An Educator's Summer Reading List

It is summer, which means that teachers all over the country are working a summer job to pay the bills, attending graduate courses to improve teaching skills, revising lesson plans in anticipation of the next year and, of course, reading this blog.

It has always amused me when acquaintances at various gatherings would say, "It must be nice to have the summer off." Here is a partial list of things I did with my "summers off" over a 45 year career in education:

Gas Station Attendant
Ice Cream Truck Driver
Summer Camp Counselor
Summer School Teacher
Curriculum Writer
New Student Tester
Tutor
Professional Development Attendee/Provider
College Lecturer
Graduate School Student

One constant over my summers, however, was reading. I hope all of you have some extra time for reading this summer and I hope some of that time will be recreational reading or catching up with a classic you never got to read before.

I would like to suggest that some of that summer reading also be devoted to the three books discussed below. These are not beach books, but books that will arm you with good clear arguments as you fight against the dismantling of public education and the destruction of the teaching profession.

50 Myths & Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools: The Real Crisis in Education by David C. Berliner, Gene V. Glass and Associates.

Berliner and Glass are two highly respected researchers who use their knowledge of research to systematically dismantle every canard of the corporate education movement. Name an issue: charter school superiority to public schools, international tests showing the failure of our public schools, merit pay will improve teacher performance, class size doesn't matter, retention will improve achievement, money doesn't matter, education will lift the poor out of poverty. Berliner and Glass take on each of these issues, present the reformer argument and then cite research to show how wrong they are.

50 Myths is the perfect book to have on hand when in the company of those who carp about charters, choice and "bad" schools. Clear and easy to read, this is a book you will refer to over and over.

A Chronicle of Echoes: Who's Who in the Implosion of American Public Education by Mercedes K. Schneider.

Schneider provides us with a sort of field guide to corporate education reformers. Name a reformer and Schneider will provide a detailed account of her/his misdeeds. Those of you familiar with Schneiders writing from her blog deutch29 (and if you aren't you should be) will be familiar with Schneider's penchant for finely detailed investigative reporting, skilled analysis of data and air of indignation.

Here is Schneider on some of her reformy targets:

Joel Klein (former chancellor of NYC public schools) - "If Dante had thought of the likes of Joel Klein, he might have added more levels."

Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach for America) - "Wendy Kopp is no visionary. She is a well-financed conduit for worldwide education destabilization designed to serve the privileged few."

David Coleman ("chief architect" of the Common Core) - "Coleman is a dangerous man; he has the ability to both direct ....education policy and financially profit tremendously from doing so."

Jeb Bush - "Jeb Bush is not an educational reformer. He is no miracle. He is a career politician who is using education as his platform to 'move ahead the family business'."

Schneider backs up these statements with great detail, numerous quotes from the reformers themselves and data. If you want to know what motivations are behind the corporate reformers and just how dangerous these individuals and their organizations can be, this is the book for you.

Rethinking Value-Added Models in Education: Critical Perspectives on Tests and Assessment-Based Accountability by Audrey Amrein-Beardsley.

Here is a book that every teacher must read in the era of standardized test-based accountability. In school after school, in state after state, teachers are being judged (in small or large part) on value-added models (VAMs) based on student performance on standardized tests. Amrein-Beardsley is the foremost authority on  VAMs in the country. She created the blog Vamboozled! as a forum for information and criticism of VAM based accountability measures. In this book, Amrein-Beardsley takes a scholarly approach to the dismantling of the research and rhetoric behind VAMs.

Her conclusions: VAMs are unreliable, invalid, nontransparent, unfair, full of measurement errors, and being used inappropriately to make key decisions about teacher retention, termination and pay. Other than that they are just peachy.

Beardsley's book is not just a critique of a failed accountability measure, however. In the final chapter she offers alternatives, solutions and conclusions. Her key recommendations are listed here.

1. Credibility and trust are key to any evaluation scheme. VAMs lack this basic requirement.
2. Educators' professional judgment should not be removed from any evaluation system.
3. Any evaluation system should rely on multiple measures that are aligned with locally defined criteria for demonstrating effectiveness.
4. Any evaluation system must include a plan to evaluate and refine the system.

If you're performance is being judged, even in small part by value-added measures, this book is a must read.

As teachers our lives are devoted to the abolition of ignorance. As professionals, we must not fall victim to ignorance about what is happening to our profession and why. The three books cited  above will go a long way to providing us with the information we need to defend public education and our own professional integrity.

Tom Barclay: A Tribute to a Great Teacher

Tom Barclay with Cindy Mershon

One of the finest educators I have ever known is retiring this month. I had the pleasure of working closely with Tom Barclay for the last 12  years of my career and I have been fortunate to call him a friend for nearly 25 years. I met Tom through my wife Cindy Mershon, who was Tom's colleague and close friend for many years.

This post is for the many friends and colleagues of Tom's who were not able to attend Tom's retirement party, but it is also for all of us in education who have known a great teacher. We need to celebrate these folks in this time of teacher bashing and evaluating teachers by labeling them with numbers. (One of Tom's teacher friends at the party shared that she was a 3.65!)

Cindy and I were pleased to be asked to speak at Tom's retirement party this past week. In her talk, I believe Cindy captured the essence of Tom as teacher and person.

One of the things I value most about Tom, and what I believe makes him most appealing to people and most successful in his life and his career, is his ability to be a good listener.  Nobody does it better.  My conversations with Tom have informed and improved my thinking and my work, have soothed my concerns and supported by ideas, and have generally made me know someone cares about what I think and who I am.  I have watched Tom extend this kind of caring – being a good listener IS caring – to many people, and marvel at his ability to be generous and genuine with his time and himself.

When I think of Tom, I think of what Henry James, the novelist, once wrote: “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”  Tom is the kindest human being I know.  I have seen his kindness in his role as a teacher, as a principal, as a supervisor, and as a central office administrator.  His kindness is a large part of what makes him so good at his job, what makes him so valuable as a colleague, and what makes him so treasured as a friend.  His persistent courtesy, the philosophy that informs his work and his life, and the respect he extends to children and adults alike are grounded in the kindness that informs all he does, all he thinks, and all he believes.  Unlike my flight home from Miami last night, no turbulence interferes with or disturbs Tom’s approach to interacting with the rest of the world.  Kindness guides him, and kindness wins out every time.

And here is what I had to say. The humor is specific perhaps to Tom and those who knew him. The sentiment, however, might apply to a great teacher you know.

Tom Barclay is the most irritating person I have ever met. I realized this when Tom first joined our Curriculum and Instruction team 14 years ago. At the time I thought I was pretty smart; Tom was smarter. I thought I was well-read. Tom was better read. Worst of all, I thought I was funny; Tom was funnier.

Infuriatingly, Tom was also wise. Whenever Erin or Christine or I would come up with our “next great idea”, Tom would pause and say, “Well, let’s think about this a bit. What is the evidence that this will work, that the teachers will want to do it, that it is good for kids.” Then Chris Manno would agree with him and say, “Yes. let’s take our time on this and see if it will work.” See what I mean. Infuriating.

As you know, Tom has his quirks. In fact the only really surprising thing about this evening is that Tom got here on time. Tom lives in a different time dimension than the rest of is. Here is an example. On the rare occasion when we would find ourselves with a half hour to go to lunch, I would go into Tom’s office and say, “Hey, Tom, want to go grab some lunch?” “Sure”, he would say, “let’s go.” At that, I would be running out the door, jumping into my car and starting the engine. I would then look around, no Tom. I would wait a few minutes, no Tom. I would pull the car around to the front, no Tom. I would go back inside to Tom’s office, to see Tom calmly arranging papers on his desk. He would look up at my quizzical expression and say, “Well, I can’t just leave my desk like this.”

For quicker lunches, Tom had several cans of Progresso Soup in his closet – arranged in alphabetical order: Chicken Noodle, Minestrone, Mushroom, Tomato.

Whenever we did go somewhere together, I would drive. Tom is a very law abiding driver. He is the only driver I know who stops to read the Yield sign. His car’s transmission has only two speeds – slow and slower.

And then, of course, Tom is, in the Seinfeld parlance a “low talker.” Tom would make many of his most important comments in a voice so low that our conversations sounded like this. “Well Russ, as you know we cannot just run willy nilly into the breach…” Punctuated by me saying, “Huh?” I cannot tell you how many times Tom would speak at a meeting and everyone would lean forward, nearly falling out of their chairs, trying to catch a few of the words he was saying. This was invariably followed by Gail Palumbo saying something that blew us back in our chairs in the other direction. Our meetings were a constant lean forward, get blown back.

Despite his quirks and my jealousy, Tom became, after Cindy, my closest friend in education. The absolute best part of my final tumultuous years here at Montgomery, were my 5 PM meetings with Tom. After many a difficult day, I would walk into Tom’s office where we would laugh a lot, cry a little and solve the problems (at least theoretically) of the educational world. Sometimes Earl would join us, sometimes Erin or Gail or Adam, but often it was just Tom and me. With Tom’s total lack of sense of time, these meetings often lasted well past seven, at which time I would leave and Tom would start to straighten his desk. I would call Cindy to apologize for being late and she would say, “I know you walked into Tom’s office at 5…”

Tom’s first job in Montgomery was Director of Social Studies, World Languages and Visual and Performing Arts, K-12. Talk about “Waiting for Superman.” When Chris Manno, Erin, Christine, Gail and I wrote the job description for that new position in our office, I knew there was only one person in the country who could fill that job well. The job demanded a true Renaissance man. It demanded Tom Barclay. Tom had taught social studies and World Language at the high school level, he had been a masterful fifth grade teacher, he had been an organizer of professional development, he was fluent in Spanish, but most of all he was the finest educator I knew. Our team became infinitely better the moment he joined it.

More than any other educator I have worked with, Tom truly cared about people. Tom could spot the weaknesses in some teachers, but he could also recognize, and celebrate their strengths. Tom loved to talk about his students, past and present, to celebrate their achievements and smile at their sometimes truly unusual behavior. Tom’s stories of his students are among my most treasured memories.

Because Tom is indeed a renaissance man and because poetry is a central part of both our lives, I would like to read a poem by Tom’s favorite poet, Pablo Neruda. And I should caution, it loses something in the English translation, but Tom, of course, can read it to you in the original Spanish.

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- 
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long 
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station 
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. 

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because 
then the little drops of anguish will all run together, 
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift 
into me, choking my lost heart. 

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; 
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance. 
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, 

because in that moment you'll have gone so far 
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, 
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Tom Barclay. Great friend, great educator, great man. Wonderful education in Montgomery will continue in Tom’s absence. Tom’s office will be filled, but Tom will never be replaced. While living and learning will go on, that living and learning will be a little less rich without Tom’s gently insightful guiding hand. I am sure many of us wish to say to Tom, “Don’t go far off.”

And so, with so many great teachers going "far off" in this tumultuous time, don't forget to take time to celebrate their contributions to children and the profession. Tom would like that.

Teacher Tenure Under Attack: Time to Rise to Our Own Defense

In case you missed it, earlier today a California judge ruled in what is known as the Vergara case, that teacher tenure and other job protections are unconstitutional. While this ruling only relates to California and is sure to be appealed, rest assured that this ruling will lead to similar, well-financed suits in other states very soon.

What is a teacher to do? The first thing is to make sure your teacher association leaders are up to speed and ready to fight. Teachers cannot be fragmented on this issue or else they will lose. The opponents are very well-financed. While the name on the Vergara case is a parent who wants the best possible education for his child, the entire suit was financed by a wealthy, Silicon Valley entrepreneur named David Welch.

The big money plutocrats are after your job protections. Make no mistake about it. This move is part and parcel with the entire "blame the teacher" narrative of the corporate education reformers. By keeping the focus on teachers, the 1% can deflect attention from the real issue in education - income inequality.

You may find it difficult to argue for job protections with your friends and neighbors, when many of them do not have those protections. Here is a quick and dirty list of seven reasons teachers need tenure. You can also read more at this earlier blog post of mine. I also recommend reading Peter Greene on talking to parents about tenure here and another piece here. And here is a list of articles on tenure from Diane Ravitch's blog.

1. Tenure Prevents Teachers from Being Fired for Non-Performance Reasons - Without tenure you could be fired because you weree hired by a Democratic board and then Republican board took over or because a new principal wanted to hire a friend. Long ago my second grade teacher was fired because she got pregnant. 
2. Innovative Teaching Requires Risk Taking - Engaging instruction is often noisy and messy instruction. If teachers are afraid to take risks to provide good instruction, learning will suffer. Good teaching is also often experimental. If teachrs are afraid to experiment, learning will suffer.
3. Professionalism in  Teaching Requires Student Advocacy - The teacher must often act as an advocate for a child. Occasionally, this advocacy may come up against some goals, finacial or other, of the administration. A teacher must feel secure in the knowledge that advocating for children will not cost her her job, otherwise who will speak for the children?
4. Tenure Prohibits School Boards from Firing Experienced Teachers to Hire Cheaper Inexperienced Teachers - If you believe this can't happen look at what is happening in Newark, NJ with Teach for America.
5. Tenure Protects Teachers from Being Fired for Teaching Controversial Subjects - Any volunteers for teaching evolution or sex education or civics in a world without job protections?
6. Tenure Assures Due Process When a Teacher is a Target of an Accusation from Student or Parent - This should resonate with any teacher who was not backed by an administrator after a parent complaint.
7. Tenure Protects Teachers from Punitive and Unreliable Evaluation Systems - Think aboout the combination of value added measures basing teacher evaluation on student test scores and no job protections. That should scare us all.

If you have not already had your consciousness raised by the attacks on public education form the corporate education reformers, perhaps this California ruling will be your wake-up call. Arm yourself with knowledge and start advocating for yourself. Work together with others in our proud profession and do not stand idly by while the 1% work to destroy public education.

I Blog; Therefore, I Am

       Descartes said, “I think; therefore, I am.” I want our students to say, “I read and write; therefore, I can think.”

Rene Descartes

Yesterday I managed to get myself in the middle of a heated discussion with several of my colleagues over how learning takes place. It was a seminar provided by my university for teachers who frequently teach freshmen. The idea is to develop instructional strategies to meet the needs of these first year students who have widely varying backgrounds and academic preparedness. At one point I found myself positioned between a French language instructor, who also happened to be French, and a philosophy instructor.

The philosophy teacher discussed some ways that he got his students to read and think about philosophers like Plato and Kant. The French instructor animatedly argued that the problem with American students is that they cannot think critically about complex text because they have not been drilled in the basics. The gist of the argument was that American teachers and parents coddle their students too much, do not insist that they learn basic things in language, reading and other topics through drill and therefore, cannot think critically.

The philosophy instructor, looking for common ground, brought up the name of the great French philosopher, Rene Descartes, and offered how he was trying to get his students to read and understand the man who famously said, “I think; therefore, I am.” Our French colleague would have none of it, insisting that these students can’t think about Descartes because they have not been drilled in his writings or in the grammar of their own language for that matter. (I hope I am doing justice to the two professors’ arguments here, as the words were flying quickly to and fro).

I jumped in and suggested that they were arguing over the need for a frame of reference in critical thinking and that the real disagreement was over whether this frame of reference was a necessary prerequisite or something that was a part of the learning and critical thinking process.

This got me thinking about learning and critical thinking. Certainly, you need to know “stuff” in order to think critically about “stuff.” But does learning proceed in a linear fashion: first we learn that low level “stuff”, and then we think about it on a higher level. I don’t think so. I think the two go hand in hand. Let me cite an example.

About a year ago I started to write this blog with the purpose of providing my thoughts on literacy instruction, something I felt I already knew a great deal about after 45 years in the field. One of my earliest blog readers suggested that I read Diane Ravitch’s blog to see what was happening in public education and why teachers might be having difficulty implementing what I suggested. At the time I really did not know much about the corporate education reform movement. I had many concerns about the Common Core approach to literacy instruction and I thought charter schools were the wrong simple answer to a complex problem, but that was about it.

I read Diane’s blog. Then I read Anthony Cody and Valerie Straus and Mercedes Schneider and Bruce Baker and Jonathan Pelto and EduShyster and I became radicalized and a staunch advocate for public education through my blog, which changed from a teacherly advice column, to an anti-corporate education reform philippic.

I learned as I was going and my blog entries reflected my learning up to that point and later entries were more informed than earlier ones because I was learning more. What I believe I was doing, in the term coined by literacy researcher, Frank Smith, was “reading like a writer.” Smith says that there is entirely too much to learn about writing for it to be learned from instruction, no matter how good. Students learn most of what they know about writing by writing and reading. Reading in a special way. Reading like a writer. I would add to that getting timely feedback on their writing from teachers.

Because I was a practicing writer, I noticed things in what I read in a special way. I was simultaneously gathering information and thinking critically about that information. The two cannot be separated. My writing drove my learning and my critical thinking.

Of course, some things about writing can be learned through direct instruction: end punctuation, capitalization, punctuating dialogue. But most of the “stuff” of writing we learn by writing and reading in this special way. “Stuff” is acquired because we write.

Similarly for reading, we learn how to read, mostly, by engaged reading. The trick is, of course, that word “engaged.” If our philosophy instructor can get the students engaged in the reading of Descartes, the students will learn “stuff” about Descartes. Again some introduction will be necessary, some activation and building of background knowledge to get the students engaged, but once engaged students can gain basic information and begin to think critically about Descartes through the reading.

Essentially, of course, I am arguing from a constructivist perspective: the idea that students “construct” their understandings in the process of listening, reading and writing about a topic. For this perspective I borrow from not only Frank Smith, but Piaget, Vygotsky and Louise Rosenblatt among others. My French instructor colleague was taking a more behavioral approach; first learn the basics and then you can apply that knowledge to higher order thinking.

The behavioral approach has informed much of the periodic “back to basics” movements of the past 50 years. In reading this usually takes the form of a heavy emphasis on phonics, the basics of reading if you will, before focusing on “real reading.” The approach ignores that students learn much about what they know about phonics by reading for meaning in real reading situations and by writing in an effort to communicate.

So call me an unreconstructed constructivist, if you will.

What does all this have to do with the classroom teacher in today’s Common Core abused classroom. Just this: students mostly need to read to get better at reading and mostly need to write to get better at writing.

The Common Core instructional format of “close reading” may have a small place in overall reading instruction, but as it is presented by Common Core promoters it is a model that relies heavily on teacher centered instruction and teacher developed “text dependent questions.” We had another name for “close reading” in the 1950s – skill, drill and kill.

In writing it appears to call for formulaic writing emphasizing informational and persuasive writing. Not bad in itself, but when tied to testing it may drive us away from student selected topics toward writing toward the prompt. In fact, it is already doing so.

What do we lose with this type of instruction? Only student engagement in their learning. And when we lose student engagement, we lose our audience and the hope for developing the kind of critical thinkers we all seem to desire.

Descartes said, “I think; therefore, I am.” I want our students to say, “I read and write; therefore, I can think.”

.

Lessons for Corporate Education Reformers from Hamilton Township, NJ

Hamilton Township, New Jersey Schools Superintendent, James Parla, took a brave step the other day when he addressed the issue of defacto segregation in his school district. According to an article on nj.com the school leader said:

“Test scores are lagging and schools are crumbling and, more often than not, those conditions are at schools with large minority populations… [Parla] urged the school board to find ways to address "de facto segregation" in the district's 24 schools as it looks toward new school construction and redistricting.”

Good for Superintendent Parla for taking this stand publicly and good for the Hamilton Township School Board if they attempt to wrestle with the issue. Solutions will not come easily.

Hamilton Township is in many ways a microcosm of the issue of segregation in many urban areas. Hamilton is a large school district that borders the struggling city of Trenton on one side and wealthy suburbs of Robbinsville and West Windsor on the other. It will be no surprise that the relatively poor sections (with high concentrations of minorities) of Hamilton are near Trenton, while the relatively well-off (and white) sections of Hamilton border Robbinsville and West Windsor.

This geographic reality has led to segregated schools. Parla somewhat disingenuously said this was “not intentional”, but a reality. Perhaps. Certainly, it is in part a factor of socio-economics and geography. Almost certainly it is also a by-product of discriminatory real estate practices in the past. Nicholas Lippa, writing in the NCRP eJournal, summarizes the research on this topic:

“The housing market in the United States has a long history of discriminatory practices that has excluded people of color from integrating into more affluent neighborhoods and communities, which in turn, has led to the subordination of people of color.”

Even a cursory look at Hamilton Township schools puts a lie to the narrative of the corporate education reformers notion of “no excuses” education and poverty as just an excuse for the failures of teachers to provide a proper education to children and the failure of unions to police their own.

Let’s look at two elementary schools in Hamilton first. Greenwood Elementary, just across the border from Trenton, has a 96% minority population and 80% on free or reduced lunch (a typical measure of poverty). The school building is 96 years old and falling apart. At Greenwood, students scored in the 37^th percentile in English/Language Arts (ELA) and at the 67^th percentile in math on the New Jersey ASK standardized tests.

On the other side of the township, Alexander Elementary has 26% minority children and 15% on free or reduced lunch. Its NJASK scores are in the 75^th percentile in ELA and 81^st percentile in math.

Hamilton has three high schools, Nottingham, Hamilton West, and Steinert. Nottingham and Hamilton West have diverse populations and between 32 and 41 percent on free or reduced lunch. These two schools score similarly on standardized measures such as the SAT and ACT college entrance exams. About 60 -65% of the students take these tests. Steinert High school lies closer to the more affluent bordering districts, has an 80% white student body with 10% free and reduced lunch. Ninety per cent of Steinert students take the SAT or ACT and on average score 150 points higher than the students in the other two high schools.

Let’s focus on two lessons to be learned here. First of all, segregation matters. The Supreme Court got it right in Brown v. Board of Education– there can be no such thing as separate, but equal. The second lesson is that socio-economic status matters. Schools with higher numbers of kids living in poverty are going to struggle academically.

The corporate education reformers like to tell us that poverty doesn’t matter. Do they really want us to believe that the teachers and administrators at Alexander Elementary are better teachers because their children get higher test scores? Would firing all the teachers at Greenwood Elementary and replacing them with unqualified Teach for America recruits improve learning there?  If we closed down Greenwood and started a charter school in its place would this would level the playing field with the kids at Alexander? Of course not.

Hamilton Township demonstrates that this thinking is absurd. Hamilton Township has all the strengths and all the weaknesses of any large school district in a diverse area. They have well qualified and highly motivated teachers in all their schools (and a few less than great teachers as well). Those teachers all are members of the same union. They use the same curriculum. They follow the same discipline codes. If the Hamilton schools have problems, they are, for the most part,  societal problems and no amount of “teaching like a champion” or “waiting for Superman” is going to change that.

Only when we address the societal issues of poverty and segregation will we truly address the educational issues as well.

So congratulations to Superintendent Perla for shining a light on this issue. Solutions will be difficult and they will take time. Most parents would prefer to have their children attend a neighborhood school. As long as neighborhoods are segregated, these neighborhood schools will be segregated, too. 

One place to start will be to be sure that the buildings that the children attend across the district are clean and well repaired. Students and teachers should not have to learn and work in dilapidated buildings no matter what their race or socio-economic status.

Five Ways Charter Schools Are Bad for Children and Other Living Things

Charter schools are the darling of the education reform movement. Appealing to the All-American ideal of “choice”, charter schools are sold to struggling communities as a way to improve student learning through competition. Well-funded public relations campaigns, underwritten by the Walton Foundation and other reform minded philanthropic organizations, work overtime to sell Americans on “choice.” Now rock stars, athletes and movie stars are getting in to the act, investing in and opening charters across the country.

The education reformers have stolen the narrative from those who truly care about public education. At any cocktail party or at the sidelines of a soccer game you are likely to hear people discussing “failing schools” and “bad teachers” and how choice, especially in the form of charter schools is the way to insure a child gets a good education.

But this is a false narrative. Research study after research study has shown that charter schools are no panacea, indeed they are simultaneously providing an inferior education, while draining public schools of needed resources. Even a cursory glance at what is happening in Philadelphia, Chicago and New Orleans will reveal the false promise of charter schools.

The next time the topic comes up at a cocktail party you are attending, here are five things you can say in rebuttal to the charter cheerleaders.

1. Failure to Improve Learning – Two consecutive reports from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), 2009 and 2013, have shown that public schools outperform charter schools. In 2009, 83% of charters were the same or worse than public schools. In 2013 the figure was 71-75%, with the slight improvement being due to really bad charters being closed. It is true that some charter schools have been very successful and the 2013 CREDO study showed that charter school students  did a bit better than public schools in reading and were no different in math. But as the education reporter Wendy Lecker has noted “Experts agree that math learning depends more on instruction in school, whereas reading advancement often hinges on skills and vocabulary gained outside the classroom.”

Cyber Charters (entirely online based) and Blended Learning Charters (a mix of online and in-person learning) have had a particularly poor record of educating children. This is hardly surprising given that learning is “socially constructed”, that is in interaction with actual human beings.

2. Draconian Discipline Policies – Charter schools have notoriously high suspension rates. The driving philosophy behind many charter school discipline policies seems to be “shame the students into submission.” Students are often disciplined for minor infractions of military like discipline codes. Compliance seems to be the driving motivation of the classroom management regime based on SLANT - Sit Up, Lean Forward, Ask Questions, Nod at the teacher, Track the teacher. Not bad advice, but minor infractions based on failure to SLANT often include demeaning punishments like being forced to wear a “yellow shirt” of shame, sitting at a desk separated from the rest of the class, sitting at a separate table in the cafeteria and writing an apology to classmates and delivering it in front of the class. Shame is also at the center of “data walls” displayed in busy hallways showing how students scored on standardized tests.

It should be noted that these practices would not be tolerated in public schools in affluent areas. The entire discipline regime smacks of an insulting paternalistic approach to poor and minority children, which I have described elsewhere as “colonialism.”

3.  Draining Money from Public Schools – Charter schools proliferate in already financially strapped urban school districts. The effects can be devastating as it is in Philadelphia right now where the district is struggling to maintain financial viability in the face of the growing charter movement along with huge cuts in state aid. In fact Moody’s Investment Service issued this warning to investors:

The dramatic rise in charter school enrollments over the past decade is likely to create negative credit pressure on school districts in economically weak urban areas.

While charter schools drain money from the public schools, the public districts struggle with costs that cannot be reduced simply because some students have left. The charter school laws are simply unfair economically to school districts. Add to this the high attrition rates in charters and the tendency of some charters to “skim” the most difficult to teach students, leaving the costly education of these children to the public schools and you have a recipe for financial ruin.

4. Lax Oversight – Charter schools lack the oversight that is built into public schools. Public schools are run by publicly elected school boards answerable to the parents and community members in that school district and which hold regular public meetings. They also get strict oversight through governmental regulations, are subject to regular audits and freedom of information laws. Charter schools are run by private boards who are not answerable to the community and hold private meetings. Often board members are not even members of the community. Charter schools often fight audits, claiming they are private entities.

In this atmosphere corruption has been rampant. A recent report by Integrity in Education found $100 million in wasted public dollars through fraud and mismanagement in 14 states with charter schools. In Philadelphia, the CEO of the Academy Charter School has been charged with a fraud in the amount of 1 million dollars. Investigations of charter school fraud in other schools in the city are well underway.

Let’s be clear about this, waste and fraud in the under regulated charter school industry is stealing resources that should be going to public school children. That missing million dollars could have purchased the services of a dozen school nurses for the Philadelphia School District where two children have died recently for the lack of a nurse in their schools.

5. Skimming Students – By definition public schools take on all comers. It is part of the responsibility of public schools to accept and educate students of widely varying backgrounds, languages, abilities and disabilities. Since charter schools are funded with public funds, most charter school laws call for charter schools to take on all students, too. Charter schools often accomplish this through a lottery system. But these under-regulated charters have many subtle and not so subtle ways to insure that they can shape their student population to make them look like they are doing better than public schools. Writing for the Teacher College Press, University of Colorado Professor, Kevin Welner, has discovered a dozen ways that charters shape their student populations. Here are some highlights.

·         Marketing that emphasizes “college prep” and “rigorous curriculum” will attract higher achieving students.

·         Marketing brochures that are only in English will discourage parents of English Language Learners from signing up.

·         Short time windows for applications

·         Requiring parent volunteer activities or parent visitations

·         Harsh discipline policies that eliminate students through repeated suspensions

·         Failure to provide needed special education services

·         “Counseling out” students who are not performing well

·         Placing grade point or course restrictions on eligible applicants

·         Steering students with disabilities away because the public school will provide better for their needs

·         Threatening the parents and child with being retained in the current grade

So you try these five arguments out on your friends and neighbors and they say, “Yeah, but the public schools are in such bad shape, we have to try something.” When you hear this simply ask each person to name a really good school district. Help them to discover that the districts they named are overwhelmingly in affluent areas.

Next ask them to name a really poor school district. This time help them discover that the districts they named are overwhelmingly in low socio-economic areas.

Now say to them if they really want to do something about education, they could begin by working to narrow the rampant income inequality in the country, the segregation of poor and minority children in urban centers, and the debilitating effects of poverty that cause children to struggle to learn.

You won’t get invited to any more cocktail parties and people will avoid you on the soccer field, but you might have gotten a few people thinking beyond the education reformer rhetoric.

A New Design for a Charter School? Hmm.

We here at Russ on Reading are constantly on the lookout for educational innovation, so when we heard of the new charter franchise, The College and Career Ready Scholars Rigorously Pursuing Educational Excellence Academy Charter School and Dollar Store (CCRSRPEEACSDS) we had to look into how this school was going to meet the needs of our inner-city youth.

First we stopped by the school's web site where we discovered this mission statement:

At CCRSRPEEACSDS we prepare scholars to succeed in a world that is controlled by the 1%. Our scholars are taught to love learning or else. Our rigorous curriculum is designed to ensure that children learn to comply with the demands that their superiors place on them. Chief among these demands is performance on standardized tests. Students are encouraged to score well on tests through our innovative "data wall" in the main corridor which displays each student's test scores for all to see. 

On the same page we found the school motto: In Virtute Autem Implerentur Dies Multi (which can be loosely translated as "Shaming You into Excellence").

Further down the page we find the description of how CCRSRPEEACSDS defines "career ready" innovation:

Our innovative design includes every student receiving on the job training in the Dollar Store which  is co-located in the building (pending the removal of the pesky public school currently located there). In the Dollar Store, students spend three hours a day learning a skill that will prepare them for the world of low wage work. Students perform such jobs as door greeter, shelf stocker, cashier, and security guard. For their work at the store, students receive special Dollar Store dollars, which they can spend on school supplies and college pennants and tee shirts at the Dollar Store. 

Also on the web site we found the list of the Board of Directors for CCRSRPEEACSDS, and while many of the names were not familiar to us, we did a count of the occupations of these directors and found the following:

12 Hedge Fund Managers
11 Finacial Analysts
10 Former CEOs
9 TFA Alumni
8 Media Moguls
7 Portfolio Managers
6 Former Athletes
5 Billionaires
4 Tax Attorneys
3 Tech Company Presidents
2 Movie Stars
And a teacher with two years experience

Clicking on the tab marked "Dress Code", yielded the following information:

Students at CCRSRPEEACSDS dress for success. The required uniform is a blue polo shirt and khaki pants. Through special arrangement with Ralph Lauren and Dockers, these items will be available in the attached Dollar Store. Students failing to wear the required uniform, or who fail to have their shirt tucked in, may be placed on the bench (see Discipline Policy).

With this prompt from the Dress Code tab, we clicked on the "Discipline Policy" tab, where we found the following:

One of the chief attributes of a CCRSRPEEACSDS scholar is compliant classroom behavior and total submission to arbitrary rules. Compliance and submission are chief components to a successful college experience or low wage career. Here are a list of rules that all scholars must follow:

No talking in class unless called upon
No talking in the halls
No talking in the cafetorium until after everyone finishes eating
No talking in the gym
Mostly, just don't talk
No untucked shirts
No crooked lines
No gum chewing
No hats
No leaving the classroom for any reason
No running in the halls
No writing on the walls
No bouncing basketballs
No standing when you are supposed to be sitting
No sitting when you are supposed to be standing
Always have a pencil and notebook for class (available for a fee in the Dollar Store)
Always wear the proper uniform (available in the Dollar Store)

While in class remember to SLANT:
Sit Up
Lean Forward
Ask Questions
Nod at the teacher
Track the teacher

Students who fail to follow will face the following consequences:

First Offense: Student is placed "on the bench." A student is identified as on the bench by being required to wear a day-glo yellow t-shirt (available at the Dollar Store) for one to three days as determined by the Chief Compliance Officer in the school. While "on the bench" the student will sit at a separate table in the cafeteria, a separated desk in the classroom and must write and orally deliver a letter of apology to classmates for interrupting their scholarly pursuits and write a 500 word essay on the theme, To SLANT or Not to SLANT That is the Question.

Second Offense: Suspension for 3 days and revocation of Dollar Store shopping privileges

Third offense: Back to public school for you.

Having gleaned what we could from the web site, we called the CCRSRPEEACSDS CEO, Achieva Remarkowitz, to discuss her vision for this new charter.

According to Remarkowitz, CCRSRPEEACSDS seeks to combine the best of both educational worlds.

"Look we want all of our scholars to go to college and break out of the cycle of poverty, but we also need to be realistic. No amount of teaching like a champion, no amount of churn in our teaching staff, no amount of mining data to improve learning is going to prepare most of these kids for college. College is so darned expensive and these kids don't have the money. And with people like our Board of Directors hoarding it all, they are not likely to get that money soon. So, we have determined that while we aim at "college ready" we need to help our kids be "career ready" and that most likely means a low wage service industry or retail job. After all, somebody has to do the work that our Board of Director's children will refuse to do, right?"

So, there you have it. A new and innovative design for charter schools. Will the innovation never stop?

Creative Stability: A Better Plan for Public Schools

Education reformers love the concept of "creative disruption." Applying a business model to public education, they argue that the way to improve schools is through disrupting the system by closing under-performing schools, firing under-performing teachers and introducing competition for students in the form of charter schools and school vouchers. Only by disrupting the system and exposing it to market forces can we hope to improve teaching and learning, or so the reformer narrative goes.

Let's set aside for a moment that all this "creative disruption" ignores the root cause for the struggles of public education - poverty. Leave aside also that the only way reformers seem to be able to identify "failing schools" and "failing teachers" is through standardized tests. Let's focus on the fatal flaw in the concept of "creative disruption." That fatal flaw is that disruption does not further student learning, indeed it interferes with learning on every level. Turmoil is anathema to learning. The turmoil created by closing public schools, high staff turnover (read TFA recruits), the opening and closing of charter schools will all only exacerbate the learning challenges of urban children.

What we need is not creative disruption, but creative stability. Creative stability would focus on providing children with an adequately financed, well-resourced, professionally-staffed, local neighborhood school.

Every teacher knows that children learn best in a stable environment. That is why teachers spend the first several days of school establishing routines and norms for the smooth functioning of the classroom. I like to think of it as setting the children up for success. Children are learning machines. The first job of the teacher then, is to establish rituals in the classroom that help the children get out of their own way to learn.

Literacy educator Lucy Calkins at Columbia Teachers College put it this way:

 I have finally realized that the most creative environments in our society are not the kaleidoscopic environments in which everything is always changing and complex.They are instead the predictable and consistent ones – the scholar’s library, the researcher’s laboratory, the artist’s studio. Each of these environments is deliberately kept predictable and simple because the work at hand is so unpredictable and complex.

The creative work of learning is indeed complex. All of us establish routines that assist us in getting the creative work of the day done. The teacher establishes a classroom routine that allows the students to get their work done. Their work is creative and challenging - we call it learning.

The stark contrast between creative disruption and creative stability is being played out at this moment in Newark, New Jersey. State appointed Superintendent Cami Anderson's One Newark plan, borrows directly from the education reformers' disruption playbook. This is not surprising. Anderson is a former leader of Teach for America and worked in uber-reformer Joel Klein's education office in New York City. She was handpicked by fellow reformer and former New Jersey Education Commissioner, Chris Cerf, to disrupt schools in Newark.

One Newark calls for closing schools, turning other schools over to charter operators, forcing teachers to re-apply for jobs, and busing students around the city so that they can attend a school of their parents "choice." 

The plan has not been received well by many of the people in Newark. This is in large part because the community had so little input into the plan and perhaps also because of Anderson's autocratic style. The plan has been thoroughly critiqued by Mark Weber and Bruce Baker of Rutgers University here. Weber and Baker found that the schools targeted for closing actually performed better than the charter schools they were being turned over to. They conclude:

[T]he choice, based on arbitrary and capricious classification, to subject disproportionate shares of low income and minority children to substantial disruption to their schooling, shifting many to schools under private governance, may substantially alter the rights of these children, their parents and local taxpayers[emphasis mine].

In part because of the unpopularity of the One Newark plan, Ras Baraka, a vocal opponent of the plan and also a Newark high school principal on leave from his job, was elected mayor in an election earlier this month. Baraka has endorsed a very different kind of plan for the Newark schools. This plan is called the Newark Promise and has been designed by a coalition of community groups and labor unions calling themselves The Coalition for Effective Newark Public Schools. This plan, as I read it, is an attempt at creative stability.

The Newark Promise plan calls for a "comprehensive, multi-year strategy" that includes dealing with out of school factors that impact children's learning, improved facilities and tech structure, modernizing instructional materials, providing a comprehensive curriculum including arts and physical education, accountability through holistic measures of school quality, responsiveness to the community, and local political control. You can read about the full plan here.

In other words, the Newark Promise plan is focused on stable, well-resourced, neighborhood public schools. 

We know that one reason children in the inner city have difficulty learning is the constant disruption that is a major consequence of living in poverty. To think, as the education reformers do, that further disrupting these children's lives is going to lead to better learning is foolhardy at best, and criminal at worst. 

Creative stability is not a call for the status quo in education. It is, rather, a call for the kind of creativity needed to solve complex problems. It is a plea to look beyond just the school, the classroom and the teacher in a search for solving learning problems. It is, finally,  a call for the kind of incremental change that is likely to have lasting effects on schooling. 

Inner-city children, like all children, deserve a school, a classroom and a teacher that are focused on creative stability. In a stable neighborhood, school and classroom children can meet their true potential as learners.

What Motivates Teachers? Education Reformers Have No Idea

You gotta' admire those education reformers. Despite their almost total lack of experience in education and despite all the research and evidence that flies in the face of their bankrupt ideas, they cling to their ideology like a sloth to a low hanging vine. One area where I think they can come in for particular ridicule is teacher improvement. Basing their theories on the all encompassing business model, the education reformers have decided to motivate teachers through a system of threats and rewards.

Threats come in the form of threatening teacher's jobs by measuring teacher performance through student scores on standardized tests and weakening job protections through attacks on tenure rights. The apparent guiding principle is that teachers will be motivated to improve instruction if they are held accountable for the knowledge their students show on a standardized test and if their jobs depend on the students' performance on these tests. This is the "fire your way to excellence" approach promoted by economist Erik Hanushek and uber-reformer Michelle Rhee.

Rewards come in the form of merit pay. Again borrowing from that almighty business model that has stood the country in such good stead in the last decade (recession, housing crisis, "too big to fail") education reformers have determined that teachers will perform better if they get monetary rewards when their students do well - again as measured by standardized tests. Never mind that merit pay has never worked in schools. Never mind that study after study has shown that value added measuress (VAMs) of teacher effectiveness are fatally flawed. Never mind even that many forward looking businesses have recognized that collaboration, not competition, makes for an effective company. Never mind all of this. Education reformers cling to the idea of teacher improvement through merit pay.

Maybe, just maybe, if the education reformers could park their ideology for a while and roam the halls of schools and watch and listen to teachers, they might learn something about what motivates teachers. If they did this for a week, they would find they were on the wrong track.

Here is what I have discovered motivates teachers to excel in my 45 years of wandering those school hallways. If we really want to improve teaching and learning and if our real agenda is improving teacher motivation, here are some good places to start.

Teachers are motivated by students

Nothing can motivate a teacher to be well-prepared and perform at peak ability more than the simple fact their will be 25 or so faces looking at you in the morning, waiting for you to teach them. When students have a moment of insight, teachers feel empowered. When a student is struggling to understand, the teacher is motivated to find a way to get through.

I worked with struggling readers. Progress was often slow and laborious, but when a struggling student learned a new strategy or read a passage that would have been too difficult the week before, the feeling of empowerment and motivation was indescribable. I wanted to find more answers; I wanted to continue the teaching. At the end of the year, I always got enough thanks or smiles to keep me motivated for the next year. Here's a study that shows that the student is the number one motivator for teachers.

How can that motivation be measured by a VAM? How do you put a price on it?

Teachers are motivated by teaching

Teaching is intrinsically rewarding. For those of us who chose to go into the profession, teaching is fun. It is energizing. I have had many times in my life when I didn't feel particularly well or when I was tired and then I began to teach and I felt better, more energized. I can teach myself awake and I have seen many other teachers who do the same thing.

Teaching is a rewarding profession. Most teachers went into the profession to touch the lives of children. Teaching gives the socially conscious individual daily feedback that they are making a difference in the world and shaping the future.

Teachers are motivated by good working conditions

While a reasonable living wage is certainly important to every teacher, in my experience in hiring teachers, I have found them to be more interested in the working conditions they will find in the school where they will work. What working conditions matter? Reasonable class sizes. Adequate resources to do the job. Adequate planning time. A clean building in good repair. Supportive administrators. Suportive and engaged parents. Friendly and supportive colleagues.

When I interviewed candidates for a teaching position, I found the very best candidates were also interviewing me. What was their number one concern? Working conditions. Teachers are motivated to work hard and well in a school that provides them with a pleasant and productive working environment.

When I was president of my local teaching association, most of the concerns that came to me had to do with working conditions, not salary or disciplinary issues.

Education reformers would be better off spending their money to control class size and repair dilapidated buildings as a way to motivate teachers, rather than spending untold millions on standardized tests and discredited measures of teacher effectiveness.

Teachers are motivated by autonomy

Daniel Pink, in his book, Drive:The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, identifies autonomy as a major motivating factor. Teachers need the license to respond to the teaching situation in front of them. While  good teaching is guided by good curriculum, and yes, even good standards, good teaching demands that a variety of instructional choices be made by the teacher, sometimes on the fly, often after reflection. Teaching and learning is a dynamic that cannot be driven by rigid curriculum demands.

Teachers will be motivated when they have the freedom to improvise within the confines of a curriculum in order to best meet the needs of the students sitting in front of them at that moment in time. It is the essence of professionalism to not just be allowed to use your professional judgement, but to be expected to use that judgement and to be valued because you can and do use that judgement.

Teachers are motivated by actionable feedback

Bill Gates loves to say that teachers want and need feedback. He is right about that. He is also very wrong about the kind of feedback that motivates teachers. Feedback from standardized tests will not motivate teachers. It is too distant from the actual learning situation; it is not timely (often this feedback comes after the school year is over) and it is not clear what actions a teacher could take that would improve student performance on this learning abstraction.

Teachers get actionable feedback everyday. They get this feedback by watching students in the act of learning. Teachers know who has understood the concept and who has failed to understand the concept by watching students. For more formal feedback, the teacher designs a criterion referenced test to see who has grasped the concepts and who has not and then adjusts instruction accordingly.

I have found teachers are also open to actionable feedback when it is offered by supervisors in an observation setting. It is important that their be a level of trust between teacher and supervisor for the feedback to be accepted. It is also important that the supervisor provides feedback that is useful and doable.

When the feedback is far removed from the learning environment, as is the case with standardized tests, their can be little motivation for the teacher to use the imformation. When the results of the standardized tests are also being used to hold the teacher accountable, we can expect either resistance from the teacher or narrowing of instruction to focus on what is rewarded on the test.

Teachers are motivated by their colleagues

Every school is, of course, a little society. If the school is a healthy society, teachers will work well together for the benefit of the children. Experienced teachers will help new teachers; teachers who share a struggling student will work together to find ways to help the child learn; teachers will borrow good instructional ideas from each other. In many schools this professional collegial interaction is formalized in professional learning communities, where teachers together tackle knotty instructional problems.

Interestingly, there is every reason to believe that reformy schemes like merit pay will undermine the collegial nature of schools. In merit pay there will be winners and losers. If teachers are competing for a pot of gold at the end of the standardized testing rainbow, they are not likely to be willing to share with colleagues. It is reasonable to project that merit pay will create a toxic school environment where teachers close their doors to their colleagues and hoard their good instructional ideas.

Teachers are motivated by relevant professional development

Like their students, good teachers are always learning. Professional development that is relevant and that teachers can see will have a positive impact on their students' learning is motivating for teachers. While teachers are often known to gripe about professional development that is not relevant, or time wasting, when teachers are involved in the design of the professional development, their buy in and motivation are increased.

So there you go education reformers. If you are serious about improving teaching, find a way to use your vast resources to improve teacher working conditions, collegiality and autonomy. Motivating teachers is complex, challenging and ultimately very doable. What you will get with accountability by test scores and merit pay is at best a compliance that works against your goals and at worst open rebellion against all that you stand for. Better yet, just get out of the way and let the professionals get to work. I assure you they are well-motivated to do so.

Teaching Shakespeare: The Play's the Thing

I have just had a remarkable experience. I, along with a small group of Shakespeare enthusiasts, just completed a run of performances of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Shakespeare's draw is truly remarkable. We came together, 11 people, strangers really, 10 actors and one director, dedicating ourselves to performing the Bard's words for several small, but appreciative audiences. And a motley crew we were indeed. All of us had day jobs. Some of us were young professional actors looking to build a resume, others were amateurs looking for a chance to scratch our Shakespearean itch, one had never acted before and one was returning to acting after a long hiatus.

What made us do it? Not money certainly. There was no money to be made from this venture. It cost us all more than we could probably afford in transportation costs and late night meals. If I could sum up the feelings of the cast members as to why we endured the long nights of rehearsal, the foul weather, the damp church basement, the overflowing toilets, the lack of a stage manager and the communal dressing room, in three words, they would be, "It's Shakespeare, dammit!" And it seems Shakespeare rewards the effort put forth.

Because I love Shakespeare, and because I am a teacher, I am constantly wondering how to get my students to love Shakespeare, too. The truth is, most students don't love Shakespeare. Even with my college students, the mere mention of Shakespeare is sure to elicit groans. Shakespeare is difficult. The language is poetic and often arcane. But it is also beautiful and relevant. Shakespeare matters. That is why he lives on today. How do we teach it so that it matters to young people?

One thing that performing Shakespeare has taught me is that the best way to understand Shakespeare's words is to memorize those words and then try to speak them to an audience in a way that communicates their meaning. Shakespeare's works are, after all, plays. As such they are meant to be performed, not read. If we center our instruction of Shakespeare around performance and not around reading we are more likely to get engagement and comprehension.

Approaching Shakespeare from this performance perspective suggests a model for instruction as follows.

Step 1: Entering the World of the Play

Provide students with the background necessary to understand what is happening in the play. It is important to emphasize that, while Shakespeare's plays were set in many foreign lands, the commentary in the play was always aimed at Shakespeare's native England and at social and political forces in England.

In the case of Measure for Measure, students should learn that the play is about the tension between strict laws related to human morality and the natural human desires that often run athwart these laws. The issue of legislating morality is as relevant today as it was in Shakespeare's time, of course, and the character of Angelo, self-righteous advocate for all that is pure, but fatally flawed himself, might as well be ripped from today's headlines.

Once this is understood, each of the key characters should be introduced to the students in relation to the roles they play in explicating this rumination on the state, the law and morality. So we have the Duke as benign and ineffective ruler, Angelo as rigid martinet enforcing morality laws, Claudio as the transgressor to be punished by hanging and Isabella, Claudio's sister caught on the horns of a moral dilemma. As always, Shakespeare supplements the main story with comic relief in the form of the low-life's Lucio, Pompey, Mistress Overdone and Elbow, who provide comic commentary on the futility of trying to legislate morality.

Step 2: Engaging with the Language of the Play

As an actor performing Shakespeare, the first thing I did as I began to learn my part was to paraphrase each of my speeches. I wanted to put into contemporary language what I was being asked to communicate in Shakespearean language. I think this would be a worthy exercise for the student to help them engage with the language of the play. As a teacher, I would choose key speeches from the play I was teaching and assign each student a different one to paraphrase. Here is an example from Measure for Measure, where Claudio ruminates on what it will mean to die.

Claudio: Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death. (3.1.17)

Paraphrase: Yes, but to die is to go into the unknown and to go from warmth and feeling to being nothing but a compacted clod of earth, while my spirit is subjected to floods of fire or layers of ice or besieged by invisible winds blowing me violently and sending me off howling. All this is too horrible to contemplate. The worst of worldly life, becoming old, being poor, being imprisoned, is a paradise compared to what scares us about death.

Step 3: Memorizing and Performing the Text

In this step, students take the passage they have been studying and commit it to memory. The passage is then presented to the class. The student attempts to present the passage to the student audience in such a way that they can make sense of it. The presenter receives feedback from the audience in the form of their restating what they understood from the presentation. The presenter can also clarify any confusions that the students might have.

One obvious variation to the presentation of a single speech, would be to have two or more students prepare a brief scene from the play, again with the focus being on communicating the meaning.

Step 4: Viewing the Play

Many good DVD versions of Shakespeare's plays are available. Of course their are the movie versions of Henry V, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing that are readily available, but the BBC television series of all the plays gives the best sense of the plays in a stage-like performance. Since a play is meant to be seen and heard and not read, I would supplement the student performances of parts of the text, with the viewing of the performance on the DVD. 

A video presentation can be treated just like a text, viewing a small portion and then summarizing what was viewed and discussing how the scene fits into the overall plot of the play and what recurring themes are present.

Of course, nothing could replace actually seeing a production of the play. The first professional play I ever saw was a production of The Merchant of Venice at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ. It made a powerful impression on a 14 year-old boy. My love of Shakespeare began that day on that stage and not from the pages of the book the teacher had made us read.

Shakespeare's plays were created to be performed. In fact they existed on the stage before they ever existed on the page. By emphasizing the performance aspect of the plays, and by de-emphasizing the reading of the plays, we may find it easier to invite students into the world of Shakespeare. And by memorizing and performing a small chunk of Shakespeare, students may find themselves reaching beyond a dull comprehension to a richer textual understanding.

Shakespeare wrote plays. Students should be encouraged to play with them.