Too much in one week

Well it wasn't quite the 8 days a week the Beatles sang about, but it was a 6 day week at least! Sunday we all had to be at school at 1:30 to welcome the visiting committee from NEASC. At 2 we did an hour long presentation with Staff and students highlighting some of the cool things we have been doing at Maranacook. The French teacher and I presented along with a student about the Rhone American Cemetery project we did connected to our trip to France last Spring and showed the news clip that covered it. (On a related note, we also found out our new course for next year Sacrifice for Freedom will run! We have 13 students signed up and it will team-taught between myself and the French teacher. Students will earn 1/2 credit in foreign language, and 1/2 credit in social studies. They will be continuing the work of finding families and telling the stories of the soldiers buried in Europe as well as civilians. We have lots of international organizations supporting us, and we are planning for another exchange, its all very exciting!). Then we had a 30 minute break followed by one on one interviews with visiting committee members to talk about our classes and student work. After these interviews there was a brief reception with refreshments and I was on my way home by 5:30. It went fine, but not how most of us want to spend a Sunday afternoon. The visiting committee headed back to their Hotel where they worked until about 9:30pm to prepare for their observations which started on Monday.

(The Rhone American Cemetery we visited in France last April)

Monday's classes went well. We analyzed dreams and talked about different theories around dream analysis in Psychology. In U.S. history we did a mini stock market simulation meant to show the crash of the market in 1929 that went very well. I had only 2 visitors come in one class, and in in another. My 3rd class had no one come in! After school was meeting time! I was chair of the curriculum committee and we wrote the report about how our curriculum aligns with the NEASC standards. The meeting went well and we were able to tell them our concerns as well as emphasize what we do well. That was followed by a meeting with the Leadership Team. I thought the questions in this meeting were interesting. They assumed that the Team had been a part of a common instructional and planning model and I do not think we have. Perhaps we are moving in this direction?

Tuesday I had to miss out on the NEASC stuff in order to attend a training around the Marzano Teaching Standards. The way teachers are being evaluated is changing and we are looking to adopt the model advocated by Dr. Marzano. As a result, a team of about 15 teachers from my district met with teams from others schools in the State for a 2nd training. The first one was abysmal to put it kindly. This presentation was better, more engaging and relevant. I always find it comical when teachers are "taught" a new way of teaching that is nothing like lecturing from slides and yet to be taught this new method they lecture from slides. Do they really not get the hypocrisy? Having said that, I understand why Marzano's model is appealing. Rather than the Observer doing a lot of work in advance to observe a class, the teacher does all the work to prepare the Observer! Isn't that great? I am over exaggerating a bit, but the fact remains that if a teacher wants to get a high mark on the scale they are going to have to give the Observer lots of information in advance and make sure their lesson does certain things Marzano requires. It may be good teaching, but if you don't monitor for at least 50% of the student's understanding you are in trouble! Oh well, there will be more to come on this!

Wednesday was a normal day, the only one of the week really. Anticipation was high for just what the visiting committee would say in our staff meeting as they left to finalize the written report. What they said was a mixed bag to be honest! They praised our advisor/advisee program and commented on some of the other good things we are doing. What surprised me most was the feeling of being scolded we got in the revelation of the recommendations. I know partially it is the style of the NEASC chair, but it definitely felt misplaced. The emphasis was on lack of community support and lack of adherence to the core values and beliefs which I feel just isn't true. What is true is that there was a general malaise about some of the criteria NEASC was asking from us that felt to many to be not as important as things like updating the curriculum, aligning with common core, and more. I thought our Principal and our Superintendent sent out wonderful responses afterward. They reminded us that of course we have areas to improve on, but we should be proud of what we have accomplished and what we do for students. So at least that's over for now!

Thursday came and I thought I lucked out, no school! But alas, we were called in to still have parent/teacher conferences that night. I had 6 parents signed up and all 6 came. I was also able to get some work done so it worked out really well. It's always nice to see parents but I can't help but wonder if we could somehow make this better? 4 hours and 6 parents just seems like its not really working the way its intended?

Friday was a workshop day for us. In the morning we looked at literacy strategies with the hopes of picking a few for grades 6-12 that we would agree to use each year in all classes 6-12. I really enjoyed talking with my colleagues about the work I had done around compare and contrast. I also learned about a few other strategies. We picked 6 strategies (from the books The Core Six, Notice and Note, and The Thinkquuiry Toolkit) and I feel really good about all 6. The plan is that we will teach all 6 of these strategies each year 6-12 (but not necessarily in every class). I think this will help students tremendously and one of the first examples of vertical articulation in our curriculum I have seen in years! The afternoon was devoted to learning about proficiency based education. The state of Maine requires the class of 2018 (next year's 9th grade) to graduate with a proficiency based diploma. this means we have to have things in place for 9th graders in the Fall. I liked how the information was presented, it was designed to get us to shift our paradigm. However, I have lots of concerns mostly about where the time will come from to do this well, but I'm also concerned about students and parents understanding this shift.

(this is from our literacy workshop today)

Next week we will have the rest of the Moral Courage presentations and we will be studying the Great Depression in my U.S. History classes. I have my last round of parent/teacher conferences on Tuesday night and a field trip to the Margaret Chase Smith Library and Museum on Thursday. Finally, next Saturday morning is a "Food for Thought" networking session at the Margaret Chase Smith Library sponsored by the Maine Council for the Social Studies. The good news is that we will be in Florida on vacation in less than 4 weeks!