Brave Knights and Heroic Courage

C.S. Lewis (far and away my favorite author) wrote, “Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”

I am currently reading, The Tales of King Arthur to my three sons, ages 4, 6, and 9.  They love the book, the illustrations, and the conversations that follow after each section we read.  Invariably we dive into some version of the conversation that follows after we have finished reading for the evening: “So, who is your favorite knight?” or, “Who is the bravest knight?” or, “If you could be any of the knights at the round table, which would you be and why?”  And the answers come flying back at me, “Tristram because he is the most courageous.” or, “Gawain, because he defeated the Green Knight with honesty.” or “Lancelot, because he is awesome!” (they had not gotten to end of the book when that comment was made by the way).  My heart sings at their enthusiasm for the book and at their engagement with the characters.  It also sings because they have not yet grabbed broomsticks out of the garage and tried bike-jousting:

Another reason my heart sings at the reading of these style of books with my boys is because it inspires them to believe the world is magical, mystical, and capable of inspiring awe.  Occasionally while driving the boys somewhere I will steer the car with only my knee and tell them I am using the force to move the car from one lane to the next.  I raise my hands above the steering wheel, wrench up my face in mock-effort, make a Skywalker-like grunt and drift the car over a lane using only my knee (yes, I check my blindspots and mirrors first).  That “magical” act of the force is always met with hoots and hollers and cries of, “Dad, that is amazing!  Do it again.”  But, I typically feign exhaustion and say I have used up all of my force-energy for the day.  Then, they go on revelling in the mystery of force for the remainder of the ride home.  And I ride home with a self-satisfied smile hoping I have encouraged them to dream deeply about the mysterious powers of the world and hoping one day it will either help them to face a difficult challenge, or inspire them to create and write about their own mysterious world.

I sometimes wonder if we are robbing today’s school children of knights, mystery, the force, and heroic courage.  Are we too results focused to allow for this kind of “distraction” in our curriculum?  I hope not.  We are charged with brightening the destiny of the children entrusted to us.  Not just helping them achieve a certain desirable score on a test, or some other cruel enemy that the world will throw at them.

The Truth Comes Out in the Laundry

“The truth comes out in the laundry.”  That is a phrase my wife said to one of my sons this past weekend.  I won’t get too much into the details, but apparently there was evidence that he was wearing one particular item of clothing a bit more often than perhaps would be recommended.  Those of you who are parents of boys probably know exactly what I mean.  They pick favorites and those favorites get worn threadbare.  Not exactly what one would call hygienic, but typical nonetheless.

The phrase did not stick with me in relation to laundry, though.  It stuck with me in regards to student assessment.  I know assessment is nothing but a four letter word to some educators (think about it).  But, like with laundry, the truth often comes out with it.  I know exactly how easy it is to get in the mindset of, “I lived up to my responsibility of teaching them, now they have to live up to their responsibility of learning it.”  Yes, there is responsibility on both sides of teaching and learning.  At the same time, it is also true that some (and maybe many) will not have demonstrated mastery by the end of a particular unit of study.  How will we know?  The four driving questions of a PLC are helpful here: what do our students need to know and/or be able to do?  How will we know when they have learned it?  How will we respond when they haven’t learned it?  How will we respond when they have?

Like my wife’s comment to my son about his laundry, quality assessments are grounded in feedback.  And that feedback is driven by assessment.  “Son, let’s talk about how often we should change our…”  To our students after an assessment it might be, “Isabella, let me watch you write this number in expanded form so I can see your thought process.”  Or, “Abby, let’s read this paragraph together and discuss its meaning and relationship to the main idea before we write about it.”  Consider the many ways we can do this below:

A balanced assessment system is grounded in feedback. #lccrc pic.twitter.com/zz1iRpaSOf

— Pete Helfers (@petehelfers) April 14, 2016

The truth comes out in the laundry.  And not all laundry (when speaking of student assessment laundry) has to be summative.  As a matter of fact, most of it shouldn’t be.  But, we can’t know there is a problem unless we are actually doing the laundry along the way.

Great Educators Celebrate

I recently had the privilege of traveling to Katy, TX for the What Great Educators Do Differently conference.  What a fabulous experience!  Not only did I have the chance to learn and grow with some of the best in the education field, but I also had the chance to interact with many fine people from Katy and around the world.

All weekend, attendees were challenged to think about their current practice and ask themselves (and each other) if what they were doing was simply good enough, or truly great.  

We were asked to overcome our fear of taking risks for the sake of inspiring our students:

If we are afraid to take risks, what kind of culture does that create with our students? @RafranzDavis #WGEDD pic.twitter.com/coD0SgJs0w

— Pete Helfers (@petehelfers) April 9, 2016

We were asked to challenge our grading practices:

Boy, do I remember doing that @pernilleripp #WGEDD pic.twitter.com/aJbQrKA3Xo

— Pete Helfers (@petehelfers) April 9, 2016

Our homework practices:

Examine homework practices and time spent talking in class instead of allowing Ss to work @pernilleripp #WGEDD pic.twitter.com/dMoenctXqm

— Pete Helfers (@petehelfers) April 9, 2016

We were asked to challenge that which we were calling true innovation:

Missed @Great_Educators in TX? Link to 1000+ image photo walk :) https://t.co/DpYbHGnOGl #katyisd #txeduchat #leadupchat #leadupkaty #wgedd

— c64KID INNOVATIONS (@c64kid) April 12, 2016

We were asked to tell our story (or risk someone else telling it for us):

In the absence of knowledge people make up their own @Joesanfelippofc #WGEDD pic.twitter.com/YipZ8fKjxj

— Pete Helfers (@petehelfers) April 9, 2016

And we were asked to seek forgiveness from our students others when we blow it in the above categories (or others):

If you ever mess it up when dealing with a kid go and ask for forgiveness. And be sincere about it @casas_jimmy #WGEDD

— Pete Helfers (@petehelfers) April 8, 2016

And that is just a small snapshot of a very small number of the highlights!  We also edcamped, collaborated, and challenged ourselves and others to think differently, act differently, and lead differently for the sake of students, teachers, administrators, and communities.  To say it was inspirational seems like an incredible understatement.

To continue to the learning, collaborating, and growing, I want to throw one more thought into the pool related to what great educators do differently than average, so so, or even good educators. Great educators celebrate.  This thought came to me on the plane ride home from Houston.  I settled into my seat, put my earbuds in, and was ready to checkout for the flight home.  However, because I was sitting close to the front galley, the movements of the flight attendants caught my eye around 30 minutes into the flight.  They were reaching for their phones, peering out the window, and taking pictures of the rather beautiful sunset.  It struck me that neither of the two flight attendants doing this looked like this was their first flight.  I would guess that they were both veterans by their composure and the way they conducted themselves on the job.  Surely this wasn’t the first sunset they had seen from 30,000 feet.  Why the pictures?  I think it is because it is in the nature of some of us to want to celebrate that which is beautiful.  It was a beautiful sunset after all, but one might think that flight attendants of all people would think such a sight as ordinary and that their treatment of it would also be ordinary.  I could almost picture the conversation: “Hey Sophie, did you see that sunset?”  “Yeah, I saw it.  Nice, but not as nice as yesterday’s” and off with the beverage cart Sophie would go.  But that is not how it went down.  They both stopped to marvel and to photo it before getting back to their work.

Average educators see spectacular things in students every day.  Many of them think things like, “Yeah, nice project, but you should have seen Susie’s last year.”  Great educators stop to celebrate all that is beautiful, marvelous, or spectacular in their classrooms every time they see it and then continue on with their work of helping every other child do their most beautiful, marvelous, or spectacular work.  And then go on celebrating that, too.

Comparing Whole Numbers

Earlier I wrote about using NWEA’s Conditional Growth Index as a way of measuring growth in a school district.  One of the reasons this is a good mathematical way to look at data is because it compares whole numbers that are less likely to be greatly affected by future norms changes.  I will use two examples from our own data to explain.

In the first sample containing real data from our school district, Column AQ indicates whether a student met “typical” growth as projected by NWEA.  Column AR indicates students’ Conditional Growth Index from the measurement period.  Note that in two of the instances a “yes” counts as exactly 0, meaning the projected and observed for both of these students was exactly the mean (0 CGI and 50th %ile).  Also note that for two students, their “no” counted for a positive 0.01 CGI and their growth was actually in the 51st percentile.  What this means is that, although the students grew less than projected, their peers with the same starting RIT and similar instructional days in between the measurement periods (tests) grew even less than what was projected.  So, in these cases a missed projected score counts as a positive value when looking at the CGI scores because the students actually grew more than the mean of the “pool” of their like peers.

In another real example from our data, two students had the same exact projected growth of 8 and the same exact observed growth of 8.  Yet, one student’s CGI counts as a negative value (-0.08) while the other’s counts as a positive value (0.07).  Why might this be?  

Let’s start with what exactly is being considered when stating what is “typical” and comparing it with what is “observed”.  When making a projection of what “typical” growth is, NWEA simply takes a student’s starting RIT, starting grade level, and number of instructional days in between measurement periods and puts all of those scores into a pool.  In order to make a projection they use past examples and say, “students who began this grade with this starting RIT in the past and had this many instructional days in between exams in the past experienced this much growth on average in the past.”  They then use that information to make projections of what might be typical of similar students in the future.

When calculating observed growth they simply subtract the starting RIT from the ending RIT and the difference is what is called “observed”.  However, with CGI they are calculating the observed as compared with the same pool of students as described above.  The ones in the same grade, with the same RIT, and a similar number of instructional days between measurements.  The result?  In the first instance where the projected and observed both equal 8, but the CGI is negative, what it means is that the “pool” grew more than projected at the beginning of the measurement period.  In this case, an observed of 8 is actually -0.08 of a standard deviation below the mean growth of this pool.  In other words, most kids in the pool grew more than the projected of 8.  The mean growth was a bit closer to 9, so this student did not observe as much growth as the mean.  In the second instance where a projected of 8 and an observed of 8 results in a positive CGI of 0.07, the pool actually grew less than what was projected so that “meeting” what was projected results in the growth being 0.07 of a standard deviation above the mean growth of the “pool”.

I hope this clarifies why one would see these types of values in their data and how to use it.  Comparing whole numbers when measuring growth makes sense.  And the CGI allows us to do what makes sense with the data.