Plan of Action

Through our study of the Constitution, it becomes very clear that one area of interest for students is in and around their basic rights as citizens. We spend some time looking at the Bill of Rights and key Supreme Court cases to help them better understand what restrictions on their rights the Courts have found over the years and what the rationale was. This year we had the great fortune of having a guest speaker come in and discuss the 4th Amendment and other constitutional issues. James Lawley is an Attorney at Lipman and Katz locally here in Augusta. Though born in the United Kingdom, Mr. Lawley has studied American law exclusively. He spent many years as a Government appointed Defense Attorney in Alabama working Death Penalty cases as well as other cases. Mr. Lawley gave a brief presentation on the 4th Amendment in general, and also how student rights in public school are more restrictive in general. One of the most fascinating aspect of this talk, to me, was the reminder of how fluid these decisions are and how regional they are. After talking about the need to have evidence that provides a reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed in order to search a vehicle, Mr. Lawley told an anecdote of a woman from Texas who was pulled over on an Interstate Highway in Alabama. She had a snickers bar, a fountain, soda, and an open map in plain view. The police determined this was enough to search the car. They made their decision because of the amount of drugs being smuggled from Texas through Alabama on that same Highway. The courts upheld this ruling much to the shock of Mr. Lawley. His point was that this decision may not have been upheld in Maine or any other part of the country, and that it could also be overturned. His talk was fascinating and educational and it was nice for my students to get ask questions of him as well.

(James Lawley speaking to students. The lighting is bad because I don't know how to control the lights in there)

I was observed on Monday by my Principal for the first time. Since we were studying the Constitution and the early days of the US, I chose a lesson connected to the founding of Political Parties that also incorporates the Common Core. This lesson involves Comparing and Contrasting Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. I got this idea for the lesson from the book The Core Six by Harvey F Silver, R Thomas Dewing, Matthew J Perini. We are using this book in the Cross Discipline Literacy Network sponsored by the Maine Department of Education. I will be demonstrating this lesson as part of a Webinar in Novemeber. I think my observation went pretty well and I look forward to hearing suggestions for ways to improve. My Principal asked me if I use our NWEA test scores. I confessed that I do not because I had only seen a set of them one time and no one had ever instructed me on how I could use them. This kind of data analysis would be very interesting to use and I hope to learn how very soon! One of the things the students are asked to do is to identify the key differences between Hamilton and Jefferson and apply their thinking to a modern Governmental issue. They had to explain how both men would feel about the Affordable Care Act. I was very excited to see in depth learning from most of my students in this activity! I was even more excited to see so many of them being able to show understanding of the Affordable Care Act as well. To enhance our study of these two men, I also shared a couple of videos with my students. Many Americans know Hamilton met his match in a pistol duel in New Jersey at the hands of Vice President Aaron Burr over a personal feud. What most don't know, however, is that ESPN covered the event live!! If you like that, then you'll also enjoy this famous "Got Milk?" commercial that our students are too young to remember at this point!

This week was also characterized by finishing up the film Lincoln in History v. Hollywood and using a Choices simulation in my online class through Virtual High School to re-live the Cuban Missile Crisis. With Columbus Day on Monday, we finished up the week with our annual Workshop Day on Friday which gives students a 4 day weekend. When we put Columbus on trial earlier in the year, we discussed the Holiday and raised questions about whether or not it is deserved. I know many students will be thinking about this on Monday, sort of like this Public Service Announcement from 2009. Our workshop day this year was focused around implementing our 5 year action plan. This Summer our school's Leadership Team attended a retreat for 3 days sponsored by the Great Schools Partnership. At this retreat, we identified school goals and developed an action plan including strategies to improve our school. We used our workshop time on Friday to process one part of this plan and work on implementing a more effective way to communicate with parents and students. The hope is that better communication will help support student learning. It is still very early and we are distracted and fatigued by our NEASC accreditation process (which will be basically over after the visiting team comes in March), but I think this action plan will move our school in the right direction. I know the plan is a bit daunting and Staff put in a lot of work on Friday to get this plan off the ground. I really liked the energy from the Staff on Friday and I appreciate that our Principal organized a wonderful Barbecue for us as well!

Next week half of our students are taking PSAT's, while the 9th and 12th graders will be engaged in Advisee Group activities. I will also be launching the iMovie Trailer project and students in Ethics will be presenting their Moral Courage projects.

The Constitution and the Shutdown

In Ethics class this week we have analyzed Rushworth Kidder's curriculum for identifying and resolving Ethical Dilemmas. Through this process, students learn how to identify Right v. Wrong scenarios, and then if its not Right v. Wrong, it is a situation where there seems to be only 2 options and both are equally Right. We call this a dilemma. Kidder has identified the most common types of dilemmas and articulates strategies for trying to figure out how to resolve the dilemmas. Students will next be choosing someone who has demonstrated Moral Courage and then presenting to the class what this person did and what makes it Moral Courage. One of the best resources for this activity is the web site http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/. This website is a series of paintings by Robert Shetterley. It also give a little bit of information about each person. Its a great place for students to start in looking for someone who has demonstrated Moral Courage. What's awesome is that Shetterley is actually from Maine!

(Nelson Mandela, a great example of Moral Courage)

In History v. Hollywood we have begun watching the film Lincoln. When I first saw this film last November, I was blown away by the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis. I remain transfixed by his work here, but upon repeated viewings I really feel Tommy Lee Jones was somewhat overlooked as Thaddeus Stevens. At any rate, the work of Stephen Spielberg here is pure genius!

Great conversations in class about the techniques of Spielberg and about how films teach about the Civil War and Slavery. We start our film projects next week!

In my other classes we have continued our study of the Constitution. Much time was spent this week on the Bill of Rights and also on how the Courts have ruled that these Rights are slightly different in public schools for a variety of reasons. To help with this we have a guest speaker coming in on Monday. This guest speaker is an Attorney who will discuss 4th Amendment Rights and other rights as well.

One of the biggest issues of the week was the Government shutdown. Students have had lots of questions and its really a tough subject to explain briefly. The most accurate resources I found for this are Democracy Now! and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Still, its a complex topic and students want an easy answer!

Next week I will be observed by my Principal delivering my first Common Core aligned lesson (which I will share), we have the guest speaker coming, and showdown between Hamilton and Jefferson!!!

We won't stop until we get to the top!

This week in class we delved into propaganda and point of view in analyzing the different perspectives on the American Revolution. We read accounts of the Boston Massacre and analyzed the famous image by Paul Revere to talk about the social, political, and economic implications of the conflict.

We also started looking at the Articels of Confederation and how that led to the Constituional Convention. We don't have a separate required Government course in my school, so to address those Standards we deal with them in US History. The people at The Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics provided me with 3 DVDs and a set of 4 Books for free about 6 years ago. Most recently, I discovered that all of these resources are now available for free online! The videos are well done and designed to be engaging for students. I also use parts of the We The People textbook, which I received a classroom set for free after attending a workshop on the Center for Civic Education. What I like about this text is that is has critical thinking scenarios that helps students apply what they learn to their own lives. To help with this area of study we also have a guest speaker coming to our school in about a week. This man is an attorney who has worked in the South and the West around Constitutional Law. I am also using a resource that former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor helped to create called iCivics. This great resource has online games for students to play that they actually like!

O'Connor delivered a keynote address at last year's Maine Council for the Social Studies Conference. I am on the board for this group and truly enjoy this work. Much of our time is devoted to planning the annual Conference. Last year the Conference was fantastic and we had an awesome turnout. This year the Conference is shaping up to be even better! It is held on Friday November 8 at the Augusta Civic Center. The Keynote address this year deals with the Gettysburg Address (150th anniversary this November) and I am looking forward to it!

The highlight of my week, however, was our Advisee Day Out! Every year at the end of September we have an Advisee Day Out. Each grade level does something pertaining to the grade level goals and by Advisee group. Every student is a member of a group of about 9-11 or so students assigned to one Advisor for all 4 years. Seniors use this day to plan Project Graduation and Graduation related activities. Juniors are out in the Community performing Community Service through Advisee groups. The Sophomores make use of a MELMAC grant to tour 3 different Universities in the State. I am a Freshmen Advisor and our goal is group building so we decided to hike up Mt. Battie in Camden, Maine.

(The stone tower located on top of Mount Battie)

(The view from the top of Mount Battie- stolen from fellow Advisor Paula Weisberger)

The whole Freshmen class traveled to 2 different trails of varying degrees of difficulty in an attempt to support the whole group hiking to the top. Each group made a flag for the hike. One of my advisees put on our group flag "We won't stop until we get to the top!" and that was more or less true! The hike took a bout an hour and my group was on the challenging trail so it was definitely a workout, but one that was well worth it. I think I have one advisee who will forever be looking for Bigfoot while walking in the woods, but that's ok because I also am forever looking for Bigfoot! The weather was amazing on this day! It was in the 60''s and mostly sunny. The Freshmen class is just a nice group of kids in general and that helps a lot. I also have a great group of fellow Advisors. We have been together as Advisors, most of us for 3 full cycles (a cycle is 9-12th grade) and all of us have been together for one full cycle. I really enjoy the group because they are clearly committed to making days like this work, they know how to have fun and enjoy humor, and they are dependable and reliable. There have been times when an Advisor has been ill, had a family emergency, or something else and the others have stepped up to help out. It truly does feel like a family and I think that carries over to the students and plays a role in forming those bonds!

(Myself and 2 fellow Advisors in the bus on the way to Mount Battie)

I ended my week at a training for developing Webinars to discuss Literacy strategies across content areas. The Maine Department of Education has a grant to support this work and is paying a bunch of us to develop Webinars to showcase the Literacy strategies we are using in our classrooms. These Webinars will be part of a Professional Development opportunity for teachers. This is known as the Cross Discipline Literacy Network. Many of the resources will be made available to anyone for free, but the program has other components to it and there is a small fee to access the entire program which is designed for Maine teachers. I am working on strategies I have developed from a book called The Core Six and specifically using close reading to support Compare and Contrast strategies.

More Government and the film Lincoln next week!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Just finished the longest week of the year! What makes it so long is our annual Open House, or Mini-schedule night. On Tuesday night (why a Tuesday? Who knows!) we had an event for parents from 6-8 pm. On this evening parents can follow their child's schedule and have a few minutes in each class to meet the teacher and get to know something about the class. We have been doing this ever since I have been at this school and attendance has never been great. However, it is definitely less than it used to be. Less than a quarter of the students in the school had parents come to the Open House. There were 2 soccer games and a Field Hockey game that night and I know this had an impact. Still, it seems like a difficult time of year for people to find the time to come in. I also wonder if many of them see a need since by week 3 the students know their classes very well. I have long since wondered if we did it the night before the first day, if we would have a better turnout? Parents could sign all that paperwork there and even take home the iPad! Perhaps parents and students would both attend looking ot meet their teachers before the first day? Also, there are no papers to grade, no homework, and no games at that time of year. In the past when I have suggested this, it has fallen on deaf ears. We will see if this trend continues. Perhaps it won't increase attendance, but I know doing nothing won't increase attendance either. I hope the parents who did come found it worthwhile and I enjoyed talking to them.

One of the things we are working on this year is to improve communication with parents. I personally have been working on this for three years. I came up with an idea for my advisee group where 2 times a month I would email the parents in my group with a newsletter of sorts about things going on at school that impact their children. This has been met with praise and I have continued it this year with my new group and it seems to be going well. We have also discussed communicating with parents in our classes about what is going on in class. The program we use for School Information, PowerSchool, has a feature whereby you can type up an email explaining what is going on in class and in one click it will send it to the parents of all students registered in the class. Our goal is to try and make a communication like this once a month. I decided that on the heels of the Open House would be a good time to try it. So I sent my first email for each class on Friday. My email included generic information about what we are studying in the class and some due dates for upcoming assignments. I received a few responses from parents thanking me for the information. What was disheartening, however, was a couple of responses I received that were not only rude in the content but also explicitly said in no uncertain terms don't send me another email like this. This was distressing to me. I am shocked that anyone would not want some general information from time to time about what their child is doing in school. But that's just me and I guess there are plenty of others who disagree. I have to admit that it hurt my feelings to see such a vitriolic response to something that was meant to be helpful and supportive. I made a note to remove those folks from future emails, that's not a problem. But my personality is such that for a few days those rude words will continue to bother me. Just a little insight into what it is like to be a teacher sometimes!

Now for better stuff! We also had our first PLC this week! Professional Learning Communities (sometime called CFGs or Critical Friends Groups) meet during Late Starts once a month. During this time we meet in a small group of diverse High School teachers to share ideas about teaching, current research on teaching, share student work, and more all in an effort to improve learning for our students. I have improved things in my practice a great deal over the years from this work, and I now this has improved student learning as a result. Part of what makes a PLC work is the bond of trust in the group. I really enjoy working with the folks in my group and even when we add new people, it feels like we work very hard to support each other. I have taken a class on the PLC concept and am a big supporter of the philosophy. I have heard form those who are not as enthusiastic and I understand it is difficult and can even be intimidating to make our practice transparent, but I believe it is very important and this is why the group bond is so crucial.

We have been studying the events leading to the Revolution in my US History classes. There are a few resources I have used to help with this. To help with analyzing and understanding historical documents we used a book on Document Based Questions. Although the DBQ is thought of as an AP exam skill, there are now lots of resources applying the concept to other levels of students. This resource book does a great job with this and includes a variety of DBQ's on different time periods. We used the one on the Revolution for practice in groups. Students will then write an essay using the documents and their analysis of them. We also watched a couple of cool videos. the folks at Soomo Publishing have created wonderful music video about the Revolution. They also have a variety of videos from different eras in history and are working on more. We also watched the old Schoolhouse Rock Video about the Shot Heard Around the World. This is a great video for discussing the myths surrounding the Revolution and how they contribute to American pride and Nationalism. For the students who like the military aspect of the Revolution, History Animated has an interactive web page that shows what happened in each battle using maps and sound effects.

In History vs. Hollywood we finished watching the film Glory this week. Students are now working on Film Reviews. A great source for this is the Internet Movie Database. In Ethics we are moving our discussion of Ethics into the area of analyzing Ethical Dilemmas and the different philosophical approaches. Michael Sandel, a Professor at Harvard, has a great online lecture series we use to introduce these ideas. It is surprisingly accessible for most students and engaging. I can see why he is so popular as are his books. I have to thank one of my mentors who was invaluable to me when I first started teaching and still helps me from afar, Gib Brown, for introducing me to Michael Sandel. Much of Gib's influence remains in my classes, even though he is no longer teaching in a classroom but instead he and his wife are off improving the world by working for the U.S. government in Burkina Faso.

A Long Week

Ahhhhh... technology. It giveth and it taketh... at will it seems. Last Friday we deployed iPads to our students and by Monday afternoon it was clear that something was amiss with the internet and the overall network in our school. What exactly was the problem, I am not sure. But it seems these iPads were too much of a drain on our somewhat antiquated network so that lessons dependent on the internet or being projected by LCD (because Apple TV uses the network) were not working correctly. Tuesday morning we received an announcement... the network would be down for the rest of the day as some technicians had arrived at our school to work on it. If you do not know, the network being down is a big deal. Our schools have embraced technology and much of the operations of the school are connected to the network. Our phone system, attendance, and much of our lessons are all dependent on a functioning network. Its not quite the same as losing power, but its pretty close. I heard another teacher say, "This is when we get to show our creative side and really earn our money!". I'm not sure I totally agree with that assessment, but we definitely had to get creative for the rest of the day Tuesday which ended with a headache for me. In the end it worked out fine, but its just frustrating how much time and energy we put into using technology and more often than not something about it fails just when you don't want it to.

The schedule. For every High School it seems like there is a different schedule. Our schedule is unqieu to our school. We have 8 periods over 2 days. We have 4 periods on "Black" days and 4 different periods on "Gold" days for 80 minutes each. Every Monday and Thursday are Black days and Tuesday and Friday are Gold days. Whenever we have a holiday or scheduled day off during the week, whatever day we missed we have on the Wednesday of that week. Whenever we have a 5 day week, Wednesdays are "White" days. On White days it is a Late Start for students. Buses run at the regular time, but students do not have to report to classes until 9am. This gives teachers an hour and a half to conduct Professional Learning Communities, Advisor meetings, or Department meetings. After the late start we have all 8 periods for 30 minutes each. This Wednesday was our first White day and it was a Department meeting. This is a great opportunity for our Social Studies Department to meet and discuss things related to the budget, curriculum, Professional Development and more. Our Department has 4 full time teachers and one person who teaches 2 Social Studies Classes and is a Dean of Students for grades 9-10 for the rest of the job.

Wednesday was also the 12th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I think I had a similar experience last year, but the current Juniors and Seniors roughly are the last group of students who have any type of memory of having lived through it. That seems really bizarre to me, but very few students had much of a memory of 9/11/01. This means this tragic event will literally be history to all my future students... just like the JFK assassination, the attacks on Pearl Harbor, and other tragic days in American history. In all of my classes we discussed how the events of that day still impact us. To help with this we viewed 3 short videos. Each video was produced by Story Corps. Their mission is to archive one story for every person who was killed on 9/11. The three videos we watched were John and Joe, She Was the One, and Always a Family. This is always tough for me each year. I related to the students that on 9/11/01 I was not in school. I was at a Doctor's appointment with my wife. She was pregnant with our son and the appointment was the first time we got to see an image of him. I still remember the horrific images in the waiting room and how we were glued to the TV the rest of the day. I also remember how I felt utterly helpless and incompetent going to school the next day knowing all of the students would have questions and I would have no answers.

During the week in my classes we explored Democratic Ideals and examples of those ideals. We also began looking at the causes of the American Revolution. In History v. Hollywood we finished watching the film Glory and in Ethics we discussed the theory that all humans share the same values and the implication of this for Ethics. 

Content, Instruction, and Technology

After a crazy week it's always nice to have the Labor Day weekend to recover!

In my AP class I struggle to give adequate time for debriefing the summer work, going over the syllabus and logistical information about the course and moving us forward to keep up the pace so that we are finished in time for the exam on May 15. It felt like we had only a brief discussion about the highlights of the summer reading, but I was able to process with them how the AP US History exam is graded on a curve and that they will be competing with the "smartest" kids in America (which maybe they are the smartest themselves!) for those scores on the Exam. More kids take the exam for US History than any other subject because all students must take a US History class to graduate. This puts a little stress on them as you can imagine. Having said that, I do let them know that at Maranacook our scores in all 5 score ranges are above the State and National average.

Despite all this, I have also pushed them forward and we have begun where they left off from the summer work. This means we started analyzing the colonies socially and politically in the years in and around the French and Indian War.

There was some anxiety this week around the release of iPads for all of our students. The State of Maine negotiated with Apple and other companies to provide a "device" for all students and teachers in grades 7-12. For the last 5 years this has meant MacBooks. However it has also meant my district could not afford this for High School Students so our students have had to use a netbook running with Linux and having lots of issues. All of that goes away as all teachers in my district 6-12 have MacBook Airs and iPad Minis, meanwhile all students in grades 6-12 have iPads all provided by the State (each District shares some of the costs). This program is known as the Maine Learning Technology Initiative.

The iPads were rolled out Friday morning and the plan was to have students power them on and personalize their unique Apple ID. That worked for some, but most had trouble getting on to the network all at the same time. This year will present quite a learning curve with this technology but i am very excited by the possibilities and capabilities! We were in a training at a Staff meeting and I witnessed some Staff who were clearly overwhelmed. I fear for them as they seem to struggle to understand the technology that to me seems so easy I was thinking about other things during the training. I'm not sure how things will be for them going forward. I am excited to use iTunes U Course Manager, iBooks Author, and iMovie. In fact, I received a grant for a High Quality HD Video Camera for my students to use to create movies and edit them in iMovie on their iPads! I hope to post more about these projects on my Blog later!

 

(This is the Camera I received with my grant)

This week I also started to make plans to finish my work for our school's Accreditation visit in March so that we can re re-accredited through NEASC. I started thinking this week about Literacy strategies as well. I am working with 2 other teachers here in Maine to deliver 2 Webinars on Literacy strategies in Social Studies later this year through a State run Professional Development program known as the Cross- Discipline Literacy Network. This program is offered to all Maine teachers for a small fee and includes face to face meetings at locations around the State and 2 online Webinars focusing on different strategies and they get to pick which ones they want to try. I am on the Board for the Maine Council for the Social Studies, and next week we have our first meeting of the new school year. Right now we are planning the annual conference for educators in Augusta in November. This year's Conference will be at the Civic Center and the theme is "Content, Instruction, and Technology: Standards-Based Approaches for 21st Century Learners". 

I am most excited about our Keynote speaker for this conference. Jared Peatman is a Professor from Virginia who will be talking about the Gettysburg Address (this year is the 150th anniversary of the address) and ways to use it in the classroom to address Common Core Standards. This is just the tip of the iceberg as there will be more presentations and more vendors then I think we have ever had for a MCSS Conference. November 8 should be a great day!

(Me, a tourist, and Lincoln at Gettysburg)

Chaos to Start

When you're a 9th grade Advisor the first 2 teacher days are chaos! There is just not enough time in each day to do the trainings, participate in the introductory trainings, and prepare for 9th grade orientation. However, we did our best and put a certain amount of faith into "it will all work out" thinking and it did! I really hope next year when I have the whole day Wednesday to prep and I remember how hard it was this year!

(Artist's depiction of chaos)

One thing we did on Tuesday was to engage in a training on Marzano's Teaching Standards. We focused on breaking the lesson into segments and discussing what activities fit into which segments in an effort to help us understand how to design lessons in this manner. My partner for this was English Teacher Paula Weisberger who ask me, "Will I make it into your Blog now?". The answer is yes Paula!

We also had a great activity on Tuesday that promoted Staff bonding. This was called "Come to the Mountain" with the idea being that each Staff member had to say something they did this summer and everyone else who had the same experience was to also stand up. I learned some things about a few Staff members who I have worked with for a few years now and am embarrassed to say I know very little about them! We have a new Principal and I very much appreciate his efforts in this manner and I think others do as well.

The first 2 days of class were tiring and filled with little issues that need to be resolved! After almost 4 years I forget that Freshmen need to be told their schedule and where all their classes are every day for a while. Every year Study Halls go through some bumps and this year is no different.

But it was nice to be back in the classroom engaged in the part I love the best! My AP students had a test on the first day over the Summer work (it's an AP class after all!). In U.S. History we did an activity to get to know each other and began discussing the myths and facts of Columbus. To do this we used a great cartoon made in the 60's that purported to be "educational". We had a wonderful discussion about whether or not humans are becoming more or less ethical and the significance of that in my Ethics class. It was great to watch various film clips and discuss film making techniques designed to convey meaning to the audience in History vs. Hollywood. Tomorrow the online class I teach through Virtual High School begins so I will get to monitor that.

This week I look forward to putting Columbus on trial, analyzing the French and Indian War, Reviewing early films and the Civil War to prep for our first Historical Film Analysis, and discussing where Ethics come from and theories about Ethical Relativism. I also anticipate some brief discussions about the U.S. response to what is happening in Syria. It should be a great week!

For teaching specifically this week:

* Document Analysis with APPARTS
* Myths and Facts about Columbus and the debate over his place in history as hero or villain
   (Sources I use for Columbus: PSA Commercial about Columbus Day, Howard Zinn Article,   
   Warren  Carroll Article, Various Columbus cartoons on YouTube, and Rethinking Columbus)
* Institute for Global Ethics Curriculum for Schools
* Various film clips on YouTube that show film making techniques
* Internet Movie Database