When I Grow Up...I Mean, When I Become Principal...

Managing buildings and budgets, complying with district mandates and edicts, and enforcing smooth school day operations used to be enough for school administrators; nevertheless, the changing needs of American students and educators demand that principals transform from authoritarian saviors to collaborative leaders who foster a culture of shared responsibility, professional inquiry, safe risk-taking, and democratic norms. A decade ago, education researchers predicted that today’s educators would not be prepared for the changing demands of modern schools (Lashway, 2003).  Even though many college and university programs are transforming their administrator training courses to ensure that today’s principals are ready to be effective, collaborative, flexible leaders, those already in the field may find shifting values and norms to be challenge; however, research, guides, and information to support a culture of distributed leadership and teacher empowerment within a school are plentiful for today’s principals to operate under a new style.

I imagine myself becoming a transformational leader of an under-performing school, working with my resources, community and staff to completely revamp its overall structure and culture and making it into one of the most highly acclaimed schools in North Carolina.   Although I naturally tend to take control, micromanage, and lead hierarchically, my training as a young administrator is conducive to operating as a distributive leader who follows best practices for teacher and stakeholder empowerment.  To successfully transition my future school, I will follow that today’s and tomorrow’s experts recommend for principals: that they work with teachers to develop a shared vision based on school and community beliefs, organize a focus on student and adult learning, evaluate the leadership potential of teachers, and coach educators as they become leaders within their classrooms, school, community, and profession. 

Our school’s overarching focus will be student success, and I believe that students learn best in a supportive, trusting, engaging environments: those that empowers them to take control of their own learning.  Extraordinary student success cannot happen without great teachers, and I believe that educators thrive best in environments where they feel supported and empowered to take ownership of their school success and professional practices.  All effective educators know that the most salient way to ensure student success is to involve families in educating a community’s children as much as possible: “The research is abundantly clear: nothing motivates a child more than when learning is valued by schools, families, and communities working together in partnership…These forms of parent involvement do not happen by accident or even by invitation.  They happen by explicit strategic intervention” (Durfour & Eaker, 1998). 

The future of student learning in my school will depend upon my ability to practice building this infrastructure, one in which all stakeholders feel empowered to take ownership of school improvement: “Schools cannot afford to lose promising teachers or squander opportunities to better serve students.  It will take the effort of all educators- district administrators, principals, teacher leaders, and teachers themselves- to redefine the norms of teaching and support teacher leaders in their work so that every school’s instructional capacity expands to meet its students’ needs” (Johnson, 2007).  In order to meet the demanding requirements of the principalship, I will be skilled in implementing, fostering, and sustaining teacher leadership in her school.

I have started collecting a list of best practices for distributing leadership and empowering the teachers in my school.  Research for school principals who want to transform their schools abounds; I plan on continuing my research as a school administrator and adding to this list as I practice my profession and learn new strategies from research and from personal and professional experience.

Best Practices for Distributing Leadership	Best Practices for Empowering Teachers
1.       Lead through shared vision and values rather than rules and procedures (DuFour & Eaker, 1998).	1.        Facilitate school-wide professional learning communities and involve faculty members in the school’s decision-making processes while encouraging to teacher action (DuFour & Eaker, 1998).
2.      Encourage professional inquiry and risk taking through action research, and creating an environment where mistakes are okay and used as learning tools (Reeves, 2010).	2.      Maintain a focus on people and practices, not programs (Reeves, 2010).
3.      Form leadership teams of competent people with strong, diverse talents and expertise (Covey, Merrill & Covey, 2008).	3.       Clearly communicate high expectations and trusting colleagues to complete tasks without micromanaging (Covey, Merrill & Covey, 2008).
4.       Meet with teachers in one-on-one conferences to determine the professional development (and other) needs of the faculty (Safir, 2008)	4.      Coach teachers by giving honest, specific feedback and asking reflective questions after formal and informal evaluations (Safir, 2008).
5.      Balance advocacy and inquiry (Glover, 2007).	5.        Use dialogue and open discussions (dialogic leadership) to generate teacher leadership (Glover, 2007).
6.      Fight the temptation to rescue teachers from problems immediately.  Instead, prompt them into debriefings to help them determine “what went wrong” and how to fix it (Felder, 1993).	6.       Provide new teachers with more experienced mentors in their grade levels or departments (Felder, 1993).
7.      Operate under a sense of continuous improvement- the opposite of complacency (Danielson, 2006).	7.      Foster peer observations among teachers in order to develop strong, valid, clear and unambiguous, and organized standards of practice (Danielson, 2006).
8.      Facilitate broad-based participation, which invites all stakeholders into conversations about school needs and improvements (Lambert, 2003).	8.      Support teachers in developing short and long-range plans through a combination of one-on-one conversations, inquiring, partnering, and sustaining success (Lambert, 2003).
9.      Create a school data team to determine staff and professional development needs (Hooker, 2008).	9.      Differentiate professional development trainings by providing a wide variety of need-based topics through a combination of standardized, site-based, in-house, and self-directed workshops (Hooker, 2008).
10.  Ensure that each new endeavor breeds the qualities of the highest level of intrinsic motivation: success, volition, value, and enjoyment (Wlodkowski, 1999).	10.  Provide opportunities to inspire and deepen each staff member’s intrinsic motivation and knowledge base (Wlodkowski, 1999).

Practicing these strategies through times of both great achievement and extreme difficulty can help transition any school from failure to prosperity, and once the transition is complete, the ultimate task for schools becomes maintaining the high achievement and continuing to improve.  Research on sustaining school improvement and prosperity proliferates in the world of education.  Linda Lambert, an expert in developing teacher leaders and sustaining school improvement maintains that building a new, positive school culture requires these twenty practices: principals must engage in discussion with others about leadership, asking others to take on leadership roles and responsibilities, and helping others become successful in leadership roles.  During transition, a school leader must progress by giving others opportunities to be leaders through encouragement, support, and involvement, recognizing the leadership efforts of others, modeling and teaching leadership skills, and building relationships that encourage leadership.  Once a school realizes its objectives, the administration must work hard to keep the structures in place that foster leadership.  These include showcasing leaders in leadership roles, promoting leadership with and among others, providing time, training, and resources for new teachers and staff to be leaders, constantly restate the mission and goal for the school, and providing encouragement through celebrations and fun activities (Lambert, 2003).

Sustaining high achievement once the school’s goals are met can present new difficulties, and school leaders must continually ask very specific, hard questions about what works, and evaluate the feedback.  With help from my peers, I have developed a list of questions that will guide my school’s improvement sustainment:

1. How are we monitoring and adjusting the effectiveness of the school improvement team?
2. What methods of accountability are being used for the school improvement team?
3. How are we facilitating collaboration during the school day?
4. What does our typical school improvement team meeting look like, and how does it reflect the overall culture of our school?
5. What role does data play in our school improvement process?
6. When and how do we celebrate our accomplishments?

Once I become a principal of a school in need of positive transitions, I will use these researched best practices to drive my leadership methods through transformation, distribution, and empowerment.  I will surround myself with brilliant, competent, talented individuals who will help guide our journey to becoming a model school of excellence where teachers, parents, students, and the community thrives, and I will continue to learn and add to my list of best practices. 

References

Covey, S. M. R., Merrill, R. R., & Covey, S. R. (2008). The speed of trust, the one thing that changes everything. New York: Free Press.

Danielson, C. (2006). Teacher leadership that strengthens professional practice. ASCD.

DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. E. (1998). Professional learning communities at work, best practices for enhancing student achievement. Solution Tree.

Felder, Richard (1993).  Teaching teachers to teach: The case for mentoring.  Chemical Engineering Education, 27(3), 176-177.  Retrieved from http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Columns/Mentoring.html

Glover, E (2007). Real Principals Listen. Educational Leadership, 65 (1), 60-64.

Hooker, M. (2008). Models and best practices in teacher professional development. Retrieved from http://www.gesci.org/old/files/docman/Teacher_Professional_Development_Models.pdf

Johnson, S., & Donaldson, M. (2007). Overcoming the Obstacles to Leadership. Educational Leadership, 65(1), 8-13.

Lambert, L. (2003). Leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Lashway, L. (2003). Transforming principal preparation. Retrieved from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/jspui/bitstream/1794/3395/1/digest165.pdf

Reeves, D. B. (2010). Transforming professional development into student results. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Smith, S. C., & Piele, P. K. (2006). School leadership, handbook for excellence in student learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Pr.

Safir, S. (2008, July 30). Teaching how to teach: Coaching tips from a former principal. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/how-to-instructional-coaching-tips

Wlodkowski, R. (1999). Motivating adult learners: Learner motivation and principals of motivating instruction. Informally published manuscript, The Distance Education Instructional Design Project, University of Florida, Retrieved from http://www.umsl.edu/services/ctl/DEID/destination2adultlearning/motivate.pdf

What A Great Principal Must Have

Anyone who turns on the news today is inundated with commentary about the 2012 American presidential candidates. Political analysts, newscasters, and citizens question each man’s ability to lead the United States of America out of recession, despair, and fear and into a state of happiness, peacefulness, and prosperity. The responsibilities of America’s leaders are similar to those held by modern school leaders: they are held accountable for outcomes by taxpayers and investors, they must abide by mandates set by lawmakers and government officials, and they must rely on the strengths of their followers and colleagues to achieve the promises made in their goals and visions. Just as a president cannot run an entire country alone, a principal cannot individually shoulder every task involved in successfully operating a school. Distributed leadership, a leading style in which everyone involved in an organization in shares responsibility for leading in a particular area, is essential for successfully operating any institute, whether it is an entire nation or a school. In order for a leader to be prosperous with this particular leadership style, he or she must display strengths in the following: character, competence, focus, and communication. As a by-product of effectively establishing, displaying, and empowering others to use these abilities, leaders breed the most important leadership characteristic of all- trust. 

A person without the competence to fulfill the requirements of his or her job most likely does not last long in that particular occupation, and human resource personnel and other executives must search for other individuals to fill those vacant positions; a leader who cannot fulfill the requirements of his or her position has farther reaching consequences for an organization than a non-leader. The reign of an ineffective leader can diminish an organization’s profitability, structure, and morale. Therefore, those seeking to hire effective leaders must seek personnel with competence, which in an excellent leader, exists in perfect harmony with good character. According to Stephen M. R. Covey, a renowned expert in organizational leadership, “Character includes your integrity, your motive, your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, your results, your track record. And both are vital” (Covey, Merrill & Covey, 2008). When a school leader does not have character, the school will falter because teachers, parents, and students are not motivated to work for and with a person who cannot be trusted to uphold the morals and ethics of the practice. A school leader who has a notably strong, positive character provides an environment where informed risks for the betterment of the organization are safe for teachers, students, and parents to take, and so the school continues to grow in a positive direction- towards a common vision for success. 

People who are used to the traditional model of hierarchical leadership for school administrators operate under the assumption that the principals have all of the answers, which determines the principal’s competence. This is not the case today in a world so driven by information that one person cannot possibly ever know all there is to know about a particular topic (though principals must have a strong background in many areas including school law, curriculum and instruction, and purposeful assessment). Today, a key component to a distributive leader’s competence is operating through an inquiry-based system to seek solutions to an organization’s obstacles. It is not enough for only a school principal to embrace inquiry; he or she must encourage all stakeholders involved to embrace it as well. Linda Lambert, an expert in the concept of teacher leadership, maintains that “…inquiry-based activities can offer powerful motivation for involvement in leadership” (Smith & Piele, 2006). For example, “Confronting teachers with data about student performance can trigger curiosity or create enough dissonance to prompt them to actively pursue the question further” (Smith & Piele, 2006). Encouraging a universal paradigm of inquiry-based problem solving not only expounds upon the strengths of all individuals so that the best possible solutions are presented, but it also builds a system of trust as teachers, students, and parents are allowed to take professional risks and authentic ownership of their work. Within a safe environment where this level of trust and solution-seeking thrives, no limits to the victorious possibilities a school could experience exist.

Although a leader may be chosen to lead because of his or her strength of character and competence, he or she must also possess a reputation of “getting the job done”. When operating a complex organizational structure such as a school, where many lives directly depend on solid results, an intense focus on the tasks at hand are crucial for leaders. The single most important focus in a school should be student learning and achievement. Preparing students with twenty-first century skills has become a cliché for educators nation-wide; nonetheless, today’s generation must have a specific skill set in order to be globally competitive. According to Alvin Toffler, a writer known for his works discussing the information age and technology revolution, accurately portrayed how today’s students should be prepared: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (Covey, Merrill & Covey, 2008). School leaders must keep the focus on instruction, and it must be done with a sense of urgency: “The real expertise of teachers- and the real needs of students- is teaching and learning, and that is the area where their leadership can make the most difference” (Smith & Piele, 2006). If this focus is maintained and communicated throughout the school and community, students will trust that their instructors have their best interests at the forefront and will be more motivated to learn, grow, and achieve. 

In order for an intense focus on student learning to be shared among a school and its community, the school leader must be able to not only effectively communicate this focus, but also clear expectations for how it should be implemented. Not only will effective communication about a leader’s expectations result in positive achievement results, but it will also deter many struggles that poor communicators often experience: “Almost all conflict is a result of violated expectations” (Covey, Merrill & Covey, 2008). Randall B. Parsons, a leader in research on principalships, maintains, “If I had to cite one proficiency as being the most important to the success of a principal, it would be the skill of communicating” (Smith & Piele, 2006). In order to clearly and effectively communicate the focus and expectations, a distributive leader, whether in a school or larger setting, must be skilled and confident in holding intensive dialogue with investors and team members. Operative communication requires “leadership built on intensive dialogue and “sense-making” aimed at helping members of the organization understand the complex environment in which they work and determine a sense of direction for the organization” (Smith & Piele, 2006). A school leader who communicates well builds a sense of trust with his or her students, teachers, and parents because everyone involved knows and understands the goals and evaluation system for goal attainment. This system of trust allows these stakeholders to further take ownership of their work because they can relax in knowing exactly what should happen, how it should happen, and how their work will be evaluated.

A great leader can come in many different shapes, sizes, and personality types; just as no two individuals are exactly identical, no two leaders have exactly the same leadership style. However, all great leaders share the common traits of high moral character and competence, an ability to maintain and spread an intense focus, and effective communication skills. Every great leader in history has become so because of the sense of trust his or her followers felt in his her abilities to lead make strong decisions to not only strengthen the organization, but also in the capacity to develop and empower the followers; these elements of leadership which breed trust not only make an organization prosperous, but they also positively impact the lives of others, and what else on earth is there to strive for? Jim Burke, former Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s most successful companies, concludes it best:

"You can’t have success without trust. The word trust embodies almost everything you can strive for that will help you succeed. You tell me any human relationship that works without trust, whether it is a marriage or a friendship or a social interaction; in the long run, the same thing is true about business, especially businesses that deal with the public” (Covey, Merrill & Covey, 2008).

References

Covey, S. M. R., Merrill, R. R., & Covey, S. R. (2008). The speed of trust, the one thing that changes everything. New York: Free Press.

Smith, S. C., & Piele, P. K. (2006). School leadership, handbook for excellence in student learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Pr.

Image of Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? [n. d.] Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1C1TSNO_enUS490US490&biw=1241&bih=584&tbm=isch&tbnid=pjGzAAzz2ejBKM:&imgrefurl=http://www.whyshouldanyonebeledbyyou.com/&docid=wPWhfAD9AzZjQM&imgurl=http://www.whyshouldanyonebeledbyyou.com/images/site_01.png&w=378&h=282&ei=GadUUPaaG4m09gTU-4CQDA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=429&sig=106562690378833507506&page=1&tbnh=139&tbnw=186&start=0&ndsp=14&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:82&tx=104&ty=51  Retrieved on September 15, 2012

Image of Woman Ship Captain  [n. d.] Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1C1TSNO_enUS490US490&biw=1241&bih=584&tbm=isch&tbnid=zlTme0VvcyofaM:&imgrefurl=http://www.selfimprovementinformation.com/what-do-great-leader-do-that-others-dont/&docid=LYa8Eb39HhkzcM&imgurl=http://www.selfimprovementinformation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/leader.jpg&w=738&h=584&ei=a6dUUOzsG4-u8QT3yIEI&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=424&sig=106562690378833507506&page=2&tbnh=126&tbnw=159&start=10&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:10,i:188&tx=76&ty=44  Retrieved on September 15, 2012

Image of Penguin Leadership Poster [n. d.] Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1C1TSNO_enUS490US490&biw=1241&bih=584&tbm=isch&tbnid=RHOv4Uf4XW3wBM:&imgrefurl=http://life.halcode.com/archives/2008/04/13/the-7-attributes-of-leadership/&docid=3qZ90KlxiDeDMM&imgurl=http://life.halcode.com/wp-content/images/penguin_leadership.jpg&w=400&h=288&ei=a6dUUOzsG4-u8QT3yIEI&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=232&sig=106562690378833507506&page=1&tbnh=168&tbnw=220&start=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:160&tx=45&ty=122  Retrieved on September 15, 2012

Youtube Video Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ  Retrieved on September 15, 2012

The Price of Equity

Since my first year as an educator, I have taught the Teacher Cadet classes at my high school, classes which spurred me to become a teacher at this very high school when I was a teenager.  Although I celebrate the fact that fifteen of my former students in these courses are currently studying to become public school educators in North Carolina, a recent revelation on how I approach the class makes me believe that I can increase this number tremendously.  


Each semester, students in Teacher Cadet come in with a vague understanding of what teaching really entails or how what happens in their daily classes relates to a larger, global picture.  Many are stunned when I show graphics and quote statistics about how far behind our country is in terms of educating our citizens.  While it may appear that the only reason I would do this would be to deter their eager ambitions about becoming teachers so that they will drop the course and thus lower the number of students I am responsible for on a daily basis, this is absolutely not the case.  For the past three years, I have used this information as a springboard for motivation.  Coming from a family who wanted me to pursue something besides teaching because I was "too smart" for such a low-paying profession, I want my students to know that this challenging career demands creative, passionate, brilliant individuals to serve our nation's youth and work towards overcoming our obstacles.  However, I realize now that I have been completely selling our great nation and the teachers who tirelessly serve it short.


Insulting statistics about our nation's schools and teachers are every where, and have been for decades. Even twenty years ago, critics were so disgusted with our school systems that they tenaciously questioned the effectiveness of public education in America. A columnist for The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, one of the oldest and most respected journals of liberty in America, wrote, "We not only fail to hold individual students accountable for poor performance, we have also failed to hold the entire government-controlled school system accountable for its performance since at least WWII. Public education is itself a failure. Why shouldn't individual students follow its example," (Hood, 1993).

A year ago, a contributor to The Atlantic, in an article entitled, "The Failure of American Schools" wrote, "While America's students are stuck in a ditch, the rest of the world is moving ahead. The World Economic Forum ranks us 48th in math and science education" (Klein, 2011). In December, USA Today reported that, "Nearly half of America's public schools didn't meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago," (Jones, 2011).

Who would want to pursue a career in education with such disheartening information on the table? What teenager or college student wakes up one morning and decides his or or dream is to work for a failing company or outdated industry? None that I know of. Maybe the number of students who wanted to become teachers in my classes would increase if I stopped painting such a dismal picture of the career.  

The mistake I have been making for the past three years as a novice teacher is that all of the studies and statistics which deem our nation's education system as falling behind completely leave out the fact, for the benefit of the general public, that we are the only country on earth who requires that all of our children will be educated to a certain point.  This includes our disabled, our poor, our homeless, our speakers of other languages, and perhaps most importantly, our unwilling.  


Many critics of American public schools constantly compare our "scores" with those of Finland, a country which boasts consistent teacher retention and high student achievement.  But, those critics fail to mention that Finland has one of the highest gross domestic products in the world, and a much lower rate of diversity (racial and socioeconomic) among its citizens than the United States.  We should applaud and research their strategies for achieving a 100% literacy rate among their people; however we should also recognize that the needs of our country's citizens are different than those of Finland's.  Just as teachers disservice their students by not differentiating instruction to suit their individual needs, critics disservice the American public school system by dryly comparing the United States of America to other countries and assuming our educational needs are the same.  

Is "falling behind" a fair price to pay for shooting for the moon?  For being determined to educate our entire nation, despite how impossible it may be?  To give each child an equal chance to achieve the American Dream?  To care enough about our children to make sure they don't end up begging on our streets?  Yes, it is, one million times over, and anyone who values "achievement" over equity need not be working in or criticizing public education as this value epitomizes the very beliefs on which our great nation was founded.  

Ironically, as I have an epiphany on how to develop pride within the eager, energetic hearts of my pre-service teachers, I find something equally disheartening; funding for the Teacher Cadet program was removed from our state's budget for the upcoming fiscal year.   While my  district's superintendent and school board members have personally assured me that if this program must be cut from our curriculum because of a lack of funding that it will be one of the "last things to go," I still fear that North Carolina's dream of  "growing our own," that is, current teachers developing the next generation of teachers, will die; I may not have many more chances to help change the misconceptions of education in the United States to the most important audience of our nation's future, our next generation of educators.  


For more information about the current state of the NC Teacher Cadet program, contact the program coordinator, Marca Hamm at marca@ncteachercadet.org.

References
[Teacher Cadet logo] n. d. Retrieved from http://hthspcs.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_3732911/Image/NCteach.jpg
[The U. S. is Falling Behind graphic] n. d. Retrieved from http://studentsfirst.org/page/-/images/Dec%202011%20Annual%20Report/usa-is-falling-behind.jpg
[American flag and statue of liberty] n. d. Retrieved from http://familyonbikes.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/american-flag.jpg
[One hundred dollar bill cut] n. d. Retrieved from http://coolhandeducation.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/0cut.jpg
[Finland's flag] n. d. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/flags/large/fi-lgflag.gif
Hood, J. (1993, February). Freeman online. Retrieved from http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-failure-of-american-public-education/
Jones, B. (2011, Dec 15). Usa today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-15/schools-federal-standards/51949126/1
Klein, J. (2011, June). The failure of american schools. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-failure-of-american-schools/8497/

Replacing the Journal Entry

At the beginning of each new semester, I assign my English students to describe or illustrate their individual writing processes.  After explaining my way through confused stares, I grade their assignments, and they never shock me; I have yet to have a student do anything but regurgitate the steps to writing a five paragraph essay; a result of them being drilled for past NC writing assessments.  Until we discuss it in class, most of my students show little evidence of understanding audience, and many even leave out the publishing and sharing elements.


Even though I currently practice the traditional secondary English teacher strategy of having students compose daily journal entries to reflect on life as well as course content, I am considering shifting to one of two other models of daily writing instruction as the new school year approaches; should my students compose daily blogs, or should I have them write hard copy diary entries like Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers?  The ramifications for my decision could reach farther than non-English teachers realize. Labeling an assignment as a "diary entry" suggests privatization and deep introspection, while blogging requires organized reflection and publication.  My students are used to and prepared for the former, but I find that many do not know what blogs are or how to use them.  


I want the most bang for my buck when it comes to writing instruction. I value the paradigm that all students should write every single day. However, some experts believe that a balance between the number of writing assignments (quantity) and the length of time spent on editing, conferencing, revising, and rewriting an assignment (quality) is essential. "Excessive quantification of written words diminishes the quality of both the writing and the writing experience, just as too much qualification in literary assignments diminishes the quantity of material produced and the thought given to producing it" (Lipson, 2010). Can one of two strategies I am currently considering help provide balance between quantity and quality so that my students are better served?

In a recent tweet, Carol Jago, former president of National Council of Teachers of English, current professor at Western Michigan University and well-known expert in English education, questioned whether or not blogging is replacing the diary and what this means in terms of understanding audience. Hopefully, students understand that what they publish to the Internet instantly becomes public knowledge, so how honest can they be, and does this hinder responsible composition? Having an immediate, random audience of readers may inhibit them from experiencing some of the benefits of keeping a daily diary where their reflections can be completely honest and private; when writing a diary, students can write free of judgement.  


However, a teacher cannot objectively grade assignments such as these, particularly if the student chooses not to let the teacher read such a private reflection (an option which Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers allowed in her classroom). Thus, an instructor cannot ensure that academic writing skills, such as correct grammar usage, effective argumentation and persuasion, vivid description, and clarity and cohesion are being developed since grading is primarily judgement of one's assignment. This makes me question whether or not grading my students' daily writing assignments is that important afterall; perhaps the main purpose of having them write regularly should be to help them develop into mature adults with efficient coping strategies. 

According to a recent article in The Guardian, keeping a daily journal can make people happier. The article describes a study conducted by psychologists who had volunteers visit a lab for a brain scan before asking them to write for 20 minutes each day for four consecutive days. 50% of the participants wrote about a recent emotional experience while the other 50% wrote about a neutral topic. "Those who wrote about an emotional experience showed more activity in the part of the brain called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which in turn dampened down neural activity linked to strong emotional feelings" (Sample, 2009). High school is such an emotionally-charged time for so many of my students, so one could conclude that daily diary writing could possibly help many of these teens through the trials and tribulations of adolescence. But should student happiness and emotional comfort be so much a part of my course that twenty out of ninety minutes each school day are dedicated to it? Perhaps so, especially if clearing the emotional air could make room in their brains for new course material. But what about the "real" standards we have to meet?



Despite the introspection and happiness writing a private diary can promote, blogging may be better suited for our classroom needs. Today's new Common Core English Standards require that students develop college and career ready and twenty-first century learner skills, and that they also publish their work. Blogging would come in really handy for this! My students could personalize blog spaces and reflect upon current events, literature and nonfiction, their learning processes and collaborations, and their own ideas about the world. In fact, classrooms all over the country are approaching blogging as literacy.  Many teachers are turning to blogging to help students enjoy writing and develop confidence in their voices.  Educators across all subject areas see blogging as the answer to our nation's literacy problems.  Because students publish their content, they are held accountable by their blog readers; writing more and better becomes an intrinsic value as teachers, students, and the public comment on their posts.  


Of course, my students and I will have to spend time understanding that publishing information online is permanent and wide-reaching.  And, I will have to ensure that whatever blog tool I choose to use is safe and is compliant with the requirements of my school district's acceptable use policy.  Parents will want to know that their children are safe from Internet predators, but maybe they would enjoy spending a few minutes on their lunch breaks checking out their students' thoughts on Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail", or Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience"- two readings we explore extensively.  What a great way to incorporate families into my students' education, a difficult task for many high school teachers!  


In a book titled Cohesive Writing, Carol Jago maintains that writing cohesively "...means doing many things at once- wrestling with ideas, balancing form and function, pushing words this way and that, attending to syntax and diction, and employing imagery and metaphor until a coherent message emerges" (Jago, 2002).  As long as my students are engaging in each of these activities, perhaps it does not matter which strategy I use for writing instruction.  While I am leaning towards using a combination of both, I plan on soliciting the advice of my more experienced colleagues once the school year begins; perhaps we can work together to create our own new system of writing instruction for English students at Bartlett Yancey High School which combines both strategies.  Perhaps teachers of other subjects will adopt our strategies, thus fostering cross-curricular instruction and writing across the disciplines.    

Resources
[Image of the writing process] n. d. Retrieved from http://www.oncoursesystems.com/school/webpage.aspx?id=11047592&xpage=960085
[Image of the diary entry] n. d. Retrieved from http://weheartit.com/entry/31905839
[Image of Shakespeare blogging] n. d. Retrieved from http://www.teachingcollegeenglish.com/2011/02/
[Image of the importance of writing] n. d. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/imgres?num=10&um=1&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=872&tbm=isch&tbnid=-1CbAw4RXtExkM:&imgrefurl=http://eqafe.com/p/the-importance-of-writing&docid=KQ73GjrIq3FOrM&imgurl=http://eqafe.com/uploads/product/image/205/the-importance-of-writing.jpg&w=357&h=500&ei=g8f1T5aOJYqQ9gS4xd30Bg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=468&vpy=105&dur=15480&hovh=266&hovw=190&tx=142&ty=97&sig=109124790102288938946&sqi=2&page=1&tbnh=117&tbnw=84&start=0&ndsp=54&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:79
[Image of students typing] n. d. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-13/writers-go-online-in-a-bid-to-get-noticed/2257850
[Image of Cohesive Writing book] n. d. Retrieved from http://www.tower.com/cohesive-writing-carol-jago-paperback/wapi/101860364
Lipson, S. (2010). Teachers.net. Retrieved from http://teachers.net/gazette/FEB02/lipson.html
Jago, C. (2002). Cohesive writing . (p. 144). Boynton/Cook.
Sample, Ian. "Keeping a diary makes you happier." The guardian . N.p., 2009. Web. 7 Jul 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/15/psychology-usa>.

When High School Classrooms are Too Quiet

All too often, high school administrators mistake quiet classrooms for those in which authentic, meaningful learning is taking place.  Unfortunately, it is common to do a walk through in any given high school, peek into a lecture, and assume that the neat, silent rows of teenagers are absorbing the teacher's every word.  By the time adolescents reach high school, they have become experts at "playing the game" and looking like they are listening just to get through their mundane, meaningless fifty or ninety-minute long courses.


Who can blame them?  Current brain research states that the average length of the human attention span has decreased from twelve seconds in 2000 to just eight in 2012 ("Statistic brain," 2012).  This means that during a traditional lecture-style lesson on a block schedule, the typical teenage brain shifts thought and loses focus 675 times!  Surely some, if not most, of the material being taught leaks through that many cracks.  To avoid this ineffectiveness, teachers need to use creativity and innovative techniques, particularly those related to collaboration and discussion, to build student-centered, interesting, and engaging classrooms; tools and resources for making this imperative pedagogical transition abound.  


Even in school districts with limited financial means, teachers need only to check their supply closets and workrooms to productively energize their lessons and students.  Using large chart paper, tape, markers, and prodding questions or statements relating to relevant topics, teachers can engage students in a silent discussion activity; to participate, students move around the perimeter of the room to a set timer, informally recording their responses to questions and comments and contributing to someone else's "posts".  They may not speak during the rotations, but they may draw arrows from the original question or another's contribution and add their own thoughts, pose a new pertinent question, agree or disagree with an opinion, or expound upon an idea.  When students have contributed to each statement or question, they go back to the one at which they started and evaluate their classmates' answers.  After a few minutes of analysis, they report on the best or most interesting comments to the class; this generates verbal discussion if done correctly.   


For teachers who don't mind researching new techniques and approaches, The National Paideia Center maintains a wealth of information about classroom discussion strategies.  During a classroom Paideia discussion, the teacher assumes the role of a facilitator, and the students fill the roles of the participants.  Unless students are not following directions, the facilitator must not contribute to the class discussion.  His or her only responsibility is to pose a question or an agree/disagree statement to the class, and then let them talk about the issue.  During the "roundtable-like" class conversation (the desks or chairs should form a complete circle), the facilitator maintains minimal eye contact and listens closely to record the contributions of each student.  Participants are not allowed to raise their hands; instead, they practice authentic discussion formats and good manners.  Each participant earns points by making frequent contributions, following the rules, refraining from dominating the discussion, and engaging more reluctant peers.  At the end of the activity, which according to experts can last for an entire class period with teenagers, participants compose a journal entry response to the day's discussion not only documenting what they learned, but also evaluating themselves and their classmates on the quality of discussion itself.  This serves as an effective formative assessment to check for student understanding (The National Paideia Center, 2012).  

Teachers with access to class sets of classroom computers and the Internet may find Collaborize Classroom to be an excellent tool for getting students to apply essential questions and information through debate and dialogue.  Through this free, web-based resource, teachers can pose thought-provoking, relevant information to students through articles, images, videos, or even simple questions.  Students can not only respond to the teacher's prompts and peer comments and questions, but they can also research their own discussion prompts and interesting material to pose to their peers.  Because the teacher controls who participates in and views this virtual classroom, there is no threat to the students' Internet safety.  


Instead of nodding in approval of boring, sedentary, disengaging lessons through the windows of high school classroom doors all over the United States, secondary principals and administrators should celebrate the dynamic, energized, productive organized chaos of student-centered lessons and applaud teachers and students willing to try new engaging learning techniques; that is when and where real learning takes place.  Perhaps principals can even find time in their busy schedules to step in and participate in a discussion about Romeo as a petrarchian lover, global warming as a threat to humanity, the platforms of candidates for political offices, or the currently unsolved Goldbach Conjecture .  Who knows what their students can teach them?


References
[Image of globe and computer mice]. n.d. Retrieved from https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100388081399064240522/albums/5760715408503595553/5760996794919019474
[Photograph of students sleeping in class].  n. d. Retrieved from http://ap018.edublogs.org/
[Photograph of silent discussion poster]. n. d. Retrieved from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/courses/pppp/f11/photos/silentboard1
[Image of Paideia Active Learning logo]. n. d. Retrieved from http://www.guide2digitallearning.com/blog_grant_zimmerman/7_billion_people_student_activity
[Photograph of students in circle talking]. n.d. Retrieved from https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/100388081399064240522/albums/5760715408503595553/5760996794919019474
Statistic brain. (2012, Janua 30). Retrieved from http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/
The National Paideia Center. Paideia Active Learning. Retrieved 3 July 2012 from The National Paideia Center: http://paideia.org/