Category: Uncategorized

Poverty, Student Learning, and Coronavirus

by Stephen Danna, posted in Poverty, Teaching, Uncategorized

It seems eons ago when I presented a session in early March on Poverty and the Brain to 200 P-12 educators at a small city school district in Upstate New York. The district had a relatively high economically-disadvantaged student population of 46%, and a students with disability population of 21%. My presentation focused on two questions: 1) How does poverty impact student learning?, and 2) What are the instructional implications for students from poverty? Reflecting back with a full blown pandemic now underway, it is heartbreaking to imagine how our most needy students and families will emerge when “normalcy” returns. Fractured is one way to envision the impacts. Fractured in spirit. Fractured in body. Fractured in mind. Poverty takes a terrible toll on student learning, particularly during periods of self-isolation.fractured-ice

Early in the session I asked the group to individually, and then with a partner, consider how poverty impacts student learning. We followed that with a whole group conversation. The same was done for instructional implications. Notes were recorded (see below)

The educators understood first hand poverty’s impacts. But what about now in the Covid-19 pandemic world? What impacts have been exacerbated through stay at home measures, including online learning, to reduce the spread and “flatten the curve”?  I  circled items as ones we all should find especially concerning at this time. How can children learn when their basic needs for shelter, food,….are not being met, or where the home environment lacks structure, putting students in a self-preservation mode and lacking any motivation for learning? 

The teachers’ thoughts on instructional implications for children with poverty were rightfully focused on classroom environment and relationships, now made more pressing with children at home, away from classmates and teachers. Some of our most needy students are in home environments stressed by financial worries, joblessness, and lack of food. Building community and loving those students is a challenge when interactions are virtual, assuming our most needy even have the necessary technology and broadband for face to face virtual communications. And of course, the consistency and structure implications are completely out the window. The pandemic we find ourselves is real, and smart teachers will use the current times to bring relevance into their lessons. And yes, there will be some advocation for our students, but not what could exist back in school.

These are trying times for society, particularly for those on the front lines (health workers, public safety personnel, grocers, farmers….). For those in education, we must be particularly mindful for the most at-risk students and families who will surely exit self containment at a greater disadvantage than when entered. 

Change: Why so Difficult??

by Stephen Danna, posted in Change, Leadership, School Building Leader, Teacher Leader, Uncategorized

Are you a change agent, or does the whole notion of change create a feeling of unease? Perhaps you are in the middle, open to change, but experiencing a bit of initiation fatigue. Change is a complex, obligatory process for progress, yet frequently met with resistance and fear. Why? In the words of Karen Salmansohn, “What if I told you that 10 years from now, your life would be exactly the same? I doubt you’d be happy. So why are you so afraid of change?” I’m with Karen on this one. Let’s not be afraid of change.

Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com

I recently had the pleasure of doing a workshop on change with a group of school administrators participating in an Administrative Leadership Development Series sponsored by SUNY Plattsburgh at Queensbury’s Educational Leadership Program and WSWHE BOCES. I began with a think-pair share around these questions: What makes change so difficult? Think of a change project that worked, and how/why it worked. Think of a change project that didn’t work, and how/why it didn’t. We followed our discussions with some conversation around my favorite change models (Fullan, NASSP’s Breaking Ranks, Kotter, and Scharmer).

Fear, loss of autonomy, history of failed change efforts, being comfortable with present conditions, an implication of doing something wrong, and a lack of leadership were identified for why change was so difficult.

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For specific change projects that worked, efforts were research-based, had a sense of urgency with strong and passionate leadership, clearly-defined goals (“begin with the end in mind”), adequate resources, and data to monitor and adjust efforts. Change efforts that didn’t work had no buy-in, were inconsistent, tried to do too much too fast, or were burdened by an unhealthy school culture, lack of goals, and inadequate resources.

The administrators clearly had experience with change efforts, both good and bad. Change is not nuclear science, but it can sure be messy and painful. In many ways, change is an emotional rollercoaster with oneself and others that requires resilience, vulnerability, and courage.

Here are some change models to consider when seeking to bring about change (Click here to check out my post on Climate Change and Kotter’s 8 Steps).

Fullan’s Eight Lessons (From Fullan’s Change Forces)

  1. You can’t mandate what matters – The more complex the change the less you can force it
  2. Change is a journey not a blueprint – Change is non-linear, loaded with uncertainty and excitement and sometimes perverse
  3. Problems are our friends – Problems are inevitable and you can’t learn without them
  4. Vision and strategic planning come later – Premature visions and planning blind
  5. Individualism and collectivism must have equal power – There are no one-sided solutions to isolation and group think
  6. Neither centralization nor decentralization works – Both top-down and bottom-up strategies are necessary
  7. Connection with the wider environment is critical for success – The best organizations learn externally as well as internally
  8. Every person is a change agent – Change is too important to leave to the experts, personal mindset and mastery is the ultimate protection

Breaking Ranks (National Association of Secondary School Principals)

Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model (2002)

  1. Increase urgency
  2. Build the guiding team
  3. Get the vision right
  4. Communicate for buy- in
  5. Empower action
  6. Create short-term wins
  7. Don’t let up
  8. Make change stick

Otto Scharmer’s Theory U (2002)

We all have blind spots from which we function, and four levels for how we respond to change: reacting, redesigning, reframing, and presencing. Most systems remain at stage one and two, fewer get to level three, and level four is a special area where leaders and followers together reach their highest potential (p. 52). To get to presencing requires an open mind, heart, and will of all participants . Presencing exists when individuals go beyond their source of awareness or blind spot to one of possibility; where the future and present merge to act on “one’s highest future potential” (Scharmer, 2009, p. 8).

Whether we’re looking at Fullan, Kotter, Breaking Ranks, Scharmer, or other change models, entropy is at play and change happens, so go out and proactively address what needs changing. Good luck.

Fullan, M. (1993). Change forces: Probing the depths of educational reform. New York. The Falmer Press.

Kotter, J. P., & Cohen, D. S. (2012). The heart of change: real-life stories of how people change their organizations. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.

Scharmer, C. O. (2009). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges : the social technology of presencing. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

The (New) Teacher Recommendation Letter

by Stephen Danna, posted in Mindset, Teacher Leader, Teaching, Uncategorized

One of my greatest joys is teaching graduate students in our Masters of Science in Teaching (MST) Program. Preparing future educators for the classroom is an honor and responsibility not to be taken lightly. Master Course Outlines and associated course syllabi define a program’s merits, and the very best offer a well-rounded student experience grounded in curriculum, instruction, and assessment (In my unbiased opinion, SUNY Plattsburgh’s Education Programs are exceptional). The tricky part I have found is writing letters of recommendation for students finishing their student teaching and preparing to find a job. What should one look for when writing these critical letters, and how best to convey one’s enthusiasm for particular students who have the makings of greatness? It is not an easy task writing recommendation letters for individuals without the track record of practicing educators, but there are some student dispositions, skills and understandings I believe tie to future performance.

Grades matter, certainly, but there are other, sometimes more important, measures to consider. The lens I start with is what I want for my daughter’s teachers. Compassionate, patient, dedicated, fun-loving, witty, smart, persistent, confident, unique and innovative, communicative, open-minded, and well-respected, are measures found in the very best educators–and these are measures I can evaluate in the graduate MST classroom. In other words, what I’m looking for in a future educator are habits of mind that lead to success. How do my students interact with one another? Are they collaborators, or prefer to do their work separate from others? Do they have fun in class, and enjoy each other’s company? Are they innovative, tech-savvy, confident and humble? Are failures or challenges seen as opportunities, and do they persist? What type of mindset do they hold, growth or fixed? And why did they choose education? So many things to consider.

It takes but a few years classroom experience for the “newbies” to separate themselves from others, becoming the teachers children adore, parents want for their kids, and principals protect and mold. Such educators develop into the informal or formal teacher leaders within the school, and embrace their work for what it is: shaping and molding young minds to become productive, mindful, knowledgeable, and able members of a democratic society. And that is why the letter of recommendation for graduate MST students is so important to get right.

Cultivating Gratitude in the Classroom

by Stephen Danna, posted in Anxiety, Teaching, Uncategorized

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”-Anonymous.

I’ve made a few lifestyle changes over the past year, including daily meditation using an app I found on the Internet. Frequently, a meditation will encourage the listener to focus on his or her blessings, rather than misfortunes. I must admit feeling better and more optimistic following such meditations, which made me wonder: Does teaching gratitude have a place in today’s schools? Could daily gratitude exercises change students’ brains, making them more resilient and positive? Might grateful students be less anxious than others?  I did the research, and the answers are “Yes!, Yes!, and Yes!!”.IMG_1125.jpeg

Teaching gratitude has a place in the classroom. In fact, daily gratitude exercises should be part and parcel of the P-12 curriculum. Research shows gratitude changes the brain in positive ways, and makes people happier. In a 2017 Berkeley study by Joel Wong and Joshua Brown, individuals directed to write weekly gratitude letters, whether sent or not, had improved mental well-being versus those not directed to write letters. Gratitude activates the medial prefrontal cortex, increases dopamine levels, and yes, decreases stress and anxiety levels.

The human experience is such that we will forever deal with negativity bias, with discomforting experiences being more sticky than positive ones. However, educators can change students’ mindsets. We can help students feel more happy, more satisfied with themselves and others, and more willing to see challenges as opportunities rather than unfair burdens. So, yes, practice gratitude in the classroom. Write letters of thanks to others. Do daily gratitude dumps, solo, or in pairs, to start or end the day.  And see the glow that develops as gratitude takes root in your classroom.

ps. If there are ways you practice gratitude in the classroom, please share.

 

 

Are Students Excited About School?

by Stephen Danna, posted in Teaching, Uncategorized

Dear Reader, I have a confession to make: I disliked high school. A lot. A real lot. In fact, I disliked it so much I stopped going my senior year. Eventually my truancy caught up with me, and to graduate, I had to run laps in PE class, one for each day I “cut” school. It took three weeks of running before I erased the days skipped. I was marathon-ready after that experience. Perhaps you, too, disliked school? For me, it was my inattentiveness, what we’d term today as ADHD, and common family stressors. Regardless, high school was a boring, tedious experience for me and many of my friends. Are things different today?

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Data from a Pew Research report on social trends  (2018) suggests things may not be too different. For 920 teens, ages 13-17, who responded to an AmeriSpeak survey which informed the report, students’ excitement for what they studied at school was less than 50%. Girls (33%) more regularly got excited about something they learned at school than boys (21%), partly explaining why 33% of boys say they never get in daily trouble at school versus 48% for girls. Reasons for the numbers are varied, and speak to the many challenges of our complex, digital world confounded by a divided nation. What’s an educator to do given these data?

My suggestion is to practice the Three Rs: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. Balancing rigor with students’ abilities is a fine dance, akin to the Goldilocks phenomena. Content can’t be too easy lest one lose student’s interest, nor too hard, sparking student anxiety and disengagement. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development captures this idea in a more scientific manner. Relevance, the second “R”, is what excites me as a former curriculum director. Taking learning standards and developing lessons and units that both match standards and motivate students is a true creativity thrill. We all know students get excited when they are doing work that interests them. Relationships, the third “R”, is honoring what drives our species. We are social beings, and thrive working in concert with others. Problem solving, debating, strategizing, celebrating, etc…are things humans like doing with one another. Let’s honor our brain’s hard-wiring for challenging, relevant work that involves others by practicing the Three R’s: Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. Let’s get kids excited about school. We can do this.

Brain Candy in the Classroom

by Stephen Danna, posted in Teaching, Uncategorized

Motivating and keeping students on task is one of teaching’s biggest challenges, particularly in today’s stimulus-rich tech environment. It’s not easy competing with smartphones, tablets, or computers as social media sites such as instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, etc… light up screens, tapping directly into the brain’s reward pathway.   “Likes”, right swipes, and new emojis give us a sense of satisfaction as these rewarding stimuli trigger the release of dopamine. The pleasurable sensations associated with dopamine make it true candy for the brain.

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Photo by Foodie Factor on Pexels.com

Dopamine is a critical neurotransmitter which, among other things, rewards humans for behavior necessary for survival.  Food, sex, listening to a favorite song, or accomplishing one’s goals all trigger dopamine release and teach the brain that such behaviors are good for the individual and worth repeating. Dopamine is often cited with addictions, and so it goes with such a powerful neurotransmitter.  Good or bad, the brain and body respond to dopamine.

Savvy teachers learn early designing lessons which allow frequent student success are more motivational than those with few success opportunities, and the neuroscience behind dopamine explains why such designs work. Each small success towards well-defined goals triggers a dopamine release, rewarding and motivating the student to continue their efforts. Long term projects such as papers, presentations, or other authentic projects are best designed to include measurable and achievable goals and benchmarks that motivate students through project completion. Remember that each small success rewards the student with a little dopamine rush; and that is better than any candy bowl.

 

Finding a Job Coach

by Stephen Danna, posted in Teaching, Uncategorized

What had I gotten myself into? Weeks before school started, the unorthodox teacher knew he needed help both from above and in the trenches. A growing sense of anxiety gnawed at his lack of teaching skills, knowledge, and experience. He had a Master’s Degree, but in Oceanography, not Education. His exposure to teaching was what he received as a student, and that didn’t always conjure up good memories. No, he needed a mentor, a confidant, a friend. Someone who would warn him of the common pitfalls new teachers make. A person who would happily share best ideas and practices, and be a phone call away to look over lesson plans or anything else used in the classroom. A master tactician who knew how to keep a potentially rambunctious group engaged, while maintaining good relations with parents. With but one week till classes at St. Mary’s Academy started, the unorthodox teacher had not found that much-needed mentor, and his sense of dread was approaching a calamitous level. And then he met Al.Screen Shot 2017-06-24 at 7.54.41 AM

Al was an older guy I met on the Saratoga Springs YMCA racquetball court. New to the area, and in my first week of school, I was hanging out at the courts hoping to find a game. In no time, I was invited to play doubles, and Al was my partner. I don’t remember whether we won or lost the game, but I knew I’d won a friend and mentor that afternoon when Al asked what I did for a living. Al was a veteran Advanced French teacher with 30+ years experience, and I felt a virtual arm drape across my shoulders when I told him I was a new teacher in my first week of teaching. Though 30+ years had elapsed since Al first started teaching, he understood my situation. Al and I would continue playing racquetball together, but we spent more time talking teaching. He was my lifeline. My mentor. My friend and confidant. He told me how to get students engaged in the lesson. The importance of having fun in class. Why relationships matter. How poor kids sometimes are disadvantaged. That not all students learn the same way. To forgive yourself for mistakes. To be honest and admit when you don’t know the answers. To play games embedded with content. To not take things students say or do personal. To enjoy the greatest career in the world.

Reflecting back 30 years, I remember my first mentor as if it were yesterday. The relationship and trust that developed between Al and me were indelible, and though I would find other mentors over the years, none were as that first new teacher-mentor experience. I would become a mentor myself, and do my best to cultivate what Al and I had. The New York State Education Department (NYSED) would eventually offer grant monies for districts to create mentor programs, responding to the tragically high attrition rate in teaching. I would participate as a professional developer in many of the NYSED funded mentoring programs, and would come to find the most successful programs were those that focused on relationships, trust, and coaching.  Programs that focused on finding the right mentor. A mentor skilled in his or her craft, and who cared deeply about students, colleagues, and learning. One who would become the trustworthy confidant a new teacher could lean on.  Al was such a person.

Finding My Way to Psychology

by Michael Homenick, posted in Poverty, Uncategorized

I wish I could say I had always wanted to be a Psychologist.  But in fact it wasn’t until I got to college and took a ‘Psych’ course by accident (It was the only elective which would fit in my schedule.) that I discovered Psychology. So I switched majors. Even then I had no idea what kind of Psychology I wanted to go into.  It wasn’t until I was graduating from college and trying to figure out ‘now what?’ that a friend who also was not sure what he wanted to do called me up and said “Let’s be teachers.”  “What?” I replied. Screen Shot 2017-06-17 at 7.51.26 AM

At the time the city of New York, where I was going to college, was desperate for teachers in the inner city areas.  To fill their open positions, they placed ads in the newspapers.  I had no, that’s zero, education courses or training. But the city was willing to accept my Psychology, and probably a bunch of other classes in lieu of Education credits.  All I had to do was pass the exams (two parts: written and oral).  The results said I passed by one point.  Really? Maybe I did. Maybe I was a good guesser. Maybe Attila the Hun would have passed if he had taken the test.

So I found my self certified to teach K-6 in New York City and in an elementary school in the South Bronx not too far from where ‘Fort Apache, The Bronx’ with Paul Newman was filmed in 1981. (Google it.)

Excited, I arrived in September with the notion that all people living in poverty needed was some well intended white middle class kid like me to show them how to get out of poverty by cleaning up their neighborhood, coming to school, paying attention, doing their homework, etc., etc., etc..

I was assigned to the school as an ‘above quota teacher’.  I had no classroom assignment. “What?” I asked. “When do I get a classroom?” There were 10 or 15 or us who were in that category.  (Probably all guys like me who had passed the exam by one point.) I was told that as openings came up we would be assigned. There were about 150 classroom teachers in this K-6 school.  

We didn’t have to wait long.  Teaching there was so stressful and difficult that teachers would quit and not come back the next day; a few walked out in the middle of the day.

Four years later I, too, left.  I was no longer the kid with some unrealistic notions about how easy it would be to change things.  Although still a kid in many ways, I at least had a clearer understanding of the complexity of what happens in a school. I saw how poverty and family life affect learning and above all how difficult it is for kids, who are pretty powerless in the system, to change things on their own.

A few years later, I was accepted into a School Psychology program and then after a few years working in the schools as a School Psychologist, I completed my doctorate and went into private practice working primarily with families and kids.

My Teacher is a “Cook”

by Stephen Danna, posted in Poverty, Uncategorized

The unorthodox teacher was many things to many people, but for one 14-year-old boy, the unorthodox teacher was a “cook”. Yup, clearly etched into the top of his wooden oak desk read the line, “Mr. Danna is a cook”. To be honest, the engraved declaration was not as pedestrian as his Earth Science teacher working as a cook. Rather, the boy had creatively proclaimed in bold black number 2 pencil stained wood etchings, “Mr. Danna is a cock”. It was only through thoughtful editing by a colleague who chiseled the second “c” to an “o”, that the unorthodox teacher transformed from sexual organ (cock) to someone who could make a good burger (cook).P1040370

Kids scrawl into wooden desks the darnedest things, particularly when they are forced to be with an adult they detest one hour each and every day of a dreadfully long school year.  Micah was one of those angry struggling students during my first year of public school teaching. He saw me as part of a rigid and uncompromising institution, and I saw him as a pain in the “bass”. Truth is we earned each other’s disdain for a lack of understanding and trust. I had set an unrealistically high bar for him, and he rightfully put me in the same box he had put most of his teachers. We didn’t click. We didn’t understand where the other was coming from, and since I was the one in charge, he was forced to communicate in more subtle, creative ways.

During my two prior years at a small Catholic school, students called me “Dr. Detention” for the amount of after school detention I doled out on a daily basis. I had no tolerance for students not doing homework or goofing off in class, and “punished” any rule breakers with an hour after school cleaning “dishes” (lab ware) and completing assigned work. Detention with me was, in my humble opinion, a pretty good deal. St. Mary’s Academy students liked soaping up Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers, and other glassware while I graded papers and made small talk with them, and they appreciated leaving with their class work done. Micah didn’t see things that way, and detention for him was a bad thing. He and I would have a bumpy relationship for most of the year, and eventually I grew to realize how little I knew of the boy’s difficult home life. And with that realization, I stopped assigning Micah detention, and Micah begrudgingly played the game as best he could. I would instead make calls home to chat with Micah’s mother, a woman who was rarely available to take my calls. The unorthodox teacher would learn a lot those first few years about poverty’s impacts on children, and he would become much more sensitive to the burdens of poverty on children.

Teaching with the End in Mind

by Stephen Danna, posted in Teaching, Uncategorized

Open the textbook, look at chapter one, and work through the content and student problems section so there are no doubts in your mind. Review what the state standards have to say about the topic, and be sure the chapter “covers” all critical key ideas. If not, plan on supplementing. Regardless, figure out ways to make the material engaging through humor, passion, and possible relevance. At chapters end, devise your own assessment or use one from the teacher’s resources. Move on to chapter two. And so it goes for the unorthodox teacher.cropped-p1000221.jpg

Having made an abrupt career shift from oceanographer to high school science teacher (Physics and Chemistry, initially), I didn’t have the background knowledge of lesson planning. There were no models or graphic tools to organize the standards, content knowledge, information from the textbook, or other relevant information. I was rudderless and unprepared. But for private schools such as St. Mary’s Academy in Glens Falls, NY, state certification rules allowed one to teach without state certification or an educator preparation program degree. I was hired not for my pedagogical prowess, but for my science background and practical experience working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office.

My students somehow survived my early fumbled attempts at teaching. Lessons were flawed, and I usually flew by the “seat of my pants” staying one chapter ahead of the students. Assessments were inauthentic, low rigor, and used solely to get grades in my grade book that would satisfy students and parents. Remarkably, I found my students were learning, though mostly for their parents’ expectations. SMA was and remains a prestigious school in the city, and many parents continued the tradition though the high school class numbers were rapidly declining.  No, the only problems were my lack of experience.

Reflecting back, the saving grace for me was a passion for teaching and a mindset that Stephen Covey would aptly call, “Begin with the end in Mind”, and which Wiggins and McTighe described as Identify Desired Results.  I did have a goal for my instruction, and the state syllabi for physics and chemistry were my bibles. I highlighted each concept covered throughout the year in the syllabi, to ensure there were no gaps at year’s end, and I persisted when the lesson was a dud or if one or more students still didn’t understand. Failure was not an option. I’d found my passion, and I loved it–in spite of the bumps. My overriding goal was that every student would pass my class and the Regents exam, and we’d have fun along the way.  Eventually I would discover the practitioner tools to lesson plan and build units of instruction. Meanwhile, for my two years at SMA, I often thought at the end of a long day, “How lucky was I to be a teacher!!” And believe it or not, Mondays couldn’t come soon enough.