Laura K Spencer, Ed.D.

Tag: laura spencer

  • Learning to Drive

    Jordan in her carMy daughter got her driver’s permit, and now the state of California has entrusted me to teach her the rules of the road. (I truly think they should make adults pass a test showing that we are qualified for this important role!)

    When she first started driving, she was extremely nervous and unsure of herself. Who wouldn’t be? Her knowledge of how to handle a 4,000 pound vehicle was limited to the reading she had completed in an online permit class and two hours behind the wheel with a certified instructor.

    Our first time driving was around and around (and around and around) a parking lot at the local community college. It was a Saturday, and the lot was remarkably empty. There she learned how her car responded to steering and brakes. She practiced coming to a complete stop and signaling her intentions. When she was confident, we drove around the campus a few times so that she could practice adjusting speed and navigating turns. And then it was time to hit the streets.

    Not even a block away from campus, driving through a quiet neighborhood, a BMW appeared behind us. Impatient with my daughter’s driving, he immediately started tailgating her and honking his horn. Her anxiety rose exponentially, and I could see every bit of confidence drained from her face. As soon as was possible, she pulled off the road. He honked as he passed, and she refused to keep driving.

    A few weeks later, I ordered a magnetic bumper sticker from Amazon that read, “Please Be Patient Student Driver” . As she continued to learn how to drive, there were plenty of opportunities for people to be angry or frustrated with her. Her ability to maintain a consistent speed was sketchy, and she was painfully slow coming out of a turn. But remarkably, nobody honked at her. Nobody tailgated or cut her off.  They gave her space to learn. They slowed down and let her over when she signaled. And they smiled when they drove by. I’m sure they were just as eager to get to their destination as the BMW driver, but they didn’t show it. And her driving improved. And continues to improve.

    It makes me wonder, what signs would our students wear if they could design their own? Would they ask for more patience because of a rough night at home? Would their sign acknowledge a struggle with reading? Or ask for more encouragement during independent work time? Our students may not be wearing signs, but we do know that they all need our patience and support and love as they learn to navigate their own roads.

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  • The Next Chapter

    The other day, my boyfriend told me he didn’t know what to buy me for Christmas, because I don’t have any hobbies. It made me stop and reflect because I always considered reading a hobby of mine. When I was little, my mom would punish me by sending me outside to play because I just wanted to read. I remember refusing to leave my room for days at a time because I was wrapped up in the Witching Hour series by Anne Rice, and then Imajica by Clive Barker and oh, the joy of holing up with every Neil Gaiman book! I remember crying during Harry Potter, and rooting for love to win in Jane Eyre, and adding quote after quote to my quote journals while reading Kierkegaard and Camus and Sartre and Hesse. My professional spirit grew with Daniel Pink, Sir Ken Robinson, Pat Lencioni, and Simon Sinek. I have always been in love with the ideas in books.

    I think that, somehow, as my career progressed and the daily demands increased, I got so wrapped up in “I have to read this”  to stay current or to sound smart that I stopped enjoying the love of reading just for the sake of loving reading. Sure, I’ve read, but I wasn’t becoming part of the books. They were something I needed to do before going to bed.  It had become a hole I didn’t realize I had.

    A book is a dream that you hold in your hands.

    And then today, I read a blog post called “100 Books” by Joe Mullikin. Joe describes his resolution to read 100 books in 2017 and the impact it had on him. One of the elements I appreciated in Joe’s blog is that his list of books was not just a list of professional books, but included thought-provoking fictional books as well. His list made me miss books – miss the way they fill my soul, fill my brain, and push me to think beyond myself.

    So I am committing to recapturing my love of reading in 2018. A book(ish) a week. A blend of fiction and professional learning. And I need your help. Please leave a comment with the one (or two) books that have shaped you as an individual. The book that made you sad when the end came. The book you wish you could buy for everyone you know.

    As I read, I’ll share with you my thoughts and titles. Hopefully my journey will inspire the work I do, the life I lead, and the children I raise.

    Let’s do this!

  • Finals = Lots of Homework = Stress = Sickness = Death, therefore Finals are Death

    My youngest daughter is a high school sophomore. She’s the type of student most teachers love – completes her work, answers the questions, conscientious about her grades. Compliant. And a perfectionist who demands more from herself than the world demands of her.

    Finals = lots of homework = stress = sickness = death, therefore finals are deathSo when she sends me snapchats like this one, it breaks my heart. This is not what education is supposed to be about, is it? Later that evening, while suffering a mild mental breakdown, she texted me. (Granted, I was only one room away, but the idea of walking away from her studies was too stressful for her.)

    How come teachers assign so much homework right before our finals as if they don’t know our other teachers are doing the same exact thing. It’s as if they think we are some miracle workers that don’t need sleep or socializing.

    My mental health is deteriorating and I feel PHYSICALLY sick just because of this overwhelming amount of work and hard test where they expect you to remember everything from August 15 which I doubt they could even remember clearly but they think is easy bc they’ve spent years upon years studying it.

    How is this fair to the students?

    Please explain this to me.

    Problem is, kiddo, I can’t explain it to you.

    In “Assessing Our Children to Death,” Steve Nelson, author of First Do No Harm: Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk explains:

    “There is a nearly perfect inverse correlation between the emphasis on metrics and the quality of learning in schools. More metrics mean less powerful learning. As reliance on this data (and the scores it measures) goes up, the real quality of learning experiences goes down. Children are real, flesh and blood, funny, eccentric, imaginative, irreverent, loving and sensitive human beings, not data points for arcane studies of “outcomes.”

    Yes, Jordan, you are definitely all of those things, and more!

    Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jay McTighe (quite a powerhouse of educational experts, by the way!), in Assessing Student Outcomes,  describe conventional assessments, such as Jordan’s final exams, as being narrow in focus since they only capture one moment in time. They explain that these assessment types are “generally incapable of revealing in any comprehensive way what students know and can do. Moreover, the conditions of such tests are often highly controlled. Students complete the work within inflexible time limits and have restricted access to resources and limited opportunities to make revisions. These kinds of tests also sacrifice authenticity, since they differ markedly from the ways in which people apply knowledge in the world outside of school. Despite these limitations, the results of such one-time measures are frequently used to make significant decisions, such as whether a student should be admitted to or excluded from special programs and what final grade a student will receive in a class.”

    Oh yes, grades. That would explain this text I received from Jordan:

    A text from Jordan asking how a weighted final will impact her math grade

    Well Jordan, all I can say is, hang in there! Last I checked, finals did not literally kill anyone. And as the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… or at least gets you a good grade in your class!

     

     

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  • Holidays Are For Families, Not Homework

    Today’s memory on my Facebook feed was an article I shared a few years ago. Since winter break is coming up, it’s a good time to share it again.

    The Tyranny of Homework: 20 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Assign Homework Over The Holidays

    No time to read a long article? Here’s the Cliffs Notes version:

    Stop assigning homework over vacations, and let students enjoy time with family and friends. And while they are enjoying time with family and friends, you do the same.

    The packets, the grading, the reading logs – those aren’t building lifelong memories, but baking cookies together, or going for a bike ride with friends, does.

    moreyouknow

  • Career Pathways at All Grades

    Career Pathways at All Grades

    On Wednesday, I had the privilege of attending the OC Career Pathways Showcase at the Marconi Automotive Museum. Who can turn down an opportunity to see vintage vehicles, talk to brilliant students, and listen to top executives from SpaceX and Virgin Orbit? Not me!

    I have to admit – the programs these students had access to, both in high school and community college (and a couple junior highs) was amazing. I kept thinking, “What would my adult life had looked like if I had been exposed to these hands-on STEM programs when I was 14 years old?” Students displayed projects completed in the areas of engineering; computer science; biotechnology; fabrication; robotics; and more. One student told me he had almost completed his private pilot’s license. Another discussed designing a robotic, prosthetic arm for a peer. Community College partners displayed their pathways to degrees and technical certificates within those fields, and their internship opportunities for the students present.

    During this showcase, Gwynne Shotwell, COO and President of SpaceX, along with Tim Buzza, Vice President of Launch for Virgin Orbit, discussed their career pathways. Gwynne stressed the importance of project-based learning so that students “apply what they learn” and Tim shared the moment he switched from being concerned more about his grades in college to focusing on mastering the content being taught. When a student asked them both about how they deal with failure, Gwynne pointed out that people tend to learn more from failure than success, because it requires adaptation and another attempt. Tim expanded on that, reminding students that “failure means you put yourself out there more than most people would” and should not be a sign of defeat.

    In this entire conversation, however, I realized that one voice was missing, and that was the voice of the elementary student. If we are to truly prepare students for the opportunities these students are accessing, we need to start from day one in kindergarten. Here’s why:

    Linda Gottfredson (2002) describes how career choice in young people develops through a process of circumscription and compromise. During circumscription, which begins at ages 3-5, students rule out unacceptable options based on their perceived fit with the child’s self-concept. Between ages 3-5, children understand that adults have roles in the world, and that they, too, will one day have a role. By age 8, children start to assign job roles to particular sexes. If a job doesn’t align with their gender, it becomes unacceptable. By age 13, children have seen more job types and start to categorize them by income, education level, lifestyle, etc. in addition to sex type. They may exclude jobs that require a lot of education because they don’t have college role models in their family, or they may portray a job as being too much manual labor. Starting at age 14, children begin the conscious process of choosing jobs that align with their interests and perceived abilities.

    After excluding so many options during the circumscription stage, children then being compromising, which involves “sacrificing roles they see as more compatible with their self-concept in favour of those that are perceived to be more easily accessible” (Winter, nd). Their lack of knowledge about the job, their abilities, and the future of the field begins to compromise their career choices.

    Crazy to think this huge life decision… picking a career … starts to flesh itself out before a child even enters school. And for most, the decision is molded with no active modeling or involvement by adults until high school, if the child is lucky enough to have a pathway option, or upon graduation, when facing the daunting prospect of self reliance.

    So what can we do to open those doors that students may be subconsciously closing at such an early age? How do we bring elementary education to the table with secondary and post-secondary education so that these amazing experiences aren’t limited to only some students? In our district, we’re bridging that divide through design thinking challenges that include industry experts; field trips that focus on the world of work community; and time for students to explore passion projects and Genius Hour. I’m hopeful that we’ll soon incorporate Gallop strengths-finder tools and local mentorships as well, both with community industry leaders and high school pathways programs. What are you doing?

    Article References:

    Circumscription and Compromise by The Careers Group

    Gottfredson, L.S. (2002). Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription, compromise, and self creation. In D. Brown (Ed.), Career Choice and
    Development (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 85–148.

  • Be More Dog!

    My daughter wrote a blog post about her observations and experiences while serving as the Social Media Director for SDCUE conference. In her post, she reflected on the lack of “teachers eager to keep learning and the ones who wanted to keep up with the new technologies” when she was in school just a couple years ago. She questioned why teachers are “stuck in their ways” and why there aren’t more teachers like the ones at SDCUE who want to keep on learning.

     

    Maybe it’s because those “stuck” (her word, not mine) teachers need to be more dog. You see, dogs are amazed by EVERYthing. A snack is amazing. The UPS driver is amazing. Even a chewed up ball that smells like mud and lost its shape is amazing. They live for the moment, and they aren’t afraid to fail.

    So how can we build the confidence and excitement of our teachers that have not yet channeled their inner dog? What chew toy, adventure, or treat will make them as excited as a dog? Do teachers need more time to connect with teachers that are already being more dog? Do they need more professional development on how to be a dog? Are teachers being asked to be more dog while living in a cat house? How do we fix this?

    Culture. We talk about it in terms of the behaviors of a group, such as school culture. But when you look at its Latin root, it means growing, or cultivation. We grow a culture based on our behaviors and beliefs. In education, bogged down by bureaucracy and budget shortfalls and high stakes testing and (whatever else you want to insert here) we have cultivated a culture of … cats. Of people who are tired of chasing the laser light around the room. It’s up to all of us to change that culture. To create more opportunities to be dog. After all, if we aren’t feeling awesome about what we’re doing, how is a student to ever feel awesome learning with us?

    If we could all just encourage each other to find moments of dog, we’ll work towards creating the experiences Alex kept searching and hoping for when she was in school. We can all chase the ball. Chew the toy. Grab the stick. We can all be more dog.

    Read more about the Be More Dog campaign (2013) and all the ways they inspired people to drop their cat-like ways and embrace the dog inside.