Category Archives: conversations

Sometimes great blog posts or articles spark debates that change and evolve from blog to blog, and sometimes, I chime in as well.

Tracking Students with E-Textbooks

Posted by Jackie in conversations, education, technology and tagged with , , , , ,
English: Textbook

English: Textbook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The hot topic in education today is how technology is going to shape, track and modify student behavior, especially in areas that are typically hard to control. The NYT writes about e-textbooks that will track student engagement in real time for professors to view. However, how we interpret this data is not so clear cut.

Adrian Guardia, a Texas A&M instructor in management, took notice the other day of a student who was apparently doing well. His quiz grades were solid, and so was what CourseSmart calls his “engagement index.” But Mr. Guardia also saw something else: that the student had opened his textbook only once.

“It was one of those aha moments,” said Mr. Guardia, who is tracking 70 students in three classes. “Are you really learning if you only open the book the night before the test? I knew I had to reach out to him to discuss his studying habits.”

Here are my questions: who among us hasn’t been that student, where everything you needed to know was discussed in lectures, and the reading so thoroughly reviewed that a sharp student didn’t need to do it in the first place? But more importantly, doesn’t this also point to a greater problem with how the course itself is designed? In other words, if that student can pass that class without opening the book, then hasn’t the teacher gone wrong somewhere in designing the course, the content, the lectures, the assignments and/or the choice of book?

Later in the article, everyone involved acknowledges that students will still continue to be inventive:

students could easily game the highlighting or note-taking functions. Or a student might improve his score by leaving his textbook open and doing something else.

Apparently, students taking paper notes are also penalized because the system can’t track them.

Finally, one of the professors seems to engage in some self-reflection toward the end:

“Maybe the course is too easy and I need to challenge them a bit more,” Mr. Guardia said. “Or maybe the textbooks are not as good as I thought.”

If our students aren’t engaged, aren’t challenged, aren’t paying attention, they certainly own part of that responsibility. But we do too, as it is our job to track and reflect and engage, even without any high-powered software to help us.

Related articles

Evaluations and Leaning In

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations, teaching and tagged with , , , ,
Image representing Sheryl Sandberg as depicted...

Sheryl Sandberg Image via CrunchBase

Like many schools, my school has a tiered evaluation system, and this year is one of my years to be evaluated. At my school, we are evaluated by our division head, department chair, and a peer we select ourselves. We write narrative self-reflections on different specific professional areas where we want to improve, and then all three members of our team come and observe our teaching for an entire class period. Then we meet again, and the team members share what they observed, and we have a conversation about it all. It’s a great process, and I helped revamp it a few years ago as a member of a school-wide committee, so I’m familiar and comfortable with it. This process is not tied to salary, like many performance reviews are, and even if it were, I feel fairly confident about my job performance.

I think I am a good advisor, I try hard to be a good and collegial colleague, and I put a lot of time and energy into trying to be the best teacher I can be. I seek out professional development, volunteer for committees and extra responsibilities, and advise one club and one student organization. I’ve been evaluated before, always with positive comments, I enjoy the opportunity to reflect on my teaching and set personal goals, and I’ve served on plenty of evaluation teams, which I have always found to be fascinating and personally valuable.

But in all honesty, each time, being evaluated freaks me out. Like, majorly. MAJORLY. I was super-stressed in preparing for my first evaluation meeting this week, in which I had to discuss what I think my own strengths are (I think I came up with two, maybe?), and I know my nervousness showed, which made me so frustrated with myself. I am already stressed when thinking about my observations, which will happen after we return from spring break. I trust, value and respect my evaluation team, so this isn’t about them; it’s entirely about ME.

I’ve always thought that part of my personality is a strong dash of imposter syndrome. Illustration: when I was in my first few years teaching at my current school, the secretary came to my classroom door while I was teaching, beckoned me into the hallway, and whispered that we were going to have an all-upper-school meeting in the theater directly after that class period. My first immediate and vivid thought was that they were going to fire me in front of the entire assembled student body and faculty. Even after the assembly (which I think ended up being a slightly graphic one about drunk driving), I had a tough time shaking that panic and fear for the rest of the day. I’m nowhere near that bad these days, or I wouldn’t have been able to write that paragraph above about the ways in which I think I am good at my job. But that feeling still lingers, and evaluation season is certainly its favorite time.

However, lately I’ve also been wondering if there’s something else going on with my reluctance to blow my own horn, as it were. Reading this profile of Sheryl Sandberg makes me think maybe there’s a gendered aspect, that I worry somewhere inside my head that if I had come into that meeting (or any meeting) with a bulletted list of my strengths and accomplishments, I would have instantly seemed less likeable, too conceited or self-important or pushy. I work in a very female profession, and everyone on my team is female, but that doesn’t mean the barriers don’t exist inside my own head. Again, this isn’t about the women on my team; it’s about me. I’m no Reese Witherspoon, but I do agree that I need to dig deep and get more comfortable with being uncomfortable in this area. I’m much more comfortable outlining my weaknesses and where I need to improve as a teacher, and while that helps me keep improving, it doesn’t help my confidence or self-image, and it may shut me of from future opportunities.  You can’t say, “Wow, that would be perfect for me, as it plays to all my strengths,” if you have no idea what your strengths are.

Do you struggle with this too? Are you as comfortable listing your strengths as you are your weaknesses?

Related articles

Inside Selves, Outside Selves

Posted by Jackie in conversations, writing and tagged with , ,
Cover of "Their Eyes Were Watching God"

Cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God

She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.

I read this quote with my students this week; we’re deep in our study of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and this quote describes how Janie, our protagonist, feels after a terrible fight with her husband and realizes how much of her true self she must keep hidden from the man she thought would be her partner and soulmate. It’s a shattering moment, and after we discussed it in class, I asked my students to write about when they might feel like they have two selves, and how difficult that might be. I talked a little about Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, and how so many users are putting the most ideal versions of their lives out there, not the frightening or ugly parts, and how that makes us feel when we look at the streams of beautiful images and then look at our own not-so-perfect lives. They sent me their responses when they were done, and I was struck by how many of them, from the awkward quiet girls to the athletic blondes, felt deeply that they were struggling to reconcile these different selves, and the insecurity they feel from seeing the outside selves of so many around them, but not feeling safe enough to reveal their inside selves.

Last week, Laura at 11d was thinking about her own messy life, and one of the commenters added, “You need to be able to say to your friends, “this is hard and scary and difficult and I’m not coping”. It’s a better life when you can help and lean on other people, rather than showing off to them or competing with them, you know?” How many of us can say we feel totally comfortable in this role, rather than the role of competent adult with the smooth-surfaced life? Isn’t this part of the reason blogs are so popular, because they allow us to peek beneath the surface and hear a more authentic voice than we might at the PTA meeting or in the carpool line? Of course, the reverse is true too; how many bloggers are putting forth that shiny perfect surface, and hiding the darkness underneath? I’ve never been a confessional-style blogger, but I have tried to avoid seeming too perfect here, in this space.

Messiness and need and struggle are frightening; it’s more pleasant to be orderly and capable and self-sufficient, in many ways. Unlike Janie, we need to find out how to integrate our inner and outer selves, to form a more cohesive whole. But what my students are struggling to understand, and what Laura’s (adult) commenters seem to be finding peace with, is that we survive the mess by learning to embrace it, and by finding those people in our lives who will share our mess with us, laugh, and show us their own messes too.

Working Hard for the Money

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations and tagged with , , ,
Bath and Body Works store in Ohio

Bath and Body Works store in Ohio (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How many jobs have you had? That’s the question I asked myself after reading this article about a woman who’s had 30 Jobs Under 30 Years Old.

  1. File clerk, Opthomologist’s office, junior and senior year of high school, after school weekday hours; great first job to have, with motherly co-workers who were very sweet to me and a doctor who gave me first set of contacts, right in time for my senior prom
  2. Sales associate, Disney store. seasonal employment for two summers, Thanksgiving break, and winter break before and after my freshmen year of college; had to wear “nude” pantyhose under khaki shorts, guilt parents into buying overpriced princess stuff, and constantly rearrange Plush Mountain so all the animals’ eyes faced the same direction
  3. Sales associate, Bath and Body Works, seasonal employment during college; worst Black Friday experience, loved the employee discount
  4. Waves music store, seasonal employment last of my three mall jobs; another good discount; once served a woman in fishnets who came in, bought a bunch of heavy metal CDs, paid for them all in single dollar bills and said they were her “work soundtrack”
  5. Hostess, Olive Garden, seasonal employment my first time working in a restaurant, ate a lot of breadsticks
  6. Tutor, Writing Center, UMBC, six semesters first job I had that I really loved, definitely one of the reasons I’m a teacher today
  7. Office assistant, Interdisciplinary Studies, one semester worked this job in addition to tutoring to help pay off some credit card debt from my semester abroad
  8. Unpaid Intern, WHFS radio station, one semester senior year, second job I ever really loved, got to see some free shows, skim off CDs from the station’s library, meet Spike Jonze
  9. Graduate teaching assistant, BGSU, three semesters included tuition and stipend, reinforced my love for teaching
  10. ESL tutor, three months very part-time work I took while my girls were babies, basically to remind myself who I was beyond new motherhood
  11. SAT tutor, one year part-time work, toddler years
  12. Server, Eggspectation, one year more part-time work, one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done but one of the most valuable in terms of teaching me about myself
  13. Adjunct, AACC, three years loved this job, taught popular culture and fine arts classes
  14. Adjunct, UMBC, two years loved this job too, taught communications studies
  15. Current job, RPCS favorite job ever, see myself spending a significant chunk of my career here

So I’m a few years older than the original writer, and yet I’ve had half as many jobs (not counting freelance writing work). In looking over the list, I see some patterns; I’ve never quit a job without having another lined up, and I’ve never been fired. I’ve worked pretty consistently since my junior year of high school, which is part of how I earned my way through school, but it also strikes me that my list of extracurricular activities in any of my schooling years would be much shorter, which also bears out the point from that earlier post that students who work have less time for clubs and other non-paying activities.

However, I think the biggest reason my list is so much shorter is that I did not spend any period of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my career; I’ve been very lucky in that I knew fairly early on that teaching was the path I wanted to follow, and so there’s a clear shift around job #6, where the jobs that follow are all connected in some way to teaching (even waitressing, which taught me a lot about what I can handle in a hectic environment!).  You can also see how I ramped up from very part-time work to more of a career path, as I became a mother between jobs #9 and #10.  I don’t know what my next moves might look like, but I’m hoping not to add too many more jobs to my list!

How many jobs have you had?

Related articles

Duck Purse

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations, family life and tagged with , , , ,

When my girls were three or so, they went through a major collector phase. They each had little purses, one shaped like a duck, one like a frog, and hid all kinds of treasures in there. Lucy was the most possessive about her little yellow duck purse though, and she carried it everywhere for months.

One summer day, we left it behind at the Giant that was in walking distance of our old house, and we went all the way back to get it (four blocks, but legions when with two toddlers) and saw it sitting alone in the aisle, thankfully untouched. When I close my eyes, I can see that little yellow duck, sitting upright in the aisle, so dear to the little girl next to me, head covered in ringlets, plush little hand in mine, round cheeks I could kiss for days and big brown eyes the color of chocolate syrup.

Reading this blog post brought all those old memories flooding back, and I felt swamped by a wave of nostalgia for those chubby little toddlers I used to spend every waking minute with, talking, hugging, reading, playing, and moving through our daily lives in our own placid rhythms. In those tough early years, women used to come up to me and say, “Don’t worry, this will all get easier, but don’t let these years slip by too fast, because they are so wonderful and they fly so fast.” Overwhelmed by responsibilities and worries, I used to think those women were ridiculous, so out of touch with how difficult my life was in those years.

But when I think of that little duck purse, and that little girl, I feel it too.  So sweet, so precious, so fleeting.

Tuition, Motivation, Grades, and Me

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations, education and tagged with , ,

So you’ve probably heard about the study recently that found that college kids whose parents pay for all/most of their expenses get lower GPAs, right? This gets me where I live for a number of reasons, of course, as a teacher and parent, but it also started me thinking about my own college years.

I went to a wonderful state university on a full scholarship, and worked all but two of the semesters I was there, as well as breaks and summers, in addition to a full course load in an honors program for a major and extended minor, a semester abroad, and completing an internship during my senior year. There are some decisions I regret making during my college years, but working isn’t one of them; my tutoring job is one of the reasons I went into teaching, and the other jobs (retail, restaurants) taught me a LOT about the “real world” outside of the classroom. I had worked in high school, an afterschool file clerk job in an opthamologist’s office, so working wasn’t new for me, and I never felt burdened by my need to work. However, what the study also found was that these students participated less in on-campus clubs and organizations, and that was definitely true for me too, and something I do regret.

While having a full scholarship was incredible, it also is the key reason why I really feel like I earned my degree. My parents would have helped me at any point, and I lived at home during breaks and summers, and they gave me my first car during my senior year, which made it possible for me to have that internship. However, as a scholarship student, I paid the majority of my own way, and that will always be the first major accomplishment of my adult life. I went on to earn a graduate degree, funded entirely by an assistantship that paid my full tuition in exchange for teaching a class each semester, and again, I feel like I earned that degree, in a sense that is inextricably connected to working my way through in order to pay for it.

Quote from the story: “grants, scholarships, work-study, student employment and veterans benefits don’t have similar negative effects on GPA, though loans do, along with direct parental aid.”

This was true for me too, as the idea of losing my scholarship was horrifying. I know my parents would have found a way to keep me in college if I had, but the shame, embarrassment I would have felt, the disappointment, the lack of pride in my own abilities, would have changed my life and identity forever. Not coincidentally, I earned the best grades of my academic career, up to that point, while in college, because my GPA was tied to my scholarship, at a required GPA of 3.5 to keep the award. That provided real motivation for me, and pushed me to excel even in classes that didn’t align so closely with my own scholarly interests.

My own kids won’t be college-aged for another 7-8 years, but the question of how to motivate them to excel is certainly one we’ll be thinking about in the next period of their education. There’s plenty of evidence for and against paying kids for good grades, and it’s a delicate juggling act, as I’ve seen too many kids who are fixated on grades without thinking about their own learning and their own passions.Obviously, I have no idea whether my kids will earn any scholarships, or how much college will even cost by the time they are ready to go, but I feel fairly confident that we won’t be funding it entirely out of our own pockets or savings, and that they will be expected to share in the costs.

Though I won’t say the skyrocketing costs of college don’t keep me up at night sometime, I also believe that kids need to have some “skin in the game” when it comes to grades, and I do believe strongly in the value of feeling like you’ve earned something, accomplished something, in the pursuit of your own education. If my kids work their way through college, with as much support as we can give them, I think we’ll all be the better for it.

Related articles

In the Middle

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations, education, family life and tagged with ,

Like my friend Anjali, I’m thinking a lot about MIDDLE SCHOOL, which my girls will be entering this fall. And yes, something about it just requires all caps, as it proving to be a more terrifying transition than I had expected.

On the rational side, I’m very excited about the middle school my girls will be attending; their new school is a K-12 school, so they won’t be leaving the building they’re currently in, and will use the same dining hall and gym facilities. Since I work in the Upper School there, I know some of their teachers already, and am thrilled to think of my girls getting to work with them. Lucy will start Chinese this fall, and Sophie is already looking forward to trying for the middle school musical and joining middle school chorus. There are plenty of sports teams they can try (all with no-cuts policies, so they can really experiment), and afterschool clubs (free to join) with all kinds of different interests. There are mixers each year to meet other kids (boys) from different schools, and yearly retreats that include outdoor education and leadership training. I’m glad they will be in an advisory program, as I think those are so crucial in the 6-12 grades, and I know and trust the Middle School principal, who is just a fabulous person, as well as being a skilled administrator.

So what’s the problem, right?

In her post, Anjali wrote, there’s something about the term MIDDLE SCHOOL that feels incredibly oppressive and repressive and suppressive and claustrophobic and makes me want to have a drink. Of alcohol. Make that a double. YES. There’s a lot of talk recently about how we never truly leave high school, but middle school brings up much more depressing feelings for me than high school. It just seems like such a maelstrom of feelings and hormones and chemicals, so ripe with bad choices and careless actions, kids who aren’t old enough to drive but are old enough (physically) to make life-altering decisions, old enough to lash out at each other but too immature to see the consequences. It’s also the period of time when kids start pulling away from their families (especially parents) and towards their friends, but when they still need so much guidance and support.

Working with high school kids means I hear all the stories, the good and the bad, and sometimes I wonder if that has made me more cynical, more anxious. But I think it’s also the lingering memories and emotions from my own experiences; I escaped middle school fairly unscathed, but I knew so many girls who suffered some serious traumas, and I felt guilty for years, wondering if I could have been a better friend, if I could have alerted more adults who might had been able to help them. One of the difficult parts of parenting adolescents is keeping your own experience apart from theirs; your daughter is not yourself, and her life is not yours, just as her future will be different from yours. I learned some valuable lessons from those years, but I’d like my own kids to not have to pay such a high emotional cost while learning them.

I don’t anticipate blogging a lot about my kids’ middle school experience, since I’m blogging publicly here and want to respect their privacy as much as possible, but I know it will be a big part of the next few years of my life, so I’m hoping to be able to work out my own feelings in writing (here or privately) as I make the transition right along with them. What I’m also thinking about is when my kids start to pull away, how I will maintain connections with them, and what shared interests can I foster? When they start to pull away, what will I have space for in my own life, and what might I be able to pursue that I hadn’t before?

Related articles

The Tragedy of Not Having a Dog

Posted by Jackie in conversations, family life and tagged with

Here’s the conversation that ensued on our way to the car, one day recently after school. The girls had learned about quinceaneras in their Spanish class and were agitating to have one for their fifteenth birthday. While this is not traditionally a big part of Puerto Rican culture (according to my husband, please share if you have opinions), I thought it sounded like a fun idea with lots of potential to personalize for our family.

Sophie: But if I do have one, I don’t want to share it with Lucy.

Lucy: Why not? We always share our birthdays!

Sophie: That’s my point! I have always had to share my birthday parties with you for my whole life, and when I’m fifteen, I’ll be even more sick of it!!!!

Me, giggling slightly: Sophie, if you have one, you are going to share it, because a big party like that would be expensive, and you’d be lucky to have one at all.

Sophie: (more expressions of rage and injustice)

Me: Sophie, I am not going to argue about something that is over four years away! On the scale of life, this is not a tragedy!

Sophie: It is too! It’s just like the tragedy of not having a dog!

Me and Lucy: Wut?!

Sophie: Well, those are the only two tragedies I have experienced in my life!

Scene

Publishing this entry even though it makes me feel very superstitious, please tell me I didn’t just call down a rain of tragedies?!

School’s Out for Summer?

Posted by Jackie in conversations, education, teaching and tagged with , , , ,

Whether or not to preserve summer vacation or move to a year-round school calendar is a debate that springs up from time to time in education circles, and apparently, that time has come around again.

As much as I love summertime, I do believe that during the span of my career, we will probably see a longer school year, whether that means adding an extra month (like July) or losing the summer altogether. One of the big barriers that you don’t see mentioned often is air conditioning; if we are going to keep buildings open in July and/or August, there are a lot of school districts that are going to have to invest in installing or upgrading their air conditioning. Here in the Baltimore region, it’s not uncommon for public schools to sometimes shut down in early June for heat index related reasons, similar to snow days, in districts where not every school is fully air conditioned. But I think with our increasingly warm global climate, that is probably a pressing concern anyway.

More importantly, I’m not sure how many students still benefit from having the entire summer off. Summer learning loss has been documented over and over, and contributes to the achievement gap between lower- and upper-income students. All the working parents I know spend significant amounts of money on camps and summer programs that are enriching, but also expensive. Some kids lose access to nutritious meals that are provided free during the school year, and others get less exercise and practice with academic skills they spend all school year acquiring.

As for teachers, the summer break is often a perk people question if we deserve. I don’t think people realize how many of those summer programs and camps are staffed by teachers, earning extra money or often volunteering to do it for no pay! Not every district pays on a 12-month schedule, so many teachers use the summer as time for a second job. Teachers often use the summer to recharge and reflect, which can be difficult to do during the chaos of the school year, when teachers are often working many more hours than people realize. Summer is also an important time for sustained and excellent professional development, a vital tool in increasing and maintaining teacher quality that is difficult to accomplish during the year. Many teachers I’ve met over the years take graduate-level courses during the summer to make themselves better and more qualified teachers. All in all, I believe some kind of multi-week break will still be needed, to accomplish all of these goals for teachers in the profession. If we truly want to ask teachers to work more, of course, we are also going to have to pay and respect them more as professionals.

Should we extend our academic calendar? I think a shift is inevitable, but not without considering all the different angles and factors that such a shift would require. In the meantime, I’ll hang onto my precious summers and try to appreciate them even more.

Related articles

On Parent-Child Cellphone Contracts

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations, family life, technology and tagged with , , , ,
Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

Lucy and I went out for a mother-daughter lunch recently, and while we were chatting, she said that many of her classmates were going to ask for smartphones for their 5th grade graduation present. Trying to hide my total surprise, I asked her if she thought she might want that too. “No,” she said, “I really don’t see the point of it for kids my age.” I nodded and agreed, but I know that if my kids had older siblings, or were playing on traveling sports teams, they might well be one of those kids needing to stay in closer touch with us. But then the texting, and the screen time, and restrictions; such a can of worms to open!

Even more recently, I saw a popular post written by a blogger as a letter to her 13 year old son, who got his first iPhone for Christmas. It’s a wonderful and thoughtful approach, and there were a few lines that felt especially valuable to me.

4. Hand the phone to one of your parents promptly at 7:30 p.m. every school night and every weekend night at 9:00 p.m. It will be shut off for the night and turned on again at 7:30 a.m.

I hear my students say that they sleep with their cell phones under their pillows so they feel the vibrations when they get new texts, no matter how asleep they are, and other students say they use the phone as their alarms, so they have to keep it in their rooms overnight. Parents say the kids are constantly attached, interfering with family time and communication, and that they struggle with knowing where to draw the line. We know that kids are using their phones as their Internet sources more and more, but they still need that time to disconnect, to get healthy sleep, and to keep the online world in its proper place and perspective. I would definitely adopt a similar policy with my own kids, after what I’ve heard as a teacher.

8. Do not text, email, or say anything through this device you would not say in person.

9. Do not text, email, or say anything to someone that you would not say out loud with their parents in the room. Censor yourself.

Again, so important! Adolescents are learning so much about themselves and the kind of people and friends they want to be, and they will inevitably make mistakes and not be as kind or empathetic as we would like to think they are. But the shock on a friend’s face when you stumble and say something you shouldn’t can be a powerful corrective that just isn’t possible when you dash off a quick text and send it flying.

18. You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You and I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together.

I think the lesson this mother is trying to teach her son here is one that is important to teach our children in so many arenas, from schoolwork and grades to mastering digital balance and etiquette. It’s all a process, and we are there to guide them, not punish them.

Do your kids have cellphones? How old were they when they got their first one? What rules have you established?

Related articles