wiki

i'm starting a new wiki for my classroom at:
www.mrravin.pbwiki.com

self efficacy

in social work, i studied young adolescent identity development. i was deeply interested in how young adults tested and confirmed their personal and social identities. in order establish a clear definition of identity for reserach, it's necessary to define identity and the variables that define identity exploration and identity confirmation.

i remember that one very important variable in my research, self-efficacy, measured an individual's belief that they would succeed or fail in relation to real personal experience. for example, high self efficacy means that an individual has a strong belief that he or she will succeed, even though objective personal experience may not show that to be true. in contrast, low self efficacy means that an individual believes that he or she will fail, even though all personal experience should lead the individual to believe that they will be successful.

i am thinking about that know because it's always really stuck with me. i've felt, when i've looked at myself, that i succeed. i know that if i set out to achieve a goal, i will achieve that goal. i've really deeply beleived that, and of course, there are a series of goals that i have been fortunate to accomplish. at the same time, i realize also, that by choosing to beleive that i am a string of successes, i have chosen to deemphasize or outright ignore significant experiences where i have failed or simply not achieved my goal.

it's interesting, though, because i see that as you believe, as you genuinely believe that you can accomplish hard tasks, you are first increasingly likely to take them on and second increasingly likely to succeed at them. you unconsciously marginalize marginal setbacks and emphasize personal accomplishments as representative.

it reminds me of when somebody says to a young teacher, "fake it til you make it." i don't really believe it's like that because i don't think you set out to marginalize or emphasize this accomplishment or that failure. i think, inside of the matirx of variables of identity, when you come to clearly confirm a personal identity, it is because you have a deep seated understanding of who you are and who you truly want to be.

unless of course, it isn't true at all. unless, of course, this whole thing is a sham and i'm right back where i was when i was 16. who am i? who am i now? who was i then? who do i want to be? how can i be that person i really want to be? and, most importantly, how is it that sometimes, sometimes it feels like i'm so terribly far away?

san antonio

i recently returned from a conference of big dorks and geeks in san antonio. each year, the national council of teachers of english hosts a convention on new research and best practice in the field. last year, the conference really turned me onto multiple literacies. the outgoing president strongly emphasized that we just plain don't read and write today like we used to. we read differently. we write differently. we write shorter or longer or more infomrally or with links instead of citations. and she really sharged us to bring digital literacies into our classroom.

last year, i tried to start a weblog for student writing, and we brought in heroes. . .

this year, i've brought in a radio documentary project, a performance art piece, and now we're starting to work on a film journalism project. wiki. weblog. . . we'll see. i think the larger question is: do students receive enough support for core literacies? if not, does increased engagement and commitment override a step short in formal writing?

detroit

i don't know the whole story, and i'm certain that i don't know all of the information. still, i can't help thinking that there are class issues circling in the ongoing debates on federal relief and bailout programs. it seemed there was a fierce urgency of now to complete the bank bailouts. many people claimed immediate bailouts were necessary to prevent a complete collapse of the worldwide economic system. and the stock market clearly thought that first word of the bailout was positive.

for a long time, i've maintained that free market advocates haven't understood that we already live in a clearly regulated economy. our regulation even predates government stakes in major banks and insurers. we have long lived in a modified free market and modified socialist economy. in many ways, i've felt like our economy mirrors our two party system. we have two stringent poles that advocate for static ideas, even against what real research and real data tells us. (although, i don't know if more economic systems would help our economy in the same way more political parties might help our democracy.)

still, i feel like there is a strong element of class discrimination in the heightened politics of the auto bailout versus the smash mouth agenda of the bank bailouts. while i certainly believe that each bailout should have required tough questions and clear financial plans from congress, why is it that only detroit received an extreme toungue lashing? why, further, does it seem that poor people and lending to poor people served as the right's talking point to explain the mortgage crisis, when in reality, the leadership of banks and need for extreme profits led to greedy and overly risky mortgage driven securities and sub-prime mortgages? why were bankers sitting on one side of the table while auto executives sit on the other?

yes, of course, detroit made serious mistakes in the operation and management of their product lines, including missed opportunities in hybrid and flex-fuel vehicles. and, of course, detroit unions overbargained and failed to realize burdensome corporate debt is also not good for retirement and health care plans. and yes, of course, our government needs to ensure that our money is protected and that there are clear rules for transparency and accountability. yes, we need to reign in executive compensation and make sure that government funds actually work in the way they are intended to help. yes, yes, yes.

but why only for the auto makers? why were the wheels greased for wall street and stopped for woodward avenue? however, why is there such umbrage only at blue collar auto workers? why do white collar workers need to keep their bonuses while blue collar workers need to receive pink slips?

let's regulate. i'm for it. let's help struggling industries. i'm for it. let's have oversight. i'm for it. but, really, why such different perspectives? i think it's class.

what yalei saying?

yalei is sitting up really well now. on wednesday nights, i watch aviyah and yalei together. (mommy is at big people school on wednesdays, and i have big people school on monday and tuesday.) the past wednesday, yalei fell down a couple of times. aviyah takes a lot of attention so sometimes you jump away for a minute and bonk! but now, already in one week, she is sitting up and not falling down at all.

the clapper

yalei is starting to be a real person!

she is very grabby now, and she is starting to wave and to clap her hands. i think this stage is so crazy because they are starting to really be there, you know? it's like the baby really isn't anything for a while, but then they start to do things and you realize, that's right! this is what happens!

little star

בא כוכב כוכב קטן
אל תבכה אנחנו קאן
בשמיים מנצנצ
יהלום קטן נוצץ
בא כוכב כוכב קטן
אל תבכה אנחנו קאן

come star little star
don't cry, we are here
in the sky (you) shine
a tiny sparkling diamond
come star little star
don't cry, we are here

bullies

last year, aviyah was bullied several times by a young girl. one time, she was scratched so deeply that a long, light scar is still on her cheek. at that time, we tried to make it clear to the school that while we didn't blame the young girl or the parents or the teachers, we certainly wanted to come up with strategies that could help prevent future incidents. when we approached the parents to speak together on constructive ways we could help the two girls, they refused to talk to us. the school also refused to come up with new plans to make sure that she was safe. when they challenged me to come up with ideas and i came up with seven, they simply said they'd consider them and get back to us.

each party clearly felt that aggressiveness was just a normal stage for many young toddlers to go through. and, in fact, i am sure that it is a completely normal developmental stage. however, i refused to accept it was "normative" behavior, or behavior we have to accept as socially appropriate. we clearly need to react and respond to what our children are doing in order to teach them what we want to encourage. i always believed that actual teachable moments are not the moments when kids are actually in the middle struggle, but instead, the moments and spaces between the struggles. in these longer moments, we build up our connections to our children and students, and in these quieter moments, we have more important, more substantial, and more real conversations.

i've always felt that our reaction to our childrens' behaviors was more important than our childrens' actual behaviors. and we knew that the first strategies clearly weren't working because she was attacked by the same girl on four different occasions. it wasn't getting any better!

(on a quick aside: we were walking in front of my school the other day, on our way to the park. aviyah spotted a cute dog, and we walked up to the man walking the dog and asked if aviyah could pet her. it turns out that the man walking the dog was the little girl's father, and well, within four minutes, the girl stepped up to aviyah and just flat pushed her down to the ground. just yesterday, i was talking with aviyah and i was a little bit frustrated by everything and i said to her something that i've worked a year and a half to not say: i told her that i didn't realy like the other girl because i felt she was mean to aviyah. i love you very much, i said, and it kind of hurts me too when people are mean to you.)

anyway, when we decided to change schools, i tried to make clear to the old school, to the teachers, and to our friends, that we were not leaving the school because we felt it was so abnormal for kids at that age to push or pull or scratch. we left the school because we just didn't feel like she was totally safe. we felt the school was so great in so many ways, and we definitely did not want to and did not bad mouth the school to anyone. we tried to give a fair and honest answer about why we left, but we always made certain to explain that we felt that everyone was good people.

long story short, last week, aviyah was pushed for a second time by a new boy in her new school. last spring, we chose the new school specifically because the director assured us that their lead teachers are graduates from early childhood education programs, and the agency also employs social workers that they agreed to speak with in challenging situations.

i spoke with the director of the new school on tuesday, and i explained to her that we were not upset at the child, the teachers, or the parents. i also explained that i understand that children sometimes go through devleopmental stages that frustrate us and others. at the same time, i said, we have to distinguish ourselves by how we react and respond to challenging situations. she agreed and she said the issue just came up on the radar for them. i definitely appreciated her honesty, and she said the teachers and staff were going to speak and develop a plan last week, so i'll check in with them early this week to see what they think.

we've thought a lot about this, obviously, over the last year. i think aviyah has moved on, but she was definitely sad to leave the old school and she took a minute to really adjust to the new school. and, more, i've thought if i'm a too pushy parent because i'm involved in education and youth development. i've talked about it with a bunch of different educators, and i definitely think i don't ever want to choose their curriculum or choose their intervention strategies. however, i do want to make sure they they think about their choices and that they communicate their reasoning with parents. still, i want to be sure that they do have a curriculum, that they do have intervention strategies, that they do have reasons they are making the choices they are making.

i want to be like the best parents i see at my school. parents who are clear and fair about questions they ask, and parents who want to understand clearly what is going on in the classroom. good parents can mean so much to making sure their children get the right attention in the right ways, and i certainly don't want to be overbearing or intrusive. for real, i appreciate the strengths at both schools. at the same time, they have to own the things that happen there, and they've got to be smart and prepared to intervene during situations and prevent new ones from happening.

in the meantime, the director did give me a tip that we can use to help aviyah stand up for herself. we've looked at a few books that we might buy, and i worked with aviyah a lot this morning to role play what she can do to let the other kids know she can stand up for herself. i told her that she should stand up immediately if she is sitting down, and she should say in a loud and firm voice to the other child, "no thank you. that's not nice." she can also choose to just move away from the other child if she needs to.

she was doing really well, and i think she likes raising her voice a little. it's hard to say, though. it seems like, so far, the real big problem is that she knows that i'm just daddy, so she smiles and giggles the whole time she's standing up to me.

radiance and rosebud

so many writers explain that obama's ascent is confirmation of dr. king's boldest dream. of course, i don't think that that's true. it's clear that while 43% of whites did vote for obama, and more than 54% of young whites ages 18 to 29 voted for obama, there are still grim realities in america. we know that blacks are disproportionately poor, black and latinos dramatically underperform their white and asian peers in school, and our neighborhoods and institutions are still wildly segregated.

and while the far right is staggeringly afraid that obama will tilt america socialist, it's clear to real liberals that obama governs a centered coalition. rep. john clybourn recently explained that he may sometimes be "center-right, sometimes center-left, but always from the center." cabinet appointments that may include republicans, including current secretary of defense robert gates, make it clear that obama is not interested in being overtly partisan.

in fact, i hesitated to support obama in the primaries because i felt john edwards' policies were more clearly focused on redistribuiting opportunities and access to the poorest and most disenfranchised. i also felt that hillary clinton's clear and express support for universal health care advanced more sustainable protections for more underserved than obama's employer/employee based health plan. while many wealthy can still afford private health care in socialized health plans in europe and canada, the larger advantages of prevention and protection more clearly help the second 95% of the population.

yes, it is still clear that obama is interested in change, and it's even more clear to me that he also has the vision and the pragmatism to serve us all. it has also been clear that people across america are aware of this moment. people left, center, and wrong are proud that we have made such an historic leap forward in our history. it is true that the first 14 president could have legally owned a black slave. it also true that the first 35 presidents could not have even voted for not have even been able to a candidate obama in some places in the united states.

yes, we can. si, se puede. ken, anu y'cholim.

still, i believe obama's election will have the greatest impact on those even too young to realize what just happened. for those who are 80 years old and older, they have heard biological arguments that served to barbarize and colonize blacks. they witnessed and maybe participated in or demonstrated against violent laws that forcibly segregated and oppressed blacks. for our oldest seniors to know that america has rejected our past as vile, contemptible, and disgraceful is a just reward and a dish served cold.

yes, i am unendingly happy that barack obama will be the next president of the united states. and yes, i do believe it sends a powerful message to the world that americans are real people. we are not the caricature of all the right or wrong decisions our elected government makes. we are smarter than our history has sometimes shown us to be because i have always believed this country makes a slow but steady walk forward.

still, our middle aged have been too slow to this moment and we will be too slow to change again. we have been colored already. i don't think his election means we have arrived. it's been disgraceful that we've only had 43 white men serve as president. and yes, i'll have to change a long standing lesson i give where i explain that we have never ever elected anything but a rich white male. but, man, we've still got a long way to go.

so, now, i don't think we haven't arrived anywhere, yet. but i really do believe that radiance and rosebud have. i am beyond amazed and thrilled and happy to see that malia and sasha will be the face of the kids of the first family for everyone to see.

for our youngest, this is the absolutely most powerful new show on the wb or disney. we will see young african american girls the ages of my students and younger inside the white house. girls with locks or braids or flat irons. girls who go to black church. girls who sing "lift ev'ry voice and sing". girls with names like malia and sasha and radiance and rosebud. in fact, the first time i cried this election is when i read an article this morning that revealed the new secret service names for the obama family.

the faces of the kids on america's front lawn are young african american girls. they'll be reading books and doing their homework and hugging their mom and dad. they'll be young and strong and fun and all over the place. they'll just be regular little girls and they'll like whatever they like and they'll do whatever they do and they'll be the president's daughters. and they'll be black.

now, that's deep.

independence

(disclaimer: this is way "inside baseball" stuff that may only be remotely interesting, at best, to other teachers.)



i have started taking courses for a new program, and i'm lucky to be taking a course with mary ehrenworth and a course with lucy caulkins. i really decided to start a new program when i took a course last year with sheridan blau. i was thinking about it, and i realized how important it is to challenge and tighten my theory and practice. we talked with sheridan a lot about reader response, but i also remember how sharp he was about really distilling what it is we read, how important it is to be honest and critical and clear about what we thinks and what they think and why.

i just remember thinking a lot about the things that he brought up in class and how it really helped me bring new things in my thinking right into my classroom. i think it really inspired us to start setting our framework for what we're teaching and why we're teaching, and my big thing at the end of last year was to help us set out some clear and consistent goals for our students. in my new class, one of my classmates asked me, "so why are you doing this? is it like some sort of professional development?"

i guess that's exactly what it is. i feel like when we separate our education and our experience that it means we've lost something. i know that sometimes the theory at universities can feel far from my 100 students on the ground, but i also know that they can come up with some of the purest, most important methods in universities away from the pull of department bureaucracy.

this year, my class with lucy is getting me to think about a lot of things in my pattern and philosophy of teaching. in the past, i've worked hard towards developing reading strategies that mirror what real strong readers do when they're reading. and i've worked towards developing writing and revision strategies that mirror what real strong writers do. i think it's so important that we make writing and reading really relevant to how and why we really read. still, it's hard to so closely mirror the independence and choice that are there for real writers in the real world.

so, i've been working through this a lot in lucy's class. the other day she was really strong about getting back to the core principles of writing workshop. it was her george h.w. moment. ("i know writing workshop. i am friends with writing workshop. you, sir, are no writing workshop!) and i know what she means. in some sense, i think, the writing workshop has been so co-opted by being the system, what has become commonplace in workshop is not really workshop at all. and in some other ways i've written in class about how i've been co-opted and inside the system without seeing it. it's hard to see which way is which sometimes.

i've been working a lot with my student teacher to understand exactly what are the principles that support my classroom teaching and learning to make sure that the thigns that we teach are in line with the principles. so, the big thing i'm thinking about is how do we balance independence and choice? and, still, how do we make sure that the students are getting the core skills and competencies that they need? there's no doubt that studetns are more engaged and more invested when they have opportunity and choice. there's also no doubt that they will learn to perform (in the short term) specific skills and strategies when they are taught explicitly and applied directly.

so, what is the balance? where is the balance? i'm thinking the largest balance is by affording choice for projects, and trying to provide consistent small groups that can teach into specific strategies and skills. i feel worried, though, that right now i'm caught right in between both and neither is getting done. i don't wnat to flash on one and feel better. i want to feel like i'm doing better than both, altogether.

more pictures

new pictures part 1

twofer

a lot of people ask what it is like to have two children. i remember when i asked my cousin what it was like to have four kids. he said that the biggest jump was from 2 kids to 3 kids because they had to play zone defense now. there's no more man to man, he said.

maybe that is true. still, so far, for us, i think the jump from having 0 to having 1 is much bigger than the jump from 1 to 2. i think the biggest difference with 2 is that there is far less independent free time. when it was only aviyah, samantha and i could both do turns of one on one time and we could also do times when all of us hung out together. still, when it was the other's one on one time, we still had our personal free time to surf the internet or read or take a nap or whatever.

now, i think the big difference is that during the one's one on one times, we have one on one time with the other child. so, for the most part, when there is downtime with the one because they are playing with the other parent or because they are napping, it isn't really totally downtime because you are playing with the other child.

i think we have been really committed to bedtimes, though, and that's made a huge difference for us. we can know that at a certain time of day or by a certain time of night we are going to be off duty, you know? i think it would be a crazy mess without a naptime and bedtime schedule. aviyah has had more difficulty napping consistently at her new school. i think she's trying to adjust, and she's started to nap more regularly in the past week or two, but it's crazy because if i think about it, no matter where we have been, here or another home, she has always always always taken her naps. i think i can probably count on one hand the times she has just jumped her nap in her whole life.

i think the big reason i personally bought into the schedule times for sleeping is because 1) i know from teaching that if you don't have consistent systems then all of the fun stuff gets piled over and 2) dr. weisbluth convinced me that the bigge picture is that healthy sleep supports healthy development. i think, no doubt, people think it's a little crazy, and it may have it's drawbacks too. ( it may be that aviyah is a little bit more clingy to us sometmes because she is so used to a schedule and so used to routines.)

i think the truth is that each big system or method you chose, also in teaching, has its big pluses and drawbacks. i think the thing is is that if you have a general philosophy about what you want to do and why you want to do it it makes it easier to make your choices for which approach fits best.

in the end, all i know is that when the girls sleep well, really everybody is happier.

potty training

we moved around a lot recently. over the summer, we actually lived in 5 different places together, and we didn't really have the internet. i got really badly out of the habit of posting, and i know that it made it harder for some of you who live far away to follow the girls. i'm sorry! it also is so easy to just post a picture from my iphone now to my facebook, that i posted a lot of my photos right there.

anyway, it's kinda crazy to try and catch everything up. aviyah recently started really potty training. she wears only pullups now, and i think for about a month she's been almost always going in the potty or on the toilet. we've had a potty (really like 4 different potties) for a long while, but we also didn't want to stress her out. she had gone a few random times on the potty, but i think it was still early. anyway, our thing was we didn't want to really pressure her to do this at a certain time. we wanted to make sure we supported her wanting to go and gave her the option to go, but we definitely didn't want to shock train her.

a book i read mentioned that there is a traditional kind of sticker rewards system, and we did start a system around when she started school. she gets a new heart sticker to put on the potty to show each time she goes, and she started also asking to get one picture bandaid that she puts on herself or her clothes. so it's kind of funny 1) because then everybody always thinks she's her because she got bandaids all over her face and knees and 2) because she asks me and samantha sometimes if we want bandaids too after we go to the bathroom. at the same time, her best friend at school started potty training and i think that really inspired her, too. (maybe even more!)

so, i don't think there was any super huge smart thing that we did. i think she was not ready and then she was ready. there are a lot of parents who are a little bit exasperated that the kids haven't been more serious yet about potty training, but i definitely think this is a thing that parents get all worked up and either proud or upset over. i think different kids do it at different times. i really really think that yes the things we do can encourage or discourage what our kids do or want to do. at the same time, i also think that we stress a little bit too much first on what is exceptional or smart or fast, and then for sure, we stress too much on what is normal. i think there are different kinds of things and different kinds of kids and different kinds of normal.

i think there are all these little stages that probably start with sleeping and that go all the way up to what college your kid goes to college. i think the competition is silly. certainly, i do see other things that parents do and sometimes i think, yikes! but i try to think yikes! more i don't want to do that with my kid than i think this is what causes their kid to do a or b because i know sometimes our kids do a or b and it just is.

i do take what we do with the girls very seriously, and i imagine like other things, it's something i get made fun of for. at the same time, i think we try our best to have a conssitent philosophy and a consistent system and to learn how to do things better because i see so much of how the kids i teach are shaped by their parents. you can see so many things clearly: which kids are encouraged, which kids are shut down, which kids are carbon copies, which kids are independent and confident. i know that so much has to do with who kids are, but i also know so much has to do with how we parent, too.

i guess that's the juggling act,then. you don't know, necessarliy, which things the children are going to push on and which things they are going to respond to. i think knowing that everything you do matters is important, but i also think it's important to release thinking that kids do everything because of what you do. i do think it's important to set up a clear and consistent system that encourages creativity, communication, and happiness at the same time that it establishes discipline. i believe that you should almost always tell your child yes. i also believe that it is really important to know when to say no and to say it clearly, consistently, and convincingly at those times. i guess that i think it's like how i think about my observance. in the little picture, all the observances really are silly and wierd. at the same time, i think, the discipline and the system sets up opportunities to be more real and more close more often.