There is an old joke that gets passed around from school district to school district.  The angel Gabriel greets a newly departed teacher at the pearly gates.  He welcomes him warmly and begins to take him on a glorious tour of heaven.

     "Here is where the doctors all live," he explains.  For their dedication and service to mankind they are given a beautiful section of heaven." 

      The teacher remarks how happy everyone looks and the excitement on everyone's face as they bustle around.  They continue on the tour. 

     "Here is where the firemen live."  Again the teacher remarks on how beautiful the space is and how happy everyone looks. 

      Finally they arrive at the the teachers' section. 

      Gabriel announces, "Here is the special section set aside for teachers."  The teacher is astounded by the beauty of the place.  

     However, unlike the other sections, it is desolate and quiet ---there is not a soul to be seen.  "Where is everyone?"  he asks Gabriel.

"Oh--they're in hell--for a bit---they had to go to professional development."

     I have the dubious privilege of arranging for the professional development for the teachers in my district.  Once in a great while teachers find the professional development inspirational.  Sometimes, it even impacts their professional practice.  More often, they find it just bearable.

     I have learned over the years that professional development has to be ongoing.  It must be sustained over time and must sometimes occur during the insturctional day.  The one-time charismatic wonders with magic solutions to solve all classroom problems are like a puff of smoke on a windy day. They make piecrust promises that are easily made and easily broken.

     Teachers in my district are required to take a minimum of 10 hours of professional development.  I try to have a broad menu of choices and most years offer over 100 possibilities.  However, I have had difficulty finding content rich sources for my secondary folks. 

     For the past two years I have been able to provide high quality webinars for my art teachers.  These have been a great resource.  They are provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  They are affordable and the teachers have raved about them.  But these kind of webinars seem to be the exception. 

     Does anyone know of some high quality on-line professional development that is affordable?

     Should professional development be an independent endeavor?  Should all professional development be orchestrated by the district?

     I have great respect for people's time.  I want to make sure that if I keep teachers after school or take them out of their classrooms it better be for a good reason. If I want to impact instructional practice---let's say ---in improving questioning techniques-----how much time has to be dedicated to the initiative?  How do you know when it's taken hold?

   I welcome suggestions!

More on Vocabulary

I couldn't stop thinking about the Sparks article on vocabulary.  I know that vocabulary is a key indicator of reading comprehension and intelligence, and a predictor for academic success.  I keep wondering why we don't have better instructional practices in this area.

I looked at my old copy of Classroom Instruction That Works by Marzano, Pickering and Pollack. The book also cites the incredible gaps among the lower, middle and upper classes when it comes to vocabulary.  They cite the work of Stahl and Fairbanks(1986) and Nagy.

Since a vocabulary teaching program typically teaches 10 to 12 words a week or about 400 words a year, ...vocabulary instruction is not adequate to cope with the volume of new words that children need to learn and do learn without instruction. 

Nagy and Herman (1987) offer an alternative to direct instruction.  They propose that students spend 25 minutes a day reading.

If students were to spend 25 minutes a day reading at a rate of 200 words per minute for 200 days out of the year, they would read a million words of text annually.  According to our estimates, with this amount of reading, children will encounter betweeen 15,000 and 30,000 unfamiliar words.  If one in 20 of these words is learned, the yearly gain in vocabulary will be between 750 and 1500 words. (p.20)

I was so pleased to read this.  Nagy sounds like the voice of reason.  Administrators and teachers are reaching for out of the box solutions for Common Core instruction and gap closing measures.  Students have to be given time to read.  This is not as easy as it seems.  It takes practice and perseverance to teach an eight year old how to maintain concentration and read.  But this is a skill like all skills and it can be taught---it should be taught---it must be taught.  Sustained silent reading both in and out of school must be practiced on a daily basis.  Then--perhaps---we will see some gains in voacabulary.

On February 6, Education Week published a great article by Sarah D. Sparks called

 Studies Find Vocabulary Instruction is Falling Short

.http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/02/06/20vocabulary_ep.h32.html

It says, "the whole common core will fall on its face if kids are not getting the kind of instruction it will require." 

Pre-school students in poverty enter school knowing far fewer words than their peers from higher-income families. According to the article, by age 3 youngsters from high income families have a working vocabulary of 1,116 words, compared to 749 words for children in working-class families and 525 words for children on welfare. 

In a study done in Michigan by Susan B. Neuman and Tanya S. Wright, few formal structured lessons on vocabulary are given.  Instead, most teachers defined words during teachable moments that came up as they read stories to students.   That informal style led to major discrepancies in both the number and difficulty of vocabulary words introduced.  Some teachers teach 2 words a day and others as many as 20.

Words are often chosen from the stories the students are reading. 

This is common in my district.  Words are taken from the basal reader or leveled readers or the content subjects. Basal readers, at most,  introduce about 300 words a year, not enough to close the gap among children.

Studies suggest that a student needs to hear a word about  28 times to remember it.  The more sophisticated the word, the more important it is for students to have opportunities to recall it.

It seems that vocabulary instruction seems haphazard at best.  Sparks remarks --and I agree-- that vocabulary is a critical, but deceptively simple literacy skill that is essential to students' academic success. 

One of the measures suggested was to consider the Dale -Chall list, a list of over 7,000 words commonly known by 4th graders. 

Another suggestion was to concentrate on Level II words.  These are lists of words categorized by Isabel L. Beck, a professor the University of Pittsburgh.  She says that Level I words are common words and that Level III words are content area words.  Level II words are academic words such as 'categorize' and 'compare.'  Explicit instruction is an effective method of instruction.  Strategies for rehearsing and repeating new words have to be developed so that students are exposed to new vocabulary repeatedly.

Be the Coffee

     I have been struggling for the last few weeks writing Student Learning Objectives or SLO's. In New York teachers who do not administer a state assessment must have 20% of their evaluation based on an SLO.; This involves creating a goal for some sort of an assessment. For example, "70% of students will score a 75 on the end of year assessment." Teachers must have one of these objectives to cover at least 50% of their rosters--- so some teachers have 2 or 3 of these. The problem is I am not so sure this system is really going to be very effective. They are making teachers highly anxious, and the writing of them is taking up most of my days. I am trying hard to keep this in perspective. Then I remembered the first day of school. On that day, I told an old story to my faculty. It always helps me.

Once upon a time there was a wise old woman and her daughter. 

The daughter had married and had nothing but hardship. The young woman went to her mother and told her about her life’s struggles and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up.  She was tired of fighting and struggling.

It seemed as if when one problem was solved, a new one arose.

 Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire.  Soon, the pots came to boil. In the first pot she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.

 In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, 'Tell me what you see.'

 'Carrots, eggs, and coffee,' she replied.

 Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots.   She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.  

The daughter then asked, 'What does it mean, mother?'

 Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile.  Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

'Which are you?' she asked her daughter. 'When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean? The daughter wondered, “Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat?

 Did I have a fluid spirit, but when I experienced hardship did I become hardened?

Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a hardened heart?

 Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changed the hot water.  When the water got hot, it released the fragrance and flavor.

I ask you, “Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?”

I must remember to  try to be more like the coffee.