Democracy in the Classroom

Because we believe in empowering kids, we give the students decision making power.  Every day during morning meeting, students have the opportunity to make a suggestion.  Once a suggestion has been made, the students have to come up with three reasons to accept the proposal.  They also have to come up with reasons to reject the proposal.  Once we've thought about these reasons on both sides, we have a vote.

This summer, students have voted to have some craft activities (melting beads, slime) and to change the way we line up when going to another activity (recess, lunch, gym, computer lab).  We've also seen kids settle disputes among themselves by voting.  "Let's vote!" is shouted whenever there is a decision to be made.  To be honest, "Let's do rock, paper, scissors!" is also shouted.  Sometimes we have to vote about whether to decide by vote or by the rock, paper, scissors game!  In any case, the students are enjoying the power of the vote.  Let's hope they hold on to that as they get older!

Students voting during morning meeting

Adding craft activities, deciding to join other classes on a field trip to the farmer's market, and having a daily line leader are all fairly easy decisions that the students have made.  However, during week three, we hit a major problem as students let their voices be heard about one of the bed rocks of the LEAP program -- Book Club.  During morning meeting, a student suggested we stop having Book Club -- the reason?  It's boring, we were told.  This happened as we had moved into longer chapter books and the kids were wishing they didn't have to read the same book day after day.  (Earlier books had been completed in one or two days.)  What to do?  We had told the students we valued what they had to say -- and they had a major critique.

In the end, we gave them a limit.  We needed to do something that encouraged their reading and writing.  We are here to improve literacy skills.  So that was a hard limit -- any suggestions they had about what we could do during Book Club would be taken seriously, as long as they promoted reading and/or writing.

Each child sat down and wrote me a letter suggesting improvements to Book Club and giving reasons that their suggestion would be good and would promote literacy.  Some kids asked that we leave Book Club as it is -- no changes!  It's fun as it is.  Other kids had suggestions about writing their own book or reading a book and then turning it into a play.  Fortunately, we have three teachers in the classroom, so we were able to make everyone happy.  Ms. Claire continued reading Junie B. Jones and that Meanie Jim's Birthday with the children who liked Book Club as it is.  Ms. Emily began to work with students who wanted to write their own graphic novel.  Last, a group of students worked with me to turn Stone Soup into a play.  They've taken the story and added their own ingredients -- including pizza, chocolate, and sweet coconut.

The cover of the graphic novel written by students

In the end, the students are more engaged because they are using their literacy skills the way they want to.  And they are still learning important literacy skills.  The two groups who created their own stories learned about the importance of a narrative arc and are writing their own unique ideas.

Perhaps even more important that the literacy skills that the children worked on, the value of hearing everyone's voices, negotiating for good solutions, giving reasons for their positions, and voting has become central to how the kids work through situations.  Here is one example: our trip to the Farmer's Market was delayed by rain.  When we went on the rescheduled day, some of the children had forgotten to bring money.  I had a small group -- four young men -- and gave each of them one dollar (which was all I had with me).  They bought some water (it was a hard day) and were down to two dollars when we reached the bakery booth.  Delicious, homemade cookies beckoned -- but they were four dollars for a package.  The kids huddled in front of the booth, discussed how they could pool their money and which treats they should buy.  One child didn't like chocolate, so they negotiated over whether to buy chocolate chip cookies (which only had small amounts of chocolate) or snickerdoodles.  They settled on the snickerdoodles, but were still in trouble, since they didn't have enough money for a full package of cookies.  The woman who ran the booth had overheard their discussion and was impressed by how they were working as a team, pooling their money, and trying to be fair to all -- so she sold them the four dollar package for two dollars!  I was so proud of how they had used democratic values to solve their problems -- and pleased that they got recognition for their efforts from someone outside the program.

Writing (and Reading) with purpose!

It’s our second week for the LEAP Program at Seymour Dual Language Academy and the kids are getting into the rhythm of our day. We integrate reading and writing for real purposes throughout the day so that kids will see that literacy matters.  

Students gather around Ms. Claire during breakfast.

Breakfast and Letter Writing

We begin the day with breakfast – a casual time during which friends reconnect. This is a time when children also write letters to one another and to their teachers, their parents, and others. (We had one child write a letter to the zoo after our field trip last week.)

A student mails a letter in our class mail box.  Later in the day, a democratically elected letter carrier (one of the kids!) will deliver the letters to their recipients.  Each letter is in an envelope, with a "stamp" in the upper right corner.  (We use stickers for stamps.)

Book Club

During book club, students read high quality trade paperbacks and discuss the stories and the writing done by the authors. When discussing Apt. 3, by Ezra Jack Keats, a student told me that he likes it when an author leaves it to the reader to figure out what is happening in a story or how a character is feeling, rather than just saying something. For example, when Sam lingers by Betsy’s door, this student figured out that Sam might have a crush on her – and he loved that Mr. Keats got that message across by describing Sam’s actions, rather than just saying, “Sam had a crush on Betsy.” Thinking this way about books will help our students be better writers themselves.

Students read Jaden Toussaint, the Greatest: The Search for Screen Time in a book club.  Students are given the choice of three different books and pick the story that interests them the most.

Problem-Solving

As I mentioned in the previous post, the students are also working on solving some pretty big problems: the problem of bullying and the problem of gun violence. Again, the students write with a real purpose and use the letter format to convey their ideas. Students in the gun violence group are writing drafts of letters to our Senators and Representative. One child details in his letter the impact of gun violence in his own life. Let’s hope our government officials will listen to this passionate young people!

A student poses with the beginning of his letter to Sen. Schumer, asking that AR-15s be banned.  Pride in their work makes us so happy!

And we're off! Week One of the Summer Program

It's a delight to be back at Seymour Dual Language Academy with a curious group of kids working on reading, writing, and changing the world.  Each morning we have Book Club where children choose what book they would like to read in small groups and discuss.  We've already read a pile of books -- including Ling and Ting: Not Exactly the Same by Grace Lin, Apt. 3 by Ezra Jack Keats, Three Stories You Can Read to Your Dog by Sarah Swan Miller, Abuela's Birthday by Jacqueline Jules, The Boy Who Didn't Believe in Spring by Lucille Clifton, and Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen.  But by far the most popular book was This is Black Panther from Marvel.  The kids jumped into their Book Club discussion, comparing the book to the movie and imagining themselves as super heroes.    And they are super heroes.  The children have picked two important problems in their community to tackle this summer: gun violence and bullying.  They spend the second half of the morning researching the causes of those problems and what solutions have already been tried.  As the summer continues, they will develop their own solutions to those problems and work to get their solutions enacted.  Stay tuned for details as their work progresses! In addition to their work in Book Club and Problem Solving, the children are working to create a democracy in the classroom.  During Morning Meeting, they take turns being chair person, and facilitate discussions about future plans for the program.  So far, they have voted to use some time last Friday to make clay projects (they had a blast! – Pictures to come in the next blog post.)  They also voted that they will line themselves up alphabetically when they go out to recess or to lunch, each day moving the leader from the previous day to the end of the line.  They work for fairness in their decisions. There is so much going on in the classroom that I didn’t have time to take a lot of pictures.  I did get pictures when we went to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo on Wednesday.  These are amazing kids, learning and growing in a hundred ways!  Here they are learning about the reticulated python.

Keeping it Real!

Working out is important
-- but it isn't the end goal!

Children do a lot of writing in school -- they fill out worksheets, answer reading comprehension questions, practice their spelling words.  Writing like this is similar to working out in a gym -- running in place on a treadmill, lifting heavy objects just to put them down again, etc.  These are not activities you would do in real life -- but they prepare you for the real activities.  When I go to the gym, my real goal is not to be able to walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes.  My goal is to be able to walk the four flights of stairs to my office without huffing and puffing.  In the same way, when children write out their spelling words, the real goal isn't to learn to spell hundreds and hundreds of words on a list.  The goal is to be able to write letters to friends or to write out plans for a new business or to express feelings in a poem.  Reading and writing are ultimately about communication -- I am talking to you, now, with words I wrote yesterday or the day before.  I can reach out across time and space and connect with you because we both know how to read and write.


Just like the athlete who works out in the gym, however, we do need to practice.  Children need to learn grammar and spelling.  These are important tools that they work on throughout the school year. The trick is to not lose sight of the real goal while you're practicing.  When Literacy Empowers All People works with children over the summer, that is what we do.  With the freedom that summer provides us (no testing! no homework!), we are able to focus on writing for real.  We avoid having children write something that is not part of communication between one person and another.  When they work on reading comprehension, their goal is to explain what they read to other children in the class who read a different book.  When they write essays, it is to share with us the problems they would like to solve in their communities.  And, at the end of the program, they present, in writing, carefully researched solutions to those problems to people who can implement them.  Our students have written to mayors and state legislators -- even to the President of the United States.  They have presented their ideas to their principal -- and have seen them enacted. 

Here at LEAP we believe that focusing on the real purposes of reading and writing will help out students improve much faster than drilling them on spelling or grammar would.  This summer, we will be measuring how much the children improve as well as taking the authenticity (or "realness") of the reading and writing they do each day.  Our expectation is that children who participate in more authentic literacy tasks will improve even more than those who have less authentic literacy instruction.  This is exciting research that will guide how we work with our amazing kids in the future.  Doing this research, however, costs money -- we have a lot of books and pens and pencils to buy.  We need to have teachers who have time to work closely with each student (we have a 1:5 student/teacher ratio).  I hope you'll help us reach our goals by supporting LEAP.  You can make your tax deductible contribution here.

Saving the World -- One Problem at a Time!

Happy kids (and teachers) learning about tigers at

the zoo. (We got to pet a real tiger pelt!)

This summer's LEAP program has drawn to a close and it is with heavy hearts that we bid our students goodbye.  It's been a wonderful summer with trips to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo (with much excitement about the size of elephant's poop!) and the Museum of Science and Technology (where we climbed a rock wall and Ms. Jasmine and Ms. Lauren bravely crawled through a rather small cave).

The kids had been reading Keena Ford and the Field Trip Mix-Up, but fortunately, we had none of Keena's hijinks on our trips.

The kids meet some friendly rescue dogs and the

friendly Ms. Schaefer from the SPCA.

They also enjoyed a visit from Dee Schaefer of the SPCA, who explained how we can help dogs that have been abused.

The heart of the LEAP program is empowering the children to respond to a problem they have identified in their community.  One group was working on ending dog abuse and learned that pets are currently treated like livestock under NY law -- and basic shelter and food is all that is required.  Ms. Schaefer wanted to see pet abuse moved into the penal code, so that it would be a crime to treat a dog cruelly.  The children in the group composed letters to their legislators requesting stronger penalties for dog abuse and mandatory training for pet owners.

Another group worked to improve the health of Seymour students by including swim lessons as part of the school's curriculum.  After researching the many benefits of swimming (did you know that swimming helps your brain to grow?), they made a presentation to the school's Vice Principal and summarized their findings in a letter.

A third group wants to end smoking in New York and have requested that the legal age to smoke be raised to 45.  (I chuckled at their logic -- 45 seemed so old to them that smoking would make no difference to longevity for such ancient people!)  They did think carefully about the problem, pointing out the dangers of second-hand smoke.  They were sensitive to the effect of such a law on retailers -- adding that the cost of a pack of cigarettes should be doubled, in order to give retailers some time to adjust to the change without a significant loss of income.  They addressed their concerns -- and their letters -- to our mayor and their local Common Council member.

Proud LEAPers and their teacher, Ms. MacKenzie, present

the bully box to Mr. Polera.

The last group chose bullying as the problem to solve -- and it was one of the largest groups.  Their first suggestion was to make posters to put up around the school -- but there were already plenty of posters up in the school.  After a meeting with Vice Principal Steve Polera, they devised a new plan -- an anonymous way to report that someone is bullying.  They designed a box, covered with facts about bullying, and made a presentation to the Mr. Polera.  It is sad to know that reports were made before the end of summer school -- but also promising to think that the system has a chance to address bullying at Seymour.

We'll keep you updated on the results of these students taking up the power that reading and writing makes possible and becoming active citizens in their community!

Writing with SWAG

LEAP is up and running and we're having a blast with our group of 23 students at Seymour Dual Language Academy.  Kids are already hard at work solving problems in their community from abuse of dogs to smoking.  But today began on a discouraging note.  Our field trip to the zoo had to be postponed because of thunderstorms.

Our fall back plan was to watch a zoo-themed movie, and for a while the kids were settled on the big, multi-colored carpet, watching Zootopia.  But first one, and then more kids walked away from the show and -- entirely on their own -- started writing at their tables.  We've been teaching them to write with SWAG by making sure each sentence:

• Starts with a capital letter
• is Written neatly
• has A space between each word, and
• uses Given punctuation (a period, question mark, or exclamation point).

The kids started writing each word on separate index cards (so they could be sure to leave a space between each word), then taped the words together to form a sentence.  And what great sentences they wrote!  We handed out markers and helped students sound out words, but the work was all their own. Here's a sample of their sentences:

"My Mom and Dad are cool because they love me."

"I love my Mom and my Dad and my brother."

"I love my teachers."

and "I love summer school."

Some of the students started taping their long strips of words into crowns.  

Gotta love kids, who on a rainy day, with a cancelled field trip, decide they'll work on building sentences!

If you'd like to support these awesome kids -- you can donate here.

Is the Public Service Leadership Academy at Fowler the Answer to a Neighborhood's Troubles?

On June 25^th, the last graduating class from Fowler High School will walk the stage.  As these last 149 students’ names are called, Fowler High School’s story will end – but a new story is already beginning at the Public Service Leadership Academy at Fowler (PSLA), the Career and Technical Education school that is now housed in Fowler’s renovated space.  Whether this new story will be a happy one is yet to be determined.

Fowler High School struggled with inadequate facilities and low graduation rates.  In a recent Syracuse.com article, Julie McMahon detailed the troubled history of Fowler – poor construction leading to raw sewage seeping into the school, persistently poor test scores, and violent flare-ups.  However, McMahon also makes clear that the neighborhood school is situated in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country and serves a particularly stressed community – people from oppressed racial backgrounds, immigrants, refugees.  (In fact, both the valedictorian and the salutatorian of this year’s graduating class came to the United States from refugee camps in Thailand.)  McMahon quotes ***** that Fowler was “set up from the giddy-up,” poorly resourced to meet the needs of a challenging population.  People in the neighborhood found the school to be a sanctuary – with teachers who cared and who understood what it meant to live on the West Side.  With low graduation rates, it’s clear that most of Fowler’s students did not find success – but many did.  There are always stories of hard work and perserverance, even in the most difficult circumstances.  In the end, however, the No Child Left Behind law requires that consistently failing schools be “restructured” – and thus, Fowler became PSLA.

What has changed in the restructuring?  First, the renovation of the school has added windows and, with them, light -- the space is more cheerful than in the past.  A towering library and the transformation of the factory-like old building demonstrate real improvements.  There is a new principal and administrative staff, and a totally new curriculum.  The school is focused on CTE programs -- with 11 choices, focused on public service.  They are:

• Cosmetology/Barbering
• Electrical trades
• Computer forensics
• Cybersecurity
• Geospatial intelligence
• Drone technology
• Law enforcement
• Emergency medical technician
• Forensic science
• Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps

While school officials say that the curriculum will help students become college or career ready, the emphasis is on careers.  If you examine the curriculum, you will see that students are held to the same Common Core State Standards for literacy, math, and science as students in traditional high school programs.  PSLA at Fowler students will take the regents exams.  There are partnerships in place with Onondaga Community College to continue students' education in some of the programs.  There are also partnerships with local employers to give students hands on experience in their chosen fields and prepare them for careers.  According to school officials, the goal is "for students to graduate with a clear sense of their next step in life, whether it's a job right out of school or higher education.  Students often graduate with credentials or certification to work in their chosen field."

There are a number of questions that can be raised about PSLA at Fowler.  First, this kind of practical training, integrated with academic skills in reading, writing, math, and science, is similar to LEAP's emphasis on problem-based instruction.  The education is concrete and leads to succes in a career.  These are worthy goals.  But, at the same time, encouraging these students to focus on careers, rather than college, is to underestimate their potential.  Not everyone wants to go to college or will find fulfillment there.  We need police officers, EMTs, barbers, etc.  But we should not decide in advance which children should go to college and which should go directly into careers.  As long as these students have a real option to choose their path -- and to puruse "a job right out of school or higher education," is the question.  Inadequate schools combined with inadequate nutrition combined with the stress of poverty can set children up for failure.  Is turning to a career focused academy just realism?  Or are we giving up on these kids, and deciding that they cannot go to college?  One commentator on Syracuse.com wrote: "it seems that a whole lot of the 'village' it takes to raise a child, failed them."  Does a new name, a new curriculum, and a renovated building address the issues that led to Fowler becoming a "failure factory"?  

What do you think about the new PSLA at Fowler?  Is this a step in the right direction?  Are there other steps we should be taking?  Or are you concerned that we are giving up these kids?  Please let us know what you're thinking in the comments below.