Tuesday, June 30, 2015

24. Revision and Feedback

It is day 2 of summer vacation and I am ready to dig back in.  I know I am crazy.  I know this about myself though.

I have taken myself to my favorite coffee shop around the corner from my house, I have a brand new pad of paper, a fresh charge on my laptop and a large iced coffee.

At the end of the school year I did an Exit Survey with AP Lang to get some much needed feedback on how they felt things went this year.  Most of the questions were on a 1 to 5 scale with just a few open ended.  They pushed students metacognitively, challenging them to think about their thinking.

Here are a few examples: 


As well as three open ended questions: 
(Starred questions are required.)

In the end, I got 26 of 31 students to submit feedback.  I was able to share the feedback with my Admins and it proved to be a great place to open a dialogue for end of the year evaluation/conferences.

I have always done some level of student self-assessment, but this was by far the most effective feedback I have received.

A few snip-its from the first open ended question included:

"Ms. Towne should dive into the most difficult aspects of the AP exam first, and in depth. By this I mean that sections that students struggled with the most this year, should be taught at the beginning of the course and the sections they were the most confident with, at the end."

"I feel that Ms. Towne should possibly make more use of turnitin.com, as it was very convenient to use just in case people couldn't print at home or at school..."

"Ms. Towne should spend more time having writing workshops where we could go over on creating really strong and structured essays. Even though it would seem a bit formulaic if we were to implement it in our writing, I think that if we were to go ahead and examine very strong essays and craft them at near the abilities then it would help us get in a habit of flushing out our ideas persuasively and clearly."


It was interesting to see what kids took in and what skirted over their heads.  Many of them expressed wanting more "test prep" which for me, I struggle with at the AP/College Level.  Everything I planned and ask them to do is preparing them to take the test. In college, test prep is done is study groups with peers, not during class time (at least it was for me) and I worry about the president that is set by always providing this support to students. Have we created a generation of students that is so unable to learn on their own that they need explicit test prep in order to prepare for an exam?

I do have some ideas about what I will do differently, structurally and when I will introduce certain aspects of writing to students.  On to revision and to a new year.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

23. When Is The Right Time To Tell Our Own Stories?

I read a great article on The Players' Tribune by elite soccer athlete Christie Rampone called "This Is 40".  She raises great points about growing older, being a mom and wife as well as a leader to other women.  While I am not an athlete, nor a mom, I am turning 38 this year and I am a leader in my work community.  I forwarded the article on to one of my Juniors who plays four varsity sports, has had numerous internships in the tech industry over the last three years and maintains an extremely high GPA.  In the subject line line of the email I simply put: "Great Article".  About 3 hours later I got a reply: "Yes. It is." I know that sharing stories of strong women who are exemplars for new generations is an important part of being an educator.  
I began a class two weeks ago on memoir writing.  I had immersed myself this past year in the creation of a curriculum for Advance Placement Language and Composition, a College Board approved course that I taught to 11th graders this past year.  It is all about rhetoric and learning to read and be critical of nonfiction. It challenged me to think about audience and purpose, diction and syntax.  As I have begun the writing process of crafting what I hope will ultimately become a publishable memoir I find that I am thinking more than ever about not just what I am saying but how I say it.  However the larger question that I keep coming back to is, When IS the right time to tell our own stories? 
One of the first memoirs I remember reading was Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn when I was in 8th grade.  My drama teacher that year had worked with the Great Kate on set in the year prior and I was in awe that my teacher had met this amazing woman.  Hepburn's work was more autobiographical than memoir- but it was focused on her 60 year career.  I love memoir because they are focused on a smaller period of time or aspect of life.  As a teacher, one of my favorites is Hole In My Life by Jack Gantos it is focused and intimate, personal and vivid.  My students have loved it and connect with his experience.  Have I had enough experience to craft a memoir that will resonate with an audience?  I think the last 4 years have done just that.  The question then becomes, have I done enough reflection and do I have enough distance to tell a story that is not about therapy and is about telling a great story.   Time will tell.  Maybe by the time I am 40.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

22. What happens when the routine is what holds it all together?

It has begun.  The end of the year Facebook rants from teachers, myself included, about needing the year to be over.  Here in New York City we always work until the end of June, I think for the most part because we have more religious holidays in our school calendar than many other parts of the country most recently, the long awaited addition of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.  For high school teachers, the last two weeks of school are the administration of NY State Regents Exams, content specific tests that all students must pass a minimum to graduate.  For the K-8 crowd, it is a different story and I am sure in many ways even more exhausting than for HS teachers.  

While I don't mind being busy, I find that I depend on the routine and the business of the calendar.  This is my light week:

The longer I teach, the more I know I thrive in the routine.  I wake up at 5:30 AM, take my pill, shower, get ready, make lunch, walk to train (I have 2 routes I always take- there is no variation), get coffee , 99% of the time iced- even in the winter (there are also two coffee places, but I prefer the cart across from my school over the corner deli, but the deli has better blueberry muffins), go in, work through my day and what ever after school activities I have, train home, usually have dinner with my husband, watch an episode of something while doing last minute work/email/grading, in bed by 10.  Wake up- repeat.  I AM a creature of habit.

I know that not all teachers are like me.  There are the teachers who need the time off to decompress, to spend time with friends and family, to travel, to pursue other interests.  After about 2 weeks I begin to get stir crazy.  Two weeks is enough time for me to catch up on sleep, go to a couple movies, see non teacher friends who I otherwise never get to see because I get up at 5:30 in the morning and struggle to stay awake past 9.  I am already 6 weeks into reevaluating my curriculum for the next year and wanting to dig in and start again.  (This process usually begins around Memorial Day, sometimes earlier.)  By three weeks in I begin to struggle with the time off.  There is only so much sleeping one can do. I don't have children so my time is my own and last summer was the worst yet and I would say I was a bit manic.  

This year was nutty.  I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in February and have been recovering since then.  My body is more tired than usually and it is hard to tell if it is school or my now removed thyroid that is contributing to my exhaustion.   I remember standing in my principal's office in early March, prior to my thyroidectomy, and telling him that having cancer was not going to slow me down.  That I would continue to move forward and pursue my career goals and I have done just that.  I just started a summer class at NYU that will take me through the end of July and in the fall I will be heading back to school to begin a second MA in addition to teaching Theatre and AP Lang and Comp next year.  I have a lot on my plate.  It's good.  

So how do I fortify and refuel while keeping myself on a schedule?  Honestly, I am not sure yet.  I know I thrive when I am busy and I will look for other things I love, in addition to my summer class and curriculum planning.  I have a trip to the west coast the last week in July and vacation with my husband the first week in August.  We go back to work mid August and I find myself counting the days as establishing routine will hold me together.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

21. When Do You Feel Most Like You Work On A Team? Reflection on what makes a successful department. #edblogaday

Source: Golspie H.S.

You have all heard it, "There is no I in TEAM."  I always tell my kids that cliches are cliches for a reason.  I have had some amazing team work experiences.  They seem to empower all the players, celebrate each person's strengths, and showcase what working together and hard can produce.  I have had experienced this trifecta of teamwork most frequently when I worked in professional theatre.  I think it is in part because each member of the team has a speciality and focus, something unique that they bring to the table and that is celebrated and capitalized on for the betterment of the production.

In schools it is the same, yet different.  Yesterday at our spring day long professional development we began the day with an exercise I have done at least three times now.  The Leadership Compass Self-Assessment (from Be The Change Consulting) You go through the list of traits for each of the compass points and then determine which direction represents you the most.  We were then directed to go and stand at that point.  I moved to the East- the "visionary".  I looked around the room and one member of our ELA department stood at each point of the compass.  This is why we work so well.  We all bring different strengths to the table and we balance one another.  

As we have interviewed new ELA teachers this spring, its been interesting to really think about what we as a group need.  What will both challenge and compliment?  What strengths does someone need to bring to the table to further build an already strong group?  I think there is a lot we could do to work better as a team.  My hope for next year is that there is more time for content specific PD for our department, to learn and grow together, not just facilitating business/administrative decimation of information. I want to see us evolve, take on different points of the compass and navigate through out first year with 9-12 grades.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

20. Growth Mindset- Holding On To What Is Important.

Summer growth: important for teachers too! (Photo: M. Towne)

When I started teaching, I had the dream of being in the same school for the duration of my career.  I had teachers in high school who had always taught at Roosevelt High- Mr. Brink, Ms. Ryles, VK. My father's best friend had been a student of Mr. Brink in the 1960's for history and I took his class in the mid 90's.  It was in Brink's class that I really leaned to take notes- good notes.  The note taking skills that would serve me through college.  He was a legend and had a legacy.  Ruben Van Kempen, affectionately known by his students as VK has just retired this year after 37 years. Ms. Ryles taught sewing and textiles for 30+ years as well, truly a dying art form.  I loved those teachers and those classes.  They were tied up in the romanticism of teaching for me as I went through graduate school.  This is what teaching was going to be like.

I was wrong.  I will say this- there is a HUGE difference between my affluent, super white, privileged high school where something like 85+% of students go onto 4 year colleges right after graduation (I did not) and the majority of NYC public high schools.  It's ok that I was wrong.


I started my career in an alternative high school in Brownsville, Brooklyn.  I don't know that I thought I would be there for 30 years, but I wanted to be there for a long time.  I wanted to learn and grow into the educator I knew I could be.  At some point my evolution halted and I felt angry and frustrated with the career I had loved so much.

How do we, as educators, as professionals continue to develop and grow- to hold onto that growth mindset, the for many of us pushed us to teaching in the first place?  

I am doing two things.

First, I am taking a class, that starts this week actually at NYU School of Professional Studies.  It is all for me and is not about pedagogy.  It is a writing class and my hope is that it will challenge me professionally and intellectually and as a result I will discover new things to being back to my classroom.  

Second, I am beginning a two year program in school administration.  While I don't know at this point if I want to be an admin, I do want to understand more about how schools work and the nuts and bolts that hold all the parts and pieces together.  I want to be a better coach and mentor to teachers as a teacher leader and to develop a deeper understanding of the bigger picture.  

Right now, this is the best way for me to continue to grow as an educator. Going back to school scares the heck out of me.  I have the support and encouragement of my current administration, a huge piece in this next step.  Inevitably, I will move forward to new challenges and professional endeavors.  I don't know that I was meant to be in one classroom in one school for 30 years but I want to be a strong voice in my field and I will do everything in my power to continue to "grow" the strength of my voice.






Monday, June 1, 2015

19. Getting Lost In The Exhauastion

I hit the overtired place but there is no room for slowing down for a few more weeks.  I am thankful for tomorrow and the brief respite from classes with the day of early Regents exams and then all day PD on Thursday.  In the mean time we had interviews last week and two more today.  It's a process thinking about who and why and where they would fit in and what they would bring to the dynamic of an already strong team.

There is also the larger piece- thinking longer term- beyond the next year.  What do we as a team need in the next 3, 4 and 5 years.  Where will I fit into this dynamic? Who will still be with us?  Who will have moved on, moved forward.  I suspect this will be a school that people stay with for a long time (provided the school culture does not dramatically change).  So what is the compliment.  An argument can be made for many of the amazing people we have met.  Only time will tell.

I donated the remaining three weeks before Regents exams to the Living Environment department- to help support 9th graders prep for their exam.  Much of the work I can do with them is with literacy skills and close and critical reading of science texts and breaking down reading comp questions.  I am glad to help.

My AP students are also wrapping up their speeches that they will present next week in class.  There is some fantastic work taking place and I suspect this will be a powerful experience for many of them.

The small wins outweigh the exhaustion and I am doing the best I can to not get too lost.  I am starting a class on NYU on Thursday- memoir writing.  Kicking writing into overdrive.  Stay tuned...

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