One of the most glaring issues I see just walking down the hallways at my school is just how many students are disorganized! Students will be carrying towers of books with random papers dangling precariously from every corner; their lockers will be endless pits of overdue library books, missing assignments, and stale Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. While I’m sure this condition is common among all adolescents in the United States, I think there is something to be said about making sure these students aren’t just being disorganized by “choice.” As a teacher, I feel that it is my responsibility as a role model to make sure my students know how to keep their folders organized and how to use a planner. I spent time last semester setting up individual class folders with a few of my students; I also take time during every class period to make sure they write their homework in their planners for the night. Writing homework in their planners, however, is just one piece of getting these kids more organized. I also need to teach them to check their planners as they pack up their lockers and when they are at home. Finally, getting my students organized isn’t just a one-time activity—it’s an ongoing process that needs to be reinforced and revamped over time.

I also notice that many students do not know what a teacher means when we say go home and “study” for a test or quiz. I know I need to do a better job demystifying what exactly “studying” is and how my students can do it effectively. If I think about how many of my students have a long history of struggling in school, I can’t assume that they know what kinds of studying works best for them. I know that when I was in college, I had to make flashcards for myself or use obscene amounts of highlighter to go over my notes. Now that I’ve graduated from college and am pursuing a graduate degree, I know that I still find myself wishing I could learn through osmosis; nevertheless, I can certainly use my own experiences and frustrations in trying to “study” for an exam and give my students more explicit instruction in what studying involves. I want to make it my goal to do more than just hand out a study guide and expect my students to go over it on their own. I want to find out more about what study habits will work for my individual students and try to talk with them individually.

While it’s no easy task to take on a disorganized student with poor study habits, I think it is well worth the effort—especially considering all that is at stake. By directly teaching our kids good study habits and organizational skills, we are setting them up for success far beyond the classroom. Furthermore, if we involve their parents and family members, we can develop a fully functional support system for a student. For example, at my school the seventh grade piloted a program called “AVID”—or Advancement through Individual Determination, and it is essentially a program designed to teach students study skills, organizational skills, and how to be a good citizen. I know one seventh grade teacher who is taking her AVID students’ organizational skills to a new level and is currently planning an end-of-year community service project. I think that my school is incredibly fortunate to have access to such a program that is not only teaching our students to be organized, but gives them opportunities to see how being organized is beneficial outside of school.

Our students have plenty of work ahead of them between figuring out how to improve their reading scores, their math abilities, and their knowledge in other core content areas. However, I sincerely believe that by concentrating our efforts in teaching study and organization skills, we teachers can truly impact our students’ achievement, both inside and outside of the classroom.

My principal began our technology meeting by stating how, while she appreciates our efforts to stand up in front of our classes every day for seventy minutes and talk at our students, eventually this teaching method leads to burn out. She brought technology in as a way to put teachers in the role of a facilitator, not a director, and thus give us more energy to focus on other important things going on in our classroom. For instance, she gave an example of how she created stations in her room using a listening center in order to have time to work with a small group of struggling readers. In her days as a teacher, my principal used the oldest of VHS tapes and the most stubborn of computers to enhance her lessons. As I listened to my principal, I began to think of how the young, new teachers at our school have more experience using technology in their personal lives than in the classroom. I also thought of how if our nation wants to attract more high quality, young teachers into our schools for the long-term, then perhaps more access to technology could be a piece of the puzzle.

This is not to say that teachers aren’t already purposeful in how they use technology. In fact, I know of many teachers within our school make use of technology in interesting and relevant ways. For example, a seventh grade communication arts teacher regularly uses an LCD projector to show his lessons as Power Point presentations. This kind of multimedia presentation not only helps him to stay focused on a lesson objective, but it also helps to keep students engaged. He was able to upload a video of the Hindenburg zeppelin exploding directly into his Power Point and immediately provide the students a context for the story they were about to read. Also, I know a fifth grade teacher who created a blog for her students to use as they participated in an independent reading group about the book Holes by Louis Sachar. This teacher posted weekly prompts for the students to respond to and gave them time in class to visit the blog. What I can imagine, however, is how transformative an impact more updated technology like Smart Boards, laptops, and LCD projectors can have on students and teachers.

Given that so many of our students can text faster than they can read, and that teachers are often found carrying a Blackberry alongside their lesson plans, it makes sense to have the latest and greatest technologies within our schools. If you already incorporate blogs, Facebook, and webcams into your daily routine, it’s not very encouraging to then have to deal with VHS tapes from the ‘80s and chalkboards from the ‘70s. Perhaps one reason the technology is being underused at our schools is because it is outdated and inaccessible to today’s generation of teachers and students; then again, perhaps it is not being used because teachers aren’t sure of how to effectively incorporate it into their lesson plans and it is so expensive. Regardless of the reason for underused technology, I am confident that if our schools had access to upgraded technology and ongoing support in how to use it, then student learning and teacher satisfaction will undoubtedly increase.

For more information about promoting the use of technology in education, I found an interesting site through the North Central Regional Education Laboratory (NCREL).

]]> http://www.childrenseducationalliance-mo.org/teachers-blog/putting-technology-to-use/feed 0 http://www.childrenseducationalliance-mo.org/teachers-blog/a-community-of-support http://www.childrenseducationalliance-mo.org/teachers-blog/a-community-of-support#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:53:10 +0000 akordus http://www.childrenseducationalliance-mo.org/?p=1215 Just last week I wrote about how exciting it was to witness all the exciting things that are taking place within Saint Louis classrooms. This week, after attending our annual Teach For America holiday party, I felt that it’d be worth sharing how much support and enthusiasm is out in our greater community. I know from a teacher’s point of view, it can often seem like the school is a completely isolated entity from the rest of society and that it is hard to get the community invested in what is happening in the community. At our holiday party, however, we had a chance to meet with many community leaders and sponsors of the Teach For America-Saint Louis program. It was powerful to recognize how many people in the city feel compelled to improve our schools and enhance our students’ quality of life through education.

The community members who attended our holiday party included the Saint Louis mayor, Francis Slay, as well as our superintendent of school, Dr. Kelvin Adams, as well as the CEO of Build-A-Bear workshops, Maxine Clark (who also happens to be our sitting executive of the Teach For America-St. Louis board of directors). They all shared their firm support of what we are doing in our classroom, as well as our long-term vision as an organization—that “one day, all children will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.” These community leaders, as well as other private individual Teach For America supporters, all make regular visits to our classrooms and help out with classroom projects as needed. For example, my friend who teaches fourth grade enlisted the help of one of our community sponsors to help convert an old balcony at her school into a new learning patio. This community sponsor put her in touch with an architect, as well as other funding sources that will be able to make my friend’s school project a reality. Another friend of mine, who teaches the fifth grade, got her sponsor to help fund a school bus to take her students to the Junior Achievement Biztown in nearby Chesterfield. It is truly remarkable to realize how much schools benefit from such steadfast support of its community members.

As I think more about how much our schools, and the Teach For America organization, rely on the support of local communities, I realize how critical it is that more community members find their way into our classrooms. Much like Teach For America brings a group of predominantly young college graduates into struggling school districts and makes the educational inequalities all the more apparent to us, we need to get more community members into our schools so they too can share in the successes and struggles of their schools. I think it is far too easy for all of us to fall into the trap of thinking that the students in the inner city schools are “someone else’s child,” or that public schools aren’t our problem because our student goes to a private school in the county. The bottom line is that these children, my students, are all of our responsibilities and it is our duty to make sure we support their education as much as possible. Therefore, it is imperative that more community members come into our schools, realize the inequalities that exist, and then become inspired to make the change that so many of our Saint Louis sponsors and leaders are working towards.

In addition to all of this, it is by no means only the community’s responsibility to come into the schools and work to create change. I know all schools can do a better job of opening their doors to the community and facilitating increased involvement, whether that is by advertising school events to the public, or simply by hosting an open house night for everyone to attend—and not just parents and students. I think it would be great to have more programs in Saint Louis like Ready Readers who recruit local community members to go read once a week for a year in area classrooms. This kind of long-term investment is what it will take to cultivate relationships between communities and schools, as well as promote academic performance in some of our lowest performing districts. Given all the community involvement that I have seen already within Teach For America classrooms, as well as other community organizations, I am confident that we will be able to continue fostering such relationships. Our students deserve it, our future demands it.

My first visit of the day was to a middle school on the north side of Saint Louis. I observed a fellow Teach For America corps member teaching a low level reading class using Louis Sachar’s Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Her students were using a graphic organizer to both check their comprehension and visualize what they read. In addition to this purposeful graphic organizer, the students had access to “visiting books” from the local libraries. This teacher checked out titles ranging from When a Mouse Eats a Cookie to Stellaluna so that her lower level readers could practice skills with accessible books. I saw how excitedly her students grabbed these picture books from her shelves and I knew this was a strategy I wanted to adopt in my own classroom. By bringing visiting books to my students, I will not only help them to build their literacy skills, but also help develop their love of reading.

I continued my day with a stop at a middle school on the opposite end of the city. I observed a teacher who facilitates a Read 180 classroom, which is a research-based reading intervention program used by schools across the country. As I sat in on this second class, I saw that each student was invested in his or her own personal reading goal for the semester and had established specific page goals for his or her novel. Specifically, this teacher had them use post-it notes to set benchmarks for how many pages they will read by any given day. Once students finish a book, they add a link to their classroom book chain and complete a reader response form. I was amazed at how each student knew what they were supposed to be doing at all times during the classroom, including during independent reading time and transitions. This teacher also not only has clear expectations for what her students should be doing, but also makes sure that her students know how they are performing at all times. She established student-run tracking charts around the room to document the number of books they read, the number of computer-based assessments they completed, as well as how well each class did in terms of maintaining a positive learning environment. Overall, this teacher’s routines and procedures created a structured classroom where students could function independently and productively.

Finally, I ended my day by observing a fifth grade teacher at the newly opened KIPP: Inspire school close to the downtown. KIPP, if you haven’t heard of this charter school program yet, was founded by two Teach For America alums, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, as a system of schools that would dramatically impact student achievement. To give you a brief idea of what KIPP schools are like, I looked up an article on the Washington Post website, which described the schools as such: “a system of 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. school days, mandatory summer school, calls to teachers at home with homework questions, visits to student homes, emphasis on character and behavior, principal power to hire and fire teachers, teacher cooperation and training and an elaborate system of student sanctions and rewards that produced in their first two schools in Houston and the South Bronx the highest test scores in their areas.” Needless to say, the kinds of teacher practices I saw taking place in KIPP: Inspire were regimented, yet purposeful and student-oriented. For example, the teacher I saw lead her students in clapping out the syllabication of words and setting aside significant portions of time for students to read independently. I was impressed at how clear expectations at KIPP creates a culture where students are genuinely invested in their learning and want to give their best effort.

At the end of this very long, but inspiring day, I came to a few general conclusions about what kind of spirit I want to maintain as a teacher in Saint Louis. First, all of us teachers want our students to be successful and we are willing to do whatever it takes to help them get there. Given this common denominator, I think we teachers should do more to collaborate and get out to see one another in our classrooms. It’d be helpful to share our resources and our gripes in order to establish more of a community of like-minded professionals. Furthermore, I think that all of our different teaching personalities makes it possible for us to approach our lessons and our challenges in novel ways. I know it was helpful for me to step outside of my own “box” of a classroom to see how different teachers tackled the same problems I was having on a daily basis. After seeing all the commitment, enthusiasm, and plain ol’ spirit I saw in Saint Louis last Tuesday, I am confident that we teachers are continuing to strive for excellence in student achievement.

I have been thinking a lot about malleable intelligence since I attended a unique professional development opportunity a week ago. I was invited to sit in on a creativity lecture at the National Association for Gifted Children conference held in downtown Saint Louis. The two speakers at this lecture were none other than Howard Gardner, the man who developed the theory of multiple intelligences, and Dean Keith Simonton, another researcher and scholar within the field of intelligence and creativity. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence is based on the belief that people have different intelligences that affect the way they learn and perceive the world. For example, someone with a verbal-linguistic intelligence have strong skills in using words and language. A person with a bodily-kinesthetic intelligence is able to learn better using movement and manipulatives.

During their talk, Gardner and Simonton discussed their research of “eminent creators,” otherwise known as incredibly creative individuals who made outstanding contributions to their field. All these creative people, like Freud, Einstein, Stravinsky, Picasso, and Gandhi, lived at about the same time and had enough biographical information available for both Gardner and Simonton to draw conclusions about their creative lives. Among the important similarities that Gardner and Simonton discovered were that eminent creators often experienced multiple failures in their lives and that they also had mentors and role models as young people. I was intrigued by the fact that some of history’s most creative and influential people were highly unsuccessful at first, yet persisted—undoubtedly without some help from their mentors and role models.

As I reflected on how Gardner’s and Simonton’s work affects my teaching, I realize how important it is to foster creativity in my own students. Each of my students has a unique set of intelligences that allows them to perform more successfully at some tasks than others. As their teacher, it is my responsibility to tap into their strengths and encourage them to work hard at developing their skills in order to enhance their academic performance. By building upon my students’ strengths, I can help them maintain focus on their long-term goals despite setbacks. Furthermore, much like the failures experienced by eminent creators in Gardner’s and Simonton’s research, my students can use their own intelligences and creativity to overcome obstacles. This persistence can be made easier if I can connect my students to mentors and role models within our community. Such connections are easily formed within my school between students and teachers, coaches, and administrators; however, I truly think that it is important for our students to have mentors within our greater communities to help guide them in pursuing their goals and enhancing their ability to work hard and get smarter, both creatively and intellectually.

Just this past week, the hallway near our nurse’s office seemed to be like a hospital ward: many students hunched over on the bench, waiting to get permission to go home or to get a Tylenol. Teachers have been struck by the virus too—my friend who teaches fifth grade, in fact, succumbed to the flu last week and has been struggling to get back to 100% ever since. Hand-washing, hand sanitizing, and covering mouths during sneezes can only do so much. In fact, what I have come to realize is how the case of the flu this winter is indicative of a larger issue within my school and many other area public schools.

Within our own district, many nurses have been cut to part-time due to budget concerns. My school is fortunate in that we were able to retain our full time nurse, but she is one of the few remaining full time nurses in the entire district of approximately 25,000 students. Furthermore, my school—and several others—lack a comprehensive health curriculum for our students. No student is learning proper hygiene for avoiding the flu and they are certainly not learning about how to take care of themselves as developing adolescents. Our students spend their school days studying the core subjects of math, science, and communication arts to get ready for state standardized testing; however, they do not learn the basics of how to live a healthy lifestyle. Surely we could do more to give our students a well-rounded educational experience.

There is a critical need for health education in middle schools. Statistics show that 41% of eighth graders have had at least one alcoholic drink and 16.5% of eighth graders have tried marijuana at least once (Vatterott, Becoming a Middle Level Educator, 2007). These same studies also show that 24% of middle school students have had sex. If we are not providing our students with a health education that teaches them the dangers of smoking, drinking, and sex, then we are surely setting them up for an unhealthy lifestyle. While I am well aware that there are many demands placed on our schools, I am confident that the health and safety of our students should be a priority. We cannot educate our students if they are missing school due to preventative illnesses (like the flu or a cold) or to long-term conditions, like pregnancy, drug abuse, or alcoholism.

Even though I’d almost not remember the awkward health classes from my middle school years, I know I at least received a foundation for understanding all the changes my body was going through. I also learned the monotonous lessons about hand-washing, getting a good night’s sleep, and how to count my heartbeats. It is a terrible loss to think of how we are creating a generation of students who are not learning about what it takes to lead a healthy lifestyle. The consequence of not having health education in our schools will cost us as a nation, and unfortunately, this impact may not felt for a couple more decades.

One of my early experiences with this teacher action-student action framework came in my first year of teaching. Just last year, I was working hard at creating meaningful lesson plans for my students. I would spend so much time planning, but I wouldn’t think about what I wanted my students to be doing during my lesson. I didn’t think about how I was going to give directions, or what my students were going to be doing while I was teaching. These small lapses in my thought-process ended up severely impacting my students’ achievement: for example, since I did not clarify what papers they needed to have on their desks, my students were left with piles of handouts in midst of their note-taking sheets. I would then get frustrated because they weren’t keeping up with my notes. Now, as I reflect upon my teaching practice, I realize how crucial it is that I make this expectation clear at the start of my lesson if I want significant learning to occur. Even though my students are in the seventh and eighth grades, they still benefit from receive explicit, step-by-step directions.

The way in which teacher actions affect student actions translates into more than just lesson plans. Over the course of my first year of teaching, I also learned how my attitude, behavior, and interactions influence my students as well. While this realization might seem obvious, I couldn’t believe how profoundly it affected my approach to teaching. For example, last year if my students misbehaved during class, my gut reaction was to raise my voice and blame specific individuals for causing the disturbance. As a result of my actions, my students’ misbehaviors often escalated so that they either shut down and refused to do any more work for me, or they simply responded by raising their own voices. This destructive spiral caused me and my students unnecessary stress and negatively impacted the quality of our learning time. Once I made the conscious choice to lower my voice and speak to students individually about their misbehaviors, I saw my students’ actions improve.

I am able to continue acting positively in regard to misbehaviors by adopting components of the “Love and Logic” approach, developed by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D. This approach was developed to help give students choices, while also helping teachers stay in control. Teachers give students the opportunity to develop their own consequences, which–believe it or not–actually is effective. My friend, who teaches 5th grade, uses Love and Logic in her classroom, had a pair of fighting students give themselves lunch and recess detention as their punishment. She has done a lot to help me work through different classroom management scenarios and how Love and Logic might help me resolve such situations. If you are interested in finding out more about this approach to dealing with students, I recommend you read a few Love and Logic articles on their website.

This link will provide you with a few sample articles full of Love and Logic strategies. If these articles pique your interest further, then you can also find plenty of books on Love and Logic by Fay and Cline online. As you peruse these links, I hope you’ll better be able to see the clear connection that exists between teacher actions and student actions. The more explicit and deliberate we teachers can be in conveying our expectations to our students, the more we can impact student achievement.

I believe that my school puts a lot of energy into giving our students opportunities to get involved outside of our school building. In fact, this year is one of the first times we have required that our eighth grade students complete 20 community service hours before eighth grade promotion. Students are able to complete their hours by participating in several events that we organize throughout the school year—or by seeking opportunities outside of what we offer. For example, this past weekend we organized a group of students to participate in a 5K run/walk to benefit a local community health insurance program. We had almost a dozen eighth graders sign up and train with us over two weeks before the race; furthermore, we were able to secure “sponsors” from different staff members so that our students could participate free of charge and contribute donations to the cause. Despite the cold temperatures and early start time, we had students successfully complete the race and earn medals in their 14 and under age group. This race was a great way for our students to overcome a personal challenge while also seeing how their efforts make a difference in our community.

Our school’s dedication to community service is also seen in our celebration of “Make a Difference Day,” which will be on Thursday October 22^nd of this year. Each grade level will be out of the building that day and performing community service. For example, last year we had students paint a mural in a worn down pedestrian tunnel under a nearby highway. We also had our special education students visit nursing homes to perform songs and skits for the residents. Last year’s seventh graders created posters to organize a “Candy for Soldiers” campaign around our school, in which we collected hard nonperishable candies to send overseas to our military. It was inspiring to see our entire student body engaged in community service that day, and I look forward to seeing that same dedication from our students this year. Although we are still deciding which community service opportunities we will participate in, I know that our students will be meaningful involved somewhere in Saint Louis.

After thinking about how community service works in my school, I realize that our students need help seeking out the kinds of meaningful service opportunities that inspire them to be lifelong volunteers. In today’s world of Blackberry Storms, IPod touches, Bebo, Facebook, and countless other forms of technology and media, it is important that we teachers are innovative in getting students involved. We need to find creative ways to get our students “hooked” on giving back. I think what made our 5K run/walk so successful is that it was a different form of community service than our students were used to. They had a chance to use their athletic talents as young people to raise money and awareness for a community issue. Last year’s Make a Difference Day activities also drew upon our students’ strengths: that mural under the highway, for instance, allowed many of our artistic students to showcase their skills in a new way. I believe that if we can continue to get this generation of young people involved in such new and exciting ways, we can definitely recreate the culture of community service that existed several decades ago.

If you are interested in finding community service projects for adolescents, please check out these websites for more information: www.dosomething.org and www.volunteermatch.org. Both of these organizations are dedicated to getting more of our students involved in giving back to their communities.

I felt the desire to write about the challenge of matching students with texts this week after a conversation I had with an 8th grade male student, Nick. To give you a little background on this student, Nick is an avid reader and enjoys reading science fiction and fantasies. I built a good relationship with him last year because I had the first three books of the Artemis Fowl series and I allowed him to borrow each book for as long as he wanted. This particular series of books is popular among boy readers because it offers a suspenseful plot that incorporates a devious young boy, Artemis, whose sole occupation is plotting extravagant criminal activities. Anyway, Nick came to me during passing period to see if I had any extra copies of the first Artemis Fowl book. He told me that he had two other friends who were interested in reading the book with him during the school day. When I first heard Nick’s idea, I was obviously thrilled. Here I had an 8th grade boy who wanted to start a book club of sorts with his peers!

It is a well-known fact, among teachers and researchers, that adolescent boys are most at-risk of falling behind academically. I have seen this occur in my own classroom, as I have an entire class of boys who are at least three years behind in reading levels. I immediately told Nick that I had an extra copy of Artemis Fowl and that I would talk to his advisory teacher to see if we could have the boys meet in my room once a week. Nick was so excited about our plan that he brought his two friends–with the Artemis Fowl book in tow–to my room at the end of the day. Within a few minutes, I had a group of boys reading aloud to each other and giving different voices to each character. What was unique about this set-up is that Nick, the avid reader, was actively supporting and encouraging his friends who are lower level readers.

While it is not always possible to bring a group of self-motivated boys together to read a story, I do think that my conversation with Nick reveals a few important points. First, it is important for us teachers to offer an array of books; kids need to feel empowered to choose a book that is interesting to them. Next, it is essential that these kids feel successful while reading the book on their own. For instance, when Nick read Artemis Fowl aloud with his friends, he used his skills as a fluent reader to help his peers sound out difficult words and add expression to their voices. Even though Nick’s friends are considered to be struggling readers, they felt successful because a peer was showing them “the ropes” of reading, so to say. I hope to continue to facilitate Nick and his friends reading of Artemis Fowl this quarter, and plan to post updates on how this group of boys progresses. If all goes well, I would like to implement a similar peer reading group among my own struggling readers!

While the soda versus pop (versus Coke) question is a relatively inoffensive–and entertaining–debate to bring up in mixed company, it illustrates a greater point about education in the United States. Not surprisingly, just as different regions have different names for pop and soda, students in our public school system have different cultural backgrounds and experiences. For example, I grew up in a rural suburban district where we would regularly see tractors driving down the street on our way to school. While I did not grow up on a farm, I had had enough exposure to rural life that I knew what a combine was when I saw it. This upbringing defined the way I understood the world and gave me a reference point for later in life when, for instance, I would be asked to differentiate between soybeans and winter wheat in cornfields on I-70 in Illinois. In other words, by living in this particular context, I learned to think of the world in particular ways. Similarly, my students live in a context that affects the way they think about the world, which in turn, influences their learning.

Most of my seventh and eighth grade students have lived in the city for their entire lives; very few of them have even traveled outside of the city limits. My students understand how to navigate an urban bus system, even though they may not know what a John Deere tractor is. Their cultural background and experience of being African-American in an urban community, however, is not always reflected in the classroom. For example, in a story my eighth graders are reading this week in communication arts, they are learning about a young boy on a farm who befriends a snake. The young boy describes how he keeps his snake in the “corn crib” next to the “hay loft.” When the snake escapes and finds his way through the “feed box” and into the horse “stall.” Even though this story is written on a third grade level, many of my students struggle to comprehend what is happening in the story. It is hard for them to visualize the snake being put into a “corn crib” until they see the picture in the literature book and understand what a corn crib is used for. My students cannot fathom the size of a hay loft or the purpose of a horse stall, as their understanding of the world is based on a very different experience. As a teacher, it is one of my greatest challenges to make sure that my students are able to read and comprehend a story like this one that is full of unfamiliar cultural references and experiences.

This challenge of bridging cultural backgrounds begins with the literature and assessment items that I find in state curriculum and on standardized tests. While new literature textbooks are becoming increasingly more multicultural and inclusive, I believe there still is room to make these stories more accessible to our students. An accessible story means that my students will identify with the characters and situations in meaningful ways; by making these meaningful connections, my students will feel more compelled to read on a regular basis, thus building their comprehension and fluency. If my students get too bogged down with understanding what a “corn crib” or horse “stall” is, then there is a risk that they will lose out on an opportunity to improve their comprehension. Furthermore, given that the average grade level reading ability for the sixth grade class at my school is the fourth grade, it is critical that my students are reading regularly with texts that they can relate to. If a student finds a story that relates to their life, then we are helping to instill a love of reading that will help them reach success beyond the four walls of our classroom.

In addition to the cultural bias found in textbooks, I also find it challenging to prepare my students for standardized tests that similarly lack impartiality. The most poignant example that comes to mind was on a recent Missouri standardized test, in which an entire reading selection was based on a farm silo. For the middle school students who completed this section at my school, I am sure very few of them comprehended the meaning of “silo.” My students have had no reason to know what a silo is, yet this lack of knowledge puts them at a disadvantage of test day. It seems unfair to test a child’s ability to read and comprehend while using a story about a silo when that child has lived in a city his or her entire life. It is clear that students are being tested on more than just their knowledge of literary concepts; they must be familiar with dominant culture that extends far beyond their practical experience. A child may be an excellent student, but if the test relies on experiences from this dominant culture, then he or she is not being set up for success. Our students deserve to have their abilities assessed using reading passages that are accessible and related to their life experience; only then can we have an unbiased measure of their ability to learn and our ability, as teachers, to educate.

I first heard about Teach For America while I was a junior at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, and I joined the corps right after I graduated in 2008. I live and work with fellow corps members who hail from around the country: Texas, Ohio, California, Florida, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, and several native Saint Louisans, just to name a few. Even though our backgrounds are diverse, we are united with a common mission to end educational inequality by providing a quality education to all our students.

I grew up in Holmen, Wisconsin, just ten minutes north of La Crosse and about seven hours north of Saint Louis along the Mississippi. When I’m not teaching or writing, I enjoy cheering for the Badgers’ football and basketball teams, running, and exploring all that the city of Saint Louis has to offer. I hope you will continue to check back to our columns and learn more about what is happening in education!

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