Making music magic happen in the classroom, my dad the music teacher

When it became apparent that my time with my father was getting near the end I began thinking about all of the things that made my dad amazing.  There were two faces to my dad, the head of the Collins household and the music teacher at Van Tech. I am not ready to write about my dad on a personal level yet, but I thought I could write about him as a teacher. He was an incredibly talented musician, one who could listen to a song on a tape a few times and then go to the piano and play it.  For 35 years my dad passionately taught music to grade 8-12 students at a school on the east side of Vancouver at a school called Vancouver Technical Secondary (Van Tech). 

When he passed away on September 18^th, 2011 I decided to set up a memorial page in his name on Facebook, hoping to get a few stories about a side of him that I did not get to see much.  I was not sure what would the response be as he retired nearly 10 years ago.  I have been blown away by the response of former students and I would like to thank them for taking the time to remember my dad, as all I now have are memories.  Many of the stories that have been shared are personal and have brought a lot of joy to my family as we always knew he was a special person.

My dad never sought attention, limelight and did not like to be the center of attention.  His focus was always on his students.  I would often see him sitting at his workbench with a collection of tapes listening to music that his students had given him to listen to and consider using in his class.  My dad taught me a long time ago that in order for students to be motivated to participate in classes they have to be interested in what is happening.  He chose music that would engage his students, and created a classroom environment that made students want to come. 

He had over 300 students taking in his choir classes every year.  All he asked was that you give it your all.  His classroom was always open at lunch and students would come in and spend their lunchtime singing. My dad would record himself playing songs requested by his students who wanted to practice certain songs or enter competitions.  If he could play the song on the piano and the lyrics were acceptable he was game.  Students loved coming to his class.

His memorial page after about 48 hours has over 130 people.  Words that keep coming up are passion, energy, kindness, welcoming, enthusiasm, belonging, joy and respect.  Students from years ago can still name the songs that they sung.  The funny part of that is that the very songs they mention are the ones I remember my dad playing on his stereo at home.  I remember his playing the Phantom of the Opera over and over again.  I remember giving him the Proclaimers tape and I also remember the Lion King.  These are just some of the songs mentioned by former students.

Former students credit him for becoming teachers.  Others would invite him to their weddings because of how important he had been to them.  Others were naming songs that make them think of my dad every time they hear them.  So many students commented on the connection that my dad seemed to be able to make with so many students.  Every time I bumped into a former student of his they would ask me to say hi to him.  I would pass on the message and my dad 9/10 would remember the student and also name any siblings the students had.  When he could not immediately remember the student he would immediately go and grab a yearbook, find them and then be able to tell me a story about that student which I would pass on when I would see that student again.  He loved his job, his students and his school and his memorial page shows that.

This all brings me to ask a crucial question- if you had a memorial page, what would your former students write about you?  What would they remember?  What words would they use to describe you?  Something to think about as you prepare your next day’s lessons.  Is your class one that students would be able to passionately describe 10 years later?  How about 20?  How about 40?  If not, why not?  What could you do differently?  How are you going to be remembered?

Please feel free to visit his memorial page and see what an amazing teacher he was http://www.facebook.com/groups/273224379363786/

I miss him so much, but I am glad that his memory lives on in so many people.  Thank you.

My struggles with the FSAs

Earlier this week I was sitting in the computer lab watching the students complete the grade 4 numeracy portion of the FSA  (Foundation Skills Assessment - British Columbia's standardized tests for grade 4 and 7). There were many thoughts going through my head during this time.  I had looked at the rankings that the Fraser Institute published and saw that my school had jumped significantly in the standings.  I knew that we would be moving up from where we were last year, our focus has been on writing for the past few years.  We have enjoyed some rich professional development, had great discussions, found different ways to emphasize and promote writing in the school and continued to work with different writing programs.  These have all lead to improvements.  I do believe that the students have improved in writing because of these changes, but that does not tell the whole story.

Our results are directly impacted by the number of eligible students who write the different tests and the number of students who have been excused from writing it for a variety of reasons including parental request that their child not write the tests.  If a number of very strong students are excused from writing the test, our results will drop, conversely if the number of students excused from writing are struggling learners our results will rise.  If there is not a flu bug running through the school around that time then the results go up, if there are a few kids who families all go on vacation at that time our results could drop.  There are so many external factors that impact the results of the test beyond the teaching that if they fall in your favour as they mostly did last year, the result is a rise in the rankings, if they do not, as was the case two years ago and this year, they will drop.

To give you some insight as to how it works I will include a brief description.  We received the package a few weeks earlier and I decided to wait to start.  Over the past few years the system has had problems where students will be kicked out of the electronic portion and have to log back in.  For some students this would happen 3-4 times over the course of the time they were working on one portion of the test.  This caused a lot of stress and caused some to panic and become very anxious, worried that they would have to start again.  (I cannot even begin to imagine what would be going through a high school student's mind when writing a provincial test and this happens!).  I hoped that by waiting there would be fewer students using it at the same time, thereby reducing the possibilities of crashes.

During the couple of weeks leading up to us starting I had some conversations with other schools, people on my soccer team and elsewhere discussing the FSAs.  A couple of friends with students at schools outside of our district were telling me that the kids had been practicing the tests for a couple of weeks and were a bundle of nerves because they were told how important these tests are and that they had to do well to represent the school.  One of my colleagues was telling me that she had 3 different parents come to her and ask whether or not their child should be writing the test because they were worried that their kids would not be successful because of their IEPs (individual education plans) and would therefore bring the school results down.  She told the parents that it was their choice, but that they should not be excluding their children for that reason.  Would all principals have said the same thing?  At our school all students write the test unless we are concerned about the impact that this could have on the student, and we do not spend any time practicing.

I had a few parents come to me a little before we were going to start wondering why we had not started our tests when when some of the neighbouring schools had.  I explained my rationale and they felt that it made sense.  One then asked me if we all received the tests at the same time and I let her know that I believed that to be the case.  The next questions caught me off guard as it was not something that had entered my mind.  If you held onto the tests for a couple of weeks, is there anything stopping schools from practicing with the actual tests before starting?  Could they all do a rough draft and then copy the good draft into the booklet?  If they were not all doing the electronic portion at the same time, would it be possible for a class to begin the reading portion and then copy the stories, print them and be able to go over them with the other students to prepare them for the questions?  When I answered that hypothetically speaking this was possible she was stunned.  How was this standardized?  In order for it to be standardized should all the kids in the province be doing the tests at the same time, or at the very least, all of the kids in the same school at the same time?

There are other factors that concern me as to how the data is used.  Two years ago our school received additional staffing partly due to the fact that we had a larger number of students with learning challenges than we normally had.  That year, when the students were writing the FSAs, the flu went through the school and some got sick, 1 missed a lot of time from school so I decided to not have that student finish the FSA. Result, not meeting expectations in all areas.  2 students went on vacation part way through the test, result, 2 students not meeting expectations.  2 students broke down in tears because they were frustrated so we took the tests away, result, 2 students not meeting expectations.  I believe that 4 of those 5 students would have fully met expectations.  I had two students who would not be writing the tests for a couple of reasons and I used their identifications to show the students to log on.  Result- 2 more students not meeting expectations because I had logged them in and answered 1 question but did not click on submit thinking the results would not show, this was a boneheaded moment which I did not repeat.  When you have a cohort group of about 50 kids and 7 are not meeting expectations for reasons other than the results of the test itself is one thing that a school can address and explain to its community, when an outside agency is ignorant of what happens in the schools and publishes results is another.

Four years ago we had the exact same number of identified gifted students as student with learning challenges two years ago.  The school went from double digit number of students who were gifted to double digits with learning difficulties.  The cohort was completely different and something outside the control of the school.  The result was a huge drop in the number of students not meeting expectations.  I go over the results with the parents, give them the numbers as well as some background information.  I am able to explain why we have gone up or down.  Our community is aware of our context, an outside agency examining and working with the data is not.  When a school has their test data compromised because their electronic results have gone into an Internet abyss and suddenly 10 students results are automatically not meeting expectations and those results are published, the public perception of the school can be compromised.

From my vantage point, the FSAs can provide useful information for a staff to look at and plan our school goals.  We can use it as a measuring stick to chart our progress, knowing our context.  This is not shirking responsibility.  I still stand in front of our parents and share the data and listen to concerns that they may have.  My concern is that when a non-informed group that ignores or does not care about the contextual situations that can arise in schools, and publishes results that are challenged statistically it impacts the perception of the school.  Why are schools punished because H1N1 hit their schools hard one year?  Why are schools punished for not practicing for the tests for weeks and choosing to focus on the curriculum and using the FSAs as a snapshot as they were intended to?  Why are schools punished because the cohorts each year can be significantly different from year to year and give a false increase or decrease in the students' perceived success?  The number of students writing is also compromised, based on parent willingness to have their children write the tests.  There are some schools where only 30% of the eligible kids are actually writing the test.

If everybody is not writing the test at the same time, in the same way, under the same conditions, with the same number of kids in a room writing it together, with the same preparation, with ALL students writing the test regardless of abilities, with one large group of independent markers marking all of the tests in the same way and removing the possibilities of possible manipulation of the testing situations, intentionally or accidentally, the test is no longer standardized even if all of the questions are the same.  There are just too many outside factors possible to make this testing equitable.  Let schools use the information for the way that it was intended and not let outside agencies compromise the validity of a non-standardized standardized test.

What is the Role of Report Cards?

When report cards are sent home I always wonder what the reactions will be at the different homes. What conversations will they have? How much money will be given based on the grades, or how much will be offered if they improve? How many comparisons to siblings' or friends' report cards will be made? How long the students will be grounded or what will be their consequences for a substandard report card in their parents' eyes?  There are so many external pressures on our students that it has made me rethink report cards and what their purpose is and whether or not letter grades serve a purpose at the Elementary level.

In my district we are starting the conversation about the purpose of letter grades, are there better ways to report the information and what changes can be made to report cards to alleviate some of the pressure on our younger students.  What essential elements must be maintained in an elementary report card?  What information needs to be in there, and how can it best be conveyed?

I feel that grade 4-7 is a transition time between the parent being the one primarily responsible for taking ownership over the student's learning to the student taking full ownership.  The students need to develop critical thinking skills in order to be able to take on that responsibility.  Parent support is always hugely important, but if the child does not know how/where to make changes in their work, then the capacity for improvement diminishes.  Every child has skills that they need to develop further letter grades can distract them and their parents from what needs to be focussed on.  I am also not convinced that 9 year olds are necessarily mature enough to understand what these letter grades mean, and if they are to have meaningful dialogue with their parents, they need to understand.

Here are what I believe to be some essential elements that need to be in a report card:

1. What are the student's strengths?  Every student has amazing talents and we need to find ways to celebrate them whether they fall in Mathematics, Athletics, Language Arts or Fine Arts.  Every student should have experienced some triumph in that reporting period. There needs to be something celebrated for every student.
2. What are some learning goals that the students can work on at school and that the parents can support them with at home?  Parents want to be involved, but unfortunately there are too many who are unsure of what to work on or how to help.  If it appears to be too general then they become overwhelmed and feel helpless.  Focussing on a few goals makes it tangible for the students and for the parents to see how they can progress. This is the same for students who are excelling and for those who are struggling.
3. Where have they progressed?  What are some areas or improvement that need to be celebrated?  This should be tied into the learning goals.  If there were learning goals that were put into the last report card, has the child met them, are they progressing with them?  Is this an area that requires even more attention than originally thought?
4. How is the child doing developmentally?  Is the student meeting the expected learning outcomes for their age?  I believe for the most part the parents want to know that their child is doing OK, not where they might be ranked.
5. Conveying to the parents that you know their child.  If the parent feels as though the child that is described in the report card is not their's, then the rest of the report card becomes moot.   What can you put into the report card that show you know the child, what can you comment on, what personality aspect can you describe?  There is always the possibility that the child behaves differently at home, or that you and the parents see things in a different light, but for the most part they should be reading it and thinking "He/She really knows/gets my kid".

Does there need to be any more information than this?  The report card becomes more individualized, the learning becomes more focussed and the dialogue between home and school becomes easier.  If parents know how and where they can help their children then the dialogue about assignments that come home is richer and more purposeful, the dialogue between the teacher and the parents is richer and more purposeful and the dialogue between the teacher and the student becomes richer and more purposeful.  At the end of the day, is that not what a report card should be doing?   I am not convinced that our current report cards do that.

Now, what should the report card look like? hmmm

How can I get mad when I did the same thing as a kid?

A few days ago, a couple of my grade 5s were running towards the playground with a monster-sized umbrella.  Looking at the two boys, I knew exactly what they were up to.  I called out "Don't even think about it!"  They looked at me quite befuddled as to how I knew what they were going to do before they even got to playground.  They were planning on climbing to the top of the playground, probably around 7-8 feet high and see if the umbrella would act like a parachute.  How did I know?  Because I did the same thing as a kid, and truth be told, there was a part of me that was very tempted to join them.

Every once in a while I have a student who has been sent to the office.  They tell me the story and I have to stop myself from laughing, or try to act upset, when in the back of my mind I am thinking "Yikes, I did that around that age", or even worse "that sounds like a lot of fun...".  Of course I would never admit it to the kids in the office, but it is always good at a dinner meeting or two to share the story about using sticks as swords, rolling down muddy hills on your side, running on sheets of ice...

A couple of weeks ago I saw a boy wet a paper towel look skywards and was about to launch it towards the ceiling when I happened to check in because I was hearing some noise.  He looked at me, I looked at him, he put it in the trash, apologized and we had a little chat about respect.  In the back of my mind I am thinking, hmmm, grade 7 if I recall.  I had walked into the boys washroom and saw a ton of toilet paper that had been stuck to the ceiling and I started to wonder if paper towel would stick as well as toilet paper.  Now there was a ton of tp on the ceiling and I have some rather cursed luck when it comes to timing.  I launched it at the ceiling and just as I did the custodian came in and saw me throw it, looked at the ceiling and next thing I know I was talking to M. Talmanis, my principal.  The worst part of it was that my mom taught at my school so it did not take long for her to find her way down to the office to join in the fun or berating me for my lack of respect for the school.

A few years ago I had a kindergarten boy in my office because I had heard that he said a bad word.  Usually this consists of idiot, stupid or something like that.  Occasionally they are harsher words.  This boy had been told by a friend of his brother's that there was a word that he could use that was really bad and that it was fun to see people react to him using it, the F bomb.  When I asked him what was it that he had been saying he told me flat out, which caught me off guard, as usually they will just say "the f-word" and not the actual f bomb.  I asked him what made him say that and he told me the story, again dropping the F-bomb when he came to what he had said.  I told him that he should not be using the word anymore but he said that he had to because I told him that he had to tell me truth.  Got me on that one.  How did I relate? I was 4 or 5 when I found out about that word and loved to write it out to get a rise out of other people as well as writing it around the entire perimeter of my bed to the point that when my parents moved my bed they were greeted by that word written many times over.  My mom likes to share that story with people at dinner, although her reaction at the time was not quite as amusing.

I am not trying to justify the "Boys will be boys" attitude, but rather just share the random thoughts that pop into my head.  Every once in a while I look at many of my more intelligent ideas, some of which I can lay blame on my older brother for encouraging me to do it, others were purely of my own creation.  I deal with them appropriately, but every once in a while, after the kids of left, a staff member joins me and we get a good laugh out of it.

examples of not so great ideas:
1) Hanging out of a second floor window because my brother told me that I could easily jump to the ground and hanging from the window sill and screaming until my parents, who were having a dinner party, came up to pull me back in.

2) trying to climb a tree by attaching a rope to a very large rock and only watching to see if the rock went over the branch and not where it was going to land.  Not sure I ever recovered from that concussion as a 6 year old.

3) Being 15 and hell bent on doing a 360 while skiing meant finding a jump that was around 6-7 feet high, flying off of it, only getting around to do a 180 and crashing in the powder.  Then I would get back up and try again.  Never did do a 360, but I did have bruises 360 degrees around me.

4) Playing follow the leader, as a 7 year old, on bikes while crossing a major street (King Edward for those in Vancouver) and somehow only getting a sprained ankle from when the car hit me.

Is being stupid a right of passage for boys, or do we just become smarter about the stupid things that we do?  It does make it easier to see what is about to happen because, more often than not, I either did the same thing of thought of doing the same thing.