A Reading Revolution: Students choose their books

Posting my original, uncut version of A Reading Revolution: Students choose their books, published on Rappler. 

I know education stories can be a hard sell, like this took awhile to publish, but it's finally out there and the response has been good. Geeks do abound in the Internet, yes? And it is good to give a damn about education and ideal learning environments in my book. 

More important than my frustration, here's a tiny sounding bell for better education for all kids. One story at a time. If you like what you read about in Teacher Joe's classroom please share, like on Facebook or tweet my latest Rappler story.  Thank you, blogger friend.

Seventh-grader Bella is reading John Green’s The Fault in our Stars. Beside her, Gabbie is reading Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Isabelle’s book is The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. In another side of the room, there are boys with various Rick Riordan books—from his action-packed Percy Jackson series. Two other kids are reading The Hunger Games.

This is not some random gathering of precocious bookworms. I am in Joe Sibayan’s classroom, where the Readers Workshop approach is used in teaching literacy.

I observe his class during independent reading time, when students bury them selves in their chosen books for 20 minutes. Later, they break up into groups to discuss what they have been reading, book club style. 

Literature circles were formed today according to themes. As it turns out, Bella, Gabbie and Isabelle’s theme is Man vs. Self. In another circle, Miguel is enjoying Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. Nikos likes Gaiman too, but his choice is Odd and the Frost Giants. Circle mate Mikko is reading Michael Scott’s The Alchemist. Miguel tells me their theme is Man vs. Society.

If the 21 students in teacher Joe’s class choose 21 different books to read for a current theme, that would be fine with him. That would in fact be the point—giving students the choice.

A student consults with Teacher Joe.

He explains, "part of the education of any reader is developing the ability to browse through books, determine if a book matches your reading abilities and purpose for reading, and to decide on whether or not a book is worth pursuing."

For many of us who went to schools with a strict list of assigned books, this may seem revolutionary—and very new. But Readers Workshop was actually developed in the 1980s  at Columbia University's Teacher's College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP). This reading revolution was started back then by Lucy Calkins, an educator who believed schools shouldn’t be dull and learning shouldn’t be rote.

Literacy Specialist Maggie Moon had worked with Calkins as a Senior Staff Developer at TCRWP. She explains, "many [education] scholars decided it was time to teach reading and writing the way people learn best, by becoming like apprentices to 'master' readers and writers. They wanted to help children develop a life-long love of reading, instead of seeing it only as an academic subject to master."

Their approach proved to be good for academics anyway. The State of New York eventually asked Calkins to roll her program for their school system, which was then suffering from dismal test scores. In time, the project turned things around for the city's low performing schools.

Since then, TCRWP has spread to other parts of the US and the world--including Keys Grade School in Mandaluyong, where Joe Sibayan teaches and acts as one of the Curriculum Coordinators. Maggie Moon flies in regularly to conduct seminars with him, as they both mentor the rest of the Keys teaching staff on how to implement Readers Workshop.

What if all a student wants to read is Twilight?

According Moon, nurturing passionate, analytical readers entails some letting go. Children should be exposed to many types of books, and some you may not consider quality reading. Picking up Gossip Girl or Jekyll and Heide is what teenagers tend to do, but that’s fine. They should find pleasure in reading. They should be allowed to grow into their own idiosyncrasies as readers.

Moon explains, “Strong readers have a specific sense of what they like and don't like. So I want to see kids acting like proficient readers as soon as they can. If that involves some Twilight reading, so be it.”

Bad books can even give good lessons on critical analysis. “Ideally, those kids reading Twilight can form a book club to discuss whether the writing is good, whether the characters are believable, whether the books or movies are better, whether there are other vampire series that deserve more attention, why or why not,” says Ms. Moon.

At their age, it is also more crucial to cultivate the stamina for reading and the habit of it, rather than imposing your choice of literature. This takes time and many books—all sorts and many levels of complexity—from R.L. Stine to Judy Blume and J.D. Salinger to Nick Joaquin.

What Readers Workshop does is expand students’ reading diet so they are drawn to other genres and notable authors. This is why in Keys Grade School, there are Classroom Libraries apart from the School Library.

A reminder from their reading mentor. Poster from a 4^th Grade classroom.

Get lost in your book. A reading nook inside a 4th Grade Classroom Library.

There are no textbooks here. 

Sibayan considers them as "artificial collections of text and questions." In classroom libraries, children are given access to authentic published material--carrying a mix of reference books as well as fiction books that can be read for pleasure.

"Steering children away from low quality reading material starts with making sure that the books children have access to in the classroom are all high-quality children's literature," he explains.

Readers Workshop can be implemented in various ways. Some teachers can be more liberal with choice than others. In Sibayan's classroom, students are still required to read certain books. He can pick a canon title for shared reading. Occasionally, he assigns titles or authors to be discussed for book clubs.

Letting children choose books they want to read is only one aspect of the approach. He adds, 'the emphasis is on putting books in children's hands and giving them a lot if time to actually read. Less time is spent on worksheets, written comprehension questions or art projects related to a text." 

Instead of constantly quizzing for dates and names, students are challenged to make connections and find relevance.

Sibayan, for instance, will ask them to examine a book's physical versus its psychological settings. He asks questions like, "What is the relationship of the theme to the book's setting?" 

Seventh-grader Gianinna answers in her reading journal:

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (pages 1-2)

The setting is in the bathroom with blood on the bath mat and razor sinking in a toilet bowl. Cecilia’s mother is screaming and the paramedics are standing, shocked.

The rest of the book takes place in the neighborhood, a normal and ordinary neighborhood. This tells me that tragedy can happen to even a normal place or that beauty is ephemeral when tragedy strikes.

The normalcy of the neighborhood enhances the theme because nobody expects a normal and quiet neighborhood to be hit by tragedy or it shows that there is definitely more than meets the eye.

For today’s Read-Aloud, Sibayan is sharing passages from an assigned book—Paul Fleischman’s Seedfolks. All eyes and ears are on Teacher Joe as he reads with feeling:

“The older you are, the younger you get when you move to the United States. They don’t teach you that equation in school. Big Brain, Mr. Smoltz, my eighth grade math teacher, hasn’t even heard of it. It’s not in Gateway to Algebra. It’s Garcia’s Equation. I‘m the Garcia. 

Two years after my father and I moved here from Guatemala I could speak English. I learned it on the playground and watching lots of TV. Don’t believe what people say—cartoons make you smart.” 

This elicits laughs. A student chimes, “Yeah… TV isn’t always dumb.”

After Read-Aloud, Gabbie makes what they call in Readers Workshop a “text-to-self” connection: “When I was 10, a teacher asked me for a synonym for small. I said miniscule. And the teacher said, ‘Is that a word?’ I learned it from a cartoon.”

She’s no longer in that school. Gabbie likes it better in Keys where she can read Gaiman and Funke and Michael Scott for homework. They are her favorite authors.

“Schoolwork can be really hard, but I like the challenge… it’s the kind that makes me feel good about myself when I do well.” She likes her teachers too. “Teacher Joe is funny. And there’s no boring grammar stuff. You have to get deeper into the books. It’s not about memorizing. It’s about understanding.”

Like cartoons, books make you smart, right? I suspect Gabbie understands this more than the average seventh-grader. 

Meet My Astrophysicist Friend

Conversations with astrophysicists... More fun when they are Filipina!

March is Women's month, I am a woman, I have a daughter, we are Filipinas, so please excuse me if I cross-post to this Pinay-power profile I did for Rappler.

Reinabelle Reyes was the first scientist to prove Einstein's Theory of General Relativity beyond our solar system. She did that when she was 26. Her research was published in Nature, the world's premiere and most discriminating science journal. That is The Journal that published Einstein's very own theories and now look, this Filipina astrophysicist is published there too—decades later, showing proof of concept for one of Einstein's master works.

Someone actually paid me to have a conversation with Reina Reyes and write about her groundbreaking research. Thank you, Universe. On top of that, we are set to collaborate on "something digital" which is all I can say for now. Sweet.

So this is Reina in a nutshell: Kavli Cosmological Institute Fellow. In the process of figuring out the exact recipe for making a galaxy. In the forefront of figuring out Dark Energy, which is oh, the next great leap for Science. Could win a Nobel. Graduated summa cum laude BS Physics Ateneo. Astrophysics PhD obtained from Princeton. Won the Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Award for discovering a hidden quasar. She was just a student when she found the quasar. And oh, it's the kind of discovery that requires altering and updating science books. 

A little take away for us parents… Her mother and father never pressured her to get high grades. They just encouraged her to do her best, got her books and let her use the computer for fun and to learn stuff. No Tiger Mom behind this achiever.

I love that she wants to help change K12 education in the Philippines. She believes most of our schools need major reforms. We could have gone on and on talking about this issue alone. She herself went to Philippine Science School. She loved it there, because "they emphasized analytical thinking over memorizing cold facts." The thing is, more Filipino children need to be getting that kind of hands on, experiential education… not just Pisay scholars and kids who go to expensive private schools.

Anyway!

Reina will soon be launching an infographics blog on Rappler. Have us on your news feed yet? Rappler is about "inspiring smart conversations" according to our tagline. I'd like to add, controversial conversations. TanginaThis hot topic: Reina claiming she is an atheist. Interesting.

Numbers and Poetry

Dear Vico Bear,

I was happy to hear from Teacher Steph how eagerly you have been applying yourself in Math. Way to go doing Optional Work and Extra Challenges! Despite doing very well the last two terms, when asked your personal goal for Term 3 you wrote, To be better in Math. I suspect you’ll grow up making good use of your passion for numbers and figures. You are my favorite Visual Spatial Thinker, you! As the motto goes… Work Hard. Be Nice. And that’s what you have been doing. And you’ve just turned 8. This serves anyone well, whether age 8, 38 or 88.

To celebrate the school portfolio you have been working hard on in the past months, I’m posting some of your work here. One day you might read this when you are all grown up and get a real kick out of it. This is you writing as a fictional character.

Without realizing it, you made a “dissertation” this year—researched with some help but written independently. In second grade, you and your classmates call it your All About Book. You decided on this thesis statement: "LEGO is epic! Because you can build anything you can imagen." You do love exclamation points!!! And actually, it's i-m-a-g-i-n-e. 


Anyway, thanks to your book Teacher Steph and I know facts about LEGO we didn’t know before.

This is what you came up with when asked to emulate Shel Silverstein’s poem One Inch Tall. Your poem is called 1 Nano Bite Tall. 

This one emulates the Zoe Ryder White poem Inside My Heart, but you chose Sadness as a theme. 

This posterity post is also a reminder to… Keep expressing yourself. Keep the poetry in your heart. There’s a place for it even inside grown men full of patterns, plans and equations in their head. Your words are who you are. Sometimes you’ll feel like no one is listening. That’s okay. Do it just for yourself. Besides, Mama and Daddy will always want to hear what you have to say and we will always want to read what you write. Always!

Poetry

A writer whom I admire wrote, "Poetry presents itself unannounced." I read that this morning from his Rumpus email, where I also learned that before becoming a much-admired novelist, essayist and editor he started writing as a poet.

This is striking because, I had found it a bit funny that Bear's class of first-graders were asked to try their hand at poetry. At age 7? What can come out of that? Their Writer's Workshop started with units on drafting How-To's, writing about Small Moments, then moving onto Personal Narratives, Fiction and Non-Fiction. These all made total sense to me. But Poetry?

Then again…

Poetry presents itself unannounced. Writers really just have to let it out. Unleash. Abandon self-consciousness. It is, indeed, the most basic, most important aspect of stringing words together to express thoughts and emotions, and spin stories. Even young writers can, as Bear's Teacher Tina explained to her students, "look at something and describe it in a different way." Instead of the usual, try the unusual. Bear's first attempts...

Pencil

It's like a knife

with black blood

in the hands of a thief

Sipa

A meteorite

crashing to Earth

White Board

Like a knight's shield

Super strong

Defeating a dragon

Looking at his first attempts at poetry and his own imaginative metaphors, the whole poetry-at-age-7 thing really makes sense. I get paid for my writing, but I could still learn something from first grade Writer's Workshop. Even Stephen Elliott confirms this. Time to pay attention to my inner poet and write better than usual!

A Writer's Celebration

This morning, Bear woke me up to say, today is The Day, mama. He meant The Day for Writer's Celebration. A few hours later, I was in his school to have snacks and juice with him, his classmates and other parents. We gathered to toast the publishing of the kids' first non-fiction books for Writer's Workshop.

Two self-published 7-year-olds manning their writer's nooks...

One researched and wrote a book about wolves, the other researched and wrote about dinosaurs. They even made promotional posters.

Bear authored the book on wolves. He made a tree and wolf out of Legos for his writer's nook. Nook design and concept all his own. I was suggesting he add more elements in his booth when he was preparing for it. He was adamant: "I just want the lego figures and my poster and my book." Oh fine. Then, surprise... the nook included give-away bookmarks too. Nice touch.

Book topic, art and words also all their own. They may even misspell some words, but that's okay. The goal was for them to use their imagination, to share their own thoughts and interpretation of facts they researched. Here's how Bear blurbed his own book. He claims it's awesome. So confident. Haha!

Here's a preview of what's inside supposedly awesome book.

It even has a glossary. The mammal entry made me, and a few others chuckle. Teacher Tina claims it was a hit when she posted this in her facebook. Awesomely funny and cute...

Funny yes, but hey, scientifically accurate, nonetheless. All mammals do have mammary glands. Hehe! I just love these kids. Cheers to the Keys Araullo First Grade writers! Awesome effort Baby Bear.

Interest, Groups and Learning

Stumbled on another goose-bump inducing TED Talk. This one by education researcher Sugata Mitra. His experiments made me think of Keys Grade School. Children huddled about, questioning, talking in small groups, sometimes pairs collaborating on projects or solving problems. So different from the my experience of education-as-usual: classroom with 30-plus kids, where, ironically, it's actually just you and your notebook, or more specifically you taking dictation from the teacher.

I think Sugata Mitra is onto something with his Self Organized Learning Environment (SOLE). It shows how interest-driven, collaborative work is among the best ways to learn. Sometimes, we need to let kids go off with their own wandering minds to boost critical thinking and confidence. I believe this.

Traditional or Progressive School?

Deciding between progressive or traditional schooling for your child? What exactly is the difference? There's an Explorations Preschool parenting forum that can help answer those questions.

The Inside Scoop on Traditional and Progressive Settings 

21 August 2010, Saturday, 9 to 11 am in Explorations Preschool. 

Attendance is free to all enrolled Explorations families.  

Guests are welcome for a fee of P350.00 per person.  

To reserve a slot, call the school at 724-3320 or 724-4271.

Keys Math Fair logo inspired by the Borromean Rings

What in the world are Borromean Rings?

If you know me or you've been here before, you probably know my take.  There was this internet-tirade, then this post that was all love and rainbows.  Once, I even connected progressive schools to The Blue Man Group. I can't help my pop-references! Of course... if you have kids to put through school, you have to listen to Ken Robinson. Ken is the man, I swear. He did it on TED again this year. 

Above link-a-palooza is pro-progressive, yes. That's where I stand. My kids go to Keys and Explorations which are both progressive. But the Explorations event is not a progressive school hard-sell. Trust me. You'll hear all points of view. Explorations is quite known for sending a lot of kids successfully into big, traditional schools.

problem solving process for Keys third-graders

I was among the parents tapped as a speaker in the same forum last year. Together with parents from progressive schools Keys and Beacon, as well as parents with children in traditional schools like Ateneo, La Salle and Xavier, we talked about why we opted to send our kids to their schools and how the experience matched our goals and expectations. Progressive and traditional, both.

What's great about this year's forum is that moms, dads and kids--yes kids--are joining the discussion. Last year, it was just a number of us moms who were speakers. This August 21, you will hear actual school experiences from Keys, La Salle, Ateneo, ICA and they may add representatives from another school or two.

problem solved

Teacher Didi Manahan will start off with the basics--what exactly is the progressive approach and how it differs from the traditional method. From there it should be an interesting and enlightening free-for-all discussion. 

If you have questions I didn't cover, drop it in the comments box and I'll oblige if I can answer. Oh and, here's the Explorations Preschool phone number again, 724-3320 or 724-4271. Call them. They're great with kids... and parents too.