Learning: Innovators
Putting Teachers In Charge Of Training

A summer academy 'for teachers, by teachers'

Julia Kron knows what every good educator knows: When teachers take charge of their own professional development, good things happen. As director of the North Carolina Teacher Academy, Kron has helped build a state-funded professional development powerhouse that delivers exactly what teachers say they want and need to succeed in their classrooms.

Today, the Academy provides 40 one-week professional development summer seminars on topics ranging from school leadership to adolescent literacy.

Each session is held at a getaway destination, from the mountains to the coast, and is completely paid for by the state. In addition to professional development credit, participants receive a small stipend. They attend two follow-up meetings later in the year.

Kron says the Academy is popular because the training is delivered by teachers, for teachers. "We have more than 200 classroom teachers whom we train to be trainers," she says. "They come throughout the year to learn the latest research and to speak with experts so they can deliver to their colleagues what is current and accurate. The result is real teachers relating with real teachers about research findings and classroom issues."

The Academy also offers whole-school staff development.

When Kron headed the North Carolina Association of Educators a decade ago, the Academy was merely a dream. But working hand-in-hand with education-friendly leaders, Kron and other educators saw that dream become reality when the General Assembly funded it with $3.8 million in 1993.

"This is what happens when teachers are treated as professionals and allowed to drive their own professional development programs," Kron says. "I am so thankful that our state leaders place a priority on education."

Impact:
Nearly 19,000 teachers and principals have been trained through the Teacher Academy. They represent 1,582 schools from all 100 North Carolina counties.

For More:
Visit www.ga.unc.edu/NCTA/.

Helping New Teachers Succeed

Stephen Gordon of the University of South Florida has been working with beginning teachers for more than a decade. In his new book, How To Help Beginning Teachers Succeed, Gordon and co-author Susan Maxey explore why beginning teachers struggle and provide ideas on how veteran educators and school systems can help.

Why is this topic important?
Up to 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession in the first five years. But most new teachers who take part in well-designed beginning teacher assistance programs stay in the profession and feel better about themselves as teachers.

There is a clear difference between surface teacher assistance programs and ones that truly impact a new teacher's career. Many new teachers who don't get help but do stay in the profession develop low-level survival practices and eventually get stuck in a rut.

What is needed for an effective program?
Many states and districts mandate new teacher assistance programs, which is a step in the right direction. But all too often, these programs consist of a mentor teacher introducing him or herself to the new teacher, and that's the end of it.

In a good program, careful attention is paid to recruiting outstanding mentors. These mentors are given time to work with new teachers. There's also a team approach in the entire school to help new teachers.

How can your book help?
Different schools need different things. The book offers a variety of options.

For More:
Order How To Help Beginning Teachers Succeed (2nd edition), $13.95, from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, www.ascd.org, or 800/933-ASCD.

Zapping Indian Stereotypes

Innovator:
Jill Waters

Job:
Projects coordinator for Oyate, an organization in Berkeley, California, working to see that Native history and literature is portrayed honestly

Bright Idea:
Oyate's library features two book collections: those recommended for their culturally authentic view of Native life, and those that greatly misrepresent Indian people. Jill Waters hopes one day the collection will be culled to only one.

"We offer teachers an alternative to textbooks and other materials that are culturally inaccurate and disrespectful," says Waters.

For example, a 1940 Caldecott Award-winner portrays line drawings of Indians stealing, a bandana-wearing Negro sweeping them out the door, and a white homesteader cowering behind her in fear. The children's book refers to Indians as "tame" and the settlers as owning "two dogs and a colored boy."

It's just the kind of negative stereotyping that Oyate seeks to correct.

Oyate staff evaluate textbooks and works of fiction by and about Native people, publish reviews, conduct teacher workshops, and distribute a catalog of books, tapes, videos, and other resources, emphasizing the work of Native authors and illustrators.

In Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children, Oyate editors Beverly Slapin and Doris Seale present reviews of 100 children's books by and about Indian peoples, a guide to evaluating literature for anti-Indian bias, a recommended bibliography, and an index of Native publishers and organizations.

"It's important that children-not just Indian children, but all children-know the truth, because they will inherit our lives and world," says Waters.

Impact:
Oyate successfully challenged the offensive 1940 book and had it removed when it appeared on a literature list for social studies and history in California last year.

For more:
E-mail oyate@oyate.org, or visit www.oyate.org.

No More 'What's for Lunch?'

Innovator:
Ann Hein

Job:
Paraprofessional, Orange Elementary School, Waterloo, Iowa

Bright Idea:
Ask an elementary school educator what the hardest part of the day is, and you may get a surprising answer: morning lunch counts.

But Ann Hein is helping ease the burden of getting straight and quick answers about students' lunch preferences.

With the "Fun Food Lunch Count Graph," young children make visual choices. As they enter their classrooms, they see cards with photographs of the day's lunch choices on a bulletin board. They place a Velcro-wooden spoon with their name on it next to their choice.

The invention is saving teachers nationwide precious time normally spent answering the repeated question, "What's for lunch?"

Kathy Rech, an Orange Elementary kindergarten teacher, calls it a lifesaver. "This program is invaluable for a student with limited reading skills, for an ESL child, and for the stressed teacher," she says.

The system is also designed to teach about graphs. When all the students have chosen their lunches, the cards and spoons form a graph showing which lunch option is most popular.

Teachers can track popularity on monthly graphs.

Hein created the system four years ago. Today, it contains 65 cards with pictures of typical school lunch entrees, 13 blank cards, 30 wooden spoons, and graphing charts.

Impact:
Hein says, "I've received positive feedback from teachers across the country."

For More:
Visit www.webspawner.com/users/grandmaannpro/ or E-mail Hein at grandmaannpro@home.com.

Communicating with Charter Schools

Innovator:
Suzanne Flores

Job:
NEA staffer coordinating work with affiliates to facilitate whole-school change

Bright Idea:
Public school educators and charter schools usually go together like oil and water-at best. But charter schools are public schools, ones that often have useful ideas to share, as well as much to learn from other public schools.

So staffers from NEA's Teaching and Learning unit set out to develop guidelines to help these two wary groups learn together, in the interest of improving education for all children.

With research help from SRI International, and cooperation from 10 charter schools, these NEA staffers created Project Connect, a two-year effort to develop ways to improve communication between charter schools and other public schools.

Not surprisingly, they were met with suspicion and disbelief. The first time the NEA staff presented Project Connect, at a workshop during a charter school conference in 1997, nobody showed up.

But they persevered, and when they tried again 18 months later, they filled the room twice.

Now the team has written a set of concrete recommendations, Sharing Ideas and Practices: A Handbook for Charter Schools, based on what was learned from Project Connect and other effective programs for improving schools.

"The simple act of sharing information within and among schools can create amazing innovation," says Suzanne Flores, the program manager. "Working with charter schools and other schools of innovation can help us improve student achievement."

For More:
Find Sharing Ideas and Practices: A Handbook for Charter Schools at www.nea.org/issues/charter/projconnect/fulltxt.html. From there, you can also access an informative charter schools Q&A.