What Do Teachers Make?

For anyone who has taught, or anyone who has been taught: watch this.

Hybrid Learning: The Future of Tutoring & Web 2.0

Check out Fast Company's Anya Kamenetz's response about the future of tutoring in the age of technology: http://diyubook.com

Scroll down a bit to watch it.



There is a hybrid nature of tutoring with the rise of Web 2.0 software and infrastructure. I'm a big fan of open-source, free online models of learning, but I contend that it will never - and should never - replace the face-to-face relationships that develop from live, in-person, one-on-one tutoring.

Making Up for losing Race to the Top

It recently became public knowledge that the state of California will not be receiving any federal money through the Department of Education's Race to the Top Fund. While this doesn't seem like front-page news at first glance, it means that California effectively lost any chance to receive over $4.3 billion in funding for education.

This couldn't come at a worse time for California. The state is slashing education budgets for school districts statewide, and the hardest hit school districts are often the ones most in need of extra support. Meanwhile, policymakers are engaged in what one San Francisco newspaper called "education squabbling," which results in an amount of inaction that isn't enabling students to access the resources that they need in order to succeed in school.

It's clear that the state of California needs some help when it comes to educating its public school students. This is where third-party partnerships come into play: California's public school districts could only benefit from forging partenerships with education nonprofits (and even quality education for-profit companies) in order to pick up the slack that's been created by shortcomings in the State's bid for more money. Programs such as the Tutorpedia Foundation's Class of One initiative (in which the neediest students are paired with their own professional tutor for an entire school year), funded by philanthropic organizations and private donations, represent the sort of collaboration that needs to happen if California is to see its public education system safely through these difficult economic times.

The Solution to SFUSD Budget Cuts

In the news today: San Francisco Unified School District is facing $113 million in budget cuts for the upcoming school year. This is especially distressing, considering that the State and the Federal Government announced that larger sums of money would be available to school districts in need via programs like Race to the Top. To make matters worse, these budget cuts will most greatly affect the urban students who are already at a socioeconomic disadvantage.

San Francisco’s children deserve better than increased class sizes, underpaid teachers, and cuts in materials budgets. In order to make up for the impending shortfalls in students’ school experiences, we'd like to propose a comprehensive tutoring program to be implemented and woven into the fabric of San Francisco’s hardest hit schools. Personalized tutoring – a “Class of One” – would go a long way towards effectively supporting classroom instruction in a climate such as this. Providing tutoring for San Francisco’s most deserving and needy students is not as expensive as most think; the Tutorpedia Foundation can provide high quality tutoring to SFUSD students for about $1,000/year. Moreover, the implementation of a tutoring program enables the district to appeal to other sources of funding (ASES grants with the state, corporate foundations, private donations) in order to provide this service if they contract with local nonprofits.

It’s clear that public money will not close the achievement gap and level the academic playing field for San Francisco’s students. It’s time for public school districts to get creative about how to best educate students, and partner with local nonprofit organizations in order to give kids the personalized academic attention they desperately need.

Diversity in School

We are published again in the Almanac, as a letter to the editor made press!

I said that taking away the opportunity for mostly low-income students from Ravenswood to attend Menlo Park schools would be a big mistake.

Instead of being a burden on the school district, opening up enrollment would improve the district's financial situation by enabling Menlo Park to apply for soon-to-be available federal and state funding for low-income (Title 1) and under-performing (Program Improvement 2) students through Bush's No Child Left Behind program and Obama's Race to the Top initiatives. The best use of those funds is to make education more personal - for one-on-one tutoring. Instead of limiting opportunity, opening doors to out-of-district students would create a well-balanced, diverse, and more authentic learning atmosphere for everyone.

The Purpose of Education

The Purpose of Education, according to Dr. King

Education and freedom go hand in hand. Through education, we gain exposure to new and old knowledge, new and old ideas, new and old philosophies. We train our minds to think critically, grow and expand, and with each addition we become better equipped to make our own decisions, find our passions, change our own lives, and change the world. In many ways, a solid education is the key to great personal and social power in our society.

But as Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We’ve just celebrated the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, so it seems appropriate to meditate today on what he said in 1948, in a speech at Morehouse College about the Purpose of Education.

He said, “The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”

On Dr. King’s day, as we reflect on the suffering and inequality in our world, we have to think of how far we’ve come, but also how far remains for us to go. Whether we are considering the immense suffering of the people in Haiti, or the suffering that exists in our local school system, it would do us good to keep in mind the question Dr. King posed in his famous speech, I Have Been to the Mountaintop:

The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help this man in need, what will happen to him?”

Closing the Achievement Gap in Berkeley

KQED's Forum recently did a piece about Berkeley High School's science lab courses. Apparently, BHS holds science labs for basic science courses after regular school hours. It is incredible to me that a core component of an academic subject has been relegated to an after school time slot. The program explained that this has been done in order to better access money that will help to close the achievement gap between white students and students of color at BHS.

This was my response, one that was read on-air during Forum:

I am saddened that students' science lab experience has been relegated to an after school activity, and am incensed that it's even being considered that they be cut. Denying students this basic learning experience not only puts them at an incredible disadvantage when it comes to school achievement, it puts them on unequal ground with other students who have access to such resources. Science education is not a luxury, and cuts to science education will only increase the achievement gap. This may not be evident by the data being used, because many standardized tests do not measure science content. We need to move past using STAR tests as a measure of student achievement, take a more holistic view of what education means, and support the achievement of all students in all content areas. Do not cut core academic resources for underperforming students; doing so can only increase the achievement gap.

If we want to close the achievement gap, we need to give more instructional time to core academic subjects for all students, not take it away or relegate it to an after-school timeslot.

Pepsi Refresh Everything Project

Check out the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project for Tutorpedia's "Class of One" idea and VOTE for us beginning February 1st!

We are asking for $50,000 to provide 1-1 tutoring to 50 low-income students in San Francisco. That would mean each student gets 28 weeks of tutoring, one hour per week, for the entire school year. Data shows (ours and others) that 1-1 tutoring improves grades, test scores, school attendance, confidence, and motivation. Parents and teachers report better interactions with adults, and the best learning takes place when a trusting and respectful relationship has been built. More personalized learning - bringing a "Class of One" to students - is the best investment in education.

1-1 Tutoring Gets Press!

Check us out in USA Today and in The Oakland Tribune!

Lots of federal money at stake now in Race to the Top funds... upwards of $700 million for California! Let's hope our districts and legislators make the best investment - more personalized education and 1-1 tutoring.

Finding Purpose

It's important that in whatever work we do, we find purpose. If your work is running a business, your purpose is to grow the business - but you have the choice of steady growth or fast growth, and of course how to grow. If your work is running a school, your purpose is to manage your faculty, staff, and students - but you have the choice to manage top-down or bottom-up. If your work is teaching or tutoring, your purpose is to instill knowledge and cultivate relationships - but you have the choice to deliver facts and content, or teach life skills and habits of mind.

If your work is being a student, your purpose is to do well in school and class - and you, too, have a choice as to what that means: Get good grades? Turn in all your homework? Learn effective study habits and critical thinking skills? Be a creative problem-solver?

In our daily work, we have purpose, and we also have choice. It's usually not so black-and-white, but rather a blend of our various options. It is important to find and recognize both, as one gives us direction, the other holds our values in check.

Whatever it Takes

In a recent blog post, Joanne Jacobs credited success in closing the achievement gap to the "do whatever it takes" attitude. If teachers are willing to do whatever it takes, then this is certainly a potent solution to education's ills. But how many teachers are actually willing to do whatever it takes? And given that far fewer than 100% of teachers are willing to do whatever it takes, how can we close the achievement gap anyway?

It is unrealistic to think that every, or even most, teachers will do whatever it takes for their students. Some teachers might do a lot (I was once asked to run a concession stand to raise money for my students' sports teams on Friday nights), and some schools might ask a lot (teachers at KIPP schools work an extended school day, are often on-call until 9pm, and are asked to work on Saturdays and during the summer), but this is the exception, not the rule. And it shouldn't be the rule - asking teachers to put in extra hours or work Friday nights or Saturdays is not sustainable in the long run.

So, then, what is to be done? The ultimate solution to closing the achievement gap isn't more of the same old strategy. We don't need more programs, we need a new vision. We don't need to keep doing the same thing more, we need to do something differently. What that is, exactly, is up for heated debate. One thing is for sure, though: we can not assume that every teacher will be as committed to their jobs as Rafe Esquith, and pointing to this as a solution will not solve anything.

Education in the 21st Century

I first saw this video late last year. We watched it again at one of our curriculum development days back in September. It has been a part of the internet for a few years now and the facts it presents never ceases to amaze me. I have to constantly remind myself to try and teach lessons that my students will be able to connect with in the real world. I've written in the past about integrating technology in my lessons because I know that my students are either watching television, using the internet or playing videogames when they're not focusing on their other myriad activities. As the video states:

"Today's 21-year-olds have: Watched of TV 20,000 hours Played 10,000 hours of video games Talked 10,000 hours on the phone And they've sent/received 250,000 e-mails or instant messages." Just think what the numbers will be when my students are that age.

I started the year by writing my warm up activities on the board and waiting a few minutes at the beginning of class for my students to complete them. However, at the suggestion of one of the homeroom teachers, I've decided to incorporate the activities in Power Point form. It saves me the time of writing the information on the board and I also know that my students should get used to learning in this format because many of their future teachers in high school and college will lecture in slide show form. It's good note-taking practice for them as well.

This past week, I used Power Point for another activity. I was teaching my students different directions in Spanish such as izquierda (left) and derecha (right) and I recalled a rhyme that I learned when I was a sophomore in high school. I taught them this same rhyme except that this time I had the words up on the ActivBoard the whole time so they could see them when they acted out the skits I had them prepare with the directions. It may seem like an insignificant detail, but I knew they appreciated the presentation, especially since they only had about 10 minutes to prepare the skit. Many of them still needed to look at the words while they recited them.

I know that in order to prepare my students for the 21st century environment, I'll have to use the technological devices given to me by the school, but I'll also have to prepare them for real life situations like how to get from Point A to Point B in a Spanish speaking country. Having them choreograph a routine with the directions they learned from the presentation was a great way to actually get them to REMEMBER the words I taught them. As long as I can engage them, I can teach them.

Teaching in Tandem

Two teachers are better than one. This past week, my eighth grade students were at a class retreat called Caritas so I had the great opportunity of sharing the lower grade classes with Sra. Zapata, who usually teaches the grades by herself. I had covered a few of her classes for her in the past and the only thing I remember about that day is that when combined with my regular two classes, the extra work barely gave me enough time to eat lunch. This week, however was different.

We started off giving lessons to the 3rd, 4th and 6th graders. I was especially grateful to get to see the 6th graders because I'd never had the chance to interact with them before. My schedule is such that I always teach the 8th grade when Mrs. Zapata is with the 6th graders. During our time with them, I showed them pictures of my trip to Spain to try and entice them into traveling. They were quite and attentive and asked great questions. I'm looking forward to teaching them next year.

While I was sharing her classes, Sra. Zapata gave me many ideas that I'm now thinking of implementing in my own classes. For example, she begins each class by asking two students to come up to the front and lead the class in an "Our Father" prayer in Spanish. I confess that I still haven't memorized the Spanish version of the prayer so reciting it with the lower grades helped me learn it better. After the prayer, Sra. Zapata and I took turns teaching Christmas vocabulary to the 3rd and 4th grade classes. We went over some words like "arbol," "estrella" and "la chimenea" and then passed out a worksheet for the students to label and color.

While the students were working on the vocabulary sheet, Sra. Zapata re-introduced an assignment that they'd done in the past. Her students were to watch or listen to 2 hours of Spanish and log their hours on a Spanish log that we handed out. We brainstormed together the different media the kids could use and came up with 1010 AM radio, On Demand en espanol, listening to conversations with family members who speak Spanish, and watching an English movie in Spanish. I made sure that the students copies all of our collective ideas on to their papers because I wanted to teach them the importance of note-taking. Having two teachers definitely helped because while the students were working, Sra. Zapata and I could both go around and offer our help. She only gets thirty minutes with each class and has to use each minute wisely.

The most important thing I learned from her this past week was the concept of providing an incentive. In the lower grades, she had a policy that if the students were quite and on task, they earned points. If the students reach 50 points, they get to play Spanish bingo. The 3rd and 4th graders were especially excited about this and I'm sure that if I made this my policy in 7th and 8th grade, the students would be just as pumped to try and accomplish this goal. I understand more and more now how important incentives are.

On Friday, Sra. Zapata was sick so I covered all of her nine classes. I had never dealt with first graders, second graders and kindergarteners by myself before so it was indeed a new experience. I never expected so many questions and quickly learned to never say that I might know their brother or sister because then the class would rapidly continue to ask who else I might know in the upper grades and we'd never get any work done. I learned that although the kids in the younger grades were energetic and cute beyond all belief, I'm right where I belong teaching the older kids. Hopefully this week, I'll be able to memorize the "Our Father" prayer and implement a Spanish bingo policy with my 8th graders. Everybody loves bingo, right?

School, The Mind, and Multiple Intelligences

Many of us have heard of Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Just as many of us think of MI as a justification for classrooms that accommodate many sensory modalities and provide multiple entry points for learning to take place. And why not? Multimodal learning and providing multiple entry points for learners are considered to be best practices in pedagogy these days. Dr. Gardner would certainly be behind such efforts, but he would also be the first to say that his theory of Multiple Intelligences was never intended to justify these pedagogical practices. This comes from one of Gardner's students, now a Professor in his own right:

...neither Gardner nor MI theory has ever argued that educators should spend equal amounts of time teaching to the eight intelligences, or that every lesson should provide students with eight options for demonstrating their learning. In fact, MI theory offers neither a curriculum nor a goal toward which educators are expected to strive. Rather, MI theory is an idea about the concept of intelligence. A psychologist by training, Gardner left it to educators to decide how MI theory can be useful in the particular community and context in which they teach.

Or, if you'd rather, from Gardner himself:

“Multiple intelligences” should not in and of itself be an educational goal. Educational goals need to reflect one’s own values, and these can never come simply or directly from a scientific theory. Once one reflects on one’s educational values and states one’s educational goals, however, then the putative existence of our multiple intelligences can prove very helpful. And, in particular, if one’s educational goals encompass disciplinary understanding, then it is possible to mobilize our
several intelligences to help achieve that lofty goal.

We look to research and theory in psychology for answers to educational problems. Multiple Intelligences, for many, has been incorrectly touted as that answer. But rather than being pointers on how to organize one's classroom, MI theory is Dr. Gardner's contribution to the academic dialogue. It is an extension of one school of thought in cognitive psychology called modularity, which was originally championed by Jerry Fodor in 1983. Modularity describes each of our minds as an assembly of independently functioning basic abilities. Fodor believes that we have separate parts of our brains (that probably map onto separate parts of our minds) that are equipped to different tasks: process language, perceive and interpret the movement of things in space, interpret information from our senses, intuitively understand others' minds, and so on. Part of MI's theory as an offshoot of Fodor's modularity is that the different intelligence domains that Gardner suggests (kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, interpersonal, and so on) function independently. That is, according to the theory, if a person has a very keen sense of numbers and logic, that has nothing to do with their ability to throw a ball accurately (kinesthetic intelligence) or be empathic (interpersonal intelligence).

Recent research in cognitive science and neuroscience, however, reveal that there are more connections between these alleged intelligences or abilities than was originally thought. Annette Karmiloff Smith, in 1992, argued that these separate silos of intelligence are not innate, but actually are cultivated as the mind develops. Our many intelligences, then, are malleable and subject to change. That is, every person's life experience shapes their "intelligence."

More importantly, it's more correctly thought that our many "intelligences" are constantly interacting with one another. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, in a recent Lecture at Sacred Heart Prepatory, pointed out all the different things that happen in our brains when it gets hit with one piece of information. For example, as you read the word BABY, several associations are probably conjured: an image of an infant sleeping or crying, a specific memory that we might have had with a baby, the lyrics to a recent pop song, our college course on human development, and so on. Beneath the surface, several mental faculties are at work: your visual system, a system that recognizes written language, certain systems that direct your attention, and so on. Some associations are sprung from the well of long-term memory, others are images, still others are associated with words or sounds. Some associations are made possible by brain processes that happen below the conscious level. In short, there is an incredible cascade of mental events put into action by the simplest piece of information we take in. Each association is a special combination of our intelligences, and often uses more than one. Two things are illuminating here: 1) every individual conjures different associations in different parts of their mind from the same stimulus, and 2) those associations are learned, shaped by our development and our experience.

This last version of our minds is much more informative and useful to educators. We do not learn with one intelligence, even if information is presented in one way. We learn, and learn best, by incorporating all the mind's faculties in concert. A la Immordino-Yang, The more associations and connections we can mentally make with a new piece of information, the more deeply we will have "learned" it. And, a la Karmiloff-Smith, the more we are engaged in this sort of thing, and the more experience we have developing our minds, the better we will have learned. Conveniently, these lessons lead educators to similar conclusions as they have reached with MI theory: differentiated instruction, multimodal learning, and forging a personal connection to the material.

Thanksgiving, Garfield Style

This past week I tried something completely different. It was an extra-short week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday but since my students and I had two days to learn Spanish, I decided to test their auditory skills by screening a video. The idea came to me when I was watching one of my favorite holiday specials on DVD. My girlfriend and I have been watching the Garfield Holiday specials for the past few years and while we were watching the Thanksgiving Special the other day, I thought to myself, why not show this video to my class in Spanish?

The students certainly enjoyed a change of pace and it's been my own personal experience that anyone in school always enjoys a video. At first, I was going to show the video with only the Spanish dubbed over the voices, but my first eighth grade class convinced me that it would be better for them if I included the English subtitles as well. After all, they would've picked up bits and pieces here and there but without the subtitles, some would've had trouble getting the concepts presented in the video.

As the video played, I started to wonder how many of my students actually knew who Garfield was. People my age are certainly familiar with the corpulent feline but since the Thanksgiving Special aired 20 years ago, odds are some students didn't know him at all. I looked around the room during the video and noticed that most of the students were paying attention and some were even laughing at the jokes. Word got around to my other seventh and eighth graders and many were excited to be watching a video in Spanish.

After the video in a few of my classes, I asked the students to tell me about anything they had learned. One girl noticed that in the movie, the Grandma called Garfield "gatito" instead of "gato" and I explained to her that the "-ito" suffix implies an affectionate term. Instead of calling Garfield a "cat," the Grandma was calling him a "kitty." I was hoping that my classes picked up the food vocabulary from a video centered around Thanksgiving and perhaps they did, but I plan to introduce the topic of food more in depth in the coming weeks. All in all, Garfield was a success.

This week, my eighth grade students are on a week long retreat with other Catholic school students so I will be free to offer my services to the other Spanish teacher who teaches the K-6 students. I'm excited to split up the duties and teach different groups of students because I believe that two teachers can be better than one, especially when it comes to learning a foreign language. I've had a few encounters with the younger students and let's just say, I'll have to bring extra energy to keep up. I'm always ready for a challenge.

Class of One

I've been meaning to post for weeks now, but the confluence of launching Tutorpedia Southland (we now have tutors in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Orange County) and getting the Tutorpedia Foundation off the ground has put my blogging on the back-burner. Through all of this travel and work, in countless meetings, lunches, and coffees, I have continued to laud what makes Tutorpedia different, how our programs can have a disruptive force on education: By giving students a "Class of 1."

How do kids learn with 30 students in a class? Or 20? Even the small classes that benefit most private schools rarely get below 15. So you have two dozen students (or twice that in public schools) in a room, all learning at different paces, all learning in different styles, all learning with different levels of awareness, ability, and aptitude. How is a teacher - even the most skilled, trained, and patient - to reach every child? There is just no way. And that's why we need a Class of 1: Personalized tutoring brings a Class of 1 to every student.

How is this scalable, you may wonder, with 6 million students in California alone? Well, first of all, not every student needs his or her tutoring subsidized (ie. many parents can, and do, pay top-dollar for 1-1 tutoring). So let's say that 50% of parents can afford the roughly $100/hour that most competitive tutoring companies or individuals charge. That leaves us with 3 million students who can't pay out-of-pocket. If we then focus on the lowest-performing 10% say, that's 300,000 students whose personalized education could and should be paid for by outside resources. In our calculations (at just under $30/hour, including program and administrative costs), we can provide 35 hours of 1-1 tutoring to an underserved student for $1000/year. To bring a Class of 1 to the most underserved students in the state, that would cost about $300 million. True, this a lot of money, but considering that Arne Duncan's Race To The Top fund provides more than $4 billion to innovate initiatives in education, that's a drop in the bucket (less than 8%), and California schools are a great place to start.

Let's use these same calculations with the San Francisco Bay Area, home to about 1 million K-12 students. If 50% can afford tutoring, that's 500,000 students who can't, so providing for the lowest-performing 10%, that's 50,000 students who would benefit most from 1-1 tutoring. At $1000 per student per year, that's investing $50 million in our future. The numbers are roughly the same for Los Angeles Unified School District.

What's the alternative? Increased Achievement Gap, more high school drop-outs, more students without a college degree. That's more undereducated students on the streets, and statistics show more youth in jail and prison. The cost of our prison industrial complex will soon exceed that of our education system. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "by the 2012-2013 fiscal year, $15.4 billion will be spent on incarcerating Californians, as compared with $15.3 billion spent on educating them."

So why all these numbers and dollar amounts? Because the answer to fixing our broken education system is not that complicated after all. Yes we need better pay, better training, and better professional development for teachers. Yes we need more computers and adaptive technology for our students. But what we need most of all is more personal attention. We need to build trust, confidence, and relationships. Research shows that academic tutoring improves social interactions, classroom attention, and positive teacher attention. In order to close the Achievement Gap, graduate more students from high school, and prepare them for college, a more personalized model is needed. Another research article shows that students engaging in 1-1 tutoring show significant gains versus those engaged in conventional (30-1) teaching models. And this study shows the improvement of academic performance and attitudes of students receiving tutoring. There are countless other studies and research done on 1-1 tutoring, and it all points in the same direction: improved academic and social performance.

We all grew up with The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmatic. Now we need to focus on the New 3 R's: We need to make education more Real, Relevant, and Rigorous. And all of these foci need to be built on personal Relationships. The best relationships are formed in a Class of 1.

The Breakthrough

This first trimester is finally over. I had my first successful grading period as I managed to collect all missing assignments and deal with the first round of grade discussions with students. I'm fairly sure that once the actual report cards are distributed, many of these discussions will continue. After what has seemed like an eternity, our students had their first full week of class. Since it was the end of the trimester and I had other things going on, I decided to take it easy on my students and only introduce a few new concepts while having them complete worksheets in class. At the end of the week, I found this method of having them complete their assignment in class and then correct it could pay dividends.

Some of the new concepts I introduced were stem-changing verbs. Most of my eighth graders knew the correct verb conjugation patterns of the different types of Spanish verbs but had not learned many verbs that change when conjugated. For the sake of saving space and not going into an entire grammar lesson, let me just say that we went over a few of the essential verbs to know such as "dormir," "empezar" and "volver." I had my students copy every verb chart that I drew on the board into their notes so they could refer to it later. One of the things I'm trying to teach them is to take good notes so they'll be able to study them later.

My other method was to test their recall of the material by having them work together to complete worksheets where they would apply the verbs and vocabulary we had learned. One of my classes got a little farther than the other, but then again, both classes still have a lot to review when we go back for the short two days before Thanksgiving. While my students were working, I walked around to each group that had formed to make sure they were understanding the material. That's when the "A-ha!" moment came. As I went over to him, one of my students who always pays attention but has had a hard time in the past looked up and said the three words every teacher loves to hear: "Mr. Erickson, I get it!" I could've hugged him. Due to his good note-taking, he was able to comprehend which verb to use in which worksheet.

I firmly believe that if I'm only able to inspire one person to take Spanish seriously and continue learning the language as their education progresses, I've done my job as a teacher. This is most likely true for any teacher of any subject, but it's important to me because as a first year teacher I don't often know if I'm making any impact on my students. When I heard my student tell me that, I felt like jumping for joy. I let him know how much it meant to me and then went about helping the other students. Satisfaction is something that we all strive for in everything that we do and now that I've had a taste in the teaching world, its provided me with more motivation to continue.

In this student's case, learning came with simple note-taking and memorization. For other students, learning comes with visual aids. For still others it helps them to hear the language before they understand it. Little by little, they're settling into a learning rhythm just as I find my footing as a teacher and it's staring to feel worth it.

Educating With Music

All teachers want their students to listen to them. The whole enterprise of teaching really doesn't work unless students are listening to their teachers, and teachers have developed varied methods of capturing students' attention. It's no easy task; there is a lot of competition for a young person's attention these days. In my years of teaching, I found myself competing with my students' peers, students in the hall, magazines stuck inside the covers of their books, students' cell phones covertly hidden in folds of clothing, and so on. But of all the things that I competed with for students' attention, nothing was more difficult to overcome than students' iPods.

I could be upset with America's youth for putting on a set of earphones and tuning out the universe. During my tenure in the classroom I fought against Kanye, Beyonce, and 50 for my students' attention and often lost, despite a no iPod policy at school, but I can't help but reflect that I do similarly. It goes without saying that there is an appropriate time and place for listening to music privately - and a classroom is most definitely not that appropriate place - but it still is worth noting that music has captured the attention of humanity, for better or worse. Were things any different when students' attention was held by Nirvana and A Tribe Called Quest? Talking Heads and Bruce Springsteen? Led Zeppelin and Parliament Funkadelic? John, Paul, George, and Ringo? Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong? Each of these musicians was popular with the student-aged demographic and frowned-upon by the teacher-aged demographic during their heyday. And furthermore, it has only been when those teenagers aged to the point of adulthood that the music they loved carried a bit more social currency.

Here, then, is a radical proposition: instead of competing with the things that capture our students' attention, why don't we figure out how to use those things to teach them? Instead of telling students repeatedly to turn off their music, why don't we use music to educate?

We can all point to music that has influenced our lives and the times in which we live. Songs such as the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love", Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", or Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a'Changin'" are said to have defined an era or a movement. Even though their music is probably different (and even though some of us might not like it as much), the principle remains with the younger generation. The message might be diluted or convoluted in today's music, but the messengers are still just as effective. So instead of resisting the medium of transmission that has captured so many us outside the classroom, we should try to embrace it, and use it to carry our message inside the classroom.

Case in point: the slightly kooky band They Might Be Giants has released a series of educational albums, the latest titled "Here Comes Science." All the songs on the album highlight certain scientific principles, ranging from Speed and Velocity to The Periodic Table of Elements. Their content is accurate, and probably much more memorable than most things classroom teachers could whip up. The science teacher in me couldn't be happier, and the music lover in me is also left quite pleased. This represents a highly innovative way to find and capture students' attention, and to teach something of academic substance.

The principle is not limited to music, of course. Anything that effectively captures a young person's attention can be used as an academic tool. Social networks on the internet can be potent educational tools. Magazine style writing might be a more effective way to compose textbooks than more traditional ways. Computer-based learning is part of this movement. And we can even look to the success of Sesame Street for an example of how to reach young minds through channels they're already investigating. Thought about in this light, one has to wonder why teachers are working so hard in order to earn students' attention with dated media and methods. So instead of telling kids to turn off their music, let's try to find ways to make the music they're listening to more educational.

Marking the Grade

I've written before about the tedious task of grading and as the first trimester comes to an end, I wish the whole process could just magically complete itself. Sadly, that is not the case so I have been spending the past few weeks just trying to get everything in order so that I can actually enter the grades into the online program. It's especially difficult for a specialty teacher like me to organize assignments of more than 140 students from four different classes, grade their performances and then submit the reports to their homeroom teachers on time before the trimester ends this Friday. However, I knew it would be difficult when I signed up so I keep charging ahead.

For the last two weeks I've decided to keep the homework light in my four classes so that I have ample time to accept any late work and then grade it on time. This has worked in some cases but in others, it's proven somewhat troublesome. For example, both of my eighth grade classes had finished their Spanish Family Tree projects and only had to turn in one more homework assignment before the end of the trimester. I had them create a mock Family Tree of celebrities, musicians and athletes, write sentences about each of their "family members" in Spanish and then present the finished product to the class. I was impressed and amazed by their creativity and even felt a little old myself at the amount of pop stars I don't seem to recognize. All of them managed to turn the projects in on time and most have turned in the last homework assignment.

Seventh grade is a slightly different story. Since I only see those students twice a week, it's understandable that sometimes they may forget to turn in the assignments that are due. However, I'm trying to teach them that that's no excuse for not turning in assignments. This is especially true after I've given them more in-class time to finish their homework for an opportunity to get full credit. We still have a few more days to sort everything out and I pray that they all turn their work in on time. I keep stressing that as long as they do their work, check it at least twice and turn it in on time, they will likely get an "A" in the class.

I'm still getting used to my duties at school. Between teaching, helping out at carpool and playing a key role as a facilitator in the inaugural year of our intramural program, there doesn't seem to be a lot of time to grade. However, I have been meticulously collecting and entering homework and test scores into our program as I receive it. I even figured out how to enter scores from home, as I do not yet have adequate wi-fi access for my laptop.

This week will test my students in something non-Spanish related. Instead of conjugating verbs or using new vocabulary, they will be expected to know to turn in their assignments and in turn receive a good grade. Repetition works well when learning anything, especially a foreign language. It will also work well for when I remind my students when grades are due.

Curriculum Development

Last Friday was the second of three curriculum development meetings among teachers at Catholic Schools in the Oakland Diocese. Our first meeting had been in late September. The meetings were divided by grade level, so as a junior high Spanish teacher, I attended the gathering of 6-8 teachers at St. Patrick's School in Rodeo, CA. The last meeting saw a group of very confused foreign language teachers sitting around a table discussing a non-existent Diocesan curriculum. Oh sure, there were national and state standards for foreign language curriculum but our schools had never taken the time to create our own. So while language arts and math teachers were running over their standards with a fine-tooth comb to see which ones were "essential," "important" and "worthy," us foreign language teachers were wishing we had any sort of standards.

On Friday, thankfully, that changed. All of the foreign language teachers (most of us teach Spanish) met in the Kindergarten room of St. Patrick's where our mission was to start writing our own curriculum. We broke into groups based on grade level where our assignment was to either write what we wanted to teach students about Spanish or what we expect them to have mastered by the time they graduate eighth grade.

I joined the junior high group and we got to work. We were able to divide our standards into different vocabulary and grammar that we expect our students to know by the time eighth grade is over. Part of this process was realizing that we are tasked to do the best we can with what little we have. For example, one of the teachers in my group told us that his students don't learn a word of Spanish before the sixth grade, so he only has three years to try and teach them what they would learn in a regular Spanish 1 class in high school. Many of us were in similar boats. When we talked about teaching culture and prayer, we were careful to assume that not every one of our students would be attending a Catholic high school in the future and thus would not need to learn prayer. We finally settled on traditions and celebrations standards.

At the end of the day, the junior high teachers had come up with a pretty impressive list of our goals. Among the vocabulary we expected our students to have mastered were:
1. Days and seasons
2. Food/Clothing
3. Family/House
4. Greetings and many more

Among the grammar standards were:
1. Stem changing verbs
2. Preterite tense
3. Present tense of regular verbs
4. Some irregular verbs, etc.

I can't wait until we finally have all of these standards written up so we can submit them to the Diocese. The best part of the day for me was sitting down with actual Spanish teachers and comparing styles, textbooks and notes. In some cases, we commiserated over our lack of time in the school schedule, but after this process we just might be able to see our students more.