Earn A Free Copy of the
First NMSA/MiddleWeb Book!

[We still have a few copies left as of July 2001. Send us your entry!]

Deborah Bambino's book, Teaching Out Loud: A Middle Grades Diary,has been published by the National Middle School Association -- and we're in the mood to celebrate! Teaching Out Loud collects Deborah's MiddleWeb diary entries for the 1998-99 school year into an easy-to-tote paperback (145 pp.), with a foreword and afterword by MiddleWeb editor John Norton.

If you've followed Deb's weekly reflections on her teaching life, you'll appreciate this handy compendium of last year's 36 diary entries. And if you haven't had the pleasure, we promise you'll be intrigued by these reports from the front lines of a middle school heavily engaged in systemic reform. (You can read Deb's 1999-2000 diary here.)

We'll send a free copy of Teaching Out Loud to middle grades teachers and principals. But there's a catch -- you have to do a little writing for us. We're looking for entries of from 200 to 500 words, describing your most significant "Aha!" moment as a teacher or principal during the past year.

The entry should focus on teaching and learning -- you might describe a breakthrough with a particular student; a new approach that worked in your classroom or school; an insight you gained through a professional development experience or a collaborative activity with your colleagues. Have you examined student work together? Mapped your school curriculum? Implemented new teaching strategies? Analyzed data about your school? Strengthened the bond with parents? Whatever you choose to write about, be sure to tell us what you did, how you did it, and what you learned.

We plan to share these insights with other MiddleWeb visitors, so be sure to keep privacy concerns in mind. (You know: "I was working with an underachieving student; let's call him Charlie.")

Send your e-mail to MiddleWeb Stories at this address: MiddleWeb@middleweb.com. Be sure to include your name, job title, school, and mailing address with your e-mail entry.

If you'd rather buy the book, call 1-800-528-NMSA and ask for Item #1263 (Teaching Out Loud). The price to non-members is $22. Members receive a discount. You can also order on-line and get a discount ($17.60).

READ THE "A-HA" MOMENTS OF SOME OF OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Foreword
Teaching Out Loud

A wirebound notebook juts from beneath a pile of books and student assignments on the teacher's desk. Scrawled across the cover in the teacher's hurried script is a single word -- Diary. The urge to peek is almost irresistible.

Why resist?

Thanks to Deborah Bambino, an eighth grade science teacher/leader at Philadelphia's Central East Middle School, we can satisfy our curiosity -- guilt-free. For 36 weeks during the 1998-99 school year, Deb explored her teaching life in the most public way possible -- on the World Wide Web. Each week, hundreds of visitors to MiddleWeb followed the ups and downs of her professional journey -- experiencing her enthusiasm at the opening of school, eavesdropping as she raised difficult issues before her Critical Friends Group, empathizing as she questioned the effectiveness of her own teaching, sharing her grief and puzzlement over the Columbine tragedy, and admiring her spirit and tenacity as the school year drew to a close:
I don't really feel like the year is ending...my mind is already racing toward the fall and the new school year. For me summer is almost like downshifting. I'm not pulling over to rest, and I can already see that next big mountain straight ahead. But I'm slowing down a bit and enjoying the scenery before the next ascent.
When we began the teacher diary project at MiddleWeb, we put out a call for teachers "who are engaged in a significant effort to 'rachet up' their teaching." (Some folks wanted to know what 'rachet up' meant. If you've ever changed a tire, you know.) The weekly diary, we said, "will trace the evolution of the effort, reporting on the progress, the problems, the mid-air adjustments, the lessons learned. Story-telling will be an important element."

As is so often the case when teachers are involved, we got more than we bargained for. Because we are a website with a strong commitment to middle grades reform, we wanted descriptions of reform in action. Deborah and fellow diarist Susan Smethurst provided something much richer -- authentic accounts of daily school life in the midst of change.

Susan's school in inner-city Toronto has often been marked by a sense of disillusionment and powerlessness. Her determination in the face of this sometimes "toxic" atmosphere infuses Susan's journal entries with a special power and poignancy. (You can read her diary at http://www.middleweb.com/MSDiaries.html.) Deb has a different story to tell. Her inner-city school in the Feltonville section of Philadelphia could be a "poster child" for middle grades reform. Throughout her diaries, you will find references to the Annenberg Challenge, the IBM-supported "critical friends groups," the Johns Hopkins' Talent Development program and other cutting-edge school improvement strategies. Change and stress are constants in Deb's closely watched school:
STRESS! As a middle school teacher I used to say things like "hormones are my life" and joke about the ups and downs of normal adolescent mood swings, but now I'm definitely changing my motto to "interruptions are my life"!

After a mere twelve days of class, we are hosting a gala visit on Monday with International guests from South Africa, Viet Nam and Australia.... Since the delegation is so impressive, the Mayor and school Superintendent are coming too.
When I once wrote (with a bit too much military flourish) that the MiddleWeb diaries would provide "teacher dispatches from the frontlines of change," I had a school like Central East in mind. Deborah Bambino has proved to be a five-star field correspondent.

Deb has a scientist's mind and a teacher's heart. Her candid, unadorned prose dissects the challenges confronting every middle school committed to excellence for all. In entry after entry we see Deb soaking up information from research and professional development experiences, then applying her new knowledge and insight through what might be described as "clinical trials" among her students and teacher colleagues. And she's not afraid to put her work to the test. Here's an excerpt from April 12th, describing her presentation at an Annenberg teacher conference:
On Saturday, I presented a videotape of one of my 8th grade sections exploring the convection of warm and cool air masses. We spent a three-hour block of time watching the tape and discussing the lesson and students' grasp of the materials as seen through their lab sketches and test answers.

After the group watched the film they shared their observations of my teaching goals and the mutually respectful tone of my classroom. As I listened to their feedback, I was pleased by their recognition of many of the strengths of the lesson. But I was bothered by the nagging question: "If everything's so wonderful, why aren't the kids learning more?"
If you have a highlighter handy, please swipe it over that last phrase, so everyone who picks up this book will read it. If everything's so wonderful, why aren't the kids learning more? How easy it is to lose sight of the kids in the rush to implement "reform." Deborah manages to keep her eye on the prize, and her unwillingness to settle for the trappings of school improvement provides the sturdy moral center of the diary entries collected in this book.

Deb believes that the very process of journal writing -- of "Teaching Out Loud," as she neatly puts it in her self-selected title -- has kept her teaching and her professionalism alert and alive. In her last diary entry, she tells us that:
I've really enjoyed writing this diary. The schedule has forced me to reflect weekly and has led me to ask questions that I might have otherwise overlooked -- questions primarily of myself, but also of my students and my peers.

Despite my initial feelings, which were a bit panicky, writing my thoughts down helped me to regain my perspective. Writing and then sharing what I'd written placed the children back at the center, where they belong.
I know that Deb would encourage every teacher and principal hungry to improve to consider the power of reflective journal writing. It can be a private affair, part of a critical friends group activity, or something as public as a World Wide Web page. Imagine the insights we might harvest if more educators publicly chronicled their search for professional excellence in the service of kids.
I had a boy who was absent call me at home to discuss his science fair problem. He asked the most thoughtful questions. I could tell he'd been really thinking about it. I don't think he can possibly know how good it made me feel to have a student show me so clearly that he cared about the work. It was also very nice to give him my undivided attention.

The boy, I'll call him Steve, is thoughtful, but a little slow in his processing. I can't ever seem to stop long enough to really answer his questions in class when there are at least 32 others needing a piece of me. I guess this was just a glimpse of what smaller class size would be like. Kids getting feedback quickly and fully and teachers feeling like, hey, I'm really getting through to them.
Deb would also want me to say that she's nothing special. Her work with the Annenberg Challenge and similar initiatives brings her into contact with thousands of other educators who are looking for answers to student failure. Not the easy answers -- "It's the kids." "It's the parents." -- but the hard answers, the solutions we can only find when we look inside ourselves.

MiddleWeb will continue to post diaries by thoughtful teachers like Deborah Bambino and Susan Smethurst. Beginning in the fall of 1999, we'll add principals to the mix. And we have other diary surprises in store. Who knows? One day we might convince a superintendent to put pen to paper, virtually speaking. Wouldn't that be something?

Meanwhile, enjoy and learn from the reflections of Deborah Bambino. And if you become sufficiently engaged, join us at MiddleWeb for Deb's continuing journal entries. She's got a new principal, a new teaching assignment, and a new curriculum. It should be an interesting year.

John Norton, Editor
MiddleWeb