The Drawing Board

Ashley

Creative endeavors are happening at our school.

There are three General Ed teachers at our school: one who teaches K-4 (we have no PreK students this year), I teach 5th and 6th grades, and Philip teaches grades 7-12. As it stands right now, K-4 has 7 students, my group has 6, and Philip's group has 12 students (up from the 9 he started with.) As I've stated before, many of the students are performing under the grade level in which they are currently enrolled: many of them severely so. This makes lesson planning interesting, because the spectrum of grades we are planning for spans so much further than our titles would indicate. It gets really interesting when you look at students in lower grades who are outperforming their older peers, and the roller coaster of learning gaps that exist, eradicating any notion of linear progression in skills.

In January, we had our mid-year testing window, including MAP and Star Reading. After the results came in for each of the classes, we sat down as a team of teachers, and looked at the data. Philip constructed groupings of students, based on their reading and math scores, and the results were fascinating. Grade levels were all over the place among the groups formed, based on skill levels. We have 2nd graders with 5th and 6th; 6th graders with 11th and 12th; 9th graders with 5th or lower...and so on. To teach a prescribed set of grade-level skills to students who clearly aren't there, what are teachers to do? And so, we decided to try something crazy: actually maintain the drafted groups, and utilize every teacher and aide on campus to teach them. Last week, we began to implement this: 7 groups, each assigned to a teacher or an aide, with lessons and activities that directly address their learning gaps. The reading groups are different than the math groups, so reading is taught for an hour in the morning, math for an hour in the afternoon. At first, the students were not overly thrilled. The older ones didn't like the idea of being grouped with younger ones. Some of the younger ones were intimidated by being in another classroom with the older ones. In forming the groups, we also accounted for personalities and certain family ties that would be detrimental to learning, which is tricky out here, since everyone is related to everyone. There are many cases where certain students need to be together in a group, but aren't because of pride or social conflicts with the others in that group. We used the first week for assessing skills to see if they matched the results we got from testing, and to test out the group dynamics. For the most part, there was good alignment. But after the first week, we had to readjust based on the teacher or aide who was working with that group, that didn't go so well, or the amount of resistance we got from certain students.

The nice thing about our group schedule, is that each student has their folder of work that has to be completed by Friday morning. The skeleton remains the same from week to week, with the specific skills and types of activities changing. It makes planning much simpler, since now it's all on the same level for that group, and the outline has been put in place. For those students who complete their work, Friday afternoon is spent engaging in what we have come to call "Learning Applications." Each teacher has a theme for their room, and students can move freely from station to station, as their interests lead them. So far, our stations have included:

• The Music Room - A piano, electronic keyboards, and violins are set up, with basic online lessons provided or students may just freely play.

• The STEM Room - Various activities are set up around the room for students to engage with, like dominos, Lego, marble ramps, and other various science kits we've found on campus.

• The Art Room - There are supplies for students to free draw/paint, with structured activities also available.

• Culinary Arts - Students engage in making something in the kitchen; this week was homemade pizza, that was shared with the entire school at the end of the day.

• Beading - Two of our aides, who are Native, teach the kids how to bead various items like bracelets, earrings, etc., according to their cultural traditions.

• The Game Room - Board games of all sorts are set up to be played with the teacher, or other students.

• Gym - For those who prefer to continue dispensing their kinetic energy, students usually play basketball, volleyball, or the latest that we taught them...Four Square.

We do this for an hour and a half, at the end of the day on Friday, before the aides leave for the day. Each teacher or aide mans their station, and as long as we have kids in the room, we monitor and interact. If the station is empty, then we roam around the other stations, monitoring and assisting as needed. Some students will spend the entire time in one station. Most of them visit 2-3 different ones, staying as long as their interest will hold them. When it's time to wrap up, students help clean the station they are in, head back to their classroom, and finish wrapping up the day, before heading home. I usually discuss with my students the stations they visited, and what they enjoyed the most. We also get feedback from them, as to what activities they would like to see incorporated in future Learning Applications.

The four teachers on campus - Philip, myself, our special ed teacher, and the K-4 teacher, have developed the habit of meeting informally at the end of each day, to discuss how things went in our respective groups. These meetings weren't initially planned, but happened naturally from our own curiosity and wanting to touch base. It has occurred to all of us that this is how "meetings" should actually go: not prescribed, but organic, where you can talk about the things that are highly applicable, and get straight to brainstorming authentic solutions to real challenges. We have laughed more, and contributed more creativity in these after school get togethers than any PD I've ever sat through.

What was really fun to observe, was this past Friday at school, the culmination of our second week of this experiment. This week was unique because by Thursday, half of the students were gone to the neighboring village of Nulato for Stick Dance, a very important cultural celebration that honors those friends and family who have passed. (Next year, it will be here in Kaltag, and we will get to observe it.) As such, we only had a handful of students at school on Friday. In discussing the plan for the day, we the teachers decided we would go with the flow, and allow the students to engage in a day of relaxed learning. The morning was still confined to assigned classrooms. But we decided to combine them all together for lunch (usually, there is a 30 minute stagger between the lower elementary and the upper elementary and MS/HS classes.) So the kids all ate lunch together and played in the gym, and the teachers and aides all ate together, conversing as we monitored. The kids ended up playing for almost an hour and a half, before they were ready to move on to their Friday rotations, which they had been talking about all week. We then broke out into our stations, and for that hour and a half, the kids happily decided where they would spend their time. I loved listening to many of the K-4 students engaging in pretend play, while they built with Lego blocks in my room. When I asked them, many of them told me they had never played with Lego before. They'd all seen the Lego movie, they knew of Lego characters, and had even played some of the Lego video games, but they had never had the joy of actually constructing something with real bricks. I am so glad we spent $200 to ship in our personal collection of Lego.

Watching the students deciding when and where to go, among the different stations, reminded me of the times that our family had visited various children's museums over the years, when they were younger. I thought to myself, that this is how school should be. An educational institution should be structured around curiosity and learning choices. It isn't hard to keep students engaged during this time, because curiosity and natural interest dictates the experience of each student. They own it. All we do is set up safe parameters to allow them to explore. Even one of our usually reserved high schoolers let his guard down, after making the homemade pizza, and was actually singing and rapping in the halls, as the pizza was being shared with the rest of the school. There was so much laughter, so many smiles, among both staff and students; it was the way you would like an educational week to wrap. Of course, we've also taken to blasting music on a portable speaker about 5 minutes before dismissal, and Philip will walk the halls, making the lap around each of the classes, signifying that the weekend has begun. We're all pretty sure our principal is not fond of this trend, but the kids enjoy watching the teaching staff making fools of ourselves, as we sing and dance along. (They just recently witnessed the ability of Philip and I to perfectly lip sync Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise...) We were exhausted at the end of the day on Friday, but it was a good exhausted. The kind you get when you feel the energy was well spent and productive.

We know there are many kinks to be worked out in this grouping experiment of ours, and there's no guarantee that it will yield any testable results. But we're seeing some interesting indications of growth among various students, especially for those who are willing to give it a shot and do the work. For those who aren't, we aren't going to force them or bribe them, but we're also not going to coddle them. We've set the bar, and we remind them every day of two things: they can in fact reach its height and that it takes work to get there. Every day, every moment. There are so many low expectations both here in the village and in district office, it's hard to combat that mentality. But it's all we can do: show them that there is a path, and hope that they'll take it.

It's been so refreshing, to feel like we actually have some creative license out here, to try the things we've always wanted to try in education. Yes, there are still bureaucratic guidelines, and district expectations. But with the unique dynamic of a small staff in a small school, on the edge of a river in the middle of nowhere, it is easier to logistically explore different ideas than it would be in your larger school districts. And with such predominantly low test scores and academic performance, the question really becomes, "What's been done isn't working, so why not?" This autonomous freedom among the staff has really brought us together as a team, because there is more that we can own, where we can say, "Yeah, we had a hand in that." It wasn't something forced down our throats, along with the regurgitated guarantees that are so often sold at a hefty price tag to the educational powers that be. There's still a lot that we smile and nod to. But then we on the frontlines shut our doors, and engage in the reality that exists in each of our classrooms.

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This week in photos:

Philip tunneling to our backyard after this past week's snow, and the dangerous buildup on our roof. We are told that district maintenance will hire someone in the village to clear it when it gets to a worrisome point, but we're thinking of cutting out the middle man, and getting it taken care of sooner rather than later.

Almost buried now...

Tunneling to the backyard

3 feet of snow are underneath!

Worried about the roof...