Welcome iEARN!

Consider this: On the same day in November, four classrooms of first grade children -- in Israel, the U.S., India, Nepal-- plant daffodils. For months, the students study the growth of their flowers, collecting and charting temperature data to learn about climate. In doing so, they also learn about the interconnectedness of the natural world and each other. Brilliant! This activity is called The Daffodil and Tulip Project. It is only one of over 150 global learning projects designed and facilitated by the teachers of iEARN.

iEARN(International Education and Resource Network) is the world's largest global network of teacher collaboration. With 40,000 teachers and over 2 million youth, iEARN uses project-based learning on the internet to connect classrooms from 130 countries.

All those teachers. All those classrooms. Just think about all that knowledge.

I am thrilled and honored to welcome the teachers of iEARN to join this project.

It's time for a pop quiz!

Question: What do the following pictures have in common? 

A. The Litter Kwitter - a kit to teach cats how to use the toilet

B. The Snuggie 

C. The Privacy Partition 

Answer: All these products were invented as solutions for daily problems. 

The problems may not be huge -- the Snuggie will never negotiate peace in the middle east -- and the solutions may not be for everybody -- the litter box works just fine for most cat owners-- but for some people, these inventions may make a valuable difference in daily life. In a classroom of young children, where a tiny problem easily becomes a tearful crisis, a tiny solution may keep the lesson running smoothly and make a big difference.

Consider the Privacy Partition above. In my first grade class, this little guy was a lifesaver.

In my first year of teaching, the weekly spelling quizzes were a nightmare. One student would shout that another student was cheating, then the two would argue about it, and while order was being restored, everyone else slyly cheated. I felt like a cop, the kids were anxious, and the same problems arose week after week.

In my second year, we made these "privacy shields" in the first week of school, at the end of the third day when the kids were falling apart with exhaustion. It was a simple activity, requiring only three manilla folders per child, glue, and markers. Each child kept one in his or her desk. The children were encouraged to use their "privacy shields" whenever they wanted private space or needed to shut out distractions.

Although intended only to improve spelling quizzes, the privacy shield solved a lot of other small problems. Those well-behaved quiet students who were seated next to energetic little noisemakers were able to pull out their privacy shields to create a barrier during seatwork -- without interrupting the teacher or the lesson. Those chronically distracted students who desperately wanted to focus were able to create an "office space" for themselves. Some children used them every day, others rarely took them out. The privacy shield became a solution children could access on their own, part of their "toolkit" for solving problems independently.

I am looking to gather solutions like this from you, dear reader. Think of a SkyMall catalog for teaching ideas. Every time I observe a teacher teach, I see more fascinating and inventive solutions. When teaching in Japan, I saw dozens. What little solutions have you seen in other classrooms, in other countries, in other learning cultures? 

The Difficulty of Asking the Right Question or Dear Terry Gross, Please Write My Questionnaire

First of all, thank you. Thanks to all the teachers who’ve answered my call to join this project, to all the friends and family who’ve sent their support, and to everyone who has said , “Hey, I would totally buy that book.” Your enthusiasm breathes new life into this project and makes me feel like I’m not just chopping down trees in an empty forest – I appreciate it immensely and am eager to share it with you all.  From the initial response, after 332 views, I have compiled a list of volunteers who have agreed to be interviewed to discuss their impressions and memories of teaching early grades in this country and other countries. Now that I’ve secured subjects (Phase One complete!), we turn to Phase Two -- the questionnaire and interview phase – and the dilemmas of asking the perfect question.

The Difficulty of Asking the Right Question

or

Dear Terry Gross, Please Write my Questionnaire

"I'm Terry Gross and this is Revital's questionnaire..."

In the same way that every science lesson with kindergarteners is a lesson in mortality, every research project I’ve done has been a lesson in methodology.  In other words, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and asked a lot of stupid questions.  (I’ve also killed a lot of mealworms and shriveled a lot of plants, and subsequently had a lot of discussions with young children about death – but we’ll save those stories for another blog.) My greatest fear in this next phase of my research is that I will squander the generosity of my subjects with stupid questions, like I’ve done before.

Now don’t start that whole “the only foolish question is the one not asked” thing. That rule only applies to math-related questions during a math lesson. There are many, many stupid questions:

“Wow, you’ve just come back from living in Tokyo for four years! How was it?”

“Honey, what did you learn in school today?”

“How does your cultural background impact your pedagogy?”

Last year I conducted research at an international school in Brooklyn, observing two teachers – one from France and one from Peru—teaching the same first grade curriculum. I was thrilled at the opportunity to interview them, to have a full dialogue about how their cultural background impacted their pedagogy... so I asked, “How does your cultural background impact your pedagogy?” And it failed. The teachers couldn’t answer my direct questions, downplayed the significance of their cultural background, insisted that their teaching was purely a “best practices” approach. My questions were too general because I didn’t want to “lead the witness”, too direct because I was trying to be clear, too boring.

Why did my direct questions fail? What kinds of questions allow people to truly and openly consider their answers? How can I construct a questionnaire that triggers a conversation?

Counter-intuitively, direct questions may actually impede the clarity of my subjects’ answers. If the human mind was like a computer – able to accurately index data and retrieve it in logical pathways – direct questions would be ideal. I could write a chapter about setting up classroom furniture by asking my subjects, “Tell me some interesting and unusual ways in which you’ve seen classroom furniture organized.” I could ask my friends targeted questions: “Stephanie, what did your first grade classroom in Zimbabwe look like?” and she would describe it, and I would record it. Easy peasy. Sadly, the human mind doesn’t work like that and the process of recalling experiences is much messier than simple retrieval.

As Antoinette Errante (2000) writes in “But Sometimes You’re Not Part of the Story: Oral Histories and Ways of Remembering and Telling”: “the remembering and telling are themselves events, not only descriptions of events”. The act of remembering triggers a complex series of alternate reactions – an internal pinball machine of omitting, editing, adjusting, considering our memories as we talk about them.

In order to ask people to remember specific things – if I want to get to the good stuff, the meaty parts – I have to find ways to access the memories that are further below the surface. I have to consider what forms people remember in: narrative, sensory, emotional. My goal is to ask a question that makes my subjects say, “That reminds me of a story”.

I am open to your thoughts and suggestions. I have a week. :)

Current Project - Get Involved!

Name of project - One World, Many Teachers: A Classroom Resource for Primary Teachers

Project topics - comparative pedagogy, teacher preparation, international teacher collaboration

Introduction - I have wanted to read this book since 2003 when I obtained my teaching credential, and have wanted to write this book since 2007 when I returned from teaching in Japan. I came to New York in 2009 --to Columbia University's Teachers College -- partly because I assumed that an intensive masters course in Comparative and International Education would be an education in comparative pedagogy, and would allow me to produce a book about international teaching methodologies for the primary classroom. And it has taken me years to realize that, no matter how much I prepare, I can’t do this alone. 

Please take a minute to read the following questions and answers, and if you or someone you know may be willing to volunteer, jump in and join me.

What is your project? 

I am writing a book for K-2 teachers who want to peek into K-2 classrooms around the world and learn how teachers in other countries are setting up their classroom furniture, organizing their daily routines, conducting morning and afternoon procedures, creating systems of discipline -- in other words, solving the daily problems of a working classroom. With concrete examples and teacher testimonials, the book will take a globally-minded approach to classroom design by offering fresh ideas from international classrooms. Some chapters may include:

• Organizing Your Classroom Space
• Planning Your Daily Schedule
• Discipline and Management Strategies That Work
• Morning Routines -- including in-take procedures and beginning-of-the-day activities
• Closing Routines -- including saying goodbye and end-of-the-day activities
• The Beginning and End of the School Year
• Building Classroom Community and Setting Expectations
• Using Equipment and Materials

Teachers make hundreds of decisions every day but the biggest decisions of all happen before the first day of school, when teachers must decide on their systems, routines, and procedures. Why reinvent the wheel when we have unprecedented access to generations of unfamiliar pedagogy?


What isn’t it?
This book is not an academic text, although it will draw on strong theoretical foundations in the field of comparative education to present its findings and refine its methodology. It will be written for practitioners -- a book to read over the summer while deciding how to do things differently this year.

This project is not about best practices, nor will it attempt to present a nation-specific method of teaching. The chapter on classroom discipline, for example, will not say, “This is how teachers in Ireland discipline students” but may say, “One teacher in Ireland finds this method effective”.

This book is not a guide, but a seed catalog. Sometimes a small idea can inspire big change.  


Why are you doing this?  
It’s personal, of course. To learn more about my personal reasons, click on the My Story tab.
Also, teachers today have access to an unprecedented amount of open information about education; through collaboration, personal interest, and a growing demand for global citizenship in schools, and are seeking out new models by learning from teachers in other countries. Inasmuch as teachers co-construct learning in their own classrooms, I see the potential for a teacher workforce, armed with a more global perspective and greater comparative knowledge, to co-construct the global education landscape. But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, let’s start with a questionnaire and a conversation.


Who are you looking for?
I am looking for teachers of young children --kindergarten, first, and second grades are ideal-- who have a comparative perspective. The teachers should fit one of the following descriptions:

• Currently teaching or previously taught K-2 in a country outside the U.S.
• Currently teaching K-2 in the U.S., but with teaching experience in another country
• Any experience teaching K-2 in multiple countries
• Trained as a teacher in a non-U.S. country

My goal is to find volunteers from as many different countries as possible, and all volunteers are invited to invite their international colleagues and friends. Volunteers will fill out a written questionnaire, submit a few photos, have two twenty minute Skype interviews, and possibly participate in a convenient focus group. That’s it. Easy as pie.

The confidentiality and time considerations of all volunteers will be honored.


Where is this happening?
All over the world, teachers are getting involved in online networks of international collaboration. Join the party, and step into the future of teacher education.

When is this happening?
Right now! Email me at rh2466@columbia.edu to get involved.

An Open Note to the Future Reader...

Imagine you are an American first grade teacher. 

You arrive early to your classroom every morning, take pride in your lessons, care for your students, and solve hundreds of small and not-so-small problems every day. You read the newspapers and blogs that bemoan the American school system and compare it unfavorably to schools in other countries, and you may agree with some of those concerns. Those articles talk about system-wide differences like national curriculum and funding allocations or cultural differences like work ethic and language homogeneity– all interesting and important stuff but quite outside the realm of your capacity to implement change in your own classroom. 

Of course, you are not a passive actor in the game of education. 

You make many decisions about teaching and learning in your classroom: how to best facilitate learning by organizing time and space, how to arrange your physical environment  and how to orchestrate movement through it, how to pace your day within the constraints of broader school scheduling, how to speak to your students, how to approach discipline in positive and sometimes negative ways, how to solve conflicts among children, how to transition from high energy recess time to focused learning time or from a messy art activity to differentiated reading instruction, how to greet your students and families in the morning and how to say goodbye at the end of the school day. You must make decisions about these things. So you pay attention to what works and revise accordingly, you ask colleagues, you buy books like “Classroom Management That Works” or “100 New Ideas for Morning Activities”.

If you saw a book about classroom organization around the world – a book full of unfamiliar ideas for solving those day-to-day problems over which teachers have control – you might use it, in the same way that you try new ideas from those spiral-bound, teacher-directed resource books. And by trying some of those ideas, you might solve some of your classroom problems and improve student learning. You might tell your first grade students, “We are going to try something that first-graders do in Japan” and see what happens. 

Your students are growing up into a future with unimaginable global opportunities, and as a teacher you are part of a professional network of educators who are facing the challenges and opportunities of teaching in this international future together. You don’t need more top-down mandates and you may not have the time and access to pore through academic journals; you need tools.

I am writing this book for us.