What Kind of Bird are You?

The robins have returned (well, not many) and that conjured up a thought.  Birds are pretty amazing aeronautical engineers.  Watch a bird fly; study what it does to stay aloft, glide, and land. It is really something.  There are at least10,488 species of birds according to the Audubon Society.  Who counts that up?  At our former house, we had a bird feeder just outside a large window in our family room.  I filled it with thistle, which attracted the most beautiful finchesthat the cats would lick their chops over.  The bright ones are female and the dull ones male …no revelation there.  If you were a bird, what kind would you be?  No, this isn’t some sort of psychological test to determine your sanity.  It’s just a rhetorical question.  Would you be a bluejay, an oriole, a penguin, or a hummingbird?  Maybe a pelican, a sparrow, or an ostrich?  How about a sap-sucker, a pigeon, or parrot?  Flipping me the bird is not an option for this activity. Give it some thought.  Your answer may reveal something about you…not really, I just put that in for effect.

If teachers were birds, there would be at least four types.  Peacock teachers include those who are all about the surface and enjoy strutting their stuff.  They really don’t have much below the surface, but they do look awesome!  Their classrooms are a thing of beauty and not a single thing is out of place. Nothing is out of the box. They don’t produce much in their students past the surface level.  They never get to critical thinking levels. A lot of check marks; just nothing being done with those check marks.   Sparrow teachers are all about the chatter.  They just talk and talk and talk until their students only hear the teacher from the Charlie Brown series.  Nothing sinks into the kids past the first minute.  Oh, did I mention that their tone never changes and goes on endlessly. Woodpecker teachers are all about work.  They work, take a break by working, and then return to work.  They never infuse any truly engaging tasks to their students and stand over them like a Turkish prison guard. It’s all work, work, and work.  Their students are great on skill, drill and kill…especially the latter in terms of spirit. Then, there are eagle teachers.  This is where you want to be.  Eagles build their nests high and stay there; even in a storm.  Eagle teachers set high expectations and stay there; even in a storm. Eagle teachers stand tall, they always do the right thing, and refuse to lower their standards because that would make things easier; even in a storm.  As the feathers and talons of an eagle get dirty and dull, those body parts are essentially useless.  So, they instinctively pluck their feathers out at this point to bring about the new. Eagle teachers realize when lessons aren’t going right, ditch the lesson, and find ways to make the concept relevant and useful to their students.  Be an eagle teacher.

Looney Toons

What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?  Remember those early Saturday mornings spent with Huckleberry Hound,Felix the Cat, and Woody Woodpecker in the 1950’s?  Of course you don’t, save a few of us who are baby boom kids. How about The Jetsons, The Flintstones, and  Rocky and Bullwinkle from the 60’s? Nope, still not born yet, huh.  You youngsters.  Josie and the Pussycats, Spider-Man, and Tennessee Tuxedo from the 1970’s were popular.  Still not there yet for most of you am I?  How about the 80’s with the Bernstein Bears, the Care Bears, and Barbie and the Rockers?  Still too young to remember?  Last shot – the early 90’s with The Ren & Stimpy show (what the heck was that all about?), Rugrats, and X-Men?  I cannot move up a decade because you would be too young to have a teaching license.  I enjoyed the Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies with Foghorn Leghorn, Slyvester the Cat, Snagglepuss,Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Daffy Duck.   I noticed something that these characters have in common during a grad class in the mid-1980’s.  Yes, they are all animals and talking animals at that!  That’s not what I noticed. Each one of these characters has a speech impediment.  Think about it – “I say, I say, I say, boy”, “Sufferin’ succotash”, and “Watch the woad, Wabbit!”  If these characters went to our school, they would all receive services from our speech therapists!  In the not too distant past, they would have been ostracized and placed in a separate educational facility.

This is Disabilities Awareness Month.  Disabilities run the gamut for those that are vividly apparent to those not noticed by the untrained eye.  At our school, we have kids with specific learning disabilities, cognitive deficits, emotional handicaps, Autism Spectrum Disorder, moderate mental handicaps, severe mental handicaps, mild mental handicaps, visual handicaps, physical handicaps, and many more.  I have never thought of any of our kids as cartoon characters.  I love our kids that are in our special needs program.  I have a special place in my heart for them that God put in a long time ago.  These kids are a reality check for me on occasion.  Special education has come a long way.  When I first began teaching in the fall of 1980, I was placed at a school that only contained children with severe handicaps and that building was at capacity.  Now, that building is virtually empty as students have been moved to more inclusive settings with age-appropriate peers and often with at least partial placement in a general education setting. I am proud to say that my Dad was a pioneer in this movement.  That’s the way it should be.  It’s the right thing to do and we do it well.  As much as I enjoyed these cartoons from my childhood, I enjoy these kids so much more.  We are blessed to be an inclusive school.

94!

Here we go…it has now been a long stretch leading up to this first round of ISTEP. You have assessed kids on Star. You have assessed kids on Acuity A…and B…and C. You have given countless informal assessments and have asked your students to rate themselves on confidence scales ad naseum. You have given formative assessments and used it to inform our instruction.  You have looked at a whole bunch of data along the way. You have made adjustments to your instruction. You have sat down with each student and developed an ISTEP goal for them to achieve. We have done daily announcements since we returned from Christmas. We have phoned home. We have provided weekly messages to parents. We have made a video. We are providing breakfast. We have team rallies. I have met with about 135 individual students.  We have the t-shirts.  We do things that other schools just don’t do. 

Don’t lose sight of the goals – individual, team, and school. We want at least 94% of our kids to pass this sucker. Each team has a team goal (see below).  The key in reaching these two goals is for each student to reach his/her goal. Push that.  Instill confidence in them. Give them the best pep talk that you have ever given. Be their cheerleader(without the uniform, please). We have worked far too hard to let this thing slip away due to attitude.  Pump them up!  Inspire them!  Make no mistake – WE CAN DO THIS!

I don’t believe in traditional luck. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Well, we have prepared and here comes the opportunity.