Spinning Plates

My blogging presence has been much less persistent in the past few months. In March, I completed the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards portfolio entry, and in April, I took the NB examination. When I began the process I kept wondering "what's so difficult?"

Isn't it just a record of the great teaching I'm all ready doing? Yes, but writing that record and gathering and organizing the documentation of what's happening in the classroom in accordance to the myriad and multiple questions that are posed to standardize the response make the process time-consuming.

It's estimated that 300 hours are spent in preparing the entries. That's two month's worth of forty-hour work weeks atop the thirty-five-hour professional day plus the twenty additional hours of homework. Okay, that leaves only sixty-eight hours per week for sleeping and four hours per week for everything else. Hmmm. Something had to give even though I spread the challenge over more than two months. Describing, analyzing, and reflecting on my practice seemed to take all my words. Ultimately, not just my blogging but also my students' needs suffered some from the process, but they are resilient; my future students' needs will be better served from my processing, questioning, rethinking, and affirming my teaching practice. Time-it-takes is frequently the downside of many worthwhile educational endeavors. So start early and get on with it.

If I had not started in by October, I would not have made it. In November I planned my units, then, in December I completed Entry 4, January Entry 3, February Entry 1, and March Entry 2, and general organization.

Another tremendous help is having a support group of NB coaches. I can't thank them enough nor recommend anyone to find a NB coach enough. It will be a long wait of six months till I learn my scores for the scores, but I know I have fared much better having worked with the folks from the Duquesne University cohort. The definitely helped prepare me with a ten-week introductory course on NBPTS, even before I decided to become a candidate. The cohort's facilitation of state and national funding, moral support, and logistical guidance I found essential, but my coaches' review of written commentaries kept me on track. "Have you answered ALL of the questions?" Best get on with it.

Like all standardized products one of the greatest challenges stems from framing authentic practice is in constraints of artifice. It was a constant struggle--"Who writes this way?" National Board candidates do, best get on with it.

Fortunately, with all of the moving parts to this portfolio, its instructions are available on a hyperlinked CDRom, and the testing centers give you downloadable practice to ease the orientation to the test. These helped a lot, as did Jerry Parks book So You Want to Be a National Board Certified Teacher?. It's packed with helpful lists, not bogged down on theory and details--you get those in the incredibly well-written Standards themselves.

All in all, I was amazed at the number of plates I had to spin between five core principles, sixteen standards, six of the English Language Arts strands, multiple videotaping sessions, and documenting student work. Then formatting, organizing, and responding to dozens of questions about descriptions, analysis, and reflection, all made for a Herculean task. It's not for the faint of heart, nor for the thin-skinned, nor for the egotist, nor for those with inferiority complexes--but, then again, what in education is? Best get on with it.


Image credit: Theremina. Detail of "Spinning Plates." 6 Sep. 2007. Flickr. Used by permission granted through Creative Commons License for attribution, non-commercial use.

Teaching and Self-Loathing

Entry #2 from a periodic series on National Board Certification

For all the buzz of past decades on self-esteem for students, teachers could use a boost. When I got to my second installment of NBPTS pre-candidate classes, I was nearly stymied to find that cancelling the program was a real possibility. Why? Lack of funding? No. Lack of teacher interest in taking the challenge of becoming National Board Certified.

I was crushed. I had tried to get into last year's class to find I was too late. Now that I was in, was I going to be denied the chance because no one else wanted to?

Fortunately, the happy few of us that showed up were able to commit, cross our hearts and hope to die, and convince the leaders to hang in there with us.

But this got me to thinking why? Why aren't teachers clamoring to become Board Certified? With the promise of state funding, money can't be the excuse? Time? Sure, time is always precious for good teachers. Yet, I think it has to do with fear of not measuring up and low self-esteem.

Teachers have so many nay-sayers to their talents. Media, administrators, parents, even students' criticism can get a teacher down. (Why this week alone, I was obliquely called a "goat," " a fool," and "cruel" by students.) So, of course, why would they want a National Board to give 'em one more hit? It's easy to see their view.

Ironically, that's exactly the opposite of the NBPTS's intent. It's to take account and certify all of "what teachers should know and be able to do." It's portfolio assignments and assessments are aimed at acknowledging the great things teachers who become candidates already are doing well.

Our National Board advisor tells me we are thirty years away from when National Board Certification will have established itself as the hallmark of educators' professionalism. Maybe by then teachers will be less fearful and more proud.

Midway in My Career

Entry #1 from a periodic series on National Board Certification

I've decided to record some of my reflections on a process toward National Board Certification for Teaching. I considered starting a separate blog for this, but have decided to have it be part of If Bees Are Few, color code it blue and tag it "National Board." In this way, perhaps it will show how the process integrates with other aspects of my reveries.

This is my seventeenth year in the classroom as a career. Sixteen down and sixteen to go, God-willing. I'm not sure I'll stop teaching then, but I'll probably retire from the public school system as I reach 60. Thus, if all goes well, this is my hump year.
This week I "celebrated" by beginning pre-candidate classes for becoming a National Board Certified Teacher from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The first step was printing nearly 400 pages of standards and portfolio requirements and the panic of "what am I getting myself into? I'm an award-winning teacher, lead of my department, consultant . . . why do I want to be board certification?"
Well, I love teaching and I express my love through the quality of my teaching. I also like reflective practice. So this seems like an arena in which I can heighten my reflection, challenge myself, and improve the quality of what I love and do well. So binder in hand I head off, a bit daunted by the work ahead I know it represents.
Locally, Duquesne University is a host center for NBCT/NBPTS. At our first meeting which previewed the foundation and five core propositions, I was reassured to find out that "Standards" for our profession are much more authentic than "standards and standardized testing" that is been limiting education's scope, creativity, relevancy, rigor, and ways we assess students. Here they are:

Policy Statement: What Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do
1. Teachers are Committed to Students and Learning.
2. Teachers Know the Subjects They Teach and How to Teach Those Subjects to
Students.
3. Teachers are Responsible for Managing and Monitoring Student
Learning.
4. Teachers Think Systematically about Their Practice and Learn from
Experience.
5. Teachers are Members of Learning Communities.

Moreover, I was reassured by the level of inquiry I sense in a half a dozen fellow teachers in our class. What we lack in numbers, we will make up for in quality. After three hours of working with them and our experienced and enthusiastic leaders, I may not have yet have a clear idea of "what I'm getting into," but I'm more confident I want to "get into it." What an incredible boost to one's motivation to have the time and space and structure and interest with colleagues to talk about "what teachers should know and be able to do." I left heartened that the NBCT process will be an exhausting but energizing experience. Sort of like teaching itself.