Today was a great day for science in room 417. I officially began my academic instruction today, the fourth day of the year, seeing how the first three days were spent reviewing routines, rules and procedures, not to mention completing the endless mounds of forms from the front office.
I decided that I wanted to do something today that would really capture my students' attention for the rest of the year, really turning them on for science this year. Over the summer, I presented a TFA in-service for first-year TFA'ers with another '07 Corps Member, John Won. We talked about how to make science a hands-on learning experience. In the process of preparing for the presentation, we traded our best hands-on lessons and today I used one of John's.
I'll let you view the video for yourself, but basically I used a rolling ball of flames to demonstrate lab safety with my students. To protect myself, I donned goggles, a hat, and an oven mit. I even had one student on "fire extinguisher duty." It was great.
I think you can tell from the video that the student reaction was resounding. It was a total hit. In fact, it was also a hit with the other teachers. Tonight, I'm writing curriculum so that the other 6th grade science teachers can present the lesson tomorrow and throughout next week.
Today really has me excited for the potential this year has to be a huge success in room 417.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Set the Pace in September
Texas went back to school on the 27th; quite a late start from previous years due to the legislature's passing of the 'Sanctity of Summer Bill' (my title). Texas ranks in the Top 10 of the lowest-performing states in terms of public education, but thank God we get our state-mandated, extra-long summer break!
Regardless, we are back at school and back in the full swing of things. On the way home from school today, I heard a great story on NPR that does a fantastic job of summarizing why I'm so tired at the end of each day at this point in the beginning of the school year.
Listen for yourself; the link is below.
Regardless, we are back at school and back in the full swing of things. On the way home from school today, I heard a great story on NPR that does a fantastic job of summarizing why I'm so tired at the end of each day at this point in the beginning of the school year.
Listen for yourself; the link is below.
September a Fresh Start for Students, Teachers
All Things Considered, August 29, 2007 · Commentator and teacher Emily Wylie explains why she dresses and acts differently during the month of September than any other time of the year.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Rosenthal Brothers Road Trip
Danny and brothers three (Jeremy, Brian and David) have almost finished a week-long trek from Houston to Los Angeles. They've been blogging their adventures and have some great pictures.The link: http://blog.djrosenthal.com
KIPP in The Wall Street Journal
My roommate Kyle has been receiving a trial subscription of the Wall Street Journal this summer. The other day I noticed an article about KIPP schools in Arkansas. It speaks to the expansion taking place at many KIPP locations, most notably in Houston.
It also speaks to the incredible impact these charter schools (founded by and staffed with many Teach For America corps members and alumni) have had within incredibly rural communities.
Following is the full text of the article.
Smart Growth
By KANE WEBB
August 4, 2007; Page A6HELENA, Ark. -- A walking tour of this Mississippi River town's past, present and future could start at Bubba's Blues Corner at the south end of Cherry Street, a whisky bottle's throw from the Mighty River. Bubba Sullivan has a little of everything in his shop, including a healthy dose of Helena blues history (free of charge) and old 45 rpm records (25 cents each). Keep walking past the broken bottles and dilapidated buildings until you're across from the old train depot. Turn into what looks like a strip mall store that might sell wicker chairs and scented candles (or in this town, second-hand clothes and garage-sale trinkets).
And then welcome to one of the best schools in Arkansas, maybe the South. A school that's so good both candidates for governor last year -- Democrat Mike Beebe and Republican Asa Hutchinson -- couldn't utter a sentence on education without mentioning it. It is the KIPP Delta College Preparatory School. (KIPP stands for Knowledge Is Power Program, a Brooklyn-born system of 57 charter schools nationwide.) It is filled with kids eager to be there even though the school meets almost all year long and every day but Sunday.
Scott Shirey runs the place. He's 31 years old and a native of Massachusetts. He filtered through the KIPP system and came out to Phillips County, one of the poorest in the country, where he started Delta College Prep five years ago with 65 students and the support of community leaders desperate for something -- anything -- to jumpstart their tired town. All else had failed -- from government handouts to gambling across the river.
Helena's KIPP school is working in two ways. First, it's educating the kids. An important task for a school, don't you think? Before KIPP, Helena's kids were getting scores around the 17th percentile in language and 18th percentile in math on the Stanford Achievement Test. Only a few years later, those same kids are averaging around 76th and 82nd, respectively. Last year, KIPP's eighth-graders scored in the 91st percentile in math and the 84th in language on the SAT. As fifth-graders, those same kids scored in the 29th percentile in both math and language.
KIPP is also helping to revitalize this impoverished area. The school's current downtown location was the first new construction in Helena in 10 years. Now that the school has grown to 315 students in grades five through 10, there's talk about expanding.
Actually, there's a lot more than talk. Just last week, the national KIPP charter school outfit in San Francisco named Luke VanDeWalle the principal of the new Delta College Prep High. Mr. VanDeWalle, an Illinois native and graduate of Purdue University in Indiana, is a former member of Teach for America. For the past three years, he's been teaching math at Mr. Shirey's school -- and doing quite a job. At last report, 93% of the Delta College Prep students scored proficient or better on Arkansas's end-of-course exam in algebra. Soon-to-be Principal VanDeWalle's high school opens later this month in a renovated train station.
But maybe not for long. Led by local investors at Southern Bancorporation and Southern Financial Partners, the community is out to raise $20 million for a K-12 Delta College Prep campus. It'll consume several blighted blocks of downtown, now home to broken liquor bottles, crumbling sidewalks and weeds -- not to mention the abandoned buildings and long-abandoned businesses. KIPP has already secured the land through a grant from the Walton Family Foundation. Now it has to raise the rest of the money.
In a state under a court order to fix its public schools, there aren't many examples of educational excellence. But because KIPP schools are charter schools, they operate free of the bureaucratic baloney that chokes the creativity out of so many traditional public schools and their teachers. And Delta College Prep is a different kind of charter school. You notice it right off. World map-sized posters of students' test scores decorate the hallways -- the way you'd see a "Go Team!" banner at a public high school.
"We're comfortable discussing data," Mr. Shirey told me. "We aim for absolute transparency," which sharpens the attention of both students and teachers.
Mr. Shirey notes proudly that he's run off three teachers this year but not many students, even though homework runs about two hours a night after a long school day. There's a dress code and detailed instructions about how to behave in class, right down to when to raise your hand. Parents and students and teachers all have to sign a "Commitment to Excellence Form" outlining life at Delta College Prep.
Teachers tend to be young and not from around Helena -- Mr. Shirey's staff has included recent graduates from Cornell, Purdue, Notre Dame, New York University and Spelman. Still, Delta Prep's Wyvonne Sisk, a teacher for 38 years, won a $10,000 Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award last year. Ms. Sisk had retired from teaching in nearby schools but was attracted back to work by this innovative charter school.
Earlier this year, the school received a grant from the Delta Regional Authority, a federal-state partnership devoted to regional economic improvement. DRA money typically goes to water systems and rail spurs, not schools. But to quote Pete Johnson, federal co-chairman of the DRA: "As we travel the region, we're holding up the KIPP school and Helena as examples of what children can accomplish when you go outside the restraints of the public-school system. . . . Unless you change the educational system in weak counties, you're not going to change the counties."
For its next act, KIPP is expected to transform downtown Helena (technically Helena-West Helena -- the towns recently consolidated) and revitalize the city center, while serving as an economic engine for an area with double-digit unemployment that's been losing population for decades. Since 1950, Phillips County has lost more than half its population. Down here, the goal after graduating high school -- if you graduate high school -- is to get out.
A school transforming a community economically and maybe even emotionally? It does sound kind of nutty. Unless you're here and walking the dilapidated landscape that could be the future home of the KIPP Campus. Unless you listen to Mr. Shirey. ("Those would be athletic fields," he says, pointing at a vacant lot.) Unless you see the kids at Mr. Shirley's school wearing "There are no shortcuts" T-shirts. Unless you check out those test scores. Then you think maybe anything is possible. Even in the Delta.
Mr. Webb is a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Religion spurs Poverty in the South
Last week while I was working at the CDC, the Annie E. Casey Foundation released their latest KIDS COUNT report for 2007. This data set is often used by researchers as a pretty accurate assessment of data related to the health of minors. When I worked in poverty research at UGA, we used KIDS COUNT data all the time.What is so troubling about this latest data set is the graph for teen birth rate. Teen birth rate is defined as the pregnancy of a female between the ages of 15 and 19. The numbers for the 2007 report are actually from 2004, as those are the most current numbers available.
With 63 births per 1,000 among females aged 15-19, the state with the highest teen birth rate is... TEXAS! This is horrible!
Some reasons for this outcome:
REASON 1: Texas has a large Latino population. According to AECF, the teen birth rate among Latinos (83 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19) is more than twice the national average (41 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19).
REASON 2: Texas does not require schools to teach sex ed, but if they do they are required to teach abstinence until marriage. This is a direct effect of legislators allowing religious preferences to interfere with their responsibility (both ethically and morally) to promote sound public health policy.
In other words, I feel religion is a primary cause for Texas' newest place atop the teen birth rate rankings. State legislators have allowed religion to cloud their minds, preventing sound legislation. What sense does it make to teach abstinence-only when you already know that Texas teens are having sex? Shouldn't we be more concerned at this point with making sure they are having safe sex?
Take a look at the map of the rankings and you will see that Texas is not alone. In fact, the top 10 states for teen birth rate are all located in the Bible Belt (states colored navy blue). Many of these states don't require sex ed (Texas-1, Mississippi-2, Arkansas-4, Arizona-5, Oklahoma-6, Louisiana-7, South Carolina-10, Alabama-11). However, almost all of these states require the teaching of abstinence if sex ed is taught (with the exception of Arkansas-4, South Carolina-10, and Nevada-12).
Only 6 of the top 14 states (all with a teen birth rate at higher than 20% of the national average) require the teaching of contraceptive use (New Mexico-3, Georgia-8, Tennessee-9, Nevada-12, North Carolina-13, and Kentucky-14)... that's less than half! By comparison, 5 of the 7 states in the next lowest category (states with a teen birth rate at 20% of the national average) require the teaching of contraceptive use (Florida-15, Kansas-16, Missouri-17, Illinois-18, and West Virginia-21).
Some people may say, what's the big deal? Well aside from the fact that we have a lot of teenage women pregnant, teenage pregnancy has a direct correlation to a life of poverty. According to AECF...
The consequence of starting out life as the child of a teen mother can be illustrated by the following stark comparison. The poverty rate for children born to teenage mothers who have never married and who did not graduate from high school is 78 percent. On the other hand, the poverty rate for children born to women over age 20 who are currently married and did graduate from high school is 9 percent.What's the solution? Well, it's simple really. As a society, we have to get away from trying to infuse church doctrine into state policy. If we were all Christians, it'd be easy to have a theocracy and decry premarital sex. However, we are not all Christians, but we are all children of God. God preaches love of one another and tolerance of dissenting viewpoints. We should give our children all the options and allow them to work within their families and personal faith to figure out which is the best choice for them.
Until we do that, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Social Promotion
The NYTimes published an article yesterday about a first-year math teacher who resigned from his Manhattan school because of disagreements with the school administration over passing a student who had failed by all accounts.
It's a very interesting article and reminds me of how frustrated I was at the end of the past school year. Out of almost 80 students, about 50 were failing at least one of my two classes. I attributed this high number of failing grades to my system of high expectations and rigorous assessments. I demanded a lot from my students. Many fellow teachers (and some administrators) were quick to point out amid parental complaints that it was simply because of my inexperience that so many of my students were failing. Sure, that played a part, but I went above and beyond to provide supplemental opportunities in order to compensate for any teaching handicaps I might have had and not realized. These opportunities included giving every student the opportunity to retake any assessment they did not receive an 80% or higher on.
During the last week of class, after I had turned in my final grades, I realized that many students (less than 20) were failing both of my classes and most of these students were also failing other classes. As a result and according to the academic standards outlined in our student handbooks, these students should have been retained in sixth grade. However, what I came to realize was that these students were actually sent to seventh grade - some didn't even have to go to summer school! When I voiced my complaints to the administration, I was told that they weren't "promoted" but simply "placed" into seventh grade. Placing a student into another grade means that they will have to demonstrate proficiency in the first nine weeks or risk being demoted back to sixth grade. How often does a "placed" student become demoted back a grade? It's never happened at my school.
The administration tried to remedy my complaints with this flawed reasoning--what they don't realize is that it doesn't matter to a 12 year old whether they are "placed" or "promoted." They still get to go to the next grade level! This only leads to a developed mentality of needing to perform only minimally to graduate.
But the bigger problem here is what the students aren't taking with them to the next grade level - mastery of the previous grade's expected learning outcomes. Year after year of passing these students into the next grade level is only disabling our future workforce, sending them into society with little to no actual learning or skill sets. We're almost guaranteeing that our students will end up in the vicious cycle of poverty.
I can definitely identify with the teacher in the story, Mr. Lampros. If I was going into education as a career, there's no way I'd be able to take my self seriously as a professional when I know at the end of the year all my students will be passed forward, regardless of their academic achievement or lack thereof.
The link to the story is below.
It's a very interesting article and reminds me of how frustrated I was at the end of the past school year. Out of almost 80 students, about 50 were failing at least one of my two classes. I attributed this high number of failing grades to my system of high expectations and rigorous assessments. I demanded a lot from my students. Many fellow teachers (and some administrators) were quick to point out amid parental complaints that it was simply because of my inexperience that so many of my students were failing. Sure, that played a part, but I went above and beyond to provide supplemental opportunities in order to compensate for any teaching handicaps I might have had and not realized. These opportunities included giving every student the opportunity to retake any assessment they did not receive an 80% or higher on.
During the last week of class, after I had turned in my final grades, I realized that many students (less than 20) were failing both of my classes and most of these students were also failing other classes. As a result and according to the academic standards outlined in our student handbooks, these students should have been retained in sixth grade. However, what I came to realize was that these students were actually sent to seventh grade - some didn't even have to go to summer school! When I voiced my complaints to the administration, I was told that they weren't "promoted" but simply "placed" into seventh grade. Placing a student into another grade means that they will have to demonstrate proficiency in the first nine weeks or risk being demoted back to sixth grade. How often does a "placed" student become demoted back a grade? It's never happened at my school.
The administration tried to remedy my complaints with this flawed reasoning--what they don't realize is that it doesn't matter to a 12 year old whether they are "placed" or "promoted." They still get to go to the next grade level! This only leads to a developed mentality of needing to perform only minimally to graduate.
But the bigger problem here is what the students aren't taking with them to the next grade level - mastery of the previous grade's expected learning outcomes. Year after year of passing these students into the next grade level is only disabling our future workforce, sending them into society with little to no actual learning or skill sets. We're almost guaranteeing that our students will end up in the vicious cycle of poverty.
I can definitely identify with the teacher in the story, Mr. Lampros. If I was going into education as a career, there's no way I'd be able to take my self seriously as a professional when I know at the end of the year all my students will be passed forward, regardless of their academic achievement or lack thereof.
The link to the story is below.
For one teacher, the introduction to his new high school’s academic standards proved a fitting preamble to a disastrous year.
Vacation Time in VA and DC
I left Atlanta and headed straight to Washington DC to meet up with many friends who are spending their summer interning/working inside the Beltway.
It was a lot of fun getting to see Danny (roommate), Raj (best friend from college), and Ellie (friend from TFA Houston). Anna also showed me around UVA - very much like Athens, only a lot smaller and possibly more white.
The catch was getting home, however.Anna and I were supposed to fly back to Houston late Sunday night. But due to weather in DC, our flight was canceled. Anna and I spent the next two days talking with AirTran officials via phone and in-person at the airport trying to get a flight back home. We were lucky that Anna lives in Virginia and we didn't have to pay for a hotel room. AirTran was definitely not user-friendly.
The good news is that it kind of forced me to have a vacation - I couldn't go anywhere! I enjoyed Virginia a lot, especially the cool weather.
However, we all know Virginia will never be Georgia. Sorry Anna.
Work Time at the CDC
This past week, I participated in the Science Ambassador Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The program teamed 8 secondary science teachers from across the country (and Canada) with CDC scientists to develop original curriculum addressing the areas of research the CDC is currently working within.
Specifically, I wrote lesson plans that dealt with HIV/AIDS and teenage dating violence. I felt these were the two subject areas that had a direct impact on my sixth graders.
The program went very well and we were also able to tour most of the different departments/labs/centers at the CDC. We saw the Director's Emergency Operation Center where bioterrorism disasters are managed and we were given an up-close look at the Level 3 laboratories that work with strains of ricin and anthrax. Overall, it was very cool!
I was also able to catch up with many friends in the Atlanta area while I was there. Mom was even able to come up for dinner Friday before I had to be at the airport.
It was really exciting seeing all the different types of jobs at the CDC. I never knew that there were so many job opportunities in public health for non-laboratory researchers.
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