Balls and Strikes: The Week's Links

Um ... considering all the talk this baseball season about expanding the postseason to five teams, the bottom two having a one-game showdown for the Wild Card, thus reviving the Moribund Pennant Race, what does the final-day theatrics say about that?

Interesting piece by Dahlia Lithwick over at Slate about why the Administration might let the health-reform law go before the Supreme Court sooner rather than later.  She quotes Peter Suderman:

If the mandate is upheld, Obama will claim constitutional victory, and argue that Republicans pursued a frivolous challenge in service of political gain. If not, he'll presumably argue that the challenge itself represented a partisan attack by political foes who aren't interested in fixing the health care system and that America's court system has become hopelessly biased by an extremist conservative judiciary that's in the thrall of the Republican party.

And a wonky piece at The New Republic surprisingly makes me feel optimistic about the dwindling of the death penalty, in practice and in law.  Didn't know they'd dropped so precipitously, for a lot of reasons.  Of course, that DP still exists at all is to say that it persists as an idea, problematic in a country that stakes much of its global swashbuckling moral authority on ideas. 

Finally, I only buy electronics that make me bare my teeth and growl FIIIIRRRE.  As in this.  The name sort of beats you over the head, but at least you can't accuse them of mixed metaphors.  Appealingly low-cost.  And appealingly making me want to get one and walk down the street with it humming "ooh, ooh, ooh, I'm on ..." or "we didn't start the ..."

Eight Is the Loneliest Number

Every once in a while, a statistic just comes out of nowhere and knocks me down.  The share of GED recipients who actually complete college once they've started (now, there's a conversation for another day).  The Red Sox' abysmal September record (now, there's a conversation for ... oh wait, there might not be another day).

Yesterday's stunner?  A number (from the 90s) showing that only 8 percent of public investment in education is spent on children birth-to-5.   

Everything we know says that kids cognitive, emotional, linguistic development has a huge, lifelong impact.  Why don't we fund 0-5 better?

Now, I understand: the public K-12 system is a 500-billion-dollar gorilla taking up much, much more than 8 percent.  A lot of birth-to-five life happens at home.  The private-public balance for daycare is more on the private end than in K-12.  The "Head Start didn't work" perception is out there--even if it's not entirely true.  But it's still shocking how little our society invests in arguably the most important five years of life.


For society at large, I think it comes to down to this: perception of crisis.  Major foundations like Gates, Broad, and Walton zealously fund all stripes of K-12 school reform.  These initiatives are problematic in many ways, but I think they've caught fire among donors because of the obvious crisis of American high schools.  Open the paper and you read about this-or-that failing school.  Turn on the news and you get a steady diet of "kids these days'" troubles with drugs and gangs.  Employers are finding that young adults can't do the job.  Colleges are finding freshman can't do the classwork.

But there's very much a 0-5 "crisis," as well.  Toddlers with health problems, kids who haven't seen letters or heard enough talking at home, and on and on.  But this crisis is much more silent.  It has to do with complicated genetic-environment interactions beyond the grasp or interest of policymakers.  Further, three-year-olds who are falling behind aren't marauding the streets in gangs ... they're just not getting right kind of attention or discipline from Mom or Dad.  And even if kindergarten teachers can already see the negative outcomes, these outcomes aren't blaring over the news or failing in droves out of Stats 101 at Your Local State College.

So we don't intuitively grasp early-childhood issues the way we do with older kids.  Even if we did, where would the political will be to act?  Kids don't vote.  Parents of poor, at-risk kids don't either.

Just yesterday, I heard a former advocacy worker say: You have to kiss serious politico butt to get lawmakers to give money to early childhood.  I don't want to be mired in pessimism, but how do we change this?

The Right Stuff: Skills and Behaviors Beginning ESOL Students Must Have

In "Teaching Students How to Be Students,"  I recommended a few steps for helping students learn the skills and behaviors they need to be successful in your classroom--or any future classroom they might step into.

Since Monday is a good day for Serious News, let me be clear: these are not quick fixes.  If it took two minutes to show students how to organize a binder, and they could do it perfectly after a single observation, every teacher would do it.  But everybody doesn't do it. 

So in signing up for a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, it is a huge help to know exactly what skills and behaviors matter in your class, your grade, your level.

I came up with a brief taxonomy of topics for Beginning ESOL learners.  I thought.  I sketched ideas.  I begged, borrowed, and stole from fellow teachers.  Here's a sample of our results--some language-specific, some adult-specific, some transferable to any classroom:


Beginning ESOL Skills & Behaviors

1) Puncuality

• Being on time
• Having your materials out before class starts

2) Academic Habits

• How to listen to classmates
• Tracking the teacher
• How to find directions on a worksheet, and where to write your name and the date

3)  Behaviors

• How students or the teacher should get the class's attention
• Transitioning efficiently into groups
  
• Working patiently and productively with other students
• Listening to instructions, and repeating them back
• Using extra time effectively if you've finished an activity early
• Self-advocating in class: I don't understand.  I need to go to the bathroom.  Pass me the scissors.  I can't come to class tomorrow. 

4) Homework & Studying

• How to use a "dialogue journal"
• Completing homework fully and to the best of one's ability
• Where, at what time, and with what materials to complete homework
• How to space out studying for a test, and identify what to study
• Getting help vs. copying an answer
• Practicing for a performance assessment
• Identifying a teacher's feedback, and whether it's positive or corrective; responding to it through questions or corrections

5) Classroom Materials

• What an organized desk space looks like
• How to organize and maintain an effective binder
• Dating papers
• Having all the necessary materials: pencil, eraser, notebook, binder with divider

6) General Functioning, i.e. The Other Stuff

• Asking for clarification about directions
• Methods to support your own learning outside class
• Evaluating personal strengths and weaknesses
• Asking the teacher or a classmate to resolve a difficulty
• Getting/making up missed work
• Finding a class buddy to save papers and provide notes if you're absent

I know, I know.  Many of these seem to warrant a big, blinking "Obviousness Alert."  They weren't so obvious to my students, though.  Most of these I didn't include in the program contract: that was a fast path to forgetting them.  Instead, I rolled them out gradually and in a very carefully planned sequence.  Each topic got a "mini-lesson" that incorporated visuals and metaphors and had students actually practicing or preparing for the skill.

This list could go on and on.

What are the most successful techniques you've used?

Out Standing in the Field?

Took a lot of field trips today:

11:15: Interview at an organization that facilitates policy-changes to strengthen community-college outcomes

1:00: Met with the co-director of an upstart parenting program that is explicitly trying to be small and focus only on early-parenting--while linking with other resources to help low-income parents give their kids a successful life

3:30: Met with a social-entrepreneur/student who's poised to launch an organization that would connect poor schoolchildren with wraparound services for their families, to help remove barriers to learning and change the "conversation" about how schools operate

It's a good thing at my age you don't need to fill out permission slips!  

By my count, that's 1 existing "linkage" program that's very big and supports front-line work, 1 new front-line program that supports linkages but wants to remain small, and 1 new linkage program that works at the front lines and wants to be big.

If you followed that, I bet you can tell me where the pea is!

Two lines of argument I'm constantly thinking about (in a very, very reduced form):

1) We have enough organizations and enough services.  To help disadvantaged folks, we just need to connect them better from one program to another.
2) Poor people shouldn't have to run from program to program to meet their needs.  Give them one-stop shops with all services under a single roof.  Found a new org that does it all.  Or add another program to round out your org.

What do you think?

Speaking My Language

Does a parent's low literacy affect their child's language acquisition?

That was the question that came up yesterday in a class I'm taking.  I'm neither a linguist nor a developmental psychologist, but I have plenty of experience helping parents with literacy and language acquisition. In hearing the question, I thought: Absolutely not.  At least, it shouldn't have to be that way.

First, defining terms, "parental low literacy" entails a struggle in one or more of the pillars of reading, e.g. decoding, fluency, phonemic awareness.  (In their own language, I mean; a lot of folks struggle to read English while learning to speak English, and the two are connected, but that's for another day).

Many of my adult clients have had low literacy in their native language, but they were all fluent speakers of their language.  And there's no reason their children can't pick up language well, too.  The parent needs to use a lot of "parentese"--real words, phrases, and sentences tailored to the child.  Lots of back-and-forth with the child, even if it's responding to their babbling with words and questions.  High-pitch, slow cadence, overemphasizing some words.  That's not all you need for language acquisition, but it's the bedrock.

Beyond that, the amount of language and kind of language the child hears has a big impact on their cognitive development.  Lots of words, and not just commands or admonitions, but speech about the past, future, colors, objects, emotions.  Mixed with songs, which are a great way to teach cadence and introduce children to rhyme.  The more of that you get, the better those kids' brains as they head to school!

And at home, it can happen in any language--Somali, Spanish, Mai Mai, you name it.  The development is the key.

We know that kids from tough backgrounds come to school having heard fewer words, and less of a variety.  That affects their learning.  Their parents may tend to have low literacy, but that doesn't mean the latter caused the former.  If your mom's got low literacy, it doesn't doom you to low language acquisition--as long as there's a healthy serving of good, solid "parentese."

A final note: The question for policy-makers and nonprofits is, How do we help parents help their children pick up language?  In a way that's respectful, cost-effective, and reaches the parents most in need of help?  How do we increase the supply of high-quality childcare that's brimming with language enrichment?  Going forward, there's a whole lot I'd like to say about that.

Method Man: Teaching Students How to Be Students

How do you teach someone who hasn't been in a classroom in decades?

When I've taught immigrant adults, that was my daily battle.  Some students' notebooks poured avalanches of unorganized papers.  Other students, coming late to class, executed preening runway-worthy entrance walks that might have made last night's Emmy ratings soar.  Others would circle multiple answers on a multiple-choice question on a test.

At least, that's what happened my first year.

So I watched, learned, and adjusted.  It wasn't enough to teach English, take students to the public library, and help them build career awareness.  I needed to teach them how to be students.  How to be students.  A dash of skills, a pinch of behaviors.  What do I mean?  Having all your materials--and only those materials--out before class.  Transitioning to group work.  Asking for help.  Finding directions on a worksheet--harder than you might think when it's not your native language.

The list goes on and on (as you'll see in a future post!).  And as any bedraggled kindergarten, 6th-grade, 10th-grade, or college-freshman teacher can tell you, teaching someone how to be a student is a must at every level of education.

So here are some general tips.  Look for a future post on ESOL-specific ideas:

• Wield Occam's Razor: Find the simplest way to teach the concept.  When I had my adult learners set up a desk-organization system, I showed them a picture of a messy desk, and a picture of a desk with a few key materials neatly organized.  "What's better?" I asked.  I guided them with questions.  They wrote rules.  It took all of 15, 20 minutes.  It was the right visual, and the right question.
• Speak their language: When I needed to teach my Latino immigrant students sequential goal-setting, I started with something they all understood: cooking dinner.  First a recipe, then ingredients, then pots and pans ... and so on.  They were hooked--more important, it helped them frame the concept.  
• Tap their knowledge: Introducing ninth-graders to a binder system?  They've probably done something like it before.  Or at least some have.  Make the connection.
• Target misconceptions: Asked to circle one of two options on a listening exercise, some of my adult learners, if they were having trouble, would circle both.  Hedging your bets--great for Vegas, perhaps.  Not such a great test-taking strategy.  Once I wised up to this, I started modeling exactly how to answer the question before the test.  I'd make a big show of circling both possible answers, then clearly demonstrate that you could not do that.
• Explain "why": Especially with adults.  With kids, depends on the situation.  If you're going to have systems and processes in class, it helps to lay out the reasoning.  Not always, under all situations.  But sometimes it can go a long way. 
•  Repeat, repeat, repeat--and gradually lessen your role: Call it what you like: At Bats.  Larry Bird taking 1,000 jump shots a day because he knew someone else out there was doing the same.  The first 80 times I had students put papers in their binders, I walked them through it while holding a binder and doing it myself.  Gradually I eased up and let them do it--but only when I knew they could.

Friends, we're not just teaching content.  Pick the key "student skills" and drive them home.  It'll make your class that much more efficient.  And your students' futures that much brighter.

NFP, HCZ, QED?

I was born into luck.

I had healthy, well-educated parents, married, and stable parents.  Dad had a good job, Mom was a dedicated and ardent community activist.  My mom wouldn't have even thought of drinking when she was pregnant with me.  They had the means to support having one more kid--my little sister--two years later.  I grew up near parks, not power plants.  There was no lead paint within sight or touch.  From the earliest moments, I was loved, read to, and played with--not just by my folks but by aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers. 

Am I thankful?  You bet!  To try to make such positive fetal health behaviors, early parenting, and stable life pathways more prevalent for mothers who didn't have the background of my own, enter the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP).  I've been reading about it a lot recently. 

For someone like me who's very interested in the Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) and programs like it, the NFP raises some big questions.

First, the NFP in a nutshell: It was a plan developed in the 70's by a developmental psychologist to make the conditions I benefited from more widespread for kids born to poor, teenage mothers in Elmira, N.Y., and later Memphis and Denver.  The backbone of the program?  Sending nurses into the homes, from early pregnancy to a couple years after birth, to talk, teach, model, counsel, what it took to be a good mother.

The results?  Less abuse and neglect, less use of public assistance by the families, and more involvement from fathers.  Many effects still showed up in kids when they were fifteen years old.  RAND found major cost-savings for the kids whose mothers were most at-risk and felt most helpless.  A flurry of similar programs emerged, and political leaders were quick to find and implement in their own cities and states. 

Teaching parenting is important.  Programs like the Harlem Children’s Zone have taken that cue, and added to it: good early parenting should lead to good pre-school, to good K-12 education, to good social-service supports.  

But there's an issue with this cradle-to-college "conveyor belt" now being replicated nationwide through the Promise Neighborhoods.  The very psychologist who developed NFP, David Olds, found that benefits to his parental supports were only for the at-risk mothers.  Secure families who got the supports didn't need them, and were a cost loss from an investment angle.  Olds's warning: making services universal may cover some families that don’t actually benefit, diluting resources that at-risk families most need.  

By keeping kids on the “conveyor belt” perpetually even if some of them could prosper by graduating out of it—cradle-to-college may threaten to “dilute” services at each level of its continuum.  Most of the families in these program's zones would probably be called "at-risk."  But maybe not all of them.  With scarce resources to fund the kind of childhood I got, that's a reality worth examining.