The Validity and Quality of Teacher Education Programs

Coming out of the teacher education program that provided me with my Bachelor Degree as well as the necessary credentials to be a teacher, I didn't know for sure if I was prepared for what was in front of me. Walking into the classroom that first year, I found that I was shamefully unprepared to teach, discipline, and deal with the daily struggles of being a teacher. These are things that I fully take for granted now, it has become second nature. There were times during my first year that I considered leaving, it was tough.

Like many other new teachers, I entered a situation where I was "dumped on." A veteran teacher dropped every special education and behavioral problem in my lap, which made it even worse. Coming out of college, I had dealt with some good courses and some bad. Unfortunately for me, I was coming through right when the literacy department had a major shake up. So, to make a long story short, my literacy methods classes prepared me for next to nothing, and boy did it show.

I just picked up the basal reader and ran with it, I didn't know what else to do. I was also teaching the "low" group (they ability grouped students at the time), and that made the job all the more difficult. Looking back, I was probably one of the worst reading teachers of all time that first year. My students weren't learning, their test scores were in consistent free fall all year, and I didn't know what to do to stop it. So I decided to get my masters in literacy, I decided to do something about it. To make that long story short, literacy is "kind of my thing" now, and my students are doing very well in every measure. My methods and theoretical understanding are outlined in some form or another in the pages of this blog.

I have to wonder about other teachers though. All too often, the teacher education experience slants to one extreme, usually straight method with some theoretical understanding. Occasionally you get a professor that teachers "constructively" by assigning each student to teach a chapter, something that always draws the ire of students (and is a way that I DO NOT learn anything, and that many of my co-workers have admitted doesn't work). It's one thing to assign group work and things like that to students learning math, but to teachers learning to teach, it needs to be more intensive, it's not the same learning process with scaffolded outcomes.

When my student teacher enters my classroom after Christmas, I want to make sure that he gets chances to take risks with literacy, and understand the right choices. As important as college education is, in the field of education, the popular held belief is that you learn more in student teaching than you do in four years of college. I am entering the field of higher education as we speak, and getting deeper and deeper as each semester passes. One of my long term goals is to improve the quality and preparation of teacher education programs. I'm not saying it's dismal, I am saying there's room for improvement. This is a discussion that should be happening all over the field right now and should always be ongoing, but seems to be oddly silent right now.

Are there any comments from any of you out there? Any stories, suggestions, or critiques of programs around the country. I'd love to hear them.

Reading An Entire Book: Implications on Language & Literacy: with ideas for improving classroom literacy practices

I was watching The Simpsons the other day, and Bart said something in response to Lisa talking about a book she had read. Bart said "you've read a WHOLE book before?" Bart is more real than some of us would believe in this respect. I've already had numerous students enter the 5th grade claiming they've never completed, completely individually, an entire book before that wasn't a leveled reader, picture book, or textbook based story.

To me this is quite alarming. I'm not going to fall back on the argument that "this would never have happened 50 years ago, before internet and TV and blah blah blah..." That argument doesn't hold, especially for me (I posted about digital literacy two days ago in an article titled iPod Literacy). This is alarming because the act of reading has been replaced by... well, I'm not sure exactly, but not another literacy activity. Reading has by-and-large not been replaced by reading things on the internet, it's been replaced by watching TV, playing video games, and texting. While I've argued in the past that these activities have some merit and can be utilized in the classroom, they become a hindrance when the student basically stops interacting with the written word outside of "T2L, BRB, ROFL." There's a great article out there from Newsweek titled The Death of English (LOL): In an experiment, the more adept children were at text messaging, the better they did at spelling and writing, which tries to strike a balance to the text messaging debate better than I can say it here, because I tend to be biased against cell phones for many reasons, most of them out of stubbornness.

What really bothers me is, I've met college students who claim that they've never read a book and wear it like a badge of honor. This behavior is bewildering to me, and I have to wonder where it stems from. Is it a backlash against the world we once knew? Is it due to a lack of attention? Or is it an outright failure of public education, with its never ending, rigid focus on standardized testing? I think the answer to all of these questions is YES.

Now, I've stated some of the problems, and have even briefly brought up a few questions for further research and discussion. I'm going to discuss ways for teachers to combat the failure to read phenomenon in the classroom (or at home if you're a parent).

• SELF CHOICE: You need to help students choose their own books. This is a process that should involve both student and teacher in order for it to be effective. You can refer to some guidelines I set out in yesterday's post titled How To Determine the Reading Level of A Book At A Glance to help you choose the right book, level wise, for that child. It's then up to the child, with your guidance, to find a book that will hold their interest, be on a topic that they enjoy reading about, and will have literary elements that have worked for that child in the past. You would be surprised how many students do not have the ability to self search for a book, they need to be taught (and since you're a teacher, this is your job).


• FREEDOM TO EXPERIMENT: Yes, I've had students who read on a first grade level want to read Harry Potter. At first, I let them make this choice, because it never works. This is where you have to suspend your teacher instinct, at least at the beginning of the year, to let students try to find it themselves. You also need to give them some freedom to abandon a few books. I have some students who, still, here at November, will read a few pages of a book, put it back, and get another one. My policy is that they should be trying the book for at least 3 chapters, then, when we return from Winter Break, they're going to choose and read without abandoning.


• CHOOSE SOMETHING FAMILIAR: If you teach like me, you do a lot of read alouds. I save some of the best books ever to read aloud. In fact, some of the books I discuss on this very website are the book that I read aloud to my class. Occasionally, a student will want to re-read the book I read aloud. Believe it or not, this is a great practice, especially for students who aren't quite ready to take some risks when self-reading. Let them do it.

Those ideas are more along the lines of helping students come into their own as readers. There are some great strategies in terms of classroom management and assignments to keep students focused, but to also be able to pull grades and have it basically fit into your instruction. I send home a calendar for the month, and students are supposed to read for a minimum of 30 minutes every evening. I usually don't send home homework outside of this, so I don't get complaints. After reading, the parent must sign that date on the calendar.

Twice per week, I have students complete a reading log assignment in which they respond to a few prompts about their book. This helps them reflect on their reading. I don't do it daily to avoid students burning out, just on Monday nights and Thursday nights.

These two activities, together, can be a valuable addition to the classroom. Some classroom practices you should include to encourage good reading habits are:

• Read aloud to your students every single day. Only read books that you are familiar with (no pulling things off the shelf you've never experienced yourself. When you're reading aloud, think aloud, ask questions, answer questions, take predictions, make it a whole group experience.
• Give students time, every day, to read silently. They enjoy this quiet time to themselves. It's your job to make sure they are reading and aren't just wasting time. If your school allows it, let students bring a pillow or bean bag and lay around while they read. It should be a comfortable experience, this reinforces the habit and also makes it enjoyable.
• Have some way for students to share their reading experience. Whether it's a Goodreads.com account for each student in your classroom, simple book reports that are shared, or a separate shelf where students can put favorite books for others to check out, let them share the valuable experiences in some way. They could also make book advertisements, make commercials for the book, or vote on their favorite books to keep those titles out there.
• Make it interesting. Fluency and comprehension checks are important, but use them sparingly. The tendency to over test, especially with chapter tests and things like that, can ruin the literary experience. Do you give yourself chapter tests when you read for pleasure at home? Then stop doing it at school (at least stop doing it so much).
• Have goals. If you have 25 students, make a goal for each to read 4 books during the semester. Put up a large bar graph in the classroom, and color in one each time a student reads a book and passes some sort of comprehension test at the end (AR, a book report, etc) to prove they read the entire thing. If your class can hit the goal, in this case, 100 books read, then have some MAJOR party or some kind of reward for them.

I hope this post can be of service to you. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to hear about.

The Depths of Literacy Education

I'm sitting here on the verge of Thanksgiving vacation, wondering about the state of affairs in public education. Soon, it will be Christmas vacation, and then, upon our return for the Spring semester, it will be time to start that push towards the standardized testing that will commence in April (in New Mexico, the date varies by state).

Much of what happens in terms of literacy education mandates happen in response to standardized testing, it is the driving force behind what districts, states, and the fed mandates for teachers to do in the classroom.

Where does this leave you, the classroom teacher? For one, it leaves you caught in the crossfire. Teachers are the one who know the best way to teach their students. It's teachers who have access to those valuable resources that kids can use to further their own learning. At the same time, it's those teachers who have no power outside of the classroom to decide what to do in the classroom.

Yes, it's hard, and frustrating. But there are things you can do in order to take control of your classroom. First of all, you need to know your stuff. Know what you're doing, know that it's the right way to teach according to standards, the needs of your students, and according to research. I've heard many teachers say that it's too difficult to keep up with the current trends in education, that they just have to 'go with the flow' and work based on what's in front of them. That is a start, but without a grounding in theory, there is really no praxis so to speak, it's straight method based on some vague understandings that are based on misunderstandings.

Literacy is so much deeper than a few stories in a few textbooks. It's so much deeper than worksheets, post-tests, and the occasional diorama or project. Literacy is an intricate, multi-leveled process in which students learn to interact with the world, and it's deeper than the words on the page. Literacy instruction, if it's practiced effectively, opens students to different ideas, it gives them a new outlet for creativity and exploration, and ultimately teaches them more than any teacher ever will.

I know that this post is more of a rant than anything else, but I do want to explore this topic more deeply in the near future. Let's just hope that I don't disappear for another three months! If you have anything you'd like to add to the discussion, please let me know, I'm open to comments or even to a guest author.