The Penn Literacy Network — a program in the University’s Graduate School of Education — hosted several elementary and middle-school teachers from Detroit for a week of teaching-based workshops.
News of PLN workshops spreads to school districts mostly through word of mouth, according to PLN Director Bonnie Botel-Sheppard,
“Detroit came to us because of a woman named Dr. Kimberly Bates from publishing company Harcourt, which had a contract with Detroit schools,” Botel-Sheppard said. “Kimberly went to this event last year and told us we needed to reach out to Detroit. So we went for it.”
The workshops, which according to Botel-Sheppard aim to engage students through reading, writing and talking, were well-received by the visiting teachers.
“I’d heard of the University of Pennsylvania but I didn’t have any expectations,” said Rebecca Pietrzak, a Spanish teacher for K–8 students in Detroit. “Not until the minute I walked through the door and did the first day’s exercises — right off the bat I said, ‘Wow I can’t wait to come back.’”
The workshops help place teachers in “the child’s seat,” Pietrzak said. “We had to write stories, and they asked us to share our stories,” she continued, explaining that children’s learning processes were being modeled to them through writing strategies.
Pietrzak was not alone in her praise of the program. The workshops have led fifth grade teacher Chalena Beasely to “completely” overhaul her lesson plans.
“I think I was teaching the content and I wasn’t teaching the students,” she said, describing how PLN taught her to better engage her classroom. “It doesn’t matter what I’m saying or what I’m doing if they’re not saying and doing, they’re not learning.”
One strategy Beasely learned, called “living sentences” would help students learn subject-verb agreement, she said. “They speak the way I do when I don’t have my ‘teacher voice’ — I can turn it off and on, but they can’t,” she explained.
The strategy allows students to, in groups, “rearrange, co-construct, and play around with” words in a sentence. “It’s very different from me putting a power point on. You are forced to participate in that lesson,” Beasely said, adding that engagement is crucial when students’ personal lives are in disarray. “You know, it could be that they slept in a car last night — and now you’re trying to teach them subject-verb agreement?”
According to Botel-Sheperd, part of the program’s success since its 1981 inception is the network created. Teachers are invited to the program, Botel-Shepherd said, and then go on to lead workshops in other districts. However, there are still challenges to overcome — such as funding in an economic crisis and the political climate toward teaching.
“If the political climate is against our own philosophy it makes it difficult to move forwards. And it happens a lot¸ where teachers are regulated and told to do things that run contrary to the research,” Botel-Sheppard said.
“Nevertheless, we’re getting some good groups going, and we try to work around that,” Botel Sheppard said.
“I loved the program,” Pietrzak said, adding “I wish this were mandatory — it keeps you connected to the student.”
