The biggest news of the week, possibly the biggest news story of the year, is the death of Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and the other passengers aboard the helicopter that crashed in California on Sunday. My heart goes out to everybody affected by the tragedy.
Kobe and I were the same age and graduated from high school the same year about two hours away from each other. I’ve watched him play basketball since he was a senior in high school and always respected his game. The dunks, clutch shooting, and killer instinct on the court were always impressive, whether you liked the Lakers or not. What was more impressive than the work on the court, however, was the role he played off the court as a dad to his four daughters.
Being a dad to a little girl is an amazing and terrifying job. You want the best for your child and always worry about the worst. Seeing all the stories of Kobe and his daughter, Gianna, made it clear that his children were the most important people in his life.
My daughter, Anna, and me at Hersheypark.
I think about this often as a teacher. Having a child of my own gives me a perspective I wouldn’t have had teaching in my twenties. Every student sitting in my class is the most important person in somebody’s life. Knowing parents trust me to take care of their child, the most important person in their life, is a very humbling honor.
That’s why I go into every interaction with a parent knowing the person we’re discussing is as important to them as my daughter is to me. When I have to discuss a difficult topic with a parent, I try to think about how I would want a teacher to share that same information about my daughter. When I have to share something difficult, I always start with something positive the student is doing and end with something positive.
Every child has amazing qualities their parent should be proud of and that we as a team should celebrate. That child is the most important thing to that parent, and I can never forget that. How could I forget? I have a little girl and she’s the most important thing to me.
Last year I heard two boys in my class having a very heated discussion about a video they watched the night before. I kept hearing Ninja this and Ninja that. After listening to the boys talk about “Ninja” for a couple minutes, curiosity finally got the better of me. “Who’s Ninja?” I asked.
They both looked at me like I just fell off the turnip truck. “Mr. Rashid, Ninja is just the best gamer in the world,” one of the boys replied. It turns out they were just two of the 22.3 million subscribers Ninja has on Youtube.
This interaction, and having ten-year-old daughter myself, really made me wonder just how much media our students and children are consuming. It turns out, Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization who analyzes media use by children and families, had the same wonderings. They conducted a study of how children ages 8-18 use and consume media.
A few points in the key findings really stood out to me:
The number of 8-year-olds with a phone increased from 11% in 2015 to 19% in 2019;
Children, 8- to 12-years old, average 4 hours 44 minutes of screen media each day, not including time at school or working on homework;
51% of teens read for fun at least once a month;
Lower income children spend almost 2 hours more with entertainment media per day than their higher income peers (5:49 to 3:59);
Teens using a computer daily for homework has risen 30% in four years – 29% in 2015 to 59% in 2019;
Daily computer use for homework has also risen among tweens – 11% in 2015 to 27% in 2019;
Low-income teens spend less time (34 minutes per day) using a computer for homework than their higher-income peers (55 minutes per day).
What really jumped out at me was that children (8-12) are on a device consuming entertainment for almost 5 hours a day. That’s time they’re not reading, playing outside, or spending quality time with their friends and families. Children using devices isn’t a passing fad, and I would be shocked if the numbers related to children and media screen time don’t continue to rise in the coming years. As educators, and as a society, we need to figure out the implications of this increase in screen time.
Last night I finished my second book of 2020. (My goal is to read 50 books in 2020.) This was a special book for me because I didn’t read it alone. I read it aloud to my ten-year-old daughter, Anna.
The book was The Giver by Lois Lowry. It won Lowry her second Newbery Medal – Number the Stars in 1990 and The Giver in 1994. In the book, 12-year-old Jonas lives in a futuristic society where there is no pain, fear, or hatred. Everyone and everything is basically the same. Jonas is chosen to be the communities next Receiver of Memory, which gives him authority in his community. While training for his upcoming job, Jonas learns some dark secrets about what would otherwise seem a utopian society.
The Giver is a fantastic book to read whether you’re ten, like my daughter, or in your 40s, like me. In fact, The Atlantic wrote an article about reading The Giver as an adult. My daughter and I both couldn’t wait to see what happened next. We would talk after we read each night about what happened and what we thought would happen next.
We read together almost every night. In fact, our goal for 2020 is to read together every night before bed. Tonight will be 27 nights in a row. We take turns choosing the books. I picked The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. She chose Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. There are nights where I am out of town or Anna has a sleepover and we will FaceTime to read together. Last night, we were coming home from a day-trip to Washington, D.C., and I read the last chapter to Anna while my wife drove.
Anna in a Washington D.C. bookstore choosing our next read aloud book.
The 15-20 minutes we read together each night is almost always the best part of my day. We usually cuddle in bed, read, and talk about our book. It is such a wonderful routine to help us both unwind for the day and get our minds ready for bed.
Reading with Anna… and our labradoodle, Maxwell.
In my classroom, I usually assign reading for homework. There are no reading logs or other forms of accountability. Reading regularly is just a good habit to create. There are times when parents tell me they have a hard time getting their child to read each night. I often suggest reading aloud to them.
When parents ask me what they can do to help their child become a better reader or enjoy reading more, I always tell them about reading with Anna. I explain to them how we created this routine and both cherish that time together. I am able to model fluent reading for her and help her comprehend text at a deeper level.
Most importantly, I get to spend quality time with my little girl. She won’t be little much longer, so I’m going to read every book I can to her while I can. Really, we both win.
Saturdays are my time to reflect on what I read, heard, and discussed throughout the week. It is my “exit ticket” for the last seven days. So here are three ideas that made me think this week. (They are not in any particular order.)
I had this week’s Three for the Week written in my head when
I woke up this morning. I knew exactly what I wanted to write and how I wanted
to write it. Then I had the privilege of going out to dinner with a wonderful
nineteen-year-old college student. This student grew up in rural poverty.
Things haven’t been easy for her, but thanks to some breaks in life, she’s now
attending a very good college with dreams of becoming a lawyer and having a
greater impact on the world. Our conversation completely changed my three
takeaways from this week. Here they are:
1 – There is an enormous opportunity gap in the United States, and it is happening in areas all across the country. Some of our students living in poverty are just as smart, if not smarter, than their more affluent peers. The barriers they face, and often their underfunded schools, make it harder for their brilliance to be seen.
2- Even if students are able to overcome their disadvantages, there are still so many factors they have to navigate and overcome. For a young student who grew up in poverty and has dreams of going to law school, there’s the expensive LSAT (Law School Admissions Test). You can forget the pricey prep courses to get ready for the LSAT that wealthier students can often afford to give them a leg up on law school admissions. It is a constant challenge to get ahead.
3 – The idealism and optimism of our younger generations is so refreshing and gives me so much hope for the world my daughter will inherit. Despite the disadvantages this brilliant young woman has had to overcome, she still wants to help people. She wants to use the breaks she’s been given to go to law school and change the world. The odds were against her getting out of rural poverty and studying at a world-class institution of higher education, but I’d put money on her going out and changing the world.
I had a conversation at lunch today with a couple of colleagues about financial wellbeing. It’s an important conversation to have – if not with colleagues, then with a spouse/significant other, or at least with ourselves.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, a healthy teacher is better able to take care of students. One important way to take care of our overall health is to ensure that our financial wellbeing is monitored and addressed. Financial insecurity can lead to chronic stress, which can negatively affect mental and physical health – ulcers, digestive issues, migraines, insomnia, anxiety, etc.
There are many resources out there to help understand finances and improve financial wellness. One that I like, and have personally used, is Dave Ramsey’s baby steps:
Save $1,000 for your starter emergency fund.
Pay off all debt (except the house) using the debt snowball.
Save 3-6 months of expenses in a fully funded emergency fund.
Invest 15% of your household income in retirement.
Save for your children’s college fund.
Pay off your home early.
Build wealth and give.
Dave Ramsey wrote a best-selling book, called The Total Money Makeover, which outlines the baby steps and guides readers to, what he calls, financial peace. It is an incredibly quick read, and can help anybody become more knowledgeable about finances and money. One friend recently told me the book literally changed his life.
I’ve read a number of the books on this topic by a range of authors and financial gurus. The key isn’t necessary whom you are reading but that you are reading and thinking about your financial wellbeing. Two other books I’ve found interesting are The Millionaire Next Door and Start Late, Finish Rich. These two books are wonderful because they apply to the average person, not necessarily a surgeon making $500,000 a year. They, and Dave Ramsey, discuss a common thread: financial health is not correlated to level of income.
It is no secret that teacher’s are not in the top income earners in our country. Should teachers be paid more? Yes, but we can only worry about what we can control. So how do we work with what we have, financially speaking? That’s what some of these resources will help unpack. Most of the authors and gurus boil it down to simple ideas like planning, being intentional with money, and minimizing the amount of debt you have because that means more interest payments.
There are many teachers continually improving their financial wellbeing. In fact, a recent study found that one of the top five professions for millionaires is… wait for it… teachers. (Engineer, accountant, “management,” and attorneys were the other professions in the top five.) If planning and being intentional are some of the bedrocks to financial wellbeing, then who knows how to plan better than teachers?
This study shows that it is possible for teachers to become financial successful. The goal isn’t to become “rich.” The goal is to pay attention to our financial wellbeing, continue to learn about finances, and put ourselves in a position so that money is not a constant stressor which leads to health problems. The goal is to be healthy, so we can all be better teachers!
We just wrapped up a unit on fractions which covered equivalent fractions, common denominators, simplest form, comparing fractions, and ordering fractions. Comparing and ordering fractions gave me an opportunity to use a strategy which I absolutely love: clothesline math.
As the name suggests, I put a clothesline up in my room (really just a piece of yarn) and students use it to create a number line. It’s a great strategy because it works with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, algebra, and on and on.
I fold a notecard in half and write the fraction on one half. This allows the fold of the card to hold the number on the clothesline. Since I’m writing the numbers myself, I can make the numbers fit whatever lesson or standard I need. For example, in Pennsylvania fourth graders are only comparing fractions with denominators limited to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 100. So, I create fractions cards which fit those parameters.
There are times when I will place cards on a table and let students choose their own number. Other times, I want to be a little more strategic with who gets each card, so I will distribute them to students. This allows me to ensure that students are getting fractions that match their math abilities. I give students who have a better grasp of the concepts fractions which are in the sixths, while struggling students might only get fourths. If a student has to draw a model of a fraction, it is easier to draw fourths as a visual representation than sixths.
Once all students have the cards, we discuss which numbers should be placed on the clothesline first. Yesterday, my students determined that 0 and 1 should be the first two numbers. Then they decided that 1/2 should go next because it is the benchmark we used in our lessons on comparing and ordering fractions.
Once we have 0, 1/2, and 1 placed, we start to have a discussion about the other fraction cards. I allow students to talk with a partner as we move through the numbers. When students go to place their fraction, they have to share three things:
Say the fraction
Share which two numbers their fraction goes between
Explain, using math vocabulary why you placed it there (common denominators, common numerators, relative location to the benchmark, etc.)
Once we get started, my role is to simply facilitate the conversation. I don’t tell students whether they are right or wrong when they place their fraction. Yesterday, three of the fractions were placed in the wrong spot. Once every student placed their card, I asked if there were any changes we needed to make. Then the conversation moved into a bit of error analysis. After some discussion and debate, the cards were placed in the correct order. Once again, I let my students talk about what they saw and what needed to be changed.
Students were drawing models on whiteboards, comparing fractions using common denominators, and one student even asked to use the fraction tiles we have in our room to model his fraction.
One student models 5/6 and 8/10 with fraction tiles.
This is such a wonderful activity because it checks so many boxes. In addition to comparing and ordering, students are experiencing many of the Standards for Mathematical Practice. Students are constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others, modeling with math, attending to precision, and looking for and making use of structure. I am a stickler about precision in this activity. One student said, “The number on the top in 4/8 is smaller than the number on the top in 5/8.” I will ask them what we call the number on the top and ask them to restate their reasoning. “The numerator in 4/8 is smaller than the numerator in 5/8.” If the students stops there, I will prompt them. “What does the numerator represent?” I will prompt the students until they explain that the numerator in 4/8 represents 4 parts, and the numerator in 5/8 represents 5 parts. The parts are the same size since the denominators are the same, so 5/8 is greater than 4/8.”
I also make sure there are some equivalent fractions included in the cards. When students have an equivalent fraction, they use a paperclip to stack the numbers to show they fall on the same point on the number line, or clothesline.
Each year I introduce this as a whole-group lesson. This allows students to experience those rich conversations with students of all math abilities. Then I use it as a small group activity. Students work in groups of 3-4 and deal cards to one another. They take turns placing their cards and have a similar discussion. As an exit slip, I’ll have students choose three fractions and write how they ordered them. This can also be done by taking a picture and using an app or other digital sharing tool.
This is a great activity that can be used in so many applications throughout the grade levels. The conversations are fantastic, and students are engaged in the activity. Hopefully you find it as valuable as I do.
What really works in schools? What can we do to have the greatest impact on student achievement? What has a greater impact feedback or homework?
John Hattie is an educational researcher whose work answers questions like these. His book Visible Learning looked at over 800 meta-studies. From those studies, which included over 80 million students, Hattie was able to create a list of the most effective teaching practices. Here are his top five:
Collective teacher efficacy (1.57)
Self-reported grades (1.33)
Teacher estimates of achievement (1.29)
Cognitive task analysis (1.29)
Response to intervention (1.29)
After analyzing data from the 800 meta-studies, Hattie created a hinge point of 0.40. The average effect size in the meta-studies was 0.40, so that’s how the hinge point was determined. Anything above the hinge point of 0.40 was viewed as having an effect on student outcomes. Collective teacher efficacy had an effect size of 1.57.
So, what is collective teacher efficacy. According to Hattie, it is more than teachers believing they can make a difference. “It is that combined belief that it is us that causes learning. It’s not the students. It’s not the students from particular social backgrounds. It’s not all the barriers out there. Because when you fundamentally believe that you can make the difference, and then you feed it with evidence you are then that (is what makes it) dramatically powerful.”
The teacher has a powerful impact on student performance if they collectively believe they’re making a difference AND feed that belief with evidence of their success. That impact on students is what makes teaching the hardest job in the world and also the most important. Go believe in yourself and make a difference!
When I was about nine years old, my grandfather took me to a
park behind his house. There was a quarter-mile track around the park, which he
had me run. He stood at the start/stop line with an old fashioned stopwatch –
think opening of 60 Minutes… tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. When I finished he’d
tell me my time and always compare my results to my previous runs. It always
amazed me how he remembered them. Before I could catch my breath, he’d say,
“Okay, what’s our goal for the next time?” This was my first exposure to goal
setting.
Years later I started setting goals more regularly and
across other areas of my life. At first, my goals were vague. I want to run faster.I want to read more.I want to save more money. The problem,
I soon realized, was these goals were very hard to quantify. Then I read about
SMART Goals. These goals create a structure and help focus your efforts. SMART
is an acronym for:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
SMART Goals can be used in all areas of our lives –
personal, professional, financial, etc. They can even be used in our classrooms.
Let’s say I’m working with a group of students and want them to improve as
readers. Wanting my students to become better readers is not a SMART Goal. The
objective can be adjusted, however, to meet the criteria of a SMART Goal.
Specific – Goals need to be specific. Wanting students to become better readers is not specific. There are so many areas of reading that could help students become better readers – phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension, vocabulary, etc. We could create a fluency goal, comprehension goal, etc. Maybe you want students to read more books because research shows reading more helps students become better readers. When making specific goals it helps to ask questions like:
Who is involved in me achieving this goal?
What do I want to accomplish?
Where might I need to go to achieve this goal?
Measureable –
This is where I really struggled when I first started setting goals. I was
usually missing the measurable component of SMART. I want to run faster is hard to measure and quantify. I want to run a sub-30 minute 5K is a
measureable goal. We can literally measure it with a timer or my grandfather’s
old-fashioned stopwatch. If we want students to read more books, we need to
make this a measureable goal. I want my
fourth graders to read 5 books. Now we are able to measure and determine if
they were successful or not.
Achievable – The
goals we set need to be achievable and realistic. I always wanted to play in
the NBA, but I’m only six-foot tall and can’t jump very high. It’s not a realistic
goal. Similarly, saying I want my fourth graders to read all the works of
Shakespeare by the end of the school year, is probably not going to happen. Students will read five children’s books. That
is much more achievable.
Relevant – Is
this a relevant goal? If we’re trying to improve students’ ability in reading,
we can’t set a goal to have them learn to juggle. That isn’t relevant to what
we’re trying to achieve. A goal to have students read a five books is much more
relevant to becoming better readers. Learning to juggle is fun though.
Time-bound – When
will this goal be achieved? In a month? A year? The way our school years are
structured helps create natural time barriers, which help with goal setting. When
do we want student to read their five books? Students will read five children’s books each trimester. Now we have a timetable for when our goal
should be measured.
SMART Goals are a great tool to help with all areas of our
lives. Creating them takes some time and will often involve some failures. This
requires adjusting the process and goals. If we’re always meeting all our goals,
do we need to revisit our goals and increase our expectations? Should failure
be part of the goal setting process as well?
This question was posed to me at a parent-teacher conference early in my teaching career. Is it okay for our son to read graphic novels at home? The parents were concerned that these text were not challenging their son enough.
Their “problem” was they couldn’t get him to read anything other than graphic novels at home and worried they were not rigorous enough to make him a successful reader longterm. He would devour graphic novels but fought tooth and nail to read “traditional” books.
This student was extremely behind in reading just one year before I had him. While he was still below grade level in fourth grade, he made enormous strides since the beginning of third grade. What happened to help him turn this corner? One big part of the story is that he went to a comic book convention with his father the summer before third grade and got hooked on graphic novels.
I can personally attest to the interest in graphic novels. My ten-year-old daughter is a reluctant reader. She doesn’t enjoy reading traditional texts. We’ve made numerous trips to the book store, placed book orders through school, and even tried e-readers. No luck. She still has not found the book or genre that sparks an interest in reading chapter books.
Graphic novels are an entirely different topic. She can’t put these books down. She has read and reread titles like Smile, Best Friends, Real Friends, and Guts. Just this weekend I had to ask her to put a book down during dinner; it was a graphic novel. Later that night I found her asleep in bed with the book still open.
My daughter asleep in the middle of her fifth reading of Best Friends.
Research supports the idea that graphic novels help reach reluctant readers. The combination of pictures, graphics, and fewer words is appealing to students who don’t enjoy traditional texts as much. They also help with comprehension, critical thinking skills, and vocabulary acquisition.
But what about the reading level in these books? Certainly they can’t challenge students the same way a traditional text does. Can they? Research out of the University of Oregon has shown that graphic novels are not necessarily easier to read despite their format. According to the study “comic books average 53.5 rare words per thousand.” That number outpaces children’s books (30.9) and even inches ahead of adult books (52.7).
The topics students encounter in graphic novels go far beyond Garfield’s basic fascination with lasagna. In one of my daughter’s favorite graphic novels, Smile, the main character feels self-conscious after she is forced to wear headgear, braces, and even an appliance with false teeth, following an accident. This all happens while she is trying to navigate friendships and make her way through middle school. In the end, the reader learns that it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside, but it’s who you are on the inside that really counts. That’s definitely a lesson I want me daughter to learn regardless of the format of the text.
So what did I say to the parents back at the conference? The same thing I say to my daughter. I want students to love reading. If he’s found a text he loves to read, then let him get lost in that book, regardless of what it looks like.
A few years ago, I was talking to a colleague about a student who struggled to stay on task and consistently focused throughout the day. We’ve all had students like that. They are easily distracted and have trouble even staying seated for more than five minutes.
As I was talking my colleague began to smile. “What?” I asked.
“Keep teaching and you’ll be surprised how much they’re still absorbing.” I looked at her unconvinced. She continued to tell me a story about a former student. In the middle of a lesson, the student, we’ll call him Billy, would often wandered around the room.
After numerous attempts to get Billy seated, she decided to let him move around the room for the remainder of her idiom lesson. Idioms are phrase whose meaning is different from the literal meaning (i.e. in a pickle, put your foot in your mouth).
She was almost through the mini-lesson on idioms when Billy started to turn the classroom water fountain off and on. The teacher tried to ignore him, but other students were visibly distracted.
She walked back to him, positive he hadn’t heard a single word of the lesson, and said, “Billy, I know it is hard for you to stay in your seat for the entire lesson. I often let you go get a drink and take some movement breaks, but your behavior is really distracting to your peers.” She admittedly used a poor choice of words as she continued, “Not only are your classmates having a hard time concentrating, but, honestly, it’s driving me up a wall.”
Billy looked at her and smiled. “That’s an idiom.”
“What?” She was baffled by his response.
“You said ‘driving me up a wall.’ That’s an idiom. It means it’s driving you crazy,” Billy explained matter-of-factly.
The teacher simply smiled and said, “Absolutely right, Billy. That’s an idiom. How about you come back and join the lesson.”
Billy came back to his seat, and she always remembered that learning doesn’t always look same for all students. To make a long story short, Billy learned about idioms and the teacher learned a lesson she would never forget. It was as if that lesson killed two birds with one stone.
