Examining the possibilities and potential for creating a National Professional Development Schools Association was a notable element of this year's conference.

Representing Madison Professional Development Schools Partnership, Instructional Resource Teacher Barbara Smith and University Faculty Coordinator Peter Hewson attended the 2003 Professional Development Schools National Conference in Orlando in early March.

Peter Hewsen and Barbara Smith presenting at the PDS National Conference

The theme of this year's conference was "Making a Difference: The PDS Impact on Education." Educators from 31 states shared their experiences and research findings on how their institutions had used the National PDS Standards to pursue strategies for increasing student learning. A number of presentations assessed the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on renewal efforts at their sites. Others shared their findings involving the special challenges involved in working with rural and urban schools, tactics used in building support for PDSs among state and national policy makers, and suggestions for involving all stakeholders across the PK-16 continuum in the work of school change.

Examining the possibilities and potential for creating a National Professional Development Schools Association was a notable element of this year's conference.

"Many of us have promoted the PDS initiative through the years, but we have not yet established a professional association to facilitate and coordinate our efforts," said Smith. "This time, we had the opportunity to contribute to this important conversation and got guidance for the future."

Meanwhile, another team from the Madison School District and the University of Wisconsin-Madison participated the UNITE Conference held in New Orleans. Representing the Madison PDS were Mary Klehr, University Supervisor at Midvale Elementary School and Ken Zeichner, UW Professor of Education and Associate Dean.

UNITE (the Urban Network to Improve Teacher Education) is a national initiative of urban education partnerships engaged in a redesign of teacher preparation and induction that begins with an understanding of and commitment to urban communities and that is responsive to these communities. A guiding assumption of UNITE is that highly qualified and well-prepared teachers, able and disposed to learn and care, are at the heart of an urban educational systemÕs capacity for critical analysis, democratic action and self-renewal.

At the conference, the Madison PDS team had the opportunity to share ideas, experiences and concerns with other urban educators from across the country.

"It was a wonderful opportunity to talk to other PDS participants and to learn from them how they conceptualize their programs," said Klehr. "We hope that together we can have a stronger voice in educational policy on a national level."

Along with team members from 31 urban partnerships, Madison's delegates serve on several task forces designed to improve urban teacher education theory and practice. Ken Zeichner heads the task force on Urban Teacher Preservice Preparation; Nancy Booth explores issues related to Urban Teacher Induction; Mary Klehr and Linda Allen attend meetings on Equity and Social Justice in PK-16 and Teacher Education Curriculum; Mary Kay Johnson participates in discussions on Community Engagement.

"We recognize that urban schooling is often situated in contexts that are characterized by economic, racial and ethnic isolation, restricted opportunities to learn, and school hierarchies often isolated from the communities they are intended to serve," commented Zeichner. "Our goal is to work with communities that we serve to prepare teachers who can and will teach our children to a high standard."

"The Dreamkeepers" by Gloria Ladson-Billings

Burdened with a history that includes the denial of education, separate and unequal education, and relegation to unsafe, substandard inner-city schools, the quest for quality education remains an elusive dream for the African American community. However, it does remain a dream —perhaps the most powerful for the people of African descent in this nation.
                      —Gloria Ladson-Billings

Do African-American students have the "dream"? Does their "dream" have an academic success component? How can we support the "dream" and allow their identity to stay intact? Can you accommodate cultural diversity and hold to the same standards for all students? For a lot of teachers, these are important questions, and perhaps questions that can not be easily answered.

To help student teachers better understand the importance and standards of Culturally Responsive Teaching, a study group was held for five consecutive weeks across a number of PDS sites. Each week, the group read chapters of Professor Gloria Ladson-Billings' book, "The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African-American Children," and discussed how making teaching more culturally relevant can make a positive difference for both teachers and students.

In her book, Ladson-Billings examines eight exemplary teachers who differ in personal style and methods but share an approach to teaching that affirms cultural identity. Her portraits, interwoven with personal reflections derived from her experience as a scholar, teacher, and parent, present intellectually challenging and culturally relevant classrooms that promise to improve the lives of all students.

Gloria Ladson-Billings and teachers brainstorm at the Dreamkeepers seminar

"I have written this book not to offer a solution to problems in the education of African Americans but to offer an opportunity to make those problems central to the debate about education in general,"
said Ladson-Billings.

For the fourth session, all the PDS study groups met with Professor Ladson-Billings at the Harambe Center on S. Park Street and shared questions and insights on culturally relevant teaching.

"It is really an inspiring seminar," commented a participating teacher. "It helped me realize that academic excellence was not the only standard of behavior and we need to consider the social settings that the children live in."

"As teachers of elementary level students, we need to think ahead to when our students are older and consider what lies ahead for them," said Julie Melton, IRT at Lincoln Elementary School.

Many students said that they enjoyed having the class in a school setting. "It has been a great experience to observe literacy in action," said practicum student Katie Preston. "The guest speakers were very insightful and the classrooms were very inviting."

The group also discussed the importance of building a relationship with the African-American community and how to adjust to the changing social and cultural environment.

The PDS Partnership proudly acknowledges the professional accomplishments of this semester's 25 student teachers as well as the mentoring and leadership of the cooperating teachers, instructional resource teachers, and teaching assistants with whom they work.

The core reason I thought the experience at Mt. Zion Baptist Church was important was to see the connection between a child's school life and religious life. The visit also helped to enlighten my view of how African American parents work with their children.
—Andrew Hughes Darian

By attending Science Night at Lincoln, I had the opportunity to see what types of evening programs are offered at the elementary schools. This experience has impacted my classroom practice because it has reinforced by belief that if you make an activity interesting and engaging, children will have fun and learn from it.
—Erin Smith

It is interesting to see how your students act and respect their parents. It is also good to watch the management or discipline style of your students' parents so you can help instill the behaviors they want in their children. These opportunities will also open lines of communication with your students' parents and show that you are invested in their kids and the school.
—Sara Urbanek

"Learning About Communities" seminar panel

On Friday, March 28, 2003, a group of student teachers and practicum students gathered in a classroom at Lincoln Elementary School with their three supervisors—Mary Klehr, Cookie Miller, Lincoln Instructional Resource Teacher Julie Melton—and Professor Ken Zeichner, Associate Dean of the UW-Madison School of Education. The topic of this Midvale-Lincoln PDS weekly seminar was "Learning About Communities."

Four community members from different ethnic backgrounds— Romi Schlueter, Betty Banks, Linda Franklin and Ying Vang—shared their community service experiences and ideas with the students at the seminar.

"When working with the Hispanic community, you have to be aware of the fact that there is a wide diversity of backgrounds and cultures in this group. People are from 22 different countries," said Schlueter, Member of Centro Guadalupe.

Banks, Director of the Family Enhancement Center, also pointed out that it was very important to know the impact that slavery had on African Americans and the society as a whole. "Being sensitive to the culture of power and people's experiences and situations is an integral part of teaching," she said.

Ying Vang speaks as part of the "Learning About Communities" panel

Vang, who works as the ESL Guidance Counselor at Memorial High School, added that "it is essential to learn about important festivals, holidays and events of different communities and teachers should instruct kids to show respect to their parents and the elderly."

The guest speakers' unique experiences and perspectives aroused great interest among the students. Discussion went on and on. Both the guest speakers and students agreed that it was important to deliver the message to parents that we, as teachers, care and want to learn more about their communities.

It has been a tradition of the elementary PDS program to encourage students to learn more about the communities in which their students live. Topics such as funds of knowledge, social networks, ways of interacting and of seeing the world had been covered in the previous seminars. More and more students come to realize the importance of building positive relationships with parents and the community.

At the end of the seminar, practicum students talked about their own community experiences and how those experiences had impacted their classroom practice.

At the Cherokee-Thoreau seminar on March 26, student teacher David Larson shared his summer experience in Ghana and student teacher Carey Callies shared her experiences working on social justice issues in Selma, Alabama.

"It was amazing to see the infrastructure of the slave trade in Ghana and to see how that affects the community," said Larson, a fifth-grade teacher at Forest Lane Elementary School.

David Larson dicusses his summer experiences in Ghana

Callies participated in the Selma Service Learning Project at the National Voting Rights Museum, gathering oral histories, asking questions, collecting experiences and stories about discrimination.

"It made me realize that the civil rights movement is not over," she said. "In teaching, we should bring the stories to classrooms and tell the children where they are from and who they are."

A group of student teachers and practicum students at Cherokee and Thoreau also took a community tour on April 25, visiting local nature sites and reflecting on how they can bring that experience into the classroom.

In late January, a collaborative team from the Madison Professional Development School Partnership made a presentation at the 2003 Hewlett-Packard School of Education/K-12 Technology Collaboration Summit in San Jose, California.

Attending from Madison were School of Education Project Assistant Margaret Stern and Cherokee Middle School Technology teachers Lori Aegerter and Kathleen Doherty.

Margaret Stern and Sheryl Dhuey prepare for their presentation

"The purpose of the conference is to provide the time and space for us to connect not only with our partnership teammates, but also to connect with other partnerships around the country that are engaged in similar technology integration efforts at their schools," said Stern.

The Madison representatives and ten other teams discussed the promising practices developed over the course of the past year and the challenges they had encountered to integrate technology into the school curriculum and plans.

"The topic of our presentation is 'Promising Practices'," said Stern. "We collected a series of teachers' stories of their experiences of using the technology to examine the evidence in classroom behavior and performance."

"It is really invigorating to meet other teams and get to know how they have integrated technology into their school curriculum," she added. "A Colorado team lives in a very remote county and none of the kids have computers at home, but they have the HP grant and are able to gain access to technology."

At Cherokee middle school, one of the PDS sites, students and teachers have the latest technology at their fingertips, thanks to the Hewlett-Packard grant secured by the Madison PDS Partnership. Cherokee now has 42 wireless computers that are part of the MobiLAN ONE, a computer-stacked R2-D2 that can motor down the Cherokee halls at three m.p.h. Totally self-contained, the unit can travel to almost any classroom within the school.

"Currently we are doing an evaluation about students' response in terms of a deep understanding of planetary motion in the sun-earth-moon system," said Stern. The HP facilities have been used in math, science, art and bilingual classrooms at Cherokee.

Why would one of Japan's largest newspapers, the national Ministry of Education, a team of university teacher educators, and the entire staff of an elementary school in Japan focus on the environmental studies of students in Lincoln Elementary School?

Lincoln students participating in an interconnect session

Becky Rosenberg's classroom has captured significant attention in Japan because it is interdisciplinary, and because she's made significant efforts to connect it with Japan. A recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Memorial Fund to Japan and a subsequent Master Teacher grant, Rosenberg has traveled to Japan twice. She and her students have just begun weekly classes to learn Japanese, connected to their instructor in Japan through CUSeeMe software.

Lincoln students demonstrate their knowledge of Japanese

During this past summer's six-week residency in Japan, Rosenberg spent many hours in classrooms at Omose Elementary School, which is in Kesenuma City in the Miyagi Prefecture, located in Japan's northern Tohoku region. Japanese educators liked Rosenberg's hands-on inquiry methods, which matched well with innovations they were making in their own curriculum.

Japan is in the second year of a major national school reform that allows schools more flexibility in the curriculum and encourages interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning. Omose teachers and parents have chosen to focus on environmental education.

"Their curriculum matches well with ours here in Madison," says Rosenberg. "They study glaciers, do Fast Plants and butterfly projects, study regional planning, and create cyber maps of environments like wetlands, rivers, and bays."

Lincoln students discuss the mayoral race during an interconnect session

Three video interconnects have allowed the children to share scientific data. To get the time differences in sync, the Japanese children came to school at 8 a.m. (on a Tuesday), while the Madison children stayed until 5 p.m. (on a Monday). During the video interconnects, both classrooms were crowded with parents, teachers, principals, media, and a university president. Cameras whirred while the children spoke, transmitted data, and shared videos they'd made.

Lincoln students participating in an interconnect session

All teachers of Omose Elementary School are involved in the project, and Lincoln teachers Lisa Stein, Shannon Stetter, Dave Spitzer, Kim O'Donahue, Caroline Konkol, and Sandy Waity share their enthusiasm. The project also has been picked up by Madison's innovative Heron Network, including Mark Wagler's Randall Elementary School students and Dave Ropa's Spring Harbor Middle School students.

The Lincoln Elementary team, including principal Beth Lehman and technology coordinator Tom Crawford, is one of only 26 teams selected from Japan and the U.S. The goal of the project is to help educators advance Internet-based learning with environmental studies as a primary focus. To date, Wisconsin's and Miyagi's water environments and their effects on human life have formed the basis for the collaboration.

It's 11 a.m. on a Friday morning at Lincoln Elementary School and nine fifth-grade students are passionately working on their social studies writing projects. Their teacher, Regina Simon, walks around the classroom and talks with the students to make sure that every child likes his/her work. The topic of today's class is World War II.

Regina Simon in her fifth grade classroom

"Casualties, Allies, Propaganda, Dictator, Refugee...,"—the students picked their favorite words, then tried to make connections and draw pictures of them.

"One connection I have with World War II is with Asia because I had a family member who lived there before. They were invaded because they were half-Jewish. It's just too bad," one student wrote beside her picture.

"The war affects both me and the kids. A lot of kids' parents are watching news and the kids are asking questions about the war from time to time," said Regina. "I hope that this class can help them make connections and formulate their opinions."

Regina Simon speaks with one of her students

Since graduating from the PDS program in 2000, Regina Simon has been teaching at Lincoln Elementary School. Looking back, she says that she benefited a lot from the reflection sessions such as journaling, talking and collaborating with others at the PDS seminars.

"I remember that we talked about the Union once and how to build community for people [just coming in]," she recalled. "That was a great experience."

Like other teachers, Regina has her own teaching philosophy. "Make sure the standard is clear for all. I know that the more choices I offer, the more successful the kids can be," she said. "I enjoy working with disadvantaged kids and trying to make them feel that they can [be successful] and there's no excuse not to try."

It takes a whole village to raise a child. It takes a whole village to educate a child. My underlying educational philosophy is rooted in this proverb. Being asked to write this letter has given me another opportunity to reflect upon my journey throughout the PDS program. This program provided me with many ways to become an active member in our own greater village. Not only did they provide opportunities for involvement, they provided me with the emotional and philosophical support I needed during my most cynical and pessimistic times and a venue to celebrate my most cherished accomplishments. Thank you PDS.

Ryan Vernosh, a 2000 PDS graduate and first grade teacher

The value of community experience within your students' neighborhoods is immeasurable. What does the teacher gain? For starters, you are able to see the real child. For so many children, school becomes a vacuum, sucking the life, personality, and motivation out of them. Outside of the context of school, one can see who the real person is. A teacher will gain valuable insights as to what the child's interests are, their language patterns, who their non-school related peers and role models are, their living environment, what truly engages the child physically and intellectually proving that just maybe that child may not need Ritalin after all. Being in the community is building a relationship, a bond, that carries over into the classroom, raises one's expectations and leads to higher school achievement.

Almost every educator, pre-service or other, will agree that the most meaningful curriculum is one that the children are personally invested in and is most relevant to their lives. I ask you, how is a teacher to truly know and understand what is relevant to their students' lives if they are not witness to what their lives actually entail outside of the four walls of the classroom? The community is the largest curricular resource in existence. All one needs to do is look, ask, and become involved. In the case of the PDS program, they do a great deal of the looking for you; all you need to do is get involved.

What do the children gain from their teacher striving to be a member of their personal village? Where to begin? Higher school achievement, increased self esteem, the knowledge that their teacher does not actually live in school, the sense of self empowerment knowing that the teacher truly does care for me and therefore I and my neighborhood must be pretty great if my teacher is here.

During my third grade practicum experience, we had a new student transfer into the class a day or two after I began. As the semester progressed, this child and I formed a very strong bond. We did things on the weekend and after school. I helped coach his third-grade soccer team, we got ice cream, played basketball with other neighborhood kids, and helped provide transportation for him, his brother, and his grandmother. Our relationship reaped dividends in the classroom. He worked harder in class, he was a much more active listener, and he felt that he had an adult at school that he knew he could trust.

There is one instance in particular that stands out in my memory. We were at the school forest campout. Unfortunately a thunderstorm rolled in and we were relegated to our cabin from about six at night until the following morning. Just imagine having 35 or so third-grade boys pent up for several hours in a modest-sized cabin. Well, some of the kids came down with cabin fever and were becoming very rude and disrespectful to the other children, the other male adult supervisor, and me. After several minutes of bickering between the students and me (a power struggle that I walked into blindly) the child that I had discussed earlier went over to the group of boys and told them to take it easy on me, that I was 'cool.' They stopped harassing the other students and me and several of them even came up and apologized. This is just one of many examples that I and other teachers have of how being active in the community can help in the context of school.

As my first year of teaching winds down, I realize that I have not been as active as I would have liked to have been in my school's community, but the community connections I had made prior have helped immensely throughout the year. The first year of teaching occurs in such a whirlwind that I often did not know whether I was coming or going. However this was not the case during my undergraduate experience. Sure, the methods semesters are busy, but they fail in comparison to the blitz of your fist year. During my journey with the PDS program, I dedicated much of my time to participating in various community organizations. The time spent outside of the classroom has affected my practice more than any single methods class or lesson plan I had written.

Please do not misunderstand me, methods classes and lesson planning are extremely valuable; one cannot fully understand their own practice if they are not well rounded in theory, but most of my classes did not offer or explain the impact of community activism on student's achievement. The PDS group gave me the opportunity to witness the power that the community has on the education of our children. If you do not witness this early in your career, chances are that you may never become truly dedicated to the village.

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