The Bobcat Blog

Have You Caught Lin Mania?

2012-02-13T08:36:00.002-05:00

I will admit that I have got caught up in all the hoopla surrounding Jeremy Lin over the last week. It seems that Sportscenter has a cleaver new catch phrase for his name each morning. I could not help but laugh earlier in the week when Kobe Bryant said he had "no idea" who Jeremy Lin was when asked about him before their game on Friday night. Lin promptly introduced himself by scoring 38 points and leading his team to their 4th straight win. They have since won one more time. Before all this craziness started, the New York Knicks were a team in turmoil. Their two biggest stars, Carmello Anthony and Amare Stoudamire have underperformed greatly this year. The team was expected to do great things and they have mounted loss after loss until Lin showed up. The article below is by Eric Jackson and appeared on the Forbes website this morning. If you have a child who participates in athletics, this is a must read. By the way, Lin has a strong Christian testimony and would like to pastor a church someday...which makes the story all the more interesting!

Just Lin, Baby! 10 Lessons Jeremy Lin Can Teach Us Before We Go To Work Monday Morning

Lin-sanity has swept up the NBA over the last week. Now it seems like the phenomenon has gone worldwide.

Friday’s 38 point performance by Harvard grad Jeremy Lin for the New York Knicks against the LA Lakers was his greatest performance yet as a starter, since he burst on to the scene and propelled the team to 4 straight wins.

Lin now has over 200,000 followers on Twitter. He’s got over 800,000 on Weibo – including 200,000 new ones in the 24 hour period after beating the Lakers.

But there’s more to this story than basketball. This isn’t just a modern-day, real-life version of the Hoosiers movie. The Jeremy Lin story is incredibly popular because we can all see a little bit of ourselves in this man’s struggles and now successes.

What can all of us learn from this young man — and how can we apply these same lessons to our own lives when we go back to work on Monday morning?

1. Believe in yourself when no one else does. Lin’s only the 3rd graduate from Harvard to make it to the NBA. He’s also one of only a handful of Asian-Americans to make it. He was sent by the Knicks to play for their D-League team 3 weeks ago in Erie, PA. He’d already been cut by two other NBA teams before joining the Knicks this year. You’ve got to believe in yourself, even when no one else does.

2. Seize the opportunity when it comes up. Lin got to start for the Knicks because they had to start him. They had too many injuries. Baron Davis was gone. The other point guards were out. Carmelo Anthony was injured. Amare Stoudemire had to leave the team because of a family death. Lin could have squandered the opportunity and we would have never have noticed. But he made the most of it. You never know when opportunities are going to arise in life. Often, they’re when you least expect them. Make the most of them. Don’t fritter them away.

3. Your family will always be there for you, so be there for them. It wasn’t until a few days ago that Lin got his contract guaranteed by the Knicks for the rest of the season. Before that, he could have been cut at any time. He had to sleep on his brother’s couch on the Lower East Side to get by. His family always believed in him and picked him up when he could have gotten down on himself. That made him continue to believe. If you want your family to believe in you like that, you’ve got to be there for them too when they need it.

4. Find the system that works for your style. Lin isn’t Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. He’s not a pure scorer. He’s a passer and distributor – who can also score very well. It didn’t work for him in Golden State or Houston – where he was before landing at the Knicks. But Mike D’Antoni’s system at the Knicks has been perfect for him to show off his strengths. You’ve got to do your best to understand what your strengths are and then ensure that you’re in a system (a job or organization or industry) that is a good fit for those strengths. Otherwise, people overlook the talents you bring to the table.

5. Don’t overlook talent that might exist around you today on your team. You probably manage people at your own company today. Are you sure you don’t have a Jeremy Lin living among you now? How do you know that “Mike” couldn’t do amazing things if you gave him a new project to run with? How do you know “Sarah” isn’t the right person to take the open job in London that you’ve been talking over with your colleagues? We put people around us in boxes. He’s from Harvard. He’s Asian-American. Not sure he can play. How many assumptions have you made about talent around you? Don’t be like the General Managers in Golden State and Houston, and let talent slip through your fingers. With all their money, scouts, and testing, they didn’t have a clue what they had in their hands. Do you know what your people (or even yourself) is really capable of? Take off the blinders of assumptions you wear when you look at the world.

6. People will love you for being an original, not trying to be someone else. You’ve got to be you. You can’t be some 2nd rate copy of Michael Jordan. There will never be another Michael Jordan. Just be Jeremy Lin — yourself. Whatever that is. That doesn’t mean you don’t work hard — it just means you find what you’re good at and do it. Fans will love you for being you, just like they love Jeremy Lin. Judy Garland said it best:

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”

7. Stay humble. If you one day are lucky enough to have newspapers want to put you on the cover in order to sell more, don’t let it get to your head. It’s been remarkable watching how humble Lin remains through all this media frenzy. It makes his teammates and fans love him that much more.

8. When you make others around you look good, they will love you forever. I didn’t know how good Tyson Chandler was, until I saw him playing with Jeremy Lin. Lin has set Chandler up many times over the last week for easy dunks because he drew the defense and then passed the ball. That’s partly why the Knicks are playing so well. They are all working harder to share the ball with others. And it’s beautiful to watch. And when the media swarms Lin, he tells them how good his teammates are. Do the same with your peers and reports.

9. Never forget about the importance of luck or fate in life. Some people believe in God, some in destiny, some in luck. Whatever you believe in, be grateful for it.

10. Work your butt off. Lin couldn’t have seized his opportunity if he hadn’t worked like crazy for years perfecting his skills. There are no short cuts to hard work. Success is a by product of that. If you’ve got a Tiger Mom who’s always pushed you to work hard, great. If not, let your conscience be your own Tiger Mom! Get up early, stay up late. Nobody gave Lin any free passes. Why should you get any? You can only control what you control and that means you’ve got to work harder than anyone else you know.

I hope the Lin-sanity continues. And I hope we all can apply these lessons to our own work and family life.

There’s a great line from a New York Times article on Lin and his faith which is worth it for all of us to remember:

“suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”

Why Learning Must Be Active!

2012-02-12T14:47:00.002-05:00

Over the last couple of weeks I have had a couple of teachers mention to me that a parent has mentioned to them that they do not like our "Foundations & Frameworks" curriculum. As our teachers relay to me how they have answered those complaints, the most common theme from the parents is "My son does not like it!" I wonder if those same students like to eat their vegetables and brush their teeth?! I have yet to have any parents talk with me about these concerns, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I would respond should I ever get the opportunity. This can be a tricky area. I am always eager to hear parent concerns, but I have to keep in mind that it is also an impossible task to make all parents happy, and happiness can not trump what is best for students. I am reminded of this frequently with my sons. They attend a great school, but I do not always agree with everything their teachers do. I value constructive criticism and hope that parents will share those with me because we always have room to improve in everything we do. (I also want to add a side note here, we have had many parents share very positive feedback with us about F&F. I do not want to portray that many people have complained, because that is not the case.)

As I was reading this article below from Harvard's magazine, it once again argues that the paradigm in education is changing. If we continued to educate our students in the manner that we (and parents) are most accustomed, we are doing a disservice to our families. We are endeavoring to create an atmosphere at Brainerd Baptist School where students are challenged to think critically and work collaboratively to solve problems. Education today is vastly different today than it was just 10 years ago, much less the 20 to 30 years ago when most of our parents where in elementary school. This year has been a transition year at BBS where are students are learning to read, think, and write in a different way than they have ever done. As with anything that is new, there can, and should be some growing pains and challenges that come with it. I have witnessed this first hand with my daughter. Her SPEC log has routinely asked her to think critically, and this is not a skill that comes naturally to our children. They want the answer to be easily identifiable and often, we as parents do too! The quicker we can find the answer, the quicker they can be done, the happier everyone is. We have just had one of our teachers trained to be our F&F coordinator and trainer. We will soon have a guest on campus to work with our teachers and make sure we are using the program in the best way. The article below points out that college professors have come to the realization that lecture, and traditional instructional pedagogy is no longer working and that they need to change how the teach. This article talks about how one of the most prestigious and well respected universities in the world is dealing with changing paradigm in the classroom.

Twilight of the Lecture
The trend toward “active learning” may overthrow the style of teaching that has ruled universities for 600 years.

In 1990, after seven years of teaching at Harvard, Eric Mazur, now Balkanski professor of physics and applied physics, was delivering clear, polished lectures and demonstrations and getting high student evaluations for his introductory Physics 11 course, populated mainly by premed and engineering students who were successfully solving complicated problems. Then he discovered that his success as a teacher “was a complete illusion, a house of cards.”

The epiphany came via an article in the American Journal of Physics by Arizona State professor David Hestenes. He had devised a very simple test, couched in everyday language, to check students’ understanding of one of the most fundamental concepts of physics—force—and had administered it to thousands of undergraduates in the southwestern United States. Astonishingly, the test showed that their introductory courses had taught them “next to nothing,” says Mazur: “After a semester of physics, they still held the same misconceptions as they had at the beginning of the term.”

The students had improved at handling equations and formulas, he explains, but when it came to understanding “what the real meanings of these things are, they basically reverted to Aristotelian logic—thousands of years back.” For example, they could recite Newton’s Third Law and apply it to numerical problems, but when asked about a real-world event like a collision between a heavy truck and a light car, many firmly declared that the heavy truck exerts a larger force. (Actually, an object’s weight is irrelevant to the force exerted.)

Mazur tried the test on his own students. Right at the start, a warning flag went up when one student raised her hand and asked, “How should I answer these questions—according to what you taught me, or how I usually think about these things?” To Mazur’s consternation, the simple test of conceptual understanding showed that his students had not grasped the basic ideas of his physics course: two-thirds of them were modern Aristotelians. “The students did well on textbook-style problems,” he explains. “They had a bag of tricks, formulas to apply. But that was solving problems by rote. They floundered on the simple word problems, which demanded a real understanding of the concepts behind the formulas.”

Some soul-searching followed. “That was a very discouraging moment,” he says. “Was I not such a good teacher after all? Maybe I have dumb students in my class. There’s something wrong with the test—it’s a trick test! How hard it is to accept that the blame lies with yourself.”

Serendipity provided the breakthrough he needed. Reviewing the test of conceptual understanding, Mazur twice tried to explain one of its questions to the class, but the students remained obstinately confused. “Then I did something I had never done in my teaching career,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Why don’t you discuss it with each other?’” Immediately, the lecture hall was abuzz as 150 students started talking to each other in one-on-one conversations about the puzzling question. “It was complete chaos,” says Mazur. “But within three minutes, they had figured it out. That was very surprising to me—I had just spent 10 minutes trying to explain this. But the class said, ‘OK, We’ve got it, let’s move on.’

“Here’s what happened,” he continues. “First, when one student has the right answer and the other doesn’t, the first one is more likely to convince the second—it’s hard to talk someone into the wrong answer when they have the right one. More important, a fellow student is more likely to reach them than Professor Mazur—and this is the crux of the method. You’re a student and you’ve only recently learned this, so you still know where you got hung up, because it’s not that long ago that you were hung up on that very same thing. Whereas Professor Mazur got hung up on this point when he was 17, and he no longer remembers how difficult it was back then. He has lost the ability to understand what a beginning learner faces.”

This innovative style of learning grew into “peer instruction” or “interactive learning,” a pedagogical method that has spread far beyond physics and taken root on campuses nationally. Last year, Mazur gave nearly 100 lectures on the subject at venues all around the world. (His 1997 book Peer Instruction is a user’s manual; a 2007 DVD, Interactive Teaching, produced by Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, illustrates the method in detail.)

Interactive learning triples students’ gains in knowledge as measured by the kinds of conceptual tests that had once deflated Mazur’s spirits, and by many other assessments as well. It has other salutary effects, like erasing the gender gap between male and female undergraduates. “If you look at incoming scores for our male and female physics students at Harvard, there’s a gap,” Mazur explains. “If you teach a traditional course, the gap just translates up: men gain, women gain, but the gap remains the same. If you teach interactively, both gain more, but the women gain disproportionately more and close the gap.” Though there isn’t yet definitive research on what causes this, Mazur speculates that the verbal and collaborative/collegial nature of peer interactions may enhance the learning environment for women students.

There’s also better retention of knowledge. “In a traditional physics course, two months after taking the final exam, people are back to where they were before taking the course,” Mazur notes. “It’s shocking.” (Concentrators are an exception to this, as subsequent courses reinforce their knowledge base.) Peer-instructed students who’ve actively argued for and explained their understanding of scientific concepts hold onto their knowledge longer. Another benefit is cultivating more scientists. A comparison of intended and actual concentrators in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields indicates that those taught interactively are only half as likely to change to a non-STEM discipline as students in traditional courses.

Scores of Harvard faculty members are experimenting with innovative styles of teaching in their classes. Mazur’s profile is perhaps the highest because he has been at it for two decades and has poured so much passion into the pursuit. But across the University’s faculties, instructors are trying out new, more effective modes of pedagogy, partly in response to a generation of students who have been learning all their lives from computer screens, websites, and visual media (see “Professor Video,” November-December 2009, page 34). Often, these efforts embody a search for alternatives to the traditional lecture. The recent $40-million gift from Rita E. Hauser, L ’58, and Gustave M. Hauser, J.D. ’53, will spur a wide variety of experiments in this realm (see “A Landmark Gift for Learning”).

Such pedagogical invention isn’t just a trial-and-error endeavor. Rigorous evaluations using statistical analysis can help distinguish the most promising innovations. For his part, Mazur has collected reams of data on his students’ results. (He says most scholars, even scientists, rely on anecdotal evidence instead.) End-of-semester course evaluations he dismisses as nothing more than “popularity contests” that ought to be abolished. “There is zero correlation between course evaluations and the amount learned,” he says. “Award-winning teachers with the highest evaluations can produce the same results as teachers who are getting fired.” He asserts that he is “far more interested in learning than teaching,” and envisions a shift from “teaching” to “helping students learn.” The focus moves away from the lectern and toward the physical and imaginative activity of each student in class.

Interactive pedagogy, for example, turns passive, note-taking students into active, de facto teachers who explain their ideas to each other and contend for their points of view. (“The person who learns the most in any classroom,” Mazur declares, “is the teacher.”) Thousands of research studies on learning indicate that “active learning is really at a premium. It’s the most effective thing,” says Terry Aladjem, executive director of the Bok Center and lecturer on social studies. “That means focusing on what students actually do in the classroom, or in some other learning environment. From cognitive science, we hear that learning is a process of moving information from short-term to long-term memory; assessment research has proven that active learning does that best.”

Active learners take new information and apply it, rather than merely taking note of it. Firsthand use of new material develops personal ownership. When subject matter connects directly with students’ experiences, projects, and goals, they care more about the material they seek to master. In the abstract, for example, statistics may seem a dry pursuit, but a graduate student with her own data to analyze for a doctoral dissertation suddenly finds multiple regression a compelling subject.

When Mazur speaks to audiences on pedagogy, he asks his listeners to think about something they are really good at—perhaps some skill they are proud of, especially one that advanced their career. “Now, think of how you became good at it,” he says next. Audience members, supplied with wireless clickers, can choose from several alternatives: trial and error, apprenticeship, lectures, family and friends, practicing. Data from thousands of subjects make “two things stand out,” Mazur says. “The first is that there is a huge spike at practicing—around 60 percent of the people select ‘practicing.’” The other thing is that for many audiences, which often number in the hundreds, “there is absolutely zero percent for lectures. Nobody cites lectures.”

Taking active learning seriously means revamping the entire teaching/learning enterprise—even turning it inside out or upside down. For example, active learning overthrows the “transfer of information” model of instruction, which casts the student as a dry sponge who passively absorbs facts and ideas from a teacher. This model has ruled higher education for 600 years, since the days of the medieval Schoolmen who, in their lectio mode, stood before a room reading a book aloud to the assembly—no questions permitted. The modern version is the lecture.

Though it remains the dominant form of instruction in higher education and can sometimes become a real art form, the lecture may be on its last legs. “The hands-on interactive experience in a lab or an art studio is more powerful than a lecture, and can’t be replicated online,” says Logan McCarty, director of physical sciences education. “The stereotypical lecture where the professor is giving exposition of textbook-type material to the students—I think that type of exposition can be done better with online video or by an interactive-tutorial format.” Today at Harvard, many courses distribute lecture notes, and others post video recordings of lectures online. After hearing about Mazur’s approach to teaching, Weatherhead University Professor Gary King, a government scholar, started to make recorded lectures available before class, thus freeing class time for more active styles of instruction.

The active-learning approach challenges lecturers to re-evaluate what they can accomplish during class that offers the greatest value for students. Mazur cites a quip to the effect that lectures are a way of transferring the instructor’s lecture notes to students’ notebooks without passing through the brains of either. (He also likes a quote from Albert Camus: “Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.”) “The danger with lucid lectures—of which we have so many on this campus, with so many brilliant people—is that they create the illusion of teaching for teachers, and the illusion of learning for learners,” he says. “Sitting passively and taking notes is just not a way of learning. Yet lectures are 99 percent of how we teach!”

Technology is also pushing lecturers to either get better or explore alternatives. “These days I’m competing, frankly, with myself on video,” said senior lecturer on computer science David Malan at a Faculty of Arts and Sciences program on “Redefining Teaching and Learning in the Twenty-First Century” last February (see http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/02/teach-in-on-teaching). Online videos of his Computer Science 50 lectures, he said, “are accessible any number of hours of the day, and you can play me at twice the speed and therefore get these lectures twice as efficiently. I genuinely view this as a challenge to myself: what should be the role of lectures in CS 50? It’s definitely an opportunity to present conceptual material, but I also think it’s to incentivize students to get there and stay there throughout the semester: it needs to be a compelling experience.”

At the same time, “More and more faculty are finding that the traditional lecture no longer suits them,” Aladjem notes. “And they are finding alternative ways to connect with students. Some are quite sophisticated in using course websites, blogs, and other means to be in touch. Michael McCormick, Goelet professor of medieval history [see “Who Killed the Men of England?” July-August 2009, page 30], holds office hours late at night via Skype, and it’s very popular. Nearly all undergraduates have laptops, smart phones, or other computing devices and use them all constantly. In this environment, we have to keep in mind that there’s some sort of quantum—a fixed amount—of human attention. In a digital age, we are dividing it up into ever-smaller slices, and there’s more and more a race to get pieces of that attention, especially in the classroom. That is one of the biggest challenges facing our faculty.

“I think the answer to this challenge is to rethink the nature of the college course, to consider it as a different kind of animal these days,” he continues. “A course can be a communication across time about a discrete topic, with a different temporal existence than the old doing-the-homework-for-the-lecture routine. Students now tap into a course through different media; they may download materials via its website, and even access a faculty member’s research and bio. It’s a different kind of communication between faculty and students. Websites and laptops have been around for years now, but we haven’t fully thought through how to integrate them with teaching so as to conceive of courses differently.”

Mazur’s reinvention of the course drops the lecture model and deeply engages students in the learning/teaching endeavor. It starts from his view of education as a two-step process: information transfer, and then making sense of and assimilating that information. “In the standard approach, the emphasis in class is on the first, and the second is left to the student on his or her own, outside of the classroom,” he says. “If you think about this rationally, you have to flip that, and put the first one outside the classroom, and the second inside. So I began to ask my students to read my lecture notes before class, and then tell me what questions they have [ordinarily, using the course’s website], and when we meet, we discuss those questions.”

Thus Mazur begins a class with a student-sourced question, then asks students to think the problem through and commit to an answer, which each records using a handheld device (smartphones work fine), and which a central computer statistically compiles, without displaying the overall tally. If between 30 and 70 percent of the class gets the correct answer (Mazur seeks controversy), he moves on to peer instruction. Students find a neighbor with a different answer and make a case for their own response. Each tries to convince the other. During the ensuing chaos, Mazur circulates through the room, eavesdropping on the conversations. He listens especially to incorrect reasoning, so “I can re-sensitize myself to the difficulties beginning learners face.” After two or three minutes, the students vote again, and typically the percentage of correct answers dramatically improves. Then the cycle repeats.

“We want to educate leaders, the innovators of society,” Mazur says. “Let’s turn our students into real problem solvers. In a real-world problem, you know where you want to get, but you don’t know how to get there. For example: how can I bake a cake with no flour? The goal is known, but the prescription to get there isn’t. Most tests and exams at Harvard are not like that; they are questions where you need to determine what the answer is. In physics it might be, What was the velocity of the car before it hit the tree? There, you know exactly what you need to do: you have a prescription to calculate velocity, but you don’t know the velocity. It’s the opposite of a real-life problem, because you know the prescription, but you don’t know the answer.

“Even now, if I give my students a problem on an exam that they have not seen before, there will be complaints: ‘We’ve never done a problem of this kind.’ I tell them, ‘If you had done a problem of this kind, then by definition, this would not be a problem.’ We have to train people to tackle situations they have not encountered before. Most instructors avoid this like the plague, because the students dislike it. Even at Harvard, we tend to keep students in their comfort zone. The first step in developing those skills is stepping into unknown territory.

“It’s not easy. You get a lot of student resistance,” he continues. “You should see some of the vitriolic e-mails I get. The generic complaint is that they have to do all the learning themselves. Rather than lecturing, I’m making them prepare themselves for class—and in class, rather than telling them things, I’m asking them questions. They’d much rather sit there and listen and take notes. Some will say, ‘I didn’t pay $47,000 to learn it all from the textbook. I think you should go over the material from the book, point by point, in class.’ Not realizing that they learn precious little by that, and they should actually be offended if I did that, because it’s an insult to their intelligence—then, I’m essentially reading the book to them.”

In addition to student resistance, there is architectural resistance. “Most classrooms—more like 99.9 percent—on campus are auditoriums,” Mazur says. “They are built with just one purpose: focusing the attention of many on the professor. The professor is active, and the audience is just sitting there, taking in information. Instead, you could get away from the auditorium seating and set up classrooms like you see in elementary schools, where four children sit around a square table facing each other, and you give them some kind of group activity to work on: that’s active learning. It’s no accident that most elementary schools are organized that way. The reason is, that’s how we learn. For some reason we unlearn how to learn as we progress from elementary school through middle school and high school. And in a sense, maybe I’m bringing kindergarten back to college by having people talk to each other!”

“Think of education as a whole—what is it?” Mazur asks. “Is it just the transfer of information? If that’s the case, then Harvard has a problem, and all other universities have a problem, too. Information comes from everywhere now: the university is no longer the gatekeeper of information, as it has been since the Renaissance. And if it were, the only thing we would need to do is videotape the best lectures and put them online, like the Khan Academy [the California-based, nonprofit, online educational organization founded by Salman Khan, M.B.A. ’03]. They have 65 million users: it’s a force to be reckoned with. But ultimately, learning is a social experience. Harvard is Harvard not because of the buildings, not because of the professors, but because of the students interacting with one another.”

Universities are at the core of an information culture: it is hard to imagine any institution that deals more purely in information than higher education. Yet academies are also famously slow to change—both a strength and a vulnerability in a rapidly evolving world. If knowledge now streams in from everywhere, if universities are no longer the “gatekeepers of information,” what essential mission can transcend such technological and cultural change?

“The live classroom is still the best medium for a student to truly be known as an intellectual being and to engage with other such beings,” Aladjem says. “You learn from your peers in all walks of life. Students have always hidden in their rooms; social media can keep them in their rooms longer.” Perhaps the key is to coax students not only out of their rooms, but into each other’s minds. If learning is indeed a social experience, then a “party school”—of a certain kind—just might offer the richest learning environment of all.

What Are You Encouraging Your Children to do for a Career?

2012-01-29T15:59:00.004-05:00

I read two very interesting articles today that I want to encourage you to read as well. As you are thinking about what careers to encourage your children to purse, remember this study. The actual reading is short as both articles are compromised mainly of slides that illustrate their lists. The first article talks about the 14 Most Employable Majors, and the second highlights the 11 Majors with the Highest Unemployment rates. Both of these articles appeared in the Huffington Post (which is a site that you should have bookmarked!) and were determined by using census data that was obtained by the Wall Street Journal. I found it interesting as I read the list and compared the various jobs on both lists. Some of these make sense to me (Psychology jobs in general), and some are somewhat surprising (Computer Administration Management and Security). I was happy to learn that what I do was #3 on the "Most Employable" list with zero % unemployment. What are your thoughts about this list? Do you agree or disagree?

Do iPads Impact Academic Gains?

2012-01-25T14:32:00.004-05:00

Recently there has been a lot of news about iPads in education. A study was released last week that validates using these tools in education. Below is an article from the website KQED, a website based in California that talks about this study.

Algebra, Meet the iPad: A Year-Long Study Explores Learning With the Tablet

By Tina Barseghian

Whether or not the iPad is the Holy Grail in education has yet to be determined. But when one of the biggest textbook publishers in the world invests in a pilot program specifically for the Apple tablet, it’s a good indication that, at the very least, it’s on the short list.

Since last fall, 400 California middle school students have been using the iPad to learn Algebra with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Fuse program. This first app, Holt McDougal Algebra 1, is an interactive version of the textbook, and with it, students get feedback on practice questions, they can write and save notes, receive guided instruction, and access video lessons.

“We like to say that the course is ‘re-imagined,’” said John Sipe, senior vice president, national sales manager at HMH. “It’s a lot more than just adaptation. We know that it’s a more iterative process than a revolutionary process in moving things to mobile delivery to a place like iPad.”

The pilot study, which includes a total of 1,000 students — 600 receiving the same instruction with traditional textbooks, without iPads — will go through to the end of the school year, after which, the research firm Empirical Education, will evaluate and deliver results by the summer.

Here’s the first part of my interview with John Sipe.

Q. Will HMH create apps for other devices, too, or just the iPad?

Right now, the apps are developed exclusively for the iPad. It was the first device that we could take full advantage of. It can support multimedia components, the multi-touch environment. And it’s the first device that realized the vision that we’ve all had for a student learning device, a tablet.

But that said, we do have to be where schools are. So if tomorrow, dozens of school districts decided to adopt the Motorola Zoom Android-powered tablet, we’d be forced to take a hard look at porting our app over to Android. Many big app providers produce an Android version as well.

Q. Do you think the iPad will be a game-changer in education, or is it the beginning of what’s about to come?

The iPad is a beautiful, remarkable device. That’s why there’s so much attention around it. It’s not Apple’s first time to attempt a device of this kind. Think back to the Newton. It didn’t succeed because a lot of things that people wanted to do, it couldn’t quite do right. And this is the first device that is able to do everything right that people have asked, not withstanding the discussion around Flash.

“Engagement is much higher, as is their interest and motivation.”

It’s an exciting device and a fantastic device to consume content. Is this THE device for education? That remains to be seen. Right now educators are telling us that it’s very expensive. And they’re right. As we’ve seen with all technology, price comes down very quickly, so it’ll be interesting to watch whether Apple decides to go after a more aggressively priced solution. Look what happened to their music offerings. Look at the Shuffle, for example, which costs $49, if I’m not mistaken. Prices change, they come down quickly. There are many folks out there who understand the importance of producing inexpensive tablets.

Is this THE device or is this the first device? It’s hard to say. But what we can certainly say firmly is that it’s the best thing to have come along so far. The reason we did this test is to learn as a content provider, how do we take a really well-designed, high-functioning mobile device and re-imagine curriculum, students interacting with learning in their own way. And that’s the exciting part of what we’ve done and what we’re trying to do.

Q. How will the iPad-taught class different from a traditional algebra class?

What we’ve seen in practice is the fact that it’s bringing everything to one place that’s making it exciting. The convenience factor, the simplicity factor — that’s revolutionary. For example, if you’re working through a lesson, there are three or four algorithms presented. With a textbook, if you want to learn more about one of the examples, you have to stop looking in your book and go online to our website and navigate that particular section and view our video there.

Instead, on the iPad, you simply click on “view video” and up comes our professor, Dr. Edward Burger, the Bill Nye of math education. Students have written to him saying he’s changed their opinion of what math is. So to have him right there, you can see how it’s natural for students to tap “view video,” as opposed to setting their book down and going to the computer.

Another example is, when students are working on a problem, they can simply click on “check answer,” and up comes, “that’s correct, and here’s why,” or “that’s incorrect, and here’s why.” As opposed to when they’re working on paper or even online, those pieces are a little more drawn out.

Q. Is there an adaptive aspect to this app, where students can progress to another level?

Right now, this follows identically to the student textbook. It’s adaptive only inasmuch as when the student takes an “are you ready quiz” before a chapter, students can see for themselves how they did in each of the subsections of the test, as can the teacher. Everything the student does in the device from a quizzing and assessment standpoint flows back to the teacher wirelessly. The app sends the data back to the instructor, what section they did well on, what they didn’t do well on. So a teacher has a lot more real-time data on student instruction. But as far as adaptive, actually changing the instruction, no the app doesn’t do that yet. But certainly the technology is out there. A different conversation happens then in terms of your goals.

Q. I guess what I’m trying to get at is whether this is actually changing the way kids learn.

What we’ve seen is that students are going ahead more often, and going back more often, and they’re able to do it themselves. The other exciting thing we’re seeing is that when parents are working with students, and want to brush up on these kinds of things, for example the quadratic equation, they can watch the videos themselves and quickly refresh their knowledge.

The teachers who are teaching the 400 students in the study group right away say engagement is much higher, as is their interest and motivation. So their perception of math and algebra learning is much better based on anecdotal research we’ve gotten so far.

That was our belief when we launched this, but we won’t have any real data until summer. But what we’ve seen in focus groups and interviews with instructors is that engagement is way up.

Q. Which begs the question, is it the actual gadget they’re interested in, or the content?

Great question. We know it’ll be both. But what’s the dividing line

So What About Those Textbooks on the iPads?

2012-01-24T21:33:00.005-05:00

Last week, Apple conducted one of their infamous events in which they talked about a new concept. If you know anything about Apple, you will know that they are famous for product launches and announcements. They almost take on a life of themselves! Many parents, who are casual followers of Apple technology have asked questions about what these new developments mean for Brainerd Baptist School. I have asked Director of I.T. Bradley Chambers to write about this. Below are his thoughts about what is happening in this new area of textbooks.

Textbooks and the Ipad
By Bradley Chambers

Back in September, Mr. Corcoran asked me to write a guest post about iPads. In that post, I talked about the coming revolution in digital textbooks and I've been proven right. Last week, Apple announced some new initiatives aimed at improving this process.

1. iBooks Author

iBooks Author is a new digital textbook publishing application designed for allowing teachers to create their own textbooks. It's designed to easily allow teachers to get their self created content into a digital textbook. It allows teachers to create interactive diagrams, insert videos, and add quizzes. It's a drag and drop interface, so its very easy for even a non-technical personal to quickly jump and and start building a great textbook (beautiful templates are included). This application could be used by Brainerd Baptist School to create out own textbooks around the F&F program or anything else that is BBS specific.

2. Textbooks from Major Publishers

Apple also announced that the major textbook publishers have signed up to sell textbooks for $14.99 on the iBookstore (the iPad's bookstore). This is obviously a great price (compared to the $50 per book we currently pay). You've got to figure in the cost of the iPad in with the savings as well, though. There are some other logistical issues that schools must still figure out (relating to the iTunes Account that the book is sold to). These books were created with the afore mentioned iBooks Author. The selection is bare right now, but it is expected to grow to include a lot more books.

You can watch the video here

As we look to continue further integrate the iPad into our teaching, we will continue to look at the above solutions as ways to enhance what we do best, which is teaching. As I begin planning what our next lease from Apple looks like, the iPad plays a much larger role.

Feel free to email me if you have questions about this exciting new development. I always enjoy talking technology with our families!

What You (Really) Need to Know

2012-01-22T21:21:00.004-05:00

The following article was re-tweeted by one of my HOS (Head of School) friends on his Twitter feed today. I try to make it habit to peruse the New York Times Education section weekly because it's always a good place to follow what is happening in all facets of education.
I had a professor in one of my Ed.S. classes who frequently lamented the fact that for all the technological advancements witnessed in the education realm, we still do MANY things the same way as we did 100 years ago. He argued that in many cases we do not practice or implement the best way, but rather settle for a particular practice because we choose to follow the, "that's the way we have always done that" mentality. This article has several great points about the future of education. The point that most resonated with me elaborated about the importance of collaboration. Over the last two years, Brainerd Baptist School has placed a greater emphasis on collaboration in the classroom. Education is largely one of the only environments where the thought of working together to solve a problem is largely viewed with negative perception. As you read through these points, I hope you are comforted by the fact that Brainerd Baptist is committed to teaching our students in a way that prepares them to be successful in this future where being able to problem solve and use critical thinking skills within a group is just as important as finding the answer to a problem on your own.

What You (Really) Need to Know

By LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS
Published:January 20, 2012

A paradox of American higher education is this: The expectations of leading universities do much to define what secondary schools teach, and much to establish a template for what it means to be an educated man or woman. College campuses are seen as the source for the newest thinking and for the generation of new ideas, as society’s cutting edge.

And the world is changing very rapidly. Think social networking, gay marriage, stem cells or the rise of China. Most companies look nothing like they did 50 years ago. Think General Motors, AT&T or Goldman Sachs.

Yet undergraduate education changes remarkably little over time. My predecessor as Harvard president, Derek Bok, famously compared the difficulty of reforming a curriculum with the difficulty of moving a cemetery. With few exceptions, just as in the middle of the 20th century, students take four courses a term, each meeting for about three hours a week, usually with a teacher standing in front of the room. Students are evaluated on the basis of examination essays handwritten in blue books and relatively short research papers. Instructors are organized into departments, most of which bear the same names they did when the grandparents of today’s students were undergraduates. A vast majority of students still major in one or two disciplines centered on a particular department.

It may be that inertia is appropriate. Part of universities’ function is to keep alive man’s greatest creations, passing them from generation to generation. Certainly anyone urging reform does well to remember that in higher education the United States remains an example to the world, and that American universities compete for foreign students more successfully than almost any other American industry competes for foreign customers.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to speculate: Suppose the educational system is drastically altered to reflect the structure of society and what we now understand about how people learn. How will what universities teach be different? Here are some guesses and hopes.

1. Education will be more about how to process and use information and less about imparting it. This is a consequence of both the proliferation of knowledge — and how much of it any student can truly absorb — and changes in technology. Before the printing press, scholars had to memorize “The Canterbury Tales” to have continuing access to them. This seems a bit ludicrous to us today. But in a world where the entire Library of Congress will soon be accessible on a mobile device with search procedures that are vastly better than any card catalog, factual mastery will become less and less important.

2. An inevitable consequence of the knowledge explosion is that tasks will be carried out with far more collaboration. As just one example, the fraction of economics papers that are co-authored has more than doubled in the 30 years that I have been an economist. More significant, collaboration is a much greater part of what workers do, what businesses do and what governments do. Yet the great preponderance of work a student does is done alone at every level in the educational system. Indeed, excessive collaboration with others goes by the name of cheating.

For most people, school is the last time they will be evaluated on individual effort. One leading investment bank has a hiring process in which a candidate must interview with upward of 60 senior members of the firm before receiving an offer. What is the most important attribute they’re looking for? Not GMAT scores or college transcripts, but the ability to work with others. As greater value is placed on collaboration, surely it should be practiced more in our nation’s classrooms.

3. New technologies will profoundly alter the way knowledge is conveyed. Electronic readers allow textbooks to be constantly revised, and to incorporate audio and visual effects. Think of a music text in which you can hear pieces of music as you read, or a history text in which you can see film clips about what you are reading. But there are more profound changes set in train. There was a time when professors had to prepare materials for their students. Then it became clear that it would be a better system if textbooks were written by just a few of the most able: faculty members would be freed up and materials would be improved, as competition drove up textbook quality.

Similarly, it makes sense for students to watch video of the clearest calculus teacher or the most lucid analyst of the Revolutionary War rather than having thousands of separate efforts. Professors will have more time for direct discussion with students — not to mention the cost savings — and material will be better presented. In a 2008 survey of first- and second-year medical students at Harvard, those who used accelerated video lectures reported being more focused and learning more material faster than when they attended lectures in person.

4. As articulated by the Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman in “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” we understand the processes of human thought much better than we once did. We are not rational calculating machines but collections of modules, each programmed to be adroit at a particular set of tasks. Not everyone learns most effectively in the same way. And yet in the face of all evidence, we rely almost entirely on passive learning. Students listen to lectures or they read and then are evaluated on the basis of their ability to demonstrate content mastery. They aren’t asked to actively use the knowledge they are acquiring.

“Active learning classrooms” — which cluster students at tables, with furniture that can be rearranged and integrated technology — help professors interact with their students through the use of media and collaborative experiences. Still, with the capacity of modern information technology, there is much more that can be done to promote dynamic learning.

5. The world is much more open, and events abroad affect the lives of Americans more than ever before. This makes it essential that the educational experience breed cosmopolitanism — that students have international experiences, and classes in the social sciences draw on examples from around the world. It seems logical, too, that more in the way of language study be expected of students. I am not so sure.

English’s emergence as the global language, along with the rapid progress in machine translation and the fragmentation of languages spoken around the world, make it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile. While there is no gainsaying the insights that come from mastering a language, it will over time become less essential in doing business in Asia, treating patients in Africa or helping resolve conflicts in the Middle East.

6. Courses of study will place much more emphasis on the analysis of data. Gen. George Marshall famously told a Princeton commencement audience that it was impossible to think seriously about the future of postwar Europe without giving close attention to Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War. Of course, we’ll always learn from history. But the capacity for analysis beyond simple reflection has greatly increased (consider Gen. David Petraeus’s reliance on social science in preparing the army’s counterinsurgency manual).

As the “Moneyball” story aptly displays in the world of baseball, the marshalling of data to test presumptions and locate paths to success is transforming almost every aspect of human life. It is not possible to make judgments about one’s own medical care without some understanding of probability, and certainly the financial crisis speaks to the consequences of the failure to appreciate “black swan events” and their significance. In an earlier era, when many people were involved in surveying land, it made sense to require that almost every student entering a top college know something of trigonometry. Today, a basic grounding in probability statistics and decision analysis makes far more sense.

A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could. Think, for example, of the widespread use of the e-book, or the coming home to roost of debt problems around the industrialized world. Here is a bet and a hope that the next quarter century will see more change in higher education than the last three combined.

This article has been revised to remove an editing error. Derek Bok was not Lawrence Summers’s immediate predecessor as president of Harvard. Dr. Bok first served from 1971 to 1991; Dr. Summers took office in 2001.

Lawrence H. Summers is former president of Harvard University and former secretary of the Treasury. This essay is based on a speech Dr. Summers gave at The New York Times’s Schools for Tomorrow conference.

9 Reasons to Let Your Kids Lose

2012-01-11T10:52:00.003-05:00

I read this article and found myself nodding my head in agreement as I read. It is another article from Education Magazine that, in my humble opinion, addresses an issue that has a become a major problem in the last 15 years, and directly correlates to the "child-centered parenting" philosophy that has become so prevalent in today's culture. This philosophy has started to become popular in many athletic associations and also in schools. It seems that in our quick desire to make "everyone a winner" we are doing a disservice to our children. We want everyone to win so we don't keep score. We want all students to have the same grades so we move away from traditional grading. We are creating a generation who does not know how to lose, and as a consequence, does not have the ability to persevere and continue when they are not winning. I really like how this article gives specific ways that losing helps our children. I have always told my basketball players that losing helps us appreciate winning. What are your thoughts?

9 Reasons to Let Your Kids Lose
By Rebecca VanderMeulen

Have you ever bent the rules of a board game so your kids wouldn't lose? Slowed down during a backyard race so your child is first to the finish line? That impulse makes sense at first blush. An adult can handle a loss at Go Fish much more easily than your average preschooler. Letting your child win protects her from feeling bad.

But as it turns out, research tells us that losing games is good for children, and helps them develop into empathetic, well-adjusted people.

"We naturally, as parents, want to protect our children from pain," says Christine Carter, author of Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents. "Sometimes kids need to experience discomfort, or sometimes great disappointment, to grow."

If your child reacts to losing by pouting or throwing game pieces on the floor, it might be hard to remember that the experience is for his own good. However, getting through a minor loss now has benefits in the long run.

Coping skills. The world is a competitive place. As Carter notes, losing in a board game at home with a parent is much easier for a child to handle than experiencing her first loss in a public place, like a competition in front of her kindergarten class. Kids who have practice losing learn how to be good sports. "If they don't lose, they're being set up to not be able to cope," says Carter, director of the parenting program at The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California-Berkeley.

Learning from mistakes. If a game requires specific skills or strategies, losing gives children a chance to analyze how they might have done better. Jon Oliver, co-author of Lesson One: The ABCs of Life, compares this to athletes who watch videos of past games to spot weaknesses in their play. "Every day we make a mistake and we learn from it," he says. "If you make a mistake, what do you do the next time?"

Self-confidence. Children might improve their skills so they'll get better at a game they've lost, but as a result they'll learn new things. Becoming more knowledgeable builds their belief in themselves and pride in their abilities. Plus, they'll learn that performing well comes from giving their best effort.

Empathy. Kids can't identify with others who are going through a loss if they've never had that experience. Every time your child loses a game, he receives a little lesson in the fact that everyone has to struggle through life, whether that means studying to get an A on a test or persevering through soccer practice before scoring the perfect goal. "We feel empathy by feeling hurt ourselves," says Melody Brooke, a marriage and family therapist in Texas.

Self-control. No child can get her way all the time. Losing sometimes shows kids that they can't expect good things to be handed to them, and that they have to behave well around others or risk being labeled a sore loser. Oliver notes that like any skill, losing with grace takes practice.

Joy in having fun. Children with the ability to handle a loss can have a good time playing a game even if they don't win. "The most important thing is that it's not about the outcome," Carter says.

Life is full of chances to show kids that losing isn't the end of the world.

Admit mistakes. Be open with your children about your own errors and how you fix them. This shows that no one is perfect. "Every day we all make mistakes. Maybe you're making a recipe and you forgot an ingredient," Oliver says. "As adults, we have to be vulnerable about it."

Keep score – sometimes. Carter suggests maintaining a balance between the number of times you keep score in games and the number of times you don't. "You can just send the message that we're just here having a good time," she says. "It's also a way to prevent a loss." But if you never keep score, she says, your kids won't learn what losing is like.

Challenge them. Encourage your children to get better at everyday tasks. Play a game that's a bit harder than they've played before or assign them a household chore. "Give them challenges at home that are maybe beyond their abilities, and let them see that they can learn to do it," says Brooke, author of Oh, Wow! This Changes Everything!

Brooke adds that kids who are never allowed to lose can grow up anxious and depressed. They've never learned to cope when life doesn't go the way they've planned. "On the inside, they don't understand what is going on," she says. "They feel that the world is somehow harming them."

But learning that it's possible to lose a game and get though the day intact goes a long way toward preparing kids for real life.

"Our job as parents is not to make our children happy," Brooke says. "Our job is to help them to be happy in the world."

I Had This Coming!!!

2012-01-06T20:56:00.007-05:00

I have learned that sometimes in life, you just have to wave the white flag and surrender. Today was one of those such days for me. For my 38 followers, (maybe sometime I will hit the vast number of 4o followers who actually waste their time reading these posts) you will remember my recent post where I recounted, with pride non the less, my practical joke that I played on my son Andrew. Last night, I was the recipient of a practical joke and I just had to scratch my head, laugh, and admit that I had been "had". From 1996 until 2005 I served as a youth pastor and was also a middle school teacher and coach for a large portion of that time. Needless to say, that over the years there have been numerous instances of mischief intended for my house, and I will admit that I have participated in my fair share of yard rolling, forking and other various forms of tomfoolery!

Last night, as is my usual habit, at around 10:oopm I let my dogs outside for the last time of the evening before laying down to watch Everyone Loves Raymond, which is one of my favorite shows. I turned on my floodlights for my mother-in-law because she was driving down from Murfreesboro and was suppose to arrive between 11:30 and midnight. This is not an unusual time for her to drive down since my father-in-law works 3rd shift. She will typically leave her house when he leaves for work and just drive down to our house. I am usually asleep well before she arrives so and she lets herself in with little fan fair. Our dogs (we have two dachshunds who are inside dogs) may bark or growl, but it is nothing like they normally do whenever someone knocks on our door. When this happens, they tend to go berserk running and barking. For some reason, they did this last night. I was in the middle of a dead sleep when they launched themselves into this fury. I awoke very startled and disoriented as to what time it actually was. I quickly went running to the front door not even thinking about what I would do if there was an actual intruder in my house. I soon recognized what was happening and proceeded to quiet the dogs down, but not before they had created enough noise and commotion to wake everyone up anyone within 50 yards of my house. Sherry (my mother-in-law) quickly asked me "Sean, why is there furniture in your yard?" to which I replied, "What are you talking about? There is no furniture in my yard!" in a rather agitated tone. It was around 12:15am and cold so I was not in the mood for silliness. After my reply to her question she said, "Well, there is a toilet with a lamp shade in your yard out by the road." I stepped outside into the cold to vaguely see the outline of several pieces of what looked like junk in my yard. The things were located right at the edge of where my floodlights reached so it was not clear exactly what I was seeing. I was furious. My first thought was that someone had dumped their garbage in my yard. My children and I have taken the responsibility of cleaning up our road, and for whatever reason, people like to throw trash on the side of the road. This really should not bother me, but for some reason it does. I complained about it for years and about two years ago decided to quit complaining and be a part of the solution and not just complain. At least once a week I, usually with the help of at least one child will pick up the trash on my road. I went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep but tossed and turned thinking about the idiots who thought they would be funny and throw their trash into the yard of the guy who picks up their trash. I kept playing over how I was going to handle the situation in the morning. I had full intentions of calling the police and reporting this nonsense. I also planned to look over this trash to see if I could determine whose junk this was. It took me a good 30 minutes to get back to sleep. I was up well before my alarm still fuming about it. I got ready, and proceeded to get my flashlight to begin using my Sherlock Holmes investigation skills. Of course, as soon as I turned on my flashlight it died. So I had to go find new batteries and replace them. Once I got outside, I found something completely different than what I was expecting and I just had to laugh. I quickly realized that this was not someones junk or garbage, but rather a well played practical joke in which someone had but a LOT of time and effort into pulling off. As you can see by the pictures, not only was there a toilette with a lamp shade, there was a bookshelf that had trophies, a black and white TV, and books on it with a UT pom-pom, a carpet with a table that had a phone, calculator, several books and magazines (a Better Homes and Gardens, which was a nice touch!) with a bowl full of cornflakes that also had S kittles and Mike & Ikes in them. This was a rather strange mixture, but seemingly fit right in with the other strange things that were now put together in my yard! There were also two chairs, and another cart looking table that had another lamp (with lampshade) on it. To top it off, there was a VERY used toilette that had a stuffed platypus on it that was just hilarious looking.
It did not take me long to create a suspect lists and the perpetrators were quickly identified. I knew by the creativity put into this project that girls had to be behind this! There was WAY too much preparation involved for a guy! They would have just bought toilette paper and rolled the yard. The funny thing is that ALL of them (that I currently know of) are former BBS students. I also had the privilege of working with these students when they were seniors in high school when I was interim youth pastor at Brainerd Baptist Church. I can admit that I have been had...but I am already planning my rebuttal! If any of you would like to help me by suggesting how I can get the proper revenge, I would love to hear your suggestions!

A close up view of my new man cave!

The view from my sidewalk

I thought I would strike a pose on the "throne"

New Tenn. Teacher Ratings Vary Widely by District

2012-01-04T20:18:00.006-05:00

The following article is from Education Week, a journal of various articles pertaining to education that I frequently read. If you have followed the news closely over the last year, you are aware that the public education system in Tennessee has faced some controversial changes. The two main controversies have involved rules involving tenure for teachers and collective bargaining rights of the TEA, the state teacher union.
This topic is of great interest to me. I traveled to Knoxville twice last semester (not on a Saturday to watch a football game!) to be officially trained in this new evaluation system. Although teachers in independent schools are not required to have state license, many of our teachers do and I believe that I should do whatever is necessary to ensure that our teachers are able to keep their professional certifications. This article provides some insight to the problems that are evident with the new system. It was very interesting to sit through the training and listen to the trainer (who was great by the way) muse about the various issues involved in the new system that her department created.

New Tenn. Teacher Ratings Vary Widely by District

By The Associated Press

Nashville, Tenn.

Under the state's new teacher evaluation system, observations by principals make up half of their scores, but a first glimpse at those observation scores shows they are all over the map.
An open records request from The Tennessean found that in Murfreesboro City Schools, for example, nearly half of the teachers were given a top score of five, while in Fayette County, only one percent earned the top rating.
At the bottom end of the scale, only one Williamson County teacher received the lowest score, while at Humbolt City Schools 7.6 percent of teachers earned a one. And in at least 16 other school districts, no teachers received the bottom score.
The state had predicted that districts would rate 3-5 percent of teachers as ones; 10-25 percent as twos; 40-50 percent as threes; 10-25 percent as fours and 5-10 percent as fives. No district that submitted data hit all those ranges.
Some critics of the new evaluation system say the differences between the districts show that the system is too arbitrary.
"I question how evaluators are evaluating if the scores vary greatly across the state," said Marshall Winkler, wellness teacher at Franklin High School. "I feel like the (state) jumped into this new plan too soon."
But state officials say it's too early to draw conclusions.
"(The data) is inconsistent with what the research would project, but we are midyear on this," said Emily Barton, the state's assistant commissioner for curriculum and instruction. Barton said they will know at the end of the year whether the observation scores line up with student achievement measures. If not, districts could penalize principals by taking 10 percent off their own evaluations.
Williamson County Schools Director Mike Looney filed his own open records request for the ratings data after state officials questioned why Williamson principals rated 97 percent of teachers a three or higher. Looney said the scores are justified because his county has good teachers.
"To come to some conclusion that our scores are too high ... is preposterous," Looney said. "We are not going to feel compelled or pushed into making our teachers fit some bell curve."
Murfreesboro City Schools also got a visit from state officials after issuing more fives on teacher observations than any other district in the state but one—Clinton City Schools.
"When first seeing the score distributions, I questioned why they were different than the predicted distribution," Murfreesboro City Schools Director Linda Gilbert wrote in an email. "I have made the principals aware of the state average and expected distribution ... but I have not asked them to change what they are doing."
Gilbert said the scores are justified by high student achievement in the district.
The evaluations won't affect teacher tenure this year, Barton said, because it takes five years for consideration and teachers can't lose tenure unless they have two years of low evaluation scores.
Under the new evaluation system, 35 percent of a teacher's final score is based on student learning gains and 15 percent on data the school chooses, such as ACT scores. Principals use a long list of measures for success during their observations, which count for the other 50 percent.
The ratings data is based on 47,000 teacher observations between August and Dec. 13. Some districts did not submit enough observations to be included in the data. Districts using their own evaluation models, such as Memphis and Hamilton County, are not included either.

My Christmas Practical Joke

2011-12-25T22:45:00.009-05:00

Do you like practical jokes? I remember watching Dick Clark's TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes when I was a kid and I loved that show. Who doesn't enjoy watching a well-executed practical joke being pulled off. Christmas this year provided the perfect opportunity for me to play a great joke on my oldest son Andrew. The fact that the joke was on my son made it even more enjoyable for me. I will set up the story, and then encourage you to watch the video at the end, although it does not do the joke justice!

The Background

About 3 months ago my youngest son (Aaron) purchased an iPad. He had saved his money for almost a year to be able to purchase this item. He had saved every dime he received as a gift from family members when he graduated from BBS. He also saved money from his birthday, and from work that he did over the summer and early fall. His older brother has not yet fully grasped the importance of saving his money, and typically spends his money pretty quickly after receiving it. Andrew also wanted an iPad, but was well short of the $500 purchase price. You can imagine the tension that, at times, has reared itself over the fact that Andrew wants to play with Aaron's iPad. For the most part, it has been a very good experience, but I have had several "conversations" with Aaron about his siblings playing on his iPad. This is usually only a problem when Aaron has done something he should not have and the end result is that his iPad has been taken away from him for a amount of time.
Back in October, Andrew and Aaron did some work for their grandfather and Andrew decided that he was going to start saving up for his own iPad. He had $200. I informed him that if he still wanted the iPad, there was a way for him to get one. The plan was simple - if he earned $300 (which was basically another $100) that his mother and I would pay the other $200 for the iPad and he could get this for Christmas. At the time of this propostion, Andrew had the opportunity to work again for his grandfather over Thanksgiving break and if history was any indication, I felt like this was a very obtainable goal. (It doesn't hurt that his PaPaw typically OVER pays when his employees happen to be his grandsons.) A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, Andrew broke his thumb playing basketball and was put in a cast. This development threw a wrench in his plans to work for his grandfather and earn the $100 he needed to get to $300 goal.

The Joke

About 3 weeks ago I had the idea of playing a joke on Andrew for Christmas. Since he was well short of his side of the agreement, he had already dismissed the idea of getting an iPad and was already thinking of other opportunities. He had asked me in passing about some other tablets that he had seen some of his friends carry at school. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have a certain affinity for Apple products, and my children know this, so these conversations tended to be rather short in nature. Recently, I told Andrew that we were going to get a Kindle Fire instead of the iPad. I also told him that it was on back order and he would not get it until after Christmas. He received this news very well and to my surprise was not disappointed and began telling everyone that he knew that he was getting a the Fire for Christmas. As we were picking his brother up for school this day, Andrew excitedly exclaimed "Aaron, I am getting a Kindle Fire for Christmas!" Aaron, without missing a beat, said, "Loser! Don't settle Andrew-save your money. Don't settle, you will regret this. We have all the apps and music all ready for our iPods. Don't do it!" Clearly, Aaron was more upset about this new development that Andrew was, which was not what I was expecting. For the next couple of weeks Andrew researched what apps where available for the Fire and prepared to receive his gift! He was genuinely excited about this and had a great attitude. I had failed in my attempt to get him worked up.

About a week before Christmas I asked a friend of mine who had recently purchased a Fire if I could borrow the box for some fun that I had planned. He readily agreed and let me borrow the box. Two days before Christmas I decided to show the box to Aaron with the thought that he would tell Andrew that he was indeed going to get his Fire on Christmas day. Aaron kept the secret and didn't tell Andrew, so on Christmas eve I decided to show the box to him just to get him worked up. He was ecstatic and could not believe that his Fire was here. Little did he know that he was just looking at the empty box. He had begged us for two days to let him open it early. On Christmas morning, Andrew opened up his "Fire" and found a letter that said the following:

"Dear Andrew,

I know you are probably confused right now. You had a great attitude when I told you that you were getting the Fire instead of the iPad, and for that, your mother and I are very proud of you. You have opened this expecting a Kindle Fire. You should know that your parents love you too much to give you anything but the best, which everyone knows is the iPad! So, look up son, your real gift is right in front of you.

Merry Christmas,

Mom & Dad

With this, I handed Andrew his iPad and the joke was complete! He was so excited. He said, Dad, I was going to be happy with the Fire, but I am glad to have the iPad instead. Now he and Aaron can share apps, music, and play games against each other. I have uploaded the video of Andrew opening his gift and reading his letter. The video is somewhat grainy because I wanted it to load quickly.

Have you played a good joke on your child(ren) that you would like to share? If so, please do.

The Gift of Grace

2011-12-24T21:50:00.003-05:00

For the 3rd year in a row, the Corcoran family spent Christmas Eve at the Chattanooga Christmas Eve Celebration at the Chattanooga Trade & Convention Center. It has become a favorite part of the Christmas season for my family and this year was no different. The music and message where great. I particularly enjoy that Christians from various churches and denominations come together to worship and celebrate the birth of our Savior. At tonight's service, an interesting challenge was shared with us and I thought I would also share it with you and encourage you to participate as well. It generated good discussion with my children at dinner following the service.
As a part of illustrating the "pay it forward" concept Brainerd Baptist Church actually gave away $26,000 in sealed envelopes in $20, $50, and $100 increments! I know some of you are re-reading that sentence right now, and YES it is correct. At the closing of the message, we were challenged to bring the envelope home, pray over who we should give it too, and match the amount that was in our envelope (or give more) and then to give it away!
We have two different families that we are praying over and am looking forward to the time when we give this money to this family. If you are interested, Brainerd will be having a special service on January 15th at 6pm to share about how this project has impacted the Chattanooga area. Come be a part of it!

Study Links Academic Setbacks to Middle School Transition

2011-11-28T13:17:00.004-05:00

I read this article today via Education Weekly's twitter feed. As a former 6th grade teacher, I found the findings of this study very interesting. This study further affirms the need for us to work closely with our partners at the next level.

By Sarah D. Sparks

While policymakers and researchers alike have focused on improving students’ transition into high school, a new study of Florida schools suggests the critical transition problem may happen years before, when students enter middle school.

The study , part of the Program on Education Policy and Governance Working Papers Series at Harvard University, found that students moving from grade 5 into middle school show a “sharp drop” in math and language arts achievement in the transition year that plagues them as far out as 10th grade, even risking thwarting their ability to graduate high school and go on to college. Students who make a school transition in 6th grade are absent more often than those who remain in one school through 8th grade, and they are more likely to drop out of school by 10th grade.

“I don’t see eliminating the transition at the high school level as important or beneficial as eliminating the transition at the middle school level,” said Martin R. West, an assistant education professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a co-author of the study.

“That to me is a really robust finding,” said David L. Hough, the managing editor of the Middle Grades Research Journal and a dean emeritus of Missouri State University’s college of education, in Springfield. “All these people are focusing on the transition to high school; it looks to me like they need to be focusing on that transition to middle school.”

Mr. Hough, who was not involved in the Harvard study, has been developing a database of nearly 2,000 schools covering middle-level grades across 25 states. He said that roughly 6,000 schools nationwide are structured in the K-8 configuration and 8,000 as 6-8. While so-called “elemiddle” K-8 schools had been spreading more rapidly than regular middle schools in recent years, Mr. Hough said district moves to swap middle for elemiddle schools have “leveled off” since 2010.

For the Florida study, Mr. West and Guido Schwerdt, a researcher with the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich in Germany, used the state’s longitudinal database to track more than 450,000 students in the state’s public schools who proceeded from grades 3 to 10 between 2000-01 and 2008-09.

They found students who attended elementary schools ending at grade 5 had an early edge over those attending K-8 schools in mathematics and language arts, but their performance in both subjects dropped dramatically when they switched to middle school in 6th grade. After the 6th grade transition, middle school students fell by .12 standard deviations in math and .09 standard deviations in reading compared with students at K-8 schools, and then that gap continued to widen throughout middle school and into high school.

Moreover, students who had attended a middle school were 18 percent more likely than students who attended a K-8 school before high school to not enroll in grade 10 after attending grade 9—an indicator that they may have dropped out.

While the middle school drop was most pronounced in urban schools, Mr. West said the same general pattern was repeated in suburban and rural schools.

The Florida findings are “almost identical” to the results of a smaller, 2010 study of New York City public schools, Mr. West said. In it, Columbia University researchers found that students who started in K-5 or K-6 schools performed slightly better than their K-8 peers in math and language arts in 5th grade, but when they moved to a middle school, the K-8 and middle school students changed places, and the achievement gap between those groups increased through 8th grade.

Middle Versus High

Mr. Hough has found there is “much popular experience about the shock students experience when first entering middle school from an elementary school, but precious little empirical data have been collected to examine it.”

Rather, he said, most researchers and policymakers focus on the transition into high school. In part, that may be because most students who drop out of high school do so in 9th or 10th grades, yet the Florida study found that the transition from middle to high school was much less traumatic for students than the one from elementary to middle school.

Florida students entering high school did see a drop in achievement, but it was temporary and only one-fifth the size of the drop seen during the middle school transition. “For the high school switchers, they suffer a little one-time drop but then recover,” Mr. West said. “It looks like a much less disruptive transition than the one to middle school; the high school transition is not that different from what you’d see in a typical school transition.”

The onset of puberty can exacerbate normal transition problems for younger students, according to Patti Kinney, an associate director of middle-level services at the National Association of Secondary School Principals, in Reston, Va. “You’re looking at students making a transition during a time when tremendous physical, cognitive, and emotional transitions are going on at the same time,” Ms. Kinney said. “There’s a wide variety of maturation among different children at that level.”

In contrast, the Mountain View, Calif., research group EdSource found no difference between K-8 and 6-8 school achievement overall in its 2010 study of middle-grade achievement in California, “Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades,” but it did find students often faced a tougher transition into middle school than high school, according to Matthew Rosen, an EdSource senior research associate.

“The picture we got was schools that were having higher-achievement outcomes were being more intense and intentional about looking at a wider array of student data [during the middle school transition] and finding out what interventions were needed quickly,” Mr. Rosen said.

Easing Transitions

For example, the 1,400-student La Merced Intermediate School, part of the Montebello Unified School District outside Los Angeles, asks the elementary teachers of all incoming 6th graders to fill out academic-history reports, including their previous grades and test scores, problem areas, favorite subjects, and extracurricular activities. “Those sheets allow teachers to go, ‘OK, what is the range of our students’ interests and how do we get them involved in the activities that really resonate with their interests?’ ” Mr. Rosen said.

The teachers from the smaller elementary schools that feed into La Merced also accompany their 5th grade students on a site visit to the middle school, to help the students learn the campus layout and prepare for the differences in structure from one grade to the next.

For the Florida study, the researchers used a survey of principals to compare instructional practices at the various schools, but did not find much difference between practices or class sizes at K-8 and 6-8 schools. However, they did find that 6-8 middle schools had more than twice as many students at each grade level, 363, than the 125 students per grade on average at K-8 schools.

That larger grade-level group may make it harder to tailor instruction and ease the moves from grade to grade, Mr. West suggested.

Ms. Kinney of the NASSP said that effective transitions should be “a process, not an event.”

“A lot of times, people talk about transition programs, and they are talking about what they are doing in 9th grade, when they really need to be working with their middle schools to support students much earlier,” she said.

“Kids develop at their own rates; what’s important is how you are personalizing that environment for them,” Ms. Kinney said. “The grade configuration in a lot of ways is a secondary consideration.”

The NASSP’s Breaking Ranks in the Middle book on improving student achievement in middle grades calls for schools serving those grades to provide each student with a “personal adult advocate” to help him or her understand the changing academic requirements and social dynamics.

“It is easy for those who don’t work regularly with middle-level students to forget that 6th graders are only five or six years removed from their teddy bears,” Breaking Ranks notes, and “those who do work with middle-level students sometimes forget that, by the time students leave ‘the middle,’ the rigors of college are only four short years away.”

Special coverage on the alignment between K-12 schools and postsecondary education is supported in part by a grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education, at www.luminafoundation.org.

Who Likes Free Stuff?

2011-11-21T22:00:00.010-05:00

Well, Bobcat Blog readers, I have a treat for you! It is our first day of Thanksgiving Break and the biggest shopping day of the holiday season is just a few days away. Who says I have not learned something working with 50+ great female faculty and staff? In the spirit of Black Friday, we are going to be giving away a pretty cool item that will make a great Christmas present for someone. The highly intelligent, attractive, and just cool in general followers of this blog will be the first to know the details!
Last week I participated in a webinar that discussed using social media in independent education. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am constantly looking for ways to market the great things happening at Brainerd Baptist School. One of the participants in the webinar shared an idea that I thought was really cool, so I am going to try it at BBS to see if we have similar results.
For the last two years I have had many parents tell me that their child has come home from school and they want either an iPod Touch or an iPad because our students use them at school so often. We have many parents who come to us for advice as they shop for these items. When I began thinking about what I could give away that would motivate people in our contest, the iPod Touch was the logical choice. So, on December 9th, we are going to give away a brand new iPod Touch. Yes, you read correctly, we are GIVING it away! You may be wondering what the catch is, so here are the details: We are beginning a "like" campaign for our Brainerd Baptist School Facebook Page. Our goal is to significantly raise the number of people who are following what is happening at BBS. So, if you are one of the 3 people I know that are not on FB (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!), I am sorry, you will not have a chance at this opportunity, but for everyone else, click here, and click the "like" button on our page and you are entered for the drawing for a free iPod Touch. This is open to current families, former families, prospective families, friends, extended family, and anyone else that wants to like our page! Maybe, Brainerd Baptist School will allow you to sleep in on Friday and give you a head start on your Christmas shopping. I can make you this guarantee - your chance of winning this are greater than your chances of winning the lottery!

Disclaimer- Like all contest, there is a disclaimer that is important to read. All employees of Brainerd Baptist School and Brainerd Baptist Church are not eligible. Sorry :(

Five Hallmarks of Good Homework

2011-11-06T17:26:00.006-05:00

Hello Bobcat Blog readers! I have neglected posting the last couple of weeks and I have to admit, I really do not have a good excuse for this. I have read several articles and journals and as I am reading have thought, "I need to post these to share with parents." but that is as far as my effort as carried me! I am going to attempt to do a better job in the next few weeks. I am excited about our Parent Workshops that are coming up in a couple of weeks. We will have many different topics in our workshops for our parents to choose from. You need to mark your calendar for this night. You can learn more about it and also register by visiting our school webpage.
I also want to offer this. Do you have something that you would like to see me write about, or better yet, find some articles about? If so, please comment here or email me. I would be happy to do this.
Have you ever wondered about homework? How much is too much? Is it a good assignment or busy work? I admit that when I was in the class, I did not always give homework that meets the criteria listed below. This article, by Cathy Vatterott, was recently featured in ASCD has some great points. I believe it is a good barometer to measure the type of work that we give students. I have shared this with the faculty of Brainerd and it is my desire for our homework to meet these hallmarks as well.

Five Hallmarks of Good Homework

Homework shouldn't be about rote learning. The best kind deepens student understanding and builds essential skills.

For tonight's homework,

Write the 10 spelling words 3 times each.

Write definitions of the 15 science vocabulary words.

Do the math problems on page 27, problems 1–20 on dividing fractions.

Check any homework hotline, and you're likely to find similar homework assignments, which look an awful lot like those we remember from school. But do these tasks really reinforce learning? Do they focus on rote learning—or on deeper understandings?

The Fundamental Five

The best homework tasks exhibit five characteristics. First, the task has a clear academic purpose, such as practice, checking for understanding, or applying knowledge or skills. Second, the task efficiently demonstrates student learning. Third, the task promotes owner ship by offering choices and being personally relevant. Fourth, the task instills a sense of competence—the student can success fully complete it without help. Last, the task is aesthetically pleasing—it appears enjoyable and interesting (Vatterott, 2009).

Hallmark 1: Purpose

Let's start by examining how purposeful tonight's homework assignments are and whether there are better alternatives.

The purpose of the spelling homework—"Write the 10 spelling words 3 times each"—might be to practice spelling words correctly—a rote memory task. Many teachers believe that writing is a good method, especially if they learned well that way when they were students. But not all students remember by writing. Our goal is to give students methods that are purposeful for them, methods that work for their learning styles.

A better way might be to allow students to design their own task:

Create your own method to practice spelling words or choose one of the following: Write or type the words three times, spell them out loud, use Scrabble tiles to spell them, trace them with your finger, or create a puzzle using the words.

The teacher could also make the task more meaningful by having students connect the spellings to a spelling rule (such as "i before e, except after c").

The second assignment is to "Write definitions of the 15 science vocabulary words." Although the words may have been discussed in class, they're probably new; students are often expected to learn new words to prepare for reading or a class discussion.

But does writing definitions really help us learn what words mean? Writing definitions is a low-level rote task—students best learn the meanings of new words by using them in context. A better task might be one of the following:

Show that you know the meaning of the science vocabulary words by using them in sentences or in a story.

For each vocabulary word, read the three sentences below it. Choose the sentence that uses the word correctly.

A more thoughtful way to understand and remember what words mean is to assign the vocabulary words as an application task after the lesson. For instance, one middle school teacher has students build and launch rockets. After they launch their rockets, the students add the definitions of such words as force, speed, acceleration, and momentum to their notebooks. At that point, the definitions have meaning and connect to the students' experience (Vatterott, 2007).

The third homework assignment—"Do the math problems on page 27"—is more complicated because we don't know whether the purpose of the assignment is to check for understanding of dividing fractions or to practice dividing fractions.

Let's assume the purpose is to practice dividing fractions. The math teacher demonstrates how to divide fractions and monitors the students while they do practice problems in class. Because students can successfully complete the problems immediately after instruction, the teacher assumes that the students understand the concept. The teacher then assigns 20 problems as practice for homework. However, when some of the students get home, they realize that they did not fully understand how to do the problems—and what the teacher thought was practice turns out to be new learning. The students struggle or, worse, do the 20 problems the wrong way.

Ideally, homework should provide feedback to teachers about student understanding, enabling teachers to adjust instruction and, when necessary, reteach concepts before assigning practice. Assigning practice prematurely can cause student frustration and confusion.

Practice is more effective when distributed in small doses over several days or weeks (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). That is, distributed practice is more effective than mass practice. A student may need to practice a math operation 50 times to master it—but not all in one night! Instead of the traditional 20–30 problems each night, a better math assignment is two-tiered—for example, three questions or problems to check for understanding of today's lesson and 10 questions or problems to practice previous learning.

Hallmark 2: Efficiency

Some traditional tasks may be inefficient—either because they show no evidence of learning or because they take an inordinate amount of time to complete but yield little "bang for the buck." Both students and parents tend to view tasks that don't appear to require thinking as busywork.

Projects that require nonacademic skills (such as cutting, gluing, or drawing) are often inefficient. Teachers assign projects like dioramas, models, and poster displays with all the best intentions—they see them as a fun, creative way for students to show what they have learned. But unless a rubric clearly spells out the content requirements, projects may reveal little about students' content knowledge and much more about their artistic talents (Bennett & Kalish, 2006). Even content-rich projects can be inefficient in terms of time spent. Teachers often don't realize how many hours these projects take and how tedious they may be for both student and parent.

There are more efficient ways to accomplish the same goal and better demonstrate student learning. Instead of creating a diorama of life during the Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War, students could write a diary entry as though they were living in the time, discussing daily life, race relations, and laws that affected them. Instead of building a model of the solar system, students could create a poster to show the planets' temperature extremes, periods of rotation in Earth time, and the importance of inertia and gravity to the motion of the planets. Students could create a video that they post on YouTube or a game to demonstrate their knowledge of the steps in a process, such as how the digestive system works, how a bill becomes a law, or how to solve an algebra problem (Vatterott, 2007).

Hallmark 3: Ownership

As a teacher once said, "I never heard of a student not doing his work; it's our work he's not doing." When we customize tasks to fit student learning styles and interests, the task becomes theirs, not ours. The goal of ownership is to create a personal relationship between the student and the content (Vatterott, 2009).

One of the easiest ways to promote ownership is through individual research. For instance, if the class is studying the history of Europe, students could write a report about the country of their choice. They could choose a topic they want to learn more about. Even though for all reports students would use the same rubric—which would focus on facts about government, economy, culture, or geography—students could write a traditional research paper, create a PowerPoint presentation, or design a travel brochure.

Instead of having students write out multiplication tables, a more meaningful assignment would ask, "What is the best way for you to practice your multiplication tables?" Some students may learn better by reciting them, creating a table, or setting them to music. Thinking about how they learn best makes the learning more relevant.

When students practice reading (and grow to enjoy reading for pleasure), choice of what, when, and how much to read is especially important. Typical assignments dictate what as well as how much: "Twenty minutes each night, two chapters from the novel each night, or 30 pages from your textbook each night." Forcing students into those requirements may have the adverse effect of students actually reading less than they would if they were not "on the clock" (Kohn, 2006).

When teachers tell students how much to read, students often just read to an assigned page number and stop. A California mother wrote,

Our children are now expected to read 20 minutes a night and record such on their homework sheet. What parents are discovering (surprise) is that those kids who used to sit down and read for pleasure…are now setting the timer, choosing the easiest books, and stopping when the timer dings… Reading has become a chore, like brushing your teeth. (Kohn, 2006, pp. 176–177)

Then comes the tedious task of judging whether the students met the requirement. The reading log is the typical proof: "Each night, write down the author, title, and number of pages you read, how much time you spent reading, and the date. Have your parent sign the log each night." Whew! Not only are reading logs time-consuming, but also focusing on documenting takes a lot of the joy out of reading (Bennett & Kalish, 2006).

This might be a better approach:

Try to read an average of 30 minutes each night. Once a week, estimate how much time you've spent reading. Write a short paragraph about what you've been reading.

If we want to promote ownership and encourage students to enjoy reading, we must go beyond the assigned reading list. One student who usually enjoyed reading lamented, "I just want to read something that I want to read!" We should broaden what "counts" as reading to include such nontraditional sources as blogs, websites, and magazines. Instead of worrying about whether students did the reading, we should be focusing on whether the reading did them any good.

Hallmark 4: Competence

If all students are to feel competent in completing homework, we must abandon a one-size-fits-all approach. Homework that students can't do without help is not good homework; students are discouraged when they are unable to complete homework on their own (Darling-Hammond & Ifill-Lynch, 2006; Stiggins, 2007). To ensure homework is doable, teachers must differentiate assignments so they are at the appropriate level of difficulty for individual students (Tomlinson, 2008).

Struggling students may require fewer questions, less complex problems with fewer steps, or less reading. Some students may be given abbreviated reading assignments, adapted reading packets, or simplified directions. One of the simplest ways to help struggling students is to require less writing, with fewer blanks to fill in, or answers that the student can circle instead of writing out. Although some students may create a graphic organizer, others may be given a graphic organizer. Teachers might give some students word banks, copies of their notes, or hint sheets. English language learners may benefit from assignments containing pictures that give clues to meaning in assignments with difficult vocabulary and may find it easier to complete work in their native language first.

The amount of work is a huge obstacle to feelings of competence for some students. A task that takes the average student 15 minutes to complete could take another student an hour. It doesn't make sense for slower students to have to spend more time on homework than other students do—instead, teachers should simply give them less work (Goldberg, 2007).

A simple means of differentiating is to make homework time-based instead of task-based. Instead of assigning all students 20 questions to answer, assign all students to complete what they can in a specified amount of time: "Answer as many questions as you can in 30 minutes; work longer if you like." In one 5th grade classroom, the rule is "50 minutes is 50 minutes." Students are not expected to work more than 50 minutes each night. If students have homework in math, science, and reading and they spend 50 minutes on science and math, parents simply write a note saying, "Rhonda spent her 50 minutes on science and math and had no time for reading tonight" (Vatterott, 2009). Teachers who are uncomfortable with this method might want to prioritize subjects ("Do the reading first, then math, then science") or ask students to spend a little time on each subject ("Spend at least 10 minutes on each subject. You do not need to work more than 50 minutes total"). A better solution may be to limit homework to one or two subjects each night.

Teachers must also take care to adequately explain assignments—preferably in writing—and structure them so students know how to complete them (Darling-Hammond & Ifill-Lynch, 2006). "Read Chapter 4" is an inadequate direction at any grade level. Reading to acquire information or think critically about the content requires a scaffolded task. Teachers may rely on worksheets, but when students can simply fill in the blanks, they aren't necessarily demonstrating understanding of the content. A more meaningful scaffold would focus on broader concepts and would include graphic organizers, big-picture questions, or reflective tasks, such as the following:

List the four most important ideas in Chapter 4.

Keep a journal. After each chapter section, write a reaction to what you read.

During your reading, place sticky notes on the parts you have questions about.

During your reading, place sticky notes on the parts you found most interesting to discuss in class.

When we want students to focus on the main ideas of a novel or short story, high-interest and high-emotion questions such as these work well:

Which characters best typify the following virtues: honor, integrity, strength? What did they do that shows that virtue?

Which characters best typify the following vices: greed, jealousy, arrogance? What did they do that shows that vice?

With which character do you most identify and why?

How does the story relate to life today? (Vatterott, 2007)

Teachers need to adequately structure complex tasks. For example, if the assignment is for 4th graders to research and write a report about a time period or an important person, do all 4th graders know how to do research? Students not only need a rubric that details what they must include in the report, but they also need instructions on how to find resources, steps to follow in organizing the process, and suggested websites. Long-term projects require monitoring, with intermittent due dates for outlines and rough drafts.

If the homework assignment is to "Study for the test," does that mean memorize facts, review concepts, or learn new material not covered in class? And how do students know what it means? Although a study guide or take-home test that shows students exactly what they need to know is helpful, they don't necessarily have to write or complete anything to study. Teachers should encourage students to create their own best method of reviewing the information, suggesting possible options, such as organizing notes into an outline, writing test questions for themselves, putting important information on note cards, or studying with a partner.

Hallmark 5: Aesthetic Appeal

Every day, students make decisions about whether to do a homework assignment on the basis of their first impressions. The way homework looks is important. Five-page worksheets or endless lists of definitions or math problems look boring and tedious. As a gourmet cook would say, "Presentation is everything." Wise teachers have learned that students at all levels are more motivated to complete assignments that are visually uncluttered. Less information on the page, plenty of room to write answers, and the use of graphics or clip art make tasks look inviting and interesting (Vatterott, 2009).

In an effort to create appealing tasks, teachers sometimes compromise learning. A word search may look like fun, but it has little value in reinforcing spelling and can be a torturous task. A better task would be for students to create their own pattern of content-related words, as in Scrabble. Likewise, crossword puzzles are fun, but students may benefit little from matching definitions with words when the focus is on solving the puzzle. A better task would be for the students to find connections between the concepts that the words represent. For example, students might group words as "feeling words" or "action words," as nouns or verbs, or as words with one or two syllables.

Free to Learn

Meaningful homework should be purposeful, efficient, personalized, doable, and inviting. Most important, students must be able to freely communicate with teachers when they struggle with homework, knowing they can admit that they don't understand a task—and can do so without penalty.

References

Bennett, S., & Kalish, N. (2006). The case against homework: How homework is hurting our children and what we can do about it. New York: Crown.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Ifill-Lynch, O. (2006). If they'd only do their work! Educational Leadership, 63(5), 8–13.

Goldberg, K. (2007, April). The homework trap. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago.

Kohn, A. (2006). The homework myth: Why our kids get too much of a bad thing. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Stiggins, R. (2007). Assessment through the student's eyes. Educational Leadership, 64(8), 22–26.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2008). The goals of differentiation. Educational Leadership, 66(3), 26–31.

Vatterott, C. (2007). Becoming a middle level teacher: Student focused teaching of early adolescents. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Vatterott, C. (2009). Rethinking homework: Best practices that support diverse needs. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Cathy Vatterott is an associate professor of education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. She is the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs (ASCD, 2009); vatterott@umsl.edu.

What Is Really Important?

2011-10-19T10:26:00.003-04:00

The following article was posted on Twitter this morning by another head of school that is a member of the Elementary School Heads Association. I have just returned from attending their annual conference where I was challenged to be a better leader for our school. As I read this article I was moved as a parent and want to share it with you. The headmaster who linked this article said "the messy house doesn't seem important anymore" and I could not agree more with his assessment. It is sometimes important to be reminded of things like this. We can so often become engrossed in in making mountains out of molehills that we often miss the blessings of everyday life. I encourage you to read this article, reflect, and be thankful for the blessings in our live!

Notes From a Dragon Mom
By EMILY RAP
Published: October 15, 2011

Santa Fe, N.M.

MY son, Ronan, looks at me and raises one eyebrow. His eyes are bright and focused. Ronan means “little seal” in Irish and it suits him.

I want to stop here, before the dreadful hitch: my son is 18 months old and will likely die before his third birthday. Ronan was born with Tay-Sachs, a rare genetic disorder. He is slowly regressing into a vegetative state. He’ll become paralyzed, experience seizures, lose all of his senses before he dies. There is no treatment and no cure.

How do you parent without a net, without a future, knowing that you will lose your child, bit by torturous bit?

Depressing? Sure. But not without wisdom, not without a profound understanding of the human experience or without hard-won lessons, forged through grief and helplessness and deeply committed love about how to be not just a mother or a father but how to be human.

Parenting advice is, by its nature, future-directed. I know. I read all the parenting magazines. During my pregnancy, I devoured every parenting guide I could find. My husband and I thought about a lot of questions they raised: will breast-feeding enhance his brain function? Will music class improve his cognitive skills? Will the right preschool help him get into the right college? I made lists. I planned and plotted and hoped. Future, future, future.

We never thought about how we might parent a child for whom there is no future. The prenatal test I took for Tay-Sachs was negative; our genetic counselor didn’t think I needed the test, since I’m not Jewish and Tay-Sachs is thought to be a greater risk among Ashkenazi Jews. Being somewhat obsessive about such matters, I had it done anyway, twice. Both times the results were negative.

Our parenting plans, our lists, the advice I read before Ronan’s birth make little sense now. No matter what we do for Ronan — choose organic or non-organic food; cloth diapers or disposable; attachment parenting or sleep training — he will die. All the decisions that once mattered so much, don’t.

All parents want their children to prosper, to matter. We enroll our children in music class or take them to Mommy and Me swim class because we hope they will manifest some fabulous talent that will set them — and therefore us, the proud parents — apart. Traditional parenting naturally presumes a future where the child outlives the parent and ideally becomes successful, perhaps even achieves something spectacular. Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” is only the latest handbook for parents hoping to guide their children along this path. It’s animated by the idea that good, careful investments in your children will pay off in the form of happy endings, rich futures.

But I have abandoned the future, and with it any visions of Ronan’s scoring a perfect SAT or sprinting across a stage with a Harvard diploma in his hand. We’re not waiting for Ronan to make us proud. We don’t expect future returns on our investment. We’ve chucked the graphs of developmental milestones and we avoid parenting magazines at the pediatrician’s office. Ronan has given us a terrible freedom from expectations, a magical world where there are no goals, no prizes to win, no outcomes to monitor, discuss, compare.

But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feedings, naps. He can watch television if he wants to; he can have pudding and cheesecake for every meal. We are a very permissive household. We do our best for our kid, feed him fresh food, brush his teeth, make sure he’s clean and warm and well rested and ... healthy? Well, no. The only task here is to love, and we tell him we love him, not caring that he doesn’t understand the words. We encourage him to do what he can, though unlike us he is without ego or ambition.

Ronan won’t prosper or succeed in the way we have come to understand this term in our culture; he will never walk or say “Mama,” and I will never be a tiger mom. The mothers and fathers of terminally ill children are something else entirely. Our goals are simple and terrible: to help our children live with minimal discomfort and maximum dignity. We will not launch our children into a bright and promising future, but see them into early graves. We will prepare to lose them and then, impossibly, to live on after that gutting loss. This requires a new ferocity, a new way of thinking, a new animal. We are dragon parents: fierce and loyal and loving as hell. Our experiences have taught us how to parent for the here and now, for the sake of parenting, for the humanity implicit in the act itself, though this runs counter to traditional wisdom and advice.

NOBODY asks dragon parents for advice; we’re too scary. Our grief is primal and unwieldy and embarrassing. The certainties that most parents face are irrelevant to us, and frankly, kind of silly. Our narratives are grisly, the stakes impossibly high. Conversations about which seizure medication is most effective or how to feed children who have trouble swallowing are tantamount to breathing fire at a dinner party or on the playground. Like Dr. Spock suddenly possessed by Al Gore, we offer inconvenient truths and foretell disaster.

And there’s this: parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don’t want to see what we see. The long truth about their children, about themselves: that none of it is forever.

I would walk through a tunnel of fire if it would save my son. I would take my chances on a stripped battlefield with a sling and a rock à la David and Goliath if it would make a difference. But it won’t. I can roar all I want about the unfairness of this ridiculous disease, but the facts remain. What I can do is protect my son from as much pain as possible, and then finally do the hardest thing of all, a thing most parents will thankfully never have to do: I will love him to the end of his life, and then I will let him go.

But today Ronan is alive and his breath smells like sweet rice. I can see my reflection in his greenish-gold eyes. I am a reflection of him and not the other way around, and this is, I believe, as it should be. This is a love story, and like all great love stories, it is a story of loss. Parenting, I’ve come to understand, is about loving my child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s all there is.

Emily Rapp is the author of “Poster Child: A Memoir,” and a professor of creative writing at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

Delay Kindergarten at Your Child's Peril?

2011-09-30T13:28:00.006-04:00

Introduction- I read this article several days ago from the New York Times. Although this piece is a opinion piece, it has generated some discussion among educational groups. I have been hesitant to publish it because I did not want readers (all 36 of you!) to think I necessarily agreed with assertions made by the author. I will admit that I do not necessarily agree with the premise proposed by Wang in the article. My opinion has to do with personal experience more than anything, and I have also heard many parents share their stories with me as well. We have a son who has been the youngest student in his class pretty much his entire life. He was in K5 when I returned to Brainerd Baptist, in an administrative role and I wish I would have had a teacher or administrator explain the options in regards to moving him ahead or holding him back. He has never had any issues academically, and in fact was the recipient of the Presidential Academic award when he graduated from BBS. He has done well (so far!) in middle school as well, but that being said, if we had it to do over again, we would probably hold him back to allow him to mature emotionally, socially and physically.
A year or two ago I read a book by Malcom Gladwell called Outliers in which Gladwell examines different characteristics of successful people in many different walks of life. His research would oppose what Wang is asserting in this op/ed piece. What are your thoughts? I would love to hear from parents who have made this decision. Do you regret it?

Delay Kindergarten at Your Child's Peril
By SAM WANG and SANDRA AAMODT
Published: September 24, 2011

THIS fall, one in 11 kindergarten-age children in the United States will not be going to class. Parents of these children often delay school entry in an attempt to give them a leg up on peers, but this strategy is likely to be counterproductive.
The practice, called redshirting — from the term for allowing college athletes to delay participation in sports to prolong their eligibility — also has a connection to children’s sports. As sports-minded parents know, physical maturity allows older children to perform better. Coaches often mistake this difference for natural aptitude and respond by giving the older children on their T-ball or soccer teams more opportunities to improve their skills. And those athletes tend to gain a lasting competitive advantage. Does a similar approach work for academic achievement?
Teachers may encourage redshirting because more mature children are easier to handle in the classroom and initially produce better test scores than their younger classmates. In a class of 25, the average difference is equivalent to going from 13th place to 11th. This advantage fades by the end of elementary school, though, and disadvantages start to accumulate. In high school, redshirted children are less motivated and perform less well. By adulthood, they are no better off in wages or educational attainment — in fact, their lifetime earnings are reduced by one year.
In short, the analogy to athletics does not hold. The question we should ask instead is: What approach gives children the greatest opportunity to learn?
Parents who want to give their young children an academic advantage have a powerful tool: school itself. In a large-scale study at 26 Canadian elementary schools, first graders who were young for their year made considerably more progress in reading and math than kindergartners who were old for their year (but just two months younger). In another large study, the youngest fifth-graders scored a little lower than their classmates, but five points higher in verbal I.Q., on average, than fourth-graders of the same age. In other words, school makes children smarter.
The benefits of being younger are even greater for those who skip a grade, an option available to many high-achieving children. Compared with nonskippers of similar talent and motivation, these youngsters pursue advanced degrees and enter professional school more often. Acceleration is a powerful intervention, with effects on achievement that are twice as large as programs for the gifted. Grade-skippers even report more positive social and emotional feelings.
These differences may come from the increased challenges of a demanding environment. Learning is maximized not by getting all the answers right, but by making errors and correcting them quickly. In this respect, children benefit from being close to the limits of their ability. Too low an error rate becomes boring, while too high an error rate is unrewarding. A delay in school entry may therefore still be justified if children are very far behind their peers, leaving a gap too broad for school to allow effective learning.
Parents want to provide the best environment for their child, but delaying school is rarely the right approach. The first six years of life are a time of tremendous growth and change in the developing brain. Synapses, the connections between brain cells, are undergoing major reorganization. Indeed, a 4-year-old’s brain uses more energy than it ever will again. Brain development cannot be put on pause, so the critical question is how to provide the best possible context to support it.
For most children, that context is the classroom. Disadvantaged children have the most to lose from delayed access to school. For low-income children, every month of additional schooling closes one-tenth of the gap between them and more advantaged students. Even without redshirting, a national trend is afoot to move back the cutoff birthdays for the start of school. Since the early 1970s, the date has shifted by an average of six weeks, to about Oct. 14 from about Nov. 25. This has the effect of making children who would have been the youngest in one grade the oldest in the next-lower grade; it hurts children from low-income families the most.
Some children, especially boys, are slow to mature emotionally, a process that may be aided by the presence of older children. Kindergartners show age-related differences in social acceptance and self-perceptions, but these differences usually even out by first grade. The benefits of interacting with older children may extend to empathetic abilities. Empathy requires the ability to reason about the beliefs of others. This capacity relies on brain maturation, but it is also influenced by interactions with other children. Having an older (but not younger) sibling speeds the onset of this capacity in 3- to 5-year-olds. The acceleration is large: up to half a year per sibling. Although nearly all children reach a mature level of understanding by age 6, there may be lasting social advantages to developing this ability earlier. Parents concerned about a child’s emotional maturity might consider that frequent interaction with more mature classmates could help the developmental process along.
The initial redshirt advantage may disappear because children are not on a fixed trajectory but learn actively from teachers — and classmates. It matters very much who a child’s peers are. Redshirted children begin school with others who are a little further behind them. Because learning is social, the real winners in that situation are their classmates

Sam Wang is an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton. Sandra Aamodt is a former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience. They are the authors of “Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows From Conception to College.”

Recent Letter for K4 Families

2011-09-24T08:24:00.002-04:00

Last week, the following letter was sent to our K4 families. This was the first time that I have ever had to send a letter like this, so as we were proofing the letter, I asked a parent (new to our school) to read over the letter to share some feedback with me. After she read the letter, she said, I do not have a child in K4, but I do have a younger sibling at a different preschool, and this information may prompt us to go ahead and move her to BBS so we have a spot for K5. It is with that it in mind that I am posting this here. For our families who may have younger children, this may help you as you look at placing them for K3 or K4. Feel free to email me with any questions you may have.

RE: K5 for 2012-2013

Dear K4 Parents,

It is an exciting time at Brainerd Baptist School. During my time as headmaster I have never before needed to send a letter like this. Our K4 program is experiencing the largest enrollment in many years: Because of such a great demand, we were able to add a fourth K4 class this fall. While this additional class is a wonderful offering, we are facing an issue we have not experienced in many years.

There are approximately 48 openings in our K5 program, and we currently have 58 students enrolled in K4 this year. In a typical year, we lose 7-10 students who choose the public schools for which they are zoned, and we usually have 3-5 students a year that choose to repeat K4 because of a summer or late birthday.

As you can see, if past history is an indication of our future, we are expecting few, if any, spaces available in K5 for next year. As our program has continued to grow, the demand for available space has also risen. We are already receiving calls for K5 for next year. Because of this, we will not be able to wait until the normal re-enrollment period (February) to determine what our families are planning to do. In an effort to be a good steward of our time and resources, we would like to take a poll of our existing K4 families. Accordingly, it is not our desire to walk families through the admissions process if there is no space for their students in our program. We want to reassure you that our current BBS families have first priority. Our desire is to be proactive in addressing our capacity issues and I appreciate your help in this endeavor. Please, submit the following information:

Child’s name:

For 2012-2012 our intention is: (Check one)

Re-enroll at Brainerd Baptist School for K5:

Our child will repeat K4 at Brainerd Baptist School:

We are planning on attending another school next year:

We also want to let our K4 parents know in advance that it will be very important to turn in re-enrollment forms on time (February). Any forms submitted after the deadline may result in forfeited space. If something happens and your intentions change, we respectfully ask you to please inform us. I can discuss this with you further if you have any questions.

Thank you for being a vital part of our school in this exciting time.

Sincerely,

Sean M. Corcoran

Thoughts About the Movie Courageous

2011-09-23T13:17:00.008-04:00

Last night, courtesy of the great folks at J103, I had the opportunity to take my family to view a pre-screening of the new movie Courageous. This is the fourth movie being released from Sherwood Pictures, which is a ministry that was started at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, GA. These are the same folks that produced Flywheel, Facing the Giants and Fireproof.
The Corcoran's have enjoyed each of these movies (and also own them as well!) and actually had a personal experience with one of the stars of this movie.
Several years ago, while vacationing at Disney World, our youngest son recognized Ken Bevel, who had just starred in the movie Fireproof(pictured to the left). We were actually standing in line one morning waiting to get into Animal Kingdom. I casually asked if anyone had told him he looked like the guy from Fireproof? He responded, "Why yes they have, because I am that guy!" He was very nice and somewhat excited that my sons recognized him. He actually asked if he could have his picture made with the boys, which they thought was really cool. As fate would have it, we actually ran into his family the following night at dinner and spent additional time chatting.
Over the last several months we had read about the new movie and had heard that Ken was starring in the movie, so our family was anxious to see it. We had watched the trailers on-line and were excited to be able to watch it early. I have noticed how each movie seems to get a little better. From the screenplay, special effects, acting and writing, their seems to be improvement with each film. Courageous was both entertaining and challenging. I do not want to give the movie away, so I will just say that the premise of the movie challenges dads to do a better job of being daddy's to our children. I was moved, convicted and challenged as I watched the movie. I want to encourage all families to go see this movie and support this great ministry so they can continue to make more movies that are pro-family. They are encouraging families that want to support these types of films to go see the movie on opening weekend to help ensure that it will be played in more theaters for a longer time.
Also, Brainerd Baptist School is promoting a special showing of this movie (in conjunction with Brainerd Baptist Church) on Friday, October 14th at 7:25pm at the Wynnsong Theater off of Gunbarrell Road. Tickets are $6 and are available in the school office.

SpongeBob is in Timeout!

2011-09-12T10:45:00.009-04:00

I have to be honest and give full disclosure on this topic. I am not a fan of SpongeBob. I just never could understand it! I understand there is guy humor in the show and that I would typically find funny, but even with that, I have never been a fan. I believe that my negative attitude as affected my children as well. This is one of the rare occasions that when my children hear "Aye Aye Captain" they actually turn the channel without having to be told to do so.
I want to be clear that this post is not meant to be critical of any parents who allow their children to watch the show. I would not be surprised to learn that my children may watch a show that other parents may not like as well. Regardless of personal preference about the show, the findings of this study are very interesting and were recently published in the Journal of Pedatrics. So BBS parents, what are your thoughts about this?

By LINDSEY TANNER
AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO (AP) - The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is in hot water from a study suggesting that watching just nine minutes of that program can cause short-term attention and learning problems in 4-year-olds.

The problems were seen in a study of 60 children randomly assigned to either watch "SpongeBob," or the slower-paced PBS cartoon "Caillou" or assigned to draw pictures. Immediately after these nine-minute assignments, the kids took mental function tests; those who had watched "SpongeBob" did measurably worse than the others.

Previous research has linked TV-watching with long-term attention problems in children, but the new study suggests more immediate problems can occur after very little exposure - results that parents of young kids should be alert to, the study authors said.

Kids' cartoon shows typically feature about 22 minutes of action, so watching a full program "could be more detrimental," the researchers speculated, But they said more evidence is needed to confirm that.

The results should be interpreted cautiously because of the study's small size, but the data seem robust and bolster the idea that media exposure is a public health issue, said Dr. Dimitri Christakis. He is a child development specialist at Seattle Children's Hospital who wrote an editorial accompanying the study published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Christakis said parents need to realize that fast-paced programming may not be appropriate for very young children. "What kids watch matters, it's not just how much they watch," he said.

University of Virginia psychology professor Angeline Lillard, the lead author, said Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob" shouldn't be singled out. She found similar problems in kids who watched other fast-paced cartoon programming.

She said parents should realize that young children are compromised in their ability to learn and use self-control immediately after watching such shows. "I wouldn't advise watching such shows on the way to school or any time they're expected to pay attention and learn," she said.

Nickelodeon spokesman David Bittler disputed the findings and said "SpongeBob SquarePants" is aimed at kids aged 6-11, not 4-year-olds.

"Having 60 non-diverse kids, who are not part of the show's targeted (audience), watch nine minutes of programming is questionable methodology and could not possibly provide the basis for any valid findings that parents could trust," he said.

Lillard said 4-year-olds were chosen because that age "is the heart of the period during which you see the most development" in certain self-control abilities. Whether children of other ages would be similarly affected can't be determined from this study

Most kids were white and from middle-class or wealthy families. They were given common mental function tests after watching cartoons or drawing. The SpongeBob kids scored on average 12 points lower than the other two groups, whose scores were nearly identical.

In another test, measuring self-control and impulsiveness, kids were rated on how long they could wait before eating snacks presented when the researcher left the room. "SpongeBob" kids waited about 2 1/2 minutes on average, versus at least four minutes for the other two groups.

The study has several limitations. For one thing, the kids weren't tested before they watched TV. But Lillard said none of the children had diagnosed attention problems and all got similar scores on parent evaluations of their behavior.

Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning

2011-09-11T18:22:00.015-04:00

All though most will recognize the title of this post as one of Alan Jackson's many chart topping songs, this song holds special meaning for me. As my friends know, my music taste tends to be somewhat eclectic in nature. At any given time you check my iPod, you are likely to find music ranging from classics to country, to 80's and 90's rock, rap, hip-hop, heavy metal and last, but certainly not least, contemporary Christian music. Music is something I enjoy very much, and if you stop by office on any given day, there is a good chance that my iTunes will be launched and music will be playing. I often say that there is a song for every occasion. For those of you who may be too refined to ever listen to country music, I have included the video of the song that I believe is most fitting to remember September 11, 2001. This was performed just a short time after the attacks. You should take a couple of minutes and listen to it.

As I reflect on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 today, the memories are still very vivid to me from that day. As Katrina and I spoke to our children this week about 9/11, I told them that this event was probably the single most significant historical event in my lifetime. I told the story of my mother telling me exactly where she was in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember her describing being in a classroom and all the teachers and students were crying as the events unfolded from the infamous day. For my father, I remember him talking about the day that USA finally became the first country to place a man on the moon and how exciting that was for our country at that time. For grandparents, Pearl Harbor seems to be the event that signaled great change in our nation. In my lifetime, there have been a couple of events that I remember as being significant. I remember President Reagan instructing Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down those walls!" I am not sure I understood at the time how important this development was. In my mind, Russia was the great enemy of the USA. I think movies Red Dawn and Rocky IV may have helped shape my views too! I also clearly remember the space shuttle Challenger explosion. This was a big deal because of the teacher that was on board. I remember they put her picture in all the schools (at least in my hometown). Those are the two most significant events that jump out in my mind before September 11, 2001.

One of the reasons that I relate so well to Alan Jackson’s song (besides the fact that I think Mr. Jackson is one of the all-time best country music artist in general!) about 9/11 is the line that says “Were you teaching a classroom of innocent children?” On that day, I was indeed teaching a class of innocent children. I, along with 5^th grade teacher Deb Gruner was teaching 6^th grade in Brainerd Baptist Middle School. The middle school was located in three portable buildings where our BX facility currently stands. I had a free period during 2^nd period and was down in the main school office (the same place it currently is) and remember several staff standing around the TV in the library watching. It was a crazy scene. Right after the attacks, there was a feeling of panic across the entire country and everyone wondered what was going to be attacked next. Security levels were heightened at schools all across the country. We happened to have a student whose mother was a flight attendant and her regular flight was a Delta flight that ran from Atlanta to Washington D.C., and she was at work that day. There was legitimate concern about her safety and huge sigh of relief when his mother was able to call and assure him that she was o.k. Our students were too young to realize how these events would be affecting their lives. Ten years later, those students are now adults. Some of those students have gone on to serve our country and fight in a war that is the direct result of that fateful day, but all have been impacted. The world is not the same as it was before that day.
I remember coming home to our new house (at the time!) to a mom of two baby boys and just holding my family as we watched the clips of the towers falling over and over. My wife’s family lives in central Pennsylvania relatively close to where Flight 93 crashed, so there was a heightened sense of concern about this as well.
I have taken just a few minutes to recall my memories of that day. I sat at the UT vs. Cincinnati game yesterday and watched as Chattanoogan Patrick Lenoir led the team through the T before the game started and have read about how he has dealt with losing a brother in the south tower on this day. In Mark Wiedmer's article, Mr. Lenoir states that "Everybody in this country was affected. Everybody was hurt. I just had a little more personal experience with it than some." I also believe this is true and I think that it is important to never forget how our country pulled together and to never forget the sacrifice of the many men and women who died that day "doing what they do". What are your memories of that day?

What Teachers Really Want To Tell Parents

2011-09-06T18:21:00.003-04:00

The following post is from an article I read today from CNN's website. I found myself nodding my head as I read the points Clark was making. I have read Ron Clark's book The Essential 55 and I remember agreeing with most of his points in that book. He has become a very popular speaker in the education circuit. I believe Clark is dead on with his points in this article. The question I have for Bobcat Blog readers, is do you agree with him? If not, what do you disagree with?

What Teachers Really Want To Tell Parents
by Ron Clark for cnn.com

(CNN) -- This summer, I met a principal who was recently named as the administrator of the year in her state. She was loved and adored by all, but she told me she was leaving the profession.

I screamed, "You can't leave us," and she quite bluntly replied, "Look, if I get an offer to lead a school system of orphans, I will be all over it, but I just can't deal with parents anymore; they are killing us." Unfortunately, this sentiment seems to be becoming more and more prevalent. Today, new teachers remain in our profession an average of just 4.5 years, and many of them list "issues with parents" as one of their reasons for throwing in the towel. Word is spreading, and the more negativity teachers receive from parents, the harder it becomes to recruit the best and the brightest out of colleges. So, what can we do to stem the tide? What do teachers really need parents to understand? For starters, we are educators, not nannies. We are educated professionals who work with kids every day and often see your child in a different light than you do. If we give you advice, don't fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don't want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you're willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future. Trust us. At times when I tell parents that their child has been a behavior problem, I can almost see the hairs rise on their backs. They are ready to fight and defend their child, and it is exhausting. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, "Is that true?" Well, of course it's true. I just told you. And please don't ask whether a classmate can confirm what happened or whether another teacher might have been present. It only demeans teachers and weakens the partnership between teacher and parent.

Please quit with all the excuses

The truth is, a lot of times it's the bad teachers who give the easiest grades, because they know by giving good grades everyone will leave them alone.
Ron Clark

And if you really want to help your children be successful, stop making excuses for them. I was talking with a parent and her son about his summer reading assignments. He told me he hadn't started, and I let him know I was extremely disappointed because school starts in two weeks.

His mother chimed in and told me that it had been a horrible summer for them because of family issues they'd been through in July. I said I was so sorry, but I couldn't help but point out that the assignments were given in May. She quickly added that she was allowing her child some "fun time" during the summer before getting back to work in July and that it wasn't his fault the work wasn't complete.

Can you feel my pain?

Some parents will make excuses regardless of the situation, and they are raising children who will grow into adults who turn toward excuses and do not create a strong work ethic. If you don't want your child to end up 25 and jobless, sitting on your couch eating potato chips, then stop making excuses for why they aren't succeeding. Instead, focus on finding solutions.

Parents, be a partner instead of a prosecutor

And parents, you know, it's OK for your child to get in trouble sometimes. It builds character and teaches life lessons. As teachers, we are vexed by those parents who stand in the way of those lessons; we call them helicopter parents because they want to swoop in and save their child every time something goes wrong. If we give a child a 79 on a project, then that is what the child deserves. Don't set up a time to meet with me to negotiate extra credit for an 80. It's a 79, regardless of whether you think it should be a B+.

This one may be hard to accept, but you shouldn't assume that because your child makes straight A's that he/she is getting a good education. The truth is, a lot of times it's the bad teachers who give the easiest grades, because they know by giving good grades everyone will leave them alone. Parents will say, "My child has a great teacher! He made all A's this year!"

Wow. Come on now. In all honesty, it's usually the best teachers who are giving the lowest grades, because they are raising expectations. Yet, when your children receive low scores you want to complain and head to the principal's office.

Please, take a step back and get a good look at the landscape. Before you challenge those low grades you feel the teacher has "given" your child, you might need to realize your child "earned" those grades and that the teacher you are complaining about is actually the one that is providing the best education.

And please, be a partner instead of a prosecutor. I had a child cheat on a test, and his parents threatened to call a lawyer because I was labeling him a criminal. I know that sounds crazy, but principals all across the country are telling me that more and more lawyers are accompanying parents for school meetings dealing with their children.

Teachers walking on eggshells

I feel so sorry for administrators and teachers these days whose hands are completely tied. In many ways, we live in fear of what will happen next. We walk on eggshells in a watered-down education system where teachers lack the courage to be honest and speak their minds. If they make a slight mistake, it can become a major disaster.

My mom just told me a child at a local school wrote on his face with a permanent marker. The teacher tried to get it off with a wash cloth, and it left a red mark on the side of his face. The parent called the media, and the teacher lost her job. My mom, my very own mother, said, "Can you believe that woman did that?"

I felt hit in the gut. I honestly would have probably tried to get the mark off as well. To think that we might lose our jobs over something so minor is scary. Why would anyone want to enter our profession? If our teachers continue to feel threatened and scared, you will rob our schools of our best and handcuff our efforts to recruit tomorrow's outstanding educators.

Finally, deal with negative situations in a professional manner.

If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, "I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class, because I know that children can exaggerate and that there are always two sides to every story. I was hoping you could shed some light for me." If you aren't happy with the result, then take your concerns to the principal, but above all else, never talk negatively about a teacher in front of your child. If he knows you don't respect her, he won't either, and that will lead to a whole host of new problems.

We know you love your children. We love them, too. We just ask -- and beg of you -- to trust us, support us and work with the system, not against it. We need you to have our backs, and we need you to give us the respect we deserve. Lift us up and make us feel appreciated, and we will work even harder to give your child the best education possible.

That's a teacher's promise, from me to you.

Ron Clark, author of "The End of Molasses Classes: Getting Our Kids Unstuck -- 101 Extraordinary Solutions for Parents and Teachers," has been named "American Teacher of the Year" by Disney and was Oprah Winfrey's pick as her "Phenomenal Man." He founded The Ron Clark Academy, which educators from around the world have visited to learn.

Guest Post- What I Did This Summer

2011-09-05T15:48:00.004-04:00

The following post is by Erin Hangstefer, one of our K5 teachers at Brainerd Baptist School. Erin was able to visit Europe this summer and I asked her to share her experience here on the blog. There are many teachers on our faculty who have had some amazing experiences in their travels. I believe that these experiences benefit the students of our school and enhance their educational experience.

It is always enlightening to reach beyond our own little corner of the world and get out and experience life in another country. My husband and I love to travel. We find that it allows for great quality time and many opportunities to create lasting memories. Most recently we were able to go on a dream vacation in the beautiful country of Italy with my brother-in-law and his wife.
We arrived in Rome to discover first hand the massive size of the Coliseum and imagined the various events that were held in that stadium. Along the way, in fact nearly every day, we would stop and enjoy delicious gelato. By the end of the trip I estimated I tried around 30 flavors of gelato. We went to the Roman Forum where the remains of the heart of the city lie. It was amazing to see the numerous graves within the Christian catacombs and understand a little more what great faith it would have taken to remain faithful in such trying times. We considered the Christians in other parts of the world still being persecuted today. We ended our stay in Rome with the grandeur of the Vatican and the Vatican Museum. I can honestly say I had no idea the magnitude of the largest church in the world.
From Rome we ventured to Pompeii. It was a surprise how enjoyable this stop was for me. It truly was like walking back in time. The enduring walls of many of the buildings and houses made it easy to imagine what life would have been like so many years ago. The volcanic ash that destroyed this city also perfectly preserved many interesting artifacts. The long and winding road we then traveled led us to the coastal town of Positano. The seafood was worth the wait we had when we arrived! I will say the best Italian food we had on the trip was from Positano. It was a quaint and relaxing seaside town.
Firenze, or Florence, the capital city of Tuscany was next on our agenda. Street artists painting the sights of the city were marvelous to watch. The many churches were breathtaking and elaborate. Of the museums we visited my favorite statue was actually Donatello’s less know marble David statue, rather than Michelangelo’s famous David statue. It was, in my opinion, a more accurate depiction of David, a young boy wearing simple clothing with a sling in hand. Outside the city the Tuscan countryside was absolutely picturesque. Scenes from Under the Tuscan Sun and the Gladiator were filmed in areas we visited.
Our final stay in Italy was the exceptional city of Venice. The 4 star hotel where we stayed at was not quite up to the American standard, but certainly unique with its padded fabric walls, to say the least. However, it was a nice change of pace to be in a city without the noise of mopeds, cars or their horns, where everyone strolled next to the canals up and over the many arched bridges. San Marco’s Square was distinctive with the live instrumental bands all around and the pigeons that would flock around anyone with food. The water taxi ride to Murano was one of a kind. Watching the master craftsmen create works of art using techniques for glassblowing from centuries ago was also lovely. And what better way to end our Italian vacation than by taking a romantic ride in a gondola.
This trip allowed me to see, hear, smell, and taste things very different from home. John and I will always treasure the memories we made on our Italy adventure. It was and will remain a trip of a lifetime.

Do Your Students Need an iPad?

2011-09-01T08:23:00.000-04:00

One of the great things about my job is meeting new families that are interested in our school. I have recently had prospective parents ask, "Does our child need an iPad?" As our parents know, our school has led the way in technology integration in the Chattanooga area. We were one of the first (I think first, but I will add "one of the" just so I do not offend anyone!) to incorporate iPods and iPads into our classrooms, starting with our 3-year-olds! In the last year, independent schools from all over our area have visited our campus to see exactly how we have integrated the iPods, iPads, Macbooks, Promethean Boards and Elmo's into our daily classroom instruction. In the last several months, a couple of the schools who spent time on our campus have started the process of switching to "digital" textbooks on their campuses. This is exciting and we are happy that other schools are embracing these great learning tools. For those of you who are not sure what this means, "digital" simply means the book is in electronic form and can be viewed on a device like an iPad or Kindle and is not a traditional book. Because of the coverage these schools have had in local media, some parents have asked when is Brainerd Baptist School going to adopt a similar digital textbook plan? Bradley Chambers and I have put together some thoughts on this topic. We hope this article, along the following comments, helps explain the challenges that still remain.

1. Management of Accounts

How do we (from an operational standpoint) get the correct books on the correct devices (an iPad seems like the likely candidate at this point). Can we get all of our books from one 'App' or is each book its own 'App'? Does each student require a username/password to be able to login to get their books or is it a global BBS login for all books? Are all of our books available in a digital format? There are schools in our area that are still trying to figure this out.

2. PDF vs Interactive

One of the points of interests about digital textbooks is the process of re-imagination. By this we mean, answering the following question - What should a digital textbook look like? Instead of static content, what about a totally interactive approach? Think about this, a Spanish book that can speak the word and listen to a student recite it back; a math textbook that is intuitive and has the ability to give the student problems in an particular area where the student is struggling; a science textbook that has digital labs linked to it so students can dissect animals virtually; a history book that has built in videos of major events in history such as the Berlin Wall falling. We don't simply want a PDF version of our current textbooks. At this point in the digital textbook movement, these types of books are not yet widely available. They're coming, but they are not here yet. Schools that are currently using "digital" textbooks are simply providing PDF copies of the current books that those schools already own. Although a student's backpack may be lighter, they are NOT carrying a book that has been updated or that has interactive content and built in media. This is what we are wanting to incorporate. For an example of this technology, check out this book written by former Vice Present Al Gore.

There are countless other obstacles we are working through, but it is something we are constantly thinking about. The iPad is only 15 months old, so we expect a lot more advances in this area in the coming years. The digital textbook market has not yet caught up with the availability of devices. At Brainerd Baptist School, integration is the driving force behind technology. There are some great uses for technology in the classroom and those things excite us. That being said, we are not ready to replace books with iPads, and we are not in a position to say when that date will be. That may happen at some point in the future, but we will wait until the textbook publishers are able to offer schools a better option other than a PDF copy of a book, and there is some concrete research that supports better student achievement by doing so. Currently, neither of those things are available.
We have great technology available and our students are using it every day. So, the answer to the question that started this post is - NO, you do not need to purchase your child a iPad! I can promise you that he/she will use one at school. And for the dads who may be looking for a good excuse to purchase a really cool device, by all means, tell your wife that "I am buying this for our child to be a better student." Moms, you know how guys think...just know that this is really not true...dad just wants a cool toy! (Sorry dads...I just sold you out here).

Lunch Box Lunacy

2011-08-29T07:50:00.004-04:00

If you are a reader of the Sunday paper, you may have read this article yesterday in the "Perspective" section in the Times Free Press. I am a casual reader of the paper usually perusing the articles that catch my attention. There were actually two other very good pieces in this section that dealt with a new online public education alternative for parents in Tennessee. However, when I read this article, I just had to chuckle (I said I was going to incorporate this word more!) and identify with the author. This piece is by Petula Dvorak, who writes for the Washington Post. So parents, what are your thoughts?

Lunch Box Lunacy Prevails

WASHINGTON — You think the debate about the country's debt and jobless recovery is fraught with contention, hyperbole and righteous grandiosity?

Take a stroll through the school cafeteria if you want to see a daily dose of political hand-to-hand combat.

Wonks are busy trying to legislate the slop out of cafeteria lunches. Foodies are wielding their forks in a revolution exalting the virtues of kale and quinoa to the lunch ladies. And assembling a politically correct brought-from-home lunch is more perilous than walking into a Chinese basketball practice wearing a Hoyas sweatshirt.

What kids eat at school is a topic of endless national debate.

If you've got school-age kids, you're ducking the food grenades daily. If your kids are grown, you'll be stunned to hear what's happened to the old PB&J-in-a-Spider-Man-lunchbox routine. And if you don't have kids, prepare to be amused.

Not only are brown bags out (paper waste) and peanut butter and jelly largely verboten (allergies), but many schools also police the snacks and even the kinds of containers the food is in. The level of patrolling varies by school district.

I'll admit to getting at least one curt note shoved into my kid's lunchbox reminding me of the school's food policy, along with the bagged evidence of the contraband that was confiscated. In one case, it was a single Christmas-wrapped chocolate Kiss.

Bad mommy!

One public school in Chicago was so fed up last year with the junk parents packed that it banned home lunches altogether, saving parents from inevitable failure and food police intervention.

Of course, I've heard some packed-lunch horror stories. Teachers have seen slabs of cold pizza masquerading as lunch. College hangover? Yes. Pre-K lunch? No. Among other gourmet delights: an unopened can of vienna sausages, and a couple of giant candy bars, with nothing else.

The lunchbox itself can be fraught with peril. Anything commercial is bad, bad, bad. Spider-Man? Hannah Montana? Clone Wars? Totally out. Might as well call social services.

If a school doesn't want to outright ban such things, the teacher gently suggests "non-violent" themes (good luck if you've got a boy) or urges you to "Think outside the box!" when selecting kids' gear.

I made this apparently huge faux pas with my older son's first lunchbox, a Buzz Lightyear model that was singularly garish amid the neat row of noncommercial, whimsical containers from L.L. Bean and Hanna Andersson.

Buzz's smiling endorsement of the Disney mega-machine cost me $8 at Toys R Us. Meanwhile, the simplicity of a caterpillar, antique robot or whimsical zoo scene costs more than a fancy downtown lunch.

When we bought our lunchboxes this year (nonlicensed, generic robots at Target — win!), I realized that there was a whole host of other things I was supposed to be afraid of.

"Ultra Safe! PVC Free! Worry free!" read the label hanging from the robot's ear, assuring me that there is also no lead to be found in the squishy lunch bag. Really? I thought all I had to fear was the other parents. I totally forgot to worry about the physical, not just psychological, harm that Buzz was inflicting on my child.

As for what's inside the lunchbox? Schools want you to save the environment (and cut down on their trash), so they ask you to package everything in separate, reusable containers.

When you also follow their guidelines on providing one food of every group and every color, that means you have about eight pieces of plastic to wash every night. Wait, I have two kids. So that's 16.

Oh, and by the way, at least one school in Maryland asks you to hand wash all those tiny Tupperwares, rather than use the dishwasher. So as not to release any carcinogenic BPAs from the plastic, of course.

No wonder bento boxes are becoming all the rage in certain upscale ZIP codes.

The bento crowd is into food that's kawaii, the Japanese term for super cute. Think Hello Kitty. These are parents — OK, moms — with an artistic flair, an armory of special tools and maybe a little more time than the rest of us.

They make tiny, winking faces on rice balls, shape eggs into kittens, and add small triangles of ham for pink ears and a nose. You can make entire sea creature scenes out of meat and cheese (try the special cutter that turns a weiner into an octopus or penguin), a Jawa out of pita and purple lettuce, or spell your child's name out of delicate sheets of egg omelette.

Seriously.

There's an entire cottage industry that's grown up around this. Check out the gallery at bentolunch.net, where a Texas mom posts her intricate daily creation along with other readers' masterpieces in an alpha-mom throwdown that makes bake sale competitions look ho-hum.

It quickly is becoming the scrapbooking of this decade.

Tired yet? Maybe buying school lunches isn't such a bad idea after all. Email me your school lunch angst at dvorakp@washpost.com.

5th Graders Use Khan Academy

2011-08-26T08:24:00.008-04:00

The following is a guest post from Bradley Chambers, Director of IT here at Brainerd Baptist School. Mr. Chambers as worked with Mrs. Gruner to help introduce and incorporate a new method of instruction that utilizes web-based teaching.

5th Graders Use Khan Academy

For those of you who are social media junkies, you may have recently saw a picture on our BBS Facebook page or Twitter feed that mentioned one of our classes using Khan Academy. I wanted to take a brief moment to explain what it is and how we are using it. Khan Academy is a non-profit organization created in 2006 by an MIT graduate (Salman Khan). The goal of the organization is to provide high quality education to anyone, anywhere. It contains more than 2,400 micro lectures on math, history, science, etc. It is partially funded by the Gates Foundation and Google.

Once a fifth grader student signs in with their BBS account (The fifth graders are provided with an email address that can only send/receive mail from other BBS email accounts) they are able to set their teacher (Mrs. Gruner) as their 'coach'. This allows the teacher to monitor their progress on watching lectures and working on the quizzes.

Here is a great quote by Salman Khan on the usefulness of the site - "What’s so different about our approach? For one, we are leveraging the computer for what it does best and leveraging the teachers for what they do best. We are ensuring students can truly work at their own pace on their own time. We are making sure students actually master concepts before they move on. We are empowering teachers with the real-time data they so badly need. We are allowing teachers to make much better use of classroom time, with more peer tutoring, project-based learning, and one-on-one coaching. Most importantly, we are making learning fun."

Our 5th grade students were introduced to this yesterday and have begun incorporating it. They were really excited to utilize this tool. I would love to hear some feedback from our 5th grade parents about your child's experience with this.

And We Have Lift Off!

2011-08-19T13:52:00.006-04:00

I have been asked at least a dozen times in the last two days "How is school going?" That is always an interesting question. You have to answer this question positively no matter the truth! Can you imagine a parents reaction if I responded to the question by saying "It's going horrible! These kids don't listen and I can't wait till summer break!" Fortunately for me, I can honestly answer that question positively, but I still chuckle (I do not use this word enough!) when someone poses this question. Over the years I have used the take off of a Boeing 737 to best illustrate what the beginning of school is like. I have read numerous times that the most dangerous time of air travel is the take off and the landing. I like this analogy and think it also holds true with the beginning and ending school! The starting of school is so crazy that I really can not do it justice to write about it....one must experience it to truly appreciate it! There are so many moving pieces that must come together at one time. Things like registration, class lists, Back to School Bash, parent meetings, home visits, class set-ups, in-service meetings and more.
After today, all students have been on campus at least once. Since our K3-K5 phase in through Friday, we have yet to have 100% of our student body here. Once this happens on Monday, I will have a better idea of how to answer this question. Overall, I would say that our start has been smooth and I would describe us as steadily climbing and also reaching cruising altitude (I'm sticking with the airplane theme).
As I think about the beginning of school, I want to remind our parents about some things you can do that will help your child to thrive. These following ideas come from a friend of mine who is a headmaster at another independent school in Memphis, TN. There are some good thoughts shared here.

Make sure your child, on a consistent basis, gets enough sleep.

To be at his best, he probably needs more sleep than he has been getting. Most children, and adults for that matter, get too little sleep. Children today sleep, on average, an hour less per night than they did 30 years ago. And while 90% of American parents report that their children are getting enough sleep, 60% of students report extreme daytime sleepiness.

The New York Magazine published a powerful article a few years ago about the impact that too little sleep has on us, and especially on children and students. The article cites studies that indicate that:

A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to the loss of two years of cognitive maturation and development. In other words, a sleepy 5th grader performs at the same level as a normal 3rd grader.

A loss of one hour of sleep corresponds to an average reduction of 7 points on IQ and other standardized tests scores, and that difference shows up as early as early childhood. Sleep disorders can impair children’s IQ’s as much as lead exposure.

How does this happen? It turns out that sleep isn’t just mindless. The brain is doing a tremendous amount of activity, including sorting and synthesizing all sorts of information from the day. Neural connections are forming. Memories are encoded. Learning from the day is concretized. Inferences and new ideas are developing. The brain is learning and developing its cognitive architecture, even and especially during deep stages of sleep.

So, what happens in school to children who don’t sleep enough? It’s not just that the students are tired and have a harder time focusing, though that’s a part of it. Sleepy children have difficulty remembering what they just learned, because their neurons have lost that plasticity. Due to difficulties extracting glucose from the bloodstream, the pre-frontal cortex, the brain’s executive functioning center, operates far less efficiently, reducing a person’s ability to reason, predict, perceive and generate creative ideas. Sleepy children are also more likely to struggle with impulse control, fixate more strongly on negative rather than positive emotions, and develop health problems.

The practical question thus becomes: how much sleep does my child need? The research is consistent and clear. Early Childhood students are ecnouraged to get 12 hours of sleep. 1st-5th graders need 10-11 hours. Using the premise that BBS students are waking up around 7:00am, here are the times that students should be asleep on a consistent basis:

Early Childhood: 7:00 pm

1st - 3rd Graders: 8:00 pm

4th-5th Graders: 8:30 pm

Of note is the fact that sleep can’t be stored up or hoarded on the weekends for optimal performance. To be at its best, the brain and body need these hours of sleep each night, not a lesser amount during the school week and a greater amount during the weekend.

It’s challenging for parents to assure that their children get the optimal amount of sleep. It’s particularly difficult because parents and children lead busy lives, often with a wide range of extracurricular activities. And that leads me to my second recommendation:

Promote balance in your child’s life, being especially careful to guard against over-scheduling your child.

Too many activities exhaust a child...and the parents. They produce stresses and anxieties. They can change the fabric and feel of a family, sometimes robbing the family of necessary and important time together. They can keep a child from sleeping enough or sleeping well, or from prioritizing his academic work. Perhaps most importantly, they can keep a child from being a child. Children need opportunities for unstructured play. They need downtime. They need not to feel pressures for performing in ways that are not developmentally appropriate for them.

As parents, we often worry that we are bad parents if we don’t give our children an abundance of extracurricular activities. Maybe we will fail to uncover a hidden talent they have, or we worry that they will be behind their peers. We fear we are limiting their success.

The New York Times wrote an interesting article about this a few days ago. Entitled Family Happiness and the Overbooked Child, it explores the downside to children (and families) who are over-scheduled, as well as challenges the conventional wisdom and assumptions that many people hold about the benefits of offering children so many activities. It cites research that indicates that being involved in more activities does not lead to the individual being more successful. It also discusses the value to children of a warm and well-connected family life, suggesting that such a family life may be more important to a child’s development and even success than are the many extra activities. It reminded me of reading several years ago that the main trait that National Merit Semifinalists shared is that they ate dinner together with their families growing up.

I don’t think there’s a magic number of activities for a child to be involved in, but I think many, many children today would benefit from far fewer of them. And I think parents should begin with scheduling family time, sleep time, academic time, and unstructured time, and then schedule the other activities after those.

The July/August edition of The Atlantic Magazine had a fascinating piece called How To Land Your Kid in Therapy. It advances the counter-intuitive idea that parents who focus so intently on their child’s happiness—who are so attuned to giving them an abundance of opportunities, who are so attuned to their achievements and deeply involved many aspects of their lives—produce individuals who are unhappy as adults. Psychologists are seeing a generation of adults in their 20’s and 30’s who are depressed, anxious, empty and without a clear sense of purpose, despite having parents who showered love, comforts and opportunities upon them. They feel entitled yet empty, seek happiness yet find it unsatisfying, and are accustomed to being rescued rather than resilient on their own.

And this leads me to my third recommendation:

Get your child uncomfortable so he becomes more resilient and giving.

We live in a relatively affluent society with many comforts. The pursuit of happiness is written into our Declaration of Independence...and, seemingly, into our DNA. We are wired and socialized to be selfish and self-indulgent, to avoid or minimize things that are uncomfortable or unhappy. We often outsource that which is dirty or difficult. And, especially in recent years, we’ve protected our children from difficulties, discomforts and failures.

Yet there is a cost to giving our children too much, to making their lives too easy, to swooping in too soon (or at all), and to shielding them from the consequences of their decisions. And the cost is this: their sense of resilience, their ability to persevere when things are hard. We rob them as well of the valuable learning and growth that comes through struggles and setbacks; we steal the genuine confidence that emerges within a child when he realizes he has mastered something difficult or grown stronger through the struggle or setback.

I’ve read that some educators believe that the best predictor of success in college now is not high school GPA or SAT scores or leadership positions. It is how resilient the individual is. And resiliency can only be earned by experiencing and struggling and fighting through difficult and uncomfortable situations.

Making adjustments within our family schedules is not always easy or comfortable, but I think the benefits are worth it. When our children are sleeping sufficiently, when their schedules promote balance and family time, and when they are developing resiliency and a service mindset, they are most likely to thrive: not only academically, but socially, emotionally and spiritually as well.

What Motivates Your Child

2011-07-30T08:19:00.005-04:00

Our Foundations & Frameworks trainer recently linked this video and it made me reminisce just a bit. This past year I posted a similar video to the one below here on the Bobcat Blog. This video was also shown to our teachers in a faculty meeting at Brainerd Baptist School.
In the summer of 2006 I spent a week at Vanderbilt's Peabody College for teachers. I was attending the Independent Schools Leadership Institute. During my time at Vandy (which I loved by the way!) heads of schools from all over the country examined various issues that were prevalent in independent education (this was great for a young new head of school). We also spent considerable time discussing a "new" book that had recently been published called A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. I really enjoyed the premise of Pink's book. Pink breaks down what he believes to be the 4 main ages -Agricultural Age (farmers); Industrial Age (factory workers); Information Age (knowledge workers); and the Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers). Pink argues that the most valuable jobs of the "information age" were for people who were predominately "left brained" This is why many parents encouraged their children to be lawyers, accountants, and computer programmer's and other jobs with high value associated with them. Pink's references three prevailing trends pointing towards the future of business and the economy: Abundance (consumers have too many choices, nothing is scarce), Asia (everything that can be outsourced,) and Automation (computerization, robots, technology, processes). This brings up three crucial questions for the success of any business:

Can a computer do it faster?
Is what I'm offering in demand in an age of abundance?
Can someone overseas do it cheaper?

Pink believes that in the new economic age that "right brained" person who has developed qualities like inventiveness, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning will be highly sought after individuals. The video below does a great job of summarizing the book. Check it out and see where if you can identify where your child(ren) may fall in this discussion.

RSA Animate -- Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Metamorphasis

2011-07-26T21:56:00.009-04:00

met·a·mor·pho·sis - Biology . a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly.

I have come to the realization in life that I am turning into my father. The process is simple...I am moving from one stage in life to the next...just like the definition above. I know my father would find this post humorous, but the chances of him reading the post are pretty slim. He is not one of my 31 faithful readers who come to the Bobcat Blog for humor and advice in life! My father has frequently said that this technology stuff is for a "different generation". His web surfing is somewhat hindered by the fact that he has a dial up internet connection. Don't feel bad though, he is completely OK with this, and if you asked him, he would gladly say that it wouldn't bother him if he didn't even own a computer...and for those of you who know me well...I haven't even tried to convince him to get a Mac...and that is saying something!
So, you have invested 38 seconds into this post and are wondering if you should abort or continue investing minutes of your life that you will never recover....stick with it, I promise the post gets better! You are asking what has specifically caused me to come to this realization at this point in my life and the answer is somewhat multifaceted. I find myself going around the house and turning off bedroom lights, closet lights, hallway lights, bathroom lights, car lights, fish tank lights, flashlights, floodlights, and virtually every other light known to man! I am convinced my father has bribed my children to do this EVERY day just to get back at me! It's almost like Groundhog Day at my house. I come home and find 47 (this may be a slight exaggeration) lights on and all the children are laying on the bed in my bedroom watching TV! I walk through the house turning off lights visualizing that electric meter spinning quickly and slowing down with each switch I flip. It is not only the lights, but it is also shutting doors because "We are not cooling the outside!" and "Were you born in a barn?" are two more great quotes that I have decided to un-retire from my childhood. There are other moments where I am involved in some sort of conundrum involving my children and have thought to myself, "MAN...I am paying for my raising." Have you ever asked your children , "How hard is it to remember to pull down on that little lever when they are through doing their business in the bathroom?" That is another one of the questions that my dad would frequently ask me to which my reply was "I didnt do it dad!"...like someone else came in and used my bathroom and then decided not to erase the evidence of their break-in!
Tonight, this realization was once again presented to me in a rather humorous way. My two sons have finally come to the age where they can be of assistance in yard work. Because we live on a rather hilly terrain and our yard is difficult to mow, this right of passage as taken a little longer than I would have liked. I remember hearing Bill Cosby talk about the fact that his entire purpose for having children was so they could cut his grass, and I too have felt this way for years! I have envisioned my boys sweating and cutting grass just like I did most of my adult life! For the last couple of months I have worked with the boys trying to teach them to cut the grass. I swear I do not remember it being that difficult when I was a kid - this is the part when I know my dad would laugh! I am confident that I was cutting grass when I was 5 and it was done right. In fact, I do not even remember my dad having to show me how to cut grass but I have seen pictures of me in cowboy boots as a young lad working like a man! I just got it...there was no whining or wondering (I am sure my mother would have a different story here). My kids do not seem to have grasped this concept as easy as I did. I find myself screaming over the mower to my sons as they are just pushing the lawnmower as quick as possible without regard to the row of grass that is before them. We must have went over the same row 27 times tonight. I tried to be patient, and loving (not my strengths!) and explain that you have to actually look at the grass while you mow. I know my neighbors were wondering "What is that weirdo screaming and pointing at?" I was confident that I have finally transferred my mowing skills only for him to completely lose his way and miss a 4 foot swatch of grass on his next pass. I had to laugh and just give up! It's really not that important anyway. We live in the middle of the woods and our yard grows more rocks than grass anyway! Although my goal of creating a good work ethic in my boys is virtuous,and I will continue in my endeavor of transferring these skills, I had to chuckle that we spent 4 hours cutting a yard that should only take 2, and to top it all, I ended up walking with them and doing most of it ...maybe someday!

Are Playgrounds Too Safe?

2011-07-20T11:12:00.011-04:00

I had to chuckle just a bit when I read this article in the New York Times by John Tierney. In my time at Brainerd Baptist School, I have had numerous parents (and some teachers!) request that we remove various pieces of playground equipment. This usually happens after their child (or student) has fallen and gotten hurt. We have also had children get hurt swinging on the swings and each year, there is at least one parent that thinks the swings are too dangerous as well. I have resisted any sort of equipment removal largely because I think it is impossible and dangerous to over react when something natural (like a child falling) happens. As a parent of 3 children who have been through multiple broken bones, I do not think it is possible to safeguard them from every danger. Some parents may disagree with me, but I also do not think it is healthy to try and keep children from every form of danger. Boys are naturally drawn to danger! The author of this article below has a similar mindset and actually supports his premise with some research that shows what the consequences are when we do remove opportunities for our children to conquer fear. Read it and let me know what your thoughts are.

Are Playgrounds Too Safe?
By John Tierney - New York Times
When seesaws and tall slides and other perils were disappearing from New York’s playgrounds, Henry Stern drew a line in the sandbox. As the city’s parks commissioner in the 1990s, he issued an edict concerning the 10-foot-high jungle gym near his childhood home in northern Manhattan.

LIVE AND LEARN A bad fall may mean a child is less likely to have a fear of heights later in life.

“I grew up on the monkey bars in Fort Tryon Park, and I never forgot how good it felt to get to the top of them,” Mr. Stern said. “I didn’t want to see that playground bowdlerized. I said that as long as I was parks commissioner, those monkey bars were going to stay.”
His philosophy seemed reactionary at the time, but today it’s shared by some researchers who question the value of safety-first playgrounds. Even if children do suffer fewer physical injuries — and the evidence for that is debatable — the critics say that these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are ultimately worse than a broken bone.
“Children need to encounter risks and overcome fears on the playground,” said Ellen Sandseter, a professor of psychology at Queen Maud University in Norway. “I think monkey bars and tall slides are great. As playgrounds become more and more boring, these are some of the few features that still can give children thrilling experiences with heights and high speed.”
After observing children on playgrounds in Norway, England and Australia, Dr. Sandseter identified six categories of risky play: exploring heights, experiencing high speed, handling dangerous tools, being near dangerous elements (like water or fire), rough-and-tumble play (like wrestling), and wandering alone away from adult supervision. The most common is climbing heights.
“Climbing equipment needs to be high enough, or else it will be too boring in the long run,” Dr. Sandseter said. “Children approach thrills and risks in a progressive manner, and very few children would try to climb to the highest point for the first time they climb. The best thing is to let children encounter these challenges from an early age, and they will then progressively learn to master them through their play over the years.”
Sometimes, of course, their mastery fails, and falls are the common form of playground injury. But these rarely cause permanent damage, either physically or emotionally. While some psychologists — and many parents — have worried that a child who suffered a bad fall would develop a fear of heights, studies have shown the opposite pattern: A child who’s hurt in a fall before the age of 9 is less likely as a teenager to have a fear of heights.
By gradually exposing themselves to more and more dangers on the playground, children are using the same habituation techniques developed by therapists to help adults conquer phobias, according to Dr. Sandseter and a fellow psychologist, Leif Kennair, of the Norwegian University for Science and Technology.
“Risky play mirrors effective cognitive behavioral therapy of anxiety,” they write in the journal Evolutionary Psychology, concluding that this “anti-phobic effect” helps explain the evolution of children’s fondness for thrill-seeking. While a youthful zest for exploring heights might not seem adaptive — why would natural selection favor children who risk death before they have a chance to reproduce? — the dangers seemed to be outweighed by the benefits of conquering fear and developing a sense of mastery.
“Paradoxically,” the psychologists write, “we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.”
The old tall jungle gyms and slides disappeared from most American playgrounds across the country in recent decades because of parental concerns, federal guidelines, new safety standards set by manufacturers and — the most frequently cited factor — fear of lawsuits.
Shorter equipment with enclosed platforms was introduced, and the old pavement was replaced with rubber, wood chips or other materials designed for softer landings. These innovations undoubtedly prevented some injuries, but some experts question their overall value.
“There is no clear evidence that playground safety measures have lowered the average risk on playgrounds,” said David Ball, a professor of risk management at Middlesex University in London. He noted that the risk of some injuries, like long fractures of the arm, actually increased after the introduction of softer surfaces on playgrounds in Britain and Australia.
“This sounds counterintuitive, but it shouldn’t, because it is a common phenomenon,” Dr. Ball said. “If children and parents believe they are in an environment which is safer than it actually is, they will take more risks. An argument against softer surfacing is that children think it is safe, but because they don’t understand its properties, they overrate its performance.”
Reducing the height of playground equipment may help toddlers, but it can produce unintended consequences among bigger children. “Older children are discouraged from taking healthy exercise on playgrounds because they have been designed with the safety of the very young in mind,” Dr. Ball said. “Therefore, they may play in more dangerous places, or not at all.”
Fear of litigation led New York City officials to remove seesaws, merry-go-rounds and the ropes that young Tarzans used to swing from one platform to another. Letting children swing on tires became taboo because of fears that the heavy swings could bang into a child.
“What happens in America is defined by tort lawyers, and unfortunately that limits some of the adventure playgrounds,” said Adrian Benepe, the current parks commissioner. But while he misses the Tarzan ropes, he’s glad that the litigation rate has declined, and he’s not nostalgic for asphalt pavement.
“I think safety surfaces are a godsend,” he said. “I suspect that parents who have to deal with concussions and broken arms wouldn’t agree that playgrounds have become too safe.” The ultra-safe enclosed platforms of the 1980s and 1990s may have been an overreaction, Mr. Benepe said, but lately there have been more creative alternatives.
“The good news is that manufacturers have brought out new versions of the old toys,” he said. “Because of height limitations, no one’s building the old monkey bars anymore, but kids can go up smaller climbing walls and rope nets and artificial rocks.”
Still, sometimes there’s nothing quite like being 10 feet off the ground, as a new generation was discovering the other afternoon at Fort Tryon Park. A soft rubber surface carpeted the pavement, but the jungle gym of Mr. Stern’s youth was still there. It was the prime destination for many children, including those who’d never seen one before, like Nayelis Serrano, a 10-year-old from the South Bronx who was visiting her cousin.
When she got halfway up, at the third level of bars, she paused, as if that was high enough. Then, after a consultation with her mother, she continued to the top, the fifth level, and descended to recount her triumph.
“I was scared at first,” she explained. “But my mother said if you don’t try, you’ll never know if you could do it. So I took a chance and kept going. At the top I felt very proud.” As she headed back for another climb, her mother, Orkidia Rojas, looked on from a bench and considered the pros and cons of this unfamiliar equipment.
“It’s fun,” she said. “I’d like to see it in our playground. Why not? It’s kind of dangerous, I know, but if you just think about danger you’re never going to get ahead in life.”

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2011, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Grasping Risk in Life’s Classroom.

Shafer Update - July 3rd

2011-07-03T07:50:00.002-04:00

Blog readers, since I have been at camp this week, I have not had the opportunity to update readers on Shafer. I received the following email this morning from Kevin and Jada. Please pray for Shafer.

Dear Family & Friends,

So much has happened in a few short days since our last update. Shafer was discharged on Thursday to go to our rental home just down the street from the hospital. Even though we knew we were leaving with a dual infection, they assured us the prescribed antibiotic would clear everything up in 10 days.

Friday morning, Shafer vomited his overnight formula, and then Friday evening he had an appointment to get labs drawn. Everything appeared fine and the recommendation was to dilute the formula to half strength. He tolerated his feeding Friday night, but new issues were at hand.

Saturday morning, Shafer woke up with a high temp, so we had to call the doctor, and ultimately head to the Emergency Room. After a 6-hour workup, he was readmitted to the hospital to Room 6308.

Here’s what we know as of know:
· His chest X-ray was clear
· White Blood Count is extremely elevated (from 9 on Friday to 24 on Saturday)
· He is still running a 102-degree temperature and they have changed his oral antibiotic to an IV antibiotic
· Kidney function is exceptional so all of this does not appear to be kidney related.

We ask for your earnest prayers at this critical junction in Baby Shafer’s healing. The doctors are waiting on blood and urine cultures to come back so they can better diagnose what is really going on.

We love you dearly,
Jada & Kevin

Friday Morning Post

2011-07-01T07:21:00.002-04:00

Parents, Joel Smelley, youth pastor of BBC is guest posting again today about Day #3 here at Fuge!

Good morning everyone!! Wow, it's been an incredible week of camp. Our students have blown me away by their love for one another and the unity that is continuing to grow in our group. The encouragement chair resumed last night with another 15 or so students and adults having an opportunity to sit in the chair and receive encouragement. There are a handful of students with us that this is either their first trip with our group or the first time they have met anyone in our group. It was beautiful to watch new students receive encouragement from students who have been coming a while.
Tonight is an interesting night because tonight all students at camp (all 1040 of them) will participate in MEGA Relay. MEGA is a series of 10 activities that each Bible Study Group (each student that comes to camp is placed into one of 40 of these groups for the week to do ministry) must complete and finish before all of the other Bible Study Groups in order to win.
It looks like we will be on schedule to get home tomorrow between 3:30pm and 4:00pm. It is hard to imagine that we will be leaving already. It seems like we just got here while at the same time it seems like we've been here all summer long.

Thursday Morning Update

2011-06-30T07:32:00.003-04:00

Good morning parents. I hope you are enjoying what updates we have been able to provide over the last couple of days. The picture to the right is of a sunflower farm that my group passes each morning on the way to the summer camp we are working at each day. It was too pretty not to stop and take a picture. Joel Smelley, is once again guest posting this morning.

Hello parents and blog followers, we are at breakfast on our third full day of camp. Our students are really enjoying their ministry sites. I can not say it enough, but our students are such a joy. They have such great attitudes regardless of mediocre food and the fact that it is HOT!!! Each of you parents reading this ought to be extremely proud because your students are representing you really well.
I want to take a minute and explain the "encouragement chair" that Sean mentioned yesterday in a little more detail. The Encouragement Chair is a chair that each student will have the opportunity to sit in throughout our time here at camp, even the chaperone's have an opportunity to participate. The object of the Encouragement Chair is Philippians 2:3-4- "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." This has really proven to increase unity among our students.
The last thing I want to tell you before we go to our Quiet Time is an AMAZING opportunity one of our students had yesterday at ministry site. While working with children at site yesterday, Kattarina Miller was able to chat with a young child about Christ. The young child seemed to be very interested in what Kattarina had to say about our Lord. We should all rejoice in two things...1) Kattarina, a sixth grader in our ministry, led that little girl to the Lord. HALLELUJAH!!! 2) A new believer has been added to the family of God.
It's so hard to believe that we only have one more full day of camp. Everyone is exhausted but having a great time! All of the students really enjoyed Frankie's Fun Park and Johnny Rockets last night. About 10 of our students attacked me on bumper boats at the park last night. I guess I've never ridden on bumper boats before, but I had no idea that they squirted water as well. I looked like I had just gotten off of a water ride at Whitewater Atlanta. Thanks so much for the privilege to build relationships with your students.

Wednesday Morning Post

2011-06-29T07:44:00.003-04:00

Hey parents...it's early on Wednesday morning. The weather that apparently hit the Chattanooga area really did not hit us here in Greenville. It rained for about 30 minutes but was not bad. Since Joel's post last night we have had a great time together.
After our service last night, we had a neat time with the students called the "encouragement chair". In this time, a student comes up before the group and the rest of the group shares how they have been an encouragement to them. 20 students did this last night. It was a great time of blessing to see how your children have impacted others in the group. We will do this again tomorrow night.
After this time we had a game show activity in the main auditorium Andrew Corcoran got to go on stage and participate. This ended the group activity for the night and we returned to our dorm. Because we are eating early (and the food has not been as filling as most of our boys would like) we ordered pizza (at 10:30pm!) and had a great time just doing stuff that boys do (moms will understand this!). There was lots of "wrastlin" (that is wrestling for those of you not from the south) and fun.
We are looking forward to a great day of serving today.

BBC Fuge Camp #2 Post

2011-06-28T17:48:00.005-04:00

Parents, Joel Smelley, youth pastor of BBC is guest posting today about Day #2 here at Fuge!

Parents and all others reading this post, I am here to tell you that our students are second to none. Their attitudes are great, their demeanor has been pleasant and their work ethic has been superb. These students never cease to amaze my by their commitment to work for the Lord!! We are at dinner right now, literally at the table with Logan Johnson, Judah Lisemby, Josh Roden, Zachary Randolph and several of our chaperones. The meals are edible and always available with quite a line. I am not quite sure the two are related (lol).
I want you parents to know that the attitudes of our students reflect their upbringing. I appreciate each of your commitments to raise Gospel-centered, God-fearing students who will take this same mentality and reach Chattanooga and their schools for King Jesus.
Today, all of our students have been out working in either social, children's, painting/construction/yard work, games/recreation and creative ministries. I know that my group (social) drove 40+ minutes from the campus of North Greenville University to a church to help them minister to children near that church (Elljean Baptist Church, Pickens, SC). We played with children on a 100ft by 25ft water slide slicked down by baby oil and dawn dish detergent. I'm not real sure how safe that was but it was incredibly fun. We then taught the Bible story about Noah and the Ark. It was a great day. Expect phone calls from your students sometime tonight to get updates on what they did on ministry sites. Thanks so much for allowing me the opportunity to Pastor your students; they truly are a blessing!!! Continue to pray for us and thanks for following this blog for this week!!!

BBC Fuge Camp #1 Post

2011-06-27T18:01:00.003-04:00

Disclaimer: Parents, please overlook any grammatical errors that may be in the following updates from camp. I am typing quickly when time permits and may not proofread as good as I should. Also, for the 29 Bobcat Blog readers, I am using my blog over the next week to update parents of students that are with us in South Carolina at camp.

Well parents, we arrived safely at North Greenville University for Fuge camp earlier this afternoon. The campus is really nice and is actually located out in the middle of the country, which is not what I had envisioned when I heard camp would be at a university. The scenery is very beautiful. Our girls are in a new dorm that is a little bit farther from the center of campus than the boys, so they will be walking a little further. A thunderstorm rolled in right after we got here today which made unloading luggage a little more difficult.
We have just finished dinner and are getting ready for our opening celebration. If I had to guess, there are several hundred students here from all over the eastern coast. One counselor said 1,100 campers are here, but I have not confirmed that. Either way, it is much larger than I expected, but then again, this is my first time to experience this. I am always impressed how the Holy Spirit brings believers together from all different walks of life. Our students have unpacked and are getting adjusted to "camp life". Our travel went very smoothly. We had one minor issue (which you can always count on at least one issue when you have a trip) with one of our vans. The air did not work properly, but once we made it to Greenville, we stopped and got some freon and recharged the system so hopefully this will help. Our students have signed up for their areas of ministry for this week and will find what areas they will be serving in later tonight. I will try to upload some pictures to my Facebook page later tonight or tomorrow, so if you are not friends with me, shoot me a friend request so you can see those.
I will update again when time permits.

Great News!

2011-06-22T21:43:00.005-04:00

Many of our school families have texted or emailed me tonight wanting to know if I had an update on Shafer and Jada Daves. Here is the latest news as of 9:30pm tonight.

Jada is in her own room now and is recovering. As you can imagine, she is very sore, but excited about the recovery process that is in front of both she and Shafer. The Daves are expecting to be staying in Nashville for the next 6 weeks. They have rented a house that is very close to Vanderbilt's campus. They will have follow up appointments almost daily for the first few weeks (after they are released from the hospital)
Shafer is currently in the PICU, which was expected for this serious type of surgery. He is currently sedated, but the good news IS THAT IS NEW KIDNEY IS ALREADY FUNCTIONING! Kevin told me a few minutes ago that Shafer "is making lots of pee pee!" This is awesome news and a big answer to prayer! God is good! The plan is that no more dialysis will be required!!

The Tennessean featured a nice article on Jada and Shafer today. News Channel 2 (The ABC affiliate in Nashville) has also picked up the story. Their feature ran on their morning and afternoon shows as well as their evening news tonight. They came by the hospital today and interviewed Kevin, Uncle John, and Shayli and Sharaya as well. They were amazed at the support system that is in place for the Daves' family. I was excited to get to tell how the BBS family has stepped up and supported the Daves family.

I want to encourage you to keep praying for Shafer and Jada. Also, if you would like to send them a email to let them know you are praying for them or to encourage them, you can do so by sending the message to jada@jadadaves.com. I would like to encourage any of Shayli or Sharaya's classmates to also send them a note as well. I know they would enjoy hearing from friends.

Update on Shafer Daves -June 14th

2011-06-14T13:13:00.003-04:00

Several families have asked me for an update on Shafer Daves. I am happy to report that the Kevin and Jada got word late last night that his kidney transplant has been rescheduled for Wednesday, June 22 at Vanderbilt. The Daves will be moving up to the house they have rented in Nashville later this week. Please continue to pray for Shafer and Jada as they prepare for the transplant. Also pray for the doctors that will be performing the surgeries!

Update on Shafer Daves

2011-06-07T13:18:00.002-04:00

I have had several parents ask me about the status of Shafer's transplant that was scheduled for yesterday. I want to share with you the most recent news we have regarding Shafer. Below is an email from Jada. Please continue to keep the Daves in your prayers.

Dear Family & Friends,

Just a quick note to let you know that due to some medical issues involving Shafer’s elevated liver enzymes, his kidney transplant scheduled for Monday, June 6, has had to be postponed. After a full day of labs, ultrasounds, visits with specialists, etc., it was determined late Thursday by Shafer’s medical team that this was the only decision that could be made. Even though Shafer looks and seems to feel great with no visible outside signs of distress or sickness, extreme thought and care must be given to every step of this journey for the long term possible outcome. So, proceeding with the transplant without the results of the new batch of specialized labs was too risky and now we will wait until Wednesday/Thursday to hear the results so a new plan of action can be determined.
We will keep you posted as more information becomes available. For now we are just taking it one day at a time and trusting that the Lord’s timing will be perfect as we move forward. Even though our hearts are heavy and it is hard to understand why we were so close and this happened, we are rejoicing that the ultrasound confirmed that there was NOT a blockage in the liver due to a tumor. In the midst of it all, we must extract the good and leave the end result to the One who knows best.
You all are so precious to us. Your continued prayers are the key to Shafer’s healing. We praise God for your commitment to walk this challenging journey with us.

All our love,
Jada, Kevin, Shayli, Sharayah, Shanel, Shaw, and Shafer

P.S. You can stay abreast of the newspaper articles, recent radio and television interviews, and other media about Shafer by visiting www.COTAforShaferD.com.

A Proud Papa!

2011-06-05T22:36:00.007-04:00

As my 27 readers (YES it's official, I have more than 13 followers..maybe someday I will get up to 50!) know, I spend a lot of time here on the Bobcat Blog talking about subjects and matters that pertain to education. In my description of this blog on the side of this page, I warn that I may occasionally take creative license for posts that are more personal in nature, and this is one of those occasions!

Recently, my youngest son, Aaron, graduated from Brainerd Baptist School. My wife is typically way more sentimental than I am, but as I watched Aaron graduate, I became emotional. I could not help being teary eyed as I thought about the fact that 2 of my 3 children are no longer students at BBS. As I sat in the graduation ceremony watching the presentation of students showing their baby picture and then their graduation picture, I remembered the day Aaron was born. It was the first day of school (Aug. 17, 2000) and it was my second year of teaching 6th grade at Brainerd Baptist Middle School! Now he is graduating and going to middle school (pardon me while I get emotional again!). Aaron finished his BBS career by earning the Presidential Academic Excellence Award in his class for having the 2nd highest average. Aaron was in K5 when I returned to work at BBS in 2005 - man does time fly!
My baby girl is now an uprising 3rd grader! Before I know it she will be visiting middle schools. I know many of you have also experienced how quickly our children grow up.

My oldest son Andrew just finished his first year of middle school. He is growing into a fine young man as well. One of his year end assignments at his school was pretty cool and I thought I would share it with you. His teacher gave all the boys note cards and the boys had to write 2 positive thoughts about every student in their class (see above picture). This is a pretty cool assignment on several different levels. I enjoyed reading through the comments from Andrew's classmates. I snapped a quick picture of a couple to share with you.
Now it is time to tie this personal post back to BBS. On several of note cards written to Andrew, his friends talked about Andrew "being a good example". I want my son to do well in academic and athletic endeavors, but more importantly, I want him to do well in spiritual matters. I pray with him frequently about being the example to others that God would want him to be. Although I would like to take credit for my children's positive attributes, the truth is that there are many people involved in shaping him. His grandparents and extended family help, but the teachers that laid a great foundation at Brainerd Baptist School also come to mind. The honest truth is that the other people that God has placed in their lives help fix the mistakes that I make! These teachers are another example of what makes BBS such a special place. They love our children and pour their lives into their students. Over the years, I have numerous parents tearfully share with me how BBS has had a positive impact on their children and even their family. This year we had several students graduate whose families have been a part of our school for over 15 years. It is a bittersweet time for us to lose families that have been a part of our family since their children were in our K3 or K4 classes. These families are great examples to all of us. They have stuck with BBS in good and bad times, believe in the mission of the school, and value the education provided by teachers who love them.
I can say without hesitation, as these families do, that the Corcoran family is blessed because of our time at Brainerd Baptist School and my children are better because of the relationships they have had with their teachers!

New Hires for 2011-2012

2011-05-12T12:49:00.000-04:00

If you have talked to me much about our school, you have heard me talk about the fact that our teachers are what makes BBS such a special place. I am very proud of the talented and dedicated professionals that choose to work at Brainerd Baptist School. The most important part of my job is assembling a great faculty. I am excited to tell you about two new members of our staff for next year. The Bobcat Blog readers have come to expect breaking news here on this blog, and I will once again reward you with some news that is being published here first! If you are not currently following this blog, do me a favor and click the "follow" link on the right side of this page. Now, onto the information! The following two ladies will be joining our faculty/staff for the 2011-2012 year.

Mrs. Paige Turner has been hired to teach in our K4 program next year. Although Paige is new to our faculty, she is no stranger at BBS. Her two children (Cooper, 2nd grade; Perri, K4) have been students at BBS since K3. Paige has also been very involved in our Parent Support Organization.
Paige has recently finished her Masters in Education from UTC. Her degree is with certification in Early childhood Prek-3rd . She will be replacing Laura Henry who will be moving to Hixson elementary where she will teach 1st grade. We wish Laura Henry well and will miss having her at Brainerd Baptist.
Mrs. Gena Bailey has been hired as an Teacher Assistant. Gena earned her bachelor's degree in education from UTC and taught at Ringgold Middle before having children. She has a daughter (Abbey Cate) in Mrs. Bookout's class, and a son (Alex) who will be in our K3 program next year. Gena has also been very involved in our Parent Support Organization this year. She will be filling the position held by Gilda. Gilda has worked at BBS in various capacities for almost 20 years and will be greatly missed. She will be opening an adult daycare center. We wish her well in her new endeavor.

Please congratulate these ladies and make them feel welcome!

Who Stole My AR Points?

2011-05-07T08:19:00.004-04:00

The following is a guest post from librarian Sarah Haren. If you have a K5-5th grade student and have recently noticed that their points have changed, this will help explain why. Of course, I also have ulterior motives as well! If you are not a follower of this blog, do me a favor and click on the follow link on the right side of this page. I am proud to announce that we have added 4 followers since the last post! My plan is working!

Who Stole My AR Points?
by Sarah Haren

If you have looked at your child’s points lately you probably have noticed that the total has changed. The explanation for this is somewhat wordy, but I am going to try to explain it anyway! What has happened is that our calendar for AR previously ran from April 23^rd to April 23^rd. This is the this 12-month cycle we have followed for many years. Previously we conducted the AR store, so we had to have a cut off date in April to hold the store. Since we incorporated the new reward system that has rewards throughout the entire year, we were able to extend the time allowing students to obtain AR points through May 13^th. This was great for our students, but when April 23^rd rolled around, AR thought BBS was done for the year. On April 23^rd we were unable to access AR system and realized what had happened.
Now that we have explained this, you are still wondering "Where are Suzy's points?" We have now extended our contract to run from May 15^th to May 15^th to keep this from happening in the future. Your child has not lost any of their points, you are just not able to view them. Your child's teacher as well as myself (Mrs. Haren) have access to view all points accrued from April 23^rd to present. I hope this clears any confusion about the points. Please feel free to ask your child’s teacher or myself if you have any further questions. We know that these points are very special and we just wanted to let you know that the points are still there.

Foundations & Frameworks

2011-05-04T12:40:00.004-04:00

I have been accused on more than one occasion of using the Bobcat Blog to break exciting news to the BBS community. Of course, my reason for doing this is to obtain more followers to my blog than Mrs. Ledbetter has on her blog. (By the way, if you are a regular reader that has told me, "I read your blog but never comment." - please do me a favor and click the "FOLLOW" button on the right side of this page. This is your way of saying you read. If you do this, I will quit bothering you about not posting....Can you help a friend out?)It hurts my pride to see that both she and I have exactly 16 followers...I have been making up my number of readers for several years now, usually going with the number 13 just for fun. I recently added this tool to my blog that shows how many followers I have. Guess what...the number is 16! My satirical look at myself ended up being pretty close to accurate. What this hurts me is that I have been blogging for several years now and Mrs. Ledbetter is relatively new to this...but yet we have the same number of followers. I am thinking about doing a campaign to increase my readership...stay tuned for more news on that front. Now, onto official business - I wanted to share some exciting news here on the blog first. Although this is not 100% official (we are still in the contract process) I wanted to tell our parents about something new that will be happening at Brainerd Baptist School in the fall.
We have spent considerable time this year examining our math and language arts curricula to see what improvements we could make. We formed committees and began looking at different options and meeting to discuss what we wanted to do. Through this process we found a program called Foundations and Frameworks. This program was being used at several schools and was actually created at Briarwood Christian School in Birmingham, AL. We sent two different groups of teachers down to examine this program and each group spent a day at Briarwood seeing this program in action and also went through some lesson training. An interesting thing happened. EVERY single teacher came back convinced that this was THE program for BBS. This in itself is an unusual occurrence. To think that 8 different teachers representing grades K5-5th, various personality and teaching styles, and various years of experience all agreed on this borders on the miraculous in itself!
So you have read through a paragraph and are now wondering...how in the world does this affect my child? Good Question! Let my try to answer. Beginning in the fall, all classes from K5-5th grade will be implementing a new reading curriculum. This is an important improvement over our current way of reading instruction. One of the key changes is that all of our grades will be tied together from a curriculum standpoint and will be using the same styles of teaching. Each grade level builds on the previous grade level implementing more critical thinking skills each year. Every one of our teachers will be spending two weeks this summer being trained on this. We will be the first school in our area that is implementing this new, research based program. We will be having a special night in August for our parents to give more information to you. In the mean time, if you have questions, I would encourage you to see me.

A New Way To Communicate

2011-05-01T08:24:00.002-04:00

The last 5 days have almost been surreal. I know that there is not one member of our school community that has not been affected by the tornadoes that have ravaged our community. I consider myself blessed to not have any severe damage at our house. The pain of not having electricity or water for several days is minuscule compared to what others in our area have gone through.
I have been asked multiple times about school on Monday (5/2). Has of right now (which is 8:30am on Sunday morning) the school still does not have power. It really is a strange thing that I do not fully understand. Some of our teachers who live in the neighborhood by the school have power, but others do not.
I will try to explain this to the best of my limited ability. Our school is set up on a system that utilizes what is called 3-phase power. Currently, only one leg of the 3 is restored. This means that we have roughly one-third power at the school. Some outlets and lights work, but most do not, and of course our heating and air system as well as all of our data systems do not work. Our cafeteria is also affected by this as most of the appliances do not have power either. Because of this, unless we have power restored, we will not be able to have class on Monday. I realize that this statement is immediately followed by, "so when, Mr. Corcoran will you decide to cancel school for Monday if there is no power?" My plan is to give EPB as much time as possible today to hopefully get this fixed. They have told people in the neighborhood that it may be a couple more days. We will have this decision made and on the news by 10pm tonight, but not sooner. If you do not hear anything, then assume that we are having school. I realize this time is later than I would prefer, but we really need to have school tomorrow and I am going to wait as long as I can before canceling.
I also want to let you know about something new at Brainerd Baptist School. Whenever something like this happens, I think it is good to learn from our experience. This process has told us that in the absence of electricity and Internet, it is very hard to effectively communicate to our families that school is closed. Our current system of emailing, using social networks (Twitter and Facebook), our website, news, and calling our parents is a really good system, but all of these tools require electricity. We must also use the Internet to utilize our call system. Because of this, we have created a special infoline where important information will be recorded and parents can call and get this information in the absence of technology. The number for this line is 451-6280. I would encourage you to add this number to your contact numbers in your cell phone. We will have important information recorded on this line as soon as we can. I also realize that most of you probably have power and data restored and will not necessarily need to use this, but know that it is there for future use.

Does Private Education "Attack Public Education"?

2011-04-22T20:57:00.005-04:00

I saw this article today in the Times Free Press by Andy Sher. I will admit that as I read it, I got a excited and a little agitated at the same time. I am going to get up on my soap box for a minute and respond! Maybe my 15 readers will enjoy the temporary rise in my blood pressure! I realize that the chances of this bill ever becoming law, and Brainerd Baptist School benefiting from this are slim, at least lawmakers are considering it.
Let me preface my comments by saying I have never met the superintendent, but he appears to be a nice man. That being said, I have to tell you that I strongly disagree with Dr. Scales comments that this law "attacks public education." I find this statement laughable. I would encourage Dr. Scales to examine the facts a little closer. Most people who have a business sense will tell you that competition is good for the market. Let's apply this mindset to education. Would the number of students enrolled in Chattanooga area private schools routinely be double the national average (10-12%) if parents were not desperate for an alternative? What has caused parents to sacrifice so much? I have asked parents and feel like I know the answer to this. We routinely have 10-20 students a year whose parents teach in the public system here in Chattanooga and in the N. Georgia area. I would even argue that the best schools in Chattanooga are, in many ways, set-up much like private schools in the area.
Chattanooga has an incredible independent school tradition. Routinely, 20 to 25% of local students attend one of the great independent schools in our area. These families fund public education while making incredible sacrifices to send their children to private schools in the Chattanooga area. How is this "attacking" public education? It would seem like they are funding both public and private schools. For Dr. Scales to use the argument that "private schools" are not under the same "tough standards" as a public school is also misguided. I know Brainerd Baptist would gladly compare test data, student/teacher ratios, exposure to the fine arts, our child centered curriculum (as opposed to a test-centered curriculum)with any school- private or public. Our tuition is over $2,000 less than what the state spends on each student annually. I know I speak for many heads of schools here locally when I say we will gladly put the quality of our education up against any school, and would even argue that we are doing more with less. I understand that not all private schools have the same desire to be academically excellent, but you have to be careful when make statements that paint with a broad brush like Dr. Scales has done. I wonder how many private schools Dr. Scales has visited during in his time in Chattanooga? I would love for him to stop by and see the quality education that is happening each day at Brainerd Baptist School.
The other thing that is discounted here is the great relationships that many private schools have with public schools in our area. This week alone BBS students have partnered with public schools throughout our city to read with younger students, provide snacks, and conduct an Easter Egg Hunt. In addition to this, we do several things throughout the year to support public education. We feel like we have to be committed to the education process and it does not matter to a 6 year old if it is public or private!
Now, I will step down off my soap box and encourage you to read the article and share your thoughts.

School voucher program clears hurdle by Andy Sher

NASHVILLE — State senators on Thursday passed a Republican-backed school voucher program for low-income students in the state’s four largest counties, including Hamilton.

The “Equal Opportunity Scholarships” bill passed on a largely partisan 18-10 vote. It could start moving in the House on Wednesday.

“I see it as an attack on public schools, and I see it as an attack on the large school systems,” Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Jim Scales said Thursday night. Officials in Knox, Davidson and Memphis and Shelby County schools also opposed the bill.

Should the bill become law, Hamilton County schools would lose an estimated $4,600 in taxpayer support for each voucher student. Students would take that money with them to private or religious schools.

Scales questioned a situation in which public school teachers, schools and students are subject to tougher standards while possibly losing money to private and religious schools where standards are often unknown.

He estimated that 60.1 percent of local students qualify for federal free-and-reduced lunch programs and would be eligible for vouchers if the measure becomes law.

This is the first voucher bill known to clear either chamber. Its sponsor, Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, said his bill will “provide impoverished children with hope for a better education and choice in the school they attend.”

“With this bill,” Kelsey said, “children need no longer be victims of their own geography.”

But Tennessee Education Association lobbyist Jerry Winters, whose group represents 52,000 public school teachers, said the public “ought to be outraged that 18 members of the state Senate voted for a blatant voucher bill which will drain much-needed funds from public education to private and parochial schools.”

“I would hope that when the first tax dollar goes to a religious school, a lawsuit would be filed to question its constitutionality,” Winters said.

Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, said schools have fixed costs such as teachers, building maintenance, utilities, busing and other areas that are virtually impossible to cut.

Berke said recent bipartisan cooperation to reform education has given way with Republicans controlling the General Assembly.

“Today what we see is not bipartisanship and a way forward but a way backward — a look back to the ideas that have made no tracks over the past 30 years,” Berke said. “Each time we do something like this we are not focused on providing better education for our children. We’re instead focused on these divisive ideas which lead us nowhere.”

Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, a co-sponsor of the bill, praised it to reporters later.

He said it will provide “opportunity scholarships for parents who have their children trapped in a failing school but don’t have the means to take them anywhere else.”

Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, however, contended the bill will send taxpayer money to private schools, many of which have no government oversight.

Potentially, he said, an Islamist group could create a taxpayer-backed “Osama Bin Laden” school that could teach anti-American views.

House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, said vouchers could help education.

“What I hear from every educator who really truly cares, they say, ‘Give us one more tool in our toolbox, one more option for a child,’” she said.

She said her three children attend different schools “because children learn differently. Why take that option away? If it can help a child, let’s pursue it.”

The House version is scheduled to come up Wednesday in the Education Subcommittee.

House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, expressed some doubts about the timing.

“The scheduling works against it this year,” he said. “Certainly we want to make sure it’s done right before we push it all the way through.”

Ramsey, however, said he would press House leaders to move on the bill.

What Makes A Great Teacher

2011-04-20T21:26:00.003-04:00

I tweeted the link to this article earlier today on our BBS Facebook and Twitter page. Very interesting read. It is long but interesting. This article is from The Atlantic magazine.

What Makes A Great Teacher?

For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data.

On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math.

One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor’s math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked.

The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so.

At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools—not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it’s worth noting, not a very hard one).

After a year in Mr. Taylor’s class, the first little boy’s scores went up—way up. He had started below grade level and finished above. On average, his classmates’ scores rose about 13 points—which is almost 10 points more than fifth-graders with similar incoming test scores achieved in other low-income D.C. schools that year. On that first day of school, only 40 percent of Mr. Taylor’s students were doing math at grade level. By the end of the year, 90 percent were at or above grade level.

As for the other boy? Well, he ended the year the same way he’d started it—below grade level. In fact, only a quarter of the fifth-graders at Plummer finished the year at grade level in math—despite having started off at about the same level as Mr. Taylor’s class down the road.

This tale of two boys, and of the millions of kids just like them, embodies the most stunning finding to come out of education research in the past decade: more than any other variable in education—more than schools or curriculum—teachers matter. Put concretely, if Mr. Taylor’s student continued to learn at the same level for a few more years, his test scores would be no different from those of his more affluent peers in Northwest D.C. And if these two boys were to keep their respective teachers for three years, their lives would likely diverge forever. By high school, the compounded effects of the strong teacher—or the weak one—would become too great.

Parents have always worried about where to send their children to school; but the school, statistically speaking, does not matter as much as which adult stands in front of their children. Teacher quality tends to vary more within schools—even supposedly good schools—than among schools.

But we have never identified excellent teachers in any reliable, objective way. Instead, we tend to ascribe their gifts to some mystical quality that we can recognize and revere—but not replicate. The great teacher serves as a hero but never, ironically, as a lesson.

At last, though, the research about teachers’ impact has become too overwhelming to ignore. Over the past year, President Barack Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have started talking quite a lot about great teaching. They have shifted the conversation from school accountability— the rather worn theme of No Child Left Behind, President George W. Bush’s landmark educational reform—to teacher accountability. And they have done it using one very effective conversational gambit: billions of dollars.

Thanks to the stimulus bonanza, Duncan has lucked into a budget that is more than double what a normal education secretary gets to spend. As a result, he has been able to dedicate $4.3 billion to a program he calls Race to the Top. To be fair, that’s still just a tiny fraction of the roughly $100 billion in his budget (much of which the government direct-deposits into the bank accounts of schools, whether they deserve the money or not). But especially in a year when states are projecting $16 billion in school-budget shortfalls, $4.3 billion is real money. “This is the big bang of teacher-effectiveness reform,” says Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that helps schools recruit good teachers. “It’s huge.”

Despite the perky name, Race to the Top is a marathon—and a potentially grueling one; to win, states must take a series of steps that are considered radical in the see-no-evil world of education, where teachers unions have long fought efforts to measure teacher performance based on student test scores and link the data to teacher pay. States must try to identify great teachers, figure out how they got that way, and then create more of them. “This is the wave of the future. This is where we have to go—to look at what’s working and what’s not,” Duncan told me. “It sounds like common sense, but it’s revolutionary.”

Based on his students’ test scores, Mr. Taylor ranks among the top 5 percent of all D.C. math teachers. He’s entertaining, but he’s not a born performer. He’s well prepared, but he’s been a teacher for only three years. He cares about his kids, but so do a lot of his underperforming peers. What’s he doing differently?

One outfit in America has been systematically pursuing this mystery for more than a decade—tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and analyzing why some teachers can move those kids three grade levels ahead in one year and others can’t. That organization, interestingly, is not a school district.

Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to spend two years teaching in low-income schools, began outside the educational establishment and has largely remained there. For years, it has been whittling away at its own assumptions, testing its hypotheses, and refining its hiring and training. Over time, it has built an unusual laboratory: almost half a million American children are being taught by Teach for America teachers this year, and the organization tracks test-score data, linked to each teacher, for 85 percent to 90 percent of those kids. Almost all of those students are poor and African American or Latino. And Teach for America keeps an unusual amount of data about its 7,300 teachers—a pool almost twice the size of the D.C. system’s teacher corps.

Until now, Teach for America has kept its investigation largely to itself. But for this story, the organization allowed me access to 20 years of experimentation, studded by trial and error. The results are specific and surprising. Things that you might think would help a new teacher achieve success in a poor school—like prior experience working in a low-income neighborhood—don’t seem to matter. Other things that may sound trifling—like a teacher’s extracurricular accomplishments in college—tend to predict greatness.

Steven Farr is a tall man with a deep, quiet voice. He is Teach for America’s in-house professor, so to speak. His job is to find and study excellent teachers, and train others to get similar results. He takes his work very seriously, mostly because he has seen what the status quo looks like up close.

Farr grew up in a family of teachers in central Texas. When he graduated from the University of Texas, in 1993, he had a philosophy degree and an acceptance letter to Yale Law School, neither of which felt quite right. So he deferred law school and joined a new, floundering outfit, Teach for America.

After a little more than a month of somewhat uneven training, Farr walked into Donna High School in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas—a place he’d never been. Many of the three dozen kids in his classroom were the children of migrant workers; they would disappear for weeks at a time as their families followed the harvests.

Talking to Farr about those two years feels a little like talking to a war veteran. You and he both know that you can never understand what it was like, and the clichés come marching in. “It was the hardest, proudest, all of that,” he says, his voice drifting away. Then: “I was not the teacher I want our teachers to be.”

Farr lived with three other Teach for America teachers, in a house that had been confiscated by U.S. Marshals in a drug raid. He taught English and English as a Second Language. Texas required that students pass a standardized test before they graduate, and as test day approached, Farr felt a mixture of anxiety and resentment.

About a month afterward, he got the news: 76 percent of his students had passed; 24 percent were told they didn’t yet have the skills to graduate. Even though many were only sophomores, some of them dropped out as a result. The principal congratulated him on his scores, but Farr cried into his pillow that night. “Some of those kids did not pass because I was not as effective as I needed to be.”

After his two years were up, Farr went to law school, as planned. He came back to Teach for America in 2001—this time in charge of training and support. By then, the organization’s founder, Wendy Kopp, had begun to notice something puzzling when she visited classrooms: many Teach for America teachers were doing good work. But a small number were getting phenomenal results—and it was not clear why.

Farr was tasked with finding out. Starting in 2002, Teach for America began using student test-score progress data to put teachers into one of three categories: those who move their students one and a half or more years ahead in one year; those who achieve one to one and a half years of growth; and those who yield less than one year of gains. In the beginning, reliable data was hard to come by, and many teachers could not be put into any category. Moreover, the data could never capture the entire story of a teacher’s impact, Farr acknowledges. But in desperately failing schools, where most kids lack basic skills, the only way to bushwhack a path out of the darkness is with a good, solid measuring stick.

As Teach for America began to identify exceptional teachers using this data, Farr began to watch them. He observed their classes, read their lesson plans, and talked to them about their teaching methods and beliefs. He and his colleagues surveyed Teach for America teachers at least four times a year to find out what they were doing and what kinds of training had helped them the most.

Right away, certain patterns emerged. First, great teachers tended to set big goals for their students. They were also perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness. For example, when Farr called up teachers who were making remarkable gains and asked to visit their classrooms, he noticed he’d get a similar response from all of them: “They’d say, ‘You’re welcome to come, but I have to warn you—I am in the middle of just blowing up my classroom structure and changing my reading workshop because I think it’s not working as well as it could.’ When you hear that over and over, and you don’t hear that from other teachers, you start to form a hypothesis.” Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing.

Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.

But when Farr took his findings to teachers, they wanted more. “They’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah. Give me the concrete actions. What does this mean for a lesson plan?’” So Farr and his colleagues made lists of specific teacher actions that fell under the high-level principles they had identified. For example, one way that great teachers ensure that kids are learning is to frequently check for understanding: Are the kids—all of the kids—following what you are saying? Asking “Does anyone have any questions?” does not work, and it’s a classic rookie mistake. Students are not always the best judges of their own learning. They might understand a line read aloud from a Shakespeare play, but have no idea what happened in the last act.

“Strong teachers insist that effective teaching is neither mysterious nor magical. It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance,” Farr writes in Teaching as Leadership, a book coming out in February from Farr and his colleagues. The model the book lays out, Farr is careful to say, is not the only path to success. But he is convinced it can improve teaching—and already has. In 2007, 24 percent of Teach for America teachers moved their students one and a half or more years ahead, according to the organization’s internal reports. In 2009, that number was up to 44 percent. That data relies largely on school tests, which vary in quality from state to state. When tests aren’t available or sufficiently rigorous, Teach for America helps teachers find or design other reliable diagnostics.

So far, only one independent, random-assignment study of Teach for America’s effectiveness has been conducted. That report, published by Mathematica Policy Research in 2004, looked at the organization’s teachers and found that, in math, their students significantly outperformed those of their more experienced counterparts. (In reading, though, the teachers’ students did the same as other teachers’ students.) Another study is due out in 2012 or 2013.

Mr. Taylor, the fifth-grade math teacher in Washington, D.C., is not a member of Teach for America. He grew up attending D.C. public schools and then joined the profession the traditional way: he majored in education in college and then was certified. But Mr. Taylor has a lot in common with the teachers Farr has found to be most effective.

On a typical Monday, Mr. Taylor’s kids come to class and begin silently working on the Problem of the Day written on the blackboard. They sit in four clusters of desks. Each group has a team leader, who is selected by Mr. Taylor each month.

Mr. Taylor walks in and says good morning. “Good morning!” they answer in kid unison. He is wearing a scarf, a black-and-white pinstripe cardigan, and small, oval Dolce & Gabbana glasses, and he looks tired. He is taking classes on the weekends to get his master’s in education administration. He has a Bluetooth headset in one ear and an earring in the other.

After a few minutes, Mr. Taylor announces that it’s time for Mental Math. The kids put down their pencils and grab the orange index cards and markers on their desks. Mr. Taylor begins to walk around the class, reading problems aloud. “How many 5’s are in 45?” The kids have to do the math in their heads. All of them write their answers on their cards and thrust them up in the air. With a quick scan, Mr. Taylor can see if every child has written the right answer. Then he says, “What’s the answer?” And all the kids call out, “Nine!” When they get an answer right, they whisper-shout “Yes!” and pump their fists. If some kids get it wrong, they have not embarrassed themselves by individually raising their hand and announcing their mistake. But Mr. Taylor knows he needs to give them more attention—or, more likely, have their team leader work with them. Children, he has learned, speak to each other in a language they can better understand.

“Now I’m going to trick you,” Mr. Taylor says. “What’s 3 times 120?” The orange cards go down—and back up. “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” says one little girl, unable to contain herself. “‘Ooh’? Is that the answer?” Mr. Taylor says, silencing her.

Next, Mr. Taylor goes to the board to teach a new way to do long division. It’s a clever method that takes a little longer but is much easier than most other methods, and I’ve never seen it before. “You want to work smart, not hard,” he tells me later. “If you just show them the traditional method, not everyone understands.” He actually learned the method last year—from one of his students.

Mr. Taylor follows a very basic lesson plan often referred to by educators as “I do, we do, you do.” He does a problem on the board. Then the whole class does another one the same way. Then all the kids do a problem on their own. During the “we” portion of the lesson, Mr. Taylor calls on students to help solve the problem. But he does this using the “equity sticks”—a can of clothespins, each of which has a student’s name on it. That way, he ensures a random sample. The shy ones don’t get lost.

As the kids move into group work, there is a low buzz in the room. I try, but I can’t find a child who isn’t talking about math. One little boy leans across his desk to help another with a problem. “What do you add to 8 to get 16?” he says, and then he waits. “Eight,” the other boy says. “Then,” says the first, “you subtract that and what do you get?”

The activities come in brisk sequence, following a routine the kids know by heart, so no time is lost in transition. In Teaching as Leadership, Farr describes seeing such choreography in other high-performance classrooms. “We see routines so strong that they run virtually without any involvement from the teacher. In fact, for many highly effective teachers, the measure of a well-executed routine is that it continues in the teacher’s absence.”

On the front wall, Mr. Taylor has posted different hand signals—if you need to go to the bathroom, you raise a closed hand. To ask or answer a question, you raise an open hand. “This way, I have the information before I even call on you,” Mr. Taylor explains. There is even a signal for when you are having a terrible day and don’t feel up to participating: you just put your head down on your desk. I ask Mr. Taylor how often kids exploit that option. “I’ve never had anybody put their head down,” he says, matter-of-factly. “In three years?” I ask. “No.”

Next, Mr. Taylor announces it’s time for Multiplication Bingo. As Mr. Taylor reads off a problem (“20 divided by 5”), the kids scour their boards, chips in hand, looking for 4’s. One girl is literally shaking with excitement. Another has her hands clasped in a prayer position. I find myself wanting to play. You know you’re in a good classroom if you have to stop yourself from raising your hand.

Finally, after a dozen problems go by, a small voice from an even smaller boy pronounces, “Bingo!” Kids wail in despair as the tiny boy walks up to collect his prize (a pencil) from Mr. Taylor. “Dang!” one girl says. “Okay, relax,” Mr. Taylor says, smiling. “It’s just a game.” Before they leave, all the kids fill out an “exit slip,” which is usually in the form of a problem—one more chance for Mr. Taylor to see how they, and he, are doing.

When I talk to Mr. Taylor after class, I notice that he tends to redirect questions so that they reflect his own performance. When I ask him if his first year on the job was hard, he says, “I found that the kids were not hard. It was explaining the information to them that was hard. You paint this picture in your head about how you will teach this lesson, and you can teach the whole lesson and no one gets it.”

Like all the teachers I talked to in Washington, Mr. Taylor laments the lack of parental involvement. “On back-to-school night, if you have 28 or 30 kids in your class, you’re lucky to see six or seven parents,” he says. But when I ask him how that affects his teaching, he says, “Actually, it doesn’t. I make it my business to call the parents—and not just for bad things.” The first week of class, Mr. Taylor calls all his students’ parents and gives them his cell-phone number.

Other teachers I interviewed spent most of our time complaining. “With the testing and the responsibility and keeping up with the behavior reports and the data, it has gotten so much harder over the years,” said one fourth-grade teacher at Kimball, the same school where Mr. Taylor teaches. “It’s more work than it should be. They don’t give us the time to be creative.”

A 23-year veteran who earns more than $80,000 a year, this teacher has a warm manner, and her classroom is bright and neat. She paid for the kids’ whiteboards, the clock, and the DVD player herself. But she seems to have given up on the kids’ prospects in a way that Mr. Taylor has not. “The kids in Northwest [D.C.] go on trips to France, on cruises. They go places and their parents talk to them and take them to the library,” she says one fall afternoon between classes. “Our parents on this side don’t have the know-how to raise their children. They’re not sure what it takes for their child to make it.”

When her fourth-grade students entered her class last school year, 66 percent were scoring at or above grade level in reading. After a year in her class, only 44 percent scored at grade level, and none scored above. Her students performed worse than fourth-graders with similar incoming scores in other low-income D.C. schools. For decades, education researchers blamed kids and their home life for their failure to learn. Now, given the data coming out of classrooms like Mr. Taylor’s, those arguments are harder to take. Poverty matters enormously. But teachers all over the country are moving poor kids forward anyway, even as the class next door stagnates. “At the end of the day,” says Timothy Daly at the New Teacher Project, “it’s the mind-set that teachers need—a kind of relentless approach to the problem.”

Once teachers have been in the classroom for a year or two, who is very good—and very bad—becomes much clearer. But teachers are almost never dismissed. Principals almost never give teachers poor performance evaluations—even when they know the teachers are failing.

Ideally, schools would hire better teachers to begin with. But this is notoriously difficult. How do you screen for a relentless mind-set?

When Teach for America began, applicants were evaluated on 12 criteria (such as persistence and communication skills), chosen based on conversations with educators. Recruits answered open-ended questions like “What is wind?” Starting in 2000, the organization began to retroactively critique its own judgments. What did the best teachers have in common when they applied for the job?

Once a model for outcomes-based hiring was built, it started churning out some humbling results. “I came into this with a bunch of theories,” says Monique Ayotte-Hoeltzel, who was then head of admissions. “I was proven wrong at least as many times as I was validated.”

Based on her own experience teaching in the Mississippi Delta, Ayotte-Hoeltzel was convinced, for example, that teachers with earlier experience working in poor neighborhoods were more effective. Wrong. An analysis of the data found no correlation.

For years, Teach for America also selected for something called “constant learning.” As Farr and others had noticed, great teachers tended to reflect on their performance and adapt accordingly. So people who tend to be self-aware might be a good bet. “It’s a perfectly reasonable hypothesis,” Ayotte-Hoeltzel says.

But in 2003, the admissions staff looked at the data and discovered that reflectiveness did not seem to matter either. Or more accurately, trying to predict reflectiveness in the hiring process did not work.

What did predict success, interestingly, was a history of perseverance—not just an attitude, but a track record. In the interview process, Teach for America now asks applicants to talk about overcoming challenges in their lives—and ranks their perseverance based on their answers. Angela Lee Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues have actually quantified the value of perseverance. In a study published in TheJournal of Positive Psychology in November 2009, they evaluated 390 Teach for America instructors before and after a year of teaching. Those who initially scored high for “grit”—defined as perseverance and a passion for long-term goals, and measured using a short multiple-choice test—were 31 percent more likely than their less gritty peers to spur academic growth in their students. Gritty people, the theory goes, work harder and stay committed to their goals longer. (Grit also predicts retention of cadets at West Point, Duckworth has found.)

But another trait seemed to matter even more. Teachers who scored high in “life satisfaction”—reporting that they were very content with their lives—were 43 percent more likely to perform well in the classroom than their less satisfied colleagues. These teachers “may be more adept at engaging their pupils, and their zest and enthusiasm may spread to their students,” the study suggested.

In general, though, Teach for America’s staffers have discovered that past performance—especially the kind you can measure—is the best predictor of future performance. Recruits who have achieved big, measurable goals in college tend to do so as teachers. And the two best metrics of previous success tend to be grade-point average and “leadership achievement”—a record of running something and showing tangible results. If you not only led a tutoring program but doubled its size, that’s promising.

Knowledge matters, but not in every case. In studies of high-school math teachers, majoring in the subject seems to predict better results in the classroom. And more generally, people who attended a selective college are more likely to excel as teachers (although graduating from an Ivy League school does not unto itself predict significant gains in a Teach for America classroom). Meanwhile, a master’s degree in education seems to have no impact on classroom effectiveness.

The most valuable educational credentials may be the ones that circle back to squishier traits like perseverance. Last summer, an internal Teach for America analysis found that an applicant’s college GPA alone is not as good a predictor as the GPA in the final two years of college. If an applicant starts out with mediocre grades and improves, in other words, that curve appears to be more revealing than getting straight A’s all along.

Last year, Teach for America churned through 35,000 candidates to choose 4,100 new teachers. Staff members select new hires by deferring almost entirely to the model: they enter more than 30 data points about a given candidate (about twice the number of inputs they considered a decade ago), and then the model spits out a hiring recommendation. Every year, the model changes, depending on what the new batch of student data shows.

This year, Teach for America allowed me to sit in on the part of the interview process that it calls the “sample teach,” in which applicants teach a lesson to the other applicants for exactly five minutes. Only about half of the candidates make it to this stage. On this day, the group includes three men and two women, all college seniors or very recent graduates.
One young woman—I’ll call her Abigail—stands up to teach her lesson. She has curly blond hair and wears a navy-blue suit. She tells us she will be teaching a fifth-grade Spanish class. She tapes up a preprepared poster. (Female applicants are more likely to bring props, which is not a bad thing. In fact, women are more likely to be effective in Teach for America, Duckworth found.) Then she writes her objective on the room’s whiteboard: to teach the days of the week. Krzysztof Kosmicki, a Teach for America program director, starts the clock.
To me, Abigail’s objective seems a little dull (especially compared with that of another applicant, who taught “the five fluids that transmit HIV”). She asks the class to repeat each of the days of the week. “I know it’s confusing,” she says. So she teaches them a song to help keep them straight, and then has the applicants sing it—twice. “If I don’t hear everyone’s voice, we’re going to sing it again until I do.” When she asks what day it is, Kosmicki volunteers the wrong answer. She asks another applicant to help correct him, which he does, and then her time is up.
The last applicant to teach is a young man I’ll call Michael. He has been very quiet, but he becomes much more animated when he starts teaching. His objective is to teach the order of operations in a math problem. “Good morning, class!” he says. When someone gets something right, he says, “Correctomundo!” He seems confident. He asks if he can get a volunteer to answer part of the problem on the board, and one of the other applicants steps up. Kosmicki asks him to explain exponents again, which he does. Time’s up.
Later, I talk with Kosmicki about his impressions. He liked Abigail’s sample teach—but not Michael’s. Kosmicki is not very interested in the things I noticed most: charisma, ambitious lesson objectives, extroversion. What matters more, at least according to Teach for America’s research, is less flashy: Were you prepared? Did you achieve your objective in five minutes?
“Abigail’s sample teach was exceptional,” says Kosmicki, who taught for Teach for America in the South Bronx before starting a charter school in Newark, New Jersey. “It was abundantly clear to me that she had practiced.” The students successfully learned the days of the week “somewhere between the third and fourth minute,” Kosmicki says. He was interested in what Abigail was doing, but he had been more focused on the other applicants, acting as her class.
This summer, those who have been accepted will go to a Teach for America training institute. That’s when Steven Farr, the in-house professor, and his colleagues take over. For them, the challenge is not to pick the perfect teacher but to diagnose strengths and weaknesses early and provide intense, customized training to correct them. Farr is more hopeful each year. “When I see not a handful, not dozens, but hundreds of people being successful in a world where most people think success is not possible, I know it can be done,” he told me.
Of course, thanks to its mission and brand, Teach for America has been able to draw from a strong recruiting pool. (During the 2008–09 school year, 11 percent of Ivy League seniors applied.) Large, low-income school districts do not get nearly as many candidates per open position, and most of the candidates they do get aren’t nearly as high-caliber. Plus, the extreme hours that Teach for America teachers put in—for two years—are not sustainable for most people over the long term.
But if school systems hired, trained, and rewarded teachers according to the principles Teach for America has identified, then teachers would not need to work so hard. They would be operating in a system designed in a radically different way—designed, that is, for success.
This year, D.C. public schools have begun using a new evaluation system for all faculty and staff, from teachers to custodians. Each will receive a score, just like the students, at the end of the year. For teachers whose students take standardized tests, like Mr. Taylor, half their score will be based on how much their students improved. The rest will be based largely on five observation sessions conducted throughout the year by their principal, assistant principal, and a group of master educators. Throughout the year, teachers will receive customized training. At year’s end, teachers who score below a certain threshold could be fired.

The handbook for the new system looks eerily similar to the Teach for America model, which is not a coincidence. The man who designed it, Jason Kamras, is a former Teach for America teacher who taught in a low-income D.C. school for eight years before being chosen by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to help fix the schools. Rhee is herself a Teach for America alumna, who went on to run the New Teacher Project.
Washington, D.C., is also applying for Race to the Top money from the Obama administration, along with many states. To qualify, states must first remove any legal barriers to linking student test scores to teachers—something California and Wisconsin are already doing. To win money, states must also begin distinguishing between effective and ineffective teachers—and consider that information when deciding whether to grant tenure, give raises, or fire a teacher or principal (a linkage that the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, has criticized as “inappropriate” federal interference in local prerogatives). And each year, states must publish which of their education and other prep programs produced the most effective (and ineffective) teachers and principals. If state and local school officials, along with teachers unions, step up to the challenge, Race to the Top could begin to rationalize America’s schools.
By the time the Obama administration begins handing out awards this spring, Mr. Taylor will be finishing up another year at Kimball Elementary. On the mornings his students take their standardized tests, he will cook a hot breakfast of sausage, eggs, and toast for them, as he always does. But this tradition may be coming to an end. He’s thinking about quitting in the next few years.
Mr. Taylor wants to become a principal. In just three years as a teacher, he feels that he has already run up against the limits of his classroom. He wants to bring what he has learned to scale. That way, he says, “it won’t just stay with me, bundled in Room 204.” He is, like many great teachers, well aware that he is not one in a million—or at least, that he should not be.

Study: Third Grade Reading Predicts Later High School Graduation

2011-04-12T08:29:00.001-04:00

I read this article today and found it interesting. It is from the ASCD Smartbrief that I get each day. Very interesting data here.

By Sarah D. Sparks on April 8, 2011 9:36 AM | 9 Comments |

The disquieting side effect of our increasingly detailed longitudinal studies of students is we keep finding warning signs of a future graduation derailment earlier and earlier in a child's school years.

Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found those warning signs as early as 6th grade— chronic absences, poor behavior, failing math or language arts, which when put together lead to a 90 percent risk that a student won't graduate on time.

A study to be released this morning at the American Educational Research Association convention here in New Orleans presents an even earlier warning sign: A student who can't read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently by that time. Add poverty to the mix, and a student is 13 times less likely to graduate on time than his or her proficient, wealthier peer.

"Third grade is a kind of pivot point," said Donald J. Hernandez, the study's author and a sociology professor at Hunter College, at the City University of New York. "We teach reading for the first three grades and then after that children are not so much learning to read but using their reading skills to learn other topics. In that sense if you haven't succeeded by 3rd grade it's more difficult to [remediate] than it would have been if you started before then."

Mr. Hernandez analyzed the reading scores and later graduation rates of 3,975 students born between 1979 and 1989 in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979. He found 16 percent overall did not have a diploma by age 19, but students who struggled with reading in early elementary school grew up to comprise 88 percent of those who did not receive a diploma. That made low reading skills an even stronger predictor than spending at least a year in poverty, which affected 70 percent of the students who didn't graduate. In fact, 89 percent of students in poverty who did read on level by 3rd grade graduated on time, statistically no different from the students who never experienced poverty but did struggle with reading early on.

By contrast, more than one in four poor, struggling readers did not graduate, compared with only 2 percent of good readers from wealthier backgrounds. Mr. Hernandez found that gaps in graduation rates among white, black and Hispanic students closed once poverty and reading proficiency were taken into account. "If they are proficient in reading, they basically have the same rate of graduation" above 90 percent, Mr. Hernandez said. "If they did not reach proficiency, that's when you see these big gaps emerge."

For some children in the sample, Mr. Hernandez was able to track reading scores as early as 2nd grade, but not enough to do a separate analysis. It's interesting to me that since we don't do much testing before grade three, the first accountability point under NCLB, it's difficult to say exactly when these reading gaps emerge.

Mr. Hernandez is working on further studies on the nuances of these findings, including the effects of concentrated poverty—often associated with low-performing schools—and factors that make some students more resilient to poverty and early academic difficulty.

The study, "Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation," will be posted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation here.

Amen Corner and BBS

2011-04-10T18:10:00.007-04:00

You may be wondering what in the world my title has to do with an education at Brainerd Baptist School. A couple of years ago I did a post on my personal bucket list of sporting events. Since that time I have had the joy of making my way to Augusta, GA to watch the Masters on two occasions. Although I enjoy watching the professionals play golf, the history and beauty of the course is what enthralls me more. This past Monday I went down to Augusta and watched a practice round. Both times that I have had the opportunity to walk the course, the attention to detail has amazed me. On my 4-hour drive home I began thinking about how this mindset correlates to Brainerd Baptist School. What I concluded is that Augusta National is such a special place because they have concentrated on the premise that they are going to be EXCELLENT in every manner. Average is not an option! The folks in Augusta are well known for their amazing attention to detail. The are committed to making the entire experience at the Masters incredible and no detail is left to chance. They are committed to being excellent in every area from the condition of the course, to the blooming of the trees and flowers, clubhouse, parking, food, cleanliness (even placing ice cubes in the urinals...who thinks of this???). Their people are all single minded as well. I have purposely looked for a trash can (there are hundreds!) that was more than half full...no luck. If, by chance, there is an errant piece of paper or trash on the ground, it takes about 7 seconds for some high school student in a yellow suit (Augusta schools always go on Spring Break Masters week so they can work the event. Many locals also rent out their houses!) swoops in to pick it up! So here is the question - how can we apply this at Brainerd Baptist School? The answer is simple - we need to continue to focus on being excellent in all aspects of our school. Curriculum, teachers, discipline, pedagogy, facilities, development, admissions, etc. What I take from this is that our task is never ending! Excellence does not rest - ice cubes always melt!

A Trip to D.C.

2011-04-08T13:35:00.001-04:00

Second grade recently visited Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital. How did we do that when we live hours away? Well, we used our Promethean Board to learn about some of the famous monuments and places. Then, we used the iPad’s Google Earth program to take us to the National Mall. Let me tell you that I had some pretty excited students! Now we can go ANYWHERE in the world in less than seconds through Google Earth. Also, there was a virtual map where the students located various museums, monuments, etc. It was such an exciting virtual field trip. Without technology, we would have only had photographs in books. While those are nice, moving your fingers across the iPad to find the next location on a field trip is much more invigorating. My students are truly learning and having fun at the same time! The next time you see a second grader, ask them which building, monument, or place is their favorite from Washington, D.C. I am sure they will remember what they experienced!

Barbie Hernandez

2nd Grade Teacher

How Do You Use Those Thingy's???

2011-04-07T10:59:00.000-04:00

I love this question? I was recently asked this by a grandparent when talking about our iPads. If a parent walks through the halls of BBS on any given day, the answer to this question is very easy. Over the last few weeks our 3rd grade class has been using the iPad lab in a neat way for spelling. Here is a quick video that explains this. Pretty neat stuff!

We Are We Are ORTLESS!

2011-03-15T09:57:00.000-04:00

Parents, words can not fully describe how funny I must have looked a few minutes ago as I was posting the first Mentone blog. It pouring here and the only wireless signal is on the other side of camp at the workers cabins. Because I had told the parents at the bus this morning that I would be posting an update, I felt like I needed too follow through with that. I know there are some moms out there who were waiting patiently to hear about their “babies” day! The problem I was facing was how could I get my computer into the pouring rain and make the post without getting it wet! To get around the whole water-electronic dilemma, I decided to put on a poncho over my head, sit on a rock outside, and create a little tent to type in. It had to look silly, but fortunately for me, there is not a lot of foot traffic at 9:45pm in the pouring rain in Mentone, AL!
Now, on to the big news of the first day. We got our first ORTless plate! In the 6 years that I have been coming to Mentone with our 5^th grade classes, this was a first for me. We have gotten several ORTless plates, but NEVER on the first meal. Now, if you are sitting there reading this and have no idea what “ORT” is, that is OK. I will explain it for you now. ORT stands for Organic Recyclable Trash. Basically it is a fancy term for the food and drink that we put on our plates but do not eat. Our students were able to be ORTless on their first try. Because of this, they could actually get a GOLD plate to be hung on the ceiling here at the camp forever more! We have not had a gold plate in over 10 years. There are literally hundreds of plates on the ceiling here at the camp from all the various schools from Nashville, Birmingham and Chattanooga that bring their schools here, but there are very few gold plates. We hope to be able to add one!

The premise behind ORT is very simple – eat what you put on your plate. Our students are allowed to eat whatever they want from dinner each night and are actually allowed to eat as much as they want, but the catch is this – if you put in on your plate or pour it in your cup, do not get more than you will eat. The goal is to teach them not to waste. Our students learned the lesson quickly and we will see if they can continue this in the morning. Breakfast is the hardest meal of the day because of the milk in the cereal! Time will tell!

Mentone Post #1

2011-03-14T22:49:00.000-04:00

Well, day one is quickly coming to an end here in Mentone. We began our day by unloading the bus and getting settled in our cabins. All the boys are in one cabin (Flintlock) and the girls are also in one cabin (Arapaho). I feel confident in the fact that our cabin is not as civilized as the cabin on the other side of the camp! Mothers, you will be glad to know that I am tucking all the boys in the bed and giving them their hugs (except for the ones who have made fun of my Scooby Doo sheets) and making them shower and brush their teeth. Our first activity was a day hike. Our groups did a great job on their first hikes. We ate lunch and then our groups had their first classes (see pictures on Twitter or Facebook of various groups) of our time here. The classes offered today where airplanes, bridge-building, surviving in the woods, and geo-dome building. After this we had a little free time in which the students played volleyball, foursquare, ping-pong or basketball and then it was dinnertime. We had plans to go on a night hike and then have s’mores by the campfire, but it began raining in our night hike preventing a campfire!

We are looking forward to tomorrow’s activities that will include a hike to Desoto Falls, some more classes and our favorite activity- The Underground Railroad.

We will post more tomorrow!

Interesting Video

2011-03-13T14:10:00.002-04:00

Mrs. Gruner (one of our 5th grade teachers) sent this link to me this weekend and I found it very challenging. I tend to gravitate towards educational paradigms that challenge the traditional line of thinking. Because of this, I tend to find myself asking questions like "will this work at BBS" when I read things or watch things like this. This video is long, but worth watching!

A New Perspective

2011-02-17T10:02:00.003-05:00

Our next guest post is also from a different perspective. Mrs. Ginny Young is in her first year here at Brainerd Baptist School. Her experience in independent education is extensive though having served for almost 25 years at St. Nicholas and Hickory Valley schools before coming to BBS. I asked Mrs. Young to write about her experiences on the importance of parental involvement in our Sustaining Fund. Here are her thoughts.

Often we do not realize how blessed we are by what is offered to our children within the walls of school each day. Before coming to BBS, I was always in charge of the Sustaining Fund at my previous school and understood how very important it was. I also knew that participation in it was what helped me secure grants and buy those extras for the school. Because of this, I would beg, borrow or steal so to speak to get 100% participation from parents and staff. Because Brainerd Baptist does not have large endowment to draw income from, conducting a successful Sustaining Fund campaign is crucial to making continued improvements to the school.
It did not take me long to see the impact of giving at Brainerd Baptist. I was very nervous coming to a new school setting. I quickly learned what devoted, talented Christian teachers we have here at BBS. They welcomed me with open arms. HOWEVER when Sean told me about the new technology plan that was beginning with the K4 and going through the 5th grade-that was another story! I quickly panicked when the entire staff received new MacBooks! I tried to explained that technology was very limited at my previous school and so to was my experience. I had a 6 year old computer and a pitiful cellphone that couldn't even text - this old woman had a learning disability where technology was concerned! I sat in workshops all summer clueless while the teachers around me were so savvy. I have been amazed to watch our 4-year-olds maneuver the iPads. The Promethean boards have been used daily by teachers for lessons and on more than one occasion there have been debates as to who will have use of iPads or iPods at what times. This is one recent important use of our Sustaining Fund. This fund has provided the icing on the cake for your students! Brainerd Baptist School now has the reputation for being the best independent elementary school with technology resources in our city! Many other schools have come to see how BBS is leading the way in technology integration! I hope parents realize that tuition has not risen to compensate for this greatly added technology.
In conclusion, I want to encourage all parents, grandparents and alumni to support this great school!

3,000 Days at Brainerd Baptist School...

2011-02-16T10:57:00.004-05:00

The latest post is another guest post in my series on how Brainerd Baptist School has impacted students and families for 58 years. The purpose of course, is to highlight the importance of your participation in our Sustaining Fund. I think you find the perspective of this parent both interesting and refreshing!

Three Thousand Days of BBS…
By Ann Eslinger

When my daughter graduates from fifth grade this May, we will have had a child enrolled in Brainerd Baptist School for 16 consecutive years, or just a little shy of 3,000 school days to be more specific. To give a little historical perspective, we paid our first enrollment deposit the day before the blizzard of 1993 (March 13). The spiritual and educational impact of the BBS experience will be a part of our family’s story for eternity.

Though my children are polar opposite in personality and educational strengths and weaknesses Brainerd Baptist School met both of them exactly where they were and helped guide and instruct them to where they needed to be. As I write this I’m looking at a list of the “Fruits of the Spirit” that hangs in my office. My mind and heart are filled with the countless expressions of all these good fruits poured out upon my children and our family by the staff and faculty. (Our son required a lot of “long suffering”!)

Our gifts to the BBS sustaining fund the past 16 years are not extraordinary. We’ve been getting a continuous return on our investment. For goodness sakes our daughter has a Mac Book to use in class! Our Sustaining Fund gift next year and the years that follow will be even more special. These gifts will be our family’s way to fertilize a tree whose shade we no longer experience but will never forget and always value.

Brainerd Baptist School is a good steward of every dollar given to the Sustaining Fund. It’s such a great feeling to be at the end of our BBS experience and know that we always gave what we could. I want every family to feel like this. Like Paul said in 2 Corinthians 8:12, “For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.”

Your gift of any size is important to The Sustaining Fund. You willingness will glorify God and your gift will be used to help Brainerd Baptist School equip students to light their world for Christ.

Guest Post by Susan Ledbetter

2011-02-12T12:25:00.004-05:00

As I said in the last post, over the next few days I am going to have several guest post here on the Bobcat Blog! The theme that will tie all of these post together will be the direct impact our Sustaining Fund has had on each of these teachers and their classrooms. The goal is for our constituency to see why it is imperative that we have participation from all parts of the Brainerd Baptist School family. When our friends, parents, grandparents, and former parents reflect on the impact that BBS has had on their families, the case for support is strong. I hope you enjoy seeing how the money raised over the last couple of years has impacted our school.

TECHNOLOGY YESTERDAY AND TODAY
by Susan Ledbetter

Things sure have changed since I began teaching. The major difference has been in technology. Twenty-three years ago Brainerd Baptist School thought we were leading the area in technology by having 20 new Apple Computers in a computer lab. The computers weren’t hooked up to the Internet and educational games were on 5” floppy disks. Students learned keyboarding skills, how to create word documents, and played educational games on the computers, but the computers never left the lab. We also began using Accelerated Reader that year. Believe or not, when a child was ready to test on a book we had to insert a floppy disk to open the test questions. We probably had fifty disks with only a couple hundred tests available at that time.

Fast forward to 2011: One of the first new pieces of technology came when my old overhead projector died; it was replaced with an Elmo digital projector. The Elmo is different than the old overhead projector in that it’s like a camera. I don’t have to use transparencies. I can put a book or any other item under the camera and “presto” live and in color the students can see actually what I have placed under the Elmo’s lens.

Twice a week our mobile Mac lab, which consists of 20 MacBooks, comes to the classroom. Our fifth graders can learn keyboarding skills, create word documents, play educational games via the web, create Power Point presentations, and use the Internet to search for information pertaining to their classroom assignments.

Today our students have access to thousands of AR tests. Whenever they are ready to take an AR test they go to one of the computers in the classroom and simply login to the Renaissance Learning website.

One of the biggest pieces of technology lives in my classroom. It is a 72-inch Promethean Active Board that arrived this past fall. We use it almost daily. It has been extremely helpful when introducing new grammar material. I can present the material and then have the students identify parts of speech and make corrections using an electronic pen. The most fantastic aspect of the Active Board is that I can easily use it with both classes by making the corrections go away with a click of the mouse. What a huge time saver! I can create my flipchart once and use it over and over again. Students can interact with the Active Board by taking quizzes on the material presented using the remote responders. They have gotten so capable at using the board and its many functions that they were recently allowed to use it by themselves to review their spelling words. Granted I was very close by just in case there were any technical problems. But they did GREAT! Along with my laptop, we can easily watch video from the Internet using the Active Board.

Technology is a phenomenal teaching tool that has kept this teacher learning and up-to-date on teaching ideas that enhance learning for her students. Without the funds given through the Sustaining Fund these items may not have been purchased. It is so important that the BBS family continue to give to the Sustaining Fund so we can continue to be a leader in technology.

Special Guest Post from Cathy Creed

2011-02-11T13:40:00.002-05:00

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to have several guest posts here on the Bobcat Blog. The first is from Cathy Creed, Assistant Head of Brainerd Baptist School. Mrs. Creed is blogging about our upcoming speaker for our Parent Seminar - Jim Williams. I hope you are planning on being here for that special night. If you want more information you may click here! Enjoy!

Call Me Jim: Ordinary Name - Extraordinary Person!

Jim Williams spent the day with us on January 3, for faculty in-service. I had never him speak, but had heard raves about him from those who had. And it was all true! By the end of the day, I had learned so much about the needs of children, I was wishing I could have a 'do-over' with my own children!

Jim openly shared his own mistakes in raising children. He described his first child, Curt, as compliant and easy. Many of Jim's insights about bullying came from Curt's experiences. Daughter, Beth, was the opposite and his stories about their relationship were difficult to hear.

Tragedy struck the family in 1995. Curt was a sophomore at Birmingham-Southern College. He was finally in a place where he felt loved and accepted by his peers. He was attending on a four year tennis scholarship and life was good, when it was ended abruptly by a drunk driver. Jim told how this event changed his life - including his relationship with his daughter and his career.

I guarantee you will come away affected in some way by Jim's program. If you are looking for some tips on parenting, you will not be disappointed!

BBS Students In The News

2011-02-10T10:05:00.004-05:00

I thought I would take a some time and highlight a few of our students who have recently been in the news in the Chattanooga area. There is always danger in doing something like this because I am sure I will leave someone out (if I do, please email me and let me know and I will get it added!)

1. I want to recognize some students who recently qualified for the Zone Spelling Bee that will take place at BBS on Thursday, February 17. Over 70 students from independent schools all across our region (and home school students as well) will be on our campus competing for a chance to go to the regional spelling bee which is held at UTC each year. The winner of the regional spelling bee advances to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC each year. This is the spelling bee that is televised on ESPN each year. Representing Brainerd Baptist School in this years spelling bee are:

Jackson Rickets - a 3rd grader in Mrs. Strickland's class
Komal Patri - a 3rd grader who is also in Mrs. Stickland's class
Hayden Moore - a 3rd grader in Mrs. Hodgkin's class
Ivana Robinson - a 5th grader in Mrs. Gruner's class

We also want to say congratulations to two BBS graduates -Henley Edge, a 6th grade student at McCallie and Kate Ziegler, a 6th grade student at Silverdale who qualified for the zone spelling bee to represent their schools as well! We are proud of our graduates!

2. We recently have had two students be the "KidsCast" weather forecaster's on WDEF (channel 12) in the last two weeks. To view Colby Henry conducting the weather click here. To view Komal Patri click here.

3. Komal Patri has also participated in the qualifying chess tournament at UTC and finished 6th in the Primary division. Since she finished in the top 8 for her division, she will participate in the Tennessee State chess championship to be held in Cookeville on February 19th.

How Would This Go Over at BBS?

2011-02-02T14:49:00.002-05:00

This piece was sent to me (from CNN.com) by one of our teachers yesterday. I found it very interesting. How do you think a bill like this would work in private school? My thought is that it would not work at all and here is why I feel this way. It is crucial that we maintain great relationships with our parents. They enable us to continue doing what we do! If we were to give them grades and they do not agree with the given grade, I think they would get mad and leave. It would not matter if the grade was accurate or not. What are your thoughts?

From CNN.com

Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- If an elementary school teacher graded you on your involvement in your child's education, what kind of a grade would you get?

Should your kid's first-grade teacher be grading you in the first place? If Florida state Rep. Kelli Stargel's bill becomes law, public school teachers will be required to grade the parents of students in kindergarten through the third grade.

The parents' grades of "satisfactory," "unsatisfactory" or "needs improvement" would be added to their children's report card.

Stargel, a Republican who sits on several education legislative committees, says that parental involvement is key to educating children for years to come.

As the mother of five, Stargel says, she understands the importance of her role in educating her children.

"I think a lot of parents understand that is something that is critical," she said. "On the other hand, you have some parents that don't realize they are not providing the needs."

Florida lawmakers have spent years overhauling the public school system to make schools and their teachers accountable for student achievements.

Many parents and teachers have not welcomed the changes. In the late 1990s, the state began the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, in which a school would be graded based on the overall score of its students.

From the beginning, proponents of the FCAT wanted schools held accountable for their students' grades through standardized testing.

Critics contend that teachers are forced to spend too much time preparing students for the test instead of actually teaching.

Last year, Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill that tied a teacher's pay to his or her students' achievement. Another version of the bill is expected to pass this year under new Gov. Rick Scott.

"We have student accountability, we have teacher accountability, and we have administration accountability," Stargel said. "This was the missing link, which was, look at the parent and making sure the parents are held accountable."

Veita Stephens, an academic intervention facilitator for Polk County Public Schools, called the proposal a "unique notion."

"The thought has never entered my mind to grade a parent," she said.

Teachers agree that parental involvement is crucial to a child's education. But some teachers say that grading the parents is not the answer.

Sharon Francis, who teaches first grade in the small central Florida city of Winter Haven, is not sure that grading parents will work.

"I think those parents that are not going to show up or not do anything," said Francis, who teaches students from primarily poor homes, "it's not going to faze them, whether you put 'unsatisfactory.' "

The grading system is based on three criteria that Stargel wrote in the legislation:

• A child should be at school on time, prepared to learn after a good night's sleep, and have eaten a meal.

• A child should have the homework done and prepared for examinations.

• There should be regular communication between the parent and teacher.

"Those three things are key to a quality education," Stargel said.

Steve Perry, a CNN education contributor and founder of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Connecticut, says he couldn't disagree more.

Perry insists that a good education is based on what a child learns in the classroom and not what a parent might know that could help their child.

"There is nothing in any teacher's training that would put them in a position to be able to effectively judge the parenting of one their student's parents," Perry argued. "If getting a bad grade was the impetus for people doing things right, then I would have an entire school of kids getting A's."

Kindergarten teacher Theresa Hill of Snively Elementary School in Winter Haven disagrees.

"This is the real world. You don't always get a superior rating if you're not doing a superior job. That's life," she said. "We grade our children based on their performance. Why should the parents be any different?"

Some parents said they laughed out loud after hearing about the proposed legislation.

On the sidelines of his son's soccer practice in Winter Park, J.C. Adams said he thought it was an interesting proposal.

"It could have some validity. We could try it and see how that might work out for everyone," he said.

We grade our children based on their performance. Why should the parents be any different?
--Theresa Hill, kindergarten teacher

RELATED TOPICS

Kim Granger, who has two daughters -- one in high school and the other a mother of three young children -- welcomed the idea of being graded on her parental skills.

"I wouldn't mind that at all. I would get a good grade," she said. "If you're more involved with your children when they're littler, when they grow older, they're more stable, more willing to sit down and do the work."

Stargel acknowledges that not everyone agrees with her legislation, which she said is still under revision. The bill was not intended to tell parents how to raise their kids, she says.

"We want to make sure parents are involved in the education of their children," Stargel said.

Francis Monteiro agrees that parents like him appreciate feedback from their children's teachers, but he says requiring teachers to grade parents is not the answer.

"Bottom line: Everyone wants the best for their kids," he s

Updated Reading List Spring 2011

2011-01-31T21:50:00.003-05:00

I am a few weeks late in posting my reading list for this semester. Of course, my tardiness directly correlates to the amount of reading that is required of me this semester! I am currently taking 13 hours this semester (in my spare time!) as I continue my pursuit of ultimately completing my doctorate degree in education. As with any graduate work, there is an incredible amount of reading that is required for these classes. I am taking CI 661 - Instructional Design, EAS 611 - School Assessment and Evaluation, EAS 680 - Learning to Lead I, and CI 695 - Content-Based National Standards K-12.
In addition to these classes, I am also working on a practicum that has to be completed to gain my state principal license. The "CI" stands for "Curriculum and Instruction" and the "EAS" stands for "Educational Administration and Supervision". The books I am reading for these classes are:

5 Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner
What Great Teachers Do Differently - 14 Things That Matter Most by Todd Whitaker
What Effective Schools Do by Lawrence Lezotte and Kathleen McKee Snyder
Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter (I have already read this book this semester)
How To Access Higher-Order Thinking Skills In Your Classroom by S. M. Brookhart

So, if anyone out there wants to particpate in book discussion on any of these books...I am all game!

The Bobcat Blog

Have You Caught Lin Mania?

Just Lin, Baby! 10 Lessons Jeremy Lin Can Teach Us Before We Go To Work Monday Morning

Why Learning Must Be Active!

Twilight of the LectureThe trend toward “active learning” may overthrow the style of teaching that has ruled universities for 600 years.

What Are You Encouraging Your Children to do for a Career?

Do iPads Impact Academic Gains?

Algebra, Meet the iPad: A Year-Long Study Explores Learning With the Tablet

By Tina Barseghian

So What About Those Textbooks on the iPads?

What You (Really) Need to Know

What You (Really) Need to Know

By LAWRENCE H. SUMMERSPublished:January 20, 2012

9 Reasons to Let Your Kids Lose

I Had This Coming!!!

New Tenn. Teacher Ratings Vary Widely by District

New Tenn. Teacher Ratings Vary Widely by District

My Christmas Practical Joke

The Gift of Grace

Study Links Academic Setbacks to Middle School Transition

I read this article today via Education Weekly's twitter feed. As a former 6th grade teacher, I found the findings of this study very interesting. This study further affirms the need for us to work closely with our partners at the next level.

Middle Versus High

Easing Transitions

Who Likes Free Stuff?

Five Hallmarks of Good Homework

The Fundamental Five

Hallmark 1: Purpose

Hallmark 2: Efficiency

Hallmark 3: Ownership

Hallmark 4: Competence

Hallmark 5: Aesthetic Appeal

Free to Learn

References

What Is Really Important?

Delay Kindergarten at Your Child's Peril?

Delay Kindergarten at Your Child's PerilBy SAM WANG and SANDRA AAMODTPublished: September 24, 2011

Recent Letter for K4 Families

Thoughts About the Movie Courageous

SpongeBob is in Timeout!

Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning

What Teachers Really Want To Tell Parents

Guest Post- What I Did This Summer

Do Your Students Need an iPad?

Lunch Box Lunacy

5th Graders Use Khan Academy

And We Have Lift Off!

What Motivates Your Child

Metamorphasis

met·a·mor·pho·sis - Biology . a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly.

Are Playgrounds Too Safe?

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2011, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Grasping Risk in Life’s Classroom.

Shafer Update - July 3rd

Friday Morning Post

Thursday Morning Update

Wednesday Morning Post

BBC Fuge Camp #2 Post

BBC Fuge Camp #1 Post

Great News!

Update on Shafer Daves -June 14th

Update on Shafer Daves

A Proud Papa!

New Hires for 2011-2012

Who Stole My AR Points?

Foundations & Frameworks

A New Way To Communicate

Does Private Education "Attack Public Education"?

School voucher program clears hurdle by Andy Sher

What Makes A Great Teacher

Study: Third Grade Reading Predicts Later High School Graduation

Amen Corner and BBS

A Trip to D.C.

How Do You Use Those Thingy's???

We Are We Are ORTLESS!

Mentone Post #1

Interesting Video

A New Perspective

3,000 Days at Brainerd Baptist School...

Guest Post by Susan Ledbetter

Special Guest Post from Cathy Creed

BBS Students In The News

Twilight of the Lecture
The trend toward “active learning” may overthrow the style of teaching that has ruled universities for 600 years.

By LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS
Published:January 20, 2012

Delay Kindergarten at Your Child's Peril
By SAM WANG and SANDRA AAMODT
Published: September 24, 2011