The School Culture Must Change if Student Achievement is Not Being Supported

By John S. Bell

Allowing a toxic culture to remain in the midst of efforts to improve student achievement is like pouring a cup of sugar into the ocean with the intent of making the ocean sweet rather than salty. Both are a waste of time and energy. Leaders who dismiss change with statements similar to the following are only fooling themselves and those around them:

• “The culture of my school won’t allow me to change teacher assignments.”
• “I wish we could get our parents to be more involved, but lack of involvement is just part of the culture in our part of the city.”
• “I would have teachers post student work, but our school culture just would not allow that.”
• “You just can’t change too much in our school because everyone is pretty happy with the way things are now.”

School leaders who are successful in changing the negative aspects of the culture rarely dwell on how difficult changing a toxic culture is. They don’t usually have the energy. They are usually too busy ensuring that the foundation of change is being built. They are busy bringing together the forces of change that will ultimately move people to new patterns, behaviors, thoughts, ideas, actions, and knowledge. Effective leaders know the changes that must be made, learn how best to ensure they happen, have the patience to keep at it, and to move forward. These leaders are often referred to as “change agents.” They are rarely popular at first, always controversial, and much sought after when they are successful.

John Bell is Coordinator of the Office of Leadership Development at the Alabama Department of Education. He has been a headmaster, a high school principal, a middle school principal, a university adjunct instructor, and a high school English teacher. John is co-author of From At Risk to Academic Excellence: What Successful Leaders Do, published by Eye on Education.

Want to change your user name or password?

Log in and follow this link!

IN THIS ISSUE:

School Culture and Student Achievement

Why Won't These Kids Read?

Using Extrinsic Motivation

Voices from the Classroom

RAPSA on the Web

Facebook (RAPSA)

Facebook (National Conference)

LinkedIn

Write for RAPSA!

RAPSA publishes your lessons, ideas, and strategies. Submit your successes to info@rapsa.org

Learn more.

Use up those remaining 2008-2009 PD Funds!

Registration is open for the 5th Annual Reaching At-Promise Students National Conference taking place February 19-21, 2010! Don't miss out on your chance to attend what many educators are calling the best conference they've ever attended. Learn more.

Register today!

Did you miss last month's issue of At-Promise News?

Visit the archives!

Forgot your password?

Have a temporary password emailed to you!

Tell a friend about RAPSA!

Why Won't These Kids Read?
An interview with Alan Lawrence Sitomer on engaging reluctant readers

By Alex Kajitani

How many times, when teaching your at-promise students, have you handed out a worksheet to instant replies of, “I don’t get it!”? Then, logically, you ask, “Did you read the directions?” And the students mumble, “No...”

Often, getting our students to read even two sentences of directions is a major challenge, let alone a full-length story or book. The reasons for this challenge aren’t new to us. Many of our students come from families with parents who never finished high school, and may not be literate or speak English themselves. In many of my own students’ homes, worries over whether or not they will eat that night far outweigh the need to read a book to the children before bed.

Of course, in a world filled with non-stop video games and television shows, we teachers are also competing against some pretty thrilling alternatives. Yet, as we know, the ability – and willingness – to read is needed not only to survive in our society, but also to thrive beyond the circumstances from which many of these students want to break free.

For this month’s column, we turn to Alan Lawrence Sitomer, 2007 California Teacher of the Year, and author of the 2008 book, The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez, the fourth in a series of not-to-be-missed teen-targeted novels. Teaching literature to at-promise students at a Los Angeles-area high school, Sitomer quickly grew frustrated with their lack of motivation to read. He realized that a striking shortage of interesting reading options targeted to this student population fueled their disinterest, and he set out on a mission to write his own books that could get his at-promise students excited about reading. He now speaks around the country about how to engage reluctant readers in the classroom and beyond.

I recently interviewed Sitomer, who revealed some invaluable ideas and strategies for engaging our at-promise students in reading – and expanding their horizons in the process…

Alex Kajitani, M.A., is known around the country as “The Rappin’ Mathematician,” and was recently named the 2009 California Teacher of the Year (and a Top 4 Finalist for National Teacher of the Year). His company, Math Raps, won the “Making a Difference” Award at last year’s RAPSA Conference. Visit www.MathRaps.com to check out some of his rap songs!

Extrinsic Motivation: Getting students to work with you and for you

By Maria Celeste Mahaffey

Working with at-promise/at-risk students continuously presents challenges in classroom management. Many of these students have reached young adulthood without having had the opportunity to mature like their counterparts. Our students are often extremely street smart and have seen things in their short lives that most of us only see in the movies. But at the same time they have not had the same opportunities to learn to participate constructively in the classroom and the workplace.

As the person on the other side of the lectern, walking the rows of students’ desks, or correcting student work, it is our responsibility, as educators, to impart not only the content of our subject area but also to teach students how to grow up. Our role as educator has evolved into one that spans the spectrum as teacher, mediator, mentor, and almost parent in some cases. The result is a need to realize that frequently our at-promise students’ locus of control is still external. There is a gap in that maturation process and while we might wish that our students learn for the sake of learning, the reality is that many are there because they have to be, for one reason or another. Many feel that life is happening to them; they do not fully know how to take responsibility for their role in the classroom and school community.

To help students find this sense of reasonability and to try to help them create a sense of intrinsic motivation for learning or at least success in the classroom, extrinsic motivation often must be used. My classroom utilizes individual and class rewards as incentives for students. The class, as a whole, can earn points towards a free period (or block, depending on scheduling systems) by simply doing what is expected of them. Students earn points by:

• working quietly during independent work time;
• the class having no unexcused absences or tardies;
• all students listen to instructions and participate in whole class instruction;
• all students participate in group work;
• students’ music, when allowed to listen, is only audible to themselves;
• students maintain a clean classroom;
• no students sleeping.
  
  

Maria Celeste Mahaffey holds a BA in International Affairs from the George Washington University and a Masters of Arts in Teaching Secondary Social Science from Western Governors University. Maria currently has her single subject CA credential and works as an ITA at the San Diego SIATech campus.

Close Class

By Coleen Armstrong

Eventually our class discussions all came back to one subject: the group itself. The kids never tired of talking about how well they thought they were all getting along.

“Wouldn't you say we're the best class you've ever had?” they prodded. “Don't you look forward to seeing us every day?”

Actually, I did. Sometimes the mix of students seemed like a hand dealt by the devil; other times I got just plain lucky, with a match made in heaven.

That was the case this time with my all-male senior auto-mechanics class fulfilling their last English requirement before graduation, a group of remarkable closeness, with an even more remarkable willingness to verbalize it.

Debates, though often heated, allowed each person to have his say. Sometimes I just sat back and listened, while the class covered girls and dating, relationships with parents, fears of the future.

Left alone, they let down their guards, confessed to hurts and disappointments, even tested loyalty's limits––and then shared their findings.

Marty's car broke down one Friday night, leaving him stranded on the freeway at 1:30 a.m. He’d phoned Mike for a ride home.

“Couldn't you have called before I fell asleep?” Mike groused later in front of the class. But he was grinning, clearly pleased that Marty had been able to count on him.

Jeff was becoming a bit of a blowhard, his long-winded opinions increasingly pointless. Steve and Marc took him aside, cautioning him that the more a person rambled, the less he was heard. Jeff nodded. “I'll try to watch it,” he said. Steve and Marc told the class they were proud to have handled the problem.

Coleen Armstrong’s distinguished teaching career includes several state and national recognition awards. She is the author of Please Don’t Call My Mother: How Schools and Parents can Work Together to Get Kids Back on Track and The Truth about Teaching: What I Wish the Veterans had Told Me.