Finding the color of the sky: Inquiry in teacher preparation

Defending Public Schools Volume II Teaching for a Democratic Society EDITED KATHLEEN R. KESSON

BY

AND

E. WAYNE ROSS

Praeger Perspectives

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Finding the Color of the Sky: Inquiry in Teacher Preparation CECELIA TRAUGH

Sometimes I think the conditions of everyday oppressions, of survival, render so much of our imagination inert. We are constantly putting out fires and finding temporary refuge, which makes it difficult to see anything beyond the present. As the great poet Willie Kgositsile put it, “When the clouds clear/We shall know the colour of the sky.” When movements have been unable to clear the clouds, it has been the poets—no matter the medium—who have succeeded in imagining the color of the sky, in rendering the kinds of dreams and futures social movements are capable of producing. Knowing the color of the sky is far more important than counting clouds. To put it another way, the most radical art is not protest art, but works that take us to another place, allowing us to envision a different way of seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling.1

We live in a time, I believe, when human liberties and democratic values are threatened and, within this context, a time when Americans seem to have forgotten (or at least set aside) the vision of public education as a vehicle for furthering large democratic purposes. I begin this chapter with this passage from Robin Kelley because I think he describes a condition of our body politic generally and in schools and teacher education, particularly. The enforced circumscription of daily life in schools and classrooms drains our energy, deadens our thinking and imagination, and helps us forget the human roots of education. However, he opens up a possibility. As poets, we “clear the clouds” and “know the color of the sky.” For me, and I think for Kelley, this means we work to be clear about human and democratic values and

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through those values “envision a different way of seeing . . . a different way of feeling,” a different way of creating relationship.

Alongside this passage I put a metaphor spoken in other times of great constraint in public schools by a friend, colleague, and supporter of grassroots teacher activism, Lillian Weber. She urged all educators to “find the cracks.”2 This idea always brings to my mind the image of a crack in a cement sidewalk or an asphalt parking lot through which blades of grass or dandelions are growing. Left alone, that growing thing will contribute to the crumbling of the pavement. Working with teachers in New York City’s public schools, I frequently share Lillian’s image in the hope of their seeing possibilities for action in their daily teaching lives. The metaphor is appreciated and readily understood by most everyone; however, the process of finding a crack and knowing what seeds to plant is less clear.

Together Weber and Kelley speak of what teachers need to be able to do in order to “wake up” and fulfill their educational and human responsibilities to their students. Seeing the color of the sky and defining our aspirations in terms of large human values will make us better able to find cracks, see the possibilities in those cracks, and know what seeds to plant in them.

In this chapter, I discuss descriptive inquiry as one way to help teachers be the poets they need to be to educate children in deep and liberating ways. I begin with descriptions of context, that is, Kelley’s “conditions of everyday oppressions,” of descriptive inquiry itself, and of the conflicts teacher educators must confront when these two different energies come together. I then describe how several teachers have used descriptive inquiry to find cracks, see differently, and grow as educators of children.

EVERYDAY OPPRESSIONS The stories I relate here were originally told by New York City teachers working in the public schools while earning their teacher certification and master’s degrees in education at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus.3 New York City schools are engaged in a massive effort to improve the quality of public school education and raise the standards of the education children receive. The system is trying to re-create itself by standardizing content and practice. “On the ground,” this standardization translates into control over how classroom time is spent, how classroom space is organized, how teachers respond to and even see children, and how teachers grow and develop in and through their work. These stories are examples of only a few of the ways teachers and children have their imaginations and thinking rendered inert, their visions of each other as human beings dangerously narrowed, and the potential of their relationship, the core of teaching and learning, diminished significantly.

A teacher in his second year tells of being handed the mandated daily schedule. He immediately realized that he was “out of compliance.”

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That morning I had finished a two-day read aloud and discussion of the book Annie and the Old One. The story is about an old grandmother and her granddaughter who does not want her to die. The granddaughter does many disruptive things to prevent the rug from being finished since that is when the “Old One” has announced she will return to the earth. There was so much to discuss and the kids were so engaged that I made the decision to just let the discussion flow. . . . We ended up spending about 2 hours on this book and the various dilemmas it presented.

This teacher was significantly “out of compliance,” as the mandated time for “Content Area/Literacy Centers and Guided Reading/ Conferring” was half an hour, and if he had been “caught,” the consequences could have been serious.

In a journal entry in her Classroom Inquiry course, a special education teacher wrote of how she uses her anecdotal reports to document her children’s problems with learning and behavior. As her professor, I challenged her on this practice and asked what would happen if she described what the children were able to do and the gains they were making alongside their weaknesses and misbehaviors. She told me that her supervisors require her to only write about the problems her children have. “Otherwise, how could we make a case to parents?” This teacher’s circumstance is elaborated by a kindergarten teacher who wants to use inquiry to tackle a difficult question. She asks: How can teachers meet the needs of kindergarteners that are already labeled as learning disabled? This is one question that definitely boggles my mind. How does a child at such a young age get stuck with a label that is going to carry through with them throughout their school years, before they are able to write their names or read a word in a book? . . . Whatever happened to “all children learn and develop differently?” This concern has made me paranoid, because it has me looking at my own [five-year-old] child a little more closely, wondering if she is retaining and learning information “appropriate” for her age.

A student in an advanced Classroom Inquiry course selected the following passage in a teacher research text as important to think about: If one of the goals of staff development is to “get everyone to do the same thing,” then teacher research would be a bad model to follow. If, however, the goal is to get each teacher to look more critically at teaching and learning (rather than acting as thoughtless drones who “implement the program,”) then enabling teachers to become reflective practitioners could be one of the best forms of staff development.4

She responded to that passage as follows: The goal of staff development at our school is, in fact, to get everyone to do the same thing. It is more like a staff training in a new curriculum, or in a new

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teaching method, being passed on—handed down, to be implemented by us, who are required to behave during staff training sessions as if we are “thoughtless drones.” I do not see any real development of teachers taking place, because we are not asked to reflect on our practices—past or present—or to contribute to the discussion. . . . In the teacher education I am receiving (at LIU), I am expected to think (question) reflectively on varied information gathered during teacher research and analyze how each piece might be of benefit to [my] students. At the same time, the profession demands that I behave contrary to my training, that I should not think “out of the box,” that I should believe in self-contained special education classrooms instead of the inclusive model, that I should accept a points-reward system as the only one that can satisfactorily work for my students. In order for me not to have to shift between two gears, I have to enact the best form of staff development on my own and constantly reflect on my practice.

Why do I name elements of these stories as “everyday oppressions”? Because rendered inert as thinkers, imaginers, and seekers of meaning, teachers become “objects” and become subject to manipulation, and they, in turn, educate children into habits of mindlessness.

DESCRIPTIVE INQUIRY IN TEACHER PREPARATION5 In arguing for the inclusion of teacher research in the knowledge bases for teaching, we are not simply equating teacher research with practitioner knowledge or with any kind of writing by a teacher, nor are we attempting to attach to the term teacher the higher status term researcher in order to alter common perceptions of the profession. Rather, we are proposing that teacher research makes accessible some of the expertise of teachers and provides both university and school communities with unique perspectives on teaching and learning.6 The teacher educators in the School of Education, Long Island University, Brooklyn programs believe that helping students of teaching learn how to approach teaching as inquiry enables them to approach work in classrooms and with children as primary source material, develop a consciously critical stance, and begin to imagine different ways to think about and work in their school settings. Collaborative descriptive teacher inquiry plays an important role in helping students learn how to reimagine and rework settings that don’t work for children. For us as teacher educators, inquiry helps rework the balance between theory and practice so we can better help our students ground learning in prior knowledge, direct experience, and work with children.

Descriptive inquiry asks educators to observe and describe their work and the work of their students. Through disciplined processes, these educators raise questions about teaching and learning and generate new approaches and

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understandings. The inquiry processes help create inquiry communities in schools and other educational settings. In these communities, participants work together to imagine/create shared educational visions, learn new ways to talk about students and their capacities, and develop an educational discourse based both on human values and on what is particular to the school and its people.

Descriptive inquiry aims at the development of a stance, a way of looking. This stance is distinguished by several qualities.7 • It is a stance that does not seek the authority of the quick or single/universal answer. It works not to frame issues as “either/or.” It works to enliven the imagination.

• It is a stance that recognizes the limits of our knowledge of other people and of the world around us. It tells us that we have to work to keep dialogue open and fluid. When we get stuck in only seeing in the way “it is supposed to be,” we can’t see what else is or could be there.

• It is a stance that rests in our “living” the question and in the connections questions allow us to make. This allows us to both contextualize and deepen any understandings that come through that living and to bring difference to the table and keep it there.

Conflicts Generated when Different Energies Come Together Teacher educators at LIU, Brooklyn, are committed to having descriptive inquiry as a core of the program. Our aim is to develop teachers who, as active inquirers, observe, describe, reflect on teaching and learning practices, and know how to frame meaningful questions. This commitment puts into play a set of values that differs in many ways from those values currently being enacted in New York City schools, the schools in which our students teach or hope to. Overall, these differences are about conflicting visions of what it means to educate. Particularly, some of these differences include:8 • Standardization and, in turn, a kind of simplification and objectification of people and of educational issues in contrast to the variety and complexity that comes from including individual voices, questions, and differences; • Prescriptive questions and expert answers in contrast to ongoing inquiry and the acknowledgment of the limits of our knowledge; • Rule-based teaching methods and teacher-proof materials in contrast to viewing teachers as practical intellectuals who can learn to exercise professional judgment and to teach in ways responsive to the children and particular context of the classroom; • A focus on children’s problems and what they can’t do in contrast to recognizing and describing children as filled with diverse and multifaceted capacities; and • A focus on punishment in contrast to developing relationship and community.

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DESCRIPTIVE INQUIRY IN ACTION Jeannette9 was introduced to observing and describing as modes of inquiry and knowledge making in her first semester of her undergraduate program. She learned to describe children using the format of the Descriptive Review of the Child.10 This offered her a way of seeing and thinking about children that was entirely new to her and to her classmates. Jeannette had to consider and make room for this different way of seeing and thinking alongside her habitual ways of considering children and how they are in classrooms and other settings. Completing a Descriptive Review was the beginning place for Jeannette’s reconsideration. The work she did laid the ground for becoming an observer of children and understanding them in their terms and so giving them room to be persons in their own right. It also laid ground for her to reconsider the role of the teacher. This ground became a place to which she returned as she proceeded through the program and reflected on her readiness for teaching.

Jeannette’s first close description was of a natural object, a branch. She describes this first attempt this way: I began from the stem and then worked myself out to the different branches.

Drawing the branches was pretty simple but it became difficult when I tried to draw the individual leaves. The leaves took on different shapes, shades and fullness. In sections where I had most difficulty drawing exactly what I saw, I drew what I felt would be closest to what I saw. At first I believed I wouldn’t have great difficulty drawing the branch, but then I realized that I was incorrect.

Half way through the drawing I knew that I would not be able to draw it exactly as I saw the branch, but I would come as close as possible. The drawing turned out all right but it taught me that I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.11

Jeannette names here some basic truths about knowing and representing what we know. What seems simple, a branch, in reality is complex. In her effort to capture what she sees, she is not able to do it exactly, perfectly. Her drawing must be an approximation, as any effort to capture reality and not over-simplify it must be. Jeannette also notes that she needs to resist making snap, habituated judgments.

Reflecting on the Descriptive Review she developed this first semester in her education as a teacher, Jeannette connects not judging with developing understanding. In addition, she includes a new idea about teaching: It is okay to have questions and to keep them open. It is okay not to have an answer, especially if that answer comes in the form of a label for a child.

It is strange, but the thought that keeps coming up to my mind is the answer that I had given on the first day of this teaching and learning course. . . . “I have a habit of having to know the answers. If there is something that is left unanswered, then I am not content and it will eventually get the best of me. I

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need to learn to accept the fact that I will not always have or get an answer.”

And this is actually what this descriptive review has helped me to learn. I have become better at dealing with questions left unanswered. I have come to realize that not all unanswered questions are a sign of inability. Instead, I can now look at a question as a foundation on which to build. The process has taught me not to strive for short conquests (categorizing a child) by trying to answer all questions, but instead to gain greater triumphs (understanding a child).12

Jumping ahead two years to Jeannette’s student teaching semester, we find her writing another Descriptive Review. A couple of things stand out to me in this work. One is that she uses this review as a place to think about a child who poses problems for her and for her cooperating teacher. This is unusual, as student teachers often feel vulnerable and protect themselves from potential critique.

The main reason why I chose to write about Franky was that I found him to be a challenge. I could have written about other students in the class, but Franky made me wonder as a future teacher, how can I or will I ever be able to reach this child? My first instinct when it came to writing this paper was to avoid any students that may pose a problem for me, but this I realized was simply being a coward. How can I avoid a child who needs help? Whether or not I find the process of trying to reach a child difficult should not be the cause for not attempting to do what the child expects and needs of me.13

A second point I highlight is Jeannette’s efforts to capture this child’s complexities. Even though he is “difficult” to work with, Jeannette wants to see his various sides. She works to aptly describe Franky and so honors him. The following are examples I have pulled out of the full Descriptive Review. I chose this first passage because, in it, Jeannette tries to capture a complicated point through description.

As for the adults, I find that Franky is at most times more helpful than cooperative. What I mean is that he is usually easier about helping an adult set up things, or put away things, than he is about having to behave a certain way.

He simply doesn’t appreciate being reminded what he should or shouldn’t be doing. If he is being asked by the teacher to sit down and listen or don’t do that, at times he’ll get angry and yells, “Oh my God!” and he’ll stump off without permission and doesn’t return even when he’s being asked to do so by the teacher.

In this second passage, the generosity of the descriptive space Jeannette is creating is increasingly evident.

It is apparent that Franky does have some behavioral and academic difficulties, but I would like to end this child study on a good note by saying that Franky has had some really good moments. One day during Spanish writing the class

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was asked to look up “n” words in their books by the substitute teacher. It took Franky a few minutes longer than it should have taken him, but eventually he did start. He walked over to the bookshelf, picked up the bin of books with the green labels on it (he did this on his own) and brought it to the table. He took his sheet of paper and pencil and began looking for the “n” words. At one point he even started helping the other students. “Here, you can use this book. There are some “n” words in it.” At times, a couple of the other students would accept his help and take the book from him to write their own lists. As I observe him, I can see how confident he appears to be. He is focused and appears to be a real serious worker. As he glances through the book, I can see a spark every time he finds an “n” word. He actually enjoys finding these words and has even said, “I am good at finding words.” This is Franky’s second time at looking for Spanish words in the books and on both occasions Franky has had a positive experience because I feel that he believes that he is at this point at the same level as everyone else, which is something that doesn’t really happen quite often. This time around, Franky didn’t only work well on his own and did a good job about writing his word list, but he in turn was also able to help another student. What a moment.14

This work with the Descriptive Review and the inquiry it fosters is basic to the stance toward children Jeannette is developing. I find her stance to be descriptive and generous. Elements of that stance are the importance of: • trying to go beyond the simple surface of things and capture the complexity of reality; • rather than falling back on quick judgments, working to understand by aiming to see multiple facets and so more than one possibility in children and in events; • keeping questions open as an element in the development of understanding of children and teaching.

Terri15 was introduced to observing and describing as modes of inquiry and knowledge making in her second semester as a master’s student in special education through learning to use the format of the Descriptive Review of the Child. This experience was followed in the fall of 2003 with a course requiring her to document and study an aspect of her teaching practice. For Terri, it was the question-raising process that was deeply important.

Initially I wanted to focus my study on the role of fear in my classroom management. However, after weeks of observation and personal reflection, my question about my proposed topic began to change. The more I observed my students, the more questions kept popping up. I realized that classroom management couldn’t be based on fear because the fear factor in controlling how others behave can backfire. In other words, the students may adhere to rules and regulations only because they are afraid of repercussions from me. This does nothing to teach them why they must follow certain rules. All of this was on my mind.

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At the same time, I also began to see that what I wanted for my classroom had to be part of a broader scope. If I want to be a good teacher, then I have to do things that would leave a lasting impression on my students. I realized that one cannot be an effective teacher in a classroom where the students are out of control and the teacher is stressed out and unable to manage behavioral problems. . . . There is no argument that good teachers need excellent classroom management skills.

However, I wanted more than that. I wanted my students to know as they grow older and are no longer in my classroom that they must still be responsible for what they do. The way we live our lives as teacher or students (in this case) will impact on the quality of our lives. So the focus of my study will be on how I can teach my students the importance of making right choices over wrong ones.

As far as the focus of my study, my research is more clearly defined. From classroom management and fear to helping students make right choices, my study has changed over time. Now, I think it has a more positive theme, that is, of really helping my students as opposed to trying to find a punishment to suit every infraction. I also know that I must serve as a role model and do things that constantly involve them in making their lives better.16

Terri’s inquiry has opened up for her some very large questions: What are right decisions? What are wrong ones? What role does a teacher’s moral and ethical position play in her teaching? These are questions that have been part of philosophical debate for scores of years. There are no simple answers.

Terri’s willingness to raise the question about fear as she did early in the semester and then to let her question evolve as she talked to children and saw her behavior and relationships with them through their eyes is a “cloud clearing” in Kelley’s terms. It shows a kind of courage needed to imagine and make profound changes in practice.

Andréa. My last example is a brief story told by a New York City Teaching Fellow, a master’s level student in her second year of teaching. She told the story in a paper about how she identified the focus for her “capstone” inquiry project.17 This African American student was teaching kindergarten in District 13, Brooklyn, and was required to do a mandated ninety-minute literacy block with her children. This block of time must contain independent reading, shared reading, guided reading, and phonemic awareness instruction.

During our first month of school, all of the kindergarten teachers were pulled together for a grade conference.…At this meeting we were informed that there would be additional expectations placed on the children’s literacy development for this year. They would be expected to have mastered fifty sight words, know all their letters and sounds, be reading on an ECLAS reading level of a 2 or better, and be operating on a phonemic awareness level of 2 or better. These are pretty realistic goals and, at first, we were all open to the grade goals being

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set. However, the next list of demands was upsetting to say the least. [The REA Grant Literacy Coordinator] announced that our mandatory daily independent reading time for K should restrict students to only read books that we have prechosen for them and placed into individualized plastic bags labeled with their name and color-coded to match their guided reading level. In September, we had not as yet completed our ECLAS assessments to place students in guided reading groups. Nor had we had a full month of school as yet. All the teachers present, especially me, were visibly displeased with this new “independent reading” requirement. I did not feel that selecting books for children and placing them in plastic bags that were appropriate for their reading level was appropriate in September. When we began to verbalize our disagreement with her plan, she revised her statement and told us that it was a goal for January. She then explained that independent reading will be the first issue that we should all be addressing because of the increase in school time designated for that purpose only. Children are expected to be counted present at 8:25 A.M. and are expected to be engaged in reading books until approximately 8:45 A.M. on a daily basis.

After this meeting, I was angry. I did not like the fact that my pupils’ academic goals were being dictated to me by another entity. Who were they to impose all these rules for literacy on me? Who were they to make me impose so much pressure on five-year-olds during their independent reading time? Who was I to argue with more than twenty years of experience? Why was my stomach in knots? Do I feel comfortable restricting my students to certain books and not giving them choices? How can I do my job without rocking the boat?

While all of these thoughts were going through my mind, I couldn’t help but think that this would be a good subject for my research. I’ve already got the passion, now how to go about observing my students while they browse.

I decided not to concentrate on the pressures of our academic goals and to focus more on what my class does during independent reading. My focusing question is what effect will browsing books have on emergent readers? I began studying my children during independent reading time on the carpet. It was important for me to let them have the use of the entire classroom library and give them choices. We arranged the library by reading level baskets and then added genre baskets. We have several genre baskets with books on the following topics: animals, transportation, family/friends, fairy tales and folktales, social studies, ABC books, and math books. The philosophy behind my method of free browsing for my class is that I believe it is important to allow my pupils the freedom to select books, read picture cues, and use their own language to tell a story from pictures. This way, when I begin teaching reading strategies in small groups, they will have a designated time to be free to practice their reading skills, without any scrutiny or assessment from me.

At this point in her discussion, the teacher shared a story about her own learning to read. In it, she tells how her experience influences what she does with children. “If it had not been for the patience and resilience of my parents teaching me to read, I would not be able to provide an environment and give my children choices so that they can become emergent readers in my classroom.” And, then, she lays out aspects of her stance regarding lit-

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eracy and her questions about the educational context within which she works.

Whether they are simply browsing, reading picture cues, making up their own imaginary story, or paraphrasing from memory of a read aloud, children can make sense of print on their own terms. Every child comes to school with his or her own personal plethora of knowledge. They may not be familiar with concepts of print or one-to-one correspondence, but most of them are able to speak and listen. Through language experience and exploration with text, during shared readings, read-alouds, and their own personal manipulation of books, kindergarteners will be able to “read” a book using all of the schema and reading skills that they know to date. They will identify pictures and say aloud what they mean to them. After reading instruction and several lessons on reading strategies, they will be ready to tackle texts on their reading levels all on their own. However, I believe that for every child this miracle may not happen within the confines of one year. Maybe it will all come together for them during first grade. In Community District 13, reading strategies are introduced in kindergarten so that mastery of an ECLAS level 6 will occur before a child enters the second grade. After early childhood grades, children are expected to perform on and prove they are meeting their grade standard by passing their annual math and English Language Arts Stafford 9 tests. Because of the disappointing numbers of children who are failing these standardized tests, our city education leaders are looking to introduce academic instruction on reading and inquiry-based math at the kindergarten level. Kindergarten teachers are expected to teach from the standards books, and “free play” has been obliterated. The amount of pressure that academic kindergarten places on the teachers and the students who study and teach balanced literacy is paramount. These pressures to have our kindergarten class reading on an ECLAS level of 2 by the end of the year, with mastery of 100 basic sight words, sometimes causes a huge imbalance when one wonders if the expected academic goals of kindergarten pupils are developmentally appropriate or not.<

A difference of idea and value opened up a line of inquiry for this teacher who then documented what happened during independent reading time in her class. This story illustrates the way teachers can use inquiry: • to help locate themselves in relation to the mandates they face; • to help keep their focus on children; • to help them develop knowledge from their work, in this case knowledge about beginning reading; and • as an element in their development as thoughtful decision makers in their classrooms.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Creating a context within teacher education where inquiries of the kind illustrated by Jeannette’s, Terri’s, and Andréa’s work can happen is essential

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if teachers are to be what our democratic society needs them to be, that is, “genuinely free-thinking intellectuals, models of critical thought, creatively engaged and caring individuals who are responsive to student interests, and whose full cognitive and affective powers [are] evident in the quality of their professional judgments.”18 Descriptive Inquiry gives us a location in which we can do the kind of work necessary to “know the colour of the sky” and to “find the cracks” and plant the seeds.

“Freeing our imaginations from slavery may be the most difficult struggle we have ever faced…[and] we…must do the complicated intellectual work of dreaming and imagining.”19 As I suggested earlier, for New York City teachers, engaging in that difficult struggle and doing the complicated intellectual work runs counter to many of the workplace values and expectations to which they are accountable. Teacher educators also must do the “complicated intellectual work” of confronting the conflicts and understand the contradictions we create within our students. Done well, the inquiries our students undertake become collaborative projects with us and their fellow students joining them. But it is hard work.

In the stories I share, I cite many questions students have generated out of their work. The questions are the potential “cracks” in the sidewalk.

However, it is important to note that the act of asking a question about one’s work has become more and more difficult for teachers. Teachers seem to be learning that questions are signs of weakness and not knowing and so must be kept private and unspoken. Helping teachers believe what they may say to their students, that questions are a form of thinking and evidence of strength, is hard intellectual and emotional work.

Teaching is a human enterprise and requires us to recognize and value our own humanity and the humanity of our students. However, the school context of labels, test scores, and fear of misbehavior and loss of control can cut educators in schools off from themselves and parents and children. Helping teachers to look beyond/underneath these blinders is part of the ongoing struggle to inquire and break old habits. It is also hard intellectual and emotional work.

The context of standardized curriculum and methodologies and of highstakes accountability makes it more and more difficult for teachers to value and exercise their own intellectual powers. The idea that they can generate understandings they can act on out of the details of their classrooms runs counter to being held accountable for implementing a set of canned practices. Teachers must locate themselves within this tension unless they are to either become the proverbial cog, the “thoughtless drone,” or leave the work of teaching. Helping teachers find their agency and voice is part of learning the inquiry process and, again, is hard intellectual and emotional work.

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I close with a further thought from Robin Kelly. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am urging a revolution of the mind. This is no mere academic exercise. It is an injunction, a proposition, perhaps even a declaration of war.â&#x20AC;?20 Fiery words for teacher education and for teachers. However, without such intellectual and spiritual fire, teaching and the education it aims for will continue to lose their potency.