shamrockJISD Professional Development Newsletter - March, 2011shamrock

Nine Powerful Practices: Ruby Payne on Boosting Disadvantaged Students’ Achievement

teen boyIn this Educational Leadership article, lecturer Ruby Payne outlines nine strategies to raise the achievement of disadvantaged children:

1. Build relationships of respect. Payne agrees with James Comer: “No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship” (1995). But this doesn’t mean becoming the student’s buddy, she says. “It means that teachers both insist on high-quality work and offer support.” According to one study, high-school students said that a respectful teacher:

  • Calls me by my name.kids
  • Answers my questions.
  • Talks to me respectfully.
  • Doesn’t “diss” me.
  • Notices me and says “Hi.”
  • Helps me when I need help.

           2. Create a collaborative culture. When students are learning something new, says Payne, it’s especially important that it happen in a supportive context.

           3. Teach students to speak in formal register. Payne says research has found that all the world’s languages have five “registers”:

  • Frozen – The words remain the same (the Pledge of Allegiance);
  • Formal – The word choices and sentence structure used in schools and businesses (“This assignment is not acceptable in its present format”);
  • Consultative – A mix of formal and casual (“I can’t accept the assignment the way it is”);
  • Casual – The language used among friends, with few abstract words (“This work is a no-go. Can’t take it”);
  • Intimate – Private language, e.g., between twins or lovers.

School and work settings operate at the consultative level, and most school tests are written in formal English, which puts poor students at a disadvantage since they hear little formal English, except in church. Payne suggests that teachers give students practice translating from casual to formal register. When African-American students say that formal English is “white talk,” Payne tells them it’s “money talk.”

           4. Assess each student’s resources. “School success, as it’s currently defined, requires a huge amount of resources that schools don’t necessarily provide,” says Payne. She suggests assessing each student in these areas:

  • Financial;
  • Emotional – self-control, especially under stress;
  • Mental – acquired reading, writing, and computing skills;
  • Spiritual – belief in a divine purpose and guidance;
  • Physical health;
  • Support systems – family, friends, and support available in times of need;
  • Relationships and positive adult role models;
  • Knowledge of unspoken rules (see below).

homeless children “Teachers need to be aware that many students identified as ‘at risk’ lack these outside resources,” says Payne. “Interventions that require students to draw on resources they do not possess will not work.”

           5. Teach the hidden rules of school. Actions and attitudes that help a child survive in a poor community are sometimes counterproductive in school. Without denigrating survival skills, schools need to teach students how to behave in school.

           6. Monitor academic progress and plan interventions. Payne suggests a schoolwide process of using interim assessments and rubrics to measure progress, zeroing in on areas where students need help, and choosing instructional strategies that have the biggest payoff.

           7. Translate the concrete into the abstract. The best way to help students make this important leap is to give them mental models – stories, analogies, or visual representations.

           8. Teach students how to ask questions. “Questions are a principal tool to gain access to information,” says Payne, “and knowing how to ask questions yields a huge payoff in achievement.”

           9. Forge relationships with parents. “It is essential to create a Ruby Paynewelcoming atmosphere at school for parents,” says Payne. This includes greeting them with a smile, emphasizing that the school cares about their child, avoiding educational jargon, helping parents not feel ganged up on in meetings, and refraining from asking parents to do things they lack the resources to do.

“Nine Powerful Practices” by Ruby Payne in Educational Leadership, April 2008 (Vol. 65, #7, p. 48-52). This article is available for free at http://www.ascd.org/infocon. The author can be reached at RubyPayne@msn.com. From Kim Marshall: Marshall Memo

 

What Makes Some Los Angeles Teachers Highly Effective?

       In this Kappan article, a team of researchers reports on their study of 31 elementary, middle, and high-school teachers in economically depressed neighborhoods in Los Angeles County whose students did exceptionally well academically. These teachers had the following characteristics:

• Warm/strict – They saw strictness as essential to safety, respect, and results. Even small infractions drew a rebuke and consequences. Students saw their teachers’ strictness as a sign of caring and high expectations. “When I was in 1st grade and 2nd grade,” said one student, “when I cried, my teachers coddled me. But when I got to Mrs. T’s room, she said, ‘Suck it up and get to work.’ I think she’s right. I need to work harder.” Other students said strictness was important to doing well in school, getting into college, being successful, and not getting ripped off in life. los angeles city sign

• Strong and respectful relationships – “The teachers had a profound respect for students,” say the researchers. “… The teachers did not need the students to love them; they needed to see their students achieve.”

• Instructional intensity – The effective teachers used every minute of school time for learning, even drilling math facts on the way to the playground. They used timers to push students to finish lesson segments, and spelled out clear expectations for getting organized and knowing what was to be learned.

•Frontal teaching – “Traditional, explicit, teacher-directed instruction was by far the most dominant instructional practice,” report the researchers – anticipatory set, energetic presentation of content, modeling, whole-class discussion, cold-calling to check for understanding, repeated explanations until all students understood, guided practice, monitoring, closure, independent practice, and review. The effective teachers used very little cooperative learning (except for pair-sharing), few constructivist activities, and almost no multicultural curriculum except where it was a natural part of a lesson or unit.

• Managing by walking around – The effective teachers constantly moved around their classrooms keeping students on task, checking for understanding, solving learning problems, nipping discipline problems in the bud, and building relationships.

• High expectations – The effective teachers constantly pushed their students toward grade-level standards and embraced state and district tests as useful measures of student achievement. Teachers didn’t make excuses for students’ disadvantages; they were confident that what happened in the classroom would close the gap. They had the following beliefs:

  • All of my students have much more potential than they use.
  • They have not been pushed to use it.
  • It is my responsibility to turn this situation around.
  • I am able.
  • I want to do this for them.

Everything mattered to these teachers: they insisted that students respond to questions in complete sentences and build on each others’ thoughts. One teacher said to a student, “That is absolutely correct! Now, can you say that like a fifth grader?”

• Exhorting virtues – “Every few minutes, these teachers encouraged students to think about their future and to practice particular virtues,” say the researchers – working hard, trying their best, doing excellent work, aiming for college, never giving up, respecting themselves and others, being responsible, considering consequences, being hopeful, thinking critically, and being honest. The effective teachers spoke of their personal struggles and how education had helped them. “Ms. G is weird, strict, mean, and crazy,” said one student. “This classroom is smart and nerdy because she wants you to go to college.”

• Maturity – “The teachers were strong, no-nonsense, make-it-happen people who were optimistic for students’ futures, responsible, hard-working, emotionally stable, organized, and disciplined,” say the researchers. “They were also energetic, fit, trim, and appeared in good health. They were comfortable in their own skins and humorous.”

        la school district      The researchers end the article with a fascinating observation: the teachers who got the best results seemed unaware that they were more effective than other teachers around them – and principals often didn’t know who their most effective teachers were. In a couple of cases, principals didn’t believe what the researchers’ test data said about who their best teachers were and suggested that the team study other teachers (who invariably turned out to be less effective).

In one case, a highly effective teacher was singled out by a district PD specialist for help and was visibly shaken by the visit. “Teachers who have demonstrated results should be granted considerable freedom in determining their classroom instruction,” say the researchers. What they are doing works with students, and they shouldn’t be forced to conform to other educators’ preconceived notions about how children should be taught.

“She’s Strict for a Good Reason: Highly Effective Teachers in Low-Performing Urban Schools” by Mary Poplin, John Rivera, Dena Durish, Linda Hoff, Susan Kawell, Pat Pawlak, Ivannia Soto Hinman, Laura Straus, and Cloetta Veney in Phi Delta Kappan, February 2011 (Vol. 92, #5, p. 39-43), http://www.kappanmagazine.org/content/92/5.toc

Medicate to Educate

Teachers often ask me how I manage to stay so motivated as an educator. I used to find that question odd, until I realized all the pressures, frustrations, and disappointments we face every week as teachers. Now, I often joke with new and beginning teachers that there are only two reasons why anyone would become a teacher: you’re either ‘called’ to teach or you’re just plain ‘crazy’ to teach, because who would choose to do this job (teach) if he or she wasn’t “called” to do it? Only a crazy person. The teachers laugh, but I think there’s some real truth to what I say. letter

So, what do I tell those teachers who ask me for “my secret” to staying motivated in the classroom? I tell them to “get medicated.” Now before you panic, I’m not condoning drug usage. I know we live in a country that’s already over-medicated. What I’m referring to isn’t a prescription; it’s more of a philosophy. It’s the secret weapon I like to call “the medicine cabinet.” It’s one of the greatest teaching resources you can create for constant and never-ending motivation.

Ever since I started teaching, I’ve saved every note, e-mail, card, gift, and letter I’ve ever received from a student or parent. I keep all those letters and notes in a file cabinet near my desk. I call it my “medicine cabinet” because every time I feel like I’m having a rough (i.e., emotionally sick) day -- you know, one of those days when you feel like maybe teaching was a mistake -- I simply reach over to my file drawer, close my eyes, and blindly pick out a letter. After reading the letter, I feel better almost instantly. Each note or letter reminds me of my purpose for teaching, and of the difference I’m making in the lives of students -- even though I’m not always aware of it.

letter2 My medicine cabinet helps me hang in when I feel like letting go. So I challenge you to either create your own medicine cabinet or go back and read a few of those notes and letters you’ve received. They’re guaranteed to put you on an emotional high for at least one full day (if not longer).

So, if you’re feeling a little under the emotional weather, just read a couple of student letters and call me in the morning. I must warn you, though, this form of medication can become very addictive. As always, teach with passion!

Article by Joe Martin Education World®
Copyright © 2008 Education World

 

Editor: Dee Thomas, JISD Professional Development Coordinator