Can You Hear Me? Thinking About Women and Rhetoric

I was on Facebook this morning and I teacher friend of mine had posted the following image from Hillary Clinton's Facebook page:

It made me laugh because yesterday had been, as it is each Friday, discussion day in AP Language and Composition.  It is a day I always look forward to and the 11th graders challenge me, make me mad, and engage in amazing conversations about a multitude of topics and readings.  This week they had read and analyzed The Declaration of Independence (you might have heard of it) and a lesser known document known as The Declaration of Sentiments by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The Seneca Falls Keynote Address was given July 19, 1848 more than 60 years before women's suffrage would finally achieve one of his greatest goals in getting the 19th amendment to the constitution passed and guaranteeing women the right to vote.   It includes lines like this:

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

Teaching in a STEM school with 75% boys, I tend to push the lens of gender and rights issues more than I might if the scales were more balanced.  It's fascinating to watch their thinking challenged and shift with regards to whom they are in relation to the women in their lives while thinking about modern definitions of what it means to be a man and masculine. Because they are in 11th grade, they all, boys and girls alike, tend to rely on the emotional appeal or pathos of an argument rather than looking towards logic and evidence to support a position.  They don't yet see how both can work together to create a truly effective argument.

As I watched yesterday, it was interesting to see the differences in how students spoke when they brought something to the conversation.  The young men: confident, assertive, balanced tone and volume-- not too loud, not too quiet.  The young women were either meek and quiet, unsure of the validity of their position and as a result coming across as diminutive and subordinate or forceful and assertive with their thinking, but yes--the volume was louder.

It was not until I read the quote from Clinton that it clicked.  Volume is equated with emotion, emotion is linked to women (where men are logical). Men who speak at a softer timbre are seen as weak, feminine. Gender roles at their finest.

In doing a little research about women and volume when speaking I came across a website and blog on public speaking. In the comvort.com post "Women in leadership-- what makes public speaking so important to them?" the author raises the following points:

"Control your voice. Women should learn to control their tone of voice when holding presentations. They should stay away from sentences that seem like questions. Raising your voice at the end of a phrase creates confusion. That’s why you should listen to yourself speak first. Do that in private in front of the mirror, or better yet, record yourself speak. It will be easier for you to spot errors, not to mention that if you like what you hear your level of confidence will automatically increase too. Statements should sound like statements, so lower your tone and keep things casual."

Keep things casual.  Don't be or sound too serious, ladies.  Sigh.

This morning as I think about the rhetoric around how men and women speak to one another I have to question: how do I support my young women with finding the balance between meek and yelling and for my young men, how do we shift the thinking that when women are emphatic or passionate they are yelling.  Just because you're loud, doesn't make you right despite seeing countless examples of this in the media.  Do young women think that they need to get loud to be heard both literally and figuratively?

Ultimately, I want all my students to speak up and speak out. To find their voice and unique point of view.  How do we support all people with being heard and not questioned or dismissed?

Week 3: Navigating The "Grade Book" When There Are No Grades

Image via: HERE

Two weeks in...

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the third week of school here in NYC.  It has been a funky couple weeks with only three days of school each week because of holidays.  This upcoming week is the same, two more holidays on Wednesday and Thursday- it has made the establishing of norms, front-loading and developing routine challenging, but like any good school we trudge forward and do the best we can.

Two weeks ago I told AP that they would not be receiving any numeric or alpha numeric grades on the daily work or projects.  That twice a year- during what will look more like an intersession you would see in college (January and June) students will have to do a Defense of Learning that is in the process of being developed.  I am a huge proponent of portfolios and of students having to speak as to WHY they have earned the score they did for the semester or year.  Now that it is connected to Mastery Based Learning, my hope is that this will provide students with especially useful data to support their arguments- because it is about them.

The juniors dove in head first.  There has been no push back and in the first assignment they were asked to do for me- "Defend you seat in AP Lang: Why do you deserve to be here?"  They were surprisingly reflective and used anecdotal evidence well to support their position.  The lack of proofreading, as always, is astonishing but that is something to work on.  For the most part this is a strong group and even the kids who will struggle more will grow and move forward.  That is the larger goal- always.

I also kicked off assertion journals.  This year I have had students create blogs where they will do informal writing and homework.  I am shared as an admin on every blog and the blogs are linked from our class website so everything is 100% transparent for each other.  In addition to the weekly writing response (with required word count) they also have to read three peer blogs and provide a GLOW and GROW.  While some of the feedback is much better than others, I need to give more parameters for feedback- the biggest being, and it almost always is- SAY WHY.  I find this is where the kids always struggle the most.  Explain why you have the opinion you do.  It's not enough to just say it.  That doesn't help me as a writer.  SAY WHY.  However, the thinking is growing and developing and I am excited to see how the use of blogging helps student learning this year.



The Grade Book...

At our school we use a program from Data-Cation called Skedula.  I have been using Skedula as a teacher for most of my career now and we have grown up together.  The thing I love about this company is that it was created by teachers who know and understand what teachers need.  They saw a problem and created a solution.  Peter from DataCation came to out school this past week to do a training and he and I were able to talk more 1:1 on my #TTOG and how to modify the platform for our needs.  Thankfully Starr Sackstein, a trailblazing NYC high school teacher had already done a ton of work and advocacy to make Skedula a platform that would work for her as she TTOG last year and documented the entire journey.  Peter was great help and I now have some structures in place for how to "grade" moving forward.  

This weekend I began the documentation of tracking skills.  It defiantly needs some refining on my part.  I need to make clearer links to the College Board learning objectives and how they are linked to the mastery standards so students understand what each standard entails.  It is all language I have written up, I just need to be more transparent and spend some time (WHEN DO I HAVE TIME?) looking at it with students.  

I'll have students check Pupil Path (the student/parent facing side of the grade book) to support them with reviewing their development on mastery.  I am not sure that it really provides enough information for a student and I can see where parents may be frustrated.  What is the balance between feedback in Skedula and feedback on the paper?  Work smart, Towne.  

I would love to hear from teachers about how they give feedback and document in a MBA setting!  Tell me what has worked for you?  What didn't work and what did you learn from it?  

I'm off and running- Look out week 3!  Here we come! 

Diving Into The Deep End: Goodbye Grades, Hello Mastery Learning!

Last year my school began the shift towards Mastery Learning.  I was keen on the idea of mastering skills or content rather that simply working from assignment to assignment- seeing how a kid did and moving forward with out revision or truly looking at the why of the learning.  I had some frank conversations with my AP Lang students last spring about what they thought class would be like for them if they didn't have the pressure of grades.  Their thinking was insightful and eye opening, confirming much of my own thinking about student learning.  When they are not working for a grade, but on a skill, they will invest in a different way, working to improve the skill.  Students don't work to improve grades on individual assignments in traditional classrooms.  They look at the grade on the paper, cheer or cry, and move onto the next assignment with the hope of improving the overall grade for the course by bringing the average up.

Mastery in motion: Theatre Arts

I also teach theatre.  It is a required course for all students at our school.  One of the units, solo performance is where students have to select, learn/memorize, create character and blocking and ultimately perform their monologue for their peers.  It is a big deal.  Some kids come in and blow it out of the water.  Other kids melt down and cry.  I have two rules though.

1. Everyone has to try. If you are absent you go to the end of the list, but everyone has to get up and make an attempt.  This is what makes a student eligible to do a make-up and try again.

2. If you have tried, and you are not happy with your score, you are eligible to try again and you can earn up to FULL credit.  There is no penalty for trying again the incentive being improvement.  They get the rubric back after the first try, they have time to rehearse and revise, work on the skills that needed improvement.

I would say 75% of students try again.  It's usually a range of make-ups: kids who failed and kids who did well and want to eek out those last few points.  This is mastery of skills with room for revision and improvement to demonstrate a higher level of mastery. Every time I do this unit I see the same results and impact on student growth and learning.  I knew it worked.  It was about moving to put the theory into practice across the board.


The AP Pilot

Numerous conversations have taken place since the spring when I read Assessment 3.0  by Mark D. Barnes.  With the blessing and support of my administration team I, along with another teacher (who will be doing a similar pilot with struggling math students to determine a different POV of data points on Mastery learning).  

• I have created a series of rubrics on an assortment of Mastery Standards based on the language from College Board and the learning objectives students will need to work to master over the course of the YEAR.  
• In starting with all the skills I am better able to plan and support student development.
• Students will be required to come to office hours twice a month to conference with me about their development and revision of work, a non-negotiable. 
• At the end of each semester, because we are a public high school with traditional transcripts, we will have to come to a decision on a semester grade for fall and spring.  Students will be required to present a Defense of Learning to a small group of peers and adult mentors where they will have to present their learning and development of Mastery and propose a numerical grade that they believe represents their learning. Then a conference with me...

This year...

I am going to use this space to reflect on my process this year of throwing out grades and seeing where it takes me.  

How to Make A Disability Into Ability In The Classroom! But What About When It's YOU?

This last week I traveled to my hometown of Seattle.  It was the first trip home since beating thyroid cancer this year.  Most of my close friends and nearly all of my relatives still live in the area and I know that being 3000 miles away from people you care about and who care about you is difficult when you are sick.  There is a powerlessness that goes with it.  My mom had flown out to support me and my husband and we were thankful to have her here for that time.

So on this trip home, I got to see many people.  One of the frequent comments was about my voice.  As some of you may already know, I have vocal cord paralysis of my right cord- a byproduct of my treatment as well as the fist size tumor I had in my neck (You can hear me in May and July).  People who have known me all my life commented on the new sound- "It sounds like you, just softer." or "Wow, your voice is so sultry." They are right, there is a new quality to my voice and it is changing how I teach.

My vocal cord specialist Dr. Pitman (Check out this interview he did in May) told me that teachers have the second highest instance of vocal cord damage and disorders only after singers.  58% of teachers have a vocal cord disorder, according to the interview.  It is a staggering statistic.  I don't know about you, but I never thought twice about how I was using my voice prior to my cancer.  I am a English and Drama teacher.  I have a substantial amount of vocal training, more than the average person.  I understand how to support breath and project.  I never lost my voice when I was teaching but when I returned to school late in March and was barely audible, I was afraid.  I had a new disability and I was not sure what this would mean for my career.  My voice is a huge part of what I do as is true for most educators.  There would be no more raising of the voice in my classroom.

Teaching with a mic felt like this!

Thankfully, my school was able to provide a small amp with wireless mic for me to use.  It sat in the front of my classroom (that is on the large side for NYC Public Schools) and I would walk around, talking into my mic.  It became part of the culture of my classroom through out the spring.  I could not and would not yell and my students for the most part, listened.  For the more soft spoken kids, or even discussion leaders I put the mic into play using it to build community and student capacity it became a gift rather than a burden.

The long term prognosis is this: it will be a year before we know what my voice will finally be.  I continue to work with my speech therapist on regaining strength in my voice.  Some days are much more difficult that others and things that I used to take for granted, like yelling to my husband from the opposite end of the house, is something I miss being able to do.  My vocal cord may always be paralyzed but I can continue to improve my voice.  At this rate, half way though the summer it is looking like the mic will be a permanent fixture in my classroom next year.  I can't help but wonder though, what if all teachers had the same resources in their classroom- how would that change their instruction.

Do you have amplification in your classroom?  How does it impact your practice? How do you turn disability into ability?  

(Photo Credit via)

Teachers On The Front Lines: Respect and Compassion, Caitlyn Jenner and Dignity For All Students Act

Last night, like many, I watched much of the ESPY Awards.  There were a few moments I was looking forward to, but the highlight for me was Caitlyn Jenner's acceptance speech for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

Bruce Jenner was always part of my American landscape.  I was born a year after the triumphant Olympic showing.  Bruce was a symbol of athleticism and pop culture, even throughout the 80's always showing up on TV.  When "Keeping Up with The Kardashians" came to E! TV, new generations met Jenner.  I remember feeling bad for him, the batterebyd sidekick to a flock of women who bullied and belittled under the guise of love.

This spring, in the midst of a unit on Language and Gender for AP Language and Comp, we talked at length about gender, respect and language used to talk about gender and oppression.  At the time, Jenner was still being harassed relentlessly by the paparazzi, targeted on a daily basis, photos being published in places like People Magazine.  That same week Glee would be having the episode highlighting the storyline of Coach Beiest played by the incomparable Dot Jones, that would be featured in People as well. We spoke at length about what motivates sales, language used in mainstream media and who is a target and who is a hero.  My students came to some clear conclusions about media and money and how the same issues could be covered so differently with in the same source.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Yesterday I began the preparation homework for the Dignity For All Students (DASA)Workshop I will be taking on Saturday at Hunter College.  It is now a requirement for all new state teaching licenses.  I didn't have to take it prior to beginning teaching 8 years ago.  I am going back to school this fall, a new license on the horizon and I thought I would take care of the requirement this summer.
One of the articles I had to read was called "Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression:The Role of Allies as Agents of Change" by The Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian.  Having studied Theatre of the Oppressed and the work of Boal, the thinking in this piece was not new to me, but I could see how it could be not only new but transformative for others. Ayvazian does an exceptional job that outlines what oppression is and how allies can be voices of change rather than of continued oppression.

As I listened to Caitlyn Jenner last night, reflecting on the very public year and a half she has had and thankful that she did not fold under the oppression forced on her, especially by the media.  I thought the quote below was telling:

(Photo Credit: Leverne Cox Facebook Page)

That's the rub though, isn't it?  Kids don't have the same tools 65 year old Jenner has.  As advocates and educators we are on the front lines of growing up and it is our responsibility to do two things. The first is to be agents of change in our own teaching and learning communities, providing safe space where students, no matter the obstacle or oppression they may face, to feel strong, supported and empowered.  The second, is to provide our kids with the knowledge and tools that bullying, harassment and oppression is not ok and that while we are all members of some group that is oppressed, we are all also allies to another oppressed group.  Students have the power to be allies and agents of change in their own lives and the lives of others.  It is our responsibility to support them as they rise to the occasion.

The Struggle With Staying Inside The Lines

Yesterday an article titled "Why Adults are Buying Colong Books (for Themselves)" by Adrienne Raphel in the New Yorker examined the phenomena of adults diving back into the coloring book market.  I am one of the many who are coloring for pleasure.  My first purchases were from Amazon,  My favorite: Adult Coloring Book: Stress Relieving Patterns  as well as a mandala coloring book (which I don't like as much) and one marketed for "stress-relief". They are time consuming and require focus, the idea being that you turn everything else off: no phone, TV, kids, spouses.  Just you and your coloring to zone out and see where the time takes you.  Unfortunately, my brain is not one that works that way and I like to do multiple things at once- usually one taking the majority of my focus (a gift and a curse) not unlike many of our students.  So in the evening, after dinner when we are catching up on the backlogged DVR, I color while we watch Mr. Robot.


Last Friday I was visiting a friend from grad school and fellow teacher upstate in Beacon, about 90 minutes north of NYC.  We stopped into one of the local shops on the main drag through town and I spent a few minutes looking at the books on the table and I saw this: Johanna Basford's Secret Garden that has now sold 2 million copies world wide. The shop owner told me the publisher reserves most of the copies for Amazon so it is difficult for the little guys to get stock in.  She went on to tell me she always sells out. I spent the extra few dollars to support my local independent bookseller and left with my new treasure.

On the train home from my visit I was thinking about what it would look like to have coloring books in my classroom. What would it offer my 11th grade AP students?  Plenty is the answer.

I had a A-ha! moment this spring. After spending more hours than I would care to mention here reading and writing feedback to students on papers they submitted I was looking in TurnItIn.com to see who had accessed the feedback and very few students had gone back in to see the comments.  It was frustrating for me on a couple of fronts.  1. Students are not looking at the feedback they are getting which means 2. They are not using the feedback to improve their work. (From me or a peer for that matter.) On some level I already knew this.  For some reason though, this time, the stakes felt higher.  This is Advanced Placement.  This is getting you ready to sit in a college classroom.  How do I do a better job of supporting my students with developing their own methods of critical reflection to support their own growth and learning? I suspected it had to do with grades but I wanted to hear from the kids.

One morning, thanks to yet another compulsory fire drill at our school, my class returned 60 minutes into our 80 minute period and because it was a wash, I decided to hear what they had to say about about it.  It was exactly what I expected. They are simply working for the next grade.  They see the number or letter on the paper or in the online grade book and that is enough for them.  If they did well, GREAT! (It helps my class average) and if they did poorly, it's Oh well, next time. (Crap, my parents are going to be pissed!)  We went on to have a longer conversation about what it would mean for them to not have to work towards a grade.  There were some great responses- challenging my thinking about what MBA can look like in my class room next year.

My school has already began to move towards Mastery Based Learning in this past school year. The more thinking I did about what was not working with feedback the clearer it became that I was going at this the wrong way.  I read Mark D. Barns' Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning and I was sold. I began following out the #TTOG on Twitter and looking more into schools using MBA.

These are my new questions: 

• When students relax, will they learn better/more/etc.?

• By removing the pressures of grades will the agency shift from teacher to student as the onus is put on them to master skills and ideas?

• What supports can I bring into the classroom to support students with building learning capacity?  

• Can multitasking in different ways- like coloring-help students do this?

Today, when I posted the New Yorker article on Facebook my former boss and brilliant theatrical milliner, Lynne Mackey posted,"But then you feel you need to stay w/in the lines.  How about a big page of blank paper.  No lines. No rules."  This is the comment that began this entire string of thinking today.  Throwing out grades is going to be like having a blank page of paper for my students.  Grades have become a crutch and my greatest goal has always been to model what passion for learning and thinking looks like and that my students go on to do that work on their own.

In February of 2006 I wrote to my high school English teacher, Tom Williams to tell him I was applying to grad programs to teach.  In an early exchange he said this to me: 

"...if you think you have to get students to think, you'll be putting more pressure on yourself than you'll ever be able to handle effectively.  Better to ask students to make meaning and the only way I know how to do that is to listen, and make meanings myself.  It's ok to share your meanings, but not necessary, or even generally appropriate.  Remember, the real subject in any classroom is each student. Learn them, and the rest becomes merely problematic, not impossible."

I come back to this periodically, a mantra.  I need to keep "learning kids" to support them with coloring inside or outside the lines.  I grow, they grow.  Needless to say, there will be coloring in AP Language and Composition next year.

25. Inspiration and Humility

When I started blogging about teaching in April I saw it an exercise to challenge me professionally, to think more critically about my work and to hopefully connect with other teachers.  Thanks to Chris Crouch, teacher leader, blogger and advocate who started the April Blog A Day Challenge.  It took my work to a new place. The writing in April also provided an opportunity for me to discover what is out there for teachers.  There was this community that I had been blind to, only because I was so focused on what was happening in my own classroom and school that I didn't make room to see and hear teacher's voices that would ultimately bring something new to my own work as educator and teacher leader in my community. 

When I started talking about the writing I was doing, the conversations I was having with teachers from around the country it was clear that this needed to be a permanent part of my professional work.  I was inspired by the work and thinking teachers and education professionals are doing.  I was humbled by the feedback I received as well as the learning I was doing.  

At my end of year conference with my principal, we had been asked to do some work prior to our meeting, completing prompts about our work for the year to serve as talking points for the conference.  As we sat down and began to go over the official end of year rating (done by a complicated algorithm reflected in a number) my boss asked me why I said I didn't think I had been successful as a mentor this year.  One of my responsibilities is mentoring first year teachers.  There were three that I was assigned, one ELA, one U.S. History and the other, Global history.  I was also teaching 16 periods a week plus advisory, an additional 30 minute period.  It was a heavy load.  Finding time to go into classroom or to even just sit and meet with three different teachers proved to be challenging and I often felt ineffective- not having a clear picture of strengths and struggles and wanting to be able to do more than what I had been.  I often watched the other teacher mentors working with the staff and doubting my ability to really support.  When I did get to spend time with my teachers, I tried to make the most of it, offering support, encouragement and ideas for actionable change aligned with the goals of our school.

When will I feel effective?  What is the balance between effective in my own practice as teacher while balancing my additional responsibilities?

As schools have become smaller here in NYC, teachers and staff are challenged to take on more responsibility than ever.  I remember at my first school right out of grad school, at my interview the Principal told me that teachers would be wearing many hats and that has never been more true than it is today.  The small teaching and learning communities can be highly effective but they can also be limiting for teachers, spreading ourselves so thin that we are not doing anything highly effectively but are developing or effective.  

Next year will be the first year that we are populating all 4 grades, 9-12.  I know there is at least one teacher we have hired that I will be mentoring but in reality, there are at least 2.  I want to make sure I am supporting their development and one of the ways that I want to support will be though guided reflection.  Not- "just reflect at the end of your lesson or unit" but questions that will prompt deeper thinking and questioning of the craft.  I believe the teacher narrative needs to be owned by the individual, not the omniscient narrator.