Examples from Real Life

When I wrote about Reading Levels I explained that different children develop at different speeds and there is no one right level for a child to be on at a specific age or grade.  Now I work with children between the ages of 5 and 10 and see the reality of this every day.  Recently, I had my students make holiday cards for service men and women who would be over seas for the holidays. The results were both adorable and a good example of how children (even ones from similar backgrounds and educated by the same teachers) reach academic benchmarks at different times.

I selected a small collection of cards made by children from kindergarten to 3rd grade that demonstrate the different skills and levels children can be on, even when they are the same age or in the same class.

This card was made by one of my kindergarten students. I helped Megan spell "merry" and "Christmas" but didn't correct her formation of the letters or tell her which letters should be capitalized.  As you can see some of the letters are backwards and they vary a bit in size.  This is all pretty normal for kindergartners.  She did do a very good job writing in a straight line though; better then I would have at her age.

This card was made by another kindergartner.  He decided to interpret a holiday card for soldiers as a soldier card.  He also didn't want any help from teachers with spelling words, but decided to do some letters anyway.  As you can see the letters vary some in size and change between capitalized and lower case letters (pretty much based on his comfort level with writing the different letters).  The boy who made this card is best friends with Danniell, a 1st grader who made the next card.

Danniell didn't receive any help from teachers when making this card; the sentence structure, word choice, and spelling are all his own.  This shows he understands the form letters take, as well as basic spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  His only spelling mistake was "absolutley yors" which is pretty impressive.  Danniell is highly verbal, has an amazing memory, a love for science, and is self-motivated to learn new things. He hasn't had formal testing yet, but it's pretty easy to see he's in the gifted and talented range of academic abilities.  When talking with my teacher friends I often share stories about Danniell and call him my baby genius. (Last year he loved learning about weather and was very interested when we did a month long hurricane tracking project.  Months later he was the only students to retain the information about the general starting points for hurricanes during different times of the year.)

 Amanda, is one of my second graders and one of the less academically inclined of my students. Her penmanship is good for her age, she spelled everything correctly, and she reads within her grade range.  However, she isn't very interested in school or reading.  A lot of the children I work with enjoy reading and play school, Scrabble, and Banana-grams, or practice writing with the white boards, but Amanda doesn't find any of these things interesting.

Violet's in 3rd grade, or 3erd, as she spells it. She didn't receive any help from teachers and spelled "hollyday" the way it sounds, which if this was 300 years ago would have been academically acceptable.  Violet's a good example of an average 3rd grader.  She spells most words correctly, has legible hand writing, and just reached the point where she can read children's chapter books.  She doesn't mind reading or writing, but doesn't love it the way some of her peers do.

This last card is by Anna, another 3rd grader.  She didn't have any help from teachers and spelled "contrey" wrong, but like Violet she spelled it the way it sounds.  These types of misspellings are pretty standard for child in 3rd grade or beyond (unless they have ADHD, dyslexia or some other type of language based special need).  Her handwriting is a bit better then Violet's, and when it comes to reading she has a higher reading level, which is probably most related to her higher print-motivation.

I wish I had more examples from my older students, but they were less interested in completing this activity.  The school also starts tracking students in 4th grade and while my 4th graders have a range of interests, skills, and abilities the 5th grade students are all in the same levels and so are a less diverse example.

Education Comic

The Potential State of Libraries

Cities and states across the country are cutting their library budgets.  Currently the one getting the most media attention is Chicago.  Rham Emanuel's proposed 2012 budget would lay off 363 library employees and cut $11 million from the Chicago Public Library's current budget.  This would reduce the hours of operation for the city's libraries which provide necessary help to students, people searching for jobs, and run special programs that serve over 40,000 children per year.  The group protesting these cuts has a facebook page where you can get updates and offer support for their efforts.

But, as I said, Chicago isn't the only place with Library budget cuts.
Last year New York City Public Libraries lost over 200 employees, however they managed to block further budget cuts because of public support for the libraries and protests against the proposed budget cuts.
In Seattle budget cuts closed all branches of the public library for over a week.
Potential budget cuts of $2.5 million in Denver threaten to close half of the cities public libraries.
In Oakland, CA proposed cuts might result in 14 of the city's 18 public library branches being closed for good.
In attempts to keep open many libraries have had to find creative ways to raise money.

The American Library Association published their 2011 report on The State of America's Libraries.  They found that 65% of people use public libraries every year, 31% of adults and 38% of seniors rank public libraries as the top tax-supported service. 91% of people greatly value the educational and work related information provided at libraries.  93% of people believe libraries should be free.  However, in 2011 US City Mayors reported that cutting library hours, staff, and services was the second most popular way to enact budget cuts.

Public Libraries provide vital services to the community.  Besides housing millions of books for people to borrow or use as references for school work, libraries keep local city and town records of newspapers and politics for citizens to access.  They are often the only place that provides free internet access.  They have free community rooms of groups to use as meeting places.  They have specific resources for students and unemployed people looking for jobs.  Libraries have child services, and sometimes even provide short term child care during specific hours.  They can provide warm places for homeless people in winter and cooling zones during summer heat waves.

You can also visit this sarcastic (warning: uses swears) page for information about all the different things you can use the library for.  

A Child of the Library

Chorus:
I’m a Child of the Lib’ry, it made me who I am,
It taught me about freedom and the fellowship of Man
A sea of story waits for you behind the lib’ry door,
Don’t say we can’t afford them any more.

The Lib’ry’s where I made some friends I’ve known my whole life through
The Walkers and the Blacketts and the Pevensies so true.
Simp the canine cannonball, Galadriel the fair.
The daughter of a pirate king and Paddington the Bear

I’ve travelled South with Shackleton and all his gallant crew
And to the African interior that Mary Kingsley knew
I’ve rode the trackless prairie where the bison used to roam
An travelled round the Universe, not half an hour from home.

And as I grew the libr’y fed my curiosity,
All there for the asking. All of it for free.
It’s there I found the stories that I couldn’t find at home.
It’s where I learned I was myself and not my father’s clone.

So make friends with your library, don’t let it fade away.
Teach your kids the lib’ry’s where you go on Saturday.
Don’t let the bastards tell you they will cost to much to save
While they’re shovelling our taxes down the hole the bankers made

So make a stand for the lib’ry. Stand up while you can.
Stand up for your freedom. Stand for your fellow man.
Ignorance is never bliss, don’t close the lib’ry door.
For a lib’ry lost is lost forever more.

Lyrics © 2011 Piers and Gill Cawley
Music © 2011 Piers Cawley

Licenced under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA License.

Calvin and Hobbes - Testing

Spot on analysis of  the worth of testing the the first level of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Direct Action in the System of Education

First a video from NYC - Occupy the Department of Education

Maryland State Board of Education - Search for the new State Superintendent of Schools
Superintendent's dramatically shape the way education happens in schools.  They can support or suppress the Arts, focus on testing to the exclusion of other programs, support or end extended day programs, and so much more.  Maryland will soon hire a new State Superintendent, but first they're giving everyone a chance to voice what qualities they think the Superintendent should have.  People interested in directly participating in this can go online and complete the survey by November 18 2011, or attend a series of open forums held at 2:30 pm and again at 7pm at each of the following locations.

11/3 - Seneca Valley High School (Montgomery County) 19401 Crystal Rock Drive, Germantown, MD 20874

11/7 - Huntingtown High School (Calvert County) 4125 N Solomons Island Rd, Huntingtown, MD 20639

11/7 - Mountain Ridge High School (Allegany County) 100 Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick Lane, Frostburg, MD 21532

11/9 - Edgewood High School (Harford County) 215 Willoughby Beach Rd, Edgewood, MD 21040

11/10 - Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (Baltimore City) 1400 West Cold Spring Lane, Baltimore, MD 21209