Proving I can study with distractions

[velvetpage]

1) Teaching and learning as priorities
• Slogans around the school: "Whatever it takes" or "Failure is Not an Option"
• Administrators supported teachers as professionals, trusted them, made it possible for them to focus on teaching, supported them with resources
• Unacceptable for students to disrupt the learning process; significant blocks of time dedicated to instilling behavioural norms in students
• Teachers came to work to practise and improve on their craft of teaching, => enthusiasm

Reflection: I need to work on the "unacceptable to disrupt the learning process" piece the most out of this list; I'm not good at insisting on a lack of disruptions

2) Supplemental support is provided for student learning
• Extensive tutorial support is offered and available to all, often on teachers' own time
• Every student is given remedial help at the beginning in addition to (not in place of) regular lessons
• Many teachers gave out phone numbers so students could reach them at home for help; schools provided the cell phones for teachers to do this
• Long blocks of time for math; 90 minutes or more, like our literacy blocks
• Excuses not accepted; if it's hard, access the help that's available and solve the problem

Reflection: Our school needs more of this, and we need to co-ordinate with the existing homework club to make sure they know what we're doing and are supporting us in it. But what we really need is a lunch-hour remedial help program for those who have already fallen behind. We also need to put the same emphasis on math that we put on literacy; unfortunately I can't see that happening if we're going to fit everything else in as well. First priority for next year: insist that the phys. ed. teacher send my kids back five minutes early from his class, so they get their drinks and their books and are ready to learn at 9:05 in math - instead of 9:20 or 9:25, leaving me half an hour to do math. Sorry - your phys. ed. class does not trump my math class to the tune of twenty extra minutes twice or three times a week.

3) Review of basic skills
• Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, especially at middle schools
• Memory devices used to drill math facts until the kids knew them cold; then review, review, review

Reflection: I'm pretty good at this at least as it involved multiplication, but it's really difficult to keep drilling it after 75% of the class has learned it. I really liked the idea that spec. ed. students were expected to do the same work with higher support; these schools consider it insulting to suggest that some students can only do half the work. I think that idea probably needs finessing in our system, because reduced workload is the single most common intervention in most IEPs for math, and it shouldn't be.

4) Teaching resources available
• Lots of hard copy resources, books, textbooks, internet, manipulatives, calculators
• Consultants often wrote grant proposals to get more money for the school's initiatives
• Math consultant/resource person on hand; teachers mentored by other teachers

Reflection: well, my goal is to be the math consultant at the school level within two years, so I guess I'm on top of this. I need to do research into grant proposals and what's available for small elementary schools in Ontario.

5) Teachers have regular access to professional development
• Resource person finds new grant money and gets commitment from the staff to do it
• New teachers are given a year to get their feet wet, then they're expected to take on some PD
• Mentoring available for new teachers

Reflection: this is definitely true of literacy, and I suspect it will become true of math. The bit about trusting teachers to be professionals and do their jobs is key in any PD plan implemented for a school. I've had the experience of trying to turn a school around with a principal who played the blame-and-shame game with her teachers, and it didn't work. Improvement began when we got a principal who paired high expectations with high support for the teachers as well as the students.