Work Period and the Menu System

My greatest accomplishment during my year teaching third grade was a system I developed and used for one quarter, a little over three months. Initially, it started as a contemplation of how I would run the ideal classroom if given the chance. Months after writing that linked article, those thoughts were still swimming around my head, begging for a chance to be let out. Well, no better time than the present, I decided. I worked at a private school, where it was more feasible to try something potentially radical than at a public school, so why not?

I started brainstorming how to make it possible. I rearranged our schedule, providing a two-hour work period in the morning, an hour shy of a traditional Montessori work period, but that's what I could give. (Click images to view the full screen.)

Then I wrote up new rules specifically for this work period:

1. You must work quietly enough not to disturb others.
2. If you are being disturbed, let that person know politely. If someone tells you that you are disturbing them, simply apologize and change the distracting behavior.
3. If you need help, ask someone around you.
4. You may work together with any number of peers, as long as you are on task.
5. Log everything in your Daily Schedule Keeping Notebook.
6. When you are finished with a workbook page, check your answers with your peers. If the answers don't match, find out why. Defend and justify your answer if you think it is correct, but listen politely to the other person. See if you can find a flaw in their reasoning.
7. Workbook pages must have 5 signatures of peers that agree with your reasoning.

And in January, we began.

The system itself is broken up into three main parts: the weekly menus of assignments, daily schedule keeping, and conferencing.

I started out with default menus--everything that we had been doing together in class. It looked a little something like this:

Math lessons, a story and fluency practice from our silly basal reader, grammar and spelling book pages, science (switched out with social studies every other week), daily reflection, and silent reading--everything that the students were used to doing, nothing new. We had spent five months doing these same sorts of assignments, the only difference was that now they had the option of when to do the assignments, in what order, and whom with. I passed out the menus every Monday, and it was expected that all assignments would be completed by Friday. I had some students that completed everything in class and others that needed to take some things home for homework. I let them know that either was acceptable, as long as everything got accomplished.

Meanwhile, I held small lessons (a schedule of which was posted on the board on Mondays), and the students were free to attend if they so wished. They could also skip it and just read the textbook.

My intention was to get the students used to the menu for a couple of weeks, then work with them during conferencing to tailor an individual menu for the following week based on their needs. This part never got off the ground, unfortunately, for a number of reasons. It was such a new idea for the students that they, having never experienced it before, didn't quite know what to do with it. When asked what individual projects they'd like to work on, they were at a loss. I came up with a few ideas, age-appropriate anatomy books to study for those who said their parents wanted them to become doctors, animal encyclopedias to flip through for those interested in animals, and art projects for those interested in art, all of which were accepted and at least attempted, but they rarely came up with ideas of their own accord. This being my first time with the system, too, I didn't have as many resources as I found I needed. On top of that, it was time consuming, and I was frequently strapped for time and stressed. So, for the most part, we just stuck with the default menus the whole quarter long.

The second part of the system is the daily schedule keeping. I had the students start a new spiral notebook, in which they were to record everything done during work period. Two examples:

Along with the date (which should either be at the top of the page, for those that started a new page each day, or beside the first assignment of the day, for those that filled up a page with multiple days), assignment (which should include page numbers or other identifying remarks), and time spent, I also asked students to record who they worked with and a short comment about the difficulty, mostly as a small, frequent exercise in reflective thinking.

Finally, the last component, daily and weekly conferencing.

At first, I tried to gamify it. My husband, a computer programmer and even bigger gamer than I am, had been trying to get me to add gamification features to my class since before I even signed the contract, and hearing about my system, took it upon himself to design a program, which we called Class Quest, to go with it. Unfortunately, he got busy with work and the program never got completed, but basically, it rewarded students for the work they did during the day (taking into consideration both effort and completion, of course). His designs differed in some ways to what I wanted, but here are a couple of concept designs I created for it:

Students' names in columns, their individual "experience points" below. When clicked privately on the teacher's computer, a pop-up would appear allowing for points and comments to be entered. Beside each student's name, a big "Contribute!" button that they could go to the front of the classroom and press on the SmartBoard, adding their exp to the class total and filling a large progress bar at the top of the screen. Under the progress bar, Current Total Experience and Points Needed to Next Level, clearly visible.

And when the progress bar filled completely, Level Up! A notice would appear signifying what achievement, or reward, was unlocked.

But since the program wasn't finished by January, I made the interface manually, black marker on poster board. I added the individual exp on sticky notes next to each student's name, wrote the class total exp, and marked it out with correction fluid to fill in the updated total on Fridays. I tried to give a rough estimation of filling in the progress bar accurately, but it soon became too much work and remained ignored, for the most part. Unfortunately, I never got a picture of the whole thing.

Daily conferencing went something like this: during the final hour of the day, I called students to my desk individually, and they would bring their Daily Schedule Keeping notebook and anything they had worked on, such as workbooks or journals. They told me about their work, and experience points were awarded for each item. I wanted desperately for the points to seem as automatic as possible, not at all arbitrary or up to my discretion, but that's a difficult impression to create, especially not having a finished-looking product like what Class Quest to support me. Each assignment, entry, or homework was worth 10 exp. Well, that was the idea, anyway. I had a difficult time, personally, allowing points to be distributed freely, as I was still trying to determine what my role was.

Reading and fluency practice were easy enough assignments, and I felt like I could trust that students had done them appropriately. When those were written down, they automatically counted for points. Science and social studies journals, reflection journals, and story analyses were all graded at the end of the week, so I took the stance that effort on those counted for experience points while accuracy counted for grades. They counted for automatic points, as well.

Workbooks, on the other hand, were a different matter. Where the science and social studies textbooks could be read for the information needed to answer the questions at the end of the lesson, our math and grammar curricula weren't designed that way. They were meant to be completed only after having been through the lesson with an instructor who was following the teacher's manual. The grammar workbook had a small blurb of minimal instructions to be followed on each page, but not really enough information for a third grader to understand the point that was trying to be made with the given practice. The math workbook had no explanation whatsoever to aid in solution of the problems. They were not meant for my Menu system.

I could have made math and grammar lessons mandatory. I could have video recorded them for individuals or small groups to watch at their leisure, a la the flipped classroom. But I didn't. My desire for the system to inherently work made me blind to this flaw, and I maintained that students who wanted to do assignments properly would eventually learn to come to the lesson. I had failed to consider the human nature, the inclination towards easy mode. My students did the best they could on their assignments with the knowledge that they had and could easily gather, though that often meant guessing. But they were intelligent guessers. They considered problems they had encountered previously and attempted to solve new problems likewise. Unfortunately, math (and grammar, too, to some extent, considering that the majority of my class was bilingual, if not ESOL) is a broad subject involving many skills that third graders just haven't had exposure to. And how were they to get that exposure if not from coming to lessons, since no textbook of information was available to read? I had tried to plan for the option of using other students' knowledge as a resource by requiring signatures of agreement on workbook pages, but even that wasn't enough. Their requests for signatures rarely crossed gender boundaries, and strong-willed students were often able to convince weaker-willed or unsure students of incorrect answers. Proper resources just weren't made available.

Thus, I felt the need to check workbooks for accuracy. I deducted experience points for missed question, scolding that if the child is confused, it should be taken as evidence that they need to come to the lessons. I knew subconsciously at the time that I was going about it in the wrong way, and it's especially difficult in retrospect. Guilt is definitely not an emotion a teacher should inspire in her children.

Daily conferencing was the most stressful time of the day, but refusing to acknowledge the aforementioned was only partially to blame. That hour always felt like a race against the clock. I never felt like I had enough time to spend with each student, even though there were only 14. Four-ish minutes to devote to an individual, allow them to express honest feelings about the material they're learning, assess how they're doing, and giving points that may or may not be arbitrarily distributed? We often ran late for dismissal. But what was I to do? My husband recommended splitting the class in half, only conferencing with each student every other day. I suppose it was worth a chance, but I was skeptical and never got around to trying it.

Weekly conferencing wasn't much better. Because I didn't have the program to rely on, we had to find another work-around--I turned on the SmartBoard on Fridays and opened a calculator, allowing the students to see the numbers as they were added. I stayed silent during this process, but there were always a couple of students standing behind me watching. Therefore, when someone sitting at their desk inquired whose points were currently being added, there was readily someone to supply the answer. I had mixed feelings about the connotations implied in knowing how many experience points each classmate had earned, but it would have been apparent on my version of Class Quest, too. Somehow I must have overlooked that. My indecision was my decision, and I never asked those students to sit down.

Not to mention how doing all the work with the calculator myself removed the feeling of contribution from the whole ordeal. That's not how it was intended. If they got the feeling that they were contributing to some sort of cause, I'm sure it must have been latent.

But it was always very exciting when we earned enough experience points to level up. After a moment of cheering came the question of what achievement had been unlocked. Again, because the program wasn't completed, that left me to verbally announce the reward. Class Quest would have declared the achievement automatically, in a seemingly unambiguous manner. In truth, I would have set the awards and exp needed for the next level personally, so it wouldn't have been any different, but just the fact that I had to announce them myself probably seemed at least a little suspicious to some. Weekly conferencing days were frustrating ones.

In true game fashion, I had planned for the initial levels to be easily attainable and give small rewards, but become more difficult to achieve, giving better payout as time went on. Apparently I didn't convey this sufficiently, because there were constant complaints that the levels took too long to reach and that the achievements weren't desirable. I don't recall all of the rewards they unlocked, though the first was Extra Recess Time. I thought that surely this would be a nice reward, but apparently not everyone felt the same. Towards the end of February, when a riot nearly broke out at the concept of unlocking a Healthy Food Party, I decided to suspend the Level system. For the remainder of the quarter, we continued daily conferencing as before, though no experience points were awarded. (For the record, everyone enjoyed the Healthy Food Party, as they had enjoyed the other unlockables. It was as though they dismissed the concepts outright, assuming that they weren't good enough before even considering them as viable options.)

There was an easy fix for this problem, to be fair. My husband's concept of Class Quest was much more in depth than what I designed. It was incredibly detailed, based off of Star Trek Online, a game he was playing frequently at the time, and it ran more on currencies than experience points and leveling up. (I guess my personal gaming history of mostly RPGs made conceptualizing game design limited to RPG qualities, when perhaps the model of a strategy game like STO is more suited to the classroom.) There were currency points for class work, as in my design, but also points for behavior, attitude, attendance, and so forth, and it offered multiple unlockables simultaneously, each requiring a different amount of the various currencies. The idea was for the class to work together to decide which reward to attempt to unlock, though each student would still be able to contribute their points as they saw fit. Juggling all of the different currencies would definitely have been too much for me to handle in my first play through of this class game, considering how much I struggled with only one point system, but having the rewards known before they were unlocked would have benefit my students. If there's only one take away to be had from this experience in gamification, it's this: students do not appreciate hidden or surprise achievements. (Though honestly, I guess I knew that, having attended a couple of gamification panels at PAX that I guess I didn't think enough of to write about or even remember when it mattered. Now that I'm thinking about it, they also told me that requirements for unlocking achievements need to be known, as well. Must remember for future reference!) However, my husband just recently discovered a website similar to his design of Class Quest that takes his ideas even farther and even incorporates some aspects of table top role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, turning the instructor into a Dungeon Master. How neat! I'll definitely have to explore it more and see if it's something I can use next year with my high schoolers. It's name is even similar to what we had thought up--Class Craft. Anyway...

Now for the most difficult part to relay.

At the end of March, third quarter report cards were released, and many of my students' grades had fallen. It was to be expected. This was a brand new experience for these students. They had never been exposed to anything but a traditional classroom setting with a traditional teacher who held their hands and all but spoon-fed them answers. Alright, that may be a bit of a biased exaggeration, but honestly, it was a new, experimental system, and I was asking the students to learn in a way they weren't accustomed to. It's understandable that they should take some time to adapt. It didn't mean that they weren't learning. What's more, I assumed that they were learning more valuable lessons than that which basic curricula could teach, like taking responsibility for one's own learning, prioritizing, self-pacing, pride in doing one's work, and contributing to a community. However, I must not have articulated this well enough, either.

One parent, whose daughter had been a straight A student, was so upset, she came in to speak with the principal, wanting removing the menu system altogether. And when I sat down with them, I somehow could convince neither of them of the benefits of the system. I failed as an effective communicator. I was required to teach whole class for the remainder of the year.

The worst part, I think, is that the project was ended abruptly, exactly in the middle, which the worst possible time. My students had just begun to see the results of their actions. They were just beginning to see that their actions had direct consequences. I had intended to teach my students that if they want to learn, they are able to take it upon themselves to do so. I intended to teach them perseverance over time and the value of learning new skills, including thinking in new, unfamiliar ways. Instead, I fear that the only thing they've learned is that if something proves difficult, if you complain to the right people, they can get you out of it. That's definitely not the skill I wanted to get across, and I'm incredibly saddened by it. I guess it's just another way that the world works, and I have no doubt that they will grow up to use that information to their advantage as adults. This could be even worse to consider, but what can you do? It's the world doing what the world does, and it's just unfortunate that I got caught up in it and wasn't persuasive enough to change it. Maybe the lessons that I, myself, learned in the process will make a difference to another batch of students.

So I bit my tongue and did as I was told, because it was the only thing I could do. Most of the remainder of the school year was taken up with standardized testing, anyway. And if it's any consolation, when I had to tell parents during parent-teacher conferences that the program had to be canceled, a number of them were genuinely saddened. They saw the benefit in an innovative system, and it was frustrating to them that there was nothing they could do either.

Daily Reflection

During my year teaching third grade, I admit that I was absolutely scattered. This was my first year teaching, and I wasn't quite sure what to do or what worked for me, so I tried it all. I used various approaches, attitudes, instructional techniques, and discipline methods. I'll be the first to admit to the inconsistent nature of my teaching this year. It's possible that nothing in my classroom stayed the same from one month to the next.

Well, almost nothing. The constant from August to May was our Daily Reflection writing. We started at the last hour of the first day of class, each student pulling out a spiral notebook from their freshly purchased school supplies, and we wrote at the end of every day, right up to the last day of school. 

The assignment was this: reflect on your day. What made today special? What did you learn? What else is on your mind?

It took some guidance at the beginning, to be sure. We talked about what reflection means, to start with. You see your reflection when you look in the mirror, your very image on a piece of glass in front of you. Writing reflectively is similar--you take what's inside your mind and put it on the piece of paper in front of you. It takes a lot of work, especially if you haven't done it before, because your brain isn't used to thinking this way, and you aren't sure how to articulate your thoughts. It just takes practice.

And we came across many difficulties throughout the year, as well.

Frequently, during reflection time, I saw students sitting, perplexed. "What did we do today?" they would ask, sincerely lost. They honestly couldn't remember what they did six hours earlier. I tried not to help these students too much, for fear that they would become dependent on me to relive the day for them, unable to do it for themselves. I encouraged them to retrace their steps using time, from arriving at school in the morning, to sitting down with their notebook. Occasionally I would prompt with some big event that happened during the day, such as, "Did we do anything special in math?" or "Did anything happen when we got back from lunch?" But I didn't want to put words in their mouth. I told them that I could only reflect from my perspective, not theirs. What was important about the day to me wouldn't be the same as what was important to them. Only they could reflect from their own perspective, and that meant that they would just have to contemplate more. I tried to explain this as gently as possible.

Unfortunately this continued to happen throughout the final week of school for one or two. Even with ten months of practice, these students couldn't recall important events from the day without struggle. There are many explanations for this. The most likely, in my opinion, is that I am the first person to ask this of these children. Their brains weren't used to having to work in this manner, as I told them on the first day, and, for some, ten months just wasn't enough time to adjust. Another is this: by age nine, children generally have the capacity to delve into reflective thought, but, perhaps, when asked to do it on command, they froze, suddenly forgetting everything they held in their mind moments before. A sort of stage fright, perhaps. It's also entirely possible that there was something more serious going on with the student that this occurred most frequently with, as he occasionally showed signs of a minor learning disorder. Surely they couldn't really be floating through life, acting and doing without though, right? Regardless, despite the near-constant struggle, I have faith that this sort of mind exercise was beneficial for those one or two students.

Another set of students wrote down merely the subjects they practiced during the day. An entry like this, for example, may read, "We did math, read a story in the English book, and did three questions in social studies." This may have been a good start at reflective writing, but, unfortunately, I saw this up to the last week for some students, as well, despite how often I reminded them to add more details. "But you do these things every day," I frequently told them. "What made today special? What did you learn today that you didn't know yesterday?" This typically evoking a week of entries such as, "We did page 208 and 209 in math, read a story in the English book, and did chapter 13 in social studies." For some students, this was as many details as I could elicit, and the explanation as to why is probably similar to the above situation--their minds didn't yet have the capacity to think any deeper than that. Surely it couldn't be because they were too lazy to think harder, right? I would have hoped that with ten months of practice, one would make more progress than that, but perhaps that's as much progress as they could handle at the time. Regardless, I have faith that exerting just that level of reflection on a daily basis was helpful.

A third "problem" I came up against was reflection after reflection of only Islamic Studies and Quran lessons. From one student, in particular. I wasn't the teacher for these subjects, so such entries were largely meaningless to me, as I had no way of making heads or tails of what they meant, not sharing the religion. But who am I to say that this wasn't the most important part of his day? Perhaps those classes were the most meaningful to him. Or perhaps he wanted to remember these parts specifically to please his father. It's not my place to say or to make any sort of judgement, so, despite that his entries mainly consisted of what chapter of the Islamic Studies book they were on and how many suras he memorized, I said nothing.

But for the large part, my class of third graders did excellent, starting off slowly and building their way to, in some cases, multi-page reflections of their entire day and considerations of emotions, reasoning, and, occasionally, insights.

It was also a great way to get to know my students. My favorite grading by far (a participation grade, of course) was reading what my students had to say about the different activities we did during the week. I greatly enjoyed hearing each student's different perspective on common events, and frequently I received more information on social issues that helped me better understand situations and give advice, particularly with the girls.

Apart from all of that, apart from how beneficial it is to all students to begin thinking reflectively, or at least in a way they're not used to, one of the most beneficial things our daily reflections gave us was the expectation and practice of writing every day. And writing every day is the only way to become a better writer. So at the very least, I can say that my third graders are writers. Not a bad claim to be able to make, at all.

Initial Reflections of First Year Teaching: On Confidence

Well, this year just happened to me. It definitely wasn't how I expected it to be, but I think I learned a lot. Now if I can somehow articulate... everything.

I haven't touched my blog in literally six months, and that feels very strange to me. I suppose I have reflected just the minimal amount possible, not delving deep into thought once in all that time. And what a sad feeling that is, but I can't be too hard on myself. This was my first year teaching, after all, and I know that I was in survival mode for most of it. Not only was it my first year, but... well, I guess it needs to be said--I worked for a terrible school. One of the things I've come to realize as a young adult is that we aren't actually as put together as we seem to children. We're all just doing the best that we possibly can, winging it most of the time. But that being said, the private "school" I just spent ten months of my life at is honestly just masquerading as a place of education, causing me to make everything up as I went along, forced to reinvent the wheel many times over. It was definitely a learning experience, and I'm grateful for it to be sure, but, oh my goodness, was it stressful! I may want to explore this more when I'm feeling less bitter, because I think I can work some great ideas about what a school needs to be successful out of it, and that would be useful, particularly, because I like to consider thoughts about small, private schools. It's probably all in the hands of administration, really. But come now, enough on that for the moment, and we'll revisit it later. The point is that my thoughts and I have a lot of catching up to do while I decompress from the year and work out what I can make of it.

The first thing that comes to mind when I consider how I have changed from August is that I certainly feel more confident. Though I've been working and volunteering in schools since 2009, even spending a year working full time in a daycare, I could never really say that I felt comfortable with children. I suppose I was still working out what my role was and what it all meant, even up to my first day, no, even through my first few months, of actual teaching. I was uncomfortable speaking, giving lessons, even just standing. I remember thinking to myself, "How does one stand when one is in front of children? The feet go..? And the hands..? Clasped..?" I could never get it right. A direct sign of lack of confidence. I know that for some people, and I'm thinking specifically now of some classmates while I was in college, everything seemed to come naturally. They stood in front of the children and everything just fell into place. That was never me. I was always second guessing myself, stumbling in my speech and awkward.

And to defeat, it took day after day, hour after hour, of just being. First, it was the praxis, the swallowing my fear and awkwardness and just getting up there, speaking when I wasn't sure I had the right words and doing when I wasn't sure I was ready. Turns out that 180 seven-hours days is a lot when it comes to honing skills. Second, honestly, was probably, again, the terrible administration I had to put up with. At first I meekly followed instruction, doing my best to complete what was expected of me, but when faced with challenges, I found myself standing up for the decisions I was making in the classroom. "I am a good teacher, I am doing the right things, and here is my justification as to why," I had to declare many times. Apparently defending your actions to critics day in and day out does wonders for confidence, too.

And here I am today, far from the girl I was. The puzzle pieces of the past fit together to make the present, and every bit of experience makes me who I am now. I am grateful for the struggles of this year and how they only make me stronger.

I have declined signing next year's contract with this school. If nothing changes, it will undoubtedly crumble until nothing is left. It's unfortunate, but I did as much as I could for them. Perhaps in some ways I failed, but I can't allow them to take me down with the ship. There are better things in store for me, and I'm just getting started. Yesterday I hugged 14 third-graders good bye and with that, I started on my next path. Next year I'll be teaching English at a small, rural high school with an administration that appreciates my innovation and enthusiasm. I'm looking forward to reflecting more on this year, but, also, I'm ecstatic to see what kind of amazing things I can bring to the future.

Really Big (and Really Small) Numbers

A couple of months ago, I realized that fractions and decimals were coming up in the third grade textbooks. This would be the first introduction to decimals for most of my students and a far more in depth look at fractions on top of that. So before we got to that point, I would need to make sure they had a handle on place value.

How would Montessori do it? I asked myself. I somewhat regret my decision to drop out of Montessori training. No matter. I could handle it on my own.

So we all got out pieces of paper and some crayons, I went to the white board with my dry-erase crayons, and we accomplished this: (click on the images to view them full sized)

They caught onto the pattern very easily, as I was hoping they would. I started with Ones, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Ten Thousands, and Hundred Thousands, noting all of the colors aloud, some of them catching on before the others and verbally prompting me. Then I let them do most of the work. "What comes next?" I asked, and they all replied, "Millions!" "And what color is it?" "Green!" "How many zeroes does it have?" "Six!" We continued in this fashion, hesitating when we reached the next unit. "What comes after Hundred Millions?" I asked. "What comes after Hundred Billions?"

(There was a moment after I asked one of these questions when the class became silent, considering. One student blurted out a concept he vaguely knew as a very large number, "A Google! ... And after that comes a Google Chrome!" I lost it. The entire class burst out laughing. It's a wonderful, carefree memory that I cherish.)

We had to turn to the internet to help us after Hundred Trillions, because I honestly didn't know what came next, and we were able to authentically search for knowledge together.

I ran out of space on the board after Hundred Quintillion, but many of them were eager to go on. I let them go as far as they were able, though the color pattern became a bit skewed for some.

A few days later, we did the same going backwards, which was much more difficult. We didn't go very far, but having done the previous exercise was definitely a benefit.

From there we just followed the textbook, but they were definitely far better off.

Multiplication Tables

Third grade is the year when children are typically asked to master basic multiplication facts. I haven't let myself think too hard about this because I'm not sure what conclusion I would come up with. I know that by the end of the school year, my students will be expected to have reached mastery in this skill, and that's the end of it. No way around this one, really. Besides, some things just have to be memorized, right? Simple multiplication must be one of them. Yes, we've talked at length about what multiplication means, and my students are all aware that 4x5 means taking four groups of five items. But when it comes to working through problems, it's good to have the facts memorized so that one doesn't have to spend a great length of time finding the answer. At least that's what I tell myself.

I, for one, never finished memorizing my times tables as a child. When I multiply, I struggle when I get to points such as 7x8 or 6x9. And of course, I'd like to spare my students from that struggle.

So we studied our multiplication tables.

I began with the assumption that my students, who were blessed with a wonderful teacher last year, were already proficient with 2x (which was correct). So our proper start began with 3x. I stood at the white board and asked the students to count slowly by threes. (I amended this for all later sessions to, "Give me the multiples of [x].") I wrote them down as the students counted, stopping at 30. Then I circled the multiples into groups of three, leaving 30 by itself, to give more easily remembered chunks. We said them aloud with a little rhythm, "Three, six, nine. Twelve, fifteen, eighteen. Twenty one, twenty four, twenty seven. Thirty!" We did this little chant three times, then repeated the process every day of the week. On Friday, while they were working on another assignment, I called them individually to my desk to recite. If they stumbled, I asked them to go back to their seats and practice a little more, then called them back at the end of the rotation.

I didn't take grades on it. I didn't put their names on the board. I just kept track of it in a little notepad and gave only the reward of a small praise. Hopefully it kept the intrinsic motivation going.

The next week, once the multiples of four were on the board on Monday, the students commented on an easily follow-able pattern. On Tuesday, they kept going past forty. By Thursday, they recited multiples of four up to 100. On Friday, when I called one boy up, he kept going past forty. I remained quiet, merely listening. Other students came up to ask questions about an assignment, but I signaled for them to wait. Around 120, some groaned with boredom. Closer to 500, an excited crowd had gathered around him. By 800, nearly the entire class had gathered, and at 1000, the crowd burst into applause. The boy grinned and went sheepishly back to sit down.

It wasn't repeated, however, because whatever excitement they found in the game somehow became lost after the first initial run.

At any rate, we DID manage to make it through our 9x tables. They wondered if I would have them continue on through 10x, 11x, 12x,... where would we end? I didn't see the need to go on, though, because while it might have been an interesting venture, I wanted to spend more time making sure that they were all completely confident with 3x through 9x.

The next week, we started our timed tests. I found this useful website that generates multiplication problems, however many of them you want and with whatever maximum and minimum numbers you want. We started with 30 problems, minimum of 0, maximum of 9, then graduated to minimum of 3. I gave them one minute to complete as many problems as they could. Again, I took no grades, just kept track of progress in a notebook.

When they began asking for more time on the clock, I became a little concerned. After a week and a half of no progress, I decided that we needed to have a conversation about what was happening. They told me that the timer was putting too much stress on them and they could hardly focus on the problems for the want to finish on time. So we stopped the timed tests.

"But what should we do?" I asked them. "You all need to master these facts before you go to fourth grade so that you don't struggle."

We decided to give flash cards a try. So I guess we'll see how that goes in a few weeks.

On Autism and a Book Review: The Reason I Jump

I have a secret to admit.

I am a discriminatory person.

I don't do well with people with special needs.

One of my best friends is a special education teacher, and I don't know how she does it. The stories she tells me about her work... It takes a certain kind of wonderful person to be a special education teacher, and I definitely am not one of those people.

My husband and I have decided that if we find through in utero testing any disabilities in our future children, we will terminate the pregnancy. Having a special needs child is a stressful situation that would put a strain on our marriage we know we wouldn't be able to handle.

But autism is different. It is not detected in utero, and is rarely even detected until after one year of age. Believe me, I understand the hype. If I had a healthy, lovable, regularly developing baby for one year that suddenly seemed to regress and turn into something I hadn't known my child to be, as some anecdotes suggest, I'd look for a cause, too, and the vaccine I just recently gave him might look like a pretty easy excuse. But the science just isn't there.

There are plenty of sources I could choose to link to here. Let's go with a recent National Geographic article that's easy to read and sums up the situation pretty nicely, a CDC article saying that there's nothing to worry about, a CDC faq, and, for good measure, a Skeptical Raptor post that perhaps conservatives wouldn't accept as legit but links to many important studies and gives valid reasoning for why myths are incorrect.

So. The science isn't there. Let's move on, shall we? We know where autism doesn't come from, and we know that we don't yet know where it does come from.  Causality aside, what about dealing with already existing autism?

No matter how many times I tell it not to, my brain discriminates, specifically, against those that seem to have the incapacity to comprehend the world around them and social order as we, as a society, have come to create. People who can't seem to understand what is going on around them or make sense of anything. People who act without reason against societal norms.

Can they think logically? Do they even have thoughts? Are they even self-aware? "No," my brain tells me, "obviously they can't. And I can't handle people without intelligence." And for the most part, I left it at that. I put it out of my head as much as possible, because it's so difficult to think about.

But when Jon Stewart had David Mitchell on The Daily Show to speak about translating the book, I listened. I was struck by how sincerely Jon recommended the book. It seemed as though he did not have enough words to praise it as much as he wanted to. "The Reason I Jump is one of the most remarkable books I think I've ever read. It's truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid... It is the most illuminating book I think I've ever read on the syndrome... I don't normally urge you," he told his audience. "The Reason I Jump is on the bookshelves now. Please. If you get a chance, please pick it up. It is remarkable." With that kind of authenticity, I could hardly say no. I swallowed my pride and went to the bookstore.

The Reason I Jump is a series of question and answers from then-13-year-old Naoki Higashida. The questioner asks things that anyone observing an autistic individual would want to know. For instance, "Why do you speak in that peculiar way?" "Why do you echo questions back at the asker?" "Why don't you make eye contact when you're talking?" "When you're on one of your highs, what's going through your mind?" "Why do you flap your fingers and hands in front of your face?"

And Naoki answers the questions, all of them, with sincerity and honesty. And it's abundantly clear that he is way more self-aware than I ever would have given him credit for. He can articulate most of the reasons why he does the things that he does, and in the few instances that he can't, he can even articulate that he doesn't have the exact reasoning, it's just pleasant to him in some way. Furthermore, he has the comprehension to acknowledge both what's going on around him and what other people must be feeling because of him.

Naoki is at no loss for intelligence, but he feels as though he is trapped within a body that he cannot control, one that doesn't follow the directions his brain gives.

And realizing this, truly, was a redefining moment for me.

The most remarkable question for me was 39, Why do you like being in the water? Here's the response Naoki gives:

We just want to go back. To the distant, distant past. To a primeval era, in fact, before human beings even existed. All people with autism feel the same about this one, I reckon. Aquatic life-forms came into existence and evolved, but why did they then have to emerge onto dry land, and turn into human beings who chose to lead lives ruled by time? These are real mysteries to me. 

In the water it's so quiet and I'm so free and happy there. Nobody hassles us in the water, and it's as if we've got all the time in the world. Whether we stay in one place or whether we're swimming about, when we're in the water we can really be at one with the pulse of time. Outside of the water there's always too much stimulation for our eyes and our ears, and it's impossible for us to guess how long one second is or how long an hour takes. 

People with autism have no freedom. The reason is that we are a different kind of human, born with primeval senses. We are outside the normal flow of time, we can't express ourselves, and our bodies are hurtling us through life. If only we could go back to that distant, distant, watery past--then we'd all be able to live as contentedly and as freely as you lot!

Deep, deep, powerful stuff, man. Naoki Higashida, this 13-year-old Japanese autistic boy who screams, doesn't speak or look anyone in the eye, who runs away from home and has a panic attack when he spills a drop of milk from the pitcher, is an intellectual. Is a creative author who has a wonderful sense of language and a powerful sense of empathy, particularly for those he loves. He's just trapped inside of a body that can't express it in a way the rest of us are familiar with.

It's still quite hard to think about, but Naoki mentioned frequently how just having patience was helpful. And that's all we can try to do with all children, I suppose. *sigh*

The Reason I Jump can be purchased from Amazon here. (I am not affiliated and am no way compensated from sales.) I couldn't find anything else from him translated, but if you want a screwy half-intelligible Google translation of his blog, it can be found here. He apparently has a new book that just came out in Japan.

A few months ago, my special education teacher friend posted a video of Carly Fleischmann, a teenage autistic girl that communicates with a computer. Her story is similar to Naoki's, but she's American, so if you want to learn more, she might be the better bet. She keeps a website, a Facebook, and a Twitter.

Project Time

In August, I found myself, finally, in a classroom of my own. There I was, two days before students, sitting alone in the room, faced with the task of development. In a public school, everything is thrust upon you--scope and sequence of curriculum already created and, in some cases, scripted. But not here. I had next to nothing to go on. All I had was a list of 15 names, some desks, a few shelves of reading books, a cupboard of junk left over from last year's teacher, and some text books I could use as curriculum. There was no foundation upon which to build--I had to develop it. It was perfect. Everything I could ever hope for. Mine to create anything I liked with. A block of freshly cut clay waiting to be molded by my hands.

My only hindrance was the knowledge that last year's teacher's contract hadn't been renewed because she let the children have too much freedom. 

Wow, that's... well, that's... interesting knowledge to have. Because I chose to work at a private school, I knew I wouldn't have the same troubles I had seen in the district with administrators micromanaging what I taught, but this left me with an entirely different problem--how was I, as a first year teacher, going to maintain enough classroom management to not follow in that teacher's footsteps and yet still create a classroom that allowed children to thrive?

The fearful first year teacher side of me won, I'm sorry to say, and I veered on the side of caution. I moved all the desks into traditional rows, three of five, all facing the white board. I started diagramming a curriculum map based on the textbooks provided. I created a short list of classroom rules, rather than having the students generate their own. I set everything up nice and neat like a good little school teacher. I prepped my stern voice. No one was going to tell me that I had no classroom management. I can learn from others' mistakes.

There was one thing I couldn't resist putting a tiny twist on. When I wrote up my schedule (which I was amazed to find that I could actually do. That's when I knew I was in a private school), I left a period towards the end of the day open for "Project Work." I think I may have done it subconsciously. I definitely wasn't sure what it meant at the time. I just wrote it down without understanding why.

The first few weeks of school was chaotic, anyway, what with both my students' acclimation to change as well as my own. We didn't follow the schedule until nearly September. But all the while, the kids kept asking, "When are we going to do a project?" The way they said it made it sound like an important work. Apparently their second grade teacher had done a lot of hands on projects and science experiments with them, and they were craving that type of work again. But I was caught up in the stress of a new job at that time and couldn't think that far ahead. All I could tell them was, "Soon."

When my mentor came in to observe me, she noted that I didn't do any sort of intervention. "Yeah, that's not really my style," I hinted as politely as possible. I hadn't seen any beneficial results from my experience with intervention in the district. I knew that maybe I just hadn't seen the right methods, but again, I was still trying to figure out how to do the basic functions of my job and couldn't handle that much on my plate yet. Still, there were those students that I had been meaning to work one-on-one with. To pull some students aside, though, I'd need an extended period of time in which the rest of the class could be working independently. Then somehow it just clicked. If I gave the class some time to work on anything they were curious or passionate about, I could pull those students that needed extra help. The Montessorian in me grew giddy. I couldn't wait to begin.

I don't really do much with my intervention time now that I have it, to be fair. Even though I made a big show about how it's a privilege to come to intervention because you get the chance to practice something you're struggling with and learn more, the students are still resistant to coming. And I hate to force them. They're not receptive learners when they're frustrated or upset. They just dislike missing project work, so for the most part, I leave them to it. Sometimes I pull students one at a time to check for comprehension or fluency or the like, or sometimes I pull students that I know didn't understand a lesson, but most of them get a minimally-interrupted 40 minutes of project time a day.

My only rule for Project Time is that all projects must be written down in the form of a proposal and approved by me before they can be begun. There are expectations, like "You must work quietly enough that the students I'm working with can focus," but they weren't really stated in the form of a rule. (Perhaps they should have been. Occasionally when that expectation isn't met, everywhere except for my group becomes a No Talking Zone, in which all communication must be carried out non-verbally. We switch back to whispering after a few minutes, but I still have to go through with the process every other day or so. They get so excited for project time. But that's to be expected, I suppose. We just have to have rules because classmates are distract-able. But I digress.) No rules about what types of projects are available, grades for projects, or even that one must do a project were ever stated. We spent a day or so working on proposal writing, and then I just set them free.

And they've completed some pretty cool projects, only two months in. I'll take this opportunity to throw in some pictures. All thumbnails open into full-sized images.

First, an example of a proposal. Most don't go into as much detail as this one, unfortunately. These girls went all out with the proposal, spent nearly two months working, and just recently gave a presentation on their accomplishments.

Working hard. The girls in front are working on the solar system project. The ones in the back are working on a wildlife diorama. The boy in the back is, of his own initiative, grabbing some wipes to clean up a mess he made.

Unfortunately, the only computer I have available during project time is the one the school provided for me. I can't send students to work in the computer lab unsupervised, and I can't ask everyone to come to the computer lab every time someone needs to use the computer, so I just let the students use mine. This student is typing a story he wrote to publish on the class website.

Finished wildlife diorama featuring plastic figurines and easter grass. They decided against gluing anything down so that they could scrap the cardboard when they were done and use the figurines for something else.

An exploded baking soda and vinegar volcano. One of the many. This one features a clay model that took three days to create and lava rocks recycled from another presentation.

Elephant's toothpaste (hydrogen peroxide and yeast). This student painstakingly copied down the instructions from a YouTube video in order to do this. Word for word. It took three days of writing and a lot of patient listening.

Finished solar system diorama. They had trouble connecting the styrofoam balls to the yarn. It was difficult first to make a hole in the ball (which they did using scissors), and then to get the string successfully through the hole. The latter took a lot of trial and error, but they finally realized that they could tie the string around a pencil, push the pencil through, and grab the string on the other side.

Borax-and-glue slime, illuminated with glowsticks. A big hit for all of the boys. He even shared some of the final product with anyone that wanted to take some home.

And now for some observations.

-First, this group of students seems to gravitate towards science experiments. Since they had experience with it last year, it's safe ground. We had a long run of volcanoes and baking-soda-vinegar-based projects, probably five or six presentations. Currently we're having a run of sensory projects--slime and silly putty.

-The students often inspire each other. The volcano thing started with a project from one boy at the beginning of September, and after that, the rest of the boys wanted to do their own. I'd like to encourage them to make minor changes to projects when they do similar projects and record the differences, but for now, I know they just like having the experience of doing the work for themselves.

-I do have a few students that can rarely ever "think of anything to do." At first, I told them to sit and plan something, but after a while, the started getting up, wandering around the room, watching, and occasionally helping others. Now I have a few students that regularly spend all project time assisting others.

-And I do have some students that occasionally prefer to read at this time or use it to do their homework, like a study hall.

-When doing a project, though, especially an involved one, the students rarely like to work on their own. I specifically didn't set a limit on group size, so occasionally on longer projects, there are normally three to five students working together, though participants can come and go. If participation in a project drops to one sole member, it is usually abandoned.

-Sometimes students have several simultaneous projects occurring at once, spreading across multiple groups. The one they choose to work on each day varies.

-Occasionally if I assign a longer assignment during the day, or one that the students get deep into, they will choose to continue the assignment during project time.

-And watching the natural leadership roles play out is certainly very interesting.

A couple weeks ago, this Edutopia article, titled Just Ask: Harnessing the Power of Student Curiosity, came across my radar. Turns out that my Project Time is already a thing. Employees of Google are given the opportunity to use 20% of their time working on personal creative ideas. This has led to many innovative programs, such as Gmail and Google News. The initiative has spread to education, becoming known as Genius Hour or 20% Time, and some books have been written on the subject, including Passion-Driven Classroom by Angela Maiers and Amy Sandvold, which is now on my To Read List.

This is all well and good, and I'm happy for these people, but honestly, I'm already looking towards my next big venture: a Montessori-inspired modern classroom. I think Project Time was necessary only as a transitional stage until I can get the ball rolling on my Menu-based Modern Montessori-inspired classroom.