The Minefield of Teaching in Florida

We have all seen the headlines. Florida State House passes "Don't Say Gay" bill, "Florida Governor Signs School Book Bill Into Law" among other laws that are targeting schools and teachers. Florida has become a hostile environment for learning. Sounds dramatic, huh? Well, it's not. 

As we start the 2023-24 school year, we are inundated with new rules about what kids can and cannot read and what teachers can and cannot say. We get "curriculum" suggestions from unaccredited "universities" in Michigan that peddle right-wing propaganda, completely rewriting history to appease the radicals. Indeed, Florida is becoming a laughingstock of the nation when it comes to its education system. Where once we could boast effective schools that could compete with the rest of the nation, now we are a national joke. In Florida, we don't have AP Psychology classes and we don't have AP African American Studies classes. Instead, Florida DOE seems to want to pick and choose each lesson that is in each of the courses, throwing out ones that they don't like. 

All of this is mind-boggling. We are supposed to educate, not indoctrinate. The Florida politicians scream, "Indoctrination!" anytime something appears in school curricula that they don't like. They, in fact, are the ones who are trying to indoctrinate. When you pare down the ideas presented to children so that they only align with your way of thinking - THAT is indoctrination. When you present the complete set of ideas - THAT is education. I understand that many of our state politicians get uncomfortable when talking about some of our nation's blemishes throughout history, but they must be taught. In order to improve on things, we must be made aware of the mistakes that we made. 

I fear that Florida education will become such a joke that the degrees granted by universities here will not be held to the same status as degrees from universities in other states. Will our high school grads get accepted into the best universities in the country with a diploma that leaves out so much of the education that colleges expect kids to have? Our politicians are putting our kids at a competitive disadvantage. Our kids still have to compete with kids from other states for places in the top universities. How will they do that with an education that has so many holes in it?

Even free-thinking New College of Florida has been decimated by politicians. Now, schools in Massachusetts are openly recruiting those students to move up there and get a real education. 

One thing that our politicians here in Florida do not understand is that we are a diverse nation. While they try to turn back the clock and ignore that diversity, more and more of those diverse kids are becoming able to vote. Do these politicians really think that these new voters are going to vote for politicians that want to deny their existence? Good luck with that premise! 

Been Caught Reading!

One of our main goals at Lely Elementary this year is to cultivate a love of reading among the kids. We want them to see reading as a reward, not to read for a reward. In order to do that, we first must hook them into reading and that sometimes does require rewards. Hopefully, in time, the kids will be so engaged by what they are reading that they will see the reading itself as rewarding time spent. 

We have many different ways to encourage kids to read. One of the new things that we have started on campus is "Been Caught Reading". When we happen upon a student reading while waiting for the bus, on the courtyard in the morning, or in any other situation where reading is not required, we snap a quick photo without their knowledge. Then we surprise them by putting their picture on the news and calling them down to the media center for a prize. That prize is a coin to get a free book from the book vending machine. 

We have had a really good reaction from the kids. The kids that we caught reading had no idea, so when they see themselves on the news, they are very proud of being caught. Their peers are both congratulatory and a bit jealous. 

We love finding different ways to encourage the love of reading among our kids. Making sure that they have the books they love and then encouraging a culture of reading is usually the best bet to turn kids into lifelong readers. So many have found the joy of reading and it's only a matter of time before every student in our school is an avid, independent, lifelong reader. 

The NEW School News Program

Since I started at Lely Elementary School, we have done the school news in a pretty traditional way: write the announcements and read the announcements. Unfortunately, we lacked anything resembling pizzazz. Our kids' personalities really did not shine through and it became almost robotic. We were in desperate need of a change. 

Earlier this year, our news room equipment pooped out. Within a few weeks, our district replaced almost all of our newsroom equipment. We had brand new technology and it was also a good time to come up with a brand new news program. Thus, the NEW news.

One of the things that we had to do was get more of the kids' personalities and interests into our news program. When kids asked to do the news in costume, we said, "Of course." When kids asked to work different "jobs" on the news, we trained them in those jobs. This news program is entirely student-run. They do the production, anchoring, sound board, slideshow, and script. We brainstormed different news segments based on the kids' interests, so like the real news, we cut away to kids who talked about things they were interested in. These "segments" have become something that the entire school population looks forward to seeing. 

How do kids figure out what segment they want to do? It's pretty easy and informal. Basically a student comes to me and pitches an idea. We talk it through until we have a firm idea. We create a catchy name and produce a slide for the news program, and then from time to time, that student will appear on the news to do their segment. 

Where on Earth is Binky Hackensack is a ripoff of the Carmen San Diego show. One of our kiddos created the character of Binky Hackensack and has a trivia show each week, giving clues about the place he has "visited". The kids look forward to seeing his show every week and we always have participants in this trivia game. 

Ruby pitched an idea about an animal show, but not just any ordinary animal show. She wanted to search out some of the more obscure, strange animals, and talk about them. Her show has been a hit and she is pursuing her interest. 

Terrence is a big football fan and so each Friday, he has a segment where he predicts a few of the NFL games each weekend, a la ESPN. He has a pretty good record and he really likes what he is doing.

One of the things about our news crew is that they have all kinds of ideas. We have a workshop mentality on news crew, meaning that any idea is welcome and we will try to tweak it and refine it and get it on the news. Hopefully the kids feel the freedom to explore their interests and incorporate those interests on the news program. But these are baby steps. We still have a long way to go in order to make this news program even better. We have the equipment to go around campus and interview kids, profile some of our students who do amazing things outside of school, and create features that will be interesting to our entire school population. 

We are at the beginning of this journey, but the future is in good hands. These kids are really coming into their own and are always thinking of ways to improve the show. They often ask, "Why can't we...?" and the answer is always, "Let's see if we can!" That is the attitude that we live by and it is really paying off!

Lely Leads!

In our quest to improve our campus with beautiful art and pops of color, Kindergarten teacher Jordan Palmer came up with the idea of creating a huge "Lely Leads" mural and fill it with the hand prints of all of the Lely Elementary students. This was a big, big project that took up an entire wall of the Kindergarten building. The process took a couple of months. We enlisted the help of local artist Matthew Park to help with the mural. Together, Jordan and Matt measured out the letters on the wall, taped the boundaries for the letters, and used a paint sprayer to fill in the enormous letters. From start to finish, painting the letters on the wall took a good three to four hours. 

After the letters were painted, the wall looked fresh and neat. This would be the basis for our next move, getting the kids to put their hand prints on the wall. We had several colors to choose from. Each kiddo gloved up, had their gloved hand painted, and high-fived the wall. 

After getting all of the kids' hand prints on the wall, we sealed the wall with polyurethane. This wall is a colorful, beautiful mural that every kids had a "hand" in creating. On a daily basis, kids walk by the mural and look for their hand print. 

It is important that kids see themselves in their school and that they have stake in their physical environment. We try to get kids involved as much as possible in beautifying campus. They have many ideas and they have the initiative to make those ideas a reality. Now that this area of our school is looking good, we move on to the next area that we want to tackle. So far we have been able to add so many beautiful areas to our school, but we have a large campus, and there is much more to do. With all of the great ideas and efforts of our staff and students, we know in a few years, out entire campus will look amazing!

Our Interactive Learning Wonderland

The beginning of school is always a whirlwind. We hit the ground running and it seems like a few weeks go by before we can stop to take a breath. So many of us strive to give our kids the absolute best school experience, and to do that, we plan our environments carefully, capitalizing on the energy, creativity, and imagination of our kids, and ourselves. It takes a lot of time and effort to plan for a lively, fun, interactive learning environment. So many of the teachers in our school excel at creating amazing learning spaces. They spend countless hours creating and installing cool learning areas in their classrooms. 

In the media center, we also want to create an imaginative, interactive learning wonderland. We want kids to experience a sense of awe when they walk through our doors. Over the past few years, we have been adding new features to our media center to try to make this library a destination for all of the kids at Lely Elementary. This post is an update of our efforts, to show the progress we have made toward our goal. There are many more surprises coming later this year and we'll feature them on our social media outlets as soon as they are ready to be unveiled. To follow us, check out our social media tags: Twitter - @dayankee, Instagram - @doneckert_libraryguy, and Facebook - Lely Elementary School Media Center. 

Our STEAM area features a fish tank, an aquaponics system (we just started growing lettuce seeds), and two enclosed ecosystems featuring plants and beta fish.

Also in our STEAM area, we have a 3D printer and a plasma ball. Kids love the plasma ball especially because they learn about electricity when they use it. The STEAM area is very interactive.

We just got these magnetic fabric blocks and they are a hit with the kids. They are constantly finding some time to build a variety of things. Lately, they have tried building furniture and forts with the blocks.

A few weeks ago, we got this giant Connect 4 game. Kids love strategy games and they are always trying to outthink each other. Kids use this game constantly to exercise their brains.

This is the heart of the library. It is our read-aloud area, where the kids gather for story time. 

The read-aloud area from another angle. Our reading tents are featured here.

Just a few weeks ago, we got these super cool rocking readers. Kids looooove them. The kids think they are gaming chairs, but we know that they are really reading chairs. 

Some of the items in our Maker Space. The magnetic tiles and coaster-making kits are especially popular. We have Maker Mornings where each morning before school, a different grade level is welcome to come in to use the library resources. The kids always gravitate to the Maker materials.

We got our book vending machine last year. In order to get a book, kids have to score Bingo on a card that is given to them at the beginning of the year. Each square on the card is a different reading goal. Finish five of the goals in a line and you come down for a magic coin that works in the vending machine for a free book.

We have gel tiles at each of the doors. When kids (or adults) walk on them, the gel moves. The kids (and adults) love walking all over them as they enter the media center.

Lately, we converted our graphic novel section to bins. It had been more difficult to see the books with only the spines visible. Now the kids see the covers of the series that they are interested in. Kids are wild about graphic novels and we try to make available the things that they want to read. We are hooking new readers everyday!

There will be many more updates this year. There are two big changes coming in the next few months. We can't wait to see the kids' reactions when they see them. Part of the fun of running an elementary school library is creating an interactive learning wonderland. We are well on our way, but there is still a ways to go! 

Applying Our Learning

The other day, we were talking about an article that we read. It dealt with using oysters to filter pollution from the water in Hudson Bay. We talked for a while about how that would work and how an ecosystem like that works in general. Later in the discussion, we related the oysters of Hudson Bay to our own enclosed aquaponics ecosystem in the media center. Right now, we have a fish tank hooked up to an aquaponics system and we are trying to grow strawberries and lettuce. It has been a disappointing venture. Something is not working correctly and we have yet to come up with a solution.

Some of the kiddos thought they could take a look at the system and determine the problem and come up with a solution. Being of the mind that kids should be doing most of the learning through hands-on experiences, I took them up on their offer. A couple of the kids came down to the media center and looked over the system. I explained what I thought was the problem. Right now, we have a dozen or so fish in the tank and a system that holds over 90 plants. That is far too many and most of the plants have died off. The boys were determined to save the still-living plants and maybe plant a few more seeds to see if the system would support them.

First off, they determined that the top deck of the system was too close to the light and the top needed to be taken off. That is probably true but it isn't feasible to take the top deck off of the system at this time. Instead, they moved all of the living plants to the bottom deck so that the light would not be as intense. They also moved the plants to areas of the deck where the light would be enough to grow them but not too intense as to burn them up. They also pulled out the roots of all of the dead plants and allowed more water flow. 

This is the first tweak to the system. The kids are going to check in every few days to see if their changes are working and, if not, tweak some more. They are learning through hypothesizing and experimenting, experiential learning. What they learn from this project will stick with them, I'm sure. 

This is another area of the media center that will be run by students. In our library, we try to get the kids to take over as many of the duties as possible, from checking in and checking out books, to helping set up new areas of the library, to brainstorming ideas to make the library even more of a draw for the kids in our school. We feel that we have 500 kids' brains brimming with ideas and we would be foolish not to tap into those ideas. Our media center is still evolving into the kid-friendly learning wonderland that we hope it will be. We feel that we are well on our way to that goal. 

Reading Marketplace Prize-a-palooza

How do you hook kids into reading when reading may not be their favorite thing to do? Well, I always say that kids who don't love reading just haven't found "their books" yet. It is true. Once kids find the books and authors that they love, they become voracious readers. But what do we do to entice them to try books? How do we get them to read certain authors? Forcing them doesn't work. Demanding it doesn't work. Assigning it doesn't work. They may read and find it "boring" and become kids who hate reading. That is not what we want. We must hook them, and sometimes we have to entice them with...prizes!

At Lely Elementary, we started a Reading Marketplace Prize-a-palooza where kids can "spend" the points they earned in the Reading Counts Program. Kids read books, take a short quiz, pass the quiz, accumulate points, and on Marketplace Day, spend those points. This is the way we entice kids to give reading a shot and to try different authors. Sometimes, the power of the prize really works with elementary school kiddos. It certainly did for us. 

Kids were so excited to spend their points on prizes ranging from 1-150 points. We had put together a selection of prizes that ranged from mini-fridges and stuffed animals to passes for Maker Space time in the media center or extra recess. 

Each class had a half hour to shop the marketplace. We had separated high-point prizes in one room and lower-point prizes in a connecting room. Kids walked through the high-point room and, if they had enough points, could purchase anything in the room. Then we moved to the lower-point room and everyone spent their points there. We did not allow kids to "save" points; they had to spend them all, and they did. 

Our kids were incredibly excited to visit the marketplace. Already they were making plans for the next quarter and the books they would read and the points they would accumulate. We have most of the kids hooked. Now, it's time to use that hook to steer them toward "their books". It would be a waste if we did not work with their natural motivation and help them become intrinsically-motivated, voracious readers. Now that they are open to reading more books, we can figure out which books they will love most. We can use their interests to turn them on to authors they will love and find books similar to the ones they already love. 

It is not our end goal to give prizes for reading. The prizes are a means to an end. Our end goal is to help develop lifelong readers. In order to do that, we have to get kids to love reading. The Prize-a-palooza was one step in the process and now we must take that enthusiasm for reading and continue to show kids the wonders of reading. If we get them to love reading now, we have set them up for much success in their futures.