Yesterday I wrote a letter to the editor, from my heart, knowing I was simply putting into words what so many are feeling.  That it is our own country that is sick to protect and defend the right to create and sell and carry and use weapons, even collect them as a curiosity.  And that one way to remember and honor those beautiful brave people who died is to address our illness, get needed treatment, and turn the health of this nation around.

Today, I had a thought that may not be on everyone's minds.  I pictured the shooter, fourteen years ago, when he was six years old.  I pictured his photo online for us to see.  I pictured an innocent child waiting, hoping, expecting to grow up into a creative constructive caring adult.  Obviously he was disappointed to the point of inconceivable rage and actions.

I am thinking of the thirty years of classes of five and six year olds, and some seven and eight year olds that I have taught in the public schools.  How every one of them was seen as innocent, and simply needing some guidance sometimes when the way got bumpy.  Mostly they needed to know that they were cool, just the way they were; that they were wanted and enjoyed as contributing members of the class.

I don't know what happened in this young man's life to lead him to this outrageous idea of random murder of innocents. I do know that in many years of his education our nation has turned to an extreme degree of testing. Years ago I, with many other caring teachers, seriously questioned this strategy of "improving our schools."  The powers that be bulldozed their agendas right down the throats of our nation and now public schools are held captive for funding to The Test. I believe our schools were doing a good job until they got handicapped by the re-direction of funding into the testing machine.  Now many many schools are struggling because the funds are difficult to maintain reasonably sized classes and the creative arts.  Not as much time can be spent encouraging individual creativity---they all HAVE to measure up on the test.

Our schools are quite good, and have been for many years.  Look at how many students from other countries strive to come here for college.  That wouldn't be true if the foundation of our education---the public schools---were not doing a strong job. But I do agree, we can always do better.

And by golly, Finland does better!! Their schools are the best in the world in achievment. Not by losing resources and teaching time through testing.   They don't even start school until 7 years old, allowing their youngsters a chance to explore and play before they ever enter a classroom and start being evaluated.  They give equal resources to all their public schools, so they all have all the academic subjects and all the speicals of art and music and gum. They get an hour of recess a day---work hard, play hard, have strong bodies and strong minds.   These are not new ideas but somehow our leaders forgot.  And yes, their teachers are paid at professional levels comparable to doctors and lawyers.

Are they worth it. Yes.  Yes. Yes.  They are there, every day with every child helping them to grow into all they can be.  Every every single child grows up to be an adult.  May they be loved and nurtured all the way.

Between our availability of guns and the stresses of schools, we do not have a good track record for student safety and well-being.  According the the web site "Stoptheshootings.org" there have been 386 school shootings since 1992. They state that "children ages 5-14 in America are 13 times more likely to be murdered with guns as children in other industrialized nations." According to the Gale Encyclopedia of Education in an article titled "Testing: A Short History of High-Stakes" "standards-based reforms began in the 1990's.  Hmmm....In Finland I could only find two school shootings.  Hmmm...compared to 386 here.

Last Friday was a tragic day that we want to believe was a random bizarre reaction to some trigger that had nothing to do with us.  But, just in case it wasn't so random, and just in case the schools, which I love with all my heart, had some piece of the puzzle, maybe we should take a look at the long-term results of too much evaluation and cookie cutter goals and not enough appreciation of every child's unique gifts and potential, in diverse areas.  We are not all made the same.  We never have been and we never will be.  We bring different gifts to this gift called life.

Morning ideas...

This morning, on school vacation I awoke thinking that once I'm retired my first project will be to put together the children's songs that I've written over the years with lessons and activities from the classroom, a multi-sensory activity book for teachers, including reflections and learnings along the way.  As I think of how to focus my writings, the songs seem to provide an anchor. They were written when there simply wasn't a song that I already knew that spoke to the specific need of the hour in my classroom.  Like "All Kinds of Families" was written when I was supposed to teach about families and the songs out there were too traditional compared to the actual life experiences in my classroom.  "First Day Tummy Butterflies" helped me over my first day jitters, and when I told the children that I had jitters too, they felt comfortable admitting their own.  As I added the hand motions to go with it, the children's physical movements helped them get out the pent-up feelings. An art project making butterfly kites helped them have a specific project to do, giving way to spontaneous conversations at the craft tables, initiating budding friendships.  Racing/flying their butterflies on the playground gave another outlet to the nervous energy, and let them know kindergarten is a safe place to feel everything from gulp to glorious freedom.  So this will be a project I can pour my experiences into while releasing myself from the tightly defined life of a teacher.

Children Caring About Children

Today as I reflect on the most meaningful parts of my school day, I notice the moments when children express ready concern for their classmates.  I think this is a response that needs to be nurtured.  I am weary of hearing the terms "bullying" or "anti-bullying."  I know that is a last choice due to stress and anxiety and low self-esteem.

When children are in a healthy environment where they are seen and included and valued, then they can express their natural generous hearts.  I see children's concerned faces, and sometimes rather frightened faces, if someone gets hurt, mad, or sad.  When I provide them with tools/skills/strategies, they are joyful and spontaneous in showing that they care.

I want to nurture this possibly through CCC training. Children could design get well cards, sympathy cards for people or for pets. They could form a children's chorus, singing gentle music to a troubled community (flood, tornado, or other disaster areas.)  They could visit a sick child---well, not a contagious one, but many children have to be home with little or no contact with other children while they heal from surgery, or other non-communicable health challenges.  The children could learn simple games that could travel anywhere.  Depending on the age of who you are visiting, they could bring cards, Candyland, Quiddler, Junior Monopoly, etc.  Teaching children to visit others would not only open their hearts and give them confidence as a responder to life's troubled situations, but it would prepare them for when bumps come in their own lives.

We could talk through the how would you feel if....and Let's practice what you say when...
Cooperative crafts could be made together.  Cooperative stories, made up riddles and songs...
Friendships would be made where they otherwise would have never met.

Thoughts, thoughts, always growing.

What American Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

This morning, George Wood's article in The Forum  for Education and Democracy pointed me to another recent article, printed Dec. 29th, 2011, less than two weeks ago.  It affirmed everything I've felt is wrong AND how to make it right, in the whole school reform efforts.  I have selected excerpts from that article to share with you here.

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success, The Atlantic 12/29/11

Finland's schools owe their newfound fame primarily to one study: the PISA survey, conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The survey compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science. Finland has ranked at or near the top in all three competencies on every survey since 2000, neck and neck with superachievers such as South Korea and Singapore. In the most recent survey in 2009 Finland slipped slightly, with students in Shanghai, China, taking the best scores, but the Finns are still near the very top. Throughout the same period, the PISA performance of the United States has been middling, at best.

Yet one of the most significant things Sahlberg said passed practically unnoticed. "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."
This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D.
The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything America's school reformers are trying to do.
For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what's called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school.
Instead, the public school system's teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based on individualized grading by each teacher. Periodically, the Ministry of Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across a range of different schools.
The answers Finland provides seem to run counter to just about everything America's school reformers are trying to do.
As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."
For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.
And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Puronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.

"Here in America," Sahlberg said at the Teachers College, "parents can choose to take their kids to private schools. It's the same idea of a marketplace that applies to, say, shops. Schools are a shop and parents can buy what ever they want. In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all the same."
Herein lay the real shocker. As Sahlberg continued, his core message emerged, whether or not anyone in his American audience heard it.
Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.


Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
In the Finnish view, as Sahlberg describes it, this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.
In fact, since academic excellence wasn't a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland's students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland -- unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway -- was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.


"When President Kennedy was making his appeal for advancing American science and technology by putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's, many said it couldn't be done," Sahlberg said during his visit to New York. "But he had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King a few years later had a dream. Those dreams came true. Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn't be done."
Clearly, many were wrong. It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important -- as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform -- Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.
The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.