Category / School Stuff

by nflanagan

Memorial Day 2023– Thanks, Band Directors

I’m not much of a flag waver, really. I always thought that author James Baldwin captured my feelings precisely in Notes of a Native Son when he wrote:

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

These days, perpetual criticism is essential. We are headed into dark times, I think, redefining the meaning of patriotism and sacrifice. It’s easy to lose faith in our government and the grand experiment—all men created equal—that founded this nation. It’s easy to let hope die when our rights have been systematically eroded by power-hungry politicians. When our children are not able to read certain books or study our actual national history, we’re in trouble.

I still believe, however, heart and soul, in the shining but imperfect ideals of a democratic education –equality under the law, the American common school, a free, high-quality education for all children, simply because they deserve it. Thirty years of teaching school have given me a hard crust of cynicism about many things related to education and America. But I never lost my enthusiasm for the Memorial Day parade.

For 25 years, my middle school band students marched through the small town where I taught and lived, in the Memorial Day Parade. There was a whole set of traditions around this event, which grew larger and more complicated every year: the aural passing down of our special drum cadences from the self-appointed 8th grade drumline leaders, mending the color guard flags originally purchased through a pizza sale back in ’88, and patching up hand-me-down snares and sousaphones scrounged from the high school.

There was never a budget for this–middle schools don’t typically have marching bands–but somehow there were always T-shirts, and cold drinks at the end of the parade route. We had a stunning handmade banner that two moms whipped up with lots of lamé and sequins. In my last year, we marched nearly 300 students, on a morning when the sky was a sapphire blue and Air Force jets flew overhead as we rounded the corner by the cemetery.

This took up a fair amount of teaching time. I would get on my knees and beg colleagues for 20 minutes on the Friday before the parade, to assemble five bands into a single marching unit and take a few spins around the parking lot. One year, as I was trying to get the back of the band to master pinwheel corners, the front rank (rambunctious 8th grade trombones) marched right up the sidewalk, opened the front doors, and led the band, playing America the Beautiful at top volume, through the school hallways. By the time I sprinted up to the head of the band (and the principal popped, red-faced, out of his office), marching through the school was a done deal–and became yet another annual tradition.

I was always clear with my students about the meaning and purpose of Memorial Day. They would occasionally whine about how boring America the Beautiful was–Mr. Holland’s band played Louie, Louie, right? I explained that they were old enough to dedicate a morning to thanking local patriots and acknowledging the sacrifices made by Americans over centuries. Older people, watching them march by, would be pleased to hear traditional music. It was about respect.

We do this, I told them, to remember and honor those who made it possible for you to live in this beautiful little town, in this safe world. People like my Uncle Don, who died in February 1945, part of the Fourth Marine Division which stormed Iwo Jima. Or Ray Shineldecker and Joey Hoeker, two high school classmates who lost their lives in Viet Nam. I had lots of funny stories to tell about Joey, who lived around the corner in my old neighborhood–a big, goofy kid who was what guidance counselors in the 1960s called “not college material.”

On our last band trip to Washington D.C., after performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I was loading tympani onto the buses as my students toured the Mall. A few girls came running up, calling “Mrs. Flanagan! We found him!” Found who, I asked.

Joey Hoeker, of course–on the Wall. And I lost it, right in front of all those kids.

I thank those who served and sacrificed so I can love my country, and criticize it, too. A hat tip to all the band teachers and student musicians who help make Memorial Day meaningful this weekend. And to hero teachers and band directors everywhere– donating yet another weekend to the community –please keep teaching, in spite of everything.

And another hat tip to community bands, providing the same service. I’ll be in Northport, Michigan on Memorial Day–playing Taps from the porch of another flutist, then settling in the cemetery, to play the National Anthem, Sousa marches–and a tribute to the Armed Services. Join us at 10:30 a.m. You won’t be sorry.

by nflanagan

Would You Recognize a Good Lesson If You Saw It?

Here’s a scary headline: Michigan Democrats Look to Change Teacher Evaluation System.

Not so much the “Democrats” part—although I’d argue that not having a clue about evaluating teachers is common in both parties—but the implication that way fewer than 99% of public school teachers are doing acceptable work:

Consider: During the 2021-2022 school year, 99 percent of Michigan teachers were ranked either highly effective or effective on evaluations.

State Rep. Matt Koleszar, D-Plymouth, chair of the House Education Committee, told Bridge Michigan the state’s teacher evaluation system often leads to school administrators “checking a box” as they monitor teachers rather than using the process to help struggling teachers improve.

“I think when you have a better evaluation system and you’re supporting someone who needs that help and needs (those) resources, that ultimately is going to (filter down) to the student.”

I am decidedly NOT a fan of basing any percentage of a teacher’s evaluation on standardized test scores (it’s 40% in Michigan, under our current, Republican-developed system). And I am a true believer in the statement that teacher practice can be improved—and a good evaluation system (plus—key point—the time, trained personnel and resources to implement such a system) could help.

With so many moving parts, and the current handwringing (and bogus data) around low test scores in students emerging from a global pandemic, re-doing teacher evaluations which might be in place for decades seems precarious at the moment.

The questions, really, are: What are we looking for, in a teacher? What skills and qualities do good teachers exhibit—and are they measurable, with the tools we currently use? What outcomes are most critical for students—and what (easily measured) outcomes disappear quickly?

When the legislature can agree on answers to these questions—with input from the education community and invested parents, of course—let me know. Cynicism aside, how do we streamline teacher evaluation in ways that make it easy to capture and share expertise, help promising teachers build their practice, and excise the folks who shouldn’t be there?

There is, by the way, no shortage of ideas and research around teacher improvement; our international counterparts are already doing a better job of this. Anyone who’s looked at Japanese Lesson Study models, or meta-analyses on building effective learning environments knows this—but investing in viable teacher evaluation systems that also build capacity will not come about with a new written tool or protocol. It will take a new mindset.

Because I spent many years looking at videos of music teachers, while serving as a developer for the National Board’s music assessment, I also understand that there are limitations in evaluating teachers by observing their lessons.

For example: You have to know what the teacher’s learning goals were, going into the lesson, and have some context around who’s in the room. The core competency for nearly all teaching is knowing the students in front of you. You can’t build effective lessons without that knowledge. And that’s hard to evaluate.

I used to teach with a man who didn’t bother to learn the students’ names, because the classes were large—60 or more. His rationale was that learning names was time that could be better spent delivering content. He delivered a whole lot of content, all right, but never got great results, because there was no human relationship glue inspiring students to use that content.

Try to put that into an evaluation tool.

Dr. Mary Kennedy, one of my grad school professors, had a video library of teachers teaching. She would usually show two videos, and then ask us to compare and contrast—and roughly evaluate.  One pair of videos (and discussion) that I remember:

  • A man in a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts and flip-flops is facilitating a hands-on science experiment with a half-dozen groups of middle school students, clustered around lab tables. The room is noisy as students manipulate equipment and fill out lab reports, but the teacher is wearing a mic that picks up his comments and students’ questions as he moves from table to table. Several times, when students ask a direct question, he turns it back to them—What do YOU think? Why? Once, he claps his hands and asks the entire class to re-examine the stated purpose of the experiment. There is a beat of quiet, and then students are back to talking and writing. The video picks up students who appear to be off-task, as well, looking at the camera or talking to someone at another table.
  • A young woman is teaching a HS literature class. She is well-dressed and very articulate. The video begins with a Q & A exchange about the assigned reading, with a young man wearing a navy blazer and tie. The questions probe facts from the text—Who is the real victim in this chapter? Does this take place before or after the barn-raising scene and why is that important to the narrative? —and the young man has clearly done the reading, as his answers are all correct. The camera moves back and we see there are about eight teenaged boys in the class, all in blazers. She cold-calls the students, in turn, and they all answer her questions correctly. Other than the questions and short answers, the class is silent.

After watching the two videos, Dr. Kennedy asked: Which was the best lesson? Who was the best teacher? The class was vehemently divided—and remember, these were all graduate students in education. Imagine showing two similar videos to a legislator or one of the Moms 4 Liberty— then asking them to pick out the “best” teacher.

Ironically, the current quest to limit controversy and hot topics in public school classrooms makes it even more difficult to evaluate teacher practice. The best lessons—the ones that stick—are often messy and hard-won. And our best teachers—articulate, student-focused and creative—are being shut down by the very people designing their evaluation procedures.

We used to laugh at the inadequate teacher evaluation checklists—Is the teacher dressed neatly and well-groomed?—prevalent in the 1970s. But we haven’t solved the problem of how to evaluate all teachers fairly and productively. Yet.

by nflanagan

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and my Middle School Band

With the passing of Gordon Lightfoot, I have been surprised and touched by the number of folks posting Lightfoot lyrics and links. They’re not all aging folkies, either—lots of them are in their 30s and 40s, and some are my former students.

That’s gratifying. One of my best memories about teaching comes from a Gordon Lightfoot song—“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

It’s worth mentioning that the saga of the Edmund Fitzgerald is very much a Michigan story. When you grow up surrounded by the Great Lakes, you’ve probably spent a vacation or two watching freighters go through locks, or traverse the sightlines in front of your rented cottage. The sinking of the freighter—when the witch of November comes stealin’—has just the right combination of tragedy and seaborne terror to capture the imagination of schoolchildren.

But it is Lightfoot’s ballad, which was released in 1976, exactly one year after the vessel sank, that has kept the tale in memory. Lightfoot considered the song his masterpiece, and I agree. He captures the terrifying scene and the details of the voyage pretty accurately, while giving us lines like:

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Listening to the song gives me chills, even today.

 When the song was released, I was teaching in Hartland (I was pretty much always teaching in Hartland…), and the students wanted to play it. I knew what was likely to happen, but when a band arrangement was eventually released—which often occurs years after the song was popular– I bought it.

The beauty of the song (and it IS beautiful) lies in the words. There are only four measures of thematic melodic material (in 12/8 time). There are some slight melodic variations in the intro and interlude, but it’s the same four measures, the same five-chord sequence, through the whole song. Musically speaking, it’s static (that’s a polite word). Lightfoot (and pop/rock artists everywhere) take these music fragments and make them come expressively alive with lyrics and production tricks—wailing guitar improvisations, synthesized backgrounds, strings. But mostly—people are listening to the words.

When the musical palette is “middle school band,” however, there’s not much you can do to vary what becomes the same short tune over and over and over. The kids, after learning the song (which didn’t take long), recognized that: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was repetitive and (here comes that word) boring. A whole lot of long notes.  

But–here’s the Lightfoot magic–we turned that band arrangement into a different lesson, around the two questions:

  • Why is the Gordon Lightfoot song so cool and moving, and the band arrangement so…static?
  • What could we add to or change in the band arrangement to make it more interesting, more like the GL song?

It was a great, inspired, discussion– resulting in percussion mallets on brake drums to add noises that sounded like ship’s gear. Someone brought in a ship’s bell, which we added to the intro and final measures. We improvised vocal noises like roaring wind. We fussed with the dynamics–to try to tell a powerful story without words, just moody chords and phrase shaping. We even put bits of the lyrics in the program, and two students read a verse to introduce the song to the audience. (It’s a long song.)

It was also a chance to learn about ballads, and music as storytelling. It turned into the most memorable piece on the concert, judging by parent and student feedback.

Rest well, Gordon Lightfoot. Michigan thanks you.

by nflanagan

Are Schools Responsible for the Racist Behaviors of Students?

In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps his eye on us all… Paul Simon, My Little Town

I spent the bulk of my teaching career—over 30 years—in a single small town in southeastern Michigan. When I started teaching there, the district was distinctly rural. There were several farmers on the school board, including one who came to board meetings in overalls. When I was hired, my principal described the district as the far edge of white flight.

Over time, a lot of that farmland was carved up into new subdivisions and a 600-lot mobile home park—folks moving out of the inner suburban ring around Detroit, looking for good schools and politically conservative neighbors. I thought about my principal’s remark all the time: white flight.

There was racism, all right. I experienced it in my own family. But I was never afraid to talk openly to my students about diversity and equity. Teaching music, I was determined to open their minds to the roots of the music they were marinating in.

I liked my students—and I liked the teachers I worked with. We probably didn’t talk about discrimination and intolerance as much as we might have; some of my former students, now adults, have shared their resentment at how relentlessly white and narrow-minded their classmates and neighbors were.

And it’s gotten worse, I believe, although I no longer live there. The elected school board has grown more conservative—and more vocal about issues du jour, including racism, sexual preferences, to mask or not to mask–and dealing with student discipline.  These days, there is a local incarnation of Moms 4 Banning Stuff, and packed, heated board meetings.

Now, the district is being sued over claims of racial harassment:

A former Hartland High School student is suing the school district and three district administrators, over what she claims was a relentless and cruel pattern of racism directed at her and other Black students while she attended the school.

Tatayana Vanderlaan, now 20, filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District that claims Hartland Consolidated School District and administrators were negligent in failing to stop racist attacks that included students saying Vanderlaan “should get lynched.”

The suit describes repeated racism directed at Vanderlaan from the time she first entered Hartland High in 2019. Vanderlaan says white schoolmates directed racial slurs at her, including the N-word, and that administrators did not address the behavior, even as it escalated.

Vanderlaan says she’s seeking “accountability,” a word that strikes me as rather perfect—isn’t accountability the holy grail of all the school reforms we’ve been chasing for decades? And furthermore, just who is to blame for vile and racist behaviors in students? Are they being held accountable?

The behaviors are vile and racist—confederate flags, the N-word, lynching threats, references to the plantation and hurtful ridicule referencing personal appearance. The taunts happened at school, but also on social media. Administrators are named in the suit, and teachers painted as dismissive.

The U.S. Attorney’s office also opened an investigation, after Vanderlaan filed a complaint. I am not surprised that former students and those still attending this school described other racist incidents to investigators. Some things, I suppose, never change.

But who’s responsible?

I want to believe that teachers would interrupt these behaviors, that at least some students would stand up for what is right. But in another little Michigan town,  two brothers wore ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sweatshirts to school. They were ordered by teachers and an assistant principal to remove them, because they were vulgar and profane—and for that seemingly appropriate action, the school has been sued by the boys’ mother, for suppressing their First Amendment rights:

The slogan…has become a popular form of political commentary, appearing on T-shirts and bumper stickers and is chanted at right-leaning rallies, the lawsuit says. Even members of Congress have used the phrase during speeches on the House floor, the suit states, yet no one has been censored or punished.

So—if Congressional reps are making vile and/or racist remarks, it’s now OK in middle schools?

It would be nice to think that the courts would support public school educators in their quest to keep schools from being overrun by ugly “free speech” that disrupts the learning process—and trust me, vulgar and racist speech have the capacity to do just that. Big time.

It would also be nice to think that policymakers could have an impact on hate speech and resulting violence. But making laws is one thing—getting people to believe they are fair and useful, and willingly follow them, is another.

The small town where I used to live and teach is in Livingston County—which has just declared itself a “Constitutional County” (spoiler: there’s no such thing). According to the Sheriff, a Constitutional County’s policing personnel do not have to enforce laws they find “unconstitutional”—specifically, a package of gun safety laws recently passed by the State Legislature. So there’s that.

Something has changed in this country, all right. Respect for the rule of law, respect for civic order and civil speech, respect for all our fellow citizens.

Just who are we going to hold accountable?

In my little town
I never meant nothing, I was just my father’s son.
Saving my money
Dreamin’ of glory
Twitching like a finger on a trigger of a gun

Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town

by nflanagan

Teaching 101: Lesson Planning in TX

Here’s a truism that educators repeat endlessly (and, apparently, fruitlessly): Just because you went to school, doesn’t mean that you understand how schools work.

It applies to all the logistical and philosophical details about schooling, from busing to teacher prep to grading. Just because you had three recesses per day in elementary school doesn’t mean that kids in 2023 have that essential play built into their days. Just because you took Algebra I in ninth grade doesn’t mean that your seventh grader won’t have single-variable equations in their homework packet. Just because teaching seemed easy (or dreadful) to you, as a child or teenager, doesn’t mean that anybody can do it.

And so on. You don’t know what’s going on in schools—or why—unless you’re there all the time and have deep knowledge of education policy and practice.

In a wonderful piece in his eponymously named blog, Tom Ultican writes about a deal going down in Texas:

 Under this new legislation, the state of Texas is contracting with Amplify to write the curriculum according to TEA guidelines. Amplify will also provide daily lesson plans for all teachers. The idea is to educate all Texas children using digital devices and scripted lesson plans while teachers are tasked with monitoring student progress.

This, of course, is not new at all. Education publishers and nonprofits have been hawking standards / curricula / benchmarks / instructional materials / “innovative” reforms—all of them ‘aligned’—for decades, ramping up this effort post-NCLB, and culminating in the Great National Project to Standardize Everything, the Common Core.

Tom does a superb job of deconstructing the fallacy of one-size-fits-all lesson plans, as well as giving his readers a heads-up about Who Not to Trust in Ed World and what they really want.

I was struck by this quote from the so-called Coalition for Education Excellence (“Reducing teacher workloads with State support”):

“Many teachers in Texas are currently working two jobs—designing lessons and teaching them—which is contributing to their exhaustion and teacher shortages. Access to high-quality instructional material can reduce teacher workloads and play a critical role in delivering quality education.”

I have no doubt that many Texas teacher are actually working two jobs, given that the minimum salary for 5th-year TX teachers (who have certainly created lots of lesson plans at the point) is less than $40K. I imagine asking that 5th year teacher if he would rather have more money or free (mandated) lesson plans, courtesy of Texas, which has already spent more than $50 million on the pre-designed, screen-ready lessons from Amplify.

Here’s where the lack of insider knowledge—”just because you went to school…”—comes in, at the intersection of curriculum and instruction. I guess that free (mandated) lesson plans might sound like a good idea to someone whose conception of instruction was formed by the conveyor belt of students with flip-top heads featured in “Waiting for Superman,” another artifact of the roiling education reform dialogue.

No amount of marketing pomposity can change the fact that teachers, in order to be effective, need some control over their professional work. Effective teaching goes like this:

  • Get to know the students you’re responsible for—their strengths, their shortcomings, their quirks. Let them know you care about them, and intend to teach them something worthwhile.
  • Using that knowledge, design and teach lessons to move them forward. Persist, when your first attempts fail or produce mediocre results. Check on their learning frequently, but let them know that you’re checking in order to choose the right thing to do next—not to punish, or label them. Re-design lessons using another learning mode, accelerate, cycle back to review, pull out stragglers for another crack at core content, challenge those who have mastered the content and skill with enrichment activities—and do all of this simultaneously, every hour of the school day.

In other words, designing lessons and teaching them cannot be separated, if you’re hoping to create a coherent curriculum or motivated learners. They’re entirely dependent on the students in front of you. Removing one of the two from the equation makes it harder, and more time-consuming, if the goal is crafting a learning classroom.

One of the phony reasons for adopting the Amplify curriculum TX state legislators have been fed is that students were being taught “below grade-level content.” 

It would be easy for those without experience as educators to assume that kids in Texas were being short-changed, left behind, by feckless teachers lazily spoon-feeding them easy subject matter.

There might be actual reasons for this: some curricula is best understood and applied when taught sequentially. A sharp teacher, getting to know her students, can identify gaps and address those before moving to the next stage—a far better and more efficacious plan than starting with whatever the state has designated as “grade-level.”

The grade-level curricula may be inappropriate for some kids (special education students spring to mind here). It may have been set by people who haven’t been in a classroom in decades, or don’t understand what the pandemic—or poverty—have done to students in any given state or town.

Lesson planning and its partner, effective instruction, are things that teachers get better at, year after year. They are a central part of what it means to be a good teacher. Taking lesson planning away from an entire statewide public school system is not an act designed to make teachers’ lives easier.

It’s about control over what gets taught.

by nflanagan

Where Does Your State Rank? Your School?

When I was in graduate school, I had a professor who had recently moved to East Lansing, and was searching for the best elementary school for her daughter.  Michigan has long had school of choice language—intra-district and between public school districts, with some conditions.  She shared her experience in visiting a half-dozen local schools with my class—which ‘points of pride’ they promoted, how they welcomed new families, what the vibe was when touring the buildings.

If they led off with their high test scores, she said, we immediately rejected them from consideration. What we were looking for was a lively atmosphere, a diverse student body, a school leader who introduced us to teachers and students, and whether they asked questions about my daughter and her interests.

It was a class in education policy analysis. Every week, we were reading data-loaded books and detailed monographs about comparative school success. I was older than most of the students, and my children were in college, but my classmates often had school-age children. They were invested in good local schools for their kids, as well.

To hear a trusted professor say that she wandered around on school playgrounds talking to kids, and didn’t really care about how many computer labs they had–that was a thing, 15 years ago–was a bit of a shock. The professor and her spouse (who were white) ended up choosing the school with the lowest test scores and the highest percentage of children of color.

I trust my gut, she told us. Stuff like student artwork and kids happily practicing plays in the hallways means more to me than an extra four point-something in their statewide assessment scores.

Now—it’s worth noting that East Lansing is a majority-white town and home to a large university campus. While there are pockets of poverty, discrepancies in test data, economic differences and ethnic diversity are smaller than they might be in other places.

Still—her “I trust my gut” remark stuck with me. I think about it all the time, especially when I read articles like this: Michigan ranks 27th on 2023 national education ranking.

There’s a lot of blah-blah in the article about what seem to be factors that put us squarely in the middle of the pack, but there’s zero supporting data—just the headline. There’s this quote from “business leader” (and, unmentioned, former Republican Lt. Governor) Brian Calley:

 Michigan has fallen behind much of the rest of the country in overall education performance, student retention rates and reading and math scores at a time when education funding is at an all-time high.  “We know that it’s not just a money issue. We desperately need alignment between what kids are learning and what they need to be successful in an increasingly global economy,” [Calley] said.

Here’s some data that explains how “all-time high” funding is definitely not happening in Michigan, although it may well be in other states.

Here’s what I worry about: the average citizen reading the article in their local news outlet assumes it’s true—that credible sources have deemed Michigan to be 27th in a lineup of the 50 states, and any parent looking to move here might well be cautioned to seek some other state because they’re doing a better job.

The truth is, of course, that there are superb schools in every state—and poorly managed schools in every state, and you might have to do a little legwork, trusting your gut, to figure out which schools might be the best choice. For you, and your children.

Or — more likely—you won’t really have a choice. Your circumstances will dictate that you need a school where a bus picks your children up from your neighborhood, and offers after-school care so you can work. Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli can turn up their noses at families who choose schools because they provide transportation or have great sports programs, but those reasons may be way more valid and satisfying to parents and students than test score comparisons.  

Where does your school or state rank?

Why would anyone think they could accurately assess this—and why would any educator or parent brag about rankings? More money—whether tax-based resources or family wealth—produces better test results. Always has, always will.

But there is a broad and diverse array of factors that make schools good and useful, beginning with the people who work in them.

I went to the Graduate School of Education page at MSU to see if my professor was still there—and noticed that the first tab on the home page was “National Program Rankings.”

 Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

by nflanagan

America’s Most Vulnerable and Important Profession

The Teachers: A year inside America’s most vulnerable, important profession (Alexandra Robbins) does what many other books about teaching are not able to do–take the reader right into the classroom, and describe what’s happening, with empathy and perception. There are lots of books about problems in American education, and lots of books that suggest solutions for those problems, but we seldom get to see examples, conversations and the people doing the work.

If you want a drone’s eye view of American public education—where it’s been, what bedevils the century-old movement to improve it—I would recommend Diane Ravitch’s trio of excellent books that follow education reform over the last couple of decades, or A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire.

But if you want to see what happens in the classroom and in the lives of teachers, Robbins accomplishes that better than any book I’ve read since Tracy Kidder’s Among Schoolchildren, written in 1989, which now feels like ancient history . The book is a tour de force—every teacher I know who’s read it agrees—unapologetically written from the POV of teachers without feeling the need to make excuses or backpedal.

Robbins chooses three very fine teachers and takes us through one year (immediately pre-pandemic) of their classroom and personal lives, deftly illustrating how those lives overlap, the pile-up of frustrations and issues bleeding into their emotional well-being.

All three teachers have huge and versatile skill sets and genuine dedication to kids as well as subject matter. Interspersed are data and editorial comment about education and current “reforms” (scare quotes are deserved here), as well as real-life anecdotes and comments that reveal just how far teaching and teachers have sunk, in public estimation.

Robbins highlights things that other education books don’t notice or can’t be bothered with–in-building teacher jealousies and vindictiveness, physical violence against teachers, the long-term effects of cuts to things once considered normal in every school, what it’s like to sit in an IEP meeting with a recalcitrant parent or clueless colleague.

One of her teachers is a middle school special education teacher who finds himself taking on every troubled kid, something that school administrators often push, seeing him as the ultimate “male role model.”  Another is an overachieving fourth grade teacher who knocks herself out to be the perfect teacher for every child, leaving her with no time to build a satisfying personal life (and illustrating, to readers, just how arduous differentiated instruction is, even in a building with adequate resources and good teachers).

The third teacher is a 20-year veteran, a sixth grade math teacher who has mastered the delicate art of getting the best out of her students and runs afoul of a clique of punitive teachers who resent her success and want her to punish kids who are doing well in her class for their sins in other classes.

(Here’s a story from my own experience that parallels her problematic relationships with the people who should have her back—feel free to skip it): We’re having a staff meeting, late spring, to talk about the imbalance of students in elective classes. The middle school bands keep getting bigger and bigger. I will have 93 students in my 8th grade band next year. What this means (besides a classroom management nightmare) is that other elective classes will be tiny, because “too many” students want to be in the band. The Woodshop teacher is outspoken—we need to limit the number of students in band, perhaps allowing the 93 students only one semester of band, in order to give him the minimal 12/class that will keep him employed in the building full-time, rather than splitting his time between middle school and high school, or forcing him to teach a second elective subject.

Everyone knows why all those kids want to be in the band, he says. I turn to him, surprised. I have no idea why kids sign up for band, beyond the fact that they like it.  Mrs. Flanagan gives them all As and Bs, he says. If we forced her to use a bell curve like everybody else, we’d see half of them drop out.

I look around. Nobody’s making eye contact, so it’s clear that this has been a topic of conversation before. And there’s some truth there—I do give a lot of Bs and As, mainly because the students are meeting the goals set for the class. Their parents are paying for their instruments and students must practice to do well in class. We do many performances—both band and individual players. The bell curve is stupid; have all my colleagues really been using it?

I can justify everything I do, but I spent the rest of the year eating my lunch in the band room, paranoid about disrupting the building schedule. And the next September, I have all 93 students in my first hour class. Nobody ever shows up to help. The Teachers is full of stories like this—real things that happen. There is no paradise, no perfect school, although there are many vivid examples of teachers bending over backwards for students and colleagues. Why aren’t we honoring this, financially supporting this work, applauding the folks who show up to teach every day, sacrificing their time and energy for other people’s children?

This book is also the first and best description I have read about the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning. There have been endless articles and research on “learning loss”–all rife with meaningless data and numbers–but nobody talks about the impact of being expected to position family needs as secondary to students’ needs. Robbins gets this right–there is a line between acting morally vs. choosing school over family, a choice that teachers were urged to make, and reviled when they chose their own families and their own health. We have not yet reconciled that, here in America—but the book makes a good start on it.

Highly recommended for everyone, but especially teachers. It’s a fairly fast and facile read, although well-documented with endnotes, and should give teachers a lift, knowing that their work and their dilemmas have been acknowledged.

by nflanagan

The Absolute Folly of Standardization

Remember the days when Arne Duncan insisted that having different ‘goal posts’ in every state was preventing us from improving public schools in America? Good times.

I wish I could say we’ve evolved since 2015, when Duncan stepped down. Or after it became obvious that the pandemic was rendering test data even more corrupt and useless than the test data we were enthusiastically generating early in the 21st century to solve our problems and raise that bar. (Sarcasm alert.)

Alas, we’re still hooked on the idea that a third grader in Manhattan should know and be able to do the same things as a third grader in rural North Dakota, that Algebra belongs in 8th grade (or is it 9th) and six year-olds should be starting to read, dammit. Because global competition, falling behind, blah blah blah.

In fact, one of the problems with the word “standards” and its etymology, is that everyone thinks they know what standards are supposed to mean and determine. A precise definition…

I’m not actually referring to standardized testing in this blog, although if you believe standardized testing is the only way or best way to understand how your child is doing in school, read this.

Nor am I particularly concerned about the standards (whether local, state or cleverly disguised Common Core Standards) that many educational institutions use to organize curriculum. It’s worth remembering that most of the first “national standards” (in the 1990s, spurred by the Nation at Risk report) were created by educators’ disciplinary organizations, with lots of teacher input—and were voluntary, with grade-span suggestions for what students should know and be able to do, and the order in which things were most effectively taught.

If that doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because those standards sank like a stone. It’s hard to even find links to them by diligent googling, but non-educators rejected them for various reasons, most notably Lynn Cheney who went after the History standards in the Wall Street Journal. They often included updated instructional methods and curricular ideas (constructivist math, teaching English as a second language, hands-on science and, of course, new ideas about how America actually became a nation).

The first round of national standards weren’t attached to mandated standardized tests, either. They were about curriculum and instruction. When the second round of national standards—the Common Core– were developed, they were part of a standards-aligned tests package, part of the movement toward “accountability” (a word that should forever have scare quotes when mentioned in an educational context). Practicing teachers weren’t seriously invited to the creation process and the word curriculum was not mentioned.

If tests and curricular benchmarks aren’t standardization, what is? Here’s a quote from Nel Noddings that explicates this beautifully:

The worst feature of current moves toward standardization is the insistence that all kids meet the same standards, regardless of their interests and aptitudes. This insistence is claimed to be a gesture toward equality, but it really is a sign of contempt for the wide range of human talents and the necessary work done by many of our citizens.

Any parent of two, different children understands this at a cellular level. Contempt, indeed.

Can’t meet the standards? We’re placing you on the left downslope of the bell curve, when you’re eight years old. Because we’re pursuing equality. It’s science.

There is value in knowing at what age we can expect most, if not all, students to reach intellectual and developmental milestones. That’s not the problem.

The trouble arises when we use the tools of school—instruction, curriculum, assessment—to compare the students in our care, to label them, to sort them into standardized categories when they are very young. To essentially assign their potential. To show contempt for the wide range of human talents.

What about grade levels? Aren’t there specific skills and knowledge we should be demanding of 5th graders or sophomores? Shouldn’t they all be getting the same core content at the same time?

It’s important to remember that grade levels were an efficiency tool invented when there was a big push to get everyone to go to school, rather than relying on tutors, homeschooling—or no schooling at all. Anyone who has taught school can tell you that grade levels are ephemeral, an organizational fiction.

A room full of children of precisely the same age will always have different skill and aptitude profiles. That’s not to say that we should try to adjust groups to meet academic levels, because kids learn at different rates, at different times, and in different ways–and punishing students by keeping them from their peers is insulting and bound to backfire.  

Age-based grouping is probably as good a method as any for group instruction and socializing. The trick is providing children with educational experiences that match their interests and present skills. Teachers know this as differentiation—and it’s a major challenge. (One of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of a teacher who is trying to differentiate instruction for a wide range of same-age students can be found in Alexandra Robbins’ The Teachers. Mind-boggling.)

Here’s another thing Arne Duncan used to say: Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.

I actually think he was mostly right about that—and the fact that his phrase has been co-opted by ugly right-wing thinking and lawmaking may be proof that it’s a powerful thought, when it comes to actual equity and using our schools to support and encourage individual potential.

Which is the opposite of standardization.

by nflanagan

Girls. Period.

Alternate title: The Idea that Girls’ Menstrual Cycles are Shameful Information, Unless Important People Need to Know.  And you’re right–that doesn’t make sense.

Back in the day, when I was in junior high, girls were excused from taking showers after Phys Ed by discreetly telling the gym teacher, standing ever-ready with her clipboard, that they were having their “P.” She would dutifully note this on a mimeographed list of students.

This wasn’t done to assure that the girls weren’t chemically altering their bodies, thus making them superior athletes. In fact, girls weren’t even considered competitive athletes until Title IX. The reason for tracking girls’ menstrual cycles was to ensure they took showers unless their delicate condition and public embarrassment temporarily exempted them.

It’s clear—and it’s a good thing—that the old rules about even mentioning menstruation have long since crumbled. I spent 30 years teaching middle school band, and routinely kept menstrual supplies in my lower left-hand drawer, because you just never knew when a middle school girl would be surprised. And, possibly, mortified.

We didn’t have a school nurse, and the machines in the girls’ restroom were no longer refilled. Unless I wanted hapless girls canvassing 10 of their friends or making group trips to lockers and restrooms, freebie necessities were kind of like Kleenex and hand soap—donations to civilized life in the band room. Items not provided by the school—but nothing to feel embarrassed about.

Recently, a friend who is currently teaching at a local middle school emailed a cluster of friends and asked if any of us would be willing to donate pads and tampons. Not just for school-based emergencies, but also making it possible to send home overnight and weekend packages for girls whose families were not routinely supplying them. Because they’re expensive.

I keep thinking about that as I read the news out of (naturally) Florida—and other benighted states. Whose business is teaching girls—and boys—about menstruation, a natural human function? And why are legislators sticking their noses into what should be an everyday occurrence in schools, ho-hum?

Headline in the Washington Post: Florida bill would ban young girls from discussing periods in school. So—stop me if I’m wrong here—a child (and there are many girls whose periods start when they’re in elementary school; the age of menarche is getting increasingly lower) discovers that she is bleeding. In addition to needing some supplies and some friendly support, she will be breaking the law should she talk about it. According to some old man at the State Capitol.

Let’s name names:
During a Florida House Education Quality Subcommittee hearing Wednesday, state Rep. Ashley Gantt (D) questioned her Republican colleague, state Rep. Stan McClain, on his proposed legislation that would restrict certain educational materials used in state schools. House Bill 1069 would also require that instruction on sexual health, such as health education, sexually transmitted diseases and human sexuality, “only occur in grades 6 through 12,” which prompted Gantt to ask whether the proposed legislation would prohibit young girls from talking about their periods in school when they first start having them.

“So if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in fifth grade or fourth grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade?” Gantt asked.

McClain responded, “It would.”

I guess that’s one reason why Florida girls might be given menstrual products before their first period—so they won’t have to ask for them, risking arrest, or subject a sympathetic teacher to law-breaking by doing what I used to do, all the time: quietly sending girls to my lower left-hand drawer.

I repeat: this is all normal and natural. It was a great day when Health and Physical Education teachers started delivering sex education information to mixed classes of boys and girls. I wish all schools provided free pads and tampons for girls who needed them. We could do better.

Although I agree that parents should be their children’s first and most influential teachers on the range of human sexuality topics, I was profoundly grateful that both my own children had great, no-nonsense sex ed teachers, beginning in 5th grade. Learning about your body—just the facts—and having your gender-based questions answered truthfully? What a gift to children approaching adolescence, a gift we can all benefit from.

As for the claim that FL Governor Ron Desantis is collecting information on girls’ menstrual cycles—well, that’s not precisely true. It’s the statewide High School Athletic Association that’s asking questions, and they’re saying it’s not about rooting out transgender students or embarrassing girls, yet again. There are legitimate reasons for caring coaches to watch for amenorrhea due to eating disorders or exercise stresses, for example. A student athlete who became pregnant would need special treatment. Here’s the information they want to know (click).

What if we were a nation where normal body functions were well-understood, and stuff like knowing how and why to delay pregnancy were agreed-upon knowledge for all pre-teens? I’d feel a lot better about the Florida HSAA asking girls how old they were when they began menstruating, and how many periods they had in the past year in that case.

In the current context, that information feels private, to me. There is trust lost, on all sides, between girls and young women– and whoever’s running the educational show in Florida right now.

And that’s sad.

by nflanagan

Introduce Yourself in Seven Books

Saw it on Twitter—or, rather, what’s left of Twitter—and kept thinking about this prompt: Introduce yourself in seven books.

What I liked about the prompt was that it asked players to “introduce themselves”—and after reading a few dozen entries, you could sort the self-introduction tweets into categories: Braggers. Folks from non-American cultures. YA readers. Chick lit lovers. Educators. Dishonest academics. Economists (shudder). Political advocates. And so on.

The prompt didn’t say “What are your seven favorite books?” or “What seven books have been most influential in your life?” (although there were numerous tweets that began or ended with The Bible). It said—introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, through the lens of seven books.

I set out to write a quick tweet, listing the first seven books that came to mind. Then I crossed out two of those, because a half-dozen better titles bubbled up. I spent a pleasant hour or so, rummaging through my mental Books Read rolodex, asking surprisingly deep questions, like Who am I, Really? At one time, I had about 45 titles on the list.

Clearly, I had no idea who I was, beyond “wide-ranging reader.”

I started paring back titles, limiting authors, rejecting books I loved, years ago, but haven’t re-read, discarding show-offy titles for books that I didn’t merely complete, but books that steered my thinking in another direction.

Eventually, I ended up with seven non-fiction titles and seven fictional books. And a recommendation for those of you who like to read to try this exercise. It’s revelatory, for one thing. And because I’m sure if you posted yours, there might be something on it that I totally forgot, or would be excited to read.

The Non-Fiction Titles are one path to introducing oneself—teacher, gardener, social class observer, education reformer, etc.  Your mileage should vary.

Teaching as a Subversive Activity (Postman and Weingartner) All of Neil Postman’s work is worth reading, but this book made me re-think my entire career, forty years ago. 

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work  (Matthew Crawford) Did you like Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig) back in the day? Then read Crawford’s book about the reality of academic hoops contrasted with the practical value of working by hand and craftsmanship.

Nickeled and Dimed (Barbara Ehrenreich) Together with Crawford’s book, and my own working-class upbringing, this book is how I learned to understand class and power in the American economy.

Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates) The first, and most personally moving, books on race. I read this book a sentence, a paragraph at a time, needing pauses. He broke the path for all subsequent reading on race in America.

Here Comes Everybody (Clay Shirky) Made me understand online organizing. Wildly outdated, but also prescient. You’re reading this because I read Shirky’s book.

Mrs. Greenthumbs (Cassandra Danz) I have probably 35 gardening books, but I read Mrs. G every spring. May she rest in her fabulous heavenly garden. I have her to thank for mine.

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door (Schneider and Berkshire) On my first list, I had one of Diane Ravitch’s (excellent) books on education reform, which, sequentially, tell us what’s happened to public education in the past two decades. “Wolf,” however, is the newest and best-aligned with the abyss we find ourselves standing next to, at the moment. If someone asked me what I believe is true (another way of asking who I am) about my life’s work—I would suggest this book.


Perhaps you’ve noticed that there are no music books in the non-fiction titles. If I were asked to introduce myself verbally, the two nouns I would choose are teacher, and musician. Most of the best books I’ve read about music are fiction (sorry, Grout).  So let’s start Fictional Titles with one of those:

Bel Canto (Ann Patchett) A lovely book about how music changes people. Even terrorists.

The Whistling Season (Ivan Doig) What teaching really could and should be, set in Montana, a hundred years ago.

The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) First read it when it was a new book. Have re-read multiple times. Scary as hell every single time, woven with truths and warnings about sexual oppression.

The Sparrow (Mary Doria Russell) The author’s own description: Jesuits in space. And so much more.

The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson) Strangely hopeful, while centering on climate change and just how existential this crisis is.

A Separate Peace (John Knowles) This book introduced me to an entirely different model of education, and beautifully illustrated the role of relationships in learning and personal growth.

Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks) What would happen if there were a plague, and folks had to isolate, to save their own lives, and their neighbors? What would be the terrible cost—and the unexpected benefits?

Your turn. Introduce yourself in seven books. Cheating encouraged.