VIRGINIA JOURNAL of
EDUCATI N The magazine of the Virginia Education Association December 2019
KIDS
affected
TRAUMA
by
CAN LEARN Here’s how you can help.
INSIDE Kids, schools election winners 16
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COVER STORY
CONTENTS
Trauma-Informed
UPFRONT 4-7 This month: Diverse role models, character, and a new PDF.
FEATURES 13 Turn ‘Em Loose! Help your students develop a growth mindset. 16 Students and Public Schools Win Big in Virginia Elections Historic day at the polls. 18 Meshing the Wheels of History When we don’t portray the past accurately, do we create achievement gaps and jeopardize our future?
DEPARTMENTS 20 Membership Matters Focus on trauma, living wages at VEA conferences. 25 Insight on Instruction Making real connections. 30 First Person Hearts open in PBIS sessions. Cover design by Lisa Sale; photos by iStock.
Editor Tom Allen VEA President Jim Livingston VEA Executive Director Dr. Brenda Pike Communications Director John O’Neil Graphic Designer Lisa Sale Editorial Assistant/Advertising Representative Yolanda Morris Contributors Taylor Gaddy Donte Montague Gayle T. Dow Courtney Cutright
Margie Shepherd Matthew Fentress Lauren Davis
Vol. 113, No.3
Copyright © 2019 by the Virginia Education Association The Virginia Journal of Education (ISSN 0270-837X) is published six times a year (October, November, December, February, April and June) by the Virginia Education Association, 116 South Third Street, Richmond, VA 23219. Non-member annual subscription rate: $10 ($15 outside the U.S. and Canada). Rights to reproduce any article or portion thereof may be granted upon request to the editor. Periodicals postage paid in Richmond, VA. Postmaster: Send address changes to Virginia Journal of Education, 116 South Third Street, Richmond, VA 23219. Article proposals, comments or questions may be sent to the editor at tallen@veanea.org or Tom Allen,116 South Third Street, Richmond, VA 23219, 800-552-9554. Member: State Education Association Communicators VEA Vision: A great public school for every child in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
“What do I want to do when I grow up? Check out the FAQ section of my website.”
VEA Mission: The mission of the Virginia Education Association is to unite our members and local communities across the Commonwealth in fulfilling the promise of a high quality public education that successfully prepares every single student to realize his or her full potential. We believe this can be accomplished by advocating for students, education professionals, and support professionals.
UP FRONT
The Role You Were Born to Play “You are perfectly cast in your life. I can’t imagine anyone but you in the role. Go play!” — Lin Manuel Miranda, composer, lyricist, singer, actor, playwright, producer
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” “Should I go scrape the ‘My kid is an honor student’ sticker off the car?”
— Oscar Wilde, poet and playwrightl
The Power of Diverse Role Models
“I don’t understand those grades. My teacher says all she gets from me are smart answers.”
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VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
Virginia’s students are way more diverse than the people teaching them in our public schools, according to a report by The Commonwealth Institute. Over 75 percent of our teachers self-report as white, 11 percent as black, and 3 percent as Hispanic. On the student side of this equation, less than half in Virginia’s public schools are now identified as white, 22 percent as black, and 16 percent as Hispanic. Research shows that diverse school environments are a plus for students overall, but especially for black students from low-income homes. The presence of black teachers is linked to improved student attitudes about school, lower chronic absenteeism and dropout rates, and higher levels of college enrollment. In grades 3-5, if a black male student has just one black teacher, his chances of dropping out of high school go down 29 percent. That figure grows to 39 percent for young black male students from very low-income households.l
A New Kind of PDF?
“OUR GREATEST NATURAL RESOURCE IS THE MINDS OF OUR CHILDREN.” —WALT DISNEY
Where Will our Teachers Come From? In 45 states, fewer people finished teacher preparation programs in 2016-17 than had done so in 2008-09.l Source: Education Commission of the States
TOUCHING BASE WITH… TAYLOR GADDY FAIRFAX EDUCATION ASSOCIATION INSTRUCTIONAL ASSISTANT What’s something you like about your job? Ultimately, what I like most is being able to be a positive influence on young people. It starts and ends there. Everything I do, from going over math to coaching high school basketball, has to do with a young person’s confidence and health going forward. How has being a Union member helped you? Getting involved on the political level has been incredible. I’ve always had opinions on the future of education; however, prior to be joining the Union it was just me sitting in a room with a couple people talking. Now I talk with somebody and I have 40,000 people behind me. After I saw how everything worked, I became the “squeaky wheel” and got things done by talking with politicians about living wage and social justice issues. Also, being part of the Union has given me a plethora (good word!) of networking opportunities. Through conventions, seminars, and committees I’ve established relationships that will last a lifetime. It’s been reinforced that we’re all in this together. Let’s do this and unapologetically advocate for our students...right now! l
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
Photo and illustrations by iStock, Photo of Taylor Gaddy by Lisa Sale
When Denise Pope of the Stanford Graduate School of Education says that every child needs PDF every day, she’s not talking about a computer file. She means Playtime, Downtime, and Family Time. This kind of PDF, she says, can protect kids against a variety of negative outcomes, make them more resilient, and increase their mental health and academic engagement. Overscheduling can shove aside free play; even sports and other extracurricular activities, often seen as downtime, can add pressure; and “check-in” conversations at home are a huge safety net for kids, Pope says. At school, she adds, that might mean “more recess, longer recess, less homework, fewer tests, and more emphasis on social-emotional development.”l
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UP FRONT
91,000 Number of children in Virginia who live in areas of concentrated poverty (census tracts with overall poverty rates of 30 percent or more)l Source: Annie E. Casey Foundation
Does Your School Have ‘Character’? Character education programs and creating a positive school climate can help students feel connected to, rather than isolated from, teachers and fellow students. They can also help combat cyberbullying, an area where…student-led efforts are critical. Firm and prompt responses to cyberbullying by staff are necessary as well as having suitable systems for the reporting of incidents.l “And it all ends up being stored in the cloud.”
from the “Final Report of the Federal Commission on School Safety”
What Teens Say About Social Media
Source: Common Sense Media, in a 2018 survey of American 13- to 17-year-olds
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VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
A Running Start AND a Slippery Slope… “It’s no secret that students today face the ultimate paradox—the same tools they need to use to complete their work can also provide their biggest distractions from completing work. In providing students with technology, we haven’t provided students with guidance around critical executive functioning skills. As schools have increased the use of technology in the classroom, teachers can quickly feel at a loss for how to help students navigate online distractions, especially as they may be facing similar challenges.”l
Art Can Move Mountains Powerful images contribute to powerful change. Members who attended the NEA convention last summer collaborated on some inspiring posters that can do just that. These are two examples— to see them all, go to tinyurl.com/NEAposters.l
Ana, Homayoun, author, Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World
YOU DRIVE THE ECONOMY, TOO “NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THAN EDUCATION. WE ARE THE BEST STATE Photo page 6 by iStock
FOR BUSINESS BECAUSE OF EDUCATION IN THE COMMONWEALTH.” — Stephen Moret, president and CEO, Virginia Economic Development Partnership, after the CNBC Network named Virginia the best state in the nation in which to do business
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
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COVER STORY
Trauma-Informed
Trauma affects a developing brain. Knowing that can make all the difference for you and your students. By Tom Allen
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idway through her keynote presentation at VEA’s Instruction and Professional Development Conference in October, Dr. Lori Desautels gave the crowd a chance to see how neuroplasticity works. “Hold up your hands,” she said, “and make the peace sign with one hand and the OK sign with the other.” When the over 200 educators complied, she smiled and told them, “Now, as quickly as you can, change the peace sign to an OK sign while changing the OK sign to a peace sign and keep doing it. Go!” Laughter and surprise filled the room as participants learned how difficult the task she’d given them really was, though it sounded simple. “You’re struggling,” Desautels said, “and you should be. This is something you haven’t done before, so you don’t have the brain circuitry for it. Your brain has to develop it over time, with experience.” Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to form and reorganize connections and pathways in response to experience, and Desautels wants educators to know that it’s an important part of understanding why young people with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) behave the way they do in school. Trauma can create a fundamental reorganization in a child’s developing brain. “If you haven’t been raised in an environment with much kindness,” she says, “your brain hasn’t been able to develop the structure for it. The same goes for empathy, trust, and many, many other qualities. Trauma is also actually physiological, too—we hold it in our bodies.” When chronically stressed, our bodies can secrete excess amounts of the hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which can damage parts of the brain responsible for learning and cognition. ACEs can be anything from community or domestic violence, to abuse and neglect, to immigration status issues and separated families, to a very long list of scary things that happen to children. And, as more young people come to school dragging their ACEs with them, succeeding academically can become a huge challenge. “If a child has had four or more ACEs,” says Desautels, “they have become 50 times more likely to have academic and behavioral issues than other children. But we can use what we now know. Today’s neurobiological research can inform educators’ practice more than ever before.”
— Dr. Lori Desautels
Photo by iStock
“IF A CHILD HAS HAD FOUR OR MORE ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES, THEY HAVE BECOME 50 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO HAVE ACADEMIC AND BEHAVIORAL ISSUES THAN OTHER CHILDREN.”
Trauma shows up in students in a myriad of ways. They can be distracted, anxious, depressed, defiant, apathetic, even violent and aggressive. “A traumatized child lives in a ‘survival’ brain state, ready to run, fight, or shut down,” says Desautels. “If they’re trying to do school and life like that, they can’t even access the parts of their brain they need to use in order to make decisions, solve problems, and regulate their emotions. They’ve missed opportunities for brain development in areas of their brains that control attachment and regulating emotions. Achievement gaps may, in fact, be adversity gaps.”
A FOUR-PRONGED RESPONSE Desautels offers a framework, built on these four foundations, for helping children and adolescents who’ve endured trauma: Our own brain state. “This isn’t just about your profession,” says Desautels. “It’s about your life. A disregulated adult cannot regulate a child.” Educators must begin by taking a look at themselves and how they react to stressful situations, in and out of the classroom.
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“If we teach kids to monitor their emotions by modeling it ourselves,” Desautels says, “they will mirror our behavior.” Attachment. “If a child feels safe and ‘felt,’ they will learn,” says
THREE QUESTIONS EDUCATORS CAN ASK A STUDENT IN CRISIS • What do you need? • How can I help? • What can we do to make this better?l
Desautels. But many children come to school insecurely attached, she points out, and mistrustful of adults. We must offer them touch points [more on next page] and routines that can help create the kind of relationships that promote healthy brain development. “One emotionally healthy relationship with a caring adult can trump a lot of adversity,” Desautels says. “That’s the power of our social brains.” When we make helping young people form positive relationships
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
the goal of our interactions with them, even the most troubled can make amazing progress. Regulation. Our brains change, both functionally and structurally, as a result of our life experiences, and an accumulation of ACEs can create actual brain inflammation. We must help students regulate the thoughts and emotions in their sometimes irregularly-wired brains, with the goal being a state of what Desautels calls “relaxed alertness.” “Anxiety has become our new national learning disability,” she says. “For children who come from uncertainty, we need to amp up predictability. Their brains need routines and rituals.” Well-known neuroscience researcher Bruce Perry has found that when childhood trauma is addressed effectively, the brain can heal and repair itself, leaving young people in a far better position to learn. Teaching about neuroanatomy. “Give the science to your students,” Desautels advises, noting that some elementary schoolers she’s worked with get excited about pronouncing the word “amygdala,” a part of the brain in each hemisphere
TOUCH POINTS Touch points, says Desautels, are essentially ways to get the nervous system calm enough to access the frontal cortex, the brain’s center for learning and thought. They can be as simple as interactions with trusted individuals, people who know us and our strengths, challenges, and interests and are affirming of us. They can also be pre-planned activities and experiences. Thinking of touch points specifically in relation to overcoming adversity and building resilience, many educators have begun having touch-point encounters with specific students throughout the school day. These intentional conversations are initiated by the adult and can be as brief as about 30 seconds or as long as five minutes—the key is to explore what’s going on with the student. When these kinds of encounters happen regularly, they can diminish the young person’s negative emotions, such as hopelessness or despair, especially if more than one adult is checking in with them. “Notice if they have a new haircut, pair of shoes, or tattoo—even a smile or other facial expression,” says Desautels. “Tap into their interests. Ask them their feelings about something and listen to learn, not to respond. Even eye contact for a couple seconds can transfer positive emotions.” While your words are important, what you don’t say during
THE NEA ON TRAUMA AND SCHOOLS The National Education Association is committed to ensuring that school is a safe, welcoming, and inclusive place where all students can thrive and where educators have the support and resources they need to be successful. We believe supporting students who suffer from childhood trauma requires whole school involvement and transformation. All school employees play a crucial role in supporting students affected by childhood trauma. Decades of research and studies have established that children who experience adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) not only are more likely to exhibit negative behaviors at school, but are more likely to develop risky behaviors and face a host of negative health consequences over their lifetimes, including reduced life expectancy. Data from the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health show that 46 percent of America’s children had experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, with the number rising to 55 percent for children aged 12 to 17. One in five U.S. children had two or more ACEs. Unions and school districts in many places across the country are working together to address the epidemic of trauma in schools, collaborating to transform schools into “trauma-informed” or “trauma-sensitive” environments and taking deliberate steps to make their schools safe havens. These kind of school environments allow educators the opportunity to collaborate in a way that supports a student’s mental and physical health. A trauma-sensitive focus fosters a climate where students feel safe and confident in their ability to learn, can differentiate between trauma-induced behavior and appropriate behavior, and connect with adults and peers in a positive way.l For more, go to vea.link/NEAtrauma.
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
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Photos by iStock
connected with experiencing emotions. Desautels has begun creating “Amygdala First-Aid Kits,” which she fills with sensory experiences and other activities that redirect the brain of a child who’s reached an alarmed state.
these touch points is at least equally important. “Kids in Keeping Up with Dr. Desautels chronic stress watch the Dr. Lori Desautels, the keynote speaker at VEA’s tone of your voice,” Desauteinstructional conference on trauma, offers a number ls says. “That is huge. They’re of resources to equip educators to help students also paying a lot of attention affected by trauma. You can find her here: to your facial expressions, • www.revelationsineducation.com especially your eyes, your • Facebook.com/lori.l.desautels gestures, and your posture.” • Twitter handle: Desautels_phd Beyond intentional, • ldesaute@butler.edu caring conversation, touchpoints can also include a multitude of sensory they being suspended less or having years where experts believe predictinterventions. “Movement, focusing fewer truancies? It’s also important able and safe environments may be on your breathing, visual imagery, to check on each other—emotions especially important. These are also rhythm, drumming, and art can all are contagious and regular exposure good years to identify students with settle a child’s nervous system,” to students in trauma can be drainthe greatest challenges. We probably says Desautels. “So can things like ing and leave adults susceptible to know who they are, but it can be taste, smell, and even heat and cold.” vicarious trauma. helpful to let other educators know “Knowing how the brain works something about what we’ve obBEING INTENTIONAL can affect the way we communicate served and why these students may ABOUT RESILIENCY with students, the way we discipline, be in need of extra attention. TOUCH POINTS how we teach, and even the way we Planning helps. While resiliency Spread the word. Educators must arrange the classroom,” says Desautouch points shouldn’t be scripted, be made aware of what we know tels. “We can meet our young people it often takes some planning to about the impact of adversity and where they are in brain developmake the encounters feel casual and trauma and how ACEs affect the ment. organic. If several educators at your brains of young people. More pro “They may behave like the kids school see a particular student daily, fessionals in schools must begin to you’d never name your own children it’s helpful to work together on how accept that negative behaviors are after,” she says. “But they’re not to maintain regular approaches with often the result of stress responses bad kids—their brains are just this the student and check in periodically and are connected to attachment way.”l to see how it’s going. and self-regulation challenges. Gauge effectiveness. Are Target interventions. KinAllen is editor of the Virginia Journal of targeted students getting fewer office dergarten and first, sixth, and ninth referrals? Are they absent less? Are Education. grades are important transitional
FOUR THINGS YOUNG PEOPLE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED TRAUMA NEED • Safety • Caring adults/positive relationships • A feeling of accomplishment/success • Options in daily tasks, like assignments, that help give them some sense of control.
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This list is taken from Trauma Toolkit: Tools to Support the Learning and Development of Students Experiencing Childhood and Adolescent Trauma, created through a partnership between the Maryland State Education Association and First Book (firstbook.org). You can download the toolkit as a PDF file at vea.link/traumakit.l
FEATURE STORY
Turn ‘Em L o o s e !
When you help your students develop a growth mindset, you unleash their potential.
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e know that children’s academic ability is strongly influenced by how they perceive themselves. It’s human nature and we’ve seen it in ourselves. An effective way to help young people develop both a healthier self-image and better learning skills is through encouraging a growth mindset. Such a mindset can be characterized by mental toughness, resilience, hardiness, and grit—and can greatly influence a child’s motivation, perseverance, and how he or she handles setbacks and failures. Psychologist Carol Dweck first described fixed mindset, which is the perception that traits and abilities are fixed and unchanging, and growth mindset, which is the perception that traits are abilities are malleable and can improve with effort. Adopting a fixed
mindset can lead children to view their abilities as present or absent (i.e. “I’m a math whiz” or “I can’t do math”). If a child is struggling in a subject area and has internalized a fixed mindset, the child is much more likely to give up trying and accept failure when faced with a setback. On the other hand, if a child has been taught a growth mindset, rather than internalizing failure, the child understands setbacks are just one step in learning and if a topic is difficult to master, he or she can develop skills or strategies to be successful. Fostering a growth mindset can result in a child who can navigate failures and continue to try instead of folding under pressure and quitting.
PROMOTING TEACHING GROWTH MINDSET IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL To teach a growth mindset to young students, we use the analogy that the brain is like a muscle; it needs exercise in order to grow, expand, and become stronger. By encouraging children to exercise their brains, as we would their bodies, we can teach that thinking can be improved with effort. You can help get this started in three stages. Since the concept may be new, in stage 1 you introduce it by discussing the concept of growth and letting children find additional examples, such as plants, to underscore that brains have a similar potential to grow.
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Photo page 12 by Lisa Sale, Image this page by iStock
By Gayle T. Dow and Lauren Davis
The Virginia Public Education CoalitionTheThe Additionally, students can complete simple assignments such as word searches, crosswords, or color-in activities easily found online that include concepts of effort and resiliency. This sets a foundation of knowledge about how a growth mindset can later be applied to a variety of situations. At stage 2, move to specific examples of a growth mindset from movies or books (e.g., Aseop’s Tortoise and the Hare or Williams Steig’s Brave Irene or Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out and Back Again) and then connect them to the children’s personal lives. You can also easily create classroom visuals that encourage a growth mindset with posters that contain messages such as, “Never give up!” or “Keep
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trying!” Finally, in stage 3, encourage your students to internalize a growth mindset. For example, if a child says, “I can’t do this” suggest something like,
“I HAVE NOT FAILED, I’VE JUST FOUND 10,000 WAYS THAT WON’T WORK.” —Thomas Edison “I’m having a hard time with this, but I can ask for help and keep trying.” This is also an ideal time to introduce the power of “yet” (i.e., “I can’t do this yet”).
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Children can explore this by discussing the feelings they experience and the consequences that result from using fixed mindset phrases compared to growth mindset phrases. In sum, the elementary school years should prepare children not only to develop a growth mindset, but encourage them to use it even when met with setbacks. PROMOTING GROWTH MINDSET IN MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL Teaching a growth mindset to older students presents additional challenges as middle and high school students face not only potential struggles that come with increasingly complex subjects, but also are more likely to feel overwhelmed by any resulting
introduce the brain-based research on neuroplasticity and the empirical evidence of a growth mindset from Carol Dweck. Since teens are more capable of goal-setting than younger children, stage 3 involves formulating a plan for realistic and healthy micro-goals.
Micro-goals serve two purposes: they allow any task to be broken down into manageable and achievable chunks and they allow students to experience a small success, which then serves as a confidence-booster. Your students can get better at this if you incorporate personal time management and organization skills activities into class assignments. High school students especially benefit from goal-setting activities such as setting a timeline to study for a test or outlining post-graduation plans. During this stage, students should be taught that trial and error is often necessary in order to achieve goals and that embracing mistakes is part of learning and success. Whenever
a mistake is made, teachers should avoid just praising effort; instead, discuss what happened, brainstorm ideas about a new technique or approach, and then generate a new micro-goal.
DOES GROWTH MINDSET WORK? Studies show that teachers who encourage a growth mindset philosophy have students who tend to be more confident and less prone to academic stress and anxiety. Researchers believe this is due to an increased ability to accept and learn from failure and criticism instead of ignoring it or letting it negatively affect self-perception. Moreover, a growth mindset has been found to be positively correlated with improved classroom grades, perhaps due to this increase in selfefficacy and persistence when met with setbacks. A growth mindset can also provide a framework of resiliency that students can carry into their adult lives. With a carefully implemented and modeled growth mindset, teachers may witness students who not only havegreater motivation and more positive attitudes towards school, but an improved overall learning ability, as well.l
Dr. Dow is an educational psychologist and associate professor at Christopher Newport University. Davis is a senior at CNU, majoring in psychology and minoring in Leadership and Childhood Studies.
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
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Photo page 14 by iStock, Image this page by Christopher Newport University
criticism or failure. There are also three stages for introducing a growth mindset for this age group. Stage 1 involves creating an appropriate environment, one in which students feel it’s safe to take risks and that mistakes are opportunities for growth. To develop a sense of safety on assignments, if possible, avoid highstakes testing in favor of lower-stakes assessments, with opportunities for multiple drafts or a revise-and-resubmit policy. This will encourage students to take a risk with an assignment while maintaining the safety net to ensure their grades will not suffer from a novel approach. Simultaneously, teachers should also set high expectations for all students to promote student growth. Similar to Vygotskian principles of scaffolding, students can achieve more success with encouragement and high expectations dictated from teacher. Since middle and high schoolers are better able to understand advanced concepts, stage 2 begins with examples of the benefits of a growth mindset through examples of people who demonstrate resilience (e.g., nonfiction examples of Temple Grandin who navigated autism to become a leading expert in animal behavior or civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.; fiction examples such as Pearl Buck’s classic The Good Earth or Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’). In addition to examples, presenting scientific research highlighting the benefits of a growth mindset is beneficial in this age group. For example, you can
FEATURE STORY
Students and Public Schools Win Big in Virginia Elections VEA member mobilization was a key factor in electing a pro-public education majority to both houses of the General Assembly.
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have the will to fund our future.” n a historic day at the polls, “VIRGINIA VOTERS SPOKE The VEA Fund for Children and Public Virginia’s voters showed their support for public schools by LOUDLY-THEY WANT GREAT PUBLIC Education, the Union’s political action electing a pro-public educaSCHOOLS, AND THEY’RE SENDING committee, supported 84 candidates, including in key races such as John tion majority into both houses REPRESENTATIVES TO RICHMOND Bell’s victory in the 13th Senate District of the General Assembly. In so and Schuyler Van Valkenburg’s in the doing, they laid the groundwork TO STAND UP FOR STUDENTS, 72nd House District. VEA ran an agfor reinvestment in our students EDUCATORS, AND SCHOOLS.” gressive ground and digital program to and staff, said VEA President Jim make the public aware that when the Livingston. — James Livingston General Assembly opens in January, it “Virginia voters spoke needs to make public education a top loudly—they want great public said Livingston. Virginia ranks 40th priority. Overall, 84 percent of the canschools, and they’re sending reprein state aid per student and 32nd in didates recommended by the VEA Fund sentatives to Richmond to stand up teacher pay, he said. “They need to won their races. for students, educators, and schools,”
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VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
Let’s Celebrate! Then Let’s Mobilize. by Jim Livingston, VEA president As the election returns came in this year, I remember thinking, “This was no accident.” Getting a pro-public education majority in our General Assembly is one of the primary goals of our Fund Our Future campaign, and we worked harder this year than in any election cycle I can remember. I’m so proud of our members and what we helped accomplish together!
It sure didn’t happen overnight. Our new legislative lineup is really the
culmination of three years of extremely hard work to build our political and membership base. And, while it’s a culmination, it’s also a new beginning, a new path that we need to walk to strengthen our Union, build our political and legislative muscle, and achieve the goals we’ve set for our students and our schools.
It’s time to build on what we’ve
got, and we’ve rarely had such a foundation to build from. As our legislators convene in Richmond in January, we expect significant progress on substantial issues that matter to educators and communities: • Funding: Reversing the recession-era cuts and investing in our students. • Teacher pay and retention: Raising pay and expanding strategies to recruit and retain the best into teaching. • School safety and mental health: To make sure students and staff are safe, and that we have the resources students need to address any mental health or counseling challenges. • Undoing the damage done by the McDonnell administration to continuing contract.
We made history in this election. Now it’s time to mobilize and move forward,
to make some very important things happen.
Here’s one of our first and most important steps: Remember to save Monday,
January 27, 2020, for the VEA Lobby Day and Fund Our Future Rally in Richmond. We need to send an unmistakable message to our elected representatives, the media, and all Virginians that funding public schools and addressing educator pay must be our top priority. After years of playing defense, we are “going on offense.” Please join in as we build our power to improve conditions for students and educators.l
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Photo Illustrations by Reilly Bradshaw
VEA members played a critical role in the suddenly much-brighter future of public education in the Commonwealth. In the run-up to the election, VEA members, staff, and supporters contacted voters in a dozen key races with phone calls and mailers. VEA volunteers knocked on 20,000 doors and made nearly 15,000 phone calls to elect pro-public education candidates. VEA also ran a robust digital campaign in targeted races to win support for education-friendly candidates. “Our goal was a pro-public education majority, and now we have that, and we’re going to be moving forward to make education the number one priority,” Livingston said. In just one example of how VEA members stepped up, Phyllis Mullins, April Hay, Samantha Mullins, and Chandra Mullins of the Dickenson County Education Association made a morethan-360-mile trek to Henrico County the weekend before the election to help in local canvassing efforts. “We need to support candidates who are true supporters of public schools and will make the effort to fund our future,” Phyllis Mullins said of their trip. The work of the new General Assembly is clear-cut now: Overturning school funding cuts made during the recession, as our schools are still getting 8 percent less state funding than they were a decade ago, will be a major priority, as is raising teacher pay. Virginia teachers now earn about $8500 under the national average. The General Assembly made raising teacher pay to the national average a state goal several years ago but has made limited progress. “The General Assembly needs to address teacher pay, and they need to do it now,” said Livingston. VEA also will be looking to address the diminishing of teacher continuing contract provisions made during the McDonnell administration.l
FEATURE STORY
MESHING THE WHEELS OF HISTORY
When we don’t portray the past accurately, do we create achievement gaps and jeopardize our future? By Margie Shepherd
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hat if, as we’re scrambling to provide workshops for teachers in an effort to close achievement gaps, the real problem isn’t the work those teachers are doing but the curriculum itself? How can we close those gaps if parts of what we’re teaching our students works against that goal? What if our approach excludes some of our students? You can put up numerous tolerance posters and add countless gender-neutral, racially-inclusive, globally-aware signs to your door, you can reach out to all your students, but if the Virginia State Social Studies curriculum does little to reinforce all that, we’ll never get it right. There’s a staggering lack of
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emphasis, in my view, on race and gender in what we teach about U.S. and Virginia history, and a great imbalance in the amount of time we devote to our state and country compared with the rest of the world. In grades 1-12, eight years are spent studying Virginia or U.S. History and U.S. Government. Two years are World History and Geography. One – third grade – is Ancient World Cultures, defined in our Standards of Learning as, “The peoples of ancient China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the West African empire of Mali.” No Indus Valley. No Mayans. There were several African civilizations prior to Mali, which can hardly be called ancient, as the time frame was from the 1200s until after
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1400. The last, World Geography, is not offered to all students, or is offered in place of World History. Clearly, the world is not a priority. Here, what we teach as World History and Geography has evolved from what we called Western Civilization generations ago—Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, European History, and World Wars. It’s not enough. If the lessons of Africa our students get are primarily about pyramids and enslavement, how are we engaging African Americans? If your history of Latin America is Cortez conquered the Aztecs and Pizarro conquered the Incas, how is this going to help include students
developers. In Standard VS4e, for example, this is in the Essential Understandings: “Everyday life in colonial Virginia was different for whites, enslaved African Americans, and free African Americans.” In Colonial Virginia? Shouldn’t this at least be “for European colonists, enslaved Africans, non-enslaved Africans, and Indigenous people?” None of these were Americans yet. The treatment of women, very generally, is as it has always been – a few self-sacrificing women get mentioned, not revolutionary women, and contributions of women are as an afterthought. In U.S. II, 9a, the last unit of the school year is “to understand key issues of the second half of the 20th century, the Civil Rights Movement, the ADA, and the Changing Role of Women,” all thrown together at the end of the curriculum. Teachers know how much attention that would get… from adolescents, in May. Virginia’s focus skills for Social Studies include analyzing, interpreting, comparing, identifying, investigating, and researching. But where is inquiry? Where is there space to challenge what is being presented? Where is the study of the counter-narratives, the untold history, the other points of view? Especially in an age where we are bombarded with information and misinformation, news and opinions, it is so important for our students to be able to find information, compare different points of view, draw conclusions from different sources, and synthesize information to make some sense of what is going on and what really went on in history. In a nation that is soon to be majority minority, the Virginia State
Social Studies curriculum as it stands produces students ignorant of world issues, of world cultures, of world geography, and of how these things affect our lives and our standing in relation to other countries. For students of color, for girls, the risk is greater than ignorance – it is a message that clearly says you are not part of our story, or you are a lesser than in our story, or you were defeated in our story. We are supposed to close the achievement gap? Then our curriculum needs a thorough overhaul, both in its content and in the skills we teach. A Virginia Department of Education committee works to change the curriculum every seven years. The next change is due in 2022. Over the years it has been tweaked and tweaked, without major changes since 1994. If we want to engage all students in school, if we want to include all the voices and perspectives and all the cultures, if we want to close the achievement gap in our schools, we have to include the histories, perspectives, and geography of all of our students. We need to hear and honor all the voices. I urge you to write to the Department of Education or to your House of Delegates representative or State Senator. Speak to your School Board or your VEA representative. Express outrage in any way you can. If we want to close the achievement gap, if we want to abolish the inherent racism and sexism in our curriculum, we’ve got to speak out and change it.l Shepherd, NBCT, is a member of VEA-Retired and taught in Albemarle County.
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Photo illustrations by iStock
of Hispanic descent? And Asia? The Boxer Rebellion, the Silk Road, and the bombing of Japan are not inclusion. Specifics of our curriculum are peppered with bits that should be offensive to all in their implications, for example the World History SOL called “Expansion of trade between Europe and Africa (gold, slaves, and other resources.)” Throughout, the dominant narrative prevails: We see European colonization and imperialism, exploration and conquests, with the agency of the marginalized people from places other than Europe erased or minimalized. In the “Essential Understandings” for the brutal actions of Europe in, say, the Berlin Conference, or the domination of the Pacific Islands, are these explanations: “Industrial nations in Europe needed natural resources and markets to expand their economy,” and, “Imperialism spread economic, political, and social philosophies of Europe and the United States throughout the world.” As if taking over civilizations was a service provided. Students can take AP or IB classes to replace World History – but the only single world region courses are AP European History and IB History of Europe. The U.S. and Virginia History lessons suffer from the same omissions and rewritings of the treatment of indigenous and enslaved peoples, the glory of westward expansion, and the war-to-war view of our history. Descriptions within the curriculum exhibit the biases of the
MEMBERSHIP MATTERS
VEA Instruction Conference Helps Educators Reach Students Affected by Trauma
Miles Carey sees high-schoolers every day who come to class bearing the effects of traumatic life experiences. “We have students affected by alcoholism
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in the family,” says the Arlington Education Association member. “Some of them have had problems with the law. We’ve got lots of immigrant families, and some of those kids have had bad experiences in their home countries or their families have been split up.” Those real issues being brought to school by a growing number of kids is why trauma-responsive practices were the focus of VEA’s 2019 Instruction and Professional Development Conference, held in October in Richmond. Abuse, neglect, family uncertainty, and hunger are all part of everyday life in our schools, too. “My team has been working on restorative practices and I’m here to see what I can bring back for both our students and our staff,” Carey says. Even pre-service teachers are feeling the impact. “Just last week in one of my practicums, I had a student acting out because of a traumatic situation in his life,” says Jessica Bailey, president of the SVEA-Aspiring Educators and a student at Shenandoah University. “He was hitting,
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
punching, yelling, and running down the hall. This conference is exciting because there are so many other things I now know to do.” None of that surprises Dr. Lori Desautels of Butler University, the conference’s keynote speaker and a nationally-known expert on young people and trauma. “Anxiety has become our new national learning disability,” she told the crowd on opening night, before offering a menu of strategies educators can use to help stressed students become relaxed and capable of learning. In addition to Desautels, who also led several breakout sessions, members heard from Rodney Robinson of the Richmond Education Association, the 2019 National Teacher of the Year; Dr. James F. Lane, Virginia’s Superintendent of Public Instruction; and author and therapist Ronnie Sidney II. Breakout session topics included community engagement, diverse children’s literature, using arts in instruction, understanding adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), teacher licensure, instructional technology, effective leadership, and social media.l
Like lots of Virginia localities, Stafford County was short on school bus drivers. To fix the problem, the county offered increased pay to new candidates. But that created another problem—new drivers were getting a higher hourly rate than experienced ones. “That was totally not acceptable,” SEA member George Schlegel told attendees during a presentation at VEA’s Education Support Professionals Conference in Richmond in November. “We need to be treated with respect for the work we do and be paid accordingly.” Stafford bus drivers and the SEA began showing up at school board meetings to draw attention to the problem and doggedly pursued a solution until a new, more just pay scale was created (and unanimously passed). “It was a big victory,” says SEA member and bus driver Emily Coleman. Those kinds of victories were the focus of 2019’s ESP Conference, which also featured Fairfax Education Association member Taylor Gaddy, an instructional assistant who laid out FEA’s “$20 by 20” Living Wage Campaign. Pete Meyers, a longtime labor leader from Ithaca, New York, gave the keynote address for the conference, saying, “There’s a lot of injustice in our world around wages, and we have to be thinking of ways not to accept that. Every single one of you is underpaid—you serve a very important public need in the work you do.” Meyers, who leads the Tompkins County (NY) Workers Center, also led a workshop in the nuts and bolts of a living wage campaign and how to develop a healthy salary schedule, and conference participants received training in resiliency and trauma, and heard from Manassas Education Association President Leroy Williams, VEA’s current ESP of the Year, about how MEA won improved health care coverage for ESP employees. The weekend was well-spent, says Arlington Education Association member Tedd Williams, who notes, “Every conference makes a difference. I’m taking home more knowledge that our group can use.” Frederick County’s Brenda Wallace, a paraprofessional who works with children with emotional disturbances, felt the conference’s focus on a living wage was on target. “I love what I do,” she says, “and I don’t want to have to switch positions. Our pay should match the level of professionalism we provide to our kids.”l
CALENDAR conferences VEA Lobby Day January 27, 2020 State Capitol Teachers of Color February 22, 2020 Richmond VEA Sparks February 28-March 1, 2020 The Crossings Resort
VEA Launches Redesigned Website
It’s got a brand-new look, it’s easy to use, and it’s chock-full of information you need to know: It’s the new veanea.org, VEA’s redesigned website! If you haven’t checked it out already, give it a look. You’ll find everything you need to know about your membership and its benefits, Union activities, ways you can connect and become more involved, tips you can use on the job, and much more.l For a guided tour, go to vea.link/ webtour.
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Photos on page 20 and this page by Lisa Sale
ESPs Strategize on Gaining Living Wages at Annual Conference
MEMBERSHIP MATTERS
Your Union is Your Crew Have you ever watched a NASCAR race? Being an educator can be a lot like being a NASCAR driver. There you are, driving almost 200 miles per hour and moving ahead, but an obstacle gets in the way of your professional progress. Sometimes we seem headed straight into a blazing crash of uncertainty. Wouldn’t it be good to know that high above the stadium of the classroom and crowd of others, there’s someone watching over you? That’s what it means to be a part of an education association. On NASCAR teams, spotters help keep an eye on the road for the driver while the smoke clears. When you’re a Union member, you have a team supporting you as you take your laps every school day. Your spotters are your Building Representatives. They, along with your local’s Executive Board, can provide a different perspective to help maneuver and guide you out the other side of an issue. As you race through this school year and find you need assistance reach out to your Building Reps, Uniserv Director, or local president. Working in public education, while extremely rewarding, can be a hard and emotional journey. Remember, you don’t have to take that journey alone. We can’t always win on our own but together we are stronger.l — Matthew Fentress, president of the Montgomery County Education Association
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2019 Mini-Grant Winners Take the Money and… VEA has announced the list of educators around the state whose innovative classroom ideas have been backed by a 2019 Mini-Grant. Check veanea.org to see how you can apply for one in 2020! Here are the 2019 winners and their projects: • Courtyard Composting, Katharine Lee Meadows of the Page County Education Association • Creating Sensory Space with Limited Room, David Alan Bowman of the Pulaski County Education Association • Cross Curricular Ties: Forensic Science and In Cold Blood, Jenn H. Robinson-O’Brien of the Stafford Education Association • “Dash”ing Into Computer Science, Jennifer Suzanne Roberts of the Prince William Education Association • Digital Marketing Authentic Learning, Jennifer Stover of the Frederick County Education Association • Horticulture Gardens, Sarah Jo Jones of the Pulaski County Education Association • Interactive Musical Art: A STEAM Project, Rachel Grace Peters of the Greene County Education Association • Jason Wright Discusses Civic Service, Dawn Marie Buehler of the Frederick County Education Association • Learning to Read With Nonfiction, Amanda Lynn Ergenbright of the Bedford County Education Association • Let’s Focus on Becoming Stronger Problem Solvers, Alisa Downey of the Roanoke County Education Association • Makey-Makey in the K-5 Classroom, Nicole Loch of the Fauquier Education Association • Math Centers for Everyone!, Amanda Sunshine Rossey of the Prince William Education Association • Mock Caldecott Project, Marni Lynn Matyac of the Fairfax Education Association • Sensory Exploration and Integration, Patricia M. Morgan of the Mathews County Education Association • Soccer Album Club, Rosa Teresa Navas of the Arlington Education Association • There’s A Game For That: Learning to Code Through Play, Sharon Carino of the Gloucester Education Associationl
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
Members of our Union and others who excel in their efforts on behalf of public education here in the Commonwealth deserve to be recognized for their outstanding efforts. To ensure that some of them get that recognition, VEA’s annual awards program honors their excellence; nominations are now open for the following VEA awards: Friend of Education Award: VEA’s highest honor recognizes an individual or organization whose leadership, acts or support has significantly benefited education, education employees or students in Virginia. Nomination deadline: January 17, 2020. Fitz Turner Award: Honors outstanding contributions in intergroup relations and the enhancement of respect for human and civil rights. Nomination deadline: January 24, 2020. Mary Hatwood Futrell Award: Honors leadership in fostering equality in educational opportunity and promoting equity and excellence in public education. Nomination deadline: January 24, 2020. Barbara Johns Youth Award: Honors a student or student organization whose activities promote the dignity and esteem of others. Nomination deadline: January 24, 2020. Award for Teaching Excellence: The highest honor VEA gives for creativity and excellence in the classroom. Nomination deadline: February 7, 2020. Education Support Professional of the Year: Honors the contributions of an ESP to his or her school, community and profession. Nomination deadline: January 10, 2020. A+ Award for Membership Growth: Honors local Associations for growth, given in three size categories. Nomination deadline: January 11, 2020. For more information, visit https://www.veanea.org/tips-tools/awardsgrants/.l
‘Read Across America’ Back to Share the Joy of Reading with Everyone!
It’s time to start gearing up for NEA’s Read Across America, a year-round celebration that helps you motivate students to read, bring them the joys of reading, and open the world of books to all kinds of kids. For more information and help in planning events, go to nea.org/readacross.l
or f n i W r e h t Ano Your Union!
VEA leaders put the question directly to our state’s Board of Education: Would you take a hard look at the current teacher evaluation system, which requires that student test scores comprise 40 percent of the outcome? The Board did just that, and decided to drop that requirement. This is an enormous step forward in fairness for our state’s teachers, and one that VEA made happen. Local leaders should now be talking with administrators and school board members to ensure the outsized role of test scores in the evaluation goes away statewide. Contact your UniServ Director or VEA Teaching and Learning for more information.l
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Money photo and stars illustration by iStock
VEA Awards Offer Annual Salute to Deserving Educators, Organizations
Educational TV: VRS’s Hybrid Plan Learning Channel Trying to understand the details of your retirement plan can sometimes make you feel like a kid in a classroom again. Maybe you find yourself wanting to raise your hand and ask, “Can you repeat that, please?” It’s OK to have questions about your plan and, if you’re looking for answers, the Hybrid Plan Learning Channel is a smart place to start. The Hybrid Plan Learning Channel offers important facts about your retirement plan in short, to-the-point videos. From starting your hybrid plan journey as a new employee to receiving your funds at retirement, there’s help at every step. Videos include: Starting Your Hybrid Plan Adventure introduces the plan to new VRS members. Driving Your Hybrid Plan explains how the defined benefit and defined contribution components of the plan work together. Exploring Your Hybrid Plan takes a closer look at mandatory and voluntary contributions and how to take full advantage of your employer’s match. Savings Toolkit shows which VRS tools to use to maximize your savings and track your progress on saving for your future. Things to Know Before You Go explains your benefit options if you leave your job before retirement. Retiring Minds Want to Know explores the financial and mental impacts of retirement. Retirement Ready helps you determine when you will be eligible to receive retirement benefits from the two components of your plan. Your Retirement, Your Choice dives into the different ways you can receive your funds at retirement. Visit varetire.org/hybrid and select Education to see all the resources available to you as a Hybrid Plan member. To stay up to date on the latest VRS news and information, you can also follow the Virginia Retirement System on Facebook.l
Willingham Joins VEA Staff
Alice Willingham has joined VEA’s field staff and will be a new UniServ Director, working from the Piedmont office in Danville. She’s a retired teacher and leader from Maryland, where she taught middle and high school language arts and English for 30 years, and was a Maryland State Education Association building representative, serving as an advocate and handling grievances. She’s also a NBCT and has a master’s degree in human resources development.l
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INSIGHT ON INSTRUCTION
Look Past the Surface to Make Real Connections
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s an African-American male, I know I’m out of the norm for most of my fourth-grade students. Each year, I tell them, “You know, I may not fit the image that many people have when they think of an elementary school teacher, but being here with you all fits me. Now, I want to know what fits you. Tell me, who are you?” In this way, I truly try to begin making a solid connection with my students. I take time to learn about their personalities, behaviors, backgrounds, and curiosities, and their thoughts about learning. I want to be known as the teacher who cares, not just the African-American male elementary school teacher. Kids need to know that our backgrounds are invaluable but that there’s always more to us. I’ve learned that creating bonds is one of the most essential tools in the classroom, so I constantly invest time in my students’ success, both in and out of my class. It’s nothing to hear me say, “Hey everybody, where are those schedules? You all know I’m supposed to come see the games this weekend!” Parents and students both know that I’m willing to attend any of their extracurriculars. If they give me the information, whether it’s a recital, a fundraiser, or a booth at an event in our downtown, I’ll be present. There is never a moment I don’t show excitement for their success. If you’d asked me years ago where I thought I might be today, never in my imagination would I have pictured an elementary school. I’ve always enjoyed connecting
with people from all walks of life, but I would never have guessed that ability would lead me to the classroom. When I arrived in Staunton, I knew only my wife (we were dating at the time) and had a degree in exercise science. I wasn’t having any luck finding work in that field, so I took a job in a factory on weekends. During the week, I became a substitute teacher at the high school where my wife was teaching. I became a regular there and was asked to become the track and field coach during my first year. By the second year, I coached year-round and created winter programs for the off-season students to attend. After four years, my wife and I had a serious conversation and decided I should pursue a career in the classroom, so I completed a master’s program at Mary Baldwin University. Shortly after, I began working at my current school. Students are intuitive and realize when a teacher really cares about them as a person, and not just as a test score. I know that students see me as a giant, and maybe as a man with a rough, even scary, exterior. I’m just the opposite, really. I create environments where students enjoy coming to school. Because of this, they’ve come back year after year to tell me about their successes and just to say, “What’s up Mr. M?” Take that time, make those bonds. Your students will benefit for years to come.l Montague, a member of the Staunton Education Association, teaches fourth grade at Ware Elementary School. He was the city’s 2018-19 Teacher of the Year.
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Photos by Tom Allen
By Donté Montague
INSIGHT ON INSTRUCTION
TOO MUCH TUBE-FEEDING? “TELEVISION HAS CHANGED THE AMERICAN CHILD FROM AN IRRESISTIBLE FORCE TO AN IMMOVABLE
OBJECT.”
— Laurence J. Peter, author of The Peter Principle (Editor’s note: We suspect that Peter, who died in 1990, would today have added the smartphone, at least, to his statement.)
Be a Role Model • Educators are whole people with interests outside of our work. • Serve as a hero to your students.
Not Everyone Needs a Four-Year College Degree Jobs that require “middle skills,” meaning either a high school diploma, postsecondary certificate, or associate’s degree, outnumber the adults in the workforce who possess such credentials. This gap presents a barrier to American economic competitiveness. There are 30 million jobs in the United States that do not require a bachelor’s degree that pay median earnings of $55,000 or more. Career and technical education (CTE) offers an important way for young adults to acquire these skills.l Source: U.S. Department of Education
Reinforcing Online Safety •
Teachers should establish and post rules for safe Internet use near computers in classrooms, libraries, and labs. Students should be reminded regularly that the rules are intended to ensure their safety.
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Teachers should go over the rules with students periodically. As a result, the students—even when excited or upset—will be more likely to remember the rules.
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Students and their parents should know the consequences of disobeying the rules. Educators must keep the lines of communication open with students and parents.
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Schools must be consistent and fair in enforcing classroom rules and the division’s acceptable use policy.l
• Let students see you can have fun and be responsible. • Show you are fierce about activities and issues that matter to you. • Demonstrate best practices • Embrace your online image as an opportunity to inspire students and families.l
Photo and stars illustration by iStock
Source: Lisa Nielsen @InnovativeEdu
DISCIPLINE DONE RIGHT “YOUR DISCIPLINE SYSTEM SHOULDN’T BE BRIBING STUDENTS TO DO THE RIGHT THING…IT SHOULD BE TEACHING THEM THE RIGHT THING AND WHY…THEN EXPECTING THE RIGHT THING.” —Brad Weinstein, co-author, Hacking School Discipline
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INSIGHT ON INSTRUCTION
You Esteem Them; Help Them Esteem Themselves Ten ways to boost your students’ selfesteem, from Massachusetts teacher and instructional technology specialist Rayna Freedman: 1. Greet each child at the door with a smile and say his or her name. 2. Ask a question of the day to kickstart the morning and touch base with every child. 3. Encourage students to advocate for themselves. 4. Give feedback to students, not just grades. 5. Let students fix mistakes. 6. Attend one event outside of school for each child who asks. 7. Offer experiences for students to show off their talents. 8. Learn from students. 9. Celebrate student success. 10. Grow with your students.l Source: eSchoolNews (eschoolnews.com).
Top photo by iStock
Healthy Students = Ready Students
“Every year, Hollywood makes tons of remakes and nobody bats an eye. I remake someone else’s homework and now I’m here!”
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From social and emotional health to substance abuse prevention to maintaining a healthy environment, you’ll find resources to help promote student health at the Health Smart VA website. Materials are searchable by grade level and the site is maintained by the Virginia Departments of Health, Education, and Behavioral Health & Developmental Services, along with the Prince William Network. To learn more, go to https://healthsmartva.org/.l
VIRGINIA JOURNAL OF EDUCATION | DECEMBER 2019
FIRST PERSON: NARRATIVES FROM THE CLASSROOM
Adolescent Hearts Open Up in PBIS Advisory Sessions
Illustration by iStock
— Courtney Cutright
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When Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports were introduced in my school last spring, I’ll admit I was less than enthusiastic about adopting another new initiative. While I wholeheartedly acknowledge the need for responsiveness in public education, it can be exhausting to learn and implement new programs only to replace those with something else the following year. This one is already growing on me. My favorite component of PBIS is the advisory block. One day each week classes are shortened by 10 minutes to allow for a 35-minute meeting time with advisees in small groups. There are 16 students in my group, and five of them are in my language arts classes. Advisory is a great way to continue to build relationships with them while getting to know the 11 I don’t teach. This is some of what I’ve learned in the first few sessions, which focused on respect and getting to know each other. Andre finished the statement “I am happiest…” by writing “when I am at my dad’s grave.” I knew his father had passed away during the first few weeks of school following a lengthy illness. I could tell when Andre spoke that his grief was still raw. He was understandably struggling to process his loss. I told Andre that I was sorry for what he was going through. When advisory block ended, he was on my heart. I communicated my concern to his math teacher, who was also worried about him. I was devastated a few days later to find Andre had used his school laptop to search ways to commit suicide, but relieved that a peer had reported seeing him looking the information up. The next advisory, I knelt down beside Andre and whispered a few words of encouragement. I told him I know how hard it is to lose some-
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one you love. I asked Andre if he had thought of writing letters to his dad. He looked at me strangely, so I tried to clarify. I suggested he write letters and leave them at his dad’s grave or write memories in a special book. Andre seemed interested, so I decided to buy him a nice journal. When I gave it to him the next day, it was the first and only time I’ve seen the child smile. Jackson, another student in my group, sat beside Andre for the first few advisory meetings. I wanted to change things up so at our next meeting I asked students to sit beside someone new. I was a little concerned how Jackson, a student with autism and ADHD, would greet the change but I decided to go for it. I did guide him a bit by suggesting he take a seat in the back beside a girl named Shana, and he obliged. Jackson, who loves all things Pokémon, and Shana, whose wardrobe matches her jet-black locks, were chattering away within minutes. The paraprofessional who works with Jackson was delighted the two seemed to hit it off because something Jackson wants to work on is making new friends and socializing outside school. The next week, Jackson showed up a day early for advisory. I sensed his excitement as he asked where he should sit, even as he walked toward where he had sat with Shana. Jackson was mixed up on the schedule, but the promise of a budding friendship had brought him out of his shell. I explained to Jackson that advisory was not until the next day and he could sit wherever he chose. No surprise, the next day he picked the seat beside Shana. Our next couple of advisory sessions focused on inspirational quotes about respect, including words of wisdom from the likes of the Roosevelts and Obamas, Dr. Seuss and the Dalai Lama. Each student received a quote and was asked to respond. One very profound insight was shared by Troy about this quote, attributed to Dan Rockwell: “’I was wrong’ builds more respect than ‘I told you so.’” Troy raised his hand and said, with the eloquence of a middle school boy, that he felt the quotes were good but not realistic. I asked him to elaborate, and he said the quote was how things were supposed to be but in the real world (aka every day at school) the opposite happened. Bingo! Those are exactly the behaviors we are trying to proactively change through PBIS. And, so far, it seems to be working.l Cutright (courtcut@gmail.com), a member of the Roanoke County Education Association, teaches English at Northside Middle School.
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