The Adolescent Learner Honestly Revealed

I always love discussing characteristics and traits of the adolescent learner. To me, adolescents are fascinating, dramatic, and ever-interesting people that are sometimes five years old and other times think they are 40. Perhaps that's what makes my job as an eighth grade teacher NEVER dull or monotonous.

At our staff meeting this afternoon, one of our administrators spoke at our table about a conference speaker who called adolescents "large toddlers with raging hormones." What a perfect description! I couldn't think of a better one myself. After all, adolescents constantly test the limits of their environment and have the whole puberty thing to deal with at the same time.

As learners, adolescents are developing in five key areas: intellectual, social, physical, emotional and psychological, and moral. Their intellectual development often involves moving from concrete to abstract thinking, an intense curiosity, high achievement when challenged and engaged, need for constant peer interaction, and an ability to be self-reflective. These learners also demand relevance in learning and what is being taught while developing the capacity to understand higher levels of humor, some of which might be understood as sarcastic or even aggressive by adults (my personal favorite). Adolescents need to know WHY they are learning, which requires them to be highly engaged with the lesson at hand.

Socially, adolescents model behavior after that of older students, experiment with ways of talking and acting, explore questions of racial and ethnic identity, explore questions of sexual identity, seek approval of peers and others with attention-getting behaviors, and fluctuate between a demand for independence and a desire for guidance and direction. Physically, adolescents experience restlessness and fatigue due to hormonal changes, a need for physical activity due to increased energy, development of sexual awareness, physical vulnerability, and bodily changes that may cause awkward or uncoordinated movements.

In terms of their emotional and psychological development, adolescents have mood swings marked by peaks of unpredictability and intensity, a need to release energy, a desire to search for independence and adult identity and acceptance, self-consciousness, concern about physical growth and maturity, a belief that their personal problems and experiences are unique to themselves, overreaction to ridicule and embarrassment, and seeking the approval of peers and others with attention-getting behaviors.

Characteristics of young adolescents' moral development include an understanding of the complexity of moral issues (question values, cultural expression, and religious teachings), being capable of and interested in democracy, impatience with the pace of change, and needing and being influenced by adult role models who will listen and be trustworthy. At this age, adolescents also rely on parents and important adults for advice (but also want to make their own decisions), judge others quickly (but acknowledge one's own faults slowly), and show compassion and are vocal for those who are suffering - and have a special concern for animals and environmental issues. They want to know right from wrong. Mutual respect pays a large role here, as adolescents will only listen to teachers who listen to them. If you don't care, they won't care!!

Honestly, while none of these characteristics surprised me, I am always amazed at the variety of ways these traits manifest themselves in individual students throughout a typical day in the classroom. At any given moment, one student may be showing the potential for true critical thinking while another student is crying over a broken relationship at the age of 14. One student may be contemplating global warming while another is far more concerned over whether she will be called "cardboard" for not yet having a "chest."

Clearly, adolescence is full of drama, unpredictability, and contrasts, making no day a boring one in the middle school classroom. If anything, this severely awkward time in my students' lives allows me to work with them at their neediest and more vulnerable -- and help them begin to develop the confidence, skills, attitudes, and work ethic necessary to mature into responsible and capable young adults. A tall order? Absolutely, and I would have it no other way.

The Cartel: A True Educational Documentary?

I have mixed feelings about the upcoming documentary targeting how to fix America's educational system called The Cartel by filmmaker Bob Bowden. What do you think? Check out the full DCist article at:

http://dcist.com/2010/04/the_cartel.php
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Out of Frame: The Cartel

Filmmaker Bob Bowden interviews a New Jersey woman in 'The Cartel.'

There's something wrong with America's education system, and filmmaker Bob Bowden starts his new documentary, The Cartel, examining the roots and potential solution to those problems like any good doctor, first attempting to diagnose and define the problem. His findings — that our reading and math scores are abysmal, and our dropout rates staggering — come as no surprise, but it's a necessary setup for his task of finding out why this is the case, and what can be done about it.

New Jersey spends more than any other state on education, and Bowden uses them as a representative sample for the nation, showing the reasons why simply throwing money into the system is no guarantee of better results. With teacher salaries making up only a fraction of the cost per classroom, he demonstrates how more money doesn't always mean more money for teachers, and effectively outlines how wasteful administrative practices in the Garden State waste billions that could be helping kids. It's a strong and compelling start.

By the time he's gotten past administrative waste, and into political corruption, tenure, unions, and patronage, he's painted a rage-inducing picture of systemic injustice, a "cartel" of politics and money that is destroying the chances of a young generation of Americans at getting the education to which they have a right. It's mostly a strong case, at least as far as Jersey goes. Unfortunately, he's rarely able to argue effectively for the universality of many issues. In fact, on a number of occasions, he goes out of his way to show how problems he's outlining are unique to New Jersey. Without a case for the universality of these problems, it's hard to argue for a cure-all solution. Nevertheless, he makes that leap, spending most of the rest of the movie touting vouchers and school choice as the answer to all of our problems.

But this amateurish, ultimately poorly argued documentary isn't likely to convert many of those on the fence. And proponents of vouchers will want to think twice before choosing this film as the champion of their cause.

Bowden began his career as a television journalist, and while that means he knows his way around a camera and an interview microphone, it doesn't translate into making him an effective documentarian. The Cartel plays like a 5-minute local news report stretched out to an interminable hour and a half -- only with poorer image quality, graphics, editing, and sound than you'd expect from a small town affiliate. Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim may have been criticized for turning a PowerPoint presentation into a documentary with An Inconvenient Truth, but after an hour of Bowden's lo-fi graphics and endless camera shots of news sites brought up in web browsers, you'll find yourself wishing he knew how to use something as professional-looking as PowerPoint.

Still, that's just the presentation. If the arguments are sound, we can overlook amateur aesthetics, right? But after a promising start with his harsh critique of administrative waste, Bowden's obvious and admirable passion is betrayed by a one-sided argumentativeness that falls prey to the worst aspects of advocacy docs from both left and right. The smug, condescending tone he takes with regard to opponents had me longing for the manufactured faux-naïvete of Michael Moore. Bowden leads his audience carefully down a walled path that can only lead to the conclusion he's chosen. There's little room for alternate perspectives here, and when he does include them, more often than not he skips interviews in favor of presenting his interpretation of those alternate perspectives, in his own words. It's easy to win a debate when you're presenting the opposition's argument for them.

He does offer some balance, in one section on charter schools, when he allows for the fact that there are sometimes charter programs that end up performing even worse than their public counterparts. In the Newark charter school he uses as his example, he rationalizes that even if the kids have worse reading skills than those at the gang-ridden public school, at least they're safer here. Which is cold comfort when only 21 percent of the students at the school have basic reading proficiency.

What Bowden ends up implying is that if it's a choice between a good education and a bad education, choose the good education. If it's a choice between a bad education and a worse education where your kid is less likely to get shot, go for the worse, safer education. But are those really the only options? While it seems like the issue must be more complex than what Bowdon is willing to put on screen, that kind of complexity threatens to complicate the simple binaries of his approach, and therefore has no place here.

Bowden obviously cares about these kids (even if a scene depicting the heartbreaking exercise that is a charter school lottery feels uncomfortably exploitative), but does none of them a service with this film. Like so many advocacy documentaries, the director takes his own opinion as such incontrovertible gospel that his film can't do anything but preach — and preach badly — to the choir.

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The Cartel
Directed and written by Bob Bowdon

Running time: 90 minutes
Not rated
Opened 4/30 at E Street.
View the trailer.

Our VP: Sleeping with a Teacher!

A friend of mine pointed out a fun and light-hearted article about Vice President Joe Biden, which I really appreciated at the end of a particularly long, endless week. I hope you enjoy it! Full text is available at: http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0410/pillow_talk_92217e5a-2429-4aaf-a406-8d4e88a8afd5.html. 


Vice President Biden likes teachers enough to go to bed with one - literally.

Hosting a National Teacher of the Year reception at the Naval Observatory Monday night, Biden reminded a crowd of some 70 attendees just how intimately familiar he is with education.

"I've been sleeping with a teacher for a long time," Biden said, according to the pool report, alluding to his wife Jill. "But it's always been the same teacher."

Biden had a more serious message for the attendees, too, emphasizing that the White House has pledged billions to education to "create momentum for education in America."

"We've never made this kind of investment. And we've got to do this right," he said. "We've got to convince the American public that this is worth it."

The Obama administration has already handed out hundreds of millions of dollars in awards to two states - Tennessee and Delaware - that successfully competed to meet the standards of the White House's "Race to the Top" education initiative. The competitive grant program will continue to send funds to states that adopt methods of organization and assessment favored by the White House.

Jill Biden also spoke at the event, describing her decision to continue teaching at a community college after her husband took office as vice president, and credited the first lady for giving her some advice: "Michelle told me, 'You have to do it. You have to do what you love.'"

Involving my Students in Fundraising for Homeless & My Running!

For this year’s eighth grade spring Student Service Learning project, my students will be taking part in a two-part intensive project. Part one involves students completing a detailed poster project on recycling. Their end products are now displayed around the school. Part two allows students to expand on this project by focusing on the important issue of homelessness.  


In exploring homelessness as a key societal issue, the students have decided to raise money for a successful organization that works directly with the homeless called Back on my Feet (BOMF). BOMF is a nonprofit organization that promotes the self-sufficiency of homeless populations by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength, and self-esteem. BOMF provides a community that embraces equality, respect, discipline, teamwork and leadership. BOMF currently have chapters in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. The nonprofit is expanding to Boston in May 2010 and Chicago in fall 2010.  


The students’ ultimate goal is to raise at least $500 for BOMF through a spring chocolate sale at lunches during the first week of May and a fun field day experience during period 7 on Friday, May 28th. Both events will be supervised by my colleague, myself, parent volunteers, and other eighth grade teachers. When students purchase a chocolate bar for only $1, we receive 60 percent of the profit for BOMF, and the student receives a complimentary pass to participate in the field day. The students are also creating posters about homelessness and the chocolate sale around the school building. During their advisory period, the students will be further examining the homelessness issue by writing letters, poems, and compositions.  


If the students raise at least $500, then I will be eligible to run for 24 hours as a charity athlete in the BOMF Lone Ranger Ultra Marathon in Philadelphia July 17-18, 2010. In this ambitious race, I will see how many 8.4-mile laps she can run around the Schuylkill River Running Loop in 24 hours. To prepare, I am running a marathon a month and a 200-mile endurance team relay leading up to the event. Every cent the students raise in these efforts will go directly to BOMF, so we are encouraging students to buy chocolates and help support the homeless!

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to our project, please visit: http://www.active.com/donate/3rdAnnual20in24/MrsLaBanca.  Thank you for your help and support with this important, exciting, and worthwhile project for our students. I couldn't be more excited about this fun and worthwhile project and running challenge!

Oh what fun it is to see students unleash their inner artists!

Mention the mere word "Shakespeare" to your typical 8th grader, and most will cringe, whine, moan, or ask, "But why do we have to read what this dead old white guy wrote?" The same reaction was evident with my students early on this quarter when they realized there was no escaping the greatest playwright of all time. Luckily, the focus in our eighth grade curriculum is on characterization and theatrical interpretation of the Shakespearean comedy, As You Like It, rather than a literal dissection of every line of his iambic pentameter verse.

Now, I have to be honest. While I may be a middle school English teacher, Shakespeare and I have always had a rocky love-hate relationship. He frustrated the heck out of me during most of high school, but I still managed to fall in love with Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet (Perhaps the 1998 film version of R&J with Leonardo DiCaprio had something to do with that? Hehe). In college, I had one of the most knowledgeable and passionate Shakespearean scholars alive teach me during junior year, and while the class was impossibly hard, I walked away with a newfound appreciation and admiration for this man who lived four hundred years ago.

So, how can I possibly transfer true passion and hunger for Shakespeare to my students with such a volatile past experience with his works? Simple. I have to remember my own personal struggle with understanding Shakespeare's plays, particularly his crazy use of pronouns and antecedents, obsolete but ever-entertaining vocabulary, original new words he coined for the English language, and the endless puns -- and often obscure allusions and references to historical events and people of his time -- within his 5-syllable words and lines. At no point did I easily understand what Shakespeare was saying, and at no point was I ever truly comfortable with his language.

Add this complexity to trying to teach Shakespeare to students who have learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, emotional disturbances, and/or are just learning English as a second language, and you've got a whole new set of problems. The solution? In our on-level classes, my co-teacher and I introduce the play with a graphic novel/comic book version of As You Like It written in more modern English. We have the students choose character roles and read through the book aloud. This process not only gets the students feeling comfortable performing in front of one another (which will come in handy later on), but it immediately increases their engagement and reduces their anxiety about having to tackle a Shakespeare comedy, particularly as it relates to his characterization, plot, and language.

After presenting the graphic novel to students, we show bits and pieces of key scenes from the play on-screen to help students visually see the acting and plot. We also identify and analyze common film shots used and why the director chose to use certain camera angles. At this point, the students feel much more comfortable breaking into groups and focusing on one key expert scene from the play.

Another true motivator for the kids? Giving them the freedom to decide the costumes, gestures, blocking, lighting, and venue for their scene performances. I assign students to directorial roles who are natural leaders but may not have had the chance to fully showcase their leadership potential yet in the class. I raid our theater teacher's wardrobe for a collection of silly, serious, and just plain "Shakespeare" costumes. My co-teacher and I assign character roles ahead of time to minimize time wasted or arguments within groups. We summarize the scene for the students and constantly check-in with them during scene rehearsals to make sure they understand the plot, character, vocabulary, and purpose of the scene.

The end result? Each student has the chance to play a vital and pivotal part in a Shakespearean scene without being afraid or intimidated. It is always refreshing to see each student's creative interpretation of a character and witness how many students come alive on stage. Sometimes, all they need is the confidence to know they can understand a hard text and portray characterization originally -- and well -- in front of their peers in a safe and supportive environment.

We have only begun our scene performances, but I continue to look forward to witnessing true student creativity and artistry on stage. Such imagination and performances are now all-too-difficult to find time for in our classrooms. What can we do about that?

Inspired by a True Mentor Every Day

I have been very distracted at work recently. I find my mind racing constantly as I think about my aunt losing her year-long battle with advanced cancer. She is my godmother and like a second mom to me, so you can imagine my anxiety and desire to be by her side in Maine rather than in DC.

Grieving aside, I am trying to be the kind of person she always has been, one who puts others above herself and never seems to have a bad day. My students often comment that I am always happy and have too much energy, which I suppose is a better compliment than being told I am a mean grouch. My Aunt Ellen always knows how to make people laugh, sees the positive side of every situation, and teaches those around her to be grateful and thankful for each day. Just as Randy Pausch inspired me two years ago with The Last Lecture book, my aunt is teaching me more about life through dying than I could have ever thought possible.

Every day, we bring our personal issues, baggage, opinions, beliefs, and assumptions into our classrooms. We hope to approach each new day with a positive outlook and fresh start mentality. We want the best for our students and desire to have the best intentions for each and every one of them. We also want to put our best foot forward and not give up on ANY student, regardless of how impossibly difficult or hopeless he or she may seem. However, as teachers, we are also human, and sometimes we are tired and want to throw in the towel.

At a school improvement meeting with two community superintendents today, I was reminded once again of my Aunt Ellen and why I entered the teaching profession in the first place. No day is easy, no day is predictable, and no day is guaranteed to be a success. We must have the courage to have difficult conversations with colleagues, the wisdom to know what's best for our students, and the sincerest intentions and inner core beliefs that ALL of our students can be taught -- and deserve nothing less than the highest quality education possible.

In every school today, as in society, race matters, and schools must engage in these difficult conversations about race and equity. After all, our schools are microcosms of society. We have to become comfortable talking about the uncomfortable. In doing so, we must never run down a child's ego and know enough that we CAN teach ALL children when we want to do so. To do, three conditions must exist in our classrooms:

1. High expectations for ALL students
2. Positive and CARING relationships
3. Cultural competence

The question then becomes -- How can we motivate our entire staff to be caring and meet or exceed these three important conditions? We need to have the WILL to make a difference.

One of the superintendents left us with a challenge at the end of this afternoon's meeting, asking, "Can your school be a poster child for building positive relationships with students in our county?" I'd like to think we can be, and I think I'd make Aunt Ellen proud in the process.

Using Museums as Partners in Our Students' Education

I am blessed to have a long-time friend and fellow teacher referenced in this recent New York Times article. I truly hope it gets all of us thinking about how to incorporate valuable museum trips into our curriculums, regardless of our students' ages or subject areas taught. Enjoy!


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April 21, 2010

Museums Take Their Lessons to the Schools

By TAMAR LEWIN

SUTTON, Mass. — Sitting in the dark, knees crossed, looking up at the stars projected on the planetarium dome, the fourth-grade class might have been on a field trip to the Museum of Science in Boston.

But instead, they were having what Katie Slivensky, an educator from the museum, calls a “backwards field trip” in a portable, inflatable planetarium set up for the morning in the old gym at Sutton High School — a 50-minute lesson on the stars, moon and planets, tied to state learning standards for physical science, earth and space.

Over the last few years, many schools have eliminated or cut back on museum trips, partly because of tight budgets that make it hard to pay for a bus and museum admission, and partly because of the growing emphasis on “seat time” to cover all the material on state tests.

To make up for the decline in visits, many museums are taking their lessons to the classroom, through traveling programs, videoconferencing or computer-based lessons that use their collections as a teaching tool.

“Even if they can’t come to the museum, we can bring the excitement of science to the school,” said Ms. Slivensky, one of seven traveling educators at the Boston museum.

At the Museum of Science, where school visits have dropped about 30 percent since 2007, demand for the 14 school travel programs — from the $280 “Animal Adaptations” to the $445 “Cryogenics’ — is booming.

Annette Sawyer, director of education and enrichment programs, said the museum would do almost 1,000 travel programs next year, 400 more than four years ago.

On a sunny spring morning, the Sutton schools, about an hour from Boston, have brought in both the planetarium program and, for thekindergarten, “Dig Into Dinosaurs.”

“It’s $275 a bus, and we’d need three buses for a grade level,” said Michael Breault, the principal. “We pay for field trips and special assemblies from a magazine fund-raiser at the beginning of the year, and this year, we didn’t sell as many magazines.”

And museum admission costs $7.50 a head.

Money is not the only issue. Mr. Breault’s school recently adopted standards-based report cards, rating children on dozens of standards like “recognizes properties of polygons.”

Given the pressures to meet those standards, teachers said, the travel program’s efficiency is appealing.

“With a trip, there’s all the planning, the buses, the permission slips,” said Erin Fitzgerald, a fourth-grade teacher. “It’s hard to be gone a whole day. We have a lot of things to get through to get them ready to go into fifth grade, and there’s never enough time.”

Ms. Sawyer said her museum is “agnostic by design” about the relative merits of bringing students to the museum or taking the museum to students.

“Of course there’s a question about whether the travel programs cannibalize museum attendance,” she said. “But I don’t think so.”

Still, travel programs cannot replicate the excitement of the Museum of Science, where students visiting the theater of electricity scream loudly when they hear the bangs and see the artificial lightning snaking through the air.

In New York, both the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History reported a dip in school visits, and a spokesman for the natural-history museum said it was concentrating more on teacher development, including printed and online materials that could be used in the classroom.

Even as they pour their energies into taking museum resources to the classroom, some museum educators worry about how the shift might affect long-term attendance.

“It’s such a conundrum to advocate as strongly as possible for the magic of the real thing, but also create greater access using the Web, hoping we aren’t dissuading people from feeling the urgency of coming to see the real thing,” said Dana Baldwin, education director at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, where school visits dropped more than 40 percent from 2007 to last year.

While it is difficult for art museums to take their wares on the road, her museum has developed handbooks, online materials and posters for in-class lessons. But, she admits, something is lost in the process.

“The experience of looking at art or posters in the classroom is so far removed from looking at art on a field trip to a museum,” Ms. Baldwin said.

At the Charleston Museum in South Carolina, Stephanie Thomas, the education coordinator, said educators began taking their programs to schools when gas prices went up. The mummy stays put, but the traveling educators have plenty of portable artifacts.

“We do a class on ancient Egyptian life, with a boys’ outfit and a girls’ outfit to put on, pieces of papyrus, a copy of the Rosetta stone, and some things that have been de-accessioned or are not in great shape, or come from someone’s grandparents’ attic, but we don’t know the provenance,” Ms. Thomas said. “We have an Egyptian headrest that’s chipped, but the kids don’t care that it’s chipped.”

The emphasis on specific learning standards for each grade, and No Child Left Behind assessments, has brought a fundamental shift in thinking about museum education.

“It used to be a given, like mom and apple pie, to take classes to the museum for enrichment, or as a reward for good behavior, in the spring,” said Ted Lind, deputy director of education at the Newark Museum, which had 84,000 student visits last year, down from 101,000 in 2005. “Now that there’s so much more pressure on time in the classroom, and learning standards, it’s all about how it will help students learn the curriculum. ”

No wonder, then, that for many students, the experience of wandering around a museum, exploring at will, has given way to formal lessons. In the Sutton gym, Ms. Slivensky began with basics. Star-watchers, she said, need to know time and direction. So which way is north?

“It’s up,” volunteered a tiny voice.

But are places north of Massachusetts, like Vermont, straight up in the air, Ms. Slivensky asked?

While the fourth graders discussed the night sky, the kindergartners passed around fossils, as Christina Moscat, the museum educator, asked them to guess what they were.

“I think this was a knee,” said Damian Weber.

Ms. Moscat identified the fossils, to much giggling. “You guys were touching dinosaur poop,” she said. “Only it’s not poop anymore, it’s stone. We call it coprolite, and it tells us what the dinosaur ate.”

Of 19 children in the class, only 7 had visited the museum.

“In this program, they get more focus on what paleontologists actually do,” Ms. Moscat said. “But they miss the wow factor of actually seeing that huge Triceratops skeleton.”