Diane Albanese’s Musings

School Journal Column/CAPE GAZETTE 2009-2010/Diane Saienni Albanese

Date of Publication: Nov 13, 2009

A Vet’s Poem and Education Week

Recently a friend’s father passed away, his name was William J. Didycz and he was a   Korean War Veteran.  He was a complex man who loved his country and his family. In honor of him and all the Veterans here is a beautiful poem that he wrote.

I Pray by William J. Didycz

I pray for the day when there is not a need for a Department of War or Defense, only a Department of Peace.

I pray for the day when war is recognized as the most horrible, wasteful, inhuman act of mankind.

I pray for the day when war is not armed conflict, but a competition of good deeds.

I pray for the day when all countries have a bill of rights guaranteeing freedom of thought, speech, and actions that do not violate the rights of others.

I pray for the day when soldiers are armed only with tools of construction.

I pray for the day when conflicts are solved by people who recognize that punitive force is never the correct way.

I pray for the day when people understand that they can solve mankind’s problems and have the courage to pursue those goals.

I pray for the day when the greatest blasphemy is to hate and rail against others for their appearance, or their thoughts of their God and an afterworld.

I pray for the day when people, in invoking their God, realize that they are all addressing the same entity, only by a different name.  For how can there be more than one such all powerful, all knowing, entity?

Amen

On another note, it’s time to celebrate schools!  Next week is the 88th annual American Education Week, November 15-21. This is an opportunity for parents to visit schools and celebrate public education, remembering that there are still difficult issues to be worked out, but choosing to honor the people who are making a difference every day in the lives of children.

As a nation, we can celebrate great public schools and education for all students. Recently my class did a project where they had to research the literacy rates in other countries. The results were astonishing!  Many countries have less than half of their population not able to read and they have no continuous form of education for all students. My students could not believe that education is not a basic right for others in our world and how much the society suffers from it.

American Education week was designed to honor the work and craft of teachers and support staff.

Parents are really the first teachers and are encouraged to be partners in education. The home is a classroom from birth to age five. Many important messages about learning and schools are sent from parent to child.  Parents who work with teachers and students are critical partners in helping their child achieve success. When parents are interested in education, engaged and supportive then the child is more likely to succeed.

National Education Association offers this advice: parents can make learning real and ensure that students understand the importance of achieving.

Here are a few ways to help your kids:

* Read with your children regularly. Encourage them to read.

* Let your children know that homework is their job. Make sure they do it.

* Volunteer at your child’s school.

* Get to know your child’s teacher. Attend parent-teacher conferences.

* Discuss safety issues openly. Help make sure there aren’t barriers to learning.

Checklist:

* Do you read with your child regularly?

* Do you talk with your child about homework assignments?

* Have you volunteered at your child’s school?

* Do you know your child’s teacher and have you been to the parent-teacher conference?

* Do you know what your child thinks about the school environment?

Teachers and parents can work together to do an outstanding job in bringing education to all children in our nation.

November 6, 2009

For too long teachers have stood on the sidelines listening to the debate that is being waged between politicians and the business community in this state and across the nation.  Every week the headlines scream at us with negative, critical commentary about what is going wrong in public education. They blame teachers for everything: low test scores, poor graduation rate, lack of progress, and every other manner of malady that they can conjure up.

They want to fix us!  Imagine that!  Big business and government want to come into our schools and tell us how to make education better.  When was the last time you walked into a corporate office and demanded to review the books and revise the plan?  Too presumptuous? Or are you just too busy teaching children every day?

“Ah, excuse me Mr. Banker – we don’t like the way that you are running this bank and the profits are dreadfully low, so move over and we will take command.”

Wait a minute – government and our bailout money just did that out of necessity when the banks failed!  Let’s see, why did the banks and lending institutions fail? Market conditions? The weak economic environment? Come, on, are these really conditions that we can believe or are they just making excuses?

Let’s fix the banks! Let’s fix businesses! Teachers and educators could put together an organization that becomes a watchdog, creating buzz and rethinking the very core of their organizations! Then we can throw a tiny bit of money at a few of them and demand that they conform to strict standards while cutting their pay and reducing their benefits.

Yet here we are with the federal government coming up with another program, Race to the Top, which will dump huge sums of money for a limited amount of time on a few states that jump through a series of tiny hoops.  The Delaware Department of Education is in hot pursuit of this grant money with the business community, the governor, and the conservative media pushing hard and campaigning wildly. Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, just appeared at a Vision 2015 conference in Newark, Delaware last week to pump up the volume on this debate.

The problem is that the money is not being directed into areas that will have a lasting impact on schools and children. The money is being directed at more, testing, reliance on testing data, and ever restrictive models for curriculum delivery and testing strategies.

Teachers know what we need for children to succeed and we know that all of the issues that surround the schools do not have to do strictly with educators and test scores.  Let’s look at pre-school preparedness, literacy in the homes, creating manageable class sizes with big blocks of time to get the job done.

Schools are a microcosm of our society. Students and their families are suffering from chronic unemployment or underemployment, unsustainable living wages, lack of affordable health care, lack of focus on basic reading and writing in the home, and parents who are distracted with the everyday chore of just surviving.

Teachers need to take back the microphone, take back the newspaper editorials, and make our voices heard above the scuffle.  We have valuable knowledge that can lead to authentic solutions for our children, our schools and our communities even in tough economic times. In this national and state arena, teachers should summon the will and resolve to push back, reframe the dialogue, and chart a new direction.

10-23-09

Jazz Festival Music

Want to impress students and keep it real? Bring on the music!

Music is a language that we can all speak and a voice that is both historic and timeless. Students in my class absolutely love to listen to music while they are writing and working.  Everyone has a favorite genre and style, but students need and rightly deserve to listen to music and to learn about the musical roots of rock, funk, jazz and swing. The history of music is intertwined with the history of our country and it tells a tale of deep sorrow, ecstatic joy and uncompromising hope.

Mainly though, our lives are richer because of music.

The Rehoboth Beach Autumn Jazz Festival brings great musicians to our area and allows our spirits to soar. This was the 20^th anniversary of the Jazz festival and the bands and performers did not disappoint the crowds of music lovers who showed up to hear them play.  Even though the days were soggy, inside the convention center the jazz was smokin’.

My two favorites were Dave Koz and Brian Culbertson.

It’s no surprise that research revealed that the backgrounds of these two musicians were deeply involved in music from an early age and that music education played a significant part in developing their gifts.

David Koz’s Wikipedia biography states, “From early age, he and his sister took piano lessons.”My mom basically forced my sister and me to play piano from when we were toddlers. I hated piano; I was never any good at it. But I have to thank her now for making me do it, because I write most of my songs on the piano.” Around age nine, he began taking drum lessons, but notes that he was not very good at drums, “I am the world’s worst drummer. I could not keep time to save my life.” At age 13, his brother, Jeff, had a band that Dave wanted to be in, but his brother told him over and over that there was no way he could be in it. Dave eventually wore him down, and his brother told him that the only way he could be in the band was if he could play the saxophone, because their band did not have a saxophonist. That was all he needed to hear. Two years later, he was in the band and working gigs with the band and by himself.”

“Dave attended William Taft High School in Woodland Hills California, performing on saxophone as a member of the school jazz band. He later graduated from UCLA with a degree in mass communication in 1986, and only weeks after his graduation, decided to make a go of becoming a professional musician. Within weeks of that decision, he was recruited as a member of Bobby Caldwell’s tour.” (taken from Wikipedia)

Brian Culbertson grew up with a dad who was a music educator. Brian’s website reveals that he was “inspired by his father, music educator Jim Culbertson. Brian Culbertson was a fast and fierce study of music, gravitating to all styles of dynamic music as long as it was expertly played by artists ranging from Chicago, David Sanborn and Sting to The Brecker Brothers and Maynard Ferguson. Since his 1994 debut Long Night Out, Brian has been credited with bringing a youthful yet no less masterful energy to popular instrumental music with hit albums and singles.”

Both musicians were passionate, skilled and truly masterful. No doubt that learning music from an early age can be the seeds that grow into something spectacular.

10-16-09

“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.”  ~Thomas Huxley

With lofty goals in mind, the state of Delaware’s superintendents launched an initiative: to change the nature of public education.  That was this year. Never mind that there seems to be a cycle of reform that rears its hopeful head every ten years or so: the same ideas in a shiny new package. This year the supers were going after those illusive high test scores. Their goal was to increase the scores and therefore they decided to adopt a program that helped reached students by changing the way teachers teach: Learning Focused Strategies.

The people who make decisions on how to spend money in Delaware on education are looking at a single test given in March as the end result of full years worth of instruction. The DOE website explains that as a result of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, “all states are required to conduct a federally approved annual assessment of all students in grades 3-8 and one high school grade.”

In Delaware, the Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) is used to assess student knowledge in reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies if the state can come up with enough money to run the program.  Student results of each year’s DSTP assessment is then used as the primary means to determine school accountability ratings.

Other student learning indicators fall a short second to the DSTP results and are never really considered when looking at student achievement. The ratings given to schools chill the superintendent/administrators to the bone.  Not feeling as if there is a moment to waste in the quest for the esteemed rating of Superior (superior to whom?), the superintendents found a program that would work for them: Learning Focused Strategies and began to implement it this year. Apparently, Indian River School District has been working with this for many years and has seen some positive results.

So even though this is a very lean year for education in the state of Delaware and the teachers’ have been cut by five days of in-service time, some districts are implementing Max Thompson’s Learning Focused Strategies this year.  Never mind the fact that this program has so many similarities to other programs that have already been presented to teachers (and apparently abandoned) and are a part of good pedagogy.

Remember Madeline Hunter, CRISS, outcome based education? Reminisce with me. These programs had some good ideas!   Guided practice, anticipatory set, scaffolding!   Most teachers have a veritable file full of graphic organizers ready to be rushed into service at a moment’s notice!

The fact remains that most often these state mandated, top down, mandatory programs appear to change the culture initially but in the end they do little to make learning more effective on a sustained and profound basis for children. The programs are a stopgap solution to a serious question that seems to elude us – how can we increase authentic learning in our children as measured by a variety of instruments over a long period of time?

10-9-09

Parents across the region are taking to the fields to coach and watch as their children play favorite fall sports. When the weather is golden as it has been in the past few weeks, the local fields are full of soccer, baseball, hockey, lacrosse and football. Whether highly organized into leagues or just randomly thrown together, children and adults like to play. Recreation is one of the basics to living a healthy life so when parents encourage and support their children; they increase their chances to develop lifelong fitness skills.

It’s really quite simple. To be a better reader, one must read. To be a better runner, one must run.  To do something better, you must spend time and effort in that arena.

Last Sunday I watched my son play soccer at a field near Baltimore. This was a loosely organized game of adults, mostly graduate students who played because they loved the game and it made them feel great to get out and kick the ball.  That is the essence of keeping fit: to do something you love that involves using energy, burning calories and having fun. The part that keeps them coming back is the fun.

All week they are involved in work and going to classes so they must be able to spend long hours sitting and studying but on Sundays they stretch, they run, they work on foot skills and they play as a team, cooperating to get that goal.  As adults, the play is sometimes rough, and they tease each other for missing a shot or whiffing a kick, but for the most part, they are united against the opposition team and create a bond, a camaraderie that has infinite benefits beyond the field.

This game had an international flair. The graduate students from the University of Maryland hailed from all over the planet and included men and women. They were playing a team of Russian graduate students from a neighboring school. Comments were flying in all languages, perhaps a mix of encouragement, sarcasm and teasing. Who knows what was said, the important part is that they were all on a soccer field being part of the game.

When children learn skills in physical education classes, the hope is that they will carry them for life and that the skills will pay off in terms of health benefits. Not everyone will embrace competitive volleyball, but they may enjoy playing in the sand on the beach for fun. Children may not like doing exercises, but they may like splashing around in a swimming pool, or swimming in the bay. It’s just so much fun!

Recreation for life is the goal that is motivated by enjoyment. PE teachers and coaches alike, start something small that grows into a lifelong skill.  Students are motivated to get out and get going no matter what the event.  So when my son was four, he kicked his first soccer ball and now twenty one years later, he still enjoys the game.

Staying active, staying vital helps to enhance all of life. Parents who support their children at a young age need to feel good about starting something that is wonderfully fundamental.

9-25-09

When given a choice, teachers usually do what is best for children. If we see value in a program or new initiative, we agree to sign on and learn new methods that may be more effective for our children. There is no issue at all. We are all about improving our practice to reach children.

This year things are a bit different. Our in-service days have been cut out of the calendar due to the state’s financial crisis. Our pay has been cut and the time that we have at school to attend staff development has been severely compromised.  The day to day pressures of lesson plans, classroom management, grades and communication are still with us. Some of us teacher types (my high school colleagues) even face the added challenge of moving into a new building, getting acclimated, and dealing with lack of resources. (What – students don’t have chairs to sit in? No lockers assigned and it’s the second week of school?) The day to day pressures can be daunting!

We are keenly aware and committed to doing a good job day in and day out. At this point, the best we can do is to keep working hard to keep up with the multitude of programs that have already been established.  In education, it seems that each time there is an issue or a problem, someone throws a program at it (and probably makes a nice chunk of change doing it).

These improvement programs are aimed at changing teacher behavior. The programs rarely begin with teacher input and teacher concern: we live in a top down bureaucracy where the people who are closest to the problem are the last ones consulted on what to do.  Teachers’ voices are not heard in the planning stages of staff development. Teachers are simply given orders to learn the new THING and then we are held accountable. So we are commanded: teach this way and we will be in to watch and see that you do it!

What programs you ask? We have incentive programs for positive behavior and student career programs for helping them choose a career. We have fundraisers and assemblies to honor students who show improvement and achievement. We have fire drills, team meetings, staff meetings, new technology initiatives and after school tutoring to help raise our students’ DSTP scores. We have a new teacher evaluation system in which we are asked to set up individual goals for our school year. What will we do to improve our teaching and our test scores?

We set up parent conferences and special action plans for needy students. The array of initiatives that we sustain in one week is just staggering and as if that is not enough in this age of do more, with less time, less efficiently, and for less pay, the Cape District had added one more program to our list. This year we are to be instructed on and implement the Learning Focus program.

Hold the bus! One minute please! Didn’t we just implement the Understanding by Design program – I was just getting the hang of that – Big Questions and Enduring Understandings? What about the CRISS program – great graphic organizers and power notes?   I know we did because I have those manuals on my shelf. Some of the those strategies seemed good and I am just getting the hang of it, but now I have to rewrite my lesson plans in yet another format, reconfigure my teaching units and rethink my practice again? Please stop!

Change is good: too much change too quickly actually impedes progress. This year should be used to refine what we have and revisit what teachers believe we really need to move forward. 

9-18-09

Parents in Prison

Waiting for a pumpkin latte at my favorite coffee shop I overheard a group of teenage girls talking. Truly I do not purposefully eavesdrop on these conversations, but my teacher/journalistic radar was tweaked especially since this gave me insight into my students’ lives.

Three girls were talking.

“My father’s in prison but he’s supposed to get out soon. He was out on parole but got caught with a DUI and now he’s back in.  He’s really cool though.  He told me there is nothing that I could do that is worse than what he has done so he lets me do anything I want.  He’s really cool though.”

Wondering how many of my students face the same issue. How many children live with a single parent or no parent because of incarceration?  How does this affect their lives and their self esteem?  I cannot imagine coming to school every day and worrying about my mom or dad while trying to study and get good grades.

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs updated a report written by Lauren E. Glaze and Laura M. Maruschak, in January of 2009 about parents in prison and their minor children. The statistics are staggering.

• Parents of minor children held in the nation’s prisons increased by 79% between 1991 and midyear 2007.

• The number of children under age 18 with a mother in prison more than doubled since 1991

In all likelihood, teachers see the children of incarcerated parents every day yet they often times are unaware and limited in knowhow. What can be done to help a child who is experiencing this loss?

• The majority of prisoners reported having a minor child, a quarter of which were age 4 or younger.

• More than a third of minor children will reach age 18 while their parent is incarcerated.

Very young children are growing up in single parent homes, sometimes with relatives and grandparents who already have limited financial resources.

• Drug and public-order offenders in state and federal prisons were more likely than violent offenders to have children.
• More than 4 in 10 mothers in state prison who had minor children were living in single-parent households in the month before arrest.
• About half of parents in state prison provided the primary financial support for their minor children.

Students experience trauma when sending a father or mother to prison and the uncertainty of not knowing when they will return.  Add to this the fact that the parent was most likely the breadwinner in the family and that drugs and addiction may likely be involved: children carry an unbearable burden.

• Fathers most commonly reported the child’s mother as current caregiver of their children, while mothers most commonly reported the child’s grandparents.

• More than three-quarters of state prison inmates who were parents of minor children reported that they had some contact with their children since admission.

• Mothers in state prison more likely than fathers to report homelessness, past physical or sexual abuse, and medical and mental health problems.

Children with parents in prison are likely to visit or write. There is a good chance that the parent/family has been homeless, or suffering from trauma.  It’s not difficult to imagine that these children come to school every day with a huge issue that no one ever talks about.  They may share bits and pieces with friends, but their emotional and psychological health is constantly challenged. Awareness and compassion will help teachers work with their students and get through these difficult times. 

9-11-09

We’ve been told that we were going from Cape to Great.  That little motto has been the tagline for many documents and the conclusion of countless discussions in the district for many years now. Now that has changed.

Cape is great.

This bell was rung loud and clear from the Superintendent on the first district-wide meeting for the opening of this new school year.  Cape is great.

Spoken from the brand new auditorium of the brand new Cape Henlopen High School, with the workers scurrying about to finish up trim and details, this was indeed a day to ring bells and blow whistles.

Even as the old building was being torn down and our loyalties harkened to past days and memories, the new school shone like a shiny new penny. Light floods in from every angle to wide open atriums, curvy three story high windows and bright hallways. There was a feeling of lightness amid the scent of fresh cardboard boxes and packing plastic being unwrapped.

Careful thought was put into every aspect of the new school. There is access to the library from outside so that the community can easily come and go. The foyer is a rotunda that has a rose compass pattern inlaid in tile and a high circular dome that allows for a feeling of spaciousness.  The cafeteria provides a gathering place for both the gym and the auditorium.  The colors are Cape colors, Columbia blue and gold which carry through the building reflect the lightness in lockers, walls and surfaces.

My favorite space is the large courtyard that allows interior rooms a view of nicely landscaped flower beds and places for students to gather. The pavers swirl around in large circles and give the impression of the shape of waves paying homage to the nearby bays and ocean.

Janis Hanwell did a fine job managing this project.  She had much input from the Board of Education, the staff and the community. The difficult part was to create a building that would meet everyone’s needs. It certainly looks like that mission will be accomplished as soon as the gym is finished.

The auditorium is spacious, comfortable and can hold many more people than the last one.  There are two areas in the back that allow for the creation of two classrooms that can be sectioned off with moveable walls.  There is a real orchestra pit, a huge stage complete with professional lighting and equipment, and excellent handicap accessibility.  Surely this space will be used for generations to come.

The classrooms seemed roomy and efficient. There are windows that allow for natural light, white boards, and projectors that are mounted to the ceiling.  The technology team was working quickly to get all the computers up and running.  Teachers seemed appreciative for the fresh new space and the new beginning. The entire staff seemed pleased, appreciative and in awe on our first day in the new high school.   It was as if a long dream was finally realized and we had helped to make it happen.

I kept thinking how much our students deserved this beautiful new structure.  For so many years the students and staff lived with and adapted to so many limitations from the old building. The new high school building is an opportunity to continue to improve, to get it right and to put Cape on the map as the flagship of a top district in our state and our region.

9-4-09

Just last night at a restaurant in Rehoboth, I overheard a father say to his son that he expected him to be on the A honor roll this school year. The son took this news reluctantly and tried to protest that he wasn’t going to be able to live up to that high a standard since he is now entering a tough grade level with much more difficult work and teachers who were nothing short of task masters.  Dad wasn’t buying any of it. He reminded the son that he had already been successful in years past and that a new challenge was just the thing that he needed to keep growing and getting smarter.

Then Dad said something that was so quintessential parent: he said, “I believe in you and I am here to help.”  At that moment I knew that the boy had every chance for success.  In that short conversation, the father had created a foundation for a life of learning and success for that child.

Dad’s words and his past and future support gave the child what he needed to be successful and to grow as a capable, confident learner and human being.  I wanted to clone him and give out in miniature to the parents who come to my open house in September. I can see it now: all parents who sign the clipboard get to take home a miniature parent doll that has all the right words and can help turn you into a super parent.  Kids need this.  Dads and moms need help to walk this walk and talk this talk.

What elements were present in this man’s conversation with his son?

• high expectations
• successful past experiences
• support

When dad told his son that he expected the A honor roll he immediately set the bar high leaving the son no wiggle room. There was protest on the part of the son, but that was just his own anxiety about starting a new school year and being inadequate for the task. Who doesn’t experience first time jitters? Most adults have the same experience.

Expressing these feelings to his dad, the son was able to deal with them, to get them into the open and to work through them.  The father heard his protest but reminded him that he had evidence that the son had a history of success in school.  By reminding the boy of his past successes, the father gave him credible evidence that the high expectations were met in the past and certainly could be met in the future.  He knew that this was possible and he set the stage for his son’s achievement and success.

Then the father offered his sincere belief in very simple terms. I believe in you.  Such powerful words that can propel a child to scale lofty heights and reach difficult goals. Can there be any thing more profound that a father or mother can say to a son or daughter? I believe in you with the subtext I love you, you are valuable, you are capable and you can do it.  Amazing.

He sealed the deal by telling him that he was there to support him, a parental safety valve that would allow the child room to try, to make mistakes, and to get the advice he needs to grow from them.

So as you send your children off to the next grade give them a meal that will nurture their mind.  Start with an appetizer that includes high expectations, then a main course of past success stories, and end with a dessert full of love and support: a feast for a new school year!