Now that our building has been closed for more than three weeks, we who teach are beginning to see under present circumstances how inadequate is the noun transition – as in transition to digital learning.

Just as marsh creatures simultaneously cease all sounds at the approach of a hurricane, teachers and administrators sensed a rapid drop in routine’s barometric pressure. Much to his credit, our alternative program’s principal took steps to stay ahead of the insinuated changes to teaching the novel coronavirus pandemic necessitated. Independently, at first, teachers began creating Google Classroom accounts at the same time the principal created a Google Drive document meant to our student’s access to technology at home. (Our district generated an online survey for the same purpose two weeks later.)

Those of us who follow the news closely anticipated the district’s closure announcement when we learned of the Governor’s planned press conference later that Thursday afternoon, March 12. Neighboring Ohio’s Governor DeWine shuttered the state’s schools that day and many assumed Indiana would prudently follow suit.  However, Governor Eric Holcomb punted, allowing each district to make the call. An hour later, our district’s superintendent joined with those of all Marion County public school districts during a press conference with Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett. The mayor ordered all county schools closed for two weeks, a period that ran until or overlapped Spring Break, effectively creating a three-week fire break.

For my colleagues and me, there was little time for superstition on Friday the 13th of this March. E-mail communication, though sparse, bore testimony that the preparatory work teachers began on or before Thursday was now being implemented. Requests for valid parent-phone numbers and e-mail addresses went out and updates were shared in exchanges among teachers. We were all working on various lists.

“Snag ahead!”

It was only later that I began to think of Mark Twain’s tales of the Mississippi paddlewheels as I updated my own communication lists. Like the riverboat pilots of the mid-19th century, we kept a sharp eye out for snags and quickly maneuvered around the obstacles as they came into sight. By mid-week of what was technically the last week of the grading period, I began to note on my own listing of student contacts those cell numbers that had responded to texts from my personal cell phone. Parent or guardian e-mails that responded to requested replies were shaded, in my case green, to delineate them from those e-mails with no responses.

Hell must certainly have frozen over with the spread of the epidemic as I would never before have even considered sharing my personal e-mail with parents or guardians. For those not in alternative education, such precautions may not resonate, but nevertheless, the snag identified by many of us obviated concerns about sharing our cell numbers.

With several iterations of texting and emailing parents, contact with parents began to reveal some progress, but even more obstacles. A small percentage of those households to whom calls, texts, and emails were sent resulted in replies.

All-calls to student homes from both the district and our principal were made asking parents to fill out the district technology survey, (mentioned above). Resource allocation decisions will be based upon the results.

More than ever, we teachers are preparing to provide engaging learning activities under a number of circumstances over which we have almost no control.  In the meantime, there are plenty of metaphoric snags we can see, but we’re about to find out how many lie unseen just beneath the surface.  We’ll either adapt to the novel circumstances of our transition will be like the Titanic transitioning to an artificial reef.

Columbus Day and why historians revise

All history is nuanced, and therefore, all history is revisionism. For many Americans, though, particularly those whose livings aren’t made researching, studying, and teaching about the past, updates to the understanding of an existing historical narrative is often seen as less-than-legitimate. Take, for example, the contemporary wave of scrapping Columbus Day for the honoring of indigenous peoples. Isn’t this cultural phenomenon just another example of political correctness and historical revisionism?

Yes. On both accounts.

Defining terms

Let’s start by understanding that knowledge of the past grows as new information is uncovered, or in the case of Christopher Columbus, his Spanish crews, settlers, soldiers, and those who’d already discovered the Bahamas and Hispaniola, given a voice.

While what’s known about Columbus’ most famous of his four voyages to the New World has been available to researchers for most of the past five centuries, several reasons hindered its distribution throughout those years. I’ll comment only on those most relative to what some still call a controversy.

While nativism likely played some role in Columbus Day only becoming an official federal-holiday in 1934, (there were celebrations in the U.S., usually during centennial years, and including one world’s exposition), the account was almost entirely a celebration of European conquest. That the explorers were Eastern European as well as Catholic was not honorific except in certain immigrant enclaves. Still, public accounts of how the Tainos who resided in the Carribean region explored by Columbus was, at best, overlooked, and most often what I’d call Disneyfied. Again, records attesting to Columbus’ policies of lopping off hands of 14-year-old Tainos who failed to fetch a specified amount of gold for Ferdinand and Isabella existed and were well enough known in academic circles, but these didn’t fit into the hero mythology of Christopher Columbus.

As for the boorishly trite label of political correctness leveled at teaching the past through multiple perspectives of those involved, we need to understand the term political correctness. A Thought Company article attempts this challenge.

 

The term political correctness describes written or spoken language that’s intentionally phrased to avoid offending or marginalizing groups identified by certain social characteristics, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or ability. Beyond the obvious avoidance of overt slurs, political correctness also includes the avoidance of terms that reinforce preconceived negative stereotypes. The elimination of verbal discrimination is often considered one of the main goals of political correctness.

It’s hard to argue that honoring a man who rewarded other Europeans with Tainos women for the purpose of becoming rape victims is offensive to marginalized groups; you know, indigenous peoples, women, men, decent human beings. By no longer omitting material facts about Columbus’ overt cruelty certainly qualifies as politically correct.

Why historians revise

The nature of the discipline history, the systematic study and scholarly interpretation of past events demands that each generation revisit the account of historic events. It is foolish to accept that each generation is free from its own blind spots, or more accurately, biases and prejudices. For that reason, the study of history must include a healthy dose of revision as these predispositions favoring power are recognized and mitigated.

When teaching new generations about the past, especially generations whose makeup is increasingly more diverse than that of the current and past generations, having a good explanation for why historians revise is essential. Students need to understand that historic revision doesn’t mean changing facts, but rather including once omitted details and perspectives while weeding out even cherished myths.

One of my personal favorites among the many new ways of teaching about the past is the Zinn Education Project. Specific to teaching about Columbus is the activity that puts Columbus and associated practices and persons on trial. The People vs. Columbus, et al has been one of the most engaging lessons I’ve used to tell the full story of European contact with the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

If you happen to have today off from work, (or even if you don’t), I hope you’ll take the time to think about what this day means for more than just Europeans. More to the point, I hope you’ll take the time to think if Columbus’ record really reflects your values.

Disheartening as it may be, many at-risk students arrive in high school alternative programs as a consequence of being – at-risk students.  For those new to alternative education, teaching student skills most learn by their late primary school years is a necessity that often goes unrecognized.

Without an egg, there is no chicken

There exists what I believe to be a misconception about why students are placed in alternative education programs. Conventional wisdom has behavior as the root cause of why placements into alternative schools are made. Flowing from this popular belief is the assumption that poor grades and a lack of academic skills are the consequences of bad behavior. This particular narrative is both popular and pervasive, but I argue that it’s acceptance has more to do with the expedient convenience of letting teachers off the hook.

To look at this cause and effect premise a bit more objectively, we can begin by examining the one skill at which nearly all students assigned to an alternative program excel – avoidance strategies.

While passively dodging work isn’t an exclusive behavior of at-risk youth, it very often coincides with some deficit the student finds embarrassing. By high school age, the student lacking in basic student skills has learned at least one thing; for years, trained professionals have failed to remediate these strategies. If the vagaries of life spent in poverty haven’t produced enough frustration, distrust, and socially inappropriate behaviors, a system that demands levels of performance from teens without the basic skills to meet those expectations often proves to be the last straw.

Alternative education students intrinsically understand this. It’s time we practitioners not only understand this but change how we teach as a result.  Our first responsibility as teachers in alternative education settings is to remediate the skills our general ed counterparts failed to impart.

Implications for teaching student skills

To successfully teach students in an alternative setting, one has to master the fine art of differentiation. Often times this means, not so much throwing out the book on how to teach, but rather cutting the book apart and reordering the pages.

Pacing guides. As written, pacing guides are the antithesis of the differentiated classroom. They are the one-size-fits-all plan to which many neophytes desperately cling, and yet are highly impractical for students with the learning profiles common among at-risk youth. Still, the concept of having a set of milestones for teaching standards over a grading period, semester, and school year is still quite sound. What this means for the alt-ed teacher is that you must create your own pacing guide that includes, but isn’t based upon standards. To do this, go back to what we know about differentiating process.

Student skills – Standards – Thematic Blocks

Though much of my career was spent outside my role as a social studies teacher, I’ll limit the scope of my recommendation to that domain.

Also, for this post, I’ll omit my own views on around what specific student skills a teacher should teach. You, the reader, already know.

To create your own pacing guide, start with the student skills as informed by your experiences. I recommend no more than eight of these, though your student’s needs should drive that number.

A great teacher tool, post-it-notes with your content standards written one to a sheet make for a good way to group standards. As we’re reconstructing the book, I suggest you begin with the higher order standards that can be applied more appropriately to thematic blocks or units of instruction.

Finally, create thematic units. In the case of history courses, you can use these blocks of learning to teach students how to construct meaning by making connections among similar events.

Most importantly, build the type of relationship with your individual students so that they feel safe in letting you know which skills they’re trusting you to teach.

 

In the fad-crazed world of K-12 education, there is one ubiquitous practice that remains steadfast amid a changing world. That, of course, is the problem.

What if schools began each year by holding parent-teacher conferences? Taking this further, what if the parent or guardian were recognized as the expert on his or her own child, while the teacher assumed the role of the enthusiastic learner? Wouldn’t student achievement be improved, perhaps dramatically, if each teacher knew at the start of the year how a student best learns, what motivates him or her and what strengths could be supported by thoughtful instruction practices?

Turning the tables on parent-teacher conferences is embarrassingly long overdue. Here’s how, and why, this arcane and self-defeating institution needs to evolve and do so with a committed sense of urgency.

Research on student achievement

Being up front, there exists today no large body of validated research supporting any specific change in parent-teacher conferences. However, after decades of the practice, no field of studies exists remotely explaining why the tradition was ever seen as worthy of time invested. Research does exist, though, that makes clear what influences work best in education.

Educational researcher John Hattie is internationally recognized as having produced not only a ranking of practices that work but a measured accounting of which of these work significantly better than most. Among the top ten, at the far end of the statistical curve, feedback – meaning feedback to the teacher – appears. By comparison, class size, socio-economic status, teacher subject matter knowledge, and motivation are all of significantly lesser value.

Feedback.

In simplified terms, the more information a teacher receives about what a student knows, what he or she needs to acquire new skills and how best to instruct each student to exceed each new accomplishment, the greater the achievement.

Ask the experts

Consider this. At the elementary level, a student’s teacher sees that pupil roughly six hours each day for about 180 days during one year. The parents or guardians, for the most part, live with that student the balance of the time. By the time that child reaches middle school, the interaction between by any one of his or her teachers drops from 30 hours a week during the school year to five. However, at the beginning of each school year, the teacher usually has no direct prior knowledge or understanding of the student. That’s both a problem, but also an opportunity.

Think about it! For generations we’ve arrogantly assumed that those with a handful of hours in the same room with a child, know more about the learning needs of a student than do the persons who taught them to walk, speak, use the potty and scores of other fundamental lessons. By the time parent-teacher conferences are held at mid-semester, instructional issues resulting in poor performance and/or behavior are months old. That student-teacher relationship, recognized by educational researchers as among the top aspects of superior teaching, is damaged in many cases, needlessly so because of a tradition possessing no rational basis of existence.

At long last, define a measurable outcome

If you’d like to know the priorities of any organization, find out what it is that body painstakingly tracks. If it’s not tracked, it’s not important. With this in mind, have you ever heard of a state education department requiring district data on family participation at parent-teacher conferences? Of course, many schools do ask teachers for numbers of parents who attended conferences, but have those changes driven substantive change? I think you know the answer. The fact remains what should be obvious as unacceptably low participation, particularly in schools located in economically distressed neighborhoods, is routinely accepted.

Setting as a minimal goal 90 percent family participation at conferences, even at the high school level, is attainable. Participation must be accurately tracked by a valid accounting method in order to produce measurable outcomes. Currently, the outcomes beyond participation are non-existent. Curriculum and instruction seldom, if ever, are driven by feedback gained by conferences. That’s a problem.

Redirect the actors

Under the best of circumstances, change, even if embraced, involves a lead time of at least a full year. This is largely due to the need for extensive in-service training for teachers and a dynamic campaign beyond the school in the community served. For one, teachers will need not only instruction on how to productively listen to feedback from parents, but also training on how not to slip back into the role of the expert during a parent meeting. But then there’s an even bigger problem to overcome, one demanding not only time but trust.

Parents who’ve been intimidated, even humiliated, by the traditional parent-teacher conference experience don’t trust schools to do the right thing. After all, we’ve subjected whole communities to a practice underscoring a pervasive contempt of parent/guardian value. Nothing short of a well-executed campaign aimed at patiently restoring trust will produce acceptable results.

Well before the start of any transition in how parent-teacher conferences are conducted, the word needs to go out on no less than a weekly basis that parent/guardian feedback is highly valued. Nothing short of a public mea culpa will even begin to earn back a trust systematically thrown away for more than a half-century.

The observable, measurable outcome of this campaign is to achieve that 90 percent level of family participation, meaning active, informative contribution that produces actionable feedback resulting in much greater student achievement than ever before.

Putting it all together

Location! Location! Location!

This wise response to the question of what matters most in real estate has applications for parent-teacher conferences in general and gaining community trust and actionable feedback, specifically.

Holding a majority of conferences not in classrooms, but in locations within the communities ostensibly served by the school district is an indispensable component of turning the tables on parent-teacher conferences. The implications should be obvious. Lip service about change – and that’s what most families will initially conclude when they hear from school officials about a desire to value parent feedback – will always be trumped by action in the public’s eye.

Finally, there’s no question that evolving from an accepted tradition to an ambitious level of professionalism poses a myriad of logistical challenges. Again, anything worth doing is worth doing well, and implementing the changes I suggest, (and necessity demands), is hardly comparable to planting a pair of flags on Mount Suribachi. The key is to identify ways to accomplish a worthy goal, not generate excuses supporting the status quo.

Turning the tables on parent-teacher conferences is a must-win challenge for public schools if they expect to remain relevant in these times of unprecedented changes in our communities. Demanding a sense of urgency in implementing the fleeting opportunity is the duty of all who also demand real progress in student achievement.