Talks with Teachers

Larry Ferlazzo 

English and Social Studies Teacher (Luther Burbank HS -- Sacramento, CA), 

January Contest: Win a Copy of Carol Jago's With Rigor for All by emailing me a lesson that worked (email)

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

– Larry teaches at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California… Sacramento's largest inner-city high school. He has taught there for 10 years. Prior to that he spent 19 years of his life as a community organizer.

 Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– Larry finds inspiration from experienced teachers, especially Kate Hull a colleague and author. Her patience and understanding have been an inspiration to him.

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– He has had his fair share of lessons that have fallen flat… and even gone worse. One clear reason has been a lack of preparation and a failure to model appropriately.  

Why teach English and the Language Arts?

– He has found success is agitating his students to think about how and why they should learn the elements of English or Social Studies. 

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

 – Larry loves that every day is different and the challenges and potential gifts are also different. He believes that if you are relational as a teacher, the next day is always a fresh start. Students will forget the bad lesson but they will not forget if you treat then badly or disrespectfully. 

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- A critical book for teachers to read is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

 Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

–Be less site focused and more person focused. Find people that are reputable and worth following. Yet, if you want to follow sites, Edutopia and Education Week are two websites that he recommends.  

What can a teacher can do to make students better writers?

 – Larry believes that modeling is critical. The other thing is to scaffold with graphic organizers. Finally, take the time to listen to student experiences and students stories.

Update the cannon. What new work should be included in the school curriculum?

For Social Studies, two things: 1. Students have to identify an alternate history to an important event. 2. Students first identify what qualities of a neighborhood are important to them. Then they take a tour of the wealthy neighborhood in Sacremento and then the one around the school and realize that the qualities that they listed are right...

Tim Averill

HS English Teacher (Waring School, MA), AP Community Moderator, St. Johnsbury Summer Academy Facilitator

January Contest: Win a Copy of Carol Jago's With Rigor for All by emailing me a lesson that worked (email)

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

– Tim has taught for 44 years at Manchester Essex RHS and, most recently, The Waring School. He grew up in Topeka, KS went to Kansas University, where he obtained a French and English degree, and then Harvard for graduate school. He worked at Manchester from 1971-2005, where he also coached Debate.  The Waring School is a bi-lingual school where all students learn French and travel to France.

 Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– He believes that example is a great teacher because he had great professors at Kansas University who inspired him. While in Springfield, Harvard had assigned him a master teacher to work with him and that was of great benefit. At Manchester, a couple of colleagues took him under their wing and helped him develop as a teacher. A supportive spouse is also helpful to be there for you when you have good days and bad days. 

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– Tim has had plenty of examples where he thought something would go well and it didn't. While in Springfield, some kids from another school came over unannounced to visit. Tim relied on his students to tell them that they were not welcome and his students did not side with him. It was an unsetting for him, yet his colleagues reminded him that his students are not going to side with a rookie teacher when there are friends are around. He reminded us that when a lesson goes wrong, we often have the tendency to believe that the failure is a reflection on us,  when it can be a reflection of the material. 

Why teach English and the Language Arts?

– It is a way for students to know themselves. The purpose of education is for students to get to know themselves, yet Tim believes we are far too career-oriented in education right now.  Too frequently we are teaching them that their value in society is based on what they can produce and consume.

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

 – Taking students to debate and seeing their joy of discovery when they feel empowered. His job as a teacher is to be less and less important as the year goes on because they've gained the confidence to think independently. 

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- This may date him as a teacher but Death at Early Age by Jonathan Kozol and Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman. 

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

 Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

– The AP Community. It has 8,775 members. Every teacher can join the community.

What can a teacher can do to make students better writers?

 – Have students publish their work. Publishing can be as simple as having them read it aloud or enter it into a contest but it makes an assignment exist beyond the teacher and beyond a grade. 

Update the cannon. What new work should be included in the school curriculum?

--  A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving is a novel that he was overjoyed to see on recent AP exams.

Sarah Brown Wessling

HS English Teacher, 2010 National Teacher of the Year, Host -- Teaching Channel (Johnston, Iowa)

January Contest: Win a Copy of Carol Jago's With Rigor for All by emailing me a lesson that worked (email)

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

– Sarah comes from a family of teachers and initially wanted to be a teacher and principal. Yet, she started university as a broadcast journalism major, then switched around from philosophy to psychology until she had an epiphany and realized that she could do all of those things if she were in the classroom. She turned right around and head to the education department.

 Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– Sarah has had supportive professors and other teachers that have given her guidance, but it is an accumulation of a lot of factors. She conveyed the importance of experiences, whether it be going through National Board Certification or scoring AP exams that facilitated her growth. 

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– She has had so many but the best-documented example was a lesson for the Teaching Channel, How a Lesson PLan Can Fail. In it you see her thinking out loud, talking through how she was going to correct a lesson that was not going well. Sarah spoke that we will all have similar experiences, and rather than blame external factors that are beyond ourselves, we have to be accountable for what we can be accountable for... and ultimately that is ourselves.

Why teach English and the Language Arts?

– Language is absolutely crucial. It is the way we communicate as humans. Without an understanding of stories, we become more isolated. ELA goes beyond literature it is reading, and writing, and speaking. In a more universal way we need to realize that the Humanities are not dead. Stories are at the heart of the strong arguments currently being written by Malcolm Gladwell and Atul Gawande in the New Yorker.

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

 – There are so many things that she loves, such as the unpredictability. Yet most of all, she loves watching them become autonomous. It is always a sign of their growth and independence. The other part that she loves is the questions that students bring to the classroom.    

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- Lots of books, yet books speak to different people at different times. She often turns to Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. It has been an important compass because it encourages thinking about who we are as teachers and what the work requires. 

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

 Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

– Certainly the Teaching Channel. She sees so much value in its videos because we can learn from high-quality instruction. Edutopia, Read Write Think, National Board, NCTE are others. The resources have become an extension, or house, her professional community.  It is about the community, mores than the resources,

Chris Lehman

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

– Chris has been in education for 12 years. He started as a middle school teacher in the Bronx, then moved to a high school in Brooklyn. He has also been a literacy coach, and he's worked with the Reading and Writing project with Columbia University, where he served as a senior staff developer. Now, he's working on the K-12 level effecting literacy and he has moved into the digital world with his blog.

 Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– His family -- his parents and grand parents, who inspired his love of learning. A pivotal person was and made him believe in himself was his 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Ekstrand, who took him from shy Chris and made him believe in himself. Caroline Wagner, at NYU, also believed in him and noticed that the way he listened to kids is special.

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– In his second year there was one student who was the quintessential classroom management problem. One day this student threw someone's backpack out the window. No one knew what to do with this young man that was so disconnected from the school experience. His parents started to lose faith with the school because no one was getting through to him. Looking back, Chris learned that this student's parents didn't feel valued or believe that their voice was heard. The school really didn't listen to her concerns and collaborate with her about what to do with her son. Chris realizes now that he and the school should have asked more questions and listened more to her answers. 

Why teach English and the Language Arts?

– It primarily gives each student, when it is really working, the power to use his or her own voice. Chris comes from a place of social justice. He wants every child to feel empowered. He believes that when we learn to write well, we are allowing our students to impact other people. Reading allows us to escape, to learn new things, but it also allows us to learn to pay attention to characters and consequently pay attention to ourselves.

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

 – Everything! Chris loves children's minds as well as educators' minds. 

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- His short list includes The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller for reading. For writing, any of Carl Anderson's books, Assessing Writers.

The longer list would include  Penny Kittle's Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers and Smart Charts K-2: Optimizing an Instructional Staple to Create Independent Readers and Writers

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

 Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

–  Chris believes that you have to be on Twitter. The educator community is so huge and vast. You can join in the various education chats there. Nearly every day there is some sort of educational chats. One of his favorite resources is the Nerdy Book Club, which is a group of educators and young-adult book authors.   

What can a teacher can do to make students better writers?

Dan Sharkovitz

English Teacher/Department Chair -- Martha's Vineyard Regional High School

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

– Dan has been teaching at the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School since 1979. He began is teaching career at the Beacon Hill School in Boston before he officially became a teacher.

 Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– John Morelli was his first department chair at MVRHS and gave him his opportunity. He was always willing to listen and made Dan feel that his ideas were worth listening to and valued. The second was Ken McCrory, who gave feedback on a paper Dan wrote in grad school. Ken wrote three pages (single spaced) of notes in response to the paper. It wasn't about fulfilling a rubric. It was the most thoughtful response that Dan had ever received. It showed how much he cared about his students.

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– A bathroom issue arose early in his career. A lubber (automotive student) pointed out that Dan gave privileges to certain students. It lead to a fascinating discussion on tracking and the students' experience with it. He mentioned this development in a workshop he was attending with his principal at Brown University and it led to two of his students presenting their experiences with tracking at Brown to an audience of 70-80 teachers, administrators, and school leaders, including Ted Siezer.

Why teach English and the language arts?

– Dan believes that what we were doing 40-50,000 years ago is still true today. We are writing on the digital cave walls of the internet and other media to communicate... Students  are still captivated by poems. The souls of students, when they connect to any form of literature, are defending the subject matter for us because literature is what sustains us.

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

 –   Dan loves that on every Monday 20-25 students file into a small room where the school newspaper is assembled and stay for hours to get the school newspaper done.  It serves as a metaphor for successful classrooms. Students are there, not because it is a requirement, but because they love the experience.

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- Find where the sparks of one's passion lies and then blow on those sparks. Uncommon Sense: Theoretical Practice in Language Education (Heinemann/Cassell Language & Literacy) by John Mayher is a book Dan recommends because he take truisms in education and tries to explain why we need to rethink what we assume to be common sense.

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

 – Find ways to allow students to apply what they are learning inside the classroom to things going on outside the classroom. Dan had set up a Slam Poetry night at a local coffee shop. The shop help 60 people and 300 showed up on the first night. It ran successfully for years and was a great community event. 

 Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

–  Dan's site and Jim Burke's English Companion Ning.

What can a teacher can do to make students better writers?

 – We need to create situations in which students want to write. That is an indirect way to improve student writing and create passion writers.

What novel or poem do you love to teach and why?

-- Hamlet

The post

James Cross

English Teacher -- Lakewood High School/ Director of AP Oxford Academy

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

– This is his 40th year in the classroom. He was hired over the telephone in 1974... sight unseen at St. John Bosco High School. At Bosco he was allowed to grow professionally, becoming the department chair. He left there is 2000 because he wanted to stay in the classroom and not become principal. He is now at Lakewood High School, where he also coaches soccer, which he has done since he began teaching. Through it all, the students have allowed him to endure and prevent teacher burnout.

 Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– He was taught by great teachers himself. His  5th grade teacher -- Sister Patricia -- was an early influence. She had 47 students in the class and had a handle on everything. He went to a Franciscan brother high school who were always ready, always prepared. Another professor, Bill Leary, advocated for the teacher being the authority over the text. We as teachers should be authorities over all facets of the text. Finally, his wife, Debbie, during his first year, compelled him to teach and treat everyone in the classroom as if they were your nieces and nephews. 

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– A young man, who was not doing well in class, went over to the window, said "I had enough" and jumped out. Thankfully, the busses were there, and Jim just turned to the class and said, "well, I guess I have one less paper to grade." A way to avoid a lot of pitfalls of a failed lesson is being well prepared and having back ups ready to go. 

Why teach English and the language arts?

– Teaching allows us to save civilization one desk at a time and language gives us more of an identity that the information in our wallets. Fitzgerald said "a writer who is anything, must be a mirror of what going on in the world" and literature allows us to see the artistic perspective on the times. 

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

 –  Jim loves its spontaneity  He is teaching Heart of Darkness right now and there are four different versions of the text that is being taught with each class period.  

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal, 10th Anniversary Edition. It advocates for the sacredness of the classroom. Palmer peaks of not only the courage to teach, but also the fear of a teacher going into the classroom is a natural fear, but one that can be harnessed into a positive force of energy. Papers, Papers, Papers: An English Teacher's Survival Guide and With Rigor for All, Second Edition: Meeting Common Core Standards for Reading Literature by Carol Jago are also recommended. The latter argues that all students deserve to be exposed to worthy work of literature. He uses Jago as his text for curriculum development with his teaching-candidatestudents at Cal-State Long Beach.

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

 – Being well prepared is an important step one can do outside the classroom. He also uses coaching to make connections with students outside of the classroom. Beyond that, Jim believes that we must not neglect to take care of, and plan for ourselves (family, recreation, health, etc). 

 Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

–  Education Week, NCTE,

 Ariel Sacks

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching? What classes have you taught? 

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

 Also Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word it offers writing assignments that embraces the diversity of the classroom to bring out student voices. She has used just about everything in that book.  

Kathy Thomas

Segment I – Background and Inspiration

Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

 – Reading Don't Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men. It addresses the male population in the classroom. The discovery was that boys were different in the way that they attacked reading. 

The post #3 The Art of Communication with Kathy Thomas appeared first on Talks with Teachers.

GRANT WIGGINS

Segment I – Background and Inspiration

– Grant's first teaching experience was as a sophomore in high school when his math teacher had to attend a wedding and asked him to run the class (back in the day when you could do those kinds of things). Some of his peers gave him grief and it led to an epiphany. It made him realized how difficult it was to teach.

Later, in life he was motivated by the need to make learning an exciting activity, not boring. He taught for 15 years and now is a leader in curriculum development.

Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

– His father was in the foreign service so he had a diverse experience with school. Then, having gone to St. John's College, the so-called Great Books school, so he appreciated the importance of Socratic Seminar early on. He saw the power of giving students responsibility at the board or in student-led discussion rather than the teacher telling them what to think. Mentoring became personal with a colleague named Jim, who he did PLC (personal learning community) with before the term had ever been coined. As a soccer coach, Jim once said to Grant, "how come we teacher differently out there than we do in our classrooms." That has stayed with Grant to this day. Jim was someone who took teaching and learning more seriously than anyone else in the school.

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

– A bought of laryngitis forced him to turn control of the Socratic Seminar over to the class and the results showed how much guidance his students needed.  student threatened to throw the desk out the window. In his vocal absence, the students went off on all sorts of absurd tangents. He realized he hadn't done what he thought he was doing, which was to make them independent. Also, being video-taped for the first time allowed him to see and hear how he spoke to struggling readers. It all made him realize how his good intentions were missing the mark with student understanding. He realized how his soccer coaching experience had to come together with his teaching practice. He had to be more purposeful and deliberate with students in identifying the norms of discussion and the roles they could take in discussion.

Why teach English and the language arts

– Grant would like to see courses called Language Arts instead of English because the danger of teaching "English" is that you can fall back into a tour of certain time periods. He believes that we have a huge problem in this country of engaging adolescent boy readers. A lot of high school English classes are a forced march through books. 

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

–  He is at his happiest in probing the thinking of adolescents. Having a discussion with kids about meaningful issues is about as fun as it gets in 42 minutes.

Segment II — Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

 – Grant believes you can't go wrong with the master, John Dewey's, Democracy and Education. It is one of the best books you could read. It is a clarion call to remind ourselves of why we teach. 

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

– Plan better. Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition. Its just a no-brainer that no matter your style, there is nothing better than unit planning and backward design. Everyone needs a plan to cause a difference in the student -- in his or her learning.

Is there an internet resource that you can recomme...

 Carol Jago

 Segment I – Background and Inspiration

 Tell your story. Where are you from and how long have you been teaching?  What classes have you taught? 

 -- She started student teaching, which turned into her first job because the master  teacher called in sick and never returned. That turned into a 32-year career teaching     middle and high school English in Santa Monica, California. She had the same desk for  27 years.

Who has helped you in your journey to become a master teacher?

-- Bill Clawson, 20 years her senior, took her under his wing. While he was different in size -- 6'3", 250 pounds -- and style it was the approach that he shared with her. It was the daily conversations of reflective practice that really made the difference. This is something she discusses in her book, With Rigor for All, Second Edition: Meeting Common Core Standards for Reading Literature

It is important for other teachers to know that we all have had setbacks in the classroom. Identify an instance in which you struggled as a teacher and explain what you learned from that experience.

-- A  student threatened to throw the desk out the window. Yet, she had a community of teachers around her that cared that not only would she survive, she would thrive. In 32 years she never sent a kid to the office, she did not want to give up authority. Carol believes that when you turn a student over to a higher power, you give up authority, you give up control.

Why teach English and the language arts?

-- Why teach anything else? Get paid to read Hamlet? It is the most wonderful life in the world. Like Stephen Greenblatt, she believes that literature is the most astonishing technological means human beings have discovered to convey experience. Her job was to bring those means to students. She wants literature to open up like a flower for students. Her goal was for students to see how they can be readers too. If you believe it very strongly and you can convey it with enthusiasm, students will come a long way with you.

What is one thing that you love about the classroom?

--  The discussion that take a direction that is never planned but is about the text and when the period ends, she knows more than she did before. The lucky aspect of teaching is that we become learners.

Segment II -- Digging into the Teacher Bag of Goodies

What book do you recommend to a developing teacher?

-- Papers, Papers, Papers: An English Teacher's Survival Guide It is about handling the paper load. Teachers are not copy editors there to correct every error. She offers other approaches to responding to student work. Give them one thing to think about.

What is one thing a teacher can do outside the classroom that can pay off inside the classroom?

-- Roll with your strengths. It is critically important to cultivate one's own interest. Carol uses visual art all the time in the classroom. Her friend uses sports metaphors to explain difficult concepts to kids. It makes the classroom experience richer. 

Is there an internet resource that you can recommend which will help teachers grow professionally?

-- Twitter. NCTE. Edsitement. Poetry Foundation

What can a teacher can do to make students better writers?

-- Have students put a slash mark at every end punctuation. It will allow students to see their sentence variety, which is an important element in effective writing.

What novel or poem do you love to teach and why?

-- Crime and Punishment. She taught the first 100 pages and then assigned the rest over break. 

The post TWT #1 Carol Jago appeared first on Talks with Teachers.