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It's time to talk calendar

3/28/2016

My daughter’s soccer team had a scrimmage this past Saturday, and I spent some time chatting with another parent on the team who is a teacher in Los Al. He was giddy -- my word, not his -- about his upcoming Spring Break. He asked what I was going to do with our week off, knowing my kids were also starting their break on Monday. “Nothing,” was my response, “my Spring Break was two weeks ago, long since enjoyed and over.” That prompted a discussion about my district’s school calendar.

I work in the Anaheim Union High School District, right next door to Los Al, and a few years ago our teachers, district and unions decided to discuss a re-vamped school calendar. We investigated starting the school year in early August and ending at the end of May. After several surveys, multiple discussions in a variety of forums, outreach to the community, and due diligence in reading supporting research, we all quickly determined that a change was a great idea. So with this school year, 2015/2016, we began our new calendar adventure.

This year I started school on August 12, 2015, and we will end before Memorial Day on May 26, 2016. Here are a few of the factors that lead to my district’s change.

Our first semester now ends before Winter Break. This is a beautifully natural break for instructional purposes, as opposed to dragging semester finals into January after a long vacation.

Our school year will end with a holiday weekend, providing vacation opportunities for families and staff that don't cost the district dollars in lost ADA for absent students or substitute costs for absent teachers when a three-day weekend is extended into four.

Our new calendar provides three extra weeks to prepare students for AP exams that occur during the first two weeks of May.

Our calendar also eliminates downtime after AP exams. With Los Al’s current calendar, there may be a full five weeks “to kill” between AP exams and the end of the school year. This is not the case for me. My students take their AP exams, follow that up with a week of class finals, and then school ends. In our model, all instructional minutes are intentional and purposeful; we don’t have any wasted time.

Finally, my discussion with the teacher from Los Al illuminated for me one final salient point: CIF is changing its calendar. With so many districts moving to this more “college-like” schedule, CIF is taking note and adjusting sports’ schedules. If Los Al doesn’t make any changes, it is likely that high school sports will need to start before school actually begins.

Therefore, we all voted to ratify the change. And once we made the decision, we just “tore off the bandaid,” making the change in one summer. Last summer was awfully short, I grant you, with school ending in mid-June and starting up again in early August, but the pain was assuaged with the promise of an extra paycheck. Also, it meant we only had one short summer, rather than the three we could’ve had if we’d transitioned one week at a time instead.

Now with my own kids on Spring Break this week and me back at school, I am reminded again about how sad I am. Not only do we not have the same week off, but also they aren’t reaping the same academic benefits.

I challenge our community to challenge our district to revisit the Los Al school calendar. If the discussions progressed the way ours did, they all revolved around what’s best for kids. Shouldn’t that be what drives our decisions as educators? As districts? As parents?

It's definitely worth a discussion -- one that shouldn’t happen just on a soccer field -- but one that potentially drives real change.

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What's in a name?

3/23/2016

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If your kids are anything like mine, then they oftentimes couldn’t be any more opposite one another. My friends and I talk about this quite a bit, wondering how our kids -- created by the same parents, raised in the same houses, given the same opportunities -- can be so different. It’s astounding and disturbing all at the same. Makes me wonder about the power of nature over nurture, but I’ll save that discussion for another week.

Regardless a kid’s drive, demeanor, sassiness and attitude, each one of them has to attend school. And our local schools have a responsibility to create an inclusive school climate where all students can achieve their maximum potential, regardless their personalities.

But with all these different personalities milling around any school campus -- elementary through high school -- how does a school go about creating one cohesive climate where all students can be their greatest selves?

Climate is determined by many factors: how discipline is handled, bullying acceptability thresholds, availability of clubs, teacher/student interactions, approach taken with struggling students, the feeling of being safe, among myriad other things.

Reflecting on my own kids again, each of them has different needs to feel part of their school’s climate.

My daughter is social. She needs to belong to clubs, participate in school-sponsored events, and take classes that encourage belonging to a larger purpose. She thrives in being part of the school and feeling like she makes a difference. This is the traditional understanding of school culture -- belonging, participating, leading.

My son is not social. His needs are less about other kids and more about his sense of comfort with his teachers. His day can be made or destroyed because of his interaction with teachers and substitutes. Don’t get me wrong. He has a group of friends he hangs with socially at lunch, but he isn’t motivated by what is traditionally thought of as school culture. He would rather lose a limb than attend a club meeting or an after-school dance. His needs are less traditional -- he needs to feel that the adults care.

Other kids can’t function unless they feel safe.

Others, still, don’t want to be forgotten when they struggle academically.

Regardless your kids’ needs, they all need to be met in order for your child to be successful. And this is not an easy task. Building an inclusive school culture can begin, however, with two simple initiatives: knowing every child’s name and knowing every child’s need. Not easy, but doable.

I work in a school where the English department teachers have made it a habit to greet kids as they walk into the classroom. This happens every day for most every period. Some of us just welcome the kids to class, others give kids a high five, some take that time to address each child by name. Regardless the why, the power lies in simply the doing. Does it take time? Does it mean we have to get out from behind our desks? Does it require we have a good attitude? Yes. Yes. And yes.

You would be amazed at how impactful this small gesture is to the students on our campus. We know it’s impactful because the kids tell us. This momentary interaction requires we look our students in the eyes, requires we see them each as individuals and not just part of a large classroom of kids, and requires us to put ourselves out there to make them feel welcome.

The beauty of this small gesture? I see them outside the classroom. And seeing a child outside the classroom helps me learn his name, see his needs, feel his anxiety, notice his stress, interact on a more personal level, and tell him he matters.

Does this small gesture solve all school culture problems? I’m not arguing that it does. I am suggesting, however, that this is a first step in knowing how I can best support each student.

For my daughter, this means a teacher can make her feel part of that classroom’s social dynamics.

For my son, this means a teacher can appear friendly, thoughtful, and caring, creating an environment where my he feels ready to learn and fully supported.

For us, as parents, this means we can rest assured, knowing that our kids are noticed and known -- giving them every opportunity to be their best selves.

So I ask again: What’s in a name?

Everything.

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Writing can be fun.

3/15/2016

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If you're the parent of children who love to write, then consider yourself, and your children, lucky. This love of writing will serve them well throughout K-12, into college and beyond.

I was this kid, and I still am. I love to write. I write all the time for a variety of audiences and purposes. I love the process, the discovery that comes from it, the quiet introspection, and the feeling of accomplishment that comes from reading my finished pieces. This doesn’t mean I think writing is easy; I grapple with ideas, phrasing, organization, focus and revision with everything I write, including this weekly column.

And I love working with kids who enjoy writing. These kids embrace the process, get excited to try new strategies, and even write at home on their own for fun: short stories, fan fiction, blogs, poetry.

But if you're the parent of children who avoid writing, complain about any writing task, and struggle to get words on a page, then join the ranks of those of us who feel your pain.

As much as I like the prolific young writers, I also love working with kids who struggle. I believe these kids who struggle do so because they've lost their way. They’re stuck and disgruntled. They've had no freedom in the only environment where writing is expected while growing up -- the classroom. In this environment, they are expected to write what they're told, when they're told, and how they're told. Then when they turn in the piece into which they've poured time and energy and heart, a teacher tells them all the things they've done wrong, bleeding red ink all over their papers. I don’t blame these kids for hating the process. Who would want to continue to write after that?

As parents, we need to be proponents for asking teachers to give choice back to our young writers. We need to fight to have them give back to our kids the freedom to explore ideas and find topics that interest them, in order to help them discover that writing can be fun again. We need to demand that more time be spent developing this lifelong skill.

I know it’s a crazy idea, but what if a classroom teacher actually pulled kids out from behind their sterile desks -- and let them write on the playground, sitting on a bench, or lying on the shady cool grass. Would it end in chaos? Pandemonium? Nope. What we’d ultimately end up with is a generation full of kids who've learned to love to write again.

This transition, from hating to loving to write, can’t happen overnight. And it also can’t happen if the only writing that’s ever done is limited to one, 1-hour block every couple weeks. Writing is just like any sport or activity or hobby or dog training -- it takes practice to master.

The problem with writing, however, is that the practice happens alone. Writing isn’t like basketball where you can see the players sweat, get hurt, get back up, and finally collapse from exhaustion at the end of a game. With writing, the agony and struggle is just as real, but it’s much less overt. So when we see thousands of novels at Barnes & Noble or at the library, kids simply believe the authors were all just born with talent -- that they were all each able to just sit down and write their masterpieces in one sitting. No sweat. No struggle. Oh, how I wish our kids could watch me craft this column every week -- to see just how wrong they are.

We need to continually remind our struggling young authors that writers have to practice, too.

The next immediate swing in education and our local school district needs to be to make writing ubiquitous. It needs to be happening in every classroom, every day, across every subject. The writing tasks can be long, short, high-stakes, low-stakes, individual or with a partner. It just needs to be done.

And the more engaging and purposeful the writing, the less resistance we’ll get from kids -- and the more they’ll all learn to love it, too.

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What is the purpose of homework?

3/7/2016

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All our kids all have it. They all complain about it. And it drives most family discussions in all households across America. “Do you have homework?” “Is your homework done?” “Why didn’t you turn your homework in?” Over and over and over again on any given night in households with school-aged children, these questions get asked, answered and repeated ad nauseum.

I don’t remember an excessive amount of homework when I was in school. I do, though, explicitly remember doing specific homework assignments, but that’s because I don’t think I did that many. The few I did, therefore, stand out. Weekly, I did a workbook page or two of my foreign language, a short study guide for history, the few math problems I didn’t get done in class, and added finishing touches on English essays. A couple hours a week, maybe? And my husband tells me he did even less than that.

Then education changed, as it always does, and homework became mandatory. Rote. Ubiquitous. Lots of it. Every night. As if the homework itself created rigor and had the power to transform learning. If I had to pinpoint a cause, I would look to No Child Left Behind -- high stakes tests and expectations for kids to know excessive amounts of content knowledge.

With recent changes in standardized testing, current educational reform, and clear parent voices, districts are beginning to rethink the purpose of homework. They are even beginning to place restrictions on the amount of homework kids can be assigned, limiting the amount of time or number of pages sent home each night. The days of “piling on the work” in the name of rigor are being revisited. In professional development meetings, educational research is being disseminated on local campuses, and school faculty are discussing the research findings -- that too much homework can be a detriment to learning.

I say, “It’s about time.”

The research tells us that too much homework causes undue stress. Research tells us that there is oftentimes clear disparity between homework and achievement. Research also tells us that excessive homework results in diminishing returns.

So thank you, local school districts, for having these tough conversations and challenging teachers to reevaluate their status quo.

If your child’s teacher hasn’t yet embraced this new direction in assigning homework, however, I have one question you can ask on your next Back to School Night, Parent/Teacher Conference or Open House to hopefully get your child’s teacher to think more carefully about her practice.

“What is the purpose of your homework?”

Is it given in the name of practice? Is it given to attain mastery of a skill? Is it to introduce new concepts or content? Can less be done with the same result? Is it necessary? Regardless the answer, just make sure the teacher has one. Homework for the sake of homework just isn’t a good enough answer any more.

Imagine your home without homework every night. What might you talk with your kids about instead? What could you do more of as a family? What extracurricular activities would you now get to enjoy? How might your child’s life be more fulfilling? Could all your lives be less stressed? Would there be fewer tears?

Ultimately, more purposeful homework planning on a teacher’s part will create more purposeful living for a child.

Imagine all the free time. What will you do with it?

Anything you want --- and that’s the purpose!

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It's time to talk calendar

What's in a name?

Writing can be fun.

What is the purpose of homework?

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