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Opting out: better late than never

3/26/2015

When my middle daughter took her first MCAS (the Mass. state test for kids grades 3-8 and 10th) she came home and announced that MCAS stands for "Murder Children at School". When she had to take a science MCAS last year, based on science she had done almost 2 years previous to that, she cried as soon as she walked in the front door, saying that she felt so stupid.

When my son took his first MCAS 5 years ago, he became so anxious that it affected all around him. I tried to soften the MCAS days by waking up early to make him a special breakfast, not realizing that I was setting a precedent for him and my other 2 children.

Last year my youngest took her first MCAS and she got as anxious as my son when he did his first in 3rd grade.

My husband and I reassured the kids that the MCAS doesn't count towards their grades, that they shouldn't worry so much and try to do their best, etc. But the MCAS times continued to be stressful and anxiety-producing for all. My kids are smart and are not bad at test-taking; my youngest got an advanced on her ELA the first time, and my middle daughter got advanced in math, as my did my son. However, the reality was that this time of year they were almost unable to function on anything else, they were so nervous, exhausted, stressed, and not enjoying school or learning.

That's why this year we decided to opt them out of MCAS. It started when when my son came to me a few months ago and announced, "I'm not taking MCAS this year." He prompted me to go back to research I had looked up last year about opting out when a friend opted her children out. We discussed his reasons, discussed it with our daughters, and decided to write the letters. Legally, there aren't supposed to be repercussions. The principals of our kids' schools received our emails, didn't question us, and responded promptly.

When I tell people we opted out, the reaction is usually: "You can do that?". Yes - you can. It's actually not complicated at all. It simply requires writing a letter/email to the principal stating that your child will be in school, but will not participate in MCAS, and that they should be engaged in another educational activity during testing time.

I am relieved beyond words for my kids. They are not overly anxious and losing sleep over a test. They are enjoying the parts of school that everyone should enjoy if they can: reading, learning for the sake of learning, satisfying their curiosity.
They don't hate the months of March and May anymore.

As an ELL teacher, every year I have students who have been here a year or over who have to take the ELA MCAS. All my ELL students, regardless of when they arrived, have to take the math (math and science for 8th graders). They have their bilingual dictionaries with them, but these are more often than not inadequate. Sometimes they don't have enough vocabulary, and often they don't have the right kind of vocabulary. For example, words such as "reduce", "product" and "expand" will have a different meaning in the language of math than in every day English. Often, the "math definition" will not be found in the bilingual dictionary.

ELL students who are excellent at math, but are still learning English, may not know how to answer math questions on MCAS because there is so much language involved in figuring out math problems now. This is frustrating and even humiliating sometimes for ELL students who have always excelled in math. This website outlines the problems and states that we are all "MLLs" or "Math Language Learners", because it really is another language: http://www.sedl.org/presentations/0001/the-trouble-with-math-is-english.pdf

In the school where my husband teaches, almost 70% of students are Latino and more than half come from families where English is not spoken at home. More than 33% of students are chronically absent (www.doe.mass.edu). Many students of my husband's come from families who have experienced trauma, violence, and abuse. Often, children did not attend preschool, and already found themselves behind their peers in other school districts. And yet, the school these students attend, the students themselves, and the teachers, are all judged based on MCAS scores. Where is the standardized assessment that will judge our policy makers?

On behalf of all the students whose anxiety makes them unable to function, the students who are smart and capable but don't test well, the students and parents who don't know that opting out is an option, and all the instructional time lost to a test, we are opting out. Better late than never.

1 Comment

Teaching and Love

3/18/2015

6 Comments

http://www.mountainemeadows.com/catalog/piece/teaching_heart/

Every time I think about my first year of teaching 20 years ago, I realize just how little I knew and understood about teaching. I was a new, young teacher with no experience in the classroom (not even student teaching) and no education classes or training. I was lucky to have some great mentors to help me, and as all throughout my teaching career, my own parents,teachers themselves, who were always helpful. Other than that, it was learning on the job. Luckily, classroom management was easy and discipline was a non-issue in the private, elite, girls' school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan where I taught. Even at the time, the $25,000 yearly tuition was steep and the population was mostly comprised of wealthy, white girls from the immediate area.

That first year, I wanted desperately for my students to LIKE me. I was only 7 years older than some of them, had recently lived on my own in Paris, and was one of the younger teachers at the school, so I did have some element of "coolness". I remember feeling so happy and relieved when, after the first week, my supervisor Madame Tellier said to me "On n'entend que du bien de vous!" (Only good things are being said about you). I also liked my students a lot; they were fun, curious, and friendly, and for the most part, down to earth.

It wasn't until years later that I realized that it doesn't matter so much whether or not your students LIKE you. More importantly,do you love them? And do they feel YOU care about THEM? I now know that there were students about whom I really cared when I was at my first school, and that I shouldn't have spent so much energy worrying if they liked me. I even had a very special group of girls (some of whom I am still in touch with) who threw me my first baby shower, when I was pregnant with my first child, at one of their homes.

Now I believe that while it's great if you also LIKE your students, and they like you, it's more important for them to feel you care about their learning, their future, and their well-being. This was brought home to me when my colleague and I welcomed a new student about 3 weeks ago. He had already been in New York for 2 years before he got here. The day I tested him, he was sullen and shy and refused to say much. This made it hard for me to get an adequate idea of his English level; now I see that he knows much more than he let on! (#testfailure) His mom told me he had had some trouble at his old school. We asked about his history there, even had the guidance counselor call them, but we couldn't find out much more.

In class the first few days, he opened up a little more, but my colleague and I realized that this student had weak "studentship" skills and had big gaps, not only in Spanish and English, but also in content. My colleague made a comment that has stuck with me since the first week; she said, "Maybe no one really took the time to care for this student enough at his other school; no one held him to any standards because they didn't care". While not blaming the other school, which is a city school with all the challenges that being at a mostly ELL, poor urban school, sometimes l bring, my colleague might be right. Maybe there were too many ELL students in a class and the student fell between the cracks.

We don't really know much about what really happened, but I do know that already he is changing. We tell him we care. When he does not pay attention or disrupts in class, we call him on it - with love and a smile. He sees that we have high expectations for him, that he cannot hide or just get by at our relatively small school, that we will call home when he doesn't do his homework, but also when he does great work. He will begin to see that we have his back. I hope that we will not let him down.

6 Comments

When a student gives you the finger....

3/11/2015

2 Comments

I have had a fascinating and busy few weeks evaluating new students - 5 in the last 3 weeks or so - and it's been a whirlwind of activity. My new students are Korean, Cambodian, Dominican, and Chinese and come, of course, with widely ranging levels of English and academic backgrounds. The dynamics in my classes have completely shifted because of the newcomers. On the one hand, it's fun to learn about the new students and to have fresh faces in class; on the other hand it is causing some interesting, funny, and difficult situations to deal with.

Gestures are often tricky in a new culture, because the same gestures/hand symbols do not mean the same things all over the world. Case in point: today my Chinese student stuck her middle finger up and asked me if I knew what that meant. At first, I thought she was trying to be funny. Then, I realized that she was being sincere . I said "What does it mean?" She tried to explain to me something having to do with Tai Chi, but I don't think I got the true meaning. However, as the other students were cracking up, I explained to her that here it was considered a rude gesture, and that she should not, for example, do that in the hallways of our middle school.

The same student from China spent much of the class commenting on other people in the class - what they looked like, what they were wearing, etc. The Chinese teacher at my school uses my classroom, so I asked her about this. She said that this is definitely a cultural thing. People will comment on your appearance often and honestly, for instance: "Your eyes are too big for your face" or "What happened? You got fat." Having relatives in Spain and Puerto Rico, I know that they sometimes can be very frank as well, as in "You gained weight" or "You're too pale!" but this seemed extreme to me.

Today another student who is Syrian but grew up in Europe informed me that the Chinese student asked her if her parents were Black (she has olive skin and black hair), and then proceeded to say something offensive about Black people. All of this has made for a challenging day for me. I don't want to single out the student but I do want to save her from embarrassing herself and making further cultural faux-pas, and also teach her what is appropriate in our school. I'm hoping that her interpreter will be able to give me a hand!

Our gestures conversation led to talking about other gestures that may be obscene here and acceptable in other places, and vice-versa. It may turn into a mini-unit, and that way they will all have the benefit of a discussion about cultural issues and sensitivity. I will keep you updated!

Please share if you have any stories about cultural misunderstandings! Would love to hear them.

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