Superintendent's Blog

During a recent visit to the Marathon Elementary School, accompanied by principal Lauren Dubeau, I popped into an English learner “EL” classroom. In a small and cozy space, designed for pull-out English-for-Speakers-of-Other Languages or “ESOL” instruction, an English learner educator sat with four Marathon first-grade students. These four children all speak different languages. There are 127 ELs enrolled in kindergarten and grade one at Marathon. 

People perhaps wonder why it is that very young children who are learning phonics need English learner instruction when they are getting incredible literacy instruction in their regular classroom. Consider this: Phonics asks children to turn letters into sounds and then make meaning of the words constructed from those sounds. Native speakers of English typically know the words they’re “sounding out”: BAT, MAT, CHAT... But, consider what happens when children are not native speakers and we ask them to sound out words. They are pronouncing words without meaning. (When Urdu, for example, is your primary language, what the heck is a “bat” or a “mat” or a “chat,” right?) Teaching students to read words they don’t know only reinforces the idea that reading is simply pronouncing sounds, as opposed to turning sounds into words and then words into meaning.

What I encountered last week might help people understand what English learner educators do. This particular teacher had the children cutting strips of colored paper and gluing those strips onto a paper plate. These backgrounds made a blank-face monster-like character, on which the children would create a face. The faces they were making needed to express some emotion. The emotion could be anything: happy or grumpy or excited or...you name it. 

Certainly, a lot of skills were being built in this classroom. First, teaching children about their emotions helps them to grow emotionally strong. Children need to be able to identify, understand, and describe their emotions so that they can confidently articulate their feelings when they need to do so, and let’s acknowledge that all people need to do that throughout their lives. Consider how many times young children are afraid or unable to share what they’re feeling. That’s not OK. Consider how many adults don’t articulate their feelings well.  Hmmm. That’s another blog entirely. ;-)

Second, these kids were using scissors and glue sticks. The use of these tools helps support the development of fine motor skills. One little girl had to ask her peer to help her take the cover off the glue stick, thus using language that supports the building of social skills. Then, kids had to wait to use the glue stick, as they were required to share, thereby practicing turn-taking. 

Most importantly, however, in this safe space specifically devoted to English learners, these children could practice using social and academic language, and expressive and interpretive language in a small group, where in a regular, larger classroom they might not have the same opportunity or the same safe space to “try on” language. They were learning to name and describe emotions as well as colors: red, orange, green, blue; to ask for the scissors or to ask for help; to engage in polite discourse--”please” and “thank you.” This kind of small-setting instruction accelerates English language development by helping English learners make the connection between what they know in their first language--colors, emotions, polite language--and what they need to know as first-grade students at the Marathon Elementary School.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education anticipates that students will stay in English learner education (ELE) programs no longer than six years. Most Hopkinton students average two to four years in our ELE program. Why? Because our curriculum, instruction, and commitment to Hopkinton’s ELs is second to none. Marathon’s commitment to English language instruction is the foundation for our students that allows them to test out of our ELE program and thereby access the curriculum in English without support as they advance through our schools.

Prior to our leaving the English learner classroom at Marathon last week, Mrs. Dubeau wrestled with a glue stick while I asked a little guy, “Why did you choose a happy face?” He told me, “This is a silly face.” OK then. Pardon me. Thanking the teacher and the kids for their hard work, I put on my sheepish face, gave Mrs. Dubeau the “Are-we-ready-to-go?” look, and left the very capable and wonderfully engaged children and their teacher to their work.

Hopkinton High School is beginning to explore infusing more disciplinary literacy instruction for our grade 9 students. What this means is that our content area instruction will emphasize the specialized knowledge and abilities possessed by those who create, communicate, and use knowledge within each of the disciplines--science, social studies, and English language arts. Essentially, kids are taught to think like a scientist, read like a historian, write essays that analyze works of fiction, and lots more. Why is this important? The language we find when we’re reading literature or reading about literature itself is vastly different from the language one would encounter if reading a Scientific American article, a plea for funding for an environmental project, or a laboratory report. Kids must be explicitly taught the language and communication styles of each discipline.

 

I’m bringing this up now not because I think that high school parents are going to be overly excited about disciplinary literacy (although I am pretty jazzed about it myself…), but because I was very excited when a Hopkinton High School science teacher showed the document that she uses to teach accountable talk phrases. Accountable talk phrases are the way we teach kids to communicate with each other respectfully in any classroom. We teach them the language to use when they want to disagree, when they want to build on someone else’s point, when they need clarification, and more. It’s kind of polite discourse and instruction, and it lends to the incorporation of more voices in a classroom. Our young adults gain confidence as they learn how to communicate with each other in a learning environment, to be actively involved in understanding the perspectives of others, and to exhibit patience and kindness as they become independent learners.

 

It’s kind of a funny thing. I think in education we used to believe that speaking and listening, because they are the primary discourses, didn't have to be explicitly taught. When kids come to school they are typically good speakers and listeners. What we used to think was that we had to teach explicitly reading and writing, those being the secondary discourses. That thinking has changed. Teaching students speaking and listening teaches them to become active and interdependent thinkers who are part of a community of learners who are not afraid to take risks or to push their own boundaries.

 

So if you’re still with me--and I acknowledge there has been a lot of reading so far!--I can share with you a cool thing about our science teacher’s accountable talk phrase document. It intersects beautifully with what our Social Emotional Learning Director has been hired to do, which is to integrate SEL into academics and the learning environment. What our Social Emotional Learning Director, Carla Burley, will say is that kids need to feel part of a classroom community; these accountable talk phrases are not only good for literacy (or speaking) instruction, but they are also exceptional in the way of social emotional learning.

 

The Social Emotional Learning Director also extols something called “optimistic closure.” In an effort to ensure “optimistic closure,” all educators district wide have participated in professional development centered on Three SEL Signature Practices that support the learning environment. At the end of the class, students get to think about what they’ve learned and what kinds of things they’re going to do to sort of “seal the deal” on their own learning. This “optimism” helps them to believe they can tackle challenging learning standards.When kids have the tools of accountable talk phrases alongside an opportunity for “optimistic closure,” every student’s voice can be heard with authority, creating a greater community in the classroom--all while promoting increased learning in the disciplines.

 

These are really exciting times. We’re not only building on our high school students’ literacy skills within the disciplines alongside their content knowledge, but also their social emotional learning. Perhaps never in the history of public education have these goals been more lofty. Our kids have received irregular schooling for a long time. Our kids have lost a lot of social learning. And so I am celebrating the work that is happening at Hopkinton High School that underscores the importance of this trinity: content, literacy skills, and social emotional skills. Many thanks to the incredible faculty and staff at HHS. 

Over the past several years, the school district has committed to priorities around inclusion. Broadly speaking, inclusion can be defined as the extent to which students, faculty, and staff feel a sense of belonging and value within our schools.  Inclusive practices, over the past five years in particular, have become increasingly manifest in our corridors, classrooms, and curricula in so many ways. Of course we’re still studying reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic--we’re just weaving inclusivity into our curricula and instruction along the way.

 

A couple of weeks ago on a sparkling fall morning, liberated from meetings, I found my way to Hopkins School. As I entered, I met a student doing laps in the hallway, flanked by an adult. This particular kiddo wasn’t having the best morning, but was holding it together because he had a trusted grown-up walking alongside him, building his confidence, steadying his temperament, and bolstering his stamina for the day. Pausing momentarily, I marveled at how our schools so aptly meet the needs of individual students. Helping a child self-regulate means getting him access to curriculum--essentially including him in the classroom setting. 

 

Classrooms buzzed with learning, and I was drawn into a place where a teacher held her students rapt with what we call an “interactive read aloud”.  Picture about 15 kids sitting on the rug, eyes on the teacher, hands raised to answer questions, faces animated for moments of “turn and talk.” The text, a beautifully illustrated book entitled The Name Jar, chronicles a little girl’s move from her home in Korea to the United States. At first, she is reluctant to share her name, a Korean name--“Unhei”--with her new classmates, because it is an uncommon name, which for some American children proves difficult--initially--to pronounce. In response, the class puts a jar on Unhei’s desk and fills it with all kinds of American names, as suggestions for the girl to adopt as her own. 

 

The reader comes to learn that Unhei’s name translates to “Grace,” and that her mother and her grandmother, when they were in Korea, went to visit a name master to choose the little girl’s name. Unhei has a wooden stamp of the characters that make up her name. What makes this text so spectacular, I think, is that it is a story around the power of names and the ways names identify children. Many of the students in the Hopkinton Public Schools do not have traditional American names, and while they see themselves in this text and perhaps identify closely with Unhei, certainly students with American names can find themselves in the text as well. Essentially, names have meaning to the human beings they identify. The importance of respecting and valuing ALL names--and people!--is central to the text. Here we see inclusivity incorporated into an English Language Arts lesson.

 

In another space--a corridor, actually--I was able to witness a lesson in the program known as Understanding Our Differences, a curriculum dedicated to fostering respectful and inclusive schools and communities for people of all abilities. The lesson was focused on the gifts and talents that students with some kind of learning disability bring into our schools and into friendships. Students first discussed the students in the scenarios they had studied; then, they made connections to self. So many of the kids could describe someone they know who has a learning disability of some kind and also an ABILITY that makes them stand out in some other unique way.

 

Finally, I went into a classroom during a social studies lesson. With the lights dimmed, the classroom housed students engaged in a lesson on early American colonization. Many of you will hearken back to the days when social studies was taught largely through a Eurocentric lens, meaning the story would have been told through the vantage point of the white European settlers. During this lesson, students were asked to do some pre-reading about Massasoit, a Wampanoag Indian Chief who, throughout his life, maintained a reciprocal, peaceful, and respectful relationship with the English settlers in Plymouth Colony. After Massasoit’s death, however, the relationship deteriorated, leading to King Philip’s War and led particularly by Massasoit’s son. 

 

In this classroom the learning was focused on betrayal. Massasoit had fostered relationships with the Pilgrims, and some years later Massasoit’s descendents were left with broken promises. Students were asked to engage in perspective-taking, to evaluate whose behaviors were justified. 

 

The kids were using technology to write a short response on their chrome book, which the teacher could then project onto the whiteboard at the front of the room. The students’ responses appeared one at a time, without the kids’ names attached. The teacher could ask her students to discuss different responses projected on the board. One student wrote the following:

 

“Massasoit’s sons feel this way because the English were revoking resources and land rights in other areas and feared this could cause a domino effect, spreading to Massachusetts. I think they were right and had a perfect reason to feel this way, but Massasoit was not in the wrong either for his kindness.”

 

 As you look at this particular student's response, you will see the balanced approach this student took, essentially being able to understand the position of Massasoit as well as the position of his sons, who lived on after him. Essentially, these social studies learning tasks are foundational to kids growing their disciplinary literacy. This kind of perspective-taking, while applied to a fifth grade social studies lesson, will benefit our children throughout their lives. 

 

Whether we are talking about meeting kids’ individual needs,  respecting and celebrating our identities, understanding students with learning challenges, or perspective-taking in a social studies classroom, the Hopkins School has responded beautifully to the district’s initiatives around inclusion, all while adhering to grade level curriculum standards.

 

We have a lot to celebrate in Hopkinton. In addition to content, your children are learning a lot about respect, care, and their humanity.  As always I am proud to lead a district in which we are growing children whose minds and hearts are open and whose teachers, support staff, and administrators foster the inclusion of all.