(Vol. 1, No. 1 - Fall 1996)

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"Mastering the Art of Teaching Well"


By John Norton

I'm hunkered down at a pay phone outside a Seal Beach restaurant, shouting over the wind and the hungry sea gulls as I make my third or fourth attempt to track down 8th-grade science teacher Barbara Van Oast.

She's a hard woman to find. After several unsuccessful calls and messages at her school (ever tried to phone a teacher at school?), a sympathetic friend has given me her home phone number. It's about 8 p.m.

"She wants to talk to you," husband Douglas tells me, "but she's gone to the PTA now to beg for some money." He laughs. "If she went into fund-raising, I could go ahead and retire." Then he sighs. "She puts in a lot of 10- or 12-hour days working on one school project or another."

It's this driven quality in Van Oast's personality that's put me on her trail. Teaching consultant Beverly Bimes-Michalak, who's been coaching LBUSD teachers for several years, describes Van Oast is a typical example of a good teacher -- "restless and reflective" -- who is getting even better through professional development.

Van Oast is currently preoccupied with raising $6,000 to take a group of her hardest-working science students -- all girls -- to Washington for an awards ceremony. The kids haven't taken the top prize at the "Youth Awards Program for Energy Achievement," but they've earned rookie-of-the-year honors for their first attempt at an innovative project in energy education. As far as Van Oast is concerned, they've won a Nobel.

"They worked hard all year on this project," she tells me when I finally catch up with her in her classroom at Newcomb Academy the next day. "The boys all gave up, but these girls stuck with it. They deserve the trip."

In less than a week, Van Oast has squeezed free plane tickets from America West and enough pledges from local energy companies, the student council, the PTA, and other sources to finance the four-day capital visit. Finally, she has time to sit down and talk about professional development.
But first she has a class to teach.

Part drill sargeant, part talk show host

It's late May, the weather's perfect, and the hormones are perking. Teachers work in two-hour blocks at Newcomb. Van Oast's class of 35 is half Anglo, the rest a mix of black, Hispanic, and Asian American kids. Newcombe's competitive entry program assures a class where average skills are above the norm -- but there's still a wide range of academic achievement, and it comes in a variety of sizes, shapes, and attention spans.

Many of the 8th graders tower over Van Oast, a petite blonde in her early 50s, dressed in school uniform colors: blue skirt, white blouse, and a string of white beads. But Van Oast is about to demonstrate that a single teacher with the vocal control of a drill sargeant, the mental alertness of a talk show host, and the patience of a Buddhist monk can teach science to four dozen adolescents for 120 minutes on a summery day.

Teaching consultant Beverly Bimes-Michalak, who's been coaching LBUSD teachers for several years, describes Van Oast as a typical example of a good teacher -- "restless and reflective" -- who is getting
even better through professional development.


Van Oast's classroom is filled with science projects and posters. "R. Buckminster Fuller: Our Planet's Friendly Genius" relates the story of one of the century's great creative thinkers. Toothpicks garnish a dayglo orange human brain (carved from a Nerf football?), their tiny flags identifying key neural centers. It's disappointing (but all too typical) that the middle school classroom has only one laboratory sink where kids must line up to gather water for experiments or clean up.

Balancing scientific equations leads off today's activities. Van Oast reviews what the class has learned so far about bringing atoms and molecules into equilibrium -- then gives students three equations to balance on their own. While most students earnestly bend over their task, Van Oast moves from one to another, offering tips and asking leading questions. In the back of the room, the usual contingent of two or three 13-year old boys goofs off. She challenges Arthur, the leader, to get busy. "I'm doing it in my head," he claims as the others laugh.

Van Oast calls a tall, plump-faced African American boy to the front to work the first problem and explain his steps. He works his way through the subscripts and parentheses with aplumb and demonstrates a good understanding of how equation-balancing works. Next to me, Roberto whispers to Arthur: "Did you get it?" "I don't get it," Arthur replies. "You want me to explain?" "I don't want to get it."

No sooner has Arthur's whisper left his mouth than Van Oast is urging him to share his solution to the second problem -- the one he did "in his head." As he shambles to the front, it's clear Arthur is the class clown and the kids are waiting for him to do or say something funny. But Van Oast has him in her visual grip; he takes the chalk and begins to work the problem. "Explain what you're doing," she says. When he answers, "Oh, you know," she patiently works with him, compelling him to use the correct terms to describe each step to the class. When he mumbles, she suggests he face the class: "Remember, sound waves travel in the direction your mouth is facing."

Here in sun-drenched California, the windows are open and the sounds of lawnmowers and laughing children drift through the classroom. "Bottom burn" is beginning to set in, and Van Oast is quick to notice.

When the equations are all balanced, Van Oast checks in each student's homework ("Science is all about homework," she says) and announces an upcoming visit by a NASA engineer who who will bring some video about the space program. The lesson turns to a discussion of exothermic and endothermic energy -- the subject of last night's homework. It's good basic teaching: Van Oast invites the students to contribute questions and examples of each kind of energy. The kids enjoy the discussion and most show a grasp of the concepts (one manages to explain "potential energy" under his breath to the science-impaired reporter in the back of the room).

We've been going for about an hour now. Here in sun-drenched California, the windows are open and the sounds of lawnmowers and laughing children drift through the classroom. "Bottom burn" is beginning to set in, and Van Oast is quick to notice. "It's time for our lab," she says. "Put on your aprons. Get out your egg and your silver. Lab assistants, please prepare the chemicals."

With practiced ease, the kids shove tables together and create makeshift lab benches. Each group appoints someone to handle the chemicals, someone to time the experiments, and someone to record the data on a step-by-step worksheet from a Prentice-Hall science workbook. One or two other students will observe and lead a discussion about why the agents in this "kitchen chemistry" activity react the way they do.

The kids add vinegar, then iodine, then water to little piles of salt and record the changes. Then they try piles of baking soda and starch. They break their eggs, dip silver spoons into the yolk, and record their observations as the silver tarnishes. Each observation is neatly written in a little box on the worksheet. After they record the data, students answer a set of worksheet questions like "what changes did you observe in the starch? Were they physical or chemical? Explain your reasoning."

Kids at some tables get very interested in the experiments. But even with two teachers to keep the momentum going (teaching coach Beverly Michalak has arrived and is pitching in), attention flags at a couple of tables. ("Some of those kids at table six don't set a good example," one student whispers to me.) With only one sink in the room, clean up is chaotic.

As the second hour winds down, Van Oast attempts to regain control of her 35 kinetic youngsters. As she tries to process what they've learned, many kids are on the edge of their seats, anticipating the upcoming lunch bell.

"Who cares!" shouts Arthur, as the ringing begins.

"Thank all of you who stayed on task," says Van Oast as the excited kids grab their bookbags and stream out of the door.

Going to the next teaching level

Barbara Van Oast's kids have barely cleared Room 205 before Beverly Bimes-Michalak jumps into her favorite classroom activity -- professional conversation.

"Let's talk about the lab," she says. "You did a great job leading the discussion. I think it's fine to start with an experiment from a workbook, but you want to look at it critically."

Michalak and Van Oast examine the worksheet the kids have used to record their experiments. They quickly agree the activity is too passive -- students mostly react, filling in blanks in response to questions. For example, when the students add one chemical to another, the chemicals are already printed on the sheet, next to a one-line blank labeled "Observations."

"As I worked with my group today," Michalak says, "I saw they came to rely too much on the piece of paper. It was doing too much of the thinking for them." She grabs a piece of scrap paper and begins folding and jotting.

"What if you came up with your own data sheet -- something like this," she asks. Across the top of the sheet she writes Prediction, What I did, What happened? and then And so . . . . "This kind of approach can really draw the kids in -- if they're asked to make a prediction, they want to find out whether they're right. The and so. . . column requires them to to say why they were right or speculate on why they were wrong. It's just good scientific method!"

Michalak explains all this with great enthusiasm and good humor, incorporating Van Oast's own ideas as they go along. "We have to describe the problem and come up with a design first," Van Oast says. As they massage the ideas, they make another conceptual leap. What if the kids chose their own test items -- what if they set up a consumer testing lab and did research on which cleansers really clean, that kind of thing? Van Oast could guide a brainstorming session where the students devise their own testing format. When it came time to test them, one assessment might be to give them a fresh subject and have them devise their own testing guide.

The ideas are flying now. The students could produce a report of all their results -- a Consumer's Report for parents and faculty. The basic instruction about chemical reactions would fit here and here. "You could cover six or eight standards easily." By the time the 10-minute conversation ends, Van Oast is considering developing the idea as a chemistry unit during her summer workshop with Michalak.

The two turn to an ecology unit Van Oast developed last summer and used with considerable success with her 8th graders. Michalak is full of praise but wants to discuss how the unit can be strengthened by better assessments. "You always want to make it clear to students from the beginning what they're expected to learn and how they'll be assessed." Using that concept as the basis for their discussion, the pair quickly identify a half-dozen ways to build in assessments that will tell Van Oast what kids learned, and what worked and what didn't.

"This was one of the most eye-opening conversations
I've ever had about teaching. When we can figure out how to do more of this, we will all teach better."

When Michalak hears that Van Oast and her students will be going to Washington, her first question is: "How will they process and share their learning?" Will they come back and report on the experience to their sponsors? Will they share with next year's 8th graders? They quickly devise a strategy.

When Michalak finally takes a break, Barbara Van Oast leans back and sighs with great satisfaction. "This was one of the most eye-opening conversations I've ever had about teaching. When we can figure out how to do more of this, we will all teach better."

How do schools do more of this?

Figuring out how "to do more of this" weighs heavily on Michalak's mind -- and on the minds of the district's curriculum leaders.

Over tacos and burritos the day before, Michalak and I mull over the issues with Cecelia Osburn, LBUSD's curriculum leader for literacy. One criticism leveled at the district in the past was its potpourri approach to professional development -- dozens of national and local training programs, some more "packaged" than others, from which teachers could choose.

Osburn and Michalak both disagree that the district should force all teachers into the same mold. "You don't want to impose a particular approach on everyone," says Michalak. Osburn nods. "That's why Baskin and Robbins has more than one flavor." The trick, she says, is to make sure that any program supported by the district "is based on the same ideas about how children learn." She believes the district has made great strides in that direction.

Most importantly, they agree, is that every program be built around a process of exploration and experimentation in the classroom, with plenty of all-important coaching and follow-up.

"I think much of our staff development philosophy at this point is saying it just can't be done all at once, not matter how wonderful the training is," Osburn says. "My metaphor is that when you build a campfire, even when you've got it going really, really well, you can't go away and just ignore it. You have to keep feeding the fire."

Will the fire be fed?

After two days of shadowing (chasing?) Beverly Bimes-Michalak as she rushes eagerly from one classroom encounter to another, switching on teacher "lightbulbs" at every stop, I have no doubts left. Powerful coaching and professional conversation are the secrets to better teaching -- to the kind of teaching that reaches and raises the achievement of lots of kids who will otherwise be left behind.

They're well-known secrets, really. Good curriculum specialists know it. So do instruction-oriented principals and the dozens of teachers in Long Beach who have been "Michalaked" or have otherwise benefited from high-quality coaching. But the system is too large and the need is too great for outside consultants like Michalak ( a former national teacher of the year who has been working on curriculum reform for a dozen years ) to provide the solution.

The district has created a corps of teacher consultants who spend some time each school year coaching a small group of colleagues. It's an important effort, supplemented by the field work of a handful of talented curriculum specialists like Cecelia Osburn. But they don't stretch far enough and the feedback is often reduced to a letter or memo, a poor substitute for the kind of dynamic, instantaneous feedback Barbara Van Oast experienced.

The district has created a corps of teacher consultants
but they don't stretch far enough -- and the feedback is often reduced to a letter or memo, a poor substitute
for the kind of dynamic, instantaneous feedback
Barbara Van Oast experienced.

Michalak hoped the district would agree to have a teacher/coach in every middle school with enough non-teaching time to observe and give feedback to colleagues, follow up on other professional training, and generally spark conversations about teaching. She was disappointed to learn from Osburn the district has put that idea on hold.

"I think what is missing in most schools is someone to ask the critical questions on a daily basis," Michalak says. "I think we can change schools if we begin with one person who has permission to do that -- who has a restlessness to be better. That teacher finds several others who want to do everything in their power to raise achievement. They begin to experiment and grow and gather data showing what's working. The good teaching spreads to others.

"But so often our school leaders are reluctant to support that approach with time and money."

Building an effective professional development program -- one that provides the coaching, follow-up, and dialogue necessary for teachers to grow -- is expensive and difficult to manage.
Teacher turnover is a problem -- the district replaces about 10 percent of its middle school teachers each year, often resorting to long-term substitutes or teachers who are not fully certified. "Basic training" comes first for these teachers, and the turnover also makes it difficult to sustain a districtwide focus on standards and high achievement.

And time is a huge issue, says LBUSD middle school reform coordinator Kristi Kahl. "Until we do a better job managing and using our time," she says, "we're going to keep struggling with the issue of sustained professional development."

The district has six days set aside for professional development; these days are quickly used up pre-planning for school and meeting state requirements. At best, three or four of the days focus on improving instruction -- including two days set aside to score written items on the districtwide CAS2 tests. (Looking at lots of student work this way "is a powerful staff development experience," says a teacher. Many others agree.)

Other time for professional development must be bought (paying teachers for weekends and summer days) or squeezed out of the traditional school day. Creative scheduling has created more time for teacher planning in many middle schools, but teachers don't often spend that time having the kind of professional dialogue Michalak describes. Routine lesson planning, teacher team meetings, parent conferences, and other school chores easily fill the available hour or two each day.

"Something has to be given up or extra time has to be bought," says Kahl. "You pay a high price to have professional conversation."

LBUSD made the decision to pay at least part of the price earlier this school year. For a week in August, the district paid 180 middle school teachers to attend four day-long staff development sessions, focused specifically on using the district's new academic standards in everyday instruction. The district hired Ruth Mitchell, one of the nation's best standards trainers, to help lead the conversation.

"We realized that we had to make a major commitment if we want to move forward with standards," Kahl says. About a fourth of the district's middle school teachers -- at least one from each content area, plus principals and a parent from each school -- attended the sessions. District leaders hope teachers will return to school "restless" to begin everyday professional discussions about standards and achievement.

They'll need a lot of support. Change is uncomfortable, Michalak warns. There's security in the routines of the "same old same-old" teaching.

"Teaching is still very regimented," she says. "I think that's the hardest thing to do -- to get people to dream big dreams and see what really great teaching can be. It's not something most of us can do alone."
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Find out about Beverly Bimes-Michalak's book,
"Teaching for Achievement in Urban Middle Schools."