Great Teachers: Freedom’s First Responders

‘Talk to Students about Their Power’

“It made me feel, for the very first time, in my life that I was useful. I wasn’t doing something just for me. And not just for another person, but for my community. I realized that that feeling was wonderful… Talk to students about their power.”

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking to the annual conference of the National Council for the Social Studies. She told educators in attendance that it wasn’t until she was in college that she experienced the power of helping others, after organizing an effort to have Spanish-speaking students help hospital patients who struggled with English.l

Your Opinion Must be Valued

“It is…advisable that the teacher should understand, and even be able to criticize, the general principles upon which the whole educational system is formed and administered. He is not like a private soldier in an army, expected merely to obey, or like a cog in a wheel, expected merely to respond and transmit external energy; he must be an intelligent medium of action.”l — John Dewey, in 1895

Educator Groups Say an Unequivocal and United ‘No’ to Book-Banning

An excerpt from a joint statement entitled “Freedom to Teach: Statement Against Banning Books,” issued by the National Council for the Social Studies, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of English, National Science Teaching Association, and National Coalition Against Censorship:

School districts, the most active battlefield in the American culture wars today, are facing an unprecedented number of calls to remove books from schools and libraries, amid false claims about “obscenity” invading classrooms, the elimination of teaching about evolution and climate change, challenges to the need for making sense of and critiquing our world in mathematics classrooms, and legislation redlining teaching about racism in American history. These actions are putting excessive and undue pressure on teachers, who are caught in the crossfire of larger political conflict, motivated by cultural shifts, and stoked for political gain.

Teachers are being maligned as “harming” children and are subjected to constant scrutiny (and even direct surveillance) by many parents, school administrators, and activist groups. Some are afraid to offer their students award-winning books that may violate vaguely stated laws about teaching the history of racism or that may be misleadingly labeled as pornographic. As a result, teachers’ very ability to do their job is under threat. In their zeal, activists of the current culture wars unfortunately treat teachers as if they are enemies. The truth is that teachers are uniquely important leaders who, in educating current and new generations of students, bear responsibility for this country’s future. They are trained professionals with one of the hardest and most demanding jobs, a job that requires deep commitment. Teachers need our support; they need our trust; they need to have the freedom to exercise their professional judgment. And that freedom includes the freedom to decide what materials best suit their students in meeting the demands of the curriculum.l

You can read the entire statement here: ncte.org/freedom-teach-banning-books.

Six End-of-School-Year Teacher Tips

Here are some end-of-the-year strategies and tips for teachers, from NEA Member Benefits:

1. COUNT IT DOWN. Give students something to look forward to each day when they come to school by doing an activity that lets them count down the days until summer break, something like a balloon pop to find out each day how many days are left, or a countdown bulletin board.

2. TRY SOMETHING NEW! You know that one lesson plan or activity that you’ve wanted to try, but just never had the time to do? The end of the year can and should still be for useful learning! If you have gaps in your lesson plans, it’s the perfect time to test new strategies you’ve had in mind and would like to incorporate into your classroom plans for next year.

3. STAY IN YOUR ROUTINE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Any experienced teacher will tell you that maintaining your routine is one of the best ways to navigate all the end-of-year craziness. That said, it doesn’t hurt to add some fun games to your classroom routine!

4. GET ORGANIZED. Among all the finals, overdue homework, grading, and lessons you’re still completing, your desk can pile up pretty quickly at the end of the year. Staying organized and tracking progress on work tasks are key to finishing the year strong and getting final grades in on time.

5. CARVE OUT SOME TIME FOR YOURSELF. Although you want to stay on top of your work, try not to spend every night hunkered down in your classroom attempting to get everything done all at once. Finding some time for self-care is important, especially during the end of the year when you feel like your to-do list is a mile long. Allow time to go home and relax, take a walk outside, play with your children, read, take a bath, etc. This may seem counter-intuitive, but you will be able to release your stress and have more energy for the final push as the last day of school gets closer.

6. REFLECT ON THE SUCCESSES OF YOUR YEAR. Take some time, with or without your students, to reflect on the past school year--what they’ve learned, what their favorite lessons were, the friendships that were built, and the strong bond you all have formed as a class. Celebrate student successes, laugh at funny moments, and don’t forget to give yourself credit for all you have accomplished as an educator, as well.

Lastly, accept that your last few days of school are going to be filled with emotion and require your full attention. But the end is near. It may get a little rocky and you may become overwhelmed, but soon you’ll be packing up your classroom and all your memories from this school year with it. Remember to enjoy your last days and moments with your students.l

Putting the Kibosh on Online Cheating

Kids today know how to use technology for just about everything— unfortunately, that includes for cheating on tests and assignments. Here are some ways you can prevent online cheating: • Mix it up, with tests having a variety of multiple-choice, true/false and open-ended questions. It’s more difficult for students to share answers when they must explain concepts.

• Have every student start the exam at the same time and set a time lim-

it. The key is having enough time for students who know the information to respond, but not enough time for students who don’t know the material to search online for answers. • Only show one question at a time, so students can’t be searching ahead on Google. • Change test question sequence, so all students do not have the same question at one time, to avoid screen sharing.

• Give students different versions

of the same test to thwart screen sharing.

• Give students their scores all at

the same time, so that students who finish early don’t confirm answers for those still working.

• Increase points for class participa-

tion. • Talk about integrity, and have students sign an “academic integrity” agreement.l

Source: California Teachers Association

‘Two Truths’ Works, and I’m not Lying…

— Courtney Cutright

The Sunday evening blues—most educators know the feeling or have seen the memes. The weekend is winding down and you’re thinking about the week ahead. Are lesson plans completed? Are assignments posted? What else needs to be done to ensure a smooth Monday morning?

Sunday evenings can be a rough time for me, especially when I allow myself to feel the pressures and demands of the coming week. I usually have good intentions of making most of my lesson plans the week before, but that doesn’t always happen—and it certainly didn’t happen the week before spring break.

So, the Sunday evening following spring break, I was brainstorming quick, low- or no-prep ways to reset the classroom atmosphere following the much-needed respite. I knew I would need to ease my 12- and 13-year-old students, many of whom still were recovering from the switch to Daylight Savings Time, back into the groove of the school routine because I was feeling the struggle myself.

I opted for an activity that can be used as an icebreaker and to boost relationships while also incorporating writing and grammar instruction.

Two Truths and a Lie is an easy warmup game my students have enjoyed this year. To play, students receive a blank index card on which they write two true statements about themselves and one that’s a lie. I read the statements aloud, and students guess which of their classmates’ statements are untrue. The goal is to make it difficult for guessers to detect the lie.

Since students were familiar with this game, I added a twist requiring students to recall pre-spring break content on independent and dependent clauses. For this round of Two Truths and a Lie, students were asked to write one of each sentence type we had studied: simple, compound, and complex.

The fun get-to-know-you exercise provided an informal snapshot assessment of skill mastery, which was useful, but I was more interested in reconnecting with my students before resuming lessons.

The most alarming truth was from a girl who wrote she pulled all-nighters with her boyfriend for the whole week. Fortunately, she elaborated that this occurred over video chat and not actually in person. Lots of the students’ truths had to do with their disrupted sleep schedules: • “I slept a lot.” • “I stayed up late, and I didn’t sleep some nights.” • “I walked every morning before 6 a.m.” (I learned this was because he had not been to bed.) • “I never really woke till like 2 p.m.”

Some of the responses were funny, including the one from the quirky oversharer whose meal from Taco Bell left him with some (ahem) digestive issues. That was a truth, and let’s just say you will thank me for paraphrasing his response instead of quoting it directly.

One boy’s lie was that he “participated in Easter.” Even he laughed heartily when we told him it wouldn’t be Easter for another two weeks.

Some tried to trick their beloved English teacher (me) with lies about reading. The most outlandish: “I read 5,000 books.” A little more believable: “I read a long book, but I didn’t like it.” And there was a reading-related truth that was just plain hurtful: “I finished a book because I had to.”

A couple of kids took trips to Washington, D.C., and a few others visited beaches. Some stayed in town for sports practices, others to play video games. Instead of a “How I Spent My Break” essay, this was a quick way to reacquaint ourselves.

The activity allowed me some follow-up questions on the spot, which sometimes prompted further class discussion, and had the bonus effect of building community among the students. This also helped set the tone in the classroom as we entered the final stretch of the academic year and the taxing season of standardized testing.

Despite classes beginning in a relaxed mode the day after the break, there were a few moans and groans when it was time to transition to silent reading. Those sounds likely were emitted from the handful of students who dozed off and needed a nudge during the quiet period—not exactly surprising given the interruptions to their circadian rhythms. Two Truths and a Lie provided the context to help me to be a bit more understanding. It pays to spend a little time getting to know students.l

Cutright (courtcut@gmail.com), a member of the Roanoke County Education Association, teaches English at Northside Middle School.