The students were having so much fun helping the teacher. They were discriminating color, shape, and textures of different types of leaves and picking them to give to the teacher. I am sure the teacher would talk about how healthy it is to eat. The students kept saying, “My grandma make Kale Ms. M___.”

It made my day.

Children get the same types of experiences at the William Byrd Community House that not only has an edible garden for the Head Start students there but a farmers market that takes Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cards. The program, formerly known as food stamps, is trying to help families with limited income to eat healthy by making vegetables available through farmers markets and even as seeds and plants for SNAP gardens.

I was excited to read that in California the Western Growers Foundation had recently provided 100 $1000 grants for preschool edible gardens. This is the type of investment in an idea that can transform not only the preschools but the lives of children. There are so many things that can be learned from growing a garden, from care for living things to seeing and describing transformations. With the current crisis in childhood obesity it looks like schools are going to have to start making nutrition education a priority. Of course parents want to do the best for their children but parents are not able to make the time in hectic lives for such a subtle body of knowledge.

The good news is children will finally get to play with their vegetables.

Hey We Agree!

As an early childhood educator it comes naturally to me to be hopeful because I see potential in the eyes of students every day. When I started getting into researching and writing about early childhood policy I started to get a little more tarnished if not actually jaded. I ran into people who didn’t think pre-K was a good idea. I felt the same way my friend Marsha Ratzel, an economist turned teacher did:

“No duh is what I always want to say. I’m no EC whiz kid, but it only makes sense. After listening to a report a few years back on the long term impact of Project Head Start on people 20+ afterwards, I’m sold. What else do people need besides common sense and a little data to nudge them over the edge?”

It was a no brainer to me too but then I ran into Jo Lynne DeMary who challenged my thinking in an educational policy issues class to convince her that funding pre-K is important without only using the economic argument. She had been the State Superintendent of Virginia and even though she supported the beginning of state funded pre-K during her tenure, when it came down to money, pre-K was always the first place to look at for a cut. To her it made sense, in a pragmatic way, to invest in kids in middle school who might drop out or might not depending on what we do instead of kids who had most of their educational career ahead of them. Since then I have tried to take a different track. I have tried to tell  stories about why pre-K is important and use a more palpable logic in my arguments to support pre-K. Still, it does make me happy and thankful when a respected conservative finally gets the head-slapper and agrees with most early childhood people when he says invest in pre-K. Some day I hope to personally thank Mr. Kristoff for saying this publically,

“the question isn’t whether we can afford early childhood education, but whether we can afford not to provide it. We can pay for prisons or we can pay, less, for early childhood education to help build a fairer and more equitable nation.”

I also want to take a second to thank Arne Duncan. I have had many misgivings with Mr. Duncan’s tenure as the Secretary of Education, but thankfully not as many as I had with the last Secretary of Education. Just recently Duncan’s office announced it was creating an office of Early Childhood Education and appointed Jacqueline Jones to lead it. The office will focus on supporting education Birth to age 8. I am thankful for Arne Duncan because he is the first Secretary of Education to acknowledge the critical important of early childhood by speaking at a NAEYC conference and now he has created an office in the department of education. For years public pre-K has been grant grant funded and always the first on the chopping block. This move makes it even more likely that funding for pre-K will become more systemic and embedded in state funding structures.

The NBPTS holds at the ready what may be the most powerful untapped resource for educational change in our nation: 91,000 accomplished teachers. Ron, I hope you are prepared (and eager) to collaborate with these expert educators in authentic ways. I hope that you, an accomplished executive, are able to recognize the limits your expertise—learning from and leading with accomplished educators who have a deep understanding of teachers and teaching.

I hope that I get to meet Ron some day and get to know him a little better, and I hope that we get to know him through what he does, not just what he says.

Lesson plans in Head Start are way to incorporate parent voice in their child’s education. It is critical that the parents of the at-risk students in our program are involved in goal setting and curriculum. This step is often a game changer in how our parents approach school. Most have never had a voice in their education and working with a teacher to develop their child can be a very powerful experience for the parents and teacher. Here is an excerpt from that post.

In our Head Start classrooms every student has at least two individual goals that are revised based on observation and assessment in an Individual Learning Plan four times a year. Mathematically this teacher’s planning responsibilities look like this:

1 Teacher’s practice = (19 students x 2 goals) *4 (parent interactions for goal adjustment based on assessment) * (38 key experiences (read as standards)) * (26 upper case letters) * (26 lower case letters) * (26 letter sounds) * (Rhyming)  * (vocabulary) etc….

In this complex formula, in which early childhood teachers are responsible for everything from wiping noses to developing algebra readiness, teachers are accountable to parents and students at an individual level. My colleague’s lesson plans were to be displayed in the “Parent Corner” for all parents to see. Yes, in our Head Start program we publicly display lesson plans as an accountability measure and a way to teach parents about our curriculum. The Individual Learning Plans were to be incorporated into the plan in substantive ways.

Image: http://myvirtualpencil.blogspot.com/2011/01/paradigm-shift.html

When I had foster grandparents in my classroom they loved to talk with the children about their lives and share their rich experiences. The last foster grandparent I had was named Ms. Granderson. She had lived in the school neighborhood almost her whole life. She had operated a dress shop, been a minister, and participated in a lunch counter sit in. She was 82 when she joined us and stayed for 3 years until her health got the best of her.

She was a big help in the classroom, always eager to participate in the learning experience and sensitive to the needs of the children. I learned a great deal from her as a human being. She was an inspiration. The opportunity to give back was so important to her and her warm presence helped my students get that little bit of extra love that made them feel as special as they are.

I can only imagine how important the foster grandparent program would be in an Early Head Start (EHS) program. Many EHS parents are young mothers, some not even out of high school. To have a grandparent figure in the classroom for 2 and 3 year-old children can not only help the children but also the young mothers who might need a bridge to span the gap left by negative experiences in school. Foster Grandparents are an important part of the Head Start picture because they deliver to students and families one of the most important things Head Start provides, love.

Thanks to Yasmina Vinci, Executive Director of the National Head Start Association for the link to the story that inspired this post.

Image: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20110904/LIFESTYLE/109040308/Foster-grandparents-changing-shaping-children-s-lives?fb_ref=artrectop&fb_source=profile_oneline

1. Eat the ice cream first: As a parent and teacher and generally thrifty family I am always trying to put off gratification. What I should have realized when our power went out was that it wasn’t coming back on anytime soon. We should have eaten the ice cream Saturday afternoon instead of late Saturday night in my son’s room when it was soupy. The kids had a great time time but I could have had ice cream for lunch. I’m just saying.
2. Batten down the hatches: When an event beyond my control is going to happen take precautions. It is better to stack the plastic chairs than chase them. I didn’t have to chase them but that is all thanks to my wife.
3. Friends are important: Thanks to some neighbors up the street we were able to save all of our frozen food (besides the ice cream). They had a generator that was supporting 3 families but also had a deep freeze. Our awesome neighbors also held their annual hurricane festival for real all week. This festival actually celebrated the last hurricane when the neighborhood was without power and everyone came together to cook, hang-out, and wait for the lights to come on. I found myself pining for that community and I was so happy to find it down the street.
4. Toast is a luxury: Without power there is no toast unless you want to cook it on a grill but who wants to get out the gas grill at 7:30 in the morning. The whole idea of those small appliances we take for granted made me really appreciate crispy toast and hot coffee. We ended up pouring boiling water into our coffee pot but Mr. Coffee is definitely better at making it than I am. I will use this lesson to try to appreciate the morning each day. In the past I have found myself rushing off to work but those small luxuries reminded me that every part of the day is important.
5. Screens make you stay up late: I was actually able to limit my computer use to 40 minutes a day on those days we didn’t have power. And, because our kids hardly watch TV they didn’t whine at all when we lost power. My 10 year old daughter actually called it living in a “mash-up of the past and the present.” Without power there is not that much to do after 9:30 p.m.  I actually got more and better sleep than I had in a long time.

I have learned a lot from you Irene. Thanks but, don’t feel like you need to send any friends by to follow-up on my learning.

Image: http://www.astringofpearls.org/index.php/2011/08/29/good-night-irene/

National Board Certified Teacher John M. Holland recommends that early-childhood teachers provide structure and routines to help manage their classrooms. He suggests establishing an attention-getter to address students during transitions, such as “look and listen.” Holland also recommends teachers model the behavior they expect from students, help students know when they should pay attention to the teacher, refer to themselves in the third person and establish a routine while also encouraging them to leave their comfort zones. Education Week Teacher (premium article access compliments of EdWeek.org)

It has been mashed up with the song “In Threes” by the Beastie Boys and a video by: http://www.youtube.com/user/SDeBellaGia
and
http://www.youtube.com/user/interinc5
You can download the song here: DOWNLOAD
Find out more about the Future of Teaching at:
http://future.teacherleaders.org/
http://emergentlearner.com/

“This Is Not A Test” (SOS March)

Welcome, America, to the latest installment of a people’s march
For the next 3 minutes, I will ask you to defy protocol
Disband the status quo
Bust open these deformed gates
Unlock the teachers’ lounge
Unlock the teachers’ lounge
Unlock the teachers’ lounge

I beg your pardon, but I am not your proctor
I march with the protestors, and our hands are raised,
A pledge for a new narrative

This is not a test!

This is not a test, Mr. President.
This is an assessment written against the idea that the dates and places of our history
Can be shrunk to the choice between B&C
And that is our purpose for this assembly
An extended response to a failed corporatist agenda
A reflection on the state of our most public of options

Measured through the rubric of human rights

But this is not a test!

This is not a test, Mr. Duncan
Take note: this is not us asking
This is not us begging
This is not us pleading
This is us fighting for all things equal
This is us uniting as a more perfect union
This is us reminding America of a promissory note unpaid
This is us writing our own documentation when Politicians refuse our kids the opportunity

We are all DREAMers, and this is not a test!

This is not a test, Mr. Bloomberg

This is the generation of children from the classrooms where
teachers boldly stood and thought kids could learn
Educators, stand firm, whether in cafeterias, mess halls, or prison halls,
School is in session
And we submit our entire lives for millions of students a year

So even when I stand in front of the class, I am always children first

This is not a test!

This is not a test, Ms. Rhee
This is an exam unmoved by mayoral cycles, and I?

A bubble you cannot erase
A mouth you cannot tape
A heat you cannot beat
I come in a swarm of thousands
So I am a bee you cannot eat

This is not a test!
This is not a test, Mr. President

Given an answer sheet, these students shaded in L-O-V-E over ABCD
A set of standards commonly set forth before
Acing geography by means of peace instead of war
Shaping the world henceforth
They will elevate our math to where the sum of the people
Is greater than the parts
Becoming fluent in the languages of English, Spanish, and caring
America, please put down your pencils

This is not a test!

This is not a test!

This is not a test!

Deformers, you are dismissed.