Learning

Yesterday I attended the Indiana Conference on Learning put on by the Indiana Student Achievement Association. I went as a partner in the Delaware County College Success Coalition. Really, my boss is a partner of the CSC, but she couldn't go. I'm so glad I went.

Mike Mattos, the Keynote speaker, was inspirational. I arrived late (two accidents on 69, anyone?? Arg!), so I didn't hear his introduction or the Official Welcome from the State Superintendent. My introduction was a question, "What are your educational aspirations for your children?" As I settled into my seat, others discussed the question and wrote down answers. When everyone had finished he asked, "How many wrote that your child would be competent in the State Standards?" The tone in the room changed when he posed that question: There were a few embarrassed chuckles, some distinct shifting in seats and glances aside. The teachers at my table almost hung their heads in embarrassment  when he asked the crowd, "For how many of you is that your school's aspiration for their students?"
 
It is really eye opening to go into a conference where the assumption (by the audience) is that everyone there is an educator. It was like the gloves were off, and the true attitude of teachers toward parents was revealed, I suspect because it was a "safe" environment. One break-out session was lead by a state Department of Education staff person. She was presenting a new law regarding Graduation Plans; her attitude seemed to be that "we MUST deal with parents but since they are in-adequate deadbeats, we can't expect much from them," AND "I know you all [teachers] only want to do the minimum to observe the law." I went to the session thinking that this would be a marvelous tool to help students and parents know what their working towards. It might be, but it certainly wasn't pitched as such.

In another break-out session I attended, entitled "Home Visits and Other Parent Involvement Strategies," the snide comments were a dime a dozen. The well-dressed middle-aged woman sitting next to me kept leaning over making, "who are they kidding" kind of remarks. I suspect she mistook me for a teacher. If she had known that I fit more under the demographic of "parent" than "educator" I purport she would not have been so conspiratorial nor talked so openly about the impossibilities of the strategies presented. Which have had such radical success in a small urban elementary school in Kentucky that uses approximately $1,000 less per student than other elementary schools in the same district! This school has achieved success - almost 80% of their students pass state standards - using less money. Because they've changed their school culture. That isn't what their presentation was about, but it was apparent from the team of teachers and the principal that were present.

Later in the opening Keynote, Mattos showed a study done by the Pew Charitable Foundation that quantified the number of instructional hours it would take to teach all the federally-mandated standards. What The Pew Foundation found is that to meet the current standards it would take approximately two thousand additional instructional hours over the course of students' school careers: an impossible standard. (Incidentally, to add 2,000 instructional hours to a student's school career would be adding approximately 24 instructional days to a school calendar: from 180 to 204. Making this change would surely press schools toward year round school. Something I think needs to happen anyway. I digress...) So teachers are being asked - nee mandated - to work toward impossible standards.

I wonder if ALL of us - parents, teachers, community members - are working toward unattainable goals. How could our students not fail if we're all failing all around them? Of course teachers are frustrated and throwing blame around - they've been asked to do an impossible job. So I'm going to cut them some slack. I'm going to change my attitude toward teachers and forgive those neigh-sayers. They're just trying to stay afloat. Well, so am I. So I get that.


Believing that all children can learn is the place to start. I believe if we adopted a new paradigm that change could happen: If we as a community started to believe that ALL CHILDREN can learn, then I think we would see more students succeed. If non-educators started asking for whole-scale reform instead of trying to figure out which teachers are good and bad, then we might get somewhere. As it is, teachers and parents are all working really hard toward similar goals, but in different directions. We need to start thinking MORE about how to all be on the same team, working toward the same goals than trying to blame bad teachers, bad unions or bad parents. If we all think our kids can learn and act that way, maybe we can begin to make some progress.

My next step toward progress: I'm going to be a mentor. Project Leadership matches adults with students enrolled in the 21st Century Scholars program. I'm committing to mentoring a college-bound high school student once a week. I can't do a lot, but I can do a little. Maybe you should think about doing that too!

Loss

I have a secret to tell you. Let's keep it just between the two of us, ok?

I don't know what I'm doing.

I know this comes as a surprise to you. I do my best to come across confident and certain, but often I'm giving life my best guess. I'm lost. I'm often at a loss.

Loss and lost. They are both from the same etymological root of either the Greek word lyein "to loosen, untie, slacken," or the Old English word  losian meaning to"be lost, perish." Other options are that it might be from Proto-Indo-European root leu which means "to loosen, divide, cut apart, untie, separate." Harkening from these roots are: forlorn, analysis, paralysis and - everyone's favorite - electrolysis.

It's helpful for me to look at this list, to think about the age-old connections these words have. When I get lost - whether I'm lost on my feet, in my car or in my brain - I become paralyzed. Cut apart from rational thought. Lose the ability to take action. Lost. Action perishes. To become UN-lost, what do I try to do: analyze why I'm stuck. But in analysis, just like paralysis, the action is inaction. The action of analyze is to sit still & think a little more. Still lost.

Yesterday I was sitting at a coffee shop. While enjoying a cup of tea with a co-worker/friend, we were gently interrupted by a nice older woman of nondescript age. After she left, my friend leaned in conspiratorially to say, "Can you believe she's over 70!? She's a marvel."

My friend continued, "Her father died several years ago and was buried near Kokomo. When her husband and daughter were returning to Muncie from the funeral, they were in a car accident. Both of them died."

I'm stricken. See, my loss and lostness is very circumstantial. A product of my lack of vision, of my lack of clarity. But true lost-ness comes in situations like that dear woman survived. Burying a husband, daughter and father in the same week. Lost. Loss. Losing. I know nothing of any of it. So instead of analyzing why I'm stuck, I'm just going to stand up and move. I figure I'll get un-lost in the process.