Middle school teachers, please remember...

It is January, and in my school district, we are on snow day number 4. Teachers have a love/hate relationship with snow days. And when they come at the end of a marking period, when teachers have so many things to do, the feelings tend toward hate. The pressure to cover curriculum, to keep kids engaged in the doldrums of winter, especially when those classrooms are packed to the rafters these days and teachers feel the stress of managing what often feels like a herd of cats...well, it makes for frustration and headaches.

In the long, dark winter months, it is so important to remember that our middle school students are KIDS first. So I just want to give you TWO important reminders.

1. Reminder number ONE: Middle school students' bodies are undergoing changes at a rate surpassed only by the time they are babies. Their growing and changing bodies make it IMPERATIVE and NECESSARY for them to move. All. The. Time. We must find ways to allow for movement in the classroom. Use exercise balls instead of chairs. Put podiums around the room so that they can stand when they need to. (On a related note, are you aware of the latest research about the effects on ALL OF US of sitting for too long? Here is one article on the topic.) This is just ONE of the many characteristics teachers should know about young adolescents. I encourage you to read the rest here, and think about how you honor this developmental stage in your classroom.

2. Reminder number TWO: Fair does not mean equal. Students in your classrooms have a wide range of abilities and varying amounts of home support. A student who reads 50 words per minute is going to take MUCH LONGER to read a page from the text book and answer questions than a student who reads 150 words per minute. When a teacher expects the slower readers to do the same amount of work, in the same amount of time, that teacher setting that learner up for failure. And when the teacher rewards that "failure" with lunch detention or lowered grades, that student's desire and motivation for learning diminishes.  Fair does not mean equal. You know your students. It is your job to give them what they need. Too many teachers worry that if they differentiate, students will rise up in protest. But in a caring classroom community, the teacher is not the only one who understands that fair does not mean equal.

Reflecting on your practice, and making changes to address the needs of young adolescents if needed, can make a huge difference in the happiness of both teacher and students in your classroom.

All conferences are not created equal...

Yesterday I explained a little bit about the Student Led Conferences that my middle school has been doing for 14 years now. In that post, I mentioned that I would not be attending my own 6th grader's conference. Instead I emailed her teachers to make sure all was well. I know them all; my first daughter had them when she went through 6th grade. And my 6th grader is still an open book when it comes to letting her mama know what is going on at school.

I did decide, however, that I should attend conferences for my 9th grader. She's in a new building, I don't know many of the teachers (even though it is the high school I attended), and I am not sure I can count on her to tell me if there are any problems...that whole issue of growing up and not talking much to your parents anymore and all. Her conferences started today at 3:30. I had to be back at my building by 5:00 and I have about a 20 minute drive between the two.

I do not intend to offend anyone with the rest of this post. I know that the description that follows is just the way things have always been done. But I honestly believe that if schools want to get parents more involved, they need to seriously look at their conference procedures. When I arrived at the school, I picked up G's report card and went into the cafeteria. Where all the teachers were stationed. All of them. I had to find her teachers (I knew this would be a chore; that's why I made her come too.)

Once I located all G's teachers, I proceeded to wait in lines. I was in that cafeteria for almost an hour. The amount of time that I spoke with teachers: 5 minutes. Maybe. I will not attend parent teacher conferences again. The waiting was not the only thing that wasted my time. Even the 5 minutes of talk was wasted time. Why? Because all the teachers did was tell me her grade (which I could see on the report card) and give me a print-out that detailed how they arrived at their grades. Even the assignment names didn't give me any hints about what she learned.

I don't care much for grades, but if a teacher is going to give one, they ought to be able to tell me what the grade means. In one class, G received an A-. In going over the detailed report, this teacher told me, "Well it's pretty close to an A. There really isn't much she could do better." Then why the A-? is that I wanted to ask. But my real burning questions were: What is she learning? How are you assessing her learning? How are you teaching her to assess herself ? How are you making sure she maintains her curiosity and her desire for learning? What do you REALLY KNOW about my child?

Another teacher, after telling me his concern that she isn't challenged enough told G that if she needed to be challenged more, she should read more, and maybe some more challenging text. Really? I agree that she should look for ways to challenge herself. But if the class text isn't challenging enough, shouldn't there be some differentiation of instruction happening?

But the best comment of the night was from, well, I don't even want to say what subject in case people who know G and who know the teachers at this school read this...so let's just say, from one of her teachers: "I wish I could find something negative to say but I just can't." I hope this teacher has a dry sense of humor that went over my head. I hope this teacher was saying this tongue-in-cheek, but honestly, I couldn't read him well enough to tell. But I know there are some teachers who really do look for the negatives in their students. I'd just always hoped some teachers wouldn't be my kids' teacher.

Student Led Conferences

Our middle school is looking forward to our 14th annual student led conferences tonight and tomorrow night. We love our student led conferences. And I am so envious of the parents who get to hear their children talk about their learning.

My daughters attend a different district than where I work, and I will be missing my own 6th grader's conferences because I have to be here at work. But I am not even really sorry. Her conferences are conducted with all teachers in the cafeteria and parents have to wait and wait and wait to see each teacher. How I long for them to hold conferences where my child takes ownership in the ability to tell me how she is progressing in her learning.

The staff of our middle school, grades 5 through 8, all take time in the days before conferences to help the students put their binders together. The students practice in their classes what they will say to their parents. They take it all very seriously.

Having the grade 6 intervention class this year, I was so excited to once again watch students prepare for sharing their classwork. We took time this morning to practice what they wanted to share from the intervention class. And some of them decided they wanted to share with the world as well. Below are videos from three students who wanted to practice for conferences and reflect on one piece of learning from our class. It would be awesome for them to see the reach of technology. Please leave them a comment with some feedback!