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In This Issue: 1. Beverly Daniel Tatum talks about race 2. An Oregon superintendent focuses on equity 3. Arguing is a good thing – as long as it’s civil 4. Dealing with smartphone addiction 5. Harnessing test anxiety in a seventh-grade classroom 6. Strategy keys for tackling math problems 7. Telling fake from real news 8. Short items: (a) Award-winning student speeches; (b) Online civics curriculum material   Quotes of the Week “What I’ve learned as a parent is it’s very hard to make your kids happy in the short term and keep their long-term well-being in mind. Those two goals conflict.”             Jean Twenge (see item #4) “The sweet spot for mental health and happiness is having that phone but not using it to excess.”             Jean Twenge (ibid.) “As teachers, it should be our goal to provide productive struggle for our students.” Raja Herold-Blasius (see item #6) “Argue as if you’re right, but listen as if you’re wrong.”             Adam Grant (see item #3) “The skill to get hot without getting mad – to have a good argument that doesn’t become personal – is critical to life.”             Adam Grant (ibid.) “Not only do we need to ensure that a black girl from a low-income family has access to a higher education; we must also ensure that a white boy from an affluent family has the option to get his hands dirty in an auto mechanics class. Class bias can work both ways and should never limit a child’s access to his or her dreams.”             Joan Richardson in her editor’s letter, Phi Delta Kappan, November 2017 (Vol. 99, #3, p. 4), www.kappanmagazine.org “We must avoid overpraising for mediocre work. Students perceive this as a sign of lower expectations and another reason not to trust feedback.”             Matt Utterback (see item #2)     1. Beverly Daniel Tatum Talks About Race             In this interview with Joan Richardson in Phi Delta Kappan, Beverly Daniel Tatum (Mount Holyoke College) describes her research on three different ways African-American families deal with the issue of race when their children attend predominantly white schools: (a) Race-conscious, making sure their children go to a black church or visit with family members in the South over the summer; (b) Race-neutral, not actively creating a sense of racial community for their children; and (c) Race-avoidant, shying away from explicit discussions of racial issues, instead emphasizing connections with children of similar socio-economic status. Tatum followed up by interviewing black college students who had grown up in each type of family. “All of them shared stories about being targeted because of their race,” she says. But those who grew up in a race-conscious home “were much more self-assured and confident about their sense of identity. They had a sense of understanding that somebody else’s racism was the other person’s problem, not their problem. That was a very confident kind of response.” College students who were raised in race-neutral families were significantly more vulnerable to self-doubt when confronted by racism. And those from the race-avoidant families fared worst of all; they were not equipped to deal with conflicts and were much less willing to reach out to their families for support. Richardson asked Tatum about many Americans’ reluctance to talk about race with their children and other adults. “Race is the big elephant in the room,” said Tatum, “and that elephant is causing lots of problems. You can’t solve a problem without talking about it.” She likens this to parents’ hesitation to talk to their children about sex: “People struggle with these conversations. Sometimes, they just don’t have the conversations because they find it too embarrassing. But not having the conversation doesn’t prevent their children from learning about sex. They learn about it from other people, and sometimes the information is inaccurate, and sometimes it’s harmful to them. Not talking about race is the same thing. The risk of silence is that other people may fill the void with information that you wouldn’t want your kid to have, and it comes in forms that can lead to bad things.” Tatum says researchers have found that 75 percent of white Americans have entirely white workplaces, neighborhoods, and social networks. In addition, about 50 percent of whites believe that discrimination against whites is just as prevalent as discrimination against people of color. There’s also the perception that black people have made great progress and don’t have much to complain about. But when we look at “almost every measure of economic and social well-being,” says Tatum, “– access to education, access to employment, access to health care, access to housing – white people fare better consistently on all these measures.” The only way to overcome misconceptions is to do what Tatum does for her university students: have them go into public places and observe how blacks and whites are treated, including being asked for identification at a store checkout and followed around in a department store. Richardson asks about the reluctance of some of her white neighbors to talk about “white privilege” and the “sins of the past.” Can white students take pride in their heritage without seeming to support white supremacy? Tatum says students of color are usually aware of their racial identity considerably earlier than white students. “It’s like a fish swimming in water,” she says. “You are surrounded by it, and you don’t have to think about it. If others bring it to your attention, your initial response may be one of discomfort… It’s natural that white students will want to find a place that doesn’t feel guilty, that doesn’t make them feel bad.” But given events like those in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this year, it’s important to find alternative views of whiteness. White students may want to look to heroic people in the past and present and see themselves as advocating for social justice, working to make more inclusive communities, using white privilege to work against racism and disadvantage, being the “white ally.” Raising the idea of white privilege isn’t intended to make anyone feel guilty, says Tatum. She notes that although she is black and therefore sometimes challenged by racism, she has privilege as a middle-class, college-educated American, a heterosexual woman, a physically able person who doesn’t have to look around for a wheelchair ramp, and a university president. “If we think about our identities in multiple ways,” she says, “we’d realize that we all have privilege in some parts of our lives. It’s not unusual to not notice the places where we’re privileged because we just take it for granted. We all have places where we need to grow our awareness.” The title of one of Tatum’s books is Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (Basic Books, 1997). Richardson asks her what’s going on in schools where this is not the case – where students are sitting with peers of other racial and cultural groups. It’s all about leadership, says Tatum. “One of the things that’s true about human beings is that we are programmed to categorize. Our brains make categories for everything from chairs to cars to people. Who’s part of us, and who’s not part of us? The process of categorization is innate, but who we put into the various categories is not innate. People look to the leader to know who’s inside the circle and who’s outside the circle… We need leaders who know how to bring people together with a shared sense of belonging, affirming all identities.” And classroom leadership is often central – orchestrating activities that help kids connect with others in thoughtful and purposeful ways, bridging racial and neighborhood divides. “Can We Talk About Race? An Interview with Beverly Daniel Tatum” by Joan Richardson in Phi Delta Kappan, November 2017 (Vol. 99, #3, p. 30-36), http://bit.ly/2znGE0X   2. An Oregon Superintendent Focuses on Equity             In this article in School Administrator, superintendent Matt Utterback says that when he was nine, his parents adopted a seven-year-old boy from a Korean orphanage. Although Jon learned English quickly, he was one of the only people of color in their small town in Oregon and began to struggle in early adolescence (“No one looks like me” “No one understands me”). He didn’t do well in school, had behavior problems, and tried other schools, but nothing worked. At 18, Jon returned to Korea but, lacking a degree or job skills, he was not welcomed. He tried living in Hawaii but felt marginalized there, and ended up taking his own life.             Looking back, Utterback credits the good intentions of his family and community to support Jon, but believes everyone “did a poor job affirming his identity and honoring his history and culture. Instead, dominant systems worked tirelessly to get Jon to conform to the white-majority norms and customs. Clearly, the result of these efforts was devastating.” It’s become part of Utterback’s core beliefs as an educator that “a person’s life is meant to be lived authentically without having to wear masks or costumes hiding one’s true self.” Here are the six principles for equity-focused schools that have guided his work as superintendent and produced significant gains in student achievement, attendance, and graduation rates:             • Noticing, acknowledging, and replicating strong instructional practices.“This is about knowing what quality instruction is and what it is not,” says Utterback. “Many of the best instructional practices promoting equity are already occurring within our classrooms. Modeling and replicating these practices is a critical component of professional learning.”             • Letting each child know that she or he is expected to succeed. This is about rigorous standards, clarity on the criteria for meeting them, high expectations, fostering a growth mindset, plenty of support, and normalizing help-seeking. “We must avoid overpraising for mediocre work,” says Utterback. “Students perceive this as a sign of lower expectations and another reason not to trust feedback.”             • Learning who our students are and focusing on where they want to go. This involves staff training and support, setting up affinity groups, listening to students, building relationships with every student, and affirming racial, cultural, and intellectual identities.             • Embracing an equity commitment. “The daily hurtful rhetoric in our communities and across our nation has the potential of producing alarming levels of anxiety among children of color and inflaming gender, racial, religious, and ethnic tensions on our classrooms,” says Utterback. “As educators, we must be committed to protecting our students, families, and each other. This means interrupting when we hear or see offensive words and acts and communicating daily to each student that we will protect, advocate for, and value them equally no matter their race, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual identity, language, or ethnicity.” It’s essential that students learn how to conduct respectful conversations.             • Creating inclusive learning environments for each student. Knowing that student achievement is influenced by SES, race, gender, ethnicity, culture, language, and disability, educators must relentlessly focus on continuous improvement to operations, resource allocation, the quality of teaching, and relationships.             • Taking action. The status quo of mediocre and ineffective practices has not worked for a significant number of students, says Utterback. It is our ethical and moral obligation to do better. “Leadership Through an Equity Lens” by Matt Utterback in School Administrator, November 2017 (Vol. 10. #74, p. 22-27), http://my.aasa.org/AASA/Resources/SAMag/2017/Nov17/Utterback.aspx Utterback can be reached at utterback@nclack.k12.or.us.   3. Arguing Is a Good Thing – As Long As It’s Civil             In this New York Times article, Adam Grant (University of Pennsylvania) says that if children aren’t exposed to disagreement and arguments, it will end up limiting their creativity as adults. “The skill to get hot without getting mad – to have a good argument that doesn’t become personal – is critical to life,” says Grant. “But it’s one that few parents teach to their children. We want to give kids a stable  home, so we stop siblings from quarreling and we have our own arguments behind closed doors… Witnessing arguments – and participating in them – helps us grow a thicker skin. We develop the will to fight uphill battles and the skill to win those battles, and the resilience to lose a battle today without losing our resolve tomorrow.”             It turns out that many highly creative people grew up in families in which robust debates took place all the time – friction about values, politics, interests, how to raise children. Wilbur and Orville Wright came from such a family, and as they worked on building their airplane, they squabbled incessantly (one of their longest debates was about the shape of the propeller). “I don’t think they really got mad,” observed their mechanic, “but they sure got awfully hot.” Other examples of adult conflict producing results: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony disagreed about how to win women’s suffrage; Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak butted heads about how to design the first Apple computer; the Beatles fought over instruments, lyrics, and melodies.             “Disagreement is the antidote to groupthink,” says Grant. “We’re at our most imaginative when we’re out of synch.” He contends that it’s a mistake to conduct brainstorming with a no-judgments rule; instead, people should be encouraged to generate as many ideas as possible and argue about them during the process. One study showed that brainstorming groups generate 16 percent more ideas when members are encouraged to criticize one another. The same has been shown to be true in American hospital teams, Chinese technology companies, and microbiology labs. What are the implications for parents and teachers? “Children need to learn the value of thoughtful disagreement,” says Grant. They should see adults arguing in a mutually respectful, emotionally safe manner. Kids might be taught that to remain silent when they disagree with someone is actually disrespectful of the other person’s ability to have a civil argument – and dismissive of one’s own viewpoint and voice. “It’s a sign of respect to care enough about someone’s opinion that you’re willing to challenge it,” Grant says. He suggests the following ground rules for arguments: Frame them as debates, not conflicts. Argue as if you’re right, but listen as if you’re wrong. Make the most respectful interpretation of the other person’s perspective. Acknowledge where you agree with your critics and what you’ve learned from them. “Good arguments are wobbly,” Grant concludes: “A team or family might rock back and forth but it never tips over. If kids don’t learn to wobble, they never learn to walk; they end up standing still.” “Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting?” by Adam Grant in The New York Times, November 5, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/kids-would-you-please-start-fighting.html   4. Dealing with Smartphone Addiction             In this interview with Eric Hoover in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jean Twenge (San Diego State University) summarizes her central message in the subtitle of her new book, iGen (Atria, 2017): Why today’s super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy – and completely unprepared for adulthood. The root of the problem, says Twenge, is the smartphones glued to kids’ hands. All that online versus in-person interaction is making them more vulnerable, less optimistic, less confident, and less happy.             Can we really make sweeping generalizations about iGeneration (which followed Generation X and the Millennials)? Yes, says Twenge. She’s been studying U.S. youth for 25 years, and the changes were incremental until 2011, when a number of indicators of mental health and use of leisure time “just dropped off a cliff” – how much kids were going out, hanging out with friends, going to parties, loneliness, happiness, life satisfaction, depression. What happened in 2011? That’s when smartphones reached market saturation.             “I’ve heard from parents and teens,” says Twenge, “as well as middle-school and high-school teachers, who’ve said that all around them, each day, they see kids addicted to their phone, to the exclusion of living their lives. One teacher said he’s surprised by how many of his students won’t look him in the eye.” And yet there’s intense communication going on through the phones, and words have become more important. Bullying and arguments have moved online, with the potential for greater and more lasting hurt. It’s no longer true that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.”             What are the classroom implications of these changes? As a college professor, Twenge tries to strike a balance between giving students what they want (shorter readings) and what they need for long-term success (deeper understanding). She uses carrots and sticks “a little bit more” – quizzes on readings, points for class participation, an electronic textbook that enforces a deadline, in-person discussions, and more videos. She’s been amazed at how effective these expedients are – but worries that she may not be preparing students for the real world.             What about the home front? “What I’ve learned as a parent,” says Twenge, “is it’s very hard to make your kids happy in the short term and keep their long-term well-being in mind. Those two goals conflict.” So should adults just confiscate these evil devices? “No,” she says. “The sweet spot for mental health and happiness is having that phone but not using it to excess.” She believes we need to put screen time in the same category as junk food – enjoy it but set limits. And adults have to model limit-setting themselves, lest observant teens call them out as hypocrites. “‘Taking Longer to Grow Up’” by Jean Twenge in The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 10, 2017 (Vol. LXIV, #11, p. A7), no free e-link available; Twenge can be reached at jtwenge@mail.sdsu.edu.   5. Harnessing Test Anxiety in a Seventh-Grade Classroom               In this Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy article, Mary Beth Schaefer (St. John’s University) says one of her biggest challenges when she taught English in a New York City middle school was getting her students to read for pleasure. “Unless a book was required, assigned, or taken up in class,” she says, “most of my students would not choose to read on their own.” Accustomed to a steady diet of worksheets, many of her students “had never experienced the pleasure of deep, vicarious living-through-books.” She aspired to use culturally relevant literature to engage her students in “grand conversations about life, literature, and literacies.” But Schaefer, returning to her classroom after ten years raising children and getting a doctorate, quickly realized that there were new forces at work in the school. Hallways that had once been adorned with student artwork and writing were now plastered with state standards and data. One day early in the year, her class was in the middle of what seemed like a deep discussion about a short story when a student interrupted to demand when they were going to start preparing for the state reading test. And when Schaefer launched an interdisciplinary unit with her social studies colleague on the American Revolution and asked students to pick a topic for a research paper, one student wanted to know why they were reading about social studies in language arts. Schaefer had to acknowledge that students’ desire for test preparation was not irrational: their seventh-grade ELA scores would be an important factor in getting into a desirable high school. “Being a culturally responsive teacher,” she says, “meant understanding the larger context of the school’s challenges. The stakes involved were high indeed, and from my perspective as a teacher, no one felt these pressures more than my students.”             Schaefer decided to harness students’ strong motivation to do well on the state test by posing a challenge: How about learning reading theory so they would know as much as the people in Albany who wrote the tests they were forced to take? This produced “a roar of approval in the classroom,” says Schaefer, and she proceeded to educate students about literacy theory. She also made it into an action research project, systematically gathering data from students’ reading journals, her own reflections on lessons, audiotapes of some classes, and periodic interviews with five students who were representative of the class in terms of ethnicity and proficiency and attitudes about reading and writing. As they proceeded through the ELA curriculum, Schaefer had students study reading on three dimensions: students’ exploration of themselves as readers; the pleasure they found (or didn’t) in building reading and writing skills and strategies; and thinking of literacy as a way to assert authority and power. This involved approaching reading from five different “stances” (based on J.A. Langer’s 2011 research): Stance 1: Being outside of and stepping into an environment: Students search for understanding of the text, discuss main ideas, and summarize understandings. Questions: Are you enjoying this book? Why or why not? What are you finding frustrating? Stance 2: Being inside and moving through an “envisionment:” Students use personal and text knowledge to build meaning and understanding; express sympathy/empathy for characters; and make connections between life, the text, and other texts. Questions: Do these characters remind you of other characters? How? What do you think will happen next? Why? Stance 3: Stepping out and rethinking what you know Students reflect on feelings toward the text and larger issues raised, judge characters’ actions, and describe lessons learned. Questions: How do you feel about what happened? What concerns does the text raise for you? Stance 4: Stepping out and objectifying the experience Students disengage from the text to analyze and/or compare it with other work; look for patterns and themes; and analyze how story structure, mood, and setting affect reading. Questions: What other texts have this kind of structure? How does the author move you through the story? Stance 5: Leaving an envisionment and going beyond Students use prior envisionment concepts to create new envisionments; rethink issues of social/global justice; and reflect on self in relation to the text and/or the world. Questions: Have your views on this changed? How and why? How has your self-understanding changed? “Teaching students reading theory helped give them a sense of autonomy and control over their reading skills, abilities, and experiences,” says Schaefer. “By understanding their own and others’ reading skills and practices in a deeper way, students were encouraged to analyze and construct theories about their own reading skills and comprehension strategies and the idea of reading… They began to see it as a creative process, one that manifested differently for each of them. Deeper understanding of reading and of themselves gave them pleasure.”             Once students had finished their research papers on the American Revolution (topics included weapons, taverns, disease, specific battles, clothing), Schaefer had them use their papers as mock state test passages and write comprehension questions: What is the main idea of paragraph 4? What evidence supports the author’s claim in lines 9-12? How are the ideas organized in this article? Classmates then critiqued each others’ test questions, arguing for different right and wrong answers. “As we continued to think and talk about reading,” says Schaefer, “students began to see themselves as experts. Together, we constructed our own understandings and definitions of effective reading. Students’ ideas of reading were transformed by their understanding of what they were doing and constructing as they read.”             Schaefer’s naïve beginning-of-the-year goal had morphed into something much deeper. “My injunction for students to read because it would be fun and good for them was not nearly as effective as encouraging my deeply aesthetic, engaged readers to share their visceral experiences of reading theory,” she says. “Peer influence, a deep and powerful force in middle school, played an important and positive role in connecting students to one another’s reading desires, strategies, and experiences.”             Schaefer was particularly moved by the progress made by Sandy, a student for whom “reading was torture.” She had scored at the lowest level on the previous year’s reading test, and sat apart from other students with a one-on-one paraprofessional. Then one day in November, Sandy broke into a class discussion about content-area reading, saying, “Usually I notice that our textbooks aren’t really textbooks. They’re opinions that are presented as facts.” All heads swiveled to the back of the room and Schaefer said, “Wow, that’s great!” At the end of the class she complimented Sandy on her insight. Sandy glowed and said, “No one ever said I was smart. No one ever said I was a good thinker. I was left back, and that really made me think I was stupid. Thank you. I feel smart.” In an interview after students had taken the state test but before the results were announced, Sandy said, “I think I did really well on the test because I understood it better. And I think that’s why reading is more fun now.” Schaefer: “When Sandy used the word fun to describe reading, I experienced this practitioner inquiry in a visceral way and availed myself of a few tissues. The categories linking pleasure, reading, self-knowledge, and self-reflection coalesced in one girl, one experience, and one story.”             How did students do on the big test? Twenty-six of the 30 students in the class scored one level higher than they had the previous school year. Three students moved up two levels. No students’ scores declined. And Sandy moved up three levels, placing fifth in the class. “While my students were pleased with their scores,” says Schaefer, “I was pleased to remind them that they had accomplished growth and achievement without endless test preparation.” “Middle-Grades Students’ Understanding of What It Means to Read in a High-Stakes Environment” by Mary Beth Schaefer in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, November/ December 2017 (Vol. 61, #3, p. 247-256), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.689/abstract; Schaefer can be reached at schaefm1@stjohns.edu.   6. Strategy Keys for Tackling Math Problems             “As teachers, it should be our goal to provide productive struggle for our students,” says Raja Herold-Blasius (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) in this article in Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School. Instead of the teacher breaking down mathematical problems and guiding students step by step, it’s better to provide well-chosen tools so students can struggle productively. To that end, Herold-Blasius suggests a set of nine heuristics or keys to give students a variety of possible ways to tackle difficult problems without being dependent on their teachers: Make a table. Draw a picture. Find an example. Start with a small number. Use different colors. Work backward. Read the task again. Look for a pattern or a rule. Check your collection of rules. For a sheet with these written on keys (in German and English), each key with a different shape, go to http://bit.ly/2zEJltp.             Herold-Blasius suggests introducing the keys by giving each student a set (tied together with a string) and following these steps: (a) Students think of possible uses for the keys, specifically a problem where one of them might be helpful; (b) Students work in groups to solve a challenging problem, using one or more of the keys; and (c) Groups present their strategies and which key(s) they used. Here are sample problems for this exercise: On a farm is an open-air enclosure for chickens. There are also rabbits in the enclosure. Jenn stands by the fence and counts 20 animals with 70 legs in all. How many chickens are there? A man picks apples. On his way to town, he has to pass through seven gates. At each gate is a guardian claiming half of his apples and one apple extra. At the end, the man has only one apple left. How many apples did he have at the beginning? You have the following coins: 10-cent, 5-cent, and 2-cent. How can you put together 31 cents with these coins? Herold-Blasius has found that when students get stuck on a problem, they use the keys to: generate new strategy; change a strategy they were using; refine a previous strategy; use a previous strategy more effectively; and/or give names to strategies they use. The keys definitely make students more independent of their teachers, and over time, most students internalize the strategies and no longer need to look at the keys. “Strategy Keys as Tools for Problem Solving” by Raja Herold-Blasius in Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, November/December 2017 (Vol. 23, #3, p. 146-153), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/2jnrdA0; Herold-Blasius can be reached at raja.herold@uni-due.de.   7. Telling Fake from Real News (Originally titled “The Real Problem with Fake News”)             In this Educational Leadership online article, author/consultant Erik Palmer suggests challenging students to discern which of these articles are true and which are fake: • NBA refs paid $10 million to make sure finals go more than 4 games: http://bit.ly/2iRxYGh • Hillary Clinton got 25 million fraudulent votes: http://bit.ly/2ABfeCt • 3,000-pound shark caught in Lake Michigan: http://bit.ly/2zUnuBa • Man rides roller coaster for 405 hours: http://nyti.ms/2s7KRyB • Glyphosate found in popular foods: http://bit.ly/2jlVO10 “The Real Problem with Fake News” by Erik Palmer in Educational Leadership, November 2017 (Vol. 75, #3, online only), http://bit.ly/2ib5ZlE (the answers are at the end of the online article); Palmer can be reached at erik_palmer@comcast.net.   8. Short Items:             a. Award-winning student speeches – As part of the American Soapbox Initiative, students from around the U.S. recorded speeches on topics of their own choosing. A selection: • Maya Branch on race and gender – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc4YHklKgho • LaShawn Massenberg on homicide – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1RD3s9vLwM • Ben Domus on segregation – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NP1SZO7xIU Spotted in “Screen Grab Soapbox Speakers” in Educational Leadership, November 2017 (Vol. 75, #3, p. 8)             b. Online civics curriculum material  – iCivics, founded by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, has more than 150 lesson plans, 19 games, and digital tools for secondary-school teachers and students: www.icivics.org. Spotted in “Turn and Talk: Q&A with Louise Dubé, Executive Director of iCivics” in Educational Leadership, November 2017 (Vol. 75, #3, p. 10-11) http://bit.ly/2zEQTMA © Copyright 2017 Marshall Memo LLC