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Cell Phone Use In School – Freedom and Responsibility

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A student walks into a high school classroom. A ringtone sounds on her cellphone and she answers as she walks to her desk.  Classmates take their seats and a bell rings signally class has started.  Should she finish her conversation or disconnect?

A student is working at a biology lab station.  His cellphone buzzes in his pocket informing him that he has received a text message.  All his classmates are busy with their lab assignments and his teacher is in deep conversation at a lab station across the classroom.  Should he check his message and perhaps respond?

The band is rehearsing for a concert scheduled for the following week.  The director has stopped play to help one of the alto sax players to hold a note for three beats when a cellphone rings in the percussion section.  Because everyone but the sax player has stopped playing, band members either look toward the sound of the phone or at the director.  Should the director confront the disturbance or ignore it?

The argument of whether students should bring cellphones into school classrooms has not been resolved.  Across the 20+ years that high school students have carried personal cellphones, the issue of how schools should address student cellphones in school has eluded a universal resolution.  Now that a cellphone also is an Internet connection to a world of information, a networking tool, and a productivity tool, what are the parameters for the use of a cellphone in the classroom?  Is the cellphone an unwanted distraction to student learning?  Is a cellphone a learning tool connecting the isolated classroom to the greater world?  Is having access to a cellphone a right or a responsibility?

Historically, the closest we come to the cellphone dilemma may be chewing gum.  Does a teacher’s view of cellphones mirror the historical view of chewing gum?  For decades students were forbidden to visibly chew gum in class for no other real reason than teacher “say so.”  After introspection, chewing gum in class posed no real distractions to teaching and learning.  In fact, chewing may have calmed student anxiety.  It also is true that some “bratty” students may have made smacking sounds as they chewed.  But, the bottom line was “You can or cannot chew gum in my class.  It is my rule.”  Teacher rules prevailed.

In each representative scenario above, the current practice in most classrooms is the same as chewing gum.  The use of a cellphone, even the presence of a cellphone in class, is that classroom teacher’s rule.  But, is teacher’s choice a satisfactory resolution?  Why would a student walking into class keep talking after the bell or a student engage in text messaging in a lab class or a band director not respond to a phone ringing during rehearsal?  Time and place make these intrusions unacceptable.  We need to teach children to understand and exercise the freedom and responsibility of cellphone use.  And, we, parents and educators, need to integrate cellphone technology into contemporary living/teaching/learning design.  Leaving the use of cellphone technology to a teacher’s rule is a very weak resolution.  The exercise of a common standard of behavior based upon sensitivity to time and place is much better.

In 1908, John Dewey, a formative educational leader, wrote the following.

RESPONSIBILITY AND FREEDOM

“The more comprehensive and diversified the social order, the greater the responsibility and the freedom of the individual. His freedom is the greater, because the more numerous are the effective stimuli to action, and the more varied and the more certain the ways in which he may fulfill his powers. His responsibility is greater because there are more demands for considering the consequences of his acts; and more agencies for bringing home to him the recognition of consequences which affect not merely more persons individually, but which also influence the more remote and hidden social ties.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/responsibility-and-freedom/

Dewey certainly did not foresee the advent of cellphones.  But, he understood the dynamics of how the individual interacts in society and those insights speak to the personal use of cellphones in school today.  The lead sentence – “The more comprehensive and diversified the social order, the greater the responsibility and the freedom of the individual” – gets directly at the problem. The purpose of the classroom as a place for teaching and learning requires that a student’s responsibility to that purpose transcends the freedom of instantaneous cellphone activity. As a slight exaggeration, imagine a classroom where the opposite view holds. At any moment when a student’s cellphone rings the student immediately engages in a phone conversation or a series of texts or activates music or video of choice. Or, initiates a phone call to a friend. Or, engages in an interactive game on a cellphone. All the while, a teacher is expected to teach as if the distraction did not occur. If the classroom was lackadaisical daycare, this chaos may be acceptable. The classroom is a place for teaching and learning and such chaos is fully unacceptable.

Changing the use of cellphones from ubiquitous to discrete begins with attitude.  The use of a cellphone is not a child’s entitlement.  I observe an attitude of entitlement when children engage with their cellphone anywhere and anytime with an air of “it is my right to do so.”  They quickly become irate when told to put away their cellphone.  This attitude comes from two cultural phenomena.  Today’s children have never known a world without cellphones, and, most have been raised with digital devices as pacifiers – parents provide devices to children to keep them happy and content – the 21st century “nuk.”

We replace the attitude of entitlement with an understanding of discrete time and place.  It is important for children to know there are times and places when a child must and should use a cellphone.  As we teach our children to exercise freedom and responsibility thinking to regulate their cellphone use, we must accentuate times and places where cellphone use is both necessary and warranted.

  • Calling 911 for an emergency.  No one should hesitate when health and safety are threatened.
  • Calling a parent for permission or guidance.  Children who follow parental restrictions need to seek parent permission or guidance when their daily activities contradict what they believe they are supposed to.
  • Capturing the moment.  Children know when something unusual is happening.  Using a cellphone camera or voice recording to make a record through a photo or sound recording is a wonderful use of cellphone technology.
  • Getting an answer.  As much as “Ask Siri” is an advertisement, it also is an active way of seeking information.  Googling is an accepted verb.  As an Internet device in your pocket or purse, a cellphone is an unbelievably wonderful tool for seeking information.
  • What’s happening?  News alerts help children to know the daily events of their world.  More than any generation of the past, children with cellphones can know local, state and world events as they unfold.  If they choose, children can know and study news and how it is reported on demand.
  • Finding yourself.  Mapping and location tracking apps help children to know exactly where they are.  “I am here” and “That is where I want to go” are easily displayed with keystrokes or voice commands.
  • Personal entertainment anywhere and anytime.  Music and video libraries stored on a cellphone provide children with their “go to” entertainment when they want it.

There are times when and places where a child should not use a cellphone.  Using freedom and responsibility thinking, we do not physically take cellphones away from children.  That is a losing strategy from the get-go.  Also, we do not make lists of times and places where cellphones should mot be used.  To do so, makes the list the argument.  Instead, we want the argument to be an intellectual, observational, reflective, and sensitive decision that the individual makes in certain times and places.  When freedom and responsibility thinking is at work, a child has the opportunity to consider if “this is a time when a cellphone must, can or should be used?  Is this a time when it is my decision to use a cellphone?  And, will use of my cellphone be a distraction or affront to people around me?”  The last condition demonstrates the sensitivity to time and place we want children to consider.

Freedom and responsibility thinking pertains to many things that people do in their daily living.  It is an essential way of thinking about how an individual can live well in the society of others.  Using freedom and responsibility thinking is a reasonable strategy for teaching children to prosper in their use of cellphone technology.

When Safe Is Impossible, Safer Is A Better Place To Be

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Safety is an illusive perception. When a person believes he is safe from danger, he remains vulnerable to the threat that he cannot conceive. When a person believes he is threatened by danger, while he is more sensitive to all potential threats, he is prisoner to each of the safety precautions constructed against every threat he can conceive. Yet, the danger lies in the threat that has not been conceived. Vulnerable and imprisoned is the current state of safety in our schools. If we cannot be safe, we must be safer.

We need to be honest when we deal with illusions. While no honest person would choose to do nothing in response to the murder taking place in and around school houses, no honest person should attach himself to “we must assure that this never happens again” action. There is no action that can be legislated by school boards, state houses or congresses that will assure that murder will never ever happen again. Never cannot be legislated. And, legislation, even responsive to tragic murder, remains political. Left to legislators, safety and school house safety, in particular, is a political action in the name of safety. Tragically, harm to people in school will happen again.

That said, we must work the margins of our illusions of how to make school houses safer. Safer is the operative word. Safer is the aggregate of our preventive and responsive measures. Safer includes actions to screen access to school property to prevent danger from entering and to issue tourniquet supplies to classrooms to be applied after injuries have occurred. Safer is rehearsing active shooter practices and advocating “see something – say something” procedures to address persons in of assistance before tragedy strikes. Safer is paying for a police presence in and around school houses to either dissuade a murderer or to assure that a school house attack is “death by school house attack.” Sad it is to even write that last sentence.

Safer is not placing school in a prison-bubble. Safer is not going Wild West and issuing guns to school staff. Safer is not metal screening every student entering the school house every morning, an hours-long process, or every parent visiting school, or every patron at a school event. Safer is not building impenetrable walls around school children – what will we do with school buses and on school field trips? Safer is not raising the imprisoning measures that morph a school house into a malfunctioning “safe” house.

Because we will never be capable of assuring school house murder never ever happens again, we must reasonably work to make school houses safer. Safer, when completely safe is impossible, is a better place to be.

There is No Teaching License for Mental Health

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As much as politicians and media want it to be otherwise, there is no teaching license, not expertise, that certifies teachers in the area of mental health. There is no major or minor in colleges of education for the certification of a mental health teacher. There is no student teaching preparation for the instruction of mental health. With the exception of a DPI-certified school psychologist, there is no faculty or staff member in a school who is remotely prepared to inquire into another person’s mental health. Any teacher, administrator or school staff member who engages as a professional in the treatment of mental health, acts are their own peril of practicing without a license.

That said, any person advocating that public schools must identify and attend to children who exhibit characteristics of mental illness is guilty of obfuscating the issues of mental health in our state and local communities. Mental illness is a serious problem that requires the attention of trained and expert practitioners in the mental health industry. Psychologists. Psychiatrists. Therapists. Clinicians. These are persons trained to engage with the afflictions of mental health. The 50,000-plus public school teachers in Wisconsin have a full-time professional commitment to educating children and are not substitutes for trained mental health practitioners.

Oh, you say there are not enough trained mental health professionals. Or, there are none in your community. Or, care from a mental health professional is expensive. These are facts and it is these facts that must be addressed. Politicians who want to make a difference in improving the mental health of their constituents need to act to fund the training of more mental health professionals. We observe political will to provide tax incentives, grants and forgivable loans to industry in the name of “jobs.” Mental health jobs warrant their action.

But, you continue, when children of poverty come to school hungry, schools provide free lunch. And, when parents are not at home to supervise children before or after school, schools provide activity programs. And, when children need pencils and school supplies or coats and hats, schools usually have resources that provide. These and more examples of how schools care for the needs of children are true, but they are far from the requirements of mental health.

Every time a governor or legislator or congressman publicly laments that failed mental health resources are the causation of a tragic event, I ask, “And, what have you done to assure adequately trained mental health professionals for your state or community?”

The problems of mental health will not be solved in schools or by school faculty and staff. We will support the work of mental health professionals just as we support children with their physician-prescribed medications during school hours. We will become “first responders” for children demonstrating mental health crisis just as we are first responders of child abuse. These are positive and appropriate roles for educators.

While I grieve for every victim of a crime perpetrated by a person suffering with a mental problem. I shall not tag a local public school with a responsibility for the too often uttered lamentation, “We must assure that this never happens again.”

Instead, I shall promote the responsibility of state and county government to provide the services of trained mental health professionals in local public mental health clinics. Government provides for the defense of the accused through the legal services of public defenders. In the same vein, government should provide publicly supported mental health services to the afflicted. Providing public assistance in front of the injurious actions of persons with mental health issues is more efficacious than using public resources to deal with their aftermath.

Look at External Data, But Work to Improve the Internal Data

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Baking bread is a matter of following a recipe. I pre-heat my oven stove to 450 degrees and place my Dutch oven on the middle rack. When the oven is heated, I place my properly mixed and raised dough in the Dutch oven and set the timer for 22 minutes when I will remove the lid and continue baking for 7 minutes until the crust is lightly browned and firm to the touch. Voila! A loaf of artisan bread. Until I take my first slice and find that the crumb is under-baked. It is dense and over moist. Why? I used the proper data of my recipe that to create both a good crust and a tasty crumb. What went wrong?

Last week I purchased a new oven thermometer for checking the interior temperature of a loaf of bread while the bread is baking. Yesterday I found that when all my external data adhere to the recipe’s data, the internal data, the temperature of the crumb, had not reached a degree where it will have that structured, soft, tasty, air-pocketed texture that my bread wants. My external data did not fit my internal data.

What did I learn? That sometimes the external data prescribed for the outcomes we want does not match the internal data that tells the real story of the outcomes we will receive.

So what? This concept is readily applied to other endeavors, especially education. In fact, the examination of external data and internal data fits our concerns for closing achievement gaps very well. As with my loaf of artisan bread and its perfect crust, larger picture achievement data may not stand a closer inspection of its underlying data. Or, to reverse the usual generalization about synergy, the sum of the parts may be less than the whole.

Many schools today apply scheduled and on-demand formative assessments of child learning. Locally these are Star Achievement Tests. Children take state assessments once each year to create a crust-like image of academic achievement in reading and math. Compared with state norms (recipes), we deduce the quality of education in a school from these external data. This approximates the crust of my unbaked loaf. Formative data, like Star tests, provide the internal data of a thermometer inserted into the loaf while it bakes. These data examine the underlying knowledge and skill sets and how they are being developed inside the school year, perhaps on a monthly or quarterly basis. These interior data look at each child, not a grade level or a school as whole, and provide a close-up status report. They also look at groups of children with common learning challenges to describe their learning.

https://hosted410.renlearn.com/291769/

Examination of skill set and content knowledge development at this incremental level informs us of the quality of a child’s ongoing learning. Can he or she respond accurately and properly to frequently asked micro-questioning? Does the child understand or is the child “parroting”? How well is our instructional design preparing each child for enduring learning versus doing daily assignments? How well is our teaching program using the ingredients of daily instruction to build the strongest of learning outcomes for every child? The emphasis of internal data analysis is every child. Where generalized external data may yield one conclusion through averaging data, examined internal data can yield different conclusions about the strength of each child’s learning.

Introspection not only informs us, but it begs the question – Now what? If the internal data is strong, keep on keeping on. If the internal data is weak, instructional design must change? It is the “now what” dilemma that challenges the need to close achievement gaps. How can teacher talent, teaching-learning engagement, and time be used differently to produce an improved outcome?

Of interest is the how well children fit into this instructional design: In PK-3 children learn to read and in grades 4 – 12 they read to learn. The latter is premised on the first and if children have not learned to read well enough, then reading to learn is a chronic problem for child and teacher. Generalized data often indicates that “as a grade level” children are meeting school goals for reading achievement. Introspection of the internal data may find that individuals or groups of children with specific learning challenges are not accurately described by “as a grade level.” What then?

These are “whats” that work.

  • Start looking at internal data in Pre-K.

Know the language and vocabulary and numeracy skills of each child entering Pre-K. Children come to school with a wide variance in their Birth to 4 experiences and some of these lead to achievement gaps. Schooling needs to level the field of the academically-based variances. Spend the time and resources of 4K and K screening to create PK academic status report for each child and then use the data of that report to design the child’s PK-3 teaching and learning sequence.

Share the results with parents. Be clear about the language and numeracy goals of K-3 learning, where their child begins in meeting those goals and how teachers will instruct to move their child to a “reading to learn” student by 4th grade. Make the parents part of the instructional program.

For children who begin with a deficit in language (vocabulary, phonics) development, send materials home on a regular basis. Make home visits. Share weekly vocabulary lists. Share phonics drills. Build each student’s temporary or permanent home library. The inexpensive cost of trade books given to parents to use at home is far less than the teacher costs for upper elementary grade tier 2 RTI interventions.

  • Intervene now – don’t wait to see if the gap persists.

Provide intensive work on oral vocabulary development in PK and K.  Children who enter PK recognizing 500 spoken words have an unbelievable disadvantage compared with children who enter knowing 5,000 spoken words.  Overteach spoken vocabulary for those with limited word recognition.  Be unrelenting in pushing vocabulary early if you want children to read-to-learn after grade 3.Be identical in overteaching for numeracy proficiency.  Require every student to master the goals of every math unit in 4K – grade 3.  The introduction of higher math foundational standards in primary education seems impossible for children who demonstrate difficulty with basic numeracy, but they are not impossible when their mastery is the only acceptable outcome.  Use frequent assessments to check language and numeracy growth.  Celebrate and reinforce frequently.  If your school uses an RTI model, attach student learning at Tier 1 and Tier 2.  Make the interventions at these tiers work.  Reserve Tier 3 for children with needs more severe than incomplete and mistaken learning.Achieving weekly or monthly goals is not enough.  Achieving reading and mathematics proficiency by the end of third grade is the only goal.

  •  Teach to eliminate what is wrong as well as teach what is correct.

Correct misunderstandings and mistakes when they first occur.  Repetition does not necessarily lead to perfection, but it does lead to constancy.  Don’t let K-3 children repeat what is not correct.

If a child mispronounces a word, correct it.  If a child uses a word incorrectly, correct the usage.  If a child keeping using the same word, require synonyms.  Push correctness hard.  If a child misses number sequences, is inaccurate in counting, makes mistakes in reciting math facts – correct every mistake every time.

Once a correction is made, reinforce the correction.  This takes time and it takes teacher persistence.  Often times, mistakes are rooted in a child’s out-of-school experiences and those influences cause a child to return to those mistakes.  Push corrections hard even after a correction has been made.

Looking backwards for children who are challenged with fractions and algebra, we too often find incomplete understanding of basic facts and operations.  A quadratic is a nightmare for a child who is not confident in basic math operations.

  • Close gaps by grade 3.

Make closed achievement gaps by grade 3 a district goal not just a grade level or school goal. Pile in all of the district resources needed to achieve grade PK-3 learning success for all children and you will find a cost savings in grade 7 – 12 that can be applied to enriching and advancing learning for all secondary students. Do the right work at the right time.

What is wrong with spending more money on the instruction of PK-3 children than is spent on any other grade level if it assures that all children have attained the same quality achievement levels, especially in ELA and math, by the end of grade 3? Not a thing is wrong with that expenditure.

Closing achievement gaps requires the use of internal data. Scheduled and on-demand formative assessment data points teaching at the specific learning needs of each child as well as affirming when children achieve the district’s 4K – grade 3 learning goals. Stick your assessment thermometer inside the body of learning to really understand how well the instructional program is working.

Multiple Literacies Required

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How literate are you? How literate should an educated person be in order to lead a full contemporary adult life? Literacy, the ability to read and write, is almost universal in the United States today. Although we quibble annually about the degree to which children are able to read and write, as indicated as proficiency on state tests, 89% of children in Wisconsin read and write well enough to graduate from high school. But, are they literate for a successful adult life?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

https://dpi.wi.gov/news/releases/2016/2015-graduation-rate-884-percent

The definition of literary expands, according to Merriam-Webster, from the ability to read and write to having a knowledge or competence about a subject. I prefer this definition because it adds context and consequence to the ability to read and write. Instead of a neutral measure of literacy, our working definition of literacy should be “the ability to read and write and create an understanding in a variety of media. The ability understand and create communicative language and to do something with that ability.” This is the “so what” measure of literacy. If you can read and write your native language, can you read and write other forms of communicating? Can you read and understand the the language of music? A non-native language? A computer language? Sign language? Does your ability to read and write provide you with an understanding of scientific topics? Societal issues? Economic and financial concerns? Can you read social and emotional communications? And, if you can do these things, can you do something with these abilities? Literacy, the ability to communicate effectively over 80+ years of post-high school adult life, requires more than the ability to read and write native language. Literacy, or multiple literacies, are required for prospering in our increasingly complex world.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literate#h1

An educated, or literate person using my new definition, is not necessarily an expert in a subject. To use a common overstatement, “We need to know just enough to be dangerous!” Dangerous as in knowing enough to learn more, to ask relevant questions, and to use what we know to solve problems. Just as reading and writing a native language does not assure that a school graduate can read complex, subject-rich texts with understanding, like a medical journal, being literate in a subject does provide that graduate with the competence to engage in further study and discussion of the subject. Using music as an example, if every child in an elementary school were proficient in reading and interpreting a musical score, that is sing it, play it, hum it, or tap it out, they would have the ability to engage with music throughout their lifetime. The music they hear or read for years to come becomes more than sounds – it is its own language, just as a story written in English. Without this literacy, a sheet of music might as well be written in Martian. Music education in our schools is gifted and talented education, if we do not assure that every child can read and understand the notes of music. Yet, most high school graduates cannot read music. Why do we settle for less that musical literacy?

Apply the same reasoning to technical communications. How many adults can program their own television or manipulate settings on their computer or tablet? How many can read or write a sentence of code?  Or, to a foreign language, especially Spanish is spoken by more than 45 million residents of the United States. Non-Spanish speakers are foreigners in many locales of their own country   Or, to the language of personal finances. How much of the daily economic or tax or interest rate trend news passes over the understanding of our high school graduates? Too many lose money everyday due to their financial illiteracy. Or, the language of science? Ask a friend to explain why the outdoor temps are well below zero in Wisconsin when the world is undergoing global warming. Illiteracy too often leads to a refusal to accept scientific facts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language_in_the_United_States

The same storyline should be applied to a child’s ability to read and understand social and emotional communications. While we encourage children to actively engage as individuals in all aspects of their schooling, most are illiterate in navigating the social network of children and adults. We do little to nothing in teaching children to read the emotional clues of their classmates, to understand signs of agreement and disagreement or feelings of support or intimidation. In the absence of pro-active social-emotional education, faculty and staff are entangled constantly in responding to and assuaging social-emotional crises. Some of which have led to tragic events of violence in schools. Further, we need to educate all faculty and staff in the understanding of social-emotional language so that they can be educators of this literacy. Then, we need to educate all children in the effective use and understanding of social-emotional language. There is an entire sub-industry of therapists working with young adults and adults who harbor injuries derived from our universal illiteracy in social-emotional communications.

K-12 education is a powerful tool for preparing children to enter their adulthood. K-12 is only a preparation, however. Continuing education is no longer a matter for professional or vocational certification or graduate studies. Lifelong learning is a necessity in a world in which information and informational literacy is the new currency for prosperity. And, lifelong learning requires every person to be multiply literate.