacting social class relations beyond national borders.

What is education for? Getting beyond “a good job”

Only recently have I turned my ear toward the discourse of “why” students need or should want an education. I’m stunned, however, by the saturation of the topic with the “to get a good job” discourse.  Most of you out there are likely reading this wondering what rock I’ve been hiding under…but here I am shaking my head in bewilderment wondering what business second graders, fourth graders, sixth graders have thinking their whole life of schooling is for a “job.”

After being in many classrooms, talking to teachers and my university students about what education is for, and hearing many parent-child and teacher-student conversations like “stay in school…get a good job” from all social class backgrounds, I’m trying my best to insert some equally-important options within this otherwise authoritative discourse on what education is for:

What about creativity? Can education be about learning to create? Learning the possibilities of what a creative mind and body can do?

What about social action? Can education be learning about social injustices and working to organize and change those injustices?

What about self-fulfillment? Can education be finding something that makes us happy, filled with passion, willing to work and work at it because it’s fulfilling in and of itself?

What about the journey of becoming a whole person? Can education be about learning and doing in ways that helps me continue on the journey to become a whole person, with knowledge about myself, my history, my shared experiences with others, my interests, my dreams – and the know-how to follow those dreams (whatever they may be)?

What about freedom? Can education be about studying, researching, gaining knowledge and multiple perspectives of that knowledge to be emotionally and intellectually free from the oppressive structures in our society? And to work against anti-freedom practices, beliefs, structures.

These are just a few possibilities off the top of my head – I’d love to hear about others that have been, and can be, overtly inserted into the discourse of education. It would be great if children, teachers, adults, and all of us could have a robust vocabulary around what education is for…beyond getting “a good job.” All good jobs, my friends, don’t lead toward feeling whole, fulfilled, powerful, etc. In fact, many jobs don’t. So let’s let education be a place where the “job” doesn’t restrict ideas of what a person can be.

Teaching “tolerance” / Anti-bias teaching

Karen Spector gave a fabulous invited talk to students in my undergrad course (integrated curriculum) at UGA last week. Two days before her talk we viewed Paper Clips, the popular documentary about a school in Tennessee that engaged the Holocaust for four years and included a school-community, local-global social action project resulting in a permanent memorial being constructed at the school. The memorial is now used as a site for educational tours which are planned and guided by middle school students.

As a class we were looking at the film from the perspective of an integrated curricular experience that lasted a long period of time and we asked questions about what subject areas were integrated and how, what further integration might have taken place, whose perspectives are represented in the Holocaust study and whose perspectives were missing, what tenets of critical literacy were apparent, how the students came to study the Holocaust, etc.

Karen offered us more questions to ask ourselves:

Why are the “ghosts of the Holocaust” regularly awakened for “us” (whoever that may         be) to learn about tolerance?

What might have been learned if the students had moved their study of intolerance and         hatred to their local contexts and researched the community to better understand             why there weren’t Jews, Catholics, African Americans, or Latinos living there?

What might have been learned if the students studied the history of Anti-Semitism in             Christianity?

What symbolism is employed in the film (crosses, paper clips, rail car, etc.), and how                 can that symbolism be read from multiple perspectives?

One of the questions, “Why are the ghosts of the Holocaust regularly awakened…for the study of tolerance?” has stuck with me for some time (Karen and I are friends, so I’ve heard this before;). Some of my undergraduates had fabulous insight when responding to the question including thoughts such as the U.S. can be portrayed as a “savior” of sorts since many soldiers were involved in the liberation of many concentration camps (albeit 6 million people too late), that the hatred and intolerance of the Holocaust can be couched as historic and therefore a lesson we’ve already learned (ignoring ongoing genocide and human rights violations around the world…including serious hatred and intolerance in our own country), and an overall furthering of “us” versus “them” who would allow such tragedies to take place to begin with.

So…why is it that the Holocaust is awakened for our own purposes? And should we continue to do so?

The French President seems to believe the ghosts of the youngest victims should be awakened in ways that would mark the education of every fifth grader in France.

And other stories have been asking for years what we’re doing about the present-day holocaust in Africa. Perhaps much like the Jewish Holocaust, stories of murders by the millions remain “Buried by the Times” while we educate our children about the horrible tragedies that happened long before their births.

There are so many ways to study, understand, and do something about hatred and intolerance – both local and global ways – and this website offers some great ideas.

Fight hatred.

Fight bias.

Fight.