Keeping Your Sanity - Part 3: "Take the Sacred Cows Off of Their Pedestals"

All hail the radiant and glorious sacred cow.  She will leads us to the shining classroom on the hill where all students will reach great academic heights, demonstrate mastery on standardized tests, and eventually head off to Ivy League universities.  If this sounds far too good to be true, congratulations, you have taken the first step in identifying sacred cows.

The term "sacred cow" refers to institutions, ideas, customs, etc., that are seen as being above reproach.  Education, like most industries, has dozens of sacred cows.  In some cases the basic premise of the sacred cows have value, but they can be detrimental when we view them as hard truths that leave no room for challenge or debate.

Dealing with sacred cows is simply a matter of looking at an idea or practice in education and asking a few simple questions:  How is this beneficial to students?  What does research say?  Is there any room for nuance?  Is there another viable option?  I will look at each of these questions in terms of one common sacred cow - the amount of time and effort put into homework and studying directly correlates to learning

Sacred cows in education often provide minimal to moderate benefit to the students when they are looked at as immutable, therefore, when you are looking at an idea or practice that many educational professionals staunchly support, despite any evidence to the contrary, ask yourself:  How is this beneficial to the students?  Using the homework example, some of the answers include: it serves as reinforcement for classroom activities, it allows the students to apply their knowledge in different settings,  and/or it gives students the opportunity to develop time management and organization skills.  While there is some essential truth in these responses, the use if homework has to be tempered by other factors.  There is ample evidence that highlights the downside of too much homework, especially work that could be classified as "busy work".  The aforementioned evidence leads us to the second question - what does the research say?

If you are going to infuse a practice or activity into your classes, make sure you take sometime to look at what the latest research has to say about that practice.  Rather than skimming through mountains of peer reviewed research, start by talking to your department head/supervisor, or your district's curriculum coordinator.  These are the people who should be looking at the most up to date research as a part of their job, making them your best first step.  Continuing with our homework example, the current research brings into question the validity of the traditional thinking that the amount of home assigned and student's completion of that homework is paramount to academic success.

Perusing the research I found two major points that continued to jump out at me: (1) avoid busy work - beneficial assignments tie in to, reinforce, or expand on class activities  (2) balance - the common recommendation for high school students is 30 minutes a night of homework per academic subject; this is not carved in stone - you do not need to go out of your way to assign that much every night.  This research does not completely negate the traditional belief toward homework, but it does temper the concept and allows for some nuance - question #3.

Is there room for nuance?  People who are indoctrinated by a sacred cow tend to see the topic as a dichotomy - an either/or situation - with their view being correct and all other views being wrong.  Once you take the proverbial step back and look objectively at a sacred cow, you will realize that there may be some truth to the sacred cow, but how you approach each situation involving this topic depends on the context.  With the question of the value of homework and how much to assign, it becomes clear that there are no hard and fast answers, and there are several factors that need to be taken into consideration: the skill(s) being covered, the level of the class, the purpose of the assignment, and the assessment of the concept(s) covered by the assignment.  Identifying room for  nuance leads to the last question - Is there another viable option?

It is in the nuance that you find out if there are other viable options that will work better than the sacred cow.  For example, instead of assigning a concept as a homework assignment, you can redesign the homework as an engaging, in-class assignment that will reach a larger number of students.  This is really the purpose of questioning sacred cows - not tearing them down, but finding different ways of looking at the topic and using what you learn to be a better educator.  Remember, just because something has always been done one way, does not mean there are not other options.  A crucial part of learning and educating is asking questions and looking at a problem/situation from different angles in order to make the best choices.

This is the last post in this series; I hope this helps you keep your sanity, especially in those first few hectic years of teaching.

Next up, "Dealing with Administration (Especially When You Think You Are Right)".

Keeping Your Sanity - Part 2: Put things into perspective, or "don't sweat the small stuff"

In the hit TV series Breaking Bad the high school chemistry teacher turned meth cooker protagonist, Walter White, receives a crucial piece of business advice from Gustavo, a fast food restaurant mogul turned drug kingpin.  Gustavo explains to Walter that he made a lot of mistakes when he started his illicit business, but he never made the same mistake twice - of course, the most obvious irony is that most of us would agree that getting involved in the cooking and trafficking of methamphetamine is a mistake of titanic proportions.  The questionable nature the Gustavo's  and Walter's business ventures aside, his advice resonates for anyone who goes into the field of teaching.

You will make mistakes.  Even the most gift teachers have "off days".  Like any veteran teacher, I have made more than my fair share of mistakes; no amount of creative lesson planning, organization, or student-teacher rapport, will fortify you against your own miscalculations and/or flawed judgement.  Not a unit goes by that I do not have a lesson which could be scientifically classified as a flop.  From time to time I will lose my patience with a student, or a fellow faculty member.  Like many young teachers,  I used to allow every misstep to slowly eat away at me, even to the point where my stomach would feel queasy.  It did not take long for me to understand that not only was this detrimental to my physical and mental health, but it also had negative impact on my teaching.  Spending so much time and energy chastising myself, I was not able to  devote the necessary time and energy to learn from my mistakes and adapt to avoid the same mistake in the future.

For some reason, most individuals find it easier to accept and move on from  mistakes in their personal lives, yet they continue to mull over mistakes in their career.  The two pieces of advice that are central to this post are, like most great pieces of advice, obvious.  I do not believe I am telling you anything that not already inherently understood by the vast majority of educators, it is just putting these into practice that tends to be the major stumbling block.   

First, learn from your errors.  For example, in my Honors English IV classes we have a brief unit on the use of figures of speech and symbolism in religious texts.  The first time I presented the unit to my classes I used the archetypal format for teaching literature - I provided a brief mini-lecture on the background for each religion, we read the excerpts together in class, and then as a class or in small groups we identified and discussed the use of of symbols and figures of speech.  This more traditional response fell flat - belly flop off of a high dive flat.

I had to re-evaluate the purpose of the unit and find a way to engage the students.  I took the mistakes from the first time and redeveloped the unit so that instead of teacher guided lessons, it involved having the students to work in groups to research, analyze, and present information for one particular text.  This allowed me to skip the background mini-lecture and focus my lectures on ideas that would evoke deeper analysis and evaluation.  For example, I drew connections between the use of figures of speech/symbols and the psychological concept of schema theory, which explains how we use existing knowledge in order to develop new concepts.  The result is that the current version of the unit requires more student involvement and use a higher level cognitive abilities.  This did not require a sudden bolt of inspiration from the heavens, just a desire to not repeat an earlier misstep.  

Whether it is in the planning and delivery of your lessons, or dealing with student discipline, or interacting with your peers/administrators/parents; recognize your mistakes and determine what you can do better next time, which leads to the second piece of advice...

Do not dwell on mistakes.  As a cross country and track coach I often deal with runners who have had a race where they did not meet the expectations they have set for themselves, and I make the same inquires every time, "Why do you think you did not run as well this time? What can you do differently to avoid this in the future?"  Once they respond to the questions, which require self-evaluation and goal setting, I end with, "Okay.  Now put this race behind you and focus on the next race."

Once you learn from your mistake do not let them slowly consume you.  One way to begin to jettison the excess baggage of past mistakes is to apologize.  If you loose you cause difficulty for or lose your temper with a student/class/co-worker, admit your error, explain why it happen, and sincerely apologize - this make you human and "clears the air".  If the offense is only against yourself, apologize the yourself.  This may sound overly simplistic, especially in the world of reality television and Hollywood dramas (both real and fictional),  but most people just want you to admit when you have wronged them and work to make sure it doesn't happen again.

This advice works well for small mistakes, but there are major, career changing/ending mistake that are not so easy to "brush off".  In the fourth and final post of this series, "Self-evaluation: Asking Difficult Questions", I will tackle these far more detrimental, yet easily avoidable, mistakes.

Next up, Keeping Your Sanity - Part 3:  "Take the Sacred Cows Off of Their Pedestals"

Keeping Your Sanity - Part 1: Get Organized

Whether you have been teaching for three months or three decades, it is very easy to get caught up and overwhelmed.   In our increasingly litigious and bureaucratic society, educators are expected to dot our metaphorical "I's" and cross our metaphorical "T's" more than ever.  In the next few posts I am going to focus on some techniques that I have picked up over the years and used to great effect when trying to bring sanity and structure to my school days.    This part will focus on the most obvious technique for maintaining order and sanity, yet one of the most inaccessible for many people - getting organized.

I cannot say this enough, especially for new/newer teachers - you need to get organized if you want to avoid being overwhelmed.  The stereotype of the disorganized teacher is one found throughout the world of entertainment - they wear disheveled clothing, you cannot find their desk on account of the mountainous pile of ungraded papers, they are are red-eyed from pulling "all-nighters" in order to meet deadlines, and they are constantly struggling with arms full of papers and folders.  It is a stereotype, yet most, if not all of us, have had, work with, or are one of these teachers.  There is no single, well-designed path to getting organized, but there are some crucial factors to consider.


Discard the Myths:
My desk may look like a mess, but everything has a purpose/my organizational system may be outdated, but it works for me/I do my best work under pressure.   These are the daily lies that disorganized people tell themselves to rationalize the chaos.  It is time to be honest with yourself - if you are constantly scrambling to prep for lessons, make copies, meet deadlines, or grade assignments, how much time and energy are you devoting to stress and running around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off, when you could use it for more productive and creative tasks?  Though there are certainly notable exceptions,  the vast majority of people who are highly successful in their careers are organized and usually thinking at least three or four steps ahead.  The colleague/subordinate who is constantly running late, repeatedly missing deadlines, and/or consistently in a frantic state, begins to "wear thin" even on their most ardent supporters.  Being well-prepared and organized is an inseparable part  of professionalism

Once you admit the truth to yourself, that being organized is an integral part of being a strong educator, you can actually begin the seemingly monumental task of organizing yourself.


Cut the Clutter:
What is that old proverb?  The monumental task of organizing thousands of pieces of paper, starts with a single paper...well, close enough.  It is time to prioritize and clear out your existing pile of work.  Decide what needs to be done and when; then figure out what needs take priority.  Each individual has to decide their own priorities, for example, I put grading student work at the top of the list.  Barring unusual circumstances, the promise I make to my kids at the beginning of each semester is that I will have all graded assignments back within a week.  My reasoning is simple, the feed back I provide students on their assignments (especially about their writing) is invaluable in helping them improve their skills. Figure out what your priorities are, tackle those first, and move through you list.  This may take a few late nights to accomplish, but once you prioritize your "To Do" list, it should be easier to manage in the future.

The next section could probably be considered a sub-category of this topic, but I felt it as important enough to warrant its own brief discussion.


Declutter Your Email
Nothing makes me more likely to break into a cold sweat than seeing someone's email inbox with dozens, if not hundreds, of unread emails.  All email servers provide you the tools you need to organize your email in a way that provides easy access to information when you need it.  Your inbox should be nothing  more than an online "To Do" list.  Create folders/labels/files for emails that are simply for informational purposes or that you do not need in the near future, delete those emails that are irrelevant to you (and for goodness sake, "unsubscribe" from junk emails), and only keep emails that require you to take action in the immediate future.  Once you act on/reply to an email, place it in a folder or delete it in order to take it out of of your inbox.  Having a better handle on your email lessens the chance that you will miss crucial information.  Nothing turns an annoyed/concerned parent into an irate parent faster than a teacher neglecting to respond to their email.

Now that the clutter is gone, you can begin to plan ahead to avoid a massive backlog of work in the future.


Plan Ahead
If you are constantly trying to plan one day to the next, all of the other necessary tasks associated with teaching, grading, parent/student communication, and district/state required paperwork, are going to continue to backlog, and they will overtake and overwhelm you.

You should have a curriculum to follow and department/school goals to meet, which should afford you the opportunity to sketch out an entire semester/school year in advance.  The first reaction that everyone has to this is that things will happen and being a teacher requires flexibility, so how could you possibly know what will happen in a few weeks or months.  My response is simple, the more you keep your overall goals in mind and have a plan prepared, the easier it is to improvise when the situation changes.  Whatever your thoughts are on your school's curriculum it is what should guide your course, so you should never be "flying by the seat of your pants", except in extreme cases.
(In no way am I suggesting that you replace creative teaching, for organization and convenience.  In later posts I will discuss how you can create interesting and creative assignments and avoid getting caught in a curriculum/standardized test quagmire.)

Map out your courses; put together a calendar with expected lessons/activities, expected due dates, and dates of important day's (early dismissals, end of marking periods, due dates for paperwork/grades, etc.); update the calendar as the school year progresses by making note of any changes; and use this calendar to work ahead in order to avoid any major backlogs.  Again, this may take a few late nights up front, but using this method will save you a great deal of time as the semester/year progresses, not to mention saving you from the chagrin of having to explain missed deadlines.


Use Technology Efficiently
It is the age of the Cloud and the Smart Phone, so cut back on the paper.   When used correctly, these tools can be a great source of organization.  Paper is a major source of clutter, but using technology, such as Google Apps, Edmodo, Turnitin.com, etc., will allow you dramatically reduce the clutter. Paper is far more likely to be lost or get misplaced than files/information on a computer.  Using Google Apps for education, you can share documents and create class calendars,  reducing the amount of paper you have to tote around and avoiding the use of more archaic educational tools (chalkboards, overhead projectors, paper calendars, etc.).

If you have a Smart Phone that is connected to all of these tools, it is like carrying around a filing cabinet with an infinite amount of space and drawers.  Apps that allow you to use your phone as a scanner to create pdf files, also serve to decrease clutter and increase efficiency.  The ideal use of technology is any time it is used to speed up your productivity - why take 25 minutes to complete a task that can be completed in 5 minutes?  The keys to this step are knowing your own limitations and asking for guidance from colleagues who are more proficient with said technology.

At this point you should have a much better handle on your work load and have a clearer vision for the coming weeks and months.


All Things in Their Time
Take a deep breath...good.  Now that you are not drowning in a sea of paperwork and planning, you can truly prioritize all of your tasks and grading.  This is very personalized and relies on your individual needs and your strengths and weaknesses.  I am one of those people who can zip through bureaucratic paper work with ease, and I can easily put together unit plans with little stress.  This allows me to put these tasks off until closer to the due date/deadline.  As I mentioned earlier, I like to focus on grading and returning assignments as soon as possible, as well as, focusing on tweaking and improving my previously laid out lesson plans.  Take an honest look at yourself and make your own list of priorities.  I recommend that you do not put off the most difficult tasks, instead deal with them first.

Congratulations, you are now an organizational Zen master, or, at very least, you are slightly less stressed.


Passion and communication are without question the main components of educational excellence, but far too many teachers ignore the seemingly mundane day to day clerical tasks, which are just as important when honing your craft.



Next up, Keeping Your Sanity - Part 2:  Put things into perspective, or "don't sweat the small stuff"

Changing Perspectives

Spending thirteen years in the classroom, it is nearly impossible not to pick up at least a few strategies for engaging students.  Unfortunately, the downside to spending so much time in the classroom is that there is also a likelihood of getting stuck in a proverbial rut.  This is not a blog where I will regale you with tales of how I walked into an inner city classroom, and with innovation and charm won the hearts of my struggling students and redefined the purpose of their lives.  I am simply a suburban teacher working in a middle class school district, although I do have the pleasure of working in a diverse district.  I have earned a moderate amount of success and respect from my colleagues, mostly by making more than my fair share of mistakes and learning from them.   Do not take this to mean that I feel any less accomplished, because I have definitely had the pleasure of positively impacting many students' lives.

While I certainly recommend reading pedagogical articles and looking at research, all that I will provide here are some examples from my personal experience, with a sprinkling of common sense. I have found that changing your perspective in a genuine and lasting way comes when you suspend your preconceptions and acknowledge your own educational prejudices.  Of course for the vast majority of educators the advice I just gave is akin to saying "don't eat yellow snow" or "do not judge a book by its cover"; like all simple advice it is easier to voice it then to put it into practice.

As a high school Language Arts teacher with a MA in reading, reading and writing skills are certainly my strong suits, but recently, a great deal of my energy has gone into effectively integrating technology and developing assignments with "real world" connections.  As I have learned through my own missteps, the word "effective"needs to be the catalyst for technology integration.  If the technology being integrated is not enhancing learning or communication, or streamlining classroom procedures, then it is time to reevaluate its purpose.

This concept of effective integration goes with any classroom innovation as well.  For example, if in my attempt to create "real world" connections I have my senior English class watch their favorite TV show and analyze a character on the show, it would be a tremendous waste of time and creative energy.  On the other hand, if I challenged the same students to look at episodes of popular sitcoms and identify examples of stereotypes found within the episodes, in order to then evaluate if the show uses broad stereotypes for cheap laughs or as a way of satirizing societal expectations, that would certainly be a far more effective use of that medium.  This is not meant to imply that you should not try new activities, on the contrary, try bold approaches to learning; just make sure you have a clear goal in mind and that the lesson/activity/technology has more than just novelty value.

Like many educators before me, I have learned through trials, and often painful, errors, that you have to set aside your educational prejudices, again, easier said than done.  We all have our comfortable dogmas that we cling to for security - "that kids parents screwed them up, there is little I can do to combat their up bringing", "my students always make excuses about why they cannot finish work on the computer, it is easier to collect paper copies", "The Common Core Curriculum is too rigid and does not allow for creativity".  We repeat these as mantras anytime we begin to wonder if we could do more to challenge our students, and we use them to assuage our uncomfortable feelings and convince ourselves that their is nothing we can do to make a difference.

Of course there are daunting obstacles littering the 21st century educational  landscape.  I want to be clear I am not one of those educators who believes that every issue facing today's youth is solvable simply by changing school curriculum and classroom practices.  Differentiating your instruction, engaging students, and challenging students in with unique and meaningful assignments are great ways to improve your classroom environment, however, they will not lead to an educational utopia or cure all of societies ills.  You probably will not save the world, or even America, but you may save a few students and feel better about what you do and its effectiveness.

To begin to change how I thought about education, I had to constantly remind myself that there are many factors beyond my control (state and national education policies, parental influence, peer group influence, societal pressures, etc.), and that the only factor I can control is what happens in my classroom.  It is not as simple as just saying it once; you will have to continue to repeat this mantra every time you feel that you are slipping back into the those comfortable dogmas.

Once you change your perspective, the value is both intrinsic and extrinsic - you feel better about what happens in your classroom, you reach more students, you challenge students on a higher level, and you help better prepare students for life outside of school.  Anyone who has been in a classroom for more that a week understands that you do not always win - every lesson is not a paradigm shifting success.  We do not always win, but we still push forward.  If you try something new and it does not work, be honest with your students, reflect on what you could change in the future, and move on. Your students and your colleagues will respect the effort and honesty.  Humanize yourself to the students by personalizing your classroom practices.

There is no "one-size-fits-all" change in perspective.  Educators who want to change their perspective will need to tailor it to their situation.  Factors like: subject, grade level, academic level (i.e. College Prep, Honors, AP, etc.), and school/community demographics, all play a vital role.  For example, I am a political junkie who tries to keep abreast of what is going on in the world politics and policies, and I like to look at all of the nuances of an issue before making a decision.  This led me to change my perspective on what my role is as a classroom teacher.  Undoubtedly, the the lynch pins of my classes are literacy and critical thinking, but my new perspective also had me thinking in terms of politics.  Not liberal vs. conservative, and not political parties, but representative democracy.  I realized that every one of my students, once they reach the age of eighteen, will be able to participate in our democratic process.  Beyond teaching reading and writing, I realized I need to have activities that will help my students to become  more thoughtful, discerning voters.

This gave me new direction and a fire to try new way of challenging my students.  I wanted to help create informed, 21st century voters who could tell platitudes from real solutions and identify hyperbolic language used by candidates and separate it from the actual facts.  And, perhaps the most vital skill that a citizen who is active in our democracy needs, the ability to look at all sides of an issue and choose a position based on their own understandings; not just taking positions based solely on party lines.  Now, this does not mean that my entire class is political-science 101, but these ideas are infused into my activities, class discussions, and lectures in hundreds of subtle ways.  My students realize there is a purpose to my class that goes beyond getting good grades and learning skills, instead ,there is a ideological glue that holds all of my units together and provides skills that transcend the classroom.

This is what worked best for me; each educator need to discern their own "spark" that will lead them to rethink how they run their classroom.  Making an effort to engage and challenge your students is never time wasted.   Find your passion and run with it.