March's Rant

You know what really ticks me off? The word "should" when over-applied to students. For instance, "Josh should be able to sit still and focus for an hour." In a perfect world, Josh should. But what if Josh can't? What if his brain is wired differently and sitting still for an hour makes his mind shut down? We could say he should be able to do this and make it his fault. Or we could accept the fact that he can't and take steps to help him. Perhaps two minutes of active movement at the beginning of class and maybe even at the middle would help him focus the other 56 minutes. Perhaps letting him doodle or fiddle with silly putty would help him learn. Chewing gum (as much as I hate it) helps some students. Perhaps teachers should look at an unsuccessful student and see what is needed to help him succeed.

Another example I hear regularly is that students should do what they are supposed to without expecting praise. Well, yes, they should. But they don't. Most of these kids are running so in the red with negative teacher/parent/peer comments that they need a huge amount of praise to have any hopes of getting in the black, praise-wise. What harm does it do to tell a kid you love how still he's sitting? Watch everyone around him try for that same comment. Telling a kid you appreciate how neatly she is writing will improve the chances of her continuing to write neatly. We all love to be noticed and praised, and intense kids need much more praise than other kids do. Praise is cheap, quick, and efficient.

One of my third grade tutoring students is having a horrendous time in school right now. EOG madness is reaching its peak and teachers are going into high gear. He's getting into lots of trouble. I asked him one day, if HE were designing a school, how would it be different? After we got past candy for lunch and Pepsi in the water fountains, he had some great ideas. He just needed to move around more, he said. And he'd like to have work that he could understand. He very seldom gets praised or called upon, because he is a trouble-maker. He's a smart kid with supportive parents and he should be a success. Perhaps we should look at why he isn't succeeding and make some changes. Perhaps our schools should be more open to students who learn differently. If we did, I think we'd find we needed to spend less time on discipline and remediation and we'd see some kids bloom and learn. I'd like to see that day come soon.

Teaching kids to read, one by one

One of the things I am proud of is the Augustine Project. I'm proud that I started it and I'm proud that I was chair of the hiring committee that hired Debbie McCarthy. Without her, the AP wouldn't be in three states and several cities; it wouldn't have trained hundreds of tutors or helped hundreds of kids. And I'm proud of the tutors who give up two weeks of their time to take our grueling training so they cam give at least sixty hours of time to a low-income child with reading problems.

With the help of the Diocese of NC's Bishop Michael Curry, the AP applied for and received a $100,000 Jessie Ball DuPont grant to be split over five years between the three diocesan AP projects, in Chapel Hill/Durham, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem. This video features Bishop Curry and Debbie talking about the grant and the project's inception and growth.

Early grant givers were hesitant to give us money because the AP only helped one child at a time. But one child at a time adds up. Tutor Dan Toth has worked with over 25 children alone. The Talmud says "To change one life is to change the world," and these tutors have changed a lot of worlds. This grant, given during a time of funding uncertainty for many nonprofits, means more tutors can be trained and more children can be helped.

Our replication policy can be found on the project website. If you are interested in knowing more about starting an Augustine Project in your town, Church of the Holy Family, Chapel Hill, NC, is hosting a replication workshop on Friday, March 26, 2010, from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. Lunch will be provided and directors from other programs will be present. Come hear more about it. It may be your turn to change a few worlds!

Celebrate!Calm

You may have gathered it from reading this blog already, but if you haven't, daughter #2 is what educator Kirk Martin calls an "intense child." Eight months in NC's wonderful Wright School helped, but day-to-day maintenance is critical and exhausting. With a child like this, there is no margin for error.

Schools, any schools, have even less patience for intense kids. They present as defiant, oppositional and rude. It's hard to see how terrified they really are. Schools are incredibly user-unfriendly to these kids and new models for interacting are needed, both at home and school.

I attended one of Kirk Martin's Celebrate!Calm workshops last week, and was astounded to hear him describing my child and the interactions we have in our home. The school cafeteria we met in was half-full, and all the other parents were nodding along with me. Martin describes his organization:

Based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., Celebrate!Calm is a world-renowned educational organization that provides science-based training for educators, parents and children. While the research-based interventions help all children learn more effectively, the organization specializes in working with children affected by Aspergers, Autism, Sensory Integration, Opposition Defiant Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, OCD, ADD, ADHD and other learning or emotional difficulties.

The two hours were packed with information, which I found trustworthy because it was so similar to Wright School's methodology. Martin sells his CD series for what he admits is an exorbitant amount of money, partially because he wants it to hurt enough that people will listen to and use them. I knew I couldn't afford it, but then he announced a special individual price for people in financial need. I approached him at the break and we agreed on a very reasonable amount that I promised him still hurt considerably.

His sessions are free to participants and there is no real pressure to buy the CD's, which are worth every penny I spent on them. There is a set for teachers, for dads, for married couples and some for everyone. Check out his website and see if he's coming to your area. If you parent or teach an intense child, put it on your calendar. You won't regret it.

Why educating children isn't like making cars

Great video about why using a factory model for educating children isn't either efficient or practical. The CHCCS system might want to be reminded of this as they make the decision that all students should be educated to go to college.

Time for a new kind of school

I thought I had found the perfect school for D#2 and one that actually tempted me back into teaching in a school setting. I had found my dream job. Except . . . . it wasn't. Nor was it a good place for her. Not a bad school, just not the right school. So, that behind us, we're off to the next wonderful school.

Where, you might ask? I'm asking too. For a child like my daughter, and for many other children, there is no wonderful school. Many kids can go on to be successful if they can just make it through the ordeal we call education. What is needed is a different kind of school. Will someone please start one?

Uh, me? Are you talking to me? Can I actually start a school? My friend Meredith put it this way: "You thought you had found your dream job. Perhaps you were dreaming too small."

So here's the dream under its working name:

Just Right Academy is a private elementary and middle school geared to children who need structure, consistency and positive reinforcement, remediation and a multi-sensory way of learning, more movement, and reduced stress. Students receive direct small group and/or individual instruction in reading, math and language arts, along with integrated social studies, science, art, music, and drama. In some areas a student may need intense remediation, while in others he or she may need to be challenged. Social skills are directly taught and constantly reinforced. Learning to serve is an important value and there are daily opportunities for this along with monthly service Fridays. Movement breaks and physical activities are built into the schedule. A high school curriculum may be added later if the need is there.

Unnecessary stressors such as homework, high-stakes testing, and inappropriately difficult and/or busy work are not part of the program. But because life is not stress-free, techniques and strategies are taught to help students deal with the inevitable stressors and frustrating situations in their lives.

JRA’s core philosophy is that of Nicholas Hobbes’ Twelve Re-ED principles:

l. Life is to be lived now, not in the past, and lived in the future only as a present challenge. All children come with a history, but it is essential that it doesn’t haunt them in their present school setting. Every day, every hour, is an opportunity to start fresh.

2. Trust between child and adult is essential. In order for learning to happen, adults must be seen as reliable and trustworthy allies with predictable and consistent behaviors. A culture of trust and consistency must exist among the adults before the children ever begin at the school, and a commonality of philosophy is critical.

3. Competence makes a difference, and children and adolescents should be helped to be good at something, and especially at schoolwork. Some children require direct teaching and multisensory learning in order to become competent at reading and math. Other opportunities for competence are regularly offered.

4. Time is an ally, working on the side of growth in a period of development when life has a tremendous forward thrust. The brain is maturing in children and many just need a safe place to develop skills and competencies that might develop with time on their own.

5. Self-control can be taught and children and adolescents helped to manage their behavior without the development of psychodynamic insight. We are not psychotherapists nor are we a day treatment program, but all humans have behaviors that must be unlearned and replaced with more productive behavior, no matter the reason they occur.

6. Intelligence can be taught. Intelligence is a dynamic, evolving, and malleable capacity for making good choices in living. Problem-solving, both with academics and relationships, can and should be taught. Practice in making good choices is constant.

7. Feelings should be nurtured, shared spontaneously, controlled when necessary, expressed when too long repressed, and explored with trusted others. An atmosphere of honesty allows children to share through writing, drama, art and conversation. Constant coaching helps children learn to control the actions their feelings may cause.

8. The group is very important to young people, and it can become a major source of instruction in growing up. A healthy group can be a source of support and reinforcement to a struggling child. Older children can assist younger ones, thus gaining self-confidence in the process. Peers who cooperate rather than compete can be a source of strength and learning.

9. Ceremony and ritual give order, stability, and confidence to troubled children and adolescents, whose lives are often in considerable disarray. All people find comfort in predictability and ritual. Though out time, cultures have created rituals to help them through times of disequilibrium and transition, and so we do as well.

10. The body is the armature of the self, the physical self around which the psychological self is constructed. Children need to move, both in play, work and physical challenge, and all these are built into JRA’s program. It may be recess, gardening, sports coaching, working, or hiking, but movement is central to our program.

11. Communities are important for children and youth, but the uses and benefits of community must be experienced to be learned. Communities come with responsibilities as well as benefits, and so each child contributes each day by doing chores. Monthly service Fridays expand the community. Students help plan celebrations and support each other in many ways.

12. A child should know some joy in each day and look forward to some joyous event for the morrow. Every child should experience some joy in school every day, whether it’s a game at recess, mastering a difficult concept, reading with a dog, or celebrating one of our many holidays such as Squirrel Appreciation Day, King Tut Day, Jackie Robinson’s birthday, Cherry Pie Day, or World Penguin Day.

Is this something I can do myself? I'm not crazy. Wonderful people have come forward and there are more of you out there, people who may hold a small or large piece of this school and not even know it. We are in the process of forming a nonprofit and putting together a board of directors. While we will have to charge tuition, we want to have lots of scholarships so that all children who need this kind of setting can come. This is not a day treatment program for troubled kids; we want all kinds of children who need structure, consistency, movement, positivity, and strong academics.

Here are some needs:

1. a building; we are looking at one this week, but are open to all suggestions in Durham, Orange or northern Chatham.

2. financial donations, especially after we get nonprofit status.

3. donations of children's books, educational materials in good condition. We are especially interested in Saxon math materials and any math manipulatives.

4. Play tables

5. Someone to create a website

6. Someone to create a brochure

7. People who would be interested in serving on a committee: bylaws, curriculum, renovating and building (bookshelves, etc), fundraising, admissions, outreach, calendar

8. Prayers

9. Computer wizards and computers

10. People who can set up matching giving plans at their companies

11. Legos, K'nex, Lincoln Logs, any building toys, Playmobile sets, especially historical ones

12. Educational puzzles, especially wooden ones

13. Hot Dots materials

14. Wilson Reading systems materials, especially magnet boards and card packs

15. Office supplies such as staplers, paper cutters, scissors, markers, etc.

16. Corporate partners

17. students

We'd like to open in the fall 2010. What we want is a school for kids who could be superstars with the proper support and coaching. I know they are out there and I know most schools can't meet their needs. I have taught some in the past, I tutor some now, and I'm related to several. These kids can change the world if we can give them the leg up they need. Let me know if you want to help or you have a student who is a superstar in the making.

Inspiration

Today at Jordan Lake School of the Arts, D. J. Svoboda talked to our students. D. J., age 27, is an adult artist living with autism. As a child he was picked on and bullied by classmates, so he created a happier place to be called Imagiville. Imagiville is filled with wondrous creatures, colorful and friendly, always encouraging and never mean. The weather is always great and the fruit is always sweet. D. J. began drawing the inhabitants of Imagiville, practicing until he could draw them just as he imagined them. Imagifriends are intricate and totally engaging. As D. J. says, "They come in many sizes, colors, and designs. None of them are ever mean or cruel. They each have their own special job and purpose in Imagiville. Every Imagifriend knows that as long as they have a kind heart, it does not matter what they look like."

D. J. wasn't content to just doodle away for his own entertainment. He had a larger purpose and a dream. He wanted to market his creations and to spread the word that it's okay to be different and that we all have things to do. And so he set out to do just that. He now sells reproductions of his creatures, along with a story book, a coloring book, mouse pads, tote bags, mugs and cards. He has an Iphone app and contracts with PBS's Arthur, Sesame Street, and Southwest Airlines.

As the kids listened today, I could tell they were absolutely enthralled. I don't blame them; I was as well. Many of the kids at JLSA have had the hope educated out of them, and here was a young man who had been through similar ordeals and had turned his pain into an asset. I don't think we've seen the last of this guy. I'm glad I can say I knew him before he hit the big time!

anxiety, depression and school?

My cousin Rosemoon Mecho just posted this great article about the correlation between anxiety and depression in children and adolescents and traditional schooling. I thought it made many good points and certainly holds true with my two very different children as well as most of my students. Take a look.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/37511

February's rant

Hey, I know it's early in the month, but I'm iced in and doing a lot of reading. You know what really annoys me? People, especially editors, who rely on spellcheck and don't check to make sure they have the correct word, whether it's a homophone or just a close match. This one is audience participation. Send me your examples of bad editing. I'll start us off with an example from February 1, 2010, a wral.com article on John Edwards: But he eventually became disillusioned when it was obvious the affair wasn't ending and that Edwards was less than discrete about it. We all know that John Edwards wasn't particularly discreet about his illicit affair; unfortunately that doesn't make him individually distinct. Now let me spell-check this and make sure I've spelled everything correctly!

January's Rant

I rebelled against homework at an early age. As an undiagnosed ADD dyslexic, all it did was made me feel stupid. So I just said no. The classes weren't that hard and I'd do the reading. But I wasn't about to do any math or French. No one wanted me a second time, so I surfed along from grade to grade with low but passing grades. My senior year, Col. Walker, who taught us economics and Problems of American Democracy (an anti-communism course with a text written by J. Edgar Hoover), called my bluff the day before my not-yet-begun research paper was due. I pulled my first all-nighter and turned in a poorly written paper that allowed me to graduate.

I hated homework then, but that pales to how much I hate it as a parent. (A disclaimer here: as a teacher, I assigned homework. I believed in it. I was wrong.) I promise you, homework was not invented by the parent of a special needs child. Every day the school would send me home an exhausted, grouchy fifth grader and expect her to do geometry (she can't multiply), write essays (she first needs to learn to write a single good sentence) or some other equally undoable assignment. Family time was nonexistent. The week a close friend was dying, I wrote the school and told them that homework would not be a priority, that during that week we would be concentrating on our friend and our family. I got a return email explaining that homework was an expectation and not doing it would result in D#2's not being able to fully participate in class. Bad parent!

Homework is one of those ideas that sounds good in theory: practicing skills, involving the parents in the child's education, and learning time management. It might surprise you to learn that there is very little correlation between homework and those things. Instead, homework strains families, frustrates kids and is generally not meaningful enough to be done at school. Internationally, the countries that show the highest academic scores—Japan, the Czech Republic, and Denmark—assign very little homework. The countries at the bottom of the list generally assign much more.

During the time that a child should be playing outside, exploring interests, developing passions, and learning how to interact socially, many kids are spending up to three hours a night on homework—and that's in elementary school. Parents often feel obliged to be heavily involved. Indeed, in affluent school systems, the demand for homework is very often parent-driven. But this means that children from single-parent, non English speaking, or low income families may not have that parental involvement. When homework is necessary to participate in class, these kids find themselves at a disadvantage, thus widening the ever-growing gap between privileged learners and those who aren't for whatever reason.

More and more educators are starting to see the harm that excessive and unnecessary homework can do. In a thoughtful article called "Rethinking Homework", a principal talks about three important facts about homework: the negative effects of homework are well-known, the positive effects of homework are largely mythical, and more homework is being piled on students despite its lack of value. He goes on to make recommendations as to how homework can be improved.

One of the articles he quotes, "Homework Hell", talks about homework from a parent's point of view. She rails against the craft-type homework that requires late night runs to Wal-Mart. I join her in feeling admiration for the child who demonstrates higher level thinking skills in doing as little as possible on a particularly silly project: Assigned to construct a relief map of one of the 50 states out of plaster of Paris, the boy chose Nebraska. He made a flat rectangle. As his aunt said, "You've got to love a kid who puts into the assignment exactly the effort it's worth."

Homework almost sent my child and me over the edge. I feel very fortunate to have been able to pull her from her homework-loving school and put her in a school where lots of learning takes place, but no homework is assigned. Her anxiety has plummeted. Interestingly, she occasionally can be found after school doing research and writing stories and reports. She brought home a book she is interested in reading. The pressure is off; let the learning begin.

We have a name for adults who work all day and then continue at home as well: workaholics. We know that is not healthy. I hope someday we will realize that is equally true for children and let them spend their afternoons and evenings learning in experiential and active ways. Until then, perhaps more of us should just say no.

An old favorite

Many of my students eventually can break down and read longer words like astonishment or transatlantic. After all, they are phonetically regular and distinctive in appearance. What trips them up are those small words like of, could, from, who. I like to help kids practice those words by using Dr. Seuss books. My favorite is Green Eggs and Ham.

After Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat, which contained 225 words, his publisher Bennett Cerf bet him $50 that he could not write a book with just fifty different words. The author rose to the occasion, not just writing a book that fit the criteria, but managing to write one that has been beloved by children for fifty years. Of the fifty words, forty-nine are single syllables, the only exception being anywhere. Forty-six of the fifty are Germanic words, ones that don't always follow phonetic patterns but are critical to reading. Dr. Seuss switches the order to keep kids (and parents) on their toes: Could you, would you? while the next line may read, would you, could you? Students must pay attention to those little words in this book. And because the words are used over and over again, the student gets plenty of practice with those difficult words. This is also a great example of a book that could be used for phonological awareness, especially for rhyming.

My father, the one in charge of breakfast in our house, occasionally cooked us green eggs and ham. I was never sure whether it was on purpose or due to the copper pan he used. But there are recipes available if you want to cook it for your children. One can also find many extension activities on the web.

Time spent with Dr. Seuss is never wasted time, but it's especially well-spent with struggling readers.

Not for the easily offended . . .

I never know what will motivate a particular student in the beginning. D., one of my kids with autism, informed me from the beginning that he didn't do games. He just wanted to get the tutoring over with and he stoically endured whatever I asked him to do, as long as it wasn't games. He seemed totally uninterested in learning to read. That changed when we got to consonant digraphs.

As my students should be able to tell you, a consonant digraph is two letters that make one sound. We had finished with sh and were working on -ck, always a dangerous one with seventh grade boys. I placed the letter tiles to make the word ship on the magnet board. He read it in his usual monotone voice. Suddenly he froze, staring at the word. I waited, curious as to what had finally captured his attention. His hand reached out and replaced the p with a t. Then he looked up at me questioningly. "Yes," I said, "that says exactly what you think it does. But we don't use words like that in tutoring." I put the magnets back in their places, trying hard to keep a straight face.

A few minutes later, I noticed the -ck tile was missing. I didn't say anything. But when the f tile went missing as well, I put on my stern voice. "D., you need to put those back. I said we didn't use words like that." His face was so crestfallen that I couldn't stand it. "But if we did," I continued, "what vowel would you use?" "U! u! u!" he shouted. "I've always wanted to know how to spell those words!"

He never again tried out dirty words on me. But he had a whole new interest in learning to read. Within three years this nonreader was reading on a twelfth grade level. Sometimes it's all in the motivation.

See Spot Read

This week I got to observe a really cool program called See Spot Read. Therapy dogs and their owners show up at schools that request them and let children read to the dogs. It's easy to see that for a struggling reader, reading to a dog would be less threatening and much more fun. Two dogs came to our school and one child read Jake the lab Green Eggs and Ham, while Shadow the golden retriever was treated to a guitar "concert" by a nonreader. The service is free and all dog owners are volunteers.

I love innovative programs that make reading fun for children. And I salute these volunteers who give up their times to train their dogs and let them make children smile.