Detours

I sat down today, to begin writing a post to recap about a
colleague’s presentation of her UDL journey, and takeaways from a visit to the Groton-Dunstable School District.  I had some ideas, had even begun writing, when I was pulled off course by a memory, a song, and abruptly, I knew what I needed to write about at that moment, and It wasn’t Universal Design for Learning.  I suddenly had a need to write about something completely different, and I did.  I literally clicked open a new page and began, happily writing, remembering and creating this sweet little post, A Memory, a Melody. 

Now, hours later, I am thinking about Universal Design, and how often we ask kids to follow the plan rather than their heart, soul, or inspiration.  How often do we say, “here is a poem, here is a story, this is what is good about it, now you try and write one”?   How often do we say, “yes”?  What are our reasons for saying “no”?  I can remember specific moments from my childhood where I really wasn’t feeling it, when given a writing assignment, I began to believe I wasn’t really a writer, that it wasn’t my thing, that I had no real imagination.  I remember the dread in the pit of my being when told to sit down and write a story, sit there at that desk you have been at for hours, don’t rock your chair, keep your feet on the floor, and write... my stomach churns just thinking about it.  

I Think of my own classroom, where I allow kids clipboards, a choice of seating, comfort, and choice.  Where during writing workshop, I began to loosen the reins, after the mini lesson, students were encouraged to try it out, but I began to say to some, “If you have something you want to work on, that you are excited about, that is calling for your attention, write that”.  I particular began using this line with the kids who were not writing at all, but it is important for all of them, isn’t it? ... To be given the opportunity to dive into their work with passion and drive?  To be able to choose what is right for them, right now, on one day, or in one particular moment? 

UDL is a mindset shift.  A reminder to ask ourselves:

• Where are the places where we can offer choice?  
• Where are the times we can say yes to our students?
•  If we are saying, “ no”, what is our reason?  Is it important to the learning goal?  Or is our reason irrelevant?  Why? Why? Why?

My Roots

I was just thinking of all the things I have done, all the lessons I have taught and learned as an educator.  Sometimes it becomes too easy to lose touch with the essence of what drives you.  In my case, integrating the arts in education was my beginning.  I was sure that using the arts to inspire kids in learning was the way to get kids brains engaged and learning.  Of course, I have built up experiences and skills teaching the basics, and continue to do so, and yet I was also right back then, when I believed engaging learners was important, when I created ‘fun’ lessons to keep kids learning, not to distract them from it.  I can see clearly today, how my roots have grown into a passion to create accessible, engaging experiences where kids can wonder, create and learn.

So today I am taking a bit of a walk down memory lane. . .

I can tell ( can you?) just by the cover that I began this book cover in the NCLB/ CCSS/ testing era of teaching.  Lol!  I scarcely mention artist, poet, nature lover, gardener... aspects of my life that once drove my teaching and inspired learners in my class at this point felt like dated practices, taboo subjects, frivolous idealism...

When I open the cover though, I see I included some quotes that ring true throughout my practice.

I reflected on things I thought I knew, and they evolved into driving questions that still drive me now..  and are surprisingly?  To me on line with the work I have been doing exploring Universal 

Design for Learning.  

I read this book and thought, not in a cocky “I have done this”, but more a “whoa! I’ve done so much 

of this!” That I included the cover in my scrapbook!  Crafting engaging lessons is Dave Burgess’ 

signature card and I have so many of his strategies over the years, before they became “pirate” tools.

Some of the real work of teaching for me began when I cotaught fourth grade for the first time, and really started putting questions to work, and thinking how do we get kids to actively drive their own learning.  I created  lessons like this one, where I treat the subject like a big mystery to be solved.  The kids used the three “ clues” to brainstorm ideas about what the message is...

A kickoff to geology unit that bridges previous knowledge and inspires curiosity

And they pretty much nailed it!  Time to introduce new vocabulary! “ geology”

or in some cases what the next unit of study would be on. There is no reason why, even if the learning

 goals are determined by the state, why we can’t make sure the kids are enjoying experiences at school, and finding school as a place where curiosity and wonder, exploration and creativity are a part of daily life.  As a matter of fact brain research, and current best practices, such as goal oriented instruction and universal design support the idea that engagement is so important.  We know now that a brain that is having fun is More open to learning. 

Cooking with 1st graders

Science in the classroom and across the curriculum!

Cooking, making art, questioning, problem solving, writing and putting on plays, Raising chicks, field trips to the Natural History Museaum, The Clark Art Institute, Apple Orchards, the Great Falls Discovery Center, and more. . . All while teaching math, language arts, social studies, science, and social emotional learning. . . all while building great relationships with kids. . . All while being self reflective, improving my practice, using data to inform instruction, and believing this is the work I am meant to do.

End of Year Song

I started singing in my area’s Rock Voices choir a couple summers ago, and I noticed a phenomena, probably discovered by many already in similar situations. We start getting to know the music, and over the course of a couple months we really get to know it well we love it.  After a while we almost get to the point where we are tired of it, we have rehearsed and reahearsed and it becomes old hat. Then one night, the band joins us with drums, rhythm, guitar, keyboard, or whatever the season’s arrangement calls for, and everything changes. For a good week, the music is more alive than it ever was, because all our work rehearsing harmonies comes together with the amazing rock sound of the band on stage with lights and audience energy, and the high is amazing. Suddenly, unexpectedly for me the first time, there is a let down, which this week I realized is very similar to the end of school year emotions I have felt, observed, and heard from others.  

After the last note is sung, the band packs up, the risers are dismantled and I am home with my ears that have only recently stopped ringing.  The emotional let down is huge. We will never sing those songs with that exact same mix of people, and that same crowd energy again. In that moment, I don’t want to hear the songs on the radio or listen to part recordings any more, because they are such a pale version of the performance, yet I wish I could, because I don’t really want to let go of those songs that carried all that thick, rich emotional color into my life.  

The last day of school was yesterday for us, and I was noting how we were all, kids and teachers alike dancing an emotional line, between relief that the hard work is coming to a close for a while, and the anguish that we will never get that performance back.  Whether our kids have made progress, or we wish we did more, whether our relationships with the kids are strong, or we wish we built stronger ones, it is all done by the time we walk in the door on that last day. Sixth grade has sung their last song, and said their last official farewell.  

We will never teach the same lesson in just the same way to the same students and have the same effect.  That same kiddo will probably not ever call you “Mom” by accident again. The student who was a challenge all year, and you adored anyway, is often particularly and precariously balanced that day, somewhere between nervous/giddy and somber/tear rimmed.  All year and especially the last few weeks, we build up to that final “goodbye” wave to busses and when it is all over… a part of us wishes it wasn’t. A part of us wants to sing that song one more time with the band loud, and the crowd dancing and singing along.

UDL more than the next ”Buzzword”

We have heard them before,  “whole language”, “phonics”, “research based”, “differentiation”, “RTI”, “data”, and on and on. . . the buzzword rotation in education cannot be denied.  Right now I am afraid that teachers are so conditioned to the buzzwords phasing in and out that some may be overlooking UDL as just another phrase or phase, just another new “thing to do”.  When I hear a search committee ask  about a teacher's understanding of UDL, then set her off in a room without any support materials (adequate curriculum, manipulatives, alternate seating, sufficient or even functioning technology options) that certainly corroborates the “buzz” notion.

There is sometimes a lack of true understanding around UDL at the administrative level some of who seem to use UDL as an excuse or means to reduce staff or corral a heavy “load” into a classroom and call it inclusion.  In a district where administration supports UDL practices I hear teachers not sure, “What is it really?”, “How can I do it?”, “I’m going to give them a choice board so it looks more UDL when admins come in”, or “Is this just a feather in the cap for admin?” As with any would be buzzword, there are many interpretations and misunderstandings, and mostly the feeling that UDL is another one of those, “just one more” items that they just don’t have time to “do”.  I for one find that heartbreaking.

I find it heartbreaking because, in the last forty five years or so, our country has noted many times over that our public education system doesn’t always work for everyone.  Since IDEA was introduced in 1975, we have grappled with ways to meet the needs of different learners.  We have noted “gaps” in growth indexes between students who live in poverty and those who do not, between kids whose parents graduated college and whose did not.  In the early 90’s, We implemented standards to ensure rigorous curriculum, and followed suit with rigorous testing before the  “rigorous standards” were
fully understood and implemented.  Yet the gaps persist. I find it heartbreaking.  We researched best
practices for reading instruction, yet are still struggling to consistently put them into play within
schools, or across districts, and across the nation.  We have more information available to us than ever before about how the brain learns, the role of emotions in learning, and how to best leverage memory to maximize learning, and yet teachers are still struggling with distracted learners, a lack of engagement, and teaching that doesn’t stick.  I find it heartbreaking.

2014 far left, 1992 scores far right. student average scores 8 th gr reading (darkest blue = parent didn’t graduate from high school,  next=graduated, graduated with some post HS ed, and lightest blue= college graduates)

My own children are growing up in this world of standards and standardized testing and their experiences have varied from teacher to teacher.  Some of the biggest complaints are too much
teacher talk, too many work sheets, too much expectation that all the kids are going to fit in the same box, or the saddest, “I didn’t really learn anything new.” I’m not sure how many teachers expect kids to fit in the box though.  Maybe they lack the time, understanding, or determination to chase down materials or create lessons that meet the needs of everyone in their class.  Whatever the reasons,
while working in different schools and districts in a variety of capacities over the last several years, I
have seen the same looks of disengagement on kids faces, the same poor attitudes toward school and
learning, and the same types of students sent to sit in time out, to take a break, on walking breaks, and
in buddy room chairs from preschool to middle elementary.  I have seen this in large and small schools in and around the county where I live where tiny rural schools still exist within 10-25 miles of larger ( but not huge) city schools.  I know teachers know it too, bc teachers are questioning student attitudes toward school daily on Facebook, Twitter, and even in PLC’s reading to find out where the joy has gone.  I find it heartbreaking.

I still remember when my mom advised me, “College is where you learn how to learn.”  And she was right, back then. ( @1992)   I am guessing that is at least a part of why standards based education took hold.  I know I hadn’t learned a lot about how to learn in my 12 years of public school, and I hope you don’t doubt for a minute that, upon hearing my mom speak those words, I asked myself, “Why is that?  What was the actual point of those 12 years anyway?  Why aren’t we teaching kids how to learn?”  When I graduated with my preliminary teaching certificate in the mid nineties, I
remember wishing I had more information about how kids actually learn.  I found it heartbreaking
even then.

I took workshops that had brain in the title in hopes of opening a magic door to learning.  I studied how to integrate the arts in a standards based curriculum, and backwards design before they called it that, because we knew back in 1992 that the arts were a great way to engage the brain.  We knew that teaching kids to read involved phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.  We knew kids needed support to learn to read, balanced with autonomy to make reading choices that mattered to them, and we were teaching writing all across the curriculum. Then something happened in education, testing became an all consuming entity, teacher autonomy gave way to scripted curriculums, and for the next twenty years our achievement and achievement gaps
have stagnated, or in some cases gotten worse.  I find it heartbreaking.

So fast forward to the last several years.  As the Information Age has grown, the need for
discriminating consumers of information, problem solvers, and designers of solutions has also
increased.  The Current standards really embody the idea of teaching students To be thinkers and consumers of information.  We know more and understand more about emotion, memory systems, learning and the Brain than ever before!  We have resources to support teachers scaffolding in the classroom, Keys to Literacy, Comprehension, Vocabulary...  We have graphic organizers out our ears.  We have books full of engagement strategies, Teach Like a Pirate, and strategies for how to encourage student centered practices in  Learn Like a Pirate.  We know readers should be wild about books, The Book Whisperer, and that they still need teaching, Reading Strategies and Writing Strategies, through mini lessons and small group work and conferences.  We require SEI endorsements in our state to ensure teachers understand how to best work with students who speak other languages, are bilingual, and bicultural We have access now to online tools like Epic, Pebble Go, Story Bird, and News ELA, just to name a very few!

In my current district, we also have  UDL Now!, handed out to teachers and staff last year.  When I read it, I thought “yes!”  I recognized the many great teaching practices I had read of, taken workshops on, learned and tried throughout the book, with Universal Deign in Learning as the framework to make sense of them all and give them a rightful place in our collective teaching pedagogy.  I have joined the Design Team in our district, attended last year’s cast symposium and completed my first online UDL course, but a lot of the teachers I have talked to haven’t even read the book yet.  I find that heartbreaking.

And now...now we have the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines to give all this amazing
information, all these amazing resources, and all our tools for best practice, a framework to make them work for everyone in our classes.  Not just the kids who we know need help or learn different or whose barriers to learning are visible or obvious in some way, but also those kids who we might not know learn differently, or whose parents are for whatever reason unable to advocate for them.  In my thinking, UDL is SO much more than a buzzword.  UDL is so much more than the next hot topic.  UDL provides a framework for thinking and teaching focused on planning.  The guidelines provide us with a structure to build on, to not just teach our students but teach them how to be learners and problem solvers and  achievers.  UDL fills me with hope.

Great Auntie Claire

As a child, I had a the image of Auntie Claire with short, dark hair and clad in a bathing suit on the dock in Otis or hiking up and down the hill, burned into my mind.  I was going to say sitting, but I actually don’t remember her sitting. She walked, swam and was always on the go back then. I recall several week long adventures with Auntie, where she never failed to keep my brother and I on our toes teaching us manners of all kinds and making sure we said our prayers before bed (whether we did that at home or not)

The many lessons of auntie Claire ranged from setting the table properly with real napkins to “We say pass gas here.”  (**sounded like “Pass gaz” when she said it) and “I am not an ANT I am your Aunt.” Later on, at Henry Street when we borrowed her shower during a bathroom renovation at our own house, she taught us to squeegee the shower down when we were done.  We caught on pretty quickly I would say, as it was a loving necessity to learn in her presence.

As a child, I looked forward to our trips to the Wysteriahurst Museum. I know I still have some teeny tiny polished stones I got on one of our trips.  They came in a tiny plastic box with a little lid. ( they still live in a music box on my dresser). She invited us, My brother Mike and I, to go to the museum once and see a special Whale Exhibit.  We were all so excited to go inside a life sized inflated whale! Claire was the kind of Aunt who surprised me back then by acting just as disappointed as us kids when all we saw inside was blackness lit by a few bulbs.  We all thought it would be so much more exciting!

I know at least once or twice we walked to the museum from her house on Merrick Ave.  I remember feeling how long a walk home it felt, but she distracted us along the way, always engaging, walking along the river, where Mike and I were convinced we found a real dinosaur footprint.  We had seen one just like it at the museum! We had that rock for years though I am not sure where it is now, somehow having managed to carry it all the way back up the hill to her house.

She always seemed very proper to me as a child, but in contrast to memories of helping her iron boxer shorts, handkerchiefs, and pillowcases ‘my personal favorite’, I can also recall her devilishly digging up a yellow dayLily bulb growing wild out on a wooded road in Otis and swearing us to secrecy.  She was hoping she could transplant it at the cottage which was surrounded by orange lilies. Sometimes she would get a fire going in the stone fireplace outside, and set a package of hotdogs nearby, in case there might be any trouble, because ‘cooking fires’ were allowed.

I am sure anyone who knew her can attest to her excellent cooking skills!  It was at her home that I am sure I ate the best meatballs and gravy in my life, I still try to recreate them.  That might have been the evening that Mike was officially dubbed a “bottomless pit” by Auntie and Uncle Chuck alike. But let’s never forget, whatever the event, she was sure to show up with one of the most scrumptious desserts known to mankind, I particularly loved those seven layer bars!  But she even made a bowl of jello look like a delicacy.

The longest lasting impression of Auntie Claire though, a lesson that I hope to carry with me, is of her clear, unspoken message, “We take care of people in this family, we take care of people.”  Through all the adventures, Uncle Chuck, Wheelchair bound for as long as I can recall, was never overlooked or set aside, I can still picture her helping him in and out of the floating chair up at the lake, or pushing him down the stone ramp to the cottage. She cared for him diligently at home until it was beyond her ability to do so, I can still hear her wondering if it was the right thing to do. Even after, I recall visiting the soldiers home with her to say hello, or bring him home for a day.  

It seems not that long ago, I had a conversation with my mom about dropping in to visit Auntie Claire, and being warned, “Don't expect her to just be there, she keeps a pretty busy schedule still, volunteering and getting together with friends.”  I feel like this was just a part of her that I took for granted, until I began counting the years of service she contributed to the well being of so many people, and realized the magnitude of her truly giving nature.

It was her ability to always see, or hold onto  the human connection that I imagine must have driven her.  I have a letter she wrote to my grandfather when he was in the Navy, such a simple gesture about everyday things that spoke volumes.  After my grandfather Charlie, had a stroke she visited him regularly, and always treated and spoke to him as if he were the same person she always knew.  After all, he was the same man, still her beloved brother, though his speech was less clear, she knew his mind was still sharp and, unlike some, never treated him otherwise.  Often she would bring old photos, or a clippings of things she read so they would have something to chat about.

When I was looking to find out more about my own grandmother years back, Auntie described her as “Like a sister to me.”  She told me of an adventure they all had Auntie and Uncle, and my grandparents on a cruise, when my grandmother set her prosthetic leg on the side of the pool to go for a swim, despite shocked onlookers.  It definitely painted a picture of the kind of character she was. I am only hoping this paints at least half the picture of who Claire was to all of us!

With loving recollection for my Great Aunt Claire.

Amy Boyden