Opinion: It All Started With an Innocent Facebook Comment

**Disclaimer: I only visited Estancia High School one day and just for a few hours so there is no real way for me to understand the culture of Estancia. However this is not my first time at the rodeo, and I'm sure I glean more from a couple of hours than an average citizen. These are my impressions.

All I said was "the way to learn to read, is to read," and then almost immediately heard from Kirk Bauermeister, principal of Estancia High School, on Facebook.

"Sandy, come on that is far too simple; it will never work. Hey, come by EHS sometime I would love to show you around and let you see what we are doing around reading across the content," Bauermeister said.

Pretty smooth huh? So on Wednesday, March 7 I went to Estancia and met him bright and early. For those of you who don't know Kirk Bauermeister, can I just say that he is a very nice man. Some have even suggested that he be the next superintendent. He chuckled and shared that he wasn't interested, and then proceeded to tell me all about Estancia and how proud he is of his teachers and what he feels they have accomplished

Estancia's philosophy is to empower the teachers to make decisions in concert, and work together on (and you will forgive me for using educationese) "best practices," curriculum, content, lessons, and all the things that teachers do.

Here's the thing... Kirk seems to have pulled together all of the complications and confusions of what the educational system has become. Estancia seems very much student and teacher-based and not the political nightmare that some schools are. They value testing but they don't worship it. Clearly the goal of any public school, that has not succumbed to insanity, has to be very aware of their testing. Estancia is proud of it's rankings. They take seriously the scores from the year before and question as a group what has been done and where it can be changed .

After the short meeting in Kirk's office, we went to the staff meeting. I have never been to a staff meeting like this one. The staff filed in looking pretty happy for an early morning meeting, and with minimal chatting sat quietly throughout  the hour meeting; not quietly like in a coma, but quietly as if they were honestly attuned to the speakers. The speakers were three very bright teachers Jen Chamberlin, Diana Lester and Denise Moore.

One of the topics recounted by one of the three teachers presenting was called "Academic English for Attentive Listening" and it went like this:

Everyday (students)

Huh?

What?

What do you mean?

and my personal favorite

I don't get it.

The suggested translation that the students should learn is:

Will you please repeat that?

Will you please restate our idea?

Can you explain what you mean by___?

I don't quite understand your____(example)

Then we traveled through the following topics:

• Our Objectives
• Long-Term English Learners
• What is Academic English?
• Language Students Must Master for College and a Professional Career
• Promoting Use of Academic English
• Typical Student Response and Examples
• Academic English to ask for Assistance
• Academic English to Contribute Response
• Academic English to Express Opinion
• Academic English to Compare
• Academic English for Discussion
• Productive Partnering
• Common Teacher Missteps
• Participation Strategies
• Question/Tasks That Fail to Engage

All of that in the space of one hour. I cannot say enough about the teachers who presented. It's hard to stand in front of your peers and attempt to teach them something. These women were clear, funny and focused. In my 38 years of teaching, I don't remember having learned so much in such a short time. Well, they're teachers aren't they?

The one that I loved and fit my teaching was the one titled "Common Teacher Missteps".

As Jennifer Chamberlin (Vice Principal) said "I think I did all of them."

So did I, Jennifer! All of them...

Other than discussing Sustained Silent Reading, A.R. books in library, close reading, mentors, and reading across the curriculum, Kirk and I didn't finish our discussion about reading, but it looks to me that our philosophies are not far apart.

Maybe another day?