Responsive Classroom Calendar

• April 7, 2008: Registration begins for the Responsive Classroom Schools Conference.
• June - August, 2008: Week-long institutes are held in CA, IL, OK, MN, NJ, NY, PA, TN, VA, WI, New England, and Washington, DC. Dates & locations
  
• July 22-23, 2008: Responsive Classroom Schools Conference is held in Boston, MA. More info

Resource Review: Rethinking Schools

Review by Jay Lord, NEFC director of marketing

Rethinking Schools is an independent non-profit publisher of educational materials that was started in 1986 by a group of activist teachers in Milwaukee. All Rethinking Schools’ publications, including its quarterly magazine (also called Rethinking Schools), advocate powerfully for school reform and emphasize issues of equity and social justice. Rethinking Schools focuses primarily on public elementary and secondary schools in urban settings, but the topics and practicality of the materials make them provocative, juicy reading for all educators.

I have subscribed to Rethinking Schools magazine for years, but the Winter 2006 issue converted me from occasional reader to ardent fan. It contained two articles I could not put down: a critique of Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty and a story from two teachers who temporarily banned Legos® in their classroom.

Paul Gorski’s article about Ruby Payne, “Savage Unrealities,” explains in clear language that Payne’s hugely successful workshops and publications are built on a dangerous and faulty idea: She claims that impoverished people have behaviors and beliefs—a “mindset”—that prevents them from participating successfully in the middle class world of work and school. In other words, they cause their own problems. Payne encourages teachers to “fix” disadvantaged students by changing their mindset. Gorski criticizes this approach because it focuses on symptoms, rather than on societal causes of poverty—and because, he explains, it “draws on the most egregious and unsubstantiated stereotypes of socioeconomically disadvantaged people and people of color.”

I share Gorski’s concerns, and I am so glad that Rethinking Schools published this piece. I know how much appeal Payne’s approach has for many well meaning teachers. As I have tried to articulate my thoughts on this subject to others, I’ve been grateful to be able to refer them to this well written article.

I’ve shared “Why We Banned Legos” by Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin with many colleagues this past year as well. It’s an extraordinary story about thoughtful, intentional teaching and young children’s capacity for reflection and community-building. The authors describe how an ordinary classroom event—the building of a “Legotown” in a mixed-age afterschool program in Seattle—opened up discussion and deep learning about big issues such as ownership, power, and equity.

This article was the subject of a brief frenzy of media attention in 2006, when Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and others picked up on the title and ran with it. The Rethinking Schools editors’ response to this hubbub, published in the Summer 2006 issue, recaps the issues and defends their organization’s commitment to social justice teaching very eloquently.

All of these articles and many others are available at no cost on Rethinking Schools’ website: www.rethinkingschools.org. I hope you will read them for yourself. Reading Rethinking Schools raises critical and useful questions for me, helping frame my work with the Responsive Classroom approach and school reform. I hope it will do the same for you.

In the Field

Hyde Elementary’s Kathleen Sheehy is Washington, DC Teacher of 2008

Kathleen Sheehy, a first grade teacher at Anthony J. Hyde Elementary School in Washington, DC has been named 2008 State Teacher of the Year for the District of Columbia. She says she’s “excited about having the chance to spread the good work we’re doing at Hyde to other schools in the District.”

That good work includes a schoolwide commitment to the Responsive Classroom approach. Kathleen says, “We take the social curriculum very seriously at Hyde, and we believe it’s just as important as the academic curriculum. The work we do on social learning throughout the year builds the strong foundation that makes academic progress possible.”

Responsive Classroom Consulting Teacher Maureen Festi Named History Teacher of the Year

Maureen Festi, a fifth grade teacher at Stafford Elementary School in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, and a recently certified Responsive Classroom consulting teacher, was named the Preserve America National History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in November 2007. Maureen was selected for the national award after winning the state-level contest for Connecticut. She is the first elementary teacher to win either of these awards.

The History Teacher of the Year award is given annually to an exceptional educator who uses primary documents and local resources to teach American history in creative and innovative ways. Maureen’s application focused on a unit she’s developed about iron making and its role in Stafford during colonial times. Through lessons that integrate many academic subjects, she and her students study how iron is produced, take field trips to search for evidence of the colonial iron works in their town, and examine original documents for clues about the Stafford Iron Works’ role in the Revolutionary War.

Maureen credits the Responsive Classroom approach with helping her students develop many of the skills needed to do such original research successfully, including responsibility, cooperation, and confidence presenting before a group. At the award ceremony, after honorary chairperson of Preserve America Laura Bush made her speech, two former students of Maureen’s presented their own speeches to an audience of over two hundred people. Maureen proudly recalls that “listening to their speeches was one of the most memorable moments of the whole experience.”

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Responsive Classroom® Schools Conference

A national conference on implementing the Responsive Classroom approach schoolwide, July 22–23, 2008, Simmons College, Boston, Massachusetts

Learn how to build a strong school culture that supports optimal academic and social learning throughout your school.

Practical Strategies, Whatever Your Level of Experience

Schools well along in implementing the Responsive Classroom approach school-wide, those just beginning, and those still contemplating the journey will find sessions keyed to their interests and experiences.

Learn from Colleagues

Choose from forty sessions offered by educators from fourteen states.

Learn what schoolwide implementation looks like. Hear the successes and challenges of principals, teachers, counselors, and others from urban, suburban, and rural schools. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to ask questions, share insights, and network.

A Research-Backed Approach

In 2006, Dr. Sara Rimm-Kaufman and colleagues at the University of Virginia released findings from the “Social and Academic Learning Study” (SALS), which showed that Responsive Classroom practices were associated with better academic and social outcomes for children.

This year, Dr. Rimm-Kaufman’s team will begin a multi-year, $2.9 million study of the extent to which the Responsive Classroom approach relates to classroom quality during mathematics instruction and, ultimately, to children’s math achievement. This study is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Keynote Speakers

During plenary sessions, be inspired and informed as these leading educators share their insights and ideas.

Sheldon Berman Co-founder of Educators for Social Responsibility. Superintendent for fourteen years of the award-winning Hudson, Massachusetts, school district. Since 2007, superintendent of Kentucky’s Jefferson County, the 30th largest U.S. district (98,000 students, 157 schools, 5,700 teachers). Author of Children’s Social Consciousness and the Development of Social Responsibility and many articles, book chapters, and reports on educational issues. Led creation of the nation’s first virtual high school. Honors include Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year and awards for leadership in special education, technology integration, and service learning.

Susan Moore Johnson Pforzheimer Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Former high school teacher and administrator with research interest in school reform and the necessary conditions for quality teaching. Lead investigator for Harvard’s multiyear study, the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, which examines how best to recruit, support, and retain a strong teaching force. Author of Teacher Unions and Schools; Teachers at Work; Leading to Change: The Challenge of the New Superintendency; and Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools.

Registration Begins April 7th

You’ll find registration information, along with details about travel, lodging, and costs on our website: www.responsiveclassroom.org/rcsc

The conference both inspired and informed
me. It was great to see what schoolwide
implementation looked like at so many
different schools. I left thinking,
“We could do that too!”

—Mary Beth DiMarco, 2007 conference attendee

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