aha! Process, Inc. Blog

Last month I shared with you that aha! Process would be hosting a group of educators from the United Kingdom, specifically Reading, England, who had been selected to come to Texas to observe the American education system and some of our best practices, including aha! Process strategies and work. What an incredible week we had! We visited schools in Barbers Hill ISD, Pearland ISD, Huntsville ISD, and Spring Branch ISD (Valley Oaks Elementary). Each of the sites went “above and beyond” in their planning for these visits. Texas hospitality was at its finest!

We believe this is just the start of professional relationships with educators abroad. The visitors exchanged e-mails and made arrangements for students to become “e-mail pals” (if that is the appropriate term now). One teacher has already inquired about the possibility of an exchange with an educator from Reading. So many positive comments were heard throughout the week from the group, which included a literacy specialist, special educators, an inclusion teacher, general educators, a deputy head for early learning, an economics and business teacher, a music teacher, and a director for school improvement and inclusion.

Some of their “aha! moments” included outstanding instruction and high expectations, length of the school day, consistency among practices and procedures, relationships, commitment to every student and not giving up on a single student, facilities, and more. In addition, they were able to see aha! Process strategies like mental models, step sheets, and vocabulary development actually being used in classrooms, which will provide a new perspective as they train further on Ruby’s work.

American educators throughout the week expressed a desire to go to Reading to learn from these teachers. Isn’t it amazing what can happen when we open our doors to share with one another!

If you have questions or would like to know more, please e-mail me at dmagee@ahaprocess.com. A more complete article on the visit will appear in our March newsletter.

Soon to be released is Why Don’t They Just Get a Job? by Liane Phillips and Echo M. Garrett. Liane and her husband Dave have provided a self-supporting model for development of human capacity in the workplace. I met the Phillips a few years back. They told me at that time that the concepts in A Framework for Understanding Poverty and Bridges Out of Poverty had been used as resources to help them understand and provide the supports needed as they assisted in transitioning folks out of poverty.

These are some of the things I like about their model:

• No government funding is used
• The ability of the team to identify barriers to steady attendance at work, along with the creative and rapid ways in which they overcome their barriers
• Interventions for former gang members who wish to be successful at work and gain employment
• The nonprofit is operated in a very businesslike, no-nonsense manner
• Each person coming to the doors of Cincinnati Works is valued for his or her unique abilities
• They successfully place a high number of clients in jobs, especially among those from poverty and minority males

If your community is looking for another next step toward community sustainability, this replicable model is one that directly addresses the employment of those in generational poverty.

Click here to learn more and order Why Don’t They Just Get a Job? today!

-Ruby Payne

Data analysis has become a hot-button issue in public education since the advent of No Child Left Behind and standardized testing. Schools are focusing on data and how the data will lead to improved test scores and school success. Small group instruction, interventions, and focus on specific groups of students have proven to increase test scores. Using data to drive instruction, especially through interventions and focusing on individual groups or students, will increase performance, but educators cannot lose focus on providing quality instruction for all.
Quality education begins with quality instruction. If schools focus on providing quality classroom instruction for all students, this in itself will lead to increased student performance. Using quality classroom instruction across the board as the beginning point for increased performance, educators are providing the most important element of a quality education. From there, schools can use data to tweak and differentiate instruction for students who most need it. Educators need to remember that using data to drive interventions and to work with small groups of students is treating the symptoms. Training teachers to provide quality instruction across the board is treating the disease.
Data analysis and data-driven instruction is important, and it can be an important element of increasing student proficiency. However, focusing on quality instruction for all students will prevail as the key method of increasing a school’s performance level.

Over the past several months, I have been working with contacts from the United Kingdom to host a group of teachers who have been selected to come to the States to visit American schools. The purpose of their visit is to learn more about Dr. Payne’s work, as well as other best practices being implemented by the schools that will be hosting the teachers. The group is attending through the Teachers International Professional Development Programme, which is funded by the U.K. Department for Children, Schools, and Families.
Schools/districts that will be visited are all in the Houston area and include Barber Hills ISD, Pearland ISD, Huntsville ISD, and Valley Oaks Elementary School, which is in Spring Branch ISD. Dr. Payne will welcome the group to the States on February 15 and discuss the American education system and her work within it. We are honored that we have been selected to spend the week with this group of educators and colleagues from across the Atlantic. I’ll update you after the visit!

I almost always experience aha! moments when I hear Ruby Payne speak, and one of her comments at the Bridges National Conference in October was, for me, among the greatest ahas ever. During her session Ruby shared research (Farah et al., 2006) showing that although poverty has a detrimental effect on the development of some parts of the brain, “visual and spatial cognition did not differ significantly” among those raised in poverty and those reared in more affluent households.

Recently I shared this research when I introduced the concept of mental models during a Framework Day Two workshop. The value of mental models and their connection with cognition and student success were immediate and clear. I think this is a powerful research finding, which I’m so glad to add to my repertoire.

See:

Farah, M. J., Shera, D. M., Savage, J. H., Betancourt, L., Giannetta, J. M., Brodsky, N. L., … Hurt, H. (2006). Childhood poverty: Specific associations with neurocognitive development. Brain Research, 110(1), 166–174.

Last week Patti, a kindergarten teacher in the Menominee Indian School District, made my day by sharing a recent occurrence in her classroom: Patti taught both signs for the letter c—the soft and the hard c—to her students, wondering if the five-year olds would understand and remember the concept.  Later, during calendar time, she pointed out the word December.  One child raised his hand and said, “The c in December sounds like scissors slicing,” as he moved his left hand through the air while making the soft-c-sign.

Good work, Patti!

To see what the Bridges team in Dubuque, Iowa is doing, read the premier edition of their newsletter, available here.

Those of you who attended the Bridges and Circles Conference in Florence, Kentucky in October probably remember the team from Dubuque. They were not—and are not—shy. I had the pleasure of visiting them in mid-November.

One of my lasting memories of Dubuque will be the energetic and warm soul of the group. This was no doubt enhanced by the places in which we met: the dining room of Clarke Manor, where we ate dinner together the first night, and the Multicultural Family Center, where the Getting Ahead (GA) graduates were honored on the second evening.

The Cincinnati conference team of Alyssa Hauser, Ermina Soler, Janice Carddieth, and Jim Ott enjoyed a meal catered by Carroll Clark. Carroll is not only a wonderful cook; she is, with Jim Ott, a driving force behind the Bridges initiative in Dubuque.

We celebrated the success of the GA graduates at the Multicultural Family Center in downtown Dubuque. This new facility, paid for by the city, is modeled on the principles of Bill Strickland. The Clarian group in Indianapolis will remember Mr. Strickland from Pittsburgh. Some years ago we attended a luncheon where he was the featured speaker. Bill Strickland builds beautiful buildings that are utilized as learning centers in the poorest sections of our cities. See more at http://www.bidwell-training.org/. The Multicultural Family Center is upscale in every feature!

During the GA celebration, I was struck by who was in the room. There were people from all classes, all races, many sectors, and all political persuasions. Beside the many GA grads (several of whom are now facilitators) were a number of city and county leaders. Bridges enjoys the support of City Manager Michael Van Milligen; Dave Harris from the Housing and Community Development department; Dave Heiar, economic development director; and Nancy Van Milligen, the president and CEO of the Dubuque Foundation, to name just a few.

You’ll understand my enthusiasm for the Dubuque Bridges-Getting Ahead steering committee when you read the newsletter.

Thanks, Dubuque!

A college in California is developing a Center for Teaching Excellence that will feature a teacher training and professional development program for instructors, many of whom are from professional fields and for the first time entering the teaching profession. Their intent, of course, is to provide opportunities for professional development for all faculty and staff, regardless of their backgrounds.

One area of professional development they plan to address is lesson planning. Ruby Payne, author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty, has a lesson design.

*In the Payne Lesson Design the top rectangle reminds us to identify not only the concepts, but also the associated vocabulary that must be taught. In the second rectangle we explain why the content is essential and how it relates to the purpose, patterns, and structure of the discipline. We’re not teaching Shakespeare because all students need to read his plays, but we teach language arts in order to teach students to communicate effectively—this is the purpose of the discipline. Playwriting is one structure of the discipline—one vehicle by which humans communicate. Shakespeare’s plays contain good examples of patterns in drama, and we follow certain processes to discover these patterns. All of the above are in direct response to a particular standard.

The third rectangle describes not only the “how” for the teacher (lecture about playwrights, etc.), but also the “how” for the student (students will compare Shakespeare’s style with that of another playwright). The mental model rectangle reminds us to develop a nonlinguistic representation to make each component concrete for students who have trouble with abstract concepts. The proof identifies how we will prove that our students have learned the content. Rubrics are recommended for use as often as possible.

I consider the Payne model to be the Cadillac of lesson plan designs; student teachers who use the plan say that it helps them better see the big picture and feel totally prepared when they walk into the classroom. What experiences have you had with the Payne Lesson Design? What are your recommendations?

Ruby Payne opened the summit with a thought leader session on equity and student achievement in which she touched on the current research on our students (which included homelessness), out of school factors, brain research, and Generation Y characteristics. I was especially struck by the impact of stress on working memory. Short-term working memory is affected negatively and produces a whole set of physical responses. I liked her idea of giving learners three things to do right away—a routine to calm them down. I also wondered about ways to use metaphor stories with high school students.

-Bethanie Tucker

Ruby Payne opened up the second URL Summit with a key note entitled Practical Steps Toward Equity and Achievement for All.  Some of her keypoints include –

Out of School Factor that Affect Learning Opportunities for Children:  (Berliner, 2009)

• Low birth weight and non-genetic influences
• Inadequate medical, dental, and vision care
• Food insecurity
• Environmental pollutants
• Family relations and family stress
• Neighborhood characteristics

How do these characteristics affect students in your school/classroom?

What can you, as a teacher, do to help students who have these out of school factors?

Another study showed that the math and reading scores of the other students in the classroom decreased when a student in the class was experiencing domestic violence.  This is most likely due to the teacher spending a disproportionate amount of time disciplining the child.  How have you seen this evident in your school/classroom?   What can you do as a teacher/administrator to help decrease the disruption to the entire classroom and facilitate learning?

Which of these out of school factors do you see the most in your school/classroom?

What techniques/strategies have you found effective in working with students who have these out of school factors?

Ruby discussed using metaphor stories when dealing with students who are have many of these out of school factors or who are having other discipline issues.  Have you ever used this strategy with your students?   Do you have any situations do you foresee using the strategy for in the future?

-Alecia Chapman