The Whole Truth

An Open Letter to District Administrators

Dear School District Administrators,

Most open letters are written as a passive criticism or open critique of a large institution. I have no wish to be passive in my critique and observations.  They are intended to spur conversation and reflection.  These are the tools of our trade as teachers.  I was hired to critique and foster reflection.

 

 

 

After studying and researching in your administrative offices over the previous year, you have embraced personalized learning as a targeted result, as we deploy technology throughout the district.  It is a goal widely acknowledged to be systemic in scope and paradigm shifting by its nature. So with all sincerity, I applaud your willingness to step bravely into a well-reasoned approach to 21st-century learning.

It is widely agreed that personalized learning is also a new pedagogical mindset that must extend beyond the classrooms; that fact pushes forward my primary question “How does the leadership of a personalized learning environment shift itself to accommodate the new network of change?”

pass or failAs I continue learning to apply a more personalized approach to my teaching. I have found that many of those same skills can be used to reflect and evaluate options. So I have tried here to apply a similar cognitive approach, an open critique and sincere question on eight observations I have noted as my school, and our district has embarked on a journey of blended and personalized learning.

In the classrooms we are, approaching the close of another school year, you at the District offices are approaching the hiring season. As you do so, I would ask that you perhaps take some time to consider the qualities your prize as you develop a leadership team for the future.  It is commonly understood that there is a shortage of new teachers in the US, as well as a disconcertingly high number of experienced professionals leaving our classrooms. But that is not the case for program administrators and principals. The number of people earning Masters Degrees’ in educational leadership or seeking an administrative endorsement is higher now than at any time in the past 25 years. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics

You have the opportunity to look broadly and consider carefully those that will help lead us through this systemic paradigm shift.

Personalized learning achieved through a blended curriculum keeps students engaged; it pushes them to grow and demands that they understand both themselves as learners and our curriculum as it pertains to their lives. In a very real sense, PL embodies the vision that led so many of us into teaching as a profession. The opportunity to connect not just with a child, but with a child through teaching and learning.

Personalization is full of hard data, human connections and an intricate web of lessons, apps, and projects. Peel back that top layer and the overwhelming nature of the idea begins to surface, PL disseminates the control of the learning within a classroom, the students practicing to take control of their own path. The teacher building supports and taking them away.

That complex dance of adding and subtracting scaffolding while it is being used is being successfully done. But it is severely limited when it has to fall within blocks of time and for a set number of minutes each week.

  • Where once our administration needed to be skilled at defining, defending and delineating blocks of time we are now asking them to find flexibility within a rigid structure and extra time where the was never enough.

?  How do we as a district support the required complexity of a school schedule while still offering the time to rigorously dig deeply into an area of study?

Underneath the popular jargon and interview buzzwords that you will hear, like Grit and Mindset, are classrooms where those life skills are being developed.  In those rooms, both students and teachers are failing, examining their efforts and sometimes failing again.  Learning to fail and from failure is important for real success.

  • As an institution, we are built to reward success and admonish failure. As a culture of educators, we are largely populated by those that thrived in that climate exemplifying their own successes and hiding their failures.

? How do we insure ourselves and reassure others that our district leadership understands the role of failure and exploration as we move into a new mindset?

We do not work in an industry where taking chances, innovating or finding a creative alternative is celebrated, least of all at the administrative level. Rather we as a profession, are accurately profiled as safe, steady, stable, predictable types.  Our administrators even more so than those of us in the classroom.

  • We are now in an era where we will need to be inventive, take calculated chances and create new ideas. We will need to look for those traits in our leaders as we move into uncharted paths with impressionable cargo.

? What are the important character trait of a 21st-century school administrator, and how do we ensure that the status quo does not continue to be the status quo?

?  How will the changing power dynamic in classrooms impact both our schools and our district as a whole?

One of the most powerful aspects of personalized learning is that it is, out of necessity, powered from the classroom up.  Teacher-leaders are the ones moving the bar and setting the standards. Those classroom maestros will need strong support and stronger feedback.

  • Please remember as you consider the next steps for those that will be leading the dwindling number of magnificent classroom teachers that we are a profession built on the artful combination of personal connections, honest feedback, and transparent agendas with all of our students, not simply those in the most need.

?  How can we use our transition into personalized learning, as an opportunity to both support and capitalize on the prowess of our teacher-leaders?

The devices, the web resources, the alignment of lessons and project to a standard, all of these pieces are new and as unfamiliar as they are integral to this shift.  As a teacher, I know there is no shame in saying I don’t know, and that I will not be able to master all of those elements of the job I love without support.  I am confident and comfortable say that my principal and school as a whole will need support as well.

It is not an uncommon critique to observe that the current structure of our educational system was built with management in mind rather than support and growth. Nor is it an uncommon refrain for teachers ask for support. It is uncommon, however, to have the opportunity to create the needed change.

?  What structures of support can we enhance or establish to best help our schools thrive as centers of blended and personalized teaching?

?  How do we find a way to structure and support creativity while still managing growth and learning?

If you are overwhelmed by the questions and standards set before you if you feel as though the task is disproportionate to the tools available. Please know that I, and every classroom teacher, that works for you is familiar with those insecurities. We grapple with them every fall, we understand, from experience I can tell you that the while the challenge never fades the overwhelmed feeling does.

With sincere thanks for all that you do to move us forward,

Brian Cleary  @oldbrainteacher

 

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In kids, even low lead levels can cause lasting harm

Robert L. Fischer, Case Western Reserve University and Elizabeth Anthony, Case Western Reserve University

The recent firestorm over lead exposure from drinking water in Flint, Michigan is a reminder of the enduring risk posed by environmental lead. While we can all agree that it is unacceptable for children to be exposed to dangerously high levels of lead, there is less awareness of what this means.

Flint is just one of many cities in the country where lead exposure is a serious issue. For cities with an industrial past and much pre-1978 housing stock, like Cleveland, where we work, the risks to today’s children is of continuing concern. In recent years, we and our colleagues have been examining the incidence and effects of lead exposure on young children in Cleveland and its first-ring suburbs.

Even though lead paint was banned in 1978, many old homes still have it.
Thester11 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Lead is a known neurotoxin that is associated with cognitive deficits in children – even at low levels of exposure. In fact, reports indicate that most of the harm may occur at levels of exposure well below current standards for concern. Though lead is no longer used in household paint and has been removed from gasoline, there is still plenty of it out there. Lead leaching into water pipes, in paint dust and chips, and soil remains a serious threat to children.

Children living in low-income neighborhoods, children of color and children whose families live in rental housing are statistically at the greatest risk of exposure to lead. That means the children most at risk of lead exposure also disproportionately face the effects of poverty, low-resource communities and trauma.

Lead’s effects never go away

Often attention is focused on the number of children who have an elevated lead test result in a given year. This is an important metric, but it can mask the cumulative role of lead exposure on child development.

For example, in Cuyahoga County, where nearly 25,000 children are tested each year, we have seen the number of children with an elevated blood lead level (above 5 micrograms per deciliter) drop from 35 percent in 2004 to 9 percent in 2013. This is a very encouraging trend showing success from public health efforts.

Despite the fact that the number of children with high lead level rates seems to be going down, it is important to think about the overall share of children that have ever had a positive lead test. These children carry those effects with them as they age.

In a recent unpublished analysis using integrated data from multiple sources, we found that fully 35 percent of children in a sample of preschool classrooms had an elevated blood lead level at some point in their lives.

The treatment options for children with elevated blood lead levels include dietary approaches and dealing with the effects of lead by managing sensory exposures. At greater exposures, chelation therapy – in which a synthetic compound is injected into the bloodstream which binds itself to the heavy metals – can be used. Though chelation has been shown to significantly reduce blood lead levels in the short term, there is evidence of a rebound in lead levels after therapy has concluded. Also, blood lead levels do not fully capture the retention of lead in bone and deep tissue.

Kids with lead exposure start behind nonexposed kids.
Children image via www.shutterstock.com.

Long-term consequences

Children exposed to lead are at elevated risk for learning delays and academic issues. We have also found that students with confirmed early childhood lead exposure have lower kindergarten readiness scores.

In tracking the experiences of children in our community, we find that lead-exposed children entering high-quality preschool start the year significantly behind their nonexposed peers.

In our ongoing research, we have found that on standardized measures these children score 10-30 percent below their peers on skills such as identifying letters, numbers and shapes. More sobering is the reality that while these children show significant progress during preschool they still finish the year, on average, below where their nonexposed peers start the preschool year.

This disparity is likely to grow as children age unless special efforts are made to address it. Results from Detroit show that these children are much more likely to experience academic challenges as they age.

And it looks like it doesn’t take much lead to cause harm. Other research has shown that blood levels well below the current standard for intervention can also cause negative effects on school readiness for young children.

There is no known safe level of lead exposure

Until a few years ago, the federal standard for action was 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood, and in 2012 it was lowered by half in recognition of evidence showing a lower threshold of concern.

But the truth is there is no known safe level of blood lead for children, and the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said as much.

The medical research community has documented negative impacts on children with even lower levels of lead exposure than the current 5 micrograms per deciliters standard. With that view, we might consider every child with a confirmed nonzero lead test as at-risk.

Based on our analysis of lead data in our county, we calculate that if this standard were adopted in the U.S., our lead exposure rate for kids younger than 6 in a single year would climb from 9 percent to 3-4 times this rate.

Short of ensuring that every housing structure has been certified as lead-safe, parents and caregivers should be the first line of defense in keeping children from this exposure. Testing lead blood levels in children is simply too late.

This is akin to the TSA searching for lethal weapons after the passengers have boarded the flight and the plan has taken off. Once the lead is in the bloodstream, the damage is real and lasting for these children, and the options for response are far fewer and less effective.

The Conversation

Robert L. Fischer, Co-Director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, Case Western Reserve University and Elizabeth Anthony, Research Assistant Professor, Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development, Case Western Reserve University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.